Altruistic Genie

“Do a kindness unto another person for a pain of equal and opposite proportion unto yourself.”

Part 1
Part 2
Part 3
Part 4
Part 5
Part 6
Part 7

##Part 8

College apps were due abruptly at the end of the semester, and submitting my final apps to state schools in southern California and Arizona lifted a weight off my shoulders. For the time being, I was OK with the uncertainty about where I would end up, and I was happy doing nothing over winter break and relaxing.

My parents’ situation was getting settled. My mom would get the house, and the judge refused to even hear the domestic abuse charges; the case was dismissed; I saw my dad on the weekends, and he seemed to be accepting the divorce and moving on.

Avery’s parents were meanwhile back together all lovey-dovey in an apparent second honey-moon phase. Avery once joked to me that the mushy talk and watching his parents kiss all the time was worse than the fighting. Knowing about my parents, he saw me turn my head and rub my eyes, so he apologized profusely. I never heard him joke about how bad it was to have his parents back together and in love again.

He seemed happy. That winter break, Avery was the one pushing us all to do exciting things, go out and have fun every night. He led the charge on a day trip up to San Francisco to try a new restaurant called “Sushiritto,” which featured a sushi roll the size of a burrito. We planned the trip poorly, however, and were subsequently stuck in traffic for four hours. The food was almost worth it; I had to give Avery that.

An equal and opposite consequence of the San Francisco trip was that everyone hesitated to trust Avery to make plans again, but his next idea didn’t seem half-bad or like it would risk leaving us stuck in traffic for hours. He wanted us to go to a Hanukkah-themed dance party at the JCC.

“People dressed in blue and white, a lot of dessert, and a table in the back to play dreidel!” He bounced in his seat at each comma break: “People dressed in blue and white [bounce] a lot of dessert [bounce]...

“Do you really want to play dreidel?” I almost groaned. “What are you, 8 years old?”

“Hey! I want to play dreidel.” Nat took Avery’s side. “You guys never taught me how to play. What’s the point of being friends with so many Jews if you guys don’t teach me how to do Jewish things?” After hanging out with us for a few years, Nat practically considered herself one of the tribe.

Jason was indifferent, Avery and Natalie wanted to go, and I wanted to go because Natalie wanted to go. So we went.

My mom let me borrow the car that night, probably as a token of apology for the hectic past month at home. I picked Nat up, and we were some of the first people to arrive to the festive ballroom at the local JCC. Streamers decorated the high-ceiling, and plastic Hanukkiahs were taped to the walls. I scanned the dessert table for something to eat and saw only walnut cookies, pistachio brownies, peanut butter chocolate cups. I was allergic to everything. Disappointed, I huddled up with Nat, the only familiar face at the dance so far. I considered telling her to be careful with the desserts, but I decided against it. She knew about my allergies.

“We should’ve come fashionably late. Nobody’s here yet.”

“It’s fine, babe. We can still dance. Or, hey --- come show me how to play dreidel.” So I went over to the table in the back, picked up our allotted ration of chocolate coins, led her to a seat, and started explaining the different sides of the spinning top. The table was filled with twelve year olds at this point in the night, and I felt self-conscious being an older person at the clearly kid-centric table. I wondered if Natalie was embarrassed and how she rationalized it to herself if she wasn’t.

She smiled at me as I explained the last side --- “And this is the worst one. If you get this, you have to put a coin in.”

“Got it. Shin is bad. I don’t want shin.” I wondered if she was making fun of me.

“Shin, shin, put one in!” The kid next to us sang gleefully.

We played a few rounds before I got bored and started eating my betting-chocolate. I suggested we mingle. Jason and Avery walked in together, smelling like skunk.

“Did you guys smoke before this? Why didn’t you invite me?”

“We figured you’d be too busy with your girlfriend.” A detectable quantity of contention was attached to the final word.

“Don’t worry babe, he’s just jealous of me.” Nat whispered to me. I laughed.

“Hey, Maya’s here too!”

“Yeah, Avery told me about this. I thought I’d check it out.”

We danced, as a group until Jason started dancing with Maya and Avery with a Russian girl from school. Nat grabbed my hand to dance, but I had to use the bathroom.

When I got back and found Natalie, we decided to walk around and watch all the couples making out already; there were quite a few. Jason and Maya were going at it, and Nat got a picture of me making a funny face in front of them. We saw a number of couples we didn’t recognize until Nat shrieked “Oh my God! Is that Molly Bolle?” “She’s only a sophomore,” she hissed at me. “What is that boy doing to her face?”

Eventually, she calmed down enough, and we started dancing. I turned her around and leaned in but she raised a skeptical quarter of her forehead at me and stopped me. “I thought you didn’t like PDA.”

“It’s fine if everyone else is doing it!” We started kissing. We kissed for the duration of a long song --- “Stairway to Heaven.” As the words “And she’s buying a stairway to heaven” faded out, I pulled away and looked in her eyes. Her eyes, first wide and warm and comforting, soon matched my look of worry.

“What is it?” She asked.

“Did you eat anything? Maybe while I was in the bathroom?”

“Yeah, I had a cookie.” The music seemed to stop. My heartbeat seemed to stop.

I took a deep breath and brought everything back to speed. “Those cookies had walnuts in them.”

“So?”

“I’m allergic! To walnuts! I think I got some by kissing you.”

“That can happen?”

“Yeah.”

“I thought you were only allergic to peanuts.”

“No, all nuts.” I started to run for the door.

She chased after me. “I’m sorry.”

We got to the door, but a bouncer stopped me on my way out. A man wearing a royal blue shirt and about my height who was probably five or ten years older than me and sported a beard. “I’m sorry. You can’t leave until the end of the dance.”

“You don’t understand. I’m having an allergic reaction. I have to go to the store and buy some benadryll.”

“And I want to go with him.”

He eyed us both. “The guy having the allergic reaction can go. You, missy.” He pointed at her with a bluish finger. “You gotta stay here. I don’t want you making out in a car.” As if there weren’t enough couples making out on the dancefloor.

“Please sir. I almost just killed my boyfriend.”

“It’s OK Nat, I’ll just go.” I was feeling rushed. It had probably been five, ten minutes since I had ingested walnuts. It wasn’t serious or life threatening, I just didn’t want to throw up all over the place.

I ran out and rushed to the car. I drove a hurried five minutes to a CVS, feeling sicker. I bought some benadryll and a water bottle. I took two pills, uncapped the bottle, and swallowed the pills all at once with a big gulp.

My heart rate was back to baseline as I opened the car door. My phone buzzed. Nat had tweeted at me: When you almost kill your boyfriend by eating nuts and kissing him at a Jewish dance @AdamHart

I was filled with a sudden rush of annoyance. She was making this experience about her, about how she felt almost killing me into a chance for self-promotion on social media. She didn’t even almost kill me, I was fine! I told myself that the situation was just as much ‘about’ her as it was ‘about’ me and my allergic reaction. There was no correct subjective experience. My pulse slowed again and I loved her again, or, rather, I still loved her, even though she didn’t know or forgot I was allergic to more than just peanuts. It was my responsibility to tell her as much as it was her responsibility to pay attention. I was most upset that something she ate forced us apart for part of the night.

I returned to the JCC to a concerned Nat, Jason, Maya, and Avery. The Russian girl was there, too, though I don’t know how concerned she was about my well-being. Her name turned out to be Polina. I heard a dozen “are you OK”s and several “I heard Nat tried to kill you”s. I assured everybody that yes, I was fine, and that no, Nat didn’t try to kill me. We danced for the remainder of the night, though Nat remained cautious about kissing me. She kept repeating, “I’m sorry, you know. I’m so sorry.”

When the dance was over, or Nat’s curfew approached, we left. I had to keep assuring her that it was fine, accidents happen until she was silent.

“You know, Nat. I am kinda worried.” I said, partially to fill the silence.

“About what? You don’t need more benadryll do you? Are you OK?” She made to look for the benadryll.

“No, not about that. About what happens if we go to different colleges. We’ve never really talked about that.” A tightness filled my chest in the space of my words and her response.

“Odds are we’ll both either end up on the east coast or the west coast together,” she said, and I trusted her math even though I don’t know how she came to that conclusion. “But even if we end up on different coasts my answer would still be the same --- distance isn’t a factor.” She touched my thigh while I drove.

“I mean, I’d be up to try long distance if you are.”

I could’ve kissed her even though she still probably had walnut remnants in her mouth and even though I was driving. The tightness in my chest turned into a lightness.

“Yeah, of course I’d be willing to try long distance with you.” I wondered if she felt a comparable tightness while she waited for me to reply.

I pulled up in front of her house. “No, not here Adam. My dad could come out any second. No, not here! But I will make it up to you for tonight later, I promise.” We couldn’t be caught necking on her driveway.

She winked and got out of the car. “Love you!” I drove home on a cloud.

Whether it was my allergic reaction or the large proportion of twelve and thirteen year olds at the dance, that was the last event we let Avery take us to that break.

Jason’s time might have been preoccupied with Maya, and Avery’s with Polina, but I wouldn’t have noticed either way. My time was preoccupied with Nat. She didn’t have a large time-commitment nannying job, so we spent a large time-commitment of our winter break together.