Chapter 3: A Date at 7:30
Isabella meets Raymond for a drink and gets a kickstart on her life in New York City.
Henrietta Hudson was a thirty-five-minute walk from her new apartment in the East Village. She’d never admit it, but while she curled her hair and looked through her suitcase, she repeated the street names like a child playing dress-up. “I just have to pop over to the West Village from my apartment in the East Village.” “Yeah, I’ll probably walk through Washington Square Park.” “Might take a taxi back if it’s too cold, but we walk in New York.”
She did end up walking through Washington Square Park, bent down and bracing against the freezing breeze.
Despite the low temperatures, the park was full. Two people held up mics to passersby. There was a man selling art by the fountain. A large group took photos of the arch in front of the fountain.
Isabella dodged them and turned her music up. Her skin ached. There wasn’t wind like this back in Oregon, and it almost never got this cold. God, she couldn’t believe the way it cut through her layers of clothes.
Henrietta’s was a reprieve, warm inside and half-full. It was a small bar, and Raymond sat in one of the only seats by the window.
Isabella found him in a second. Two steps forward, and he leapt at the sight of her.
They hugged, squeezing each other, dancing back and forth. Normally reserved, Isabella squealed and Raymond said, “Bella baby, you’re here!”
“Barely fucking made it,” she said. “My flight was canceled, then the one I rebooked was grounded because of engine failure. I could have sworn it was a sign.”
Raymond laughed. “I would have gone all the way out there and gotten your ass if you tried to delay your move any longer.” He went up with her to the bar to order a gin and tonic, rambling about how his boyfriend, Kai, couldn’t come to see Isabella because of his new job.
They’d met in college, going on one date before Raymond fell asleep in Kai’s bed, wrapped in his arms, and then never separated again. It was Raymond’s idea to come to New York. He had to, if he wanted to work in books—at least the big corporate career he had, anyway. And taboo or not, he did want that job. The flashy one with the name recognition, the tower on The Avenue of Americas. Kai hadn’t put up a fight, he’d just… wandered along.
But it had been years since Isabella had seen Kai, not since college, and Raymond was tight-lipped about him. Maybe the only thing he could ever keep to himself.
The bartender turned to Isabella to say that her drink would be ready soon. She wore a spiked vest with nothing underneath it. Glimpses of her skin flashed while she poured the drinks and danced to the music behind the bar. She winked at Isabella.
“This fucking position is killing us, I swear.” Raymond always spoke in hyperbole. “I’ll see him later, of course, but I wanted you to get to hang out with him…”
Isabella held the gaze of the bartender.
“I’m sure I’ll see him soon. Promise me.” In the last few months of college, Raymond and Isabella had drifted. Not because they had issues, just because she got bogged down in schoolwork and had to pick up an extra shift at the grocery store. Raymond fell in love, and that took up all his free time. At graduation, she realized it was one of the first times they’d actually seen each other that semester. As a result, she never really got to know Kai outside of FaceTimes. Somehow, nearly three years had passed since then.
It made her feel so old so quickly, standing here with her best friend in a bar, being the adult she’d always dreamed she’d turn into. Holding the smoky gaze of a beautiful woman—
“Hey, eyes down.” Raymond grabbed Isabella’s chin and spun her to face him. “I know she’s hot. But trust me, everyone else at the bar is also getting that sexy gaze. You’ll end up tipping 50% at every bar in the city if you keep thinking they’re in love with you. I did it for ages before I realized.”
Isabella rolled her eyes as she paid and took her gin and tonic, but Raymond continued. “You’re our little country bumpkin, we gotta adjust you to big city culture.”
“No fucking way you just used the term ‘country bumpkin’ like you aren’t from Oklahoma.”
“I’m from Oklahoma City. That’s a full city. Don’t be Midwest-phobic.”
Isabella threw her head back and laughed, deep in her chest. Her parents’ house had been such a sterile, silent place. Such an empty place. It had been so long since she’d felt this joy in her lungs.
Raymond sat down across from a woman who was leaning back, surveying the dancefloor, legs open wide. “Isabella, this is Speedy. She’s one of my closest friends in the city, I figured you’d want to meet her.”
Isabella went to shake her hand, but Speedy stood up. “The fuck you think this is, your graduation ceremony? Give me a damn hug!” and she pulled Isabella into a long embrace. She hadn’t been dating much while living with her parents—the logistics were too complicated, the dating pool reduced to people she went to high school with—so she leaned into Speedy’s touch. Savored in the feeling of another woman’s skin against hers.
They pulled apart and sat down.
“Wait, so tell me everything about leaving. Was it weird?”
“Ray, you’ll never believe it.”
“You cried?” To Speedy, he said: “I’ve known her for six years and I’ve never seen her cry. She says she doesn’t, but I think she’s lying.”
“I cried,” Isabella confirmed. “But it’s even weirder.”
Raymond leaned back, raised a hand to his mouth.
“My mom cried.”
He gasped.
“I couldn’t believe it. She hugged me, sobbing. And I was going to be late for my Uber because… well it was so weird neither of us knew what to do after. So she drove me to the airport.”
“Is she bordering on being maternal?”
“Don’t tell her that, she’ll be sick,” Isabella said. Raymond laughed.
“So, New York,” Speedy said. Her voice was husky, low like her hooded eyes. “What’s your plan? What do you want?”
The truth was, walking through the city, she’d felt a growing hunger swallowing her whole. Isabella wanted to fuck every woman she passed, she wanted to drink at every bar, eat at every restaurant, she wanted her picture on the cover of a magazine, she wanted to wear outfits that turned heads. She wanted to grab all the world had to offer and run, full speed ahead. She’d been frozen for so long, but she could feel it thawing.
She met Speedy’s eye with a grin. “I’m going run the best fucking business out there.”
“Business for what?”
“Renewable energy consultancy. New York is working on it, but their progress is slow. The firms that do exist… engineering, tech, energy, they’re such a boy’s club. There are so many people they’re not reaching because of their demographics. I’m walking in and going straight to the businesses and politicians and investors that these guys don’t even think about.”
Speedy laughed. “Damn girl. All that?”
“That’s the dream one day. For now, I’ll work at business firms and get as many connections as I can.”
It sounded big, burgeoning, promising, but she felt behind. She’d stayed at home and worked at a local coffee shop for the past two years while many of her friends started their careers. Raymond had been a business manager in book publishing since he’d first moved here twenty months ago. He’d been promoted already, often lamented late nights at the office and told her about happy hour drinks with his coworkers. A whole world she was unfamiliar with.
“Where are you living?” Speedy asked.
“East village,” Raymond answered for her, pinching his nose.
“Oh come on, what’s wrong with it? I love my apartment.” She hadn’t been there long enough to really have an opinion on it, all she knew was it was bigger than she’d expected.
“You’re far as fuck from the rest of us. You’re gonna be coming to Brooklyn so often you’ll wish you’d moved there.”
“Raymond!” Speedy said at once. She’d been calm and sultry, but it fell away in an instant. “It’s seven o’clock.”
“What’s at seven o’clock?” Isabella asked.
Raymond smiled. “Nothing. But your date is at 7:30.”
“My date?”
“Your date!” Speedy said.
“You have a date tonight. And you should chug that drink because it’s uptown.”
“What?” Though she had no idea what they were talking about, Isabella took a massive sip of her gin and tonic anyway.
“We set you up!” Raymond said. “Karter Roman. They’re a good friend of ours. They organize events for Incandescence. It’s this charity organization that funds healthcare for unhoused people. Became a sort of flashy name decades ago because they spearheaded a lot of research during the beginning of the AIDS crisis. Anyway, Karter has to go to a gala tonight and had no date. We knew you’d be fresh into town and volunteered you!”
“You what?” She’d never gone on a blind date, barely even met up with people from dating aps. She had a daily schedule in her phone that included the exact minutes she’d eat her meals and do her skin care. She couldn’t go rogue and meet this new person with only thirty minutes warning.
“It’ll be fun!” Speedy said.
“But look at what I’m wearing!” She’d barely done her makeup, she was in patched black jeans and a leather jacket with a bra underneath. Her hair was styled like she was out to a riot night, not to a gala.
“Oh, it’s all queer people and dress code was casual,” Raymond said. “I wouldn’t fuck you over like that.”
“What if I’m not into Karter?”
“Isn’t that a risk on any date?” Speedy asked at the same time Raymond said, “Babe, trust me: you’ll be into them. Everybody is.”
Speedy laughed. “Shit, I spent the whole first year I knew them trying to get in their pants.” She threw her hands in the air. “No dice.”
Isabella chewed on her lip. “This is stupid. I hate this shit. I wasn’t ready to go on a date, and I’m really tired from my flight, and there’s some work I should really—"
“You’re in New York!” Speedy said. “Let loose. Shit’s crazy here. So just lean in.”
Raymond said, “We all know you have a shitty dating history. I figured I’d make sure your first one in New York was good.” He’d never approved of her past girlfriends. She disagreed while in the relationship, but in the end, he’d always turned out right.
“Where is it?”
Raymond pulled out his phone and dramatically tapped the screen. “I just texted you the location. Just take the E uptown. It’ll take you almost thirty minutes so…” He tapped his wrist and shrugged.
“Raymond, what the fuck! I can’t do this!”
“Why not?” Speedy leaned back as if offended.
Isabella stammered, but she couldn’t come up with a reason. She was dressed appropriately, she had nothing to do tomorrow, she hadn’t had a drink or had sex in over a year. This was everything she needed.
Her eyes flitted between them. They were both laughing.
Isabella shook her head. Downed her gin and tonic. To hell with the straw, she drank straight from the glass and heaved after the long drag. Then burst out laughing.
“What the fuck is happening?”
“Better get going,” Raymond said, and Isabella said, “Fine! But never again.”
She stood up as if carried by the air. The bar had filled up in the time they’d sat there, packed nearly wall to wall now. Wednesday night and so much was happening. So many people around, so much to do. Isabella could feel the life, running through her muscles, deep into her bones.
She couldn’t believe herself. She saluted Speedy and Raymond, pulled up directions on her phone, and walked out of Henrietta’s.