Page 10 of A Mind of Her Own

A bouquet of pink roses arrived at the hotel for Alex on Saturday from Oliver. He debated about sending them, but he felt sorry for her. He didn’t call, because he didn’t want her to have to come down to the lobby to speak to him on the phone, with her injured ankle. He had added to his note with the flowers “Cafeteria Monday at 1.”

By the time she went to work on Monday, all the minor bruises had faded, and the small cut above her ear didn’t show. She was limping, but she could walk, and she put makeup on the eye and wore dark glasses. She told everyone she’d tripped and fallen down the stairs at her hotel.

She met Oliver at the cafeteria at one for lunch. He was relieved to see her looking so much better, and she apologized profusely, for calling him and for getting herself into such a mess.

“I’ve never been arrested before,” she whispered, and he laughed.

“That’s comforting to know. You remind me of why I never wanted children. I don’t want to be bailing them out of jail in my sunset years.” Alex felt foolish more than anything else. In Chicago, she could have called someone at her grandfather’s newspaper, although she would have been in disgrace. But she knew no one she could call in New York, except him. “Happy to be of service.”

Their friendship had taken a giant leap forward after his rescuing her and seeing her in such disarray. She felt completely at ease with him, and he felt closer and protective of her. She wasn’t dangerous as he had feared, just young and na?ve. And her innocence was endearing.

She had to work late one night that week that he would be on duty too, and he told her to stop by at the reporters’ room if she had time. He wanted to see more of her, but wouldn’t allow himself to. He didn’t want to start something he couldn’t finish. And in six weeks she’d be leaving New York. He was aware of it each time he saw her. He was as vulnerable as she was, and alone. She had no idea of her effect on him, and told herself they were just friends. She had never been in love, and didn’t recognize the signs. He did, and was poised for flight, to preserve his safe little life behind high walls. No one had succeeded in climbing over them since he built them years before. They had served him well so far. But Alex was undaunted by his walls.

Tommy had seen them leaving the cafeteria after lunch on Monday, and whispered a warning when he saw Oliver at his desk. “Watch out for the young ones, Ollie. They’re heartbreakers. Even the nice ones like your little princess from upstairs. Once you get caught in their net, you’re dead.” But Oliver knew it too. He was seventeen years older than Alex, and she had her whole life ahead of her, three more years of school, and no family. If he opened his heart to her, he’d feel responsible for her and never leave. There was no way a romance could work between them, and he didn’t want to try.

—

She had to work on the layouts from a big party, with Pam MacDonald, and had agreed to work late. Alex stuck with it, under Pam’s close supervision, and she was finished by eight o’clock, and stopped in the Crime department reporters’ room before she left the building. Oliver’s face lit up when he saw her. He constantly gave her conflicting messages at the same time, to come closer and to stay away. It confused her, but she thought it was just how he was. He had been through a lot in his lifetime too, and she had deep scars.

When she came to the Crime room, he led her to a much smaller back room. He opened it and there was a table with five men around it, and a thick cloud of smoke hanging over the table. Sam and Tommy were there, and three other reporters she had seen but didn’t know. They were playing poker, and having fun, waiting to be sent out on a call.

Oliver had them deal him in, and took a chair, he put another chair next to him, and invited Alex to sit down. He explained to her what he was doing and she picked it up quickly. The men loved having her there. She was wonderful to look at and fun to be with. She had all the energy and excitement of youth. She stayed with them, watching the game and learning, until they finally got assigned and had to go out at midnight. The police had called them. She left when they did and went to her hotel, after a very entertaining evening. Tommy teased Oliver as they drove to the crime scene.

“You’re a goner, my boy,” he said to Oliver in the car. They had a photographer with them in the back seat and Tommy was driving. “She’s a terrific girl. You could do worse.”

“She’s too young, and I’m too old, and it’s too late for me. She needs someone her own age. I’m going to tell her that when she leaves,” Oliver said, staring out the window and thinking of her.

“You’ll be sorry you did, if you tell her that. And you’re not too old. It’s never too late. I’d snap her up in a minute, if I had the chance,” Tommy said as they arrived at the crime scene. There was a body with a tarp over it on the ground, and a pool of blood they could see from the car.

“Lucky for me you don’t have the chance,” Oliver said with a grin, and they got out of the car and headed for work. The pool of blood was a familiar sight to them, and just another night’s work.

—

Oliver and Alex continued to see each other for lunch at the cafeteria once or twice a week. He took her to dinner at some of his favorite haunts. They went to the beach on Long Island on a Saturday in August when he didn’t have to work, and the rest of the time, she enjoyed the wonders of New York. He teased her about the rally occasionally. He was just grateful she hadn’t been injured more severely. On her last night in New York, they had dinner together. All three of her bosses had given her glowing references. And there was a lunch for her at the office on her last day of work. The two months of her internship had raced by, and Oliver was sad to see her leave. He was used to her now, and they confided in each other like old friends. There was always an undercurrent of something more, which Oliver did everything possible to ignore. He was intent on remaining just friends until she left.

“Will I hear from you?” she asked softly, and he smiled, fighting back everything he felt for her. He was part brother, part father, part best friend. He was everything she no longer had in her life, a confidante, an advisor, a protector, and she was the same to him. She was like a benevolent fairy at the edge of his life. He knew he would miss her acutely, but he had to get used to life without her again. She was everything he had sworn he would never allow into his life, but it was already too late and he knew it. She owned his heart, but he didn’t want her to know, and he was determined not to let his feelings show. He had succeeded so far.

“You probably won’t hear from me,” he said honestly. “I don’t like writing letters. I don’t have a phone at home, and neither do you, except one in the dorm.”

“You’ll have to come to Chicago then,” she said, teasing him, but she was sad to leave too. She couldn’t imagine life without him now after being so close. She could sense that whenever she came too close to him, he retreated behind his walls. When he let his guard down, he disappeared for a day or two afterward to regain some distance. She didn’t know if she’d ever see him again, but it seemed unlikely. She realized she might not. She knew by then that she loved him, but she had no idea how he felt about her, and yet he was always there, looked for her, had lunch with her, and they enjoyed and confided in each other. They had shared their deepest secrets, and talked about the books they both wanted to write.

“I think I might start my book now,” he said at dinner that night. He knew it would keep him busy and his mind off of her.

“Chicago is not very far, you know,” she reminded him, and he nodded with a pensive look.

She had survived so many agonizing losses and he such brutal ones in his youth, they were both afraid of loving again, and losing one more person. Alex wasn’t sure she could bear it, so she didn’t press him or try to hang on. He looked closely at her when he took her back to her hotel. They were standing a little distance from the entrance, as he gazed down at her. She was taking the train to Chicago in the morning. She was going to spend a week at home before school started.

“I’m going to miss you terribly,” she said softly, in a voice hoarse with emotion she couldn’t control.

“I forbid you to miss me,” he said with a smile. “I won’t miss you at all,” he teased her. And then without a word, he kissed her, as he had wanted to since the day he met her and wouldn’t allow himself. He wanted one kiss to remember her by. He was sure he would never see her again, and believed it was better that way, for both of them.

“I love you, Oliver,” she said softly after he kissed her and continued to hold her. He didn’t want to let go, but he was forcing himself to set her free.

“Don’t,” he said in a whisper. “It would be a terrible mistake.” So was losing each other, but she didn’t say it. She couldn’t force him to love her, or see her again. She gently brushed his lips with hers, and then walked into the hotel. She turned once to see him, and his eyes were riveted to hers. He wanted to remember every minute with her, and then he put his head down, turned and walked away. They were the best two months of her life, and leaving him was one of the hardest things she’d ever done. But she knew she had to respect who he was. He was a man who had watched his mother die in front of him, under the ice. She wasn’t sure he would ever be able to love again. He firmly believed that he could not, he couldn’t allow himself to, in case it happened again, and he lost someone he loved.

—

The week Alex spent in Beardstown after New York was peaceful and full of tender memories of her grandfather. She visited the paper, which was hard because it reminded her so much of him, even more than his home. She spent time with Josiah Webster, and told him about her internship. They talked about the pandemic, which had mysteriously disappeared over the summer. Five hundred million people had been affected around the world. Somewhere between fifty and one hundred million people had died, including both her grandparents. After a year and a half, the flu had simply vanished.

As Alex prepared to go back to school in Chicago, she had to get used to life without Oliver. She didn’t try to call him or write to him. She knew that if she ever spoke to him again, it would have to come from him. And he didn’t seem to be capable of it, nor want to be.

School began a week after she got back from New York. Yoko, her roommate, had transferred to a small college in San Francisco to be close to her widowed mother, and Alex was assigned a room alone for her sophomore year. She liked her classes, and wrote in her journal.

She reported to her literature instructor how much she had enjoyed her internship, and thanked him. She had made no close friends at the university. Her only close friend had been Oliver and now he was gone.

—

She was startled in November when a girl she knew from the dorm and one of her classes invited her to her debut ball in New York. They hardly knew each other, and the girl explained to Alex that she was supposed to come out the year before, but it had been canceled due to the Spanish flu. With the pandemic over now, the deb ball had been reinstated and she hoped Alex would come.

“I’d love it if you would. I know it’s a long way to go for a party.” It was happening the week before Christmas, and Alex dreaded the holidays now with no family to celebrate with, so it would be a good distraction from family-oriented events that were too painful for her now.

She accepted the invitation and went shopping for a dress at Marshall Field’s. She hadn’t worn an evening gown since the crossing from Paris to New York, when she moved to Beardstown to live with her grandfather. She was almost two years older now, and she looked more grown-up. She bought a brushed silver gown with shoes to match, and reserved a room at the Martha Washington Hotel in New York where she had spent the summer. She hadn’t heard a word from Oliver since the night before she left when he kissed her. She knew she wouldn’t hear from him. He didn’t have the strength or the courage to love again. She didn’t know if she did either, which was part of why she didn’t press him and hadn’t contacted him and had let him go.

The trip to New York was familiar to her now, and she liked spending the night on the train.

New York had a festive air when she got there. Store windows were decorated for Christmas. There were Christmas trees up in public places, and one in the lobby of her hotel. It gave her a thrill to know that she was in the same city as Oliver. She wanted to see him, but she was afraid to call him. He might refuse to see her, or even take the call. He had sought no contact with her in four months, since August. She was going to call him, but she couldn’t decide when. It was embarrassingly frivolous to come to New York for a party, but the deb ball was a big deal to her friend. She was sure that the paper must be covering it. She hadn’t called Sylvia Bates either, and the prospect of seeing Oliver when she was in town had made the decision for her. She needed no other reason to go.

The ball was on Friday night. She didn’t expect to know anyone there. She felt very brave walking in alone, and five minutes after she got there, she ran into Sylvia, who was excited to see her and had Alex pose for a photograph for the paper.

“Are you coming back to us next summer?” Alex had been debating about it, and hadn’t applied for a summer job yet, but seeing Sylvia brought it all back and made it seem appealing. She wasn’t sure how Oliver would feel about it, if he would think she was chasing him. “We want you back,” Sylvia insisted before she went to photograph the debutantes with their escorts.

Alex was seated at a table of young people her age. She was next to a boy who was attending Harvard. None of the girls were in college, and he was impressed that Alex was attending the University of Chicago. They had a lively conversation before the presentation of the debs, and after that he invited Alex to dance. It reminded her of Oliver telling her she should go out with boys her own age. The Harvard junior was very attractive but he seemed like a boy to her. He met up with his friends after he danced with Alex and got dead drunk, and fell asleep on a couch halfway through the evening. The boys her age seemed like children to her, even dressed in white tie for the evening. It wasn’t the same thing as her conversations with Oliver about writing, or the fun they had spending time together.

She went home alone, and hung up the silver dress. She finally got up the courage to call Oliver in the Crime reporters’ room on Saturday morning. Someone she didn’t know answered the phone and she wondered if he had the weekend off. She waited while they looked for him, and suddenly she heard his voice. It was like a bolt of lightning the minute she heard him. For an instant she didn’t know what to say. He sounded busy and distracted, and Alex felt breathless.

“Hello,” she said, trying to sound casual and cheerful. “Merry Christmas.”

“Alex?” He sounded shocked. “Where are you?”

“I’m in New York. Believe it or not, I came for a deb ball, for a girl I go to school with. How are you?”

“Okay,” he said, and then he couldn’t stop himself. “Can I see you? Or are you too fancy to see an old hack reporter?”

“You’re neither old nor a hack, and I’m no fancier than the night I got arrested,” she said, and he laughed, and suddenly it all clicked into place again.

“Have lunch with me. I’ll meet you at the deli. I’m stuck here till six tonight.” He sounded excited to see her, and she felt a wave of relief wash over her. It was as though she had never left. It all picked up where it left off. She had found him again. She had thought he was lost forever.

She dressed in a warm plaid skirt and navy blue sweater with a heavy coat over it. He was standing on the sidewalk waiting for her when she got there, pacing impatiently to keep warm, and as soon as she stepped out of the cab, he hugged her tight. He looked wonderful and happy. They talked all through lunch about work, school, the book he was writing. He was excited about it. He had started it when she left. He was so happy to see her that it seemed hard to believe he hadn’t contacted her since August. He was a man of contradictions and complexities. She was the forbidden fruit he wouldn’t allow himself to partake of, for fear of loving her and losing her later. Or loving her too much. He was the mirror of her own fears for the same reasons. They had endured too much loss, but they were braver when they were together than when they were apart. He made her happy and she did the same for him.

“What are you doing about the internship next summer?” he asked her. “Are you coming back? I saw Sylvia Bates at our Christmas party at the paper. She’s hoping you will.”

“I didn’t know she wanted me to until I ran into her last night at the deb ball.”

“So will you?” She hesitated, looking at him.

“What do you think about it? What do you want?” she asked, hoping to flush him out, but he didn’t take the bait.

“I’d love it if you were here.” She wanted to ask him why since he hadn’t written to her or called her, and had warned her he wouldn’t. She was some kind of security blanket for him. It was hard having him act like he was close to her in some ways, and not others. It was more than a friendship. There was the searing kiss the night before she left the last time. It was crazy and confusing, but she didn’t have anyone else. He got to that as he paid the check. “So are you dating anyone at school?” he asked bluntly. “Any handsome boys in your classes?” He smiled when he asked her.

“No, to both questions. What about you?” He looked startled by the question, as though it was absurd.

“Of course not. No one can put up with me…except you.”

“Well, that’s interesting. I think you’re very easy to put up with. And you’ve never gotten arrested in the time I’ve known you. I did,” she reminded him, and he laughed again.

“You’re the only woman I’ve ever bailed out of jail.”

“You must know very boring women, with no imagination whatsoever.”

“So will you reapply for the internship?”

“Maybe I will,” she said noncommittally.

“When are you going back to Chicago?”

“Tomorrow, unless you give me a reason to stay.” She felt very bold saying that to him.

“I won’t,” he said confidently. He felt safe enough to be himself with her. “Will you have dinner with me tonight?” he asked her.

“I’d love to,” was her quiet response. Whatever this was, it was the relationship they shared, that they had and that seemed to work. He didn’t want more. She was disappointed he didn’t.

“I’ll pick you up at your hotel at seven.”

“What’ll I wear?”

“Whatever you want.” He smiled at her. He looked like a happy man when he left her outside the deli and walked back to work. She did some shopping, and was ready when he picked her up at her hotel that night. She was wearing a simple black dress under her heavy coat, and he took her to Lombardi’s pizzeria in Little Italy, which she had loved before.

They talked about his book during dinner, and he encouraged her to do the same. She didn’t feel ready and she didn’t have any ideas for a book yet.

“I’ve been thinking,” he said carefully, “if I finish the book, and sell it for decent money, I might quit the paper, and just write full-time.”

She was surprised. “If I apply for the internship next summer, please try not to quit before I get back.” He laughed.

“I promise. Quitting the paper is a long-term thought, not anything immediate.”

“Can I play poker with you and the boys if I come back?” she asked. He laughed and nodded.

“That’s up to them. I’d love it. They play more often than I do.”

He took her back to the hotel, and he confused her again. He pulled her into his arms and kissed her. They stood in the cold for a long time, kissing.

“Will I hear from you before I come back?” she asked him afterward, and he smiled mysteriously.

“No,” he said, and she laughed.

“You’re hopeless. Maybe that’s why I love you.” But he was excited now about having two months with her in the summer. He loved having her around for long conversations and meals together, even if he was afraid of more.

As he walked her to the door of the hotel, she stopped and looked at him. “Are you serious that I won’t hear from you now until next summer?”

“Maybe…I don’t know…” He looked confused. “I’ll think about it,” he said, and she kissed him again and ran into the hotel. The best part of Christmas was seeing Oliver in New York. The rest didn’t matter to her now. She had no one to spend it with. And she was going to accept a summer job in New York. She would see him again in six months.