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 f**king 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 f**k up many things in this whatever-we-have-here, but that, I will never do.
“Uh, thank you?” Nick whispers back.
I’m probably wading close to stalker territory again, so I decide to shut up. Then he leans over and places his hand around the back of my neck and pulls me to him to kiss me again. It’s amazing how often captives start to associate with their captors. And I try the tongue thing again, the yin, the yang, the sucking and pulling, and this time he finds my frenulum all on his own, and check us out, we’re starting to find our rhythm with this. My chakras feel very, very open and Jessie’s windows are looking very, very steamed.
But I pull away because if we don’t stop this already, we’ll never get home. “Tell you what, Nick,” I say. “You keep trying to coax a start out of Jessie, and I’ll go into the Korean grocery and see if anyone in there can help us.”
I step outside the car and some bum is singing “Ride Like the Wind” against a wall and I give him my very last buck to stop. I go inside the store, where I’m supposed to be finding someone to help us with jumper cables, but I’m really standing around debating whether to just call Dad—or better yet, Dad’s assistant—and ask for a call to be placed to a car service to come get us; that method has gotten Caroline and me home on many occasions. With one phone call, I could make this so easy for me and Nick. And if I’m not placing that call as I stand here with my teeth chattering in the freezer section, I’m not sure if it’s because I don’t want Nick to think I’m a princess or because I am trying to buy more time with him.
Nick asked for my phone number, but he never said when he was going to call me. We’ve only known each other a few hours, yet we’ve, um, gotten to know each other pretty well I’d say, so I would hope it would at least be implied that we’re going to see each other again soon, but he never said when. And I don’t like waiting to find out.
I pull my phone from Salvatore’s pocket and review the call log. I see Nick’s number. I debate whether to assign a name to his number. If I commit to that, then I will truly be heartbroken if he never calls me again; my heart will knot each and every time I use this phone and see his name in there. I would probably end up having to trash the phone entirely. Then I hear the song on the radio at the counter and it’s Dad’s beloved ol’ Alanis and I think how in one night Nick inspired what Dad calls my “Norah-as-Alanis teenage transformations,” in which Dad says I am capable of instantly converting from raging wildcat “You Oughta Know” Alanis into tender pu**ycat “Thank U” Alanis, and I decide to program Nick into my phone anyway, despite my misgivings. I consider assigning his number the name NoMo, but suspect that would really piss him off. Salvatore’s babydaddy would take too long to get in there. So I just key in Nick. So simple. So sweet. And I call him.
“Did you find anyone in there with jumper cables?” he asks, hopeful.
“Didn’t ask anyone yet. So, like, if you’re going to call me, can you let me know when that would be?”
“You’re not leaving me room for the element of surprise.”
“I hate surprises.”
“I don’t believe you.”
“Listen,” I say, serious. “Did Tris ever do that thing with you where she called you from the backseat of your car while you were driving her? Cuz she learned that one from me. That bitch isn’t always the teacher, you know.”
“Tris who?” he says, and hangs up on me. I am glad I programmed his name for keeps.
I hope Nick has money on him because I am truly using the very last of my dough now, paying in quarters and dimes and pennies for another bag of stale Oreos, and as I shove the coins to the counter person, I shout, for all in the store to hear, “DOES ANYONE FUCKING HAVE A CAR WITH JUMPER CABLES IN HERE OR WHAT?”
No response. Hey, I gave it my best shot. Before I return to the car, though, I listen to the voice mail Caroline left earlier in the night. She must have called during her post-heave stage just before she went to bed, because her voice is all cuddly and happy. “Norah? Norah Norah Norah,” she sings in a whisper, like a lullaby. “Thom and Scot said you’re on a date with their friend! That Nick guy was cute, even if he did wear ugly shoes. And you must really like him if you’re not answering this call, because I know you, and I know you know I am calling you. And I guess all I want to say to you is, you’re always taking care of me and even though it was kinda weird to wake up in a dark van with two strange guys in the parking lot of some f**king 7-Eleven, I’m also glad you’re taking care of yourself instead of me for once. And I hope you’re having a great time, I really do. And tomorrow afternoon when I am hung over and cursing you out for abandoning me, you just play me back this message, okay, bitch? Love you.” I smile. And save the message.
I go back to Jessie. “Sorry, fella,” I tell Nick when I get back into the car. I offer him a stale Oreo.
“I hate Oreos,” he says, and now it’s my turn to say, “I’m gonna pretend I never heard that.”
Nick steps out of Jessie to open the hood. While he’s inspecting the engine, I inspect the notebook of CDs laying on the floor. There’s the usual suspects in there, Green Day and The Clash and The Smiths, yeah, but there’s also Ella and Frank, even Dino, some Curtis Mayfield and Minor Threat and Dusty Springfield and Belle & Sebastian, and as I flip through his musical life, getting to know him through his tastes, I must acknowledge that not only am I not frigid, but I also may be multi-orgasmic. This Nick guy may never call me again after all, but he’s my f**king musical soulmate. I take his portable boom box from the backseat and program a wake-up jam.