by Susan Wiggs
Her heart did it again—sped up with excitement even though she cautioned herself to get a grip. “Thanks,” she said, hurrying to open the passenger-side door. The car smelled of baby-powder-scented air freshener. The console was covered in electronic gear she couldn’t fathom. It felt strangely intimate to ride with him, giving her a glimpse into his life. There was an official ID card and a bank of permits affixed to the console, a pad of sticky notes with a scrawled reminder: Pick up Nona’s ham, buy duct tape, WD-40.
He pulled into the logjam of traffic. The windshield wipers slapped at the thick, soft flakes. The snow turned the bustling city into a sparkling world of color and light. Tony glanced over at her. She felt that glance as though they’d parted only yesterday. No man had ever looked at her the way he did, with so much interest and caring and frank desire.
“So. Where to?” he asked.
“You guessed right when you headed north.”
“The Upper East Side.”
“You’ve got it.”
“Didn’t fall far from the tree, eh, Elaine?”
The remark was friendly but pointed, marking off the boundaries between them. They’d never really had a chance, thanks to their different backgrounds. People liked to say such things didn’t matter in this day and age, but, the fact was, it absolutely did. Especially to Elaine, whose parents’ approval meant everything. And to Tony, whose sense of duty to his family dominated all his choices.
She felt unaccountably defensive, as though it was all her fault she’d grown up in the rarefied world of the Gold Coast. The proper address was everything to the St. Jameses. Her parents had a park-view apartment, and a summer house on the Sound in the Hamptons. They’d sent her to Marymount and Bennington, and she now lived in a perfect, elegantly restored pre-war luxury building in the east nineties. She led, from all perspectives, a charmed existence. On paper, everything looked peachy. In truth, she rarely had time to sit back and think about the things that were missing from her life.
“How about you?” she asked, mildly annoyed.
“I didn’t fall far, either. I got a place in Park Slope.”
She didn’t know much about the neighborhood, except that it was in Brooklyn. And she didn’t know much about Brooklyn, except that it was the destination of the creaky, local F train she would never take.
He drove the next few blocks in silence, and she thought about how weird it was to be with him after all this time. Her phone chirped, and she hurried to answer it, but it was only Jenny saying they were still scouting for arm candy for Axel.
As though he felt her stare, he turned and glanced at her. “It’s good to see you, Elaine. You look great.”
“Thanks. So do you.” Elaine was usually good at small talk. It was her stock-in-trade, a power tool in her arsenal. Yet the customary name-dropping and light witticisms would not work in this situation, with this man. He didn’t want to be impressed by her or entertained by her. As he had so many years before, he simply wanted to know her.
And what she feared was that he could already see all there was to know, that she was all surface. Peeled away, there was nothing of substance inside.
Unanswered questions and old business hung in the air between them. He reached down and flicked on the radio, and Christmas music eased through the car. He hummed along with chestnuts roasting.
“I meant what I said earlier. I’m sorry about your friend,” he remarked.
She had to think for a moment about which friend he meant. They were all sorry in different ways. “Oh, Bobbi. I don’t know what to say. It’s a little embarrassing.”
“Unfortunately, one of the things I’ve learned in my line of work is that people are betrayed all the time by people they trust.”
“That’s a cheerful thought for Christmas Eve.” She concentrated on the view through the windshield. Throngs of pedestrians, hurrying and hunched against the thickening snowfall, streamed past brightly lit windows of busy shops. Twinkling fairy lights held every available tree in a choke hold.
Again, the silent questions hovered. Where were you that night? Why didn’t you keep your promise? How come we didn’t fall in love and live happily ever after?
“So who’s Byron?” Tony asked, seemingly out of the blue.
She’d been hoping he wouldn’t mention her ex, but no such luck. He must have developed a cop’s instincts.
“Some guy I was dating.” She downplayed it, of course. Byron was really supposed to be the one. His credentials were perfect. He came from the right family, had gone to the right schools, lived at the right address. Her parents adored him, and his parents admired her. Freddie St. James was already picking out china patterns. Elaine had almost convinced herself that he was going to be her first husband.
In reality he was a single woman’s nightmare. He was self-centered, irresponsible and sometimes even faintly, subtly cruel.
“Was dating.” Tony navigated the traffic with infinite patience.
She nodded. “He threw me over just before lunch today.”
“Yeah? Tough break.”
“For a bra model.”
“Even tougher.”
“I announced it to everyone on Fifth Avenue.” She explained about the phone call and the carolers, and turned sideways on the seat to watch him. He had such a great face, saved from being too pretty by a slightly crooked nose caused by an old hockey injury. His mouth was the sort you kept staring at, helplessly, as though it were a Godiva chocolate truffle.
“You’d better not be laughing,” she warned him.
“I would never do that. Why would I laugh about something that’s hurting you?”
She shifted her gaze forward and concentrated on counting the evergreen swags strung from the streetlight poles. This was a particular talent of his—saying something sweet and sincere just when she needed it.
“So, did you love him?” Tony asked.
“I’ve never been in love,” she blurted out, then covered her honesty with a laugh. “Look, I’m all right. Byron wasn’t that...special. I suppose I tried to make him seem that way, but the two of us simply didn’t have it.” She despised the way that made her sound. Superficial. Shallow. Heartless.
Honestly, what must he think of her? Dumped on Christmas Eve, robbed by her latest best friend, and here she was behaving as though she had missed a hair appointment. The fact was, she had put such thick layers of insulation around her emotions that nothing could penetrate anymore. Not the hurt—but not the joy, either.
“You don’t have to downplay this, Elaine,” he said. “You’re entitled to feel like crap, at least for a while.”
“That’s a total waste of energy, and it’s not going to fix anything.”
He draped his wrist over the arch of the steering wheel. “How much of a hurry are you in?”
She glanced at her Gucci watch, a little token of appreciation from a client. Then she glared at the silent phone. Well, here was a choice. She could spend the afternoon fretting about the St. James affair. Or she could surrender control for once in her life. She felt a glimmer of...something. Possibility?
“Actually, none. Everything is under control for tonight. Thanks to Byron, I have no last-minute gifts to buy. Why do you ask?”
“I need to make a stop.” He swung into a spot marked Official Vehicles Only and came around to the passenger side. He held the door open for her as she stepped out, batting her eyelashes against snow flurries. The giant, gaudy Prometheus sculpture, aglow in floodlights and drowning in the blare of Christmas carols, marked the entrance to the ice rink at Rockefeller Center.
“What is this?” she asked with a laugh that sounded phony even to her own ears. “A trip down memory lane?”
“You got a problem with that?”
She forced herself to look him square in the eye. “Not if you don’t.”
chapter six
“Good. I need to drop off this stuff.” Holding the clipboard and a flat, zippered bag, Tony led the way across the jammed concrete labyrinth.
The chill in the air, the echoing music and the unanticipated breathlessness Elaine felt stirred recollections of their first meeting. Every detail still lived in her heart, though no one knew that about her. She kept her most cherished memories a secret, like a delicious dream that would be ruined by the telling. Even the painful aftermath of her encounter with Tony Fiore did not dim the power of the memories. Instead, it turned them brittle and delicate, brushed with the bittersweet shadows of what might have been.
Elaine had never been the shy type. The first time she’d seen Tony on that fateful Christmas Eve, she hadn’t hesitated to make her interest known. A privileged upbringing had given her an unearned sense of self-confidence and the conviction that she would never be rejected. Eighteen years old and unafraid, she’d approached him and said, “Hi. I’m Elaine. I’ve been watching you skate.”
His cocky grin had melted her bones, at the same time assuring her that bashfulness was not an issue with him, either. “Tony. I’ve been watching you, too.”
It wasn’t exactly a date, but an encounter like a chemical reaction—brief and unexpected, leaving them both forever changed. At the end of the evening, they’d gone their separate ways, he to his family’s traditional celebration followed by midnight mass, she to her parents’ gala affair. The day after Christmas, he’d left for Indiana to resume the hockey season, and she’d gone skiing in St. Moritz. She’d thought of him all during the rest of Christmas break that year, wishing she’d given him her phone number, or at least her last name.
Drawn back to the present, she followed him down the concrete steps to the main office, where he handed in his clipboard. “I only wish it was more,” he said as they left. “Every kid should love hockey the way I do. It kept me out of trouble more times than I can count.” He offered his arm. “Let’s go put on some skates.”
She balked. “Aren’t you supposed to be out chasing muggers or car thieves?”
“I’m off duty. Come on, Elaine. For old time’s sake.” He kept walking, pulling her along with him through the passageway to the ice level.
“Why would I want to remember old times?” she asked.
He stopped walking but kept hold of her arm as he turned to her. “Because they were good times,” he said in a soft tone. “Mostly.”
Before she could reply, he started walking again, bringing her to the rental kiosk.
“It’s too crowded,” she said. “No one can get ice time on Christmas Eve.”
“A cop can.”
“I haven’t skated since...you know.”
“You’ve got to be kidding,” he said. “What, did you have an injury?”
She almost laughed at his assumption. “No, I had a life. A career. Who has time for skating?”
“Don’t tell me you’ve been all work and no play the whole time.”
“My work is my play. But ice skating is just not something I normally do.”
“All the more reason to skate now. It’s like riding a bike—you never forget.”
She narrowed her gaze and took refuge in a lie. “I’m very good at forgetting things.”
Unexpectedly, he took her gloved hand in his and squeezed. “I’m good at reminding people of things.”
Despite her conflicted feelings about being with this man, Elaine found herself lacing up a pair of gamey-smelling size-seven rental skates and worrying about the way the attendant had eyed her designer boots. It felt strange, wobbling along on the rubber matting toward the entrance to the rink, grabbing Tony’s arm for support. This was not at all how she had planned to spend her afternoon. She’d intended to visit Bergdorf’s or Saks to buy Byron another designer sweater. Instead, fate had thrown her a singing elf, an old flame and a break from those parts of her life that were all too real.
When Tony led her to the ice, reality fell away. The piped-in music, blaring from speakers mounted on lightpoles, should have annoyed her but instead made her wistful. The huge Christmas tree, alive with thousands of twinkling lights, took on a diffuse, fairy-tale beauty in the flurrying snow. Even goldchrome Prometheus and the parade of international flags surrounding the center seemed as charming and friendly as a scene inside a snow globe.
With a wink and a nod at the attendant, Tony stepped through the low gate and stood aside, motioning her onto the white expanse of ice, gouged by thousands of skate marks per hour. She pushed off and her legs immediately bowed out, blades heading in different directions until her knees started to scream. Sheer determination gave her the strength to reel her feet back in, and a moment later, she was gliding.
“You’re doing great,” Tony said, flashing the grin she’d never quite forgotten.
She lurched, then found her balance, and, in spite of everything—the terrible day she’d had, the stressful night ahead—she found herself grinning back at him. With exaggerated gallantry, he held out his hand, and she remembered something she’d learned the first night she’d met him—it was impossible to skate and not smile.
Clinging to Tony’s hand, she raced around the ice, feeling the wind in her hair and the snow on her face. He skated with the power and grace she remembered. He darted effortlessly through the milling throng, bringing her along on a ride that made her feel as though she were flying.
Just for these few moments, she touched the sort of joy that used to be so abundant in her life. Where had that gone? Like an uninvited guest slinking off to avoid being ejected, it had slipped away when she wasn’t looking. Now the feelings of hope and possibility returned and she refused to examine the reason for the change. Post-Byron euphoria, she told herself.
But a little inner voice whispered that her ex had nothing to do with the way she was feeling right now.
She soared over the ice with a man she’d never thought to see again. She even hummed along with the music. She had no idea who Wenceslas was, but she’d known his song forever, and she believed in his goodness. The crowd parted before them, some slowing down to watch—Tony, of course, not her. He was the pro, after all. Together, they probably looked like a Porsche towing a Volkswagen.
Tony matched his pace to hers, giving only a hint of the speed and aggression that had propelled him to the top of his sport, winning him scholarships and offers from the NHL. Now he swung along with an easy glide. He didn’t even seem to be watching where he was going. He was watching her.
And she couldn’t help but watch him. He had a face filled with character, a marked contrast to the conventional, vacuous good looks of the male models and socialites of her world. That was what had attracted her in the first place—that he was so different from the boys she knew. Through prep school and the early months of college, she’d dated slender blond young men with blasé attitudes of noblesse oblige and Roman numerals after their names. Unlike those pale, pampered boys, Tony Fiore had an unabashed appetite for life, a fiercely competitive spirit and something no one else had ever given her—genuine interest in Elaine herself, in her hopes and dreams, not her social connections and bank account.
As they skated, the edges of the rink elongated to streaks of color and light, and the smeared, surreal images revived all the sensations she’d felt years ago. She’d been giddy, filled with a sense of promise. Even though the first meeting was a chance encounter and they’d gone their separate ways, a part of her had believed it was the start of something special. How could it not be, when he gazed at her with magic in his eyes?
Yet the sturdy barriers between them had remained in place.
“We should date,” he’d said.
“How?” she’d asked. “By phone? E-mail? No, thanks.”
He had kissed her just once that night, but it had made every subsequent kiss thereafter pale in comparison. And then, only half joking, he had said,
“Same time next year?”
Despite the futility of a romance between them, they’d both kept their promise. Christmas Eve, sophomore year. Elaine stealing away from the St. James affair, Tony making himself late for midnight mass. They spotted each other across the ice and met in the middle. Both of them knew that whatever spark they’d initially felt hadn’t dimmed.
“So we’re starting this forbidden Romeo-and-Juliet thing, eh?” he’d said, and then when he’d laughed and kissed her again, she’d had the strong and undeniable conviction that their attraction was something rare and not easily dismissed. But she was leaving for St. Kitts the next day, he had to go back to hockey, and it was all completely impossible. They’d even joked about the way the world was conspiring to keep them apart.
They’d indulged in a brief fantasy. She would transfer to Notre Dame, live in the sorority house across the street from his frat... The very idea had made her laugh.
“What’s funny?” he asked.
“The thought of my father paying for me to go to a Catholic college in the midwest.”
“Hey, it’s Notre Dame. People respect Domers.”
“But they don’t send their daughters to school with them.”
Yet their lives had crossed a third time the following Christmas Eve. Elaine could still picture how he’d looked after waiting for her in the cold. Ears and nose red, eyes aglow with pleasure at the sight of her. This time, there was no pretense of surprise or coy declaration of “I was just passing by...” Each admitted that they’d come looking for the other, that the past year had been endless, the urge to track the other down almost irresistible. But they hadn’t wanted to disturb the magic that happened each Christmas Eve. Meeting in between was like knowing what your presents were early. They were young. It was a game. But they both knew it was turning into something more.
Naturally, they’d discussed meeting between Christmases—but they never actually did it. There was magic at work. They hadn’t understood it. They were almost afraid to mess with it. Until that third year, when Tony had news. He was going pro. He had an agent, he’d told her with an endearing sense of wonder. The New York Rangers wanted him, offering the chance of a lifetime, a shot at a life he’d only dreamed about. For the sake of his proud, adoring parents, he would stay in school and finish his degree, because no Fiore had yet earned a college degree. They wanted Tony to be the first. The wait would be excruciating, but he owed it to them. He wouldn’t think of doing it any other way.