Chapter 23
I had a plan, and I believed it was a good one. I’d grab something to eat, then get the subway over into Manhattan. Although I longed to go straight to Zack and Amelie’s apartment and see my sister, I had an even higher priority. I needed to find the building near Wall Street where Zack’s office was, lurk outside until he emerged, then follow him and see where he went, with whom, and what happened next. I had my phone for directions. I had my sunglasses and a hat to make myself less recognisable – although I was confident that, out of context, the chances of Zack recognising me were slim.
But it didn’t quite work out that way.
The first part on my plan went flawlessly. I walked out into the sunny afternoon, carefully locking the apartment behind me and making sure the street door was securely closed, too. Then I walked round the block and found a tiny restaurant – not much more than a hole in the wall, with bench seating at the window and a couple of handkerchief-sized tables in the shadowy interior – with a long line of people snaking outside the door and round the corner.
Given it was mid-afternoon, I reckoned that boded well for the food, so I joined the queue, earwigging intently to see what other people were ordering. But I needn’t have bothered, because the place only sold one thing: artisan hotdogs, which was fine with me. Actually, it would have been fine even if they weren’t artisan, I’m not going to lie. Eventually, I reached the front of the queue and ordered a large one, plus a double-thick chocolate milkshake.
That was my first mistake. I ought to have realised that this was New York, where portion size reached a whole new level. The hotdog was the size of my forearm and the milkshake came in a vast paper cup, the straw sticking proudly upright because it was mostly ice cream.
Daunted, I perched at the counter and started eating. It was one of those times when you know you’re hungry but you don’t realise exactly how hungry until the first bite of food passes your lips, and then you go into a kind of feeding frenzy and eat and eat like a python until your ribs are groaning and your spine is sticking out at the back.
I devoured the whole thing, slurped the very last dregs of the milkshake, and only then realised how extremely full I was. Of course, the sensible thing would have been to take a gentle stroll to digest it all, but I was overcome by a wave of tiredness that, combined with my extreme fullness, made lying down feel like the only option.
I staggered back to the apartment, kicked off my shoes and lay down on the bed, thinking I’d be good to go after a forty-five minute nap.
And then I woke up to find the apartment in darkness. For a moment, I thought I was back home, and I even sat up and called Astro, because I thought it must have been him that had woken me. And then I remembered where I was, and my phone told me it was four in the morning.
So much for catching Zack in between his working day and whatever he had planned for the evening. I’d wasted most of the afternoon and all night, and now I was wide awake with no idea what to do. Going back to sleep was out of the question – I’d been out like a light for twelve hours and according to my body clock it was mid morning and I should be well into a working day.
I showered and dressed and went outside. The morning was still cool, and the world was dark and silent. I could hear the faint hum of traffic, and around me the occasional window flickered into brightness as someone got up for their early yoga class or because their baby was crying, or whatever. But I felt as if I had the world to myself.
Since I was up, I might as well get some sightseeing in, I reckoned. So, using my phone as a guide, I walked in the direction of the Brooklyn Bridge. It was further than I’d expected, and quite eerie walking the streets alone, but I wasn’t afraid. The sleeping city felt welcoming and benign, as if this morning had been created just for me.
At last I reached the bridge and stepped out onto the wooden walkway beneath the cobweb of metal struts. The sky behind me was just beginning to brighten, turning from deepest black to midnight blue, with a widening vein of violet visible between tall buildings.
But I didn’t look behind me; I looked ahead, and I walked.
And after a bit, the most extraordinary thing happened. One by one, the glass towers of Manhattan in front of me turned to flaming torches as the sun emerged. I thought of Dick Whittington in the fairy story, arriving in London to find streets that were paved with gold, only this wasn’t London and it was skyscrapers I was looking at, not cobbled streets. Still, I found myself holding my breath as I walked, amazed that something so beautiful could happen every day, every time the sun rose.
I found myself involuntarily smiling, so that passers-by looked at me and smiled back, sharing my delight in the glory of the morning. And I realised that – despite my worry about Amelie, my uncertainty about how this rashly planned trip would pan out, and my knowledge that my feelings for Ross were likely to go unreciprocated and unrequited, I was happy.
I’d embarked on a new job, and despite its challenges I was doing my utmost to make it a success. I’d travelled alone to a strange city and I was enjoying myself.
I could look back, now, at what had happened with Kieren, and it felt almost like it had happened to another person.
The envelope in the drawer next to my bed containing his notes hadn’t got any new additions after that. When I arrived at work the morning after the first time we’d had sex, I was sure there would be one there – I remembered spending spent the whole time getting ready for work and the journey to the office looking forward to seeing it, imagining what it would say now that our relationship had moved on to the next level.
But there was nothing there. I moved my keyboard aside to check, then lifted it up in case the note had somehow got stuck to its base. Nothing. I pushed back my chair to look on the floor under my desk, but there was no white piece of paper on the floor. Then I noticed Misha looking at me curiously, and called off my search, swallowing my disappointment and going off to make coffee as if nothing was wrong.
He was at his desk – I could see him there, working, his dark head bent just the same as usual. I realised that with my disappointment had come a wave of anxiety – what if he was ill, or some accident had befallen him and he hadn’t made it to work?
But he was here. Just the note wasn’t.
As the day wore on, I felt my bewilderment crystallising into an agony of self-doubt. I must have done something wrong. Something about the sex must have disappointed him. Evidently, what I’d thought of as a consummation had been a disaster – a failure. My failure.
But I was wrong.
This time, it happened earlier – towards the middle of the afternoon. With it being a Thursday, the day after the paper had gone to press, the office was quieter than usual. The Editor-in-Chief was off, along with a few of the other senior people. Those of us who were working had less to do than usual, so I felt justified, once I’d plucked up the courage, to walk over to the newsdesk and throw out a general offer of help, carefully not aiming it specifically at Kieren.
But it was he who responded. He turned those deep blue, slightly narrowed eyes on me and said, ‘Actually, I could use a hand. Thanks, Lucy.’
I waited, my heart hammering. He stood up and said, ‘Let’s grab a tea first.’
I noticed the glances of his colleagues following us, without any real interest, as I walked with him down the office. But he didn’t turn into the kitchen. He led me into the cluttered little room opposite it, where the seldom-used binding machine and stocks of stationery were kept.
And then he closed the door.
‘What…?’ I began. ‘Kieren, what are you…?’
He placed a finger over my lips, smiling, then moved it away and kissed me, one hand in the small of my back and the other behind my head, his fingers buried deep in my hair.
I thought, This is crazy. This is insane.
But my doubts were overwhelmed by relief that he still wanted me. It’s just a kiss, I promised myself. It’s stupid and risky, but it’s just a kiss.
I was wrong about that, too.
Seconds later, I felt his hands pushing my dress up and pulling my tights down, a finger caressing me, gently but urgently.
‘We’ll have to be quick,’ he murmured. ‘You up for this?’
Afterwards, I thought I should have said no. Of course I should have. But I was too bewildered. I didn’t want to cause a scene. And, in a way, I was up for it. I wanted him. I wanted him to want me. Just not like this.
He put his hands under my thighs and lifted me up, so suddenly I gave a gasp of surprise. Before I could I figure out what was happening, he’d pressed my back against the door and I felt his cock inside me. Instinctively, I wrapped my legs around his waist and my arms around his neck, amazed at his strength.
It didn’t last long. After a few seconds, I heard his breathing turn ragged and felt him shudder inside me, and a few seconds later his penis slipped out of me and he let me down to the floor.
‘Sorry,’ he said. ‘Proper knee-trembler, that one. God, you’re so sexy, I couldn’t have carried on longer even if I wasn’t worried about getting caught.’
I straightened my clothes hastily. ‘I’m still worried about getting caught.’
‘We won’t,’ he promised. ‘I won’t let that happen to you. Trust me.’
‘I do trust you,’ I said, wondering even as I spoke whether that was true.
And then he said, ‘We should get back to work.’
The memory made me shiver, although the day was already warm. I could feel the Lucy I’d been then, somewhere inside me still, shy and awkward and unsure how to interpret men and their actions, but at the same time longing to be worthy of a man, the way other women were.
I didn”t feel that way any more, I realised. Although I was single, I didn’t care if I stayed that way – I didn’t need a man in my life to be happy and fulfilled. But, thanks to Adam and all the men who’d poured their problems and their secrets out to him, I was starting to understand men a bit more. I even liked some of them. Especially Ross. Our friendship might be recent, but it meant a lot to me. I couldn’t remember ever having had a close male friend before, and now it looked as if I did. But why did it feel as if friendship wasn’t really what I’d hoped for from him?
But I didn’t like Zack. Obviously.
In the heart of the financial district, I found the building where he worked – a glass tower among a sea of other glass towers, all so tall they gave me a crick in the neck when I looked at them. I loitered on a corner and watched men and women in suits, laptop bags slung over their shoulders, coffees and mobile phones in their hands, hurrying in through the glass doors into the vestibule, then on towards the rank of elevators that would take them up to the desks where they’d spend the day doing mysterious things with spreadsheets.
But even if I was lucky enough to spot him going into the building, it wouldn’t help – I couldn’t exactly follow him, and even if I could all I would find would be him sitting blamelessly at his desk, going into meetings and chatting to colleagues round the water cooler. Even if there was something going on with him and this other woman, they were hardly likely to sneak off for a shag in between answering emails.
So I turned away and headed off on the itinerary Ross had planned out for me. I looked at the Stock Exchange building and the Oculus building and the 9/11 memorial, remembering the seriousness on his face when he said I should see it. Then I made my way by subway to the Metropolitan Museum of Art, but I didn’t go in – I just joined the crowds of tourists perched on the stairs, and had a bit of a rest, wishing that my sister was sitting there next to me, imaging her remarking that art gallery shops were always far better than the art gallery itself.
I bought a giant, salty pretzel and ate it in Central Park, and wandered round there for a bit, before heading down Fifth Avenue, stopping to gaze into shop windows but again not going into any. I did go into the Empire State Building, though, all the way to the top, where I admired the dizzying views all around me and took a selfie to send to Ross.
What with that, and the notes he’d put on the app that made me giggle, it felt almost as if he was there with me, exploring his home city with me, telling me stories about growing up there, where he’d been to school, where he’d learned to play baseball, where he’d thrown a ball for the family dog to chase.
I wished I knew more about his childhood, so I could imagine it better. Better still, I wished he was actually there, being a real tour guide instead of a virtual one.
But he wasn’t. And I needed to find another man, one who actually was.
So I got the subway back to Wall Street, and by five forty-five, I was back on my corner outside Zack’s office, where I waited. And waited, and waited. A few people trickled out through the glass doors, but many more were still going in, presumably returning from high-powered off-site meetings to go back to their desks and carry on working.
I’d made a serious miscalculation, I realised. Zack didn’t get paid the big bucks to knock off work after eight hours like a normal person. I didn’t know what to do. I walked round the block – another error of judgment, because obviously if he was going to leave work at a sensible hour, he was bound to do it in the few minutes when I wasn’t watching the door – then waited another half-hour, then eventually gave up and got the subway back to Brooklyn, tired and hungry and frustrated.
My initial plan was no good. I was going to have to come up with a better one.