Tao Lin - Taipei

Paul realized he and Laura had been staring into the distance — unaware of each other, it seemed — for maybe two or three minutes. He looked at her profile. Without moving her head, in a voice like she was still considering if this was true, she said Paul was “devious” for bringing her to a party where another girl liked him.

“What girl likes me?”

“Lucie,” said Laura after a few seconds, still staring ahead, systematically reinterpreting her and Paul’s prior interactions, it seemed, with this new information.

“Why do you think she likes me?”

“I can tell,” said Laura, and lit a cigarette.

“She has a boyfriend,” said Paul.

Laura said something seemingly unrelated about cooking.

“You should cook for me,” said Paul distractedly.

“You won’t like it — it’ll be dense and unhealthy.”

“I like pasta and lasagna,” said Paul, and thought he heard Laura ask if his computer was in Canada and was nervous she might be confusing him for another person. “What computer?”

“You said your computer was getting fixed in Canada.”

“Oh,” said Paul. “Kansas, not Canada. Yeah, it’s still there.”

On their way back inside Paul and Laura passed the shadowy area, from where an unseen Amy said something implying Laura had stolen her cigarettes, using the word “cute” antagonistically. Paul had an urge to accelerate, but Laura, ahead of him, continued at her leisurely pace, maneuvering carefully through the window, into the kitchen.

Paul followed a slow-moving Laura through a long, dark, almost boomerang-shaped hallway, which felt briefly room-like, as they sort of lingered in it, or like it wanted to be a room, with furniture and guests, but maybe was shy and too afraid of causing disappointment, so impaired itself with two conspicuous openings to conventionally shaped rooms, a sort of recommendation against itself. Paul and Laura entered a large room of sofas and tables and eight to twelve people, including Daniel, who encouraged Paul to “test-drive” a foot-massage machine, which was on the floor, audibly bubbling hot water.

“Take off your shoes and socks,” said Daniel.

“I don’t want to use that,” said Paul, and turned around and distractedly sat on a backless, deeply padded, uncomfortable seat, which yielded at least a foot from Paul’s weight. Laura was ten feet away, in a throne-like chair, facing Paul, but not looking at him, or anyone, it seemed. Paul openly stared at her for around ten seconds, to no response, then moved chips and guacamole onto his lap (partly because he felt anxious about Laura seeming to refuse to look at him) and focused on steadily eating while repeatedly thinking “eating chips and guacamole.” He looked at his hands, and felt his mouth and throat, doing what he was thinking, and felt vaguely confused. Was he instructing his brain? Or was he narrating what he saw and felt?

Laura seemed less distracted, but more worried, than before. Paul moved toward her with what felt like a precariously sustained gliding motion and sat against and above her, on the chair’s sturdy armrest, in a comically awkward manner he hadn’t foreseen and was preparing to reverse, by returning to his seat, when Laura lifted his arm and placed it ungently around her neck — maybe a little disappointed that she had to do it herself — where it remained, independent and heavy as a small boa constrictor, for a vague amount of time, during which Paul, remaining almost completely still, felt increasingly reluctant to move, or speak. At some point, maybe three minutes later, Paul asked if Laura wanted to go to the other party.

“Yes,” she said.

Paul felt like parts of his and Laura’s bodies, as they stood on the front stoop hugging tightly under one umbrella, waiting for Walter’s car, were oppositely charged magnets covered with thick velvet. Paul crawled into Walter’s car’s backseat, spilling red wine; unable to find the cork, he wrapped the bottle in a plastic bag. He faced ahead, seated between two people, and realized no one had cared, or noticed, at all, it seemed, about the wine. Paul thought “I’m in hell” when people began to loudly mimic the guitar parts of the Led Zeppelin playing from a tape deck, resulting mostly in demonic-sounding noises and a kind of metallic, nightmarish screeching. Paul couldn’t discern if they did this regularly, or if it had just been improvised. “Ambien has a negative effect on music for me,” he thought.

At Laura’s friend’s party Paul sat alone at the snacks table, eating crackers and drinking wine, sometimes with unfocused eyes. Then he was sitting on a mattress in a space-module-like bedroom, in which six to ten people, smoking marijuana, watched a video off a MacBook of obese people screaming in pain earnestly while exercising and being screamed at motivationally, in what seemed to be a grotesque parody, or something, of something. Paul felt strong aversion to the video, and also like he’d already experienced this exact situation — he remembered his aversion to the video and the way someone to his right was laughing — and wanted to ask if this already happened, but didn’t know who to ask, then realized he wanted to ask himself. Around an hour later, after more crackers and wine, Paul thought he heard Laura drunkenly say something like “let him through, my new boyfriend,” loud enough for probably ten to fifteen people to have heard, as she beckoned him to sit with her and her three closest friends, including Walter, on a four-seat sofa. Walter drove everyone on the sofa to Laura’s apartment to smoke marijuana, around 3:30 a.m., when the party ended.

On the sidewalk, outside Laura’s apartment, a heavily impaired Paul explained that in high school his lungs collapsed three times and one of the doctors said smoking marijuana would increase the chance of recurrence by 4,200 percent. Laura said he wouldn’t have to smoke. Paul said the smoke would be in the air and that he was allergic to Laura’s cat and had a horrible headache. He hugged Laura, then walked toward the Bedford L train station, half a block away.

• • •

The next night Laura emailed that she wished Paul wasn’t allergic to Jeffrey so he could be with her, in her room, listening to the rain. Paul asked if she wanted to eat dinner together tomorrow night. Laura said she felt like she missed him and “well, I guess I’ll see you tomorrow,” characteristically answering a question indirectly and ending an email casually.

Paul was aware he felt mysteriously less interested in her after reading that she felt like she missed him and realized he hadn’t considered what a relationship between them would be like: probably not sustainable, at all, due to a mutual lack of strong interest. He was aware of not acknowledging her line about missing him in his response, which included a short list of restaurants he liked.

Paul met Laura the next night outside the clothing boutique in SoHo where she worked. “I think this is a bad idea, I always go home after work to nap,” she said with a worried expression, walking slowly away from Paul, who signaled a taxi, which they exited fifteen blocks later at a deli, where they bought a 40oz and two bottles of beer.

Seated, in Angelica Kitchen, they looked at each other directly for the first time that night. Laura seemed anxious and tired. Paul said the restaurant was organic and vegan and Laura said she had been trying to eat better since meeting Paul, who grinned while saying “you’ve been trying to eat butter?” twice, during which Laura began to blush.

“I thought you said ‘butter,’ ” said Paul grinning.

Laura looked at her hand touching a fork on the table.

“I thought you said you’re trying to eat butter.”

“Stop,” said Laura moving the fork slowly toward herself.