When You Don't See Me Read Online Free PDF

manager.
    â€œYou’re not a vegetarian, are you? Thank God. I’m this close to being fired, and I really need this job. Even though I also work at Manhattan Cable. I’m looking for an apartment that I can afford in the city.”
    â€œYou are? Me, too.”
    My uncle dropped his fork, but I refused to look at him. He could’ve offered to get me a job in Lillith Allure’s art department, but he didn’t. Fuck him.
    â€œSorry,” Mark said. “Where were we?”
    I wanted to change the subject. “I rented Casablanca. Their world was crumbling around them. Their romance was sacrificed for a greater cause.” I made air quotes around “greater cause,” even though people who made air quotes annoyed me. “I don’t get it. How does Casablanca prove that anything lasts?”
    â€œForget the movie. I told you to listen to the lyrics of the song,” Mark said. “People will always fall in love. The world always welcomes lovers. You did hear the song, right?”
    â€œThe world welcomes lovers if they’re straight. The rest of us they’d sacrifice right along with the polar bears.” When Mark opened his mouth, I said, “Don’t tell me I’m too young to be cynical.”
    â€œActually, only the young can afford to be cynical,” Mark said.
    â€œYeah, you old dudes are always swooning over romance,” I said.
    Mark attacked me to prove how young and energetic he still was. By the time I finally left, I was feeling less cynical but no older, since I was bearing my permission slip for Benny the Whiner as if I was still in grade school. In a brighter development, Mark and I had scheduled a movie date to see How to Lose a Guy in Ten Days. I tried not to see the title as a bad omen.
    Especially when I came face-to-face with another bad omen on my walk home.
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    Even though I shared an island with a million and a half New Yorkers, there were certain people I saw over and over. Sister Divine was one of them. The first time I spotted her, I was with my friend Fred, who’d just paused outside St. John the Divine to light a cigarette. A woman shrouded in layers of dark fabric that resembled a medieval nun’s habit appeared in front of us. She pointed at Fred and yelled, “Your body houses twenty of Satan’s lieutenants! Cast them out and do God’s work!”
    I made an effort to act indifferent and not gawk at her, but Fred was the real thing. He didn’t even blink. I fell into step next to him as he walked away from her.
    â€œWhat the hell was that?” I asked.
    He shrugged and said, “Twenty cigarettes to a pack, I guess. Do God’s work. I wonder what God pays. If there’s overtime. Just think about calling in sick to a deity. God would be all, ‘You’re not sick. You’re hungover. Get your ass to work. Stop stealing Mrs. Vela’s newspaper. And I wasn’t joking about that masturbation thing, mortal.’”
    The first boy I dated after I moved to New York was Pete. Pete was also the first person who broke my heart, when he had a fling with Fred. Not because I was in love with Pete. Because I wished I’d gotten to Fred first.
    Although I’d jeered about romance to Mark, I wasn’t against the idea. I just wasn’t the kind of person who constantly sized up the boyfriend potential of every guy I met. I didn’t make mental lists of what I did and didn’t want. But if I did, it would be easy to think of reasons why Fred shouldn’t be a boyfriend.
    He smoked too much. He was always late. He thought monogamy was outdated. Actually, he practiced serial monogamy. Fred treated boyfriends like most people treated fashion: seasonally. Hot summer love migrated south at the first nip from autumn. And the man who blanketed Fred’s bed in winter would melt away like snow in the spring.
    Fred was one of my few friends who had no inclination to do anything