Chapter 10
“This was your idea, Daniel! You can’t chicken out now.”
Nora wanted to laugh at him, because he really was being ridiculous. But he was also honestly frightened. If the skittish look in his eye didn’t prove it, the way his hands were shaking definitely did.
“I know. I really thought I could do it, until I put the skates on.” She’d had to lace them up, because he wasn’t tying them nearly tight enough.
“Don’t you trust me? I said I’d help teach you how to skate.”
She’d been surprised when he suggested ice skating at Rockefeller Center because he’d never done it before.
But as he’d explained, “Isn’t that how everybody is?
When you live somewhere, you put off all the touristy stuff near you because you can always go there tomorrow, and then one day you realize you never did go at all.
” She’d never considered that, but it was true.
How many of the big tourist attractions back home had she actually seen? Not many.
He’d also mentioned that she’d probably look really cute in a skating outfit.
She’d picked out a dark green sweater from Rachel’s closet, a knee-length black skirt from her suitcase and a pair of leggings she’d left at Rachel’s two years ago and forgotten about until this morning.
And she did, immodest as it was to say, look very cute.
Right now, though, her main concern was getting Daniel on the ice. She stood, quickly finding her balance on her own skates, took his hand and tried to pull him up. He wasn’t budging.
“I trust you with my heart, Nora. But not with my ankles.”
Well, at least he was trying to joke. That was progress.
“Daniel, I worry about your body as much as your heart, or have you forgotten that?” That snapped him to attention.
She debated her next words for a moment.
When she said them, it was in her sweetest, most innocent voice.
“And you remember how quickly you learn when I’m teaching you, right?
” His eyes went all unfocused for a moment, and she knew exactly where his mind had gone.
Maybe it was playing dirty, but it worked, because he blinked a few times and then stood up himself, barely relying on her touch to help him balance on his skates.
It took a little more coaxing to actually get him on the ice, and a lot more to convince him to let go of the wall and just trust his own balance and her hand to keep him upright. But he finally did.
And afterwards, sitting in the little café beside the rink and enjoying a hot chocolate, he said, “My ankles are killing me. But it was totally worth it. I guess I really can trust you with all of me.”
Daniel , December 24
“Is this the movie theater you told me about?” Nora had asked to do something indoors today, after ice skating outdoors yesterday.
Daniel knew exactly what his girlfriend meant.
“Yeah.” The only difference between now and two and a half years ago was that they were parked a lot closer to the theater than he and Peggy had been.
He didn’t want to make Nora walk across a slushy parking lot.
Besides, it was the middle of the day and the windows of Dad’s car weren’t tinted, so even if they’d both wanted to, they couldn’t really get up to much.
She was thinking along the same lines; her head was turned, she was gazing at the back seat. But she finally shook her head and turned back to him. “Shall we go?”
“Sure.” He got out of the car, came around to the passenger side and opened her door. He grabbed her as she got out, just in case she stumbled on a bit of ice. “But are you sure you really want to see Working Girl ?”
“Yes! It looked really fun from the preview. And Harrison Ford is hot.”
But two hours later, it was clear that Working Girl had been the wrong choice. Nora was sniffling for the last fifteen or twenty minutes of the movie, and she began crying—sobbing, honestly—by the time they were outside and walking through the parking lot. Daniel had no clue what had upset her.
It wasn’t until they were almost back to the car that she finally spoke. “He was just like my Dad! Why didn’t you tell me the movie was about a guy dating somebody half his age?”
Daniel started to say that he’d had no idea what the movie was about, so how could he have known? But then he replayed her words, and things started to make sense.
She’d told him her parents were divorced, but she’d never said very much about them beyond that.
And she hadn’t been planning to come to New York over Christmas. She’d believed they wouldn’t see each other for twenty-three days as surely as he had. So something had to have changed when she got home.
When she got home to her father.
Her divorced father. Who was probably dating Melanie Griffith.
Well, obviously not Melanie Griffith, but someone as young as her. And when Nora found out about her father’s new girlfriend—or maybe actually met her—she couldn’t deal with it, so she called her Aunt and begged to be allowed to stay with her in New York.
It all sounded very logical, but he was pretty sure logic wasn’t what Nora needed right now. “I’m sorry,” he said. “Let’s get back to the car and we can drive over to Wendy’s and get you a chocolate Frosty and we can talk about it.”
“How will that help?” She nearly shouted it.
“Trust me. I always felt better after my Mom got me a Frosty, no matter what was wrong. I trusted you yesterday with the ice skating. You can trust me now.”
Nora , December 25
“I’m sorry about yesterday,” Nora said, sitting down on Daniel’s bed. It was really comfortable.
He sat down next to her. “There’s nothing to be sorry for.” With his arm around her, looking around at his childhood bedroom, she could almost make herself believe it.
Almost. “Yes, there is. And not just yesterday. I should have told you about my Dad. And my Mom. And a lot of other stuff. You told me so many personal things. So many secrets. All this stuff that had to be so hard to talk about. And I haven’t.
” Maybe Christmas day, with Daniel’s family and his neighbors waiting downstairs, wasn’t the time to talk about all her family baggage.
Or maybe that was just another excuse not to trust her boyfriend with seeing parts of herself that she wasn’t very proud of.
There’d always be some reason not to be honest with him.
“Nora, you don’t have to talk about things that are hard, or that hurt. If you want to, I’m here, and you know I love you. But it’s up to you what you do or don’t share. Not me.”
She put her arms around him, kissed him quickly, but she pulled away before he could kiss her back. They were in his childhood bedroom. And the door was open. Anybody could come walking by and see them.
“Sorry. I shouldn’t have—this isn’t the right time for that.
” She took a moment to collect herself. “Anyway. I do want to share. I just… I’m not real happy with how…
with the way I ended up at Rachel’s.” She took his hands in hers, squeezed them, and he squeezed back.
That helped. It gave her the strength to tell it all.
How ugly her parents’ divorce was. How she’d started acting out—sneaking off to parties, drinking, meeting boys, all of it—just so she could have something to feel besides how much she hurt when her parents kept hurting each other.
How she’d learned about both Joelle and Jean-Paul within a couple of hours of getting home from school.
How she came down to Rachel’s apartment even though Rachel wasn’t there. How lonely her apartment was at night.
Daniel listened to all of it, never looking away, never letting go of her.
When she was finished, he hugged her, tighter than he ever had, and then he got up and went to his closet.
She heard him grunt as he got on tippy-toes and searched around for something on the top shelf.
He came back with an old, ratty teddy bear.
She guessed its fur had been a rich brown once upon a time, but it was a sad beige now.
Daniel had to have had the bear from kindergarten.
Or maybe even before that. She wondered when he’d stopped sleeping with it and exiled it to the closet.
If she asked, he’d tell her. But she was never going to.
“I can’t do anything about your parents, or all the awful stuff you had to go through. But, here.” He handed the bear to her. “That’s Mr. Fuzzles. I want you to have him. Take him back with you to your Aunt’s place, and maybe you’ll feel a little less lonely.”
Before she could answer—and thank God, because the only answer she could think of was kissing him like she’d never kissed him before—there was a knock on the door, even though it was already open. Mrs. Keller was there.
“Nora, you shouldn’t be sleeping all alone in a strange apartment on Christmas night.
You’ll stay here tonight. You can have Lisa’s room, she won’t mind.
” She laughed. “Well, we won’t tell her, anyway.
Once everyone goes home, I’ll put clean sheets down for you.
And Daniel is right. When you go back tomorrow, please take Mr. Fuzzles with you.
It’s kind of nice to know he’s needed again. ”
Nora had no words; she just jumped up, tears streaming down her face, and hugged Daniel’s mother for dear life.
Daniel , Christmas night, bedtime
Daniel didn’t know how to feel. Nora was sleeping in Lisa’s room, not even ten feet from him. And Mom was fussing over her like Nora was her own daughter. Mom must have fussed over Lisa just as much—but he’d never noticed.
He was noticing a lot of things now, seeing a lot of things differently—more clearly—since he’d met Nora.
But at the moment, nothing felt clear at all.
He was an adult. Almost twenty. He had a girlfriend. They’d slept together. Made love.
But he was also lying in his childhood bed, with all his old toys in his closet and Mr. Fuzzles down the hall in Lisa’s Cinderella bedroom. And Mom was tucking Nora into bed. It felt like he was eight years old again.