WHAT WE TALK ABOUT WHEN WE TALK ABOUT WOODY ALLEN • by Tony Lacey

“It’s a little early, even for you.”

Susan’s right. Even for me. I smile sheepishly. “It’s Friday.” I don’t tell her it’s my second. I don’t tell her why. I don’t tell her about you.

“It’s always Friday with you, isn’t it?” There’s a hint of disdain in her voice.

She kneels down to let Manfred run over and greet her. Then he runs to me and jumps on my leg so I can take part in the celebration. Then back to her.

I raise my glass. “TGIF,” I say. “I can make you one.”

She doesn’t bother to shake her head. “Did you find anything today? Did you look?”

“There’s nothing right now.” That’s not completely true. There’s plenty, just not for me. I don’t want to be collaborative. I don’t want to interface with content creators. I don’t want to master Adobe Acrobat, MS Excel, or SEO. What is SEO?

Susan sees through this charade. I’ve always been a bad liar. Well, mostly. At one point I was pretty good at it. She sighs. “I’m gonna get on the Peloton before we go.”

“Maybe we can just skip it,” I say.

Now she shakes her head. “It’s Tomar’s 50th. We’re not skipping it.”

I wait until I hear the bedroom door close before I go back into the kitchen. “Don’t tell, buddy,” I say to our little chihuahua-mutt. I hate making him an accomplice. He runs over to his bed and curls up. I don’t bother with ginger ale this time. I just pour the Jim Beam directly over the nearly melted ice. It wouldn’t have made a difference anyway.

***

Why couldn’t I have been blackout drunk with no memory of the entire evening? I don’t remember how I got home, but I remember the bad parts. I think they were all bad parts. And I remember the last thing I said.

It was Anne, Tomar’s wife, who went on and on about how proud she was of their daughter. And it wasn’t just because she’d been accepted at Cornell. Though that was mentioned more than a few times. “She won’t watch any of his movies. She says he should be in prison. And you know, as usual, she’s right. I won’t watch them anymore either. Not that it’s much of a sacrifice. He hasn’t done anything decent in years, and even his earlier ones, well, they’re just so problematic, you know, knowing what we know now.”

“Oh my God, he’s so gross.” That was Virginia. She makes bad documentaries. “And I don’t think his movies were ever that good.” Better than yours, I didn’t say, in my one moment of restraint.

“Well I never even found them that funny.” I can’t remember who said that. Susan looked at me. She knew what pushed my buttons. At that moment I felt bad for her but I couldn’t help myself. I was a loaded gun, loaded with cheap bourbon and mid-level red wine. Loaded with sorrow and regret.

I started with Anne and Tomar’s daughter. What did an 18-year-old know about anything? I might have said something about Cornell being the easiest Ivy to get into. I probably shouldn’t have said that. Then I went to work on the adults. “You’re gonna boycott his movies but you can’t wait to line up to see the latest Mel Gibson-Mark Wahlburg blockbuster? What a bunch of fucking hypocrites.” Then it was the case itself. “And after all that, he was found innocent.”

“That’s not the way it works,” Noah Novagradsky said with a sneer. “You clearly never went to law school.” Some of the other attorneys laughed. Maybe they’re all attorneys. I’m pretty sure Anne has a law degree but now she makes jewelry. That doesn’t seem like a great ROI. I know I’m not, though I did successfully fight a parking ticket once. I brought all kinds of photographic evidence with me to the courthouse but the judge wasn’t interested. He was tired and wanted to go home so he ripped up the ticket. Just like that. It was a hollow victory.

Susan was yanking me out of the room, but it was too late. “The only thing he did wrong was getting involved with that vindictive cunt.” Said in front of our closest friends. Is there any coming back from that?

***

I watch the sun come up. I drink coffee but it doesn’t taste right. I read the obituary on my phone. Survived by her husband and three children, it says. A long career as a journalist. It doesn’t mention the way you crossed your left arm over your right, the right holding a glass of chardonnay up even with your jawline, the way your cream-colored blouse was unbuttoned one button more than I would have expected, sexy in a sophisticated way, unlike me in my unsophisticated khakis and polo shirt looking like some IT stooge, the way you cocked your head ever so slightly and turned the corners of your perfect mouth up and looked at me, the way that look asked, what do you want, and there was only one answer at that moment and for a time after: you.

You left the company right before the billionaire bought us. By that time our thing had fizzled and died. Then my career did the same. I’d been there too long. I made too much money, not for the world, but for the profession. So the billionaire got rid of me. More likely somebody several rungs below him, but still, all I could do was blame the billionaire. Which wasn’t really fair. He’s a pretty good billionaire as they tend to go.

At the height of my infatuation, my obsession, my temporary insanity, I wrote you poems and made bold declarations. I told you that on my deathbed you’d be the last person I thought of.

Did you think of me? I dial your number and wait, and listen. It’s me. You know what to do.


Tony Lacey is the pen name of a short story and novel writer who lives in Washington, D.C.


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