I shoved aside some Jane magazines, knocking over a bottle of tommy girl, and sank onto the coffee table. I had to be stronger than I’d been back then. The jewelry box’s corners cut into my palm so I opened my hand. I’d tried so many times to throw this memory away, but I’d dug through trashcans for it. I’d taken it to a pawn shop, only to snatch it back from the man behind the counter before he’d even had a chance to look at it. Not that it or the ring was worth anything. It was just a box.
The morning of the wedding had been the same day I’d met Henry, Manning’s best man, more of a father to Manning than his own dad. Henry had come to my hotel room to deliver my maid-of-honor gift from Tiffany—a polished, walnut wood box that had fit in the palm of my hand and had been engraved.
*
Lake Kaplan
Maid of Honor, 1995
*
I remembered back to the moment Henry had handed it over to me.
*
“It’s beautiful.” My voice broke. “Tell him thank you.”
“Him?” Henry asked.
“Manning. He made it, didn’t he?”
“He sure did.” Henry held out his palm for the box. “May I?”
I gave it to him, and he studied it like I had, his fingers grazing over each corner and ledge, testing the brass hinges on back. “Manning’s got talent. I heard he’s making some furniture, too.” He passed it back. “How’d you know it was from him?”
“We’re friends.” I looked for any recognition that Manning might’ve mentioned me, but there was nothing. “We were friends before … all this.”
“That so? I have a daughter a little younger than you. You’ll meet her tonight.” He nodded. “I always wished she and Manning were closer in age. He’ll make your sister a good husband.”
Teeth clenched, I breathed through my nose as the word scraped out whatever was left inside me. Husband.
Henry was looking at me a little funny, so I pushed through the stinging in my chest and replied, “Yes, he will.”
“I’m glad to see Manning become part of such a nice family. He’s a good kid. A really good kid.”
I’d never heard anyone refer to Manning as a kid. I tried to keep the emotion from my voice. “I know he is.”
“Well, aren’t you going to open it?” Henry asked.
“Open what?”
“The box. That’s not the gift, you know. It’s inside.”
“Oh.” I creaked open the lid. Two small diamond earrings winked at me.
*
I’d worn the earrings during the wedding so as not to upset Tiffany, but they were gone now, replaced by a cheap piece of costume jewelry Manning didn’t even know I’d kept.
I sat there, turning the box over in my hands, until I went and set it on my dresser. In the bathroom, I pinned my hair into a quick up-do. I was almost finished when the downstairs buzzer sounded through the apartment. Manning was a half hour early. I didn’t move. I had a choice to make. Why had he almost kissed me when he knew perfectly well it’d do nothing but damage? Was Val right that he knew I couldn’t say no to him?
Was I even strong enough to send him away?
5
Lake
Manning stood on my doorstep, hair combed back, cleanly shaven in a pressed suit and cobalt-blue tie. He looked every inch the gentleman—except for a Home Depot bag in his hand, as if he were actually holding on to a piece of his old self. He took my breath away, leaving me no choice but to stare at him.
“Everything okay?” he asked.
“It’s just …” I didn’t like this suit much better than the first one, simply because it wasn’t Manning. That didn’t mean he didn’t fill it out perfectly, though, with his broad shoulders and trim torso. “Hardly anyone dresses up for the theater anymore.”
“You do,” he said, scanning my gown. His perusal had always had a special power over me, mostly because of how we’d subsist for weeks or months on furtive glances alone. He took me in, from my bare toenails up to my hair. “You look beautiful. Like a grownup.”
To anyone else, it might’ve sounded like an odd compliment, but to me it said everything. Manning had resisted all his urges over the years, afraid he’d corrupt a young, innocent girl. I wasn’t that girl anymore, and he saw it. Finally. One of the stupid tears I’d been holding in from my fight with Val slipped out.
“Hey.” He reached up. “Don’t cry.”
I turned my face away, wiping my own cheek. “I’m fine. What’s in the bag?”
He looked disappointed by my brushoff, but let me change the subject. “Stuff to fix your door.”
“Oh.” I stepped back as he came inside. “You don’t have to.”
“Did you think I’d let you spend a night here with a broken lock? What would you have done?”
I rubbed my nose to get it to stop tingling. “I don’t know. Sometimes we stick a chair under the handle.”
He looked at me dead on. “Jesus Christ, Lake. Don’t tell me that.”
“You asked.”
He opened the hall closet and squatted to rummage through the cardboard box of tools. “Someone could pop that door right open in the middle of the night,” he said.
“Someone meaning … you?” I asked.
He stopped inspecting a screwdriver and let his eyes travel up my body. I thought of him breaking all the rules, then the walls we’d built between us, and then the locks in the night to finally get to me. “If it was in my way,” he said, “yes.”
I suppressed a shiver. We’d flirted before but never when he wasn’t trying to hide or stop it. Right there in his gaze was the heat I’d fantasized about, and years apart hadn’t dulled it.
While Manning worked, I touched up my makeup where it’d smeared and managed to avoid looking myself in the eye the entire time. I had no idea how I could go through with this. Or exactly how dangerous it was. If I got hurt tonight, it would be my fault. If I hurt someone else, I’d be to blame. I was choosing this. There was still time to stop it, and yet I wouldn’t. Val was wrong; one night didn’t mean I was willing to forget everything. I’d grown up the past four years—I’d had to.
“Goddamn it,” Manning said. “I didn’t get the right measurements. You have a fucked-up door.”
If I’d had any question about whether Manning still thought of me as a girl, him cursing in front of me was my answer. He’d done it so rarely back then, it still sounded a bit foreign. “Just leave it. There’s hardly anything valuable in here.” I came out of the bathroom, picked a clutch from my bedroom, and met him in the entryway. Noting the wrinkles between his eyes were unnaturally deep, I told him a little white lie. “I’ll get the super to replace it in the morning. Let’s go.”
He shoved the box into the closet, then selected a black, polyester coat from the rack. “This yours?” he asked, taking it off the hanger as if he did it all the time.
“Yes, but it’ll ruin my outfit. I don’t own anything nice enough to go with this.”
He opened it for me to slip in. “You’ll freeze.”
I didn’t want to wear it, but considering this dress was all straps and open back, he was right. I’d be cold. I took the jacket and reluctantly put it on.
“Almost forgot.” He patted the lapel of his suit. From the inside pocket, he took something squishy wrapped in tissue. “There’s a holiday market happening in in Union Square and I noticed you weren’t wearing gloves earlier.”
I lifted the taped edges to reveal a pair of brown mittens. The palms had pink leather pads knit to look like cat paws. “These are for me?”
“Well, they’re not my taste. I know they don’t go with your outfit, but you can take them off when we’re inside.” He took the wrapping from me, balling it up. “I didn’t want you to be cold.”
I tried one on, wiggling my fingers. “Manning.”
“Don’t worry, they’re handmade,” he added. “Didn’t cost much.”
I wasn’t sure what he saw in my eyes, but I wasn’t upset. I
t was just that I loved them. “Thank you.”
He held open the door, ushering me through. “Don’t mention it.”
Downstairs, Manning stood on the curb to hail us a car.
“We should take the subway,” I said as two cabs passed us by. “It’s cheaper and faster.”
“I’m not taking you underground looking like that,” he said with a quick head-to-toe glance.
“The subway is perfectly fine, but if you insist, then this is how you do it.” I stepped into oncoming traffic with my hand raised.
Manning grabbed my bicep to pull me back. “Careful—”
A taxi screeched to a stop in front of me. I looked back at Manning and laughed. “See?”
“You’re going to give me a goddamn heart attack,” he said, opening the car door. Still holding my arm, he urged me inside. “I’m an older man than I was when you knew me, Lake.”
“You were always an older man to me,” I said as I ducked into the backseat. Was Manning still sensitive about our age difference? As we pulled away from the curb, I checked his expression. Instead of the shame I’d sometimes see, he raised an eyebrow.
I leaned between the seats toward the driver. “Fifty-third and Broadway,” I said. “Can you turn on the meter, please?”
“Broken,” he said.
“Then pull over and we’ll get out,” I said.
“It’s no problem.” He waved me off. “I make you a good flat rate.”
“I’ve got the fare covered,” Manning said.
“No, he’s going to rip us off,” I said. We stopped at a red light, and I opened the door to get out.
“Okay, okay,” the cabbie said, pressing the on button. “It’s good.”
I slammed the door and relaxed back into the seat. Manning watched me for so many blocks, I finally asked, “What?”
“Nothing.”
“I told you you’d hate it here.”
“That’s not what I was thinking.” He slid his hand across the leather seat toward mine, then froze, as if remembering my hand wasn’t his to hold. I wanted to ask about his wedding ring, but how? And what would I do if he said he and Tiffany were ending their marriage? Did that have anything to do with why he was here?
Before I could decide how to ask, he beat me to it, nodding at my hand. “Is that from Corbin?”
I inspected my ring, a thin silver band I’d bought for a dollar at a flea market. “No.”
“Someone else?” he asked.
“No …”
“Did you end up telling him you’d be with me tonight?”
I paused for emphasis before answering, “Corbin knows everything about me.”
Even in the dark, I saw a shadow cross Manning’s face. “Everything? How about you and me?”
I crossed my legs toward the door. Corbin didn’t know about that. Or if he did, he’d turned a blind eye to it for too long for it to ever come up. I let Manning think what he wanted, though. “If you’re worried what he thinks of you, you should be satisfied that there’s nothing to tell where you and I are concerned. Just like you wanted.” The driver honked and swore at the car in front of us. “What would I say?” I continued. “That we kept our hands to ourselves those two years?”
“Do you still wish I hadn’t?” Manning asked. “Kept my hands to myself?”
My heart skipped with his unexpected question. Had he really said that, or was this bizarre day messing with my mind? Traffic forced the cab to slow, and I watched people walk along Third Avenue with shopping bags and warm drinks and scarves up to their eyes. I didn’t reply to Manning’s question. Surely he knew the answer.
“You were young and infatuated,” he said. “You would’ve given me anything I’d asked for. Do you think it would’ve been right for me to take it?”
“I was young.” I kept looking out the window. Maybe I was an idiot to be here like Val had said. “But I wasn’t just infatuated.”
As we drove in silence, I snuck glances at him. He wasn’t as reserved as I would’ve thought. I couldn’t decide if I was glad for it, to have access to him in a way I’d never had, or if it was cruel of him to finally treat me like an adult when it was too late to do anything about it. Wasn’t it?
Once in the theater, Manning removed my coat in the crowded lobby, lingering at my back. “I was hoping you’d wear your hair down,” he said, his breath near the top of my head. “I like it that way.”
“I know you do. That’s why I didn’t.”
He grunted. “Am I bringing out your feisty side tonight? Or is this the new you?”
“I’m not feisty,” I said. “I’m hurt. By you.” I wanted to ignore all of Val’s earlier warnings, even if only for tonight—I deserved this time with Manning that’d been taken from me—but how could I let myself forget? I slipped out of the coat completely, leaving it in his hands. “I’m not going to wear my hair down for you, because you aren’t my husband or boyfriend. You aren’t even my friend.”
“If you’re feisty, if you’re hurt, if you’re a New Yorker now, fine,” he said, his voice as firm as mine. “That doesn’t mean I don’t know you, Lake. I’ve always known who you were on the inside, where it counts.”
“I’m sure that’s one of the lies you’ve told yourself over the years.” I pulled my mittens off by the fingers. “You know best. You know me. You know everything. Well, you don’t.” Theatergoers milled around us, sipping wine from plastic cups during animated conversations. I hardly noticed them with the way Manning glowered at me. “There are people who know me better than you now,” I said.
“Because he orders you hash browns when you’re fucking hungover? That doesn’t mean shit.”
Admittedly, his jealousy over that tiny tidbit of information made my skin tingle with pleasure. Because of the backless dress, I hadn’t put on a bra, and my nipples hardened from the cold and Manning’s relentless gaze. “You’re making more of what you and I were, Manning. We never even kissed.” I barely managed to keep my voice steady. If we’d gone this long without being intimate, maybe what we had wasn’t as strong as either of us had thought. What two people could be this enamored and stay away from each other as long as we had? It was pathetic, really.
I went to find our seats in the orchestra section. The tickets had undoubtedly cost my mom some money and a good deal of planning. For those reasons, I was glad I’d come tonight. My relationship with my mom had suffered because of my dad, and this must’ve been important to her. But I couldn’t ignore the weight on my shoulders. Manning had shown up on my doorstep that morning, and now we were playing nice. It wasn’t fair that he should get what he wanted, always. I’d skip dinner, I decided, and that would be it. I didn’t owe him any of this, and he could still tell my mom we’d been to the show. There wasn’t much left of my dignity, or my determination, but some could still be salvaged.
Manning sat heavily beside me, way too much man for the creaky seats. “I don’t like when you walk away from me,” he said.
“What you’re not understanding is that it doesn’t matter what you like, Manning. You have no say over what I do.”
He stared forward, gripping the armrest. Eventually the curtain lifted, but I couldn’t concentrate on the performance. I felt like a fool for agreeing to this. If I was honest with myself, it was only partly because of my mom. I’d really wanted an excuse to be here with Manning, but what had I expected to get out of tonight? Nothing, and yet I’d still given in to him. Just to be close to him again, to feel the warmth of his attention after years of winter’s indifference. It was as Val had said—Manning could undo me in less than one night, destabilizing a life I’d worked hard to build without him.
I turned to him. “Why aren’t you wearing your ring?”
“What?” he whispered.
“Your wedding ring. Are you and Tiffany separated?”
“I don’t …” He frowned. “I’ve never really worn one since I work with my hands a lot. But—”
“So you’re still with her.”
Disappointment seared though me. What an idiot I’d been, secretly wondering if there might be more to this night than what it was. “You still love her.”
Manning looked from me to the stage. “You really want to talk about this here?”
I didn’t let him off the hook. “Do you love her?”
He ran his hand down his face, sighing. “Don’t make me answer that, Lake.”
I got up, and he reached for my hand. I pulled back just in time, squeezing through the row to get out. I hurried through the lobby to the coat check, but Manning had our claim tickets. Pushing out of the lobby into the chilly night, I tried to simultaneously calm my breathing and warm my shoulders. A line of cabs sat out front, but I waited, knowing Manning would come.
Moments later, my coat fell over my shoulders, and I grabbed the lapels, pulling it close. “You shouldn’t be here, in New York,” I said.
“Neither should you.”
Where would I be now, if not for this city? Maybe things weren’t perfect, and maybe I’d done a decent job of convincing myself this was where I had to be, but I couldn’t imagine I’d be okay anywhere in the world without Manning. I faced him. “I thought I could do this, but I can’t. Even just seeing a show together feels wrong.”
“That’s because it’s not just a show,” he said, coming closer. I got the sense by the way he flexed and clenched his hand that he wanted to touch me. He rubbed his temples instead. “Would you have given me anything I’d asked for?”
I wrinkled my nose, trying vainly to close the gap in our conversation. “What?”
“Earlier in the taxi, when I said you were young and infatuated and I put distance between us because you would’ve given me anything I’d asked for—was I right?”
I looked at him. It was out of character for him to push like this when he’d withheld, and forced me to withhold, for so long. “Yes,” I said, hoping to shock him back.
“What about now?”
“No.”
“Good.” When he exhaled, the air between us fogged. “Then I won’t feel bad asking.”
I breathed a little harder, not sure I understood. Not sure I wanted to understand. “Asking for what?”
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