VI

By the time Adam showed up at the Port Authority on Sunday, I was back to my shiny happy self. I’d gone into the office that morning to tie up some loose ends and invite a few co-workers to Adam’s six minutes of fame the next night. Everyone was happy to see me well and was glad to see that the mono had passed so quickly. That is, they all were glad to take a break from working through the weekend to fuss over me for a few minutes. I was happy that I’d been able to sleep the night before. Somehow the thought of Adam coming to visit had calmed my nerves a bit. That, two Valerian root, a shot of Jack Daniels, a cup of chamomile tea, and I’d slept a full six hours.
As soon as I saw Adam I forgot all about the horrible week I’d had. That was a bad habit that I think we perpetuated in each other—forgetting the bad as soon as the good was on the horizon. I threw my arms around him and breathed him into all of my senses. I didn’t let go until we were safely inside my apartment, and even then it was only briefly. Once we’d quickly disrobed, we re-entangled ourselves underneath the tussled covers of my long unmade bed. I can’t say that even now I understand the force that Adam seemed to have over me. I can’t even say that all of the time we spent together was happy. Every moment we spent together was like a roller coaster, faster than the Cyclone and more rickety than its age should have indicated. That was just the way we liked it, and as it revolved around us, I felt myself taking notes, for every piece of writing or moment of film that I’ve created since. I’m sure he was doing the same, character acting though his first love.
I don’t think we knew each other as well as we’d like to have thought we did. On the surface, we were perfect for each other. Same goals, same school, same interests… It seemed as though life was taking us in the same direction, which I guess it was in a way. It just happened to be the wrong place for both of us. If there were a perfect song to describe our relationship it would be the Go-Go’s “We Don’t Get Along.” That night however, was all “Automatic,” cold and sultry at the same time—our bodies knew each other much better than our minds and instantly they reconciled any doubts we could have had left over from the previous weekend. Belinda Carlisle singing, “Angels sharp, crash together, time and consciousness sever,” stopped short of describing the intimacy of that evening. I slept so soundly afterward that it took Adam physically shaking me awake to get me to work on time.
The workday dragged, despite the fast pace brought on from my week’s absence, but a surprise visit from Adam at lunchtime helped to smooth any of the day’s rough patches. He suggested Indian food, but just before agreeing to that I recalled my night of projectile vomiting and thought better of it. Instead, we settled on the Thai place that I’d been to on my first night at the office. We shared a large plate of the best Pad Thai I’d ever had, and chattered on about the upcoming school year. He was worried about finding someone to move into his apartment in the fall. His roommate had gotten a gig acting in a Spanish-speaking soap opera, and was moving to Florida at the end of the month.
“Too bad you’re not bilingual,” I quipped.
“Yeah,” he agreed, half smiling. He did this thing when he was trying to switch into serious mode. He would look down for a number of seconds, at his feet or hands; whatever was conveniently not my eye. He was doing that now, fiddling with the scuffed face of his stepfather’s watch. After almost a full minute of that, he met my eyes. Their intensity surprised me, and the soft laughter that had permeated until then got caught in my throat. I swallowed it, hard, trying to imagine what was coming next.
“Janie.” He took a deep breath. “I know your birthday’s not until September, but I have something that I really can’t wait that long to give you.” He reached into his jeans pocket and pulled out a small jewelry sized box. “If you don’t want to take it, I’ll understand.”
He couldn’t possibly be proposing marriage a week after we’d both slept with other people. He pushed the box toward me. I took it in one hand and slowly opened the cover. Inside the box was a small key. I was unsure what I was supposed to gather from this gift.
“What is it?”
“It’s a key to my apartment.” He paused, expectantly. I still looked confused. “I want you to move in with me.” At that moment my eyes must have widened to twice their normal size, bright blue with excitement. It didn’t matter that I’d already put a down payment on housing for the next semester. It didn’t matter that my parents would kill me the second that I told them about my new plan. I was sure it would be perfect. Sure we’d have little fights, who didn’t? Look at what we’d been through already, though, we were rock solid, unshakeable.
That night at the Boston Comedy Club in New York City, Adam nailed every joke in the set. Two of his friends from home had come out, and once we’d bid farewell to the few of my co-workers who’d come, the four of us went back to my place for underage drinks. Eric, Adam’s best friend from high school, and Ben, a mutual friend of theirs from summer camp, were both musicians. In fact, they had a band together back at school in Syracuse. Eric was obsessed with movies, however, and we hit it off right away. I asked them about their band.
“Mostly we play frat parties and small bar shows,” Ben explained.
“So what’s your real life plan?” This was a question I’d formulated as an alternative to the all-too-overused ‘what’s your major?’ Eric looked perplexed.
“Real life plan?” I looked to Adam for help with an explanation, but he just gestured for me to continue.
“Real life plan,” I began,” is like a back up plan. I mean, take the four of us for example.” I looked around the room at the Hollywood director, the movie star, and the two rock stars. “We all want to make it big, the limelight, big time, all of that. But practically speaking, how many people really make it that far? So the question is, and I’m not second-guessing either of your musical talent, if you don’t make it, what else do you want? I mean, what else would make you not want to cry in the bathroom on your lunch breaks?” I wanted to laugh at myself. I sounded like a poker dealer, laying out the cards of life—as though I had any of the answers. I looked expectantly at the three boys.
“Well…” Ben was hesitant. “I guess I’m a shrink then. I mean, I am a psych major.”
“Well then,” Eric began, thoughtfully, “I guess on that logic my backup is producing films.” He looked proud of himself at having cheated the system.
“So wait a second,” I was not going to let him get away with that. “Your back up to being a rock star is being a big Hollywood producer? That’s really logical.” Then I thought about it for a second and realized that my backup to being a big Hollywood director was to be a novelist, which was about equally as likely. But we were still missing one from the consensus.
“Adam?” He looked up from picking at his beer bottle label.
“Yeah?”
“Well, what’s your back up plan?” He shook his head.
“Nope, don’t have one. That’s a defeatist attitude.”
“Oh?”
“Yup, I don’t have a back up plan because I don’t need one.” He was so clever. I think I decided right then that my back up plan was him.
“So what’s this movie you’re working on about?” Eric interrupted my schoolgirl gazing. Hmm… what was the vampire movie about?
“Well it’s not really about anything. It’s your run of the mill low budget occult soft-core porn.” That summed it up pretty well. All three of the guys looked fascinated.
“So what kind of stuff do you end up doing?” Eric was the only one who seemed to be able to get naked vampires out of his head long enough to formulate a question.
“Well I mostly do filing, phone calls, and supervise the sets, kind of like a floor manager. Most days I spend several hours directing seventeen-year-old wannabe actresses in thongs, long black wigs, and fake vampire teeth from one part of the set to another.” I looked around the room at three gaping mouths. “Which isn’t nearly as exciting for me as it is for you,” I added.
Soon the conversation faded to teenaged hi-jinx and high school pranks. The three boys reminisced and tried to engage me in the conversation, filling me in on what a stuff Adam had been in high school.
“There was this one time,” Eric began, setting himself up for a story the same way Adam did, as though bracing himself for a hard pitch behind the plate, “he asked Anne Marie Gauthier to this school dance, and she said that she really wanted to, but couldn’t because she was going to be out of town visiting her grandmother. So the day of the dance rolls around, and normally we wouldn’t have gone, but we figured what the hell, there’s nothing else to do in Greenwich, so we go. Sure enough, there’s Anne Marie, dancing her little sixteen-year-old heart out with Marc Jacobsen. She came up with some lame ass excuse about how last minute the trip was cancelled, but I think Adam was more embarrassed than her anyway. Number on stud, this guy right here—you’re a lucky girl, let me tell you.”
At the same time I felt closer to Adam than I ever had, as though I was let in on a secret part of him that he’d left behind when he came to Boston. On the other hand, I suddenly was jolted back to a reality where I wasn’t the only thing in Adam’s life. Why should I be? I had a family, and at least one close fried from high school. Of course he had these things too, and I was glad that he felt comfortable enough to let me in on them. On the other hand, it pointed out the fact that there was a whole other Adam before I’d ever met him. We’d existed for 19 years without ever knowing the other was out there, and there was no way I could ever get those 19 years that I’d missed. In a way that was difficult to reconcile. I think no matter what, when you come into a person’s life and become that close, it’s hard to understand either of you existing without the other. It’s even harder when you’re forced to.
The next two weeks went by quickly. We were wrapping up post on the vampire movie, and I was so busy that when Adam came back to New York on my last Friday to help me move back, it seemed as though he had just left.
We spent all day Saturday being tourists. I’d been in the city for nearly three months and hadn’t seen Central Park. So we went for a stroll in the park, bought some ice cream at a cart and sat, people watching, for a while. We spent nearly three hours browsing the modern art, photography and prints at the Met, and swept briefly through the Monets, Seurats, and Van Goghs. We were so taken in by the tranquility in the “Temple of Dendur,” that we stayed in there, sitting by the wishing pool for over a half hour. We walked around the room, and I recalled the book we’d read in my third grade class about the two kids who ran away to the museum, collecting change from the pool, and asked Adam if it really was stealing people’s wishes. He changed the subject, doing his best Billy Crystal impression of the museum scene in “When Harry Met Sally.”
When we got back to the Apartment, well after dusk, we ordered take-out from the Indian place on the corner, for old time’s sake. I’d gotten over my fear of their samosas, and after picking up our meal we settled in with a rented copy of “Some Kind of Wonderful,” the most underrated of the brat pack era teen films. We both fell asleep fully clothed, the blue light from the buzzing television screen casting a glow over us throughout the night.