Norah answers on the fourth ring.
“Who the hell is this?” she asks.
I mean, I knew she would answer. But still I’m dumbstruck.
“Is Nick there?” I finally ask.
“No,” she says. “He’s out defeating a minor threat. Do you want to call back for his voice mail?”
It’s like I can’t help it. I am absolutely falling back into conversation with her.
“Can you give him a message?” I ask.
“Do I need a pen? Cuz if I do, you’re so f**king out of luck.”
“No. Could you just tell him that he totally blew it when he let Norah get away in that cab?”
There’s a pause. “Who the f**k is this?”
“And could you let him know that I’m really f**king relieved that he has finally unshackled himself from that Tris bitch?”
“You’re kidding, right?”
“And could you pass on the message that it’s not enough to be sitting alone on a sidewalk writing a song for a girl if you don’t have the guts to at least try talking to her again?”
Another pause. “Are you serious?”
“Where are you?”
“Veselka. Where are you?”
“Doesn’t matter,” I say. “I’ll be at Veselka soon. In the meantime, can you pass on my message?”
I hang up before she can reply.
14. NORAH
That is so rude, hanging up on a person like that.
I refuse to believe that call just happened. I’m so sleepy I’m hallucinating.
Just in case, I go into the bathroom, splash some cold water on my face to wake the f**k up, finger through my hair to make it look tousled in an attractive way but not so attractive that it looks like I tousled it because I care what it looks like, and reach down inside my shirt to rearrange my boobs. Salvatore looks the other way.
When I get back to the table, it’s heaped with food: the bowl of hot borscht (better than my bubbe’s, but I’ll never admit that to her face), half a dozen pierogies, some kielbasa. The blintzes should be following soon. What can I say, I am very, very hungry, and I am craving meat bad. I can save the leftovers for the witch lady or some other street person outside.
I dive into the food like I have just been released from prison. I think I have borscht dribbling down my chin when I manage to look up from my quantum inhalation. He’s here. Holy shit. Memo to Merle Haggard: Miracles really do happen.
I am still embarrassed, but I also remember, I am renewed, destined for my certain future as a U.N. humanitarian. I am immune from throwing myself at him again, seeing as how I’ve committed to a future life of loneliness and celibacy. It probably won’t be so bad. I will never get an STD, I will never have to worry about a condom breaking again, and the lack of sex, or even having to think about it, want it, strive for it, will probably lead me to a higher plane of enlightenment, like the Dalai Lama. So it’s all good. Zero balance. Nick can relax. I won’t gobble him, too.
Nick doesn’t speak at first, he just sits down and butters a piece of challah toast and lays right into that, equaling my fervor. Between swallows, he asks, “How many f**king people did you order food for anyway?” He takes a sip of my Coke, belches, then repeats my last words to him back to me. “‘You are absolved’? What the f**k did that mean?” He sounds hostile but he’s got that f**king half smile laced back on his lips.
I am determined to sulk, but the truth is, I want to lick him all over. I cannot believe he is here. I want to do truly nasty things to him. With him.
I try to sound blasé. “It means, we met under kind of strange circumstances and spent a few kind of strange hours together, but just because I made an ass**le of myself doesn’t mean you have to go all Nice Guy and like try to push our whatever-it-was any farther. Anyway, we don’t even know each other and we’ve never even been properly introduced—”
Nick interrupts me by extending his hand, slick with traces of butter. “I’m Nick,” he says. “I’m from a swingin’ little hood called Hoboken. Where’s Fluffy were my favorite band until tonight. I write songs. I was dumped by a wildebeest but I’m working on getting over it. And you?”
I shake his hand and try hard to suppress a smile. I don’t owe him that. “I’m Norah,” I say. “From Englewood f**kin’ not-swingin’ Cliffs. Where’s Fluffy were also my favorite band until tonight. I love songs that are written. I dumped a wildebeest and he dumped me and it’s been this endless miserable spiral, but I’m also getting over it.”
“Hi, Norah,” he says.
“Hi, Nick,” I answer.
“Can I have my f**king jacket back?”
“No.” I deserve some reward for my rejection and for my future life of celibacy and good deeds.
“Why?”
“Because Salvatore wants me to have it.”
“He told you that?”
“He did.”
“But what if the jacket didn’t really belong to Salvatore? What if it wasn’t his to give you? What if it really belonged to his evil twin, Salamander, who only had Salvatore’s name stenciled on so people would mistake him for the good twin and then Salamander would be free to carry on with his nefarious mission in life?”
“What nefarious mission would that be?”
“You know, world domination, that whole thing.”
“World domination is exhausting and cliché. People ought to just focus on being individual responsible citizens of the earth instead of ass**les. And you can tell that to Salamander next time he comes asking you for his jacket. Tell him me and Salvatore are starting our own new world order. It’s called the Chill the Fuck Out and Let the Girl Have the Jacket movement.”