Page 44 of Backslide
“Good thing I’m a doctor,” I say. I have dissected cadavers. Examined bones poking through skin. Reset the elbows of NFL cheerleaders. I can totally keep this professional,right?
With a sharp exhale, Nell stands up straight. Keeps her eyes focused forward. Like she is prepared for battle. “Just do it,” she says.
So I do. Slowly, carefully, I slide the soft cotton dress up against her body, edging her out of it bit by bit, until I’m able to slip it off over her head. And when I do, maybe it’s an illusion, but I swear I see her shiver.
There is total silence in the room as she stands there practically naked. And I try not to look. I really do. But she’s wearing a thong and there’s so much bare skin and I’m only human and, though I try my best not to gape, my peripheral vision is horribly A-plus. I know immediately that the curve of her back, of her waist, of her upper thighs will haunt me for the rest of my days.
As quickly as I can, I untwist the straps of her dress in my hands.
“Ready?” I ask, holding it up.
She nods. Stepping just inches behind her, so I can feel the heat of her body warming mine, I begin to slide the dress back down overher head. She slips the arm she can lift beneath one strap, then I help ease the hurt arm through the other side, my hand sliding down her smooth limb to bend her elbow. Once her arms are clear, I take hold of the dress on either side of her rib cage and drag the fabric slowly down over her chest as it rises and falls—past her taut stomach, her hips. I bend to straighten it at her thighs, trying to ignore my hand’s proximity to her ass.
And she’s right. It’s like I know her body and I don’t.
And it’s a fucking miracle that I don’t just lose it right there. In the middle of this charming suite. At this quaint hotel.
It’s a fucking miracle I can stand up straight, zip up the back zipper, and say, “Okay. I think you’re good.”
Neither of us move for a beat.
Then, very slowly, she turns around to face me. We are less than a foot apart. The air between us whirrs and twists like an engine revving. She meets my gaze, with her stormy-weather eyes, and in them I think I read the same pull I feel.
My heart is pounding like I’ve been sprinting, but I’m standing completely still. I’m afraid to breathe.
Then she leans in, so we are separated by inches. Parts her lips.
“This never fucking happened,” she says in my face.
And she turns on her heel and leaves.
9BOTHBACK IN THE DAY
There are evening calls. Late-night calls.
You hang up. No you hang up.
My mom says I have to hang up.
There are group hangs at monuments in Riverside Park, at people’s somehow empty apartments, at a local Burger King, where the teens all order nothing and sit for hours at orange tables that glisten with grease.
When Nellie and Noah are around the group, there’s awkwardness between them despite how much they have shared over the phone about his absent father and her challenging brother and baseball pressure and art portfolios. About TV shows they like (FriendsandTwin Peaks reruns), TV shows they love to hate (Beverly Hills 90210—except she still watches all the time).
In person, sometimes they acknowledge each other. Sometimes they don’t. Most often, they circle each other, feeling their shared presence—stealing glances, talking loudly, trying to pull each other’s focus—but rarely actually interacting.
In person, theyactlike they don’t care.
They have not told their friends about what’s happening between them.
Whatishappening between them?
For no good reason, this thing they’re doing feels like a secret, something that isn’t ready to survive out in the daylight under the gaze of their meddling social circle.
Until one day, they’re hanging in separate groups side by side at Sheep’s Meadow in Central Park, awash in late spring’s rediscovered warmth. Their arms and legs bared, the crew is blissfully unaware that they’re smoking joints, sunbathing, and cracking jokes where actual sheep once roamed or that, in an amusing twist, they are also sheep in a way, following each other’s lead.
As if at a seventh-grade dance, they are split by gender. Girls in one group. Boys in the other. The only exception is the occasional girlfriend or hookup, an outsider the Upper West Side girls don’t really know, lodged carelessly in the grass between her boyfriend’s bent legs.
Seemingly out of nowhere, Cara and Ben have somehow discovered each other and solidified into a real couple—something about a shared love ofStar Trek—even as Nellie and Noah have remained vague.
