Naomi and Ely's No Kiss List (15 page)

12 Who the fuck am I kidding?

13 I’m not kidding myself, that’s for sure.

14 Robin
has the right idea. When Robin
told her he just wanted to be friends, she threw her
at him. Just picked up her appletini and splashed it over his just-wanna-be-friends expression. Then she stormed out and left him to pay for the drink she’d just emptied onto his face. I think it’s the last part I admire the most. (Of course, afterward she cried for about six days, which was about five and a half more than I could really stomach. I told her the only person a named Robin should date is a guy named Batman, so they can live in their Brokeback Batcave and
. I told her she could do better, even though she probably can’t. That’s what friends are for.)

15 I miss Dad. Even when all of these other things are going on, even when he should be two thousand miles away from my thoughts, I wish he was here. Not so we could return to the fighting time, but back farther than that, to the good time. I know he and Mom both say now that the good time wasn’t really that good, but what matters to me is that I didn’t know it then. I felt it was good, and even though that’s selfish, it’s really good enough for me.

16 Do you remember, Ely, the way we’d always be picking places to get married? How many years did we do that? In front of the polar bear pool at the Central Park Zoo. Or in a swank soirée at the Temple of Dendur. Or on the Staten Island Ferry, with the guests changing every time we docked. Or at the top of the Empire State Building, before we realized how cliché that was. Then just this August, when you dragged me to XXL so you could flirt with one of the go-go boys while all the gone-gone boys hit on me . . . at one point between oglings, you leaned over to me and said, “Maybe we should get married
here.
” And I laughed, because it was funny. And I was happy that you’d made us into an us again, in a place that wouldn’t treat us like an us. And I was upset—really upset— that you weren’t taking it seriously, that you would never take it seriously. Even though it was ridiculous, I wanted you to care.

17 I am so over guys. Even gay guys. Especially gay guys. Sympathize all you want, boys, but when it all comes down to it, you still have dicks.

18 Look, there’s Gabriel. He’s looking very, very gazeworthy tonight.

19 Oh, Mrs. Loy, don’t glare at me like I’m a strumpet. I know you want Bruce the First to be the Harold to your Maude, and now you should be royally pleased that I’m freeing him from the shackles of being sadly in love with me. Maybe he’d like a real Dame for a change.

20 It shouldn’t be called a multi-purpose room. It’s a no-purpose room.

21 Almost there. Almost there.

22 I’m so glad I didn’t sleep with Bruce the First. And by
sleep with,
I mean
have intercourse with.
We did a lot of sleeping, and that was nice. In fact,
was the nicest part. I’m glad I’m smart enough to know that not getting to have intercourse with your first choice for your first is not reason enough to have intercourse with choice #2.

23 I’m so tired. Tired of the drama. Tired of missing Ely. Tired of spending all my time trying not to miss him. Tired of being so fucking angry. At him. At Mom. At Dad. And most of all at the universe. Tired of having to deal with people. Tired of not getting anything close to what I want. Tired of having the wrong people want me. Tired of wanting the wrong people. Tired of the
and the
and the
. Tired of thinking. Tired of the games. But if I got rid of all of that—what would I have left?

24 Why is Gabriel smiling like that? It’s like he knows the
List
^TM
has been
A into pieces.

25 Danger! Danger!

26 Do you really have anything left to lose?

27 Go for it.

GABRIEL

TRACKS

Track 1
Chris Isaak: “Graduation Day”

This is the song for both of us: the past.

The day we met was your graduation day—yours and Ely’s. Make that
night.
It was night. You and Ely still wore your graduation robes. You were both ripped. The parties were long over, but the two of you cuddled on the lobby sofa until dawn, empty champagne bottles at your feet. You laughed and sang songs. You seemed to be making up ditties on the spot as you goaded one another into belches. That was your game, seeing who could push the other the farthest.

Your graduation day was my first night on the job. I wondered why the building residents who passed through the lobby took no notice of you and Ely—like that’s how you could be found on any night, two drunken teenagers wearing graduation robes, burping and singing and teasing, holding on to one another for dear life and yet not groping one another, either. Whispering secrets.