Kiss Me in New York

by Catherine Rider

  The train that I’m stuck on slows to a stop and sits in the tunnel. The driver gets on the PA system and informs us — well, me, as I’m the only conscious passenger on this car — that there’s a sick passenger on the train in front of us, who’s being attended to, and we’ll be stuck here a few minutes.

  Mistake looks up at me and whimpers.

  “We’re going to find her,” I whisper.

  *

  “I know, I know,” I gasp to Mistake. I’m out of breath from running, and the pup is yapping with annoyance at how hard I’m clutching her to my chest. Either she fears that I’m going to drop her, or the feel of my racing heart against her ear is bothering her. “It’ll all be worth it if she’s there.”

  God, I hope Charlotte’s still there.

  According to my phone’s clock, half an hour has passed since Charlotte and I got separated by the time I make it back to Herald Square. After the holdup, I just missed another Brooklyn-bound train and then waited on the platform for what felt like forever but was probably only five minutes or so.

  I’m here now. Surely, Charlotte would give me half an hour?

  But when I make it to the uptown platform at Thirty-Fourth Street–Herald Square, she’s nowhere to be seen. I even call out to her, but all I get is my own echo bouncing back to me. I run the length of the platform, but the only person here is a dude in a field coat over a plaid shirt, so similar to mine I wonder if I’ve started hallucinating this whole incident. Maybe I’ve been asleep on the D train all along, and I’m still sitting next to Charlotte, heading uptown.

  Then Mistake nips at my arm, like, Seriously, Dad, stop running, and I can’t deny anymore that this is real. This is really happening.

  Charlotte is not here.

  I stop, take a seat on the bench and let Mistake settle down. I’ve blown it. I’m such a tool. Charlotte wasn’t my chance at getting over Maya, she wasn’t my redemption, she wasn’t any of that. She was a girl that I met, a girl that I liked and would have liked if I had met her on my very best day.

  And now, I’ve lost her.

  Mistake barks at me — I can’t tell whether she’s asking to be put on the ground or telling me to snap out of it and fix this. And even though I’ve known Charlotte less than ten hours, I think I might actually have a shot at figuring out where she might have gone. I’ve just got to think …

  She was going somewhere, and it was around this neighborhood. Step Ten … Step Ten … something about “gaining perspective.”

  Of course. I realize where Charlotte wanted to go. It’s not the first time I’ve come to this conclusion tonight, but, this time, I’m not annoyed — I’m psyched. Suddenly, Charlotte’s lame, touristy idea seems totally and completely perfect.

  I cuddle the tote bag to me, trying to sound as reassuring as possible when I tell Mistake: “Okay, girl, I’m going to need you to act like a stuffed animal right now. Can’t have you wriggling and squirming and making noise … Not if we want to get into the Empire State Building!”

  *

  I’m inside the lobby in two minutes, and Mistake is making me proud, lying completely still in Max’s old tote bag. The ticket seller in the glass booth is a middle-aged woman, and as I approach, she’s standing up, putting her phone into her pocket. I get the sinking feeling that she’s shutting down for the day. When she sees me and Mistake trotting up to her, she makes a “sorry” face.

  “Just tell me,” I gasp, “did a British girl come by here in the last few minutes? Have you seen her leave?”

  “We get a lot of tourists, honey,” she says, going back to inspecting her purse. Her badge says “Paula.”

  “Please, ma’am. It’s nearly two a.m. on Christmas Day. There can’t have been so many people that you can’t remember.”

  I don’t know if it’s the crack in my voice or the yap that Mistake puts in — as if to say, “Hey, lady, the boy’s in love!” — but when Paula looks at me again, she’s taking me more seriously. And why not? Nobody shows up at the Empire State Building at two on Christmas morning — with a puppy — asking about a British girl unless they have a really good reason!

  She looks at me, and she must see the desperation on my face, because she nods and starts tapping on the keyboard in front of her. “We did have one come by,” she says. “Few minutes ago.” She reaches down to retrieve the ticket she’s printed for me, as I shove some bills across to her. I’m overpaying for this visit, and I don’t care one bit.

  Paula tells me that I have ten minutes, no more. She’s got a home to go to.

  Paula, I love you. Not as much as I love Charlotte, but you’re a close second right now!

  I take two elevators up to the observation deck, barely waiting for the doors to open before I jump out. It’s almost deserted, apart from the old couple to my left. They each have an arm around the other and are wearing matching woolen coats and thick gloves, scarves covering half their faces. They’re looking west, over the Hudson, toward New Jersey. Totally content, totally happy. But screw that: I’m looking for my own contentedness and happiness.

  The winter chill is even fiercer this high up. The snow has returned, thick enough that Mistake burrows into the tote bag for warmth and shelter.

  Where is she?

  It’s only now that I’m here that I think to myself, what if Charlotte’s gained her perspective and taken an elevator down? What if we passed each other and never knew that we did?

  What if she thinks I never tried to find her?

  No, that can’t happen. Paula’s got my back, right? She’ll intercept Charlotte and make sure she doesn’t leave, not without me.

  She has to be here. But I run all around the observation deck, totally ignoring the magnificent view flitting past me. The New York skyline might as well be made of cardboard and Styrofoam, for all the attention I’m giving it.

  There’s only one sight that I want to see.

  And there she is, facing the Hudson, looking at — why is she looking at New Jersey? I know she’s not from here, but come on, girl. Whatever. I’ll run up to her and get her facing in the right direction — right at me. Once I kiss her, she’ll forget that New Jersey even exists (which is the way to live, really). I touch her shoulder and —

  Wrong girl.

  “Sorry,” I say to the woman, who I now realize is in her midthirties and, when she starts speaking, Russian. “I’m really sorry. I thought you were someone else.”

  And here’s the strapping Russian husband, who does not seem happy at all that I was bugging his wife.

  “I’m so sorry. Really, really, did not mean to do that. Can I take a picture of you guys? No? Well, listen, enjoy your stay in …”

  And when I cast my eyes over at the northwest corner of the deck, I trail off — because there she is. A silhouette looking uptown, toward … Columbia. I manage to split off from the Russian couple, then stop — because as much as I want to see her and tell her everything, I also want her to make her decision on her own. No guy — not even me — should be any kind of factor in what she decides to do with her future. I believed that when I said it about the horrible hipster, and I believe it just as much now. If she comes back to New York, it should be because she wants to, whether I’m here or not. She’s completing the last step — gaining perspective and thinking about everything.

  I’m content to let her have this moment, for as long as she wants it to last — but Mistake has other ideas. As soon as she sniffs the air and recognizes her mom’s scent, she tries to launch herself out of my arms, and when I stop her, she starts barking. Her barks are initially swallowed up by the fierce December winds gusting around the observation deck, but they eventually reach their target.

  Charlotte starts to turn around. I realize how nervous I am. She looks stunned, staring at me as if she has just been asked to divide three by seventeen — as if she can’t, for the life of her, fi
gure out what I might be doing here.

  But I know what I’m doing here. I walk right up to her, shifting our dog to one side, reaching out my free hand to take one of hers. I pull her toward me and kiss her. She kisses me back, taking two fistfuls of my jacket, pulling me close until there is barely any space between our lips, our bodies …

  Until our dog creates some, both of us leaning back to avoid her enthusiastic licks. We break apart, laughing, Charlotte reaching out to fuss over Mistake.

  “You’re so lucky I adore you so much, little madam!” Then she looks to the floor, biting her lip, suddenly emotional. “I waited for you. What happened? Why did you let me go?”

  “I didn’t mean to,” I tell her, surprised I can speak at all. It feels like my heart is trying to climb out of my chest, out of my mouth and present itself to her. “I was getting Mistake together, and the doors closed …”

  “I thought you’d just decided the night was over,” she whispers. She looks up, and I can see her teeth clench as she tries to keep her breathing under control. The biting cold air of the Manhattan sky has given her cheeks a pink glow that — to me, right now — lights up the night.

  I lightly grab her sleeve again, pull her toward me, hold her close. “I’m so glad we found you.”

  She leans in and rests her forehead against my chest, still stroking Mistake’s nose. “I can’t believe it … I really thought you’d …” Now she wraps both arms around my waist, squeezes tight. “I didn’t expect you to try to find me.”

  I remember something I’ve thought and said tonight. I have to tell her. She needs to know it. “Look at me …”

  She leans her head away from me, looking up. Her eyes glimmer, but the tears don’t fall.

  “I thought you had rejected me, on the train,” I tell her. “You were saying something … about Colin. You were falling asleep.”

  Her eyes widen. “Colin? That arsehole?”

  I can’t help laughing, and after a second, she joins in.

  “I was thinking about him,” she says, quietly. “But I think what I was really doing was letting him go. Letting go of the idea that he was ever that important.”

  I reach out and touch her cheek, and she looks up at me and smiles. “I think we’re both realizing that,” I say. “The people from our past … maybe don’t mean as much as the people in …” I trail off, too chickenshit to say it.

  But she’s not. “Our future?”

  I just nod, smiling.

  She laughs, shakes her head. “God, what are we like?”

  I lean forward, letting my lips rest on her forehead. “We’re like a couple of fools, but that’s okay.” Her arms squeeze me tighter. Mistake nestles into both of us.

  She leans her head away so she can look at me, her eyes narrowing, and I can tell that she’s trying to capture a memory of something.

  “You … were saying something to me. On the train … just before we got separated.”

  “I said a lot of things on the train.” I kiss the top of her head, try not to shiver at the scent of lilac. “You were pretty tired.”

  “Can you …” I can feel her heartbeat against my ribs. It could almost be the bass line for a dubstep track. “Can you remember what you said? I’m gutted I didn’t catch it all.”

  I close my eyes and try to remember. I wasn’t really thinking about what I was saying while I was saying it; it was a ramble, stream of consciousness.

  I was just saying what felt right. That’s what I should do now.

  “If you had asked me earlier today, could I ever be happy again, I’d have probably laughed at you. Because I don’t think I’ve ever felt less of myself than I did after … after what happened this afternoon. But I don’t care about any of that anymore. I don’t think I’m ever even going to think about it again.”

  I have no idea how close that was to what I said on the train, but I do remember how I finished up. And now that I’ve got a second chance at it, I have to change one thing I said.

  “You know, earlier, after we had the pizza at John’s, I wondered how random this night was going to get. It had been pretty ridiculous already, and there you were, on a Citi Bike, telling me to follow you. I didn’t know where the heck you were going, but … I wanted to find out. That was true then, and it’s true now.

  “I have to find out — about you, about us. Every day, I want to find out —”

  The very end of my ramble is cut off by the kiss she gives me, which is almost as hard as the grip she has on the back of my neck — I’m struck by the difference, the improvement, in kissing someone who you know really wants to kiss you. Just you.

  When she stops kissing me, we’re both breathing heavily. Those dimples deepen as she smiles, both of us ignoring the snow that’s battering our faces.

  “I love you.” She says it, and I’m surprised that I’m not surprised. “It might be totally mental, but I do.”

  I lean forward, resting my forehead against hers. Whisper, “I’m sorry about leaving you.”

  She slides her hands around my hips, pulling me to her again. “No, I’m sorry. This wouldn’t have happened if I hadn’t dozed off. I hate that I did — I don’t want to miss a moment. I was just … a bit confused. All of a sudden, you were telling me that we should stop, that you’d pay for a hotel and I … I didn’t know what to do.”

  “I liked you too much. I guess that’s why it hurt so bad when I heard his name come out your mouth. I know how you felt about him.”

  She leans back a little to make sure that we’re looking at each other — that I take her seriously when she tells me: “How I thought I felt about him. And you know something? If I hadn’t met you, if we hadn’t done … everything we’ve done, I’d still be thinking that what Col— what he and I were was something real. You showed me that it wasn’t.”

  I’m about to say something but am interrupted by a blast of trumpets. Charlotte shakes her head, mumbling: “Probably my mum, making sure I’m okay.” She takes her cell phone out of her tote bag, looks at it. Whatever it is, it stops her in her tracks, because I hear a sharp intake of breath. “Oh … it’s the airline. They’re pushing me to confirm whether or not I’ll be on one of the extra flights they’ve laid on.”

  “Tell them yes.” I say it without hesitation, and from the way she looks at me, all furrowed brows, I can tell that Charlotte is confused. “I don’t want this night to end, but … you should be with your family. It’s Christmas. And I actually … I want to be with mine. Thanks to you.”

  “What did I do?”

  “You reminded me that it wasn’t my family I was trying to avoid,” I say. “It was me, my own grief. But that makes no sense, because I’m carrying that around with me everywhere. I can’t move forward if I’m running away. And moving forward starts at home — for both of us.”

  “The emotional base?” she asks, saying to me something I said to her when we were at Washington Square, about the idea of “home.” I can’t help grinning at the fact that she remembers — because she listens.

  We hear each other.

  I nod at her. “Yeah, the emotional base.”

  She holds my eyes for a second, before the first tear falls and she looks at the ground. “But I don’t want to leave …”

  “Come here.” I take her left hand in my right, guide her over to the wall, to the view of the Upper West Side. Perspective. “Look.”

  She stares out, over the scene she was looking at when I arrived here. Just for a few seconds, then she looks back at me. “I don’t get it.”

  I point out over the edge, at the snow-covered park spilling away from us, like a white carpet being unrolled, presenting the Upper West Side, Columbia, the next year of our lives.

  “All of that is still going to be here, waiting for you to come back.” I return her look, interlacing her fingers with mine. “It’s not going anywhere
. And neither am I. If you want us, we’re yours. You know why?”

  “Why?”

  I lean down, kiss her once. “Because here — you will belong.”

  10. DO SOMETHING TO HELP YOURSELF GAIN PERSPECTIVE.

  ~ Chapter Thirteen ~

  Charlotte

  2:07 a.m.

  Everything after the kissing and the declarations is a blur. I feel so light, so happily dizzy, that it’s like I’m floating down from the top of the Empire State Building, back to Thirty-Fourth Street. Once we’re there, Anthony instantly steps into the street and raises his hand. I reach out to restrain him.

  “It’s okay,” he says. “You need to get home to your family, to your sisters. It’s okay. Come on, let’s hurry.”

  I laugh at him. “I’m not trying to get out of going home. I just …”

  He leans down to find my eyes, looking both suspicious and amused. “What is it?”

  “Could you let me hail the cab?” I look away, embarrassed at how much this means to me. I’ve never hailed one in New York before, and I’m strangely struck by the urge to go through it as a kind of rite of passage. Anthony just smiles, takes a step back:

  “The city is yours, m’lady.”

  And right at this moment, it feels like it really is … until two cabs totally ignore me. I give Anthony a look, start to step back to let him do it.

  “No, no, no,” he says, gently nudging me back to the curb. “A cab is a New Yorker’s right. You have to raise your hand like you expect it to stop — like it hasn’t even occurred to you that it wouldn’t.”