dead-straight dark hair and the severe line across her forehead lent an authoritative tone to her words.
âBut I donât need to get over him. Weâre still seeing each other.â
âYouâre not really, though, are you, with you stuck here and him all the way over there?â
âItâs not exactly a relationship. Weâre friends. With benefits.â
âBut youâre not getting any benefits.â
I had left out the details of our sexual exploits, but had told Marija that we had agreed, considering our natures and the distance between us, that we were both free to explore casual relationships with other people.
âOf course,â sheâd said in response to that information, âif heâs not around, thatâs his problem. A girl has needs.â
She invited me to join her and Baldo that night for a drink at 230 Fifth, the sort of stereotypical pick-up joint that was filled to bursting at weekends with young Manhattanites on the prowl. I really wasnât in the mood for it, but agreed anyway. I couldnât spend all of my evenings locked in my bedroom and strapped up in Dominikâs corset, even if I found the company of the two lovebirds bearable only in small doses, and the bar was exactly the kind of pretentious place that I went out of my way to avoid.
When I arrived, I discovered that theyâd invited another member of the brass section along, a trombone player called Alex, who had joined the Gramercy Symphonia a year earlier after quitting his job as a divorce lawyer in Wisconsin to move to New York and pursue his dream of making a living from music. Marija had set me up on a double date, and I wasnât thrilled about it.
Alex was pleasant enough, but dull, and he wore a purple shirt that might have suited another, taller, less plump man, but on him, tucked up as he was against one of the barâs mauve suede sofas, just made me think of blueberry pie.
I left them all together on the couches, Marija with her long legs entwined like pipe cleaners round Baldoâs shorter pair and Alex glancing up at me wistfully on occasion, and took my drink out to the rooftop garden bar.
The cocktail was average, and the music wasnât my style, but the view of Midtown was magnificent, the Empire State Building looming so close I felt as though I could almost reach out and touch it, leap onto the side and climb up into the sky like King Kong, or a modern-day Jack on his beanstalk.
âBeautiful, isnât it?â said a voice to my left, with a Southern twang to it.
The voice belonged to a blond man in a navy pinstriped suit and a thin tie, with a short glass in one hand and a fat cigar in the other. He had pulled one of the tables up to the side of the bar and was standing up on it, leaning all of his weight against the railing and looking out into the night with the confidence of a person who believes either that he is impervious to the occasional freak accident that results in people plunging off the sides of verandas to their death, or that gravity didnât apply to him.
âYes, it is,â I replied, inhaling the slight waft of cigar smoke that surrounded him.
He jumped down from his vantage point with surprising grace and stood alongside me.
âWhere are you from?â he asked.
âNew Zealand originally, London after that, Australia in between the two.â
âYou get around, huh?â
âI guess you could say that.â
I watched his eyes flicker at my response, and I leaned a little closer to him, just in case the flirtation in my words wasnât signal enough.
âCan I get you another drink?â
I looked down at the remains of my sub-par mojito.
âMaybe someplace else. Wanna get out of here?â
He didnât need asking twice. Forty-five minutes later, we were back at his apartment on the Upper East Side, the sort of chic, minimally furnished place that I had thought Dominik might favour before
âBut I donât need to get over him. Weâre still seeing each other.â
âYouâre not really, though, are you, with you stuck here and him all the way over there?â
âItâs not exactly a relationship. Weâre friends. With benefits.â
âBut youâre not getting any benefits.â
I had left out the details of our sexual exploits, but had told Marija that we had agreed, considering our natures and the distance between us, that we were both free to explore casual relationships with other people.
âOf course,â sheâd said in response to that information, âif heâs not around, thatâs his problem. A girl has needs.â
She invited me to join her and Baldo that night for a drink at 230 Fifth, the sort of stereotypical pick-up joint that was filled to bursting at weekends with young Manhattanites on the prowl. I really wasnât in the mood for it, but agreed anyway. I couldnât spend all of my evenings locked in my bedroom and strapped up in Dominikâs corset, even if I found the company of the two lovebirds bearable only in small doses, and the bar was exactly the kind of pretentious place that I went out of my way to avoid.
When I arrived, I discovered that theyâd invited another member of the brass section along, a trombone player called Alex, who had joined the Gramercy Symphonia a year earlier after quitting his job as a divorce lawyer in Wisconsin to move to New York and pursue his dream of making a living from music. Marija had set me up on a double date, and I wasnât thrilled about it.
Alex was pleasant enough, but dull, and he wore a purple shirt that might have suited another, taller, less plump man, but on him, tucked up as he was against one of the barâs mauve suede sofas, just made me think of blueberry pie.
I left them all together on the couches, Marija with her long legs entwined like pipe cleaners round Baldoâs shorter pair and Alex glancing up at me wistfully on occasion, and took my drink out to the rooftop garden bar.
The cocktail was average, and the music wasnât my style, but the view of Midtown was magnificent, the Empire State Building looming so close I felt as though I could almost reach out and touch it, leap onto the side and climb up into the sky like King Kong, or a modern-day Jack on his beanstalk.
âBeautiful, isnât it?â said a voice to my left, with a Southern twang to it.
The voice belonged to a blond man in a navy pinstriped suit and a thin tie, with a short glass in one hand and a fat cigar in the other. He had pulled one of the tables up to the side of the bar and was standing up on it, leaning all of his weight against the railing and looking out into the night with the confidence of a person who believes either that he is impervious to the occasional freak accident that results in people plunging off the sides of verandas to their death, or that gravity didnât apply to him.
âYes, it is,â I replied, inhaling the slight waft of cigar smoke that surrounded him.
He jumped down from his vantage point with surprising grace and stood alongside me.
âWhere are you from?â he asked.
âNew Zealand originally, London after that, Australia in between the two.â
âYou get around, huh?â
âI guess you could say that.â
I watched his eyes flicker at my response, and I leaned a little closer to him, just in case the flirtation in my words wasnât signal enough.
âCan I get you another drink?â
I looked down at the remains of my sub-par mojito.
âMaybe someplace else. Wanna get out of here?â
He didnât need asking twice. Forty-five minutes later, we were back at his apartment on the Upper East Side, the sort of chic, minimally furnished place that I had thought Dominik might favour before
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