There is a certain kind of clarity found at the bottom of beer number six. Not revelations of grand import, but realizations of the gut, honesty exhumed by alcohol. For Marcus, he suddenly knew he shouldn't have moved to New York. Not now. Maybe not ever.
On all sides sat kids — sipping their vodka and tonics and cosmopolitans and Maker's Marks. Full of hair product and futures, they treated Marcus like bar furniture, an object to squeeze around.
This was the world he'd chased Olivia to.
On the night it all ended with Val, he had not mentioned Olivia. It's not that Val didn't know her, they'd hung out with her at office parties, had her over for drinks. Val knew her. Even knew she'd recently moved back to Manhattan. But Val didn't know about her. And Marcus kept it that way, telling just the fraction of the story he could stomach: he wanted to call off the engagement because he felt suffocated, wanted to move to New York to breathe new air.
An early mid-life crisis, Val called it. A late adolescence, he countered. For they had been dating since college orientation and thirteen years later they still had nothing more in common than a couple of English classes and an affinity for fine wine. Even the wedding they were planning was just an excuse to have something new to talk about.
Val cried. Marcus cried too. But his, he felt, were the tears of a patient learning he's cancer free. Not that she was cancer, just the symbol of his ulcerated dreams. As freshmen they were going to live in Paris and be artists. As adults, they lived in Baltimore and warmed office chairs.
She told him Paris was a child's fantasy; they had always planned to move back home, wear suits, hold off marriage until their early thirties. And that was the problem, he said. They had planned themselves into stagnation, a life lived tepid.
But the first chance in years to ignite something hot, and all he could do was walk away under the chill of lies — the relationship that was Val and Marcus left to melt in slow drips, each day less and less until he was living in a month-to-month apartment surrounded by boxes. There were no shouts. Few tears. To this he credited his wisdom, and Olivia's discretion.
From the beginning, no one knew. Their fingers first entwining beneath a table at happy hour; their first kiss on a night when they were left alone at the office; the first orgasm quick and frantic in the backseat of Marcus's car pulled over in an alley. They never missed a meeting. Were never seen alone. Never so much as gazed at each other if someone else was in the room. Discretion as obsession.
But that was over now. He was here and she was free to hang on his arm, kiss him in public, sleep with him in his own bed. His Olivia to hold not in secret but for all the world to see and know that this was his woman.
As he flew up I-95, everything he owned crunched into the back of his car, he'd felt the sparkle rush of a teenager's joy, imagining Olivia naked and waiting for him in his own apartment. That was the redemption in all this — cleansed by the choice of love.
"That's choosing id," he imagined Val would say if she knew his thoughts. And she'd be right. Her logic was unstoppable, her knowledge of him encyclopedic. If they were at dinner and he ordered the lasagna, she'd find the Chianti that not only matched his dinner but also complemented the chocolate mousse she knew he'd order for dessert.
But Olivia, she'd sit at the same table and say, "oh, why are we wasting time with dinner? Let's go have sex." Or so he imagined she'd say, despite never having had a real dinner with her. Despite never having had sex with her. Only blowjobs and handjobs and half-finished jobs. She just never felt comfortable when everything had to be hidden.
"Is that all you think about?" Val would ask him if she were there. She had never actually accused him of being obsessed with sex, only implied it. On nights when he'd keep her awake with kisses, she'd feign exhaustion. On vacation, she'd blame a rich dinner. On Sunday morning it was always "we need to get a start to the day." As if sex was not the perfect start to any day. To anything.
Marcus was convinced that every couple only had so many fucks in them. Val and he had burned through all of theirs in college, leaving him to wander a desert. That's why he had to choose Olivia. That's why he had to follow her up here even when she said she'd understand if he didn't. He just could no longer live on affection alone.
But could he live in New York? Marcus looked around, the evening wearing on but the crowd showing no signs of fatigue. On a Saturday night, he might expect this. But on a Tuesday? He wouldn't have imagined. But, then again, he did abandon all he had for a life without so many plans, so many accurate predictions.
With one sustained gulp, Marcus drained the last of his beer. As he walked towards the door, he turned, Olivia's tanned, sinewy legs just visible as they stretched out from behind the pretty-boys draped over her in the lounge. He had a feeling she'd be there all night. And now, he'd have to be here every night too.