Nightwatcher (Nightwatcher #1)(14)

Sometimes Jamie puts up with it; other times, Jerry has to turn off the music because, as Jamie says, it can drive a person crazy, playing over and over and over like that.

The other day, Jamie said, “Enough already! If you’re so in love with this girl, then do something about it.”

“What?”

“Let her know you like her. Maybe . . . send her a gift, to start. Like a secret admirer. That will get her interested. Send her something she likes.”

“Cake?”

“No, not cake.”

“Everyone likes cake.”

“Something more . . . personal. Special. What does she like?”

“Music.” Jerry thought about that. “I like music, too. I like Alicia Keys. But I can’t send her music because she doesn’t have a CD player anymore.”

“Then that’s what you’ll send her. I’ll help you. You’ll get her interested, make her curious, and then you’ll tell her it was from you, and you’ll ask her out.”

“I . . . I don’t know what I’d say.”

“I’ll help you,” Jamie said again.

What would Jerry do without Jamie?

“We’ll practice, okay?”

“Practice?”

“You get one chance, Jerry. You gotta get it right. I’ll tell you what to say.”

Somehow, the words sounded a lot smoother when Jamie said them. Jerry couldn’t manage to make them sound good even to himself, in the mirror, practicing. He heard the quaking in his voice and saw how his hands were twitching, and he knew he wasn’t ready.

Jamie didn’t listen, just said to go for it. Jamie made me do it. I knew I needed another day, maybe two, to get ready for this.

But then, out of nowhere . . .

“There she is!” Jamie whispered, and sure enough, there she was, Kristina, right there on the closed-circuit TV screen.

Not long after she’d carried the CD player into her apartment, Jerry saw her coming back out.

Last week, Mr. Reiss, the building’s owner, had cameras installed in the building’s public areas, hoping to catch a burglar who had broken into a few apartments. He showed Jerry where they are and how they work, and he told him to keep an eye on things.

Jerry did.

He especially kept an eye on Kristina.

“She’s probably coming to thank you for the gift,” Jamie said.

Confused, Jerry protested, “But she doesn’t know it was from me yet.”

“Sure she does. Go!”

So Jerry was waiting there in the hall when she burst through the stairwell door right in front of him, so close that he could smell her, and see down inside her shirt, and . . .

And he got to actually touch her at last, and her skin was so soft and warm, just like he’d always imagined . . .

And he heard Jamie’s voice echoing in his head, and he heard Alicia Keys singing about falling in love, and he heard his own voice, out loud, talking to Kristina, saying her name, asking her to go out with him . . .

No.

That’s what she said, and it was over, just like that.

“Whatever you do, don’t blow it, Jerry,” Jamie had said, at the end of that pep talk about Kristina—and what did Jerry go and do?

He blew it. She said no.

Jerry stops walking and tilts his throbbing head back. His face is wet. Rain. Tears.

He screams into the New York City night, “Noooooooooooo!”

Stepping out of the cab in front of her five-story brick apartment building, Allison wobbles a little on her four-inch heels. The pinot grigio she drank at the Marc Jacobs after-party went straight to her head after a long day and very little food.

Did she even have any food?

She honestly can’t remember. There must have been some at the party, but hardly anyone in the industry ever eats in public. Hell, hardly anyone in the industry ever eats, period.

Sometimes, Allison amuses herself by imagining her glamorous colleagues finding themselves plopped down in the middle of her hometown.

Back in Centerfield, parties—not that Allison was invited to many—were invariably casual, jeans-and-flannel, chow-down affairs, with everyone bringing a dish-to-pass. Hellmann’s-laced appetizers, creamy Campbell’s soup casseroles, Velveeta in any number of forms . . .

If there was food at the Jacobs party, she’s pretty sure none of it contained a single ingredient you’d find in the packaged goods aisle at ShopRite.

She’ll never forget what it felt like to be out there on the riverfront tonight with the world’s most famous, glittering skyline as a backdrop; rubbing shoulders with the beautiful people; making small talk with Sarah Jessica Parker and Hilary Swank in the glow of what seemed like thousands of candles . . .

It was magical, that’s what it was. The kind of night she dreamed about when she was a food stamps kid back in Centerfield.

Still walking, Allison fumbles in the bottom of her purse for her keys, and her heel wedges in a sidewalk crack. She stumbles, staggers, but somehow manages not to fall.

“Nice save!”

Startled by the voice, Allison looks toward it and sees that someone is sitting in the shadows on her building’s concrete steps.

Her first thought is for her safety. It’s late, and the street is deserted, and someone’s been breaking into apartments lately . . .