“No, economics. Or – I was. Business management and all that…”
“Um, why?” he queried, his expression suggesting a gross taste in his mouth.
Why? Yeah, I’d asked myself that a few times…
“I don’t know! It – I thought it was…I went to Wharton, okay? That’s what you do there – it’s a business school.”
He was suddenly all alert. “Wait – you mean Wharton- Wharton?”
And now I work in an Aldi. I nodded miserably.
“Whoa,” Halley said quietly. Then, “Fuck. I am in the presence of a…” he trailed off.
“Of a guy who peaked too early?” I suggested. “Who never reached his potential? Who clearly wasn’t as great as he’d thought he was, if he couldn’t sell himself even with a degree from Wharton…? Who’s getting to learn about management from a whole other perspective nowadays?”
I suppose he thought I was cut up about it. I wasn’t, really – I’ve already told you that. Just…jaded. But he jumped up and flung himself at me from the sofa opposite, crouching between my knees and gripping my shoulders, shaking slightly.
“Stop it!” he commanded. “Stop dissing yourself like that!”
When my eyes met his searching stare, he let go of my shoulders and instead gently wrapped his long fingers around my each of my wrists.
“Bede,” he pleaded, “Bede. Don’t do this. Don’t give up on yourself. You have cart-loads of talent, even I can tell that. I can’t – I don’t understand why you’re sitting here talking like anything that’s ever gonna happen to you has already happened…”
“Because that’s what it feels like,” I told him. And then my eyes started to prick. Yeah. That one got under my skin.
He closed my hands together, covered them with his own, squeezed. “He-ey…” he whispered. “Hey. C’mon. You know that isn’t true…”
Well. I knew it possibly wasn’t true…
“We were gonna order pizza,” I reminded him.
“Oh, yeah…” He let go and stood up, unkinking his limbs like some insect, and tugged his phone out of his pocket.
I might’ve felt some embarrassment about how he’d, uhh, touched me – I mean, he was basically holding my hands for a moment there – but the fact that he obviously felt none made it seem pointless. So I cheered up and ate pizza and pissed out most of the beer and let myself get infected by Halley’s steadily rising enthusiasm…
He twitched really badly through the process of standing in a long line to confirm our registrations and get the lanyard and badge which would allow us to bypass all this shit tomorrow and Sunday – it was like waiting with a two year-old, only with slightly less whining and a lot more profanity…
He also had close to no focus. Once we were inside and faced with a cornucopia of stalls and tribute acts and live Q and A’s and green screens and VR booths and selfie opportunities, he continually darted here and there as he spotted some amazing new thing, grabbing my wrist and towing me along with him if I was slow off the mark…
I wasn’t mad. Although I’d have been loving the experience even by myself, Halley was definitely adding a touch of magic to it. With the excitement, he had almost a quicksilver quality to him, iridescent and fleeting. Hyped up and completely unfiltered, he was kinda…bewitching. I gave myself permission to be goofy and immature alongside him as we put on headsets and plunged into the future-past, took thousands of dumb selfies, photo-bombed very serious groups of cosplayers…
We got back to his a quarter after eleven, and Halley said to me;
“I forgot to tell you earlier – I couldn’t get my shift covered tomorrow. So you’ll have to do the morning sesh without me. I’ll try not to wake you when I head out.”
“Shit, that sucks!” I felt so bad for him – the only weekend ever that something like this is happening…
He shrugged. “Well, you can’t hardly blame people for not wanting to take on an additional early shift. I have Sundays off, and I probably wouldn’t offer to cover for somebody unless they were on the verge of death…anyways, the weekend chef is a good guy and he said I can leave early if I get everything done, so let’s hope it’s a slow day…”
I remembered he started work at 5.30am. “We probably shouldn’t have stayed so late…”
Halley was unbothered. “Eh, who needs sleep anyway?” He joked, tossing a couple of pillows in my direction before heading into the bathroom.
Me? I thought, eyeing the sofas, neither of which were large. I do. I wonder how this is gonna work? But once I’d wriggled into my sleeping bag and stretched out as best I could, I fell asleep almost instantly.
I woke up three hours later, because I’d had a dream. That’s right. A. Dream. The cast of which was; me…and Halley. Fortunately – thank god and Loki and whoever else – it ended before there was a giant mess to clean up, but still…
I pushed myself upright and sat hugging my sleeping bag-swaddled knees. What. The hell? What was that all about? I don’t dream of anything for close on two years, and then…this?
I chewed it over for maybe an hour and concluded that subconsciously, I’d been way more invested than I’d let myself realise in the possibility that something might happen between us when we met up. Because, yeah, I’d thought she – he – was a girl…
It probably also didn’t help that he was so tactile, so apparently clueless about the concept of personal space…all that grabbing of my wrists, not to mention the times he looped a casual arm over my neck while the other stretched out in front holding either his phone or mine. And even when people volunteered to take photos of us and there was no need to kind of snuggle up so everything fitted in the frame, he pretty much did it anyway…
…and I had.not.hated it…
It’s hard to calm down and just, I dunno, get some perspective on things, when it’s the middle of the night and you’re alone in unfamiliar surroundings. I was still awake when Halley left for work, but once he was gone I fell asleep again, only to come to in the glare of full sunlight just before nine, sticky and thirsty and hung-over feeling. Yet another thing that wasn’t in the plan…
I drank some of Halley’s freeze-dried coffee, showered and dressed and brushed my teeth and hair, grabbed up the spare key he’d left for me and tumbled out to my car as fast as I could manage, not wanting to miss any more minutes of this once-in-a-lifetime experience than absolutely necessary.
Obviously I was tired, and probably a bit hungry – and maybe still slightly jaggy from all the night-time psychoanalysis? Whatever the reason, the whole thing felt a bit…flat, compared to the previous evening’s experience.
About midday, I decided a different approach was needed. I left the venue and found myself a smoothie and a chicken salad wrap, hoping some healthy food would re-set my system. And then…without precisely intending to, I drove back to Halley’s place, instead of returning to the roadshow. Oh well, I thought, slotting my key in the lock. Might as well admit it. It was more fun with him there.
…you might as well admit the rest while you’re at it, Bede, said the voice in my head. Go on, admit it…