by Callie Hart
The sky is a weary gunmetal grey over the rooftops of Red Hook as I slowly drag my heels toward what feels like my impending doom. I keep turning over the coins in my coat pocket, pressing the pad of my thumb against their flat surfaces, trying to count them as I walk. I also keep imagining Rooke’s face when I walk into his place of work, though, and the smug sense of satisfaction I know I’m going to feel is very distracting. He’s not expecting me. Now the shoe is on the other foot, how is he going to react?
The shop front of Lebenfeld and Schein Antique Jewelry, Watch Repair & Curios is just about what you’d expect it to be—dimly lit interiors behind windows that are caked with at least a couple of decades’ worth of grime. Faded gold leaf lettering spells out the long, convoluted shop name, and the paintwork—rust red—that must have looked quite flashy back in the day is chipped and flaking all over the place. The glass is cold underneath my hand as I place my palm against the door. I don’t just want to bull my way in here without planning what I’m going to say first. It will look rather pathetic if I saunter in like the cat that got the cream, only to open my mouth and for nothing to come out. I could quickly tell him that I feel bad for shouting at him and I could leave. Short and sweet, straight to the point. That would be the smartest thing for me to do, then I can get to work and this whole ridiculous debacle will be over.
“If you stand there much longer, my dear, your hand is going to freeze to the glass.” I turn around, quickly removing my hand and stuffing it into the pocket of my pea coat. A tall, strangely dressed black man stands behind me, brandishing a takeaway coffee cup in one hand and the straps of a Louis Vuitton bag in the other. Balanced precariously on his head, a fawn skin bowler hat is knocked to a jaunty angle, and a faux mink stole is wrapped snugly around his neck, folded under his chin. He flashes me a million-dollar smile. I’d like to say I gather my wits about me and return the gesture but the truth is that I open my mouth and gawk at him.
He laughs. “Under normal circumstances, I wouldn’t mind a lovely door ornament such as yourself, sweetheart, but sales haven’t been great this month and I’d really like to pay my rent. If you’d like to come on in, I’m sure I could find something very pretty for you to compliment that ivory skin tone of yours.”
“I’m actually just…I’m actually looking for someone.”
The smile slides off the guy’s face like butter from a hot knife. “Oh, lord. Well you really had better come in then.” He squeezes past me, shoving the door open with one hip, his bag clanging against the glass, and I’m left frozen to the spot, wondering if I can gracefully make an escape without looking too odd. In the fantasy where I showed up to Rooke’s place of work, embarrassing him and making him feel uncomfortable, there was no flamboyant shop owner involved. Now I have to apologize to Rooke, passive-aggressively making him feel bad at the same time, while a fantastically dressed stranger oversees the proceedings? This is not ideal at all.
I step inside the shop, instantly hit by the musty, very familiar smell of old furniture and books that appears to be the same, no matter which antiquities store you may find yourself inside.
The guy throws his bag onto a chair behind a worn, ancient looking desk and takes off his coat. “I’m Duke,” he says. His tone implies that I should somehow already know this piece of information. “And since my boy Rooke is the only other person who works here in this emporium of wonder, I assume it is he you’re looking for? Oh, shit. He hasn’t gotten you pregnant, has he?” Duke wrinkles his nose, shaking his head. “That would be very unfortunate.”
“No, he hasn’t.” Should I be offended that he looks relieved when I tell him this? I suppose I’d be relieved if I were in Duke’s position, although it cuts a little. “I just wanted to talk to him briefly, if he’s around. I promise it won’t take a moment.”
Duke eyes me with open, burning curiosity. “The place is already lit up and open. He must be in the back. Let me go and find the boy for you. In the meantime, have a look around. You never know what you might find.” He disappears through a moth-eaten velvet curtain into what I’m assuming is the back room, and I nervously pace the floors, waiting for him to return with Rooke.
The shop is a strange, strange place. Duke called it an emporium of wonders. I’m not sure I would go that far, but it certainly does boast some bizarre and unusual things: a Victorian era style porcelain-faced doll, whose eyes have worn off; a very creepy taxidermy of some kind of creature, half monkey, half sea monster; a replica statue of the Tin Man from the Wizard of Oz; an entire shelf of dusty tincture bottles with peeling, yellowed labels. Cocaine Toothache Drops. Instantaneous cure! Dr. Wilson’s Finest Worm Syrup. Robertson’s Heroine Hydrochloride Cough Elixir, guaranteed to calm your cough in moments!
Yeah, no joke. Heroine hydrochloride? I’ll bet that did calm coughs in moments. And also render patients generally unconscious or dead.
As I wander around, peering into the vast cabinets of rings and necklaces, running my hands over the shelves, turning things over in my hands, trying to figure out what they are, I can’t imagine Rooke in a place like this. His presence here wouldn’t make any sense. With his slicked back hair, so closely shaved on the sides, his neck tattoos and his pressed hipster shirts, his leather jacket and his bad attitude, I just can’t seem to bend his persona in my mind to fit inside a quirky, unusual place like this. He should be a barista in a pretentious DUMBO coffee shop. He should be a clothing designer in a co-op workspace in Tribeca. He should be a photographer, or some kind of beat poet.
“Sasha.”
The sound of my name stills my hand on the cracked snow globe I was inspecting. Rooke’s voice is hushed in the narrow, cramped space of the shop, but it seems to fill the place up from top to bottom, settling heavily into the corners of the room. I turn around and he’s standing in front of the velvet curtain with his hands in the pockets of his ripped jeans. Seconds ago I couldn’t wrap my head around the idea of him working here. It’s funny how an idea can alter so rapidly in the space between heartbeats. He does belong here. The relaxed, calm way he holds himself says he spends long hours here. This is his natural habitat. It doesn’t matter that Lebenfeld and Schein Antique Jewelry, Watch Repair & Curios is packed to the rafters with antiques and curios that are probably three or four times older than Rooke. He fits in here in the most unexpected way that I can’t seem to put my finger on.
“Hi.” I just stand there, staring at him. There’s a good fifteen feet of space between us, not to mention one very tired, beaten up desk, and yet it feels like he’s looming over me anyway. He smiles incredibly slowly, averting his eyes as he looks down at the floor.
“I kind of remember you screaming that you didn’t ever want to see me again less than twelve hours ago. You can see how you showing up here might be a little confusing.”
I nod slowly. “I can see that. I guess I just...” All desire to embarrass him and make him feel bad goes out of the window. I look at him properly for the first time since we met in the hallway outside Oscar’s office, and I can tell he’s holding his breath a little. He’s arrogant. He’s a bully in a lot of ways, but he’s also a twenty-three-year-old just trying to figure out his shit.
“You just…what?” he asks. “You came here to apologize for yelling at me?”
“Yeah. I did. I’m sorry.”
Rooke shakes his head. “It was a dick move, showing up at your place like that. I should have acted with a little more decorum.” He speaks as if he’s borrowing the words from someone else, as if he’s heard that phrase a couple of times before. “I promise I won’t show up unannounced again.” He rocks on his heels, giving me a tight smile.
“I’m not…I’m not even used to talking to guys anymore, Rooke,” I rush out. “It’s not something I’ve ever been good at. And you’re…”
“So young?” The look on his face is bitter now.
“Yes. You are young. A hell of a lot younger than me. You coming to the house, you having read that stupid book…and
then saying what you did…it threw me off balance for a second. Okay, more than a second. It threw me off balance until just now, actually.”
Rooke sighs. He leans forward, placing his elbows on the desk, resting his chin on his fists. He’s wearing yet another black button-down shirt, this time in washed out faded denim. I pay more attention to his tattoos this time; it looks like there are a pair of matching compasses on the undersides of his forearms, both etched in black with intricate geometric patterns spiraling out from them. “Well, I’m glad to hear you’re not suffering from vertigo anymore,” he says softly. “What happened a second ago to make the room stop spinning? Just to settle my curiosity.”
I force out a faintly nervous laugh. He seems so serious right now that I don’t know how to take him. “I just realized that, I don’t know…I was being stupid. You’re not a threatening person. You’re harmless. You’re just a young guy, having fun, and for a really brief moment the idea of me was probably interesting to you.”
He stands up straight, his back rigid, his brow creased all of a sudden. “I have more than a five second attention span, y’know. I’m not a child, Sasha. I’m not some adolescent who gets distracted by shiny, pretty things every other second of the day.”
I’ve offended him. “I didn’t mean it like that. I just meant that you’re a guy, and you’re hardly going grey, are you? I know what it’s like to be twenty-three, Rooke.”
He folds his arms across his chest. I try not to notice how strong and corded with muscle they are, or how ridiculously big his biceps are. “What was it like when you were twenty-three?” he demands.
“Well. Guys seemed to take a lot less care of themselves than they do these days.”
“I mean what were you doing? You’d finished college, right?”
“Yes.”
“And you’d had serious relationships with guys, right?”
My stomach rolls unpleasantly. “Yes.”
Rooke tips his head to one side, studying me intensely. “You were well on your way to being married, I’m betting. You probably already owned that fancy house of yours. Were you working at the museum when you were twenty-three?” I don’t answer him. I don’t want to admit that he’s right. About any of it. He sees the truth in my eyes, though, and he continues. “And you’re here, making out that I’m incapable of maintaining focus for more than a minute? I think you’ve just forgotten what being twenty-three is like. If this was eighteen sixty-three, I’d probably have been married for seven years, and I’d have three kids.”
“If this was eighteen sixty-three, your poor wife would have to put up with you sleeping with three or four mistresses and she wouldn’t be able to do anything about it. And you’d also probably be dead from syphilis.”
This seems to amuse him. “So now I’m riddled with STIs?”
“I didn’t say that.”
“I’m not. Just so you know.”
“Good for you, Rooke. Good for you.” Our conversation seems to be taking a turn for the worst. I felt magnanimous toward him a moment ago, but I’m feeling less and less generous as the seconds tick by. How old does he actually think I am? How can he say I’ve forgotten what it’s like to be twenty-three? That’s fucking preposterous. “Anyway. I’m sorry I shouted at you, okay?” I say in a clipped manner. “I have to get to work now. Goodbye, Rooke.”
“If you don’t think I’m a threat, you won’t mind going on a date with me then, will you?” He casually tosses the words out there, stopping me in my tracks as I head for the door.
“What?”
“A date, Sasha. Dinner, specifically.”
Frustration bubbles inside me. “I’m not an appropriate target for you to set your sights on, I promise you.”
Defiance sparks in his eyes. “Because you’re ten years older than me?”
“Because of a lot of different reasons. Too many reasons to even list. I have to go, Rooke. I’m already late. I—”
“You’re scared.”
“What?”
“You won’t agree to go on a date with me because you’re scared.”
“I’m not scared. I’m—”
“Terrified? You must be if you’re railing this hard against a free dinner with an attractive guy.”
“My god. How do you fit your ego through the doorway each morning?”
“Don’t change the subject. Go to dinner with me, Sasha. Tomorrow. I’ll behave.”
I can’t believe what’s going on right now. How he thinks he can goad me into a date with him is sheer madness. But then, a part of me admires his determination. Most guys would give up. Most guys would walk away. Rooke appears to be cut from a different cloth.
“Tomorrow,” he repeats. “Come.”
A red hot flush slams into me, prickling all over my body. Why was the way he said that so sexual? I open my mouth to say no, I definitely will not go out with him, but I catch the challenge in his eyes. He’s daring me. Actually daring me to be brave enough, the smug bastard. “Okay. Fine. I’ll go to dinner with you. But after that, this stops, okay? No more turning up to book club. No more coming to the museum. Now if that’s all, I really have to go. I’m going to be la—”
He holds up a hand, cutting me off. “Go.”
I spin on the balls of my feet and I bolt out of the door before either one of us can utter another word. The cold slaps me in the face as I step out onto the windswept street, but I barely feel the sting. My cheeks are already on fire, anyway.
ELEVEN
Walk. A. Way.
Rooke
“Can I just say, I think that went remarkably well?”
“Shut up, Duke.” I watch Sasha disappear from view, her long, chocolate-colored hair swaying from side to side as she marches off down the street, and I clench my jaw. Oh you were right, baby girl. The idea of you is very interesting to me.
“Are you even going to tell me who that delicious young woman was, or are you going to leave me rudely hanging?” Duke asks, taking a sip out of his coffee cup. His eyebrows are so high on his forehead that they’re almost hitting his hairline.
“Her name is Sasha Connor.” I refuse to give him any more information without a fight.
“Mmm. She seemed very cross,” he remarks. “What on earth did you do to her?”
“I returned a book she lost. And I brought her a bottle of wine.”
“Terrible. Terrible manners,” Duke purrs. “How could you be so uncouth?”
“My thoughts exactly.”
“Come on, boy. Sit yourself down. Burning a hole in the door isn’t going to help anything now, is it? She’s already gone, and my legs are tired. Why don’t we take a load off while you explain this interesting turn of events to me in a little more detail?”
“There are no more details. I returned the book. I took her the wine. I ate some of her cheese. She shouted at me and told me to leave. That’s all there was to it.”
Duke pulls a knowing face. “The cheese. You shouldn’t have touched the cheese.”
“A grave error on my part, clearly.”
******
Jake looks at me like I’m completely out of my mind when I explain what happened after work. I sit at the bar of the Beekman Hotel, stabbing a cocktail stick against the cool, polished marble, and he paces back and forth, trying not to laugh by the looks of things.
“You? You went to a book club? For romance novels?”
“I did.”
“I knew you were up to no good the other day. I fucking knew it.”
“All right, all right. Fuck you, man. No need to enjoy this quite so much. Give me another double.” I slide my glass across the bar at him. He shakes his head, grinning, as he up-ends a whiskey bottle into my empty glass.
“You’re a sly dog, dude. So what kind of baggage are we talking about here? You said she had ‘stuff’ going on. ‘Stuff’ is never good.”
“Her kid died.” I throw back the whiskey quickly, slamming the glass down on the counter. I don’t want to look at Jake.
I’ve already anticipated the expression on his face, and I don’t want to have to deal with it. Or defend the course of action I’m already planning out in my head.
“Rooke…”
“I know, okay. It’s fucked up. She’s probably fucked up.”
“How did she tell you? About the kid?”
“She didn’t. I looked her up online. It was all over the internet.”
“Nope. No fucking way. You are never going to see this woman again, dude. She’s too old for you, and she hasn’t even told you about some majorly dark shit in her past. I can’t let you do it. Walk away. Seriously, look at me. I’m not fucking joking. Walk. A. Way.”
“Okay.” I give him a sickly sweet fuck-you smile.
“Goddamnit. You’re such a bastard. Why are you even interested? You’ve got chicks slinging pussy at you from every direction every time you walk out the front door of the house.”
“Has it ever occurred to you that a pussy that’s being slung at me is pussy I might not want to enjoy?” I tap my glass, asking for yet another refill.
“So ungrateful. Some of us can’t get any pussy, slung or otherwise. And you’re out there, chasing down unobtainable, damaged pussy. That’s pretty fucking rough, dude. And, I mean, how? She told you it’s never gonna happen. And you’re still planning on going back to some sexy book club for desperate housewives? You’re fucked in the head. I don’t know how you can even pretend to read that shit.”
“I’m not pretending. I’m reading it.”
Jake steps back from the bar and holds his hands up, shaking his head again. “Do you need an intervention? Because I can totally organize one. It’s my favorite fucking thing to do. I promise, I’ll make it a good one.”