Of course as soon as the pause lasts more than a second his entire thought process on the matter becomes completely transparent to everyone.
“Nice,” says Denver. She looks away, aiming whatever expression she’s wearing now at the wall, where Billy no longer has access to it. She takes a long sip from her martini.
“Uh, okay,” Elisa says, a barb in it aimed at Denver. She gives Billy a tightly wound smile, the kind of smile that hides a mouth full of clenched teeth. It’s a little fearsome, but then she gives him a kindness: she lays her hand on his shoulder. Just for the briefest second. “Good luck tonight,” she says, and then she’s off to the bar, removing her hand from his person and using it to signal the bartender with one decisive thrust.
Billy watches her go, but only for a second. With Elisa out of the picture he can at least concentrate on the task at hand: damage control. He slumps down into the available chair. Denver casts a flashing look at him then looks at the wall again.
“Really nice,” Denver says. “You’re a class act, Billy Ridgeway. Would it have killed you to say girlfriend?”
“It wouldn’t have killed me. I’m just not sure it’s accurate. You haven’t exactly been there for me lately,” Billy says, clawing desperately for what looks like it might be the moral high ground.
“I’m here, aren’t I?” says Denver. She turns back to him. “I’m here; I’m at your reading; I’m being supportive. Pretty much the opposite of what you did the night of the Eidetics opening, if you recall that night.”
Billy does. He passes on the opportunity to comment on it, though, because The Night of the Eidetics Opening serves now as shorthand for Total Failure of Character, a pure instance of asshole behavior, a kind of toxic fact which, he has learned, will cause him to immediately lose any argument in which it is admitted as evidence. Instead, he strategically rewinds back to the part of the argument where Denver used the word supportive.
“Supportive?” he practically crows. “It’s been, what, eight days since you spoke to me? I left you like twenty-five voice messages and you didn’t return even one of them. I didn’t think I’d ever see you again.”
“Six,” Denver says.
“What?”
“Six. You left me six voice messages.”
Billy mulls this. “That’s still a lot,” he says, after a second.
“I think,” Denver says, her tone softening a little, “that it was the right number of times, maybe. I thought about this. I decided that it was enough to show me that you were sorry and not so many that you crossed the line into scary.”
“Thanks,” says Billy, brightening. “I thought about how to strike that balance, you know.”
“I believe you,” Denver says. “I could sense that you were thinking about that, actually. It’s very you to do something like that.”
“Thanks,” Billy says again, although a little unsteadily: he never feels exactly certain that people mean that’s very you as a compliment when they say it to him.
Silence for a moment.
“I miss you,” Denver says.
“Oh,” Billy says. He wants to respond sympathetically, although that means having to mask the reflexive pleasure that he takes from what she said. He dithers over a few possible responses and finally fumbles out “That’s good, though, right?” which he’s pretty sure is the worst of all possible options.
“I miss you,” Denver says, ignoring him, “but I’m not sure I like you.”
“Oh,” Billy says, crumpling. “That’s — yeah, that’s less good.” He really wishes he had gotten a drink before sitting down.
“Let me say what I mean,” she says. “What I mean is”—she sighs—“what I mean is, you’re likable, Billy. You really are. You’re clever and you’re funny and you’re talented and sometimes when you look at me I can see what you must have looked like as a little boy and I just feel like my heart is going to burst.”
Billy risks a smile, although he knows that a but is coming. His hands start to fidget at the table, as though they’re autonomously seeking the drink he has failed to supply them with.
“But,” Denver says. She pulls her hair back from her face, holds a hank of it in her fist and pulls in a way that looks like it facilitates some internal tautening necessary to the conversation. “But,” she continues, “I don’t think you’re good for me. I just think you’re never quite present.”
“I am present!” Billy exclaims, seizing the opening. He raps on his chest with his knuckles, to demonstrate. “Immanent,” he says.
Denver gives him a sad smile. “Immanent,” she says. “Sure. But I need someone who’s going to be present. For real present, not just immanent. I’ve just — I’ve learned that, about myself, by now. Guys who can’t be present? They’re often funny, clever, talented guys, Billy — but they’re no good for me. And I’m trying — I’m really trying not to like guys who are no good for me.”
“But,” Billy says.
“But what.”
“But I want you to like me.”
“I know,” she says. “And it kills me. It kills me that you want me and it kills me that I want you back. And it kills me that I’m here, overlooking the fact that you’re probably bad for me, even though I swore — swore! — to myself that I was done with you. And it kills me that”—she looks inadvertently over to the bar, in the direction Elisa went—“that you’re already looking for the Next Thing. That you weren’t even present enough in our relationship to be sad when you thought I was gone.”
“I was sad,” Billy says, miserably. “Really fucking sad.”
“Well,” Denver says, with a note of bitterness, “then maybe there’s hope.”
Billy remembers an old joke out of Kafka: There is hope. Plenty of hope. An infinitude of hope. But not for us.
And that’s when Anil and the Ghoul show up.
“Billy Ridgeway, man of the hour,” says Anil, clapping Billy on the back.
“Explain to me why you don’t have a drink in your hand right now,” says the Ghoul.
“Hey, guys,” Billy says.
“Hey, Denver,” Anil says. He looks back and forth between Billy and Denver, evidently trying to assess the state of the dynamic. “Um, am I interrupting?”
“No, it’s okay,” Billy says. “Pull up some chairs.” There will be time — he hopes — to continue this conversation with Denver later. There are times when privacy is crucial, and, yes, being in the middle of a tense conversation with an estranged loved one is usually an indicator that you’re experiencing one of those times, but Billy really believes that if you’re about to get up on stage you shouldn’t turn away even a single friend who wants to be by your side. He glances at Denver to see if she’s okay with it. Her face bears a practiced blankness, but he catches sight of something un-consoled floating into the depths of her head, where he cannot reach it.
Shit, he thinks.
Everybody looks at one another, deep in their respective bubbles of social calculation, trying to figure out what to say next.
“I am buying you a drink,” the Ghoul says, and he slouches off into the darkness.
“So,” Billy says to Anil, eager to get a conversation — any conversation — off the ground. “You just get off work?”
“Yeah,” Anil says. “And let me tell you. That place.” And he’s off, telling a story about the latest wackiness to go down at the sandwich shop, Giorgos getting into it with some customer. Denver listens, cracks a fake smile — to front like she’s okay, Billy intuits — and then eventually Anil’s patter wins her over, and a real smile replaces the fake one. It’s the first real smile Billy’s seen on her in a long time. He’s glad to see it, even if it breaks his heart a little to know that he wasn’t the one to pull it out of her. She ends up telling a story, too, about the baroque anthrax paranoias held by one of her old bosses, the guy who supervised her in the hospital mailroom when she was employed there as a glorified letter-opener, in those days right after 9/11, when everything had seemed so fucked.