Nobody's Hero
Page 25
Her stomach growled again. At least she wouldn’t have to worry about losing her senses with Peter. She glanced in the mirror near the foyer and figured he wouldn’t either, so she spent the minute making notes before the doorbell to her suite rang.
Peter held up a paper bag, stained with grease around the bottom. It smelled like the best Chinese food in Manhattan. She gestured toward the dining table in the corner.
“Carolyn.” He started to unpack the bag without looking at her. “I know things haven’t quite worked out.”
“I know,” she said softly.
He set out paper plates and plastic forks. “Would you have dinner with me?”
Carolyn took a deep breath. “I’d love to.”
“It’s not much.”
But it felt much more real than the Tavern on the Green. “Do you want a drink?”
“I’ll take a Sprite if you have one.”
She did. Behind a can of Mug root beer. She closed her eyes for a second. She needed to give Peter a chance. It had been two years. She shoved the root beer to the back and brought Peter the can of Sprite. He didn’t ask about last night as they ate. He asked how her speeches were coming.
“I’ve been working on a story.” She took another bite of broccoli. Even if it wasn’t the best in Manhattan, it had to be close.
“You said you’d given up on that. What changed your mind?”
Her fork stopped half-way to her mouth. “Somebody told me not to quit.”
He nodded, watching her as she swallowed.
“I’m not fooling myself,” she added. “I don’t know if I can do it, but I’ve made a lot of money in a short time. Now I can concentrate on what I really want to do. I would have gone back to it anyway. Even without the money.”
He wiped his mouth on a paper napkin. Home training. Carolyn reached for a napkin herself and checked the location of her elbows.
Finally, Peter said, “I guess I’m used to women more interested in the money.”
A pang of sympathy struck her. “It’s not about the money.”
He nodded again. Maybe he did understand.
* * *
Rick stood inside the hotel lobby and watched the full-speed rush go by. Terrance had gone off with Jackie for a quick make-up dinner, so Rick had an hour, maybe more. Their flight left at nine, and they needed to leave the hotel at seven. Not seven-oh-five. Not seven-ten. Rick couldn’t help leaning out his cab window and calling back. How about a quarter after?
He’d be ready. He’d never been so ready to leave anywhere.
“You look like you don’t know if you’re coming or going.”
He turned toward the melodic voice. The girl it belonged to smiled, full red lips in pale skin. Pretty, but —
“What’s with your hair?”
She tossed long zebra stripes over her shoulder. “I’m an artist.”
“So’s my brother. That ain’t a requirement.”
Zeus could have played her laugh on the keyboards. “It’s a good thing I like a man who speaks his mind.”
He snorted. “Well, that is my only real talent.”
She lifted one eyebrow, and Rick smiled.
“What’s your name?”
He blinked. “What’s my name?”
Both eyebrows went up. “Is it a secret?”
“No.” He looked at her again. “I’m … Rick.”
Long beaded earrings swung as she tilted her head. “Are you sure?”
What he wasn’t sure about was her. “What are you doing here?”
“Just had dinner with my parents.” She nodded to the restaurant across the lobby. “They left, I went to the ladies’ room. Then … ” She looked him over slowly. “I saw you.”
It sounded possible. “What’s your name?”
“Jessie.”
Maybe not. “I’m kind of partial to that name.”
“Really? I always hated it.”
He studied her for a second more. Tight jeans, white top. Lace edge on the v-neck. Curved in all the right places.
“So, Rick. Do you know?”
He didn’t ask what. She’d held the question long enough for him to know it was unfinished.
“If you’re coming or going?”
Good follow through. “Both.”
She raised the eyebrow again.
“I’m going, in an hour. But first — ” he nodded at the elevators he wouldn’t be using “ — I gotta pack.”
She didn’t laugh, but it wasn’t that funny. “Does it take an hour to pack?”
“Not even close.”
He watched her eyes as she glanced down to his mouth. Brown maybe. Maybe green.
“So, Jessie, I’m heading upstairs now. You coming or going?”
She smiled. “I’m thinking maybe I’ll go … in about an hour.”
“Good,” he said, and he meant it. He nodded at the doors of the death traps as they passed them. “I don’t do elevators. And I don’t like complaints about it.”
She looked at the stairs and smiled again. “I think I’ll be all right. I hike the Adirondack Mountains every summer.”
Rick didn’t even care if it was true.
* * *
“You mind if I order a bottle of wine?” Peter crossed the room for the phone. “Red or white?”
“White,” she said, though she wanted neither. The conversation over the food had been comfortable. They’d had some connection through the e-mails.
Sometimes you make shit up.
She would really like it if his words would disappear from her memory as easily as everything important seemed to.
Peter returned to his seat. “So here’s what I’ve been thinking. You said your schedule was free tomorrow.” He hesitated, then reached for her hand. “I’ve cleared my schedule, too.”
Carolyn glanced at their hands together on the top of the table. Why couldn’t she feel anything but indifference toward this man? “What did you have in mind?”
“I thought I could play tour guide. I know you’ve been here, but you said you hadn’t been able to see much.”
The doorbell rang, and she watched him answer it. It was a nice idea, maybe see the Statue of Liberty or Chinatown. They could go to the top of the Empire State Building. In the elevator. She took a deep breath as he returned with the wine.
“Something wrong?”
Carolyn shook her head, and he handed her a glass.
“So have you already seen anything?” Peter asked.
Not much. A corner of Central Park. Times Square, Yankee Stadium. The Queensboro Bridge by accident. Madison Square Garden on purpose.
“Carolyn?”
She swallowed. “I don’t think so.”
“We’ve only had two meals together.”
“Three,” she said, glancing at the empty cartons on the table. “I’m sorry, that’s not the point.”
“No, it is. It takes time to build a relationship. Doesn’t it?”
Hours and miles of sidewalks and trains. She nodded.
“So let’s just spend some time together. We’ll see the sights and see what happens.”
But I don’t want to go sightseeing. Because I don’t want you.
* * *
Rick stood in the doorway watching Jessie roam the living room for a minute. She trailed her fingers over the furniture. The hair was weird, but he was getting used to it.
“Your daddy have money?”
Rick almost laughed. “I wouldn’t know.”
She gave him a puzzled look, then continued her examination of the room. “I have a trust fund.” She stopped at the coffee table and Carolyn’s book appeared in her hand. “I saw her on TV the other night.”
Rick tensed. “Oh, yeah?”
“She was on Letterman. Funny.” Jessie raised her eyebrows. “I think she has the hots for Matt Damon.”
“Who doesn’t?” He frowned. “You catch the rest of that show?”
“Turned it off.” She waved a hand. “Some rappers were c
oming on. I hate rap.”
Even though that took care of his suspicion, he almost reacted. Instead, he crossed to the couch after she finally settled into one end.
Jessie turned Carolyn’s book so the title faced him. “But why fight it?”
When he sat down, she stretched one leg across the couch, a heavy black boot against his thigh. Rick reached for the laces. “She kinda explains that in the book.”
“You read this?”
“I had a couple hours to kill. Nothing on TV.” He worked one of the knots free. Jessie pulled her foot from the boot and raised her other leg to the couch.
She tossed Carolyn’s book to the coffee table, black and white photo up. His memory filled in the color.
“So, Rick … ”
“You know, most everybody calls me Ricky.”
“Okay. Ricky. Tell me something. This room looks like they moved the flat-screen TVs from an executive suite. What do you do to score that kind of service?”
He focused on the knot in the bootlace. “I’m a writer.”
“Really? What do you write?”
“Poetry.”
Jessie lifted both eyebrows as she looked around. “I never knew poetry paid so well.”
Not in his case, but definitely in Zeus’s. “Sometimes.” He dropped the second boot onto the floor.
“Are you going to recite some for me?”
He grinned. “Probably not your style.”
“Full of angst and depression?”
Occasionally sardines. Rick took a deep breath and slid his hands under the leg of her jeans. She stretched and leaned against the arm of the couch. His hands weren’t working right, he could feel the slick fabric of a baseball jersey, the stiff retreat of Carolyn’s belly under his palm. All that tension pressed against him in total contrast to the wash of relief that flooded through him. But that was Tuesday.
How did you do that? Make me feel like everything was going to be all right, even when it was still all wrong?
He jumped at a touch on his wrist.
“Where’d you go?” she asked.
“Are we done talking yet?”
Jessie raised her eyebrows. “Almost. I’m still waiting.”
“For what?”
She tapped one long red nail to the corner of his mouth. “To see you smile.”
“What?” He’d thought the whole damn thing was entertaining, right from the beginning. So what the hell —
How do you do that? Smile with your eyes like that?
Rick jerked off his hat and threw it on the floor. “You could be waiting a long time.”
She didn’t react to his harsh tone. “Maybe you need some help.”
“What I’m thinking.” He reached for her, but she leaned away. “What are you — ”
She was digging her index finger into that fifth pocket of her jeans, prying something out. A lipstick, that he doubted was full of red paint. He bit back the annoyance that she hadn’t popped the ecstasy before she came on to him downstairs. “You ain’t going want to start dancing are you?”
Jessie flipped the top off the case, but she didn’t turn the lower half over to spill out a pill into her palm. She dipped her pinkie into it.
Rick felt his hands tighten on the soft denim of her jeans.
“I see I have your attention now.” Still with that musical voice.
He couldn’t tear his eyes away from the long nail, the underside was painted red, too, throwing off the contrast with the white powder. Every muscle in his body contracted as the blow slid under his chin.
She didn’t know anything about him. She didn’t know who he was, what he did. She didn’t know how close he’d come to losing everything he had left on the mouth of a crack pipe.
Carolyn hadn’t asked if that was true; she’d asked what made him stop. He could feel her fingers sliding in between his on the steps across from the Garden when he hadn’t known he was spelling out the words on his hands. But she made him stop.
He closed his eyes, and he didn’t need a picture because he was never going to get her out of his fucking head. His teeth clamped on the inside of his lip, he tasted blood and opened his eyes to the promise of relief. Just to forget. For a little while.
His vision refocused below the coke. His own hands on top of the jeans. Blue white … blue. Swear the promise in my skin …
The promise was under his nose.
“Ow! Rick!”
The red fingernail shifted and the flesh squirmed under his hands. He’d gripped her shin so hard that the veins popped out on the backs of his hands. His knuckles where white, the ink faded. He relaxed and the color came back. The red nail steadied, his hand went to the side of his face, his index finger pressed against his right nostril. He leaned forward, toward the blood red background, the snow cupped in the curve. One breath, quietly, so as not to disturb the air.
How did you make me believe that if I could just get my arms around you …
But he couldn’t. The reason was in black and white, lying on the coffee table.
His left hand cupped hers, a smoker holding an offered lighter still. He hadn’t gone after it. It just showed up. Just like Jessie.
Jesse.
But Jesse was grown, he didn’t need him anymore, he didn’t need him.
Yes. I do. The breath he’d taken in blew out in a rush. Powder scattered, dusting her dark jeans, his hands. He sucked in air and it hit his mouth, numbing, metallic as tinfoil, bitter as poison.
“What the fuck?” Jessie’s knees jumped up and slammed him in the chin.
His teeth crashed together. Rick grabbed his jaw. “Shit!”
“I paid for that, asshole!”
He leaned back and rubbed his chin. He glanced at Jessie, who was still glaring at him. Was she planning on charging him if he’d breathed in?
“Do you know how much that costs?”
“Take it out of your trust fund.”
She started bitching, something about not getting her trust fund until she was twenty-five, but he was busy trying to breathe again and stopped listening. He ran his tongue around the inside of his mouth, wishing it didn’t taste like regret.
He heaved himself off the couch. “I gotta pack.”
He’d barely turned toward the bedroom when stripes of hair flipped over his face as she crashed into his back.
“Christ! What the — ” He felt claws at his throat, then suddenly her weight was gone. He staggered and turned around, rubbing his neck.
Terrance held Jessie firmly by the shoulders from behind, just keeping her from doing any damage.
“Let go of me!” She twisted, hair flying, trying to see who had her. “Who the hell are you?”
Rick dropped her boots at her feet so she couldn’t use one to crack Terrance in the head. “He protects me from insane women.”
“I’m insane?” She struggled enough to turn and glare at Terrance.
He gave her a look, and she stopped. Then he let her go. Jessie shoved her feet into her boots and backed away, watching him.
Terrance glanced at the couch where the contents of that lipstick case spilled over the cushion. He raised his eyebrows at Jessie. “That belong to you?”
“What’s left of it.” She stomped over to cap it off.
Terrance raised his eyebrows at Rick this time.
“We had a difference of opinion,” Rick said. “I tried to explain that I’m a law-abiding American citizen.”
Terrance smirked.
Jessie said, “Fuck you, asshole.”
Not very original. Rick bent down to pick up his hat and held his free hand toward the door. She shot him one last dagger look, but then she glanced at Terrance. And, well, he was a big scary black man.
She slammed the door behind her. Terrance was halfway to his room for his shit because the clock was still ticking, crazy women or not. He looked as tired as Rick felt.
“I got a question, T, ’cause I’m really starting to wonder. You think it might be me?”
“They say anything’s possible, Ricky.”
34: No Happy Ever After
Peter had slipped back into casual conversation, because she hadn’t turned down his request or asked him to leave. He topped off his wine and held up the bottle, but Carolyn covered her still half-full glass with her hand. She wanted to turn her cell phone on, to check for messages. Then she remembered that she hadn’t turned it off.
“You seem distracted,” Peter said.
“I’m a little tired.” Not a great excuse, it was only seven.
“Out late last night?”
“Not really.” She had slept until noon.
“You know what I did last night?”
It had to be less disturbing than her evening. “No, what did you do?”
“I downloaded some music.”
She stiffened, but his face was as impassive as his words. “So what’d you get?”
“I can’t remember the titles. I was looking for a particular artist.”
Carolyn forced a smile. “You paid for them, I hope.”
He nodded, his eyes never straying from hers. “Well worth the money, I think.”
She took a shallow breath. He sounded like he meant that.
“He’s amazingly articulate,” he said. “Vocabulary I wouldn’t have expected.”
She pushed back the defensive urge and sipped her wine.
“I started thinking maybe I wasn’t fair,” Peter said. “Obviously, there’s something you find appealing there.”
His words, his tone, even his relaxed body language matched. All congruent, just a mild curiosity. “Peter, I don’t know … ”
“Don’t know what?”
Carolyn sighed. “Honestly? What your point is.”
His smile didn’t reach his eyes. She tried so hard to find it there that she almost missed his hand retrieving something from his shirt pocket.
“This one struck me as rather clever,” he said. “‘I just want to get this one thing straight — this ain’t about love and it ain’t about fate.’”
“Peter — ”