Room for Love

by Andrea Meyer

  Gazing out at the sparkling lights of downtown Manhattan, Javier says, “I admit that my apartment is large but loud and not beautiful. I stay here for the deck.” He spins suddenly, runs his fingers stiffly through bristles of black hair that stick straight up toward the pinpricks of light in the sky, and says, “Let’s do something, let’s do something, you and me, Jacquie, what should we do?” I don’t know if he means have a cocktail, throw eggs onto the highway, or start a revolution, so I let him continue. I’m enormously entertained. He leans over the thin railing, sways dramatically to look over his shoulder and straight at me with his big, black eyes, and says, “There are not many Americans you can discuss these complex ideas with, Jacquie. Let’s watch a movie.” With that we scramble downstairs as quickly as we scrambled up them and he sticks in the video of Weekend, the enigmatic classic by French cinematic giant Jean-Luc Godard, not exactly first-date fare, but I go with it. I adore the film, even if I don’t entirely understand it. When I begin to nod off from too much beer, cheese, and intellectual stimulation, Javier nudges me softly. “Jacquie, are you going to move into my apartment?”

  “No, I’m not really looking for an apartment.”

  “I didn’t think so,” he says. “Will you have dinner with me tomorrow?”

  “I’d love to,” I say, woozily lifting myself off the couch.

  I call Alicia on my cell the minute my feet hit the sidewalk in front of Javier’s building. “A date,” I sing onto her voice mail. “Oh my God, I’m going on a date with an apartment guy! Intense. Mexican. Oh my God, it’s working.”

  When I get home the next day from an interview with Cameron Diaz, who’s slumming it on Broadway in a comedy by a buzzed-about Irish playwright, Alicia is in front of the building, loading her luggage into a cab.

  “I’ve run up and down the stairs a million times. Wish you were here to help,” she says.

  “You could have waited until I got home,” I say.

  “Whatever,” she says. “Well, gotta go.” She gives me an awkward hug and climbs into the back of the cab. I watch it roll to the end of the block and turn left onto Avenue A. Alone again, I climb the stairs slowly to prepare for my date.

  I meet Javier at a Gallician restaurant around the corner from my apartment, where tapas are served with potent sangria on barrels spread out on the sawdust-covered floor. Javier is glaring intently at The Village Voice when I arrive.

  “Hey!” I announce, sitting on the stool next to him. He doesn’t budge. “Javier? You there?”

  He snaps out of his rapt state and looks at my face. “Oh, you are much better. What I’m reading here is such shit. I hate critics, I think critics are the lowest-level people of the earth. They can’t make their own art, so they tear apart other people’s. Here is a review of a film of Pedro Almodóvar, a man I regard with the greatest esteem, and the mindless masturbation this cockroach applies to his work—” He stops suddenly and takes a sip of water. “Jacqueline, you are not a film critic, are you?”

  “Not exactly. I’m a writer, and film is my area of expertise. Let’s call me a film writer.”

  Javier starts laughing, I think for the first time since I’ve met him. His laughter bubbles up warmly and softens his angular face.

  “That would have been bad,” he says and continues laughing. He kisses both my cheeks.

  “Can we order?” I suggest. “I’m starving.”

  “I love a woman who eats,” he says. We order a pitcher of the white sangria and an array of tapas—chorizo, Spanish tortilla, tomato salad, garlic shrimp, olives, and chunks of Manchego. He feeds me pulpo gallego—boiled octopus sprinkled bright with red pepper—with his fingers, studies my face, and says, “Jacquie, what does a film writer do?”

  “Well,” I say, popping a green olive into my mouth, “I interview actors and directors. I write articles about industry trends. For the magazine, I cover DVD releases and obscure new releases I’m excited about. I admit some of those are basically mini movie reviews, but I try to personalize them as much as possible.”

  “Does this satisfy you?”

  “Does it satisfy me? Well, I like it a lot,” I say. “I get to meet directors and actors I respect and write stories about them that I hope are entertaining. It’s a form of writing I’m comfortable with and I think I have a knack for interviewing. Plus, I get invited to parties and film festivals and see movies for free.”

  Javier swirls his glass of sangria, seeming to study a slice of orange very intently. “I don’t think you challenge yourself.”

  “Sure I do,” I say, defensive. Then: “What’s so important about being challenged anyway? Everyone’s always like, ‘Oh, it’s only really satisfying if you have to work for it,’ but that’s such b.s. I love what I do. I’m making a living as a writer in New York City! And writing about my greatest passion. How many people can say they earn a living doing what they love? I meet amazing people—I’ve interviewed Quentin Tarantino and Faye Dunaway and Benicio Del Toro and Nicole Kidman. God, I’ve interviewed JLo! Who would impress you? Um, I’ve interviewed Steven Soderbergh and your own country’s pride and joy, Gael Garcia Bernal, and the director Alfonso Cuarón. That’s cool, isn’t it? Sometimes I walk down the street thinking, Is this really my life? I am so lucky. And it’s not an easy job. I have to juggle a million details as an editor. There are looming deadlines, cranky writers, two-faced publicists, disjointed stories I have the job of piecing together. Sure, the writing itself isn’t the hardest thing in the world. Sure, I practically write these stories in my sleep, but I love it. I fucking love it.”

  He looks at me with either admiration or pity in his eyes. “Jacquie, I like very much spending time with you,” he says. “Tell me about your youth.”

  I tell my story the way I always tell it, the ten-minute stand-up-routine version I’ve been perfecting all my life: the Southern California upbringing in a town where kids grow up too fast, exposed to drugs, celebrity, and the kind of wealth that inevitably leads to envy and an unnatural sense of entitlement. My well-practiced illustrations include sneaking out of my bedroom window to dance at nightclubs with men in makeup and women in nothing but leather teddies and high heels; flattering bouncers into overlooking my pathetic homemade fake ID; going home with pretty boys in their twenties—construction workers or struggling actors by day, clubbers by night; making a pit stop at a four-star-hotel parking lot to buy cocaine from a valet instructed to sell to anyone who knew the elaborate password, then stopping the car around the corner with a girlfriend to howl with elation at how racy and sophisticated our teenage lives were.

  As I’m about to launch into Chapter 2—my first two aimless years of drinking relentlessly and coasting academically at a notorious party college—Javier stops me. “I can see you’ve told this story many times. It is humorous and carefree,” he says. “But I wonder about a girl so nice as you, fifteen years old, dancing at night with men who want to touch a young girl. What was it you wanted?”

  “I wanted love,” I say.

  “You thought you would find it there?”

  “I went to parties with guys my own age, too, kissed a lot of them, but the club guys impressed me. They were so beautiful. I think they wanted to be discovered the way people want to be discovered in L.A. They looked like GQ models, they posed and spoke like people in a movie. I think at that age I was looking for the kind of love you see in the movies Valley Girl and Sixteen Candles, so I pursued those guys with a vengeance, fell down bruised when they left me, and cried afterward for days and went over and over the details with my friends on the phone, wrote frantic, gut-wrenching notes to them in class about how my life was over, how I’d never love again. But of course it was just histrionics. I always got up, dusted myself off, moved on to the next guy, the next one, who would surely be the true love of my life.”

  “You are a young soul,” he says.

  “I think you’re right. That’s not a good thing, is it?”

  “It’s not a bad thing. You are
innocent. I love the innocence in you. You are still looking for love in wrong ways. It’s very moving.” He touches my cheek, and I want to cry. When Javier presses his chapped lips to mine, I let him. We might not have the kind of chemistry that goes snap, crackle, pop, but I really like talking to him. Javier seems to be an actual prospect, someone interesting and smart who I may learn to like eventually. This idea excites me and I kiss him back, even resting my hand on the back of his neck, pulling him toward me, throwing my leg over his. Luckily he’s consumed as much garlic as I have or it could be embarrassing.

  Javier walks me home. We kiss some more at my front door, and I’m impressed with myself for leaving him there all by himself. By the time I’ve bounced fairly giddily up the four flights, he has left me a message thanking me for a nice time and asking me out again, which gives me a jolt, almost instantly turning my mild interest in him into panic. What if he’s a stalker? Or, even worse, a loser? I wish Alicia were home so we could tear him apart. No one is quite as adept as my sister when it comes to analyzing someone’s shortcomings. I decide to go the healthier route and call Courtney.

  “Jacquie, for once in your life will you give a nice guy a chance?” she says, when I tell her I don’t know if I like him. “Calling a woman to thank her for a date is called good manners, which might be something you are unaccustomed to.”

  “Yeah, I guess. But I didn’t want to have sex with him. Usually if I like a guy, I do.”

  “Sometimes attraction creeps up on you. You said he was good-looking, right? There’s nothing wrong with waiting until the third or fourth date, when you have a stronger feeling about whether you actually like him or not. I like this. I’d like to see you go with this, take things slowly for a change. Consider it an experiment.”

  I promise her I’ll go out with him again and the idea actually doesn’t sound completely distasteful. “Hey, how’s Brad?”

  “He’s doing great. Got a rave review in some Canadian paper. He’s gonna send it to me.”

  “Ever heard of the Internet?”

  “I want to have it, to put on the refrigerator. My hubby’s famous!”

  “Do you think he has groupies?”

  “Some girl came up to him after the show yesterday and told him she wanted to have his baby.”

  “He told her there was someone much prettier already on the job, right?”

  “Something like that. Hey, Jacq, I have to go. I’m exhausted.”

  “Yeah, I have work to do myself. Deadlines up the wazoo. Talk soon?”

  “Yeah, okay,” she says.

  I hang up and Javier calls again. Does the guy have no shame? I remember what Courtney said and agree to have dinner with him on Friday night. I must admit the normalness of it all is nice, even if he doesn’t give me goose bumps. A man took me out to a pleasant dinner, paid, called to thank me, and then asked me out again—the same night. It occurs to me that this is a proper grown-up dating experience. No games, no giddy stupidity, no deferring to blinding lust or hormones. It could be nice. He asks me where I’d like to go and I suggest an expensive sushi place in NoHo I’ve been wanting to try.

  Thursday afternoon, I get a call from my neighbor whose dog, Larry, I take care of when she goes out of town. She unexpectedly needs to go upstate to visit her brother who fell out of a tree and broke his leg. I love having Larry over and tell her I’ll take him for as long as she wants. After a boring postwork-cocktail dealie celebrating a new Manhattan film festival (as if we don’t have too many already), where the bar is so dark I can’t see the bland floating hors d’oeuvres I shovel into my mouth, I let myself into Larry’s mom’s apartment and watch him go berserk. Larry is a little white mutt with the cutest face on the planet, and we love each other in a deep, primal way. I throw myself on the floor and let him climb all over me and lick my face. I hug him and squeeze him and kiss him back.

  “Guess what, baby! You’re sleeping over at my house tonight!”

  He goes berserk again. I swear he understands everything I say. We trot upstairs to my place, where I put on George Michael (Larry’s favorite) and dance around, while Larry barks at me and runs in circles and rubs his face with his paws and other things he does that are so cute I could scream. I do, and he barks in response. Then we climb into bed and I read, while he burrows tunnels in my blanket.

  “You are my little monkey!” I tell him. “I love you madly! You are the cutest little monkey I ever did see.” He cocks his head and looks at me like I’m insane. Then he goes back to burrowing tunnels in the covers.

  For Date #2, I lose my usual jeans and put on a skirt and heels for Javier. I figure if I’m going on proper dates, I should dress the part. Javier arrives at the restaurant a few minutes after I do and hands me a white rose. I resist my impulse to think, Cheesy! and instead say, “That is so sweet,” and lean in for a kiss. His lips are soft. He’s moisturized them since last time. Sober, there’s not much electricity, but I tell myself it could come with time and tell my gut to shut the hell up.

  While reveling in mountains of sashimi, a seared tuna and seaweed salad, and perfectly steamed shrimp shumai, I decide that Javier is a combative person. That’s okay with me; I can argue with the best of them. We fight about movies and the mayor and the relative merits of raw salmon (yuck) and tuna (so heavenly it’s worth risking mercury poisoning). Then, in the middle of a story about an ancient, hunchbacked neighbor of his, he grumbles that the guy has a dog he often fantasizes about poisoning in his sleep. My mouth goes dry.

  “Well, it’s interesting that you should mention that, because I’m dogsitting at the moment and need to stop by my place to take the little guy out after dinner. I was hoping you wouldn’t mind getting a drink in my ‘hood, someplace where we can take the dog.”

  He looks pained, but says, “Sure, why not?”

  “I can’t go out with anyone Larry doesn’t like, so we’d better get this out of the way.”

  “Okay.”

  It’s odd for Javier to come over to my apartment on only the second date. And it’s odd that it’s odd, because my usual protocol is to bring a guy home ASAP and from there launch into relationship mode without stopping for breath. But here’s this guy I’ve had dinner with twice, whom I find physically attractive, but still haven’t slept with. Unheard of. I don’t know him very well, so there’s a certain nervousness in inviting him up, even if it’s just to grab the dog. I run ahead of him, babbling anxiously about an edgy gangster film I just saw that’s coming out next month. When I fling my door open, Larry erupts as if he’s been raiding the amphetamine supply in my absence, and I dive to the floor to check in.

  “Hello, my baby, baby, baby, look at my silly little boy!” As Larry jumps all over me, I glance up at the nonplussed Javier, who has yet to cross the threshold. “This is Larry! Isn’t he the cutest thing ever? Oh my God, are you the cutest little baby face I ever did see!”

  Javier clearly does not consider Larry the cutest little baby face he ever did see. He pushes past our frenetic love fest and sits on a bar stool at my kitchen counter and doesn’t really look around my apartment; he just sits there and pouts. When I turn on a light and ask if he wants a beer or a glass of water, he shakes his head and flips through a Victoria’s Secret catalog. With no other real option, I grab Larry’s leash and a plastic bag for poop and say, “Well, should we go then?”

  “Sure,” Javier says, with about as much enthusiasm as he might muster if I’d offered him a shot of warm cough syrup. As we walk Larry wordlessly, I feel self-conscious pointing out how adorable Larry is when he tries to hump an uptight standard poodle or what a good boy he is for taking a shit, which I subsequently pick up with the plastic bag and carry awkwardly until we reach a garbage can on the corner. Larry is as amused as I am when a pit bull strolls by with a banana in her mouth. Javier is not amused at all.

  “Should we get a drink?” I ask, when we reach my bar. Javier shrugs. Because I’m fairly dying for a cocktail at this point, I take this as a yes. The
limp mood is broken by the jollity of the place. Johnny scolds me for staying away for so long and tosses a dog biscuit onto the floor for Larry, which the finicky mutt regards with indifference. I pick it up off the floor, assuming he’ll change his mind later when he’s enviously sniffing our pretzels and beer and wishing he had something of his own to chew on. All the regulars hug me and pet Larry and nod suspiciously at Javier, who’s now wearing a petulant scowl that I’d regard with suspicion if I hadn’t brought him here.

  We order pints of amber beer and sit at a table in back. I catch Javier visibly wincing as I pull Larry up onto the bench next to me. The clever little fella climbs right over me and into grumpy Javier’s lap. I chuckle. He does his best to awkwardly pet him. “Are you all right?” I finally ask.

  “I don’t know.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “I don’t know. I don’t feel right about this dog thing.”

  “This dog thing.”

  “When I think about going out with a woman, I don’t imagine bringing along a little dog and cleaning up after him. Now I have the feeling that this is an evening out with a dog.”