Chapter 8 #2
“Because you’re honest and fair and strong and courageous, and you have integrity to an insane degree, and you’re kind and you care.
You’re what people should be like, and nobody is, or very few.
And you get me and still like me. You understand me.
And I get you. That’s worth everything. Meet me somewhere for coffee, water, root beer, anything, and if you still don’t want to see me after that, I’ll leave you alone.
I don’t know how I will, but I’ll try.” He was so earnest, she couldn’t refuse him again.
He asked her one question then. “Why are you so afraid to go to bed with me again?” She took a long time to answer while she thought about it.
“Because if I do, you’ll own me, body and soul.
I won’t have the strength to leave you. That always happens to me.
I lose all perspective, and the guts to leave.
” He didn’t like what she said but it explained why she was so afraid to see him alone in one of their apartments.
It made sense. “We started all wrong. We jumped right in with both feet, before finding out what we needed to know. And it was too late after that. It took me years to get myself back, after my one really bad affair. He was a terrible guy. I don’t want to lose myself again, no matter how wonderful I think you are. ”
“I think you’re as lonely as I am.” He cut to the chase, and she didn’t answer at first.
“That’s probably true,” she admitted. “I am lonely. But that’s better than heartbroken, disappointed, and abandoned.”
“I’m taking the same risk you are if you find a better guy, one who didn’t get all screwed up in his childhood.”
“There isn’t a better guy,” she said softly. “Less wounded maybe, but not better.”
“Coffee?” he asked her. “Or a walk?” He held his breath until she answered.
“I’ll think about it,” was all she said to him.
He called her back the next day, and she agreed to meet him at a deli he knew in the Village, for coffee, on Saturday.
Charlotte arrived on time, looking pale and serious, with her red hair pulled back, and wearing a parka.
It was hard to be so close to him again, and when she saw his face and his eyes, it took her breath away.
They had soup instead of coffee and made small talk.
They talked about his interview again, and after they ate, Ben asked her to walk with him.
The Village was crowded, and they strolled to the walkway leading to the Chelsea Piers, next to the Hudson River.
It was cold but invigorating. It felt good just to be near him again, and she kept getting images in her head of their lovemaking on the deserted beach.
It was hard not to think of that when she saw him.
They looked at the boats at the pier, with the occasional motor yacht or sailboat tucked in between other boats, historical and commercial, and a cruise ship.
“I brought the Karma here last year,” he said.
“It was fun having her in New York. There’s a lot of traffic in this port, though.
It was a little scary. A big sailboat ran aground last year right in the middle of the harbor.
It was very exciting, but the captain was mortified.
They got her off eventually.” He smiled at her, and she walked along next to him, trying not to feel the magnetic pull between them. It was still there, stronger than ever.
It started to snow, and they turned around and walked south in the falling snowflakes.
It was beautiful watching it fall over the river, and she tucked a hand into his arm as they walked along without talking.
It was strange thinking about what an important man Ben was, how huge his business life was, and here he was walking along the river with her in the West Village, like ordinary people on a Saturday.
He could have been anywhere in the world that he wanted to be, with far more important people than she was.
Charlotte thought it was only a matter of time before he got bored with her.
They walked all the way back to her apartment and their jackets were wet when they got there, but they liked walking together, and there was a thin blanket of clean snow on the ground, and flakes of it on their eyelashes and hair. It felt like a movie, and added a layer of romance.
“Do you want to come up for a minute and dry off?” Charlotte asked.
Her hair was dusted with flakes and wet, and so was his.
Ben followed her up the stairs to the small, cozy apartment where she lived and wrote, and had spent days writing the article about him, until the final minutes of the year, when she finished it.
They took their jackets off and left them in the front hall, and she put on water for tea. He followed her into the kitchen.
“Do you want something stronger?” she asked him, and he smiled at her.
“That might be nice. What do you have?”
“Rum, tequila, and red wine. I keep the rum and tequila for my son when he’s in town.
This apartment is too small to entertain in,” but it was warm and inviting.
Ben opened the bottle of red wine and poured a glass for each of them.
Charlotte turned off the stove and put away the tea, and came to sit next to him on the couch.
It was like a sigh of relief sinking into the couch next to him, and he looked as happy as she did.
They could see the falling snow through her windows.
She laughed thinking of the contrast between the vast elegant spaces on the boat and her apartment.
Everything around them here was bright and colorful and cozy, and in the daytime it was bathed in sunlight, with all her eclectic treasures close at hand.
Ben loved it. It felt like a real home to him, as real as she was.
“I would have given anything to live in a place like this when I was a kid, freezing in winter, hiding in doorways and train stations, dodging the cops so I didn’t get sent back to foster care.
I was good at outsmarting them.” It made her heart ache for him again when he reminded her.
But the end of the story was a happy one for him, much happier than the beginning.
“My son Hugh grew up here. I kept threatening to move to a bigger apartment, but he wouldn’t let me. He loves it. But he’s happy in Dubai now. I just hope he doesn’t stay there. It’s a long way to go to visit him. I get there once or twice a year, and he came here once, for a few days.”
“I still want to meet him,” Ben said quietly.
“He’d be very impressed that I know you,” she said, and he poured them both a second glass of wine, and after he set the bottle down, he kissed her gently on the lips and she didn’t resist him.
She knew what she was doing when she let him into the apartment to dry off.
His hair was dry now, and his kisses were gentle and tender.
They stretched out on the couch together, and a few minutes later, their clothes were on the floor and they were making love.
It was a safe place where they could be warm and tender together.
It was a refuge for both of them. They eventually made it to her bed, which was only a few steps away.
She had a big, comfortable bed with warm blankets on it.
He felt at home with her body, and her books and the objects around them from her travels.
It was the only place on earth he wanted to be now, with someone he knew he could love and trust. He knew he was safe in her hands.
They slept afterward for a while, woke up, and wandered out to the kitchen naked, as she looked at him with a wry smile.
“What is it about you that I can’t keep my clothes on when I see you, and we wind up making love right after hello?” Ben laughed and smiled tenderly at her.
“It’s some kind of spell someone put on me. I have the same problem with meetings at the office, or when I entertain. Everyone wants to take their clothes off and get naked with me,” he said, and she laughed.
“It’s a very nice spell,” she said, and kissed him. “The problem is, Mr. Sharpe, you’re addictive. I take one look at you, and I have to have you.”
“Is that a problem? You have the same effect on me.”
“It could be a problem,” she said. It was what she was worried about—loving him so much that one day she would think she couldn’t live without him.
It was what had happened to her before and she didn’t want it to happen again.
And this time was worse. She had known him for weeks and she already felt attached to him and couldn’t bear the thought of losing him one day, and the best predictor of the future was the past. He was a man who slipped his moorings and flew away after a year or two, to bluer skies.
He said so himself. She wanted to be his blue sky forever, and no one could guarantee that, not even Ben.
She was afraid to take a leap of faith with him.
He spent the night with her, and they made love again.
In the morning, there were six inches of snow on the ground.
They went out for breakfast and came back and made love.
She had work to do and didn’t care. She was doing research again for her article about the governor.
He kissed her before he left. Her eyes looked like melted emeralds. “Will I see you again?” he asked her, but he could already see the answer in her eyes.
“It’s so perfect with us,” she said softly with her arms around him, and he had his around her. “It’ll never last, and then you’ll go, and it will kill me.” The more she loved him, the more afraid she was.
“You’d be a hard woman to leave,” he said.
“It’s been done before,” she answered quietly, and her heart had the scars to prove it.