Chapter Five
Stephen
When I left, the lanes were packed full of cars moving in and out of the city on Friday night but my Uber driver assured me taking FDR Drive and winding our way along the island up to the Upper East Side, beside the river, was the quickest option.
The water was a deep indigo expanse, dotted with shimmering lights, and the dark giants of the bridges stretched up beside the roads as we drove under viaducts and alongside the piers.
The city was always hectic but in the heat of the day it was a grudging kind of bustle, a stubbornness to get through with the business of the nine-to-five, which permeated the heavy air.
Now, with the sun setting, taking a break from beating down on everyone, the liveliness, the electricity, was returning.
I had wondered at my firm not wanting to have drinks somewhere more convenient to the financial district…
until I arrived. Fifth Avenue was everything I’d ever pictured about New York.
The classy old architecture, the views of the Empire State Building and the Met, the lush expanse of Central Park.
The hotel the bar was part of, belonged in a classic film my nan would watch, all sophisticated glamour and old money.
After navigating the labyrinth of the lobby on the ground floor, I found the right lift to take me up… and up…and up.
The first thing I noticed, when I stepped out into the bar’s dark wooden interior, varnish gleaming softly in the ambient lighting, was a breeze.
Through the foliage of numerous potted ferns and brown leather seating areas, liberally peppered with cushions printed with Chinese Dragons, I could make out the perimeter walls to the terrace. And they were not tall.
A wave of dizziness threatened me, and my pulse beat hard in my throat.
Walking slowly, parallel to the bar, I looked for a gap to slide into and order a drink, whilst also keeping an eye out for familiar faces.
I’d already spotted a large group of my work colleagues seated on a corner sofa at the far end of the roof, but at that moment, a million pounds in cash waiting wrapped up for me with the keys to a Lamborghini on top wouldn’t have enticed me over.
I kept scanning and walking and then – jackpot – I recognised Logan, an analyst, waiting for his turn at the bar.
‘Evening,’ I said, turning away from the views and focusing on him, and the solidity of the glossy bar, and the rows of glittering bottles behind it.
I willed myself to ignore the exposed feeling at my back, the sensation that the floor was going to crumble away like something in a video game and send me plummeting downwards…
‘You made it. We were wondering where you’d gotten to.
’ He held up his hand, elbow resting on the bar in a pseudo arm-wrestling stance, his overworked bicep bulging in his shirtsleeves.
I obliged and clapped my hand into his as a greeting.
He tried to squeeze my bones to mush for a few seconds, but I kept smiling and waiting for his need to feel dominant to pass.
Luckily, he didn’t seem to notice how clammy my palm was.
‘The night is still young,’ I said, as he released my hand.
‘Sure, but with the strength of these cocktails? It doesn’t take long for most of the guys to hit the deck, y’know? Half of them are already smashed, and not in the way I’m here for.’ He sniggered and nudged me in the chest with one of his massive guns again.
I forced a smile. Clearly I was going to need to get my game face on to deal diplomatically with a bunch of new colleagues who were already three sheets to the wind.
‘Do they serve food here?’ A solitary banana was not an adequate dinner and if I ordered food it gave me an excuse to wait around at the bar longer.
‘Just snacks. You worried you’ll need to soak up the alcohol or you’ll make a fool of yourself?’
If I didn’t already know a lot of Americans, I might have dismissed Logan’s attitude as a culture clash in terms of humour. But I did, so I took it for what it was. Insecure man plus alcohol equals metaphorical chest pounding.
‘I didn’t have a chance to grab dinner.’
‘Oh yeah, what’ve you been up to?’
‘Nothing exciting. Just errands.’
‘You been wearing your apron and getting your feather duster out, eh?’ He laughed uproariously at his own joke.
‘I would thank you not to cast aspersions on my pinny. An Englishman’s home is his castle, you know. Got to keep it sparkling and organised.’ With an ego like his, self-deprecating jokes might go down well, and it never hurt to play up the Britishness.
‘Sucker. That’s what a woman’s for.’
Thankfully, the bartender came over with his order and rescued me from having to think up a suitable response to the unwelcome confirmation of Logan’s caveman attitude.
I took the opportunity to ask for a menu and by the time I’d received it, Logan had taken a big swig of his drink and was ready to move on with the conversation.
‘That looks promising.’
‘Sorry, what does?’ I flicked a quick glance at him, then returned to considering the menu. My stomach was on the edge of nausea, but I knew it would settle down once I got used to the safe zones in the bar.
‘Hot chicks at eleven o’clock.’ He’d spun on his bar stool. ‘Take a look.’
Right, so he wasn’t changing the subject after all.
A familiar sense of annoyance at myself gripped me.
I was only having to hang around him because of my fear of heights.
I wished I could just get over it. I knew that simply because I was high up, it didn’t mean I was going to fall and end up in agony, my brains smeared across the pavement, bones shattered to pieces… .
If only to distract myself, I obliged him by looking. Perhaps I would’ve been better off taking Patrick’s offer and staying at home if the only person I was going to get to know better on this night out was someone who probably thought he’d taken a “red-pill”.
A tall woman with short, tightly curled hair was taking a seat at a bar-height table tucked in beneath a low slanted skylight.
Her companion was facing away from me, just the cascade of her red hair and a pleasingly rounded bottom visible as she bent over, fiddling with the buckle on one of her high-heeled sandals.
The glass of the window continued right down to the skirting board as a backdrop behind them.
I took a shallow breath and made an ambiguous noise to Logan, turning away from the reminder of how high up we were.
‘Hey, what say you stick with me and be my wingman tonight? I could teach you a few things about American women.’
‘Is that so?’ I raised my eyebrow at him, my patience – exacerbated by my frayed nerves – was beginning to wear thin. I highly doubted he knew anything about women full stop.
‘Sure. I’ve heard all about you. Popular with the chicks back in London, aren’t you? A regular love-em-and-leave-em Romeo type. But women over here are different. More confident. They’re after a real man. You gotta let ‘em know who’s in charge.’
I wasn’t sure what was more disturbing; his views on women or on me?
I schooled my features to hide my concern about the reputation that seemed to have followed me across the pond.
Who had been talking about me and what had they been saying?
Admittedly, I’d never had problems dating but that didn’t make me a player. Did it?
Maybe now I was in my thirties it was becoming more noticeable that I never held down a relationship for a substantial amount of time?
It was a decision I’d made when I was young enough that an aversion to long term commitment seemed normal, I suppose.
And it would have been fair to say that I’d indulged in a quick succession of flings after Mum died.
I hadn’t intended to do it – I certainly wasn’t out on the pull constantly – but there had been a comfort in slipping into the rhythm of it when I met someone with a similar desire for the simplicity of flirting, dating, and sex.
They were comfortable interactions; exciting enough to divert, casual enough not to get into any heavy conversation.
Myself, Nick and my nan had all picked a poison to try and survive those first few harrowing months of grief and then had to claw ourselves back out of it again.
I supposed if a reputation as a ladies’ man was the extent of the damage I’d caused it wasn’t so bad; it could have been worse.
His views on women were definitely a more immediate problem.
‘Why don’t we make this interesting?’ he continued. ‘You and me, we’ll each try our best moves on them and see who wins.’
‘Wins?’
‘Secures a date – or something more exciting,’ he elaborated, as though I was questioning the rules of the game and not the fact that he was suggesting we play it at all, like a pair of randy students instead of the grown men we were.
Supposedly. ‘Unless you’re worried that you’ll lose… or that you’ll upset the boss lady.’
I shook my head. ‘She won’t be interested in the slightest, I’m sure.’ I really hadn’t hit the jackpot finding him at the bar. More like a lucky-dip school fete prize. A moment of excitement followed by inevitable disappointment.
‘You know she’s got you in her sights,’ he said slyly, swigging his drink and smacking his lips. ‘The question is, are you gonna play it safe and keep in her good books, or take up my challenge?’