Sundays at Tiffany's - James Patterson [33]
“You of all people don’t have to ask that,” said Michael. “You know what I do, and it isn’t with grown-ups.” He frowned. “That didn’t come out right.”
“And you just ended up at the Astor Court? On a Sunday? And I wound up here too?”
He shrugged helplessly, looking as bemused as I felt. “Looks like it, huh.”
In a way, it was comforting that he seemed as confused by this as I was.
“Jane.”
I couldn’t believe it was him, Michael, saying my name.
“How did you remember me? That isn’t supposed to happen.”
“I don’t know,” I said, feeling a weird sense of calm coming over me. “You said I’d forget you, that I’d wake up and not remember you. But the next day I woke up and realized you were really gone, and it was like a safe had fallen onto my chest. I couldn’t get out of bed. I cried for days.”
Michael looked at me, appalled.
“I just . . . never forgot you. I’ve thought about you every day for twenty-three years. And now here you are, back again. It’s . . . unbelievable.” To put it mildly.
“I’m so sorry, Jane,” Michael said. “They just . . . always forget. I never would have caused you such pain if I could have helped it.”
I looked into his eyes, feeling an eight-year-old’s sense of hope. “Well, I’ll think of some way you can make it up to me.”
Thirty-seven
THE NEXT THING I was fully aware of was that Michael and I were walking up Fifth Avenue on a sun-drenched Sunday afternoon and it was like being awake in a dream. Oh, I don’t know what it was like, really. But it was incredible and exhilarating and confusing and disorienting.
When I was six or seven, I had known that Michael was funny and clever and really nice to me. But now, as a woman, as a grown-up, I realized there was so much more to him than that. For one thing, he was a terrific listener, which put him at the head of the pack of everyone I had ever dated.
He said, “Tell me everything. Tell me everything that’s happened to you since your ninth birthday.”
So I did, trying to make my life sound ever so much more interesting and exciting than it had been when I was actually living it. I found I loved making him laugh, and he laughed quite a lot during our walk together that afternoon. Once we were out on the streets of New York he became very loose and relaxed. And so did I. More or less. Sort of.
With a grown-up’s sense of awareness, I realized that Michael loved life and people. He could see the funny side of just about anything, and he was accepting of it, and not cruel. He could laugh at himself, and he counted himself among the ridiculous. I guess I would have to say that he laughed with people, not at them.
“So who was she?” I asked about the brunette back at the St. Regis.
“I don’t even remember another woman. What other woman?” Michael said, smiling. “She’s just a friend, Jane. Her name is Claire.”
“And she’s a friend?”
“Not that kind of friend . . . or the other kind either.”
“And what’s that red mark on your neck? Vampire bite?” I asked. “Do I want to hear this?” Not that I was jealous. Of my childhood imaginary friend. God, I guess I had really, really cracked. Well, I was going to run with it.
“I do a little boxing,” he said.
“Huh,” I said, trying to picture it. “Well, I myself spar with my mother on a daily basis, so that’s another thing we have in common.” He threw back his head, and I laughed, and the piercing pleasure I got from that was almost painful.
This was definitely Michael, Michael from my childhood, but now that I was grown up I could enjoy him in a whole new way. His intelligence, the wit, and his looks . . . my God! There was even something sexy about his boxing, the bruise on his neck, in a totally unmodern, un-PC kind of way. His smile had always been contagious, always filled me with happiness, and it still was, and did.
Of course, even as my heart pounded with a sense of discovery, I left room for the possibility that he would disappear at any moment, that Michael would suddenly turn to me and say, “You’ll forget all about me, Jane. That’s the way it