"What's up with the lanky dude who won't stop staring at you?" Constance asked, her lips almost touching his ear. "Is he in love with you or what?"
"That's Lorenzo."
"The Lorenzo? Food cart Lorenzo?" Constance twisted around to get a better look.
"Well don't stare back!"
"I'm not."
"If he's staring, and then you turn around and look at him, you're staring back!"
"Fine," she ceded, facing the screen again, but that wicked look was dancing in her eyes. "How come you never said he was cute?"
"I thought that was implied."
"Geez, okay, Antonioni Rigatoni only kisses conventionally cute people. Noted."
"Don't make me dump you on the floor."
"Try it," she said. "I'll take you down with me and give Food Cart Lorenzo something to stare at."
Antonio wiggled one knee, causing Constance to lurch on his lap. She gasped and tightened her grip on his shoulders.
"You jerk!" she laughed. "Hey, sit tight, I'm gonna make your coworkers love me."
"How?" Antonio asked, but she was already on her feet and out of the room.
Without Constance blocking his view, Antonio suddenly realized just how many people besides Lorenzo were shooting inquisitive glances in his direction. He couldn't really blame them. Antonio tended to picture himself as the office loner: in fact, he had apparently developed enough of a reputation as someone who hated socialization that the CEO had offered to cancel his birthday party. He probably hadn't struck any of them as the kind of person who would know someone like Constance, much less know her well enough for her to want to use him as a chair.
If Antonio was the office loner, Rosenberg was the office busybody. The minute Constance was gone, he tried to start a conversation by thrusting a microphone into Antonio's face. "Do you want to sing the next one, Tony?" he asked, as if it was somewhere within the realm of possibility that Antonio might say yes.
"No thanks."
"What about your- uh- your friend?"
"Ask her when she gets back," Antonio said.
"Hey," Rosenberg said, scooting closer, "did you hear Lorenzo is taking over one of Stephanie's accounts? He's not even in sales!"
"I heard."
"A rock band, can you imagine? What's the company coming to?"
"If it's what the customer wants," said Antonio vaguely.
"Listen-" Rosenberg began, but he was mercifully cut off when Constance returned with a huge tray of various kinds of alcohol.
"On the house!" she announced, setting the tray down on the low table, "for Antonio's birthday!"
His coworkers' cheers were so loud that Antonio almost expected the patrons out at the bar to come scold them. Constance slipped out of the stampede and returned to Antonio's side, mussing his hair with one hand. "Want some wine, birthday boy?"
"I've got to make it to the train this time."
"Well, just in case you miss it again, Mom's out of town for the week, remember? She's visiting Allie in Los Angeles. So if you have to crash on the couch, no one will try to rip off your ear in the morning. The Weber house is available for a slumber party."
"Sure, your sisters and I will paint each others' toenails and watch Lifetime all night."
"Cool! You'll have to be the one who pays for all the Chinese takeout, though. And the male strippers." Constance withdrew her hand from his hair and wrinkled her nose. "How much gel do you think you need, anyway?"
"Just enough to be an Italian stereotype," said Antonio.
"In that case, consider today a job well done." She stepped back and studied him for a moment, her head tilted to one side as she considered something.
"What is it?" Antonio asked, smoothing his hair self-consciously.
"Josie said I should give you a birthday present upstairs. Kind of a big one."
Antonio was suddenly even more aware of Rosenberg's eyes on him - and, from across the room, Lorenzo's. The music was loud and a few other people from sales were singing a melodramatic showtune to Stephanie to bid her farewell. Had Rosenberg heard what Constance had just said? What if he had misinterpreted it? Had Antonio misinterpreted it?
"What's that supposed to mean?"
"Do you have any allergies?"
He shook his head, though he had only half-heard the question.
"Okay, come on. Just tell me if it's not what you want, okay?" Constance grabbed one of his hands and pulled him to his feet. Antonio bit back a smile; her palm actually was sticky from his hair gel.
The bar outside was pretty crowded, but Constance wove expertly through the raucous patrons without releasing Antonio. From across the room, Josie shouted, "About time!" and her sister replied by sticking out her tongue.
Antonio felt his ears getting hot. When they stopped out front of the bar and Constance dropped his hand, he cleared his throat. "Where exactly are we going?"
"Upstairs," she answered vaguely, unlocking the door to the stairwell.
"Why?"
"You'll see."
The stairwell was just as small and smelly as it had been the day they met - or, rather, the day after they met, for Antonio had no memory of the first time he climbed these stairs. He followed Constance, heartbeat loud in his ears, trying not to let his imagination race more than a few seconds into the future. 'Josie said I should give you a birthday present upstairs,' she had said. 'Kind of a big one.' And now she was taking him up to an empty apartment.
How big was 'kind of' big?
No, he was being ridiculous. Antonio studied Constance as she climbed the steps ahead of him, her fingertips brushing along the greasy handrail. Even from this awkward angle, she looked more like a decoration for the top of a Christmas tree than a real person. The dim light in the stairwell kept catching her short, full skirt as she moved, sending little flecks of golden light dancing across the walls. The upper half of the dress was made to look like a black corset, and her bare shoulders were completely hidden by her long, thick hair. She was always wearing cute little dresses when he saw her for lunch, too. How could someone as bright as Constance stand to spend time with Antonio and his dark, dull suits?
And how could she climb these stairs so quickly in those pumps?
Antonio felt a little dizzy by the time Constance stopped to unlock the apartment door, but he wasn't sure whether he should attribute it to the stairs or the wine he had had earlier that evening. Maybe the wild scenarios about what would happen on the other side of that door that refused to leave his head were to blame.
"Are you ready?" she asked, opening the door, and Antonio nodded. Did you have to say something out loud for it to be an actual lie, or did a gesture count?
The living room was just as he remembered it: cramped and strangely-decorated with signed Aloysia posters. He had never remembered to ask Constance why her mom was so into campy pop music. Now didn't really seem like the time.
Constance disappeared into a back room, calling over her shoulder for him to stay where he was while she got his present ready. Antonio set his briefcase down against the wall and obeyed, tugging at the cuffs of his jacket, then at his tie. He heard Constance muttering to herself from the next room. What did she think was going to happen? He pulled his tie looser and undid a shirt button, then buttoned it up again.
He had been seeing Constance almost every day for the past three months now, and some time ago he had finally admitted to himself that she was becoming something of an obsession. He had tried to resist, to think of her as just a normal friend, but Antonio had never had many friends, and none of them had ever filled his thoughts the way Constance did. No one had ever filled his thoughts the way Constance did, in fact, barring a few celebrity crushes when he was younger. But what they had right now was perfect. The lunch dates, her carefree laughter and the way she never hesitated to link her arm through his - this was the most rewarding friendship of Antonio's life. The inappropriate thoughts that came to him late at night had no place in the real world. Antonio was not going to scare Constance away. After all, he had already ruined his friendship with Lorenzo by reading too much into it.
"Close your eyes!" The sound of her voice snapped him back into the present.
"What? Why?"
"Close them!" she called again. "And put your hands out in front of you."
"Why?" Antonio repeated, but he did as he was told. His heartbeat was so loud he was getting a headache.
"Are they closed?"
"Yes!"
"Hands out?"
"Constance, come on."
He heard her footsteps as she came out of the back room, and the shallow sound of her breathing. When she was standing just before him she paused, and then something warm and hairy dropped into his hands.
Antonio yelped and jerked backward, opening his eyes to see a yellow ball of fluff sitting on his upturned palms. Two round blue eyes blinked up at him. "What-"
"Do you want her? Please take her!"
"What-?"
"We've got to get her out of here before Mom comes home. She'd freak."
"You're giving me a cat?"
"Sure! Why not? I mean, if you have a little kitty to take care of, I won't have to worry about you moping around your apartment alone every night. So, happy birthday!"
Antonio stared at the tiny creature in his hands. It was peering down at the floor as though it might try to make a run for it. "You can't just give me a cat, Constance. I've never had a pet."
"Cats are the easiest kind! And we've got a bunch of supplies for her. You can have them."
"Can you even take cats on the PATH train?"
Constance went back into the bedroom, leaving him alone with the ball of fur. The kitten extended a tentative paw as though it was considering walking down the length of Antonio's arm, then withdrew it and returned to looking down at the distant floor.
"Constance? Come back before it jumps!"
"Pet her!" Constance replied. She came back with several plastic PetSmart bags hanging from her arms. "Here: we've got litter, food, and some toys that were on clearance. That'll take care of the first couple of weeks for you."
"I can't- Constance, I can't carry all this and the cat."
"I'll come with you," she said. "Do you want to take the bags and I'll take the kitty?"
Antonio let her scoop the little creature up, cradling it in her arms like a baby. "But can you take a cat in the subway? You can't, can you? You need a carrier."
"I'm carrying the cat, so I'm the carrier. If anyone tries to tell us off, you can beat them up for me."
"Happy birthday to me," Antonio muttered, collecting the PetSmart bags and his briefcase. This was certainly not the present he had been expecting.
He hadn't realized just how late it was until they had to run for the last PATH train of the night, Constance clutching the kitten to her chest and diving through the doors behind him just before they closed. There were only a few other people on the train, the nearest of whom shot the pair dark glares and returned to staring blankly at the floor without even noticing the uncaged animal in Constance's arms. The cat took the whole affair in stride, huddling against Constance and staring nervously at its noisy surroundings.
As for Constance, she was so busy cooing over the cat that she hardly even looked at Antonio throughout the entire ride. He had to physically tap her on the arm to get her attention when it was time to get off.
It wasn't until they were in his building and Antonio was pulling open the doors to the freight elevator that Constance seemed to notice where they were. She shot a suspicious glance at the dark cab of the elevator, taking in its unfinished walls and thin coat of rust. "Are you about to murder me, Antonioni Rigatoni?"
"We'll see how the night goes."
"Fine, but I should warn you I have pepper spray in my purse."
Antonio held the up button and the old freight elevator roared into action. "You aren't carrying a purse," he pointed out.
"What?" Constance looked down at her bare arms. "Damn! Well I hope you can sneak me through the turnstile again on the way back into the city."
"I'll get you back home, don't worry."
"Unless you murder me first in your gross elevator."
"Right."
As Antonio unlocked the door to his studio, he suddenly saw the little space with a new perspective. The apartment wasn't messy, exactly, but when he had gotten up for work that morning he had never imagined that Constance would be standing here by the end of the night. He wanted her to see him as someone who lived in a real apartment, maybe a one-bedroom with enormous windows, sterile white walls, and minimalist furniture in stark shades of black and silver. Instead, she was faced with a shabby studio that only featured a crooked bookcase, an Ikea dresser, and a mattress and box-spring stacked directly on the floor.
Constance looked around the place once, then went over and plopped the little yellow cat down in the center of the bed. "Welcome home, pretty kitty!"
"What's its name?" Antonio asked, leaving the PetSmart bags on the counter by the sink.
"It's your kitty," said Constance. "Hey, hand me one of those toys."
While she teased the little cat with a feather on the end of a stick, Antonio set up a litter box in his bathroom and filled an old takeout dish with water. "Is this enough? Do I need to get those plastic covers for my outlets?"
"It's a cat, not a baby. It doesn't have opposable thumbs to jab into an electrical outlet."
"Good," said Antonio. He stood back and watched the little cat leap back and forth on his quilt. "So what about you? There aren't any more trains tonight. Should I call you a cab?"
"Are you paying for it, Wall Street?"
"I could."
Constance trailed the feather up to the pillow and the cat prepared to pounce, wiggling its haunches threateningly. "I'll stay for a while and make sure the cat settles in, if you want. Maybe I'll wait and catch the train in the morning?"
"Okay," Antonio said, a little too quickly.
"Do you have a TV? Find us a movie or something to watch."
Antonio obeyed, flipping through the few channels he had while Constance kicked off her shoes. "I don't have a couch or anything," he said, suddenly feeling more awkward than he had all night.
"I can sit on a bed," Constance said, rolling her eyes. "I'm not a freaking queen. You've seen where I live."
"True."
"Can I ask a favor, though?"
Antonio nodded, pretending to fiddle with buttons on the remote to avoid her gaze.
"Do you have a t-shirt or something I can put on? This dress is itching me."
The question caught Antonio off-guard; he busied himself with digging through his t-shirt drawer to hide the flush he felt spreading across his cheeks. The idea of Constance wearing his shirt was bizarre enough, but if she was going to spend the night, that meant she was going to be sleeping in his bed. Constance! In his bed!
Was she going to ask for pants? Or was she going to sleep without pants? Antonio gripped the edge of the drawer for a second while he tried to regulate his breathing. Constance, in his bed without pants!
The t-shirt he found was a couple of sizes too big for him, so when she emerged from the bathroom with it on it almost looked like one of her trendy little dresses. Her legs and feet were bare.
"We match!" she said, pointing to the t-shirt Antonio had selected for his own pajamas. "So you're a closet Divine Libertines fanboy, huh?"
Antonio tugged at his shirt, frowning down at the familiar logo. "They sang on the Good Morning show a few years ago, and I was in the crowd. They kept firing t-shirt canons, but the shirts weren't going any further than the front row. I ended up with a bunch."
"You were in the front row? How long did you wait for a spot like that?"
"I don't remember," Antonio lied.
Constance dropped onto the bed at his side, pulling his arm around her shoulders and making a big show of snuggling into the pillows. "Well, take me next time, okay? I have an in with the band."
"With the Divine Libertines?"
She nodded. "The lead singer used to date my sister."
Antonio would have bolted upright if she hadn't been leaning on him so heavily. "Your sister? Which one?"
"Allie. The one out in California. It was a long time ago."
"You know the lead singer of the Divine Libertines?"
"Yeah, big deal, he dumped her in the middle of a gig. He's kind of a handful, but I'm sure all former child stars are."
Antonio just stared at her, trying to make sense of that story. Constance was in his bed, wearing his shirt, with no pants on, and she knew the lead singer of the Divine Libertines. And she had given him a cat.
"What movie did you pick?" Constance asked, nodding toward the television screen.
"Um..." Antonio recognized the actress onscreen as Kate Winslet. "It looks like Hamlet."
It was Hamlet, but it was difficult to focus on the familiar story with Constance lying next to him on his bed. She had pressed the back of her hand to his palm and laced their fingers together, keeping his arm in place around her shoulders. Her hair was so close to his face that he could smell her shampoo. During the first commercial break he pulled the quilt over their laps with the excuse that it was getting chilly; luckily, Constance didn't seem to notice the bulge in his pajama pants. Antonio hardly dared breathe after that lest he disturb her.
The kitten, meanwhile, had gotten up the courage to leap off the bed and was poking around the corners of the room, letting out faint squeaks every once in a while.
Antonio had no idea how much time had passed before Constance jolted at the sudden sound of a particularly loud commercial. She sighed and craned her neck until she could see him. "Can I fall asleep?"
"You're the guest," he said, reluctantly extricating himself so that he could turn off the light and the television.
When he returned to the bed, quickly pulling the blankets over himself again, Constance surprised him by laying her head on his shoulder and draping an arm across his chest. "Good night, birthday boy," she murmured, her eyes already closed.
He didn't say anything, but it didn't seem like he needed to. Or maybe he didn't trust himself to speak: the situation in his pants was taking up all of his concentration. He could feel her breasts pressed against his side, and with her arm laying across his torso like that, her fingers were resting just next to his waistband. If she chose to move them just another inch...
Antonio gritted his teeth. If she could see his thoughts right now, she would be disgusted. He was doing it again, ruining a perfectly good friendship by inventing tension that shouldn't have been there. Sexual tension. He drew in a long, slow breath through his nose, trying to ignore the smell of her shampoo.
When people on television found themselves in situations like this, they always tried to think of a distraction. Antonio closed his eyes. So what would distract him from having a woman like Constance sprawled across him in his own bed? People on television joked about thinking of their grandparents, but Antonio didn't have any. None of his foster parents were memorably disfigured, either. Maybe he could think of people at work? Not Lorenzo, obviously, but maybe the thought of snoopy little Rosenberg could kill the mood. Then again, he really didn't want to think about Rosenberg when he had an erection for any reason at all, even as an antidote. It was too weird. This whole day had been too weird.
In the end, it was calming his racing thoughts and matching his breathing to Constance's that finally helped Antonio settle down and, miraculously, fall asleep.
Some time later, he was awakened by a sharp prodding sensation on his stomach. Antonio grunted, his eyes flying open, and was met with the innocent gaze of the ridiculous yellow cat, which was purring so loudly that it seemed to be vibrating. He scooped it into his hands and leaned over the edge of the bed, depositing it back onto the floor.
That was when he realized that Constance wasn't lying on him anymore. In the dark, he could only make out her shape from the way her light hair stood out against his bedsheets. She had rolled away and was curled up with her back to him, the sheets pulled up to her neck.
Antonio propped himself up on one arm, studying her. Had she moved away from him for any particular reason, or just rolled in her sleep? Did she want to get away from him?
Maybe it was because he was half-asleep, but the voices in Antonio's head that had been holding him at a distance all evening weren't as adamant as they had been earlier. Holding his breath, he edged closer until his chest was brushing her back, and he slowly eased one arm around her waist.
She sighed in her sleep, and Antonio actually felt his heart stop beating as he anticipated her waking and pushing him away. He froze: the voices were back now, berating him for ruining another friendship, but to his surprise Constance just rolled back ever so slightly, pressing more firmly against him.
At this angle, the side of her face was illuminated by the low light from the street, catching her hair and lashes and making them look as gold as the dress she had left folded on the counter. Now Antonio's breath caught for another reason: she was genuinely the most beautiful person he had ever known.
He groaned, dropping his head onto the pillow behind hers. It was too late for him now, wasn't it? He finally managed to find a perfect friend here in New York, and he had to go and fall in love with her.
Antonio pressed his forehead into the crook of her neck and clenched his eyes shut.
Fuck.
