Saturday Afternoon Heartbreak, Part II

Okay, I left you guys off just as CouchSleeper arrived. Anyway, as soon as he got there, Narc started paying less attention to me. All three of us were sitting on the couch and it was a little akward. I don't think Narc felt comfortable being physically affectionate with me in front of his friend. His friend was very nice though. The movie he had to watch--Serpico with Al Pacino. We all watched it, but honestly, it was a pretty dull movie. It had a good premise (all about cop corruption), but I thought it was poorly executed. The best part was laughing at Pacino's crazy costumes.

In the middle of the movie, Narc said he had to go into the other room to call his mother. He has a really strange relationship with his mother. He absolutely hates her, but still needs to call her for money. Their family is old money and really very rich but I guess she's still in control of his trust fund or something. I don't know... I never ask not only because it's tacky, but because I really don't give a shit about how much money he has, and I don't want him to think that I do. He was on the phone with her for a while. When he came out of his bedroom, CouchSleeper laughingly asked him if he survived. Narc laughed about it too, but I knew it was hard for him and I wanted to give him a hug. I'm an expert at "denial" and had somehow managed to sweep under the carpet all of the confused and unpleasant feelings from that morning, once again feeling only sympathy and affection for my Narc. The two of them didn't seem to want to do anything except watch TV though. Serpico ended and they put on a slew of shows that Narc had TiVod--Real Time with Bill Mahr, an old episode of The Daily Show, some Curb Your Enthusiasm, and HBO's TaxiCab Confessions, New York. (That one was actually pretty funny--I can so see myself ending up on that show!).

Anyway, as you can imagine, the day was melting away. I was pretty fucking bored and was being pretty much ignored. I kept trying to make small physical contacts with Narc, like putting my hand on his, or holding on to his fingers. He didn't push me away or anything, but he was exuding a standoff-ish vibe. Hammer called me and I went into Narc's bedroom for a while to talk to her. I really hope the boys didn't overhear me. I fiddled with my my cell phone and B had sent me a sweet text. He wrote:
Sorry I got mad. Don't know why this Narc stuff pushes my buttons so much. Please forgive me??? Hope you're ok. Love you.
He and I are getting better at talking this stuff out.

I was supposed to go to a party that night--a friend of mine was having a gathering at a club uptown. Narc and CouchSleeper had a party of their own, somewhere in Brooklyn. Narc said he was feeling lazy and didn't want to go all the way out to Brooklyn. I was feeling a little lazy myself. I was running on only two hours of sleep and completely drained from the emotional upheaval that morning.

At around 9:00 p.m. we ordered in Mexican food for dinner. Afterwards, I was even more tired. I was still debating whether or not to go to the party. I got up and tried to fix my hair and makeup. It was hard because I didn't have any supplies with me and I looked all rumpled and smeared from having sex all afternoon. I did my best though and pulled on my boots. I was yawning.

Narc looked up from his spot on the couch. "You know, you don't have to go to the party. If you're tired, maybe you should take it easy. You can always stay here..."

"Yeah, but I don't know..." I said. "I should go to this party. I told her I would be there. Besides, it's Saturday night! You guys really want to sit around and do nothing on a Saturday night? I mean, if I don't go to the party, I should at least go to Cheers or something. We've been sitting here doing nothing all day."

"It doesn't matter that it's Saturday," he said. "You woke up early. If you need sleep, you need sleep!"

"I guess."

My eyelids felt heavy. I stood there unsure of what to do.

"Maybe I'll just take a Vivarin or something. Do you still have any?"

Narc went to get me the Vivarin. At that point it was almost 11:00 p.m.

"Are you sure you want to take this so late at night?"

"Yeah, not a big deal."

Narc was impressed that I could dry-swallow the pill. I thought it was funny. The Vivarin didn't help though. I was still tired beyond belief.

"Maybe I should just take a nap or something," I suggested. "Will you guys wake me up in half an hour?"

"Sure."

I went into Narc's room and collapsed into bed. The half hour passed and Narc came to wake me. I felt even groggier than before.

"Doesn't look like you're up to your party," he said. "Just stay..."

I wanted to stay, but I felt like he wasn't paying any attention to me. I guess I wanted him to try to convince me to stay.

"No, I think I'll go."

I called Hammer and left her a message that I was heading to the party if she wanted to come. I sat on the floor to put my boots back on. I was being deliberately slow. I really didn't want to go. Narc walked over to the door and opened it.

"Well?" He waited there for me to leave.

"What, are you kicking me out now?" I feebly smiled.

"No, not at all. It's just, either you're staying or you're going. Make up your mind, but whatever. Mi casa es su casa, you know that..."

"Maybe I will just stay then." (Looks like he wasn't willing to convince me) "But do you have something I can change into? I don't want to be stuck in these restrictive clothes."

Narc went into his room and got me sweats and a T-shirt. I settled into the big armchair in the corner of the room. He and CouchSleeper were fifteen minutes into some horror movie, Saw. I watched the rest of the film with them. It really creeped me out. I'm not very good with those...I get nightmares from them easily and I get very skittish while I watch them. After that movie ended (at around 2:00 a.m.) the two of them popped Snatch in the DVD player.

"Another movie?" I asked. What the fuck? Was Narc ever going to pay attention to me again or go to bed?

"Well, I've never seen this one," he said.

I moved to sit next to him on the couch and put my head on his lap. Normally when I lay like that he's affectionate and puts his arm around me. In this case, he let me sleep there, but still seemed akward. I fell asleep pretty fast. They woke me up at around 4:00 a.m. to move into the bedroom. More fucking. I started to drift to sleep.

"I'm really sorry about today," he said. "I really wanted to see Boheme."

His words cut through me. He didn't say anything about wanting to see it with me, only that he was interested in the opera. He didn't offer to pay me for the ticket or anything. In fact, he again tried to minimize what he had done.

"It's not a big deal though, right? Because you have a series. You can exchange the tickets."

"Not really. You can't exchange tickets for an event that's already passed..."

"Oh, well..." he didn't know what to say. I was laying on his chest. He just sort of gave me a little squeeze.

"I just hope you didn't miss it on purpose," I said.

"On purpose? No! I told you that I overslept."

"Maybe you overslept for a reason..."

"What, like you mean I subconsciously didn't want to go? If I didn't want to go, I would have said so. I wouldn't have agreed to it in the first place. I'm not obliged..."

All the pain of that morning came back and constricted my heart. My chest felt tight and I couldn't breathe. Narc was drifting into sleep, but I just felt worse and worse. I tossed and turned a bit. Then, fuck it. I couldn't stay next to him. I hated him. I got out of the bed and started to pull on my jeans.

"What are you doing? If you want to go to the bathroom, you can just put my robe on." (Remember, CouchSleeper was doing his thing--sleeping on the couch).

"No, it's not that. I just want to go home. I just don't feel good."

"It's 5:00 in the morning! Don't you think you shouldn't be traveling if you don't feel good?"

"It's not physical, Narc. I don't feel good emotionally."

"Oh, well..." He rolled over with a little sigh of exasperation. Like he's so sick of my "histrionics." Then he turned back to look at me. "Is there anything I can do?"

"Not really...I don't know."

"Well, then goodnight." He turned to go back to sleep.

I sat down on the side of the bed. I was so tired that my head was throbbing. The thought of facing the cold street seemed like a nightmare. At the same time, I didn't want to lay next to him. I put my head down on the pillow, fully dressed, staying as close to the edge of the bed as I could. Within minutes I had drifted into sleep. A few minutes later, I forced myself awake. Fuck it, I would just stay there. I undressed again and got back in bed. He pulled me close to snuggle me. Soon enough, we were both fast asleep.

The next morning, my cell phone woke us up. It was VJ. I didn't mention this earlier, but she is going through a personal crisis and had called me in tears on Saturday morning as well. I didn't get to the phone on time, so she left a message. Narc and I fucked some more. Then we got dressed and peered in on CouchSleeper. He woke up and he and Narc went back to watching TV.

"More TV???" I asked. "Aren't you guys feeling brain-rot yet?"

"Want to get brunch?" Narc asked, looking at CouchSleeper.

"Brunch?" I said.

"Yeah, want to get some?" he turned to me.

"Sure."

"I can't," CouchSleeper said. "I've got to head back to Jersey."

Shortly thereafter, CouchSleeper left and Narc and I headed out. We went to a really cute restaurant called "Landmarc." I wasn't able to walk that fast because I still had my super high heels on. Narc was constantly two steps ahead of me. I didn't think it was nice that he had to walk a step ahead.

Brunch was good though, and we had some good conversation. We talked about real things and intellectual things. It was nice. He seemed really depressed though. I wanted to kiss him and cheer him up.

"What's wrong?" I asked.

"I'm just tired," he said.

"Maybe it's all the laying around and watching TV."

I suggested that he go out and do something exciting--something rewarding that he wouldn't normally take the time to do.

"Like what?" he asked.

"Like a museum. Remember we were going to go to the Whitney? You said you didn't have time to go. Now you have time, right?"

(For those of you who don't remember, I asked him to go to the museum way back in mid-January. It was supposed to be a "litmus test" for me. He agreed to go the night of BarMan's volleyball game, back on January 19th. He said we had to wait a few weeks though because he had to "finish his writing." After a while, I just gave up on the idea, figuring that he never intended to go with me in the first place. So I invited Jake to go see the Bill Viola with me, but we hadn't gone yet.)

"The Whitney?" he asked. "I never said I was going with you. I was supposed to go with ModelChick." (ModelChick is his ex-girlfriend. Not the most recent one, but the one before. And that's his nickname for her, not mine...)

"What do you mean? Of course you said you would go with me. The Wednesday I came here after the volleyball game. You just said we had to wait two weeks because of your writing."

"I did? No... ModelChick is a big fan of Bill Viola" (I highly doubt it...) "I'm sure I told her I would go with her."

(He is so good at these fucking mind games!)

"Whatever..." I said. I looked down at my plate bitterly. "If you want to go with her, then go with her. I have other friends to go to. I'm just saying that we did talk about this last month."

"Well, I don't have to go with her. She flakes out on things all the time. If you want to go today, we can go."

What? Was Narc offering me an afternoon hang-out? Was this his way of making up for what he had done to me the day before?

"Okay! Let's go. But I have to stop home first and change my shoes. There's no way I can make a museum trip in these shoes."

He agreed and we were off. It was SO FUCKING STRANGE to be out and about the city with Narc in the daylight. He was still acting standoff-ish and uncomfortable around me though. I got into the museum for free with my student I.D. The Bill Viola was amazing (to me) but Narc wasn't so impressed. I want to go back a million more times before it closes, so I have no problem going again with Jake. Narc isn't really that into modern art. He can't stand conceptual art that doesn't take a lot of technical skill. I know a lot about modern art and like a lot of it, but we just weren't on the same wavelength. He went through the exhibits much faster than I did so we weren't even really walking around together or talking.

We didn't have that much time in the museum before closing and I waited for Narc in the lobby while he used the restroom. Guess who I saw? Jude Law! I was super psyched because as some of you know I have a serious crush on him. He was with his girlfriend. The lobby was crowded though, and before I could get too close they were on their way out.

Narc and I headed out. We needed to cross town to get to the subway on the West Side. As it was a nice night out, we decided to walk through the park. While I've seen "the Gates" installation passing through the park in a cab, this was the first time I got to walk through them. It was twilight, and I clung to Narc's arm. As we strolled through, the park was absolute beauty. I wanted to kiss him so badly, but he still seeemd depressed and I didn't want to be invasive. We got to the other side of the park and onto the subway.

I had to head back downtown for a dinner party hosted by my friend IronChef. She was my boss in my first job out of college (at the largest classical music managment company) and then became something more like a big sister to me. She also happens to be an insanely amazing chef. Her mom is here visiting from Taiwain, so she wanted her mom to be able to meet all of her friends. Narc walked me to buy some liquor to bring to the party and then we parted ways. I commented on how much we had seen each other over the past week and we akwardly hugged goodbye. What do you guys all make of his distant behavior? I need some help analyzing...

Anyway, IronChef's dinner party was so much fun. MusicMngr was there who also worked with us at that company. She is a generation older than I am, but a lot of fun. The dinner party was a lot of laughter, wine, champagne and then my gourmet beer, and of course--the amazingly delicious food! Spareribs, spring rolls, a pork curry with lychee fruit, shrimp with apples and chinese broccoli. Yummmmm!!! I got pretty buzzed at the party on refill after refill. I left the place at around 11:00 and stepped out into the snow. It was falling freshly and pretty hard. I headed to Manchester. There I hung with Maeve for a little while, and a Domincan guy who works in advertising. He and I got in a big debate about politics and art and what constitutes art. He started to really annoy me because he kept contradicting himself, and even drunk, I was confident in my skills as a supreme debator. I finally checked myself out at about 2:30 because I knew if I had one more I would pass out. I stumbled home drunk in the snow. I guess today marks my first day of not drinking for the week...

Anyway, B just arrived for our weekly ritual of 24, so I better go. By the way, I keep having dreams in which this part of Tennyson's "The Charge of the Light Brigade" appears. It's on my tounge and my mind when I wake up. Hammer, your analysis please?

Their's not to make reply
Their's not to reason why
Their's but to do and die:
Into the valley of Death Rode the six hundred.