Chapter Three: NYC, Thursday, April 7, 2005
Simon found his way to Central Park and the MET with thankfully little difficulty and spotted Caroline sitting on the large stone steps, a book on her lap, almost as soon as the building came into view.
And man. She looked even prettier today than she had on Tuesday. When she looked up at him and smiled, he had to remind himself to breathe.
Her smile deepened as he grew closer. She stood—hesitated a second—then stepped right into his personal space. She didn't touch him, not even to take his hand, but she was there in way the felt more real than anything or anyone had ever felt before. It left him dizzy.
It left him puzzled, because…. Deena…Cecelia. Georgia. Sandra. All the other girls he'd…. He swallowed back the lump in his throat. Maybe he didn't deserve to feel like this.
"I hope you don't mind that I didn't have time to change after school," Caroline said, sounding a little shy. Embarrassed.
Not that Simon thought there was anything embarrassing about the way she looked. "Nah. Remember, I said my little sister went to a private school for a couple of years." Of course, Ruthie only had to drag out the blazer with the school crest on it for special occasions, but still.
"It's not as pretentious as it looks. Or…maybe the school is." She shifted her backpack on her shoulder.
"I can carry that if you want."
Caroline gave him an appraising look, then handed it over.
"Jheeze, what do you have in here?"
She laughed. "Homework, mostly. And a couple of books from the library. You don't have to—" She reached out to take it back, but he shook his head.
"I don't mind. And anyway, like I said before, my little sister used to go to a private school. Although I guess maybe I should tell you she was there on a scholarship." Maybe they should establish up front that he was broke.
"We have some scholarship kids at my school, too. Honestly, I like them better than the ones whose parents don't need the scholarship. But…I guess I should tell you that my parents don't need any kind of scholarship money to send me, or my brother, to private school…not that Jake could get a scholarship. It's not so much that he's not smart, he just…he's a bit hotheaded."
"Does that mean I should watch my back?" Simon teased. Heat flooded his cheeks. He was only in town for a couple of weeks, and this was only dinner.
"I can handle my brother," Caroline assured him.
He laughed—but something in her tone suggested she meant it. "What about the rest of the Chandler-Wells clan? Are they in private schools?"
"Beth is thinking about it. Charles, Christopher, and Janelle are doing home school." Her smile seemed to falter, just a little.
"Is everything okay with them…I mean…I don't mean to be nosey. You can totally tell me to mind my own business."
"It's okay." She chewed her lower lip a little. "It's just one of the things people think make my family weird. It's not that they couldn't go to school, it's that they don't want to. Grandfather homeschooled Father. We have other help, too, other teachers. For art and music. My father learned to speak Russian and Chinese when he was a kid. I'm learning German. My favorite poet is German." Color tinted her cheeks. "Maybe that's a silly reason to take up a new language."
"It's not silly. And it sounds nice," he told her honestly. It wasn't so much what she said—the last thing Simon ever would have wanted was to be homeschooled—but the way she said it. "Who's your favorite poet?"
"Rainer Maria Rilke."
"I don't know him. I mean, not that I know any poets really."
Caroline closed her eyes. "How shall I hold my soul, that it may not be touching yours? How shall I lift it then, above you, to where other things are waiting? Ah! Gladly would I lodge it, all forgot, with some dark thing the dark is isolating on some remote and silent spot that, when your depths vibrate, is not itself, vibrating. You and me—all that lights upon us though, brings us together, like a fiddle bow. Drawing one voice from two strings, it glides along." She smiled and opened her eyes, bright and blue, fixed on his face. "Across what instrument have we been spanned. And what violinist holds us in his hand? Oh, sweetest song."
"Wow." Simon had to remind himself to breathe again.
"Rilke," she told him.
"I can see why he's your favorite poet."
Her smiled warmed.
And…he had no idea what to say except to ask her what she wanted to eat, which made him feel lamer than ever, even if she didn't seem to think so.
"How do you feel about the museum restaurant? It's not half as fancy as it looks," she promised. "I mean it does look fancy—but that's just to impress the tourists. And anyway, Mother has a membership, so I get a discount on meals and stuff from the gift shop."
….
When the check came, Caroline insisted on getting it.
"I asked you, remember?" Simon objected.
"Think of it as a belated birthday dinner."
"I…really don't…."
"Please?"
"All right. But the next time we go out I'm paying," he insisted.
Caroline's smile made Simon not really care how embarrassed he felt about his date—not-date—paying for dinner. As for their waiter, he seemed politely amused by their conversation.
Caroline sobered after he'd gone. "There's something I really need to tell you and the truth is that I really don't want to because I'm really enjoying your company."
"You are? I mean…I'm enjoying your company, too," Simon admitted. "I know I shouldn't be. I just…maybe I should tell you something too. A couple of somethings. And not just that stuff like the only way my little sister got into private school was on a scholarship or that my parents definitely don't the kind of money to have museum memberships."
"I don't care about stuff like that," Caroline told him.
"I know." He wasn't sure how he knew. He just…did.
The waiter returned with their change. He watched Caroline slip her mother's membership card back into her wallet but leave the cash as a tip. An entirely too big of a tip. "Servers work really hard and doing get paid nearly enough," Caroline said quietly.
Simon couldn't help the warmth that filled his chest or the smile that played across his face, because somehow, he wouldn't have expected any less out of Caroline. He barely knew her and yet, it felt like…like he did know her. He wanted to know her. It was stupid. It was reckless.
But it wasn't like he was going to move to New York, or anything. He was going to enjoy getting to know her a little better while he was here and see what happened. He hefted her bag over his shoulder.
"You don't have to carry my books, you know."
"What kind of gentleman would I be if I didn't?"
Caroline slid her arm into his. She smiled. "Do you want to walk around the museum for a while? Or have you seen it already?"
"I…it's a nice evening. How about walking around the park?" Simon suggested as an alternative. He didn't want to say any of the things he had to say where other people could hear. And when she smiled… "You have the best smile."
Her cheeks tinted pink. "You do too."
Nervous tremors fluttered in his gut as he let Caroline guide their steps out of the museum and into the park. The sun was getting low, and the air held the crisp, cool promise of evening. Winter was technically behind them, but nights were still cold, and mornings always seemed to be accompanied by a touch of frost on the grass.
And as much as Simon wanted to tell Caroline everything, to spill his guts out, sure she would never want to speak to him again—sure that he was being as stupid, as absolutely insane, as Matt thought he was for wanting her to keep on talking to him—he found himself enjoying the comfortable quiet that settled between them as they walked. For the first time in as long as he could remember, he felt…settled.
Grounded.
It was a good feeling.
Eventually, Caroline led them to a bench, overlooking a slow-moving river. Or stream. Or whatever. All Simon knew was that it felt peaceful there, only a few people walking on the path behind them, the skyscrapers in the distance, standing dark and tall over barren treetops, the sky beyond the buildings, turning golden with the approaching sunset. They sat for a long while, her arm through his, shoulders pressed together, the pulse of her heart thrumming quietly in his ears in a way he was sure no one else's heartbeat ever had.
At length, Caroline spoke. "I know you said you had stuff to say too, but I should go first because after I do, you…well, it might not really matter what you have to say after I say what I have to say." She straightened, pulling away a little.
He missed her warmth almost the instant it was gone. "I doubt that, but go on."
"Yesterday, I asked you if you had any idea how old I was, and you guessed seventeen or eighteen."
"I'm guessing now you might be a little younger than that?" Because why else would it be a big deal? Only what difference did it make if she was sixteen, especially if maybe she was more like sixteen and a half or something? Hadn't Sasha been almost eighteen when he was just fifteen? It hadn't been the best or brightest idea he'd ever had, but—
"My birthday is in January. I'll be sixteen."
For a second, the world bottomed out.
She was fifteen?
But…she didn't look fifteen. She didn't look sixteen!
She didn't act fifteen, either!
Which had to count for something.
Except for the part where he was still almost four years older than her.
Thee and a half.
Which was splitting hairs, and he knew it.
"I'm sorry. I know I should have said something sooner. I was just really enjoying your company. I know that was selfish of me. I truly am sorry." She pulled further away from him.
"No, it's okay," Simon lied. Only—it wasn't exactly a lie. He could have asked. He should have asked, especially after she asked. That made it just as much his fault as it was hers. "Does…this is going to sound really bad, but does Sarah know how old you are?"
"I've never mentioned it to her, and she's never asked me. I'm sure it never seemed any more relevant to her to ask than it did for me to say something. Most people make the same assumption you did. I know I look older than I do, and I hate it. There's just nothing I can do about it. Except maybe do what my Uncle Fin suggested. You don't want to know," she said to the inquisitive look Simon shot over. She sat several inches away now, not touching him at all. "I had a really nice time with you tonight, Simon, thank you. I hope you'll forgive me for being so selfish and of course, I understand that you're ready to go home. Do you think you can navigate the subway okay?"
"No, I…I mean yeah, I can get back to Matt and Sarah's place fine, but…I mean, it was just dinner, right? That's no big deal. Two people can have dinner without it being something it's not because I'm just barely nineteen and you're….you're fifteen and a half, right? And it's not like we did anything, like I would ever do anything that…you know…. I mean…I mean…even if you were older, I'm not that kind of guy…well, maybe, I mean…I've been…Am I being a total idiot?"
Caroline laughed, but like before, there was nothing cruel or mocking about the sound. "Only a little. And rest assured that if you were that kind of guy, I'm more than capable of stopping you—or anyone else—from taking advantage of me." She slid a little closer, but not close enough to touch him. "The thing is, if I thought you were that kind of guy, I would never have wanted to spend time with you."
"I am 'that kind of guy', Caroline. I mean…I wouldn't…not with you. Not any fifteen-year-old, I'm not stupid…at least not that stupid…or…or it's not just that. I mean it is that, but it's more. A lot more. The thing I wanted to tell you earlier is that I don't have the best track record when it comes to girls. Women. Women my own age. I've made some really bad choices. I've been 'that kind of guy' before and I really regret it."
"Did you hurt anyone?"
"No." But he shook his head. That was a lie. "Yes. I did. I didn't mean to and I…I would never…I never raised a hand to anyone or…or tried to force anyone into anything. If anything, it was Georgia's idea for us to…but I went along with it and I know I hurt her. I hurt Cecelia, too. She's the girl I dated through my last year of high school. Georgia was after her, except after we broke up, I dated Cecelia again, then Georgia again and….it gets pretty complicated. The point is that in one way or another, I've hurt most of the girls I've gone out with."
Caroline gave him a long, thoughtful look. "Most of the time, when things happen, it's not one person's fault. Or the other's. So maybe you did hurt these women. Georgia. Cecelia. Others in this apparently 'pretty complicated' history of yours. But it sounds to me like you got hurt, too, Simon."
"Maybe. But a man…a man takes responsibility for his actions." Hadn't he been trying since he was fifteen to be a man, an older brother worthy of being looked up to?
He was a failure at that, too.
"You're right, a man does take responsibility for his actions," Caroline agreed. "So does a woman, by the way," she added, a trace of acidic tartness in her voice. "Everybody involved is responsible for what happened, because I believe you when you say you didn't try to force anyone into anything they didn't want."
"I swear, I didn't. But—"
She pressed her fingers to her lips. "You hurt each other, Simon. You. Cecelia. Georgia. Whomever else. No one is entirely to blame—and no one is free from liability, for owning their actions and taking responsible for their part in whatever happened, either. So, if you haven't talked to them—if you haven't forgiven each other—then maybe when you get home, you can find a way to start the process. And believe me, forgiveness is a process."
"Yeah. I know. I think…I think we tried. At least me and Georgia."
"Sometimes you have to keep on trying until you get it right."
Simon let the warmth of Caroline's hand hold him steady for a long moment. A much longer moment than was appropriate, he was sure. But it felt good. It felt nice. Except, "There's…there is something else. I just feel like…." He floundered.
"Like maybe you've talked enough for one night?"
"Yeah." He felt wrung out, even though all that stuff about his ex-girlfriends wasn't the worst of it—even though he hadn't gone into enough detail about all of it. It was just that the way Caroline said what she had, about how it wasn't all one person's fault, it made him believe that maybe…maybe even though he was to blame for some of it, but maybe he wasn't to blame for all of it. It was nice to know someone was on his side for a change. He knew Mom and Dad, Matt, Lucy, Ruthie, everybody, they tried, but he couldn't help but feel that when they looked at him, all they saw were his mistakes.
My failures.
When Caroline looked at him….
How shall I hold my soul, that it may not be touching yours…?
"You can tell me the rest of it some other time," Caroline's said softly. "Or never. It's up to you what you want to share with me." Her cheeks flushed pink. "Or anyone. But I can promise that I won't judge you for whatever you say because that's not who I am."
"I don't know if you have any idea how good that sounds right now."
"Does that mean you're not going to let the age difference stand in the way of us becoming friends?"
"I'd like that. To be friends, I mean."
"I'd like it, too." She held his gaze for a long, powerful moment—then leaned in and let her head rest against his shoulder again. Neither said another word until the sun had vanished behind the trees and Caroline asked if he was okay to get home on his own.
"I should be—but maybe I should walk you?"
"I'll be fine. My home is close by. Will I see you tomorrow? The poetry reading?"
"Yeah. You'll see me tomorrow."
