Chapter 28
FRIDAY, AUGUST 20
The phone call with Kathy and Ed had literally made Sawyer sick to her stomach; she couldn’t eat. She couldn’t sleep, either. The weight of what she had yet to do—call off the wedding and smash their hearts to pieces—was crushing her.
She thought about emailing Nick that she couldn’t make it that Friday. Several times over the course of that week, Sawyer sat staring at a blank email message, ordering herself to write to Nick that she couldn’t make it.
The message—despite her best efforts—remained blank, unsent.
After a while, she considered modifying the plan. If she was going to cancel their Friday together, it would be better to explain to Nick in person.
But when Sawyer saw Nick a few minutes after noon on that Friday, sitting at her favorite table near the waterfall in Greenacre Park, it was like the sun breaking through an ominous storm cloud, lighting the way. She felt her body warm and loosen up, her chest grow lighter.
He was sitting, waiting for her with a couple of hot dogs and a big grin. In that second, she knew she wasn’t willing to spend a second of that weekend without him.
“I thought I’d be blatantly obvious with the symbolism of what I really want to give you,” Nick joked, handing her one of the hot dogs.
She snorted with laughter, accepted the hot dog, and raised an eyebrow—first at the frank, then at him.
“Well, that makes me want to hurry up back to your place,” she teased. “How fast can we eat these?”
Nick looked at her, dead serious. “I don’t know, but I’m ready to give the world champion hot dog eaters in Coney Island a run for their money.”
They wolfed down the hot dogs and raced to Nick’s. Once there, they didn’t quite make it to the bed and wound up having sex on the floor.
Afterward, they lay on the rug, exhausted, naked despite the bright afternoon sunshine streaming in the windows. They talked, until they were kissing again. Finally they moved to the bed, and discovered each other all over again, this time more slowly and deliberately.
Time took on that strange, elastic quality again, where the moments stretched long and short at the same time. After a while, the light began to wane in the windows with the first hints of evening dusk.
“When I’m with you, it’s almost like another dimension,” Sawyer observed in a murmur, her body entwined with Nick’s. She heard her own words aloud and felt a self-conscious twinge. “That sounds like some kind of cheesy cliché, I know,” she said.
“No,” Nick disagreed. “I think I know what you mean. Things feel different to me, too. The light, the time, the hours in the day.”
Sawyer smiled, relieved to know the experience was shared in some way.
“Actually, I’ve been thinking about this,” she admitted. “I think maybe New York exists on multiple planes.” She paused, and added, “It’s like I was living in an entirely different New York until this summer…with you.”
Nick pulled her closer against him, then craned his neck to give her a kiss. She kissed him back, then laid her ear against his chest, listening to the even inhale and exhale of his lungs. She felt strangely light, and also like she was slowly falling through the bed, through the floor, through the planet.
She dozed off for a brief spell.
A short while later, Sawyer awoke to the sound of water rushing through a tap. As she stirred in the bed, she realized that Nick was gone. The windows were fully dark, glowing only with the incandescence of the streetlamps outside, and streaked with rain. The heat had broken, giving way to the cool relief of a summer storm. She lifted her head and looked in the direction of the sound.
The claw-foot tub in the kitchen.
Nick was filling it, and lighting candles.
She got up and crossed the room, gazing wide-eyed at the candlelit scene.
“First time you were here, you were so curious about it,” Nick said.
“I’ve never taken a bath in the middle of a kitchen before.”
He stepped in, and held his arms out to help her follow him in. “C’mon,” he urged.
Sawyer stepped up carefully into the tub. They faced each other, like a dare, and eased their bodies into the warm, sudsy water, then leaned back against opposite ends. Nick had added some kind of oil; the water felt silky and smelled like lavender and cedar. At first, Sawyer gazed at Nick across from her, the planes of his face catching the flickering candlelight. She felt his hand on her leg under the water, surprised that even after everything they’d done that afternoon, his simplest touch still managed to give her a little thrill. She breathed in the scented oils and took in the scene around them, surveying the details more closely.
“The romance level here is pretty impressive.”
“Good. That’s what I was aiming for,” Nick said.
She gave him a coy, suspicious look.
“What?” he demanded, wary.
“Don’t kill me…”
“What is it?”
“Have you hosted many ladies in this tub?” she asked. “Do they all get…you know…?” She gestured to the candles and the scented oils.
“Only the really special ones.”
“Ah. So this is your ‘move.’?”
“This old bathtub is my favorite secret in this apartment,” Nick said. “I already told you that. But as far as secrets go, I’ve never shared it with anyone.”
“Wait—you’re saying you’ve never taken a bath with anyone else in this tub?”
“Nope. You’re the first,” he answered. “This is ‘my move’ with you—the one and only you.” He shook his head. “I’ve never had to work so hard to impress someone as I have with you.”
Sawyer frowned, puzzled.
“What?” Nick said, reading her face.
“I guess sometimes I wonder…why me?”
He shrugged. “You’re someone to impress.”
“Not sure you felt that way the night we met,” she retorted. “I’m pretty sure you mocked my name, then hauled ass to the bar, desperate for a fresh glass of whiskey.”
“Scotch,” Nick corrected. “And I did think you were someone to impress. You’re the kind of girl I never bother to ask out, because I figure a girl like you is way out of my league,” he explained. “And of course, the cherry on top is that girls like you always end up with guys like Charles, who’s even less in your league.”
The mention of Charles made her unsettled, nervous. She was silent for a moment.
“Anyway, I wasn’t exactly in a good mood the night we met,” Nick said.
He paused, then proceeded to paint the picture from his own perspective.
“There was my girlfriend: flirting with her jackass coworker. And sitting next to her coworker, there was this beautiful, intelligent, kindhearted girl trying to salvage the situation by being cheerful and making friendly small talk. I was rude because the whole thing sucked, from top to bottom: canceling a gig to attend a stuffy corporate dinner for a company I don’t even work for, Kendra, Charles…and the fact that a girl like you would put up with a jerk like that.”
Sawyer was surprised. She would have never been able to guess he’d felt that way.
“And clearly you stayed on my mind,” Nick said. “Because I jumped through a few hoops to get your email address and send you an apology.”
“Did you…like me, um, this way…then?” she asked, baffled.
“Well, I thought you were attractive, but I wasn’t hitting on you with that apology, if that’s what you’re asking,” Nick replied. “I really did just feel like I owed you an apology. But then…you started being all cute and charming over the internet…and then I guess the stuff with Kendra and Charles just got to me; you didn’t deserve that.”
“It’s strange, isn’t it,” she mused. “We came together because we thought they might be having an affair, and now, we’re the ones…well, here.” She glanced between their naked bodies in the bathtub.
“I still say they’re having an affair,” Nick said.
Sawyer looked at him. He shrugged.
“Not to be a guy about it, but if it’s like you say, and there’s nothing going on at home…well…” Nick shrugged again.
Sawyer wondered if she’d ever know the truth. But it felt different to wonder now—less personal, or at a slight remove, almost like she was wondering about a friend’s life instead of her own.
“So, you admit: you invited me to meet you at the Yale Club because you wanted to protect me from the same thing that once happened to you, in the past…” Sawyer said, remembering her revelation on the ferry.
“Yeah, but by then I could tell some part of me was already trying to impress you, too. I’d read your poem and couldn’t stop thinking about it. And I subconsciously did all the things I usually do when I’m trying to wow a girl—nice suit, rooftop drinks at the Yale Club—only, you impressed me when it was obvious that you weren’t into any of that. That day we spent on the Lower East Side—the Watering Hole, the Tenement Museum, Katz’s, listening to my friend’s band at the club—that day, I knew it was already too late. And each time I’ve seen you since, I’ve only wanted more.”
Sawyer sat there, absorbing all this, surprised by how everything had totally realigned itself. That first evening they’d met, Nick had come off so cocky and rude…she’d been sure he disdained her. It was a shock to think that he’d noticed her—really noticed her—right from the start. It was a shock to hear him say she was the kind of girl he felt was out of his league, when she’d felt the reverse was true. And it was a shock the way he spoke so frankly now, as they sat naked in the tub facing each other, unmasking his initial behavior—the way he’d mocked her name, his dry cynicism, and his aloof demeanor—for what it was: the defense mechanisms of a person who, in the end, cared a great deal. And cared a great deal about her, especially.
She scooted toward him in the bathtub and gave him a sincere, lingering kiss.
Nick smiled.
He kissed her back, until eventually they were doing much more than kissing, and the lukewarm water was lapping over the edge of the tub, falling to the floor in tiny splashing waterfalls.
Once the heat broke and the rain passed, the weather turned tauntingly perfect.
It was sunny, but the air was dry and cool, tempered by a gentle breeze from the western direction, over the Hudson. The streets smelled clean. People walked around rosy-cheeked but sweat-free. Everyone was bright-eyed and in a good mood, a rarity in New York.
The problem with the spell of perfect weather was that it was so perfect, it was impossible for Nick and Sawyer to stay indoors for the entire weekend.
By Sunday afternoon, they finally gave in, and made up their minds to venture out, setting their sights on Central Park and packing up a picnic blanket. On their way, they stopped at Gristedes and filled up a couple of grocery bags with snacks. When they got to the park, they walked around for a bit first, showing each other their favorite spots.
Nick loved the echoing arcade tunnel under Bethesda Terrace, with its arches and antique tiled ceilings lit up with white carnival light bulbs.
“The perfect spot to do a clandestine drug deal,” Sawyer joked about the tunnel.
“Or play the violin,” Nick replied, nodding to the violinist taking advantage of the acoustics.
Sawyer smiled. It was a beautiful spot, actually. A play of light and shadow mingled with a play of sound and echo. Inside the darkness of the tunnel, its belle epoque arches framed the Bethesda Fountain with its winged angel behind them, and the lake beyond. They continued through the tunnel and up the stairs to one of Central Park’s classic wide paths lined with enormous trees, their leaves forming a lush canopy.
“Now I’ll show you my favorite place in the park,” Sawyer said, pointing off to the right.
She led the way along a few smaller paths that wound around a couple of small hills, then reached a clearing and a paved road. Disco music pumped from a boom box hooked up to an amp. A low wire fence roped off an irregular oval shape, and roller skaters whizzed in circles, pumping their legs in time to the music, spinning and swirling and dancing. Nick laughed.
“Interesting!” he commented. “I never would have guessed. Skater’s Circle is your favorite spot in the park?”
“I love it,” Sawyer admitted. “Roller skates…the campy music…Everybody’s so happy in this little corner of the park.”
“Have you ever joined in?”
Sawyer shyly shook her head.
“I don’t even own a pair of roller skates,” she said.
“You can always get skates,” Nick said. “Easy. But maybe you don’t even need ’em to join in and have a good time.”
Sawyer thought about it for a minute and shrugged.
Nick pointed to a grassy slope beside the makeshift roller rink.
“Partial shade,” he said. “Perfect. Let’s go.”
They staked out a spot and laid down their blanket, then unpacked the picnic they’d cobbled together. Strawberries, carrot sticks, apple slices, barbecue-flavor chips, cheese and crackers, a deli tub of gourmet mac and cheese, a couple of cans of Limonata, plus a slice of very fancy-looking quiche from a French bakery they passed on the Upper East Side as they made their way from the subway to the park.
They grazed on the food for a while, watching the roller skaters, then sprawled out on the blanket.
Sawyer stared at the skaters, mesmerized. Nick stared at Sawyer staring.
“You really love watching those skaters.”
“I do,” Sawyer admitted. “They’re so free. There’s something in the air all around them. Like, a general good mood.”
“Could be a contact high from all the weed in the air,” Nick joked cynically.
Sawyer laughed. She looked at him and shrugged. “Anyway, I love it. Just sitting nearby, listening to their music…you kinda feel like part of the party.” She paused, and added, “It’s funny because the other thing I love to do in the park is kind of opposite—very solitary.”
“And that is?”
“Sit and read and get lost in a good book.”
“Of course,” Nick grunted and smiled.
He asked Sawyer how things were going at work, and she caught him up to speed.
“It sounds to me like you’re dying to follow Erin over to Knopf,” Nick commented. “So why not go for it?”
Sawyer sat up. She fidgeted, thinking, and pulled at the grass next to the blanket.
“I don’t know,” she said.
Nick laughed. “Look, Sawyer—it’s pretty simple. If you want to do something, you should do it.”
“Oh yeah?” Sawyer teased.
Nick shrugged. “There’s nothing stopping you.”
Sawyer mulled this for a moment. The music faded out and a new song came on as the DJ started playing “If You Feel Like Dancin’?” by Kool the Gang. She took it as a sign.
“Know what? You’re right.”
She stood up from the blanket and brushed herself off.
“Where are you going?” Nick asked.
“To do what I want to do,” Sawyer replied, her lips twisting into a secretive smile.
Nick watched with incredulity as she strode off in the direction of the makeshift roller rink. She picked her way around the perimeter until she found a break in the fencing and squeezed in. With a quick look to her left and right to make sure she could cross, Sawyer scampered to the middle of the rink, where the DJ worked the boom box and amp.
She shouted hello to the DJ and gave him a high five in greeting, then began dancing.
There was no truly graceful way to boogie down to Kool the Gang wearing flat shoes when everyone else was whizzing around you wearing roller skates, but Sawyer didn’t care. She started dancing tentatively at first, but soon enough, she was dancing with total abandon. There was a good chance she looked like a dork, but she didn’t care; she was really feeling the music now. She closed her eyes and tossed her hair.
When she opened her eyes again, they went straight to where Nick sat on the picnic blanket. He was laughing and shaking his head at her…but she could see deep affection in his expression, too, a kind of adoration. No one had ever looked at her this way; her stomach did a tiny flip as she caught Nick’s gaze and exchanged a knowing look.
A song or two later, she’d danced herself into a state of exhaustion. She returned to the picnic blanket, sweaty but buzzing with her newfound feeling of freedom.
“Oof, dancing is hard work!”
“It is when you do it like you were doing.”
Sawyer plopped down, flat on her back on the picnic blanket, and stared up at the pattern of tree leaves against the sky, steadily slowing her breath and letting her sweat cool her. She felt Nick studying her where she lay.
“What?” she asked cheerfully.
“You know…” he began. “You don’t need my advice, by the way. You have it in you to do whatever you want. Half the time, I’m telling you what you already know—I’m just repeating the thoughts and feelings I hear you saying back to you, basically.”
Sawyer looked at him and smiled.
“I know,” she said.
“I just wanted to make that clear.”
Sawyer nodded.
He reclined on the blanket near her, and she scooted closer and slightly perpendicular, using his stomach and chest as a pillow. Nick seemed to relax, happy. He ran his fingers idly through her hair. Then he reached for her hand. It was her left. He played absently with her hand, feeling each of her fingers in turn, but paused when he reached her ring finger. She could feel him tense, and saw him looking down at her engagement ring warily, lost in thought. Then, he took a breath, as though changing the subject.
“I was thinking I really want to go somewhere together,” he said.
“Somewhere?”
“Out of the city. For the weekend. A real weekend getaway, before the summer’s over,” he said. “Doesn’t have to be far. I’d really love to take you around Stony Brook, and show you where I grew up. And go to Cedar Beach and go swimming together.”
Sawyer smiled, imagining it. “That sounds really cool,” she agreed.
“I was thinking next weekend. Leave on Friday since we still have summer Fridays. I can pick you up around one, one thirty.”
Sawyer involuntarily froze. Her brain ticked through the details. Next weekend, Charles would be home from Chicago…What the hell would that be like? Her brain tried to imagine even further: If she and Nick went away for the weekend…then what? What would come next, after that?
Nick sat up. She felt him frowning at her, and she understood that he had glimpsed the hesitation written on her face.
“Damn it, Sawyer, I don’t know what to do sometimes.”
“What do you mean?”
“It’s just…I’ve never had to chase a woman so hard. Or wonder so much. To be honest…it feels a little like I’m the chick in the relationship.”
Sawyer quelled the urge to launch into a gender debate about what it meant to be “the chick in the relationship.” Nick was telling her something about himself; she understood that much.
“The way I feel about you, Nick…I’ve never felt this way about anybody,” she said quietly. “I want this. I want you.”
He gazed at her, steadily studying her face.
“Then, you’ll come next weekend?”
“I want to. I’ll…try to figure it out.”
His eyes dropped to the ring on her left hand again.
“I forget sometimes,” he said, tipping his chin in the direction of her ring. “You still haven’t taken the leap with me. Not really.”
She was uncomfortable. She slid the ring off her finger and held it in her palm, staring at it thoughtfully. She’d forgotten she was wearing it. At the same time, to say it meant nothing to her would be a lie.
“I owe him a conversation,” she said, still staring at the ring. Her voice was hushed but certain.
Nick was quiet for a long moment.
“You’re a nice person,” he said finally.
It didn’t sound like a compliment. But it also carried the weight of acceptance.
She realized she would feel strange putting the ring back on in front of Nick. She reached for her bag, and tucked it safely into one of the zippered pockets within.
Nick watched her with an expression she couldn’t quite place. Hope. Or cynicism. Or both. When it came to Nick, she realized, the two often sprang from the same deep well within his heart.