Nights Like This (13 page)

 

 

Vanessa had rented a Chrysler Sebring convertible at a car rental place on East Twelfth for our ride to wherever we were going to go. I didn't ask her why she had chosen it but she offered an explanation saying that she wanted to enjoy the journey as much as the destination or some crap that made me nervous about riding for hours with her. I hoped she wouldn't be turning intellectual on me and I made a promise to myself that if she did, I would come back to New York alone and never call her again.

We were leaving on a Wednesday. I had to say goodbye to Anjali and call Vanessa to pick me up when I was sure that she was well on her way to work. I walked into the kitchen and poured a cup of coffee for myself. She was at the table with her coffee and an organic bran muffin.

“So I guess I'll see you in ten days or so,” I said, trying to sound as nonchalant as possible.

I sat at the table across from her, placing my coffee cup gently on the glass tabletop. She looked up from the medical journal she had open in front of her.

“You going to be okay?” she asked.

“Yeah, I'll be okay.”

“You must be so exited. You don't seem it though.”

She paused, smiled faintly.

“Is it because you're going to miss me just a bit?"

“Anjali…”

“I'm just saying. Ten days is a long time. Maybe I was just hoping you'd miss me just a little bit.”

“I will,” I said, “I'm just nervous.”

Would I miss Anjali? I tried to think of time without her touch, not turning my key to unlock our door. I tried to imagine days where I wouldn't sleep softly in her bed, nights without turning to find her there, snoring slightly next to me. But then I remembered I would wake next to Vanessa and we would have our own rhythms, our own routines. I looked at Anjali, my eyes fixed on her face, asking her to forgive me before I even transgressed. “Platonic,” I thought as a defense to my own musings. Platonic my ass.

She took my hand across the table. I looked at the reflection of our hands in the glass, her fingers wrapped around mine with promise and concern, her French manicure perfect without a crack or crease.

“Jess, don't be nervous. You'll be great,” she said, “And I don't want you to worry about anything. Just go up there, be confident and write. I know you'll be great. I want you to know that and believe that.”

She leaned forward and kissed my forehead and then my temple. I looked at her and as my eyes said, “Forgive me,” I searched for her eyes to say, “Of course.” But no such dialogue came between our gazes. For all I knew, she thought I was sad at the thought of leaving her, not that I begged forgiveness for lying to her.

But then was I really lying to her? I was going to write. Even Vanessa's reason for me leaving New York was so that I could find out who I was and what I wanted and, most importantly, so I could write. It wasn't that I was lying about that. I was just neglecting to tell the entire truth. It wasn't lying. It was telling the selective truth. And there was nothing wrong with that. And if I could stay without touching Vanessa, without crossing boundaries, then I wasn't doing anything wrong. But then what had Anjali said that night when I had returned from Vanessa's? She didn't even want me talking the night away with someone else. And this was ten days.

“Start something,” she said and startled me from my thoughts.

“Start something in Toronto. You can finish it at your own pace, in your own time. But you have to start something.”

“I will,” I said. “I will.”

I walked her to the door.

“Take care of yourself,” she said.

She kissed me goodbye. It was a long kiss full of her concern and confidence. I hugged her and held her close, not because I had to but I wanted to. I smelled the freesia as I kissed the top of her head. I held her locket in my hand and kissed it gently.

“You okay?” she asked.

I smiled at her.

“Yes. Just I don't know.”

“You'll do fine. And I'll be here when you get back, waiting at the door for you.”

I felt so much guilt at that moment I felt my entire body tingle. Could I do this? When I looked in her eyes I couldn't bear to look at her. I looked away.

“Remember, start something.”

“I'll try.”

She leaned towards my ear, kissed the lobe and my small gold hoop earring.

“You had promised you'd write a whole book about us,” she whispered, “So do it.”

I turned and without answering, kissed her.

“I'll take that as a ‘yes,'” she said as she stroked my face.

“I love you, Anjali,” I said without awkwardness, with honesty.

“I love you too,” she said, “But I have to get going.”

“Want me to walk you down?”

“No, it's okay.”

She pushed the button for the elevator.

“I'll call you,” she said.

“Yeah.”

“Good luck.”

“Thanks.”

I watched her enter the elevator, watched her wave as the doors closed and swallowed her whole. Then I walked back into the apartment, shut the door and leaned against it, wondering what I was doing and how I could so blatantly lie to her. I told myself I needed this space to think and that's really what it was all about. I told myself that when I returned, I would try again with Anjali. Wholeheartedly. I knew I was lying to myself because when I closed my eyes, the only person that mattered to me was Vanessa.

I went to the kitchen and slowly put the dishes in the dishwasher. The quiet of the apartment seemed to scream at me. I hated being in the apartment alone. Although it was now, after four years, my home as much as hers, I couldn't stay in the apartment for a long time by myself. It seemed dead to me, devoid of anything that made it home. The only thing that fixed that feeling, the only presence that livened the apartment, made it home, made it whole, was Anjali Chopra. Anjali…

I decided I should leave before I lost my nerve. And I was close to cancelling, close to calling it all off. I hadn't forgotten that in the hallway, I had said ‘I love you' first. I hadn't forgotten that I had meant it, that I had wanted to cling to her cream-colored blouse right then, had wanted to tell her everything. But then when my thoughts had shifted to Vanessa, I had been torn in a different direction, a different guilt had surfaced. So I had kept my mouth shut, not divulging the secrets of my life and had instead prepared to run away with a near stranger to an unknown place. I took my phone out of my pocket. I pressed the button, stared at the Eiffel Tower. I slid my finger across the screen. I called Vanessa. There was no answer. I disconnected the phone, felt disconnected myself and didn't know what to do.

Had she changed her mind? Was she just a tease? Here I was jeopardizing my relationship with Anjali for what? For someone who, at the last minute, decides not only not to go, but who doesn't have the decency to pick up the phone and tell me so?

I would call once more and if she didn't pick up, the fucking trip was off and I'd never see her again.

I called again. It rang three times. I was breathing harder, pacing the floor.

“Hello?”

“Hello? Vanessa? I just called you. Why the fuck didn't you pick up?”

“Relax there, Jess. I was showering.”

“Oh, well I figured.”

“Did I scare you? Did you think I bailed on you?”

“No,” I said when I meant, “yes.”

“I'm not going anywhere without you, princess!”

I smiled.

“Well good. Because I'd have to kick your ass if you were to turn around now.”

“As if you could.”

“I could try.”

“I would enjoy it.”

What time you want to leave?” I asked.

“I'll come to your place right now,” she said.

“Okay. See you when you get here.”

I hung up the phone and sat at the kitchen table, my face resting in my palms. I looked at my reflection in the glass as I waited for Vanessa. I stared into my own eyes and for the first time that summer, I genuinely asked myself what it was that I wanted and what it was that I was doing. I stared a long time into my eyes and even then, I had no answers for myself.

 

 

 

We left the apartment at 12:10. The sun was high above us and the air was hot. We had the rooftop rolled down as we drove, eliciting stares from passersby who, I was sure, were wondering why we were driving in a car the color of a taxicab. I had asked Vanessa why she had chosen yellow and she said simply that it was the only color they had left when she had arrived that morning. I didn't want to seem ungrateful so I said nothing else regarding the big yellow taxi with no roof.

We drove silently through city traffic.

“Where are we going?” I asked.

“You ever been to Philly?”

“Actually, no, I haven't. Is it nice down there?”

“You're going to see. We're going to Philly.”

“You go there often?'

Vanessa shrugged. She checked the rearview mirror.

“I always go away for a few weeks. Clears my mind. I usually go north though. Maine. But I have been to Philly before.”

“Where are we going?” I asked again.

“I think I said Philly. That's Philadelphia for those who only speak in proper terms because they've been fucking prissy dermatologists too long.”

“No, smart ass, I mean right now.”

“Holland Tunnel.”

“Why? Isn't there a shorter, easier way?”

“What the hell are you in such a rush for, Jess? Who's waiting to jump your bones in Philly? It's me. And I'll do it whether we get there in five hours or in 29. So just relax. You know what your problem is? You can't relax.”

“I'm not looking to fuck you,” I said, “I told you that. This is a platonic adventure, nothing more. I…”

“Relax!” she nearly screamed. “We haven't even started yet and you're so would up. Just relax, please. I'm begging you.”

“Fine, drive around all you want,” I said sourly as I slid my sandals off my feet and sat back into the seat. I was starting to regret my decision. If all Vanessa and I were going to do was fight, I could have stayed home and fought with Anjali. But she was also right that we had just started the trip and, I thought, our acquaintance. It scared me to realize how little I knew her. But Philly would change all that, I was sure.

I closed my eyes and felt the warmth of the sun falling like rain upon my eyelids. I must have fallen asleep by the time we reached the tunnel because I felt Vanessa's hand shaking my shoulder.

“What?” I asked.

“You know what's the rudest damn thing to do?”

“What's that?” I asked, a little afraid of her answer, not knowing what was going to set her off again.

“The rudest fucking this to do is to fall asleep when someone else drives. I don't expect you to know that being a city bitch, but keep it in your mind for this trip. There is no way in hell I will be your chauffeur so sit up and talk to me, damn it.”

I don't think I could have let anyone but Vanessa talk to me like that and not been even slightly offended. But then I don't think anyone but Vanessa could have said that without sounding obnoxious. She wasn't angry or mean. She said everything she said as a fact, as something we should all know and were better off for having learned from her.

As we entered the Holland Tunnel, I started to feel that we were actually leaving our lives somewhere behind for ten days. Until then, getting away had been an idea, a suggestion. At that moment, as we were surrounded by dingy tiles and dim lighting, as the smell of asphalt and stale rubber became strong and trapped within the tunnel, I became excited at the idea of leaving everything and everyone behind. It was just as Vanessa had said, just her and me, somewhere where our lives were far away, where we could find, if nothing else, the time and space to be together.

“So what's the plan once we get up there?” I asked.

“The plan,” Vanessa said as she braked gently behind the slowing traffic. “The plan is for you to walk around, think and write.”

“That's what we're going to Philly for?”

“Jess,” she said, “What else did you think we were doing? I told you I wanted you to write again.”

I wasn't sure that I wanted to walk around all day with nothing to do. I did that in New York. And my journal was still empty. Yes, I agreed that Vanessa had told me we were going to Philly so I could write again. But I had thought she would provide the inspiration and make it all easy again. If it were up to me walking around and thinking, all I would take home was an empty journal, the pages clean and unwritten, just as was the rest of my life

“I just thought we were getting the hell away for a while.”

“We are.”

“So why can't we just do that?”

“So why can't you just stop being a pain in my ass and just enjoy the ride, baby?”

I settled back into my seat and looked up ahead. The sky was an opaque blue with swirls and streams of white and the occasional bird.

“Would it help if I told you we were going to Philly for wild sex?” Vanessa asked.

“Actually, yes it would.”

She laughed.

“Really, miss ‘platonic adventure'?”

I was slightly embarrassed by my outburst earlier.

“I was just saying,” I said. “I didn't mean to come off that way. I'm sorry.”

“That's okay. I can tell this is the first time you've left her for more than a day.”

“But she's left on trips to Europe,” I said defensively. “We've been apart for this long before.”

“That's different. Leaving someone behind is very different than being apart from someone.”

“You go on trips a lot?” I said as I pushed my hair back, the road clearer and the wind stronger against my face.

“Every year. Usually late summer.”

“Alone?”

“Sometimes.”

“What do you do? Where do you go alone like that?”

“I just drive. I rent a car and drive, stop wherever I want, take photos, write. Don't you ever just take off, Jess, just be with you?”

No, I didn't. I was the last person I ever wanted to be with. I looked at Vanessa, her profile clean, her skin smooth and glowing in the summer sun. I wondered what was inside her that not only allowed her but compelled her want to travel in a car for hours, lost within her own thoughts.

“I want to know you,” I said, “I want to know what you're all about.”

“What you see is what you get, Jess.”

I looked at the road ahead of us reaching endlessly towards a destination, spilling like possibility beneath us.

“I know that's your attitude, but tell me about you. How'd you end up in New York? Start with that.”

“Okay. Just reach into the glove compartment and get me my sunglasses first.”

I did. She put them on and behind the slightly tinted brown lenses of her Tom Fords, she looked majestic, somewhat of an on screen celebrity.

“So,” I said, “What's your story? We have hours for you to tell me all your stories.”

“Just the ones I want you to know. You never tell anyone all your stories. They'll own too much of you.”

“You really believe that?”

“Yes, yes I do.”

What stories would I tell Vanessa? How Anjali and I got together? How I left Kolkata reluctantly and now was even more reluctant to go back? Would I ever tell her why I was afraid of writing and how, no matter what we did, I didn't think I'd write a scrap of story worth telling? Would she become my friend, my muse, my inspiration? Would she be more? Would she fall short of all my expectations and prove to be less?

I looked at her arms, bent towards the steering wheel, her knuckles squared and strong, her fingers curled loosely around the wheel. She looked like a woman who knew exactly where she was going and I was in awe. For all the time I had spent in New York, I had never ventured out in a car to a place far away. I wasn't an explorer. I was a coach traveler on British Airways and my goal was to one day belong to the British Airways Executive Club. Other than that, there wasn't a lot of free spirit in me to wander this way and that, in a car, across state lines, without a map in sight.

“So you want to know about me, Jess? Do I get to know about you?”

“Whatever you want to know,” I said, “Except what I don't want to tell you.”

She laughed.

“Okay, I'll start. I'll start with your question. How did I end up in New York? I was living in Miami with my dad and I was teaching and I got bored. So I picked up and decided to move. I wanted someplace different, with seasons and possibility. So I came to New York.”

“You got bored and left, just like that?”

“Yeah, Jess. Haven't you ever just done something because you felt like it?”

“Eat a hotdog, yes. Pick up and move across the country, no.”

“It's more satisfying than eating a hotdog,” Vanessa said, “You should try it sometime.”

“More satisfying than eating pussy?”

She looked at me for an instant in surprise and smiled. She looked back at the road.

“Depends on whose pussy,” she finally said.

“Yours.”

“Absolutely not.”

“You're a smart ass,” I said.

“I try.”

Vanessa was laughing quietly, looking beautiful. I smiled as I looked to the side of the road, at the green signs with white writing. I wanted to kiss her right then and there on the highway. Vanessa excited me in every way, her body, her playful words and her voice. I felt a connection with her that I had never felt with any woman I knew. Vanessa never bored me. Most people, including Anjali, did. I think that was why I was so intrigued by Vanessa. I guess I was always waiting for her to be like everyone else, waiting to lose interest in her, knowing neither would ever happen.

“You really never just take a ride?” she asked.

“No. I really don't.”

“You should.”

“Just pick up and leave everything?”

“Not now. But someday you'll want to. At least once in your life there'll be a time when you want to be with just you and your thoughts.”

“I don't have enough thoughts to have to talk to them.”

“What are you so afraid of?”

“I'm not afraid. Just haven't reached that point where I want to go somewhere different, I guess. Don't see the point in wandering.”

I shifted closer to her and she took a hand off the wheel to take my hand.

“Will you wander with me, Jess?”

“I'll do anything with you,” I said.

I hadn't lied. Right then, I felt that I could be with Vanessa for the rest of my life. I kissed her neck and rest my head on her shoulder. As she drove, I settled into her, felt her warmth and smelled her perfume, a faint hint of citrus mingled with flowers, a fragrance full of prospects.

“Tell me a story about you,” she said.

“Want to know about my ex-girlfriend?” I asked jokingly.

“Sounds promising but…”

Vanessa looked at me, a slow smile eventually making its way to her lips.

“Tell me about you and your rich sugar mommy.”

I laughed.

“You would rather know about her than my ex? Now why is that?”

“What,” Vanessa said, laughing herself. “I was just wondering how that situation ever happened.”

“We just have a strange relationship. It's not a relationship, but we do have a relationship. I do love her but sometimes I wonder what else is out there. Who I'm missing being with by being with her.”

“But you do love her?”

“I do. But it doesn't stop me from meeting or fucking other people. At least it didn't until now. Does that make sense?”

“If it makes sense to you, then it makes sense.”

“Honestly it makes no fucking sense to me. I don't make sense to me.”

“Jess, sometimes love has to jump through some hoops. Like the tigers and lions that jump through the burning hula-hoops, that's love. And it keeps going through all those hoops until it finally realizes it's safer and better to just not go near the fire.”

“That's a really bad analogy,” I said, laughing.

“Well then before this trip is over you come up with an analogy for love and we'll see whose is better.”

“What about you?” I asked. “What's your story?”

Vanessa didn't say anything. I looked at her as she checked her rearview mirror through her sunglasses, and then turned her head my way to check the side mirror. She signaled, changed lanes. I waited, wondering why she wasn't saying anything.

“If you don't want to tell me, then don't,” I said.

Truth was she did have to tell me because I really wanted to know. I felt as if Vanessa, for all her candor, was very guarded about her life and the intricacies of her thoughts and decisions. I wanted to know how she had loved, lost, perhaps loved again. I wanted to know everything about her from her past to that moment when she was with me in the car, looking fantastic.

“Jess, not now, if you don't mind. I don't want to talk about me right now. It'll come out over the week, I am sure. I'll tell you all of it. But right now, I just want to enjoy the ride. Do you mind?”

“No.”

I didn't really mind but I was a lot more curious as to what Vanessa wouldn't tell me.

“Anjali and I have a strange history,” I said.

“Your sugar mommy?”

“Stop calling her that.”

“Okay, so what's the history?”

“I was with someone,” I said as I looked out onto the highway. “I was with someone and I was trapped. I felt trapped. I felt as if I were alone and single although we shared a home and a life. It was the worst feeling ever. Eventually, we broke up. I had nowhere to go.”

“So how did you end up with your sugar mommy?”

“We met during this stupid snowball fight. Fell on our asses. Laughed, joked, talked. We became friends in my mind, lovers in hers. And I had nowhere to go. So she offered me a place to stay. That's how we ended up where we are.”