Arm Candy

by Jill Kargman

  —Dorothy Canfield Fisher

  Eden took a deep breath. She had no idea this was coming. She reflected on how this man kneeling before her had given her affection, confidence, and, most of all, strength to put herself back together after Otto. She adored him, yes, but her answer . . . was no. He simply wasn’t the right match for her, despite all her affection for him and the great times they’d shared.

  Like Robert Smith from The Cure once sang, Chase never set her soul on fire the way that Wes had. Even though she knew Wes was lost to her, along with her youth, seeing him ignited in her a quest for something inside herself, a longing for true love that needed to be fulfilled. She didn’t decline Chase because of Wes, but because deep down she knew Chase would never finish her thoughts, read her mind, be in sync with her. Wes had set the bar so high, so long ago, that Eden knew in that moment that no one could ever vault it.

  “I can’t,” she said, wiping the tears gushing down her face. “You have given me so much, Chase. You went against your family’s wishes, the world’s expectations, only to give me love and I’m truly so, so grateful. It takes such guts to do that, real courage to be with me when you deserve so much, but I can’t give it to you.”

  “Eden, don’t cry,” he said, rubbing her back. His reaction was surprisingly calm and sober. It was almost as if he knew she was like a comet or shooting star, brightening his galaxy for only a short while. “I understand.”

  “You do?” She loved him even more for allowing her to set him free.

  “Yes. I just want you to be happy. To have everything you want. Even if it’s not me.” He smiled.

  “Chase, I don’t even know what I want. I’m just a confused mess,” she said, smiling as she wiped her tears.

  “You’re a beautiful mess,” he said, kissing her forehead. “I must admit, while I kept hoping we would end up together, I saw this coming. I knew you would slip away. Can’t blame a guy for trying, though.”

  His words made her cry even harder, since she saw their demise in the distance as well. Chase hugged her, then looked at her face. Her vulnerability made her even more beautiful.

  “I only want your happiness, Eden. I’ll never forget you. You made me a new person, a better person, more adventurous—”

  “Less anal.”

  “Less anal, yes,” he said with a smile. Chase realized this would be the last time they would be together, and he felt suddenly heavyhearted. Chase knew deep down that they needed to release each other, but he ached for her so much he felt like even his blood hurt. The tides were rising to a boil inside him, his normally fortified levee about to burst.

  “I’m going to miss you so much,” he said, his voice almost cracking.

  “Listen, Chase: I have one final request.”

  “Anything,” he replied sadly, spent but ready to give her the world.

  “I want you to take that trip,” she insisted. “It’s time you break away, too. Go for it. You need more adventure in your life. Dating me has been the craziest thing you’ve ever done, which is not that exciting.”

  “Yes, it was,” he said soberly.

  “I’m serious,” Eden said, in an almost maternal tone she would use when instructing Cole. “I want you to go to India, okay? Promise?”

  “All right.”

  “Have some tikka masala for me. Promise?”

  “I promise.”

  The unlikely pair hugged, both on the emotional Jetways of two different but life-changing journeys.

  “It’s funny, I helped you be young, but you helped me finally grow up,” Eden said, leaning in to kiss him on the cheek, holding his two hands in hers. “Thanks to you, I’m now ready to take charge of my future. I now know what I have to do.”

  66

  Few women admit their age. Few men act theirs.

  —Anonymous

  The next morning before heading to the office, Chase walked forlornly to the travel agency, hoping to get a refund for Eden’s part of his exorbitantly priced trip.

  “Oh my gosh, what happened?” asked the pretty redhead. “I’m so sorry!”

  “Yeah, well, it was great while it lasted but it wasn’t meant to be, I’m afraid.” He shrugged and sat down in the chair facing the girl. He noticed her shiny red hair flowing past her shoulder and her stylish shift dress. “I’m sorry, but I, uh, I apologize, remind me of your name again?”

  “It’s Piper,” she replied, smiling. “Nice to officially meet you.”

  “That’s a great name,” he remarked sadly, remembering Eden loved it.

  “Thanks,” she said, noticing his downward glance. “Listen, I know this is none of my business, but I’m really glad you’re doing this trip, anyway. I’ve seen so many people who just cancel altogether when there’s a breakup. Good for you.”

  He smiled. “Thanks, Piper.”

  “You know,” she said. “Sometimes it’s good to take a chance. You never know what you’ll come across, who you’ll meet.”

  “Yeah, I guess,” Chase said.

  “I had a friend who was all signed up for a bike trip through Italy with her ex-primate and he totally assholed out and dumped her the night before and she went anyway and met her now-husband.”

  “Really?” Chase brightened. Not that he was on wife-safari or anything, but he felt comforted by Piper’s optimism.

  “Totally. That’s what I’m saying, you just never know! Life’s so crazy, you know?”

  “I do.” Chase nodded. “Thanks so much. I’ll let you know how it goes.”

  “Please do! I really love hearing about people’s trips. I’m always bound to the desk here, so I sometimes look at my clients’ itineraries and wonder what they’re up to that day. It’s silly, really. But I just love sending people on these adventures. Hopefully one day I’ll get to go on one.”

  “I’m sure you will.” Chase smiled. “Thanks again for dealing with the cancellations for the other ticket. I really appreciate it.”

  “It’s my pleasure. Don’t worry. You’re going to have a blast.”

  Chase walked down the hall and pressed the elevator button. He entered the packed car and rode down with the hordes of businessmen and women who were sprinting for their twenty-minute lunch hour to one of the myriad take-out joints in the two-block radius. When the steel doors opened in the grand lobby, bodies flooded in and out of the vast hall, lined with large-scale sculptures. He headed for the middle of five revolving doors, turning and turning, new suits coming in with lunch bags, others headed out. Everyone was running, cycling, buzzing, talking, charging. Chase’s metered steps got slower and slower and slower. Until he stopped right in front of the revolving door.

  “Hey, buddy, you going or what?” a harried executive asked behind him.

  “Oh, yeah, sorry,” he replied distractedly. He pushed through the revolving door to the outside and then . . . he revolved back in. He ignored a raised eyebrow of the person waiting for his side of the door and walked back in, through the bustling lobby, to the elevator.

  For the second time in his life, Chase was taking a plunge. The first had been standing outside Eden’s apartment that cold rainy night, defying his parents and charging to the side of the first woman who had truly changed him. The second was even more bizarre and risky because his bold gesture was based on little but gut instinct, something that Eden had taught him, for the first time in his life, to trust.

  He pressed the button to go back to up to Piper’s office.

  For some reason, while his heart missed and longed for Eden, he had heard her parting words loud and clear. They had helped each other but perhaps were not meant to stay together always. And so, released by her command, his thoughts meandered, or skipped in fact, to the girl whose wide eyes drank in the world only though the golds and cyans of beautifully printed brochures.

  Eden had traveled the whole entire world and was weary, wanting a rock, a touchstone to return home to be whole. And conversely, here was Piper, beginning her journey, bursting to get out from be
hind her desk, away from the fluorescent lights of Midtown to the moonlight in the tropics. But finances and responsibilities had prevented that. Chase thought back to how Piper’s quick e-mails were loaded with exclamations (“Chase! Found this new boutique resort that has outdoor sunset massages and LITERALLY ninety-two species of orchids! Who knew?”)

  He had sworn to Eden he would go on his trip. But did he really want to go all alone? He had his bag packed. The CDLMONOGRAMMED T. Anthony navy suitcase sat by his door.

  “Hi,” he said, standing in Piper’s doorway.

  “You’re back!” She smiled.

  “I know this is going to sound strange. This is really not like me and don’t worry, I’m not some deranged lunatic or anything,” he stammered.

  “Yeah, I’m not worried.” Piper winked, looking at his gentlemanly apparel. “You don’t seem like the menacing type.”

  “You planned this whole dream trip and . . . I was wondering if you would want to join me?”

  “What do you mean?” she asked, brow raised.

  “I mean . . . come with me. I’m serious.”

  “Like, now?” Piper beamed in shock.

  “Like, now.”

  Chase smiled.

  Without a nanosecond’s pause, she stood up, picked up a cherry-hued stapler from her desk and followed him out, like Renée Zellweger’s character caught in Jerry Maguire’s charismatic tractor beam. He looked at her, curious as to why she had chosen that particular office accessory. “I like red things,” she said casually. “It’s my favorite color.”

  “Okay, then,” said Chase. “We’ll be sure to get you something red on our trip.”

  The two were off and running. His parents would be aghast. Could anything be so insane? To jet off at a moment’s notice with a complete stranger?

  So there they were: going to her apartment as he waited for her to chuck clothes into a bag, heading to the airport, going through security, having passports stamped together, getting seated side by side. If there is anything that presses the fast-forward button on a relationship, it’s travel. Not for a moment was there an awkward pause or a nervous stammer. They didn’t kiss until the third day, when Chase marveled at the way Piper seemed to have already been to Indonesia not only through her extensive research but also through her vivid imagination. Her gratified sighs at each marvel they beheld made him beam with pride, and it was refreshing to be with someone who relished every sight, bite, and breeze. They swam under the moon, they hiked under the sun, they danced by torchlight and kissed as the Balinese waves lapped their toes. In that moment, with Piper in his arms, their four feet wet with faraway waters, Chase smiled to himself: Eden would have been proud of him.

  67

  A truly great book should be read in youth, again in maturity and once more in old age, as a fine building should be seen by morning light, at noon and by moonlight.

  —Robertson Davies

  On the night Chase was boarding the plane with Piper, Eden was home alone. She sipped a glass of wine as she looked out her window at the wet streets. She hoped Chase’s flight wouldn’t be forever delayed. She meandered to her computer, where she clicked on Wes’s Web site, looking at the various buildings he had designed and restored. Should she call him again? E-mail? She was so confused. She got in bed and watched TV until before she knew it, she had dozed off in front of some gossip show—or as they called it—“entertainment news.”

  She was startled awake by one of those ominously loud commercials. She got her bearings as she saw it was eight o’clock. Shit, now what? She flopped back down in bed and thought she would choke on self-pity. But then she stopped. How could she dole out advice to Chase and not practice what she preached? She could never be at peace with moving forward in her life until she fought for what she really wanted. Who she really wanted. She threw on jeans and a black blouse with a bow, wrapped a scarf around her, and put on a gray coat and headed out. She walked all the way to Wes’s Park Avenue South office building and buzzed from the lobby.

  “A Miss Eden Clyde is here,” security told reception. “Okay, he says go up.”

  Eden rode up in the elevator, shaking. Holy shit. No going back now.

  Wes stood in his glass entrance doorway.

  Mother Love Bone played in the background as young people carrying rolled-up blueprints walked around in jeans.

  Shit. She knew he worked late but she didn’t realize he had a whole crew of people there.

  “Eden, hi—”

  “Okay, I’m sorry to just show up here. You must think I’m a stalker, a total crazy person,” Eden gushed. She took a deep breath and looked at his face, which remained largely unchanged, still the same gorgeous blue eyes, a more weathered but much sexier countenance. Breathe, she told herself.

  “No, don’t be silly, come in. I’m just wrapping up a meeting with—”

  “Oh my God, you’re with a client? I’m so sorry.” Her face burned with embarrassment. “I’ll go. I’ll call you another time.”

  “Don’t worry, it’s actually with Max. He’d love to have you join us; come on in.”

  She followed him nervously across the spacious reception area to an all-glass conference room where Max sat. His fingers ran over the scale model of the buildings as Eden and Wes walked in.

  “Max, Eden is here,” Wes explained.

  “Max, I’m so sorry to barge in. I just . . . I was nearby, and, um—”

  “Eden, sweetheart, so lovely to hear that voice,” he said as he held out his hand, which she took, sitting next to him.

  “It’s really good to see you,” Eden said, wanting to cry. She looked back at Wes, who was clearly surprised by her sudden arrival.

  A rising tide of emotion welled within her chest. She looked at both men, two of the most genuine people she had ever met. And in that moment, she felt safe.

  “I . . . ,” Eden started but couldn’t speak.

  “Eden, are you okay?” Wes asked, sitting down next to her.

  “I lied,” she confessed, looking up at Wes. Her eyes were glassy with the thick veil of tears on deck. “I wasn’t nearby. Not at all.”

  She blinked and all the levees of her eyes cracked. Then broke open.

  “Wes, I am here because, oh God, I am so, so sorry. Ugh, that word is so weary with overuse, so weak. Okay, I am not sorry: I am gutted. I am sorrier than I have been about anything else in my entire life,” Eden spewed. “You must think that I am raging nuts to show up here, but just because I haven’t seen you in forever doesn’t mean that I ever stopped thinking about you or caring or lately, since our coffee, even obsessing! Okay, that sounded scary. I swear I’m not Glenn Close and I swear I won’t boil rabbits on your stovetop, but after I bumped into your mom and then saw you, I thought so much about how your mom fought for your dad and I was haunted by your mother’s boldness, her choice to go for what she wanted and I had to come here to tell you something,” she said.

  “Okay,” Wes answered softly. He faced her, arms crossed. Eden noticed that his rich brown hair was flecked with gray.

  “You know the guy I mentioned I had been seeing. Chase?”

  “Yes,” Wes answered.

  “After I saw you, I started thinking about you, about us. Nonstop. And soon afterward, Chase proposed. He gave me a red Cartier box. And do you know what popped into my head?”

  “What?” asked Wes.

  “I thought . . . I wish it were a box of raisins.”

  She burst into tears and knew she seemed utterly nutso. She knew he wouldn’t actually dial the police and have her whisked away in a straitjacket, but she was worried he definitely thought she was mildly insane.

  Trying to digest this shocking soliloquy, Wes simply sat there, silent.

  Eden was mortified. “I’m sorry, I shouldn’t have come. I’m so embarrassed. I’m so sorry to have interrupted.” She turned and ran out.

  “Eden, wait!” Wes called after her, but she was on her way to the door.

  Wes turned to Max.
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  “Come here,” Max said to him. “I have to tell you something.”

  Outside, Eden was furiously pushing the down button for the elevator, which could not come fast enough. Maybe the cable would snap and she’d be out of her misery. Eden, in total melt-down mode, burst into convulsive tears. Chase had helped her crack her hardened veneer. He had cracked the dam, but seeing Wes was the battering ram that unleashed a flood of tears. She had her chance and she threw it all away for nonsense, for fame, for security. And now she looked like a total fool. Where the fuck was the fucking elevator?

  Wes came through the double doors and walked up to her, and took her hand. “Come with me,” he instructed.

  Sobbing, she followed him back inside, turning to the left as opposed to the conference room. She followed him down a long hallway, feeling like her life was slipping away, swirling out of control.

  “Please don’t think I’m some psycho stalker.” She wept. “I’m so mortified.”

  Wes led her into a huge, sleek office with views of the city and a book-covered desk. He closed the door behind them.

  “Turn around,” he instructed.

  Eden spun around in her thick, all-enveloping fog. Hanging on the wall was Beside Eden, Otto Clyde’s last masterpiece, which had sold even before the gallery doors opened. Eden’s jaw dropped. She turned to look at Wes.

  “You own this painting?” she said in shock. “I thought it was some fancy Midtown lawyer that bought it!”

  “It was,” he said with a sly smile. “My lawyer.”

  “Oh my God,” she marveled. “I can’t believe it.” She stared at the image of herself in repose, her languid eyes seducing the viewer. “Wes, I’m so sorry.”

  “Eden, don’t be sorry. Don’t worry about the past. We were young. I’m totally content. I have a thriving business—”

  “It’s not just that I’m sorry,” she interrupted. “It’s that I love you. After I saw you I knew it for sure. I love you, Wes. And now I know I never stopped.”