“Wow,” he said. “That sounds really awesome. I’d love to do that sometime.”
“You should come,” she said casually.
“I’d love to,” he said. “We just have to figure out when. Let me know when you’re there and I’ll rearrange my schedule.” Yes! He had an excuse to see her again. He’d impress her with how well he could ladle out the gravy to pour over her mashed potatoes.
* * *
—
Two hours flew by. Nicole glanced at her watch. “Oh, man, I’ve got to get going. The Metro-North train leaves in, like, twenty-five minutes.”
There is a desolation like none other when a beautiful woman sitting across from you has to catch a train in twenty-five minutes. This was a far cry from eating alone in a hotel restaurant or picking up some fast-food takeout and gulping it down in his room. “Isn’t there a later train?”
“Not for the twenty-three dollars I found,” she said. She pulled out her phone, thumbed through a couple apps. “There’s another at six thirty-two a.m. for thirty-two dollars, but I don’t want to sit in the Poughkeepsie train station for three hours.”
“Oh,” he said.
“Plus where would I hang out for the night?” she said.
The energy pulsed between them.
“I guess I could take the train at twelve thirty-two,” she said. “It costs forty-six dollars, though.”
“I think you should. We can grab a nightcap.”
“Yeah, sure. If you want.”
They headed back to the Saint Jacques. Mike held the door for them. “How did the concert go?”
“Pretty good,” Ray said.
Nicole said, “He was terrific.”
“Sorry I missed it.”
“Thanks, Mike,” Ray said.
Nicole smiled, grabbed Ray’s arm, and led him to the hotel bar.
Three beers later, it was almost 11:45 p.m. and time for Nicole to head to Grand Central for the train. “I wish you didn’t have to go,” he said.
“I don’t,” she said. Before he could mess up the situation, she leaned over the table, bumping into one of the beer glasses, and kissed him.
The kiss lasted a very long moment.
He stood, reflexively swinging the violin case onto his back. “How would you feel if I asked you to come up to my room?” he said.
“I would feel like what took you so long to ask me,” she said.
He led her to the elevator.
* * *
—
At 5:00 a.m. he woke up to an empty bed, turned on the light. Her clothes were gone. He sat up, pressed his back against the padded ivory headboard. He knew it was too good to be true. She was gone. There’s no way a pretty girl like that could be interested in him.
He dove back under the covers just as the room door clicked open. She was back, carrying two coffee cups and a brown paper bag.
“Hey, uh, morning,” Ray said.
Nicole sat the items down and kissed Ray. He worried about morning breath, but she didn’t seem to mind. “Morning, handsome. Sorry to wake you up. I was hoping I’d be back before you noticed I was gone.”
“I—”
“Thought I ditched you, right?” She grinned. “Not a chance. I picked up an early breakfast for us. I have got to catch my train at six thirty-two, though.”
“Oh.”
“I hope you like egg on an everything bagel.”
“Oh man. You actually remembered that?”
“Of course I did. Here, this one’s yours.” She handed him one of the coffee cups. It was cool. Orange juice. He’d told her last night that he didn’t drink coffee.
He took a swig, kissed her again. “How much time do we have?”
“I need to leave here in forty-five minutes, tops.”
“Plenty of time,” he said.
* * *
—
Later that morning, hours after she’d left and he’d fallen back asleep, his phone rang. A 212 number he didn’t recognize. “Mr. McMillian? I’m David Talbot. I’m an executive producer at 60 Minutes. I was in the audience yesterday afternoon at Carnegie Hall,” the man went on. “I was very impressed. That was a sold-out crowd. Not bad for a Thursday-afternoon recital.”
“I guess they liked my playing.”
“Which is why I’m calling. I wonder if you’d be interested in having us do a piece about you? I’ve been following your career for a while, and yesterday’s performance wasn’t an anomaly. We’d like to explore that on the show.”