My, my, my, it’s been a hectic couple of days to say the least.
I have one mother of a hangover this morning, but I am still up, by 8am (ish) and just about ready to bounce out the door to tech rehearsals and several more hours of fruitless haranguing of Broadway producers, interspersed with iced coffees and slurpies depending on what seems like a better idea at the time – caffeine or sugar. I have been known to go for both.
The cause of my delicate state? Well, it appears I have managed to master the New York City subway in all of three days. When I say master it, I don’t mean the whole thing, obviously… but I can wander absently out the doors of a Broadway theatre, stumble toward the nearest subway station and manage to get myself back to the West Village without accidentally ending up in Brooklyn. Which, for someone with my sense of direction, is quite an achievement. This is relevant, I promise. Stick with me.
Yesterday morning, something rather random happened. I was just crossing the road at the corner of Bleecker, when I quite literally walked into a person I haven’t seen in about three years. It was one of those odd moments when your eyes meet, and you recognise each other, but your brain doesn’t quite comprehend that you could possibly run into someone you used to tear tickets with on a Friday and Saturday night, on an early morning in Manhattan. This lovable Canadian shall be known as Maple (she is single handedly responsible for the fact that I think it is okay to spend a fiver on maple syrup when the moment calls for it) and most of this shocking headache is her fault.
We managed to grab a quick coffee on Christopher Street, but promised to reconvene that evening as, conveniently, I had a spare ticket to Jerusalem. After the (very long) show it seemed like a reeeeally good idea to go for a drink at The Frying Pan. For those unfamiliar with this particular venue, tis a bar on a boat. That’s enough.
Turns out Maple, after living in New York for 6 months making a living as a nanny (jammy bugger), has managed to secure herself an extremely cool circle of friends. One of which, a super hot Australian who shall be known as his brand new address (Perry), is clearly so entirely besotted with her that he thought little of covering the bar tab all by himself seemed perfectly reasonable. I’m not gonna complain. It was like $200.
So we’re all absolutely smashed, and eventually it gets time to go home, when Perry suddenly get this confuzzled look upon his very attractive face,
“I might get a cab,” he says. “I haven’t worked out the subway yet.”
“C’mon, the subway is easy,” I declare, narrowly avoiding toppling over board. “Where do you live?”
“Perry Street,”
“That is right near me. You could get that magical ACE blue line thing down to 14th St, or come to Christopher with me and walk. It’d take five minutes.”
Clearly, I sound like I’ve not just arrived in NYC three days ago, and certainly not like I accidentally walked half a mile up 36th St earlier that day before realising I needed to be on 38th. Maple, who for some ridiculous reason did not want to return the hot Aussie’s advances, thought this was a fantastic idea and swiftly sent him off home with me.
Things I learned on the Journey Home:
- Living on the red line is bloody brilliant. The ’1′ showed up mere moments after we stumbled onto the platform, after I showered it in Pretzel salt.
- Perry had actually only arrived in the country three days ago, but before that he’d been living in England, and was about to start a job in NYC that sounded very cool and heftily salaried, though I can’t for the life of me remember what it was.
- I have clearly not yet taken advantage of living in the West Village.
We hop off the subway at the corner ofChristopher St and7th Avenue, and Perry declares he wants to hear some jazz.
“It’s 2am!” I object feebly, thinking of my call time the next morning. Perry apparently doesn’t hear this, and drags me off to the bar across the street, which proudly announces that it has live jazz until 4am. Lovely.
Two hours later, and Perry and I are literally staggering down his street (is it really 4am?) and occasionally making out because, well, why wouldn’t you make out with a hot Aussie on the streets ofNew York?
We spend rather a lot of time on his stoop – mainly because I don’t have one and I haven’t dared to sit on anyone else’s. Despite the fact that I am not fond of snogging ashtrays, I did a little inner happy dance when he pulled out cigarettes, because it meant I could live one of my NYC dreams…
(Smoking outside, sitting on the stoop of a trendy apartment on a street with trees, in view of the Magnolia Bakery. Yes, I watch SATC too much. )
“Want to come up for coffee?” he asks, after finally discovering his own keys in his inside jacket pocket. This idea is remarkably tempting because, you see, I don’t have coffee at my place. And MAN did I want some. So I got some, eventually.
COFFEE. You dirty minded sexpests.
Perry’s apartment – definitely not as cool as mine. Although more of a view, damn him. I have to kind of crane my neck to one side and hang onto the window ledge for dear life to see more than an inch of the skyline. It’s still pretty though.
Suddenly, it’s 4.30am, I have to be at rehearsals by 11am (okay, not as early as I previously thought. I’d already mentally excused myself from the first round of tech.) and I’m in an apartment that isn’t mine, getting dry humped by a drunken Aussie who is in love with my friend. Around this time I kind of fancy heading home.
“You are so beautiful,” he says in response, when I tell him as much. Eh? That doesn’t exactly fit with what I said. And he’s not finished yet. “Why don’t you stay inNew York? Then we could do this forever.”
“What, dry hump on your couch for all eternity?” Uh oh. The sarcasm’s out. Someone give Ritzi a coffee and let her go home.
“You could marry me,” he goes on. “And live here. And we could do this but without clothes.” He demonstrates this by sticking his hands down my pants – crude but rather enjoyable, so I shan’t complain.
“That would be ideal, if you weren’t all in love with Maple and everything,” I pointed out (after a while). Apparently he’d forgotten this fact.
“Oh… yeah.”
Oh dear. So, before the grown man starts crying over unrequited love at 4.30am, I extracted myself from his embrace and managed to navigate my way out of the apartment, grabbing myself a bonus prize on the way out.
Oh yes readers – I got my coffee. And I’ve still got plenty this morning. And I sincerely hope that I don’t run into Perry in Dagostino’s after he realises he needs to replenish his own supply.
