Twenty-Five
“So, no joke, I’ve been standing in line for two hours when, out of nowhere, this guy in a Chewbacca suit comes tearing across the lobby and bowls me over. My popcorn goes flying, and everything is chaos , and Matt is hovering over me like ‘Oh my God, he’s had a concussion. We need an ambulance, stat.’ And the best part? Chewbacca keeps running . He runs out of the lobby and into the parking lot and God knows where after that.”
There’s a stitch in my side from laughing so hard. People at nearby tables are staring at us, but I don’t care. It’s Friday night, and I’m with Thom Causer in the flesh, eating the best fettuccine Alfredo of my life.
“Did you really have a concussion?” I ask, once my laughter is under control. I try to look concerned, but there are laugh tears dripping out the corners of my eyes.
“No, I was fine. Just a little bruised. And there was popcorn butter all over me.”
“So you still saw the movie?”
“Tash, have you been listening? I stood in that line for more than two hours . It was the midnight premiere . Of course I still saw the movie.”
I only wince a little this time when he mispronounces my name. There hasn’t been an opportune time to correct him, but I’m beginning to not mind so much. I’m just so glad it’s turned out this way, with me laughing, and our words overlapping, never a lull in conversation. I was scared things might be different in person, that there would be lots of awkward pauses and averted gazes and the whole night might crash and burn. But there’s been none of that. This night is shaping up so much better than I hoped. I’m eating the most delicious Alfredo sauce I’ve ever placed in my mouth—apologies, Dad—and Thom is cracking me up with funny story after funny story. I never knew he had such a sidesplitting sense of humor; I guess texting doesn’t really lend itself to the drawn-out anecdotes he’s telling me now. Now that we’ve met. Now that he could reach across the table and hold my hand, if he wanted to.
And as we wait for our dessert, that’s exactly what he does. His hand is warmer than mine, and a little damper, too. I curl my lips in on each other to prevent myself from smiling too big.
We share an order of tiramisu, and when the bill comes out, I insist we split it down the middle. Thom looks miffed, but he agrees. He lets go of my hand to fish out his wallet and says, “I didn’t do anything wrong, did I?”
“Hmm?” I look up from my purse. “No. Why?”
“They say going Dutch is the sign of a date gone wrong.”
The loony smile breaks free. “So this is a date, is it?”
Thom nods. “Absolutely.”
“But splitting the bill isn’t a bad sign. It’s just modern.”
I talk like I know a whole lot about the rules of dating. Like I’m a girl whose Friday nights are booked solid with classy adult dates at Italian restaurants. Right now, I feel like that kind of girl.
I leave an extra big tip for our waitress, who refilled our breadstick basket not once, not twice, but three times. As we leave the restaurant, my walk feels more like a waddle, and I’m convinced my body is composed of nothing but water and carbohydrates.
“Thom,” I say as I buckle my seat belt. “My stomach is expanding at an alarming rate. I might blow up your car.”
“You gonna go all Violet Beauregarde on me?”
I laugh and say, “I love that movie. And the book. Oh my God, my friend Jack is obsessed with that book. All the Roald Dahl books. Especially The Witches . She says her biggest regret in life is being born after Roald Dahl’s death.”
“So we can bet what she would do with a time machine.”
For what feels like the hundredth time tonight, I laugh.
It’s not until Thom is back on the road that I consider where we’re going and what time it is. I check the clock. It’s ten, but it feels much later. I could’ve sworn I aged a year inside that restaurant.
“Where are we heading?” I ask.
Thom glances at me. “Back to the hotel, I guess?”
“Oh.” I’m not sure why I feel so suddenly deflated. “You want to hang out some more in the lobby?”
“Uh, yeah. Sure. Or, you know, your room. If you want.”
I’m suddenly alert.
My room ?
Is this what I think it is? What every teen movie out there suggests it is? Or does Thom want to go to my room and hang out, away from the noise and bustle of the Golden Tuba crowd? From nowhere, Jack’s voice cracks into my head, shouting Don’t be so effing naive, Tash!
Oh God.
So it’s here.
That moment I kept pretending wouldn’t arrive.
I should say something now, I know.
I should say something before Thom parks the car and we walk through the lobby and get into the elevator, before I punch the number 7 and we get off on my floor. I should, but everything has been going so perfectly until now. Everything has been good omens and laughs, and I don’t want it to end yet.
But as I pull my room key from my back pocket, Jack’s voice returns, full force. Don’t be unfair. He should know.
First, I wonder since when did I allow my subconscious to assume the voice of my best friend and lecture me about my sexual identity?
Second, I wet my lips and get ready to speak.
But what the hell will I say? I haven’t practiced this, haven’t thought it through at all. How do I even begin? “By the way, Thom . . .”?
“By the way, Thom . . .”
It’s too late. It’s out there, and it can never be retrieved. So I press on, standing in the middle of the seventh-floor hallway, facing an increasingly uneasy-looking Thom. “Um. Just so we’re clear, I don’t want . . .”
I don’t have to tell him everything right now, I think. I could just say I don’t want tonight leading to sex. That’s a totally normal thing for a seventeen-year-old girl on her first date to say.
But it’s not the whole truth. It’s an uncomfortable half-truth, and if whatever this is with Thom is going to keep existing, I’ll have to tell the more uncomfortable half of it soon enough.
I’ve taken too long to sort out my words. Thom’s face is creased in bad places as he says, “We don’t . . . um, if you feel weird about going to your room, we don’t have to.”
I nod. Then I shake my head. “No, you should come in. But I have to talk to you about something.”
I don’t exactly want him to come in, but I can’t carry on this conversation standing in the hallway, where anyone could peek out of their room or walk by. So I brush past him and pass a few more doors until we get to mine. I slide the electronic key into its slot, push open the door, and flick on every light switch within reach. My eyes fall immediately to the bed. We can’t sit there. But there’s only the bed and the desk chair, so I hurry ahead of Thom and take the chair. I know I’m giving off a nervous vibe. I’m already ruining this perfect night, and I haven’t even told him yet.
I’m preparing to speak, threading together sentences that are by no means good but will have to do. Thom beats me to it.
“Tash,” he says. Tash like “ash.” “If you’re worried I want to mess around . . . we don’t have to do that. I just had a good time with you, and I thought we could be alone.”
“Right,” I say. “No, that’s good. But I need to tell you something first. I think at this point it’s important you know.”
“Okay,” Thom says slowly. “You’re kind of scaring me.”
“Sorry.” My body floods with heat. “I’m an idiot, and I didn’t think through how I’d explain this to you beforehand. So. So, the thing is . . . I don’t like sex. At all. Like, I don’t want to have it with guys. Or girls. I don’t think of anyone that way. And I totally get that might be a deal breaker for you because, um, sex is pretty important to most people. I didn’t bring it up when we were texting, because I didn’t know where this was going. But now . . . Um. Well, now you know.”
This moment cannot possibly belong to my life. I am a character in a made-for-television movie who’s just read off lines from a terribly written script. I am a parody of myself.
Thom is looking at me as though I’ve slapped him across the jaw. I don’t blame him. I know this has to be the last thing he was expecting. I feel like a sham, some fake version of Tash Zelenka. But how else could I do this? Even now, I don’t see another way.
“Um, what ?” Thom is still standing motionless in front of the bed. “Sorry, are you saying you don’t like me?”
“No. No, that’s not what I’m saying at all. I like you a lot. It’s not personal, it’s . . . I’m not attracted to anyone that way. Sexually, I mean. I’m, like, ninety-nine percent sure I’m asexual.”
I say that last bit in a breezy, almost lighthearted way. I don’t know how else to make this less monumentally awkward.
“You’re not attracted to anyone?” Thom repeats. “But you, like, talk about your man crushes all the time on your vlog. Mr. Tilney, Mr. Darcy . . .”
I shake my head. “That’s different. I do have crushes on them. On their personalities and on what they look like—like, aesthetically .”
“So just . . . objectively. Like works of art.” Thom’s voice has gone hard. He sounds incredulous.
“Well, not exactly like that. It’s just, I don’t fantasize about them or anything. Like, I don’t want them ripping off my corset, or whatever.”
I’m still trying to turn this into an upbeat conversation, trying to salvage all the goodness from earlier this evening. But I can read the look on Thom’s face, and I know this is a losing battle. He doesn’t understand.
“You’re asexual ?” he says. “You’re, like, seventeen. No one knows they’re asexual at seventeen. No offense, Tash, but don’t you think maybe you’re a little scared of sex? Or you don’t want to try it yet? Because that’s fine, but I find it hard to believe—”
“W-what does my age have to do with it?” I sputter. “I know what I want and what I don’t want. I’ve never wanted sex. Never. I’ve never understood why it has to be in every book and movie and television show ever made. I’ve never figured out why porn is such a huge thing. I’ll be fine if no guy ever takes his shirt off for me. I’m not scared, I just don’t want it .”
Thom shakes his head. “So you’re calling yourself asexual, because why ? The Internet tells you so? Because no one out there was ever saying they were asexual before the Internet.”
My body is hot all over. No more attempts at lightening the mood. No more timid explanations.
“What are you saying?” I demand. “That it’s not a real thing? That I’m lying to you?”
“I don’t know. I think maybe you’re scared of where this is heading. Or maybe you’re confused. But you can’t like guys and say you’re ‘asexual.’ That’s not a thing. And you’re not going to find any guy out there who will tell you it is. It’s one or the other, you can’t have both.”
Now I am the incredulous one. “I don’t need any guy out there to tell me what I’m feeling is real. The only reason I told you is because I was trying to be honest with you. Not because I want your opinion on whether I have legitimate emotions or not.”
Thom groans. “Oh God, please don’t turn this into a feminist rant. We were having a really good time. If I did something to freak you out, or if you changed your mind, you could’ve just told me straight.”
“Why were you so late meeting me?”
I’m shocked by my own question. By the suddenness and the vehemence of it. It pierces the air between me and Thom, demanding an answer.
“What?”
This time, I ask it with cold resolution. “Why were you so late meeting me? You said we’d meet at noon. Then you didn’t give any explanation for why you didn’t show. So, what, was your flight delayed?”
Thom shakes his head slowly. “No, I had . . . something else come up. I ran into some guys I met here last year, and they wanted to have lunch. I tried to get away as quick as possible. But that’s not really any of your business.”
“So you wanted to network,” I say flatly. “That was more important than keeping a promise.”
“Wow, Tash. Melodramatic, much? That wasn’t a promise. That was just some tenuous plan we had.”
“Right,” I say. “I’m just a tenuous plan you had.”
“You know what? Fine. Yeah, I guess you were.”
He’s heading for the door, and I am incapable of following. I am stone, and so is this desk chair. We have melded into one unmovable statue.
He turns the handle. “I’ll get out of here. Since that’s obviously what you want.”
I could chase after him. I could even kiss him. I could try to make this work the same way I tried with Justin Rahn. But I wouldn’t be doing that for me, I’d be doing it for Thom, and when it comes down to it, I refuse to be that selfless.
Also, I am still cemented to the chair.
I stay stuck like that for a long, long time. Long after Thom closes the door. Long enough to develop a blood clot. Long enough, it seems, to decompose and waste away entirely. I only move when my throat begins to tickle with thirst. I break open one of the plastic-covered cups by the coffeemaker and fill it with water from the bathroom tap. I drink three cupfuls, but I still feel thirsty. I grab my wallet from my purse and leave the room. I remember seeing a vending machine in the ice-maker alcove, so I head that way. Maybe what my body really wants is sugar and carbonation.
I study the drink options before feeding the machine two dollar bills, and I leave with a bottle of Coke Zero and fifty cents in change. I’m at my door, fishing out my key, when I hear someone behind me say my name. I turn and find none other than George Connor standing in the hallway. He’s two doors down and has his key card in hand.
“Hey,” he says, pointing at the distance between our doors. “That’s a coincidence.”
I nod stiffly. “Um, yeah.”
Why now, of all times, is George being conversational?
He frowns at me and comes a little closer. “Are you okay?”
I sniff loudly, rub together the two quarters in my hand. “Yeah, sure.”
“You look like you’ve been crying.”
Why now, of all times, is George being concerned ?
“Yeah, I guess I’ve been crying.”
“Well, uh, are you okay?”
Since I’m being so damn honest tonight, I say, “No.”
George pockets his key and walks up to my door. He’s squinting intently at me, as though I’m developing a genetic mutation before his eyes.
“What’s wrong?”
I try thinking up an answer that is guaranteed to scare George off. I settle on “A boy was mean to me.”
But George doesn’t even flinch. Obligingly, he says, “Boys suck.”
I break down into this ugly laugh-cry thing, and George says, “Why don’t you sit down, you look unstable.”
So I sit down right there in front of my door, and George sits beside me.
After a while, I speak. I say, “What do you think is more important: being honest, or being happy?”
“Honest,” George answers, without hesitation. It’s like he’s been prepping for this existential query all his life.
“Why?”
“Well, that’s my artistic philosophy: honesty first. Even if everyone else hates you for it, you have to be an honest performer. You have to be serious and dedicated and authentic. Happiness isn’t really in the mix.”
I feel as though I might laugh in George’s face. “You’re such an ass,” I say, even though he’s currently being the nicest he’s ever been to me.
“I know,” he says. “But that’s the cost of being a good artist. Being honest and dedicated inevitably means you’re difficult to get along with. It means a lot of people won’t like you.”
I balk. “Says who?”
“Just look at the greats: Marlon Brando, Dustin Hoffman, James Dean.”
“Kubrick,” I add, thoughtful. “Coppola.”
“I think most of the best artists were probably assholes.”
“We should never meet our heroes,” I say softly.
“So, you understand.”
I try to ignore the fact that George basically called himself James Dean and say, “Yeah, I think I do.”
“I can tell,” says George. “In the way you direct.”
“Wait. You think I’m an asshole?”
“No, I can just tell you’re dedicated. But you care too much about people’s feelings. Unhappy Families is great, but it would’ve been even better if you were a meaner person. You know, actually started filming on time instead of waiting for people to show up. Kept asking to reshoot a scene even though you could tell we were tired. You’re too soft, Zelenka.”
I give George a long, bemused look. “I can’t tell if you’re being nice or mean right now.”
“I’m being honest.”
“See, all this time I thought you were just a mindless prick, and it turns out you have this elaborate philosophy of prickiness.”
“Think about it,” says George. “You still kept me on, even though I was a prick and no one really got along with me.”
“Yeah.”
“Because I’m a good actor.”
“Yeah.”
“So my philosophy panned out okay.”
I cannot argue with that. I twist open the cap of my Coke and take a long swig.
“So to answer your question,” George continues, “it’s better to be honest than happy. Because even if you’re happy first, you’ll eventually have to be honest with yourself.”
“Does that mean honest people will eventually be happy?”
“I don’t think it works that way.”
“Boo.”
After a beat, George says, “Where were you tonight, by the way? I thought you were coming to the dinner. I saved you a place at my table.”
I jerk my head in surprise. “I thought you’d be busy hobnobbing.”
“Well, yeah, but I also wanted to sit next to the woman who made my career what it is.”
“Uh-huh. What happened to all that ‘inferiority complex’ crap?”
“I dunno, I’m feeling generous tonight. I got phone numbers from four different Kevin fans.”
I look at George. I don’t bother beating away the baffled appreciation on my face.
“You’re all right, George,” I say.
“I am fucking not,” he replies, grabbing my Coke bottle and jumping to his feet.
I watch in disbelief as he chugs down the remaining soda in one go. He tosses the emptied bottle to me and says, “My fee for providing you with sage counsel.”
“Night, George.”
“Mmm-hmm. Till tomorrow. You going to that Taylor Mears meet and greet?”
I look him straight in the eye and say, “We should never meet our heroes.”