Chapter 18
And so somehow, with that, we’ve actually become neighbor friends. After one movie turned into two, he asked what time I walk George usually. He liked the idea of getting a walk in every morning before work—he says he spends too much time sitting at home in front of a screen—so now for the last two weeks, he’s been waiting outside when I leave the building. No fanfare, just a morning walk and talk to get the day started. Sometimes Gladys joins us, too, although she usually prefers weekends, when we can walk a bit later, since she says her “bones are creaky if it’s too early.”
The first day, he said his only rule was that we had to talk about anything but work, since it was the sole time for the next eight hours he’d get to think about anything else. I wholeheartedly agreed—as someone who only writes one thing a week and finds that daunting, I can only imagine how important it must be for full-time writers to clear their heads before the day starts. And since I really shouldn’t talk about patients, the idea of ignoring the day ahead for a little bit is actually freeing. We talk about articles or books we’ve read; we discuss the latest happenings with George, Paws, and Whiskers; we share what things we’ve noticed changing in the neighborhood; we debate the best versions of every baked good you can find in New York. The morning-walk chats are everything and nothing, like a staple steamy cup of morning coffee to get the day started.
Even after just a couple weeks, it seems like those mornings are inevitable.
I wonder now if maybe we’ve been slowly shifting toward each other from the start. First circling as combatants in a petty building war, then as comrades in the battle against a sleepless night on a roof, until finally the vulnerability of seeing someone at their sickest shed the last pretenses.
When I bring this up to Ari, she asks me how it relates to J, and I balk.
“It doesn’t in any way relate to J.”
“I don’t know,” Ari says, leaning forward and eyeing me in that way she does when she’s clearly not sure I have a grasp on my own life. “You haven’t felt particularly strongly about any men—even the ones you were dating, frankly—for so many years. And now you have two that you’re opening up to more. I think it’s absolutely wonderful, because you so often close yourself off so as not to be a burden to others. But I just find it interesting that it’s happening simultaneously.”
I squirm at the thought. I know there’ve been small moments with Eli that have felt charged. But J is who I’m interested in. And conflating them in any way is just confusing. They’re like two separate earbuds; if they were attached somehow—wired headphones at the bottom of my bag—I’m afraid they’d become tangled. I don’t need tangled.
“J and Eli are in no way even in the same ballpark.”
“How so?” she asks, clearly ready to dismiss me out of hand, even if she’s pretending like she’s asking an innocuous question.
“Eli would never even factor into a romantic discussion.”
“Why not?” She’s really not going to let me off the hook.
“Okay, it’s an objective fact that Eli is attractive; I’m not disputing that,” I admit, and Ari snorts as though I’ve stated the most obvious thing. I’m ignoring it and barreling on. “But he is fully, completely in the friend column.” I try to say this definitively to end the conversation, but Ari’s not biting.
“Why?” Ari lobs back, like we’re in a tennis match and I keep thinking I’m ending the point while she easily gets it back over the net.
“Well, let’s start with even thinking about him in a sexual way is unethical,” I point out. I’m a little stunned when Ari dramatically rolls her eyes at me. She looks like an exasperated teenager instead of the elderly put-together doyenne she normally presents as. “ What? ” I huff.
“First of all, no one can help thinking anything sexual about anyone,” she says, and I’m going to have to table the immediate curiosity about Ari’s sex life that that comment sets off. “But come on, he was barely a patient to begin with. You had a few calls with his girlfriend and then maybe two or three with him, where he never really said anything, and then she promptly broke up with him after also being the person who initiated and paid for the sessions. Ethical rules are about patients you have deep knowledge of so it can’t be used against them in a relationship setting. This isn’t that.”
“I cannot believe this is a hill you’d want to die on,” I mumble incredulously. I know Ari’s a little looser than most therapists—especially of her generation—but that’s a particularly loose take.
But she’s not even listening as she continues on. “He’s also not your patient anymore; you know him in a completely different context now, and you have an entirely different friend relationship that has nothing to do with your past professional interactions. So let’s cut the pretense that your avoidance of your attraction to this man has to do with some ethical boundary.”
“Okay, sure, let’s set that aside, even if I’m not sure I agree,” I say, giving in to her logic, since there’s no point in actually arguing with Ari; instead, my only tactic is to change the direction. “But beyond being neighbors—which is another reason that anything beyond friendship is a bad idea—knowing about his last relationship and just, you know, knowing him , I have no desire to get into anything with him. Absolutely not.”
“Okay.” Ari shrugs, suddenly letting it go much more easily than I would have imagined. “Like I said, I’m just happy to see you opening up to people.”
“Yeah, me too,” I admit, still not sure why she’s suddenly accepted my answer.
She changes the subject back to my family and lets this particular thread go for the rest of our session.
But later, I find myself thinking about everything she said.
I can’t pretend I haven’t gotten closer to Eli; I can’t say that at this point he isn’t a real person in my life that I now tell some things to. And it’s confusing to suddenly go from having very few people I let into my life to having two new yet constant presences.
But I brush it off. As Ari says—it’s a good thing. Maybe it just means that I’m growing.
I do wonder if we’ve maybe taken it a step too far, though, when I find myself the following Sunday, the last day of July, on the West Side Highway with a rented bike, a borrowed helmet, and encouragement from the one person I would’ve sworn I’d never trust for anything.
“Don’t I get training wheels for this?” I ask Eli, the long path ahead of me looking especially daunting. To my right is the Jersey skyline, rising up across the small waves of the Hudson River. In front is the glistening far-off Freedom Tower, improbably touching the clouds. But we’re not getting anywhere near it today—I’m not sure I can make it ten feet ahead, let alone the two miles it would take to get all the way downtown.
“You’re too old for that,” he says as he adjusts my seat.
“Why is it about age and not skill level?”
“Because you can balance more effectively now than you could when you were five or six,” he retorts, now checking the gears, as though the state of the bike is going to be my largest obstacle.
“I think you’re overestimating my athleticism.”
At that he looks up and gives me a cheeky grin. “I didn’t say you needed to be athletic to do this, don’t worry.”
I’m not quite sure how exactly we got here. The twists and turns of conversation have apparently failed me. How did bike riding even come up? I may have admitted that, because my parents are the kind of parents they are, I never learned how to ride a bike. It was like one of those essential childhood things that they simply forgot about and skipped over. Living in New York without a yard and with ample subway and walking access, it just wasn’t something that was necessary. And I never pushed.
But Eli pushes. In fact, I think Eli is now going to literally have to push. He talked up the ease of renting one of the city’s perennial Citi Bikes, dotted around in any location we could want to start biking. He extolled the delight of Hudson River Park and its easy, wide bike paths for miles along the water’s edge of Manhattan. He pointed out the freedom I would have if I knew how to use a bike in the city. He’s so convincing. So adamant. So insistent.
So here I am, supposedly ready for action. I’ve got on my bike shorts and my favorite, billowy button-down with a front tie. I felt like maybe if I dressed as a casual, easygoing bike-riding gal, I could be one.
“Okay, so first things first, I just want you to hold your legs up, and I’m going to push you. Do you ever see kids on those balance bikes? That’s good for spatial awareness and gross motor skills and helps you get used to the concept of a bike.”
“‘Spatial awareness’?” I say, dubious.
“I don’t know—it worked for my niece, okay?”
“Your niece who is currently like six years old?” I ask, now doubting the steadfast nature of this plan.
He’s trying to stand taller, as though if he puffs out his frame, it’ll give him authority. For a decently tall guy, he really sometimes projects small-man energy.
“Well, why would it be any different?” he counters.
“Okay,” I give in, knowing there’s no use in arguing with him.
I swing my leg over the bike, and I can see him almost tell me Good job , but then he stops himself. Good. At least he has the minor self-awareness to know he shouldn’t patronize me right now.
“Okay, lift your legs up, and I’m going to push.”
I do as he says, and the whole thing is hilariously awkward. We look like a drunk circus act. It’s blessedly early enough that the bike lanes aren’t crowded. But people who actually know what they’re doing go around us while watching what we’re doing with bemused looks.
“Do you feel like you understand the balance?” he says after a while, huffing a little bit from the effort of pushing me and keeping me upright.
“I think we just have to try and fail,” I reply, and he shoots me a disappointed look, as though my doubt is somehow more personally about his teaching abilities than my lack of bike skill.
I get back up and put one foot on a pedal.
“Okay.” He claps his hands together like he’s trying to hype me up. “So you’re going to push your right foot forward and down to get the pedaling started, and then you should focus more on the staying upright than the pedaling. But don’t forget to pedal or you’ll lose speed and fall. And if you get—”
“Eli, this isn’t helping.”
“Got it,” he says, and he grips my back. I sit up straighter from the contact. I don’t think I could be any more casual, with my hair in a messy braid and my billowy boxy shirt, but every time he touches me, it’s as though he’s pulling a match too slowly across its striking surface—not quite enough pressure to light the fire but certainly enough to cause smoke.
“I’m going to start pedaling,” I say, as though if I get moving, I can push the thought from my mind.
“I’m going to hold on for the first few tries,” he says, and I nod, wanting more than anything to just pedal away and get the feel of his fingers out of my consciousness.
I push with my foot, pressing down on the pedal, and with shaky legs I start going forward. I know Eli’s holding me upright. I know if he lets go, I’ll almost certainly fall. But we’re really moving. I’m pedaling slowly, and he’s going alongside me. I’m (sort of) riding a bike.
Well, I’m riding a bike until he lets go, clearly as an attempt to let me continue on my own effectively, but it has the opposite effect.
Without him holding me steady, I careen off to the side and land on a patch of weeds and wildflowers, sharp and solid and unforgiving.
“Oh my god, Nora, are you okay?” he says, running up to stand over me, assessing my injuries. I wish I could say it’s just embarrassment, but I look down at my leg and see I’m all scratched up.
“I fell,” I mumble, and I can see from the look he’s giving me that not only is that obvious but I’m also really straddling the line between tragic, pathetic mess and deeply hilarious sideshow.
He’s trying so hard not to laugh, but his face looks like he’s holding in a sneeze—it’s a contortion of attempting to look concerned while being extremely close to laughter. It reminds me of cast members on SNL when they know they shouldn’t break, but the more they think about it, the harder it becomes.
And the effort he’s making to not laugh in my face makes me laugh. I’m on the ground with the bike still on top of me, splayed out, my legs a tapestry of cuts. But now that the laughter has been unleashed, I’m doubled over, tears forming, my gut straining from the force of it. And when I start, there’s no stopping Eli from joining in. His laughter is a dam exploding, everything he was holding in bursting out until we’re both left gasping and giggling.
“I’m sorry,” he says, trying to breathe through it. “But you just look so ...”
I wave him off, still laughing and trying to not let it turn into hiccups. “I know I look pathetic,” I admit. “I don’t think anyone could’ve expected I’d have flamed out that dramatically on my first attempt.”
He wipes tears out of his eyes. “Listen, when you go for something, at least you go all the way. You gave it your all.”
I move to stand up, and he holds out his hand. He pulls me up and surreptitiously looks me over, probably to ensure I’m not actually injured.
“I think we can agree we gave it a good try and I should call it a day, yeah?”
He winces, the dirt and angry scratches across my legs more apparent now that I’m standing up. “I think that would be fair,” he says, pulling up the bike now. We walk off the bike path and onto the promenade that goes along the river. We walk in silence for a minute until he finds a dock for the bike and returns it, ready for a rider that might actually know what they’re doing.
“I’m sorry I let go,” he finally says, now that our absurdist laughter has regressed back into normalcy and we’ve both caught our breath.
“Oh please,” I say, waving him off. “It was the right technique, just the wrong student.”
“We can try again some other day?” he asks, but I know from the question in his voice that even he realizes I’m probably a lost cause, or at least a lost cause to learning while balancing the city around me.
I dramatically indicate my legs. “I think we can let this one go for now,” I admit. I try to brush off some of the dirt, but it doesn’t really do much. I go to straighten my shirt and realize something. “Oh shit, I think one of the buttons came off.”
I pull it out further so I can see. It’s a vintage shirt I got at one of my favorite stores in Alphabet City. It’s meant to button down and then tie into a bow at the bottom, but the tie has come undone and the button above it has popped off from the force of my fall.
I frown. It’s annoying because I can’t replace it—the buttons are a specific pearled tint and too large to not notice when one is different from the others.
“Let’s go and search for it,” he says without hesitation.
We walk back toward the area where we were, but it’s hard now to tell where exactly I fell. Every part of the path is the same—paved, with a thicket of bramble on either side to separate it from the other areas. We halfheartedly search through for a few minutes, but it’s clear the button is lost. And my leg is kind of hurting now, and I want to go home. So much for the outfit making me more of a serious bike rider. Everything’s backfired today.
“It’s okay,” I say, trying to be breezier externally than I feel inside. “Come on, let’s get some ice cream and congratulate ourselves on the attempt.”
He nods, clearly not going to argue with me when I’m so banged up. “Sounds like a good plan to me.”