The Beautiful Between - Alyssa B. Sheinmel [19]
I tuck the picture into my copy of A Farewell to Arms, next to a paragraph about having enough love so that you never have to feel lonely. I wonder if my mother is lonely. She wasn’t my mother yet in this picture; she wasn’t much older than I am now—maybe my age exactly. Maybe my parents were high school sweethearts. I know that they grew up together, lived only a few blocks away from each other here in the city. My mother went to an all-girls school, though, so they can’t have gone to school together. It occurs to me that he might have been the only man she ever loved. If he’d lived, who knows what might have happened between them—maybe they’d have had more kids, or maybe they’d have fought, had affairs, gotten bored with each other and divorced. But no doubt my mother believes that she would have lived a happy life with him, had he lived. It must be incredibly lonely, believing that.
I know that I haven’t found anything to help me on my search, nothing other than some evidence that my parents were in love. And that is something, but it has nothing to do with how he died, and that’s supposed to be what I’m looking for. I didn’t think I would find anything, but I’m disappointed anyway, because I’m not at all sure where to go next.
Luckily, Jeremy calls that night from a taxi to tell me that he’s on the way over for a cigarette, which provides a nice distraction.
I should, I know, be angry with Jeremy, or at least irritated at his audacity—calling me every night of the week except Saturday, when he had something better to do. And angry at myself for always being here, always being available. The truth is, I never have anything better to do than to stand outside my lobby while he smokes. Even when I go to a movie or something with girls from school, I’m home by around ten. And somehow Jeremy knew that about me—not only does he know it now that we’ve been hanging out, but even before, it never occurred to him that I might have had a reason to say no to him. I guess princes don’t ever expect to hear the word “no.”
As I step out of the elevator, cross the lobby, and get hit with a chilly burst of evening air coupled with the odor of cigarette smoke, I decide that I should, in fact, be very, very angry at Jeremy and that it is not okay to treat me like this, to invite himself over. Tonight he has called me from the cab on his way here—he didn’t even call first to make sure I was available, to make sure I wanted to see him.
I should be angry. A popular girl, a confident girl, would be angry—not excited to see him again, not excited that this isn’t finished, even though he didn’t come over last night.
He’s crushing a cigarette under his heel. When he sees me, he lights two cigarettes, holds one out to me. I take it but don’t put it in my mouth, and I try to ignore what has struck me as a very intimate gesture—his lighting my cigarette in his mouth. Even if I’m not really mad, I can try to pretend.
“Jeremy, you know, what if I was busy, or sleeping or something?”
“Then I would have told the cabdriver to turn around.”
“Dude, that’s just not okay. I’m not one of those girls…. I’m not Marcy McFuckingDonald, okay? I’m not your girlfriend and I’m not just here at your disposal every evening for a cigarette break. I have a life, you know.”
Jeremy doesn’t seem even ruffled. “What did I interrupt, then?” he asks, and he makes it sound polite.
I look at the ground, embarrassed. “That’s not the point.”
I look up and Jeremy smiles crookedly, just one side of his mouth up. “I know, Sternin. But shouldn’t it be?”
It’s really hard not to smile back at him. I can feel the sides of my lips curling up, both of them. I can’t even manage just a half smile, like he did.
“It’s just not nice, Jeremy. It’s not nice to just come over, to expect that I’ll be available like this.” I stop myself before