Pug Hill - Alison Pace [24]
“Yes,” I continue. “There’s a class starting next week at The New School.”
“Uh-huh,” he says nonchalantly and I have to remind myself that it isn’t his fault; he doesn’t realize what a big deal all of this is. Because I haven’t told him.
“What night?” he asks absently.
“Thursdays.”
“Thursday nights?” he asks, turning his attention to me. “Why that night?” Why that night, I repeat to myself. This is what he asks. He asks, “Why that night?” instead of the clearly so much more appropriate, “Why are you taking the class?” I mean generally people don’t take a public speaking class just for fun, do they? Generally, there’s something there, some sort of back story, some sort of reason why someone would want to take that class. Shouldn’t the question here really be, “Why are you taking the class?” Shouldn’t that be the question? Wouldn’t it all be so much better if he cared about the why, more than he cared about the why that night?
“Because that’s the night the class is offered,” I say, simultaneously wishing I’d never said anything, and also wondering if this could be one of the instances in which I’m maybe too hard on Evan, if asking, “Why that night?” isn’t really as big a deal as I am making it out to be.
“Thursday night is a big going-out night; it’d just be better if the class was a different night.” This is what he says, and any thoughts, any thoughts at all that I am being unfair, unkind, too hard, they just evaporate, vaporize. I look back at him and say nothing.
“There’s not another night?” he asks and I shake my head no, to which he feels compelled to say, “Everything is replaceable, Hope.”
Evan likes one-liners, he especially likes this one-liner, “Everything is replaceable.” He sprinkles it into conversation as often as possible. Once it had been around awhile, bandied about enough to clue me in to the fact that it was a favorite saying, it had struck me as a really sad outlook, and I hoped I’d never be the type of person to say things like “everything is replaceable.” Later I began to wonder if it, this saying, was maybe some kind of threat. Right now I only wonder if Evan simply spews one-liners all the time, one-liners that mean absolutely nothing just because he likes to hear himself speak.
“That makes no sense,” I snap, and snapping, if you think about it, is better than the alternatives, better than, let’s say, standing up and screaming at the top of your lungs, or running, arms flailing, out into the street.
“Everything is replaceable,” I mimic, and while mimicking is as ungracious as snapping, it too is better than other options. “It’s not in the right context,” I try to explain. “It’s just a dumb thing to say.”
“No, Hope, it’s not,” he snaps back, leaning forward in his seat toward me. “I’m just saying that if you wanted to, you could do it another night.” I slide back an inch or two on the banquette, away from him.
“And I’m just saying I can‘t, that is the only night.” I try to gather my thoughts, as much as they can, at present, possibly be gathered. “And, I’m not just saying that, I’m also saying that ‘everything is replaceable’ doesn’t fit. I’m saying that, too.”
“What do you want me to say?” he says, tilting his glass back, another ice cube sliding to its unhappy end. I just wanted him to say, “Why?” That is what I wanted. Wanted, past tense, because I don’t want it anymore.
“I just want you to say you think it will help,” I tell him, and lean back against a cushion.
“I think it will help,” he says, and the fact that he says it, somehow only makes me feel worse.
“Thanks,” I say. “Do you want to go home?”
“I want to have another drink.” He signals a waitress and first orders a Scotch for himself, and then turns to look at me in a way that I am sure says, “Order something