Jordan tries to put a smile on his face, but the smile looks a little like the awkward artwork of a five-year-old. “Well, at least you finally made it,” he tries to say cheerfully.
He pulls me into a hug, and I sink deep into his arms, and begin a mental fantasy of getting him into bed—so that we can sleep for fifteen straight hours. “I’m pretty sure I saw an old man out there with long gray hair, several pairs of animals, and a set of boat blueprints,” I whine.
As I feel Jordan rubbing my back through my Burberry trench coat, I start to feel a little more comfortable. Okay, so far, this has been a complete disaster. But, then again, just a few days ago, I thought I might never get myself into these arms again. And I like the feeling of these arms.
I continue to lounge in Jordan’s arms as I apologize, “I’m sorry we missed The Coast of Utopia.”
“That’s okay,” Jordan says, pulling out of the hug, and giving me an awkward kiss. “I’ve got reservations for Aureole at ten.”
“Oh. Great!” I force myself to say.
Jordan knits his brows together. “You don’t look like you think it’s great.”
“Oh no! I do!” I say in exhaustion as I fall into a velvet chair next to the bed. “It’s just that I . . . I . . . um thought maybe we could . . .”
Think, Edwards. Give some valid reason not to go back out into that weather again tonight. Mention the restaurant downstairs . . . room service . . . the elevator leading to an ice skating rink . . . trapeze artists . . . Barack Obama . . .
“Charlie?” Jordan says.
“Hm?” I ask, startled awake.
“You fell asleep,” Jordan tells me.
“I did?” I ask in a spacy voice. Then I turn to see I’m still in the chair. “That explains the trapeze artists.”
“Are you going to be okay going out?” Jordan asks me.
Black Labrador puppies dancing with chocolate chip cookies and Christmas wreaths . . . and everyone’s happily playing a Monopoly game . . .
“Charlie!” Jordan yells.
“I’m up!” I yell back, jumping out of my seat. I quickly throw off my coat. “I’m going to be fine. Just give me ten minutes to jump in the shower, change into the fabulous outfit I bought just for tonight, and then I’ll . . .”
It’s at that moment that I notice our room for the first time. It is stunningly romantic: a king-size bed overlooking a view of the hustle and bustle of Times Square. Next to it is a silver bucket dripping with condensation from the melted ice surrounding a bottle of champagne. There is a plethora of white candles that have been lit and placed all around the room, giving off the lovely scent of roses.
Everything is perfect. Absolutely perfect. I couldn’t ask for more if I were a princess on her wedding night.
But my nose is clogged, I’m achy everywhere, and I just want to crawl into bed.
“This is really beautiful,” I say, smiling.
I think I notice Jordan exhale a sigh of relief. “Good. Since you took so many hours to get here, I had a lot of time to think about how this might be overkill. So I’m glad you like it.”
He walks over to the champagne bucket, pulls out a bottle of Dom Pérignon, and prepares to pop the cork. “Would you like some champagne?”
“I’d love some,” I say, happily walking up to him, and giving him a hug.
As Jordan opens the bottle and pours the bubbly, I look out the window to our amazing view of Times Square. The pouring rain blurs the neon signs bidding us to buy from Gap and Coca Cola.
Jordan is about to hand me a glass of champagne when he notices my teeth chattering. “Oh my God. You’re shivering.”
As I take the glass, I tell him, “Honestly, my fingers are so frozen I could keep that bottle cold better than the bucket.” I take a sip. “This is phenomenal. Thank you.”
Jordan and I hug again. We begin kissing. Oh, it feels so magical and wonderful to be back in his arms, I feel like I’m going to drift off into a cloud . . .
Which is exactly what I do.
But not in a good way. Within five minutes, I had drifted off into a deep sleep.
I found out later, I was actually snoring.
Fifteen
The next morning, I open my eyes to see sunlight pouring through the hotel curtains.
Oh, shit.
I look over at Jordan, who is shirtless, and under the covers.
I look down at myself. I’m still wearing the jeans I put on two days ago. No, no, no.
I sit up in bed and sigh. The last thing I remember was kissing Jordan at the window. I fell asleep mid-kiss, and must have fallen backwards, because I spilled some of my champagne as Jordan caught me.
Jordan then suggested I might be too tired and cold for a big night out on the town, and suggested we get some really great room service.
I told him I loved him for suggesting we stay in the room in this horrible weather. Although it wasn’t a real “I love you” so much as an “I love you” that I might say to the caterer on set for giving me an extra helping of chocolate cake. Then I grabbed the room service menu, opened it to decide if I wanted filet mignon or salmon . . .
Then fell asleep again.
Shit.
Jordan stretches and opens his eyes. “Good morning,” I say sheepishly to him.
“Good morning, sleepyhead,” Jordan says, smiling as he asks, “are you feeling better?”
He doesn’t say it in a bad way at all, but I feel like shit anyway. “I’m so sorry,” I say. “I totally blew it.”
Jordan shrugs, then sits up to face me. “You were exhausted. I understand.”
I look over at the nightstand, where my glass of champagne is still almost full, and two white candles have burned down their wicks. “What can I do to salvage this weekend?” I ask.
“I can think of a few things,” Jordan says flirtatiously.
He leans over to kiss me. As the two of us begin making out, Jordan moves to unzip my jeans, and reveal my sexy black underwear.
Which I’ve now been wearing for over forty-eight hours.
Ew.
I grab his hand. “Wait,” I say, then slither myself out from under him. “I need to go change,” I say as I get up, and head for my suitcase.
Jordan sits up. “Change? I think you’re a little unclear on what I’m trying to do here.”
“No, no,” I say as I unzip my bag, and rifle through my things. “You see, I specifically wore this fabulous bra-and-panty set under my clothes so you could rip them off me yesterday in a mad, passionate frenzy. But now I’ve been wearing them for two days. They’re probably seriously funky.”
At the thought of that, I instinctively raise my arm and smell my pits. “Oh, Jesus. How could you stand to be in the bed with me last night?”
Jordan gets out of bed to reveal his washboard abs, and my favorite pair of his boxers. He laughs as he says, “Have we really hit the comfort level in our relationship where you’re sniffing yourself in front of me?”
Jordan donuts his arms around my waist just as I find my decidedly unsexy plain cotton underwear. (Why on earth did I pack that?) “Just give me five minutes to shower,” I say, grabbing it anyway, and heading for the bathroom.
As I climb into the hotel’s famous “voyeur” shower, and lather up with Bliss soap, I wonder what the hell is the matter with me? Why am I acting like such a freak? Why can’t I act like my usual confident (for the most part), happy self? Why am I coming across as Jekyll and Hyde?
It takes until after I’m out of the shower that my answer hits me. I wrap a towel around my body, then turban another around my head, and walk out of the bathroom to find Jordan, now dressed in jeans and a nice sweater, casually lying on the bed and watching ESPN on the room’s flat-screen TV.
“I am just so nervous around you!” I can’t help but blurt out.
Jordan looks confused. I seem to do that to him a lot.
“Do you want to know why I think guys like us when we don’t care about them?” I ask.
Jordan gives me a shrug, which I take as encouragement to go on.
“Because we don’t care about them!” I say, throwing my arms up in the air. “We can be witty, and glib, and cheerful, and energetic around some random five-on-a-scale-of-one-to-ten guy. And we don’t walk into walls, because we don’t care what Mr. Five Guy thinks of us. But you!” I say, pointing to him. “You make me walk into walls.”
I sit down on the bed next to him, then sigh loudly. “I wanted this weekend to be perfect.”
Jordan starts rubbing my arm. “Yeah, me, too,” he says sympathetically. “And it hasn’t been, but that’s okay.”
“No, it’s not okay. I haven’t seen you in almost a month. You haven’t seen me in almost a month. You need to remember why you dated me in the first place, so everything needs to be perfect.”
Jordan chuckles. “No pressure,” he jokes.
I smile back. “None at all.”
Jordan rubs my shoulder. “So . . . what would make today perfect for you?”
I look up at the ceiling and think. “I don’t know,” I say, shrugging. “A carriage ride in Central Park . . . skating at Rockefeller Center . . . Dinner at the Russian Tea Room . . . taking in a Broadway show . . . . Why are you shaking your head?”
“I’m sorry,” Jordan says, laughing lightly as he shakes his head. “Those things are all fine, and we’ll do them if you want. It’s just . . . that’s such a standard, carbon-copy way to spend a day in New York. Any couple can go where the tourists go. I want to go where the locals go.”
I smile as a thought suddenly occurs to me. “I forget. Didn’t you live in New York briefly?”
“Yeah. I went to Columbia for about a year. Which may only make me a semi-local. But if you’ll allow me”—Jordan stands up and puts out his hand—“I would like you to bundle up, and get ready for a day of unexpected romance.”
“Really?” I say, suddenly feeling like the burden of our entire future has been lifted from my shoulders (if only for today). “Do I get a hint about where we’re going?”
Jordan grins. “Get dressed. We’re going to Brooklyn.”
I eye him suspiciously. “Seriously. Have I pissed you off that much?”
Sixteen
At least one day of every year, think about the most obvious thing you can do on that day—and then go do something completely different.
Ten minutes later, I am bundled up in a heavy sweater, a scarf, gloves, and a Burberry coat, and walking hand in hand with Jordan down Forty-second Street. The weather is cold, but the sky is blue, and the air is spectacularly clear. We walk to the Times Square Station, take the subway to the F train, then take the F train out to Brooklyn.
Yes, Brooklyn.
Our “romantic” day begins at York Street Station, the first stop in Brooklyn.
“Welcome to DUMBO,” Jordan says cheerfully as he takes my hand, and leads me out of the train car.
I’ve heard of DUMBO from my bohemian friends here in the east. An acronym for “Down Under the Manhattan Bridge Overpass” (although some people claim it’s really “Down Under the Manhattan Brooklyn Overpass”). The area began as an artist’s haven (for those artists not successful enough to afford the rents in Manhattan), and in the past ten years its denizens had progressed from artists, to commercial artists, to doctors and lawyers and hedge-fund managers (oh my).
“I’m dubious,” I say as we climb up the subway station stairs and head up to York Street. “Is this really going to be more romantic than a hansom carriage ride?”
“I have never been completely clear on why women think sitting behind a horse’s ass is so romantic,” Jordan counters.
We exit the station and walk over to the East River, to see the view of the New York City skyline I’ve seen a million times in movies and on TV. You know, the shot of New York City that they have on all the sitcoms about New York City, which someone shot next to a river, slightly under a bridge, and with a small building off to the left? That picture was taken in DUMBO. Who knew?
We take a few minutes to look at the river and, without thinking, I snuggle into Jordan for warmth. He hugs me back, and I start to feel like we might be okay after all.
“Okay,” Jordan announces, clapping. “First stop: We need to find a good wine shop.”
Jordan takes my hand, and we turn around to walk amongst the shops and natives of Brooklyn.
I can’t help but smile as Jordan and I walk hand in hand along a cobblestone street. We’re not talking. I think we’re both contentedly taking in the sights and smells of the city. Our silence is peaceful and happy. For the first time in almost a month, I’m peaceful and happy. I feel the uncontrollable urge to kiss Jordan on the cheek. So I do. It’s not a romantic kiss. It’s better than that. It’s decidedly . . . comfortable.
Jordan smiles, lifts my hand, and gives it a light kiss in return.
Which is wonderful. I haven’t felt this comfortable around him since before he left for Paris.
“So, tell me again . . . when did you go to Columbia?” I ask as I lean my head into him, and snuggle up against his sweatered chest.
Jordan smiles devilishly as he pulls his head back to see me. “What do you mean ‘again’? I never told you I went to Columbia.”
Damn it, he got me. I never knew he went to Columbia. But it seemed like the kind of thing you’re supposed to know about your boyfriend. “Touché,” I admit, smirking. “Let me rephrase. When did you go to Columbia? Wait, more important, why were you at Columbia? Do they teach photography?”
“Uh . . . they might,” he says cryptically. “But that wasn’t why I was there. Ah!”
Jordan’s face lights up at the sight of a small wine shop on the first floor of a tall, red brick building. He leads me in, then immediately walks up to the proprietor at the counter. “I was wondering if you could help me. I’m looking for a full-bodied red, preferably Italian, and a good demi-sec champagne. Could you make some suggestions?”
A few minutes later, the owner of the wine shop has sent us off with a robust cabernet from Veneto, Italy, a bottle of Veuve Clicquot demi-sec, a bottle opener, and four plastic cups, all in an unmarked paper bag.
As we exit the store, I shrug my shoulders demurely and say, “So, he deflects my question, then shows me he plans to ply me with booze.”
“Good booze,” Jordan reminds me.
“Great booze,” I concur, “but we were talking about Columbia . . . .”
“I’m told it’s a beautiful country,” Jordan jokes, smiling as he takes my hand, and leads me down another street. “Good coffee.”
Pick your battles.
I decide to drop the subject of Columbia in favor of hugging Jordan as we walk around the borough looking like a couple of newlyweds.
We pass some pretty fabulous shops. As we pass the ABC Carpet and Home Warehouse, the outlet of a wonderful furniture store I thought only existed in Manhattan and London, Jordan stops at the front window and points to the bright red sofa on display. “I’m thinking of buying a new couch when I get back to L.A.,” Jordan says. “What do you think of something like that?”
“Seems very . . . New York,” I say noncommittally.
Jordan turns to me. “Does that mean you like it or hate it?”
I shrug. “It just means it strikes me as a piece of furniture I’d see in a New York apartment.”
Jordan thinks about that. “I like the color. It would photograph beautifully.” He turns to me, then asks out of the blue, “Do you ever think about moving to another city?”
Uh-oh.
“Ummm . . . sometimes,” I say.
“But you have a house in L.A.,” Jordan answers for me. “So you’re probably planning on settling there.”
I don’t like the way this conversation is going. “I don’t know. Maybe,” I say, not knowing what the right answer to his question should be.
“Would you ever think about moving to New York?” Jordan asks me.
Uh-oh.
I
give Jordan’s hand a gentle squeeze. “Are you thinking about moving here?” I ask, trying to sound as sweet and nonjudgmental as possible.
Jordan shrugs. “It didn’t work out so well the last time I lived here. But . . . I don’t know . . . I like it here. I kind of miss the place.”
“Why don’t you want to talk about Columbia?” I ask him. “What, did you flunk out or something?”
I can tell from the pinch in Jordan’s face that he’s uncomfortable. “I went to law school there. For one year.”
I think about that. “Okay. So why the mystery? Why the discomfort?”
Jordan stares at the sidewalk for a few moments before answering. “It wasn’t a very good time in my life. It turned out I hated law school. And there was a girl involved . . .”
He lets his voice drift off.
I never know what to do with the ex conversations. If you don’t ask, it looks like you don’t care, but if you do ask, sometimes you’re poking at a pretty big wound. I decide to show interest, but tread lightly. “Did you go to law school for the girl?”
“No,” Jordan says definitively. “I went to law school because that was what I always thought I’d do with my life: become a lawyer, make a lot of money, buy a house at the beach, raise kids. It’s what my dad did, and he seemed happy with it, so it’s what I had always planned to do.”
He looks at me kind of sadly.
“And . . . ,” I ask sympathetically.
“And there’s a big difference between waiting for your life to begin, and actually living it. I hated law school. And frankly, I wasn’t very good at it. By the time I came home for Christmas, I knew I had to get out.”
I wait for him to elaborate, but he doesn’t. Instead, we begin walking again. The two of us walk hand in hand, passing brightly lit windows scattered among buildings of condos and artist’s lofts, and I try to remain comfortable in our silence.
Eventually, I can’t help but prod. Hopefully with a safe question. “So, what made you choose Columbia?”
“I had always wanted to live in New York. My dad’s family is here. We used to come every other Christmas, and I had this childhood memory of skating at Rockefeller Center while looking at the giant Christmas tree, watching snow silently fall over the city, looking at all the Christmas windows. . . .” Jordan lets his voice drift away. “I don’t know, the whole city was magical to me in a way that it only can be when you’re a kid.”
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