Apartment Hunting, Scrabble & Two Drifters

On Saturday, following an afternoon of apartment hunting in Queens, I went to David's apartment on the Upper West Side for drinks before an Upper East Side party that he wanted to attend. When I arrived, I met David's live-in boyfriend Chris and a lesbian couple, who are both gorgeous. One works for a prestigious Manhattan university; the other is a personal trainer at a fitness center. When I met the latter, my immediate side thought was, I want her arms.

We ended up getting comfortably tipsy off of Cabernet Sauvignon and collectively decided that we would rather hang out at David's and play Scrabble. David called a liquor store and ordered another bottle of cabernet for delivery and warmed up some left-over pizza. The Scrabble game had a $5 anti and I walked away with the $20 pot at the end of the game, thanks mostly to a double word score on the word "whiz."

By 2 a.m., the girls headed back to their apartments in Chelsea and the Village, and David insisted that I could not go back to the Bronx at that hour and after several glasses of wine. He made a bed for me on the couch and kissed me good night. I set the alarm on my cell phone and told him I'd be sneaking out early in the morning because I had more appointments with real estate brokers.

When I awoke at 8:45 this morning, I quietly folded up the blanket, rearranged the pillows on the couch and wrote a quick thank-you note, which I place under one of the candles on the coffee table and tip-toed out of the apartment. Walking along the tree-lined streets of the Upper West Side amidst the early morning joggers and baby carriages, I had never felt so hungry for Manhattan. To call it home.

Suddenly, the melody to "Moon River" from Audrey Hepburn's Breakfast at Tiffany's drifted through my mind. I half smiled then rolled my eyes at the corny, flighty notion and trotted down the steps of the 86th Street station and disappeared below the city.