kas-ottenheimer:
@elainespaulding
He hadn’t lingered long after arriving at 20 East 78th Street. Zofia had been there, informing him of his mother’s whereabouts in her toneless Eastern European accent while inspecting the fifty-piece set of Haviland china (and the alternate Wedgwood set) for any minute imperfections. He’d found Andrew on the couch, freshly shipped-back from Taft, looking sullen, sleep-deprived, no doubt hungover. There were shadows beneath his brother’s eyes like three-day-old bruises. Kas had given him a congenial smack on the head in passing— reciprocated with a scowl and a protest he didn’t wait around to hear— then left his bags still packed in his room and gone back the way he’d came through the foyer, shrugging on a winter coat that lived permanently at this address, pocketing some gloves and disappearing through the front door with a vague promise to be back in time for dinner, though it didn’t seem like anyone would hold him accountable if he wasn’t.
It was the kind of cold, stillborn day most often found at the end of December. Clouds were gathered low in the sky, scudding along nose-to-tail; glass high-rises stood dull and dark beneath them, only occasionally brightened by a burst of morning sunshine. Piles of snow leftover from earlier in the week had already developed a gray crust from the exhaust of passing cars. Even so, he felt oddly nostalgic walking through this part of the city, looking up to where cranes bisected the sky in Midtown or passing through warm gusts of air rising from a subway grate, taking notice of things that had changed, things that had stayed the same. No part of him had realized he might actually miss it here. Taking a town car would’ve been quicker and warmer, but the walking felt necessary. Yesterday, in LA, the weather had been a balmy sixty-two degrees. There’d been an invisible breeze stirring the palm trees around LAX, and the sky above the tarmac had been too empty and blue to seem real. Some part of him had started to realize— he was getting tired of it there. Things stayed too much the same. There was no change of seasons, only the wet half of the year and the dry one. He was still surfing every morning. But here, when the temperature dropped into the low thirties and the wind howled through the canyon streets, there was no mistaking a New York winter for what it was. At a crosswalk, Kas pulled up the hood of his sweatshirt and searched his pockets for the gloves that he’d grabbed as an afterthought. He didn’t mind the cold— but like a change of timezone, it took some getting used to.
Beyond the revolving doors of the Plaza Hotel, he stepped into a very different world: a temperate jungle with glittering crystal chandeliers and marble columns and huge, exotic plants fanning out over white-cloth tabletops. Light filtered down from a stained-glass skylight, shaded by a partial canopy of four potted palms. His gaze searched the room until he found Elaine, seated at the bar in a tall wicker chair, one leg crossed over the other. She looked like she belonged amidst this old-world elegance.
The hostess let him through sans-reservation— his mother had hosted her fair share of events at the Plaza, so a last name was all it took— but still, he felt the need to push down his hood, aware that a sweatshirt (no matter how expensive) was still a sweatshirt, and this place most definitely had a dress code. “Hey! Sorry, didn’t mean to keep you waiting, but I didn’t want to take a car, so…” He raked a hand through partially-squashed curls. Then a small smile took shape. “It’s good to see you. Happy holidays.” As she stood, Kas angled to give her a one-armed hug. It was a greeting he was used to giving without much thought, but the thought did occur to him a second later that maybe he shouldn’t, or maybe Elaine would prefer that he didn’t. By then it was too late and he could only make up for it by pulling away, quickly, and returning his hands to the pockets of his coat, gaze averted to the menu with a great deal of interest. “So, coffee first?”
The bar was equipped with elegant chrome machinery and a single, highly-competent barista, There was also a special holiday menu: coffee, cocktails, coffee-cocktails, some garnished with sticks of cinnamon or delicate spirals of crystallized ginger. He ordered a flat white, nothing out of the ordinary. As Elaine placed her own order, he looked around at how they’d decorated the Palm Court for the season. Tasteful, but… a little weird, seeing hints of Christmas cheer in this luxurious tropical grove. There was a wreath above the entrance smothered in gold foil and silver baubles, and a giant Nutcracker stationed in the far corner which looked like it should be holding a machete, not a bayonet, to slash through all this vegetation. The clouds above shifted; morning light poured down, dappling the mosaic floor with color. Though it was warm in here, and the ambiance complete with a piano rendition of Santa Baby floating in from the lobby, he was still thinking about the rest of the city outside. He couldn’t remember the last time he’d seen what Fifth looked like during Christmastime. Glancing at Elaine, a thought passed over his expression almost visibly; Kas waited till she’d been given her coffee before he gestured towards the lobby by lifting his own. “Actually, do you mind if we take these to go? I think I’ve finally been away long enough to get sentimental. The walk here was nice and— the sun’s out, so maybe we can… walk?”
Elaine’s eldest brother once described her as aggressively punctual—which never sounded like much of an insult to her, and merely meant she always made a point to be early. It suggested preparedness. It suggested consideration. Mainly, an arrival before an appointed time gave her leeway to assemble herself in multiple ways; she could get acquainted with her surroundings, retouch her lipstick, or mentally go over what she planned to say or do. She did all of those things when she arrived ten premature minutes to meet Kas. The Palm Court at the Plaza wasn’t an entirely unfamiliar environment thankfully, but she still took a moment to glance around. It always worked out for her in the long run to try and spot any recognizable faces in her mother’s usual haunts and, if so, to then make a quiet exit if need be, but there were none immediately identifiable that day. Not yet, at least, and certainly no one who’d report something back to Anna Maria. What was unfamiliar was her new shade of lipstick, applied pretty spontaneously and with only a split second’s hesitation. She’d checked it twice within the first five minutes, before she placed her compact at the bottom of her purse to remove the temptation. As for what she planned to say or do—that didn’t always work out so well, or at least that was true of her interactions with Kas. But it had been a few months since summer, and the sharp winter’s air occasionally uncoiled her in the way everyone always seemed to feel about the warmer seasons. Even her anxiety in the face of her last semester of undergrad didn’t completely eat away at her as she expected under the twinkling lights that set the city festively aglow. That’s not to say she didn’t have a few questions at the ready though. Sanitized and rudimentary, they covered school, holiday and post-graduation plans, as well as his friends. All more than acceptable, she thought, as she carefully reviewed them.
Spine ramrod straight, she scrolled through her phone to fill the last couple minutes. Her sorority sisters were scattered across the country, but a couple were in the city for Christmas or Hanukkah. She was pleasantly surprised to see their comments under her latest post on Instagram—a snapshot from the Minimalist abstraction exhibit at the Guggenheim—telling her to call them to get dinner or coffee. Maybe it was a hasty wistfulness creeping up on them before graduation, but Elaine felt pleasantly warm all the same. Her thumb hovered then tapped the little hearts next to their comments when her eyes caught on the time, the minutes shifting to the double-zero she waited for. She looked up, perhaps in unrealistic expectation of Kas to lope in at that very moment, but only managed to make sudden, borderline confrontational eye contact with a stranger seated between her and the entrance. Unwilling to reveal her discomfort, Elaine lifted her chin instead, quickly averting her gaze in a move of haughty indifference like it managed to accomplish anything at all. Crossing her legs, she shook her head at the man behind the bar when he gestured toward her half-empty glass, signalling once more that she did not need anything more than the water in front of her just yet. Elaine alternately pinched her fingertips on each hand; she flattened her skirt, knee-length and suddenly incredibly Puritanical; and she looked up at the decorations. She was chill. She could totally do chill. It was a mantra, almost, as the next three minutes trickled by, threatening to disrupt her carefully cultivated quasi-nonchalance. Relaxed had never been a feeling she perfected.
Still, she surprised herself when she barely startled in the wake of Kas’ greeting, at least so that it likely wasn’t noticeable to anyone but her and her heartbeat. She waved off his apology. “It’s completely fine. I’ve only been here a few minutes,” she reassured, then smiled—a direct echo of his own small one, immediate and unbidden. “Besides, it’s a nice day for a walk. I don’t blame you.” As she was wont to do, she quickly looked him up and down, feeling something close to when she noted his sneakers at the gala, but with a fraction less judgement and a great deal more comfortable familiarity. She only wished she brought a comb. “It’s good to see you, too.” And she meant it. “When did you land?” She stood to brush her fingers against his elbow or the cuff of his sleeve in something akin to a more intimate, friendly greeting, but he beat her to it. She told herself it wasn’t a big deal even as it happened. One-armed and quick, he hugged her. It was a press of short-lived heat against her side—there and gone in theory, but it lingered as a phantom feeling afterward. On her back where he touched, his hand covering her shoulder blade; the bump of his chest against her shoulder; and the fleeting whiff of his shampoo. It left her pleased and a little nauseous in equal measure, and Elaine had difficultly shaking it off. She tucked her hair behind her ears as she swiftly pulled away, flushed and off-kilter, and wished her compact wasn’t buried so deep beneath her wallet and moisturizer.
“Coffee’s always first,” Elaine agreed, and ordered herself a vanilla latte after Kas. She ran a hand down her forearm, in hopes to smooth the persistent goosebumps she found obvious in the balmy room, and inwardly queued up her first question as she grabbed her coffee. But Kas’ suggestion caught her off guard. It was a nice day for a walk, she had even said so herself, but she had not prepared for a walk with him. “Oh,” she exhaled. Elaine had prepared for coffee, some friendly conversation, and then a cordial goodbye; she had never really seen Kas up close in any light that wasn’t hot, yellow, and blinding. People looked different in different seasons, and Elaine just wanted to be prepared. But she knew that was crazy, both as a feeling and a demand, and told herself to go with the flow, as if she were acquainted with the phrase in any way beyond the simple definition. The place where his palm pressed against her blouse itched and she imagined their breath coming out in white puffs, their cheeks flushed in the brisk wind. Sentimental was definitely a good word, and she blamed the creeping, childish excitement of the holidays for eventually bending her to its will. She pressed her lips together. “Sure, of course,” Elaine answered as easy and affable as she could, and she hoped it was convincing. She quickly counted backwards from five in her head, then smiled lightly as she reached for her coat, hanging in wait off the back of her chair, and carefully pulled it on. Chill. “Do you want to head into the park? It’s obviously too early in the day to see much of the decorations, but if you’d like to go full New York nostalgia it seems a logical place to start.” She buttoned herself up, and exhaled heavily in exaggeration before she aimed for lighthearted: “I’ll even allow you to stop and look at the seals, if you really want to.”
