Fool's Gold (Contemporary Romance) (6 page)

T
HE
 baggage claim at La Guardia was the busiest place Victoria had ever seen in her life. Nothing in Omaha came close, except maybe the College World Series, but it wasn’t half as loud. A mom with a crying baby stood in the corner. Crowds upon crowds upon multitudes of people gathered around the baggage conveyers. There had to be half a dozen planes’ worth. Above it all the loudspeakers blared generic security warnings about unattended bags.

Victoria squirmed her way toward the second baggage conveyer. If Christine was there, she was lost in the sea of humanity. A buzzer sounded, then the conveyer started to clank around. Bags rose from the depths of the airport. Victoria waited, watching people scoop off their luggage. The mom in the corner ended up with a stroller and a bag that was bigger than she was. A bag of golf clubs circled the conveyer three times before Victoria’s suitcase emerged. She wrestled it off the belt and shoved off to find Christine.

Five minutes of searching didn’t reveal her inside, so Victoria sent her a text and went outside to look. As soon as the doors opened the air hit her in a wet wave. It was a sweltering wall of humidity and stink. She went back inside as her phone buzzed.

A text message.
Sorry Vicks. Fell asleep. Can you just catch a cab?

Victoria sighed. Was she freaking kidding? Fell asleep? At four in the afternoon?

It took her a few minutes to get her bearings and find her way to the cab line. A Pakistani or Indian or she-didn’t-know-what guy rushed up.

“Good afternoon. Where are you going today?” He took her suitcase before she could respond and manhandled it into the back of a yellow Ford Escape.

“Astoria. 42
^nd
Street and 3
^rd
Avenue.”

The driver nodded once. “Very good. Get inside.” He held the door for her.

The Ford tore out of the taxi line, and Victoria settled into her seat. Hot air whipped in the window, sending her hair flapping. She hardly noticed. In the distance, the Manhattan skyline was visible between gaps in the buildings. Even from the back of a moving car, it was breathtaking. Row after row of buildings, rising like a field of brightly lit corn.

***

Christine at least had the grace to meet her at the curb. She didn’t offer to help with the cab fare, though. Victoria paid with her card, hoping it wasn’t already at the limit, then hopped out of the car. The cab driver gave her the suitcase and a quick bow, then roared off.

“Sorry about that,” Christine said. “Come on upstairs.”

Victoria spun slowly, looking at the building. Brownstones lined the street, each three or four stories tall. None had a yard, though a few had fenced areas separating them from the sidewalk.

“What are you doing?” Christine shifted her weight impatiently.

“Just taking in the neighborhood. I’ve never been to the city before.”

“You get used to it. Eventually.” Christine grinned. “Come upstairs and I’ll take you out on the roof.”

Victoria followed her inside. “What’s on the roof?”

“Not much. But you can see the whole north end of Manhattan.”

“Wow.”

Victoria dragged the suitcase up the stairs and stopped behind Christine on the third floor. The stairwell wasn’t much. Peeling paint and faded linoleum. Victoria hoped the apartment was nicer.

“Here we are.” Christine pushed the door open and led the way inside.

The apartment was actually bigger than Victoria expected. A cozy living room opened out from the front door.

“That’ll be your room.” Christine pointed to an awkwardly shaped bedroom with a futon in it. Victoria took the suitcase in and left it. The unpacking could wait. There wasn’t much room left over after she left the suitcase.

Christine motioned her forward. “This is the kitchen.” It was bigger than Beta’s. Barely. She passed back through the living room and pushed open a closed door. “And my room.” It actually had a bed, but only a double.

Victoria took it all in. “It’s cozy.”

“It’s cheap. I’m not here a lot, so it doesn’t bother me.” Christine went to the kitchen and retrieved a bottle of wine from a rack below a narrow butcher’s block. “Now we need drinks.”

“Gladly.” Victoria took the offered glass of wine, then got out of the way as Christine carried the bottle to the front door.

“This way.” Christine led her up another half flight of stairs and out onto the blacktopped roof. “You can come up here whenever you want, but be sure to lock the door when you come back inside.”

“Burglars?”

“Nah. It doesn’t latch very well otherwise.” Christine swept around the doorway and stopped by the ledge on the opposite side of the building.

Manhattan stretched out beyond her.

It wasn’t a perfect view, certainly not one a photographer would envy, but it was still magnificent. Victoria didn’t even notice the train tracks that obscured the waterline until a train rumbled past.

“Passenger trains. That’s the Long Island Railroad.” Christine pointed with her empty wine glass.

“Do I need to buy tickets or anything?”

“Oh, you really don’t know anything about the city do you?”

“Not really.” Trent had talked about places to eat and things to do, but not the day to day logistics. Victoria reached for her phone. With the crowd and the cab ride she’d forgotten to tell Trent she was on the ground.

Christine was saying something about a metro pass, but Victoria didn’t quite catch it. “...And it beats having a car payment and dealing with parking.”

Victoria hit send on the “I’m alive, sorry I forgot to call” text and turned her attention back to her hostess. “Where do I get that?”

“Any station. I’ll take you into Manhattan tomorrow and you can talk to Chelsea at the restaurant about getting a job.”

“Sounds good.” And it did. She was ready to hit the ground running. To get a fresh start on a new life and never look back.

***

Everything was quiet when Victoria rolled out of the futon and wandered out into the living room. The apartment was still dark, even though the clock said it was a quarter past nine. Victoria had a feeling Christine liked to sleep in.

The door to Christine’s room gaped open, and the closet light illuminated a mussed, empty bed. Victoria frowned, but went to get a cup of tea before putting too much brainpower into where Christine was. A hastily scrawled note sat on the chopping block.

Gone to Boston for two days. Feel free to raid the cupboards for whatever you can find.

What happened to going to Manhattan and helping her get a job? Victoria scrounged up a bowl of cereal. When she finished, she sent Trent a text then went to the shower. While she was toweling off, her phone dinged.

I’d love to meet for dinner. I’ll be out of the office around 6. Meet u in midtown somewhere?

It sounded perfect.

The only problem was that she didn’t have the faintest idea where she was going. The thought of venturing into Manhattan alone was intimidating.

Call me when you leave work. I don’t know where I’m going.

Victoria arranged her clothes in her cupboard-sized closet, and about halfway through her suitcase she realized that there was no washer and dryer in the apartment. A quick trip downstairs didn’t reveal a laundry room, either. A few minutes with her phone revealed a trio of laundry places within walking distance, so she made a mental note to scope them out on her way to the train station.

A few more minutes on the phone showed the best way to get to Manhattan and end up only a couple blocks from Times Square. Victoria grinned. For someone from Omaha, Nebraska, Times Square
was
Manhattan. Well, that and the Statue of Liberty. And Central Park. And the Empire State Building. She couldn’t help but grin even bigger. New York was just so damn exciting.

The sun was shining high overhead as she left the apartment.

***

The subway station wasn’t nearly as scary as she expected. It had a musty smell, and the paint wasn’t exactly fresh, but it was well lit and the instructions on the ticket machine were simple enough to follow. She bought a pass and a week’s worth of rides, then went to find her train.

The train car was nicer than the station. Sure there was a homeless guy wandering car to car and singing for money, but most of the people just looked bored. A guy in a hoodie slouched on the bench beside her, white headphones plugged into his ears and his phone open in his palm. Across the car an older lady with a hairnet and a bag of groceries was reading
Fifty Shades of Grey
.

The car rattled down an incline, and the sunlight winked out as it dove under the river. Walls whisked past on either side, and a few moments later the train came to a stop. Victoria watched the lightboard above the door, double checking that it didn’t say Bryant Park. There were still a few stops to go, but she couldn’t remember how many. Lexington Avenue definitely wasn’t Bryant Park, though.

The old lady left and a pair of guys in rumpled suits took her place. It was easy to imagine them as bankers or businessmen or mafiosos. Did New York even have a mafia anymore? She’d have to ask Trent.

Eventually she reached her station and scrambled out onto the platform. A handful of people flowed around her and up the stairs. The guys in the suits brushed past without a glance. Victoria followed them up.

At the top of the stairs she realized she was holding her breath and let it out in a rush.

Manhattan whirled around her.

The smell of cooking meat and strange spices drifted from the food carts lining the sidewalk. Row upon row of yellow taxis and boxy trucks crowded the street. Pedestrians of all ages and ethnicities strode purposefully up and down the sidewalks. Something about them was different, and it took her a moment to realize that it was that nearly everyone was normal sized. Half of Omaha was obese, but here everyone was--if not quite thin--just
normal
. And they all were in a hurry to get somewhere.

Victoria wandered up the sidewalk and stopped. There was no horizon. She spun around in a circle, orienting toward Bryant Park. A patch of blue peeked over the buildings and the trees in that direction, but in every other direction it was just buildings as far as she could see. She had to tilt her head back to even see the tops of the buildings, they were so tall.

It was overwhelming. And amazing.

Queens was a place to sleep, but Manhattan was a place to
live.
She felt herself falling in love with every step.

She let the crowd pick her up and carry her toward the park, then darted up the wide stone steps. Tables and chairs covered a concrete pavilion. Old men with chessboards covered the chairs. Everywhere they were playing and talking and laughing. A dozen languages filled her ears. A young guy with a violin sat in the grass. An immaculate Mozart concerto floated on the breeze from his direction, and even the kids playing stopped to listen at times.

Victoria pushed her hair out of her eyes and checked her phone. 42
^nd
Street would take her to 7
^th
Avenue, and 7
^th
Avenue would take her Times Square. Easy enough. It was hard to imagine what it would be like to get around the city without a smartphone. She set off on a mission to be as touristy as possible.

Halfway between 6
^th
and 7
^th
Avenues the heat hit her. She realized it had been there since she left the park, but she just hadn’t noticed it. It was sweltering in the canyons between buildings. A drip of sweat ran down her back. Not much of a breeze blew along the streets to cool her, and each time she passed a subway grate a blast of warm, fetid air blew up and made it worse.

She turned the corner onto 7
^th
Avenue still thinking about the heat, but the first glimpse of Times Square overwhelmed all other thoughts.

It was huge.

It was beyond huge. A riot of colors climbed the sides of the buildings. A cacophony of sounds assaulted her ears. Horns honked. Salesmen called out from doorways, thrusting brochures. The scent of pizza drifted past from a pizzeria.

Signs rose ten or twenty stories. It was easy to imagine Spiderman swinging from billboard to billboard.

And the people. If she thought there were a lot of people in Bryant Park, Times Square sent her mind reeling. Men. Women. Kids. Horses. And everyone jabbering to someone else or into a cell phone. The Tower of Babylon hadn’t known so many tongues.

She looked more closely at the nearest horse. A uniformed cop sat on its back. Both of them looked bored as they watched the crowds. Other cops stood in pairs, watching the crowd. When she took the time to notice them, there were cops on nearly every corner.

Taxis and limos still clogged the streets, and mixed in with them were giant tour buses. Victoria worked her way down the street, losing herself in the crowd. It was like a mall. A really, really big mall. A really, really big mall the weekend before Christmas.

She stopped beside a set of bleachers at 47
^th
Street and just watched the crowd. Calling it a mall didn’t do it justice.

“You should see it at night.” A middle-aged woman in a navy pantsuit stopped beside her.

Victoria glanced at her, unsure what to say.

“It’s something else.” The woman disappeared into the crowd, continuing on to wherever she was going.

It was definitely something. Victoria took out her phone. She still had an afternoon to kill, and as much fun as shopping would be, she didn’t even have a job yet. Instead, she turned back toward Bryant Park. The library would be a fine place to escape the heat. And the street vendors outside would be a fine place to score a cheap lunch.

G
ROUND 
Zero?” Trent asked.

“I got bored.” Victoria shifted the phone to her other ear. The new tower was going up a block away, and the south end of the island had just been a quick train ride from Midtown.

“Well, meeting at Grand Central probably doesn’t make sense then. I’m at Pine and William. How about you meet me at City Hall? Can you find that?”