“My name’s not Nat,” I say. Now that I have him on the phone, I’m not sure I want him on the phone.
“Not cool what you and your new dude did today.” His voice is deep and slow and lazy, like it’s always been. Funny how things that once seemed so charming can become dull and annoying. We think we want all the time in the world with the people we love, but maybe what we need is the opposite. Just a finite amount of time, so we still think the other person is interesting. Maybe we don’t need acts two and three. Maybe love is best in act one.
I ignore his scolding, and the urge to point out that he was the one shoplifting, and therefore he was the uncool one. “I have a question,” I say.
“Go for it,” he says.
“Why did you cheat on me?”
Something falls to the floor on his end and he stammers the beginning of three different answers.
“Calm down,” I say. “I’m not calling to fight with you and I definitely don’t want to get back together. I just want to know. Why didn’t you just break up with me? Why cheat?”
“I don’t know,” he says, managing to stumble over three simple words.
“Come on,” I urge. “There’s gotta be a reason.”
He’s quiet, thinking. “I really don’t know.”
I stay silent.
“You’re great,” he says. “And Kelly’s great. I didn’t want to hurt your feelings and I didn’t want to hurt her feelings.” He sounds sincere, and I don’t know what to do with that.
“But you must’ve liked her better to cheat, right?”
“No. I just wanted both of you.”
“That’s it?” I ask. “You didn’t want to choose?”
“That’s it,” he says, as if that’s enough.
This answer is so wholly lame, so unbelievably unsatisfying, that I almost hang up. Daniel would never feel this way. His heart chooses.
“One more question. Do you believe in true love and all that stuff?”
“No. You know me better than that. You don’t believe in it either,” he reminds me.
Don’t I? “Okay. Thanks.” I’m about to hang up, but he stops me.
“Can I at least tell you that I’m sorry?” he asks.
“Go ahead.”
“I’m sorry.”
“Okay,” I say. “Don’t cheat on Kelly.”
“I won’t,” he says. I think he means it while he’s saying it.
I should call my parents and tell them about Attorney Fitzgerald, but they’re not who I want to tell right now. Daniel. I need to find him and tell him.
Rob says I don’t believe in true love. And he’s right. I don’t.
But I might want to.
I LEAVE THE STORE. A violinist is standing on a milk crate in front of the pawnshop right next door. She’s pale and scrawny and bedraggled in a poetic sort of way, like something out of David Copperfield. Unlike her, the violin is pristine. I listen for a few seconds but don’t know if she’s any good. I know there’s an objective way to judge these things. Is she playing all the right notes in the right order and in tune?
But there’s another way to judge too: does this music being played right here, right now, matter to someone?
I decide it matters to me. I jog back to where she is and drop a dollar into her hat. There’s a sign next to the hat that I don’t read. I don’t really want to know her story. I just want the music and the moment.
My dad said Natasha and I can never work out. And maybe he’s right, but not for the reasons he thinks. What an idiot I’ve been. I should be with her right now, even if today is all we have. Especially if today is all we have.
We live in the Age of the Cell Phone, but I do not have her cell phone number. I don’t even know her last name. Like an idiot, I Google “Natasha Facebook New York City” and get 5,780,000 hits. I click through maybe a hundred links, and while the Natashas are all quite lovely, none of them is my Natasha. Who knew that her name was so flipping popular?
It’s 4:15 p.m. and the streets are starting to fill up again with evening commuters heading for the subways. Like me, they look worse for wear. I jog on the curb to prevent pedestrians on the sidewalk from slowing me down.
I don’t have a plan except to find her again. The only thing to do is to go to her Last Known Location—the lawyer’s office on Fifty-Second—and hope that Fate is on my side and she’s still there.
A COUPLE, BOTH WITH BRIGHT blue Mohawks, is arguing in front of the Fifty-Second Street subway entrance. They’re doing that weird whisper-hiss thing that couples do when they fight in public. I can’t hear what they’re saying, but their gestures say it all. She’s outraged at him. He’s exasperated with her. They’re definitely not at the beginning of their relationship. They both look too weary for that. You can see their long history just in the way they lean toward each other. Is this the last fight they’ll ever have? Is this the one that ends it all?
I look back at them after I pass. Once upon a time I’m sure they were in love. Maybe they still are, but you can’t tell from looking.
I DESCEND INTO THE SUBWAY and say a prayer to the subway gods (yes, multiple gods) that the train ride will be free of electrical issues and religiously challenged conductors.
What if I’m too late? What if she’s already gone? What if stopping to give a dollar to that violinist started a chain of events that causes me to miss her?
We pull into the station. Directly across the platform, the downtown train pulls in at the same time. Our doors close, but the train doesn’t move.
On the platform, a group of about twenty people in brightly colored skintight bodysuits materializes. They look like tropical birds against the dark gray of the subway. They line up and then freeze in place, waiting for something to set them off.
It’s a flash mob. The train across the platform doesn’t move either. One of the dancers, a guy in electric blue with an enormous package, presses play on a boom box.
At first it just seems like chaos, each person dancing to their own tune, but then I realize they’re just offset by a few seconds. It’s like singing in a round except they’re dancing. They start out with ballet and move on to disco, and then break-dancing, before the subway cops catch on. The dancers scatter and my fellow passengers applaud wildly.
We pull away, but now the atmosphere in the train is completely changed. People are smiling at each other and saying how cool that was. It’s at least thirty seconds before everyone puts back on his or her protective I’m-on-a-train-filled-with-strangers face. I wonder if that was the dancers’ intention—to get us all to connect just for a moment.
I’M SITTING WITH MY BACK to the platform, so I don’t really see how it starts. The only way I know something unusual is happening is that the entire train car seems to be looking at something behind me. I turn around and find that there’s a flash mob dancing on the platform. They’re all wearing very bright clothing and disco dancing.
Only in New York City, I think, and take out my phone to snap a few pictures. My fellow passengers cheer and clap. One guy even starts doing his own moves.
The dance doesn’t last long, because three subway cops break it up. A few boos go up before everyone resumes being impatient about the train not moving.
Normally I would’ve wondered what the point of those people was. Don’t they have jobs or something better to do? If Daniel were here, he’d say that maybe this is the thing they’re supposed to be doing. Maybe the whole point of the dancers is just to bring a little wonder into our lives. And isn’t that just as valid a purpose as any?
I DART OUT of the Fifty-Second Street subway and almost run into a couple making out like nobody’s business. Even without the blue hair, they’d be hard to miss because they’re basically fused together from head to toe. They need a room, and stat. Seriously. It’s like they’re having an emergency make-out session right here on the sidewalk. They’ve each got the other’s ass firmly in hand. Mutual ass grabbage.