Disclaimer: I don't own HSM.
6th and 43rd Street
Gabriella had seen imaginary Troys everywhere for nearly five and a half years, and so, when she saw him, at three o'clock on a Thursday afternoon, standing across the street from her on the Avenue of the Americas, she wasn't very surprised.
Until she realized it actually was Troy.
He was standing with a short, plump man, in the doorway of a restaurant that wasn't yet open for business. A shaft of orange sunlight cut down his back, turning his tight-fitting leather coat blood-red. Troy was listening to the other man talk, nodding occasionally and focusing intently on what he was saying.
Gabriella was very familiar with that expression and realized that it really was Troy.
Gabriella stopped on the sidewalk and let other pedestrians detour around her, the way that people in New York did. Her grip on her briefcase loosened and she marveled in the idea that it really was Troy, standing near the corner of Sixth and 43rd St, sunlight tracing the spine of his back, listening to a man talk.
She has seen Troy everywhere, in young men and old men, in boys and even a few girls. She has seen his eyes, his grin, his deep tucked dimples, that particular sense of humor and charisma he evokes just in the way he stands. She has seen Troy on street corners, in elevators, on the subway, has seen the twist of his shoulders turning away from her, heard his laugh floating past, inhaled his unique scent and turned to look for him, hopeful, surprised, and a little scared.
It is all imaginary, all of it. She has wanted, dreamed, longed to see Troy, to literally walk into him, knock elbows, feel the warmth of his body somewhere, anywhere, near her. She has yearned for him in a way that frightens her – as if the very act of bumping into Troy will fill the empty spaces in her life. Gabriella has dreamt about bumping into him walking out of a theatre on Broadway, in Times Square, at Battery Park, in Soho or Greenwich, at one of the avant garde galleries in Hell's Kitchen.
Troy twists his neck and lifts his shoulder, obviously trying to ease an ache, and the movement of his body, the familiarity of the pose, makes Gabriella smiles.
She thinks longer than she should and finally makes decision to go over to him. It shouldn't be this hard, so she decides to make it easy. She moves to the edge of the curb to cross the road, but two cabs race past either direction, and a crowd of people emerge from one of the arcades and block her view, and when the traffic clears, the fat man and Troy are both gone, and the doorway of the restaurant is empty.
She crosses the road anyway, eclipses it quickly with long, desperate strides and stands where Troy has just stood, staring in either direction, heart racing, eyes roving. He could have gone north or south, up the arcade, down the alley, he could have crossed at the lights and turned into 43rd Street and disappeared amongst the pedestrians and tourists, heading for the subway.
There is no way of knowing where he is.
Is it then that Gabriella realizes how pathetic she's become, how lonely and lost she feels about everything in her life, and how ridiculous her dream of seeing Troy has been.
Because Troy wouldn't be seen dead in an art gallery.
He hates art galleries, and for all she knows, he's turned left onto 43rd Street to visit his wife at work, to pick his kids up from school, to buy a present for a girlfriend, to get on with a life that doesn't involve her.
Her fantasy is more than unrealistic; it's plain stupid, and standing here, now, where Troy was just a minute ago, wondering if it is his aftershave she can smell in the air, Gabriella feels shame and sadness.
That's when somebody barrels into her, nearly knocking her onto her ass. She makes a noise of surprise – a gasping, strangled noise that darts from her throat. Strong hands grip her elbows and she is pulled forward into a warm, solid body.
Her balance and sanity disseminate and disappear in an instant, but Gabriella doesn't miss them as they float down 6th Avenue.
"Troy," Gabriella gasps, without even looking at him.
The smell, the feel of his hands cupping her angular elbows, the clothes, just the shadow of his body is enough to know who is holding her. She pulls her head back slightly, stretches her neck out and stares up at Troy's mirrored surprise.
"You went inside," she realizes with delight. "Of course you did."
"What?"
"You – I saw you, just then, before, but you disappeared, and I thought you'd gone off to buy a present for your wife, but you'd just gone inside."
Troy continues to stare at her and Gabriella flushes red. This is far from the sophisticated reunion she imagined for them. She imagined a half-lit restaurant, a beautiful dress and high shoes, classy cocktails and Troy's smile reaching across the table.
"My wife?" Troy asks carefully.
"Oh, well…you know."
"No, I don't know." Troy loosens his grip on her elbows, but his hands hover in case she hasn't regained her balance. After a moment, he lets them fall to his sides. "I don't have a wife."
"Well, I know that," Gabriella says with exasperation. "I can see you're not wearing a ring."
Troy's forehead wrinkles up, familiarly. "I'd say it's good to see you, but mostly it's surreal. You're talking about a wife you know I don't have, except that you thought I was going to buy her a present."
"I…" Gabriella flaps her hand as if to fan away the whole topic. It's irrelevant in the face of this moment: she and Troy are standing together, talking together, looking at each other.
"It is good to see you, Troy," she says, instead.
"Yes." Troy steps away from the doorway, and Gabriella follows, not willing to lessen the space between them.
"I had no idea you were living in New York."
"I knew," Troy says. "That you were living here."
"Oh." Gabriella looks back at the doorway they've just vacated. She can see people setting the tables. "Do you work here?"
"Not anymore. I'm just trying to locate a phone number for somebody."
"Oh," she says again, softly. Of course he is.
"My sous chef – my latest in a long line of sous chefs – just quit on me, and I'd like to re-hire somebody I used to work with. I thought Mario might have his number, except that just explained to me that Robert moved to Philadelphia to be closer to his parents, and got a job there."
"Oh." Gabriella realizes that she's now said 'oh' three times, and Troy probably thinks she's monotonous and boring. "So what are you going to do?"
He shrugs. "No idea. The kitchen is a mess, the trainees are hopeless and I'm exhausted."
"I mean…I mean now," Gabriella clarifies. "If you're not busy, what are you doing now? Because…well, coffee would be good."
"Together?"
Gabriella frowns. "Yes, together. I mean, unless you've got something to do, because that's okay. I understand. And you're tired, so it's not like you can just drop everything and have coffee with me on the spur of the moment, just because we bumped into each other randomly…"
Troy smiles, and interrupts gently. "Gabriella, you're babbling."
She takes a deep breath. "Yes. Yes, I am. I'll stop."
"Coffee would be great."
"Oh." She smiled. "Okay – where do you want to…"
"Well, we're right out the front of Mario's, and I know he makes excellent coffee." Troy gestures to the door. "Shall we?"
"Troy, I don't think they're open right now. It's three o'clock in the afternoon."
"Mario is open for me," he says. But he pauses. "Unless you have to go somewhere? Work, or…or somewhere."
"No," Gabriella replies, eyes shining, voice light. It feels wonderful to say this. "I don't have to be anywhere."
Troy steps into the dark restaurant.
Gabriella follows, but it takes her eyes a moment to adjust to the interior, and it strikes her that this is the type of restaurant she imagined them meeting at. Wood-grain, with low-lights, shadows, neat tables and unassuming art on the walls.
"You're back!" exclaims the rotund man, from where he stands behind the bar. He glances behind Troy. "Oh-ho – you have a woman with you."
"Mario, this is Gabriella. Gabriella, this is Mario. He gave me my first job in this city. Taught me everything I know about Italian food."
Mario shrugs. "Aah, no…it's true." He looks Gabriella up and down, but it isn't lecherous. "I have not seen you before. I would remember such a beautiful face."
Troy rolls his eyes. "Your wife is four feet away in the kitchen, Mario."
"No harm in looking," Mario contends. "Gabriella is looking at the young waiters all the time, saying things about their behinds, and I no mind. I her husband – she goes home to bed with me, every night."
"Mario, you stop your talking!" a voice yells from the kitchen.
"Maria, you stop listening to things that are no your business," Mario yells back. "You want for some coffee and cake?" he asks them.
"Yes," Troy nods. "A strong latte for me." He glances at Gabriella. "What do you want, Brie?"
"Strong black," she says.
"And two pieces of your lemon cheesecake, thanks," Troy adds.
"Coming right up." Mario smiles in Gabriella's direction – it's a broad, expansive smile and Gabriella finds herself grinning back. "Take a seat anywhere."
Gabriella wanders over to a table near the window that is tucked into a semi-alcove, almost marooned but still tenuously attached to the rest of the activity going on at the bar and in the kitchen.
"Is this good?"
"Fine," Troy replies, sitting opposite her.
He glances out the window and smiles, reflectively. Gabriella follows his gaze, but all she can see are people riding past, skating past, and walking past, toting shopping bags and whiny children. Troy seems oddly thrilled.
But people fill and crowd Manhattan all the time: at lunch, at three in the morning, for Sunday morning brunch, dinner in a Wednesday night. Gabriella stopped consciously looking at them years ago. There's too much to look at it in New York, and unless you're trained early in the art of swallowing up a city, you can never do it with the same panache and flair as those who were born in large metropolises.
The pace is always just a little faster than she'd like. It's taken Gabriella a long time to admit that as much as she loves New York, she doesn't feel perfectly at ease here.
"So, how have you been? Sous chef dramas, notwithstanding?" Gabriella asks.
"I've been great," Troy replies, returning his gaze to her. "I work down in Tribeca, nearly Foley Square. I'm the head chef – I have been for a couple of years, and I've been squirreling money away for ages."
"You want to open your own place?" Gabriella asks. "Here? In New York?"
He shrugs. "Not sure. Albuquerque would be nice, too."
Troy tells of his plans; he has the design of his restaurant in his head, and he sketches it on the back of a napkin. He tells her about the food he would serve. One of the waiters brings their coffee as Troy describes the shrimp salad that would be on the entrée menu. Maria brings their cheesecake a moment later. A short, thin woman with a long, grey braid and wrinkled hands, she kisses Troy soundly, and then berates him for not coming to see her more often.
Troy apologizes in Italian. Maria jabbers something else at him in the same language with wild hand gestures, and Troy laughs and glances at Gabriella.
"You speak Italian?" Gabriella asks, after Maria is gone.
"Not very well," Troy admits. "Mario told Maria that you're my new girlfriend, and she wanted to know all about you."
"What did you tell her?"
"That you're actually an old girlfriend."
Troy then asks about Taylor, and Gabriella tells him that Taylor is a doctor and dating. Gabriella says that it seems like everyone she knows is getting married or engaged. Troy asks after her mother specifically, about the trip Chad told him Gabriella took with Sharpay and Taylor, and how Albuquerque looked the last time she was there, about all the gossip she has.
Gabriella begins to tell him about her job – assistant editor for The New Yorker.
The look on Troy's face is wondrous and Gabriella laughs until her shoulders shake and her earrings jingle and flash. The silver and gold shafts move across the wall, and she and Troy watch them together.
Mario takes away their empty coffee cups and without being asked, brings them a second.
Troy asks rapid-fire questions about her job, and she can't remember the last person who was this excited and curious about what she does. She tells him the funny stories to begin with: bizarre art shows, film festivals, meeting writers and film stars, staying up all night to meet deadlines.
But suddenly, some time after their second coffees appear, Gabriella finds herself telling him the sad stories. The words fall out of her mouth and onto the table, and she doesn't understand why she's telling these stories.
She never tells anybody these stories.
But she talks to him about a bag lady near her office building, and how Gabriella gives this lady shopping bags from Tiffany's and Prada; a four-year-old boy who was abandoned in a flat in Harlem and nobody knew he was there for three months; the prostitutes who wouldn't leave their jobs because they had no other qualifications and they made more money on their backs than they did on welfare.
Her cheesecake lays abandoned as Gabriella tells him the stories that are sad only on her. An editor who once got drunk at an office party and told Gabriella that he'd wanted to write all his life but had never dared; she tells Troy about a homeless guy down near Battery Park who reads Plato in Greek; a twenty-something woman Gabriella once saw, in the middle of a crowded subway car, crying silently. Nobody said anything to her, or even looked at her.
She tells Troy that worse than all the crime, the greed, the poverty, and the cynicism in New York is the total lack of human kindness, and how she knows she can't change it, but she's horrified to think that she might burst into the tears on the subway one day and nobody would even ask if she was okay.
When she finishes telling him that, Troy reaches over and stabs a piece of her cheesecake on his fork. He holds it up to her lips, and Gabriella curves her tongue over it and slips it into her mouth. It slides down her throat.
"I would ask you if you were okay," Troy tells her, as he stabs another piece of her cake. "Mario and Maria would ask you. There are people who would ask. It's not enough. But people like you – who notice it, who write about it, that's halfway to enough."
He offers her the fork again, and Gabriella willingly accepts it. After she swallows, she says, "This is good cake." She picks up her own fork. "Thank you."
"For the cake?" Troy asks, sitting back in his chair.
"No."
Mario clears their empty plates and coffee cups ten minutes later, when they're talking about Ryan. An hour and a half has passed – the sun has melted behind the buildings, and even though it's mid-spring, there's a chill in the air.
"Mario will want to open soon," Troy says. "We should get going."
"Sure." Gabriella pulls her coat back on, and collects her briefcase. They wander over to the bar, where Mario is talking to one of the waitresses.
"We're off, Mario," Troy says. "Thanks for your help with Robert."
"I hope you find someone, Troy."
"How much do I owe you?" Gabriella asks, reaching for her purse.
Mario flaps his hand. "You're a friend of Troy's. You owe me nothing. You two come for dinner one night. A proper dinner, with candles and music and good food."
Gabriella smiles. "That sounds nice."
They walk out of the restaurant, onto the sidewalk. The buildings are grey and purple and blue, and their shadows are black. It's a Thursday, and people are hurrying towards the subway, their homes, to dinner and the theatre, and some of them are even leaving to begin work.
Troy speaks suddenly, with his hands tucked in his pockets and his face angled down at the pavement. "Do you own a copy of Breakfast at Tiffany's?"
"By Truman Capote?" Gabriella asks, puzzled. "Of course. I love Breakfast at Tiffany's. One of my college friends gave me a copy, years ago."
When Troy lifts his face, it's blank. "Oh. Well, I should get going. The restaurant has probably burned down whilst I've been gone."
"I'll come in, one day. For a meal," Gabriella tells him. "Now that I know where you are. It'd be a shame to lose touch again."
"It would," Troy nods. He hunches his shoulder against the insidious, thread-like cold. "I'll see you round."
"Mm-hmm. 'Bye."
Gabriella watches Troy walk away. He checks for traffic and crosses amongst the people and the cars of Sixth Avenue.
This time she doesn't hesitate.
"Troy!" she calls.
She doesn't look for the traffic, she just crosses. Over the other side of the road, Troy gasps. He steps off the curb and into the bus lane. "Gabriella! What are you doing?"
She dodges in front of a cab, and halts in front of him. "I lost my copy of Breakfast at Tiffany's."
"You could have been killed, you stupid…" Troy trails off. "What?"
"The question seemed important to you, before. And I just remembered that I lost my copy of Breakfast at Tiffany's, when I moved apartments. You know how things get lost. Or maybe somebody borrowed it. Either way, I lost it, but I bought another copy, a few months ago, at the Gotham Book Mart. Over on 47th Street."
It's ridiculous – as ridiculous as Troy going to an art gallery – but when she finishes talking Troy sweeps her into his arms and kisses her. Her briefcase falls to the ground with a thud, and Troy kisses her again, hard and fast, and beautifully.
His mouth eases away from hers, but he keeps his nose pressed to hers, his hands wrapped in her hair.
"You have to leave your job and write a novel," Troy tells her. "About a woman crying on the subway."
"Yes," Gabriella agrees breathlessly. "You have to start your own restaurant. In Albuquerque."
"Yes."
Troy is about to kiss her again when a bus looms over them and honks. A few of the passengers waiting at the bus stop stare at them.
"We're…" Gabriella says.
"In the bus lane," Troy finishes, laughing. He waves at the bus driver, and kisses her anyway. The bus continues to honk. Troy's hands slide under her coat, and he grips her waist. Gabriella sighs into Troy's mouth, and the kiss deepens and melts.
And it doesn't quite fill the empty spaces of her life, but it's halfway to enough.
Review please :)