“Yeah,” you say, too cool. “She’s related to him. It’s like that.”

Sare wouldn’t be nervous about going to a Salinger party, but I’m rattled with nerves. I can’t believe I’m about to meet one of J. D. Salinger’s relatives, on our second date, no less. When I called you to set up a second date, I planned on whisking you uptown to the planetarium where we’d make out in the back row. But you cut me off. “I have a party,” you said. “Want to come?”

I said yes. I’d go anywhere with you. But the closer we get, the more nervous I am. I’m scared everyone will hate me and you are scared everyone will hate me. I can tell, Beck. You’re fidgeting. A lot. And when I’m nervous, I get nasty. It’s a problem.

“So is J. D. her uncle?”

“Nobody calls him that,” you say. When you are nervous you get nasty too.

“So how are they related?”

“It’s just a known thing.” You sigh. “We don’t ask. He was so private.”

I breathe and I have to remember how you described me in an e-mail to this Peach today:

Different. Hot.

You invited me to a party because I’m

Different. Hot.

But what if I fuck it all up? I feel more insecure with every passing block. We are going to Woody Allen land, where I’ve always wanted to live. I sell Salinger and your friend is Salinger and you are still putting on makeup even though I have already seen you. You’ve been smearing black shit under your eyes since Fourteenth Street and I’m the one who should be gearing up for a battle. I have a tough time with college people, let alone “Brown people.” You scowl at the driver. “I said Upper West Side not Upper East Side.”

You have a Prada bag and a glare and I feel like I picked up the wrong Beck. You must be psychic because you blush, defensive. “I’m sorry. I don’t mean to sound bitchy. I’m just nervous.”

Phew. I tease you. “Me too. I’m worried your friends won’t like you.”

You get a kick out of me and you give up on whatever it was you were searching for in your purse and start talking to me. You don’t just tell a story, you live it. When you tell me about your favorite birthday party ever, which was when your dad let you and two friends take the ferry to the mainland to see Love Actually and you met a guy, I learn that I am capable of envying a thirteen-year-old boy. Talking to you is like traveling through time and you sigh. “He meant a lot to me.”

“You still know him?”

You smile at me. “I was referring to Hugh Grant.”

I’ll fucking kill Hugh Grant. “Ah.”

“You know, Joe. Hugh Grant works in a bookstore in one of his movies.”

“No shit?” I say and I won’t kill Hugh Grant. We’re about to kiss, I can feel it, but your phone buzzes with a text.

“It’s Peach,” you say. “If I don’t respond right away, she freaks out.”

“Is she as crazy as Uncle J. D.?”

You don’t laugh at my joke and Peach better know how lucky she is to have you. Now she’s calling, as if you had time to respond to her text. “We’re almost there,” you tell her and then I hear her scream into the phone, “You are not a we, Beck.”

You get off the phone and our vibe is off. You don’t laugh when I say that J. D.’s niece seems like a piece of work. No, Joe. She’s not his niece. I don’t like the way you say my name and I should shut up but I don’t; my instinctive hatred of Peach is winning. “I just don’t get it. You’re such good friends and she doesn’t tell you how she’s related to one of the most famous writers in the world?”

“It’s a boundaries thing.”

You’re pushing me away on our second date even though I’m

Different. Hot.

You’re afraid of love and it’s sad and I don’t want to walk into a roomful of strangers. But we are here and I am your escort. The doorman opens the cab door and you let him help you out. I wanted to do that. “Come on,” you say. “I don’t want to be late.”

If Peach hadn’t called, you would have said, we don’t want to be late.

THE elevator is like a reset button and we agree that it smells like lavender. The walls are papered with flowers. Violets, I think. It’s an old elevator and there’s a small bench and we stand side by side and watch the buttons light up as we pass each floor.

“Penthouse, huh?”

“Yeah,” you say and you shift your Prada to your right shoulder, between us. “I’m so happy I remembered to switch bags. Peach gave me this bag for my birthday last year. I would have felt terrible if I forgot to bring it.”

There is no way we are going to talk about purses before we have sex so I pretend to be curious. “Did Peaches go to Brown too?”

“It’s Peach,” you say and you lick your finger and smudge your eyeliner. You’re nervous and the elevator is slow and why can’t we just hit the red button and stay?

“Ah.”

“It’s never Peaches,” you say in a tone so serious you’d think we were talking about politics. “Well, actually, that’s not true. Her middle name is Isabella so sometimes we joke around, you know, Peach Is.”

“Uh-huh.”

“You get it? ‘Is’ being short for Isabella?”

I look at you because I know that you think I’m

Different. Hot.

I don’t ask permission to touch you, but I raise my hand to your cheek and rub off a speck of eye makeup with my thumb. You swallow. You smile. Your pupils are fat with desire. I look away first. I got you.

“Anyway,” you say. “She’s an old friend. Her family summered on Nantucket and we met when we were kids. She’s a genius.”

“That’s cool.”

“She prepped with Chana at Nightingale and she knew me from summers and Lynn was her freshman roommate. She’s like the connector.”

I laugh and you blush. “What?”

“You just used prepped as a verb.”

“Fuck off.”

“That’s a demerit, young lady.”

“And what happens when I get another?” you say and I’m this close to throwing you against the wall and you’re this close to grabbing me. The closer we get to the party, the more you want to slap the red emergency button and go at it right here, right now.

I should kiss you but we’re almost to the floor marked P for Penthouse. You move your purse to your other shoulder; you want me. I graze the palm of my left hand over the small of your back and you almost whinny. Your fingertips brush my leg as the elevator shimmies. I lower my hand slowly. You anticipate. You dangle your fingers, ready. And when my hand finally nears yours, you gasp, lightly, as you open your fingers and latch on to mine. We are holding hands and your sweat is mixing into mine. Wow.

It’s time to kiss and I want to kiss but the doors open up and we’re here. And I’m speechless. Are we on the set of Hannah and Her Sisters? Desire for you is mixed up with jealousy of all this and people know your name but not mine. Your world is bigger than my world and you hug Brown people and some of them have instruments—are you kidding with a fucking drum circle, like it’s 1995? They’re covering “Jane Says” and singing as if they know about lust and weakness. You squeeze my hand.

“Joe,” you say. “This is Peach.”

Yes it is. She’s even taller than I expected with enormous frizzy hair swept into a tornado above her head. She makes you look too little and you make her look too big. You’re from two different planets and you’re not meant to be standing together. She claps as if she’s meeting a five-year-old and I don’t like it when girls are taller than me. “Hello, Joseph,” she says, overenunciating. “I am Peach and this is my home.”

“Nice to meet you,” I say and she looks me up and down. Cunt.

“I love you already for not being pretentious,” she says. “And thank you for not bringing any wine or anything. This girl is family to me. No gifts allowed.”

You are, of course, aghast. “Omigod, Peach, I completely flaked.”

She looks down on you literally. “Sweetie, I just said I love it. And besides, the last thing we need is more cheap wine.”