Nick & Norah's Infinite Playlist

19. NICK

When is a night over? Is it the start of sunrise or the end of it? Is it when you finally go to sleep or simply when you realize that you have to? When the club closes or when everyone leaves? Normally, I keep these kinds of questions to myself. But this time, I ask Norah.

“It’s over when you decide it’s over,” she says. “When you call it a night. The rest is just a matter of where the sun is in the sky. That has nothing to do with us.”

We keep walking down Seventh Avenue, through the large swath of city that is still sleeping through the dawning of the day. Night-shift cabdrivers slow when they see us, then speed up again when they notice the way we’re holding hands, the way we don’t seem to be in any rush to be anywhere but here.

I am exhausted. It’s even too exhausting to keep denying that I’m exhausted, so I let the weight fall on my bones and my thoughts. I am so fucking tired, and most of my energy is being spent on wishing that I wasn’t.

“I love this light,” Norah says. The city tinted as pink in waking as it is in orange and blue when it falls to sleep.

We’re both a mess. Our hair drying out in every which way. My six-in-the-morning shadow. Our disheveled clothes, still looking post-lust no matter how hard we try to shevel them. (Okay, we don’t try all that hard. We’re proud of them.)

“Norah,” I say, “I have something to ask you.”

“Sure,” she says.

“It’s really personal. Is that okay? I mean, you don’t have to tell me if you don’t want to.”

“Don’t worry. If I don’t want to, I won’t.”

“Okay.” I pause for a second, and I can tell she thinks I’m serious, which amuses me to no end. “Here goes. Norah?” I pause again.

“Yes, Nick?”

“Can I…um…”

She’s getting annoyed. “What, Nick?”

“Could you possibly…maybe…tell me your last name?”

Without a beat, she says, “Hilton.”

“No, really.”

“Hyatt?”

“Norah…”

“Marriott? Or how about Olsen? I’m the triplet they never fucking acknowledge.”

“I see a resemblance.”

“Fuck you. It’s Silverberg.”

“Cool.”

“‘Cool,’ as in you know who my father is now?”

The thought hadn’t even occurred to me.

“To be honest,” I say, “even with the last name, I don’t know who he is. I guess I don’t follow that kind of stuff. Is that okay?”

“You have no idea how okay that is,” Norah answers. “Now…I’ve shown you mine, so you show me yours.”

“O’Leary.”

“You’re Irish?”

“Not really, like in a majority way. My grandfather just happened to win the last-name lottery. I’m really Irish-British-French-Belgian-Italian-Slav-Russian-Danish. Basically, the Euro should have my face on it.”

“So you’re a Euro mutt?”

“With the possible exception of Luxembourg.”

“Good to know.”

We angle over to Sixth, then to Broadway.

“And can I get your phone number?” I ask.

Norah pulls her hand out of mine to reach into Salvatore and take out my phone.

“Here,” she says, handing it over. “It’s already programmed in.”

I know it’s totally uncool to do it, but I ask, “Do you want mine?”

“Call me,” she says. And then when I don’t do anything, she adds, “Right now.”

So I open up my phone and check out the directory. I see Norah’s added some commentary of her own—Tris’s number is now labeled That Bitch. Norah’s, however, isn’t under Norah. But when I see Salvatore’s name, I know who I’m calling.

I dial. Her ring tone springs to life.

“Hello?” she answers, not two feet away from me.

“Can I please speak to Salvatore?” I ask.

“I’m afraid he can’t come to the phone right now. Would you like to leave a message?”

I’m looking at Salvatore now, and I’m realizing that I gave him up a long time ago, that in my mind he’s already hers.

“Tell him I hope he likes his new home,” I say.

Norah looks at me. “Are you sure?”

“Yeah, I’m sure.”

“Thanks.”

We both hang up and hold hands again. We walk through Union Square, stepping over the detritus of the Saturday-night revelers. We pass the Virgin Megastore, the Strand, the old Trinity Church. We walk down Astor, past the skate-punks’ cube, over to St. Marks Place, where clubgoers stumble through daylight. Down Second Avenue until we reach Houston. I can tell she’s tired now, too. We are using all of our energy for this walking, for this near-silent twoliness. For the watching of everything. For watching over each other.

When we get to Ludlow, I remember the song I began to write, in an hour that seems like weeks ago now. Can so much really happen in a night? The song was never really over, but now I have the ending—I don’t know how I’ll phrase it, but it will involve our returning, it will take in the strange pink light and the Sunday-morning quiet. Because the song is us, and the song is her, and this time I’m going to use her name. Norah Norah Norah—no rhymes, really. Just truth.

I shouldn’t want the song to end. I always think of each night as a song. Or each moment as a song. But now I’m seeing we don’t live in a single song. We move from song to song, from lyric to lyric, from chord to chord. There is no ending here. It’s an infinite playlist.

I know Norah would love for me to sing her the song, right here on Ludlow Street. But I’ll wait for next time. Because I know there will be a next time. I was looking forward to next time the minute I met her. Throughout the night, I’ve been looking forward to next time, and the time after that, and the time after that. I know this is something.

I can see Jessie sitting safely at the curb, ready to take us home.

“We’re almost there,” Norah says.

I stop us. We turn to each other and kiss again. Here on Ludlow Street. In the new day.

My heartbeat accelerates. I am in the here, in the now. I am also in the future. I am holding her and wanting and knowing and hoping all at once. We are the ones who take this thing called music and line it up with this thing called time. We are the ticking, we are the pulsing, we are underneath every part of this moment. And by making the moment our own, we are rendering it timeless. There is no audience. There are no instruments. There are only bodies and thoughts and murmurs and looks. It’s the concert rush to end all concert rushes, because this is what matters. When the heart races, this is what it’s racing toward.