Eighteenth Street Intimacy

"Yes," she replied. "That's how I'm going to think of it for the rest of my life, anytime I get thrown in with a bunch of strangers and we suddenly become best friends. It's only Eighteenth Street intimacy." She fished her keys out of her jeans pocket. "Good night, Pete."

"Night, Rachel. Looking forward to that party."

"Bring a date!" she called over her shoulder as she unlocked the door.

Yeah, right, I thought. But I didn't answer her.

I took my time walking home, as I didn't feel like putting on an act for any of the others. I was proud of the progress I'd made in overcoming my lingering bitterness from home in my two years in the city and in the student house, and it wouldn't do for all that to bubble up now. So I was smiling through my angst when I got back to the house, and relieved to see only the Turkish student working night duty when I got inside. Voices were floating out of the dining room, but I was able to slip past it unnoticed and up the stairs to my room.

It was a double room, but my latest roommate had left a few weeks before and I was lucky enough to have it to myself for the time being. As I lay awake and tried to fall asleep, I thought of China. I thought of Rachel's place and the likely scene at the party next weekend -- me the third wheel as usual -- and I thought of excuses to skip the party. Who needed it?

I took a long time to fall asleep, Rachel's duplicity still all too clear in my mind, but I did manage to sleep well into Saturday morning. When I finally got downstairs sometime after ten o'clock, my heart skipped a beat when I saw Arlene in the garden. Leo was nowhere in sight for once, so there was no need to avoid her. I stepped out into the bright August light and was rewarded with a look of pleasant surprise from her.

"Nice outfit," I said, smiling through my bitter frustration.

"Oh, thanks," Arlene said. She was wearing a peach colored top and a white flowered skirt, and she looked down at the ensemble herself. "Leo bought it for me last week in New York."

I looked at the ground and laughed. It was either that or burst into tears. "Is he off again up there this weekend?" A guy could hope.

Arlene shook her head as she polished off her coffee. "He always goes out for brunch on Saturdays, you know that, Pete."

"I didn't know that, actually," I said, having made a point of never joining the two of them for anything that didn't involve the rest of the gang. "Schmoozing, then? Good for him for getting an extra day of that in."

"Oh, he's not working," Arlene said. "He just likes to be alone this time of the weekend, to clear his head. He doesn't want to have to talk to anyone for a few hours, you know?"

As opposed to the rest of the time? But I kept a straight face and almost managed to smile.

"Listen, about Rachel," Arlene went on. "I'm really sorry I ever tried to set you two up, Pete. She doesn't deserve you."

"Oh, it's all right," I said, and that much really was true. "The joke's on her, really, because of course she's saying she doesn't want a relationship with Ricardo."

"And by that party next week..."

"At the latest!" I concurred. To my immense relief, we shared a laugh. Just like old times for a precious moment.

Arlene's mobile phone rang. "Excuse me." She got up and retreated to a corner of the garden to take the call. I did my best to look elsewhere and not overhear a word, but I was aware that Arlene's end of the conversation, whatever she was saying, was not happy. I had only seen her upset twice, once at Leo and once at myself, and neither of those had involved her raising her voice. So whatever was up, I figured, it must have been pretty bad.

I was right. Arlene all but threw her phone down on the table when she returned. "That witch! I'm so sick of her!"

"Rachel again?" I asked.

That, at least, made Arlene laugh. "Thank you, Pete. I needed that. No, I meant Mrs. Duford, the headmistress at work. We have to assemble a hundred end-of-the-summer-term packets for the kids to take home to their parents, and I volunteered to organize the whole thing. I thought it was due next week. But her handwriting is ridiculous, and it really said this week. She wants to come by and get them this afternoon! I haven't even started asking the others for help yet." Arlene flopped down in her chair and buried her head in her hands. "What am I going to do?!"

I looked into the dining room. It was empty, and would be all afternoon because the house didn't serve lunch or dinner on Saturdays. "I have an idea. Let's set up shop in the dining room and start working on them."

"I can't ask you to do that, Pete! Besides, it's too big a job for just two people!"

"You don't have to ask me, and I'm sure some others will want to help when they see us stuck inside on such a beautiful day." I stood up. "Come on, the sooner we get started, the sooner we'll get some help. Go get the stuff and I'll stake out a table in there."

Arlene looked doubtful, but she did pick up her phone and magazine and go inside. I sat down at the long table in the middle of the room -- away from the window and any breezes that would blow the papers around, and in view of the lobby so would-be helpers would spot us -- and waited. Arlene returned a few minutes later, straining with the weight of a big cardboard box with two staplers perched atop it. "Are you sure you want to help me with this?" she asked.

I jumped up to help her carry it the rest of the way to the table. "I can't very well back out now, can I?"

Arlene opened the box and pulled out a smaller box, which was full of empty folders to be stuffed. Then there were half a dozen or so sets of pages to be collated, and a couple of glossy flyers and brochures to be added to each folder. "I sure hope you're right that others will want to help, Pete," she said as she lay out each part of the set on the table.

I hoped so, too, but I only smiled and said, "They will! I've lived here a long time, I know how people like to help out."

My hopes were answered before long. Arlene and I had only assembled a few of the folders yet when two Korean exchange students whom I had helped with their English homework last week turned up and offered us a hand. "We owe you!" one of them said. I didn't argue the point and Arlene didn't ask what they owed me for. A pair of German women came in for coffee a few minutes later, and after initially staking out the corner by the window, they also joined the party. Arlene assigned them to the two staplers, and the rest focused on collating and assembling.

Halfway through the job, Leo turned up. "What are you doing inside?!" he demanded of Arlene. "Too nice a day for this!"

"Mrs. Duford srikes again." Arlene was able to smile as she said it now, for we were clearly going to finish in plenty of time.

"I'd tell that bitch to do it herself!" Leo grinned at me, apparently expecting a man-to-man chuckle, which he did not receive. "Anyway. I'm off to lie down. Heavy brunch."

"Especially if he had three mimosas with it again," Arlene said to me with a laugh as soon as Leo was out the door.

I nodded with a sad smile, the most diplomatic response I could dredge up.

We had everything packed and squared away in plenty of time for the redoubtable Mrs. Duford, whom I had heard about many times but never met. I helped Arlene carry the completed folders out to the lobby where they could easily be loaded into Mrs. Duford's car, and we both happened to be there when she arrived. "Well done, Arlene," she said without a hello. "I knew I could count on you."

"Thank you, Mrs. Duford. But --"

Mrs. Duford had already turned her attention to me. "Well, hello! You must be Leo! I've heard so much about you!"

"I'm Pete, actually."

"Pete! I haven't heard anything about you!" Turning to Arlene with a grin, she added, "You are a busy lady, aren't you? Pete, help me load these into the car. You're not going to let Arlene do all the work, are you?"

I grabbed up an armful of the folders, and was careful not to look at Arlene as I did. I was afraid I just might enjoy the look of vexation I was sure was on her face.

I couldn't avoid looking at Arlene once Mrs. Duford drove off with the packets. She was sitting primly as ever in the chair by the telephone stand just inside the garden door, looking equal parts tired and sad. "I see why you and Rachel and Hope talk about her the way you do," I said. "Quite a piece of work."

"Yes," Arlene sighed, and her face softened now that the coast was clear. "Pete, how can I thank you?"

"It's what friends are for."

"Come join Leo and me for dinner. It's his turn to pay."

"No thanks. You two need your time alone."

"We need our time with you too, Pete! We've only got a few more weeks and I'm going to be awfully busy for most of that time."

I looked out at the garden and tried to come up with a polite way to say no.

"Please?"

"Let's see if Jacob and Hope are free."

"Well, we could invite them, but I was thinking..."

"Like you said, Arlene, we all need our time together. No need to invite Rachel, though, huh? She'll be out with Ricardo! I'll go wash up, and find them." I could see the reluctance in Arlene's eyes as she nodded her agreement, but I didn't care.

With Maria hanging on Jacob's triumphant arm as well, we settled on a bistro at the far end of the Eighteenth Street strip that none of us had tried before. Leo and Arlene, hand in hand as usual, were the last to arrive in the lobby. When Hope and I stood up to go, Leo asked, "What about Rachel?"

"She's busy," Arlene and I said in unison. We exchanged smiles, and then I was free to keep my distance from her again.

It was a stylish new restaurant, quite a bit more upscale than anyplace we usually ate. Arlene, always the well-prepared one, had called ahead to reserve a table for six. As usual, I jockeyed for a seat at the opposite end from Arlene and Leo, but this time she had my number and took the middle seat. "I told you, it's on us, Pete," she said with an affectionate squeeze of my arm. "Thank you."

"Thank you for what?" asked Jacob, who was on Arlene's other side.

"Pete saved me from an utter disaster today," Arlene explained.

"That's really not necessary," I said. "But thanks."

Arlene and Hope both excused themselves to go wash their hands, and I was left with the unenviable company of Leo, who as usual just sat there and grinned at me. Jacob saved the day: "Just what did you do for her, Pete?"

"Helped her with a project her boss sprung on her at the last minute," I said.

"Ugh, aren't they all that way!" Jacob said, turning to Maria, who was an intern at a consulting firm. "You had a few of those tales, didn't you?"

"Another one just yesterday," Maria said. "I tried to tell you about it last night, but..."

"Right, Rachel. Sorry. Tell me about it."

She was still telling him about it when Arlene and Hope returned. "That poor girl," Arlene whispered in my ear. "He's playing Mr. Nice Guy again now that Rachel isn't around, isn't he?"

"I'm afraid so." We'd all seen it happen a dozen times before, going all the way back to the dance parties at Rachel's place. Which reminded me. "So, about this party at Rachel's," I said.

"Oh, isn't that wonderful!" Arlene said. "I'm so glad we'll be having one last fling. And yes, Pete, you're going!"

"You heard that from Lenka already?" I had just emailed her earlier that afternoon to say I was planning to give it a miss.

"Yes, and she's worried about you," Arlene said. "She knows what Rachel's like, and she's really sad she can't be there. She wants us all to enjoy it for her."

"It really won't be the same without her," I said.

"Oh, come on, Pete," Hope said. "You know she would just spend the whole time making sexist comments and watching Mattieu like a hawk, and not even caring about her own hypocrisy! I miss her too, but you know what she's like."

"True, and it always drove me crazy," I confessed, remembering all too well our friend's endless supply of commentary about how all men think with their penises, even as she was cheating on her boyfriend back in Budapest with Mattieu, and suspecting -- correctly, I happened to know -- that he had a roving eye. "Anyone know if she's come clean to her boyfriend yet?"

"That's none of our business," Arlene said. "Besides, she and Mattieu are in love! You know, when she left, he had to call me to come to his room and hold him?"

"Maybe he just wanted you to hold him," I pointed out.

"Well, maybe," Arlene conceded, ignoring Leo's laughter at my comment. "But Pete, you're a Pisces too. You know what it's like when a Pisces is in love."

I could not very well deny that. Arlene and Lenka and I had discovered back in March that all our birthdays were within a week of one another, and both of them were true believers.

Though I suspected Arlene was annoyed with me over the comment about Mattieu, she did insist on paying for my dinner. Once the bill was settled, Jacob -- who'd spent the meal utterly absorbed in conversation with Maria -- said, "Want to hit the club?"

"Oh, I think we'll give that a miss," Arlene said.

"I'm in," Leo said. "If you want to go home, honey..."

"No, no, I'll join you," Arlene conceded. "For a little bit anyway."

It was dark by then, and our favorite dance club would be jammed soon enough, but there was time for a leisurely walk for the five blocks or so. I'd been there with earlier groups of friends from the student house, and occasionally with Jacob and Rachel, but never with the whole slow-dance gang. The place didn't play our kind of music, after all. But tonight, that loud and mindless fluff was just what I needed.

"What's up with you and Arlene?" Hope asked as she and I strolled a safe distance behind Jacob and Maria, and ahead of Arlene and Leo.

"Oh, she had a bit of an emergency this afternoon, and I helped out," I said.

"No, I heard about that. Leave it to Mrs. Duford to spoil everything even on a weekend! What I meant was, in the ladies' room just before we ate, she was all wound up about something with you. She was almost crying, Pete. 'He'll drop everything to help you when you're in trouble, but he'll never even ask you to dance!'"

"Shy as charged," I quipped. "But hey, the slow-dance gang is over, isn't it?"

"Where is Rachel tonight, anyway?" Hope asked. "Oh, wait...out with Ricardo? Any chance they'll be joining us at the club? Did you invite her?"

"No," I said. "She annoyed Arlene and me both too much last night." It sounded so tiny when I put it that way. "But I guess we should've, huh? There's so little time left, and we're almost like family."

"We do all need time apart from our families, though," Hope said.

"You would certainly know all about that, wouldn't you?" I said.

"No kidding!" Hope joined in on my laugh. "People always think I'm joking when I say I'm the ninth. Say, Pete, do you have any brothers and sisters? I've never heard you talk about your family."

"One sister somewhere," I said. "I haven't kept in touch with her. It was a bad situation."

"Oh, I'm sorry."

"That's fine!" And it was. Long before the rest of the slow-dance gang had arrived at the student house, I had learned to keep my nasty family history to myself. Telling the whole truth -- about the yelling and the emotional abuse and how I'd gotten fed up one Tuesday and hopped on a Greyhound bus when the coast was clear and never had a word for them since that day -- only made me look horribly bitter. Which I was, but I had figured out that the first step to getting over that was to stop wearing it on my sleeve. "It's totally fine. I've moved on. But if you've ever wondered, that's why I've stayed at the house for two years while everyone else has come and gone. I don't really have anyplace else to go." Except China now, but once again I held my tongue on that.

"It's none of my business, but maybe you ought to talk to Arlene," she said. "Something's really bugging her about you."

"I'll keep that in mind," I said, and I chanced a glance over my shoulder at her and Leo, hand in hand and in a world of their own as usual. "But she looks okay to me now."

"God, what does she see in him?" Hope asked. "Has she ever told you? Rachel and I have always wondered."

"No idea." I gave Hope a meaningful look, but I couldn't tell if she put two and two together or not. Just as well, I figured, if we'd all be flung to the four winds in a few more weeks and my secret was still safe.

The club had a few tables by the bar for those who didn't want to dance, and none of us were surprised when Arlene staked her claim to one of them. Jabob bought a round of daiquiris for Maria and himself, and they headed straight for the dancefloor as they sipped them. I opted to give them a wide berth, not caring to watch him mess with her mind anyway, and bought a beer and settled myself alone at the bar.

"You going to come dancing?" Hope said as I took my first sip.

"After I've had a couple of these," I said, tipping the bottle. Ever since college it was always the same. You could get me out on the floor once I was a little buzzed, but never before then.

"See you out there, then!" she said, and she was off to dance on her own.

I didn't gaze after her. I focused on my beer and pretended not to know Arlene was periodically giving me the eye from behind, and did my best not to think about what Hope had said about her.

Arlene knew. She must know, I mused. I'd really tried to keep it all to myself, but how could she not at least suspect it? But if she did, why would she be whining to Hope about me? Either way, what could I do about it except lay my heart on the line to be broken even worse than it already was? I imagined myself at a club in China, with the local women ogling the foreigner at the bar. I imagined Arlene back in Denver and Leo back in Denmark, and wondered how long they'd last. At one of our dances at Rachel's a few months before, after everyone had watched her lead him out to the middle of the living room rug, I'd said, "In six months they'll probably hate each other." It had gotten a laugh, and I didn't really want it to be true, or so I'd told myself. But now I was resisting the temptation to want it after all.

It took three beers, but I did get up and go out on the floor, without even a look to see if Arlene and Leo were still there. It was pretty crowded by then, but there was still enough room for me to flail away and enjoy it. I was alone but I didn't care. I didn't see Hope at first, but towards the end of my second song I spotted her on the edge of the floor, not far from me as it turned out.

I spotted her, all right, and then I saw her -- really saw her -- for what might as well have been the first time.

Our quiet, retiring friend was one fantastic dancer.

As I watched her hips glide gracefully every which way and her body writhe about and her arms sway, I could scarcely believe she was the same Hope I'd known all these months, who'd always joined us on our outings but had mostly just sat and talked while the others were up and about, who'd usually either begged off our dance parties or stayed in the kitchen to chat with anyone who was taking a break from dancing. How had she kept this from us? And why? Or did she even know her talent?

She was dressed as usual, in jeans and sandals and a plain top. But she was more beautiful than I'd ever taken the time to notice before.

I don't know how long I'd been watching her show before she turned around and noticed. I do know she smiled at me, looking a little bashful as she nearly always did. With no reason left to pretend, I stepped over to join her for the next dance. It was much too loud for a chat, so dancing was all we did. Others came and went, but no one we knew. At one point she said something to me that I couldn't hear, so I just nodded. I figured she was off to the bathroom, and maybe it was that too, but when she got back she had two more bottles and handed me one. We clinked bottles and drank and went right on dancing.