First Impression: I first stumbled upon him at a gathering of likeminded downtowners, but, due to his easygoing collegiate look and southern accent, I really didn’t pay him much attention.
Signs of Hope: It was Valentine’s Day and the Zoloft hadn’t quite fully kicked in yet, so I was in a terrible mood. The gathering of like minds decided to take things to the bistro down the street. There were about a dozen of us, but #120 was in step with our smaller collective, so when we went to sit down, he was sitting across from me. I groaned inwardly. I really didn’t want to have to make conversation with the new guy. Nora was next to me, but she was talking with someone else. I had no choice.
I mustered something close to enthusiasm and asked, “So, why did you move to New York?”
“To go to school to be a pastry chef,” he said.
Those last two words were magic. Anything sweet is the way to my heart—cake, cookies, ice cream, anything. Just say "marzipan" and you've got my undivided attention. I told him of this serious affection for desserts, particularly cake, and asked him if he agreed that birthday cake really needed to be on more dessert menus. “Every day should be your birthday,” I said. He agreed.
We talked some more and I realized that he was kind of funny, actually. And kind of cute. Maybe even kind of smart.
After that night, I had him on my mind a little bit. When an apartment came up in my building, I thought of him, asked a mutual friend for his number and texted him with the information. He texted back, thanking me and asking if he’d see me at the thingy that was happening that night. I told him I would be there and then added, “Cake?”
That night after the thingy, he came up to me as I was wrapping things up and asked if I was going to dinner with everyone. By the way he walked straight up to me, it occurred to me that he might be interested. And, by the way I was distractedly and haphazardly wrapping up, it occurred to me that I might be interested, too. He’d gone ahead to the restaurant with some others while I got my things together, but when I got there, the seat across from him was empty, so I sat down in it and made Kevin sit next to me, saying I needed to discuss apartment stuff with #120.
I watched myself as if almost from above. I was positively giddy. He told me about his recent visit to a notorious gathering of likeminded uptowners and I told him a story about how two of its members were arrested for stealing things—clocks, figurines, whatever was lying around—from open houses. He was entertained. Afterward, I walked him across town to the 6 train—I was going that way anyway. We stopped in front of the subway entrance and he seemed in no hurry to go down into it. Finally, I hugged him good-bye.
Zoe and I had planned a bar outing for that night, so I went over to her apartment. As she did my makeup, I said, “There might be a boy.”
“Really?” she said, stopping mid-application.
“Maybe. I’m not sure,” I said. “Anyway, I’m pretty sure he’s interested because, generally, if I even suspect someone might be interested, that means they are. I think I’m interested, too.”
At the next Monday gathering, I didn’t see him. I was disappointed. Maybe I’d been wrong. After about 30 minutes, though, I turned around and there he was. He waved. He looked adorable. Instead of the baseball cap and sweatshirt, his hair was done and he had a tie on.
The group decided to head to the bistro afterward and he and I headed there ahead of everyone else. As we walked, I kept thinking he’d say something like, “Maybe we should wait for everyone else.” But he never did.
After dinner, everyone got in cabs and he and I were left standing on the street corner. He asked if I was crossing the street and I said I could. “You don’t have to,” he said. Then the light changed to red and it felt awkward to just stand there, so I said I was going to go, gave him a hug and walked away.
When I got home, Zoe came over to watch a movie and I told her how I awkward I'd been. “Why don’t you text him tomorrow and then we can invite him to our Tuesday outing?” she suggested.
Tuesdays had become something of a ritual. We first went to the Dharma Punx meditation on the Bowery and then met other-Brit Evan over in a theater basement in Union Square for Naked Angels, a group of writers and actors that meets once a week to drink and have readings of works-in-progress. Zoe had befriended Evan due no doubt in some small way to their common British thing, so it seemed a perfect plan.
The next day, at Zoe’s cajoling—“You’re just being friendly,” she said—I texted him from our study date at BookWorks. Miraculously, I wasn't really concerned that he didn't immediately respond. I was just glad I had done something. He texted back an hour later. “I’ll call you in a bit,” he wrote.
I was shocked. It was never that easy. He called a little later and asked where I was. He was a block away. As he told me he was coming over, I looked at Zoe, mouthed to her that he was coming and then pointed to my make-up-less face, "Do I look OK?" When he walked in, I couldn't believe how at ease I was. We told him about the events for the evening and then we all talked for more than an hour. He was in no hurry to leave, but as soon as he did, Zoe gave her interpretation of things.
“Oh, he so wants to know,” she said slyly. Even I could feel it, too. "And I think he's just great," she added.
When we met up that night at Think, he stood close. It was dreamy. Other than that—to me, anyway—it felt like his interest had waned. Later, in the bathroom at Naked Angels, Zoe said, “He is so into you. It’s so obvious.” Sometimes my cluelessness is cunning. Back in our seats, I was telling him a story about my terrible snowboarding skills and he nudged me teasingly, making fun of me about how I was kind of blaming it on the snow. A little voice, conscious of my poor flirting skills, spoke in my head, “Now… Now...” I nudged teasingly back.
After the readings, the four of us headed across Union Square to the misleadingly-not-fancy-sounding-but-fancy Coffee Shop. There we were, all four of us either un- or under-employed, huddled in a plush, semi-circular booth having burgers. Life felt charmed.
Zoe occupied Evan and I talked to #120. We had a date-y conversation—siblings, hometowns, having formerly liked bad boys (me), having formerly dated another chef (him). There was a long awkward pause and, finally, I said, “So, what are you doing tomorrow?” thinking I’d say how, since he was unemployed at the moment, he could really enjoy a life of leisure and roll out of bed late.
“I don’t know,” he said. “What do you want to do?”
I wasn’t prepared for that at all. I still had what I’d planned to say in my head and flubbed, “Oh, you know, you could wake up late…”
Finally, I recovered enough to say, “Oh, I don’t know, what should we do?”
It was an acceptable recovery. He seemed to roll with it, anyway. We agreed to figure something out. After dinner, we said good-bye to Evan and the three of us stood chatting in Union Square. Finally, I told him we were going south and moved to hug him. He wrapped his arms around me, and, holding me in a firm squeeze for an extra long time, he pressed his cheek against mine and said, “Mmmmm.”
Zoe had walked ahead and, when I caught up to her, she said, winking, “You know, he closed his eyes when he put his arms around you.”
Diagnosis: I am reveling at how easily everything seems to be coming together. It’s a foreign feeling. Just yesterday, I was awkwardly standing with him on a street corner and I practically ran away. And today he’s asked me on a date. Isn’t that how it’s supposed to be?
Next: The First Date
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