Promise Me (4 page)

“How long will you be in Miami?” Ali asked.

“Just a night or two.”

“Would it make you retch violently if I say I’ll miss you?”

“Not violently, no.”

She kissed him gently. Myron watched her drive off, his heart soaring, and then he headed back to the party.

Since he planned on sleeping in anyway, Myron started drinking. He was not what one would call a great drinker—he held his liquor about as well as a fourteen-year-old girl—but tonight, at this wonderful albeit bizarre celebration, he felt in the mood to imbibe. So did Win, though it took far more to get him buzzed. Cognac was mother’s milk to Win. He rarely showed the effects, at least on the outside.

Tonight it didn’t matter. Win’s stretch limo was already waiting. It would take them back uptown.

Win’s apartment in the Dakota was worth about a billion dollars and had a décor that reminded one of Versailles. When they arrived, Win carefully poured himself an obscenely priced vintage port, Quinta do Noval Nacional 1963. The bottle had been decanted several hours ago because, as Win explained, you must give vintage port time to breathe before consumption. Myron normally drank a chocolate Yoo-hoo, but his stomach was not in the mood. Plus the chocolate wouldn’t have time to breathe.

Win snapped on the TV, and they watched
Antiques Roadshow
. A snooty woman with a lazy drawl had brought in a hideous bronze bust. She started telling the appraiser a story about how Dean Martin in 1950 offered her father ten thousand dollars for this wretched hunk of metal, but her daddy, she said with an insistent finger-point and matching smirk, was too wily for that. He knew that it must be worth a fortune. The appraiser nodded patiently, waited for the woman to finish, and then he lowered the boom:

“It’s worth about twenty dollars.”

Myron and Win shared a quiet high five.

“Enjoying other people’s misery,” Win said.

“We are pitiful,” Myron said.

“It’s not us.”

“No?”

“It’s this show,” Win said. “It illuminates so much that is wrong with our society.”

“How so?”

“People aren’t satisfied just to have their trinket be worth a fortune. No, it is better, far better, if they bought it on the cheap from some unsuspecting rube. No one considers the feelings of the unsuspecting yard salesman who was cheated, who lost out.”

“Good point.”

“Ah, but there’s more.”

Myron smiled, sat back, waited.

“Forget greed for the moment,” Win went on. “What really upsets us is that everybody but everybody lies on
Antiques Roadshow
.”

Myron nodded. “You mean when the appraiser asks, ‘Do you have any idea what it’s worth?’ ”

“Precisely. He asks that same question every time.”

“I know.”

“And Mr. or Mrs. Gee-Whiz act like the question caught them totally off guard—as if they’d never seen the show before.”

“It’s annoying,” Myron agreed.

“And then they say something like, ‘Gasp-oh-gasp, I never thought of that. I have no idea what it might be worth.’ ” Win frowned. “I mean, please. You dragged your two-ton granite armoire to some impersonal convention center and waited in line for twelve hours—but you never, ever, not in your wildest dreams wondered what it might be worth?”

“A lie,” Myron agreed, feeling the buzz. “It’s up there with ‘Your call is very important to us.’ ”

“And that,” Win said, “is why we love when a woman like that gets slammed. The lies. The greed. The same reason why we love the boob on
Wheel of Fortune
who knows the solution but always goes for the extra spin and hits Bankrupt.”

“It’s like life,” Myron pronounced, feeling the booze.

“Do tell.”

But then the door’s intercom buzzed.

Myron felt his stomach drop. He checked his watch. It was one-thirty in the morning. Myron just looked over at Win. Win looked back, his face a placid pool. Win was still handsome, too handsome, but the years, the abuse, the late nights of either violence or, as with tonight, sex, were starting to show just a little.

Myron closed his eyes. “Is that a . . . ?”

“Yes.”

He sighed, rose. “I wish you’d told me.”

“Why?”

They’d been down that road before. There was no answer to that one.

“She’s from a new place on the Upper West Side,” Win said.

“Yeah, how convenient.”

Without another word Myron headed down the corridor toward his bedroom. Win answered the door. As much as it depressed him, Myron took a peek. The girl was young and pretty. She said, “Hi!” with a forced lilt in her voice. Win did not reply. He beckoned her to follow him. She did, teetering on too-high heels. They vanished down the corridor.

As Esperanza had noted, some things refuse to change—no matter how much you’d like them to.

Myron closed the door and collapsed onto the bed. His head swam from drink. The ceiling spun. He let it. He wondered if he was going to get sick. He didn’t think so. He pushed thoughts of the girl out of his head. She left him easier than the girls used to, a change in him that was definitely not for the better. He didn’t hear any noises—the room Win used (not his bedroom, of course) was soundproof—and eventually Myron closed his eyes.

The call came in on his cell phone.

Myron had it set on vibrate-ring. It rattled against his night table. He woke from his half-sleep and reached for it. He rolled over, and his head screamed. That was when he saw the bedside digital clock.

2:17 a.m.

He did not check the caller ID before he put the phone to his ear.

“Hello?” he croaked.

He heard the sob first.

“Hello?” he said again.

“Myron? It’s Aimee.”

“Aimee.” Myron sat up. “What’s wrong? Where are you?”

“You said I could call.” There was another sob. “Anytime, right?”

“Right. Where are you, Aimee?”

“I need help.”

“Okay, no problem. Just tell me where you are.”

“Oh God . . .”

“Aimee?”

“You won’t tell, right?”

He hesitated. He flashed to Claire, Aimee’s mother. He remembered Claire at this age and felt a funny pang.

“You promised. You promised you wouldn’t tell my parents.”

“I know. Where are you?”

“Promise you won’t tell?”

“I promise, Aimee. Just tell me where you are.”

M
yron threw on a pair of sweats.

His brain was a little hazy. There was still some of the drink in him. The irony did not escape him—he had told Aimee to call him because he didn’t want her to get in a car with somebody who’d drank, and here he was, slightly tipsy. He tried to step back and judge his sobriety. He figured that he was okay to drive, but isn’t that what every drinker thinks?

He debated asking Win, but Win was otherwise preoccupied. Win had also drunk even more, despite the sober façade. Still, he shouldn’t just rush out, should he?

Good question.

The fine wooden floors in the corridor had recently been redone. Myron decided quickly to test his sobriety. He walked along one plank as though it were a straight line, as though a cop had pulled him over. He passed, but again Myron was, all modesty aside, pretty damned coordinated. He could probably pass that test whilst wasted.

Still, what choice did he have here? Even if he found someone else to drive at this hour, how would Aimee react to him showing up with a stranger? He, Myron, had been the one to make her promise to call him if such a situation were to arise. He had been the one who jammed his card with all the phone numbers into her hand. He had been the one, as Aimee had just pointed out, who swore complete confidentiality.

He had to go himself.

His car was in a twenty-four-hour lot on Seventieth Street. The gate was closed. Myron rang the bell. The attendant grudgingly pressed the button and the gate ascended.

Myron was not a big-car guy, and thus he still drove a Ford Taurus, which he dubbed the “Chick Magnet.” A car got him from point A to point B. Period. More important to him than horsepower and V6 was having radio controls on the steering wheel, so he could constantly flip stations.

He pressed Aimee’s number on the cell phone. She answered in a small voice.

“Hello?”

“I’m on my way.”

Aimee did not reply.

“Why don’t you stay on the line?” he said. “Just so I know you’re okay.”

“My battery is almost dead. I want to save the power.”

“I should be there in ten, fifteen minutes tops,” Myron said.

“From Livingston?”

“I was staying in the city.”

“Oh, that’s good. See you soon.”

She disconnected the call. Myron checked the car clock: 2:30 a.m. Aimee’s parents must be worried sick. He hoped that she’d already called Claire and Erik. He was tempted to place the call himself, but no, that wasn’t part of how this worked. When she got in the car, he’d encourage her to do it.

Aimee’s location, he’d been surprised to hear, was midtown Manhattan. She told him that she’d wait on Fifth Avenue by Fifty-fourth. That was pretty much Rockefeller Center. What was strange about that, about an eighteen-year-old girl in the Big Apple imbibing in that area, was that midtown was dead at night. During the week, this place hustled with enterprise. On weekend days, you had the tourist trade. But on a Saturday night, there were few people on the street. New York might be the city that never sleeps, but as he hit Fifth Avenue in the upper Fifties, midtown was taking a serious nap.

He got caught at a traffic light on Fifth Avenue at Fifty-second Street. The door handle jangled, and then Aimee opened the door and slipped into the back.

“Thank you,” she said.

“You okay?”

From behind him a small voice said, “I’m fine.”

“I’m not a chauffeur, Aimee. Sit up front.”

She hesitated, but she did as he asked. When she closed the passenger door, Myron turned to face her. Aimee stared straight out the front window. Like most teens, she’d splattered on too much makeup. The young don’t need makeup, especially that much. Her eyes were red and raccoon-like. She was dressed in something teenage-tight, like a thin wrapping of gauze, the kind of thing that, even if you had the figure, you couldn’t carry past the age of maybe twenty-three.

She looked so much like her mother had at that age.

“The light’s green,” Aimee said.

He started driving. “What happened?”

“Some people were drinking too much. I didn’t want to drive with them.”

“Where?”

“Where what?”

Again Myron knew that midtown was not a young-people hot spot. Most hung out in bars on the Upper East Side or maybe down in the Village. “Where were you drinking?”

“Is that important?”

“I’d like to know.”

Aimee finally turned toward him. Her eyes were wet. “You promised.”

He kept driving.

“You promised you wouldn’t ask any questions, remember?”

“I just want to make sure you’re all right.”

“I am.”

Myron made a right, cutting across town. “I’ll take you home then.”

“No.”

He waited.

“I’m staying with a friend.”

“Where?”

“She lives in Ridgewood.”

He glanced at her, brought his eyes back to the road. “In Bergen County?”

“Yes.”

“I’d rather take you home.”

“My parents know I’m staying at Stacy’s.”

“Maybe you should call them.”

“And say what?”

“That you’re okay.”

“Myron, they think I’m out with my friends. Calling them would only make them worry.”

She had a point, but Myron didn’t like it. His gas light went on. He’d need to fill up. He headed up the West Side Highway and over the George Washington Bridge. He stopped at the first gas station on Route 4. New Jersey was one of only two states that did not allow you to pump your own gas. The attendant, wearing a turban and engrossed in a Nicholas Sparks novel, was not thrilled to see him.

“Ten dollars’ worth,” Myron told him.

He left them alone. Aimee started sniffling.

“You don’t look drunk,” Myron began.

“I didn’t say I was. It was the guy who was driving.”

“But you do look,” he continued, “like you’ve been crying.”

She did that teen thing that might have been a shrug.

“Your friend Stacy. Where is she now?”

“At her house.”

“She didn’t go into the city with you?”

Aimee shook her head and turned away.

“Aimee?”

Her voice was soft. “I thought I could trust you.”

“You can.”

She shook her head again. Then she reached for the door and pulled the handle. She started to get out. Myron reached for her. He grabbed her left wrist a little harder than he meant to.

“Hey,” she said.

“Aimee . . .”

She tried to pull away. Myron kept a grip on the wrist.

“You’re going to call my parents.”

“I just need to know you’re okay.”

She pulled at his fingers, trying to get free. Myron felt her nails on his knuckles.

“Let go of me!”

He did. She jumped out of the car. Myron started after her, but he was still wearing his seat belt. The shoulder harness snapped him back. He unbuckled and got out. Aimee was stumbling up the highway with her arms crossed defiantly.

He jogged up to her. “Please get back in the car.”

“No.”

“I’ll drive you, okay?”

“Just leave me alone.”

She stormed off. Cars whizzed by. Some honked at her. Myron followed.

“Where are you going?”

“I made a mistake. I should have never called you.”

“Aimee, just get back in the car. It’s not safe out here.”

“You’re going to tell my parents.”

“I won’t. I promise.”

She slowed down and then stopped. More cars zoomed by on Route 4. The gas station attendant looked at them and spread his arms in a what-gives gesture. Myron held up a finger indicating that they needed a minute.

“I’m sorry,” Myron said. “I’m just concerned for your welfare. But you’re right. I made a promise. I’ll keep it.”

Aimee still had her arms crossed. She squinted at him, again as only a teenager can. “Swear?”

“I swear,” he said.

“No more questions?”

“None.”

She trudged back to the car.

Myron followed. He gave the attendant his credit card, and they drove off.

Aimee told him to take Route 17 North. There were so many malls, so many shopping centers, that it almost seemed as though it were one continuous strip. Myron remembered how his father, whenever they would drive past the Livingston Mall, would shake his head and point and moan, “Look at all the cars! If the economy is so bad, why are there so many cars? The lot’s full! Look at them all.”

Myron’s mother and father were currently ensconced in a gated community outside of Boca Raton. Dad had finally sold the warehouse in Newark and now spent his days marveling at what most people had been doing for years: “Myron, have you been to a Staples? My God, they have every kind of pen and paper there. And the price clubs. Don’t even get me started. I bought eighteen screwdrivers for less than ten dollars. We go, we buy so much stuff, I always tell the man at the checkout counter, I say—oh, he laughs at this, Myron—I always say, ‘I just saved so much money, I’m going bankrupt.’ ”

Myron cast a glance at Aimee. He remembered his own teenage years, the war that is adolescence, and thought about how many times he’d deceived his own parents. He’d been a good kid. He never got in trouble, got good grades, was lofted high because of his basketball skills, but he’d hidden stuff from his parents. All kids do. Maybe it was healthy. The kids who are watched all the time, who are under constant parental surveillance—those were the ones who eventually freaked out. You need an outlet. You have to leave kids room to rebel. If not, the pressure just builds until . . .

“Take that exit over there,” Aimee said. “Linwood Avenue West.”

He did as she asked. Myron did not really know this area. New Jersey is a series of hamlets. You only knew yours well. He was an Essex County boy. This was Bergen. He felt out of his element. When they stopped at a traffic light he sighed and leaned back, and used the move to take a good hard look at Aimee.

She looked young and scared and helpless. Myron thought about that last one for a moment. Helpless. She turned and met his eyes, and there was a challenge there. Was helpless a fair assessment? Stupid as it might be to think about it, how much of a role was sexism playing here? Play the chauvinism card for a moment. If Aimee was a guy, a big high school football jock, for example, would he be this worried?

The truth was, he was indeed treating her differently because she was a girl.

Was that right—or was he getting mired in some politically correct nonsense?

“Take the next right, then a left at the end of the road.”

He did. Soon they were deep in the tangle of houses. Ridgewood
was an old albeit large village—tree-lined streets, Victorians, curvy roads, hills and valleys. Jersey geography. The suburbs were puzzle pieces, interconnected, parts jammed into other parts, few smooth boundaries or right angles.

She led him up a steep road, down another, a left, then a right, then another right. Myron obeyed on autopilot, his thoughts elsewhere. His mind tried to conjure up the right words to say. Aimee had been crying earlier tonight—he was sure of that. She looked somewhat traumatized, but at her age, isn’t everything a trauma? She probably had a fight with her boyfriend, the basement-mentioned Randy. Maybe ol’ Randy dumped her. Guys did that in high school. They got off on breaking hearts. Made them a big man.

He cleared his throat and aimed for casual: “Are you still dating that Randy?”

Her reply: “Next left.”

He took it.

“The house is over there, on the right.”

“At the end of the cul-de-sac?”

“Yes.”

Myron pulled up to it. The house was hunkered down, totally dark. There were no streetlights. Myron blinked a few times. He was still tired, still more foggy-brained than he should be from the earlier festivities. He flashed to Esperanza for a moment, to how lovely she looked, and, selfish as it sounded, he wondered again how this marriage would change things.

“It doesn’t look like anybody’s home,” he said.

“Stacy’s probably asleep.” Aimee pulled a key out. “Her bedroom is by the back door. I always just let myself in.”

Myron shifted into park and turned off the ignition. “I’ll walk with you.”

“No.”

“How will I know you got in okay?”

“I’ll wave.”

Another car pulled down the street behind them. The headlights hit Myron via the rearview mirror. He shaded his eyes. Odd, he thought, two cars on this road at this time of night.

Aimee snagged his attention. “Myron?”

He looked at her.

“You can’t tell my parents about this. They’ll freak, okay?”

“I won’t tell.”

“Things—” She stopped, looked out the window toward the house. “Things aren’t so great with them right now.”

“With your parents?”

She nodded.

“You know that’s normal, right?”

She nodded again.

He knew that he had to tread gently here. “Can you tell me more?”

“Just . . . this will only strain things more. If you tell, I mean. Just don’t, okay?”

“Okay.”

“Keep your promise.”

And with that, Aimee was out the door. She jogged toward the gate leading to the back. She disappeared behind the house. Myron waited. She came back out to the gate. She smiled now and waved that everything was just fine. But there was something there, something in the wave, something that didn’t quite add up.

Myron was about to get out of the car, but Aimee stopped him with a shake of her head. Then she slipped back into the yard, the night swallowing her whole.