Meet Me in Manhattan (True Vows) (30 page)

The relationship isn't dead, he told himself. It's the past that's
dead. Let the past stay dead.

They'd flown out to Colorado to attend the wedding of one of
Erika's friends in Vail. He had never been to Vail before, and in
September the place didn't exactly seem like a ski Mecca. But the
mountains were picturesque, and the wedding was fun. And he sensed that Erika hadn't brought him with her just so she
wouldn't have to attend the wedding without an escort but
because she wanted her friends to meet him. She wanted to present him as the man in her life. She wanted to acknowledge in
some public way that the combination of him, her, and a wedding
environment worked pretty well.

It was time to slay the Ghost of Denver Airport Past. Things
were going amazingly well between him and Erika. They were
together whenever they could be, and when they couldn't be, they
communicated in a constant flow of text messages and emails.
They spent most nights in her shoe-box-sized apartment, which
they had both taken to referring to as the Doll House. They spent
most nights tangled up together in her bed, having sex, dozing
off, then rousing themselves and going at it again. Making love
with Erika was like being reborn. It was like bursting into the
world, drawing breath into his lungs, seeing and hearing and feeling everything as if for the very first time.

Sometimes he felt like the crazed teenager he'd once been,
thinking about sex constantly-not just sex but sex with Erika.
Thank God he didn't perform like that crazed teenager anymore.
As far as he could tell, he was pleasing her a lot more now than he
had then.

"This place looks like it won't give us food poisoning," she
said, slowing to a halt in front of moderately upscale eatery. It was
enclosed, not part of a food court, and odors of heavy grease
weren't emanating from it, so he nodded his agreement and held
the door open for her.

They wheeled their bags over to a table and sat. The menu was
heavy on the usual-burgers, sandwiches, steaks, pasta. Aware
that there would be no food on the airplane, they ordered salads
and entrees. Ted requested a beer, Erika a glass of wine.

"Didn't you think the wedding was beautiful?" Erika asked as
they waited for their food to arrive. "With the backdrop of the
mountains? God, I love Colorado."

He studied her across the table. Her eyes were so animated,
shining as she visualized the previous day's extravaganza. He
loved everything about her-the beautiful proportions of her
features, the flash of her teeth when she smiled, the contours of
her cheeks, her blessedly long hair, but especially her eyes, so
expressive, so vivid.

Slay the ghost. "So, you want to get married in Colorado?"

If she sensed an ulterior question hiding behind his statement,
she didn't acknowledge it. "Speaking hypothetically?" she asked,
and he gave a little nod because he wasn't ready to take this past
hypothetical yet. "Hypothetically ... It would be a pain in the
ass," she replied. "I mean, it's beautiful, but planning a wedding
long-distance is so hard. And so many of the people I'd want to
invite are back east. Family, friends ... I can't see transporting
everyone halfway across the continent just so I can have a mountain backdrop. I love Colorado, but I'm a New Yorker now."

"So you'd rather get married in New York. Hypothetically."

"But a wedding in Manhattan would have to be small, because,
my God, everything costs so much."

He screwed his courage and pushed to the next level. "What if
I'm not talking about a wedding in the abstract, Fred? What if I'm
talking about a wedding that would actually take place?"

She stared at him, clearly stunned. He wasn't sure what she
read in his expression, because after a long moment, she gave a
flustered laugh and shrugged. The waitress arrived with their
drinks and salads, and she took the time to thank the young
woman before turning her gaze back to Ted. "You're talking
about our wedding?"

"Well . . ." Was he moving too fast? She looked so rattled.
"Sure. Hypothetically."

"Our wedding." She took a minute to compose herself.
"Okay."

He grinned, aware of the hasty retreat the Ghost of Denver
Past was beating. "I mean ... it's not like I asked you to marry me
or anything."

"You asked me to marry you sixteen years ago, in the backseat
of the Wagoneer."

"I think there's a statute of limitations on wedding proposals."

She managed a smile. He liked how unbalanced she seemed.
Erika was always so poised, so confident. Seeing her eyes flash
with a glorious combination of uncertainty and hope and yearning tickled his ego and warmed his soul. "Is a Manhattan wedding
all right with you?" she asked.

"It would be perfect." Anyplace would be perfect if Erika was
his bride. They could get married at the Waldorf-Astoria. At City
Hall. At Grand Central Station, or Central Park. They could get
married in the Doll House, although he doubted his immediate
family could fit into Erika's apartment, let alone his extended
family, her family, and all their friends.

"So ... I mean, should we discuss this?" she asked.

"Like you said, I asked you to marry me sixteen years ago. I
can't back out now." He tapped his beer glass against her wine
glass and took a drink. "Looks like I'm stuck," he said, feigning
disappointment.

"Because the thing is, I'm thirty-four." She sipped her wine,
then dug into her salad, sounding a bit more certain now. "If
we're going to have children, we're going to have to get started on
that right away. We are going to have children, aren't we?"

"Absolutely." The ghost shriveled into dust and vanished into the dry mountain air. No more Denver Past. Only the utterly
amazing prospect of having children with Erika. Little Teds. Little
Erikas. Lots of them.

"Because once we get married, it might take a while to get
pregnant, and suddenly my fortieth birthday is breathing down
my back. If we're going to do this, we have to work fast."

"Fine." Fast enough that she couldn't have second thoughts.
Fast enough that she couldn't change her mind.

"I know you've taken care of animals, so I think you can handle taking care of children."

"Yeah. Those years of practice with Ba Ba and Bunky were
excellent preparation. You should have seen how good I was at
changing Bunky's diaper."

Erika swatted at him without making contact. She seemed
amused but also serious. "Do we want to stay in the city once we
have kids? If we do, are we going to send them to private school?
The best private schools have wait lists out the wazoo. Maybe we
should get our kids' names on the lists now. This salad isn't half
bad, by the way. How's yours?"

"Half bad. We don't have kids yet," he reminded her. "We're
not even married yet."

"Well, I guess ... we need to get moving on that."

"I was thinking ..." Actually, he hadn't been thinking, at least
not consciously, about this. But if they were going to get married-and apparently, after all these years, they finally were-he
wanted to do things right. "I was thinking I should go down to
Florida and talk to your parents. Ask them for their permission to
marry you.

Erika fell back in her chair, apparently even more stunned than
before. "That's so old-fashioned," she said, and for a moment he
feared he'd said the wrong thing. Then her face broke into a radi ant smile. "That's so sweet."

He recalled her phoning him from Colorado after he'd mailed
her the drawing of them and the donkeys, and telling him it was
so sweet. At the time, he'd thought she'd been patronizing. But
she'd saved that drawing, framed it, and to this day had it hanging prominently in her apartment. When Erika said something
was sweet, she meant it.

Sweet but also, admittedly, old-fashioned. "I want them to see
I'm not the punk pumping gas who gave their daughter a hard
time that summer after high school."

"You didn't give me a hard time. I gave you a hard time."

He couldn't argue that. "I want them to see that I've turned out
okay, that I'll take good care of you. That I can take good care of
you. And that there's nothing I want to do more in this world
than take care of you. Except maybe for diapering sheep. That's
always been one of my favorite activities."

Her eyes were shining again, and he realized they were glistening with tears. "I'm sure they'd love to hear about how well you
diapered Bunky," she said.

They talked about possible Manhattan wedding venues
throughout the rest of their meal, then raced down the concourse
to their gate to make their flight. As soon as they were belted into
their seats, Erika rummaged through her oversized purse and
pulled out a pad and pen. The engines rumbled, the flight attendant pantomimed how to use the oxygen mask, and Erika scribbled on the pad and handed it and the pen to him. He read what
she'd written: "If we don't live in the city, what kind of house
would you like?"

The plane lurched away from the gate. The pilot's voice filled
the cabin, offering a folksy report about tailwind speeds and clear
skies. Ted jotted, "Enough bedrooms for the kids. Enough acreage for animals." He handed the pad back to her.

"Horses?" she wrote, then passed him the pad.

"And donkeys," he wrote back.

She laughed. "How many kids?" she wrote.

"Not so many that they have to sleep four to a room," he
wrote.

She took the pad from him, read what he'd written and
laughed again. "I love you," she wrote.

He took the pad from her. "Marry me," he wrote.

"Yes," she wrote.

The plane sped down the runway and lifted into the air, suddenly quiet, smooth, floating. Ted vowed that the Ghost of
Denver Past was gone forever.

"I've got an idea," Erika said. She was seated on her bed, an
oversized T-shirt covering her and brochures and computer
printouts arrayed in neat piles around her. Ted teased her about
being a neat freak-and really, she wasn't, but she liked organization. She couldn't imagine arranging a wedding without plans,
timelines, flow charts, and everything in neat piles.

That it was the middle of the night didn't faze her. She and Ted
had gone out club-hopping, returned to the Doll House after one,
and made love. She should have been fast asleep by now, but she
was too pumped, her mind humming with adrenaline. She'd
recently switched jobs, and every minute she wasn't dealing with
her new position in finance, she was plotting the intricate details
of her wedding to Ted.

He seemed happy to leave the planning to her. He could handle the large picture, which in this case was We Will Get Married.
But comparing prices per plate at this restaurant and that hotel
and analyzing the benefits of cupcakes over a tiered wedding cake did not appeal to him.

He had returned from Florida a few days ago, after visiting her
parents to request their permission to marry Erika and receiving
their blessing. He'd barely left their home when Erika's mother
had phoned to tell Erika what a courtly gesture he'd made, how
impressed she and Erika's father were that Ted was honoring tradition. "I thought you were smart to break up with him all those
years ago," Erika's mother told her. "Now, I think you're smart to
hang onto him. By the way, I've found some old photos of the two
of you, from high school. I'll have Dad scan them and email them
to you, if you'd like. You'll enjoy them."

Across the room from her, Ted sat at the tiny cafe table near the
window, sipping a beer. He had on a pair of old jeans and his shirt
was unbuttoned, allowing her a tantalizing view of his chest. She
should have let him sleep, but her mind was clamoring too loudly
for her to sleep, and if she wasn't going to sleep, why should he?

"What's your idea?" he asked.

"We should put a photo of us from high school on our wedding invitations. Or our engagement announcements. Or our
save-the-date mailings. On something. Don't you think that
would be cute?"

Something darkened in his face. "What, like, our yearbook
photos?"

"A photo of us together. My mother found some pictures of the
two of us from Mendham and had my dad email them. Here." She
located the folder with the scanned photos in it and extended it
to Ted.

The apartment was so small, he almost didn't have to rise
from his seat to reach the folder. As soon as he had it, he settled
back into the chair and thumbed through the photos. His
silence, and the frown that creased a line into the bridge of his nose, informed her that he didn't think her brainstorm was as
cute as she did.

"What?" she prodded him. "Don't you think those photos are
hilarious?"

He finished flipping through the pictures and tossed the folder
onto the table. When he gazed at her, his eyes were the color of a
stormy sea. "No, I don't think they're hilarious."

His anger puzzled her. "Granted, I look kind of gawky in
them. But you were always adorable, Ted. You were then, and you
are now. I know you were kind of skinny back in high school,
but-"

"Erika." He glanced toward the window, as if analyzing his
words before he uttered them. Eventually he turned back to her,
looking just as troubled as before. "I don't want pictures that
remind me of how you broke my heart."

Now it was her turn to frown. "That's not what those pictures
are. They were taken when we were together. I didn't-I mean,
we didn't break up until months later."

"We never broke up," he reminded her. "You broke us up."

"Okay, well, that was a long time ago."

"Yeah." He lifted his beer to drink, all the while eyeing the
folder as if it was a venomous spider preparing to spring at him
and bite him on the nose. "I look at those photos and remember
how much I loved you back then. And how much you didn't love
me.

"I did." She spoke carefully, aware of the ground shifting
beneath her, the foundation beneath her sliding, growing soft,
cracking into deep potholes that could trip her if she wasn't cautious. "I did love you. I just wasn't ready to make a lifelong commitment back then."