Ethan

It takes great effort to conceal my excitement. It's really embarrassing, especially since, at this point, we're not even in Manhattan yet, just close to it, catching glimpses. I press to the window like a little kid and stare, finally rolling it down to get an even better look—the Empire State Building looms over the southern end of the island, other skyscrapers rising in a wave towards Central Park. We're here until Monday morning, and I plan to enjoy every minute of it—even the stuffy academic event we're attending tomorrow.

William looks out over the buildings and looks ahead, grimacing. It would be great and wonderful and oh so exciting if we weren't going six miles an hour. Packed-in traffic surrounds us, hemmed in by some accident down the way, far out of sight.

He lets out a long sigh and drums his fingers.

“We should play a game,” Jennifer says, stirring.

“Please God, no,” Becky says.

Jennifer scowls at her.

“Just occupy yourselves. Quietly,” William mutters, half snarling it.

It takes over an hour to drive about ten miles. We pick up speed through the Holland Tunnel. Mid-day traffic on a Friday is…

I had no many idea this many cars could fit in one place. William's icy calm unnerves me as he threads the van through traffic, ignoring swerving cars, road ragers, and blown horns. He takes it all in stride, as though it were some small amusement.

Finally, he turns down the right street to our hotel. A Pod Hotel, whatever that is.

He pulls to a stop out front.

“Ethan, offload everyone and take in all the luggage. I'm heading for the parking garage. Wait for me before you check in.”

The hotel staff send someone out to help, but with the nine of us grabbing our stuff, it doesn't take long to get inside. What ends up consuming the most time is those of us who've never been here before goggling at our surroundings, which must be quite ordinary, given how the hotel bellman looks at them.

Crowding inside, I continue to stare. I've been to Philadelphia. I'm no stranger to cities. Everything here is just…more, though, even this fairly inexpensive hotel. William comes tearing in through the doors, striding up to us, and the check-in process starts.

We'll be two to a room, except for William and myself. He passes out the key cards and gathers everyone around.

“There will be a curfew for the trip. I want no one out after seven at night. We'll be eating dinner together; part of your cost for this trip was one meal a day. For breakfast and lunch, you'll be on your own. Tomorrow, you'll have lunch at the conference, but both days, I'll be in the lobby at seven and walking up the street here to the corner at seven fifteen. There's a fantastic diner with the best old fashioned American breakfast food you'll ever have. If you decide to meet me for the morning meal, I'm buying for everyone.”

I look at him and blink a few times. Even though there's only eight students in front of me, they manage to excitedly murmur.

“You'll be free tonight and Sunday until curfew time. Has everyone programmed the contact list into your cell phones?”

A wave of nods greets him.

“Good,” he said. “We're on the buddy system until we leave. That means no one goes out alone, always in pairs, with the exception of Ethan and myself.”

“What am I, twelve?” Jessica mutters.

“You're in the third most populous city in North America. Have you been here before?”

Jennifer shakes her head.

“Glad you're paying attention, then. It's just one thirty now—at two, I'll be back down here to walk up to the Metropolitan Museum of Art. Your city passes that you've been given will cover free admission and you're welcome to join me. The Museum of Modern Art is on the way and the Guggenheim isn't much further up Fifth Avenue. Understood?”

They all seem good on that.

“Good. If you don't go with me, I'll be back here by six thirty. I've made a reservation for tonight at the place here,” he gestures through the lobby to the restaurant next door, accessible through a doorway right in the hotel lobby, “If you don't make it, you don't eat. Clear?”

Everyone gives a final nod. Jennifer salutes.

William scowls at her, hard. Hard enough to cut glass. So hard, that she actually looks down and mutters, “Sorry.”

“That's disrespectful,” is all he says. “Most military men don't object if it's a kid or a girl, but think before you do something like that.”

Jennifer bristles, but nods.

“Let's find our rooms.”

The hotel is built into an old downtown office building. The twin elevators have big, industrial freight elevator type doors but glass sides, so we can see the other one falling as we rise and watch the mechanism. Crush Girl edges close to William. She seems about to say something, but he doesn't even notice her before the doors open on the floor where the rest of the group will be staying.

They file out, and William leans against the wall. We're alone now, one floor up. Separate rooms, of course.

Mine is across the hall from his, a mirror image. I throw my door open and…

This is called the Pod for a reason. There's just enough room to walk between the bed and the wall to reach a narrow desk at the far end. The bed is a twin, and if I stand next to it, I can lean on the wall and almost reach the other, just by putting out my arm. The bathroom is tiny, and the toilet is inside the shower.

I cross the hall to William's room and find myself in an exact duplicate, just turned 'round the other way. He stuffs his suitcase into the narrow not-closet and hangs his garment bag from a bar in the alcove.

“Really?” I say, looking around.

“You try making a stay in Manhattan for ten people cost effective,” he grumbles. “This was the best place we could afford. Besides, what? Do you miss the clothing iron? A dresser you won't use?”

“Fair point,” I sigh. “Okay, I get you.”

“So, the Met?” I say.

“Got your card? You're in for a treat.”

“I just hope we don't have any alcohol poisoning cases,” I say, shrugging.

“I'm the only one here old enough to drink. Trust me, they card here. Things aren't exactly lax around here with that. Don't worry, Ethan. They'll be fine. New York isn't a Bruce Willis movie anymore. It hasn't been since before you were born. Got your good walkers on?”

He means shoes. I glance down.

I…you know, I only have the one pair.

“Yeah,” I say, eagerly. “Good to go.”

“Well, get ready and get down to the lobby. Professional, remember?”

“Yeah, yeah,” I mutter.

I'm actually going to beat him down there. In the elevator, I notice something: Roof Deck. I thought I saw that in the ad when I went to book the rooms. I smile at that. Roof deck.

Just as I'm about to press the button for the lobby, William's hands snap between the doors in a kind of karate chop and they glide open. He steps in and they close behind him.

“Mind if I catch this one?” he says.

“Roof deck,” I say, tapping the panel.

“Later,” he says with a soft smile.

“Alright,” I say, smiling.

While we wait, he buys me a drink—a Diet Coke—at the bar at the rear of the lobby and sips a beer himself. When the others start trickling down, Becky spots him drinking a Corona and does a double take. We both glance at each other. Are we getting sloppy, I wonder?

It's hard to tell what's genuine risk and what's my foolish paranoia. Why would anyone suspect a thing? William is straight.

Not wearing his wedding band, but straight.

I head out first while William nurses his beer a minute, drinking as if we were just both in there by happenstance. Becky doesn't pay much attention to where I was sitting after all, but Crush Girl watches me like a hawk, her eye flitting from me to William and back.

The worst thing I can do is notice and confirm that I'm paying attention. Nope, I'm perfectly casual, that's just me.

William strides out, earning more stares than I did.

He drank a beer. Maybe he is human, after all.

Fight the smirk, Ethan.

“Shall we, then? This is a walk—it's going to be almost twenty blocks, and I keep a brisk pace.”

Everyone looks at everyone else.

He wasn't kidding. William somehow walks at a clip near a slow jog and walks us past that diner he mentioned to Fifth Avenue. I try not to gasp and stare too hard, like some kind of bumpkin.

Don't get me wrong. Philly is a real city. Maybe the realest city. We invented the cheesesteak and the word jawn. I'm an adopted son of the city even if my brothers and I grew up in the burbs. Hell, two of us live there now.

New York just…dwarfs it. The scale of it is unbelievable. I feel like I'm walking through an ancient landscape. The buildings are more like mountains, the streets, more like canyons. The Empire State Building pokes up from ten blocks away, so massive it's hard to believe something that big can really be real.

“Try not to stare up so much,” William says. “Pickpockets.”

He walks the group hard, checking his watch. After half an hour of walking, with favorable lights, we've reached 51st Street. He glances up the block.

“It's about the same distance to the Met.”

I try, stoically, not to let on that I'm exhausted, and that my spleen feels like it's about to pop out of my belly and run off. The others aren't quite so concerned about concealing it.

“Can we rest?” Rebecca says, panting.

William favors them all with a level look.

“We can slow down a bit, see some sights. Follow.”

He walks—much more slowly—up the block and into the Museum of Modern Art.

I've been to the Art Museum down in Philly. Who hasn't? The Rocky steps and all that. I like museums, they're quiet and contemplative. After we've all used our city passes at the desk to get admission tickets, William leads us up—by elevator. That gives everyone time to rest, and on the top floor, we can stop and sit for a bit. William doesn't sit. He looks just like he did when he stepped out of the hotel bar. He's like a robot.

This is the weirdest museum I have ever seen. The top floor is given over to a temporary fashion exhibition, which is really cool. It's called Is Fashion Modern?, but there's a lot of historical stuff, too. William quietly answers questions from the others about some of the older stuff while I trail behind, watching him.

It's weird. Somehow, he got these people interested in this place. He has a group of twenty-somethings eating out of his hand like twelve-year-olds on a field trip, even when he stops to offer some historical context for a wall of various styles of suits, arranged by era, along one wall.

If I wasn't in love with him already I might—

I stumble.

In love with him.

It's strange, isn't it? The moment when it comes. It arrives, resolves itself, lands, appears, materializes. A bolt from the sky. The feelings I have for this man are deeper than friendship, deeper than lust. I always thought that's what it was—good friends with somebody that's fun to fuck. If I had to describe this feeling, I couldn't. I guess that's why it has a name of its very own. They should change the dictionary entry under the L word to “if you have to look it up, you haven't found it yet.”

I have.

With a startled shake I stop myself staring at him. No one saw, I think. Suddenly we're heading down the stairs to the next floor, moving briskly through a gallery of Picassos towards…a ten-foot by ten-foot glass tub full of bubbling gray mud that's agitated by a computer-controlled blower hooked up to a sound system.

No, really. It's actually pretty cool.

By the time we've threaded down to the ground floor again, everyone is visibly exhausted and a little stressed from the intensity of the artwork on display. William looks around, notices the time, and sighs.

“Best head back,” he says. “The Met is a day trip—I'll be heading there on Sunday.”

I almost ask him why we don't take the subway back, but something tells me all the walking is part of the point, if not the point. Get everyone so tired out that he doesn't even have to worry about them wandering off.

By the time we get back to the same street as our hotel, it's almost time to eat.

“Heading in for dinner,” he says, hooking a thumb at the diner. “Anyone care to join?”

A few do, Jennifer and Becky among them. A few others walk back down the block, where the hotel is in sight, and disappear inside.

William gets us a table at the back. It's not a big place—not surprising, given Manhattan and all—and feels cozy. We're near the United Nations and there's a lot of people with heavy accents, or flat out speaking in Swedish or Cantonese. Crush Girl looks around like she just woke up in wonderland and is worried that one pill makes her larger and one pill makes her small.

After everyone orders—I opt for a tuna melt, William orders eggs benedict despite the hour—we spend the next half hour or so chatting and exchanging stories. William is stony silent most of the time, occasionally offering a question or a small comment, while the rest of the table becomes quite animated.

As he said, he takes the bill when it comes. Becky and Jennifer kick in for the tip and lead the others back to the hotel, leaving the two of us alone.

After William has counted up the cash and hands it off to the waitress, we step out.

“We're not under curfew,” he says.

“Yeah, but if I don't get off my feet, they'll look like hamburger. Besides, we have to be up early. 7 am to make the conference.”

“Early,” he snorts, amused.

He sighs.

“Alright, let's head back.”

Alone, we take the elevator back to our floor. William steps off the elevator and I follow, the urge to veer into his room instead of mine almost overpowering. We stop in front of our respective doors.

“Too bad we couldn't get them with those connector doors,” I laugh.

He laughs. “Might still be too obvious. We could head up to the roof deck bar for a nightcap.”

“Better not,” I sigh.

“Tomorrow, then.”

Tomorrow.