Room for Love (15 page)

“Guess what, baby! You're sleeping over at my house tonight!”

He goes berserk again. I swear he understands everything I say. We trot upstairs to my place, where I put on George Michael (Larry's favorite) and dance around, while Larry barks at me and runs in circles and rubs his face with his paws and other things he does that are so cute I could scream. I do, and he barks in response. Then we climb into bed and I read, while he burrows tunnels in my blanket.

“You are my little monkey!” I tell him. “I love you madly! You are the cutest little monkey I ever did see.” He cocks his head and looks at me like I'm insane. Then he goes back to burrowing tunnels in the covers.

For Date #2, I lose my usual jeans and put on a skirt and heels for Javier. I figure if I'm going on proper dates, I should dress the part. Javier arrives at the restaurant a few minutes after I do and hands me a white rose. I resist my impulse to think,
Cheesy!
and instead say, “That is so sweet,” and lean in for a kiss. His lips are soft. He's moisturized them since last time. Sober, there's not much electricity, but I tell myself it could come with time and tell my gut to shut the hell up.

While reveling in mountains of sashimi, a seared tuna and seaweed salad, and perfectly steamed shrimp shumai, I decide that Javier is a combative person. That's okay with me; I can argue with the best of them. We fight about movies and the mayor and the relative merits of raw salmon (yuck) and tuna (so heavenly it's worth risking mercury poisoning). Then, in the middle of a story about an ancient, hunchbacked neighbor of his, he grumbles that the guy has a dog he often fantasizes about poisoning in his sleep. My mouth goes dry.

“Well, it's interesting that you should mention that, because I'm dogsitting at the moment and need to stop by my place to take the little guy out after dinner. I was hoping you wouldn't mind getting a drink in my ‘hood, someplace where we can take the dog.”

He looks pained, but says, “Sure, why not?”

“I can't go out with anyone Larry doesn't like, so we'd better get this out of the way.”

“Okay.”

It's odd for Javier to come over to my apartment on only the second date. And it's odd that it's odd, because my usual protocol is to bring a guy home ASAP and from there launch into relationship mode without stopping for breath. But here's this guy I've had dinner with twice, whom I find physically attractive, but still haven't slept with. Unheard of. I don't know him very well, so there's a certain nervousness in inviting him up, even if it's just to grab the dog. I run ahead of him, babbling anxiously about an edgy gangster film I just saw that's coming out next month. When I fling my door open, Larry erupts as if he's been raiding the amphetamine supply in my absence, and I dive to the floor to check in.

“Hello, my baby, baby, baby, look at my silly little boy!” As Larry jumps all over me, I glance up at the nonplussed Javier, who has yet to cross the threshold. “This is Larry! Isn't he the cutest thing ever? Oh my God, are you the cutest little baby face I ever did see!”

Javier clearly does not consider Larry the cutest little baby face he ever did see. He pushes past our frenetic love fest and sits on a bar stool at my kitchen counter and doesn't really look around my apartment; he just sits there and pouts. When I turn on a light and ask if he wants a beer or a glass of water, he shakes his head and flips through a Victoria's Secret catalog. With no other real option, I grab Larry's leash and a plastic bag for poop and say, “Well, should we go then?”

“Sure,” Javier says, with about as much enthusiasm as he might muster if I'd offered him a shot of warm cough syrup. As we walk Larry wordlessly, I feel self-conscious pointing out how adorable Larry is when he tries to hump an uptight standard poodle or what a good boy he is for taking a shit, which I subsequently pick up with the plastic bag and carry awkwardly until we reach a garbage can on the corner. Larry is as amused as I am when a pit bull strolls by with a banana in her mouth. Javier is not amused at all.

“Should we get a drink?” I ask, when we reach my bar. Javier shrugs. Because I'm fairly dying for a cocktail at this point, I take this as a yes. The limp mood is broken by the jollity of the place. Johnny scolds me for staying away for so long and tosses a dog biscuit onto the floor for Larry, which the finicky mutt regards with indifference. I pick it up off the floor, assuming he'll change his mind later when he's enviously sniffing our pretzels and beer and wishing he had something of his own to chew on. All the regulars hug me and pet Larry and nod suspiciously at Javier, who's now wearing a petulant scowl that I'd regard with suspicion if I hadn't brought him here.

We order pints of amber beer and sit at a table in back. I catch Javier visibly wincing as I pull Larry up onto the bench next to me. The clever little fella climbs right over me and into grumpy Javier's lap. I chuckle. He does his best to awkwardly pet him. “Are you all right?” I finally ask.

“I don't know.”

“What do you mean?”

“I don't know. I don't feel right about this dog thing.”

“This dog thing.”

“When I think about going out with a woman, I don't imagine bringing along a little dog and cleaning up after him. Now I have the feeling that this is an evening out with a dog.”

“Well, it doesn't have to be. He's perfectly happy to just sit here. We don't have to pay any attention to him.”

“But you seem to love him very much, and as I said, it is now like an evening out with a dog for me. I wanted to be with you, to look at you and speak to you and start to know you more as a person.”

“Well, I had to take him out. He had to pee, and I thought it might actually be fun. I guess it could have been if you weren't clinging to some notion of what a date is supposed to look like. Hell, seeing me interact with Larry probably tells you more about me than hours of conversation, let alone seeing my apartment, my local bar. Some people might consider that pretty intimate for a second date. Guess it depends how you choose to look at it.”

“Perhaps,” he mutters.

“Anyway, sorry I put you through such hell. Didn't mean to.”

When I get home, I add, “Dog People Only” to the Post-it on my fridge, and, needless to say, never speak to Javier again. Larry wouldn't allow it. And so grumpy Javier remains my first and only attempt at proper dating.

I check my messages:

“Hi, Jacquie. My name's Samuel. I'm returning your call about my two-bedroom in Gramercy. It is very spacious and nice. I have a key to the park, which, I'm sure you realize, is quite an honor. Call me if you'd like to take a look.…”

I jot down his number, while a husky male voice says, “Hey, my name's Anthony. Got a call from someone named Jacquie about the room I'm renting in my apartment. Sorry it's taken so long to get back to you. I'm on this shoot in Pittsburgh that keeps getting longer. If you're still looking, let me know and we can set something up for when I get back.”

“Hey, beautiful woman, it's Court. Call me, I feel like we haven't talked in days. Have we? Kind of spacey at the moment. Anyway, call me.”

I pick up the phone to call her back as the last message explodes into my darkened apartment: “Hey, gorgeous!” Jeremy. “How are you? Why isn't your frickin' cell phone on, pray tell? All I do these days is sit in a candlelit room, looking through old photos of you and me, thinking about the old days. Here's one of us trying on goofy hats together, and remember that crazy pillow fight we had? Oh, and I love this one of us torturing a stray cat with a fork. Anyways, bellissima, I hope you are good. Met your charming prince yet? Remember you promised I get to be a bridesmaid! Call me. I was such a bad boy last night! Brunch this weekend?” He makes kissy noises.

I dial Jeremy's cell and he answers, “What's up, lezzy?”

“Just making out with my girlfriend.”

“Yum, giving up the man hunt?”

“No, just taking tastes from everybody's plate.”

“Ah, my little omnivore, guess all this sex hasn't left much time for anything else. Certainly not your, ahem, friends.”

“Not exactly sex; I've just been meeting guys for the story and working like crazy. Not much time for friends or yoga or girl day at the baths, but it feels good to work this hard. It's going really well. Steve has been all gushy about how great the magazine looks and how it's all because of me blah blah and the
Luscious
story is coming along. Life is good.”

“It's because you broke up with that bad boytoy of yours.”

“You're probably right. I feel unbelievably sane. I haven't freaked out once since we broke up.”

“Speaking of freaking out…” Jeremy's voice goes suddenly somber.

“Oh, baby, what?”

And he proceeds to tell me about his latest obsession with the latest jerk he met at a club and bedded, and the guy vanished in the middle of the night without even asking for his phone number. “I'm devastated. I really like him. We had a really good conversation.”

“About what?”

“I have no idea. I was hammered,” he says. “What's your point?”

Saturday I take a break from my editing frenzy—we're shipping the June issue to the printer this week—to check out the two-bedroom overlooking Gramercy Park that belongs to Samuel, a would-be comedian who earns a living doing freelance accounting. Samuel's is the rare neighborhood below Midtown that feels like it belongs uptown—manicured, civilized, calm, quiet, and all grown-up. Well-kept high-rises with uniformed doormen tower over tree-lined streets and lush, gated parks, the jewel being the one for which the neighborhood was named, an exclusive, shady green city block, which requires a key for entry. Only residents of the buildings immediately facing the park are eligible for a much-coveted key, which they have to rent at $350 a year (and pay a steep thousand to replace if they dare lose it).

Something about this neighborhood—maybe all the shade, maybe the preponderance of strollers—slows me down. After a leisurely stroll, I arrive at Samuel's door, immediately disappointed by him physically. He's short and stocky with, incongruously, a diamond stud in his left nostril, and one of his eyes never looks straight at me, but I'm too exhausted by this whole process to come up with an excuse to leave. He shows me around, pointing out prosaic details like the brand-new gas stove, the pull-down ironing board, and the hundreds of immaculate
National Geographic
s he's been collecting since 1987. While he's in his closet searching for an ashtray he made in his pottery class that I've “just got to see,” I peek in the drawer of his nightstand and find a stuffed kitten, handcuffs, a matchbook from the Vavavoom Room, which I assume is a strip joint based on the busty babe on its cover, and a signed headshot of Britney Spears.

“Hey,” he says while we're examining an enormous fern his mother gave him for his first apartment that he's kept alive with a diet of Miracle-Gro, affection, and Aretha Franklin songs. “I bet you're a very nurturing person, too, with those big, womanly thighs of yours.” I'm aghast.

“What does your eye thing say about you?” I ask.

“Jean-Paul Sartre had eyes like mine,” he says. “They say it's a sign of genius.”

“The word
genius
is so overused,” I say, about to bolt when the front door swings open and in jaunts a grungy angel in baggy jeans and a backward baseball cap.

“Jacquie, Hunter, my roommate who's moving out.”

“Yo. You'd sure be an improvement over me. Sammy, my man, you go. You guys want a beer?” I say yes and from that point on don't say another word to Samuel, who eventually skulks off to his room to do his taxes or something, leaving Hunter and me alone.

“So, where are you moving?”

“I found this space way the hell out in Red Hook. It's out of this world. It's far and there's no subway out there, but I ride my bike everywhere anyway. The place is raw. It's huge. I can play my music as loud as I want and paint and build walls. I can't tell you how psyched I am to get creative with my living space. Oh, wow, let me show you this picture.”

He pulls out a book about lofts with shreds of Post-its stuck to selected pages. Every time he reaches one of the shots he's marked, he jumps a little and says, “Check that out! Man, love it.” When he smiles, a dimple appears in his left cheek. He has all sorts of plans: painting the ceiling orange, building walls with Plexiglas windows so the light can pass from one room to the next, organizing weekly artist salons so his friends can come by to read or display their work, play music, talk about what's going on in the world. He keeps grabbing the top of his scruffy, chocolate-brown hair with his fist for emphasis. His enthusiasm is infectious.

“How did you wind up with this grump?” I ask.

“Oh, him? Harmless. Just answered an ad, you know how it goes. I knew it was temporary. You gonna live here?”

“I don't think so,” I say, feeling deceitful. “He and I don't really get along. I'd like to find a space like yours.”

“Well, you'll have to come to the salon! Hey, what are you doing right now? Want to grab some food?”

We eat at a cheap Mexican joint I like about a block from my place. The proximity makes me feel guilty about lying to Hunter. I take a deep breath. “You know, Hunter, I have to tell you something.” He looks at me, big eyes suddenly concerned. “I'm not really looking for an apartment.”

“What do you mean?”

“I'm writing an article for a magazine about meeting guys by pretending to look for a roommate,” I laugh. “You know, a dating scheme.”

He lets that sink in. “That's fucked up. You've, like, been going to all these places, telling people you want to live there, wasting their time, and you're not even looking for an apartment?”