by Devan Sipher
I looked up from the shoe display to see two statuesque blondes in black cashmere coats standing at the door and eyeing me eagerly. It was a sign from God. Or Mike Russo. Either way, it was time to make like a bee and get my buzz on. I gave my best Joey Tribbiani smile before I realized they were waiting for me to open the door for them.
“Are we supposed to tip him?” I heard one say to the other. After an awkward do-si-do, it became clear there wasn’t enough room for all three of us on the stoop. I relinquished my space and sprinted down the block.
Spotting a coffee shop, I darted inside, only mildly drenched. I warmed my hands by an espresso machine and let the water drip off me before taking a place in line at the counter. I noticed it was three thirty, and I was running out of time for waiting out the storm. I was due at the office at four for a department meeting, which most likely was about some new cost-cutting plan. You can’t make a turnip bleed, but you can certainly try.
I was silently berating the ambition-challenged latte boy, who seemed to be moving in slow motion. Then I remembered that this was precisely the kind of opportunity I was supposed to be taking advantage of: people waiting in a line. Sophisticated SoHo people who worked for art galleries and Web design companies. I checked out the five people in front of me. Not counting a German couple with a baby stroller, there was only one woman: a spry senior citizen in a yellow slicker.
Maybe I’d have better luck at the DMV. Then I heard an animated feminine voice behind me. In the back corner was a honey-streaked brunette with a swanlike neck and a ballet dancer’s posture. She was sitting at a Formica table across from two hipsters in skinny jeans and matching dark eyeglass frames.
“I was in LA for six months, and my breasts are still the same size,” she said with a throaty chuckle. “Though I think they exile you to Arizona after a year if you don’t agree to augment by at least one cup.”
“I thought you were in London,” said Hipster Dude Number One.
“No, that was last year.” She tore off a piece of a croissant from his plate.
There was a confidence in her physical movements and a skeptical intelligence in her gaze. I wondered if she was a creative director at a graphic design agency. Or a multinational architecture firm. I was intrigued, but hesitant about buzzing around in another bee’s yard. Then Hipster Dude Number One licked latte foam off Dude Number Two’s chin.
“Get a room,” said the LA émigré. She laughed again. It was a welcoming laugh. Like she was inviting me over. All I had to do was walk fewer than three yards and tell a complete stranger that I was attracted to her, assuming that I really was. It was hard to be sure without knowing her religion, political views and SAT scores.
After convincing myself that standardized test scores were not a reliable measure of compatibility, I decided to go for it. What could she and her friends do to me?
Suddenly I was twelve years old, asking Julie Kaye if she wanted to “go around.” I made my request over the phone, because it seemed more intimate than the school cafeteria. Though I had known Julie since we were six, the previous summer she had developed gentle curves and an insouciant pleasure in their deployment.
I was making a preemptive strike, hoping others hadn’t noticed her transformation from gawky orthodontic duckling to tween goddess. I received my answer on the school bus when Julie’s blunt rejection was broadcast on Mark Roth’s boom box from a tape recording she had secretly made of our conversation. The worst part was watching Mark’s hand slip confidently into Julie’s back pocket as they exited the bus together.
But I wasn’t twelve anymore, and the hipster dude’s hand was glued firmly to the thigh of his partner in all things retro. The worst-case scenario was sixty excruciating seconds, and I could always pretend to be a foreigner (Je parle mauvais Anglais).
I could feel my heartbeat accelerate as I contemplated what to say. What would get the attention of this potential female Frank Gehry? I watched as she took a tantalizing sip from her coffee cup and wrapped a long knit scarf around her open throat with a dramatic flourish.
“Sir?” A second employee appeared behind the counter and asked with feigned interest what I wanted. I ordered a large coffee and a brownie. I was going to need all the caffeine I could get to ask for her number. Though asking for a number seemed a little sleazy, regardless what Mike said.
I moved down to the register. As I took out my wallet to pay, I snuck another glance in her direction, but she was no longer sitting at the table. She was buttoning up a shearling coat and heading toward me, with the hipster twins close behind. I froze. And they were out the door.
“That will be seven ninety-eight,” said the cashier.
I dropped a ten-dollar bill on the counter and ran after her.
The rain had yet to let up, so all three were huddled under the narrow awning. She was looking with dismay at the onslaught from above while pulling her hair into a loose bun.
“Hey!” I called out as I threw open the door. My pulse was racing. “I was inside just now, and I couldn’t take my eyes off of you. I think you’re extraordinarily beautiful, and I would never forgive myself if I let you leave without asking you out to dinner.”
Her mouth was hanging open at an odd angle, but it seemed closer to a smile than a grimace.
“Would it be possible to get your number?” I asked. Her friends watched her, waiting for a cue.
“I don’t give out my number to guys on the street,” she said, pulling her scarf tighter.
“How about your e-mail?”
“I don’t give out my e-mail either,” she said sympathetically before turning back to her friends.
Mike’s voice reverberated in my head: “First thing out of your mouth should be where you work.”
“You could e-mail me at The Paper,” I blurted. “I work there. I write the wedding column.”
“I love that column,” Dude Number Two piped in. “I mean, I find it fascinating in an ironic way.”
She turned toward me with renewed interest, so I forged ahead. “If you look up my columns online, you’ll see my name, and if you click on my name, you can e-mail me.” I held my breath, waiting for a response.
“So what’s your name?” she miraculously asked.
“Gavin. Gavin Greene.”
“I’m Téa.” She held out her hand, and I held it lightly in my own. Dude Number Two eagerly introduced himself as well, but I didn’t hear a word he said.
“What makes a good wedding story?” Téa inquired.
“Two people meeting during a rainstorm,” I replied.
“The rain’s letting up,” said Dude Number One, sounding irritated. “We should get going.”
“What are you doing tomorrow night?” I asked her.
“I have plans,” she said.
“The night after?”
“I have a busy week coming up,” she said, looking down at the wet pavement.
“Then how about tonight?” I surprised her. I surprised myself. Then again, some people don’t like surprises.
“Tonight?” Her voice shot up two octaves. She turned to her friends. “What should I do?” she asked them.
“You should go out with me,” I said before they could respond.
“I should?”
“Absolutely,” I said.
She folded her arms across her chest and tugged at her scarf. “Twenty-four Carrots. Spelled like the vegetable. At gmail.”
Score one for the bee.
“Do you want to write it down?” she asked as the hipster quotient ran up the street in their matching vintage sneakers, waving down a taxi.
“No need. I’ll remember. I’ll e-mail you.” With my mission accomplished, I was at a loss for what to say next.
“Téa!” came a shout from down the block.
“Have a good ride,” I said awkwardly, adding, “Stay dry.”
She laughed as she took off toward the waiting cab.
“Twenty-four Carrots at gmail. Twenty-four Carrots at gmail.”
I repeated it over and over as I went back inside to claim my java.
The waiter placed two cups of sake on the minimalist birch table at Nobu (another cue from the Mike Russo playbook). Across from me was Téa Diaz, star of All My Children. Okay, not star. But regularly recurring character.
She had responded right away to the e-mail I sent her from work. “You really do write that column,” she wrote. “I Googled you. You can Google me too.”
Which, of course, I did. It’s an odd thing to watch a steamy scene on YouTube of the woman you’re about to go out with. My first thought was, If I had known she was a soap opera sexpot, I wouldn’t have had the nerve to approach her. My second thought was, Mike would be impressed.
“I was once a reporter on Days of Our Lives,” she said after we clinked cups, “but I didn’t do much reporting. Mostly, I had sex with my editor, who was married to the daughter of a mafia boss. I was killed in a skydiving accident. Rule of thumb on a soap: When they tell you that your character is going skydiving, your 401(k) days are numbered.”
Truth be told, I was a little disappointed she wasn’t an architect, though I could almost hear Mike howl in disbelief. “My work’s a little less dramatic,” I said. “Less sex and death.”
“In a newspaper?” She smiled seductively. “I doubt that.”
“Less death, at least. It’s the wedding pages.”
Her neck was every bit as long and graceful as I recalled, emerging from an iridescent burgundy blouse with the hint of black lace at the lowermost vertex.
“So, do you travel round the world on the corporate credit card, looking for exotic weddings?” she asked.
“Not really. They’re watching every penny these days.” Why did I think this was information I needed to share? “I’m covering a wedding in Los Angeles next month, and my editor asked me today if I could stay with my brother.” It was like my mouth was divorced from my brain.
“But you write one of the most popular columns.”
“Yes, and the privilege of saying that is considered a significant part of my salary.”
“Oh.” Disappointment flickered across her tan face. I wanted to slap my own. Picking up a menu, she changed topics. “Nobu’s one of my favorite places. It’s great on a low-carb diet. I used to eat here once a week.” Wow. She must get paid well on soaps, I thought. Or dated well. “What do you usually get?” she asked.
“It’s my first time here,” I mumbled.
“Oh,” she said again, and this time the disappointment was mixed with apprehension. “I bet you get great meals at the weddings you go to.”
The truth was, I didn’t eat when on assignment. The Paper had an iron-clad rule about receiving anything that could be considered a gift. The concern was it could have an impact on objectivity, or, equally damaging, give other people the impression it had an impact. But I wasn’t about to tell Téa that.
“What place had the best food?” she asked me.
“Blue Hill at Stone Barns,” I punted, referring to the gourmet Mecca of the sustainable food movement, located on an organic farm an hour north of the city.
“I’m so jealous,” she said. “Talk about a job with fringe benefits. I’ve been wanting to go there for years, but it’s a hike getting to Tarrytown. I’ve heard they serve hand-picked individual tomatoes on a miniature wooden fence.”
“They do. Ripe Sun Gold tomatoes with just a touch of sea salt.” I had interviewed the publicist.
“You have to tell me what you ate. Course by course. And don’t say you don’t remember, because I won’t believe you.”
So much for punting. “I haven’t actually eaten there,” I had to confess. “But the food looked amazing.” Mercifully, the waiter intervened.
“Do you know what you’d like tonight?” he asked enthusiastically.
The question was what could I afford. Nobu had been an impulsive choice. I was already out thirty dollars for the sake, and I was hoping the evening would go well enough that I’d be ordering more. I scanned the menu for items in the lower stratosphere.
Téa was also deliberating: “I can never decide between the lobster salad and the black cod.” The lobster salad was thirty-nine dollars and the cod was twenty-six dollars, so I was voting for the cod. “I’m feeling like something light,” she said. There was an advantage to dating a woman who was a size two. “I’ll go for the lobster salad, an order of ceviche, and three pieces of red snapper sushi.” My eyes felt like rotating cash register digits, adding up the items: thirty-nine for the lobster plus seventeen for the ceviche plus twenty-one for the sushi.
“Light sounds good,” I squeaked, without looking up, so that my face wouldn’t betray the pinch I felt in my wallet. “I’ll have the shiromi usuzukuri.” I had no idea what it was, but it was only eighteen dollars and sounded more exotic than budgetary.
The waiter looked at me expectantly, asking, “Would you like something in addition to your sashimi?” Had I ordered sashimi?
“Saving room for dessert,” I blathered. He looked skeptical.
Téa leaned toward me as he left, and I tried my best to keep my eyes on her face and not her lacy cleavage. “So, did you always dream of writing about weddings?”
Hardly. “I dreamed of playing backup guitar for the Rolling Stones.”
“I’m not seeing it,” she said with a smile and a sip of sake.
“I also dreamed of writing for Rolling Stone and decided that was more likely.”
“So why don’t you write about music?”
The question of the decade. “I wrote for Spin for a few years.” I’d probably still have been writing for Spin if an old journalism professor hadn’t introduced me to Renée. “The up-and-coming indie rockers I enjoy interviewing are too offbeat for The Paper, and more mainstream musicians aren’t willing to open up with me. They just recite their press-release talking points, and there’s no fun for me in being a glorified publicist.”
“Uh-huh.” She rearranged her chopsticks.
I was losing her. I tried to explain better. “What I thrive on is getting underneath a person’s skin. I call it skin diving.”
“Skin diving?”
I was reeling her back in. “When I sit down to write about a couple, I have up to twenty hours of tapes and sometimes a hundred pages of notes. I don’t just read and listen. I submerge myself. Nothing exists but these two people, their thoughts and feelings.”
“It sounds intense,” she said. “It sounds sexy,” is what she insinuated.
“I still get butterflies every time,” I said, milking the thrill factor. “It’s like going out on an early-morning dive. It’s dark and cold. And staying on the boat seems a far more pleasant option. But I force myself to dive in.”
“To what?”
“The couple’s relationship. I explore the hidden crevices with a flashlight and a magnifying glass. Then I resurface with a sort-of prose sonar report, revealing the contours of their emotional bond.” I didn’t mention that I feared it was a substitute for forming my own.
“You must write about couples who have been together a long time.”
“Not always,” I said, looking deep into her vibrant aquamarine eyes. “A few weeks ago, I talked to a couple who met at camp when they were seven. He pushed her out of a canoe, and she had the preternatural wisdom to know that was a sign of affection. But the week before that was a couple who had known each other only six months.”
“Have you talked to people who broke up and got back together?” Something about the question seemed a little rehearsed.
“Sure,” I said.
“Do they end up okay?”
Did she think I was a reporter or a fortune-teller? “I can’t really speak with any authority about what happens after the wedding reception.”
She mulled that silently for a few moments. “Have you ever been married?”
Not my first-choice topic for first dates.
“No,” I said, knowing what that sounded like coming from the mouth of a
man my age.
“Have you lived with anyone?” was her next question.
I preferred when we were discussing restaurants I’d never eaten at. “Not in a formal kind of way,” I answered, picturing Laurel in my bathrobe, drinking green tea from a Knicks coffee mug and working on the Sunday crossword puzzle. I expunged the image from my memory. “How about you?” I asked, more out of obligation than an active desire to know the details of her dating history.
“Pretty much the same,” she said. “Never married. Though I had an on-again, off-again relationship with an investment banker for almost five years.” She was trying to sound casual about it, but she wasn’t entirely succeeding.
“Did you live together?” I asked.
She looked down at the table. “I’m supposed to move into his place tomorrow.”
It was my turn to say “Oh.”
“Or that’s the plan. He’s been pushing to move forward, and I’ve been very unsure. We’ve been back and forth so many times, and we haven’t even been living in the same city for more than a few months. It’s so easy to do something for the wrong reasons. Because you’re scared. Because you’re getting older. Because you don’t want to make the effort to find someone new.”
I nodded, wondering whether it was too late to cancel my sashimi.
“When you asked me out, I wasn’t sure what to say, but I decided this is exactly what I needed. A chance to find out if there’s someone else out there for me. Someone smart, sophisticated and successful.”
That sounded more promising. I was ready to jump ship too soon. I was still getting this bee thing down.
“The truth is, I was dreading having the movers show up tomorrow,” she said. “I feel so much better about it now. I really owe you.”
The bill for dinner: $190. The emotional cost: immeasurable. As I walked home, I replayed the sequence of events in my head, wondering where I went wrong.