How to Fall a Little in Love

How to Fall a Little in Love

Just after 10 pm on New Year’s Eve, the host claps his hands. “Gather around, all ye partygoers,” he says. “It’s time to divulge your resolutions.” One of Jake’s eyelids droops. It’s difficult to tell whether this is blaze, booze or his normal state. Everyone obeys and forms a circle around him. He’s picked up his drink and now stands in the aren’t-I-casual posture -- one hand in the pocket of his pants the other holding champagne in one of those trendy, stemless glasses. “I’ll go first,” he says, reinforcing that he’s a take-charge type of guy. “My resolution is to always leave one potato chip.” He raises his glass in the air when everyone laughs. “No, seriously folks, my aim is to knit more sweaters for freezing trees.”

The twenty-some people who have come to celebrate at Jake’s co-op break into laughter again. “How about you?” Jake says, pointing to a woman who’s shoving a piece of chocolate cake in her mouth. “What’s your pledge, Sophie?”

She sprays crumbs when she tries to speak and the partiers utter a collective guffaw. “Wash my bras more often,” she manages to sputter.

“Make everything bigger,” a male voice shouts.

“Try sea urchin,” someone else says.

 Deena is about to contribute when someone beats her to it. “Watch every episode of the Power Rangers. All thirteen seasons,” he says.

‘Good one, Mac,” Jake says. He shoots his friend a thumbs up.

“What were you about to say, Deena?” Jake asks.

“The same thing,” Deena answers. “I was about to say the very same thing.” A woman standing beside Deena rolls her eyes and makes a scoffing click with her tongue. Her heels are so high they pitch her body forward. She looks as if a single finger on her back might cause her to fall on her face. Deena is tempted. She turns her head to look at the man who’s shared his resolution. He’s already singled her out. A little spark jumps from him to her. When it lands, it catches heat and makes her shimmer. She feels thoroughly kissed without knowing she wanted to be.

Deena leaves the group and heads to the kitchen. She knows Mac will follow her there. He does. Two caterers look up from arranging green pea dip on toast triangles. One looks guilty. His mouth is full. Deena pulls two perfect strawberries from the tops of custard tarts. She offers one to Mac. Instead of taking it from her hand, he opens his mouth. She cocks her arm over her head and hurls the fruit. While it misses the mark, it does graze Mac’s cheek before landing with a splat on the refrigerator behind him. The berry leaves a slug trace on the appliance in its descent to the floor. “Do you think it’s possible to fall in love with someone in under sixty seconds?” Deena asks.

“Definitely,” Mac answers.

Jake bursts in. “The guests have empty glasses,” he complains to the waiters. “Get out there with the champagne.” He reaches with his thumb to remove a dab of red from the side of Mac’s face. “I didn’t know you two knew each other,” he says.

“We don’t,” Deena and Mac say at the same time.

“We met less than a minute ago, at your resolutions pow wow,” Deena adds.

“Oh, I see,” Jake looks between the pair. There is something squeamishly intimate about the bruised strawberry on the floor behind them. He stares at his loafers. He isn’t wearing socks. “Is there a reason you’re in my kitchen together? Are you hungry or something? There’s plenty of food in the living room.”

“I was just explaining to Mac that I would be willing to drink his bath water.”

“And I’ve just told Deena that if she plays her cards right, I might show her my collection of Larry Bird baseball cards.”

Out of the corner of one eye, Deena sees one of the caterers point his index finger at his temple and move it in a circle. He mouths something that looks like “cuckoo” to his colleague. “We’ve bonded over cake,” Deena tells Jake. “I told Mac that life is what you bake it. He agreed.” He answered with, “A party without a cake is just a meeting.” She looks at Mac and raises her eyebrows. He nods.

“Well, I’ll leave you two to it,” Jake says. He hitches his thumb over his shoulder and starts backing out of the room. “Get back to my guests.” He doesn’t understand why he feels as if he’s exposed a secret and ruined the surprise forever. It’s his kitchen after all.

Mac takes her by the hand and leads her down a hallway. Pushes open the first door he passes. It’s a very green loo. There’s a framed painting above the toilet of Hunting Scene with Foxhounds. It might or might not be the John Frederick Herring original. Mac pulls the door shut without turning off the light. The next room must be Jake’s. It’s like an upstairs man cave with gaming equipment everywhere, including a full-size foosball table in one corner under a window and enough joysticks on a beer-keg coffee table to fly a jumbo jet. There’s even a stuffed deer head above the bed. The room smells vaguely of bacon.

“Let’s sit like this,” Mac says. He perches on the long side of the bed and pats the space beside him.

“I should warn you now,” Deena takes a seat beside him, “I always carry a knife in my purse, just in case we’re having cake.” She’s actually thinnish, but she doesn’t like the way her thighs look, spread out on the bed like this. She’s wearing a sequined skirt that hikes up short when she sits. She tugs at the sides of it and shifts her weight.

Mac sees her do this. “I’m not trying to impress you or anything, but seriously I am Claude Rains incarnate. The original Invisible Man.”

“I see,” Deena says. The two of them start off with giggles that escalate into near hysteria.

“I see,” Mac says with tears in his eyes.

“I see,” Deena echoes. Since he doesn’t put his hand on her leg, she puts her hand on his. “The resemblance,” she says, still recovering from her fit of laughter, “is astonishing.”

In the comfortable silence that follows, they hear the swing and syncopation of jazz music from the living room. Muffled voices. Deena hopes the woman who snickered at her earlier gets cramps in her calves from her shoes and has to leave the party before the countdown. Someone retches in the bathroom next door and leaves without flushing the toilet. Mac taps the toe of his shoe against the toe of her shoe in time to the music. She taps back. Deena realizes she no longer has her hand on Mac’s thigh. She can’t remember when she removed it. “Don’t ask me about my scars or where’s my favorite place to nap.” Deena says.

“I’ll only promise if you agree to not to ask about the worst haircut I ever had or how well I know my neighbors.”

“It’s a deal,” Deena says. “Do we need to pinky swear?”

Mac shakes his head. He falls back on to the bed. “It’s never going to work between us. I don’t like blondes.”

“Well that’s a relief,” Deena says smoothing her hair, which is the color of dark chocolate and curly. Deena falls back on the bed as well. Her feet don’t quite touch the floor. She notices that Mac wears monkey’s fist knots in his French-cuffed shirt. She can’t unsee this. Now she knows too much. And the cufflinks are a soft blue color that match the stripe on his shirt. She’s overwhelmed. At least it feels less personal lying crosswise on the bed this way as opposed to having their heads on Jake’s pillows. “If that taxidermy deer could say one thing to us right now, what do you think it would be?” Deena asks.

“I think it would say two things. First I think it would ask how long it’s been since Jake washed his duvet cover.” He sits up quickly. “And second, I think it would ask, “Why is beauty linked to morality?” He pauses. “This is from the deer’s perspective, of course. After all, it’s been shot and stuffed.” It is at this moment that Deena realizes how painful it will be when she loses him.

Jake must have sent a waiter to them. The sneaky snacker comes into the room with a silver tray that holds two glasses of champagne and a bowl of black olives. He doesn’t have to knock because the door isn’t closed. Deena sits up. “Oh, you can have the olives,” Deena says. “We don’t like them, do we?” she says to Mac. When he doesn’t answer, the waiter picks up the bowl and tips it in to his mouth all at once. When he leaves, they hear him say, “Excuse me,” to someone he passes in the hallway who’s talking on a phone. The man’s voice is low, but Deena catches a few phrases, “It’s crazy,” she hears. “It’s like the perfect hamburger.”

“A suspect massacre?” Mac says. “What is that guy talking about?”

“Hey,” Deena says. “Now that I know you’re a foosball champion, I’ll bet you two tickets to a Puccini opera and a pretzel from the hotdog cart outside the Met that you can’t beat me. What will you give me when I win?” Mac stands. He’s taller than he seemed before and his shoes have been recently shined. She’s shocked to see he’s wearing glasses. “Where did you get those from?” she points to his face.

“My glasses?” he asks. “What do you mean? I’ve been wearing these the whole time. I’m blind as a bat without them. I might have mistaken you for a hat rack if I didn’t have them on.”

Jake interrupts them from the doorway to his bedroom. “I hope this is okay. I mean the lights are on and everything.”

“Why wouldn’t it be?” Mac says. He has his finger twined through one of Deena’s curls. It’s actually more painful than pleasant, but because she likes the gesture, Deena lets him continue.

 “Come on, you two. It’s nearly midnight. We’re gearing up for the countdown. Time to join us in the living room.”

“Well, life is too short to say no to cake!” Deena cries, jumping from the bed. She feels unsteady on her feet as if she’s had a night out with the girls and they’ve had too many tequila shots. “Mac was just telling me about his days as an Hell’s Angel. He was getting ready to show me his biker tattoo.”

At ten minutes before midnight, Deena sits on a camelback sofa that looks out of place in the otherwise casual room. There is a cigarette burn in a brocade cushion. From Jake’s 23^rd floor apartment, there is a view of the Manhattan skyline through a picture window on her right. For a second, it looks as if Mac might join her. He hesitates, then joins a group of men who think they are covertly smoking a doobie. The high-heeled woman is nowhere in sight. A man in a gorilla suit sits next to her, on the burnt hole. He’s only there for a second until he spots a woman in a unicorn onesie and rushes over to her. They must have come while she was in the bedroom with Mac. She’s thinking about splurging on a carriage ride through Central Park when Jake plops down beside her.

She leans in to him and cups her hand around his ear so that he can hear her over the music. “I need to tell you a secret. The little crow’s feet at the corner of Mac’s right eye make me want to cry.” She swallows hard. Jake pats her on the knee. Someone passes out party hats. Deena’s has a silver pom pom on the top. When she puts it on, the elastic cuts into the flesh under her chin.

“I want you to know that I love you no matter what,” Jake whispers back. He kisses her on the forehead. Not just a dry graze, but a heartfelt press of the lips that is solemn and wet. Deena looks up. It’s her nemesis! She must have been in the bathroom. Her lipstick is freshly applied. It’s a fuchsia color that makes her lips look plump. She’s steady on her heels as she joins Mac’s group. A partygoer gives Mac a New Year’s Eve cracker. He pulls the ends and colored confetti shoots out with a pop.

“It’s not time yet,” Jake calls across the room. Mac covers his mouth with his hand. “Sorry,” he mimes.

Jake pats his pocket and winks at Mac. Deena does a double take. Squints her eyes.

The woman in Mac’s group must say something funny. The men throw back their heads, necks exposed and vulnerable for a second or two. Mac laughs the longest. The thought strikes Deena like a whirling dervish. So strong it takes her breath away. Clear as a bell. She says to Jake, “I can have my cake and eat it too. All I have to do is put on my prettiest apron and bake it.” He smiles and bats the pom pom on her hat.

Suddenly it is time. Jake jumps up. “Is the music queued?” he yells to a waiter who’s bent over to retrieve a discarded cocktail napkin that’s hiding a smashed canape. “Is ‘Auld Lang Syne’ ready to go?”

“You won’t kiss me, will you?” Deena says, standing and holding Jake by the top of his arm.

“Of course not,” Jake answers.

Someone yells, “Ten, nine, eight.”

“Dammit, I’m supposed to start the countdown. It’s my party.” Jake stamps his right foot.

“Three, two, one. Happy New Year!”

It’s a slow-motion moment. One that Deena will think back on from time to time because it merits remembrance. At the stroke of midnight, Jake rushes across the room to Mac. He pulls something from the pocket of his pants and hands it to his friend. It’s a small box. Mac takes it and drops to one knee. He faces the high-heeled woman who has both hands over her mouth. He turns and locks eyes with Deena, but only for a second. He looks back. Mac pries open the lid of the box as if the prize inside is much bigger than it really is. He holds it up. The hinge is tight and the box snaps shut. Mac looks back to Deena.

What beautiful fingers, Deena thinks. Such exquisite hands.