Meet Me in Manhattan (True Vows) (21 page)

Four years in landlocked Colorado hadn't changed her that
much. She was still a Jersey girl, in love with the shore. She'd
learned to ski in college, and after graduation she'd worked for a
season in Vail, catering to the wealthy skiers and joining them on
the slopes whenever she had a day off. But mastering the slopes
had been only one adventure. She'd wanted more.

So she'd learned how to sail and joined the crew of a sailboat
for a transatlantic trip. Finally the expression "learning the ropes"
made sense to her. She'd learned what a sheet was, and a shroud,
a halyard, and a forestay. She'd learned enough different knots to
qualify for a Boy Scout merit badge, and she'd learned how to clip
her vest to a railing so she wouldn't get knocked overboard by a
swell. She'd worked her ass off and loved every minute of it-the
calms, the storms, the blisters that turned into callus across her
palms. The way her skin and hair wore the scent of the sea as if it
were perfume.

She wasn't a thrill seeker, she assured herself. She was just ...
someone who'd grown up vaulting over fences on the back of a
horse. Tearing down a mountain on a pair of narrow polyurethane slats or sailing across the ocean in a streamlined fiberglass
bathtub, powered by wind against canvas, seemed natural to her.

Lying on a beach on St. Barts, with a Jameson on the rocks
within reach of her left hand and a neglected book within reach
of her right, offered a different sort of exhilaration than galloping
across a field or sailing across the ocean. But she deserved this
vacation, just as she deserved the Cartier watch circling her wrist.
She was thirty-four years old, and she was a vice president at one
of the world's biggest financial corporations.

What a long, strange trip, she thought with a smile.

There had been her return to New York City from Europe after
the transatlantic sail, when she'd decided to become an actress.
She'd given herself a year, attended auditions with hundreds of
other young women-gorgeous women, staggeringly talented
women, women who'd graduated from Juilliard and CarnegieMellon and the Tisch School of the Arts at NYU and actually
knew what they were doing on stage. Women who were willing to
starve and wait tables for years and sacrifice their entire lives for
the chance to appear in a thirty-second commercial for mouthwash or to be cast as a juror on Law & Order. Erika didn't want it
enough. She'd given it a year and moved on.

Her degree in psychology had helped her a bit with acting, and
it helped her even more once she landed a job as a recruiter, evaluating job candidates. That had led to a job at an investment bank.
After a few years there, she'd decided she needed another challenge, something new to get her blood pumping. Business school.

She wasn't going to be just another drone, though, learning
marketing and accounting and winding up in an inner office, pushing papers around for no other reason than that someone
was paying her big bucks to do so. In her riding days, she'd been
a jumper. She wanted to clear some fences in business school, too.
So she'd enrolled in the Thunderbird International School of
Management, studied in Arizona and Mexico, and earned a
degree in international business.

She'd had some good jobs before landing her current position. But now she'd reached a pinnacle, the business equivalent
of making nationals. She was thirty-four years old, she had an
apartment in Manhattan-a tiny one, but all hers-and her life
was complete.

Almost.

Her eyes were feeling the sun through her lids, so she rolled
over onto her stomach, careful not to knock over her drink or
bury her book in the sand. The heat baked her back and she
sighed. Really, she told herself, she didn't need more. If she'd
wanted a man in her life, she could have had one.

She had had one-more than one. There were always dates,
always guys. Always opportunities for romance. She worked with
rich, powerful men. She hung out in neighborhood clubs full of
funky, arty men. Friends set her up.

She remembered one recent blind date with a banker. He'd
been such a cool guy-suave, poised, successful. He'd traveled the
world, like her. He spoke several languages, like her. They'd gone
to an expensive restaurant and he'd ordered something weirdfrog legs, she recalled with a smile-and described the two-bedroom, two-bath apartment he'd just bought in Manhattan, and
he'd told her he needed help decorating it.

A come-on if ever she'd heard one. A sign of genuine interest,
a bid for a second date, or at the very least a hint that he'd like her
to come to his apartment.

She'd sat across the linen-covered table from him, eating something far less exotic than frog's legs-she couldn't remember
what, even though she remembered what he'd ordered-and
imagining herself living in his two-bedroom, two-bath apartment.
Decorated by her. With a kitchen big enough to prepare a gourmet feast in, big enough for her friends to keep her company
while she fixed that gourmet feast. A couple of kids running
around underfoot, too. Beautiful kids who'd gotten into topranked private schools.

It had been a glorious image-except that she couldn't find the
suave, multilingual banker anywhere in the picture. In her imagination, she'd loved the kitchen and the kids. Not the man.

She was okay with that. If she never fell in love, so be it. She
could always go to a sperm bank or find a willing male friend to
provide a share of the genes if she wanted to have a baby.

Which she did, she admitted silently, reaching for the Jameson.
The glass was filmed with sweat, the lime-flavored whisky cool
against her tongue and warm going down her throat. She would
love to become a mother.

But she just couldn't seem to fall in love with a man.

She'd fallen in love once. So many years ago. Falling in love
with Ted had seemed so easy-but she'd been young then, too
young even to understand what love was about. The giddy joy of
being desired? The satisfaction of knowing this one person was
all yours? The sweaty, clumsy sex in the backseat of an old jeep
Wagoneer? The security of having someone to hold hands with,
to hang out with, to talk with for hours? To talk about nothing
with, all the while knowing that "nothing" was everything?

First love. Puppy love. All well and good when a girl was eighteen years old. But now ...

Now she was a hot-shot VP. Competent, confident, content. To accept a man into her life would be to change the life she had,
which she really liked the way it was. To love someone would
mean to lose a part of herself. Which part was she supposed to
sacrifice? What, of the many things that gave her pleasure, would
she be expected to give up in order to make room for love?

A two-bedroom, two-bath apartment would be terrific. But
her tiny studio apartment near Gramercy Park was also terrific.
And it was all hers.

Maybe he was crazy to contact her. It had been so long. Why
pick open a wound that had successfully healed? Why risk the
pain, the possibility of infection? Erika had left a scar, but not a
disfiguring one. Just because she was living across the river from
him in Manhattan wasn't reason enough for him to suggest that
they get together.

He had a full life. A good job, finally. His position at East River
Marketing was more than a job, or even a career. It was a calling.
It tapped into his artistic talents. It satisfied his constant need for
change. It demanded that he work hard-and when he was passionate about something, he loved working hard. One day he'd be
occupied devising a strategy to convey not just what a cable network was but what it meant to consumers. The next day he'd be
busy designing a concept that embodied a national magazine.
Sometimes the deadlines were so intense he didn't bother to eat.
He didn't skip meals merely because he was pressed for time; he
stopped eating because during those pulse-pounding marathon
stretches at work when everything was due yesterday, he became
another creature, not quite human. All his energy, all his concentration had to be about the client, the assignment, the commission. He would live on soy latter for days and not even miss the
experience of chewing.

Work was great. His social life was also great. He was in a
relationship. Three solid years with a fantastic woman, sharing a
comfortable apartment in Brooklyn, just across the bridge from
Manhattan. She was beautiful, smart, good-natured ... everything he wanted in a woman.

And yet ... something was missing. Something wasn't quite
right.

She wanted to get married. He didn't blame her. They were in
their thirties, and she had that biological clock thing going,
and-well, three years was a long time for a couple to be together
without taking the next step.

Ted wanted to take the next step. But something held him back.
Something nagged at him, whispering in the darkest recesses of
his soul that if Marissa wasn't the one, he shouldn't marry her.
And it whispered that she wasn't the one.

He hated the feeling of limbo. He hated becoming a cliche: the
guy who couldn't commit. He wanted to do right by her. But ...
something was missing.

He knew what that something was.

What was the current jargon word? Closure. He needed closure
with Erika.

Stupid. He had closure with her. They'd had closure when she
told him, just before leaving for college, that she wanted them to
be friends. And when she'd broken up with him definitively over
the phone. And when she'd driven up to Denver to meet him at
the airport, and he'd seen with his own eyes that she was no
longer the girl he'd remembered, the long-haired, goldenskinned girl he'd been so madly in love with. And in every cold,
clipped communication they'd shared since then, the few times
they'd run into each other at gatherings of the old gang in
Mendham, when they'd chatted politely for as little time as pos sible before gravitating to opposite ends of the room.

If closure was the same thing as having a door slam shut, that
door had slammed shut on him enough times to get the point
across.

But.

Something was missing.

Someone from the old Mendham group-Allyson, maybehad provided him with Erika's email address. What the hell, he
thought. Just see her and make sure that door is not just shut but
locked and bolted. So he sent her a note and suggested they meet
somewhere for a drink, for old time's sake.

A few days later she replied: Sure.

He asked her to name the place, and she recommended
Fanelli's Cafe, downtown in SoHo. They set a time and a date.

He had never really believed in ghosts, even though he'd had
fun pretending his childhood home was haunted. Now he did
believe in ghosts, because suddenly he found himself haunted by
the ghost of the lovesick boy he'd once been, pining for a girl
who'd walked away from him.

He wasn't pining, he assured himself. He was just exorcising
a ghost.

Darting between the raindrops the day of their meeting, he
arrived at the corner bistro on time. He surveyed the pub and
didn't see her. She'd picked the place; he figured she would
have chosen someplace convenient for her. If he could get there
on time when he lived in Brooklyn, surely she could get there on
time from her Manhattan apartment.

All right, so she was running a little late. No big deal. He sauntered down to the far end of the bar and settled on an empty stool
that gave him a good view of the place. He'd be able to see her the
moment she entered-before she saw him. This would give him a chance to assess her, and to brace himself.

The bartender approached, a skinny, pretty boy with an air
about him. Ted realized the stool he sat on was prime real estate;
he'd have to order a drink if he wanted to stay there. He asked for
a Budweiser.

Waiting for her gave him too much time. Time to wonder
whether he was overdressed or underdressed. He'd chosen cords
and a polo shirt, neat but not prissy. He'd dressed in a way he
hoped would communicate that he was prosperous, content, cool.

Christ. You're still trying to impress her. Maybe you ought to give
her one of your business cards, while you're at it.

The minutes ticked by. He nursed his beer. The voices around
him melted into a blur of sound. The door opened to admit
patrons. None was Erika.

He was trying to impress her, and she'd stood him up. Talk
about a door slamming in his face. He decided that if she hadn't
arrived by the time he'd finished his beer, he'd leave a note with
the bartender. A ten-dollar bill and a note inviting her to have a
drink on him. That would be gentlemanly.

And cool. Impressively cool.

A note saying, Maybe next time. Only there wouldn't be a next
time. He'd accept the meaning behind her absence. Finally,
finally, it would be over for him. He'd purge her from his mind
once and for all. He promised himself he would.

The door opened again, and that promise flew out into the
drizzly night as Erika stepped inside.

She was beautiful.

Of course she was beautiful. He knew she was beautiful. She'd
been beautiful at sixteen, when she'd been the new girl in their
high school sophomore class. She'd been beautiful at eighteen,
when she'd become his girlfriend. She'd been beautiful when she'd ridden horses, when she'd danced, when she'd lain beneath
him in the backseat of the Wagoneer, opening her body and her
soul to him. She'd even been beautiful in the Denver airport, with
her hair cropped short and her college friends snickering about
the loser boyfriend who'd flown halfway across the country with
a teddy bear in his hands.

She was beautiful now, her hair glistening with drops of rain,
her slim body decked out in a white tank top and a black jumpsuit, her throat circled by a chunky black necklace. She still had
the ramrod posture she'd had in high school, the same long, slim
legs, the same generous breasts. The same gentle brown eyes and
golden skin and intoxicating smile.