Meet Me in Manhattan (True Vows) (14 page)

He groaned softly. "I think he's making a lot of sense."

"I think he's about as real as all the other ghosts. It's your head
that's haunted."

"You haunt me," he murmured, then dove in for another long,
deep kiss.

"I can't," she moaned when he finally broke the kiss. "I want
to, Ted, but ... I'm not ready."

He was breathing hard, pressing himself into the valley
between her legs. He moaned, too. "Okay," he said, closing his
eyes, although she could tell pulling back was a struggle for him.

She was struggling, too. Struggling because she wanted him. Struggling because the minute she said no, he said okay. Ghosts
or no ghosts, he would never force her, never pressure her.

Which made her want him more. Which made her wonder if
she did love him.

Which scared the hell out of her.

WORKING AT A GAS STATION IS SERIOUSLY BORING. You sit
behind the counter in the store, which thank God is air-conditioned,
and wait for people to drive up to the pump. Then you go outside
into the steamy summer heat and fill their tanks. Sometimes they'll
pay you outside, and sometimes they'll follow you inside because,
along with their gas, they want to buy a candy bar or a bag of pork
rinds. Maybe something for their car-a bottle of motor oil or an air
freshener shaped like a pine tree that they can hook over the rearview mirror. Occasionally someone will ask you for directions, and
you have to be friendly and helpful. If the customer is an old lady,
you might exert yourself a bit and wash the dead bugs from her
windshield-especially if the boss is around. And if the gas station
is really dead, you might help out in the garage bay, patching punctured tires or carrying the sludge from oil changes to the drum in
the back.

Oh, and sometimes you get to refill the toilet paper dispensers in
the rest room.

There are promises about giving you some training and letting
you tackle greater challenges-having proven your skill at changing wiper blades and fuses, the mechanics have hinted that you
might want to learn how to do state inspections. But this isn't what you want out of life. This isn't what you were born for. It
isn't your calling.

Sometimes, however, if you're lucky, a beautiful girl drives up to
the pump. Before she can get out of her vehicle, you're out the door,
racing across the hot asphalt to the driver's side as she rolls down the
window. "Can I fill you up?" you ask, and she gives you a sly, sexy
smile and says something about how she'd really like it if you did
just that. And you pump her Jeep Wagoneer with the Trinity College
sticker and the horse decals all over it full ofgas, and when the pump
clicks off you return to her window, and she's smiling even more,
and looking sexier than before, and you want to jump into the car
with her and drive away. You don't care where. You don't care about
paying for the gas, or keeping your spirit-killing job, or saying goodbye to your parents or even your dog. You just want to go. With her.
Wherever she'll take you, that's where you want to be.

It was too soon to start packing for college, but Erika liked to
be organized and on top of things. She didn't want to wait until
the end of August, frantic and frenzied as she tried to figure out
what to ship, what to bring with her, what to leave behind. Some
things-her computer, her CDs-couldn't be packed yet. But her
winter clothes could. She wouldn't need sweaters in New Jersey in
July, but she sure as hell would need them in Colorado in
December.

So she'd methodically packed most of her sweaters into a carton for shipping. They were too bulky to make the trip in a suitcase. She'd also packed the books she would need at college:
dictionary, thesaurus, a few classic novels, her calculus textbook,
although God knew she wasn't planning to take a lot of math
courses.

Even though most of her bedroom remained untouched, it felt different to her. She knew that several inches of the hanger rod in
her closet were now exposed because she'd packed the flannel
shirts and cardigans that used to hang there. She knew the desk
drawer where she used to store printer paper and ink cartridges
was empty.

She knew that in the not too distant future, she would be leaving. And her bedroom seemed to know it, too. Her bedspread, the
matching curtains framing the window, the cordless phone on
her night table, the alarm clock that used to rouse her for school
and riding lessons and trips to horse shows, the shelves of trophies and ribbons-all these familiar things seemed to radiate a
chill, as if they resented her decision to abandon them.

"I'll be back," she whispered, feeling like an idiot for talking to
inanimate objects. "There'll be trips home for school breaks. It's
not like I'm leaving forever."

Yet a part of her knew she was leaving forever. She was leaving
not just the phone and the curtains but her childhood. The girl
she once was.

For months, she'd dreamed of leaving this room, moving on,
setting off on her great Colorado adventure. Nothing was going
to stand in the way of those dreams. She couldn't wait to begin
the next stage of her life. That was what she wanted. Even if it
meant saying good-bye to riding, saying good-bye to Five Star.

Saying good-bye to Ted.

A soft moan escaped her. This-the unable-to-say-goodbye
part-wasn't supposed to happen. Ted was her summer
boyfriend and, yes, she was crazy about him. Mad about him.
Wild about him. But Erika wasn't a crazy-mad-wild kind of girl.
She would leave, she would miss him-and as she had just told
her bedroom, she'd be back.

By the time she returned to Mendham, he would probably be gone himself. Just as she was growing and changing and moving
on, he would be, too. How much longer would he be pumping
gas? Surely he'd grow sick of it and find something else to do,
someplace else to be.

Her phone rang, and she sprang across the room to answer it.
She hoped it was Laura, someone she could whine to, even
though she wasn't sure what she had to whine about. "Hello?"

"Hi," Ted said.

Instead of being disappointed that the caller wasn't Laura, she
felt her mouth spread in a giddy smile and her breath catch in her
throat. After all these weeks, after so much time spent with him,
after spending the past few minutes persuading herself that she
wasn't really in love with him, she still responded to the sound of
his voice like someone intoxicated by love. "Hi," she said.

"I'm just about finished at work."

"Do you want me to pick you up?" she offered.

"Nah. I smell like axle grease. I've got to shower before I'll let
you near me.

"I'm sure you smell fine."

"I'll smell fine after I shower. Wanna come by later?"

"Sure."

"I was thinking maybe we could take in a movie."

"Is anything good playing?"

He didn't immediately answer. They'd already seen every halfway decent movie that had come out that summer. "Encino Man?"
he suggested.

"Yuck."

He laughed. "So, what do you want to do?"

"We could just hang out," she said. "Go driving or something."

"Okay. Why don't you come by my house in about an hour? I
should be smelling less greasy by then."

"Sure."

"I wish ..." he hesitated.

"What?"

"I wish you didn't have to do all the driving."

"That's okay," she said. "I don't mind." She honestly didn't. At
some point in the future, she might get tired of driving, but the
novelty hadn't worn off yet.

She knew what Ted was really saying, though: he wished he had
a car. She wanted to reassure him, to tell him it didn't matter to
her that she had a car and he didn't. But he probably didn't want
to hear that. Guys wanted cars. They wanted jobs that didn't leave
them smelling like axle grease. They liked to impress girls.

She was already so impressed by Ted-by his artistic talent, his
devotion to the animals his family raised, his devotion to his
family. He didn't need a car to make her heart swoon over him.

"Go shower," she said. "I'll pick you up in an hour."

"My parents are thinking of moving to Maine," he told her.

Their big drive had so far taken them only as far as the Country
Coffee House, where they'd ordered sandwiches and sodas. Under
the table, Erika had slipped off her flip-flops and perched her feet
on Ted's lap. Every now and then, he'd let one hand drop beneath
the table and give her toes a squeeze.

"Maine? Why?"

"Money?" he half said, half asked. "New Jersey is so freaking
expensive. You know they love going up there. My dad's thinking
of making it permanent."

"Wow." She nibbled the corner of her chicken sandwich,
thoughtful. "What will you do if they move there?"

"I don't want to live in Maine," he said. "Too cold. I'll find someplace else to live." He grinned. "I hear Colorado is nice."

He seemed to be joking, and she dutifully responded with a
laugh. But what if he was serious? What if he moved to Colorado
Springs with her?

On the one hand, this was not part of her plan. She wanted to
concentrate on college, not on Ted. She wanted to try new things,
not continue with the old. She wanted to be open, unencumbered, moving on.

On the other hand ... This was Ted. Sweet, funny, intense,
smart, sexy Ted. Who she was not in love with, she reminded herself firmly. Mad-crazy-wild about, perhaps, but not in love with.

She didn't want to think about it. Didn't want to think about
his following her to Colorado, didn't want to think about saying
good-bye to him. Her sweaters might be packed, but she wasn't
ready to leave town yet. That major step was weeks away. She
spent too much time thinking about the future; at that moment,
she only wanted to think about the present.

Once they'd finished their sandwiches, she slid her feet back
into her sandals and they drove off. She cruised past the high
school, past India Brook Park, past Village Pizza. They didn't see
any of their friends' cars at any of those places, so they just kept
driving, hot wind blasting them through the Wagoneer's open
windows.

Erika's reflexes must have kicked in, because without consciously thinking about it she wound up driving to the stable
where Five Star boarded. "Let's go say hi to my baby," she said.

Ted seemed satisfied with that choice. Once she'd pulled into
the lot near the barn, he got out and joined her at the front
bumper. The sky still held the last traces of daylight, but spotlights had been turned on near the barn entrance and out in the corral, where a few young riding students were trotting in a circle,
practicing their posting.

Erika strode directly to the barn, Ted falling into step beside
her. Inside, the ceiling lights spilled a yellow light over the stalls,
some empty, some occupied by snorting, munching horses. Erika
knew a few of the other horses and liked them fine. But Five Star
was her one and only. She headed straight for his stall.

As soon as he saw her approach, he thrust his head out and
gave a happy whinny. "Hey, baby," she cooed, rubbing his nose.
He exhaled, warm and moist, onto her hand. "You remember
Ted, don't you, honey?"

Ted gave the horse a perfunctory nod. Erika knew he was
humoring her, and she appreciated his effort.

"Have you been a good boy today?" she asked Five Star, still
rubbing his nose and then resting her head against his cheek.
"You're my sweetheart, aren't you."

Five Star bobbed his head, his mane flopping along his neck.

"I'm going to miss you when I leave for college," she confided
to the horse. "I'm going to cry when I have to say good-bye."

"Are you going to cry when you have to say good-bye to me?"
Ted asked. His tone was light, but she heard a solemnity underlining the words. He meant the question seriously. He wanted to
know if she would miss him as much as she missed Five Star.

"I will be a wreck," she promised. That wasn't a lie. She would
miss Ted-assuming he didn't do something totally nuts like follow her out to Colorado. She knew Five Star wouldn't follow her
out to Colorado. And it wasn't just Five Star she would miss. It
was riding. It was the entire life she'd been living since she first
climbed onto the back of a pony at the age of six.