“Not at all, dear. Oh, maybe we could do it here in front of Colin’s self-portrait.”
“That’s a lovely painting.” I heard Nick’s slimy voice. He stood at the top of the stairs, positioning himself as if he’d just ascended. His clothes were neat, too neat. Liar.
“Why, thank you—my son painted it.”
“My, he’s a painter and a writer?”
“You’re familiar with Colin’s work?” Libby Bates smiled brightly at Nick. I wanted to vomit.
“I’ve just recently heard some very interesting things about him, yes.” Nick looked directly at me.
“Oh, do you two know each other?”
Nick inhaled. Jake stepped forward.
“Yes, we do. Back at Collegiate.”
Nick retreated. He had been scared of Jake ever since they first met.
“That’s right. Well I just wanted to say hello. I’d better get back to the bar.” Nick said this as he started down the stairs.
“Poor guy, he’s had a rough patch since school.” Jake waited a beat. “I’d watch your silverware.”
Once outside, Jake and I walked briskly in silence for a couple of blocks. When we reached Third Avenue, it felt safe to talk.
“I should not have gone there. I’m so embarrassed.” Reality was setting in for me the farther away we got from the scene of the crime.
“What? You were fine.”
“I so wasn’t.” I snapped back, but I was glad he had said it, anyway.
“Lena, Libby Bates doesn’t have a clue about you and Nick.”
“I was in Colin’s bedroom when I ran into him,” I confessed.
“The two of you were alone in Colin’s bedroom?” He seemed to be more intrigued than concerned.
“Yes, with a drunk blonde.”
“Wait, the one with the glitter top?”
“That’s the one.”
“Dammit. I was chatting her up earlier. Real nice girl.”
I rolled my eyes.
“Oh God, Jake. We shouldn’t have gone there tonight,” I said, feeling suddenly serious.
“What do you mean?” Jake wasn’t following.
“I mean it wasn’t ethical. I’m still a journalist, kind of,” I said.
“What did you do wrong? You had a conversation with his mom. It happened to be during a party.”
“Right, and the part where I snuck into his room?”
“So? You got lost looking for the bathroom. It happens,” Jake said, perfectly comfortable with his explanation.
“I don’t know, Jake.” I wasn’t convinced. A crush was one thing. Trespassing was another.
“Oh, whatever.” Jake was impatient now. “We crashed a corny zoo fund-raiser. No harm done, okay?” Jake said, putting an arm around my shoulder. He always had a way of calming me down.
“Yeah, no harm done, except Mrs. Bates thinks I’m a complete weirdo!” I said.
“Lena,” Jake paused. “You shouldn’t be so nervous about making a good impression on some guy’s mother. I think it’s virtually impossible for you to make a bad impression, in fact.”
“Said my best friend thoughtfully,” I laughed.
“Stop it, I’m serious.”
“You’re sweet, Jake.”
“I can’t believe old Nick was there.” Jake seemed genuinely amused by my turn of bad luck. “I still can’t believe you guys dated.”
“Me neither. I’m trying to forget.”
We stopped at a traffic light and I turned to Jake.
“I really appreciate your help tonight. You saved me in there.”
“Aw, stop it.” Jake waved me off. “You don’t need me.”
“You’re my knight in shining armor,” I teased him.
“I am?” He considered the idea for a minute. “Well, in that case, I better make sure you get home safely.” With that, he picked me up and hoisted me over his shoulder. I was laughing so hard, I couldn’t resist, and we were halfway down the block before I could convince him to let me down. Jake loved to make a scene.
“I’m dying for a drink. Not that watered-down cocktail-party shit, you know,” Jake said.
“I know.” I smiled to myself, thinking of Nick pouring highballs for the society set. “Let’s go get a real drink.”
When I got home, the stillness of my apartment overwhelmed me. After a night out, it always took me a few moments to readjust to the quiet. Alone again.
The phone rang.
“Hello.”
“Okay, tell me you’re watching Savannah, the E! True Hollywood Story.”
“I’m going to bed, Jake.”
“Lena, this is gripping television—Savannah just wrecked her prized white Corvette after a coke binge. She’s on the brink.”
“Jake, I’m really tired…”
“Lena, she’s not just a porn star—she’s a young girl caught in the grips of the wicked Hollywood machine.”
“I’ll call you tomorrow, Jake.”
“All right, sweet dreams, pumpkin.”
I smiled in spite of myself.
I had just stepped into the shower when the phone rang again. Jake must have had another revelatory Savannah moment.
But later when I picked up the message, it wasn’t Jake—the tone was low and even. It was a man.
I tracked water over the hardwood floor, giving my opposite neighbor another performance in my daily striptease revue. With one wet finger, I pressed Play.
“Hey, um, it’s Colin—Colin Bates—” deep-throated laughter “—I’m sorry for calling so late, but I was planning on being in the city Friday and was hoping we could meet up—” and then quickly “—to talk about the book, I mean.”
In moments, I had the message memorized. The pause, the beautiful, wondrous, meaningful pause…this was huge, this could last me for days, three Nadine meetings at least. I shed my towel, twirling for my audience, and floated to bed.
chapter 6
“I think we should meet for a drink. That’s innocent enough, right?”
“Lena…”
“I wonder if he likes sake—there’s that cool place on Ninth Street.”
“Ooh, I know that place. Very cool,” Parker chimed in.
“Don’t encourage her!” Tess scolded.
“Tess, have you ever thought maybe it would be a good idea to encourage me, every now and then.”
“Yes, but…”
“No buts…I’m on my lunch hour. I don’t have time for buts.”
“Who are you kidding? You don’t get a lunch hour,” Parker corrected me.
“Don’t remind me. Nadine thinks I’m at the dentist again. I had to do research on gum disease to throw her off the trail this time.”
“Can we just order now? I’m starving.” Parker tended toward hypoglycemia, and let everyone know it.
“Yes, but—” Tess wasn’t finished.
“No buts!” Parker and I replied in unison.
“Just let me say this and then I’ll shut up. You don’t even know if you like him yet. Don’t get ahead of yourself.”
“You tell her that every week,” Parker remarked. “And we know she likes him. That one’s not hard.”
I looked at Parker askance. She seemed so certain.
“What do you think about all this, Parker?” I had never thought to ask her opinion. Now I was curious.
“There are three things a girl needs to ask herself about a new guy,” she replied, not missing a beat. “I call it the AHI principle.”
I, and I think even Tess, moved in closer.
“Age—is he older? Height—is he taller? Income—does he currently make more, or have the imminent potential to make more money than you?”
“That’s so—” Tess began.
“Clinical.” I finished for her.
“That’s reality, girls. Men want it that way. Women want it that way. It’s just that no one wants to say it out loud.” She heaved a sigh, clearly annoyed by the burden of being the one woman who had figured it all out. “Af
ter those three questions are taken care of, any relationship can be made to work.” She picked up her menu, fully content with her view of the world.
“Okay, I’m sorry, but that’s insane, Parker,” I said.
“What’s so insane about it?”
“Uh, where do I start? Men and women are not that…interchangeable. You can’t just match people up by their stats.” I looked at Tess for backup, but clearly she was intent on staying neutral.
“You don’t think so?” Parker said.
“I can’t believe you think they are!”
“Lena, do you ever read the Sunday Times wedding announcements?”
“Of course.”
“Have you ever noticed that a striking number of listings resemble the following couple—‘Man, 36, investment banker. Woman, 27, elementary school teacher.’”
“Your point?”
“And how often do you see this listing: ‘Man, 27, elementary school teacher. Woman, 36, investment banker’?”
“That doesn’t prove anything,” I said dryly.
“I know you think it’s cynical, Lena, but it’s just reality. You’ll be so much happier when you accept it.”
“Right, well if I had taken your advice, Parker, I’d probably be married to Greg right now!” I laughed at the thought of it.
“And what would be so wrong with that?”
“Just about everything,” I shot back.
Greg. Greg was the past, pre-New York, prerevolutionary Lena Sharpe. If my life was Berlin, Greg was the Wall. Perhaps I was being dramatic. The fact of the matter is that we had dated. During college, I hadn’t had many relationships beyond a drunken hookup or two. Greg was, at the time, a revelation. A living, breathing, heterosexual male who wanted to have sex with me and talk to me in the mornings. He seemed, at the time, to be a natural, comfortable, perhaps larger-boned extension of myself. It seemed bizarre now to have been so intimate with someone, to have shared food, clothing, bodily fluids, and shelf space and then completely lose touch, vanish from each other’s lives completely. There was a time when I wondered if Greg was my destiny and yet now, I couldn’t even imagine what he looked like.
“Well, I guess we would make sense together if I followed the AHI principle, but that’s about it,” I kidded. Tess snickered.
“Laugh if you will, but you’ll understand my way of thinking one of these days,” Parker chided us. “Oh, and I almost forgot.” She slammed down her menu, alarmed at her omission. “STP ratio is also very important.”
“STP?” Tess asked.
“Yes, shoe-to-pant ratio. You must find a man who can pick a pair of pants that fall just right, you know? Very important.”
Colin and I would meet at Le Gamin at seven o’clock—just a casual chat over coffee at a little café conveniently located near my apartment. I had wrestled over the venue for hours. First it was to be the Hudson (too flashy for a first meeting I decided), then it was Pravda (too Euro-trashy for someone returning from the New England countryside), and then finally (with much prompting from Tess) I decided to downgrade. Le Gamin was my Saturday-afternoon hangout, perfectly suited for lounging, smoking and elevated conversation. Plus, I had perfected just enough French to banter with Olivier, the counter guy, and one couldn’t dismiss such opportunities to impress one’s date with calculated displays of sophistication.
I had just spent a busy afternoon at the office volleying e-mails with Tess. She had, not surprisingly, tried to talk me down from the admittedly lofty supposition that I was, in fact, about to meet my soul mate and life partner.
In fact, I had almost entirely convinced myself that I nursed only the mildest curiosity about Colin Bates by day’s end. I even managed to hold on to this idea as I left work early to get a quick blowout at Bumble & Bumble, ran home to change my clothes (and then change them again) and finally, dab on my new M.A.C. lipstick (Viva Glam!) that I had just happened to purchase that day after I (oh yes) had a quick brow shaping.
No, it wasn’t until I was walking down East Fifth Street at exactly 6:58 p.m. that I felt the unmistakable spasms of anxiety, which seemed to indicate that I might have once again set myself up for an encounter that could, if one were to look at it quite objectively, be tremendously awkward and disappointing.
I suddenly found myself gripped by the terrifying thought that I was so obviously made-up and coiffed, meticulously manicured and hypergroomed, that I may as well have worn a sign announcing my availability, measurements, and utter lack of shame or pride.
There was still time for damage control, I thought. I dug through my bag in a futile search for a tissue, but to no avail. I ducked into a deli and quickly bought a bottle of water and some Kleenex. I prided myself on noticing the super-hot man in line behind me. He was purchasing wintergreen Dentyne. See, I thought to myself, there were plenty of attractive, sexy men for me to ogle and woo. No need to rashly pin all of my hopes and desires on Colin Bates. Tess was right—I hadn’t even seen him. He could be hideous, after all.
I chided myself. So like a woman I was, not even to consider the fact that I might not be attracted to him. I had ascribed all of these heroic qualities to a person that I had never even seen before! I had the power here, I told myself. At least I knew that Dentyne man was concerned for his breath, which was more than I knew about Colin Bates!
I was leaning over the ice-cream freezer, stealing snatches of my reflection in its metal door handle as I dutifully engaged in my make-under when I heard my cell phone ring.
“Hello.”
“Hey, Lena. It’s Colin.”
“Hey,” I said meekly. Just hearing his voice made me smooth out my hair and wish I hadn’t smeared so much lipstick off. I was hopeless.
“Listen. I’m in a deli on Fifth Street. What was the address of the café again?” His voice was echoing as if he were standing right next to me.
He’s in a deli on Fifth Street.
“Wait, I’m in a deli on Fifth Street,” I said, with a bit more of a quaver than I would have liked. Instinctively, I turned my head toward the cash register. And there before my eyes, was Dentyne man, clutching his pack of gum…and a cell phone. And he was mouthing my name.
“Hi,” Dentyne man’s mouth and Colin’s voice said to me simultaneously. Dentyne man broke out into a wide smile as I slowly walked toward him.
“Colin Bates.” He shook my hand with a firm grasp.
“Lena Sharpe,” I said, still dazed.
“What were you doing back there?” He looked puzzled.
“Uh.” Rapid flashback to furious lipstick removal gave way only to the more horrifying realization that I was having my first introduction to Colin Bates under the cruel gaze of fluorescent deli lights which, very likely, were rendering my pores to be the size of Frisbees.
“I was, I felt a little warm, so I was just…wiping down with some…” Wiping down?
“Bottled water?” He was trying to help out.
“Yes,” I said, as if this were supposed to make perfect sense.
“I hope you’re not getting sick. Because we can do this another—”
“No. Oh, no. I’m just…the subway, you know. It can be…warm. That’s all.” I smiled brightly, determined to sweep this entire subject under the rug. “So, how are you?”
“I’m good.” He seemed either amused or perplexed, I couldn’t tell which.
Yet, despite all of my insecurity and discomfort, I was still able to perform the necessary mental assessment of the newly revealed Colin Bates. He was, quite simply, my type. Now that is not to say that I in fact had a quantifiable type previous to this encounter. I could not, for instance, rattle off a series of distinctive qualities (sandy-brown hair, angular build, penchant for natural fibers, for instance) and conjure up a clear picture of my ideal man. It simply seemed to be one of those innumerable situations where you knew something when you saw it. And I was seeing it stand before me now in a neon-bright deli on East Fifth Street. His dark brown hair was perfectly tousled, with a
lock or two grazing past his large brown eyes. He was tall but not too tall, muscular but not brawny, his clothes were well selected but not overly thought out. I looked down at his shoes, and then smiled to myself. Excellent STP.
“How was your trip down?”
“Oh, it was good. I made good time.”
Silence. Deli lights. Gigantic pores.
“We should go,” I said with sudden urgency, and started out the door. “It’s just down the block.”
Once outside in the cool and blessedly dark night, I calmed down somewhat. Of course, my brief infusion of self-empowerment had evaporated as I felt the intoxicating glee at having my unreal fantasies about Colin Bates become suddenly and stunningly real.
But now, the initial question reemerged, rearing its ugly and oh-so-familiar head. The three desperate words of the serial dater were upon me—Is…he…interested? But even more pressing at this point was this question: Is this a date?
“Listen, are you hungry?” He turned to me suddenly.
The correct answer seemed to be yes. Dinner = Restaurant + mood lighting + alcohol = Date?
“Oh, but you might not have a lot of time?” He started to answer his own question.
“Not at all.” I practically cut him off. “Where did you have in mind?”
“I know this great place.” He seemed excited. Excitement + premeditated destination = Date?
We walked a few blocks east until we reached the outer fringes of Alphabet City. On an abandoned stretch of Avenue D, he led me toward an unmarked storefront. Through the dusty panes, a warm light glowed and lively Latin music escaped as the door swung open and closed, exchanging patrons.
“What do you think?” he asked.
What I was thinking was: loud burrito joint + bustling college crowd ≠ Date. What I said was: “It looks perfect.” I even managed a smile. It was still early, I thought.
And so we made our way to the back of the cantina, negotiating Corona-swilling revelers at every turn before finally securing a cozy banquette for two. Within seconds, a waiter and two margaritas had appeared.
“They know me here,” he said, glancing at the drinks.
“I see.” I smiled back at him.
Live from New York, It's Lena Sharpe Page 7