Jonathan Baumbach - You, or the Invention of Memory

You call after me, “You never gave us your take on the film. So?”

I wave away the question as if it hasn’t quite reached me, but then I call back, unable to leave it unsaid, “I mostly agree with you.”

When I get home I look for the dental card you gave me with your number on it, look in vain through the scraps of paper I keep in chaotic file on my dresser.

I know I put it on top of my dresser — it’s where everything goes — and I know I haven’t removed it. But it’s no longer there.

I move the dresser away from the wall, look among the decade of debris behind it and then get down on my hands and knees to look under the dresser. There is something there, but it is something else — the card for my next dental appointment, which I somehow figured was still in my wallet.

The next time we meet is not in the dentist’s waiting room, but in a crowded elevator at the Brooklyn Museum. You are there with another woman while I am, as usual, alone. I am wedged in the back of the huge car, regretting my decision to ride, and you are at the front of the elevator, unaware of my existence.

When the elevator deposits us on the fifth floor, I walk determinedly past you, hoping to be discovered.

I hear you say something and I turn around, thinking it is addressed to me when it is not. “I’ll wait for you in the first room of the exhibit,” you say (have said) to your companion who is going off to the bathroom.

“Oh hello,” you say, this time to me. “Where did you come from?”

I don’t know where to begin, which prompts a silence that might have extended itself into mouth-gaping embarrassment without your intercession.

“I don’t seem to be able to turn around without running into you,” you say.

“I might say the same thing.”

“Please don’t,” you say. “Say something original instead.”

That leaves me searching in vain for a clever comeback just long enough for your friend to return and the two of you go off in your predetermined direction before I have a chance to offer an excuse for not getting around to calling you as promised.

Your friend, Deidre, whispers something in your ear and you giggle, the sound hanging in the air as I turn away to check out the less notorious show in the other direction.

But then you return, catching me off guard, to tell me that Deidre insists that it’s no fun looking at paintings of nude women without a man present.

So I end up walking through the Exposed show behind you and sometimes between you, my opinion assessed at virtually every painting.

“Does it induce prurient thoughts?” Deidre asks.

“No thoughts whatsoever,” I say.

“Salacious suppositions perhaps?” you say. “On a scale of one to ten, how would you rate it?”

I clear my throat.

“What’s that supposed to mean?” Deidre says. “I happen to think this painting is hot.”

“Do you?” you say.

“As a matter of fact, I do,” Deidre says. “This painting, The Goddess’s Surrender , is, to my untrained eye, the hottest painting in the room. But what do I know — I’m just a girl.”

You turn to me and wink. “Whatever you tell us,” you say to me, lowering your voice, “it will not leave this museum. A show like this is no fun without a man’s point of view.”

“ The Goddess’s Surrender doesn’t do anything for me,” I say.

“I rather think,” Deidre says, “that it does so much for you you’re embarrassed to admit it.”

“There is nothing I’m embarrassed to admit,” I say, more mock bravado than outright lie.

“Then you’re the boy we want with us on this trip down prurience lane,” Deidre says. “You’re our yardstick so to speak.”

“But who’s counting inches,” you say — we are now in the second room—“Are you counting inches?”

“Not me,” says Deidre. “What about you?”

I pick out the least exposed nude in the room to admire, a small Sichert, which earns me a Bronx cheer from Deidre.

“It’s always the same story with men,” Deidre says. “They pretend to know what we want but they never give it to us.”

“I think the opposite is closer to the truth,” you say.

“Do you?” Deidre says. “What can possibly be the opposite of my remark? Wait a minute. I think I see what you’re saying.”

“In that case, I wish you’d tell me what it is,” you say.

“I don’t want to embarrass your friend by explaining the obvious,” Deidre says. “I think we’re in serious danger here of crossing the imaginary line.”

“Don’t be so cocksure,” you say. “My friend always looks a little uncomfortable even in the most unprovocative circumstances. I don’t know him well enough to say this, but I don’t think he embarrasses easily … Do you … embarrass easily?” she asks me.

“Only when asked about embarrassment,” I say, more than a little uncomfortable.

“That’s just something to say,” Deidre says. “That’s just trying to be clever in my opinion. Wouldn’t you agree?”

It’s not clear to whom the question is addressed.

You are not yourself in Deidre’s company — that is, the you that partners with Deidre is not a you I’ve met before. At this point, I am looking for an escape route.

I loiter in front of a painting of a girl about fifteen, consumptively thin, wearing only a feather boa, while the two of you prance on ahead of me.

“He’s less fun than frat house sex,” I hear someone say in a noisy whisper, unsure which of you it is, though willing to hold Deidre responsible.

“Let’s lose him,” the second speaker broadcasts.

When the two of you cross over into the next (and last) room of the show, I turn around and leave the exhibition.

A few days later, early for an appointment at Dr. K’s, I meet you, or rather discover you sitting behind a book, in the waiting room.

I nod in your direction and take a seat just far enough away so as to avoid you without overstating the point. Before I can open my newspaper, I realize that you are in the seat next to me.

“I don’t have an appointment for today,” you say. “I knew from my sister that you were going to be here. That’s why I came.”

“You came to the dentist to see me?” I say. “Is that what you’re saying?”

“That’s it,” you say. “Look, I’ll understand if you don’t want to, but I’d be greatly pleased if you’ll have a cup of coffee with me as my treat after you’re done.”

At that very moment, perhaps even before your sentence is completed, the receptionist calls out my name. The dentist apparently is ready to engage the cavity he had befriended on my last visit.

I wave to you as I go off, find myself in the dentist’s chair, tilted back, bullets of cotton wedged in my mouth, when I realize that I hadn’t actually accepted your offer.

By the time Dr. K finishes with me, the last thing I want is human company, and anyway you are not in the waiting room to meet me when I stagger out, much of my mouth still numb from the Novocain.

And then of course I am angry that you are not there after going out of your way to find me and apologize (though you haven’t really apologized) and I walk to the subway with my collar up in the late afternoon chill.

Then I see you, hurrying toward me, a large shopping bag in each hand. “I almost missed you,” you say. “Where should we go?”

With my mouth insensate, I have difficulty making words so I offer a sympathetic silence.

“Are you angry at me?” you ask.

I quasi shrug, quasi nod, go through the motions of shaking my head, offer more than one conflicting message.

“I want to get rid of these packages,” you say. “Why don’t we go to my place and I’ll make us a light lunch.”