“Sure. And his rippling chest runs a close second.”
“You’re right. God, I’m as bad as a guy.”
“Uh, no. If you were a guy, you would have already humiliated yourself with at least ten vain attempts to impress him.”
“See! By your own admission, I would ‘humiliate’ myself if I were to approach him.” She looked vaguely triumphant.
“You, Tess, would not humiliate yourself.”
“No, I wouldn’t, because I would never, ever deign to frolic with someone who is, quite likely, an out-of-work actor just getting by ladling lattes.” Tess had taken on her self-righteous, “my great-great-great-grandfather came over on the Mayflower” voice that she only assumed when she was unsure of herself. Which wasn’t very often.
I didn’t respond. We resumed our reverent observation. He was a fine specimen. Tess had discovered him more than six months ago and, ever since, we had bypassed three Starbucks, two New World Cafés, and a Saint Alp’s tearoom so that we could sit here at French Roast and argue over whether or not Tess should ever break the fourth wall and approach Macchiato himself. Mostly, however, we just had idle conversation punctuated by long, dreamy staring sessions. I enjoyed seeing this side of Tess, but my mood today was somewhat confrontational.
“What’s the pleasure in just watching him if you never intend to act on it?”
“It’s a crush. It will pass.” She stirred her chai latte in measured, steady turns like a testy cat swishing its tail. I decided to ignore the signs.
“Maybe it could be something more?”
She was silent for several seconds and then: “Lena, this guy’s very likely jailbait. And it’s even more likely that he’s entirely vapid. Why ruin the view with reality?”
“You’re so cynical,” I said, slouching down in my chair.
“I’m realistic. You should try it sometime.”
“What do you mean by that?”
Tess put down her mug. Her brow furrowed and I knew she felt badly.
“Lena, I’m sorry.”
“I know you are.” My voice softened.
“I just don’t have that much faith in happy endings, I guess.”
“Like with me and Colin?”
Tess didn’t respond, thus answering my question.
“Jesus, what does everyone have against Colin? I’m not crazy. We did have a great time.”
“What do you mean? Who else is giving you a hard time?” She seemed alarmed that someone else might have taken on the cynic’s role in my life.
“Jake.”
“Well.” Tess gave a beleaguered half smile. “Jake may have a different agenda than I do.”
“What do you mean?”
“Oh, never mind, you’ll tell me I’m crazy and it’s not worth it.”
“Okay, now you have to tell me.”
“Jake’s jealous.”
“You’re crazy.”
“What did I tell you?”
“But I’ve dated lots of guys since I’ve known Jake.”
“Yeah, and hasn’t he hated most of them?”
“Well, yeah.”
“There you go.”
“But you should have heard him, Tess. This was not like the others. He seemed so pissed off when I was telling him about our date.”
“Well.” Tess paused. “Maybe he senses something different about this one.”
“Like what?”
“Like you like him more than the others.”
“I do, Tess. I mean, I really think I do.”
“Then, there’s your answer.” She patted my hand. “Jake’s a sensitive guy, Lena. He gets you.”
“Then he should be happy for me, not jealous because I want to spend time with someone else.”
But Tess’s attention was elsewhere right now. She glanced at her empty coffee mug and then motioned to the front counter, her eyes dancing mischievously toward her Macho Macchiato.
I walked out of French Roast with a heavy heart. I was annoyed—how had my beautiful, magical (yes magical!) night become so tainted? Wasn’t my own self-doubt enough to deal with? Now I had to wrestle with the doom and gloom of my supposed best friends?
My mind flashed to moments from the previous night, moments that made my heart leap. Yes, it was still real. I walked faster—abusing my Sigerson Morrisons as they pounded the pavement. I didn’t see the people around me, but I was being propelled by their energy, the city’s energy—powerful, positive energy that didn’t question motive or agenda, energy that gave a girl a chance, for God’s sake. Wasn’t that what this city was built on? I was getting worked up.
At some point, I forgot where I was going with such determination. I guess I could walk home, but what would I do there? The deep void of Saturday night yawned before me. I couldn’t call Tess; I wouldn’t call Jake. And then the dreaded questions began to fill my head: Would he call? Had he called? And the one that I personally hated the most: Should I call?
Of course, the moment these questions enter one’s mind, one knows that the honeymoon has indeed ended, the magical post-great-date period as it were, has ceased. I reached for my cell phone. I had two choices—I could either check my messages now or wait until I got home.
There were downsides to both scenarios. If I were to check now and not hear anything, I would very likely lose the urgency to walk home. I would feel also as if I’d jinxed the process by calling my own phone (what if he couldn’t get through because we happened to call at the exact same time? A remote possibility, but a possibility all the same). On the other hand, waiting until I arrived home presented the problem of placing an enormous amount of pressure on my arrival. I hesitate even to contemplate the idea of discovering the steady, unblinking red light of my answering machine—the cruelest mocking of a single woman ever known. The very thought made me tense. I punched in the numbers without thinking, without seeing. And I waited. It would be way too soon for a call even if he were completely in love with me, I thought, trying to prepare myself for disappointment. Would I even want someone that was so quick to violate dating etiquette? My powers of self-protective rationalization were at high alert. I heard my message (God, how I hated the sound of my own voice. That message alone would likely drive him away) and then the short tone followed by the cruel words “No New Messages.”
“Hello?” I heard a disembodied voice speaking to me.
I held my phone to my ear. Had I hit speed dial by accident? Was I truly going crazy?
“Hello?” I answered.
“Lena? Is that you?”
“Yes.” I put my ear to the phone. “Who is this?”
“Hey, it’s Colin.”
Hey, it’s Colin? I was stunned. “Hi.”
“That was so weird. I wasn’t sure if my call went through. All I heard was rustling.”
“I just hung up another call,” I said. It was beginning to make sense. “You must have called just as I hung up.”
“Wow, what are the chances of that?”
“Very remote,” I said with a slow smile. Slim to none.
“So listen, I was just wondering what you’re doing tonight?”
chapter 7
Each night, Colin took me somewhere new. I had lived in New York for five years and had done my share of exploring, but Colin knew the city far more intimately. We each played our part—discoverer and discoveree—with equal enthusiasm. The restaurants and cafés he knew weren’t fancy or pretentious (or even mentioned in Zagat’s). Most often, they were tucked away like private kitchens that just happened to have a table for two in the corner.
That night in particular, it happened to be a small Greek tavern in Queens.
“You’re probably the only date I’ve had that’s taken me to Queens for dinner,” I said.
“You’re probably the only date I’ve had who would appreciate it,” he replied.
We stared at each other. He would do this often—hold my gaze until I would blush and look away. Then he would laugh. Then I would laugh. Bliss.
>
“So, how did you find this place?”
“Well, I had a tendency…” He paused. “I guess we know each other well enough at this point for me to tell you.”
My heart leaped at the inference! And then stopped for a beat when I considered what he might tell me.
“Caleb and I used to have a habit of skipping school,” he said finally.
“That’s awful,” I said with relief.
“I know, I know. Anyway, we would get on the train and just take it wherever—the Bronx, Harlem, all over. We got lost once in Astoria and Milos helped us out. He owns this place.”
“He didn’t report a couple of city boy truants?” I said playfully.
“Not until he fed us some oysters and scared us with a few navy stories.”
How I loved his romantic boyhood mischief stories! I half expected him to tell me his real name was Huckleberry.
“Did your mom ever find out?”
“Mmm…yeah.” His face soured.
“How?”
Wordlessly Colin rolled up his shirtsleeve. Just below his tricep, there was a faded blue tattoo—the kind you see on ex-cons or WWII vets. “Bonnie” it read.
“Who’s Bonnie?” I said, confused.
“I don’t remember. Caleb picked it out. I was too drunk. We were going to have our girlfriends’ names tattooed on our arms like Milos, but the artist mixed them up.” He looked embarrassed.
“What was the name supposed to be?” I asked.
Colin paused. Direct eye contact. “Lena.”
“Yes?” I answered, my voice barely audible.
“No,” he smiled, and said in a whisper, “That was the name.” He leaned in closer to me.
“I don’t think I believe you.”
“Well, it’s the only name I can possibly think of right now.” With that, he leaned over and kissed me.
Of course, if I were a stranger listening to this exchange with Colin, I would very likely immediately vomit, but as a participant in the conversation, I had to admit that it all felt genuine and real, and completely divine.
“You know, Colin, there’s something I should talk to you about as well,” I said. I had been dreading this conversation, but I had to say something.
“What is it?”
“Well, it’s just that the fact is I’m doing a story on you for the show.”
“Right.” Colin reached forward for my hand.
“And some people might be a little surprised to know that we’ve been hanging out—” I searched for the right words “—in a more personal way.”
“A more personal way?” Colin smiled at the phrase.
“I’m not sure how to handle things, that’s all,” I said, not looking up.
“What were you thinking?” he asked.
I paused. “Well, we could hold off until your segment’s done,” I said, barely able to get the words out.
“Is that what you want to do?” he asked.
“This isn’t about what I want,” I said.
“Well, do you know what I think?” Colin said softly, running his fingers along my wrist.
“What?”
“I think that we should keep work at work—” he paused “—and we should keep our personal relationship—” he bent down and kissed my hand “—personal. Does that sound good?”
I must have known that there was a choice of answers to this question, but in that moment, only one seemed possible. “Yes,” I said, my voice barely above a whisper. God, I was so weak. I felt myself blush. I had very likely been blushing the whole time.
“I love the way you blush,” he said with a smile.
“You do?” It was so strange the things that he would compliment—my squeaky hiccups, the way my hair always fell in my face. He liked the things that I tried to change, to smother out or at least ignore.
“Yeah, it shows that you’re sincere.”
“Oh, does it?” I tried to be coy—but sincere. Sincerely coy?
“Yeah.” He leaned forward. “And it’s really sexy.”
“You certainly know how to embarrass me, don’t you?” I raised my hands to my face, which he promptly pushed away, covering my cheek with his palm. He felt cool. I felt drunk.
Up until this point, my entire dating life seemed like one long audition process, an ongoing attempt to tweak my appearance and/or behavior in the effort to attract the right member of the opposite sex. With Colin it was different. Never before did I think that my tendency to turn red when put on the spot, to trail off sentences, to leave my clothes in little piles throughout my apartment could be seen as “endearing,” “alluring,” or even “sexy.”
I was not Sienna Skye. I never would be. No makeup trickery or well-placed accessory would ever change that. A guy like Colin could certainly woo a Sienna Skye if he wanted to. Couldn’t he? Wondering what caught his interest in me was both terrifying and exhilarating.
“What do you want to do?” Colin asked, lightening the mood a bit.
“Mmm…I’m fine right here.”
“Come on, I only get a few hours with you a day. I want to maximize it.”
He was right, it was only a brief time each night, but it felt somehow like a different day altogether, a separate life. At last, the tyrannical monotony of work-subway-dinner-TV-sleep was broken. With Colin, the most banal event became a grand opportunity for adventure and discovery. Have you ever eaten Ethiopian—yes, but not with you! Just walking along the tacky shops on lower Broadway had been transformed into something like a Moroccan bazaar—look at those magnets! Oh, and those two each with our names on them! Suddenly it didn’t seem at all strange to be excited by the same street fair that rotated throughout the city every other weekend. Making dinner became fun, browsing books at Borders was a new world of discovery, standing in line at Duane Reade was a distinct pleasure.
“Hey, do you want to go to a party?” he asked excitedly.
Suddenly I heard the needle drag clumsily across the record of my beautiful fantasy. It was an indication of my state of mind, I suppose, that I found it plausible that I would never have to expand our world to include other people. Silly me.
“A party?” The idea of washing dishes with Colin was a joy, but the thought of interacting with his suave social set struck fear in my heart. My anxiety could be summarized in five words—I would not measure up.
“Yeah, it’s just a few friends…it’s no big deal.” He sensed my hesitation. “Forget I said anything.”
I calculated in my head the possibility of fooling Colin’s entire cadre of friends into thinking that I was a suitable object of his affections. “No, we should go,” I said. No, we shouldn’t. No, we shouldn’t. No, we shouldn’t, I thought.
“Maybe you’re right,” he said.
No, I’m not. No, I’m not. No, I’m not! I’m wrong, so very, very wrong. We should never allow a third party into our world. Deal?
“We’ll just stop by. How’s that?” he said.
At that moment, my cell phone rang, providing a blessed delay. I reached down to get it and saw a text message from Jake: “I bought us tix for 9pm Casablanca at Screening Room. Meet me there? Peace.”
It would be so easy. “I had plans,” I could say. “I forgot all about them,” I would explain. “You go on to the party, have fun,” I would encourage him. I could spend the rest of the night with Jake. I wouldn’t have to face Colin’s world just yet; the fantasy could linger a bit longer. I could choose Jake or I could choose Colin.
“Let’s go to the party,” I said as I placed my phone back into my bag.
The party was not at all what I had expected. It was enjoyable.
One by one, I met the characters from Colin’s stories as well as those who I had interviewed over the phone for the show. I knew their stories, but they didn’t know mine, which felt like a distinct advantage. There were his “friends from a misspent youth,” as he described it—the “misguided” (as Libby Bates had declared him) best friend, Caleb, and the cheerful, down-to
-earth Cecily, who had an easy, melodic laugh. There was also Gavin, Colin’s good-natured college roommate from Williams who was now a bespectacled lawyer, as well as Gavin’s long-term girlfriend, Grace, a serious but sincere-seeming architect with a crisp British accent.
And then I saw Colin talking to…her. I had noticed the slim, shadowy figure twice before I realized that it was a person and not a glint of light. No such luck. She wore a simple silk dress that hung elegantly on her long, lean frame. She leaned against a column, staring dreamily at him as he talked while her fingers lingered lazily over the rim of a champagne glass. It was as if Daisy Buchanan, Veronica Lake and Gwyneth Paltrow had coalesced before my eyes. She was the source, I realized at that moment, of every woman’s consuming neurosis, the obstinate itch that drove her to wax, pluck, dye, moisturize, exfoliate, and obsess over every flaw, perceived or otherwise. All of a sudden, I felt clunky and drab. Essentially, I felt like I did when I had my period, wore tapered leg pants, or ate at Taco Bell.
“She’s too gorgeous, I know.” Cecily was beside me now.
I winced at the words because they confirmed the worst—I wasn’t hallucinating. She seemed too beautiful to be real, so maybe she wasn’t real at all.
“Who is she?” I had meant to say the words casually. I had failed.
Cecily moved in conspiratorially.
“Malena,” she said.
We shared a look, and in that moment, commiserated in the unspoken heartache and utter unfairness of our plight. This woman was a force of nature, a punishment sent by the gods, an ethereal specter named Malena—a woman who defied all principles of fairness, a woman who existed as living proof that you can in fact have everything, that models really are that beautiful—and skinny—in person, that it’s not just the makeup and the hair and the lights. Damn her.
Mal Lena, I thought. Bad Lena. The symbolism was too much.
“But don’t worry, she’s dating a Venezuelan banker,” Cecily offered.
I exhaled slightly.
“I think…”
I inhaled again.
“Or maybe they broke up.” Cecily shrugged. “Either way, that was all years ago. High school.”
What was years ago? I thought to myself. I could feel jealousy clinging to me like a cheap polyester dress. Any last drops of self-confidence quickly drained out of me, leaving me a dull, lifeless shell with flyaway hair and last year’s shoes.
Live from New York, It's Lena Sharpe Page 9