CHAPTER
FIFTEEN
Nellie thought she’d been in love once before, back in college. In the evening he’d drive up around the corner from her sorority house and she’d run across the quad to meet him, the grass spongy under her feet, the air warm against her bare legs. He’d pull a soft cotton blanket out of the back of his old Alfa Romeo and shake it out onto the beach, then pass her a flask of bourbon. She’d put her mouth where his had been moments earlier as the amber liquid heated a trail down her throat and into her belly.
After the sun sank, they’d pull off their clothes and race into the ocean, then wrap up in the blanket. She loved the taste of salt on his skin.
He quoted poetry and pointed out constellations in the night sky. He was addictively inconsistent, phoning her three times in a day, then ignoring her for a weekend.
None of it had been real.
It didn’t bother her when he disappeared for a day or two at a time—until that night in October when she needed him. She’d called him over and over, leaving increasingly urgent messages. But he never answered.
Days later he showed up holding a cheap bouquet of carnations, and she let him comfort her. She hated him for failing her. She hated herself more for crying when he said he had to go.
She’d be smarter the next time, she’d vowed. She’d never again be with a man who’d look away when she started to fall.
But Richard did more than that.
Somehow, he caught her before she even realized she was about to stumble.
“Maureen’s terrific,” Nellie told Richard as they strolled hand in hand toward his apartment.
“I can tell she liked you a lot.” Richard squeezed her hand.
They chattered a while longer, then Richard pointed at the gelato shop across the street. “I know you secretly wanted dessert.”
“My heart says yes but my diet says no,” Nellie moaned.
“It was your last day of work, right? You deserve to celebrate. How was graduation?”
“Linda asked me to give a little talk. I got choked up at the end of it, and Jonah thought I was having trouble reading my notes. So he shouted, ‘Just sound it out! You can do it!’ ”
Richard laughed and leaned in to kiss her just as her cell phone erupted with “When the sun shines, we’ll shine together.” Rihanna’s “Umbrella”—the ringtone she’d assigned to Sam.
“Aren’t you going to answer?” Richard didn’t seem irritated the moment had been interrupted, so Nellie did.
“Hey, are you coming back here tonight?” Sam asked.
“I wasn’t planning on it. What’s up?”
“Some woman came to check out the apartment. She said she heard I was looking for a new roommate. After she left, I couldn’t find my keys.”
“You left them inside a grocery bag a few weeks ago and almost threw them away.”
“But I’ve looked everywhere. She was outside the apartment when I came home, and I swear I put them right back in my purse.”
Not until Richard whispered, “Everything okay?” did Nellie realize she’d stopped walking.
“What did she look like?” she blurted.
“Totally normal. Thin, dark hair, a little older than us, but she said she was newly single and was starting over. It was so dumb, but I had to pee desperately and she kept asking all these questions, like she really wanted it. She was only alone in the kitchen for two seconds.”
Nellie cut her off. “Are you by yourself now?”
“Yeah, but I’m going to have Cooper come over and stay the night just in case. I’ll have him drag something over to block the door. Shit, it’s going to cost a fortune to get a locksmith here. . . .”
“What is it?” Richard whispered.
“Hang on,” Nellie told Sam.
Richard pulled out his cell phone before Nellie had even finished recounting the story. “Diane?” Nellie recognized the name of his long-time secretary, a competent woman in her sixties whom she’d met on several occasions. “I’m sorry to bother you at this hour. . . . I know, I know, you always tell me that. . . . Yeah, a personal one—can you get an emergency locksmith over to re-key an apartment as soon as possible tonight? . . . No, not mine. . . . Sure, let me give you the address. . . . Whatever it costs. Thank you. Come in late tomorrow if you’d like.”
He hung up and tucked the phone back into his pocket.
“Sam?” Nellie said into her receiver.
“I heard him. Wow . . . that was really nice. Please tell him thanks.”
“I will. Call me when the locksmith comes.” Nellie hung up.
“There are a lot of crazy people in New York,” Richard said.
“I know,” Nellie whispered.
“But odds are Sam misplaced them again.” Richard’s voice had the same soothing cadence as when they’d first met on the airplane. “Why would she have taken the keys and not Sam’s wallet?”
“You’re right.” Nellie hesitated. “But Richard . . . all those hang-ups I’ve been getting?”
“Only three.”
“There was another one. Not exactly the same, but a woman called your apartment after you left for Atlanta. I thought it was you, so I answered without thinking. . . . She wouldn’t leave her name, and I—”
“Sweetheart, that was just Ellen from the office. She reached me on my cell phone.”
“Oh.” Nellie’s body sagged with the release of tension. “I thought—I mean, it was a Sunday, so . . .”
Richard kissed the tip of her nose. “Gelato. Then Sam will probably call to say she found her keys in the refrigerator.”
“You’re right.” Nellie laughed.
Richard moved to take the side next to the curb, between her and traffic, as he always did. He wrapped his arm around her and they continued walking.
After Sam called to say the locksmith had come and gone, Nellie went to the bathroom to change into her gauzy sleeveless nightgown and brush her teeth. Richard was already in bed, wearing his boxer briefs. As she climbed in next to him, she noticed the silver-framed photograph on his nightstand was tilted away so it faced the wall. It was a picture of her sitting on a bench in Central Park wearing jean shorts and a tank top; Richard always said he liked to see her when he woke up on mornings when she wasn’t there.
Richard noticed, too, and reached to turn it back around. “The maid was here.”
He picked up the remote and turned off the television, then pressed his body against hers. At first she thought his touch meant what it usually meant when he reached for her under the sheets. But then he released her and rolled onto his back.
“I need to tell you something.” His tone was serious.
“Okay,” Nellie said slowly.
“I didn’t play golf until I was in my twenties.”
She couldn’t see his face in the darkness. “So . . . those summers at the club?”
He exhaled. “I was a caddy. A waiter. A lifeguard. I carried clubs. I picked up wet towels. When kids ordered hot dogs that cost as much as I made in an hour, I served them. I hated that fucking club. . . .”
Nellie traced her fingers down his arm, smoothing the dark hairs under her fingertips. She’d never heard him sound so vulnerable before. “I’d always assumed you’d grown up with money.”
“I told you my dad was in finance. He was an accountant. He did the taxes for the neighborhood plumbers and handymen.”
She remained silent, not wanting to interrupt.
“Maureen got a college scholarship, then helped pay for me to go.” Richard’s body felt rigid under her touch. “I lived with her to save money, and I took out a lot of loans. And I worked my ass off.”
She sensed Richard hadn’t shared this part of himself with many people.
They lay together in silence for a few minutes as Nellie slowly became aware that Richard’s revelation pieced together something for her.
His manners were so flawless they seemed almost choreographed. Dropped into any conversation, he could hold his own—whether he was talking to a cabdriver or a Philharmonic violinist at a charity event. He knew how to wield silverware gracefully and change the oil in his car. His nightstand held magazines ranging from ESPN to The New Yorker as well as a stack of biographies. She’d thought he was a chameleon, the sort of person who could effortlessly fit in anywhere.
But he must have taught himself those skills—or perhaps Maureen had taught him some of them.
“Your mother?” Nellie asked. “I know she was a homemaker. . . .”
“Yeah. Well, a Virginia Slims smoker and soap opera watcher, too.” It could have been a joke, except no humor was in his tone. “My mom never went to college. Maureen was the one who helped me with homework. She pushed me; she told me I was smart enough to do anything I put my mind to. I owe her everything.”
“But your parents—they loved you.” Nellie thought of the photographs on Richard’s wall. She knew his parents had died in the car crash when he was just fifteen and that he’d gone to live with Maureen then, but she hadn’t realized how deeply formative a role his big sister had played in his life.
“Sure,” he said. Nellie was about to ask more about his parents, but Richard’s voice stopped her. “I’m beat. Let’s drop this, okay?”
Nellie laid her head on his chest. “Thank you for telling me.” Knowing he’d struggled—that he’d been a waiter, too, and hadn’t always been sure of himself—conjured feelings of tenderness in her.
He was so quiet she thought he’d fallen asleep, but then he flipped over on top of her and began to kiss her, his tongue slipping between her lips as his knee spread apart her legs.
She wasn’t ready for him and sucked in a breath as he entered her, but didn’t ask him to stop. He pressed his face into her neck, his arms on either side of her head. He finished quickly and lay on top of her, breathing hard.
“I love you,” Nellie said softly.
She wasn’t sure if he’d heard, but then he lifted his head and kissed her gently on the lips.
“Do you know what I thought the first time I saw you, my Nellie?” He smoothed back her hair.
She shook her head.
“You were smiling down at a little boy in the airport; you looked like an angel. And I thought you could save me.”
“Save you?” she echoed.
His words were a whisper: “From myself.”