But I restrain myself, instead enjoying the flip my belly executes at his touch. I’ll take what I can get, and even that sensation feels good to me. It’s been so damn long.
“Do you want me to take your coat?” he offers.
“Sure,” I say and shrug out of my coat, letting the sleeves fall to his waiting arms. He folds it once, then hands the coat to the host. Matthew waits for me to sit down, then returns to his chair.
Manners rule. I like them.
“Jane Black is late,” I start. “She rushes to the table and issues a standard-order apology, muttering something or other about how hard it is to find a cab in this town. I push aside my copy of James Ellroy’s L.A. Confidential and insist it’s no big deal. I love being delayed by people who have no respect for someone else’s time.”
A nascent smirk forms on his face.
“I just figured that’s how the story would start,” I say playfully. “And then lead into the typical, ‘she orders the veal parmigiana and then asks how many calories are in it’ or something.”
“Wait,” he says. “So you’re saying I’d write a typical story?”
I laugh. “Funny, how that’s the one part you key in on.”
“And are you saying yes, that there is a story?”
I laugh again. “Nice try. But we’re not there yet.”
“One, you don’t have to apologize as I’m rather caught up with Ellroy’s book at moment. I’m fascinated with tales of Los Angeles. And two, I can’t stand those celebrity feature stories that all start the same—so-and-so sat down and wore a white T-shirt and ordered the Perrier. They’re all the same rehashed banality, aren’t they?”
“Absolutely.”
“So thank you for fitting me into your busy schedule and with dinner no less. I’ve never been here before, but I hear it’s great.”
“Me, too. Never been here that is,” I say, then add, “And truthfully, that may be because some of these West Village places are so hard to find.”
“I have to confess,” he says, raising an eyebrow as he reaches into a pocket to take out his smartphone. “I actually had to use the GPS on my phone. The last time I came to the Village—I live on the Upper West Side—I was all turned around trying to figure out how to get to West Twelfth or West Thirteenth or Little West Twelfth.”
“Right? Would someone please explain how West Fourth and West Twelfth can intersect here?”
“I’m not entirely sure it’s possible,” he answers as if I asked a serious question, and I find it completely endearing that he’s playing along so ably. “I suspect it’s a time warp or a black hole of geography or mapmaking.”
“And then there’s those crazy streets like Gansevoort and Horatio. Who even knows where they go?”
“As if anyone can find those bloody streets,” he says, closing out the GPS on his phone with gusto. If I were rating our opening remarks, I’d give us an A for chemistry.
Except this isn’t a date, and he’s not a suitor. He’s a reporter, and I’m getting carried away. “Oh, God, you’re going to report this, aren’t you? Jane Black doesn’t even know where Horatio Street is,” I say in mock terror.
“I could so take down your career in one second if that story leaked out,” he says, wagging a finger playfully. “But I shall restrain myself and I promise not to let our readers know about your little cartographic challenges.”
There it is. The reminder that I need to be cautious. “Wait, this is off the record, right?”
“Ah, the fear everyone has when sitting down with a journalist. But, please don’t worry.” He reaches across the table to clasp my hand in his, and my breath catches. He squeezes my hand reassuringly, and the barest touch from him is dizzying. Maybe because it’s been so long, maybe because it’s him, maybe because I don’t have a clue if he’s gently clasping my hand as a reporter or as the man sitting across from me at an intimate, low-lit restaurant.
But his touch sends shivers up my spine. Good shivers. I ask the universe for him to leave his hand on mine. The universe listens for ten more seconds, and these seconds are the closest contact I’ve had with a straight man in years. “I’m very much looking forward to having dinner and chatting off the record. I should let you know, though, that if I were to report a story in such a hackneyed fashion, I would know immediately if you ordered veal parmigiana that I was dining with an impostor.”
He places his hands in his lap, and I miss them instantly.
“How would you know that?”
“You’re a vegetarian.”
“Yes, but it’s not like I’m wearing a T-shirt that says, ‘Meat is Murder.’”
“That is true. That is very true. But you gave a quote to Vegetarian Times for a story called ‘Nothing with a Face’ that was like a who’s who of all the vegetarians in the arts,” he says, and my heart beats faster at the admission that he knows all these little details about me, that he remembers them and can recall them. But then, he’s simply good at his job. That’s all.
“So do you have a dossier on me or something?”
“Yes, it’s ten inches thick. Every story about you ever written, every story you’re ever referenced in.”
Two years ago he probably wouldn’t have cared about that article, nor would any other critic. But now it’s part of his prep work, as my backstory is being assembled. Just like other parts of my backstory are coming to light, much more scintillating things than “She doesn’t eat animals.”