Match Made in Manhattan

by Amanda Stauffer

  When Dan sits back down at the table, his demeanor seems to have changed. It’s not that he’s not being nice, or polite; he is, but he seems a little off, a little distracted perhaps? He walks me home after dinner, we hug goodbye, and he asks if I want to get together later in the week. I say yes and head inside. I open up my laptop and go back to Dan’s Facebook page to take a closer look at this heartbreaker ex-girlfriend. And there, on his wall, is a new message from her:

  September 12 at 9:23 p.m.

  Hey Danny. You must be done with school by now. Was thinking about you and just wanted to say congratulations! You deserve it. xx

  Posted today at 9:23 p.m. Aha! He must have received this notification on his phone when he got up to go to the bathroom. Which explains his distractedness from that point forward. How completely bizarre that without him ever telling me so much as her name, or his own last name, the Internet has enabled me to tease out Dan’s emotional hang-ups. Also, why doesn’t the girl use email or text for this kind of thing?

  I meet Dan several days later at Madison Square Park for a dinner date at Shake Shack, a perfect date spot if ever there were one. We sit at a garden table, licking our fingers of dripping cheese, sharing fries, and sipping on peanut butter milkshakes. We talk about sports, specifically our experiences in intramural soccer (we played in different leagues), and this summer’s World Cup, and Tim Howard. We talk about public art, specifically the sculptures surrounding us in the park. When we’re busing our trays, Dan asks if I want to grab a drink.

  We walk over to Vin Sur Vingt wine bar, pleased to discover that their happy hour lasts until midnight tonight. And then, before we know it, happy hour’s over and the bar is closing down.

  “Where did all that time go?” I remark as we exit the bar onto the sidewalk.

  Instead of answering, Dan places a hand behind my head and makes out with me. And it’s fun.

  “So, do you want to . . . come home with me?” he asks.

  “Not really,” I say. “I mean, I’m having fun and all, but I kind of want to sleep in my own bed tonight. Wake up and run before work. God, work is in six and a half hours!” Then I add quickly, “Sorry. Didn’t mean to say the . . . ‘G’ word.”

  He laughs. “It’s okay. You might go to hell, but it’s okay.” He kisses me again, and I try to critique it while he does. Strong. Leading. Passionate. I’m pleasantly surprised. “Can I come home with you?” he asks.

  “Uhh, I mean, I guess you can? But, you’re not getting in my pants tonight. So . . . don’t get your hopes up or anything.”

  “But you’re not wearing any pants!” he exclaims, slurring slightly.

  I look down at my jersey dress. “Touché, but. You know. My metaphorical pants.”

  “Don’t you hear it?” Dan scrolls through his phone quickly and then waves it in the air like a lighter as Phil Collins warbles, “I can feel it coming in the air tonight . . .”

  “What. You just have that song at the ready for every girl you try to bed?”

  “Just the good ones.”

  “Wow.” I nod. “You take ‘douchey’ to a whole new level. . . . And I love Phil Collins!”

  September 16 at 11:14 a.m.

  732-472-0818: WHAT DID U DO TO ME LAST NIGHT? I FEEL LIKE I’M STILL SEEING DOUBLE.

  ALISON: IS THIS DAN? ASSUMING IT IS, DON’T PIN THIS ON ME. BUT IF IT MAKES YOU FEEL BETTER, I THINK THERE’S A JACKHAMMER BEHIND MY EYE SOCKETS.

  732-472-0818: DO YOU HAVE MANY 732ERS IN UR PHONE? COME ON ALREADY. ADD MY NUMBER.

  732-472-0818: ALSO, WHAT’S SAY WE GET TOGETHER THIS WEEK?

  ALISON: NOPE. NOT IN MY PHONE YET. THURSDAY? SORRY, MY ONLY FREE WEEKNIGHT.

  732-472-0818: NO CAN DO. WORKING LATE. SATURDAY?

  732-472-0818: ALSO. ADD MY NUMBER.

  ALISON: OKAY . . . TO SATURDAY. ;)

  September 27 at 11:01 a.m.

  Subject: I’m so happy . . .

  This email is overdue. I meant to send it to you Monday. Where did the week go?

  I’m so happy that we finally got to have a one-on-one night out since everything that transpired with he-who-shall-not-be-named. I’m so unhappy that you’re struggling, I just didn’t want to title my email “I’m so unhappy,” because that would only depress you further. If there’s anything I can do, let me know. Picnics in the park, BYOB dinners, sleepovers, you name it, and I will be there with bells on.

  In case you were curious, I managed to drunk dial Eric from bed after we got home Sunday. He didn’t pick up and I didn’t leave a message, but come on. What was I thinking? I’m cutting us off at round two next time.

  Tell me how I can help.

  Nicole

  September 27 at 12:54 p.m.

  Thank you! You’re the best, as always. Goodness, based on your email, I feel like I must be making my silly saga sound much more depressing than it is. Don’t worry. After repeating your mantra ad nauseam the last four days (“One day you will wake up and not feel this way”), I feel like I’m one step closer to getting my head back on straight. And though I’m a bit staggered by this weird lack of even keel, I guess life returns, whether you’re ready for it or not.

  Love!

  Alison

  P.S. You think that’s bad? Did you not see me on the couch the next morning? I wandered out to the Gristedes at God-knows-what hour & picked up a gallon of ice cream, devoured half the carton while watching a marathon of How I Met Your Mother, then fell asleep with all my clothes & makeup on. . . . Let’s do it again soon!!!

  Thursday as I’m getting ready for bed, my phone vibrates and a text message flashes on the screen.

  September 28 at 10:49 p.m.

  732-472-0818: HEY, JUST GETTING HOME FROM WORK. YOU WANT TO COME OVER?

  ALISON: NO. AM NOT YOUR BOOTY CALL GIRL.

  732-472-0818: CAN’T BLAME A GUY FOR TRYING.

  ALISON: EW.

  The next night, I happen to walk by Vin Sur Vingt, so I text Dan:

  September 29 at 7:39 p.m.

  ALISON: JUST WALKED BY VIN SUR VINGT, AND I THINK I FELT MY LIVER TREMBLE IN FEAR. . . . JUST THOUGHT YOU SHOULD KNOW.

  732-472-0818: YOU’LL BE GLAD TO KNOW MY FINGER IS HEALING NICELY.

  ALISON: ???

  The high-profile starchitects for the Armory are flying in from Switzerland for a Monday morning meeting to view the progress of our conservation efforts. Because the conservation team has been overworked and understaffed, a reveal of the original paint scheme in one of the most prominent public spaces has not been completed . . . or begun.

  Throughout the duration of the project, the original murals in the most famous rooms have been reserved exclusively for the hands of RA’s senior paint conservator, Cyril, who I both adore and revere. In my opinion (and Bob Vila’s, whose show Cyril often appeared on in the nineties) he is the premier architectural paint conservator in the country. He also happens to be a terrific coworker, sharp-witted and flamboyant, full of fabulous stories that make you forget you’ve been standing on the scaffold with your syringe poised overhead for eight hours. And perhaps most wonderfully for me, he seems happy to have me as an eager disciple. But because he works in our Washington, DC, office and had weekend commitments, Cyril won’t make it up to the Armory before the Swiss architects do.

  In his best Princess Leia impersonation, Cyril phoned me at my desk on Friday and pleaded, “Help me, Alison. You’re my only hope.”

  When I stopped by Joanne’s office to discuss the task at hand, she said with typical bluntness that “while any work [I could] do over the weekend would be appreciated, [I] would not earn overtime or be otherwise compensated.” What a dream job!

  It’s still only Saturday, and already I’ve spent twelve-plus hours kneeling atop a rolling scaffold, breathing heavily through my respirator, painstakingly removing 135 years of historic paint from the wall, layer by layer.

  My phone vibrates on the metal scaffold, and I am relieved to have an excuse to take off my fogged safety goggles and sweat
y latex gloves.

  September 30 at 7:25 p.m.

  732-472-0818: PS - U ARE IN MY PHONE AS “LIMITS”

  ALISON: HMM . . . I AM SOMEHOW INCAPABLE OF COMPREHENDING YOUR TEXT SPEAK TODAY (YOU MAKE ME FEEL SO BLONDE!). COME AGAIN?

  732-472-0818: U CAN PICK IT UP AS WE GO. BE IN TOUCH ESTA NOCHE, WITH LIMITS.

  I see the time on my phone and realize I need to pack up if I have any hope of meeting Dan downtown by 9:30 p.m. as planned. I turn back to admire my work on the mural. The nineteenth-century pattern is exquisite: gilded urns flanked by peacocks displaying their full plumage across the cove; a burgundy paisley repeating pattern on the wall field. There hadn’t been historic photographs of this room, so we had no idea what lay beneath the current plain yellow paint.

  I snap a photo on my phone and text it to Cyril, promising I’ll return tomorrow to complete the reveal and varnish the surface to make it picture-perfect for our Swiss colleagues on Monday. My phone vibrates four times, indicating two texts waiting.

  September 30 at 7:29 p.m.

  CYRIL: YOU ARE A GODDESS.

  September 30 at 7:29 p.m.

  732-472-0818: ADD MY NUMBER

  I text the same reply to each of them:

  ALISON: NOPE. BUT APPRECIATE THE SENTIMENT. :)

  “So what was that whole finger-healing-limits thing about?” I sidle up next to Dan at the bar of Death & Co. in the East Village later that night.

  “Seriously? You don’t remember?”

  “I’m sure I remember, I just don’t know what you’re talking about.”

  “Remember when I sliced my finger open on your ‘sculpture’ or whatever?”

  “Oh my gosh, I do remember that! That was . . . awful . . . and hilarious.” I laugh. Dan had been admiring the “Dave Chihuly” on my bedroom windowsill when he touched it and instantly began gushing blood.

  “Yeah, to you, maybe. I cut my finger pretty badly. I needed, like, five Band-Aids.”

  “Right! I just . . . out of context, didn’t know what you were referring to. So, your finger’s good now.”

  He holds it up, wrapped in a fresh Band-Aid. “Getting there.”

  “And the limits thing?”

  “Oh, I don’t know. That’s just what I have you in my phone as.”

  “Why? I don’t get it.”

  “Because you put limits on everything. ‘Only three drinks tonight,’ ‘you’re not taking off my pants tonight,’” he mimics a high-pitched girlie voice. “You’re very . . . restrictive.”

  “Or . . . under control?” I suggest.

  “With limits, under control, same thing.”

  October 4 at 4:35 p.m.

  732-472-0818: I’VE GOT A THREE MARTINI QUESTION FOR U.

  ALISON: I DON’T THINK YOU UNDERSTAND THE CONCEPT OF THE THREE-MARTINI QUESTION, AS I AM SOBER AND AT WORK. BUT YOU CAN ASK ANYWAY, IF YOU LIKE.

  732-472-0818: WHAT R U WEARING RIGHT NOW, AND DO U WANT TO HANG OUT?

  October 4 at 5:32 p.m.

  ALISON: HA, SORRY - GOT SLAMMED IN THE LAST HOUR OF WORK. UMM. CAN WE SAY, “LIMITS”? OR AT LEAST, “LET’S MAKE THAT A TRUE 3-MARTINI QUESTION” FOR IN PERSON? BEHAVE, DANIEL.

  Along with Ashley and Ben, Dan and I climb out the window of someone’s apartment (a friend of a friend of a friend), up their fire escape, over the parapet wall, and onto a huge flat roof that looks out on the Manhattan skyline on one side, the Brooklyn waterfront on the other. A sky full of stars twinkles overhead, and the roof is a mob scene of dancing, shouting, laughing men and women in shorts and dresses. There are strobe lights set up and a makeshift deejay booth in the corner with a legitimate sound system. “See? I told you this party was gonna be epic,” I say. “It’s like the last hurrah of summer.”

  “This might be the best party we’ve ever been to. Should we hit the bar first?” Ashley asks.

  “I spotted a beer pong tournament in the corner near the bar? . . .” Dan suggests.

  “Thanks, buuut . . . I’m cool.” I shake my head.

  “Oh come on, live a little,” Dan urges.

  “I think I lived through enough beer pong tournaments to last a lifetime . . . in college.”

  “Dance floor then?” Dan pulls me toward the dance floor, and I am surprised by how comfortably he can bust a move.

  “So is this,” I wave my hand at his body, “your Puerto Rican blood talking?”

  “Awww, white girl can’t dance?” he says condescendingly.

  “Oh, it is on. I’ll have you know that I was not only choreographer of my college dance troupe, I was also the president,” I say, as I move my hips in time with the music.

  “You sound like a Hair Club for Men commercial,” he says. “So,” he steps toward me, “put your money where your mouth is. It takes two to . . . dance.”

  “You were going to say ‘tango.’ You’re ridiculous.” And we dance. For hours.

  The next morning, we wake up under Dan’s leopard comforter. I have a suspicion about who picked this out for him. “Look at you, grown man with a leopard comforter. It’s like you live in a sex den or something. Don’t you think you should change it? Like, get something, I don’t know, solid? Or with stripes?”

  “Maybe one day. I don’t know. It didn’t stop you from sleeping over,” he counters.

  “Yeah, but it was late, and I was too tired to leave just on account of your decorating decisions.”

  “See? So it doesn’t matter.”

  “I didn’t say I was coming back.”

  “We’ll see. . . .”

  “So you think you, like, woo women into your lair and then get them to return because you have a sexy leopard comforter?”

  “Look. Even if it was part of my larger plan to convert my apartment into a sex den, I’m getting the sense you’re not my target demographic. You know, limits and all.”

  I laugh.

  “That said, I have to admit, I never would have pegged you for a girl with hips like Shakira.”

  “Oh, shut up.” I paw his face away.

  “What? It’s a compliment.”

  “Fine. I just feel like you act all surprised, like ‘Oh, you’re so buttoned up, you have so many limits, I thought you’d be this awkward preppy girl who can’t dance.’ It’s . . . offensive.” I grimace.

  “Well, I mean . . . if the shoe fits . . .” He smiles and rolls toward me. “You wanna get brunch?”

  Over brunch at his corner diner, Dan asks, “So, do you really not have me in your phone? Or are you just playing?”

  “No, I really don’t have you in my phone,” I say as I cut into my omelet.

  “Can I ask why?”

  I look up at him and put my fork down. “Okay. I don’t want you to take this the wrong way at all, because I think you’re really great. But, well, let’s first start with that: I think you’re really great. You’re smart and accomplished and I’m really attracted to you. And I actually think you’re a good guy.”

  “But.”

  “But, you’ve asked me to sleep with you twice now. And I know that’s how you roll, and it’s fine. But, to be honest, that’s just never going to happen.”

  “Oh?” He raises an eyebrow.

  “I mean, Daniel, you’re . . . kind of in a different place than me, I think.” He looks at me blankly and says nothing. “You . . . prefer a booty call to an actual date, and when I do see you, you want to go out and drink our faces off, and then come home to your leopard-print lair. . . . I . . . well, I hate the term ‘serial monogamist,’ but I’m way closer to that end of the spectrum than you are.” I add, “I mean, I love dancing and all, but . . . I feel like if we were going to make this . . . any kind of a regular thing, we’d be going off in two totally different directions.” I make a “V” with my palms.

  “So this means you don’t want me in your phone because . . .”

  “Well, just out of superstition, or not wanting to clog my address book, or something, I don’t put guys I’m going on dates with in my phone unless I think
it’s going to be a regular thing. . . .” I pause. “I promise on some level, this makes sense in my head.”

  “And this isn’t a ‘regular thing’ already?”

  I look at the ceiling and try to formulate a response. “No. I don’t think so. . . . Look, I’m not going to ask you to be something you’re not, or to give me something that you can’t. At least not right now, while you’re . . . kind of in a fratty phase. I really like you as a person, but I feel like maybe . . . we should call a spade a spade and move on?” I pick up my fork and continue eating, while watching him for a reaction.

  “Okay. I mean, I don’t think you’re totally right, but I get what you’re saying.”

  “Okay. To be clear, I have a lot of fun with you. And you know I’m attracted to you. I just think we’re not on the same page right now.”

  Three weeks later, I’m having drinks with Ashley at Middle Branch when I receive the following text:

  October 30 at 10:08 p.m.

  732-472-0818: HEY. WHERE R U AND WHAT R U UP TO?

  ALISON: WHO IS THIS?

  732-472-0818: HAVE U MET MULTIPLE 732ERS IN MY ABSENCE?

  732-472-0818: JUST GOT HOME FROM WORK. U WANT TO COME OVER? WHERE R U?

  ALISON: THIS COULD BE . . . INTERESTING. SHOWING UP AT SOME STRANGER’S APARTMENT? LIKE A CHRIS HANSEN SPECIAL. . . . I’M AT 32ND AND THIRD, DRINKIN’, ACTUALLY.

  732-472-0818: CAN I COME JOIN? WHO R U W/?

  ALISON: I’M WITH ASHLEY. SHE SAYS IT’S OK.

  ALISON: WHO IS THIS BY THE WAY? :)

  732-472-0818: GIVE U A HINT: I’VE GOT A THREE MARTINI QUESTION FOR U. WHICH BAR?

  732-472-0818: ALSO, DID THEY NOT TEACH U ABOUT “DEDUCTIVE REASONING” OVER AT CLOWN COLLEGE?

  ALISON: AH! DOUCHEY DAN! WHAT’S UP? HOW ARE YOU? MIDDLE BRANCH.

  ALISON: P.S. HEY NOW, BE NICE. DID I EVER MOCK YOUR ALMA MATER FOR ITS PROFUSION OF SWEATER SETS, PEARLS, AND TASSELED LOAFERS? . . . OH WAIT, GUESS I JUST DID.

  ALISON: P.P.S. DID THEY NOT TEACH YOU TO SPELL “YOU” AND “YOUR” AT PRINCETON?