About to make a beeline to the elevator, I instead decide to put on the brakes and stop to say hi to Mr. David in the doorway, truly expecting dead eyes. Well, to my surprise, he lit up like a Christmas Tree and WFWSC was next to me, impressed. “Hiiiiii! You came to see your girl in our show?!” “Yes, yes and you were fantastic, too!” “Well how about you? You’re doing well, I hear!” Before I can ask what he’s heard he says, “I mean, I see! You’re on the sides of buses all over town!” Now, I am NOT on buses all over town, but the girl who did Wicked on tour w Garrison IS, because she has a hit TV show. And I…CRACKED. I mean, my face SPLIT in two. WFWSC is still next to me shaking with joy, trying not to burst and I really just want to make my escape to the elevator, so I don’t correct him. “Yeah, things are good. Just in for a visit! Exciting stuff.” Thanks, Cool Girl. Garrison turns to WFWSC and starts to introduce himself and she says through a HUGE smile, “Oh, I did Broadway with you for a minute. I’ve straightened my hair so I look different…” “Oh my GOD, of COURSE,” he gushes and we skedaddle into the elevator where I lean against the wall cracking up as WFWSC manages to recount the events for the rest of our friends. Oh, if that was the only time I cracked this week.
I’ve reached out to The Unicorn to have a hang. He invited me to his Improv show the same night as the play so I couldn’t attend but we made plans to see each other a few nights later. Now, he knows nothing of my blog or the stage reading of my blog I am planning during this trip and most of all he does not know my true feelings about him. That is to say, the words have never come out of my mouth. I’ve tried so often to say it with my eeeyes…
I meet up with him in Worldwide Plaza, a place he’s never been but where I practically lived when I was here and we get interrupted by people I know quite a bit. “Everyone’s just so happy to see you. All the time. Wherever we go,” he says to me. And for some reason I feel the need to apologize for that. And I don’t mention that my friend Flute Playah is seeing a show in the same complex as us and may meet up later. I’m all kinds of in my head about everything.
So after a very short, pointless musical, I wait around after to chat with more friends who were in the thing and watching the thing. The Unicorn excuses himself and takes a phone call outside. I see Flute Playah as I’m heading out and he’s waiting for HIS friends in the show HE saw and we all decide to head to a cafe across the street for drinks and stuff. But I guess the two never really met. And we sit at separate tables in the restaurant so they really had no interaction. Until we’re walking to the subway.
As we’re headed along 42nd street, the very first thing Flute Playah says to The Unicorn is, “So are you coming to Cool Girl’s show Sunday night?” *CRAAACK* My hand turns into a claw and grips Flute Playah’s shoulder. My eyes are crazed with panic as I stare him down. We both start giggling uncomfortably. Finally, The Unicorn interjects, “Oh, I have to go to Boston this weekend. My friend’s parent died. That was the phone call I took. But what are you doing on Sunday?” He looks at me and I wanna crawl into a hole because of the small amount of hurt I see there. I start to ramble. “Well, it really isn’t anything yet, just an idea I’d like to work out in front of…like if 10, 15 people come, I’d be thrilled, just my inner INNER circle I invited, if you know what I mean…” Smooth, Cool Girl. Just tell the boy he’s not in your inner circle. What kind of jackass are you?
Flute Playah and his boyfriend slip out to get on the A train and I awkwardly leave The Unicorn on the subway platform waiting for the express while I get on the 1. I’m pretty sure I banged my head on the closing doors instead of standing clear like the nice man asked me on the PA. I get uptown and call Flute Playah immediately. I may have screamed into the phone. “You’re supposed to be my best Gay!!! What have you doooone?!?!” I’m doing that horrible laughing while panicked thing as he defends, “I didn’t KNOW it was HIM. You didn’t introDUCE meeee!!” And then we got down to the nitty gritty. I held my head in my hands and FP quietly suggested, “Maybe its time to tell him the truth.” It was after midnight by the time we hung up and I was not going to wake him up to talk about this. Instead I wrote him an email:
Re: Hiya. Remember earlier when I said I wasn’t a good liar? Well…
I'm really not. And I think you may of have an inkling of when I was bullshitting my way out of being busted by my friend Jason tonight.
This is so hard for me to do, and I went to call you three times after I got in tonight but I know you're getting up for work tomorrow and I didn't want you to have to deal with MY crap when you were trying to go to bed.
*deep breath*
K, I actually am only inviting a small group of peeps to see this show on Sunday night. It will be one of the hardest things I've ever done bc its crazy personal and is ACTually about MY life and not about a character I've made up or anything. And the reason why I never told you about it is because I plan to talk about you in it. Names have been changed to protect the innocent, of course.
There are things that I cop to in the play that I haven't confessed to you, although I feel like you must have a tiny glimmer of my feelings at the VERY least... I stupidly thought that I could get away with quite literally going behind your back and do this without actually telling you. I'm a fool, really.
The truth is when you say things like "I wish you still lived here", I want to scream back "MEEEEE TOOOOO!" bc one of the hardest things about being away is not getting to spend time with you. And then, when I reeeally listen to what you're saying, I realize that it may just be bc you think I'm a really good Julie from the Love Boat or something...
The truth is that when I met you, I had given up on believing that a guy like you even exSISTed, let alone could roll up into my life. There are so many things that are a part of me that I feel like most people our age aren't even open to hearing about, like Mass or Faith or how I think sex is a precious thing and I don't give it away for shits and giggles; things that I would never feel the need to hide from you. Its so freeing knowing someone out there actually gets all that stuff w/o judgement or fear of them looking at me like I'm from Mars or something.
The truth is that I am crazy about you. You make me laugh. And think. And wanna be a better person. And I could just fall into your face sometimes... I am so going out on a limb here that its crazy but I realize that even if you don't return my feelings, I will not die and actually telling the truth will be better for me in the end. I am trusting that it is what God wants me to do. Bc its right.
If you're reading this, its bc I had the balls to hit 'send'. Good for me.
I hope you can forgive me for feeling like it was okay to tell "the world" all of this before I actually told you. And I am praying you opened this at a time that wasn't totally filling your life with fuckery.
KD
I think I turned a knife in Cool Girl’s gut that night. Needless to say, very little sleep was had.
The next morning was a slow one for me, spent mainly emailing students and friends and catching up on things I had fallen behind on while on this trip. I’d left to go out for the day and there was no response as of yet.
I met up with a friend for coffee before I who is an avid reader of Cool Girl Is Dead because she totally relates. I told her all of the previous night’s events and we laughed until we cried. I was putting up a brave front.
She gives me a big hug at the door of the massage place’s building and right before I enter, my phone beeps. It’s an email from him.
I scan quickly through the email and tears come to my eyes. I won’t print his response here but I will tell you he used the word “friendship” four times and “friend” once.
I see the sweet Larry the Rub Guy and I fall apart. Every time I see him it seems like I’m going through a major life crisis of some sort. He always listens, to every part, by the way. I lay face down on the massage table and my tears fall through the opening of the headrest. And I thank God for LRG.
Everyone keeps telling me how “brave” it is that I’m doing this and how “courageous” I am for “speaking my truth”. All I can say is the last thing I wanna do is be brave. I wanna lay like a pile of fleshy pulp and have someone pick me up from the middle of the street and take care of me. In the movie The Family Stone, Luke Wilson’s character talks to Sarah Jessica Parker’s about a dream he’s had about her. He says something to the effect of, “You were a little girl and you were shoveling snow. Except I was the snow. Everywhere. And you were scooping me up.” That’s the relief I want. Just to be taken care of for five minutes. That would be just so…nice.
And of course, all I wanna do now is be a total whore. I wanna make bad decisions. And I want a LOT of chocolate brownies. But empty calories will not fill up these cracks.
