Chapter 11 #2
After dinner they walked to the subway station over on 86 th and shoved their way onto a train.
Daniel had never seen the subway this crowded; there was barely room to breathe.
Not that he really minded; Nora was pressed against him more tightly than she’d ever been when they were together in his dorm room.
Her face was buried in his neck, and she whispered, “This is really nice. Except for the part where I’m losing feeling in my legs. ”
Thankfully it was only a few stops before they had to switch lines, then only one more stop—on an even more packed Number Seven train—and they were at Times Square. They were carried out by the tide of New Year’s revelers, and when they got to the top of the steps, the sudden cold was a shock.
They clung to each other as they made their way through the crowds, searching for a good spot to watch the ball drop, and people-watch until then.
It was just after eleven o’clock when they settled on the corner of 45 th and Seventh Avenue, right in front of a McDonalds. When they got there, Daniel noticed the bottle of champagne in Nora’s hand. “Where’d you get that?”
She shook her head. “Somebody handed it to me a minute ago. I guess they thought we deserved it.”
“Or they thought you were somebody else.”
“Whichever,” she said. “It’s ours now.” She handed it to him. “You want to do the honors?”
Daniel had never opened a bottle of champagne before, but he’d seen it done in movies. It couldn’t be that difficult, could it?
It wasn’t; he squeezed the bottle, just like James Bond always did, and the cork popped off.
They both got sprayed, and all he could do was laugh.
So what if he got champagne all over his fancy leather jacket?
He was here in the middle of the biggest party in the world, with a beautiful girl he loved, who loved him back and smiled at him the way nobody else ever did.
Or ever could. “They said the jacket was waterproof when I bought it. Think that applies to champagne too?”
She gave him a quick kiss. “If not, I’ll pay for the cleaning. Well, I‘ll ask my Dad, and he’ll pay for it, anyway.”
They took turns drinking from the bottle and dancing with each other—well, shuffling around in each other’s arms, anyway—as the clock ticked closer to 1989.
Nora , 1 1 : 55 p.m.
It was five minutes to midnight. The champagne was gone, and Nora heard the music. She didn’t even like “Tell It to My Heart” but wherever it was coming from, it was loud enough to hear clearly. And it had enough of a melody to dance properly to.
She pushed Daniel away, just a few inches, enough to hold him for a real dance. She thought she’d have to lead, but he surprised her again. He knew how to do a box step!
She gave him a questioning look.
“Mom sent me and Lisa to dance class when she was thirteen. I was ten. You can imagine how awkward it was.” He twirled her as he said it. Maybe it was the champagne that was bringing this out in him.
“Awkward for who?”
He laughed, twirling her again. “Both of us. But definitely her more than me.” Now his eyes went distant for a moment, the way they always did when he was remembering something.
“I know you’re an only child, but imagine if you had a little brother who was four inches shorter than you and kept tripping over his feet, and you had to dance with him for an hour and a half every week in public. ”
“Wow,” she said. “That ought to be against the Geneva Convention or something.”
He twirled her again, and then he dipped her.
This was a whole new Daniel; she would never have imagined he had all this in him.
“Yeah,” he answered finally. “It’s a miracle we didn’t kill each other before I made it to high school.
You’d never guess it now, but...” He hesitated for a second, then went on.
“She’s the one who talked Dad into letting me come down here tonight. ”
“What did she say?” Daniel’s sister had been tight-lipped at Christmas dinner; Nora hadn’t gotten any real sense of what she was like.
“I’ll tell you later,” he said. “It’s almost time!” He was right; she could hear the crowd counting, tens of thousands of voices coming from all around. They both joined in, until the countdown got to ten.
That’s when Daniel pulled her close and kissed her, eyes wide open. She kissed him back, and all she could see was the love shining in his eyes. All she could hear was her heart beating. When they finally came up for air, the new year was already a minute old.
Daniel , two o’clock in the morning
They took a taxi back to Nora’s building. The drive took twenty minutes, and they spent most of the ride making out in the back seat.
When they arrived, Daniel gave the driver a twenty and told him to keep the change.
It seemed only fair; it couldn’t have been pleasant for him to see them going at it every time he checked the rearview mirror.
The doorman—a different one than earlier this evening, Daniel noticed—stopped them. “Happy New Year, Miss Nora. Does Miss Rachel know you have a guest?”
Nora sighed theatrically. “Yes, Ike. Miss Rachel knows. I think it’s eight in the morning in London if you’d like to call her to make sure. I’ve got the number.”
Ike shook his head, not meeting Nora’s eyes when he answered. “That’s quite all right, Miss Nora. I just have to check, you understand.”
She patted his arm. “I understand. I’ll tell my aunt you asked. And Happy New Year to you.” Ike opened the front door, and Daniel mumbled a Happy New Year greeting as well as they went inside.
It was a very well-kept building. Everything in the lobby gleamed. The elevator door opened without a sound. When they came out on the fourth floor, the carpets looked freshly vacuumed. He echoed his father’s question from a few days ago. “How does your aunt afford this place?”
“Rent control,” Nora answered, and now it made sense. “She could never live here otherwise. Anyway, here we are.” She stopped in front of apartment 406, turned to him and smiled. “I hope you didn’t come all this way just to make sure I got home safely. I’d be so disappointed.”
“I’m here because I want to be.” Just like she’d said that first night two months ago. And just as true.
She had the perfect answer. “There’s nowhere I’d rather be than here with you.
” She turned the key in the lock. “Well, not in the hallway. That would be weird.” But she kissed him out there anyway, as if she couldn’t wait the two seconds to get inside.
He didn’t mind. How could he ever mind kissing her?
Nora , 2:15 in the morning
Nora let Daniel look around the apartment for a moment before she took her coat off. It seemed only fair to let him get his bearings before she distracted him.
He was looking at the photos on the living room wall—Rachel had pictures from every major European capital up there. “These are really good. Is your aunt a photographer, too?”
“Just amateur. She always tries to set aside a few hours for pictures when her company sends her out on trips. But is that really what you want to talk about right now?” She threw her coat onto the couch, and just like in the restaurant, Daniel went wide-eyed.
“That’s better,” she told him. “Now, here’s the quick tour.
” She pointed to the rooms in turn. “Kitchen. Bathroom. Living room, you’re in it.
Rachel’s bedroom.” She took his hand, led him to the one door she hadn’t pointed at yet.
“And, last but not least, guest room. My room. Our room for tonight.”
She pushed the door open with one hand, and he followed her in. “Look at that, I remembered to make the bed this morning.”
“Yesterday morning,” he said.
“Last year.”
“Yeah, that too,” he answered. Somehow she was in his arms; when had that happened? It didn’t matter, because that’s exactly where she wanted—needed—to be.
Daniel , 2:20 in the morning
They were sitting on the bed now.
“If this is our room tonight, is it our bed, too?”
Nora knew exactly what he meant. Not his bed, like in the dorm.
Or the bed, like it could be any bed anywhere.
“Yeah. Ours.” She kissed him, slowly, deeply.
“I really like how that sounds. I like having things that are ours. I like being an us.” Another kiss, and then one more. “I was never an us before I met you.”
“I was.” But not like this. “This is different, though. It’s our us. Not something we were born into. Not something that happened by accident. We chose it. We found each other, and we made ourselves into an us.” He kissed her this time. “And it’s the best thing I’ve ever had.”
She’d unbuttoned his shirt. “For me, too. I never knew anything could feel this way. I never knew I could even be an us.” Her dress was—somewhere, he hadn’t seen where she’d thrown it.
It didn’t matter.
The only thing that mattered was that she was right here, in his arms, pressed up against him. No. There was no him or her in this room, this bed, this moment. There were only the two of them together.
Nora , the morning of January 1st
If it had been up to Nora, they’d have stayed in bed all morning. All day. Hell, all year.
But Rachel had been very clear. And just in case she tried to back out of their deal, her aunt had bought her a ticket to Providence, flying out of LaGuardia at two o’clock this afternoon.
So she’d need to be on her way to the airport by noon at the latest. And while Daniel had said there was no specific time he was expected home, his parents—especially his father—surely wouldn’t be happy if he sauntered through the door in the middle of the afternoon.
“That reminds me,” she said, pouring coffee for the both of them. “You promised you’d tell me what your sister said to convince your father to let you come out last night.”
Daniel took a sip of coffee and a bite of toast before he answered. “I did, didn’t I?” More coffee, more toast, and no more words.
“You’re not really going to hold out on me, are you?”
He went a little bit red; he hadn’t done that in a while. But he finally spoke. “Okay. Dad knew I’d want to—we’d want to come back here after Times Square. And he didn’t like it.”
And this was why Nora had made it a point since tenth grade to say as little as possible—ideally nothing at all—about boys to either of her parents. “I can see where he’d feel that way.”
“So that’s when Lisa jumped into the conversation. She said something like, ‘You know they’re sleeping together already, don’t you? He doesn’t have a roommate, what did you think they were doing?’”
“Oh, my God! She did not say that.”
“Cross my heart,” Daniel said, but he made the little crossing motion over her chest rather than his.
“I think you’re a little confused.” Of course he wasn’t—but she still wanted to hear him say it.
“Not a bit. I know exactly where my heart is now. And I know you’ll always take care of it.” Now he crossed his own chest. “And I’ll always treasure yours. I love you, Nora Langley. And I wish more than anything that we didn’t have to leave today.”
She leaned over her aunt’s kitchen table and kissed him. He kissed her back, and it took all of her willpower—and his—to remain here in the kitchen.
“I love you, Daniel Keller. And I hate it too that we have to go.” She sighed. “At least now it’s only eleven days. That’s not so bad.”
“It feels like forever,” he said.
“Yeah. But last night felt like forever, too. Let’s both hang on to that.”
She hung onto it walking Daniel downstairs and to the subway. And then while she finished packing. And for the taxi ride to LaGuardia. And for the whole flight to Providence.
She was still hanging onto it when her father drove up to the pickup area in his corvette. He took one look at her, and he sighed. “I’ve never seen you like this, Pumpkin. You must really love this boy.”
“More than anything, Dad. I love him more than anything.”