Benhadbeen planning to spend the first week of December more or less resting on his laurels, hanging out in theGastronomeoffices and maybe trying to feel Pete out vis-à-vis whether there might be a workable version of making the show going forward. Traditionally, the time between Thanksgiving and New Year’s is fairly dead at Formica, setting aside the various commerce-related teams, for whom it’s the equivalent of tax season for accountants. But Ben had thought, like anidiot, that because the videos were doing so well across the board, and because thesponsoredvideos had been such a smashing success, that maybe he and Pete would have some leverage to work with. That maybe, between them, they could figure something out that would make filming less horrible for Pete, and then find a way to sell their plan to Formica. Ben had been planning to suggest that they go in front of the cameratogether, which is so embarrassing now that he wants todieabout it, in spite of never having mustered the courage to say it out loud.
Anyway, instead of resting on his laurels, Ben spends the rest of the week in a frantic haze of activity. It is his only choice.
Over the years, Ben’s heard depression described in a lot of ways, some more resonant than others. A deep, dark hole in theground, sure, is apt enough; a yawning emptiness, too, bears a resemblance to the truth. But for Ben, depression has always brought to mind an untethered shadow, like some twisted nightmare born of too many viewings ofPeter Pan. It stalks him through the week, lurking at the edge of his vision, never more than a step or two behind. He tries to tell himself, with the increasingly frantic desperation of a sick antelope being pursued across the savannah by a completely healthy lion, that if he stays busy enough, it won’t be able to catch him.
This works, at first. Ben tells himself it works, anyway. He tells himself it works while he catches up on the household tasks he’s been putting off for weeks, and then months, and then years. When being in his apartment becomes too oppressive with memories of Pete, in spite of Pete’s only having been inside itone single time, Ben leaves and tells himself keeping busy is absolutely holding his depression at bay in various locations across New York. He pointedly does not think about his job, or Pete, or his losing his job, or losing Pete, or how he’s going to need to figure out a new source of income, or Pete’s sweat-soaked body in the soft light of the half-illuminated test kitchen, oranything elseat allwhile he goes about his business.
He visits bookstores and favorite restaurants; he reads three great novels he’s been meaning to get around to for years, and one that’s only fine; he applies for twenty-six jobs from the comfort of at least five different coffee shops. He goes to museums and interesting little stores and unfamiliar markets. He goes down to St. Mark’s, and gets dumplings, and sits on someone’s front stoop, and burns his mouth eating them, and considers getting an ill-advised tattoo.
None of it shakes the shadowy figure on his tail, no longer bothering trying to hide itself, smiling patient and sinister whenever Ben glances over his shoulder.
Hoping that clinging to structure and routine will keep the worst from happening, he cooks for Mrs. C every night that week—complex, intricate meals that stretch and challenge him. For the first time in many years, he can only bear to drop these meals off at her door, apologize for not staying, and disappear back down into his own rapidly dirtying apartment. He can tell she’s worried about him, like he can tell Adina and Brogan and even Ezra are. All three of them have messaged him a few times, expressing their condolences and offering to hook him up with job leads, saying Miranda sucks. Ben can’t bring himself to answer them.
And Pete has messaged him, too, of course. Dozens of times by now. Ben hasn’t read any of them, had muted the chat in squirming self-disgust when he couldn’t bring himself to block Pete’s number entirely, but every time he glances at the steadily climbing number, the lurking specter of depression lurches a little closer.
It’s just…what could Pete say, really? What could he say, that would make it okay with Ben that he knew, thewhole timehe knew, that this was the likeliest outcome? It’s not that Ben doesn’twantthere to be a good answer, a plausible answer. It’s not that he doesn’t want Pete to come to him and explain that Miranda has beenblackmailinghim, orbrainwashinghim, or has his whole family atgunpoint, somehow!Anythingother than the Occam’s Razor answer, the one Ben can’t quite bear to hear: that, for Pete, it had been ashowmance, the attraction tied up entirely in the situation, and it had drained away immediately when Rick explained that Ben was getting fired. Without the thought of the show binding them together, Pete had simply—come to his senses, that was all. Realized that he washim, and Ben was Ben, and there were not just leagues but galaxies between them.
But that he hadn’t even had the courtesy towarnBen, had sat there in the alley acting weird, and thenrun off. God, but Ben can’t let himself think about it. The shadow’s so close now that Ben can sense it borrowing his movements, learning his exact size and shape.
On Friday night, while Ben is eating the remains of the dinner he made for Mrs. C directly out of the pan instead of putting together a plate for himself, there is a knock on the door. He walks over to it wearily, peering out through the peephole expecting to see the super, and freezes when it’s Pete instead. After a second, his hand reaches for the knob, lands on it, and…doesn’t turn. He can’t bring himself to open it.
The knob must jiggle enough to alert Pete to his presence, though, because he calls, “Ben? Ben, I can tell you’re in there—can we just talk? For a minute? I want toapologize. I can’t exactly explain, not without—ugh. Look, I didn’t mean for it to go this way, all right? Sometimes Miranda is just talk, and I thought?—”
“Go away, Pete.” Ben says it hollowly, though loud enough to carry through the door, which he leans back against, sliding down to the floor. “Just…go away.”
There is a long silence. Then, very quietly, Pete says, “All right, Ben. If that’s what you want.”
As his footsteps fade off down the hall, Ben lets his head thunk back, hard, against the door. And depression settles over him like his own shadow, fitting against him like a second skin, so achingly familiar it’s suddenly impossible to remember having ever lived without it.
It’snota good Saturday. Ben oozes slowly into wakefulness, regretting it immediately, and then just neverstopsoozing, dripping like so much slime through his day. Trying to shakeoff his foul mood, he goes to the Union Square Greenmarket, wandering aimlessly through the shrunken, winterized selection of stalls and stands. When nothing there strikes his fancy, he attempts to go to the Union Square Holiday Market next door; it reminds him too much of the one in Bryant Park and thus Pete, and so he hastily backs out again before he starts doing something embarrassing, like wailing in anguish, or screaming in rage. Instead, he eats lunch at a little cafe nearby, one of his favorite spots in the city, finishing the entire plate even though, to him, the food is tasteless. Then he walks the few blocks to the Strand, his favorite bookstore, and wanders aimlessly again, flipping through novels and books on film craft that would normally be interesting to him without even processing what he’s reading. When it feels like an appropriate time to give that up, he gets on the subway and goes to the Museum of Modern Art, to stare blankly at paintings and statues in the hopes of feeling something.
Hetriesto go to the MoMA, anyway. To his displeasure and misfortune, he forgets until he is walking past that the nearest subway exit is right next to 30 Rockefeller Plaza, where, only a few weeks ago, Pete had lightly singed the set ofLate Night Live with Brian O’Malley.
Ben’s feet stop moving without his telling them to, without any input from his brain at all. He stands there, stock-still, as the wash of humanity that is constantly ebbing and flowing over New York City’s sidewalks parts around him like so much water. He stares at the iconic golden sculpture in front of Rockefeller Center, the enormous, towering Christmas tree, alight and glittering over the huge ice rink that won’t be here come spring. He can almost feel Pete huddled next to him, goose-bumped and shuddering in his black T-shirt, groaning about having made a fool of himself.
It hits him brutally and out of nowhere, like a pen that slipped out of a skydiver’s pocket: What has Bendone? Three months ago, he was—okay, well, no, he wasn’thappy, Ben is not so deluded as to imagine he washappy, but he was fine, wasn’t he? He wasfine. He had a good apartment and a solid enough job and, sure, all right, no social life to speak of, but two out of three wasn’t bad! Practically killing it, is what he was doing, compared to where he is now, which is apartment andnothing else. Probably not even the apartment for long, if he can’t work some method of paying rent.Whyhadn’t he kept ahandleon himself, instead of crossing the streams between professional and personal? Hell, why hadn’t he just told Rick topiss offthat very firstday,the instant he realized there was more to this whole thing than met the eye?—
Because it was fun,the shadow of depression whispers in his ear, in a voice so much like his own it’s hard to tell the difference.Because it was fun and you felt comfortable and you let your guard down, didn’t you? And now it’s all ruined. It’s like I’ve always told you: Better not to risk it in the first place. If you don’t try, you can’t fail.
Ben sighs, and gets back on the subway, and rides it to his home stop. He walks the few blocks to his apartment and pauses on his building’s slightly pitted stones stairs, about halfway up. It’s just a few more steps—it’s cold out here—he should cook something, or do some of his dishes. He doesn’thaveto get sucked into a spiral of despair if he goes up there. It’s not as though it’s the apartment creating that. He should go in, and he’s going to. Any second now.
After three minutes, he puts his bag down.
After five minutes, he sits down next to it and pulls out his phone.
It takes about twenty minutes for him to really start feeling the cold; it’s nice, in a strange way. Grounding. Hard to thinkabout anything else, which, right now, is welcome. He puts his phone away and hunches over himself, past the point of thinking he should go inside. At some point, surely, he will, the miasma of his mood failing against his basic survival instincts…but he’s not there yet. He has time left to sit here and shiver, in the blissful, blank void of being too cold to sustain any of his more heated emotions.
After thirty-six minutes, a sharp, familiar voice behind him demands, “Well, Benjamin? Are you going to be a gentleman and help an old woman down the stairs, or do you plan to sit there as an obstacle for me to clamber over? Perhaps I could give breaking my other hip a try; might be nice to have the full titanium set.”
“Mrs. C?” Ben is already scrambling to his feet as he gasps this, staring at her in shock. “But…why… You haven’t left your apartment in?—”
“Seventeen years, darling, give or take,” she says, and stares up at him severely. “Well? Are you going to help me down or not?”
Automatically, as if she’s puppeting him, Ben offers her his arm, which she takes as he stammers, “But…you’re anagoraphobe?—”
“I am no such thing.” Mrs. C says this mildly, as though she’s not offended, just correcting him. “I’ll grant you, I’m nearly one—functionally, I might as well be—but it’s not that I’m afraid of the outside world. Let a bus hit me, as far as I’m concerned; it’s been an interesting life, and I don’t have any regrets.” She sighs, letting go of him as they reach the sidewalk. “I just can’t bear to go to all the fuss anymore. It’s been years since I’ve seen the point.”
“I know how that is,” Ben says, his mood enveloping him again as he stares glumly down at the sidewalk.
