‘Yeah, I’m not doing anything.’ I could hear music on low in the background. It sounded like Alex singing. ‘I could give you the tour of Williamsburg if you’re free?’ he suggested.
‘Sounds good.’ I smiled to a passing stranger who looked at me oddly. ‘Where should I meet you?’
‘Uh, at the Bedford Avenue station? About eleven?’ he yawned again. He really was too cute.
‘I’ll see you there.’ I yawned a little myself. It was even contagious on the phone. ‘Hope you sleep well.’
‘I will, I’ll be saving my energy for tomorrow,’ he said. ‘Sleep tight.’
I smiled as I hung up, date with Tyler forgotten, date with Alex buzzing around my mind.
It was still so early, I’d beaten Jenny home from work. I grabbed my laptop and lay on the sofa, thinking about what to write. If I stored a blog entry now, I could just email it from Alex’s without interrupting our day tomorrow. I quickly bashed out the details of my date with Tyler and made some vague references to my day out in Brooklyn with Alex, Balthazar or Brooklyn? before logging off and dozing on the sofa. Mary had said her readers would go crazy for a Wall Street type, so after all, I was just giving the people what they wanted.
The thirty-minute journey to Brooklyn felt like an eternity. What if Alex hadn’t rushed to call because it wasn’t as incredible for him as it had been for me? After all, he wasn’t the one who had tripled the number of people he had ever slept with inside the last fortnight. Just before the train stopped, I pulled my compact out of my handbag, quickly swiped at my shiny nose with powder and ran my fingers through my hair. Thank God it was supposed to look messy.
I skipped up the steps of the subway station, pulling Jenny’s sunglasses down off my head and over my eyes, searching for Alex. Despite the oddly high numbers of hipster types littering the streets at a time they really ought to be at work, I spotted him almost immediately. He was leaning against a lamppost, arms folded, bobbing his head gently to whatever was on his iPod. His black hair shone almost blue in the sun, and his daily uniform of jeans and T-shirt clung to him like a second skin. I lifted up my sunglasses and watched him, bleached out by the sun for a moment. The whole scene was almost too perfect to disturb.
‘Hey,’ Alex shaded his eyes with his hands, when I finally burst the bubble and went over. ‘I didn’t see you sneaking up on me.’
‘Well, that’s the point in sneaking up on you,’ I smiled, kissing him hello. Hopefully, there would be lots more kissing. ‘You OK?’
‘Yeah, a little tired, but really good,’ he took my hand and we started down the street, passing cute little boutiques, dark vintage clothes emporiums and poky record shop after poky record shop after poky record shop. ‘You want to get something to eat?’
‘Sounds like a plan,’ I said. For the first time in the last couple of days, nothing felt complicated. I was in the sunshine, I was holding hands with a beautiful boy and I was happy. Yay!
We ducked into a tiny diner for coffee and bagels while Alex gave me a brief history lesson on his neighbourhood. Williamsburg had been home to hundreds of artists and musicians, he told me, generally all kinds of creative types that had been driven out of Manhattan due to the crazy spiralling rents. It had been his home for almost ten years, and he loved it. He loved going to bars where he knew everyone, he loved feeling like he had a neighbourhood, and he loved that in less than fifteen minutes, he could lose himself in the city. Unfortunately, he hated the fact that property prices were starting to go crazy around him, that the musicians and artists were being replaced by rich hipsters with nothing to do but buy up real estate and make it harder for people to live there. And most of all, he hated that a lot of his friends had started moving away again, either further into Brooklyn or back to Manhattan.
As the sun slipped over the Manhattan skyline, we stopped in a dark little bar back on Bedford Avenue. The walls were lined with tankards and beer mugs, the dim lighting was only boosted by a TV screen showing sport, and someone, somewhere was cooking chips. It felt scarily like a real pub.
‘Beer?’ Alex asked as I slid into a chair. Wandering around, blissfully happy, was exhausting. Sitting in a chair, staring at Alex’s rear bent over the bar in his sexy low-slung jeans, was much easier. He returned with two pints, actual pints, while I tried to pretend I hadn’t been totally ogling him. ‘So, you like it here?’
‘I do,’ I said, gratefully sipping the cold lager. ‘I would never have thought to have come here. It’s so different to the city.’
‘You can still get this stuff in Manhattan.’ Alex sipped his beer thoughtfully. ‘It’s just a little harder to find, a little harder to afford.’
‘Well, I’m glad I got to see it,’ I said, squeezing his hand. ‘I’m glad you offered.’
‘Me too,’ he smiled, squeezing back and holding my gaze for a moment too long. ‘How long are you going to stick around for, Angela?’
‘You know, I’ve managed to go a really long time today without thinking about that.’ I nursed my beer and tried a wry smile that wouldn’t stick.
‘Sorry.’ He looked down into his drink. ‘What can I say, I’m a planner?’
‘That’s not very rock and roll, is it?’ I asked, pushing my hair behind my ears, really wanting to comb my fingers through his. ‘What happened to living for the moment?’
‘Living for the moment doesn’t really work if what’s making this moment so great might disappear to another continent in a couple of weeks,’ he smiled, taking my hand back and shrugging. ‘I really like being with you.’
‘Yeah.’ I looked at him, not knowing what else to say.
‘Too much?’ He half smiled, half frowned. ‘Sorry. I forget the real world isn’t ready for my over-emoting sometimes. Fuck, that even sounded pretentious to me. Sorry.’
‘Over-Emoting is OK,’ I said, biting my lip. ‘It’s just all so weird. I keep getting these flashes where this starts to feel like real life, like this is something I could have, and then, bang, I come back down and remember this is actually just a glorified holiday.’
‘Doesn’t have to be,’ Alex said. ‘There’s nothing stopping you from getting a visa, getting a job. There are always options if you’re prepared to work for them. If living here, having a life here, is what you want.’
‘Apparently, my problem is not knowing what I want,’ I sighed. ‘Just the idea of having to go back there …’ The thought of home was instinctively tied to thoughts of Mark and my stomach seized.
‘So don’t go,’ Alex shrugged. ‘Seriously, you could at least look into it. If you could do absolutely anything, nothing at all stopping you, what would it be?’
‘I asked someone else that question once,’ I smiled, shaking my head. ‘And they said they’d follow the Yankees for a year.’
‘Then they had no imagination.’ Alex squeezed my hand. ‘And that’s why you’re here with me. What would you do?’
‘Right now? If I could do anything?’ I asked. He nodded. ‘If I could do anything, I would magic myself a work permit, start getting paid real money for writing at The Look, and stay here as long as I wanted. Not running away, not being on holiday, just living. Going to the supermarket, paying bills, doing the washing, just having a life.’
‘Then do it. You’re young, you’ve got work here, just apply for the visa. Stay.’
‘Everyone likes to make things sound so easy,’