Madison," which is this incredibly chic bar in Midtown where Rebecca and I used to go sophomore
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year because fancy places never ask you for ID. I guess they figure if you can pay the bill, you're old enough to drink there.
By this time they had both had a lot to drink and were basically ignoring everyone else at the table. I cannot imagine what my mom and dad would do if they had a party at which I spent the entire night alone in conversation with a twenty-two-year-old single man. Last year my dad had a dinner for the students in his graduate seminar, and one of the guys and I talked alone together in the kitchen for about 3.5 seconds. That night my dad came into my room after everyone left and asked if I'd been uncomfortable or anything when the guy and I were talking, and I was like, Dad, give me a break, we were talking about garbage disposals. Which we actually were! My dad said he was relieved, and then he gave me this whole speech about how I was becoming a very attractive young woman, and I might not realize it, and blah blah blah blah.
In other words, not only did my parents provide me with the enormous-butt gene, they are clearly determined to ensure that any man who miraculously manages to overlook my freakish figure will never get to be alone with me long enough to ask me out.
So the dinner was winding down, and everyone was going out onto the terrace for coffee and dessert. Brian and Rebecca got up and went outside with all the other guests, and then Rebecca said, "Do you want to see the Empire State Building?" And he said, "Can you really see the Empire State Building from here?" and she said, "Well, we have to go to the other side of the apartment,"
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which is true since they were on the side facing south and the Empire State Building is to the north. She didn't know if he knew what she was planning, but he followed her around the corner, away from all the other guests and up these stairs to the terrace that's off her bedroom.
The Empire State Building was orange, and they tried to decide if that was in honor of Halloween or Thanksgiving. Brian asked if she'd gone trick or treating, and they started joking about how she had gone as Britney Spears with all her little friends. And then she said, "Do you think Britney Spears is sexy?" and he said he hadn't really thought about it, and she said, "Don't you kind of want to kiss her?" and he said something like, "As an attorney I have some concerns about the legality of all this," and then they kissed.
"OH MY GOD!" I said.
"I know," she said.
"Who kissed first?"
She thought about it for a second. "I want to say it was him, but objectively I think even at the last second he was kind of hesitant. I mean, once we started, it was definitely mutual, but I had to push it along."
"How far did you go?"
"We just made out. But my God, Jan, he is such a good kisser!"
"Did anyone notice you were gone?"
"It's possible, but I doubt it. He went back around the terrace, and I went through the apartment so it wouldn't seem too obvious."
"You are so cool," I said.
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"I know," she said.
"So, are you going to see him again?" I was tracing my initials in the crumbs from the coffee cake.
"Well, when I said good-bye, I slipped him a note. My dad's going, 'We can't thank you enough for coming,' and all that crap and Brian's going, 'Oh, you have such a lovely daughter and such a lovely home--"'
"He said that? He said, 'lovely'?"
"Something like that. I mean, he was definitely all, 'Your daughter is such a sweet child,' and not, 'Thanks for having me, I had a great time feeling your daughter's ass on the terrace earlier.'"
"He felt your ass?"
"Well, he mostly had his hands on my back, but then a couple of times he was kind of grabbing at it."
"Was it weird?" I didn't think I would like having my butt grabbed. Of course, only King Kong has hands big enough to grab it, so the question is clearly moot.
"Actually, it was kind of cool." She paused for a second. "So