Chapter One
Stephen
People had told me it would be hot in New York in the summer, but dictators had nothing on this kind of oppression. I’d considered taking up religion just so I could thank God for the air conditioning in the office and my apartment when I first arrived two weeks ago. And since it had been a toss-up as to whether I would get more dehydrated on the thirty minute walk from Wall Street to Little Italy or by spending half that time on the subway – deep in the bowels of the earth, breathing in everyone else’s sweat and carbon dioxide – I’d gone for the Big Apple’s version of the Underground. At least the subway cars were more spacious than the older tubes back in London, even if it was just as busy, and I’d minimised the risk of sunstroke.
I got on at Broad Street and three stops later, surfaced in Canal Street to a completely different atmosphere than I’d experienced during my stay, so far. I’d hardly seen anything of New York other than my apartment near the Brooklyn Bridge, my office, and a couple of bars that I’d been to with my new work colleagues. The area was lively but not as overrun with tourists taking photographs and generally getting underfoot of the workers who were in a hurry. The red bricked buildings were smaller, with fire escapes zigzagging up the sides of them. There were market stores on every corner and, of course, dozens of Italian restaurants, their striped awnings pulled out over small tables and chairs crammed onto the pavement. The smell of tomato sauce and basil drifted through the humid air but I couldn’t appreciate the aroma. My stomach was a knot, my mouth dry from more than lack of water.
There was no turning back though. This was the whole reason I was here.
No one had ever warned me how much rigmarole there would be to deal with when someone died and left you as the executor of their will. Perhaps my mum would have when she got older but she probably hadn’t felt it was necessary when she was still in her early fifties. As it was, it felt like I’d barely had time to breathe after a stupid accident took her from us prematurely at the end of last summer. Between the postmortem and the funeral arrangements, the probate red-tape, the clearance and storage of everything in the family house, thesaleof the family house, not to mention an eventful Christmas - there had been one task I had not been able to get around to until this moment in time - ten months later.
Back when the solicitor had read my mum’s will, we’d found out that she had left an oddly specific sum of money to my biological father. A man who had disappeared from my life when I was three years old. I’d had no clue where to find him. No one had heard anything from or about him since he left. Or so we’d believed. Then, when I’d been clearing out the house, I found a large Jiffy bag with his name and address on it – here in New York – sealed up in the corner of the top shelf of Mum’s wardrobe.
I didn’t know how old the envelope was. The writing on it was faded, though still clear enough that I could recognise it as my mum’s slashing style of cursive. I could almost see her writing it, the same way she did when she’d had to fill out any form or even write a shopping list, like she was angry with the stationery, but whenever I’d made a sarcastic observation along those lines, she’d always look up with a smile…
Anyway, it was the clue I needed to fulfil one of her last wishes and I told my brother Nick I’d take care of it. Trevor Moorcroft was my wastrel of a father after all, not his. I’d been planning aweekend away once things quietened down in work, but the stars aligned and when the firm announced they were looking for someone to go on secondment to New York, filling in for another VP while he went on paternity leave, I’d taken them up on it. Then I put it to the back of my mind, much the same way the envelope had been tucked at the back of my mum’s wardrobe.
But now that envelope was in my laptop case, secured tightly under my arm as I threaded my way through the neighbourhood in search of Baxter Street. And my father. Who I had only the vaguest memories of. The image of him in my mind was mostly constructed from a couple of photos my mum reluctantly showed me as a child. I could have walked past him countless times and never even realised.
It turned out to be a short road in comparison to other streets that went on for eight blocks or more; trees lined it along one side and many of the shops had a polished look that spoke of recent renovation. Every so often there was a gap for an entrance to the apartments on the upper floors and I checked each one over and over but couldn’t find the correct building or number to match the address on the envelope. Heat travelled up through the leather soles of my shoes, sweat gathering inside my shirt collar, as I squinted up at the signs and the numbers wishing I’d brought my sunglasses to combat the sun glaring back at me from the metal signage.
Finally, I stopped outside a small entrance to a parking lot, which I presumed was where the apartment building should have been.
So, either the apartments were gone, replaced by the parking lot – or my father had lied when he left a forwarding address with my mum. I knew which one I thought was most likely, but it didn’t really matter. All that mattered was that he wasn’t here…and I didn’t know where to start looking for him.
Chapter Two
Elle
Central Park is a world of activity all year, but never more so than in the summertime. There are people everywhere: going to the zoo, jogging, doing tai chi, eating ice-creams, visiting one of the outdoor theatres, relaxing on the grass,kissingon the grass, boating,kissingwhile boating… Why do people get so horny in the summer?
I’d been counting on it being a great place to get some inspiration. I was fed up with staring at the four walls of my sweat-box of an apartment, going out of my tiny mind because of the edit letter my publisher sent me that morning, attached to a very brief cover email:
Noelle
Hope you’re well. Please find attached my edit letter.
Yours, Patti
It hadn’t boded well from the off. Use of the full name, plus Patti was usuallywaychattier than that.
Ihadbeen expecting a brutal critique, though. I wasn’t happy with the book when I sent it off to her two weeks ago. And there’s a difference between knowing it’s rough around the edges and needs development – which is how it always feels – and being certain in my gut that something was missing.
I’d dived straight into the letter because I don’t believe in delaying inevitable pain; best to get it over with. It was five pages long. On the surface, that is not too bad at all but…then I’d scrolled down and seen what the headings were. Everything.Everyintegral component that makes up a genre novel, needed drastic work. Particularly the conclusion of the love story.
So, here I was, sitting on a bench opposite the Alice in Wonderland statue, staring at all the passers-by trying to smile rather than squint as the sun laser-beamed off its bronze surface while they took their photos. I had my latest sparkly notebook in front of me, ready for the epiphany to fix everything and…nothing. Just nothing.
Honestly, it was like I’d never written a book before. It was driving me crazy.
‘Christ on a cracker.’ I jumped as my phone pinged, interrupting my reverie. When had I turned it off of silent?
Daisy:Are you going to be here soon? I’m soooo bored. Dad and Uncle Joe are talking about how wrong CSI is. Again.
Shoot. My little sister Daisy. I checked the time; I was supposed to leave ten minutes ago to meet my family at the parking-lot-cum-outdoor-theatre where my twin brothers, Alfie and Teddy, were performing the final show of the semester for their college theatre class. They were going to be the main players in a gender flipped version ofA Streetcar Named Desire– Stella and Blanche respectively – and I was looking forward to it. They were both great actors. They ought to be since they’d started their careers way back in kindergarten impersonating each other, driving us and their teachers mad.
I scooped my belongings into my tote and left the park, trying to jog along the sidewalk to catch the subway across town. My progress was hampered both by the fact I’d not fastened my sandal tightly enough and by all of the people milling around like confused cattle. The train was typically hellish in the heat too, but it was running on time and I didn’t have far to go, thankfully.
The entire ride I found myself watching all the couples, wondering what their deal was. How did they get together? Whydid it work? I mean, I understood the basics of human biology – it was something like eighty per cent the right pheromones to suit their genetic code, but I couldn’t write a satisfying finale to my series with the heroine choosing her partner because she’d noticed he smelled right.
