Engaging Men (30 page)

Then I remembered there was someone whom I could always call any time, day or night. Justin. I knew he’d be up. He was just as much of a night creature as I was.

I slipped out of bed, closing the door behind me so as not to wake Kirk, and crept into the living room.

Justin answered on the second ring. “Hello?”

“Hey,” I said, suddenly realizing how odd it was to be talking to Justin on the phone in the middle of the night. I mean, I never usually had a reason to call the man I spent a good portion of my waking moments with.

“Hey, Ange, what’s up? Where are you?”

“I’m at Kirk’s. I just called…” I paused, suddenly not understanding why I had called. “I just called to see how you were doing…”This felt like the truth, because I had been worrying about Justin since last weekend, when we had walked all over the Upper West Side. It seemed with all my running around to get ready for this crazy weekend away, I hadn’t even had a chance to talk to him and see how he was feeling since that night.

“Me? I’m fine, fine,” he replied, as if he hadn’t bared his soul to me less than a week ago. “Are you okay?” he asked.

“Me?”

“Yeah, ‘cause if you need to talk, I can call you right back. I’ve got Lauren on the other line, long distance.”

Don’t ask me why this came as a surprise. Maybe because it seemed Lauren hadn’t been calling as much as she used to. “No, that’s okay,” I said. “I’m going to go to bed soon anyway. I just called…to say goodbye.”

“Okay. Have a good trip.” He paused. “And don’t worry about the flight. Everything’s going to be fine.”

I smiled. At least maybe he understood why I’d called. But once he hung up, leaving me in the silent darkness once more, I felt lonelier than ever.

You’re just tired. It’s late! an inner voice chided, sounding suspiciously like my mother’s. Go to bed. You’ll be spending the whole weekend around people.

Not just any people. Kirk’s people.

I needed a cigarette.

Before I knew what I was doing, I was slipping my flip-flops on my feet and heading out the front door without a plan in mind, only an urge that I had not felt even during my pack-a-day period back in college. I was on the elevator before it occurred to me that walking down Third Avenue in my boxers and tank top to the deli for a pack of cigarettes was not the brightest thing to do in the middle of the night. I wasn’t even wearing a bra, I thought, bending my knees and giving myself a test jiggle. Hmm…

The elevator doors opened, and like a savior in silver-blue security uniform, Henry sat at the front desk, bent over a newspaper.

“Hey, Henry,” I said, as if wandering the halls in pajamas were my usual habit.

“Hey, Gorgeous,” he said, greeting me as he usually did— one of the reasons I adored Henry. “What are you doing up at this hour?”

“Can’t sleep,” I said, approaching the desk and spying the telltale pack of Marlboros he kept in the cubby beneath the counter. “Can I bum a smoke?”

“Sure thing, sweetie,” he said, grabbing the pack and holding it out to me.

I took one. “Thanks. Can I borrow these?” I asked, grabbing the matches there and heading for the door.

“You’re not going outside like that?”

“Just on the stoop,” I replied.

“I better come with you,” he said. Another reason I adored Henry—he was probably pushing seventy and clearly from an era when men were hardwired to keep a protective eye on the fairer sex.

Once I seated myself comfortably on the one of the three steps that constituted the small stoop in front of Kirk’s building, Henry took the matches from me, lit my cigarette, then pulled out one for himself.

We puffed in companionable silence for a few moments, until finally Henry asked, “Does Mr. Kirk know you smoke?”

Alarm shot through me with the realization that my little midnight adventure might unmask my newfound vice to my…future husband. “Um, no actually, he doesn’t. I mean, I don’t really smoke…”

“I won’t say a word,” he said, flashing me a conspiratorial grin.

“At least not until after the wedding,” I joked.

“Ah, is that how it is? You and Mr. Kirk getting married?”

Oops. There I went again, putting my flip-flop in my unusually big mouth. But then I realized this was Henry I was talking to. Henry who had once loaned me car fare when Kirk and I got in a fight in the early days of our relationship and in a flare of temper I had stomped out of the apartment without a dime to my name. “I don’t know if we’ll get married,” I said now, and even as I uttered the words, I realized how true they were. I mean, nothing was definite. No vows, exchanges or pledges made. And suddenly I realized, with the clarity that only the late hour and a solid dose of nicotine could bring, that I wasn’t sure if I ever wanted to take that step. Not with Kirk. Maybe not with anyone. Because if I couldn’t make it with him…

“What do you think of Kirk?” I asked now, looking up into Henry’s warm brown eyes as if I might find some answers there to the questions that seemed to now swirl freely through my sleep-deprived mind.

“Mr. Kirk?” He paused, gazing at me speculatively as he rolled his cigarette back and forth between his long brown fingers. “Mr. Kirk is a good man.”

Yes, I thought, blowing out a last puff of smoke. He was a good man. But the question rose unbidden like a siren’s song in the night: Was he a good man for me?

When the alarm buzzed at the ungodly hour of seven-thirty (ungodly for me, who though used to rising at five for the show felt entitled to sleep in a little on Saturday) I didn’t have the answer. In fact, the question had been put to sleep shortly after I had crept back into the apartment at two in the morning and slid back into bed next to Kirk’s sleep-warm body.

There was no time for uncertainty now, I thought, watching groggily as Kirk bounded out of bed with an energy I could never muster at any hour of the morning, my regular Rise and Shine routine notwithstanding.

“Wake up, sleepyhead,” Kirk said, leaning in to brush my cheek with a kiss.

I opened one eye, smiling when I saw his face so close, his eyes still sleepy and his hair endearingly tousled. “I don’t want to go to school,” I whined like a recalcitrant child, and pulled Kirk down until he was lying on top of me. “Can’t we just stay in bed a little longer?” I whispered, rubbing my hips suggestively against his as I felt his body come to life. He bent his head and touched his mouth to my breast, biting gently through my tee and sending a pleasing ache to my lower body. Mmm-hmm…he was a good man, I thought, lifting up my tank to give him better access. The minute his lips closed on my nipple, I knew everything would be all right, just as soon as I got out him out of those damn shorts…

But before I could get that promising bulge free from his boxers, Kirk sprang up once again. “C’mon, c’mon, let’s save that for later. We have a flight to catch.”

Oh, right. The flight. Suddenly all desire fled from my body, replaced by mind-bending fear.

If Kirk noticed, he certainly didn’t acknowledge it. Instead, he walked, somewhat merrily, over to the bathroom. ‘m gonna take a shower, unless you wanna go first…?“

“No, no, you go,” I said, nestling farther into the bed and closing my eyes, as if I could go to sleep again and wake up in Newton without even having to pass through the airport security sensor. But my eyes flew open immediately, as a vision of Kirk’s parents staring down at me somewhat austerely filled my mind.

Suddenly an emergency exit out the airplane escape hatch seemed infinitely preferable.

“What if they don’t like me?” I said when Kirk stepped from the bathroom a short while later, his hair damp and a towel draped around his waist.

“What if who doesn’t like you?” he said, stepping in front of the mirror above the dresser and proceeding to comb his hair.

“Your parents. Who else?”

He didn’t answer, which wasn’t very reassuring.

“Kirk!”

He put the comb down on the dresser, then turned to face me. “Look, my parents aren’t the easiest people to get along with. You should see the rows they get into with my sister Kayla.” He studied me for a moment. “My best advice is just to steer clear of any contentious subjects, especially politics or religion.”

Well, that was easy enough, I thought. I didn’t know enough about either, really, to converse at any length about them.

“And maybe you ought to steer clear of art, too. Including theater. Ever since that whole NEA endowment fiasco, my father has formed pretty strange opinions about government-funded art.”

“Kirk! You’re not making this easy for me.”

He sat down on the bed next to me, brushing my hair from my face. “Look, it’ll be fine. I told you my parents were…difficult.”

“You said odd, not difficult.”

“Same difference. Just stop worrying so much,” he said, plopping a kiss on my forehead. But not before I saw the worry simmering in his eyes.

Oh, God. What had I gotten myself into?

What I had gotten myself into, I discovered, once we cleared the security gate at LaGuardia after having every item in my carry-on examined for foreign substances, was a big, fat nightmare. My stomach was a mass of panic as I gazed through the windows at a plane that was leaving the ground. It wasn’t like I’d never flown before. But I only did it if I deemed it absolutely necessary.

And as I sat beside Kirk in the terminal, awaiting our flight, I wondered if this trip was absolutely necessary.

By the time we’d boarded the plane and I’d taken my aisle seat next to Kirk, I was starting to feel a bit tight in the throat, as if I’d eaten something I was allergic to. Oh, God, maybe I had eaten something I was allergic to.

“Kirk, do you think there might have been nuts in my breakfast burrito?”

He turned from the magazine he’d already began to thumb through—one of the twelve I’d grabbed when I’d discovered one of the few benefits of shuttle travel was the free magazine rack. “What kind of nut would be in a breakfast burrito?”

Obviously he was tired of my anxiety. I was tired of it, too, frankly, but what could I do? Well, I remembered, as the plane began to taxi away from the terminal, I could pray.

Now, I am not a religious person, but whenever I found myself, as I did now, strapped to a chair and about to be lifted thirty thousand feet into the air, I suddenly discovered my faith again. And like the good Catholic girl I was raised to be, I remembered my Our Fathers and Hail Marys the minute I found a way to put them to good use. Like right now…

Our Father, who art in heaven, I began, closing my eyes and clutching my hands in my lap in a way that was sort of prayerful, but, to the unwitting viewer (like Kirk), might seem just like a handclasp (because I didn’t want him to realize I was so far gone I was actually resorting to prayer).

I was cut off mid-prayer by the sound of a female voice over the intercom. “Ladies and gentleman, please direct your attention to the flight attendants as they explain the safety features of this aircraft.”

Oh, right. Safety features. Though I was a bit superstitious about leaving off mid-prayer (like the good Catholic girl I’d been raised to be, I also believed in God’s wrath), I was even more afraid to leave myself without survival skills in the event of-—God forbid—a crash. I faced forward, watching as a curvy blond flight attendant whose face was so made up she looked like a rubber doll, showed us how to buckle the seat belt.

Got it, I thought, giving mine a reassuring tug and glancing at Kirk, who was now buried in that magazine. I guess it would be up to me to rescue both of us in the event of a crash, considering the amount of attention he was giving our little blond friend here. But then, he traveled so much he probably had the whole thing memorized.

Now she was holding up an oxygen mask and advising us to put our mask on first before assisting a child. Well, this seemed kind of selfish, but I supposed it made sense. I looked over at Kirk again, wondering if he’d help me with my mask, should it come to that. These things looked complicated. And how could I trust that the flow of oxygen would start once my mask was in place? Who knew what would be working on this plane once it started hurtling toward the ocean?

Still I listened carefully as Blondie explained how the seat cushion would turn into a flotation device and the aisles would light up, leading me to safety. Frankly, I wasn’t buying it. So as soon as she was done, I returned to my prayer. And just in time, too—the plane was picking up speed.

Our Father who art in heaven, hallowed be Thy name. Thy kingdom come, Thy will be done, on earth as it is In heaven. Give us this day our daily bread. And forgive us Our press passes…

Forgive us our press passes? What the hell was that? Now I had to start all over again. I know, I know. Stupid, right? What can I say? I’m not only Catholic, I’m obsessive-compulsive. And I was scared to death when I felt the ground pull away from us.

We were in the air. We were in the air! Oh, God, I thought as my stomach plummeted with our ascent and I closed my eyes to pray once more.

“Hey, Noodles, check it out. You can see the Empire State Building.”

“Been there, done that,” I said, my eyes still tightly shut. I began again, rushing through the prayer before anyone else could interrupt. I even rattled off a quick Hail Mary, for good measure. Then, as I had done ever since I was five and believed prayer was the equivalent of sending a wish list to Santa Claus, I put in my requests.

Please, God, let us land safely. In Boston. On the tarmac.

(I also believed specificity was important. I mean, technically you could land safely in the water, right? Wasn’t that why they gave us these floating seat cushions? Oh, God, how the hell could a fucking airplane land “safely” on the water? Hello? We were being lied to! Lied to by the fucking FAA!)

Please, God, on the fucking tarmac. I mean the tarmac. Sorry!

While I was at it, I figured I’d throw in one last request.

One more thing: Could You make Kirk’s parents like me? Even just a little bit?

Amen.

I opened up my eyes to find Kirk staring at me, as if I were some alien creature.

“Are you all right?”

“I’m fine!” I practically shouted, because clearly I wasn’t. And when I saw the cool, assessing way he was looking at me, I wondered if I would ever be again.