Chapter Two
The whole saga of Jack and Park began and ended at a Japanese noodle restaurant on Broadway in Morningside Heights.
Jackson’s memories were like ghosts as he walked around the neighborhood shortly after Park had come by his office to plead for him to take his case. This place had imprinted itself on Jackson in his time here, from the old brick architecture of the Columbiaacademic buildings to the wide expanse of Broadway. And everywhere, there was Park. There was the tow-headed kid ducking into the bookstore, the young man in the gray jacket chattering away to his friend as they walked out of Tom’s Restaurant, the thin guy running toward the campus gate like his life depended on making it to his next class on time—any of them could have been Park. The neighborhoodhad a snow globe quality to it, very little changing over the years. A clothes shop had become a bank and a grocery store had new signage, but this was otherwise still the place Jackson and Park had first met and fallen in love.
Jackson had taken a lunch meeting at a French bistro close to the Columbia campus that he’d hoped would distract him from the Park ordeal, dining on the dime of aclient accused of insider trading. This particular man was as slick as it got, and Jackson felt no guilt ordering a very expensive bottle of wine along with the meal as they discussed the evidence the prosecutor had gathered, admittedly thin. After lunch, he decided to take a quick walk, cutting through the campus, walking past buildings he’d bustled in and out of when he’d been a student there overa decade ago. He spent most of his time turning over the problem of whether to take the case without reaching any sort of conclusion. Before he’d given much thought to where he was going, he found himself walking past Uncle Oliver’s Noodle House.
Like everything else in the neighborhood, it looked much as it always had. The big glass windows showed the place was bustling as always. The hodgepodgeof Japanese kitsch still decorated any spare bit of space on every wall.
It had been here that Park had taken Jackson on their first date, a choice he’d later explained by saying he’d wanted to go somewhere fancier, but he hadn’t wanted to break Jackson’s wallet if Jackson had insisted on going dutch. In those days, Park had been hypersensitive about the fact that he came from a family withmoney; he’d wanted to blend in more than anything.
But Parker Livingston had never blended in anywhere. He was too polished. Too beautiful. Jackson had spotted him the first time across a crowded room at a party and been instantly drawn to his striking blue eyes, his blond good looks, the insouciant expression he habitually wore. That first time they’d met, Park had worn a long, pink-and-bluepaisley scarf tossed around his neck, and his hair combed and gelled into a ridiculously tall pompadour, and he looked a little silly, truth be told, and still Jackson had moved across the room and just said, “Hi,” and then Park had smiled.
Park had smiled at him that same way today, and Jackson had almost caved right there. He hated that Park could still make him feel that way, like theywere twenty years old and had the whole future before them.
They’d still come back to Uncle Oliver’s every year on their anniversary. Park had always ordered the chow fun with beef out of some misguided sense of nostalgia. Until the night, that was, that Park invited Jackson to Uncle Oliver’s, and Jackson knew before he even sat down that their relationship was over. Park moved out of theirapartment the next day.
Jackson called on that feeling. He steeped himself in the memory of watching Park walk out the door of their apartment. Even speaking to Park again was a bad idea for a lengthy list of reasons. And still Jackson hadn’t been able to issue a definitive no.
Eight years. They’d had eight happy years together, weathering the storms of college and law school and Park’sunreasonably demanding father and Jackson’s first job in the DA’s office. They’d lived together in three different apartments, eaten in half of the city’s best restaurants, spent countless nights just watching ridiculous nighttime soaps on TV while snuggled up together on Jackson’s old secondhand sofa.
Then some switch inside Park had flipped. Without much warning, Park had pulled the rugout from under their whole relationship. Perhaps that wound had since healed, but Jackson still bore the scars.
Now Jackson looked up at the sign for Uncle Oliver’s, on which the wordNoodlewas spelled out in illustrated ramen noodles. It wasn’t that he still loved Park, because that ship had sailed a long time ago. He’d dated plenty of other men in the intervening years. He’d moved on withhis life, and most days, he didn’t even spare a thought for Park.
It was just that a man never forgot his first love.
He’d been a scrawny nineteen-year-old without much more to his name than the change rattling around in his pocket the first time he’d eaten here with Park. Fourteen years later, he’d founded one of the best-regarded law firms in the city, meaning the suit he currently worecost more than he’d paid for room and board his sophomore year at Columbia.
He walked away and moved to hail a cab. Damn Park for walking into his office and, despite all he’d accomplished, making him feel like he was nineteen again, still trying to catch the attention of the most handsome boy in the room.
* * *
Then the police detective who’d caught the case called.
Gavin Shawagreed to meet Jackson at a diner near his precinct house that afternoon. That was a stroke of luck, if any part of this situation could be considered “lucky,” because Jackson and Gavin were old friends. Jackson sat nursing a coffee and staring at his phone when Gavin arrived.
“Thanks for agreeing to meet me,” Jackson said as Gavin slid into the booth.
“Level with me. Are you seriouslythinking about representing this asshole?”
Jackson had been thinking about it for hours and had come no closer to a decision. He rationalized that he certainly didn’t owe Park anything. He didn’t need the paycheck, and getting tangled up in something with Park when his emotions were all raw nerves was starting on a path toward an ethics violation. No way would he risk getting disbarred forPark. But could he win? He needed more information before he could make that determination. “Off the record? I don’t know what I’m going to do yet, but I...that is, Park and I went to college together, so that’s my interest in the case. But we also haven’t talked for years, so when he showed up in my office this morning, he took me off guard. If Reed came to me in trouble, I’d defend him in a heartbeat,but for someone like Park, who’s been out of my life for so long? I don’t know.”
“Did he tell you anything?”
“A loose outline. Not a lot. I told him not to tell me much until I agreed to take his case.”
Gavin laughed. “You are such a fucking lawyer.”
“Can you tell me anything?”
Gavin leveled his gaze at Park. “Only because you’re a friend. And nothing I say leaves this table.”
“I swear.”
Gavin nodded slowly and sighed. “I’m still digging. What I know so far is that the vic was a socialite named Zoe Haufman. We’re planning to release that to the press tomorrow. I just talked to the family a little while ago. The last anyone heard from her, she had dinner near Madison Square, so it’s not clear how or why she got uptown.”
“Park swears he didn’t know her.”
