Nick & Norah's Infinite Playlist

by Rachel Cohn

  "You would," I tell him. I need to determine which way Nick swings before I find out if he's getting to know me just so he can pass on a demo. I can only let myself get so emotionally invested.

  He lets the name issue drop, mercifully. "You must meet a lot of famous people."

  "Maybe when I was younger," I say. "We went to music festivals and concerts all the time. I've lived in the same house in Englewood Cliffs my whole life, but I feel like I also partially grew up in Nashville, Memphis, New Orleans, Chicago, Seattle-anywhere that had a hot music scene, you know? I'm lucky, I have met a lot of incredible artists with Dad throughout my life, some of them legends. But something I figured out a few years ago is it's better not to get to know them. Because if I didn't get to know them, then I could still enjoy their music, without knowing about their exorbitant demands or careless lifestyles or how much I loved their breakout song until I found out their lead singer was making my dad's life miserable and was the reason my dad missed my spelling bee or whatever."

  "That's why I like Where's Fluffy so much. They're not like that, not about the whole star trip."

  "Maybe not, and I hope I don't disillusion you, champ, but Lars L. is a total junkie, Owen O. is a raging alcoholic, and Evan E.'s just plain crazy. I know-my dad tried to sign them up. But Fluffy write great songs, make great music. That's what's important, right?"

  Nick shoves against my side playfully. "You're not disillusioning me. You can't look at the band members and not know that. I mean, have you listened to the lyrics of 'High Is Better Than Low'? Cuz it's not about Evan E.'s love of stiletto Manolos."

  Damn, Nick knows designer shoe names. Bad sign.

  Nick adds, "But that's what I love about punk music. It has a sense of humor about itself, doesn't pretend to be something it's not. It's kickass funk with a heavy-metal edge, but with a conscience."

  Good recovery.

  "Wanna know my secret desire?" I tease.

  Nick turns to me and lifts an eyebrow, like an old-time movie star. I'm pretty sure he doesn't tweeze or wax, but he does have suspiciously beautiful eyebrows. Or maybe I'm just smit. "Of course I want to know," he says.

  "I have no songwriting talent whatsoever, but I would like to be a person who thinks up song titles, especially country music ones."

  "What's your best one?"

  "'You Stole My Heart and Left It for Roadkill,'" I tell him. "Go ahead, feel free to come up with some lyrics."

  My favorite song title by someone who legitimately thinks up song titles would have to be "Something About What Happens When We Talk," by Lucinda Williams, the song Mom and Dad are still slow-dancing to on their anniversaries (first date, first kiss, first let's not even talk about that, engagement, wedding, etc.-yep, they celebrate 'em all), even though they're way too old and should know better. I'm thinking about that song now, because it's so easy talking with Nick. I have to suppress every stalker instinct in me not to sing to Nick like Lucinda sings, Conversation with you is like a drug. With Tal, discussion was always two parts confrontation and one part actual talking. I loved that Tal could at least say goodnight, and that he cared about something other than partying, but something about what happened when Tal and I talked was more like he manifesto'd and I listened.

  As we approach Seventh Avenue, we both automatically turn south, and I realize Nick and I never discussed where we were going after Park Avenue. It's like when Nick and I held hands tight at the club earlier as I led him through the crowd to the closet. Somehow we stay together. Times Square beckons us now in all its glory. Somehow our world is alive with possibility.

  My cell phone is ringing again and it says Daddy-O and I have to take it, that's the rule for out-all-night adventures. "Do you mind?" I ask Nick. I feel bad enough I didn't answer Caroline's call when Nick asked me not to.

  "Go ahead," he says, like he understands now that no call will dissuade me from this night with him. I stand under a building awning as Nick steps away to the curb to give me privacy, which I really don't need, but I appreciate the gesture anyway, though I'm unsure where his good manners land him on the sexuality meter.

  "Hi, Daddy," I say into the phone.

  Here I am at the crossroads of the world, with shining red-and-white neon lights and yellow taxis, humming with action and pulsing with music and people, danger and excitement, but hearing Dad's voice, it's like I am five years old again and he's tucking his little princess into bed. "You okay, sweetheart? I've got a motley crew assembled here of two band guys and an inebriated Caroline, but no Norah."

  "I'm okay, Dad. Maybe I'm even great?"

  "Are you going to tell me his name?"

  "No."

  "Are you going to be home soon?"

  "No."

  "Are you ever going to obey a command of mine again?"

  "No."

  He sighs. "Please be careful." I decide he'd probably rather not know I am standing in Times Square in the early hours of the morning with a boy I've only known for a few hours. "Mom and I will take care of Caroline. Mom's making Thom and Scot scrambled eggs right now. Nice kids."

  "Dad?"

  "Yeah?"

  "I think I made a mistake turning down Brown."

  "No shit."

  "I don't know what I'm going to do now. The Tal thing, you and Mom and Caroline were right, I can't do that ever again. But now I don't know what to do."

  "I'll tell you what you can do. Go to Brown next year. Your old man took the card you posted turning down the admissions offer out of our mailbox after you left the house this morning. He replaced it with an acceptance and a deposit check."

  I should be grateful but I am indignant. "YOU HAD NO RIGHT! THAT IS LIKE A PERSONAL INVASION OF PRIVACY! AND IT'S A FEDERAL OFFENSE TO TAMPER WITH THE MAIL!"

  Dad chuckles. "Too fucking bad. Don't be home too late." And he hangs up on me.

  Maybe my dad is a fuckin' corporate hippie, but I really love that old bastard.

  I can't think about what Dad did because the skies have suddenly opened up and it's a hellacious downpour, but what is Nick doing? He's dancing a jig at the curb, his arms outstretched, his face tilted upward to receive the splash. Joyful.

  I don't tell Nick my call is finished. I just watch him. A while ago when I looked at Nick, I felt inspired by the line from that Smiths song playing earlier at Camera Obscura where Morrissey sings about how what she asked of me / at the end of the day / Caligula would have blushed. I don't know that I care anymore about piecing together whether Nick's straight or gay or somewhere in between. I'm thinking I would like to dance in the rain with this person. I would like to lie next to him in the dark and watch him breathe and watch him sleep and wonder what he's dreaming about and not get an inferiority complex if the dreams aren't about me.

  I don't know if Nick and I are going to be friends or lovers or if he's going to be Will and I'm going to be Grace, which will be disappointing along with boring, but whatever Nick and I are going to be to each other, it can't be-it won't be-just a one-night-stand thing.

  I know this.

  17. NICK

  Singing in the rain. I'm singing in the rain. And it's such a fucking glorious feeling. An unexpected downpour and I am just giving myself into it. Because what the fuck else can you do? Run for cover? Shriek or curse? No-when the rain falls you just let it fall and you grin like a madman and you dance with it, because if you can make yourself happy in the rain then you're doing pretty alright in life. As the first drops fall, she's still on the phone and I'm watching her talk and she's just the most amazingly complicated thing, trying on all these different expressions at once-yelling angry when she's clearly happy, then pretending to be listening when she's really watching me and the rain. Then she puts the phone back in Salvatore's pocket and walks over to me. I don't know why we say the sky is opening up when it rains-like the sky has been holding back all this time, and then this is its release. And I look at her and she looks at me and it's like everything just opens up. I am feeling the raindrops d
rench my clothes. I am feeling the hair fall down in my eyes. But I'm also feeling this lightness and she is so fucking beautiful the way her mouth is uncertain about whether or not to smile. We are on the edge of Times Square with its beacon of lights and we are swaying as the sky is opening, and I reach out for her to be my dance partner and she accepts. So that leaves us on the sidewalk, my arm around her body. She presses close-is just staring at me-and even though I don't know what the question is, I know the answer. So I say "This," and I lean in and I kiss her right there on the edge of Times Square, the way people kiss good-bye on the street, only this is more like a hello. This.

  I open my mouth and she opens my mouth and it's like she's breathing right through me. And her body is wet and it's right against mine and I want, I want, I want. She pulls back to look at me and her eyes are laughing and her eyes are serious and I know exactly how she feels. It's another question and I offer another answer, and this time her hand curves around the back of my neck and this time her body presses tighter and mine presses even tighter back. The people around us-not many, and certainly not many sober-are looking at us, and I can't help but look around a little, and I get an idea. I tell her I have an idea and I take her hand in mine and we do that thing where you weave your fingers together, here is the church here is the steeple, and I lead her into Times Square and under the lights and past the marquees until we get to the Marquis. Suddenly she's giving me this What the fuck? look, because what girl wants to end up at a tourist Marriott in Times Square? But I say "Trust me" and kiss her again and there are two other people in the glass elevator with us, but they get off at the eighth-floor lobby. I ask Norah what her lucky number is and she tells me, so we go to that floor. There is nobody in the halls and best of all there's no hallway music playing, and I don't see what I'm looking for and then I find it, but Norah can't wait and she's putting her hand under my collar and feeling the skin from my shoulder to my neck and that is so damn hot that I forget where we're going for a second and I just make out with her right there in the hallway, out of sight of the atrium and the glass elevators, but still careful not to lean against any doors because that might wake up the tourists inside. Instead we press against the wall and she runs her hand down my chest then at my belt she goes right back up, only under the shirt, and her fingers feel so good there. And my fingers feel her shirt and her breasts and we are both so damn soaked and so damn ready. We kiss for about five minutes more and she's a damn good kisser. She kisses my upper lip and then kisses my lower lip and I echo her-kiss her upper lip, kiss her lower lip. Then she tries to do something with her tongue that doesn't quite work but it doesn't really matter because our hands are everywhere at once and I am so into it, and after she gives up on the tongue thing I can tell she's relaxing a little more. She's losing herself, and I love all the more that she's not trying, she's just doing.

  So I steer her a little down the hall until we're in front of the room that says ICE. And she laughs and I say, "C'mon," because where else do we have to go? And the room isn't that cold, there's just the noise of the soda machine to contend with. She says, "You can't be serious," and I agree that I can't be. I'm not. I say, "I'm just really into you," and then I kiss her and she finds the light switch and turns it off, and then we're just lit in Pepsi-can colors and it's like we've finally found this other kind of conversation, this conversation in gestures and pulls and pushes and breaths and grasps and teases and glimmers and rubs and expectation. "Are you okay?" I ask, and she says, "Are you?" And I say, "Yes, I am." I am more than okay. This is a great conversation.

  God, I like her so much.

  "Let's get you out of some of those wet clothes," she says, and she pulls at my shirt and stumbles over some of the buttons and I don't know what comes over me, but I start tickling her and that really pisses her off, but she's laughing and then gasps back the laugh, I guess so the guests won't hear. She finishes the buttons and she takes off the shirt. I take my jacket off her shoulders and she does the strangest thing-she pulls back for a second and folds it neatly, puts it almost reverently on the floor. Then I peel off the wet flannel, peel off the T-shirt underneath. She runs her fingers through the patch of hair on my chest, then follows the trail down to my belt. I have never, ever felt such desire. She takes off the belt, lets it drop to the floor. Then she unbuttons the top button of my jeans-only the top button. And I reach over to her jeans and unbutton the top button-only the top button. And I ask it again-"Are you okay?" And this time she says yes. She says she's more than okay.

  We kiss like it's a form of clasping. It's not like it was in the club, when it was like she was proving something. We have nothing to prove now, nothing except that we're not afraid. That we're not going to think too much, or stop too much, or go too much. Her hand traces down the zipper line and I say, "Slow." Because this is not a rush. This is not something insignificant. This is real. This is happening. And this is ours.

  I am nervous as fuck, vulnerable as anything. I can feel my chest shaking. She embraces me so her arms are behind my back, then lets her hands wander down, across that line, under my jeans, under my boxers. I wrap my arms around her, raise my hands to her back. To her neck. To her hair. Then one hand glides back, runs over her breasts, then between them, trailing down and back around. We entangle. The ice machine hums, then comes to life, the cracking crash that makes us laugh, takes us out of the moment for a moment, makes us look at each other in a naked light. That stop. That pause.

  "What are we doing?" she says.

  "I don't know?" I reply.

  She leans into me again, her wet pants squarely on mine, and says, "Good answer."

  I want to kiss her without counting the seconds. I want to hold her so long that I get to know her skin. I want, I want, I want.

  Her hands slide to my hips. Her thumbs hook around my waistband.

  Lowering.

  Lowering.

  I gasp.

  18. NORAH

  When did my life get so good? Was it when I agreed with a kiss to be Nick's five-minute girlfriend, or when I realized frigid was a choice rather than a truth?

  This ice room is so very cold.

  Nick is so very hot.

  His heat-my heat- ourheat-almost makes me forget I am still wet from the downpour, seeking refuge in the darkened ice room of a fucking Marriott with the Pepsi sign lit up, and I am without a doubt really into Nick because I am a Coke drinker, I mean I can take the Pepsi Challenge and fucking smell the difference without bothering to distinguish the two tastes in my mouth. Mmmmmm, tastes. His lips taste so good, his moist skin tastes so good, everything about him is just delicious. Now that his wet shirt is off and my face presses right here as my hands stray down there, I realize he does not smell like aromatherapy or cologne, it was probably the air freshener Toni sprayed over everyone at the bathroom back at the club. This Nick, the bare-chested one, the heavy breathing one, the kind one, the sexy as hell one, he smells musky and lovely, bathed in night rain. I can't get enough of him.

  I get it-he's straight. I believe. Hallelujah! And! Amen! J.C., I owe you one!

  I feel like I could drown in this, in him. He's lit by the machine he's leaning against, but I have fallen into darkness, not the darkness of the deranged or the depressed, but the darkness of the consumed, where all I see, hear, taste, feel, is the probe of our mouths and hands, the warmth of our bodies pressed against each other, the urgency of his wanting, my wanting. It's like nothing else exists in the world right now except him, me, touching, exploring, longing, needing, sharing, having. So much for my straight-edge vow, because I am drunk on our ing 's. If Nick's part of 'em, I want 'em, they're mine.

  He pulls me back up so our lips meet again, and I'm lost all over again, lost inside his mouth, feeling his breath, feeling his heartbeat against my hand pressed on his chest. My hands want to wander all over him, but his lips are sliding so sweetly around my own, my hands can't focus. His hands focus just fine. He's definitely a breast instead of thigh man. Only h
is hands go slow, caressing and teasing instead of Talpillaging (good job on the breast tutorial, Tris), and I can feel my chest straining to high attention, wanting, more more more. Then Nick's hands move away and I want to murmur, No no no, come back, hands, but my mouth is too busy occupying his. As Nick's hands fumble and smooth over my back, clearly looking for a bra strap to unclasp, my lips can't bear to pull away from touching him to tell him, Honey, it's a front-clasp bra.

  My lips go on a downward slope, from kissing his mouth, to his chin, his neck, moving south to his chest. His hands give up on the clasp issue and move on to fingering through my hair, and I wonder how he knows that having my scalp lightly massaged like he's doing now is just this unbelievable turn-on to me.

  I want him so much and I know this should wait but curiosity to test-drive my non-frigidity is going to prevail here, it's like I can't help it. My mouth pulls back from his body as I step up on tippy toes to place my mouth against his ear to whisper into it what I want to do to him, and strangely I use the polite words instead of the nasty ones, and he whispers, "Really?" like maybe he's also not so convinced we should go that far, but his quickened breath tells me he's curious for some test-driving, too. And I whisper back, "Really," because this time he did not answer, "Slow."

  My brain officially leaves the ice room, as if to say, I can't watch. You know better.

  I've got him in my hands-wow, who knew I was ambidextrous? — and my hands are feeling, feeling, feeling, and I can hear his breathing, and it's heavy and soft at the same time, like its own feral whisper. His hands trace soft lines across my wet head, encouraging the motion of my hands, and I want him as much as I want it because he and it are the same and I am so greedy, I want everything from him.

  "Norah." It's so cold in here but hearing him gasp my name, I feel like I am on fire. All those Jackie Collins novels Caroline and I read in seventh grade are totally starting to make sense.