20
THE HOTEL IS cute. And so expensive it makes my teeth hurt. And the room is incredibly small, which surprises me, because I know how much Hayley—or her work—is paying for it. But neither of us really cares.
‘We’re in New York!’ Hayley yells, looking out the hotel room window.
‘I know!’
We jump up and down like we’re thirteen. We first talked about going to New York together when we were teenagers, and watching Gossip Girl , both imagining ourselves as Blair Waldorf. It felt impossibly far away, not just geographically, but in every sense. Back then, we were two dorky Australian teenagers who had never been overseas. And now, we’re here.
It’s cold, freezing actually, but we have hats, gloves, scarves. We’re ready. We want, more than anything, for it to snow. We are still carrying the conditioning of every child of the Southern Hemisphere, the belief that a true Christmas experience is a cold one, a white one. We have dutifully hung snowmen decorations on our tree in the middle of summer. It’s time for some pay-off.
We need to do all the touristy things. We have arrived in the morning and we push through the space-y feeling of jet lag by walking to Times Square, and then we climb the Empire State Building, taking an absurd number of photos, and then Hayley has to go check in to her conference.
‘Mac said he would meet us for drinks and dinner,’ Hayley says, checking her phone.
‘Oh,’ I say. ‘Um. Great!’ I’m not ready. I feel sick. The flight, the jet lag, the change in temperature, the fact I was just standing in Times Square—it is all making me feel strange and out-of-body.
‘We don’t have to hang out with him the whole trip or anything, don’t worry, but I told Luke we’d have dinner with him.’
‘Oh no, it’s fine, he can hang out with us. If he wants to,’ I say. ‘Did he seem like he wanted to?’ It’s hard to sound casual when your heart is going a million miles an hour.
‘He asked about you.’
‘What did he say?’
‘Oh, just if you would be there, what you’ve been up to, that sort of thing.’
‘Oh. Cool.’
Hayley is rummaging in her bag.
‘What did you say back?’ I say, trying to make the question sound casual. Oh I’m just idly curious, no big deal .
‘I don’t know. That you’re here, you’re good, you’re finishing your next novel.’ Hayley shrugs.
‘And what did he say?’
‘I don’t think he said anything,’ she says. She looks up at me. ‘You’re asking a lot of questions.’
‘I always ask a lot of questions. I’m a question asker.’
‘Yes, but I’m getting a vibe.’
‘A jet-lag vibe.’
‘Let’s drink more coffee.’ Hayley has a theory that because we are only here for a week, it’s better if we never let ourselves adjust to New York time, and just live like we’re on Melbourne time but hardly sleeping and drinking lots of coffee. We will be sleeping, she assures me, but our bodies just won’t register it as sleep, and I nod along, even though none of what she is saying makes any sense to me. I’m just hoping the thrill of being in New York will get me through.
‘I’m not sure we should have more coffee right now,’ I say. I have lost count of how many cups I’ve had in the last twenty-four hours, partly because I can’t remember when the last twenty-four hours actually began.
‘Well, can you meet him in the foyer at five? I should be back but if I’m not, you two just grab a drink and wait for me, okay?’
‘Sure.’
‘Here’s his number, in case you need it.’
‘Why would I need it?’ I am scared to have his number in my phone—I don’t want to give myself that kind of access to him.
‘Just take it.’
I stare at the number. Should I message him? We haven’t had any contact all year. He could have reached out to me if he was interested in staying in touch.
I change my clothes five times, which is impressive considering I barely brought enough clothes for five outfit changes. I put on a wintery dress of Hayley’s. We are different heights, with different body shapes, but we can occasionally share clothes. The dress is long and figure-hugging, and I pair it with my sexy long boots, that I almost didn’t bring then panicked and squashed in at the last minute. I look good. Close enough to good. The dress is flattering, I had my eyebrows and eyelashes tinted before we left, my hair is freshly cut, Hayley’s lipstick always looks better on me than my own. I layer lots of little necklaces, and put on every ring Hayley and I brought. It gives me comfort to keep adding little flourishes. But now I look too good, I decide. Too obvious . Trying way too hard.
I strip off the dress and the boots and put on jeans and my flat, sensible, lug-sole boots and a black top and leather jacket. This feels better. Understated. Powerful. Ugly heavy footwear that says ‘I don’t care what you think of my looks, I’m wearing these so I can kick someone in the groin or ride a motorbike’, even though I have never done either of those things and I do, unfortunately, care what he thinks of my looks.
It’s ten past five. Shit.
I get in the elevator and my hand is trembling when I press the button. What if I don’t recognise him? Who am I kidding? I have thought about his face more times than I would ever admit. But he might look different. In my head. Or now. I might look different. Or forget looks, because what I’m actually chasing is that feeling I had with him. I need to know if it was just the heightened intensity of the wedding weekend, of Joel’s news, of everything that was happening, that made me feel that way. Was it love, lust, or a mental breakdown? Was it real and, if it was, what can be done about it? Because what does it help me to know I’m hooked on a feeling I had for a guy who lives on the other side of the world and hasn’t thought about me once in the intervening months? That doesn’t help me at all. That only makes my life harder. So it would be better in every way if the feeling is gone.
The elevator doors open and I look around, and there he is, sitting on a couch in the bar area immediately to my left, and he’s looking right at me. He lifts his glass in greeting, and smiles a big, warm, eyes-crinkling, Hollywood-heartthrob smile.
Okay. So the feeling isn’t gone.
‘Hey,’ I say, sitting down next to him, trying not to overthink how much distance I should leave between us.
‘Hey,’ he says, leaning over and giving me a quick kiss on the cheek.
He smells like he did at the wedding. He’s still smiling. I’m trying to stop smiling.
‘How are you?’ I say.
‘Good. How are you?’
‘I’m in New York. I’m great.’
I am filled with the fizzy energy of being in a new city, of being near a hot man, of possibility.
He seems less scruffy, sharper and more put together here. His hair is a little shorter. He looks slightly more muscular, maybe.
I want to reach out and touch him, touch any part of him, to make sure he’s real. Already I am ignoring the warning voice in my head: Calm down Anna, slow down, Anna, keep your wits about you, don’t immediately flirt, don’t get drunk, hold on to to any semblance of restraint you can find .
‘I loved your book,’ he says.
‘Oh,’ I say. ‘Thank you. Did you just finish it?’
‘No,’ he laughs. ‘I finished it on the flight home from the wedding. I just never told you.’
‘I’m glad you loved it.’
‘The twist ending was so good.’
‘Did you guess it?’
‘No. But I’m not clever enough to guess any twist ending.’
‘I don’t believe that.’
I can’t stop gazing at him as we talk. My eyes feel hungry, thirsty, desperate to see him. I have to hold tightly on to my drink because otherwise I would reach out and brush his hair away from his forehead.
Hayley arrives, and we move to a different bar and get a table for dinner and drinks. We’re all in good spirits but Mac, I quickly notice, is not giving me any flirtatious signs. In fact, since Hayley arrived, he seems to be focused on her much more than on me. Am I reading it wrong? I wait for him to give me a hint, to rest his leg against mine, or bump my elbow, or sit nearer to me than Hayley, to cut his eyes over to me quickly—anything. But he doesn’t.
He is funny and charming and we are all having a lovely time. In fact, I can see Hayley warming up to him considerably—but but but. My heady excitement is slipping, because it’s becoming clear that all the things I was thinking, all this time, all the nights I thought of him, that none of that was happening in return.
Hayley goes to the toilet, and I test things, just a tiny bit. I let my shoulder brush Mac’s. He doesn’t move closer. Later, after Hayley has returned and we’re eating dessert, my knee really does accidentally bump his under the table. I think of the way he confidently pressed his knee against mine at the wedding. I can’t stop thinking of it. He doesn’t close the gap between our knees now. He’s giving me nothing. He’s friendly . I’m serving up banter, and he’s not hitting it back with intent. I’m playing this game alone. After the knee bump, I try one more time. Just in case there’s any confusion. I open one final door, put myself on the line one final time. I let my leg ever so subtly touch his again and for a moment he stays still and then he shifts away. Shifts away . Right. That’s that then. How embarrassing.
‘I think the jet lag is hitting,’ I say, when I can’t bear it any longer.
‘Yeah, I have the conference early tomorrow. Mac, thank you so much for taking us out tonight,’ Hayley says. Her previous anti-Mac stance has definitely softened. Or maybe she’s just riding the New York holiday high.
‘What are you doing for the rest of your time here?’ he says.
‘Well, we have tickets for your play,’ Hayley says. Mac is the lead in an off-Broadway show that we’re seeing on our second-last night.
‘You do?’ He looks pleased.
‘And we’re seeing some other shows, art galleries, very touristy things,’ Hayley says. ‘I have four days of the conference, and Anna is just going to wander the city.’
‘I could show you around?’ he says to me.
‘That would be great,’ I say. His offer is noncommittal, there’s no definite time, he’s very likely just being polite, so I am noncommittal back. But Hayley is nodding, excited.
‘She needs the full New York City Christmas experience,’ Hayley says.
‘I can deliver that,’ Mac says, his eyes sparkling like they did before our dance at the wedding.
‘Great,’ I say. Deep down, I don’t believe I’ll see him again on this trip, other than from a distance at the play.
He hugs us goodbye, a warm, friendly hug for Hayley, and then when he hugs me, it’s friendly too, but the minute I am leaning into his body, I am thinking of the hug in the restaurant hallway, the hug goodbye at the brunch and, I swear, he is too, because I feel him lean into me, pulling me closer, lingering, his face brushing against my hair. But then he steps back and he pats me quickly on the shoulder.
Well, that does it. Is there a more sexless, more condescending movement than a shoulder pat. The signs are in. The universe is saying, remember how I gave you Patrick, and you didn’t want him, you couldn’t even be bothered to reply to his text, well, this is what you get in return. A shoulder pat.