“Orange!” I said.
“Orange who?” he asked.
“ORANGE YOU GLAD TO SEE ME!” I screamed.
It was the funniest thing either of us had ever heard.
“What did the mayonnaise say to the refrigerator?” he yelled to me.
“YOUR MOTHER!” I yelled back.
“Close the door, I’m dressing!”
We went on like this for at least twenty minutes. Every joke we’d ever heard in third grade was dredged up for a command performance. And if we met a pause, we just yelled “ORANGE!” or “YOUR MOTHER!” until the next joke came.
Finally we needed to catch our breath. We were still on the couch. He was leaning into me. I looked at his bare feet and decided to take off my shoes. As I did, he said, “The other shoe drops.”
And I said, “No—that was just the first.”
He looked at me and it honestly felt like the first time he’d ever seen me.
“I like you,” he said.
“Try not to sound so surprised,” I found myself replying.
He leaned his head so far back that he was looking at me upside down. I actually thought, He’s even attractive upside down. And I couldn’t even feel attractive right-side up.
“It doesn’t matter if I’m surprised or not,” he told me. “It matters that I like you.”
We heard the elevator stop outside. Gingerly, Ely jumped up and looked through the peephole of his front door. I took off my other shoe.
“Just Mr. McAllister,” he said. “Don’t worry.”
I understood the “Don’t worry.” Because I’ll admit: I didn’t want it to be Naomi in the elevator. I wanted to stay like this. I wasn’t just enjoying Ely’s company; I was enjoying my own as well.
“Let’s listen to music,” Ely said.
I said sure, assuming he’d turn on the stereo in the living room. But instead he led me to his room, which was covered with poems he’d xeroxed and photographs of his friends, Naomi especially. He scanned his computer for the album he wanted, then pressed play. I recognized it immediately—Tori Amos, From the Choirgirl Hotel. It seemed to loosen itself from the speakers as it fell into the room. I thought Ely would sit in a chair or lie on the bed, but instead he lowered himself down on the hardwood floor, facing the ceiling as if it was a sky. He didn’t tell me what to do, but I lowered myself next to him, felt the floor beneath my back, felt my breathing, felt . . . happy.
Song followed song. At one point, I realized I’d left my phone in my jacket, which meant I wouldn’t hear it if it rang. I let it go.
There was something about our silence that made me feel comfortable. He wasn’t talking to me, but I didn’t feel ignored. I felt we were part of the same moment, and it didn’t need to be defined.
Finally I said, “Do you think I’m boring?”
He turned his head to me, but I kept looking up.
“Why do you say that?” he asked.
“I don’t know,” I mumbled, a little embarrassed that I’d said anything.
I thought he’d turn back to the ceiling, to the music. But instead he looked at me for almost a minute. Eventually I turned on my side so I could look right back at him.
“No,” he finally said. “I don’t think you’re boring. I do think there are times you don’t allow yourself to be interesting . . . but clearly that can change.”
How can you spend hours every day trying in small ways to figure out who you are, then have a near-stranger give you a sentence of yourself that says it better than you ever could?
We lay there looking at each other. It made both of us smile.
Then, out of the blue—the blue deep within me—I found myself saying, “I like you, too. Really. I like you.”
There is something so intimate about saying the truth out loud. There is something so intimate about hearing the truth said. There is something so intimate about sharing the truth, even if you’re not entirely sure what it means.
And that’s when he leaned in and kissed me once, lightly, on the lips. As if he’d read exactly what I needed.
It broke the spell. It’s not that I stopped being happy. I was still inexplicably, utterly happy. But suddenly the happiness had implications.
My face must have shown it.
“I shouldn’t have done that,” Ely said, his voice freaking out a little.
“No,” I told him.
“Really, I shouldn’t have.”
He sat up, and I lay there a few seconds more, staring at the space he’d just left. Then I sat up, too. And stood up. And found myself leaving, without actually deciding to leave.
He stayed where he was, but turned to face me when I got to the doorway. I made noises that sounded like excuses for leaving, and he made noises that sounded like understanding why I had to leave.
But before I could go, he said, simply, “I wanted to.”
And I waited until I had decided to really leave before I told him, “I did, too.”
Then I was gone—out his door, putting my shoes on, grabbing my jacket, then out the front door, past her front door, down the elevator, out of the building, deciding to cross streets, deciding to wait for lights, deciding to put my hands in my pockets. Deciding that none of these things mattered. None of these things involved who I was, only what I did.
The whole night, the whole morning, the whole afternoon now . . . I miss Ely, and I miss Naomi. I miss how much easier life was just twenty-four hours ago.
I think about him a lot.
I think about her a lot.
But I think about him more.
“Really. I like you.”
I decide to take out my phone for the first time since I scared myself away from him. I decide not to check the three new messages. I decide to make a call. To start to wrestle with the implications. To maybe get back closer to the happiness.
I just have to decide who to call.
BRUCE THE FIRST
INSOMNIA
I’ve tried everything. Ambien, Lunesta, melatonin, counting sheep, The Best of Johnny Carson: The 1970s, Charlie Rose: The Present, Charlie Daniels, MTV2, 976-SLUTS4U, the complete works of Dostoyevsky, the complete works of Nicholas Sparks, completely jacking off, Jack Daniel’s, the Jackie Chan oeuvre. But nothing and no one can get me to sleep at night.
Blame Naomi.
She was seven. I was five. Our mommies had hustled us into the elevator, but in their two-second pause in the hallway to exchange mismatched mail, the elevator door closed and Naomi and I were left unattended. The elevator went up. Naomi said, “Would you like to see my underwear?” I nodded. She lifted her dress to her stomach. She wore the same kind of pink hipster briefs with elastic lace around the waist that my twin sister, Kelly, wore, but on Naomi, the hipster briefs looked entirely different. Bewitching instead of stupid. I can still recall that exact moment when Naomi dropped her dress back down to her knees and stuck her tongue out at me. Because my heart? It actually leaped, and hasn’t returned to me since. Naomi owned it forevermore.
Flash forward ten years to last spring, Naomi and I in the elevator at the same time again, only this time we’re taller, curvier (her), hairier (me). It’s not like we didn’t see each other regularly at school and in the building, but somehow, for reasons the universe has never bothered to explain to me, this time was different. Naomi appraised me head to toe as the elevator went up. She announced, “You’ve filled out nicely, fresh-person.” “I’m a sophomore,” I corrected her, grateful my squeaky-voice stage had long passed. “Even better,” she said. “Come here, sophomore.” I ventured closer to her. She smelled like baby powder and pretty girl shampoo. She leaned into me, her head slanted, her mouth opened ever so slightly. I thought, No, the wet dream of what I think is about to happen could not actually be about to happen. I mean, it’s not like I’d never kissed a girl before. How many Spin the Bottle parties had I thrown just trying to make such contact with Naomi, anyway? If only I’d known all I needed to do was trap myself in an elevator and wait for Naomi. Then, contact. It happened. Naomi kissed me—slowly, on the mouth, sucking my soul into hers, floors four through fourteen. She tasted like she’d just eaten a Snickers bar. I love Snickers.
I know I know I know. I shouldn’t love a girl who toys so casually with other people’s feelings, specifically mine, but it’s not like my mind has the ability to overrule my heart—and the other parts of my anatomy. See, what people (and by people, I mean my sister, our friends, and most of the MySpace community) don’t understand about Naomi—except maybe Ely, he gets her, but I hate him, so his understanding doesn’t count—is that there’s more to Naomi than just the obvious evil. They don’t know how she tests out gummy bears for me, pressing them between the plastic cover to find the ones that are freshest, the way I like. They don’t know that despite her brazen kisses, her symbols and her lies, her obsession with visiting and chronicling every Starbucks in the universe (though she never orders a single drink; she just plops down in the big purple chair and waits for some guy or girl to fall in love with her), Naomi’s really a nice, simple girl at heart. I know this about her. I know that for all her boasting, to her means with your clothes still on, talking about movies and life and dreams, tickling toes. I know that I am and shall forevermore be Bruce the First to her—in every way. Bruce the Second— I laugh at you! One, two . . . a million lifetimes lived without her since Naomi took up with Bruce the Second, but I remain confident that he who shall have the last laugh will be Bruce the First. HAH!
The problem, says my sister, Kelly, is not that I can’t get over Naomi—it’s that I refuse to. You are correct, sir! Loving Naomi and waiting for her to come back to me—it’s not a stalker thing, but more like a personal mission. A job. Wake up, think about Naomi. Go to school, think about Naomi. Come home, eat dinner, do homework, think about Naomi. A few games of Xbox, a few IMs with whoever’s available while thinking about Naomi (except for Ely—blocked! blocked! blocked!), download some porn that looks like Naomi, try to go to sleep. Count Naomi sheep. Fail to fall asleep. Naomi Naomi Naomi.
When insomnia prevails and I don’t have Naomi physically present to comfort me through it—although in every other way, believe me, she’s there—I know I can count on an emergency meeting of the Bruce Society to get me through the night. In the spacious lobby of our one hundred–unit apartment building, the Bruces Below Fourteenth Street convene to pass the dark hours. Sleepless? Big deal. We’ve got important issues to discuss—specifically, the Burden of Being a Bruce.
We are:
• Mr. McAllister, who alleges to be named Bruce, but I don’t imagine anyone would ever dare address him by a name other than Mr. McAllister.
• Gabriel the graveyard-shift doorman, middle name Bruce (fact-checked on driver’s license).
• One of Ely’s moms, Sue, who may or may not have once been married to someone named Bruce. The University Place Stitch ’n’ Bitch knitting circle is hot with rumor over that one.
• Random persons hanging out in the lobby between late-night laundry loads, Bruces in spirit.
• Bruce the Chihuahua, also known as “Cutie Pie” by her owner, Mrs. Loy, but renamed by the Bruces-inspirit because I’m the one, not Naomi, who feeds and walks her when Mrs. Loy goes out of town. I’m the “nice boy” (take that, Naomi’s sainted Ely) who uses the secret key under Mrs. Loy’s mat to tap on Mrs. Loy’s apartment door for the dog to hear, but not so loud as to wake Mrs. Loy, when Cutie Pie–sometimes–called–Bruce yelps for a midnight walk.
The problem with the Bruce Society is that I want to talk about being a Bruce, but the other Bruces, they want to talk about insomnia. What insomniacs don’t realize is that the more you talk about your inability to sleep, the more you will be unable to sleep. It’s like a whole mathematical problem that equals up to a solution called: Why Not Just Face It, You’re Screwed. The other members—I question their dedication to the Bruce Society. I suspect they care more about their sleepless nights than about what it means to be a Bruce. Because think about it. There’s the legacy of great Bruces whom we should honor and hope to emulate: Lenny the brilliant comedian; Mr. Springsteen; Master Lee; Robert the Bruce, aka “Braveheart.” But there are also those Bruces whom we need to seriously consider repudiating, and striking from our namesake society: Willis, Jenner, Hornsby.