CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN
When I wake from my nap it’s 8 p.m. and the sky is as dark here as it would be at home at this time of night. I look out of the window and take in the bright lights of the city, and of Bleecker Street and Greenwich Village. The English countryside is hard to beat for its lack of light pollution, but New York is beautiful in a raw look-at-me kind of way. I wonder if I could ever get used to this, as Chris has done.
I shower and put on jeans and a jumper and a quick dab of make-up. I’m hungry, so thoughts of falling back to sleep again fly out of the window in favour of finding something very ‘New York’ to feed on. Having never been here before, I want to try everything. Chris is right: I can’t order room service on night one. Or at all, really, if I want to do New York right.
Do you still want to grab something to eat or did you already have dinner? I tentatively send to Chris, taking him up on his offer. I still feel it’s a bad idea, but not because I don’t trust myself, and not because I don’t trust him. It’s more that I wonder if that initial connection we had is going to be hard to ignore. But now we’re friends, sort of. We’re probably less than that in reality, given our distance, but we’re certainly not more. Not now.
Yet going out for dinner with Chris still feels slightly disloyal to Josh, even though I’m trying to reason it out. Josh and Chris know each other from the stag-do. And while I did tell Josh that it was Chris who recommended me for the job, and that he’d be working in the same office as me while I’m here, we haven’t really had any discussion about what might have ensued with Chris – if anything between us had happened. Josh knows the basics, but not the intensity of how I nearly ended up on a plane with Chris. I’m assuming Josh isn’t concerned, given how easy-going he is. And I don’t want to worry him unnecessarily.
Chris doesn’t respond immediately and, when he does, I’m busy trying to force my feet into my trainers without bothering to undo the laces, because I’m going out, regardless of whether he’s coming with me or not. I stop halfway through as my phone beeps, signalling his response.
Love to. I’m starving, he types. Give me about forty minutes to get to you?
Forty minutes? Where do you live?
Greenpoint, he replies.
Where the heck is that?
He puts a laughing emoji and then, Brooklyn.
OK. Cool. Meet you in the hotel lobby at 8.45?
He sends a thumbs-up and then he’s offline and, I presume, either getting ready to leave his apartment and hail a cab or to get on the subway. I decide I’m going to have to snaffle all the complementary pretzel packets while I wait.
Dinner with Chris feels easy, friendly and natural – he takes me to his favourite pizza joint, where we order one huge slice each. He chooses pepperoni, and mine has aubergine and pesto, artichoke and prosciutto. I’ve never ordered pizza by the slice before. The restaurant is loud and casual.
While we eat at our high tables and faded bar stools, Chris sips a beer. I’m so jet-lagged I can’t face alcohol, so I’ve ordered a giant Diet Coke. Everything is giant. ‘These are ridiculous,’ I say, gesturing to the cups. ‘They’re bigger than a venti in Starbucks.’
He chuckles as we eat. It’s cold outside and warm in here, and condensation gathers on the huge windows. Fairy lights and displays of huge candy-canes and oversized baubles adorn shop windows and the lights have been left on after hours. Around doors life-sized Nutcracker soldiers in red and white greet shoppers. It’s wonderfully photogenic and the whole city is already so festive, even though it’s not yet December.
‘I’m sure yesterday it was pumpkins and Halloween stuff everywhere,’ Chris says to my observation. ‘Overnight it all turned into Christmas decorations, without me even noticing.’
‘It’s so pretty,’ I say. ‘I can see why you like it here. The changing of the seasons. Must be magical.’
He grins, then takes a huge bite of pizza.
‘Thanks for taking me somewhere touristy,’ I tell him genuinely, trying not to let pizza grease slip down my chin.
‘This isn’t touristy,’ Chris says, stunned. ‘This is my new favourite pizza place. It’s old, you know – not hipstery in the slightest.’
‘Um … it is quite hipstery. But it feels like how a New York pizza place should be.’
He’ll take that comment clearly, as he narrows his eyes and glances around. ‘Don’t ruin it for me,’ Chris jokes. Then he focuses on eating dinner. ‘That is good,’ he sighs after a couple of bites. ‘I was starving.’
‘I did wonder if you’d already had dinner and were just here out of politeness?’ I ask.
‘I purposefully didn’t eat dinner, out of politeness.’
‘In case I rang?’
‘Something like that,’ he says softly.
‘Thanks,’ I reply quickly, ‘for taking me out tonight. For suggesting the job to me. For all of it.’
‘It wasn’t wholly selfless,’ he admits.
‘No?’ I question warily, worried about what he might say. I dig into my slice.
‘Because you got the job, I get fifteen hundred dollars.’
I stop eating. ‘Sorry? What do you get fifteen hundred dollars for?’
‘For recommending you to the role; if it all works out, I get a referral bonus. It saves them so much in recruitment-agent fees, so they’re always on the hunt for recommendations when it comes to filling roles that open up.’
Somewhere in the street outside a yellow taxi honks its horn and my gaze drifts out of the condensation-heavy window to look, but in reality I’m processing what Chris has just said.
I feel offended, though I don’t know why. ‘And there was me, thinking you’d remembered me,’ I say before slurping some of my Coke. I wish I hadn’t said that. I hope it’s not taken out of context.
‘I did remember you,’ he replies and then he looks back at his pizza. ‘That’s why I recommended you.’ He munches the final bites and then, when he’s finished, scrunches his paper napkin up and puts it on the plate. ‘It’s all part of my grand plan to get you to New York.’
I give him an uncertain look. ‘Really?’
‘Not really. I’m not that God-like.’ He’s frowning at his greasy pizza plate and looks as if he’s thinking hard about what to say next, running it through his mind first. ‘I don’t want you to think I go around inviting every woman I meet to get on a flight with me, there and then. It wasn’t a casual everyday move.’
I look at Chris and my breathing slows. Is the elephant in the room – everything that was said between us that night, and some things since – about to stomp forward and demand to be noticed?
‘I still can’t believe you did it,’ I say gently. ‘It was bold.’
‘It was. And you almost said yes,’ he replies softly.
‘I did.’ I want to say, But now we’re just friends , although it feels like such an obviously forced comment.
There’s silence between us for a beat, two beats, and then someone enters the restaurant and the door bangs shut behind them. Chris glances towards the noise, breaking our connection.
‘So what have you been doing since you got on a plane and left me watching your taxi pull away?’ I ask.
‘I’ve been dating someone,’ he says.
‘Have you?’ My voice rises an octave and I bring it back into check. ‘I thought you were giving up on dating.’
‘I was, but I matched with someone online.’
I roll my eyes.
‘I know, I know. Hear me out,’ he tells me. ‘After everything we’d been talking about – meeting people in real life – I was going to take myself off all those apps, but when I logged in to do that very thing … there she was. So I took a risk.’
‘On watching the sand-timer of your life run out, over a glass of warm wine?’
‘I took a risk on all of that,’ he says. ‘But in the back of my mind I also think it was because of the other chat we had.’
I narrow my eyes. ‘Which one?’
‘Married at thirty, babies by thirty five.’
‘Divorced by forty,’ I remind him.
‘Ha, yeah. So I took a chance. Sand timer and warm wine be damned.’
‘And how’s it working out?’
‘Good,’ he says, looking bashful all of a sudden. ‘I mean, it’s early days, but so far so good. What about you?’
I pause. I’m not sure how he’s going to take this. ‘I kind of … got together with Josh.’
He reaches for his beer. ‘Who’s Josh?’
‘You went on the stag weekend with him. He was Dan’s best man.’
Chris thinks and then says, ‘ Josh? Owns-a-farm-Josh?’
‘Yeah.’ I smile proudly.
‘Really?’ he asks, his voice laced with disbelief.
‘Yeah,’ I repeat, a bit uncertainly now.
Chris pauses, thinking. ‘How did that happen?’
‘We met at the wedding.’
He nods and then, ‘Hang on. The same wedding where you met me?’
‘I met you and then I met him.’ I tell Chris I met Josh at the bar, when I disappeared inside for so long that night, and about how, later on, I behaved in a very unladylike way and snogged Josh’s face off in public. I don’t think Chris’ll be upset by this. He’s dating someone too.
‘ Really? ’ he says again.
‘Stop saying that,’ I whine.
‘So my taxi drove off into the distance, and I was full of regret about leaving you standing there and about how I had to get on a plane and how much of a missed opportunity it was, and that for the rest of my life I’d be filled with regret about – I don’t know about what – because I could hardly force you on the plane, could I, so … what did I have to regret?’ he says. ‘But hours later you and Josh were kissing .’
‘Actually it was more like ten minutes later that Josh and I were kissing,’ I tease, to smooth out my embarrassment. ‘I’m a fast worker.’
‘Clearly,’ Chris replies, but there’s humour in his eyes. ‘How … how come that happened? We didn’t kiss, so why did you kiss him ? I need to know this. Was it a timing thing – end-of-the-night erection section?’
‘Erection what?’ I splutter.
‘The dancing at the end of weddings is always slow-dancing, isn’t it? Everyone couples up, gets a hard-on and then they get off with each other.’
‘That’s grim. Actually the last dance was, suitably enough, “New York, New York” with can-can moves. Or was it “Sweet Caroline”? Ooh, I’m going to put that on my wedding-bingo grid for the next one I go to. So no, the non-existent erection section is not how it happened. It was the bingo game.’
‘The what ?’ Chris leans forward, puts his elbows on the table and rests his chin in his hands as if he’s in for a treat of a story.
I can’t remember if I even told Chris about the bingo game at the wedding, and clearly I didn’t because he looks slightly startled as I explain the concept.
‘So, I had to kiss the best man. Josh was the best man,’ I finish.
Chris makes a face like he can’t believe what I’m saying, and then proves it by exclaiming, ‘This is the most ridiculous thing I’ve heard … all year.’
‘Really? I met a man in real life and I liked him, although that was an unexpected segue from the bingo game. I didn’t have to be swiped on. The game worked out well for both me and Josh. You should try it. Next wedding you go to: give it a shot. It passes the time nicely.’
‘For crying out loud,’ Chris exclaims, but he’s smiling and then his phone dings and he checks his message. ‘I have to run in a minute,’ he tells me. ‘I’ll escort you back to your hotel if you want?’
I nod. ‘Thanks.’ And now I’m nosy. ‘You got somewhere to be?’
‘I told Kayla, the woman I’m seeing, that I was over on her side of town tonight, so we said we’d meet for drinks. I may head back to hers after.’
‘Oh,’ I reply. He doesn’t need to give me any more detail, and I don’t want any. ‘I’m a stopgap until you can get to your real date?’ I say light-heartedly.
Chris gives me a look and then it turns into an uncertain smile, before he brushes aside my silly comment with, ‘Maybe we can hang out a bit more while you’re here. Somewhere less touristy?’ he jokes.
‘I’d love that. Empire State Building next?’
‘Absolutely not.’