Kiss Me in New York

by Catherine Rider

  “You’ve just got to wear it like it is you,” I tell him, putting one hand on his shoulder to de-slunch them, the other at the small of his back. “Confidence sells any look on anyone.”

  My fingertips brush the waistband of his trousers, and I freeze, thankful that I’m not looking at him looking at me in the mirror and that my hair is hanging over my face, because I’m sure that I’ve started to blush again. What’s that about?

  It’s only weird if you make it weird, I tell myself. It’s a makeover — touching clothes is an occupational hazard.

  I realize that while I’ve been having my little freak-out about whether or not it’s okay for me to be touching him, I’ve not actually stopped touching him. So I bring both hands together and smooth out nonexistent creases from the back of the sweater.

  No big deal. Totally not weird.

  I dare to look in the mirror. He’s not looking at me — he’s looking at the New-ish Him, his face less uncertain now. Phew! Maybe he missed that.

  Anthony half turns, checking himself out from all angles. When he rolls up the sleeves, I catch a flash of something on his left forearm — at first I think it’s a bad burn scar. “What is that?”

  But Anthony has already changed his mind and is rolling the sleeve back down. “It’s nothing, it’s nothing.”

  I reach across his chest, grabbing his wrist. “Is that a tattoo? Let me see it.”

  We’re looking at each other — for real — and it’s when I see the wide-eyed look of panic in his eyes that I get it. He sighs and says, “Fine,” rolling up his sleeve while saying it’s dumb, but he doesn’t need to say anything. I know what he’s going to show me, and I want to tell him it’s okay, he doesn’t have to — but I can hardly do that now, after making such a show of wanting to see it.

  MAYA is written in extravagant lettering on his arm.

  “That’s your actual skin!” I don’t mean to sound so shocked, but I can’t help it. If he tattooed her name on his body, then clearly his relationship was a little more serious than mine was with Colin! I’d never mistake vandalizing myself for a romantic gesture. I think.

  “It was just a dumb decision,” he says.

  “Yours or hers?” The question is out of my mouth before I can stop it. I’m about to apologize, say that was too mean — but if I do, I’d be lying. So, I just let it hang there, even though Anthony looks away all sheepish and embarrassed. There’s my answer. “Did she at least get a tattoo of your name?”

  “She said she would … when she got home.”

  I reach out and roll his sleeve back down. Button up his cuff, and stop myself from taking his hand in mine. Instead, I give him a friendly punch on the arm.

  “Right, then,” I say. “I don’t think we’re done with Step Two. There’s still some making over to get done. Where’s the tattoo parlor where you got this?”

  Before he can answer, what sounds like the Voice of God — but is really just a manager, I guess — announces that Macy’s is closing in … well, I don’t hear how many minutes until it closes, because the shoppers on the floor react like their team just lost the Super Series. (I think that’s a thing over here.) A groan of annoyance, a gasp of panic — and more than a few curse words.

  Anthony has to almost yell to be heard over the mild pandemonium. “Let’s pay for the clothes and get out of here, before we get trampled to death.”

  I nod and start toward the changing rooms, but Anthony’s reaching for me, for my collar. Before I know what’s happening, he’s ripped off the tag to the leather jacket.

  I yelp at the snapping sound, even though it’s only the jacket that’s hurt, not me. “What are you doing?”

  “Saving us some time,” he says. “Let’s just wear these out of the store.” The tag for the pants is hanging loose from my waistband; he reaches for it, then freezes, his fingers centimeters away from my thigh …

  Looks up at me. “You got that one?”

  It takes an effort not to look away, to hold his eyes. I can’t do anything about the blushing, though. “Yeah, yeah, I got it, I got it. No worries. I got it.”

  Nor, it seems, can I do anything about the rambling.

  Five minutes later, we’re at the front of the line at a checkout, presenting the clerk with a bunch of price tags. The clothes that I wore into the store are still in my tote bag, while Anthony crammed his into his backpack, and when we reach the counter I feel, just for a moment, that I am somehow pushing Colin aside.

  Shame I can’t cram him in my tote bag for real.

  Anthony pays on his credit card, and we leave Macy’s, exiting onto Thirty-Fourth Street. Yep, the leather jacket is definitely what I need in this weather. Good job, Anthony — he couldn’t tell that his long-distance girlfriend was cheating on him, but he did well here.

  “This way,” he says, walking east along West Thirty-Fourth.

  I follow. “Where are we going?”

  “East Village.”

  *

  6:10 p.m.

  We take the N train to Eighth Street–NYU, and Anthony leads me to St. Mark’s Place, but I’m not really paying attention because when our train passed Union Square and my mobile beeped, I made the mistake of checking it. There were more Instagram notifications on my lock screen, comments I hadn’t noticed while we were in Macy’s. My most recently posted photo — a sad selfie with some of the girls from Sacred Heart, on the last day of the semester, when my sadness might not have been as fake as the other girls’ — was inundated with sympathy from friends about my missed flight, and I was enjoying the feeling of being more popular than I’d ever been before in my life …

  Then I noticed that it was just past six.

  Right about now, I should be boarding a plane that should be getting ready to take off. Right about now, I should be just a few moments away from looking out the window and seeing New York City falling away from me.

  But that’s not what’s happening.

  “It’s just here.” Anthony’s voice brings me back to the cold, lonely present, and he leads me down a street that seems to be exclusively for tattoo shops. Now that I’m actually looking at them, I’m less convinced about the big finish to Anthony’s makeover. I might be looking a bit tougher than I usually do, but I suspect my cover will be blown when I faint at the sight of a needle!

  I’m feeling more and more apprehensive when I start seeing signs for places called Addiction Tattoo (Please, not that one) and Whatever Tattoo (Who goes into a tattoo parlor all “blah”?). I’m relieved when Anthony leads me to a place called Love Ink — the name might be a cheesy play on words, but at least the parlor doesn’t look like it’ll give me hepatitis just from going inside.

  “You know, you don’t have to do this,” I tell him. “I was just getting carried away.”

  He looks at me. “I want to do this.”

  I believe him, so I let him lead me into the parlor. We walk in, and, like at Macy’s, I get slapped in the face by the atmosphere on the other side of the door — except, this time, it’s not by the wall of noise from a thousand or more shoppers …

  It’s by the stench of pot.

  I cough and flap a hand in front of my face, as I let the door close behind me. I take in the parlor, which is not as dingy as I guess I was expecting. It’s clean, though the three black reclining chairs look a little like Goth dentist furniture, while the torso art on the walls weirds me out a little. But I have to admit, I’m kind of feeling all the bleeding heart imagery right now. Then I start worrying that, maybe, I’ve taken this Story down a scary subplot that involves Anthony and me having to escape a psychotic tattoo artist, hell-bent on drawing Satanic images on our backs.

  There are no customers inside — just a guy at the counter, staring at a laptop. His skinny, inked-up forearms are folded over his chest (I can’t tell if the images are Satanic or not). The laptop screen is t
urned away from me, but I’d know the dialogue from It’s a Wonderful Life anywhere.

  Anthony clears his throat, and the tattoo artist looks up, squinting like he’s trying to find us in the dark. After a second, he turns back to the screen.

  Anthony shakes his head. “We’re not a hallucination, dude.”

  The tattoo artist pushes himself off the counter, standing up straight — swaying a bit — and trying to look sober. “What can I do for ya?”

  Anthony rolls up his sleeve, revealing the MAYA graffiti. “I want to get this covered up.”

  The tattoo artist peers, leaning forward on the counter. “But, dude, that’s so great.”

  “It’s fine work,” Anthony agrees. “But I still want it covered up.”

  “That’s one of Philomena’s, right?” The tattoo artist is literally stroking his chin, like a pompous snob in an art gallery. “I can tell from the way the y is swirling, like the letter is actually trying to eat itself. So deep, man … She’d kill me if she knew I desecrated one of hers.”

  Anthony looks at me and rolls his eyes, so I step forward and talk to the tattoo artist the way I sometimes have to talk to my friend Heather, after she’s had one too many (which is more than once too often).

  “My friend’s not saying that he doesn’t think the tattoo isn’t good,” I tell him. “Philomena’s a true artist. The tattoo is great, but” — I point to Maya’s name — “she’s not.”

  He nods, shooting Anthony a sympathetic look. “I got you, man.”

  “So you can take care of this?” Anthony asks. “Don’t you have to, like, tattoo over the original art —”

  “Don’t worry, don’t worry.” The guy takes Anthony’s arm and leads him to one of the chairs. As Anthony sits down, the guy looks at me. “I know what it’s like: new lady in your life, you want to pretend the past never happened. Romantic reboot!”

  He laughs for about a minute, and it’s only now that I ask myself if Anthony should be getting a tattoo from a guy more baked than the pizza we ate at John’s.

  “We’re not together,” Anthony tells him. A little firmly. “I just want the tattoo gone. What can you do about it?”

  The guy’s stroking his chin again. “You like mermaids?”

  *

  6:45 p.m.

  Anthony’s tattoo is nearly finished. He’s looking away from what the tattoo artist — whose name, we found out, is Joe — is doing to his arm. Instead, he’s looking at me, and I’m doing my best not to appear totally horrified. Joe’s done his best — and at a pace I was not expecting from a bloke as high as a lost kite — but the mermaid tail that he made from Maya’s name is wide and shapeless and the scales he attempted look more like stars. He’s drawn her arms in what I think is supposed to be a graceful, floaty pose but instead makes her look like she’s giving jazz hands. And the face … let’s just say, she’s got a face on her like she’s just been electrocuted. This must be Joe’s first attempt at a mermaid.

  But it was his idea!

  About five minutes ago, Anthony asked me, through gritted teeth, “How’s it looking?” I answered with a big nod rather than words, because I didn’t trust my voice not to sound as freaked out as I was feeling. I was also kind of hoping that Joe was going somewhere with the design — that, at the very end, it was all going to come together into something wonderful that would surprise me. But nope — it started terrible and remained terrible. And by the time I realized it was going to stay terrible, it was too late.

  Maybe, a few months from now, Anthony can go to a different tattoo parlor and get the whole thing totally blacked out. A perfect black rectangle — ooh, maybe with a doorknob, symbolizing that he’s closed the door on what’s her name!

  “All righty, there you go, man.” Joe puts his needle on the stainless steel side table (with admirable care for a guy who still looks like he thinks all of this is just a dream), then leans back in his chair, admiring his own work. “That, if I say so myself, is really, really cool.”

  Anthony sits up. I’m trying really hard not to cringe and to grin as encouragingly as I can, but I can feel from the tightness of my cheek muscles that, at best, I’m offering him a gringe.

  He winces, looks down. Takes in the lopsided, electrocuted mermaid doing jazz hands. Holds his arm right up to his face, his lips twitching, and I instinctively look toward Joe’s tools, hoping that Anthony doesn’t reach for them. I brace myself for him to lose it, go full-on Brooklyn — whatever that is, I wouldn’t know — maybe pick up the needle himself and forcibly tattoo Joe in revenge. But he doesn’t do that. Instead, he sits calmly while Joe bandages him up, pays what the tattoo costs, says thanks and guides me out of the parlor and back onto St. Mark’s.

  He doesn’t actually like the tattoo, does he?

  *

  Five minutes later, we’re in a diner farther along St. Mark’s. We walked past at least five more tattoo places on the way here, and each time we passed one, I wondered if Anthony was thinking the same thing I was — that, maybe, we should have gone somewhere else to de-Maya his arm.

  Now, we’re sitting opposite each other, a plate of cheese fries on the table between us. I didn’t think I’d be hungry so soon after that pizza, but the fries taste amazing. Maybe inhaling all that pot smoke gave me the munchies. I glance at Anthony’s arm, and I have to ask, because I can’t take it any longer. “Are you … okay with that?”

  Anthony looks down at the bandage. It feels almost like the abomination underneath is shining through.

  He shrugs. “It’s just my arm,” he says, before shoveling a cheese fry into his mouth.

  I stare at him, trying to figure out if he’s joking. But he can’t be joking — he looks dead serious …

  … but then I remember one of the things that my semester here taught me about Americans — that, despite what some Brits still insist, Americans can do dry humor, irony and sarcasm. The idea that they can’t is as wrong as the stereotype of the British “stiff upper lip.” If that were true, I wouldn’t have done all the crying I’ve done since Colin said he “just didn’t,” and I certainly wouldn’t be leaning facedown on the table, literally cackling, like I am right now.

  Soon, I’ve laughed so much, I feel like I’m about to vomit. I look up at Anthony, wiping tears from my eyes. “I’m really sorry. I shouldn’t have dragged you —”

  “Don’t sweat it,” he says, rolling his sleeve down, smiling and shaking his head — I guess at himself. “I mean, however I covered it up, I was going to have to live with it. It’s not gone. Just … hidden.” He falls quiet then, his smile fading. “Seems kind of fitting.”

  “What does?”

  “This … Her name, her mark, it’s always going to be there. Like, you can’t see it now, obviously, but the mark made on my skin hasn’t been taken away.”

  “There’s no laser removal for love.” No gringe this time — this time, I full on cringe, because that was totally lame.

  But Anthony’s not rolling his eyes or scoffing at me. Instead, he’s nodding. “Right. I can act like it’s not there, but it is — just like I can pretend I was never with Maya at all, but I was.”

  “Or,” I say, “you could hope to get a really bad concussion one day. Knock all those memories right out of your head.”

  He just smiles at me. “If I still played football, maybe I’d have a chance at that. But I gave it up, sophomore year.” Then he looks down at the table, and I almost don’t catch the next part: “My dad really approved of that decision.”

  He looks back up at me, so suddenly that I start. “What do you want to do after this?”

  I just look at him blankly — if I’m being honest, I’m starting to feel a bit tired. But he’s got something in his eyes — an eagerness I’ve not seen until now.

  I’m totally out of ideas, except for one: I take the tote bag out from under the table. “Shall we
have a look at Step Three?” I ask.

  When I see what Step Three is, I frown. This one’s not going to be easy …

  2. EXPLORE ALTERNATIVE YOUS …

  ~ Chapter Four ~

  Anthony

  3. RECONNECT WITH AN OLD FRIEND …

  None of us like to admit it, but the first thing to change about us when we go from Single to Coupled is that we lose contact with old friends. But by letting friends fall away, are we not letting parts of our old self — our original, true self — fall away, too? Sometimes, to create the new, better You, you must first remember what you loved about the Old You.

  7:00 p.m.

  Charlotte turns the book around so that I can see the page.

  The third chapter title says, “Reconnect with an old friend.” I catch a glimpse of text that explains how “old friends” are a good way of reminding you of your “old self” — I guess, your prerelationship self — before Charlotte puts the book down.

  “Well, that sucks,” I say. “I’m guessing all your old friends are back home.”

  Charlotte nods. “And it’s midnight there, so Skyping is out. Of course, if I had any of my old friends’ Skype details, they wouldn’t be old friends — they’d be new friends. Well, not new, but … present, you know?”

  Then she does this cute little thing I’ve seen her do every time she’s rambled tonight. She catches herself, closes her eyes, wrinkles her nose like she’s giving herself a silent command not to ramble. I want to tell her not to bother — I like the rambling. Everything Maya said always felt planned, rehearsed somehow. This feels more honest. Then I tell myself that, after what happened today, it’s probably a good idea for me to sit on the bench for a while. She’s going back to England, anyway, so it’s not like anything real could happen …

  “But you could look up an old friend,” she suggests, stuffing the book back into her bag. She’s not even bothering — we’re not even bothering — to read the full chapter explaining why we should reconnect with old friends; just like we didn’t read up on why we should do something we’d stopped doing or what a makeover was really going to do for us.