Oscar

The following piece was inspired by a conversation I heard while eating dinner at a restaurant in the Lower East Side last Saturday night. Enjoy.

“I just want to live somewhere beautiful. I want to wake up in the morning and be able to walk outside and down to the beach. I want to be able to wear sandals every day of the year, and I want to live somewhere that’s sunny and warm.”

We were in the middle of dinner. Oscar, my date, was telling me about his deep-seated desire to leave New York. He’d been at it for about twenty minutes.

“And I don’t want to live there in fifteen years. I don’t want to live there in ten. I want to live there tomorrow. As soon as I’m done with NYU, I’m getting out of here. The day I leave New York will be the happiest day of my life.”

My initial thought was to say “New York will be happy to see you go.” But instead I said, “What do you hate about New York so much?”

“It’s too much. It’s too dark. Everyone is so stressed out all the time. There’s no poetry. There’s no life. Everyone who lives in New York walks around like they’re dead inside.”

“I live in New York. Are you saying I’m dead inside?”

“Well what do you have here? You have a small apartment that you pay way too much for. You have a cat. You have a job you hate.”

“I don’t hate my job.”

“You work all the time.”

“So? That doesn’t mean I hate my job. Maybe that means I love my job.”

“You know what I mean.”

“Enlighten me.”

He sighed heavily and rolled his eyes as if I had said the dumbest thing he had ever heard. He was frustrated at my inability to understand him.

“Never mind.” He reached for his glass of cabernet and took a sip. “You don’t get it.”

“Please. I beg you. Enlighten me.”

He didn’t catch my sarcasm.

“You think that because you moved to New York so many people want to be you. That you’ve accomplished something. That this is it. That you’ve made it. If only everyone could be so lucky.”

“I don’t think that at all actually. I would love to live somewhere else.”

“Well then why don’t you. If you hate it here, why don’t you leave?”

“I never said I hated it here. If I hated it here, I’d leave. I love it here.”

“You just said you want to live somewhere else.”

“I said that I would like to live somewhere else, but unfortunately you can’t live two places at once, and so I have to choose, and for now I choose New York.”

“Why?”

“Excuse me?”

“Why do you choose New York?”

“Because my job is here and I love my job. And I like the city. I like the people here.”

“You came here to work in an office all day?”

“I came here to be a book editor. And that’s what I am.”

He scoffed and took another sip of wine as if that was supposed to communicate something to me.

“What?”

“You build your life around your job?” He obviously thought this was hilarious.

“No, but my job is important to me. It’s not my life, but it’s important to me. I don’t understand why that’s a bad thing.”

“You’ve made your job your identity.”

“No. Why are you chastising me for being paid to do something I love to do? If you could get paid for being pompous, wouldn’t you?” I didn’t say that last part. I should have.

“Forget it.”

“Okay.” I was still pissed but I just wanted the conversation to end. Maybe if he shut up long enough to eat his dinner, which had been sitting in front of him for a good half an hour, we could leave sooner. I started to eat my food—chicken parmesan—in silence. I was through promoting any more conversation with Oscar. I resolved to just smile and nod at anything he said. And if, after an hour, he still wasn’t through eating, I would lie and say I had to be somewhere.

“It’s so lovely being able to talk to you about things like this.” He smiled warmly at me and reached his hand across the table as if to suggest I should take it . I almost choked.

“What?”

“You’re just so easy to talk to.”

Was he kidding? I remembered my resolution.

“Thanks.”

“You’re the most honest person I've ever met.”

“Hmm.” I nodded and pretended to be examining my fork with great interest.

“I’m so glad I met you.”

“Yeah.” I continued nodding. “It’s just too bad you’ll be leaving in May.”

Shit.

“I never said I was leaving in May.”

I looked up and met his eyes. “You just said you wanted to leave New York as soon as you graduated. Aren’t you
graduating in May?”

“Yeah, but I might stick around for a bit. I mean, I’ll need to save some money obviously.” Apparently, I should’ve been able to figure that out for myself. I guess I was just being hopeful.

“Oh, that’s not what you said.”

He chuckled. “You’re funny.” He rubbed his foot against my shin underneath the table. I was immediately sorry I had worn a skirt.

“I might take a trip to Paris in the summer.”

“Oh, that’s nice.” I had gone back to examining my plate.

“You should come.”

“Maybe.”

“Have you ever been to Paris?”

“No.”

“Really?!” He seemed genuinely surprised. “Never?”

“Nope.” I shook my head.

“My family used to summer there. My great aunt has this beautiful villa about an hour outside the city. It’s
fabulous.”

“Sounds like it.”

“I can’t believe you’ve never been to Paris.”

“Why? A lot of people have never been to Paris.” Not everyone has a wealthy great aunt, asshole.

“Yeah, but you pretend to be so cultured.”

“I’m sorry?” I looked at him again. Direct eye contact was the only defense I could muster that wouldn’t cause a scene in the middle of the restaurant.

“Well, I mean, you work in publishing, and you talk about literature all the time. Paris is a writers’ city.”

“So is New York.”

“Yeah, but New York is so…” he picked up his glass of wine and made a sweeping gesture with his hands before he took another sip. Once again, this was supposed to mean something to me.

“So what?”

“You know.” He smiled. I guess he actually thought I knew.

“American?”

“Exactly!”

“Ahh.”

I took the last bite of my meal. I officially had no excuse to avoid conversation or eye contact anymore. I drank some more wine.

“How’s your food?”

“It’s good.” He had still barely eaten any.

“Mind if I try some? I love salmon.” My new tactic was to just try to clear his plate as quickly as possible.

“Sure.”

I took a bite. “Wow. That’s really good.” It was okay.

“Yeah, it’s not bad. Of course, it’s not like wild Alaskan salmon. I grew up eating that.”

“Are you from Alaska?”

“Ha! No. I’m from Boston.”

“Naturally.”

“But my uncle lives in Alaska so we used to visit, and he used to take me fishing.”

I realized that my strategy of making mindless small talk had backfired.

“That’s cool.” I reached into my pocket for my phone. “Oh shit. My grandma is calling me. Do you mind if I answer it? I want to make sure nothing is wrong.”

“Sure.”

“I’ll be right back.” I grabbed my purse and headed outside. My phone had not rung. I put it in my pocket and walked down the street. This was tactic number three: stand Oscar up in the middle of our date so he would have just one more reason to hate New York and leave as soon as possible.