A Stockingful of Joy (38 page)

She pressed her cheek to the old windowpane. Sure enough. There was a sleigh and a team tied to the front post. "I'd love to." She smiled up at him, and they both stood there for a second, neither saying anything. It was uncomfortably intense, so she looked away because it made her itchy for something more to pass between them. "Give me five minutes."

"Sure. I'll be downstairs." Then he left.

Eleanor raced across the room, pulled out a metal vacuum bottle, and filled it with hot coffee. She sealed it and then stuck it in a sock the way her grandfather always had. She grabbed it and tucked it inside a basket with some apples and a wedge of cheese, then she grabbed her coat, hat, and gloves and was down the stairs in a couple of minutes.

At the second-floor landing she slowed down so she didn't look like some silly old woman racing down the stairs. He met her inside the foyer and opened the door.

There was nothing like New York City when it was cloaked in a thick layer of fresh snow. He helped her into the sleigh and climbed in the other side. The seats were soft, and there were some wool blankets inside. She tucked one around her legs and feet, and straightened in the seat just as he snapped the reins.

The sleigh lurched forward, and they were off. The steel runners swished over the snow and the harnesses tingled. The horses trotted in a muffled clip-clop until he gave them the freedom to take off. A second later they were going so fast the sleigh bells hardly had time to jingle.

They passed other sleighs filled with people chattering and laughing like they were. Some people were singing Christmas carols and sleighing songs, and Conn began to sing.

She smiled and looked at him. He finished his song… if you could call it a song. Her cats sounded better. "It's a good thing you're a boxer and not a singer."

"I'm not a boxer. I'm a retired boxer." He grinned at her. For the next hour, he told her about his life as a boxer. They talked about everything while they drove all over the city.

The red and brown houses of Harlem were capped with snow. Manhattanville in its hollow looked as if it were peeking out from a thick, fluffy white blanket. Sleighs went up and down the wide boulevards, and the red shawls of work women flashed like cardinals in the snow.

Their noses turned red, and they sipped steaming coffee when the air turned colder. Sleighs dashed throughout the city, and at the intersections people shouted Merry Christmas! Miniature avalanches fell from roofs and awnings and onto the sidewalks below. People ducked and ran, but no one seemed to mind being doused with fresh snow.

He took her to lunch at an Irish tavern where the novelty of the day was to guess the weight of the owner's pig. Eleanor's guess was off by a hundred and fifty pounds. They sat by a toasty wood fire talking while they drank coffee mixed with rum. Lunch was spicy lean corned beef and cabbage. She loved it and ate as much as Conn did.

When they walked back outside, a mountain of snow had been formed along the curbs because the snow plows had been by. The ten-horse teams lumbered down the streets while the workers shoveled sand from carts behind the plows. One team turned the corner. The horses were frosted with a coating of frozen sweat and snow, and icicles hung from their harnesses like gems.

After the plows passed, the snow was piled in mountains along the roadside, where children bundled in mufflers threw snowballs at anyone wearing a large hat. A group of kids had made an ice slide in the banks of snow by the curb.

She and Conn watched them play for a few minutes. The boys would run halfway down the block, leap on the snowbank, and slide down it standing up, their arms out wide to help them keep their balance.

Before she could blink, Conn was running down the street and onto the snow. His height and weight made him slide even faster, and people stopped and watched, cheering him into a perfect landing. He turned, swept his hat off his head, and made a bow. She was laughing so hard when he joined her she could barely speak.

He made some stupid comment about a man's sport while they walked toward the sleigh.

"A man's sport?" She repeated, her hands planted on her hips.

He turned back just as she began to run down the sidewalk. She went over the bank and pressed her ankles together, and held onto her hat. She slid down the icy snowbank to a round of whistles and applause.

Conn was staring at her with an open mouth. She marched back toward him, her chin high and feeling more than smug.

"Where'd you learn to do that?"

"I was raised in New York, too. And if you'll remember, I've had more years of practice than you." She hopped up into the sleigh, pulled the lap blanket over her, and said, "Well, are you going to stand there all day or are we going to go sleighing?"

He muttered something about bossy older women that made them both laugh.

Snow was in the air. It began to fall a few flakes at a time, slowly at first, then faster and heavier. A light wind near the river carried clouds of snow in whirling eddies. Sparks from the potbellied woodstoves flew from trolleys and tin chimneys, and disappeared as if they were gobbled by the falling snow.

The trees of Central Park were covered in snow, making it a fairyland right in their own city. The Egyptian obelisk poked up out of the snow like a giant icicle. All the statues were dusted white and keep off the grass signs leaned at cockeyed angles.

They parked the sleigh and walked down a covered path where children were having a snowball fight. She gathered up a handful and hit Conn, knocking off his hat like the kids from across town.

He spun around, completely surprised, then he slowly walked toward her, revenge on his face. She laughed and taunted him, and then turned and ran as fast as she could.

He tackled her in the snow and rolled with her down a hillside, tumbling like children and laughing. She tried to smear his face with snow but he pinned her to the cold wet ground. He grinned down at her. "Cry uncle?"

"Never."

He rubbed snow in her face and watched her squirm and shout.

"That's not fair! You're bigger than I am."

"I'm bigger than everyone." He grinned down at her. He seemed like a giant against the gray sky, and she understood where he had gotten his name. There was snow in his hair and all over his face. She slipped a hand out from under his and swiped the snow off his eyebrows and chin.

He mimicked her motion and brushed the snow off her face with a tenderness that didn't fit his size. But when he was done, his hand cupped her cold cheek. His smile faded. His look turned intense. He stared down at her mouth.

An instant later he was kissing her. She was forty years old and until this very moment Eleanor had never been kissed with an open mouth.

The first thing she noticed after the shock passed was that their lips fit together perfectly. His mouth was warm and a little wet from the snow, and she felt heat rise from somewhere deep inside of her, a place and a shivery feeling she never knew existed. His tongue played along the line of her lips, then scandalously slipped inside.

Oh, but this was better than her dreams.

Her hands moved to his shoulders. His hands held her head.

He kissed her eyes and nose and cheeks, then moved to her ear. He whispered her name, then pressed his hips harder against her thighs.

"I want you Nellie… I want you. Can you feel how I want you?"

She moaned his name.

His mouth was at her ear again and he chanted her name in barely a whisper. It was the most erotic thing in the world.

His lips skimmed her neck and jaw and lips. He kissed her brow, and then he was whispering in her other ear, as chills went down her whole body. "Marry me," he said.

She froze. "What?"

He pulled away and looked down at her. "I asked you to marry me."

She flattened her hands against his shoulders and pushed hard. "Let me up."

"Hey, what's wrong?"

"Let me up." She bucked up against him, and he sat up, his knees still straddling her legs.

"Now." Her voice sounded gritty and cold and distant. She turned her head away and closed her eyes. She was such a fool.

"Nellie? Stop. Please." He tried to turn her back to face him.

She held up a hand to warn him away. She thought she might easily just crack in two. She squirmed out from under him, then stood and turned her back to him.

Her legs felt like wood. Still she trudged through the powdery snow and picked up her hat, whipping it in the air to shake out the snow.

He was standing stiffly when she turned around. She could see he did not understand. "I'm sorry, Conn. I'm sorry about this, about everything."

"Don't you understand that I care about you? I want you in my life, and I want to make your life better."

She just shook her head, unable to tell him how impossible this was. She was too old, just too, too old for him. People would laugh behind their backs and she loved him too much to expose him to any pain. He couldn't seem to see how useless the idea was.

When she had turned twenty-one and was a woman, he was thirteen and had hardly left his childhood. Yet she knew he wouldn't understand. She was the one who had to remain sane. She was the one who had to say no.

He walked toward her. "There must be something I can do. Something to make you admit you care."

"I do care."

"Then, why won't you marry me?"

"I can't."

"Tell me what I can do."

Her face felt twisted and tortured, and tears burned in her eyes. "You can't do anything."

He held out his hand for her. The look in his eyes was almost pleading. He obviously couldn't see how impossible marriage would be for them.

"I'm forty. You're thirty-two."

He jammed his hands in his pockets and stared at the ground. His voice was so very quiet. "That doesn't matter to me."

"But it should. And it matters to me." She began to walk backward toward the park path. Putting distance between them.

He looked up. "Please, Nellie."

"I'm sorry, Conn."

"I'll give you everything you need."

"You can't give me what I need. No one can."

He stood there looking as empty as she felt.

"Tell me what it is, and I'll try."

"Eight years. I need eight less years." Then she turned and ran away.

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Snow kept falling and falling. Conn stood at his window trying not to think so he wouldn't feel. Snow and ice had whirled down so rapidly that it obscured buildings. Wind drove blinding clouds of it around street corners and made the snow stick to the buildings, frosting everything.

He didn't know how long he stood there. He'd watched the storm whip up even stronger, and at the height of it you could hardly see out the windows. Sometime ago night had fallen and with it the slowing of the storm.

But to him, time meant nothing now. He wasn't used to losing, especially something that meant so much to him. He wanted her in his life. He wanted to grow old with her and have babies and laugh and cry and love her.

And he'd made such a mess of things.

He wondered if he had taken one too many punches. There had to be a reason he would do something that stupid. He shouldn't have rushed her. He'd frightened her off.

The whole thing was so damn silly. It didn't matter what their ages were. He paced his flat, and then heard the patter of her feet above him.

He stood there staring up at the ceiling. He heard her crying. At first he thought it was one of those cats, but the longer he listened the louder she was.

His jaw tightened, and his hands clenched at his sides. Everything was out of his reach. After a few more minutes he crossed over to the window and pulled it open. A blast of icy air and snowflakes hit him. He didn't care. He stepped out onto the fire escape, and quietly walked up to the fourth level.

There was a dim light coming from the bedroom. He squatted down and looked inside the frosty glass.

She sat in the middle of her convenient bed, surrounded by mangy cats with the bright Christmas bows. Her face was buried in her hands, and her shoulders were shaking with her sobs. It liked to break his heart in two.

If he hadn't been certain she cared before, he was certain now.

She loved him. He could tell, especially when she wasn't very good at hiding her feelings. She sat there looking like nothing but one big heartache. He knew, because that was how he felt. Aching and empty.

But now watching her sitting there with her heart broken, crying so pitifully was almost more than he could take. It was so stupid. She was too stubborn to see how very wrong she was.

A gust of freezing wind hit him and ruffled his hair. Inside she was huddled in a blanket and had tear streaks running down her face. He stood and turned, then went quietly down the metal stairs. He went back inside his window, not caring that snow was all over the floor. He didn't think he could feel anything, even the cold. It couldn't affect him. He was already frozen inside.

He lay down on the bed, and soon he was crying, too. Tears just ran down his temples and into his hair. His chest was tight, and it hurt.

He closed his eyes and lay there until it passed, his arm slung over his eyes. When he opened them, only hard reality stared back at him. For the rest of his nights, he would have to lie to himself. He had no choice but to pretend that he didn't know she was just one floor above him.

December seventeenth, the evening of Sally Waverly's Christmas wedding, came all too quickly for Eleanor. It was one of those evenings when the air turned blue with cold, and breathing it was sharp and painful and made you long for the lush feeling of a warm summer night.

She dressed in a deep green silk dress with a fitted jacket trimmed in jet that was the same color as her hair. She piled that thick wad of hair up on top of her head in a loose knot, stuck in some hairpins, then walked across the room, her heels tap tap tapping. She got her kid gloves, her woolen coat and scarf, threw them on, and moved toward the door.

She plucked her velvet hat off a peg near the door and stood before the oval wall mirror. Raising her chin, she held the hat just so—one hand on the back and one holding the brim, then set it on her head at a perfect angle. She took the hat pin from between her teeth and jabbed it through her topknot as she ran down the stairs.