“Dawson?” I asked, blinking, and setting my foot on the ground.
“Karys?” His eyes widened. “Oh my God. Hi. Are you okay?”
I nodded, putting more pressure on my ankle. It ached, but it seemed that I’d just twisted it. “Yes. Thanks to you.” I let out a small laugh. “I almost wiped out there.”
He smiled an incredulous smile. “Wow, it’s great to see you. You look . . . great.” He gave a small embarrassed laugh and shook his head. “How have you been?”
I took a step back, creating some space between us. “I’ve been . . . great.” I gave him a teasing grin. “And you? Do you work nearby?” He was wearing a suit and tie, his hair combed neatly to the side.
“Yeah. I’ve been great too.” He laughed. “I work on Wall Street.”
“Oh! Well, I’m not surprised.” I didn’t know a lot about Dawson, but I knew he had been born and raised in New York and that he’d been a finance major. Looking at him made it obvious he felt perfectly comfortable in a three-piece suit.
There was a moment of slightly awkward silence as he stared at me. After a few seconds he gave his head a small shake. “Wow. It’s crazy to run into you like this.”
“Literally,” I said.
“Ha. Right.” He nodded down to my ankle. “Are you sure you’re all right?”
“Yes. Except now I need to find another ride.” I released a breath, looking left and right at all the people craning their necks, competing for the line of taxis rolling by.
“I actually have a car parked in a garage just around the block. Can I give you a lift home?”
I raised my brows. I knew very few car owners who lived and worked in the city. Parking was always an issue, and to own a car meant you could afford the luxury of a coveted parking space both at your work and home. “Sure, that’d be . . .”
“Great,” we both said at once, laughing together.
Dawson gave me a ride home and picked me up that weekend for dinner. We began seeing each other regularly. I’d never dated before and liked the feeling of being courted. He brought me flowers and gave me small gifts. He took me to fancy restaurants and art galleries, parties that his co-workers threw in their glass high-rise apartments. Parties that featured girls in scanty outfits serving shots of alcohol on silver platters and tables of white lines of powder that guests snorted through small paper straws.
In some ways, Dawson was the same charming boy I’d met in class so many years ago. But in other ways he’d changed. Or perhaps it was simply that I hadn’t gotten to know the other side of him. He was deeply enamored by material things and appearances. And he liked me to dress up in pretty clothes so that he could flaunt me around at the parties where drugs were readily available for whomever chose to partake.
“Do you . . . do you do that too?” I asked, nodding to the straight white lines.
“No. I don’t do drugs, Karys. And I don’t want you to either.”
“Of course not,” I murmured. The whole scene reminded me of Sundara in some way I found difficult to articulate. Just like there, it felt like a “show.” It felt like I was playing some part, but I wasn’t precisely clear on what that was.
I thought of Zakai. I remembered the night I’d seen him at the rooftop party on New Year’s Eve and I wondered if the life he was living now felt like an extension of Sundara too. It made my heart ache and my breath come short. Considering specific things about his life, even all these years later, still left me raw and reeling.
Dawson kissed me for the first time two weeks after we’d begun dating. It was nice. Simple. Uncomplicated. There was no edge of shame. But a wild edge lacked as well. That all-consuming fire that had me tumbling from reality and reeling off into the stars.
Perhaps, I told myself, my feelings for Zakai were really just a form of insanity, and love shouldn’t so easily be confused with madness.
Dawson took me on a weekend trip to Nantucket and we made love for the first time. He wasn’t a skilled lover, then again, I’d only been with a man who knew every nuance of my body. These things took patience and time.
And love, I thought, feeling sure that that would arrive at some point as well.
We walked on the beach and I told him about Sundara, my heart in my throat, fearing that he’d reject me once he knew the truth. And though his eyes were troubled, he took my hand in his, kissing my knuckles and telling me I was brave. “You shouldn’t tell just anyone about your past though, Karys. Some people will judge you.”
My brow furrowed in shame. But I knew he was right.
I’d never known Dawson well in school, but I soon found that he had a jealous streak. I avoided looking at photographs and videos of Zakai, but Dawson never missed an opportunity to comment if we came upon some ad campaign or another featuring him. “It’s hard to compete with that,” he’d say on a laugh that sounded more bitter than jovial.
“There’s no competition,” I’d reassure him, but it was usually several minutes before he’d come out of his self-induced funk.
One of Dawson’s co-workers threw a party that New Year’s Eve, a luxurious gala in a hotel ballroom where champagne flowed and the drugs were hidden away in upstairs suites where “privileged” guests were given all-access passes.
The countdown lowered. Horns blew. Music played and Dawson took my face in his hands, his mouth meeting mine. A new year was born. I was twenty-three years old.
“Happy birthday, baby,” he whispered.
I went to the bathroom and when I came back, Dawson was waiting for me, his eyes slightly glazed as he wiped at his nose. I took his hand in mine and we headed to our room. There was a painting of people strolling in a park near a lake on the wall near the elevator bank. I stepped closer. “An impressionist,” I whispered, stepping even closer, the picture blurring together into a thousand tiny dots of color.
“Huh?” Dawson asked.
I glanced back at him as he approached me where I stood. “Do you like impressionism? This one is a type called pointillism. The picture only becomes clear when you step away.”
He squinted at the painting. “Looks like a mess to me,” he said with a short laugh.
That night, he made love to me with a vigor and passion he’d never shown before. I banged my head on the headboard during one particularly enthusiastic thrust, and I cried out with pleasure, enjoying the pain, wanting more.
When it was over, Dawson, bleary-eyed, rolled over and grabbed something out of the drawer, rolling back toward me and flipping a black box open. A giant diamond sat inside.
“Marry me,” he said.
My mouth dropped open and I sat up. “Dawson,” I gasped. I was shocked, almost numb. I hadn’t for a moment expected a proposal.
“Say yes,” he whispered. “You’ll be the happiest woman in the world. I’ll make sure the other wives are green with envy. I love you, Karys. Say yes. Say yes.”
He loved me. Despite what I’d been. What I’d done. I laughed, bringing my hand to his cheek. “Yes,” I repeated as he slipped the ring on my finger. Dawson gathered me in his arms and kissed me, and though my body did not sing under his touch, there was a quiet, gentle hum.
Not every wind was brisk and hot, its arrival spinning your mind and toppling your world. Some breezes were cool and gentle, bringing calm and relief.