As opposed to what—nasty, fermented egg, the kind one naturally would assume Tris would pass off?

We sit down at a small table that miraculously vacated of bodies as we approached it. For f**k’s sake, my heart actually flutters for a moment when Nick pulls out the wooden chair for me. Who does that? And why does that simple gesture for a moment make me forget I am REALLY PISSED OFF and MY LIFE IS OVER. I am distracted from my Tal malaise by the nuns making out to “Climb Ev’ry Mountain” on the stage, and find myself chuckling, all of a sudden having a mental image of me and Nick in a threeway with E.T. I feel the crack of a smile on my lips and a non-frigid buzz spreading through my body. In the flashing neon lights, and with the distraction of the stage show, I finally have the opportunity to truly appraise Nick. I admire his vintage gas station attendant jacket with the name “Salvatore” stenciled under the Texaco logo, and I admit to wanting to run my fingers through his mod mess of shag hair. He seems to have an ironic but sweet half-smile stenciled on his face, despite his Tris hangover.

Nick waves thanks in Toni’s direction at the door. He says, “Nice seats your friend hooked us up with. I have to admit, between your drunk girlfriend and your Yugo-insulting ex-boyfriend, it’s a relief to see you have some nice friends.” He winks at me and why won’t that kind smile leave his face because I know if we are ever going to make it through this night/morning/whatever we have going, eventually I am going to have to tell him about Tris and that smile will be gone and I don’t want to be the person responsible for killing it.

I don’t owe him an explanation or anything but I do say, “I’m sorry about Tal.” Only what I’m really sorry about is what I said about Tris, but I can’t find it in myself to speak that apology. Yet.

Nick tells the cocktail bunny who approaches our table to please bring us drinks with little umbrellas in them, we don’t care what, we’re from Jersey, we won’t know the difference anyway. He says to please just make sure the drinks are of the virgin variety.

Then he turns to me and says, “I don’t drink. I’m pretty straight edge. I hope that’s not a problem for you.”

I’m only “pretty” straight edge myself. I mean, I don’t drink or smoke or do drugs, but I’m not over the top about it like some of the straight-edge breed who also don’t eat meat or have sex, either. My straight-edginess is rather like my Judaism: firm, but reform.

I mean to answer Nick with, “It’s not a problem for me. It’s a f**king miracle.” But I think I end up just doing some inane yes/no head-bob of shock.

Whoa! Tris dated a straight-edge boy, and one who says please? How did he survive her without being drunk or stoned, like the rest of them? I’m not sure whether to admire or pity Nick for being a fellow straight edge, but I am stoked, too. I’m on a date with a guy who can have a good time without trying to get wasted? The universe is full of surprises. Respect to Tris.

“Want to tell me about it?” Nick asks once the bunny has hopped away.

“About what?”

“The Ex?”

Is this what happens on dates? You kiss before you’ve met, then talk about why your previous relationship failed? I’m stumped. The only guy I’ve ever been with is Tal, and his idea of a date was watching Schindler’s List in his dorm room at Columbia. Besides the random incident with Nick, I’ve never even truly kissed anyone besides Tal, unless you count Becca Weiner at summer camp when I was thirteen, which I don’t. I have no idea how to do this “date” thing. This must be the reason I am frigid.

I really don’t want to talk about Tal. I want to forget I ever entertained the notion of getting back together with him. I want to forget I’ve thrown away my future and that now I have to come up with a whole new plan. So I tell Nick, “I know how to drive a stick shift.” Because I know Tris can’t.

“So you’re saying you could drive Jessie back to Jersey tonight, assuming she’ll start again?”

“Who’s Jessie?”

“My Yugo.”

“You have a name for your Yugo? Please don’t tell me you’re one of those guys who also names his dick.”

“Unfortunately, I’ve yet to find the perfect name for mine, so it’s in this netherworld of nameless identity right now.” Nick glances down at his crotch, then back at me. “But if you think up a good name, let me know. We’d like something a little exotic, like maybe Julio.”

Frigid can thaw, right?

Nick adds, “Dev wanted to name our band Dickache. What do you think?”

“Sorry, I’m stuck on The Fuck Offs. Catchy. The sales reps at Wal-Mart will love it.”

Our conversation is interrupted by a new act on the stage. Two of Toni’s soul sisters are doing an onstage grind to “Edelweiss,” making the previous nun performers seem like…well, nuns. Nick stands up and offers his hand to me. I have no idea what he wants, but what the hell, I take his hand anyway, and he pulls me up on my feet then presses against me for a slow dance and it’s like we’re in a dream where he’s Christopher Plummer and I’m Julie Andrews and we’re dancing on the marble floor of an Austrian terrace garden. Somehow my head presses Nick’s T-shirt and in this moment I am forgetting about time and Tal because maybe my life isn’t over. Maybe it’s only beginning.

I shiver at that thought and in response, Nick takes his jacket off and places it around my shoulders. I feel safe and not cold and from the vibe the jacket gives off, I also feel fairly confident that the original Texaco Salvatore was a good family man, with perhaps a propensity for wearing his wife’s panties and betting his kids’ college money at the track, but otherwise a solid dude.

I wake up from the dance dream when the audience applauds the end of the stage performance and Nick feels pressed too close against me without the music going. Nick/Salvatore/ Christopher Plummer/lovely dancing-partner man can’t be real. It’s not possible. Better to end this dream before it becomes a nightmare.

“Why are you so f**king nice?” I ask, and shove Nick away. I don’t bother to acknowledge his shocked expression. Score, Norah. I have killed his smile, and I didn’t even have to tell him about Tris. “I gotta pee.”

I run away, toward the bathroom. A few people are waiting at the door but a single finger snap from Toni and the line disperses.

I don’t really have to pee. I need to think. I need to sleep. I need Caroline to be sober so I can talk to her. This morning, my life seemed so clear. Turn down Brown, check. Go into the city to see the band Caroline likes rather than suffer through an evening with Mom and Dad entertaining the dreaded hip-hop people at the house, check. This night was supposed to end like any other night out with Caroline—watch her hook up with a guy, then get her home safely. Check. I’m not that girl who randomly meets a guy one night and has her life change. I wear cords and flannel shirts. I don’t have the killer body like Tris or Caroline. Sometimes I don’t wash my hair for three days and sometimes I don’t floss. What’s this Nick guy doing here with me?

I step inside the bathroom as the previous occupant leaves. I clean the toilet with a paper towel, then sit down on it. A trail of graffiti is written down the wall next to the toilet.

Jimmy gives good head. Climb Ev’ry Mountain, indeed. (Illustrated.)

Happiness serves hardly any other purpose than to make unhappiness possible.—Proust

You’re the one for me, fatty.—Morrissey

I want it that way.—Backstreet Boys (Also illustrated, much more lewd than the Jimmy picture, and finer drawing skills.)

Claire, meet me on Rivington in front of the candy store after the show. You bring the Pez. You know.

Psst—Sitting on the john and wondering when this night will end? Answer: NEVER. Where’s Fluffy, unannounced show, TONIGHT, after the von Trapp massacre, before dawn rises. Be there or be square, ayyyy……

There’s no date written on the wall but the black-marker handwriting looks fresh. I’m curious whose executive decision it was to name the toilet “the john,” anyway? But could this show be tonight? I only f**king worship Where’s Fluffy. They turned down Dad to sign up with Uncle Lou’s indie label. They could make me pogo-stick dance all night. They could make me forget I want to crawl into my bed and hide under the covers, and that I only wasted my youth on Tal, and that I’m on a date with a good guy and I’ve given him more mixed signals than a dyslexic Morse code operator.

Do I dare show my face back at the table to Nick, tell him about Where’s Fluffy? I know he’s a fan. I swiped the last make-up mix he burned for Tris that led off with the Where’s Fluffy track, “Take Me Back, Bitch.” God, he made great playlists for her. Tal’s mixes for me were all Dylan and Yma Sumac crap. Nick could mix Cesaria Evora to Wilco to Ani followed by Rancid, capped off with Patsy Cline blending into a Fugazi finale. Although at some point, if our whatever-it-is-happening-this-night progresses, I’ll have to reeducate Nick on the poor use of Patti Smith and Velvet Underground tracks on lovesick playlists. Fucking hate them. Patti Smith was a poser suck-up, and Lou Reed was just a plain dick.

DICK! Did I really ask Nick if he had a name for his dick?

Maybe Tal called it right—I should have been more grateful for him, because no guy besides Tal would ever put up with me.

Caroline may be passed out in a stranger’s van right now, but I know what she would say to me now: “Tal was NOT right. And go back out there and give this a better shot. You can do this. Bitch, get the f**k back out there.”

I pick up the black Sharpie pen dangling from a string attached to the bathroom mirror and scribble my contribution to the graffiti trail on the wall:

The Cure. For the Ex’s? I’m sorry, Nick. You know. Will you kiss me again?

I splash some cold water on my face at the bathroom sink and take a deep breath. Time to go back out there and make this right. I am brand-new. I can change. Only not for Tal. For me.

7. NICK

I am doing everything right. And it is getting the exact right reaction. This is like a miracle to me.

I am as intimidated as f**k to be in the VIP section. I am a little mesmerized by the left nun, who is actually playing the acoustic guitar for “Edelweiss” and twirling her pasties at the same time. I am afraid of the way Norah’s looking at me like I have a chance. But somehow I manage to step out of my seat and get her to step out of her seat. I know exactly where to put my hands and where to put her body and just like that we are locked together in a moment, and it is, remarkably, the exact right thing for the moment to be.

I am not used to this.

I don’t even notice when the music ends, I am so in my own music. But then the record scratches, the DJ bobbles, the moment crashes, the right turns wrong, Norah pushes me away and spits the word nice out at me, then runs to pee.

I am not used to this, either. But I expect it more.

I watch as she goes. Tony/Toni/Toné acts as her fairy god-motherfather, waving a Playboy Bunny air freshener in the air to part the crowd around the Laydies’ Room (as opposed to the Laddies’ Room, which seems, from the exasperated looks of the people on line, to be currently occupied by a Tantric pair). The nuns on stage have now broken all of their habits, and are parading around in sprigs of what I can only imagine is edelweiss. I can see a lonely goatherd gawking from the front row.

This should divert me, but my mind keeps returning to a simple, scary fact:

I am liking Norah.

I am liking the way she’s friends with Playboygirl Bunnies. I am liking the way she knows how to drive stick. I am liking that I have to earn her smiles and laughs. I am liking the way she kissed me. I am liking the way she seems to be able to get past the past. I could learn from that. I am liking that I can throw any kind of sentence at her without worrying it’s too out there.