Eve & Bob: Date #4b
By Eve Sturges
I feel like an orphan in Grand Central Station. That isn’t meant to be a metaphor; I really am in Grand Central Station. And I felt like how an orphan must feel, waiting for those special people to take them home, love them and care for them, feed them. Buy them a puppy.
I am in New York, visiting my brother. Lily is away with her dad, and my brother is moving out of Manhattan soon, and I need a vacation, so here I am. And Bob told me to meet him at the big clock in Grand Central Station.
And if I don’t feel like an orphan, I feel like a young woman at the end of World War II, waiting for a soldier to find her. They’ve keep in touch since 1939, writing letters…hers scented with rose water, his with the blood of commie bastards. And he can’t remember what she looks like (head injury in ’43), but she promises to wear a red rose in the lapel of her coat…
I think that’s in “Chicken Soup for the Soul”.
Bob does know what I look like. He should; we work together. He’s in New York at the same time, and I bugged him to hang out with me. In all fairness, it isn’t really a date, but I am not discreet about a stupid crush on him, and he did tell me to meet him in Grand Central Station, which is—by default—romantic.
I don’t even know why I have a crush on him, but it probably has something to do with the fact that A) he is not an engineer, and B) It Would Never Happen, which is so very safe; I let my feelings do what they want, which generally means I get to act like a total dweeb around him. And he is nice. And funny. And loud. And he plays golf.
And he arrives, finally. And he knows everything about Grand Central Station, including:
• Over 500,000 people traverse its corridors each day
• 551 train trips originate there every day!
• It serves over 10,000 meals a day
He takes me to a swanky lounge with lush red carpets and dark wood and leather chairs. We are promptly kicked out because Bob is wearing shorts. Dork.
So we feast on oysters in the basement of the station, and drink sauvignon blanc served in plastic cups. I do what I do best: talk about myself. I talk about what one can talk about when It Would Never Happen, which is tell him about “eve and bob,” and dating, and my broken heart, and my life, and my broken heart, and my determination to figure all this out, including my broken heart. Also, after the second glass of wine, I might have also told him about the 3-legged dog I had as a child. Her name was Trilogy.
It seems like a good time to go over to The Library Hotel, and have more white wine on the rooftop bar, which is swanky, but not so swanky that Bob can’t wear shorts. The poor cocktail girls are wearing tight black dresses with high heels. We pity them. And admire them; they are all pretty hot.
And then there is a thunder storm, which is fairly fantastic from a rooftop bar.
And then we have finished our drinks, and I am due to meet my brother and his girlfriend on 47nd Street to see a show. It was a David Mamet, and not very good.
Bob walks me to 42nd Street. I say thanks, he says, “Hey no prob!’ and we slap high-fives. It’s all extremely romantic. You could cut the sexual tension with a knife. Not really. But anyway. There wasn’t one moment that wasn’t super fun: I love New York, and oysters, and roof top thunder storms, and new friends, and I haven’t been kicked out of a bar since my days in the punk scene.