August 2019
Hello, everyone, Jory Harcourt here with the August edition of He Said, he said. This month, since school doesn’t start until September, when Sam had a meeting in Manhattan during the first week of August, the kids and I decided to surprise him and fly out.
I got us rooms at the Marriott Marquis downtown, and since I knew he was busy during the day, but his nights were free, I figured we’d do the tourist thing and then catch up with him.
My kids and I walked around Times Square, and after only a few hours, I can truthfully say that I have no idea how people do that on a daily basis.
It’s like being in a time loop of leaving a concert or back when I used to attend Taste of Chicago every year.
What was worse was the sun beating down on us and the heat steaming up from the pavement.
It was like that first blast of heat when you open the oven door. I was not a fan.
At a certain point, as I stood with B as she bought a charcoal drawing of Audrey Hepburn from a street vendor, I decided I wanted to sit somewhere with air-conditioning and drink sangria.
“There’s a theatre shop near here I want to go to,” Hannah said excitedly. “I need a Dear Evan Hansen poster for my room.”
“Course,” I agreed quickly. We’d already walked so far, and at least it was in the right direction heading back to the hotel, as it was now after five and I wanted to find Sam.
“You realize we’ve walked maybe six blocks, right?” Kola asked me, one eyebrow lifted as he smirked at me.
I shook my head indulgently, knowing better. “Listen, kiddo, we––”
“Look.” He pointed, and I saw it then, the Sephora we’d passed hours ago and then the Marriott Marquis sign. “All we did was walk in a giant circle.”
And there was West Forty-Sixth Street, the signs for Pretty Woman and Tootsie, and of course the Starbucks across the way where Hannah had gotten her trenta Pink Drink that she always ordered with light ice.
“I feel a hundred years old,” I told my son, who snickered as he put an arm around my shoulders and gave me a squeeze. “Maybe we should––wait.”
Following his line of vision, I saw my husband, their father, walking with a group of four other men, cutting through the crowd, all of them with cigars, of all things.
“Uhm,” Hannah murmured beside me. “What the hell was that?”
I turned to look at her.
“Heck,” she amended quickly. “I meant to say heck.”
I grunted before watching where he was going.
“Come on,” Kola ordered, gesturing for us to follow.
It was so random that he was there, that we found him, walking with the other men—who I assumed were at the same meeting he was—and smoking.
It was crazy that in a city filled with what, probably a billion people, that we would see him.
Not that the man was hard to find in any crowd.
At six-four, covered in heavy muscle, with those massive shoulders of his, he was always easy to spot.
And wherever he went, people always stepped aside for Sam.
They either got out of his way so they wouldn’t get hurt or they moved so then they could follow him.
I myself would trail him anywhere. Apparently my kids were of the same mind, because Kola grabbed my arm and yanked, and Hannah brought up the rear.
Once we were out of the crush of bodies in Times Square, we followed along as they took one turn, then another, and walked, this time actually farther than we’d been, down to Hell’s Kitchen, near Eighth Avenue and Fiftieth Street, and surprise, they went into a cigar lounge.
I suspected that they were having drinks before dinner, and as we stood across the street, I started to feel really stupid.
“Hey, guys,” I said softly as they moved in close around me. “Maybe this wasn’t such a great idea.”
“What do you mean?” Hannah asked, her arm sliding around my waist, leaning into my side. “I think this trip is gonna be super fun. It’s already starting out great.”
“I don’t mean the trip, I mean surprising your dad.”
“What? Why?”
“Well, you know, your dad, he doesn’t get a lot of time away from us.”
“Explain,” Kola said, doing the same thing his sister was, leaning into me, except his arm went around my shoulders. We probably looked like the smallest huddle ever.
“It’s like when you guys are out with your friends and you get to be different than how you are at home.”
“How do you mean?”
“I mean, like, just you. The you you can only be when you’re alone. The you without any expectations.”
“That makes no sense. I’m the same at home or not,” Kola assured me.
“He means, like, freer,” Hannah explained to her brother. “You’re not the same with your family as you are with your friends.”
“Yes, I am,” Kola insisted.
“I don’t mean in a bad way,” I assured him, smiling. “I just mean, you’re able to be yourself and maybe say things or use words that you might not want me or your father to hear.”
Kola squinted at me. “I’m still me. I don’t become another person.”
“Me too,” Hannah conceded with a shrug. “I mean, it’s like Dad says, I should always act like he’s standing right there beside me. And if I wouldn’t want him to hear––”
“You swear when you’re with your friends,” Kola accused her with a smirk.
“I do––”
“Yeah, exactly. You do.”
“I do not!” she yelled at him, swatting his chest. “Much.”
His laugh always sounded so good. If it was full of either joy or evil glee, as it was at the moment. “Hah! Exactly.”
“You swear too,” she revealed, pointing at him and looking at me. “He does, Pa, I swear.”
“She swears!” he crowed, pleased with himself.
“You two,” I sighed, slipping my hands around the sides of their necks, looking at them both, my heart, as always, full just looking at them. “Just—nobody’s perfect, but as long as you do your best, then I’m happy.”
They both nodded and then waited.
“What?” I said after a moment of them staring at me.
Hannah widened her eyes, and Kola made a face.
“What?” I repeated, pulling my hands back and crossing my arms. “You guys are looking at me weird.”
“Just wondering what this has to do with anything,” Kola said, scowling now. “Do you even remember what you were talking about?”
He had a point.
Hannah snorted.
“Oh yeah, your father,” I said, remembering. “He’s having a guys’ night out, and that’s probably what happens the whole time he’s at one of these things. I didn’t even think of that, and I really should have.”
“Meaning what?” Kola pressed me.
“Meaning that I think we should just enjoy our time here but not see him.”
“Not see him at all?” Hannah asked, biting her bottom lip. “Like, at all-at all?”
“Yeah. I think we should let him be in friend mode, let him be in one-of-the-boys mode, and not force him to be a husband or a father. I think that would be a treat.”
“It’s a treat for him to be away from us?”
“Come with me,” I directed, leading them away, back down Eighth Street. “Think of it like this. You know how in the disaster movies the hero always gets his family to safety, and then once they’re all sort of tucked in, then he can finally go save the world while dodging bullets?”
“Sure,” Kola agreed as he walked beside me.
“It’s just like that,” I revealed. “Right now, your father thinks we’re in another state, all safe, doing our normal thing, and so he can be here and be relaxed and not on guard duty. He can just be free.”
“So we’re what, some gigantic burden?” Hannah wanted to know.
“Sweetie, no,” I told her. “It’s just, he’s on vacation from his life for a few days, and shouldn’t we let him do that? I mean, we can still talk to him at night when he checks in but maybe we leave him alone during the day.”
“Sure,” Hannah agreed, shrugging. “I want Dad to have a break, he deserves it.”
“He does,” Kola affirmed, his grin making his eyes gleam as they had since he was a little boy.
“Okay, so what do you guys think? I could go for some tapas.”
“Oh yes, me too,” Hannah said, clapping. “Lots of different things.”
We found a great Spanish eatery that made a variety of small plates that we had with salad, and I got my sangria.
On the way back to the hotel, we found another theatre store, and even though they didn’t have the Be More Chill poster Hannah wanted, she got one for Wicked that she was pleased with as well.
“Once I get a frame, I can hang this by the signed Hamilton one Uncle Aaron got me when he was in London,” she told me excitedly.
The man selling her the poster shot me a look, but I just smiled. Even as she got older and understood how much things cost and more about money, Hannah still had no real concrete idea of what Aaron Sutter was worth. I hoped it stayed like that for a bit longer.
We walked by an Italian restaurant, and the man standing outside told us that they had the best lasagna in town.
“It sounds great, but we already ate,” Hannah said, smiling.
“Dessert?” he offered. “We have amazing tiramisu.”
“That sounds awesome,” Kola responded eagerly.
It was fun walking down the steps from the street to the front door and into the restaurant.
The hostess set us up near the kitchen, close to the end of the bar, and I had a tiramisu and a cappuccino.
Hannah had panna cotta and a vanilla latte, and Kola had an enormous piece of lasagna, an ice tea, and a cannoli that was as big as a burrito.
I had no idea how he could eat again, because even when I was his age, I didn’t have a tape worm, and he still wasn’t stuffed when we left.
We stopped at a liquor store and got a 24-pack of bottled water for the rooms, and then at the Starbucks so Hannah could get a cup of Earl Grey tea.
The elevators were glass, and the kids enjoyed putting their foreheads to the sides and looking down as they whooshed up.
It was cute, like they were still little.
Once we were back in our adjoining rooms, when I pulled my phone out of my back pocket, I realized I had a missed call from Sam and immediately called him back.
“Jory,” he said instead of hello.