Dry_ A Memoir - Augusten Burroughs [62]
“Anyway, I didn’t want you to wonder, worry about where I am. I’ll be home soon.”
I hang up before he gets the chance to guilt-trip me.
Foster appears from the kitchen with two sandwiches, each with a little pile of Ruffles next to them. “You can’t eat Cheez Whiz and pimento sandwiches off china; you have to use paper plates,” he says, sliding the plates onto the coffee table. I’m sitting on the sofa. He sits in the chair.
Foster talks about Kyle. How crazy Kyle is, how he hopes the phone calls stop soon. He talks about how much he wants a dog. How he misses South Carolina. He tells me about his job as a waiter at Time Café and how even though he doesn’t need the money, the job keeps him occupied at night, which is when he most wants to smoke crack. Foster talks so much that I have finished my entire sandwich, plus all the Ruffles, before he has even finished half of his. His knee bobs up and down really fast. His eyes twitch. Suddenly he looks less like a rough-around-the-edges movie star and more like a crack addict.
And for some strange reason, I find this incredibly comforting. He’s such a distracting mess, that I’m able to get outside myself. Like watching a really strange art film at the Quad Cinema on East Thirteenth.
“Do you wanna talk about Pighead?” he asks finally.
I swallow a potato chip. “No.”
“That’s okay,” he says.
I smile and eat another chip. I don’t want to talk because talking makes things real.
“You know, the minute I walked into Group, that day when I was late, I saw you immediately.”
I swallow, but when I do my throat makes a noise. A little gulp sound. It was loud enough for him to hear.
“I saw you immediately, too,” I say. “I mean, obviously I saw you too because you came in late.” I am as articulate as a log of petrified wood. With as much common sense.
There’s this long and uncomfortable silence where we both make an effort not to look at each other. The phone rings. “Aw, damn it all.” He reaches for the receiver. “What do you want, Kyle?” he growls. He rolls his eyes. “No, Kyle.”
Silence.
“I said no.”
More silence. “Good-bye, Kyle.” Foster hangs up the phone and then reaches behind him and unplugs it from the wall. “Sorry, where were we?”
We were at the part where we start making out and you tell me that you’ve been lying all along. That you’re not really a crack addict mess. That you really are as sweet and warm as you seem and that your movie-star good looks have nothing to do with the real you.
“I don’t know. I can’t remember. The sandwich was great though—thanks.”
“You’re very welcome. You feel better, a little?”
“I feel a lot better, I really do. The feeling passed, the panic.”
“Good.”
“I should get going.”
“Aw, already?” he asks, puppy-dog style. Even if he is a crack-addict mess, I feel fairly certain that this is the only time in my life somebody who is better looking than Mel Gibson will hint for me to stay a little longer.
“Well, soon,” I amend.
“Good,” Foster says. “Soon is better than now.”
He excuses himself, says he needs to change his shirt. The tag on the back of the collar is driving him nuts, he’ll be right back, do I mind?
“I don’t mind,” I say. Instead of, Can I do it?
He disappears down the hallway. A second later, I see him walking back, carrying a white T-shirt. He goes into the bathroom, flicks on the light. I can see his reflection in the medicine cabinet mirror which for some reason is open, creating this beeline to my retinas. I don’t think he can see that I’m watching him. And I do watch him. I watch him lean into the mirror, I suppose quickly checking his nose for blackheads. I watch him unbutton the white shirt, take it off, drape it over the shower curtain rod. His muscular chest has a spread of black hair across it. A trail of hair leads straight down to the lip of his jeans, a perfect line. His abs contract as he slides the T-shirt over his torso. This is a guy that even a straight guy would watch. Would pay nine-fifty plus another seven dollars for popcorn and a small