The tennis match at Grand Central was great in that we were perfectly matched. I wondered if John and Caroline played together. I thought of them playing on summer weekends wherever it is that they summer and a weird pang of jealousy followed. It took a lot of self-control not to ask him about it. Bringing her up as if I didn’t know her would make my deception feel even more appalling. I resisted the urge. He had to run afterward but asked to see me again.
“I’m showing North by Northwest in class this week. You should come.”
I responded with a quizzical look; I didn’t know what North by Northwest had to do with anything.
“They spoke about it on our Grand Central tour, remember? Alfred Hitchcock, Cary Grant, Eva Marie Saint?” I didn’t, but his enthusiasm was catching and also quite adorable.
I smiled. “Enough said.”
*
That’s how I found myself a couple of days later in a classroom for the first time in twenty years. It was fun—it made me feel like a college student again, when everything was ahead of me, no broken marriage behind me. John gave a brief introduction, then darkened the room, and as the opening credits started, he made his way up to where I was sitting and sat down right next to me. “Glad you could make it,” he whispered before settling down in his seat. I was a bit worried that I wouldn’t be able to concentrate, sitting in the dark like this with John, but the movie sucked me right in. After it was over he mixed a few questions about Grand Central into his lecture—things we had learned on our tour. Each time, his eyes found mine, coaxing me to answer. And when I did, I felt such a strong connection to him, two people in a sea of strangers with a secret.
“Which other Hitchcock film used both Grand Central and Penn Station?”
“Spellbound!” I answered, barely waiting for him to call on me.
I was so eager that a couple of students in the row ahead turned around to look at me, as though wondering what I was doing there. And when I saw their faces, I realized that I didn’t know what I was doing there myself. I shouldn’t have come. I was falling for a married man to whom I was being completely dishonest, and who’d repeatedly talked about his commitment to his (lying, cheating) wife. I decided I would not stick around for coffee after class, as I had promised, and vowed never to see him again.
But two Sundays later I broke my vow. It was my weekend off, and damn if I wasn’t again sitting in my office following John Westmont’s whereabouts on my computer. Okay, if I’m totally honest, I’d checked in on him nearly every day since I had sworn I wouldn’t, but on the tracking device—I didn’t and wouldn’t go so far as to retrieve his e-mails from my junk folder. Obeying that one rule left me feeling less out of control. Still, he had become an obsession. More like an addiction. John Westmont was my heroin. Our few encounters had left me hooked and wanting more.
That day he was walking the High Line. I know, you’re probably thinking this guy is really into landmarks, but I can tell you this is the only remotely touristy thing he had done over those past two weeks. Most nights he was home at his Fifth Avenue apartment, which by the way is so palatial it covers two locations on the tracking device. It’s hard to imagine such a down-to-earth guy coming from such affluence. Most of his days were spent in or around Columbia University. Last Sunday he went to Madison Square Garden, for the Knicks game, I assume. Thursday he attended a conference at the Paley Center for Media, and this past Wednesday he saw the afternoon movie at the Paris Theatre. It took every bit of self-control I could summon not to show up in that balcony and casually sit next to him. I daydreamed about what I would say. Will you quit following me! Or Not you again! How he would offer me some of his popcorn and how my hand would brush against his when we inevitably reached into the bucket at the same time. Within minutes of reimagining the missed popcorn scenario I found myself on the street hailing a cab, like the junkie I am.