Brooklyn Girls (26 page)

“Really,” I say doubtfully.

“Okay, I admit it. He’s so nice, we talk and talk.… He’s not all Cipriani’s and Per Se. On Tuesday we had dinner at this little hole-in-the-wall noodle place in the East Village. It was so awesome. And he sends me the sweetest texts.” She sighs happily, and though I can also smell the booze on her breath, suddenly I realize: Angie is a closet romantic.

“I’m so happy for you,” I say, smiling, and linking my arm through hers. Maybe tonight will be okay. If Angie has found a good guy, that proves it’s not impossible.

I can do this.

*   *   *

Aidan is sitting
at the bar when I walk in. Our eyes meet, and when his face lights up, a hot squirmy thrill races through my body.

Oh,
merde,
this isn’t going to be easy at all.

He stands up to greet me (tall! Very tall!), and I smile, nervously flicking my eyes up to meet his again.

“Pia.”

“Aidan,” I croak. I clear my throat and say it again. “Aidan.”

He leans over to kiss me on the cheek and I try not to flinch with nerves. His skin is warm but not too warm, and he just shaved. A sandalwoody aftershave: warm and earthy. “What can I get you? Champagne, I assume?”

“Beer is fine,” I say, sitting in the chair he’s pulled out for me. My heart is beating painfully fast again.

“Girl of the people,” he says, ordering me an Amstel. I glance up at him. He’s real. He’s really real. “So, are you a vegetarian?”

“No.” I reach for a smart-ass comment, and thank God, one arrives. “I’m very committed to eating dead animals.”

“Good. So am I. I’ve put our name down for a table at Frankies across the street. It’s a meat place.”

“Aces.”

Pause.

Where has the old I’m-so-experienced-at-dating Pia gone? I can’t think of what to say. I can’t think of what to do. I can’t think of anything, in fact.

Merde.

What would my friends do? Julia would talk about work. Madeleine would stay silent like the Sphinx. Coco would babble and giggle. And Angie would sit back, smirk, arch her brow, and act in control.

That seems like the winner, don’t you think?

So I sit back and take a sip of my beer, then swivel my eyes up to look at him.

He’s doing just the same thing to me.

Come on, Aidan. Take control of the conversation, please,
I think as forcefully as I can.

Instead, he just looks over at me and gives a tiny grin.

A challenge.

Well, I’m not speaking first.

I take another sip of beer, still looking at him. To help calm my nerves, I find myself focusing on the little scar on the bottom of his lip. I bet girls always ask him where that scar is from. I will not do what other girls do. If he is a cockmonkey—and his calm self-confidence makes me wonder if he might be—then I will not fall for his act.

Then I remember: Julia’s question numero uno. “Do you have a girlfriend?”

“Excuse me?”

“You heard me.”

“No, I don’t, but thank you for inquiring,” he says. “And do you have a boyfriend?”

“No. Why would you ask me that?”

“Well, why would
you
ask
me
that?”

“Because you bailed the other night to see a woman,” I say. “Emma. Or Emily. Or, um, whatever her name was.”

I don’t mention seeing them on the street together all those weeks ago. Too stalkery.

“Oh, you mean Emma. My sister,” says Aidan. “I’m so sorry about that, you must have thought me very rude. Her boyfriend had just dumped her, for the third and final time.” He holds up his phone. “Look, here’s a photo of us on Christmas Day with our parents last year. See? Brother. Sister. Same nose. Sadly for her.”

“I believe you.” I glance at the phone quickly, just to be sure: it’s the stylish British woman I saw him with on the street that day. His sister. They do look alike. Damn. Now I seem like a jealous psycho. That’s even worse than a stalker. “Good. Just, uh, a routine background check.”

“Hey, I totally get it.”

“There are a lot of cockmonkeys out there.”

“Cockmonkeys?”

“Players … you know, one of those guys who cheats and lies to get what he wants.”

“Oh, you mean a cad. A scoundrel. A total bounder. I can assure you that I am not any of these things.” He pauses. “I’m really bloody boring, now that I think about it.”

I start giggling nervously. God, I love his accent.

Aidan’s cell beeps. “Well, what do you know. Our table is ready.”

Frankies 457 Spuntino looks just the way you’d want a modern Brooklyn restaurant to look: quirky but grown-up, with a dilapidated serenity that is almost but not quite unaffected. But it’s the backyard that really makes me gasp: a little fairyland, with flowers, vines, and candles strewn everywhere. It’s magical. I pause on the stairs leading out of the restaurant, just to gaze.

“I know,” Aidan says, pausing next to me. “It’s a real dump.”

My nerves make me giggle a little too loudly at this. I quickly try to shut myself up, but I have a chronic giggling fit. Oh, God. By the time we get to our table, I still haven’t stopped.

“Still laughing, huh? I didn’t think it was that funny,” says Aidan. “I mean, really. I can be much funnier than that.”

I erupt into giggles again, oh, God. This is like giggling Tourette’s. With concerted effort, I press my lips together, my chest still hiccupping with squashed nervous laughter.

“Would we like a prosecco to start?” asks the waitress.

Aidan turns to me. “Would we?”

I manage to nod. Then we’re silent again. So far I’ve grilled him about a mythical girlfriend and then giggled like an Ewok on laughing gas. Nice.

“We should just play twenty questions, and get it over with,” says Aidan.

I can do that. “Okay. Shoot.”

“Brothers? Sisters?”

“Only child. And is it just you and, um, your sister Emma?”

“Emma and three brothers.”

“Older or younger?”

“All older. Emma’s eleven months older than me. I was a surprise.”

“The spoiled baby…”

“Neglected youngest, more like. What’s your relationship with your parents like?”

“Uh, distant. My father is kind of old, he’s not exactly a talker, and my mother is insanely achievement-oriented. You know how stereotypical Indian mothers just want their daughters to get married? Mine just wants me to have a work ethic and stop getting into trouble.”

Aidan grins. “You? Trouble?”

The waitress delivers our prosecco. “Ready to order?”

“Umm…” I say, looking at the menu in my lap. I seem to have forgotten how to read.

“How would you feel about ordering lots of wine and antipasti and cheeses and breads, and just having a seven-course picnic meal?” says Aidan.

“I would feel very comfortable with that.”

We order, and as the waitress leaves, we clink our glasses lightly. I meet his eyes, and we both smile. I suddenly feel every part of me relax. I’d forgotten what it felt like to be with him. This warm, sure,
right
feeling.

“My turn for questions,” I say. “Why did you move from London to New York?”

“I guess I feel at home here. I don’t really feel that way anywhere else.”

“Neither do I,” I say. It’s true. I really do feel at home here. I belong. I think of New York and Brooklyn and Union Street and Rookhaven, and I think,
mine
. “I’m Swiss-Indian, you know, but I really feel like I’m not defined by my nationality. I didn’t choose it, there’s nothing I can do about it.… I hate being judged by something I have no control over.”

“I understand exactly what you mean.” Aidan grins at me. “Everyone can belong in New York. Okay, my turn. Favorite ice cream?”

“Strawberry,” I say.

“That’s so uncool. I thought you’d say raw cocoa with chili cardamom, or something totally fly.”

“Fly? Nice word. You’re so hip. Well, I have always liked pink food. Probably because I’m a girl. You?”

“Choc chip mint.”

“Oh, come on,
that
is uncool,” I say. “What are you, six?”

“I’m twenty-nine. And you?”

“I’m twenty-two,” I say. “Dude, you are old.”

“And you are … far younger than I thought,” he says, laughing in apparent shock. “Christ! I thought you were mid-twenties at least.”

“Are you saying it’s time for me to get Botox?”

We finish the glasses of prosecco so quickly that Aidan orders us a bottle while we keep playing Twenty Questions.

He finds out about the places I grew up, and Rookhaven, and the girls, and SkinnyWheels, and how I love Toto more than anyone has ever loved a truck, ever.

In turn, I discover that he works for a venture capital company (whatever the hell that is; he gives me his business card to prove that he’s not making it up:
Aidan Carr, Senior Associate
); loves his dog, Ziggy, whom he adopted when a friend got a divorce (“Zig was traumatized, but we got through it”); spent a year after college working in Australia; and has fourteen nieces and nephews thanks to his elder brothers.

“Fourteen!” I’m shocked. “That’s kind of excessive, isn’t it?”

“We’re lapsed Catholics, but old habits die hard,” he says.

Twenty Questions was an inspired idea. And every tiny piece of minutia I discover about him makes me feel confident that my initial instinct to like him and trust him—the same instinct I’ve been doubting ever since—was right.

“Are you glad you moved around so much? Growing up, I mean.”

“Definitely,” says Aidan. “I think being an expat brat means you can adjust to new situations easily, make friends quickly, all that sort of thing.”

I grin. “Expat brat, huh. I like that. But most expat brats I know are, um—”

“Fucked up?” he suggests.

“Yeah,” I say. “I guess so. You seem kind of unfucked up.”

“Here’s what I think.” Aidan lowers his voice like he’s sharing a secret. “There is no unfucked up. People think there is, but there’s not. We’re all fucked up in different ways. It’s simply a question of making your fuck-ups work for you.”

“What a beautiful sentiment. You should put that on a Hallmark card.”

“Maybe I will.”

We grin at each other as our crostini arrive.

“I like your eyebrows,” I say.

“I like your thumbs,” he replies.

“My thumbs?”

“They’re very long and elegant. Look.” He picks up my hand. The touch of his fingers on mine makes me shiver. It feels so intimate. And scary.

I pull away and concentrate on my crostini. “I bet you say that to all the girls you meet in cabs.”

“Well, yes, but usually I’m lying.”

“Oh, charming.”

“I am, aren’t I?”

Our eyes meet, and I’m flooded with that warm feeling again.

Aidan pauses for a second. “Right, I’ve been thinking about it, and we should just get the first kiss out of the way.”

“Before we even finish eating?” A kiss? Now? The idea has my heart beating in my throat with excitement.

“God, yes. Do you know how much garlic is in some of these dishes? This is just smart planning. Trust me.”

“Smooth, Aidan. Smoooooooth.”

He pauses. “Smooth like charming and debonair, or smooth like—what was the term? A total cockmonkey?”

“Charming, I think,” I say, frowning as though deep in thought. “Debonair.”

“I knew I should have brought some character references,” he says. “Okay, fine. In the interest of making it clear I’m not a cockmonkey, let’s not kiss tonight. Let’s say that the kiss has to be saved for the next time we meet.”

“It does?” I say with a stab of disappointment.

“Yes,” he says. “And now, let’s eat. Because bubbles make me giddy as a schoolgirl.”

I giggle again and realize that I’m a little drunk.

“Tell me more about your food truck.”

“Um, I’m thinking about hiring a helper this weekend, actually. I know this actor who seems to spend his life doing odd jobs for people around Brooklyn.”

“Thank God actors are useful for something. Oh, try this. Chicken liver with pistachio. Don’t look at me like that, it’s amazing.”

I bite into the chicken liver skeptically. But he’s right: it really is amazing. “All these things that you always think are horrible are actually so delicious, isn’t it incredible?”

“Incredible. Next time we should go to The Spotted Pig and have fried pig ear, it’s recockulous.”

“You’re a real food person, huh?”

“No, just greedy. Okay, keep talking.”

“That’s all there is to tell,” I say. Not entirely true, but “and I owe a loan shark thousands” isn’t first-date conversation material. “I had an idea, I bought a truck, I’m trying to make it work.”

“You’re so grown-up,” he says, shaking his head and grinning.

“Oh, my God, I am
so
not,” I say in shock. “I’m a complete mess, I promise.”

“But you’ve got everything figured out,” he says. “It took me years to find out what I wanted to do with my life.”

“Years?”

“Well, I was a trainee in an investment bank, hated it, got a job at Google that I thought was the answer to everything, hated it, then went back to investment banking and still hated it. I felt like such a loser … but eventually I figured out what would make me happy. And now here I am.”

“Taking over the venture capital world?” I say.

He laughs. “Something like that.” He glances up at me and grins. “It’s interesting and fun. I’m happy.”

“Interesting and fun is what it’s all about,” I say.

“I’ll drink to that.”

We pause for a second and raise our glasses to each other, my heart goes
thumpetythump
.

“I don’t think I’ve got everything figured out.” I feel so comfortable confiding in him, it’s bizarre. Like we could just talk all night and it would be this easy. “And I don’t know if I’m meant to be a food trucker forever. Or even work in the restaurant industry. I’m not particularly gifted in the culinary arts.” He grins. “I don’t know what I’m meant to do with my life, actually, but I’m trying as hard as I can to work it out.” I pause. “And I guess that’s okay.”

“Okay? It’s incredible,” says Aidan. “You’re twenty-two and you’re out there, making it happen for you.”