Meet Me in Manhattan (True Vows)

by Judith Arnold

  "I know," Erika said, trying not to sound melancholy.

  Laura shot her a quick glance. "You're not worried about seeing Peter, are you?"

  "No. Everything's cool between us." She sighed again. "The thing is ... I've kind of got this crush on someone else."

  "Who?"

  "Promise you won't laugh?"

  Laura looked offended by the question, then grinned. "I'll laugh only if it's funny."

  "It's funny," Erika warned her. One final sigh, and she confessed. "Ted Skala."

  "Ted!" Laura didn't laugh. In fact, she swerved halfway over the double yellow line bisecting the road, then steered back into the lane and hooted. "Of course Ted."

  "What do you mean, of course Ted?"

  "He's perfect for you. I've known this for months."

  "You have?"

  "Why do you think I keep dragging you to parties where I know he'll be? Same with him. If I know you're coming to a party, I'll call him and tell him to come."

  "But he's already got a girlfriend."

  "Eh." Laura steered with her left hand and waved her right through the air, as if brushing away a mosquito. "He is so perfect for you. It's about time you realized it."

  "First of all, he's not perfect," Erika debated calmly. Ted Skala might be handsome, he might be intriguing, he might have amazing green eyes that expressed so much. But he was a little wild and a little rough-hewn, and he wasn't going to college, and ... and she was sure she could come up with a long list of his shortcomings if given the time.

  Not that it mattered. She wasn't looking for perfect. She wasn't even looking for him. It just happened that she had a crush on him, that was all.

  "Okay, that's first of all," Laura said. "What's second of all?"

  "Second of all, he's got a girlfriend-"

  "-Who is absolutely not perfect for him. I'm going to get you two together," Laura resolved.

  Erika felt her cheeks warm with a blush. "How? What are you going to do? Will I die of embarrassment?"

  "The only way you'll die is if I kill you for being stubborn and uncooperative. Trust me, Erika. I'm going to make this happen."

  Erika snorted. Laura might be one of her closest friends, but at that moment, Erika didn't trust her at all.

  Ted had gotten a ride to Jennifer's house with Will. A week ago, he would have driven over with Kate, but a lot could happen in a week. Kate could throw a hissy fit to end all hissy fits, tell him she thought he was an asshole because he'd wanted to spend the night before graduation with his buddies instead of with her, tell him he would never amount to anything because he was a jerk and jerks never amounted to anything, and in a fairly anticlimactic conclusion to her tirade, tell him that if he was planning to go to Jennifer's graduation party Friday night she wouldn't go, because she didn't want to be at a party with him.

  After Kate had called him an asshole and a jerk and informed him he'd never amount to anything, he couldn't really get all worked up about how she planned to spend her Friday night. She was gone. Good-bye. Good riddance. Too bad she hadn't decided he was an asshole and a jerk before he'd spent all that money on the prom.

  So he'd gone to the party with Will, and plenty of people were there, and he was free. Free from school, free from Kate, free from any expectations other than to show up at the golf course tomorrow for a day of caddying gigs. A beer and his friends tonight; lots of big tips tomorrow. No complaints.

  He sat on a lawn chair on the slate patio that sprawled shapelessly out from the rear of Jennifer's house, sipping his beer and inhaling the beefy smoke rising from the gas grill, where burgers and hot dogs were sizzling. Placed on one end of a long table draped with a fluttering paper tablecloth reading, "Congratulations, Graduates!" in screaming red letters, a boom box blasted Nirvana into the warm evening air. The rest of the table held bowls of chips, pretzels, and other snacks. After a few more sips of beer, Ted might bestir himself to get a burger. But right now, it felt good just to sit and empty his mind of everything except Kurt Cobain's howling voice.

  He closed his eyes, rolled his head back, and savored the peaceful emptiness of his mind. He was almost annoyed when someone poked him in the arm. Opening his eyes, he saw Laura plopping herself into the chair beside him and he decided not to be annoyed anymore. "Hey," he greeted her.

  "I know the perfect girl for you," she said, unable to suppress a giggle.

  "So you told me once before. I've been waiting ever since to find out who Miss Perfect is."

  "Sometimes these things take time," Laura said. "Especially when everyone's being stubborn and foolish."

  "You can't possibly be talking about me," he said with a grin.

  "Well the thing is, this perfect girl has a crush on you."

  As long as the allegedly perfect girl wasn't Kate, Ted was okay with it. "Yeah? So who is she?"

  Laura gazed around the backyard. At least twenty-five kids were there, talking, eating, cutting up. Which one had a crush on him? Someone in the yard? Someone inside the house? Someone who hadn't arrived yet or hadn't been invited?

  Laura turned back to him. "Erika," she whispered.

  He bolted upright in his chair. "Fredell?"

  "How many Erikas do you know?" Laura gave him another poke and stood. "Go get her," she said before waltzing off.

  He recalled that day, months ago, when Laura had accosted him in the parking lot outside Country Coffee Shop with the news that she knew the perfect girl for him, and then driven away before he could ask her who. He'd stood in the lot, feeling-all right, foolish-and thinking of Erika. No wonder Kate thought he was an asshole and a jerk. She probably knew that when he thought of the perfect girl for him, the girl he was thinking of was Erika.

  The perfect girl was Erika, and she had a crush on him.

  Maybe that door hasn't slammed on you yet, Skala. Maybe it's time for you to do what you've wanted to do for years. Time for you to get this right. Time to go for the pin.

  ERIKA HOVERED NEAR THE GRILL. She wasn't particularly hungry, and the heavy scent of broiling meat made her even less hungry. But she'd promised she'd grab a hamburger for Laura once they were cooked, and she figured she ought to take one for herself, too. The backyard was filled with a lot of famished teenagers. If she didn't grab a burger now, she might not get one for a long time.

  She didn't know why Laura couldn't get her own food. Laura had scampered away as soon as they'd reached the backyard, barely pausing to ask Erika to grab her a burger before she disappeared into the crowd.

  Erika picked up a paper plate from the stack on the table, flipped it back and forth and exhaled, trying to blow away her irritation. Just because Laura had driven to the party didn't mean Erika had to be her slave, did it?

  Someone tapped her on the shoulder and she spun around, expecting to see her slave mistress. Instead she saw Ted Skala. He was wearing a funny, quizzical smile, and his eyes glowed. He curled his fingers around her wrist and eased her away from the grill.

  "I'm supposed to get a burger for Laura," she protested.

  "Laura can get her own damned burger," he said.

  That he shared her sentiments regarding Laura and the burger pleased Erika. That he continued to hold her, his fingers warm and strong as they circled her wrist, pleased her even more. He led her around to the side of the house, away from the crowd and the music and the hiss of the grill, and then loosened his grip on her slightly. He didn't completely let go of her, though.

  "Is it true, what Laura told me?" he asked.

  Erika's first thought was, What did Laura tell him? Her second was, If she told him what I told her in the car, I'm going to kill her. Her third was, If she told him what I told her in the car, he doesn't seem too upset about it. And he's still holding my wrist.

  Her fourth and final thought was that if she was brave enough to fly over fences on the back of a horse, she was brave enough to tell Ted the truth. And if he laughed at her, well, high school was over. After tonight, she'd never have to see him again.
>
  She drew in her breath, ordered herself not to fidget with the paper plate she still held, steeled her nerves as if preparing to fly over one of those fences, and said, "If she told you I have a crush on you, that's true."

  He let his head fall back so he was staring straight up into the deepening night sky. Then he laughed. Then he straightened and stared straight into her eyes. "I've had a crush on you since the first moment I saw you."

  "Oh." The first time he'd seen her had been, what, two and a half years ago? Her family had moved to Mendham in time for her to start her sophomore year at the high school, and soon after she'd arrived Allyson had taken Erika under her wing and introduced her to the kids she was friendly with, and so had Laura, and Ted had been one of those kids.

  So, yes, sophomore year. He'd had a crush on her that long.

  And he'd never done anything about it. Never said a word. Never even hinted. He'd spent the past two years seeing other girls. What an idiot!

  Except what would she have done if he'd confronted her two years ago? Back then, she'd been obsessed with her riding, and with doing well at her new school, and not making an ass of herself in front of her new classmates. She'd known Ted but hadn't thought of him as boyfriend material. She hadn't thought of anyone as boyfriend material, really. She'd dated that older boy Allyson had introduced her to, and the guy who played lacrosse, but for the most part she'd been just as happy to be accepted into a group of friends, one of the gang, no complications, no emotional entanglements, no risk of heartbreak. She'd found greater satisfaction riding Five Star than fending off her first boyfriend's pressure for sex, and she'd derived more pleasure talking to Five Star than listening to her second boyfriend recount every play of every lacrosse game, making sure to emphasize just how indispensable he'd been to the team.

  She hadn't had a crush on Ted then. She hadn't seen him wrestle yet.

  Why he would have had a crush on her was a mystery. She wasn't cute or flirty. She didn't hang out with everyone after school. All told, she was kind of a nerd. A horse nerd.

  But he'd had a crush on her anyway. And all she could say was Oh.

  "You want something to drink?" he asked, which was almost as prosaic as Oh. She assured herself that if he'd truly had a crush on her for all those years, she probably didn't have to knock herself out to impress him with her wit and charm.

  "Okay," she said.

  Ten minutes later, armed with two bottles of beer, they were seated on the grass under the arching, densely leafed branches of a maple tree, apart from the crowd. Ted leaned back on his elbows, his legs stretched out. His shorts ended at his knees and she found herself gazing at the lacy film of hair covering his calves.

  "So what are you doing this summer?" he asked.

  "Riding. And heading out to Colorado. How about you?"

  "I've got a job at a gas station. And caddying up at Sommerset Country Club. I've got a caddy gig tomorrow morning. No rest for the weary."

  "You're not weary," she teased. Just because they had crushes on each other didn't mean they couldn't still joke with each other the way they used to.

  "Not now. Tomorrow morning I will be." He slapped at a mosquito on his arm, then took a sip of beer. She'd seen him at enough parties to know he wasn't the kind of guy who chugged down brew after brew and got drunk and acted like a jerk. "Your toes still look great," he noted.

  She stared down the length of her legs to her feet. Her manicure from the prom had long ago chipped, but her pedicure still looked fresh. "You shouldn't have been checking out my feet while you were with Kate," she chided.

  "I wasn't with Kate by then. Not really."

  "You took her to the prom."

  "Because what was I going to do, break up with her a week before graduation? You were at the prom with someone else, too."

  "Because you were with Kate. And Peter asked me." She shot Ted a sly look. "And you didn't ask me."

  "Well, that's history now," he said, refusing to let her needling get to him. "So what's in Colorado?"

  "Colorado College, in Colorado Springs."

  "Wow, couldn't you get any farther away?" He laughed. "No school in California would take you?"

  She gave him a playful nudge. "I want to experience living in the mountains."

  "We've got mountains here," he said, sweeping his hand through the air as if they were surrounded by alpine peaks.

  "Hills," Erika argued. "We're a lot closer to the ocean than anything that could be considered a mountain." She shrugged. "It wasn't that I wanted to go far away. I just want to try something new. I love traveling."

  "Yeah? Where do you travel?"

  "My mother's from Colombia."

  "Columbia? Like the university?"

  "No, like the country in South America. She was born and grew up there. She still has lots of family there. Three sisters and a brother. I've got about a million cousins down there."

  "No kidding. I never knew that."

  "Si, es cierto! That means, yes, it's true."

  "Wow. So you, like, speak Spanish and everything?"

  "It's funny-I sort of don't understand much Spanish when I'm here in New Jersey. But we used to go down to Colombia a lot when I was a kid, and after a day or two, I'd be speaking Spanish like a native. Well, not quite," she added modestly. "But enough to get around. People understood me. Then I would come back here and forget it all. Now I sit in Spanish class and knock myself out trying to keep up with the teacher."

  "Not anymore," Ted reminded her, then chanted, "No more teachers, no more books."

  "Not until I get to college." She plucked a long strand of grass that had sprouted between the bulging roots of the tree, where a lawn mower couldn't get to it. "You're not going to college, are you?"

  "Not right away. I will eventually. I just need some time off." He grinned at her. "We can't all be straight-A honors students, you know."

  "No, we can't," she said, meaning herself. She studied hard and did well in school, but she didn't think of herself as some sort of exalted scholar, destined for Phi Beta Kappa. "Colorado Springs is supposed to be gorgeous. Right at the base of Pike's Peak."

  "Zebulon Pike," Ted murmured. "I couldn't remember a thing all through that boring American History class, but now I remember his name."

  "Zebulon is a hard name to forget."

  "His parents must've been tripping on something when they named him."

  "That would be my guess," she agreed.

  They eyed each other and exchanged a smile. And she felt that shimmery, quivery warmth in her belly again, that trill of sensation she'd never felt with anyone before. When Ted gazed at her with his soulful green eyes, she felt it.

  She was hungry for new experiences-and she acknowledged that Ted Skala was going to be an amazing new experience for her.

  Sometime well past midnight, she and Ted made their way indoors to find places to sleep. She was exhausted. He seemed far too energetic, given the late hour, but he insisted he needed to catch some z's because of his early morning caddying job. He sacked out on the plush carpeted floor in the den, and Erika folded herself up on an upholstered loveseat that would have been a lot more comfortable if it were about two feet longer. The room had a sofa, but someone else had already claimed it and was snoring softly.

  As pumped as Ted had seemed, he fell asleep almost at once. Erika lay curled up on the loveseat, her mind yearning to fall asleep but her heart fluttering, her emotions clamoring, refusing to let her shut down for a few hours of critically necessary rest. That Ted Skala liked her-that he'd liked her for years-was too astonishing. Too bizarre. Too utterly cool.

  This isn't love, she told herself. It couldn't be. She wouldn't allow such a thing. She couldn't fall in love with someone when in a matter of weeks she would be traveling two thousand miles away to attend college. She couldn't fall in love when she had so many exciting adventures ahead of her, waiting for her. She wanted to live in the mountains. She wanted to learn to ski, and to sail, and to climb. She
wanted to get a degree and make money. She wanted to have lots of affairs with gorgeous men. She wanted to see the world, eat exotic cuisine, learn how to tell a good wine from a bad one. She wanted to live.

  She wanted to fall in love, too. But not yet.

  However, her heart would not stop sending ripples of heat through her chest, as if its frenzied beat was Morse code spelling out the letters L-O-V-E. She thought of Ted slumbering on the carpet just a few feet away from her and her face exploded in a smile. She couldn't help herself. Thinking about him did that.

  She must have drifted off eventually, because when she next opened her eyes, a milky dawn light was seeping through the slats in the wooden blinds covering the windows. Laura was shaking her gently. She glanced at the floor and saw that Ted was gone.

  "Wake up," Laura whispered. The snores of the guy sleeping on the couch were louder than Laura's voice. "We've got to leave."

  Erika wanted to ask where Ted was, but if the first words out of her mouth were about him, Laura would never let her forget it. "What time is it?" she asked instead, keeping her voice as low as Laura's.

  "Seven-thirty. I told Ted we'd drive him to the golf club. He's got to caddy this morning."

  "Oh. Okay." So he hadn't left. He was planning to leave with her and Laura. She hadn't imagined last night. The smile that had cradled her dreams through the night reclaimed her lips.

  "You'll never guess who he's caddying for," Laura continued, still whispering as Erika pushed herself to sit and tried to unkink her joints. Sleeping in fetal position might be comfortable for a fetus, but not for a full-grown eighteen-year-old. Her neck was stiff, her legs cramped. She wiggled and stretched and heard dire clicks in her knees as she straightened them.

  "Who?" she asked.

  Laura grinned. "My dad."

  A muted laugh escaped Erika. Small world, she thought, but she couldn't help believing that Ted's caddying for the father of her good friend-the friend who had manipulated Ted and Erika into revealing their feelings last night-was more than a coincidence. It was a sign. A sign that she and Ted belonged together.