Chapter Eleven
Chap-ter Eleven
T he buzzing in-ter-com pulled Dina out of a day-dream that evening. The day-dream in which she and Adam had a re-la-tion-ship rather than the bar-gain they’d struck. With a sigh, she rose from the ta-ble where her din-ner sat un-touched and looked at the video screen on her se-cu-rity in-ter-com. Adam’s im-age greeted her and she jerked back.
If I wait, he’ll get bored and go away. That would be best for both of them. She needed time to get her-self fully on board with what they were to each other—a means to an end. He wasn’t in-ter-ested in her, not be-yond body chem-istry.
Lean-ing against the cool steel door, she re-peated, “We have an agree-ment,” over and over in her mind.
He buzzed again.
He wasn’t get-ting the hint.
He leaned on the buzzer with-out stop-ping.
Oy gevalt . Lovely.
He started mak-ing pat-terns with his buzzing.
He had more of an at-ten-tion span than she’d given him credit for. Her neigh-bors, how-ever, had lit-tle pa-tience for noise, so un-less she wanted them let-ting him in, she was go-ing to have to an-swer. Re-peat-ing “We have an agree-ment” to her-self one more time, she pressed the but-ton, opened her door and waited for him to climb the stairs.
“You’re very per-sis-tent,” she said, hands clenched to-gether be-hind her back. His hair was mussed and she wanted to run her fin-gers through it to smooth it.
“You didn’t an-swer.”
She shrugged. Stand-ing this close to him, she could smell his spicy clove af-ter-shave and it was all she could do not to throw her-self at him. But they had an agree-ment, and throw-ing her-self into his arms wasn’t part of it.
“Can I come in? We need to talk, and I don’t think we should do it in front of your neigh-bors.”
“I don’t know. Mrs. MacAvoy loves gos-sip. It would be a shame to de-prive her.”
He raised an eye-brow and she held back a smile. What she would give to see that eye-brow raise all the time. She moved deeper into the apart-ment and let him fol-low her in-side. What would he think of her apart-ment? It was com-pletely dif-fer-ent from his: all col-or-ful fab-rics, grav-ity-de-fy-ing stacks of books, and mis-matched fur-ni-ture with Ju-daica scat-tered around. It prob-a-bly screamed “sin-gle girl” to him, but at least she didn’t have a cat. Yet.
She perched on her fa-vorite wingchair, a pur-ple one with daisies she’d bought at a garage sale, and pointed to her gold over-stuffed sofa for him to sit on. She’d curl up on it later and in-hale his lin-ger-ing scent, dream-ing of what could be. For now, she needed space.
“I’m sorry about what hap-pened at the of-fice, Dina. Truly.”
She shook her head. “Don’t be. I over-stepped.”
“No, you didn’t, but you did mis-un-der-stand.”
Their re-la-tion-ship? Of course she did. Was he re-ally go-ing to re-it-er-ate their deal? She opened her mouth to stop him, but he held out a hand.
“Let me fin-ish.”
She shut her mouth to avoid look-ing like a fish, or a mouth-breather. Nei-ther was at-trac-tive.
He ran a hand through his hair and stared down at his feet for a mo-ment be-fore con-tin-u-ing. “I’m sorry I didn’t in-tro-duce you to my friends at the of-fice. It wasn’t be-cause of you, it was be-cause of me.”
Was he re-ally go-ing to use the “it wasn’t you, it was me” ar-gu-ment?
“I’m hav-ing a prob-lem at the of-fice. I’ve be-come sort of a pariah, even with my friends. I was afraid if I brought you into their of-fices or stopped to talk to them for long, they’d say some-thing about it to you.”
“Why are you a pariah and why would I take their side?”
“Ev-ery-one else has.”
“I’m not ev-ery-one else,” she said.
It was like she’d stuck a pin in him and let out all the ex-cess air. “You’re right. And I’m sorry.”
Dina nod-ded. Why was he a pariah?
He shook his head and mum-bled some-thing. She thought she heard the word “fa-ther,” but she couldn’t be sure. “Par-don? Why are you a pariah?”
He fid-geted. “Work pol-i-tics. But I should have called you my girl-friend when I in-tro-duced you to Marie. I don’t know why I didn’t. Maybe it was just me be-ing care-ful…”
“No, you were right.”
“I was right?”
She swal-lowed and plunged ahead. “I’m not your girl-friend, not re-ally. We have an ar-range-ment.” So get-ting in-volved in his work pol-i-tics was point-less.
“An ar-range-ment?”
“I’m help-ing you get back in your fa-ther’s good graces and you’re es-cort-ing me to my re-union. We might en-joy each other’s com-pany, we might have even gone out on a date, but we shouldn’t make this into any-thing more than that.”
“Dina—” He looked stricken.
“No, Adam. I’m not your type, and frankly, you’re not mine, ei-ther.” God for-give her for ly-ing. “I over-re-acted.”
“You over-re-acted?”
She nod-ded, glad he was fi-nally un-der-stand-ing. “I’m sorry your friends are be-hav-ing the way they are. You’re prob-a-bly right, though. In-tro-duc-ing me to them would only have hurt your rep-u-ta-tion with them.” She didn’t need to delve any fur-ther into his dif-fi-cul-ties at work.
He frowned and looked at his hands.
“I’m glad we got this straight-ened out,” she said, as she rose and led him to-ward the door. Say-ing the words, re-mind-ing them both of their agree-ment, was use-ful. It made things clearer, like draw-ing a map or an org chart.
He fol-lowed her. “Ev-ery-thing will be fine, Adam. I don’t usu-ally over-re-act, and I won’t do it again.”
He had his “lit-tle boy lost” look and it was all she could do not to re-act to it. She needed him to leave be-fore she wrapped him in her arms. Open-ing her front door, she waited for him to step back over the thresh-old. It took him a while, but when he did, she leaned against the door-frame.
“We should grab lunch again some-time,” she added.
“Lunch?”
Friends ate lunch to-gether, right? “I prom-ise I won’t walk out on you,” she said. Smile, she told her-self.
“Walk out on me?”
She raised the cor-ners of her mouth, and it lasted while he turned and walked down the hall-way, af-ter she closed the door, and un-til she sat on the sofa he’d re-cently va-cated.
Her stom-ach flut-tered at his scent that re-mained in the fab-ric of her sofa and a shiver of de-sire ran up her spine. Tears coursed down her cheeks.
She’d done it. She’d re-stored their equi-lib-rium. They were just friends.
Adam climbed into his car and shut the door be-fore open-ing it and slam-ming it again, so hard the car shook. He pounded his hands on the steer-ing wheel, the force send-ing shock-waves up his arms and jar-ring his teeth. His nos-trils flared as he blew air in and out, in an at-tempt to get his rau-cous breath-ing un-der con-trol.
What the hell just hap-pened?
She wanted to be friends.
The only kind of “friend” he wanted to be with her had “boy” at-tached to it. No, that wasn’t true. He did en-joy her friend-ship. It added depth to their re-la-tion-ship and pre-vented it from be-ing a purely phys-i-cal at-trac-tion. Be-cause he loved talk-ing to her, hear-ing her opin-ions, shar-ing him-self with her.
But the phys-i-cal part was also im-por-tant to him. He was be-com-ing more at-tracted to her. So far, they’d only kissed, but that one kiss, that un-be-liev-able kiss, haunted him. His lips still burned where they’d touched hers, his in-sides still turned to jelly when he thought about it. In fact, he’d been hop-ing there would have been more kiss-ing in her apart-ment once he’d apol-o-gized for his gaffe.
But she’d fo-cused on their ar-range-ment and her over-re-ac-tion, and here he was pulling away from the curb into rush hour traf-fic.
She thought he was dat-ing her only to im-press his fa-ther. If he were one hun-dred per-cent hon-est with him-self, he’d ac-knowl-edge the par-tial truth in that state-ment. But the more time he spent time with her, when he wasn’t roy-ally screw-ing things up with her, the more he wanted to move be-yond their ar-range-ment.
His head was an-other mat-ter. It was still fo-cused on not mak-ing a fool of him-self, of main-tain-ing the right rep-u-ta-tion, of spin-ning the right mes-sage.
But lis-ten-ing to his head was prob-a-bly what had got-ten him into this mess in the first place. As un-be-liev-able as it might sound, it was time to fol-low his heart.
Dina’s phone rang late that night.
“Dina, it’s Adam.”
She blew her nose, which was stuffy from cry-ing. “Hi.”
“Are you okay? You don’t sound like your-self.”
“It’s just al-ler-gies.” Peo-ple had win-ter ones, right? Dust, mold, non-ex-is-tent cats…
“Are you sure?” His voice was deep with con-cern.
Dina’s eyes wa-tered. “What’s up, Adam?”
“Noth-ing, I just wanted to check in with you. See how you’re do-ing.”
He’d seen her that evening. What was left to check in on? “I’m just read-ing.”
“What book?”
She picked up the one clos-est to her. It was a book she’d read more times than she could count. “ Lit-tle House on the Prairie .”
“Re-ally? I re-mem-ber my teacher read-ing that to us in third grade.”
“Did you like it?”
“I was more in-ter-ested in run-ning around the play-ground than sit-ting and lis-ten-ing to a story.”
Dina smiled.
“Any-way,” he con-tin-ued, “I wanted to thank you for be-ing so for-giv-ing ear-lier.”
“It’s okay.”
“So, I was look-ing for a book to read and thought of you, my fa-vorite li-brar-ian.”
Her in-sides warmed. “Re-ally?”
“Re-ally. I thought maybe you could rec-om-mend some-thing, so…”
They talked for an hour, mov-ing from books to TV to movies. The next night he called just as she was sit-ting down to eat din-ner.
“Hey, how was your day?”
“Sad. There was a home-less woman hang-ing out in one of the read-ing rooms. I’ve seen her be-fore and I leave her alone, other than to smile, be-cause it’s a place for her to stay warm and she’s harm-less, but there was this other woman who ob-jected to her be-ing there so my boss had to make her leave. I felt re-ally bad for her.”
“I don’t un-der-stand how peo-ple can ig-nore some-one so ob-vi-ously suf-fer-ing,” Adam said. “There’s an old man near my dad’s of-fice and I give him spare change when I see him. I’ve talked to him a few times. He’s a war vet-eran. He could be any-one. Even you or me.”
Dina had swal-lowed at hear-ing this un-ex-pected side to Adam. Her chest ex-panded at his com-pas-sion. She’d moved onto the sofa, set-tling deep into the cush-ions, as they spent the rest of the evening talk-ing about vol-un-teer op-por-tu-ni-ties and pol-i-tics. This evening he’d called to tell her a funny story about a friend of his, but she was get-ting ready for tem-ple.
“I’m sorry, Adam, but I’m in a rush. Can we talk later?”
Ap-par-ently, telling Adam they were just friends made him more in-clined to, well, act like a friend and just talk to her. It was nice, but it was also hard. Be-cause the more they spoke, the more at-tached she was grow-ing—both to him as a per-son and to him as a man. He was so much deeper than he made him-self out to be. This was the Adam she ad-mired.
At least their con-ver-sa-tions were over the phone, where all she had to do was ig-nore her at-trac-tion to his husky voice, a voice that re-minded her of flan-nel and leather and the sound an en-gine makes when it’s warmed up. She’d never tell him that—he’d prob-a-bly ob-ject to be-ing com-pared to flan-nel, even if it was warm and cozy. As long as it wasn’t in per-son, at least un-til she could get her mind, her heart and her body on the same page, she’d be fine.
She fin-ished dress-ing in gray flared suit pants and an or-ange but-ton-back V-neck sweater. She put on her Jew-ish star neck-lace, hoop ear-rings, and she was set. Shrug-ging into her black pea coat and swing-ing her purse over her shoul-der, she went to tem-ple, de-ter-mined to put Adam out of her mind for now.
The chilly wind blew her hair across her face. She en-tered the foyer of the syn-a-gogue with re-lief. Shiv-er-ing, she hung her coat in the coat closet and walked into the vestibule out-side the sanc-tu-ary.
She stopped dead.
Adam.
So much for Shab-bat peace. She pasted a smile on her face and walked over to him.
“Shab-bat Shalom,” she said. “I didn’t ex-pect to see you here.”
His face lit up in a smile and her heart stut-tered in her chest. He leaned over and placed a kiss on her cheek. It shouldn’t have af-fected her—ev-ery-one did it—but her knees wob-bled.
“I thought it would be a nice place to be tonight.”
Her lips trem-bled and she eyed him askance. “Re-ally?”
He shrugged. “Well, you come ev-ery week. There must be some-thing you like about it. I thought I’d try it.”
He tried to hide his un-cer-tainty, but she saw it peek-ing out, like a child sneak-ing out of bed to spy on the grownups, and her heart melted. “I’m glad you’re here. Let’s go sit down.”
Adam took her el-bow as they en-tered the sanc-tu-ary, greeted the ush-ers, and found a seat half-way down the cen-ter aisle. They sat to-gether, Adam’s arm across the back of her chair.
“Hi, Dina,” Re-becca said. “Can we join you?”
Re-becca, her hus-band Aaron, and their kids scooted into the row while Dina made in-tro-duc-tions. “Adam, this is my friend Re-becca and her fam-ily.” Adam leaned for-ward and shook ev-ery-one’s hand. “Re-becca, this is my friend, Adam.”
Dina bus-ied her-self in pick-ing up the cor-rect prayer book, but not be-fore she saw Re-becca’s ap-prais-ing glance. The rabbi walked to the bima and nod-ded to the Can-tor, who be-gan hum-ming a nig-gun , and Dina was saved from hav-ing to say any-thing fur-ther to Re-becca as the word-less melody washed over her.
Through-out the ser-vice, Dina kept watch over Adam out of the cor-ner of her eye. He was fa-mil-iar enough with the prayer book and most of the prayers, and joined in singing many of the songs. His singing voice was beau-ti-ful—deep and husky—and made her feel as if he were whis-per-ing words of love only to her. He’d moved his arm from the back of her chair, but it now rested next to her. Ev-ery fiber of her be-ing told her to move so her arm could touch his, even if it was only through cloth. But they were in tem-ple and they were friends, so she dragged her gaze for-ward and fo-cused on the ser-vice.
When it was over, they joined the en-tire con-gre-ga-tion in the so-cial hall for the oneg . Usu-ally, talk-ing to peo-ple over re-fresh-ments was one of Dina’s fa-vorite parts of the ser-vice, but this time, Adam was stand-ing too close and she couldn’t con-cen-trate.
“Would you like some-thing to drink,” he asked, af-ter they’d said the prayers over the wine and the chal-lah .
“Wa-ter would be great,” she said, as much to put some dis-tance be-tween them as to soothe her parched throat. Adam left to find her a drink and Re-becca moved closer.
“So, just ‘friends,’ huh?” Re-becca asked, her brown eyes al-most golden with laugh-ter.
“Yes.”
“Are you sure about that? Be-cause he doesn’t look at you like a friend, and you don’t re-spond to him like one.”
“None of that mat-ters. We can’t be any-thing more.”
“So does that mean you’re in-ter-ested in Zach?”
Dina sighed. “I should be. He was great.”
“But?”
She shrugged. “But…I don’t know.”
“I think you do,” Re-becca said, as Adam re-turned with a glass of wa-ter.