After Hello

  He took a step toward her, wondering how close he could come—how close should he come?—without scaring her away. But without knowing exactly how it happened, the distance between them closed—halved, then halved again, then dissolved, disappeared.

  When he put his arms around her, it felt like the most natural thing in the world. He held his breath, hoping she wouldn’t pull away. Or push him away.

  The zing he had felt before returned, but this time it traveled from him to her. This time she was the one who needed to be grounded.

  “Are you okay?” he asked.

  Chapter 15

  Sara

  No. I wasn’t. And I said so. And once the words started, I couldn’t seem to stop.

  “I know this meeting is important, okay? I get it. Good things will come from it. He brought me with him on the trip so we could celebrate when all the papers were signed. But then we didn’t have lunch together—and we’re not going to dinner together—or to the Empire State Building even though he promised . . .” I groaned in frustration and squeezed my eyes shut.

  Having Sam’s arms around me was both good and bad.

  Good because it felt nice to be surrounded and protected. I couldn’t ignore the fact that he had more muscles beneath his T-shirt and hoodie than I’d suspected—that was nice. And he smelled nice, too. Not like Daniel, with his shaved head and sweet cologne. No, Sam smelled like the city—of sweat and people and movement.

  Bad because I knew if I relaxed my guard for even a moment in his arms, I would start to cry, and I knew no guy wanted to deal with a sniveling, whining crybaby.

  “Can’t you just do all of those things tomorrow?”

  I shook my head, my face rubbing against the fabric of his hoodie. “We’re just here for today. We flew in last night; we leave again first thing tomorrow morning.”

  “Oh,” Sam said, a strange tone in his voice.

  I opened my eyes and stared at the gray walls of the cathedral. I wished I could go back inside and leave behind this mess with Piper and my dad and everything else. I wished I could stay. In New York. In Sam’s arms.

  “What kind of business does your dad do?”

  “He’s selling his Internet company to a bigger Internet company so the bigger company can make finding stuff on the Internet easier and faster.”

  “That sounds like a good thing.”

  “It is, I guess.”

  “So, what’s the problem?”

  “The problem is . . .” I sighed. “Things . . . haven’t been good between us for a while. A long while, really. And Dad thought if I came on this trip with him that it would not only give us a chance to celebrate something really great but that we could use it as a way to start over. He wanted to ‘spend time together’ and ‘really talk’—you know how parents are—but instead, he’s not done with this meeting yet and I’m wandering around the city without him.” I felt a familiar burn of anger smoldering in my chest. “It’s just . . . for the last couple of years, all he’s been focused on is this business. I feel like I have to fight for his attention, or wait until he wants to spend time with me. I hate feeling like I’m invisible in my own house. I hate feeling like I’m an afterthought to him.” I said it quietly, but the words still tasted like acid.

  There was a long pause. I felt the curve of Sam’s cheek brush the top of my head. “You’re not an afterthought,” he said in my ear.

  “Then why does he make me feel like one?” I asked. Tears threatened and so I stepped out of Sam’s arms and pulled my bag across my chest, as though the patterned cloth could deflect his words.

  “Why do you let him?”

  Sam’s pointed words arrowed their way straight to my heart. “What?” I gasped. “I don’t—”

  “No one can make you feel anything. Emotions are whatever you choose to feel. It might be an instantaneous decision—to choose to be happy or sad or offended or hurt—but it’s still a decision.”

  I opened my mouth, then closed it again. “I don’t believe that.”

  He shrugged. “That’s your choice. Just like how you have chosen to react to your dad’s phone call with anger.”

  “Are you saying I should be happy that my dad abandoned me today? That he left me—” I bit down on my lip, refusing to say anything more. Nothing good waited for me at the end of that sentence.

  Sam took a step toward me, and I countered, moving back the same distance.

  “He didn’t abandon you. It sounds like he’s trying his best to spend time with you.”

  I waved my hand at the emptiness around me. “Well, he’s doing a great job of it, don’t you think?”

  “I’m not sure it’s his fault—”

  “Why are you defending him?” Tears were threatening again, but for a different reason this time. “Why can’t you just say, ‘Gee, Sara, sorry your dad is being a jerk,’ and leave it at that?”

  I ran down the steps and headed down the sidewalk blindly. I didn’t know where I was going, but I didn’t care. Sam had been right about one thing—you had to keep moving. No matter what.

  “Sara!” Sam called out. “Sara, hey! Wait!”

  I didn’t wait, but I also hadn’t gone very far. Sam caught up to me in two or three steps.

  “Look, all I was trying to say is that emotions are tricky things. If you don’t control them, they will control you. And if you’re living your life out of control, you’ll never be able to make clear and rational decisions.”

  I slowed my steps and watched a bird swoop down and settle into a high tree branch.

  “And if you give your dad power over your feelings, then you’ve given up power over yourself.”

  The bird hopped from branch to branch, its head tilting with sharp, almost erratic movements.

  “But if you choose to see where your dad is coming from—try to understand his perspective, even a little bit—then maybe you can take back some of the power and control over your life. Make your own decisions. Make your own choices.”

  Another bird joined the first one, settling close enough that their wings fluttered and touched. I raised my camera and took a picture. The familiar action was soothing, comforting.

  Sam took a deep breath and sighed. “Sara, I’m sorry about your dad.”

  I stopped. “Do you really mean that? Or are you just saying what I told you to say?”

  “I really mean it.” Sam shoved his hands in his pockets. “I really am sorry about your dad. He’s stuck in a meeting instead of spending the whole day on an adventure with his daughter.”

  I took another picture of the birds in the tree. One of them was bright blue, the other was brown, but they still managed to look like a matched pair.

  “You asked me to teach you how to look, how to see things clearly.” Sam shrugged and looked down at his boots. “That’s one way I do it. By trying to see the world through other people’s eyes.”

  “My dad did sound frustrated that the meeting was taking so much longer than he’d thought,” I said slowly. I recalled his voice on the phone: I’m really sorry, Sara-bear. I’ll make it up to you. I promise.

  Sam looked at me, his brown eyes almost the same color as the bird in the tree. “That’s all I was trying to say.”

  He was right, and I knew it. He knew it too, but he was nice enough not to rub it in.

  “How’d you get to be so smart?” I asked it a little tongue in cheek, so I was surprised when Sam answered me seriously.

  “Because my life used to be out of control. I used to do whatever my emotions told me to do without thinking it through. I don’t do that anymore.”

  As if on cue, we both started walking in step. I tried to avoid the cracks in the sidewalk. A silence fell between us, but one that suggested closeness, not awkwardness. My anger seemed to diffuse with each step.

  “What do you do instead?” I asked quietly, not looking at him. Sometimes it was easier to talk about important things from the side instead of straight on. I’d learned that trick from my dad.
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  “I look. I see. I try to help people find what they need. I listen to music. I read. I try to make choices for my own life. And I try to make those choices count.”

  He offered me his words as slowly and carefully as he took his steps.

  My heart softened, and I was sorry I had snapped at him earlier. He had just been trying to help. And if he was right, if I could choose my emotional reactions, then I wanted to choose peace. I wanted to make amends. I knew I should apologize to my dad, but that would require me taking out my phone and I didn’t want to let go just yet of this closeness I felt with Sam.

  I reached out and tugged the sleeve of his hoodie. “I like the Zebra Stripes too, you know.”

  “Serious?” he said, lifting an eyebrow along with the timbre of his voice.

  I smiled a little, and for the moment, debates about emotions and complaints about parents and confessions about the past were shelved. I felt like we had been skirting the edge of a deeper, more serious conversation—one that we weren’t perhaps fully prepared to have—and had maneuvered our way to safer territory.

  “Keith Kimball rocks it out,” I said. “And don’t get me started on Tom Jackson—no one can play the drums like he can.”

  “Where did you hear the Z Stripes?” Sam asked.

  “Internet. Maybe you’ve heard of it? They popped up on Pandora one day, and I’ve been a fan ever since. Oh, and by the way—‘The Z Stripes’? Abbreviating their name doesn’t make you any cooler, you know. It actually makes you kind of lame.”

  Sam shrugged. “I don’t mind being lame once in a while. Besides, Tom didn’t seem to mind the nickname when I talked to him backstage at their last show.”

  “Shut. Up.” I shoved him in the shoulder. “You were backstage at their show? I didn’t think they were touring.”

  “They’re not. It was a private engagement.”

  “And you got tickets? How—?” I held up my hand. “Wait, let me guess. You traded for them, right?”

  “I know a guy who knows a guy . . .” Sam ran his fingers through his hair as if scoring tickets and backstage passes to a private concert was no big deal. I was starting to suspect that, for him, it wasn’t.

  “Is that where you bought your hoodie? I totally want one.”

  “Actually, this was a gift from the band.”

  My mouth dropped open. I knew I looked like a star-crazed groupie gobbling up any small crumb of information, but this was too much.

  “A gift?”

  “Keith forgot his wife’s birthday. So, after the show, I helped him find a gift for her. This was his way of saying thanks.”

  “What did you get her?”

  “Diamond earrings. I heard they were a girl’s best friend.”

  “Wow. Just . . . I mean, wow. That’s an amazing story. I bet your life before you came to New York was super boring compared to the kind of adventures you’ve had since.”

  Sam kept his hands in his pockets and adjusted his bag by shifting his shoulder. He tucked his chin close to his chest and muttered low, “Not exactly.”

  I was sure he didn’t mean for me to hear him.

  And I was sure he didn’t know that I had.

  Chapter 16

  Sam

  The cross street of Columbus Avenue was straight ahead, and beyond that was Central Park.

  “What address did Daniel write down for you?”

  Sara looked down at her hand, angling her wrist, and read, “‘Aces. Cathedral Parkway 110th Street station.’”

  “Sounds like he’s moved since the last time I saw him. Let’s hope he’s still by the station, though even if he’s gone into the park, he’ll probably have left a note.”

  “Who is this guy, anyway?”

  “Aces? He’s a street performer and an experimental artist. Last time I talked to him, he was working with oil and canvas, so he might have just what we are looking for. I don’t know how ‘emotionally moving’ his work will be, but it will definitely be original and one-of-a-kind.”

  “And you and Daniel know him . . . how, exactly?”

  “Last Christmas I stopped by the cathedral one night, and Aces had come by for a hot meal and some spiritual enlightenment. Daniel was there and we ended up talking for like an hour about the reality of God.”

  “What did you decide?”

  “Daniel said yes; Aces said no. I said I’d have to wait and see.”

  “And?”

  “I’m still waiting to see.” Sam stepped off the curb. He didn’t notice right away that Sara wasn’t following.

  “You don’t believe in God?”

  “I didn’t say that.”

  “So you do believe in God.”

  “I didn’t say that, either. I said I’m waiting to see.”

  A car honked and Sam jogged out of the way. The dog tags around his neck chimed softly as they struck the St. Christopher medallion beneath his shirt. He ignored the sound they made.

  Sara waited until traffic cleared and then darted across the street.

  “What are you hoping to see? Do you think that God is going to make a personal appearance just for you? I thought the whole point of belief was that you didn’t see things first.”

  Sam stopped and turned to Sara. “Do you believe in God?”

  “Yeah, I guess so.”

  “But you don’t know?”

  “Well, I know I’d like to believe.”

  “Then why don’t you?”

  “I—” Sara closed her mouth. A small dimple appeared in her left cheek, a divot of frustration. After a moment, she pulled her sunglasses down over her eyes and continued walking. “Where did you say Aces was? At the station?”

  Sam squeezed his eyes shut. When would he learn to stop provoking people? They had been having a very nice conversation—she liked the Zebra Stripes; who knew?—and then he had to go and ruin it. Again. First that thing about her dad, now this thing about God. He should stick to safer topics. The weather. The city. The price of tea in China. Anything but what was actually on his mind.

  And that was what was killing him. Sara was smart and funny. She seemed genuinely interested in spending time with him. He could admit to himself that this was the best day he’d had in ages. Plus, she was easy to talk to—which was exactly what made her so dangerous.

  He hadn’t connected with a person so quickly since he’d met Alice. If he wasn’t careful, he would tell Sara about his life before New York. About Alice and the night that—

  No, he told himself firmly.

  But then, without warning, he added, Not yet.

  That word—yet—echoed in his mind and filled him with dread. It meant that some part of him had already decided to speak the words he had held silent for all these months. What’s more, it meant he had decided he would speak those words to Sara.

  Maybe that was why he kept directing the conversation to difficult topics even when Sara worked to pull them back to neutral ground. If she could handle a hard, point-blank conversation about God, then maybe she could handle an equally hard, point-blank conversation about him.

  Could she? Could he? He wasn’t sure he wanted to risk it.

  Not yet.

  “Sara,” he called out, running to catch up with her. His heart thudded in his chest out of rhythm with his steps. He reached out to touch her arm but stopped short of making actual contact. “Not that way. The station is this way.”

  She pivoted on her heel and followed him silently down the walk.

  The station bustled with activity. A large sign announced the different trains that stopped at the hub—B and C—and the staircase descending into the underground was wide with green rails.

  Sam grabbed the banister and hopped up on the bottom rail. With the extra few inches of height, he scanned the crowds. “I don’t see him,” he said after a moment. “He has really bright red hair, so he should be easy to spot.”

  Sara joined him on the rail, twisting and scanning alongside Sam. The ends of her brownish-blonde hair brushed
past his face. It was soft, and he could smell her shampoo—something fruity and floral—along with the tang of exhaust. Even a sunshine girl like Sara couldn’t last long in New York without being touched by the city.

  “What’s that?” she asked, standing on her toes and pointing to a small playing card that had been taped to the bottom of the subway sign.

  “Ah! Aces’ calling card.” Sam hopped off the rail and moved closer to investigate. “Told you he’d leave a note. Looks like he’s gone to the park. Heading south.”

  Sara raised one eyebrow. “It’s the ace of clubs.”

  “Spades are north. Hearts are east. Diamonds are west.” Sam shrugged, settling his bag more comfortably on his shoulder. “Clubs are south.”

  “That’s kind of vague. Doesn’t he want people to find him?”

  “Codes and clues are part of what he does. Don’t worry—Aces will leave out another card if we need to change direction.” Sam headed into the park and turned south on the first pathway he came to.

  Even on the leading edge of Central Park, the trees were huge and green. The wide canopies of leaves cast soft shadows over the hard concrete. New York was a vertical city, no two ways about it, but Central Park had its own unique verticality. Trees instead of buildings. Monuments and statues instead of lampposts and street signs. Wide, rolling lawns spread like green paint, pooling around bridges, ponds, and pathways. The green evoked a strange mix of calm and excitement in Sam, a color that felt all the more shocking and refreshing to his eyes after days of staring at mottled gray sidewalks, rust-colored bricks, and tinted glass buildings.

  They walked deeper into the park, past picnickers and Frisbee players and a pack of bicyclists. The afternoon sun was falling lower in the sky, adding some pink and gold to the blue. The sounds of the city—the cars, the sirens, the background hum of endless activity and energy—faded along with the light and were replaced with the sounds of nature: the wind in the trees, a birdsong chorus, a barking dog.

  Sara inhaled deeply and wiped her fingers across her cheeks.

  “Are you crying?” he asked quietly, pierced with the pointed edge of his lingering guilt.