IV

I didn’t ever call Brady, but as the show at the Bitter End approached, I felt my ID itching to be used. Half of me knew better, that once was more than enough and that I loved Adam. The other half of me saw Brady’s perfectly chiseled stomach and devilish grin every time I blinked. Maybe it was just that he was fresher in my mind. It had been nearly a month since Adam had left, and his scent had faded from all of its familiar places. I had to glance in the back of my notebook to remember the details of his face, but I never forgot the feeling of him, his arms around me on all of those sleepless nights, and his feet edging toward mine on the pavement in front of our dorm. I decided it had been too long since I’d heard his voice. He answered on the third ring.
“Hello?” He sounded groggy.
“Adam?” I couldn’t keep down the excitement that had welled up in my vocal chords.
“Janie?”
“Hey, how are you?”
“I’m good, good. I miss you. How’s the vampire movie coming?”
“It’s ok… We’re in post now, so it’s down to all the technical stuff.” I heard a door open and close in the background.
“Hey Muffin, who you talkin’ to?” That was a new voice.
“Muffin?” I wasn’t jumping to conclusions. Surely there was a logical explanation for the sultry all too familiar female voice in the background. I was going to be patient and understanding and let him explain.
“Janie--.”
“Who the fuck is that MUFFIN??” I was cool, calm and collected. “Well,” I demanded.
“Hey, calm down babe.”
“Do NOT call me babe. So Adam, what’s the story? Study group? Is that it? She’s your study buddy?”
“Listen, I—“
“You know what BABE,” I paused. What did I have to say? I couldn’t think. “Forget it, ok? I’m late for a thing.” I slammed down the phone. A thing? What thing?
A half an hour later I was standing outside the Bitter End, scantily clad with my Fake ID ready.
“This isn’t you.” Damn! I’d forgotten about my recent haircut. Long locks had been the only thing that gave me a remote resemblance to Sharon K. Bergman, the twenty two year old on my ID. I tried to play it cool.
“Excuse me,” I asked, in a not too challenging tone. But before my fantasy confrontation with the bouncer could go any further, I was interrupted.
“Tomcat!” Brady emerged from the small pack that had formed around the entrance to the club.
“You know her?” The bouncer looked me up and down skeptically, but Brady stepped around him and slipped his arm around my waist. Apparently, this was enough for the scary bouncer guy, who quickly stepped aside, sharing some sort of handshake with Brady as we passed.
Once inside, Brady escorted me to a stack of equipment next to the small stage. He spoke in a quiet, shy sort of voice that I wouldn’t have expected to come out oh his sulky confident exterior.
“I didn’t think you’d come.” I wasn’t expecting him to say that. Somehow his interest reverted me to the third grade.
“Yeah, right,” I said, rubbing my right foot self-consciously against my left calf.
“God you’re sexy,” he breathed. That definitely caught me off guard. It was all I could do to giggle nervously. By the end of the set, which was even more horrendous than the CBGB show, I’d regained my composure. I was absolutely fuming at Adam, but I was also mad at myself. Maybe he did have a good excuse. Maybe I was overreacting. Besides, I had slept with Brady, how hypocritical could I be? All of that aside, by the time Brady got offstage, I was convinced that not only was going home with him a good idea, it was the perfect revenge. When he put his arms around me and pressed his sweaty body against mine, I knew it was also inevitable.
The sex that time was… completely non-descript. It wasn’t great, but I can’t say it was bad. In fact it probably would have been great if I’d been able to stop thinking about Adam. When we (and by we I mean he) had finished, I politely excused myself to the tiny bathroom. I didn’t want to cry in front of him. Once I’d collected myself, I went back out to the room where Brady was sitting up in bed reading. As I got closer, I realized it was my notebook that he was so engrossed in. Apparently my re-entry startled him.
“I’m sorry,” he said, scrambling to close the notebook. “It was hanging out of your bag, and… This is really good stuff.”
“You think so?”
“Are you kidding me?” He looked at me intensely for a moment, and I was frozen in the doorway. “Janie…”
I winced. Adam was the only person that had ever gotten away with calling me that. Quickly, I gathered my things.
“Hey, what did I say?”
“Nothing. I have a re-shoot early tomorrow, and I should get some sleep.” He loosely grasped my fingers as I smoothed my skirt.
“So sleep here.”
“It’s just not a good idea, Brady. You’re a great guy, but this just… It’s not a good time for me.”
“So… will I see you again?” I picked up my shoes and swing my bag over my shoulder. With my free hand I collected my notebook from Brady’s outstretched hand.
“I really don’t know.”
I walked up the six blocks to my apartment. It was just past three, and the summer night was cool on my bare feet. I was ready to call it a night. As I got closer to my corner, I could see a pair of feet dangling from my fire escape. I kept a cool head until I’d gotten to my door, having slipped in the front entrance unnoticed. When I unlocked my deadbolt, I opened the door very slowly, and saw Adam with his back to the large window. He turned to face me as I turned on the light to the one room. After closing the door behind me, I dropped my shoes and bag and grabbed a sweater and a pack of Parliaments.
I didn’t say anything when I climbed out onto the porch, clenching my fists inside my oversized Yankees sweatshirt, just offered him a cigarette and a light. We sat like that for a while, silently inhaling and exhaling, stubbing out cigarettes on the metal grates.
“So where are you coming from?” I tried to think of a good answer to that question, but couldn’t.
“Do you really want to know?” We sat in silence again for a few minutes, staring out into the city lights, just close enough to be sure the other was there without touching.
“So I guess we both fucked up pretty bad, huh?” At the end of his sentence, Adam inched his hand a bit closer to mine, tentatively.
“Yeah,” I said numbly, “I guess we did.” I didn’t know what else to say. I wanted to ask him what next, who was she, was it better, was I not good enough? But I knew it wasn’t that, because there was nothing that Brady had that Adam did it, and somehow the two nights we’d shared made me more sure of Adam than I’d been that night in “Paris.” When he squeezed my hand, I knew that he understood, and that there was nothing else to say.
“Did you come here just to tell me that?” I couldn’t help but ask for the affirmation.
“I forgot how you smelled.” I leaned my head against his shoulder, and breathed in deeply. “Still like candy.” And he still smelled like a musky combination of sweat, smoke, and the aftershave I’d bought him for his birthday. He smelled like home, and I didn’t know what I’d do when he left again. We sat on the fire escape like that for what seemed like a matter of minutes. When the lights of the sunrise began to loom in the sky, we went inside, and climbed into bed. It seemed like I hadn’t slept since he’d left, and I almost didn’t want to now, afraid I wouldn’t be able to savor it in the same way. Against my better intentions, I quickly fell prey to the comfort of that familiar crevice between his shoulder and chest where the rest of the world melted away.