‘Hey,’ he gave me his trademark slow smile as I approached. Without an ounce of concern for public opinion, he scooped me up into a long, lazy kiss. It was delicious.
‘So what you been up to?’ he asked, swinging my hand as we rode the escalators up to the galleries. ‘Anything I should know about?’
‘I had my meeting at The Look,’ I said, glossing over my Tyler incidents. I filed them safely under things he did not need to know about right now, which meant I wasn’t lying, just not oversharing. ‘I’ve got another meeting on Friday and then hopefully it’ll go online. The editor said she really liked my stuff.’
‘Really? That’s amazing. I’m sure it’s going to be really great.’
‘Yeah, hopefully,’ I said, squeezing back. ‘What about you, have you reached any life-changing decisions?’
He shook his head, pulling me around to the next escalator. ‘Nope. Band rehearsal tomorrow though and we have a gig on Friday. There might not be many more, you want to come?’
‘I’d love to,’ I said, terrified at the idea of being a groupie and thrilled at the idea of, well, being a groupie. ‘Where is it?’
‘Music Hall of Williamsburg,’ Another escalator. ‘You should bring your roommate, it’ll be fun.’
‘Sounds good,’ I replied. Another escalator. ‘I don’t think she’s doing anything.’ I had no idea what she was doing, but as far as I was concerned, she was now coming to Alex’s gig. ‘Are we actually going to get off the escalators or is this some sort of new performance art I should know about?’ I asked as we finally stepped onto solid ground.
‘There’s something I really want to show you.’ Alex walked around the corner, to a painting hanging just inside the corridor, more or less on its own. ‘This is my favourite picture in the entire world,’ he said, standing a respectful distance back from the painting.
It was small, showing the back of a girl staring at a wooden farmhouse in the near distance. Even from behind, I felt as though I could see she was crying, unable to escape her situation. Unable to tear herself away, even though she wanted to. Needed to. There was nowhere else for her to go.
‘Christina’s World, Andrew Wyeth,’ I read out quietly. The fifth floor was almost empty and the silence was eerie. I clutched at Alex’s hand, still gazing at the painting. I wanted look away but I couldn’t. Before I knew what was happening, tears were streaming down my cheeks.
‘It’s …’ I started, not knowing where to go. I dropped Alex’s hand and took a half-step closer. ‘It’s just …’
‘I know,’ he said, putting his hands on my shoulders. ‘When I feel trapped or confused or I just forget myself I come here and remind myself. I’m sorry, I thought you would like it. The woman in the painting is paralysed and crawling back to the house but I don’t know. Always seems to me like she’s wanting to get away from the house rather than back to it.’
‘Maybe she doesn’t know what she wants,’ I said, staring through the girl into the farmhouse. ‘Running to, running from, same difference.’
We stood looking at the picture together for what felt like for ever. Eventually, and only when I’d committed every inch of it to memory, we walked away in silence and wandered around the rest of the gallery.
It took me a while to loosen up, but Alex was the perfect art buddy. He knew so much about the place I was sure he must actually live in the basement and the museum happily swallowed up our afternoon without even a whisper of a ticking clock. We saw everything there was to see, Monet, Pollock, Picasso, Gaugin, Van Gogh. It was like the whole New York experience encapsulated in one space. By the time I realized how long we’d been aimlessly ambling, I was dying of thirst.
‘Want to get a drink?’ I asked, pulling Alex out of his reverie in front of a collection of design classics.
‘Shit, what time is it?’ he asked, himself rather than me. ‘We have to go or we’re going to miss it!’
‘Where are we going?’ I asked, allowing myself to be dragged mercilessly down Sixth Avenue, trying not to run into meandering tourists or the weaving and dodging commuters. ‘Seriously, I really need a drink, just, can we just stop for a second?’
‘Let’s get in a cab,’ he said, not even listening to me. ‘It’ll probably be quicker in a cab.’ He flagged a taxi down and threw me in as it pulled to a stop.
But the traffic was moving almost as slowly as the people on the street and as we inched along, Alex was getting more and more frustrated.
West 50th, 49th, 48th …
‘Alex,’ I said, not too politely. ‘Will you tell me where we’re bloody going?’
‘Bloody? How cute is that?’ he said, smiling for the first time since we left the museum. ‘Sorry, I wanted to surprise you, but we have to get there before sunset.’
‘It’s only seven-thirty,’ I said, looking at my watch. And it was still broad daylight outside. ‘Why are we rushing?’
‘Because we have to queue,’ he said, sticking his head out of the window to check the traffic.
45th, 44th, 43rd …
‘Queue for what?’ I was trying not to be incredibly irritating but I had a mouth like Ghandi’s flip-flop. ‘Please can we just stop and get a drink?’
‘It’s a surprise,’ he said, squeezing my leg and still looking out of the window as though he could will the traffic to move more quickly. ‘Trust me, I’ll get you a dozen drinks once we’re there.’
37th, 36th, 35th, 34th …
‘Thanks, man,’ Alex tossed some cash at the driver. ‘Just let us out here.’ He pulled me out onto the street and checked his watch. ‘Perfect. Now, you wanted a drink?’
I nodded. This wasn’t quite the princess treatment I’d been getting used to from Tyler. Alex pointed at a cart on the corner, selling pretzels and, thank God, freezing cold cans of Pepsi. I wrestled a dollar out of my jeans pocket, too busy trying to get my sugary caffeine fix to realize where we were.
‘You want to go inside now?’ Alex asked, a bemused look on his face while he watched me neck the entire can in less than a minute. I had to admit, it was more to prove a point than anything else, drinking fizzy stuff that quickly just makes me feel sick. I didn’t care how cute he looked, standing grinning at me with his arms folded, while I guzzled my Pepsi.
‘Inside where?’ I asked, draining the can and giving a dramatic, satisfied sigh.
Alex shook his head and pointed upwards. ‘Honestly, you try and do something romantic …’
I craned my neck up and stared into the skyline. We were at the foot of the tallest building I’d ever seen.
It was the Empire State Building.
I grabbed onto Alex’s arm to stop myself falling over. ‘We’re going up there?’ I asked, breaking into a huge grin.
‘We are,’ he nodded. ‘If you still want to. I know you said you wanted to, but I didn’t know if you’d managed it yet.’
‘No,’ I shook my head and steadied myself for another look up into the cloudless sky, ‘I still haven’t been. And it’s all I’ve wanted to do.’
‘You said.’ He smiled and let me stand staring, even though we were clearly in everyone’s way. I didn’t care, it was amazing. I’d only been in New York for a week and a half and I’d already become oblivious to anything that wasn’t