Lena Dunham’s Verified Strangers, Chapter 12: The Persistence of Dan (Updated)

Lena Dunhams “Verified Strangers” Chapter 12 The Persistence of Dan

Nine missed calls. Nine missed calls was too many calls. Her body knew that before her mind did, shrinking in on itself. Ally had read once that bats had bones that could bend, allowing them to fit neatly into any place they chose to hibernate. And so she sat on her bed, elbows to stomach, hands in a complex knot and knees creating a barrier around all of it. She was a bat, assuming an unnatural shape in order to ensure protection. And she thought about the last week—Hugo’s disappearance, Dan moving inside of her for approximately eight minutes on the hiking trail, and Timmy’s hands, tracing the chalk outline of her body while she lay still on the bed, eyes closed, as they said, “No giggling, Ally. Be a corpse. Come on, be a corpse.” Ally stayed still for Timmy, just as she lay down for Dan and followed Hugo downtown.

Nobody could say that she didn’t follow instructions.

But there was another way of looking at it. Ally had looked Timmy squarely in the eye and said, “You’re not going to touch my breasts or vagina. I already had sex with someone today. So you’d better come up with an alternative.” She had laid ground rules.

Once, about a year ago—long before the night in question, and really it was only a night that they shared—Ally had seen Hugo in the kitchenette and taken the hat right off his head (a vintage baseball cap advertising Blockbuster Video). She wore it for the entire day, side-saddle over her pig tails, until she returned it to his desk at 6 p.m. with a note that said “What shampoo do you use? Smells good.” She had made her intentions clear.

And on the trail it was Ally who had reached for Dan urgently, like he was a bottle of bleach and she was the stain left by a bloody accident. And before they took all their clothes off, she had rubbed herself against him until her body arced back, scraping her shoulders on the rough bark, and then, without effort—without thinking about him, or about anybody at all—she came.

***

Ally’s Monday work outfit made all of last week’s outfits look positively polished. She arrived to the office of Green and Greene on Monday wearing a ripped T-shirt that hung to her knees, bearing an image of smeared eye makeup that read I RAN INTO TAMMY FAYE AT THE MALL. Her yellowed thermal bottoms were tucked into black Payless ankle boots (her mom’s) with gold buckles to match her fuck-you gold hoops. Even Nikki the desk woman, herself prone to a large sparkly barrette or two, looked askance.

Wandering to her desk, Ally briefly considered popping in on her bosses, two good-natured men, both named Josh: Josh Green and Josh Greene, classmates at Stanford Law School, who had decided to open an environmental law firm together on the day that they passed the bar exam. (They made the bulk of their money covertly consulting on the personal problems of a well-known CEO who espoused clean energy but dabbled in less-clean living.) Superficially, she wanted to ask them whether they needed a research document on native plant medicine in Central America. But it would also be easy to check in on Hugo, whether they had heard anything more about when he might be returning. But no, they were in their office chucking a foam football back and forth as they double-teamed an endless conference call.

Since Hugo had noticed Ally’s drink order, she had changed it to protect her mental space—so far unsuccessfully. She was now enjoying a 1/4-coffee-and-3/4-coconut-milk concoction with a pinch of sea salt. (Ally liked things just salty enough for it to be weird. Her ideal beverage should make someone else pucker their lips in confusion.)

She couldn’t remember exactly what she was supposed to be doing at work, and so she opened her…thing (Diary? Book? Ramblings?) and surveyed the word document: 107 pages. Single-spaced and carefully backed up on her phone and home computer. Only ever viewed by her.

She skimmed the most recent page, written three weeks ago, one thick paragraph as if she’d been dictating a letter from someone very angry.

I never knew that you could fall in love with something that wasn’t human until I saw his apartment. There on Avenue Montaigne, tucked behind the gleaming stores full of watches you don’t know you want and fantasy French patisseries, was Romain’s place. It was old—like him, he had just turned 52—and full of light, so that even when bad things happened there they seemed, somehow, tinged with a little bit of joy. Sunshine and arched door frames can do that. I never said I was immune to the basics. The first night Romain and I ate dinner on his floor, takeout Chinese, and I marveled that I didn’t know French people get takeout and he asked if I was disappointed there wasn’t a baguette in his tote bag and I said Maybe, maybe I am. I knew he was going to kiss me so for once I wasn’t working hard and wondering harder and in that way I got to be myself and I like to think that he appreciated that. Otherwise, I wouldn’t have stayed for four years. Later that night, after we’d watched an experimental documentary about sea life on his projector, he pulled a huge cheese out of the fridge wrapped in some kind of fancy doily and I said Wow, that is the most French thing I have ever witnessed and he said Yeah? Well what about this. Then he cut a piece of the cheese and popped it in my mouth—it spread across my tongue in the way that sweet things are supposed to but savory stuff rarely does—and he pulled my pants down and buried himself in me like I was a book.

•••

As they left the building, Ally bummed a cigarette from Nikki. It was a roll-up, so she had to wait an excruciating two or three minutes for the thing to be assembled, giving her even more pause as to why she wanted to dabble in this killer habit at all.

“You have a good weekend?” Nikki asked.

Ally thought about Caz, under the duvet, patiently waiting for her to move out, and Timmy, off somewhere being themself, nodding gently and flashing that relaxed grin, and she said, “Oh, thanks Nikki. It was okay.”

She lit the cigarette and pulled deeply, filling her lungs with its fractured sweetness. For a moment, she forgot she had a body to make mistakes with as it filled with the light nicotine buzz. But as she rounded the corner she saw Dan. He was like a skyscraper, impossible to miss, parked there on his bike, pink helmet in hand, ready to ask her why she hadn’t answered any of his calls.

Reader: What next? Should Ally tell Dan that he’s making her uncomfortable with this much contact and that he cannot show up unannounced? Or should she hear what he has to say and take it from there? If you missed previous chapters, you can find them here.

UPDATE FROM LENA DUNHAM: Dear readers: Well, you did it—you completely stumped me. You voted in a direction that seemed impossible and cracked my expectations open. So I’m spending today crafting the smartest and most thoughtful way for Ally to do your bidding. Tomorrow, tune in for a double-length chapter with drama that thuds and pulses and overflows (or whatever dramatic verbs appeal to you). Your loving stranger, Lena