by Rachel Cohn
Whoa! Tris dated a straight-edge boy, and one who says please? How did he survive her without being drunk or stoned, like the rest of them? I'm not sure whether to admire or pity Nick for being a fellow straight edge, but I am stoked, too. I'm on a date with a guy who can have a good time without trying to get wasted? The universe is full of surprises. Respect to Tris.
"Want to tell me about it?" Nick asks once the bunny has hopped away.
"About what?"
"The Ex?"
Is this what happens on dates? You kiss before you've met, then talk about why your previous relationship failed? I'm stumped. The only guy I've ever been with is Tal, and his idea of a date was watching Schindler's List in his dorm room at Columbia. Besides the random incident with Nick, I've never even truly kissed anyone besides Tal, unless you count Becca Weiner at summer camp when I was thirteen, which I don't. I have no idea how to do this "date" thing. This must be the reason I am frigid.
I really don't want to talk about Tal. I want to forget I ever entertained the notion of getting back together with him. I want to forget I've thrown away my future and that now I have to come up with a whole new plan. So I tell Nick, "I know how to drive a stick shift." Because I know Tris can't.
"So you're saying you could drive Jessie back to Jersey tonight, assuming she'll start again?"
"Who's Jessie?"
"My Yugo."
"You have a name for your Yugo? Please don't tell me you're one of those guys who also names his dick."
"Unfortunately, I've yet to find the perfect name for mine, so it's in this netherworld of nameless identity right now." Nick glances down at his crotch, then back at me. "But if you think up a good name, let me know. We'd like something a little exotic, like maybe Julio."
Frigid can thaw, right?
Nick adds, "Dev wanted to name our band Dickache. What do you think?"
"Sorry, I'm stuck on The Fuck Offs. Catchy. The sales reps at Wal-Mart will love it."
Our conversation is interrupted by a new act on the stage. Two of Toni's soul sisters are doing an onstage grind to "Edelweiss," making the previous nun performers seem like-well, nuns. Nick stands up and offers his hand to me. I have no idea what he wants, but what the hell, I take his hand anyway, and he pulls me up on my feet then presses against me for a slow dance and it's like we're in a dream where he's Christopher Plummer and I'm Julie Andrews and we're dancing on the marble floor of an Austrian terrace garden. Somehow my head presses Nick's T-shirt and in this moment I am forgetting about time and Tal because maybe my life isn't over. Maybe it's only beginning.
I shiver at that thought and in response, Nick takes his jacket off and places it around my shoulders. I feel safe and not cold and from the vibe the jacket gives off, I also feel fairly confident that the original Texaco Salvatore was a good family man, with perhaps a propensity for wearing his wife's panties and betting his kids' college money at the track, but otherwise a solid dude.
I wake up from the dance dream when the audience applauds the end of the stage performance and Nick feels pressed too close against me without the music going. Nick/Salvatore/ Christopher Plummer/lovely dancing-partner man can't be real. It's not possible. Better to end this dream before it becomes a nightmare.
"Why are you so fucking nice?" I ask, and shove Nick away. I don't bother to acknowledge his shocked expression. Score, Norah. I have killed his smile, and I didn't even have to tell him about Tris. "I gotta pee."
I run away, toward the bathroom. A few people are waiting at the door but a single finger snap from Toni and the line disperses.
I don't really have to pee. I need to think. I need to sleep. I need Caroline to be sober so I can talk to her. This morning, my life seemed so clear. Turn down Brown, check. Go into the city to see the band Caroline likes rather than suffer through an evening with Mom and Dad entertaining the dreaded hip-hop people at the house, check. This night was supposed to end like any other night out with Caroline-watch her hook up with a guy, then get her home safely. Check. I'm not that girl who randomly meets a guy one night and has her life change. I wear cords and flannel shirts. I don't have the killer body like Tris or Caroline. Sometimes I don't wash my hair for three days and sometimes I don't floss. What's this Nick guy doing here with me?
I step inside the bathroom as the previous occupant leaves. I clean the toilet with a paper towel, then sit down on it. A trail of graffiti is written down the wall next to the toilet.
Jimmy gives good head. Climb Ev'ry Mountain, indeed.(Illustrated.)
Happiness serves hardly any other purpose than to make unhappiness possible.-Proust
You're the one for me, fatty.-Morrissey
I want it that way.-Backstreet Boys(Also illustrated, much more lewd than the Jimmy picture, and finer drawing skills.)
Claire, meet me on Rivington in front of the candy store after the show. You bring the Pez. You know.
Psst-Sitting on the john and wondering when this night will end? Answer: NEVER. Where's Fluffy, unannounced show, TONIGHT, after the von Trapp massacre, before dawn rises. Be there or be square, ayyyy--
There's no date written on the wall but the black-marker handwriting looks fresh. I'm curious whose executive decision it was to name the toilet "the john," anyway? But could this show be tonight? I only fucking worship Where's Fluffy. They turned down Dad to sign up with Uncle Lou's indie label. They could make me pogo-stick dance all night. They could make me forget I want to crawl into my bed and hide under the covers, and that I only wasted my youth on Tal, and that I'm on a date with a good guy and I've given him more mixed signals than a dyslexic Morse code operator.
Do I dare show my face back at the table to Nick, tell him about Where's Fluffy? I know he's a fan. I swiped the last make-up mix he burned for Tris that led off with the Where's Fluffy track, "Take Me Back, Bitch." God, he made great playlists for her. Tal's mixes for me were all Dylan and Yma Sumac crap. Nick could mix Cesaria Evora to Wilco to Ani followed by Rancid, capped off with Patsy Cline blending into a Fugazi finale. Although at some point, if our whatever-it-is-happening-this-night progresses, I'll have to reeducate Nick on the poor use of Patti Smith and Velvet Underground tracks on lovesick playlists. Fucking hate them. Patti Smith was a poser suck-up, and Lou Reed was just a plain dick.
DICK! Did I really ask Nick if he had a name for his dick?
Maybe Tal called it right-I should have been more grateful for him, because no guy besides Tal would ever put up with me.
Caroline may be passed out in a stranger's van right now, but I know what she would say to me now: "Tal was NOT right. And go back out there and give this a better shot. You can do this. Bitch, get the fuck back out there."
I pick up the black Sharpie pen dangling from a string attached to the bathroom mirror and scribble my contribution to the graffiti trail on the wall:
The Cure. For the Ex's? I'm sorry, Nick. You know. Will you kiss me again?
I splash some cold water on my face at the bathroom sink and take a deep breath. Time to go back out there and make this right. I am brand-new. I can change. Only not for Tal. For me.
7. NICK
I am doing everything right. And it is getting the exact right reaction. This is like a miracle to me.
I am as intimidated as fuck to be in the VIP section. I am a little mesmerized by the left nun, who is actually playing the acoustic guitar for "Edelweiss" and twirling her pasties at the same time. I am afraid of the way Norah's looking at me like I have a chance. But somehow I manage to step out of my seat and get her to step out of her seat. I know exactly where to put my hands and where to put her body and just like that we are locked together in a moment, and it is, remarkably, the exact right thing for the moment to be.
I am not used to this.
I don't even notice when the music ends, I am so in my own music. But then the record scratches, the DJ bobbles, the moment crashes, the right turns wrong, Norah pushes me away and spits the word nice out at me, then runs to pee.
&n
bsp; I am not used to this, either. But I expect it more.
I watch as she goes. Tony/Toni/Tone acts as her fairy god-motherfather, waving a Playboy Bunny air freshener in the air to part the crowd around the Laydies' Room (as opposed to the Laddies' Room, which seems, from the exasperated looks of the people on line, to be currently occupied by a Tantric pair). The nuns on stage have now broken all of their habits, and are parading around in sprigs of what I can only imagine is edelweiss. I can see a lonely goatherd gawking from the front row.
This should divert me, but my mind keeps returning to a simple, scary fact:
I am liking Norah.
I am liking the way she's friends with Playboygirl Bunnies. I am liking the way she knows how to drive stick. I am liking that I have to earn her smiles and laughs. I am liking the way she kissed me. I am liking the way she seems to be able to get past the past. I could learn from that. I am liking that I can throw any kind of sentence at her without worrying it's too out there.
I could easily start to obsess (or, at least, stress) about this, but luckily another diversion soon joins me at the table. It's Tony/Toni/Tone, dressed now as a priest. I mean, he's dressed as a woman dressed as a priest.
"I'm on in ten minutes," she says, to explain the costume change. "Is Norah still powdering?"
"She's the lulu of the loo."
"Perfect! Now us girls can chat." She bows her head in my direction, ready to listen, but even readier to ask. "How long have the two of you been the two of you?"
I look at my watch. "About an hour, including transportation."
Tony/Toni/Tone whistles her appreciation. "That's four times as long as any of my relationships have lasted."
"Well, this one might not be setting any new world records," I find myself saying.
"No!" Tony/Toni/Tone exclaims. "I saw the two of you canoodling. You're a regular Johnny Castle."
I have no idea who Johnny Castle is, but I definitely approve of the name.
Tony/Toni/Tone places her palms together and looks at me with a kindness that has no sexuality. "Do you want to talk about it?"
"Yes. No. I don't know."
"How long has it been since your last confession?"
I look him right back in the eye and answer.
"Three weeks, two days, and twenty-four-fuck. Three weeks and three days ago, I guess."
"And what was that confession?"
"'I love you.'"
"That's a serious one. And how was it received?"
"Vow of silence. And chastity, until the next guy came along."
"So what do you have to confess now?"
I don't know why I'm saying any of this, except that it's the truth.
"I'm confessing that I don't know if I'm ready for this."
"What is this'?"
Being open. Being hurt. Liking. Not being liked. Seeing the flicker on. Seeing the flicker off. Leaping. Falling. Crashing.
"Norah. I don't know if I'm ready for Norah."
Tony/Toni/Tone smiles, her teeth the same white as her collar.
"There's no such thing as ready," she says. "There's only willing."
She reaches over and puts her hand on top of mine. She's not making a pass at me-she's trying to pass something on.
"I have all the proof I need," she says. "The proof is always in the dancing."
Her glance escapes from me for a second. I follow it and see Norah emerging from the Laydies' Room.
Tony/Toni/Tone stands up from her chair.
"One more thing?" I ask her.
She raises an eyebrow.
"Who's Norah's dad?"
The eyebrow slants higher, so it's practically perpendicular to her eye.
"You really don't know?" she asks.
I shake my head.
"That,"she says, "is brilliant."
Norah isn't looking over to the table-not looking over to me, I figure. She doesn't see Tony/Toni/Tone slip away backstage. She doesn't see me waiting for her.
I decide to check my wallet, to make sure I have enough money to pay for our cocktease cocktails (virginity sullied only by the umbrella's reputation). But of course when she gets to the table, it looks like I'm itching to pay the bill. I quickly shove my wallet back in my pocket, only it gets tangled on its own chain and I end up spewing Washingtons all over the floor. I swoop them up before she sits down again, which only bumps me slightly lower on the spaz scale. Especially because it's now I remember we're being comped, so I didn't have to take my wallet out in the first place.
She seems a little less rattled now.
"You look refreshed," I tell her. Then I can't help myself, adding, "Everything okay? Was it something I said? Or was my Johnny Castle impression just no good?"
She twinkles at Johnny Castle.
Thank you, Tony/Toni/Tone.
"Look," she says, raising her Tina Colada, "I owe you a kind of explanation. I know you probably think I'm a horrid bitch from the planet Schizophrenia, but I'm honestly not trying to mess with your head. I'm just messing with my own head and I seem to have dragged you along for the ride. I think you're nice to me and that scares the fuck out of me. Because when a guy's a jerk or an asshole, it's easier because you know exactly where you stand. Since trust isn't an option, you don't have to get all freaked out about maybe having to trust him. Right now I am thinking about ten things at the same time, and at least four of those things have to do with you. If you want to leave right now and drive home and forget my name and forget what I look like, I wouldn't blame you in the least. But what I'm trying to say is that if you did that I would be sorry. And not just sorry in an I-apologize-I'm-so-sorry way, but sorry in a sad-that-something-that-could've-happened-didn't way. That's it. You can go now. Or we could stay for Where's Fluffy when Toni's set is over. I think they're playing a surprise show here tonight."
Then, finally, she takes a sip of her drink.
A gulp, really.
And I take a deep breath. And I say:
"My jacket looks good on you."
She puts the glass down. Stares at me. And I think, Fine, I'm a freak.
So be it.
"No," I go on. "It does. And if I left, you'd probably want to give me my jacket back. And if you did, I wouldn't be able to put it on, because the whole time I'd be knowing how perfectly it fit on you. How even though the sleeves are ridiculously too long and the collar is all fucked up and for all I know some guy named Salvatore is going to come in this very club in two minutes and say, 'Hey, that's my jacket' and strike up a conversation and sweep you off your feet away from me-even though all those things are true or possibly true, I just can't ruin the picture of you sitting there across from me wearing my jacket better than I or anyone else ever could. If I don't owe it to you and I don't owe it to me, I at least owe it to Salvatore."
There. I've said everything I wanted to say without actually having to use the words please stay.
"Pick up your drink," Norah tells me.
I do.
She clinks her glass against mine.
"Cheers," she says.
"Salud,"I reply.
"L'chaim."
"Top o' the morning to ya."
"Sto lat."
"May the road rise to meet you."-and we go on like this, until Tony/Toni/Tone appears onstage to purr the filthiest "Do Re Mi" that Manhattan has ever seen.
People look at us every now and then. I guess some of them know Norah, or at least who she is. I'm the mystery. Or maybe I'm just the nobody. I don't care. If I'm just The Guy With Norah, that's cool. Right now, that's all I want to be.
All the other things I am-they're too complicated. I can feel them lying in wait, planning their return.
8. NORAH
"So say we're at the Motel 6 on the other side of the Lincoln Tunnel and we're having that threeway with E.T. Who gets to be the top and who gets to be the bottom?"
This question has actually escaped my mouth. Perhaps it's not that I'm frigid-it's that once I decide I like a guy, I turn into
a raging idiot, unfit for public appearances. I wish Caroline could be here now, hiding out in a corner, feeding me lines, Cyrano to Nick's Roxanne. Although Caroline-as-inspiration could easily land me right back in the bathroom, on my knees, and not in prayer. Which as a basic premise isn't so objectionable, but now that I'm trying to get in sync with time, I need more of it than Caroline generally requires to reach room temperature with a guy.
Nick answers, "No-brainer. E.T. can't take the heat and goes off to the motel vending machine for some Reese's Pieces, and hopefully doesn't get caught in the crossfire of some crack deal gone bad while he's out there. I mean, really, Norah, Motel 6 off the tunnel? Couldn't we class it up a little? Wouldn't the devirginization of E.T. merit at least a Radisson, at least Paramus?"
The stage acts are over and nuns have converted to stagehands as they transform the set for the next show. We've hit the jackpot, because the Where's Fluffy unannounced show is most certainly going on next after the stage is converted-widened, barricaded, made ready for the coming apocalypse sure to be wrought by the leathered and chained, tunneled, tattooed, and pierced punk crowd now streaming into this place. It's got to be close to three in the morning, because it's the die-hard wave coming in, amped from a night of power-punk club-hopping, ready for the ultimate nightcap. By all logic, I should be home now, sitting up in my twin bed and flicking through channels in the dark while Caroline heaves through her inebriated slumber in her bed across from me. I recognize several people that were at Crazy Lou's earlier, and I know we're all following the same yellow brick road, looking for that ultimate band, that ultimate night to remember. Crazy Lou himself has even arrived, I can see him at the bar chatting up Toni. I can only pray hard that Toni's almighty powers extend to her denying Tal entrance should he follow Lou here tonight, or that Tal will be too jet-lagged for the infinite Manhattan night.
Or maybe prayer isn't necessary and my moment of clarity was real and true and Tal is not a threat because I am wearing this jacket that says Salvatore and I am deep into this night with this Nick person and I am having occasionally really, truly pornographic thoughts about him. While Tal may not yet have wholly receded to the farthest reaches of my subconscious past-I can feel the present bitter taste of his nearness despite the sweetness of the Tina Colada I am drinking-I am here and I am now and there's nowhere I'd rather be, only where did Nick go?