Promise Me

  "Hello?"

  "I'm on my way."

  Aimee did not reply.

  "Why don't you stay on the line?" he said. "Just so I know you're okay."

  "My battery is almost dead. I want to save the power."

  "I should be there in ten, fifteen minutes tops," Myron said.

  "From Livingston?"

  "I was staying in the city."

  "Oh, that's good. See you soon."

  She disconnected the call. Myron checked the car clock: 2:30 a.m. Aimee's parents must be worried sick. He hoped that she'd already called Claire and Erik. He was tempted to place the call himself, but no, that wasn't part of how this worked. When she got in the car, he'd encourage her to do it.

  Aimee's location, he'd been surprised to hear, was midtown Manhattan. She told him that she'd wait on Fifth Avenue by Fifty-fourth. That was pretty much Rockefeller Center. What was strange about that, about an eighteen-year-old girl in the Big Apple imbibing in that area, was that midtown was dead at night. During the week, this place hustled with enterprise. On weekend days, you had the tourist trade. But on a Saturday night, there were few people on the street. New York might be the city that never sleeps, but as he hit Fifth Avenue in the upper Fifties, midtown was taking a serious nap.

  He got caught at a traffic light on Fifth Avenue at Fifty-second Street. The door handle jangled, and then Aimee opened the door and slipped into the back.

  "Thank you," she said.

  "You okay?"

  From behind him a small voice said, "I'm fine."

  "I'm not a chauffeur, Aimee. Sit up front."

  She hesitated, but she did as he asked. When she closed the passenger door, Myron turned to face her. Aimee stared straight out the front window. Like most teens, she'd splattered on too much makeup. The young don't need makeup, especially that much. Her eyes were red and raccoon-like. She was dressed in something teenage-tight, like a thin wrapping of gauze, the kind of thing that, even if you had the figure, you couldn't carry past the age of maybe twenty-three.

  She looked so much like her mother had at that age.

  "The light's green," Aimee said.

  He started driving. "What happened?"

  "Some people were drinking too much. I didn't want to drive with them."

  "Where?"

  "Where what?"

  Again Myron knew that midtown was not a young-people hot spot. Most hung out in bars on the Upper East Side or maybe down in the Village. "Where were you drinking?"

  "Is that important?"

  "I'd like to know."

  Aimee finally turned toward him. Her eyes were wet. "You promised."

  He kept driving.

  "You promised you wouldn't ask any questions, remember?"

  "I just want to make sure you're all right."

  "I am."

  Myron made a right, cutting across town. "I'll take you home then."

  "No."

  He waited.

  "I'm staying with a friend."

  "Where?"

  "She lives in Ridgewood."

  He glanced at her, brought his eyes back to the road. "In Bergen County?"

  "Yes."

  "I'd rather take you home."

  "My parents know I'm staying at Stacy's."

  "Maybe you should call them."

  "And say what?"

  "That you're okay."

  "Myron, they think I'm out with my friends. Calling them would only make them worry."

  She had a point, but Myron didn't like it. His gas light went on. He'd need to fill up. He headed up the West Side Highway and over the George Washington Bridge. He stopped at the first gas station on Route 4. New Jersey was one of only two states that did not allow you to pump your own gas. The attendant, wearing a turban and engrossed in a Nicholas Sparks novel, was not thrilled to see him.

  "Ten dollars' worth," Myron told him.

  He left them alone. Aimee started sniffling.

  "You don't look drunk," Myron began.

  "I didn't say I was. It was the guy who was driving."

  "But you do look," he continued, "like you've been crying."

  She did that teen thing that might have been a shrug.

  "Your friend Stacy. Where is she now?"

  "At her house."

  "She didn't go into the city with you?"

  Aimee shook her head and turned away.

  "Aimee?"

  Her voice was soft. "I thought I could trust you."

  "You can."

  She shook her head again. Then she reached for the door and pulled the handle. She started to get out. Myron reached for her. He grabbed her left wrist a little harder than he meant to.

  "Hey," she said.

  "Aimee . . ."

  She tried to pull away. Myron kept a grip on the wrist.

  "You're going to call my parents."

  "I just need to know you're okay."

  She pulled at his fingers, trying to get free. Myron felt her nails on his knuckles.

  "Let go of me!"

  He did. She jumped out of the car. Myron started after her, but he was still wearing his seat belt. The shoulder harness snapped him back. He unbuckled and got out. Aimee was stumbling up the highway with her arms crossed defiantly.

  He jogged up to her. "Please get back in the car."

  "No."

  "I'll drive you, okay?"

  "Just leave me alone."

  She stormed off. Cars whizzed by. Some honked at her. Myron followed.

  "Where are you going?"

  "I made a mistake. I should have never called you."

  "Aimee, just get back in the car. It's not safe out here."

  "You're going to tell my parents."

  "I won't. I promise."

  She slowed down and then stopped. More cars zoomed by on Route 4. The gas station attendant looked at them and spread his arms in a what-gives gesture. Myron held up a finger indicating that they needed a minute.

  "I'm sorry," Myron said. "I'm just concerned for your welfare. But you're right. I made a promise. I'll keep it."

  Aimee still had her arms crossed. She squinted at him, again as only a teenager can. "Swear?"

  "I swear," he said.

  "No more questions?"

  "None."

  She trudged back to the car.

  Myron followed. He gave the attendant his credit card, and they drove off.

  Aimee told him to take Route 17 North. There were so many malls, so many shopping centers, that it almost seemed as though it were one continuous strip. Myron remembered how his father, whenever they would drive past the Livingston Mall, would shake his head and point and moan, "Look at all the cars! If the economy is so bad, why are there so many cars? The lot's full! Look at them all."

  Myron's mother and father were currently ensconced in a gated community outside of Boca Raton. Dad had finally sold the warehouse in Newark and now spent his days marveling at what most people had been doing for years: "Myron, have you been to a Staples? My God, they have every kind of pen and paper there. And the price clubs. Don't even get me started. I bought eighteen screwdrivers for less than ten dollars. We go, we buy so much stuff, I always tell the man at the checkout counter, I say--oh, he laughs at this, Myron--I always say, 'I just saved so much money, I'm going bankrupt.' "

  Myron cast a glance at Aimee. He remembered his own teenage years, the war that is adolescence, and thought about how many times he'd deceived his own parents. He'd been a good kid. He never got in trouble, got good grades, was lofted high because of his basketball skills, but he'd hidden stuff from his parents. All kids do. Maybe it was healthy. The kids who are watched all the time, who are under constant parental surveillance--those were the ones who eventually freaked out. You need an outlet. You have to leave kids room to rebel. If not, the pressure just builds until . . .

  "Take that exit over there," Aimee said. "Linwood Avenue West."

  He did as she asked. Myron did not really know this area. New Jersey is a series of hamlets. You o
nly knew yours well. He was an Essex County boy. This was Bergen. He felt out of his element. When they stopped at a traffic light he sighed and leaned back, and used the move to take a good hard look at Aimee.

  She looked young and scared and helpless. Myron thought about that last one for a moment. Helpless. She turned and met his eyes, and there was a challenge there. Was helpless a fair assessment? Stupid as it might be to think about it, how much of a role was sexism playing here? Play the chauvinism card for a moment. If Aimee was a guy, a big high school football jock, for example, would he be this worried?

  The truth was, he was indeed treating her differently because she was a girl.

  Was that right--or was he getting mired in some politically correct nonsense?

  "Take the next right, then a left at the end of the road."

  He did. Soon they were deep in the tangle of houses. Ridgewood was an old albeit large village--tree-lined streets, Victorians, curvy roads, hills and valleys. Jersey geography. The suburbs were puzzle pieces, interconnected, parts jammed into other parts, few smooth boundaries or right angles.

  She led him up a steep road, down another, a left, then a right, then another right. Myron obeyed on autopilot, his thoughts elsewhere. His mind tried to conjure up the right words to say. Aimee had been crying earlier tonight--he was sure of that. She looked somewhat traumatized, but at her age, isn't everything a trauma? She probably had a fight with her boyfriend, the basement-mentioned Randy. Maybe ol' Randy dumped her. Guys did that in high school. They got off on breaking hearts. Made them a big man.

  He cleared his throat and aimed for casual: "Are you still dating that Randy?"

  Her reply: "Next left."

  He took it.

  "The house is over there, on the right."

  "At the end of the cul-de-sac?"

  "Yes."

  Myron pulled up to it. The house was hunkered down, totally dark. There were no streetlights. Myron blinked a few times. He was still tired, still more foggy-brained than he should be from the earlier festivities. He flashed to Esperanza for a moment, to how lovely she looked, and, selfish as it sounded, he wondered again how this marriage would change things.

  "It doesn't look like anybody's home," he said.

  "Stacy's probably asleep." Aimee pulled a key out. "Her bedroom is by the back door. I always just let myself in."

  Myron shifted into park and turned off the ignition. "I'll walk with you."

  "No."

  "How will I know you got in okay?"

  "I'll wave."

  Another car pulled down the street behind them. The headlights hit Myron via the rearview mirror. He shaded his eyes. Odd, he thought, two cars on this road at this time of night.

  Aimee snagged his attention. "Myron?"

  He looked at her.

  "You can't tell my parents about this. They'll freak, okay?"

  "I won't tell."

  "Things--" She stopped, looked out the window toward the house. "Things aren't so great with them right now."

  "With your parents?"

  She nodded.

  "You know that's normal, right?"

  She nodded again.

  He knew that he had to tread gently here. "Can you tell me more?"

  "Just . . . this will only strain things more. If you tell, I mean. Just don't, okay?"

  "Okay."

  "Keep your promise."

  And with that, Aimee was out the door. She jogged toward the gate leading to the back. She disappeared behind the house. Myron waited. She came back out to the gate. She smiled now and waved that everything was just fine. But there was something there, something in the wave, something that didn't quite add up.

  Myron was about to get out of the car, but Aimee stopped him with a shake of her head. Then she slipped back into the yard, the night swallowing her whole.

  CHAPTER 8

  In the days that followed, when Myron looked back at that moment, at the way Aimee smiled and waved and vanished into the dark, he would wonder what he'd felt. Had there been a premonition, an uneasy feeling, a twinge at the base of his subconscious, something warning him, something that he just couldn't shake?

  He didn't think so. But it was hard to remember.

  He waited another ten minutes on that cul-de-sac. Nothing happened.

  So Myron came up with a plan.

  It took a while to find his way out. Aimee had led him into this suburban thicket, but maybe Myron should have dropped bread crumbs on the way. He worked rat-in-a-maze-style for twenty minutes until he stumbled upon Paramus Road, which led eventually to a main artery, the Garden State Parkway.

  But now, Myron had no plans to return to the apartment in New York.

  It was a Saturday night--well, Sunday morning now--and if he went to the house in Livingston instead, he could play basketball the next morning before heading to the airport for his flight to Miami.

  And, Myron knew, Erik, Aimee's father, played every Sunday without fail.

  That was Myron's immediate, if not pathetic, plan.

  So, early in the morning--too early, frankly--Myron rose and put on his shorts and T-shirt, dusted off the old knee brace, and drove over to the gym at Heritage Middle School. Before he headed inside, Myron tried Aimee's cell phone. It went immediately to her voice mail, her tone so sunny and, again, teenage, complete with a "Like, leave your message."

  He was about to put the phone down when it buzzed in his hand. He checked the caller ID. Nothing.

  "Hello?"

  "You're a bastard." The voice was muffled and low. It sounded like a young man, but it was hard to know. "Do you hear me, Myron? A bastard. And you will pay for what you did."

  The call disconnected. Myron hit star sixty-nine and waited to hear the number. A mechanical voice gave it to him. Local area code, yes, but otherwise the number was wholly unfamiliar. He stopped the car and jotted it down. He'd check it out later.

  When Myron ducked into his school, it took a second to adjust to the artificial light, but as soon he did, the familiar ghosts popped up. The gym had the stale smell of every other middle school gym. Someone dribbled a ball. A few guys laughed. The sounds were all the same--all tainted by that hollow echo.

  Myron hadn't played in months because he didn't like these sort of white-collar pickup games. Basketball, the game itself, still meant so much to him. He loved it. He loved the feel of the ball on his fingertips, the way they would find the grooves on the jump shot, the arch as the ball headed for the rim, the backspin on it, the positioning for the rebound, the perfect bounce pass. He loved the split-second decision making--pass, drive, shoot--the sudden openings that lasted tenths of a second, the way the world slowed down so that you could split the seam.

  He loved all that.

  What he did not love was the middle-age machismo. The gym was filling up with Masters of the Universe, the wannabe alpha males who, despite the big house and fat wallet and penis-compensating sports car, still needed to beat someone at something. Myron had been competitive in his youth. Too competitive perhaps. He had been a nutjob for winning. This was, he had learned, not always a wonderful quality, though it often separated the very good from the greats, the near-pros from the pros: this desire--no, need--to better another man.

  But he had outgrown it. Some of these guys--a minority for certain, but enough--had not.

  When they saw Myron, the former NBA player (no matter for how short a time), they saw their chance to prove what real men they were. Even now. Even when most of them were north of forty. And when the skills are slower but the heart still hungers for glory, it can get physical and downright ugly.

  Myron scanned the gym and found his reason for being there.

  Erik warmed up at the far basket. Myron jogged over and called out to him.

  "Erik, hey, how's it going?"

  Erik turned and smiled at him. "Good morning, Myron. Nice to see you show up."

  "I'm usually not much of a morning guy," Myron said.

  Erik tossed him t
he ball. Myron took a shot. It clanged off the rim.

  "Late night?" Erik asked.

  "Very."

  "You've looked better."

  "Gee, thanks," Myron said. Then: "So how are things?"

  "Fine, you?"

  "Good."

  Someone shouted out and the ten guys jogged toward center court. That was how it was. If you wanted to play in the first group, you have to be one of the first ten to arrive. David Rainiv, a brilliant numbers guy and CFO of some Fortune 500 company, always made up teams. He had a knack for balancing the talent and forming competitive matchups. No one questioned his decisions. They were final and binding.

  So Rainiv divided up the sides. Myron was matched up against a young guy who stood six-seven. This was a good thing. The theory of men having Napoleon complexes may be debatable in the real world but not in pickup games. Little guys wanted to harm big guys--show them up in an arena usually dominated by size.

  But sadly, today the exception proved the rule. The six-seven kid was all elbows and anger. He was athletic and strong but had little basketball talent. Myron did his best to keep his distance. The truth was, despite his knee and age, Myron could score at will. For a while that was what he did. It just came so naturally. It was hard to go easy. But eventually he pulled back. He needed to lose. More men had come in. It was winners-stay-on. He wanted to get off the court so he could talk to Erik.

  So after they won the first three games, Myron threw one.

  His teammates were not pleased when Myron dribbled off his own foot, thus losing the game. Now they'd have to sit out. They bemoaned the moment but relished the fact that they'd had a great streak going. Like it mattered.

  Erik had a water bottle, of course. His shorts matched his shirt. His sneakers were neatly laced. His socks came up to the exact same spot on both ankles, both having the same size roll. Myron used the water fountain and sat next to him.

  "So how's Claire?" Myron tried.

  "Fine. She does a Pilates-yoga mix now."

  "Oh?"

  Claire had always been into some exercise craze or another. She'd gone through the Jane Fonda leggings, the Tae Bo kicks, the Soloflex.

  "That's where she is now," Erik said.

  "Taking a class?"

  "Yes. During the week, she takes one at six thirty in the morning."

  "Yikes, that's early."

  "We're early risers."

  "Oh?" Myron saw an opening and took it. "And Aimee?"

  "What about Aimee?"

  "Does she get up early too?"

  Erik frowned. "Hardly."

  "So you're here," Myron said, "and Claire is working out. Where's Aimee?"

  "She slept at a friend's last night."