Misery Loves Cabernet (21 page)

I can’t help but smile as Jordan and I walk hand in hand along a cobblestone street. We’re not talking. I think we’re both contentedly taking in the sights and smells of the city. Our silence is peaceful and happy. For the first time in almost a month, I’m peaceful and happy. I feel the uncontrollable urge to kiss Jordan on the cheek. So I do. It’s not a romantic kiss. It’s better than that. It’s decidedly . . . comfortable.

Jordan smiles, lifts my hand, and gives it a light kiss in return.

Which is wonderful. I haven’t felt this comfortable around him since before he left for Paris.

“So, tell me again . . . when did you go to Columbia?” I ask as I lean my head into him, and snuggle up against his sweatered chest.

Jordan smiles devilishly as he pulls his head back to see me. “What do you mean ‘again’? I never told you I went to Columbia.”

Damn it, he got me. I never knew he went to Columbia. But it seemed like the kind of thing you’re supposed to know about your boyfriend. “Touché,” I admit, smirking. “Let me rephrase. When did you go to Columbia? Wait, more important, why were you at Columbia? Do they teach photography?”

“Uh . . . they might,” he says cryptically. “But that wasn’t why I was there. Ah!”

Jordan’s face lights up at the sight of a small wine shop on the first floor of a tall, red brick building. He leads me in, then immediately walks up to the proprietor at the counter. “I was wondering if you could help me. I’m looking for a full-bodied red, preferably Italian, and a good demi-sec champagne. Could you make some suggestions?”

A few minutes later, the owner of the wine shop has sent us off with a robust cabernet from Veneto, Italy, a bottle of Veuve Clicquot demi-sec, a bottle opener, and four plastic cups, all in an unmarked paper bag.

As we exit the store, I shrug my shoulders demurely and say, “So, he deflects my question, then shows me he plans to ply me with booze.”

“Good booze,” Jordan reminds me.

“Great booze,” I concur, “but we were talking about Columbia . . . .”

“I’m told it’s a beautiful country,” Jordan jokes, smiling as he takes my hand, and leads me down another street. “Good coffee.”

Pick your battles
.

I decide to drop the subject of Columbia in favor of hugging Jordan as we walk around the borough looking like a couple of newlyweds.

We pass some pretty fabulous shops. As we pass the ABC Carpet and Home Warehouse, the outlet of a wonderful furniture store I thought only existed in Manhattan and London, Jordan stops at the front window and points to the bright red sofa on display. “I’m thinking of buying a new couch when I get back to L.A.,” Jordan says. “What do you think of something like that?”

“Seems very . . . New York,” I say noncommittally.

Jordan turns to me. “Does that mean you like it or hate it?”

I shrug. “It just means it strikes me as a piece of furniture I’d see in a New York apartment.”

Jordan thinks about that. “I like the color. It would photograph beautifully.” He turns to me, then asks out of the blue, “Do you ever think about moving to another city?”

Uh-oh.

“Ummm . . . sometimes,” I say.

“But you have a house in L.A.,” Jordan answers for me. “So you’re probably planning on settling there.”

I don’t like the way this conversation is going. “I don’t know. Maybe,” I say, not knowing what the right answer to his question should be.

“Would you ever think about moving to New York?” Jordan asks me.

Uh-oh.

I give Jordan’s hand a gentle squeeze. “Are you thinking about moving here?” I ask, trying to sound as sweet and nonjudgmental as possible.

Jordan shrugs. “It didn’t work out so well the last time I lived here. But . . . I don’t know . . . I like it here. I kind of miss the place.”

“Why don’t you want to talk about Columbia?” I ask him. “What, did you flunk out or something?”

I can tell from the pinch in Jordan’s face that he’s uncomfortable. “I went to law school there. For one year.”

I think about that. “Okay. So why the mystery? Why the discomfort?”

Jordan stares at the sidewalk for a few moments before answering. “It wasn’t a very good time in my life. It turned out I hated law school. And there was a girl involved . . .”

He lets his voice drift off.

I never know what to do with the ex conversations. If you don’t ask, it looks like you don’t care, but if you do ask, sometimes you’re poking at a pretty big wound. I decide to show interest, but tread lightly. “Did you go to law school for the girl?”

“No,” Jordan says definitively. “I went to law school because that was what I always thought I’d do with my life: become a lawyer, make a lot of money, buy a house at the beach, raise kids. It’s what my dad did, and he seemed happy with it, so it’s what I had always planned to do.”

He looks at me kind of sadly.

“And . . . ,” I ask sympathetically.

“And there’s a big difference between waiting for your life to begin, and actually living it. I hated law school. And frankly, I wasn’t very good at it. By the time I came home for Christmas, I knew I had to get out.”

I wait for him to elaborate, but he doesn’t. Instead, we begin walking again. The two of us walk hand in hand, passing brightly lit windows scattered among buildings of condos and artist’s lofts, and I try to remain comfortable in our silence.

Eventually, I can’t help but prod. Hopefully with a safe question. “So, what made you choose Columbia?”

“I had always wanted to live in New York. My dad’s family is here. We used to come every other Christmas, and I had this childhood memory of skating at Rockefeller Center while looking at the giant Christmas tree, watching snow silently fall over the city, looking at all the Christmas windows. . . .” Jordan lets his voice drift away. “I don’t know, the whole city was magical to me in a way that it only can be when you’re a kid.”

We turn a corner, and head back toward the East River, more toward the Brooklyn Bridge side.

“So, what happened?” I ask.

“I don’t know. Everything was different. To see the Christmas windows these days, you have to wait in a line with a bunch of tourists, then walk quickly between the window and a velvet rope. If you stop and look for too long, a security guard tells you to move it along. And that tree in Rockefeller Center isn’t as big as I remembered. And it’s no longer the biggest in the country. The one at The Grove in L.A. is bigger, as is one in Newport Beach, and another in Florida. And the skating rink is small. And snow is great for the first few days. But then it becomes gray slush. Or, even worse, yellow slush.”

I nod my head and listen.

“Plus, I hated law school. I could not imagine practicing law for the rest of my life. Talk about your golden handcuffs. What would happen when I got used to the money, had my house and my family, but dreaded every Monday morning for the next forty years? I mean, photography hasn’t always been very lucrative. But at least I like going to work.”

As we walk along the riverfront, I am flattered that he’s opening up to me, and letting me into the parts of his world that aren’t so perfect. But I can also sort of tell he’s not telling me everything. Call it women’s intuition.

Actually, no. Call it fifteen years in the dating trenches.

When listening to stories from men, if the stories don’t completely make sense: Cherchez La Femme
.

Jordan doesn’t say anything else for a few minutes. He gives me hugs, forces smiles, and clearly debates in his mind how much more to tell me.

I decide to go for broke. “So, who was the woman?”

“What?”

“You said there was a girl involved. Who was she?”

“Her name was Stacey. We dated my senior year in college. She moved to New York to be an actress, and I guess, at least according to my parents, I found an excuse to follow her.”

“I take it that relationship didn’t go well.”

Jordan stops to face me. “Raise your left arm up, over your head for a minute.”

I do.

“Okay, now keep it there as long as you can,” Jordan says.

I stare at him dubiously as I keep my left arm raised over my head for what feels like an hour.

“Getting tired yet?” Jordan asks me.

I nod my head.

“Keep it up there. Are you getting so tired your arm hurts, and you can’t stand it anymore?”

I nod my head again.

“That’s what dating an actress is like,” Jordan concludes.

I chuckle as I put down my arm.

We begin to walk under the Brooklyn Bridge. Jordan suddenly stops, and happily announces, “Ah . . . we’re here.”

I look over at a green awning announcing Grimaldi’s Pizzeria, with a red sign underneath stating,
COAL BRICK OVEN
. Outside the windowed door, a line of people patiently wait in their overcoats, sweaters, and sweatshirts.

“Have you ever had coal brick oven pizza?” Jordan asks, his face now beaming.

“I don’t think so,” I say, trying to be cheerful. Even though all I can think about is an ex-girlfriend I know nothing about (except that he moved three thousand miles from home to be with her), and his confession to thinking about moving three thousand miles away from me.

“Now, before we begin,” Jordan says, pulling out the Italian red wine he bought earlier, “We need to have our provisions.” He opens the bottle with the corkscrew, and quickly pours some wine into two of the plastic cups we got from the wine store. “This is the best pizza in the world. But the line takes a while.”

We wait in line outside for forty-five minutes, polishing off the bottle during that time. Jordan says nothing more of his New York past, and I decide not to push any further. For now. Frankly, I’m having too much fun talking to other people in line, and stealing kisses from my boyfriend when no one seems to be paying attention.

When we get inside the restaurant, I bask in the warmth of the air, and the smells of the thin crust.

It’s another twenty minutes before we get our pizza, but all that time waiting gives us lots of time for talking. But instead of discussions of moving, and the failures of our youth, we stay on the safe topics: other people. We gossip about Drew and the new movie. I talk about how I am to be a bridesmaid yet again. He tells me about his shooting schedule in Paris, and how he hasn’t seen much of the city yet.

I forgot how funny he can be. I spend most of my time with him either laughing or kissing him. And by the time our sausage and basil thin-crust pizza gets to our table, I am in heaven.

When we walk out of Grimaldi’s a half hour or so later, I am pleasantly drunk, and wonderfully well fed. I have completely put our earlier conversation out of my mind, and am now thinking about all of the good things in our relationship, and all of the good things yet to come.

I’m back in love.

A rose by any other name . . . still has thorns
.

As I look around at the old red brick buildings on the Brooklyn waterfront, I am continually struck by the unexpected romance of the place. Maybe I
could
move to a place like this. I mean, after all, I like my job, but I don’t think I’m going to want to be an assistant for the rest of my life. At some point, I’d like to have a family. And most personal assistants don’t have families: they’re already so busy catering to the whims of a child (that would be their celebrity boss) that they don’t have the time or energy or patience to have a real child. Before my mind wanders too much, I remind myself:

Don’t jump ahead in a relationship. While on a first date, most women are thinking ahead to whether or not they see themselves married to the guy. Meanwhile, all the men are thinking about is getting their date into bed
.

Besides, for all intents and purposes, a week ago we were broken up. I have to remember that. The only guarantee I have is of this weekend.

We head down Water Street, and I see our next destination: The Jacques Torres Chocolate Shop.

My God, can the man get any more romantic?

As we enter the lower level of the red brick building, I am once again enveloped not only in warmth (it’s getting pretty cold out here in Brooklyn) but in my favorite aromatherapy scent: chocolate.

When we get to the front of the line, Jordan orders the twenty-five-piece boxed assortment, and two hot cocoas. We sip our hot cocoas at one of the three mosaic tables in the store, then head back out into the bracing cold of November autumn.

As the November air nips at my ears, I can’t help but ask greedily, “Okay, so when do we get to tear into that box?”

“Not until we get to a bench,” Jordan tells me. “There’s only one thing that would be better than great chocolate right now.”

“I’m not having sex on a bench,” I say sternly, but jokingly.

Jordan juts out his bottom lip in a mock pout. “No? Why not?”

“Too cold. Check back with me in June around noon.”

Jordan laughs. We walk to a metal bench, and have a seat.

“Brrrr . . . ,” I say, referring to the cold metal beneath my bottom.

“I’ve got something to warm you up,” Jordan says, smiling as he pops the cork of the demi-sec champagne. He pours the champagne into the other two plastic cups, and hands one to me. “What do you think?” he asks.

I take a taste and . . .

“Yuck,” I can’t help but stammer. “What, did you put Maniechewitz in the bottle when I wasn’t looking?”

Jordan laughs. “Too sweet for you?”

“Well, demi-sec isn’t usually my first choice.”

“Ah, but it goes perfectly with this,” Jordan says, opening the chocolate box, pulling out a milk chocolate heart, and feeding it to me.

I open my mouth, and let him slip the tasty morsel onto my tongue. The creamy milk chocolate dissolves, then bursts into . . . what? What the hell is that flavor? “Tastes like passion fruit,” I say with my mouth full.

Jordan laughs. “From the look on your face, I can’t tell if that’s a good thing, or a bad thing.”

I start laughing. “I’m not sure yet,” I say.