The City Wants You Alone

1

It was Valentine’s Day—or Valentine’s night actually—and I was standing in the bus shelter, outside the Westridge Mall, waiting for the 57 Bus to take me downtown. A bunch of my fellow mall workers and I were meeting at The Deuce to dance and get drunk and feel sorry for ourselves for not having boyfriends. The trouble was, I had the closing shift, so it was already 10:30, which meant the buses were on the night schedule, which meant they took their sweet time coming. If they came at all. Plus it was cold and raining and I was dressed for a club—a skirt and light trenchcoat—not for standing in an outdoor bus shelter for half an hour. I had already been waiting twenty-minutes. I was beginning to shiver slightly.

And then things got worse: Eric Lutz appeared. He came waddling out of the big glass doors of Macy’s and made his way toward the bus stop, bare-headed in the rain. Eric was a manager at Footlocker. He was famous around the mall for hitting on every female he encountered, regardless of age, ethnicity, or body type. People made brutal fun of him, sometimes right to his face. Still, he kept at it. Patiently chatting up the Cineplex girls, the food court workers, the bored moms with their baby strollers. I was only one month into my career here at the Westridge Mall, so Eric Lutz hadn’t had a clear shot at me yet. So I guess it was my turn. And on Valentine’s Day no less.

He came into the shelter. I moved away slightly. He was as unattractive as advertised: cheap parka, polyester Footlocker pants that dragged on the ground behind his heels, a three-dollar stocking cap which he eventually pulled over his large, balding head.

He turned and studied me for a moment. You work at the mall, he said.

I nodded that I did.

I thought you looked familiar, he said, arranging his stocking cap.

I stared straight ahead.

Where do you work? he asked.

J. Crew.

Oh, a J. Crew girl, he said, smiling calmly. I like J. Crew.

Yeah? I said. What do you like about it?

He shrugged. Just the nice clothes … the nice people … He turned to me again, a gleam in his eye. What’s your name?

I sighed to myself. Andrea.

I’d been kicked out of college. That’s why I was talking to Eric Lutz. That’s why I was standing in a bus shelter. That’s why I worked at a mall, two miles from my old high school in Beaverton, Oregon.

Getting kicked out of college wasn’t the worst thing that could happen to a person. If you’d been kicked out for political or philosophical or artistic reasons (as I was), that could be cool. When you thought of how many brilliant, creative people had parted ways with various institutions over the years … it was a long list. In a way it was a badge of honor.

But that’s not what it felt like standing next to Eric Lutz. I felt like I’d never gone to college at all, like I’d been shifted into some alternative universe where I was a working girl, born to chew gum and wear cheap makeup and complain about my shift schedule to the night manager. Or until I could trick some mattress salesman into getting me pregnant and marrying me. Suddenly I was in one of those British working class movies I used to watch in my Language of Film course, where at the end the characters realize they are trapped by their lower class birth, doomed to an endless cycle of drudgery and obligation. And worst of all: they had no one to talk to but the Eric Lutzes of the world.

The bus came. To avoid further conversation with Mr. Lutz, I took a seat in the far back, near the back door, where I was treated to blasts of cold night air at every stop. My feet were wet, which didn’t help, but in Portland your feet are always wet.

More people got on the bus which further insulated me from Eric Lutz, and eventually made me forget about him altogether. Yeah, to be out of college … it was scary. It gave your life a special ring. Like you were really in it now, you were facing down the nothingness of human existence. Even when you were out partying with your friends, you’d feel this low-grade, underlying desperation. And all that stuff in college, all that history and literature you had pondered so leisurely, that was a distant dream. It was the bottom line that counted now. Get a job. Buy a car. Find a boyfriend. And then try to trade up in whatever way you could.

And the worst part: the way time changed. Suddenly, there were no semesters or winter breaks or summer vacations to stop and think and consider your next move. There was just the continuous flow of bills and paychecks and work schedules and rent … and maybe a free Saturday here and there. Or a holiday. Like tonight. Valentine’s Day.

2

Kate, my roommate, was standing outside the Nordstrom downtown, stamping her feet in the cold. She and I shared an apartment together just up the hill from downtown. She also worked at the mall. She was a hairdresser and a beautician and was made up in her professional way: precise eyeliner, pinkish lipstick, a suburban, pixie-ish haircut that one of her co-workers at Wild Cutz had talked her into.

The two of us headed right off, up the street toward The Deuce, our heads lowered in the mist, our shoes clicking along the wet sidewalk. In our trenchcoats and skirts, we could have been 60s London girls off to the pub, or maybe punk chicks in San Francisco, circa 1979. But I didn’t say that to Kate. She wasn’t smart in that way. She didn’t think about history or different eras. We were just girls without boys, which we would drink over and complain to our friends about.

Everyone was at The Deuce: Gretchen and Christina from Macy’s, Amber from Cinnabon, Rachel and Chelsea from PacSun. Several of the girls were dancing already and people had drinks. Our gang had claimed two of the booths in the back and the seats were strewn with wet coats and bags and hats and umbrellas. The two drinks for the price of one special was about to end, so we needed to order right away. I ordered two rum and Cokes, and when they came, took a long warming sip of the first.

Eventually, Kate and I wove our way onto the jammed dance floor to join the others. We bopped around as best we could. Gretchen drank while she danced, sipping through her stir straw as she slowly rotated her ass in a highly sexual manner. While I had been at college learning about economic determinism, these girls had been in bars learning how to make guys want to fuck them.

And it worked. Very quickly we were surrounded by boys. They tried to dance with us. They tried to buy us drinks. They screamed in our ears for the few seconds between songs. One of them got Rachel to follow him to the bar. Amber wandered off with two Portland State students. Kate and I danced with two boys who were somewhat cute, if you could overlook the one’s gelled hair and the other’s white jeans.

After a half hour on the dance floor, I retreated to our booth, only to be joined by the gelled hair guy. He’d bought me a drink, a Long Island iced tea, I guess in hopes of getting me plastered. I wouldn’t drink it. I kept sliding it back across the table to him, saying, You drink it. He asked me if I was sad on Valentine’s Day, since I didn’t have a boyfriend, which seemed like a weird thing to say to a girl. And then he wouldn’t leave our booth. Which was a little creepy.

About that time, Amber came back for her coat. I grabbed her arm, hoping she would see my situation with Mr. Gelled Hair and not leave me alone. But she had no sympathy. She gave me a stern look of: if you don’t like him, get rid of him. But I didn’t know how to do that exactly.

Amber took off and I found myself stuck with my new friend. I tried ignoring him but that didn’t work. I tried getting up to dance but he followed me. Finally I slipped into the bathroom and hid. That wasn’t so great either. A girl was puking in one of the stalls while several other hard-faced Deuce girls stared me down in the mirror. So I snuck back out and peaked around the corner at our booth. Gelled Hair Guy was not visible so I made my move. I hurried forward, untangled my coat from the others and ran for it, ducking out the back door.

What a relief that was. Out of the sweaty heat and into the cool night air. But now I was standing in a dark parking lot by myself. I put on my coat, unsure what to do next. I felt conspicuous standing there, so I started walking, through the cars and out to the street.

The rain had stopped and there were people out, couples mostly, Valentine’s dates. A pickup drove by and someone called out, Hey baby! which was then followed by a surprisingly sincere: I love you!

A few blocks later, a smaller car slowed down beside me. I immediately veered away but a voice said, Andrea? … Andrea Marr?

I turned and looked and holy shit, it was Nick Pax! Nick Pax, local rock star from my high school days! I was so surprised I couldn’t speak for a second. Then I laughed out loud. He was in one of those tiny Italian cars, with a friend driving. What are you doing out here? said Nick, hanging out the window. Where are you going? Do you need a ride?

I did. Of course I did. I hadn’t seen Nick Pax in three years. I hadn’t seen anyone like that since I’d landed back in Portland, I guess because I was embarrassed about getting kicked out of school. Or maybe because I thought my old indie-rock Portland friends might be a bad influence, and I couldn’t afford to slip any lower in the social hierarchy.

But that was ridiculous I realized, the second I laid eyes on Nick’s grinning face. Nick Pax! Oh my god, it felt so good to get inside that car!

Nick and his friend Matthew were heading to K Club where there was a big Valentine’s Day party. Did I want to come? Yes, I did.

They asked me where I’d been and I told them I worked at the mall now, out in Beaverton, and that I’d been at The Deuce with some of my co-workers. Nick Pax couldn’t believe I would go there. The Deuce? On Valentine’s? That place was a meat market. It was horrible!

Then he asked me questions: When had I got back? Why was I here? The rumor he’d heard was that I’d moved back east and become an upper crust snob. I told him no, I’d failed at being a snob. And I’d been rejected by the upper crust.

We talked nonstop: about the music scene, who was still in town, where different people were, what they were doing. By the time we got to K Club, I was so happy. We went inside and it was packed with cool people. Why had I avoided this world? I was so hungry for it, I realized. My entire body sighed with relief.

Now I actually wanted to dance, and so I did, a big gang of us did, including some girls who I remembered from years before, who did double-takes when they saw me, like: I remember you, even though we hadn’t actually been friends.

After that, I sat in the stairwell with Nick Pax and told him the long story of my career back east, making weird art movies in college, one of which got me expelled. And how freaked out my parents were, and how I’d come home in disgrace and then got a job at J. Crew and how I was supposedly going to transfer to University of Oregon in the fall, and try to get back on track, or at least that was my parents’ plan. The truth is, I hate working at the mall and I don’t want to go to University of Oregon, I shouted in his ear, I have no idea what I’m going to do. He nodded along to all of it. He was very encouraging and nice like he always was. Nick Pax. The legendary Nick Pax. When I was in high school, he was famous for writhing around on the floor during Pax shows or climbing onto the bar and hurling himself into the audience. But here he was, older now, and wiser, and a little worn in his face. He said Pax hadn’t played in over a year. One of the guys had gotten married. Another had moved to San Francisco. He was a substitute teacher now, to pay the rent, though he still played some gigs with different bands around town. He said how great I looked and how he loved when Cybil and I and our little high school gang would show up at their gigs. The HOP Girls, his bandmates had called us, because we bought our clothes at HOP Vintage downtown.

Nick tried to kiss me later. That was my own fault because I was being so nice to him and dancing with him and touching him a lot on the dance floor and by the bar. Also we were both kinda drunk. He and Matthew drove me home in Matthew’s tiny car. It was three in the morning by then and Nick walked me to my door, and then went for the kiss and I kissed him back for a second, even though I could never see myself with Nick Pax, cute and fun as he was. He could tell I was hesitating and so he broke it off and said goodnight and slunk off with his hands in his back pockets in that cute boyish way he had.

Wow. Nick Pax! When I got into our apartment I plopped on a chair by the window and stared outside, with my trenchcoat still on, and my hair wet and my body tired but also so happy to have reconnected to the one part of Portland I could relate to. Could I be part of something here? It seemed like I could. I was supposedly trying to be a writer. I had written a novel in college. Were there other young writers in Portland? There probably were. But whatever. At least I’d had some fun for once. And I’d kissed Nick Pax!

3

The next morning I clocked in at J. Crew and checked myself in the mirror in the back room. You had to have a certain look at J. Crew. Not that there was an actual rule about it. It was just understood. Look like your catalog was the rule of working in the mall, which was why Elspeth at Hot Topic wore black lipstick and Rachel at PacSun wore surfer sandals in February.

It was slow that morning, so I did some re-folding to look busy. Then I vacuumed in the dressing rooms. I enjoyed these activities more than usual. I felt freer today, like I had other things going on, since I’d found Nick Pax. I would hang out with him more, I decided. I might even call him. I wondered if I would have anything to say to him in the light of day. But then I remembered that he was a substitute teacher, which gave me hope and made me feel like he was probably smarter than I thought.

At lunch, I got some noodles in the food court and talked to Amber and Rachel. The debauchery at The Deuce after I left, hadn’t been too extreme. Nobody had been arrested. Nobody had sex without a condom. They had wondered where I went. I told them I’d run into some high school friends and got pulled away.

That afternoon, someone called the store and asked if we had any striped T-shirts. We did, and I asked what size and the person said they had to be black and white stripes because he was an artist, like Picasso. That was weird, but we did have black and white striped shirts and I asked what size and the person said they had to be wide black and white stripes because besides being an artist he was also a pirate. I was like, oh-kay and tried to act professional and then the person said, Andrea, it’s me, Nick.

He said he couldn’t believe that I worked at J. Crew, I was one of the original HOP girls, who were the coolest! He threatened to come to the mall and rescue me, but I pleaded with him not to, the result being that I accepted his offer of a ride home from work. And an invitation to dinner.

So that’s what happened. Nick Pax drove all the way to Beaverton and picked me up and took me all the way back downtown. We drove to the east side and ate burritos at his favorite Mexican place. Then some musician friends of his appeared and we got a pitcher of beer and we sat around talking and hanging out. It was funny how comfortable I felt and how instantly Nick and I became friends. It was like we’d known each other all those years between then and now. Like that time had counted somehow, and bonded us, even though we barely knew each other before.

That week, we went to more places. Nick knew the best spots for gyros or pizza or microbrew or donuts. He also knew everyone in Portland, which made each place we went to a social visit. Being with him I was suddenly seeing people I recognized, people who were around when I was in high school. I realized Portland was still here, cool Portland, and it had actually grown, it had exploded in some ways. Why had I been so bummed out to come back here? Portland wasn’t so bad. Portland was pretty great.

The only problem came at the ends of these nights. Nick hadn’t tried to kiss me again, but it was coming. Finally on Saturday we came out of a house party and he invited me to come over to his place but I said I couldn’t, I had to work the next morning. So he kissed me in his car. Like before, I went along with it at first. But this time I kept going along with it. We started making out and things got pretty hot, pretty fast. It was totally different than making out with college guys. Nick Pax was a rock star, and the way he touched you and held you and took control, it sort of melted you. I was still determined not to have sex with him. But that didn’t last. We did it right there, parked on the street, him on top of me in the back seat, tall and lanky Nick Pax.

When I got home, I was a mess, a happy mess, and Kate saw immediately what had happened and followed me into the bathroom where I peed and was drunk and I told her the whole story, including how Nick Pax was a local legend when I was in high school and now he was a substitute teacher. Could I like him? Could I go out with him? He was twenty-eight years old! I was barely twenty-one.

Kate was pretty impressed by all this. I had told her a little about my life as a teenager in the Portland music scene. She had listened but I don’t think she understood. But now she was more interested than ever. Hot musicians taking you to cool parties, and then having amazing sex with you in their car? That sounded like the greatest thing ever. Kate was a hairdresser, after all.

I went out with Nick Pax a couple nights later. We went to a movie and walked around downtown in the rain, and then ducked into a doorway and totally made out, like practically coming, rubbing against each other.

We went back to his group house and had sex in his room. Afterward we lay breathing side by side. I could hear someone talking on a phone somewhere and also the sound of the rain plinking on the windows outside. I looked at Nick’s conked-out face, with its happy contented look, and the little wrinkles by his eyes and thought, oh my god, he’s my lover! Like in the old school sense of the word. Like we’re too different to actually go out, but we can’t resist each other. Even laying there, I found myself wanting to touch him and feel him against my bare skin, which turned out to happen by itself without much effort.

This was the end of February, the depths of the gray wet Portland winter. My mom’s birthday came and my parents and I went out to dinner at Shari’s, which was a chain restaurant my mom liked, even though it was just a slightly better version of Denny’s. Our waitress wore one of those frilly tops that showed off her cleavage. She was probably pretty sexy if you were a middle-aged guy with a bored wife and a couple of kids. My dad didn’t notice her though. I did. She had orthopedic shoes for walking around all day. And a lot of makeup. And white tights like a nurse might wear. I wondered how old she was, and where she lived, and who she had sex with. Some mattress salesman I bet.

Anyway, so we talked, my parents and I, and they asked me how things were going, how was my job, how was Kate, who they had met and had liked. I told them about going to The Deuce on Valentine’s and how lame it was and that I’d run into some guys I knew from the band Pax, which my parents didn’t comment on. To them, my adventures with reckless artistic types had been my downfall. So I didn’t go into it much more.

The rest of the dinner was pretty dull and even worse because for some reason it was my responsibility to make it fun. But I was feeling cranky and depressed and also hoping I could get home early enough to call Nick and have him come over for an hour before I went to bed. That was the other thing that was happening. I was staying up later. Not only to hang out with Nick, but also to do stuff with Kate and sometimes staying up to read or watch videos or write letters to my best friend from college, Sally Zimmerman. Sally had also worked on the student film that started all the trouble, which was about a freshman girl on ecstasy, and featured a freshman girl who really was on ecstasy. Sally Zimmerman would have been kicked out of Wellington too, but her father was a famous professor, so he made some calls and she was able to transfer to Yale in New Haven. Sally was extremely smart and cool and always had some new thing for me to check out, like the letters between Sartre and Simone de Beauvoir, or the erotica of Anais Nin or an article she had read about an anarchist collective in Oakland where everyone used the same bathwater because it helped strengthen your immune system. Sally’s letters always made me feel connected to the larger world. That was the thing about Portland. You could have a great life there, and have friends and interesting things to do, but now that I’d gone to Wellington, and been to Boston and New York and DC, I knew Portland was just one place. There was so much other stuff. And I wanted to hear about it and know about it and not lose touch.

4

Matthew Ferguson—the guy who owned the tiny Italian car—was Nick’s best friend. He had played bass briefly in a later incarnation of Pax and had also played in a bunch of different bands around town. He was sweet and goofy and he didn’t talk very much, which probably made him a good band member, but also caused you to forget he was there sometimes.

For this reason, it didn’t occur to me that he and Kate might like each other. Nick was the one who thought of that. It made perfect sense: Matthew had run out of local girls to go out with. And Kate had become very interested in the musician crowd. She was deeply impressed with Nick Pax and also with me, since I had snagged him. She would be thrilled to have a cool musician boyfriend.

So the four of us went bowling one night. Kate and Matthew seemed shy together, but in a good way. Kate was doing her attraction cues she had read about in Glamour, like touching her hair and laughing at Matthew’s jokes and bumping into him a lot. It seemed to be working, as Matthew had the biggest grin on his face. Nick and I exchanged glances of: this is totally going to happen.

After bowling the four of us went back to Matthew’s apartment which was basically one big room full of bass guitars and cords and amplifiers. There was also a small TV and a few items of thrift store furniture. Matthew immediately pulled out a huge plastic bong and everyone got stoned, me and Kate doing our best not to die of smoke inhalation. She and I took baby hits. Nick sucked the whole two-foot cylinder of pot smoke right down like a vacuum. Matthew did too.

Then we settled in to watch Risky Business on a VCR on Matthew’s tiny TV. Nick and I snuggled on a mattress on the floor while Matthew and Kate sat together under a blanket on the couch behind us. Kate was very stoned, despite mostly coughing her way through her bong hit. Her eyes were little red slits. I’m sure mine didn’t look much better. Nick must have been stoned too, but you could never tell with him.

We watched the movie, Nick and I curled up under a smelly sleeping bag. Nick gave me a little back massage and then kissed my neck and eventually slid his hand sexily up and down my back. This seemed almost cruel though, since we couldn’t really do anything and there wasn’t any place to go.

I didn’t notice Matthew and Kate at first. They were behind us and I was wrapped up in the sleeping bag, the back of my head cradled in Nick’s armpit. But then I heard something. A slight gasp. I scooted myself around so I could discreetly take a peek. Kate and Matthew were totally making out. Also Kate’s hand was under the blanket in the approximate area of Matthew’s lap.

I glanced at Nick who had also noticed this. He grinned at me and then we both covered our heads with the sleeping bag and giggled to each other.

But I guess Nick felt inspired by Kate’s boldness and a moment later, I felt his fingers undo the top button of my jeans. A tingle of excitement passed through me and for a moment my desire totally overrode my modesty. He slowly pulled my zipper down and then with one firm push, sent his long musician fingers down my belly, under my panties and right to the spot. Wow. I felt a deep warmth spread through me and I gathered the sleeping bag and curled deeper under it, and also deeper into Nick, who slowly, gently began to move his finger around.

After that, things got pretty intense. Nick’s fingers were completely intoxicating. And then I heard Kate moan. She tried not to, but the sound of her suppressing it made it even more sexy in a way. I was getting so excited. I peeked out again, and looked behind me, and now Kate was on top of Matthew, facing him and straddling him. They were totally having sex! Her T-shirt was still on and the blanket was still covering her ass, but it was totally obvious, especially when you saw Matthew’s hairy legs, and his tangled jeans and boxers, bunched around his ankles.

I kind of couldn’t believe it. But Nick seemed totally into it, and it was making him even more focused and erotic with his fingertips. Slowly, Nick began shifting us around until I was completely on my back, though still mostly covered by the sleeping bag. He rolled a condom onto himself and then we were doing it too, missionary style, on the mattress, while Kate continued to move up and down on Matthew’s lap, not three feet away from us in the dark, blue-lit room. Every few minutes you would hear Tom Cruise say something, or the screech of tires, or some other movie sound. It was dreamy and sexy but also weird and sort of funny and definitely the most risqué thing I had ever done. I was already congratulating myself for it, and even telling Sally about it in my head. Oh my god, she would be so scandalized, I was practically having group sex!

This secretive, and then less secretive, grinding and moaning went on for several minutes, both couples wrapped up in our separate coverings. I was totally letting myself go with it. But then I opened my eyes for a second and saw Kate standing over me. She was off the couch and had come over to us. She was still wearing her tight baby tee but she was completely naked below that. She seemed to be in some sort of sex trance. But what was she doing? Why was she standing there?

She knelt down beside me on the mattress and watched us. We were pretty exposed by that point and I felt