by Patterson
Chapter 98
I decided that gray pants, blue blazer, tattersall shirt, and a yellow tie were as opera-worthy as anything I had in my closet. I took the number 1 train to Lincoln Center and walked to the restaurant.
Cheryl was waiting. She was wearing a sleeveless black dress that showed off her flawless caramel skin with a V-neckline that provided just enough cleavage to drive a man crazy.
“You look amazing,” I said.
“Thanks. You clean up pretty well yourself,” she said.
“But you lied,” I said. “That is definitely not what you usually wear to work. If you did, you’d have a lot more cops showing up for counseling.”
Shun Lee Cafe is perfect for pretheater dinner. Pretty young waitresses push rolling carts of bite-size dim sum in steamer baskets from table to table. The customers pick out a few to share, and then the cart moves on, magically reappearing just when you’re ready for your next course.
“The seafood dumplings with chives are to die for,” Cheryl said, holding one in a pair of chopsticks and passing it across the table. She popped it into my mouth, and I had to lean over to keep the juices from dribbling down my chin and onto my tie.
“That older couple over there is staring and smiling at us,” she said. “I think they think we’re adorable.”
“We are,” I said.
When the check came, I reached for it. Cheryl put her hand on mine. “I’ve got it,” she said.
“You got the opera tickets,” I said.
“I didn’t pay for them. They were a gift.”
“Even so, I’m old-fashioned,” I said. “Guys pay for dinner.”
“My father’s a guy. He’s paying.”
“I thought daddies stopped paying for their daughters’ dates right after senior prom.”
“He bet me a hundred bucks you’d never show up for the opera,” she said. “He lost, so he can pay.”
“Your father bet I wouldn’t show? How did that even happen? Do you always discuss your dating plans with your parents?”
“When you called me Tuesday night, I was having dinner with my father,” she said.
“You said you were with a cop.”
“Daddy was a cop. Didn’t you know that?”
I shook my head.
“Anyway, he’s very old school. Doesn’t think a cop could listen to a woman screaming without jumping onstage and arresting someone. I told him you were much more enlightened, and it cost him a hundred bucks.”
I took my hand off the check. “Thank him for dinner and tell him I’m sorry I let him down.”
La Traviata had been nothing short of mesmerizing.
“Did you really like it?” Cheryl said as we left the opera house.
“Are you kidding? It was the classic love story. Boy meets girl. Boy loses girl. Boy finds girl. Girl dies of consumption in the third act. It doesn’t get any more romantic than that.”
She took my arm, and we walked through the plaza and stopped in front of the Revson Fountain, one of the city’s most recognizable landmarks.
“Turn around,” she said.
I turned, and I was facing the opera house. It was like a cathedral with its crystal chandeliers lighting up the Chagall murals on the inside and the five soaring floor-to-ceiling arched windows on the outside. The fountain was putting on its own show with multicolored lighting effects and a perfectly choreographed water ballet.
“I take it back,” I said. “This is even more romantic than a girl dying of consumption.”
“People come from all over the world just to stand where we’re standing right now,” Cheryl said.
I turned to face her and put my arms around her waist. “It just might be the best place in all of New York for a first kiss.”
She leaned in even closer. “You may be right,” she whispered.
Our lips met and lingered while the water danced around us and covered us with a fine mist.
“I live right here on the Upper West Side,” Cheryl said. “Walking distance.”
“Would you like a police escort?”
“Definitely. Some of these operagoers look menacing.”
We walked uptown to Lincoln Towers, a sprawling complex of six high-rise apartment buildings on West End Avenue. It was yet another New York City neighborhood where most cops can’t afford to live.
“I got the condo. Fred got the bimbo,” she said, reading my mind.
We stood in the shadows, away from the bright lights of her lobby. I wrapped my arms around her. She was exotically beautiful, her skin was soft and warm, and the lingering traces of her perfume set every male hormone in my body on point.
We kissed. The second kiss was longer, sweeter, and even more electric than the first.
“Thank you,” she said. “I had a wonderful evening.”
“Me too. Except for the part where I didn’t get to pay for dinner.”
“I’ll tell you what,” she said. “I’ll let you buy me breakfast tomorrow.”
“Tomorrow?” I said. “Are you really sure you want to trek over to the East Side and have breakfast with a bunch of cops at Gerri’s Diner on a Sunday?”
“No,” she said, taking me by the hand and walking me toward the lobby. “I have a better idea.”
She certainly did. Much, much better.
But that’s a whole other story.
FB2 document info
Document ID: fbd-af2d69-9f5c-b849-fea2-9c23-7bbb-ee5b62
Document version: 1
Document creation date: 11.10.2012
Created using: calibre 0.9.1, Fiction Book Designer, FictionBook Editor Release 2.6.6 software
Document authors :
Patterson, James
Karp, Marshall
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