Authors: Elisa Lorello
Devin peered at his watch in the dimness of the room, then moved in close to me, pulling my towel tighter, encasing me in its safety like a cocoon.
"I think we're done for the day," he said, standing before me, looking into my eyes and transfixing me.
I gave him a ditzy nod. "Okay." I gazed some more before asking, "What time is it?"
"A little after ten."
"Mmmmmmm."
Kiss me.
"It's getting late," he said.
"Yeah."
KISS ME!!!
"Wanna stay over?"
"Okay."
Please?
He left the room and came back with a folded black t-shirt. "Here," he said, and tossed it to me; being that I was practically straight-jacketed in the towel, it carelessly bounced off my bound arm and fell to the floor without making a sound. Then he said, "I'll take the couch."
The words hit me in the head, jarring me back to consciousness. The
couch
?
"You sure?" I asked, trying to hide both my disappointment and confusion. Had he not just asked me to spend the night with him? Were we twelve? Was he going to make popcorn so we could stay up all night and watch Duran Duran videos?
"It's no problem."
I silently finished drying off and put on the t-shirt while he changed the linens on his bed. Then I went to the bed and crept under the covers. Like the towels, the sheets were magnificently soft.
"Devin?"
"Yeah?"
"Why did you ask me to stay over?"
"You were too blissed out to take the train home at this time of night. I didn't want anything to happen to you."
"Oh." I didn't know whether to appreciate his thoughtfulness or be annoyed at his misleading behavior.
"G'night, Andi. Sleep well."
"Thanks. You too." Before he could leave, I called out to him again.
"Hey Dev?"
"Yeah?"
"Thank you for this. For cancelling your client tonight, I mean. That must have cost you some money."
His face softened into one of satisfaction. "G'night," he said again.
He turned out the light, and I inhaled the scent of him on the sheets and the t-shirt until I had no choice but to succumb to slumber.
Chapter Ten
I
AWOKE THE NEXT MORNING TO THE SHRILL SIREN OF a fire engine racing down the block, and had a momentary lapse of amnesia. One whiff of the sheets brought me back, however, and I sat up in bed, looking around the room. The walls were painted sage green and looked different in sunlight as opposed to the shadowy dimness of the previous night. Brighter. Classy. A lithograph of an etched landscape hung on the wall opposite the bed, and I had a sudden desire to jump through it and enter its world, just as Julie Andrews and Dick Van Dyke and the kids had done in
Mary Poppins
.
In contrast to the commotion of the city, even at--what time was it, anyway?--the apartment was eerily still and silent. I turned and looked at the clock on the nightstand to my right. 9:14.
Where was Devin?
The bedroom was partitioned off from the rest of the loft. I leaned as far over the edge of the bed as I could to see if he was in the livingroom, when I lost my balance and fell off, banging my elbow.
Shit!
I pulled myself up quickly, expecting Devin to respond to the thud, race in, and find me tangled in bed sheets on the floor. But the place resumed its idleness following my noisy tumble. Still wearing his t-shirt, I tentatively wandered out like a skittish cat, calling out once, "Devin?" and hearing only the scant echo of his name. I felt as if I had infiltrated an art gallery before its opening, as if I was somewhere I shouldn't be.
The bathroom door was open, the snuffed-out votives still in their places. The sofa showed no evidence of having been slept on. No rumpled sheets or pillows with cranium-shaped indentations in them. I checked all counters and tabletops for a note. Nothing.
He's not here.
I sat on the sofa for about ten minutes, completely stymied, staring at the door, practically willing him to enter.
Why would he just leave me here? Was he coming back?
My mind searched for an explanation: Maybe he had an early morning client. Maybe his leaving me to fend for myself was part of his instruction. Maybe he was off teaching some other repressed yutz to be a better lover; maybe he'd branched off in a side business, thanks to me. Maybe he was out buying new votive candles. Or maybe he was buying food so he could cook me breakfast when he got back. That would be nice.
Another five minutes of deadened silence passed. The door remained closed, locked. What was I supposed to do? Wait for him? For how much longer?
I stood up.
"Screw this."
I went to the bathroom. There were new towels just as neatly folded as the night before. Travel-sized soaps and deodorant, shampoo bottles with top of the line brand names, and a new toothbrush sat on the sink counter next to the towels. But no note. In the bedroom, my clothes were folded perfectly on the chair beside the bed, which meant that he'd been in the room at some point while I was asleep, because I'd left them in a heap on the bathroom floor the night before. And still no note.
I changed and contemplated on whether to take his t-shirt with me. I should wash it, I thought. But would I give it back?
I crumpled the shirt into a ball and tried to shove it into my purse. It bulged and burst out the top. Just as I headed for the door, it opened and Devin walked in, juggling two tall coffee cups and a paper bag.
"Hey!" he said, sounding surprised to see me. As he looked me up and down, hyperawareness of my matted and mussed hair and my blotchy face kicked in.
"You're leaving?" he asked. "I got bagels for us."
"Did you have a layover in Cleveland or something?"
He laughed. "There's a great place six blocks up with a line out the door. It's worth the wait, though, you'll see." He plopped the bag on the kitchen island, placing the cups more slowly. "I got you a chai latte and a half-dozen bagels--plain, pumpernickel, multigrain, an everything for me..."
So, this was breakfast with Devin.
My voice was MIA.
"You sleep okay?" he asked.
"Yeah, it was fine."
"Good."
"How 'bout you?" I asked.
"Fine." He smiled and his eyes sparkled. He took two blue ceramic plates from a shelf above the sink and put them on the island, then held the bag open for me. "So? Take your pick."
"Um, I gotta go."
His smile vanished and the sparkles in his eyes extinguished. "How come? There's no rush. I don't have to work until tonight."
"I've got an orientation planning meeting that I'm gonna be late for if I don't get a move-on," I lied. "I still gotta shower and change."
"You can shower here, ya know. I left everything out for you."
"Yeah, I saw that. Thanks, but I still need to change and get my briefcase."
"You don't even have time to sit and eat?"
I shook my head.
Clearly disappointed, he looked down at the empty plate designated for me.
"I guess I shouldn't have let you sleep late. Well, at least take a bagel with you for the road."
"Thanks," I said, taking a plain bagel and half of the pile of napkins he grabbed from the store.
"Cream cheese? Butter?"
"Plain is fine."
He then pushed one of the cups toward me. "Don't forget your chai."
"Thanks."
We stood on opposite sides of the island, looking at each other as if playing a game of "chicken."
"Well," I started (I knew I'd lose), "thanks again for last night, and for letting me stay over."
"You're welcome." He then noticed the t-shirt ball spilling out of my purse.
"Oh, did you want your shirt back? I was gonna wash it for you."
"No need."
Disappointed, I pulled the ball out as it uncrumpled, and quickly scanned for a place to put it. Devin extended his hand. "I got it," he said.
Reluctantly, I let go of it.
"Well," I said, "I'm late."
"Okay. Well, see ya."
"Yeah, okay."
We walked to the door, and he opened and held it for me. Just as I was about to leave, bagel and chai in tow, he leaned in and pecked me on the cheek; the gesture startled me so much I nearly jerked back to dodge it.
"See ya," he said again.
I practically ran to the subway until I stopped.
"Wait a minute...what am I doing?" I said out loud--I'd managed to convince
myself
that I really had a meeting to go to, when I'd actually had nothing planned for the day.
On the platform, caught in a wild pack of commuters rushing the open train doors and another wild pack trying to get off the train, my bagel was knocked out of my hand and rolled carelessly onto the tracks, no doubt to be consumed by the rodents below. By the time the train reached Penn Station, I was completely dejected. Before boarding the LIRR, I threw out the cup of chai latte; it was still more than half-full.
Chapter Eleven
"I
DON'T GET IT," MAGGIE SAID AS SHE DUMPED HER third packet of Sweet'N Low into her iced coffee. "Why'd you leave?"
Maggie and I sat in a booth at the Empress Diner off
Wantagh Parkway
. I'd called her as the train left Penn Station and had asked her to meet me there for lunch. I needed a friend.
"I don't know. I just had to get out of there. I couldn't take it anymore."
"Couldn't take what?"
"The disappointment. First he reels me in with this super-sexy bathtub date, then he invites me to spend the night, but sleeps on the sofa. Then, I wake up and he's not even in the apartment. And then he comes back with a bag of
bagels
--not
breakfast
, mind you, but take-out food. Hell, I can walk down the street and get one myself."
"What were you expecting, a buffet? Really, Andi, I think you're being too hard on him. How do you know he wasn't gonna fix it up nice and serve it to you in bed?"
She had a point. I didn't know.
"Besides, this was all part of the instruction, wasn't it? It wasn't supposed to be an actual date. And he didn't have to invite you to stay. He could've just let you go wander in the street last night, on your little endorphin high. If you ask me, I'd say he gave you quite a bit of consideration."
She had a point there, too.
"Then why does he keep stopping short?" I asked. "I mean, if he goes to such great lengths to spend time with me or take care of me, then why doesn't he go all the way?"
It was a good question, I thought. He didn't go all the way with his clients, either. Why?
"Why don't
you
?" she asked. "You've had just as many opportunities to kiss him, haven't you?"
Damn, she was getting base hits all over the place.
"I can't," I said.
"Why not?"
"I don't know." That was the truth. Something stopped me every time. Maybe it was a fear of rejection. Maybe it was the damn contract. Whatever it was, it was starting to annoy me.
"Look, if you're this upset about it, then maybe you ought to tell him. Or stop the whole arrangement."
If I told him that I had wanted, hoped for more the night before, then I'd have to admit that I had feelings for him, and I had no intention of going there. For one thing, it would be yet another violation of our contract. For another, I feared he'd tell me that I was a fool for getting sucked into an illusion. Lord knows that even after all this time, I still felt the sting of Andrew's rejection and the humiliation of falsely hoping that I (or he) was worth waiting for.
No, my only option was to fake it, play it cool, pretend like I wanted and needed nothing more, not even the bagel, to walk out feeling satisfied. Little did I know that when it came to Devin, I fooled no one, least of all, him.
***
Later that afternoon, he called me.
"Just wanted to make sure you got to your meeting on time," he said.
"Oh, yeah. It was fine." I felt guilty about prolonging the lie. "I really am sorry about rushing out the way I did this morning."
"No problem."
I paused for a beat. "So hey, you wanna come out here tonight to watch the game or a DVD or something?"
Where did that come from?
Devin, without missing a beat, responded, "Can't. Got a client tonight, remember? How 'bout tomorrow afternoon? We can catch a matinee. Is the Shore Theatre in HuntingtonVillage still around?"
"I think so."
"Great, then let's do that. Geez, I haven't been there in ages."
"Me neither," I said.
I waited for him to say, "It's a date." But instead, he said, "You know, I tried to read that Plato stuff again after you left."
A goofy grin escaped from me at that moment; you'd think he said,
you know, I've been thinking about you all day
.
"And?"
"And I still don't get it."
"Then read it again."
"Can't I just get the Cliff Notes?"
I laughed. "Man, are you out of touch. These days the students use 'Spark Notes,' and they're all online. And I don't think they have 'em for
Phaedrus
."
"Well, they should."
We chatted for a few more minutes about getting through most of Shakespeare and Homer in high school thanks to Cliff Notes, and concluded with my agreeing to pick him up at the Hicksville station the next day.
After we got off the phone, I went to my computer, opened up Google, and typed in "sparknotes" followed by a Search of "Phaedrus." It produced ten hits. Surprised, I perused them and considered printing them out for Devin. Nah, I thought. Let him figure it out by himself.
Chapter Twelve
I
WAITED FOR DEVIN ON THE PLATFORM AT THE Hicksville Station, and together we got into my blue Corolla and drove to downtown Huntington, which had become as crowded as any Manhattan street, while bars, pizza places, Greek restaurants, coffeeshops, law offices, specialty stores and apparel boutiques lined Main and Wall Streets and New York Avenue. The Shore Theatre, on the corner of Wall Street at the center of town, was the gathering place for my friends and me throughout our teens on Friday and Saturday nights. Once home to four dingy theatres, the Shore had done an extreme makeover after a fire destroyed part of it. The renovations included new theatres, stadium seating, state-of-the-art sound systems, and a new name, the Shore Multiplex, now owned by some cinema corporation.