And then a miracle happened. Richie was offered an assignment from a magazine called Nylon, which covered fashion and music and nightlife. They wanted us to go to Berlin and shoot photos for a travel piece about Berlin. Richie texted me immediately. Could I get off work? Could I come be his assistant?
My first thought was of course I could. I’d quit my job if I had to. My second thought was Antoinette. She was over there somewhere. I e-mailed her: I’m going to Berlin with Richie for a magazine assignment. Can you come meet us? A day later a reply appeared in my in-box: Oh my God! Of course I will! What days are you there?
Nicole gave Richie and me a ride to the airport. I knew the drill by now—checking the gear through, talking to the security people. Richie and Nicole said their good-byes. I couldn’t tell how much Nicole liked him. Richie was totally in love with her. He was already talking marriage—to me, not to her. She seemed to enjoy his goofiness at least, so that was good. I sure liked her. She had that solid, whole-grain feeling about her. I think I was a little bit in love with her myself. It made me sad when she left us there at the airport. It made me sad for Richie.
• • •
We landed in Berlin twelve hours later. It was a lot of airports and a lot of flying. We stumbled out of the terminal and grabbed a cab. I immediately opened the window and let the hot afternoon air blow on my tired face. It smelled different there, in Europe, in Germany. And the sky looked bigger in a way. But the cabdriver, who was Middle Eastern, started yelling at me about something, the air-conditioning, it turned out. So I put up the window.
Berlin looked like the future to me. Everything was super new and advanced and complicated. Our hotel had unusual qualities to it, like no shower curtain on the shower, a toilet you couldn’t figure out how to flush, and gooey lotions that you didn’t know what part of your body they went on.
The next day Richie got out the SHIT WE HAVE TO HAVE list, and in our groggy, jet-lagged state, we began to work our way through it. We started off shooting a trendy café where all the “chic” people hung out. Then we shot a German skateboarding store, and then an art collective by the university. Berlin was very fashionable, but in an alien way. Like you’d see someone and you’d think: Is she trying to look like an elf? Also, everyone was very serious. Like if you asked someone a question they would get very intense and think about it a long time and give you this very careful and considered answer.
Before we left, Richie had said that dressing right was crucial on a gig for Nylon. So I had brought only the cool clothes Kai made me buy. I was so glad I did. With Richie and his rock-star photographer persona and me with my hipster teenager look, everyone treated us with great respect. People were constantly surprised we were American. This made everything way more fun.
That night we hit some Berlin nightclubs or “discotheques,” which were also on our list. These were very high-tech dance clubs. And the music, oh my God, it was on a whole other level. Also, wherever we went, we were from Nylon, so everyone was super nice to us and buying us drinks and taking us into the special VIP rooms or whatever.
• • •
Antoinette arrived on our second day. I was so excited to see her. And the fact that I was there with Richie, on a photography gig: I felt like that might change the way she thought of me. She couldn’t just dismiss me as a minion anymore. She would have to take me seriously.
I’d e-mailed her our schedule that day and she showed up at a design store we were shooting in the afternoon. Antoinette had never seen us work. She’d never seen me do anything like that. I think she was impressed by how pro we were.
I was so glad to see her! And she was so glad to see me! The minute we had a break, I ran over and hugged her. I don’t think I’d ever done that before. But whatever. We were in Berlin!
• • •
Richie knew about Antoinette. He’d seen my portrait photos of her (“This is the girl you’re in love with?” he’d said). So as soon as we finished the shoot, he gestured for me to go. He could pack up the rest of the equipment himself. So Antoinette and I ran off.
Antoinette’s Berlin was slightly different from the stuff we were shooting for Nylon. She knew all the cheap restaurants and where the young people were. We went to a student café she knew about, where all these brainy-looking college students were hanging out. At another place, we sat outside, watching people stroll along the Strasse. After that we walked down an alley full of little shops and galleries. Antoinette kept bumping into me. And smiling. And touching my arm. She didn’t usually do that. She had never been what you’d call demonstratively affectionate.
We ate dinner at a tiny Indian food place she knew about. It was so small it didn’t have chairs. You had to stand around these upright tables to eat. A bunch of Turkish and Indian cabdrivers were there, shouting at each other in various languages. Once they found out we were Americans, they wouldn’t leave us alone.
“America!” they said. “New York! California!”
Antoinette was like, “Seattle! Pennsylvania!”
They said: “Florida! Dallas Cowboys!”
It wasn’t what you’d call an in-depth conversation. But everyone was very happy to meet us.
• • •
Unfortunately, after we ate, I suddenly got so tired I could hardly keep my eyes open. And it was only eight o’clock at night. Antoinette understood. She knew about jet lag and how the time difference caught up to you. Her youth hostel was nearby, so we went there.
She had come to Berlin by herself and had her own room. It was just a bed and a sink, but it also had a little balcony. We stood out there for a few minutes, looking at the people below and breathing in the city air. I guess I never thought of Germany as super old, but it was. It felt ancient, watching it from above, with the moon shining just over the rooftops.
Antoinette told me to lie down and try to sleep. She would read her book and wake me up in an hour, since Richie would want me back at the hotel that night and ready to work in the morning.
So that’s what I did. I took off the shirt Kai had picked out for me and lay down in Antoinette’s narrow youth hostel bed with the tight German sheets. Antoinette told me to take off my pants and socks, too. That I would sleep better. So I did that. When I lay down, I pretty much passed out instantly.
I don’t know how long went by. But it was dark when I woke up again. I woke up because Antoinette was getting into the bed with me. I wasn’t sure what she was doing. Or why she was doing it. But in the dark I could see she had taken off her pants and socks as well. When she got in, the warm skin of her legs touching mine sent a shiver through my body. My brain was still in a fog of jet lag and lack of sleep. I tried to keep it that way. I made a conscious effort to not wake up, to not think about what was happening. Or why. Or what it meant. This was the only way. If I tried to do something, or even just think something, the magical dream would end.
Antoinette nestled up against me. And I curled around her. And then, as easily and as naturally as an autumn leaf floats gently to the ground, we came together. Like all the way together. Like as together as you can get.
• • •
Afterward, I slipped off to sleep again, and when I woke up, it was eleven thirty. I had to get back to the hotel. Antoinette had fallen asleep too. I kissed her forehead and face and eyebrows until she woke up.
“I gotta get back,” I whispered into her hair. She turned toward the clock, and when she saw how late it was, roused herself out of bed. We put on our clothes, in silence, in the dark.
We walked back toward my hotel, through the streets of Berlin. It was late now. There were fewer people, which made you more aware of the city itself, its gray stone buildings, its Gothic streetlights. Even though it was still August, fall was on its way. You could feel the chill in the air. Berlin was a winter city, a cold, formidable place; soon it would be in its natural state once again.
We crossed the big main square, Alexanderplatz. There were still people there, young people mostly. They were in groups, laughing and running around. A tram went by. People were on bikes. Antoinette and I barely spoke. We walked and watched everything. Then, as we approached my hotel, she bumped shoulders with me again. This was her way of acknowledging what had happened. It was about as much as you were going to get from Antoinette. But I took it. I absorbed the bump and held it there, in my shoulder, where I hoped it would stay for a long time.