I wanted to see Mark. I realized it wasn’t professional necessity, but a weakness that I had believed I had completely overcome. I was alternately thrilled and disgusted with myself. I did not trust him, but I wanted to desperately. He’s not the Mark you once knew, and even if he was, remember what he did to you. And no matter what my mind said, my emotions would not listen.
I went through twenty pages of a novel written by Beryl Madison as Adair Wilds and had no earthly idea what I had read. Historical romances are not my favorite, and this one, in truth, wouldn’t win any prizes. Beryl wrote well, her prose sometimes breaking into song, but the story limped along on wooden feet. It was the sort of pulp that was written almost to formula, and I wondered if she might have succeeded at the literature she aspired to write had she lived.
The pilot’s voice suddenly announced we would be landing in ten minutes. Below, the city was a dazzling circuit board with tiny lights moving along highways and tower lights winking red from the tops of skyscrapers.
Minutes later, I pulled my suit bag out of the storage compartment and passed through the boarding bridge into the madness of La Guardia. I turned, rather startled, at the pressure of a hand on my elbow. Mark was behind me, smiling.
“Thank God,” I said with relief.
“What? You thought I was a purse snatcher?” he asked dryly.
“If you had been, you wouldn’t be standing,” I said.
“I don’t doubt that.”
He began steering me through the terminal. “Your only bag?”
“Yes.”
“Good.”
Out front, we got a cab piloted by a bearded Sikh in a maroon turban whose name was Munjar, according to the ID clamped to his visor. He and Mark shouted at each other until Munjar appeared to understand our destination.
“You haven’t eaten, I hope,” Mark said to me.
“Nothing but smoked almonds …” I fell against his shoulder as we screeched from lane to lane.
“There’s a good steak house not far from the hotel,” Mark said loudly. “Figured we’d just eat there since I don’t know a damn thing about getting around in this city.”
Just getting to the hotel would do, I thought, as Munjar began an unsolicited monologue about how he had come to this country to get married, and had a December wedding planned even though he had no prospects for a wife at the moment. He went on to inform us that he had been driving a cab for only three weeks, and had learned how to drive in the Punjab, where he had started driving a tractor at the age of seven.
The traffic was bumper to bumper, with yellow cabs whirling dervishes in the dark. When we arrived in mid-town we passed a steady flow of people in evening dress adding to the long line outside Carnegie Hall. The bright lights and people in furs and black ties stirred old memories.
Mark and I used to love the theater, the symphony, the opera.
The cab stopped at the Omni Park Central, an impressive tower of lights near the theater district at the corner of Fifty-fifth and Seventh. Mark snatched up my bag and I followed him inside the elegant lobby, where he checked me in and had my bag sent up to my room. Minutes later we were walking through the sharp night air. I was grateful I had brought my overcoat. It felt cold enough to snow. In three blocks we were at Gallagher’s, the nightmare of every cow and coronary artery and the fantasy of every red meat lover. The front window was a meat locker behind glass, an enormous display of every cut of meat imaginable. Inside was a shrine to celebrities, autographed photographs covering the walls.
The din was loud and the bartender mixed our drinks very strong. I lit a cigarette and took a quick survey. Tables were arranged close together, typical for New York restaurants. Two businessmen were engrossed in conversation to our left, the table to our right empty, the one beyond that occupied by a strikingly handsome young man working on the New York Times and a beer. I took a long look at Mark, trying to read his face. He was tight around the eyes and playing with his Scotch.