The St. James Affair

by Susan Wiggs

  “You’d better not be laughing,” she warned him.

  “I would never do that. Why would I laugh about something that’s hurting you?”

  She shifted her gaze forward and concentrated on counting the evergreen swags strung from the streetlight poles. This was a particular talent of his—saying something sweet and sincere just when she needed it.

  “So, did you love him?” Tony asked.

  “I’ve never been in love,” she blurted out, then covered her honesty with a laugh. “Look, I’m all right. Byron wasn’t that … special. I suppose I tried to make him seem that way, but the two of us simply didn’t have it.” She despised the way that made her sound. Superficial. Shallow. Heartless.

  Honestly, what must he think of her? Dumped on Christmas Eve, robbed by her latest best friend, and here she was behaving as though she had missed a hair appointment. The fact was, she had put such thick layers of insulation around her emotions that nothing could penetrate anymore. Not the hurt—but not the joy, either.

  “You don’t have to downplay this, Elaine,” he said. “You’re entitled to feel like crap, at least for a while.”

  “That’s a total waste of energy, and it’s not going to fix anything.”

  He draped his wrist over the arch of the steering wheel. “How much of a hurry are you in?”

  She glanced at her Gucci watch, a little token of appreciation from a client. Then she glared at the silent phone. Well, here was a choice. She could spend the afternoon fretting about the St. James affair. Or she could surrender control for once in her life. She felt a glimmer of … something. Possibility?

  “Actually, none. Everything is under control for tonight. Thanks to Byron, I have no last-minute gifts to buy. Why do you ask?”

  “I need to make a stop.” He swung into a spot marked Official Vehicles Only and came around to the passenger side. He held the door open for her as she stepped out, batting her eyelashes against snow flurries. The giant, gaudy Prometheus sculpture, aglow in floodlights and drowning in the blare of Christmas carols, marked the entrance to the ice rink at Rockefeller Center.

  “What is this?” she asked with a laugh that sounded phony even to her own ears. “A trip down memory lane?”

  “You got a problem with that?”

  She forced herself to look him square in the eye. “Not if you don’t.”

  CHAPTER SIX

  “GOOD. I need to drop off this stuff.” Holding the clipboard and a flat, zippered bag, Tony led the way across the jammed concrete labyrinth.

  The chill in the air, the echoing music and the unanticipated breathlessness Elaine felt stirred recollections of their first meeting. Every detail still lived in her heart, though no one knew that about her. She kept her most cherished memories a secret, like a delicious dream that would be ruined by the telling. Even the painful aftermath of her encounter with Tony Fiore did not dim the power of the memories. Instead, it turned them brittle and delicate, brushed with the bittersweet shadows of what might have been.

  Elaine had never been the shy type. The first time she’d seen Tony on that fateful Christmas Eve, she hadn’t hesitated to make her interest known. A privileged upbringing had given her an unearned sense of self-confidence and the conviction that she would never be rejected. Eighteen years old and unafraid, she’d approached him and said, “Hi. I’m Elaine. I’ve been watching you skate.”

  His cocky grin had melted her bones, at the same time assuring her that bashfulness was not an issue with him, either. “Tony. I’ve been watching you, too.”

  It wasn’t exactly a date, but an encounter like a chemical reaction—brief and unexpected, leaving them both forever changed. At the end of the evening, they’d gone their separate ways, he to his family’s traditional celebration followed by midnight mass, she to her parents’ gala affair. The day after Christmas, he’d left for Indiana to resume the hockey season, and she’d gone skiing in St. Moritz. She’d thought of him all during the rest of Christmas break that year, wishing she’d given him her phone number, or at least her last name.

  Drawn back to the present, she followed him down the concrete steps to the main office, where he handed in his clipboard. “I only wish it was more,” he said as they left. “Every kid should love hockey the way I do. It kept me out of trouble more times than I can count.” He offered his arm. “Let’s go put on some skates.”

  She balked. “Aren’t you supposed to be out chasing muggers or car thieves?”

  “I’m off duty. Come on, Elaine. For old time’s sake.” He kept walking, pulling her along with him through the passageway to the ice level.

  “Why would I want to remember old times?” she asked.

  He stopped walking but kept hold of her arm as he turned to her. “Because they were good times,” he said in a soft tone. “Mostly.”

  Before she could reply, he started walking again, bringing her to the rental kiosk.

  “It’s too crowded,” she said. “No one can get ice time on Christmas Eve.”

  “A cop can.”

  “I haven’t skated since … you know.”

  “You’ve got to be kidding,” he said. “What, did you have an injury?”

  She almost laughed at his assumption. “No, I had a life. A career. Who has time for skating?”

  “Don’t tell me you’ve been all work and no play the whole time.”

  “My work is my play. But ice skating is just not something I normally do.”

  “All the more reason to skate now. It’s like riding a bike—you never forget.”

  She narrowed her gaze and took refuge in a lie. “I’m very good at forgetting things.”

  Unexpectedly, he took her gloved hand in his and squeezed. “I’m good at reminding people of things.”

  Despite her conflicted feelings about being with this man, Elaine found herself lacing up a pair of gamey-smelling size-seven rental skates and worrying about the way the attendant had eyed her designer boots. It felt strange, wobbling along on the rubber matting toward the entrance to the rink, grabbing Tony’s arm for support. This was not at all how she had planned to spend her afternoon. She’d intended to visit Bergdorf’s or Saks to buy Byron another designer sweater. Instead, fate had thrown her a singing elf, an old flame and a break from those parts of her life that were all too real.

  When Tony led her to the ice, reality fell away. The piped-in music, blaring from speakers mounted on lightpoles, should have annoyed her but instead made her wistful. The huge Christmas tree, alive with thousands of twinkling lights, took on a diffuse, fairy-tale beauty in the flurrying snow. Even goldchrome Prometheus and the parade of international flags surrounding the center seemed as charming and friendly as a scene inside a snow globe.

  With a wink and a nod at the attendant, Tony stepped through the low gate and stood aside, motioning her onto the white expanse of ice, gouged by thousands of skate marks per hour. She pushed off and her legs immediately bowed out, blades heading in different directions until her knees started to scream. Sheer determination gave her the strength to reel her feet back in, and a moment later, she was gliding.

  “You’re doing great,” Tony said, flashing the grin she’d never quite forgotten.

  She lurched, then found her balance, and, in spite of everything—the terrible day she’d had, the stressful night ahead—she found herself grinning back at him. With exaggerated gallantry, he held out his hand, and she remembered something she’d learned the first night she’d met him—it was impossible to skate and not smile.

  Clinging to Tony’s hand, she raced around the ice, feeling the wind in her hair and the snow on her face. He skated with the power and grace she remembered. He darted effortlessly through the milling throng, bringing her along on a ride that made her feel as though she were flying.

  Just for these few moments, she touched the sort of joy that used to be so abundant in her life. Where had that gone? Like an uninvited guest slinking off to avoid being ejected, it had slipped away when she wasn�
��t looking. Now the feelings of hope and possibility returned and she refused to examine the reason for the change. Post-Byron euphoria, she told herself.

  But a little inner voice whispered that her ex had nothing to do with the way she was feeling right now.

  She soared over the ice with a man she’d never thought to see again. She even hummed along with the music. She had no idea who Wenceslas was, but she’d known his song forever, and she believed in his goodness. The crowd parted before them, some slowing down to watch—Tony, of course, not her. He was the pro, after all. Together, they probably looked like a Porsche towing a Volkswagen.

  Tony matched his pace to hers, giving only a hint of the speed and aggression that had propelled him to the top of his sport, winning him scholarships and offers from the NHL. Now he swung along with an easy glide. He didn’t even seem to be watching where he was going. He was watching her.

  And she couldn’t help but watch him. He had a face filled with character, a marked contrast to the conventional, vacuous good looks of the male models and socialites of her world. That was what had attracted her in the first place—that he was so different from the boys she knew. Through prep school and the early months of college, she’d dated slender blond young men with blasé attitudes of noblesse oblige and Roman numerals after their names. Unlike those pale, pampered boys, Tony Fiore had an unabashed appetite for life, a fiercely competitive spirit and something no one else had ever given her—genuine interest in Elaine herself, in her hopes and dreams, not her social connections and bank account.

  As they skated, the edges of the rink elongated to streaks of color and light, and the smeared, surreal images revived all the sensations she’d felt years ago. She’d been giddy, filled with a sense of promise. Even though the first meeting was a chance encounter and they’d gone their separate ways, a part of her had believed it was the start of something special. How could it not be, when he gazed at her with magic in his eyes?

  Yet the sturdy barriers between them had remained in place.

  “We should date,” he’d said.

  “How?” she’d asked. “By phone? E-mail? No, thanks.”

  He had kissed her just once that night, but it had made every subsequent kiss thereafter pale in comparison. And then, only half joking, he had said, “Same time next year?”

  Despite the futility of a romance between them, they’d both kept their promise. Christmas Eve, sophomore year. Elaine stealing away from the St. James affair, Tony making himself late for midnight mass. They spotted each other across the ice and met in the middle. Both of them knew that whatever spark they’d initially felt hadn’t dimmed.

  “So we’re starting this forbidden Romeo-and-Juliet thing, eh?” he’d said, and then when he’d laughed and kissed her again, she’d had the strong and undeniable conviction that their attraction was something rare and not easily dismissed. But she was leaving for St. Kitts the next day, he had to go back to hockey, and it was all completely impossible. They’d even joked about the way the world was conspiring to keep them apart.

  They’d indulged in a brief fantasy. She would transfer to Notre Dame, live in the sorority house across the street from his frat…. The very idea had made her laugh.

  “What’s funny?” he asked.

  “The thought of my father paying for me to go to a Catholic college in the midwest.”

  “Hey, it’s Notre Dame. People respect Domers.”

  “But they don’t send their daughters to school with them.”

  Yet their lives had crossed a third time the following Christmas Eve. Elaine could still picture how he’d looked after waiting for her in the cold. Ears and nose red, eyes aglow with pleasure at the sight of her. This time, there was no pretense of surprise or coy declaration of “I was just passing by …” Each admitted that they’d come looking for the other, that the past year had been endless, the urge to track the other down almost irresistible. But they hadn’t wanted to disturb the magic that happened each Christmas Eve. Meeting in between was like knowing what your presents were early. They were young. It was a game. But they both knew it was turning into something more.

  Naturally, they’d discussed meeting between Christmases—but they never actually did it. There was magic at work. They hadn’t understood it. They were almost afraid to mess with it. Until that third year, when Tony had news. He was going pro. He had an agent, he’d told her with an endearing sense of wonder. The New York Rangers wanted him, offering the chance of a lifetime, a shot at a life he’d only dreamed about. For the sake of his proud, adoring parents, he would stay in school and finish his degree, because no Fiore had yet earned a college degree. They wanted Tony to be the first. The wait would be excruciating, but he owed it to them. He wouldn’t think of doing it any other way.

  That night, he’d given her a gift—a key chain attached to a silver skate. Elaine, accustomed to receiving tokens from Tiffany and Harry Winston from other boys, was reduced to tears. At the gift kiosk, she’d bought a little snow globe with two tiny figures skating arm in arm, and told him to think of her every time he looked at it.

  She became obsessed with Tony. His new status as rising professional sports star had changed everything. He was becoming someone her parents would adore. She’d dreamed about him, fantasized about him. He would be the next Wayne Gretzky. They would keep a condo in the city and a summer place on Long Island, maybe one with an ice rink.

  By the time the fourth Christmas had rolled around, she’d been convinced. After only three encounters, she knew she was going to fall in love with him. Never mind that he was an Italian-American from a working-class family, that he had attended public school and worked summers for the sanitation department to earn extra money. Never mind that her parents would immediately enroll her in therapy sessions and try to convince her she was delusional. She was falling in love with Tony Fiore. She’d never been in love before. That fourth year, she showed up early at the ice rink.

  Even now, she felt flushed with embarrassment as she recalled how long she’d waited for him. How many times she’d paid for ice time, how many wobbly ovals she’d skated around the rink, how cold she’d gotten from being outside for so long. When she could no longer feel her feet, she’d turned in her skates, trudged out to the street and flagged a taxi. At her parents’ annual affair, she drank too much champagne and danced with too many men she didn’t care about. The very next day, she’d embarked on the annual vacation with her family.

  When she returned, she called her college counselor to accept an overseas internship that had been offered to her. Numb with disillusionment, she went to London to work for a prestigious magazine and embark on a fabulous life. Whether or not she’d succeeded at the latter depended on whose yardstick was used.

  For the next year, she became an avid browser of the sports pages, seeking news of the NHL. She dug for information about rookie players but found nothing on Tony Fiore, only that he’d graduated with distinction from Notre Dame. She refused to let herself dwell on him, though she burned with curiosity. What had happened to his dreams? His big plans to become a star on ice?

  What did it matter if his plans didn’t include her? Eventually she’d forced herself to stop wondering. Stop caring.

  A musical chiming noise, like the sound of silver bells, startled Elaine, drawing her back to the present. Apparently the bells signaled the skaters to clear the ice for grooming. The blocky Zamboni machine emerged from its tunnel and pushed out onto the oval to methodically smooth out the ice that had been chopped up by the blades of the skaters. Perched like a toy high on the seat, the driver wore a bright red muffler that streaked like a banner down his back.

  Elaine did a double take.

  “What’s wrong?” asked Tony.

  “I’m being stalked by an elf.”

  “Come on.” Laughing, he grabbed her hand. “I’ll buy you a hot chocolate.”

  It was lousy hot chocolate from a machine, but the watery sweetness had a strange, simple appeal. “S
o you became a cop,” she said. “How did that happen?”

  “It was my backup plan, in case hockey didn’t work out.”

  “I take it hockey didn’t work out.”

  He took a gulp from his white cardboard cup. She waited, but he didn’t address her comment. Instead, he asked, “So what about you? I figured you’d be an ace reporter or something. Didn’t you study journalism in college?”

  She had a fleeting recollection of her idealism. By becoming a reporter, she’d wanted to make a difference in people’s lives, digging out the facts and holding up a mirror to society. Instead, she made dinner reservations and threw parties and pushed luxury products. She convinced women who couldn’t afford subway fare that they must not be without a certain seventeen-dollar brand of lipstick. As the writer of overwrought press releases, she practiced a strange, hybrid form of reporting and publicity.

  Tony’s question was still hanging in the air.

  She sipped her drink. “So I became a publicist, okay? Maybe I don’t protect and serve, but it’s a living. Look, Tony, you caught me on a bad day.”

  “So tell me what a good day is like.”

  She hesitated. “When my clients are all happy and the firm bills them for hours well spent, I have fun at my job,” she said, feeling a bit defensive. “That’s no crime. Working in my field is like going out on dates and to parties. People pay me to attend movie premieres and celebrity galas. How bad is that?”

  “Doesn’t sound bad at all. Unless it makes real dates and real parties feel like work.”

  Ouch, she thought. She stared down at the table, trying to talk herself out of asking what she knew she would ask. But she couldn’t stand it a moment longer, couldn’t keep in the bitter accusation that had been pressing at the back of her throat from the first moment she’d spied him today. “You didn’t show up that last night.”

  He didn’t even ask which night she referred to. “I’m here now.”