Nick & Norah's Infinite Playlist

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 fuck 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.

I could easily start to obsess (or, at least, stress) about this, but luckily another diversion soon joins me at the table. It’s Tony/Toni/Toné, dressed now as a priest. I mean, he’s dressed as a woman dressed as a priest.

“I’m on in ten minutes,” she says, to explain the costume change. “Is Norah still powdering?”

“She’s the lulu of the loo.”

“Perfect! Now us girls can chat.” She bows her head in my direction, ready to listen, but even readier to ask. “How long have the two of you been the two of you?”

I look at my watch. “About an hour, including transportation.”

Tony/Toni/Toné whistles her appreciation. “That’s four times as long as any of my relationships have lasted.”

“Well, this one might not be setting any new world records,” I find myself saying.

“No!” Tony/Toni/Toné exclaims. “I saw the two of you canoodling. You’re a regular Johnny Castle.”

I have no idea who Johnny Castle is, but I definitely approve of the name.

Tony/Toni/Toné places her palms together and looks at me with a kindness that has no sexuality. “Do you want to talk about it?”

“Yes. No. I don’t know.”

“How long has it been since your last confession?”

I look him right back in the eye and answer.

“Three weeks, two days, and twenty-four—fuck. Three weeks and three days ago, I guess.”

“And what was that confession?”

“‘I love you.’”

“That’s a serious one. And how was it received?”

“Vow of silence. And chastity, until the next guy came along.”

“So what do you have to confess now?”

I don’t know why I’m saying any of this, except that it’s the truth.

“I’m confessing that I don’t know if I’m ready for this.”

“What is ‘this’?”

Being open. Being hurt. Liking. Not being liked. Seeing the flicker on. Seeing the flicker off. Leaping. Falling. Crashing.

“Norah. I don’t know if I’m ready for Norah.”

Tony/Toni/Toné smiles, her teeth the same white as her collar.

“There’s no such thing as ready,” she says. “There’s only willing.”

She reaches over and puts her hand on top of mine. She’s not making a pass at me—she’s trying to pass something on.

“I have all the proof I need,” she says. “The proof is always in the dancing.”

Her glance escapes from me for a second. I follow it and see Norah emerging from the Laydies’ Room.

Tony/Toni/Toné stands up from her chair.

“One more thing?” I ask her.

She raises an eyebrow.

“Who’s Norah’s dad?”

The eyebrow slants higher, so it’s practically perpendicular to her eye.

“You really don’t know?” she asks.

I shake my head.

“That,” she says, “is brilliant.”

Norah isn’t looking over to the table—not looking over to me, I figure. She doesn’t see Tony/Toni/Toné slip away backstage. She doesn’t see me waiting for her.

I decide to check my wallet, to make sure I have enough money to pay for our cocktease cocktails (virginity sullied only by the umbrella’s reputation). But of course when she gets to the table, it looks like I’m itching to pay the bill. I quickly shove my wallet back in my pocket, only it gets tangled on its own chain and I end up spewing Washingtons all over the floor. I swoop them up before she sits down again, which only bumps me slightly lower on the spaz scale. Especially because it’s now I remember we’re being comped, so I didn’t have to take my wallet out in the first place.

She seems a little less rattled now.

“You look refreshed,” I tell her. Then I can’t help myself, adding, “Everything okay? Was it something I said? Or was my Johnny Castle impression just no good?”

She twinkles at Johnny Castle.

Thank you, Tony/Toni/Toné.

“Look,” she says, raising her Tina Colada, “I owe you a kind of explanation. I know you probably think I’m a horrid bitch from the planet Schizophrenia, but I’m honestly not trying to mess with your head. I’m just messing with my own head and I seem to have dragged you along for the ride. I think you’re nice to me and that scares the fuck out of me. Because when a guy’s a jerk or an asshole, it’s easier because you know exactly where you stand. Since trust isn’t an option, you don’t have to get all freaked out about maybe having to trust him. Right now I am thinking about ten things at the same time, and at least four of those things have to do with you. If you want to leave right now and drive home and forget my name and forget what I look like, I wouldn’t blame you in the least. But what I’m trying to say is that if you did that I would be sorry. And not just sorry in an I-apologize-I’m-so-sorry way, but sorry in a sad-that-something-that-could’ve-happened-didn’t way. That’s it. You can go now. Or we could stay for Where’s Fluffy when Toni’s set is over. I think they’re playing a surprise show here tonight.”

Then, finally, she takes a sip of her drink.

A gulp, really.

And I take a deep breath. And I say:

“My jacket looks good on you.”

She puts the glass down. Stares at me. And I think, Fine, I’m a freak.

So be it.

“No,” I go on. “It does. And if I left, you’d probably want to give me my jacket back. And if you did, I wouldn’t be able to put it on, because the whole time I’d be knowing how perfectly it fit on you. How even though the sleeves are ridiculously too long and the collar is all fucked up and for all I know some guy named Salvatore is going to come in this very club in two minutes and say, ‘Hey, that’s my jacket’ and strike up a conversation and sweep you off your feet away from me—even though all those things are true or possibly true, I just can’t ruin the picture of you sitting there across from me wearing my jacket better than I or anyone else ever could. If I don’t owe it to you and I don’t owe it to me, I at least owe it to Salvatore.”

There. I’ve said everything I wanted to say without actually having to use the words please stay.

“Pick up your drink,” Norah tells me.

I do.

She clinks her glass against mine.

“Cheers,” she says.

“Salud,” I reply.

“L’chaim.”

“Top o’ the morning to ya.”

“Sto lat.”

“May the road rise to meet you.”…and we go on like this, until Tony/Toni/Toné appears onstage to purr the filthiest “Do Re Mi” that Manhattan has ever seen.

People look at us every now and then. I guess some of them know Norah, or at least who she is. I’m the mystery. Or maybe I’m just the nobody. I don’t care. If I’m just The Guy With Norah, that’s cool. Right now, that’s all I want to be.

All the other things I am—they’re too complicated. I can feel them lying in wait, planning their return.