by Karyn Bosnak
I smile. “Oh, and why’s that?”
“They just uh . . . well,” he stutters, “some of them might not be too excited to see me.”
I give him a look. I know his type. “You’re a heartbreaker, aren’t you?” I ask.
“No,” Colin says, defending himself. “I just don’t fall in love very easily.”
I nod. “Yep, you’re a heartbreaker.” As Colin laughs, I suddenly realize that I’m completely comfortable being with him. I didn’t get the same awkward feeling I got with Kyle. Granted we haven’t been having sex in this fitting room, but still. “You know,” I was worried about seeing you today.”
Colin looks at me funny. “Worried? Why?”
“I thought it would be weird seeing you after talking so much on the phone, because we know each other but don’t really know each other, you know? I mean, we haven’t spent time together or anything.”
“Well, what’s the verdict? Weird or not?”
“Not,” I say, smiling. “How about for you?”
“All’s good,” he says, winking. “But, you know what we should do? To make sure things don’t become weird we should look at each other without talking, to make up for the times we talked on the phone without looking.”
I laugh. “That’ll take hours.”
“Well, I have all night. How about you?”
“Not only do I have all night, but I have all day tomorrow and the next day and the next day. I have no job, no life—I don’t have anything. Except a dog.”
“Well, then let’s get going.” Taking me by the shoulder once again, Colin turns me back around. The two of us then look in the mirror at my scarlet dress.
“I feel like Hester Prynne, standing up here in this dress,” I joke. “I feel like there should be a big letter A on my chest or something. Or at least a T for tramp.”
“Nah,” Colin says softly. He slides his hands down the sides of my arms, giving me goose bumps. They land at my waist. “There should be a tiara on your head because you look like a princess.” Suddenly remembering Eva’s wearing one, he reaches over, plucks it from her head and puts it on mine. I laugh when he does. “This is some dress, my dear,” he then says, gazing at it in the mirror. “This is some dress.”
20 times a lady
After walking back to the Waldorf, Colin drives us back to the apartment on his beat-up Vespa. As per my request, he doesn’t go faster than fifteen miles per hour because Eva is pressed between the two of us in her bag and I don’t think it’s safe. By the time we get home, we both look wild and crazy from the ride. It’s unusually humid outside, too humid for May. The air is getting thick. I think it might rain.
After I change into jeans and a T-shirt, I go over to Colin’s. Neither of us have our air-conditioners in yet and his apartment is slightly cooler than mine. For the remainder of the afternoon, the two of us hang out and do silly things. We draw caricatures of each other, watch his one appearance on Law & Order (he had one line and did a really good job), and have staring contests to balance out the phone calls. (He wins each time because I keep bursting into laughter.) After he calls the Jimmys to ask if they can help make my five tickets disappear (they can—kick ass), the two of us then watch Eva explore Colin’s apartment. It’s amazing the way she works the perimeter of a room, eating dust. She’s like a Roomba.2 Seriously, throw away your brooms, donate your vacuum cleaners, and fire the maid. All you need to keep a clean a clean house is a Yorkie.
As night falls, the air gets thicker, and although Colin’s apartment is stuffy, it’s nice to hear the hustle and bustle of New York City—the traffic, the people—instead of a buzzing air conditioner. For dinner we order in Korean food and, afterward, lay on the couch in the dark—each of us at an end—split a bottle of wine, and tell stories. I tell Colin about rehab, the twins, Muppets and puppets, and he tells me more about Dublin, acting, and his family.
“No, no, no,” I say, as he’s telling me. “I want to know more about the ghosts of girlfriends past. I wanna hear some dirt.”
“Noooooo,” Colin says, laughing. “Absolutely not.”
“Okay, then how about the ghosts of girlfriends present?”
“I don’t have any girlfriends present.”
I roll my eyes. “Oh, give me a break. Your phone’s been ringing nonstop since Saks.” Just as I say this, the light of his cell phone glows yet again, signaling a call. Grinning, we both reach for it at the same time—I get to it first. While flipping through the calls he’s recently received, I read the names aloud. “Britney, Lacy, Mark, Amy, Chrissy, Alison.” I put the phone down. “That’s five women in the last few hours!”
“Those women are not my girlfriends,” Colin says defensively.
“Do they know that?”
“Of course they do! Listen, I’m no angel, but I’m no pig either. I don’t sleep with multiple women at the same time and I’ve never treated a woman with anything but respect.”
“So you don’t have a girlfriend, then?” I ask, doubting him.
Colin shakes his head. “Nope. I have a friend who’s a girl, but she’s not my girlfriend, and it’s basically over.”
“Why’s it over?” I ask curiously.
Colin shrugs. “It just wasn’t there.”
“What’s it? What are you looking for?”
He thinks about it. “I don’t have a list or anything. I just haven’t met that person that I want to hold a boom box up for yet.”
Boom box . . . “You mean like Lloyd Dobler? Say Anything . . . ?”
Colin nods, smiling, thinking of it. “Yep.”
“Great movie . . .”
“The best.”
In Say Anything . . . John Cusack plays Lloyd Dobler, a quirky guy who falls head-over-heels in love with a girl named Diane. When Diane breaks up with him, he’s so determined to get her back that he goes to her house and stands outside her window holding up a boom box blasting the song “In Your Eyes” by Peter Gabriel. He’s not just heartbroken, but positive that they’re meant to be together, so he goes back for her.
“You know that excuse . . . it’s not you, it’s me?” Colin asks.
I nod. I’ve used it and I’ve had it used on me.
“I say that a lot,” he continues, “when I break up with someone, but I don’t really mean it when I do. I’m not the reason my relationships end but neither are the women. It’s not me and it’s not them—it’s that we never had a we. There was no us. It’s hard to say what makes two people have that, because it’s something you can’t put into words. It’s a feeling. I know it’s only a movie, but I want the feeling that Lloyd had. He didn’t just want Diane, he needed her, so he did everything in his power to get her back.”
“My grandpa calls that the boom,” I say softly. “He says it’s different from love or lust; it’s deeper. It’s a feeling that hits you hard when you have a real connection with someone.”
“Exactly,” Colin says.
Remembering my mom’s message, I can’t help but wonder if thinking like this is crazy.
“Colin, do you ever think you’re being an idealist?” I ask. “Do you ever wonder if you’re holding out for something that doesn’t exist? I’m not being pessimistic, and although I’d like to believe that a boom or we or us exists, I’m not sure I do anymore.” I mean, maybe my mom’s right. Maybe I’ve been holding out for something that’s unrealistic.
“Of course it exists,” Colin says ardently. “But like I told you, it takes some of us longer to find it than others.”
As the two of us sit in silence, I think about Lloyd Dobler some more and then something suddenly dawns on me. I went looking for twenty guys, not one of which ever came looking for me. I can make fun of them all I want, like Wade or the twins, but the truth is that when I left, none of them called me or wrote me—let alone held up a boom box. No one really cared.
“What are ya thinking about?” Colin asks after a bit.
“Nothing,” I say quietly. I then look at him and smile.
“Who would’ve thought such a sweet-talking ladies’ man like yourself would be such a romantic.” Colin throws a pillow at me.
As the two of us sit in the dark and stare some more, Colin smokes a cigarette, which he says he normally doesn’t do. Usually I think smoking is gross, but there’s something sexy about Colin doing it tonight. Maybe it’s the way the orange embers light up his face as he takes a drag or the way the smoke hangs in the air, illuminated by the streetlight coming in through the window. I don’t know. It’s just such a sexy New York moment, something you might see in a magazine or in a movie, or, if you’re lucky, in person. It’s the heat, the smoke, the noise, the wine, the dog, the tins of half-eaten food lying on the table, the hula hoop in the corner, and the grittiness that makes this city so fabulous. I like Colin. I don’t know why I felt nervous about seeing him. For being so good-looking, he’s surprisingly unpretentious. He puts me at ease.
“Tell me about your accordion.” I ask when he finishes his cigarette.
“Okay, I will,” he says, “but you gotta come lie right here next to me while I do because I don’t want to talk about it loudly. I don’t want anyone to hear.”
Laughing, I get up and walk over to his side of the couch. When he scoots over, I lie down next to him and rest my head against his shoulder. Once we’re comfortable, he begins.
“Well, it’s about this big,” he whispers, holding his hands out a foot apart. “But it can get this big,” he adds, spreading them apart another foot. “And it’s got buttons on both sides.” He begins to move his hands wildly up and down.
“It doesn’t have a piano on one side?” I ask. I thought they all did.
“No, that’s a piano accordion,” he explains. “Mine is a button accordion. No piano—only buttons.”
I smile . . . got it. “What color is it?”
“Red.”
“How does it sound?”
“It goes bum ba ba, bum ba ba.” Colin says, doing his best accordion imitation. “Wanna hear a song?” I nod enthusiastically. After clearing his throat, Colin starts to play his fake accordion and sing. “Thaaanks for the time that you’ve given me. The memories are alllll in my mind . . .”
I smile; it’s a familiar song—“Three Times a Lady.”
“And nowww that we’ve commme to the ennnd of our rainbowww, there’s something I mussst say out loud. You’re once . . .”
“Once!” I add.
“Twice.”
“Twice!”
“TWENTY TIMES a laaaaaaaaddyyyyyy!”
Twenty times? I playfully swat his arm.
“And I lovvve youuu. I luh-huh-huvvv youuu!”
When Colin’s done with his rendition of “Three Times a Lady,” I can’t help but ask him what the song means. “To be three times a lady? Or twenty times?”
“Beats me,” he says. He then begins singing again. “That’s why I’m easy! Easy like Sunday morning . . .”
Laughing, I swat Colin’s arm again. “You’re such an asshole.”
I don’t remember falling asleep, but the next morning I wake up still lying on Colin’s couch. Sitting up, I look toward the kitchen and see him standing over the stove, spatula in hand. He’s wearing a T-shirt and boxer briefs again, like he was the day I came home from Roger’s. Eva is hovering around his feet, licking up spills and droppings—she’s a mop today. Hearing me rise, Colin turns around. His hair is messy again; his eyes are sleepy.
“Top o’ the mornin’ to ya!” he says in jest. He then motions to a small kitchen table. “Please, come sit yourself down.”
After standing up, I walk to the table and smile at what I see. On top of a placemat sits an empty plate, silverware, a glass of orange juice, and an empty beer bottle holding some kind of a leafy branch. “I pulled it off the tree outside the window,” Colin explains when I reach out to touch it. I smile. I can’t believe he made me breakfast; I’m impressed.
But then I get a whiff of what he’s cooking. I’m now nervous.
“What are you making?” I ask uneasily. Whatever it is, it’s a smell I’ve never smelled before.
“Oh, you’re gonna like it,” Colin says, as his grin widens. The look on his face resembles that of a little boy who’s just built a bottle rocket and is eager to test it out. “It’s a very special fry, but I can’t tell you what’s in it. In fact, you have to close your eyes when you eat it.”
“Close my eyes? Why?”
“Because it’s more fun to guess what’s in it than to actually look at what’s in it.”
“Is this one of those mixing-leftovers together kind of thing you were telling me about?” Colin nods. “Okay,” I sigh. I mean, how bad can it be? Sitting down, I close my eyes. “Bring it on.”
For the next half hour or so, I try my best to guess the magical ingredients of Colin’s fry. Aside from eggs, I taste pepperoni pizza, cheese, calamari, a cheeseburger (with bun), an onion, chicken tikka masala, and yes . . . an egg roll. While I am eating, Colin frequently takes the fork out of my hand to make sure I have a little bit of everything on each bite. He says doing this is necessary in order to fully appreciate what he’s created.
When I finish eating, I open my eyes, look down at the plate and jump. The multi-colored concoction looks frightening. “You’re s’posed to approach love and cooking with reckless abandon,” Colin says, attempting to explain.
“I’ve never heard that, but between the two of us, I think we’ve accomplished it.”
Colin laughs.
Looking back at the table, I can’t help but feel touched. Breakfast was just like the tasting at the Waldorf, except it was just for me. When I turn back to Colin, I glance down at his perfect pink lips and suddenly get the urge to kiss him. I really do. I just want to lean over and plant my lips on his.
But I can’t do that.
I can’t kiss the first guy who’s nice to me; I can’t kiss Colin. I need to take something away from all this. Besides, he knows my number, every woman’s magazine says that’s just bad news. I need to learn a lesson. My mom was right; I have an unrealistic idea about love. I get caught up in the moment too easily. New things are exciting. Colin is new. And I know guys like him. He’s a heartbreaker; I don’t care what he says. To allow myself to feel flattered by all of this would be a giant mistake. I’m not saying kissing him would end in sleeping with him, but if for some crazy reason it did—even down the line—he’d be just another number, just another name on my list. Easy come, easy go. I need to settle down; I need to back off.
When I look back up at Colin, I realize that he’s not smiling. When I once again glance down at his perfect pink lips, he moves slightly closer to me, and then losing all sense of reality I move slightly closer to him, and then—
We both slightly jump back when we hear knocking come from the hallway.
“What was that?” I ask Colin.
“Uh . . . it sounds like someone’s knocking on your door,” he guesses.
Standing up, I walk over to Colin’s door. I open it. Peeking my head out into the hallway, I see the back of a guy standing in front of my door, dressed casually in tan corduroys, a blue long-sleeved T-shirt, and flip-flops. I can’t tell who it is.
“Can I help you?” I ask. As soon as I do, before he turns around, I notice little holes in the elbows of his T-shirt.
Wait, holes in the elbows of his T-shirt? Could it be?
When the guy turns around, I’m shocked to see that it is.
“Hey,” Nate says warmly, Nate who was in jail, Nate my #1. His hair is still floppy and his cheeks are still flushed—he looks good. Holding flowers, he smiles and points to my door. “I’m sorry, I thought this was your apartment.”
“Uh . . . it is,” I say nervously, stepping into the hallway. I close Colin’s door behind me. “Uh . . . what are you doing here?” I’m shocked to see him; I honestly can’t believe my eyes.
“Well, I got your message and”—he walks over and hands me the flowers—”I was just wondering if you’d like t
o go to dinner tonight.”
“Dinner?” I let out a nervous breath I’ve been holding and smile. “That’d be great!”
I hear Colin’s door open and turn around to find him standing in the doorway, holding Eva. He gives Nate a once-over but doesn’t smile; he seems wary of him. I introduce the two of them. When Colin hears Nate’s name, he raises an eyebrow, no doubt realizing who he is: he’s the jailbird. After that, we all stare at one another uncomfortably for a few seconds.
“So, Delilah,” Nate eventually says, “how about I come back around eight?”
“Eight sounds great.”
“Perfect,” Nate replies, “I’ll see you then.” After leaning in and giving me a kiss on the cheek, he turns and walks down the stairs. As soon as Colin and I hear the front door of the building open and close, he turns to me.
“The jailbird?” he says pathetically. “You’re gonna go to dinner with the jailbird?”
“Hmmm . . . is it my imagination or did the Jimmys—who are police officers—mention something to me about you keeping their hands full?”
“That,” Colin says, holding his pointer in the air for emphasis, “has nothing to do with this situation right here.” He waits for me to respond, but I don’t say anything. “Delilah, did nothing I say yesterday register with you?”
“Yes it did, but you don’t understand—this is different. Nate was my first love. I’m not going to dinner with him because he’s one of the twenty and if things worked out between us my number wouldn’t go up, I’m going to dinner with him because he’s my first love and well . . . he came back for me! That has to mean something!” Suddenly remembering the way I felt when Nate and I first dated makes me giddy with excitement. I feel like a teenager again!
Colin shakes his head. “I’m sorry, I don’t mean to be negative,” he says, running his hand through his hair, “but I don’t have a good feeling about this guy. Call it Irish intuition.”
“There’s no such thing.”
“Sure there is,” he insists. “My mum and my sister both have it.”
“They have women’s intuition.”