Other Words for Love (28 page)

“Parsons, I hope. I have to retake the SAT next month. I really blew it last time.”

He laughed. “The SAT seems important now, but it won’t matter later on, especially for somebody with your talent. You know, I showed that portrait you drew of Adam to a friend of mine—a guy who owns an advertising agency in the city—and he was impressed. He said he might have a part-time opening next spring if you’re interested.”

“An opening,” I said, imagining myself answering phones or stuffing envelopes. “What kind of opening?”

“For an artist, Ari,” he said, like I was a total ditz. “Are you interested?”

There was a time when I would have said I wasn’t interested, when being an artist seemed big and scary, like something that would dissolve me into thin air. But now I didn’t say I wasn’t interested, because a lot of big and scary things had come my way lately and I was still here.

“What do you think?” Evelyn asked.

It was New Year’s Eve and I stood behind her as she examined herself in her full-length bedroom mirror. She’d just slipped into a beaded party dress with an Empire waist, and she nervously checked her reflection from different angles. She studied the embroidery on her skirt, the showgirl-type shoes on her feet. We’d bought everything together at one of those hole-in-the-wall shops where they sold vintage clothes at affordable prices, and I knew she was going to outshine everyone at the party she and Patrick were attending tonight. It was at a catering hall on Long Island, hosted by a neighbor who’d recently inherited some money and wanted to welcome 1988 in style.

“I think it’s beautiful,” I said. “And stop fidgeting.”

She smiled. “Will you be okay with the kids? They just can’t shake these colds.”

I adjusted her hair around her face and smiled back. The boys had been sick since Christmas, coughing and sneezing and fighting low-grade fevers, but I didn’t want Evelyn to worry. She and Patrick deserved a carefree night filled with shrimp cocktail and champagne.

“We’ll be fine,” I said, handing her the silver clutch purse that a saleslady had told us was made in 1928. “Just have a good time.”

She gripped the purse with one hand and unclumped her mascara in the mirror with the other. “Call Mom if you have any problems,” she said, and I nodded even though I had no intention of calling Mom. She and Dad were throwing their own New Year’s Eve party at home, with brandy-spiked eggnog and throngs of NYPD and their spouses, and they deserved a good time too.

I pushed her toward the living room, where Patrick sat on the couch with Kieran by his side and Shane on his lap. He rubbed Shane’s back and held a tissue for Kieran to blow his nose. He was dressed in a sleek black suit and a silky blue tie.

“You clean up nice,” I told him.

He tugged at his collar. “I’m suffocating in this thing.”

That comment reminded me of someone else who would have preferred a T-shirt and jeans to a fancy suit. It made me remember that I didn’t have anyone to kiss at midnight.

I took the kids away from Patrick to distract myself. Dr. Pavelka had told me to distract myself whenever I felt the slightest hint of depression.
Don’t dwell
, she said. Then Shane held my neck and coughed into my sweatshirt while Kieran used my sleeve to dry his nose, and the three of us stood in the front hall watching Patrick and Evelyn slip into their coats.

Patrick opened the door and held it for Evelyn. There was a Christmas wreath on the door and I heard its bells jingle. I also felt the cold air and Evelyn’s soft cheek on mine when she leaned over to say good night.

“Thanks for taking care of the boys,” she said.

It was something she said a lot more than she used to. “Enjoy the party,” I answered.

When they were gone, I supervised Kieran playing with his new train set after Shane went to bed. Kieran finally fell asleep on the couch, and I moved him to his room with the Jets sheets that Dad had given him for Christmas. I laughed to myself as I closed the door, thinking that Patrick was going to burn them to a crisp when Evelyn wasn’t around.

Then I plopped onto the couch with the remote control, but not for long. I heard Shane coughing in his room, so I raced upstairs and gave him a dose of medicine.

“Feel better?” I asked, pushing damp hair away from his warm forehead.

“I want to watch TV,” he said.

So we sat together on the couch, and I was flipping through the
Daily News
when the doorbell rang. I scooped up Shane, walked toward the front hall, and opened the door. I heard bells and saw a petite girl with straight blond hair cut into a chin-length bob. She wore a cream-colored coat and matching gloves, and she smelled of L’Air du Temps.

“Hi, Ari,” Summer said. “Happy New Year.”

She looked so different. Her clothes weren’t flashy. She’d lost six inches of hair. There was no shimmery lip gloss or indigo eye shadow. Her makeup was subdued except for the matte red lipstick on her mouth, and she was prettier than ever. She reminded me of photographs I’d seen of women in the 1920s, the ones who carried the sort of purse that Evelyn had brought to the party tonight.

“Hi” fell out of my mouth, in a weak voice that I could barely hear. I hadn’t seen Summer since last year, and I had never expected to see her again.

“I stopped by your parents’ house,” she said. “Your mother told me you were here. She was having a party.”

“I know,” I said, my voice louder. I wished Mom hadn’t disclosed my location, but I couldn’t be angry with her. Even though Mom suspected various things, I had never told anyone but Dr. Pavelka about what had happened between me and Summer. It would sound too ugly outside her office.

Summer shifted her eyes from me to Shane. “Oh, you’ve gotten so big,” she said. She reached out to stroke his cheek but I jerked him away.

“Leave him alone,” I said.

Her smile disappeared and her arm fell limply to her side as if she knew she deserved that. It made me feel sorry for her, even though sorry was the last thing I wanted to feel. Is this a new look, Summer? I thought. Are you new and improved? I tried that once and it didn’t work.

“Well,” she said, her breath hitting the air and changing into steam. “Can I come in, Ari? I mean … I want to talk to you.”

I thought of slamming the door. I thought of kicking her down the stairs. But a nagging little part of me remembered Uncle Eddie’s wake and a sweet-sixteen party and a box of art supplies, and the rest of me was curious, so I let her in.

She glanced around the living room—at the blinking Christmas tree, the messy pile of torn-open gifts on the floor. The place hadn’t changed at all since the last time she’d been here, and I wondered if she was going to turn up her big-shot UCLA nose at everything, but she didn’t. She just yanked off her gloves and sat on the couch.

I sat across from her in the new plaid La-Z-Boy that was Patrick’s Christmas gift to himself. He said he planned to enjoy a lot of Red Sox games in it next season. Shane started rolling a toy fire engine on the kitchen floor while I stared blankly at Summer.

“I thought you’d be in California,” I said, folding my arms across my chest.

She unbuttoned her coat. “I’m visiting my parents for the holidays.”

Which holiday? I thought. Hanukkah or Christmas? Did you choose a religion yet, Summer? Make up your mind. “Oh,” I said.

She seemed nervous and I wasn’t going to do anything to put her at ease. I just watched as she leaned forward and selected a Hershey’s Kiss from a bowl on the coffee table.

“Ari,” she said, peeling silver foil. “Do you ever see Blake anymore?”

Blake
. It seemed to echo against every wall in the house. I never said his name outside of Dr. Pavelka’s office, and it was unsettling to hear it now, especially from Summer.

“No,” I said, clutching Patrick’s chair, terrified of the question I was about to ask. “Do you?”

“Me?” she said with wide eyes and chocolate melting in her palm. “No. I haven’t seen him in a long time, and I don’t want to. My mother doesn’t even work for Ellis and Hummel anymore—she picked up a bigger account last spring, so she doesn’t have time for them. She’s expanded her business—she’s got a few people working for her now.”

“Oh,” I said again, releasing my grip on the chair. “That’s … good for your mother.”

Summer nodded, abandoning her chocolate on the table. “Ari,” she said. “I was wrong about everything. I thought Blake was a nice guy, but he wasn’t. He wasn’t a nice guy at all.”

“Blake was a nice guy,” I said, the same way and for the same reason that I’d protested when Patrick had said that Summer wasn’t a
nice girl
and when Del had called Summer a
floozy
. “He just wasn’t a strong guy.”

“Yeah,” she agreed. “You’re right. His father really bossed him around. Honestly, I think Stan liked me more than Blake did. Anyway, Blake had the wrong idea about me. The whole thing was a huge mistake.”

Where had I heard that before? And lots of people had the wrong idea about Summer. It gave me a satisfied feeling to know that both she and Blake regretted what they did, but I also pitied her again. I knew that Mr. Ellis had used her, that Blake had used her, that she’d been searching for a guy who would look her in the eyes when they made love, and I doubted that Blake had, even if he’d been right on top of her.

“Yes,” I said. “It was a mistake.”

She nodded once more, stood up, and brushed foil fragments from her coat. “Ari,” she said. “I’m not better than you. And I don’t think you’re average.”

I guessed this was her idea of an apology. I accepted a tiny fraction of it and gave her a half smile. Then she quickly changed the subject as if my silence equaled forgiveness. She started talking about her new boyfriend and she pulled a wallet from her purse.

“This is him,” she said as I looked inside the wallet at a picture of an attractive young man. He stood beneath a palm tree with his arm around Summer. The picture was as perfect as the ones that always came with wallets—the photos of happy couples. I guessed that her new look was for him, for California, for starting over. “He’s a little older … he graduated from UCLA five years ago and now he’s working on his MBA. I think it’s good to go out with older guys—they’re more mature and they treat you better.”

I could tell that the guy in the picture treated Summer better than Casey had, better than Blake had, better than any of those names in her diary, and I was surprisingly glad. I also got the feeling she wasn’t seeking
experience
anymore.

“That’s great, Summer,” I said. “Really.”

She smiled and we walked to the front hall, where I opened the door and smelled burning wood in the air.

“Goodbye,” she said.

She walked down the stairs and I listened to her heels tap the sidewalk as she headed up the block. Shane ran out of the kitchen, I picked him up, and the two of us watched Summer’s bright coat disappear into the darkness.

“Bye-bye,” Shane said, waving a tiny hand.

Bye-bye, I thought, almost sure that I’d never see her again. But if I did—if we ran into each other someday—I knew we would smile and say polite things like
How are you
? and
Give my regards to your parents
, and we would secretly remember that we used to mean something to each other. And even if that never happened, if we never spoke again, I was grateful that we’d have tonight.

twenty-five

Parsons
accepted me. In February, the mailman brought a thick envelope and then I had to take a portfolio of my work to the city and interview at the school, and soon they sent another letter that I tore open while Mom peered over my shoulder.
Dear Ariadne
, I read.
Welcome to the Parsons School of Design, Class of 1992
.

She was ecstatic and so was I, and we were both just as happy when I met with Julian’s friend in May. He offered me a part-time job at his agency in Midtown, where I worked as an entry-level illustrator under senior artists and art directors, and none of them ever said I didn’t have any talent. Sometimes people at the office would show me their work and ask, “What do you think of this, Ari?” and the idea that someone cared what I thought made me feel even more important than being given a ruby necklace for Christmas. The whole thing made Mom change her mind about the value of connections, just as long as there weren’t any strings attached.

So I kept working through my freshman year of college, and soon it was the summer again. I spent three days each week in the city and two at Creative Colors, and I found out that Adam still liked drawings of lakes and mountains.

“Do you have that same boyfriend?” he asked one Friday afternoon in August.

I was filling in a lake with a cobalt pencil and I shook my head.

“Oh,” he said. “That’s okay. You’ll find another one when you’re ready.”

I laughed because he was right.

The next day, my parents and I went to a citywide firefighters’ picnic at a park in Manhattan with Evelyn and Patrick and the boys. It was warm and sunny, and we sat on folding chairs around a table covered with food. I was drinking a glass of lemonade when Kieran came running across the grass, panting and saying he had to tell me something.

“I saw your old boyfriend, Aunt Ari.”

“Shhh,” Evelyn said, grabbing his arm and shoving him into a chair. Mom shushed him too and Patrick kept his eyes on his hamburger. I knew they meant well, as usual, but they didn’t have to protect me anymore. I didn’t want anything from Blake. I just needed to see him one last time so that I would never need to see him again.

“Where?” I asked.

“It was probably just someone who looked like him,” Mom said, lighting a Pall Mall. “Eat your lunch, Ariadne.”

“Where?” I said again, staring at Kieran.

“He’s over at the track,” Dad said.

We all looked at him. He was sitting at the head of the table and he glanced down at his plate as if he hadn’t just done the nicest thing ever.

I got out of my chair and dared to put my arms around him. “Thank you, Dad,” I said, and he actually hugged me back. It wasn’t for long—just a few seconds—but it was something.

I walked away, across the park, where I saw Blake. He was running laps on the track, dressed in black shorts and a gray T-shirt. I stood at the edge of the asphalt and called his name as he passed.

He stopped running. He turned around and walked toward me, and I saw his handsome face. Time had matured his features; he looked more like a man than a boy.

“Ari,” he said with a smile I didn’t expect. I wasn’t sure he would want to see me, especially since I’d refused to see him at Kings County Hospital. But I hadn’t been ready then. Now I was. “How are you?”

“Fine,” I answered, nervous and not sure what to say next.

His eyes moved around my face. “You look good.”

“I do?” I said, and he laughed as if I hadn’t changed at all, but he was wrong. Then he asked if I was at Parsons and I said I was. I also told him about my job, and nothing surprised him.

“I always knew you could be an artist,” he said.

I smiled because that was true. He had always believed in me. “What are you doing these days?” I asked, hoping he’d tell me he was planning to become a fireman and was running laps so he could ace the physical portion of the FDNY entrance exam.

He shrugged one shoulder and tugged at the bottom of his shirt. It was damp and clinging to his chest. “I’m in law school now.”

My heart sank, even though I wasn’t shocked. “But you wanted to be a firefighter.”

He paused for a moment, looking down at a rock on the track. He kicked it toward the grass before looking at me again. “You remember that?”

Of course I remembered. How could he think I wouldn’t? But so much time had passed—I
was
starting to forget things, things like what kind of chocolate he’d given me when I was sick with mono. “It was so important to you,” I said.

He nodded slowly and rubbed the back of his neck. “Yeah … I still think about it sometimes. But things took a different turn.”

“They sure did,” I said, struggling to keep sarcasm out of my voice. I wasn’t sure I’d succeeded. “Well … I guess your father is happy you’re in law school.”

He ran a hand through his hair. It stood up straight just like it used to. “My father died a while back, Ari. He never followed the doctor’s advice … he still ate whatever he wanted and he worked himself into the ground, even after he had surgery. Aunt Rachel’s taken it really hard, but she’ll be okay eventually. Time heals all wounds, as they say.”

He was right. And I didn’t feel the same as I had when Leigh told me that Mr. Ellis wasn’t doing well. I didn’t feel hatred anymore. I wanted to say something to make Blake feel better, but I couldn’t think of what that would be.

“I’m sorry” was all that came to mind.

Blake shrugged as if he wasn’t sad, but I knew better. He was still a bad actor. Then he moved closer, touching my hand as it hung at my side. “Me too,” he said.

I knew he wasn’t talking about Mr. Ellis. I knew this was the day Mom had told me about, the day when everything that had happened didn’t matter anymore. I looked into Blake’s eyes, remembering my lost marble and thinking that even though it was gone forever, there could be another match out there. There might be another guy who would kiss my forehead, a guy who was just as sweet but was strong enough to choose me over everybody else.

I nodded. He squeezed my fingers in his, stepped back, and changed the subject.

“Del sold his club and moved to California. He opened another place in Los Angeles. You know Del and I never got along … but he’s doing well and I’m happy for him.”

“That’s great,” I said, and I could tell that Blake had no idea what had happened in the loft on Valentine’s Day. Del kept it a secret, like I’d asked—he wasn’t such a pig after all. “But you’re alone in New York now, aren’t you?” I asked, thinking that his closest relatives were either dead or in California.

“I’m going to school in LA,” he said, yanking his shirt again.
UNIVERSITY OF SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA
was printed across the fabric in red letters. I hadn’t even noticed.

“Oh,” I said, surprised. “Do you like California? I mean—is law school okay?”

He sighed. “It’s what I expected. So is California. But Aunt Rachel wanted me nearby.… I think I should be around my family for now. And my father always planned for me to become a lawyer.”

I glanced at my sandals and back at him. “Your father is gone, Blake.”

He stared at me for a second. “So you don’t think I should do what he wanted?”

“I think you should do what
you
want. He isn’t here.”

There was a wounded look on Blake’s face. He shook it off quickly and spoke in a determined voice. “I know he isn’t—and that makes following his plans even more important. His partners are running Ellis and Hummel. I’ve kept an apartment here in the city, and I come back every month or so to check in at the office. I’ll start working there permanently after I graduate. Eventually I’ll be in charge of everything.”

I remembered New Year’s Day at the penthouse when he’d broken up with me. I remembered him standing by the elevator as I left, looking brave and dutiful, like a soldier. He looked the same way now, and I realized he hadn’t changed much. It made me sad for him.

“Ari,” he said. “Are you seeing anybody?”

“No,” I answered, shaking my head. “Are you?”

He shrugged. “Since we broke up, there hasn’t been anybody important.”

I felt a little smug. I thought he should have realized sooner that important people don’t show up very often, and you should hold on to them when they do. Maybe I was smarter than he was all along, because that was something I’d always known.

From the way Blake was looking at me, I got the feeling he’d finally figured it out. Maybe that was one thing about him that
had
changed. But it had taken him too long.

I remembered the things we used to talk about, the things we’d planned, everything that had taken me so long to leave behind. But now I wanted other things, new things, like the career that people at work kept telling me I was sure to have. I’d probably want the house and the kids and the husband one day, but not yet. There were so many things I wanted to do between now and then. I also knew that Park Slope wasn’t the only place to plant a flower garden. There were even better places out there somewhere.

Blake stared at me and I sensed what he was getting at—there wasn’t
anybody important
, he was going to be in New York
permanently
after law school. As I stood there looking at him, Summer popped into my mind. I heard her saying
I don’t think much about guys from the past. I’m glad I knew them, but there’s a reason they didn’t make it into my future
. Back then I had thought she was probably right. Now I was sure.

I took a deep, quivering breath. “Well,” I said. “I hope you find somebody important. I hope you get everything you want, Blake.”

He looked like I’d let him down. I didn’t want to hurt him, and it wasn’t easy to say what I said, but I knew it was right.

Blake sighed, gave me a faint smile, and wrapped his hand around my elbow. “Thanks,” he said, holding me tightly. He still smelled like aftershave and toothpaste. “I hope you do too.”

“Thank you,” I said, and my voice cracked. “Goodbye.”

He let me go. “Good luck, Ari.”

He started running down the track and I turned away. I walked across the grass toward my family, feeling the warm August air against my face and the sunshine on my hair. I really meant it when I told Blake that I hoped he’d get everything he wanted. I hoped I would too.

That night, I cleaned my room while Mom typed in the kitchen. I sorted through wrinkled test papers from Hollister, and threw junk into garbage bags and everything else into boxes for Goodwill. I cleared off my dresser and got rid of dusty magazines and dried-up nail-polish bottles, and then the only thing left was my teddy bear. I picked it up and stroked its face and the smooth brown beads that were its vacant eyes.

“Ariadne,” Mom said.

She startled me. I hid the bear behind my back and she didn’t see it because she was too excited. She said she had just finished her novel.

“Oh, Mom,” I said. “Congratulations.”

“It still needs work. But it’s done,” she said, taking a seat on my bed.

“Your next goal,” I said, “will be to quit smoking.”

She gave me a half-annoyed, half-amused look. “Maybe,” she said, so I didn’t push it. At least she didn’t say no.
Maybe
was progress. Then she looked down at the embroidered roses on my bedspread and rubbed one with her fingertip. “Ariadne,” she said again, her eyes on the rose. “When you used to see that doctor …”

“Dr. Pavelka, you mean? I still see her, Mom … just not as much. Every third Friday.”

“Right,” Mom said. “When you see Dr. Pavelka … when you talk to her … does she ever say that … that when you went through that bad time … that it was because of me? Because of something I did? I mean … I always meant well.” She glanced up. “You know that, don’t you?”

Mom’s face was tired. Her eyes were swollen from late nights bent over the Smith Corona. She couldn’t know that Dr. Pavelka and I had spent countless hours talking about her, and about Dad, and about Evelyn and everything else, and that I had always known Mom meant well. I didn’t blame anyone for that bad time—not even Blake.

“I know, Mom.”

That made her happy. She stopped touching the rose and looked around the room. “Well,” she said, standing up. “It seems like you’re moving things along in here. I’ll leave you alone to finish … I really need to get some sleep.”

When she was gone, I went to the basement, found an empty box, and sealed the teddy bear and the NYU sweatshirt inside with heavy-duty tape. I started thinking about Leigh’s ID bracelet and I imagined that one day, maybe years and years from now, I might open the box and say the same thing to my daughter that Leigh might say to hers:
This was from a boy I used to know. He was very special to me, but that was so long ago
.

And later on, when my room was clean and all the important things had been packed away, I carried two trash bags to the curb and saw Saint Anne on my way back inside. Her shawl glistened from the glow of the streetlight; her dress was a bright shade of blue. She didn’t look lonely, and I could have sworn she was smiling.