yeah, take two

I twisted my headphone wire, the right ear was playing no music again. I looked around the subway car. All the usuals were there for the mid-afternoon ride. The older black man in his burgundy cardigan sweater, white beard and newsboy cap reading today’s post. The heavier set Jamaican woman in the stretch black pants and large gold hoop earrings clipping her fingernails. Scores of students in their uniforms, but without books or backpacks, yelling and listening to an incomprehensible rap song blaring and static filled from a sidekick. The doors opened to allow for the entrance of my favorite of the F Train characters, the older woman, waving her bible, reminding me that I only have 5 years to be saved, pointing me directly to the right scriptures, so when I am judged I will find my place in heaven. I was exhausted. It was another long day as a warden-nurse-psychiatrist, sometime teacher, for inner city youth and I just wanted to get home and take a nap. I just wanted my headphones to work properly so I could drown out the noise. I had enough noise for one day. I glanced at my watch – 4:10. No matter how hard I tried to leave school as soon as the last bell rang and my students ran down the stairs like they were running for their lives, something always held me up. It seemed silly to even me to complain about being on my way home so early, I had had those jobs that keep you chained at your desk until way after dinner time, but when you wake up at 5:15 getting out early didn’t seem like that much of a bonus. My stop came, I walked off the subway, pushing my way past more students, headed home into the crisp November air and lit my parliament with the cheap matches you get from the bodega. Successful on the second try, I inhaled deeply, shaking my head and swearing that as soon as I lost the five pounds I wanted off in time for my ten year high school reunion I was really going to quit this time. Wrinkles were starting to appear and it was easier to blame the smoking than the fact that I was just getting older. I rifled through my mail as I walked up the five flights to my studio. Bills, bills, bills. Most of which I couldn’t pay since I had moved into the overpriced studio with the 15 foot ceilings and highly desired address. Well, it had only become highly desired a few years ago, but that was how New York realty worked wasn’t it? When I had signed the lease, my father was incredulous. He couldn’t understand how his father had spent his whole life working two jobs to move them out of the lower east side only to have me move back in. And while there were some leftovers from the days my grandfather sold preserves to bring over his mother, father and seven brothers and sisters from a small town in Russia like Russ and Daughters Yonah Schimmel’s and the pickle guy on Delancey, the view that I had of the expensive glassed hotel that had just finished being constructed told me of a different neighborhood. I longed for some of the grit that was still on the streets when I had moved in, but now the people talking to themselves on the street weren’t delusional junkies, but independent filmmakers with Bluetooth headsets. Gone were the days when I had felt uncomfortable walking east of Avenue A, but its hard to mourn the loss of fearing for your safety. And along with gentrification came excellent restaurants, bars and clubs – which were the cornerstone of my life. I added the unopened bills to the stack that was steadily growing on my coffee table, lit another cigarette and headed towards my fridge. It was empty except for some leftover Thai food and a few Amstel lights. I grabbed an Amstel, opened up my oven and tossed in the newest edition of Gourmet. About six months ago, when I had realized that the only cooking I had been doing was heating up leftovers in the microwave. I had my gas shut off and started using my oven for extra storage space. Ironically, it held all of my cooking magazines that I still received (an artifact from a past long gone) and bottles of wine. I filled Gizmo’s empty bowl with food and she came jumped from her perch on the windowsill, where she spent her days people watching, and rubbed up against my leg before heading to eat. I collapsed into my oversized, overly comfortable club chair. (another artifact from a life once lived), and flipped on the television to catch the end of Oprah. I was unsure when I had become an Oprah watcher or why, but it had become my own dirty little secret. I took out the pages and pages of homework that had been traveling back and forth to school with me for the past two weeks. It seemed insurmountable, and I thanked my lucky stars that I generally only received homework from 15 of my 60 students on any given day. I could only imagine how thick my stack of work would be if I had students that cared about learning and school work. I placed the pages next to my mail and swore that after I had taken a little nap I would get to grading. It was a particularly harrowing day at work today. Not that they all weren’t harrowing in some way or another, but today was particularly bad. First, there was the boy who when asked to stop running down the hallways turned towards me, stuck up both middle fingers and announced, “Fuck you! I don’t come to cats.” It had taken me a good three minutes to realize what he meant and by that point he was gone around the corner. Then there was Malik, one of my favorite students even though he was 15 and in the sixth grade, who told me after lunch that he had gotten another student, a 12 year old, pregnant. I deserved to rest before I began dealing with the homework. Besides, I was meeting the girls for dinner at 7, and if I didn’t get some sleep now, I was going to pass out in my wine glass. I awoke to the blaring sounds of Kelly Clarkson’s “Since You Been Gone” three hours later. I didn’t need to look at my cell phone to know that the digital display was showing the words “Don’t Answer”. That was the beauty of modern technology, you could set up as many roadblocks and identification checks on your communication devices you needed to prevent you from answering any call you didn’t want to receive. Of course, you also needed restraint and self-control, of which I had none. I ignored all the signs. “Hello?’ My groggy voice gave away the fact that I had been sleeping this early in the evening, I was hoping it was this grogginess that I could blame for having answered the phone. “Hey, its me. I was just thinking about you and realized we hadn’t talked in a while. How are you doing?” “I’m okay! Shit, actually I’m running late, I just realized the time. Can I call you later?” Sometimes I felt that the universe was looking out for me, even if I wasn’t. I was supposed to be at Inoteca fifteen minutes ago, thankfully it was just around the corner, but I needed to shower and change, my perennial lateness was only going to buy me a few more minutes. “Oh, yeah, I guess that’s okay. I just want to tell you really quickly that I saw they were casting for another season of Top Chef, you really should audition this time. You’d be perfect for it!” I wasn’t quite convinced that he had any right anymore to tell me what I would or would not be perfect for. I believed he gave up that right when he walked out the door two years ago. The truth is it had been an eight year saga. One which hindsight had come to prove would have been sufficient with a one night stand. I told him that I would consider auditioning, would call him later, and that I really had to go. I showered quickly, threw on my favorite pair of Citizens, my brand new Von Furstenberg shirt and a cute pair of black slingback Laboutin’s, pulled my still soaking wet long black hair into a ponytail and ran out the door. Somehow I managed to be only 45 minutes late, a minor miracle, and joined the girls already mid bottle of our favorite Primitivo. I considered myself lucky as I had missed the battle that always ensues between red and white, and made my way to the table. “Hellooo, ladies, sorry I’m late, but he-who-shall-not-be-named called.” “What did we tell you about answering his calls, you seriously need to stop with that, its just bad for business.” That was Jules, the most practical of my friends. I looked to Em for help as I took off my jacket and sat down. If there was anyone who understood my plight it was Emily, who had been solidly yo-yoing her way in and out of her ex-boyfriend’s bedroom for well over a year. She shrugged and took a gulp of her wine. “I know, I know. But its really not that simple. And you and Tom have been together since we were sophomores in college, the dating world is getting nothing but uglier and uglier.” “Literally, you should have seen the no neck, balding IB guy my mother set me up with. It took everything I had to swallow the vomit that was coming up when I met him at Stanton Social last week. I don’t care how good their food is, I had no sort of appetite and had to feign a headache and a business emergency to get out of there!” Olivia was perennially single. a friend of mine from high school she had recently moved back to the city from LA where she had lived since she graduated from college and spent her days producing Lifetime movies. If there was anyone more jaded about the lack of good men in New York, it was Olivia. “But I digress, I don’t care how bad it is out there, you really need to stop seeing fuckface, not only did he leave you like a pussy without explanation or reason, but now he’s supposedly dating that Corrections officer? Does it get more butch than that? Why doesn’t he just date men already? If I ever see that asshole, I swear…” Here it was, the rant she gave me anytime Mike came up. I cursed the New York City smoking ban under my breath. If there was any topic that made me want to chain smoke, it was Mike. I took another swig of the Primitivo instead and stared at the menu as though I didn’t know the entire thing by heart. “I’m famished. What are we going to order? You know I’ve been dreaming about the truffled egg toast all day long. Thoughts?” “Don’t change the subject! We’re just trying to protect you, remember it was us that picked you up off the floor of your Cobble Hill apartment, listened to you sob night in and night out, and nursed you on your way back to your fabulousness. And you know how much we hate Brooklyn.” It was true. They were there through the worst of it, the puffy eyes, the diet of Grey Goose and cigarettes, the refusal to wear anything but sweatpants, and the constant need to watch The Notebook. Why couldn’t Mike be more like Ryan Gosling? They suffered right there with me. And I knew deep down they were right about him. He was an emotionally stunted man-child who cheated on me with a woman who carried a gun and drove a motorcycle. My brain knew full well that he should have no access to my life. My heart on the other hand just couldn’t seem to get on board. Two more bottles of wine later we stepped back out into the cold night air – It was only nine, which meant we had a solid hour left for happy hour at Verlaine. Not that it mattered, we spent so much time at the bar, we barely paid for our drinks whatever hour we showed up. “Well, well, well, it must be Tuesday night if the fearsome foursome is here!” Jacob was the bouncer, who by day sold real estate for Corcoran. “Which of you fine ladies has a cigarette I could steal?” Em pulled out a Benson and Hedges much faster than I could dig through my bag to find mine. “Thanks Emily. Here I got that.” He pulled out his lighter, which served double duty as a flashlight to read birthdates with and lit her cigarette before lighting his own. “Its cold as fuck out here – we’re going in! Should we order you the use?” “ My my my, I see that those etiquette classes are really paying off aren’t they?” “Cold as fuck is a technical term, Jake,” Olivia laughed, “You know I otherwise fucking abhor cursing!” She shot him a sideways glance as she pulled open the door. I flicked my finished cigarette into the street and followed her in. The bar was a darkly lit lounge that tended to be crowded with a slightly less suited after work crowd. Generally there were only one in four men wearing striped button down shirts. The bar’s owner would i-pod deejay from a lofted space above the entrance door, and tonight he was treating the masses to the new Secret Machines single as we walked in. The space was decently filled, and we had to snake our way through a large group of Asian women, but on the other side amazingly were three open seats at the bar. We sidled up to them, threw off our jackets and waved at Scott. I swore the more and more we came here the cuter Scott got and told Jules and Liv as much. “I think he gets cuter and cuter the more you’ve had to drink before we show up here,” Jules scoffed. “Also, now that we know he has a girlfriend, obviously you find him hotter. Its really becoming an unfortunate trend with you.” As though the universe had some strange connection with Jules, my phone rang almost immediately as she finished talking. It was Kevin. The boy with the girlfriend that Jules was not so subtly alluding to. Kevin was a co-worker, his classroom sat three doors down from mine and we had bonded at the beginning of the school year over similar taste in music and a shared obsession with really bad reality TV. Of course that was where our commonalities ended. He was from a small town outside of Cleveland and had moved to New York with his girlfriend so he could try and change the world, one middle school student in the ghetto at a time. I grew up in the suburbs of New York and moved into Manhattan the first second I could. He was teaching to fight the good fight. I was teaching so I could have my summers off. Well, that wasn’t entirely true. When I began the program that agreed to pay for my master’s degree in return for me teaching three years in a seriously troubled school, I too thought I would be able to “make a difference”, but two years into teaching had changed my views. Our friendship had began harmlessly enough when he invited me along to a Stills show he had an extra ticket to. We then began going to shows and clubs together on a more regular basis. His girlfriend, Samantha worked as a graphic designer in SoHo and was always working ridiculously late hours. One night about a month ago, after the lure of an open bar was just too great, we wound up at a party at the Annex where a friend of his was dj’ing. One too many grey goose and tonics later, we kissed on the dance floor. I may have kissed him first. Ever since our friendship had been anything but harmless. The real problem? I liked his girlfriend – she was very sweet, but to be perfectly honest, I wasn’t so sure that she wasn’t a lesbian and having her own affair on the side. Things were getting complicated though. Kevin was starting to talk about leaving Sam, so that we could be together. I wanted no part of that. They had been living together for three years, and I wasn’t looking for a relationship at all. The beauty of the Kevin Situation was that I had all the sex I wanted without any of the emotional attachment. It was an arrangement I enjoyed, but clearly was racking him with guilt. I couldn’t deal with him tonight. I hit the ignore button and sent Kevin straight to voicemail. Scott brought our drinks over with an added shot for all of us and himself. Perplexed, he counted us off. “One, two, three – wait there’s one of you missing! The balance of the universe must be off.” Everyone likes to think himself a comedian. The four of us separated quite frequently, but our Tuesday night plans were standing, of course just because we started the night together never guaranteed that we were going to end the night together. “Em’s outside flirting with your boy Jake. The two of them really need to stop this little dance they’re constantly doing and actually go on a date already.” We were all in favor of this merger if for no other reason that it would take her mind off of Jeff. We threw back our SoCo and lime shots and resumed our conversation about last week’s episode of Lost. As the alcohol started coursing through my veins, the hecticness of my day faded and thoughts of Mike dissipated. I needed to remind myself that this was my life. Not grading papers, not being disrespected my students, not mourning a broken heart, not being the other woman (again). I had good friends, I had laughter, I had a perfectly refreshing drink in front of me, I was still youngish and nothing felt complicated. My body began to relax into my the bench stool. “I’m sorry do you mind watching my jacket for a second?” The voice came from my right. I looked over – he was attractive, even though maybe a little short, with five day stubble and a slightly styled faux-hawk, he was wearing a puma track jacket and good fitting rock and republic jeans. He wasn’t my normal type, but then again, my normal type hadn’t been working out so well, had it? “Yeah, no problem, but only if you don’t mind me rifling through the pockets.” “Hmm, well I guess I should take the IPod with me then? I’m Anthony.” “Jessica. Nice to meet you.” “Can I buy you a drink to distract you from rummaging through my things?” Hmmm… he was cute and funny. This was worth a drink, but the one in front of me was decidedly full. I picked it up and shrugged. The international flirting sign for thanks for the offer, but I have a cocktail in front of me already. “How about a puppy? Can I buy you a puppy? That would definitely distract you.” “Umm, thanks, but I can barely remember to water my plants, and I don’t think my kitten would care too much for that. But you definitely get an A for effort.” Scott came over and gave Anthony one of those strange male handshake to hug things they do. Clearly he was a regular here too, how had I not seen him before? He ordered himself a Belvedere and soda and shifted so he was facing me, our knees grazed each other. “I was serious about you watching my coat, would you mind while I step outside for a cigarette?” I did mind, but only because I suddenly had my own urge for a smoke. “Well, actually…” I pulled my pack out of my bag, “mind if I join you outside?” Olivia pushed her way between us, her lychee martini spilling dangerously over the top and barely missing my three hundred dollar shoe. “Go, I’ll watch the stuff. Do you like one roofie or two in your drink?” “Just one, I have a busy day tomorrow.” Interesting, he wasn’t put off by Olivia’s sense of humor. Anthony was starting to look better and better. We made our way through the crowd, he cleared a path as I followed. He was definitely shorter than me by a solid two inches, but I was wearing three inch heels which would put him normally at an inch taller. Unfortunate that I wore heels frequently. Unfortunate that he was only 5’8” by my drunken estimation. I took my still wet hair out of the ponytail and gave it a good shake. I had long ago mastered the art of the tussled but not messy looking mane, having spent many a morning in the mirror styling my hair into the “just had sex” look after showering from waking up with actual “just had sex” hair. He held the door open for me and once again I was back out in the chilly night air. It seemed to have dropped thirty or so degrees while we were inside. How was that possible? I looked down at my bare arms and realized that I had walked out without my jacket. That would explain it. I was going to have to deal though, because there was no way I was going back inside and fight through the people to get my jacket, the moment would be gone by the time I came back out. He handed me his lighter so I could light my cigarette and I passed it back to him. “Busy day tomorrow, huh? What do you do?” I hated starting with the what do you do for a living line, but it was either that right now or a conversation about how freaking cold it was for the beginning of November because that was all I could focus on. So the job talk had to be the segue way. “Well actually, I don’t have that busy of a day tomorrow, I’m a deejay so I don’t really work during the day, but I do have to get up for my yoga class tomorrow.” It was a good thing I wasn’t eating anything at that moment because I might have choked. He was a dj? Seriously? Everyone in New York these days was a dj, it was like the proliferation of people in LA that had written a screenplay. Which meant that he actually did something else, my guess? He was a waiter. And yoga? Really? I never understood the yoga phenomenon. It was bad enough that I had good friends that tried to drag me to their different breed of yogas in order to find one that would be perfect for me. None of them ever were – I much preferred my spinning classes with Doug, the crazy large dark black man in a tight unitard type outfit that constantly told me to picture my head on Heidi Klum’s body. But a boy who gets up to go to yoga? That just seemed ten times worse. I was tempted to walk back inside, but I couldn’t take my eyes off of him, he was quite good looking and there was something about his cocky smile that intrigued me. He continued to tell me that he only deejayed a couple of nights a week, but he made most of his living as a bartender – I was so close! He had just gotten back from a three week trek in India. Our cigarettes burned down to the filters and he offered me another one. Something didn’t seem to match with the chain smoking, vodka drinking hipster I saw in front of me and the tales of hiking with Sherpas in the Himalayas that were coming out of his mouth. But compared to Mike, who was an assistant DA with a penchant for spending way too much time with lawyers talking about the law, or Kevin who was constantly searching for new ways to inflict social justice into his math curriculum, Anthony was a breath of fresh air. “Aren’t your friends going to miss you?” We had been outside for nearly a half and hour and regardless of the near frostbite I was beginning to feel in my fingertips, I could have stayed outside talking to him for another thirty minutes. But warmth was a good option and we headed back inside and over to the girls who had in the interim been joined not only by Emily (when did she sneak back inside?) but by two foreign men as well. Apparently the gentlemen were from Germany and had never heard of Johnny Cash which had sparked serious controversy so there was quite a bit of yelling by the time Anthony and I reclaimed our stools. I looked down at my phone that was sitting on the bar, four missed calls. I checked my voicemail. I had a message from Padma wondering if I wanted to meet her at Pink Elephant and three voicemails from Kevin wondering where I was because he wanted to talk. Clingy was starting to become an understatement. Wasn’t it supposed to be the other way around? Weren’t men supposed to be in it for the sex while women supposedly needed the emotional part? Worse than that, was he going to show up here? He knew my schedule enough to know where I was. Suddenly the drink I had in front of me wasn’t enough. I threw back the almost full glass and turned to Anthony, “You can buy me that drink now.” I was able to compose myself enough that I purred the words instead of snarling them like I wanted to. He happily obliged and Scott quickly came around with refills for the both of us. “Tsi Gezhundt.” He raised his glass to cheers, but the words he spoke were Yiddish. What did Anthony know from Yiddish? My face must have given away my surprise because he leaned in close and whispered in my ear, “Lehavdl, sheyne moyshe ve-arendlekh.” I almost fell over, not only did DJ Anthony the yoga man just whisper Yiddish in my ear, but he did so to tell me that he thought I had nice breasts. I tried to stifle my laughter while pretending to be insulted, but I just couldn’t do it, it was just too bizarre and funny. “Where did you learn Yiddish, especially such dirty Yiddish?” “My name might be Anthony Comperatore but my Hebrew name is Aaron, my father’s Italian, my mother’s Jewish, which makes me a pizza bagel. I was raised Jewish and my grandfather spoke to me only in Yiddish when I was growing up so I would learn it, he didn’t want the language to die with him.” “But how did you know I was Jewish?” He cocked an eyebrow, “Is there a girl in this city who isn’t Jewish?” He made a good point. ***** My alarm went off at 5:15 and I instinctually rolled over to hit the snooze button, but there was a body in the way. It groaned as I leaned over it to shut off the incessant buzzing and climb out of bed. I made my way across my apartment towards the bathroom. My apartment was a whopping 150 square feet. My bed was propped against the window that looked out onto Ludlow Street, my “living room” began two feet from my bedroom with a small loveseat and the club chair forming an L shape with an Ikea coffee table between them. I constantly stubbed my toe on either the chair or the coffee table. The sofa faced an entertainment center (also Ikea) that was way too big for the space and held my TV and stereo, next to the entertainment center were my dresser and closet, both overflowing with clothes I couldn’t afford, my two bookshelves that were falling apart sat next to my loveseat, past the loveseat you entered the “kitchen.” I had no kitchen table, just a wall that held a counter, some shelf space, a refrigerator and the oven/storage unit. My Wusthof knives that once needed to be sharpened every two weeks from over usage were collecting dust hanging on a magnetic strip on the wall. Beyond the kitchen was my bathroom, the only separate space in my humble abode. As I stumbled towards the shower , I noticed three things: the paint on the ceiling was cracked the entire length of the apartment, (I really needed to call Mr. Stavros about that), I was completely naked, and I had a headache that started behind my left eye and wrapped all the way around my head. How much could I have possibly had to drink last night? I turned on the shower and let the steam fill up the bathroom as I pieced together the rest of the night, while there were some questionable blurs, I did remember leaving Verlaine around one with Anthony to go to the Dark Room where we met up with some of his friends. I vaguely recalled seeing 5 blonde women oddly lined up in size order at the bar who looked like Russian Nesting Dolls. I think we headed back to my apartment around three. Which meant that I had gotten about an hour and a half of sleep. Oh lord my head was pounding . I said a little prayer hoping that the hangover would go away quickly this morning and thanking my lucky stars that it was Wednesday which meant I had first period free. That bought me 42 minutes of healing time before I had to attempt to teach my unwilling morning class. A half an hour later I emerged from the bathroom clean but still feeling unseemly. To my surprise and pleasure, Anthony had awoken while I was in the shower and let himself out. My morning routine was important to me and I liked the quiet and alone time before the constant noise I heard all day long. I poured myself a cup of coffee from the pot that had automatically started to brew when my alarm went off, opened my front door to grab this morning’s Times and collapsed in my bathrobe on my sofa. There was nothing good going on in the world. Eight more soldiers had died in Iraq. Another congressman had to resign due to sexually harassing an intern. And the Knicks had lost again. At least the dining in section brought me some joy. There was a new Mario Battali restaurant that opened and Frank Bruni gave it a glowing review – this was particularly good news as I had reservations for just this place in two days. It was only as I was putting the arts and leisure section on top of the stack of homework – I liked to do the crossword on the train – that I noticed the note. He had left a note: Do the opposite of what you think you should. Call me. Tony. I was intrigued. It was as if he looked right through me. I had a good time the night before, but I was ready to leave it at just that. We hadn’t exchanged numbers the night before, and had we done so this morning, I would have expected him not to call, nor would I have called him. But now, this note, and not some stupid note that told me how much fun he had, etc. It almost made me want to call him right then. I fought the urge and finished my morning ritual. I was still feeling ill, and couldn’t be bothered to exert what little energy I had on getting dressed, I threw on my black Juicy sweatsuit, my red pumas and threw my hair back into a ponytail. I grabbed the stack of still untouched homework (I’d definitely get to grading during a prep period) threw them back in my tote bag and headed towards the door.