CHAPTER
FIVE
When she took a good look at her life, Nellie felt as if she’d been splintered into several different women during her twenty-seven years: the only child who’d spent hours playing alone in the creek at the end of her block; the teenager who’d tucked her babysitting charges into bed, promising no monsters lurked in the darkness; and the social director of the Chi Omega sorority who’d sometimes fallen asleep without bothering to lock her door. Then there was the Nellie of today, who’d walked out of a scary movie when the heroine was being cornered, and who made sure she was never the last waitress to close up and leave Gibson’s Bistro after the one A.M. final call.
The preschool also saw a version of Nellie: the teacher in jeans who’d memorized every Elephant and Piggie book written by Mo Willems, who dispensed organic animal crackers and cut-up grapes, and who helped children create handprint turkeys for Thanksgiving. Her coworkers at Gibson’s knew the waitress who wore black miniskirts and red lipstick, who would join a tableful of rowdy businessmen in tossing back shots to earn a bigger tip, and who could effortlessly palm a tray of gourmet burgers. One of those Nellies belonged to the day; the other, the night.
Richard had seen her navigate both of her current worlds, though he obviously preferred her preschool-teacher persona. She’d planned to resign from her waitressing job right after they married, and her teaching job as soon as she became pregnant—which she and Richard hoped would happen quickly.
But not long after they’d gotten engaged, he suggested she give notice at Gibson’s.
“You mean quit now?” Nellie had looked at him in surprise.
She needed the money, but more than that, she liked the people she worked with. They were a vibrant group—a microcosm of the passionate, creative types who flocked to New York from all over the country, drawn like moths to the bright city. Two fellow waitresses, Josie and Margot, were actresses trying to break into theater. Ben, the headwaiter, was determined to become the next Jerry Seinfeld and practiced comedy routines during slow shifts. The bartender, Chris, a six-foot-three dead ringer for Jason Statham who was probably single-handedly responsible for drawing female customers into the place, wrote scenes for his novel every day before he came to work.
Something about their fearlessness, the way her coworkers exposed their hearts and chased their dreams despite the rejection they continually suffered, spoke to a part of Nellie that had been switched off during her last year in Florida. They were like children in that respect, Nellie realized—they possessed an undaunted optimism. A sense that the world and its possibilities lay open to them.
“I only waitress three nights a week,” Nellie had said to Richard.
“That’s three more nights you could be with me.”
She arched an eyebrow. “Oh, so you’re going to stop traveling so much?”
They’d been lounging on the couch at his apartment. They’d ordered in sushi for Richard and tempura for her and had just finished watching Citizen Kane because it was his favorite film and Richard had joked that he couldn’t marry her until she’d seen it. “It’s bad enough that you hate raw fish,” he teased. Her legs were slung over his and he was gently massaging her left foot.
“You don’t need to worry about money anymore. Everything I have is yours.”
“Stop being so wonderful.” Nellie leaned over and brushed her lips against his, and though he tried to turn into a deeper kiss, she pulled back. “I like it, though.”
“Like what?” Richard’s hands were running up the length of her leg. She could see his expression turn intent and his deep-sea eyes darken, the way they always did when he wanted sex.
“My job.”
“Baby”—his hands stilled—“I just think of you on your feet all day, then you have to run around and fetch drinks for jackasses all night. Wouldn’t you rather come with me on some of my trips? You could have had dinner with me and Maureen last week when I was in Boston.”
Maureen was Richard’s older sister by seven years; they’d always been close. After his parents died when he was a teenager, he’d moved in with her while he finished his schooling. Maureen now lived in Cambridge, where she was a professor of women’s studies at the university, and she and Richard spoke several times a week.
“She’s dying to meet you. She was really disappointed when I said you couldn’t come.”
“I’d love to travel with you,” Nellie had said lightly. “But what about my Cubs?”
“Okay, okay. But at least think about taking a painting class at night instead of waitressing. You’d mentioned wanting to do that a while ago.”
Nellie hesitated. This wasn’t about whether she wanted to take a painting class. She repeated, “I really do like working at Gibson’s. It’s only for a little while longer, anyway. . . .”
They were quiet for a moment. Richard seemed as if he was about to say something, but instead he reached down and pulled off one of her white socks, waving it in the air. “I surrender.” He tickled her foot. She squealed and he pinned her hands above her head and went for her ribs.
“Please don’t,” she said between gasps.
“Don’t what?” he joked as he continued.
“Seriously, Richard. Stop it!” She tried to wriggle away, but he was on top of her.
“Looks like I found your sweet spot.”
She felt as if she couldn’t get enough oxygen into her lungs. His strong body covered hers, and the remote control dug into her back. Finally, she wrenched her hands free and pushed him away, much harder than she had when he tried to prolong their kiss.
After she caught her breath, she said, “I hate being tickled.”
Her tone was sharp—sharper than she’d intended. He looked at her closely. “I’m sorry, sweetheart.”
She adjusted her top, then turned to face him. She knew she had overreacted. Richard was only being playful, but the sensation of being trapped had panicked her. She had the same feeling in crowded elevators or going through underground tunnels. Richard was usually sensitive to these issues, but he couldn’t be expected to always read her mind. They’d had such a nice night. The dinner. The movie. And he was only trying to be generous and thoughtful.
She wanted to get things back on track. “No, I’m sorry. I’m being grumpy. . . . I just feel like I’m always on the go lately. And my street is so noisy that whenever I open my window, it’s impossible to sleep. You’re right, it would be nice to relax a little more. I’ll talk to my manager this week.”
Richard smiled. “Think they can find someone soon? One of our new clients funds a lot of good theater on Broadway. I could get you and Sam house seats to anything you want to see.”
Nellie had seen just three shows since moving to New York; tickets were exorbitant. She’d sat in the balcony every time, once behind a man with a severe head cold and the others with a pole partially obscuring her view.
“That would be amazing!” She nestled closer to him.
Someday they’d have an actual fight, but Nellie couldn’t imagine being truly mad at Richard. It was more likely her sloppy ways would chafe him. She draped her discarded clothes over her bedroom chair or sometimes left them on the floor; Richard hung up his suits every night, smoothing the fine fabric before tucking them in his closet. Even his T-shirts were shepherded into soldier-straight rows by some sort of clear plastic device that fit into his dresser drawers. The Container Store probably sold it. More than that, they were sorted by hues: one row for black and gray, one for colors, and one for whites.
His job required intense focus and attention to detail; he had to be organized. And while no one could call teaching preschoolers relaxing, the stakes felt far less intense—not to mention that the hours were shorter and the only travel required was the occasional field trip to the zoo.
Richard took such good care of his things—and of her. He worried about her commuting to the apartment from Gibson’s, and he called or texted every night to make sure she’d arrived home safely. He’d bought her a top-of-the-line cell phone. “I’d feel better if you took it with you whenever you go out,” he’d said. He’d offered to buy her Mace, too, but she told him she already carried pepper spray. “Good,” he said. “There are so many creeps out there.”
Don’t I know it, Nellie had thought, suppressing a shudder, so grateful for that flight, that young soldier—even for her anxiety about being airborne because it had sparked their first conversation.
Richard had put an arm around her. “Did you like the movie?”
“It was sad. He had that big house, and all that money, but he was so alone.”
Richard nodded. “Exactly. That’s what I always think when I watch it, too.”
Richard loved to surprise her, she was learning.
He had something planned for today—with him, it could be anything from minigolf to a museum—and had told her he was leaving work early to pick her up. She needed to wear something that could cover a range of possibilities, so she decided on her favorite navy-and-white-striped sundress and flat sandals.
Nellie shucked off the T-shirt and cargo pants she’d worn to the Learning Ladder, tossing them in the direction of her laundry basket, then reached into her closet. She shoved aside clothing, searching for the bold stripes, but it was missing.
She went in Samantha’s room and spotted it on the bed. She could hardly complain; Nellie had at least two of Sam’s tops in her closet. They shared books, clothes, food . . . everything except shoes, because Nellie’s feet were a size larger, and makeup, because Samantha was biracial, with dark hair and eyes, and Nellie—well, Jonah had chosen a marshmallow to represent her skin tone for a reason.
She dabbed Chanel perfume behind her ears—the scent was a gift from Richard for Valentine’s Day, along with a Cartier love bracelet—and decided to head outside to wait for him, since he was due to pick her up any minute.
She exited her apartment and walked down the small hallway, then pulled open the building’s main door just as someone else was entering. Nellie reflexively jumped back.
It was only Sam. “Oh! I didn’t know you were home! I was just looking for my keys.” Sam reached out and squeezed Nellie’s arm. “I didn’t mean to startle you.”
When Nellie had first moved in, she and Sam spent an entire weekend painting the worn old apartment. As they rolled a creamy-yellow hue onto the kitchen cabinets, working side by side, their conversation skimmed over topics such as the rock-climbing group Sam was thinking of joining to meet rugged guys, the father at the preschool who always tried to flirt with the teachers, Sam’s therapist mother, who wanted her to go to medical school, and whether Nellie should accept the job at Gibson’s or look for weekend shifts at a clothing store.
Then, as darkness fell, Sam uncorked the first of two bottles of wine, and their conversation turned more personal. They’d talked until three A.M.
Nellie always thought of that as the night when they’d become best friends.
“You look nice,” Samantha said now. “Maybe a little overdressed for babysitting, though.”
“I’m running out first, but I’ll be at the Colemans’ at six-thirty.”
“ ’K. Thanks again for covering for me. . . . I can’t believe I double-booked myself. So unlike me.”
“Yeah, what a shocker.” Nellie laughed, which had probably been Sam’s intention.
“The parents swore they’d be home by eleven, so expect them at midnight. And watch out for Hannibal Lecter when you tell him it’s bedtime. Last time he tried to gnaw on my wrist when I took away his Play-Doh.”
Sam nicknamed all the kids in her class: Hannibal was the biter, Yoda the tiny philosopher, Darth Vader the mouth breather. But when it came to cajoling a kid out of a tantrum, no one could do it better than Sam. And she’d convinced Linda to spring for rocking chairs so that teachers could soothe kids who suffered from separation anxiety.
A horn tooted and Nellie looked up to see Richard’s BMW convertible pulling up. He double-parked next to a white Toyota with a parking ticket on the windshield.
“Nice ride,” Sam called out.
“Yeah?” Richard shouted back. “Let me know if you want to borrow it someday.”
Nellie caught Sam rolling her eyes. More than once, Nellie had wondered if Sam had a nickname for Richard. But Nellie had never asked. “Come on. He’s trying.”
Sam squinted as she looked at Richard again.
Nellie hugged her quickly, then hurried down the steps and toward the car as Richard got out to open the passenger-side door.
He wore aviator sunglasses and a black shirt with jeans, a look Nellie loved. “Hi, beautiful.” He gave her a long kiss.
“Hi yourself.” As she got into the car and twisted around to grab her seat belt, she noticed Samantha hadn’t moved from the doorway. Nellie waved, then turned back to Richard. “Are you going to tell me where we’re going?”
“Nope.” He started the car and pulled away from the curb, heading east onto the FDR Drive.
Richard was quiet during the ride, but Nellie kept seeing the edges of his mouth curl up.
When they exited the Hutchinson River Parkway, he reached into the glove compartment and pulled out a sleep eye-mask. He tossed it onto her lap. “No peeking until when we get there.”
“This feels a little kinky,” Nellie joked.
“Come on. Put it on.”
She stretched the elastic band across the back of her head. It was too tight for her to peek out the bottom.
Richard made a sharp turn and she was pressed against the door. Without visual clues, she couldn’t brace her body against the vehicle’s movements. And Richard was driving fast, as usual.
“How much longer?”
“Five or ten minutes.”
She felt her pulse quicken. She’d tried to wear a sleep mask on an airplane before, hoping it would help ease her fear. But it had the opposite effect: She’d felt more claustrophobic than ever. Sweat pricked her armpits and she realized she was clutching the door handle. She almost asked Richard if she could just shut her eyes, but then she remembered the way he’d smiled—that boyish grin—as he tossed the mask on her lap. Five minutes. Sixty times five was three hundred. She tried to distract herself by counting the seconds in her head, visualizing the second hand of a clock sweeping around in a circle. She let out a gasp when Richard squeezed her knee. She knew he’d meant it affectionately, but her muscles were tense and his fingers had dug into sensitive spots right above her kneecap.
“Just another minute,” he said.
The BMW stopped abruptly and she heard the motor die. She reached to rip off the mask, but Richard’s voice stopped her: “Not yet.”
She heard him open his door, then he came around to let her out, taking her arm to guide her as they walked on something that felt hard beneath her shoes. Not grass. Pavement? A sidewalk? Nellie was so accustomed to the noise constantly surrounding her in the city that its absence was jarring. A bird started to trill, then its notes abruptly died. They’d only been driving for thirty minutes or so, but she felt as if they’d traveled to a different planet.
“Almost there.” Richard’s breath was warm against her ear. “Ready?”
She nodded. She’d have agreed to anything to take off the mask.
Richard lifted it up and Nellie blinked as sharp sunlight blinded her. When her eyes adjusted, she found herself staring up at a large brick house with a SOLD! sign staked in the front yard.
“It’s your wedding present, Nellie.” She turned to look at him. He was beaming.
“You bought this?” She gaped.
The house was set back from the street and sprawled across a lot that was at least an acre. Nellie didn’t know much about homes—the modest single-floor brick house she’d grown up in in South Florida could be described as “rectangular”—but this one was obviously luxurious. The details as much as the size were the giveaways: an enormous wood door with a stained-glass window and brass handle, manicured gardens rimming the lawn, tall lanterns flanking the walk like sentries. Everything looked pristine, untouched.
“I’m . . . speechless.”
“Never thought I’d see that,” Richard joked. “I was going to save it until after the wedding, but the settlement went through early, and I couldn’t wait.”
He handed her the key. “Shall we?”
Nellie walked up the front steps and fit it into the lock. The door glided open and she stepped into a two-story foyer, hearing her footsteps echo against the glossy floor. To her left she could see a wood-paneled study with a gas fireplace. To her right, an oval-shaped room with a deep window seat.
“There’s a lot still to be done. I want you to feel like a part of this, too.” Richard took her hand. “The best part is the back. The great room. Come on.”
He led the way as Nellie followed, trailing her fingertips along the floral wallpaper until she caught herself and yanked them away before she left a smudge.
The room’s name was an understatement. The kitchen, with its sand-colored granite counters and bar featuring a flush cooktop and wine refrigerator, flowed into a dining area capped with a modern cut-glass chandelier. The sunken living room had a recessed ceiling with wood detail, a stone fireplace, and wainscoting on the walls. Richard unlocked the back door and led her to the second-story deck. In the distance, a double hammock swayed under a tree.
Richard was looking at her. “Do you like it?” A crease formed between his eyebrows.
“It’s . . . unbelievable,” she managed. “I’m scared to touch anything!” She gave a little laugh. “It’s so perfect.”
“I know you wanted to live in the suburbs. The city is so loud and stressful.”
Had she told him that? Nellie wondered. She’d complained about the chaos of Manhattan but couldn’t recall saying she wanted to move. Maybe she had, though, when she’d talked about growing up on a residential street; she’d probably mentioned a desire to replicate that environment for their children.
“My Nellie.” He walked over and enveloped her in his arms. “Wait till you see the upstairs.”
He took her hand and led her up the split staircase, then down a hallway past several smaller bedrooms. “I thought we could turn this one into a guest room for Maureen.” He pointed. Then he opened the door to the master suite. They stepped through side-by-side walk-in closets, then into the skylight-filled master bathroom. Beneath a row of windows was a Jacuzzi for two, and the separate shower was enclosed in glass.
One hour ago, she’d been inhaling the smell of the onions her neighbor was frying and stubbing her toe on the case of Diet Coke Samantha had left inside their door. She, who was thrilled when she got a 25 percent tip or discovered a cute pair of Hudson jeans at a secondhand store, had somehow wandered into yet another life.
She looked out the bathroom window. A row of thick green hedges blocked the view of the neighbors’ house. In New York, she could hear through the radiator the couple who lived one floor above arguing about the Giants game. Here, the sound of her own breathing seemed loud.
She shivered.
“Are you cold?”
She shook her head. “Just someone walking over my grave. Creepy expression, right? My father used to say that.”
“It’s so quiet.” Richard took in a slow, deep breath. “So peaceful.” Then he gently turned her toward him. “The alarm company is coming next week.”
“Thank you.” Of course Richard had thought of that detail.
She wrapped her arms around him and felt herself relax against his solid chest.
“Mmmm.” He began to kiss her neck. “You smell so good. Want to test out the Jacuzzi?”
“Oh, babe . . .” Nellie slowly pulled away. She became aware that she was twisting her engagement ring around on her finger. “I love that idea, but I really need to get going. Remember, Sam asked me to take her babysitting job. . . . I’m so sorry.”
Richard nodded and put his hands in his pockets. “I guess I’ll just have to wait, then.”
“It’s amazing. I can’t believe this is going to be our home.”
After a moment, he pulled out his hands and squeezed her close again. His face was tender as he looked down at her. “Don’t worry about tonight. We can celebrate every night for the rest of our lives.”