Page 37 of Ten Years and Then…
The Daniel she’d met in October wouldn’t have made that joke. She clearly wasn’t the only one being changed—for the better, she hoped—in this relationship.
Daniel, almost eleven p.m.
After dinner they walked to the subway station over on 86th and shoved their way onto a train. Daniel had never seen the subway this crowded; there was barely room to breathe. Not that he really minded; Nora was pressed against him more tightly than she’d ever been when they were together in his dorm room. Her face was buried in his neck, and she whispered, “This is really nice. Except for the part where I’m losing feeling in my legs.”
Thankfully it was only a few stops before they had to switch lines, then only one more stop—on an even more packed Number Seven train—and they were at Times Square. They were carried out by the tide of New Year’s revelers, and when they got to the top of the steps, the sudden cold was a shock.
They clung to each other as they made their way through the crowds, searching for a good spot to watch the ball drop, and people-watch until then.
It was just after eleven o’clock when they settled on the corner of 45th and Seventh Avenue, right in front of a McDonalds. When they got there, Daniel noticed the bottle of champagne in Nora’s hand. “Where’d you get that?”
She shook her head. “Somebody handed it to me a minute ago. I guess they thought we deserved it.”
“Or they thought you were somebody else.”
“Whichever,” she said. “It’s ours now.” She handed it to him. “You want to do the honors?”
Daniel had never opened a bottle of champagne before, but he’d seen it done in movies. It couldn’t be that difficult, could it?
It wasn’t; he squeezed the bottle, just like James Bond always did, and the cork popped off. They both got sprayed, and all he could do was laugh. So what if he got champagne all over his fancy leather jacket? He was here in the middle of the biggest party in the world, with a beautiful girl he loved, who loved him back and smiled at him the way nobody else ever did. Or ever could. “They said the jacket was waterproof when I bought it. Think that applies to champagne too?”
She gave him a quick kiss. “If not, I’ll pay for the cleaning. Well, I‘ll ask my Dad, and he’ll pay for it, anyway.”
They took turns drinking from the bottle and dancing with each other—well, shuffling around in each other’s arms, anyway—as the clock ticked closer to 1989.
Nora, 11:55 p.m.
It was five minutes to midnight. The champagne was gone, and Nora heard the music. She didn’t even like “Tell It to My Heart” but wherever it was coming from, it was loud enough to hear clearly. And it had enough of a melody to dance properly to.
She pushed Daniel away, just a few inches, enough to hold him for a real dance. She thought she’d have to lead, but he surprised her again. He knew how to do a box step!
She gave him a questioning look.
“Mom sent me and Lisa to dance class when she was thirteen. I was ten. You can imagine how awkward it was.” He twirled her as he said it. Maybe it was the champagne that was bringing this out in him.
“Awkward for who?”
He laughed, twirling her again. “Both of us. But definitely her more than me.” Now his eyes went distant for a moment, the way they always did when he was remembering something. “I know you’re an only child, but imagine if you had a little brother who was four inches shorter than you and kept tripping over his feet, and you had to dance with him for an hour and a half every week in public.”
“Wow,” she said. “That ought to be against the Geneva Convention or something.”
He twirled her again, and then he dipped her. This was a whole new Daniel; she would never have imagined he had all this in him. “Yeah,” he answered finally. “It’s a miracle we didn’t kill each other before I made it to high school. You’d never guess it now, but...” He hesitated for a second, then went on. “She’s the one who talked Dad into letting me come down here tonight.”
“What did she say?” Daniel’s sister had been tight-lipped at Christmas dinner; Nora hadn’t gotten any real sense of what she was like.
“I’ll tell you later,” he said. “It’s almost time!” He was right; she could hear the crowd counting, tens of thousands of voices coming from all around. They both joined in, until the countdown got to ten.
That’s when Daniel pulled her close and kissed her, eyes wide open. She kissed him back, and all she could see was the love shining in his eyes. All she could hear was her heart beating. When they finally came up for air, the new year was already a minute old.
Daniel, two o’clock in the morning
They took a taxi back to Nora’s building. The drive took twenty minutes, and they spent most of the ride making out in the back seat.
When they arrived, Daniel gave the driver a twenty and told him to keep the change.
It seemed only fair; it couldn’t have been pleasant for him to see them going at it every time he checked the rearview mirror.
The doorman—a different one than earlier this evening, Daniel noticed—stopped them. “Happy New Year, Miss Nora. Does Miss Rachel know you have a guest?”
