Read Nights Like This for Free Online Page A

beneath my feet and the cold marble underneath. I would return someday when I had nothing to lose.
    â€œWhat do you have to lose now?”
    Since I couldn’t answer and I didn’t know who asked the question and I knew it wasn’t Tracy Chapman because I had forgotten my headphones on my nightstand, I opened my eyes and turned my thoughts to my squatting stranger. I imagined her in Central Park, blinded by the bright sun, holding her photos at an angle so as to deflect glare off the glass of the frame. I wondered how her touch would feel to my skin. I remembered rather abruptly the taste of Anjali’s kisses, the feel of her caresses. I rested my head in my palms and closed my eyes.
    What would I say to her? It wasn’t as if I was going to walk up to her and propose we fuck. I wanted to get to know her. I wanted to ride in convertibles with her to faraway places. I wanted to make her laugh and to hold her when she cried. How I could want so much for and from someone whom I had just met while buying a photograph, I didn’t know myself. But there I was taking a train to go see her with no idea what to say. And there I was, with every station heading uptown, leaving behind a beautiful woman who loved me so simply it made my whole world complicated. And the most simple and complicated fact of the whole matter was that I loved her too. When the tears threatened to come, I closed my eyes and focused only on a 5-by-7 black and white where the color of the sky was the same as my yearning dark eyes.
    I held my breath as I exited the train, the smell of burnt rubber and hot metal erasing all traces of sandalwood and mogra and Queen of the Night. I wondered what her name was. I wondered how we had met and talked and never inquired about names. But what’s in a name? A name is but a resting place for all orgasmic screams.
    Except “Anjali” was more than that. It actually meant “an offering to the gods.” Sometimes, like now, I wondered if she deserved such a burdened name. But then my thoughts shifted as I walked to Central Park and I started thinking of a name I did not know yet and wondered what it would mean, what value it would hold.
    She was not by the loudly whispering fountain. I walked around and around but she was nowhere. I sat on the fountain’s edge and sighed. I looked towards Poet’s Walk. I wanted to clear my senses of her. I walked down Poet’s Walk and paused in awe at the pigeon shit-splattered statues of literary giants. I walked back and checked for her again. She was not there.
    I realized then that even if I did find her, I wouldn’t know what to say to her. Maybe, “I bought a photo yesterday and haven’t stopped thinking about you ever since.” Maybe not. How would I talk to her? How would I ask for her? Did I want to ask for her? Maybe I was just having a semi-quarter life crisis and that’s what this was all about. Maybe I was just intrigued. But my heart sank so fast upon not seeing her; my senses yearned so much to know her scent, her taste, her voice, her touch, and her reactions to my words that I knew I was fated to know her. I knew I was destined to love her. It made my heart somersault in my chest.
    I threw a nickel into the fountain and wished to ride in a convertible with her. I looked into the water as if her image would appear. It did not. I turned and walked towards the stairs so I could leave the park. But I didn’t want to leave the park. I wanted to find my squatting stranger. I wanted to touch her lips with my finger, making silent the space around us. And then I wanted to kiss her. She would taste of honey, I decided. Chocolate and honey like the color of her eyes.
    As I ascended the stairs I didn’t know where I wanted to go. I took out my cell phone. I read the names in my phone book. Most of my friends were really Anjali’s friends who, out of some obligation, had given me their numbers. Half of them had