The Spindle's Curse: A modern mm romance inspired by Sleeping Beauty (Ever After Book 1) Read online

  Alex brushes her hair out of her eyes and laughs. “Where are you from again? Poughkeepsie was it?”

  “New Paltz.”

  “Same difference. Okay so in Manhattan there’s this thing called rent control. It’s how those lucky sons of bitches in Friends got that place in West Village. Areas like this that have been all gentrified, well, in the ’70s they said if you’ve been living in a place continuously then there’s a limit to how much the rent can go up by. And it passes down to your relatives. So, my aunt lived here and when she passed I got the keys to the city as it were. You follow? But I have to keep living here. My company assigned me overseas, and they don’t know if it’s permanent. Soo…”

  So, our arrangement isn’t strictly legal. “So, you’re subletting to me.”

  “Yeah. You lucked out. Please don’t wreck the place.”

  She says it lightly, but I do kind of look like the type who would wreck the place. Maybe I should have ditched the leather jacket.

  In the application, I said I was coming to New York to meet my mother. I also said that I was a young man of sober habits. The track marks on my arms would put paid to that story pretty damn quick.

  She checks her phone again. “My ride’s here, gotta go!”

  “Wait!” I call after her as she heads for the door. “What about the cat?”

  “Keep the windows closed and he’ll leave you alone.”

  “Should I feed him?”

  “Hell, no. Then he’ll never stop bothering you. Also, Ms. Howard has him on a special diet.”

  Right. The neighbor.

  Alex blows me a kiss and shouts, “Enjoy the city!” and then she’s gone and I’m alone in my new apartment.

  My apartment. For six months if I want it, maybe more. I get a beer and down half of it just because it’s so deliciously cold. It’s only when I’m standing at the window looking down at the street below that it starts to sink in how fortunate I am. I’ve heard of rent control before, of course. I didn’t know exactly how it worked, but I knew enough to gather that these old places are extremely rare and sought after. Alex probably thought I’d been sitting on Craigslist for weeks just waiting for her listing to come up. Maybe, for once, fate was on my side. Maybe my stars are finally turning.

  Murdock comes strolling down the fire escape. He pauses at my window to wash his face. I raise the bottle to him. “Cheers, kitty.”

  He takes a dump.

  3

  Philip

  Jones has put me on a white stallion this time, and the stallion doesn’t seem too happy about it. He puffs a breath out through his nostrils and paws the ground.

  “How much do you weigh?” Jones asks, pulling her blonde hair to tighten her ponytail. The trees dapple her white shirt and tanned skin as a breeze catches the branches overhead. Her own brown mare dips her head and investigates a shoot of grass.

  “Rude.”

  Jones rolls her eyes. “I’m just saying maybe you’re too heavy for the horse.”

  “I’m doing you a favor, and now you’re calling me fat?”

  This is our third ride around the park since she opened her school. She thought I would be a good advertisement at the time, but now I’m not sure if she meant that I looked good on a horse, or if she meant that I was the only one of our friends willing to help her.

  I scratch the back of my neck. “Like 190? Is that too heavy?” The last thing I want to do is hurt the horse. To be honest, it’s probably closer to 195… 196… I did overdo it at Rosh Hashanah.

  The corner of Jones’s mouth pulls upward. “I’m teasing, you idiot. You think back when they waged wars on these beasts no one was tall with muscles?” She pats her mare fondly.

  “Well, I don’t know. I’m not exactly a horse guy.”

  I did take some lessons as a kid. My mother had dreams of entering me into the dressage competitions she won when she was younger, but alas I proved to be completely without poise. Totally poise-less. A fidgety disaster.

  Jones reaches to pat the stallion. “Samson’s just excited. Look at his ears.” They’re swiveled forward towards the Bridle Path. “He’s impatient to get going. Come on, Samson.”

  She whistles as she sets the mare off at a trot. I follow.

  “Remember to look like you’re having a good time!” Jones calls back. “The best time. The best time you’ve ever had! Horse lessons have helped you find religion. They’ve changed your life. They’ve rocked your world. Smile for goodness sake.”

  I can’t help but smile at her. “Are you sure you’re not talking about yourself?”

  I remember when she was eight and first discovered horses. From one day to the next, her entire life became about the animals. Her parents thought it was a phase, but if it is it’s still ongoing nearly two decades later. Her back is perfectly straight, and I try to mimic her pose.

  Shoulders back, smile, don’t fidget. Like dressage.

  “Look at that,” she says, “I knew you’d be a good model. You’re going to make tourists faint. Here’s the perfect specimen of the all-American male, step right up folks. If he rides horses, you should too!”

  My smile falters as some tourists actually do look up at us. Jones merely waves.

  The Bridle Path is a 2.5-mile loop that will take us around the Reservoir. The first time we did this, Jones told me that Central Park was actually built to be viewed from horseback. The curved roads are bordered by shrubs, and the array of flowers makes me feel like I’m in the country. I can almost trick myself into thinking the sound of the traffic is a roaring ocean. The breeze has carried off enough of the smog that the air tastes fresh and smells of mowed lawn. It’s good to have the sun on my face, even though I know I should be more concerned that the weather’s so hot this late in the year. We’ve packed lunch so we can picnic by the Reservoir and admire the view of the city. If there aren’t too many tourists, that is. Although, today there seem to be fewer happy snappers and more fresh-faced students. The NYU fall term must have started.

  … and we aren’t the only ones who had the picnic idea. The Great Lawn peeks through the trees. It looks like a patchwork of blankets.

  “Our spot is going to be overrun,” I groan.

  Jones follows my gaze. “I hate people.”

  Just then, something darts out of the bushes in front of me. The stallion’s ears flick back and he’s reared up before I even realize what’s happened. The ground slams into my shoulder and pain lances up into my neck. The air whooshes from my lungs and the stallion bolts. Jones swears and canters off after him, leaving me dazed on the hard-packed earth. I struggle up to find a small child gazing at me. His red shirt running out onto the path is what startled the horse.

  “What do you think you’re doing?” My lungs squeeze, battling to get in air and my back is throbbing. “You can’t just run into the road like that!” He could have been trampled, killed. “Are you trying to commit suicide?” The kid’s bottom lip trembles. He’s hugging a frisbee to his chest. “You have to look where you’re going!”

  “Lay off him!” I turn to see a man standing on the path behind me. He’s slender, in a leather jacket despite the heat. His hands are shoved into his pockets. His dark eyebrows stand out against his pallid skin, and they’re drawn down in anger.

  I heave myself to my feet, ignoring my protesting shoulder. “This your kid?”

  “No, it’s not my kid. Can’t you see he’s scared shitless?”

  The stranger brushes past me to crouch beside the child. “Don’t listen to the mean man. Mistakes happen. Go back to your parents.”

  “Did you even see what happened?” I ask.

  “Yeah. I saw.” He fixes a glare on me. I think he’s trying to be intimidating, but I’m 6'2 and pretty built, and he’s scrawny and still crouching. The little boy looks between us and then runs off onto the Great Lawn.

  The man stands. Even at his full height, he’s a head shorter than me, but he jerks his chin out as if he’s willing to challenge me to a fight.
“You were riding along like a stuck-up dickhead, running your mouth off about tourists and not watching where you were going.”

  I bristle. “I—that’s not what happened. He came out of nowhere.”

  “You New Yorkers are all the same. You think you own the city, the rest of us are blessed to bask in your presence or are unfortunate enough to be trampled underfoot. You think the kid didn’t know he did wrong when you landed on your ass?”

  I can feel heat rising to my cheeks. “You—how—I—the horse would have bolted no matter where I was looking!”

  “Well, maybe you shouldn’t be riding an animal that startles so easily in a place full of noise and kids.”

  He doesn’t give me a chance to respond. As he stalks away, I hear him say, “Asshole.”

  Jones comes trotting up, holding the stallion by the reins. “He was waiting for us at the Reservoir like a good boy. You wanna do lunch?”

  I’m still looking at the place where the man disappeared beyond the trees. “Don’t have much of an appetite.”

  4

  Brian

  I swallow down the last of my pizza slice while staring at the open closet. I’m debating whether it or the broom closet next to the stove is bigger. Alex must have packed away her own clothes because she definitely didn’t fit them in that suitcase and they aren’t in the closet. Even so, I wonder if it’s worth unpacking. I take another swig of beer. Dad’s voice pops into my head with one of his favorite platitudes. “Start as you mean to go on.”

  I sigh and pull my clothes out of my backpack. Just as well I don’t have much: three black shirts, two pairs of shredded jeans, including the ones I’m wearing, and underwear. I hang up the jeans because there’s no shelf space and I take my toiletries through to the bathroom. Then I sit down on the bed again.

  No more procrastinating.

  I’m going to call my mother.

  I decided this on the way back from Central Park. I was hot and irritated and swearing at the city and I realized there was no way I could leave without at least doing that much, or all this would have been for nothing. If I’d fallen in love with the Big Apple when I set foot on the platform at Penn Station, it would have been another story. Instead, I keep being reminded why I hate this place and I hardly ever come here. The smell, the heat, the tourists and the insufferable locals are more likely to drive me back to the needle than help me get the monkey off my back. So I have to call her. Then I can go home. Mission accomplished, closure obtained. All I have to do is dial her number.

  My phone goes warm in my hand long before I find the courage to dial. And then once the number is on the screen and I’ve checked it three times to make sure I haven’t messed it up, I stare at it for a few more minutes. Why couldn’t she have given me an email address?

  I set down the phone and go shower. It takes all of ten minutes. Then I’m back sitting on the bed with the phone in my hand. I catch myself in the mirror, wearing nothing but the gray towel around my waist and cringe. I’m still junkie-thin with apparent ribs and angular cheeks, even though I’ve been trying to eat enough and exercise again. My skin is marble-pale aside from a shock of pink across my cheeks and nose. Oh great, on top of everything else, the city has given me sunburn.

  I hit call.

  It rings four times. I hold my breath. My heartbeat thrums. Five times. Six. Just when I’m expecting to go to voicemail, someone answers, “Yeah?”

  The voice is smokey, definitely female.

  “Hi, I’m looking for Malena Rose?” I worry at the toweling, liberating gray threads.

  “I haven’t gone by that name in years,” the voice says. “Who is this?”

  I draw an unsteady breath. “Um, it’s Brian. I got your letter.”

  There’s a beat of silence on the line that could be confusion. Then, “Well, I never.”

  “You said you wanted to meet? I’m… well… I’m in the city. If you still want to?”

  “Yeah, kid, absolutely.” A rustle. “Tell me where and when.”

  “I kinda just got here. I don’t really know anywhere.” Except for Central Park. Just the thought of this reunion happening somewhere so exposed in front of so many people makes my chest tight. And I’m not inviting her here. “Somewhere quiet, I guess? A coffee shop or something?”

  “I know a place. You free tomorrow?”

  “Yes.” My mouth is dry.

  “Can you get to Brooklyn?”

  “Pretty sure I can figure it out.”

  “I’ll text you the address. You like bagels?”

  I’m aware that it’s a sin to say one does not like bagels when one is in Manhattan. “I like carbs.”

  She laughs too hard. I didn’t think that was particularly funny. “I can tell we’ll get along fine. See you there, kid.”

  This is weird. This is so weird.

  I call Dad. “So I’m meeting her tomorrow,” I say, without preamble. “Tell me what to do.”

  “Brian?”

  “No, your other son who’s just agreed to meet his deadbeat mom at a bagel place in Brooklyn.”

  I can picture him pushing his glasses up his nose before he says, “Stop panicking. Sit down. Where are you?”

  “Home.” That sounds too strange. This isn’t home. Home is where he is. “I mean at the apartment.”

  I called him earlier from Central Park, before the incident with the dickhead on the horse. At the time I was feeling upbeat. I told him all about the rent control and the cat and the fucking blue sky. Couldn’t let him go one full day without worrying about me, could I?

  “How are you feeling?” he asks.

  Is it not obvious? I swipe a hand through my hair. I used to wear it long, but I’ve kept it at a number four since that stint behind bars. I guess I got used to having it shaved. “I don’t know,” I say. “She was so chilled about it, like it was no big deal. I mean she was surprised but…” Shouldn’t she be the one freaking out? Maybe that was her freaked out. Maybe she’s skilled at hiding it.

  “That’s good, if she was calm it means she’s considered this and she knows it’s what she really wants. It’s been years, son.”

  When we first discussed the letter, he said the same thing. I asked him what he thought I should do because he knew her. His response was that he didn’t know her anymore. He hoped she’d turned a corner.

  “It’s only a meeting—a bagel, did you say?” he asks.

  I nod, then realize he can’t see me and hum in the affirmative.

  “You are entitled to your anger, Brian.” He’s said this to me before too, but I appreciate the reminder. “What she did to you was wrong, and the fact that she’s only reaching out to you now, when you’re a grown man…” For a moment I think he’s going to let his true feelings, his true opinion of her, slip, but he stops himself. “You are allowed to feel whatever you need to feel, Brian. It’s understandable that you’re confused. Think of it this way. You are not promising her access to your life, you promised her a meeting. It needn’t be longer than five minutes. You are an adult. She cannot stop you from walking away if that’s what you choose to do.”

  He sounds like Gene. Still, my lungs fully expand as I draw in the next breath. “Have you been reading those parenting books for troubled teens again?”

  I can hear the smile in his voice as he repeats, “You are an adult.”

  “So yes then.”

  “No, actually…” he hesitates. I tense up again at his change of tone. “Actually, I’ve started attending meetings.”

  “Al-Anon?”

  They recommended it to all the families in rehab as a way to cope with us, the addicts in their lives. I should have guessed it would appeal to him. It’s like a self-help book in person.

  “That’s great,” I say before he has the chance to feel bad. He shouldn’t feel bad for needing help dealing with everything I put him through. “I’m really glad.”

  “Thank you. I’ve only been to a few meetings, but it’s a good group of people. Some of them
have children still in recovery, and I feel like I can… I suppose like I can offer them some hope.”

  “I’m still in recovery, Pops.”

  “Well, you know what I mean.”

  I do.

  “May I share the picture you sent me? The one of you in Central Park?”

  “Come on, Dad, you don’t want to be that guy showing everyone pictures of your kid.”

  “Actually, I do want to be that guy, Brian. I’m proud of you. I told you. Besides, they won’t look at it and see my kid, they’ll look at it and see their own kids, the potential.”

  Me, as an example of something to aspire to? That’s an uncomfortable thought.

  The traffic is so loud here. It’s not just the rush of cars, it’s the blare of horns and every so often the thunder of bass as someone shows off their stereo. It doesn’t really matter. I wouldn’t be able to sleep anyway.

  My mother sent through the time and address for our meeting while I was on the call with Dad. I looked it up, and now I keep staring at the map on my phone when I should be sleeping, trying to memorize all the steps to get there in case I’m too freaked tomorrow to think properly. Technology is amazing. I’ve never been much good at using it, but when it works it works. The app has laid out everything I need to do, including a warning that there’s some maintenance on the line and I’ll need something called an E train to make sure my station isn’t skipped. I breathe in, breathe out, close my eyes.

  I know the feeling of a sleepless night as it encroaches. It’s like something’s placed a wall between my conscious and my unconscious and it won’t let me cross, no matter how much I relax and how many breathing exercises I do.

  I probably got two full nights’ sleep the entire time I was in rehab, and those were only when I was so physically and emotionally drained that my body shut down out of pure necessity. And then there was prison… Let’s just say there’s a reason sleep deprivation is used as torture.