Nick & Norah's Infinite Playlist

by Rachel Cohn

  I am still embarrassed, but I also remember, I am renewed, destined for my certain future as a U.N. humanitarian. I am immune from throwing myself at him again, seeing as how I've committed to a future life of loneliness and celibacy. It probably won't be so bad. I will never get an STD, I will never have to worry about a condom breaking again, and the lack of sex, or even having to think about it, want it, strive for it, will probably lead me to a higher plane of enlightenment, like the Dalai Lama. So it's all good. Zero balance. Nick can relax. I won't gobble him, too.

  Nick doesn't speak at first, he just sits down and butters a piece of challah toast and lays right into that, equaling my fervor. Between swallows, he asks, "How many fucking people did you order food for anyway?" He takes a sip of my Coke, belches, then repeats my last words to him back to me. "'You are absolved'? What the fuck did that mean?" He sounds hostile but he's got that fucking half smile laced back on his lips.

  I am determined to sulk, but the truth is, I want to lick him all over. I cannot believe he is here. I want to do truly nasty things to him. With him.

  I try to sound blase. "It means, we met under kind of strange circumstances and spent a few kind of strange hours together, but just because I made an asshole of myself doesn't mean you have to go all Nice Guy and like try to push our whatever-it-was any farther. Anyway, we don't even know each other and we've never even been properly introduced-"

  Nick interrupts me by extending his hand, slick with traces of butter. "I'm Nick," he says. "I'm from a swingin' little hood called Hoboken. Where's Fluffy were my favorite band until tonight. I write songs. I was dumped by a wildebeest but I'm working on getting over it. And you?"

  I shake his hand and try hard to suppress a smile. I don't owe him that. "I'm Norah," I say. "From Englewood fuckin' not-swingin' Cliffs. Where's Fluffy were also my favorite band until tonight. I love songs that are written. I dumped a wildebeest and he dumped me and it's been this endless miserable spiral, but I'm also getting over it."

  "Hi, Norah," he says.

  "Hi, Nick," I answer.

  "Can I have my fucking jacket back?"

  "No." I deserve some reward for my rejection and for my future life of celibacy and good deeds.

  "Why?"

  "Because Salvatore wants me to have it."

  "He told you that?"

  "He did."

  "But what if the jacket didn't really belong to Salvatore? What if it wasn't his to give you? What if it really belonged to his evil twin, Salamander, who only had Salvatore's name stenciled on so people would mistake him for the good twin and then Salamander would be free to carry on with his nefarious mission in life?"

  "What nefarious mission would that be?"

  "You know, world domination, that whole thing."

  "World domination is exhausting and cliche. People ought to just focus on being individual responsible citizens of the earth instead of assholes. And you can tell that to Salamander next time he comes asking you for his jacket. Tell him me and Salvatore are starting our own new world order. It's called the Chill the Fuck Out and Let the Girl Have the Jacket movement."

  "Will there be T-shirts and pins for this new movement?"

  "Probably. We're looking into luggage insignia as well, maybe even some corporate product endorsements from Nike or IBM."

  I don't realize I am laughing, or even moving, until Nick takes a strand of hair that's fallen in front of my face and tucks it behind my ear and for a second I feel my breath on his arm. Because now we are looking at each other eye to eye and there's possibly forgiveness in there, and it's possibly mutual, and for that second my stomach feels this momentary lurch of hope, it's the same feeling as dread, and because I am a fucking loser who never learns, I blurt out, "I sort of know you already, actually."

  "Huh?" he says.

  The food rush has infiltrated my brain, made it hazy, unable to distinguish between flirting and saying too much. "I feel like I have kind of known you, through Tris. She and I aren't friends exactly, only we're not not-friends exactly, either. You made some amazing mixes for that bitch, wrote some great lyrics. I would see that stuff you gave her and always think, Hey, I wouldn't mind knowing this guy. Not like I wanted to go after Tris's boyfriend or anything, and I'm not a stalker, at least I don't think I am, but I guess-" Oh, fuck it, why not just be honest? He's not the one absolved- Iam. "-I guess I just thought you might be a cool person even before I'd met you, based on purely circumstantial evidence. So you don't think I randomly throw myself at just any guy."

  There is a silence, and in that silence I hate all boys, for never knowing the right thing to say. "Why did you leave?" he asks. Why did YOU stop?

  "National security emergency. Salvatore and I got beeped. Turned out to be a false alarm." Why do you think I left, beautiful moron?

  And we're at a stalemate. We eat.

  "Where are your friends?" I finally say after a couple pierogies. Just to say something. Again. I'm sure his boys will be rolling through any moment to retrieve him, probably steal my blintzes. Nick must have found me only so he could get his fucking phone back.

  Nick says, "Dev left with Ted."

  "Ted?"

  "You know, Ted from Are You Randy?"

  "There's no Ted from Are You Randy? There's Randy and a bunch of other guys, none named Ted."

  "Then who's Randy?" Nick asks.

  "The guy who was trying to get with Caroline!"

  "Who's Caroline?"

  "For fuck's sake, who's TED?"

  "The guy Dev hooked up with!"

  "That's HUNTER. From Hunter Does Hunter."

  "Oh," Nick says. "I get it now." He draws a map on the paper placemat on the table. "Dev's with Ted, who's also Hunter, but he's not Randy, who wanted Caroline, who I guess is the girl in the back of the van with Thom and Scot?"

  I place my hand over his fist. "YES!"

  It's almost like I've shared another dance with Johnny Castle, and I must be sleeping because this is not real, Nick is not real, this is not happening. I hope I don't wake up too soon. I pinch his thigh to check, and he leans over to me, and we're both smiling in anticipation and our eyes are meeting and something I think very natural and sweet is about to happen here, except-

  A Beast stands over our table. It points at me. "I need to talk to you. Come into my office." Tris whips around and heads toward the bathroom. I'm amazed that even with her thick black roots peeking through her platinum-blond hair, the eyeliner and lipstick on her face smudged from the night's adventures, her eyes bloodshot from fatigue, she still manages to look hot. It's so wrong.

  I stand up from the table and wiggle my index finger at Nick. He'll never get it, but I borrow from Heathers as I leave him to follow Tris. "'A true friend's work is never done,'" I singsong.

  "'Bulimia is so '87, Heather,'" he answers.

  HOLY SHIT squared. I think I just had my first orgasm.

  Tris is peeing when I walk in. She is not a person who cares about privacy. But I close the door behind me anyway and say, "What the fuck are you doing here?" She gives me this great castoff, like a gift fallen from the sky, and yet she seems determined that I should not open it or enjoy it.

  "I lost my date and I knew I would find you here, borscht bitch. I need cab money home. I figure you owe me. Fifty bucks ought to cover a gypsy cab back to Jersey and a Starbucks run." She wipes, stands up, flushes. "So can I have it?" She shoves me aside to wash her hands at the sink.

  "How do you figure I owe you?"

  "You know, I'm giving you Nick."

  "Are you really?" I ask. Because we should get this clear once and for all.

  "I really am," she says, applying a fresh coat of lipstick. I believe her.

  "I think I really like him," I say.

  "He likes you, too. Just don't name your children after months or fruits. Promise me."

  "What?" I say.

  She faces me. "Are you going to give me the fifty bucks or not?"

  "Don't you think Nick is worth mo
re than that?"

  "Bitch, I'm not trying to quantify the value of a human being. I just need to get home. And don't cry poor because I know you have a secret stash of emergency money tucked in some pocket." She leans over me and, honest to Allah, frisks me. "Jesus, you're stacked! Why do you hide it under these huge shirts all the time?"

  I thought I used up my emergency money when I gave my secret stash to the cabdriver who got me here, but then I remember the fifty-dollar bill Thom gave me earlier to take Nick out on a date intended to free the boy of Tris's ghost. So much for that fund. Thom and Scot couldn't have anticipated that the wildebeest herself would profit from their contribution to Nick's night out.

  I shove Tris away and reach inside the inner pocket of my flannel shirt. I hand Tris the fifty-spot. "Thank you!" she snaps. She turns to leave, but I pull her back.

  "Tris?"

  "What, bitch?"

  "Am I really frigid?"

  She sighs. "Of course you're not frigid. Don't believe all the propaganda Caroline and Tal have laid on you. I saw you kissing Nick earlier tonight. Looked to me like you two knew what you were doing."

  "But I don't," I say.

  "Don't what?"

  "Know what I'm doing."

  Tris rolls her eyes. She walks over and points her index finger at me. "I'm gonna give you a little help here, but first you have to swear to me you didn't know Nick before tonight and this wasn't some-whadyacallit-streetlamp setup to trick me-"

  "Streetlamp trick?"

  "You know, to make me think I'm going crazy when really you've been plotting this all along."

  "That's Gaslight, Tris. Not streetlamp. Remember that movie my mother made us watch at my eleventh birthday slumber party? And no, I never met Nick before tonight." I raise my hand and make the Girl Scout honor pledge sign.

  "Okay, then," Tris says. "I believe you."

  She takes her gum from her mouth and presses it against the wall behind me, pinning me there with her upraised arms. Then she presses against me and my eyes are still open and they see her coming in and HOLY SHIT triple squared, she says, "Kiss your partner's upper lip." She kisses my upper lip, softly, gently. "That's yang." Her lips move down. "Kiss your partner's bottom lip." She kisses my bottom lip, more urgently. "That's yin." She pulls away but her left hand is now under the back of my shirt, pressed against the small of my spine. "Start by opening up your chakras, like that."

  I don't say anything. My lips remain parted, not sure if the lesson is over.

  "Or," Tris says, "you can try this one." With both hands, she pulls my face to hers. She sucks my upper lip between her lips, and then her tongue is in my mouth, caressing the middle area between my upper lip and my gums. I never even noticed that area was there. Yeah, I'm pretty sure I'm not frigid. "That's the frenulum," she says when she's done. She pats down her hair. "That little connective tissue inside your mouth. It's a Hot Spot. You can use that one on Nick, you have my permission. I don't think I ever used that one on him so it's not like you'd be copying me."

  I'm standing against the wall, unsure of what to say or do. Now I'm sure I'm in a dream.

  Tris says, "Or you can be inventive. Go on. Try me."

  What the hell? I turn my head at an angle and lean in to her face. I place my hands on her hips, press against her. Slowly, I kiss her upper lip, yang, suck on her lower lip, yin, but instead of following up with tongue, which her mouth definitely seems to want, I return to her upper lip and give it some gentle bites.

  She pulls back. "Nip kissing! Good instinct, Norah. See? You're not frigid. Gotta be careful with that one, though. Only do it with a partner you trust. Those teeth can get dangerous with the wrong person."

  "How do you know so much?" I ask her. I mean, I know she's a groupie bitch, but she's barely voting age-she hasn't had that much time to acquire so much knowledge.

  "Hello, bitch, I can Google sexual techniques just as well as you could if you wanted. It's not brain science here." She turns to leave and reaches for the door handle, then pauses and turns back around to face me. "But, Norah?"

  "Yes?" I whisper.

  "Get to know him first. You and he are not the one-night-stand types. You're all sensitive and shit. Don't go too fast."

  And she's gone.

  "Bye, Tris!" I gasp.

  From the open door, I see her breeze past Nick on her way out of the restaurant. She tells him, "I told you that you'd find her someplace! Good job! And good luck with that one. You're gonna need it. I almost feel sorry for you."

  I feel less sorry for Nick now. Maybe he's not some poor schmuck. I totally get how he got so whipped.

  15. NICK

  While they're in the bathroom together, I try to distract myself by coming up with a list of things that could be worse than having your vehement ex drag your current she's-so-frickin'-cool girl away for some cubicle camaraderie (or conflict). I come up with the following:

  • Having your pubic hair trimmed with garden shears.

  • Having your pubic hair trimmed with garden shears by a frat guy who's had twelve shots of Jagermeister.

  • Having your pubic hair trimmed with garden shears by a frat guy who's had twelve shots of Jagermeister during an 8.6 earthquake.

  • Having your pubic hair trimmed with garden shears by a frat guy who's had twelve shots of Jagermeister during an 8.6 earthquake with lite jazz playing.

  I have to stop there. It's just too horrifying.

  It's amazing how little I trust Tris, considering that I like to pay lip service to the fact that trust is an essential ingredient to love.

  Best case scenario:

  She's saying, "Really, he was just too good for me, and I always felt like he could do better-like with a girl like you. And, man, is he hot in bed."

  Worst case scenario:

  She's saying, "There was this one time, we were flipping through the channels, and he stopped on Pocahontas, and the next thing I knew, he had a total hard-on. "(She will not mention where her hands were at the time.) "And, man, he is one lousy fuck, in more ways than one."

  Deep breaths. I am taking deep breaths.

  Composure. Which, for me, means composing.

  Why the fuck does my fate get decided

  in the ladies' room?

  Sitting tongue-tied as I get derided

  in the ladies' room.

  Employees must wash their hands of me

  in the ladies' room

  Lock the door and throw away the plea

  in the ladies' room.

  Maybe this is my way of creating the illusion of control over something I have no control over. Like, if it's just a story I'm telling or a song I'm singing, then I'll be okay because I'm the guy who's providing the words. Which is not the way life works at all. Or at least not when it's unfair.

  I guess the cool thing is that I really wasn't happy to see Tris. For the first time in what seems like ever. She walked in the door and my heart sank to hell.

  It was strange enough to think that Norah knew who I was before I knew who she was. That she'd been in Tris's orbit without me noticing. But I guess you don't see the planets when you're staring at the sun. You just get blinded.

  The fact that she knew me makes this more real. I made my first impression without knowing I was making an impression at all. She knows at least a little of who I am, and she's here anyway. Hopefully for longer than the next two minutes.

  The waitress probably thinks I'm the worst kind of perv, because I can't stop staring at the bathroom door.

  Finally it opens, and Tris comes out alone. And my first thought, honest to Godspeed You Black Emperor! is What the fuck have you done to Norah? Where is she?

  But Tris isn't staying long enough to be asked any questions. She just pushes past the table, yelling to me, "I told you that you'd find her someplace! Good job! And good luck with that one. You're gonna need it. I almost feel sorry for you."

  And all I can think to say is:

  "thanks."

  But I don't
say anything more. I let her leave. I mean, I don't want her to stay. And yes, that makes this the first time I'm off of her without still getting off on the thought of her. I believe some cultures call this progress.

  Norah's looking really flustered as she comes back to the table, her face flushed, her pulse clearly up a notch or two. It must've been one hell of a confrontation.

  "Are you okay?" I ask.

  She nods absently. Then she looks at me again and it's like our conversation kicks back in. She's with me again.

  "Yeah," she says. "She just needed some money."

  "And you gave her what she wanted?"

  "I guess we have a lot in common, don't we?"

  "She's a fucking force of nature," I say.

  "She certainly is."

  "But to hell with her."

  Norah seems a little startled.

  "What?" she says.

  "I don't know what she said to you, and I probably don't want to know. Just like I don't want to know why you ordered all this meat, or where you got your flannel-not that there's anything wrong with it. That's not what I want to know."

  She defiantly spears a piece of kielbasa and, before putting it in her mouth, asks, "So what do you want to know?"

  What the hell are we doing here?

  Is this incredibly foolish?

  Am I even ready to have this conversation?

  "What I want to know," I say, "is which song you liked the most on the mixes I made Tris."

  She chews for a second. Swallows. Drinks some water.

  "That's what you want to know?"

  "It seems like a place to start."

  "Honestly?"

  "Yeah."

  She doesn't even have to think. She just says, "The noticing song. I don't know its name."

  Whoa. I mean, I thought she would name something from Patti Smith or Fugazi or Jeff Buckley or Where's Fluffy. Or even one of the Bee Gees songs I put on, to be funny. I didn't think she'd choose something I wrote and sang. It wasn't even supposed to be on that mix. But one night I was just so wired from being with Tris that I had to stay up until I turned the evening into a song. I recorded it onto my computer, than stuck it on as a hidden track for the mix I gave her the next day.