by Naomi Niles
“Okay, but I don’t see why one of your other reporters couldn’t have done this,” I said as he ushered me through the door. “Dennis usually takes the ‘mad old lady’ beat.”
Evan pondered this for a second as though trying to think of a good reason. Finally, he said, “You’ll understand when we get there. Come on, we don’t have all morning!”
We caught the train through Forest Hills and Jackson Heights to Central Park. Once I had finished answering my emails, I put the phone away and sat marveling at the view through the windows: two- and three-story brick houses, residential streets lined with trees and tugboats gliding past on the water. It was one of those crisp fall mornings where the city and the world are beautiful beyond telling, where a quiet magic seems to radiate even from the gray asphalt.
“Ready?” asked Evan as we disembarked onto the platform at Columbus Circle. He looked unusually chipper, and I thought what a relief it must be for him to escape the office for a few hours.
I followed along behind him for about a quarter of a mile. It was one of those blustery, cloudy mornings that are so common in New York in early fall, and I could tell just by the feel of the wind on my skin that rain was imminent.
We walked until we came to a waist-high classical column standing in the middle of an open area with latticework all around us. I scanned the trees in the distance looking for any sign of the old woman Evan had warned me about, but there was none: no woman, no chains, no sandwich bag.
An ominous quiet fell as we stood there, motionless.
“Evan?” I said quietly. “This isn’t the place.”
“Just wait,” said Evan. He was removing his camera from its carrying case with a look of supreme unconcern.
I waited, still peering into the distance wondering what we were looking for. Finally, a tall, sculpted figure emerged from the bushes and came striding into view. In almost the same instant, I realized what this was.
“Hey, darlin’,” said Zack when he was close enough to speak without having to yell. “So, I realize this is kind of an ambush, but we couldn’t think of any other way to do it. You’re so clever you were bound to see through whatever we tried to pull.”
“We?” I motioned to Evan, who was circling around us at a distance snapping pictures. “Did you and he plan this whole thing out?”
He shook his head. “No, it was me and your sister. The two of us spent days together in the coffee shop while you were at school trying to come up with something, and well, here we are.”
My stomach gave a nervous lurch as I waited, in silence, for what I knew must surely be coming.
“My buddies and I used to joke that I would never be able to settle down,” Zack went on. “That when I found a woman the relationship would be over in a couple weeks because I’d get bored and move onto the next person. In the platoon when we started dating, they laid odds on how long we’d be together. Some said a month, some said a week.
“But I don’t know what happened when I met you. It’s not like I don’t notice other women but none of them are you. And when we broke up the first time, I was pretty excited at first about being back on the market, but the longer it went on, the more I realized I didn’t want anyone but you. That was the hardest withdrawal I’d ever gone through; giving up drinking was easier. I felt like an addict who would never be satisfied unless you were with me always. I knew then that we belonged together, and that if you wouldn’t have me I’d be single for the rest of my life.”
We had never talked about those fraught, painful weeks after the first breakup, but it was like he was speaking my own experience back to me. This was the thing I loved about Zack: that I had never felt so enjoyed and understood by another human being.
By now, we were standing close together, so close that his voice was barely a whisper. “So I just have one question, and you can say nom but I have to ask because I need closure on this, and I need you.” He reached into the back pocket of his jeans and produced a thin silver band. I’d been expecting something like it, but even so, my eyes teared up at the sight of it. “Kelli, will you marry me?”
I didn’t hesitate even for a moment. “Yes,” I said. “Yes, of course.”
He placed the ring on my finger. We held onto one another in silence for a moment as the clouds broke, and a light rain began falling. “You know there were several guys in your unit who asked me out?”
Zack smiled down at me. “And why’d you pick me over all those other guys?”
I shrugged. “I guess I wanted our babies to be half-Texan.”
He laughed and tousled my hair. I took his hand, and we began walking back toward the grove of trees to the east, where we were joined a second later by a beaming Evan. I’d been so busy getting engaged that I’d almost forgotten he was there.
“You ready to head back now?” I asked him. “Now that we’re all sorted?”
“Not until we find that woman,” he replied, and he went tramping off to find her. I turned to Zack, feeling puzzled.
“Did you tell him about this?”
Zack shook his head, looking as flummoxed as I felt. “I was wondering why you brought him, to be honest.”
I shrugged. “Maybe Renee told him. You want to head back to the house?”
“What about your assignment?”
I watched Evan disappearing into the grove, his shoulders hunched in determination like a hunter of wild game. “He’ll be fine. Let’s go.” And we turned and raced back to Zack’s car while the rain fell in torrents around us.
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This book is a work of fiction. The names, characters, places and incidents are products of the writer's imagination or have been used fictitiously and are not to be construed as real. Any resemblance to persons, living or dead, actual events, locales or organizations is entirely coincidental.
Copyright © 2017 Naomi Niles