Sad Desk Salad by Jessica Grose Read Free Book Online Page B

hoped telegraphed that I wanted him to leave me alone.
    “I really liked your set and your DJ name. DJ Divine Hammer? A Breeders reference, right?”
    “Yeah,” I said, semi-impressed that he’d gotten it, considering how well pressed his shirt was.
    “And you write for Rev ?”
    “Yeah—how did you know?” I was both delighted and slightly freaked out by this. I’d never been recognized by my writing before, so that part felt amazing, but the piece of me that read the New York Post too much was still thinking, Is this guy going to take me to Prospect Park and stab me a bunch of times?
    “I read your stuff every day,” he said.
    “You and about fifteen other people.” As I looked at his genuine smile and his non-murderer-y eyes, the squickiness I was feeling started to dissipate.
    “I think it’s really funny,” he said, cocking his head toward me.
    I was truly flattered by this, and we started talking about the bands that we liked. It turned out that this prep could out-indie me: He knew about obscure yet highly influential bands that had played a single show in someone’s basement in Milwaukee in 1977. “I have that 9 Fingers bootleg everyone always talks about,” he said, bragging.
    “So what do you do?” I asked, bowled over by his level of rock nerdery.
    “I’m a calligraphy grad student at Pratt.”
    I didn’t know how to respond to that at first. I was trying to avoid artists, but also, that sounded like the most useless and idiotic graduate degree I had ever heard of.
    “That sounds . . . interesting,” I finally managed to say.
    He laughed. “I’m just joking. I work in finance. I thought some artsy shit would play better with a girl like you.”
    I had to laugh at how accurately he’d pegged me. “I have to start DJing again,” I told him.
    “Can I have your number?” he asked, and to my surprise, I gave it to him.
    He called me the next day.
     
    Unlike my previous boyfriends, Peter always called when he said he would. During our first few dates, I put on my dizzy-girl-about-town act. I told him the having-sex-with-Adrian-makes-me-puke-and-cry story; I bragged about my DJing and my job at Rev and made myself sound like much more of a whirlwind than I actually was. Looking back, I think I was acting as loony as possible to test him: Caleb had always criticized me for being so dramatic, and I wanted Peter to get the full force of my drama to see how he would respond.
    Peter was not turned off. Underneath that preppy exterior, we had a lot in common. He is also an only child, a late-in-life miracle baby. His parents had both been married before, and neither had children from those first, disastrous unions. Peter’s mom in particular was desperate to have a kid, and so when he emerged on her forty-second birthday, she was immediately obsessed with him.
    Unlike me, though, Peter’s always been a golden boy: partial scholarship to Georgetown, secured a job as a junior analyst at a well-regarded financial firm by the fall of his senior year. I secretly think he’s always followed the straight and narrow path in part because he never wanted to let his mother down. His parents retired at sixty-two and live on Long Island. They watch Fox News for approximately 40 percent of their waking hours. They are nice to me in a distant sort of way, although I suspect that in my absence they refer to me as a socialist.
    When Peter and I first started dating we would go to shows together, and we always stood near the front and held hands. But soon we found ourselves at home more often than not. Being with him was so soothing and felt so natural that I could really be myself, not some histrionic fool. I didn’t mind being a homebody when Peter was around. Sure, part of me was always going to be overwrought, but Peter accepted that as part of who I am, not as some terrible inconvenience to his lifestyle.
     
    After Peter heads to work I get up to brush my teeth and see that it’s almost seven.