Excerpted from:
HEIGHTS
by Ryan Lewis Merritt
She sat to my right, legs crossed lightly at her thighs, fingers pulsing a slow, halting beat on her purse. Her silence and her sweet, light perfume were distracting me, but I found nothing to anchor my attention outside the window, my eyes and thoughts skipping off the restless landscape of shops along Eighth. The driver, too, was quiet; the only sounds the muffled music from the passing street and the fleet of other yellow cabs.
I thought how, if I was home in Lancaster, I’d be driving her in my brother’s Buick, tuning the radio to a gentle soundscape of jazz or blues, pointing out my neighborhood diner or the baseball field. I would be active, at least, able to defuse my nerves at sitting next to a girl I knew little about.
The driver signaled a turn and suddenly Anna leaned forward and spoke in her sleepy alto.
“Can we stay on Eighth, please?” she asked.
The driver’s eyes found mine in the rearview mirror.
“That okay, sir?” he asked.
I glanced over at Anna, but she had already turned to look out the window.
“Of course,” I said, and the driver nodded.
“We’re late, darling,” Anna said, exhaling, eyes still facing the window. Her slim right hand lay over her watch as if to hide the evidence.
“Not too much,” I said quietly after a moment. I felt a touch of guilt at tacitly accepting her misplaced, unearned endearment.
“It’s my fault,” she said, finally turning back toward me.
Our eyes met and she searched my face as if trying to recognize me.
“Do you want to just skip the show?” I asked, trying, maybe, to gauge the reaches of her playfulness.
“Not for anything else in the world.”
She returned her gaze to the window and I returned mine to the cab’s meter, which was ticking up toward two dollars. I had taken the subway to the West Village and picked her up at her door, tried a few times to hail a taxi before she pushed me closer to the street and into fuller view of our current driver. Needless to say, this was my first cab ride in New York, and as the fare climbed I began to recalculate the money I had in my pocket and wonder if it was even enough to get back home.
Following the play – a musical that did not disappoint my low expectations – we walked a few blocks to a small café. The streets were restlessly alive with the changeover to night, and in a carryover from the musical I expected the gauntlet of dallying businessmen, liberated secretaries, and truant youngsters to suddenly turn to us en masse and ply their best energies at song and dance.
As I waited for Anna to return from the restroom, running my thumb around the flawed curve of a saucer, I suddenly felt a strange aloneness sitting in our booth in the crowded restaurant. For hours now I had been swimming in a world whose novelty belied my relative proximity to it. The difference tonight was that I was no longer the young man walking by the brightly lit theatre; I was the one entering its hidden exclusiveness. I wasn’t the solitary streetwalker casting wistful glances into cafés and restaurants, but the young, scholarly-looking fellow in a coat and tie before an empty seat and matching mugs of coffee. A story in the telling.
The thought was chased by Anna’s sudden reappearance, and my meditative state evaporated as she drew slowly closer, her short red dress like a light bulb burning alive, brighter and brighter, in the dim room. Never before had I seen her like this, her easy beauty and charm unfolded, the whole point of everything, it seemed. I looked away, feeling completely undeserving of her imminent attention.
“So,” she said, smoothing her dress and dropping down toward the seat.
I felt a flush rise to my face and quickly slid sideways out of the seat and reached my feet just as she was settling into the middle of the leather seat. She looked up with surprise.
“Oh?” she said, her eyes trailing down to my rigid arms and legs and back to my face. “Are we leaving?”
I shook my head quickly and returned to my seat, but her expression stayed fixed in mild confusion.
“Is everything all right?” she asked.
“Yes, of course,” I said, at that moment wishing for an even darker room.
She smiled and continued to stare at me.
“Were you saying something? I’m sorry,” I said and reached down for my cup. Her hands remained invisible below the table.
“Well, I just spoke to my friend, who’s having a bit of a gathering tonight.” She paused as I nodded. “I’m not sure what your plans are, but would you – ”
“Yes.”
“– be interested in extending our date a little longer?”
I nodded again, and then once more as she smiled.
“I’d love to,” I said.
“Lovely,” she said and reached for her purse on the seat. “No point in staying here, then.”
I stood a little more gradually this time, and as she gathered herself and moved to my side, I reached into my pocket and was relieved to find multiple coins. I turned slightly and counted the change and tip and set them on the table between the two cups, one full and one empty.