CHAPTER ONE
Five years later
MAYA. Over the hum of a room full of machines, papers shuffling and dozens of people typing away, I swore something in the air changed every afternoon around this time. The anticipation of freedom, of sixty minutes to call our own away from this place. It was 11:55 again, and I fidgeted anxiously with my purse, checking that I had everything for my sprint. Noon struck, and I made for the elevators. I used my oversized handbag to maneuver my way to the front of the pack. Every fucking day was like this. They let us all out at the same time, like cattle.
I ignored the bitchy stares shot my way. I was still too hung over from celebrating Vanessa’s birthday last night to care. I wasn’t wasting another five minutes of my break trying to be polite. Not today. Not most days actually, if I really thought about it.
I hadn’t always been this way.
I pushed the thought away as I stepped out of the revolving doors and into the street. I stopped for a second when the icy chill of winter hit me. Someone slammed into me a second later, lurching me forward. I caught myself and went into motion, not caring to look back at the asshole who’d nearly knocked me down. I’d been that asshole a few minutes ago, anyway.
I stuffed my bare hands into my jacket pockets, cursing the cold. Delaney's was a bit of a walk, but after a few blocks, the sea of black pea coats had already thinned significantly. Several minutes later I slipped into the dark musty air of the bar. I pulled myself up onto a stool and sat frozen for a few seconds, willing the chill away. I took a breath and unwrapped myself, dropping my coat onto the empty seat next to me. As I did, Jerry appeared from somewhere. He nodded in my direction and called my usual order into the back.
“What’s new today, Maya?” He grabbed a rag and wiped the already clean bar.
“Same shit, different day.” I ran my fingers through my hair to get the static to die down.
“The usual?”
“Yup.”
He nodded and returned with a tall glass of diet Coke and a shot of Jameson.
I swore my body relaxed at the mere sight of them. My two best friends. Caffeine and booze. I couldn’t remember exactly when I’d started drinking during work hours. I hadn’t been caught yet, and no one from my office would ever be seen lunching here, so I honestly didn’t think much of it.
I’d turned twenty-five over the summer, marking almost four years working in a cubicle crunching numbers. After the bailout and the economy going to hell, working in finance wasn’t as glamorous as it used to be anymore. Except the money, of course. The promise that greed would somehow keep our financial system upright and that the people who managed to do it could still get rich with the effort. Money wasn’t something I’d ever had much of, so the lack of it was all the reason I needed to go in that direction.
Still, landing a job making as much as I did straight out of college felt impressive. Like I’d finally made it and all my hard work had paid off. But the glitz of a Wall Street job had worn off a lot faster than I’d expected when I realized that getting ahead was going to take a hell of a lot more than being good at my job. Nothing was ever easy. At least for me. Something always seemed to lurk around the corners, threatening to knock me down. But I’d come this far and was still standing.
I took the shot of Jameson and let the liquid burn on its way down to my empty stomach. My insides twisted a bit in protest but relaxed again when the alcohol absorbed. Hair of the dog.
Stella was sitting at the other end of the bar. She was a regular. Her hair was long like mine, but straggly and gray down to the blond tips from the last time she’d dyed it. That could have been years ago, and so much could change in the span of a few years. Even in the darkness of the bar, her pallid features seemed stark. The faint light from the windows of the tavern hit the side of her face, drawing lines of age and experience across her skin.
“How’s it going, Stella?” I called down to her. A few of the familiar faces looked over to me before going back to whatever they were doing—reading the paper, watching TV, staring into their beers looking for answers.
“Going real good, honey. Real good.”
She’d had an early start from what I could tell. Her eyes were glossed over and she shot me a slanted smile. If I looked hard enough, I could believe she used to be young and beautiful, but her face was so worn and sunken now from too many long days and cold nights. Or maybe it was cold days and long nights. I didn’t know her history, but somehow I knew there wasn’t a trace of who she used to be in the person I saw before me now. People passed her over. Hell, half the people in this seedy bar, who didn’t look too much better, passed her over.
I didn’t want to, though. I wanted to ask if she had a family, but I didn’t, knowing a question like that could hurt more than it could help.
Jerry returned with my food. Chicken fingers and fries, my favorite. I still ate the same food as I had when I was a kid. We’d order off the dollar menu or make a batch of Ramen when Mom was short on funds, but as a kid I never argued since that had been—and still was—the good stuff. Between my poor culinary cravings and my cubicle-dwelling lifestyle, I’d kept my college fifteen, plus a few. I regretted it, but not enough to do much about it.
“Thanks, Jerry.”
“No problem. Let me know if you need anything.”
“Actually, you want to get something for Stella? Just put it on my bill.” I dropped my debit card on the bar so we could settle up well before I had to jet out again.
“You sure?” He raised his eyebrows, as if an extra ten bucks wasn’t worth spending on someone as hopeless as Stella.
“I’m sure.” My voice was harder than it had been before.
He walked over and tossed her a paper menu.
“Pick something out here, sweetheart. Your little friend over there’s buying you lunch again. What’ll it be?”
“Oh, honey. You don’t have to do that. You save your money.” She waved her hand at me, almost knocking it into her half-empty beer.
“I don’t mind.”
She gave me a sad smile. The kind that told me she wished she could refuse, or turn the tables and buy my lunch instead. But who knew when she’d last had a full, decent meal? She drank away any money she had. I could tell because she was rail-thin. The old clothes she wore barely stayed on her. She chose booze over food, every time. That’s why people like Jerry shook their head.
He took her order and hollered into the back again.
I’d eaten all my chicken already and was taking my time with my fries now. I was at the point in my moderate hangover where food was the cure. I needed something in my stomach to ward off the rest of the day’s nausea. I checked my watch. Plenty of time still. I wasn’t like the rest of the cattle who stood in line for a half hour only to have cafeteria-style lunch stuffed next to a complete stranger. The long walk to Delaney's was always worth it.
I reached into my bag for my notebook. The bag was one of those enormously impractical designer bags, filled with God knew what shit I definitely didn’t need to be hauling around with me every day. I finally found it and opened to an empty sheet. I clicked my pen a few times and set the tip to the page.
I wrote about Stella, about all the things I thought about her. Things I imagined, having never really known her beyond this vantage at the other end of the bar. In a way, I was afraid I already knew her. I wrote a page and then turned it, flipping back and forth between the two, grabbing words until a poem formed. Then I rewrote it again, whittling it down further.
Stella
gray
a damp, leafless tree
arms branch across her face
cold
a barren, lifeless mother
her soul prays for spring
Something about the jagged sparsity of a poem settled me. Wabi-sabi or the minimalist imperfection of it, or maybe the simple knowledge that no one would understand it but me. I was fine with that, preferred it actually. I’d come to terms with the fact that most people I met would never really know me.
I checked my watch again. Time to go. I paid Jerry and bundled up. I waved goodbye to Stella on my way out, but she didn’t see me.
I lit a cigarette before stepping back into the cold. Menthols. My stomach protested again when I took a drag. Too many cigarettes last night. I really should quit. Despite that, I was warm now, a little loose, and ready to face the last half of the day. Hump day. Two more days. Two more days and then what? Maybe I’d finally get my shit together and go the gym or something. We’ll see how it goes, I thought.
Lost in my fitness fantasy and the promise of a slightly smaller ass, I barely noticed the sound of my name. Seemed like I wasn’t in range of being recognized yet. I had a little way to go.
“Maya?”
I stopped short and looked up. A pretty girl with chocolate brown hair falling loose around her face stood before me. Her piercing blue eyes met mine.
“Olivia. Hey. How are you?”
“Good.” Her smile tensed with the short reply.
We didn’t do the hugging thing, which is weird to do with people you haven’t seen in forever, but it was weirder now that we weren’t doing it. Like we had a good reason to not do that. I was certain she had her reasons.
“I didn’t realize you lived here,” she said, breaking the awkward silence.
“Yeah, I’ve been here since graduation. Working on Wall Street as an analyst.” I stamped out my cigarette, suddenly embarrassed by it. I wasn’t sure why. Not like I needed to impress her, but a part of me wanted her to know how together my life was now. Beyond that and the whiskey that likely lingered on my breath, I looked good. Expensive suit, expensive coat, stupidly expensive shoes. I tucked my hair—stylishly cut in meticulously straightened layers that fell down my back—behind my ear.
“How about you?”
“Just moved here actually. Still finding my way around. Thought I’d take a spin through Manhattan. I have a couple friends who live nearby.”
“Picked quite the day for it.”
“No kidding. It’s freezing.” She shifted her weight back and forth a couple times, staring down at the ground.
Something told me she still hadn’t forgiven me for Cameron.
“I should let you go, I guess. I have to get back to work.”
She glanced up. “Right. Well, it was good seeing you, Maya. I’m glad to hear you’re doing well.”
“Thanks, you too,” I replied awkwardly, realizing I hadn’t bothered to ask what she was doing. God, I was such a self-involved jerk now. I’m sure she could tell.
“Okay, I guess I’ll see ya.” She gave a terse nod and slipped by me, heading in the direction I’d come from.
I couldn’t think straight by the time I got back to work. I tossed about ten mints in my mouth and set to work.
A couple people were out sick at the office so I picked up the slack. A few hours passed and I was caught up. Alone with my thoughts again until the markets closed.
CAMERON. “You’ll never guess who I ran into.”
Olivia peered over me as I pressed the weights rhythmically above me. I’d had a long day and it’d been an even longer night with little sleep. While I welcomed the distraction if it kept me awake, I was not remotely interested in gossip hour with her.
“Who?” I grunted between silent counts.
“Maya.”
My grip slipped slightly but I recovered, pushing the bar back up onto its cradle. I sat up, letting her name echo in my mind until it conjured a vision I’d spent the past several years hoping to forget. My Maya?
“Maya Jacobs?”
She leaned on the mirrored wall across from me and answered with a quick nod that confirmed my suspicions.
In the reflection, I saw the rest of the gym filling with members who hurried here after work, vying for prime real estate at the treadmills and ellipticals. The leisurely daytime mom crowd was being replaced by the nine-to-fivers. I usually tried to sneak in my work out between the two so I didn’t get caught in the fray. People in this city were intense, and after a year I was still getting used to it.
“Where did you see her?” I tried to sound casual, but curiosity was already burning through me.
She raised her eyebrows. “A few blocks off Wall Street. That’s where she works now, I guess.”
“She works on Wall Street? You’re kidding me.”
Her narrowed eyes were fixed on me, as if she were studying my reaction. “Please tell me you’re not still hung up on her after what she put you through.”
I pushed off the bench and grabbed a towel, wiping the sweat from my face and draping it around my neck. “Just curious. I haven’t seen her in a long time. How’d she seem?”
Olivia looked past me, seemingly distracted by a guy positioned at the bench press. I followed her gaze. One of the regulars. I frowned, making a mental note to keep an eye on him.
She sighed quietly. “She seems different.”
“That’s descriptive.”
“Maybe you’ll run into her one of these days and you can see for yourself.”
“There’s eight million people in the city. Doesn’t seem likely.”
“I’m sure she’s the last person you want to see anyway. I mean, you haven’t seen her since—”
“No, I haven’t.” The last thing I wanted to do was relive the day I left Maya, least of all under Olivia’s scrutinizing stare. She harbored a grudge that rivaled my own. “Listen, I’ve got to shower and take care of some paperwork. I’ll meet you back at the house for dinner, all right?”
“Sure. I still need to straighten things up.”
I eyed her warily. “Don’t color code my shirts or anything.”
She laughed. “Not today. I will get you organized though, if it’s the last thing I do.”
“I have my own system. Stop moving shit around.”
“Right, good luck finding a woman when she gets a load of your organizational skills.”
I waved her off and headed to the back of the building where my office was hidden behind another wall of mirrors. I sat behind my desk, staring at the piles of papers in front of me, not remotely interested in any of it.
Olivia might have been right. Revamping the three story partially renovated condo I’d taken over as my bachelor pad was one thing, but I was getting in over my head with running the gym. When Olivia offered to help me out, I’d taken her up on the offer, figuring she was just as eager as I’d been to get away from our parents. I cringed at the thought of working for my father and letting them run any part of my life, as they were inclined to do with her. Thankfully they’d already given up on Darren and me.
I was glad to give Olivia a stepping-stone to start the next chapter in her life, but she’d only been in town a couple weeks and already she was driving me half mad. Between that and the recent string of sleepless nights, I could hardly see straight.
The door swung open and Darren walked in. “What’s up, man?”
“Not much. Paperwork, I guess.”
“Need any help?”
I contemplated his offer, but my thoughts were too scattered right now. “Nah, I’m going to hit the shower and take care of some of this in the morning. I’ll see you tomorrow.”
“Sure thing. Everything okay?”
“Yeah, why?”
He shrugged. “You seem a little off. You hormonal again?”
“Fuck you,” I muttered.
He laughed and shoved his jacket in a locker, replacing the fire department shirt he wore in favor of one with the gym logo on it. I’d asked him to come onto the team to help with training shifts so I could have some downtime. I paid the price with tolerating his daily dose of crude sarcasm. I often wondered how we shared a bloodline.
“Hey, do you want to grab some beers this weekend? You haven’t been out in a while.”
I hesitated, my thoughts drifting to Maya. Her name was like an old song, and I was struggling to remember the lyrics. Why was I doing that to myself? Like I needed another memory to haunt me.
“Come on, man, you haven’t been out in forever. You act like you’re the old man. Have a few, meet some women, kick back a little.”
Darren was the oldest. He was pushing thirty with a social life that easily surpassed Olivia’s or mine. Women flocked to the gym for a chance to train with him. We both knew what else they wanted, but so far he’d done a good job of not creating drama at work.
“I’ll think about it, all right?”
He gave me a twisted smile. “Just say yes, man.”
“Yeah, fine. We’ll grab a beer.”
“Cool.”
I relaxed a little, glad he’d finished prying. I hesitated, contemplating what I was about to ask. “Hey, can you cover me for a few hours tomorrow? I might have to run some errands.”
“Sure, I’m off all day.”
“Thanks.”
I took a long shower, ready for the day to end. My wet hair froze in a few seconds after I stepped outside. It was still snowing, but I walked anyway. You never knew what might happen on the streets of New York, who or what you’d see. Every day was an opportunity, and today was certainly living up to that.
After an extended layover in the city on the way back from a tour overseas, I’d decided this is where I’d come when I got out. Turned out, four years and three tours were enough. Olivia was worried. Our parents were freaking out. I’d made a solid effort to crush out the memory of Maya in the desert, and when the time came to move on, I took it.
Maya. I did a double take at every long-haired blonde I saw. Olivia said she seemed different. How? Would I even recognize her if I saw her? Maybe we’d already crossed paths in some random place, and I’d been too lost in my own world to even see her.
No. I couldn’t miss her face.
I still couldn’t believe Olivia had run into her after all this time. Proof that not only did she still exist somewhere out there in the world, but she was close.
Close enough to find.