Charmed Thirds_ A Jessica Darling Novel - Megan McCafferty [34]
“I'm sorry, Marcus. It's just that I'm dying of boredom and I can't wait to see you and I made special reservations at Czarina, this crazy Russian restaurant on Fifty-second Street where the waiters are circus performers and they do insane acrobatic tricks as they serve your food and I don't understand why you just couldn't tell me that you weren't going to come . . .”
I stopped talking because I was sounding like a hysterical girlfriend and I did not want to be that girl.
“Am I your alternative to boredom?” he asked.
“Well, yes. I mean, no.” Lately, talking to Marcus had felt more like a test than any of my actual end-of-semester exams. I never had the right answers. “I mean, I'm bored because I'm alone here and I don't have any money and it would be less boring if you were here with me . . .”
“Where are Bethany and Marin?”
“They met G-Money in the Hamptons,” I said. “You know, I've been staying with Bethany for almost a month and I've only seen her husband three times. I think he's avoiding his wife. Or his life.”
“Maybe they need to be separate to be together.”
“How can you be both separate and together?” I asked. I was eager to hear the answer from the boyfriend I hadn't seen much of for the past year. I didn't want the stock answer either. “And don't tell me it's a Buddhist thing.”
I could almost hear his mouth snapping shut. Without his joke to fall back on, Marcus changed the subject.
“What did you do today?”
I was feeling manic, pacing wildly around the perimeter of Bethany's guest room, a lap circuit almost as long as Columbia's indoor track.
“Today? What did I do today? I woke up around noon. I ate Cap'n Crunch right out of the box and washed it down with Coke. I looked through the paper and clipped articles that Tyra won't think are edgy or subversive or True enough. I watched The Real World for an episode or five, but turned it off when I realized that the soul-baring conversations on the show sounded alarmingly like the same soul-baring ones I'd had with my floormates at school. It made me feel like nothing I said or did was unique, that someone somewhere was thinking and doing and saying the same things I think and do and say. It's like when I'm at a party and I'm screaming along with everyone else to ‘American Girl' or ‘Paradise City' or ‘Sweet Caroline' or whatever and it all feels so full and real and in the moment, and then I tell Hope about it later and she says, ‘Oh yeah! We love those songs here, too!' which means that my experience isn't unique to my group of friends, or even Columbia, but is part of a ubiquitous experience playing out at high volumes on campuses all around the country. And while I used to crave the comfort of knowing there were people out there like me, now I feel generic. . . .”
“You are not generic,” he said, interrupting my rant. “You are you. And I love you for wanting to make this day special for me.”
Other guys would sooner have their balls served sunny-side up for breakfast than say the “L” word. Marcus has never had this problem. I should have hopped on a bus to Pineville right then and there. But I just didn't have it in me, and I'm not quite sure why.
“Well, happy birthday then.”
“We'll celebrate the next time we see each other. Okay, Jessica?”
“Sure.”
About a half hour later, I received an e-mail that reminded me that we still have August. In August, we will be face-to-face, flesh-to-flesh. In August, it will be easier.
It has to be.
* * *
To: jdarling@columbia.edu
From: flutie_marcus@gakkai.edu
Date: July 19th, 2003
Subject: Poetry Spam #22
chromosomal dance
oh, heavenly happenstance
rare creation, you
—Original Message—
From: Ruth Spotnik [ajfklajfldj@netgo.com]
Sent: July 18th, 2003
To: flutie_marcus@gakkai.edu
Subject: you degeneracy fleeing amperage oh
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