Page 66 of A Winter in New York

“You don’t like surprises,” I say. “You said so the other day.”

“I did?”

I nod. “To Sophia.”

“I probably used to like surprises, as a kid.” He keeps his eyes on the road. “These days, not so much.”

Shop facades and illuminated street signs throw colors across his profile as we move through the dark streets, electric blues, strobes of red. His thumb strokes my kneecap, a steady back and forth.

“You’re a very grown-up grown-up,” I say, with the tongue-loosening benefits of brandy.

He shoots me a look out the corner of his eye. “I guess I’ve had to be.”

I nod. I get that. I’ve no one else to be responsible for but myself, and I’m not all that great at that sometimes. Gio has the weight of caring for Bella and his family on his shoulders.

“You don’t have to feel responsible for me,” I say.

“What do you mean?”

He’s frowning as he drives, and I search my head for better words.

“I just meant that you already have a lot of people relying on you,” I say. “You don’t have to add me to the list of people you need to worry about. In fact, letmebe the one with the list, and you on it.”

He makes a left turn on to a parking lot, and I squint into the darkness beyond the windscreen.

“Is that the sea?”

“The Atlantic Ocean,” he says. It doesn’t feel like a correction, more a wistful observation.

“We’re at the beach?”

“Coney Island.”

“As in the amusement park?”

“The rides are closed up for winter, but yeah. Shall we walk a while?”

The air outside is brisk, salty on my lips as we head for the wooden boardwalk.

“It’s so packed here on a summer’s day you can hardly move,” Gio says.

It’s certainly not like that right now. There’s barely a handful of people out on the wooden boardwalk tonight, a couple of dog walkers and the occasional hardy runner. We have the place pretty much to ourselves, and I feel eighteen again when Gio takes my hand as we stroll, roller coasters silhouetted on one side of us, the ocean on the other. I haven’t walked hand in hand with anyone in…I don’t honestly know how long. Adam wasn’t a PDA kind of man, even in the early days.

“We can grab some food if you’re hungry?”

“Maybe in a while,” I say, because I’d be happy to just walk like this until we run out of earth.

He passes me the brandy and I take a nip, my eyes on the outline of the big wheel. The cars have all been removed and mothballed for the winter, leaving just the spoked steel wheel arcing against the skyline.

“Bella was so scared on that one she cried all the way around,” he says, following my gaze. “She was only this high.” He indicates with his hand by his hip. “Stamped her feet to go on and then couldn’t wait to get off.”

It reminds me that his whole life history is wrapped around this city; tonight has been new to me but a trip down memory lane for him.

“My mother took me to a version of this as a kid,” I say, recalling the occasional Southend trip. “It was smaller, of course, but it has this same ramshackle beachside thing going on.” I laugh softly at an unexpected memory of my mother’s red fifties-style sundress. It was entirely inappropriate for roller coasters—not that it stopped her for one moment. “Fish and chips, bumper cars, bucket-and-spade days.”

“It’s Nathan’s hot dogs here,” he says.

We walk on a little farther, each absorbed in our own thoughts, and I take a good slug of brandy to ward off the chill. It’s good stuff—however cold it is tonight, I am fire inside.

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