Nick & Norah's Infinite Playlist

18. NORAH

When did my life get so good? Was it when I agreed with a kiss to be Nick’s five-minute girlfriend, or when I realized frigid was a choice rather than a truth?

This ice room is so very cold.

Nick is so very hot.

His heat—my heat—our heat—almost makes me forget I am still wet from the downpour, seeking refuge in the darkened ice room of a fucking Marriott with the Pepsi sign lit up, and I am without a doubt really into Nick because I am a Coke drinker, I mean I can take the Pepsi Challenge and fucking smell the difference without bothering to distinguish the two tastes in my mouth. Mmmmmm, tastes. His lips taste so good, his moist skin tastes so good, everything about him is just delicious. Now that his wet shirt is off and my face presses right here as my hands stray down there, I realize he does not smell like aromatherapy or cologne, it was probably the air freshener Toni sprayed over everyone at the bathroom back at the club. This Nick, the bare-chested one, the heavy breathing one, the kind one, the sexy as hell one, he smells musky and lovely, bathed in night rain. I can’t get enough of him.

I get it—he’s straight. I believe. Hallelujah! And! Amen! J.C., I owe you one!

I feel like I could drown in this, in him. He’s lit by the machine he’s leaning against, but I have fallen into darkness, not the darkness of the deranged or the depressed, but the darkness of the consumed, where all I see, hear, taste, feel, is the probe of our mouths and hands, the warmth of our bodies pressed against each other, the urgency of his wanting, my wanting. It’s like nothing else exists in the world right now except him, me, touching, exploring, longing, needing, sharing, having. So much for my straight-edge vow, because I am drunk on our ing’s. If Nick’s part of ’em, I want ’em, they’re mine.

He pulls me back up so our lips meet again, and I’m lost all over again, lost inside his mouth, feeling his breath, feeling his heartbeat against my hand pressed on his chest. My hands want to wander all over him, but his lips are sliding so sweetly around my own, my hands can’t focus. His hands focus just fine. He’s definitely a breast instead of thigh man. Only his hands go slow, caressing and teasing instead of Talpillaging (good job on the breast tutorial, Tris), and I can feel my chest straining to high attention, wanting, more more more. Then Nick’s hands move away and I want to murmur, No no no, come back, hands, but my mouth is too busy occupying his. As Nick’s hands fumble and smooth over my back, clearly looking for a bra strap to unclasp, my lips can’t bear to pull away from touching him to tell him, Honey, it’s a front-clasp bra.

My lips go on a downward slope, from kissing his mouth, to his chin, his neck, moving south to his chest. His hands give up on the clasp issue and move on to fingering through my hair, and I wonder how he knows that having my scalp lightly massaged like he’s doing now is just this unbelievable turn-on to me.

I want him so much and I know this should wait but curiosity to test-drive my non-frigidity is going to prevail here, it’s like I can’t help it. My mouth pulls back from his body as I step up on tippy toes to place my mouth against his ear to whisper into it what I want to do to him, and strangely I use the polite words instead of the nasty ones, and he whispers, “Really?” like maybe he’s also not so convinced we should go that far, but his quickened breath tells me he’s curious for some test-driving, too. And I whisper back, “Really,” because this time he did not answer, “Slow.”

My brain officially leaves the ice room, as if to say, I can’t watch. You know better.

I’ve got him in my hands—wow, who knew I was ambidextrous?—and my hands are feeling, feeling, feeling, and I can hear his breathing, and it’s heavy and soft at the same time, like its own feral whisper. His hands trace soft lines across my wet head, encouraging the motion of my hands, and I want him as much as I want it because he and it are the same and I am so greedy, I want everything from him.

“Norah.” It’s so cold in here but hearing him gasp my name, I feel like I am on fire. All those Jackie Collins novels Caroline and I read in seventh grade are totally starting to make sense.

My tongue blazes his trail, moving down toward the motion of my hands but not quite there yet; my accelerated heart rate slows down the pace of my hands. I want this, so much, but I am terrified even as I am willingly lost in it. I’m fine with doing this—no, I’m GREAT with doing this—but scared that I will do it wrong. “Norah,” Nick whispers again, and I hope that maybe with him, there is no wrong way. I hope that he will trust me. My heart is pounding pounding pounding and my mouth wants to go there but my head turns upward first, wanting to make eye contact with Nick, but in the fluorescent light I see his eyes are closed, so I speak instead, and I say, “Tell me. Guide me.” Because I want it to be both our instincts making this happen. And his eyes open for a moment and catch mine and through the machine glow, I see gratitude in his, and in my hands his response is even more affirmative, and okay, here I go.

Why, hello, Julio!

But some motherfucker has turned on the lights in this room and it’s not even like I want to die of embarrassment. I want to die from wanting this to happen and who the hell could be so inconsiderate as to ruin my fucking moment?

An old couple stands at the entrance to the ice room. She is dressed in a quilted robe and cheap slippers and looks just like my great-aunt Hildy in Boca who hates me because she says I have a potty mouth and because one time I made the big fucking mistake of admitting that the brisket my grandma makes is better than Aunt Hildy’s. He is dressed in boxer shorts and a T-shirt and, holy fucking shit, he is wearing those sock suspenders around his calves that I’m pretty goddamn sure are museum fashion artifacts. His face is crumpled and ancient, like he could be E.T.’s great-uncle, and he’s carrying an ice bucket. What the fuck do these geezers need ice for at this hour?

Their gray heads need a moment to process the blue sight.

“Oh,” Great-Aunt Hildy clone finally says.

“Oh, my,” her husband says.

I am imagining how Nick and Norah must look to Aunt Hildy and Uncle E.T. right now, in the Polaroid snapshot of their hopefully near-senile dementia minds. Nick: shirtless, pants still on but zippers and boxers down, his hands pressed against the back of the Pepsi machine. Norah: moist hair disheveled from Nick’s earlier scalp massage, wearing wet pants with the top button unfastened, and also shirtless except for the black lace bra on her bosom, just settled into kneeling position. B-U-S-T-E-D.

I hope Aunt Hildy notices how carefully I folded Salvatore’s jacket. That’s got to count for something.

The silence of the shock feels like an eternity until Nick glances over at Aunt Hildy and says, “Would you be a dear and shut the light off again on your way back out?”

It’s her turn to say “Oh, my” now, but bless her heart, she does flick the light switch back off, but not before shooting me one parting look, and I swear in that last lingering second, I see that she recognizes my hunger because she’s felt it at some point in her life, too, and she winks at me before they’re gone and I feel confident that Auntie and Uncle have truly gotten some bang for their buck on their New York City vacation. Nick and I could become goodwill ambassadors for the city now that the porno shops on 42nd Street are gone. Must make mental note to contact mayor.

Darkness has been returned to us, but the moment, the heat, is over. Because Nick speaks in a normal voice instead of a whisper, and he says, “Maybe we’re not ready for this yet?” His sentiment is serious—and right—yet somehow we’re laughing, too, laughing at the absurdity of the situation, and maybe laughing with relief that the absurdity allowed the situation not to go further than it did.

Aunt Hildy must have sent my brain back into the room when she left it because I am reaching for my shirt and for Salvatore as Nick puts his shirt back on. I can’t believe how grateful I am to have been caught. I want him so very much, but it’s too soon. I have to figure, with this many stops and starts, surely this train will pull out of the station eventually. What’s the big fucking rush?

We’re dressed again except our clothes are still damp and we’re still laughing except we’re also kinda making out against the ice machine and he bumps me in just the wrong way and now ice is pouring from the machine onto the floor, all over us, it’s like a fucking avalanche, and all we can do is laugh harder and run away.

We’re kissing in the hallway again, against the wall.

We’re kissing in the glass elevator again. We ride it up and down, up and down, still kissing. Outside the elevator, time is going on, but inside, it’s stopped for us because we’ve got our own schedule: kissing, giggling, probing, breathing, taking, wanting, hoping. Liking.

I don’t know this Norah, this risk-taker, this thrill-seeker. I am a nice Jewish girl from Englewood Cliffs, New Jersey. I may have a potty mouth, but I do not get caught in illicit sexual encounters in Marriotts, for fuck’s sake. I guess I could be open to a Ritz-Carlton or a Four Seasons, but a Marriott, no fucking way! Yet here I am. And there’s nowhere else I’d rather be. What spell has this boy cast on me?

I don’t know this Norah, but I like her. I’m hoping she’ll hang out awhile, consider permanent asylum.

The elevator door opens on the ground floor and we’re greeted and escorted out by hotel security and I suppress the urge to sit them down for a good honest discussion about our country’s founding principles of civil liberties because that would take away from my time with Nick.

So Nick and I head outside, and we’re holding hands, and still giggling, and still wet from the earlier rain and the sweat of our earlier encounter(s)(s)(s). And we are giddy, because dawn is here, we’re at the center of the world and we’re the center of our own universe, and spring is here, and the air smells wet and clean. God bless Manhattan, you know, because it must be six in the morning on a Sunday yet trash collection trucks are teeming down the street and Times Square workers in their bright-orange uniforms are cleaning up the night’s excesses and not even the smell of fresh spring rain can completely wash away Eau de Times Square Urine/ Trash/Vomit, but somehow this here, this now, it feels perfect.

“Where to?” Nick asks, and I say, “Home.”

We’ve got to find Jessie the Yugo and find our way off this island.

I have so much to do. Caroline to intervene. College to plan. Nick to know. Sexual techniques to Google.

Playlists to be created. I’m already planning the one I will make for Nick after I get some sleep. I will call it “(T)rainy/Dreamy” and it will be all dreamy songs with either the words rain or train in the title because he is so beautiful in the rain and one day I would like to make love to him on a train, just not the Chicago El like that scene in that ’80s movie Risky Business because that was way hot but seemed so unhygienic; no, we’ll take a cross-country train trip with our own cabin berth with proper sheets like in an old black-and-white movie and Nick and I will call each other “darling” and read books aloud to each other at night while the train rolls through the Plains. Off the top of my head, I’m thinking my “(T)rainy/Dreamy” playlist for Nick will include “I Wish It Would Rain” by The Temptations, “Train in Vain (Stand by Me)” by The Clash, “It’s Raining” by Irma Thomas, “Blue Train” by Johnny Cash followed by “Runaway Train” by Rosanne Cash (oh! I’m so clever!), “Come Rain or Come Shine” either by Dinah Washington or the Ray Charles cover (tough call—I’ll decide later), and I will cap the mix off with “Friendship Train” by Gladys Knight & The Pips because that’s what it’s all about in the end, right?

We’re walking down Seventh Avenue and I don’t know if we’re going to the subway or walking all the way back to the Lower East Side or what and I don’t care.

“Nick?” I say.

He lifts my hand he’s holding to his mouth for a quick kiss. Then, “Yeah?” he says.

I tell him, “What just happened there? I have something to tell you.”

He stops walking and he doesn’t drop my hand but his grip loosens a little and I can see in his eyes that he’s thinking, Now she’s going to tell me she has herpes, or worse, She’s going to deny any of this happened at all. I can almost see the beads of worry on his forehead. “What?” he whispers.

I look him back square in the eye. I take a deep breath, solemn, and just let it out. “I’m pregnant. I don’t know if it’s yours or E.T.’s.”

This time I don’t try to hold back my smile. It’s gonna come out whether I like it or not. I choose to like it.

He doesn’t hold his back either. He pulls me to him, tight. He’s laughing, but part of me wants to tell him to stop because that part of me is leaning against his chest and thinking, Shit, this is not funny, because I could seriously fall in love with you.