The Bride of Manhattan

By Rachel Astarte

"I owe it to myself to not get lazy, to remain open to the world, to welcome all the women I am and could be."
–From THE BRIDE OF MANHATTAN

Twenty-seven-year-old Garden Crawford thinks she has it all. Two years ago she relocated from her hometown of New York City to Santa Fe to marry a handsome Scotsman who runs a holistic spa-to-the-stars.

But on the morning of her 28th birthday, Garden wakes up and hates her wardrobe. The cotton prairie skirts and poet blouses seem to belong to some New Mexican housewife. How did this happen? She’s a New Yorker!

For her husband Miles, Garden’s New York obsession has made her impossible to live with. By the end of her birthday, they’ve decided to divorce. That night, Garden's best friend Babette tells her about Saturn Return—the age between 28 and 30, when Saturn returns to its original position in the sky as it was the year we were born. “Your whole life gets flipped upside-down,” but Babette reassures her, “Turning 30 was the best thing that ever happened to me.”

Upon returning home to Manhattan and moving into her mother's West Village loft, Garden feels like a child. Maybe she should go back to Miles. But Garden remembers her loyalty to New York. She must continue the journey to find her true self in the city she loves more than anything—or anyone.

"THE BRIDE OF MANHATTAN by Rachel Astarte Piccione is witty and humorous, wise and perceptive by turns, sometimes all simultaneously. A penetrating study of love and marriage, it is also a riveting page-turner, filled with palpably real characters (notably the narrator/protagonist) about whom the reader really cares. I would happily reread it and even more gladly welcome a sequel."

–Barry H. Leeds, Ph.D., Author of THE STRUCTURED VISION OF NORMAN MAILER,
KEN KESEY, and THE ENDURING VISION OF NORMAN MAILER

"THE BRIDE OF MANHATTAN celebrates a woman who learns to live on her own terms. With her fast-paced and atmospheric style, Rachel Astarte Piccione captures the heartbreak and victory that occurs when one throws a monkey wrench in those best-laid plans—love, marriage, home, essentially the hallmarks of “womanhood.” Readers will find Garden Tate (Crawford) inspiring and cheer for her on her heroic journey."

–Patience H. Bloom, Senior Editor, Harlequin Books

• Language: English
• Publisher: Rachel Astarte
• Release date: Mar 11, 2011
• ISBN: 9781452427409

Rachel Astarte

Rachel Astarte Piccione is an American Council of Hypnotist Examiners (ACHE) Certified Clinical Hypnotherapist, a member of the National Association of Transpersonal Hypnotherapists (NATH), and a Certified Life Coach. She holds an MFA in Creative Writing from Emerson College, and a diploma in Mind-Body Wellness from Southwest Institute of Healing Arts. She is trained in a number of additional healing modalities including shamanism (from the Foundation for Shamanic Studies), holistic nutrition, and flower essences.Rachel as been an adjunct professor of writing at a number of East Coast colleges including Philadelphia University, Bucks County Community College, and Emerson College.She is an author of both fiction and non-fiction publications, all of which promote individual healing and wellness. Her book, Celebrating Solitude, is a cornerstone in her work with clients, as she encourages a regular Solitude Practice for better health.Rachel contributed to Dr. Bernie S. Siegel’s 2011 anthology, A Book of Miracles: Inspiring True Stories of Healing, Gratitude, and Love. She was also a nominee for the Pushcart Prize in Poetry and was the 1996 Poet Laureate of Bucks County, Pennsylvania.Rachel’s international work has centered on the promotion of cultural unity through the performing arts. Her feature script, “Little India,” was a semi-finalist in the 2006 American Screenwriting Competition and a 2006 Gloria Film Festival Screenplay Competition selection. In December 2006, her one-act play, “Middle East Side,” had its premiere reading at SALAAM Theater in New York City.In addition, Rachel traveled to Udaipur, India in 2007 to work with the Non-government Organization (NGO) Mahan Seva Sansthan, through the Foundation for Sustainable Development’s ProCorp volunteer program. During her two-month tenure, Rachel wrote a documentary film script, “Mahan Seva Sansthan: Educating for Empowerment,” about MSS’s work in rural Rajasthan over the past two decades. She shot video footage in the villages, conducted interviews with villagers, and compiled film stills to be used in the documentary.Rachel is an ordained clergy member, holding the title of Peace Counselor since September 2002. As part of her ongoing peace work, Rachel has given numerous readings across the country, and lectured at such venues as New York City’s New School on the topic of employing the arts as a means toward conflict resolution.

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What Others Are Saying About

The Bride of Manhattan

"The Bride of Manhattan by Rachel Astarte Piccione is witty and humorous, wise and perceptive by turns, sometimes all simultaneously. A penetrating study of love and marriage, it is also a riveting page-turner, filled with palpably real characters (notably the narrator/protagonist) about whom the reader really cares. I would happily reread it and even more gladly welcome a sequel."

–Barry H. Leeds, Ph.D., Author of The Structured Vision of Norman Mailer,

Ken Kesey, and The Enduring Vision of Norman Mailer

"The Bride of Manhattan celebrates a woman who learns to live on her own terms. With her fast-paced and atmospheric style, Rachel Astarte Piccione captures the heartbreak and victory that occurs when one throws a monkey wrench in those best-laid plans—love, marriage, home, essentially the hallmarks of womanhood. Readers will find Garden Tate (Crawford) inspiring and cheer for her on her heroic journey."

–Patience H. Bloom, Senior Editor, Harlequin Books

THE BRIDE OF MANHATTAN

by

Rachel Astarte Piccione

Smashwords Edition

~ ~ ~

Published by

Green Oracle Press at Smashwords

The Bride of Manhattan

Copyright © 2011 by Rachel Astarte Piccione

Illustrations by Ted Slampyak

Cover design by Rachel Astarte Piccione

Smashwords Edition License Notes

This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This ebook may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each person you share it with. If you're reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then you should return to Smashwords.com and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the author's work.

~ ~ ~

THE BRIDE OF MANHATTAN

For SJH, AWP, PJC, BZC, and NYC

At the Saturn Return, each of us is challenged to take responsibility for

own evolutionary journey, and begin to give expression to a unique voice

that comes from within.

–Joe Landwehr *

Should you desire the great tranquility,

Prepare to sweat white beads!

–Hakuin **

* From The Saturn Return As A Cyclical Rite of Passage, published in The Mountain Astrologer. November 1994.

** Zen poet. Translated by Lucien Stryk.

Chapter One

I married Miles for his hands. Yet to this day I am not sure how we ended up married or, furthermore, how three short years later we ended up so very unmarried. The beginning of the story is a simple one: Miles Crawford, a gifted masseur who runs an exclusive spa in Santa Fe, meets a saucy, savvy, displaced, die-hard Manhattanite and falls for her citified charm and endearing neuroses.

Since his immigration from Scotland twenty years ago, what has he had to choose from? An entire breed of self-aware young goddesses from the American southwest who sprout up along every sweet-smelling, sagebrush-filled roadside. Granola crunching, incense burning, yoga stretching, meditating girls. Girls who become the light-skinned apprentices of Indian elders—either Native American or Hindu; they’re both prevalent in this, the Spiritual Mecca State. Girls who change their names from Tammy or Kim to Cloud Daughter or Shanti.

Of course it makes sense that Miles got caught up in the charm of The Stranger. The lovely, alien creature who spilled manicotti sauce on her blouse on the first date then stood up cursing like a sailor, This is a motherfucking Donna Karan! The one who drives like she is at the helm of a Yellow Cab seeking out alternative routes to Penn Station because there’s another freakin’ street fair on Seventh Avenue. The one who knows Woody Allen’s real name. As my lifetime New Yorker of a mother would say, What’s not to love?

You see, I know what happened at the beginning. It’s what happened afterwards that completely baffles me.

THE BEGINNING:

A JOURNEY OF 730 DAYS BEGINS WITH A SINGLE PAIR OF PANTIES

FALL: AGE 28

Chapter Two

It is my twenty-eighth birthday. At the urging of my best friend Babette, I am heading to my husband’s spa for some birthday pampering. When she suggested it, the phrase immediately brought to mind an image of Miles swaddling me in diapers, which was slightly disturbing, but of course I knew what she meant. I think Babette just wants me out of the house so she can plan the surprise party she doesn’t think I have a clue about. And as her friend, I’ll pretend I don’t.

Miles’ High is an eight-minute drive northeast of Santa Fe, built into a hillside notch of the Sangre de Cristo mountains. The route to that spa is so deeply ingrained in me now that there are days I don’t remember the trip at all. Today I do. I’m taking particular note of the switchbacks up the mountain and how, far off, you can see the adobe mansions of the wealthy Santa Feans below.

Life in New Mexican adobe is so different from life in New York brownstone. Those rich folks down there have to get in their cars and drive a mile to Albertson’s supermarket to get an emergency bag of chips. New Yorkers just have to step outside. Or order their snacks online for thirty-minute delivery. How funny. I can’t help feeling superior. The whole time I’ve lived here in the southwest, I’ve always seen myself as an east coaster.

I allow one hand off the wheel to rifle around in my rucksack for smokes. I have become very good at this. It’s a personal Zen concentration trick. Eyes stay trained on the road, the one cigarette-searching hand is given a mind and memory of its own to do what it has to as long as the rest of me can focus on the precarious mountain road. Without the car-driving part of me even having to think, my searching hand knows the feel of my lipstick, daybook, wallet...cigarettes.

If I do smoke on the drive, it is at this point—the expansive mansion vista—that I light up. Oh, if I wanted to psychoanalyze it I guess it would have something to do with an aversion to people focusing their lives on estates with health clubs and indoor pools built in, living out their days in personal little spas of their own. Smoking is the perfect self-destructive rebellion against all that health crap. Plus, it reminds me of summer nights in the East Village, when I used to hang out with friends at outdoor cafés, smoking and talking and people-watching. Can’t do that out here in the desert. Especially not while you’re driving.

The real reason I light up at this point is that the ride to the spa takes me the length of exactly one cigarette, plus an extra mile-and-a-half to get the smell out of my car.

Miles not only hates smoking, he treats his semi-conscious awareness of the fact that I enjoy the occasional cigarette as a very unfortunate thorn in his side. It’s kind of like loving your kid even though you know she’s a serial killer. Have her over for dinner, pass the meatballs, ask what’s new in her life, and she tells you she just off-ed a couple of her neighbors. That expression you can imagine coming over your face is exactly the one Miles has when he sees my ciggy pack peeking out of my bag or smells smoke in the long strands of my honey-brown hair.

Other days, unlike today’s contemplative drive, it seems I just get in the car and before I know it, there it is, the entrance to the spa parking lot, heralded by the magnificent hand-carved wooden sign with my husband’s name on it.

My husband’s name.

I first read that sign four years ago. I pulled into the lot in a rented Ford Escort with my old high school friend Molly Jaspers riding shotgun. I was on break from the final semester of my Masters in Literature program at NYU, and wanted nothing more than to be away from books for a while. Molly held our AAA map of the southwest that we’d folded into some road-trip-origami-type thing during our weeklong New Mexican adventure.

This is it! Molly said. Then her ample shoulders slumped. "Where are all the celebrities? The magazine said celebrities. I don’t see one frigging limo. Not one!" She wrinkled her nose in her signature pout. It was the one facial expression in her repertoire that made her look more piglike than she’d ever care to know.

I knew enough not to bother answering the obvious. Molly was obsessed by celebrity. Women celebrities, specifically. Being gay in New York City was no big deal, even in high school. Then again, we attended the High School of the Arts. (Both of us were actors at school, but I didn’t love the spotlight as much as Molly; I ended up on the writing end of things, which much better suited my inner control freak.) Molly’s love of all things theatrical may have been the reason she was never satisfied with real girls; she loved movie stars. In our senior year, she had an apoplectic fit when Susan Sarandon walked briskly by her on 14th Street. Just by being in Ms. Sarandon’s presence, Molly felt as though Aphrodite herself had blessed her.

I didn’t come to Miles’ High for the stars. I was here to get the laying on of hands. Mmm-massage. I’d read in that month’s Elle that New Mexican massages were more spiritual than the efficient sixty-five-dollar-an-hour rubdowns we got in New York. Particularly those administered at Miles’ High.

I imagined some young Native American Indian warrior looking into my eyes, seeing through my city-savvy façade and straight into my True Pain. And when he put those strong and tawny hands on my body, my every corporeal woe would be sucked up out of me and disappear into the universe.

Let’s go already, I said to Molly, If I don’t get touched soon, I’m gonna bust. We headed up the quarter-mile path toward the spa.

We were greeted by a lanky hipster girl who wore a bandana as a top and a concha belt over her jeans. There was no looping through loopholes, just a casual hanging, so that the links of the belt hugged her like a couture accessory. Her hair was long and blond, parted in the middle. She leaned over the reception desk and crossed her wrists over each other like Charlotte the spider in the Disney cartoon.

Can I help you ladies? She asked. I thought of honey dripping.

Yes! Molly piped up. We’d like massages and the communal hot tub.

The communal hot tub part was news to me, but I was too busy staring at Charlotte that I didn’t react in time to decline. She swiped our credit cards, gave us robes and keys for our lockers, and extended a bony arm toward the ladies’ dressing room.

Your masseurs will call for you. In the meantime, enjoy the tub. And she gave a little condescending wink. At least it felt condescending.

Molly took my arm and yanked me toward the dressing rooms. What a nice girl! she said. I mumbled something.

The communal pool was outdoors and up two flights of wooden stairs. There was a large planked wall that separated the pool deck from the general walkway. Once we passed the wall, I saw why: Everyone was naked.

About four sunbathers sprawled across the deck, heads resting on their rolled-up, spa-issued robes. Three very tan, very intimately pierced men sat on a higher deck, by the sauna. Two couples were submerged in the hot tub. Deep into the hot tub, I decided, is where I would have to get myself. Quickly.

Molly took no time in throwing off her robe with a Norma Desmondesque flourish. She sprawled her plump little bod on the deck. I, on the other hand, carefully unwrapped myself, then slid into the hot tub like a carnival goldfish being poured from its baggie into the fishbowl. No one even looked twice. I felt better. Actually, naked began to feel like a very good thing. (Thanks to my progressive parents, I’m basically a naturalist. As such, I shouldn’t give two craps about body image and all that nonsense. But I did grow up in Twentieth century America—not on a commune, and certainly in a place where they sold quite a number of fashion magazines and showed quite a lot of television programs that did their work on me over the years. I’m spectacularly average. Five-foot three and 115 pounds. And that has made me exactly as insecure as the clothing, makeup, and fitness industries would want me to be.)

I was only submerged a few moments when over the loudspeaker—which up to this point had been playing some Japanese flute music—we all now heard: Garden Tate and Molly Jaspers. Garden Tate and Molly Jaspers. Please report to Nirvana.

If only it was that easy.

Nirvana turned out to be the massage area. A large, birch-planked patio separated into sections by hanging panels of muslin. What came to mind was a holistic hospital ward. A thin, delicate-featured, eastern Indian man who introduced himself as Ahmjed escorted us to our separate tables.

Well, Native American or not, at least I’d get a soulful Indian.

Molly’s masseur (a woman who looked like she could have been a high school volleyball coach) was waiting for her, one partition over. Molly did a quick scan of the other tables and wrinkled up her nose in disappointment. She had probably expected to see Jessica Lange lounging on one of them.

Ahmjed handed me a white, carefully folded towel. He smiled peacefully. Please remove your robe and lie face-down on the table. Cover yourself with the towel, he said in a lilting Hindi accent. Your masseur will be here shortly.

You’re not...? I sputtered.

No. Please. Your masseur is running late, and asked me to get you settled in. Please. Ahmjed said through a humble smile. He made a motion to the table and backed out of the room.

I yanked open my robe, flung it over the back of a stool, and hopped on the table. Damn. I’d probably end up with somebody like Ms. Olympic Hopeful over there. Fine for Molly’s massage fantasies, but I wanted my soulful Indian. Just as I threw the towel over my backside and wedged my face into that donut-shaped head support that I knew would leave two red welts on my cheekbones, I was startled by the sensation of something flitting over one of my bare asscheeks.

Just fixing your towel, said the baritone voice, almost in a whisper. You missed a spot.

I craned my neck around and saw a painfully handsome man dressed all in white. Fortyish, solid Scottish build, light hair, slate eyes, ruddy face and—I noticed this right away—the strongest, most muscular, and all-time sexiest forearms I had ever seen.

I’m Miles, he said.

Garden, I managed to get out, then buried my face in the donut again. And that was my ass.

Miles laughed as he oiled up his hands. The thick, warmwet slapping sound of his hands rubbing against each other sounded like the inside of a conch shell. Earthy, procreative. I became embarrassed and did the only thing I knew how to do to cover myself: I talked.

I asked him if he was the Miles of Miles’ High. He said yes. I said oh, how lucky I was to get such special treatment from the owner. He said not really, he does a lot of massages; I was on his schedule. (I made a mental note to tip Charlotte well.) I cracked a funny about a man who’s so hands-on with his work.

Then he touched me.

They were not his hands. They could not have been. What I felt was a luminous heat traveling down either side of my spine, splitting into two paths toward each hip.

Resplendent. That was the word that echoed through me as he did this again, then a third time, before moving on to my shoulders. Back. Arms. Fingers. Legs. I thought for sure my body was exploding all sorts of colors, shooting them out of my skin and splattering them onto the wooden walls. They’d have a lot of cleaning up to do before the next massage session.

It took every ounce of my energy not to moan.

When Miles was done, sixty minutes later, I felt like I could ascend into the heavens and mingle with angels and not one of them would question my presence. Not one would wonder who let in the neurotic New Yorker.

I was a changed woman. I felt it. My well preserved New York paranoia and grit and edginess were magically gone from me. I was beatified.

I saw myself as Miles’ bride, building an adobe hut with him on a reservation, feeding our children with the vegetables we would grow in the soil we’d tilled ourselves. We would teach our babies to love the earth and love each other. We would grow old together. And when he died, I would preserve my husband’s magic hands in a jar and keep the jar above our mantle. The other members of the reservation who had grown to love us would create a folk song about Miles’ Magic Hands. And that song would be sung by our children’s children’s children...

You’d better drink some water, Miles said to me. Flush out the toxins.

I nodded and received the paper cup he handed me. I had the towel wrapped around myself and perched my buttcheek on the edge of the table, trying to look casual, but I knew I probably looked post-coital. He smiled at me and left.

I slipped on my robe. A small mirror hung over the table where all the oils were kept. I checked myself in it, expecting to see a new, sanctified me.

Two red welts. One on either cheekbone.

I left Miles a big tip with my phone number written in the corner of every dollar bill. He phoned me in New York the following week. We talked for three hours. This went on for weeks.

My long-distance courtship with Miles, while alluring, was not very satisfactory. Miles was not at all good with words. This might have been bothersome for many women who had chosen writing as a career path, but it didn’t matter to me that his e-mails were all unpunctuated, lower case, six-liners about nothing. His hands were what I remembered, what I wanted more than anything else.

A month later, Miles flew out to New York for a convention at the W hotel in midtown, and we spent almost every free minute of the weekend in his suite. All the Manhattan sightseeing he did was between the sheets.

I’ve often kicked myself about this. If we’d visited more of the wonderful buildings and parks and restaurants and culture of New York City, he might have had more of an appreciation for the city I love so deeply. He might have understood me better.

Regardless, it was sometime during the blending of that weekend’s day and night and day and night that I fell hard for Miles. How could I not? It was the best sex I ever had.

On the last evening, an hour before his car arrived to take him back to JFK, we lay in bed and finished a bottle of Laurent Perrier Brut champagne. We sucked the very last taste of it off each other’s tongues. One of Miles’ legs rested across my waist in a sort of heavy embrace and he looked at me, across my naked body, then directly in my eyes.

He did this for a very long time.

I wanted to ask him what he was thinking, but I didn’t dare. There was a sense of conviction as he lifted himself onto me, never taking his eyes away from mine. Then, his hands. They moved across me in soft, incremental surgings. The warm electricity of his skin suddenly conducted through my own.

All through the encounter, Miles did not take his eyes off me. I was thrown off at first, unnerved, but then I matched his concentration, accepted him. At no point did Miles break the connection between us by getting lost in his own pleasure. He was sure to bring me with him. He did not speak, and he did not look away until several minutes after we had both climaxed.

I convinced myself that Miles stared so intently when we made love because he was reading my very soul. But instead of feeling violated, I felt marked somehow.

Miles returned to Santa Fe. I saw him to his car. He squeezed my hand. As it sped off along Lexington Avenue, I turned in the opposite direction and burst into tears. I wandered the streets of Manhattan, pressing the ends of my hair to my nose, breathing in his scent.

I couldn’t go home. I sat in a café for an hour and stared out the window. What I was seeing was the curve of Miles’ shoulder. Under the hand that held a coffee cup, what I felt was his flank. In the notebook I carried with me everywhere, I scribbled out a short story called, The Anatomy of Man, then tore the pages out because it was too maudlin and sopping with sentiment. When I went to my mother’s Upper East Side apartment for dinner that night, she said nothing directly. Not even when I started weeping over the main course.

"I thought you liked my coq au vin. She wore an expression that let me know she was on to me. Mom put her hand on mine across the table and smoothed it warmly. The sad part will pass. Give it time."

For two full days I smelled like him. I went to the Food Emporium to pick up a few groceries and somewhere around the canned vegetable aisle, I began to feel a radiance pouring out of my skin. I stood erect, my face untwisted from its mournful contortions and I found myself holding the same expression I’d seen on Miles’ face as we made love. That certainty of purpose. I held onto a can of garbanzos a little too tenderly and long before placing it in my cart.

At the check out counter, a teenaged boy and girl with a basket full of Doritos and Mountain Dew and Butterfinger bars saw me approach and moved aside to let me ahead of them in the line. These were the kinds of kids who would normally go out of their way to mortify an adult. Especially an adult who not long ago was their age. But if I was flustered by their acquiescence, I didn’t show it. I smiled like the Madonna and took my place ahead of them.

I was not having a moony-eyed crush on an older man. I was empowered by his sex. Miles had made me an Alpha.

As I placed my items on the conveyor I thought, there’s a name some fashion mogul should snatch up for this new fragrance: Alpha. Be the leader of the pack...or just smell like one.

A few weeks later, Miles phoned me from his office. I started shaking when I heard his voice. It had been a