The Kiss Thief

The Kiss Thief

Today is Alex’s and my second anniversary. I’m in Bauman’s Books, a haven on Madison and 54^th browsing through valuable antique volumes, dust on my hands, and cedar wood surrounding my senses. I sit on one of the wide mahogany chairs, placing a tenth edition of Anna Karenina on the table in front of me. I leaf through it; I smell the pages. I know I can’t afford it, but I don’t think I can afford anything here. I rarely come to buy. I come to sit, and let my mind meditate what could have been. I can’t explain how much comfort this place gives me—it feels like my second home. A pied-a-terre I can escape to when things are not okay. And in my heart, they’re far from okay. As I stare at the book in front of me, I wonder—how did Anna feel when she was with Vronsky? How did she feel when she was with Count Karenin? I stop there. My mind becomes a void. I shut the book in guilt.

Lately I’ve been so angry at myself. I sit in this bookstore for hours and think of a million ways to break up with Alex. But nothing comes to mind. I’m too much of a coward to do it, as I was too much of a coward to decline—even politely—when he’d asked me to marry him two years ago. One minute I think I can expose my feelings—the next I just want to sit in my sedated plastic world and do nothing. This has been going on since the —incident with Dominic.

I think all the way back to how Alex and I began. How we got pushed into friendship by our eager young mothers who desperately wanted playdates with their toddlers. How a few years later, we climbed trees in spring, and ice-skated in December. How we watched movies on the same bed. How we laughed at the same jokes, and cried on each other’s shoulders. How simple our life was—and how dependent we were on each other. We had no boundaries—we grew so fond of each other; we could hardly tell the difference. Was it love or was it lust? Was it friendship or was it habit?

When we turned fifteen, our bodies became a whole new world to us. Puberty was a long way from climbing trees and ice-skating. I had these strange experiences when I was around Alex, like when I observed the muscles on his legs, and I got “butterflies.” Or I sometimes noticed a bulge in front of his shorts—something he’d never had before. Especially when we swam. Sometimes he didn’t even want to get out of the water, he just stood there telling me he “wasn’t ready.”

It was a time of exploration for us; innovative, sweet, new, and in small tender steps we explored that art together. Alex and Jade. Jade and Alex. For me, our future had been sealed as if it had been etched in the palm of my hand.

I stare at the cover of Anna Karenina, but my mind is transfixed on that day. If I had pursued a relationship with Dominic, even if it wouldn’t have worked out, I would have at least known, I would have taken a chance. Now? I know nothing. I’m always, always wondering.

It happened on my twenty-first birthday party. Almost all of us had gotten smashed on champagne, vodka, pot brownies and more champagne. Reality had taken a certain shade of violet haze—I felt I was trapped between my logical side versus my rebellious side, which had been dormant for a very long time. Everything was real, but it wasn’t. It was love, but it wasn’t. It was desire, but it wasn’t. Dominic Pontieri and I had made out in my parents’ bathroom, the one with the tacky gold taps, and the sky-blue bath curtains, and matching towels, and spectacular view, and kissed more adrenalized than I’ve ever kissed Alex. That kiss still haunts me. Dominic still haunts me. That forbidden kiss had been the most quixotic thing I had ever done. It was fervent and wanting. I felt I was doing something dangerous, treading into uncharted territory—unknown, an abyss of emotional frenzy that had never entered my body in any shape or form. I felt I had discovered the most sought after secret—passion.

And I let it go.

I let it go because I didn’t want to lost my best friend; Alex Garland, my ever-present knight in shining armor. While Dominic—the holder of all that is desire, was waiting around the corner. All I had to do was open my eyes.

I get up, discard my thoughts, and carefully place Anna Karenina back in its niche. After a minute or so, I hear a familiar voice.

“Jady?”

I turn around, almost falling off the little ladder. I look down, and there he was. Dominic. In the flesh.

I manage to get down without breaking a leg or two, and brushed some hair off my face.

“D, oh my God! What a surprise! What are you…where is…what I mean is, what are you…”

“Doing here.” He says.

“Yeah, I mean what are you doing here? Sorry I got a bit surprised to see you in New York. I thought you couldn’t wait to get out if here.” I say.

“L.A. wasn’t for me. Too superficial.”

“So you’re quitting? You’re not going to act anymore? That was your dream!” I say.

I wonder if I still look desirable to him. I wonder if he feels the same way I do. I wish I could have worn something nicer, or maybe put on some lipstick or…” I shook my head. What an idiot I am. Dominic did not return to New York for me. He returned because he didn’t like the city of Los Angeles. Big difference.

“I’m not giving up my dream at all,” he says. “Quite the opposite. I’ve come here to claim it.”

I can literally feel my cheeks burn. Is he talking about me, or a potential job? There I go dreaming again. I must stop being so idealized.

“Claim it?” I say, clutching my crochet backpack

“Yeah. I got accepted for a small part in Joseph and the Technicolor Dreamcoat at the London Palladium. I have a stopover in N.Y., so I decided to spend a couple of days here. See my parents, see you and Alex …see you.” He says.

He takes my hand, and I let him. I feel my heart beat like a galloping horse. Still, I sit in silence, vocabulary having made itself scarce by now. 

I’m not a bold person. I don’t just do things. But right now, I feel I must—it’s now or never. Risk it, Jade, my inner voice yells into an flummoxed brain. Do it, you coward. Do it now. Otherwise all hope will be lost forever. You’ll grow old and unhappy and you’ll become a drunken housewife with six kids, hoarding antidepressants. Do it now, NOW!

I let go of my backpack and kiss Dominic right there and then, at Bauman’s Bookstore, rain outside, an old couple peering from a far-off table, and Anna Karenina screaming in my ear—I told you so, I told you so I told you so….

His lips are soft like an angel’s. I forget where I am. The passage of time is held captive in this one kiss. Two years of wanting, two years of yearning, two years of regret pouring itself out like an avalanche, sparing no lives. Especially ours. Two years of longing, unleash themselves into one single kiss—to the one person who I finally feel I owe it to.

“Wow”, he says. “Jady, I never thought you had it in you!”

I blush like a school girl. “You have no idea,” I say.

“Okay. You’re coming with me right now.” He says.

“Now? Where? I have to…”

“You have to do nothing. We’re going to talk about this, because I’ve waited two years to tell you the exact thing you showed me two minutes ago.” He whispers in a very loud way. Enough to turn some heads. We’ve been turning heads as it is.

“Wait a minute. How did you know I was in here anyway?” I ask.

“Sometimes you’re so silly, Jade Garland. Jesus. Have you ever heard of Instagram? Now come on. I can’t waste time. I came all the way from L.A. to tell you one thing, and you take it all away from me in one kiss.”

I take his hand, and through the watchful eyes of random customers, we walk out, our kiss having disturbed half the store.

After walking about half a block, he says “Here, what about here?”

He opens the door to a coffee shop; small, cozy. It has started to drizzle again, and I can’t think of anywhere else I’d rather be than with Dominic Pontieri. My hair is dripping. He takes off his Burberry style raincoat coat, and sets it behind his chair. His green eyes are dancing. They are looking at me while talking and I don’t hear a word. His voice cuts through me like it’s on fire.

“What? Wait a minute. D, what are you saying? London? What the hell are you talking about?” We both dismiss the waitress who’s come to take our order.

“I’m saying it clearly, Jady. Come with me to London. I’m leaving in forty-eight hours and seventeen minutes from now. Be on that flight with me. Please.” He talks as if to a six-year-old. Slow, tentative. And a bit fearful. Six-year-olds can have hellish tantrums. I think what is in his mind is that I’m going to have one.

But I don’t.

I just stare at him.

I have no words.

I don’t know what to do.

My life has come to claim me, and I’m at a loss. If I leave, I’ll hurt Alex. If I decline Dominic, there will never, ever be a second chance. I know that for sure.

I chose my word carefully. Very carefully.

“Dominic, I think I’m in love with you.”

“You think, or you know?”

“I know.” I say.

“But there’s a But. I can feel it. Come on Jady… you know I’ll never do this again. I won’t travel across the country just to find you; nor will I ever beg you to come live with me in a foreign country I’ve never lived in myself.” He says. Then he continues.

 “This is the one and only time I’ll ask this of you. Come with me. Don’t worry about your marriage—Alex is Alex. He will find someone else, if that’s what you’re worried about. He’s a handsome guy. He’s kind, he’s gentle, I’ve known him all my life. He’ll make someone very happy, Jade. But you…you and Alex were never meant to be a couple. Best friends maybe, but not married. The day you told me, I almost choked. I couldn’t believe what a massive mistake both of you were getting into. Look. The main point here is that I love you. Wholeheartedly. And if my love is unrequited, so be it. But if you feel an inkling of the same way I do, simply say yes.” He doesn’t finch as he says all this, his eyes are transfixed on mine.

And I feel like I’m in one of those movie scenes where people are trapped in a bus, or a car, or something or other and half of it is in the air, and the other half on solid ground. And the slightest movement they make, will either sink them below, to the lake, or the ocean, or whatever treacherous object lies at the bottom, and the other will yield their vehicle back to safety.

I take neither step.

I can’t, for the life of me, say anything. When finally, I do, it sounds as if it’s coming from outer space.

“Dominic Pontieri, I love you. I always have. Since that drunken engagement party. Since that kiss that lit up the moon. I do love you. And I want to be with you. And I don’t want to be with Alex anymore. Don’t think it’s Alex who will get in our way. But he will get hurt—there is no avoiding that, we will be together, but at a price. Is it worth it?

“hell yeah! When did you ever do exactly what you wanted to do except for that moment in Bauman’s when you kissed me? Probably two or three times in your entire twenty-two years. It’s not enough!” he says, gesticulating in a wild way.

 “But I do need a divorce,” I say. “I can’t just get u and go in two days! I’ll meet you on my birthday, in June.” It’s more logical, we can’t just run away, can we?”

“Who says we can’t? we can do anything we want. We’re in love—we have been in love for two years. Haven’t you waited long enough? Do you really want to wait till June? That’s two more months! I can’t do it! it’s either now or never Jady. Now or never. Think about it.” He says.

“I don’t know, it sounds insane!” I say.

“So what? It’s good to be insane Jady! Why do you have to be so rigid all the time? That’s the mistake you made with Alex, and you both ended up unhappy. We have one life. And that life is now. Not in two months, it is now. What if I’m dead in two months? What if I get hit by a train or some drunk driver hits me on my motorcycle? What if I just walk down the street and some crazy person shoots me? Life is so unpredictable. I don’t know why you’d want to risk things and wait. So, you’re married—so what? You’ll get a divorce. Come on Jade—be the woman in that bookstore. She’s in you alright, I just don’t know why you keep her locked up all the time. You’re not giving her a chance to live. Let her out, let her free!”

 Okay. This is it. I think to myself. Out loud, I take the biggest chance I’ve ever taken in my life. I say yes. I’ll do it. I’ll move to London with you Dominic. I will.

In an instant, I’m thinking that Life is not for the weak. It’s for the strong-minded who go after what they want. If you want to pursue your dreams, you must be bold. There is no room for weakness in this world. Otherwise unhappiness will creep up on you. And joy—will be  something you’ll have to fight hard to gain back.