A Winter Dream

  Ashley smiled as I walked in. As usual, she looked stunning. Her hair was pulled back and she wore a tight black dress, her tiny waist accented with a purple sash. She met me at the door and kissed me. “How’s my conquering hero?”

  I forced a smile. “Conquered.”

  “Did something go wrong?”

  I leaned back and looked into her face. “We’ll talk about it later.” We kissed again. “Something smells good.”

  “It’s my new perfume. Dolce&Gabbana’s ‘The One.’ ”

  “I meant the food. But you smell good too.”

  “Thanks,” she said. “I got some of that salami you like from Giuseppe’s and, my big surprise, I made my first tiramisu.”

  “Fantastico,” I said with a bad Italian accent. “I brought this.” I lifted the bottle of wine.

  She studied the label. 2002 Ruffino Chianti. “Good choice. Everything’s ready. Let’s eat.”

  We sat down at her small table. I uncorked the wine and filled her glass halfway. She swished the wine around, then sniffed the burgundy liquid.

  “That’s nice. Fruity.”

  I sipped the wine and was about to take a much-needed longer drink when Ashley said, “Wait. We should toast.”

  I stopped the glass on the way to my lips. “What would you like to toast?”

  “Your career, of course. No, the future.” She raised her glass. “To the future.”

  “The future,” I repeated dully. I nearly drained my glass.

  “So tell me about this tough day.”

  “It can wait,” I said.

  “No, then it will just hang over our evening like a cloud. Tell me now, then we’ll move on to having fun.”

  I finished my drink, set down my glass and took a deep breath. “All right. Here it goes. I’m leaving Jacobson.”

  She blinked in disbelief. “What?”

  “I’ve taken a job with another firm. A bigger one.”

  Her expression fell. “You’re leaving your family’s business? You’re going to own that place one day.”

  “I took a job in Chicago. It’s an agency called Leo Burnett. It’s one of the biggest firms in America. There’s lots of potential. It’s a chance to—” I borrowed Simon’s words—“spread my wings.”

  She looked stunned. “Chicago? What’s wrong with spreading your wings in Colorado?”

  “Colorado,” I said, wading through my excuses. “It’s just too small of a market. There’s not enough sky.” I filled my glass with more wine. “This is a great opportunity.”

  Ashley just stared at me. Then tears began welling up in her eyes. “You can’t do this.”

  I breathed out slowly. “It’s a done deal. I’ve already accepted the job and resigned from Jacobson.”

  “Then unresign.”

  “You can’t unresign.”

  “Of course you can. This isn’t some global conglomerate, it’s your family. You can do whatever you want!” Her lips tightened in anger. “You couldn’t have talked to me about this first?”

  I didn’t know how to answer her. “I had to . . .”

  “Had to? You had to what? Throw everything away? We’re here celebrating your first big campaign, your big break at your family’s firm, and now you’re leaving? Did your first success just go to your head?”

  I didn’t answer. I couldn’t answer.

  She took a drink of wine, then put her hand over her eyes. “I can’t believe this. Tell me you’re kidding before I melt down.”

  “I’m sorry. Everything just happened so fast.”

  “And how do I fit into this?”

  “You’ll come with me.”

  She looked at me incredulously. “I’m supposed to just pull up my roots? What about my career? Things are just starting to take off for me.”

  “I know,” I said. “It’s not fair. But there will be bigger opportunities in Chicago. Chicago has some of the biggest modeling agencies in the country.”

  “Like I’ll have a chance breaking into one of those?”

  “Why wouldn’t you?”

  “Because big-time models spend their lives becoming big-time models.” She shook her head. “I can’t believe this.”

  “Ashley, just have a little faith. It’s going to be great. It’s a chance for us to strike out on our own.”

  Tears began to fall down her face. She wiped her eyes and said, “With or without you, I’m not leaving Denver.”

  Her words stunned me. “What?”

  “I’m not leaving. Everything, everyone I love is here.”

  “Except me,” I said.

  “That’s your choice, not mine. If you love me, you’ll stay.”

  I felt like my heart was going to stop. “You really would leave me?”

  “Don’t turn this around. You’re the one leaving. If your ambition is more important than me . . .” She wiped her eyes with her napkin, then stood. “I can’t believe you’re doing this. I can’t believe it.”

  “I had to.” I stood and walked up to her.

  “No you didn’t.” She wiped her eyes again. “When are you leaving?”

  “Tomorrow around one.”

  She let out a small gasp. “You tell me the day before?”

  “Ashley . . .”

  “I think you better go now.”

  “I know this isn’t fair. Why don’t we wait a few months, I’ll get things settled in Chicago, then you can come out and . . .”

  She looked at me quizzically. “And what?”

  “Get married. Start our family.”

  She looked at me with surprise. “I never said I wanted to marry you.”

  “What?”

  “It’s not just you. I don’t want to be contractually tied down to someone.”

  “But you said you love me.”

  “I do love you. But I don’t know if you’re the one I want to spend the rest of my life with.”

  I stared at her speechlessly.

  “Joseph, we’re happy the way we are. Why would you want to get married?”

  “Because I love you,” I said.

  “If you love me, you’ll stay in Denver.”

  Tears began to fill my eyes. “I’m sorry.”

  She took a deep breath before saying “Then so am I.” She covered her eyes with one hand, then said, “I think you had better go.”

  “Ash . . .” I leaned forward to touch her, but she backed away. I exhaled slowly. “Okay,” I said.

  She didn’t say another word to me as I left her apartment. On the drive home I thought my heart would break.

  When I left the agency, I thought my world had fallen apart. But now it was completely shattered. When I pulled into my driveway, I couldn’t stop crying.

  CHAPTER

  Eight

  Today I left for a new city but arrived in a new world.

  Joseph Jacobson’s Diary

  I guess some stupidly optimistic part of me hoped that Ashley would show up at my apartment before I left, but as the taxi pulled away from my curb, there was no sign of her. No romantic cavalry riding in to save the day. There was nothing to save.

  I think my heart felt heavier than my bags, which is saying something since I ended up having to pay a fee for overweight luggage. Just like that, my Ashley was gone. What was worse is that she wasn’t even mine. She never had been. I didn’t blame her for being upset. I knew I had pulled the rug out from under her, but I guess I’d expected her to fight harder to keep us. To keep me.

  Aside from Ashley, I left Colorado without saying goodbye to anyone. I might as well have just vanished.

  The landing at O’Hare was pretty rough, which seemed appropriate. I waited nearly an hour at the carousel for my luggage, then waited again in line for a cab. The taxi driver, a stocky, dark-featured man with puffy eyes and an accent I didn’t recognize, put my bags in the trunk. He slammed the trunk and we both climbed inside the car.

  “Where you going, pal?” the driver asked.

  “Jefferson Park area,” I sai
d, repeating what the landlady had told me to say.

  “You have an address?”

  “Yes.” I handed him the slip of paper I’d written the apartment’s address on.

  He examined my note, then said, “No problem.” He pulled away from the curb.

  Twenty minutes later the taxi stopped in a sedate neighborhood on a corner of Lawrence Avenue near an ugly white apartment building. Rusted, gray satellite dishes stuck out from its side, and the bricks under the windows were painted baby blue. The driver lifted my bags from the trunk, dropping them heavily on the sidewalk.

  “How much do I owe you?” I asked.

  “Twenty-two dollars,” he said.

  I handed the man two twenties. “Could I have sixteen dollars back please?”

  “Skapiec,” he mumbled. He took the money from me, then drew the bills from his wallet and handed them to me.

  I looked at the names listed on the outside mailbox. Five of the six were Polish. The lobby was dirty, with heavily stained carpet, and it smelled of cabbage. The pale green plaster walls were well marked and chipped, almost as worn as the wood banister that ran up the stairs.

  I could hear U2 playing from one of the apartments. “With or Without You.” Ashley loved U2. She loved Bono. She would have followed Bono to Chicago.

  It took two trips to lug my bags up the narrow flight of stairs to the second floor. I had called my new landlady from a payphone in the Denver airport to make sure everything was ready. She was a gruff-sounding woman. She was unable to meet me but had left my apartment key with a neighbor. “He’ll be home,” she said. “Two-zero-seven is always home.”

  I knocked on the door to apartment 207. No one answered. What if he wasn’t home? I waited a couple minutes then knocked again. To my relief, I heard footsteps and a muffled voice said, “Chwileczke, chwileczke.” A moment later the door opened a few inches, stopped by a chain. I could see a slice of face, an elderly man with gray-white hair.

  “What you want?” he said with a thick accent.

  “Mrs. Walszak told me you’d have the key to my apartment.”

  “Co?”

  He looked confused, so I spoke more slowly. “Mrs. Walszak told me you would have the key to my apartment.”

  “Da key?”

  “Yes. The key.”

  “What your name?”

  “Joseph Jacobson.”

  “Wait.” The door shut again. I expected to hear the door unlock, but instead there was the sound of the footsteps, which quickly dissipated. I stood there another few minutes wondering if the man would be coming back or if I should knock again. Then I heard a toilet flush and the footsteps again, followed by the slide of the chain and a deadbolt. The door opened. The man looked at me with an annoyed expression, then held out a key in his thick hand. “Here is da key. I tell Mrs. Walszak.”

  “Thank you,” I said. “I’m Joseph.”

  “Balwan,” he said. “Don’t make much noise.” He shut the door in my face.

  I exhaled. “Nice to meet you too, neighbor.” I turned around and unlocked my door, then grabbed my bags and dragged them inside.

  The apartment was as plain as a boxcar—a small flat with an electric range and a miniature fridge that was circular on top like an antique. The walls were painted eggshell white but marred with nail holes and tape residue.

  I turned on the light, which was just an exposed bulb. The room smelled of cabbage and mold.

  It was cold enough to see my breath. “Welcome home,” I said facetiously. There was an iron radiator in the corner of the room. I walked over to it and turned a knob. It began to creak.

  I checked out the bathroom. It had an old porcelain sink on metal legs, a toilet and a shower bath with a brittle, semitransparent plastic shower curtain imprinted with blue and green turtles wearing top hats.

  I walked over to the bedroom and sat on the bed. The sheets were gray from age and the mattress sagged a little in the middle.

  The landlady had told me that the apartment was furnished, which, in this case, meant a small round kitchen table with two wooden chairs, a cigarette-burned swaybacked sofa likely abandoned by a former tenant during the sixties, the bed and a small chest of drawers.

  The apartment was cheap by Chicago standards but would still cost me nearly twelve hundred a month—four hundred more than my apartment in Denver. I had some money in the bank, around ten thousand, and the three thousand Rupert had given me, but that was all there was between me and the curb. I didn’t know what the Leo Burnett agency paid.

  I unloaded my suitcases into the dresser. I had forgotten my iron, so I lay my suit coat on the bed and hand pressed out the wrinkles for my first day at work in the morning.

  I walked over to the window and raised the blind. In spite of the cold, I opened the window and let in some fresh air. I stuck my head out to survey my new surroundings. The street was quiet. About two blocks from my apartment was a grocery store, and I suddenly remembered that I hadn’t eaten anything that day. I put on my coat and walked out, locking the door behind me.

  The market was on the corner of Lawrence and Austin, and on my way there I passed a hair salon, two bakeries (one Polish, one Sicilian), a dental office and a real estate office.

  J&L European Deli

  Wlasny Wyrob Wedlin

  I guessed that the words under the market’s name were Polish, and my hypothesis was confirmed as I walked inside and was greeted by the pungent smell of meats and sausages and loud talking in what I assumed must be the Polish language.

  With the exception of Coca-Cola, everything inside was Polish, including the periodicals on the magazine stands. The shelves were stacked with rows of foods with strange names. I bought some basic staples and a few housewares—they didn’t have many—some paper towels, dishwashing soap, a pan, measuring cups and spoons, a plastic drinking cup, a plastic bowl, a plate, and two sets of utensils. I wasn’t planning on entertaining anyone; I just needed an extra set while the other was waiting to be washed.

  A young man walked out from behind the deli counter and met me at the cash register. He spoke perfect English. I paid for my purchases, then walked back home.

  Once I was home, I poured myself a bowl of granola, cut a banana into it, then added milk. When I had finished eating, I went into my room and pulled down the sheets, then took off my clothes. I shut off the light and lay down on the bed.

  My heart ached. I had too much on my mind to sleep, mostly things I didn’t want to think about. How was it that you could be speeding through life on a set course, then, in just one day, have the tracks changed beneath you?

  As I lay there in my strange surroundings, my despair turned to anger. I had been banished. Banished from Denver. Who gets banished from Denver? Other questions loomed ominously, like powder kegs of anxiety. What would my father and mother do when they found out I had left?

  What weighed heaviest on my heart was how wrong I’d been about Ashley. I was just months away from asking her to marry me. I was ready to make the biggest commitment of my life, and she wasn’t even considering it. I suppose I should have been glad to find this out now, but it didn’t do much to take away the pain.

  After tossing and turning for what seemed like hours, I got back out of bed and set up my computer on the kitchen table. Fortunately, the apartment had wireless Internet. I had to find my notes from the landlady, because the apartment’s password had like six consonants and one vowel. I was glad I didn’t have to learn Polish.

  On a whim, I went to Facebook and looked up Ashley’s page. She’d already changed her relationship status to “single.” There were a couple dozen posts with condolences from her girlfriends and co-models, mostly bashing me. She had graciously accepted their comments with contrived humility and eager victimhood. In one comment, she had magnanimously defended me with “He has his good points.” Wow. How could I have been so wrong about her?

  With everything on my mind, I felt restless. I put my coat on and went back outside to the dark
street. I wasn’t sure whether or not it was a safe neighborhood, but it looked liked one. At least it was quiet.

  I walked toward the market with my hands in my pockets, past the façades of apartments and small businesses hung with CLOSED signs. West of the market I spotted a neon sign glowing OPEN. I crossed the street toward it. Mr. G’s Diner. I pushed the door open and walked inside.

  CHAPTER

  Nine

  The great introductions of our lives usually arrive quietly and untrumpeted, appearing like the piece of paper in a show’s Playbill announcing a cast change.

  Joseph Jacobson’s Diary

  The diner was small, with a half-dozen vinyl-seated booths, two tables and six chairs along the bar, beneath the diner’s menu. The place was empty except for a young woman standing behind the counter wiping it down. She looked close to my age, maybe a year or two older.

  She was pretty, though in a dressed-down way, as if she were trying to hide it. She had light brown hair that fell to her shoulders, with an errant strand falling over her face. Her eyebrows were slightly darker than her hair, accenting her almond-shaped eyes. She had full lips though she didn’t wear lipstick or any other makeup.

  She continued wiping the counter, oblivious to my entrance.

  “Hi,” I said.

  Nothing. Then I noticed the white cord under her chin. She was wearing earbuds. I stood there for a moment, then moved in front of her and waved. “Hi,” I said.

  She jumped back with a small gasp. She pulled out her earbuds. “You scared me.”

  She had a soft, raspy voice. Her eyes were bright green.

  “Sorry,” I said. “Could I get a cup of coffee?”

  She didn’t answer right away, but looked me over with a strange expression. Finally, she said, “Uh, sure. What would you like?”

  “Just a decaf. With milk.”

  “Okay. Give me just a minute. You can sit down, I’ll bring it out to you.”

  “Thank you.”

  I had the pick of the place. I chose a table near the shuttered front window. She walked over to the diner’s front door and flipped a switch on the sign, locked the door, then returned to the counter. A couple minutes later she brought out my coffee with a cream-cheese Danish.