Sliding Past Vertical Read online

  “It’s no big deal.” She shrugged. “I’m sorry if I got your curiosity up on false pretenses.”

  “Not a problem. I needed to eat, anyway. And, well, there was something I wanted to talk to you about.”

  She gaped at him, instantly squishy again—weak and blind and spineless.

  “And maybe it isn’t any of my business.” His fingers danced around the rim of his teacup. He watched them. Then glanced up at her. His pale eyes looked sweet but pained. “It’s about Rashid. I wanted to make sure you knew what you were doing.”

  Out of her squishy core flared an urge to leap up and slap him. “You’re sleeping with some bimbo and you have the gall to ask me—”

  “She’s not a bimbo!”

  The force of his tone caught Sarah mid-breath. Everyone in the diner was staring at them. But she didn’t care. Tears welled up and she blinked them back.

  “She’s not a bimbo,” he said again, in a normal tone. “She wants to be a writer.”

  Sarah rose, slowly, glaring at him. “That’s even worse.”

  She dropped her napkin on the table and walked out.

  Emerson followed, calling her name. She walked faster. Not too fast. She wanted to be caught but didn’t want to make it easy.

  Finally he pulled up even with her in front of the movie theater. She stopped and turned away, hiding the tears that streaked makeup so carefully applied for him, although he always said he liked her best without it.

  For a long time he just stood there. She looked at his sneakers, the splayed-out angle of his feet.

  “I’m sorry,” Emerson said finally.

  She glanced up. That face. That rested, unlined, I-got-laid-last-night face. “You don’t look sorry.”

  He huffed out a breath. “Just because you don’t love me, I’m not allowed to look for someone who can?”

  “Who says I don’t love you?” she said, barely a whisper.

  His mouth softened. “What?”

  If not for imagining where his lips might have recently been, she might have kissed him. “Nothing. Never mind.”

  “You said something. What was it?”

  “I’m not doing anything with Rashid.”

  “That’s really what you said?”

  She leveled a cool gaze at him. “Yes. Although now you make me wish that I was.”

  His eyes narrowed. “You’d sleep with him. Just to get back at me?”

  “No. Just because he’s a nice guy.”

  “Who until last night was an engaged nice guy.”

  She didn’t understand.

  “He wants to call off the wedding. He told me last night. After he’d been at your apartment.”

  The accusation in Emerson’s tone left her fumbling for words. “But we’re…friends. That’s all. How did he get the idea—”

  “Sarah, don’t be stupid,” he said tiredly. “Even in America, when a single man offers to cook dinner for a single woman, the last thing on his mind is the food. Some are just more patient about it.”

  Chapter 34

  Once again Daisy stayed over on a Saturday night. Once again Emerson put off his writing plans until Sunday. Not that he minded much—he’d take the company of a pleasant and willing female over Dirk Blade any night of the week. But he was losing time. The following day was his first deadline since Dirk’s hiatus, and he still hadn’t written a word.

  He’d told Daisy this, and after a cup of coffee she putted off in her baby-blue Beetle, promising to come back later to see how much he’d done.

  Three hours and two donuts later, his answer would be absolutely nothing, but his room had never been cleaner.

  He was so amenable to distractions that when Sarah called and asked if he wanted to meet her for lunch, he agreed. He knew he was being weak—about his deadline and about Sarah—but he just wanted to get out of the damned house.

  And he could also talk to her again about Rashid. From the way his housemate had been walking around in a daze, obviously Sarah hadn’t set him straight. If Emerson absolutely had to, he would sit Rashid down and tell him Sarah wasn’t in love with him, but he wouldn’t be doing Sarah any favors by letting her off the hook.

  That was what he told her over chili and onion soup and she nodded, sad and wide-eyed. Maybe she finally understood that she shouldn’t play with men’s emotions. Shouldn’t start things she wasn’t willing to finish. Shouldn’t approach the board without planning her entry.

  “Okay,” she said. “Enough with the diving metaphors. I’ll come back with you after lunch and talk to him.”

  * * * * *

  “Tell me about your girlfriend,” Sarah asked, as they were getting into his car.

  Emerson stared at her, surprised by the calm directness of her question. But he’d always liked this facet of Sarah. Just when he thought he could predict her reactions, she’d come at him with something from left field, the bleachers, and the parking lot.

  She looked especially pretty that day, too, and she was wearing a new perfume that he liked. When he’d picked her up he thought about complimenting her but didn’t want to freak her out. He’d made so much progress in the two months they hadn’t seen each other, and he hadn’t wanted to slip back into old patterns. The previous week he had almost regressed, but knowing he would see Daisy later had helped. Then he remembered how Sarah had stormed out on him at the diner when the fact of Daisy had surfaced.

  “Oh, I don’t think you want to hear about that,” he said.

  “It’s okay.” She strapped herself in. “I want to know.”

  He took a deep breath and started to turn the ignition but hesitated. “She’s not really my girlfriend. We’ve only had a couple of dates.”

  “Is she nice?”

  “Yes.”

  “Is she pretty?”

  She looks like you. “That’s kind of subjective, but—”

  “Is she legal?”

  “Sarah.”

  “Well, the others have been kind of young.”

  “She’s nineteen.”

  “Nine-TEEN?” Sarah wailed.

  “It’s a mature nineteen.”

  “Shut up.” Sarah shook her head. “Just shut up now, and I won’t have to kill you.”

  “You were eighteen when we started sleeping together.”

  “Yeah, but so were you. And now you’re almost thirty.”

  “Your point being...?”

  “My point should be obvious. I just don’t understand what you’d have in common. What you have to talk about.” She looked out the window and said quietly, “Or maybe you’re not looking for talk.”

  Emerson started the engine. “We talk.”

  * * * * *

  They did talk. More accurately, Daisy talked and Emerson listened. It was a relationship that played to each of their strengths. On their first date, she talked about her boyfriend and how awful he was, and all the “funny” things he and his buddies did when they were drunk, which, having an alcoholic mother and a brother who had been killed by a drunk driver, Emerson didn’t find funny. Then they ordered dessert, and she segued into a more pointed conversation about how Emerson could be better for her, which was followed by sex, during which Emerson had the distinct feeling he was auditioning.

  She talked all the way through that, too.

  She told him she wanted to write erotica, and he’d weakened, when he could get a word in edgewise, and told her about his own writing. It seemed to excite her, especially the persona of Dirk, which was fun on the surface but kind of disturbing when he thought too hard about it.

  Her visit the night before hadn’t been much different. But he thought he had passed the audition. There had been less talk of the boyfriend, thank God, more about writing, a lot more about writing Dirk. And how she could “help” him, should he ever fall short on ideas.

  Which was probably why she’d promised to come back later.

  He forgot what time they’d agreed upon and mentally sighed in relief when they pulled up to the house
and the Beetle wasn’t parked outside. But neither was Rashid’s car.

  “He’s not here,” Emerson said. “Maybe you should call later. I’ll take you home.”

  “I want to wait,” she said, eyes pleading. “I promise I won’t bother you.”

  Emerson remembered saying the same thing to her, years ago. Groveling just to be allowed into her orbit. How odd this sounded coming from Sarah. He wanted to put everything on hold and spend the afternoon talking to her about how the pendulum came to swing too far the other way.

  But he had a deadline. And Daisy.

  Yet when he left Sarah in his living room and went up to his typewriter, Emerson decided that it was more important for him to focus on getting his work done than on getting laid. He called Daisy from the upstairs phone and told her he meant no offense to her creative abilities, but he had to be alone to write. She was charitable about their change in plans and pitched a half-dozen story ideas before she let him off the phone, all starring her and none of which he would dare to put on paper.

  This solved one problem for Emerson but left two others: the deadline and Sarah. It was bad enough that Emerson had been planning to give Daisy over to Dirk for the afternoon—with her blessing and bizarre encouragement—without Sarah waiting just downstairs.

  Chapter 35

  To stem her nervousness, Sarah tidied Emerson’s living room. She piled empty coffee cups into the kitchen sink, accidentally chipping the one with the purple lipstick stain, and then carved out a spot on the Salvation Army sofa and lost herself in the New York Times, the Syracuse Herald-American and the New England Journal of Medicine. She learned more than she wanted to know about Michael Dukakis’s chances in the upcoming presidential primaries, what bars had the best pickled pork hocks in Onondaga County, and the effect of alcoholism on platelet enzyme activity.

  Still, no Rashid.

  This is a complete waste of time. At her apartment were fifteen thirsty houseplants and a pile of laundry about to demand voting privileges. And she felt damned uncomfortable being in the house again. Where Emerson had crushed her. Where she was about to crush Rashid.

  “He’s naive about women, he’s never had his heart broken,” Emerson had told her at lunch. “So you should let him down easy.”

  Emerson was right, about that, and her responsibility in leading Rashid on. She made a deal with herself: after doing what she’d come to do, she would declare a moratorium on all men, friends included, until she could figure out how to stop ruining everyone’s lives.

  She heard a loud thump from upstairs and the tooth-grinding rip of typewriter paper from the carriage. Sarah winced. She wondered what he was working on.

  Or whom.

  Sarah flung herself off the sofa. She’d call Rashid later. They could meet somewhere, away from the house, away from Emerson, away from the girl he was currently not writing about.

  Then the front door burst open.

  Rashid was home.

  He wiped the fog off his glasses and removed his hat, which made his hair puff out at strange, adorable angles.

  “Sarah. This is a surprise.”

  His gaze darted around the room. Sarah assumed he was looking for evidence that might embarrass her. As always, the loyal soldier for his friend. He seemed relieved to find nothing salacious in sight. “You are waiting for Emerson?”

  “No, actually, I came to see you.”

  Sarah swallowed and wished she’d made the decision to leave ten minutes earlier. Not only could she have avoided the uncomfortable discussion, but also she could have avoided the uncomfortable discussion on a day when she’d again dressed for Emerson. The ensemble included perfume, the sweater that deepened the brown of her eyes, tight jeans, a pair of earrings he’d given her, and the time she’d spent on her hair and makeup. To an outsider’s eye, it probably looked like one giant signal—a beacon—for Rashid, all flashing green.

  “That is an even better surprise,” he said.

  He hovered in the living room doorway, his eyes big and shiny. Signals or not, she couldn’t cut his heart out. She couldn’t.

  “I didn’t hear your car.”

  He smoothed a hand through his unruly hair. “It’s back at the lab. My battery died. Emerson has alligator cables, I came to see if he could drive them over.”

  “He’s writing.” Another rip came from upstairs. “I don’t think it’s going well.”

  Rashid sighed. “Then I won’t disturb him. I’ll just borrow his cables and walk back. I’m sure someone at the lab can give me a jump.” He looked at Sarah as if he were forming an idea. “Would you like to come back with me? It’s quiet on Sundays. Only a few of us are there, catching up on things. You can wait inside. There is a brand-new lounge with coffee and a television, and when we are done, perhaps we can go to the movies.”

  “Sure,” Sarah said. You didn’t have to talk at the movies.

  * * * * *

  The sun was out but a stiff wind blew from the west. They walked briskly toward campus, alligator cables over Rashid’s shoulder.

  “I’m afraid you must have found me an ungracious guest last weekend,” he said.

  She hadn’t exactly been Miss Manners, wearing her ripped lingerie, pining for another man. “You weren’t that bad. A little tired, but like you said, you’ve been working a lot.”

  “Next weekend I will be better. I will make you a very special dinner, and we will have a happier time. By then I hope to have some good news. A surprise. You will see.”

  She could only imagine the surprise.

  After crossing Comstock, he led her toward a square, seven-story brick building, another in a series hastily retrofitted to follow the classic Roman architecture of the other academic structures on the quad. The combined effect reminded her of what might result if Disney created a college campus. It would have no substance, no sense of history. With plastic ivy hot-glued to plastic stone, everything would be a clever emulation, right down to the animatronic students.

  They climbed two flights of stairs. “This is where I work.” He opened the door for her, and then he pointed out the lounge and asked her to wait for him.

  But after a while, she felt too anxious to wait. There was nothing on television except hockey games and infomercials, and the only reading material was a copy of the New England Journal of Medicine she’d read at Emerson’s house. Already knowing more than she would ever need to about platelet enzymes, she went off in search of Rashid.

  Perhaps she could help with the car.

  She thought she heard his voice down the hall, higher-pitched and faster than usual, and followed it until she reached a large room crammed with long black tables and equipment. He was leaning against a cabinet in the back, conversing in animated Hindi with a lanky young Indian man in a white laboratory smock.

  They didn’t see her until she was halfway across the room. They both stopped talking. Rashid smiled. The young man reminded her of a fawn caught in headlights: a jumble of long limbs and eyes. “I’m sorry, I’ve been delayed. Sarah, this is Jagadhish. One of my students.”

  “Hi,” she said.

  The young man nodded shyly, turned to Rashid, and said something in a questioning tone. Out of it, Sarah only recognized her name. Rashid answered. To this the student gave Sarah a slow grin and slapped Rashid on the back. The two shared a brief, jocular exchange and then Jagadhish left.

  This infuriated Sarah, the rudeness of people who intentionally used another language in front of those who didn’t understand it. Like her grandparents, who spoke Yiddish when they didn’t want the children to hear. And there had definitely been something dirty about the conversation.

  She turned on Rashid. “What did he say?”

  He hesitated long enough for Sarah to become suspicious. “That you seem like a very nice young lady.”

  Bullshit. “So are you going to fix the car?”

  “That’s where he’s gone. He and another student are going to get it started. Jagadhish has asked that I stay and
look very quickly at some of his work. Then we can go.” He lowered his voice. “I apologize to be speaking Hindi around you. He does not speak English very well, and his dignity is easily offended.”

  She felt less angry, but the question of what was said still bothered her. “So what does he do?”

  “Studies platelets and blood clotting.” Rashid walked over to a microscope. Sarah followed. He peered into the eyepiece, moved away, and waved Sarah over.

  “Would you like to have a look?” He guided her with a hand on her shoulder.

  Holding back her hair, she bent toward the eyepiece. “All I see are a bunch of little fuzzy things.”

  “Those little fuzzy things can save a person’s life.” His voice caressed her ear. She smelled his cologne but didn’t recall him wearing any at the house. He brushed back a lock of hair that had slipped out of her grasp. Then his hand dropped to her waist. “Come, I will show you something else. Only it will be easier to see if I turn the lights out first.”

  It was too much—the touching, the cologne, wanting to turn out the lights. A wink and a nod from his student and he had left the two of them alone. Dirk Blade couldn’t have set it up better. She hoped this was all in her imagination but couldn’t be too careful where Rashid was concerned.

  “We should go.” Sarah backed away from the microscope. “If we want to make the movie.”

  He sighed. “All right. Another time.”

  Another lifetime, she thought.

  * * * * *

  It was a forgettable movie, even more so because Sarah had spent it thinking about how to have the conversation with Rashid. But it had to happen.

  A preemptive breakup would be a first, for her.

  “I don’t like surprises,” Sarah said. She and Rashid were sitting in his car, in the driveway, next to Emerson’s old Honda. A new rust spot bled into the front quarter panel. She wondered if Emerson was upstairs, looking out the window. She wondered if he was jealous. “What’s the big news?”