“Jonas? Are you there? It’s Elle.”
I hear him sigh. “I know who it is. Are you drunk-dialing me?”
“Of course not. I’m at the Whitney.”
“Ahh,” he says. “I thought you were in London.”
“We moved back. I thought I saw you just now. There was a waiter. I was so sure it was you.”
“No.”
“I know. You’re there.”
He waits for me to say more.
“Anyway, I was standing by myself in this crowd of assholes in vintage Fiorucci, waiting for Peter, and I thought—”
“—you thought: assholes . . . Jonas. I never returned his call, but I’m sure he’ll be happy to hear from me in the five minutes before my boyfriend arrives.”
“Don’t be an asshole,” I say. “I’m calling you now.”
“Why?”
“I don’t know.”
He is quiet on the other end of the phone.
Behind me, there is a cloud of sound.
“Fine,” he says.
“Thank god. I was worried you were going to keep sulking.”
“I was. But apparently I have the backbone of a snake. How are you?”
“I’m good. We came back last year. I was homesick. It rains in London.”
“I’ve heard that.”
“Peter got a job at The Wall Street Journal. We live on Tompkins Square Park, so I look out at green. And junkies.” I pause. “I wanted to call you back.”
“Then why didn’t you?”
“You asked me to choose,” I say.
Jonas sighs. “I asked you to choose me.”
The operator interrupts, asking me to please deposit ten cents for the next three minutes. I feed a dime into the slot, wait for the reassuring chunking.
“Anyway,” Jonas says in an “I want to get off the phone now” voice, “I’m working, so I’d better get back to it.”
“Can I see you?”
“Sure. You have my number.” There’s a retreat, a coolness in his voice, and I feel a sudden acute panic. I haven’t lost him yet, but I know in every atom of my body that he’s about to shut the door.
“How about tomorrow?”
“Week after next is better,” he says.
Across the room, I see Peter and his parents pushing through the crowd, heading for the elevator bank. I turn my back, so he can’t see me. “For what it’s worth, I called because I was so excited when I thought that waiter was you. I was so happy. Then he wasn’t you, and I couldn’t think of anything else except I needed to see you right that second. It couldn’t wait. I couldn’t breathe if I didn’t hear your voice immediately. I still had your number in my wallet. I walked over to the pay phone. I dialed.”
“That’s sounds a bit dramatic, even for you,” Jonas says.
I laugh. “Yeah, a bit. But it’s true.”
“Then come now,” he says quietly.
* * *
—
Peter looks at his watch, scans the lobby. I duck down behind a large man in a purple tuxedo. If I can slip out the side door before Peter sees me, I can call him from the street—tell him I’m feeling too sick to come. I can go downtown to see Jonas and be back at the apartment before Peter gets home. The big man turns, stares down at me as if he is looking at a small, blinking mouse. His face is painted in clown makeup.
“Good evening,” he says. His voice is high-pitched, like a little girl’s.
I smile up at him, trying to act as if squatting in a crowd is perfectly normal. He cocks his head, considers me, lipstick-red clown mouth pursed, before moving on. I hear my name being called. Through the window Clown Man has left in his purple wake, Peter has spotted me.
“Oh good,” Peter’s mother air-kisses me on both cheeks. “We were beginning to worry.”
“I dropped my keys,” I say to Peter.
Peter’s elegant father stands next to him, thick silver hair brushed back, Savile Row suit. He looks older than the last time I saw them. Tired around the eyes.
“You must be jet-lagged.” I give him an awkward hug. Even after all these years, Peter’s parents still intimidate me in their properness, their adherence to a mysterious Upper-Class Brit code of manners. As much as I have tried to learn its rules, whenever I’m with them I have the feeling I am making a faux pas. And worse, I don’t know what the faux pas is.
“I had a bit of a nap at the hotel,” Peter’s father says.
“We don’t believe in jet lag,” his mother says.