Nicky by noonlight
I’m taking a second last stand. I decide to invite Nicky on our “first date,” by which I mean a planned rendezvous, not at five in the morning, where we’re both sober for most of it. Since we are interested in photography, it’s off to Chelsea to see some photo shows. Sounds reasonable, right?
Some of you may wonder what a fellow like me wants with a daytime excursion not involving drunk girls: why rock the boat? The truth is that I feel my non-relationship with Nicky is being to get thin. Just because I am a drunk who likes pretty girls doesn’t mean I’m shallow. In order for the booze-fueled, mediocre sex to continue or, god forbid, improve, I need a little conversation to give me something to think about. Laugh if you will. I prefer people to be “people,” not just, as my supposed friend Meg says, “something to whack off with.”
So we agree to meet one afternoon at a café. (She’s available afternoons because she works nights as a bartender. This shouldn’t surprise you or me because everyone I know is either a bartender, sleeping with a bartender, wants to be a bartender, or just spends all his or her free time around a bartender. Is there really any more useful friend to have? Maybe a bartender who knows CPR.)
Nicky looks pretty ragged. Of course, she’s hung over, she hasn’t been awake very long, and she seems to be very lost in the sober, waking world. I buy her a tremendous coffee. This gives her enough energy and me enough reassurance that we might make it across town. We head for the L train (why hasn’t some smartass hipster from Williamsburg updated the Billy Strayhorn number for the crosstown set?).
We arrive, hand-in-hand, in the world of the west side. We pop into a friend’s gallery but he isn’t in. We trudge around looking at photos. We make comments about them. We cross the street to another gallery. Repeat. Nicky is already looking weary. We trundle down the street, with me pointing out stuff. We’re surrounded by other couples doing about the same thing. Nicky looks increasingly uncomfortable.
She stops in the street. “Let’s get a drink,” she says.
We go to the Empire Diner for sandwiches and whiskey-and-ginger-ales. Some of the color is returning to her face. She relaxes.
“Sorry,” she says, “What’s with all those people, you know, like guys trying to be smart talking about art? It bugs me.”
“Like me, too, I guess.”
Sip of drink. “Well, maybe.” Sip of drink. Chuckle.
Thus endeth the outing, somewhat prematurely. With whiskey safely inside us, we head back for the subway, inside of which we run into the ex-boyfriend she was telling me she’s having trouble getting out of her life. No kidding. What is he doing in my subway?
“Hi,” we say to each other. They chat for a bit. She’s much more animated with him than she’s been with me. But he just sort of stares at her in reply. Poor sap.
Anyway, I give up. Things aren’t what they’re not. Next time I see Nicky, it’ll be by accident, and we’ll go home together. I will let things happen, not make things happen. It doesn’t work, does it?
by Jack, November 5, 2003 5:02 PM | More from Nicky | More from Women
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I will let things happen, not make things happen.
How Tolstoyan of you. I seem to remember one of his characters also running into trouble on - or was it under? - a train.