"Not even close." Jake laughed. "Tell the girls they've got nothing to worry about. Must have something to do with their shack and its ambience."
The main course was the easiest. Chris and Betsy Larsen kept one of the family fish markets open in town all year long. They had boiled two three-pound lobsters for me in the afternoon, and the caretaker had brought them up to the house. I reheated them in the oven, melted some butter, and we feasted for an hour on the meaty tails and claws.
Jake added logs to the fire, and I stretched out on the living room floor while he opened a bottle of champagne. "Merry Christmas, Alexandra," he said, joining me in front of the hearth and filling a flute for each of us. I rested my head against his knee and wished him the same. We clinked our glasses together and I watched the bubbles rise and burst before I began to sip.
"Where are you?"
"Just thinking."
"About what?"
I rolled onto my back, a pillow from the sofa beneath my head, and stared into the flames. "How much my life has changed this year. What a sense of stability you've given me, in the middle of all the turbulence I see on the professional side every day."
"Can't you look me in the eye when you tell me these things?"
I slowly turned my head to glance at Jake, smiling. "I wasn't planning on saying them. I'm not sure that I've even stopped to reflect on them before now. I just know how very differently I feel about everything I do and think. If I hadn't been able to talk to you when Mercer was shot, I can't imagine what-"
"You don't let people in easily." He was stroking my hair and placing tender kisses on my nose and forehead. "You've got to be more trusting."
"The problem is that at the beginning I trust everyone. That's what's so damn disappointing. It seems as though every time I open the door to something new, the odds are twice as likely that it will slam shut on my fingers."
"Let's try to come up with solutions. For example, darling, think about this. Here's two of us, each with a ridiculously over-priced, way too large for one person who's hardly ever home, Manhattan apartment. Same general neighborhood-same proximity to your favorite restaurants, delis, liquor store, and Grace's Marketplace. Critical factors in a relationship."
I had been drinking enough to know that whatever Jake said, I wasn't going to have the appropriate answer. I could feel my pulse quickening and knew the silken pajama top couldn't muffle the sound of my pounding heartbeat. I shifted back to watch the flames dance in the fireplace.
"I think this morning's broken window and bumbling scaffolders were an omen, Alex. Why don't you give up that place and move in with me? I'm not even in town enough to get in your way very often." Jake had rested his glass on the floor and was massaging my neck. "Imagine that every single night could be like this one."
He couldn't see the tears that had welled up in my eyes. My head was swimming with conflicted feelings. It had been so long since the heartbreak of my fiancé’s death, and I had struggled for years to keep free of emotional attachments, fearing that I would lose whomever I let get close to me. For the first time, I had someone to come home to who listened to me talk about my passion for my work, the failures when I couldn't solve a victim's case and the triumphs when justice was actually achieved. Jake never carped when something kept me late at the office or when the phone rang in the middle of the night.
"I know what you're thinking now. You can't make this kind of decision yourself, without consulting your friends. This move will take a summit meeting. All the major powers have to be assembled. No problem, darling. I've covered summits for years. The Middle East, the former Soviet Union, the Pacific Rim, Camp David. How difficult can it be to move one five-foot-ten-inch, hundred-and-fifteen-pound prosecutor less than ten city blocks? Even a stubborn one? We'll bring Joan in from Washington and Nina from Los Angeles. We'll import Susan and Michael. Louise and Henry, are they on the island for the holiday? With Duane?"
I nodded my head, licking the tear that had dripped to the corner of my mouth and smiling despite myself as he ticked off the names of my friends.
"Well, I'll start with them at the crack of dawn. Take a doe sleigh up Herring Creek Road to get to them through the snow, if you insist. If I can't win you over myself, then I'll bring in all the allies I need to persuade you that it's the only sensible thing to do. Get Esther on the line. Get me Lesley Latham. Where are Ann and Vernon?"
I wanted to speak but knew that I would break the spell of the moment. Nothing Jake could say would convince me to move in with anyone, without being married. And he wasn't any closer to thinking about that permanent kind of commitment than I was. I knew him well enough to know that. I cherished my freedom and my independence. As much as I loved being with him and around him, it had only been half a year since we met, and we both had such frenetic lifestyles that it was impossible to know whether we could sustain the intensity of our relationship.
Jake put on his best anchorman's voice. "News flash. Ladies and gentlemen, this bulletin just in to our desk. Exclusive from Liz Smith. We take you live to Chilmark, on Martha's Vineyard, where former prosecutor Alexandra-"
"Former prosecutor?" I rose on one elbow and faced Jake, sure that the tip of my nose must be red, betraying my tears.
"-Cooper has announced that, after a conference with her college roommate and dearest friend, Nina Baum, and with the encouragement and support of a bevy of other loyal Cooperites, she is going to vacate apartment number 20A at-"
"Can we get back to this 'former' business?"
"I needed to do something to get your attention, didn't I? You seemed positively spellbound by the flames. How about it, darling? Of course you can bring your clothes. Yes, all your clothes. I'll get rid of my own, and the golf clubs and tennis rackets cluttering up the hall closet. You look bleary-eyed." He paused to kiss my damp eyelids. "I swear I'll make plenty of room for all the boxes of Stuart Weitzman shoes. What am I forgetting?"
"You're forgetting that anything I say at this glorious moment-my brain soaked in scotch and wine, topped off with a touch of champers-in the state of Massachusetts, lying off the coast of North America somewhere in the middle of the Atlantic Ocean, is not binding on me when we get back into the jurisdiction of New York. So even were I to acquiesce to your generous offer-"
"You can say anything except the word 'no.' You can tell me you're flattered, that you'll think about it, that the movers will be there on Thursday, that you had them come in earlier today because you hoped I'd ask you, or that you'll leave all your worldly goods behind and come, barefoot, with just the silk pajamas on your back. Any of those answers is fine. The only thing I want for Christmas is that you do not turn me down tonight."
"That's a deal. It's a wonderful offer and you make me very, very happy, just for wanting me to be there."
Jake took a minute to reflect. "Didn't you always hate it when you were a kid and you asked your parents if you could do something wonderful or exciting the next weekend-go to the fair or get a new bicycle or buy a puppy-and they answered, 'Maybe'? I think that's what I just got. A big, fat 'maybe.' Think about my offer, Ms. Cooper. I hope it keeps you awake all night tonight, and every night hereafter until you give in and throw up your hands and knock on my door, begging me to let you in."
"In the meanwhile, why don't you open your presents."
"Ah, bribery. Try and divert me with material things."
I reached for the package under the tree and handed it to Jake. He unwrapped it slowly and dropped the paper next to him. "Where did you find them? Now I'll be up all night."
Three leather-bound volumes, all first editions of works he loved. Jake collected books, like I did, and was always searching out rare finds to add to his shelves. He handled the covers carefully, reading the names imprinted on the spines. "Faulkner, Hammett, Keats. Eclectic, and all favorites. What a perfect gift."