Track 32 The Shoop Shoop Song
Track 32
The Shoop Shoop Song
Maggie
On the way to the car, they stopped at a window cut into the side of an Italian restaurant. Matt knocked three times on the glass. It slid open, reminding Maggie of the scene in The Wizard of Oz when Dorothy and her posse reach the Emerald City.
“We’re here to see the wizard!” Maggie joked. “I need to get home, and he needs a shot of espresso.”
Matt cracked up. The barista not so much.
“ Due caffè espresso ,” Matt ordered, with an Italian accent that felt more respectful than pretentious. The window slammed shut with zero acknowledgment.
New York City, with its cranky, kooky residents and surprises at every turn, was exceeding Maggie’s expectations.
Matt was exceeding her expectations at every turn as well. Being alone with him in the city, away from all the messiness on Fire Island, felt completely right. She had never felt so instantly connected to someone. Like two halves of the same person was how her birth mother described them.
It was different, being with Matt, than it was with Jason. She knew she shouldn’t compare the two. What good would that do her? And if she did (like really did on a piece of paper with pros and cons), she knew Jason’s list of pros would run circles around Matt’s. But when she woke up in Matt’s arms on the beach that morning, it had stirred her in ways she’d never quite felt before. Could lust outweigh a lifetime of pros?
The line from “Riptide” played in her head yet again.
So what if she had been living on the highest shelf? There are worse things in life than playing it safe.
The barista placed two steaming shots of espresso on the small wooden ledge that protruded from the windowsill, served in bone china cups with lemon rinds adorning their saucers like miniature crescent moons. Matt downed his, Maggie sipped hers. The humorless barista stood there, waiting for their cups, she assumed. She fell to the pressure and downed the rest. It tasted bitter, and she felt the bolt of caffeine nearly instantly. Not that she needed it. She was high on the excitement of being in Manhattan, with Matt. He was looking down at her, patiently waiting for her to finish. His eyes seemed to be smiling. Her mind ran to kissing him again, but she quickly pushed the delicious thought away.
Concentrate on your new venture , she admonished herself.
She didn’t shut up on the car ride uptown. Matt didn’t even turn on the radio. He just listened to her big plans, smiling and nodding his head in approval. She was on fire, starting one sentence before finishing the last, a rambling jumble of everything she loved about the listening bar and everything she hoped for her own.
If someone had taken notes and organized them in a business proposal, it would have been quite sensible. Initially, she planned to open only on weekends. She would serve in shifts, a seven o’clock and a nine o’clock seating. The nine might be a little late for Chagrin Falls, but the sushi chef she was partnering with promised that his place was hopping till midnight on Friday and Saturday nights. She would switch on mood lighting after closing the store and add candles, Japanese cherry blossoms, and one long line of maneki-neko: porcelain paw-waving cats considered to bring good fortune. Her favorite employee, Phoebe Buffay, who was watching the shop now (she had officially changed her name from that of another Friends castmate, Monica, when she turned eighteen), was a musical theater geek and would be the perfect hostess. Maggie would spin the records and her partner, the chef from the sushi place next door, would work the menu. Soon her little nine-to-five (really ten-to-six) shop would be rocking through the midnight hour.
“This could really work,” she squealed, as Matt happily agreed.
They pulled off the FDR Drive at East 61st Street and headed west to Park Avenue. When they turned, so did the city. Maggie stopped babbling and looked out the window.
“Aaah, the Upper East Side, I presume.”
“Yup, my childhood hood.”
“Do we have time for a little drive-by tour before we get the cake?”
“Sure, what do you want to see? The shops on Madison Avenue, the Museum Mile?”
“No, no. I want to see your Upper East Side. Where you went to school, hung out, that kind of thing.”
Matt sat up straight and leaned into the wheel, clearly pumped for a trip down memory lane—or up Park Avenue, as the case may be.
He paused at the corner of East 82nd and Park and pointed up to his childhood apartment. The uniformed doorman came out, thinking they were stopping to drop someone or something off. Recognizing him, Matt jumped from the car.
“Anthony!”
“Matty!” They went in for an exaggerated shake. “How’s mom?” the doorman asked.
“Getting married tomorrow, if you can believe it. This is my friend Maggie.” He motioned to the passenger seat, and Maggie rolled down the window to wave hello.
“I’m giving her a little tour of the old neighborhood.”
“Oh. See that planter?” Anthony pointed to the corner. “That’s where Matty puked the first time he drank too much.”
They laughed, and the two leaned in for a quick embrace goodbye. Matt got back in the car, turned on East 89th Street, and pulled up in front of the Dalton School. Even Maggie had heard of it.
“Oh my God. I went to college with a girl who went here. Becca Green, do you know her?”
“Look at you playing Jewish geography! I’m gonna buy you a babka at the bakery. Have you tasted babka yet, you newish Jewess?”
“Nope,” she laughed.
“Ah. You have so much to learn—in baked goods alone. Becca Green was two years ahead of me. I had a big crush on her.”
“Yeah, well, she was gorgeous, and so sophisticated, who wouldn’t?”
“A lot of the girls were that sophisticated.”
“Like in Gossip Girl ?”
“There were a handful in each grade that were over-the- top Serena and Blair level. A few girls from each private school traveled in a pack, armed with their parents’ Amex cards, going to all the hottest places. My group was more erudite. We all thought we were brilliant. Until we got to college and found out we were just overeducated.”
“I can’t even imagine growing up here.”
“I went to college in California, you know, to get away from all of it. In the end, I couldn’t get back fast enough. Though lately I’m such a nomad because of work, it seems ridiculous that I live in the most expensive neighborhood in the most expensive city when I could live anywhere.”
They turned on Madison Avenue and Matt pointed to a restaurant called Three Guys.
“You see that place? We ate there so much that my mother called it the west wing. We had an account. Whenever my parents worked late, I would sit at the counter under a fresco of Mykonos with a book and a burger and fries. The book was a prop, really. I would chat with the old Greek waiters and the chef the whole time. They were awesome.”
“My parents were always home for dinner,” Maggie countered, “but we did live above the store till I was ten, so you know, no big commute.”
He turned again down a side street and stopped in front of the famous steps at the Metropolitan Museum of Art. The place was huge—like four blocks long. She waited for him to get all erudite on her. Instead, he pointed. “You see that bench?”
She nodded.
“That’s where Sophie Michaelson let me feel her up for the first time. ‘Let me’ may be an exaggeration. She took my hands and placed them on her boobs. I was twelve. I just sat there twisting them like they were the hot and cold knobs on a shower faucet.”
He laughed at himself, and Maggie laughed with him.
He looked at his phone.
“We gotta get to the bakery,” he warned. “There’s going to be mad traffic on the way back out to the beach.”
They circled around the block and Matt let out an alarming, high-pitched “Oh my God!”
“What?” Maggie shrieked, circling her head around expecting to see a mugger or a movie star.
“There’s a spot right out front! You can come in!” Matt exclaimed as they pulled up in front of the famous Madison Avenue bakery, William Greenberg, just as an idling taxi pulled out.
She’d never heard such excitement over a parking spot but followed his lead.
The shop was crowded with customers, real-life Upper East Siders, picking out their challah and desserts for Shabbat dinner, she imagined. In high school, Maggie was a frequent guest at a Jewish friend’s house on Friday nights. The girl was allowed to go out afterward, but sitting down with her family every Friday night to break challah bread was mandatory. Maggie loved everything about it. The girl and her mother would light the candles and the father would place his hand on the head of each of his children, bestowing blessings on them for the week. Maggie had already decided that she would incorporate some iteration of that into her own family one day, now that she had discovered her roots.
Her mouth dropped open at the display of cookies and cakes in front of her.
“What would you like?” Matt asked.
“One of everything!” Maggie replied, while taking in the other ladies in line. An older woman in a tailored cotton shirtdress with beauty parlor hair, a young mom sporting a high ponytail in head-to-toe Lululemon with two little legging-clad mini-mes at her side. She had never seen anyone look that chic in workout clothes. Matt told the lady behind the counter that they were there to pick up the wedding cake and she disappeared into the back. One of the little girls tugged on Maggie’s skirt.
“Are you getting married?”
Not wanting to douse the hopeful twinkle in her eyes, she nodded yes with a big smile. Matt laughed and whispered, “From fake dating to fake marrying in three days.”
“They’re getting married,” the girl told her sister.
“Kiss, kiss!” the sister got in their faces and pleaded.
Maggie and Matt smiled at them and turned to face the counter. Matt asked the other attendant:
“We’ll also have a chocolate babka, four rugelach, two black-and-whites and two schnecken, please.” Maggie had never even heard of the last one. She was excited.
The skirt-tugging sister joined the uproarious one, taking their shouts up a notch, now a duet.
“True love’s kiss! True love’s kiss!”
Matt turned to the mother and smiled. “Do they have an off button?”
“Not that I’ve found, sorry,” she said, though not sorry enough to tell them to stop.
“True love’s kiss! True love’s kiss!”
They were loud and relentless. Now the customers at the back of the line were giving Matt and Maggie come-on-already looks, as if they alone held the key to their serenity.
“I’m sorry,” the mother addressed the group, “too many Disney movies.”
“Just kiss her already, I’m getting a headache,” a cranky old man at the rear pleaded.
Maggie knew Matt wouldn’t do it and felt that taking the lead would be a good feminist lesson for these two. Plus, maybe kissing him, just this once, would put an end to the curiosity that had been plaguing her, if she was being honest, since he gave her a ride home that first night on the back of his bike. It would be better (for her and for Jason) than wondering about it for the rest of her life, she rationalized. She could kiss him, explain to Jason what happened, and put it behind her.
Maggie stood on her tippy-toes and planted a sweet smooch on Matt’s lips before looking down at the cheering squad, expecting satisfaction and silence.
The girls’ faces dropped from gleeful anticipation to utter disappointment. The older one vocalized her dissatisfaction.
“That’s it?”
Everyone laughed, except the two little girls, who looked as if their entire vision of true love had fizzled before their eyes. She couldn’t have that. Her competitive side (really her only side) kicked in.
She met his eyes before his lips and saw that they were filled with apprehension and longing, as, she was sure, were hers. It was too much, so she closed them. When her mouth touched his, time seemed to stand still and everything else faded away. The girls, the older lady, the old man, the smell of fresh-baked cookies and babka, gone, replaced by passion, wonderment, and truth. It was the truth that concerned her when they finally broke away. Her lips had never felt more at home, though it was no home she’d ever known. How was that possible? Her alarming observation was quickly doused by the old man’s snarky commentary:
“She said Disney, not Debbie Does Dallas !”
Even the woman behind the counter laughed as she passed over the first boxed layer of the wedding cake. Matt, red-faced and smiling ridiculously, grabbed it with two hands, nodding for Maggie to get the door. He went back and forth with the three boxes that they would lay on top of each other at the wedding to form the traditional vanilla frosted tower. The bag of treats sat on top of the last box, and Maggie couldn’t decide which to try first. She climbed into the back seat of the car, insisting she should keep the boxes safe. But really, it was her virtue that she wanted to keep safe. She was worried that her commitment to Jason wouldn’t survive a two-hour ride sitting next to Matt.
“It’s a good thing you’re back there guarding the cake. This could have been quite the disaster,” Matt said.
In more ways than one, Maggie thought.
“Happy to be of use,” she replied, instead, in a shaky voice that she didn’t recognize. It had been some kiss. Their first and their last, she swore to herself, as the lustful memory of it was overshadowed by guilt. She repeated her prior rationalization.
I did it and now I won’t have to spend my whole life (with Jason) thinking about what it would feel like to kiss Matt. I climbed off the top shelf and now I can return to it—safe and sound.
Matt grabbed a black-and-white cookie from the bag and passed the rest back.
“A little nosh,” he said, in his best old Jewish man accent, adding, “I like to eat the vanilla half first, and then the chocolate, but you do you.”
And she did, starting right down the middle.
Matt had been right about the traffic. The ride that had taken an hour on the way in looked like it would be twice as long on the way back. They filled the time with a back-and-forth game of music trivia. They were safely back in the friend zone.
“Best album?” Matt asked.
“Favorite or best?”
“Best.”
“Prince. Purple Rain .”
“Not even in my top five.”
“Pull over, I’m getting out!”
“But the cake!”
“True. OK, give me your top five.”
“ Nevermind .”
“Ha ha. You can’t trick me. I own a record store.”
“OK. Nirvana’s Nevermind , Abbey Road , duh, Radiohead’s In Rainbows , Zeppelin IV , and—don’t laugh—Fleetwood Mac, Rumours ,” Matt listed.
“Not laughing. I totally agree with all but would substitute Cowboy Carter for Radiohead.”
“That’s legit—what about live music?”
“What about it?”
“Your first concert?
“My parents took me and Jason to JazzFest in New Orleans, 2007. We went because Rod Stewart was playing, and they were desperate for me to hear ‘Maggie May’ live.”
“That must have been awesome.”
“It was. You?”
“I usually say Flo Rida at Madeline Schwartz’s bat mitzvah, for the laugh, but truth is it was the Jingle Ball, also 2007, at the Garden—you’re jealous, right?”
“I am!”
“You should be, Jonas Brothers and Backstreet Boys!”
“Stop! Who do you wish you could have seen? I’ll go first—Prince.”
“That I get. My dad saw him in DC, says it was his best ever. I wish I could have seen The Clash.”
“You never talk about your dad. Are you close? Is he into music too?”
“Not really into music and close enough, for someone I have little respect for. He cheated on my mom, and even though she has clearly ended up in a better place, I still resent him for hurting her. But we get along fine. I’ve learned to compartmentalize.”
“Wow, you seem so in touch with your feelings.”
“Yeah, well, ten years of therapy will do that.”
“I only went a few times, in college.”
“Everyone on the Upper East Side has been in therapy for ten years. It’s like a requirement once you pass 59th Street.”
Maggie laughed. She was starting to see how all the clichés of New York City life were based on fact.
“I have a bootleg of Brittany Howard at Webster Hall. Want to hear it?” Matt asked.
“Yes, Live at Sound Emporium got me through Covid!”
They sang along for the next ninety minutes and pulled into the parking lot of the ferry terminal just as they finished belting out the final encore.
The boat was packed, and since they only just made it, there were no more seats up top. It was better actually. They slipped onto a bench in the back, securing the cakes underneath, and fell asleep, once again, before the ferry even picked up speed. At twenty-eight minutes, the ride was the perfect amount of time for a disco nap. Matt leaned on the window, and Maggie leaned on him, amazed at how comfortable she felt doing so. She pondered the extent to which their fake-dating scenario had contributed to their rapid connection.
She opened her eyes as the island appeared in the near distance. It was so unlike the first time she had arrived, looking out at the unknown in fear. Now, she breathed a sigh of relief, the way you do when you recognize that you’re close to home.
To their surprise, Dylan was at the ferry dock on the other side when they arrived. As they exited the boat, they saw her sending off Steve.
“What happened?” Matt asked.
“How can I be with someone who burns so easily?” she said, laughing.
“Aw.” Matt wrapped his arms around her and brought her in for a big hug.
“At least now we don’t have to pay to have him photoshopped out of the pictures!” he offered in consolation. Not that she seemed to need much consoling. She handled it in that “no skin off my back” way she seemed to handle everything. Unlike Maggie, Dylan seemed impervious to drama.
“Do you have the wagon?” he asked upon breaking away from their hug.
“I do.”
“Can you bring back the cake?”
“I can.” She smiled.
“Cool. I’m gonna take Maggie back to the Hotel, Motel, Holiday Inn ,” he rapped.
Maggie laughed; Dylan rolled her eyes.
“OK. Mamma Mia! is playing at twenty hundred hours, sharp, I’ve been told—six times. My dad always speaks in army time,” she added for Maggie’s sake.
“Be there by eight.” Matt smiled and saluted before leading them in the direction of town.
“Best hip-hop album—on three,” Matt queried a few steps later. “One, two, three.”
“ To Pimp a Butterfly , Kendrick Lamar!” they both shouted in unison.
“Wow. You’re so old-school—I thought you would say Rapper’s Delight , especially after your hotel-motel joke.”
“Nope, but I can do that one from start to finish,” he laughed.
“Me too.”
“No way.”
“Way.”
They walked into town to a duet of “Rapper’s Delight”: both claiming to know all three thousand words.
“I said a hip-hop, the hippie, the hippie to the hip, hip-hop and you don’t stop the rockin’ to the bang-bang boogie, say up jump the boogie to the rhythm of the boogie, the beat . ”
Laughing uncontrollably, they made their way up the steps to Maggie’s room, singing the final refrain of “Hotel, Motel, Holiday Inn,” only to be startled by the presence of a man camped out in front of her door.