Love at First Like

by Hannah Orenstein

  Blake had suggested we meet at Brandy’s, yet another spot in his neighborhood that’s totally foreign to me. According to my Google search earlier that day, it’s a piano bar a half block from Dorrian’s, the nightmarishly preppy bar where Blake and I first met. There are hours of live show tunes and pop ballads every night.

  “Just trust me,” he had texted me earlier.

  The bar is easy to spot from the street: a slightly faded red façade shouts its name, and two adjacent windows are painted with cheerful yellow letters that read GOOD TIME SALOON and SAME OLD BRANDY’S. Inside, the bar feels like the belly of an old ship: the floors and bar are made of the same dark, weathered, creaking wood; the patrons are mostly pairs of graying, older men leaning over glasses that don’t look entirely clean. Half the room has small tables oriented toward a piano with a plastic tip jar on top.

  Blake is seated at one of the tables, and he stands when I enter. His face lights up in a way that makes him look like a golden retriever.

  “Hey!” he says, wrapping one arm around my shoulders and giving me a kiss.

  “This is quite a place,” I say, as I settle in next to him.

  He laughs. “Do you like it?”

  “I’m just . . . surprised? It doesn’t seem like your scene.”

  “This is my favorite spot in the city, hands down,” he says. He casts a pleased glance around the bar and shrugs. “It’s easy to let go here. It reminds me of driving around with my dad. He used to sing a lot. Loudly. And not particularly well.”

  A waitress, a forty-something blonde with birdlike features, takes our drink orders. Blake runs his fingers over my thigh as he asks for a gin and tonic; I don’t know if he even realizes what he’s doing, but the gesture makes me smile. He tells me about his day—he led a post-mortem meeting on last quarter’s revenue, an old business school colleague hit him up for a job, there weren’t nearly enough croutons in his salad—and asks about mine. I briefly freeze. What am I supposed to tell him? That I spent the afternoon calculating how our wedding will save my business?

  “Super boring,” I lie, running a finger nervously around the edge of my glass. “Accounting stuff. All day long.”

  Soon enough, a broad-shouldered, dark-haired guy in a tight T-shirt takes a seat behind the piano and taps the microphone. The seats are mostly filled by now. The blond waitress sidles up to a mic stand and belts out “I Wanna Dance With Somebody.” The energy in the room ratchets up; people around us are swaying and singing along (not well, either). Blake taps out the song’s rhythm on my thigh. He seems so into it. I’m tempted to sing along, but I wouldn’t be caught dead doing karaoke sober. I’m not a gifted singer. I want to match Blake’s enthusiasm, but I need a little more liquid courage first.

  The waitress finishes to a rousing round of applause, then moves seamlessly back through the throng of seats to take more drink orders. I drain what’s left of my glass and order a second. The pianist has taken over with a rendition of Prince’s “Purple Rain,” followed by a highly meta version of Billy Joel’s “Piano Man.” By the time the waitress is back for another turn at the mic, I feel loosened up and ready to join in on her cover of Alanis Morissette’s “You Oughta Know.” A woman at the table across from ours thrusts her arms into the air and squeezes her eyes tight while shouting the lyrics.

  “I like this place!” I yell over the music to Blake.

  He kisses my cheek between songs.

  A bartender jumps up to the mic to perform the most flirtatious version of Hamilton’s “You’ll Be Back” I’ve ever heard, crooking his finger at a squealing audience member and singing directly at her. Blake moves his hand from my thigh to around my waist, pulling me closer to him. His body is warm and smells like leathery cologne. I lean my head on his shoulder when the music turns to slow ballads.

  Tonight is easy, affectionate, and more comfortable than we’ve ever been before. True, I might feel that way because of the drinks and the atmosphere and the thrill of discovering a delightful hole-in-the-wall spot. But maybe part of it is that something real is beginning to blossom between me and Blake. If this is what our life would be like together, I can picture it. I’d like it. I could do this—not just for the wedding, but for real. If my feelings for him become real, the guilt that gnaws at my stomach will fade away. For the first time since I dug myself into this hole, I feel true hope.

  When the show’s over, we take slow, easy steps back to his apartment, savoring the warm, starry evening. The rhythm of our footsteps echoes in my head—it sounds like, do I love him? do I love him? do I love him? I wish I could fall fully for him. I like him a lot, but I want more than that. I want to feel authentically smitten.

  I remember something I read online once that described the psychological effects of smiling. Even if you’re having a bad day, the act of smiling can genuinely lift your mood. When it comes to your emotions, faking it till you make it apparently works for real. I can’t help but think about that as I follow Blake into his building’s lobby. I slip my hand into his and remind myself how good it feels to be one half of a couple with him. As we ride the elevator upstairs, I appreciate how much fun it was to sing along with him tonight.

  When he turns the key in his apartment door, we barely get two steps inside; I lean against the door and pull him close to me. I nuzzle a trail of kisses from his mouth to his ear to his collarbone. In response, his hands roam my body, slipping up underneath my shirt and running over my chest.

  “Come with me,” I say.

  I straighten up and begin to saunter to his bedroom, undoing the buttons of my shirt as I go. He follows, but not as fast as he usually does.

  “Blake?” I ask.

  He’s stopped walking and is leaning against the wall, shaking his head appreciatively. “I was just looking, that’s all. You’re crazy hot—you know that, right?”

  I have to laugh. I move toward him, grab his collar, and kiss him again. “You’re not so bad yourself,” I say, clasping his hand in mine and pulling him toward the bedroom.

  Sex with Blake is always satisfying. He’s good, sometimes even great: he’s attentive, unselfish, and mercifully acquainted with the female anatomy. When I’m in bed with him, I can’t help but slow down to admire the gently sculpted muscles along his arms and torso and the look of pure appreciation on his face. But today, there’s something new. He moves more intensely than he typically does, as if he can’t get enough of cupping my curves or can’t bring us close enough.

  “Say that you’re mine,” he says breathlessly.

  I don’t think twice. I do.

  When it’s over, he lies flat on his back with the duvet thrown toward our feet and ushers me close to his side. I rest my head on his chest.

  “I love you,” I say. “I really do.”

  I test how the words make me feel. They’re growing on me.

  • Chapter 15 •

  In my nine years of friendship with Carmen, I can count the number of times we’ve skipped our weekly Thursday happy hours on maybe two hands: a few vacations for each of us, a funeral out of town, the time I had the flu. That’s it. The week that Hurricane Sandy devastated New York and we evacuated our dorm to sleep on cots pushed together in NYU’s student center, we still found time to meet and drink Diet Cokes from the vending machine. We’ve gathered during blizzards and breakups, too. So when Carmen texted on Thursday afternoon, “SOS, work stuff is cray, let’s do a quick coffee tonight?” I knew her situation must be dire.

  I meet her at The Wing, the ultra-chic, women-only coworking space. Carmen forks over a full month’s rent for annual membership, but she says the benefits—networking, events, amenities—are worth it. Carmen got her current job after loaning a laptop charger to the woman at the table next to her; she regularly goes to events with speakers like Hillary Clinton and a guru who helped her detox her chakras; the hand lotion in the bathroom is Chanel. Her pricey membership lets her bring guests, for which I am eternally grateful.

  The airy space is
oriented around a millennial pink couch in front of a bright, color-coded bookshelf. Famously, every title on the shelf is written by a woman. I find Carmen at her favorite table by the window, hunched over her laptop with her headphones in and surrounded by two coffee cups and a LaCroix. I have a sudden flashback to college. She looked just like this back then, too—only then, she was dressed in Forever 21 and H&M, not whatever was most recently stocked on Shopbop and The Outnet.

  “Hiiiii,” she says, tugging out her headphones when she sees me.

  “What’s going on?” I ask.

  She exhales deeply. “Well, everything is happening at lightning speed. Fucking finally.”

  I know she’s been pulling all-nighters, working her day job, then coming to The Wing to work on the early steps of her startup, then heading home once this place shuts down for the night to keep going. Venture capital firms are mostly run by old white dudes, so they haven’t been exactly receptive to her pitch. And without a serious influx of cash, her idea had no chance whatsoever. She deserves a morsel of good news.

  “The main thing is that I landed a meeting with Pinnacle Ventures . . . and it’s tomorrow,” she explains.

  I squeal and hug her. This is a huge deal. Pinnacle is helmed by a woman and they mostly invest in cool projects targeted at millennial women—The Wing included.

  “Carmen! That’s amazing.”

  “Yeah, but I’m feeling massively underprepared. Like, this could be it. But only if I’m on my A-game, you know?”

  “Okay, I’m going to get a coffee, and we’re going to figure this out together. I’ll help you prep,” I offer.

  “Love you. Seriously.”

  I order a large coffee from a braless barista, pick up a muffin for us to split, and help Carmen clear away the cups she’s already drained.

  “So, how can I help?”

  She fills me in on the other recent developments. She selected a name after a few rounds of focus groups, Skindemand—“Like, skin in demand,” she intoned—and finalized a list of indie skincare brands that would be interested in signing contracts to put their products in her monthly boxes.

  “But now, the challenge is updating my business plan to reflect all of that, and also refining my elevator pitch, and also, praying that I don’t sweat off my full-coverage foundation tomorrow, because my skin is not in good enough shape to pitch a skincare company,” she says, rolling her eyes.

  Her skin has improved since the last time I saw her, but it’s not exactly clear. The red blotches are only half-faded. I wince.

  “So I can’t exactly help you with that, but let’s work on your elevator pitch. Practice on me. Pretend I’m—what’s her name? The investor you’re meeting with?”

  “Cecelia Sundquist,” Carmen breathes, like it’s the name of her lord and savior. “I think she might go by Cece. Should I call her Cece?”

  “I don’t know. Use Cecelia just to be safe. Pretend I’m her. Pitch me.”

  She does—quietly and awkwardly so that the people at the neighboring tables can’t even hear.

  “Again,” I encourage. “Louder. You got this.”

  She runs through the pitch again, and this time she sounds a little more solid. But the wording is off. It takes me a minute to figure out what’s wrong, but the third time Carmen runs through the thirty-second speech, I’ve got it.

  “Stop, stop, stop. You keep saying ‘I think.’ You don’t just think this is a good idea, it is objectively a good idea,” I point out.

  She tilts her head, unconvinced. “If it were a really good idea, wouldn’t someone more qualified already have done it?”

  “Come on. Don’t discredit yourself. Show me your lines. Let’s edit this together.”

  We workshop her pitch, and then I listen carefully as she runs through it over and over again. By the eighth run-through, her delivery is confident and clear. Hell, if I didn’t have money problems of my own right now, I’d give her a sweet chunk of change to turn her business idea into a reality.

  “You nailed it,” I tell her.

  She slouches forward over the table. “Ugh. Yeah? You think so?”

  “Yeah. Want to do it one more time so I can film you?”

  She shakes her head. “I mean, do you think this is all going to work? To the point where I could leave my job and do this full time?”

  I hesitate. I want to make sure I say the right thing.

  “It’s just so much . . . effort,” she continues. “And there’s no guarantee that any of this could pan out, like it did for you.” A wrinkle shoots up between her brows, like she’s suddenly worried she said the wrong thing. “Not that you and Sophie didn’t do a killer amount of prep work.”

  I can’t help but think about the gloomy financial projections I was looking at earlier this week. If I could go back in time to tell my former self not to open Brooklyn Jewels, would I? Should I?

  “Look, Carmen, there are no guarantees in this world at all. Honestly, my business might not make it through the end of the year. If you’re looking for a simple, steady paycheck, this isn’t the way to go. But you’re so clearly passionate about this concept,” I say. I get a warm flush recalling the moment I signed the lease on our storefront, when I knew I had transformed my love of jewelry into a physical space to help others form that same strong emotional connection to it. I want Carmen to have that, too. “You’ve done the research, your concept is cool as hell, and you’re going to do an incredible job tomorrow with Pinnacle. Nobody ever said entrepreneurship was easy, but if anyone can do this, it’s you.”

  She reaches across the table to squeeze my hand.

  “All right. Then next, I’d really love your feedback on my deck.”

  She shows me the presentation she’s put together and it’s gorgeous. The branding is impeccable, done in clean black and white with pretty pops of yellow and sleek fonts. I’m proud of her. By the time we drain our cups of coffee, Carmen feels more confident about her meeting tomorrow.

  “You should head out,” she says, stifling a yawn. “I’m going to wrap up soon and head home anyway.”

  “You sure?” I ask.

  “Yeah. I feel good. Besides, a girl’s gotta get her beauty sleep.” She gets up to hug me goodbye.

  On my walk back to the subway, my brain buzzes with caffeine. Late spring is always my favorite time of year; this week marks nine years since I first moved to New York. The city seems to crackle with life again as the weather warms up: restaurants reopen their outdoor seating sections so people can sit alfresco on the sidewalks with big glasses of chilled rosé; the sidewalks are a sea of bare arms again; dusk glows warm violet against golden streetlights.

  “Hey,” I text Raj. “What are you up to right now?”

  I haven’t seen him since that awkward moment in my apartment. It’s time to fix that.

  “It’s a slow night at the bar. Come hang?” he writes back.

  “On my way!”

  When I arrive twenty minutes later, Raj has my favorite beer and a plate of mozzarella sticks waiting for me on the counter. He’s shed his usual hoodie for a black T-shirt. I’m surprised that his arms are muscled—I hadn’t ever exactly considered what his arms might look like under all those sweatshirts, but this wouldn’t be it.

  “Where was happy hour this week?” he asks.

  “You remembered!” I say. I barely remember telling him about our ritual. I slide onto the bar stool and chomp down gratefully on a mozzarella stick. “Thank you for this, by the way. You’re amazing.”

  “Of course.”

  I tell him about Carmen’s plans to launch her own business and our evening at The Wing. His eyebrows shoot up. He looks impressed.

  “It’s super cool that she’s going out on her own, too. I wish I had the guts to do that.”

  “Would you ever consider it?”

  He shakes his head. “Nah. Not for me. I always thought I might. . . . My parents have their own restaurant in Queens and raised me to work for myself. But honestly, I’
m happiest working with and for others. I’m looking for jobs right now, though.”

  “Coding jobs?”

  “Coding or design, yeah. I loved the early stages of designing and coding the app at my last startup, but the maintenance stuff toward the end got pretty boring after a while.”

  Something clicks.

  “Raj, would you want to help out Carmen? She’s looking for the right person to build her app.”

  He rubs a hand over his mouth. “I’m not gonna lie, I’m tempted.”

  “Yeah? I don’t know how complicated it is, but . . .” I say, trailing off. I’m already typing out a text to Carmen to say I might have found an engineer for her.

  “Yeah, clearly, says the girl who still uses an ancient MacBook from, like, the nineteenth century.” His eyes light up when he teases me. “I’ve seen that thing in your store.”

  “Twenty thirteen was not that long ago!” I squeak.

  Carmen is already typing back. “Deets?!?” she asks.

  “Can I connect you to Carmen?” I ask Raj.

  He shrugs. “Go for it. Would love to learn more. I like startups.”

  I connect them via text. It’s too simple.

  “Did you always know you wanted to run your own jewelry business?” he asks.

  “The idea for the store came later, but I’ve been really into jewelry since I was a kid,” I explain. “My parents own a boating shop, and there used to be this jewelry store next door run by this amazing woman named Helen. I used to hang out there all the time when I was younger, and she taught me to really appreciate fine jewelry.”

  “Like a mentor,” he says.

  “Yeah. In middle school, I couldn’t afford anything she sold, obviously, so I used to wear Ring Pops—remember those?—and pretend they were real.” The memory makes me smile.