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Back You Exist Too Much Save as PDF
Chapters (23)
  1. Title Page
  2. Dedication
  3. Chapter 1
  4. Chapter 2
  5. Chapter 3
  6. Chapter 4
  7. Chapter 5
  8. Chapter 6
  9. Chapter 7
  10. Chapter 8
  11. Chapter 9
  12. Chapter 10
  13. Chapter 11
  14. Chapter 12
  15. Chapter 13
  16. Chapter 14
  17. Chapter 15
  18. Chapter 16
  19. Chapter 17
  20. Chapter 18
  21. Chapter 19
  22. Acknowledgments
  23. About the Author

She nodded in a way that seemed forgiving, then turned toward her room and switched on the light. “And you should probably chug some water before you get in bed,” she said, her back to me. “That prosecco was like the cheapest shit ever.”

I took her advice and went to the kitchen, where I searched the cupboards for a glass. I reached for one, held it under the faucet, and gulped it down. I took a deep breath, then exhaled. Finally, I had a friend.

Chapter 10

10

ON DAY 13, THE GROUP TURNED ON ME. THEY’D BEEN EXCHANGING glances across our semicircle all morning. “Something feels off,” I said. “Is everything okay?”

Again the group exchanged looks; Greg nodded in Molly’s direction and she was silently deemed the spokeswoman. “We’re tired of your condescending attitude,” she said, crossing her arms with forced conviction.

“What condescending attitude?”

“You know, how you get all frustrated when we don’t know something, like about the Middle East.”

The night before, the van driver had agreed to let us stop at Pizza Hut on the way back to the Ledge after the meeting. We’d all piled into a red vinyl booth and grabbed for slices when the pie arrived. “Now,” Greg said, folding a pepperoni slice in half, “the Palestinians have no legitimate claim on Jerusalem, right? Because that’s what Alex says.”

It turned out that after we went back to our rooms at night, Alex had been giving Greg lectures in Arab-Israeli affairs. A self-proclaimed Zionist, he came at the issue from a different vantage point than I did, to say the least. A few days earlier he’d asked if I was planning to do an H.I.T. list on Israel. “I thought about it,” I told him, though really I hadn’t. “But I’ve got too many people I’d like to do first.”

“Alex says that you’re so pissed off all the time because you think you’re entitled to the land,” Greg continued, “but that the Torah promised it to his people.”

I could tell Greg was being extra incendiary just to get a reaction. And possibly because a day earlier I’d told him I wouldn’t be offering any more blow jobs—I was going to start following the rules, I was paying enough to be here, after all. Either way, his effort to annoy me was working. Then Molly jumped in. “Wait, so where’s Palestine, again? Is it next to Afghanistan?”