Chapter IX
IX
I arrive at the restaurant with time to spare, needing a moment to settle in before Reid appears.
The hostess leads me to a sunny table tucked into the corner, and I order a peppermint tea.
My body is already electric, and more caffeine would tip me over the edge.
I’m surprised by the jangle of my nerves.
I keep reminding myself that I was in this man’s presence just last night.
That Reid and I maybe even loved each other once, that he’s not some stranger whose approval I’m courting.
That he has, in fact, seen me naked. Though my pulse only kicks up more in response to all of it.
When Reid walks in, his eyes sweep the room until they find me.
He greets me with a smile, warm and familiar, and it’s like the light pulses through the window with an even gentler glow.
He looks good in a white cotton T-shirt that brings out the bronze of his skin.
The thin silver chain of a necklace is barely visible above the neckline.
I wish I had my camera with me, and that it wouldn’t be strange to ask to take his portrait.
Maybe we can work up to that.
Reid leans down for a brief hug, just long enough that I can breathe in his scent. My heartbeat ratchets up again.
“That color’s beautiful on you,” he says, settling into his chair.
“Thank you.” Heat climbs my neck, though of course I deliberately chose this outfit: a gossamer, blue-gray top with a plunging neckline, and a pair of high-waisted flared jeans that, according to Nisha, J.Lo also owns.
(One thing I love about my brilliant biochemical engineer friend: She still has a print subscription to Us Weekly.) It’s been a long time since I’ve dressed for anyone other than myself, and I’ve forgotten this particular thrill—the way the right clothes can summon exactly the words I want to hear.
The waitress comes to take Reid’s drink order—an Americano, with a splash of milk—and after she leaves, we regard each other quietly for a handful of seconds.
The silence isn’t uncomfortable; there’s a giddiness to it that I recognize from long ago.
A pocket of possibility opens up between us, and suddenly we’re twenty and twenty-two again, recognizing each other as a well of potential and adventure.
“This is weird, right?” I finally ask, breaking the silence.
“So fucking weird,” Reid agrees, laughing.
“Good. Now we can actually talk.”
When he smiles, I notice the tiny chip in his front tooth, the one that wasn’t there when we were young.
“Where did that come from?” I tap my own tooth.
“Ah. So you did notice it.” His cheeks redden, like he’s ashamed for having wondered. “Happened the summer I met you, actually, about a week after I got back to LA. I was skateboarding with a friend in Echo Park—”
“Hang on. You skateboarded?”
“Of course I did.” Reid gestures vaguely at himself. “Southern California kid.” His gaze scans over me. “Why? You like that?”
“Of course I do.” I wave my hand in front of my own face. “New York City kid.”
“Well, my skating days pretty much ended after that. That neighborhood has some ridiculously steep streets, just these relentless drops, and my shithead friend dared me to skate one of the really hellish ones. I’m lucky I didn’t crack my skull open.”
I cock my head, remembering how I’d needed to coax him out onto the fire escape at that party on East Fifth Street. “I thought you were afraid of heights.”
Reid tilts his head too, like he’s also remembering that moment. “I hate them, but I was feeling pretty reckless that day.” He looks at me challengingly. “Got the job but lost the girl.”
“Hm,” I say. “I can’t imagine why she would’ve let you go.”
“Maybe if she hadn’t, I’d still have the rest of my tooth.”
“But you wouldn’t look so ruggedly handsome.”
His gaze unhurriedly travels my face before dropping to my mouth, stays there a beat too long. My brain short-circuits, and I’m hit with a memory of his mouth on my skin, the way his breath alone made me needy and liquid.
From the wicked curve of his lips, I think he’s remembering the same. I came apart so easily beneath his hands.
Then I feel my phone buzz in my bag, breaking the tension between us. Please, I think, do not ring again. Let me stay in this moment, let me pretend there’s nothing else in my world to attend to.
It buzzes insistently.
“I’m sorry,” I say, reaching down to grab it. “This could be Emme.”
Reid clears his throat, a verbal bucket of cold water thrown onto himself. “No need to apologize.”
But when I check the missed call, it’s not Emme. It’s my dad.
Dread washes over me, as it always does when my parents call unexpectedly.
A year ago, my father miraculously survived a widow-maker heart attack, thanks in part to James, who immediately called in a favor with his hospital’s best interventional cardiologist. He’s managed to make a full recovery physically, and emotionally too.
For this, I have his immigrant’s mindset to thank: You make a survival, you move on.
But the experience left me traumatized.
“Everything OK?” Reid asks.
“I’m . . . actually not sure. It’s my dad. He’s not usually the type to spring a random call on me.”
He shoos me. “Go. Call him back. Believe me, I get the sandwich generation routine. Call your dad.”
I dial on my way to the restroom. My dad picks up after a single ring, which means he’s been waiting by the phone.
“You OK?” I ask in greeting. I keep my tone light to hide the worry, but I know my dad can see right through me.
“Sweetheart, I’m fine,” he assures me in his broad Brooklynese accent. I flinch when I hear a groan on the other end. “I’m just getting out of my club chair. You know how deep this thing is? You sink right down into the bowels of the earth. I can practically smell the subway stink from here.”
“You know they make better chairs now.”
“No, no. I like my chair to hell.”
“Your prerogative.” Satisfied that he’s not in any immediate danger, I glance in the mirror, lean in closer, and touch up my lip gloss.
“So Lili-bean,” he says. “Any chance you want to schlep uptown this afternoon?”
My lip gloss hovers over my mouth. My dad rarely makes last-minute demands on my time.
“I’m at lunch with a friend,” I say.
“Oh, good, good. Go, enjoy yourself. I’ll call you later.”
I know he’s relieved that he doesn’t have to follow through on asking me for help, but I won’t let him run. “Dad. What do you need?”
“Eh, it’s nothing. I’m just getting some paperwork together.
Streamlining, organizing, et cetera. Your mother thinks it was a good idea you had, to start paying our bills on the computer.
I tell her we’re fine, ConEd will still accept a paper check, but she wants to make it easier for us.
So, you know. I thought maybe you could help me with this. ”
Before the heart attack, my father never talked about what might happen when he and my mother decline, or when one of them passes.
But once he was back on his feet, he had me sign a power of attorney for both him and my mom, updated his will, and informed me, with his characteristic no-nonsense approach, that he bought plots for himself and my mom at Beth Olam Cemetery—at a discount, no less. They run a two-for-one special.
It was my suggestion to set up all their recurring payments on autopay, just to give them one less thing to think about.
And myself, when the time comes that I’ll need to take over their finances.
But getting him to agree to this has been an uphill battle.
This is a man who crawled his way out of Lithuania and came to New York at nine years old without a lick of English.
This is a man who still, at eighty-five, reads a book a week and does the Sunday Times crossword puzzle in pen.
He is not going to give up his independence without a fight.
But today—for reasons known only to him—he is relenting.
“It’s fine,” I say. “I can leave lunch in a few minutes. I’ll be there in half an hour.”
I hope that Reid will understand. And then I know he will. I remember his devotion to his own mother. That she was one of the reasons why he was resistant to staying in New York.
“No, no, don’t cancel on my account. Is Emmela around today? Tell her to come help me. Your mother wants to give her something anyway. Some old purses, I don’t know.”
“Dad, Emme doesn’t even know how to work a landline. She can’t help you with this. I’ll see you in a bit.”
Another groan. “OK, but don’t eat too much before you leave. Your mother went crazy at Zabar’s and bought a pound of nova.”
When I get back to the table, Reid is reading something intently on his phone, wearing a pair of tortoiseshell glasses. Combined with the slash of stubble along his jaw, they give him a sexy, professorial look.
He takes them off when I sit down and puts his phone away. Concern crosses his expression, and I momentarily lose all my resolve to leave this restaurant.
“My parents are fine. My dad just wanted me to come help him with something. I was thinking about going up to their apartment now, but . . .”
“Damn. I knew I should’ve listened to Cat when she told me to cover up the gray hair.”
I laugh. “Please don’t.” I sigh and look down at my hands clasped on the table.
“My dad asked if I could help him arrange some of his finances, and he is quite possibly the most stubborn man on earth. If I don’t do this now, he’ll probably never give me the opportunity again. This, today, is my window.”
“I’ll come help you, then.” He says this with casual conviction, as if it’s not just the obvious choice but also the only choice.
“Reid,” I say, laughing harder, “I can’t ask you to set up an elderly couple’s autopay during your limited time in New York.”
“You didn’t ask me to set up an elderly couple’s autopay during my limited time in New York. I’m telling you that I want to do it.”
“I . . .”