A Love Song for Ricki Wilde (47)
“You sound nervous,” said Ricki, reading him through the phone.
“I am nervous,” he admitted. He was first-date nervous. First-kiss nervous. First-everything nervous.
“Yeah? Why?”
Ezra shut his eyes and dropped his head back against the wall. “There’s something I need to tell you. But it’s not the kind of thing you say over the phone.”
“I see,” said Ricki. She paused, and the silence was thick. “Ezra, agreeing to avoid each other was a smart idea. I can’t afford any distractions. Something about you makes me feel crazy. I feel like I’m losing it.”
Hearing Ricki say his name sent an involuntary shiver across his skin. He wanted to tell her that he felt crazy, too, that since they’d met, every moment they weren’t together felt wasted.
I don’t know this woman’s middle name, he thought. I don’t know her favorite book or her most embarrassing middle school memory. But it doesn’t matter, because I’m already lost.
How do you break up with someone who isn’t even your girlfriend? It was like serving divorce papers to the stranger in line behind you at the CVS register.
“I agree,” said Ezra quietly. “We should try harder to stay away from each other.”
Anything less than the truth is a lie.
“There’s just one problem,” he continued.
“What’s that?”
“I don’t want to. Do you?”
When Ricki didn’t respond, Ezra kept talking. No filter, no hesitation.
“All I do is wonder when I’ll see you again,” he admitted. “No, ‘wonder’ is too weak a word. The urge to be near you? Even just for a random thirty-second run-in at a bodega or outside a café? I’m strong; I can take abuse, but this is unbearable. And, by the way, you in that red dress at the wedding? It’s the best and worst thing that’s ever happened to me. You had me coming apart at the seams, and I’m frankly sick of pretending that it’s not the last image in my brain at night. And you’re… you’re so funny, both intentionally and unintentionally, and I… I just want to be near you.
“But I’m gutted, because I can’t… we can’t… go further. And I’d like to tell you the whole truth, face to face. Will you let me?”
Ezra let go of a breath and tried to steady his heart rate. He hadn’t expected to spill it all like that. Hearing himself say the words out loud made his feelings all the more real.
He spoke again, his voice barely above a whisper. “Please, Ricki. Will you let me?”
There was almost a full, terrifying minute of endless quiet before Ricki responded.
“The shop is closed tomorrow, so I’ll be free then. Meet me at noon.”
The next day was warm. Oddly warm. Under no healthy circumstances was a New York City February supposed to feel Palm Beach balmy. But the peculiarity of it was thrilling. Everyone in Harlem was outside, soaking up their good fortune before it expired, knowing it was too rare and strange to last.
At 11:47 a.m., Ezra was standing catty-corner to 225? West 137th Street, trying to forget everything he knew about that building.
The brownstone looked the way it always looked: like all the others on the block with its grand facade. But now there was an overgrown oasis of a shop nestled to the side of the dramatic stoop. WILDE THINGS.
This was a new place, with a new history. It was Ricki’s turn to be here. He wondered how it looked inside. He ached to see where Ricki lived, slept, and worked. How she’d turned a place that held terrible memories for him into something beautiful.
And then there she was.
Ezra saw Ricki through the window, balancing on a steep ladder and reaching high up to the ceiling. A ragged tool belt was slung low around her waist. She appeared to be hammering hooks up there. And then, one by one, she was attaching floor-length transparent strings festooned with silk wildflowers. The effect was flowers falling from the sky, suspended in midair. How did she come up with this? The installation was surreal, like something from a floaty, trippy dream sequence in a Technicolor film.
And so was Ricki, standing atop the ladder in platform clogs, ass-hugging ’70s flares, and a breezy top cropped short, so a wide sliver of her skin showed as she reached upward. God, she was a mesmerizing collision of delicate and tough. The tension between the uncompromising strength in her stance and the soft, ripe lusciousness of her hair, her hips…
For one delirious moment, Ezra forgot why he was there.
It definitely wasn’t to be a creep. So even though he was early, he rang the bell. Through the window, he saw her startle. And then she climbed down the ladder with a slowness that felt deliberate—Her ass, dear God.
Five seconds later, she burst through the door. And Ezra stood before her, visibly gobsmacked.
Ricki was radiant. Breathless. And thoroughly adorable in her transparency that she was pleased to see him.
“You’re early,” she breathed.
“I’m… awestruck.”
“By what?”
You.
“Your art. I’ve never seen anything like it.”
“You were watching me.” A statement, not a question. She locked the front door and then faced him, her expression triumphant.
He didn’t deny it. “You like me watching you?”