“Okay, it’s just you haven’t really seemed yourself since . . .” Broodje trails off.
“You spend a lot of time alone,” Henk blurts.
“Alone? I’m with you.”
“Exactly,” Broodje says.
There’s another moment of silence. I’m not quite sure what I’m being accused of. Then Lien illuminates.
“From what I understand, you always had a girl around, and now the guys are worried because you’re always alone,” Lien says. She looks at the boys. “Do I have that right?”
Kind of sort of yeah, they all mumble.
“So you’ve been discussing this?” This should be funny, except it’s not.
“We think you’re depressed because you’re not having sex,” W says. Lien smacks him. “What?” he asks. “It’s a viable physiological issue. Sexual activity releases serotonin, which increases feelings of well-being. It’s simple science.”
“No wonder you like me so much,” Lien teases. “All that simple science.”
“Oh, so I’m depressed now?” I try to sound amused but it’s hard to keep that tinge of something else out of my voice. No one will look at me except for Lien. “Is that what you think?” I ask, trying to make a joke of it. “I’m suffering from a clinical case of blue balls?”
“It’s not your balls I think are blue,” she says coolly. “It’s your heart.”
There’s a beat of silence, and then the boys erupt into raucous laughter. “Sorry, schatje,” W says. “But that would be anomalous behavior. You just don’t know him yet. It’s much more likely a serotonin issue.”
“I know what I know,” Lien says.
They all argue over this and I find myself wishing for the anonymity of the road, where you had no past and no future either, just that one moment in time. And if that moment happened to get sticky or uncomfortable, there was always a train departing to the next moment.
“Well, if he does have a broken heart or blue balls, the cure is the same,” Broodje says.
“And what’s that?” Lien asks.
“Getting laid,” Broodje and Henk crow together.
It’s too much. “I’ve gotta piss,” I say, standing up.
In the bathroom, I splash water on my face. I stare in the mirror. The scar is still red and angry, aggravated, as though I’ve been picking at it.
Outside, the corridor is crowded, another film having just let out, not the de Bont but one of those treacly British romantic comedies, the kind that promise an everlasting love in two hours.
“Willem de Ruiter, as I live and breathe.”
I turn around, and coming out of the cinema, her eyes misty with fabricated emotion, is Ana Lucia Aurelanio.
I stop, letting her catch up. We kiss hello. She gestures for her friends, people I recognize from University College, to go on ahead. “You never called me,” she says, adjusting her face into a little girl pout that somehow looks charming on her, though almost anything would.
“I didn’t have your number.” I say. I have no reason to be sheepish, but it’s like a reflex.
“But I gave it to you. In Paris.”
Paris. Lulu. The feelings from the movie start to come back, but I push back against them. Paris was make-believe. No different from the romantic movie Ana Lucia just saw.
Ana Lucia leans in. She smells good, like cinnamon and smoke and perfume.
“Why don’t you give me your number again,” I say, pulling out my phone. “So I can call you later.”
“Why bother?” she says.