She and He

I got back from Florida last night (technically this morning), and despite a five-hour delay, I ended up having a rather pleasant trip home. I made nice conversation with the person next to me, got back to New York in two hours instead of three thanks to a particularly strong tailwind, and got a free cab ride home. So, even though I got home at 2:30 this morning, I really can't complain. I'm sure many people had it much worse.

One of the little thoughts I had in that that extra five hours I was forced to kill was, "Hey, maybe I can use this bloggy-whatsit to post some of my writing!" For those of you who don't know (i.e. most everyone) I've been trying to write more. Working in publishing has come to make me realize two things about being a writer:

1) It is extraordinarily difficult to become a bestselling and/or award-winning author, no matter how talented you are.
2) It is extraordinarily easy to get published depending on your timing, luck, and ability to string a few words together coherently, no matter how unoriginal, boring, or just plain ridiculous they may be.

So that puts me in what some would consider a dangerous or maybe just naive mindset of thinking that maybe I could write a book one day. Why the hell not?

I'm not currently in the process of writing a book. But I have been writing short pieces every so often, and usually no one reads them, so I thought I'd post one and see what kind of reaction (if any) I get. Here it is completely out of context, except I will say that this was written in September - mostly over Labor Day weekend. I welcome any thoughts.


SHE AND HE

"Hey babe," she said as she leaned in and kissed him. "How did the interview go?"

"Meh." He shrugged his shoulders. "Alright I guess. I messed up a few times, and the woman who interviewed me was kind of mean - like very stern - so I couldn't tell what she was thinking."

"Oh." She frowned slightly, furrowing her eyebrows in concern. "I'm sorry, baby, but I'm sure it went better than you thought. Everyone's their own worst critic, you know."

"Yeah, I guess," he said with a half smile. "Not much I can do about it now, right?"

"Nope." She shook her head. "Are you hungry?"

"Starving. I haven't had anything to eat all day except a bowl of Cheerios."

"Me too. You in the mood for anything in particular or do you just want to walk around until we find something?"

"Nah. It doesn't matter. Let's just walk until we find something."

They were in Chinatown at the Canal Street subway stop, and as they walked down the street, they made a point of turning down a relatively empty block in order to avoid the throngs of people out for an afternoon of shopping for knock-off designer handbags. When they finally came to a small Japanese place that wasn't busy, she said, "Wanna get sushi?"

"Sure that's fine." She could tell he couldn't care less where they ate. His mind was obviously still on the interview. She couldn't blame him. She'd done the same thing after countless interviews the summer before when she was trying to find her first job, always questioning whether she could've shown more energy or if she said "like" too many times. It was normal to worry about your performance. If you didn't worry, you didn't care. She was at least glad that he seemed to care, but she wasn't sure what it was he cared about, exactly. Was it the fact that he really wanted to get this job - as a high school English teacher in New York - or was it because he had let himself down? Or was it something else? It was probably something else.

She put his hand on his upper arm. "Hey, stop worrying about it. I'm sure it went fine."

He smiled. "I'm not worried. Like I said, not much I can do about it now right?"

They walked into the restaurant where a small Japanese lady walked them to the nearest table for two and returned seconds later with two glasses of water. He downed his in one gulp.

"Thirsty?" she said with a little laugh. "Do you want mine too?"

"Nah, it's fine. I'm sure she'll bring more."

"Really, it's okay. I don't really want it. I can wait."

He shrugged and put his empty glass down and reached for hers. "Okay, if you insist." He gulped most of the glass down again. "What are you getting?"

"Eh. I don't know. Probably a california roll or something. I'm not feeling very adventurous today."

"Me neither."

The waitress came by a moment later. "Ready to order?" she asked with her notepad and pencil at the ready.

"Uh, yeah. I'll have the spicy tuna roll and an order of vegetable tempura. And could I have some more water when you get a chance?" He ordered first. He always ordered first.

"And for you, miss?"

"I'll have a california roll and an order of miso soup please. And water is fine to drink," she said handing over her menu.

"Thank you," the waitress said and scurried away to the kitchen.

She looked at him. He looked like he'd just woken up or, as she liked to say, like someone had just kicked his puppy. "What's wrong?"

"Nothing." He laughed, presumably because she asked this a lot. "Nothing's wrong. I'm just kind of bummed about the interview."

"Yeah, well. That's natural. It happens to all of us. But like I said, you're probably overanalyzing it." He had a tendency to overanalyze things. It was one of the things she liked about him - his ability to see all sides of a problem or a question or an issue and tackle them in his mind. But, of course, it had the tendency to get in the way of normal conversation sometimes.

"Yeah, you're probably right. It's fine. My stomach also kind of hurts though."

"Your stomach always hurts." She smiled because it was true. He must produce more bile than anyone she'd ever known. "You're probably just hungry."

"Yeah. Probably."

She hated this. This forced conversation. These vain attempts of hers to try to engage him in the present when he was clearly caught up with something else. She knew, going into this relationship, that this is how it would be. That he wouldn't be the happy-go-lucky boyfriend all the time. It was difficult to deal with, but, in her eyes, worth it. She refused to believe it wasn't worth it.

Her soup arrived. She started slurping it in, burning her tongue a bit, but she was hungry so she kept going.

"You didn't call me last night," she said between spoonfuls. "Did you get my message?" She was being a bitch. She knew she was being a bitch. She hated being that girlfriend who always nagged her boyfriend when he didn't call, but it bothered her. And hadn't she always said it was better to tell someone when they did something to annoy you? Otherwise, you would just become bitter because they would keep doing the same thing over and over again? He had a habit of not calling her back, or calling when he said he'd call. They'd discussed it a bunch of times, and he'd been a lot more responsive lately. He was improving. Why couldn't she just let him improve?

"No. I wasn't feeling really well last night."

"Mentally or physically?"

"Both. My back has been killing me all week, and I don't know why, and plus, I've just been sort of shitty lately."

"Yeah." She hoped he didn't detect the slight irritation in her voice. She was concerned for him - he often felt "shitty," as he described it, which was his code for "severely depressed" or even "suicidal." But, for some reason, she would get irritated when he would talk about it. Obviously, not a lot. That wouldn't be fair, and it wasn't like her to get mad at someone for having a bad day. She had plenty of them herself.

"You know, there will be other opportunities," she said, and then added, "The world is your oyster!" She grinned, unable to maintain a straight face at the cliché.

“My oyster, huh?” he raised an eyebrow in mock skepticism.

“Yeah,” she said, now completely serious. She had turned onto full engagement mode. “You’ve just got to figure out what you want to do and then do it. You’ve got so much potential.” She said the last part with an air of hopelessness – as if she had said it so many times but was beginning to realize it didn’t make a difference.

He laughed – a mix between a chuckle and a scoff. “Yeah?” he said skeptically. “You think I’ve got potential?”

“Of course I do, babe.” She reached her hand across the table and took his hand, holding it lightly. “You’re smart and you’re passionate and you’re personable and you just have so much to offer the world.” She was pleading with him now; There was desperation in her eyes.

He smiled weakly and gripped her hand a bit tighter. He looked at her with a mix of love and sadness in his eyes. She was becoming all too used to that look.

He always looked like he was about to cry, but he never cried. Actually, she had seen him cry once – maybe twice – the entire time she’d known him – almost five years now. And both of those times had been recently. She wished he would cry more. Not just because his therapist said it was good – essential – for him, but also because when he cried, she felt like she was getting through to him, like she was striking a nerve, getting to the bottom of things.

She knew she couldn’t change him. She knew she couldn’t save him. She knew she couldn’t make him happy – not all the time anyway. But she wanted to. She tried to.

“I just need to figure out what I want to do. I need to do something that makes me happy.” He said this adamantly as though he had just come to this decision and was determined to see it through.

“Yes you do. That’s what everyone needs to do.”

“Well, you make me happy,” he said with a smirk. “Can I just do you?”

“Sure,” she replied, a smile spreading across her face despite herself. “But I won’t be able to pay you.”

They both laughed. The mood lightened. She felt satisfied for now. She didn’t want to push him all at once. She would bring this up again some other time when the moment was right. For now, she would enjoy holding his hand while she waited for her food to arrive.