“Go ahead,” he says, like he understands now that no call will dissuade me from this night with him. I stand under a building awning as Nick steps away to the curb to give me privacy, which I really don’t need, but I appreciate the gesture anyway, though I’m unsure where his good manners land him on the sexuality meter.
“Hi, Daddy,” I say into the phone.
Here I am at the crossroads of the world, with shining red-and-white neon lights and yellow taxis, humming with action and pulsing with music and people, danger and excitement, but hearing Dad’s voice, it’s like I am five years old again and he’s tucking his little princess into bed. “You okay, sweetheart? I’ve got a motley crew assembled here of two band guys and an inebriated Caroline, but no Norah.”
“I’m okay, Dad. Maybe I’m even great?”
“Are you going to tell me his name?”
“No.”
“Are you going to be home soon?”
“No.”
“Are you ever going to obey a command of mine again?”
“No.”
He sighs. “Please be careful.” I decide he’d probably rather not know I am standing in Times Square in the early hours of the morning with a boy I’ve only known for a few hours. “Mom and I will take care of Caroline. Mom’s making Thom and Scot scrambled eggs right now. Nice kids.”
“Dad?”
“Yeah?”
“I think I made a mistake turning down Brown.”
“No shit.”
“I don’t know what I’m going to do now. The Tal thing, you and Mom and Caroline were right, I can’t do that ever again. But now I don’t know what to do.”
“I’ll tell you what you can do. Go to Brown next year. Your old man took the card you posted turning down the admissions offer out of our mailbox after you left the house this morning. He replaced it with an acceptance and a deposit check.”
I should be grateful but I am indignant. “YOU HAD NO RIGHT! THAT IS LIKE A PERSONAL INVASION OF PRIVACY! AND IT’S A FEDERAL OFFENSE TO TAMPER WITH THE MAIL!”
Dad chuckles. “Too f**king bad. Don’t be home too late.” And he hangs up on me.
Maybe my dad is a f**kin’ corporate hippie, but I really love that old bastard.
I can’t think about what Dad did because the skies have suddenly opened up and it’s a hellacious downpour, but what is Nick doing? He’s dancing a jig at the curb, his arms outstretched, his face tilted upward to receive the splash. Joyful.
I don’t tell Nick my call is finished. I just watch him. A while ago when I looked at Nick, I felt inspired by the line from that Smiths song playing earlier at Camera Obscura where Morrissey sings about how what she asked of me / at the end of the day / Caligula would have blushed. I don’t know that I care anymore about piecing together whether Nick’s straight or g*y or somewhere in between. I’m thinking I would like to dance in the rain with this person. I would like to lie next to him in the dark and watch him breathe and watch him sleep and wonder what he’s dreaming about and not get an inferiority complex if the dreams aren’t about me.
I don’t know if Nick and I are going to be friends or lovers or if he’s going to be Will and I’m going to be Grace, which will be disappointing along with boring, but whatever Nick and I are going to be to each other, it can’t be—it won’t be—just a one-night-stand thing.
I know this.
17. NICK
Singing in the rain. I’m singing in the rain. And it’s such a f**king glorious feeling. An unexpected downpour and I am just giving myself into it. Because what the f**k else can you do? Run for cover? Shriek or curse? No—when the rain falls you just let it fall and you grin like a madman and you dance with it, because if you can make yourself happy in the rain then you’re doing pretty alright in life. As the first drops fall, she’s still on the phone and I’m watching her talk and she’s just the most amazingly complicated thing, trying on all these different expressions at once—yelling angry when she’s clearly happy, then pretending to be listening when she’s really watching me and the rain. Then she puts the phone back in Salvatore’s pocket and walks over to me. I don’t know why we say the sky is opening up when it rains—like the sky has been holding back all this time, and then this is its release. And I look at her and she looks at me and it’s like everything just opens up. I am feeling the raindrops drench my clothes. I am feeling the hair fall down in my eyes. But I’m also feeling this lightness and she is so f**king beautiful the way her mouth is uncertain about whether or not to smile. We are on the edge of Times Square with its beacon of lights and we are swaying as the sky is opening, and I reach out for her to be my dance partner and she accepts. So that leaves us on the sidewalk, my arm around her body. She presses close—is just staring at me—and even though I don’t know what the question is, I know the answer. So I say “This,” and I lean in and I kiss her right there on the edge of Times Square, the way people kiss good-bye on the street, only this is more like a hello. This.
I open my mouth and she opens my mouth and it’s like she’s breathing right through me. And her body is wet and it’s right against mine and I want, I want, I want. She pulls back to look at me and her eyes are laughing and her eyes are serious and I know exactly how she feels. It’s another question and I offer another answer, and this time her hand curves around the back of my neck and this time her body presses tighter and mine presses even tighter back. The people around us—not many, and certainly not many sober—are looking at us, and I can’t help but look around a little, and I get an idea. I tell her I have an idea and I take her hand in mine and we do that thing where you weave your fingers together, here is the church here is the steeple, and I lead her into Times Square and under the lights and past the marquees until we get to the Marquis. Suddenly she’s giving me this What the f**k? look, because what girl wants to end up at a tourist Marriott in Times Square? But I say “Trust me” and kiss her again and there are two other people in the glass elevator with us, but they get off at the eighth-floor lobby. I ask Norah what her lucky number is and she tells me, so we go to that floor. There is nobody in the halls and best of all there’s no hallway music playing, and I don’t see what I’m looking for and then I find it, but Norah can’t wait and she’s putting her hand under my collar and feeling the skin from my shoulder to my neck and that is so damn hot that I forget where we’re going for a second and I just make out with her right there in the hallway, out of sight of the atrium and the glass elevators, but still careful not to lean against any doors because that might wake up the tourists inside. Instead we press against the wall and she runs her hand down my chest then at my belt she goes right back up, only under the shirt, and her fingers feel so good there. And my fingers feel her shirt and her br**sts and we are both so damn soaked and so damn ready. We kiss for about five minutes more and she’s a damn good kisser. She kisses my upper lip and then kisses my lower lip and I echo her—kiss her upper lip, kiss her lower lip. Then she tries to do something with her tongue that doesn’t quite work but it doesn’t really matter because our hands are everywhere at once and I am so into it, and after she gives up on the tongue thing I can tell she’s relaxing a little more. She’s losing herself, and I love all the more that she’s not trying, she’s just doing.