Free Pug Hill by Alison Pace Page A

completely freaking out in the middle of the bar at the Regency Hotel might be something I’d look back on later with regret.
    “Yeah,” he says, “If you Google me, an article from the the Pennsylvania Gazette comes up. It’s from when I went back to Wharton to speak on a panel. I spoke about hedge funds,” he explains.
    Who Googles themselves? Do people really do this? I stare at him blankly. Evan doesn’t care that I’m staring blankly. Evan just keeps talking.
    “They say, ‘Evan Russell, consummate public speaker.”’
    “Consummate, huh?” I say.
    “Yeah, consummate,” he says and then, “Thanks,” to the waitress as she sets down his new Scotch. He leans forward and takes a first sip and then turns back to look at me. His eyes sparkle; they always do. I wonder if confidence, if appearing to be so sure of yourself, even when there is quite a lot of evidence to suggest that you are not, if that is what makes a person’s eyes sparkle. Or if it’s something else.
    I look over at Evan and take a sip of my spritzer. It’s times like this, when I notice the way his eyes sparkle, that I can understand why I ever thought I loved him. Just as it makes it all so clear why I don’t think I love him anymore and makes me wonder, actually, if I ever did. He drinks his Scotch and I drink my spritzer. I eat some more M&M’s, and we sit in silence for a while.
    “Do you want to have another drink?” he asks me, hopeful, once his Scotch glass is once again empty, the ice-cube pillage but moments away.
    “I don’t care,” I say. And I don’t, because right this second I know that no matter how hard I try, I won’t be able to hang on to that phone call when he said, “All I want in the world is to have another drink with you,” and I melted. That was just a phone call. No matter how much I want it to be, it’s not going to be more than that. And it’s certainly not going to be enough.
    “Don’t be scared, Hope,” he says, and I feel for a moment like he’s saying things out of context again. But then, maybe it’s not as out of context as I think. It occurs to me, and I’m sure it can’t be for the first time, that maybe there are things in this world other than public speaking that scare the hell out of me.

    As our taxi speeds through Central Park on the way over to the west side, that very thought is still very much in the forefront of my mind. I have the feeling it’s scouting around, looking for a good place to pitch a tent. I have a feeling it wants to stay for a while. I’m not sure I want it there. I turn to Evan.
    “Maybe we could get out on Broadway and get a slice of pizza?” I say.
    “Why do you want pizza?”
    “Well, we’ve been drinking for sport all night.” I let the words hang there between us. The staying-home-versus-going-out war, in which we have for a few months now been engaged, had been the topic of a vigorous argument the week before, one in which I had made him so mad that he threw a microwave pizza (pre-microwaving) at me. I’d been so sure that was going to be the argument to end all arguments, the one to segue into the breakup, but somehow it never did. The fact that I am bringing up pizza again right now should in no way be seen as a coincidence.
    “I didn’t have dinner,” I add on, “and I’m hungry.”
    “You’d think five million M&M’s would have done the trick.” He exhales in this way, this aggressive way that ends in a little snort. It reminds me of Pamela. I think this is fitting, as this is all her fault.
    The cab pulls up outside of Evan’s building. He has not, as it worked out, asked the cab to stop on Broadway. As we walk toward his building, I think of how tonight, how so many nights, I would so much prefer sleeping at my apartment, with the nicer pillows and all my stuff. I exhale myself, and Evan stops in his tracks and says, “ What , Hope?” He says it meanly, as meanly as you can say, “ What , Hope?” And then, just like that, I