Come As You Are Read online

  Flynn Parker has a boyish charm about him, with his clean-shaven jaw, twinkling eyes behind simple black frames, and flawless skin. But I doubt he shaved this morning. Stubble lines his square jaw and makes me wonder deliciously dirty things about how his face would feel against my thighs.

  Things I should not entertain.

  Especially since the prospect of his scruff near my lady parts is dangerously arousing.

  I conduct a clean sweep and focus on the article, donning my imaginary super-reporter cape. “Thank you for making time for me. I’m curious about your favorite place.”

  He gestures toward the stairwell that leads underground. “Let us go then, you and I.”

  I grab his arm. “Did you just quote T.S. Eliot to me?”

  “Hmm. Seems I did.”

  I shake my head, amused and turned on. “I was an English major. That’s not fair.”

  An impish grin appears. “What’s not fair about it?”

  “You can’t quote the first line of a great love poem to an English major. Shame on you,” I admonish playfully, but I’m being honest too. He sounds too seductive reciting poetry.

  “Let us go then, you and I, when the evening is spread out against the sky,” he whispers, and my skin tingles.

  “Bad boy.”

  “Do you like bad boys?”

  “Now I do.”

  I’m flirting. I’m flirting times ten. I should stop. I really should.

  “I’ll keep it up, then. She walks in beauty like the night.”

  My pulse beats faster, and it’s too hard to stop when he quotes poetry. “You’re very bad, Lord Byron.”

  “Shall I compare thee to a summer’s day?” he begins, and the little hairs on my arms rise in excitement, anticipation.

  “You. Must. Stop.”

  He tilts his head, and screws up the corner of his lips, fixing on a comical expression. “Arr, I’ll talk like a pirate then, ahoy, matey.”

  I roll my eyes. “You’re terrible.”

  Laughing, he tips his forehead to my skirt as we head down the stairwell. “I’ll shift gears for you. Is today’s outfit homemade?”

  I’m wearing a simple black skirt with a pale pink satin ribbon down one side. “Yes. I suppose I’m predictable.” I glance at my skirt, which hits mid-thigh. I like them short, always have. Flynn seems to, as well, since his gaze follows mine and lingers on my legs.

  “You’re hardly predictable. It’s more like a fun discovery each time I see you.”

  “You’re kind of weirdly fascinated with my clothes,” I say as our shoes smack against the concrete, but truth be told, I like his interest in my wardrobe. I care about what I wear. I love making my clothes, and the fact that he notices—well, it delights me.

  “It’s not so much that I’m fascinated. I’m more curious and impressed with how handy you are. I suppose, in a post-apocalyptic world, you’d have a seriously usable skill to barter with.”

  I crack up. “That’s exactly why I learned to sew. To trade services at the end of the world. Speaking of, how will you manage, Mr. CEO? Will you organize the first company to sell post-apocalyptic supplies?”

  “Maybe.” He scratches his jaw. “Or perhaps I’d start an escort business.”

  My eyebrows shoot up. “You’d have time for an escort business?”

  “I’d make time for it. One, pleasure would be at a premium when the fate of the world hangs in the balance. Two, what if it’s not really the end of the world? It’d be good to have a business that can transition. Three, I have a feeling I’d be excellent at it, and it would make my final days brighter.”

  “You are indeed prepared for a doomsday scenario. I’m impressed.”

  We head past the turnstiles and into the muggy station, waiting for the 6 train. “Also, I assume you’re good with us chatting for the piece as we ride the subway?”

  “Absolutely. It was my idea, after all.” He taps his chest, a look of pride in his eyes. “And I’m pretty damn proud of myself for finding something you haven’t done.”

  “Me too,” I say, bouncing on the toes of my short gray boots. “Especially since I’ve lived in New York or around it my entire life, and I’ve never actually seen the abandoned City Hall subway station.”

  He wiggles his eyebrows. “There’s a first time for everything, then.”

  Like sex with a stranger at a masquerade party.

  But that night was both a first and a last time, I remind myself.

  I take out my phone, hit record on my voice recorder app, and clear my throat. “Tell me about the robot you made when you were a kid.”

  He shoots me a curious look. “Why are you asking about the robot?”

  “I suspect Mr. Cardboard Robot has significance in the story I want to tell about Flynn Parker, the next generations business visionary.” I peer down the tracks. No sign of the train. “The robot was one of the first things you made. Did you always want to create?”

  He strokes his chin. “Ah, she assembles the clues, like Inspector Poirot.”

  My eyebrows shoot up. “I love him.”

  “He’s badass,” Flynn says of Agatha Christie’s Belgian detective. Flynn strokes an imaginary mustache, the crime solver’s trademark.

  I lean in closer and whisper, “So glad you don’t have one of those curlicue mustaches.”

  He mirrors me, sliding near and dropping his volume. “Me too.” He steps back. “So, you want to understand the role of the robot in my life story.”

  “I do.” I’ve started the interview with a relatively easy question, but at the same time, it’s one that I hope will open a door, that will give me a chance to look around, to shine a flashlight into the corners of his mind that he might not normally share.

  I want to find out who he is. Yes, he’s a man who creates—experiences, products, companies. But what led him in that direction?

  He lifts his chin. “Why do you ask that question?”

  I grin. “You’re turning the tables around and interviewing me?”

  “I’ll answer, but I like knowing the reason.”

  I like being asked. I like that he makes me think, that he seems to poke and prod at me too. “I ask because at the heart of it, being a visionary is often pictured as thinking deep thoughts about what’s to come. But most true visionaries aren’t only gazing at the future. They’re not afraid to get their hands dirty either. Do you agree?”

  “I’m definitely not afraid to get my hands dirty at all,” he says, skirting this close to the naughty line, but not quite stepping over it.

  I must steer clear of the line, too, so I stay the course. “I want to know if there was a lightbulb moment when you knew what you wanted to do in life. When everything clicked into place.”

  With his eyes locked with mine, he shakes his head. “No.”

  I shoot him a skeptical stare. “That surprises me.”

  “It’s the truth. I can’t isolate a moment when the lightbulb went off because it’s always going off. I can’t remember a time when I didn’t want to build something big. Something exciting. Something innovative.”

  My skepticism vanishes. “It’s as if that drive in you was pre-memory. Before you were even aware of wanting it.”

  He taps his nose. “Exactly. I’ve always built things. I’ve always wanted to. I don’t know how not to.”

  “What sort of things did you make when you were a kid?” I hold my phone, soaking up the details that he shares as we wait for the train.

  “Everything. Jigsaw puzzles. A huge Lego pirate boat sculpture. A catapult. A candy dispenser. After that, I made a tree house, a doghouse, and a swing set at my home in Connecticut.”

  “Wow,” I say, my eyes widening as he lists his projects, and I ask what his inspiration was for each.

  “Pirates are cool. Catapults are cooler. Candy is the coolest.”

  “Good, better, best.”

  “Exactly. Plus, tree houses are the definition of fun.”

  “And the robot? What
inspired that?”

  A sheepish grin spreads on his face. “Naturally, Star Wars did. After I saw that flick for the first time I wanted my own R2-D2, so I built one out of cardboard.”

  “Did it talk in a sort of boop-beep way and hold all of the secret plans of the rebellion?”

  “I wish,” he says, a look of pure desire in his eyes, as if that truly would have been the greatest thing ever. “But even though it was cardboard and flimsy, I was hooked. I couldn’t stop making things.”

  There’s a tightness in his voice, but it’s not tension. It’s excitement. It’s determination.

  “You lived with intention from an early age,” I say as I absorb what he’s telling me.

  “I suppose I did.”

  A loud rattle echoes down the tunnel as the train approaches. We talk as it chugs into the station and creaks to a stop. Once we board and the doors close, I ask more questions and he answers, and as we travel downtown I begin to see the watercolor of Flynn Parker filling in. Colors, shapes, details. I start to understand the picture of who he is.

  On the outside, he’s the math nerd. The smarty pants. The tall guy with glasses who aced all his classes, can recite pi to a hundred digits, and has taught himself Japanese.

  But he’s more than that.

  His drive isn’t about numbers or circuit breakers. His drive is passion. The kind that insists on being heard, like a drumbeat. It’s a flame that can’t be extinguished.

  He tips his chin toward me. “What about you and writing? Did you have a nose for news at a young age?”

  “When I was a little girl, I wanted to be a fashion designer.”

  “Why aren’t you, then?” His tone is completely earnest, and curious as well.

  The answer is easy. “I don’t think I have the vision for it.”

  He frowns. “Don’t say that.”

  I hold up a hand and shake that thought away. “No, it’s okay. I’m not putting myself down. I’m really okay with it. I have no regrets. I’d much rather play around with somebody else’s pattern. It’s what I thought I wanted to do, but it wasn’t what I actually wanted to do, even though I do love making outfits.”

  “But you don’t have the passion for it as a career?”

  “Exactly. But being a reporter absolutely feeds something I love.”

  He leans closer, his palms on his thighs, his eyes holding mine. “What’s that, Sabrina?”

  I love that he’s asking me these questions. I adore that he’s curious. Because that’s what I’m enamored of.

  “I love curiosity,” I answer. “I love understanding things. I desperately want to understand people, what makes them tick. That’s why I do what I do.”

  “Desperation can be a good thing. We should love our careers desperately if we’re going to give so much to them.”

  “Desperate love,” I repeat, liking the sound of that. “Yes, we should love desperately. Especially work, since it’s often more reliable than the romantic kind.”

  He laughs lightly, one of those you’re preaching to the choir laughs, and I wonder if he’s had the shit kicked out of him by love too. If perhaps he’s so passionate about work because, like me, he’s been on the receiving end of a steel-toed boot. Maybe someday I’ll ask, but it doesn’t feel like it should be an interview question.

  “So, you do love what you do?” he asks.

  “I do, Inspector Poirot.”

  “And you also love understanding new things?”

  “I do.”

  A slow grin forms, and he strokes an imaginary mustache. “You’ll like where I’m taking you, then.”

  “The abandoned subway station, you mean? I read that we can see it on the train at the turnaround. You can catch a glimpse as the train loops around before it heads back uptown.”

  “That’s true. You can absolutely see it through the window. But you can also take a tour if you know the right people.”

  My eyes widen as surprise courses through me. “You arranged for a tour?”

  He shrugs happily. “I thought you might like that.”

  I do. I do like it.

  And I like him.

  Which is the thing I most can’t afford right now, and the list of things I can’t afford is miles long.

  16

  Sabrina

  * * *

  Scads of New Yorkers scurry off the six line at the last stop. They exit, heading above ground or making connections, continuing with their day. But we stay on.

  “Come here,” Flynn says, offering his hand as the doors close.

  I take his palm, standing, and he guides me to the scratched, dirty window of the closed door. We peer out, staring at the tiled wall of the platform, his hand pressed to the small of my back. It’s hard for me to not think about his touch. It’s gentle and firm at the same time, and my mind can’t help but assemble images of his hand sliding under my shirt, along my flesh.

  I suppress a tremble as the train chugs out of the station, heading into the curving loop at the bottom of the line. “You have to smush your face against the window to get a really good view.”

  “Commencing smushing,” I say mechanically. I look at him. “Am I like the robot you built as a kid?”

  He scoffs. “If I’d designed a robot that looked and sounded like you, I would still be building robots.”

  A blush creeps across my cheeks. A flutter skids down my chest. I will them away, doing my best to ignore these sensations. It’s pointless to linger on them. When this story ends, I’ll still need to focus on work, finding a job, and perhaps covering his business regularly—a direct conflict of interest to any flutters, no matter how they make me feel. I can’t entertain the idea of whether we could try again then, because it’s not a possibility. I’m simply going to enjoy the time with him for what it is.

  An interview. A fun interview. The phone in my hand, recording us, is a reminder of that.

  We stand by the window as the train rumbles forward at a more leisurely pace this time, as if it knows that its job is to let us catch a glimpse of the past.

  “Look,” he whispers, almost reverently, pointing to what’s beyond the scratched glass as the train curves into the loop.

  I gasp quietly. It’s like entering a time warp. We’ve slipped back decades. The old, abandoned station is a marvel of days gone by. It’s New York in another era, with vaulted ceilings made of glittering tiles, and stained-glass windows, with mosaics lining the walls. Brass chandeliers hang from the ceiling, hearkening to days when New York was a city of splendor and gold.

  “It reminds me of where we met. The hotel. It had that olden glamour feel,” I say.

  “Yes. This is the same. The city in days gone by. This station was the crown jewel of the transit system, and yet they had to shutter the station because it couldn’t accommodate the longer trains. It could only handle five-car trains. It was too curved, too round, so in 1945, they shut it down,” he tells me as we circle past it, the tracks serving as a mere turnaround, offering a now-you-see-me-now-you-don’t view into what once was.

  “Why is this your favorite place? Because you only catch a glimpse of it?” I offer, trying to understand what excites him about the abandoned stop.

  He shakes his head. “It reminds me that we can all become obsolete at any moment. It reminds me that success is fleeting.” He sweeps his arm out wide, gesturing to the grandeur that has no purpose anymore. “You can have the best transit system in the entire world, and if you don’t plan for the future it can be shut down.”

  Nodding, I let that little nugget of insight soak into my brain. A part of me almost hates how quickly I agree with him. I want to quiz him, to poke a hole in his argument, like a good journalist. But I can’t because his observation rings wholly true. “I can see that. It’s like a beautiful warning.”

  “Precisely. A reminder that at any moment we might be shut down.”

  “Haven?”

  He nods. “This station is incredible, and I love it, but I don’t want my
company to become a relic.”

  “Can I quote you on that?” I ask, because this feels personal, as if we’re diving into territory that needs the consent confirmed.

  “Of course.”

  He points to the station as we leave it in the rearview. “This is a recognition that there is so much to look out for—the past, the present, and the future. You have to adapt to the changes so that your train can keep using the tracks.”

  “Love the metaphor.” I study his face for a moment. “You kind of remind me of old New York.”

  “I should be shut down?”

  “No,” I say, adamantly. “I mean you. There’s something about you. You’re thoroughly modern, but I could see you fitting into the Gatsby era.”

  “So we beat on, boats against the current, borne back ceaselessly into the past,” he says, quoting the last line in F. Scott Fitzgerald’s most famous work. “Another warning not to repeat the mistakes of the past. Or, wait. Should I not quote Fitzgerald? Same rule as T.S. Eliot for you, Miss English major?”

  “Exactly. You’re asking for trouble,” I say, smiling, since I’m amused, maybe even overwhelmed by Flynn. He has so many layers. I want to keep peeling away at them, peeking at what lurks inside. “You’re an interesting man. You’re not just a math nerd. You’re a Renaissance man.”

  “Is that so?”

  I nod resolutely. “You are.”

  He shrugs, and his lips curve into a smile. It’s one of those I’ll take it grins, and I love it.

  When we exit, I turn off the recorder and tuck my phone away. I’ve accomplished some of what I’ve come to do today. I understand what motivates him. He’s a man of learning, not only a numbers guy. He finds inspiration everywhere. That’s what makes him tick.

  Perhaps he’s figured out it’s my jam, too, because I love the tour.

  He’s a member of the New York City Transit Museum, and they offer private tours for its members. A docent shows a small group of us through the once splendid subway station and I drink in the mosaics, the architecture, the feel of old New York, as well as the stories of the master artisans and the architect who worked on this station.