Walking hand in hand through the dark, we seem to know exactly where we're going. But little do you suspect I'm the smallest bit confused as to where my new place is, and every street in this sprawling residential neighborhood looks maddeningly the same. Cortland Street? When did I see that before? Did we take a left at Orinoco Drive? That means that Aquarun must be the next one, or at least the next to next one....
I'd probably be more than a little irritated at my inability to master the streets of my own new crash pad if it weren't for the fact that every step we take, and every step we've taken for fifteen minutes now, reveals more and more just how stupendously fabulous we happen to look tonight. From nine to eleven-thirty we danced at a charity benefit, spending the two hours before that getting dressed up as intensely as we ever have, dropping much more money on our clothes than we did on the tickets to the benefit. As a result, I'm wearing a tuxedo for only the third or fourth time in my life. I've gotten rid of the tie and undone the top couple of buttons on my blindingly white shirt, but otherwise it's still intact. Compared to you, though, I happen to think I look like something the bottom of a shoe might find on the bottom of its shoe. You arrived at the party in a ruby red gown with a plunging neckline and a provocative slit down the right leg, sporting a new jade necklace and shiny black high heels.
Gazes followed you all around the dance floor as you spun and wallowed in my clumsy hands, laughing when I turned right when I was supposed to turn left, stepped forward instead of stepping back. Not that you were exactly Gregory Hines yourself out there, but when you look as glamorous as you did, no one much cares about winning any contests. We decided as the party wound down that it would be a minor crime not to exhaust all the possibilities of our clothing, so we decided to park a few blocks shy of our intended destination and wow the public by just strolling down the street, looking wildly out of place, the jewels of the earth. Of course, ten minutes past midnight in this sleepy community has given us exactly no audience except empty sidewalks and lonely lamplights under which you stop once and execute a flawless pirouette as I stand and applaud. The night is warm and the moon is full, and we mosey along looking as if we've stepped out of a musical. I'm thinking The Umbrellas of Cherbourg, you're leaning toward Moulin Rouge. Hell, either one works for me. It's a great way to close out the night, being beside such a vision in red, your hair tied up with a small silver clasp, your lips the innermost color of fire, the cheap lamplights overhead shining on your necklace and your eyes. Beautiful.
When I know that you've started to wonder just where the hell we're walking to, I begin to plot the neighborhood in my head, still a little buzzed from the champagne we drank so freely. Maybe it's the champagne that makes me think that if we just cut between two big houses just up ahead, sitting tastefully at the edge of the cul de sac on Wynwyd Lane, we'll eliminate having to walk five more blocks and halve the distance between us and my place, where I plan to take you right to bed and make love to you in the dark.
"Yeah, definitely if we just cut through here, all we have to do is cross Burberry and we're there," I tell you confidently, about eighty percent sure of what the hell I'm talking about. Well, seventy percent.
"I assume by the way you feel the need to convince yourself that you're actually pretty clueless," you point out..
"Clueless, yes, but I'm in a tux, so my decisions all seem to make perfect sense, don't they?" I pull you gently in the direction of the nearest driveway, where a couple of Lexuses are parked obnoxiously side by side. You follow willingly enough, your natural urge to resist my geographical instructions overwhelmed by some residual tipsiness from the booze. Good stuff it was, too.
"We're going to get shot cutting across their lawn," you tell me. "That's really how I want to go, too."
"They're not going to shoot people in evening gowns and tuxes," I insist. "Most they would do is beat us senseless."
I've lowered my voice just a bit, and still holding hands we move past the side of the anonymous sleepers' house. You put your head on my shoulder and wrap both arms around my waist after pausing briefly to remove your high heels. You curl your toes in the grass once to get that nice summery feeling and then we move on, me gallantly holding your shoes for you.
We walk between two big backyards and the scene opens up a bit on a common field between two long rows of houses. Already I know I've made a wee bit of a mistake, but I don't let on. We amble off to the left through a little thatch of trees and come up against a long running fence protecting evildoers like us from reaching the properties of the semi-rich and never-to-be-famous-unless-they-wind-up-on-some-stupid-reality-show. We walk between the fence and the foliage and critique peoples' nicely manicured back yards as we pass them. After four or five houses, the wooden fence becomes a chain link affair and we hear soft conversation coming from a house up ahead. So we're not the only ones awake past midnight on a Saturday after all. Good. Maybe someone will see us pass and think they must be dreaming to see such an image of exotic opulence drifting through their mist. Maybe they'll even think we're ghosts from the Titanic or something. I always wanted to be one of those.
We see through the dark that the mellow conversation is coming from two couples sitting poolside at the end of the row of houses. They're sitting in deck chairs behind the largest house of all, having opened a bottle (or two, looks like) of wine. Their pool is a very nice affair, lit on each side by running lights set into light pink cement. The water is perfectly still. From the looks of them, my neighbors have been taking an occasional dip, as they're all wearing swimsuits, but the time for actual physical activity is long past. As we go by, we nod and I lift a hand, and one of the women lifts a hand in return. We hear a couple of friendly hellos and we smile and go on, disappearing from their view behind a very tall, intricately cut wooden fence which borders the south side of their property. We angle to the left when we clear their view so as not to head into the large community garden which slumbers under the moon in front of us, and start to climb up a mild, very gradual grass rise that leads to Burberry Lane in another few hundred feet. Home isn't far away. I start to rub your back, which is exposed confidently by your dress, the rear of which starts almost at your waist. I can't wait for the pictures they were taking tonight at the dance to be developed so I can make every man I know weep with jealousy.
"Hello, excuse me," we hear a laughing voice say to our left. One of the women from the pool has poked her head out of a swinging wooden door on the side of the house. She's younger than I thought she was, maybe late twenties. We stop and turn, and my first thought is that she's going to ask us if we're lost.
"Um," she says, giggling, "I think I should tell you my husband's in love with you." She's looking right at you when she says this (Whew!) and you raise an eyebrow. I do the same and we take a couple of steps toward her when a second head appears behind hers, a guy of about the same age.
"I am so sorry, please excuse us, my wife is insane," he says, smiling, playfully pulling on her left arm.
"No, seriously, he just told me he'd do anything to have you," the woman says jovially.
"I can understand that," I say to them, "but unfortunately she's taken. Unless we're talking about a cash offer, of course." You elbow me in the side and laugh, obviously flattered by this man's attention. How could he not want you, and say so even in the presence of his wife? You're obviously the most stunning thing ever to walk past their house.
"Yes, cash, that is what we're talking about," the woman says. "Could I buy her for about ten minutes as his present? Just to have her stand by the pool so he can look? His tongue's hanging out of his mouth."
"That may be true, but we'll let you good people be on your way," the husband says, rolling his eyes. "Lots and lots to drink, obviously."
"How much do I get for standing by the pool for ten minutes?" you ask, laughing again, stepping over to the swinging door. You're just a couple of feet from them and I can see the man clearly drop his eyes to your chest for a not-so-subtle glance. I step beside you and play along, what the hell.
"Well, see, it's his birthday, and I told him he could have anything he wanted in the world because he hated the shaver I gave him," she tells us.
"I do not hate it, I do not," the husband insists, sighing and shaking his head.
"So for twenty dollars, you'd get me off the hook," the wife finishes. "Twenty dollars, I'll give you a check!"
"Twenty dollars and a glass of wine for each of us sounds more like a deal," you say toyingly, and the woman claps her hands in joy.
