We were up close and personal, squeezed into the one phone box in New York City that still had a door on it, a tall one with a hinge down the middle that looked, at this point, like a prop on a Hollywood lot for when their heroes needed to get thrown back in time. You knew a character in an early 80's TV show was stuck in the backwoods of nowhere because the phone booth he called in from didn't have a door on it. Think about it.
She was sitting on this impossibly small but conveniently triangular little ledge, put there under the assumption that New Yorkers, bless their straining little black and grime-infested hearts, were always to be found carrying coffee when out in public and, should the need to call their stockbroker suddenly be found when out on their walk to get the papers of a cheerful morning, well. You wouldn't want to sacrifice coffee for just that.
One of her legs was wrapped around my waist and the other was nowhere to be seen but, oh. There it is. Nice.
It was 1am, okay, and we were plastered and it was winter. She and the probably-not-even 40-watt in the booth's ceiling almost felt like living a little; I'd eat her lipstick. I'd trim her toenails. I'd build her a house in the country.
She was just looking at me, wedged back as she was, with a look that was I dunno what, but was beautiful. Her head was sideways to cancel out the drunk, somehow, and I think she thought it was working. I think she thought a lot of things that night, I hope about me.
Our heads were in ruins. We wanted a pizza. It was an adventure.
We ordered straight to the booth, paid the guy in busted out quarters and ate fast, half-hanging into the street but feet planted in sacred territory. One day soon, I'm thinking of building a deck out back. Something nice to get bent on in summer. Somewhere to swap the same easy stories over and over as time does its thing anywhere else.
I think I'm thinking a lot of things; I think she's going to love them.