Nick & Norah's Infinite Playlist

6. NORAH

Oh fuck. FUCK FUCK FUCK FUUUUUUUUUCK!!!!!!!

I mailed the letter turning down the acceptance to Brown just this morning. And only now, in the middle of this night or is it morning and why does time cease to tick when I see Tal, only now do I get it. Kibbutz in South Africa: BIG FUCKING MISTAKE. Like, HUGE. What was I thinking? So we’ve broken up five times over the last three years. Somehow in the back of my mind was the thought that either (1) Tal and I would work things out next time, and what better place to do that than away from our families and friends in a commune on the flip side of the world, or (2) we wouldn’t work things out yet again, but I’d be the best freakin’ worker that kibbutz had ever seen; and as a bonus, Tal would die of jealousy when I fell madly in love with some beautiful surfer boy from Capetown and left Tal weeding gardens while I bailed on the kibbutz to backpack across the world with my new surfer love who hopefully would have a pretty-looking name like Ndgijo.

Except that would never happen to me. How did such a reputedly smart girl get herself in this predicament, on the brink of adulthood, with no future to grab on to? These last few weeks I’ve been missing Tal as much as I’ve been bemoaning him as the Evil Ex. I’ve held on to the hope of surprising him by showing up in South Africa, yet when he was RIGHT THERE in front of me in Manhattan, what did I do? I froze. Suddenly all my fantasies of reconciliation were gone, suddenly all I could remember was how I was never good enough for him, Jewish enough, political enough, committed enough. Tal wasn’t a lying cheating skank like Tris, but who had I been kidding? He had been, as Caroline likes to remind me, a “controlling fuckface.” So right there, in a fucking Yugo, next to the poor schmuck I introduced myself to by making out with him, I finally had the moment of clarity that Mom and Dad and Caroline have been waiting for me to have since I was fifteen: ENOUGH! Caroline has been right all along. Tal and I are better off living our lives apart from one another.

Oh fuck. Did I just say that aloud? I’m trying to pay attention to the Nick guy but I can’t get Tal’s words in front of the club off repeat playback in my mind: She talks a great game, but when you actually get to the field, you realize it’s fucking empty.

The Tin Woman! Tal called me the fucking Tin Woman! I lost my virginity and my whole youth to him, and that’s his review of me? At least I can be grateful that when Tal took off from South Africa back to Manhattan without telling anybody, he couldn’t possibly have received my letter yet; I only just mailed it. I was so hell-bent on the sentiment, I posted the letter international fucking snail mail when I could have just e-mailed him. I drew smiley faces on the outside of the envelope! Oh, God, I want to be sick right now.

Norah, why are you such a regression bitch? One night last weekend spent holding Caroline’s hair back while she puked in the toilet, feeling lonely and lost—for me, not for Caroline; she had an army of dudes outside the bathroom waiting for her to sober up—and I let the dark side of my mind, the Tal side, win out. As Caroline slept it off later that night in the extra twin bed that’s been in my room for her since kindergarten, I wrote to Tal. Was it all the caffeine I consumed riding the night out with Caroline, or the leftover ganja haze of the reggae club where we’d passed the night? Secondhand smoke may be deadlier than firsthand straight-edge inhale, at least when it comes to impairing my ability to distinguish between lonely longing for the Evil Ex and actually trying to get back together with him.

I hope Tal never finds out the Tin Woman was ready to compromise. I didn’t outright say I wanted to get back together. But I said I was willing to consider it. I told him I could be vegan. I could be more Jewish. I could be kosher fucking vegan! I could learn to care about saving the sea otter and only drinking fair-trade coffee. I could believe that Tal and his brothers in Tel Aviv actually have talent and will become the next big thing, an older, punk-infused, pro-Israel, fuck-Europe, politicized version of Hanson. I would at least consider living with his miserable controlling psychotic mother in Tel Aviv once Tal starts his mandatory Israeli Army service next year, and oh alright fine, she could teach me how to cook the meals he likes and how to hang linens on a line in the sun so his sheets would always be crisp and fresh.

That fucking letter! Shit! I was like Saddam Hussein in the South Park movie, professing to Satan, I can change! I can change!

No. I can’t change. I shouldn’t change.

Caroline may be a lush and a slut but she’s not a complete moron. She begged me not to post the letter, but I wouldn’t listen to her. “What the fuck do you have to change for?” she said. “He should fucking change, uptight bastard. Why are you doing this? If you need some end-of-adolescence protest, couldn’t you like just wreck your dad’s Jaguar on the Palisades Parkway or something? Are you really going to put us through you and Tal, the nightmare couple, one more time? And lose out on Brown for it? Norah, you know you’ll meet someone else, don’t you?” Only I didn’t believe her—until tonight.

What good is Caroline now, passed out in Nick’s friend’s van? I wonder if her cell is turned on. I need to tell her Tal is back! And I fucked up but now I have officially woken the fuck up.

“Norah?” the Playboy Bunny bouncer responds to my pronouncement of oh fuck, which is no small relief because I don’t have a fake ID. When your dad is the well-known head of a major record label, it tends not to be necessary at most clubs in Lower Manhattan.

“Toni?” I say. S/he grabs me in a hug. Toni interned for Dad last year while deciding whether s/he wanted to pursue a career in the music industry; s/he was also my biggest advocate in my futile campaign (thus far) to convince Dad to produce an all-punk band tribute album to the Spice Girls. “Still working on that demo?”

S/he pulls out a CD strapped inside the bushy tail at her back. “Just finished it! Will you pass it on?”

“Sure,” I say, hoping Nick will not interrogate me about who am I, some eighteen-year-old flannel-shirt-wearing B&T girl, to be passing on demos.

“Go right on over to the VIP area,” Toni says. “I’ll make sure your drinks are on the house.”

“I don’t drink,” I remind Toni.

“Oh, live a little,” s/he says, bumping me at the hip. “Miss Straight Edge, bend ’round the corner for once in your life.” Toni turns to Nick. “Illinois? Twenty-three years old? Give me a fucking break. But have fun, kids.”

S/he gives Nick a playful slap on the ass as we walk in and Nick doesn’t react like Tal, who would have pounced back at a drag queen daring to touch him. Instead, Nick laughs and turns back around to return the gesture on Toni’s ass. S/he gives him a butt shimmy dance in return. “I like this one, Norah!” s/he says. “Big improvement. Good egg.”

As opposed to what—nasty, fermented egg, the kind one naturally would assume Tris would pass off?

We sit down at a small table that miraculously vacated of bodies as we approached it. For fuck’s sake, my heart actually flutters for a moment when Nick pulls out the wooden chair for me. Who does that? And why does that simple gesture for a moment make me forget I am REALLY PISSED OFF and MY LIFE IS OVER. I am distracted from my Tal malaise by the nuns making out to “Climb Ev’ry Mountain” on the stage, and find myself chuckling, all of a sudden having a mental image of me and Nick in a threeway with E.T. I feel the crack of a smile on my lips and a non-frigid buzz spreading through my body. In the flashing neon lights, and with the distraction of the stage show, I finally have the opportunity to truly appraise Nick. I admire his vintage gas station attendant jacket with the name “Salvatore” stenciled under the Texaco logo, and I admit to wanting to run my fingers through his mod mess of shag hair. He seems to have an ironic but sweet half-smile stenciled on his face, despite his Tris hangover.

Nick waves thanks in Toni’s direction at the door. He says, “Nice seats your friend hooked us up with. I have to admit, between your drunk girlfriend and your Yugo-insulting ex-boyfriend, it’s a relief to see you have some nice friends.” He winks at me and why won’t that kind smile leave his face because I know if we are ever going to make it through this night/morning/whatever we have going, eventually I am going to have to tell him about Tris and that smile will be gone and I don’t want to be the person responsible for killing it.

I don’t owe him an explanation or anything but I do say, “I’m sorry about Tal.” Only what I’m really sorry about is what I said about Tris, but I can’t find it in myself to speak that apology. Yet.

Nick tells the cocktail bunny who approaches our table to please bring us drinks with little umbrellas in them, we don’t care what, we’re from Jersey, we won’t know the difference anyway. He says to please just make sure the drinks are of the virgin variety.

Then he turns to me and says, “I don’t drink. I’m pretty straight edge. I hope that’s not a problem for you.”

I’m only “pretty” straight edge myself. I mean, I don’t drink or smoke or do drugs, but I’m not over the top about it like some of the straight-edge breed who also don’t eat meat or have sex, either. My straight-edginess is rather like my Judaism: firm, but reform.

I mean to answer Nick with, “It’s not a problem for me. It’s a fucking miracle.” But I think I end up just doing some inane yes/no head-bob of shock.

Whoa! Tris dated a straight-edge boy, and one who says please? How did he survive her without being drunk or stoned, like the rest of them? I’m not sure whether to admire or pity Nick for being a fellow straight edge, but I am stoked, too. I’m on a date with a guy who can have a good time without trying to get wasted? The universe is full of surprises. Respect to Tris.

“Want to tell me about it?” Nick asks once the bunny has hopped away.

“About what?”

“The Ex?”

Is this what happens on dates? You kiss before you’ve met, then talk about why your previous relationship failed? I’m stumped. The only guy I’ve ever been with is Tal, and his idea of a date was watching Schindler’s List in his dorm room at Columbia. Besides the random incident with Nick, I’ve never even truly kissed anyone besides Tal, unless you count Becca Weiner at summer camp when I was thirteen, which I don’t. I have no idea how to do this “date” thing. This must be the reason I am frigid.

I really don’t want to talk about Tal. I want to forget I ever entertained the notion of getting back together with him. I want to forget I’ve thrown away my future and that now I have to come up with a whole new plan. So I tell Nick, “I know how to drive a stick shift.” Because I know Tris can’t.

“So you’re saying you could drive Jessie back to Jersey tonight, assuming she’ll start again?”

“Who’s Jessie?”

“My Yugo.”

“You have a name for your Yugo? Please don’t tell me you’re one of those guys who also names his dick.”

“Unfortunately, I’ve yet to find the perfect name for mine, so it’s in this netherworld of nameless identity right now.” Nick glances down at his crotch, then back at me. “But if you think up a good name, let me know. We’d like something a little exotic, like maybe Julio.”

Frigid can thaw, right?

Nick adds, “Dev wanted to name our band Dickache. What do you think?”

“Sorry, I’m stuck on The Fuck Offs. Catchy. The sales reps at Wal-Mart will love it.”

Our conversation is interrupted by a new act on the stage. Two of Toni’s soul sisters are doing an onstage grind to “Edelweiss,” making the previous nun performers seem like…well, nuns. Nick stands up and offers his hand to me. I have no idea what he wants, but what the hell, I take his hand anyway, and he pulls me up on my feet then presses against me for a slow dance and it’s like we’re in a dream where he’s Christopher Plummer and I’m Julie Andrews and we’re dancing on the marble floor of an Austrian terrace garden. Somehow my head presses Nick’s T-shirt and in this moment I am forgetting about time and Tal because maybe my life isn’t over. Maybe it’s only beginning.

I shiver at that thought and in response, Nick takes his jacket off and places it around my shoulders. I feel safe and not cold and from the vibe the jacket gives off, I also feel fairly confident that the original Texaco Salvatore was a good family man, with perhaps a propensity for wearing his wife’s panties and betting his kids’ college money at the track, but otherwise a solid dude.

I wake up from the dance dream when the audience applauds the end of the stage performance and Nick feels pressed too close against me without the music going. Nick/Salvatore/ Christopher Plummer/lovely dancing-partner man can’t be real. It’s not possible. Better to end this dream before it becomes a nightmare.

“Why are you so fucking nice?” I ask, and shove Nick away. I don’t bother to acknowledge his shocked expression. Score, Norah. I have killed his smile, and I didn’t even have to tell him about Tris. “I gotta pee.”

I run away, toward the bathroom. A few people are waiting at the door but a single finger snap from Toni and the line disperses.

I don’t really have to pee. I need to think. I need to sleep. I need Caroline to be sober so I can talk to her. This morning, my life seemed so clear. Turn down Brown, check. Go into the city to see the band Caroline likes rather than suffer through an evening with Mom and Dad entertaining the dreaded hip-hop people at the house, check. This night was supposed to end like any other night out with Caroline—watch her hook up with a guy, then get her home safely. Check. I’m not that girl who randomly meets a guy one night and has her life change. I wear cords and flannel shirts. I don’t have the killer body like Tris or Caroline. Sometimes I don’t wash my hair for three days and sometimes I don’t floss. What’s this Nick guy doing here with me?

I step inside the bathroom as the previous occupant leaves. I clean the toilet with a paper towel, then sit down on it. A trail of graffiti is written down the wall next to the toilet.

Jimmy gives good head. Climb Ev’ry Mountain, indeed. (Illustrated.)

Happiness serves hardly any other purpose than to make unhappiness possible.—Proust

You’re the one for me, fatty.—Morrissey

I want it that way.—Backstreet Boys (Also illustrated, much more lewd than the Jimmy picture, and finer drawing skills.)

Claire, meet me on Rivington in front of the candy store after the show. You bring the Pez. You know.

Psst—Sitting on the john and wondering when this night will end? Answer: NEVER. Where’s Fluffy, unannounced show, TONIGHT, after the von Trapp massacre, before dawn rises. Be there or be square, ayyyy……

There’s no date written on the wall but the black-marker handwriting looks fresh. I’m curious whose executive decision it was to name the toilet “the john,” anyway? But could this show be tonight? I only fucking worship Where’s Fluffy. They turned down Dad to sign up with Uncle Lou’s indie label. They could make me pogo-stick dance all night. They could make me forget I want to crawl into my bed and hide under the covers, and that I only wasted my youth on Tal, and that I’m on a date with a good guy and I’ve given him more mixed signals than a dyslexic Morse code operator.

Do I dare show my face back at the table to Nick, tell him about Where’s Fluffy? I know he’s a fan. I swiped the last make-up mix he burned for Tris that led off with the Where’s Fluffy track, “Take Me Back, Bitch.” God, he made great playlists for her. Tal’s mixes for me were all Dylan and Yma Sumac crap. Nick could mix Cesaria Evora to Wilco to Ani followed by Rancid, capped off with Patsy Cline blending into a Fugazi finale. Although at some point, if our whatever-it-is-happening-this-night progresses, I’ll have to reeducate Nick on the poor use of Patti Smith and Velvet Underground tracks on lovesick playlists. Fucking hate them. Patti Smith was a poser suck-up, and Lou Reed was just a plain dick.

DICK! Did I really ask Nick if he had a name for his dick?

Maybe Tal called it right—I should have been more grateful for him, because no guy besides Tal would ever put up with me.

Caroline may be passed out in a stranger’s van right now, but I know what she would say to me now: “Tal was NOT right. And go back out there and give this a better shot. You can do this. Bitch, get the fuck back out there.”

I pick up the black Sharpie pen dangling from a string attached to the bathroom mirror and scribble my contribution to the graffiti trail on the wall:

The Cure. For the Ex’s? I’m sorry, Nick. You know. Will you kiss me again?

I splash some cold water on my face at the bathroom sink and take a deep breath. Time to go back out there and make this right. I am brand-new. I can change. Only not for Tal. For me.