Nick & Norah's Infinite Playlist

by Rachel Cohn

  Her hand finds my hand and immediately I'm being led away. We are piercing through the rumbling tumbling crowd and our arms are like the most precarious bridge, held together by that single, pulling clasp. I think, If she lets go, it's all over. If I let go, it's all over. And because she is holding on so tight, I hold on so tight. I am being jostled from all sides-I know there will be bruises tomorrow-but somehow this hand-hold is immune. Somehow we stay together. We are graced, and we are together, and the twoliness is trumping the loneliness and the doubt and the fear. We are making it through. Thank you, music. Damn you, memories. Thank you, present.

  She looks around, then gets me into a small room to the side of the Laddies' Room. It's the size of a closet, and it's dominated by a lime-green couch in front of a big mirror. There's a priest's collar thrown over the back of the couch, and plenty of open makeup. I expect Norah to look at me mischievously, but instead she looks determined. She keeps hold of my hand and launches herself into me, squeezing and grappling and kissing me so hard my lips can barely kiss back.

  "You," she says, her hand now leading my hand over her breasts and her free hand gliding over my chest. And it's hot in this small room, and she's feverish and she's kissing me and my mouth is opening and her hands, her tongue, her hips are exploring. But her eyes aren't as adventurous. And I don't know if she's trying to pull me back or pull me in or just plain trying to pull. If this is desire, I'm not clear what it's a desire for. I'm aroused-so fucking aroused-by the heat of it, the fever of it, the dark-yes, darkness-of it. But I can't lose myself in it because I can't find where she is, outside of the music, inside these movements. Her hand is pressing my hand against the wall, and the other hand is under my shirt, rising up to my neck, then starting to go back down. And down. And her fingers have found my trail and my hands both press the wall. The heat of it, the fever of it-the look in her eyes is unsmiling and I just want it and I just can't do it and she's reaching down and down and as she touches me there I am about to explode and I want her to say something, even my name, but she doesn't and suddenly I can't. I want to be sure, and I'm not sure, and I say no, because I want her to be sure and I just can't be sure that she is. She kisses me again and strokes a little and this time I'm really not kissing back and I've got to stop it before something happens and I don't understand what's going on here and I let go of her hand and her other hand stops and even though I am up against a wall, I pull away.

  Why did you stop?

  I don't want her to say it. But it's there in her face. If she had something to prove, now I've disproven it. So the dead equation of our actions lies between us, and I don't know what the fuck I can do.

  "Did you see her?" she asks. And at first I want to ask who. But then I know, and I say no, and I ask, "Did you see him?"

  She turns ten degrees away from me, back toward the noise, and answers yes.

  10. NORAH

  The mosh pit didn't lie. I knew that and yet I ignored the evidence the pit threw back at me. Why did you stop? Can the oracle answer the one better question now: Why the fuck did I keep going?

  I tell Nick, "Yes." He thinks I mean, Yes, I saw Tal. I didn't see Tal. I did see Tris. It will be easier for Nick, later, if he thinks it's Tal I saw. Then he can blame it all on me and my hang-ups. But there's a reason women go frigid and Nick can fucking go look in the mirror if he wants to view that reason.

  WHY AM I SUCH A FUCKING LOSER?

  I race out of the closet room, slamming the door behind me with my foot, pleased by the snarl of "OW, THAT FUCKING HURT!" I hear from Nick's side of the door. I know Nick needs a few minutes to himself to get his parts back in order. I have some time to do what I need to do.

  What I did not need to do was what I just did. I got no Oi. I only got Oy. I trusted in the power of the pit, believed in the come-on when Nick tested FUCK-SHIT-COCK on the mic, looking right at me. I knew there was no way Tris would not be showing up at this club, and knew I'd better take my chance before it blew up like Where's Fluffy in performance. I've never been the girl to make a move, which is maybe why night after night I go out with Caroline and the moves are always made on her but never on me. And I wasn't thinking about Where's Fluffy opening their set with "Take Me Back, Bitch" when I did what I did, moved what I moved. I was thinking about that second song on the playlist Nick made for Tris, "Take a Chance on Me" by Abba. Either Dev slipped something into my Tina Colada or it was the sensual memory of the song of the Swedes, because I was in the pit with Dev and Hunter and I was believing in the band and in time and in the mosh, maybe even believing in God and Nick. That heaven-hell was hot as fuck in the middle, and that had to be the sign that I needed to just fucking go for it.

  First shot at bat? Strikeout. All wrong. My eyes were open for the second half of that horrible-great kiss and right on schedule I saw Toni frisking Tris at the door and I knew my window of opportunity was about to slam shit, I mean shut. I am nothing if not determined, as well as extremely foolish, so it was not my hormones leading Nick to the closet room for a second shit, I mean shot; no, it was worse, it was plain stupidity leading me, the patented Norah-brand stupidity (the kind that writes regression letters to Evil Exes) that my brain holds in higher contempt than ignorance because it's the exclusive Norah brand that will lead down a path to what I hate most: regret.

  I didn't even bother with foreplay, I lunged right in like I was Tal after too much Manischewitz Passover wine. I knew it was too soon, Nick was too raw, but I was goddamn ready to thaw and prove I wouldn't leave him cold. And I thought I did prove that, I mean I had him, at least I thought I did, I mean he responded, sort of, at least I thought he did, or maybe what I thought was response and mutual attraction was merely the fact that he's a guy, and an Elmo doll could accidentally graze it and it would respond. But the moment passed so quickly and if I am being honest, I know it only half responded and barely that because Julio probably knew it was Sub Z calling.

  I will not do any more instant replay of that scene. I will not.

  I am so humiliated.

  I can feel the humiliation burning my face, branding me, making me hotter than frigid could ever imagine being, hot with hate. I hate the regret, pumping through every artery of my body, craving a cheeseburger right now. I hate time and I hate this night and if I truly believed in God outside of that momentary lapse of faith, I'd hate Her too.

  I even hate Where's Fluffy. My former favorite band, now destined to be remembered for the rest of my life as the band I was listening to when I went down like the Titanic, ahem. I hate Caroline for being passed out when I really need to talk to her. I hate Tal for all the times of No, touch it this way and You're doing it all wrong, Norah, because now Nick, my first shot at redemption, knows it too: I have no fucking idea how to do this. It's like that mythic God takes human beings at creation and divides us into subsets: Group A gets the hot looks, sex appeal, and lots of action with natural ease (Caroline); Group B is the makeover prospects who will figure it all out and eventually get their action (Tris); and Group C is the rest of the poor schmucks (me) for whom God has decided, You're on your own. Don't expect much.

  I kind of hate Nick right now, too, but there's someone else higher on my list, someone I hate more than Saddam Hussein and any asshole named Bush combined, hate more than that fuckhead who canceled My So-Called Life and left me with a too-small boxed DVD set that does not answer the questions of whether Angela and Jordan Catalano ever did it, or if Patty and Graham got a divorce, or if there really was something to all that lesbian subtext between Rayanne and Sharon. I need to fucking find that person I hate most, so I can hopefully at least kill that other hate, the one called regret.

  The crowd is surging toward the pit. The band is between songs and an inconceivable lull is taking place onstage while Lars L. gets in tune and adjusts the mic against the feedback Nick probably fucked up when he tried to help Toni with set-up. Lars L. knows the potential of the crowd to turn against the band if given even a moment of silence and he
must be noticing the crowd surge because he shouts at the audience, "What the fuck should we play next?" and a mohawked punk at the top yells, "Just play fucking something!" and the punk hasn't even finished the statement before Evan E. yells out ONE-TWO-THREE-FOUR as he drum-bangs, and in a psychedelic flash Owen O. is raging out Where's Fluffy's cover of the gospel song "I'm Living on God's LSD." For a moment I forget about hate because my body has to thrash to this divine intervention of sound. For one minute of that two-minute song, I am lost to hate because I am lost to Owen O. and Evan E. and Lars L. because they are G. Gods, and everyone here knows it, feels it, shares it.

  But then I see the fists waving in the pit and I hear the Oi's and I see a live person being passed around on the extended arms of the crowd, and even in this poor lighting I couldn't miss the bumblebee colors worn by the queen bee. Tris is the crowd-surfer, taking her shot to get passed to the front of the stage and hopefully be ushered backstage.

  And I am back at hate.

  I part that crowd like I'm fucking Moses, I mean seriously, I am like a five-star general, Commander Pissed-Off Bitch in her own personal marine tank, hurtling through the desert and no one better fucking get in my way. I am in the middle of the mosh within seconds and when it's my turn to propel Tris forward to the stage, instead of letting her legs pass over my upturned palms, I grab for her feet instead and she falls to the ground and the crowd doesn't care, they've gone on to someone else being passed around and Lars L. is pointing at the new victim and nodding YES to the security goons.

  Tris stands up from the floor, then holds her hand against her forehead. "THAT FUCKING HURT!" she yells at me and only if she had also snarled "OW!" like Nick could I hate her more right now. I grab her hand from her forehead and lead her through the masses, a stormtrooper with a hostage now. I don't bother to say "bye" to Dev and Hunter, watching us leave from the periphery of the slightly opened eyes of their French kiss.

  Once we're outside and I can breathe again, can feel the cold of the early spring-morning air, I am less on hate and more on tired. It's just me and Tris out here, and the smokers and the users against the nearby wall, and it's quiet except for Lars L.'s bassline thumping through the walls and the honking taxis on the street. Finally, I can hear myself, and I am saying, "Why?" to Tris, but actually I'm shouting "WHY?" because my ears haven't yet adjusted to the lower decibel. But already my heart rate is acclimating, slowing down, easing up, released from the suffocation of that club and that noise and so many people inside, who surely all know of my humiliation and my regret.

  She's the reason I could not break through to Nick, and I want to know why.

  Tris leans against the building wall and rubs her eyes. "I'm so fucking tired," she says. "And you don't fucking have to yell." Caroline is right, that bitch does go pleather, because otherwise no way would Tris mess with a real leather skirt by sliding her ass down the wall and falling to the ground. Tris rests against the building, hugging her knees, her face pressed into her knees.

  I sit down next to her. I ask her again, "Why?" and she says, "Nick?" and I say, "Yeah."

  She looks like she's going to fall asleep. Her eyes flutter and she almost looks likable, now that she is freed of the club's confines. This is how she is. She'll take you to her personality's farthest reaches of annoying, then manage a late ninth-inning turnaround to being an almost comforting presence.

  Caroline and I have known her since Girl Scouts, but she was never a major irritation until high school, after not even the Quakers could tolerate Caroline and I followed Caroline from Friends Country Day to Sacred Heart for junior and senior year. Tris thought our arrival at her school meant the arrival of kindred spirits for her, and she followed us around like a puppy dog, wanting in on our Manhattan music scene. She didn't get that Caroline and I have always strictly been a Gang of Two. Tris thinks she's one of us since she likes the same music and no one at that school would have her, a freak like me and Caroline. We have let her be Two and a Half on occasion; she does have decent radar for good bands, even if odds are she'll make a fool of herself-dancing like a maniac, singing along off-key-whenever we take her along to a music club. But get Tris alone at Starbucks, and she's normal, at least tolerable-she's not laughing too loud, trying too fucking hard. She's my savior with the stick that says negative.

  I want to-but I can't-hate her.

  She opens one eye at me. "Are you on a fucking date with him or something? Do you like him?"

  "Yes," I say, because I don't want to lie, and then "Not really," I amend, because I don't want to lie, and finally, "No," because I don't want to lie. Nick is-was-this thing, this person, I discovered out of nowhere and then discovered I wanted-and once I tasted it, I yearned for it-but I know I must accept defeat because this whole night was an accident, clearly. My heart literally aches, that shit is not made up; it hurts for an unexpected, brief time warp of suddenly wanting and longing and believing, but then not having. Who am I kidding? The best parts of Nick were ones he doesn't even know I know he has-the lyrics, the playlists, the loyalty-and all of them, dedicated to Tris.

  "Did you tell him about me?" she says. Because at school, in the cafeteria, with all the sweet little Catholic girls lined up like plaid dominoes at the tables, and then me, Caroline, and Tris, with our piercings and goth colors and C and T's (but not mine) uniform blouses ordered two sizes too tight, Tris brags about all the guys she dates, the clubs she gets into, the fucking backstage pass of it all, because she wants to impress Caroline. But when it's just the two of us in class, Tris is showing me the mixes Nick made her, the songs he wrote her, the admissions essay he helped her write for FIT.

  "No, I didn't tell him," I say. I'm glad I didn't. I didn't want to be the girl trying to know him, but all him knowing of me is what I knew of Tris. "Why did you do it anyway?" I don't know which why I want the answer to-why she cheated on him, or why she let him go.

  "I'm hungry," Tris states, and I have to agree, "Me too." She stands up, and I take the hand she offers to help lift me up and I don't think this is about a prisoner exchange anymore.

  We walk to the 24-hour Korean grocery across the street, and it's like some primal instinct because we both go right to the cookie section and she opens up a bag of Chips Ahoy and I open a bag of Oreos and we are chomping in the aisle, and the owner at the counter is like, "You have to pay for that!" and Tris and I are both like, "WE KNOW!"

  She leans her head against a display of Fig Newtons and says, "It's like this. I met Nick. And I wanted him and I had him but he didn't want to let go, and he was such a fucking great guy, I couldn't let him go, even if there were other guys in the picture." She places her thumb inside her mouth, removing a piece of chocolate chip stuck between her teeth. "But then it got to this point where he's making college choices based on me, thinking we have a future, I mean he's ready to turn down all these great fucking schools to go to Rutgers so he can be near me, and I am thinking, this cannot be happening, he cannot do this. Because he said 'I love you' and, you know, I was just not feeling that back. And I know it must suck to say that and not have the other person say it back, but I felt like now was the time to set him free, so he could find someone else, someone who could say that back to him, because someone should say that back to him. I figured it would hurt him much worse later if I had let him believe he had something he didn't, so I took the brutal route. I didn't say 'I love you' back. I said, 'It's over.' I'm eighteen, about to move to the city for school, start my life. I want to have fun. I don't want commitment and 'I love you.'"

  She pauses to wolf down another Chips Ahoy. Once she's swallowed it, she says, "Was I like just profound or what?"

  Nietzsche fucking Tris may be on to something. Tal told me he loved me, and told me and told me, but you don't tell someone that and then tell them they're not experienced enough in bed and should read a book or something to learn, or they should try wearing deep-red lipstick and tight skirts to look hot like their best friend once in a while. If Tal hadn't
lied to me when he said he loved me, I might not be without a future right now, a sucker who was so chickenshit she allowed herself to believe a false dream from a false god. I'm not sure I ever even liked Tal, much less loved him, and by the way, Tal, I believe the Palestinians should have their own state.

  For once in my life, I am speechless. I have just eaten my thirteenth consecutive Oreo in under five minutes. When I do speak, I know from the security mirror hanging behind Tris and in front of me that I am speaking from a mouth blackened by Oreo bits. "You have to tell him why, Tris. He deserves to know. And he's gonna be damaged goods until he does know."

  So Nick won't be going through my rehabilitation program. That's okay. He'll make some girl, the right girl, a great boyfriend one day. He'll be the love of some lucky girl's life, and maybe after I've had some sleep after this epic night, I'll be glad for him and the future he's waiting to grab, once Tris truly sets him free. So I won't be part of his life other than as this footnote "date." So I have a lifetime of loneliness ahead of me. That's okay, too. There are lots of careers for frigid girls. I can dedicate myself to good deeds. I'll become some U.N. humanitarian (hey, Tal, I fucking believe in the United Nations, too, asshole). I do have two years of Catholic school behind me. I could become a nun even if I am a non-believer. I'll learn to fake it like Nick just did with me. I will minister the gospel of compassion and kindness and please, always use a condom, from famine-stricken nations to war-torn dead zones. It's possible I might become a nun who kisses other nuns-hell, I can look up Becca Weiner from summer camp and see if she wants in on the action-but I know that a few hundred years from now when the post-apocalyptic pope is deciding whether to canonize me, s/he will look the other way on those indiscretions and figure, Hey, Saint Norah was hard up-it happens to all of us. And I will be floating over my heaven-hell dimension, probably in close proximity to my home base Arctic Circle, knowing that the saintly person I became was all because of this night. So I should be thanking Nick, not hating him.