we exited the room quickly, oliver's hand still on my back. i loved him touching me. i loved it so much i felt guilty for loving it, so i turned around as if to see if my shirt was still tucked in, which i knew it was, but i folded my body in a way that made oliver drop his hand from my back.
"i'm guessing you're not much of a drinker, either, huh?" he asked me. he pushed open a pair of heavy doors and we stepped outside.
the rush of cold air woke me from whatever i was thinking about, and i realized that he was mocking me.
"i could go for a drink," i said. "i'm 18. i drink," i added. everything i said sounded like i was proving myself to him, which i was, in a way, but if we were going to continue to spend time around him, or even not, i didn't just want to always be trying to validate myself.
"great. let's get a drink."
"let's," i echoed him.
it was then that i noticed the star of david hanging around his neck. i looked down at my chest and rolled my eyes when i realized i had yet to unpack my precious star of david. idiot.
"you're jewish," i said.
"surprised?" we started to walk slower, like he was putting off crossing the street to enter the only bar a short walking distance from campus. i do my research.
"no, i just didn't know."
he laughed and started to play with the chain, then he kicked the same pebble for the third time before we made it to the other side of the street, and he was forced to leave the small rock behind.
i looked up at him. "why are you laughing?"
he shook his head and looked up at the bar. "there's a lot of things you don't know about me," he replied in his mysterious, almost flirtatious tone, though i didn't want to use that word even in my head. it sounded dirty.
i had to keep reminding myself that we only just met, even though every time i saw him it was like i was remembering him from somewhere instead of meeting him for the first time.
"what things don't i know?" i asked, imitating his tone, exaggerating the charming yet concealing manner of his speech.
he didn't reply. instead, he turned around to someone who had just shouted his name, someone he obviously knew.
"hey, randy!" oliver yelled back, waiting for this "randy" to catch up to us. he had a cigarette in his mouth, but the more i looked at it, i questioned the substance he was inhaling.
"elio, meet randal. randal, my dear friend elio perlman."
i shook randy's hand, smiling kindly, even though the smile was mostly from oliver remembering my last name.
"you going to the sax with us?" oliver asked, making room for randal right in between us. it felt like he was cutting me off on purpose, like he needed a break from me, time with someone of his own intellectual and social status.
"yeah, i was going to follow you but i assumed that..." he trailed off, using random hand motions to indicate what he was trying to say,"i got distracted with the cannabis," he finished, offering what i now knew was a blunt to oliver. he turned it down.
"sorry, gent," oliver said.
"oh come on, you're not the party boy you used to be," randy said, taking a drag of the blunt. fittingly, he tripped on the pavement, and oliver had swung randy's arm around his shoulder.
i rubbed my neck and suddenly regretted escaping oliver's touch earlier.
we approached the entrance of the saxophone, and as oliver pushed open the heavy door, the sound of saturated jazz and alcohol filled my nose. it is safe to say that my afternoon would have gone fairy differently if i went to the freshman social.
"ladies first," oliver said, allowing randy to enter, and then me. i saw him reach for my shoulder, then take his hand back. i wanted to tell him that it was okay to touch me, that i wanted him to touch me, but maybe it was better that he hadn't.
the bar and jazz club that was the sax was a picturesque painting of the 1950s. an african american singer stood in front of a band, and they silently improvised a long rendition of a song i had never heard before. it made me want to write. oh god, did this make me want to write.
the three of us found a table and we ordered drinks. i wasn't really in the mood for alcohol, but i didn't want to be the odd one out. oliver lit a cigarette, and drummed using his fingers on the table to the song, which apparently he knew, or had heard before.
i started to draft poems in my head, franticly searching for a napkin or a pen or something to write down the memories i was composing, becuase the last thing i wanted was to lose the feeling of being in this club with this boy. who knew if it would ever happen again.
oliver offered me the cigarette, and i took it, and quickly inhaled. i only wanted to put something that was against his lips to mine, and then from mine back to his. i licked my teeth as he but the cigarette back in his mouth.
"oliver? that you?" another voice said.
the three of us turned around to find eric approaching our table. what the hell was he doing here. and where was that napkin?
the taste of smoke was evaporating with the giddiness i felt and i wanted to sink into my chair.
"what are you doing here?" oliver asked through his teeth, clenching the cigarette.
"i would say the same to you. you're missing the party," eric scoffed, eyeing me. "mind if i sit?"
he sat.
"i'm going to get a refill," oliver said. he stood up and i felt his fingers hover above my shoulder. i stared at him as he left, asking with my eyes, even though he could not see them, could he please not leave the bar.
"so," eric started, obviously noticing my stare, "you met oliver at the bus stop and now he's all that you can see."
i squinted at him, i was angry. "what do you have against me?" i asked, and a few people looked over at us. part of me wanted to cause a scene, but the rest of me knew that was the last thing i wanted.
"becuase eric is waiting for the same goddamn bus," randy said, finishing his drink. i couldn't tell if he was kidding.
eric scowled at him. before he could retort, though, oliver returned.
"you see that guy over there?" oliver asked, motioning over his shoulder, "that's ogden nash."
"he's a poet," i remarked. i recognized the man at the bar instantly. "what's he doing here?"
"no clue," oliver replied.
"he's horrid," randy said, laughing. "tasteless."
i scoffed. "he's hilarious."
"sadly, the only thing funny about him or his work is that it has gotten any recognition at all," randy said, taking a swig of my beer.
oliver chuckled. i felt like i was a part of the group, like they were inviting me into an inside joke. i looked around the table and smiled, all the previous tension with eric was gone, thanks to oliver and randy's amazing personalities. i was at the cool kids table.
"i mean if he can make it surely anyone can," oliver said.
"i beg to differ," eric cut in, giving oliver a look as if he was a disappointed parent.
oliver rolled his eyes, "oh, be quiet," he said, making light of the statement.
"you had me doing half your compositions not last week!" eric said.
randy sensed the heat, and so did i.
"you're a writer?" i asked broadly, but everyone knew i was asking oliver.
"he wishes he were a writer," eric said.
oliver ignored the comment. "like i said, you know very little of what i am." he smiled at me. i think i blushed.
"i'm a writer. my father, he's a poet as well," i said.
"just the fact you write doesn't make you a writer," eric said. anyone could tell eric knew he was being glared at. "but who knows, under certain circumstances, even you could change the world," he said to me.
i took that as a compliment.
"cheers to that," oliver said, raising his newly-filled glass. one of the waitresses kept giving him more to drink, and a few flirtatious looks i wasn't too fond of. "another round?" he asked the group.
"i think you've had enough," eric said, taking away oliver's glass.
"i think we should change the world," oliver said, staring right at me. "i have a job for you, elio."
"and he's off," eric said, falling back on his chair.
randy laughed again. oliver shushed everyone. the song ended. the entire tone of the world shifted and i didn't want to be anywhere else becuase something amazing was about to happen. i bit my lip and took a sip of my almost empty beer.
"we scrap rhyme. no-- we reinvent it. i want you to write something beautiful, something so different that no matter what it is, people will pay attention to it. we give the world something, just one thing, that's the rule, only one poem, but we give the world something beautiful and we see if it gets horrendously burned or if it grows into something amazing."
by the time he was finished, i was so hopelessly head-over-heels on board with wasting away my life to spend a second of it with this boy.
"buddy, you're so drunk," randy said.
"are you in or not?" oliver asked me.
i could've said no. it was that easy, two letters and he wouldn't live in the back of my mind for the rest of my life. but he kept staring at me. and smiling. and i kept staring back. why didn't i look away? it would've been so much simpler just to have left it at that-- a stare. kept my distance. but three letters are a lot more tempting than two.
"yes."
"you're hired." oliver smiled and clapped his hands. the singer started to sing. a new song, a happier song, was taking form. a series of looks was shared around the table, a glare from eric, a gaze from oliver. i intercepted so many emotions in that moment i invented a new one.
after perhaps one-too-many more rounds of drinks, and long after eric decided to head back to his apartment, oliver and i stumbled out of the bar.
"shit," i said.
"what?" oliver slung his arm around me and messed with my hair like he did in the stairwell.
"my mom. i forgot. i have to go."
"what happened?" he asked. it was as if in that moment oliver recovered from the alcohol and was his perceptive, poised self again in an instant.
"it's hard to explain," i said. "it's complicated."
"perfect," he replied. "i love complicated."