Playing With Her Heart (21 page)

“Oh, Kat,” I say,
and tears well up in my eyes. “This is the one. This is the dress
you’re going to get married in.”

She smooths her hands
over the organza material that extends into a cathedral train behind
her. A short, dark-haired woman who owns this bridal shop in the West
Village watches patiently from her post a few feet away. Kat
appraises herself in the three-way mirror, the soft light of the shop
making her look even more stunning. “You think so?”

“You know that’s a
rhetorical question,” I say as I stand up from the cushiony white
chair I’ve been parked in as she’s tried on a strapless lace
dress, a satin sheath and many more. Soft, indistinct classical music
plays through an unseen sound system. High-class bridal magazines are
spread elegantly on top of an oval glass coffee table next to the
chair. A vase of jasmine flowers fills the boutique with a sweet
floral scent. All these touches are enough to make anyone in here
forget that beyond the shop doors lies grimy, noisy, crowded
Manhattan. “Look at yourself. It’s perfect and you know it. It’s
you.”

I stand behind her, so
she can see me in the mirror now, smiling at her. She glances at her
reflection one more time, considering the dress from every angle. I
can practically see the cogs whirring in her head, inching closer to
the moment when she reaches 100 percent certainty. Her brow is
furrowed then a grin starts to form, slowly at first, until it
quickly becomes a full-blown smile.

She turns around, and
she’s simply glowing with happiness. “I’ll take it,” she
declares.

“Wonderful,” says
the shop owner. “It is perfect for you, Ms. Harper.”

“I’m so glad I
found your store. I’m so glad I found this dress,” Kat says, the
words spilling out in a happy rush. Then she turns to me. “And
thank you for coming with me. I couldn’t do this without you.
You’re the best maid of honor and the best friend I could ever hope
to have.”

“Oh please. I did
nothing except gaze upon your beauty,” I say playfully, but my
voice breaks, and I swipe at a tear that rolls down my cheeks. I’m
so happy for her.

“Oh, you’re so cute
when you’re all emotional and teary,” she says, and crushes me in
a hug.

“I’m going to miss
you when you move in with him. I can’t believe you’re only my
roommate for a few more months.”

“I know. But I’ll
still see you. We’ll still hang out.”

“Always. We’ll
always hang out.”

We pull apart, and the
shop owner helps Kat take off the dress, and they make arrangements
for it as I wander through the tiny store, with its cream walls and
gold framed vintage pictures of garden weddings and sunset vows. When
they’re done, the shop owner asks Kat about her bridesmaids’
dresses.

“Something classy.
Something she could wear again,” Kat says, nodding to me.

“I need a dress for
tonight is what I need,” I say under my breath.

Kat turns to me, gives
me a curious look. I wave my hand as if to wipe away the comment I
should have kept to myself.

“I have a black and
white dress in mind,” the shop owner says. “Sleeveless and above
the knee. Straight lines. Very sophisticated. I’ll have it in the
store next week if you’d like your maid of honor to try it on when you
come back for a fitting?”

“That sounds
fantastic,” Kat says, then we exit the store. “Are you holding
out on me? You have a Saturday night date with Patrick and this is
the first I’m hearing about it?”

My stomach twists, and
I feel like I can’t get air for a moment. As if my lungs are
crushing me from the inside out. I flash back to all the lies I’ve
told over the years. To all the fables I’ve carefully constructed
to seem as if I really am this person. This
what-you-see-is-what-you-get
person. But I’m too many
people. I’m Eponine. I’m Ava. I’m the woman who claims her
brother’s favorite books for her own. I’m the running coach. I’m
the jokey, happy friend. I’m the goofball who steals her roommate’s
phone. I am the person who can’t say out loud why she loves Patrick
so much, how he helped her, how the very possibility of him alone got
her through all the years when she was chased by
what ifs
. I
am the girl who stopped feeling things for real after Aaron.

And I am tired of that
girl. I’m ready to start saying goodbye to her. I take another
small step and speak a simple truth to my best friend. “Actually,
I’m going out with Davis Milo tonight.”

Her eyes widen with
shock, and her purse slides down her shoulder, the bag dangling
dangerously close to the cobblestone sidewalk. She yanks it back up.
“Oh. My. God.”

“Why do you say it
like that?”

“You’re going out
with your director?” she asks, as if it’s not computing.

This is what I get for
telling the truth? She’s berating me? “I was just joking,” I
say, regressing in an instant. Because it’s so much easier than
dealing.

“You were not,” she
says, waggling a finger at me, but her tone shifts from shock to
eagerness, and she’s not going to let me slip out of this unscathed
from honesty. “Is there something going on between you two? Do you
like him?”

I shrug and hold my
hands out as if to say
I don’t know
. Because I don’t know
what’s between us. I barely understand what’s happening. “Do
you think it’s terrible that he’s my director?”

“Hello? Pot. Kettle.
I fell for my mentor last semester and nearly got kicked out of
school. No, I don’t think it’s terrible at all. I think it sounds
like it could be incredibly hot, and I want to know everything.
Spill,” she says authoritatively.

I don’t know that I
can tell her everything. I’m still reeling from having told her
anything at all. But I tell her we’ve kissed more than once, and I
tell her that I want to find a new dress for tonight.

A new dress for a new
date with a new man.

“What kind of dress?”

“Something that’s
unbearably sexy but that leaves a lot to the imagination.”

“I know just the
shop.” She grabs my hand and takes me to one of her favorite
boutiques and then finds a dress that’s equally perfect—perfect
for me.

Davis

A rush of cold air
invades the restaurant. The guy in the untucked shirt perched on the
stool next to me whips his head around, but I doubt it’s because of
the chill. I grin privately, take a drink of my scotch, then place
the sturdy glass on the smooth chrome bar at Vertigo, a new fish
restaurant in Soho that Michele raved about. Anticipation winds
through me, as a picture of Jill forms in my mind. I lick my lips
then turn around.

She’s handing the
hostess her coat as she scans the restaurant. Then she finds me, and
her eyes lock on mine. My blood heats as I take her in. She’s more
stunning than I imagined, and I swear she’s more beautiful every
single day. She’s wearing a black knit dress that hugs her body and
hits right above the knees, exposing several inches of her bare legs
that are then covered up in the sexiest black boots I’ve ever seen.
I toss a twenty on the bar without turning around and walk up to her.

Placing a hand on her
lower back, I plant a chaste kiss on her cheek. “You’re playing
dirty dressed like that. But I’m behaving myself and it’s killing
me,” I say.

“I’m so impressed
with your self-control,” she teases.

“You should be. It’s
excellent, in case you haven’t noticed.”

“Oh, I’ve noticed.”

I turn to the hostess.
“Is our table ready?”

“Yes, Mr. Milo. Right
this way.” She leads us through the restaurant with its white tiled
floors, sleek silver tables and gray leather booths. “The one you
reserved,” she says, and lays the menus on the table in the back. I
gesture for Jill to slide in first to the curved booth.

“Thank you very
much,” I say to the hostess, who gives a quick nod, then leaves.

I sit down as Jill
smooths out her skirt, then fingers the crisp white tablecloth. “Nice
tablecloth,” she says in a knowing voice.

“Isn’t it, though?”

Then she looks me over,
her eyes flicking from my green-and-white checked shirt to my dark
pants. She leans closer, her soft breath on my neck, her pineapple
scent taunting me as her long hair brushes against my shoulder.

“You look very
handsome,” she says in a soft voice, almost as if she’s nervous
to be giving compliments, as if she’s not used to it.

“You’re beautiful,”
I tell her. “I hope you’re not tired of hearing it from me.”

She shakes her head in
answer, a small smile tugging at her lips, and all these little
gestures remind me that this really is a first date. But the moment
is shattered when the waiter appears.

“Can I start you off
with something to drink?”

I turn to Jill.
“Belvedere and soda?”

She smiles instantly.
“You remember.”

“Of course.”

“And are you going to
have Glenlivet on the rocks?”

“You remember too,”
I say, and I tell myself not to read anything into it, but it’s too
late. It already makes me want her even more. All of her. I turn to
the waiter and give him our drinks order. He leaves.

“I remember
everything about having drinks with you at Sardi’s,” she says in
a sweet voice that damn near melts me.

“You do?”

She nods, and I wait a
beat, thinking she’ll tell me next that it was because I cast her,
because I gave her her first big break. But instead, she says,
“Because I was with you.” Then her hand is on my shirt, and she
traces lazy circles around one of the buttons, whispering in my ear,
“I want to kiss you, but I’m afraid to do it in public.”

“Why?”

“Because I worry if
someone might see us.”

“And so what if
someone does?”

“Davis,” she says
in a chiding voice.

“What? I don’t know
why it’s a big thing.”

“Maybe not to you.
But to me it would be,” she says and there’s the slightest note
of hurt.

“Why?”

She pulls back to give
me a curious look. “Really? You can’t figure it out?”

“No. Maybe you could
just say it,” I say, a bit irritated.

“I don’t want
anyone to think I got the part in the show because I’m sleeping
with you.”

It dawns on me that
she’d want to protect her reputation as a rising star. I get it. I
do. Still, it’s a reminder that actresses put their careers first.
I don’t know why I’m doing this. I don’t know why I’m chasing
a woman who has erected so many barriers for me—from her job to her
love of another man.

But I’m doing it
because she’s worth it. Everything about her, from her talent to
her beauty to her gorgeous heart, is worth all the obstacles. She
makes me want to clear every single one.

“You’ve already
made it,” she continues. “You have three Tonys, an Oscar, you
have producers probably falling at your feet to have you direct. I’m
just starting out, and I want to have a long career in this
business.”

“I guess I don’t
worry that much about what people think about my private life. And I
don’t think you should either,” I say, and then, because I can’t
resist pointing out the flaw in her logic, I add, “But I’m not
sleeping with you.”

“Not yet,” she
says, and her hands are still on my shirt. I glance down at the way
she’s tracing the buttons, as if she’s dying to take my shirt
off.

“But if you don’t
want anyone to think that, then why are you touching me like this?”

“Because it’s hard
for me to keep my hands off of you.” But she says it in a brusque
voice as she turns away to pick up the menu. This woman is hot and
cold, and almost impossible to read.

“Let’s figure out
what to order,” I say.

After the waiter brings
our drinks, Jill orders the wild salmon with green beans and I opt
for the sautéed filet of sturgeon. I hold up the glass. “To the
long and ridiculously successful career I know you’re going to
have.”

She smiles, softening
once more, then clinks her glass to mine. “And to dinner.”

Her eyes stray, and she
looks at my hand. She takes a drink, puts her glass down, and reaches
for my hand, tracing a soft finger across the scar. Her tone shifts
to a more serious one, as if she’s let go of the sexy Jill and now
she’s a more emotional one.

“You said this
happened when your parents died. You punched the glass window of the
door. Can I ask what happened to them?”

I like that she’s
direct. That she’s asking me without hesitation in her voice
because I don’t want her or anyone to feel sorry for me. “They
died in a car crash one February night. They were in the city. They
were huge theater fans—that’s where I got it from—and had
actually been seeing a play the night they died. It had started
snowing, and my dad was driving them home to where we lived in
Westchester. A car coming the other way lost control on an ice patch,
and they died instantly on impact. Police came later that night. Told
me what happened,” I say, and as I recount that awful night, my
chest tightens, remembering opening the door to be greeted not by my
parents, but by the solemn-faced officer come to bear bad news. It’s
been more than a decade since that night, and I’ve dealt, I’ve
managed, I’ve moved past it the only way you can—to go through
it. Still, the memory is like a knife reopening an old wound, letting
it bleed out yet another time. “I didn’t believe it at first.”

“You were in shock,”
she says softly, and there’s something in her voice that says she
knows the feeling all too well. She runs her finger across the scar.

“Yeah, exactly. I was
that way for a few days. Then pretty soon enough, I was angry. That’s
when I slammed my fist through the glass pane on the door. Not my
brightest decision especially if I had ever wanted to have a
professional boxing career,” I say, managing a slight laugh to
lighten the mood.