Crazy Stupid Love (Blame it on New York)

by Cassie Rocca

  They’d had such fun together! And Eric had always shown her so much affection, despite all her caprices.

  Back at Giftland, though, he had seemed genuinely disappointed. The thought that she might be fooled a second time by Stuart had really made him lose his temper.

  And could she blame him? She wasn’t particularly proud of herself either. She should have been icy and indifferent towards her ex, telling him to go to hell and making it obvious that he didn’t stand a chance with her. She deserved something more than a guy that she couldn’t trust.

  But she had loved Stuart. Of course, she’d been young and foolish at the time, and not really able to understand what true love was, but the emotions she had felt with him she had never felt since. Perhaps she hadn’t thrown herself into the relationships that had followed with enough conviction after that setback, but finally she felt ready to overcome her fears and fall in love again. And Stuart had happened to re-appear in her life right at that moment, ready to grovel at her feet just the way she had so often dreamed of.

  She wasn’t sure that she wanted to believe him, but after his seemingly heartfelt words, a small part of her wondered if, now that she was an adult and more aware of her power, things might not go differently.

  She recalled Stuart’s face, and tried to focus on her reactions to that image. Those intense eyes, wiry body and cocky way of acting. As a young girl she had found him more charming than beautiful, and she had let herself be won over by his confidence and his elegant manners. After they had split up, she had always deliberately chosen rough, straight talking men, so as to always have before her eyes the harsh reality and not an attractive facade.

  She remembered with a touch of melancholy the way she had always felt as if she was floating several feet above the ground when she was with Stuart, but maybe it was only the feeling that she was missing.

  How could she go back to trusting someone like that? Any time he was a little late, any message he received on his phone, any unexpected commitment would make her suspicious. She would even start worrying about Liberty and Clover for the simple reason that she had already been betrayed by a friend. She was in serious danger of getting herself into trouble with her own two hands.

  But what if Stuart really had changed? Was it right to reject him out of hand, without giving him a chance at redemption?

  She was so tired of being alone, of not being courted, or desired, or loved by anyone…

  “Would you really settle for something like that just so as not to be single any more?”

  That thought kept going round constantly in her head, making her shiver. Could she, who had been so excited to see Clover and Cade get together, who dreamed of a love story like that of her parents, who at that time envied every couple she saw in the street, really settle for the first man who came along just so that she wouldn’t have to be alone? It was a terrible thought.

  Another love would come, sooner or later. She just had to be patient.

  But patience had never been her strong point…

  The gust of cold air that slammed into her as she walked out onto the roof terrace took her breath away. It wasn’t snowing any more, but the temperature was still very low. And up there, over three hundred yards above the ground, it was pretty damn chilly.

  The smell of approaching rain filled her lungs. The dark clouds and lightning had been gathering for hours, obscuring part of the pink sky. The forecast was for torrential rain that evening.

  “Who cares? I’ll be lying on the couch, buried under the covers, watching some tearjerker and stuffing my face with donuts, crying over the days when I used to spend Valentine’s Day with a man.”

  She stuck her hands in her pockets and her fingers brushed the envelope, reminding her of why she had come to the top of the Empire State Building.

  Summoning up a little fresh curiosity, she began to look around. It was hard to see anything through the crowd of people, so she took a wander round the terrace, keeping an eye open for anything unusual. After a few minutes, a flash of red in the corner of the viewing platform overlooking Central Park caught her eye.

  Cast in shadow by the light of the pale setting sun, two heart-shaped balloons were fluttering in the icy air. Feeling a smile appear spontaneously on her face, she walked over, making her way through the curious crowd. One of the two balloons, which were both secured to the railing with a thick ribbon, had her name on it very clearly; on the other there were only three dots. At the bottom of the ribbon was a red rose tied to another envelope, this one bigger than the others.

  When she reached the small secluded space she undid the red envelope and opened it, more curious than ever, hoping to find some useful clue which would reveal the identity of her mysterious suitor. But the note didn’t bear any signature, just a few words printed on a white card:

  Valentine’s Day is just a day like any other. But I think of you every moment of my life.

  Feeling her heart beat faster, she checked that there was nothing else, and only then did she notice a folded piece of cardboard: it was a copy of the menu from the River Café, one of the most romantic restaurants in all of New York. At the top on the right was written a time – ten o’clock that evening.

  Zoe peered around her, hoping to identify a suspicious face in that sea of people. Lots of them were staring at her, curious about the balloons and the situation, but she couldn’t see anyone that she knew, and that made her realize that the mysterious man only intended to reveal himself if she accepted his invitation for that evening.

  Who could have organized all this? Could it really be the work of Stuart? Another way of trying to break down her resistance, or a sincere attempt to win her back?

  Whoever it was, he had certainly succeeded in his goal of surprising her and capturing her imagination in a way that had rarely happened before in her life. That romantic gesture in those few, brief moments atop the Empire State Building had made her feel special. Even if it didn’t end up having an interesting continuation, the originality of the whole thing had revived a St Valentine’s Day which would otherwise have been lonely.

  She undid the balloons, holding the ribbon and the rose between her fingers, put the card into her bag and walked slowly towards the furthest corner of the terrace, intent on reflecting on the day’s events and enjoying the last minutes of the sunset.

  It could have been anyone who had organized the surprise. A rejected admirer, a former boyfriend, Stuart… even some kind of psycho! Or it could have been those two crazy friends of hers, to distract her from the depression that she’d sunk into over the last few days. In that case, she wondered who they could have forced to wait for her at the restaurant that evening, since Clover was going to go to Paris with Cade and Liberty was going out to dinner with Justin.

  Eric flashed into her thoughts, but she dismissed the idea forcefully. He wouldn’t have let them involve him a stupid joke like that, and anyway, he would certainly be going out with Stephanie that night. He wouldn’t have had time to have dinner with his pathetic single colleague.

  All of them had something to do – except her. And keeping the appointment was the only alternative to solitude that was left.

  *

  The first drops of rain began to fall while Liberty was locking the door of the shop. Zoe looked up at the threatening sky and snorted.

  “Typical. When you have an important occasion on your hands it always starts raining so that you end up having to spend hours in front of the wardrobe choosing a dress that can handle the cold and the damp while still managing to look hot. And that’s without even mentioning the hair!”

  “So have you decided to go to the appointment?” asked Eric, raising his head. Zoe had returned from the Empire State Building with her cheeks burning with enthusiasm, showing him and Liberty the balloons, the rose and the card, but saying that she was still unsure about what to do. Two hours later, though, she seemed to have changed her mind…

  “Well I’m certainly not staying at home.
The silence in my apartment would kill me.”

  “Do you still think that it’s Harris who’s behind it all?”

  “I don’t know. But whoever it is must have knocked themselves out to get a table at the River Café on Valentine’s Day: that place is always full.”

  His heart pounding, Eric didn’t answer. So the moment of truth had actually arrived. Perhaps that evening he would finally reveal his true feelings.

  “You could always just not turn up…”

  He banished the thought from his mind. He would never stand up Zoe, especially on a night like that.

  Full of excitement, he lifted the hood of his jacket to shelter himself from the rain.

  “Well I hope you make the right choice… and that you’re not disappointed.”

  “Even if it was Stuart, and if I’d decided I was going to give him another chance, I wouldn’t exactly be running there joyfully. And if it really is a mysterious suitor, I’d be disappointed if he turned out to be a bad copy of Rowan Atkinson,” Zoe laughed. “Anyway, I’d better get going, or I won’t have time to make myself beautiful!”

  “As if she needed it,” he thought as he watched her race off to the taxi stand.

  Liberty peered at his anxious face and smiled.

  “She’s a smart girl, she won’t fall for him again. Don’t worry.”

  That wasn’t what Eric was worrying about at that particular moment, but he nodded and walked off in the opposite direction.

  He only lived a few blocks from the store, so he decided to walk home to his apartment. By the time he reached the front door he was drenched and that detail only served to worsen his mood. It must be a bad omen.

  After a hot shower, he poured himself a rather large glass of wine. He hardly ever drank, but that night he needed to do something to release the tension a bit. Within a few hours, his life would change drastically – both if dinner had a happy ending or if it meant him relocating immediately to Boston. And even though part of him was desperate to pull out of the whole thing, he forced himself to continue with his preparations.

  He put on a dark grey suit that was elegant but not too serious. He decided not to wear a tie and chose a light grey shirt instead of the white one he had decided on earlier so as not to look too stuffy.

  He even forced himself to wear contacts instead of his usual glasses, and to leave his hair naturally curly instead of smoothing it down with gel. Clover had suggested that he dress casually, maybe even a little scruffily, assuring him that Zoe would prefer it.

  He managed to keep his nerves under control until it was time to go to the River Café. During the taxi ride he went over the line in his mind that he was intending to use to break the ice.

  “Well, at least you didn’t run away in terror, so that’s something!” he would say, with fake ironic detachment, if Zoe stayed long enough. And then he would decide what to do next.

  And if she ran away… Well, in that case he wouldn’t need an opening line, would he?

  The River Café was crammed with people. Being the quintessential romantic restaurant, that evening it was packed. Eric had booked well in advance and had reserved a table right next to one of the windows so that they could enjoy a magnificent view of the Brooklyn Bridge and the Statue of Liberty. He knew that Zoe would love it, regardless of whatever else happened.

  A few minutes before she was due, he ordered a bottle of French wine but waited to order the food. He could have chosen Zoe’s favorite dishes with his eyes closed, but he didn’t want to tempt fate…

  And three-quarters of an hour later he knew that he had done the right thing.

  The wine bottle was already half empty, people were beginning to give him pitying looks and the waiter had stopped coming over to his table, as though resigned to the fact that he wasn’t going to order anything.

  Zoe had stood him up.

  “She didn’t stand you up – she stood a stranger up,” the voice in his brain tried to reassure him – but his heart was saying something else entirely.

  Perhaps when she had entered the restaurant and found out who was waiting for her at the table she had decided to get the hell out of there rather than face the situation? Or maybe she had accepted Harris’s umpteenth invitation and blown out her blind date?

  He imagined her rolling around on a bed with her ex and downed the contents of his glass in one fell swoop.

  He felt like a complete idiot.

  Feeling terrible, he left a substantial tip on the table, stood up and stalked off towards the door. Crossing the restaurant alone, under the eyes of all the happy couples, only made his bad mood worse.

  Outside the rain had doubled in intensity. Blindingly bright and terrifyingly compelling, the flashes of lightning came hot on the heels of one another, reflecting dramatically in the skyscrapers and lighting up a sky thick with black clouds. While he waited for a taxi, Eric stared at the Statue of Liberty across the river: a blue-green ghost in the water, struck repeatedly by bolts of lightning. Just like the statue, he felt invisible and immobile, at the mercy of the elements. But he was certain that Miss Liberty would survive that storm, whereas he felt as if he was about to collapse.

  He almost didn’t notice the arrival of the taxi or the trip to the Upper East Side. He paid the fare like a robot and then went up to his apartment.

  The silence was only broken by the storm that raged outside, echoing his mood. He turned on all the lights to ward off the dark, but as soon as his eyes focused on his surroundings, he turned almost all of them off again.

  Even his house was full of her. Zoe had spent a lot of time there: dinners, parties, evenings working. She hadn’t left any personal items but she’d helped him decorate and furnish every room, and had personally chosen the dark red sofa and matching curtains. And her photographs were scattered over the walls, shots depicting facets of New York or moments of life during those long years they had known each other.

  The sight of her smiling and beautiful in those pictures made him grind his teeth. Only someone as stupid as him could have hoped to charm a woman like her by letting her use him as a doormat for ten years. He ought to have told her where to go a long time ago, gone back to Boston and forgotten about her forever…

  “And maybe it’s time to tell her to her face,” he thought.

  In a burst of anger and false courage, he grabbed the phone and called Zoe’s home number, one hand pressed over his eyes. Saying what was on his mind would mean freeing himself from a burden. Even if it would destroy him later on. But at that moment he was not afraid of anything: he had nothing left to lose.

  Almost like divine intervention, the doorbell rang, startling him. Muttering an expletive, he threw the phone down on a bookcase shelf and went to open the door. He wasn’t really in the mood to see anyone, but perhaps a distraction would stop him from doing anything stupid.

  A roll of thunder chose that moment to make its appearance, echoing the dull thumping of his heart.

  He grasped the handle and pulled the door open with a curt gesture. And then froze.

  “I shouldn’t be here, I know. But I really need to talk to you.”

  Chapter 11

  Even soaking wet and with her makeup running down her face the way it was now, she was so beautiful that it was actually painful.

  “Can I come in?” asked Zoe in a whisper. “Just for a moment?”

  Eric stood there staring at her.

  “God, I’m a disaster!” she said, sounding mortified and pulling her jacket around her. “The rain turned into a sort of monsoon as I stepped out of the cab.” She was wearing a black dress that covered her down to below the knee but which showed off every curve of her body.

  Eric couldn’t utter a word. Within him, contrasting emotions raged: disbelief, anger, hope, confusion.

  Had he drunk so much that he was actually having hallucinations? What the hell was Zoe doing at his place?

  A small part of him was glad to see her, but the other part – still angry at having wa
ited in vain in the restaurant like an idiot – almost wanted to shut the door on her.

  Yet another deafening roll of thunder, loud enough to rattle the windows, echoed around the room, and suddenly the power went off, plunging the apartment into almost total darkness. It took their eyes a moment to adjust to the unexpected lack of light, and when he managed to make out Zoe’s wet, weary face again, Eric silently cursed himself, took her by the arm and dragged her inside.

  “Sit down, or don’t. Suit yourself,” he said flatly, heading into the kitchen. There, he filled a glass with the wine that he had left on the table before leaving: he didn’t know whether he wanted to use the alcohol to clear his thoughts or to dull them sufficiently to stop thinking altogether.

  “Listen, I’m sorry for just turning up here without warning,” said Zoe from behind him.

  “So why did you, then?”

  “Actually, I don’t really know. It was a last minute impulse.” Zoe looked at him, slightly uncomfortable. “Am I disturbing you?”

  “Want some wine?” Without waiting for an answer, Eric gave her a glass and, with a trembling hand, filled it, and then – the way illuminated by a continuous succession of flashes of lightning outside the large windows – walked off back into the living room, leaving her there alone.

  “Are you okay?” asked a perplexed Zoe as she followed him in.

  “Does it matter?” he snorted. He collapsed onto the sofa as though his legs were suddenly unable to support his weight, and stared at his glass.

  Confused, Zoe sat down beside him. “Are you angry?”

  In response, he laughed. A laugh so completely devoid of mirth that she raised her eyebrows in surprise.

  “Oh, yes. I am very angry”

  “What happened? Don’t tell me your better half managed to get you mad on Valentine’s Day…”

  Eric ignored Zoe’s slightly sarcastic tone but began to seriously reflect on her words.

  “My better half… Is she really better? She’s not sweet at all, that’s for sure.”