Another long pause. Then Marty tries, in doomed tones, “Seriously, any chance that in five minutes you’re going to say, ‘Ha ha, Marty, we really had you going, you thought you’d made things sounbelievablyawkward, but in fact?—’”
“Marty,” Sam says through gritted teeth, only giving him this much on the strength of his many years of loyal patronage, “either order your goddamn sandwich, or get out.”
To his questionable credit, Marty has the audacity to immediately reply, “Corned beef and Swiss on rye, extra juicy, hold the mustard,” and hold out his credit card beseechingly.
Woodenly, Sam takes the card. He punches a random number into the register—certainly not the price of the sandwich, which Sam cannot currently remember despite setting it himself, but less than twenty dollars, anyway. Marty doesn’t complain, just takes his card back and, as Sam begins making his sandwich, steps smartly to one side of the counter. Everything about him suggests he will be revisiting this whole encounter for some years in those awkward moments just before sleep, when the human brain will sometimes decide to pull up a cruel highlight reel of personal worsts.Though it’s not kind, he hopes Martydoeshave to relive this moment over and over. God knows Sam’s going to.
“Sam,” Joey says, in an urgent tone of voice. “I think you should let me make that sandwich, and you should take a fifteen.”
“I’m not due for a fifteen,” Sam says. He’s not looking at the counter, but then, he doesn’t have to look to correctly assemble a corned beef and Swiss cheese sandwich. He’s perfectly free to continue to stare at Jake, who is still slumped over the table with his head in his hands, as though literally frozen in horror.
“I think you shouldtake one anyway.” Joey’s tone is so concerned now that it pulls Sam’s gaze to their face, and then, curious about what they’re looking at in such obvious horror, to his own hand. He realizes, startled, that he’s holding a piece of Swiss cheese—or something that was one a piece of cheese, anyway. Without noticing, Sam seems to have closed his fist tightly around it. When he opens his hand, little broken crumbles rain down onto the floor.
They remain there for several seconds before, relying on the sixth sense for dropped food which is possessed by all dogs, Pastrami bursts excitedly into the room and gobbles it up. Normally, such an event would be followed by a victory dance, and then perhaps a series of tricks intended to elicit more exciting floor cheese to rain from on high. Today she looks up at Sam, whines from low in the back of her throat, and butts her head against his leg. When he doesn’t move, she walks over to her dining room pillow, curls up on top of it, and puts a paw over her eyes as though she can’t bear to watch.
“Fifteen,” Sam repeats, staring at his own palm, the cheesy film across it. “Right.” He turns on his heel without saying another word—not to Jake, not to anyone—and walks out, letting the back door slam behind him.
For the first five minutes, Sam is alone in the alley between Silverman’s and Jake’s building. This is for the best; it’s an interval in which he more or less loses the power of speech, at least for anything beyond muttering incoherently to himself. He paces in a long, tight, furious oval from one end of the alley to the other, occasionally mumbling fragmented, unhelpful things like, “This whole time!” or “Not a word!” or “Weslepttogether!”
It can’t be true, itcan’tbe… But even as Sam thinks that, he knows it’s denial. Of course it’s true. Of course Jake wrote that stupid review, the one which almost destroyed Sam’s business. Of course he did! It’s a concept that, if anything, makes everything makemoresense, not less.That’swhy Jake was so horrified when he realized this was Sam’s deli, andthat’swhy he wouldn’t accept any payment for his work, andthat’swhy he’s been doing the work at all! It wasn’t out of the kindness of his heart or, as Sam had allowed himself to think in his sappiest moments—and, as it turns out, his mostfoolishones—because Jake wanted the excuse to spend time with him.
But no! Of course not! Jake wanted the excuse not to feel like a terrible person, and Sam’s an idiot, a perfect idiot, for letting himself imagine otherwise.
It is at this point, naturally, that Jake comes outside. He looks…bad. He’s shaking, a distant part of Sam notes, sure that’s something he would normally care about; he doesn’t. All he can see when he looks at Jake is all the opportunities he’s had, over the last few months, tosay somethingto Sam, to own up to that damn review. All the time they’d spent alone together, comfortable and easy, talking with no pressure or stakes like they were still just kids, and Jake hadn’t said anything at all.
Sam, too angry to summon a single word of greeting, nods and then walks right past him, continuing along his pacing route as though he didn’t see Jake step outside.
“Please, Sam,” Jake says. His voice is small. He looks small, all at once, in a way he never has to Sam, even though Sam’s always been the taller of the two of them, broadly built where Jake was limber and lithe. “I’m so sorry.”
“For what, Jake?” Sam demands, stopping without turning around and throwing his hands in the air. “Or should I sayNorman? What are you sorry for? For writing it in the first place, or for lying to me about it?”
“Technically,” Jake starts, in wheedling tones, “I never actually?—”
“Oh, absolutely not,” Sam snarls, rounding on him. “AbsolutelyI’m not doing that, what do you take me for, are you kidding? If you’re going to come at me with ‘technically’ right now, you should just go, man. Forget it. I’m not going ten rounds just to get you to admit you know what a goddamn lie of omission is.”
“Okay,” Jake says, looking ashamed of himself, holding his hands in the air. “Okay, you’re right. I’m sorry, I shouldn’t be coming at it like that, and IknowI should have told you, I just… I reallydidn’tknow it was your place when I reviewed it, and the situation with Kiss of Deathwas…is… It’s all pretty complicated, okay? And a really long, messy story, and once I realized what I’d done, I was afraid you might react, well.” He looks at Sam and winces. “Like this? And there was all the stuff about the accident and we hadn’t talked about thateitherand then it was all happening so fast, and I—dinner!” he cries, interrupting himself and jabbing an index finger in Sam’s direction in excitement. “Johnny’s! Tonight! That’s why Iasked, because I was going totellyou, and then if you got this mad about what I’d written, at least we’d have until dessert to?—”
“You think I’m angry,” Sam says, molasses-slow with fury, “about what you wrote in the article?”
“I mean,” Jake says, and grimaces. “Aren’t you?”
“Of course I am!” Sam nearly shouts this; it’s so loud that a few nearby pigeons, normally implacable, scurry hastily away from him, although they aren’t quite frightened enough to go to the trouble of flying off. “You were horrible! You nearly killed my family’s restaurant! You suggested we were infested withverminwhen I know for afactyou’d never set foot inside! You said you couldn’t imagine why the place had stayed alive so long, and that whatever it was thathadkept it around, we must have semi-recently taken it out back andshotit! You said—God, no, wait.” Sam gets a grip on himself, reins it back in, because: “This isn’t the point. Iamangry about that, of course I am, who wouldn’t be? But if it had just been that, if you’d just come to mebeforeall of this and said, ‘Sam, listen, I’m sorry, but a few months ago I decided to tear down your family business for kicks, and?—’”
“It wasn’t for kicks!” Jake both sounds and looks near tears of frustration. “I really needed the money, okay? And I didn’t know it was your place, and it really sounded like—look, I’m not saying I didn’t make some really bad decisions, I did, but I was misinformed! I didn’t know what I was talking about, and I wouldn’t have written it if I did, and I’m sorry. I know that I should have told you. Iwantedto tell you, but?—”
“Oh, what?” Sam snaps, abruptly disgusted with Jake, with this whole conversation. “What was it that stopped you? Was I too generous in feeding you, is that it? Too willing to pick things up where we got cut off? Is itmyfault that youkeptthis from me, that yousleptwith me withoutsaying anything, because I said you shouldn’tmove outthat very first day you?—”
“I’m a coward, Sam!” This bursts out of Jake at a volume that, if the pigeons had not already scuttled away, might have startled them into actual wing usage. “Okay? Is that what you want? I’m just a coward. I couldn’t get over myself and ask you out like a normal person in high school; I couldn’t tell my parents the truth about the accident; I couldn’t bring myself to make youhate me! Over an article I didn’t even want to write in the first place! I wasscared!”
“Then you should have done it scared.” Sam’s not yelling now. His voice is quiet and cold, and the flat, unamused laugh that slips out of his mouth is even colder. “What do you think we’re evendoinghere? This”—he gestures around himself in a broad, encompassing way—“is your life, Jake! And my life, not thatthatseems to matter to you one way or the other, but it’s still life! Real life! It’s all forkeeps; you don’t get to wake up one day and decide you’re off the hook for your choices just because you’rescared, or you’resad, or you’d rather they didn’tcount. It all counts!”
Hell, Sam’s eyes are swimming suddenly, but his voice doesn’t betray him; it stays even and razor-edged as he snaps, “And sometimes, Jake, do you know what? Sometimes you try your best to do the right thing, you do the very best you can do with whatever you’ve got, and youstillget it wrong. You get it wrong, and you have to live with that, and without whatever it’s cost you. A mistake—a mean review—I could have forgiven that, if you’d tried to do the right thing.” He forces himself to look Jake dead in the eyes, even though he knows his own are glittering with held-back tears. “But you didn’t even try, Jake. You didn’t eventryto tell me. Not once.”
“Tonight,” Jake tries, sounding desperate in a way that, just an hour ago, would have twisted Sam’s heart in his chest. “I said—dinner! I was going to tell you at?—”
“Sorry,” Sam says, bitterly sarcastic, “but all I have to go on there is your word, and it turns out that’s mud, so.”
Jake reels back half a step, looking as though Sam’s struck him. For a second Sam thinks he’s going to…to dosomething. To start screaming, or burst into tears, or, if previous times Sam’s seen this expression on Jake’s face are anything to go by, get drunk and steal an expensive automobile.
