Nick & Norah's Infinite Playlist

by Rachel Cohn

  My tongue blazes his trail, moving down toward the motion of my hands but not quite there yet; my accelerated heart rate slows down the pace of my hands. I want this, so much, but I am terrified even as I am willingly lost in it. I'm fine with doing this-no, I'm GREAT with doing this-but scared that I will do it wrong. "Norah," Nick whispers again, and I hope that maybe with him, there is no wrong way. I hope that he will trust me. My heart is pounding pounding pounding and my mouth wants to go there but my head turns upward first, wanting to make eye contact with Nick, but in the fluorescent light I see his eyes are closed, so I speak instead, and I say, "Tell me. Guide me." Because I want it to be both our instincts making this happen. And his eyes open for a moment and catch mine and through the machine glow, I see gratitude in his, and in my hands his response is even more affirmative, and okay, here I go.

  Why, hello, Julio!

  But some motherfucker has turned on the lights in this room and it's not even like I want to die of embarrassment. I want to die from wanting this to happen and who the hell could be so inconsiderate as to ruin my fucking moment?

  An old couple stands at the entrance to the ice room. She is dressed in a quilted robe and cheap slippers and looks just like my great-aunt Hildy in Boca who hates me because she says I have a potty mouth and because one time I made the big fucking mistake of admitting that the brisket my grandma makes is better than Aunt Hildy's. He is dressed in boxer shorts and a T-shirt and, holy fucking shit, he is wearing those sock suspenders around his calves that I'm pretty goddamn sure are museum fashion artifacts. His face is crumpled and ancient, like he could be E.T.'s great-uncle, and he's carrying an ice bucket. What the fuck do these geezers need ice for at this hour?

  Their gray heads need a moment to process the blue sight.

  "Oh," Great-Aunt Hildy clone finally says.

  "Oh, my," her husband says.

  I am imagining how Nick and Norah must look to Aunt Hildy and Uncle E.T. right now, in the Polaroid snapshot of their hopefully near-senile dementia minds. Nick: shirtless, pants still on but zippers and boxers down, his hands pressed against the back of the Pepsi machine. Norah: moist hair disheveled from Nick's earlier scalp massage, wearing wet pants with the top button unfastened, and also shirtless except for the black lace bra on her bosom, just settled into kneeling position. B-U-S-T-E-D.

  I hope Aunt Hildy notices how carefully I folded Salvatore's jacket. That's got to count for something.

  The silence of the shock feels like an eternity until Nick glances over at Aunt Hildy and says, "Would you be a dear and shut the light off again on your way back out?"

  It's her turn to say "Oh, my" now, but bless her heart, she does flick the light switch back off, but not before shooting me one parting look, and I swear in that last lingering second, I see that she recognizes my hunger because she's felt it at some point in her life, too, and she winks at me before they're gone and I feel confident that Auntie and Uncle have truly gotten some bang for their buck on their New York City vacation. Nick and I could become goodwill ambassadors for the city now that the porno shops on 42nd Street are gone. Must make mental note to contact mayor.

  Darkness has been returned to us, but the moment, the heat, is over. Because Nick speaks in a normal voice instead of a whisper, and he says, "Maybe we're not ready for this yet?" His sentiment is serious-and right-yet somehow we're laughing, too, laughing at the absurdity of the situation, and maybe laughing with relief that the absurdity allowed the situation not to go further than it did.

  Aunt Hildy must have sent my brain back into the room when she left it because I am reaching for my shirt and for Salvatore as Nick puts his shirt back on. I can't believe how grateful I am to have been caught. I want him so very much, but it's too soon. I have to figure, with this many stops and starts, surely this train will pull out of the station eventually. What's the big fucking rush?

  We're dressed again except our clothes are still damp and we're still laughing except we're also kinda making out against the ice machine and he bumps me in just the wrong way and now ice is pouring from the machine onto the floor, all over us, it's like a fucking avalanche, and all we can do is laugh harder and run away.

  We're kissing in the hallway again, against the wall.

  We're kissing in the glass elevator again. We ride it up and down, up and down, still kissing. Outside the elevator, time is going on, but inside, it's stopped for us because we've got our own schedule: kissing, giggling, probing, breathing, taking, wanting, hoping. Liking.

  I don't know this Norah, this risk-taker, this thrill-seeker. I am a nice Jewish girl from Englewood Cliffs, New Jersey. I may have a potty mouth, but I do not get caught in illicit sexual encounters in Marriotts, for fuck's sake. I guess I could be open to a Ritz-Carlton or a Four Seasons, but a Marriott, no fucking way! Yet here I am. And there's nowhere else I'd rather be. What spell has this boy cast on me?

  I don't know this Norah, but I like her. I'm hoping she'll hang out awhile, consider permanent asylum.

  The elevator door opens on the ground floor and we're greeted and escorted out by hotel security and I suppress the urge to sit them down for a good honest discussion about our country's founding principles of civil liberties because that would take away from my time with Nick.

  So Nick and I head outside, and we're holding hands, and still giggling, and still wet from the earlier rain and the sweat of our earlier encounter(s)(s)(s). And we are giddy, because dawn is here, we're at the center of the world and we're the center of our own universe, and spring is here, and the air smells wet and clean. God bless Manhattan, you know, because it must be six in the morning on a Sunday yet trash collection trucks are teeming down the street and Times Square workers in their bright-orange uniforms are cleaning up the night's excesses and not even the smell of fresh spring rain can completely wash away Eau de Times Square Urine/ Trash/Vomit, but somehow this here, this now, it feels perfect.

  "Where to?" Nick asks, and I say, "Home."

  We've got to find Jessie the Yugo and find our way off this island.

  I have so much to do. Caroline to intervene. College to plan. Nick to know. Sexual techniques to Google.

  Playlists to be created. I'm already planning the one I will make for Nick after I get some sleep. I will call it "(T)rainy/Dreamy" and it will be all dreamy songs with either the words rain or train in the title because he is so beautiful in the rain and one day I would like to make love to him on a train, just not the Chicago El like that scene in that '80s movie Risky Business because that was way hot but seemed so unhygienic; no, we'll take a cross-country train trip with our own cabin berth with proper sheets like in an old black-and-white movie and Nick and I will call each other "darling" and read books aloud to each other at night while the train rolls through the Plains. Off the top of my head, I'm thinking my "(T)rainy/Dreamy" playlist for Nick will include "I Wish It Would Rain" by The Temptations, "Train in Vain (Stand by Me)" by The Clash, "It's Raining" by Irma Thomas, "Blue Train" by Johnny Cash followed by "Runaway Train" by Rosanne Cash (oh! I'm so clever!), "Come Rain or Come Shine" either by Dinah Washington or the Ray Charles cover (tough call-I'll decide later), and I will cap the mix off with "Friendship Train" by Gladys Knight and The Pips because that's what it's all about in the end, right?

  We're walking down Seventh Avenue and I don't know if we're going to the subway or walking all the way back to the Lower East Side or what and I don't care.

  "Nick?" I say.

  He lifts my hand he's holding to his mouth for a quick kiss. Then, "Yeah?" he says.

  I tell him, "What just happened there? I have something to tell you."

  He stops walking and he doesn't drop my hand but his grip loosens a little and I can see in his eyes that he's thinking, Now she's going to tell me she has herpes, or worse, She's going to deny any of this happened at all. I can almost see the beads of worry on his forehead. "What?" he whispers.

  I look him back square in the eye. I take a deep breath, solemn,
and just let it out. "I'm pregnant. I don't know if it's yours or E.T.'s."

  This time I don't try to hold back my smile. It's gonna come out whether I like it or not. I choose to like it.

  He doesn't hold his back either. He pulls me to him, tight. He's laughing, but part of me wants to tell him to stop because that part of me is leaning against his chest and thinking, Shit, this is not funny, because I could seriously fall in love with you.

  19. NICK

  When is a night over? Is it the start of sunrise or the end of it? Is it when you finally go to sleep or simply when you realize that you have to? When the club closes or when everyone leaves? Normally, I keep these kinds of questions to myself. But this time, I ask Norah.

  "It's over when you decide it's over," she says. "When you call it a night. The rest is just a matter of where the sun is in the sky. That has nothing to do with us."

  We keep walking down Seventh Avenue, through the large swath of city that is still sleeping through the dawning of the day. Night-shift cabdrivers slow when they see us, then speed up again when they notice the way we're holding hands, the way we don't seem to be in any rush to be anywhere but here.

  I am exhausted. It's even too exhausting to keep denying that I'm exhausted, so I let the weight fall on my bones and my thoughts. I am so fucking tired, and most of my energy is being spent on wishing that I wasn't.

  "I love this light," Norah says. The city tinted as pink in waking as it is in orange and blue when it falls to sleep.

  We're both a mess. Our hair drying out in every which way. My six-in-the-morning shadow. Our disheveled clothes, still looking post-lust no matter how hard we try to shevel them. (Okay, we don't try all that hard. We're proud of them.)

  "Norah," I say, "I have something to ask you."

  "Sure," she says.

  "It's really personal. Is that okay? I mean, you don't have to tell me if you don't want to."

  "Don't worry. If I don't want to, I won't."

  "Okay." I pause for a second, and I can tell she thinks I'm serious, which amuses me to no end. "Here goes. Norah?" I pause again.

  "Yes, Nick?"

  "Can I-um-"

  She's getting annoyed. "What, Nick?"

  "Could you possibly-maybe-tell me your last name?"

  Without a beat, she says, "Hilton."

  "No, really."

  "Hyatt?"

  "Norah-"

  "Marriott? Or how about Olsen? I'm the triplet they never fucking acknowledge. "

  "I see a resemblance."

  "Fuck you. It's Silverberg."

  "Cool."

  "'Cool,' as in you know who my father is now?"

  The thought hadn't even occurred to me.

  "To be honest," I say, "even with the last name, I don't know who he is. I guess I don't follow that kind of stuff. Is that okay?"

  "You have no idea how okay that is," Norah answers. "Now-I've shown you mine, so you show me yours."

  "O'Leary."

  "You're Irish?"

  "Not really, like in a majority way. My grandfather just happened to win the last-name lottery. I'm really Irish-British-French-Belgian-Italian-Slav-Russian-Danish. Basically, the Euro should have my face on it."

  "So you're a Euro mutt?"

  "With the possible exception of Luxembourg."

  "Good to know."

  We angle over to Sixth, then to Broadway.

  "And can I get your phone number?" I ask.

  Norah pulls her hand out of mine to reach into Salvatore and take out my phone.

  "Here," she says, handing it over. "It's already programmed in."

  I know it's totally uncool to do it, but I ask, "Do you want mine?"

  "Call me," she says. And then when I don't do anything, she adds, "Right now."

  So I open up my phone and check out the directory. I see Norah's added some commentary of her own-Tris's number is now labeled That Bitch. Norah's, however, isn't under Norah. But when I see Salvatore's name, I know who I'm calling.

  I dial. Her ring tone springs to life.

  "Hello?" she answers, not two feet away from me.

  "Can I please speak to Salvatore?" I ask.

  "I'm afraid he can't come to the phone right now. Would you like to leave a message?"

  I'm looking at Salvatore now, and I'm realizing that I gave him up a long time ago, that in my mind he's already hers.

  "Tell him I hope he likes his new home," I say.

  Norah looks at me. "Are you sure?"

  "Yeah, I'm sure."

  "Thanks."

  We both hang up and hold hands again. We walk through Union Square, stepping over the detritus of the Saturday-night revelers. We pass the Virgin Megastore, the Strand, the old Trinity Church. We walk down Astor, past the skate-punks' cube, over to St. Marks Place, where clubgoers stumble through daylight. Down Second Avenue until we reach Houston. I can tell she's tired now, too. We are using all of our energy for this walking, for this near-silent twoliness. For the watching of everything. For watching over each other.

  When we get to Ludlow, I remember the song I began to write, in an hour that seems like weeks ago now. Can so much really happen in a night? The song was never really over, but now I have the ending-I don't know how I'll phrase it, but it will involve our returning, it will take in the strange pink light and the Sunday-morning quiet. Because the song is us, and the song is her, and this time I'm going to use her name. Norah Norah Norah-no rhymes, really. Just truth.

  I shouldn't want the song to end. I always think of each night as a song. Or each moment as a song. But now I'm seeing we don't live in a single song. We move from song to song, from lyric to lyric, from chord to chord. There is no ending here. It's an infinite playlist.

  I know Norah would love for me to sing her the song, right here on Ludlow Street. But I'll wait for next time. Because I know there will be a next time. I was looking forward to next time the minute I met her. Throughout the night, I've been looking forward to next time, and the time after that, and the time after that. I know this is something.

  I can see Jessie sitting safely at the curb, ready to take us home.

  "We're almost there," Norah says.

  I stop us. We turn to each other and kiss again. Here on Ludlow Street. In the new day.

  My heartbeat accelerates. I am in the here, in the now. I am also in the future. I am holding her and wanting and knowing and hoping all at once. We are the ones who take this thing called music and line it up with this thing called time. We are the ticking, we are the pulsing, we are underneath every part of this moment. And by making the moment our own, we are rendering it timeless. There is no audience. There are no instruments. There are only bodies and thoughts and murmurs and looks. It's the concert rush to end all concert rushes, because this is what matters. When the heart races, this is what it's racing toward.

  20. NORAH

  I can keep the jacket, I can keep the jacket, lalalalalalalala, Nick loves me, or at least he really likes me, lalalalalalalala, Salvatore and I are so happy, this jacket will only be dry cleaned, no inferior detergent shall ever besmirch it, lalalalalalalalala.

  Here we are, back in Jessie. Yugo! Lalalalalalalala.

  I'm sitting in the passenger seat next to Nick and it's just like before when we sat side by side in this car, except not. I'm no longer vague as to whether I even want to be spending my time with this person, in this "vehicle," but Jessie, like earlier, has doubts about whether to allow me to be Jessie's Girl. Jessie, once again, is not starting. Nick turns the key and floods the accelerator and even says a couple prayers, but no, Jessie ain't putting out.

  Nick stops the key motion and turns to look at me. "Shit," he says.

  I can't help but laugh at the sight of him, rumpled clothes, his hair spiked from the rain and the mad earlier rummage of my hands through it, eyes glazed over from the fallout of lust and fatigue, jaw jutted in frustration with Jessie. I tell him, "You look like that Where's Fluffy song, 'You Have That Just Fucked Look, Yoko,'"
which I believe was on the breakup desolation playlist Nick made for Tris, and in my opinion is the band's best song from their pre–Evan E. days, when Fluffy's drummer was a guy called Gus G., who left them in a fit of rage when Lars L. dumped the band's manager, who also happened to be Gus G.'s girlfriend.

  "Oh, be still my heart, Norah," Nick says. Then, seriously, he says, "Dev claims 'I Wanna Hold Your Hand' is the ultimate song because it captures the essence of what every pop song is really about, what we all really want-simply, I Wanna Hold Your Hand." Nick takes his right hand from the stick shift and clasps my left hand. "I think Dev might be on to something."

  "I hate The Beatles," I state. "Except for that song 'Something.' Now that's a fucking love song. And John or Paul didn't even write it. George did. George was the shit. But The Beatles as a whole? Completely overrated."

  Nick drops my hand. He looks at me as if either I've just had a mental breakdown, or he's about to have one. "I'm gonna pretend I never heard that."

  Musician boys and their Beatles love-what are ya gonna do? I lean over to place a make-up kiss on his neck. Then I ask, "Did you really write a song for me?"

  "Yeah. But it's not finished. And don't ever speak of The Beatles with such condescension again or I may never finish it."

  "So do I get to hear it, even the unfinished version?"

  "No."

  "Never? Or just not now?"

  "Just not now. Don't be so greedy." He knows me so well already.

  He turns the key again. And again and again and again. "Shit," he repeats.

  "What are our options?" I ask.

  "Well, we can try to find someone to jump the car. Or we can just leave her here and find our way home on the train and worry about Jessie after some sleep. I could come back later today with Thom and Scot to jump her. Or, you know-I could always admit that Jessie has broken my heart for the last time, and give her away to charity already."

  Poor Nick. Tris broke his heart. Jessie broke his heart.

  I whisper in his ear, "I promise I will never break your heart." Because without a doubt, I will fuck up many things in this whatever-we-have-here, but that, I will never do.