But even if you are—a tourist, I mean—people will stop and try to help you. It’s not true what they say about New Yorkers being mean. They aren’t. They’re just busy and impatient.
But if you’re genuinely lost, nine times out of ten a New Yorker will go out of his way to help you.
Especially if you’re a girl. And you’re polite.
Walking out onto Thirty-seventh Street with Rob, it hit me: you know, that we really weren’t in Indiana anymore. I had never walked down a street with Rob before. Ridden down streets with him plenty of times. But strolled down a sunny, tree-lined street, with delis and pizza-by-the-slice places on either side, people out walking their dogs, bike-riding Chinese delivery-food guys trying to keep from hitting people?
Never.
He didn’t say anything. He’d been silent down five flights of stairs (Ruth and I couldn’t afford an apartment in a building with an elevator, let alone a doorman to announce our guests. And of course the intercom is broken, as is the lock on the door to the vestibule).
Now, in the busy after-work, trying-to-get-home-in-time-for-dinner crowd on the sidewalk, I realized someone had to say something. I mean, we couldn’t just walk around in dead silence the whole night.
So I said, “There’s a decent Mexican place around the corner.”
But he just nodded. Sighing, I led the way. This was going to be even worse than I’d thought it would.
Inside the restaurant, I headed to my favorite table, the one Ruth and I share most Saturday nights, while I chow down on the free chips, and she plows through the guacamole (Ruth had finally managed to shed those extra forty pounds she’d been carrying around since sixth grade by avoiding anything with flour or sugar in it). The table is by the window, so you can watch all the weirdos who walked by. They don’t call it Hell’s Kitchen for nothing.
“Hey, Jess,” said Ann, our favorite waitress, as Rob and I sat down. “The usual?”
“Yes, please,” I said, and Ann looked questioningly down at Rob. I knew what Ann would say next time I saw her, and Rob wasn’t around: “Who was the hottie?”
“Just a beer,” Rob said, and after Ann had rattled off the restaurant’s extensive list of brands, he picked one, and she went away to get the drinks. And the tortilla chips.
We sat for a minute in silence. It was still early for dinner—people in New York don’t generally even start thinking about dinner until eight or even nine o’clock—so we were the only people there, besides the wait staff. I tried to concentrate on what was happening outside the window, as opposed to what was across the table from me. It was a little overwhelming to be in this place I’d been to so many times, with someone I’d never in a million years pictured being there with me.
Rob was nervous. I could tell by the way he kept rearranging the silverware in front of him. In a second, he would begin to shred his paper napkin. He was looking around, taking in the sombreros on the wall, the chili-pepper lights around the bar, and the people walking by outside. He was looking at everything, in fact, except me.
“So,” I said. Because someone had to say something. “How’s your mom?”
He seemed startled by the question.
“My mom? She’s fine. Fine.”
“Good,” I said. I had always really liked Mrs. Wilkins. “My dad says she quit a while back.”
Then I wanted to kick myself. Because, of course, the only way I could have known that Rob’s mom had quit working in our family’s restaurant was if I’d asked about her. And I didn’t want Rob thinking I cared enough about him to ask my dad how Mrs. Wilkins was doing. Even though that’s exactly what I’d done.
“Yeah,” Rob said. “Well, what happened was, she moved to Florida.”
I blinked at him. “She did? Florida?”
“Yeah,” he said. “With, um, that guy. Her boyfriend. Gary. Did you meet Gary?”
I had met Gary-No-Really-Just-Call-Me-Gary over Thanksgiving dinner at Rob’s house. Apparently, Rob did not remember this.
But I did.
Just like I remembered what happened in the barn afterwards. I’d told Rob I loved him.
If memory served, he never did say he loved me back.
“Her sister lives there,” Rob went on. “My aunt. And things were tight—you know, back home. Gary got a better job down there and asked her to come with him. So she said she’d try it out for a while. And she liked it so much, she ended up staying.”
“Oh,” I said, because I didn’t know what else to say. Rob had lived with his mom in a pretty nice farmhouse—old and small, but well-maintained—outside of town. They’d been pretty close, for a parent and kid. Rob had more or less been supporting her. I wondered if he resented Just-Call-Me-Gary for taking all that away.
“Well,” I said. Because what else could I say? “I’m happy for her, I guess. For you both. That things are going so well.”
“Thanks,” Rob said.
Then Ann came over with our drinks and the chips and guacamole. My “usual” is a frozen strawberry margarita…only without the alcohol, since I’m not twenty-one. I saw Rob look at it in surprise, and couldn’t help grumbling, “It’s virgin.”
“Oh,” he said. Then he blinked. “It has an umbrella in it.”
“Yeah?” I shrugged. I took the tiny paper umbrella out, closed it, and tucked it into the pocket of my jeans. I am saving them. I don’t know for what. “So what?”
“I just never would have pegged you for an umbrella-drink kind of girl,” Rob said.
“Yeah,” I said again. “Well, I’m full of surprises.”
Rob didn’t say anything more about my choice of drinks after that. There was a brief discussion over specials, but both Rob and I said we weren’t ready to order yet, and Ann went away again, leaving us with the menus and our drinks.
I took a small sip of my margarita. I always take tiny sips, to make it last. The margaritas at Blue Moon—that’s the name of the restaurant—are expensive. Even the virgin ones.
“And your folks?” Rob asked. “How are they doing?”
This was so surreal. I mean, that I was sitting there in the Blue Moon with Rob Wilkins, politely discussing our families. Like we were both grown-ups. It was sort of blowing my mind.
“They’re fine,” I said. I didn’t say anything else. Like, “Oh, and by the way, my mom still hates your guts. And you know, I’m not so sure she has the wrong idea.”
“Yeah,” Rob said. “I see Doug from time to time.”
Doug? My brother hated it when people called him Doug. What was going on here? Since when had Douglas started getting so pally with my ex?
“He told me Mike was spending the summer with you,” Rob went on. “Ruth’s brother, too, I see. Or is he just visiting?”
“No, he’s with us until September,” I said. “They’re both crashing—he and Mike—while they work internships in the city. So did your mom sell the farm? I mean, when she moved to Florida?”
Which was my subtle way of asking what HIS living arrangements were. Because I was trying to figure out what he was DOING here. In New York, I mean. Suddenly, it had occurred to me that maybe he was here to, like, break some kind of news. Like that he was getting married or something.
I know it sounds stupid. I mean, for one thing, what would I care if he WAS getting married? I was just a girl who’d had a puppy-dog crush on him since the tenth grade. He didn’t owe me any explanations, even if I HAD made the mistake once of telling him I loved him in a barn.
And why would he come all the way to New York just to tell his ex-girlfriend he was getting hitched? I mean, who even does something like that?
But these are the crazy things that go through your head when you’re, you know. With your ex.
“No,” he said, shaking his head. “We’ve still got the farm. Or, I should say, I’ve got it. I bought it—and the house—from my mom.”
Which didn’t prove anything either way. You know, about whether or not he was seeing anyone.