Nobody's Hero

by Melanie Harvey

  George lifted a bushy white eyebrow. Rick shrugged.

  “You know, Rick, that’s not a bad thing.”

  Rick watched one of the carriages pull right into the traffic. Didn’t seem like a good deal for the horses. “How you figure that?”

  “You picked someone worth competing over.”

  Rick didn’t know whether he’d picked her or not.

  “And you do know, the only battle that can’t be won is the battle that isn’t fought.”

  Rick turned to the old man who all of a sudden seemed to be speaking his language. “Who said that?”

  The caterpillar eyebrows went up. “I said that.” He stuck a thumb in the center of his chest. “George Stepnowski.”

  Rick couldn’t help laughing.

  “That’s the key, right there, Son.”

  Rick wondered when he’d gone from Mr. Ranière to Rick to Son. “What’s the key?”

  “Laughing. Does she laugh?”

  He nodded, even though he didn’t know what that had to do with anything.

  The bill of George’s cap bobbed. “Then you’re still in the battle.”

  Rick snorted.

  “It’s true. You think my wife picked me because I danced like Gene Kelly?”

  Rick wasn’t going to argue, especially since he didn’t even know who Gene Kelly was. He couldn’t remember what he’d meant to do out here anyway. He stood on the steps looking over the crush of people, crossing the streets, ducking around each other, everyone with somewhere to go, something to do, and in such a damn hurry to get there and do it.

  “You should try the Park,” George said.

  “For what?”

  George turned to his left. “It’s not so crowded. Give you a little more space.”

  “You know, I’m from 93rd Street in Cleveland. Not Iowa.”

  “There’s nothing like New York,” George said, and that was true. “Try the Park.”

  Rick didn’t have any other ideas. He had his wallet this time, though. He reached for it, but George held up his hand. Then someone came out wanting a cab, so Rick shrugged and headed for the corner. He was plugging his ear with the second earphone when George called after him.

  “Mr. Ranière!” The doorman lifted an eyebrow. “Is she laughing?”

  He shrugged. “Some.”

  “There’s your weapon, boy.”

  Rick couldn’t help laughing himself as he headed for the park. He crossed 59th Street against the light with everyone else and glanced to his right. Carolyn’s hotel loomed up into a point, a different color than this morning, with the sun from the west instead of glowing behind the building. The stink of horseshit rose up, totally incongruent.

  You seem pretty congruent so far.

  Rick shot one last look at the hotel before he turned into the park. George didn’t have a clue what weapons he needed. On the other hand, neither did he.

  13: Cue the Photographer

  Carolyn gripped her purse as if a tight hold on a piece of beige leather could shield her from the scene on Central Park’s Gapstow Bridge. She stood fifty yards from a half-dozen perfect women receiving adjustments to their hair, makeup and clothes. Liz’s first words at lunch had been terse, at best, and now she had this.

  Carolyn tore her gaze from the flawless bodies and focused on the man behind the camera. He swapped a lens, inspected something in his hand. A shimmering black dress shirt hung loosely from broad shoulders, the sleeves cuffed just below his elbows. His movements were smooth and elegant, a reverse polarity of the tight coiled springs she thought might be buried under Rick’s skin. Ready to snap loose any moment and smack someone in the mouth.

  Peter Shepard glanced at his watch, then stooped to reach into a dark green bag beside the tripod. He stood and settled a baseball cap on his head. When he glanced in her direction, Carolyn smiled. Mets. At least it wasn’t the Red Sox. He looked straight at her and cocked his head to the side. She raised one hand in a tentative wave. Peter’s face broke into a broad smile, and Carolyn consciously relaxed her grip on her purse strap. When their first meeting was hypothetical, she’d been calm. When she was shortening the actual physical distance between herself and Peter to three yards, then two, then less than one, she was grateful she’d only been able to pick at her lunch.

  The sunshine cast a glow over his skin that hadn’t been visible under the studio lighting in the photo he’d e-mailed her. Only fair, he’d written, once he’d seen her book jacket photograph. He wore his dark wavy hair clipped closer now. His smile crinkled up the corners of liquid brown eyes. Carolyn returned it, hoping hers held the same enthusiasm.

  “I didn’t think I’d be so nervous.” Peter’s voice was deep and rich, the slightest hint of a New York accent on perfect diction. He opened his arms. “Are we allowed?”

  She stepped into the friendly hug, catching a whiff of spicy cologne.

  He released her and frowned. “You are Carolyn, aren’t you? Or have I just made a complete fool of myself?”

  “I didn’t think this would be so awkward.”

  “Neither did I, and I’m not enjoying that part. Are you?”

  She glanced at a model smoking a cigarette as she leaned on the bridge’s stone wall. Maybe this would be easier among average-looking people. She turned back to Peter. “Are you almost finished?”

  He tilted his head. “I left a message at the hotel this morning. And sent you an e-mail.”

  “I haven’t had time … ” That ringing phone she’d been so proud of herself for not answering. “I didn’t get the message.”

  “They had a scheduling conflict. With her.” He nodded toward the smoking model. “We just got here, and now I’ll be working tonight to meet the deadline.”

  “How late?”

  “Very late. I’m sorry.”

  “It’s not your fault,” she said. “It’s business, right?”

  “Gotta keep the man happy. Nothing I could do, except catch some extra sleep this morning and be grateful for the connections that got me the job in the first place.”

  Maybe it wouldn’t be so uncomfortable next time. “Of course.”

  “I really am sorry. More now than this morning.”

  Carolyn smiled. “So then. Tomorrow?”

  “A late lunch? I have reservations at two, Tavern on the Green. Sound good?”

  “Yes.”

  Someone called to him, and he held up a finger before he turned back to her, shaking his head. “I have to go.”

  “What about — you said you had a surprise.” She was dying to know, but she asked, “Will it keep?”

  Peter clapped his hand over his breast pocket. “Yes, I do.” He worked the button loose. “And no, it won’t.” He fished out a plain white envelope and handed it to her. She opened it and felt the stiff stock inside before she withdrew —

  “Oh, my God. You didn’t.”

  Peter grinned. “Yes, I did.”

  She stared at the tickets, pale blue, faded images of players behind the type. Yankee Stadium. Tonight. “I can’t believe it.”

  “I would have taken you to a Broadway show, but I had a sneaking suspicion you’d rather do this.” He tipped the Mets cap, and Carolyn smiled.

  New York? she’d written, in her second e-mail. Are you a Yankee fan?

  As if, Peter replied. I wouldn’t sell my soul to the devil, either.

  She’d actually packed her jersey, as always, a habit born years ago, after being invited to Wrigley Field once and having nothing to wear to the game. Carolyn glanced at the tickets again. “It’s quite a sacrifice.”

  “Ironically, I was planning to root for the Indians. I’ll have to do it in spirit.”

  Someone called to him again, and he nodded over her shoulder. “I’m sorry. I checked on tomorrow’s game, but the only seats left are nosebleeds. Is there anyone you could go with? What’s her name … the image consultant you like? Is she in town?”

  “Natalie. I don’t know,” Carolyn said. “I suppose I could ask
.”

  “Do,” he said. “If you can’t find anyone, scalp the other ticket and get me my money back.”

  Carolyn laughed. “I probably will. I don’t know anybody else.”

  Except one foul-mouthed underground rapper. Who left me his cell phone number in case you’re a serial killer.

  “I wish … ” Peter said, but then he shook his head. “It’s a good thing I’m not superstitious.”

  “I’m not either. I’ll see you tomorrow.”

  “If anything changes — ”

  “I’ll check my messages. I promise.”

  She could give him her cell phone number. Had he asked for it, she might have. He didn’t, and her relief surprised her. Peter smiled again, completely focused on her despite the activity brewing around them. Carolyn shifted under his appraising gaze, tongue-tied in a way she hadn’t been when Rick wanted coffee by room service.

  And that was the third time she’d caught herself comparing them. She broke Peter’s eye contact and tucked the tickets into the outside pocket of her bag. Which now held two envelopes, different papers she’d dreamed of seeing. If she could only choose one …

  She was comparing again.

  Peter sighed. “I have to get back to work.”

  Carolyn was about to reassure him that she did understand when he grasped her shoulder and kissed her on the cheek, releasing her just as quickly. She stepped back and stopped herself.

  Peter didn’t seem to notice her aborted retreat. “Until tomorrow then.”

  He gave her one last smile before his attention returned to business. Unsettled over how grateful she felt to be walking away, she started back down the path in the direction she’d come. More unsettled by the urge to call Rick Ranière and let him know she had survived.

  Of course she’d survived. Meeting Peter hadn’t been anything at all like meeting Rick. Carolyn heard her own heels stop on the asphalt. She glanced at the pond, the still water starting to coat with algae. The irregular edges of the green film blurred. For two years, nothing made her heart beat faster than seeing a new e-mail in her inbox.

  “I think he’s the one.”

  Her sister frowned. “You’ve never even talked to him.”

  “I know, it’s crazy, but … ” Carolyn couldn’t make it sound any less. “I just feel like he knows me. Like he thinks, like he feels … the way I do.”

  Eve raised her eyebrows. “Seinfeld and the Wu-Tang Clan?”

  Soul mates, she meant, referring to Chris Rock’s HBO special: He couldn’t find one, because he’d never meet someone who liked Seinfeld and the Wu-Tang Clan. Eve laughed when Carolyn waved at the television.

  “Guess he didn’t look in Akron, Ohio,” Eve said.

  Carolyn blinked and the scummy pond swam into focus. Her grip tightened on the railing. This very morning, Eve called her out on the truth behind her Late Show joke. She pointed out that no matter Carolyn’s protests, it was nothing but chemistry, because she knew exactly what the man was really like. She was right about the chemistry, but Eve’s warning fueled Carolyn’s return argument: She didn’t know him. Only his songs. And when people write shit, they lie.

  She’d thought — she’d hoped — “Aiesha’s Song” was tragic fiction, just a vivid story about one more unnoticed victim of domestic violence.

  Rick’s paranoia made her suspect Aiesha had once been all too real.

  14: The Wrong Effect

  Rick spotted the carousel again and stopped to get his bearings. He wasn’t sure how long he’d roamed the curved pathways and didn’t care. The only thing he’d managed to do was burn off some restlessness. Not much, either. The path split and he turned left, spotting the stone bridge that crossed the pond, congested with a modeling shoot now. He was close to where he’d come in, and if he kept going, he’d be back on the street, back to the hotel. Then what? Shoot for the high score on Pole Position?

  Wire fencing lined the asphalt paths, an empty space between the posts every so often, like they hadn’t decided if they wanted to let people on the grass or not. Rick cut through the gap on the opposite side of the next intersection. He sat with his back to the trunk of the nearest tree and watched an older couple following a dog walker, slower. They turned left at the crossing, and the down slope of the path made them look like they were sinking into the bushes. After a minute, their heads went under.

  Rick pulled three folded sheets of paper from his pocket, unclipped the pen that held them together, and sighed. He never believed this would happen. The ten months of scribbling crap had been better than this blank emptiness. He looked back to the bridge where the models were dim outlines in the hazy sunshine. A flash of color caught his eye, hot pink.

  No. Not quite.

  “What’s this color?” Jesse’s still-chubby fingers shoved the crayon right under Rick’s nose.

  He leaned back so his eyes could focus and twisted the crayon until he found the name. “Magenta.”

  “Why is it Magenta?”

  “’Cause that’s what they put on the label.”

  “But why did they put Magenta?”

  “I don’t know, Jesse. Why you always think there’s a reason for everything?”

  The spot moved over the stone wall toward the end of the bridge near the tripod. Rick squinted, but he only saw dark hair above the exact same color that Carolyn had worn this morning. The beats in his ears turned the black and magenta spots into a silent movie. When the actors hugged briefly, he felt his jaw clamp down. A stupid reaction to two blobs on a bridge, but she was out there somewhere, hooking up with someone she didn’t know, thinking she did. Aiesha had known better. Or he’d thought she did.

  Rick couldn’t keep his eyes off the magenta splash over the wall of the bridge. The black spot leaned in, and he couldn’t see clearly enough, but their heads were close enough together —

  I know what you was thinking / that it’s some kind of jealousy …

  That was a joke, the whole thing was a joke, one that should have stayed untold. No time to reflect on that, though, the magenta spot turned and walked away. He watched the color continue over the curve, bright pink above the ivy that covered the stone sides of the bridge. Then she disappeared behind the trees.

  Rick glanced at the papers in his hand. The left edges were folded back on the perforations; he didn’t remember doing that. He peeled the spirals off, glanced back to where the spot had disappeared and a flash caught the corner of his eye, closer now. He’d been imagining it was her, so maybe now he was hallucinating without any pharmaceutical help at all.

  He wasn’t. She walked up the far path, in his direction, a bag over her shoulder, gray jacket on her other arm. She slowed, stopped and looked down to her right. If she kept walking, then turned right, she’d pass right in front of him on the other side of the fence. Rick fingered the paper in his hand. Then, trading his attention between Carolyn and the blank page, he started folding. He hadn’t done time in the infamous Cleveland City School system without learning something useful. He was finished when she started walking again.

  The plane sailed right in front of her face before it arced down and crashed into the fence on the opposite side of the path. He hadn’t lost that, at least.

  Carolyn stopped, looked at the airplane, then turned to see where it had come from. She would have made a good teacher, because that was how you got caught. Especially with nobody in the next seat to blame. She didn’t look too happy, for some reason.

  “I ain’t stalking you,” Rick said quickly. He pulled off his left earphone so he could hear if she wanted to say something. Like, ‘sure you aren’t.’

  She stooped to pick up the airplane from the pavement. Then she studied him for another long moment. She glanced over her shoulder — checking for other stalkers probably — looked back to him for a split second before she reversed her direction. Walking away. It was the pattern.

  She didn’t keep going though; she turned at the gap in the fence, into the grass, right up to where he w
as sitting against the tree. Her fingers creased the airplane’s fold. “There are eight million people in New York.”

  “Don’t you think you’d have noticed me following you?”

  She looked him over, like she was trying to remember if she’d seen him or not.

  “I ain’t lied to you yet, Carolyn.”

  “Yet,” she repeated. “So what are you doing here?”

  “Getting away from eight million people.”

  Carolyn laughed, and in the semi-hush of Central Park it sounded even more like music. “Now that I believe.”

  He almost didn’t know how to react to her taking him at his word. He looked past her to the activity on the bridge. The small dots of people combined with his memory of the larger ones up close. The one dressed in black had been behind the camera. Carolyn followed his gaze.

  “The photographer,” he said. “That the guy?”

  She turned back to him. “Yes.”

  “And?”

  “And he’s a really nice guy.”

  Rick didn’t know if she was making a contrast or a point. “Every damn one of them said that about Ted Bundy, you know.”

  Carolyn shook her head, but she was laughing. She shot one quick glance in the direction of the psycho photographer, then she took a step, twisted around and before he knew it, she was right beside him. Dropped her bag on the ground, tossed her jacket on top of it, and didn’t say a word about getting grass stains on her clothes. She was just a little too far away.

  “That song on your last album. Did he really kill her?”

  He stared at her. Had he made that up? Somebody would have been killed if he had. Rick, namely. Aiesha would have killed him. If only. “He sued me for character defamation from prison. The judge dismissed it. Accurate representation of the truth. Something like that.”

  He could see something behind the gold in her eyes, and he figured he was about to get hit up with how rap lyrics weren’t exactly helping with shit like that.

  The sun broke through the trees and cast shifting patterns of lighter and darker browns over her hair and her face. She took a deep breath. “Then I understand why you were worried.”