“The fuck you looking at?” I say to the primary offender, a shithead at the bar who’s still staring at the door you walked out of like he’s planning on which part of your little whore body he’s gonna fuck first. He’s about a hundred years old, not scared, but I’ll put the fear in him if he doesn’t get in line.

You call from the lobby, “Joe! We have to go. We have to go now.”

The old guy laughs at me and you shiver, impatient. “I’ll get a cab.”

“I gotta pay.”

“I grabbed the waiter on the way in,” you say, all newly dismissive. “It’s fine. That horse taxi thingy must have cost a fortune.”

And just like that you turned all my good work at making you feel like a princess into shit. You paid and I’m not the man and Tucker Max is somewhere laughing at me with the geezer at the bar and the cartoons are laughing at me and the waiter who makes more than me is laughing at me and you open the door to the cab—you strip all the man out of me piece by piece and I’m your phone bitch and your skirt is a mess—and it can’t get worse but it does.

“Where you headed?”

“Seventy-First and Central Park West.”

“Peach okay?” I say, surprised that I’m capable of talking out loud.

“No,” you say as you tie your hair back with an elastic in that big fucking sexless purse you brought as if you knew it was gonna wind up like this. “You’ll never believe what happened.”

19

EVERYTHING peaks. It’s just the nature of all life.

As we cab over to Peach’s, I feel more and more certain that I peaked in the carriage (not a “horse taxi thingy” as you said), and I know I will never be that great of a man ever again. I will never be in that precise place, having picked you up and literally swept you off your feet with your skin fresh and your skirt clean and the night still ahead of us. It’s like Michael Cunningham says in The Hours: Happiness is believing that you’re gonna be happy. It’s hope.

Peach took my hope away. You’re reading e-mails and sending texts and how do you hold on to me for the first time in our life together and shut it off? You’re a million miles away from me, talking to people who have nothing to do with us.

“Hey, um, Beck,” I try.

You don’t look at me, you are blunt. “What?”

“Want to tell me what’s going on?”

“A lot,” you say and finally, you look at me. “Oh, you’re mad.”

“No,” I say and it’s not my fault that your friends are such assholes and it’s not my fault that you couldn’t stay off Twitter for one fucking night. These things are out of my control and I am better than you and you know it or you wouldn’t be holding my hand and droning on about Peach and the fact that she thinks someone broke into her place and stole shit again, which is ridiculous because I only broke in once and I never stole a damn thing.

“Huh,” I say.

You cross your arms. “Look, Joe. She’s alone. She’s scared. And she’s my friend.”

“I know,” I say.

You snap, “Then don’t go huh.”

You don’t have the guts to stand up to Lynn and Chana and I’ll gladly be your whipping post tonight. “I’m sorry, Beck. I really am.”

You nod. You are loyal.

“But let me just say this. That building is tight. It would be seriously hard to break in.”

But you aren’t moved and you huff. “Well, it doesn’t matter if it happened. She feels like it happened.”

I let you win; you’re a girl. You’re allowed. We ride in silence and I privately note that Lynn and Chana don’t call you up on our date and claim that Bigfoot is trying to drown them in the fountain of youth. You’re out of the door before the driver has the car in park and I pay, sad.

When I get out of the cab you throw your arms around me, hard and you whisper, “This was the best date ever.”

“Define ever,” I say and I know you want a kiss and so I kiss you. When we walk into the building, we are very much a couple and we get into the elevator and your phone buzzes and you answer and it’s Peach.

She screams, “Where the hell are you?”

“I’m sorry, we’re in the elevator!”

She groans. “We?”

The signal goes and you sigh. “This is gonna be a long night.”

“Do you want me to leave?”

I can tell that you wish I was gone, but you link your arm through mine. “Please go easy on Peach. Look, I know she’s a lot to handle. But, she’s tried to commit suicide, a couple of times. She’s weak. She’s sad.”

“I just don’t like to hear you get yelled at.”

You smile and squeeze my arm. “You’re a protector.”

“I am.” I pick up your hand that was on my dick. I kiss it and promise you that you’re safe.

You coo, “My knight in shining armor.”

The elevator yawns and shimmies and the bell chimes and the doors slide open to an ugly sight. It’s loud, Elton John is blasting and Peach looks electrocuted, with frizzy hair and sleepless eyes. She’s armed with a fucking paring knife, of all things. “What took you so long?” She growls.

She storms through the living room, which is even more vacuous without Brown people. You squeeze my hand, sorry. I squeeze your hand, it’s okay. We follow the angry Peach through her home and if I lived alone in a place this huge, I’d be crazy too.

IT’S been less than ten minutes and already I’m getting that unpaid delivery guy feeling. Peach speaks only to you and when I dare to interject, she waits for me to finish before droning, as I was saying. . . . I don’t take it personally and I honestly think she’d be just as pissed if you brought Lynn or Chana. But it’s not fun, Beck.

I sit back in the sofa with my arms outstretched and you are beside me, but forward, on the edge of your seat. I can’t tell you that Peach is poison. Listening to her lie and listening to you get hooked is too much but I can’t say a word.

You grab your phone. “I think we should call the police.”

She shakes you off and I can’t take it anymore and I stand up. “I think I should check things out. You mind?”

Peach shrugs. “Knock yourself out, Joseph.”

“Are there any suspects?” I ask and you wrap an arm around my leg. I pat your head.

Peach looks out the window, a classic liar’s move. “There’s a sad, incompetent delivery boy from this juice place. But I can’t fathom him having the wherewithal to break into this building. I mean, no offense, Joseph, but I doubt this kid even graduated from high school.”

“None taken.”

She squirms. “That came out wrong.”

“It’s fine,” I say and she’s lucky I don’t care what she thinks. I lean over and lift your chin and kiss you on the lips, wet, open mouth, full on. I pull away and salute Peach on my way out of the room.

I wander into the library-ish room to check on poor Mr. Bellow. No wonder you don’t get enough writing done. Peach is an albatross, constantly dragging you down with her troubles, her invented dramas. Right now that Blythe girl in your class is hunkered down over a pot of fuckface tea with a red pen and a tenth draft of a story. She’s listening to Mozart and lost in her work. You prefer life. You like the melodrama of this penthouse. I pick up the Bellow (now in a case; you’re welcome, Salingers), and I listen to you girls walk into the kitchen. Peach tells you to put a pizza in the oven and you object. “I thought you can’t eat tomatoes with IC?”

“Honestly, when I’m flaring and stressed like I am right now, it makes no difference.”

“Sweetie.” You purr.

“I know,” she says. “This is so. Not. Fair.”

That’s it for me and I bid poor Mr. Bellow good-bye and head upstairs. My first stop is, of course, Peach’s bedroom. Last time I was here, I thought it was bigger than the bookstore and upon reentering I realize that to my dismay, I’m right. You could have eight games of Twister going at once in here. And it’s well designed, of course. The rich know how to make their walls work for them. French doors abound. Some open into the twenty-foot closet. And some open onto the terrace. I feel the most beautiful piece in here, a bleached mahogany dresser, antique, eighteen, maybe twenty feet long.