Keep Calm and Carry a Big Drink (7 page)

“Yeah,” I say awkwardly, nodding as well. Then I take a nervous sip of wine and blurt out, “Guess you’re gonna have to find someone else to dance with to Eric Clapton that night.”

He smiles at me, shakes his head slowly, and asks in confusion, “Eric Clapton?”

“Yeah. Remember, sophomore year our dorm had this dance, and you were flirting with Julie, and then “Wonderful Tonight” came on, and you were talking about how he first released it in 1977, but it didn’t really take off until more than ten years later, and she grabbed you and you guys danced, and then … well … um, you know.” I dart my eyes around the room, unable to make eye contact any longer.

Jay cocks his head. “Wow. I vaguely remember that. I’m surprised you do.”

“Three point one four one five nine two six five.” Butterflies are doing cartwheels in my stomach. “Those are the first nine digits of pi. I have a good memory.”

Why did I say that? Did that even make sense? What is wrong with me? And how quickly can I get to my bedroom, slam my door, jump into bed, and throw the covers over my head, scared of this ghost of crushes past?

Jay stares at me as if he’s trying to figure me out. (Good luck with that—I’ve been trying for thirty-two years to no avail.) I try to make eye contact with him again, but I once again get so nervous, I turn away. “Can you quit doing that?”

“What?”

“Looking at me like you’re studying me. I hate that.”

“Sorry,” he apologizes, unruffled. He takes a sip of his wine, then puts it on the coffee table and watches me again.

Dude, thanks for listening.

“You know, I actually was kind of trying to get you to dance with me that night,” Jay confesses.

“You were?”

“Mm-hmm. You asked me to dance to Ricky Martin’s ‘La Vida Loca,’ and I said no. Then at some point a slow song came on, but it was really lame. I can’t remember why I didn’t—”

“Spice Girls. ‘Two Become One,’” I interrupt, nearly yelling out the answer.

Jay appears startled by my outburst, but quickly shrugs it off. “I’m sure you’re right. Anyway, then some slow Clapton came on … which was more my speed … but you had a boyfriend then, so…”

His voice trails off, and I let silence fill the room.

“I had kind of a crush on you back then,” Jay admits.

I turn to him, eyes wide. “You did? Seriously?”

“Why do you think I came to visit Seema so often?” he asks, chuckling a little.

Jay Singh—THE Jay Singh—had a crush on me once? Me? Wow. Wow. Wow. Say something clever. Prove to him you’re worthy.
I finally come up with “I had a little bit of a crush on you back then too.”

He seems surprised. “Yeah?”

“Yeah,” I reiterate nervously. “I mean, I always had a boyfriend, so there was nothing I could do about it back then.”

“You shouldn’t have let that stop you,” he says jokingly (half-jokingly?). “You’d be amazed how many girls I’ve dated who’ve had boyfriends at the time.”

Okey-dokey. Now what?
I put the wineglass back up to my lips, then decide to put it back down. I want to be clearheaded (or relatively clearheaded) for this.

Well, let’s see … Choice number one: slowly stand up from the couch and head to my bedroom, careful to turn around and eye him seductively right before disappearing into my boudoir.

In Eeyore pajamas? Difficult to pull off.

Choice number two: look at him coquettishly while I sip my wine and hope he thinks to make a move on his own?

I’ve spent more than a decade waiting for him to make a move. Once, when I tried to eye him coquettishly, he asked if I had something in my eye.

Choice number three: skip the wine, the coquettish look, and the trip to the boudoir, and pounce on him like a poodle on her favorite chew toy!

“So, do you have a date to the wedding?” Jay asks me, interrupting my internal debate.

“Huh? Oh. Not really,” I say a bit too quickly. “I mean, kind of…”

But before I can explain the Jeff situation, Jay leans in and kisses me.

It’s a soft kiss. No tongue, no expectation. Just a very nice, sweet kiss.

I have no idea what to make of it.

So I do what most women do in this situation—I fill the room with lots of unnecessary words. “Jeff’s my date. Remember my old boyfriend from my sophomore year?”

Jay looks disappointed, and I quickly try to think of a way to backtrack. But before I can explain further, we hear Seema and Scott walk up the front walkway.

We both immediately retract to opposite sides of the three-cushion couch.

“I’m just saying, it was a little strange to walk in on, that’s all,” I hear Seema argue to Scott as we hear the key going into the lock.

As the key unlocks the dead bolt, I can hear Scott continue the heated discussion. “So you’re mad because I was
talking
to the stripper, instead of letting her grind me?”

“I’m not mad you were talking to her!” Seema says, clearly mad. “I just don’t understand why you needed to talk to her about where our future children are going to elementary school.”

“The LA public school system is
very
complicated,” Scott points out as Seema opens the door. “You’ve got your magnets, your charters, plus open-enrollment options. And that’s not even taking into account looking for a house near a good neighborhood school.”

Jay jumps off the couch (so quickly as to almost be insulting) and jokes, “And then there’s preschool. You’ve got your blocks, your colors, should you focus more on letters and numbers, or sandbox time?”

“Jay!” Seema practically squeals. “What are you doing here?”

“Apparently missing the weirdest bachelor party on record,” Jay says, pulling her into a huge hug.

“I thought you weren’t coming until Thursday,” Seema tells him as Jay and Scott shake hands.

“When is the rest of the family coming?” Jay asks.

“Monday. Well, except Auntie Hema, she’s already here.”

“Then I’m not coming until Thursday.”

Seema shakes her head at his answer, then jumps up a bit and gives him another hug. “Oh, I’m so excited to see you! Let me go put on my pajamas, and we’ll stay up all night catching up.”

Seema trots over to her bedroom, and Jay and I exchange a disappointed look.

Which Scott notices. “Um, Seema, maybe we should just go back to my place and let Jay get some rest. I’m sure he’s had a long flight and would like to catch his breath.”

“Don’t be silly,” she yells from her room. “I only see my big brother twice a year! I wanna make the most of it!”

Scott glances knowingly back and forth between Jay and me. “Seema, you might not be the only person making the most of his visit.”

Seema pops out of her room wearing an adorable pair of red silk pj’s. “What are you talking about?”

Scott points to our glasses of wine on the table. “I think we may have been intruding.”

Seema bursts out laughing. “On them? Please. Mel would never have him.” She points to my wine. “I’m gonna grab a glass of that, and I’ll be right back.”

Seema heads to the kitchen to get herself a glass of red and get Scott a pint of IPA, and I spend the next hour sneaking flirtatious glances and smiles back and forth with Jay while listening to Seema monologue about her wedding.

I have a brief moment of hope when Scott announces he’s calling it a night and heads to bed, but this is quickly dashed when I hear Seema uncork another bottle of wine in the kitchen. Half an hour after that, I concede that she has outlasted me and announce that I’m going to bed.

Once in my bedroom, I change into a pretty silk robe, a pretty lace camisole, and nonperiod underwear. I brush my teeth and spritz both my neck and my bed with Chanel No. 5.

Then I wait for Seema to go to bed so I can sneak back out to see Jay and finish that kiss.

As I wait, I accidentally glance at my silver money-tree charm, and for the first time in my life I seriously consider going to Paris. Okay, so it’s not a passport. Maybe it’s not supposed to be. Maybe there is a giant sculpture of a money tree in some small avant-garde gallery in the middle of the Latin Quarter. I mean, the last time Nic did a cake pull, I had wanted the engagement-ring charm. Instead, I got the red-hot chili pepper, which was supposed to represent a red-hot sex life. Since I desperately wanted the man I was living with to propose, the charm made no sense to me at the time. But then I realized my boyfriend was cheating on me, and I broke up with him and met another guy, who gave me red-hot sex, and it all made sense. Maybe this charm will make sense too—I just need to help it along a bit.

My hint of retiring early didn’t do any good. All I heard from my room was an excited Seema babbling to her brother until 3:14
A.M
., at which time my eyes got too heavy to stay awake any longer, and I drifted off.

And just before I fell asleep, while I was in that hypnagogic state when you’re neither asleep nor awake, I thought about Paris. And the charm. And the charming man in the other room.

And my future started to make a little more sense.

S
IX

I was hoping my going to bed last night would inspire Jay to encourage Seema to go to sleep, then engage in a little silent nocturnal traffic. True to my usual run of luck in the romance department, this never happened.

I wake up at 6:15 in the morning, alone in my bed.

This will not do. I have a charm to live up to.

I tiptoe out of my bedroom and into our living room to see Jay asleep on the couch.

He must be dreaming because he looks dreamy. His bare chest peeks out from under the light pink covers Seema loans out to guests.

“Jay,” I whisper.

With his eyes still closed, he moans ever so slightly, puckers his lips a bit, then rolls over to face me. It’s a coincidence—he’s still out cold.

I tiptoe to the couch and sit down quietly next to him. Then I lean toward his ear and whisper louder, “Jay.”

He effortlessly (there’s that word again) wraps his arm around my waist and whispers back in a sleepy voice, “I’m up. One more minute.”

The he pulls me into a spooning position.

Hmm. On the one hand, yummy. On the other hand—does he have any idea he’s just pulled
me
into a spooning position? Or does he think I’m a Yvette or a Laura or some other French girl?

I let his warm breath caress my neck for a while and dream of a life with him near the Seine. Without thinking, I take his hand, bring it to my mouth, and lightly kiss it. Then I rest my head onto his chest, grin like a Cheshire cat, and fall into a comfortable sleep.

*   *   *

I wake up a while later to a soft kiss on my cheek. I can feel the warmth of Jay’s body, and his arms wrapped around me. I turn to him, and he smiles.

“Good morning,” he says to me in the most romantic way.

“Good morning.”

“I missed you,” he says softly, then leans in to kiss me.

And we kiss. And it is amazing. His tongue is playful, but not trying to give me a tonsillectomy. His breath is slightly minty, yet not yet Colgated beyond recognition. His lips are soft and warm.

I have thought about this moment since my freshman year of college. It is at once totally different from I thought it would be, yet amazingly perfect.

We kiss for a while. Ten minutes, an hour, who can say?

At some point, he pulls away from me, smiling. “I’m sorry to wake you,” he whispers softly.

I can feel myself smirk as I lean in to continue kissing him. “No, you’re not.”

He’s not. And neither am I. Until he moves his hand up to my bra area.

As I have no bra on, I jump a foot.

“Do you want coffee?!” I ask, jumping off the couch as if it were on fire. “Or mimosas? We still have a lot of champagne left from yesterday.”

Jay sits up. Seema’s pink blanket drops down to reveal he has pajama bottoms on, but from the waist up he is naked and exquisite. He puts out his hand to me. “No, I’m good. Come back.”

I do, and we kiss some more. “What if Seema wakes up?” I whisper.

“Then you’ll just have to defend my honor.”

“I’m serious.”

“So am I.”

Despite my fear of getting caught, we continue our makeout session. Every few minutes, his hand moves up toward my chest. I push it down, then he moves down to my underwear. Where I push his hand back up.

“What? Are we in college?” I ask, laughing a little.

“I hope not. In college, you would have never let me get to third.”

“Third? You’re not even at second.”

“I know. But I have my sights on third.” Once again he moves his hand to my chest, over my camisole, but this time something in my little brain decides it’s okay.

It’s fantastic, as a matter of fact.

“Do you want to move into my room?” I whisper.

Jay smiles, wordlessly stands up, takes my hand, and leads me to my room.

We begin kissing again before we even get to my doorway. “You’re not getting to third,” I assure him.

He moves his hand toward my left breast. “Isn’t Jeff gay?” Jay asks, as his hand and mine meet and wrestle for the umpteenth time.

“Wait. What?” Where did that come from?

Jay kisses my neck, licks my neck, then stares into my eyes seductively. “Your date for the wedding—your old boyfriend. Isn’t he gay?”

“He might be. Why do you ask?”

“Just making sure he’ll be okay with you having your way with me all weekend.”

I’m torn between giggling and slapping him. “What makes you think I’m interested in having my way with—”

Jay breaks my concentration with another fiery kiss. How did he get his hand under my clothes that quickly? “And that he’ll be okay with you coming out to Paris to see me.”

I halfheartedly push Jay’s hand away. “Okay, just because you’re being really cute right now…”

Jay pushes me farther into my room. “Shut up,” he flirtatiously commands.

“Shut up?”

“Yeah. Shut up.”

“I’m not—”

I am silenced by his kiss again.

It’s a
really
good kiss. One that lasts for several hours.

And, no, I did not have sex with him.

But I sure thought about it. Every minute for several hours.