《Gloryland》Part 26
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They stopped and got Subway before going back to the motel. Once they were back, they stretched out their stiff limbs out on their beds, spread the rolls of Subway paper and ate their subs. Lily got chicken teriyaki on wheat, Evan got turkey on white.
Lily turned the TV on and tossed Evan the remote.
"You pick now," she said with her mouth full of sandwich.
Evan turned the TV on and flipped around. The tail end of The Green Mile was playing on AMC. They sat on their beds, devouring their subs and watching. Evan was way hungrier than he'd thought, and Lily seemed to be, too.
We haven't eaten all day, he realized.
They watched John Coffey get strapped into the electric chair, they saw him tell Tom Hanks not to put the hood over his head because he was scare't of the dark. They saw John Coffey get executed and they saw Tom Hanks put the St. Catherine necklace on John Coffey's corpse.
"Poor guy," said Lily, licking the teriyaki sauce from her fingers.
Evan finished his sandwich and tossed the balled-up paper into the wastebasket under the desk. Lily wasn't texting as much as she had been, but she still looked at her phone from time to time.
"You want a cookie?" he asked her. He'd gotten three chocolate chip cookies. Lily had gotten only her sandwich and a bottle of water. They'd paid for their own orders.
"Naw," she said, picking lettuce out of her teeth with a finger. "I'm good."
After, she went into the bathroom, jamming her garbage into the now- overflowing trash can on her way in.
Evan ate his cookies as old Tom Hanks took his lady friend to see Mr. Jingles the immortal mouse living in the shed behind the old folk's home. He sucked down the last of his Coke, listening to Lily bang the toilet seat.
When she came back out dressed in her pj's, he noticed she hadn't flushed the toilet.
"What a sad fucking movie," she said as the Green Mile credits rolled speedily across the TV screen. "I remember the first time I saw that guy get fried with the dry sponge, I freaked out. My mom was like, 'It's just a movie! It's just a movie!'"
"Did you forget to flush?" asked Evan.
"Huh?"
"You just went to the bathroom and I heard the toilet seat go down but you didn't flush it."
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"Oh, yeah," said Lily, "I was just putting my pj's on."
"Then why put the seat down?"
"Uh, why do you even fucking care? Maybe I wanted to sit down on the seat. What does it matter to you anyway?"
"It doesn't, just wondering," said Evan.
Lily lay down and stretched out under her covers. She groaned with pleasure. Evan imagined wrapping his arms around her body and holding her close and he hated himself for it.
Evan switched channels again, and found Judd Apatow's Funny People. The plot involved a skinny Seth Rogen's character being taken on as a joke-writer by Adam Sandler's famous comedian movie star character. Adam Sandler's character has recently learned he has a terminal illness.
They watched most of the movie in silence, but there were several key scenes where Evan and Lily interacted:
Adam and Seth go to pick up girls after Adam does a gig for Myspace. They
meet two women and take them back to Adam Sandler's mansion.
Adam and Seth hang in Adam's pool with the two women. After a bit, Adam and his girl go off to fool around while the other stays behind in the pool with Seth Rogen. Seth awkwardly tries to play the 'hold your breath' game with her. She bluntly tells him, "Nothing will happen between us."
Later after Sandler is done with the first girl he comes back to find Seth and Myspace Girl #2 watching TV together. He ribs the two of them about whether or not they fucked. The girl shakes her head and says she has a boyfriend.
Sandler nods and asks the girl if she wants to come get something from the other room with him. Less than a minute later she's fucking Sandler, too.
Seth Rogen stays behind on the couch alone. Evan feels his pain.
2) Seth Rogen makes a playlist for Adam Sandler which features Warren Zevon's "You'll Be In My Heart". Sandler gets all depressed and mutters, "Just write me some jokes, you stupid fuckin' idiot," as he stoops out of the room.
"What's his problem," Lily asks, referring to Sandler.
"The song obviously meant something to him, because he's dying."
"Who is?"
"Adam Sandler."
"Oh."
Lily had taken the flower out of her hair when they'd gotten back from Subway, and it now lay on her nightstand.
I should've complimented her on it, thinks Evan.
3) The final conversation that leads to Lily and Evan switching off the movie
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and going to bed early happens when Seth Rogen and Aubrey Plaza get into an argument because Seth finds out that Aubrey Plaza has slept with Jason Schwarzmann who plays Seth Rogen's roommate, a b-grade sitcom star. Seth has been intending to take Aubrey out on a date and she's slept with Jason anyway.
"You're a girl who met a famous guy and slept with him," Seth whisper-yells as they argue on Jason Schwartzmann's porch. "What if I had a really good looking roommate? What if I lived with, like, a James McAvoy or Jude Law or something?"
"I'd probably fuck both of those people, I'm sorry," says Aubrey. "I'm an independent woman, I'm allowed to fuck people!"
The argument goes on until Aubrey walks away in disgust, saying, "Give me a break. I don't even know you. This is the longest conversation we've ever had."
"What a bitch," said Evan, off-handedly.
Lily looked over at him, incredulous.
"She did nothing wrong."
"She was very clearly leading him on, and then she fucks his roommate. You don't think that's not cool? Why say she'll go out with him at all?"
"That's his fucking problem. She can do whatever she wants."
"She's using him," Evan said, a little more harshly than he meant to. "She's using him and she thinks he's too stupid to notice."
"Geez, what's your time of the month?" Lily snorted. "Why are you being such a little bitch about this?"
Realization washed over her face. She pointed at Evan.
"You're pissed at me for last night! That's what this is about!"
Evan hesitated, but the overall dullness and general malaise of the trip so far had gotten to him. She'd called him out.
"I was only trying to cuddle with you last night."
"Bullshit," said Lily. "Bullshit. I felt what you wanted."'
"You kind of gave me the impression the night before that it was going to be an ongoing thing."
"No, I fucking didn't! HOW?"
"You fucked both my friends and then unexpectedly came over after I'd passed out and slept with me. It's kind of difficult to go from that to spending a night in a hotel room with you alone and having nothing happen. Can you see how that might be confusing to someone?"
"That doesn't have anything to do with anything! Last night, I was trying to fall asleep when suddenly your erection's pushing into my buttcheek."
Evan clenched his teeth.
"Look, I misread the situation. I'm sorry."
"You didn't misread anything! You wanted to make a move on me so you did and I rejected you! So what? It happens hundreds of times a day! Deal with it!"
They sat there, the TV flickering, Jason Schwartzmann trying to make up with Seth Rogen, who wasn't having it.
"You need to get over the whole virgin thing," Lily said. "Sex is not the absolute pinnacle of human existence."
"That's easy to say for someone who's been getting it whenever they want since they were fourteen. If you were ugly or fat you wouldn't be saying that."
"It doesn't solve your problems! Look at Adam Sandler in this movie, he fucks all sorts of people and he's still miserable. And he's rich and famous!"
"Yeah, he's sad because he's dying. And I'd rather be miserable about being successful than miserable about not being successful."
"Jesus Christ," said Lily.
"I don't wanna watch this anymore," Evan said, reaching for the remote and flipping off the TV.
"Good, I'm tired anyway," said Lily.
She threw the covers back and tucked herself in.
"I'm going to sleep," she said. "Do not come over here."
She turned away from him , and two seconds later he saw the glow of her phone and heard the tapping of her thumbs on the screen.
Evan cracked opened his laptop, plugged his earbuds in, and listened to U2. He loved U2 but hadn't listened to them since he'd found out Lily wasn't a fan. He put on All That You Can't Leave Behind, and sat there listening to every song. When In A Little While came on, he thought of Lily dancing in Matt's basement.
Evan thought of Lily as a child, bundled with her face hidden behind her scarf at the bus stop, running through the sprinklers in their front yard while he and Marty and Jason shot at each other with Super Soakers.
She'd always been by herself, he remembered. He couldn't think of a single time he'd seen her playing with any friends her age.
He thought of her lying on the bed three feet away, and for all the presumed mangling that had been done to their friendship thus far, for some fucking reason his body still longed for hers, and his heart was full of disappointment.
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