Imaginary Lines

by Allison Parr

“Guys, give it back.” I stretched out my hand. Alli fished out my phone and then flung my purse at me. Not a very smart move, because it was still open. Several pens and a hair clip spilled out when it hit the roof, and I had to run around picking them up before I could refocus on my phone. They were all covered with white chalk.

  “‘Abraham’.” Alli grinned. “Ohmygod, he’s in your phone.”

  “Don’t.” I considered launching myself at her, tackling her to the ground and wrestling my phone away, but I honestly couldn’t see that ending well.

  And now it was too late. She held the phone up and waited. “Hi! Is this Abe Krasner?”

  There was a pause, and then she laughed. “This is her friend Alli. We’re at a party. You should come.”

  Right. Because the one thing I needed in life was for Abe to think I was trying to lure him to hang out with me. Or that I was so middle school I needed to get my friends to ask him to come over. “Alli, give it back.”

  “We’re in the East Village. Near East 4th and 1st Ave.” She rattled off the apartment’s address. “We’re on the roof.”

  I wanted to ream her out, but I barely knew her and didn’t want this to get any more out of hand then it already was. Instead, I stuck my hand out once more, and this time, she passed my cell over.

  I pressed it to my ear and walked away from the group. “Abe. I am so sorry. Don’t listen to her.”

  “You’re on a rooftop?” His voice sounded a little tinny. “You’re afraid of heights.”

  I let out a huff of laughter. “And yet!”

  “Are you drunk on a rooftop?”

  I edged a little closer to the drop, wondering how near I could get before my feet started tingling. About two feet, as it turned out, and the pinpricks ramped into gear. I shuffled my feet three inches forward, which felt much like shoving through molasses, and the tingles ran up my calves and kicked my heart into double-time. “Logically, I can see how that sounds like a bad idea, but in reality, it’s just fine.” I edged backward until the tingles went away and my chest expanded. I sucked in deep breaths and shuddered slightly. “It’s not like I’m going to topple over.”

  “Okay, I should be there in twenty minutes.”

  “Abraham. No. I didn’t mean for them to call you. You don’t have to come.”

  “Don’t fall off the roof before I get there.” He signed off.

  I wandered back to the group. “Now, why did you have to do that?”

  Alli looked up. “Is he coming?”

  “No.”

  Twenty minutes later, a trio went out for more beer, and when they came back they brought Abe with them.

  I didn’t notice until the attention swiveled, since I was having an extremely intense conversation on foreign affairs with a guy with thickly framed glasses. But when people made loud, alcohol-fueled noises, both of us looked toward the fire escape.

  Abraham jumped up onto the roof with the grace only those with immense strength could muster. His arms swung easily, his hair looked a little mussed, and his gaze swept the rooftop, searching for me. I bit my lip, not sure if I should jump and wave or wait.

  Then I saw him see me, if the brightness of recognition was any indicator. He strode toward me without any hesitation, like he couldn’t even see anything else, like I was the ultimate destination, and stopped only a foot away.

  It was hard to keep my old feelings in check with my inhibitions loosened. I was positive my pupils were dilated and my heart racing, so I overcompensated in the other direction by speaking harshly. “What are you doing here?”

  Confusion tinged his gaze. “I was invited.”

  As though to drive the point home, one of Nita’s friends came over and sloppily slapped Abe on the back. “Krasner, my man!”

  Abe tossed me a look that said See? before gripping the guy’s palm and shaking it firmly. In a moment they were laughing like old friends, but just before the others worked up the nerve to creep over, he excused himself with a nod my way. Then he positioned himself in front of me, with his back to the rest of the roof. He was so broad and stood so close that it was almost like we were in our own little private bubble.

  Too private. I wanted to kiss him, and only the smallest corner of my mind, the one that kept chanting he’s not interested kept me from reaching out. Again, I tried to push him back verbally. “You didn’t have to come.”

  He smiled wryly and folded his legs gracefully to the ground. “Yeah, but what would I tell our parents? You’ve been in New York for two seconds and already fell off a roof?”

  I laughed, but still shook my head as I followed his lead and sat. “You don’t have to worry about me.”

  “That doesn’t mean I can’t watch out for you.”

  I raised a brow. “And who watches out for you?”

  His smile deepened in the corners of his mouth. “Fifty-two other guys. We all watch out for each other.”

  I drew my knees up to my chest and rested my chin on them. “You’re a good person, Abraham.”

  His eyes crinkled at the corners like they did whenever he smiled deeply. “You have to think that. You’re family.”

  For some reason—the alcohol, no doubt—that made tears prick at my eyes. Family. If that was true, why hadn’t I spoken to him for four years? Why did it still hurt so much that he thought of me as a sister?

  Abe had always been able to read emotions, and he skipped topics as easily as the winds changed. “So tell me how you like New York, after a month here.”

  I was able to fold away my oddness and bob my head back and forth. “I like it.”

  He smiled at me wryly. “You do?”

  “Doesn’t everyone?”

  He met my gaze and raised his brows.

  That expression, so knowing, so correct, pulled the confession right out of me. “Okay. I miss the sky. I wish I could see a dome, not a narrow strip, when I look up. And I miss real colors. I miss the yellow of dried grass and the bright pink oleander all over the freeways. I miss the fog every morning and the sun in the afternoon. There’s no color or sun here—it’s just gray.”

  “You need to leave.”

  Something in my stomach curled up and died. “Is that so?”

  He waved a hand. “Not forever. But for the afternoon. You don’t realize how much you miss the trees until you’re back in them.” He gave me an appraising look. “Or you apparently do, so it’s doubly important.”

  “I don’t think so. I don’t really have the time, either...” I gave him a somewhat astounded look. “I had no idea how much time this job would take up. I think I thought it would be nine-to-five and that was it, but it’s pretty much constant.”

  He smiled and shook his head, reminding me he breathed and ate his own career. “How about that.”

  I made a face.

  “You could get out on the weekends.”

  “I suppose I will, when it comes to that.”

  “Just let me know, and I’ll take you.”

  My breath caught in my throat, and then I drew away and stared up at the moon. I’d looked it so many times and imagined him doing the same, built up a whole world around it. “Are you superstitious, Abe?”

  Discomfort flitted across his face, before he smoothed it away with a grin. He didn’t question my change of topic either. “Not as much as the other guys.”

  “No?” Because that touch of discomfort had given him away. “You’re just totally calm, no pre-game ritual?”

  He caved. “Well, sure, I have one.”

  “What is it?”

  He shrugged. “I get written up by a sideline official.”

  “You do not.” I leaned into him, fascinated. “What for?”

  He stared at me, and for once his face was unreadable. “Some rules are worth breaking.”

  I swayed back and forth, my mind jumping about so much that I barely noticed his evasion. “I would write that article. ‘Superstitions of the Leopards’. I think it would have a lot of cross-platform appeal.”


  Amusement crept back into his voice. “Okay.”

  “Seriously! I need a title, though. Something punny. About spots. A leopard never changing their spots.”

  He laughed and knocked my shoulder, shaking his head as he gazed up at the moon.

  I, in turn, gazed at him.

  He caught me. “What?”

  I shook my head. “You still look at the moon.”

  He nodded, less an answer than affirmation.

  My memories of the moon were intricately woven with my memories of Abraham. As a kid, a teen, he ran about with abandon, happy-go-lucky and friendly, rarely still, rarely contemplative, except in the rare nighttime moments. He could be doing anything—out on a walk, camping in the summers with our families, at a party with kids from school, playing a game at night—and he’d always find a moment to raise his face to the moon’s light. He soaked it in the way most people I knew took in music or drink or temple—with an utter fascination that bordered on reverence.

  I looked up, too. The moon glowed, more alive than any celestial body had a right to be. I always forgot how much I liked the moon until Abe reminded me, but there was very little as beautiful as the stone in the sky.

  Though perhaps the man beside me came close.

  I lowered my gaze to him, ready to soak in the sight of him as I had so many times before—and was surprised to find him gazing back at me. I swallowed.

  His voice lowered. “How do you see things so clear?”

  “I spend a lot of time looking.”

  He nodded. “Why did you go into sports reporting?”

  I smiled. “Why? You think I did it because of you?”

  He had the grace to look embarrassed. “Well, did you?”

  I propped my head on my knees. “You’re full of it.”

  “That a yes or a no?”

  I leaned closer, irritated. “I could’ve been anything I wanted to be. I chose this because I’m good at it. I’m actually good at it, and I like it. I got two majors and a minor in philosophy. I taught and I cooked. I’m not a sports reporter because of any one thing, Abraham Krasner, but because it’s what I chose.”

  He stared down at his spread hands. “I never finished college.”

  “What?”

  “I don’t have my degree. I don’t—I don’t think I could be anything.”

  I’d never realized Abe felt the lack of his degree, that he wanted anything more out of life than to be the best linebacker possible. How odd, that I could know him for so long and never realize he wanted more.

  “Abraham Krasner. The whole world is yours if you want it. The world and the moon.”

  He looked up at me. We were so close I could feel his breath and see his individual lashes. He stroked my cheek. “Tammy...”

  I held my breath. I suddenly felt very warm and heady, and drawn forward by an invisible string that hadn’t been cut, after all.

  One of the girls let out a shriek. “Guys! Guys, my landlord called. We have to go.”

  Abe’s hand dropped from my face. Everyone started scrambling to their feet, including people not from Alli’s apartment. They shouted over at her. “Is your landlord our landlord?” They badgered us to find out if we were all in trouble, and then a mass exodus began as the three different apartments all herded their guests to the fire escape.

  I balked when my turn came.

  “Don’t worry,” Abe said in my ear. “You climbed up. You can get back down.”

  I frowned at him. He correctly interpreted it as, but the staircase might break and then where will we be? “Do you want me to go first? I can catch you if you fall.”

  I scoffed. “You’d be falling to your death, too.”

  His hand wrapped around mine. “I would catch you,” he vowed. “I will always catch you.”

  My stomach flipped over. It wasn’t fair for him to say that, for him to work his magic on me. That combination of voice and smell and touch rendered me useless, rendered me his, just as it always had. I wanted that kiss that had never happened. It hovered in the air between us.

  But I was done chasing silly dreams, so I stepped back. “Okay, then. You go first.”

  And I didn’t fall, so I didn’t find out if he would catch me or not.

  Downstairs, Sabeen found us quick enough. “Hey, I think I’m going to head out with Evan. That cool? You’re okay to get home?”

  I waved away her concern even as I tried to get a peek at Evan. He seemed tall. And fuzzy. “Yeah, I’m fine.”

  She squinted at Abe, without the excuse of having bad eyesight. She must have missed the to-do about him earlier. Off with Evan, no doubt. “You look familiar.”

  He waved a hand. “I have one of those faces.”

  She accepted that and turned back to me. “Okay, you sure? You’re good?”

  “Positive. Have fun.”

  They disappeared before I realized it, and Abe took my hand and led me out of the apartment and over to the street. “Let’s find you a taxi.”

  “What if I don’t want to go home?”

  He looked at me so quickly I could’ve sworn he’d misinterpreted that. His eyes darkened. “What?”

  “Um...” My voice came out as a stammer. “I just meant I’m having fun. I want to keep having fun.”

  His mouth cracked in a grin, and he shook his head. “You should have fun with a bottle of water. I hope you don’t need to work tomorrow.”

  I bobbed my head in fervent agreement. “Me too.” I consulted my brain, and found out that I didn’t. However—”Wait! It’s a Saturday tomorrow! Today. Do you? You have to do meetings and stuff. Why are you here?”

  He tucked a loose curl behind my ear. “Because I didn’t want you to fall off a roof.”

  I frowned and tried to step back, but misjudged the curb and stumbled. He caught my waist with both hands and mine automatically went to his biceps for balance. I stared at him, breathing hard. Could I do this, as a friend? Nope. Line. There was a line, and it was in the air between us, and there was no air between my fingers and his skin. I reluctantly removed my hands and locked them behind my back, trying to remember what we’d been talking about. It was on the tip of my tongue. My mental tongue. Was there a word for that? A part of the brain just out of reach from the rest, locked away by a fog of intoxication—Wow. I should write that down. “Abe. I am a poet.”

  “No, just drunk.”

  I tried to explain the eloquence of my turn of phrase. “No, these words—they’re doing things that my words never do. They’re dancing—Look, a taxi!”

  He shook his head. “It’s going downtown. You need to catch one in the opposite direction.”

  The car couldn’t just make a U-turn? “That’s stupid.”

  He walked me across the street and hailed a cab.

  The cab driver was chattering loudly into a hands-free headset, but he paused as Abe placed me in one side of the cab and walked around to the other.

  “Abe, I’m fine. You don’t have to come with me. You live in Tribeca, right? That’s the opposite direction.”

  He shrugged that off and got into the car with me. For a minute, I watched the lights of the city flashing by. My head was still spinning, but slower now.

  “You know what I was thinking, before you got here?”

  “Before I got here?” I parroted, confused. “But I got here first.”

  “No, I mean—before you got to New York.”

  “Oh. What?”

  “That I was restless.”

  I turned to look fully at him. “How so?”

  He wouldn’t look at me. “Just... Restless.”

  I tilted my head, inviting him to tell me more.

  “Like I’ve been waiting for something but I don’t know what.”

  I smiled at him brilliantly. “That’s how I felt, too. Like my life was on hold. Like I was waiting for someone to press start.” I shrugged, content now that it had started. “Of course, it turned out I was the one who needed to push start.”

  �
�Because you got the job.”

  I smiled. “So maybe it was Tanya who pressed start.”

  He lifted his hand and brushed a corkscrew behind my ear. I shivered at the touch, my entire body going on alert. His gaze softened and dropped down to my lips. He leaned forward ever so slightly, but close enough that his breath whispered across my skin.

  The cab driver grunted something indistinguishable.

  I gasped and pulled back. Abe kept staring at me even as he handed money over to the cabbie. Somehow we’d reached my apartment and I hadn’t even noticed.

  I infused my voice with all the brightness of the sun at high noon. “Anyway! Great to see you. I’m sure I’ll see you Sunday or something.” I bolted out the door.

  “Tamar—”

  His low voice stopped me sure as any irons. I turned back, trying to keep hold of the brightness. “Hmm?”

  He hesitated. Words hovered between us, but I never got to find out what they were. “I’ll see you Sunday, then.”

  Chapter Nine

  In the morning, I headed over the Leopards Stadium to cover their game.

  I was excruciatingly aware of the likelihood that I’d end up talking to Abe today. And I shouldn’t have cared.

  But I did.

  So I dressed in my nicest, darkest jeans, and threw on a striped shirt that made me feel vaguely European—an accomplishment, given that I’d never actually been to Europe.

  Last time I’d come to the Stadium, I’d trailed in Tanya’s wake. Now I slipped in through the media entrance with the attitude of an imposter, afraid I’d be carded despite the bright, laminated press pass that dangled in plain sight around my neck.

  Tanya had told me I was welcome to meet her up in the press box or check out the sidelines. By welcome, Jin had interpreted on Friday, Tanya meant I was still more of a pain than an asset, and she didn’t particularly care where I ended up. Tanya herself wasn’t a huge fan of sideline reporting, which I wasn’t sure I agreed with. True, nothing the athletes or officials said could be quoted, just paraphrased, per NFL guidelines. And fine, coaches never gave real info when asked at halftime how they were going to play the rest of the game, just that they’d have a strong offense. And defense. And, sure, doctors never gave the up-to-the-minute reports you wanted on injuries.