Tom Perrotta - Nine Inches

“What’s going on?” Rudy asked. He was all business, like a paramedic who’d happened upon an accident.

Lieutenant Ritchie glared at Ben and Amanda, who remained glued together, oblivious to anything beyond themselves. Charlotte looked worried. The damn song just kept on going. Ethan knew when he was beat.

“It’s okay,” he assured his colleagues. “I’m on it.”

LATER, IN the bar, Ethan tried to describe the look on Amanda’s face right before he pried her away from Ben. The way he remembered it, her expression wasn’t so much angry as uncomprehending; he’d had to call her name three times just to get her to look up. Her eyes were dull and vacant, like she’d been jolted out of a deep sleep.

“I don’t think she even knew where she was,” Ethan said.

“She’s a sweet kid,” Charlotte pointed out.

“Tell that to the Lieutenant.”

“Ugh.” Charlotte’s mouth contracted with disgust. “I’m surprised he didn’t use his pepper spray.”

Lieutenant Ritchie had insisted on formally ejecting Ben and Amanda from the dance, a punishment that carried a mandatory two-day suspension and required immediate parental notification. Ben’s dad had at least been polite on the phone — he apologized for his son’s behavior and promised there would be consequences at home — but Amanda’s mother treated the whole situation like a joke. It was a dance, she told Ethan, pronouncing the words slowly and clearly, as if for the benefit of an imbecile. They were dancing at a dance. She made him explain the Nine-Inch Rule in great detail, correctly sensing that he found it just as ridiculous as she did.

“I still remember the first time I danced like that,” Ethan said. They were working on their second drink — Rudy had joined them for the first round, but left after receiving a phone call from his wife — and the bourbon was having a welcome effect on his jangled nerves. “Must’ve been seventh grade, with Jenny Wong. She was just a friend, a girl from down the block, but it was such an amazing feeling to have her pressed up against me like that, with all those people around. One of the highlights of my life.”

“You’re lucky,” Charlotte said, sounding like she meant it. “When I was that age, I used to sit alone in my room and make out with my arm.”

“Really?”

“It wasn’t so bad.” She glanced tenderly at the crook of her elbow. “I still do it sometimes. When nothing else is going on.”

Ethan smiled. It felt good, being here with Charlotte. McNulty’s had always been their bar of choice — they’d sat more than once at this very table — and he couldn’t quite shake the feeling that the past five years had never happened, that they were right back where they’d left off. He had to make an effort not to blurt out something inappropriate, like how much he missed talking to her, how wrong it was that such a simple pleasure had vanished from his life.

“By the way,” he said, “I really like your glasses.”

“Thanks.” Her smile was unconvincing. “I prefer contacts, but my eyes get dry.”

He studied her irises — they were hazel with golden flecks — as if checking on their moisture level.

“Something wrong?” she asked.

“Not really. This is just kinda weird, isn’t it?”

Charlotte looked down at the table. When she looked up, her face seemed older, or maybe just sadder.

“I don’t know if you heard,” she said. “Rob and I are getting divorced.”

“No, I hadn’t. I’m sorry.”

She shrugged. “We’ve been thinking about it for a while. At least I have.”

Ethan hesitated; the air between them seemed suddenly dense, charged with significance.

“To tell you the truth,” he said, “I never understood why you went back to him.”

Charlotte considered this for a moment. “I almost didn’t. I was all set to leave him for good. That night I slept on your couch.”

He didn’t have to ask her to be more specific. She’d slept on his couch exactly once, and he remembered the occasion all too well. Her thirtieth birthday. He’d made lasagna and they’d killed a bottle of champagne. They both agreed she was too drunk to drive home.

“I waited for you all night,” she told him. “You never came.”

A harsh sound issued from his throat, not quite a laugh.

“I wanted to. But we had that long talk, remember? You said you still loved Rob and couldn’t imagine being with anyone else.”

“I was stupid.” Charlotte tried to smile, but she seemed to have forgotten which muscles were involved. “I was so sure we were going to sleep together, I guess I overcompensated. Rob and I had been together since freshman year of college. I just wanted you to know what you were getting into.”

“You’ve gotta be kidding.” A bad taste flooded into Ethan’s mouth, something sharp and bitter the whiskey couldn’t wash away. “I was dying for you. That was the longest night of my life.”

“I thought you’d abandoned me.”

“But you said—”

“I was confused, Ethan. I needed you to help me.”

“You went back to him two days later.”

“I know.” She sounded just as baffled as Ethan did. “I just couldn’t bear to break his heart.”

“So you broke mine instead.”

Charlotte shook her head for a long time, as if taking inventory of everything that might have been different if he’d just come out of his bedroom.

“I’m the one who lost out,” she reminded him. “Everything worked out fine for you.”

Ethan didn’t argue. This didn’t seem like the time to tell her about the weeks he’d spent on his couch after she went back to her husband, the way his world seemed to shrink and darken in her absence. He didn’t go on a date for almost a year, and even after he met Donna — after he convinced himself that he loved her — he never lost the sense that there was a little asterisk next to her name, a tiny reminder that she was his second choice, the best he could do under the circumstances.

Charlotte wasn’t making any noise, so it took him a few seconds to realize she was crying. When she took off her glasses, her face seemed naked and vulnerable, and deeply familiar.

“I don’t know about you,” she said as she wiped her eyes, “but I could use another drink.”

IT WAS late when he pulled into his driveway, almost one in the morning, but he wasn’t tired. He wasn’t drunk either, not anymore, though he’d felt pretty buzzed after his third drink, pleasantly unsteady as he made his way down the long, dim hallway to the men’s room. There were ice cubes in the urinal, an odd echo of his bourbon on the rocks, and an old-school rolling cloth-towel dispenser, the kind that makes a thump when you yank.

He wasn’t too surprised to find Charlotte waiting in the hallway when he stepped out of the bathroom — it was almost like he’d been expecting her. A peculiar expression was on her face, a mixture of boldness and embarrassment.

“I missed you,” she said.

Kissing her just then felt perfectly normal and completely self-explanatory, the only possible course of action. There was no hesitation, no self-consciousness, just one mouth finding another. He ran his fingers through her hair, slid his palm down the length of her back, then lower, tracing the gentle curve of her ass. She liked it, he could tell. He spread his fingers wide, cupping and squeezing the soft flesh.

Voices made them pull apart, two young women on the way to the ladies’ room.

“Excuse me,” one of them said, turning sideways to slip by.

“Don’t mind us,” chuckled the other.

It was no big deal, just a brief, good-natured interruption, but for some reason they never recovered from it. When they started kissing again, it felt forced and awkward, like they were trying too hard. Charlotte pulled away after only a few seconds.