No Way Back. Andrew Gross
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By that time, Ned was going over the map. Ana had pulled out her Nikon and was snapping away at a little girl who waved back at her, going. “Oh, man, this is great!”
Sam put the car back in gear. “We’re rolling!”
All of a sudden several men in jeans with white kerchiefs around their faces stepped out from the buildings. From the square itself. Some were even on the rooftops.
The one in front of Sam seemed no older than himself, maybe even younger, looking at him with a dull indifference in his eyes.
They were all aiming automatic weapons.
No! Sam wanted to tell them, No, wait … You’ve made some mistake! but the next thing he heard was a scream—Ana’s, he was sure—as the car’s front and side windows exploded virtually at once, ironlike fists slugging him all over like the hardest lacrosse balls he had ever felt, and then the explosions seem to just go on and on, no matter how much he begged them to stop. On and on, until the boy pulling the trigger in front of him was no longer in his sight.
He was handsome.
Not that I was really checking anyone out, or that I even looked at guys in that way anymore—married going on ten years now, and Neil, my youngest, my stepson actually, just off to college. I glanced away, pretending I hadn’t even noticed him. Especially in a bar by myself, no matter how stylish this one was. But in truth I guess I had. Noticed him. Just a little. Out of the corner of my eye …
Longish black hair and kind of dark, smoky eyes. A white V-neck T-shirt under a stylish blazer. Late thirties maybe, around my age, but seemed younger. I would’ve chalked him up as being just a shade too cool—too cool for my type anyway—if it wasn’t that something about him just seemed, I don’t know … natural. He sat down a few seats from me at the bar and ordered a Belvedere on the rocks, never looking my way. His watch was a rose-gold chronometer and looked expensive. When he finally did turn my way, shifting his stool to listen to the jazz pianist, his smile was pleasant, not too forward, just enough to acknowledge that there were three empty seats between us, and seemed to say nothing more than How are you tonight?
Actually the guy was pretty damn hot!
Truth was, it had been years since I’d been at a bar by myself at night, other than maybe waiting for a girlfriend to come back from the ladies’ room as part of a gals’ night out. And the only reason I even happened to be here was that I’d been in the city all day at this self-publishing seminar, a day after Dave and I had about the biggest fight of our married lives. Which had started out as nothing, of course, as these things usually did: whether or not you had to salt the steaks so heavily—twice, in fact—before putting them on the grill—he having read about it in Food & Wine magazine or something—which somehow managed to morph into how I felt he was always spoiling the kids, who were from Dave’s first marriage: Amy, who was in Barcelona on her junior year abroad, and Neil, who had taken his car with him as a freshman up at Bates. Which was actually all just a kind of code, I now realized, for some issues I had with his ex-wife, Joanie. How I felt she was always belittling me; always putting out there that she was the kids’ mother, even though I’d pretty much raised them since they were in grade school, and how I always felt Dave never fully supported me on this.
“She is their mother!” Dave said, pushing away from the table. “Maybe you should just butt out on this, Wendy. Maybe you just should.”
Then we both said some things I’m sure we regretted.
The rest of the night we barely exchanged a word—Dave shutting himself in the TV room with a hockey game, and me hiding out in the bedroom with my book. In the morning he was in his car at the crack of dawn, and I had my seminar in New York. We hadn’t spoken a word all day, which was rare, so I asked my buddy Pam to meet me for a drink and maybe something to eat, just to talk it all through before heading home.
Home was about the last place I wanted to be right now.
And here it was, ten after seven, and Pam was texting me that she was running twenty min late: the usual kid crisis—meaning Steve, her hedge-fund-honcho husband, still hadn’t left the office as promised, and her nanny was with April at dance practice …
And me, at the Hotel Kitano bar, a couple of blocks from Grand Central. Taking in the last, relaxing sips of a Patrón Gold margarita—another thing I rarely did!—one eye on the TV screen above me, which had a muted baseball game or something on, the other doing its best to avoid the eye of Mr. Cutie at the end of the bar. Maybe not looking my 100 percent, knockout best—I mean, it was just a self-publishing seminar and all—but still not exactly half-bad in an orange cashmere sweater, a black leather skirt, my Prada boots, and my wavy, dark brown hair pulled back in a ponytail. Looking decently toned from the hot-yoga classes I’d been taking, texting back to Pam with a mischievous smile: BETTER HURRY. V. SEXY GUY @ BAR AND THINK HE’S ABT TO MAKE CONTACT. *GRIN*
And giggling inside when she wrote me back: HANDS OFF, HON! ORDERED HIM ESP FOR ME!
THEN BETTER GET YOUR ASS HERE PRONTO :-) I texted back.
“Yanks or Red Sox?” I heard someone say.
“Sorry?” I looked up and it was you know who, who definitely had to be Bradley Cooper’s dreamy first cousin or something. Or at least that’s what the sudden acceleration in my heart rate was telling me.
“Yanks or Red Sox? I see you’re keeping tabs on the game.”
“Oh. Yanks, of course,” I said, a glance to the screen. “Born and bred. South Shore.”
“Sox.” He shrugged apologetically. “South Boston. Okay, Brookline,” he said with a smile, “if you force it out of me.”
I smiled back. He was pretty cute. “Actually I wasn’t even watching. Just waiting for a friend.” I figured I might as well cut this off now. No point in leading him on.
“No worries.” He smiled politely. Like he’s even interested, right?
“Who happens to be twenty minutes late!” I blurted, thinking I might have sounded just a bit harsh a moment ago.
“Well, traffic’s nuts out there tonight. Someone must be in town. Is he coming in from anywhere?”
“Yeah.” I laughed. “Park and Sixty-Third!” Then I heard myself add, not sure exactly why, “And it’s a she. Old college friend. Girls’ night out.”
He lifted his drink to me, and his dark eyes smiled gently. “Well, here’s to gridlock, then.”
Mr. Cutie and I shifted around and listened to the pianist. The bar was apparently known for its jazz. It was like the famous lounge at the Carlyle, only in midtown, which was why Pam had chosen it—close to both her place and Grand Central, for me to catch my train.
“She’s actually