Almost Like Love(53)
“Well, thanks. Maybe ordinary isn’t the right word, but it was comfortable. Although I was not born with a silver spoon in my mouth,” she added. “My parents are both teachers, so we were never rich—but we had everything we needed.”
“Your grandparents must have been rich, though.”
“Eventually. But my grandfather came from a poor family, and my grandmother’s family came to this country after World War II with nothing at all.”
“Where was your grandmother during the war?”
“In a concentration camp.”
He stared at her. “Jesus. Now I really feel like a shit for that silver-spoon comment.”
She smiled. “It’s okay. She met my grandfather here, and they fell in love and had a wonderful life together. They bought this place with the money my grandfather made as a civil engineer, and my grandmother had a successful career as a photographer.”
“What was her name?”
“Rachel Goldman.”
His jaw dropped. “Are you kidding? Rachel Goldman was your grandmother?”
She looked pleased. “You’ve heard of her?”
“Of course I have. I saw her retrospective exhibit at the Museum of Modern Art.”
“And here I thought you were a philistine.”
“Nice.”
She grinned at him. “Anyway, that’s my family history in a nutshell.”
“Were you raised Jewish?”
“Not really. My father isn’t Jewish, and we were pretty nondenominational growing up. We celebrated both Hanukkah and Christmas, which of course my brothers and I thought was great.”
“More presents?”
“Exactly.”
“Where are your parents now? And your three brothers?”
“My parents still live in Boston, along with one of my brothers. My older brother lives in Michigan, and the youngest is in grad school out in California.”
“How come you were the one who ended up with this apartment?”
“I was the only one living in New York, and my grandparents knew I wanted to settle here. So they left the apartment to me, and their money and other assets went to the rest of the family.”
She paused and ran the tip of her finger down his nose, and the affectionate intimacy of the gesture made him smile.
“Is there anything else you want to know?” she asked.
“I think that covers your family. But what about you? There must be something embarrassing in your past. Do you have a hidden tattoo anywhere?” He let a wolfish gleam come into his eyes. “Maybe I should look for one.”
She shook her head. “No tattoos. When I turned eighteen I thought about getting my grandmother’s serial number tattooed on my arm, like hers had been, because I knew some relatives of Holocaust survivors had done that. But she asked me not to. She said that since I was a storyteller, I had other ways to honor the memory of what people had endured in the camps.”
He thought about that. “Did you ever write about the Holocaust?”
“I did. The first thing I ever published was a short story set in Auschwitz.”
“I didn’t know that.”
“I haven’t written anything like it since. After my grandmother read it, she said it was heartbreaking and true—the highest compliment she could give—but she didn’t think I needed to write about the war anymore. She thought my natural inclination was to create more joyful stories.”
He remembered Life with Max. “I think she was right. You’re a natural optimist.”
“So was my grandmother, believe it or not. She was an amazing woman.”
“I believe it.”
Kate yawned suddenly, covering her mouth with her hand. “I think I could fall asleep again.”
“You should,” he said gently, reaching out to pull her against his chest. Feeling her naked body pressed against his made him feel anything but sleepy, but he managed to tamp down the flash of desire.
A few minutes later, her breathing had turned deep and even. Ian lay watching her in a silence that seemed charmed, almost magical. After a while his eyes closed and he fell asleep with Kate in his arms.
It was the sweetest feeling he’d ever known.
CHAPTER NINE
But when he woke up, everything was different.
Or maybe it would have been more accurate to say that nothing was different.
He felt the same urge to get away he always did the morning after. Even looking at Kate, beautiful as an angel in sleep, didn’t make him want to stay.
Her bedroom had felt perfect last night, but now the rose-colored walls and silk curtains seemed suffocatingly feminine.
Everything had become an irritant. His skin was clammy with dried sweat, and his mouth tasted sour. The sun coming through the windows was too bright. The bed was too soft. Kate’s comforter was too warm.