Jonathan Baumbach - You, or the Invention of Memory

She laughed at the persistence of his evasiveness. On the other hand, she tended to believe that he was on to her in some not easily defined way. Though she had of course taken out the ad, it was an uncharacteristic gesture. “Thank you, I think,” she said.

“If what I said translated into a compliment,” he said, “it was not exactly intended.”

“What an obnoxious thing to say,” she said. She found herself eating her barely tolerable salad in slow motion so as not to finish before his order even arrived.

When the waiter asked if he might remove her plate, which had three orphaned leaves and a crouton remaining, she waved him off. There was work still to do. Ignoring the tempting fry dangled in her direction, she choked down the last leaf of grass, and mopped up the dregs of the dressing with a wedge of bread. Noting that he was halfway through his chicken and mozzarella sandwich, she signaled the waiter over, ordered a cup of coffee and studied the dessert menu as if she might be quizzed on it afterward.

“What looks good?” he asked.

“I never order dessert,” she said. “Reading the description is pleasure enough.”

After he claimed the check, getting no resistance from her this time around, she got herself together to leave. She expected him to ask for her number while planning to deny his request, the language of her refusal gradually forming itself in her mind.

“See you around,” he said.

Their encounter felt incomplete and she continued to sit across from him, imagining herself telling him that he was so not her type, he was beyond hope of alteration. It annoyed her no end that he refused to give her the opportunity she had been anticipating. “Well, goodbye,” she said. “I forget your name.”

“Sometimes I forget it myself,” he said.

This time, leaving the restaurant more or less together, they went off in opposite directions. She couldn’t help feeling somewhat insulted by his decision to honor her feelings in regard to him.

At therapy that evening, she talked about the incident with Leo, who seemed inappropriately amused at her account. “Let me get this straight,” he said. “You’re angry at this man you barely know because he didn’t give you the opportunity to hurt his feelings.”

“When you put it that way,” she said, “it makes me sound like a bad person. All I wanted … well, maybe I did want to hurt him a little. He was so arrogant and he led me on. Anyway, I don’t have to ever see the son of a bitch again.”

“And unless you return to that café, you probably won’t,” Leo said. “So what is all this anger about?”

She was disappointed at Leo for being less than his most perspicacious self. “If you think it’s because I’m interested in that, you’re barking up the wrong tree this time around.”

He was silent for a change, gave her one of his severe looks. “Did I say that I thought you were interested in this guy you went back to the restaurant a second time to see?” he said. “I don’t recall saying anything of the kind. If this guy doesn’t matter, let’s talk about what does. In any event, I’m the person you’re angry at now.”

“I don’t like it when you manipulate what I say,” she said, struck by the recognition that she had said the same thing almost verbatim two sessions ago. “I’m not angry at you, damn it.” Hearing herself, she smiled ruefully. The guy does matter in some way, she thought, unwilling to say it, unwilling to let the thought linger. But he shouldn’t. “Can we change the subject?” she said. “OK?”

The following Wednesday, she went back to Café Retro with a colleague who had never been there before and was disappointed not to see her tormentor at his usual table.

About halfway through the meal — the food less inspired than the PR she had given it — she noticed the man she thought of as Saul 2, eating alone about five tables away. She got up abruptly, excused herself (or didn’t) and sidled between tables with exceeding grace (she imagined) to ask the question that had been obsessing her.

She had to clear her throat to catch his attention. “Oh hi,” he said, looking up, held by the short leash (she thought) of some hugely diverting internal life.

“Do you know a man about your age with a reddish beard who calls himself Jay?” she asked.

“No,” he said too quickly. “I don’t think so. Should I?”

She didn’t know him well enough to accuse him of being a liar. “I don’t know if you ever told me your name,” she said.

“I guess I didn’t,” he said.

“Look, if you see Jay, would you give him a message for me?” she said. “Would you tell him …?” But there was no message she wanted to leave and besides the reluctant messenger seemed to have retreated into the sanctuary of his inner life. She returned to her table without saying goodbye.

Was it the next day? More than likely several days passed before she got the unexpected phone call she had somehow been waiting for. The voice was familiar, though not so familiar that she placed it immediately. “I understand that you wanted to hear from me,” he said after first establishing that she was no other than herself.

“Now that I hear your voice,” she said, “I’m not sure that I do.”

“OK,” he said. “Look, I’ve been invited to a book party tonight — I’m not good at phone invitations — but if you’re into crowds and finger foods, I wouldn’t mind having you along.”

“I don’t know,” she said. “Who’s the writer?”

“It doesn’t matter,” he said. “You never heard of him. If you don’t want to go, we can do this another time. Or never.”

“You bring an exceptional lack of grace to even the smallest things,” she said. “Will you pick me up or do I have to meet you there?”

“I don’t mind picking you up if that’s what you want,” he said, “though I think it might be more fun if we arrive at the party separately and pretend to be former lovers who had just run into each other after twenty years apart.”

“Uh-huh,” she said, almost amused by the idea. “And for whom are we performing this childish charade?”

A compromise was negotiated. He would pick her up at The Magazine and take her to the party — that is, take her to the building in which the party was taking place — and one of them would go on up while the other would walk around the block or go across the street for coffee before making an entrance.

The problem was, their agreement hadn’t stipulated which of them would do which and they got into a mild dispute on arrival when Jay suggested that she go up first. “I think I’d rather be the one getting the cup of coffee,” she said.

She could tell that he was not very adaptable because he worried the issue for almost a minute before offering a grudging, “Fine.”

So it was settled, but then she thought maybe it was better after all for her to be the one to go in first. “If someone asks,” she said, “who do I say invited me to the party?”

“No one will ask,” he said. “Probably a third of the people there will be crashers.”

“Who invited you?” she asked.

“I wasn’t exactly invited,” he said. “My agent suggested I come. You want her name? Her name is Marianna Dodson and she’s also what’s his name’s agent, the guy for whom the party is being made.”

“I know Marianna Dodson,” she said. “We’ve never met but I’ve talked to her on the phone and we’ve had e-mail exchanges.”

“So this is what we’ll do,” he said. “You’ll present yourself to Marianna and when I notice you talking to her I’ll come over and she’ll introduce you to me. And you’ll say we’ve met, but that it was a long time ago and I’ll say I remember but you’ll be skeptical. We can improvise from there. Did I tell you how much I like what you’re wearing?”