They entered the subway on 34th Street. Raindrops in their hair and on their Indian faces, smiling as they bumped into people trying to get themselves sorted out in the crowded car. She was lugging a big rolled up futon mattress, he had to deal with the matching frame. The IKEA labels clearly visible, they obviously had taken the bus from Elizabeth to Penn Station.
He was tall, about 6 feet, dark hair with a few grey streaks at the front, about 29, maybe a little older. She had her dark black hair made up in a ponytail, showing her goergous face, maybe 24. They didn't look like any of the conservative Indians one finds in Queens; they didn't wear wedding bands, let alone traditional dresses, but they just bought a bed for themselves.
She managed to get a seat, while he was standing. Sitting down as the subway pulled out of 34th Street, she caught my smile. Rather than looking away quickly, as most people would do in NYC, she indulged me in an open friendly smile back, her pure olive skin as shiny as her black hair, her lips full and naturally dark around her white teeth.
I was wondering whether she knew what was going through my mind right then. How I envisioned them carrying their stuff up to their walkup, a small 1 or 2 bedroom probably, how they would unpack their new purchase, tired but excited, struggling somewhat with the IKEA instructions that she would insist on reading first, while he already started working on putting it all together. How she'd make fun of him as he started out on the wrong path. How he'd sheepily ask her to show him the instructions. This would go on for a good half hour, but they'd finally be done with it, and she'd walk to their closet, getting out their best white linnen, also from IKEA.
As I was thinking this, she glanced at him, then at me again. He looked around the subway, as if to see whether there were any sleazy men around that he might have to protect her from, or maybe to see whether there were any hot women around that he could look at, only to conclude that the hottest woman on the planet would be no comparison whatsoever to the one he had, the one who'd go home with him to unpack their new bed just a few stops later.
Maybe she knew that he was thinking this, and it made her happy, and it made her feel like she could look at me, maybe thinking something quite similar to what he was thinking. I am a handsome European guy, about his age, not quite as tall or muscular, but I have friendly green eyes and a warm smile. I once met a woman on the subway who told me that I had the nicest and most natural smile she'd ever seen on a NYC subway, otherwise she would have never agreed to go for a coffee with me, which I asked her to do when she first asked for directions to BAM, and then mentioned that she's way to early for a dance performance there. It was the nicest compliment ever.
So maybe this beautifully natural Indian woman with, I assumed, conservative parents who'd rather marry her off to someone else, someone more wealthy maybe or at least someone with a better degree, maybe this woman in her simple black tank top, with that futon mattress between her legs in front of her, maybe she thought what I wished she'd be thinking right now. That she was looking forward to when their new bed would be made, covered in fresh white sheets, and how she would pour herself and her man a glass of red wine. They'd laugh happily as they'd test the firmness of the new futon, careful not to spill any red wine onto the sheets, and they'd look into each other's dark eyes, knowing that maybe that wine could wait a little. That maybe it would be nice to just kiss right there, licking each other's lips, their warm olive hands running over each other's chests, his strong and muscular, with just a little black hair, hers warm and soft and small, with two gorgeously dark nipples, getting hard as she starts sucking on his probing tongue in her mouth.
But I wished she'd be thinking something else as well, and her frequent glances at me encouraged me to believe that there was a possibility that she might indeed be thinking just that. How it would be if, as we leave the E train at the same stop, they asked me to help them carry their new futon up those stairs to their small sparse apartment. An apartment with few items, mostly from IKEA, but some unusual prints on the walls. A traditional Indian print here, one that her grandmother insisted she should have, a photograph of his extended family there, a family that she knew she'd soon be part of. What if they asked me to help them?
I would happily oblige, although I am not very strong, six hands are better than four, and they don't live far from the subway. We'd exchange names and casual niceties, shake hands and all that, and he reluctantly lets me tell them how this bed needs to get set up, since a friend of mine had bought the same one not long ago. Double-checking the instructions, he makes sure that I don't screw up, as she laughs and smiles, happy that her man is man enough to let a stranger into their home, telling them all about IKEA furniture.
I obviously don't overdo it, letting him know that he's still in charge here. Men can be weird in situations like that, but we get along very well, and there is no awkwardness. The apartment smells wonderful, he is almost too good looking, but he has none of the cockiness that plague many American men who learned sometime between loosing their diapers and entering kindergarden that life is always competition, all the time.
As the bed is done, she comes out of the kitchen with three glasses of red wine, but he stops her, because he has to get the fresh linnen first and make the bed, before we can drink to our new friendship. When he comes back from the closet, she doesn't bother waiting for him to be done making the bed, she doesn't bother with the rules and ettiquette of looking deep into my eyes, or into his, while saying cheers in that Indian British accent of hers, instead she announces to noone in particular that it's her 26th birthday today, and that this is one of her birthday presents.
"Our old bed was way too loud," she says, a remark too casual for me to notice, so I ask what else did she get?
"Well, so far, only the bed," is all she says.
"Alright, it's all done, look at this!" he announces from the bedroom, so we go to take a look, she carrying his glass of wine, me following.
"By the way, my name is Manish, what's your name?" he asks.
"Frank. Nice to meet you. Looks pretty good to me."
The first awkward silence in the past twenty minutes. If they'd thank me now, I'd know it's time to finish the wine and get out, but they don't. They just smile at each other, as she puts her arm around him, and he rests his hand on her back, gently sliding it down to her ass in her ankle length dark blue skirt.
"So, are you ready for another present?" he asks her, very quietly, as if I was not supposed to hear him.
She looks into his eyes for what seems to be an eternity, first without any expression, then smiling, then blushing as they both turn around to look at me. I feel like a child. My heart is beating fast. I look at him, at her, at him again.
