help but notice the steady stream of gentlemen heading for the pay phone to sneak a look. She wears not a trace of makeup, but her skin appears virtually devoid of pores. (“Just a little soap and water. Nothing fancy. You can’t worry too much about your beauty regime when you’re field reporting in the Balkans!” she insisted earlier with a laugh.) “So, what would you like to know?” As Lena looks up from her menu and smiles brightly it becomes all too clear how this talented young reporter has won over an unprecedented Internet fan following as well as a coveted spot on People magazine’s 50 Most Beautiful People list….
But what about the 60 Minutes version? The Mike-Wallace-in-a-trench-coat-with-a-roving-camera-crew-and-a-running-litany-of-hard-hitting-questions version? Well, that was tougher. That required the truth and a lot of independent sources. What, in the end, would my story be? I kept turning the pages, past the twists and the turns and the disappointing moments, but I couldn’t even find where my real story began.
chapter 2
“Hey, Lena, your phone’s ringing,” I heard Sal shouting at me.
Dammit, Nick, I thought, but then immediately relaxed when I saw the number.
“Lena. Meet me at the corner of Tenth and C at ten o’clock.”
I could feel a wide smile spread across my face. It was Jake. And that meant that my night had taken a sudden U-turn for the better. You see what I mean? It can be as simple as that. Just one phone call, and everything changes. The city opens its arms and lets you play its secret games. Your moment could be just around the corner.
Of course, when I got to the corner, Jake wasn’t there—not that I had really expected him to be. He wasn’t the type to loiter for anyone.
I noticed a wobbly couple stumbling down the stairs of an unmarked brownstone and I had a hunch that that was my intended destination. Once inside, I followed the echoes of a throbbing bass up a spiral staircase. The building was abandoned and police caution tape lay tangled in a mess of cinderblocks in the corner. If I didn’t know Jake as well as I do (or if I hadn’t lived in a building with a similar aesthetic for several years), I might have been more than a little afraid.
At the top of the stairs, a guy with hooded eyes and a vintage Gucci fedora leaned against the door.
“Who do you know?” He squinted at me critically. I appreciated his ability to remain haughty and suspicious of my cool factor despite his obvious stupor—quite a talent.
“Jake Dunn.”
He glanced at the door in approval.
I rolled my eyes and entered. The place resembled a cross between a professor’s library and an opium den. Couples lounged about in various configurations on the pillow-strewn floor. A midriff-bearing waif with a swan’s neck balanced a tray of drinks with Hindi-painted hands. The scene was quintessential Jake. His coolness barometer was so precise he couldn’t even hang out at bars anymore—they were too passé for him before they even opened to the general public. For the past year or so, he had taken to organizing “social spaces”(as he would call them) in abandoned apartments or buildings. That way, he could quickly change venues before “the wrong crowd” (read: anyone who lived—or would consider living—above Fourteenth Street) caught on. This wasn’t a Jake event, but I could only assume it was the work of one of his acolytes.
Through the clouds of smoke, incense and various vapors of the illegal variety, I saw Jake’s profile. Not surprisingly, he was the center of a swelling crowd.
How could I sum up Jake? Physically, he is tall and lean with dark wavy hair and deep blue eyes, which he knows how to use to full effect. More simply put, however, Jake is just cool. He knows it, I know it, and just about everyone who enters his orbit knows it, too.
Now don’t assume he’s just another snide hipster who chooses to define himself by his Alphabet City address and perpetual lack of employment. Jake, I long ago decided, sees it all for the game that it is—and he’s the one to beat. The world is his to mock. I tell him he’s so far ahead of the rest of us that he has to work to keep things interesting. He kind of likes that explanation.
So what, you may be wondering, does he see in me? Honestly, I’m still not quite sure. We shouldn’t fit together, but somehow we just do.
I took a seat on a leopard-print chaise and quickly put on my studiously nonchalant “I’m alone at a party, but that means I’m independent, not dorky” face. A strung-out guy wearing entirely too much crushed velvet sat across from me. I began to ponder this point: Should a man ever wear crushed velvet? (I’m leaning toward no).
“Hey, sexy, you look thirsty.” Jake slid his arm around my shoulder and handed me my drink. And yes, I do mean my drink. At the moment, it was Absolut Currant with cranberry juice. Jake has counseled me that a signature drink is a crucial element of one’s personal style. I humor him (but of course it’s Jake, so I also follow his lead).
“Oh…my…God.” Jake fixed his eyes on a wide-eyed couple huddled at the door. “Honestly, pressed khakis? This place is dangerous. I shouldn’t have lured you here.”
“Don’t worry about it. It was either this or face the artist colony that is my apartment right now.”
“What? Nick the Dick?” he asked with bemusement. “Time to give that artist a chance to struggle.”
Jake says that there is no such thing as a regretful relationship if you get a good story from it. With Nick, I had my starving-artist story all set, not to mention a nude oil painting of myself to drag out when I got really drunk.
“So, what are you doing later? There’s a group of us going down to Ursula’s to hear the latest self-styled, Dylan-esque knockoff. I’m sure it will be very earnest. Lots of corduroy.”
“Ooh, I don’t know. I don’t want to run into that bartender I had the thing with. I still feel guilty about it and—”
“Guilty about what? About not calling him back after you had sex? You just did what every man does on a bimonthly basis—it’s your right. You should feel proud in your womanhood. You’re advancing the cause, Lena.”
“Okay, you made your point.”
“Besides he hasn’t been there in months. Unless he morphed into a Latin lesbian with a spider tattoo on her stomach. She’s the one working there now.”
“Stranger things have happened,” I joked, but couldn’t help but feel relieved. Jake reached out for my hand and pulled me to my feet.
“Come to think of it, I don’t think you have a tortured-musician story yet, do you?”
Ursula’s was, and very likely would forever be, permanently stuck in the year 1993. It had all the elements of the grunge era down perfectly—the perpetually pot-smoky air, the basic beer and hard liquor, and, of course, the sullen alt girls and boys wearing every shade of faded denim and worn leather. The walls were covered with tattered flyers announcing the next march/benefit/protest rally. Personally, I couldn’t imagine anyone here mustering the required energy to stand up straight, let alone rally against the Man, but it was a nice touch. And of course the music was predictably angst-ridden and mournful enough to make Eddie Vedder proud. I half expected to see Winona and Ethan hashing it out in a dark corner somewhere.
Jake had run into his girlfriend du jour, Miranda, at the door, so I went in search of a free table. I glanced over at the bar just to make sure Jake wasn’t tricking me and was relieved to see the spider woman herself pouring a generous drink for a Kim Deal look-alike.
I spotted a table next to the stage and motioned to Jake.
“Excellent work, Lena,” Jake said as he approached the table.
“Hey Lena,” Miranda said, looking past me.
It is often like this with Jake’s girls. In the fruitless endeavor of trying to get a firm grasp on Jake’s roving affections, I am the enemy. Of course, I always try to temper the