At Least They're Committed

He walks into my room and immediately heads to the window, peering out to ensure nobody is peeking into the second floor and that his entrance has gone unnoticed. He draws the curtains, which I don’t understand because it’s 9 p.m. and it’s dark on all sorts of levels, but when he lights up the wall across from my bed, I get it. He hops on, bouncing Mina and me nearly off the mattress. Mina grumbles and decides she prefers her doggy bed to sharing the space.

Gabriel hands me a spoon and a pint of Ben and Jerry’s Americone Dream ice cream and pulls out a Cherry Garcia for himself. I’m not much into ice cream, but he did pick my favorite. They say you crave things that are sweet when you need to be soothed. “Uh-oh,” I say.

He looks at me and raises his eyebrows then turns back and the wall begins to move with the images he’s casting upon it. It starts in sepia, choppily like a home movie from the 60s, but then it comes clear. I groan.

“I barely survived this. Do I really have to go through it again?” He chuckles, sucking chocolate-cherry ice cream off the end of his spoon. I cough. He stops the show and stares at me, then the pint in my hand, then back at me. Taking the cue, I open the lid and jab the spoon into the caramel, cream and chocolate. It’s perfect, not too hard, not too soft. I like this kind because it has the crunchy cone in it and I gravitate toward crunch (venting of frustration) more than sweet (needing to be soothed).

The movie begins without sound. Just people and activity from my point of view — like in Doom. Shit, why can’t he be showing me that movie instead? He fast forwards until he hits a good spot.

I start to laugh. “I still don’t feel bad, sorry. We’ve all been there. Nope, don’t feel bad for her at all.”

He rolls until I spit out, “OMG,” with my mouth full. I point with my spoon at the wall. “That was amazing! The utter unawareness of anything outside one’s own perspective was flabbergasting!” The movie begins to roll again, but I keep talking. “If I were still a reporter, I would have had a heyday comparing what was said there to what was said later. And THAT would have been responsible journalism.  . . . That kid, he was amazing. So impressed.”

We continue.

“Stop there!” I say. He complies. “Jesus! What a grouch he was! I mean, we were all stressed but some of us at least tried to keep our sense of humor.”

He nods and moves on quickly. It transitions into night. At the hotel, I bath and dress in less than 20 minutes, see my reflection in the mirror and think, “not bad,” then head downstairs. I step off the elevator and round the corner and the importants are already there and I sit and then my colleague joins and we all get up and move to the dining area and there’s a big table for the importants and, yes, I know better than to sit there yet I can swear He Who is Above Me tenses to think that I might. The others — the fun ones — join and we choose a table around the corner.

Lots of laughing and the frames are moving in fast-forward and one important person comes up and joins us for a while, then leaves, then another comes and joins on the other side and then leaves and then Important 1 returns with Unaware and it was then that things got absurd for many of my colleagues and some leave and we linger a bit and then it’s only me, Colleague and Cute Girl and we head to the elevator aiming to go to bed, but we’re stopped by Important 2, who invites us to join him and the others in another room. Sweet! But we go in and there are no chairs remaining so I stand by He Who etc. but he doesn’t seem to want me or me/us there and so I make the motion for us to leave and we head out but Important 2 has gotten some chairs for us and it was kind and we felt compelled to go back in. Cute is called away (she said later she was relieved because it was so awkward and uncomfortable) and Colleague and I are sitting there chatting with importants 1 and 2 for a few minutes. I stand and snag us a couple more beers and as I return or soon after Nos. 1 and 2 and He Who etc. depart.

He slows down the video to actual time as Colleague looks at me and puzzles and I really hadn’t noticed the mass exodus but then I do and I agree it’s odd there was no goodnight or anything, and I feel deflated.

Gabriel freezes the frame when he hears me sigh. I turn away from the wall and toward him, my right hand fisted over the spoon, stabbing again and again at the ice cream. “When we were there last summer,” I say looking down, “He and I had a fun and insightful conversation and maybe I was hoping for that kind of camaraderie and inclusion again. I’m not into titles, you know, and I really don’t consider any one person more important than another and, you know, I know I need to understand the way things work and ‘my place’ but it’s kind of hard for me.”

The wall goes black and I’m relieved that he’s going to spare me Day 2 and the missing camera-card debacle and my anxiety as Nice Guy pulls the camera out of my bag for me and my fear that my skimpy black thong is going to go flying across the room.

Sitting in complete darkness, I take another spoonful, but my throat is tight and I have a tough time choking it down. “It hurt my feelings.”

“I’m sorry,” Gabriel says. The wall again springs to life and Karl Urban’s and Dwayne Johnson’s names pop up in the opening credits amid throes of blood and chaos. “Doom!” I smile. He stays, I sleep, the dog eats the melted ice cream.