The Lies That Bind(5)

He laughs and says, “Well, you gotta start somewhere, right?”

I shrug because I’ve been telling myself that for a long time now, though I have yet to move up the ranks. “What about you?” I say. “What do you do?”

    He tells me he’s a trader, and for one second I picture North American fur traders, like the kind you’d see in a junior high textbook. Then I realize he must mean Wall Street. “As in stocks?”

“Yeah. Domestic large cap.” He sighs, his expression changing completely, becoming darker. “But I’m hoping to make a career change soon.”

“To do what?” I ask.

“I don’t know. I’m still figuring that out….I’m still figuring a lot of things out, actually.”

“Such as?” I ask as breezily as I can.

“You know…what I really want to do with my life…where to live…stuff I probably should have figured out by now…” His voice trails off, worry lines appearing on his forehead.

“Where do you live?” I ask, though it occurs to me he could be talking in broader terms. As in which city.

He tells me he’s between apartments. “I was in Brooklyn….But I’ve been crashing with my brother…on his couch…in Hoboken….”

“Ohhh. Now I get it,” I say. “My bed is better than his couch? I see how it is.”

He laughs and holds up his hands, palms out. “Yep. You got me. Busted. I was just using you for your bed. I saw you at the bar last night, and I thought—now, there’s a girl with a good mattress. Firm, but not too firm.”

“Hey, that’s cool,” I say, smirking back at him. “You’re welcome to my mattress anytime.”



* * *



—

After we eat, we linger for a long time over coffee and the paper, reading it together, passing sections back and forth, doing the crossword in record time, and discussing everything from entertainment and sports to politics and literature. He loves books as much as I do, becoming animated as he talks about his favorites. He mentions a few authors that lots of guys seem to love—Irving, Updike, Kerouac, Salinger. But then he throws a curveball with Anna Karenina.

    “Seriously?” I say, because it’s one of my favorites—and obviously also very romantic. “Or is that a line?”

“You want a line? How about this one…” He clears his throat and leans toward me. “?‘I’ve always loved you, and when you love someone, you love the whole person, just as he or she is, and not as you would like them to be.’?”

I feel myself melting inside, goosebumps rising everywhere. But I play it cool and say, “Quoting Tolstoy could just be part of your act.”

“Yep,” he says, grinning back at me. “And to think I usually have to quote Tolstoy before I get in a girl’s bed.”



* * *



—

When we finally leave the diner, Grant asks if I’d like to go for a walk. I tell him I’d love to. So we head west, circling the wrought-iron gates of Gramercy Park, then wandering down through the Flatiron District into Union Square. Once there, we stroll around the ground floor of Barnes & Noble, perusing the new releases, then cross back into the square, where we sit on a bench and people-and dog-watch for the longest time. I can tell that both of us are stalling, putting off saying goodbye. But at the same time, we are both fully present in the moment. At least that’s the way it feels to me.

Eventually though, it’s time to go, and we stand and head west toward his PATH train on Fourteenth Street. When we get there, he turns and looks at me, his face serious.

“So,” he says, one hand on the metal rail leading downstairs to the station. “Will I ever see you again?”

I glance at the illegible graffiti scrawled on the wall behind him, then look back into his eyes. “Do you want to see me again?”

    “Yes,” he says. “I do.”

“Good.” I reach into my purse, tear the corner off a random brochure, find a pen, and write my home and cell numbers on it. “Here,” I say.

He takes the paper, folds it in half, and puts it in his back pocket. “Thank you.”

“Thank you,” I say. “That was fun.”

“Fun?” he says. “C’mon, Cecily, you’re a crossword whiz. Surely you can do better than ‘fun.’?”

I smile again, then tell him that our time together was completely unprecedented.

“How so?” he presses, staring into my eyes.

Now a bit dizzy, I say, “Well…I’ve never been that spontaneous. I’ve never shared a bed with a complete stranger. I’ve never felt such an instant connection.”

“That’s a better answer,” he says. “And I agree. With the last part, anyway.”

I smile, then say, “Oh, so you have shared a bed with complete strangers?”

“I have. But not like we did.” He gets a funny look on his face, then says, “I really liked it.”

“Me too,” I say.

“I like you, Cecily.”

“I like you, too…Grant.”

He stares at me a second, then gives me a quick, unceremonious side hug before turning and disappearing underground.