by Lea Geller
“Please,” I said. “Pretend we’re together. Just for a minute.”
He furrowed his brow, but the corners of his mouth were raised in amusement.
“Please,” I said again. With my head, I motioned to Marc, who was not far behind me.
Jack looked over my shoulder at Marc entering the restaurant and, with one hand, pulled me into the chair next to him. He wrapped his other arm around my waist and leaned in to me. His broad, square shoulder touched mine as he whispered in my ear, “I’m going to pretend I’m saying something really sexy right now. So you need to look like you just heard it.” I looked at him, our faces so close, and he took my breath away. Just like that. Just like they say it happens. Marc took a few steps in and looked at us and stopped. He stared at us huddling for a moment and then walked out of the restaurant. Jack kept his arm around my waist.
“Hungry?” he asked, still staring at me.
I was a lot of things in that moment, but I wasn’t sure one of them was hungry. Mostly, I was scared. Not scared because I thought Jack was dangerous, but scared because I would have sat for hours if Jack had asked me. Hell, I would have done just about anything if he had asked.
“I can’t,” I said. “I have to go.”
“Do you? Do you really have to go?” He dropped his voice even lower and leaned forward.
Oh yes, I really do. I nodded because in order to speak, you need to be able to breathe.
Jack took his arm off my waist. I looked down to where it had been, and then I looked back at him. I pushed my chair away and got up, slowly. “Thank you,” I said. He didn’t take his eyes off me.
“How would I go about finding you if I wanted to see you again?” he asked.
“Me?”
“You,” he said, smiling and raising an eyebrow. He put his hand on his chest and said, “My name is Jack Parsons.”
There seemed to be less and less space between us, even though neither of us had moved.
“Agnes,” I stuttered. “Agnes Riley.”
“Anything else you can tell me about yourself?” he asked.
“I’m a preschool teacher,” I said. “In Santa Monica.”
“OK, Agnes Riley, who teaches preschool in Santa Monica. I’ll see you around.”
I wasn’t looking to be consumed, and I certainly wasn’t looking for a man almost twenty years older. But Jack came looking for me. One week later, he was waiting for me as I got off the bus in Santa Monica, two blocks from Sunny Day. And that is the story of us—at least, it’s the story of how we started.
I texted him back.
Merry Christmas.
The text did not bounce back. I was officially unblocked. I handed the phone to Grace and rolled onto my back.
Grace looked at me again, and I saw another text had come.
Darling. Look outside.
I shot up in bed, almost knocking Grace off the side. I grabbed her, my heart beating in the back of my throat. I shivered again and picked her up. I shot a look out my bedroom window, but the overhang on the porch was blocking my view. I ran down the stairs with Grace in my arms. I raced into the foyer and stared at the front door. I don’t know how long I stood there staring at it, but at some point, I reached out and touched the handle. Before I turned it, I grabbed my hat off a hook. Good thinking, I thought to myself. If this is Jack, if it’s really him, better cover up the ombré fiasco. I pulled the hat down over my hair, twisted the handle, and pulled the door open. Jack was standing on my doorstep, leaning on the frame, inches from me.
“Merry Christmas, darling,” he whispered.
I gasped, swallowed the lump in my throat, and felt my eyes grow hot with tears. I reached to touch him, to make sure he was real. I put my hand on his arm and left it there, resting on the thick, buttery leather of a coat I had never seen.
“You’re here,” I said. “You’re here.” He looked so out of place in New York, on campus, on my doorstep.
Jack leaned toward me and looped his other arm around my waist. He pulled me to him so that our faces were almost touching. “I am,” he said. “I couldn’t not see you today. I couldn’t not see you both on Christmas.”
His lips touched mine, and we stood there like that. Our lips touching. I felt his teeth tugging on my lower lip and then I felt more. Jack could kiss me like it was the most intimate thing. Like there was nothing else left to do.
I felt dizzy and stumbled. When he held me tighter, steadying me, I said, “It’s cold. Come inside.”
“I can’t stay, Aggie,” he said, our faces close. “Not yet.”
“What?”
“I can’t stay now. I have work to do today. I just wanted to see you.” He reached down and kissed the top of Grace’s head, breathing in her scent as he kissed her.
“What kind of work could you possibly have on Christmas?” I asked, pulling us both away.
“Aggie . . .”
“How?” I asked, resisting as he reached for me. “How can you be here in New York, but not be with us? How can you miss Thanksgiving and now Christmas?” Everything I had been holding in came pouring down my face.
“I’m still fixing things, and the kind of work I’m doing doesn’t necessarily stop for Christmas.” He reached out and pulled me back to him, this time more forcefully. “Soon, though. Soon I’ll be back for good.”
“That’s not good enough,” I sobbed, wishing I had an extra arm to wipe away the tears that were suddenly pooling in the neck of my sweater. “I’m all alone, Jack, and it’s so hard.”
“I know,” he said, “and you’ve been so good.” He pulled me even closer, so that our noses touched. His hand moved up my back, and he leaned in and kissed me. The kiss was tentative and careful, and when we stopped, our foreheads still touching, I felt his hot tears mixing with mine. The air was biting and it felt good.
“Soon,” he whispered.
This time he kissed me with the even deeper urgency of someone saying goodbye. He gasped at the end and then moved his mouth to my ear, whispering, “I promise.” Maybe if I had a tidbit of information for him, anything, I could lure him inside, but I didn’t, and frankly, if Jack could touch me, after months of being apart, and still walk away, then info about Ruth Moore wasn’t going to persuade him to stay. He let go of me, took a step back, and before I could say anything else, he turned and walked away. He got into a car that was parked and running, a car that I hadn’t even noticed was there. Out of the corner of my eye, I saw something rustle.
I instinctively looked next door and saw Stacey Figg’s figure behind her blinds. I even caught a glimpse of the fabulously bright sweater she had saved for Christmas Day. I’d watched the sweaters until they had reached a crescendo of tackiness. Today she wore a neon-green number with a 3-D Santa face. Each time she raised her arms, Santa’s left eye winked and “Ho, Ho, Ho” rang out from the mouth. I had never seen (or heard) anything like it before. I shuddered to think what Jack would have made of the Figg and her sweaters, but I never found out. I turned back to the car and watched him drive away.
With Jack’s voice in my ear, Grace and I spent our week alternating between doing very little at home and making brief but hectic forays into Manhattan. As much as I wanted to stay home and rest, being at home was hard. I had too much time on my hands to replay our scene on the stoop. When I began to wonder where Jack was and felt myself growing despondent and angry, I used running as a distraction. Because I was so new to it, I had to pay close attention to my form and where I was going, which kept me from spiraling into obsessive Jack thoughts.
One day, I ran down to the water and was about to turn back when I saw Adam at the trailhead of a wooded path that ran alongside the Hudson. He was turning to head down the path when he caught sight of me and my enormous stroller.
“Agnes!” he called, pulling out an earbud. “You run?”
“Sort of,” I huffed.
“Wanna run together?” he asked, jogging in place.
I had just about enough gas to make
it home, but I was curious where this wooded path led. I knew if I tried it myself I’d likely get lost and end up somewhere in the next state, so I nodded and pushed the stroller over to the trail. A gust of wind whipped off the water and smacked me in the face. I was running in yoga pants, a wool sweater, and a down vest. Adam was wearing a long-sleeved shirt and running tights that stopped midcalf. I wondered how he kept so warm, then noticed that he had the hairiest ankles I’d ever seen on a man.
“I’m pretty sure I can’t keep up with you,” I panted as he broke into a jog. “You can run ahead at any point.”
“No worries,” he said, pulling his hat down over his ears. “I’m glad to have the company.”
So was I. I knew it was something of a charity run, as Adam didn’t seem to be working hard at all and was happy to chat while I huffed and puffed alongside him. Turns out that if you’re not in great shape, you can’t run and talk at the same time. I managed to ask occasional pointed questions, ones I knew would inspire long answers. I learned Adam was into gaming and was more than happy to talk about it. I also learned that his dad died when he was a baby, and he grew up a few miles away in Yonkers.
“So I grew up with a single mom, too,” he said, motioning to Grace, who was thankfully still asleep in the stroller.
I wanted to correct him and tell him that I wasn’t a single mom, not really. I had a husband who was on his way back to me. But that would have required more talking than I was capable of.
“But my mom never ran,” he said. “How long have you been running?”
“Not too long,” I said, using all the breath I could muster. “I’m a new runner.”
“Well, you’ve gotta start somewhere, no matter how old you are,” he said, reminding me that he was probably a decade younger than I was.
Over the break Grace and I also saw the large tree and even larger crowds at Rockefeller Center. We walked past decorated shop windows through hordes of tourists. We stopped to pet the horses pulling carriages in the park. I can’t say I didn’t look for Jack around every corner, but I was glad for the distraction and the throngs of people. We drank a lot of hot chocolate, or at least I did; Grace licked off the cream. I even cooked food that week—lentil soup, meatballs, lasagna—that the two of us ate. We were both graduating to real food at the same time.
In the ten months since Grace had been born, I don’t think I had spent as much time with her as I did during winter vacation. When we moved to New York, I didn’t know Grace. I didn’t know what made her laugh, what scared her, what soothed her; Alma was the one who knew all that. But now that she was growing into herself, now that she was becoming her own person, I got to discover her likes and dislikes as she did. I got to learn Grace as she became Grace. It was a paltry season for gifts, but learning Grace was my Christmas present.
-4-
On New Year’s Day, Jack texted me for the first time since we’d stood on my doorstep.
Happy new year, darling. This year will be better. I promise.
This was getting ridiculous. I mocked the boys endlessly for texting each other while sitting about two feet apart, sometimes closer, and for having no idea how to talk on the phone. (Art called me once when the boys had gotten into trouble off campus. Like a visitor from a nearby planet who had never before made a phone call, he just shouted his name into the phone—“Art! Art!”—to let me know he was calling.) I was no better now, reduced to texting my own husband because while he had unblocked my texts, he was still not taking my calls. I could mock all I wanted, but thanks to Jack, I had been reduced to a middle school communicator.
“Screw you,” I heard myself say, jumping off the brown couch. “Screw you for promising me that things will get better without telling me what that really means.”
As soon as the words were out of my mouth, I momentarily panicked, wondering if someone had heard me. Alas, I was, as always, alone. With the words out of my mouth and off my chest, I texted Jack. Happy New Year. I can’t wait for better. Xxxxx
His texts came more frequently over the next few days.
Can’t get you out of my mind.
Woke up with you in my head.
One afternoon, while Grace and I were at the supermarket, Jack wrote, Missing you, darling. So much.
I leaned on the cereal aisle, grabbed my phone, and texted back a string of x’s, instead of texting what I really wanted to say: “If you miss me, come and get me. I’m pretty much where you left me. At the shitty supermarket.”
I hadn’t spoken to Beeks since Christmas Day, which meant I hadn’t told her I’d seen Jack. I was desperate to talk to her, but I just couldn’t, not yet. I knew what she’d say, though. I could close my eyes and hear the yelling portion. (“YOU WAITED DAYS TO TELL ME THAT YOU SAW YOUR MISSING HUSBAND? YOU TEXT ME WHEN YOU GET YOUR PERIOD! LAST WEEK YOU TEXTED ME A PICTURE OF PLASTIC WRAP ON SALE! HOW COULD YOU HOLD OUT ON ME LIKE THIS?”)
Because I couldn’t call Beeks, I had no choice but to knock on the Figg’s door.
“Agnes!” she said, surprised to see me.
I had a baby monitor in one hand, a bottle of wine in the other, and my phone in my coat pocket, just in case. “Grace is asleep. Wanna drink?”
“Sure,” she said, not sure at all what to make of my offer. I had never shown up on her doorstep unannounced before. She held the door open, and I walked inside and sat down on her couch. It was not brown. It was red brocade and covered in a swath of floral fabric.
“What’s up?” Stacey asked, opening the bottle of wine I’d brought with me.
“My husband,” I said. “I saw him.”
“I know,” she said, sitting next to me and filling our glasses. “I saw him, too. I was here when he came on Christmas.”
I knew that. I’d seen her and her sweater. What I didn’t know was why she was here on Christmas and not somewhere else. I didn’t really know anything about her. Stacey Figg didn’t talk about herself. She was too busy asking questions.
“Yeah, well. He’s gone now,” I said, my voice cracking. “He’s gone and I’m alone again.”
She looked at me. “It’s hard being alone,” she said. “Really hard.” We looked at each other for a few long seconds.
“He’ll be back,” I said. “It’s not like I’ll be alone forever.”
Stacey looked away, and I wished I’d said something else.
She then moved into her kitchen and started to season a bowl of fresh popcorn with spices. I followed her in.
“Stacey, I . . .”
“You know, I haven’t always been alone,” she began, her back to me. “It’s not like I was born a thirtysomething single woman living in a town house at a boarding school. I have a history.”
I bit my lower lip, waiting for the awkward moment to pass, when my phone vibrated with an incoming text. I looked at it.
What are you wearing?
Stacey turned around and saw me checking my phone.
I slipped it into my sweater pocket, ignoring Jack’s words.
“It’s fine,” she said. “We can change the topic. My life is boring anyway.” She sat down on her couch and put the popcorn on the coffee table. I sat down next to her and officially dropped the ball. I should have shown an interest in Stacey’s life, but Jack’s text threw me off.
Later that evening, when I was back in my own house, safely ensconced on the brown couch, I opened up my texts and responded to Jack. What was I wearing? It was January in New York and I was wearing just about everything I owned. I texted him back, Too much.
His texts were coming faster now, and I could feel him growing hungrier for me. I kept being as coy as I could, which wasn’t easy for me, especially because even though I was frustrated, I was equally hungry. I was sure it wouldn’t be long now, but it was still up to Jack to decide when I’d see him again. I was willing to let this happen on his terms—after all, I was well practiced at that—I just wasn’t sure how much longer I could take the waiting.
-5-
Beeks was not wrong about February. She had called a few times since our conversation on Christmas morning, and one evening after Grace was asleep and I was alone with half a bottle of wine, I answered one of her calls.
“I’m calling to warn you about February,” she said.
“What do I need to know about February? It’s short.”
“February may technically be the shortest month of the year, but in the Northeast, it’s by far the worst,” she said. “It’s cold and depressing. Twenty-eight days will feel like a lifetime. You’ll never be so happy to get to March as you will be here.”
“Got it,” I said. But I really didn’t get it. Not yet.
“I’m also calling to apologize. Again. I just need to learn not to say everything I’m thinking,” she said.
I couldn’t imagine a Beeks who didn’t say everything she was thinking, but it hadn’t really been a problem until now. In all the years we had known each other, Beeks and I had never really fought. Now all we did was bicker and make up, only to bicker again. It was going to take some time for us to relearn how to be best friends in the same city, and I wasn’t sure if I was going to be sticking around to find out if we could do it. Although the days were supposed to be getting longer, they felt short, dark, and mean. The cold was brutal even with my comforter coat. One particularly cold day, I made the rookie mistake of going for a run in the comforter coat. Five minutes in I started to bake. I ran into Adam near the library.