Chapter 15 - Chelsea
We walk down the street together. It reminds me of my very first date, at the town carnival, when I was a freshman in high school. Ryan, the boy who asked me to go with him, and I wandered around awkwardly, not sure how close together we should be.
A man comes towards us on the sidewalk. For a few seconds we all do this little three-way dance where he’s unsure whether to walk between us, or around us, while Scott and I step back and forth awkwardly, trying to make room for him. Finally, we bump into each other. The man continues on his way. We both laugh, but that fades to an uncomfortable silence quickly.
“Henry’s End is really something,” Scott says. “They’ve been here forever too. They have a crazy menu. They once had lion on it.”
“Lion?”
“Farmed lion.”
“Well, wow.”
We go past Fascati’s Pizza and I sniff deeply. Scott laughs.
“Are you hooked?”
“Definitely.”
“Maybe we should just get a pizza then.”
I stop and turn towards him.
“If you want—”
“I’m kidding. I got a reservation.” He looks at his phone. “We have time for a glass of wine at the wine bar, if you want.”
The wine bar is hopping. Scott points out a chalkboard on the wall with a couple of wines listed on it.
“They’ll open any bottle if you buy two glasses. If the bottles aren’t finished, they end up there.”
“We can google it.”
I pull out my phone. I know nothing about wine. The wine menu is enormous, and the prices are unbelievable. Scott grabs my hand.
“No googling. That’s part of the fun. Red or white?”
“Red.”
“Why red?”
“I don’t know.”
The vibe of the place is contagious. Everyone is talking loudly and clearly having a good time. When the wine comes—it’s delicious—I finally start to relax.
Scott pulls out his phone.
“Hey, I thought you said no googling.”
“I’m checking the weather.” He holds out his phone to me. “Saturday looks nice.”
“Saturday?”
“I thought we’d go to the Statue of Liberty, and Ellis Island, if you want.”
“Oh,” I say. “That would be fun.”
“So, it’s a date?”
Is it?I think.
“Thank you for offering to take me.”
He smiles.
“It will be fun. I haven’t been there since I was a kid.”
“Me neither!”
Scott gets a text when our table is ready, and we walk a couple of doors down the street to the restaurant. Everything about it is tiny, except the ceilings which are really high. We are seated at a table for two along the wall.
“Should we have some more wine? Should we get a bottle?”
“Definitely not a bottle.”
I’m already a little buzzed.
“Do you want a white? Something lighter?”
“You pick. I trust you.”
I study the menu while he looks at the wine list. When the waiter sidles off—seriously you can barely move in here, and I thought the coffee shop was tight—I plaster a fake frown on my face.
“What?”
“What what?”
“You’re not happy with the menu?”
“No lion.”
He laughs.
“They have wild boar though.” He taps my menu, leaning closer. His hair falls into his face and I resist the urge to push it back behind his ear for him. “Are you up for it?”
“I would. I’m just not in the mood for it.”
“Weirdest thing you’ve ever eaten?”
I have to think about it. We eat venison back home, but it’s not really a big deal.
“My mom makes Brunswick stew. She uses chicken but the cookbook actually says squirrel.”
“Oh.”
It’s hard to tell in the dim light, but I think Scott actually turns a little green.
“Sorry. I guess talking about eating rodents isn’t…that appetizing.”
He shakes his head.
“No rodent talk. What do you like on the menu?”
“No boar for me, not tonight anyway.”
We decide to split a goat cheese appetizer.
“In the fall they do a game tasting menu,” Scott says. “It’s a lot of fun. You get, like, seven things.”
The food is all delicious. We trade tastes of our entrees. I get sole with lobster. Him, Steak Diane. He puts the first piece he slices off onto my plate. When the beef hits my tongue, it practically melts. I let out a little moan in spite of myself.
“I guess you like it.”
He’s grinning.
“That’s amazing.”
“There is a lot of good food in New York. There is a Georgian restaurant on the upper west side—”
“Oh, we have a place that serves Texas and Kansas City and St. Louis ribs in my town. I never heard of Georgian though.” Scott makes a little face that I don’t know the meaning of. “What?”
“Georgia the country,” he says quietly.
“Oh.”
God, I’m stupid. I really am a country bumpkin. When I dreamed about coming to New York I never knew how obvious it would be that I don’t belong here.
“And there are some really great steak houses. You’ve got to go to Peter Luger’s. I take my parents a couple of times a year. The first time was when I sold the first property I flipped. It’s kind of our tradition. You should come next time we go.”
Thank you,I try to tell him with my eyes. It’s like he knows when I feel awkward and tries to smooth it over. He really is just the nicest guy.
“Well, that’s a family thing,” I say.
What I mean is ‘I won’t fit in.’
“Nonsense,” he says. “We’re a team now. When we sell the units you designed, you are coming with.”
He frowns and reaches down, pulling out his phone. He taps at it, then looks at me.
“It’s Ken.”
“Calling?”
“Text.”
He taps the phone again and then slowly turns it around.
Show is approved. Documents from legal to follow. Congratulations.
I read all the words, then go back and read them again, slowly, to be sure.
“We got the show?”
I can barely get the words out. I can barely breathe. Scott nods and puts his phone away.
“Looks like it.”
I can’t believe he’s being so nonchalant about it. Then a big smile spreads across his face. Oh, the big faker. I’m not angry though. I’m way too thrilled to be angry.
“We got it,” I whisper shriek.
“We did,” he says back.
I want to get up and scream and jump up and down. I can tell he wants to also. If we did that we’d probably knock into the adjacent tables. We settle for grabbing hands across the table and waving them in the air.
“We have to celebrate. Should we get champagne?”
I want to celebrate, I do, but I am so full, and already buzzed and I still have some wine left.
“I kind of have to go into work tomorrow,” I say. “I can’t leave them in the lurch.”
He nods.
“We have to do something though, this is big,” he says. “They have great desserts.”
“Oh, I am so full.”
“No problem,” he says. “We’ll get it to go.”
We decide on a mud pie. It’s in a small glass bowl.
“They let you take that with you?”
I’m surprised, but Scott just shrugs.
“I’m local, I’ll bring it back in a couple of days or the next time I, we, come.”
“Oh, well, we don’t have to do this again anytime soon.”
“Didn’t you like it?”
“Are you kidding? The food was amazing.”
It was just unbelievably expensive. I can’t keep letting him pick up the tab. And I can’t afford it. Maybe when I have some show money coming in…
“Oh.”
“Tell you what,” I say. “When we…air the last episode we’ll come back. Except next time it will be my treat.”
“Okay.”
He sounds perfectly agreeable, but somehow the light is gone from his eyes.
“What’s wrong?”
“What? Nothing.”
He pays the check, and we leave. The walk back to Remsen is just as awkward as the walk to the restaurant, but in a different way. Before I was nervous. Now I get the sense something is wrong. I can’t imagine what though.
At the brownstone he shoves the bag with the mudpie at me and I accept it automatically.
“I’ll let you know what I get from the network. We’ll probably have to sign a contract. I’ll have my lawyer go over it. If you want to get your own lawyer—”
“No, I trust you.”
“Okay.”
He starts up the stairs to his own door.
“Scott?”
He turns.
“Yes?”
I hold up the bag.
“Don’t you want some dessert?”
I want him to come in and sit with me at my tiny island—or upstairs at his giant one. We can dig our spoons in together, occasionally colliding. Is he a chocolate fiend like me? Will he fight me for the last bite, or will he let me have it? Will he let me have it even if he really wants it? I want to know, kind of desperately.
He pats his stomach.
“I am really full. No rush on getting the bowl back, though. You can split it over a couple of nights if you want. It’s really rich.”
“Okay.”
“Go in and lock up. I’ll wait.”
He sounds like a big brother. I do as he says, carefully turning all three locks. I take the dessert down to my kitchen and take out a spoon. I really am very full, but worse I think I’ve just been friend zoned. Or maybe—even worse—sibling zoned.
When did it go wrong?I think. I thought we were having fun. I know we were having fun, it was so easy and comfortable, with just the slight tingling of attraction and the unknown below the surface. And then I realize what it is. It hits me like a bolt of lightning.
He wasn’t feeling all that electricity and excitement. He was just being friendly to the new kid in town, his new coworker. But somehow, he got the impression that I was thinking it was more, so he had to shut it down and fast.
I unwrap the pie and take a heaping spoonful. Study it carefully before popping it in my mouth.
Oh, my gawd,I think. This isn’t even possible. So rich and creamy and the chocolate flavor is absolutely exquisite. I limit myself to three—no four—scoops and put it away. When Sam comes to visit me, I have to take her to get this. She will absolutely die.
I text her a picture that I caption ‘Even better than it looks.’ Then I put it away, with a bit of regret. It may have said ‘Mississippi Mud Pie’ on the menu, but it did a fairly good job of masking my disappointment, if only for a few seconds. They should call it ‘Disappointment Dessert.’ For when reality smacks you in the face, hard.
Stop feeling sorry for yourself,I think. I just got the job offer of a lifetime. The one I’ve been dreaming of since middle school. I have nothing to complain about. I need to focus on the show. Scott isn’t interested in me like that, so forget it already. It’s not going to be easy, he’s so nice and hot and—Stop!
That is what I must not do. One hundred percent professional from here on out. Make it a hundred and ten, just to be safe. I can do this. I will not blow this opportunity by acting like a love-struck teen. I need to grow up. Now.