February 15–16, 2024
Ezra was bristling with anxiety. For a full half hour, he’d been pacing back and forth in a living room that wasn’t his, while Focaccia, an oversized snow-white Siberian husky who also wasn’t his, trailed behind him. The pacing wasn’t helping, so he stopped abruptly, tripping up the gargantuan furball behind him. Focaccia yelped, looking up at her dog-sitter with surprised wintergreen eyes.
“Awww, did I hurt you? My apologies, good girl.” He bent down to ruffle her fur, and she happily hurled herself at Ezra, knocking him backward and lapping at his face. He loved it. Ezra would argue that while most people were demons, most dogs were angels.
Whenever he was in town, he offered his dog-sitting services on Rover.com. He traveled too much to adopt his own, so this was the next best thing. Out of the twenty or so dogs he’d ever watched, Focaccia was, by far, Ezra’s favorite client. Lovingly, he hooked an arm around her neck, roughing her up a bit.
Now I can tell Dr. Arroyo-Abril I did my hug homework, he thought.
With a sigh, he tossed Focaccia’s tennis ball across the room, and she sprinted after it. Not even Focaccia could distract him from his self-imposed torture.
Ezra had been trying to gather the courage to call Ricki all day, but he was paralyzed. He couldn’t remember the last time he’d hesitated before calling a woman. He’d never struggled in this area, because generally speaking, he truly enjoyed their company. In fact, Ezra could usually find something interesting or lovable about every woman he met. Which made it an oddity that he’d never really had a long-term, committed relationship.
The beginning was always so good, with that “how the hell did we find each other” thrill. But Ezra could never take it any further. It would’ve required facing his dismal diagnosis, the perennial thorn in his side, and he just wasn’t brave enough. Which was fine, because within minutes of meeting a woman, Ezra instinctively knew if she’d be up for his casual, no-strings brand of relationship. It took a certain kind of person. They, too, were restless, wrestling with their past and plagued with nihilistic recklessness. Or they were stuck in sexless, boring marriages and needed a quick thrill. His women weren’t into promises. Just short, satisfying bursts of abandon.
But then there was Ricki. She didn’t have the shadow of tragedy like the others. She was all hope and light and captivating artistic vulnerability, as luminous and colorful as sunlight refracted through a stained-glass window. God. There was no way to know her without losing himself. And hurting her.
Tapping his phone against his chin, Ezra sat against the wall of his client’s clean-lined, contemporary condo, with Focaccia curled up against him. He didn’t know how to explain the ruin of his past, nor the pointlessness of his future. He’d never done it before.
Anything less than the truth is a lie.
His heart in his throat, he peered down into Focaccia’s crystalline eyes.
“Tell me I ain’t gotta do this, Focaccia.”
She cocked her head and softly howled. “Awooo.”
“F-sharp. Pitchy but robust. Now gimme a G.”
Focaccia panted happily and then hit the note with piercing precision. “Awooo-ooo!”
She was Ezra’s favorite because he’d taught her how to sing.
“Focaccia is outchea croonin’,” mumbled Ezra proudly. He pointed at her. She sat up tall. He turned his palm face up, and she raised her chin. Then he slowly raised his hand, and Focaccia belted out a glass-shattering howl.
Grinning, Ezra applauded and tossed her a treat from his pocket. With an impressive lack of grace, she hopped up to catch it in her jaws, missed, and then scuttled after it on the floor.
Why are you forcing this dog to do vocal runs? he asked himself, disgusted. Call Ricki, you cowardly piece of shit. Face it head-on. Call her.
He had no other choice. Ezra finally picked up the phone and dialed Wilde Things’ number. It rang once, twice, and then…
“Wilde Things, this is Ricki.”
Her on-the-phone voice was husky, the sultry rasp of a dangerous woman from a neo-noir film. It was at odds with her radiant demeanor, the permanent twinkle in her eye. Hearing Ricki’s sexy, disembodied voice in his ear knocked him way off-kilter. He couldn’t even respond.
“Wilde Things… What up, what up, what uppp.”
Okay, that snapped Ezra out of his trance. “Hello? Good morning… er, afternoon, Ricki.” He cleared his throat. “It’s Ezra?”
Silence. Three breaths of silence. His stomach in knots, Ezra wondered what she was thinking.
“Hmm,” she said finally. “So. You do have a cell phone.”
“Doesn’t everyone?”
“Well, all I had was your landline.”
Dr. Arroyo-Abril loathed cell phones. She only used hers to play Tetris and abuse the Find My Car app. She’d memorized Ezra’s home phone, but not his cell.
“Yeah, I guess I’m old school, like you said. The old-timey manners, the house phone.”
“I like your old man vibes. You’re an original.”
Fuck, this is going to hurt, thought Ezra.
Before he could think of anything appropriate to say, Ricki interrupted him, this time in a slightly more formal tone, as if she were careful of getting too familiar, too chatty. “So, can I help you with something?”
“Apologies if I’m being a bother. You know, calling you out of nowhere. I just… I was wondering if… Well, what are you doing?”
“Right now?”
“Right now, sure. Or later.”
“Well… it’s two in the afternoon. I’m working.”
“Oh? Um. Of course you are!” He grimaced and groaned. Pitying him, Focaccia nuzzled into his side, licking his hand.
“You sound nervous,” said Ricki, reading him through the phone.
“I am nervous,” he admitted. He was first-date nervous. First-kiss nervous. First-everything nervous.
“Yeah? Why?”
Ezra shut his eyes and dropped his head back against the wall. “There’s something I need to tell you. But it’s not the kind of thing you say over the phone.”
“I see,” said Ricki. She paused, and the silence was thick. “Ezra, agreeing to avoid each other was a smart idea. I can’t afford any distractions. Something about you makes me feel crazy. I feel like I’m losing it.”
Hearing Ricki say his name sent an involuntary shiver across his skin. He wanted to tell her that he felt crazy, too, that since they’d met, every moment they weren’t together felt wasted.
I don’t know this woman’s middle name, he thought. I don’t know her favorite book or her most embarrassing middle school memory. But it doesn’t matter, because I’m already lost.
How do you break up with someone who isn’t even your girlfriend? It was like serving divorce papers to the stranger in line behind you at the CVS register.
“I agree,” said Ezra quietly. “We should try harder to stay away from each other.”
Anything less than the truth is a lie.
“There’s just one problem,” he continued.
“What’s that?”
“I don’t want to. Do you?”
When Ricki didn’t respond, Ezra kept talking. No filter, no hesitation.
“All I do is wonder when I’ll see you again,” he admitted. “No, ‘wonder’ is too weak a word. The urge to be near you? Even just for a random thirty-second run-in at a bodega or outside a café? I’m strong; I can take abuse, but this is unbearable. And, by the way, you in that red dress at the wedding? It’s the best and worst thing that’s ever happened to me. You had me coming apart at the seams, and I’m frankly sick of pretending that it’s not the last image in my brain at night. And you’re… you’re so funny, both intentionally and unintentionally, and I… I just want to be near you.
“But I’m gutted, because I can’t… we can’t… go further. And I’d like to tell you the whole truth, face to face. Will you let me?”
Ezra let go of a breath and tried to steady his heart rate. He hadn’t expected to spill it all like that. Hearing himself say the words out loud made his feelings all the more real.
He spoke again, his voice barely above a whisper. “Please, Ricki. Will you let me?”
There was almost a full, terrifying minute of endless quiet before Ricki responded.
“The shop is closed tomorrow, so I’ll be free then. Meet me at noon.”
The next day was warm. Oddly warm. Under no healthy circumstances was a New York City February supposed to feel Palm Beach balmy. But the peculiarity of it was thrilling. Everyone in Harlem was outside, soaking up their good fortune before it expired, knowing it was too rare and strange to last.
At 11:47 a.m., Ezra was standing catty-corner to 225½ West 137th Street, trying to forget everything he knew about that building.
The brownstone looked the way it always looked: like all the others on the block with its grand facade. But now there was an overgrown oasis of a shop nestled to the side of the dramatic stoop. WILDE THINGS.
This was a new place, with a new history. It was Ricki’s turn to be here. He wondered how it looked inside. He ached to see where Ricki lived, slept, and worked. How she’d turned a place that held terrible memories for him into something beautiful.
And then there she was.
Ezra saw Ricki through the window, balancing on a steep ladder and reaching high up to the ceiling. A ragged tool belt was slung low around her waist. She appeared to be hammering hooks up there. And then, one by one, she was attaching floor-length transparent strings festooned with silk wildflowers. The effect was flowers falling from the sky, suspended in midair. How did she come up with this? The installation was surreal, like something from a floaty, trippy dream sequence in a Technicolor film.
And so was Ricki, standing atop the ladder in platform clogs, ass-hugging ’70s flares, and a breezy top cropped short, so a wide sliver of her skin showed as she reached upward. God, she was a mesmerizing collision of delicate and tough. The tension between the uncompromising strength in her stance and the soft, ripe lusciousness of her hair, her hips…
For one delirious moment, Ezra forgot why he was there.
It definitely wasn’t to be a creep. So even though he was early, he rang the bell. Through the window, he saw her startle. And then she climbed down the ladder with a slowness that felt deliberate—Her ass, dear God.
Five seconds later, she burst through the door. And Ezra stood before her, visibly gobsmacked.
Ricki was radiant. Breathless. And thoroughly adorable in her transparency that she was pleased to see him.
“You’re early,” she breathed.
“I’m… awestruck.”
“By what?”
You.
“Your art. I’ve never seen anything like it.”
“You were watching me.” A statement, not a question. She locked the front door and then faced him, her expression triumphant.
He didn’t deny it. “You like me watching you?”
Her eyes twinkled, but all she offered was the slightest shrug.
“Let’s go,” she said, and before he could reply, she’d already swept past him to the street. He joined her, and the two headed down West 137th.
“So, what were you working on in there?” wondered Ezra. “It’s mesmerizing. Looks like a scene from a fairy tale.”
“I’m not really sure yet. But I’m calling it a flower shower,” she said, adjusting her bag. It was a mix of canvas and suede, accentuated with tough buckles and hardware. Ezra was certain she’d made it. Her creative detail was in every stitch.
“A flower shower!” repeated Ezra. “That’s so good.”
Ricki beamed. “Have you ever seen Disney’s Alice in Wonderland? It was my favorite movie as a kid. There’s a scene where animated Alice is dozing off in the grass on a bright summer day, singing about her imaginary world, and she’s surrounded by daisies. It’s right before she falls down the rabbit hole, and everything goes topsy-turvy. The only thing that’d make that scene more idyllic would be if she were drenched in a rain shower of flowers.” She pulled on her gloves. “It came to me in a dream.”
“You remember your dreams?”
“Oh, my dreams are vivid. And they linger.”
She looked at him. He looked back. An electric current buzzed between them, inescapable and palpable.
“I’ve never seen anything so beautiful,” he said, momentarily lost in her face. He couldn’t believe it had slipped out of his mouth. He cleared his throat, trying to gather himself. “Uh, will you sell it?”
“No, it’s just decoration for the shop. I don’t know, times are tough. People work hard. I want to create a place where folks can just escape. I’m selling a fantasy.”
Now, that sounded familiar. Where had Ezra heard that before? In a movie? Had he said it?
“I know it’s silly,” she went on. “It’s just flowers. But that’s what’s great about being a business owner: you can have silly ideas, and no one can tell you no.”
“Nothing silly about it,” he said. “‘It’s just flowers’ is the same as ‘it’s just music.’ Neither has to mean anything. But in the right hands? Skilled hands? It can mean everything.”
Ricki nodded. As they walked, he stole a glance at her. She chewed a bit on her bottom lip, lost in a private thought. The sun beamed onto her hair, reflecting glimmers of auburn. She was breathtaking. Suddenly, he forgot what he was so frightened of.
“Too bad it’s the last time we’re speaking,” she finally said. “You saw me work, but I’ll never get to watch you work. The little bit you played downstairs at Bar Exquise was a tease. I wanna hear the rest.”
“You want to see me play?”
“Of course I do. I’m curious.”
He shook his head, a playful gleam in his eye. “Nah.”
“Excuse me? Why?”
“Because I don’t do that. It’s cheap.” He gave her a slight grin. It was cocky as hell, and he knew it.
“Cheap ’cause you think it’ll make me easy.”
“Cheap ’cause I know it will.”
Ricki stopped walking and met the challenge in his eyes. Boldly, she took a step closer.
“I did like you watching me,” she said, her voice husky.
Ignoring every alarm going off in his brain, Ezra said, “What game are you playing?”
“The same one you are.”
“This isn’t a game. I’m not toying with you, Ricki. That’s why I’m here. I owe you the truth.”
“No, you are toying with me,” she said. “You have been since we met. And I just wanted you to feel what I feel.”
“How do you feel?”
She closed her eyes, her lashes fanning out over her flushed cheeks. When she finally gazed up at Ezra with a defenseless vulnerability, it sent him reeling.
“I feel besotted,” she whispered.
Ezra forced himself to stand in place. He knew that if he got closer, if he grazed her skin, touched her, kissed her, then he would never stop.
“Besotted,” he repeated, his voice twisted with inexpressible want. “Ricki. You didn’t know? I feel that, too.”
She stared at him, unblinking. And then a fiery rebellion flared in Ricki’s expression.
“Then, let’s make a gentleman’s agreement,” she said. “Whatever your big, nonnegotiable secret is, don’t tell me now. Tell me tonight. Let’s just have one day together to do whatever we want. And then you’ll tell me, and it’ll all be over.”
“But then at least we’ll have today…,” he said.
“Exactly,” she whispered. “Say yes.”
Hadn’t he said yes already?
He’d said yes every night as he gazed at her portrait before drifting into fitful sleep.
He’d said yes when he asked to see her today.
He’d said yes yesterday on the phone when he confessed that her red dress had scrambled his brain.
It was irresponsible and reckless. But Ezra had to say yes. And he continued to say yes all day long, until they were both drowning in unfathomable depths, in too deep.