“So, as your new pool buddy, I sort of screwed up back there. Coffee’s a really nice idea. As long as it’s not a date. If you’re even half as funny as your mother is in her letters, I have to get to know you. But I don’t think I can manage it until Monday. I’m on duty the rest of this week.”
Charley nodded. “Monday it is.”
“And listen, you’ve been in here almost twenty minutes. You’re going to dehydrate if you’re not careful.” Joanna handed her a bottle of water and left.
Charley looked at the clock hanging on the wall outside the sauna, smiled, and drank down half the bottle. Joanna had been paying attention to how long she’d been in here. That was promising.
* * *
With Emily in the air on her way back to the States, Charley went to the Y Thursday for David’s seven a.m. class. Her boss’s incommunicado state meant a quiet day. Tomorrow would be much the same with Emily working from home. Turning onto Forty-Seventh Street, she spotted Neely standing outside the Y. It was unusual to see her away from her post. “Hey,” Charley said as she drew near. “What are you doing out here? Everything okay?”
“Collecting myself. We had an incident in the men’s locker room. Ambulance left a minute ago.”
“What happened?”
“Heart attack. EMS thinks he’ll be okay, but I’m a little shaken.”
Charley put her hand on Neely’s shoulder. “Anything I can do?”
Neely’s gaze, when she looked at Charley, was serious. “Are you busy Friday night?”
Charley knew immediately what was happening, but she wasn’t sure which direction she should take, knowing that her answer this time would define their relationship one way or the other. For good. “I…I don’t know.”
“Of course you know. Everyone knows their schedule. Guy that left here in that ambulance, his schedule just got blown out of the water. I didn’t used to when I was younger, but now I see these things as signs.”
Internally, Charley agreed. Her father’s death when she was twelve had taught her all too well the fleeting nature of life, but she had chosen to live it from the second row since then, not wanting to be touched too deeply by it, not wanting much to be expected of her. For a moment, she looked at the ground, Brooke’s rebuke Tuesday night about her life being emotion-free chasing around in her head, her further advice to walk on the wild side nipping at her careful core.
“Please…come dancing with me and my friends. It’s a club downtown that plays some seriously good music. I’d really like to spend time with you.”
“I, uh…”
Neely stepped closer. “It’s a couple hours, Charley,” she said softly. “It could be fun. We’d be with other people, and I promise if you’re not having a good time, I’ll get you home right away. I just feel like…I need something more than flirting after watching someone’s life change in an instant like that. I don’t want to be on the platform watching the train leave without me.”
Charley inhaled, the cocoa butter fragrance hitting her. Maybe I do need to walk on the wild side for a minute. Or at least lean over the railing and look at it. “Okay,” she said.
Neely’s smile was a mix of relief and joy. “Why don’t you let me pick you up, or meet you somewhere before, and take you to the club.”
“Why? Where is this place?”
“It’s a little hard to find for the uninitiated.”
Charley blinked.
“It’s a storefront on Franklin near Hudson. You wouldn’t know it was anything. You’d walk right by it.”
“Okay…well, what time do you want to pick me up?”
“About ten o’clock.”
“Ten!”
“I know it’s late, but you could come to dinner with us, too. We get together at a restaurant way downtown at eight. I would love it if you came to dinner. I just didn’t want to press my luck by asking you for the whole night.”
“Well, if I’m coming dancing, I’ll come to dinner.”
“You will?” Neely’s expression of delight made Charley smile. “Okay, I’ll pick you up at seven. Do you like Jamaican?”
“Yes.”
“You’re gonna love this place, then,” Neely said, opening the door to go back inside.
On her way out after class, Neely stopped Charley at the desk.
“Give me your phone for a minute?” she asked, pointing to Charley’s hip pocket.
“What for?” Charley was baffled.
“C’mon.” Neely flicked her fingers.
Charley handed it over.
Neely pressed her phone’s screen to Charley’s. It emitted a beep. “Now you have me in your contacts in case you need to call me before we meet tomorrow night. You can get me by pressing one button. But…” Neely smiled mischievously. “I suspect you already knew that.”
“You must be feeling better,” Charley said, taking her phone back and heading out the door, “because you have the devil in you again.”
Chapter Six
Taking Neely’s advice that the dance floor could get warm, Charley decided to wear jeans and a vintage Creedence Clearwater Revival T-shirt. Would Neely’s friends even know who CCR was? She put her most comfortable cowboy boots on, slung a windbreaker over her shoulder, and went downstairs to wait for her. At the front desk, Frankie nodded in the direction of the lobby reception area as Charley headed for the front door.
“You have a visitor.”
A single red rose in her hand, Neely stood there. Charley almost didn’t recognize her. Neely’s dark hair with cherry stripes was always caught up in a loose bun at her security post, but it now rippled down the back of a black leather biker jacket, giving her the kind of bad girl appeal Charley had always been attracted to but never had the nerve to chase. Black dress slacks hinted at muscular thighs. Neely’s skin color contrasted sharply with the white dress shirt that was fashionably cut to reveal the plane between her breasts, which drew Charley’s undivided attention. She realized she’d lingered there when she looked up and saw the shy smile. The cocoa butter scent, barely perceptible at the Y, now cloaked her as Neely hugged her. The leather of her jacket warmed up immediately under Charley’s hands; she leaned into the softness.
“I’m going to feel underdressed next to you tonight,” Charley said.
“You look perfect. I…wanted you to have this,” Neely said, giving her a rose, “but I realize it’s not very convenient to carry. Can we leave it with your doorman?”
Handing the flower over the counter, Charley told Frankie she’d pick it up later. As they walked toward the subway, Neely took Charley’s hand.
“My friends know you’re coming. I hope you like them.”
“Is there anything I need to know?”
As the train made its way downtown, Neely told Charley about the people in her life. Most of them had gone to Hunter College with her. Charley was momentarily embarrassed that she’d assumed Neely hadn’t attended college because she worked as a security guard, and then she wondered why Neely held the job if she had a degree, but she couldn’t figure out a way to ask her without sounding condescending. And possibly out of step, considering the kind of necessary “gig” economy her generation was adapting. After getting off at Fulton Street, they strolled toward the South Street Seaport’s waterfront.
“We’re early,” Neely said, sitting on the concrete steps of the pedestrian plaza at Pearl and Water Streets. “Tell me about your friends.” She patted the step next to her. “What kind of person does Charley Owens hang out with?”
“Friends from college, just like you, and people I worked with and became close to over the years.” In the middle of telling Neely about them, her phone vibrated in her pocket, tickling her thigh. Afraid it could be Emily, she pulled the phone out, apologizing to Neely. It was Brooke.
Brooke: Hope yr watching the Penn State game. It’s a corker
She didn’t reply, figuring she could text her after dinner. Returning to the conversation, Charley began telling Neely more about t
he women her friends had tried to fix her up with recently, and had her laughing at some of the absurdities. They both heard the rowdy group of people turn onto Water Street and make its way toward them. Charley glanced up. Her defense system kicked in, her unblinking “New York mask” descending, but then Neely rose and waded right into the crowd, and after several hugs, put her arm around Charley’s shoulder.
“Everybody, this is Charley.”
“You didn’t tell us she’s white, Neely,” a voice from the crowd intoned.
Neely paid it no attention. “This is my crew. I’ll introduce you.”
Charley hesitated, counting heads. Her system for coding names to colors or objects was pretty good, but not for a group this big. She crossed her fingers and hoped something would stick as Neely pointed everyone out, and she shook as many hands as she could reach.
They continued down the block to Vanessa’s Jerk Joint, which appeared to be closed until Bertie rang a bell, and in the dim light, Charley saw a tall, regal woman making her way to the door followed by a man in chef’s whites. The woman turned on several lights. Charley recognized Vanessa from her website—she’d researched the restaurant to find out it was considered one of the jerk jewels of the city, its Jamaican owner celebrated for her savvy marketing acumen as well as for the unique spice combination she’d brought with her when she’d emigrated. Charley was immediately taken by how the canary yellow of the shirt she wore highlighted her face and echoed the yellow pinstripes of her black suit. And when Vanessa unlocked and opened the door, Charley saw the yellow sling-back heels and smiled: the woman’s savoir faire obviously extended well beyond marketing and cooking. Everyone filed in behind Bertie.
“Thank you for opening for us, Aunt Vanessa. You’re so good to us,” Bertie said from the depths of Vanessa’s arms.
“You children are so good for my cash register,” she replied and glanced at Charley. “You have a guest tonight.”
Neely took Charley’s hand and stepped forward. “Vanessa, this is my friend Charley Owens. She comes to the Y every morning.”
“A pleasure to meet you,” Vanessa said, the numerous delicate gold and enamel bracelets on her wrist tinkling as she shook Charley’s hand. “A friend? Unusual for you.” She turned back to Charley. “Please know that any friend of my flock is welcome here. Just see you don’t keep Neely from her studies.” Vanessa winked at Charley, who turned to Neely, surprised.
“Your studies?” Charley said when they’d finished jockeying for seats at a table out of view in the back of the restaurant and she found herself on one side of Neely with Stacey on the other side. Neely had introduced Stacey as her best friend, but Charley immediately sensed something was off with this young woman, who was so dismissive that she’d pretended not to see Charley’s extended hand.
Vanessa had shut off the lights in the front of the restaurant and now stood at the head of the table. “Donald is working his magic in the kitchen. What is everyone drinking?” No pad or pen in sight, she nodded as each person ordered.
Neely leaned against Charley. “What perfume do you wear?”
“State secret. And you’re dodging my question.”
“I’m getting my master’s in creative writing at Hunter,” Neely said matter-of-factly, sitting up again.
“You’re kidding me.” Charley didn’t know whether to be relieved that Neely might be closer to thirty or exhilarated that there was much more to her than she had imagined. “I wish I’d known this about you when you first started at the Y.”
“My education would’ve made a difference to you?”
Charley heard the disappointment in Neely’s voice, and an edge to it that she’d never heard before. Looking at her, she was caught by both the pain and the question in her eyes. And then she was trapped by the deep black of them, and Neely’s handsomeness.
“Would you have said yes to me sooner if you’d known?”
“It would have made no difference.” Charley sat back, somewhat defeated. “I would love to have known. Twenty years ago, I went through the creative writing program at Columbia.”
“Seriously? So, pot calling the kettle black, you never shared that.”
“Well, I can’t really stake a claim to writing anymore.” The pages sitting on her desk flashed through Charley’s mind. “I had writer’s block for a very long time.”
“That sucks. How long and how did it happen?”
Charley related the burnout following graduate school, and then the month she’d spent at a writers’ colony in Vermont that was supposed to be restorative. “It was cold and damp even for late May,” Charley told her. “And then when Brooke came to pick me up and take me to Maine so we could celebrate my MFA, this dog…” Charley looked down at her empty charger plate. “We were on this little country road and he came out of nowhere chasing the car. Brooke misjudged where he was and we hit him.” Charley saw the look of alarm on Neely’s face. “We stopped, obviously. And the owner came running, and we got him to a vet in time, but it was like something stopped ticking inside.”
“You fixed it with the dog and made it right. When you have something to say that you can’t keep inside anymore, when it needs to come out because it’s burning and keeping you up nights, that block is gonna be a map dot in your rearview.”
Charley played with her napkin. “Actually, it might be…no, it is. Months ago, I took out that novel I wrote in graduate school, to throw it out, actually, but then I read it, and something did ignite inside, and I had to get back to it. But not the way it was. So, I’m reconstructing.”
“I’d love to look at it.”
Vanessa had been making her way around the table, putting a drink in front of each customer, exchanging questions and small talk with each of them. When she got to Neely, she said, “You been holdin’ out, haven’t you?”
Neely smiled, contritely at first, but it blossomed under Vanessa’s kind study. Charley dissolved inside, knowing that smile so well. Under the muted lighting, the smile cast Neely in a moment of susceptibility and she radiated an allure Charley had never seen before.
“Don’t hide that light under a bushel, I keep telling you.”
“She was hiding her light,” Neely protested, gently knocking her shoulder into Charley’s.
“Oh, well, two wrongs make a right, isn’t that what they say?” Vanessa moved down the table.
“And what about you? Do you have anything I can read?” Charley asked.
Neely laughed.
“No, seriously. What are you working on for school?”
“A short story, a novel, and some poems. My ass is tired, and my pencils are worn down to little nubs.”
“Anything published?”
Neely pulled out her phone and after a quick internet search, she showed Charley the screen.
“I know this literary review.”
Donald came to the table with three platters of food, Vanessa right behind him carrying several more, and the aromas of curry, plantains, and jerk spices swept over the table. The dishes began threading their way through many hands. Charley gave the phone back to Neely.
“Why do you work as a security guard? There must be something else you could be doing,” Charley said, holding a platter of jerk chicken stew as Neely spooned some onto her plate.
“You mean something literary? In publishing? No. I need to keep my writing life separate from my real life. For now. Plus, with classes, I had to take something where the hours worked for me. The Y is perfect. And, I don’t have to pay for a gym.”
Charley nodded. “Smart.”
“Tell me something…if you thought I was a low-level security guard, maybe without much education,” Neely asked with a side-long glance, “why did you finally say yes?”
“Because you were right the other morning. Life can be surprisingly short.” Charley looked directly into her dark eyes, and what she saw reflecting back made everything around her disappear for a moment. She really wanted to admit she’d been attracted to her
but decided caution was warranted, despite Brooke’s advice. “And I already knew I liked you. To us,” she said, picking up her glass.
“To Jack Hersh,” Neely replied, “for showing us the really hard way that we needed to take a chance.”
As their glasses touched, Charley saw Stacey turn away in disdain. Just then, her phone vibrated in her pocket again. Oh, shit, Brooke! She pulled it out, saw that it was, indeed, Brooke again asking where she was, so she shot her a quick, Out w/the girls from work.
“Let’s ask Charley…” Bertie called down the table. “Who’s better, Jay Z or Young Jeezy?”
Charley searched the expectant faces, hoping they weren’t making fun of her, and slipped her phone back into her pocket. “I’ll be honest, I don’t know Young Jeezy’s work. And I find Jay Z too commercial. For my money, if you want the truth of pain in someone’s lyrics, Eminem.”
“Huh,” Stacey said. “Didn’t think you knew the genre.”
“Mostly, I don’t,” Charley said. “But I listen from time to time, I check the Billboard charts and some blogs, so I stay on top of what’s going on, and my nieces and nephews play things for me. Here’s one for you,” Charley addressed the table, wondering if they’d understand the cliché she was about to drop on them. “Who was better—the Beatles or the Rolling Stones?”
The table erupted in both laughter and debate.
“We weren’t born then.” Stacey’s snide tone was unmistakable.
“Doesn’t mean you don’t know their stuff.” Neely pointed her fork at her. “It’s historic.”
“Historic,” Stacey sneered. “Like Charley.”
She decided to ignore the remark and waded into the debate from a firsthand perspective. Half the table was amazed she’d been to a Stones concert in 1978. “That’s before I was even born, y’all!” Jesus noted. And half the table wasn’t sure they could ever recall hearing a Beatles song on the radio; all they’d ever known was hip-hop and rap. Rusty admitted she listened to classical music, too, and Bertie made fun of her. A moment later, Handel’s “Water Music” began permeating the restaurant through the sound system. Everyone became quiet.
Forging a Desire Line Page 5