The New York Regional Mormon Singles Halloween Dance: A Memoir (19 page)

On the other hand, I could try to find him on Fifty-third Street after the show. But there’d be five hundred plus people leaving at the same time and four exits, so the odds really weren’t that great. Before I could come up with even a semblance of a plan, a page brushed by me. “They’re calling places.” It was time to let the audience in. I walked into the inner lobby of the theater.
It’s probably better this way
, I decided.
I mean, he probably isn’t Mormon, and like every other guy I’ve ever dated he’ll probably want to have sex.

I dragged out the “box on a stand” that I use for discarding the audience members’ tickets. Before the audience entered the theater it was my job to take their tickets and put them in this box. As I opened the lid, a tiny give-away pencil, the kind they have at libraries, rolled off the top of the box and onto the floor. I looked down at it, the sharp point, the eraserless bottom.
It’s not too late,
I thought.
He’s still here—he’s somewhere in this line.

As quickly as I could, I found a scrap of paper and wrote the following:

To the guy I met in line,

I’d barely finished writing when the doors sprang open and the audience rushed in. I was grabbing people’s tickets at my usual speed: five hundred fifty tickets in less than three minutes. (Only this time my inner monologue went something like this:
Take ticket, check to see if it’s real, look for the guy in line. Take ticket, check to see if it’s real, look for the guy in line.
)

There was a guy in a gray fleece.
That’s him
, I thought.
No, that’s not him; it’s a bearded man
.
That’s him. . . . Oh, wait, no, that’s a woman. Wait. What does he even look like? Did I make him up? I made him up. . . . He was too perfect, and too smart and too. . . .

All of a sudden I saw him—blue coat, book, and all. He looked up at me. My heart was beating so loudly I could hardly think.
Don’t look at him; if you look at him you’ll chicken out.
I focused on the job at hand.
Ticket, ticket, ticket,
I counted,
blue coat
. I glanced up.
Him
.

In one swift movement I grabbed his ticket, reached into my back pocket, took out my note, and shoved it into his hand. The crowd pushed forward. He was gone before I could gauge his reaction. But it was okay, not all was lost, he had my note, all he had to do was call me and . . .
shit.
The realization of what I’d just done came crashing in
. I’d lied.

When am I going to learn? It’s just, things happen so quickly and I follow through with them so thoroughly that it’s only in the after-math that I realize the error of my ways. You see, I wanted my note to seem nonchalant, like a casual request, not like I was hitting on him or like I was a stalker or anything. So I thought,
We talked about books, right? If I invite him to a reading, he’ll want to come along
. The only problem is I didn’t have tickets to a Dave Eggers reading. In fact there wasn’t even a Dave Eggers reading; I’d made the entire thing up.

Now the situation was problematic on two fronts. If he didn’t call me, I’d be devastated. If he did, I’d have to talk my way out of my mess. I had written myself into a bad sitcom with a miniature pencil and no erasure.

 

The guy I met in line called the very next day and said that his parents were in town, and unfortunately he wouldn’t be able to make it to the reading.

“That’s okay,” I reassured him. “I mean,
you’re really missing out
, but—”

“Elna . . . ,” he interrupted me.

“Yes . . .”

“Matt.”

“Yes, Matt?”

“Do you want to know what I’m thinking . . . ?”

“What’re you thinking?”

“That you should see a movie with me next Tuesday?”

“Yes!”

I must’ve sounded pretty eager because he laughed at me. “I like what I hear,” he said.

“Me, too.”

 

We agreed to meet on Tuesday in front of the statue of George Washington at Union Square. When I got there, I saw him before he saw me. He was standing directly underneath George, reading a book. I was worried he’d look up as I approached and that we’d have to spend thirty awkward feet smiling and fake looking away. Only, he didn’t see me until I was practically in front of him.

“Hi.” He glanced up from his book. I’d forgotten how cute he was.

“Hi,” I stammered.
Leave it to me to stammer on one word.

“Thanks for meeting me.”

“Of course.”

We stood there for a few minutes. I’m sure we spoke. I probably told him what I did that day, he probably told me what he’d done. I don’t remember a thing. I do, however, remember looking at his shoes, his jeans, his hands, and his face.
Did you ever think you’d be this lucky?
NO. The answer was no.

“I checked the movie times,” Matt said. “We have an hour to kill before anything good starts. Wanna get a drink?”

“I don’t drink—” I said automatically.
Crap.
I bit my tongue and waited for him to ask the usual question—
Why?
—so that I could deliver the fatal
I’m a Mormon
blow.

Instead, he shrugged his shoulders and said, “Smoothies?”

“Sure.” I let out an unintentional sigh of relief. “I love smoothies!”

“There’s a great café around the corner.” He stuck his hand out. “Shall we?”

“Yes.” I took his hand in mine and just like that, two strangers who’d met at the Letterman show were walking down Fourth Avenue, together.

“Shit,” Matt said as we approached the café. “The street’s closed.”

We both looked down the block. It wasn’t just closed. Thirteenth Street was blocked with blue police barricades. There were trailers, lighting equipment, cameras, and a film crew.

“What do you think they’re filming?” I said.

“I don’t know. Wanna find out?” he said, like it was a dare.

“Yes.” I smiled mischievously.

“I like what I hear.” He squeezed my hand, and pulled me around the blue barricade and down the forbidden block.

“Hey, you two . . . ,” someone shouted.

We stopped, dead in our tracks. A man with a walkie-talkie was glaring at us.

“Us?” I pointed to myself.

“Yeah, you.” He sounded annoyed. “Extras are supposed to stay in Area C.”

“Sorry,” Matt answered. “We’ll get back to our places.”

That’s right,
the guy grunted.

On the other side of the street there was a fluorescent orange sign that read AREA C. “Over there,” I whispered.

“Good eye,” Matt whispered back.

Just then, a woman stopped us. “We need street extras to go to places,” she instructed. We just looked at her.

“Karl!”
she yelled impatiently. A frazzled production intern came running.

“You’re street extras?” he asked us.

“YES,” we both answered.

“Great, go over there.” He pointed to a tree a few yards away and that was it, no direction, no further explanation, just “street extras” and “tree.” It was enough. We walked over to the tree and waited for the next step.

“You’re good at this,” I told Matt. “Other people usually hold me back.”

“I have the same problem,” he agreed.

A camera on wheels sped by us. “Action,” the director yelled. Everyone stopped what they were doing and froze. The silence was uncanny.

What do we do?
I mouthed.

“Just act natural,” Matt instructed, “and whatever you do”
—
he leaned in to my ear
—“
don’t fuck this up.” I almost started laughing, but stopped when I saw the two police officers. They were heading directly toward us.
Oh, no.
My heart stopped for like half a second, until I recognized one of them from the movie
Clueless. Actors,
I thought,
not cops—actors.
The actors walked down the block, passing us along the way. A few yards later, a “gangsta” in a puffy jacket cut them off. They started harassing him.

I looked at Matt. It was exciting being in the middle of everything, but more than that it was exciting because I was sharing it with him.

“Cut,” the director yelled.

The whole street came back to life. People ran from camera to boom, to set, to lighting, to wardrobe.

“Should we head back to Area C?” Matt suggested.

“I don’t know.” I pointed to a fluorescent green sign. “What about Area D?”

“Now we’re talking.” He smiled.

There was too much going on for anyone to notice us, and so we snuck behind the Craft Services food tent and over to Area D—which turned out to be a big trailer with three doors: Lucy, Desi, and Makeup. Matt pushed me toward the third door; I shot him a
don’t you dare
look. Just then an attractive woman with curly black hair poked her head out from behind the door. She had a makeup kit tied around her waist, and a foundation brush in her hand.

“Did the director send you here to see me?” she asked.

“Yes,” I answered.

“What for?”

“Black eyes,” Matt and I said simultaneously. It wasn’t preplanned, either; my jaw dropped and I can only imagine the face I must’ve made.

The woman waved us in. “Take a seat,” she instructed. We sat down in front of a mirror that was surrounded by at least fifty light-bulbs and she went to work on the two of us. My shiner was a big crater-looking thing, black, blue, then yellow. Matt’s looked more like a country. When she finished, she took a step back and surveyed our wounds. “You’re all set,” she said proudly. “You can head back to Area C.”

We were halfway back to the set when I felt Matt pull me in the opposite direction.

“We’re not going back, are we?” I said.

“No,” he answered.

“We’re making a run for it, aren’t we?”

“Yep.”

We snuck out the same way we came in, Thirteenth Street and Fourth Avenue.

At this point, we were too wound up to sit through a movie. And so we spent the rest of the night running around the city with our shiners.

“Two smoothies,” Matt placed an order at Jamba Juice. “And can we get a side of ice?” He pointed to my face.

We walked into Whole Foods next. As we passed the busy checkout line, we noticed people staring. I released my hand from Matt’s, an act.
“Just leave me alone,”
I yelled.
“I need a spelt cookie!”

“
Baby, baby, I’m so sorry
,”
Matt pleaded, right on cue.

 

Two hours later we were standing in front of my apartment.

“This is you?” Matt said.

“Yep,” I said. “My apartment’s tiny, but it’s a good location, unless you count the fact that we live across from the Cock, not that I’ve ever gone there but—”

“Elna?” He cut me off.

“Yes?”

“Can I take you out again?”

“Yes.”

“Good.” He took a step forward. “Can I kiss you?”

Before I could even answer, he wrapped his arms around my waist, pulled me into him, and kissed me. It was a different kind of beginning—he didn’t want anything from me, he wasn’t trying to feel me up or grope me—he just held me, like I mattered to him.
Why is he being so nice to me?
I thought.
What did I ever do to deserve this?

With my hands on the back of his neck, his hair filling the space between my fingers, I felt happier than I think I’ve ever been.
Thank you, God! Thank you for taking every little wish I’ve ever made and putting them into one person.

Matt took a step back and looked at me. “Your black eye is smeared,” he said.

I reached my hand up and touched it.

“And all this time I thought it was real.” He shook his head.
“Poser.”

 

We were dating after that. I tried to play it cool, but I was crazy about him. And whatever, I’m not just a sucker for a cute boy—Matt was a catch: a Yale grad, a doctor, and a seasonal river guide. When he told me about a project he’d done for Habitat for Humanity in which he created an outreach program for homeless meth addicts—I was done for, completely hopelessly smitten.

And the best part was, the feeling was mutual. Or at least I felt like it was. He loved listening to me tell stories, and after every date, he’d set another date up. And more than that, we made each other laugh. I laughed more with him than any guy I’d ever dated. It was the perfect relationship . . . except for one teeny tiny problem. Matt didn’t know I was Mormon, probably because I didn’t tell him. I totally rationalized this, too.
In addition to being Mormon,
I thought,
I’m many other things, so why should I let my religion define me?

But the truth is, I wanted to be able to date him for more than two weeks and I was afraid he might just see my religion as a cockblock, so I didn’t tell him. I figured if I could get Matt to fall in love with me, the Mormon thing wouldn’t be that big of a deal. In a
Cruelty thy name is Mormon
sort of a way. There was a major catch to this: Usually my reason for not sleeping with someone was obvious. Now I had to find a way around it without saying something lame like,
I’m on my period . . . for eternity.
I’d never watched porn, so I was rusty on the old art of sexual seduction, but I owned a Carmen Electra striptease workout video. According to Carmen, it was all about “keeping him wanting more.”
Dip, dip, dip.
She’d bend forward until you could see directly down her sports bra.
Eye-contact,
she’d instruct.
Scoop it up. . . . And walk away, ladies, walk away.

I applied this philosophy. On our third date, Matt and I made out in the courtyard of my building. When he put his hand up my shirt and onto my breast, I moved it away coyly. “That’s more of an eleventh date activity,” I said.