by Eileen Palma
Kate would be eternally grateful to Dana for talking her into wearing thigh-length nude SPANX to the photo shoot. Otherwise she would’ve been running through the streets of New York in a thong that was only covered by jagged layers of wispy lace.
Kate ran until her feet were numb and the unscathed top of her dress was soaked through. The townhouse looked different, almost like it was ready for battle with its heavy wooden shutters closed over the windows. Then Kate saw Jack leaning out to protect that last one.
“Real success is knowing what you want and having the balls to go for it.”
Jack Moskowitz, Success Magazine
Chapter Forty-Five
The newscasters had talked of nothing for days but the upcoming hurricane. Jack was ready. Except for the damn windows. He forgot to cover them till the hail hit, bouncing off the glass panes as hard as golf balls at the putting range. He started with the ground level windows and worked his way up.
Diesel tucked himself into a ball between Lauren’s karaoke machine and her violin case. He would have felt much safer in the cover of Jack’s claw foot bathtub where he waited out most thunderstorms, but the dog sensed impending danger and would not leave his owner’s side.
“Hang in there, buddy. This is the last set.” Jack pushed aside the jumble of throw pillows, books, and stuffed animals and climbed on top of Lauren’s window seat.
“Hey! Watch out for Mr. Fluffy! He’s geriatric.” Lauren pulled the threadbare brown teddy bear from under Jack’s sneaker.
“This would be a lot easier if you didn’t have so much crap lying around.” Jack moved aside the mound of Lauren’s old Cabbage Patch Kids and planted his feet firmly on the oak window seat.
“Do you think Mom and Dad will still make it home this weekend?” Lauren tucked Mr. Fluffy under the polka dot covers in her twin bed.
“I’m sure everything will be back to normal by then.” But as Jack watched the wind rip the striped awning off the brownstone across the street, he wasn’t so sure.
As soon as Jack unlatched the window, it flew up carried by a gust of wind. Jack leaned out the window and quickly reached for the shutter, hoping the wind wouldn’t change direction and force the window back down on top of him guillotine style.
Luckily, the hail had been replaced with goldfish sized drops of rain by the time Jack started on the third floor windows. He relished the splashes of water on the back of his neck and enjoyed the shock of cold on his warm skin. The city noises had given way to an eerie quiet as all the people had emptied the streets to take shelter wherever they could.
“Jack!” A voice floated up on the gusts of wind. “Jack!”
Streams of water poured down Jack’s head onto his face as he looked down and saw a blond woman standing on the sidewalk in front of his townhouse. She was wearing a wedding gown on top with nothing on the bottom. Jack wiped the stream of water from his eyes with the back of his forearm, thinking the storm was conjuring some kind of half naked bride mirage.
“OMG! Is that Kate?” Lauren dropped Mr. Fluffy and jumped on the window seat and shoved herself next to Jack to get a better view.
“Jack!” This time the wind carried her voice and there was no mistaking it for anyone other than Kate.
“Where’s the rest of her dress?” Lauren leaned her head out the window to get a closer look and Jack grabbed her and pulled her back in.
Jack didn’t even bother with the last shutter; he let the window slam shut and ran to the front door.
“Stay here!” Jack ordered Lauren as he tried to open the front door. The wind pushed against the centuries old door causing a vacuum seal. Jack threw all of his body weight into it and was able to force it open in the short lull between bursts of wind. And there was Kate standing in front of his townhouse—wearing a mutilated wedding dress.
Kate looked like a bride on top, in a strapless white ribbon-wrapped corset thing. She even wore a delicate silver tiara attached to a long veil spilling over her wet waves of hair. Her flip-flops were black with New York City sludge and she had mud splattered up her calves leading to some kind of weird flesh-colored bike shorts. But for the first time in Jack’s life he understood how someone’s beauty could take your breath away.
“Kate…” Jack started, but Kate didn’t let him finish.
Kate rested her hands on his cheeks, and Jack’s whole body tingled as she gently pulled his face to hers. The rain sluiced down on them and Jack reached his hands under Kate’s veil to grab onto her hair. Kate’s hands were everywhere, first his face, then the back of his neck, then wrapped in the folds of his wet tee-shirt.
Jack didn’t know how long they stood there wrapped in each other. But it was long enough for his lips to feel bruised and swollen and his clothes to hang heavy with water. It was excruciating to unlock his lips from hers, but he had to. Jack took a step back and was instantly filled with remorse.
“Please don’t say anything yet.” The rain ran in rivulets down Kate’s forehead and pooled on her full bottom lip.
“Kate, I …”
“Please. I need to say this.” Kate pushed her shoulders back and stood up straighter. She smoothed down the two shreds of white lace that remained of her bridal skirt.
“Wait. I need to know why you’re here now wearing half a wedding dress with those creepy shorts. Did you just pull a Runaway Bride that somehow involved tearing your dress to shreds in front of everyone?”
“No! I was at a photo shoot for Beautiful Brides and I just had to get out of there. You wouldn’t believe what I snagged my dress on.”
“Kate…”
“I’m falling in love with you, Jack. I have been all along.”
“Forget falling. I’m there already.”
Jack didn’t know who reached first, but they fell right back into each other, their kisses less violent and slower this time. Jack lifted Kate up and held her there suspended in air with the rain falling around them as they kissed. Then the hail came back.
“Maybe we should head inside.” Jack rested Kate back on the ground, but kept his hands draped on her hips.
“I thought you’d never ask.”
“What about Alex?” Jack couldn’t stop himself. He had to know what happened to the creepy orange bastard. Jack wrapped his fingers around Kate’s icy ones and pulled her towards the townhouse.
Kate stopped just shy of the stoop, and stood in a pool of murky water. “I’m not with Alex.”
“So, you kinda did pull a Runaway Bride.” An oversized chunk of ice pelted Jack right between his two eyebrows.
“I was never really with him.” The wind lifted Kate’s veil and pushed it over her face. She left it there.
“I don’t get it.” Jack ran his fingers through his hair, shedding shards of ice.
“Dana came up with the plan. I just had to pretend to be with Alex long enough to get the attention off you and me.” Kate shoved the veil back, but the wind pushed it back over her face.
“Let me get this straight. Dana thought being with The Instigator was better for your image than being with me? And you agreed?”
“Jack, you have to understand. This has been killing…”
“I understand completely.” Jack cut in. “Being with some hard partying reality star half your age is better for ratings than being with a guy who makes strollers for fat kids.” Jack’s anger seared through the cold rain and wind.
“You’re the one who put me in this position!”
“So I was a complete asshole for lying, but it’s okay for you to create a sham engagement?”
“I feel horrible about it. This has been torture for me!” Kate pushed the veil off her face again and when the wind tried to force it back over her she ripped it right off the tiara. The wind lifted the veil right out of her hands and carried it down the street.
“You actually let me think you were with that meathead! You lied to me for months!” All this time Jack had felt bad for lyin
g to Kate, meanwhile his lie paled in comparison to hers.
“You left me no choice!” Kate moved to the side just as a thin branch cracked off the juniper tree.
“That’s bullshit. There’s always a choice.” Jack grabbed Kate’s arm and pulled her out from under the tree.
“Well I’m here now. Choosing you.” Kate’s eyes looked just as stormy as the air around them as she held Jack’s gaze. She wasn’t backing down.
“It’s too late.” The words fell out of Jack’s mouth before he could stop them. But once he said it he knew it was true.
“It can’t be too late.” Kate grabbed Jack’s hands and held them tight. “It’s not too late Jack. We can fix this.”
“I can’t do this.” Jack yelled to be heard over the fire truck sirens that wailed in the distance.
“You’re with someone else?” Kate dropped Jack’s hands.
“No.”
Kate inhaled. “Oh, good. You really had me worried there.”
“Kate, this isn’t going to work.”
“We can figure it out.”
“You inspired me to be a better person and I did. I finally got my own shit together. This new line is the first thing that’s not about what Harper or Lauren or even Matt need.”
“I get that. I can be there for you. Maybe I could even help you come up with some ideas for it.”
“Kate, the minute the news hits that you broke things off with Alex to be with me, I’ll have a media circus camped outside my stoop all over again. That will take away from everything I’ve worked for.”
“They’ll only stay until the next Disney star gets arrested. Remember when you said that to me?”
“Kate, I’m serious. I can’t do this.” Jack never thought he would be the one saying no.
“Can’t or won’t?” Kate backed away from him slowly. Then, in a split second she turned around and bolted.
“Wait!” But Jack’s words were lost in the rushing wind. Kate was a blur of white in between the drops of heavy rain mixed with pelting balls of hail.
The bottoms of Jack’s feet were numb as he trudged back up the stairs. He barely touched the brownstone door when the wind pushed it open.
“Where’s Kate?” Lauren stood in the doorway holding two large beach towels. Diesel sat at her feet looking up at Jack expectantly.
“Gone.” Jack grabbed one of the towels from her. Only when he wrapped himself in the faded Barbie towel, did the violent shivers move up from his feet.
“What?” Lauren followed Jack down the hall towards the bathroom. “How could you let her leave?”
“Not now, Lauren. Not now.” Jack suddenly felt a hundred years old. He rubbed the towel over his wet hair
“Are you really letting Kate go?” Lauren grabbed Jack’s arm. “Seriously?”
“It’s not going to work with us.” Jack shook off Lauren’s freakishly strong grip. “It never was.”
“Yes it will!” Lauren’s shrieks echoed through the hallway. “You guys are meant to be.”
“It’s not happening, Lauren.”
“But she came here in a mangled wedding dress! For you!”
“It’s too late.”
“Don’t you get it?” Lauren threw her arms up in the air and shrieked.
“Get what?” Jack knew there was no running away from Lauren. She would follow him around till she got the last word in.
“This is your Kris Kringle moment!” Lauren’s eyes were wide as she spread her arms wide open. “Go to her!”
Jack ran back to the front door. It took every ounce of strength he had to get the damn thing back open. He looked down the street. Kate was already a block away although she probably would’ve been a lot farther if she hadn’t been wearing flip-flops.
“Hurry up! Before she gets away!” Lauren snatched the towel back and shoved Jack towards the door.
“Kate! Kate!” Jack didn’t know if she couldn’t hear him over the storm or if she was ignoring him. He hopped down the stairs two at a time and landed in the calf deep puddle at the bottom of the stoop. He started up the sidewalk, which was now an obstacle course of broken branches, rolling soda cans and soggy newspapers. He ignored the phantom pain in his ankle and the chafing of his wet jeans on his thighs as he tried desperately to catch up to Kate.
“Kate! Come back!” Jack chased her past the boarded-up newsstand, and the shelves of wet produce outside the Korean vegetable market. He was gaining on her but she sped up, taking advantage of her clearly superior conditioning. That’s when Jack was certain that she could hear him shouting.
Just as she was trying to cross Eighth Avenue, Kate’s foot slid ahead of her body and she skidded off the curb. She slid across the slick street and landed in a heap on top of a manhole cover in the middle of the avenue. A cab was barreling towards her, the driver clearly blinded by the surge of water gushing down the windshield. There would be no way he would see Kate, or expect a person to be planted in the middle of Eighth Avenue in the middle of a hurricane.
Jack ran into the street and slammed his body into Kate with football player force and shoved her onto the sidewalk just as the cabbie swerved out of the way, unleashing a string of curse words from the open window.
“Um, you can get let go of me now.” Kate’s voice was muffled under Jack’s body.
Jack had thrown himself on top of Kate, covering her whole body with his in case the cab jumped the curb. His arms were wrapped tightly around Kate, his face burrowed into her shoulder. He loosened his grip, but didn’t get up.
“Kate Richards, I’m never letting you go.”
Epilogue
“The Lower West Side’s favorite matchmaker Mrs. Fink finally made her own match just days shy of her eightieth birthday. Mrs. Fink reconnected with her childhood sweetheart at a West Side Jewish Center fundraiser, sixty-five years after falling head over heels for Abraham Weinstein in their native Hungary. Mrs. Fink bonded with the widower over brisket and matzoh ball soup and walked down the aisle with him less than two weeks later. Mrs. Fink is rumored to have a hand in more than one hundred successful marriages including Tom Hanks and Rita Wilson, Jennifer Garner and Ben Affleck, and Ellen DeGeneres and Portia deRossi.”
The Chelsea Chronicle
“Roll out the red carpet for this bouncing baby boy’s stroller, but don’t worry, it doesn’t have to be a supersized one, yet. CEO and Co-Founder of Considerable Carriages Matt Reynolds and his on-again wife Anne welcomed a new baby this morning and named him Jackson after Matt’s business partner and lifetime best friend. Maybe Maximillian would’ve been a more appropriate name considering Considerable Carriages is neck in neck with Apple on Forbes’ top businesses list.”
Craig Ashbourne, The 411
“Jack Moskowitz’s niece Lauren Feldman might steal his girlfriend’s thunder. Rumor has it that the pint sized turbo athlete was such a hit on her guest role on KidFit, that producers have asked her to star in the show alongside Kate Richards on a permanent basis.”
insidescoop.com
“Dana Johnson and Alex Lombardi first made headlines when their affair sidelined Ali-Kat’s much anticipated nuptials. Watch this May-December couple go from public enemy number one to America’s sweethearts in their reality show Tying the Not, airing on Tuesday nights right before my show.”
Jessa Silver, Late Night with Jessa Silver
“Westchester better make some room because Considerable Carriages is moving its supersized division there for CEO Matt Reynolds to head up. Reynolds moved to Scarsdale in time for the birth of his first child with wife Anne. Meanwhile, back in Manhattan, Jack Moskowitz will head up the new line of strollers called Considerate Carriages, which will accommodate children with special needs. According to Moskowitz, the profits from the Considerable Carriages line are enough to allow the Considerate Carriages line to be sold on a sliding scale basis.”
Success Magazine
“Spotted
: an engagement ring on Kate Richards’ finger. This time around her sparkler was noticeably smaller than the Neil Lane bauble featured in her Gossip Matters cover story with ex-fiancé Alex Lombardi. But this ring’s sentimental value more than makes up for its meager carats. Jack Moskowitz proposed to Kate Richards with a ring handed down to him by his maternal great-grandmother. The antique white gold ring has made it through two World Wars and the Great Depression, so Jack thought it was a good symbol of his commitment to Kate.”
happilyeverafter.com
Acknowledgments
“There are two kinds of teachers: the kind that fill you with so much quail shot that you can’t move, and the kind that just give you a little prod behind and you jump to the skies.” —Robert Frost. Thank you to my writing teachers and mentors Patricia Dunn and Jimin Han for all the little prods along the way.
Thank you to my beloved writing group Ahmed Asif, Marlena Baraf, Jacqueline Goldstein, Nancy Flanagan, Rickey Marks, Nan Mutnick, and Ines Rodrigues. And to my writing friends Pari Chang and Susan Kleinman, thank you for your limitless support.
David Donnelly, Katrina Brown and Sweet Orefice, thank you for creating a positive writing community at The Writing Institute at Sarah Lawrence College, the place where this book was born and grew up. Thank you to the Romance Writers of America/New York City, Inc., a supportive professional organization for people who love to write about love.
Thank you to my editor, Mary Cummings, and the rest of the amazing team at Diversion Books: Sarah Masterson Hally and Brielle Benton.
To Eric Ruben, my fabulous agent, thank you for helping this book breathe life outside the confines of my laptop.
Stephanie Lia, my forever friend, thanks for sticking with me since the days of braces, teased hair and sneaking out in the black Camaro. To the Graviers, Tatarians, Burrowes, Coplans, Lathams, and Dawsons. Thanks to all of you for believing in me. Your families have become extensions of my own.