Running With Scissors_ A Memoir - Augusten Burroughs [98]
When the waitress came over we ordered two lobsters and two Cokes. “And a side of fries,” Natalie added at the last minute.
“What’s going to become of us?” I said.
“We’re going to eat lobster and get fatter and go home and be depressed and wish we could throw it up and . . .”
“No, I mean in the long term, you fool.”
“Ho hum,” she said, pouting. “Why do you always have to drag me back down to reality?”
“We can’t just go on like this forever. I mean, look at us. You’re seventeen, I’m sixteen and we’re barefoot at a lobster place and that’s basically all that’s happening in our lives.”
“I know,” she said. “We have to do something. What do you want to be when you grow up? Are you still going to be a hairdresser to the stars?”
Without knowing why, I answered, “I’m going to run away to New York City and become a writer.”
Natalie looked at me. “You should, you know. You’re the writer in your family.”
I laughed. “Oh, barf. I am not going to be a writer. I’d never even get into college.”
“Sure you would,” Natalie said. And the look on her face told me that she believed this completely and felt slightly sad that I didn’t see it and believe it, too.
“Well, thanks.”
“You underestimate yourself, you know.”
The waitress brought our Cokes and we both slurped them without the straws. “How?”
“Because you’ve always been a writer. For as long as I’ve known you you’ve had that pointy nose of yours tucked into some notebook. You’ve lived with my family and noticed every single thing about us. God, it’s spooky how good you are at imitating people.”
“I can’t be a writer,” I said. “I don’t even write. All I do is scribble stuff in notebooks. I don’t even know what a verb is or how to type. And I never read. You have to read, like, Hemingway to be a writer.”
“You don’t have to read Hemingway, he’s just some fat old drunk man,” she said. “You just have to take notes. Like you do already.”
“Well, I don’t know. I’ll probably end up as a male prostitute.”
“You can’t do that,” she laughed. “Your ass is too skinny.”
“Ha, ha. If only I had your ass.”
“If you had my ass, you could rule the world.”
“So what about you? What do you want to be when you grow up?”
“Maybe a psychologist or a singer.”
“A psychologist or a singer?” I said. “How similar.”
“Shut up,” she said, slapping me on the arm. “I’m allowed to be two things. If you get to be a writer and be all those different people, then I get to be at least two things.”
“You should do it, Natalie. Smith would definitely let you in. They’d be lucky to have you, you know.”
“Oh, I don’t know. It’s not that easy.”
“That’s why you have to do it,” I said.
“That’s why you have to do it, too.”
Natalie leaned in and put her elbows on the table. “Don’t you ever just feel like we’re chasing something? Something bigger. I don’t know, it’s like something that only you and I can see. Like we’re running, running, running?”
“Yeah,” I said. “We’re running alright. Running with scissors.”
Our food arrived and we both reached for the same sea roach at once.
“They were right here and now they’re gone. The fucking maid stole my earrings.”
“Are you sure?”
“I’m positive,” Natalie said.
She’d already turned the motel room upside down looking for them; the sheets were all off the bed and wadded into a mound on the chair; the cushions of the chair were on the floor, the TV had been moved, all the mini soaps opened.
“Maybe you lost them someplace else.”
“I didn’t,” she said with authority. “I’m absolutely positive that I left them right here next to the phone. I remember setting them down. Right here.” She stabbed at the table next to the phone.
“So what are we gonna do?”
“We’re gonna call the fucking manager and make him get them back.”
I felt sick from the lobster and the fries.
Natalie called the front desk. She explained the situation to the person who answered and was then placed on hold. A new person came on the line and she explained the situation all over again. Then she screamed, “No, motherfucker, I did not lose them. I left