Well, Thanks for Reminding Me This Exists

Last night I was told by a total stranger that they “read my blog,” which is all well and good, but I can’t imagine how they do it since I don’t even “write my blog.” Anyway, as a benevolent treat to that one person whose name I don’t remember, I’m going to try to come back here a little more frequently (maybe even once a day). I will make you no promises, because people don’t ever really change, and I don’t even know who the hell you are.

The reason I met this kind stranger is that I was attending, and losing, The L Magazine’s short fiction reading, with a short story I’d written entitled “Grace.” It’s below, but, just to warn you, there is almost nothing funny about it, and I know how you internauts love your comedy jokes and fart lines (imagine a conga line of people farting in a synchronized fashion). Anyway, you can read the story if you want some good angst. I know it’s good angst because this hipster girl came up to me afterward and said “I just want you to know, that made me cry. Thanks so much!”

Grace

Grace laughed and put her cigarette against the ashtray and tapped it with her index finger. She brushed her hair off her bare shoulder and back around her neck as she smiled up across the table at Adam and said that of course she remembered. There wasn’t anything particularly funny to him about the question, or the statement, or the situation, or any fucking thing about it, but he smiled with her anyway. It was tough for him to not smile with her. He smiled and took a drag of his cigarette and a drink from his glass and then exhaled. Of course she remembered. How could she not remember?

Michael returned from the kitchen with what was left of the bottle of whiskey and looked to Grace first. She looked up at him and they smiled at each other and Adam wished it was nice to watch two people in love smiling at each other, but it wasn’t. She smiled up at Michael as he poured whiskey into her glass and he smiled back at her and Adam gladly accepted some more whiskey when it was offered to him next. Michael sat down next to Grace and she leaned against him and the two watched Adam drink.

“What were you two talking about?” Michael asked.

Grace sighed. “Oh, old times.”

“Ah.”

Michael and Grace looked at each other and smiled again, and it was starting to make Adam feel a little sick to watch the two of them and the way they looked at each other like they were in on some joke. He finished his drink and took another long drag of his cigarette as he started to pour another and the smoke came up into his eyes and it stung as he tried to just focus on the amount he was pouring into his glass and not think about the fact that he was fumbling and the fact that Grace was sitting across the table from him and the fact that Grace’s head was on Michael’s shoulder and the fact that when he finally did get the bottle back down to the table he wasn’t quite sure whether she had just kissed Michael or not. His eyes stung and he took the cigarette out of his mouth and stubbed it out and picked up his glass and stood up.

It was late. He was tired. They agreed. It was late. Adam headed back inside. He stopped in the middle of the room and looked back through the screen door and Michael and Grace were talking quietly with each other and Grace was laughing and it felt pretty awful. Pretty fucking awful. Adam stood there and watched and Grace looked up across Michael and saw him standing there in the middle of the room and of course she remembered and she looked up at Michael and kissed him and said something and they stood up and Adam took another drink. Pretty fucking awful.

They came back into the room and Michael topped Adam’s glass off again, this time with the very last of the whiskey, and they sat down on the couch and Grace headed off into the bathroom and the two of them just sat there until she came back out in an old t-shirt with her bare legs crossed in the doorway and asked Michael where he’d put the floss. Michael pointed and she knew what that meant and headed back in and grabbed it and came back to stand in the doorway as she flossed.

“Okay. I’ve gotta fold this out. Do you mind?” Michael asked as he stood up.

Adam got up as well. No, he didn’t mind. Yes, he’d be fine sleeping on the couch that was downstairs. He’d be fine. His head was spinning and he looked over at Grace who was standing there with the light from the bathroom behind her and her legs were completely bare and long and smooth as she watched Michael assemble their bed.

Adam stood there and took another large gulp from his glass. The whiskey burnt his throat and felt warm in his chest but didn’t make things feel any better. When Michael had put the fold out bed together, she walked towards it past Adam and touched his chest with her hand. She touched him and then was past him and getting into the bed.

“Are you really leaving tomorrow?” She asked him as she slid her slender frame under the sheets.

“I might as well.” He said as he moved out of Michael’s way.

“You’re welcome to stay longer, you know. You don’t have to leave yet.” Michael said as he got into bed with Grace.

“Thanks, but I am.” Adam said as he turned back towards the staircase.

“Well, make sure you say goodbye in the morning.” Grace said.

Adam nodded. He started down the staircase, drink in hand, and looked through the banister at Grace there in bed. Her soft dark hair was against the sheets, her soft light legs were underneath, her shirt exposed her shoulder, and Michael kissed her lips.

From the narrow couch downstairs he could hear the two of them upstairs laughing over something Michael was saying. They probably weren’t laughing about him, he thought, but he felt stupid lying there and he wished he had just left already. He finished his drink and heard the fold out bed upstairs squeak as they moved in it. They were probably just getting comfortable. They probably weren’t kissing each other. They wouldn’t.

He lit a cigarette. His head was swimming after the last drink. It had put him over the edge and the ceiling was spinning above him and he shut his eyes and he could hear the bed upstairs and two bodies moving inside it and Grace moaning softly. He was going to be sick. He sucked hard on his cigarette and hoped that the smoke in his lungs might help him if he could just focus on how it felt inside him. She was upstairs with her soft naked body pressed against someone else. Grace.

She moaned, and he heard Michael say something and she laughed. She laughed and Adam knew exactly what her face would look like hot and flushed and smiling as she bit her soft lips and brushed her hair out of her eyes. Her hair always got in her eyes, and Adam would have to hold it back behind her head sometimes and she would laugh when he let it go with a gasp as she pushed down hard against him. He couldn’t help but laugh too.

He laughed now, and it made him cough and he looked up at the spinning ceiling above him and could remember exactly how her necklace would hang in front of his face and swing back and forth against her chest and as the bed creaked upstairs he knew that Michael was turning her onto her back, and Adam wondered if he would put his hand on her thigh and pull her leg up against his body as Adam had, and if she would dig her nails into his back and if she would turn her head to the side into the pillow with a small gasp as he slid inside of her.

She would lean forward and bite his lips hard and run her hand up his back and through his hair and pull him firmly against her and hold him there and steady her body with her hand against the back of the couch behind her as she whispered to him.

She whispered something. Now everything was quiet.

Nothing moved except the ceiling and the ground and the couch Adam was clinging to and the whole world around him. He tried to take another drag from his cigarette but it had gone out and he just sucked in air. He dropped the butt. A light went on upstairs. Grace said something. He wouldn’t say goodbye. Grace laughed. The light went out.

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