The Assistants(38)

I allowed myself a breath, but the shame continued to spread.

When I settled back down at my desk, I saw that I had a text message from Kevin: Can I cook you dinner this weekend?

And when I hadn’t answered right away, he’d sent another: At my place?

His place. That meant his apartment. What says “It’s about time we did the deed” more than inviting a girl over to your apartment to cook her dinner?

But it would be a terrible time for me to have sex with Kevin. Especially now that my so-called project had expanded to include his boss’s assistant, Ginger Lloyd. Kevin and Ginger worked side by side, which I did not love for a slew of other reasons besides the fear of being caught—mainly, two cantaloupe-size reasons. But that’s another story.

Could I really say no to Kevin at this point? The Oprah Magazine would argue that it’s always a woman’s choice to say no. But I wasn’t so sure. It was time to shit or get off the pot, as Robert would say. (Though in light of that day’s circumstances, he may have opted for a less gastrointestinal colloquialism.)

The bottom line was, I had to either break it off with Kevin or stop worrying about how close he was to the truth.

So which was it going to be?

—

I GOT DRESSED, mentally preparing to not have sex with Kevin at his Upper East Side apartment that night. In fact, I decided I would even ask him for a little space, for just a little while, until things with work and my “project” settled down a bit. It would be better to put off sleeping together until I didn’t have so much on my mind. My Oprah Magazine–encouraged (OME) five-point plan was simple: Go. Act normal! Eat. No sex! Break up? I visualized its acronym. GAnENsBu.

Upon entering Kevin’s apartment, I immediately praised myself for succeeding in the first point in my plan. Acting normal came a little harder on account of Kevin’s decorative tastes, which veered toward the mildly suburban: taupe walls adorned with unimaginative prints from the Metropolitan Museum of Art, a Pier 1 Imports sofa, and throw pillows with embroidered hunting dogs on them. I’m not sure what I was expecting. Maybe more of a bachelor pad? Not embroidered hunting dogs—that much I was sure of. In the corner of the room there was an acoustic guitar propped up on a stand, which I deeply hoped was only for show.

If you can learn everything you need to know about a person by scrutinizing their apartment, what new insight was I gleaning here? That Kevin was even softer than I’d originally thought? Guys I’d dated in the past had used old car parts as furniture—the backseat of a 1980 Cutlass Supreme makes for a surprisingly comfortable couch, in case you were wondering—that was the level of comfort and toughness I was accustomed to.

GAnENsBu, I told myself. GAnENsBu!

Kevin had cooked us a beautiful meal of lemon chicken and roasted red potatoes. We chewed politely and sipped fine wine over pewter Calvin Klein plates. But our plates were on our laps because his apartment was too small for a proper table.

“You know,” I said between forkfuls, “if you were willing to move to Brooklyn, or even below Fourteenth Street, you’d have a lot more space.”

The more I considered my surroundings, the less they made sense to me. This prestige neighborhood, this stuffy furniture, the predictable prints on the walls—none of it appeared to be the likely choice of the man I’d regularly watched wolfing down greasy street meat during lunch.

“Are you finished?” Kevin reached for my plate and tossed it along with his into the kitchen sink—barely needing to take two steps away to do so.

“Is it to impress the corporate law guys at Titan?” I asked. “To tell them you live here? Would you be ashamed of Brooklyn?”

“Tina.”

“Don’t get mad,” I said. “I’m only trying to understand.”

I craned my neck to get a better look at Kevin’s bedroom, separated from the living room by only a bookcase. It appeared tidy and filled with framed photographs. Visible on his dresser was a picture of him and his mom and dad wearing swimsuits. They looked like regular people. The kind of regular people who come preset with the frame from Kodak or whoever, as an example of what you and your family should aspire to.

“It’s my parents, okay?” Kevin walked two quick steps to the window and looked out.

I stayed put on the couch. “You live on the Upper East Side to impress your parents?”

“No.” When he turned back around to face me I could see the shame he’d been trying to conceal. “This apartment belongs to my parents. They bought it as a sort of pied-à-terre and now I’m living in it.” He looked down. “I’m sorry.”

I went to him, finally, now that I’d successfully emasculated him. “You don’t have to apologize for that,” I said. “That makes a whole lot more sense.” I rubbed his back halfheartedly. “I’m glad you told me.”

“You are?” He was so easily pacified. Too easily—especially because I was totally lying. His parents paid for his apartment?

“It’s only temporary,” he said, leading me the short distance back to the couch. “Until I can buy my own place. But f*ck, this is exactly what I wanted to avoid.” Kevin was distressed—I could tell by the way his eyebrows were furrowed like two crinkle-cut french fries. “I really like you, Tina. And I don’t want you to think less of me just because I come from . . . this. I want to make my own way in the world. To be my own man. I need you to know that.”