Page 39 of A Winter in New York

“The movie or…” I trail off, unsure whether to call this a date.

“The movie,” he says. “Not this.” He indicates between us with his hand. “Popcorn?”

“I have a no-popcorn-until-the-first-word’s-been-spoken rule,” I say. It was my mother’s rule, and I find it impossible to break even now.

He raises his eyebrows but doesn’t speak as he pressesplayand dims the lights. He doesn’t eat the popcorn either, which I like. Such is the excellence of the movie that I’m pulled straight into the story I already know so well, and surreptitious glances at Gio tell me he’s engrossed too. It’s a fast-talking, tempestuous, wise-cracking ensemble piece you have to really pay attention to, and I feel my nerves dissolving as the familiar faces fill the screen and the wine loosens my limbs. Gio moves to fetch the wine bottle halfway through, and when he returns he sits nearer to my end than before. I excuse myself to the loo a few minutes later, and when I come back I sit closer to the middle too, almost shoulder to shoulder beside him as if we’re at the cinema. I take agulp of wine, knowing that we’re coming up to the Nicolas Cage line I quoted earlier. My hand collides with his when we both reach into the popcorn bowl wedged between us.

“You go,” he says.

“No, you,” I say.

On screen, Nicolas Cage tells Loretta he wants her in his bed, and I try to flick a look at Gio without making it obvious and find him turned toward me, watching me watch the movie.

“You’ll miss the best bit,” I say.

“Youare the best bit,” he says, and then he leans forward and touches his mouth to mine, the unhurried kind of at-last kiss made for slow dances and late nights on vacation. I turn my body into him and his arm slides around my shoulders, and there’s that moment where you wonder if you’re going to fit together or jar on each other’s angles and curves. We don’t jar. We meld.

“For the record, that was a really corny line,” I say.

“I’m old,” he says.

“You’re thirty-nine.”

“Watch the rest of your movie,” he says, resting his fingers on the back of my neck. “Then I’ve got something to show you.”

I throw him a look. “That isn’t as suggestive as it sounds, is it?”

He reaches for some popcorn. “I think you’ll like it.”

I’m glad I’ve seen the film before, because however brilliant it is, I can’t take the words in while he’s drawing slow circles on my neck with his fingertip and it’s so insanely sexual that I feel as if he’s actually drawing circles on my cervix.

For the love of God, Cher, just get in Nic’s bed already, will you? Gio Belotti has something to show me and I cannot wait to see what it is.

—

“Up here.”

Gio handed me a blanket just now, and when he opens the door at the top of a skinny staircase I see why.

“You have a roof terrace?”

He shrugs. “Kind of. It’s a roof, at least.”

Cold night air hits me as I step outside, but I’m too dazzled to let it bother me. It’s a tight space, just enough room for a garden sofa on a patterned outdoor rug, a few big planters dotted around to add a relaxed vibe. The main event, though, is definitely the breathtaking view.

“Come stand over here.” Gio leads me to the chest-height walled edge. I rest my elbows on the stones and drink the city in: blurred red streaks of moving taillights, the glitter of the Brooklyn Bridge spanning the East River, the majesty of the Empire State Building towering over the illuminated skyline. And then, of course, there’s the three-quarter moon, hanging up there like the lead actor on the stage accepting his encore.

“I’ve never seen it from above like this,” I say. “There’s so much life.”

He wraps the blanket around my shoulders and points over toward Brooklyn. “Over there, about three miles or so in that direction, is Cranberry Street.”

I look sideways at him, not sure of the relevance.

“You say you love that movie, and you didn’t pick up on the reference to Cranberry Street? Shame on you, Iris.”

I smile and follow the direction of his finger. I’m livinginside all of my mother’s beloved movies—Katz’s Deli, and now here I am a stone’s throw away from Loretta’s house.

“My mother would get such a kick out of this,” I say.

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