Summer in the City: The perfect feel-good summer romance

by Emma Jackson

  I blinked and checked my watch. It took a moment to read the dial properly through the haze. ‘Twenty to nine.’

  ‘To nine? It’s not even nine yet?’ She shook her head and retreated back inside her apartment, muttering what sounded like blasphemy under her breath.

  But she left the door open, so I stepped inside and quietly closed it over. The heat inside was almost as bad as that on the street – I could understand why she was wearing so little clothing. It was tempting to strip off myself…but thoughts like that were going to lead me into trouble so I shoved it out of my head and asked politely: ‘Am I early?’

  She spun around and pushed a wave of her hair back from her face.

  ‘Of course, you’re early. Before nine is too early to call on people. It’s practically an act of aggression. And where the hell was the RSVP? I thought the English knew all about etiquette. Is one of those coffees for me?’ she added at the end, barely taking a breath.

  I smiled and held out one of the cups. ‘It is.’

  She padded back over and took it, eyeing me like she thought it possible I’d poisoned it. She popped the lid and took a small sip. ‘Americano with a sugar. Perfect. How d’you know?’

  ‘I remembered.’

  ‘Huh?’

  ‘From the hotel.’ On Christmas morning neither Nick nor my nan had been at breakfast, so Noelle had asked to join me. We’d talked, eaten, gone to play chess in the library after – it had an uncomfortable similarity on recall to a date. I hadn’t realised she was gathering information on me to narrow down her search for the anonymous blogger.

  ‘Oh. That’s… Well, thanks.’

  ‘I aim to please.’

  ‘Yeah, I bet you do,’ she muttered grimly into her coffee as she dipped her head to take another sip. Her eyelashes were a pale tawny colour and there were little freckles dotted over her nose. I wondered if she always looked so delectable when she woke up in the morning. I wondered what it would be like to tumble her back into bed. What was I here for again?

  She pressed her lips together as she looked up and caught me watching her. The quiet between us became as heavy as the humid air.

  I diverted my attention to finding a space amongst notebooks, sticky pads and magazines to sit down where I assumed her sofa must be.

  ‘So, what made you change your mind?’ she asked.

  ‘There’s a priceless painting at the Met I’ve had my eye on—’

  ‘And you’re putting together a team?’ she smirked. ‘Is that your way of saying you realised what a valuable asset I am?’

  ‘A man can only deny the truth before him for so long.’ I allowed my eyes to flick from her face to the tips of her bare toes and back up again. ‘Are your assets still for hire?’

  She blushed but her grey eyes turned hard. ‘They never were, as far as you’re concerned.’

  ‘You’re not offering to help me find the man in my mother’s will, then?’

  She raised one eyebrow. ‘Help is not hire. And I have a couple of ground rules.’

  Stephen’s dark eyes narrowed on me and it was an entirely different look to the one he’d just traced down my body, but no less stirring. I hadn’t counted on him turning up this morning after he’d sounded so adamant yesterday about not needing help. I could’ve done without the meet and greet in my jammies, but I was determined not to let him know that it made me self-conscious. Or that his lingering gazes were calling to my baser urges.

  ‘First and foremost, nothing is going to happen between you and I, so you can cut the flirting out.’

  ‘I don’t know what you mean.’

  ‘Yes, you do. Now I’m willing to let it go for now, ’cause I’m not sure guys like you know what to do other than flirt with women, but you can use our time together as a learning experience. No sex is happening between us, so don’t waste your energy. I am not a challenge to you because I stood you up before. I am not a convenient set of lady-bits for you to make the most of while you’re in the vicinity. There will be no shenanigans. Understood?’ I paused and waited for a response.

  ‘Understood…’ he said slowly, his jaw set as though he wanted to say something, but he was restraining himself.

  I sighed. ‘But?’

  ‘But…if I wanted to have sex with you, Noelle, it wouldn’t be because you’re the closest available female. I have a little more discernment than that.’

  ‘Do you?’ I made no effort to hide the scepticism in my tone.

  ‘Yes. What makes you think otherwise?’

  I didn’t want to drop Beth in it by relaying the stories she’d told me about the alternating women at his apartment when she stayed over with Nick at the beginning of the year. Or the one who showed up drunk and crying because he’d dropped her without so much as a phone call. I knew the three of them had made peace now and I didn’t want to wreck that, so I could only back up my statement with personal evidence which, luckily, I had too. ‘Err…Christmas.’

  ‘What about it?’

  ‘You weren’t interested in me until you’d already tried your luck with Beth. It was like I didn’t exist in that lobby when you arrived at the hotel. You only gave me your number when you realised you weren’t going to get anywhere with her. Since there were no other single women my age at the hotel, you gave it a shot with me.’ I shrugged, as though it didn’t bother me even slightly. It was an indisputable fact. He was just one of those men who needed to have the prospect of a female to get physical with, all the time.

  He laughed. ‘You’re wrong. You are so wrong. There is no way that I wasn’t aware of you when I arrived at the hotel. I recall speaking to you, directly, but maybe you were too busy laughing at me from behind a leaflet to notice? I wasn’t getting any signals that you were interested, so my first impression of you was not as favourable as my second, when you actually bothered to talk to me – that’s all. It wasn’t because you were a last resort for my insatiable sexual appetite.’

  The fine hairs on the back of my neck lifted but I wasn’t going to let him start working on my ego. ‘First impressions are based on instinct and usually correct. Seems like you shoulda stuck to yours ’cause I wasn’t interested in the end, was I?’ When he didn’t respond, I carried on: ‘So, now we understand that, we can move on to my second rule. If you genuinely want my help, I expect you to hear me out, not dismiss every suggestion I make – no matter how unpalatable they might sound.’

  His lips pressed together in a little pucker that told me he was suspicious of what I was saying. Either that or he was flirting again, because it was an undeniably attractive little pout.

  ‘That stands to reason.’

  ‘You would think, wouldn’t ya?’ I tipped the rest of my coffee back. ‘I’m guessing you’ve done an internet search?’

  ‘Yes. He’s not on Facebook.’

  ‘So, how d’you know he lives here?’

  ‘There was an envelope with his name and address on in my mum’s wardrobe.’

  ‘An old flame maybe?’ I moved away from the counter and grabbed the nearest pad and pen from the sofa, perching on it near him, but not next to him. I flipped to a new page, scribbling down a few notes. I looked up when Stephen hadn’t answered and raised my eyebrows.

  ‘You know, if you want me to stop flirting, perhaps you should put some clothes on,’ he said.

  ‘Are you breaking my ground rules already?’

  ‘I’m asking you to help me with my learning experience.’ He was all innocence. ‘How is it possible not to flirt with you when you’re sitting there, looking like that?’

  Crumpled and scruffy, hair unbrushed. Yeah, I was sure he was having a hard time keeping his hands off me. Not.

  ‘Even if I were sitting here naked, you should be able to control yourself,’ I pointed out.

  He held his hands up and leaned back.

  ‘So, you think this man could be an old boyfriend of your mom’s? Did you speak to the rest of your family to see if they knew him?’

  ‘Nick
and my nan are all the family we’ve got.’

  I swallowed over the jolt his matter-of-fact statement provoked. ‘What about family friends?’

  ‘Yes, my mum’s best friend knew him, but she had no idea what happened to him after he left London.’

  ‘Or why your mom would have left him money?’

  ‘That isn’t the mystery that’s here for you to solve,’ he said quietly. ‘I just need to find him to pass on the details and the envelope.’

  I tapped my pen on my pad softly. So, he was uncomfortable with talking about his mom’s relationship with the guy. Maybe she’d had an affair and he didn’t want me to know. ‘You’re breaking another rule already.’

  He frowned. ‘How so?’

  ‘You’re blocking me.’

  ‘It’s irrelevant information.’

  ‘Everything is relevant.’ I extended my coffee towards him. ‘Hold this.’ He took it and watched as I leaned over the back of the sofa to grab a folder from my book trolley. I pulled out one of my character worksheets. ‘Every detail builds up a picture of who that person is. And when you have enough details you can work out what they’re more likely to do or where they’re more likely to go.’ I swapped him the coffee for the worksheet and took a long drink as he skim-read it.

  ‘He’s not a fictional character,’ he said flatly.

  ‘The police do it too. It’s called profiling. Surely you’ve heard of that? You’re gonna have to give me every tiny detail if you want this to work.’

  He sent me a sideways look and pinched his bottom lip for a moment, like he was contemplating changing his mind about having me help him. Despite the ridiculous hour he’d woken me up and his mercurial mood changes, I didn’t want him to back out. But equally, there was no point to this if he wasn’t going to work with me.

  ‘You can’t expect to get answers if you don’t ask questions,’ I added softly.

  ‘Granted.’ He set the character worksheet carefully on the sofa between us. I filed it back away and decided it might be best to take a different tack for the meantime. He’d agreed; he hadn’t left. I could give him a little space to get used to the idea that he was going to have to talk.

  ‘So, you found this address in New York and you didn’t want to write him a letter or just put the envelope in the post?’

  ‘No. And it’s a good job I didn’t. The building’s disappeared.’

  ‘Where was it?’

  ‘Little Italy.’

  ‘Oh great, we can grab some breakfast while we’re there.’

  ‘Why would we go there again? Didn’t you hear the story properly? The building is gone – it’s a car park now. Possibly it always was, and he gave her a fake address.’

  ‘Well, which is it?’

  He shrugged.

  ‘Exactly. That, right there, is something you need to get to the bottom of. If the parking lot used to be apartments, then the address is useful to start tracking him down. If it was just made up, then we have to figure out another place to start. We need to eliminate the leads.’

  ‘Right. And going there will help us to do that?’ He rubbed his thumb along the edge of his hairline. His skin was beginning to get a sheen of sweat. What did you know, my flagging air conditioning unit had done something useful – it had proven he was human, not a Greek god carved from marble.

  ‘Well, before we fall into a black hole on the internet trying to find the information we want, we could – and I know this sounds radical – actually go and talk to people.’

  ‘Who?’

  ‘I don’t know.’ I shrugged and stood up, throwing my empty coffee cup over his head towards my wastebin, watching him wince because it missed. Oh, winding Stephen up was going to be a whole lotta fun. ‘We’ll find out when we get there.’

  I left him to keep delicately sweating in my living room while I grabbed a shower and got dressed. I could feel a bubble of excitement, that kernel of anticipation that meant something was going to happen and that it might be just the answer I needed to get my writer’s block dissolving. Stephen was full of potential – his story, his attitude – it was all fuel beneath the bubbling cauldron of my imagination. I grabbed my hat and bag – packed with my notebook, cell phone and keys – and joined him again.

  He’d been scrolling on his phone, a look of intense concentration on his face. He was quite something to see sitting on my little couch, one ankle resting on the knee of his other leg, somehow still managing to look like he was modelling for a Vogue spread, in his tan chinos and white polo shirt, whilst surrounded by sequinned cushions and empty boxes of saltines.

  ‘Wow,’ he said when he looked up.

  ‘Am I to take that as a compliment?’

  ‘I’m not allowed to compliment you, am I?’ His mouth ticked up at the corner and he may as well have licked his finger and drawn a tally mark in the air. ‘I was referring to your hat. It’s…large.’

  Huh, I knew it was my rule but it was disappointing nonetheless. ‘Yes. Yes, it is. All the better to avoid sunburn, my dear.’

  ‘Have you tried suntan lotion?’

  ‘Says the man with an olive skin tone and dark hair.’

  ‘Maybe a hat with a smaller radius than a tractor wheel then?’

  ‘If you don’t like my hat, you can just say so.’

  ‘I don’t like—’

  ‘But I tell you now, it means I will wear it at any and every opportunity when we’re together.’

  He clamped his mouth shut and stood up abruptly. ‘Well, let’s hope we can find this man sharpish then.’

  I shooed him out of my apartment, and we began our walk to Little Italy. Sunday morning it was crowded with people going out to brunch as well as all the usual tourists and shoppers. I was fairly impressed that he didn’t need to consult his phone to find the place again. I pulled a bottle of water out of my bag and took a swig. Stephen walked fast; he had that cut-through-the-minions stride typical of Wall Street. Time is money and all that, and he wasn’t slowing down for me in my hat.

  When he stopped on Baxter Street, I nudged him, offering him my bottle of water and he shook his head and pointed across the road to an entrance to a parking lot.

  ‘That. There. Was supposed to be where he lived. Or used to live. Now what?’ His tone was grim but also kind of smug, like he knew it was a dead end.

  There were two markets, one either side of the entrance. On the left was a butcher and on the right, a Korean bodega where an old woman was sitting in a white plastic chair, her feet resting on an overturned wooden crate, knitting.

  ‘Bingo.’ I tugged on his sleeve and pulled him across the road with me. ‘Hi, excuse me.’

  ‘Yes.’ She continued knitting, looking down at her needles as they moved swiftly, creating a long green shape.

  ‘Are you related to the people who own this market?’

  ‘You think I get to sit outside like this because my pretty face encourages custom?’ She looked up at me then, properly, pursing her mouth so wrinkles lined her face.

  ‘Always a possibility.’ I tried a warm smile.

  ‘Hmph.’

  Stephen shifted beside me, as though he was having to make a concerted effort to stay quiet.

  ‘Has your family owned it a long time?’

  ‘Who are you? ICE? We are Americans and we have all the paperwork to prove it.’ She lowered her needles into her lap.

  ‘Nothing like that, sorry, we should have explained,’ Stephen took over smoothly. ‘We’re looking for someone, a friend of my mother’s, and had an address for this road, but it appears to be a parking lot now.’

  ‘What kind of friend gives you an address which is wrong?’

  ‘One from a very long time ago. Twenty to thirty years ago.’ Stephen flashed her a smile that would rival any Hollywood star’s. She narrowed her eyes, but I could see she was softening.

  ‘It was apartments back then.’

  ‘I expect a lot of the residents would’ve shopped in your market?’ Stephen asked. S
o, he wasn’t so clueless about gathering information – or he was a fast learner.

  ‘Some,’ she said dryly.

  ‘Would you mind looking at a photo and telling me if you recognise him at all?’

  A photo? This was a new one on me. The plot was thickening. Why wouldn’t Stephen tell me he had a photo of the man and who had he gotten it from?

  ‘I suppose.’ She wrapped up her kitting tightly and pulled some wireless glasses from a case resting on top of a newspaper by her feet.

  Stephen slipped a photo from his pocket and crouched down in front of her, showing her the picture. I tilted my head trying to get a look myself, but she took it from him and held it up to her nose. Then she nodded and handed it back.

  ‘I remember. He was English like you, yes?’

  Stephen nodded and slid the photo away quickly again in the back pocket of his pants.

  ‘Peanut butter and plums,’ she continued. ‘He came in every week for them. Tried to ask my daughter out once or twice. She wasn’t interested, more sense than that. Always polite though. Very polite.’

  Stephen’s smiled but it was tight. ‘Thank you.’

  I caught hold of the side of his shirt because for some reason I thought he was getting ready to walk. The heat of his ribs against my knuckles made my stomach flutter. ‘When did the apartments get turned into a parking lot?’

  ‘About ten years ago. But he left before that.’

  ‘Any idea where he went?’

  ‘Oh, sure, he left me a forwarding address.’ She rolled her eyes as she removed her reading glasses. ‘No, of course not. But he used to work for an Italian restaurant around here, delivering food. Might still be there.’ She shrugged. ‘All I know is, he doesn’t shop in our market anymore.’

  ‘That’s great, thank you so much.’

  ‘If you’re grateful, why not go buy some food from my family’s market?’

  We both nodded obediently, and I herded Stephen towards the double doors on the corner of the building.

  ‘Good luck, young man,’ she called after us. ‘I hope he’s worth finding.’