The Sixth Wedding #5
He shifts the conversation back to Skye, to what Skye will do next.
Skye doesn’t come right out and say, “I’d still like to kiss you again,” but the vibe is there.
It is not, however, the prevalent vibe. What’s more important is what Skye said about how this random encounter could end up changing their life.
J can see that, because J believes Skye will leave Detroit, will find their own place, their own footing.
It would have probably happened anyway, but it’s happening now because J needed a fake wedding and wrote a real song.
He has a hard time wrapping his head around how this works.
He thinks about it after he says goodbye to Skye and walks over to the East River, just to get some skyline into his afternoon, even if it’s just Brooklyn he’s seeing (or maybe Queens—he has no idea).
How is his connection with Skye different from his connection to Tara?
How is his connection to them different from his connection to V, or at least his initial connection to her?
Isn’t anytime you meet someone new a random encounter, even if there’s every reason for you both to be there?
Why do some encounters flourish and others fade?
And if things with V don’t work out, as things with previous girlfriends didn’t work out, does that mean there’s some kind of limit on how much connection he can share with another person?
What if, despite all his eforts, everyone else in his life is merely passing through?
What does that leave him with? And what would it mean if the answer is that it leaves him with more than enough?
He texts V. How is your day ?
He just wants to keep the conversation going.
In his head, it is still constant. But he knows that’s only one side of it.
He and V have lunch on Thursday. This time he’s ofered to bring the meal to her office. Caught off guard, she agrees.
When J hands his identification to the security officer, she raises an eyebrow and says, “Oh, so you’re that guy .” J immediately wonders what V has told her about him...until she laughs and says, “Just joking with you! Here’s your pass—sign in on the fourteenth floor.”
The receptionist on the fourteenth floor’s knowledge of him seems a little more informed, though not to the degree of bias.
“You’re the musician, aren’t you?” the immaculately coiffed man says. “Thor plays your music all the time. Let me give V a buzz.”
The reception area is a ramshackle affair. While it’s not full of boxes and crates, J wouldn’t say it contains furniture, either. Or at least not permanent furniture; there are two folding chairs, one open, one folded. And there’s something that might be a table or a tipped-over shelf.
“I know it looks dire,” V says, appearing from a side door.
“We haven’t had much time to decorate. One of our advisors had the space available, so we took it furnished.
Or semi-furnished. I think there was a massive layoff in the last company that was here, and I suspect the employees took the good furniture with them as a kiss-off to the bosses. ”
J holds up the bag he’s brought. “There happen to be seven different salad places in a two-block radius, so I got a salad from each of them and had them mixed together into a super salad. Only the best for you.”
“Did you remember to get forks?”
J blanches. “I’m sure they put some in there.”
“Don’t worry. I have forks.”
The inner sanctum of the office isn’t as bare-boned as the lobby.
It looks like someone made an inebriated, homesick dash through an IKEA; there is even a Swedish flag hanging on a door.
V takes J to what she calls a “small conference room”—J thinks it might be more similar to a holding cell, containing a round wood table with, strangely, a box of tissues at its center.
(For sneezes? Tears?) As he unpacks the salads (from a place called Just Salad, since J felt more comfortable in the hands of a specialist), V goes to retrieve some forks from her desk.
J begins to wonder if this is one of those American buildings that skips the thirteenth floor, meaning that the fourteenth floor is really the thirteenth. He wishes he’d paid closer attention in the elevator...
“Our superstar! It’s so good to see you!”
Thor is standing the doorway, grinning with sincere enthusiasm.
“Thor!” J stands, and there is an awkward pause (on J’s part) where J tries to determine whether a handshake or a hug would be more appropriate. Thor, however, doesn’t deliberate, and wraps his arms around J like they are reunited fraternity brothers.
“It’s so good to see you,” Thor says. In truth, J and Thor have only met a handful of times, mostly in passing as J picked V up or dropped V off.
Thor seems a little more put together now, a little fitter.
It is rare for a nineteen-year-old boy to have clothing that looks deliberately chosen to impress, but Thor, who at home seemed to subsist on sweatpants and t-shirts, now looks like his button-down has been starched and pressed for maximum effect.
J guesses the new look comes from the professionalism that has been thrust upon him...but then he guesses again as Thor says, eyes alight, “You have to meet Meta!”
A wraith of a girl emerges from behind him dressed in a three-hundred-dollar t-shirt that J thinks is a ten-dollar t-shirt and a skirt that would not be out of place at a Renaissance fair.
She doesn’t quite muster a smile, but she does offer her hand for J to shake.
“It’s so good to meet you,” she says. “We listen to you all the time.”
J can’t help but note the lack of compliment here. He suspects that she is not in charge of the playlist when his songs are playing.
“We have J to thank for Secret Project’s name!” Thor reminds Meta. “As well as so many other things. Honestly, when I think of the couple I want us to be, I often think of J and V. The two of you are so inspiring.”
J wants to ask, Are we ? But he also is aware he’s treading on V’s territory, and thus he should not be the one to correct any of the markings.
The doorway isn’t big enough for V to come through with Thor and Meta standing there; only J can see that she’s arrived and probably heard the last minute of conversation. It isn’t until she says “I found the forks!” that Thor and Meta part to let her squeeze into the conference room.
“Are you here to do a show?” Thor asks. “If so, we’d love to come.”
Before J can answer, V steps in with “I told you I’d let you know the next time he’s playing! Don’t you trust me, Thor?”
Thor laughs. Meta, notably, doesn’t.
“Fair,” Thor says. J senses this is a common dynamic—V is the older sister who knows the rules a little better, so he defers to her.
“I’m here to sing at two weddings,” J tells him.
“Weddings are more about taxes than they are about love,” Meta states.
The other three people in the room turn to her for explanation. But all she says is “What? They are .”
Thor looks at his watch, then says, “We’ll leave you two alone now. But, J, we should talk soon—I would love to get your take on the sonic modalities we’re employing to create a more hypercon-scious user experience. You know?”
J does not know, but he nods. He is reminded that this nineteen-year-old in front of him has managed to conjure up his own virtual universe, which requires knowledge that J can’t even begin to fathom.
Meta says again how good it was to meet him, and Thor gives him another hug before they depart.
It’s only after the door is closed and he and V are alone in the conference room with their salads that J says, “Well, she’s...”
“Young,” V finishes. “They’re both young. And extremely smart. I actually think she’s as smart as he is, just with a different set of skills. I just wish I knew more about her. Her last name, to start.”
“You don’t know her full name?”
V shakes her head. “I don’t know anything about her, besides what she’s told Thor.
She’s definitely a student at NYU, and on social media she presents herself as just plain Meta.
But beyond that, it’s like her history has been scrubbed clean.
I don’t know many college students who know how to do that. ”
“Steal a peek at her driver’s license.”
“This is New York—no one has a driver’s license. And her student ID only has Meta on it. No last name. Apparently NYU is the kind of school that lets you do that.”
“I love that you checked.”
“Of course I checked. She’s either an heiress who’s ashamed of being an heiress, a killer who’s smart about being a killer, or some combination of the two.”
“Seems like a lot for Thor to handle.”
“I don’t know that he’s questioning it. He’s just enjoying it. As I said...they’re young.”
J wants to ask her about what Thor said about them being a perfect couple; the implication is that V is clearly painting a rosy picture among her colleagues.
But he also doesn’t want to disrupt the rapport that’s returned between them.
So instead they talk about her job, and life in New York, and where J is staying.
About anything but the two of them, and what the two of them might mean.
Still, it’s close quarters in the conference room, and the proximity of their bodies can’t be denied.
It’s easy enough to deny while they’re eating salads, because it’s impossible to be sexy while eating a salad.
But when the salads are finished and pushed aside, J feels his leg moving over to touch V’s, because it is there and his desire to do so is undeniable.
She doesn’t move her leg away. Instead, she moves her other leg so it’s touching his other leg.
They hold in that position for a moment, neither of them attempting anything more than this simple touch.
“I have missed you,” V says.
“I’ve missed you, too,” J says. He wants to lean over to touch her hand, her face. But that would mean shifting his legs away to get the right angle.