Chapter Thirty-Eight
It took a moment for Eliza to stand and get her phone from her purse on the kitchen table. The number was unfamiliar; she looked again at the time. A phone call this late from an unfamiliar number? Josh came to stand beside her as she said hello, hesitantly.
“Eliza?”
She couldn’t place the voice. “Yes?”
“Oh. I didn’t think you’d pick up this late. I was going to leave a message. It’s Ross.”
Her eyes widened, and Josh raised his eyebrows questioningly. “Ross,” she mouthed to him. Into the phone, she simply said, “Oh.”
Ross cleared his throat, which sounded unreasonably loud through the phone’s speaker.
She suddenly remembered Barbara. “Wait. Is Barbara...?” She felt Josh’s hand on her shoulder. Her bare shoulder.
“Oh. No. Barbara’s fine. It was an allergic reaction to something, but it’s been managed. They’ll keep her overnight to be safe, but all good.”
“Okay...”
“No. I, uh, I was calling because I’ve been sitting here at the hospital for the past two hours, thinking. Well, first in the ambulance. Then in the hospital.” He paused. Based on what she’d seen of him, he didn’t seem like someone who was typically at such a loss for words. He cleared his throat again, and she moved the phone away from her ear a bit. “I was hoping we could talk.”
Her heart was pounding in her ears now, but not in the same way it had been a moment before. “I guess so. When?”
“Tomorrow? I don’t have classes to teach. So anytime.”
Vanessa had made noises about the day after the gala being an “optional” workday, but now they were going to have to deal with wrapping up the auction. “Midafternoon?” she suggested.
“Same place as last time?”
Sure. Because that went so well. “Okay.”
She continued to stare at her phone after they’d confirmed a time and she’d clicked the phone off.
“What was that about?” Josh asked.
“Beats me.” She looked up at him, and he seemed to read the question in her eyes.
“Look,” he said gently. “It’s late. You said you haven’t been sleeping. I think I should go. Unless you want to talk about that.” He pointed at the phone.
No, she didn’t want to talk about Ross. She felt deeply, deeply exhausted. And just a little bit crushed. “No, you’re right. I should sleep.”
He picked up his jacket from where he’d dropped it on a kitchen chair and pulled it on. Then he touched her nose with one finger. “Good night, E.” And he was gone. Just like that.
The idea might have been that she’d get some sleep, but after staring at the ceiling for an indeterminate amount of time and flip-flopping like a trout on the deck of a boat, Eliza gave up in favor of more Monk . She managed to drop off watching one of the detective’s “here’s what happened” explanations and squeezed in a couple of hours of shut-eye before she had to get dressed for work. Staring at her closet with unseeing eyes for a while, she finally decided that the Friday after the gala didn’t require her usual level of professionalism. So she left her apartment in a pair of distressed skinny jeans and a loose sweater over a tank top.
Why did Ross want to meet? And why now? And what had his call interrupted between her and Josh? He’d ditched out so quickly afterward, she couldn’t help but think she’d misread the situation.
Everyone at work was clearly fried after the pedal-to-the-metal speed they’d been operating at for the past few weeks, and they were moving as if through molasses. Davin and Bridget went back to the venue to collect everything that had been left there overnight, and they were gone for an inordinate amount of time. There were calls and emails to be fielded from auction winners who wanted to know how to get their prizes, and others who had not been tracking their bids on the app who needed to be notified. The goal was to get as many people as possible to come to the NOY office to collect their winnings, but in a few cases?—especially with bigger donors and board members?—Vanessa decreed that deliveries were to be made.
Eliza ended up responsible for bringing the autographed Rangers hockey stick and Giants football helmet to a board member’s West Village loft, so she texted Ross to change the location of their meeting. The more she thought about it, the more opposed she was to sitting with him again in that same library-themed bar. And though she didn’t want to admit to him that she knew he lived in the Village, she figured it was reasonable to suggest that they meet near NYU instead.
It was emblematic of New York that no one even glanced at her on the subway carrying a hockey stick and football helmet. She rode down to the Christopher Street Station and found her way to the board member’s building before heading over to the coffee shop Ross had suggested. It was unseasonably warm for December, and she walked slowly, pondering. Was it significant in some way that Ross hadn’t chosen a bar this time?
Her destination proved to be a café that could have come straight out of a movie set. A large, glass-fronted wooden case showcased pastries, and the counter was white marble. The small round tables were also marble topped, and the chairs were wooden with curlicued backs. Once again, Ross was already there when she arrived, eating a slice of cheesecake, a coffee cup on the table in front of him. Clearly stress didn’t affect his appetite the way it did hers?—or he wasn’t feeling the same anxiety she was. She ordered a cup of tea and joined him.
“I’ve been coming to this place for at least twenty years,” he offered, gesturing at their surroundings with his cup. “It sucks in the summer when it’s crawling with tourists, but it’s great in the winter.”
Eliza nodded. What does that have to do with anything?
As if he could read her mind, he smirked. “Sorry. Not sure where to start.”
She waited, resisting the instinct to try to put him at ease.
He drummed briefly on the table with both hands, as if it were a set of bongos. “So,” he began. “I’ve been trying to avoid thinking about you, and this”?—he gestured between them?—“but I haven’t been very successful. And last night, the thing with Barbara... It just hit me what a kick in the head life can be.
“I fucked things up royally with your mother. After what happened at our reunion, I was delusional enough to think that we were going to make things right. That she’d leave your dad.”
Eliza flinched. Scott had been a toddler then. Could Laura really have entertained the idea of ending the marriage?
Ross shook his head. “I doubt that was ever even in her mind. But I was pissed anyway when she cut me off. Pissed and hurt. So for you to come to me with this news...”
She shifted in her seat. Was she going to have to sit through the same speech again in different words? And “this news”? He couldn’t even say that he was her father? “I got all this the last time. I don’t need to hear it again,” she said sharply, readying herself to rise and wishing she’d gotten her tea to go.
Ross put out his hand. “No, no. Please. I got off on the wrong foot. As usual, as lots of people would probably say.”
She relaxed her back but remained on alert for any signs that she should bolt.
“Let me start over.” He paused and took a deep breath. “We only get one time through this life. At least as far as we know. And if we’re potentially only one allergic reaction away from shuffling off this mortal coil, I don’t want to lose the chance to get to know you. I mean, it’s sort of amazing to think about the fact that this young woman sitting here”?—he gestured toward her?—“wouldn’t exist without me. I want to learn more about her. That is, about you.”
Without realizing it, she’d clenched her fists, and her fingernails were digging into her palms.
“So, what do you think?” Ross asked.
What did she think? She had whiplash from his about-face. Who was to say he wouldn’t change his mind again next week? Or next year? Did she want to put herself in a situation where she could get dumped?—again?—by her own biological father?
“I don’t know,” she said quietly.
He chuckled. “I get it. You’re wondering if you can trust this jerk sitting across from you. I’d like to say you can. That I wouldn’t be here if I wasn’t sure about building some sort of relationship with you. But all I can promise is that I fully intend to try. Self-sabotage is definitely part of my MO, though... so it’s fair that you’re wary.”
She studied him?—his cocky smile, his eyes that so closely resembled hers. And thought she could see something else there. Fear, maybe? Fear that she’d say no? Fear that he’d screw this up? Fear of death? Who knew?
“What would this even look like?” she asked.
“You got me. But we’re intelligent people?—I mean, you do have half my DNA, and Laura was always smarter than me; I told her so all the time. We’d figure it out.”
She could tell that he was turning on whatever charm he had. Counting on his sense of humor to win her over. She stalled, taking a sip of her tea. Her instinct was to run, as fast as she could possibly go. But she reined herself in. “I need to think about it.”
His eyebrows drew together, and she forced herself to elaborate. Exposing herself?—figuratively, that was?—had never come easy to her.
“I’ve been numb the last few months, but now it’s hit me that my dad is gone. And that I miss him. And I was really... hurt... by what you said last time. I need some time.”
He winced a bit but nodded. “That’s fair. I knew you were smart.” He smiled, his eyes crinkling, and she could tell that that, too, was a go-to move for him. When she didn’t respond, he shrugged. “So the ball’s in your court now, I guess.”
“I guess it is.”
He’d finished his cheesecake and his coffee, so he picked up the plate and cup. “I’m gonna go. And I hope I hear from you. Seriously.”
She watched him leave his items on the counter and smile at the barista, feeling her intestines relax a bit. Now what? The obvious choice was to head home and try to get some sleep, but the idea of being alone in her apartment wasn’t very appealing. She slowly finished her tea and went outside, heading north on Bleecker Street.
Because it was Mo’s neighborhood, she knew it reasonably well, and wandered in and out of shops, browsing. Her feet took her to Chelsea Market, where she spent an inordinate amount of time in the aisles of Artists & Fleas wondering if she could make a living crafting handbags or jewelry, and then feeling impelled to support those making a go of it by buying herself a hand-hammered bangle and a purse with all sorts of cleverly concealed zippers and pockets. She was putting her wallet away when she realized she hadn’t checked her phone in a while. There was a text from Josh, just checking in and telling her that he was hoping to get out of the office early if she was around. What did that mean?
She looked at the time. Somehow, she’d whiled away the afternoon. For the heck of it, she Googled Joshua Abrams and “New York” and found his address. Not far from where she’d met Ross. If she lied to herself, it was on the way back to the subway. It was doubtful he was even there yet. But that was where she headed, anyway.