A Serendipitous NewYork Saturday Night

Some evenings present opportunities that make it feel like the stars collided in your favor. Like some eternal figure above has your best interests at heart and intersected them in perfect synchronicity. I met a beautiful boy on a warm summer evening in a city that evokes magnetism for those willing to be drawn.

I started my day in Cleveland, Ohio, stopped in Saratoga Springs to deliver excited horse owners to a race, and ended a long week of flying in Teterboro, New Jersey. My aviation home away from home. The following day was my airline home-home, and at 4 pm I was released for the day. Just enough time to temp my vices and text my friends in Manhattan. Tired, yet antsy for social interaction, I was unable to ignore my intuition beckoning me out. 

For lack of a better word, it's a bitch to get into Manhattan from the hotel in Jersey. After debating back and forth with myself, I rolled my eyes, changed my outfit, and marched to the elevator, pulled by an invisible string to call an Uber. I paint these circumstances carefully because had I made any minute decision differently, my evening would not have transpired as such.

I sat nauseous on the Washington Bridge in stop-and-go traffic for far too long. My shoulders grew tense, and I began to shake my foot anxiously. I gripped the handle as my driver weaved in and out of construction lanes. Had I not been so eager to arrive, I may have asked him to calm down, but I had faith in his lead foot that could have only been possessed by a native New Yorker. Instead, I verbally praised him with each jolt of the seatbelt, as he cut off slow drivers in the left lane in a noble effort to amend my delay.

I was en route to meet Evan for dinner in the Upper West Side. Given it was a Saturday evening and reservations were scarce, we changed restaurants mid-drive. To add to my suffering, my Uber app was experiencing a glitch that wouldn’t let me change the drop-off location. I poked jarringly at my screen to no avail and finally pleaded with my driver with the bat of an eyelash and a crisp bill to drive me 10 blocks south. A journey that would have taken far too long on foot. 

The instant I exited the vehicle, I felt my burdens ease. My shoulders relaxed as they were graced by an unprecedentedly comfortable August sun. A rare temperature in the dog days of summer, where the breeze cools your slick body instead of forcing stale concrete air into your lungs. There was a buzzing hum of life from people all around. Mothers with babies in strollers, men selling flowers, a few untowards laying in doorways, but mostly young people on their way for a night of opportunity. Often the most exciting part of a night is the anticipation before it begins. The expectation that your wildest hopes could somehow be fulfilled. It’s an entity that surrounds cities in a way suburbs don’t have access to.

I had contracted the contagion of hope as well, after just a few minutes on the island we call Manhattan. This change was visible in my face as joy. I smiled as one does when she has finally arrived at a moment of relief after a long period of internal turbulence. I smiled because it was a Saturday night and I felt alive. I smiled because I deleted my dating apps and I didn’t care if I met anyone ever again. I smiled because there were babies in strollers and dogs on leashes trotting by. Partly, I smiled because I'm from the South and that’s what we do. And then I smiled because a handsome man on a Citi Bike was craning his neck to make eye contact with me. 

He promptly pulled over his bike and strode in my direction. I felt him approaching as I crossed the street. I turned to meet sultry yellow eyes, the color of an overripe lemon at its peak, just before it fades into fermentation. Surrounded by thick, sparkly lashes and dark brows that framed his face in an attractive contrast. I noticed a few light scars on his cheek, stripe claws in his stubbled facial hair. All these features, encompassed on bronzed skin, revealed a kind smile. 

As he approached, I found myself lost in the thought of his features and didn't quite catch what he said, but it went something like this:

“Hi, you are beautiful, and I wanted to introduce myself,” he said with a deep, raspy voice. 

I couldn’t help but comment on his eyes before responding to his introduction. His irises met my gaze circumferenced by flecks of hazel and a deep ring that may appear green in alternate lighting. All these thoughts, and it came out something like, “Wow, your eyes.” 

He responded about my green eyes, and I heard a familiar accent. Spanish. Wearing a navy blue linen quarter-button shirt and khaki pants with loafers, I should have recognized the pijo style. I told him how I used to live in Madrid, and we learned we moved to each other's respective countries in the same year. We had just missed each other.

We exchanged numbers, and I had to break the news that I don’t live in the city, always followed by the assurance that I’m here all the time for work. As I’m everywhere and nowhere a majority of the time. Since I was to leave the following morning, and there is no time like the present, we agreed to meet later.

I went about my evening enthralled by having been approached and feeling free from notions of the past. I caught up with Evan over dinner and met Mark for drinks on the Upper East Side. 

Nervous and tired but ultimately a victim of “what if”, I allowed him to meet my friends and me out for drinks. I instantly felt better when I saw him standing in the doorway of Ethyl’s. His Spanish was a welcome comfort, as his demeanor, forged in the heart of Madrid, reminded me of a version of myself I often ruminated on. 

I introduced him to my friends, whom I also know from my time in Madrid, and he agreeably discussed with them, showing no signs of impatience or annoyance. My eyes darted back and forth, looking for red flags, looking for an excuse to run away. I found none; still, my distrustful heart needed convincing.

He offered to buy me a drink, but I’d had enough. “Let's get you some food,” he said, ushering me around the streets with the earned confidence of a content man. As we sat on a concrete bench and shared a chicken plate across from the kebab cart, I noticed the harsh stubble on his chin, the coarse hair around his jaw, and dense hair lining all the correct places on his body. His tanned complexion, evidence of days in the heat and sweat on his back. The furrow of his brow when I gave differing opinions and the curiosity quivering on his lips as I gave a synopsis of my past. At this moment, I felt any symbolic last attachments from the past melt away.

I realized I am free to find love elsewhere.  I'd kept subconscious shackles on myself, preventing me from fully moving forward. I’ve spent the last year of my life doing all the appropriate “healing” devices to nurture my broken heart. The last piece I hadn’t been able to achieve was the moving-on part. In nonlinear fashion, it requires you to bare your soul yet again, unafraid of the consequence, for the bliss of feeling alive again. The final reward is the ugly vulnerability of trust.

We sat on the stale concrete, still warm from the sun of the day, no doubt clouded in grime and wadded-up gum, and talked for hours. Where time transforms into nothing but the very present moment. Concerns of tomorrow have no bearing on the peace of looking someone in the eye and thinking of nothing else. 

Much the way a starving man daydreams his favorite meal, I replay my gluttony, knowing it the moment it was fleeting but still unable to inhale enough of his essence. Hints of vanilla musk mixed with pheromones, ultimately an emblem of freedom I hadn’t felt in over a year. Across from me was the hope I had been looking for, the last kick in the ass to accept my own enchantment with my new life. 

The serendipitous crossing may lead to something beautiful. Or may have been the wink from above to serve as a reminder: your future requires you to go outside. We cannot know until after the eclipse how those events may be a future or simply an entry point into a lesson you still have not learned.