Emma Straub - Modern Lovers

Andrew lay on his back at the far end of the EVOLVEment studio. It was relaxation meditation co-practice time, which meant that Dave offered a guided meditation while Salome walked around giving miniature head and shoulder adjustments and massaging everyone’s forehead. Andrew didn’t have to pay for classes anymore — Dave insisted. He was part of the team.

Kitty’s Mustache was the only other team Andrew had ever been on. A marriage was a partnership, and a family was a team of sorts, but those didn’t count, not really. The band had had meetings and practices and voted on things. There was no voting in a marriage — everything always had to be a double compromise. Parenting was an absurd job, mundane and sublime in equal measure, and once Harry had learned to talk, walk, and use the toilet, Andrew and Elizabeth had largely split up their days so that each of them could have some time “off.” When you were in a band and you wanted time off, it meant that you were quitting, and who cared, really? There was always another mediocre bass player.

“Imagine every breath you take is a white light,” Dave said, “and the light travels in through your nose and through your sinuses, across your cheeks and up into your head. Now imagine the light is a ball in the world’s softest pinball machine and it bounces around inside your head until your whole head is full, every inch of it, with that light. I’m moving the flippers on the machine, and the ball is pinging all over the place. Light! Light! Light!”

One of the best things about Elizabeth was the way that she willingly overlooked people’s bad qualities. It was as if she could see how terrible someone was and then redoubled her efforts to be kind to them, as if every asshole she encountered was an abused child she was trying to stop from setting animals on fire. It’s how she was with Lydia, who certainly never deserved it. Andrew had never been able to equal that goodness, that generosity. It was hard to reconcile that good-hearted kindness with what Elizabeth had done, but Andrew was trying. The white light was surrounding her face, making her blond hair glow even brighter. But Dave’s cool white light couldn’t seem to knock out Lydia, no matter how many deep breaths Andrew took.

• • •

Kitty’s Mustache was the most popular band at Oberlin — they played shows at the Grog Shop in Cleveland, opening up for bands on tour from New York and Chicago, and when they played at parties around campus, the houses would turn into glorious fire hazards, the packed rooms overflowing into front yards until a neighbor called the police. Zoe and Andrew were the same year, one class ahead of Elizabeth and Lydia, and they had endless conversations about what to do when half the band graduated. Andrew was in no hurry to get back to New York. He wanted to stay to be with Elizabeth, just live off campus and work at the bike shop — it cost almost nothing to live there, and Elizabeth could steal enough food from the dining halls and the co-op kitchens to feed them fine, if the parental well ran dry. But the well wasn’t going to run dry, and so Andrew wasn’t worried. It all would have been easy, except that Zoe wanted to get the hell out of Ohio, and how the hell were they supposed to practice without her? They had a seven-inch already, Kitty’s Mustache and the Male Gaze , which an indie label had pressed three hundred copies of, and Andrew and Elizabeth were anxious to finish a whole record.

That was when Elizabeth wrote the song. It was a fucking hit — there were no two ways about it. Even if Elizabeth had never shown it to anyone, had only played it for herself in her bedroom, it still would have been a hit. Songs were like that — freestanding monuments. When she came back to their practice space from the library, she played it on the guitar and sang, with Andrew, Lydia, and Zoe all sitting on the floor in front of her. Lydia drummed her sticks on the floor, keeping time. By the time Elizabeth got to the second chorus, Zoe was on her feet, singing along, and Andrew knew that she wasn’t going anywhere. They stayed late, doing it over and over again, until their cheeks were flushed and their fingers were red.

When they were done, it was midnight, and the bar in the shitty hotel across the street from Zoe’s apartment would be open for another two hours. They walked over together, giddy. Elizabeth and Zoe got a table in the corner, Andrew went to the bar to get a pitcher of beer, and Lydia went to the bathroom, which was in the lobby. The entire first floor of the hotel stank of cigarettes (the rooms probably did, too, but Andrew had never actually been in one) and stale popcorn, which was free at a machine in the corner. Zoe knew all the bartenders, enormous guys with motorcycles and terrible teeth, and every other pitcher was usually free. Andrew was buzzing — he always liked the band, and they had other good songs, including ones that he’d written, but this was different. He got the pitcher and sloshed it over to the table. “I have to take a piss,” he said.

“I was dying to know that, thank you,” said Elizabeth, who was always more sarcastic when Zoe was around. Both the girls laughed.

Andrew gave them each a middle finger and headed into the lobby. The bathrooms were behind a half wall, as if the hotel were nice enough to pretend that people passing by didn’t walk in and use them all the time. Andrew pushed through the swinging door and relieved himself loudly at the urinal, sighing. He walked out again, whistling “Mistress of Myself” but only made it one step back into the hall before Lydia got to him.

“I was waiting for you,” she said, her eyes mostly hidden under her bangs. “Come with me.” Lydia pulled him by the hand out the front door of the hotel, well out of view of the bar. It was April, and not yet warm, though the flower buds had started to push through in the park across the street.

“Fucking good song tonight, huh?” Andrew said. He felt drunk, even though he hadn’t had a sip yet, and rubbed his belly. They stood on the dark street corner, and Lydia wrapped her arms around his body. She was small, just over five feet, and her head fit under his armpit in a way that he liked. Elizabeth was taller than he was, and he liked that, too, but Lydia made him feel like he was 30 percent handsomer, like the star quarterback on a high-school football team.

“What’s up?” Andrew said, petting her head affectionately.

“I don’t want to go back to the bar,” she said. “I just want to be with you.”

“But we’re celebrating!” Andrew pulled back and put his hands on Lydia’s shoulders. “Come on, it’ll be fun!”

“That’s not the kind of fun I want to have,” Lydia said, and she grabbed his face and kissed him.

It wasn’t unexpected. Was it ever? Elizabeth had teased him about Lydia’s flirting, and Andrew had always said it was nothing, because it was easier than telling Elizabeth the truth. They’d slept together a handful of times — only when they were both really wasted, and when Elizabeth was elsewhere for the night. Lydia seemed to know exactly when she would be gone, and she’d present herself on Andrew’s doorstep with a bottle of not-terrible wine and no underwear. They never talked about it after the fact, which made it feel less like a secret and more like a shared fugue state. It had nothing to do with Elizabeth; Andrew loved Elizabeth. She was a glass of whole milk, fresh from the cow — undiluted goodness. Lydia was something separate. Something spiked. It was like Betty and Veronica. Archie loved them both, and they loved each other, too, even though they tugged him back and forth. When Andrew imagined Elizabeth finding out, that was a part of his defense. It wasn’t much, but it was something. He hoped he’d never have to use it, that Lydia would just disappear one day and make his life easier. It wasn’t like he and Elizabeth were married. They weren’t even living together. It was worse than jaywalking but not as bad as a root canal. Worse than throwing up in a taxicab but not as bad as going to the DMV.