re-visit

When I walked into the hotel room, the party was still going full-force. I was exhausted and at least six drinks behind.

“Yeah, you look like you’ve been on a bus for seven hours,” was the first thing that he said to me, but a few minutes later, when he patted the floor and I sat down beside him, everything was easy, comfortable.

I’d known him forever: A weekend spent at a friend’s parents’ house in Texas sophomore year of college. . . A situation requiring an extra car on the return trip. . . Six hours in the passenger’s seat of a Suburban neither of us owned. . . Sunday nights with Jules watching cartoons on his sofa. . . And of course the few months I spent hooking up with his room mate.

A birthday message had re-opened the dialogue, and it gained momentum until we were talking every day-- John procrastinating writing business school papers and me staying in to enforce my no-making-out resolution. The internet makes it easy-- the facelessness of it makes it easy to tell everything, and the two of us needed no time to catch up.

We stretched out on the floor that night, and whispered before the wedding ceremony started the next afternoon. I ate the tiny zucchini off his plate at the reception, and we wandered off alone to eat cake. His arm kept falling around my waist, and I can’t say I minded. The party didn’t stop-- there was drinking back at the hotel and decorating the bride and groom’s car. He was wasted. But, somehow, at 4 a.m., I was sober. Very, very sober.

At the end of the night (rather the early, early morning), I climbed into the giant bed between John and Jay. And in the morning I woke up between them, before them. I didn’t touch John on the hand or on the chest or at all, so I don’t know what it would have felt like. And we, sluggishly, went to the send-off brunch. I ate the orange slice off his plate, and he had to go to the airport, and I’ll probably never know what it would have felt like.


~beatrix

just saturday

I had things to do when I left Gyan’s Saturday morning, but not urgent things.

So while I’m lounging around in bed, I get a message from Christophe:

“Hi, Beatrix. Can we talk? I don't want you to be upset with me. I'm sorry.”

In a way I’m flattered that he thinks I’m such a prude that I’d be offended by his grampa cheek-kiss. I wonder what he’d think of me if he had any idea what happened last night at Gyan’s.

And then I feel terribly guilty. Cooper reassured me that it was better to just let him think it was the kiss, to let him have a reason so he could just move on. But I don’t want to scar the boy into never kissing a girl on the cheek again.

I don’t know what to do, but I do what I always do when things are hard: think about something else. I meet up with my boss, run an errand at the Plaza, talk to a boy and set up a date for Sunday, and go to Barnes and Noble to sit on the floor with Pete.

Pete would be a recurring peripheral character on the Harper and Beatrix Show. As I’m having trouble with a desperate and needy boy, Pete’s being one. I read a few million lines of a chat he had with some girls he’s crazy over and try to tell him gently that he needs to calm down a little and not scare the girl away.

He knows, though, and the conversation turns to more Overheard-in-New-York-worthy topics. Pete once slept with a girl on a first date after they played hangman. And, unsolicited, he’s trying to help his pretty friend make extra money by hiring her out as a wingwoman. His Craigslist ad is brilliant, and has already gotten two responses. I’m laughing so hard, I seriously hope other people are enjoying this conversation.

“You want cookies?” he asks me.

We have some pre-dessert dumplings, then head to Milk Bar. I’m not feeling great, so he won’t let me touch the cookies we get. Instead he breaks them all and gives me halves.

“You realize the kind of relationship it looks like we have, don’t you?”

Before I go in the subway, he asks me when my next date is.

“Tomorrow at 12. No plan-- I’m just supposed to meet him in Union Square. The real question is should I go hungry or full?”

He assures me that there will be food since the date is at prime brunch time, but advises me to eat something small (he suggests a yogurt) before I go.

~beatrix

who is that girl?

I’m not sure I’ll ever feel like a real New Yorker, even if I live here forever. I’m not sure I’ll ever really look like a New Yorker, either. I’m convinced that’s why people ask me for directions so often-- because I don’t look like I belong; I look nice. But I’ve been here for a little over a year and a half, and fewer strangers are asking for directions. As when someone guesses that I’m from Connecticut (you’d wonder how if you ever heard me), I don’t know whether to be flattered or offended.

I was waiting for a staff elevator at the Carlyle early Saturday afternoon. The back elevators at hotels take forever because there’s a constant stream of maids and food and suit-clad ladies with Slatkin candles and, in this case, furniture, flowing up and down at all times. I was standing there with a driver (less glamorous than it sounds) who was wearing jeans and a hoodie-- the sort that says the name of a place and then XXL or something.

I was wearing knee boots, tights, a t shirt, a stretchy dress, this long stretchy cardigan thing, a ratty scarf, approximately three, small, tangly necklaces, and my white coat. Having fallen asleep on Pete’s sofa the night before (he lives in Brooklyn and it is really far to go home), it was the comfortable outfit I’d chosen for a busy Friday at work. My hair was in a messy ponytail, and was, quite honestly, a little dirty. I wasn’t wearing any makeup. And, I think this is the real kicker, having fallen asleep on Pete’s sofa the night before (I really like his t.v.), I’d slept in my contacts and had disgusting, red, puffy eyes that hurt in the light and necessitated wearing the enormous purple sunglasses I’d found in my bag.

This is New York, and there’s a fine line, but I couldn’t tell if I was dressed more like an Olsen or an actual bag lady. And, walking through the basement of the Carlyle and out the service entrance, I was hoping that the staff was thinking, “I wonder who that is?” and not “I wonder how she got in?”


~beatrix