Fake Accounts by Lauren Oyler

Author:Lauren Oyler
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781948226936
Publisher: Catapult
Published: 2020-11-21T00:00:00+00:00

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I ARRIVED AT THE BAR FIFTEEN MINUTES EARLY IN ORDER TO buy my own drink. I was antsy with guilt, as if I’d waited until Tax Day or woken up after drinking too much: something bad was going to happen and it had been entirely preventable by me. I worried about what we would say to each other, whether he would begin with some comment about my looks to which I wouldn’t know how to respond, whether he would tell me sensitive things about his childhood that would make me feel sorry for him and hesitate to leave without an apology. I couldn’t remember any redeeming qualities he’d exhibited on Friday that might have shone through his creepiness, but still I was there, apparently willing to see him again. Besides his forceful interest in me I guess I had liked the look of his face—the light, round eyes against his skin tone, the tired circles around them—and the fact that he was older. But the city was surely full of men with good faces who were born before 1977, and I had made a tactical error by not forcing him to convince me; I should have suggested I was unsure about further interaction and therefore required the work of kindness, gentleness, and the appropriate level of flattery before I would agree to it. Instead I had encouraged him, by exposing my neck, by listening and responding to his conversation without easing myself away, by accepting his invitation to see each other so soon after we’d met. If he became aggressive or grotesque in my presence I had relinquished my right to the feelings of unease that would linger after our date; he had been aggressive and suggested potential grotesquerie at the bookshop and in his email, yet I had still agreed to see him. I considered downing my glass of sour red wine, getting up, and leaving, but then I imagined passing him on my way out the door, having to come up with some excuse, an emergency with my family, a problem at an imaginary dance studio for which I could pretend I held one of the only keys. But I sensed I wouldn’t be able to do it if I had thought about it in advance. I would stutter; the lie, my irresolution, would be obvious. No—I had never stood anyone up before and I didn’t want to start now; though Paul had shortcomings they didn’t (yet) justify his being stood up. It was not this man’s fault that he had a bad personality, but I was totally responsible for leading him to believe he didn’t. I wished I had a pack of cigarettes—you could smoke inside—but I had yet to master buying them. Every time I approached the counter at my local Späti my will to speak either abysmal German or rudely presumptive English floated away, and I had to pretend I was there for gum.

Eight p.m. also floated away. I began to feel less nervous; every minute he was late added a point to my tally.

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