Pug Hill - Alison Pace [79]
“Do you want to do One Nostril Breathing?” I ask.
“If you do it with me,” he says, a little charmingly, and I’m glad I suggested One Nostril and not Kalabati. One Nostril Breathing is slightly less embarrassing. He looks into my eyes. As he does, my stomach flips over even though I don’t want it to. I can’t like anyone right now, I remind myself. Not until I get through my speech, not until I get over Elliot, not until I’ve dealt with all the things I already need to deal with. I don’t think my heart can handle much more safely.
“Dude,” he says, once we’ve finished a few rounds of One Nostril Breathing. “I forgot to tell you last time. I was up in your neck of the woods a few weeks ago.”
“Really?”
“Yeah, I went up to see that dude in the park with the orange flags.”
Christo, I think, The Gates. And my stomach is still; my heart, for the moment, is safe.
“Uh, cool,” I say. “Do you want to pick a Deity?”
“Trojan,” he says and winks.
I don’t think Trojan was actually a Deity. But then, I also don’t think that was so much the point. Yikes, I think, as I look down quickly at the floor, and then lead the way back into the room.
I head quickly back to my chair-desk, hoping everyone doesn’t notice how red my face now is. Alec walks suavely up to the front of the room.
He puts his hands on his hips. He looks around slowly, Taking the Room. Or at least he takes most of it, because when he gets to me I have to look away.
“Katie,” he begins, “her name was Katie. I met her a long time ago in New York. Katie,” he says again, “she was fantastic.”
As he describes quite calmly, rather eloquently, how Katie was into politics, how she was out to save the world, he hardly stutters at all, hardly falters. He’s so eloquent as he describes her.
“She was brash,” he says, “loudmouthed, opinionated, but she had a terrific pair of legs.” I think to myself what I’m sure everyone must be thinking: Alec is very good at this.
“We broke up for a while, and it was hard, but then she called me one night. She said she needed to talk to someone. She said when you’re upset you talk to your best friend, and I was her best friend.” He talks about how they got back together, how he so very badly wanted it to work.
God, I think, he is so genuine, so real.
Lawrence’s hand shoots up in the air like a rocket. He starts waving it around. Beth Anne ignores him. Alec looks over at him quickly, but then keeps talking.
“Uh, Katie and I, we moved out to L.A.” Lawrence is still waving his hand in the air, with even more zeal. His face is bright red and he has just started stamping his foot, quickly, rhythmically. I wish he would stop doing that, because Alec is such a good speaker, and his story of mismatched love is so heartfelt, so true. I’m feeling like all the “dudes” might not matter so much, I’m feeling like maybe I might be a little bit in love with Alec.
“Thing’s got rough out in L.A. See, Katie didn’t have a lot to do, and then, there was this girl, this girl I knew from Beekman Place, and—”
“No! No! No!” Lawrence is up and out of his chair, flailing his arms in the air above him, jerking his head from left to right. “Stop it! Stop it! STOP IT!” It’s impossible not to notice the preponderance of spit that flies from Lawrence’s mouth, after every “stop it!”
Alec stares at Lawrence, shocked. We all stare at Lawrence, shocked.
“You can NOT rip off Barbra for your One That Got Away!” he shouts and turns on his heel to face Beth Anne. “Beth Anne! Beth Anne! BETH ANNE!” He puts a hand on a hip, turns toward her, points a long arm in the direction of Alec. “THIS man is ripping off BARBRA! THIS man is just telling us the plot from THE WAY WE WERE!”
Oh, God, I think, he’s right, and then I think Oh, God, I’m such a gullible idiot. Beth Anne stands up and actually starts laughing, and then, there just isn’t anything else for me to do. I start laughing, too, because the truth that I am such a gullible idiot has gone quite beyond sad, all the way to funny. Sad things, I’m beginning