Still Me
Page 40
He looked into my eyes, then reached a hand up and stroked my cheek. ‘You don’t get it. You can’t see how you’ve changed. You’re different, Lou. You walk around these city streets like you own them. You hail taxis with a whistle and they come. Even your stride is different. It’s like … I don’t know. You’ve grown into yourself. Or maybe you’ve grown into someone else.’
‘See, now you’re saying a nice thing and yet somehow it sounds like a bad thing.’
‘Not bad,’ he said. ‘Just … different.’
I moved then so that I was astride him, my bare legs pressed against his jeans. I put my face up close to his, my nose against his, my mouth inches from his own. I looped my arms around his neck, so that I could feel the softness of his short dark hair against my skin, his warm breath on my chest. It was dark, and a cold neon light beamed a narrow ray across my bed. I kissed him, and with that kiss I tried to convey something of what he meant to me, the fact that I could hail a million taxis with a whistle and still know that he was the only person I would want to climb into one with. I kissed him, my kisses increasingly deep and intense, pressing into him, until he gave in to me, until his hands closed around my waist and slid upwards, until I felt the exact moment he stopped thinking. He pulled me sharply into him, his mouth crushing mine, and I gasped as he twisted, pushing me back down, his whole being reduced to one intention.
That night I gave something to Sam. I was uninhibited, unlike myself. I became someone other than myself because I was so desperate to show him the truth of my need for him. It was a fight, even if he didn’t know it. I hid my own power and made him blind with his. There was no tenderness, no soft words. When our eyes met I was almost angry with him. It is still me, I told him silently. Don’t you dare doubt me. Not after all this. He covered my eyes, placed his mouth against my hair, and he possessed me. I let him. I wanted him half mad with it. I wanted him to feel like he’d taken everything. I have no idea what sounds I made but when it was over my ears were ringing.
‘That was … different,’ he said, when we could breathe again. His hand slid across me, tender now, his thumb gently stroking my thigh. ‘You’ve never been like that before.’
‘Maybe I never missed you that much before.’ I leant over and kissed his chest. It left salt on my lips. We lay there in the dark, blinking at the neon strip across the ceiling.
‘It’s the same sky,’ he said, into the dark. ‘That’s what we have to keep remembering. We’re still under the same sky.’
In the distance a police siren started, followed by another in a discordant descant. I never really registered them any more: the sounds of New York had become familiar, fading into unheard white noise. Sam turned to me, his face shadowed. ‘I started to forget things, you know. All the little parts of you that I love. I couldn’t remember the scent of your hair.’ He lowered his head to mine and breathed in. ‘Or the shape of your jaw. Or the way your skin shivers when I do this …’ He ran a finger lightly down from my collarbone and I half smiled at my body’s involuntary reaction. ‘That lovely dazed way you look at me afterwards … I had to come here, to remind myself.’
‘I’m still me, Sam,’ I said.
He kissed me, his lips landing softly, four, five times on mine, a whisper. ‘Well, whichever you you are, Louisa Clark, I love you,’ he said, and rolled slowly, with a sigh, onto his back.
But it was at that point I had to acknowledge an uncomfortable truth. I had been different with him. And it wasn’t just because I wanted to show him how much I wanted him, how much I adored him, though that had been part of it.
On some dark, hidden level, I had wanted to show him I was better than her.
14
We slept until after ten, then walked downtown to the diner near Columbus Circle. We ate until our stomachs hurt, drank gallons of stewed coffee and sat opposite each other with our knees entwined.
‘Glad you came over?’ I said, like I didn’t know the answer.
He reached out a hand and placed it gently behind my neck, leaning forward across the table until he could kiss me, oblivious to the other diners, until I had all the answer I needed. Around us sat middle-aged couples with weekend newspapers, groups of outlandishly dressed nightclubbers who hadn’t been to bed yet, talking over each other, exhausted couples with cranky children.
Sam sat back in his chair and let out a long sigh. ‘My sister always wanted to come here, you know. Seems stupid that she never did.’
‘Really?’ I reached for his hand and he turned his palm upwards to take mine, then closed his fingers over it.
‘Yeah. She had this whole list of things she wanted to do, like go to a baseball game. The Kicks? The Knicks? Some team she wanted to see. And eat in a New York diner. And most of all she wanted to go to the top of the Rockefeller Center.’
‘Not the Empire State?’
‘Nah. She said the Rockefeller was meant to be better – some glass observatory thing you could look through. Apparently you can see the Statue of Liberty from there.’
I squeezed his hand. ‘We could go today.’
‘We could,’ he said. ‘Makes you think, though, doesn’t it?’ He reached for his coffee. ‘You have to take your chances when you can.’
A vague melancholy settled over him. I didn’t attempt to shake it. I knew better than anyone how sometimes you just needed to be allowed to feel sad. I waited a moment, then said, ‘I feel that every day.’
He turned back to me.
‘I’m going to say a Will Traynor thing now.’ I said it like a warning.
‘Okay.’
‘There’s almost not a day that I’m here when I don’t think he’d be proud of me.’
I felt the tiniest bit anxious as I said it, conscious of how I had tested Sam in the early days of our relationship by going on and on about Will, about what he had meant to me, about the Will-shaped hole he had left behind. But he just nodded. ‘I think he would too.’ He stroked his thumb down my finger. ‘I know I am. Proud of you. I mean, I miss you like hell. But, jeez, you’re amazing, Lou. You’ve come to a city you didn’t know and you’ve made this job, with its millionaires and billionaires, work for you, and you’ve made friends, and you’ve created this whole thing for yourself. People live their whole lives without doing one tenth of that.’ He gestured around him.
‘You could do it too.’ It just fell out of my mouth. ‘I looked it up. The New York authorities always need good paramedics. But I’m sure we could get round that.’ I said it jokingly but as soon as the words were out I realized how badly I wanted it to happen. I leant forward over the table. ‘Sam. We could rent a little apartment out in Queens or somewhere and then we could be together every night, depending on who was working what insane hours, and we could do this every Sunday morning. We could be together. How amazing would that be?’
You only get one life. I heard the words ringing in my ears. Say yes, I told him silently. Just say yes.
He reached across for my hand. Then he sighed. ‘I can’t, Lou. My house isn’t built. Even if I decided to rent it out, I’d have to finish it. And I can’t leave Jake just yet. He needs to know I’m still around. Just a bit longer.’
I forced my face into a smile, the kind of smile that said I hadn’t taken it at all seriously. ‘Sure! It was just a stupid idea.’
He pressed his lips against my palm. ‘Not stupid. Just impossible right now.’
We decided by unspoken agreement not to mention potentially difficult subjects again, and that killed a surprising number – his work, his home life, our future – and we walked the High Line, then peeled off to go to the Vintage Clothes Emporium where I greeted Lydia like an old friend and dressed up in a 1970s pink sequined jumpsuit, then a 1950s fur coat and a sailor cap and made Sam laugh.
‘Now this,’ he said, as I came out of the changing room in a pink and yellow nylon psychedelic shift dress, ‘is the Louisa Clark I know and love.’
‘Did she show you the blue cocktail dress yet? The one with the sleeves?’
‘See, now you’re saying a nice thing and yet somehow it sounds like a bad thing.’
‘Not bad,’ he said. ‘Just … different.’
I moved then so that I was astride him, my bare legs pressed against his jeans. I put my face up close to his, my nose against his, my mouth inches from his own. I looped my arms around his neck, so that I could feel the softness of his short dark hair against my skin, his warm breath on my chest. It was dark, and a cold neon light beamed a narrow ray across my bed. I kissed him, and with that kiss I tried to convey something of what he meant to me, the fact that I could hail a million taxis with a whistle and still know that he was the only person I would want to climb into one with. I kissed him, my kisses increasingly deep and intense, pressing into him, until he gave in to me, until his hands closed around my waist and slid upwards, until I felt the exact moment he stopped thinking. He pulled me sharply into him, his mouth crushing mine, and I gasped as he twisted, pushing me back down, his whole being reduced to one intention.
That night I gave something to Sam. I was uninhibited, unlike myself. I became someone other than myself because I was so desperate to show him the truth of my need for him. It was a fight, even if he didn’t know it. I hid my own power and made him blind with his. There was no tenderness, no soft words. When our eyes met I was almost angry with him. It is still me, I told him silently. Don’t you dare doubt me. Not after all this. He covered my eyes, placed his mouth against my hair, and he possessed me. I let him. I wanted him half mad with it. I wanted him to feel like he’d taken everything. I have no idea what sounds I made but when it was over my ears were ringing.
‘That was … different,’ he said, when we could breathe again. His hand slid across me, tender now, his thumb gently stroking my thigh. ‘You’ve never been like that before.’
‘Maybe I never missed you that much before.’ I leant over and kissed his chest. It left salt on my lips. We lay there in the dark, blinking at the neon strip across the ceiling.
‘It’s the same sky,’ he said, into the dark. ‘That’s what we have to keep remembering. We’re still under the same sky.’
In the distance a police siren started, followed by another in a discordant descant. I never really registered them any more: the sounds of New York had become familiar, fading into unheard white noise. Sam turned to me, his face shadowed. ‘I started to forget things, you know. All the little parts of you that I love. I couldn’t remember the scent of your hair.’ He lowered his head to mine and breathed in. ‘Or the shape of your jaw. Or the way your skin shivers when I do this …’ He ran a finger lightly down from my collarbone and I half smiled at my body’s involuntary reaction. ‘That lovely dazed way you look at me afterwards … I had to come here, to remind myself.’
‘I’m still me, Sam,’ I said.
He kissed me, his lips landing softly, four, five times on mine, a whisper. ‘Well, whichever you you are, Louisa Clark, I love you,’ he said, and rolled slowly, with a sigh, onto his back.
But it was at that point I had to acknowledge an uncomfortable truth. I had been different with him. And it wasn’t just because I wanted to show him how much I wanted him, how much I adored him, though that had been part of it.
On some dark, hidden level, I had wanted to show him I was better than her.
14
We slept until after ten, then walked downtown to the diner near Columbus Circle. We ate until our stomachs hurt, drank gallons of stewed coffee and sat opposite each other with our knees entwined.
‘Glad you came over?’ I said, like I didn’t know the answer.
He reached out a hand and placed it gently behind my neck, leaning forward across the table until he could kiss me, oblivious to the other diners, until I had all the answer I needed. Around us sat middle-aged couples with weekend newspapers, groups of outlandishly dressed nightclubbers who hadn’t been to bed yet, talking over each other, exhausted couples with cranky children.
Sam sat back in his chair and let out a long sigh. ‘My sister always wanted to come here, you know. Seems stupid that she never did.’
‘Really?’ I reached for his hand and he turned his palm upwards to take mine, then closed his fingers over it.
‘Yeah. She had this whole list of things she wanted to do, like go to a baseball game. The Kicks? The Knicks? Some team she wanted to see. And eat in a New York diner. And most of all she wanted to go to the top of the Rockefeller Center.’
‘Not the Empire State?’
‘Nah. She said the Rockefeller was meant to be better – some glass observatory thing you could look through. Apparently you can see the Statue of Liberty from there.’
I squeezed his hand. ‘We could go today.’
‘We could,’ he said. ‘Makes you think, though, doesn’t it?’ He reached for his coffee. ‘You have to take your chances when you can.’
A vague melancholy settled over him. I didn’t attempt to shake it. I knew better than anyone how sometimes you just needed to be allowed to feel sad. I waited a moment, then said, ‘I feel that every day.’
He turned back to me.
‘I’m going to say a Will Traynor thing now.’ I said it like a warning.
‘Okay.’
‘There’s almost not a day that I’m here when I don’t think he’d be proud of me.’
I felt the tiniest bit anxious as I said it, conscious of how I had tested Sam in the early days of our relationship by going on and on about Will, about what he had meant to me, about the Will-shaped hole he had left behind. But he just nodded. ‘I think he would too.’ He stroked his thumb down my finger. ‘I know I am. Proud of you. I mean, I miss you like hell. But, jeez, you’re amazing, Lou. You’ve come to a city you didn’t know and you’ve made this job, with its millionaires and billionaires, work for you, and you’ve made friends, and you’ve created this whole thing for yourself. People live their whole lives without doing one tenth of that.’ He gestured around him.
‘You could do it too.’ It just fell out of my mouth. ‘I looked it up. The New York authorities always need good paramedics. But I’m sure we could get round that.’ I said it jokingly but as soon as the words were out I realized how badly I wanted it to happen. I leant forward over the table. ‘Sam. We could rent a little apartment out in Queens or somewhere and then we could be together every night, depending on who was working what insane hours, and we could do this every Sunday morning. We could be together. How amazing would that be?’
You only get one life. I heard the words ringing in my ears. Say yes, I told him silently. Just say yes.
He reached across for my hand. Then he sighed. ‘I can’t, Lou. My house isn’t built. Even if I decided to rent it out, I’d have to finish it. And I can’t leave Jake just yet. He needs to know I’m still around. Just a bit longer.’
I forced my face into a smile, the kind of smile that said I hadn’t taken it at all seriously. ‘Sure! It was just a stupid idea.’
He pressed his lips against my palm. ‘Not stupid. Just impossible right now.’
We decided by unspoken agreement not to mention potentially difficult subjects again, and that killed a surprising number – his work, his home life, our future – and we walked the High Line, then peeled off to go to the Vintage Clothes Emporium where I greeted Lydia like an old friend and dressed up in a 1970s pink sequined jumpsuit, then a 1950s fur coat and a sailor cap and made Sam laugh.
‘Now this,’ he said, as I came out of the changing room in a pink and yellow nylon psychedelic shift dress, ‘is the Louisa Clark I know and love.’
‘Did she show you the blue cocktail dress yet? The one with the sleeves?’
