by Allison Parr
The waitress nodded and left. I smiled at him slightly. “Didn’t eat enough after the game?”
His smile grew. “Did you watch?”
“Of course I did.”
His brows lifted slightly in clear pleasure. “What’d you think?”
That he’d played an exceptionally good game. Then again, he was an exceptionally good player, which was why he’d come back East in the first place. “Digging for compliments?”
He flashed me a sudden grin that did the oddest things to my stomach. “I prefer them on a silver platter, but I’ll dig if need be.”
I tried to regulate my breathing. Really, how odd that he could possibly have any effect on me after all this time. Old habit, I supposed. “They say you’re one of the few making middle linebackers relevant again.”
“They?”
Really, now, did he expect me to quote the publications that lauded him with accolades? “You know. Football experts.”
“The media, you mean.” He braced his elbows on the table and leaned toward me. His dark eyes were suddenly very piercing, and not nearly as crinkled with amusement as they usually were. “So what brought you to New York, Tammy?”
Uh-oh. I cleared my throat. “I got a job?”
“That’s great. Where at?”
Indignation reared up in me. He didn’t have to play cat-and-mouse, when he’d made it clear enough he knew I was part of the media. “Well, I suppose your mom told you, didn’t she?”
Now that I’d called him on it, he relented. And perhaps that was all I’d needed to do: match the pressure he gave off. “She said you were working for a sports blog. She didn’t say which one.”
The waitress came by with our drinks, and I studiously took a sip. Odd, how resistant I felt to telling him. Maybe I feared he’d think I’d gone into sports journalism because of him, or maybe he’d be appalled, or maybe because I wanted Sports Today to be mine for a little longer. The moment dragged on, and then I took a deep breath. “Sports Today.”
The Open Book of Abraham read of disbelief and confusion, and his mouth parted slightly. I ate a fry and watched. A tiny bit of glee spread through my chest, and I paused to savor it. Better than perfectly flavored potatoes.
“You’re writing for Sports Today?”
“That’s right.”
“Today Media’s Sports Today?”
I ate another fry. “The first time, the surprise was flattering. Now it’s getting offensive.”
“Sorry. I’m—surprised. So... Does that mean... What are you going to cover?”
I gave my best Gallic shrug. “You.”
I didn’t realize the double entendre until his eyes flashed up to mine. Something sparked between us, bright and fast and gone, leaving me slightly dazed. I looked at the table, the white linen neatly ironed, and then back at his bright, inquisitive gaze. “I’m covering football, yes, under Tanya Jones.”
“So, what, you’ll be coming to my games? Reporting on me?” A slow smile spread across his face. “Little Tammy Rosenfeld, graduated from the marching band.”
“Of course,” I said promptly. “Your mom already gave me all the info on the family seats.”
He snorted and shook his head. “I guess I shouldn’t be surprised.”
“She also tried to give me an extra key to your apartment in case I needed somewhere to go, along with the names of your dentist, doctor, your lawyer, your agent and your financial advisor. Don’t worry, I didn’t take them. Oh, but...” I leaned over and dragged my purse up into my lap, digging out a colorful paperstock card and slapping it down on a dry section of the bar. “I was charged with delivering this.”
He opened it up. “‘To Mr. Abe Kramer—Good luck in the Super Bowl! We’re cheering for you!’—From Mrs. Kimmel’s eight-grade class.” He looked up, laughter crinkling his eyes. “Why do you have a letter from my eighth-grade teacher?”
I shrugged. “I’ve been teaching SAT classes at the high school. Word got around the district. What can I say—you’re a hit.”
“Don’t they feel like they’re betraying the 49ers?”
I titled my head. “Did you feel that way when the Leopards drafted you?”
He laughed. “You know I didn’t.”
We shared a grin. We’d watched his draft in his living room, along with half the neighborhood and a variety of cousins and family friends. He’d been a third round pick, and I’d been cursing at the teams by then for not selecting him immediately. Abe, uncharacteristically calm, had sat with his hands loosely clasped between his knees, eyes focused on the television screen. When the Leopards owner Gregory Philip said his name, I’d let out a shriek, and he’d jumped up and whirled me around in a circle before hugging everyone in the room.
“I think your mom was the only one disappointed that day. You couldn’t have gone farther away unless you’d been in Boston.”
“Remember when she tried to convince me to give up football and become a doctor?”
“‘When’? You say that like it was a singular occurrence.”
“It’s your fault, you know. If you didn’t have an uncle with his own practice, she wouldn’t think there was an easy summer internship she needed to try to talk me into.”
“Well, you know, it’s not too late. He lives just a couple blocks uptown.” The waitress came by with our food; I waited until she was gone before leaning forward. “I could put in a good word for him if you don’t think this football thing is going to work out.”
Abe snorted. “You’re hilarious.”
I tilted my head and laughed softly. “I know.”
Abraham smiled at me warmly. “Did you know that the last time we saw each other, we weren’t even old enough to drink?”
I raised my brows. “And yet I don’t seem to remember the bartender having any qualms about serving you and your teammates.”
His smile broadened. “There were always some perks to being part of the team.”
My brows rose even further, giving me, I had no doubt, the appearance of a sea-witch. “Were? I’ve sure all the perks have long since vanished now that you’ve gone pro. How Olympian of you.” I let my eyes linger on his ridiculously expensive watch and jacket, and then tilted my head, a smile edging at the corners of my lips.
He raised a hand and rubbed the back of his head, looking rather sheepish. His flyaway curls begged to be tucked back into place. “Tamar Rosenfeld. When you develop such a cutting sense of humor?”
I waved a hand, my full grin threatening to break out. I managed to keep it to a demure smile. “Oh, I always had it. Though I’ll admit it’s matured with age. While at twenty-three I’m still a rather rough, acerbic vintage, I’m sure that by ninety-three I’ll be so smooth you’ll barely even notice my barbs until too late. I plan to wear a purple hat and travel the world to share my opinions with the unwashed masses.”
He propped his chin on his hand, appearing vastly amused. “Oh? And where did this grand plan come from?”
The grin burst out of me. “Our mothers, of course. Where else?”
“I didn’t know our mothers were traveling the world.”
“Oh, yes. They’re buying an RV and traveling cross-country after our fathers die.”
He smirked at me. “How perfectly morbid.”
“Well, they worked out that they both come from abnormally long-lived lineages.” I tried to look down my nose at him, which basically amounted to tilting my chin down but eyes up. I was surprised by how much I was enjoying myself. “If you happen to still be active in your nineties, I suppose you may join me on my travels.”
“Very kind. Where will we go?”
I waved an airy hand, channeling my inner old dame. “Antarctica, probably. I hear it’s the best place for old bones, especially those suffering from long-ago football injuries.”
“And carpal tunnel, from writing too much.”
“Precisely.”
He dropped the act. “I went to South Africa last year. That’s a place to go.”<
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I tilted my head. “I’m sure I will, after some unknown relative dies and leaves me an unusually large inheritance.” The words had barely left my mouth before I winced inwardly. Too far. “Abe, I—”
He’d stilled with an absoluteness that called to mind the depths of vast, silent lakes, and regarded me with eyes bright as the moon’s reflection. “Because I’m just a rich party kid, of course.”
I was already shaking my head. “Abe, I didn’t mean that.”
“Yeah, you did.” He studied me. “You never said anything like that to me before.”
I made an apologetic moue. “My tongue never worked properly around you before.”
He looked up sharply at that, and I met his gaze. A bolt of heat struck me, and I wondered if it hit him, too.
Best to brazen it out. I raised my chin. “Your loss.”
He cocked his head. “It’s probably too sharp anyways.”
My jaw dropped. “Abraham Krasner!”
He already looked embarrassed. “I didn’t—uh—I didn’t mean—”
He probably hadn’t meant anything by it besides an exchange of quick quips, but the fact was, it could definitely be misinterpreted. I smiled smugly. “I’m going to tell your mother.”
That made him laugh, which had been my goal. “You are not. You’ve never ratted out a person in your life.”
“Yeah, ’cause I didn’t run with a crowd that needed ratting out.”
“Oh, as opposed to mine?”
“Hey, you’re just on the defense today.” I pursed my lips. “Oh, and every day, actually.”
He grinned at me, but then picked up an old thread. “So is that what you think of me? That I’m some wealthy, aimless jock?”
Wasn’t that his role in life now? I thought he’d stepped into it proudly, but now, watching the tenseness in his shoulders, I wondered if I’d been wrong and he wanted more than that. I tried to cover up my assumption with levity. “What does it matter, what I think?”
“It matters very much.” He cleared his throat. “You’re part of my roots.”
“I’ve always dreamed of being compared to a root. Much more—poetic—than a flower.” Now I reddened slightly. I’d almost said romantic, but apparently I wasn’t at that point of flippancy.
God, it had been four years since we saw each other. How was that possible?
Maybe we were both thinking that, because we were both just staring at each other again. I’d forgotten how happy his eyes were, how much I liked looking at him. Which was silly. But it wasn’t really my fault he was so aesthetically pleasing.
I cleared my throat.. “So how do you like the big league?”
Apparently he failed to realize that my throat clearing was a distancing mechanism, because he reached out and slowly brushed a strand of my hair behind my ear. “I have a feeling it’s about to get a lot more interesting.”
The bolt of lightning that cut through me was unexpected, though it shouldn’t have been. Abraham had always been my type; he had invented my type. Still, it seemed relentlessly unfair that my body still went haywire for him when my mind and heart had written him off completely.
I leaned forward and plucked a fry from the table, holding it up like a teacher’s pointer. “How have you been for the past four years? You went from the boy-next-door, the small town hero, to a vaunted celebrity known to millions.”
Amusement flashed across his face. “You asking as the girl-next-door, or the sports reporter?”
“I haven’t even started yet.” I devoured the fry. “But if you’re offering an exclusive...”
He laughed. “I don’t do press.” He leaned forward and shot me an intimate, unshakeable smile. “Though maybe I could make an exception.”
That was it. No way was that in my head. He was flirting with me. “Abraham.”
He widened his eyes innocently. “Tamar.”
I shook my head. “Thanks for asking me to meet up.”
I grinned the entire subway ride home. I couldn’t remember the last time I’d had so much fun. Abraham Krasner. It wasn’t like I’d forgotten how much I liked him, but I hadn’t viscerally recalled the warmth that filled me around him and how he made me laugh.
Actually, I hadn’t spent so much time thinking about Abraham Krasner since we cut our losses four years ago. Yet here we were, in the same city, and all of a sudden old daydreams were floating back up when I closed my eyes. Which was silly, because I’d made the mistake of headlong infatuation once, and I had no intention of going there again.
No, I wanted stability. I had a job, an apartment. I had straightened out my life. I knew where I’d be a year from now, and I certainly hadn’t been able to say that since graduation. I had my own health care, for God’s sake.
Well, I would when I signed up for it. I didn’t have to pick my enrollment for another week and a half.
But I was ready for a real, serious relationship. The kind where we fell in love and went away on weekends and eventually moved in together. And there was no way in hell I was going to let my heart get wrapped up in Abraham Krasner all over again, after all the time it had taken me to get over him. I wanted to like someone who actually wanted me back.
I entered my apartment and fell into my desk chair. Where was it? I found my airplane list of goals beneath a pile of edits. Yes, there was magic in this city.
I had one last item to add to the list—an item, I suspected, that precluded completing several of the other items. I wrote it in broad, bold strokes of blue.
9) Get over Abraham Krasner.
Chapter Five
On Monday, I headed to the Flatiron District in the low East 20s of Manhattan for my first day at Sports Today.
I didn’t expect to be so nervous, but I woke up filled with butterflies hatched overnight. My hands fumbled as I pulled on the outfit I’d assembled the night before. Now it seemed too daring, the royal blue of my dress too loud, the hem perhaps too high. I considered dumping all of it for all black, and then got a grip and went to work on my hair.
I loved my hair, but it was a pain in the ass; thick and wild and unruly. I used to mess it with tons of product to keep the curls in line, but now I’d given up on that. Instead, I usually wrung it with a cotton cloth and let it air-dry, which worked great in California, but the humidity here turned my hair into a baby-eating monster.
So instead of dealing with the uncertain combination of hair and humidity, I tucked it into a sleek roll and wrapped it into a well-behaved prisoner of pins and elastics. Then I slipped on my Payless pumps and headed out the door.
Sports Today was part of a whole family of papers and websites that made up Today Media. The organization had started out as a monthly magazine fifty-odd years ago, but was one of the first to jump from the print ship to the digital bandwagon when magazines started tanking. Back then, Today Media had been only three magazines, but now they’d broken out into six different specific brands. Each maintained an extensive website and released an expensive, shiny magazine every quarter, which collected their best online stories as well as including special in-depth features and interviews.
Today Media owned a very large and intimidating building bordering Madison Square Park and when I reached it, I paused for a moment and stared up. It was giant and glossy and terrifying and beautiful.
Someone clipped my shoulder as they passed me on the sidewalk and shot me a dirty look.
I took a deep breath and went inside.
The lobby was shiny and sleek and filled with professionals in black and white and gray. I started toward the elevator bank, and then a large woman sped into my purview. “Hey. Hey!”
I stopped, terrified that I had somehow messed up before I even started. “Hello?”
She nodded at a black box on the wall I’d barely noticed. “You have to sign in.” When I looked at her blankly, she asked, “Are you an employee?”
“This is my first day. I—I don’t have an ID yet.”
She waved me over to the fro
nt desk. “You’ll have to sign in there.”
Taking a deep breath and trying to calm my heart, I headed over to the desk and presented my driver’s license, which a second security woman studied for an unduly long time before handing it back. “Who are you here to see?”
“Tanya Jones. Sports Today.”
The security woman made a call, nodded and then typed furiously on her computer. A moment later she handed me a sticker printed with my name and Sports Today. “You’ll have to wear this until you have an employee ID.”
I nodded, plastered the pass against my cardigan and then walked a little nervously past the first guard. At least the people now waiting for the elevator hadn’t seen her accost me. We all loaded inside and pressed various buttons. The seven was already lit, so I faced forward like everyone else and looked at the little screen in the corner that announced it was 77 degrees out and 8:53 in the morning. My little mess-up had put me back three minutes from my planned arrival time.
The elevator let me out into an open lobby. I faced a guy not much older than me, who sat behind a long desk. To the left, windows let in orange autumn light, while behind him blocky red letters printed SPORTS TODAY on a black wall.
“Hi,” I said when the guy looked up. He wore the collar of his sweater-vest almost as high as Regency gentlemen. “My name’s Tamar Rosenfeld? I’m new. I’m here to see Tanya Jones?”
Dammit, I hated using upspeak. It meant I felt uncomfortable or nervous.
“Yeah, all right.”
Yeah, all right? I swallowed. “Okay. I’ll just stand here.”
He looked at me funny for a second, and then turned back to his computer.
Cool.
After a few excruciatingly awkward minutes, a guy rounded the corner. He was tall and skinny as a beanstalk, and his black hair rose in uncombed tufts in all directions. “Hi. Tamar?”
“That’s me.” I shook his extended hand.
“Carlos Fernandez, assistant editor. Come on, I’ll show you your desk.”
He brought me past the wall and into the open floor of the newsroom. I paused for one overwhelmed second to let it sink in. During the interview, I’d only seen meeting rooms on another floor, so this was my first real look. Desks and computers and people filled the entire space, messily organized into streamlined chaos. Tables, maybe three and a half feet long each, were pushed together in clumps of four or five. Half the people wore brightly colored headphones; others laughed with their neighbors. Computers covered every surface; small laptops and extra monitors and tablets. Large screens were mounted to the walls, interspersed with enlarged photos from some of Sports Today’s covers.
