13th and Broadway

The Mormon and I were on our third date.

I hurried from the Casting Office down to 13th Street for a 6:30 showing of Pride & Prejudice at the Quad. I don't really like seeing movies there. It's like paying $12 to watch a movie in your own basement. But we both wanted to catch it in the theatre. So there we were. I had been on edge all day. It was only the third date but my feelings for the Mormon were certainly growing and I had yet to divulge a certain health matter. It was looming over my head like a pendulum, swinging back and forth at such a great speed I could hardly concentrate on anything else. I knew tonight was the night. And I knew telling him meant risking the loss of him. But it couldn't be put off.

We sat through the movie. Keira Knightley was more charming than I would have thought. The sound was so bad it was hard to catch some of the dialogue but I'm smart enough to get the gist. And the whole time I'm sitting there thinking, "I have to tell him. I have to tell him. I have to tell him." The iPod of my mind was stuck on repeat.

The movie ended too quickly and I was a little teary-eyed at its presentation of love lost and regained. Although the last image of Keira Knightley and Matthew Macfadyen kissing in front of the candles was eerily similar to Molly Rigwald and Michael Schoeffling kissing over the birthday cake at the end of Sixteen Candles, I wistfully ate it up.

Then there was the talk of what to do next. It seemed like we both wanted to call it an early night, not for lack of interest but for reasons I can't define. We began a slow walk through the cold to Union Square. The January air tore through me. It stung my eyes and I pulled my hat down further over my ears. The Mormon had somehow managed to get a good few feet ahead of me and I hurried to catch up. Suddenly we were on the corner of 13th and Broadway and too close to the subway station that would whisk me back to Williamsburg.

I swallowed hard and said, "I need to talk to you about something."

He looked at me...and, at this point in my life, I had so gotten used to being looked through that being looked at was truly startling...he looked at me with concern and interest. The wind picked up and shot through me yet again. I nodded the entrance of an antique store to my right. It was in a recess and would save us from the cold air. "Let's go over there," I muttered.

We moved into the relative safety of the doorway and stared into the shop. Rows and rows of items I could not afford, some tacky and some beautiful, framed in the red panes of the store front. Inside, all along the tops of the wall were small busts of Poseidon, his hair billowing out like clouds behind him and his lips pursed, about to blow a huge gust of wind toward...something.

I couldn't look at the Mormon but my gloved hand clutched his bare one as I looked at the ground and told of my unfortunate condition. I cried. No matter what anyone tells you, it doesn't get any easier with time. It's still an admission and it still made me feel tainted somehow; unclean. But I told him, "Before this goes any further and if you want to stop now that I understand and respect that but I needed to let you know because, well, I needed to."

These words hung in the air for a second, held up by Poseidon's breath and then disappeared into the night. He took my face in his hands and looked at me, looked into me. "That must have been very hard," he said. I laughed. "Yes. Yes it was."

"Thank you for telling me."

Of course.

And then he took my hand and told me a story about him. A story that is not mine; it is his alone to tell. And he has told it very eloquently in his own way. We walked hand in hand up Broadway and around Union Square Park. The wind had died down The night was suddenly cool and comforting. His hand in mine was warm. We walked and talked. His story unfolded and I listened without judgement. Then we were back on the corner of 13th and Broadway. Cars and trucks rumbled by. People shuffled around us, their Whole Foods bags slapping into our legs. I looked up at him and took his face in my hands and he bent toward me. As I slowly closed my eyes to receive his kiss the last thing I could see were the scrolling red lights of the movie theatre across the street and the image of them became so blurry that they almost looked like comets in the night sky as my eyes closed all the way and his lips met mine.