A Kiss Too Late

After what felt like a scavenger hunt, Adam finally managed to find all his clothes–suit jacket tossed over a chair back, pants strewn on the floor, shirt crumpled at the end of the bed. At last, fully dressed, he glanced around again. He still couldn’t get over the sorry state of this place. The bedroom window was barred like a jail cell. Water stains pocked the low ceiling, and pipes rattled in the flimsy walls, as someone in the apartment next door used the plumbing. This place was a genuine dive. What did Jen think she was doing here? What was she trying to prove?

Okay, so she’d been making some cockeyed bid for independence ever since their divorce. She wouldn’t accept any money from him. He’d had his lawyer contact her a dozen times, but to no avail. Yet Jen obviously couldn’t even afford a decent place to live. Was this her idea of happiness and self-fulfillment? He just didn’t get it.

Adam took his wallet from his back pocket and extracted several bills in the largest denominations he had. He tucked them under a bottle of lotion on the bureau. At least now he wouldn’t have to worry about his ex-wife’s starving to death.

He left her apartment and stepped onto a musty elevator that shook all the way down to the lobby. Outside, the blare of car horns greeted him. This was what Jen came home to every day. What the hell was going on with her?

He flagged a taxi and settled in for the drive downtown. He had plenty of time to stare at the graffiti-scrawled walls, the abandoned scaffolding of once-ambitious construction projects, the trees barricaded behind iron fences. Adam disliked New York and always had. Boston was his city–big, rowdy, friendly. New York was just too damn tense.

At last the taxi burrowed its way among the skyscrapers of the financial district. A perpetual dimness lurked here, the old stone buildings rising like muted brown ghosts. Adam swung out of the cab and strode into one of the buildings. Now a perfectly noiseless elevator took him gliding smoothly upward. The atmosphere was hushed, as if the preoccupations of investment bankers demanded absolute quiet. That was something else Adam disliked–investment bankers. Yet today he had an appointment to meet with one. It had finally come to that.

The offices of Fowler, Meredith and Company on the forty-ninth floor were sleek and bland, all the walls and furniture in the reception area a subdued off-white. Even the sunlight filtering in through the blinds seemed off-white, a watered-down version of the real thing. An equally subdued secretary brought Adam a cup of hot coffee. He could use that, all right. He’d almost finished with it by the time he was ushered into the office of Jefferson Henshaw, a partner in the prestigious acquisitions-and-mergers department.

Henshaw looked too young for the exalted position he held, a shock of wispy blond hair falling over his forehead like a schoolboy’s. Adam grimaced to himself. The last thing he needed was to deal with some hotshot fresh out of Harvard business school. He glanced at the framed diplomas on Henshaw’s wall. Adam’s list of dislikes was growing this morning. He didn’t trust a guy who framed his diplomas in teak like they were works of art.

“Mr. Prescott,” said Jefferson Henshaw. “Pleasure to meet you. Have a seat.” He spoke a shade too heartily, his handshake a bit too firm, as if he’d been coached in some business-etiquette class to present a forceful image. With heavy misgivings, Adam sat down on the other side of his desk.

“I can tell you I already have Darnard Publishing very interested in your newspaper,” Henshaw said, still in hearty mode. “You’ve picked a good time to sell.”

More like sell out–that was how it felt to Adam. If he sacrificed the Boston Standard, he’d be betraying his family heritage. The problem was that family-owned newspapers didn’t thrive in today’s economy. It was a knowledge that Adam had been fighting for a long while. He’d put everything into the Standard, and the paper still wasn’t breaking even.

“I’m looking at various possibilities,” Adam said grimly. “Going public is an option.”

“You start selling public stock, and you run the risk of losing any control of the paper at all. Let Darnard buy you out, and you can probably work a deal to stay on as editor.” There was the slightest condescension in Henshaw’s voice, as if he couldn’t understand why anyone would want to be the editor of a middling New England paper like the Standard. Hell, was this what it had come to? Adam was being patronized by some snot-nosed kid who was supposed to be the newest financial wizard. Today Adam felt every one of his forty years, and then some.

“I don’t enjoy the idea of editing a newspaper I don’t own,” Adam said.

“Darnard is the best way to go, believe me.”

Adam shrugged. He knew that Darnard Publishing was a corporate conglomerate currently expanding into television, as well as gobbling up newspapers and magazines. If Adam agreed to the deal, the Boston Standard would become just another link in a nationwide media chain. It would no longer be the family paper that Adam’s great-grandfather, Benjamin Prescott, had founded more than one hundred years ago.

Adam stood abruptly. “I’ll think about it.”

Henshaw frowned. “I’m ready right now to go over the details.”

“I’m not.”

“Mr. Prescott, I thought you were ready to seriously negotiate. You can’t keep these people dangling–”

“Let them dangle.”

Several minutes later, Adam was striding down the street, hands jammed into his pockets. It took him a while to realize where he was headed–Battery Park, to the pier where you caught the Statue of Liberty ferry. Although Adam disliked New York, he’d always had a fondness for the Lady, and there she was, with her great flowing robes and spiked crown. To the world she might represent freedom, but to Adam she held a much more personal appeal–she reflected belligerent determination, a determination to choose what was right despite all obstacles.

If only Adam could choose what was right for his newspaper. As for his ex-wife, hell, he’d never been able to figure out what was right where Jen was concerned. Last night had proved that all over again.

Adam turned and began striding in the opposite direction.

* * *

THE LUNCH RUSH at Gil’s Deli in midtown Manhattan started to pick up speed at around eleven in the morning. Nearby office workers sought out the place, intent on beating the crowds for Gil’s famed homemade sausage and potato salad. Jen, one of the deli’s newer employees, still worked the sandwich bar, not yet trusted to mix the secret recipe for potato salad. She stood behind a long counter, lackadaisically slapping mustard and mayonnaise on slices of whole wheat bread.

“What’s up?” asked her friend Suzanne, coming along to replenish Jen’s supply of pickles, romaine lettuce and Swiss cheese. “You’ve been distracted all morning.”

“Nothing,” Jen muttered. “I’m fine. Just fine and dandy.” She tossed a lettuce leaf and two slabs of ham on the thick, crusty bread. One decisive cut of her knife, and a number five, cheese-and-ham-on-wheat, lay waiting before her.

“Something’s wrong,” Suzanne said calmly, breaking out the pastrami. “I’ve never seen you like this.”

“I can’t talk about it.”

“You’ll talk,” Suzanne said with an air of confidence. Jen tossed two slices of rye bread down on the counter and dug into the mustard jar. Then she glanced at her friend in exasperation. She’d quickly bonded with Suzanne, whose placid demeanor hid implacable drive. This morning, as usual, Suzanne’s hair was swept back into a careless ponytail, and she wore her favorite uniform–corduroy pants and a madras blouse. In spite of Suzanne’s casual appearance, however, she was a focused, single-minded person, intent on accomplishing the goals she’d set for herself. She juggled her job at the deli with a full load of class work, and she intended to be a lawyer someday. She was already tenacious in cross-examination.

“What happened?” she asked. “Come on, Jen. You stormed in here, hardly said good-morning and–”

“I’ve made a complete ass of myself!” Jen raised her voice more than she’d intended, and several interested faces swiveled toward her.

Suzanne’s expression remained unconcerned. “Everyone makes an ass out of herself now and then. Why should you be different?”

“Damn,” Jen said in despair, but she never once stopped wielding the mustard. Unbidden, memories of the night before came back to her. Adam kissing her in the foyer of her apartment building. Much later, Adam standing beside her bed, both of them fumbling with zippers and buttons…

Jen’s face burned. She worked in silence a few moments, advancing from rye to pumpernickel and sourdough. “Lord…I slept with my ex-husband last night,” she said miserably. “He shows up unannounced, informs me that my mother is getting married of all things, and I’m supposed to help with the wedding. And after that we…well, I can’t believe I let it happen.” There–it was out. The dreadful, mortifying truth. All Jen’s bad judgment exposed. Suzanne, however, appeared unperturbed.

“What’s so awful, Jen? The way you explained it before, your ex is gorgeous and rich. I still can’t figure out why you left him.”

Jen struggled with an all-too-familiar frustration. It seemed no one understood why she’d left Adam. Not her mother, not her friends…not even Adam himself. She pulled over a tray of sesame-seed buns and scowled at them.

“Outwardly Adam is a very…charismatic person. He sweeps up everyone around him. But inwardly, when it comes to emotions, Adam doesn’t let anyone get too close. He never let me get too close, that’s for damn sure.”

Suzanne waved a piece of Swiss cheese. “I still don’t understand. Your mother has money–tons of it. Your ex has money–tons of it. But you’re here slogging it out, trying to land a job as an actress. Jen, your mother could probably build you your own theater. And if you’d let your ex pay alimony, you’d be rolling in dough, instead of slicing it.”

Jen thought she heard a touch of envy in Suzanne’s voice. Suzanne was very pragmatic, always counting dollars and cents. It must annoy her that Jen had walked away from so much family wealth. But Jen felt stifled by it–smothered. Two years ago, when she’d turned thirty, she’d begun to realize that never once had she proved anything on her own. The Hillard name–and then the Prescott name–had buffered her. Oh, she could have kept coasting along, safe and protected, never pursuing her secret yearnings. She could have done that–but courage had demanded otherwise.

She sighed deeply. “Speaking of acting jobs,” she said, “I have an audition this afternoon. Will you cover for me?”

“Only if you relax about your night with the ex. It’s no big deal.”

Jen thought very much otherwise. She attacked a batch of caraway rye. “All I know is that Adam had better not be there when I get back. I left him in the apartment–asleep. I don’t know how I’ll ever face the man again!”

* * *

HOURS LATER, Jen hurried down the street, threading her way through the crowd. Even after a year in New York, the novelty of the place still hadn’t worn off. She loved everything about it: the theater posters plastered one after the other on the walls, the fruit and candy stands with their cheerful umbrellas, the exotic shops and palm-reading rooms tucked into odd corners, the pots of flowers brightening the fire escapes, the high narrow buildings jutting up all around. She’d never known any other town like it. Boston didn’t compare; it just didn’t have the same excitement. As for Newport, well, she’d grown up in Newport. That was where she’d first fallen in love with Adam Prescott, reason enough to stay away from the place.

Jen glanced at the address she’d scribbled on a scrap of paper. The small theater where she’d be auditioning today didn’t even qualify as off-off-Broadway, but no matter. Jen followed any prospect she could find. And now she had an agent–a serious young man named Bernie who actually returned her phone calls. That was worth something right there.

She pushed open the door and stepped into a dim foyer, then found her way to the theater proper, where rows of wooden seats sloped toward the stage. A cluster of people stood murmuring together several feet from Jen. The air was dank in here, the stage curtains sadly worn and drooping. Even so, the familiar reactions that any theater evoked for her kicked in: the tightening of anticipation in her stomach, the sense of magic. Ever since she was a kid, it’d been like this. When she was nine, her parents had taken her to see a play for the first time. She still remembered it–Shakespeare’s Twelfth Night. All the lights shining on the stage, the glittering costumes, the vivid backdrops–every detail had imprinted itself on her young mind. She had vowed right then that someday she would be an actress. It had taken her two decades to finally put that vow to the test….

Jen stirred from her reverie. Taking a deep breath, she walked toward the group of people. A bored-looking woman with dyed red hair turned to her.

“Not another one,” she said wearily. “You’re too old for the lead, you know.”