Rachel381

Part Two Continued

I got out and said goodbye to Nick. I thought it would be the last time I was going to see him for awhile. But he quickly assured me that we would all hang out tomorrow, before we permanently left. The next day we were scheduled to stay with my good friend Eva. But Eva had been terribly sick during the week and was still feeling under the weather. Nick offered to take us in, if Eva didn't feel better by tomorrow morning. Alicia Keys started playing in the car and Nick turned up the volume full blast. I quickly imagined her video in the subway station, trying to put on her ghetto act. You're too pretty for that, Alicia. My dad and I have an ongoing argument about Alicia Key's heritage. He swears she's white girl trying to act black. To set the record straight, she’s half black and half white. The end.


We went back to our hotel and I took my much anticipated nightly shower. This may sound crazy, but whenever I was in the bathroom, I felt a presence of some sort. It wasn't bad in any way, but something was definitely in the air. My sister said she felt the same thing in there. I got into bed and said what's up to Sally. Her friend from the previous night was still with her and my mother named him Harry. They made their pigeon noises for awhile and I finally fell asleep.


The next morning we woke up around 10:00 am. The first thing I did was call Eva to see how she was feeling. She sounded awful. She had been diagnosed with bronchitis and was contagious for another twenty-four hours. I was bummed that I wouldn't be able to see her, but assured her that we had a place to stay with Nick. I could tell she felt terrible and disappointed.


We packed all our belongings and got dressed for our last day in the city. It was 10:30am and we walked down the street for once last stop at Gramercy Diner. We ate a lovely breakfast and walked back towards our hotel to check out. Nick was on his way to get us and we had a half hour to kill. We waited downstairs in the lobby for Nick to arrive. There were two different front desk clerks and I began to inquire about the person in room 219. "Is there someone that lives in that room?" I asked. Both the men started laughing like they knew something juicy. "Room 219 you say?" they asked. "Yes, the person is a resident." "Is she a girl?" I asked. Laughter. "It's a man who has become a girl," he said, still laughing. "A transvestite?!" I said. "An IT,” added the one clerk. Me, my mom and sister started cracking up. "Yes, she's a nude model for European magazines," he continued. "She has famous friends coming in here all the time to see her. Pamela Anderson has visited countless times and even Madonna." "Who is this woman?" I thought to myself. Then he said, "We always get people complaining about the scent on the second floor, he said. It's her perfume. Every time she walks by I always get a whiff of it." Then it all clicked for me. I knew exactly the smell he was talking about. The cleaning detergent from the 20th Century, fragrance. Nice. I had shared a bathroom with a nude model, transvestite. At this point I was on a roll and asked if anyone had ever seen a ghost. He said a few claimed they have, but he had never seen one himself.


(Latest transvestite 411: When I got to home, I googled the history behind Hotel 17, in hopes of finding a good haunting story. But I found more than that. Hotel 17 is the home to the world famous transvestite, Amanda Lepore. I had never heard of the name but when I clicked on her picture, my sister recognized her from their late night run-in. She is a muse for photographer Davilachapelle and she even has a swatch designed with her face in the middle. And get this: she has her own fragrance line. Crazy!)


Nick arrived and the clerks helped us load our luggage into the car. It was raining outside and I was a little bummed since it was out last day in the city. I planned to make a trip to Brooklyn to revisit my old neighborhood, but sadly it didn’t happen. Nick drove us to his home in Astoria. Nick's house is what New Yorkers like to call a "three family home." This basically means, one building, broken up into 3 separate apartments. Nick's family owns the building and converted it into one house. "Are you sure your family is alright with us staying here?" I asked Nick. "No, but who cares," he replied. My eyes widened and my mouth dropped. He showed no sign of joking and I was about to tell my mom to get a hotel room for the night. He let me freak out a little until he assured us that they were fine with having visitors. His older brother occupies the bottom floor and kindly let us ladies use it for the evening. We walked inside and there was a small kitchen, bathroom and bedroom area. We stored our luggage in the room and walked up the stairs towards Nick's living room. His pregnant sister Maria, and her new husband George were at the house, hanging a new mirror they bought their parents as a Christmas gift. Maria is probably one of the cutest girls I've ever met. She has a luminescent personality that captivates you. She's extremely lively and welcoming. In fact, all of Nick's family possesses the same great characteristics. His mother told us to have a seat in the living room and Maria brought out some homemade Greek pastries and a hot pot of coffee. My mother and Maria hit it off immediately since they are both talkers. We all sat around and chatted for a couple hours. Then we were joined by Spiro and another one of their friends named Helen. It was around dinner time and my mom offered to treat everyone to a nice meal.

We all agreed on Italian food and drove two separate cars to a restaurant nearby. Helen was walking ahead of me and as I began to look at her more closely, I realized who she was. At work, Nick and I would always talk about different things and he told me on several occasions, about this girl who he had been in love with for 8 years. Sadly the two of them never got together for one reason or another, but his feelings remained the same. Her name was Helen and it all clicked for me in that moment. I hit Nick on the arm and whispered, "Hey! Is that Helen, Helen?" He looked at me with a smirk and said, "Grow up!" Then he added, "So what's been goin' on in your current environment, huh?" What?! I was baffled. "What are you talking about? ...You tell me." I chimed in. He purposely ignored my question and continued walking ahead. He left me in a state of confusion. We sat at a large eight-seat round top, and indulged in pizza, pasta and magnificent bread. My energy level was falling but I tried to remain active. After dinner we made our usual stop at coffee house. My family and I drove with Maria and her husband while Nick, Spiro and Helen drove by themselves. We got there before the other half of the group and made ourselves comfortable in the private lounge section of the cafe. We were all too spread out, making it hard to carry conversations. So the waiter moved us to a smaller, more intimate table. Nick and Spiro had dropped Helen off, and finally arrived. We all ordered the coffee of our choice and took part in different conversations. I was fading away from the lack of sleep and found it hard to keep focus on anything. I was so ready to go to sleep. It was Thursday night and Nick was planning on partying it up at a popular Greek club, later that night. He told me to join him, but I couldn't come to a final decision. I was exhausted beyond belief, but it was also my last night in New York. I didn’t want to go out like that. So I decided I would accompany him on his wild Greek club excursion.


After coffee, Nick, Spiro, the girls and I, returned back to Nick's house. It was around 9:00 pm and I wanted to take a re-energizing nap before going out again. Spiro had to work, and unfortunately, was unable to join us for the evening. He came inside to hang out for a little while and said goodbye to us girls. It was nice getting to know him and finding out that he didn't hate me. Nick left us to sleep and returned upstairs. There I laid, trying to nap, but it just wasn’t happening. My sister and I ended up laughing for an hour and pissed my mom off. I was over trying to sleep and quietly got ready for the night. We planned to leave at 12:00 am and being home just in time to go to JFK airport at 6:00 am.


I was ready for the town and walked upstairs towards the kitchen. There, I found Nick and his two friends eating. "Pull up a chair," Nick said. He offered me some of his mother's homemade bread and I indulged. I listened to them talk for twenty minutes and waited for Nick to get ready. His cousin Pete was there and was going to be tagging along for the night. Pete was awesome. He was super mellow and friendly. And I think he was smiling the whole 8 hours I knew him.


It was 1:00 am and we finally left the house. We arrived at the Greek club called Caprice, and found a line out the door. Nick was taken back by how packed the place was. He was over waiting in line so we headed to another club to kill time. It seemed other people had the same idea and Nick ran into a few people he knew. I walked inside and found that the place was half full. They had Go-Go dancers and a huge bar in the back of the room. Girls drank for free that night but I wasn't in the mood to get drunk. I was still tired. Nick was completely energized and ready to dance the night away. "Where does he get this energy from?" I thought. If I don't get a full eight hours of sleep, I am beside myself. Music was playing in the background, and just like not being in the mood to drink, I wasn’t in the mood to dance, either. But I still put a smile on my face in an attempt to not damper the guys' night. Nick wasn't buying my fakeness but let me continue with the charade. I took a seat on the couch in the center of the dance floor (weird that they had one there, right?). It was there that Pete and Nick looked around for attractive girls. Nick walked away for awhile and I saw adorable, little Pete eyeing a girl nearby. He was too shy to approach her, so I stepped in. "My friend brought me out to dance tonight, but I'm just not in the mood. Could you do me a favor and dance with him. I feel terrible". I wasn't completely lying. I only hoped that I didn't embarrass him too much. The girl gladly stepped in where she and Pete hit it off. In the end, her not as cute friend dragged her away, But at least I had done my part. Pete was smiling like crazy and tried to get me to dance. Nick came back over and I told him I was going to get a drink. I didn't really want a drink, but I felt like I needed one. I ordered a Cranberry and Vodka which tasted solely like cranberry juice. "Girls drink for free because you don’t give them any alcohol," I thought. I text messaged a few of my friends and entertained myself for awhile. Nick found me at the bar and said we were going to try Caprice, once more.


We got into the car and I nearly passed out. I was done. Nick asked if I wanted to go home and I told him yes. He was a little buzzed and said, "C'mon you have to go to this last place with us!" Not wanting to disappoint him, I agreed. When we arrived at Caprice, the line had vanished. I am not exaggerating in any way when I say that the place was packed like sardines. There was no room to do anything but talk to the person next to you. We managed to plow through the crowd and checked our coats in downstairs. I followed behind Nick and Pete to the corner of the bar. We met up with Helen who was having a cigarette and drinking joyously. Greek music was playing loudly and there was one blonde girl sitting up on the bar, singing like crazy to every song that came on. I bummed a couple cigarettes off Helen to divert my attention from falling asleep on the bar. I looked around and observed the people in the club. All Greeks. Even though nobody could tell, I felt completely out of place. I saw two guys to my left doing a Greek dance and I watched them hypnotically. I was in a daze when a guy approached me and said, "You look confused." I laughed that he noticed and said, "I am!" He began to explain the dance and told me what their next move was going to be. He threw up his arms, waiting my for my hands to meet his, to try the dance. Ya, that didn't work out. Nick was flirting with Helen and watching the two of them, made me smile inside. There was clearly deep meaning behind their relationship. Time had passed quickly and before I knew it, it was 4:45am. The lights came on and everybody started to leave.


We got into Nick's car and drove to his house to wake up my mother and sister. When I walked into the room, they were already packed and ready to leave. My mom is the most paranoid person in the world and didn't sleep a wink, because she thought if she had, we would have missed our flight. My sister didn't sleep either and was on Nick's computer all night. I gathered my suitcase and changed into sweat pants. Nick wanted us to experience fine dining at a local Greek diner so we went there to get an early morning breakfast. As tired as we were, we still managed to laugh at my mom. Don't feel bad for her, she likes the attention.


Our time in New York was running low and we made our way towards JFK airport. I was very sad to leave but more than ready to get onto the plane and sleep. Pete parked in front of the Jetblue terminal and I gave him a big hug. We got out of the car and Nick carried all my suitcases to the check in line. I felt like a celebrity or some rich person who had been catered to the entire vacation. Every guy should be just like Nick. Or better yet, Nick's mother should set up a school that teaches others how to raise the perfect son.


Nick made sure that we were all taken care of before he left and I took one last picture before we departed ways. We gave a "family hug" and he watched us walk off into the horizon. It was like the perfect last scene of a movie until I slammed into some guy next to me. I pretended like nothing happened and walked away.


We lucked out with the very last row on the plane and I made myself comfortable with one pillow under my butt, and one to rest my head on. I loaded up with blankets and prepared myself for the best sleep of my life.

As the plane took off I remembered how I felt the last time I left New York City . I was twenty years old, and left feeling accomplished and renewed. This time around was no different and a hint of happiness emerged within me.

As we flew over the city, I felt compelled to stare out the window until I saw the last bit of New York. I recognized the Cyclone rollercoaster in Coney Island and then saw nothing but ocean ahead. I closed the shutter of the window and rested my head. It wasn't too long before I saw nothing but darkness. The entire vacation felt like a New York minute.

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Rachel Monique

crowe1120

I like this story, it was good read. I am wondering if it is a half true story?

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Live.....long...well...loved....and well written!

Rachel381

Aw, thank you! It's a long one, so I appreciate you taking the time to read it all. It's 100% true. It was based on a New York trip I took a few years ago.

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Rachel Monique

crowe1120

Well I can relate to writing from experience most of my writing is in the same style.

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Live.....long...well...loved....and well written!