Carrie Pilby (32 page)

“Yes.” He presses my nose for a second, then lets it go. “What did you do in high school? What were you like?”

“Nerdy and geeky.”

“Come on,” he says. “You must have been in some after-school activities.”

“Math Team, Science Team, College Bowl, Decathlon of Knowledge, Mathletes, Olympics of the Mind, Excellent Exegetists, Harvard Model Congress, Quiz Kids, Varsity Physics, Westinghouse Science Project Semifinals…”

“Nerd nerd nerd,” he says.

“Theater geek,” I say.

“Nerd nerd.”

“Theater geek.”

We're in each other's faces.

“Nerd.”

“Theater geek.”

“That is not the proper term,” Cy says. “The proper term at my school was ‘stage whore' or ‘drama queen.' Also, I was in the band for a while, so I was considered a ‘band fag.' Who comes up with these things?”

“I don't know,” I say. “You band fag and stage whore.”

“I'm only guilty of some of those things,” he says, leaning close. He looks even better up close. “And
you
should be everything you are.” He puts his right hand in mine, then reaches for the other. “Got a request?” He looks over at the 78s.

“Polka,” I say.

“Polka what?” he asks.

“Polka
you.
”

He finds a record. The pile smells musty, but I like it, as it
reminds me of my grandparents' place. Cy gingerly drops it onto the record player. After the crackling stops and the music starts, some sonorous notes ring out, long and pretty. We dance from the kitchen through the hall to up on the couch.

He puts his left hand around my waist.

Then he looks at me intently.

A loud bang stops us in our tracks.

“Haaappy new year!” someone shrieks below, and there's screaming, stomping, honking, laughing. I haven't heard this much racket since the Yankees won Game 4.

Cy looks at me again. We're both quiet.

“I was hoping you'd end up here sooner or later,” he says.

Then he moves toward my neck. I feel his nose and lips at the same time. He feels warm. “I'll bet you were a great Mathlete.”

“Secant squared minus tangent squared equals one,” I say.

“Whisper it,” Cy says, kissing his way down my shirt.

“Secant squared minus tangent squared equals one.”

He rises and again kisses me on the lips. I feel a shiver run from my mouth through my body. “Come with me,” he says, and takes my hand.

“What's your name?” I ask him. “What's Cy short for?”

He smiles. “Cyclone. Does that put me ahead of you in the bad joke Olympics? Although you were probably in it in high school.”

“They had to get rid of it because all the comedians went to Arts High.”

He stops at the door to his room. “What's Carrie short for?”

“Carrie.”

“What's your middle name?”

Ooh, he wants to know my middle name. “My name is Carrie Constance Pilby.”

“Cute name,” he says.

“What's your full name?”

“Cyril George Panatogolous.”

“I'll call you Cy.”

His room is very dark. The shades are black. Maybe because he's up late at night and sleeps during the day. Hey, he's like me.

He shuts the door until it's pitch-black, and for a second, I'm afraid, but he takes my hands and we start dancing again, slow. It feels like it goes on forever. Cy seems a lot stronger than a half hour ago.

Soon we stop. He kisses me in the dark.

In the end, it turns out that he's much better at everything than Professor What's-His-Name.

 

About four in the morning, a garbage truck rolls by. I wake up. I'm next to Cy, who's curled like a fetus, asleep, and the sheets are all out of place. I sit up and find that I'm wearing a Godspell T-shirt. How did all of this happen? When will God save the people? Oh, God of mercy, when?

I don't feel bad, but I do feel funny, as this is obviously not standard operating procedure for me.

I stand up. What have I done?

Then, I think of something else.

I've done everything on the list!

Except one thing.

I grope around for my clothes.

“Where you going?” Cy asks into his pillow, reaching around with his left hand.

“I'll be back,” I say, and I head downstairs.

 

There are stragglers stumbling home, but mostly, the only noise is the trucks, churning away the evidence of the night's debauchery. Practically embedded in the street are papers and pieces of foil and stepped-on noisemakers. They're like those gun barrels and pennies and metal objects you see stuck in grav
el sometimes. What's the story with that? I head around the corner and see that the coffee shop is open. Even at four o'clock, Milquetoast is inside.

He brightens when he sees me. “Hey, Carrie,” he says. He really looks excited. I'm glad. There are four or five tables full of people in there, but no one is uttering a word. They're playing with bits of straw wrappers or staring at each other, obviously hung over. “Hi, Ronald!” I yell.

A guy with spidery hair glares at me.

Ronald smiles.

“It's too bad you have to work on New Year's,” I say.

“I don't mind,” he says slowly. “It's too noisy out there.”

“You know, you're my kind of person. I didn't fully realize that.”

He grins and looks at the counter bashfully.

“Well, I was home, and I knew you were here, and I wanted to tell you something. I think you're a great guy, and I really like you. You don't lie about anything. You're true. There aren't many people like that anymore. And I think you should stay that way.”

Ronald grins broadly. “I like that, Carrie,” he says. “That makes me happy.”

“I care about you,” I say, and he leans forward, and we hug.

“I like you, too,” he says.

“Do you want to get that meal tomorrow?” I ask.

“
Tomorrow
tomorrow,” he says, “or tomorrow today?”

“I guess…tomorrow tomorrow,” I say.

He grins broadly. “Yeah,” he says. “That's good. Yeah, that'd be good.”

“Here's my number,” I say. I scribble it on a napkin. “Call me tomorrow.
Tomorrow
tomorrow.” I hand the number to him.

This time, I don't have that hollow feeling inside. I think he really does like me. He's not faking it.

He looks at me funny as I'm standing there. “You want coffee?”

“No, thanks,” I say. “I don't really drink it.”

“Hey,” he says. “Happy new year.”

I smile. “Happy new year.” It might be a good year after all.

On the way past my building, I see Bobby peeking out his window in his undershirt, and I wave. Bobby smiles. Pleasantly, not lecherously.

A few buildings down, Cy is sitting on his stoop in a button-down shirt and wrinkled Dockers, circles under his eyes. When he sees me, he stands up and reaches for my hands. That's dedication, to get out of bed at four in the morning to wait for me.

I wake up again at 9:15 a.m., and Cy is sleeping.

Now that the alcohol has worn off, I feel embarrassed. The events of last night seem surreal.

The way the light comes through Cy's drapes feels strange; the way his furniture reflects in his wall mirror feels strange; the way his pile of laundry smells is strange. I don't know how people can routinely wake up in different places. Maybe they get used to it. I don't think I could.

I sit up. Cy's face is bunched up, like he's dreaming hard. It looks cute. I'm going to be late for church.

I can't miss today's sermon. I've faxed Natto a few ideas, and this one's going to be good.

 

I pull my clothes on quietly. I run home and shower. I'm late to church, and I slip into the back row. There are a lot of people in the pews. Despite the crowd, Natto sees me, smiles and
winks. I wonder why it's so crowded on New Year's Day. All these people must feel guilty about something.

I spot someone a few rows up who must feel guilty. It's Matt, and he's sitting beside Shauna. She's got short, blond hair, and looks sweet. She turns to Matt, and I see on her the clothes and face of someone who has never had to fight for male attention, who isn't wearing much makeup and has never even worried about it. She won't ever have to change or adapt unless Matt leaves her. She won't ever have to harden herself or compromise. She's lucky. I suppose.

I hate to say it, but Matt looks quite handsome in his suit. His hair is still wet. Hers isn't. I decide this means they didn't take a shower together. I feel relieved, for some reason. That's stupid. I shouldn't care about him anymore. He's a cheater.

“Situational ethics,” Natto says, strutting across the stage. “Are they fair?”

Everyone is listening.

“Can we do something we know is wrong, and make up for it by giving a good excuse, say that, at the time, it wasn't as wrong as it might have been in another situation? Last night was New Year's Eve. How many people in this room did something we are now not proud of?”

Everyone looks around. I slump in my seat so Matt won't see me.

“But it was New Year's, right? You were drunk. So you couldn't help what you did. And this morning, you figure, you can come to church and erase the deed.”

No one moves.

“Unlike all of you, most people this morning didn't even get out of bed. I am impressed with this congregation. Truly impressed. But why are you here? To give something, or to
ask
for something?”

He pauses. He knows just when to pause. His silences both
make us think and give us a moment of unease. I'm learning a lot about rhetoric from watching him.

“How many people have actually done something wrong, all the while knowing you were going to ask forgiveness later? How many movies have we seen where someone raises a gun, or a baseball bat, and says, ‘Lord, forgive me for what I'm about to do.' Well, if you have to say that, then
don't do it!
”

He straightens.

“Forgiveness is for
honest
mistakes. And yes, we are human. We have needs and feelings that conflict with our conscience, and sometimes we give in. But if we knowingly do something wrong, and we do it anyway, that's reprehensible. If we make a mistake, we can ask forgiveness. But if we willfully hurt someone, we are doing something a lot worse. You don't get absolved just because you feel like it. Otherwise, we could all just do whatever we wanted, and then run to church each Sunday and atone.”

Say it, I think.

“Adultery,” Natto says. “Chea-ting.”

Chee-ting.

“What are the chances, if you meet a successful man who's been married for thirty years, and he's in his fifties or sixties, what are the chances that his wife's the only one he's ever been with since he met her? It almost seems impossible these days, doesn't it?”

Matt looks stiff.

“So what's wrong with a little cheating? Why is it called cheating? We know our spouse wouldn't like it. We're doing things we shouldn't be. We made a promise no one forced us to make. Maybe we're opening ourselves up to health risks by cheating. Maybe we're spending time or money or affection that should instead go to our spouse, or our kids. You can make
excuses. Now, some people will say, hey, at least a little cheating's better than getting divorced.”

Shauna looks at Matt, smiling, then back at Natto. I guess she knows he'd never cheat on her. Oh, no.

A thought crosses my mind. I'll bet that Shauna is rabidly against cheating. Most women who are in committed relationships probably are. Why not? It's very easy to be anticheating when you're settled. It's easy to be moral if you have exactly what you want.

“Is that right?” Natto asks. “Cheating to avoid getting divorced? The reason cheating is called cheating is that you're doing something behind someone's back. Something that could hurt someone. By not being honest, you hurt them. In some cases, maybe it hurts a little. In others, maybe a lot.”

I think about the movie
Out of Africa,
which was also on the AAFR list. In it, Karen Blixen goes down to Africa to marry a baron, and in part of it, she starts getting sick, and she finds out it's syphilis. She's never been with a man before her husband, so she knows it had to have come from him. And he has to admit that he got it from some woman. The cad.

Natto stops pacing and looks at a guy in a frayed suit. “I'm not here to pass judgment,” he says. “I'm not God. Only you can know your own situations. But what about the Golden Rule? You think you can cheat, but you know you'd be upset if your spouse cheated. If you've both agreed to cheat, then you have an open relationship. Which makes me a little queasy…but in many ways, it's more honest than cheating.”

I wonder if this is a bad move, sounding like he even remotely advocates this. But it is a good question.

“In cheating, you are doing something to another you would not want done to you.”

He wags his finger.

“Do unto others as you would have others do unto you. In
many religions, that is a defining maxim. In Judaism and some of the Eastern religions, it's phrased slightly differently. There, it's, do
not
do to others as you would
not
want done to you. It all boils down to the same thing—treat people with respect. Come up with a code, and don't change your code to fit a certain situation, or a time. And if you do mess up, sure, you are entitled to ask forgiveness. But don't do something you believe deep inside is wrong and then make an excuse.”

I see Matt looking at Shauna. He isn't smiling. I'm sure he'll come up with his own rationalization later, so that he can continue to, without guilt, put his power supply in lots of outlets.

Natto winds up. When he's finished, he jumps off the stage and takes a towel from Eppie to wipe his forehead. Eppie's wife is with him today, a short little woman, and for some reason I'm glad that means Eppie's not Natto's lover. Although I guess you still never know.

I see that Shauna and Matt are coming up the aisle. This is my chance to rat Matt out to her.

I consider this for a second. If I do say something, I know it won't be for the right reasons. It won't be to help Shauna. It'll be to satisfy some sick need for revenge. Which makes it half-wrong. Half-wrong because he
is
hurting her, and in some sense, she should know. So telling her might be the right thing for the wrong reason, but I'm not even sure it's totally the right thing—because I don't know that in the end, she'll leave him, or that he'll really change his ways. Maybe she'll be more guarded, which would be a good thing, but it might also be a bad thing. It might only hurt her. Maybe he has to change on his own. I am not really sure what the right thing is to do. It seems like telling her would be right and wrong at the same time.

Is it possible that there
is
no right answer for what I should do? That maybe this actually is a situation where it's not black-and-white?

Wow. Could that be?

I stand there, directly in their line of travel, like I'm toeing the edge of the ocean waiting to get hit by a wave.

When Matt sees me, his eyes look like they're about to jump out of his head.

“Hi, Shauna,” I say, shaking her hand.

“Carrie?” she says. Matt's stunned. “This is Matt. Matt, Carrie.”

Matt shakes my hand, looking like he's seeing a ghost.

“Shauna and I are going to do great work here,” I say.

Matt still doesn't know what to say.

“Are you okay?” I ask him.

“Pre-wedding jitters,” Shauna says, smiling. “We're getting married in April.”

“That's very exciting,” I say.

Matt says, “Hi.”

Shauna giggles. “Slow.”

“Like the sermon?” I ask him.

“Loved it,” he says, without smiling.

“Do you guys go to church a lot?” I ask sweetly.

Shauna smiles and looks at Matt. “We
used
to,” she says. “We think we're going to start going back now.”

“Well, it's good you got this assignment,” I tell Shauna.

“I'm really excited about it,” Shauna says.

“I also really like Joe Natto,” I say. “He doesn't pretend to have all the answers.” I look at Matt. “We have to judge for ourselves.”

Natto joins us and meets Matt. Then, Natto, Shauna and I repair to his office and Matt goes off to meet “friends” for lunch. I don't know if the “friends” are another woman, and I don't care. Hopefully Matt will decide what the right thing is to do.

I'm not going to tell Shauna. At least, not for now. Not until I can determine that it's right.

 

Shauna, Joe and I have a pretty good powwow. Shauna is very excited about her first big account. Who can blame her? She's going to be part of something new and potentially huge. She and I are going to
be
the First Prophets' Church. Anyone who sees it will see it through the prism of our marketing. I'll help with the text. We'll lure the greatest number of young, professional New Yorkers of any religious movement in years.

Oh, and I've read Joe's book. He's brilliant. I didn't like him hawking his book at first, but the content actually is more philosophical than spiritual. If this were another era, he'd probably be trying to get his work published as a book of philosophy, but that doesn't count for much these days. As for the “vision” he says he had, he told me it was more a group of conclusions he came to and not something imbued via an apparition. So he's not a loon. At least, not completely. And what's so bad about being a loon?

After Shauna leaves the office, I stay behind. I tell Joe I liked the book, and that I was worried, because generally, when I meet someone I think I might believe in, I have to contend with the fear that the more I learn about them, the more
bad
things I'll learn. It is true.

He laughs. “You are incredibly astute for nineteen,” he says. “Sometimes I feel like the younger one, when I'm with you.”

“I like making people feel younger,” I say.

“I like feeling it,” he says. “I haven't felt that way in a while.”

I smile.

“I don't want to make you uncomfortable, and you can say no, but it's lunchtime, and I was wondering if you would have lunch with me. Eppie and his wife may join us, if they're still around.”

“Sure,” I say, selfishly hoping they aren't.

As we leave the church, people keep coming up to Joe, and
he talks to them. He gives a couple some advice and makes them feel happy. I can't believe I'm going to be spending time with someone so charismatic.

 

At my next meeting with Petrov, I tell him about New Year's, about Cy (although I leave out the more salacious details) and about Natto. I ask him what he did for New Year's. He says he spent it with his daughter and son-in-law and their kids. I'm sure he would have liked to have been with Sheryl. But she was probably with her husband on New Year's.

I guess he can sense what I'm thinking. “She was out…” he starts.

“I know.”

He doesn't say anything.

“I don't know what the answer is.”

If psychologists don't have the answers, and preachers don't, and I don't, who does?

Certainly not anyone who pretends to. They know least of all.

“Dr. Petrov,” I say. “What's Sheryl's middle name?”

He leans back. “It's…Stephanie.”

He's got it bad.

Can he help it?

 

That night, I finally write something extensive in my journal.