Things I can’t Explain Page 3

  But as far as I can tell, he’s gone, which feels so wrong. That was not how it was supposed to turn out. I can’t help wondering if I screwed up.

  Who knows? Is it possible that even soul mates aren’t meant to be together?

  If I’m being honest about Norm, I was on the rebound. I made the mistake of falling for the first gorgeous skater dude who reminded me of Sam. Clearly, I was hoping for Sam 2.0. Pretty textbook, I suppose. Maybe next time I’ll go for someone in finance.

  Prying Norm from his self-inflicted Gorilla Glue debacle opened my eyes to our hopeless relationship. I realized I could get stuck too, so I told Norm it was over.

  His response?

  “I think you’re just trying to ruin our relationship.” Almost instantly, I realized that breaking up with Norm was only the beginning.

  I packed up and answered a roommate ad for a cozy little walk-up office conversion in FiDi. The roommate, Felice, turned out to be a real creepster of the Single White Female variety, but she thankfully decided to throw in the towel on making it in the Big City and moved back with her mom and dad in Scarsdale. Phew! Real-life nightmare stalker movie avoided. Not having a roommate is unbelievably awesome and hey, I’m only two months behind on my rent. Unfortunately, moving across town, not returning Norm’s phone calls, and completely withholding my affection was apparently too subtle a hint for old Norm. He hasn’t been able to mentally process the breakup.

  Just last month I had a temp job at an office in Times Square. As I was leaving for home, walking just behind the TKTS booth beneath the big red glass stairway, Norm jumped out of nowhere and dropped to his knees in front of me and hundreds of total strangers. Everyone started cheering and I couldn’t figure out why until I looked up at the massive digital screen over American Eagle. There was Norm at my knees, proposing, holding up some kind of Cracker Jack ring. We were on a screen big enough for everyone in New York City to see. I turned away, pretending I didn’t know him. When the crowd started to boo, I thought they would lynch me. Like always, I found myself wondering what Sam would think.

  “Well, Clarissa, do you want to give him a call?” I hear Mom say.

  “Who?” I ask, wondering if she’s added mind reading to her repertoire. After all, who knows where Sam is right now.

  “Your boyfriend,” Mom adds, snapping her fingers in front of my face, shattering my far-flung musings. “Why don’t you give him a call…?”

  “My boyfriend?” I ask.

  “We have just enough time to eat an early dinner and get to know him a little bit,” Dad says, checking his watch.

  Right, I remember, I’m in the midst of a surprise parental guest appearance.

  “Well, see, I would, but…” I sputter. Think fast, Clarissa, think.

  “But what?” prompts Dad. The look in his eyes is so sad. Dad seems to be spinning in some psychological hamster wheel of anticipated disappointment. I can’t take it.

  “But…”

  Maybe it’s the creative spirits that haunt this beloved place, or maybe it’s me wanting to make my dear ol’ dad happy, but I am suddenly inspired.

  “But I don’t have to!” Before I lose my nerve, I dash around to the opposite side of the coffee cart and throw my arms around CCG.

  “Because … here he is. This is him. This is…” Time freezes as I realize I have no legitimate way to introduce him. I mean, he’s the guy I refer to with a three-letter acronym because I don’t know his name. My mouth is open and it feels like it’s been that way for weeks, looking over to CCG in desperation and back over to my parents and back to CCG, cluelessly lost in time, sinking fast.

  Fortunately, for a naturally shy and quiet person, CCG seems to have a knack for thinking on his feet. Without missing a beat (or stopping to ask why we’ve suddenly gone from fingers brushing to full embrace), he smiles.

  “I’ve been wanting to meet Clarissa’s parents for a while now,” he says, breaking my awkward Twilight Zone moment. “I’m Nick,” he adds and extends his hand to my father.

  “Nick!” cries my mother. “It’s lovely to meet you.”

  “I thought you told us his name was Norm,” Dad whispers to me.

  He’s right. I did.

  ’Cause it was.

  So I improvise …

  “Uh, well, Norm was actually just my pet name for him,” I explain feebly, “because, ya know, he was the guy I normally spent time with. And then of course, he came to represent the norm by which I judged all other guys and … normally I…”

  Nick cuts me off with a wink. “I think they get it, hon,” he says easily. “But, yeah, she just calls me Nick now.”

  “Oh, well, glad to know you, son,” Marshall says, making everyone a bit uncomfortable. This “son” thing is classic Marshall Darling lingo. He called the bully who beat up Ferguson on the school bus “son.” That’s the guy who kinda became my first boyfriend—aka Clifford Spleenhurfer. Dad called the paperboy “son” even after the kid grew up and went to college, got married, had three kids, came back home, and sold my dad a home insurance policy. He’s called guys working at the gas station “son,” no matter what their ages are, even when they’re older than he is. But Nick is a grown man, not to mention a perfect stranger.

  Even though I’m cringing, CCG doesn’t appear to be put off by it. In fact, he looks as though he finds it charming. Truth be told, I find CCG totally charming. If this were a romance novel, he’d have swept in on a white stallion instead of a coffee cart, but this is reality and the bottom line is he came to my rescue when I needed him.

  And here’s the best part:

  His name is Nick. Now I know.

  In a New York minute, my most cherished micro-relationship has massively leveled up.

  CHAPTER 4

  We hit the streets of the Big City, and my dad is downright giddy over my ability to hail a cab. After eight years here, it’s no big deal, but my Ohio-born-and-bred father sees it as a major accomplishment. He actually snaps a picture of me with my arm up in the air to show everyone back home.

  Humiliation, party of one?

  Three seconds later a yellow cab minivan skids to a halt at the curb, and CCG—wait, make that Nick—opens the sliding door and allows the three Darlings to step in ahead of him. I make an invisible checkmark in an invisible box next to the word gentleman on an invisible list inside my head.

  Dad and Nick take the far back and Mom and I settle into the middle seat. If this weren’t so nerve-racking, it would actually be cute.

  “Where to?” the cabbie demands.

  “How about the place where you two had your first date?” Mom suggests. “It was an Indian place. I remember it sounding so great.”

  “Indian food?” Dad gives Nick an exaggerated elbow to ribs. “Well, now, let’s not get ‘curried’ away!”

  Dad bursts out laughing and I want to climb into the minivan’s glove compartment and die. But then Mom laughs at his corny quip and my nerves about this impending dinner are momentarily overshadowed by a joyful thought: She still thinks he’s funny! That’s gotta count for something, right?

  It’s at this point, as I’m gleefully picturing my dad moving back into the Darling homestead, that Mom looks over her shoulder to smile at Nick in the backseat. “Oh, Nick, Clarissa’s told me the name of the restaurant a million times, but I just can’t think of it. It’s on the tip of my tongue. I know I’ll recognize it when I hear it. What’s it called?”

  So much for gleeful. Operation Please the Parents is about to crash and burn before it’s even gotten off the ground. My brain is screaming, Abort! Abort! I prepare to shout out the restaurant’s name before he flubs it, although I know it will seem rude and uncouple-like.

  “Tamarind Tribeca, on Hudson Street,” Nick answers smoothly before I can make an idiot of myself.

  My jaw drops. To my utter delight and total shock, he’s dead-on!

  “Yes, that’s it!” Mom says, with a snap of her fingers. “Tamarind. Clarissa’s favorite.”

>   The taxi pulls away as my dad, the former flower child, breaks into an off-key chorus of “Hey, Mr. Tamarind Man” that has Mom giggling again, and I feel myself relax. I turn to look at Nick and I’m not surprised to see that he has an enticing quiet smile on his face in sweet satisfaction of his epic save.

  Maybe this evening won’t be a complete kamikaze mission after all.

  Nick offers to pay the cabdriver and I notice he gives him a pretty good tip for a guy who works at a coffee stand.

  As I’m checking off “Class Act” on my mental checklist, and maybe “Good with Money,” we follow my mom and dad toward the restaurant.

  “How on earth did you know?” I whisper.

  “Well, for one thing,” he whispers back, “it’s pretty much everyone’s favorite Indian place. And for another thing…” He stops short, suddenly bashful again.

  “What?” I urge. ’Cause obviously I’m dying to know what this other thing is.

  Nick hangs back as the door closes behind my parents. “Well, there was this one time the delivery guy from Tamarind came by my cart. He’d just come from dropping off a lunch order and he couldn’t stop talking about the hot blonde at the Daily Post who ordered the Lucknow boti kabab and sweet potato pudding.”

  This floors me because:

  A) Who knew the delivery guy thought I was hot? And B) in addition to my coffee preference, Nick also remembered my favorite Indian dish.

  “Oh,” I say, kind of stupidly. But really, I’m too stunned to say anything else.

  He frowns and rolls his eyes. “Then the punk made an off-color kabob reference at your expense and I wanted to clock him.”

  “Clock him?” I repeat. “As in punch him?” As in defend my honor?

  Nick shrugs. “Yeah, but I figured that would be bad for business, so I oversteamed the milk for his cappuccino instead.”

  Wow. Once, when Norm and I were still together, a guy grabbed my ass at Angels & Kings, a rock club downtown that went out of business a while ago. Ol’ Norm couldn’t seem to understand why that would upset me. I begin to thank Nick for avenging me but before I can say anything, Mom is anxiously tapping on the glass doors, waving us inside.

  We’re seated quickly and Dad has a silly play on words for just about every item on the menu. When he orders his full murgh angarey, he shakes his finger at the waiter and says, “And if you bring me the half, I’m going to be very ‘ang-ar-ey’ with you.”

  Yeesh, he really cracks himself up. When Nick and I exchange grins, it feels for a second like we’ve been doing it forever.

  Mom’s order includes about a billion adjustments to the preparation. She actually asks for the avocado chicken salad without chicken or avocado.

  Then it’s Nick’s turn. Just as he opens his mouth to order, his cell phone rings. He checks the incoming number and throws me an apologetic look.

  “I’m sorry, I’ve really got to take this.” He stands up and quickly ducks into a quiet corner so as not to disturb the other diners.

  “Uh, that must be work,” I tell my parents.

  “We understand, dear,” my mother assures me, adding with a proud twinkle in her eye, “An entrepreneur’s job is never done.” Dad winces and I think maybe Mom’s talking about herself as well. But the issue at hand is what Nick might want for dinner, because the waiter is … well, ya know … waiting, which makes all of us Darlings a bit nervous. Don’t ask me why, but for some reason the Darlings fear the impatience of waiters. I mean, isn’t waiting their job description?

  “Clarissa, why don’t you go ahead and order for Nick?” Dad suggests nervously, looking back up at the waiter as if he’s worried the guy might yell at him. “You know what he wants, right?”

  “Yeah, you would think,” I mumble, dropping my eyes to the menu. I settle on jhinga e aatish, otherwise known as jumbo prawns, because it’s a big seller and everyone raves about it. For myself, the usual: Lucknow boti kabab and sweet potato pudding, which once inspired impure thoughts in the Tamarind delivery guy. I’m hoping Nick will notice and be inspired to have impure thoughts of his own.

  When Nick returns, my father asks, with an utterly straight face, “So is everything okay in the world of skateboards? Is your company still ‘on a roll’?”

  Oh, dang. Dad really isn’t going let that one die, is he? Problem is, this isn’t Norm, this is Nick, and I have no idea if he knows a half pipe from a hookah pipe.

  “Actually,” I say, as Nick turns a blank face in my direction, “Nick sold his skateboard business a few months ago to pursue other things.”

  “The coffee industry?” Mom asks.

  “Yes, and no…” Nick unfolds his napkin and places it in his lap. “I don’t actually own the coffee cart; I just run it for a friend of mine. Denny Featherstone.”

  “Really?!” I blurt out. This is news to me. I always thought he owned Where Have You Bean? (shortened name trademark pending).

  “Sure.” Nick gives me a slow nod. “You know that, babe.”

  “Right!” I say quickly, feeling a little tingle in my fingertips, because no one has called me babe in such a soft, relaxed voice since … well, since Sam. “Of course I know that. And that reminds me, I’m going to have to give that Danny Fusterstein—”

  “Denny. Featherstone,” Nick corrects.

  “Right … that Denny Featherstone a piece of my mind about all those extra hours he has you working. In fact, I should call him and—”

  “Or,” says Nick patiently, “you can wait until he gets home from his tour of duty in Afghanistan.”

  “Right,” I say again, and slump a little in my chair. “Or I could do that.”

  Nick gives me a wink before turning back to my folks. “The coffee thing is just to help Denny and his wife. They’ve got two kids. I feel like it’s kind of my civic duty. You know how that is. But my interest is, I guess you’d say, the music industry.”

  “You’re a musician?” I ask, then shake my head fast and say in a more declarative tone, “You’re a musician! Yes, you’re a musician, I mean. Nick is … a musician.” Mom, Dad, Nick—everyone is looking at me like I’m nuts. I fake a little self-satisfied chuckle. “It’s actually tough dating a musician,” I say, trying to recover. “I’m always tripping over the drumsticks…”

  “… guitar strings…”

  “Right, that’s what I meant—the guitar strings he leaves lying around his apartment in … Riverdale?”

  “Bushwick.”

  “Did I say Riverdale? I meant the Riverdale-like part of Bushwick. Naturally I meant Bushwick because Bushwick is where you live. Riverdale is where you … get your hair cut.”

  I have no clue why I’ve added that haircut part. Fortunately my parents are from Ohio. When it comes to NYC geography, they have no way of knowing that nobody gets their hair cut in Riverdale except maybe the Riverdalians, whoever they are—maybe Archie and Veronica? Honestly, sometimes even I’m amazed at what I say.

  “Oh, I love the guitar!” my mother gushes. She looks at me and asks, “Acoustic or electric?”

  “Acoustic?” I guess.

  Nick nods. “And electric.”

  “Electric and acoustic,” I announce. “And he’s fabulous at both.”

  “But I guess I’m mostly an engineer, I do a lot of mixing,” Nick added.

  “Very impressive,” my father says. Although I’m not sure he quite understood anything Nick said. To be frank, I don’t know much about it myself. “But with all that acoustic and electric guitar playing, and the coffee cart and mixing things, it must be difficult to find time to read Clarissa’s writing.” Dad is starting to act like he’s interviewing Nick for the job of being my boyfriend. I throw Nick a look as if to say he doesn’t have to answer, but he does.

  “Oh, I make time,” Nick assures him. “I love to read Clarissa’s articles.”

  At this my heart absolutely swells. A guy who reads my writing? And loves it? This possibility is so awesome that it doesn’t even appear on my invisible checklist
because it would simply be too much to ask. But Nick is assuring my parents that he’s a loyal reader of my work, and even though this evening is a total and utter fake, I’m actually touched.

  “Which is your favorite of her most recent pieces?” Mom asks. Oh fug.

  Here’s another embarrassing confession: In order to throw my parents off the scent of my unemployment, I may have, on occasion, dashed off the odd article and e-mailed it to them. I’ve needed to write a few pieces for samples now and then anyway and I may have allowed them to believe that these pieces were actually being published in the, um, Daily Post.

  For the first time Nick is looking like he’s struggling, in a bit over his head. I wonder if he knows Morse code; then I could tap it out on his leg, which wouldn’t be a bad idea. But I don’t know Morse code.

  “The one about … the crooked politician…?” says Nick, winging it.

  “They’ve bumped you up to politics now?” Dad says, his eyes widening. He’s thrilled at the prospect of his daughter reporting on something as important as corruption in the government.

  “Actually, not that kind of crooked,” I say, tamping down expectations. “The last piece was about the politician who recently had her severe scoliosis treated by using a new primal back therapy and is now able to stand up straight and proud as she goes about her official duties as a leader in this great democratic land of ours.” I feel like “The Star-Spangled Banner” is playing somewhere. Nick smiles and puts his arm around me.

  “Clarissa really has a way with the human-interest stuff, don’t you think?”

  Damn, he’s good. My dad is nodding like crazy and Mom’s practically tearing up.

  “I’ll send you a copy of it,” I promise. As soon as I write it.

  Finally the food arrives. Dad gets his full order of murgh angarey. My salad looks delicious although Mom’s looks like somebody has already eaten all the good stuff out of it.

  The waiter places Nick’s jhinga e aatish in front of him and he pulls back.

  “What’s this?” he asks.

  Since I’m the girlfriend and I’m feeling really cozy and familiar right about now, I reach over and give the tip of his nose a playful tap. “It’s your favorite, silly. Jumbo prawns.”