{"id":6339,"date":"2013-04-01T00:10:41","date_gmt":"2013-04-01T05:10:41","guid":{"rendered":"\/nashvillereview\/?p=6339"},"modified":"2015-02-21T13:35:04","modified_gmt":"2015-02-21T19:35:04","slug":"woodley-park","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/wp0.vanderbilt.edu\/nashvillereview\/archives\/6339","title":{"rendered":"Woodley Park"},"content":{"rendered":"

Peter\u2019s apartment is small and hot, the windows propped open with empty wine bottles, the living room half-packed.\u00a0 Cardboard boxes labeled law books<\/em> and book books<\/em> and water glasses<\/em> stacked in the corner, the floor lamp missing a light bulb.\u00a0 The built-in shelves bare except for a three-speed box fan and a 1973 edition of Our Bodies, Ourselves <\/em>(Peter claims it was a Secret Santa gift), which we have already paged through twice in the last hour.\u00a0 Once to settle a debate on the definition of \u201ccervix\u201d and once just to look at the pictures.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s early\u2014not yet ten o\u2019clock\u2014but a bunch of us have rolled up the sleeves of our collared shirts and duct-taped wine bottles to our hands.\u00a0 We joke about conventional and unconventional uses for duct tape: one of us says, \u201cShoe repair,\u201d and someone else says, \u201cHair removal,\u201d and the rest of us nod and scratch our chins with six-dollar bottles of Merlot.\u00a0 \u201cHandcuffs,\u201d we conclude.\u00a0 Most of the girls have kicked off their heels.\u00a0 They pad across the hardwood floor barefoot and press cold beer bottles to their cheeks.\u00a0 They are much less discrete, now, when they check for wedding rings.<\/p>\n

Peter\u2019s new girlfriend, Mia, wears a blue party dress, a triangle-shaped hole cut from the back just beneath her shoulder blades.\u00a0 She sits on the windowsill and secures a necktie around her forehead.<\/p>\n

\u201cYou look like Bjorn Borg,\u201d says the owner of the tie.<\/p>\n

\u201cWho?\u201d she says.\u00a0 She strikes a match, watches it burn to her fingers, and drops it out the five-story window.<\/p>\n

\u201cYou\u2019ll set a pedestrian on fire.\u201d<\/p>\n

She tilts her head and raises her shoulder, a half shrug.\u00a0 \u201cUnlikely,\u201d she says.\u00a0 We did not know Mia in high school but it is obvious that she was one of those girls\u2014the girl for whom we have punished every girl since\u2014and that she still is.\u00a0 Five or ten years from now, when we are married and our wives convince us to see therapists, we will devote sessions to girls like Mia.<\/p>\n

In the meantime, we have three law degrees and three MBAs between us.\u00a0 We have excellent health insurance and five-year plans, which we recite as fluently as prayers.\u00a0 Several of us (not the MBAs) like to say, \u201cOh, I don\u2019t have a television,\u201d when asked if we have seen a particular television program.\u00a0 Two of us grew up with golden retrievers; one of the dogs was called Moses, the other Caroline.\u00a0 When our mothers call from our childhood homes in Cleveland and Wilton and Evanston, they plead for us to please, please<\/em> get some sleep.\u00a0 We are too ambitious for sleep.\u00a0 Mia, for one, recently shook hands with Bill Clinton at a black tie fundraiser.\u00a0 \u201cHe looked down my dress,\u201d she says whenever she recounts the event.<\/p>\n

_______________<\/span><\/p>\n

Mia drinks three or four cups of punch and starts to circulate the rumor that someone here, at the party, is pregnant, and we are relieved that she has, for once, stopped talking about law school.\u00a0 We imagine sliding our hands through the triangle-shaped hole in her dress, touching the warm, smooth skin of her back.<\/p>\n

\u201cPregnant?\u201d we say.\u00a0 \u201cOn purpose?\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cOf course not,\u201d she says.<\/p>\n

\u201cWho is it?\u201d<\/p>\n

The problem is that she does not know the who<\/em>.\u00a0 Her friend, Jane, started to tell her three drinks ago, but then left abruptly with a second-year medical resident.\u00a0 But Mia likes a mission, especially if it comes at the expense of someone else.\u00a0 \u201cIt\u2019s simple,\u201d she says.\u00a0 \u201cEveryone is drinking.\u00a0 Whoever\u2019s not drinking is pregnant.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cObjection,\u201d we say.\u00a0 \u201cUnsubstantiated.\u201d<\/p>\n

Mia ignores us.\u00a0 Immediately she eliminates the patent attorney, the illustrator in the red skirt, and the media buyer, who is lighting a cigarette, the smoke curling into the air like a signal.\u00a0 She points to a woman sipping from a clear plastic thermos.\u00a0 \u201cHer?\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cRecovering alcoholic,\u201d we say.\u00a0 We point to a guy on the couch: drinkless, wire-rimmed glasses, argyle sweater vest.\u00a0 \u201cWhat about Bumstead over there?\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cHa,\u201d she says.\u00a0 \u201cFunny.\u201d<\/p>\n

_______________<\/span><\/p>\n

One by one, we refresh our drinks at the makeshift bar.\u00a0 It is stocked with half a dozen bottles Peter wants to get rid of before he moves to the apartment in Woodley Park next week: the entire third floor of a row house on a quiet, curving street that feels vaguely European.\u00a0 He found it through the friend of an ex-girlfriend.\u00a0 Peter is friends with all of his ex-girlfriends\u2019 friends, but none of his ex-girlfriends.<\/p>\n

\u201cThink Mia has a key yet?\u201d someone says, and we agree, unanimously, that she went to have it copied the day he signed the lease.<\/p>\n

It takes a certain kind of person to serve Aristocrat at a party without seeming cheap\u2014equal parts ease and amicable indifference, someone who can enjoy an expensive glass of wine without swirling it around first\u2014and we all aspire to be that person.\u00a0 Peter is<\/em> that person.\u00a0 In college, he filled our cars, floor to ceiling, with plastic ball-pit balls.\u00a0 He baked sheet cake in the toaster oven on our birthdays.\u00a0 He coordinated elaborate group costumes on Halloween: M\u00f6tley Cr\u00fce, all nine Supreme Court justices, the fifteen former states of the Soviet Union.\u00a0 He slipped us Ritalin during midterms and slept with at least one of our sisters on graduation.\u00a0 Of all the people who are hard to say no to\u2014our mothers, our ex-girlfriends, our bosses, our personal trainers\u2014Peter is the hardest.<\/p>\n

After we refill our cups, we study the picture above the bar: a black and white promotional poster for All the President\u2019s Men<\/em>, in which Dustin Hoffman and Robert Redford look young and determined and charged with journalistic integrity.\u00a0 We remember how Peter was Bob Woodward a month ago, for Halloween; his neighbor, Betsy, was Carl Bernstein and John Diefendorf was Deep Throat.\u00a0 In the picture posted on the Internet, taken in front of the White House, Woodward is looking at Bernstein, Bernstein is grinning at the camera, and Deep Throat, slightly off kilter, is adjusting his trench coat.<\/p>\n

We spot Betsy near the doorway outside the kitchen, lovely as always in a sleeveless black shirt, slim black pants cuffed at the ankle, a wide green belt cinched at her waist.\u00a0 She is alone, sipping from a flask.\u00a0 On weekends she drinks vodka like water, which may have something to do with her job: she works with high-risk teenage girls to prevent substance abuse.\u00a0 \u201cDo I like<\/em> my job?\u201d she said, once.\u00a0 \u201cSixty percent of the time I want to stick my hand in the automatic stapler.\u201d\u00a0 We admire her candor.\u00a0 We admire the way she can stand alone at a party and make it look like precisely what she should be doing.\u00a0 She watches as Diefendorf attempts to remove the cap off a bottle of Rolling Rock by placing it on the edge of the windowsill and pounding it repeatedly with his fist.\u00a0 \u201cDief,\u201d she says, setting her flask on the sill.\u00a0 She takes the bottle and twists off the cap.\u00a0 \u201cHere.\u201d<\/p>\n

Diefendorf bows like a monk and drains half the bottle.\u00a0 He looks like a frat boy and speaks in the elliptical sentences of a poet. \u00a0\u201cAllow me to buy you a drink,\u201d he says.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe drinks are free.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cYou never let me buy you a drink.\u00a0 You never let anyone<\/em> buy you a drink.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cThe whole thing is more trouble than it\u2019s worth.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cFree drinks?\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cMen.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cNo, we\u2019re not.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cMy father has three ex-wives,\u201d Betsy says.\u00a0 \u201cTalk to one of them.\u201d<\/p>\n

Two things:<\/p>\n

    \n
  1. We are not<\/em> more trouble than we\u2019re worth.<\/li>\n
  2. Betsy is rumored to have spent the night with Peter on Halloween, a week or two before Mia came along.\u00a0 When asked, Betsy claims to have passed out on the steps outside the Library of Congress.<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n

    \u201cDid she or not?\u201d we say to Peter.<\/p>\n

    \u201cPardon?\u201d he says.<\/p>\n

    \u201cWe don\u2019t want the details,\u201d we say, even though of course we want the details.\u00a0 \u201cJust a yes or no.\u201d<\/p>\n

    \u201cGentlemen,\u201d he says.\u00a0 \u201cPlease.\u201d\u00a0 He takes a drink of Wild Turkey and goes over to talk to her.\u00a0 \u201cWhere\u2019ve you been?\u201d<\/p>\n

    \u201cAround.\u201d\u00a0 Betsy smiles and raises her flask.\u00a0 \u201cI hear your new apartment is huge.\u201d<\/p>\n

    \u201cIt\u2019s nice.\u201d<\/p>\n

    \u201cIt\u2019s palatial,\u201d Diefendorf says.\u00a0 \u201cYou could roller skate around the living room.\u201d<\/p>\n

    Peter touches the bandage at the crook of Betsy\u2019s arm.\u00a0 \u201cWhat happened here?\u201d<\/p>\n

    \u201cI gave blood.\u201d<\/p>\n

    \u201cI\u2019ve never given blood,\u201d he says.\u00a0 \u201cI really should.\u00a0 I have a rare blood type.\u201d<\/p>\n

    \u201cQuit bragging,\u201d Betsy says.<\/p>\n

    \u201cI claim to be a hemophiliac,\u201d Peter says.\u00a0 \u201cBut really I\u2019m just scared of needles.\u201d<\/p>\n

    In the center of the room, Mia circles the couch with a bottle of white wine in order to determine which girls, if any, decline it.\u00a0 She pauses mid-pour to watch Peter and Betsy, chews on her lower lip, and drops the wine bottle, which shatters on the floor.\u00a0 \u201cOops,\u201d she says as Peter turns.\u00a0 He walks over to her, careful to step around the glass.\u00a0 She buries her head into his shoulder, giggling.<\/p>\n

    _______________<\/span><\/p>\n

    By the time the playlist has started to repeat itself, we have swept up the broken glass and inaugurated the U.S. presidents game, in which we list the presidents in descending order.\u00a0 It is like darts; the more we drink, the better we get.\u00a0 We race backwards through the second half of the twentieth century, past Clinton and H.W. and Reagan and Carter, but lose steam around FDR.\u00a0 \u201cHoover,\u201d someone says, and the next person pauses and says, \u201cCoolidge?\u201d and the next person says, \u201cFuck.\u201d\u00a0 He closes his eyes and pinches the bridge of his nose.<\/p>\n

    \u201cHarding,\u201d Betsy calls from the other side of the room.\u00a0 \u201cYou never let me play.\u201d<\/p>\n

    \u201cBecause you always win.\u201d<\/p>\n

    We finish our drinks, and the familiar weight gathers in our chests, expanding outward through our arms and legs, to each of our extremities.\u00a0 We dread it\u2014our lurching cab rides home, our unmade queen-size beds, our Saturday dissolving into Sunday.\u00a0 We think of our fathers: how they sleep next to our mothers and stepmothers on memory-foam pillows.\u00a0 How they dream of teeth crumbling from their mouths, of sprinting through endless, Day-Glo landscapes, because they have forgotten that it\u2019s not entirely enviable to be young.\u00a0 We long to lock ourselves in the bathroom, lie facedown on the floor, and find clarity in the cold, hard tiles pressed against our foreheads.<\/p>\n

    Instead, we focus on the illustrator.\u00a0 She is on the couch with the bottle of Aristocrat, the bright red wool of her skirt creeping up her thighs.\u00a0 We imagine brushing our hands against the wool, locating the zipper, and the sound of fabric sliding against her skin, falling to the floor.\u00a0 We imagine waking tomorrow, alone, to a sketch of an old-fashioned rotary phone on the nightstand.<\/p>\n

    The illustrator finishes the last of the Aristocrat, lodges the bottle between two couch cushions, and bursts into tears.\u00a0 She rises and stumbles into the bathroom\u2014it is so quiet by the time she reaches it that we can hear the lock turn in the door.\u00a0 \u201cShe is<\/em> pregnant,\u201d Mia says.<\/p>\n

    \u201cYou think everyone is pregnant,\u201d Peter says.<\/p>\n

    \u201cShe is.\u00a0 Her life is over.\u201d<\/p>\n

    \u201cIt\u2019s not over<\/em>.\u201d<\/p>\n

    \u201cYou have no idea what you\u2019re talking about.\u201d<\/p>\n

    \u201cIt\u2019s strange,\u201d he says.\u00a0 \u201cShe\u2019s actually a smart girl.\u201d<\/p>\n

    Mia takes a loose thread from Peter\u2019s shirt and snaps it off.\u00a0 \u201cSmart people do stupid things all the time,\u201d she says.\u00a0 \u201cIt\u2019s practically all they do.\u201d<\/p>\n

    We return to the bar and mix brown and clear liquids, determined to postpone our hangovers.\u00a0 Next to us, Betsy says, \u201cIt\u2019s not a party until someone\u2019s crying.\u201d<\/p>\n

    Diefendorf nods philosophically.\u00a0 \u201cDo you cry at parties often?\u201d<\/p>\n

    \u201cNever.\u00a0 My mother taught me that.\u201d<\/p>\n

    \u201cShe\u2019s a stoic?\u201d<\/p>\n

    \u201cShe cries all the time.\u201d\u00a0 Betsy sets her flask on the windowsill and pulls a house key from her pocket.<\/p>\n

    \u201cHey,\u201d Diefendorf says.\u00a0 \u201cIt\u2019s early.\u201d<\/p>\n

    \u201cIt feels late.\u201d\u00a0 She leans over, pecks him on the cheek.<\/p>\n

    \u201cAlways a pleasure.\u201d\u00a0 He picks up the flask, takes a drink, and starts to cough.\u00a0 He lowers it, extending it in front of him.<\/p>\n

    \u201cWhat\u2019s she have in there?\u201d we say.\u00a0 \u201cPaint thinner?\u201d<\/p>\n

    Diefendorf looks at Betsy, then at us.\u00a0 \u201cWater,\u201d he says.<\/p>\n

    _______________<\/span><\/p>\n

    Betsy smiles, or at least attempts a smile, and for the first time we see how tired she is.\u00a0 \u201cI could have sworn it was vodka,\u201d she says.\u00a0 We realize that she has maintained a certain distance from Mia and her white wine bottle for the past hour.<\/p>\n

    We look at our hands, still red from tearing off the duct tape.\u00a0 \u201cPeter?\u201d we say.<\/p>\n

    She nods, twisting the wooden bracelet on her wrist.\u00a0 It occurs to us that we have known her for almost two years, but we have never seen her apartment.\u00a0 We do not know where she was born, or if she has brothers or sisters.\u00a0 We have no idea how she feels about children.<\/p>\n

    Across the room, Peter, oblivious, traces an \u201cx\u201d through the triangle-shaped hole in Mia\u2019s dress, and it is suddenly very easy to picture their bright, upwardly mobile future as a couple.\u00a0 They will train for half-marathons together.\u00a0 They will equip their kitchen with a top-rated coffee bean grinder and immersion blender and rice maker.\u00a0 They will send us glossy, custom-made cards every Christmas, which we will toss into the trash without opening.<\/p>\n

    \u201cBetsy,\u201d he calls.\u00a0 \u201cBrunch tomorrow?\u201d<\/p>\n

    \u201cNo thanks.\u201d<\/p>\n

    \u201cCome on,\u201d he says.\u00a0 \u201cDollar Bloody Marys?\u201d<\/p>\n

    \u201cAnother time.\u201d<\/p>\n

    He sighs and turns to us.\u00a0 \u201cGentlemen?\u201d<\/p>\n

    We watch as Betsy walks to the front door, as she pauses to pick up her sweater, and for a moment we want desperately to go over there, place a hand on the center of her chest, and stand there like that for a minute, feeling the soft fabric of her shirt and, beneath that, the heat of her skin and, beneath that, the protective plate of her sternum.\u00a0 But we lose our nerve, or we never really had it to begin with.<\/p>\n

    Sarah Mollie Silberman<\/a><\/h6>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

    Peter\u2019s apartment is small and hot, the windows propped open with empty wine bottles, the living room half-packed.\u00a0 Cardboard boxes labeled law books and book books and water glasses stacked in the corner, the floor lamp missing a light bulb.\u00a0 The built-in shelves bare except for a three-speed box fan and a 1973 edition of […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":22,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"spay_email":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_is_tweetstorm":false},"categories":[11],"tags":[20],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p6Jypy-1Ef","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/wp0.vanderbilt.edu\/nashvillereview\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6339"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/wp0.vanderbilt.edu\/nashvillereview\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/wp0.vanderbilt.edu\/nashvillereview\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wp0.vanderbilt.edu\/nashvillereview\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/22"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wp0.vanderbilt.edu\/nashvillereview\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=6339"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/wp0.vanderbilt.edu\/nashvillereview\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6339\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":10372,"href":"https:\/\/wp0.vanderbilt.edu\/nashvillereview\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6339\/revisions\/10372"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/wp0.vanderbilt.edu\/nashvillereview\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6339"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wp0.vanderbilt.edu\/nashvillereview\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=6339"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wp0.vanderbilt.edu\/nashvillereview\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=6339"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}