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The Year of Yes: The Story of a Girl, a Few Hundred Dates, and Fate. Maria Dahvana Headley
Читать онлайн.Название The Year of Yes: The Story of a Girl, a Few Hundred Dates, and Fate
Год выпуска 0
isbn 9780007346127
Автор произведения Maria Dahvana Headley
Жанр Биографии и Мемуары
Издательство HarperCollins
Pause for me, unnoticed, turning purple, drowning my misery in Maker’s Mark and wondering if there was any way to make a graceful exit without everyone figuring out what was going on.
And back to the point, the Boxer declaiming like William Jennings Bryan.
“It just wasn’t happening, no matter how much I wanted it to. I was on top of her, and she was looking at me like she didn’t really know me, which she didn’t. And halfway through, I looked at her and it hit me. I actually wasn’t even into her. What was I doing there? I was in love with Masha. This girl, there’s nothing wrong with her, per se, but she’s not Masha. I mean, this girl, she’s pretty and smart, but not like Masha.”
For a moment, I clung to the fact that at least he’d said that I was pretty and smart. Unfortunately, there was the rest of the sentence to consider. I wanted to scream nasty things, statistics on the small size of both his penis and his soul, but I didn’t. It wasn’t like I was blameless. I’d gone home with him. It was me who’d made that stupid choice, and now I was getting a little bit of just reward. I stayed silent.
People had been cruel before, but it’d rolled off my back. For some reason, this one hurt. Maybe it was because the Boxer was a writer, too, and my brain had granted him automatic comrade status. This was friendly fire. No dignity to getting shot by one of your own. I don’t even think he meant to be cruel. I think he was embarrassed himself, and trying to excuse his behavior. No one wants to start crying in bed. There was plenty I didn’t know about him, and likewise, but that didn’t really matter in the moment. I still felt like I was bleeding all over the bar. And that was seriously uncool. I wanted to be the kind of girl who could tolerate her heart being translated into a story the morning after, the kind of girl who didn’t care so damned much. I was not that person. I never had been.
The Boxer was sitting next to me, and he started to grope my thigh. I didn’t get it. He was telling all these people he wasn’t attracted to me, and his fingers were kneading me like bread. And people were sympathetic. I could see on their faces the fear that maybe the Boxer would never find love. If the Boxer remained alone and miserable forever, so too might they. I agreed. Love was looking less and less likely to me. I’d been saying yes for three months, and though I’d met some nice people, I hadn’t even come close to meeting anyone I wanted to spend much of the rest of my life with.
I swatted the Boxer’s fingers away. He was onto a discussion of boxing: the macho factor, how he’d had his nose broken a few times. I was thinking about athlete’s foot, willing fungus and jock itch upon him.
I BELATEDLY NOTICED that two of my classmates had been watching me during the Boxer’s monologue. The Princelings, so called for their extreme family-bestowed affluence, were not only rich, but good looking, too. They unexpectedly offered to buy me a drink at the bar. Though I’d never really talked with either of them before, I was glad to escape. Much more of this, and I was liable to either sob, or try to throttle the Boxer. I was thinking that maybe I could compensate for my lack of muscles with a series of swift jabs to his throat. Then I could bake him into a pie, à la Titus Andronicus, and serve him to Masha.
I was competitive with a stripper. How sad was that?
The Princelings asked if the story had been about me. They’d been watching me during the exchange and were “interested in the dynamic.”
“Yes,” I whispered, applying Kleenex to my eyes.
“What an asshole,” said Princeling One.
“Dickhead,” agreed Princeling Two.
I instantly became their friend. I hoped that the Princelings, in the grand tradition of the Dramatic Writing Program, would write a seven-hour play about the Boxer, and how he was scum.
Over the next few weeks, the Boxer and I saw each other in class every couple of days, and he acted as though he’d done nothing wrong. Of course, I refused to discuss the things I thought he’d done wrong. I had no intention of giving him the satisfaction of knowing that he’d messed me up.
I banished my heart to Baden-Baden, where I directed her to wear a bright bathing costume, take the waters, and read peacefully plodding, romantic novels by E. M. Forster. Instead, she lurked sarcastically in a cabana, savagely pinching the pool boys when they were too slow in bringing the refreshments she incessantly rang for. She clutched dog-eared copies of The Stranger, Death in Venice,
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