How They Met and Other Stories

“I’m sorry, we can only refill Starbucks mugs,” she said.

  I looked down to Arabella and saw she was on the verge of an outburst.

  “C’mon,” I said.

  The barista looked offended by this plea—I was violating the Starbucks Code of Customer Behavior. But she would be violating the Starbucks Code of Employee Behavior to tell me to piss off, so we were at a standstill.

  Arabella chimed in with a “Pleeeeeeeeease,” and that’s what did it. Starbucks Boy leaned in, took the cup out of my hand, and said, “No problem.”

  Then he smiled. At me. The kind of smile that feels like there’s a wink attached to it.

  I ordered an iced chai, then paid with my hard-earned (well, unearned parental) dollars. Arabella and I shifted over to the pickup counter, where Starbucks Boy was already waiting with her vanilla milk. Frustratingly, a Starbucks Boy never wears a name tag, so you just have to imagine his name is Dalton or Troy or Dylan. As my Starbucks Boy handed Arabella her drink, I observed that he gave her the same smile he gave me. I realized how stupid I was being, thinking his attentions were anything more than routine. Then, when he handed over my drink and our hands accidentally touched, I forgot that realization entirely.

  Arabella picked out one of the superlong straws to sip her milk with, and I drank the minute’s worth of liquid that had been given to me with an afternoon’s worth of ice cubes. When we were finished, I stole one last glance at Starbucks Boy, who was making some foam. I almost went up and purchased a mini bundt cake just to get another view, then I dismissed myself as too silly for words (this was a full conversation in my head) and ushered Arabella (who’d lost interest in her drink after six carefully spaced sips) outside. I proposed a stop at the Central Park Zoo, and she acted like she was humoring me by saying yes.

  I found myself wanting to impress her, like we were on a date. I rattled off facts about polar bears and penguins, and was excited when she seemed mildly interested. She started asking me the names of each of the animals—not their scientific names, but their proper names, like Freezy or Gertrude. I gave her the answers, making them up as we went along, and it took a good dozen species before Arabella figured out I was kidding.

  “The emu is not named Clifford,” she said. “Clifford is a dog.”

  “Did I say Clifford?” I backtracked. “I meant Gifford. Like Kathie Lee.”

  “Who’s Kathie Lee?”

  “Kathie Lee’s the sea otter. Let’s go see her.”

  I had thought it wouldn’t be any problem for us to get back by two, and because of that I didn’t bother to check the clock on my cell phone. I was shocked when I finally saw that we only had twenty-five minutes to get home.

  “You forgot lunch,” Arabella said as we headed home.

  “You didn’t tell me you were hungry,” I replied, and then immediately felt the way any adult feels when he or she picks an argument with a six-year-old—namely, stupid.

  “I was,” Arabella said, and that was that.

  We got back with three minutes to spare.

  “Don’t worry,” Arabella told me as I made her a pb & j sandwich in the kitchen. “Manolo’s always late.”

  I nodded and asked her who Manolo was.

  “My French tutor,” she replied. Then she asked, “Do you have a boyfriend?”

  I was about to bitch and moan—the usual response—but then I realized who I was talking to. Only in New York (and maybe San Francisco) could a six-year-old have gaydar.

  “How do you know I’m gay?” I asked. I genuinely wanted to know. My wardrobe wasn’t infused with pink or rainbows, and I certainly hadn’t been very flamboyant in her presence. I wondered what my tells were.

  “The way you look at boys,” she said. “You’re gay.”

  The doorbell rang. Arabella made no move to answer it.

  “I’ll get it,” I said. It took me a minute to walk to the door, but two minutes to get the locks open.

  “The top one first and to the left,” the voice on the other side of the door said. “Then the middle one to the right. Then the bottom one, twice around to the left. Now turn the knob.”

  When I finally got it open, I found a guy a few years older than me, wearing a winter sweater on a summer day. He had Harry Potter glasses and a Beatrix Potter body.

  “Bonjour,” he said.

  “’Allo,” I said, trying to sound Cockney but ending up sounding Klingon.

  “You must be Astrid’s successor,” he continued. “I’m charmed to meet you.”

  “And you must be Manolo,” I said. “Or do you prefer Manny?”

  At that last word, he shuddered.

  “Manolo,” he said. “Is la fille ready?”

  “She’s in le kitchen.”

  “Can you tell her to meet me in the study?”

  “My pleasure.”

  I watched him stroll off without another look in my direction, then poked my head into the kitchen.

  “Your Frenchman’s here,” I said. “I’m going to head home.”

  Arabella put her sandwich down and said, “That’s fine. I won’t tell Mom about lunch as long as you remember tomorrow.”

  I told her she had a deal.

  The next day was much the same, only I was wearing better clothes. I had a suspicion that Arabella was a daily-ritual kind of girl, and if I was going to see Starbucks Boy again, it wasn’t going to be in khakis and a button-down.

  If Elise or Arabella noticed my more casual attire, neither mentioned it. Instead Elise mentioned that Ivan—the math tutor—was coming at three.

  Figuring it might mean extra money—and also figuring I had more than a fair grasp of first-grade math—I told Elise, “If you want, I could tutor Arabella. You know, stay later and do it.”

  Elise stared down her nose at me. She had to angle her head to do it.

  “I’m sure you’re very intelligent, but we prefer Arabella’s tutors to have graduated college.”

  “Ivy league?” I asked, tongue in cheek.

  “Preferred, but not essential,” Elise replied, tongue nowhere near cheek. “We had a lovely girl from Smith, but she went away to India with her new lover.”

  I didn’t think it would win me the argument to point out that I wasn’t going to be running off with any lovers anytime soon. I made a mental note to teach Arabella some really stupid knock-knock jokes as retribution.

  As I’d predicted, we followed the same morning routine: reading in Arabella’s room until ten (once again, I didn’t bring my own book, but this time it was deliberate—I enjoyed reading hers), then a stroll down to Starbucks. I kept looking at my reflection in windows as we walked there, checking to see if my hair was flat or if my shirt was billowing the wrong way. Arabella was telling me a story about a girl in her kindergarten class who had eaten a crayon and said it tasted like chicken. I tried to follow.

  All of my prayers and fears were answered, because Starbucks Boy was working the register when we walked in. There were two people in front of us, and I obsessively paid attention to the way he talked to them—genial, but nothing special. When we got to the front of the line, he smiled a little wider (I was sure of it) and said, without missing a beat, “One iced chai and one vanilla mocha decaf latte, hold the mocha, in a purple cup, right?”

  Was I dealing with some kind of Starbucks Savant, or had he thought my order yesterday was worth remembering? Melodramatic as it may sound (and it certainly felt melodramatic), I considered that my entire romantic future might hinge on the answer to that question.

  The trouble with flirting with someone at a cash register is that your time together is bound to be fleeting. I could hear the people behind me shuffling and preparing to grumble as I fumbled through my wallet for correct change (saving my singles for the tip jar, where they’d be more noticeable). Starbucks Boy conveyed my order and Arabella’s cup to the worker b’s behind him, then looked at my wallet and said, “It’s cool you have a change pocket. I need one of those in my wallet. I hate loose change.”

/>   If there was something to say next that would parlay our conversation from reportage to repartee, I couldn’t figure it out. So instead of something inspiringly witty, I said, “I got it at H&M. I like it a lot.”

  “Homosexual and Metrosexual,” Starbucks Boy replied. Then, as I thought WHA?!, he added, “H&M. I know it stands for something Swedish, but really it should be Homosexual & Metrosexual.”

  “Yeah,” I said. “Mmm-hmm.”

  “It’s a cool wallet.”

  “Thanks.”

  Because I’d paid in exact change, there wasn’t anything for him to give me back except the receipt. And once he handed that over, I couldn’t continue to hold up the line. I didn’t think the woman behind me would understand if I turned to her and said, “I just need another moment—I’m admiring his eyes.” Or maybe she would, and she’d get further with him than I could.

  Homosexual or metrosexual? Or just a fan of mass-produced Swedish fashion?

  I hadn’t even realized that Arabella had disappeared from my side, which I imagined wasn’t the best babysitter behavior on my part. Luckily she was only a few steps away, at the pickup counter.

  “He’s nice,” she observed. I restrained myself from grabbing her by the shoulders and asking, What else did you notice? Do you think he’s into guys? And into me, specifically? I wished I were back home, where I could send my girl posse in to suss him out.

  That afternoon, after I’d abandoned Arabella to Ivan (who looked like the love child of Lenin and Stalin), I found myself ambling by the Starbucks again. I debated whether or not to go in, to see if Starbucks Boy’s shift had ended. Then I started to feel like I was exhibiting Typical Stalker Behavior and decided to stalk wallets at H&M instead.

  I knew I was getting perilously close to opening up my History of Stupid Things Done in the Name of Crushes, but the insidious thing about the History was that I always felt each new blank page had the potential to transform it into a different book. One successful gesture, one successful relationship would suddenly turn it into a History of Stupid Things Done in the Name of Crushes That Were All Redeemed in the End. If on page 13 I wrote Justin Timberlake’s initials with mine in a heart on my sneakers, only to throw them out the next day when Laura Duke teased me for it, or if on page 98 I set up base camp outside Roger Lin’s locker just to see if he’d notice me there, or if on page 154 I entered a milkshake-drinking contest to be able to stand next to Mark Tamlin for fifteen minutes, only to have him puke vanilla chum onto my Skechers…well, somehow I felt these pages didn’t bear consideration as I headed to page 239 and bought a ten-dollar H&M wallet for a boy because it was the only thing in the world I knew for sure he liked, including me. I didn’t buy him the same exact wallet—I made his green to my blue—and I didn’t actually believe I’d ever give it to him. But at least it provided me with the illusion of doing something proactive.

  That night, Aunt Celia asked me how it was going with Arabella. We were at a trattoria down the street from her apartment, her concession for never cooking me dinner.

  “Fine,” I said.

  Aunt Celia swirled the wine in her glass for a second before drinking it. “She’s a very talented girl…or so Elise tells me.”

  “She’s very smart,” I agreed.

  Aunt Celia nodded. “Good.” Then she speared an asparagus and we remained in silence until she released her next fleeting criticism.

  Pretty much the whole time, I was thinking of Starbucks Boy.

  The next morning, I couldn’t stop myself from being impatient. Arabella also seemed to be pushing the clock to go faster. Instead of spending time on each book, she sped through them, scowling at the illustrated kittens and puppies as if it were their fault that time couldn’t move as fast as she turned the pages.

  Finally, a little before ten o’clock, she looked at me thoughtfully and said, “Let’s go now.”

  I had spent about a half hour deciding which T-shirt to wear, which was a sure sign of a crush if ever there was one. I was also carrying two wallets—an empty one in my left pocket, an only-marginally-more-full one in my right.

  I didn’t even accept the possibility that he might not be there when we arrived. I knew that if I entered the Starbucks and didn’t see him, I would impale myself on the nearest coffee stirrer.

  My heart missed about a thousand beats when we walked in and discovered the surly girly behind the counter. But then Starbucks Boy emerged from the back room, a stack of cups piled high in his hands. Gently he settled them down next to the mocha machines. I felt all the nervous static in my heart empty into my bloodstream.

  As he straightened the cups into neat rows, he looked up and saw me. There was instant recognition, and another one of those smiles. As Arabella and I moved to the front of the line, he relieved his co-worker at the cash register.

  “The usual?” he asked.

  “Thanks,” I said, handing over Arabella’s purple cup.

  Then he went back and made them himself. The glum girl returned to the cash register as if it had all been planned.

  I thought about leaving the H&M wallet in the tip jar. Then I thought about striking up a conversation and handing it to him. Then I thought about how ridiculous everything was, and all my resolve dissolved. When I picked up Arabella’s milk and my chai, my fingers again briefly touched his. But it was just a hand-off, not a hands-on.

  “Thanks,” I said again.

  “My pleasure,” he replied. And then we stood there for a second, before I felt goofy and turned away to get a table.

  Arabella didn’t seem happy with me.

  “He’s really nice,” she said once more, this time between sips.

  “He sure is,” I agreed, perhaps too enthusiastically.

  After about four more sips, Arabella announced she had to go to the girls’ room.

  I looked at the restroom door and saw I’d need to get the key.

  “Are you sure you can’t wait until we get home?” I asked.

  “I need to go now.”

  “Okay, okay,” I mumbled. Then I went back up to the counter. Of course, Starbucks Boy was the one who came to my aid.

  “The bathroom key?” I said. He reached over and gave me a key with a plank the size of a gym teacher’s clipboard attached.

  I felt silly, so I told him, “It’s not for me.”

  He smiled and said, “It would be okay if it was.”

  Now I felt truly foolish, and knew there was no transition in the universe that could take me to “Hey, I have a wallet for you!” So I took the plank-key and led Arabella to the bathroom.

  “Give me the key,” she said.

  I handed it over, and she locked herself in the bathroom. I decided to guard the door, just in case.

  Minutes passed. I finished my chai and threw out the cup. A line started to form for the restroom.

  “You okay in there?” I asked through the door.

  “It’s coming out!” Arabella called back.

  More minutes passed.

  “How’re you doing?”

  “Good.”

  The line grew longer.

  I didn’t hear any activity inside, and felt like a perv for listening.

  The people in the line were getting grumpy. One lady went and got Starbucks Boy.

  “How’s it going?” he asked.

  “Great,” I said. “I’m sure she’ll just be another second.”

  Up close, I could not only see his dimples, but also the light stubble on his chin. I so wanted to touch it.

  “Arabella?” I called into the bathroom.

  “Almost empty!” she shouted back.

  Then, even louder, “Oh! There’s another!”

  Starbucks Boy chuckled.

  “How old’s your sister?” he asked.

  “Oh, she’s not my sister.”

  “She’s not?”

  “No. I guess I’m…uh…babysitting.”

  “I’M HALF EMPTY NOW!” Arabella called out.

  Deadpan, as if
he hadn’t heard it loud and clear, I told him, “She’s half empty now.”

  People were leaving the line, giving up. The lady who’d complained started to complain some more, saying there needed to be a time limit for restrooms, and minors should never, ever be let in on their own….

  Starbucks Boy turned on all the charm, and told her there was a bathroom in the Barnes & Noble two blocks away. She only huffed some more, said something about writing Bill Gates to complain, then stomped away.

  And it was at that moment—that glorious moment—that the saints went marching in. Because it was at that moment—that wonderful moment—that Starbucks Boy leaned over to me and said, “God, my last boyfriend was just like that.”

  The tell.

  “That must have been fun,” I said, my heart break-dancing.

  “A blast,” he said.

  Then he looked down at the door and asked, “Hey, where’s the key?”

  “Um…in there…with her.”

  Starbucks Boy seemed to be torn between amusement and concern. “You know, there isn’t another key,” he told me.

  “No,” I said, “I didn’t know that.” Then I knocked on the door and said Arabella’s name again.

  “Almost empty!” she called.

  Starbucks Boy and I hovered there awkwardly. I could sense he was about to say he needed to get back behind the counter, and I didn’t want that to happen. Somehow it made it easier to talk to him when I could see his shoes.

  “I’m Gabriel,” I said.

  He smiled. “I’m Justin.”

  Justin.

  “Three-quarters empty!” Arabella announced.

  “It’s nice to meet you,” I said.

  “It’s nice to meet you, too.”

  “I have to wipe now!”

  “Okay, Arabella!”

  “Is that really her name?”

  “Yup.”

  “I can hear you!”

  “Do you live around here?” Starbucks Boy—Justin—asked.

  “Yeah,” I said. Then I added, “For the summer.”

  “Cool.”

  Yes yes yes yes yes.

  Arabella had fallen silent.

  Please may this not be a part of the History…

  “So, Justin…”