Attempted Chemistry: A Novel

By Jeff Gomez

Chemistry is what everyone hopes for when meeting somebody for the first time. Yet, too often, relationships soon evolve into a union akin to rubbing two wet sticks together and hoping for fire, then hanging on for dear life should the spark produce flames of any size.
 
In Attempted Chemistry, Jeff Gomez, author of the cult favorite Our Noise, charts the lives and loves of a variety of Manhattan men and women who find that it’s not establishing the foundation of a relationship that’s difficult, it’s building the whole house that’s hard. In sharp prose and dead-on dialogue, these characters lead lives of restless discontent and desperation.
 
There’s Daniel and Eileen, a newly cohabiting boyfriend and girlfriend who are quickly realizing the difference between dating and living together; Josh and Kendra, a young married couple who are facing the first real challenges of their marriage; Keith and Brie, a couple who lie to themselves as much as to each other; and the singles Rick, Mike, Leslie, and Cressandra, all of whom try for love in various guises, yet just can’t seem to make a connection.
 
Sad, funny, and poignant, Attempted Chemistry is a book about trying to find communion with another soul; a process that all of us have gone through at some point in our lives, in our search for love, happiness, and, of course, chemistry.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Open Road Integrated Media
• Release date: Nov 10, 2015
• ISBN: 9781504023887

Jeff Gomez

Jeff Gomez is the author of five books. He lives in California.  

Book preview

1

Daniel likes to think of coffee as incense. He believes nothing makes a room smell better than the freshly brewed French roast he makes every morning, ground from beans he buys at a small market across from his favorite pizzeria up on St. Mark’s Place, Nino’s. And if the general aroma of the beverage isn’t enough, he’ll walk around the apartment with the pot, flicking up the plastic lid with his thumb as if pumping out perfume from an atomizer, making sure the smell permeates every pore of the room. He then likes to douse the empty sink with whatever is left in his cup, leaving a dark musty ring that will remind him that night of the coffee he had that morning.

His girlfriend, Eileen, has never witnessed this behavior, but she did wonder why the studio he used to live in always smelled so much like coffee. She prefers real incense, in either cone or stick format; scents that are exotic and, if they could speak, would have far-away accents: India and beyond. She does not consider the steep hills of Brazil much of an escape. At her old place, Daniel was always tripping over circular dishes that held sweet-smelling ash or else that teakwood tray in which she’d sometimes poke two sticks of incense at once. In fact, quite a few times he burned a nice-smelling hole in his foot. But that was all before yesterday, before they moved in with each other.

Daniel and Eileen now share a small one bedroom apartment in the West Village. The apartment, a third floor walk-up, is in a pre-war building with hardwood floors and a shower with little pressure and the personality of a sexual tease: sometimes hot, sometimes cold. The kitchen is a closet with a stove and two tin shoeboxes nailed to the wall for cupboards. There’s only one counter, and it’s hung low between the sink and a fridge that’s a pony compared to the horse-sized refrigerators they had grown up with, she in suburban Baltimore and he in suburban Los Angeles. The suburbs had spoiled them with space. The bedroom takes itself literally, providing room for not much else than a bed. They managed somehow to wedge in a nightstand and dresser. At night, they’ll wedge in themselves.

The move the day before had gone smoothly, or as smoothly as moves can possibly go when professionals are not involved and the roster of volunteers is made up of sundry co-workers, relatives, and the drafted acquaintances of attending friends. There was Anthony, a co-worker of Eileen’s; Anthony’s cousin, Chazz, the inevitable invitee with the truck: personality and vehicle borrowed for one day and then forgotten; and Keith, Daniel’s friend from California, the one who had convincingly persuaded him a little more than seven months ago to leave Los Angeles for Manhattan.

Daniel had been living in the East Village, Eileen around Union Square. Neither of the apartments to be vacated had an elevator. There were nine combined flights to walk down, each with it’s own inherent difficulties. Eileen’s hallways were narrow and she had most of the furniture, which led to continuous arguments between Anthony and Chazz on how to un-parallel park the couch out of the cramped living room. Meanwhile, Daniel’s stairs were wide but steep and most of his cargo was boxes overstuffed with books, bottom-heavy and threatening to burst. She had suggested he get rid of some of the books, that there would never be enough space for all of them in their apartment, but he insisted that as a writer he needed to be surrounded by words.

Earlier in the week Daniel had bought a disposable Styrofoam cooler from the K-Mart on Astor Place and he packed it yesterday with dry-ice and the ingredients for an elaborate and secret breakfast in bed. He also wanted to include a bottle of champagne, thinking that his and Eileen’s new life was a ship whose castoff needed to be positively christened, but decided against it because he knew there’d be no room in the small cooler for so big a bottle. Now, the morning after the move, he reaches into the cooler and lifts out the various ingredients for his surprise meal.

Every muscle in his body aches from the day before; he can barely straighten himself out after crouching over. He needs another few hours of sleep and then maybe a hot bath or a massage, or both. Setting the package of bacon on the counter, he grins as he notices the pots and pans and spices he had laid out the evening before. Last night he had fought off Eileen’s various questions, her asking exactly why did he have to find the salt, pepper and spatula that night, right then. Part of him wanted to tell her—and he almost did—but in the end he kept his secret. He wanted this to be a surprise.

Setting a brown carton of eggs on the counter, he catches his reflection in the Windexed door of the microwave. He notices that his brownish-blond hair, cut short on the sides and parted to the right on top, this morning is sticking up in horn-like clumps on both sides of his head. He runs a hand through his wild hair, trying to smooth it down. Daniel is amazed at how thin it has become over the past couple of years. He’s only twenty-nine, but with the hair loss, looks older. His face is also puffy due to the lack of sleep, while his nose is red from spending so much time in the street the day before retrieving box after box. The day had been warmer than predicted and unusually hot for the city in late-April, which left the entire moving party more than a little sunburned.

In the bedroom, Eileen is slowly stirring herself awake. She rolls over and finds her bed is missing the lumpy presence of Daniel. She grins, thinking that the past month of planning and weeks of packing have been just a dream. She’s back in her old apartment on Thirteenth Street. But then she opens her eyes to the unfamiliar surroundings: boxes everywhere, garbage bags filled with clothes, walls bare except for circles of white putty and tape on the window-frame from where the super was touching up as recently as the day before. The room still smells sourly of paint; it needs incense, but she figures her boyfriend will offer only coffee.

Eileen hears loud rattling in the kitchen and becomes angry, thinking that Daniel should have waited for her to wake up before beginning to unpack. She wonders, What’s the rush?

Compromise, she tells herself. Compromise, she repeats, slowly rising out of bed. She sweeps her long black hair out of her face and sets it in a pile on top of her head, securing it with a purple plastic pin.

Once in the living room she notices the apartment smells sweet and smoky, like the Hickory Farms store her mom always dragged her to back in Maryland. The closer Eileen gets to the kitchen—she’s now halfway through the living room, the air of which is dry and spicy; the bare skin on her arms feels like meat being cured—she hears both sizzling and crackling noises that she remembers from her youth.

Oh, fuck, she sighs.

Eileen turns the corner to see Daniel at the stove, three burners flickering with high flames. The coffee-maker sits on the microwave, which is placed on the one counter and is surrounded by clumps of grounds. He startles at her presence and then quickly glances at a plastic tray on the table upon which are sitting two plates, each garnished with half a grapefruit but bare otherwise.

"Surprise," he says weakly.

Yeah, she mumbles, noticing that he’s wearing her old Georgetown T-shirt.

Oh, I found this in the closet, Daniel says, looking down at the shirt that has obviously caught Eileen’s attention. Over the face of the white, block letters is a smear of yellow egg-yolk and an oil slick of excess margarine. I needed an apron and this thing was in the hall closet, so I just sort of figured …

Eileen slowly approaches.

The reason it was in the hall closet, Daniel, is because I ran out of room in bedroom closet. I mean, she reaches out to touch the soiled shirt. Daniel’s belly trembles behind the silk-screened front. "It’s not like it’s a rag or anything."

"Oops."

His excuse of an apology is punctuated by the popping of two slices of toast out of the toaster immediately to Eileen’s right. She jumps.

Looking over at the smoking, blackened bread (the pink-hot coils inside the silver appliance beginning to cool and fade) she says, "What is all this?"

Breakfast, sweetheart, Daniel tries to say brightly. "It was going to be in bed, but you surprised me."

He reaches past her for the toast, placing the slices on a small dish. He then holds up a jar of Smuckers jelly and a stick of real butter. She hasn’t seen real butter since visiting her grandparents in Florida six years ago. It’s more white than yellow.

Which one? he asks, slowly breaking into a smile and adding, "or both?"

Eileen rests against the wall behind her and raises a hand to her forehead, checking if it is she that is hot or if it is the temperature in the room from all of Daniel’s inaccurately set appliances.

"Uh, neither. I don’t even like toast."

But, the other night … you said you loved toast. You said you even have it as a snack sometimes, or with dinner.

"You believed that? I was just kidding. And I thought you were, too."

Answering with a hurt look instead of words, Daniel turns to the stove where four eggs are burning in a frying pan.

Oh, fuck, he mumbles, grabbing for the handle of the pan. He tosses the rock-hard eggs into the sink where four others—burnt and with broken yolks—are also ruined. He then throws the frying pan onto the pile. Rather than just clean it and try again, he searches the boxes on the floor for yet another pan.

Wow, Eileen says, noticing the stack of dirty dishes, pans, utensils, and a plastic spatula melted almost beyond recognition. It looks like you’ve used almost every cooking apparatus we have. Should I unpack some more dishes, so you can dirty them, too?

Don’t worry, there’s one more frying pan. For the eggs, he replies, missing her point.

No, it’s just … you know, most of these are mine. Eileen watches as Daniel places the latest frying pan over a rocket-engine flame. He melts a large pat of butter in the bat of an eye and then breaks into the pan four more eggs. They blacken and burn at the point of contact. And I thought you said you could cook.

I can, he says, distracted, trying to pry under the corners of the already browned eggs with a metal spatula turned hot from his earlier attempts. "I mean, most things. Eggs are just sort of, goddamn, tricky. He moves the frying pan to the back burner as the contents go up in smoke, the butter turning into a hard crust, the eggs scalded. Anyway, that’s it for the eggs. But, I’ve got bacon, and the toast. Well, bacon. And some grapefruit."

Daniel, I’m a … vegetarian, Eileen says, not sure what to believe anymore. Maybe if I went back to bed and woke up an hour from now and acted like none of this ever happened … "You know that."

Yeah, yeah, he replies quickly, as if he had expected this response and concocted an explanation. He grabs a package from the cooler and shoves it in her face. Her nose instantly recoils at the musty scent of the cured meat. "This is turkey bacon. You see? Jennie-O fat free turkey bacon. Ninety-seven percent lean. Of course, the downside is that it doesn’t shrink or make any fat, so to get it juicy and not have it come out like a bunch of little leathery hides, you have to fry them in a bit of oil."

He steps out of the way to give Eileen a view of the dozen thin purple and brown strips with light streaks (from white meat since there’s no fat) sizzling in a pan of what looks like half an inch of grease.

Uh, is that lard? Because that’s the same as—

No, no, Daniel cuts her off, as if he’s thought of everything. This time he pokes a can of Crisco in her face.

I still can’t eat that, Daniel.

But you said fish, and sometimes chicken. He thinks back to the conversation they have every few months, Daniel getting a refresher course on the rigors of her self-imposed diet. They’ve been dating for six months, which meant that he had heard this speech three times.

"Yeah, but that … She points with a hand that she’d rather use to clamp her nose. The kitchen smells like a diner, the air thick and smoggy with the fumes of the butter and bread and eggs. I mean, I just can’t … Sorry."

Daniel looks around the kitchen, wondering what can be salvaged. He comes up empty.

"Then what do you eat for breakfast?"

She crosses the thin space and when she does he catches, even through the haze of the kitchen, a whiff of her rosy perfume on the back of her neck. The smell reminds him of why he’s doing this.

From a box marked KITCHEN sitting atop the small refrigerator she pulls a box of granola cereal, and hands it to Daniel. He examines the cover which is decorated with just a photograph of a bowl filled with the trail mix-like product; no mascot, no cartoon characters, no toy inside. How can anyone call this cereal?

You’re serious?

Yes.

But … why?

Why, what? I like it. What’s the big deal?

"But when you used to spend the night at my apartment, I’d always run out and get bagels or some Danish or croissants, those ones with the butter and almonds and, I mean, you never mentioned granola." He says this as if the item were as absurd as eating plutonium for breakfast.

Yeah, well … Eileen draws her small hands into the cuffs of her flannel pajama top. That was during courtship. It was cute the way you always offered to rush out to the Sticky Fingers Bakery and bring back a few muffins. Your hair would be sticking up and you’d throw on a pair of old Levi’s and you’d look adorable. It was fun that way. But now, she fingers the box in his hands, this is real life. This is the way I am. Every day.

Daniel again looks over the wreckage of the kitchen: a dozen eggs and not one of them edible, the wasted bacon, the burnt toast, empty plates waiting for a meal that would never arrive. She probably doesn’t even like grapefruit.

Fine, have your stupid nature food. Daniel tosses the box to Eileen but, with her hands still inside her sleeves, she does not catch it. It falls on the ground with the rest of the boxes. Eat your damn granola.

Listen, Daniel, don’t be like this.

Like what? I planned and planned and it all got screwed up.

So?

So? He sighs. So, just leave me alone. I’ve got to clean.

I’m sorry.

Sorry for being you? Don’t be.

She tries to protest, but he nudges her out of the kitchen.

Hey, wait, I—

As Eileen is being forced into the living room, she sees something familiar on the counter.

Is that my vase?

Daniel stops shoving for a second.

Huh?

"My vase. Or rather, my mother’s vase. No, my grandmother’s vase. The Waterford crystal vase."

She keeps saying the word vase but it’s rhyming with cause and not case, the way Daniel, a good California boy, would say it. He figures that’s what you get when you date a girl from the East Coast.

Oh, I thought it was, um …

Eileen lets out a shriek when she sees her expensive heirloom filled with orange juice, flakes of shredded pulp cruising the surface.

I thought it was, you know, a pitcher.

A pitcher? Eileen screams, indecision in her voice. She can’t decide whether to just yell at him outright or else quiz him as to why he was stupid enough to think the heavy, crystal vase was in fact meant to hold fruit juice. She makes a mental note to check the urn in which the ashes of her aunt are kept to make sure it hasn’t been emptied and turned into a cookie jar.

"This time I’m sorry … I guess."

"You guess?"

Look, I was trying to do something nice … For you.

"I know, I know, but still. The vase, the bacon, the eggs. I hate eggs."

Daniel screws his palm into his forehead, thinking, I just can’t win, can I? If I would have served her a bowl of cereal she would have looked up at me and said, "Is that all I’m worth to you?"

I’m sorry, Eileen, I’m sorry. What do you want me to do?

Nothing. She waves her arm as if it were a white flag. She just woke up and already she feels tired. Just … don’t do anything. You’ve done enough.

I’m sorry. He tries to put his arms around her, but not to hold her, only to shoo her out of the kitchen before she notices something else. Sorry, really. Sorry. How many times have I said this in the past few minutes? How many times do couples say this word a day? You go back to bed and I’ll start cleaning up. Okay? Give me half an hour and I’ll be in with your granola, all right? Then maybe we’ll hang some pictures, decide where your prints should go, okay?

All right, she says, okay.

Just as Eileen turns around, the anger beginning to drip away, she hears behind her the vase filled with juice drop to the floor. It shatters instantly and sends the cool orange liquid crashing against her heels.

"You did what?"

Eileen is silent as Daniel’s words hang in the air. He’s sitting on the couch but she’s standing near the door. She can smell his breath despite the distance: coffee. After the botched meal that morning she escaped the cluttered apartment for a walk, and now she’s wishing she had stayed out a few minutes more.

I ran into Katherine at the flea market and I invited her and Cary over for drinks. What’s the problem?

The problem is that we’re not even unpacked yet. All of our stuff is in boxes and the place is a mess.

Eileen pokes her head into the kitchen and sees that the dishes from this morning have been washed and put away.

Looks okay to me. So we unpack the stereo, a few nice glasses, something to drink. It’s not a dinner party, Daniel. And we have the whole weekend to unpack. That’s why we moved on a Friday, right? That was your idea, wasn’t it?

Eileen hopes that throwing his own logic at him will trip him up, and it momentarily does; Daniel is speechless. After a few second of searching, he finds an idea to follow.

I just don’t see why you couldn’t have told me sooner. Eight o’clock’s only … He looks around the room for a timepiece but none have yet been unpacked. Ticking is coming from one of the boxes, but he’s not sure which. I just wish I had known earlier, that’s all.

"I tried, Daniel. I called. Twice. But you didn’t answer. Where’s the damn machine? Why didn’t the machine pick up?"

He nods his head toward a box marked ELECTRONICS that’s wilting under the weight of one of his big boxes packed full of books.

You mean to tell me you unpacked the paprika, but not the answering machine?

"No. I mean, yes. Okay, that’s my fault. But if you couldn’t get hold of me, you shouldn’t have made plans."

"It’s just drinks, Daniel. And it’s just Katherine and Cary. They’re friends. It’s not plans if it’s friends."

"It is if it’s your friends."

What’s that supposed to mean?

Nothing.

"Don’t say nothing. It’s something. What? What’s wrong with my friends?"

They’re fine. We’d better just get ready, okay?

Deciding to drop the subject, she replies, Okay.

Turning to go into the other room, he momentarily stops. He looks around the apartment, the decoration of which is now a curious hybrid of her possessions mixed with his. Daniel closes one eye and can see where Eileen has amassed almost all of her bits of furniture on one side of the room, banishing his to the corner on the other side. He alternates the opening and closing of each eye, seeing the room first cut in half by his things and then by hers.

Five hours later Daniel and Eileen’s new apartment—still cluttered with boxes and tumbleweeds made out of newspaper which had been used for packing—is filled with the queer sound of shrill ringing. It sounds as if a broken ambulance is parked below their window.

"What is that? Eileen says. Is that the buzzer?"

Daniel steps into the hallway and, taking a guess, presses Talk on the rectangular beige intercom to the left of the front door. He quickly lets go and then presses the Listen button.

Hello?

Hey, it’s us.

Through the scratchy connection, it’s hard to tell exactly who Us is. But Daniel buzzes them in anyway. A minute later, someone’s knocking at their door.

Daniel flings open the door, politely greets both of them, and then takes Katherine’s lightweight coat before moving toward Cary and taking his black leather jacket from where it’s sitting atop his shoulders. The empty arms, decorated with studs swirling in random patterns, flop down his back. Daniel slips down the hall with his face filled with a smile and his arms full of coats.

Cary, you look so very … Eileen falls short when examining her guest, the same way she always fails to describe Katherine’s wild looking boyfriend who possesses a goatee, a number of tattoos and multiple piercings (six of which are visible, and she’s always wondered how many more were below the neck). This is in contrast to Katherine who is relatively normal looking even if tonight she’s dressed in a pair of pink high heels and a mismatched skirt and blouse, as if she were a double scoop of ice cream: bright green on the bottom and dark brown on top.

Daniel returns from the hall closet to see the trio still standing in front of the door.

Let’s get a picture of the happy couple. Cary says this as he steps back from the group, pulling something gray and black from a pouch in his baggy army-green pants.

I’m sorry, guys, Katherine says, looking embarrassed. But it’s his new thing.

Photography? Daniel asks, trying to show that he actually knows something about this couple even though they’re Eileen’s friends. But I thought you were a painter?

"Artist, Cary replies, bringing the camera to his left eye. Half his face is covered. Life is my medium."

Daniel correctly guesses that this is a quote from Cary’s Artist Statement, something he had to write last summer to get a grant which didn’t come through.

Now smile, you two.

The view from Cary’s eyepiece is a double mugshot. Trying to lighten the mood, he moves the camera up and down in his hands and begins to sing. "If you Leica me, like I Leica you …" This elicits enough of a response from Daniel and Eileen that Cary snaps the picture. Bright white fills the room and leaves dilated pupils.

Now, he places the camera back in his pocket, can I get a drink?

Oh, sure, Daniel says quickly. What would you like?

Cary instantly responds, What have you got? while Katherine says she’ll have whatever Eileen’s having, which Eileen designates as The usual. With Cary in tow on the way to the kitchen where a makeshift bar has been set up by placing every bottle of liquor they now co-jointly own on top of the refrigerator, Daniel tries to remember exactly what it is that Eileen usually drinks.

As Eileen begins to lead Katherine—who’s shaking—into the living room, her friend leans over and whispers, "He’s started already. It’s not even nine and he’s drunk. He’s already drunk. Can you believe it?"

They sit down on the couch, while Daniel and Cary can be heard in the background amidst the clinking of glass and the emptying of bottles.

Why, Katherine. Why does he do it?

"‘Because I can,’ he says. Can you believe that? Like he’s sixteen years old for chrissakes. Like just because it’s the weekend he’s got to get smashed. ‘I’ve had a hard week, and I deserve it,’ he says. Although … I sort of see his point. Things have been tough for him lately, Eileen. He hasn’t sold a painting in … ever. And he only sporadically takes a scenic painting job for that film company in Tribeca. That is, when he feels like it. When he just so happens to feel like earning a little money and contributing to the relationship. Besides, I think he takes those jobs just to get out of the house. Away from me. Like I’m suffocating him. Can you believe that? I mean, can you believe the nerve? Although tomorrow he actually deigned to take a job. Housepainting. Some friends of friends. Upper West Side. Cary’s looking forward to it like he’s having a tooth pulled. Has been complaining about it all damn day. I mean, really, can you believe it?"

This is one of the reasons why Eileen wanted to have them over. Hearing someone else’s problems either puts her own into perspective or else makes them vanish all together. Seeing Daniel next to Cary makes her feel that, for once in her life, she’s made the right decision. Sitting next to a whimpering Katherine, despite her thin figure and recent promotion at Young & Rubicam, Eileen feels somewhat superior.

Katherine and Cary are not the only couple that Daniel and Eileen use to make themselves feel better. This is something they do all the time: after parties, dinner with friends, or while spotting a quibbling male and female walking down the street. Afterwards they’ll sit in bed and talk about the trouble of other couples, about how sad it is about them. "I just can’t believe she’s still with that guy. If you ask me, it’s her own fault. Did you see the way he was dressed? And her voice, and that hair." I know, and all night, the yelling. I never thought they’d shut up. But then again, they deserve each other. "He’ll never marry her. You’re right, he’ll never marry her."

Cary stumbles into the living room, kicking over a box stuffed with various articles from newspapers and magazines that Daniel has collected over the years. Cary’s careful not to spill the three drinks he’s holding with two hands, but not careful enough that he steps all over the yellowed clippings now strewn about the floor.

Here you are, ladies. Two gin and tonics.

Gin and tonic? Eileen stares into the clear liquid floating around three somewhat brown ice cubes, their first from the new tap.

Yes, darling. The usual. Daniel enters the room a second later, his own drink of scotch and soda pouring over the rim and trickling over his fingers, making them first wet but then sticky. Isn’t that right?

"No, honey. I usually drink Absolut and cranberry juice. But gin and tonic will be just fine."

Katherine stares down at her own drink as if she’s also been slighted even though she’d failed to state a preference.

"Cary, what are you drinking?"

Margarita.

This explains to the girls why they’d heard the blender start and stop numerous times. Once again, Eileen can’t believe the way Daniel’s mind works: he brought boxes upon boxes of books, as well as bottles of tequila and triple sec and even that special salt, but he still hasn’t unpacked the answering machine. It seems that all he’s contributing to the apartment is alcohol and novels; sometimes Eileen thinks her boyfriend tries too hard to be a Great American Novelist.

So, how was the train ride?

What? Cary coughs, a smoker’s hack. From Williamsburg? It was long, that’s what it was. Got lost.

Lost? But I gave you directions.

Eileen looks at Katherine and Katherine looks at Cary. Cary must have insisted on his own combination of trains.

It was like one of those fucking rap songs. From the L to the … C to the … N to the … Anyway, we’re here.

After a cab ride.

"We’re here."

Katherine and Cary had moved out to Brooklyn three years ago to escape Manhattan’s large rents and small apartments. They live, quite cheaply, in a modern apartment with a view of the Williamsburg Bridge, Twin Towers and East River. In addition to a nice-sized kitchen and bedroom big enough for their kingsize bed and two large dressers, there’s a large room which Cary has taken over as a studio. Daniel had suggested living in Brooklyn (if not Williamsburg then maybe Park Slope or Brooklyn Heights) so they could get a larger place and he could have an office to write in, but Eileen wanted to stay in Manhattan and be close to her office in Midtown where she works in advertising. Eileen didn’t want one of those long and convoluted commutes, the combination of numerous trains which at the end of the day resembled a slice of DNA.

Later, in the kitchen, Cary and Daniel are refreshing their drinks for the fifth time. While Daniel is trying to find bottles that still have some liquor inside, Cary is attempting to juggle three empty glasses that sit on the counter. He saw a guy juggling earlier in the day in Prospect Park and it didn’t look so hard.

Suddenly, the sound of something shattering echoes throughout the small apartment.

Cary, his eyes open wide, says, I didn’t do it.

Yes, you did, but don’t worry about it. Daniel bends over, loses his balance and falls inches away from the scattered pieces of glass. In his stomach, the various alcohols from the night’s drinking are starting to fight with each other.

Eileen quickly appears at the edge of the kitchen, arms crossed.

What happened?

We broke a glass, Cary acknowledges, aware even through his drunken haze that this sounds ridiculous: two people breaking a glass. "I mean, I broke a glass."

It’s no big deal, Eye. It’s not one of yours. Daniel fumbles on the floor trying to pick up the pieces, but he keeps losing them against the white tile and the glare of the harsh fluorescent lights set into the ceiling.

"Yeah, Daniel, I guess it’s not, it’s just … try to get all of the pieces this time. I got a sliver of that stuff stuck in my heel today while I was sweeping and I just don’t want to have to wear slippers in the kitchen for the rest of my life." There’s weariness in her voice; she’s depressed that she has both begun and is now ending the day with the sound of breaking glass.

Okay, I will. I mean, I did. Daniel clumsily rises from the floor, bumping into Cary who then gives him a steadying hand.

Walking into the next room with Cary in front, Daniel tries to hide his inebriation by over accentuating his movements. His joints move in precise right-angles that are painful to achieve due to the soreness in his muscles leftover from the previous day’s move; he looks like a robot. Hiccupping, he feels acidy liquid at the back of his throat.

Katherine sits next to Cary who has collapsed on the small couch so Daniel, out of space, sits down on the arm of the chair Eileen sits in, an antique her mother had given her years ago. Underneath the satin fabric covered in stars is a rickety old frame that shifts whenever someone sits in the chair, nails creaking as they struggle to retain their hold in the old and diseased wood. Daniel plops down with all of his weight despite the protest behind Eileen’s nervous smile. He bends at the waist for a kiss, bits of froth dripping from his puckering lips.

"How’s about a ki …"

This is all Daniel can manage before the arm of the chair beneath him breaks off and sends him to the ground.

Daniel? Eileen says, at first softly. "Daniel? She asks again, her voice now terse. The last time she says the name, Daniel!" it is a scream.

Flash.

The room lights up as if a lamp has exploded. Eileen, dazed, looks across the room to where Cary, grinning, is placing the camera back into the large pocket of his stained pants. Drunk, he manages to blurt out, Happy couple.

We should go, Katherine says, feeling embarrassment for her old co-worker. The evening has now turned