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4
She was still thinkingabout the conversation as she closed the gallery Mondaynight.
Aren’t youlonely?
The words had been repeating in her mind since Saturday, but she’d been honest about that at least: it wasn’t about being lonely — it was about the suspicion that her decision to sit out the dating scene was another incarnation of the fear that had been holding her back inLarchmont.
What if she woke up ten years from now, alone and with three more cats and wondering what had happened? It was what had happened in her marriage to Peter: the insidious rebranding of fear as contentedness. It had taken a divorce and a move to the city — it had taken Liam and Jack — to shock her out of hercomplacency.
Was her abstinence just another version of fear? It had made sense right after she broke things off with Liam and Jack. The whole point had been to spend time alone with herself, to face all the questions she’d avoided answering when she’d been too wrapped up in her awakeningsexuality.
But it had been nearly a year since she’d left Jack on the street in Paris, since she’d watched Liam walk away. She had to try again eventually, didn’tshe?
She imagined herself sitting in a coffee shop, waiting for some stranger she’d met online, wondering if his profile picture was twenty years old or if he was six inches shorter than he’d claimed — both things that had happened toMoni.
The thought wasn’t exactlyinspiring.
She slipped on her coat and shut off the lights. She loved the gallery this way: the brick wall warm in the soft light they left on at night, the shadows long in the corners, the photographs on the wall holding newmystery.
She paused for a minute to appreciate what a blessing the place had been over the past year. Then she set the alarm and steppedoutside.
The cold hit her like a freight train, and she shivered as she turned to lock the door. Slipping her keys in her pocket, she tightened her scarf and tucked the ends more firmly into her coat as she started for thesubway.
She was halfway down the block when a voice spoke behindher.
“Nina.”
She slowed down, wondering if she was hearingthings.
“Nina,wait.”
She stopped walking and turned around to find Jack on the sidewalk. He was like an apparition, standing just outside the light of a street lamp, his gloved hands at hisside.
“Jack.”
She could hardly breathe. All these months she’d sorted her feelings for Liam and Jack intocategories.
Liam, something likelove.
Jack, something likeobsession.
But now that Jack was in front of her she had the overwhelming urge to step into his arms, not because she wanted him, but because she’d missedhim.
“Please,” he said, “can wetalk?”
She looked around. “Here?”
The streets were nearly empty, everyone driven inside by the dark andcold.
“If you like,” he said. “Although I’d prefer to get you out of thecold.”
She’d forgotten this about Jack — his old-fashioned manners, his insistence on treating her like something fragile and priceless. She hadn’t known if she liked it at the time, but now she couldn’t help feelingrelieved.
“Why don’t you let me give you a lift,” hesuggested.
She looked at the curb and noticed for the first time the black car idling there. Reggie was doubtless behind the wheel, although Nina couldn’t make out his features through the glare on thewindshield.
A voice in her head was telling her not to be an idiot. Not to let Jack get away with what he’d done in Paris. Not to act happy to seehim.
