‘Yeah, well pity about him,’ says Joy, as an annoying automated voice in the background says ‘unexpected item in the baggage area’.
‘After all,’ she goes on crisply, ‘if he’s old enough to go online and do what he did, then he’s old enough to take the consequences. Remember, you do have to be eighteen or over to join those dating sites in the first place, so this Harry McWhat’s-his-face was lying from the get-go. You poor thing though, I can’t begin to imagine what a total shock all this must have been.’
‘You said it,’ I tell her, playing idly with the phone cord and looking out the window down onto bustling 45th Street, all of eighteen floors beneath me.
Truth be told, Harry’s been rightly outed now, and doubtless that older brother of his will do his level best to keep him on the straight and narrow from here on in. But thankfully that family are no longer my concern. There is, however, the small matter of the juicy story I’m bound to get out of this for Afternoon Delight. In fact all I have to do is close my eyes and I can practically see Aggie at work salivating over it right now. From the moment I first pitched it to her, I just knew this one really had legs; it’s one of those stories that’ll go viral and spread like wildfire, I can just feel it – this really could be the big one for me. In my game, it gets so you can tell after a while.
‘It’s about catching out a catfish,’ as I told Aggie a few days ago, standing in her office, right before I booked this trip. ‘After all, this is happening all the time. It’s frightening how astonishingly easy it is for guys – and women too – to lure some unsuspecting soul into believing in a fake profile on an online dating site. Throw in a few intimate phone calls and suddenly you find yourself really believing you’re in a virtual relationship. So let’s see what happens when the tables are turned. When I track this catfish down and teach him a lesson he’ll hopefully never forget.’
I get a sudden, sharp pang of guilt that this is all about to befall an immature kid, but then I think back to how rude and unapologetic Harry was to me last night and just how cruel his behaviour was. Then I coolly remind myself that the kid knew what he was doing and bloody well had it coming.
Joy rants on supportively as I keep gazing determinedly down onto the view below, with people rushing around like tiny ants beneath me. It really is such an utterly mesmerizing sight. Calming even. There’s just a light powdering of snow on the pavements – sorry, sidewalk – but given the day that’s in it, it certainly doesn’t appear to have put off all the early morning Christmas shoppers. Even at this ungodly hour, I can see some stores on Madison Avenue already open and doing a roaring trade.
Bloody hell. Christmas Eve already. Which means tomorrow is—
Thankfully Joy cuts across my thoughts.
‘Now you just listen to me, love,’ she says briskly. ‘You’ve done exactly what you came to do in New York. Mission accomplished and all that. But here’s the thing. I really hate the idea of you being stuck in some lonely hotel there all alone, especially tomorrow. It’s just not good for you. It just doesn’t seem right.’
‘Oh, Joy, you know I’m still not …’
‘… I know, I know, we’ve been over this a hundred times before. But here’s a suggestion. Why not go online and just see if there’s a flight home this evening with a free seat? Maybe even to Shannon airport? Because that’s only half an hour from our house, so I could easily pick you up and you could have Christmas dinner with us tomorrow. After all, it’s only dinner and this way at least you and me will get through the day together. So come on now, what do you say?’
She already knows the answer before I even have to open my mouth though.
We both do.
*
With a whole day ahead of me to kill, I try my best to banish all thoughts of Shithead McGillis and decide at least to get out there and distract myself, like a normal person on holiday. Sorry – vacation. But my trusty guidebook tells me that none of the big tourist attractions here really open till 10 a.m., so instead I spend a leisurely morning doing all the pampering things you only ever really do in hotels. Having a steaming bath, ordering tea and toast up to the room, eating it in bed with the telly on full blast, all while wearing a shower hat and prancing around the place in a bathrobe so huge it almost dwarfs me.
The NY News channel tells me it’s a blustery zero degrees out there with heavy snow forecast for the holiday season.
Wow. An actual, proper, white Christmas. First time I think I’ve ever seen one. Anyway, I’m just layering up before facing the elements outside (jeans, highly unsexy thermals, two woolly jumpers and the warmest puffa jacket I possess), when suddenly the phone rings.
Not my mobile though, the hotel phone this time.
Which is odd. After all, Joy is the only one who knows I’m staying here, so who else could possibly be ringing me?
‘Hello, Ms Johnson?’ a receptionist’s voice asks politely the minute I answer.
‘Ermm, yes … speaking.’
‘There’s someone here at reception to see you. He asked me to call your room and to say that he’ll wait for you down here in the lobby lounge. And to let you know there’s absolutely no rush.’
Utterly mystified, I zip out of the room and immediately grab a lift heading downstairs. But reception is so crowded and bustling when I do get down there, with hordes of Christmas shoppers clustered round the lounge area ordering coffees and brunches, that try as I might, I can’t see anyone who could possibly be looking for me. I weave my way through the throng all the while thinking, well, the receptionist must have made a mistake. Or maybe there’s another guest here with the same last name as me and somehow they got us mixed up.
That’s it. That’s by far the most likely explanation.
I hear him before I see him.
‘Holly?’
Jumping, I turn around to see Mike. Tall, dark-haired and dressed down today in a casual pair of jeans with an expensive-looking heavy slate-grey jacket over it. Hands shoved deep into his pockets, like he’s a bit nervous of the reception he’s likely to get from me. It takes a second or two for my mouth to catch up with what my brain is trying to process before I can speak.
‘What are you doing here?’ I manage to stammer at him. ‘I mean … how did you even know where to find me?’
‘Turns out you’re not the only one who can track down an address using mobile phone technology,’ he says, with just a quick, tight smile.
‘What?’
‘I’m joking,’ he says dryly. ‘In fact, I overheard you give the taxi driver the name of your hotel last night. So I just thought I’d swing by, so we could talk.’
‘No offence, Mike,’ I say, utterly on the back foot here, ‘but didn’t we say pretty much everything that needed to be said last night? What more is there to talk about?’
Subtext: Your kid brother is an arse who’s doubtless headed for a long career as a conman, and if he lived on the other side of the Atlantic, he’d probably end up in Borstal. But I don’t even have to voice it aloud though, Mike already gets it.
‘There’s one or two things I really didn’t get the chance to say to you last night,’ he says, the jet-black eyes looking right at me now. ‘You … well, let’s just say, you were kind of in a rush to get out of there.’
‘Oh come on now, do you blame me?’
‘Course not. But if you had a spare few minutes for a coffee, then I’d be very grateful.’
I deliberate for a minute then decide, what the hell. Might as well hear him out. After all, what have I got planned – only an endless day stretching out ahead of me.
‘I’ll give you ten minutes max,’ I tell him out straight.
‘Great. That’s all it’ll take.’
The lobby lounge is so packed there’s scarcely room for a cat, so Mike steers me outside into the biting cold and just across the road to 45th Street.
‘You hungry, by any chance?’ he asks, and it’s only then I realize I’m actually starving. I had a tiny brekkie, but t
hat was at 7 a.m., and given that it’s coming up to midday now, the prospect of food suddenly sounds pretty good.
‘With me,’ I tell him, having to crane my neck to look up at him, he’s that tall, ‘the answer to that question is always yes.’
‘Girl after my own heart,’ he replies, and there it is again, that quick, tight smile. But I’m determined not to soften that easily, so I just give him a curt little nod.
Two minutes later we’re stepping from the street inside the coolest deli I think I’ve ever seen. One of those retro-chic ones that’s almost like nineteen-sixties overload, all white walls, white floors and see-through plastic bucket chairs that you just sink into. Like something off the set of Barbarella.
‘Wow,’ is all I can come out with.
‘Welcome to Dishes,’ Mike smiles. ‘It’s kinda my local round here. My office is just a few blocks away, over on East 42nd.’
‘So what do you work at?’ I ask him, as we grab trays and inch our way along the self-service counter, me salivating on account of each dish looking better than the next.
‘I’m an architect with a company called KPMK,’ he shrugs.
Fancy job, I think. And this guy has that casual, off-duty moneyed look down to a T, too. Then I remember something he said to me on the phone yesterday about getting home to Harry. So now of course my mind is working double quick time, and what I’m bursting to know is whether someone like this could possibly still be living with his kid brother and his mammy?
‘Oh, is that right?’ is all I come out with though, trailing off lamely.
‘Yup, that’s pretty much most people’s reaction when they hear what I do,’ he says dryly. ‘Nor do I blame you either; my job is deeply, deeply uninteresting right now, let me tell you.’
‘No, that’s not what I meant at all … in fact, I was just wondering …’
‘What?’
‘Well, let’s just say, you don’t strike me as the kind of guy that would live with your family, that’s all. Don’t get me wrong though,’ I add a bit too quickly, ‘I think it’s absolutely terrific that you do. If you ask me, if more men lived with their mammies, the world would be a far better place.’
He just laughs though and reaches out for the tongs to help himself to maple syrup pancakes. ‘Long story,’ he shrugs, then changing tack, asks, ‘so tell me, how long are you in town for?’
‘I leave the day after tomorrow,’ I tell him, distracted now, deciding between stone-cut Irish oats with granola, to remind me of home, or the most divine-looking eggs Benedict dish I think I’ve ever seen.
‘You’ve been to New York City before, right?’
‘Nope, my first time here,’ I tell him as we help ourselves to coffees and head for a small table at the back that’s thankfully free.
‘Seriously?’
‘Absolutely,’ I smile, tucking into the eggs Benedict, then in spite of myself, making involuntary oohing noises at all its gooey gorgeousness.
‘But it’s the holiday season.’
‘I know.’
‘So do you have family here? Friends to catch up with while you’re in town?’
‘Afraid not,’ I shrug.
‘So you mean to say, you came all this way – and over Christmas too – just to chase up a story for a radio and TV show?’
OK, so when it’s put that baldly, I agree, it does make me sound a tad obsessive, but then I remind myself that Mike doesn’t know the whole story of why I’m so Christmas adverse. Apart from Joy and a few other close mates, no one does really.
I just nod back at him, so he sits forward, shoving the pancakes he’d been picking at aside, the dark eyes looking at me really keenly now.
‘Well that’s kind of what I’m here to chat to you about, as you can probably guess,’ he says.
‘I figured.’
‘Thing is you see, Harry’s just a kid. Yes, a stupid, thoughtless, reckless kid, but come on, he doesn’t deserve this, does he? He doesn’t deserve to be outed on national media, even if it is in Ireland where he doesn’t know anyone.’
‘We broadcast online too,’ I correct him – anxious he doesn’t underestimate this. ‘And you know how it is with these things; once something goes viral, there’s no way of clawing it back. You have to admit, as stories go, this one has all the hallmarks of something that’ll run and run.’
Truth be told, I think I’m still in shock about the whole thing myself.
‘I suppose in that case,’ Mike goes on, tousling with his thick black head of hair, and for the first time since we got here, looking and sounding that bit less confident and sure of himself. ‘I guess I’m here to plead on his behalf. Harry’s only sixteen, for God’s sake. And yes, what he did was reckless and stupid …’
‘Don’t forget cruel,’ I add.
‘That too,’ Mike nods. ‘But look, here’s the thing. The kid’s had it tough lately; things haven’t been easy for him, or for any of us for that matter. Our dad left home just a few years ago, you see.’
‘Oh … I’m so sorry to hear that.’
‘It was quite a blow. And we’re a small, tight-knit family, so you can imagine how hard it hit us all.’
I can’t answer him now though. I’m miles away, too busy thinking of another parent who isn’t around anymore.
‘And Harry took it pretty bad,’ Mike goes on. ‘After all, he was barely thirteen years old at the time. It was horrendous for all of us, but I can’t think of a worse age for a kid’s family to suddenly break up, can you?’
I don’t need to ‘imagine’ what that’s like, though. No one gets it any more than I do. Trust me, I already know, I want to tell Mike, but somehow the words just seem to freeze mid-air.
‘Where did your dad move to?’ I manage to ask hoarsely.
‘Connecticut, if you can believe that,’ says Mike. ‘Barely a forty-minute drive from here, even though we rarely see him. Turned out he’d been having an affair behind Mom’s back with a woman that he worked with. Who’s now his new wife, by the way. Living by a lake, I hear, with a whole brood of stepchildren who we never see or have any dealings with. Pretty dysfunctional stuff, huh?’
‘I’m so sorry to hear that.’
‘Thanks, but it’s OK,’ Mike says, taking a sip of coffee and trying his best to brush it aside, though it’s obvious all of this has left deep scars. How could it not? Believe me, I could bloody well write the book on it.
‘Look,’ he goes on, ‘I didn’t come here to try to win you around with a sob story. All I’m saying is that if it’s anyone’s fault that Harry’s gone off the rails a bit over the past few years, then I guess the buck should really stop with me.’
‘But why would you say that?’
‘Because ever since Dad … well, I’ve sort of been in loco parentis, so to speak. My mother is the best in the world, but things haven’t been easy for her these last few years, between juggling home life with work. She took my dad’s betrayal pretty badly.’
‘Where does she work?’
‘She’s a part-timer at the public library on Fifth, so I guess it’s really been up to me to step in and act as a sort of father figure to a wayward teenager. I’m just saying, if anyone’s responsible for what Harry gets up to, it’s me. So I guess I’m here to apologize – and if possible to make amends.’
I melt a bit at this, and there’s a pause as Mike finishes off his coffee and a waitress noisily clatters past us, laden down with dirty plates and dishes.
Then the nosey part of me finds myself blurting out of nowhere, ‘So after your parents broke up, your mum got custody of Harry?’
‘That’s right. In fact, the apartment you called to yesterday is actually where we all grew up. Mom and Dad lived there with Harry long after I’d fled the coop, but as soon as Dad took off and Mom took charge of Harry, it felt wrong of me to be living this bachelor lifestyle in my own apartment downtown. So even though I still have my own place, I just thought the right and proper thing to do was to take care of everythi
ng for my family: the rent, the bills, all of that. It just wasn’t fair on Mom to have to deal with a broken marriage and a teenage kid on top of all that too. Particularly all on her own, when she already works part-time as it is.’
‘She must have had you so young.’
‘She was barely twenty-five and just newly married when I came along, so she and I have always been super-close. Harry was a bit of a surprise when he eventually arrived after all those years, but as Mom says, she hoped he’d be a kind of glue-baby for her and Dad. Yet another thing that wasn’t to be,’ he shrugs.
‘I think it’s really great of you to take care of them both the way you do,’ I tell him sincerely, touched by his unselfishness.
‘Anyone would do the same,’ he shrugs. ‘After all, family is family. But come on, tell me about your folks. Don’t they miss having you home for the holidays? Don’t you miss them?’
Can’t go there though. So I do what I always do: say nothing and just wait for the moment to pass.
‘It’s OK,’ Mike eventually says, after an excruciatingly long pause while his dark eyes scan my face intently. ‘You don’t have to, if you don’t want to.’
‘Thanks,’ is all I can lamely reply.
‘But look,’ he goes on, tactfully changing the subject, ‘supposing I gave you my word that I’d keep a closer eye on Harry from now on. Is there any way you’d reconsider broadcasting your story about all of this? Would you even think about containing it somehow? Though what I guess I’m really trying to ask,’ he adds, glancing at me uncertainly, ‘is whether you can find it in yourself to forgive and forget?’
OK, so now I’m wavering, half of me thinking of Aggie back at work, confident that I’ll swagger back with one of the juiciest dating horror stories we’ve ever run with, while the other half of me is busy thinking – maybe Mike is right here? Maybe Harry should get off with just a caution this time? After all, his dad walked out on him so young, and the kid is still only sixteen. And I of all people should understand that scars that deep can take a long, long time to heal.
‘Yes, OK, Harry messed up badly,’ Mike goes on, looking at me kindly, warmly now. ‘And believe me, I’ve already hauled him over the coals for what he put you through. But doesn’t everyone deserve a second chance?’
Meet Me In Manhattan Page 14
