forthrightness, but my heart still skips. It is a bold comment for me.
'I guess so,' he says hesitantly. 'But when I'm with you, I'm not thinking about the impropriety of our… relationship. Being with you doesn't feel wrong.'
'I know what you mean,' I say, thinking that there would be a few people out there who might beg to differ.
I wait for him to say more about it. About us. Our future. Or at the very least our coup this weekend. He doesn't. Instead he suggests we take our coffee home and read the paper in bed.
'Sounds perfect,' I say, wondering what section he reads first. I want to know every single thing about him.
It rains on and off all day, so we stay in, moving from bed to sofa to bed, talking for hours, never checking the time. We talk about everything-high school, college, law school, our families, friends, books, movies. But not Darcy or the situation. Not even when she calls his cell phone to say hello. I study my cuticles as he tells her he just stepped out of his office to get a bite to eat, and that yes, he's getting a lot done, been working on a pitch all day. He mumbles 'Me too' at the end of their brief conversation, so I know what he has just told her. I tell myself that many couples punctuate their calls with 'I love yous' in the automatic way other people say 'good-bye.' It doesn't mean anything.
As Dex snaps his cell phone shut, looking chagrined, my cell phone rings. It's Darcy. Dex laughs. 'She just told me she had to run. Sure she did! To call you!'
I don't pick up, but I listen to her message afterward. She bitches about the weather but says that they are having fun anyway. She says she misses me. That it's not the same without Dex and me. I will not feel guilty. I will not.
That evening Dex and I separate for a few hours so that he can go home and change for dinner, as he has only packed jeans and shorts and basic toiletries. I miss him while he's gone, but I like the way the separation makes our dinner seem more like a date. Besides, I am grateful for the chance to primp alone. I can do the things that a guy you just started seeing should not see you do-pluck a stray eyebrow hair, strategically spray perfume (behind the knees, between the breasts) and apply makeup to make it look like you are wearing very little.
Dex picks me up at seven-forty-five and we cab it down to one of my favorite restaurants in Manhattan, Balthazar, where it is usually impossible to get a reservation unless you call weeks in advance or are willing to take a six o'clock or eleven-thirty seating. But we get in promptly at eight o'clock and are given an ideal, cozy booth. I ask Dex if he knows that Jerry Seinfeld proposed to his wife, Jessica Sklar, at Balthazar. Perhaps this is the exact spot where Jerry popped the question with the Tiffany ring.
'I didn't know that,' Dex says, glancing up from the wine list.
'Did you know that she dumped her husband of four months for Jerry?'
He laughs. 'Yeah, I think I heard that one.'
'Soo… Balthazar must be the restaurant of choice for the scandalous.'
He shakes his head and gives me an exasperated smile. 'Please stop calling us that.'
'Face facts, Dexter. This is scandalous… We're just like Jerry and Jessica.'
'Look. We can't help the way we feel,' Dex says earnestly.
Yeah. And perhaps that is what Jessica whispered to Jerry on her cell phone, while her unsuspecting husband sat guffawing at Must-See TV in the next room.
As I scan my menu, I realize that my opinion of Jerry and Jessica might be changing. I used to subscribe to the notion that he was a heartless home wrecker and she a shameless gold digger who coldly upgraded her Nederlander husband for a wealthier, wittier model the second the opportunity presented itself, which, I read, was at the Reebok Sports Club, the Upper West Side gym that Darcy also belongs to. Now, I'm not so sure. Maybe that was how it all went down. Then again, maybe Jessica married Eric Nederlander, whom she thought she loved by any relative measure in her life up to that point, and then she met Jerry, days after returning from her Italian honeymoon, and quickly realized that she had never really loved before, that her feelings for Jerry far surpassed whatever she felt for Eric.
What was a girl to do? Stay in a marriage with the wrong man, all in the name of appearances? Jessica knew the shit that she would get, not only from friends and family and her own husband, whom she had promised to have and to hold forever (not just a mere 120 days), but from the whole world-or at least those of us so bored with our own lives that we devour People magazine the second it hits the newsstands. Yet she went for it anyway, realizing that you only live once. She stuck her neck out in traffic, and like the frog in my all-time favorite video game, made it across the street, safely into the little box on top of the screen, or, as it were, into a six-million-dollar pad overlooking Central Park. Owning up to her mistake actually took real grit and courage. And maybe Jerry, too, deserved credit for ignoring the wrath of the world, following his heart at any price. Maybe true love just prevailed.
Regardless of what really happened with Jessica, Eric, and Jerry, my notions of rule-following in love are shifting.
'So, do you know what you'd like to have?' Dex asks me.
I smile and tell him that I am waiting to hear the specials.
After dinner Dex asks me if I want to go get another drink.
'Do you?' I ask, wanting to please him, give him the right answer.
'I asked you first.'
'I would rather just go home.'
'Good. Me too.'
The night has cleared somewhat, and as we are dropped off on my corner, we see a few fireworks exploding in the distance over the East River. Blues and pinks and golds illuminate what feels like our own private city. We hold hands and stare up at the sky, watching silently for several minutes before we go inside and say good night to Jose, who by now thinks that Dex is my boyfriend.
We go upstairs, undress, and make love. It is not my imagination-it is better every time. Afterward, neither of us speaks or moves. We fall asleep, our legs and arms entwined.
In the morning, I wake up just as the light is returning to the sky. I listen to Dex breathe and study the sharp curve of his cheek. His eyes snap open suddenly. Our faces are close.
'Hi, baby.' His voice is scratchy with sleep.
'Hi,' I say softly. 'Good morning.'
'What are you doing awake? It's early.'
'I'm watching you.'
'Why?'
'Because I love your face,' I say.
He looks genuinely surprised by my comment. How could he be? He must know that he is handsome.
'I love the way you look too,' he says. His arms move around me, pulling me against his chest. 'And I love the way you feel.'
I feel myself blush.
'And the way you taste,' he says, kissing my neck and my face. We avoid mouths, as you do after sleep. 'And I guess all of that makes sense.'
'Why's that?'
'Well, because…'
He is breathing hard now and looks nervous, almost scared. I reach for a condom from my nightstand drawer, but he pulls my hand back, and moves inside me, and says 'because' again.
'Because why?'
I think I might know why. I hope I know why.
'Because, Rachel…' He looks into my eyes. 'Because I love you.'
He says those words exactly as I am thinking them, fighting a growing impulse to say it first. And now I don't have to.
I try to memorize everything about this moment. The look in his eyes, the feel of his skin. Even the way the light is slanting through my blinds. It is a moment beyond perfection, beyond anything I have ever felt before. It is almost too much to bear. I don't care that Dex is engaged to Darcy, or that we are creeping around like a couple of outlaws. I don't care that my teeth need a good brushing and that my hair is messy and limp around my face. I only
