Chapter 15 #2
Kevin had cooked us a beautiful meal of lemon chicken and roasted red potatoes. We chewed politely and sipped fine wine over pewter Calvin Klein plates. But our plates were on our laps because his apartment was too small for a proper table.
“You know,” I said between forkfuls, “if you were willing to move to Brooklyn, or even below Fourteenth Street, you’d have a lot more space.”
The more I considered my surroundings, the less they made sense to me. This prestige neighborhood, this stuffy furniture, the predictable prints on the walls—none of it appeared to be the likely choice of the man I’d regularly watched wolfing down greasy street meat during lunch.
“Are you finished?” Kevin reached for my plate and tossed it along with his into the kitchen sink—barely needing to take two steps away to do so.
“Is it to impress the corporate law guys at Titan?” I asked. “To tell them you live here? Would you be ashamed of Brooklyn?”
“Tina.”
“Don’t get mad,” I said. “I’m only trying to understand.”
I craned my neck to get a better look at Kevin’s bedroom, separated from the living room by only a bookcase.
It appeared tidy and filled with framed photographs.
Visible on his dresser was a picture of him and his mom and dad wearing swimsuits.
They looked like regular people. The kind of regular people who come preset with the frame from Kodak or whoever, as an example of what you and your family should aspire to.
“It’s my parents, okay?” Kevin walked two quick steps to the window and looked out.
I stayed put on the couch. “You live on the Upper East Side to impress your parents?”
“No.” When he turned back around to face me I could see the shame he’d been trying to conceal. “This apartment belongs to my parents. They bought it as a sort of pied-à-terre and now I’m living in it.” He looked down. “I’m sorry.”
I went to him, finally, now that I’d successfully emasculated him. “You don’t have to apologize for that,” I said. “That makes a whole lot more sense.” I rubbed his back halfheartedly. “I’m glad you told me.”
“You are?” He was so easily pacified. Too easily—especially because I was totally lying. His parents paid for his apartment?
“It’s only temporary,” he said, leading me the short distance back to the couch.
“Until I can buy my own place. But fuck, this is exactly what I wanted to avoid.” Kevin was distressed—I could tell by the way his eyebrows were furrowed like two crinkle-cut french fries.
“I really like you, Tina. And I don’t want you to think less of me just because I come from .
. . this. I want to make my own way in the world.
To be my own man. I need you to know that. ”
I think he was expecting me to say, I do know that, but when I said nothing, he took my hands into his and squeezed them.
“You’ve got your project with Emily and you’re trying to fight inequality, and here I am .
. . what? Living in my parents’ apartment and working for the Titan Corporation.
I wouldn’t blame you if you broke up with me right now. ”
“I’m not going to break up with you,” I said. “I’d have to be crazy to break up with you.”
Shit. There went the Bu in GAnENsBu, right out the pied-à-terre window.
Kevin exhaled long and slow. “Well, it’s a relief to hear you say that. It’s like I’ve been living with this secret, and it’s been terrible, not knowing how you’d react when you found out, if you would lose all respect for me.”
“I can imagine,” I said.
“I feel so much better, now that it’s out in the open.”
“Good,” I said, longing for such relief.
“Are you still hungry enough for dessert?” Kevin bounced up from the sofa and disappeared to the kitchen nook. He returned carrying a stainless steel electric fondue pot, which he set up upon the floor.
(I hoped the fondue pot also belonged to his parents.)
“So,” he said. “What’s the latest with your project anyway? How’s it going?”
He handed me a skewer and uncovered a plate of bananas and strawberries that he must have spent half the day slicing into equal-size geometric shapes.
I tried to think. What had I last told him? “It’s going really well,” I said. “We’re, um, getting a lot more organized. More focused.”
Kevin stirred the pot of chocolate with a wooden spoon, waiting for me to say more.
“We’re focusing just on student-loan debt now,” I said. “Did I already tell you that?”
“No, you didn’t.” He paused his stirring. “That’s awesome. Can I get in on this? Law school left me about two hundred K in the hole.”
“Ha,” I said. “No. It’s going to be just for women, I think. Women who are underpaid. Assistants, like.”
“Oh, that’s understandable.” He nodded feministically. “You know, my mother would love this idea.”
“Please don’t mention this to your mother, Kevin. Seriously.”
He resumed his stirring of the chocolate. “I won’t. I’ll wait to let you tell her about it yourself, when you meet her.”
I just let that one lie.
“So do you have a website up and running?” Kevin dipped his pinky into the pot for a taste.
“Yes, actually,” I said, and then, “No. Not publicly. Not like that you can see.”
“Still in the beta stages?” he asked.
“Yup,” I said, whatever that meant.
“But you’ve got a mission statement and everything?”
“Oh yeah, totally. We have a total mission statement.”
Kevin let go of his spoon, but he remained kneeling down catcher-style, hovering over the fondue.
“Well, when you’re ready to take it public,” he said, “I’ve got a few contacts I’d really like to introduce you to.
Some friends who work for media companies that are a little more liberal than Titan. They’d be all over this.”
I had to put an end to this conversation immediately. The lie was becoming too detailed—but how did I stop it?
I leaned over and kissed him.
He pulled back, surprised. “You like that idea, huh?”
Jesus.
I shoved my tongue into his mouth, harder this time. New five-point plan:
Stop talking, stop talking, stop talking, stop talking, stop talking. (STSTSTSTST.)
I tried to get closer to him, to really go for it. I got down onto the floor, where he was, and wrapped my arms around him—this was going to work like a charm—but that damn fondue pot! It toppled over with a crash, splashing chocolate all over Kevin’s parents’ CB2 area rug.
“Oh my god,” I said.
“It’s okay.” Kevin tried to take my hands, but they were busy covering my face. “Seriously, Tina, don’t worry about it, I hate that fucking rug. Look.”
I did look, just as Kevin kicked the remaining setup of fruit he’d so meticulously prepared for our dessert square across the room.
His parents’ chocolate-covered rug was now polka-dotted with strawberries. Sliced banana stuck to the sides of their fawn-colored storage ottoman. He kissed me on the mouth before I could laugh.
I grabbed his face and kissed him back, pulling him in closer.
He directed me toward the bedroom, but we’d made it only as far as the bookcase when he pushed me up against the wall. I fiddled with his zipper and he pulled off my shirt. We were naked in seconds.
And that’s how good I was at not having sex with Kevin at his Upper East Side apartment that night.