by Leelila Strogov

I had not seen V. in the flesh for about eight years, nor in my dreams for at least three. Once in a while I would see him in a phone booth or at a corner hot dog stand, but whenever I’d get close enough he would inevitably turn into someone else.

He was that someone I think everyone in the world has a story woven around--the one who breaks you in such a way that when you heal, you heal as a different person; a person you don’t completely recognize but who you like just a little bit better. I have always thought that this is why people often hate those they once loved too much. They are embarrassed and humiliated by their old selves, the selves that used to do things and feel things for a person they have now convinced themselves wasn’t worth all the effort.

And if you are generally sane and do not have a masochistic streak, you do convince yourself of this. I have often considered it one of my greatest accomplishments that I have never hated anyone at all. So I’m boarding the L train at 6th Ave. heading east and as soon as I get on, V. is there. Right in front of me. Too close to be a mistake. He’s wearing jeans and ratty sneakers and a T-shirt that depicts a faded Mona Lisa in a series of expressions starting from her usual smirk to one where she’s hysterical with laughter, tears of comedy flying everywhere.

Sitting to his right is a pleasant-looking, brown-haired girl wearing a short skirt and carrying a large artist’s portfolio. This must be the Artist-Who-Got-A-Great-Write-Up in Time Out New York's girlfriend, I figured. The one before, I had heard, was the African-American-New-York-Times-Journalist. He chose his women by occupation, distinction, education, birthright, sometimes beauty, though this was usually not the main appeal. I never imagined him being caught off-guard with longing for a sassy ER nurse with a charmingly crooked front tooth or a bartender whose hair was on fire and who ate maraschino cherries one after another as if they were sex on a stem.

No, there had to be something more tangibly impressive, either about you or some former version of you. And if he was impressed enough, he wanted you. It was that simple. I knew this from the beginning and didn’t particularly mind. I thought it would be fun to turn everything upside down on him and make him love me for reasons he hadn’t originally thought of.

And he did.

And it was.

And then it was over because that is what happens when you’re twenty-three and the world seems to be full of magnets pulling you in more directions than you can count. He had tried to call about once a year since, but I would never take his calls. He had been unfaithful, and while I didn’t necessarily think that was a cardinal offense (he hadn’t enjoyed it enough for it to be), I thought it was my duty to at least pretend it was. So I’m holding onto the pole in front of him and I take my backpack from my shoulder and place it on the floor between my legs, and am about to say hello, how are you, where are you living these days, when he gives me a strange panicked look and shakes his head in a movement that if made by a compass would draw only about an eighth of a circle. It is a pantomime of “No” that tells me that the brown-haired artist sitting next to him has issues with my existence and that I am not to speak if I have any respect at all for what we once had.

I hold my tongue.

In the meantime, to his left, a disheveled Ricki Lake look-a-like takes out a nail file and starts grooming herself. Not really knowing what to do, I take my book out of my bag, a copy of Walker Percy’s The Last Gentleman, and try to read. I am nearly at the end, on page 357: “Dark fell suddenly and the stars came out. They drew in and in half an hour hung as large and low as yellow lamps at a garden party.”

That is pretty, I think. But I’m feeling self-conscious. I'm wishing I had put on mascara that morning and that I had worn a different outfit. As it stands, I’m in overalls.

Oh well, I think. He already knows what you look like underneath. And then I can’t help it, but I find myself wondering if it’s the same for them; if he admires the curve of her hip the way he did mine--like you’d admire a fine-looking tree; if he likes her noises as much as he did mine. He is still just the right amount of handsome, I think, despite the fact that his sideburns are too long.

He’s shaking his left leg back and forth and staring at my shoes. I am tempted to leave the train even though it is not my stop, just to make the first exit, to be the one to leave, but I conclude that that would be childish and I stay put. I’m already late as it is. As 1st Ave. approaches, V. and his artist get up to leave. He tilts his body so that he is standing directly in front of me.

"Excuse me," he says, looking right into my eyes. "Do you happen to have the time?"

I am wondering why. Does he want to hear my voice? Does he want to see my expression when I answer him? I decide I will never know and that that is ok by me. I tell him it is 6:10 according to my watch but that my watch is generally a little fast as I tend to run late and this keeps me in check. I realize too late that this is probably more information than I would have given an ordinary stranger. But I am nervous. He lets his arm very gently touch mine, as if by accident. Then he thanks me and purses his lips in a way I imagine a teacher might do when watching his favorite student graduate.

It’s something a little sad, but mostly fond, and it makes me hope that I never see him again just so things can stay this way. When V. leaves the train, I take his empty seat next to disheveled Ricki and put my book away. She keeps sitting up straight and looking over at me as if she has something on her mind, but then rests her back against the chair again.

I am a hundred miles away and not really paying much attention. And then finally, as if she’s been holding something in for hours, she looks at me and says in an exasperated, Brooklyn, sandpaper voice: “Do you mind if I ask you something?”

"No," I say, “go right ahead.” She raises one of her hands in the air as if she's about to make a presentation on a whiteboard. “That guy who was sitting in your seat...” She pauses. “Did you know him?”

"Yes," I say, "I knew him a long time ago."

She nods dramatically and lets out a hum to show me she understands.