Like Going Home

July 16
A friend of mine went out in Copenhagen the other night. It was getting late and everyone was drunk and the girl he’d been talking to—but didn’t dance with—was going home with the guy she danced with instead. Her friend finished her beer and turned to my friend. “So, will it be good for your diary if you say ‘I went home with a Danish girl?’”

They took a taxi north to her apartment because they couldn’t both fit on the bike she’d rode to the club on. It was already getting light when they walked up the spiral stairs to her studio apartment. It looked like New York with the bed by the door and the computer by the bed and the dining table next to the computer. She poured two glasses of water from a pitcher in the kitchen and brought them to the bed. It was a real bed with sheets and pillows and enough room for two people. It all seemed a lot like New York.

In the morning they took the bus back down to her bike and his hostel. It was Saturday morning and she was wearing an old t-shirt that was too big and a light jacket that someones grandmother might buy. Seeing someone in their Saturday morning clothes is almost like getting to know them. It just seems more real. He asked her what she was doing this weekend, not because he wanted to see her again but because he was living vicariously. It had been a long time since he felt the thrill of Saturday morning, the best time of the week. There were two full days in front of her that she could spend however she chose. She had worked all day Friday, taken a nap when she got home, and picked up a guy at the club; now she would walk around Vesterbro on this cool, cloudy Saturday afternoon, pick up her bike and ride home. It all somehow seemed a lot like New York, my friend said.