Sundays at Tiffany's - James Patterson [40]
“I miss you already,” I whispered.
To nobody.
Forty-five
GOOD NIGHT, JANE . . . I think I’d better go now. How could he have said that? How could it possibly be anything but a crazy, sleepless night for me after a whole day of getting lost in Michael’s eyes? I definitely didn’t want to be alone in my apartment, but here I was.
I walked to the living room and looked out at the city as I munched a couple of Oreos. All right, four Oreos. My floor was high enough to let me see over the other nearby buildings, and I had a great view of Central Park. New York had always been the right place for me, but tonight it seemed even more so, maybe because Michael was out there somewhere. What was he, though? An “imaginary friend”? An angel? A hallucination? None of those made any sense to me. But I had no other answers.
Just then the phone rang. No way did I want to listen to my mother or Hugh getting their panties in a twist. Let the machine pick it up.
First I listened to myself telling the caller to leave a message. Then I heard my friend Colleen’s voice, the one who was getting married. We’d been in Book Club together, Movie Club, Rock Concert Club, Traveling Pet Club. Nowadays we probably didn’t have so much in common.
“Oh, Janey, it’s Colleen. I wish you were home. We still haven’t talked since I told you about Ben.”
I hurried to the phone and picked it up. “Colleen! I’m here. I was just coming in the door. How are you? I left you a message,” I said. “I told you how I was dying to meet this big-shot Chicago lawyer of yours.”
“I know, but I wanted to hear your voice,” Colleen said, “in real time. I wanted to hear the real Jane.”
“You got her, babe.”
So we talked. When Colleen finished an hour or so later, I could have composed the Chicago Tribune, New York Times, and Boston Globe wedding write-ups on the two of them. Ben, the son of Dr. and Mrs. Steven Collins, had gone to BC as an undergraduate, then to Michigan Law. I wondered if Colleen would change her name, becoming Colleen Collins. Anyway, then Ben had worked for two years in the Chicago D.A.’s office. He had been introduced to Colleen by his sister-in-law at a party on Martha’s Vineyard. He had an apartment overlooking Lake Michigan. Colleen, along with her cat, Sparkle, were moving in. When Colleen began telling me about the wedding-cake fillings, I broke in.
“Wow, it sounds like you’ve got everything all planned out,” I said, trying to muster convincing enthusiasm. I loved Colleen, but if she told me she had two little fake mice in evening clothes on top of the cake, I’d probably throw the phone off my balcony.
“Oh, Jane. I did nothing but talk about me, me, me. You’re so great to listen.”
“No problem. That’s what I’m here for. I love hearing you so happy.” And if I was also a little jealous, that was my problem.
“Next time it’ll be you calling me, with the same news. But, listen, what’s new with you?”
“Not very much,” I said. “You know, work, and trying to wrangle my mother into submission.”
Colleen giggled. “As always.”
Oh, I almost forgot, I think I’m falling in love with the most perfect man ever — sweet, funny, and incredibly good-looking — who just might be a figment of my imagination. Other than that, same old, same old.
Forty-six
MICHAEL WAS THERE the next morning.
Patiently waiting outside my building, just as he used to, so many years ago. In the flesh, so to speak. Not a hallucination. At least I didn’t think so.
He had another beautiful white gardenia in his hand.
“Hello, Jane,” he said, looking slightly rumpled and adorable. “Sleep well?”
“Oh yeah, out like a light,” I lied. “You?”
We began walking side by side, in perfect rhythm, just as we used to walk to school each day. So was he watching over me again? Protecting me? Why? Did he even know why himself? Why didn’t he have all the answers? He’d always known everything when I was little. He was never unsure, never hesitant. The fact that he seemed as confused about this as I was made him infinitely more human, somehow.
The weather was