Meet Me in Manhattan (True Vows)

by Judith Arnold

  But she had. God, had she ever.

  He looked at those photos and saw not just the lovesick fool he'd been but the anguish he'd endured after she'd left. The nights he'd spent curled up on his parents' blue living room sofa, so crippled with grief he could scarcely move, let alone eat or think or live. He saw the despair, the loss, the certainty that he would never recover.

  He'd recovered. And he'd promised himself he would never let himself become that vulnerable again.

  So how did he get here? How did he allow Erika to break through his defenses? How had he fallen under her spell a second time, torn open his soul for her, given her access to his stillwounded heart? What was the point of enduring such agony if you didn't learn from it?

  If she broke that heart again, he wouldn't survive. He knew that.

  The bars of the fence were cold and hard, denting the skin of his palms. The weight of the long night pressed down on him. He needed sleep, but he couldn't go back to Erika's apartment. Hoboken seemed so far away, though.

  Didn't his old high school friend Ryan live in the city? Maybe he could crash on Ryan's couch. He'd spent many Saturday nights crashed on people's couches when he'd been that stupid, naive kid in the photos Erika had shown him.

  But if he called Ryan, and Ryan told him to come over, and he arrived at Ryan's apartment, wherever it was ... Ryan would ask him questions. "Yeah," he'd have to say, "I'm still a stupid, naive kid, too dumb to save myself. Can you save me? Do you have an antidote for Erika?"

  Right. That would work.

  He snorted, forced his fingers to unfurl, and pushed away from the fence. He would walk for a while. Shake off the spell. Regain his footing. Try to find his way back to safety.

  As if he could ever be safe from hurt as long as Erika was in his life.

  Miles above him, a few brave stars twinkled in the gray-black sky, visible despite all the ambient light New York City emitted. He sent a message upward, aiming at the brightest star and wondering if it would bounce off and somehow reach Erika: Make me believe. Make me believe that loving you won't destroy me again.

  She'd never received his star-sent messages all those years ago.

  He realized that she wouldn't receive this one, either.

  The bastard!

  If she were given to grand gestures, she would have swept all the piles off her bed and let them scatter across the floor. And then she would have stomped all over them. Maybe she would have donned her old riding boots first to maximize the damage.

  But she was too tidy, and she'd worked so hard to compile all that wedding information: the notes on restaurants, hotels, florists, photographers. She gathered her piles, stacking every thing in order, and placed all the folders inside the drawer where she stored them. The same drawer where she stored all the letters and drawings Ted had sent her so long ago, the letters and drawings she'd never been able to throw away.

  By the time she was done clearing her bed, tears were spilling down her cheeks.

  How could he accuse her of not loving him enough? How much was enough? Enough to fill an ocean? To flood the planet? Enough to occupy the entire galaxy? What would be enough to reassure him?

  I will never be with you again. I could never be this hurt again.

  He had said that to her, and for sixteen years she'd believed he meant it. She knew how immeasurably fortunate she was that he'd gotten past it, that he had decided to be with her again. My God, he hadn't just discussed marriage with her. He'd discussed it with her parents.

  And in spite of all that, he still didn't trust her not to hurt him.

  Trust was her bottom line. If he didn't trust her, their relationship was over.

  That thought sent a fresh wave of misery crashing over her. She sat on her bed, shaking with sobs, soaking her T-shirt with tears. She couldn't marry someone who didn't trust her-and Ted didn't trust her. It was over, really over.

  The worst of it was, she was in dire need of someone to comfort her as she mourned the loss of Ted-and the someone she wanted to comfort her was Ted. She prided herself on being strong and independent, but on those rare occasions she needed a shoulder to cry on, the only shoulder she wanted was Ted's.

  The son of a bitch.

  She grabbed her cell phone from her night table and speeddialed Allyson Rhatican. After a couple of rings, Allyson's voice reached her ear, hoarse and sluggish. "H'lo?"

  "Allyson, it's me."

  "Erika?" Allyson cleared her throat, then cursed. "Do you know what time it is?"

  "Two?"

  "Three. You woke me up. This better be good."

  "It's terrible," Erika said, then started sobbing again.

  "Oh, my God." Allyson sounded fully awake now. "Did someone die? Is it your parents? Your sister?"

  "No. No one died." Erika struggled to breathe, to flush the tears out of her voice with a few deep sighs. "Ted walked out on me.

  "When?"

  Erika wasn't sure. It seemed as if he'd only just stormed out the door-and as if he'd been gone forever. "Ten minutes ago?"

  "Why? What happened?"

  "He doesn't trust me. He doesn't think I love him as much as he loves me. He doesn't think I can love him as much as he loves me.

  "Oh, Erika." Allyson's voice grew honey-soft and consoling. "He's just scared."

  "Scared of marriage? I don't think so. He's wanted to get married since he was eighteen years old."

  "Scared of getting hurt."

  "I'm the one who's hurting right now," Erika protested.

  "Yes, and you sound pretty damned scared."

  Erika let Allyson's words seep into her. Their truth resonated inside her. She wasn't angry or resentful. She was frightened. More frightened than she'd ever been in her life.

  Frightened of losing Ted. Frightened that if she lost him, she would never recover. Frightened that the pain of losing him would destroy her.

  Just as frightened as he must be.

  "What should I do?" she asked Allyson.

  "Dust yourself off," Allyson suggested. "Get back on the horse, and give it a kick, and fly."

  Erika thanked Allyson, apologized for waking her, thanked her again, apologized again, and obeyed Allyson's order to shut up and let her go back to sleep. She stared at the phone in her palm, drew in another deep breath to make sure all the weepiness was gone, told herself to get past her abject fear, and speed-dialed Ted's cell phone.

  He answered almost at once. "Fred."

  "Come home," she said. No sobs in her voice, no panic. Only the truth. "I need you. I love you. Please come home."

  "I'm in the lobby," he said. "Tell the doorman to let me in."

  If she weren't so wrung out, she might have smiled. "I love you more than you love me," she said.

  "That would be impossible." Her intercom buzzed, and, still clutching her cell phone to her ear, she climbed off the bed and grabbed the intercom phone.

  "Ms. Fredell?" The overnight doorman's voice was almost as groggy as Allyson's had been. Erika wondered if he'd been sleeping at his desk. "Your fellow is here. Looks as if he might have been crying."

  "Good," Erika said. "We'll match. Send him up. And tell him I love him."

  The doorman snorted, no doubt embarrassed. She didn't care. He was sending Ted back to her, and for that alone, she loved him, too.

  YOU OUGHT TO BE IN THE MOMENT at a time like this, but so much has happened, so fast, and you feel like you need to review it one last time before the door opens and you enter the next stage of your life.

  Beside you, the woman you love looks like a mess. A gorgeous mess, but definitely not her well-groomed best. You know there are things you're supposed to say to her, and you say them. You hold her hand, rub her back, kiss her fingertips even as she's screaming and cursing and making an all-out spectacle of herself And instead of being in the moment, you find yourself focused on the diamond on her hand, and you remember that crazy trip you took to Arkansas to dig for a gem at a mine called Crater of Diamonds State Park. You could
have taken her to Tiffany's, but no, you had created a unique design for the ring you wanted to give her, so you trekked out to Arkansas to dig for a diamond yourself And you stood in the hole you'd dug, and suddenly water started rushing into the hole, and you'd thought, I am going to drown because of love.

  But you'd already accustomed yourself to that idea, anywaythat loving Erika could kill you. You'd accepted it. Because you loved her more than you loved your own life. Because you couldn't not love her.

  You didn't drown. You came home and picked out a stone from a certified dealer and had the ring made.

  Seventeen years. Seventeen years from the moment you'd known she was the only woman you would ever love. And now she's next to you, sweating and swearing, and she's never looked more beautiful to you than she does right now.

  You gave her the ring in Florida. She'd probably expected to get it in Maine, where you'd gone first, making the rounds of the parents for the holidays. You'd spent a couple of days up in the snows of East Machias-too close to the shoreline to go skiing, but that was okay, this was a family visit, not a ski vacation. Your brothers were there. George pretended to wrestle you, but of course you weren't his puny baby brother anymore. You're as big as he is these days, and he knew that if he took you on, you'd have him pinned in two seconds flat. Josh and Adam and Nancy and their assorted partners, spouses, and children were there, your parents' house was crowded and noisy and Erika kept giving you looks that grew progressively more doubtful, more worried.

  But you waited. You wanted to do this right-not with all your nosy, noisy siblings around.

  So you flew with her from Maine down to Florida, and she was getting a bit edgy and anxious. You were kind of edgy, too, because her parents-who are really great people but kind of old fashionedput you in the guest bedroom and her on the convertible sofa in the den, and you were horny as hell. At six-thirty in the morning, you couldn't stand it any longer, so you sneaked into the den and joined her on the sofa just for a snuggle, you weren't going to get into anything intense with her parents asleep just down the hall. And she started cuddling against you, making you ten times hornier, and you said you wanted to take a walk.

  "Alone?" she asked.

  "You can join me if you'd like," you said, all casual. Thank God she'd decided to come with you.

  She was dressed in pink. The color of the sun rising over the ocean. You had the beach to yourself; everyone else was probably still in bed, visions of sugarplums dancing in their heads. The sand was soft and white, the air sweet and morning-cool, the water as smooth as a mirror.

  You couldn't stop looking at her. You couldn't stop thinking that everything you'd ever wanted, everything you'd ever dreamed of, everything you'd ever wished upon a star for-it was here. It was her. Erika.

  You were rehearsing in your head how you would phrase the question-as if there were all that many ways of phrasing it-but before you could speak, she launched into a monologue, going on and on about how wasn't it amazing that a year ago you weren't even in each other's lives, and six months ago you'd met at Fanelli's, and as soon as she'd said good-bye to you that day, she'd realized she was in love with you, and how generous fate had been to bring you and her back together-and you're thinking, excuse me, I was the one who got us back together, sending you that email and asking if you'd like to meet for a drink, but okay, give fate all the credit-and she was babbling, and you were wondering if she'd ever stop to catch her breath, only you didn't want her to stop because she was just saying, in so many different ways, that she loved you.

  And you realized that yes, there were many ways to phrase the question.

  So you finally turned to face her, and she finally shut up, and you said, "You are the only woman I have ever really loved. "And you fell to your knees on that warm, white sand and said, "I want to spend the rest of my life with you." And you gave her the ring, which did not have a stone from the Crater of Diamonds State Park in Arkansas, and damn it, if you'd drowned there, it wouldn't have been the worst way to go.

  You remember that at your wedding, the first song you and she danced to as husband and wife was "Songbird," by Fleetwood Mac. The song she'd included on the mix tape she'd given you so many years ago. The heartfelt ballad that said everything. "I love you, I love you, I love you like never before ..."

  She's groaning, and you steer your attention back to the hospital room. Floral wallpaper-supposedly soothing, but only one thing would soothe her right now, and it's happening in its own time. There's a doctor in the room, a nurse, a midwife, and everyone is smiling, even Erika when she's not muttering and panting and doing all those breathing things you tell her to do. You want to point out to her that she was the one who insisted you had to start having babies right away, and as it turned out, right away happened on the honeymoon.

  Not a bad way to celebrate a wedding.

  Even if it meant you wound up spending your first few months of marriage searching for a bigger apartment. Because there was no way you could squeeze a crib into the Doll House. But you found the apartment. Not the house you've talked about in the country, with horses for her and donkeys for you and a dog like Spot, although Erika says if you have a dog it has to be fixed.

  The way she's feeling right now, you wonder if she's going to want to have you fixed so she doesn't have to go through this again. You squeeze her hand, wipe a damp cloth over her forehead, kiss her matted hair, and remind her to keep breathing.

  "I have to push," she says.

  You wish you could push for her. You wish you could take on her pain for her. But she would never let you. She promised you she would never cause you pain again, and she never will. You know that now. She's Erika, wise, beautiful, earthy, brave Erika.

  The only woman you've ever really loved.

  "It's crowning," the midwife says. "Let's have another big push now, okay?"

  And suddenly everything happens so fast, and Erika clutches your hand and scrunches her face and pushes, and you feel as if you're drowning right now, not in a hole in a diamond mine but right here, drowning in love and joy, and the midwife says, "It's a boy."

  And your son lets out a cry. And you and Erika start crying, too.

  So many years. So much pain, loss, distance. So much love.

  They ask you to cut the cord, and you do, and your son is bundled into a blanket and handed into Erika's loving arms. And you think, it was worth it. All those years, all that hurt, but now you have this. You have everything.

  It was definitely worth the wait.

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