women take care of him, but he liked her motherly look of concern, which was new to him.
“I’m fine,” he reassured her. “You can set the table if you want.”
“Ah, now that’s something I’m good at,” she said confidently, as he pointed to a cupboard where the placemats and china were kept. He had assorted colors and motifs, and she picked gray linen mats, and napkins with silver threads in them, and put them on the round glass table at the far end of the kitchen, in front of the view of Central Park. It was a huge room, with a fabulous view, even better than hers. He was a few blocks north of where she lived, but on a much higher floor. He could see east and west to both rivers, and all across Central Park. It was a perfect bachelor pad. He walked her into a wood-paneled office a few minutes later, after she set the table, to show her shelves of trophies and awards covering one wall. He looked like a kid when he proudly pointed at them, and she was bowled over by how many there were.
“The rest of them are in the safe,” he said vaguely, as she looked at them with interest and read what they were for. They covered some of the high points of his career and he assured her there were many more, with a childlike grin. It was kind of a “Look, Ma! See what I did!” She found it both impressive and endearing. She realized that was who he was, a man of major accomplishments, with a boyish heart, and she liked that about him.
“You’re a very important man,” she said, as she turned to smile at him. There was an innocence about him that touched her, even though he was bragging and they both knew it.
“Yes, I am.” He grinned, looking boyish and happy with himself. “But so are you, Ms. Wyatt. You’re as important as I am.”
Their budding friendship was an even match in many ways. He had always gone out with women who were impressed with who he was, but had accomplished nothing much themselves. They were too young to have done anything yet, except in some cases model. That was the problem with going out with very young women. They didn’t provide much of a challenge or bring anything to the table except their looks and their bodies. Valerie was far more interesting, and he didn’t mind the ten-year gap in their age. He didn’t feel as though she were any older, and she didn’t look it. They looked roughly the same age. He wouldn’t have admitted it to her, but he had had his eyes done and got Botox shots too. Maintaining his youthful looks was an important part not only of his career as a sportscaster but of his dating life too. It was one thing to be older than the girls he went out with, but he didn’t want to look it. Or not too old anyway.
He walked Valerie back to the kitchen then, and she finished setting the table. She put silver candlesticks on it, and lit the candles, and selected plates with a wide silver band. Everything he had was elegant but masculine, and of the best quality that was made. While going through the cupboard, she had noticed that his candlesticks and flatware were from Cartier, and the plates were from Tiffany and had been made for him in Paris and had his name on the underside. He was a man who liked expensive things and the best of what life had to offer, and he had style and taste. He had come a long way from his early days as a football player, and had acquired a patina of sophistication, but he still had a natural simple side to him too. It was what women loved about him. He was very smooth but still real.
He hobbled over on his crutches and checked out the table, and nodded with approval. “You set a lovely table. Not everyone can say that Valerie Wyatt set their dinner table. I’m honored,” he said, and she laughed and took another sip of the champagne. She was enjoying her evening with him, and he looked happy to be with her, and very much at ease.
She took the platters he had filled and set them around the table, and a few minutes later he turned down the lights and put on some music, and they sat down. The nurse had disappeared as soon as Valerie arrived, and she realized that she felt completely comfortable with him, which was surprising since they barely knew each other. He was a very pleasant man, and an interesting person of many contrasts. Success hadn’t spoiled him. If anything, it had widened his horizons, and opened his eyes to the finer things in life. He enjoyed what wealth could give him, but he cared about people too. And he talked a lot about his son, who was in college. It was obvious that he was crazy about him, and he said he spent time with him whenever he could.
They talked about art during dinner. He had a good eye for that too, and she had noticed an impressive Diebenkorn painting when she walked in, which she knew was worth a fortune. There were two Ellsworth Kellys in the kitchen, which added color to the room. One was a deep slash of blue, and there was a red one next to it. She liked them both. They chatted easily as they ate dinner. It was a perfect New Year’s Eve for two friends. It was easy more than romantic, which she liked. She had the feeling he was trying to get to know her, not seduce her, which appealed to her. She knew he could have all the women he wanted and didn’t need to add her to the collection, nor would she have wanted to be one of his flock of “girls.”
The food he had set out was delicious, and the pasta he had made was surprisingly good. He had even made the salad dressing himself from scratch. They ate the caviar and oysters, and Valerie helped herself to some of the crab. And then he served her some of the pasta. It was hard to believe that after what they’d both been through recently, they were relaxing in his kitchen now, enjoying the minor luxuries and indulgences of life.
“It’s weird, isn’t it?” he commented. “Ten days ago I was getting shot in the leg by a sniper, and now here we are, as though nothing ever happened, eating oysters and pasta and talking about life.” She glanced over at his crutches as he said it and raised an eyebrow. Getting shot didn’t seem like “nothing” to her. “People have an amazing capacity to bounce back from the worst disasters and tragedies. One minute everything is a shambles, and then it all seems normal again,” he said, looking relaxed. None of the trauma he’d been through showed in his eyes as he smiled.
“I can’t say I feel entirely normal,” Valerie confessed, looking at him in the candlelight. “I’ve had nightmares every night, and I got off very lucky.” They both thought of the assistants and colleagues they had lost, the eleven who had died. And all of them had been traumatized in a major way, including him, whether he acknowledged it or not.
“We were both lucky,” Jack said gently. She was impressed that he felt that way. And their friendship had resulted from that single horrifying event. She still remembered him helping the women out of the building. The sounds and smells of that lobby still haunted her and maybe always would. It was hard to erase it from her mind, although she knew that in time it would fade. But for her, it hadn’t yet. And probably not for him either in spite of what he said. He was just happy to be alive, regardless of the pain in his leg.
He told her funny stories about his days in football then, to distract her. He could see in her eyes that she was still pained by the memories of that terrifying day. At least for him, he had no memories from the time he had been shot. After that everything was a blank. Valerie knew there had been talk of his receiving an award for heroism. The mayor had called him personally to thank him several days before, and Valerie had heard about it at the network too.
He talked about his marriage then, the things he regretted, the things he still missed about it, the moments he had loved. He said that the high point of his life had been when his son, Greg, was born. It touched her to hear that it wasn’t winning the Super Bowl or being inducted into the Hall of Fame. It was when his only child had come into the world. It said something about him that she liked.
“I feel that way about April too.” It would have been the perfect time to tell him that her daughter was having a baby, but she didn’t. Talking about it made her feel old. It was bad enough being sixty and single. She didn’t have the heart to tell him she was going to be a grandmother, or even admit it to herself. She hadn’t made her peace with it yet. Pat seemed more relaxed about it, but he was happily married and a man. And he was undisturbed about his age. Jack and Valerie had that in common, the fact that they were both struggling to accept how old they were and what it meant in their current lives. And both of them worked and lived in a culture based on youth. It wasn’t easy getting older surrounded by people half their age who were itching to step into their shoes, and waiting for them to slip in some way. Valerie was constantly aware of it in her work, and Jack was too. They had more similar experiences, far more than she’d ever had with Pat, or even more recent men in her life. And Jack had nothing in common with the girls he dated. They were just more trophies on his wall. There was rarely one he could even talk to. His only bond with them was sex. And what would happen when that went downhill? He worried about that now.
“My age didn’t use to bother me,” he admitted to her over ice cream he scooped into crystal bowls and set down on the table for them, after she helped him clear the remains of their dinner. “I never thought about it. I was always the youngest guy in the room. And then suddenly one day I realized I wasn’t. All of a sudden, I was the