Imaginary Lines (2 page)

One of them, Jorge, glanced up briefly. “Think he went outside.”

Okay. So there’d been a slight hitch in my plan. I nodded my thanks and headed past the bouncer who hadn’t bothered to card our group, and into Westwood Village.

I’d thought I’d been nervous before, but for some reason my stomach tightened when the cool night air rolled over me. My palms began to sweat. Still, I kept forcing myself to take and release deep breaths. I had started on this path and I wouldn’t turn back now. This had been years in the making.

I turned the corner and Abraham’s broad shoulders came into view. He stood beneath a street lamp, and the dispersed light warmed his faintly curling hair from the color of dark sand to honey.

And then a giggle floated out, and I stopped.

Abe shifted, and I saw what his shoulders had blocked before: a girl in a trendy top and skinny jeans, her hair impeccably cut and highlighted. She fluttered her sooty lashes with great mastery, and her voice floated clearly down the sidewalk. “But what about that girl you were with earlier?”

Leave now
, my gut told me, a direct contrast to the orders from the cat on my chest.
Nothing good comes to eavesdroppers.

But my feet were bolted to the pavement.

“What, Tamar?” Abe’s tone was light and playful, his voice a melodic baritone. “She’s just a family friend.”

The girl spoke goadingly. “She’s pretty.”

Abe’s voice dropped an octave. “Not as pretty as you.” His head lowered and my breath caught in a hard, condensed pit.

But the girl outmaneuvered him, her shiny locks spinning in the lamplight. Her hand came up to rest against Abe’s chest in a flirtatious protest. “She seemed to like you.”

The pit acted like a dark hole, sucking my chest into the cavity of emotion.

Abe let out an exasperated groan, tilting his head enough that I could see his perfect profile, his strong jaw and Roman nose, his skin kissed by the strong sun. He was youth and strength and everything I’d ever wanted. “Trust me, I’m not interested in Tamar. She’s like a little sister.”

A high-pitched squeak cut through the night, and the couple froze. As did I, hand to throat, berating my vocal cords for betraying me. Straight ahead, the girl’s eyes widened and fastened on mine. Her lips neared Abe’s ear as she whispered to him.

He started, and spun around, surprisingly light on his feet for a linebacker. The full force of surprise on his beautiful, good-natured face slammed into me like the discordant screech of an orchestra. “Tamar.”

I shook my head like I could negate my presence, and turned and fled.

Other bars, loud with laughter and music, lined the street, and I passed groups of students flying high with the successes of the night. The triumph of the UCLA Bruins was everywhere; here, they didn’t paint the town red, but blue and gold.

Why had I worn my new wedges? The back of my heel chafed enough that I could picture the blister tomorrow, and it made me limp and lose momentum. Stupid. I was so, so stupid.

“Tamar. Tamar!”

I didn’t turn around until he caught my wrist, and then affected surprise when he spun me to face him. “Oh. Abe. Hi.”

We’d lived down the street from each other for most our lives, and I recognized most of his expressions. It wasn’t difficult: Abe’s friendly face had always been the definition of an open book, and now I easily read frustration and chagrin.

I swallowed, wanting to head this off before it started. “I am so sorry I interrupted you two—”

His eyes were dark pools of empathy, framed by disarmingly long lashes. “Tamar. Stop.”

I did, but only for a second. “What?”

“I didn’t mean for you to hear that.”

I raised my hands, which conveniently pulled my wrist out of his grip. “No worries. I mean, it was a little awkward, but when am I not awkward, right? I mean, remember that time in tenth grade—”

“Tamar.”

I stopped.

Abraham licked his lips, and my gaze switched to his mouth. I’d imagined kissing him so many times. The force of those daydreams felt as real as memories, except they were tinged with pain from wishing too hard.

“Tamar.” He looked like he didn’t know where to begin. I didn’t want him to. I didn’t want him to keep saying my name with that strange note, either. “I don’t want you to feel bad.”

My gut twisted. My head felt light and my throat dry. I might just float off any second. Or maybe fold up into a neat little package, tiny and flat and easily packed away and hidden.

My heartbeat accelerated.

His steady eyes never left mine. “But you know—you know we’re not—”

“I know you think of me as a sister,” I said rapidly. “You just said that.”

Unhappiness crossed his beautiful face. “That’s not what I meant.”

No. No, he didn’t think of me as a sister, because why would he ever bother thinking of me?

My feet tingled, like they did whenever I stood at a height. I associated that tingle with danger. My body’s sign to get out of a dangerous situation.

I had two choices. I could say something.

Or I could smile and walk away.

It would be so much easier to do the latter, but I was afraid it would cause a cancerous sore inside me, a knot of regret and disappointment in myself that would linger and fester until I could think of nothing else.

So I took a deep breath and kept my own gaze as steady as his. “Abraham. I like you.”

He closed his eyes. His dusky lashes lay still against dusky skin and the high cheekbones that would have looked foolish if the rest of him wasn’t so relentlessly masculine, like a statue at the Getty Villa. “Tamar, don’t.”

I took a tiny step closer. “I really like you. I have always liked you.” Now that I’d started, the words tumbled out over each other, gathering force. They battled with oxygen for room in my throat and came out garbled and breathless. “And I guess I thought that you would realize it if I just waited long enough, if I was there, and I listened and I did all the right things. And you make me laugh and you are so smart and brilliant and gorgeous and every time I look at you I can feel it in my chest and I
love
you.”

He opened his eyes. They were the same deep brown of my own, the color of polished oak, and pain filled them. “Tammy...”

Disappointment settled in the pit of my stomach. “You don’t feel the same way.”

He shoved a hand through his hair, causing a sinfully attractive disarray. “I didn’t expect you to say anything.”

What? “What does that mean?”

“Just—you’ve never brought it up before.”

I stared at him, dread slowly building in my chest, infringing on my lungs. “What, but you knew?”

His dead silence was a dead giveaway.

“You knew.” Each word came out with more certainty. “You
knew
I was in love with you.”

“Come on, Tammy. It was impossible not to know.”

I took a slow step back and blinked away tears. I repeated my words with heavy finality. “But you don’t feel the same way.”

He caught my arm. His expression was almost pleading, like he wanted me to understand the impossibility of us. “My whole family loves you.”

The tears were winning against my lashes. “What does that have to do with anything?”

“It means—I don’t know, they’d be planning our wedding in twenty-four hours! We’d be under a
chupah
in a year.”

I squeezed my eyes shut. “So you don’t want to date me because it would make your mom too happy?” I shook my head. Why was I still talking? Why had I even started? “Just forget it, okay? I’m an idiot. I shouldn’t have brought it up. Let’s pretend it never happened.”

I tried to wrench my arm away, but he wouldn’t let me. He reined me in closer. “I’m not going to forget.

“Why not?”

“Because...” He wouldn’t take his eyes off me, and they seared straight through my heart and the cat and my lungs. “Because this matters. Because you put yourself out there to tell me.”

Dammit, I couldn’t keep the tears back anymore, and I could feel two slipping through my lower lashes. “You don’t have to be so nice to me right now.”

Regret filled his face and he moved his arms as though to pull me into a hug. “Tammy—”

But that was all I needed, to be comforted by Abraham Krasner for being idiot enough to fall in love with him at first sight, and stay that way for close to a decade. He was too perfect, and I clearly was not, and I was in no shape to handle that.

So instead of collapsing against him, I stumbled back, unable to take his soulful, tragic eyes, and I ran.

Chapter Two

Now

No matter how hard I tried, I couldn’t get away from Abraham Krasner.

I clutched my mug and smiled as the two women across from me prattled on about Abe’s record pass deflections. As though each and every person in Sharon Krasner’s living room didn’t know Abe’s score, stats, records and marital possibilities. (Single. Not looking).

After a few more minutes, I gave a polite excuse about seeing my mother beckoning. Abe and I had used that for years as kids—everyone understood a mother’s prior claim on her child’s time. I escaped to the kitchen, where I fiddled around with the tea bags, as though choosing the correct blend of leaves was the very best way to spend Rosh Hashanah.

At least he hadn’t bothered to come home for the holiday. While I’d found it easier to accept that Abraham and I would never work out after that painfully brutal day four years ago, it still left me with a twist of wistfulness that I preferred not to subject myself to. After all, no matter how accustomed you get to unrequited love, it never becomes one hundred percent comfortable.

Sharon waylaid me on my way out of the kitchen. “Oh, Tamar, there you are! What a pretty dress. You look so grown-up.”

I smiled at her. “Thanks. Mom always says all my friends look like adults, but she’s still surprised that I don’t always look like a little kid.”

She laughed. “It’s true enough. When I meet Abraham’s friends in New York I’m always so shocked by how they look like
men.
Oh, but you must be so excited to be going there! You’re flying out on Friday?”

“Eight in the morning.”

“Do you have a place to stay? Abe has plenty of room at his apartment—I was just there over the summer, and he has a guest room, and he’s right in the middle of everything—I’m sure you could stay there.”

One would think that mothers would desist in matchmaking after their children reached the reasonably advanced age of twenty-three and twenty-four. One would be incorrect. “Oh, no, thank you, but I have a place all lined up.”

Her small, heart-shaped face appeared unconvinced. “Hmm. Well. You at least have to let him show you around. Does he know when you’re coming? I talked to him last week and he didn’t seem to know you’d gotten the job.”

I busied myself preparing my tea. “Oh, yeah...I hadn’t actually gotten around to telling him yet.” Mostly because I hadn’t actually spoken with Abraham Krasner in years. We were in a conspiracy of silence, and I intended to keep it that way.

Sharon tilted her head back and forth in thought. “Maybe he should pick you up from the airport.”

I waved a hand in negation. “That’s really not necessary. But thank you. My cousin Shoshi will be around to help out.”

“Well. He’ll have to take you out for dinner, then.”

Because there wasn’t much else I could say to that, I smiled and agreed.

Taking my tea, I slipped deeper into the house. The walls and photos were familiar from a decade of Fridays spent here. I paused in front of a shot of me and Abe playing on the beach on one of our family vacations to Tahoe. I was gangly and smiling up at Abe as though he contained the world. He was tall and golden, the sun sliding over him as he kicked water at me.

Shaking my head at my foolishness, I slipped into Mrs. Krasner’s study, hoping to get a few moments alone before heading once more into the fray. To my surprise, the room wasn’t empty—Abe’s grandmother sat in the easy chair, eyes lidded, a romance novel lying open on her lap. Charlie, the Krasners’ old golden lab, lifted his white muzzle and blinked his rheumy, dreamy eyes at me.

I slowly tiptoed backward, not wanting to wake her, but she shook herself and proved me too late. “Tamar, dear.”

“I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to disturb you.”

“You could never disturb me. But what are you doing back here?”

“It got a little noisy.”

She smiled as though unconvinced, but let it pass. “And so you’re leaving us. All the way to New York.”

I smiled and crouched down so I could ruffle Charlie’s soft, floppy ears. He was old now, almost fourteen. He slept almost as often as Mrs. Krasner did. “It’s not so far. You could come visit.”

She waved a hand. “You know me. I don’t fly. And what do I want with that cold, wet city?”

I laughed. “Your grandson, of course!”

She eyed me slyly; in that way only grandmas do, with all the sleuthing of the heroine of a cozy mystery apparent in her eyes. “Are you going to see Abraham?”

I shrugged and fell down into a cross-legged position. I’d walked into that question. “Oh, I’m sure. We’ll probably grab lunch sometime.”

My false nonchalance failed to fob her off, and her expression softened in a manner that made my stomach tighten. She reached down and patted my arm. “He just needed to grow up, you know.”

I knew exactly what she meant, but preferred not to admit it. Still, playing the fool under her watchful gaze would’ve been worse. I looked down for a moment as Charlie rested his warm snout on my thigh. “How about you? Any exciting plans this winter?”

She shook her head at my blatant evasion but went along with it. “I’m going to visit my sister in Arizona for two weeks.”

I smiled and nodded, and we rested in comfortable silence. I stroked Charlie’s head again and again, especially those long silky hairs behind his ears, and felt some of my tension finally leave me, even if the memories wouldn’t.

The last time I’d been in this room, some four years ago, I’d caught a glimpse of a green and white friendship bracelet tucked under a pile of Sharon Krasner’s papers. It had been a punch to the gut. I’d made that bracelet for Abe the Hanukkah I’d been fifteen. Put my whole heart into it, but he didn’t care. At least she was too sentimental to throw away. I’d thought about filching it back, but that seemed too pathetic.