Still Me Page 9

  During those first weekends I walked, too, for hours. I had initially assumed that Nathan and I would hang out together, exploring new places. But he seemed to have built a social circle of blokey men, the kind who really had no interest in female company unless they had sunk several beers first. He spent hours in the gym, and topped each weekend off with a date or two. When I suggested we go to a museum or perhaps to walk the High Line he would smile awkwardly and tell me he already had plans. So I walked alone, down through Midtown to the Meatpacking District, to Greenwich Village, to SoHo, veering off main streets, following whatever looked interesting, my map in my hand, trying to remember which way the traffic went. I saw that Manhattan had distinct districts, from the towering buildings of Midtown to the achingly cool cobbled roads around Crosby Street, where every second person looked like a model or as if they owned an Instagram feed devoted to clean eating. I walked with nowhere particular to go, and nowhere I had to be. I ate salad at a chopped-salad bar, ordering something with cilantro and black beans because I had never eaten either of them. I caught the subway, trying not to look like a tourist as I fathomed how to buy a ticket and identify the legendary crazies, and waited ten minutes for my heart rate to return to normal when I emerged back into daylight. And then I walked across the Brooklyn Bridge, as Will had done, and felt my heart lift at the sight of the glinting water below, feeling the rumble of the traffic beneath my feet, hearing once again his voice in my head. Live boldly, Clark.

  I stopped halfway across and stood very still as I gazed across the East River, feeling briefly suspended, almost giddy with the sense of no longer being tied to any place at all. Another tick. And slowly I stopped ticking off experiences, because pretty much everything was new and strange.

  On those first walks I saw:

  A man in full drag riding a bicycle and singing show tunes through a microphone and speakers. Several people applauded as he rode past.

  Four girls playing jump rope between two fire hydrants. They had two ropes going at once and I stopped to clap when they finally stopped jumping and they smiled shyly at me.

  A dog on a skateboard. When I texted my sister to tell her, she told me I was drunk.

  Robert De Niro.

  At least I think it was Robert De Niro. It was early evening and I was feeling briefly homesick and he walked past me on the corner of Spring Street and Broadway, and I actually said, "Oh, my God. Robert De Niro," out loud before I could stop myself as he walked past and he didn't turn round and I couldn't be sure afterward whether that was because he was just some random who thought I was talking to myself or whether that was exactly what you would do if you were Robert De Niro and some woman on the sidewalk started bleating your name.

  I decided the latter. Again, my sister accused me of being drunk. I sent her a picture from my phone but she said, That could be the back of anyone's head, you doofus, and added that I was not just drunk but genuinely quite stupid. It was at that point that I started to feel slightly less homesick.

  I wanted to tell Sam this. I wanted to tell him all of it, in beautiful handwritten letters or at least in long, rambling e-mails that we would later save and print out and that would be found in the attic of our house when we had been married fifty years for our grandchildren to coo over. But I was so tired those first few weeks that all I did was e-mail him about how tired I was.

  --I'm so tired. I miss you.

  --Me, too.

  --No, like really, really tired. Like cry at TV advertisements and fall asleep while brushing my teeth and end up with toothpaste all over my chest tired.

  --Okay, now you got me.

  I tried not to mind how little he e-mailed me. I tried to remind myself that he was doing a real, hard job, saving lives and making a difference while I was sitting outside manicurists' studios and running around Central Park.

  His supervisor had changed the rota. He was working four nights on the trot and still waiting to be assigned a new permanent partner. That should have made it easier for us to talk but somehow it didn't. I would check in on my phone in the minutes I had free every evening but that was usually the time he was heading off to begin his shift.

  Sometimes I felt curiously disjointed, as if I had simply dreamed him up.

  One week, he reassured me. One more week.

  How hard could it be?

  --

  Agnes was playing the piano again. She played when she was happy or unhappy, angry or frustrated, picking tumultuous pieces, high in emotion, closing her eyes, as her hands roved up and down the keyboard, and swaying on the piano stool. The previous evening she had played a nocturne, and as I passed the open door of the drawing room, I'd watched for a moment as Mr. Gopnik sat down beside her on the stool. Even as she became wholly absorbed in the music, it was clear that she was playing for him. I noted how content he was just to sit and turn the pages for her. When she'd finished she'd beamed at him, and he had lowered his head to kiss her hand. I tiptoed past the door as if I hadn't seen.

  I was in the study going over the week's events and had gotten as far as Thursday (Children's Cancer Charity lunch, Marriage of Figaro) when I became aware of a rapping at the front door. Ilaria was with the pet behaviorist--Felix had done something unmentionable in Mr. Gopnik's office again--so I walked out to the hallway and opened it.

  Mrs. De Witt stood in front of me, her cane raised as if to strike. I ducked instinctively and then, when she lowered it, straightened, my palms raised. It took me a second to grasp she had simply used it to rap on the door.

  "Can I help you?"

  "Tell her to quit that infernal racket!" Her tiny etched face was puce with fury.

  "I'm sorry?"

  "The masseuse. The mail-order bride. Whatever. I can hear it all the way down the corridor." She was wearing a 1970s Pucci-style duster coat with green and pink swirls and an emerald green turban. Even as I bristled at her insults, I was transfixed. "Uh, Agnes is actually a trained physical therapist. And it's Mozart."

  "I don't care if it's Champion the Wonder Horse playing the kazoo with his you-know-what. Tell her to pipe down. She lives in an apartment. She should have some consideration for other residents!"

  Dean Martin growled at me, as if in agreement. I was going to say something else but trying to work out which of his eyes was actually looking at me was weirdly distracting. "I'll pass that on, Mrs. De Witt," I said, my professional smile in place.

  "What do you mean 'pass it on'?" Don't just 'pass it on.' Make her stop. She drives me crazy with the wretched pianola. Day, night, whenever. This used to be a peaceful building."

  "But, to be fair, your dog is always bar--"

  "The other one was just as bad. Miserable woman. Always with her quacking friends, quack quack quack in the corridor, clogging up the street with their oversized cars. Ugh. I'm not surprised he traded her in."

  "I'm not sure Mr. Gopnik--"

  "'Trained physical therapist.' Good Lord, is that what we're calling it these days? I suppose that makes me chief negotiator at the United Nations." She patted her face with a handkerchief.

  "As I understand it, the great joy of America is that you can be whatever you want to be." I smiled.

  She narrowed her eyes. I held my smile.

  "Are you English?"

  "Yes." I sensed a possible softening. "Why? Do you have relatives there, Mrs. De Witt?"

  "Don't be ridiculous." She looked me up and down. "I just thought English girls were meant to have style." And with that she turned and, with a dismissive wave, hobbled off down the corridor, Dean Martin casting resentful glances behind her.

  --

  "Was that the crazy old witch across the corridor?" Agnes called, as I closed the door softly. "Ugh. No wonder nobody ever comes to see her. She is like horrible dried-up piece of suszony dorsz."

  There was a brief silence. I heard pages being turned.

  And then Agnes started a thunderous, cascading piece, her fingers crashing on the keyboard, hitting the pedal so hard t
hat I felt the wood floors vibrate.

  I fixed my smile again as I walked across the hallway, and checked my watch with an internal sigh. Only two hours to go.

  8

  Sam was flying in that day, and staying until Monday evening. He had booked us into a hotel a few blocks from Times Square. Given what Agnes had said about how we shouldn't be apart, I had asked if she might give me part of the afternoon off. She had said maybe in what I felt was a positive tone, although I got the distinct feeling that Sam coming for the weekend was an irritation to her. Still, I walked to Penn Station, a bounce in my step, and a weekend bag at my heels, and caught the AirTrain to JFK. By the time I got to the airport, slightly ahead of time, I was buzzing with anticipation.

  The arrivals board said Sam's flight had landed and that he was awaiting his luggage so I hurried into the Ladies to check my hair and makeup. A little sweaty from the walk and the packed train, I touched up my mascara and lipstick, and swiped at my hair with a brush. I was wearing turquoise silk culottes with a black polo-neck and black ankle boots. I wanted to look like myself, but also as if I had changed in some indefinable way, perhaps become a little more mysterious. I dodged out of the way of an exhausted-looking woman with an oversized wheelie case, gave myself a little spritz of perfume, then finally judged myself the kind of woman who meets her lover at international airports.

  All the same, as I walked out, heart thumping, and peered up at the board, I felt oddly nervous. We had been apart only four weeks. This man had seen me at my worst, broken, panicked, sad, contrary, and still apparently liked me. He was still Sam, I told myself. My Sam. Nothing had changed since the first time he had rung my doorbell and asked me, ham-fistedly, through the intercom, for a date.

  The sign still said: AWAITING LUGGAGE

  I wedged myself into position at the barrier, checked my hair again and trained my eyes on the double doors, smiling involuntarily at the shrieks of happiness as long-separated couples found each other. I thought, That'll be us in a minute. I took a deep breath, noting that my palms had started to sweat. A trickle of people made their way through, and my face kept settling into what I suspected was a slightly mad-looking rictus of anticipation, eyebrows raised, delighted, like a politician fake-spotting someone in a crowd.

  And then, as I rummaged in my bag for a handkerchief, I did a double-take. There, a few yards away from me in the mass of people, stood Sam, a head taller than anyone around him, scanning the crowd, just as I was. I muttered, "Excuse me," to the person on my right at the barrier, ducked under it, and ran toward him. He turned just as I got to him and promptly whacked me, hard, in the shin with his bag.

  "Oh, shoot. Are you okay? Lou? . . . Lou?"

  I clutched my leg, trying not to swear. Tears had sprung to my eyes and when I spoke it came through a gasp of pain. "It said your luggage wasn't through!" I said, teeth clenched. "I can't believe I missed our great reunion! I was in the loo!"

  "I came hand luggage only." He put his hand on my shoulder. "Is your leg okay?"

  "But I had it all planned! I had a sign and everything!" I wrestled it, specially laminated, out of my jacket and straightened, trying to ignore the throbbing in my shin. WORLD'S HANDSOMEST PARAMEDIC. "This was meant to be one of the defining moments of our relationship! One of those moments you look back on and go, 'Aah, do you remember that time I met you at JFK?'"

  "It's still a great moment," he said hopefully. "It's good to see you."

  "Good to see me?"

  "Great. It's great to see you. Sorry. I'm knackered. Didn't sleep."

  I rubbed my shin. We stared at each other for a minute. "It's no good," I said. "You have to go again."

  "Go again?"

  "To the barrier. And then I'll do what I planned, which is hold up my sign, then run toward you and we kiss and we start it all properly."

  He stared at me. "Seriously?"

  "It'll be worth it. Go on. Please."

  It took him a moment longer to confirm that I wasn't joking, then he began to walk against the tide of arrivals. Several people turned to stare at him, and somebody tutted.

  "Stop!" I yelled across the noisy concourse. "That'll do!"

  But he didn't hear me. He kept walking, all the way to the double doors--I had a fleeting fear that he might just jump back on the plane.

  "Sam!" I yelled. "STOP!"

  Everyone turned. Then he turned, and saw me. And as he started to walk toward me again I ducked back under the barrier. "Here! Sam! It's me!" I waved my sign and as he walked toward me he was grinning at the ridiculousness of it all.

  I dropped the sign and ran toward him, and this time he didn't bash me in the shin but let his bag fall at his feet and swept me up and we kissed like people do in the movies, fully and with absolute joy and without self-consciousness or fears about coffee breath. Or perhaps we did. I couldn't tell you. Because from the moment Sam picked me up I was oblivious to everything else, to the bags and the people and the eyes of the crowds. Oh, God, but the feel of his arms around me, the softness of his lips on mine. I didn't want to let him go. I held on to him and felt the strength of him around me and breathed in the scent of his skin and I buried my face in his neck, my skin against his, feeling like every cell in my body had missed him.

  "Better, you insane person?" he said, when he finally pulled back so that he could see me properly. I think my lipstick may have been halfway across my face. I almost definitely had stubble rash. My ribs hurt where he was holding me so tightly.

  "Oh, yes," I said, unable to stop grinning. "Much."

  --

  We decided to drop our bags at the hotel first, me trying not to gabble with excitement. I was talking nonsense--a stream of disjointed thoughts and observations coming out of my mouth unfiltered. He watched me the way you might look at your dog if it did an unprompted dance: with faint amusement and vaguely suppressed alarm. But when the lift doors closed behind us, he pulled me toward him, took my face in his hands and kissed me again.

  "Was that to stop me talking?" I said when he released me.

  "No. That was because I've wanted to do that for four long weeks and I plan to do it as many times as I can until I go home again."

  "That's a good line."

  "Took me most of the flight."

  I gazed at him as he fed the key card into the door and, for the five-hundredth time, marveled at my luck in finding him when I'd thought I could never love anyone again. I felt impulsive, romantic, a character in a Sunday-afternoon movie.

  "Aaaand here we are."

  We stopped in the doorway. The hotel room was smaller than my bedroom at the Gopniks', carpeted in a brown plaid, and the bed, rather than the luxurious expanse of white Frette linen I had envisaged, was a sunken double with a burgundy-and-orange checked bedspread. I tried not to think about when it might last have been cleaned. As Sam closed the door behind us, I set down my bag and edged around the bed until I could peer through the bathroom door. There was a shower and no bath, and when you put the light on the extractor whined, like a toddler at a supermarket checkout. The room was scented with a combination of old nicotine and industrial air freshener.

  "You hate it." His eyes scanned my face.

  "No! It's perfect!"

  "It's not perfect. Sorry. I got it off this booking website when I'd just finished a night shift. Want me to go downstairs and see if they have other rooms?"

  "I heard her saying it was fully booked. Anyway, it's fine! It has a bed and a shower and it's in the middle of New York and it has you in it. Which means it's all wonderful!"

  "Aw, crap. I should have run it past you."

  I never was any good at lying. He reached for my hand and I squeezed his.

  "It's fine. Really."

  We stood and stared at the bed. And I put my hand over my mouth until I realized I couldn't not say the thing I was trying not to say. "We should probably check for bedbugs, though."

  "Seriously?"

  "There's an epidemic of them, according to Ilaria
."

  Sam's shoulders sagged.

  "Even some of the poshest hotels have them." I stepped forward and pulled back the covers abruptly, scanning the white sheet before stooping to check the mattress edge. I moved closer. "Nothing!" I said. "So that's good! We're in a bedbug-free hotel!" I gave a small thumbs-up. "Yay!"

  There was a long silence.

  "Let's go for a walk," he said.

  We went for a walk. It was, at least, a great location. We strolled half a dozen blocks down Sixth Avenue and back up Fifth, zigzagging and following where the urge took us, me trying not to talk endlessly about myself or New York, which was harder than I'd thought, given that Sam was mostly silent. He took my hand in his, and I leaned against his shoulder and tried not to sneak too many glances at him. There was something unexpectedly odd about having him there. I found myself fixing on tiny details, a scratch on his hand, a slight change in the length of his hair, trying to reclaim him in my imagination.

  "You've lost your limp," I said, as we paused to look in the window of the Museum of Modern Art. I felt nervous that he wasn't talking, as if the terrible hotel room had ruined everything.

  "So have you."

  "I've been running!" I said. "I told you! I go around Central Park every morning with Agnes and George, her trainer. Here--feel my legs!" Sam squeezed my upper thigh as I held it toward him and looked suitably impressed. "You can let go now," I said, when people started to stare.

  "Sorry," he said. "It's been a while."

  I had forgotten how much he preferred to listen than talk. It took a while before he offered up anything about himself. He finally had a new partner. After two false starts--a young man who'd decided he didn't want to be a paramedic, and Tim, a middle-aged union rep, who apparently hated all mankind (not a great mind-set for the job)--he had been paired with a woman from North Kensington station who had recently moved and wanted to work somewhere closer to home.