Page 49 of Cocky Nerd
John
We land in New York in the earlyevening.
The flight was almost fifteen hours, and I spent most of it drifting in and out of sleep, thinking only of Olivia when I was awake. I was so moved by how enraptured and fascinated she was by the Peking Opera we went to last night. I was impressed by the way she interacted with my colleagues. She is classy, smart, charming and fun in social circumstances, a winningcombination.
The sex has been better than I’d anticipated, better than sex with anyone else (this was expected), and better than pretty much anything I’ve ever experienced. It’s…troubling. I suppose I’m worried I might become obsessed with her. That she’ll quickly become a black hole. How do people have ongoing relationships like this without losing millions? It’s quite possible that they don’t. It’s quite possible that I’ll have to choose. Continue scaling my businesses at the same already conservative pace and limit my interactions with Olivia, or slow their growth and change my goals in order to incorporate loving and fucking Olivia into my daily schedule. Thinking about it makes me uneasy. Not thinking about it is impossible when she’saround.
She wassilent and probably mad at me for the first half hour after we were seated on thisplane.
She is eighty percent dark matter, immeasurable, unknowable, and I remember being able to walk away from her whenever she suddenly turned against me when she was younger, I could easily turn down the volume on the part of my brain that was screaming “WHY IS SHE MAD AT ME NOW?!?!?” But this question was rumbling through my head, louder than the plane’sengines.
There is a sweet young newlywed couple sitting in front of us, a cute elderly couple across the aisle. Everyone has been quiet; there are no noisy babies. I had put my phone away ten minutes before boarding, gave her my full attention, and I didn’t say anything to her beyond totally benign questions like: “Do you want the window or the aisle?” and “Are you sure you want champagne now? It’s dehydrating.” But I didn’t stop her from drinking it. She slipped her ear bud headphones in and I could hear the music she was listening to. Rage Against the Machine. Fucking great song, but I couldn’t stand seeing her the slightest bit unhappy. I did tell her she was free to scowl when we weren’t in public, but no. This was more than annoyance. There’s some kind of pain lurking beneath her beautifulsurface.
I pulled my pen and notebook out from my bag and tore out a piece of paper. I wrote:Hi. P.S. I like you. P.P.S. I like you a lot. P.P.P.S. How can I make you happier?I placed the note and the pen on the tray in front ofher.
She stared at it for a moment, the tiniest smile on her face, but then she looked sad again. She picked up the pen and wrote:Hello. P.S. I like you also. P.P.S. I’m sure I’m just dehydrated. P.P.P.S. I like you a lot too. P.P.P.P.S. I didn’t expect to like you this much. It’s weird. That’sall.
When she passed the note and pen back to me, I thought about having it framed and giving it to her as an anniversary gift. And then I remembered we aren’t marriedyet.
She watched as I wrote:I know what you mean. I hope we get used to it. I could get used to you… P.S. No more alcohol until tomorrow. Long flights are hard on the body even without alcohol.I flipped the piece of paper and wrote:I’m the only one who’s allowed to be hard on your body for thistrip.
She smiled, swiped the paper from the tray and slid it into her purse. Then she slid her hand into mine and held it until the flight attendant came to take our dinnerorder.
“So,are we going to do it New York-style while we’re here?” she asks, when weland.
“That’s right,” I say. “For a New Yorkminute.”
“Ooooh,” she gives a dramatic coo and shudder. “Thin crust, wide slice.” She leans in and says: “I can’t wait for you to fold me in half and eatme.”
That’s when I nearly swallow my own tongue and start coughing and may never stop. Which would be a shame, because I really want to know what thin crust wide slice sex is like, and I definitely want to fold this woman up and eather.
“By the way, I just emailed Louisa that I want to meet her when we’re back in the Bay Area, to discuss a donation. She said she’s seen the pictures we posted and we look cutetogether.”
“Really?”
Inod.
“When?”
“An hour ago. In flight Wi-Fi.”
She doesn’t smile this big very often, but when she does I almost feel like bursting into song. I would never burst into song, ever, but it’s nice to feel this way,sometimes.
“Thank you, that’s…cool.”
“It’s mypleasure.”
She looks serious again all of a sudden. “I just want to say…if it were all based on skill, I’m pretty sure I would have been featuredalready.”
“I have no doubt. If it were based on beauty you’d be a principal in the Bolshoi Balletalready.”
She giggles and shakes her head. I don’t think I’ve ever made her gigglebefore.
“I can’t wait to see you dance on stageagain.”
“Again?”
“I mean…”I could tell her. Why shouldn’t I tell her?“I mean, I went to that recital inCleveland.”
