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My sentimentality lasts until the elevator doors open at the lobby level. I’m moving in with a man who might one day accidentally leave our child at a baseball game.
“Key’s not working,” I tell the doorman.
He looks at me suspiciously. Yes, I’m a crazy woman who gets off by riding elevators with luggage. “Can I use your phone?” I ask. Despite its supposed roaming capabilities, my cell phone never works in New York.
Steve says that while most of New York has gone back to normal post 9/11, cell phone service hasn’t been the same.
Sometimes when I see a stranger on the subway, I wonder if anyone she knew or cared about was killed. No one Steve knew was in the towers. He had friends of friends of friends that were killed, but no one whom he knew personally.
He was asleep when the planes hit, heard the commotion outside and watched the burning from his roof. For the next two weeks, he needed to show identification every time he came home from work because his apartment is below Fourteenth Street, where the lockdown was. He told me that for the following two months, he kept a pair of sneakers beside his bed in case he needed to make a run for it.
My father was on a project in Montreal when it happened, which I didn’t know. I called his office, his cell phone, his home number but I couldn’t get through. I knew he worked in midtown, but I still wanted to hear his voice to hear he was okay.
He called me on September fifteenth.
The doorman nods reluctantly and waves me toward a rotary behind his desk. Who still uses rotaries? Thankfully, the other amenities in this building aren’t also from the 1950s.
The message on his cell phone clicks on right away, so I know he’s left it off. He always leaves it off. What exactly is the point in having a cell if it’s never on?
Why can I remember this seemingly innocuous idiosyncrasy and he can’t even remember to give me the right key?
I call the apartment in case Steve decides to call in from whatever nook of the city he’s hiding in.
“Hey, this is Steve and Greg. Leave a message.” Beep.
“Hello, Steven, it’s me. I’m standing in the lobby of your building. You gave me the wrong key. If you’re checking your messages, please come home. I’m going to wait at the Starbucks on the corner.”
When do I get to leave the announcement on the machine? Hi, you’ve reached the happy residence of Steve and Sunny. We’re very much in love and are too busy expressing our love (wink, wink) to come to the phone right now. Please leave your name and number, time you called, and maybe when we’re taking a break from all this exhausting loving (wink, wink) we’ll call you back.
Why hasn’t Steve taken Greg’s name off the machine? I guess he’s still paying the rent, but he’s never there. He’s not moving in with his fiancée until the first of November (that’s when he officially starts splitting her rent) but he’s been practically living there for the past four months. His room at Steve’s is empty except for his double futon. Steve also has a double futon. What is it with bachelors and their double futons? What is it with bachelors maintaining college-esque décor?
Not that I’m an interior designer, but their place looks like an abandoned warehouse. The living room could use a comfy, fluffy, non-cigarette burned couch, a TV stand, a coffee table, lots of throw pillows, some blankets, picture frames, candles, a plant or two and some funky posters. (The current décor consists of: Reservoir Dogs poster, a beer bottle collection, a Dennis Rodman–signed basketball on the television and a few sports magazines on the kitchen table and in the bathroom.) The kitchen could use some cutlery (due to no dishwasher, they prefer plastic disposables). The bedroom could use a queen-sized bed, inviting duvet, a dresser (belongings are supposed to go in piles on the floor?), a night table (alarm clock is often found under bed) and some candles and picture frames. And every wall in the apartment is thirsty for some color.
After years of living in my father’s sterile white-walled, minimalist decorated house, I prefer my living environments to be homey.
Greg deciding to move in with Elana, his fiancée, was the impetus for Steve asking me to move in with him. Steve said he’d lived with enough roommates. He had always figured that when Greg moved out he’d find his own place—he couldn’t afford to keep a two-bedroom on his own. But then it occurred to him that maybe I could move in and split the rent.
I give him the benefit of the doubt that his desire to move in with me is based on wanting our relationship to proceed to the next level and not because he’s cheap or too lazy to move.
I hang up the phone and turn back to the doorman. “Can you tell Steve to come get me next door when he’s back?” I consider leaving my suitcase behind the desk while I go for coffee, but what if he’s a pervert who wants to smell my underwear?
My suitcase bumps down the concrete stairs outside the building. My jacket is in my bag and I contemplate pulling it out, because the crisp wind is blowing straight through the light sweater I’m wearing. It’s only the end of September and it’s already freezing. Why couldn’t Steve have asked me to move in during the summer? What if I turn into an ice sculpture when the snow starts? I think I’m going to miss the ocean even more than I’m going to miss the perma-warmth. I’ve been a swimmer forever. I was the only girl in my bunk at Abina, the Adirondacks summer camp my father shipped me off to every July (he had gone there as a kid—he was from New York originally) who didn’t pretend I had my period every time we had swim instruction. I was also the only one who didn’t cry every time a nail broke. I still loved camp though. I got a job there as a junior lifeguard, and then eventually as a senior lifeguard, and then eventually as assistant head of swimming.
I should have been the head of swimming: I was a better lifeguard than the guy who was above me, but for some reason I hadn’t applied for the top position. The idea of being ultimately responsible for children’s lives was a little too scary for me. I liked knowing there was someone looking over my shoulder. In case I screwed up.
Where am I going to swim here? In the Hudson?
I’ll have to spend half of my first paycheck on winter appropriate clothes. After living with minor variations of one season, hot, I’m going to need a coat, scarf, hat, boots. Tomorrow might have to be a mall day. I hate malls. Today is an I-have-to-drag-my-suitcase-to-a-coffee-shop-because-I’m-lockedout-of-my-apartment day. I pull my suitcase down the last step and get mad about the key-thing all over again.
Do they even have malls here?
“Changed your mind already?”
Steve is standing on the sidewalk in front of the apartment building carrying a bag of groceries, a bottle of wine popping out the top. A lock of light brown hair has fallen over his right eye and into his wide smile, and he’s trying to shrug it away. He has a bit of a bowl cut, the kind that all the boys I went to grade school with had. When Dana met him, she told me he needed to see a stylist. I think it’s sweet. He has a dimple in each cheek. How can I be mad at a face like that?
“Had the locks changed already?” I ask. “I couldn’t get in.”
He pulls me into a hug, squishing my chest into the groceries. Then he starts humming “New York, New York” as he’s done on my voice mail every day since I agreed to move here. He waltzes me back up the stairs toward the entranceway. The top of my head reaches the bottom of his chin.
I laugh and try to get him to stay still. “What are you doing?”
“Celebrating.”
A woman trying to open the front door, which my suitcase happens to be blocking, glares at me. “Can we celebrate inside?” I ask him.
“Hey, Frank,” Steve says to the doorman in passing. After the elevator door closes, he pushes the grocery bag between us and kisses me gently on the lips. Then the kiss becomes harder and his tongue slips in and out of my mouth. I love the way he kisses me. His face is smooth and soft and freshly shaven. A trickle of dried blood is on his neck, from where he must have cut himself. It seems he can never use a razor without leaving a nick.
“Hey look,” he says pointing to the poster on the wall. “Let’s be dog walkers. Or let’s get a dog.”
“I’d love to get a dog, but I have a bad feeling about who’s going to have to remember to do all the feeding and all the walking.”
“No, Sun, I’d be great with a dog, I swear.”
“You can’t even remember to give me the right key. Go,” I say when we’re at seven.
“What’s wrong with the key I gave you?”
“Maybe someone gave me the wrong key?”
He seems to be mulling something over and then laughs. His green eyes turn to little moon slices and his mouth opens. He has great big white teeth. His laugh is loud and deep and waves through his body.
Another Steve-ism is coming, I bet. “Yes?”
“Guess who has a key to the restaurant?” he sings to the tune of “New York, New York.” He pulls me close for another hug.
“You gave me the extra key to the restaurant instead of the key to the apartment?”
He continues his made-up song, unlocks the door and tries to waltz me down the hallway and past Greg’s empty room.
I put on my mock-concerned face. “Does one of your waiters now have the key to our apartment?”
“Is that bad?” He cracks up and then says, “Our apartment, huh? Say that again.”
I’m concerned that I’m not more concerned. I kiss his neck. “Our apartment. Our room. Our fridge. Our phone. Our answering machine. When do I get to change the announcement on the machine? I want to leave the new message, okay?”
He puts the groceries on the kitchen table and tugs me the short distance to his bedroom.
I still can’t get over how small New York apartments are. My place was bigger than his, and his is a two-bedroom. His is also older. The appliances have a gray sheen. Or maybe that’s just dirt.
I hope he’s not thinking of touching me before he cleans his hands. “I want to wash up,” I say.
He follows me into the bathroom. “Yes, my little sex-pot.”
I pick up the half-dissolved bar of deodorant soap he uses for his hands, body, face and hair, which is wedged to the side of the bathtub. “We’re taking a trip to the pharmacy tomorrow to buy some supplies.” Like a non-corrosive facial soap. And shampoo and conditioner. I used to bring my own whenever I came to visit, but moving here entitles me to invest. As Steve lifts my hair and kisses the back of my neck, I notice that the soap scum around the sink has fermented into miniature statuettes. “We’re also going to invest in some sponges,” I add. “Do you have Comet?”
He bites my shoulder. “Let’s go into the bedroom and I’ll show you my comet.”
Tingles spread from my neck, to my stomach, down my legs. Mmm. “Bedtime already? And it’s not even eight o’clock.”
I follow him into the bedroom and onto the bed. His faded gray sheets, which I assume were once black, are crumpled in a ball with a long tail draping the floor. You’d think he’d make his bed for me, wouldn’t you? How long could it possibly take to straighten the sheets and throw on the comforter? Half a minute? I’m not talking hospital corners here. I don’t like immaculate, but I like tidy. He moves what I’m assuming are yesterday’s jeans, straddles my thighs, then pulls off his sweatshirt and T-shirt. I love touching his chest. The hairs feel soft and ticklish like blades of grass.
I push him down on the bed and undo his pants. I trace my way down his body with baby kisses. At his waist I add a little tongue for effect.
“Mmm,” he groans.
The woman across the street is loading her dishwasher. “I’m just closing the blinds,” I say. “Do you want to listen to music?” I press Play on the CD player. James Brown “I Got You” comes on.
“Let’s sixty-nine,” he says, pushing his pants off and onto the floor.
The thing is, I hate sixty-nine-ing. It’s not something I’d ever admit to Steve. What guy wants to hear that the girl who is about to move in with him hates a sexual position? That’s like a man telling a woman he never wants to get married. It’s not the oral sex part I don’t like. It’s the two-in-one action that bothers me. First, I can’t concentrate on what I’m doing. I’ve always prided myself on giving good head and I absolutely cannot concentrate on two things at once. Television and conversation, driving and cell phones, salad and pasta. I like my salad first, my pasta second. Why have them both on the plate at the same time? You end up with tomato sauce on your lettuce and noodles in your Thousand Island. It’s a mess. So I end up focusing on what he’s doing until he’s limp in my mouth or I concentrate on what I’m supposed to be doing, unable to compute what’s going on down there. It’s a waste, I tell you. A complete waste.
“I’m in the mood to do you,” I say. Is it possible for a woman to be in the mood for a blow job? Except, of course, for porn stars who crave them anytime, anywhere, pool, library or den.
Steve has the Hot ’n Sexy Channel, and I’ve become a porn connoisseur. A porn critic, actually. For instance, the shrieking woman is something else I find absurd. Why does the woman sound like her partner is yanking out her nails, while the man can’t even get out a simple grunt? I guess the lone male viewer prefers his action stars silent. This way he can pretend that the Brazilian-waxed blonde’s “Oh God!” and “Oh baby!” or my personal porn favorite, “Fuck me, big cock man, fuck me!” refers to him.
Since no guy in the history of mankind has ever turned down a blow job, Steve lies back.
“Your turn,” he says a song later, just in time, too, because my lips are starting to numb. He turns me over on my back and kisses his way down my body. Mmm.
Two songs later I’m moaning and wet and he looks at me. “Tell me what you want,” he says.
Steve always wants me to tell him what I want. I want him to stop asking.
“Sex?” I ask.
He thrusts himself inside me, sending waves of heat through my body. I squeeze his shoulders.
He pulls out of me and tries to make me orgasm with his hand. The song changes. The song changes again. His fingers must have lost feeling by now. “Does it feel good?” he asks.
“Yes, almost there,” I say. Why aren’t I orgasming? I hate when I can’t orgasm. I’m not sure what the problem is. He’s doing all the right moves. I’m certainly aroused—there’s a wet patch under me to prove it. But it’s as if I’m in a hurry and waiting for the subway—obviously when you have somewhere important to go, it’s not going to come. There’s some sort of jam at the last station, sorry, take the bus.
The look of concentration on Steve’s face is intense. Is this how he looked when he wrote his college exams? Maybe if I distract myself with thoughts of him studying, I can trick myself into forgetting that I want to orgasm and then I’ll orgasm. As soon as you climb upstairs to hail a cab, the subway speeds underground into your station.
Steve’s penis droops to the left.
“I’m coming!” I lie. I’ll come tomorrow.
The first time a guy put his hand down my pants, I came the instant his finger touched my clitoris. Since I thought this was abnormal, as no one had ever mentioned it in Seventeen, I didn’t shriek out one “Oh God” or “Oh baby” or even one “Fuck me, big cock man, fuck me!” and he kept at it until I was sore, and the whole time I was worried that the girl on the camp bunk bed above me could feel the frame shaking.
Unfortunately that party trick only worked once, my being able to come with just one touch. Now I have about a forty-percent success rate, which isn’t a bad rate. As long as it’s not your oncologist who’s doing the quoting.
“I love you,” he says and slides back inside me.
“How much do you love me?” I ask him later, tracing the letters I L-O-V-E Y-O-U on his back. He doesn’t know what I’m spelling, because I’m using the cryptic Palm Pilot alphabet, Graffiti. I even draw the underscore it makes you use to create a space between words. Sometimes I give the letters extra swirls at the end to confuse him in case he’s catching on. Not that he’s ever used a Palm Pilot. L-O-V-E M-E, I write next.
“Who said I love you?” he asks.
“Fuck you.”
“Again? Can’t we eat first?” He pushes his groin into my thigh.
“You’re not going to change your mind, right?”
“I can change my mind?”
I slap him on the back. “Once I move here, it’s over. You’re going to have to love me forever.”
He bites my earlobe. “Forever?”
“I’m serious, Steve.”
“You’re always serious.”
“It’s a serious thing. I’m about to quit my job and move to a strange city to be with you.”
“You think NewYork is strange?” He pulls himself up. Our skins make a slurping sound as we separate. “Let me tell you about strange. Did I tell you that someone asked me for a French fry yesterday? I was in Washington Square Park minding my own business, eating some fries, reading my book—” he points to The Tommyknockers, the Stephen King novel lying on his floor “—when some guy comes up to me and asks if he can have one.”
“We were being serious here, Steve.”
“He was being serious.”
I picture him waltzing me down a hospital corridor an hour after I have a miscarriage, offering fries to the orderlies. At least he’d make me laugh. “So what did you do?”
“I gave him a fry. And some ketchup.” He moves to the edge of the bed and tugs his boxers back on. “I’m going to make my chicken stir-fry, okay?”
I love his chicken stir-fry. He tosses random ingredients in the wok and it somehow ends up tasting gourmet. “What should I do?”
“You come tell me about your day.” He takes my clothes from my hands. “But you have to stay naked.”
“All weekend?”
“Buck naked.”
“Should I go to my interviews naked?”
“Definitely. Isn’t it a man who’s interviewing you?”
“One man, one woman. At nine and four. I’m not sure if they’d get the joke.”
