by Noree Kahika
Despite the size, I loved the apartment—it was so completely different than the modern and sizable condo I shared back in California with Courtney and Jake. And for some insane reason, the compactness of the place worked because it was so different. The whole city was different. It was alive, vibrant and frenetic with sound after sound competing to be heard over the towering structures and teeming masses that sprawled over and claimed every spare space of the effervescent island known as Manhattan.
When the darkness of the night fully descended, I glanced at the glowing green numbers on my clock beside the bed and marveled at how quickly I had managed to unpacked my clothes, place them into the dresser, and hang up several dresses, pants, and blouses on the ornate rail before stowing my now empty suitcases under the bed. I’d even found time to have a shower and wash my hair before I collapsed onto my bed in exhaustion and called Courtney.
The sound of the front door being unlocked was followed by a feminine voice calling my name just as I hung up from speaking with Courtney. Venturing out from my bedroom, I saw a tall, statuesque, and incredibly beautiful brunette dump several grocery bags onto the kitchen counter.
“Hey,” I greeted, giving her a little wave. “You must be Sam. I’m Charli.” When I offered my hand in greeting, she battered it away and engulfed me into a warm, friendly hug, which I returned just as warmly.
Releasing me, she said, “It’s so nice to meet you, Charli, and let me just say how relieved I am you’re finally here. You would not believe the dozens of whack-jobs I had to interview who’d applied for this apartment. It was a real eye-opener, Charli, I can tell you that! But thank God, you appear relatively sane and you smell wonderful, by the way. I’d say it’s a win-win for me.”
“Umm…thank you…I guess. I just had a shower and can safely say I have at least one of those a day, so no worries on that front. As for being sane—that’s still up for debate.”
She laughed and then turned to her shopping bags. “Are you hungry? I hope so because I brought Chinese food for dinner. New York City has the best food, I swear. Everything here is so authentic and delicious, but this Chinese is especially to die for.”
“Sure.” I shrugged and then with a huge smile on my face, I opened cupboards to look for some dinner plates.
Destiny was definitely smiling down on me.
Chapter Sixteen
Dressed in my best pair of black woolen pants, my favorite light blue long-sleeved button down, and a beige trench coat for added warmth, I successfully navigated the subway from the corner of Spring Street, just a block over from my new apartment, up to the Upper East Side. From my stop at 72nd Street, it was only another block’s walk to Whitfield Academy where I quickly changed out my comfortable running shoes for a pair of black patent Mary Jane pumps.
Apart from the biting chill of the early morning air, the trek uptown went relatively smoothly thanks to Sam’s advice on what numbered train to catch with the fewest stops. Southern California’s milder weather didn’t really require anything warmer than my old trusty thigh-length trench coat on the rare occasions I had to walk somewhere. For the most part, native Angelenos drove everywhere and I could probably count the number of times I’d caught public transportation in my life on one hand—it was that rare.
The only warmer clothes I owned were an assortment of old cabled sweaters, hoodies, and jeans that couldn’t be classified as appropriate work attire, so a shopping trip to Macy’s for at least a warmer coat would definitely be on my list of things to do this week.
Now that I was a fledgling New Yorker—insert big goofy smile on my face—I definitely needed a New York wardrobe to match.
Throughout dinner last night and late into the evening, Sam and I had talked and talked—just getting to know each other a little better and the more we did, the more I liked her. Sam was twenty-eight, three years older than me, and born and raised in Tucson, Arizona. She was the middle child, with an older sister and a younger brother. After graduating UOA with a degree in business administration, she landed a job straight out of college in Tucson with a small software design firm, but after several years in the position, the company ran into some financial difficulty and Sam was laid off, along with a dozen other employees when the firm downsized.
Living in New York City was one of two cities Sam had always dreamed of living in—San Francisco being the other—so after being laid off, Sam packed up and along with a friend, made the move to Manhattan with a small nest egg of savings behind her. Now, two months later, her friend was gone, she hadn’t had any luck finding an administration position, and her nest egg was dwindling. The only part of Sam’s dream that was a current reality was the cool, bohemian SoHo apartment she lived in. And in the interim, Sam had been working as a barista in a hip coffee shop located in Midtown.
Sam’s refreshing open and witty personality made me feel instantly comfortable with her, so in return, I shared all about my struggles obtaining a permanent teaching tenure back in LA, and the peculiar turn of events that brought me to the Big Apple. She listened happily as I told her all about Courtney and Jake, the pending arrival of their new baby, and my years of performing with the troupe. Around eleven, I yawned, and exhausted from the day’s events, I stood from the comfy two-seater couch and called it a night.
Sam wasn’t up when I left in the morning but before going to bed, she’d set the automatic timer for the coffee pot and I moaned when the mouthwatering aroma wafted through the apartment to greet me. I poured a cup in a travel mug to take with me on the subway and moaned again when I took the first sip. It was…heavenly—the woman had used only the finest quality beans. Oh yeah—Sam and I were going to get along just fine and dandy.
After I stuffed the running shoes into my oversized brown leather bag, I adjusted my clothes and walked through the entrance to Whitfield Academy, sidestepping several children as they rushed by.
Mrs. Henderson stood by the administration office and smiled warmly at me in greeting when I approached her. “Miss Gilmore, welcome back and thank you for coming in early this morning.” I shook her outstretched hand, wincing when my cold palm touched her much warmer one.
“Gloves are an essential accessory here on the East Coast, as is a heavy coat,” she said wryly, indicating with a nod at my lightweight trench coat.
“Every Monday morning, the teaching staff assembles at seven thirty for the weekly staff meeting. Tuesday through Friday, you won’t need to be here until eight thirty unless you’re rostered on duty. During the staff meetings, I usually assign who’s on playground duty during recess for the week, etcetera. And after the meeting, I’ll show you to your classroom.” She walked briskly and I quickly followed as my eyes darted around the building, trying to absorb everything at once.
The pre-war building was so much larger than I initially thought. The playgrounds were sectioned off into three quads at the rear of the building. Kindergarten and grade one classrooms were located on the first floor; the ground floor was entirely composed of the administration offices, cafeteria, and the school’s assembly hall.
At the staff meeting, I was introduced to the other teachers (there were fifteen in total, not including the administration personnel) where I promptly forgot the majority of their names by the time the meeting had concluded. Mrs. Henderson was called away, so Julie, the other first grade teacher, offered to escort me back to my classroom.
Julie seemed friendly and welcoming with her distinctive New Jersey accent, and willing to fill me in on all the school’s gossip during our lunch break. She’d been at Whitfield Academy for almost two years and had only taught the first grade during that time, which lucky for her was her first preference anyway. I liked her bubbly personality straightaway, and she was pretty with short, curly brown hair and light green eyes and appeared to be of similar age to myself. It was a relief to have made a new friend so quickly at school.
My class was filled with eighteen of the most adorable little six-year-olds and as expected, I was
immediately bombarded with a barrage of questions as to who I was, where I came from, and did I have any pets. Their precocious and candid little personalities had me instantly enthralled—I fell head over heels in love with every single one of them. Children were easy to relate to: they had no hidden agendas, unreasonable expectations or sly motives like that of so many adults; they were carefree, optimistic, and a lot of fun to be around.
Surprisingly, the workday went quickly and lunch with Julie ended up being delightfully entertaining with her outrageous tales of dating woes in the big city. Midway through our break, we were joined by two other female teachers, who Julie introduced as Mackenzie and Paula. Both seemed equally as friendly and outgoing as Julie was.
For homework, I handed out a new reader to each of my kids all the while smiling like a lunatic—it was the highlight of my day. Who knew giving out homework could be so gratifying? And after preparing some work for the next day’s lessons, I cleaned the board, straightened the chairs, and tidied my desk. It was almost five o’clock when I finished up and although the halls were silent from the absence of children, a number of staff members still milled around in the halls, including Julie, who was talking with Mrs. Henderson and Mr. Stern, the school’s principal. I hadn’t spoken more than a few words to Mr. Stern when I met him for the first time during the morning’s staff meeting, but then again, he hadn’t stayed too long before he had left. I had the impression Mr. Stern didn’t interact with the teaching staff too often.
Smiling on my way past, I gave them a little wave and stopped just before the doors to the school’s entrance to change into my running shoes for the trip home. Slipping my feet into the runners, I crouched down to lace them up when a deep, smooth-mannered voice sounded above me. “How was your first day, Charlotte?”
I froze. The hairs along my arms pricked in awareness as the achingly familiar cadence of that voice sent my heart into double time. I squeezed my lids shut tightly and gulped in a lungful of air, silently willing my heartbeat to slow—one Mississippi, two Mississippi, three.
Oh shit!
Fuck it!
Well, clearly that wasn’t working.
Slowly I stood up and turned to face the one person in the world I both never wanted to see yet secretly yearned to be with again. Talk about being crazy—I know.
“Roman. What…how…” I shook my head in an attempt to clear my jumbled thoughts and then focused in on his handsome face. An arrogantly confident smirk played around the corners of his perfectly sculptured lips and a twinkle of mirth shone from his impenetrable midnight-blue eyes. Huh?
Apparently, he wasn’t surprised in the slightest at seeing me here in New York.
Glancing down, I spotted the bouquet of flawlessly pale pink roses held in his fist. My God, they were exquisitely beautiful and their floral scent permeated the air around us.
Following my gaze, Roman cleared his throat and held the flowers out toward me. “These are for you, Princess. A congratulations on your first day gesture.”
Blindly, I reached out and cradled the bouquet in my arms, too stupefied to process Roman’s presence or words when our eyes locked. That magnetically hypnotic force I initially experienced from our first encounter weeks ago in France roared back like a freight train and played havoc with my equilibrium.
No! No, no, no, Roman Knight would not beguile me again.
I squared my shoulders. “What are you doing here, Roman?” My tone was terse but I didn’t care at that point. “And more importantly, how did you know I was here in New York? How did you know I worked here and it was my first day?”
“Charlotte—”
“Charli,” I corrected. My eyes narrowed at him, but the arrogant jerk didn’t seem fazed in the slightest.
“Charli.” His tone was conciliatory; however, the side of his lip that marginally hitched up made me see red. The pompous prick thought he was being funny!
So I growled—actually growled—at him. “You know what! I don’t want to know. Here!” I smacked the bouquet of roses at him and hit him square in the chest. “I don’t want your damn flowers and I don’t want to talk to you either.”
The wrist that wasn’t holding the flowers shot out and wrapped around my forearm in lightning speed. His grasp tightened with an unrelenting grip and halted my attempt to walk away.
“Stop, Charli,” he clipped in a furious tone. His dark eyes blazed. All previous traces of humor fled from his features and I shivered uncontrollably as I watched his face become like granite. We stood like that, in a Mexican standoff, neither of us willing to back down for an interminable amount of time.
“Mr. Knight?” Mr. Stern called out as he approached both Roman and me. “I thought that looked like you but I couldn’t be sure from a distance. The old eyesight’s not like it used to be. How nice to see you again, sir.”
I watched on in horror as Mr. Stern—Whitfield Academy’s principal and my new boss—came up beside us. A huge grin framed his mature face as he held a hand out to Roman.
Handing me back the poorly abused flowers, Roman shook Mr. Stern’s proffered hand, all the while using his other to draw me closer to his side by slipping an arm around my waist. Once more I shivered, but this time the tremble was from the feel of his warm palm resting proprietarily on the base of my spine.
Mr. Stern turned his attention briefly to me. “Miss Gilmore, lovely to see you again, of course. I sincerely hope you enjoyed your first day here?”
“Yes, thank you, Mr. Stern. I did.”
Both men exchanged pleasantries for several minutes, but I couldn’t concentrate on a single word they said—my mind kept wandering to thoughts of Roman, Whitfield Academy, and what his involvement was in my new job.
Obviously by now, it was abundantly clear to me it had been Roman’s influence that got me the interview at Whitfield’s but the big question was—why?
Suddenly, I felt sick to my stomach and I just wanted to go home and crawl into bed. I was exhausted, my head hurt, my feet hurt, but most of all my heart hurt. So I forced a polite smile on my face, excused myself, picked up my bag and headed outside. Thankfully, Roman didn’t attempt to stop me this time and I was grateful to him for not making any more of a scene than we’d already had in front of my boss.
A gust of cool evening air blew over my heated face as I pushed through the doors and out onto the sidewalk, closing my eyes briefly to the welcomed relief of fresh air.
“Charli, wait. Would you just fucking wait for a minute!” His words were like a cracked whip and I flinched with surprise. “Why are you running from me?”
“Why am I running?” A crazy cackle of laughter bubbled up from my chest and if my hands weren’t full, I would have pressed my fingers to my temples. “Oh, that’s rich coming from you.”
I faced Roman. My voice dripped with sarcasm, like honey from a jar. “I don’t know, Mr. Knight—why am I running from you? Maybe it’s because you’re the last person in the world I expected to see again. Maybe it’s because you just embarrassed me in front of my new boss and other work colleagues on my first day. Or, maybe I just realized it was you who got me the job here in the first place. Take your pick—but here’s a hint, you jackass—it’s all three!” I practically screeched the last word in his face.
It was Roman’s turn to flinch, but he rallied fast and demanded, “What the fuck are you talking about?”
“What the… What am I —” Exasperation left me utterly speechless, and my arms flailed around in the air like some kind of wounded bird as rose petals rained down all around me.
“Calm down.” He grabbed me by the shoulders and gave me a little shake.
Calm down—me calm down? Oh, the nerve of the jerk!
“Charli, I apologize if I embarrassed you in there,” he said in a calm, controlled voice. “That was not my intention.”
“And the job?” I snapped.
“What about the job?” he fired back, his face the picture of innocence.
Oh, but I knew
better. I may not have known him for very long but what I did know about Roman Knight—the man didn’t have an innocent bone in his tall, gorgeously attractive body. So I raised my brows in silent demand and waited with barely a sliver of patience.
After a few moments, he sighed in resignation. “Okay, I have a friend who’s on the board here at Whitfield. During dinner a couple of weeks ago, he made some off-handed comment in passing about an opening for a teaching position at the school. I told him I knew of a teacher who was looking and suggested he might like to take a look at your resume. He took my suggestion and passed it onto the relevant people—the rest is history.”
“That’s it?”
“Yes, Charli, that’s all there is to it. No nefarious conspiracy at play here. He called me last week to tell me, the heads of faculty were impressed with your credentials, they’d offered you the position and you were starting this week.”
My lips rolled between my teeth as I scrutinized Roman for a long, long time—at first it was with a mixture of doubt and skepticism but then as I continued to examine him, a sense of overwhelming relief flooded through me until I could only feel a measure of gratitude and appreciation for his assistance.
“Okay, I believe you and…thank you. I really appreciate you putting in a good word for me and as you can see…” I gestured around the street we were stood on. “I’ve moved to New York and am gainfully employed since I last saw you in Venice. How have you been, by the way?”
His answering grin was dazzling. God, would I ever get over just how stunningly gorgeous this man was?
“So will you accept those as a peace offering?” His nod signaled to the roses I still held in my hand. The flowers were now missing more than a few petals; however, they were still just as beautiful.
I laughed. “Yes and thank you, they’re lovely.”
“Good. Now, let me give you a lift home, Princess. It’s getting late.” He gave me a boyish grin and all my carefully constructed defenses regarding Roman Knight crumbled instantly.
