Bolden dug his hands deep into his pockets. “Not bad for a gutter rat.”
She tugged at his sleeve. “I’m serious, Thomas.”
“I guess you must be if you’re calling me Thomas.”
They walked a few steps, and she said, “Come on, Tommy. I’m not saying it’s time to join the Four Hundred. I’m just saying it’s time to let the past go. This is your world now.”
Bolden shook his head. “Naw, I’m just passing through.”
Jenny raised her eyes, exasperated. “You’ve been passing through for seven years. That’s long enough for someone from Swaziland to become an American citizen. Don’t you think it’s enough to make you a New Yorker? Besides, it’s not such a bad place. Why don’t you stay awhile?”
Bolden stopped. Taking both of Jenny’s hands in his, he turned to face her. “I love it here, too. But you know me… I like to keep my distance. I just don’t want to get too close to them. All the guys at work. The stuffed shirts. You gotta keep your distance, or else they suck you in. Like body snatchers.”
Jenny put her head back and laughed. “They’re your friends.”
“Associates, yes. Colleagues, maybe. But friends? I don’t recall getting too many invitations to dine at my friends’ homes. Though that may very well change after the looks I caught a couple of those sleazebags giving you tonight.”
“You jealous?”
“Damn straight.”
“Really?” Jenny smiled disarmingly.
She was tall and blond, with an athlete’s toned body, and the best skyhook since Kareem. Her face was open and honest, given to determined stares and crooked smiles. She taught seventh, eighth, and ninth grade at a special ed school in the Village. She liked to say that it was just like the school in Little House on the Prairie, all the kids in one classroom, except that her kids were what the system labeled high-risk teens. High-risk teens were the bad eggs: the boys and girls who’d been expelled from their ordinary schools and were doing time with Jenny until they could be reformed, remolded, and reassigned to a public school that would take them. They were quite a bunch. Drug dealers, thieves, hustlers, and hookers, and not one over the age of fifteen. She wasn’t a teacher, so much as a lion tamer.
“By the way,” she said nonchalantly. “Dinner’s been over awhile and you still have your tie on.”
“Do I?” Bolden’s hand shot to his neck. “It’s begun. The body snatchers have me. Pretty soon, I’ll be wearing pink shirts and white loafers and putting on tight black bicycle shorts when I hit the gym. I’ll start listening to opera and o-pining about wine. I may even join a country club.”
“They’re not so bad. Our kids would love it.”
“Kids!” Bolden stared at her, aghast. “You’re one of them, too! I’m done for.”
They walked in silence for a while. Jenny tilted her head on his shoulder and laced her fingers through his. Bolden caught their reflection in a window. He was hardly a match for her. His neck was too thick, his jaw too wide, and his dark hair receding quickly at the temples. What remained was thick and peppered with gray and cut close to the scalp. Thirty-two was definitely not young in his business. His face was stern, with steadfast brown eyes, and a directness of gaze that some men found intimidating. His lips were thin, rigid. His chin split by a hatchet. He looked like a man on equal terms with uncertainty. A reliable man. A man to have at your side in the lurch. He was surprised how natural the tux looked on him. Scarier was the fact that he almost felt natural wearing it. Immediately, he yanked off his bow tie and stuffed it in his pocket.
A New Yorker, he said to himself. Mr. Big Shot with a silver plate on the way to the pisser.
No. That wasn’t him.
He was just Tom Bolden, a kid from the Midwest with neither birthright nor pedigree, and no illusions. His mother had left when he was six. He never knew his father. He grew up as a ward of the state of Illinois, a survivor of too many foster families to count, a graduate of Illinois’ most notorious reform school, and at seventeen, a felon. The conviction was sealed under court order. Even Jenny didn’t know about it.
Arm in arm, they continued up Wall Street. Past number 23 Wall, the old headquarters of J. P. Morgan when they were the world’s most powerful bankers. Not ten feet away, an anarchist’s bomb had gone off in 1920, killing three dozen employees and bystanders, and upending a Model T. The chinks in the wall from the shrapnel had never been repaired and were still visible. Across the street stood the New York Stock Exchange, a huge American flag draped across the Corinthian columns, nothing less than a temple to capitalism. To their right, a steep flight of stairs led to Federal Hall, the seat of government when the nation’s capital had been situated in New York City.
“You know what today is?” he asked.
“Tuesday the eighteenth?”
“Yes, it’s Tuesday the eighteenth. And…? You mean you don’t remember?”
“Oh, my God,” gasped Jenny. “I’m so sorry. It’s just that with the dinner and finding a dress and everything else…”
Just then, Bolden dropped her hand and vaulted up a few stairs. “Follow me,” he said.
“What are you doing?”
“Come on. Up here. Sit down.” Turning, he indicated to Jenny to take a seat.
“It’s cold.” She eyed him curiously, then climbed the stairs and sat. He grinned, loving this part. The before. The wind blew stronger, tousling her hair around her face. She had wonderful hair, thick, naturally curly, as many colors as a field of summer wheat. He remembered seeing her for the first time. It was on the basketball court at the Y. She pulled off a between-the-legs dribble followed by a twenty-foot jumper that hit nothing but net. She’d been wearing red athletic shorts, a baggy tank top, and Air Jordans. He looked at her now, wrapped in a black overcoat, collar turned up, her makeup just so, and felt his breath catch. Miss Jennifer Dance cleaned up nice.
“What’s the world coming to when the man’s got to remember the big dates?” Delving into an inside pocket, he pulled out a slim rectangular box wrapped in royal maroon paper and handed it to her. It took him a second or two to find his voice. “Three years. You’ve made them the best of my life.”
Jenny looked between him and the box. Slowly, she unwrapped it. She hadn’t even cracked the thing, and she was already getting teary. Bolden blinked rapidly and looked away. “Go on,” he said.
Jenny held her breath and opened the box. “Tommy, this is…” She held up the Cartier wristwatch, her expression stranded between awe and disbelief.
“I know. It’s vulgar. It’s gauche. It’s-”
“It’s beautiful,” she said, pulling him down to sit beside her. “Thank you.”
“It’s inscribed,” he said. “I didn’t want you to feel bad that I was the only one getting something tonight.”
Jenny turned the watch over, and he watched the play of her features as she read the words. The dollar-size eyes, the bold, chiseled nose still hiding a few freckles across its bridge, the wide, expressive mouth curling into a smile. Lying close to her at night, he often studied her face, asking himself how it was that he, a man who had never depended on anyone in his entire life, had grown to depend so entirely on her.
“I love you, too,” she said, reaching a hand to touch his cheek. “Forever.”
Bolden nodded, finding it impossible, as ever, to say the words. He’d written them, that was a start.
“Does this mean you’re not scared any longer?” Jenny asked.
“No,” he answered solemnly. “It means I’m scared, but I’m getting ready. Don’t you go running anyplace.”