Crowd of Three

    Strolling down West End Avenue with Will was amazing, almost magical. The hushed golden glow of the street lights complemented the warm summer night. The dull hum of vehicles as they passed by, the soft roar of a Harley one block away as it sped past the intersection, a multitude of cheerful voices that crossed the street, and Will’s subtly masculine perfume—all but thrust my senses into overdrive. His large hands held mine in a gentle but protective grip—I was so utterly smitten with the man that my hands were surprisingly dry, not sweaty.
    “Where are we going?” I asked him for the third time that night.
    “You’ll see,” he replied with a toothy grin and kissed me gingerly on my forehead. Clearly, I wasn’t being forceful enough since he always found a way to avoid my question.
    I applauded myself that night for wearing my trusty Birkenstocks. Will and I just walked a grand total of eight blocks, and he knew—he knew—that I was not the walking type.
    “We’re here,” he said, gesturing towards a rickety old door.
    “You’re kidding, right?”
    The place was an absolute hole-in-the-wall. There were no decorations, no flashy lights indicating its existence, and no hours telling patrons when they’re open. It was just a battered wooden door with the word “Nexus” engraved on it. Beside it stood a lone noble fir tree that was a little more than five feet tall, adorned with colorful lights and ornaments.
    “A Christmas tree in the middle of summer?” It looked so awkward and misplaced that it could’ve been me in another lifetime. “Don’t these people have any sense of time at all?”
    Will burst into quiet laughter. “Of course they do, love.” There it was again. Love. “It’s an old tradition that will be explained to you eventually.”
    You mean we’re going back to this place? I felt nauseous. “Can’t wait,” I managed to tell him.
    He turned the doorknob, and with a gentle push, the door swung open. It opened to short but narrow corridor, the walls made of polished stone. Above us hung a sign made of the same wood as the door. A small yellow bulb gave it enough light to be visible. In bold red letters, it read:


    Odd.
    A few feet away, light streamed out from an opening on the left side into the corridor. I could already hear as men talked and women giggled among themselves.
    Will held my hand tighter and led me through the hallway. As we rounded the corner, the bright lights rendered me blind for a second or two as I ended up staring at them directly.
    Whoa.
    The place was absolutely cavernous. On the far right was a bar filled with every imaginable drink on the planet. The bartender was chatting up a couple of his clientele as they took shots of liquor, throwing their heads back and coming up with a grimace on their faces. In the left corner was an old style jukebox, which played a familiar song I couldn’t quite put my finger on. On the left was a huge fireplace that reminded me of the one Al Pacino had in The Devil’s Advocate. And in the middle of it all were tables, tables, and more tables, plus couches and loveseats of different shapes and sizes. There was no order as to how these were distributed on the floor, and no insight as to what purpose they served in the room other than for sitting. It was like moving day, only the owners didn’t bother to arrange the furniture. Above everything else was a disco ball. This, too, seemed to be there for the sake of being there. Nothing about the place screamed posh or chic—everything was normal and relaxed.
    About ten or so people were there that night: there were the people at the bar, and there were the people by the fireplace. A couple more lay on couches several feet away.
    A heavy-set woman with short, curly hair looked up and noticed Will and I standing by the entrance.
    “Will!” She yelled so enthusiastically, I feared she might give herself a heart attack. She stood up from where she was sitting and made a beeline for us. The others looked on with interest.
    Will flashed a winning smile. “Hey, Rain.”
    “You’re here! You’re here!”
    “Yup,” he said. “Listen—“
    He was about to introduce me to this woman, but then she noticed me and beat Will to it. “And who is this lovely lady?” Her smile was genuine as she looked at and studied my face.
    I smiled politely as I turned to look at Will then back to Rain. “Dani. Pleased to meet you.” I offered my right hand to her.
    “Dani, Rain. Rain, Dani,” Will finished for us.
    “Oh, come here, baby girl!” She didn’t notice my hand held out in front of her. And before I knew it, a pair of huge arms wrapped themselves around me. “So you’re the one Will has been talking about!”
    Apparently, I was so stunned by her forwardness that Will cannot help but chuckle at the face I made. I gave him a reprimanding nudge on his side then promptly hugged Rain back.
    “Really, huh?” I told her after we parted. “I’m sure he forgot to tell me about that little detail.” I shot Will a you’re-in-trouble look.
    “What, I can’t brag about you now?” He winked at me and was clearly relieved about Rain’s reaction.
    She led us to the group she left earlier to greet Will and myself. They were obviously happy to see Will and very much intrigued by the girl he brought in. The men were simply all smiles as they introduced themselves, while the women were eyeing me like a kettle of hawks, though none of them seemed to bode ill will towards me. They were all friendly enough and it was easy to be comfortable and be myself among them.
    Will went on to tell his friends about how we met on the internet. I felt so embarrassed because I thought it was too corny. Nobody else seemed to think so—especially Rain.
    “We all met online and decided to converge here at Nexus, since it’s the only discreet place in town where we could hang out and not pretend to be happening like most people.” She did the finger quotes on “happening”, which I found really cute.
    The conversations went on and I joined in, cracking a few jokes and telling them a few things about my life. As I was telling them about the time when Will toasted his bread with a clothes iron, I caught him looking around at his friends’ expressions and then at me. He gave me that warm, peaceful smile, and it was then that I realized that Will just took me home to meet his family.

    I had managed to keep my voice calm and collected during the three-minute phone call with Will. He had invited me to go out on another date—something I was truly unprepared for.
    “Trust me, Dani. This time, it would be different,” he said.
    Different—how? I thought to myself as I absently poured a generous amount of shampoo on my palm. At least the pheromones that would ooze from my head later tonight would smell of lavender.
    It wasn’t as if we have never been around town together. We did everything a normal couple would: go to the movies, eat dinner, shopping for me and a lot of waiting for him, except that he hasn’t told me that he loved me before.
    Oh, my God. He loves me. A huge drop of shampoo fell on the bathroom floor, wasted. I didn’t care.
    “Will, where are we going?” I had exclaimed to him over the phone, frustrated at the fact that he was clearly hiding something from me.
    “Just wear something comfortable,” he said. “Don’t worry about where we’re going, ok?”
    “You do know that ‘comfortable’ for me means jeans and a t-shirt, right?”
    “Of course.”
    “If it so happens that you’re taking me to a place where there are a lot of emaciated girls wearing nothing but Prada and Chanel, you better pray to all your deities that you’ll wake up the next morning with your limbs intact.”
    He laughed at me. He laughed at me!
    “Why are you laughing?” I wanted to cry, but his laugh was so disarmingly sweet to hear that I had to laugh along with him.
    “Because you’re cute, love,” he said, suppressing his laughter. “Now quit worrying. It’s only seven in the morning. I’ll pick your jeans-and-t-shirt-only self up at eight tonight, ok? Later. ‘Bye.”
    He hung up, leaving my mouth wide open.
    ‘Love’? What the hell was that all about? I couldn’t think straight. My mind started to repeat every single line of conversation that Will and I had that morning. It was short, it was unbelievably sweet, he said that I was cute, and he referred to me as ‘love’.
    Crap!
    As I imagined hearing his laugh for the fifty billionth time with my eyes closed, the bubbles on my hair were almost gone and the soap suds on my skin were beginning to dry.

    Je t’aime, ma chérie. Je t’aime.
    The words repeated themselves over and over in my head as I lay in bed, my eyes fixed on the rotating blades of the ceiling fan.
    It was a dream, wasn’t it? I thought to myself. For the second time that morning, I pinched myself long and hard in the arm, hoping to feel real pain. And I did. God, that hurts. I was not dreaming.
    The phone rang.
    Suddenly, I could hear my own heart beat, slowly at first; and without warning, it quickly picked up some speed, I felt like bursting into a million pieces. I rolled on my bed and reached for the receiver.
    “H-Hello?” I said, a bit annoyed at my throaty bedroom voice.
    “Hey, sleepy head.”
    It was him.

June 29, 2002

    I have thought about this several times already. When I walk in the morning, when I wake up, before I go to sleep. It isn’t easy to be feeling this way. It’s heavy on the heart, but it feels ironically right.
    I’ve never felt so connected to anyone.
    David, I admit, set the standards in a way. Unfortunately, I can’t be with him. Why? Because he’s married; and he married an amazing woman. The idea of him was perfect, and I didn’t think I deserved perfection.
    Perhaps I don’t deserve to be with Will, too. He’s charming, smart, and witty – almost David-like. Yet Will is much more reserved, maybe even shy. I like that. I like him a whole lot. I can imagine myself making a fairy tale out of my life with him. It feels so good and so right... Damn. Something must be wrong.