Winter in New York.
In all of my fantasies about Parsons, I always had a bolt of fabric in one hand and a pair of shears in the other. I pictured myself in the classrooms shown on the school brochure. I never got around to thinking that going to Parsons would mean living in New York. I never imagined that reality.
I never imagined winter in New York.
I go with Piper to the lighting ceremony for the Christmas tree at Rockefeller Center. Thank God Brian’s out of town so we don’t get stuck with him, but he did tell us “...exactly what you need to do to see the tree. It’s a mess down there if you don’t know what you’re doing.”
I hate to admit it, but his advice turns out to be spot-on. He told us to check into the Jewel Hotel and head up to the Terrace Club. “Miller can afford it,” he explained, “and his name will get you the best room and table.”
They seat us at a table for two right up against the glass that surrounds the terrace. On the center of our white table, a small, golden candle glows. From where we are, on the balcony sipping Diet Cokes, we can sort of see the Rockettes and hear a Christian singer belt out “All I Want for Christmas.” A huge crowd gathers below and every once in a while I spot a glow stick or light-up hat.
It’s exciting to have an excuse to wear cute hats and gloves and the expensive green plaid wool coat Gareth gave me. When the lights on the tree pop on, there’s the sound of “Oh!” from the crowd below. Something special has happened. I wonder if it’s possible to capture the twinkle of the red, green and blue lights, the magic of the sparking crystal star and the collective dreams of the crowd into a garment. I snap a few pictures and make a mental note to blog about this idea.
Piper grins at me from across the table.
We watch the tree for a while. Her smile fades and she says, “Tommy called.”
“He called you?” I haven’t spoken to Tommy since his graduation party. Part of me wants to keep it that way. The other part doesn’t want him talking to Piper and not me. The childish part, I guess.
“He knows about Gareth.”
“So?”
“He doesn’t like it.”
I push my empty glass toward the edge of the table, hoping for a refill. “Good.”
Piper’s mouth hangs open for a split second, as if she intends to challenge me. Instead she asks, “What’s Gareth up to tonight?”
“Some kind of a meeting.”
The waiter takes the hint and pours more Diet Coke from a glass pitcher for me. We’ve got one of the better tables on the terrace, one right in front of the Christmas tree. Two tables over, some guy who looks like a banker and his Russian mail-order bride keep checking us out.
They must be wondering who we are, because as our waiter heads over there to take their order, I hear him whisper, “Gareth Miller’s girlfriend.”
“The fashion designer?” asks Mr. Banker.
“She’s young,” Mail-Order Bride replies, which is pretty rich since she can’t be a day over twenty-five and her date could easily order off the seniors’ menu.
“And...blonde,” adds Mr. Banker.
As I turn to glare at Mail-Order Bride, Piper asks, “So are you?”
My head snaps back around to our table. “What?”
“Gareth Miller’s girlfriend?”
I snort. “I don’t know. I mean, I am so blonde.”
Piper laughs. Even her laugh has an Australian accent. “And young.”
The truth is, I don’t know what, if anything, Gareth and I are to each other. My work for G Studios will be over in three weeks. All Gareth’s planning seems to stop at Christmas. He hasn’t mentioned any timeline beyond. And neither have I.
“I hope it snows before I go back. I want to see it snow in New York.”
Piper becomes serious. “It probably will. But sometimes there’s no snow until January. You could stay here, you know. For the snow. And...Parsons is here. Maybe this is your chance. What if you gave up too quickly before?” I don’t answer, so she says, “And, I’m here, so there’s the BFF factor.”
I smile at her. “That’s a big check mark in the pro column, for sure. But I didn’t even apply to Parsons for the spring. And where would I live?”
“You got into Parsons before,” Piper points out. “I’m sure you’re an even better prospect now that you’ve worked with Gareth Miller. And if anyone could work out the details, it’s him. Why don’t you just ask him?”
I roll my eyes. “You mean sort of like, ‘Hey, can you pull some strings at Parsons and also can I live here while I go to school?’”
“You don’t have to live there. You have the NutriMin Water money. You could stay with me until you find someplace.”
“In the dorms at Columbia?”
She shrugs. “My roommate goes home to South Dakota for semester breaks.”
“I’ll think about it.”
Piper tosses her dark hair over her shoulder. Below us, crowds from Rockefeller spill into the streets. “You’re afraid to ask him?”
“I’m not afraid,” I say quickly. “I just don’t want to...” I don’t finish my thought.
But Piper does. “Be like your mom? Shagging a guy to advance your career? You’re not like that, Cookie.”
I suck down the last bit of my second Diet Coke and can sense the waiter becoming annoyed as he moves to refill it again. “I know,” I say. “But in relationships, if things become unequal, that can lead to manipulation or hurt feelings or—”
“Not in relationships in general,” Piper interrupts. “You’re talking about your mum and Chad Tate. She’s using him for status and fame. He’s using her for money. They’re both constantly giving each other shit because each of them thinks that the other one is getting the better deal. My parents have been married thirty years, and they’re not totting up a scorecard of the favors they owe each other.”
I sign. “It’s not only that. Here. I feel the rhythm of my life is off. I guess.”
She almost chokes on the last bite of her steak. “‘The rhythm of your life’? You do realize that sounds like a bad song title from an iTunes new-age playlist?”
I nod and take one last look at the giant Christmas tree off in the distance.
We leave the Terrace Club. Piper decides to stay in the room rather than go back to the dorm, where her roommate “won’t stop clicking her damn pen while she studies.”
“Hey. Your parents... Are they happy?” I ask.
“Yeah. As much as anybody ever is.”
She walks me to the curb where Gareth’s car is waiting. She’s dressed in a sparkly black miniskirt and a light blue sweater with a Pac-Man ghost on it. I’m glad to see she only wears her Reagan-era Republican uniform of slacks and polo shirts when Brian is present.
But what if she marries the guy? Will sassy, surfer girl Piper become a generic doctor’s wife with two bland children and a schedule packed full of golfing and hospital fund-raising dinners?
Do the people we love change us?
“Think about what I said,” she tells me as she gives me a hug.
“I’ll call you when I get home.”
We exchange a look. I’ve just called Gareth’s penthouse my home. An uneasy feeling settles inside me. I think I’ve answered my own question.
The next morning, Gareth sleeps in, but I’m up on the treadmill at seven as usual.
He walks by his home gym on the way to the kitchen. “You ever think about taking a day off once in a while? Someday I’d like to wake up in my bed and find you’re still in it next to me,” he calls.
I want to laugh at his sort of ridiculous appearance, but laughing takes air and I need my air for running. Gareth is dressed in what could only be described as a smoking jacket, the kind Hugh Hefner used to wear at the Playboy mansion in the ’60s.
He lounges in the doorway of the exercise room as the treadmill’s timer beeps.
I’ve done my time. I slow the machine to a cool-down pace and answer him. “I have to do my sixty minutes on the treadmill each day. That’s the plan.”
“I see,” he says in his familiar drawl. “You think you’ll blow up like a puffer fish the instant you decide to get an extra fifteen minutes of shut-eye?”
Spoken like someone who has never struggled with weight issues.
Climbing off the treadmill, I say, “Routine is important.”
He’s about to say something else—and judging from the smirk, it’s another wiseass remark—when I blurt out, “Am I your girlfriend?”
This wipes the lighthearted look off his face. “Are labels important?”
I answer a question with a question. “You’re saying there’s something wrong with wanting to know where we stand?”
“I suppose not.” He runs a hand over the dark stubble on his cheeks. “But where we stand is that I suck at romance and you’re an inexperienced nineteen-year-old.”
That hurts. It hurts that he can hurt me. I try to keep my expression neutral. “I’m going to take a shower. I’ve got a meeting with Darcy at ten.”
Gareth sighs and grabs my hand. “But, Cookie, that doesn’t mean we shouldn’t give this thing our best shot. Because you’re the first person in a long time that I’ve wanted to give a label to.”
It’s not exactly a Shakespearean declaration of love, but it’s something. I grin at him and kiss him gently on the cheek. He tugs me into the kitchen and opens one of the white drawers, full of neatly stacked mail. “I was saving this for later, but under the circumstances...”
He places an envelope with a travel agency logo on the front in my hands. Inside, there’s a copy of a plane ticket. “Omigod. You got Grandma to come to New York? For Christmas?” I’m grinning from ear to ear.
“Well, it is the most wonderful time of the year,” he says. “And my dad’s coming too. So you’ll get to spend the holidays with all the Miller men.”
I giggle. And cover my mouth to stop myself from giggling, because who really wants to squeal like a little girl in front of the most famous name in fashion? “How did you get her to agree to come? She’s always saying she thinks New York City is America’s Sodom and Gomorrah.”
Gareth is smiling too. He puts his arm around me. “I told her you were homesick. And I get the idea that she doesn’t like me so much. When I called, I tried to make myself seem especially weird. I mean, I went for it. Tried to channel my inner Andy Warhol. I think she felt she needed to get out here.”
“I’m not homesick,” I say with a rueful smile.
“I had to say something.”
We spend the next week getting ready for the holidays. In yet another surprise, Gareth Miller loves Christmas. Really loves it. He plays Miracle on 34th Street and White Christmas until I think I’ll be sick if I have to listen to Bing Crosby sing “Snow” one more time.
He forks over a huge pile of cash to have a fourteen-foot grand fir hauled up to the penthouse and invites about twenty people from G Studios over for a massive tree-trimming party. Piper and Brian come too. After a couple of Brandy Alexanders, Brian isn’t so insufferable. The two of them sing Christmas karaoke and take turns decorating each other with bits of tinsel.
Darcy helps Gareth load up the tree with Mosaic Murano glass ornaments. I’m glad she’s doing this. With their delicate, hand-blown glass in swirls of red, gold and green, the fragile orbs look like they cost a fortune, and Gareth’s got an elaborate story for each one. I really wouldn’t want to be the one who drops the glass orb handmade by Mister Geppetto and blessed by the turquoise fairy.
I make my way into the kitchen to restock the food. As I load up stacks of prosciutto-wrapped pears and chocolate peanut butter pretzel bites left by the caterer onto the white serving plates, Nathan meets me in the kitchen.
Gareth’s business manager no longer watches me like he expects me to make off with the estate’s silver. He stuffs a pear in his mouth and gestures with his elbow. “He’s happy, you know. The happiest I’ve seen him in a long time.” I stand next to Nathan and we both watch Gareth climb a ladder to reach the high branches.
No man ought to look so sexy while perched on a ladder.
The doorbell rings. I wonder who else Gareth could have invited.
“Cookie, get the door, will you?” he calls.
I swing open the stainless-steel door and gape at the man on the other side.
There, in a crisp navy suit and clutching a tasteful bottle of white wine, stands Fred LaChapelle.