A Moment in Time

Zach was still sleeping when I got back to the hotel.  I took my coat off, looking at it, trying to figure out if I would be able to get that stain out, completely.  I took it into the bathroom and put some soap on a washcloth and started scrubbing.  Halfway through, Zach woke up and came in and wrapped his arms around me, putting his face next to mine.  We looked at our reflections in the mirror.  I grinned at him.  He said, “We make a pretty good looking couple, you know?”

My smile froze instantly, and so did his, as we realized the weight of the words he had just uttered.  He relaxed immediately then, kissed my cheek and asked what I was doing.

“You’re never going to believe what happened!  I went out to try and find that Starbucks you went to yesterday-“

He cut me off, laughing, “Did you actually find it?”

I fake glared at him.  “Yes!  Anyway, so I was almost there and this girl rounded the corner and we ran into each other.  She was carrying mass amounts of coffees and they spilled over my coat!”

“Did you push her down and call her names?”

I chuckled.  “Yep, and then I told her she should watch where she was going, gave her a kick to the ribs, and took off running.”

“You’re such a beast,” he said shaking his head and smiling, and turned and walked to the bed and laid down, putting his hands behind his head.

“She was so sweet.  She offered to pay for the cleaning of my coat, but I told her no.  So to make it up to me, she gave a suggestion of some place to go out, and offered to buy us a drink to make up for it.”

“A drink for us to share?  So generous!”

I walked over and plopped on the bed next to him and I pushed him playfully, “No.  You’re so weird.  You know what I mean.  Anyway, what do you think?  I thought maybe tomorrow night, since we’re supposed to be flying back Thursday morning.”

“Well… I may have fibbed about our departure time.”

“Excuse me?”

“We aren’t leaving until Saturday night.”

“What?  How?  What about my match?”

“I made arrangements with your coach.  With the help of your parents.”

“Zach!  I can’t miss a match!  That’s what I’m on scholarship for, is playing tennis!”

I saw him wince.  “I’m sorry.  I didn’t know that you wouldn’t want to.”

I pursed my lips and studied his face.  He looked apologetic, and I felt bad for jumping on him.  I knew he was only trying to be romantic and surprise me, but I had never missed a match before.   “I just don’t want to disappoint the team.  I’m kind of their leader, I think.”

“I am sorry.  I should’ve checked with you, first.”  He grabbed my hands with his and brought them up to his face and gave each of them a kiss.  I bent down and kissed his forehead, in return.

“You’re forgiven.  I mean, how can I really be mad?  We’re in New York.  Plus, it’s you.”  I pushed the thoughts of the team to the back of my mind, noting to text Cara and Emily later.  “Anyway.  What do you think about going out with Elisabeth?”

“Who?”

“Coffee girl!”

“Oh, yeah.  I don’t care.  Whatever you want.”

“Ok.  I’ll text her tomorrow and figure it out.  We need to get ready for the Phantom.”

I got up to go change clothes and Zach slapped my butt, and it stung.  I stopped mid-step, turned on my heel, and charged to the bed, jumping onto it, and him.  I started tickling him, with all my might.  He was laughing uncontrollably, and grabbed my wrists and used his body to push me over, so I was on my back.  He took my wrists in one hand, pinning them over my head, and started tickling me with the other.  Ever since I was a child, if I am tickled for too long, the urge to pee hits me immediately, and if it doesn’t stop, I almost can’t control it.  “Stop!  Stop!”  I huffed between laughing fits.

“Zach!  Stop, you’re gonna make me pee!”  I had tears streaming down my face at this point, as I was trying to buck my hips to throw him off me and kick him.  He finally stopped.

“Well, we can’t have you peeing on my side of the bed, can we?”  Then he leaned down and passionately kissed me.  He pulled my leggings off, and my thong with it, and grabbed my legs, propping them over his shoulders.  He went to work, kissing, licking, and lightly biting, until I was moaning his name, and I was finished.  I laid there, completely relaxed, as he brought his head up to look at me, grinning proudly. 

He got up and started taking off his clothes, walking to the bathroom, to assumedly get in the shower.  When he was completely naked, and by the door, he stopped and looked at me, as seductively as he thought he could, and put his finger up to his mouth and bit it, joking around.  I rolled my eyes and laughed.  Such a nerd!  I didn’t want to get my hair wet and have to dry it, so I chose to take a “whore’s bath,” only washing my important parts.

I put on a cocktail dress, patterned tights, and pumps, and sat channel surfing, waiting for Zach to get ready.

The Phantom was amazing, as always.  Hearing the songs make me want to bust out singing with them, but I’m sure that would’ve ruined the show for many a patron.  If I had the ability to sing, I would be on Broadway.  But I don’t.  At all.  Unfortunately.  We took a cab back to the hotel, and called it a night, because we want to be full-out tourists on Wednesday.

Bright and early Wednesday morning, we got up and headed out.  We were both dressed relatively comfortable, knowing we were going to be doing a lot of walking and sightseeing.  Both of us were wearing tennis shoes, sweatshirts, and jeans.  I had my hair in a ponytail, ready for whatever may come that day.  We set out and found a hole-in-the-wall type diner to eat breakfast.  We had decided to do the 9 hour New York City Comprehensive Shuttle Tour.  In the morning we visited Times Square, Saint Patrick’s Cathedral, Grand Central Station, Little Italy, Statue of Liberty, and the Statue of Liberty Monument/Pedestal.  We had lunch in Little Italy.  Zach was the gentleman, of course, holding my hand, pointing things out if he thought I had missed something, and whispering smart ass comments regarding our tour guide and some of the other tourists, to make me laugh.  We made sure to take pictures at every site, and have fellow tourists take pictures of us together, at every site.  After lunch, we saw Wall Street, Federal Hall, Trinity Church, Wall Street Bull, Ticker Tape Parade Route, 911 Memorial and Memorial Pools, the Empire State Building, and we ended up at Times Square, where we had started. 

When visiting the 911 Memorial, I cried briefly.  It had been a scary time for me, even though I was only 8 at the time.  My father had been on a business trip and conference to New York, and was supposed to be flying back home around the time that the first plane had hit the first tower.  Even though so long ago, I remembered the fear and tears when my mom had come to the school and gotten me out to take me home, since we didn’t know my father was alright until he had landed and called my mom.  And also, I could place myself in all of the victim’s and victim’s family’s shoes, and how scary and horrible it would’ve been.  And seeing such passion, memories, and kind words memorializing everyone lost, brought about strong emotions.  I leaned into Zach’s shoulder.  He wiped my tears away with my thumbs, put his hands on either, cheek and kissed me, and we kept walking, hand in hand.

Even though we had eaten in Little Italy for lunch, we decided we wanted some famous New York pizza for dinner.  We went to Lombardi’s.  Both Zach and I love meat, and so we got a meat lover’s type pizza, and garlic cheese bread.  Zach had beer and I down Coke after Coke.  It was the perfect pig out meal, and absolutely delicious.  At dinner, I decided to text Elisabeth, about meeting up.  I thanked her again, and told her it wasn’t necessary to go out with us.  I didn’t want to feel like she had to entertain tourists whom she doesn’t know.  After texting back and forth several times, we had decided on either Thursday or Friday. I finished by telling her that I would speak with Zach and then get back to her.  By the time we arrived back at the hotel it was 9:30 p.m.  We ordered a movie, cuddled up with each other, and half-watched, half-talked until we fell asleep, sometime around midnight. 

Thursday morning, I woke up to Zach watching ESPN with the tv on mute, playing with the ends of my hair.  I groggily looked up at him, and then looked at the clock on the nightstand and saw it was 10:30.  I groaned.  “Did I really just sleep that long?”

“Yes you did, sleepy head.”

“Pizza.  Coma,” I moaned.

Zach laughed.  “You know they have a work out facility in here.  Did you want to go run for awhile?  I wouldn’t mind going either.”

“Sure.  I’m sure it’s already going to be rough come Sunday hitting, so if I don’t do anything, I don’t want to lose any endurance.”  We changed into our athletic gear, I grabbed a banana we had in our room and ate it quickly, and chugged a glass of water, and headed to the workout facility.  I immediately headed to the treadmill and claimed it by throwing a towel on it, gearing up to run 5 miles, if I could manage.  I stretched, and then got on.  I saw Zach stretching, getting ready to lift some weights.  I knew he would probably get on the treadmill next to mine in awhile, if it was still open.  I run about an 8 minute mile, so I expected to be running for around 40 minutes.  I had brought along my Ipod, so I turned it on, to listen to music while running.  When I was about 20 minute in, Zach hopped on the treadmill next to me.  I took out an ear bud and he asked me how much longer.  I told him, and then he asked if I wanted to go swimming after.  I told him that was fine, if he wanted to.  I told him I would probably sit in the hot tub for awhile, to loosen up my muscles some more.

After running, when we got back up to the room, I saw that it was noon.  I asked Zach if we could order some room service to get something to eat before going to the pool.  I told him I was famished after my run.  He obliged, and we ordered food.  After eating so heavy the previous night, I just had a salad and some fruit.  I had noticed since being in New York that although my eating habits hadn’t changed, my lack of working out made me feel more sluggish and bloated.  We lounged around a bit after eating.  Zach wanted to go right away to the pool, but I wouldn’t let him.

“No, Zach!  We can’t.  My mom always told me that you have to wait a half hour before swimming after eating.”

“Oh Aleah, that’s an old wives’ tale.”

I crossed my arms over my chest and just stared at the tv, indicating that I wasn’t budging.  He rolled his eyes and got up to dig through his suitcase for his swim trunks.  I was watching him and saw the little blue box get pulled to the top.  He quickly grabbed it and shoved it back under clothing and turned to look at me, to see if I had seen.  I averted my eyes back to the tv, trying to hide that I saw his secret.  He started changing clothes and I remembered that I had wanted to text Elisabeth.  Zach and I had already discussed that we wanted to go out on Friday, so I sent her the following text:  Hey Elisabeth!  We talked, and thought Friday would be the best night, as we fly out on Saturday.  Thoughts?

At that point, I changed into my bikini, grabbed my phone, and we headed to the pool.  While setting out things down, I felt my phone vibrate.  It was Elisabeth.  We texted back and forth for a bit, and decided on 7:30 p.m.  I asked Zach if that would be fine with him, and he agreed, which was good, since I had already set that time with Elisabeth.

We swam for awhile, and then sat in the hot tub, enjoying the steaming hot of the water.  The rest of the afternoon was uneventful, but Zach told me I needed to dress up for dinner, as we were going somewhere special. 

After showering, I got dressed in a white pencil skirt, with black markings on it and a high slit in the back, a flow-y magenta shirt, tucked in, but billowing out, and black stilettos.  I put some product in my hair and scrunched it, to make it wavy, and let it air dry.  I put on a black headband with a small black flower on the side.  Zach looked handsome in a fitted light blue sweater, charcoal gray dress pants, and black dress shoes.  He stuck out his arm, and I linked mine through his, and we went downstairs and hailed a cab.  We arrived to Cherry, a beautiful Japanese/Sushi restaurant.  The inside was romantic, and dimly lit.  We ordered drinks, and ended up ordering a variety of food, including multiple sushi items, an entrée to split, and an appetizer.  Sushi is one of my favorite foods, and Zach definitely knew that. 

As I took the last piece of a roll and popped it in my mouth, I closed my eyes, enjoying the delectable flavors.  I set the chopsticks down, and opened my eyes to Zach intently looking at me.  I tilted my head sideways and asked, “Yes?”

He parted his lips open, as if to speak, then closed them, then opened again.  “Aleah, I love you.  I have since the first time I said it, through today, and probably always will.”  He paused temporarily, to bring his hand up on the table, where he was holding the light blue box.  Everything stopped.  A frozen moment in time.  My mouth slightly opened, and my eyes widened, as he started untying the ribbon, looking at me expectantly.


*Dearest Readers:  Stay tuned for a post tomorrow regarding Elisabeth and Aleah's night out together with their male companions.  Visit Elisabeth at crazyadventuresinny.blogspot.com to view her side of their interactions!*