People We Meet on Vacation

WE TAKE A bus tour of the city. We wear our matching I Heart New York sweatshirts and BeDazzled Big Apple hats. We carry a pair of binoculars and use them to lock onto anyone who bears even a passing resemblance to a celebrity.

So far we’ve spotted Dame Judy Dench, Denzel Washington, and young Jimmy Stewart. Our tour includes ferry passage to the Statue of Liberty, and when we get there, we ask a middle-aged woman to take our picture in front of the base, sun in our eyes and wind in our faces.

She sweetly asks, “Where y’all from?”

“Here,” Alex says at the same time I say, “Ohio.”

Halfway through the tour, we skip out and go to Cafe Lalo instead, determined to sit just where Meg Ryan and Tom Hanks did in You’ve Got Mail. It’s cold out, and the city looks its best for us, springy pink and white blossoms skittering across the streets as we sip our cappuccinos. He’s been here full-time for five months now, since the fall semester ended and he found a long-term substitute position here for the spring one.

I didn’t know regular life could feel like this, like a vacation you don’t have to go home from.

Of course, it’s not always like this. Most weekends, Alex is tied up with working on his own writing or grading papers and planning lessons, and on weekdays, I only see him long enough for a groggy morning kiss (I sometimes fall back to sleep so fast I don’t even remember it happening), and there’s laundry and dirty dishes (which Alex insists we wash immediately after dinner) and taxes and dentist appointments and lost MetroCards.

But there are also discoveries, new parts of the man I love introduced to me daily.

For example, it turns out Alex can’t fall asleep if we’re spooning. He has to be wholly on his side of the bed, me on mine. Until the middle of the night, at which point I wake up overheated with his limbs flung over me and have to shove him off so I can cool down.

It’s incredibly annoying, but the second I’m comfortable again, I find myself smiling in the dark, feeling so unbelievably lucky to sleep every night beside my favorite person in the world.

Even being uncomfortably warm is better with him.

Sometimes we put on music in the kitchen while we’re (he’s) cooking, and we dance. Not a sweet, swaying embrace like we’re in some romantic movie, but ridiculous writhing, twirling until we’re dizzy, laughing until we’re snorting or crying. Sometimes we catch each other on camera and text the video to David and Tham, or Parker and Prince.

My brothers send back their own kitchen dancing videos.

David replies with some variation of Love you freaks or Apparently there’s someone for everyone.

We’re happy, and even when we’re not, it’s so much better than it was without him.

The last stop of our night playing tourist is Times Square. We saved the worst for last, but it’s a rite of passage and Alex insists he wants to go.

“If you can still love me there,” he says, “I’ll know this is real.”

“Alex,” I say, “if I can’t love you at Times Square, then I don’t deserve you in a Used Bookstore.”

He slips his hand through mine as we’re coming out of the subway station. I think it has less to do with affection (public displays of which he’s still not wild about) and more to do with a genuine fear of getting separated in the ridiculous crowd we’re moving toward.

We last in the square, surrounded by flashing lights and street performers painted silver and jostling tourists, for all of three minutes. Just long enough to get some unflattering selfies of us looking overwhelmed. Then we do an about-face and march right back to the train platform.

Back at the apartment—our apartment—Alex kicks off his shoes, then arranges them perfectly on the mat (we have a mat; we are adults) next to mine.

I’ve got an article to finish writing in the morning, my first for my new job. I was dreading telling Swapna I was leaving, but she wasn’t mad. In fact, she hugged me (it felt like being hugged by Beyoncé), and later that night a huge bottle of champagne was delivered to my and Alex’s door.

Congratulations on your column, Poppy, the note read. I’ve always known you were going places. X, Swapna.

The irony of it all is, I won’t be going places anymore, at least not for work. In a lot of other ways, though, my job won’t be all that different—I’ll still be going to restaurants and bars, writing about the new galleries and ice pop stands springing up around New York.

But People You Meet in New York will be different too, more human interest piece than review. I’ll be exploring my own city but through the eyes of the people who love it, spending a day with someone in their favorite new spot, learning what makes it so special.

My first piece is about a new bowling alley in Brooklyn with an old-school feel. Alex went with me to scope the place out, and I knew as soon as I spotted Dolores in the next lane over, personalized gold ball and matching gloves and a halo of frizzy gray hair, that she was someone who could teach me things. A bucket of beer, a long conversation, and a bowling lesson later, and I had everything I needed for the article, but Alex and Dolores and I walked over to the hot dog place down the street anyway, hung out until nearly midnight.

The article’s almost done, just needs a few finishing touches, but those can wait until the morning. I’m wiped out from our long day, and all I want to do is sink onto the couch with Alex.

“It’s good to be home,” he says, looping his arms around my back and pulling me flush to him.

I slip my hands up the back of his shirt and kiss him like I’ve been waiting to all day. “Home,” I say, “is my favorite place.”

“Mine too,” he murmurs, easing me back against the wall.

Next summer, we will get away from the city. We will spend four days tromping around Norway, another four in Sweden. There will be no Icehotel. (He’s a teacher, I’m a writer, and we’re both millennials. There’s no money for that.)

I’ll leave a key for Rachel to water our plants, and after Sweden, we’ll fly straight back to Linfield for the rest of Alex’s summer break.Content rights belong to NôvelDrama.Org.

We’ll stay in Betty’s house while he fixes it up and I sit on the floor, eating Twizzlers and finding new ways to make him blush. We’ll tear down wallpaper and choose new paint colors. We’ll drink diet soda at dinner with his dad and brothers and the nieces and nephew. We’ll sit on the porch with my parents looking out over the wasteland of Wright Family Cars Past. We’ll try on our hometown the same way we’ve been trying on New York together. We’ll see how it fits, where we want to be.

But I already know how I’ll feel.

Wherever he is, that will be my favorite place.

“What?” he asks, the start of a smile tugging at his lips. “Why are you staring?”

“You’re just . . .” I shake my head, searching for any word that could possibly encompass what I’m feeling. “So tall.”

His smile is wide, unfettered, Naked Alex just for me. “I love you too, Poppy Wright.”

Tomorrow we will love each other a little more, and the next day, and the next day.

And even on those days when one or both of us is having a hard time, we’ll be here, where we are completely known, completely accepted, by the person whose every side we love wholeheartedly. I’m here with all the versions of him I’ve met over twelve years of vacations, and even if the point of life isn’t just being happy, right now, I am. Down to the bones.