When I woke up, nothing seemed real. I called Pete. He was awake, he�s always awake.
�Hey darling,� he slopped into the phone.
I asked if I could come over and he said of course. He asked if I wanted him to put the kettle on. I hung up the phone because I had to find my shoes and it�s hard to concentrate with Pete in your ear.
I left without locking the door and waded through transsexual prostitutes and late-shift cops to Pete�s apartment. I feel so relieved that going to Pete�s still makes me feel like this, like my whole life is erasable, changeable. I have a very good memory, but I still can�t remember how my feet felt on the pavement as I walked.
Pete had Barry White on, trying to seduce me. Pete always tries to seduce me. I laughed but I left it on for him. He was wearing tiny blue dolphin shorts and socks.
�Darling, the super is trying to smoke me out for rent. It is five hundred degrees.� He was mournful in his ridiculousness and I laughed. I slunk to the couch and he proffered a bottle.
�Here, drink vodka. It�s good for you.� I fixed mine with cranberry juice and Pete had his straight. He always looks at me when he drinks and I always get nervous, so I look around his apartment. Every time, even though there�s never anything different about it. Why is that?
The evenings usually go like this, and at some point, Pete, vodka-strange, pulled out the Jock Book. It�s what we named it, came from his parents. In high school he played every sport and his parents took every picture they could. They must have spent hundreds on film and processing and scrapbooking supplies and we just deface it.
�What horrible people,� Pete swishes in my ear. �Look, look at that one.� I look. Under his childishly marked-up face, he seems benign.
�He liked it hard. That�s what the rest of them said. Poor guy. His girlfriend wound up trying to shoot him.�
I don�t know what to say, so I laugh. �Serves him right for being on swim team.�
And Pete laughs and drinks and looks at me.
In the morning I go to work and leave Pete sleeping. I�m a secretary at an advertising agency and I can wear whatever I want. I like to see the faces of the married men change when I take off my glasses and jacket. When I shake my hair from my face, bending over the file cabinet.
I have an hour and a half for lunch, long enough for even a taxi ride if I want. I�m halfway through ordering at some identical gourmet sandwich place when I recognize the wormed mouth and dead hair. I don�t know what to say so I let him make my sandwich and I sit down. I know, I know that he will take off his plastic gloves soon to talk to me. I eat my sandwich while looking out the window. Fifteen minutes pass and he comes to take away my plate and wipe down the table.
�Meet me in the back?� I whisper.
He looks at me, dumbfounded. �I don�t know you.�
I take off my glasses and look out the window while he wipes down another table. I put my hand on his arm.
�Two minutes, I�ll meet you.�
Behind the store:
�Who the hell are you?�
�Did I say I knew?�
His name is Gabriel but I still don�t know him. I�ll go back to work and he�ll go back to work and Pete will go back to sleep and none of us will know each other.