“I thought I was late. I ran all the way from the subway. Almost killed me.” Peter gives me a big wet smooch. I can feel his mother’s eyebrows raising. Public displays of affection are definitely frowned upon. Almost worse than visible panty line.
“It’s the cigarettes,” she says. “Eleanor, you really must make him stop.”
“I’ve been here,” I say. “I went to the ladies’ room.” I pause, trying to think of some excuse, anything that will get me out of here. Jonas is waiting. If I stand him up, he will not forgive me again. Peter takes my hand.
“Shall we go up?” His father pushes the elevator button. “We booked at Le Cirque.”
The elevator begins to rumble down. I listen to its approach, knowing it’s now or never. “I’ll meet you up there,” I blurt as the doors open. “I need to use the bathroom.”
Peter looks at me, confused. “I thought you just came from the bathroom.”
“I’m feeling a bit ill,” I say. “Tummy.”
“You do look flushed.” He reaches out to feel my forehead, holding the elevator doors open with his free hand.
“If you aren’t feeling well, Eleanor, you should go home. No use getting the rest of us sick,” Peter’s mother says.
“Mother.”
“She’s probably right,” I say. His mother looks so thrilled by her petty triumph that I almost feel absolved.
“Then I’ll come with you,” Peter says.
“No. Stay with your parents. I’m fine. I’ll be fine.”
The elevator dings impatiently.
“Peter,” his mother says. “Other people are waiting.”
“Go,” I say. “I’ll see you at home.”
I wait for the elevator doors to clang shut before running out to the street and hailing a cab.
* * *
—
Jonas is outside his building, hands in his pockets, staring up at a scraggly tree boxed into the sidewalk. I almost don’t recognize him. He’s still Jonas, but he’s broad-shouldered now, muscular: a man man. I follow his gaze to a large hawk perched on an upper branch.
“It’s a redtail,” Jonas says. “Must be hunting rats.”
“How disgusting.”
“Still,” he says, “a bird of prey in Greenwich Village.”
“That could be the title of my stepmother’s memoir.”
Jonas laughs. “How do you do that?”
“Do what?”
“Manage to make me laugh even when I hate you.” He looks at me, gaze direct, no lies behind his water-green eyes. “To be honest, I was hoping you’d gotten really old and fat. All doughy and English. But you look beautiful.” He frowns, runs his fingers through his dark hair. It is long again, wilder. He’s in his work clothes, jeans and T-shirt covered in paint. He smells of turpentine. There’s a smear of ocher on his cheek.
I reach out to wipe it off, but he stops my hand midair.
“You have paint,” I say.
“No touching.”
“Don’t be stupid.” I put my arms around him, don’t let go. It feels good to be close to him. When I step away, there is wet oil paint on my linen dress.
“That’s all I meant,” he says.
“Shit. I liked this dress.”
Far down the street I see a couple crossing at the light, arm in arm. For a second, I think it’s my father and Mary, and a rotten, crumpling feeling clenches my insides.
“What?” Jonas asks.
“I thought I saw my father,” I say. “I don’t speak to him anymore.”
“What happened?”
“He put Granny Myrtle in a home. Against her will. She died the next day. She called me. She was so scared and alone. I tried to get there, but I was too late. I’ll never forgive him.”
Above us, the hawk takes wing, chasing after a smaller bird. I watch it circling in. “I lied to Peter and his parents. Told them I was feeling sick to my stomach.”
“Sorry,” he says. But I can see in his eyes it makes him happy that I lied to Peter so I could see him.
“Don’t lie to me,” I say. “It’s pointless.”
He smiles. The truth of everything between us. “I was thinking we could grab some beers on the corner and walk down to the river.”
The windows of my father’s apartment are open. Someone—Mary, obviously—has attached tasteful window boxes filled with trailing ivy and white geraniums. Jonas and I walk, arms entwined, through the narrow cobbled streets. Down Perry and across West Street to an old pier littered with desiccated dog shit and crack vials. We find a cleanish spot and sit down. Legs dangling over the edge.