Bombshell (19 page)

“Jon was one of the brightest stars of our department,” Ignatius declared. “Still is.” He beamed at Jonathan. “The university was lucky they were able to snap you up after your post-doc.” He turned to me again, the pride in his face quickly turning to chagrin. “So are you going to have me wonder all night about this lovely lady, Jon?” he chastised.

“Oh, sorry,” Jonathan said, suddenly realizing his error. He hesitated a moment, then said simply, “This is Grace Noonan.” As if still feeling a need to somehow explain my presence, he added, “Dr. Noonan's daughter. You know, Dr. Noonan from the history department?”

This information produced an effect I had seen probably one thousand times before. Ignatius Danforth's eyes widened, as if adjusting to the news that this amazon blonde was a product of a Black Irish father who probably reached my chin in height and an equally diminutive mother. But as usual, this double-take was quickly overridden by the genuine warmth the name of Dr. Thomas Noonan always inspired.

“Well, well, well! How is the old chap? My colleagues in the history department tell me it hasn't been the same without him.”

I, of course, gave him the update—well, the only update a former colleague might be interested in. The panel in Paris. The paper my father was to give.

“Is that right?” Ignatius replied, his bushy eyebrows raising with approval. “That old rascal. Still landing the best lectures!” He chuckled good-naturedly, asking next after my mother and making me realize that he was likely one of those celebrated professors who had frequented my parents' dinner parties, though I didn't specifically remember him.

We chatted for a few minutes more before Ignatius released us from his amicable grip, imploring us “young people” to “have a good time.” I smiled, thinking how much younger I might seem if I worked in academia, where the superstars were considerably older than Roxanne Dubrow's own nineteen-year-old superstar, usually by at least thirty years.

Except, that is, for Dr. Jonathan Somerfield, who, I was discovering as he ushered me through the crowd, was a bit of a superstar himself. Because a strange thing occurred as he introduced me to colleague after colleague, especially those who seemed to know him best. After eyeing us together—and assuming more intimacy between us than there actually was at this point—the esteemed colleague proceeded to wax poetic about the virtues of Dr. Jonathan Somerfield. “Did you know ‘our boy' worked with the curator on the Ingres exhibit at the Met last year?” Or, “Did you know Jonathan won the Gunderman prize for his study of Delacroix?” It seemed
my
Dr. Somerfield—yes, some of them referred to him as “your young man”—was quite a respected man in his field.

Somehow that made him sexier in my eyes. I found myself stealing glances at his intelligent eyes—often muddled with embarrassment, for our boy was, if nothing else, modest—his broad shoulders and yes, those big hands, and believing him capable of just about anything.

Which was exactly what his colleagues intended, I think. It was as if they were trying to sell me on the idea of Dr. Jonathan Somerfield as a paragon of men. I was happy enough to stand on the sidelines and feel amused and even enchanted by the way everyone attempted to make the case for Dr. Jonathan Somerfield's perfection to me. I wondered at this, too. What made them think this guy had trouble land
ing women? I'd been wanting to crawl all over him from the moment I laid eyes on him.

I got my answer after dinner, when I escaped a conversation about transcendentalism and German romanticism that was way over my head by heading for the ladies' room. I was enclosed in a stall and was just smoothing down my dress when I caught the tail end of a conversation that stopped me in my tracks.

“Jonathan Somerfield? Why, yes, I was surprised to see him myself,” came one female voice so near I figured she was standing at the sink before my stall. “And with a woman!”

My hand paused over the lock. What the hell did
that
mean?

“Well, it's about time he got back out there again,” came a second voice. “It's been at least three years since—”

“I know, I know but it was such an absolute
tragedy.
”

“True. I can't imagine losing my husband—even at my age. He couldn't have been more than thirty-five when his wife died. And so suddenly!”

If curiosity held me hostage before, another emotion, far more overwhelming, paralyzed me now. My God, Jonathan had been married. Once.

Suddenly I understood, all too well, that intangible sadness I had glimpsed in his eyes so many times before. It was a sorrow I should I have recognized. The sorrow of loss.

“Well, I, for one, am glad to see him here tonight,” the first voice said with finality. “He's still a young man. He has his whole life ahead of him. He couldn't stay in his self-imposed isolation forever….”

 

I felt an urge to isolate
myself
in that stall long after the two ladies of bad tidings had left. But although I felt my in
sides crumbling with a mixture of feelings I was powerless to analyze, I pulled myself together and headed out to find Jonathan again.

It cheered me to find him ensconced in conversation with a professor I had met earlier, and chuckling merrily over something his colleague said.

“Grace,” Jonathan greeted me, one hand going to the small of my back in a gesture that now seemed alternatively tender and tentative. As if I were fragile—or he was.

But I held on, smiling at each new face until I thought my skin would crack with the effort. And just when I was wondering how long I could bear the facade of being his charming companion when questions about his past whirled through my mind, Jonathan turned to me and said, “What do you say we get out of here?”

I could have kissed him. And I would have, if I hadn't felt a new hesitancy in myself. As if I were treading on hallowed ground and suddenly didn't have the heart for it.

What was I so afraid of? I asked myself as I watched Jonathan walk to the front to retrieve our coats.

And had my answer once he returned, his gaze on mine brimming with the same mixture of sadness and light as before.

I was afraid that the gap that stretched between us every time he held back might swallow us both alive.

 

“Can we walk a bit?” I asked, once we stepped outside into the chilly night air. Somehow the thought of being in the cozy confines of a cab with him at this moment was daunting.

“Sure,” he said, gazing at me curiously. I saw him glance back at the building we had left and felt fleetingly the sense that he wanted to return to the relative safety of that public
space. But then he linked his arm in mine—so carefully,
too
carefully—and led me toward the exit to the street.

We walked in silence for a few moments and I relished it, breathing deep the cold air and praying I wouldn't start to shiver in the sub-degree temperatures, sending Jonathan chivalrously running across the campus to get us a cab.

Finally he spoke. I held my breath, as if I sensed he were about to share everything with me. I felt an odd sense of relief when instead he started to give me an architectural history of the buildings we passed. I saw again his propensity for escaping into the intellectual. It was easier to deal with matters of the mind, after all, than with those of the heart.

I was content to let him discourse, for the moment. Because as much as I needed him to tell me about his past, I feared it as well. I even started to believe, as I was lulled by his soothing baritone, that we could stay suspended forever in the heady present and never touch on all that sorrow that came before.

Moments after we had exited the campus, we passed a building site under construction and he stopped, studying the new foundation that had just been laid. “You know there used to be a beautiful little chapel right here,” he said. “Do you remember it?”

I nodded. “Yes, yes, I do,” I said, trying to pull myself from the pensive silence I had fallen into.

“It really was quite lovely, but I guess the developers think this might be more valuable if it had a new apartment building on it instead.” He frowned, his brow furrowing. “That's the way this city has always been, I suppose. Tearing down the old in favor of the new.” He sighed. “I guess not everything good can last….”

His words stung me, and I felt myself rebelling inside. “Why didn't you tell me about your…wife?”

He stopped, his arm dropping away from me as he faced me. His expression was a mixture of confusion and pain. “Grace, I'm sorry, I—”

“No, never mind,” I said, no longer wanting to go there. “You don't have to tell me. I shouldn't have pried…”

“I wanted to tell you,” he said, sincerity in his eyes. “I just thought…well, I feel so
good
when I'm with you. I guess I just didn't want to ruin it.” He laughed, but without humor. “Maybe I was hoping that by not talking about it, it would just go away.” He frowned. “I know—stupid, right?”

“No.” I understood well that urge to stuff all the painful details of life into the recesses of the heart. Wasn't I guilty of the same?

Then, because I couldn't bear the thought of him suffering alone, I said, “Tell me about her.”

He took my arm again, then started to walk down the avenue away from the campus. “Her name was Caroline,” he began tentatively. “We met at Yale, and got to be good friends. By sophomore year we were dating, and I guess from the start it always seemed we'd be together. It made sense in light of our shared interests—she was in the art history program as well, except she stopped with her B.A. When I came to Columbia to study for my Ph.D., it seemed natural she would come, too. So she got a job at an art archive.” He paused, and I glanced at his profile, saw the way his eyebrows drew together. “It wasn't her dream job or anything. I think Caroline mostly wanted to be a…a mother.” He sighed. “Of course, I was in the middle of the graduate program, so we decided to wait. We married just after my coursework and planned to move back up to Connecticut at some point— Caroline was never as big a fan of the city as I was.” He smiled sadly, as if that memory pained him.

I gave him a look that encouraged him to continue.

“Caroline wanted to start a family right away but I didn't… I didn't feel comfortable with it just yet. I wanted to finish my dissertation, secure a position. Caroline was okay with that. Then came my post-doc, and we were off to Chicago. When the position at Columbia came up, we moved back, agreeing we'd stay in the city for the first few years, save for a house. Caroline seemed satisfied to wait to start our family until we got our feet under us. Then, one morning, she woke up to go to work and could barely get out of bed. She said she was…nauseous, and I thought she had a migraine—she suffered from them a lot. So I got up to get her some water to take with her pills, and when I came back, she had collapsed.”

He stared ahead of him now, as if the whole horrible scene were before him. “I called 9-1-1, but by the time we got to the hospital, she was in a coma. The doctors said she'd suffered a brain aneurism. Within four days, she was…gone.” He paused, turning to me. “Apparently she'd been born with it. It was inside her that whole time, like a time bomb.”

“Jonathan,” I said, gazing into his face. His expression was bewildered, as if he still couldn't make sense of it. “I'm so sorry.”

“I am, too,” he said sadly, returning my gaze in a way that said it was more than just the past that pierced him now. As if that sorrow had marked him somehow for the future.

It was a sorrow I understood on some level, and before I could stop myself, I pulled him close, as if I could wipe it all away with some physical gesture. I felt his arms close around me and I breathed him in, relishing the feel of him, as if it might be my last. Because even as I leaned into his comforting strength, I could sense him drifting away. I felt my
self loosen inside, as if I knew, that someday, inevitably, I would have to let go.

And so, as is my nature, I did let go, leaning back from the embrace to look again at his face, afraid of what I might find there.

I was startled by what I did find.

Desire, barely contained by his beautiful features. And hope shining in his eyes, which drew me in irresistibly.

I touched my mouth to his—or maybe he moved first, I wasn't sure—but suddenly we were joined, clutching at one another as if neither of us would ever let go.

But we did, of course, especially when the wind whipped up and reminded us that we were standing on Amsterdam Avenue in the freezing cold.

“Let's go home,” he said, stepping away to the curb to hail a cab.

Home,
I thought, imagining for a moment that there was such a place. For both of us.

 

Home turned out to be my apartment. Probably because Jonathan had every intention of remaining a gentleman and dropping me off, until the cab pulled up before my building and I stated rather than asked, “Come upstairs.”

For the second time that night, I felt no resistance.

Even Malakai seemed happy with my selection; he was probably conjuring up a new name for my man friend. As I stood inches away from Jonathan in the elevator, gazing into those thickly lashed eyes as anticipation strummed between us, I decided Malakai's nickname for Jonathan should be “your Hazel-eyed Friend.” He had such beautiful eyes…even as they shuttered closed when he leaned in to give me the softest, sweetest kiss.

A kiss so tender I ached for more. But I ordered myself to slow down, as I led him into my apartment and watched as his gaze roamed around my white living room, before coming to rest on me.

I saw his hesitation. “Grace, I—”

I stopped him with a kiss. Then, leaning away, I asked, “Cocktail?”

He smiled, his relief palpable. “That would be great.”