In the Wake of Wanting (15 page)

“Can you sit down so I don’t strain my neck talking to you?”

“Of course, sure,” I say, happily taking a seat at her table.

“I’m not inspired by the date, no. But I am writing love poems. My favorite topic.”

“You are
such
a romantic.” Looking more closely at the paper, I see little doodles all over it. “Look at the hearts, laureate! And the swirls. If the poetry’s anything as pretty as the page, man… I’m sure it’s beautiful.”

“Thanks. So why are you here? Shouldn’t you be across town at your formal?”

“The dance part was wrapping up. All that was left was drinking with the very few single guys who were there in one of their rooms, or going up to my empty hotel room, and I wasn’t really ready for either of those. It’s a nice night. I went for a walk instead and needed some coffee when I got cold. I just happened to get cold right here.”

“At Ruvelyn’s, huh?”

“It’s a great location, what can I say?”

She shakes her head at me. “Was it as miserable as you thought it would be?”

“Pretty much.”

“I told you. You needed to change your attitude before you went. You didn’t do what I said, did you?”

“Nope,” I admit. “I can be a little stubborn.”

“Oh, I know you can. You’re
unyielding
sometimes with your editing,” she complains, as she’s been known to do about this topic.

“It’s. My. Job. Coley. How have your grades been so far?”

“All As.”

“And how many of your articles have been in the
Wit
?”

“All of them.” I nod my head smugly. “Yes, and it has
everything
to do with the editing and
nothing
to do with the writing itself.”

“I never said that.” I take a sip of my coffee. “Your writing is outstanding. You’ve turned journalism on its head here, and you know it. Yours has become the most popular section online. You’re like the Buzzfeed of Columbia. Interesting content delivered in a way our audience likes to receive it. Win-win.

“Professor Aslon sure had a pulse on what the student body wanted. I never would have brought a poet onto the staff to write features. It never would have occurred to me. But I love what you’ve done. And the people you write about love it, too.”

“Is this my mid-semester review or something?” she asks pertly.

“Just take a compliment, laureate.”

“Thank you, Trey.”

“So… you didn’t do anything special for Valentine’s Day? No nice dinner? No chocolates or flowers?”

“No,” she says, not looking sad about it. “Someday I’ll have an insanely special February fourteenth with a man who showers me with love. That day’s just not today.”

“Today’s not over yet,” I tell her. “How would you like to spend a night at the Carlyle?”

She looks mortified. “No. No, Trey.” It looks like she’s about to cry.

“Not
with
me! You should know me better than that! Coley, Coley, no… that’s not what I meant. Shit. I have a room there that’s paid for. A suite. My stuff’s there and I have to go back and get it, but I want nothing more than to go home tonight and sleep in my own bed. I really don’t want to see any of those guys tomorrow. Not really in the mood. But you… you could go pack some things, we could take a cab, I could grab my stuff to take home and get you checked in… you’d have a late check-out at four p.m. tomorrow. They’ll treat you like a princess, bring breakfast and lunch to your room, if you want, and you can write your poetry from thirty-one floors above the park. The room’s stocked with soda and bourbon… if you want… or I’ll take that back with me. It’s all on my dime. I can’t get my money back.”

“I don’t want to take your room,” she says, but her smile says she likes the sound of it all.

“It’s either you, or a homeless guy I find in Central Park on the way back. And I’m not entirely sure the hotel staff would appreciate the homeless guy as much as my good intentions would like them to. I’m not going to stay there,” I assure her.

“Colesha?” Frank says loudly and sharply. “You take that nice boy’s offer. You hear me?”

She starts to giggle and gather her things. “Okay, Frank, okay.”

“Colesha?” I whisper to her, helping her along. “Is that really your name?”

“It’s actually Nicolea, but he knows better than to call me by my Christian name.” I had no idea Coley was a nickname. “I despise it, but it’s on my credit cards, which he’s seen… so he makes up other names to drive me crazy.”

“That’s great.” I turn around and nod to him, thanking him silently. He calls me over, signaling with his finger.

“We had these to sell today, but we ordered too many. Just, you know… to make her feel more like the princess she is,” he says as he hands me a bouquet of flowers. I get out my wallet. “I know you have money, Trey Holland. Just go. Take them. They’re on the house. You can tell her they’re from Ruvelyn’s.”

“Thanks.” I hide them behind my back and walk quickly with her to the door, holding it open for her. “So, we walk to your dorm, I’ll wait downstairs while you pack a few things… and then we can get a cab to the hotel. Sound okay?”

“Sure,” she says. “I can’t believe you’re really going to give me your room. It’s too nice. Maybe I shouldn’t.”

“Frank said you had to,” I say as we walk down the street. “He also wanted you to take these.” I hand her the robust bouquet of colorful flowers. “I can’t say no to him any better than you can. He’s so persuasive.” I take the books she’s carrying so she can hold the small gift.

“They smell so good. Thank you. Well, thank
Frank
.” There’s awkwardness between us for the rest of the walk back to her dorm. “Did you want to come up? I’m sure my roommate won’t mind… if you don’t want to wait down here.”

“Oh, no,” I say, looking both ways. “The streets have eyes… and those eyes post things on the internet… and the internet goes directly to Oxford. Even though this is completely innocent, there’d be a lot of shit to explain to Zaina if she saw me going with a girl into her dorm.”

“That’s true. I’ll make it quick,” she says, sniffing the flowers and smiling. I call the car service my family uses while I wait, asking them to send a sedan to pick us up. It then dawns on me that there’s a bigger possibility in someone getting a picture of us going into the hotel together than there was of us going into the dorm.

I call Coley from downstairs. “Do you have a coat with a hood? Or a hoodie?”

“Yeah,” she says. “Is it raining now?”

“Sure,” I lie, and it’s obvious I’m not being honest with her. “Just wear it.”

To my right, I see a town car and start to wave it toward me, but it goes straight through the light. I watch it to see if it doubles back, but it stops two blocks ahead, just in front of
The Witness
offices. For a second, I do a mental check to think if I gave them the wrong address, but I didn’t. Just as I start to turn back toward Coley’s building, I see a couple dressed in formal attire get out of the car. I’d recognize that gold sequined dress from a mile away. I’d never seen Pryana in anything but slacks and a button-down shirt in all the days I’d known her, but she looked breathtaking in that dress tonight. She and Asher go into the building together, and panic sets in.

Did they see me standing in front of Coley’s building?

Asher knows she lives here. He’ll never let me live this down. I have no doubt he saw me. I start to text him to explain, but on the very off chance that he didn’t see me, I decide to let it be.

“Mr. Holland?” My heart still racing, I’m startled by the sight of the car now parked directly in front of me on 112
^th
Street and the driver standing at the curb. “You arranged for a car?”

“Hi, Gavin.” I walk over and shake the hand of a man who’s been working for the company longer than I’ve been alive. “Yes. I’m waiting for a friend to come down. I’m taking her to the Carlyle Hotel.” He looks a little surprised, having driven me and Zaina around many times in the four years we’ve been dating. “I just need you to wait for me while I get her settled in, and then I’ll come back down. Shouldn’t take more than a few minutes. Then you can drive me back to my apartment.”

“You’re still at the Avalon?”

“Yes, sir.”

The door to Coley’s building opens behind me, and as soon as I acknowledge that she’s with me, Gavin has her bags in hand and is opening the door for her. “I thought we were gonna get a cab,” she says softly.

“I thought this would be nicer,” I tell her. “Frank wanted the full princess treatment.”

“Then where is my horse-drawn carriage?” she asks just before Gavin shuts the door. I walk around to the other side of the car and get in the backseat with her.

“Sorry, but this was a purely spontaneous decision, and all the carriages were spoken for already.”

“The Carlyle Hotel, correct, Mr. Holland?”

“Yes, Gavin.” I turn my attention to Coley. “Do you write to music?”

“I like Mozart for poetry… but sometimes I just like silence. I have noise cancelling headphones that I use. I just got them for Christmas. They were the only thing I asked for… I still can’t believe I got them. Sometimes any noise makes me lose the pulse of a poem.”

“Hmmm,” I breathe out in a light laugh. “Like it dies?”

“Yeah,” she says. “Exactly.”

“Oh. I didn’t know that happened.”

“It does.”

“Can it be revived?”

“Some have been.” She shakes her head slowly. “Others… they just sit on their pages, unfinished.”

“Lots of doodles on those pages?” I ask her.

“No. Nothing beautiful lives on there. They
completely
die.”

“I guess I have nothing to compare it to,” I tell her, not quite understanding. “Do you… grieve them?”

“No. I just turn the page.”

“Do you revisit them?” I ask her.

“Sometimes.”

“Can I see them?”

“Absolutely not ever never no,” she responds jovially.

“Maybe I could… I don’t know,” I say, looking at her, her face intermittently highlighted by soft, orange street lamps, “breathe some life into them.”

Her eyes dance, as if searching for something in mine, and the energy between us catapults to heights I’ve never flown and to depths I’ve never felt. I quickly exhale, looking away from her.

“I’m no poet. I’m just an editor.” I shake off my previous thought.

“You’re a writer,” she encourages, touching the back of my hand with her pinky finger. It’s the lightest, airiest tap–our skin is barely in contact–but my whole body is warmed by
her
. “Don’t sell yourself short. You’ve helped me with plenty of poems for
The Wit
. It’s not so different.”

“Depends on what the subject matter is, I guess,” I say, trying to move on from the topic.

“Love,” she says simply.

I close my eyes and swallow.

“The Carlyle, Mr. Holland,” Gavin says, saving me from continuing the conversation.

“Coley, I know this is weird, but trust me on this. Hood up. Go in first. If I go first, someone may be waiting to see who’s with me…”

“Ohhh,” she says, understanding now. “Okay.” She nods and quickly gets out when Gavin opens the door for her. Our driver hands her things to the bellman, then peeks in the backseat to see why I haven’t gotten out yet.

“Sir?”

“I’ll just be up there for maybe ten minutes,” I explain. “If you can drive around and come back. Is that okay?”

“Of course, Mr. Holland.”

“I’m just getting her checked in, and I have to get my things from upstairs. You see, I’m giving her the room I was supposed to stay in, but I don’t want it. I just want to go home, which is where you’re taking me–” I suddenly feel
so
guilty, even though I’m honestly doing
nothing wrong
.

“I understand the plan, sir.”

“It’s not a plan; it’s the
truth
.”

“I know, Trey,” he says, being less formal with me, as if to comfort me. “It’s okay. I don’t see any cameras, either. You’re safe.”

“Thank you, Gavin. I’ll be back down soon.” I slide out of the car and briskly walk into the hotel, keeping my attention focused on the floor. I glance up once to see where Coley is, stopping in the middle of the foyer when she’s nowhere to be found. Just as I reach for my phone to call her, she’s texted me.

- -
I’m on the 31
^st
floor.

I grin, fully appreciating the steps she’s taking for discretion. When I get up to the floor, she’s standing in a corner, facing away from me. “What are you doing?”

“I thought, you know… in case someone else we knew was staying in one of these other rooms.”