I figured it was safe for me to leave the stage at this point. My work for the night was done, at last.
Kevin appeared the moment I stepped down and handed me a glass of wine. “I’m so proud of you,” he said.
I gratefully accepted the wine, as well as his praise. “Thank you so much for coming,” I replied, which was a throwaway comment, but I followed it up with, “I’m really glad you’re here.” And the moment I said it, I realized just how much I wasn’t bullshitting him. I actually was glad he was there. I would rather have had him there with me than anyone else in the world. Which may not sound like much—but I’d never been able to say that about anyone before.
Kevin put his hands on my bare arms, and they felt so warm. He slid them up to my shoulders, then back down to my elbows, and pulled me in toward him. He kissed my cheek, then my neck, and then whispered into my ear, “I love you so much.”
Love, he said. Love. For the first time.
He reached for my face and kissed me with a passion that brought even the tickers to a stunned halt. If a photo of the moment hadn’t been Instagrammed, I would have been sure I’d imagined it. I would have been sure I’d imagined the entire night.
22
I AWOKE the morning after the launch party to the sounds of hipsters gossiping their way to Sunday brunch, which told me I’d slept till at least eleven. My alarm clock verified this and Emily arrived shortly after, still wearing last night’s dress.
“Walk of shame?” I asked.
“I didn’t walk.” Emily reached for my coffee cup and finished what was inside. “The young gentleman I went home with last night was the most generous lover I’ve ever known. I think his father is some sort of Russian metals tycoon? He bought me a thirty-dollar breakfast.” She unzipped the back of her dress. “Eggs Benedict.”
“Congratulations,” I said, reaching for an Oreo from the stack on my nightstand.
Emily waddled into the kitchen on bare feet, her dress wide open in the back. She returned with a fresh cup of coffee for herself and resumed her striptease, ceremoniously stepping out of her dress and then wrapping herself in a silk kimono robe that my mother surely would have described as Oriental.
“Have you looked at the website?” she asked. “How much money did we raise last night?”
“I don’t know,” I said with my mouth full. “I haven’t checked.”
“Are you kidding me? You’re just lying there eating cookies and didn’t even think to turn on your computer?”
“Why didn’t you check?” I shot back in the vicious manner of voice I usually reserved for the a-holes who worked at the South Williamsburg post office.
“My phone is dead or I would have. What the hell is your problem?”
“Kevin told me he loved me last night.”
“Whaaat?” Emily pulled her silk kimono tighter and took a seat on the edge of my bed. “And what did you say?”
“Nothing.”
“Nothing?”
“I guess I panicked. I was so caught up in the moment.” I knew what Emily was going to say: that I was socially inept, emotionally stunted. And she was right. I was basically the Holden Caulfield of adult dating.
I sat up to shoo away the cookie crumbs that had gathered on my chest just as the apartment’s buzzer rang out.
“Oh my god.” I locked eyes with Emily. “I bet it’s Kevin. He’s been doing this supposedly romantic thing lately called ‘surprising’ me.”
“Or he just wants to hear you say I love you back, you idiot.” Emily glanced out the window and then back at me. “You can’t let him see you this way. You’re a goddamn mess. You have Oreo all over your mouth.”
“What do I do?”
“Go hide in the bathroom and run the showerhead. Quick!”
I did as she said. I could have probably used an actual shower, but instead I put my ear to the bathroom door, trying to hear the action over the whooshing water.
The apartment door opened with a squeak, followed by heavy footsteps.
A gruff voice penetrated the quickly rising steam, nothing like Kevin’s consistently agreeable baritone. “You’re not who I came to see.”
Emily called out to me. “False alarm!”
I skulked out of the bathroom to find Wendi sitting down at our kitchen table. She eyed Emily from head to toe. “This robe you’re wearing,” she said. “It’s bordering on racist.”
Emily swept her hands down the front of her robe’s silky, cherry-blossomed surface. “It’s not like I taped my eyes back or something.”
“I will let that one slide because today is such a happy day.” Wendi reached across the table for Emily’s laptop, pecked it to life, and tapped at a few keys, bringing up the Assistance website.
“Holy cannoli!” I said, sounding like the Italian version of the chick from Fifty Shades of Grey. “Look at all the money!”
The Money Raised ticker had hit $406,813.54.