ON THE OUTSIDE, SCARLETT WOLFE  IS PERFECT.

Gorgeous, beautifully dressed, a cool job in fashion PR—what doesn’t she have going for her?  She meets a guy on a Hawaiian vacation, and his interesting scars and tough exterior get her heart pumping.  She could wrap him around her little finger if she wanted to, and why not?  It could be fun to have a little fling with Nate, then go back to San Francisco.  Back to cocktail parties and clubs and excitement, back to her adoring family, her sweet job, and her busy, full life.

That's Scarlett on the outside—that was who she used to be.  But now, on the inside, Scarlett Wolfe is coming apart, splintering bit by bit, and she’s scrambling to hold everything together.  Things are not as they seem, with her job, with her family, with her friends, and certainly not with Nate Lange, the former soldier she met in Hawaii.  Home in California, her life is suddenly entwined with Nate’s and Scarlett finds herself losing her heart to him.  She needs to pull herself back from the brink of chaos, and hopefully, Nate will be with her when she comes through to the other side…

Lovely You

Jamie Bennett

Copyright © 2019 by Jamie Bennett

All rights reserved.  No part of this book may be reproduced in any form without permission in writing from the author, except as used in a book review.  Please contact the author at JamieBennettBooks@gmail.com.
This is a work of fiction.  While reference might be made to actual historical events or existing locations, the names, characters, places, and incidents are either the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events, or locales is purely coincidental.
Book cover by Angela Haddon Book Cover Design.

…to this day, the peacefullest, restfullest, sunniest, balmiest, dreamiest haven of refuge for a worn and weary spirit the surface of the earth can offer…a bloomy, fragrant paradise, where the troubled may go and find peace, and the sick and tired find strength and rest.

Mark Twain,

writing about the Hawaiian islands

Chapter 1

Whenever I closed my eyes, I started to remember.

So I opened them and turned over again, the rumpled sheet twisting around my body, wrapping around me like a boa constrictor.  God damn it.  I wiggled to get free, then viciously kicked at it to escape the knots around my legs.  It was just too fucking hot!  I flipped onto my back and watched the fan on the high ceiling above me, spinning and whirring.  The breeze it created barely reached the bed.

I sat up and looked out at the dark ocean for a while, then reached for an elastic to pull my hair into a bun on the top of my head.  There.  Maybe without it annoying me, lying on my neck like an itchy blanket, now I would be able to sleep.  I angrily flopped back down and stared at the fan again.  What was the point of putting that puny thing so high up there?  Had anyone ever thought about that?  Why was I the only one who realized how dumb it was? 

I turned on my side, huffing.  People were so stupid.  I thought about the various examples I had witnessed since I had arrived in Hawaii that afternoon—the baggage handlers who took about ten years to get the bags off the plane, and mine was last, even though I had been in first class; the driver who went exactly the speed limit, like exactly on the line, and refused to go through yellow lights.  The property management company that couldn’t manage their piece of shit property well enough to make sure the air conditioning worked.  Like, they had one job, and they couldn’t even do that!

I was burning with anger as well as with the heat inside the house.  What was wrong with people?  With all these people, with everyone?  I turned on my back and looked at the fan, wishing I could reach up and rip it off the ceiling, make a big hole there, then throw it across the room so that it broke into a million pieces.  I wanted to hit something.  Someone.  There was just no fucking way I was going to get to sleep, no way.

I got up and padded out of the bedroom and into the living room, where I had purposely left my phone.  I looked at it lying on the coffee table, and bit my lip.  If I opened it, I would only use it to make calls, and I would not look at any messages, emails, or notifications.  Nothing.  I swallowed and picked it up, then resolutely ignored the red numbers telling me how much communication I was missing.  I jabbed at it until I heard it ringing. 

“Aloha, you have reached Naupaka Property Management,” the man’s deep voice told me.  It was familiar and so, so annoying.  I had already dialed this number at least five times with no response.  “If you have reached this message during normal business hours…”

“This is Scarlett Wolfe calling from Anu House.  Again.  I’m not sure what the hell you think you’re doing,” I seethed into my phone when, finally, the voice finished and invited me to talk at the beep.  “You had one fucking job, to get this house ready for a visitor.  Me.  You can sit on your ass for the rest of the year and drink your Mai Tai and eat your plate lunch, but for just this one time, you have to do what you’re paid to do!”  I finished with my list of complaints: obviously the broken air conditioning, the smell in the refrigerator, chipped paint in the master bedroom closet, etc., etc.  I left one more demand to call me back and hung up.  My hand clenched around my phone and I resisted the urge to heave it against the wall.  To throw anything, to scream, to beat the table with my fists, to cry.

Instead, I made myself sit quietly on the sofa, the fabric rough against my skin.  I never watched TV, but I flipped it on now, moving quickly between channels and looking for anything to capture my attention.  The blue light of the screen lit up the room.  I peeked over at my phone.  No, nope, I was not going to look at it.  I resolutely watched the high school volleyball game I had stopped on.  I had played volleyball, too, a million years ago, it seemed like.  These girls looked so young, so optimistic, so fresh and open.

And so stupid.  They had no idea what was ahead of them.

∞

“Hello.  Hello.”

“We may see a little rain along the Kona coast in the late afternoon, and on the Hilo side, moderate showers throughout the evening.”

“Hello!  Scarlett Wolfe?”

My eyes popped open, and I was so confused at first.  Where was I?  The weatherman on the TV was gesturing to a map of the Hawaiian Islands and talking about a high-pressure system coming from the north, but the other voice—

There was a man standing about a yard from the couch, frowning down at me.

“Who the fuck are you?” I yelped, and leapt to my feet.  Oh shit, I was nude!  It had been so hot last night—

“I’m from Naupaka Property Management.  I manage this house.”  His eyes swept over me and I grabbed a pillow off the couch to cover at least the major parts.   “You called me.  Repeatedly.  I don’t answer after midnight, so in the future, you can leave off after the one message.  I get back to everyone, even if they don’t call seven or eight times.”

“I—I—”  I stopped, stood up straight, and then slumped back over because stretching out meant that the pillow covered less of me.  “Yes, I’m Scarlett Wolfe, and I did try to contact last night regarding some serious maintenance issues.  I expected a call from you, not that you would break in at dawn.”

He narrowed his eyes.  One of his eyes squinted a lot, but the other moved differently.  I realized I was staring at it when he frowned harder.  “It’s after eight AM, but I’m authorized to enter Anu House at any time,” he told me.  “Authorized by Verity Wolfe.  She’s owns it.”

Yes, I knew that, because she was my grandmother.  “Well, well,” I said, pissed at myself as I stammered, trying to formulate my next thought.

He cut me off.  “Could you please put some clothes on?” 

He sounded disgusted.  He looked disgusted too, and I almost threw my pillow at his sneering face before I remembered that I was stark naked.  I breathed hard out of my nose and, since he didn’t turn around like anybody with manners would, I backed out of the room and down the hall, still hiding my body behind the pillow, glaring at him.  I quickly threw on a pair of shorts and a t-shirt over a bikini, and as I did, I heard the air conditioning start up.  Maybe he wasn’t completely useless if he had managed to get it going so fast.

I was pulling my hair up into another knot when I came back into the living room.  “You fixed it?” I asked.  The house felt better already.

“You have to set the thermostat to ‘cool.’  You had it set to heat.  That was why the air wouldn’t come on.”  He was looking at me like I smelled bad.  Maybe I did; it had been really hot last night.  I held my chin up high.  “Next time you’re, I believe your message said, ‘getting fucking roasted alive,’ I suggest that you open some windows,” he continued.  “This close to the ocean, there’s always a nice breeze.”

“I can’t do that at night.  I’m here alone,” I snapped him, and then regretted it, because now he knew I was all by myself in the house.  I stepped back, away.

“Not a lot of crime in a gated community with twenty-four-hour security,” he said dismissively.  “I think it’s safe to open a window when it’s ninety degrees inside the house.”

He didn’t know jack shit about what was safe.  “Whatever,” I snapped.  “There were other repairs that I mentioned—”

He pulled a folded sheet of paper out of his back pocket.  “One, air conditioning.  Done.  Two, there’s a smell in the refrigerator.  I put in a box of baking soda when you went to cover yourself.”  Another slight sneer and I could feel myself blush, like I had done something wrong, as if sleeping au naturel in my own house was depraved or something.  “Last time Mrs. Wolfe was here, she left some opened cans of cat food in the fridge,” he continued.  “They forgot to tell me she was gone for a few weeks after her departure and that’s the smell.  I’ll clean the evaporator.”  He looked at me, eyebrow raised, as if waiting for me to comment.  I nodded slightly, like I approved, or knew what an evaporator was. 

He ran through the rest of the items on the paper, the things I had called and left the messages about the night before when they had all felt like dire emergencies: chipped paint, scratched table legs from my grandmother’s cats, a scuff on the tile, the garbage disposal that made weird noises, a drawer in nightstand that wouldn’t open, a lightbulb that had burned out, the sink the powder room that drained so slowly, and the others.  I had walked around the house, seeing nothing but problems.  In the light of day, with cool air pouring from the vents, none of the things on the list seemed so life and death to me, but whatever, this was his job, and he should do it.

I looked at his face while he read.  There were marks around his eye.  The skin there was a little puckered, almost like it was slightly abraded.  A thin white line ran near his jaw on that side of his face, curving slightly toward his mouth.  It made the corner of his lips turn down a little, but that wasn’t why it looked like he was frowning at me now.  He just looked angry.  I had been staring at him, wondering about his scars, and he had caught me.

“Since I had such short notice of your arrival, I couldn’t get over here to check through the house before you came.  It’s not up to my standards, and I’ll get to all of this,” he said gruffly.  “Nothing here that will give me any problems.  Nothing hazardous to your health.”  He stared at me.  Glared at me.

Now that I was clothed and didn’t need to cover up with the couch pillow, I could stand up straight without exposing myself.  I did, putting my shoulders back and my chin even higher into the air.  “Well, I expect you take care of all of it as soon as possible.”

He turned and left the living room without another word and I stood there feeling like an idiot.  I hadn’t turned the stupid controller to cool?  That was why I had been roasting the whole night?  And maybe I could have opened a window.  We were out on a secluded point overlooking the ocean, only three houses on the private street.  And as the guy had said, there was 24-hour security going up and down the block, and a guarded gate that cars had to pass through to enter.  So maybe it would have been ok to just crack some small windows, to let a little ocean breeze flow in. 

In fact, I wanted to do that, now.  I quickly suppressed the little bits of guilt and embarrassment that I had been feeling about being naked and everything else, and opened all the doors out to the big lanai and pool.  Past them, the ocean rolled in on the wide, empty beach.  I walked out and took a deep breath.  The air out here felt better than the staleness inside the house.  The tension in my body started to ooze out, just like it always did when I was around water.  I pulled my clothes back off and lay on a chair in my bikini, trying not to notice if the man inside really had left for good or not.  I thought he probably had and was already shirking what he had said he would do.  People sucked.

I looked at the waves for a long time.  I managed to make my mind stay away from everything and focus only on the turquoise water.  I was really, really tired, not only with the lack of sleep the night before, but with everything.  I was just tired of everything.  My eyes closed and I listened to the ocean.

This was interrupted almost immediately by the handyman property manager, who came out of the door behind me.  No, he hadn’t left.  He walked around the side of the house and I could hear some kind of thumping and bumping, then he walked past again with a toolbox, paint cans, a whole mess of things.  Then he did it for a second time.

This time, I stopped him.  “Hey.  I’m here on vacation, ok?  Can you not?”

He didn’t bother to stop walking.  “Last night you said that these repairs were, I believe the exact phrase was, ‘critical and urgent.’  You also mentioned calling Mrs. Wolfe and reporting me for what you called ‘dereliction of duty.’”  Now he stopped.  “Do you even know what those words mean?”

“I said it, didn’t I?  I know what I said.”  I flopped back down on the chair and closed my eyes.  “If you have to be here, can’t you be quiet?”

He dropped something with a huge clang and my eyes flew open.  “Sorry,” he said politely.

Asshole.  I wiggled in the chair and closed my eyes again, trying the deep breathing technique that had gotten me through the flight.  Trying to listen to the waves and not the idiot slamming things inside the house.  Or the rhythmic buzzing—

It was my phone, and it was my mom, so this call I answered.  “Hi,” I told her.

“Hi, honey.  How are you doing?  How is Hawaii?  How was the flight?  What’s the weather like?”

When my mom was worried, she asked a lot of questions.  It was a sign of how worried she was that she continued to ask me things, almost without taking a breath, while I held the phone away from my ear and waited for the noises of talking to stop.

“Are you done?”

She sighed.  “Yes.”

“I’m fine.  The house is fine, Hawaii is fine.  Beautiful weather.”

“Are you wearing sunscreen, though?  Think about that tropical sun…” she reminded me.

Annoyance crept up my spine.  “Mother, I’m old enough to remember to put on sunscreen.”  I stood and walked to sit in the shade, because I hadn’t remembered.  “How are the kids?”

That took her off on a totally different tangent.  She loved to discuss my sister Zara’s two kids and what they were up to.  She talked for a while about their latest amazing accomplishments and then said, “Brooks just got back from looking for office space in Texas.  I’m going to be very, very upset if he and Lanie move down there.  Think of what they’ll miss!”

She meant that my brother and his fiancée would miss out on their niece and nephew.  I, personally, found the two kids to be annoying in the extreme, and I couldn’t imagine that Brooks and Lanie felt differently.  But she was a kindergarten teacher, so maybe she liked all the whining and crying that my sister’s kids usually dished out.  They had to be the center of attention at all times, and it was so irritating.

There was more noise from inside the house and I tried to peer through the door to see what that man was up to.  It was too sunny outside and too dark within to get a clear view.  I stood again and walked over casually, still with the phone to my ear, as if I wasn’t paying attention to where I was going.  My mom kept talking about Zara, and her husband, Bradley, who had drunk too much (again) when they had been over for dinner the night before.  He’d had to sleep it off on my mom’s couch while Zara drove the kids home.  “It’s such a sticky situation,” she told me.

“Mother, he has a problem,” I cut her off.  “He has a drinking problem.”

“Well, I don’t know if I would say that…”

“I would.  He’s an alcoholic.  Sometime or another, you’ll have to face facts.”  I tried to keep the edge out of my voice.  My mom never wanted to see the faults in anyone that she loved, which was why my brother had been sitting on a pedestal for the entirety of his life, and why my current situation was so incomprehensible for her. 

“Scarlett, honey, you’re just so angry,” she said, sounding hurt.  I hadn’t disguised it that well, then.  “I wish you would talk to me about what happened.  Or to your sister?  Anyone.”

I didn’t speak for a moment.  “I have to go.  I have to go grocery shopping.”  I knew she would love that because she was always harping on me about eating right, and trying to get me to add more bran in my diet and take vitamin C.  It was so 1980s.

She let me hang up after telling me that she loved me, and I fought down the irritation I felt hearing that and made myself say it back.  I turned off the ringer and ignored that I now had triple-digits of notifications.  I was not looking.  I put the phone on the table outside and turned away.

“You’re not going to be able to get anything cold,” the voice called.

I stepped closer to the doorway to look into the house.  “What?”

The manager guy stood in the open kitchen across the big living room from me.  He gestured to the refrigerator with its doors gaping, and to some pieces which must have come from it spread out on the floor.  “I had to unplug it.  Go grocery shopping later.”

“Were you listening to my private conversation?” I asked, my voice rising.  I stomped toward him.  “I’m appalled!”

He wiped his hands on his shirt, leaving black marks.  “Ok, sure, be appalled.  You were talking loud, directly into the house.”

“You shouldn’t have listened,” I answered.  He shook his head and mumbled something that I didn’t catch, but I got the strong feeling that it wasn’t anything flattering.  “What was that?” I asked sharply.

“I’m reminding myself that you’re the granddaughter of the woman who owns this house,” he answered.

“And?” I demanded.

“And it wouldn’t be great for my employment if I told you what’s on my mind.”

“I wouldn’t get you fired.”  Because 1) my grandmother wouldn’t listen to me, but 2) just, no.  I wouldn’t do that to someone.

“Sure.  I’ll have the refrigerator done in about another hour and you can get your food.  The smell will be gone.  I have to go over to Hualalai to check on a leak in another property so when I’m done with this, I’ll go.  I’ll be back tomorrow to work on the rest of your list.”

I shrugged.  “Just make sure it gets done.”  I left to go take a shower, now that I had said I was going out, and heard him mutter one word for sure: bitch.

Whatever.  Why would I care what some Hawaiian handyman thought of me?  I put my hand on my mouth and pushed, hard, so my lip would stop trembling.  What was wrong with me?  I wished that I knew.

I watched the sun light up the sky the next morning, pink and peach and yellow, while I huddled in a chair on the lanai.  The day got brighter, but I felt so exhausted that I didn’t want to move.  After I had gone grocery shopping the day before, filling my cart with tropical fruit, I went out for a run in the afternoon on the beach and nearly died of the heat.  Then I had swum back and forth, back and forth through the waves until I could barely move my arms and legs.  It still hadn’t been enough to make me sleep last night.  I watched the ocean rolling quietly under the gentle morning sun and let it calm me down.  Despite the problems with the house, despite everything, I was glad that I had come here, to the Big Island.

Until I heard the crash inside.  Great, the rude handyman was back.  I had found my grandmother’s contract with Naupaka Property Management in her meticulous files in her office.  He was right: he was allowed access to the house at any time without prior notice unless she was in residence and I, unfortunately, had been the one who had given him the list of things to do.  I sighed angrily, then when something else crashed, I jumped up and went down to the beach to swim again. 

As I dove into the waves, I thought about staying forever in Hawaii.  When we had come here as kids, I had practically never taken off my bikini.  I could do the same thing, just wander around in my bathing suit and slippers, what they called flip flops here, for the rest of my life.  Until my grandmother got mad that I was still in her house or wanted to make one of her infrequent visits with her six cats.  I imagined myself never going back to California.

I stood and looked in through the doors when I got back up to the house and watched the man mess with some cans of paint.  “Morning,” he told me when he looked up.

I squeezed salt water out of my hair.  “Yes, it is,” I answered, then felt a little ashamed of myself.  “Good morning.”

He banged the cans together as he picked them up and walked toward the bedroom.  Whatever.  After a while outside, I wandered back in again, kind of curious about what he was up to.  It smelled like fresh paint and maybe something else, varnish or something.  He seemed to be doing things, at least.  It felt strange that I didn’t have anything to do myself, that I wasn’t at my office or worrying about work I was missing because I wasn’t there.  I thought that maybe I should read, or learn some type of handicraft.  What did people do when they were alone?  I checked on the handyman then peeled and sliced a few mangoes, leaving a plate of fruit outside of the bedroom in case anyone else wanted it and eating some of the yellow chunks on a chaise lounge by the pool.  My phone was underneath the chair, where I couldn’t see it. 

I was so tired that my body kind of hurt.  It had been a while since I had been able to sleep at night.  So I closed my eyes and watched images run through my mind.

“Fuck!”  When I woke up a few hours later, I could already tell that things were not good.  The sun had shifted and was now right overhead, beating down on where I had flipped onto my stomach.  Sweat poured off me and heat seemed to pulse out of my back.  I wasn’t exactly fair-skinned, but I could burn if I got too much sun.  And despite my mom’s reminders, I hadn’t applied any sunscreen.  I rolled carefully to my side and, gasping with the sudden tightness of my skin, walked over and eased myself into the pool.  The water would soothe this away.

Nope, not at all.  This wasn’t helping.  I tried to lower myself to submerge my burning back but had to stop.  My teeth chattered and the water felt like ice.  I maneuvered myself across the shallow end to the steps, moving my arms and legs as little as possible, and stiffly climbed out, standing dripping on the pavers.  No towels out here, and I realized I had left the doors open as I felt the blast of air conditioning pouring out into the lanai when I went inside to find one.

There were clinking sounds coming from the kitchen again, the room I had to pass to get to the master bedroom and lie on my stomach and never move, ever for the rest of my life.  I didn’t even want to see what my back looked like and I didn’t want the property management guy to see, either.  I walked quietly, but he stood up from behind the kitchen island when I got near.  Sweet.

“The disposal needs some parts that I’ll have to order.  Or maybe a new unit.  I need to check with Mrs. Wolfe for approval before I do anything,” he announced flatly.  He didn’t even look at me.  “I’ll be back tomorrow to do the second coat of paint and work more on the furniture.”

“Great.  Goodbye.”  I waited for him to bend back down, but he just stood there, staring into the sink.  So I swiveled on one heel and moved stiffly toward the bedroom, doing a robot walk that didn’t shift around too much of my upper body or force me to bend my knees.  The backs of those felt like they had been painted in acid.

“Did you fall asleep in the sun?” the guy called as I went through the living room.

I didn’t bother to answer him as I eased myself face-down on the bed.  Heat was pulsing through my body, my head pounding along with it, and then, in the corner of my mind, I realized that I was starving, also.  Oh well.  It wouldn’t kill me to miss a meal or two, especially when I wasn’t exercising as much.  Back in San Francisco, I’d have done at least an hour of cardio…

But I wasn’t going to think about San Francisco.  No, I was going to focus on the fact that my body was currently an inch away from bursting into flames.  I reached backwards and tried to untie my bikini top without touching my skin.  My fingers scrabbled at the strings and the nylon scratched over my back, feeling like barbed wire.  I swore.  A lot.

“Scarlett Wolfe.”

I jumped in the bed because I hadn’t heard him come in.  “Yes?” I asked, trying to sound distant and uninterested.

“You’re really burned.  You know, in Hawaii, the sun is very strong.  We’re in the Tropics, closer to the Equator.”

“Oh?”  Fuck off.  “How fascinating.  The Equator?”

“That’s an imaginary line that goes around the middle of the Earth.”  It sounded like he was a little amused.  “It’s not a good idea to lay out for hours, baking yourself.”

“You don’t say.”  So now he had seen me naked, and also cooked like a barbecued shrimp.  But what did I care what this moron thought?  “Don’t forget about the drawer that’s sticking,” I directed him.  My face still buried in the comforter, I raised one finger to point in the direction of the nightstand. 

“Hm,” he grunted.  I heard the sound of a small crash and the lamp rattled on the little table.  “Seems to be working fine, now.”

“Great.  Goodbye,” I repeated.

He left, I was pretty sure, although I could barely hear him walking.  I contemplated if I had ever heard of anyone dying of sunburn, because I thought I might.

Then the quiet footsteps returned.  “Here.  Your grandmother’s nurse asked the gardeners to grow an aloe plant, just in case.”  Something cool trickled on my red-hot back and I jumped in the bed again.

“What are you doing?” I demanded.

“I broke open a leaf and I’m putting aloe on your sunburn,” he said slowly, as if I was the moron in this situation.  Well, I was, actually, the moron in this situation, but he didn’t have to act like it.  Who the hell was he, anyway?

“I’m Nate,” he said, as if he was reading my mind.  “I don’t usually rub strange women without introducing myself.”

I opened my mouth to shoot something back at him, but then gentle fingers ran across my skin, smoothing out the thick fluid from the plant.  It felt better almost immediately and I couldn’t help the grateful sigh.  He didn’t say another word as he covered my back and the backs of my arms.  When he worked down to my thighs, I tried to move away from his hands.  “I’ll do that,” I announced.

“Suit yourself.”  He stood up off the edge of the bed where he had been kneeling and I carefully raised myself off the comforter.  I listened to him across the house in the kitchen as I tried to cover my crispy legs with the aloe juice.  He returned a moment later.  “Here.”  He plunked a big glass of water next to the bed.  “Drink up.  You’re probably dehydrated, since you almost microwaved yourself out there.”

This time when he left, I heard the front door close.  He was actually gone and I was alone.  I made myself get all the way up and lock everything, all the windows and doors.  I drank the water before I lay down on the couch in my now-sticky bikini and tried to fall asleep.

“Scarlett.  Mother fucker.”

“What?” I asked.  “Leave me alone, Brooks.”

“Nate.  My name is Nate.”

I opened my eyes.  I felt like absolute shit.

“I bet you do,” he answered me.  Had I said that out loud?  “Hang on.”

I fell back asleep, kind of.  I hadn’t really moved from the spot on the couch since the day before, except to squeeze more aloe on myself from the pile of pokey leaves I had found on a plate in the kitchen.  I was covered in sap.

“Get up.”

I cracked one eye open.  “No.”

“Get up.”  A hand slapped the bottom of my foot, which was also burned.  “Get up and get into the bathtub.”

I was dizzy when I stood and I fell forward, leaning on the arm of the couch on my hands.  It didn’t feel like just my skin was burning now.  I was just so hot, all through me.

“Stupid mainlander,” he muttered.  “Get up,” he repeated.  “You’re going into the tub,” he said louder. 

I looked over toward the bedrooms then closed my eyes.  “No.”

“Yes,” he corrected.  He hooked a finger into my bikini bottom and pulled and I jerked upright.

“Get off me!”  I stumbled and he put his hand around my arm, but gently.

“Don’t fall on your face.  I’m helping you, ok?”  He led me down the hall, through the master bedroom and into the bathroom.

I managed to walk in a straight line and sat on the tile edge of the tub that was somehow now brimming with water.  I hadn’t noticed that happening.  “Why do I have to do this?”

“You have sun poisoning,” he told me.  “Can’t you tell that you have a fever?  Get in.”

Shivering, I did as ordered.  “It’s cold!  I want to get out!”

“Don’t whine,” he directed me.  “Fuck, you’re a mess.”  Pause.  “Are you crying?”

Chapter 2

Of course I wasn’t crying, not because of a sunburn.  If I was going to cry, it would be because I had fucked up my life.  Or maybe because I was a few thousand miles across the ocean from anybody who loved me, and I thought that group had narrowed down to maybe my sister, who clearly loved her own little family more, and my mother, who I had been treating like shit.  I wasn’t crying, but I was shaking so hard that my muscles were almost cramping.  “I want to get out,” I said again, and started to move in that direction.

He put his hand on my shoulder.  “No.  Stay in there.  Let yourself…hey, relax!”

Because I had started to fight.  “Get off me!  Let me go!”

“Ok, ok,” he told me, very gently, then started clucking softly, like I was a bird, or an animal to soothe.  He left his hand where it was but decreased the pressure.  “Stay in the water.  What’s my name?”

The question surprised me and made me pause in my struggle.  “Uh, Nate.”

“Nathaniel Tor Lange,” he informed me.  “What’s your middle name, Scarlett Wolfe?”

“No, I don’t tell anyone.”  I stopped trying to get out.  I must have been getting used to the temperature in the bath, because it didn’t feel that cold anymore, and I wasn’t trying to push off his hand.  I felt the callouses on his palm against my skin.  I didn’t mind it.

“Maybe your middle name is Letter?  Fever?”

I looked up at him.  “Are you trying to be funny?”

“Is it working?”  He was actually smiling at me, a grin that turned up just the one side of his mouth.  Even in my fevered, sorry state, I appreciated how that brightened his whole face.

“What kind of a name is Tor?”

“Norwegian.  My family is originally from Norway.”

I was studying him.  He looked so different when he smiled, rather than glowering at me.

“What are you staring at?”  The frown had returned.

“You seem nice when you smile,” I told him.  “Before, you were an asshole.”

“The asshole you called eight times in one night, getting ruder every time.”

I didn’t answer.

“I’m not an asshole.  I’m the guy who put your rashy ass into the tub.”  The smile returned, a little. 

“Rashy?”  I ran my hands over my legs.  I was covered in bumps.

“You’re a mess.”  He was looking at my legs too.  Abruptly, he stood.  “Take something to get your fever down.  Drink some more water.  I’ll cut more aloe.”

“Are you leaving?” I asked stupidly.

“Are you going to drown in the tub if I do?”

“No,” I answered.

He turned and walked out. 

After a while, I started to feel better, at least not boiling from the inside, so I got out of the tub and helped myself to some ibuprofen and anti-itch cream and other items from my grandmother’s cabinet.  Then I smeared some more aloe on my legs and where I could reach on my back, and face-planted on the couch again.

∞

A week later, my fever was gone and I was peeling like a snake.  Nate—Nathaniel Tor Lange— had been coming in and out and I had seen him now and again, but we were mostly ignoring each other.  Except for sometimes I left him cut-up fruit if I had any extra.  And sometimes I had questions about what he was working on, or a comment about what he had finished.  Other than that, I ignored him, and he certainly had nothing to do with me if he could help it.

I had developed a kind of routine of reading, food shopping for fruit, and exercise, which was helping me get through the days.  The nights…not really.  Because as much as I was working out, despite all the deep breathing, every time I closed my eyes, my memories took over.  The big TV that my grandma used to watch financial news and cat shows had become my best friend after the sun set.  They seemed to broadcast a lot of replays of high school sports competitions, and I had developed a detailed knowledge of local girls’ volleyball.  They had some real talent in these islands. 

When Nate arrived that day, again without knocking, I was dozing outside after a late night of Honolulu-area competition.  The middle hitter had been an animal.  He didn’t say good morning, or anything else, but I heard the thump of the toolbox on the tile and then some muffled bumps.  It wasn’t too much later that I decided to get some pineapple for breakfast.

He was lying on the floor on his back, his head under the sink.  His t-shirt had pulled up and I looked at the swath of tan stomach it exposed, with a line of dark hair leading down the middle, in a valley of hard ab muscle.  I licked my lips.  “Hi,” I said, and my voice came out hoarse.  “Good morning.”  I hadn’t spoken to anyone yet, not even my mom.  She called daily and I had answered twice, then mostly ignored all the questions she lobbed at me from across the Pacific.

“I’m installing a new disposal,” Nate answered instead of a good morning back to me.  “The old one was shot and this new one looks like it’s missing a part fresh out of the box.”  After a few minutes, he scooted himself out and looked up.  “Can I help you with something?”

I had just been standing there, hovering.  “No.  I’m getting breakfast.”

“Don’t let me stop you.”  He stared at me for a minute.  “You look somewhat better.  Sunburn all gone?”

I nodded.  “Um, yeah.  The aloe was a good idea.”  I bit my lip, thinking.

“Thank you.”

“What?”

“Those are the words you’re looking for.  ‘Thank you, Nate, for helping out my burned ass.’”  He nodded.  “Try it.”

“Thank you,” I mumbled.

“Was that so hard?”  His one eyebrow was up.  The one over his other eye, where there were scars, didn’t move. 

I shook my head.  “I was going to say that,” I explained.

“Sure you were.”  He slid back under the sink and I waited for another moment, eyes back on his abs.  Then I moved around the kitchen, cutting up a pineapple and making coffee.

I cleared my throat.  “Do you want some?”  I waited as he slid back out.  “Hawaiian pineapple.”

“No.  No, thank you,” he corrected himself, and I saw a little hint of a smile.  “That phrase just rolls off the tongue.  You should keep practicing with it.  Is that Kona coffee?  I only eat and drink local.”

“Uh…”

“I’m kidding.”  He stood and went right to the correct cupboard to get a mug, which he held out to me.  “The pineapple probably isn’t Hawaiian, either.  They don’t grow too many here, not anymore.”

“Is that true?  But the coffee is real, right?”

“Do you really want to talk to me about island agricultural production?”

I looked down at my own mug of maybe-Kona coffee and shrugged.  I didn’t know why I was talking to him at all, and I didn’t give a shit about where coffee came from.  It tasted terrible with the pineapple, anyway. 

Nate took a sip and I studied him.  I mentally compared every man to my brother, Brooks, and Nate maybe wasn’t quite as tall.  But most guys weren’t, because my brother was about six inches over six feet.  Brooks’ kids with his stilt-like fiancée were going to be fucking giants.  But this guy grimacing over the mug of the coffee I’d made was definitely up there in the height department, too.

Nate wasn’t quite as wide as my front door-sized brother either, but all of him looked big and hard.  Muscled, from the biceps below his t-shirt sleeves to the abs I had been studying earlier.  He had scars on his arm below the bicep I had admired, making the skin look a little ropey, like something had seriously hurt him.  And he kept his dark hair very short, like a crew cut—like someone in the military.  There were a lot of bases around here so maybe he had been in the service and that was how he had ended up with the injuries.  His face was…I thought of the word.  Stern, for sure.  Severe.  His jaw could have been cut out of a block of stone.  Handsome?  Yeah, definitely.  The scar on his cheek and the abraded area around his eye didn’t detract from that at all.  They made him somehow more interesting.

“How long are you staying here?” he asked, and looked up with the eyes that usually glared at me.  They were very dark, almost black, with little lines of grey running through them.  “You bunking off your grandmother indefinitely?”

“I can stay here as long as I want,” I told him, my temper flaming.  “What difference does it make to you?”

“Why are you so goddamn prickly?”  He put down the mug and got back under the sink.  “That coffee was terrible, too.  You don’t know how to make it.”

I had the urge to pour the hot liquid down the drain, right over where is face currently was located as he worked on the disposal.  Screw him, I wasn’t prickly.  I slammed down the mug on the counter and went to find my running shoes. 

I drove out fast from my grandma’s street, racing past the security guard in his little shack as he stood up and frowned at me.  I eventually parked near a trailhead and ran a few miles on a bumpy path through an old lava field, until the heat making the air shimmer above the smooth, dark rocks made my mind start to waver, too.

Nate wasn’t there when I got home, sweaty and red and tired.  So fucking tired.  I made myself swim anyway, and later, when I strained my neck to look in the mirror after my shower, I thought my back was better.  Not so frighteningly burned and not so snake-scaly.  I wandered through the quiet house.  Now was the time that I usually made myself do yoga to calm my mind but I didn’t feel like it, and it wasn’t working anyway.  I looked again in my grandmother’s library, with all the books on economics, historical conspiracy theories, and a large section on calico cats.  She was a weird old lady.  I picked up another heavy volume on Keynesian economics because I kept hoping they would help me to sleep.   I went outside in the shade and got comfortable, ready for the thick, boring book to put me out so I could rest for a while.

A few hours later, though, I was still awake, and I had learned absolutely nothing about economics.  My mind had started to wander and I couldn’t control it.  So when I heard more thumping coming from the kitchen, I ditched the econ book and went to see what was happening, even if he thought I was prickly.

Thumping and cursing.  “Mother…”

I sat at the kitchen island and listened to the swearing and watched him from the chest down, the muscles in his arms flexing, that tan sweep of stomach where his shirt rode up.  I didn’t think he knew I was there, but when he emerged from the cabinet, he wasn’t surprised to see me.

“Hello,” I told him, saying it first.

Nate nodded, turned on the faucet, then flipped the switch behind the sink.  The disposal purred to life.  “I got the missing part and it’s installed.  I’m done with your list, unless you came up with any extra vital repairs.”

No.  I had looked for more, too, but there was nothing.  I shook my head. 

He started to wipe his hands on his shirt but then stopped himself.  He looked marginally nicer than the other times he had come over, in that there were no holes in his clothing now.  “Are you going out tonight?” I asked.  “You look…”  I trailed off.  Nice wasn’t the word, and neither was dressy or in any way stylish.  “Clean.”

He laughed, and it startled me so much, I jumped.  It was just a clear, happy sound, and it didn’t seem like it could have come from his stern face.  “Clean,” he repeated when he stopped.  “Yeah, I guess I am.”  He turned and opened the drawer where my grandma’s housekeeper kept the kitchen towels to dry his hands.

“Well?” I prompted.

“I am going out.  It’s Friday night.”

It was?  I hadn’t been paying attention, and since I hadn’t been looking at my phone, I wasn’t even aware of the date.  “Right,” I answered, “Friday night.”

Nate watched me as he rubbed the towel over his fingers.  “What are you really doing here in Hawaii?”

“I’m on vacation.”

“On vacation by yourself.  Indefinitely.”

I got up and started walking away.  “Bye.”

“Hang on, Scarlett Pimpernel.”

I did stop, because I didn’t know what the hell that was.

“It doesn’t look like you have any plans, besides sitting in the house by yourself on a beautiful night.  You can come with me.”

“Oh, can I?  Really?  What an opportunity,” I said, batting my eyes.

“It is for you.  Hard to believe that I even asked.”  Now he looked me over.  “You seem ready to go.  Let’s head out.”

I looked down at myself, too.  Old shorts, a tank top that had seen better days.  Flip flops—no, here they were called slippers.  No makeup, hair in a ponytail.  Back at home it would have taken me at least two hours to get ready.  “Ok,” I said slowly.  “I guess I could go with you.”

He walked out, and was I supposed to follow him?  I stood there for a moment, then grabbed my bag and my slippers flip-flopped across the floor to the door.

Nate was sitting in the cab of the dusty blue pickup I had seen at the curb in front of the house, but now it was rumbling and jerking as it idled.  He reached across and rolled down the window.  “Were you waiting for a written invitation?  Get your peeling ass in the truck.”

Huffily, I flipped my shoes faster across the pokey grass of the neatly sheared lawn and settled myself on the Mexican blanket that covered the seat.  “You’re an asshole,” I informed him.  “That’s not how you speak to a lady.”

He shifted the car into drive as I looked for a seatbelt.  “Fucking A, you sound just like your grandmother.”

“That’s what she said when you told her to get her peeling ass in your truck?” I asked.  I gave up on the seatbelt.

“It was more the tone.  The stick up your ass,” he explained.  I gave him the finger and he pointed at it.  “She never did that at me.”

“I’m sure she wanted to, but she has arthritis.”  And Nate laughed again.  I looked out the window so he didn’t see me smile in response.

We rumbled past the gatehouse at the end of the street, and the uniformed guard waved at Nate.  “Where are we going?” I asked.

“A bar.”

“A bar?”

“That’s where people go to drink,” he elaborated.  “Alcohol.”

“I meant, which bar?  We used to go out—”  I stopped.

Nate glanced over at me.  “I guarantee you’ve never been to this one.  Mostly locals.”  He paused.  “Who’s ‘we?’  You said ‘we used to go out.’”

“I came here a lot while I was in college.  My grandmother let me come with my girlfriends.”  Until we had trashed the house one too many times, and the prior property manager had gotten tired of cleaning up the messes and told on us.  I was only allowed to come again this time because my mom had begged for me.  I flushed a little, thinking that I owed her for making this happen.

“I thought maybe you meant that guy you mentioned.”

“What?”  I sat up straight.  “What in the hell are you talking about?”

“Brooks.  You thought I was him when I was trying to get your sick ass into the tub.”

“Oh.”  I relaxed.  “Brooks is my big brother.”

“Hm,” he grunted.

“We used to come here as a family, when we were kids.  But not for a long time.”

“Who’s in your family?”

“My mom, my older sister and my brother.  My parents’ friends, the Marches, usually came too.  My dad died a long time ago and we didn’t come back here after that.  I certainly never went to bars with Brooks.  If you want to talk about a stick up someone’s ass—”

“Always,” he interrupted me seriously.

I ignored this.  “Brooks is ridiculous.  He’s a bossy know-it-all.  I don’t know how his fiancée can take him.  But she likes the whole damsel in distress thing, and my brother is into Prince Charming, so I guess it’s a match made in heaven.  Lanie is just…” I trailed off.  She was dependent, that was Lanie.  But then again, my brother depended right back on her.

“Why are you doing that?”  Nate pointed at my hand, and in the light of the setting sun, he could clearly see me digging my fingernails into my palm.  “You don’t like your brother’s fiancée or something?”

“No,” I said, and sighed.  “She’s not personally terrible, I guess.  She has this thing that I was rude or something to her in high school.  She made it some kind of federal case and caused a bunch of problems.”

“You were rude?  I’m shocked,” he said flatly, and I flipped him off again.  Lanie had driven my brother away from me, the bitch.  All Brooks had done since they got together was talk about Lanie and how great she was and why couldn’t I see it, and why had I been so mean to her, what was wrong with me?  Nothing was wrong with me and Lanie was weak.  I had apologized and done her a big favor, helping her out with her job, so I called us even.

“My brother really loves her,” I tried to explain, and when I breathed in, my throat caught and made a funny click.  I really loved my brother too, and now I didn’t have him.  Nate glanced over at me again.  “Whatever.  What about your family?”

“I’m delighted that you care enough to ask.  I don’t have any.  They’re all dead.”

“That’s pleasant.”

He shrugged.  “It’s true.  Mother and father gone, grandparents too, no siblings.  I have some very distant relatives in Norway but I don’t know them.”

“How did your family end up in Hawaii?”

“Sugar plantations, way back when.  My ancestors came over here to work, like a lot of other people.  And they stayed.”

I thought again about staying.  I could stay, I told myself, then answered in my head that no, I couldn’t.  “You never wanted to leave?” I asked.

“What’s better than here?” he answered.  We didn’t talk again until we pulled up in front of the bar, in the middle of a rundown strip of little shops.  The bar was, to put it nicely, dank and dirty.  My slipper stuck to the floor and I could barely see Nate to follow him, because he still didn’t have any manners to let me go in front of him, ladies first.

“Joey.”  Nate stopped in front of a small table and shook the hand of the man sitting at it.  “Meet Scarlett.  From California.”

“Scarlett from California, pleased to meet you,” the man, Joey, said.  He didn’t get up and Nate sat down next to him without offering me a chair.

“Sure,” I answered offhandedly, because why would I pretend to be polite either in this dive bar with these two troglodytes?  They talked about some mutual acquaintance and his new truck for a moment, then Nate stood back up.

“Beer,” he said laconically.  I had no idea if that included me, if I was ever going to get anything to drink and if I should watch it being poured from the bottle just in case.

“Hey Jedi, make it three,” the guy Joey called after him, and Nate gestured back at him, waving him off.  “Otherwise, maybe he’d get one for himself and screw us over,” Joey noted to me.  “He’s a real asshole.”  But he was smiling as he said it.

“What did you call him?”

“Our whole platoon called him Jedi.  He ever do that mind trick thing on you?  Like he’ll answer a question and you didn’t know you’d asked it?  Or take the words right out of your mouth?”

I nodded slowly.  Nate had done that, and also, I was right about him being military.  “Is that how you guys are friends?  You served together?”

“Yes, ma’am.  Hooah.”

I had no idea what that meant.  “What did they call you?” I asked.

His face froze a little and he swallowed.  “Rabbit.  Because I was fast, and when we did PT runs, everybody would chase me like I was the lure at a dog track.  Yeah, Rabbit.”  He looked away for a moment.  “How about you two?  How do you know, uh, Nate?”  Joey gave me a once-over.

“I know him from around,” I said.

“What are you doing here from California?”

This guy was as bad as my mother with the questions.  “What do most people do in Hawaii?” I responded.  “I’m on vacation.”

“And you hooked up with Jedi?”  He looked extremely skeptical.

I didn’t answer and we sat in silence until Nate came back with the beers.  He plunked three bottles on the table. “Here you go.”   

“Thank you,” I said pointedly, and he nodded.

“What do you do back in California, Scarlett?” Joey asked me, and I shrugged.

“She doesn’t want to talk to you, Joey.  She already doesn’t like you,” Nate told him.

Joey laughed at that.  “Why not?”

“Why would anyone like a grunt like you?” Nate asked.  Now they both laughed.  “Remember the staff sergeant who used to ask all the newbies their names just so he could say that he didn’t give a shit what their mothers called them?”  He gestured at me with his beer.  “That’s like Scarlett.  She doesn’t give a shit.”

“That guy was something.  RIP,” Joey said.  They clinked bottles.

“How do you know that I don’t give a shit?” I asked, angry.  I did, sometimes.

“I mean that you don’t care how you treat people,” Nate explained.  “You could tear off their heads and piss down their necks, it’s all the same to you.”

This after I had just told him thank you?  “No, it isn’t all the same to me, and maybe it’s just you whose head I want to tear off.  Suck on that, Jedi.”

Joey laughed so hard he started to cough.  “I like her a lot,” he told Nate.  “A keeper.”

I looked at the beer.  I hadn’t seen the cap come off it.  I waited until Nate took a sip from his and then I switched our bottles.

“What?” he asked me, then his one eye narrowed, a lot.  “Do you think I put something in there?”  When I shrugged again, he took my beer and chugged.  “There,” he told me.  “It was factory-fresh.”

Good.  I took a sip too, from his former bottle.  “I’m cautious.”  But I had gone ahead and hopped in his old truck, and now, here I was in some nasty bar with two men I didn’t know.  And they had taken the seats with their backs to the wall, so I was just exposed.  I looked over my shoulders, because anyone could come at me from behind.

Nate grabbed the edge of my chair and with one arm, pulled me around the table until I was sitting next to him.  “I don’t like sitting like that either,” he explained, and he had known what had made me nervous.  Maybe he was a Jedi.

Joey and Nate talked a lot, and ate plates of greasy food which I declined, and Joey drank a lot, too.  As the night wore on, I stopped after my second, and Nate after his third, but I watched one beer after another disappear down Joey’s throat and the bottles filled the top of our table.  They didn’t do things like clearing the empties at this crappy place.  After a while, he started to get sad.  He told me about his old girlfriend, or maybe she had been his wife.  “I fucked it up, and I can’t fix it.  She’s moved on from me,” he said.  His eyes misted over.

“Better off without her,” Nate put in.  “You’ll be ok.”

“Nah.  I’m not myself without her.  I’m nothing.  Because I fucked it up.”  Joey really looked like he was going to cry.  I patted his shoulder and he hugged me suddenly, making me jump in surprise, but I didn’t shove him away.  He let me go and rubbed the back of his hand over his eyes.  “Do you know what I mean, Scarlett?  Did you ever have that with anyone?”

“Me?  No.”  He waited for me to say more and I felt the urge to continue.  “I was engaged, but I never felt like that.”

“Why did you want to marry him, then?”

“I didn’t,” I said baldly.  “I broke it off.”

“You put him right where I am,” Joey said.  “Made him miserable.”

“No, because he didn’t feel that way about me, either,” I defended myself.  “We only decided to get married because we had been together for a while and we got along.  He thought it wouldn’t be so bad to be stuck with me.”

“He wasn’t too bright, I guess,” Nate remarked, but then he put his hand on my shoulder briefly, like he had done before when I was in the tub.  I was sorry when he moved it away. 

“My fiancé’s family pushed him hard to marry me.  His dad wanted my grandmother to go into partnership with him.  It was all a business deal, actually.”  I had found out all that a few days before our engagement party.  Mats had been just a pawn in his parents’ bigger game to get in with my family.

“That’s worse than where I am,” Joey said.  “Because at least I had something once.”

Yeah, great.  I tilted my bottle, rolling the last drops around the bottom.

Nate put his hand back on my shoulder.  “Time to go, kids.  Joey, you drunk jackass.  Can you stand?”  He held out his hand to his friend and Joey took it.  He lurched to his feet unsteadily as Nate pulled him.

“Maybe I had a few too many beers,” Joey acknowledged.

“Yeah, one or two or ten,” Nate agreed, and Joey laughed.  “You ready?” Nate asked me.

But I was just standing there staring.  Because below the hem of Joey’s shorts was an artificial leg.  I hadn’t seen that.  How had I missed that?

“Scarlett!” Nate barked at me.  “Let’s go.”  I had been standing there like an idiot, gawking at Joey’s missing limb, with my mouth gaping open.  God, I felt stupid.

I trailed after them through the dark bar.  Nate opened the door of the truck and gestured me into the cab, and Joey climbed in after me.  We had only driven for a mile or two when he put his head back on the seat and snored.

“Scarlett,” Nate said again, but softer this time.  “Is it bothering you?  Sitting like this?”

I was pressed up against Nate’s thigh—

“I mean his leg,” he explained. “Sitting next to where his leg used to be.”

“What?  No!  Why would I care about that?”

“Some people do.  You were staring.”

“I was just surprised,” I said, extremely embarrassed.  “The bar was so dark…I hadn’t seen it.  What happened?”

“IED.  Improvised explosive device.”  His hand left the wheel and his fingers brushed over the scars next to his eye. 

“That’s too bad.”

“A real shame,” Nate said, his voice hard.  Then he sighed.  “Joey’s had a tough time getting back to his old life.  It’s been a few years now and the girlfriend problems aren’t new.  Sorry he brought it up tonight.”

“I didn’t mind that he talked about it,” I said.  “His girlfriend must have been a real bitch to leave him after what happened to him.”  And people thought I was bad.

He glanced over at me.  “She had her reasons.  It’s been…hard.  I don’t blame her, but I am sorry.”  We were silent for another couple of miles, passing the markers along the highway.  “You sorry about your fiancé?”

“No.  It was for the best.”  I stared straight ahead and focused intently on the dark road disappearing beneath the tires.  Things would have been different if I had stayed with Mats.

“That what you’re so pissed about?” he asked.

“What the hell is that supposed to mean?  Who says I’m pissed about anything?”

“Me,” Nate told me.  “I say it.  You do act like you do want to rip someone’s head off.”

“No, I don’t!” I snarled.

“Yeah, exactly.”

I calmed myself down.  “I’m not upset about Mats.  It was hard, because it was embarrassing to have happen in front of everyone we knew, and I hated explaining it over and over again.  And I did miss having someone there, like a permanent plus-one.  But I don’t miss him as a person, and I didn’t have a broken heart.  Neither did he.  He’s already seeing someone else and I heard they’re serious.”  Maybe the beer had made me expansive.  I hadn’t had anything to drink since I had gotten to Hawaii and it had gone to my head.  “I never had anything like Joey was talking about at the bar, that kind of love.  Like my brother has with his dumb fiancée, like they probably couldn’t live without each other.”  I looked at some goats sleeping under a tree as we flashed by them.  “I knew it wasn’t love, for sure it wasn’t, at my engagement party.  One of the guests knocked another guy out because he insulted his girlfriend.”

“You want men to fight over you?” Nate asked.

“It was what the guy said after he did it.  He just announced to everyone at the party that this was the woman that he loved, the woman he was going to marry, the mother of his children.  It was like it was so obvious to him that they were meant for each other.  It wasn’t that obvious to me, and I knew it wasn’t to Mats.  So one morning, we were going to the gym and I said, ‘We shouldn’t get married,’ and he was so relieved.  He said, sure, and went to work out without me.  That was it.”

“He felt it deeply.”  Nate snorted.

“Mats was too immature to do it himself,” I explained, “and he had been waiting for me to make the decision for him.  He probably would have gone ahead and married me if I hadn’t said something, and then regretted it for the rest of his life.”

“Chicken-shit?”

“Definitely.  No balls.”  I looked at him.  “What about you?”

“Me?  No, I have two.  Big ones.”

“Oh, my God.”  I started to laugh, and it felt so good, like little trickles of light through my chest.  “I meant, did you ever have someone serious?”

At first he didn’t answer.  “I did.  I thought I did.  I was married before I deployed on my first tour, but it didn’t work out.  For the best, in the long run.”

“Did you feel like Joey?  Like you weren’t going to make it without her?”  My voice sounded a little breathy, a little high.

Nate looked over past me, at his unconscious friend.  “He’s taking this pretty hard.  He has some other issues…I don’t know.  Yeah, I was upset.  Drinking in a bar, telling some strange woman all my troubles, no.  I didn’t do that.  I was surprised you listened to all his bullshit.”

“I thought he needed to say it,” I explained.

“He did.”

“Well, I have ears.  I can listen.”

Nate glanced over at me, and nodded slowly.  Thoughtfully.

We dropped Joey off at the house where he was staying with his younger brother, and Nate and the brother helped to carry him inside.  Now I could scoot back across the blanket and sit in the passenger seat, but I didn’t want to.  We didn’t say much as we drove past the security guard and stopped at my grandmother’s house.  I expected him to stay in the car, but Nate got out when I did, and walked me to the door.  My heart started to beat hard when I turned to say goodbye.

“Call me if there are any other problems here,” he said, looking up at the house.  “Call me during business hours,” he amended, “and keep it clean.”

“Sure,” I agreed.  The moon overhead was so beautiful.  It made his eyes sparkle like an old onyx necklace my mom had that I had loved as a kid.  My heart was beating harder.  “Thanks for taking me out.”

“That word is just rolling off your tongue now.  You’re welcome.”  When he smiled at me, the half-smile that illuminated his face like Christmas lights, I went up on my tiptoes and kissed him.

It only took me a moment before I realized that he wasn’t kissing me back.  He put his hands on my shoulders and gently put me down on my flat feet, away from his lips.  He looked at me for a moment, and I could tell by the look on his face, it was a no.  I was a no.

“Scarlett,” he started to tell me, his voice apologetic, but I found the key in my purse and shut the door before he could say anything else.

The next day I flew back to San Francisco.

Chapter 3

Boom, boom, boom.  The beat shook through me. 

“I love this.  Don’t you love this?” Klere asked me.

That was what I thought she had said, anyway, but it was too hard to hear in this place and at any rate, I was too tired to care.  She flipped her hair and bounced in her chair, then drained her cocktail and jumped up, swaying to the music, shaking her skinny ass.

I turned the yawn that I hadn’t been able to stop into a wide smile.  “I love it!” I yelled back at her.

I hated it.  Hated it, hated it, hated it.  Part of my job was entertaining people like her, the editors, the columnists, the fashion buyers, the stupid “influencers” who could make a difference for our brand.  This woman could get us a lot of notice, if she wanted to.  Klere was a blogger/model/fashionista/idiot with close to a million followers who hung on her every word and drooled over the meticulously crafted pictures she posted of herself in numerous gorgeous places around the globe.  Of course, all these trips were paid for by companies just like mine, brands that were willing to pay for her seal of approval on her social media. 

I hoped I would lock down that seal of approval tonight.  Otherwise I had just wasted weeks of my time, cajoling her, buttering her up, luring her to San Francisco with promises of gifts and parties and fun.  I would have wasted a lot of company money, too, on those expensive gifts, on her first-class ticket, and her hotel room.  There was also the thousand-dollar dinner we’d shared with the San Francisco friends whom she hadn’t mentioned but who had materialized out of the woodwork and needed to go to the most expensive, hard to reserve restaurant in the city, and drink like fish throughout the meal.  I needed Klere to come through for me with posts and mentions.  My boss, Pascale, was still looking for a reason to let me go after the Hawaii debacle, and fucking this up with Klere would be a good one.

Klere was still talking to me animatedly, but anyone would have known that even a bat couldn’t have picked up on conversation in the club we were in.  I raised my eyebrows and nodded and smiled hugely again.  “I love it.  The best!” I told her inanely.

She nodded back at me like she had read my lips and said something else before dancing off.  I leaned my head against the banquette and covered another yawn with my hand.  I had been up at five to work out, then in the office at seven.  It was close to midnight now, and I was over it.  In fact, I had been over it for a few hours, but this was my job, the one that I had been lucky enough to get back after my “sabbatical” in Hawaii. 

More like, this was the job that I got back because Pascale, my boss, was afraid of my mom’s friend, Juliette March.  Juliette pretty much ran the beauty industry and the arts scene in our city, and she wasn’t afraid to 1) pull strings, and 2) squash people like bugs if they crossed her.  Exhibit A was her former husband, who went from driving a million-dollar sportscar and living the high life in a mansion, to friendless and working in a discount shoe store in some little town in the Central Valley after she had run him out of San Francisco.  Luckily for me, Juliette had pulled strings to get me back in at the fashion house where I worked, and probably made a few squashing threats, too.  Yeah, luckily.

“I’m surprised at you, Scarlett,” Juliette had scolded me, when I took her out to lunch to ask for her help, a few days after I had returned from the Big Island.  “Running off to Hawaii to live out some escapist fantasy?  You never seemed like the type to do something flighty and stupid.  And now you want me to help you get your old job back, when you left them in the lurch for all those weeks, ignoring them reaching out to you.”

Yep, all those messages on my phone that I resolutely hadn’t looked at.  “I realize now that I was just being headstrong,” I had answered, lying, and gripping my hands together in my lap where she couldn’t see my nerves.  “I needed a vacation and Pascale said no.  I left anyway.  It was a terrible mistake, I see that, of course.  I hope that you’ll be able to talk to Pascale for me and remind her of all the good I did for the company.”  Because Pascale wasn’t responding to me, and I was apparently persona non grata with all my former contacts in the business.  If I wanted to work in fashion again in San Francisco, I had to pull out the big guns: Juliette March.

“Stupid,” she had repeated, and I nodded as if I agreed that I’d made a terrible mistake in leaving.  Really, if I hadn’t left then, run away to Hawaii, I probably would have lost my mind.

“Juliette, can you help me get my job back?” I asked, and smiled at her.

She had considered for a while, frowning at her phone and answering messages.  She hadn’t even glanced up at the waiter when he came over, just held up her hand so he wouldn’t speak.  “No, don’t ask me anything,” she told him.  “My assistant already called in my order and it should be on the table within the next few minutes.”  I wondered what it would be.  Juliette never chose anything off the menu, and she always was onto some new food fad that would then sweep the nation.  She had started us all on kale a few years back and probably what I would see in front of her today was what we’d all be eating in a few months.

I had pointed at the list of salads.  “Any of these, I don’t care which, dressing on the side,” I informed the fidgeting waiter, and he took off.

Finally, she put her phone down.  “Your skin looks great,” she remarked.

“I’ve been using your Valencia peanut oil serum every night,” I lied, again. 

Juliette had considered me and I waited for her verdict.  “I’ll give Pascale a call and see what I can do.  I love your earrings,” she said.

“Thank you,” I had told her.  Thank you.  Every time I said those words, I thought of…

It didn’t matter, because the trip to Hawaii was over, and I barely remembered anything beyond the horrible sunburn that had made me swear never to go back.  I would never go back.

So thanks to Juliette March, I had returned to my old job in PR, and now, almost five months later, here I was back to the long hours, back to kissing ass, back to taking out ridiculous social media stars who didn’t know a fucking thing about fashion but I had to pretend to respect anyway.  This particular influencer had tried on almost all our sample clothes in the showroom and stained some with her red lipstick that was a really, really bad shade on her.  She’d had me crawling around to take pictures of her for hours. 

At least maybe Klere would use some of those pictures, the shots of her wearing our clothes, and then this whole farce would be worth it.  When the photo shoot was finally over, just after practically every restaurant in the city closed for lunch but hours before dinner, I’d had to go out and get her a specific proso millet salad that she’d read about in someone else’s post about San Francisco and needed to have too.  I had tried a bite in the car on my way back from the restaurant, which they had opened up for me after a substantial bribe, and a more disgusting item had never touched my lips.

No, there had been one thing more disgusting: a certain man’s mouth had touched mine, a few months ago.  That incident showed how low I had gotten—it was hard for me to believe that I had even let myself ride in his disgusting truck, on some bacteria-laden blanket, let alone that I had kissed him.  Thinking about it now in this boring, loud club, I heated up with embarrassment and anger.  But I barely remembered anything about my trip to Hawaii, anyway.

I watched Klere for a while, writhing around on the dance floor, and I saw her head toward the door with a group of guys.  Then she walked out right of the club with them, leaving her purse with me on the banquette.  Mother fucker!  I leapt up to follow her, my heart in my throat, and pushed through the crowd to get to the door too.

“Klere!” I yelled.  I saw her head with the terrible highlights getting into a car with the same group of guys.  I ran, knocking into someone hard as I passed.  “No!”  I grabbed her shoulder.

“What the hell?” she demanded, and pulled free.  “What are you doing?”

I grabbed the car door instead, blocking her path with my arm.  “You can’t—”

“Oh, you brought my purse!  Good.”  She took the $5,000 handbag she had probably gotten for free from some other poor sap of a PR person and started to get in again.

“No, you can’t do this!  Do you know them?  Where are you going?” I panted.  I was practically choking on the words.

Klere just stared at me.  “Are you my mother?”  The guys on the curb crowded around, trying to get past me into the car.  “They have some really good shit back at their apartment.”

“You’re going there alone?”  There were three of them, all big, all drunk.

“I came here to party, right?  Let’s go!” she called to the guys, and ducked under my arm to get into the car.  They shoved me out of the way and followed her.

“No, wait,” I said, but the door closed, and they pulled out.  Didn’t she know what she was getting herself into?  I took a few steps after the car as it took off down the block but then stopped myself.  She was an adult.  She could do what she wanted—and I didn’t even know her.  My sole concern should have been how she could help me, not the other way around.  How she could help the brand that I was paid very well to promote and help me keep my job by playing up her great time in San Francisco while wearing our clothes.  That was all I should care about, and I shouldn’t waste any more time standing on some dirty sidewalk south of Market Street, staring after her car and worrying about where her bad choices would lead her.  I got in a car and went home.

I had rented out my house north of the city to my brother and his then-roommate, now-fiancée, when I had moved in with my former intended, Mats, in his house in the Marina neighborhood.  In my scramble to get out and get out immediately after our break-up, I had signed a lease on a sterile, newly-built two-bedroom near downtown.  I’d decorated my old house in San Anselmo just how I’d wanted it; in the short time I’d lived there, I had made a lot of improvements to Mats’ house, too.  But I just didn’t seem to have the will and inclination to do anything to my latest place.  It was white, and bland, and blah.

My most important, latest acquisition was an absolutely giant TV which I’d had installed right across from my other significant purchase, the most comfortable couch in the world.  I had field tested about a thousand sofas then paid astronomical rush fees to get this one moved into my apartment the day I bought it.  That was where I spent most of my time: curled on the wide cushions, under a soft throw blanket, watching all the sports channels on that comforting screen.  I knew about cricket in India, Australian rules football, ultimate frisbee, sepak takraw, even wife-carrying competitions.  It was truly amazing what you could see if you rarely slept and watched TV non-stop during the night.  Besides those two essential furniture items, I had bought a mattress and box spring when I’d moved in, but I hadn’t touched the bed in months.  The master bedroom had morphed into another closet with clothes and accessories everywhere, and that was fine with me.

I kicked off my shoes now, dropped my bag, and stripped off my dress within five feet of the front door.  I threw the dress into the pile that I was amassing to take to the dry cleaner when I had the time.  It had grown to about the size of Mount Whitney and I didn’t know how I would be able to lift it to bring it in.  Left only in my bra and underwear, I gratefully curled on the cushions and pulled the throw over myself, reaching for my best friend, the remote.  I kept my phone balanced on the arm of the couch because I never went for more than a few minutes now without checking it.  I was on-call practically all day, just as I had been before, but after Hawaii I felt like my situation at work was precarious enough that I couldn’t afford to miss anything, not one thing.  Co-workers were amazed when I answered their emails at all hours, including the ones that started with lines like, “I just woke up and thought of this, don’t bother to get back to me until the morning.”  I was usually up too, and I answered.

I surfed through several channels before I settled on an indoor canoe slalom competition in the Czech Republic.  Every once in a while, I looked at my email and messages, and at the same time, I went through all of Klere’s social media pages.  I was looking for mentions, I told myself, not looking to see if she was all right.  She was radio silent but other people in my department were checking in with various issues and questions, and my boss Pascale emailed for an update on my night out with Klere.  “She had a BLAST!” I wrote back immediately.  “I expect her to sleep in after so much fun and then give us a ton of coverage, as per my discussion with you yesterday morning.”  God, I hoped that was how things would work out.

The canoeing races ended and the channel moved to a marathon in China. I watched everyone stoically run, their feet rhythmically pounding the pavement.  Gradually, my eyes closed, and I fell asleep.

∞

I wasn’t there to check up on her, I told myself.  It was better to see people off in person.  I wanted to give her a parting gift of coffee and treats for the plane ride back to LA, and talk to the hotel front desk about the bill that they had sent over in the middle of the night.  The mini-bar charges were almost $900 and I knew that Pascale would flip if she saw that, especially if she saw it and Klere didn’t do any of the publicity we wanted.  I eyed the time on my phone again and quickly answered some messages.  If Klere didn’t come down soon, she would be late for her flight…there she was.  The elevator doors had opened and disgorged a few passengers, including Klere, wearing a huge pair of sunglasses and yawning with her mouth gaping widely.

I was glad I had gotten the large coffee for her.  She needed to perk up to write all the positive posts for me.  “Klere!” I called to her, smiling.

“Oh, uh, Scarlett, right?”

Yes, I was the one she had spent the day with yesterday, the one who had pulled off her thong for her in the showroom when it showed through the dress she had managed to wiggle into.  She hadn’t wanted to wrinkle the fabric before the pictures by bending over to remove her underwear herself, so that fun task had fallen to me.

I held up the paper cup and cloth tote bag with our logo.  “I brought you some goodies for the trip home.”

“Oh, great.”  She took them from me.  “Is this decaf?  I’m really careful about what I put into my body.”

Our night out, when she had drunk about four gallons of various liquors, told me something different, but I smiled again.  “Absolutely, it’s decaf!”  It absolutely wasn’t.  Maybe the caffeine would make her feel so good that she’d write even more about us.  “Klere, I want to go over some concepts for your posts before—”

“We already went over all that yesterday, didn’t we?”  She yawned again, right in my face, and her breath was terrible.

“Right, we did.  I just wanted to check in to see which of the ideas you were going with.”

“Um, I have my own idea.”  I noticed that she said it as if it was singular, one idea.  Did that mean only one hit for my brand?  She looked at her phone and then put it down on her bag to reach behind herself and scratch her ass.  The woman was the definition of uncouth.

“Perfect, great.  Well, you better head out to the car so you don’t miss your flight,” I advised.  Still with her fingers picking at her butt, she left her rolling bag and meandered toward the hotel doors.  Gritting my teeth and vowing to wash my hands immediately after I touched it, I took the handle of the bag and followed her.  “Have a safe trip,” I said, smiling, as the driver lifted it into the trunk.  “Uh, Klere, was everything ok last night?”

“Last night?  What happened?” she asked, her pretty face blank.

“You went home with three guys…”

“Oh, yeah.  They promised me coke, but they didn’t have it, so I left after I fucked two of them.  They were ok.  I had to call this girl I used to know up here and she brought some over for me.”

Great, yeah, I was really concerned about the quality of her sexual partners and where her drugs had come from.  “Sounds like it all worked out.  I’ll look for your posts…”  I trailed off, and raised my eyebrows expectantly.

“Soon, I guess,” she answered.  “Maybe I’ll put up something later.”  She got herself into the car and left the coffee sitting on the top as it drove away.

Fucking great.

Usually I worked for at least part of Sunday, but today was my niece’s first Communion, so after leaping out of the way to avoid the flying coffee, I got my car from the valet and drove north over the Golden Gate Bridge, whipping into the church parking lot where I found a mostly legal spot, and running in just in time to take my place next to my mom.

It had been a long time since I’d been to Mass, and my mom had been letting me know it.  She smiled at me now and nodded, like, great to have you back in the fold.  The service started and I tried not to yawn.  I had woken up a few times after dropping off during the marathon the night before and I was tired.  Just so tired.  I bit my cheek to hold in another yawn and looked at the kids to amuse myself.  They were fidgeting in their fancy clothes and some of them were whispering and giggling.  I remembered my first Communion, watching my dad in the pew taking a million pictures of me.  He had been very proud.  I felt around in my purse for my phone.  I needed a distraction.

“Stop it,” my mom hissed.  “Put it away.”

“Everyone else has a phone out, too,” I whispered back.  My sister Zara leaned forward and looked down the pew at me, as did my brother Brooks, so I put it back into my purse.  I had already seen that Klere’s plane had just landed in LA, and that she still hadn’t posted anything since arriving in San Francisco yesterday morning.  I breathed out slowly and glared at Brooks, who never got intimidated, and glared right back at me.  His fiancée Lanie looked up at him, questioning, and his expression immediately turned into a smile which she returned.  It was enough to make a person ill.

Finally the service was over, and I had to admit, my niece Isla had done a very good job, and looked very cute in her white dress.  Zara was so proud she was about to pop.  We gathered on the lawn in front of the church to take pictures and she wavered on her high heels in the grass, holding on to my brother.  Zara always tottered around on stilts when we were together as a family because she had some kind of complex about her younger brother and sister, Brooks and me, being so much taller. 

“You could hear Isla above all the other kids, couldn’t you?” she asked our mom, who immediately agreed.

“She did beautifully,” Lanie chimed in, and my mother smiled at her.  She had always really liked Lanie, since both of us were little girls.  It reminded me of the way my mom always tried to take in stray kittens, even though they might be covered in fleas and sick and scrawny.  Very similar scenario.

“Is this picture for family only?” I asked, and nodded significantly in Lanie’s direction.  Because, if so, why was she there?  She wasn’t married to my brother yet.

“Can it, Scar,” Brooks said sharply, while Lanie got all flustered.

“I’m just asking,” I told them, and adjusted my scarf.  Lanie and her mother, Juliette, had experienced some kind of falling out, and without her mother’s help with picking clothes, Lanie looked very sad sack.  I could help her with that, if I wanted to, if she ever asked.  But Brooks didn’t care, anyway.  Even now, with her hair a total mess and wearing a dress in a style that might have been slightly popular five years ago but never would have fit her body type at any time, he was smiling at Lanie like he’d never seen anything better.  Again, I felt ill.

“Where is Bradley?” Zara asked, looking around for her husband.

Brooks now looked murderous.  “I’ll go find him,” he barked out, and my mom and Lanie exchanged a look.  I loved that she and my mom had that psychic connection.  Loved it.

“Let’s take a few of just Zara and Isla while we wait,” my mom said, to smooth things over.  Brooks came back in a few minutes, dragging Zara’s husband with him.  Literally, his hand on Bradley’s arm, yanking him along.  He stuck Bradley next to Zara and returned to Lanie’s side, where I could see him muttering to her.

Finally, we got at least one good picture, and Zara was freaking out about guests arriving soon at her house so we adjourned to go to the party.  I listened to messages while I drove over and typed at red lights until people in the cars behind me honked.  Still nothing from Klere.  Damn it!  I sat in the car for a while before I made myself go into Zara and Bradley’s house.

“Mimosa?” a waiter asked when I walked in.

Yes, definitely.  I wondered how gauche it would be to take two, one for each hand.  Instead, I circulated, talking to my mom’s old friends, including Lanie’s mother (and the woman who had saved my job), Juliette March.  Mostly we talked about clothes and fashion, which was what she seemed to think I was good for, and I guessed that she was probably right about that.  I met some of Zara’s mom friends, who all wanted to tell me about their amazing kids and all their varied talents.  I watched my brother and his fiancée get very close and practically inappropriate at a religious party for a child, for God’s sake.  Couldn’t they control themselves for five fucking minutes?

I went out onto the balcony of Zara’s beautiful house to get away from them.  Our grandmother had bought it for her, just like she had bought my smaller house that Brooks was currently renting from me.  Mostly everyone in my family depended on my grandmother financially in some way, except for my brother.  We were like pets, like her stupid cats.  More like dogs waiting for handouts, I thought suddenly, and then realized my face was bent into an ugly scowl that I quickly smoothed away.  I looked back across the water at San Francisco.  I wanted to run out of the party and head back there, but then what would I do?  Work?  Go shopping?  Sit alone at home?  I didn’t have the urge to go out with any of my old friends anymore; I didn’t seem to have the urge to do much of anything. 

I stared off to my right instead.  Over the hills, past Mount Tamalpais, all the way across the Pacific, there was Hawaii.  I barely remembered my trip there—it was like it never happened.  I looked at Mount Tam and thought for a while.

Until I felt the hand on my ass.  I jumped a foot in the air and dropped the champagne flute I was holding down onto the driveway below, where it shattered on the hood of Bradley’s tricked-out electric car.  “What the fuck?” I asked him, because yeah, it was my sister’s husband who had slid his hand down over the curve of my butt and gripped it, caressing me.

“Enjoying the view?” he asked me.

“Not anymore.  Keep your hands to yourself, Bradley.”  I stepped away from him.  I had never liked the guy too much, because in spite of his good looks, his charm hadn’t worked on me.  He had always struck me as too smooth, too oily.  He was handsome, sure, because he worked so hard at it, manscaping and at the gym.  But now that he was drinking so much, even that had started to slip.  You could only hide the ugly inside for so long.  My hands flew to my own face when I thought it.

“I’m just saying hello to my beautiful sister-in-law,” he told me, with his usual big smile.  He smiled too much, and they all meant nothing. 

“Say hello, and don’t touch me,” I advised him.

“Sure, sure.”  He started to tell me something stupid, and then something else stupid, all the while edging closer.

I stepped back again and held up my hand.  “Look, I’m letting you talk to me, but keep your distance.”

He came closer.  “Scarlett, I have no idea what you mean.”  His toothy, shiny smile was about as real as mine were.

“Scar, we’re taking more pictures,” Brooks said, stepping out onto the balcony with us.  “Bradley, that means you, as the father.”  Bradley walked quickly past him and into the house, thank fucking God.  I didn’t want to have to knee him in the balls at his daughter’s first Communion party. 

“Are you pouting out here?” my brother asked me, frowning.  That was his usual expression when I was involved.  Lately, it was.  Before, he had smiled at me too, but he had meant them.

“I’m just enjoying the view.  Much like you were, when you were looking down the top of Lanie’s charming dress.”  His frown grew.  It was like I couldn’t stop myself from pushing his buttons.

“If you don’t like how I act around Lanie, then you shouldn’t be around us.  Don’t come to family stuff, stay away,” he told me.  “Lanie comes first for me, Scarlett.  I’m not going to let you rip her down, not anymore.”

I wished I still had the champagne glass so I could smash it in his smug face.  “Lanie comes first, screw your family.  Yes, that’s quite clear, Brooks.  I had already noticed you taking that route,” I told him.  My voice had risen and I fought to get a grip on myself.

“I’m not screwing my family by marrying the woman I love!”  Brooks didn’t bother about volume control.

“Whatever,” I muttered.  “Have a great life with her.”

My brother caught my arm as I walked by.  “Scarlett, please.  Do we have to fight about this, again?  Why can’t you be happy for me?”

I yanked free.  “We don’t have to fight about anything.  Stay away from me.”  I got another glass of mimosa and drained that too.  Then I lined myself up for the family picture, staying equidistant away from my fucking brother and my fucking brother-in-law, the asshole and the pervert.  I was so angry I wanted to rip things, tear them, break them.  Scream and cry and kick, like a toddler.  I smiled for the camera.

“Scarlett, you look beautiful as always,” Juliette March told me when the picture-taking broke up.  “You could have gone into modeling.”

I smiled at her, too, and took another glass.  “You’re so flattering, Juliette.  I love your shoes.”  Her smile back at me grew.  If Lanie wanted my mom, then I could take hers.  I linked my arm through Juliette’s.  “Tell me what you’re developing now.  More Valencia peanut products?”

“No, although that is selling so well.  We’re looking into pine tar.”

“For the face?  How unusual!” I exclaimed.  I saw out of the corner of my eye that Lanie was watching us.  Good.  I stayed with Juliette, laughing and talking, watching Lanie with my family, watching my brother treat her like she was make of eggshells full of diamonds or something.  What idiots.

Soon enough, the party was breaking up.  I went down quickly to the driveway and gathered up some shards of the champagne glass that had broken when I’d dropped it off the balcony onto Bradley’s car, where I saw it had made a mark on the hood.  Good.  I carefully placed the sharp pieces in the grooves of his tires, wedging them in slightly.

“Scar, what are you doing?”

I stood quickly.  “I dropped something,” I told my brother, and walked around the car so he wouldn’t come and look at what I had been up to.

“What was Bradley saying to you out on the balcony?” Brooks demanded.

“Nothing.  Stupid shit about his workout.  What do you care?”

“He was staring at you during the party,” my brother informed me.

“I’m not leading on my brother-in-law, if that’s what you’re trying to say, you asshole,” I informed him furiously.

“That’s not what I’m trying to say at all.”  Brooks looked tired.  “Scarlett, why are you so angry at me?”

“I’m not angry at you.  Interesting example of narcissism, though, to assume my emotions revolve around you.”

I watched his jaw tic as he reined himself in.  “Then why are you so angry, in general?” he asked, his voice very controlled.  “Lanie sees it and so do I.  Is it because of Mats, still?”

I had wondered if my mom had told him anything, but had been guessing that she hadn’t.  Here was the proof that he didn’t know, and I was very glad.  “I’m not at all angry, about anything.  My life is great.”

“You’re not upset that Mats got engaged to the woman he’s been seeing?”

I had worked a lot on not showing my actual feelings.  It was important in my job that the idiots whose asses I had to kiss couldn’t see what I really thought of them; before that, I’d gone through high school never letting on how sad and lonely I had felt.  I hoped that those skills were working for me now as I looked up at my brother.  “Mats is getting married to someone else?  I hadn’t heard.  That’s great news,” I said evenly.  I managed a smile, too.  “Wonderful.”

Brooks looked abashed.  “I thought you knew.  Lanie heard it from one of the parents in her class.”

“Oh, Lanie is discussing me with the parents in her class?  How odd and unprofessional.”  I was seething inside, roiling with rage.  I was going to kill Lanie first, then the parent who told her, then Mats, then the woman who had replaced me.  I was going to kill everyone.

Brooks immediately flared up at the hint of criticism of Lanie.  “She is neither odd nor unprofessional,” he told me angrily.  “It came up in conversation.  All the parents at her school love to gossip and they knew she got engaged to me, and therefore her connection to you and Mats.  Marin County isn’t that big.”  He got a little smile.  “Her kindergarteners were so excited when I asked her to marry me.  They had a party for her.”

I had to leave, right now, before I slapped the happiness right off my brother’s face.  “How fun.  Great that Lanie is finally making friends, no matter how old they are.  See you later, Brooks.”  I rushed off to my car and I hit the accelerator so hard that I smelled the tires burn as I drove away.  Fuck him, and his fiancée, and everyone.  My hands shook so I held the wheel even tighter and took a corner very fast, now making the tires squeal.

That was the last family party I was going to attend with my horrible, handsy brother-in-law and with my self-satisfied, self-righteous brother.  And fucking Klere hadn’t posted one thing about us, not one thing.  She put up some pictures of herself back in bed in Los Angeles with her boyfriend, gushing about how much she had missed him and how much she needed a nap after working so hard over the weekend.  When had that happened??  Somehow I had missed it, but she must have squeezed in a few grueling seconds of toil between ruining the clothes in our showroom, drinking, and running of with unknown men for drugs.  “Love this guy! #cuddeltime” she wrote, and a lot of stupid emojis.  I thought about continuing south to LA and attacking her in her #cumfybed.  She didn’t know how to #spell and I didn’t know which bothered me more, that or the failure of my PR plan.

My phone rang and it was my boss.  I just couldn’t deal right now with talking to her about why Klere hadn’t followed through with all her promised posts and mentions of us after the gift bag I had greeted her with, the clothes she had walked out of our showroom with, the dinner, the drinks, the everything.  Pascale would probably fire me.  Nope, couldn’t deal right now. 

I saw my phone signal that Pascale had left a message and then just as I got onto the bridge to cross the Golden Gate, it started to ring again.  This time it was from…oh.  That was the Hawaiian area code. 

There was no need to get excited at seeing those numbers.  I didn’t give two fucks about anyone in Hawaii.  I jabbed the button on the steering wheel to answer.  “Hello?”

“Scarlett?  Hi.  This is Nate.”

“Nate?” I questioned, keeping my voice extremely cool.

“Nate Lange.  From Hawaii.”

“Oh,” I said, and let some recognition creep into my voice.  “Right, the property manager.  Did I leave something behind?”

“No.  I wanted to let you know that I’m coming to San Francisco.”

The car next to me laid on the horn as I swerved into that lane.  I hoped Nate hadn’t been able to hear it through the phone.  “And how does that relate to me?” I asked, as detached as I could sound at the moment.  “I don’t usually have much to do with my grandmother’s employees.”

A sound came through the phone, almost a laugh, but angry.  “Yeah, I’m sure that’s true.  But I need to ask a favor.”

I felt a smile start to grow on my face.  Well, wasn’t this something.  Coming to me to ask a favor?  Maybe my day was starting to look up, because it would feel really, really good to listen to his request and then, without any reason or rationale, simply say, “No.”  I was looking forward to it.  “A favor?” I asked blandly.  “What do you need?”  I prepared to shoot him down.

“Not me,” he said.  “It’s for a friend.  Do you remember Joey?  It’s for him.”

Chapter 4

Unbelievable.  Un-fucking-believable.  Joey, the veteran who had lost his leg.  Joey, the guy with the broken heart. 

I sighed, heavily.  “Of course I remember Joey.  What does he need?”

Nate filled me in.  He had mentioned before that Joey was having some other problems, and now he was saying that they were health problems.  He needed to go to the VA hospital here, in San Francisco, where apparently there was some advanced clinic or department or something that could help him, when the facilities in Hawaii couldn’t.  But it was so expensive to stay in this city.

“I was hoping you had some leads on a place where we could bunk,” he finished.  “For a few weeks, for cheap.”

“‘We?’  Both of you are coming,” I clarified stupidly. 

“He needs someone.”

“Don’t you have a job?” I asked.  “You’re just going to leave it?”  As if I hadn’t run out on my own job a few months prior.

“It’s my company.  I own Naupaka Property Management.  I explained to my clients that I have to take a break and I hired a guy to temporarily replace me.  If they want to find someone else to look after their houses instead, they’re welcome to.  But I’m the best, so I don’t think they will,” he explained.  The conceited ape.

“Don’t you have any military friends here that you could ask?” I asked him.

“Not anymore.  Most of them have moved away.  It’s expensive,” he explained, in case I didn’t know that about the city where I lived, too.

“My grandmother has several rental properties in San Francisco,” I told him.  “You should talk to her.”

There was a pause.  “I already did,” he stated.

Ok, so if he had already braved my nasty grandmother, then I was definitely the last resort.  He was desperate, hadn’t wanted to reach out to me at all, but he was doing it for his friend.  I got it.  I wanted to tell him to screw himself, but this was for Joey.  So I thought about it.

“I may know someone who will need a house sitter,” I said slowly.  One of the photographers we used a lot was going to Greece for a few months and he had said something about needing someone to care for his orchids.

“It needs to be a place with an elevator, and where they won’t mind a service dog.  He has seizures and his dog helps him out with that.  He needs Pia with him.”

I rubbed my temple where I had started to get a headache.  Another car honked, long and loud, as my car drifted a little between lanes again.  “Yeah, well, maybe that’s the best I can do for you.”

“For Joey.”

I didn’t speak.

“Scarlett?” Nate asked.

“Yeah, I’ll look, ok?”

“You can call me back at this number—”

I cut him off.  “Bye.”  I hit the accelerator and went back to my blank apartment as fast as I could.  I went right to the couch, covered myself up with my blanket, and grabbed the remote.  After half an hour of watching trick shots on a pool table, which was apparently some kind of thing people did, I picked up my phone and returned Pascale’s call.

“Hi, P,” I said when she answered, and continued right away before she could say anything.  “I want you to know that Klere—”

“Yes, it was perfect,” Pascale interrupted me loudly.  “Great job, Scarlett.”

“What?”  I was dumfounded for a second, then quickly opened to one of Klere’s pages.  It was all there—all of the sample posts I had drawn up for her, even the subtly misspelled hashtags so that people would think they were genuinely hers, not dictated by a fashion PR person (me).  Klere had copied everything I had sent her, word for word.

“I was really worried about taking you back on, and to be honest, I wouldn’t have if Juliette March hadn’t stepped in on your behalf,” Pascale hollered.  “But you really came through with Klere.  I heard that when she got flown to Chicago to promote Durak Vodka, she drank everyone under the table, projectile vomited, filled her carry-on with liquor bottles which she had to leave at the TSA counter in the airport, and then didn’t give them one hit on any of her social media.  Not even a mention.  And you got three posts out of her, just about us!  Well done,” she yelled.

I felt my muscles relaxing as Pascale started screaming about our next project, some buyers coming in from the east coast on Monday.

“Am I talking loudly?” she asked me suddenly.

“Uh, a little.”

“I’m in my boot camp class and it’s hard to hear in here with the music and the grunting,” she explained.

“Well, don’t let me interrupt you.  We can talk tomorrow.”

“I’ll call you when I’m done,” she said instead, because there was nothing most people wanted to do more on a Sunday evening than work.

“Great,” I told her, and I heard someone moaning in the background.  “Is everyone ok there?”

“Someone’s rolling right through the sweat puddles on the floor freaking out.  Looks like another torn ACL,” Pascale explained to me.  “Wimp.”

I went back to watching the trick shots, and re-reading Klere’s posts.  I sent her a quick note thanking her and saying how much fun I’d had with her, how we’d love to have her visit again, but I didn’t expect an answer as I wasn’t promising her money or loot.  We’d probably invite her up again and have to run through the whole process for a second time.  Except I’d have to make the night crazier, the gift basket bigger, everything, in fact, super-sized for round two so she wouldn’t be bored.  I got overwhelmed with a wave of self-pity at the thought of it.  Trick-shots turned into a jumping contest where dogs ran and flew off the end of docks and I kept watching.

My phone rang again, and it was my sister, so I answered because Zara would be relentless and call back repeatedly until I did.  She wanted to rehash the party, to go over what everyone had been wearing, to get my opinion on the caterer she had used, the florist, to talk about my mom and how she had adopted Lanie.

“Does that bother you?” I asked cautiously.  “The relationship they have?  Lanie is so annoying.”  We had gotten along as kids, kind of, but now…I would have been hard-pressed to name someone who pissed me off more.

“Why would it bother me?  I think it’s sweet that Lanie and Mom get along so well.  I like her.  It’s nice for Brooks that everyone will be friends with his wife, too, like you guys are with Bradley.” 

There was a long silence and I considered that 1) I wouldn’t be friends Brooks’ spouse and 2) I wasn’t with Zara’s, either.  And that 3) Zara really, really set a low bar for people she liked, with her husband as exhibit A and Lanie as B.  And me as C.

“Um, did Bradley act a little strange today, do you think?” Zara asked.

“Bradley?” I repeated.

“My husband,” Zara told me, to make sure there was no misunderstanding.  “Brooks was making some remarks about his behavior and his drinking.”

I had to tread very carefully here.  Zara was still on my side and I wanted to keep her there.  She was like my mom, too, in that she never wanted to see any problem with the people that she loved.  If I told her that her husband had grabbed my butt, it would have been a misunderstanding, I would be misconstruing his brotherly affection.  His affection for my ass, maybe.  “What did Brooks say about his drinking and his behavior?” I asked instead of voicing my opinion.

“He said that Bradley was an alcoholic and acting like an idiot.  What do you think he meant by that?” my sister asked me.

“Uh…”

“I didn’t want to start an argument at Isla’s party,” Zara continued, “so I pretended that I hadn’t heard him, but then I watched Bradley a little.  Do you really think he drinks too much?”

I needed to pull my sister back from the land of denial, just a little bit.  “How often would you say that he drinks to excess?  Like, in a way that affects his behavior, or affects you or the kids?”

“Like in a week or in a month?” she asked, then said, “Five times,” without waiting for my clarification.

“He drinks too much five days out of the month or five days of every week?” I asked her.  “Zara, if you mean every week…”  Because I had known that it was a problem, but I had no idea how big.

I heard kids yelling in the background and Zara had to go deal with them.  She was done talking to me about it, anyway.  I looked at her social media pages after we hung up, and they were full of pictures of Isla’s perfect party.  The two kids looked so cute, Zara was beautiful, smiling happily in every shot.  Even Bradley looked good in the family picture, and the one she had posted with him kissing her cheek.  “He thinks I did a great job with everything today!” she had written underneath.  “Best friends make the best husbands.”

I started to feel queasy, looking at it all, so I went back to the dog competition on TV.  I liked being able to tell immediately who was the winner and the loser, and even the loser dogs seemed to be having a blast.  I lay on my couch and thought about giving up my life here to go live wherever these people did, to raise dogs to jump off the ends of docks.  I even started searching on my phone where those places would be and what kind of salary I could expect when I noticed a few messages from work that I thought I should answer, and after a while of doing that, I forgot about my possible career as a dog long-jump trainer.

∞

“A dog?” Javier asked.

“A service dog.  Really well-behaved.”  I assumed that was true.

“Sorry, I can’t have dogs at my apartment.”  He swallowed and looked at me.  “I’m really sorry, Scarlett,” our office intern said.  He sounded a little scared.  “Sorry,” he repeated.  “I guess I don’t like them much, either.  I’m not allowed to have them and I don’t like them.  But…”

“Never mind,” I told him.  I understood his point about not liking dogs.  Despite considering a career as a trainer the night before, I didn’t like them much, either. 

Javier had been almost my last resort.  Despite what Nate was probably thinking, I had asked around—practically everyone I knew, and I knew a lot of people.  The general answer to, “Do you know anywhere in or near San Francisco where two guys can live low-rent or free?” had been mostly laughter.  It was one of the most expensive housing markets in the world; if anyone knew of a place like that, even short term, they would have already been living in it.  Javier, the intern I had just asked, took the BART train into work for more than an hour and a half each morning from the apartment he shared with three roommates (I had heard him complaining to the receptionist).  I had asked him just in case, but I already knew the answer.  No, just like everyone else.

And it had been two days since Nate had called.  I had been very busy at work, which had made it hard for me to call him back.  My nights had been full, too, with a cheese rolling competition and replays of a dog sled race, and evading calls from my mom.  I thought of Joey, needing medical treatment.  Fuck.  I went into my little office, scrolled through my call list, and waited as it rang.

“Scarlett?”  Nate’s voice sounded muffled.

“I asked around and I didn’t find anything,” I said abruptly.  “I have the names of some rentals I checked out online and hotels near the hospital but none of them are, um, inexpensive.  I’ll send them to you anyway.”

“Ok.”

“I really did ask around.  I reached out to a ton of people,” I asserted.  I had even called my grandmother about her various properties (she told me she didn’t have time to discuss it) and suggested to my brother that he get out of the house that he and Lanie were renting from me, which had started another fight with him.  “I talked to practically everyone I know.  There’s nothing.” 

“I appreciate that you tried.”  There was a thump and he swore.  “I’m in a crawl space right now and it’s hard to talk.”

“Can’t his family help with these expenses?” I asked, then thought of his brother’s house, where we had dropped off Joey the night we had gone out in Hawaii.  It had been more like a shack than a house.

“We’ll figure something out.”

“I did try…”  I stopped.  Why did I care if Nate believed me or not?

“Thank you.”  Despite still sounding like he was talking to me from the bottom of a well, he also sounded sincere.  “I believe that you did, and thank you.”

I thought about the place where Joey lived; I thought about the cost of the flights from Hawaii to California.  Mother fucker!  “But I came up with another solution,” I heard myself say.  “He can stay with me.”

There was silence, and Nate had said he was in a crawlspace, so I assumed I had lost him and started to put the phone down. 

“Are you sure?” he asked suddenly.

“I just said it, didn’t I?” I snapped back, because no, I wasn’t sure, and I hadn’t thought it through, and I was already regretting it.  But now I couldn’t take it back.  “There’s an elevator in my building, my landlord doesn’t give a shit about dogs.”  Probably.  “It’s fine.”

“That’s very generous.”  Now Nate’s voice was guarded, careful.

“Yeah, well, generous is my middle name.”

More silence.

“If he doesn’t want to stay with me, great.  Enjoy San Francisco,” I said.

“No, I’m sure he will want to.  Thank you, Scarlett.”  His voice sounded very deep, or maybe it was just because it was echoing around the crawl space.

“Whatever,” I said quickly.  It wasn’t a big deal.  “I’m not there very much, so I’ll probably barely see him.”  I warmed to the idea.  “He can take the master bedroom because there’s no tub in the bathroom that’s attached, just a big walk-in shower that will be easy for him to use.  Plus I’m right near a lot of public transportation.”  I continued to list the attributes of my apartment, like I was selling it.

“It sounds perfect,” Nate told me.  He filled me in on their arrival—which drove home that both of them were coming, and I had definitely offered space for just one person.  But Nate was a big boy.  I thought of his hard muscle, the wall of his chest that I had felt when I pressed myself against it to kiss him, and that thought filled me with shame.  Yeah, he was definitely a big boy.  He could find his own damn place in San Francisco if he felt like he needed to babysit his friend.

I wrote down some details about their flights as he spoke but I wanted to get off the phone immediately, yesterday if possible.  “Great, sure.  I have to go, because I do this working thing.  Bye.”

“Wait.”  I heard a sigh through the phone.  “Scarlett, are you sure about this?”

I understood him perfectly.  He was asking if I was going to back out and leave his friend high and dry, stranded in an expensive city and needing medical treatment.  Like I was the shittiest person in the world.  “Yes, I’m perfectly sure!” I barked.  “Goodbye.”  I hung up before he could start to question me more, because I might have admitted to being the shittiest person in the world.  The woman who didn’t even call back her own mother when she was the only one in the world who loved me.  Now feeling guilty and pitiful as well as pissed off, I called my mom.

“Hi, honey!” she answered, her voice so warm and loving that I had to bite down on my tongue to keep from getting emotional.

“Hi.  I’m returning your call,” I answered shortly.  “I don’t have much time.  What’s up?”

She wanted to discuss Zara.  Apparently, my sister had also talked to our mom about her disgusting husband Bradley.  “Did you notice him behaving oddly at the reception at their house?” my mom asked me.  “Lanie says—”

I had no desire to hear what my future sister-in-law had to say about anything.  “I’m sure Lanie is spot-on in her assessment,” I interrupted.  Lanie was so great at reading people, in fact, that it took my brother having to make a formal announcement for her to clue into that they were a couple.  He had made this big love declaration in front of both me and her mother, Juliette, which had been enough to turn someone’s stomach.  Idiots.

“Well, Lanie says…” my mom continued, and told me what Lanie thought anyway, how she really believed that Bradley loved Zara.

Lanie could tell that theory to my ass, which hadn’t enjoyed being squeezed like a stress ball out on the balcony with Bradley’s family in the house behind us.  “I hate him, and I don’t think he gives a shit about Zara,” I responded.

My mom started to make excuses, about Bradley’s difficult job, his terrible parents who hadn’t raised him right, etc., etc.  This was the way that she’d been able to be friends with Juliette March, Lanie’s mom, for all these years.  Juliette would do something thoughtless and rude, and my mom would ignore it.  She was able to rationalize and justify almost every behavior under the sun.  I had just enough insight to realize that this meant mine, as well.

I promised to myself that I would do better.  I would be nicer, I would be a good daughter, and a good sister to Zara.  This resolution came immediately before my mom invited me over for the upcoming long weekend, a party at her house.  Despite my earlier promise to myself not to attend any more parties with my family, I gritted my teeth and said I would come.

“I’m so glad,” my mom said happily.  “I thought you would try to beg off, with some work project or other.”

I did have “some work project or other,” which were currently piled on my desk and filling my inbox.  “I have a lot to do.  I need to hang up,” I said, then thought.  “Is it ok with you if I bring someone to your party?”

I could almost feel her sit up straight.  “Who?” she asked excitedly.  “Do I know him?”

“Mother, no.  Not a boyfriend, not a date.  A houseguest.  Is that all right?”

“Of course it’s all right to bring a friend,” she sighed.  She had been dropping names, trying to hint me into my next boyfriend since Mats and I had broken off the engagement.  That was how I had gotten into…just, no.

A while later, after discussing her party, the latest about some of her friends, and some remodeling she was having done to her backyard and pool—and after a lot of questions to me which I successfully evaded—I went back to work.  I wondered what she would say when I brought Joey over, with his heart on his sleeve and staying with me so he could get medical treatment.  She would probably try to adopt him.

At the end of the long day of groveling, fawning, and placating, I was very, very ready to leave my office.  I had been dealing with sending out some samples for an editorial shoot that could have been very important for our brand, and for a B-list actress for a B-list awards show that was pretty pointless.  But our company wasn’t big enough to turn down much, so I dealt with her “people” like they were representing the Queen of England, while stabbing a pen into my desk chair in my frustration.  When the tip had broken off, there had been quite a mess of ink.  I was finally ready to leave around eight and I decided to head over to my gym in the Marina.

Yeah, my gym was pretty far from where I worked, and not close to my apartment at all, but so what?  I had joined it when I moved in with Mats, because it was where he belonged, and we went together.  I wasn’t going to join somewhere else just because we had broken up and I had moved.  It was good for him to see me, to wonder about what he was missing.  And if he was too intimidated to go work out just because I might be there, then that was his problem, not mine.  He could just man up.

As I usually did before going, I changed into the nicest workout clothes I owned—the most flattering—then carefully checked myself over in the three-way mirrors in our showroom.  I looked closely at my face, thinking about Bradley and how looks seemed to fade as the ugliness inside grew.  I thought I was the same: blue eyes and dark hair that made the contrast I’d always liked, full lips, the nose I’d never had to fix.  I wasn’t wrinkling up or getting black, rotten teeth or anything like that.  Not yet.

I didn’t see Mats when I arrived at the gym, so I got on a treadmill.  I had seen him there twice before and both times I had walked around (pranced around) for a while so he could get an eyeful and have something to think about while he ran.  He was a terrible runner.  I hadn’t done cardio to get sweaty until he had left, stammering a goodbye as I casually stretched in ways that emphasized my breasts and butt.  Mats had practically drooled on me—as much as he hadn’t cared about me, I knew he had liked my body.

I ran for a while now, as fast as I could make myself go.  It felt good to push as hard as I could, to make my heart pound painfully in my chest, my muscles exhausted and achy, to have to hold on to the bars and suck in air with burning gasps.  It was kind of cathartic, but more, I like I felt like I deserved it.  I looked around the big room for something else I could do to punish my body, then wiped sweat from my forehead.  I wasn’t done yet.

“Scarlett?”

I dropped the towel off my face.  Fuck!  “Hi, Mats.  I forgot you came to this gym!”  I pasted on the biggest, flashiest smile that I could.

“Well, my house is just down the street.  We used to come here together…”

“Did we?”  I hopped off the treadmill, still smiling.  I patted the towel around the tops of my boobs and his eyes followed it.  Look, but never touch again, Matty-boy.

“Scarlett, I’ve been meaning to talk to you…”  He trailed off again.  “I mean, I have something to say…”

“Yes?” I prompted impatiently.  Had he always been such a wienie?  I gestured for him to get on with it, circling my hand.

“I’ve been hoping that I would see you in person…”  His expression told me that this statement was a lie.  “My mom said…I mean, I thought you should hear it from me.  I’m getting married.  I got engaged.”

I put that smile right back on, so glad that my brother had already told me so I wasn’t hearing this for the first time now.  “You got engaged, again?  That’s great news.”  This was clearly a clap-back at me for breaking us up.  I also wondered what this woman’s parents did, what angle there was for his parents to get an advantage when Mats married her. 

His tense face started to relax.  I had always thought of him as handsome, but now, for some reason, his boyish features were just annoying.  He looked stupidly young and very immature.  “You really feel that way?” he asked me, with so much hope in his voice.  “Thanks.  Missy is just so wonderful.”  He smiled, a dreamy little look that I’d spotted on my brother’s face when he talked about Lanie.  I felt just the same way as when I’d seen it on Brooks: I wanted to smack that smile right off Mats’ face. 

Who the hell was this Missy?  Maybe this wasn’t something engineered by his parents or revenge on me.  Maybe he really loved her.

“I hope someday, you’ll find someone, too,” he said, and patted my shoulder.  “I was pretty worried.  I wasn’t sure how you’d react to hearing about us.”

What had he just said?  “Us?”  No, Mats and I were “us.”  Rather than taking his hand from my person and executing a judo throw that landed him breathless on the floor, I lowered my eyebrows, shrugged, and shook my head.  “Really?  I can’t imagine why you were worried!  Why would I care, Mats?  I mean,” I lowered my voice, “I don’t want to rub it in, but, of course, I did dump you.”  I smiled, even larger.  “Here’s hoping that two times is a charm and she doesn’t leave you like I did.”  I put my arms over my head in a stretch, thrusting my chest out.  “I really need to finish up here to get home to—never mind.  See you later.  Give Pissy my congratulations, too.”

I went to a bench, leaned over with my ass in the air, and did some triceps pulls.  I secretly watched him in the mirror, watched him stare at me for a while before he left.  Then I went and rowed until I was breathing so hard I could barely get in enough oxygen to live and my limbs were shaking with fatigue.  I fell asleep on the couch after showering when I got home, but it didn’t last.  I woke up gasping for air, just like I had been on the rowing machine.

∞

It took me a while before I realized that Pascale was in my office, and that she was talking to me.

“Your focus is incredible!” she told me, nodding like she was impressed.

Luckily, I had been staring at my monitor, and open on it was a profile of a buyer from one of the most upscale retail sites online.  I was supposed to be wooing her.  It actually hadn’t been on my mind at all.

I looked up and smiled at Pascale.  “Sorry, P!  I really want this one for us.  I can’t stop thinking about it.  What were you saying?”  She repeated herself, and I forced my ears to listen.

After she finally left my office, I went back to staring blankly at my screen.  I had gotten next to nothing accomplished besides tracking down every bit of information I could on Mats’ new fiancée: her address, phone numbers, place of work, high school, college, sorority, car, hobbies, trips, favorite foods, friends, etc.  It was all plastered everywhere online for all the world to see.  The woman didn’t seem to know how to set her accounts to private, or maybe she liked attention.

When I wasn’t doing that, I was obsessively checking the status of Mauna Loa Airlines flight number 714.  It was just about to take off and was scheduled to land at 8:09 PM, but not if the unusual headwind I was reading about kept up.  I looked at the phone in my lap, the screen that Pascale wasn’t able to see when she looked through the glass wall of my office.  I was fighting an internal battle over whether I wanted the headwind or hated the headwind.  Whether I wanted to see Nate, or I didn’t.  Whether I was still humiliated, or I no longer cared that I had thrown myself on him and he had…

I turned off the phone and got back to work.  But instead of going to the gym or a class or even for a run when I left early at seven that evening, I went grocery shopping, which I hadn’t done for a while.  It felt weird to be in a such a large space with practically nothing but food.  I walked up and down the aisles, a little lost, before I started to put things in my cart.

When I got home that night, the apartment was spotless.  The cleaning lady had come in that morning and she was a maniac.  I carefully put away the food and drinks I had bought in the little kitchen, suddenly realizing that I should have also gotten more dishes, more glasses, maybe some pots.  Or pans.  I had left all those things for my brother when he rented my house and I had moved out, because Mats already had them.  Probably Mats’ new fiancée was actually cooking with them, or something.  I sat down to think on the one barstool I had acquired, purchased so that I had somewhere to check in on my phone and laptop while I had a cup of coffee before I left for work. 

The cup which I bought every morning on my way back from working out, because I didn’t even have a coffee pot.  Shit.  Shit, shit, shit!  I needed more stuff.  I checked the time on my phone, because I also realized I had never set the clocks on the stove or microwave.  It was too late to go shopping.

There was only time to primp.  I did that, making sure that I looked fabulous.  In Hawaii, Nate had seen me at my worst: burned to a crisp, sweaty and sick, no makeup, hair a wreck.  Naked.  He had seen me naked.  I breathed out hard through my nose so the shame of it would pass.  Well, fine, he had seen me before at my worst, but now he would see me at my best.  I worked on myself for a while then checked carefully in the mirror one more time and nodded.  Thank the fucking Lord that eyes weren’t really the windows of the soul, because mine currently looked flawless, as did the rest of my face and hair.  I turned and looked at myself from the back.  As did my outfit, my nails, my jewelry.  I was going to make him eat his heart out.

The doorbell rang and my own heart stopped in my chest.  I breathed out hard again, walked slowly to the door, and opened it.

There was a medium-sized black dog, wearing a cloth vest, sitting there next to a giant duffle bag.  “What the hell?” I asked the dog, who just looked at me.

“Scarlett?  Hey, Scarlett?” a voice called from down the hall.  I stepped out, past the silent dog, and found Joey coming toward me, dragging another huge suitcase on wheels.

“What the hell,” I muttered again, and hurried down the hall to take it from him.

He surprised me by grabbing me in a big hug.  “Wow, Scarlett, I don’t know how to thank you.  Thank you for letting me stay here!”

My face was smashed into his shoulder and I disengaged.  “You’re welcome.  It’s not a big deal.”

“Yeah, it is.  You only knew me one night, and I was drunk off my ass for most of it.  Don’t worry, I’m not going to drink like that again.”

Then what were we going to do with all the beer I had just bought?

“I’m almost a perfect stranger to you and you’re opening up your house to me!” Joey continued, and hugged me again.

Yes, it did sound incredibly stupid.  I managed to wrest the bag handle from him and tugged it down the hall.  “Is this your dog?”  I pointed to the animal blocking the door, but she obediently moved when we got close.

“This is Pia,” he said affectionately.  “She’s my best girl.  She knows what to do to help me when I have seizures.  That’s why I’m here, Nate told you, right?  To get help with them?”

The dog trailed after us into my apartment.  She did seem very well-behaved, but I eyed her warily.

I nodded at Joey.  “He did tell me that.  Uh, where is he?”

“He left when I got in the elevator.  I’m going to meet up with him tomorrow.”  Joey got another huge smile.  “Shit, Scarlett, you’re vying with Pia to take the best girl title.  I can’t believe you’re doing this for me.”

I couldn’t, either.  I couldn’t believe how oddly nice it felt for Joey to say that about the best girl, and how desperate and pathetic I had to be to take it as a compliment.  I couldn’t believe that Nate wasn’t there, that I was letting a stranger move in, and that I was in competition with a dog. 

Unbelievable.  Un-fucking-believable.

Chapter 5

Focus.  Focus.  Focus.

I made an angry noise, a cross between a “humph” and a squeak.  For the second day in a row, I wasn’t getting anything done at work.  My mind was not in the building but I couldn’t exactly place where my thoughts were flitting off to.  I was just unfocused and useless today.

I had been up and gone before Joey bestirred himself in the master bedroom, and I assumed Pia the dog was with him.  The night before, he had been horrified when I said that I was giving him “my” bedroom and we’d argued a little before I dragged his big bags into the room and ditched them, telling him to sleep there or get out.  He had slept there.

Joey was just so damn appreciative, making such a big deal of everything.  Like I showed him how to use the remote, and he was grateful.  I said to use anything, eat anything in the kitchen, and he was grateful.  I told him where my cleaning lady put extra toilet paper, and he was grateful!  Whatever.  There was no need for it, and why was my brain darting to that instead of directing itself to the work in front of me? I was getting nothing done. 

At the time that most people (those not in the fashion industry) were eating lunch and consuming actual calories, I went housewares shopping at Union Square.  It was unusually hot for May in the city and the pavement was teeming with wilting tourists, all of whom had apparently read (and taken to heart) the fake Mark Twain quote about the coldest winter being the summer in San Francisco.  I pushed past them all because I was on a mission, and I bought and bought, and then bought more.  I had everything delivered to my building, giving out the door code so the delivery guys could get in (which probably my neighbors wouldn’t have appreciated).  Then I went back to work and made myself get some things done just so I could feel like I’d accomplished something I before went home.  I left early again, which could have easily become a bad habit.

I stared around the lobby of my apartment building when I walked in.  Mother fucker.  It was full of boxes and bags, all of them marked with my name.  At least no one had stolen them, but why the hell hadn’t the delivery people brought them up to my apartment?  I carried package after package to the elevator.  Apparently air conditioning was not a thing in the building lobby, and combining the heavy lifting with the heat and my high heels, I was a sweaty mess by the time I got it all to my front door.  There was my cardio for the day.

Pia greeted me when I opened it.  “Hello, dog,” I told her, eyeing her as she wagged her tail.  She didn’t seem to bark much, which I appreciated, and she moved over, still watching me too, so I could start dragging everything inside.

“Hey, Scarlett!” Joey called.  “What is all that?  I can help.”

I straightened up.  “No, I have…”  Nate.  Nate was there, in my bare living room.  Just for a moment, it felt like when my brother had hit me in the solar plexus by mistake when we were kids and I’d had the wind knocked out of me.  I stared at him, thinking immediately of the last time I had seen him, just before I shut the door in his face at my grandmother’s house on the Big Island, just after I had kissed him.  I remembered his expression: pity.

I didn’t want to see that, ever again, which was why it really, really sucked that I was not the perfect, polished woman of the night before.  Now I was a dripping, red-faced mess who had been swearing like a sailor, sporting two freshly-broken nails.  “Nate,” I said.  “Hello.”

“Scarlett,” he greeted me.  Then he went out and started carrying everything in, arm muscles rippling.  “Where do you want all this?”

I was busy patting the sweat off my forehead with my silk blouse.  “Kitchen,” I said shortly.  “I got some more things for the house,” I explained to Joey.

“Did you just move in here?” he asked. 

“No.  Um, I don’t spend a lot of time here.”  That was true, since mostly I was at work.  While Nate brought in yet another carton of crap, I rushed into the guest bedroom and tried to fix my face as best I could.  Shit!  It was not good.  And my blouse had a smear of makeup where I had wiped my forehead on it, as well as sweat stains.  I changed and messed with my hair and makeup.  And sniffed my pits and did some corrective work there.

Joey and Nate were unpacking my purchases when I came back out.  “Is this ok?” Nate asked, gesturing at what they were doing.

“Sure,” I told them, and took one of my old glasses to get some water.  Maybe it was the heat or the exertion, but I was parched.  I looked at Nate’s arms as he broke down a box.  Maybe it was something else.

“Joey told me that you gave him your bedroom,” Nate mentioned.  “You didn’t have to do that.”

“It’s fine,” I dismissed him.  “I don’t sleep in there, anyway.”

“Where do you sleep?  There’s no bed in the other room.”

Joey nudged him.  “Boyfriend, Jedi.  She’s over at his place.”

Or couch, Jedi, but I didn’t correct Joey.  He kept talking about what they had done that day, his first appointment with the new doctor, some sightseeing, while I filled the dishwasher with the new flatware, plates, pots, and all that shit.  I didn’t think I had ever used this appliance but I had to have soap, somewhere.  I looked under the sink and in the cupboards before giving up.

I looked up and met Nate’s eyes.  “You really don’t spend a lot of time here,” he agreed.

I shrugged.  “You know how it is,” I said evasively.

“You don’t eat here much.  There wasn’t any food so I got some groceries to make dinner for us.  Are you interested?  Or do you have plans?”  I had forgotten how dark his eyes were.  Almost black, like the polished onyx of my mom’s old necklace.

“No, I don’t have plans.  I had bought food for you,” I told Joey, who smiled at me and said thanks.

“Beer and celery.  Fancy crackers,” Nate enumerated my purchases.  “What do you eat?”

“The regular stuff.”  Really, I tried not to eat anything.  Maintaining the “look” was part of my job, and not consuming carbs, fats, or other caloric material helped with that.  “Wait, you cook?”

“When I want to eat,” he answered.

Joey announced that he needed to take Pia out and I watched him leave.  “Should I have gone with him?” I asked Nate.

“He’s an adult,” he said shortly, then seemed to relent, his face relaxing a little.  “I know you didn’t get a good impression of him when we went out in Hawaii, but he can take the dog for a walk.”

“Then why did you come here to California with him?”

He took things out of my refrigerator.  “If he needs brain surgery, I want to be here.”

“Brain surgery?”

“They need to stop his seizures.  They’re going to try new medications and some different things, but surgery is an option.”

Jesus.  I sat down on my counter stool.  “They’re that bad?  Is that why he has the dog?”

“Pia has been a lifesaver.  Literally.  He was incredibly lucky to get her.”  Nate stopped chopping.  “Has he talked to you about what to do, if he has a seizure here?  Although, you just said that you’re not here very often.”

“No, I should know,” I said, so Nate filled me in while he kept cooking.  It smelled delicious and I hunched over a little, my arms over my stomach, so he couldn’t hear it growl.

“Is that likely to happen?” I asked.  “He may have a seizure?”

Nate sighed.  “Yes, unfortunately, and that’s why we’re here.”

Joey came back in and he and Nate got involved in a big conversation about the local baseball team.  “I can get tickets,” I mentioned.  “I know one of the players.  Former players.  He used to party with my sister, back in the day.”  I made a note on my phone to ask Zara.

“Thanks, Scarlett!” Joey said again, for the hundredth time.

I shrugged.  “You don’t have to keep thanking me.  I’m not doing anything.  I don’t care that you’re staying here, it’s not a big thing for me to get tickets for a stupid baseball game.”

“Thanks, anyway.”  He looked around for a place for us to eat.  I didn’t have a table, and only the one chair.  “You’re not much for furniture.”

“More is getting delivered tomorrow,” I told him, and made another note on my phone to make that happen.

Nate, surprisingly, was not a bad cook.  In fact, it was delicious.  He and Joey weren’t afraid to eat and after a while I did too, and before I knew it, I had cleaned my damn plate.  And had to open the top button on my pants because of it.

“It was good?” Nate asked, pointing at my empty dish with his fork.

“It was fine,” I told him.  He waited.  “Thank you,” I added finally, and he shook his head.  But then he smiled, too.  It was the one I remembered, that turned up just the one side of his lips.

“I guess you haven’t been practicing saying it,” he mentioned, and I thought of how many times the words “thank you” had left my mouth in the last few months.  I could barely remember saying it at all, until tonight.

Joey looked back and forth between us.  “I’m heading to bed.  Unless, Scarlett?”  He looked at me, waiting.

“No, I don’t want to join you,” I told him.

He actually blushed.  “I meant, do you want your room?”

“Nope.  Goodnight.”

I got up to wash the dishes, because it was a thing, that if one person cooked, the other cleaned.  That was how my brother and Lanie did it, not that I wanted to emulate them.

I finally found the right soap and shoved more plates into the dishwasher, remembering doing the same thing when I was a kid.  My mom had loved to cook and so had my dad and the three of us kids had done some clean-up.  They had usually made dinner together, talking about their days, laughing, and tasting.  When he had died, my mom had cut way back on the cooking.  Now she did it up for the holidays, and that was about it.  I thought back to all of us eating together around the table in my parents’ old house.

“Scarlett.”

I jumped and dropped one of the new plates.  It fell onto the tile floor of the kitchen and shattered.

“Sorry, I didn’t mean to startle you,” Nate said, and bent to pick up pieces.

I did, too.  “I’ll get it,” I told him.  “I probably have a vacuum cleaner.”

He sat back on his heels.  “Miss Scarlett, in the kitchen, with a vacuum cleaner.”

“I always had to be her when we played that game as kids.  The red player gets to go first,” I remembered.

Nate stared at me, thoughtfully.  “I don’t get you,” he said.

I sat back too, my hands full of broken glass.  “What’s there to get?”

“Just when I think I have you pegged, you do something different and I realize I don’t know you at all.”

“Pegged as what?  A bitch?”  I stood and dropped the shards into the garbage.  “That’s about right.”  I suddenly felt like I needed some air.  “I’m going to go for a run.”

“Now?”  He peered at the windows.  “It’s pitch-black.  No.”

“You don’t tell me what to do!”  I had to get out for a while.  Without the mindless sports shows to distract me, I didn’t want to be here.  “I’ll go to the gym.”

Nate was still watching me, very quiet and still.  “We’ll go for a walk,” he announced.

“You just said it was too dark,” I protested.

“Too dark for you to go out running, alone.  You’re fine with me.  Get something to put on.  It’s fucking cold in this town.”

“Tourist,” I muttered.  But I was glad when we went downstairs and I had a coat on.  It was a beautiful night to walk along the Embarcadero, but the wind was a little chilly after the heat of the day.

Nate apparently didn’t feel the need to talk, and I had nothing to say to him, so we walked along the wide sidewalk in silence for a while, looking at the water of San Francisco Bay.  You could almost, but not quite, see it from my apartment.  I felt like I needed it.

“I saw you watching the waves in Hawaii.”

I glanced up at him.  “Why were you looking at me?”

“Sometimes you need to rest your eyes on something other than the interior of the refrigerator.”

I guessed I could converse.  “I like the water,” I said begrudgingly.  “It makes me feel better.  I mean, I makes me feel happy.”

He nodded in the darkness.  “I’m used to seeing the ocean from my house.  I don’t like how I can’t in my hotel room.”

“Where are you staying?” I asked casually, and he mentioned a hotel and where it was, a pretty shitty part of town.  A group of men walked toward us on the sidewalk, obviously drunk, and loud.

“They won’t bother you,” Nate remarked, just as casually.  He took my arm and moved me to the inside of him, away from the crowd, and sort of angled his body so that I was behind his back as we walked by them.

My heart slowed gradually.  “What?” I asked, like I didn’t know what he was talking about.  “Who?”  I swallowed.  “Whatever.  Why can you stay in a hotel and Joey can’t?”

“Do you want him out already?” Nate asked me.

“No!  But why can’t he stay with you?”

He sighed a little, very quietly.  “He was insisting on paying for half.  He doesn’t have the money.”

“Oh.”

“It isn’t right that you don’t have anywhere but the couch,” he said.  “Unless you’ll be at your boyfriend’s?”

I had a terrible, terrible feeling that he knew with his mind-reading that there was no boyfriend.  “I ordered more mattresses for the guest bedroom,” I said instead.

“You’ll have to move out all those clothes racks,” he mentioned.  I had rolled them out of the master bedroom and thrown in everything else after them, piles and piles.  “You have a lot of stuff.”

“Yeah, well, you wore a uniform, right?  That’s mine.  I have to look the part.  I have to dress in my uniform, every day,” I said stiffly.

“Explain your job to me.  Joey said some things that don’t make sense.”

I had mentioned to Joey that I was in PR and that mostly was all I had said, so I wondered what part had been confusing.  I told Nate now about what I did all day, trying to make it sound exciting and important.  It was not.

He didn’t answer after I finished.  We walked for a while more and then he took my arm again, and steered me in a circle.  “What time do you leave for work?  Joey said you were gone when he got up.”

“I run or bike, or swim some mornings, then I go to work.  I’m out of the house for good by seven and after work maybe I’ll go to a class or something if I have time.  I get back about nine-ish.”

“That’s a long day.”

“I’m not some kind of stupid dilettante.  I work hard, six or seven days a week.  Long hours.”

“I didn’t say a word,” he said calmly.

“I know what you’re thinking!” I retorted, but I didn’t, not really.  I wished I could know his thoughts.  But I guessed that I probably hadn’t made the job sound good enough, and it had seemed like empty, ridiculous fluff.

Nate sighed again, but now very audibly.  “You’re like a cat getting rubbed the wrong way all the time.”  He let go of my arm, which I had been allowing him to hold.  “Is the problem you, or is it me?”

It was me, the woman he hadn’t wanted to kiss.  “It’s not me,” I said haughtily. 

“I guess that’s our answer.”  We walked the rest of the way to my building in silence and he left me at the door.  I turned back once I had opened it, but he had already disappeared off into the darkness.

∞

I managed to keep myself extremely busy working, working out, and working on avoiding my house for the rest of the week.  If I got up and left extremely early, and got home extremely late, it was like I hardly even lived there at all.  I collapsed on the couch when I got home, still clothed, and hit the repeat button for the next day.  My sleepless eyes watched the numbers on my phone change to 5:00 as I got up every morning.

I did the same thing on Saturday, except when I got home that night, Joey was still there, awake.  “Here she is,” he announced when I came in.  Pia jumped up and wagged her tail, and he had to tell her that he meant me.  It was actually pretty cute.

“Did you work today too, or were you out having fun?” he asked me.

“Some people think work is fun,” I answered.  I was not one of those people, however.  “What did you do today?”

He and Nate had been to the baseball game with the tickets I had gotten.  “The seats were awesome.  Here.”  He took a hat off the table that I had recently purchased.  “For you.  Since you live here, you must be a Redwoods fan.”

“Oh, totally,” I told him.  “Thank you.”  I put it on.

“Nate got it for you,” he mentioned nonchalantly.

“Oh.”

“Are we still going to the party tomorrow?” Joey asked.  He seemed very excited by this.  I, of course, was not.  It was my mom’s party so that meant I would be with my sister and her disgusting husband, my overbearing brother and his weak fiancée, my mom and her endless questions.  “Not that I mind hanging with Jedi, but it would be nice to meet some more people.  Since I may be here for a while.  If that’s ok with you.”

“You probably don’t want to know my family.”  I hesitated.  “I mean, they’re not all bad,” I amended.

“Why don’t you like them?”

“I don’t like anybody too much,” I admitted.  His face kind of fell.  “Besides you.” I quickly added.

That made Joey crack up.  “What about Pia?”

The black dog was watching me.  She didn’t seem to miss much.  And yes, there was some extra hair around the apartment, but she was well-behaved.  “I don’t mind Pia."

He laughed again.  “Um, what is Nate up to tonight?” I asked him.

“He’s out with a medic we knew.”

“I thought most of your friends had moved away from here,” I mentioned, and he nodded.

“Yeah, she really wanted to see him when she heard he was here.  She drove like three hours or something so they could go out.”

She?  A funny sensation wound around my throat.  “Like, a date, huh?”

Joey shrugged.  “Yeah, I guess.”

“That’s great,” I told him.

I must have said it oddly, because Joey shot me a questioning look.  But all he said was, “What do you usually do on Saturday nights?”

“Um, I go out,” I lied.  “But I’m kind of tired.”

“Yeah, you work a lot,” he said, admiringly.  “Your job must be really important.”

“Uh...”

“You should just relax.”

The three of us—Joey, me, and the dog—settled down on my couch and Joey didn’t mind when I put on a free diving competition in Egypt.  Pia started off on his end of the cushions but then stretched out so her head was on my foot.  He snapped his fingers at her to move.

“No, I don’t mind her,” I said again. 

Joey scratched her ears.  “She’s a lifesaver, you know?  Not just with the seizures.  Getting her changed a lot.  I couldn’t be a total asshole anymore.”

“Just partial?”

“Exactly,” he said, grinning.  “Pia needs me, too.  I can only be a partial asshole.”

Gradually the dog worked her way over until she was cuddled against me, her head on my hip and her body curled in the curve of my legs.  She was really warm and feeling her heartbeat and breathing was oddly comforting.  It made me get pretty drowsy and I let my eyes close rather than fighting to keep them open.  I definitely got a few hours of sleep before I woke up with Joey and Pia gone, the blanket over me, and the TV off.  I flipped it back on and watched a darts competition until it was light enough to go out for a run.

I heard Joey on the phone when I walked into the living room after getting dressed when I got home.  I had been debating my outfit a lot and had decided to go with something baggy, my hair back into a tight ponytail.  Maybe the unflattering look would convince Bradley to keep his paws to himself.  Or maybe I would just have to kick him in the balls and lose my sister’s love forever.  I hoped the baggy clothes worked and that I could keep my foot out of his crotch.

“Yeah, a little off today,” Joey was saying to someone.  “It’s making Pia anxious.”  Silence.  “Nah, I still want to go.”  Pause.  “Scarlett?  Sure, I’ll talk to her.”  More silence.  “Jedi, you’re not my father.  Shit, that sounds like a line from one of the movies.  But I’m serious, man.  I can handle my own stuff now…Yes, yes, I’ll ask her!”

I had been hiding behind the half-open door, eavesdropping, and I decided that it was time to come all the way out.  “Ready to go?” I asked him.

“Yeah.”  He looked embarrassed.  “Yeah, yeah.”  He hesitated.  “Can I ask you a favor?  I mean, more than you letting me stay free at your house?”  He looked even more embarrassed.

“Sure.”  I waited.  “Spit it out,” I ordered, when he didn’t continue.

“They’ve been playing around with my meds a little, and I’m feeling like, uh, I’m feeling a little off.”

That was what he had just said on the phone to Nate.  “What does that mean?” I asked.  “Do you mean that you’re going to have a seizure?”

“I don’t know.  Pia sometimes lets me know if I don’t see it myself, and she isn’t alerting like I’m going to, but she’s acting different, too,” he explained.  “It could be just that we’re in a new place, doing new things, but it’s making me a little, uh, nervous.”

“Then we shouldn’t go to my mom’s.”  As worried as I was that something was wrong with Joey, I also felt relieved that the party was not happening for me.  “We can skip it.”

“No, of course not.  You should still go.  I want to, also.  I mean, the favor was, would you mind if Nate came too?  He’s really worried and I would feel, I guess, more comfortable, you know…”  He looked so pained I had to step in.

“I think it’s better if nobody goes.  It’s not a big deal,” I told him.

“But you’re all dressed up!” he exclaimed, gesturing at my ugly, ill-fitting outfit.  “And your mom expects us.  If I did that to my mom, told her I was coming and bringing someone and then didn’t show, she would be pissed.”  He hesitated.  “And you said that your mom has the yard, where Pia could play and relax.  That would be nice for her.”

We both looked over at the dog.  Maybe she did look anxious, but I was no dog mind reader.

“Would your mom care if you brought a second guest, too?” Joey asked me.

I threw up my hands, disgusted.  “Of course not!  Bring him.”

“Seriously?” he called to my back as I retreated into the bedroom to change my clothes and fix my hair.

“Seriously!” I yelled.

So that was how I ended up driving Joey, Pia, and Nate over to my mom’s house in Ross, north of San Francisco.  They had already walked across the Golden Gate Bridge, freezing in the battering wind and icy fog.  Regular summer weather had returned to the city.  Joey was completely entranced by the bridge, and he told me about International Orange paint, the weight in tons, how much it could sway, etc., etc., and asked me questions about it too.  I neither 1) knew, or 2) cared, but it was kind of fun to see it through his eyes.  Maybe I was just the tiniest bit jaded.  I told Joey about Marin County, where we were heading, and where I had grown up.  “Pia would like it,” I said.  “Lots of good places for dogs.”  I glanced at her in the back seat and saw her ears perk up.

“Eyes on the road,” Nate directed and I jerked us back into the lane and gave him a dirty look.

I pulled up in front of my mom’s house, and Nate spoke for the second time.

“You’re on the lawn.”

“There’s space here,” I explained.  “My mom doesn’t care.”

He shook his head, but followed me up to the front door.

I hadn’t bothered to tell my mom that I was bringing yet another person, and her eyes nearly popped out of her head when she saw me with Nate and Joey.  I tried to stave off her questions by holding up my hands in the universal “stop and don’t ask me anything” gesture.  “This is my houseguest, Joey,” I said to her, “and his friend, Nate.”

I could almost see the questions rising up from her mind like cartoon thought bubbles.  But all she said was, “It’s so nice to meet you both.”

They said it was nice to meet her, too.

She gave me a look but my lips were sealed in what was meant to be a pleasant smile, so she tried another tack.  “Joey, is it?  Come sit with me and tell me how you and Scarlett became friends.”  She led him and Pia over to a sofa where he would get the third degree.

“I’m getting something to drink,” I told Nate.  I went to the bar and helped myself to a Bloody Mary from the pitchers my mom had set up.  I drained my glass and refilled it.

“Thirsty?” Nate asked politely.

I handed him a glass, too.  “You’ll need this.”  A friend of my mom’s called to me and I left Nate to say hello to her.  I didn’t need his disapproval when I was already going to get it from my family.

Sure enough, Brooks had plenty to say when he cornered me in the sun porch where I was taking a breather from the party, relaxing my face out of its fake smile.  I had successfully avoided my brother for most of the day.  “Who are these men you’ve brought here?” he demanded, looming over me as I sat on the couch.

“Friends.”  I stood too, so his size wouldn’t be totally to his advantage.

My brother scowled at me.  “How do you know them?”

“Why the hell do you care, Brooks?”

“Because I just heard the one with the giant tattoo on his bicep say that he was living with you.”

“That’s Joey,” I explained.  “He’s staying with me, not living with me.”

“For how long?” Brooks demanded.

“Why the hell do you care?” I asked again.

He rubbed his eyes.  “I don’t understand how you’ve been acting lately, Scarlett.  Ever since I got engaged—”

“Again, it all revolves around you!”

“Then tell me what it is.”  He waited, but I didn’t speak.  “Ok, so, here are the facts, as I see them.  I asked Lanie to marry me.  Immediately after, you started acting completely unlike yourself.  You were in the hospital for what we were told was food poisoning, but I’m assuming was actually you getting your stomach pumped due to alcohol poisoning or getting treatment for some kind of overdose.”  He waited expectantly, but I kept my mouth shut, so he went on.  “Mom wouldn’t say anything else about it, Zara knows nothing, as far as I can tell.  You told me to fuck off when I asked you, like I shouldn’t be worried that my little sister was in the hospital and no one would say why.”

“Food poisoning,” I repeated, but he ignored that.

“Then you showed up for Christmas dinner here, yelled at Lanie and me when we tried to announce our engagement to the family, got hysterical crying, and ran out of the house, scaring me to death.  You disappeared from our lives with no notice and I wanted to call the police but Mom told me no, to let you work it out.  This went on until you surfaced at New Year’s, and Mom called to let me know that you had wrecked your car but still not to worry, you were just fine.”

“I am.  I’m fine.”

“The day after that you disappeared again, and I heard from our mother that you went to Hawaii to ‘rest.’  She wouldn’t tell me anything else, just to respect your privacy.  And Juliette told Lanie that you hadn’t told your boss that you were leaving either and they fired you.”  He paused.  “Where did you really go?  Rehab?”

“Hawaii,” I said shortly.

“Rehab in Hawaii?” Brooks pressed.

“I don’t need to go to rehab!  I needed a vacation because I was stressed.  I’m fine, now.”

Brooks looked so worried, and also like he didn’t believe me at all.  “Yeah, right.  That’s all there is, Scarlett?  You’ve been stressed?  That’s why you’ve been acting like you’re going crazy?”

I suddenly had a vivid image of everything inside me, my brain and all my organs, heating up past their boiling point and becoming molten goo inside my skin, like everything inside me was burning lava.  “I’m not going crazy!” I told my brother.

I was.  I was disintegrating, melting, and I thought that pretty soon I was going to break open and everything would come out.

Chapter 6

“Brooks?”

Fucking Lanie.  She couldn’t be apart from him for two minutes.  She stood at the door she had slid open, hovering.

Even my brother seemed to get annoyed.  “I’ll be there soon,” he said briefly, and she flushed.

“Your mom was looking for you,” Lanie explained.  Of course she would know, having an inside track with my mom.  My mom.

“I don’t have anything more to say to you,” I told him.  Brooks stared at me, hard, but did go, muttering something as he left.  I planned to follow him to get another Bloody Mary, but Lanie stayed behind.  “Scarlett, can I talk to you?”  She squared her shoulders, looking determined.

Oh, awesome.  This was exactly what I needed, to deal with Lanie.  Suddenly, all the energy went out of me and I sat down, exhausted, on the couch overlooking the pool and the back yard.  “What do you want?” I asked her, resting my forehead in my hand.

“You’re making your brother really unhappy,” she informed me.

“Oh, is that right?  Did you think he wasn’t capable of saying that himself, so you had to take it on?”

She flushed more.  “I don’t want you to make him unhappy,” she said stubbornly.

“Point noted.  Goodbye.”

Lanie didn’t leave.  She came and stood next to the couch instead, looking down on me.  “Scarlett, can’t we get along?  I’m going to marry your brother.  It would be a lot easier if you didn’t hate me.  Or if you tried to hide it better.”

It was just that she was so horribly annoying, like 98% of the rest of the world.  But somehow Lanie was worse.  I smiled at her, the fake one I had been using all day.  “Ok, sounds like a plan. I’ll hide it better.”

Now she looked like she was going to cry, and if she did, Brooks would have a raving fit.

“I don’t hate you,” I hastily said.  “Ok?  We’re fine.”

“We used to get along.  Remember when we were kids?  We were friends.”

Yeah, well, I didn’t have any more of those.

“What about your engagement party?” she prompted.  “I helped you, remember?”

Yes, I remembered my engagement party.  I had sat crying in a room, thinking about marrying a man who didn’t love me and who I didn’t love either, with lipstick smeared on my dress.  Lanie had tried to fix it.  “Sure, yes.  I said thank you.”

She sat on the arm of the couch.  “And you helped me, too.  Without you stepping in last year, I probably would have lost my job.”

“I remember very well that I did that.” 

Lanie held up her hands, all naïve confusion.  “So why are you so angry at me now?  I thought we had turned a corner or something.”

My heart beat hard as rage rose up in my body.  She knew what she had done and pretending that she was so innocent...  “You drove a wedge between me and my brother.”

She reeled back.  “I didn’t do that.  You’ve been acting—”

“You poisoned him against me and now he hates me,” I hissed, keeping my voice under control so I didn’t start screaming.

“Scarlett, no.  He’s so worried about—”

“Do you care that Brooks and I used to be close?  He was like another dad, almost.  I always had Brooks and now I don’t.  You deliberately ruined it.”  Why was I telling her this?  My throat ached as I forced the words out and tried to hold the emotion in.  “You win, ok, Lanie?  You win.  You have my brother, he can’t stand me, soon you’ll have my mom.  Congratulations.  Can you leave me alone?”

Now she was crying.  Fuck.

“I didn’t drive a wedge between you,” she blubbered.  “I told him how mean you were to me in high school and it made him upset.  I’m not trying to take your mom from you, but she’s so nice to me, I—”

I cut her off again.  “Whatever.  You can run to Brooks now and tell him I made you cry.  Make sure to let him know that I’m still here on the sun porch so he knows where to come back to yell at me more.”

She stood blabbering for a while about family and love winning out over problems, or some such bullshit, but finally she left.  Fuck, fuck, fuck.  That had probably been the final nail in the coffin of my relationship with Brooks.  He had said it himself: he would always choose Lanie over me.  I put my head down again and closed my eyes.

When I heard the door move, I didn’t bother to open them.  “I didn’t mean to make her cry,” I said to my brother.

“Who did you make cry, Scarlett?”

My head popped up, because it wasn’t Brooks.  My sister’s husband Bradley slid the door closed behind himself and smiled at me.  I should have kept on the baggy shirt, no matter if Nate came along or not.  He hadn’t noticed anything about me anyway, except when I almost nudged into the traffic barrier on the bridge.  “Bradley, I’m not in the mood.”  I got up from the couch and got ready to rumble.  “What in the hell is wrong with you?  You’re married to my sister.”

“I’m not doing anything,” he said.

“You grabbed my ass at your daughter’s first Communion party.  You’re a total prick.”

“You’re gorgeous,” he told me, and took another step closer.  “I couldn’t help myself.  I didn’t mean anything by it.”

“So help me, Bradley, if you lay a hand on me, I’ll knock you into next week.”  I reached into my purse and got ready.  My heart pounded in my chest, because that would be it.  Zara would never believe my side of this story, and my mom would probably want to believe us both but would ultimately choose to see her grandchildren, so I would be out.  I swallowed.

The door slid open and Nate was there.  “Scarlett.”

I felt a little dizzy.  “Hi.”

He walked in, shoving Bradley out of the way.  “Are you all right?”

Blood rushed up to my head and my vision got weird.  I reached out, kind of grasping for something. 

“Get out of here,” he told Bradley.  “Now.”  I thought the door slid again but before I knew what was happening, I was back on the couch, with my head between my knees.  “Take even breaths, in and out.”  He tugged at the zipper on the back of my dress and I started to struggle.  “Easy there, I’m helping you out.”  He started making that soothing noise like he had done in Hawaii when he’d made me take a cold bath for my sunburn.  “This is tight, right?  Now it’ll be better.  Take some more breaths.”

I did, my ribs expanding beyond what the dress had allowed.  Then I sat up, blinking and trying to clear my head.

“What was going on in here with him?” Nate asked me.  He sat on the arm of the couch and looked me over.

I reached behind myself to try to fix my zipper.  “Nothing much.  That was my brother-in-law.”

“I know.  I asked someone who he was, because of the way he kept looking at you today.”

“He’s disgusting.”

Nate was still watching me.  “Have you eaten anything yet, or has your diet been only liquid?”

I shrugged, but when he stood up and said he would get me something, my hand involuntarily shot out and grabbed his jeans.

“Ok.”  He made his clucking noise again, which made me laugh.  But the laugh caught and sounded a little like a sob.  “Ok,” he repeated, and sat down next to me on the couch.  “How long has this Bradley been bothering you?”

I hesitated before I answered.  “He’s always said things.  Like, borderline inappropriate, but they could be jokes, you know?  But then he upgraded to trying to touch me some.  And the last time I saw him, he grabbed my butt.”

Nate’s whole face got hard.  “What did you do?”

“I told him to leave me alone.  Then I put glass in his tires.”

“What did your sister do when you told her?” he asked.

“I didn’t tell her.  I didn’t tell anyone.  She doesn’t want to see anything wrong with him and I—”  I stopped dead.  It was hard to explain that I was afraid of losing her.

“You think she won’t believe you?”

I shook my head.

“Tell your big brother, then.”

I shook my head again.  “I won’t tell him anything.  He probably wouldn’t believe me, either.  He doesn’t like me anymore.”  I sounded like a pathetic idiot.  “Whatever.  Let’s go back to the party.”

“Hang on a second.”  Nate pulled my hand from where I had tucked it in my purse.  “Are you wearing brass knuckles?  What the fucking hell?”

“They’re mine.”

“What are you doing with brass knuckles?” he ranted.  “This would be carrying a concealed weapon in Hawaii, and I’m betting they’re illegal here, too.”

I wiggled them off my fingers and stowed them back in my purse.  “Just in case, I have them.”

“Were you going to hit your brother-in-law with them?” he asked me incredulously.

“He deserved it!  No one is going to touch me,” I said furiously.

“I don’t want to get farther onto your bad side,” Nate told me.  “Jesus Christ.”

“You’re not on my bad side,” I said, and then I just kept talking.  “I know you don’t like me, but you’re not on my bad side.”

“Thank you,” he said, and then studied me.  “I’ll tell you, Scarlett, you don’t make it easy.”

“You called me a bitch in Hawaii.”

“You were acting like one.”  Nate frowned at me.  “Is that you?  Because then you do something else, like let a drunk guy literally cry on your shoulder, or then let him bunk at your house and spend all kinds of money and time trying to make him comfortable.”

I shifted uneasily.  “He needed a place to stay.”

“I don’t think that ‘bitch’ all there is to you,” he continued.  “But you do make it hard.  Is that why your brother is angry with you?”

I ended up telling him the whole story.  Part of the whole story.  I started way back, when Lanie and I had been little girls and our mothers had tried to make us be friends, how much I had resented my mom always fawning over poor little Lanie.  Then in high school, when everyone had hated her and teased her, I hadn’t done anything about it.  “I wanted to, sometimes,” I said, and felt that rush of shame.  “I didn’t.  I was just so…I was just trying to keep myself together.  And then she and Brooks got engaged, and she poisoned him against me.  She made my brother hate me!”

“She made your brother hate you because of what you, yourself, had done.”

The shame was choking me, along with the anger.  “But that was so long ago!” I said furiously.  “I tried to make it up to her.  I stepped in when she was going to lose her job.  I stood up for her.  But still, Brooks…he thinks I’m trying to ruin their magical engagement or something.  He thinks that I’m acting out because he’s marrying her.”

“Are you?”

“No!” I snapped.  “It’s all just…coincidental.”  I shook my head.  I didn’t want to talk about this anymore.  “Where’s Joey?  Is he ok?  He wanted you to come with us today because he was concerned.”

Nate frowned again.  “I’m not sure.  I’m a little worried, too.”

“Do you think it would be better for you to be nearer to him?”  My heart started to pound.

“Like if I called him in here to sit on the couch?” Nate asked.

“No, I mean if you stayed with me, too.  I don’t care if you do.  If it would help him.”

Nate looked at me in his steady, calm way.  “I’m surprised you’re saying that.”

I could hardly understand it myself.  “I think it would be better for Joey.”  I wanted Nate to say yes.  I found a little fold in the leg of his jeans near my hand where he couldn’t see and held on to it.

He nodded at me.  “I agree.  I think it would be better, if you’re sure.”

I pinched the denim more tightly between my fingers.  “I’m sure.”

Nate reached down and picked up my hand, away from his pants.  “Do you want to tell me what happened?”  His eyes looked straight into me.

My fingers squeezed convulsively around his.  “What?”  I was trying to sound surprised, confused by his question, but my voice rose dramatically on the word and I sounded a little hysterical instead.  I tried again.  “What do you mean by that?  Tell you what?  I don’t understand.  Bradley was being annoying, that’s all.  That’s all!”

“Ok, take another breath.”  Because I was practically wheezing.  “Scarlett, take a breath.  What’s my name?”

“Nathaniel Tor Lange.”

“And yours?”

“Scarlett Wolfe.”

“Still won’t tell me your middle name?”  He smiled and rubbed his thumb across the back of my hand.  My fingers relaxed a little.  “Keep breathing,” he told me.  I did, focusing on the in and out, and the way his hand felt holding mine.  “I’ve been looking all around at the people at this party.  It’s a different crowd from what I’m used to back home,” he told me.  “Explain who this Juliette March person is, the woman who acts like someone made her the Queen of California.”

Despite my recent state of panic, I started to laugh a little.  “She’s Lanie’s mom and my mom’s best friend.  She owns a big beauty company, makeup and hair and skin products.”  I tried to explain about her and Lanie, how Juliette was always trying to “fix” her daughter’s lack of style and looks and how Lanie had finally rebelled.  “The way Juliette goes about it is wrong, but I do think that she’s trying to help Lanie.  Juliette helped me with my job,” I added.  “She isn’t all bad but my brother can’t stand her now.  Anybody who crosses Lanie…”  I stopped.  That list included me. 

“He sticks up for his girlfriend.  That’s good.”

And I agreed with that.  “Brooks is a good person.  He’s really protective.  My dad died when I was in middle school and Brooks kind of stepped into that for me.  Like, he intimidated my prom date, he moved me in when I went college and checked the locks on the doors.  He was always,” and I stopped again, because I was off on another sad path to nowhere.  “Whatever.”  I cleared my throat and smiled, a big, fake one.  “What you think of California so far?”

“I like it.  San Francisco is a beautiful city.”

“It’s no Waimea,” I said, and he smiled, the side of his mouth quirking.  His was real.

“It’s no Waimea,” he agreed.

“Tell me about where else you’ve lived,” I asked, and he did, about the different bases where he had trained and been stationed, and a little about where he had been deployed, and I kept asking questions like my mom to get more details.  The more he talked about his tours, the scarier it all sounded to me.

Finally he looked at me and shook his head a little.  “I don’t usually say that much about it.  I was fortunate to come home mostly in one piece, and that’s the end of it.”  His fingers went to the scars next to his eye and I wanted to put mine there, too.

“Is your eye real?” I asked, because I had been wondering.

“No.  Looks pretty good though, right?  It took a while to get used to it, to rebound and pull myself back up, but now I’m fine.  You can come back from things.”  He was just looking at me.

“Like Joey.  He can come back from his things, too,” I said quickly and stood up, letting go of his hand.  I had been gripping it the entire time we talked and my fingers were stiff.  I reached for the zipper of my dress.

“Right, like Joey,” Nate agreed.  “Here, I’ll help you.”

He was tugging up the zipper when Brooks walked in.  My brother looked at Nate like he was going to kill him and then turned to me, his face full of fury and, yes, disgust.  “Mom wants to talk to you,” he told me, his voice carefully controlled.  He turned on his heel and left.

I didn’t care.  I didn’t care what my brother thought about me and what I was doing with my life, because I never asked for his opinion just like he never asked for mine.

Nate followed me as I trailed after my brother into the living room.  Most of the crowd of guests had cleared out and my mom was back on the couch with Joey.  My niece and nephew were clustered around Pia.  “Oh, Scarlett,” my mom said happily.  “I’ve been having such a nice time talking to your friend.”  I swore that I could feel the anger rolling off my brother.  God only knew what he thought Joey, Nate, and I were up to.  Not that it mattered, I reminded myself.  Brooks said something to Lanie and left.  Whatever.

“Your mom gave me a lot of ideas for how to lure Kiana back to me,” Joey said, and my mom patted his shoulder.

“I’m sure it will all work out between the two of you.  You’re doing the right thing by working on yourself first,” she assured him.

Talk like that made me antsy.  “Did you need me for something?” I asked brusquely.

My mom didn’t blink.  “Joey looks tired, so it’s time for you to go, but I found this for you.”  She took a silver chain from her pocket.  “You were asking me if it was still around.  You can have it, honey.”

I took the necklace from her and the square onyx pendant dangled from my fingers, then I clasped it around my neck.  It was just like I remembered it, the shiny black stone broken by the little grey lines.  I glanced up at Nate to check the color of his eyes against it and he was looking back at me.  It reminded me to say something.

“Thank you,” I told my mom, and let her hug me, although I couldn’t help that I stayed pretty stiff.  “Bye,” I said in a general way to my family (except Bradley, because he could go fuck himself).  I glanced over at Lanie as I left but she looked away.  She was kind of a whiz with makeup, her mom being the cosmetics guru, and she had cleaned up her face until you could barely tell that she had been crying.  But I bet that my brother knew, and knew exactly why, too.  She had probably run immediately to tell him what a bitch I was after I had let her have it earlier.

Joey was quiet when we started for home and both he and Pia fell asleep in the back of the car.  Pia was always on duty, but Joey had taken off her vest so that she could run free and play and she had gone for hours of fetch, sniffing, and general revelry in my mom’s big back yard. Then both she and my nephew had taken an impromptu swim in my mom’s pool before my sister ordered them out.  I felt like the day had gone well for everyone in the back seat.  I glanced over at Nate.  “Did you have fun?” I asked him.

“Sure.”

“Sounds like about as much as I did,” I agreed.

“Your family isn’t so bad.  Your brother seems like a stand-up guy.  Your mom ignored all her guests to talk to Joey and give him advice.”  He glanced in the back at his friend.  “He seems a lot more positive, pretty optimistic.  That wasn’t true for a long time.  He was drinking too much, which didn’t help with his seizures, or his ability to hold down a job.”

“That’s why his girlfriend left him, not his injuries?”

“She stuck with him through a lot, but he dug himself into a pretty deep hole.  Kiana leaving him was inevitable.”

“You thought he should be able to pull himself together,” I said.  “Like you did.”

“Well, he needed help to do it, but yeah.  At one point, he had to be the person to take control of his life.  And I think he’s doing it now, so good for him.”

Yep, good for Joey.  He was able to pull himself up by his bootstraps and go on.

“Slow down, Red Farmer,” Nate said.

“What?”

“And keep your eyes on the road.  Don’t look at me.  Why the hell are you driving so fast?”  The thick steel cables of the bridge were flashing by the windows.

I took my foot off the accelerator where I had been jamming it down hard.  “I guess I was in a hurry to get home.”

“You have something to do?” he asked.

I was saved from answering that I just needed to burrow under a blanket when my phone rang.  “I have to take it, it’s my boss.”  I glanced in the mirror at the back seat at my two sleeping passengers and hoped Pascale wouldn’t be screaming her way through an exercise class as I answered.

“Hi, P.”

“Scarlett?”  The sounds of my boss’ labored breathing filled the car.

“Pascale, are you ok?”

“I’m on a bike in the Marin Headlands.  It’s a really technical trail.”  Huff, huff.  “I’m actually surprised I got a signal.  I may still lose you.”

“Maybe you could call me back—”

“I had a great idea about Klere,” she interrupted me.  “Have you been reading her lately?”

I had to read her stupid posts; keeping up with her and her cohorts on social media was part of my job. “Yes, I thought she’s really been on point lately about cable knits for fall,” I told Pascale.  In fact, stupider things about sweaters had never been written, but whatever.

“That was what I thought, too,” my boss puffed into the phone.  At least she wasn’t yelling, but the deep breathing filling my car sounded pretty obscene.  “Klere is very intuitive, very modern.  I was so impressed with what she wrote about our line, even if she did have some spelling issues.”

Of course, Klere hadn’t written any of that; I had spoon-fed it to her, misspellings included on purpose.  I heard someone in the background yell, “Watch out!” and Pascale gasped.

“That was close!” she told me.  “I want to get Klere’s involvement again.  She’s blowing up right now and I’m so glad for your connection with her.”

I tried to stop this runaway train.  “Pascale, you know that she didn’t—”

“You and Javier will start to work on this project tomorrow.”

“Work on what, exactly?”  I stopped.  “It’s Memorial Day tomorrow, anyway.  The office is closed.”

“Just you then,” she corrected herself.  “No need for the intern.”  There was a screeching noise.  “Shit!  That was close.  This is a tricky descent.  I see Klere as our muse.  Our fashion inspiration.”  There were more yells in the background, “Stop!” and “Slow down!”  “Yes, our muse.  At least that’s what you’ll tell Klere.  You’ll work closely with her to develop an online story of herself as inspiring our next collection.”

“And by ‘develop’ you mean that I’ll be writing the material and feeding it to her,” I clarified.

“Exactly.  Shit!  Watch out!”

I heard a scream and a distant crash.

“That will mean me in Los Angeles with her,” I suggested.

“Yes, probably, and also setting up a space for Klere with you in our office if she wants one.  We’ll have to see how much she actually wants to get involved,” she said.  Oh, God.  I hoped for a total faked involvement.  “Work on your approach to her and outline a potential plan for me,” Pascale continued.  “I want to take over all her accounts, reach maximum exposure.  I think the key will be to develop a careful timeline for Klere to follow.  But after your success with her before, I trust that you can make it happen.”

Sure, knowing what I did of Klere, it totally seemed probable that I could make her follow a careful timeline.  I hadn’t been able to make her take a free cup of coffee.

“You and I can meet tomorrow,” Pascale said.  “I’ll be in, I’m assuming you’ll be there too.”

“I will,” I said woodenly.

“Shit!”  The sound of a tremendous crash sounded through the speakers of my car.  Pia woke up and barked and I smacked the button to end the call.

Joey sat up and yawned.  “Did your boss just say that you need to come in tomorrow on the holiday?”

“Yeah.”

“They really depend on you a lot,” he said admiringly.

“No, not at all,” I answered.  They had been fine when I had taken off for Hawaii.  The world would still turn if I didn’t show up the next day and make a social media PR plan for a woman who spelled the “cable” of “cable knit” with the E before the L.  “My job doesn’t matter at all.  But I’ll have to be there tomorrow.”

Nate’s eyes were on me, I could feel them.  “Let’s go get your stuff from the hotel,” I said.

“Huh?” Joey asked from the backseat.

“I’m going to stay with Scarlett, too,” Nate told him, and my mouth went dry.

“Wow,” Joey said.  “Wow, Scarlett!”

Yes, I felt the same way.

Chapter 7

“Hello?”  I dropped my keys on the kitchen counter.  It was funny to see all the stuff in that room now: the rack with clean dishes, the towel hung up to dry, the tea kettle on the stove.  There was definitely stuff, but it was all neatly arranged, put away, and organized.

“Hello?”

I walked into the quiet living room.  No Pia came running up.  Maybe the three of them weren’t back yet from meeting up with their buddies, but it was getting pretty late.  They had gone to the Presidio, the former Army base which was now a national park, for the Memorial Day commemoration.  I had gone into my office, where Pascale and I had worked silently.  Usually I liked to be there without a lot of other people bothering me, but today I had wanted to run out.  My mind had wandered a lot, over to my brother and what he had said about me going crazy, and to Lanie and what she had said about how I was hurting him.  To Joey, and how exhausted he had been when we got home the night before.

To Nate, and how adding one more person into my apartment made the space seem a fraction of its size.  Because for whatever reason, he just seemed to take up all my oxygen when I was in a room with him.  Probably inviting him to stay had been a mistake.

I looked at the couch, where he had insisted on spending the night.  “You take the bed in your own house,” he’d told me, then looked at me carefully.  “Unless—”

I hadn’t liked the idea that he was peering into my thoughts.  “Ok, great,” I had answered, then spent a very sleepless night in the guest bedroom on the new mattresses that had recently been delivered.  I sat down back in my usual spot on the couch now, where Nate had been the night before.  I picked up the pillow he had used from where it had been sitting on top of the neatly folded blanket.  He and Joey both said they liked things “squared away.”  My nickname in college had been “Mess,” so I wasn’t quite that way, but I hadn’t had enough in the apartment to get messy before now.  I reached for the remote as I usually did but today it took a while before the mind-numbing sports could block out my thoughts.

I must have fallen asleep, because when I opened my eyes the fishing competition was over, soft clinks of dishes came from the kitchen, and Pia was asleep on the floor at my feet.  I got up quietly to sneak into the bedroom to correct any damage caused by sleeping with my face smashed into Nate’s pillow, but the man himself came out of the little kitchen carrying a tray that I had recently bought with a meal set up on it.

“Joey had a seizure today,” he said, and I sat back down on the couch.  “He’s resting right now.”  Nate went into the bedroom, and when he came back, I was full of questions.

“Is he ok?  Did he go to the hospital?  What happened?  Why is he home?  Did he get hurt?  What did you do?  How is Pia?  What did she do?  What about the new medicine?”  I had more, too.

Nate held up his hands in the same gesture I usually gave to my mom: the “stop-the-interrogation” sign.  “He’s fine, Pia’s fine.  They’re both tired and he’s pretty groggy.  If you’re going to have a seizure, the place to do it is with a bunch of combat medics around you.”

“Why did it happen at all?” I demanded angrily.  “I thought he came to San Francisco to get this fixed!  Do these so-called doctors even know what they’re doing?”

Nate eyed me calmly.  “First of all, we haven’t been here very long.”

Was that right?  It felt like they had been there for a while.  I counted the days on my fingers to make sure.

“It hasn’t been enough time to ‘fix’ a serious medical issue, if it can be fixed,” he continued.  “He usually has at least a few every week, different types.  Not always this serious.  I’m a little surprised it hadn’t happened already, but it was bound to.”  He sat down on the couch too, and rubbed the heel of his hand into his eye.

“You’re tired, too.”

“Yeah.”

“Is it scary, when it happens?” I asked, and I knew it sounded like I was four years old. 

“It’s very scary.  And I have to admit, I guess I had been hoping that it was fixed, too.”

I thought for a second and then went into the kitchen.  When I came out, I handed him a plate with a sandwich on it.

Nate looked shocked.  “Uh, thank you.  What’s in this?”

“Turkey.”

He picked up the top piece of bread.  “Just turkey?  I’m going to add some other things, too.  Want half, chef?”  I nodded and got a turkey, cheese, mustard, avocado, and tomato sandwich when he came out of the kitchen.  His version was probably better than mine.

“You could have called me,” I told him.

“Figured you were busy at work.  And we had enough of a crowd there at the hospital.”  He looked at me.  “I will, if there’s a next time.  I called Kiana and told her.  She reminded me that she’s his ex-girlfriend and that she doesn’t care, but then she started crying and asked if she should come to California.”  Nate put almost the entire half of his sandwich into his mouth and chewed.  He swallowed before he spoke.  “I’m going to bed.  It’s late.”

That meant I had to give up the couch, so I got up slowly.  “Ok.”  I looked a little longingly at the TV.  I could play with my phone or my laptop, but I always started to work when I had those open.

“You ok in the guest bedroom?  The new bed is all right?” he asked.

“Sure.  I’m great,” I told him.  Just great.  I turned to head to bed also, but had another thought once I got to the cramped, stuffed room.  When I went back into the living room to voice it, Nate was standing next to the couch in his underwear.  Only his underwear.  I stopped dead.

“Can I help you with something?” he asked calmly.

Nothing verbal came out of me.  I opened my mouth then closed it. 

“Scarlett?”

Function now, vocal cords!  “If something happens with Joey during the night, come get me,” I said quickly, in a voice that didn’t sound like mine.  I bolted back to my bedroom.  Oh, holy fuck.  That had been a beautiful sight.  Nate’s tan, lean, muscular body, his wide shoulders and the stomach and abs I had glimpsed in Hawaii, and then those long, strong legs…

I sat on the bed and looked at fashion websites and delved into Klere’s background to distract myself from worrying about Joey and from picturing the mostly-naked man in my living room.  It didn’t really work.

∞

Three days later, I was still distracted—if anything, I was worse than I had been before.  Having Nate in my house was…difficult.  On top of that, everyone in my office was in crisis about one trivial thing or another, my mom had been keeping up her schedule of daily calls, freaking out about Brooks being back in Texas and if he and Lanie were moving there, and I was still worried about Joey.  I needed to get out and breathe.

“Going for a run?”

I dropped my keys on the fake wood floor of my living room.  “Shit, you startled me!  Yes, I’m going running.”  I turned away so that Nate couldn’t see my makeup-free face before I slipped on sunglasses and pulled the new baseball hat he had gotten for me down low. 

“Going incognito?”

I scowled.  I was not at my top form right now, and I was very tired after yet another night of not-sleeping in the guest bedroom.  It was much, much worse in there than on my couch, with no TV for distractions.  I had been on my phone for most of the night watching replays of a lot of the sporting events I had already seen, answering emails, and reading fashion blogs. I needed the big screen, the surround sound, to really make me concentrate on something other than the thoughts swirling in my head.

And besides my bad mood due to the lack of sleep, I was also super pissed that morning for two main reasons: 1) Klere was coming up from Los Angeles that day to discuss her role as “muse.”  We would have to spend the day together and do a night out, for the second time, and really, once had been enough for me.  In addition, she hadn’t decided if she wanted to stay for the weekend or not, but Pascale was pushing me to get a yes on that.  “A Weekend at Play in the City by the Bay…think of all the things Klere could do, wearing our line,” my boss considered aloud, then nodded in my direction.  “Get it locked down,” she told me.

The bigger reason for my mood was that 2) Nate was a jerk.  A thoughtless, careless jerk.  The night before, when I had gotten home from work, Joey and Pia had been there alone.  No Nate.  No one had mentioned any other plans to me, no one had said anything about not being there.  The four of us had been hanging out together at night when I got home, mostly me working while Joey and Nate shot the breeze or played cards or backgammon with an old set Joey had dragged with him from Hawaii, with weird sports playing in the background.  That was what we did, that was what we were developing as our routine.

“Where’s everybody else?” I had asked when I came in the night before, trying to be vague as I bent to pet Pia hello.  That was another part of the routine, how she ran up to greet me when I got there.

“You mean everybody else, like Nate?” Joey asked.  “He went out with that woman from before, Ashley, the medic we knew.  She’s been, uh, eager to see him again.”  He bent to pet Pia also.  “I’m making dinner.  Come here and help me with the salad,” he told me.  “This time, you’re going to put dressing on it.  No more naked lettuce.”  Joey had laughed, because he was finally feeling better.  It had taken a few days for him to bounce back, which told me a lot more about how hard his life had to have been.  I couldn’t imagine living with the fear that this would happen, your body and brain would sort of turn on you, and then to have to suffer the after-effects…it made me furious that no one had been able to solve this problem!  And then to think of Nate leaving him just to go out and get laid?  It pissed me off to no end.  That was why I was so angry.  It was terrible treatment of his friend, as simple as that.

I was still angry about it the next morning, and now even crankier from being tired and not looking forward to a day and night with Klere.  And at this moment, when Nate joked about me going incognito when all I was trying to do was hide all my ugliness, I wanted to hit him.  Instead, I turned and went down the hall and smashed my fist on the button for the elevator.

He was right behind me.  “Let’s take the stairs,” he suggested.

“Fine,” I snapped, because apparently my run had become a group activity.  He held the door for me and I pounded down.  I hated the stairwell because there weren’t enough lights.  It wasn’t safe in there, and I never went by myself.  I took a big breath when we got out to the sidewalk and then broke immediately into a run.

Nate kept up so I ran faster.  Then faster, then faster, until my legs were pounding so hard that I was almost wobbling.  I kept going until he put his hand on my arm and it made me stumble.  “Slow down,” he ordered, and held me up so that I didn’t fall.  “Slow down, right now.  What in the hell are you doing?”

“This is how I run,” I told him.  “If you don’t like it, go off with someone else.”  He could run with Ashley the medic.  But I did slow down, until I was moving more at my normal pace, which was still fast enough to make it hurt.  He kept up, moving right next to me.  I ran and ran, turning around at the Exploratorium to make five miles.

We had gone mostly in silence until the turnaround, then Nate spoke.  “Can you talk or are you too winded?”  He was barely breathing hard.

“I’m fine,” I announced.  “Did you have something to say?”

“Did you wake up on the wrong side of the bed?” he answered.

“No!”  Because I didn’t think I had ever been to sleep.  “I was just very worried last night.  Very worried.  You came here to take care of Joey, and the minute there’s fresh meat in your future, you leave him and go sniffing after it.”

“Fresh meat?  What does that mean?”

“You know what I mean!” I exploded.  “A piece of ass!”

He stared at me.  “Are you talking about me going out with Ashley last night?”

“Whatever,” I told him.  “I’m surprised you would treat us—I mean, treat him like that.”

“Joey had you there, didn’t he?”

“I was at work until late.  Some people have to work.”

“Oh, do they?” he asked.  “Remember that I know a little about your family.  I don’t think that last statement is true.”  When I started to snap back at him, he continued, but louder.  “Joey was fine.  I was a phone call away.  Was that what you were actually worried about or was there something else?”

“What else would I be worried about?”  I looked over at him quickly behind my sunglasses.  His face told me nothing about what he knew was really in my mind.  I flipped my gaze forward and brushed a strand of hair off of my mouth with impatient fingers.

Nate was staring at that hand.  “Wait a minute.”  He grabbed my right arm again and pulled me to a stop.  “What in the fuck is on your hand?” he demanded. 

My sleeve had covered my hand until now, when he yanked the fabric up to expose what I was wearing and I tried to jerk my arm away from his grasp.

“Scarlett, no.”  He peeled open my fingers and slid the brass knuckles off.  “You can’t go around with these.  I looked it up, and they are illegal here.”  He pocketed my weapon.

“No one can see them.  I need those back!”  I reached for his pocket but he stopped me.

“No.  Keep running.”  Still holding my hand and with my stolen brass knuckles secured in his shorts, he started off again and pulled me along with him.  “You’re that afraid,” he stated.

“I’m not afraid!”  I took another few steps before I continued.  “I’m not afraid, but I’m not stupid.  I’m out here on my own and no one would give a shit if I got grabbed, attacked, hurt, whatever.  I have to be able to defend myself.”

“There are things you can do…”

“Self-defense classes?  Martial arts?”  I laughed, breathlessly.  “Yeah, right.  I’ve done all that and I know that if some man wanted to hurt me, he could.  I won’t let it happen.  You’ll give those back to me when we get to my apartment.”

“We’ll continue our conversation,” he told me, and I wanted to scream.

Instead, I forced it down and ran faster.  “I’ll just get more,” I dismissed him over my shoulder.  My feet rammed into the sidewalk.  It needed to hurt.

Again, Nate kept right up.  “What the hell’s the matter with you?  You’re this upset that I went out with someone?”

“Of course not!  I just want my property back.  I couldn’t care less about you or your women.”

He actually snorted.  “My women.  Sure.  What happened to you yesterday?  Did you have a bad day at work?”

The fucking worst.  I’d had to be in contact with Klere for hours, strings of reminders about her upcoming trip and what she would be doing here, mixed with meaningless compliments from me about her clothes, her followers, and her looks in order to hold her interest.  My messages got answered with extremely vague responses and non sequiturs, punctuated with questions like, “Are you the one from New Australia?”  What in the hell was New Australia?  I had looked it up and it was a failed 19th century commune in Paraguay.  When she got on the plane later today, where did she think it was going to take her?

“No,” I had written back to Klere.  “I’m still in San Francisco, not Australia (old or new).”  Then I had added, “California,” and wondered if I should also put “USA” or if that would have confused her more.  And the whole time I was managing her, I was also dealing with more B-list actors on major ego trips, a buyer from New York with serious coastal superiority issues, and my boss, who had decided to take part of the office out on a mid-week yoga retreat (in a week that was already shortened by the holiday on Monday) and called me in the middle of a class to discuss work, grunting and moaning into the phone as she got herself into hummingbird pose.  It had been enough to turn my stomach.

“I had a great day at work yesterday,” I told Nate, holding my chin up high.

“You’re going to trip if you keep your nose in the air.” 

I lowered it slightly because he had a point.  “I was very productive and accomplished a lot.”  Sure, if you considered that persuading a woman in New York that crushed velvet really was making a comeback was an accomplishment.

“Your job doesn’t make sense to me,” Nate told me.

He had said that before, too.  “What doesn’t make sense?  I do public relations stuff to make our clothing line more popular so that more people will want to buy it.  It’s pretty straightforward.”

“No, the part that doesn’t make sense is you doing it.  You, Scarlett O’Hara Wolfe.  The woman who tells me to fuck off at least once a day.”

“That’s not true.  I usually only think it.”

He smiled at me.  “Exactly.  I know when you’re thinking it.  I can’t understand you doing this job.”

“Why?”

“When you talk about it, it’s obvious that you don’t like it.  It seems like you have to kiss a lot of ass.  I just can’t see that working for you, such as you are,” he explained.

“I don’t kiss ass!  Fuck off.”

“Exactly.”  Nate looked at me for a moment before returning his eyes to the sidewalk ahead of us.  “It doesn’t seem like the job for you.”

“What would be?  Mercenary?  Prison guard?  Arms dealer?” I asked, and he laughed, which made my already-pounding heart do a little flip.  He didn’t laugh too much and there was just something about the sound of it.  “Do you think your job is right for you?” I asked.

“My job is just right for me,” he told me.  “I like it a lot.  Not dealing with the bitchy clients, not that part.”  He looked at me again pointedly before turning his eyes back to the sidewalk.  “I love being able to fix things.  I keep everything going, keep it all up.  I was tired of seeing things broken and hurt.”

“That’s so profound,” I said.

“It’s also so true.  Yeah, I think my job is right for me.  What about you?”

“It’s something to do and it makes sense for me.  I always loved fashion and clothes.  I convince people to buy our shit, I’m good at it.  And I’m about as deep as a puddle, right?  It’s the perfect line of work for someone like me.”  I looked down at my phone to check my pace.  I needed more.  “I’m going to run for real,” I told him, and took off again, making my lungs burn and my muscles flame until I was almost crying with the pain of it.  Nate kept up but he was panting too by the time we got back to my building.  I folded my arms and put my forehead on them, resting against the wall. My ribs heaved and my legs were jelly.  There.  That was what it should feel like.  Like a punishment.

Nate leaned his back against the building next to me, and took one of my hands.  I picked up my head and watched him put the brass knuckles into my palm, folding my fingers around them.  “I’ll run with you tomorrow morning.  You won’t need these,” he said.

I nodded, still unable to speak.  A bullet of pain seared through my ribs and I smacked at it with my fist.  There you go, Scarlett.  Take that.

Nate picked up that hand, too, so he was holding both of mine.  “Can you tell me now?”

“I don’t know what you mean.”

“Can you?” he repeated.

I yanked my hands from his.  “Thanks for returning my property,” I said.  “Next time you want something from me, ask.”

“I just did,” he said.  He held the door for me, but when we went inside, I declined to go up the stairs with him.  I waited for the elevator and took some more deep breaths.

I got dressed carefully, considering each detail of my outfit, just in case Klere looked at soothing other than herself in every reflective surface around her.  I heard a funny screeching noise as I finished my makeup.  “What was that sound?” I asked, coming out of the bedroom.

Joey was lying back on the couch for his meal, enjoying breakfast like he was in the Roman Empire, but Nate was… “What are you doing?” I asked him curiously.

“I’m ironing,” he explained.  He shook out a shirt and laid it out in front of him, then moved the sliver contraption back and forth.  He looked up at me.  “Have you seriously never seen someone iron before?  The sound you heard was me setting up the board.”

I was staring at him hard, but it was mostly because he wasn’t wearing the shirt yet, just jeans.  My eyes slid over the indentations between muscle and hipbone, the dark hair on his chest.  I could lick…I looked up into his eyes.  “Did I have those things in my house?”

“No.  You had a mound of dirty laundry, instead.”

I looked by the door.  I hadn’t even noticed that my Mount Shasta-sized pile of dry cleaning was gone.  “What happened to my clothes?” I demanded.

“I brought it all to the cleaners.  It was hard to walk into the house with it there.  I also thought it might fall on Pia.”

“Oh,” I answered, and he held the iron, watching me and waiting.  “Thank you,” I said, and scowled.

Nate shook his head, but a ghost of a smile came to his lips.  “Always gracious.  You’re welcome, Scarlett.  I went through your mail, too.  That was what was worth keeping.”  He pointed to a small pile in a rubber band on the coffee table I had bought.

I had been throwing it all in the corner for months, when I remembered to pry it out of my stuffed mailbox in the lobby.  “Thank you,” I repeated.  I watched him expertly flip the shirt, concentrating.  How long would he be able to hold onto that creamy brown skin in the fog of San Francisco?  I thought about touching it, about the pads of my fingers lightly brushing over his collarbones and his throat with the peppery stubble that he hadn’t shaved, the scars on his arm and his ribs, and the marks around his eye.  I could kiss…

“Scarlett?  Did you hear me?” Joey asked.

I forced my eyes onto him.  “What?”

He held up his mug.  “There’s coffee in the kitchen if you want some.”

“And since you didn’t make it, we’re both enjoying it,” Nate added.

I gave him the finger and went for a cup.  “Why are you ironing?” I called from the kitchen.  I quickly poured out a mug from the new set I had bought and came back into the living room, before he finished the project and got dressed.

“I have a job interview.”

“Really?”  I watched the muscles in his back ripple as he pulled on the shirt.  “I thought you just finished telling me that you love your job in Hawaii.”

“I do.  But I’m going to find something temporary here.”

“Jedi, fuck,” Joey exploded.  “Why don’t you just go home?”

“Stow it, Joey.”  Nate finished the buttons and tucked the shirt into his jeans, his hands moving below his waistband.  I watched them.  “Scarlett?”

“What?” I asked again.

“I’ll walk you out.”  We waved goodbye to Joey and Pia, who hadn’t really woken up yet.

“Why are you getting a job?” I asked as we waited for the elevator.  “What about being with Joey?”

“I need to have some more money coming in,” he explained, and I felt stupid.  That was why people usually got jobs.  “This will be part-time, nights, if I get it.  They need someone right away.  Just for a little while until we go home.”

“Doing what?”

“Security.  I’m good at it.”  He waited for me as the doors opened and I looked around the garage carefully, out of habit.

But it was true; I did feel more secure when he was around.  I could just walk right up to my car and not worry.  “I’ll drive you,” I said.

He shook his head.  “No, thanks, I want to walk.  Where’s your office?”

I pointed in the direction of where I thought the Mission was, but it was hard to tell underground.  “That way.  I could walk, too, in theory.”  I looked down at my feet in the beautiful, yet impractical shoes.  “But I can’t.”

“You could if I broke those heels off for you,” he suggested.  He eyed them.

“Don’t you dare touch them.  I love these shoes and even without the heels I couldn’t walk in them.  They aren’t made for moving.”  They hurt just standing, in fact, but that was what beauty was.  I unlocked my car and got in, but then stopped.  “Um, good luck at your interview.”

“Thank you.”

“You could tell me if you got it.”

He nodded.  “I may not hear right away, but I’ll let you know.”

For some reason, I didn’t want to go.  “Are you sure you don’t want a ride?”

Now he shook his head.  “You’re going to be late.”  I looked at my phone and he was right, and I also had a bunch of notifications from my boss.  He shut the door and I drove away fast, almost brushing the concrete column as I backed up because I was still watching him, in the shirt he had ironed so carefully, and his dark eyes that were watching me, too.

Pascale was in a bit of a frenzy when I got to the office.  I had just updated our press kit and she was not happy with some of the changes.  She’d heard that the showroom we contracted with in New York might be going out of business.  Klere was coming.

First things first.  Pascale looked at my outfit, drawn entirely from our line’s spring and summer collections.  She nodded approvingly.  “I wouldn’t have thought of mixing those pieces, not at all.  But I like it.”  She picked up my necklace and studied the onyx pendant that my mom had given me.  “Very nice.”

“Thank you,” I said, for the third time that morning.  I thought of Nate in his plain white shirt and basic jeans.  He and I had different uniforms.  I got to work on revising the press kit, again, until it was time for me to meet Klere for lunch.  She had said she needed to catch up with a friend before coming to the restaurant.  I had some misgivings about that, having met her friends the previous time she had visited.  They were all what one might call assholes.

Klere was late for lunch, of course, but I had expected that.  I sipped some sparkling water and prepared myself for another round of “Who Can Eat the Least?”  It was a game we regularly played at my work during lunch and which I had played with my friends from middle school through college at every meal we shared together.  I answered messages from Pascale, who was now out of the office but could never let go enough to stop contacting me no matter where she was; I calmed a concerned publicist about choosing accessories to go with one of our dresses; I listened to complaints from a local socialite that the sample gown she was supposed to wear that night was stained, and what was I going to do about it, etc., etc.  There was plenty to keep me busy.

As minutes turned into half an hour, and as the waitstaff got increasingly annoyed with me for taking up the table, however, I started to wonder if Klere had forgotten that we were meeting.  Or if she had gone to New Australia instead of San Francisco.  I decided that I would wait an hour, but then asked myself who I was kidding.  I would sit on my ass and wait until she decided to show up.

And after 45 minutes she did finally walk in, bringing a friend. 

“Klere,” I called, and she and the other woman drifted over to the table.  Klere and I kissed cheeks and when I bent in, I discreetly sniffed her.  She looked off, but all I smelled was some horrible patchouli.  Both she and the other woman took the chairs at the table for two and Klere started eating bread from the basket, and then I knew something was very wrong.  No one ate carbs at lunch.

“I’m Scarlett Wolfe,” I said to Klere’s friend, as I borrowed a chair from another table so I could join them.  The other woman looked up at me and I saw her pupils, which took up so much space that I could barely tell that her eyes were brown.  The whites surrounding the enormous black dots were all disgustingly bloodshot.

“Mary,” she told me.  “I’m Klere’s friend.”

Klere looked over at her and smiled, her own eyes glassy.  “She’s my connection,” she explained.  “Mary’s the best.”  They were both as high as damn kites.  Klere bent forward and kissed Mary over the table, which was just not where I wanted this lunch to go.

“Ladies,” I said, trying to bring down the heat.  Other diners started to stare as they got more into it, leaning over farther and knocking over a glass as they sucked face.  “Klere.  Klere!” I snapped.

Both of them sat back and Mary wiped her mouth with dirty fingers.  I kept the smile on my face.  “How was your flight up?” I asked Klere.

“What?”

“Your flight here, from Los Angeles,” I explained.  I paused.  “You did come today on an airplane, didn’t you?”

“It’s Scarlett, right?” she asked me.

“Yes,” I assured her.  “I’m still me.  It’s great to see you again.  We’re all so excited to work with you as our fashion inspiration!”  I kept my expression perfectly clear of derision and disgust as I looked at her clothes and nodded like I had really meant what I said.  Her outfit today was a dirty t-shirt that looked like she had picked it up from the floor, maybe the floor of a public restroom, and baggy pants that hung from her bony hips.  Her clothes inspired me to stay away from drugs, if only for what they would apparently do to my fashion sense.  I had another memory of Nate, neat and tidy in his crisp shirt.

Klere grabbed my hand and squeezed, hard.  “I have, like, so many ideas for your brand.  You know what I saw?”  She waited.  “Guess!” she prompted me.

From the look of her greasy hair, it hadn’t been the inside of a shower stall.  “Um…could you give me a hint?”

“A hot air balloon.  Like, floating.”

“Wow,” I said.  “Amazing.”

She was nodding vigorously.  “We should do a collection based on that.  Flying like birds.  Winter birds!  Winter, summer.  Summertime.  Time, time, time.”  She slapped her hand on the table and the cutlery rattled.  “There are so many ideas!”

Oh, shit.  “Wow, that does sound interesting,” I agreed.  ”You know what would be very cool?  What if we went up in a hot air balloon in Napa?  I can arrange that for this weekend.  You should totally stay and hang out!” I exclaimed, per Pascale’s plan to showcase Klere in our clothes, having the time of her life (as narrated by me).

“Nature.”  She stared at me and wiped her nose with the back of her hand.  “There’s just so much nature!”

“Klere, your nose is bleeding.”  I gave her my napkin and she held it to her face.  Mary, the friend, had put her head down on the plate in front of her.  “You know, I think we should skip lunch and head over to the office.”  I took out a wad of money and put it on the table, thinking it would cover the cost of my water, the bread basket, the plate with Mary’s forehead print, and the bloody napkin.  “Where can we send your friend?” I asked brightly.

I managed to maneuver Mary out of the restaurant and got her a car, and Klere and I went back to the studio.  “I want to try on everything, everything new!  And all the old stuff, too!” she told me as we pulled up and the driver pointed firmly at the car door to get her out.  Klere had been playing with the windows and door locks.  A lot.  She was quite revved up.  “Let’s go and take some pictures!” she exclaimed as she ran inside.  There was a dried red smear under her nose and streaked across her cheek.  I wondered how her social media “friends” would react to a post of her like that, bloody with wild eyes and filthy hair: #cocaine #justsayno.

“Let’s clean up first.  I mean, let’s run to the ladies’ room,” I suggested.  She was as entranced by her reflection as ever, but she did manage to wipe off the blood, put on lipstick, wash her hands, and borrow my brush, which I threw out afterwards and then washed my own hands for a second time.

Tempting Klere into doing anything that resembled work or serious planning was a joke.  I tried to introduce the idea of a contract to her, but she was too busy dancing in the middle of our design studio floor, talking about baklava and Greek yogurt.  Eventually, I understood that she was referencing her role as the muse of ancient myth, but the other employees didn’t appreciate her performance.  I finally got her to come and lie down in my office, right on the floor, after I promised to go get some pot for us to smoke.  Javier, our intern, peeked in as I covered her with a large fabric swatch.

“What’s wrong with that woman?” he whispered as we backed out of my office and closed the door.

“Drugs.  Lots of drugs.”  I sighed and rubbed my temples.  What was I going to do with her now?  Eventually, she would wake up.  Fuck.

“Are you really going to get pot?” he asked, eyes lighting up.

“No, I’m not really going to get pot,” I informed him.  But I was going to have to do something.  After she came down and realized that she had spent the afternoon on the floor of my office, she would expect to go out and have more fun.  Pascale, who had been gone since the morning and had missed the show, would expect progress with our Klere-driven social media campaign.

Klere snored loudly enough that we could hear her through the glass wall, and Javier and I looked at her as she drooled onto my floor.  I put my face in my hands.  I had the urge to run out of the building and leave her there.  What was I doing at this job?  Nate and his dumb questions had made me start thinking about when I had last really liked doing it, if ever.  I opened the door again to retrieve my laptop and phone so that I could go back to work.

As I did, Klere took a deep, loud breath.  When she didn’t exhale, I froze.  Then she released an enormous belch and Javier started to laugh.  “This is hilarious,” he said, and took a picture.  He quickly looked at my face and stopped laughing.  “Oh, sorry, Scarlett.  I’m sure you’ll be able to fix this.”

Sure I would.

Chapter 8

“I love this!  Don’t you love this?” Klere asked me. 

That was what I thought she had said, but the music was too loud to hear her.  I nodded and grinned like a chimp at her.

I was experiencing déjà vu.  Because yes, we were back at the same club we had been to before, sitting one table over from where we had previously sat.  I had spent the afternoon working at the reception desk and checking periodically on Klere so that she didn’t asphyxiate.  She had curled on her side on the dirty carpet, cuddling my purse.  “Wouldn’t it be something if she died on the floor of our office?” the receptionist had whispered to Javier as they both peered through the glass at Klere’s inert body.

“She’s not going to die on my floor!” I snapped at them.  I had looked closely again, just to make sure the fabric lying across her was still moving up and down.

It was, and she hadn’t.  Eventually, Klere had woken up and stretched.  She drank an open can of soda that I’d had sitting on my desk for several weeks, threw up, and announced she needed to go to her hotel.  Then she asked me where her luggage had gone, and since I had no idea, she thought it was a good idea for me to get a hold of Mary, because her suitcase and purse were probably at Mary’s apartment where she had left them after the drug buy.  I thought if that were true, then Klere could probably kiss her things goodbye, but I did send Javier the intern over to Mary’s building to look for her stuff.

It had not been a good experience for him. “Dogs!  Big dogs chasing!” he exclaimed breathlessly when he got back.  Eyes huge and with shaking hands, Javier had tossed a garbage bag with some items rattling around in it on the floor and that had been what was left of Klere’s luggage.

“Fuck.”  I sighed.  “I’m sorry, Javier.  Thanks for going.”

He stared at me.  “What?”

“Thanks for trying,” I repeated and he had looked at me very strangely.

“You’re welcome,” he had said carefully, like he was waiting for me to take it back.

Klere took the loss of the majority of her possessions better than I would have expected.  Better than I would have, anyway.  She and the garbage bag had gone back to “freshen up” at the hotel, a process I hoped included a long, long shower with lots of soap.  Because as Javier had noted in a quiet voice to the receptionist before his trip to the cocaine den, Klere stunk.  And some of the recent vomit had gotten in her hair.

I had gone home when she left for the hotel, since Pascale wasn’t there monitoring my work hours, and I really didn’t think I could take much more of the day.  As I was leaving the office in my car, I got a message from the 808-area code, Hawaii: “Got the job.  Be home tonight, late.”

I felt myself smiling.  He had let me know.  I sent back my congratulations.  When he didn’t immediately answer, I wrote, “I have to go out tonight w Klere and she puked on my floor at work.”

“What did you do?” he asked.

I read the screen and scoffed.  What did he think I did? “Left as fast as I could.”

“Are you driving right now?”

Not currently because I was stuck in traffic.  “No.”

“You are.  Stop texting me.”

I missed getting through the intersection on the yellow light because I was busy wondering if he had told Ashley the medic, the one he had been screwing, about the job.  I wondered how she had reacted.  When I got home, Joey was there with Pia.  I got dressed, trying to cover my resentment and anger about having to go out with Klere with makeup and perfect clothes.

“You look beautiful,” Joey said when I came out to the living room to say goodbye.  “It’s not fair to the other girls there.”  He had kind of grinned.

“Want to come?”

“Nah.  It’s not a good idea for me, all the noise and music, flashing lights,” he said.  “It could trigger a seizure.”  He had seemed a little down.

I sat next to him.  “Are you ok?” I asked.  I scratched Pia’s ears and she put her head on my knee.

“Yeah.  I just feel real, real bad about this job thing.”

“About Nate getting a job?  I thought he wanted to.”  He needed to, he had said.

“He has a job,” Joey explained.  “Back at home, he has his own business.  But because he’s here with me, he’s has to find another one.  I feel real bad about it,” he repeated.

I patted his back like I did to Pia.  “He wants to be here.  I’m glad he’s here.  I mean, I’m glad he’s here, for you.”

“I’m glad, too, but that makes me feel worse.”  He sighed.  “I’m tired of people having to take care of me.  I acted like a dick to Kiana for years.  Because I needed her to help me,” he explained when I raised an eyebrow.  “She did help me and I was awful to her because I resented that I needed it, that I couldn’t do what I had done before.  Jedi’s trying to help me and I’ve been pissy to him because I feel so damn guilty.  I feel like I’m just sucking up people’s time and energy.  Yours, too.  How long am I going to stay at your house, living off you?”

That was a good question, but I found I didn’t really care.  “I don’t mind.  You’re not living off me.  I would have to have an apartment if you were here or not.”

Joey swept his arm around the room.  “And all this stuff?  You didn’t have anything when we got here.  You’ve bought a lot since I came.  When I first walked into this place, I thought you were just moving in or moving out.  I didn’t know which way you were going.”

I thought about that, as I sat on the banquette later that night in the horrible, awful club.  Sat there again, I meant.  I thought about which way I was going.

Klere put her mouth down by my ear.  “Let’s dance!” she yelled into it.  The dance floor was already full of her legions of friends, all of whom were now drinking on my company’s tab.  Whatever.  I motioned to her to go, nodding and smiling and she swayed off, raising her arms above her head to pull up her shirt and show off her pointy hip bones and defined ribs.  She was so thin, it looked like it hurt, but it did photograph well.  I took a few pictures of her rocking out, because she was now wearing our clothes, and she no longer had vomit in her hair.  It was kind of amazing how well she cleaned up.  I quickly sent them to her with some suggested text for posts, #pleaseusethis, #mispellings.

“Hi,” another voice said, also very near my ear, but this one I didn’t recognize.  “You look lonely.”

I looked up at a guy who was way too close to me.  “No,” I mouthed back.

“Can I sit down?” he asked, gesturing at the empty seats.

“I’m married,” I said, as loudly as I could.

He pointed at my bare finger.  “Really?”

“I’m a lesbian,” I yelled.

“Can I turn you?”  He grinned.

“How about you just fuck off?” I suggested.

“It’s Scarlett, right?”

I froze.  “How—”

“You liked me before.”  He kept grinning.  “Don’t you remember me?  How about a drink?”

I got up and shoved him, hard.

“Hey!” he protested, stumbling.  “Bitch.”

I left, leaving Klere’s bag, leaving Klere.  All I wanted to do was get out of the club, away.  I stumbled out into the night, my hand shaking as I got a car, my whole body shaking the whole way home.

Pia ran up when I came in and I knelt down and hugged her, clinging to the dog.

“Scarlett?” Nate called.

I made myself let go of Pia and stood up.  “It’s me,” I said.  “I’m home.”  I couldn’t go into the living room and sit there with him and Joey like everything was fine.  I took off my shoes and walked quietly into the bedroom and shut the door, very softly.  I sat down on the bed, feeling like the room was spinning.  Maybe just my mind was.

“Scarlett?”  Nate knocked.  His voice was only a little muffled through the thin door.

I cleared my throat.  “Yes.  Here,” I said.

He waited.  When I didn’t say anything else, he asked, “What’s the matter?”

“I’m tired,” I answered, and the door swung open and that seemed to rouse me.  “What the hell, Nate?  I didn’t give you permission to come in!  This isn’t my grandmother’s house that you can just enter as you choose!”

He ignored me and walked to the bed.  “What’s the matter with you?”

“I’m tired!” I repeated, and stood, because he was so much bigger when I was sitting.  “I just need to go to sleep.”

“Go,” he suggested, and pointed at the bed.

I pushed him out of the way too, and got some pajamas from the pile of clothes on the floor.  “Fine, I will.  Get out of here!”

I changed in the bathroom and brushed my teeth.  I washed my face, then washed it again, and leaned forward to study every pore.  I didn’t see anything yet, but maybe it was happening so gradually that I didn’t notice.  Maybe one day soon I’d look in the mirror and not even know myself, when every bit of the truth showed all over my face, when I had pockmarks and bags, acne and drippy, pus-filled eyes.  I ran my wet hand down the glass, smearing my reflection.

When I opened the bathroom door, Nate hadn’t left.  He was leaning against the one free space on the wall between my clothes racks.

“Why are you still in here?” I demanded.

“This place looks like a tornado went through it.  How are you able to sleep in this chaos?  Why do you have so many shoes?”  He frowned at the pile on the floor of heels, flats, sandals, boots—even ski boots were thrown in there.

I pointed at the door.  “Get out!”

“Go to bed,” he told me.  “Go ahead, I’ll leave when you’re lying down.  Let’s see it.”

“Are you fucking crazy?”  I waited, but he didn’t move a muscle, not even to blink.  I threw up my hands.  “Fine!  I’ll lie down and you leave.  You’ve gone out of your mind.”  I lay on the bed and turned on my side, away from him, and yanked up the sheet over me.  My hands clenched in fists.  What in the hell was the matter with him?  I was trying to keep my breathing normal, but it was coming faster and faster.  It was just so hot in this room and the sheet was too tight around me.  I wanted to kick it off but I made myself stay still.

“Scarlett.”

I sat up quickly and turned to look at him.  “What?  Why are you still here?”

“Why do you have so much trouble sleeping?”

“I don’t!”  I flopped down, but then just as fast pushed back up to sit.  “I’m not tired right now.”

He sat down on the bed, making it dip and tilting me toward him.  “Did something happen tonight?”

“Stop playing your stupid mind tricks on me.”

He shook his head.  “Scarlett, anyone could see that you’re upset.”

“No, I’m not.”  But then I reached out and took a sliver of his jeans in between my fingers.  I just wanted to hold on for a second.  “I’m fine.”

“I’m glad to hear it.”  He studied me, then reached over and picked me up, and tossed me to the middle of the mattress.

“Hey!  What the hell—what are you doing?”  Because he had put himself on the bed next to me.

“I’m lying on your bed,” he explained, as if I was an idiot.  Then he patted the pillow.  “Put your head down.”

“With you?  I’m not doing this,” I told him.

“I’m not leaving,” he informed me.  He patted again.  “We’re sleeping, Scarlett.  That’s all.”

I glared at him for a moment, and then huffed out a huge sigh of frustration.  I threw myself down on my side, facing away from Nate again.  “Happy now?”

He turned too, and put his arm around me, pulling my back to his chest.

“No.  No!  Let me go!”  I pushed off his arm and scrambled away.

“Lie down and close your eyes.  I’m holding you, and we’re sleeping.”  He had his own eyes closed. 

I watched him for a moment, but he was completely calm, breathing steadily, body relaxed.  It looked safe.  Very, very cautiously, I lay back down, and when his arm came over me again and settled me against him, I didn’t fight.  He breathed out and my hair fluttered.

“I can feel you shaking,” he said quietly.

“I’m mad.”

“You are,” he agreed.  “You’re so angry, all the time.  I was like that too.  It’s a hard way to be.  It makes you very, very tired.”

A shudder ran through me, making my body quake.  I was. I was so tired.

His arm around me tightened a little.  “Can you tell me now?”

I quaked again.  No.

“You can.  It’s ok.”

I had to fight against it, because I actually opened my mouth to let the words come pouring out.  I dragged my mind away, back to now.  “How was your night at your new job?” I asked him.  “Tell me what you’re doing.”

“It was good.  I’m supposedly protecting a rich woman visiting here from Moscow when she goes out.  Tonight I protected her by sitting outside of a restaurant for three hours while she had dinner, then stood aside and let someone else open the car door for her.  It’s an easy gig.”

“Why does she need a bodyguard?”

“Sounds like her husband has pissed off some people along the way, but the other security guys said the hardest thing they have to do is carry the bags while she shops, and I’ll only work nights which is when she goes out to eat.  She likes having us around because it makes her feel important.  She’ll be here in San Francisco for a few weeks, and it’s part time, at best.  She pays well. I’ll be done when she takes off.”

It was nice to hear his voice so close to my ear, because even though it was low and kind of gravelly and rough, I found it to be very soothing.  “Then you and Joey will go back home,” I said.  He nodded and his stubble scratched the stiff cotton of the new pillowcase.

“Then Joey and I will go back home,” he agreed.

I had the urge to turn into his chest and bury my face against him, but I pushed it away.  “Nate?”

“Yes?”

“You said you were angry, before.  Why?”

His arm tightened again.  “I was angry when I got hurt during my second deployment.  I was very, very angry at first.”

“Because of your eye?” I asked.

“My eye, my face, my arm, my chest, my brain.  My friends getting hurt, my friends getting killed.”

“You said your wife left.”

“Yeah, but we split up after my first tour.”

“Why?” I asked him.  I really wanted to know what was wrong with her.

“It’s hard to come back home after being gone,” he explained.  “You want things to be exactly the same, but you’ve changed, and everything else has, too.  I was somewhere else and she was getting on with her life, and at some point, she realized that she didn’t want me in it anymore.  We tried when I came back, but,” he shook his head slightly.  “No.”

“What was her name?” I whispered.

“Chrystal.  Chrissie.  Maybe we just started too young.  She’s doing really well now, got married to someone else and they have a baby.”  He sighed again, just a little.  “It was for the best, but yeah, that made me angry, too.”

“Is that what you want?” I asked.  “To get married and have a family?”

“Someday.  It used to feel like that day would be far away.”  He picked up his head and leaned it on his arm, looking down into my face.  “You were going to get married.  Do you still want that?  Kids?”

“No.  I don’t see it for me.”  There was no way I could drag someone else into this. 

“Why not?  Really, no kids?”

“No.  Not for me.  Some people seem just born for it, like my brother.  I know Brooks will have a big family.  He’ll be such a good dad, like ours was.  I’m not like that.”

“You never know.”

I did know.  “I’m not made that way.  I don’t have that love in me.”  There was nothing in me, nothing but a black hole.  I did turn, then, and put my face against Nate’s chest, taking fistfuls of his t-shirt and holding on tightly.  His other arm came around me too.

“We’re going to stay just like this,” he told me softly.  “You can sleep the whole night.  Go to sleep, Scarlett.”

To my surprise, I did.

∞

I woke up much, much later than I usual.  I woke up warmer, and rested, and feeling…

Oh, shit.  That was Nate behind me, seriously snuggling me.  And that was Nate’s hard-on, pressed up against the crux of my legs as he spooned me.  I felt a rush of heat there.  His face was buried in my neck, his arms wrapped around me, his hand…oh, shit, again.  His hand was cupping my breast, gently cradling it.  And my nipple was as hard as he was.  At first I didn’t move, in case I woke him.  It just felt so good.  I pressed into his hand a little and…it felt even better.  I moved my hips, rubbing against him, until he made a little noise in his throat and held me closer, sighing against my neck.

Then I stopped myself.  I wiggled myself out from his arms, very slowly and carefully so I wouldn’t wake him.  I wobbled as I stood, feeling discombobulated and strange.  I couldn’t help looking at him in the bed asleep, his face relaxed and gentle.  I had slept with him, for the whole night there.  And I had really slept, too, not sat in bed and looked at my phone or had bad dreams so that any sleep I got was interrupted and scary.  My body felt different this morning, and I realized that the difference was me feeling better, not like I was going to throw up, or my head pounding, or my joints aching in tiredness.  And I felt…I licked my lips.  I felt like I wanted to crawl back into the bed and wake him up with my hands and my mouth, and feel his on me.  I stared at the sheet, at the bulge below his waist…

No.  I let myself look for another moment and then I took my phone and my running stuff and went into the bathroom to change.  I developed a plan as I very quietly brushed my teeth.  I would go running and pound these feelings out of myself and then sneak back in to get dressed.  I would stay out for the day.  There was plenty I needed to do at work…oh, no.  Klere.  I almost dropped the toothbrush when I remembered how I had left her in the club, how I hadn’t been able to get her to agree to make more plans with me to follow through on my boss’ “Weekend at Play” idea.  I looked at her accounts.  There was nothing except what had been there the day before, when she was smiling in a close-up and shilling a natural tooth-whitening kit made of pumice.  Those were from before she had met up with Mary the drug dealer.

I steeled myself against the thought of seeing Nate in the bed again, of leaving him there asleep and sneaking around for the rest of the day avoiding him.  But when I came out, he was gone and the bed was made with sharp creases and corners, and when I went into the living room, he was already waiting for me, dressed.

“I told you we’d run together,” he announced.  Then he held out his hand, and I slid off the brass knuckles and passed them over.  We took the stairs and I started on the same loop.  I didn’t talk while I ran this time and neither did he.  I had never been on a weirder or more uncomfortable run, and it made me go very fast to make it end.  When we got back, I hurried into the shower to escape.

To check on Klere, and to escape.  Last night, before I had bolted out of the club, I had sent her some pictures of her dancing with her friends and when I looked now, there they were, posted.  But she hadn’t said anything about what she was wearing except one hashtag, #lovethehat, and it didn’t even mention our name.

Fuck.  I knew that Pascale was looking at this too.  Before she could start messaging me, I sat down on the bed and tried again to get in touch with Klere, with texts, emails, DMs, even video chat.  And to my surprise, she answered.

Her face popped up on the screen.  “Scarlett?”

“Uh, yes, I am.”  I was so shocked that she knew my name that I could hardly respond.

She raised her arms above her head like she had done in the picture I had taken the night before, and this time, her cropped top went high enough that she flashed me.  “I’m in Cabo!”  She smiled dazzlingly and lowered her arms.  “That’s in Old Mexico,” she clarified.

I stared.  “How did you get there so fast?  I thought you were here, in San Francisco.  The California one.”

“I was.  I left,” Klere explained.  “Did you need something?”

“Well, you and I were going to work—”

“And that was one reason why I had to leave,” she interrupted me.  “I’m just so overworked!  I need to de-charge.”

“Recharge,” I corrected.

“No, I mean relax and let all my energy out,” she told me.  “De-charge.”

Right.  “That sounds super fun!” I said enthusiastically, smiling at her.  “Maybe after you do that, you can come back up—”

“No, I won’t be able to come back there for a while!  Mary and I got into a fight.”

“Oh, I’m sorry.”

“So is she, since now her jaw is fractured!  Anyway, with the whole police thing, I figured that Old Mexico was my best bet.”

My mouth hung open for a moment before I closed it.  It worked well because thankfully, my own jaw was still intact.  “Oh, my God…”

“I’m still really interested in working with you, because you’re going to pay me a shit-ton of money, right?” Klere reminded me.  “So yeah, let’s get together next week!  But you come to me.”

“In Mexico?  Old Mexico?”

“Oh, no, I feel like it will all cool off by then.  I need to go back to LA.  To recharge.”

I wanted to scream.  “Ok, great!  Los Angeles it is.  Do you know what day you’ll be back so I can set—”

“Uh oh.”  She looked over her shoulder.  “What do they call the cops here?”

“Um, policía,” I answered, harkening back to Spanish 4.

“Gotta go.”  The screen went black.

I threw the phone into the pillow as hard as I could.  It glanced off the headboard by mistake, too.  God damn it!  If Klere got arrested in Mexico, Old or any other, there was no way I was going to be able to salvage this media campaign.

My phone made a funny noise and I picked it up off the floor where it had fallen.  It had never sounded like that before, and maybe I shouldn’t have thrown it so hard this time.  “Hi, Mom.”

“Hi, sweetheart.  Are you free?”

It looked like I was, if Klere was going to be in la cárcel.  Shit.  “Why?” I asked.

“Let’s have lunch,” she told me briskly.  “Meet me in half an hour.”

“Mom—”

“I’m your mother, and you have to,” she informed me.  “I have something important to tell you.”

My stomach dropped.  “Are you ok?  What’s the matter?”

“Honey, of course I’m ok!  I thought Archibald’s on Nob Hill.  See you there?”

I sighed.  “Yes, ok.”

“I love you, Scarlett,” she told me, and then she hung up.

Something was weird.  My mom had sounded…wrong, somehow.  I ran out of the apartment, calling to whoever was there that I was leaving, but there was no answer, not even a little yip of acknowledgement from Pia.  They were gone, too.

Due to driving way, way over the speed limit and running some stop signs, I made it very quickly to the restaurant and got a table.  Everything was crowded on the weekend in the city, but space opened up when you gave the hostess a fifty.  I played with my phone, because the screen was kind of shimmering since its accident, like a puddle on a hot day.  I waited anxiously for my mom.

And then I saw…Brooks?  What the hell was he doing here?  He walked purposefully toward my table.  And there was Lanie trailing after him, and I knew why my mom had been acting strangely on the phone.  She had been lying to me, and I was the stooge in some dumb plot between her and my conniving brother and his patsy fiancée.  I stood up to leave.

“Scarlett, please don’t go.  Please stay for just while and talk to me.  To us,” my brother said.  He put his hand on my shoulder.  “Come on, brat.”

Warily, I sat back down.  Lanie looked nervous and upset, so maybe there was good news, like she and Brooks weren’t getting married, or she had decided to take a job in Australia (New or regular) and he was staying.  “So great to see you,” I said, and smiled at her.

She got a very excited, happy look on her face, which told me that 1) I was still good at faking it, and 2) they were still together.  Australia (either one) was out.

Fuck.

Chapter 9

“How have you been, Scar?” my brother asked me.  He leaned in close to look at my face.  “Was that your car parked next to the cathedral?  Should I say, parked close enough that people were getting into it to worship?”

“I wasn’t that close.  There was plenty of room.”

“Sure there was.  I’m going to love to see you back it out.  Is that what happened to your last car, the accident you had?”

My head started to hurt so I smiled even bigger. “How are you, Brooks?  How was your trip last week?  Mom said you went to Texas.  The original one,” I couldn’t help adding.

He looked at me oddly.  “Yes, just the one Texas.  It was good, a good trip,” he answered.  He started a rambling story about visiting different cities, looking for office space, meeting with potential employees.  The waiter came and I asked for a drink, then considered my order as Brooks kept talking about leaving for good and starting his new life far away.

I signaled to the waiter again.  “Make it two G and Ts.  Both for me.  Thanks.”

Brooks leaned forward and I definitely heard him sniff me.  I pulled away and now I was done with the fake nice shit.  “You know what, Brooks?  Fuck off.  I haven’t been drinking, and if you look at my eyes one more time to check for drugs, I’m going to stick a fork in you.  Not in a metaphoric sense, like that you’re full and can’t eat anymore, but sticking a fork into your body, literally.”  I turned to Lanie and smiled again.  “Are you ready for Texas?  To leave California and move hours away?  Quit your job and give up everything you know and love, to start completely over in a new place where you have no friends, no family, no connections at all?  That sounds like a good time!”

Her face had lost the optimistic expression right around when I mentioned stabbing my brother with a utensil.  “Brooks is worth it,” she said, but her voice wavered a little.

“Scar, that’s enough,” my brother warned me.

“You invited me!” I snapped at him.  “Or should I say, you and our mother, whom I will no longer be speaking to, tricked me into coming.”  The waiter brought the drinks and asked if we were ready to order.  “No, but we’ll take the check,” I told him.  “Give it to the big guy.”

“We’re having lunch,” my brother said, and ordered for both himself and for me, too.  Lanie got something fried, of course, because she had always been a beanpole who never worried about not eating.

“I don’t like people to order my food because I’m not a toddler.  And I don’t eat meat,” I informed Brooks when the waiter left.

“Since when?  You used to live on hamburgers.”

“When I was six,” I told him.  “You don’t know me at all, not anymore.”  I filled my mouth with gin, tonic, and ice to cool myself down.

“Well, that’s why we’re here,” Lanie said.  “To get to know each other again.”

I was prevented by another large swallow of my drink from saying that I hadn’t ever wanted to know her, and I still didn’t.

“Exactly,” Brooks said, and grinned at her.  Lanie looked like she might swoon as she smiled back at him.  Jesus Christ, they were annoying.  “We’ll catch up,” my brother agreed, and he nodded.  “So, Scar, why are you living with two men?”

I smiled.  “I’m into threesomes.  Did you want to hear more?  I can give you a lot of specific details.  Or were you and Lanie interested in them and need their numbers?”

My brother turned red, and started going purple.

“Your mom said that the one guy, Joey, is here for medical tests,” Lanie broke in.  “How is he doing?”

“Fine.”  He was doing well, actually.  The doctors had started him on a combination of medications that they thought was working for him, but only time would tell.  For now, though, surgery was off the table.  And they were talking about upgrading his prosthetic leg, and they were discussing fitting him for a special one that would allow him to run like he used to.  If his current mental state brought on by Nate’s new job could catch up with how happy everyone else was about his progress, then it would all work out.

I realized my brother and Lanie were waiting for more.  “He’s really fine.  Perfectly fine,” I elaborated.

“Your mom said he was injured in combat,” Lanie said.

“Well, I’m sure you know everything she does, since you guys are best friends.”

“Scarlett—” my brother started to say.

“Aren’t you going to ask me about the other guy, Brooks?  You know, the one who was unzipping my dress on the sun porch at Mom’s house?” I goaded him.

He started turning red again.  “Ok, fine, I’ll take the bait.  What the hell is the deal with that guy?  Why is he living with you, too?”

“To help his friend Joey,” Lanie explained to him.  “Because Joey has seizures, and Nate wanted to be near him.  And Scarlett is letting them both stay for free because she’s…”  She and my brother looked at me.

I shrugged.  “I was bored and I wanted the sexual stimulation.”

“I think it’s really nice that you opened your house to them, Scarlett,” Lanie told me, ignoring my last comment. 

“Yes, I’m known for my big heart.  Right?  Isn’t that what you’ve been telling my brother about me?”

She blushed.  “I only told him the truth.”

“Sure.”  I rolled my eyes, a gesture which my brother had always hated.

“Scarlett, in high school—” he started in, but no.  We weren’t rehashing that, yet again.

“Look, I’m sorry that Lanie is stuck on her sad days at Starhurst Academy, and I’m very sorry that she’s dragged you ten years into the past with her,” I informed him.  “Personally, I’m glad that’s all over, and I don’t really care to revisit it, incessantly.”  I turned to Lanie.  “I told you that I was sorry for how I acted.  I was really, really unhappy back then.  I was just about to fall apart, at all times, and I acted like a little bitch to try to get through it.”

She started to speak, and Brooks did too, but I kept going.  “If we’re going to talk about now, present day, then I did my best to help you when you needed it, didn’t I?  I stood up for you with the school when you were going to get fired.  I was the one who explained to you that Brooks loved you, when you were too thick to get that.”  I stopped for a breath.  “If you still want to punish me, to make my brother punish me, for what I did when I was seventeen, then I don’t know what the fuck I’m doing sitting here, because I don’t need it.”  I stopped myself from talking more by inhaling the remainder of drink number one.  I picked up the second glass.

Brooks put his hand out and stopped me from knocking that back, too.  “Scarlett, no one wants to punish you.”  He took my hand and held it.  “I’m sorry I brought up the high school stuff again.  I won’t do that anymore, all right?”

I nodded and gripped his fingers.  Maybe this could work.  I missed him, so, so much.

“I want us to get along,” he continued.  “You’re my baby sister.  Lanie is going to be my wife.  I want to figure out how we can make it work, for all of us.  But you can’t keep behaving this way, lashing out, making Lanie miserable every time we’re together.”  He took Lanie’s hand in his other one.  “You have to figure out a way to accept our relationship and move on with your own life rather than focusing on ours, or this will be it.  We won’t be able to see you anymore.”

I yanked away from him and clenched my fists.  “Don’t threaten me.  Don’t—”

“I mean it, Scarlett.  I’ve had enough of you acting out.”

“You’ll relocate to Texas and you’ll never have to bother with me again,” I told him angrily.  “That works for me.  Except it will be hard for you to keep moving in on my mom, with all those miles between you,” I told Lanie.  “You’ll probably figure something out.”

“If your mom and I are spending a lot of time together, it’s because I’m not the one ignoring her phone calls!” she answered me indignantly.  “I am not trying to take your mom, just like I’m not trying to take your brother from you.  It’s not our fault that you got so upset about our relationship and our engagement.”  Her voice rose a little.  “You’re acting worse than my kindergarteners!  You had a fit when we announced that we were getting married at Christmas, and you throw temper tantrums every time we see you!”  It took a lot to get Lanie worked up, but she seemed to be getting on a roll. 

I laughed, because it was just too funny.  “You two are the most conceited people I’ve ever had the pleasure to meet, and I work with models, for God’s sake.  You really think I was trying to ruin your engagement announcement?”

“Why else would you have gotten hysterical and acted so crazy at the dinner table?  And then you ran off to Hawaii when my mom wanted to start planning a party for us,” Lanie said.  She was flushed and angry, too.

“Yes, I guess that one hundred percent of my actions are based around the two of you.  I sit at night in my apartment and scheme up ways that I can fuck with your lives.  In fact, that’s why I invited you to lunch today.  Oh, wait!  That was you guys, doing some cartoon-level planning to trick me into coming here so you could berate me.  Thanks for the invite, by the way.”

“Don’t act like a brat.  Grow up and figure out how to be an adult, Scar.  Whatever problem you think you have about getting upstaged by Lanie, not getting to be the bride yourself and losing out on the attention, get over it.”  My brother’s expression was angry, unyielding.

“That’s it, Brooks.  You have me all figured out.  My life fell apart because I don’t get to wear the white dress.  You’re just so damn insightful.”

“I knew this wasn’t going to work,” my brother told Lanie.  “I told you.  She’s just too angry at us.”

I finished the gin and tonic #2.  “Yep.  I’m just too angry at you.  It’s all about you.  Oh, and add Mom to that list, now.  Do me a favor and let her know that I won’t be taking any more of her calls after today’s fun and games.  And also, can you tell Zara that her husband is going to have to find someone else to feel up?  I’m done with all of you.”  I stood.  “I don’t know why I didn’t do this sooner.  I was so worried about losing you and you were already all gone.  Have a great lunch.  Have a great engagement party, have a great wedding, have a great life.  Bye.”

I had read on my phone on the way over that Klere was leaving Mexico and heading back to Los Angeles.  “Had a wonderful time here!  But #homeiswheretheheartis #missingmybestfreind #adois” she had written, fucking up spelling in two languages.  She didn’t mention the terms “deportation” or “forced removal” but it did seem a little hurried.  The picture was of her at the airport, wearing a top from our summer collection but with no mentions for us.

I jerked my car out of the parking space, gunned the engine, and thought it would be the perfect time to go to see Klere in LA and make my job my priority.  Screw everything else, everyone else, too.  I hadn’t been there in a while but I had gone to school in southern California and it had been awesome.  I had loved it and I was sure I would again.  And I wanted to get the hell out of San Francisco.

A few hours later, I was packing, trying to beat the clock as the car I had ordered got closer to my building.  I was headed to the airport, stat.

“Can you tell me again why you’re going, right now?” Joey asked me.  He was sitting on my bed with Pia, and both of them looked concerned.

I stopped packing.  “Do you need me to stay?  Do you need me to walk Pia before I go?  Won’t Nate be home soon?”

“Pia’s fine and Nate just texted.  He’s waiting for that woman he works for to finish dessert and then he’s coming back.  But why do you have to leave, at this exact moment?”

I resumed throwing clothes into my bag.  I always liked to have a lot of wardrobe options so I packed large.  “I’m taking the last flight out.  I spent way too long at the gym.”  I had been there for hours, working so hard that I could barely lift my arms to get my toothbrush out of the medicine cabinet to put it in with my toiletries.  “I should have gone this afternoon, because I need to strike while the iron is hot with Klere,” I explained, and paused as I thought of Nate, ironing.  I shook my head and started digging through my shoe pile.  “I want to grab her now, soon, just as she gets home so I can get her on track with this campaign.  Before something else happens to her.  We had a great conversation while she was briefly in Old Mexico.”

“Where?”

I found the missing shoe and threw that into my bag also.  “Nothing.  She had somehow made her way down to Cabo, but she’s back in the States.”

Joey poked my bag with his foot.  “Looks like you’re planning to stay for a while.”

“I’m not planning to, but maybe.  Maybe I’ll work from down there.  I have a lot of friends from college in the area.  I don’t know what we’ll do, but it could be anything.  In fact,” I said, and paused, while I dug through a box.  “I’ll bring my passport, just in case.”  Maybe I would end up in Mexico, too.  There were no restraints on me—just like Klere.  I didn’t care about anyone, I could do what I wanted.  I sat up.  My God, was I just like Klere?

“Scarlett, you’re acting pretty strangely,” Joey announced.  “Why do you need your passport for Los Angeles?  What does your boss say about you going down there?”

“She was talking about me working in LA, wooing Klere.”  At the time, I hadn’t wanted to go, not at all.  Now, I couldn’t get away fast enough.  “It doesn’t matter to her as long as I get results.”

My phone, laying on the bed next to Pia, made that weird noise again, and the dog moved away fast, sidewinder-style.  I glanced at the screen and it was my mom, again.  Now she was saying she was going to come over, which was even more reason for me to be gone.  I picked it up and pounded the keys.  “I don’t want to see you.  Leave me alone.”  There had been messages from my sister Zara, too, saying she had to talk to me.  The only person with nothing to say was Brooks, so good, maybe I had finally succeeded in shutting him up.  I blocked him so he couldn’t talk to me, even if he had wanted to.  Preventative measures were best.

With Joey’s help, I managed to get the bag closed and I dragged it to the front door.  “Ok, I’ll see you soon,” I told them.  I bent and hugged Pia until she squirmed, then stood and looked at Joey.  “Listen, I was thinking a lot about you today.  I, um, I just want you to know that I think you’re really on the right track with everything, and I don’t want you to be down and feel like you’re a weight on other people, like Nate or even me.  Because I think if one of us was in the situation where we needed your help, you would give it.  Like it would even out.”  I awkwardly patted him on the shoulder.  “Right?”  I was terrible at this pep talk stuff.  And at being nice.

Joey hugged me.  “Thanks, Scar.”

That was what my brother called me, too.  My lip trembled suddenly and I stood up quickly, taking my cheek off Joey’s shoulder.  “I have to go.  Bye.”  The door banged shut behind me, because I had pulled it way, way too hard.  I stood in the hallway for a moment before I walked resolutely to the elevator.

Nate texted me while I was the car on the way to the airport.  “Where the hell are you flying off to so late at night?”

Me: LAX.  I told Joey.

Nate: What about leaving in the morning?  What time are you going to get in?

Me: ?

Nate: I just checked.  After midnight.  You’ll be driving around some strange city by yourself in the middle of the night.  This couldn’t have waited?

Me: I got in a fight with my brother and I wanted to go.

I looked at the words I had typed and I was kind of unable to believe I had just admitted it, instead of using work as my excuse to take off.  The phone made the terrible noise and the driver said, “What is that?”

“I’m getting a call,” I said, and I answered.  “Hi,” I said to Nate.  “I forgot to tell you that I left the car keys on the kitchen table.  You can use it, if you want.  There’s a broken light in the front from an issue I had today and something’s wrong with the bumper.  Also, there are a bunch of red symbols lit up on the dashboard that won’t turn off, but I put post-its over them.”

He ignored all that.  “What did you fight with your brother about?”

“He wants me to be best friends with Lanie and she’s a mealy-mouthed brat.”  I stopped.  “They tricked me into coming to lunch with them so we could talk but we ended up yelling at each other.  I ended up yelling at them.  I didn’t like being tricked, and they started in again about when we were in high school.”  I stopped again.  “Ok, well, Brooks said he was sorry he had brought that up, and he wouldn’t anymore.  But they were both so smug, sitting there with their perfect little relationship, telling me how much I suck.  And how I was acting out like a child because I’m mad that they’re getting married and I won’t get the attention I so desperately crave.”

“Is that why you’re acting like this?  Because if anyone is being a brat—”

“You’re on my side!” I retorted.

“I am on your side.  But I’m not going to listen to you tell it how you want to hear it, instead of telling the truth.”

“You weren’t there, so you don’t know!  And the truth is that Brooks loves her more.”  I drew in a breath that hurt.  “I do know how bratty that sounds, ok?  I—I had a problem last fall.”  Another breath, to stay calm.  “And Brooks was furious with me that I didn’t do backflips of happiness across the lawn when they stood up to announce their engagement to the family at Christmas, right after disgusting Bradley had been stroking my knee and told me how beautiful my breasts were.  Brooks said, in front of about twenty people, that I was an immature child and that I was only angry because I wasn’t going to collect the money from the trust fund we all get when we get married.  I was barely—I wasn’t doing so well.”  I paused, remembering to breathe again.

“Go ahead, Scarlett,” Nate said.  “I’m listening.”  It was like his voice was hypnotic or something.  It made me want to keep talking.

“It wasn’t the engagement that had me so…upset, but maybe it did kind of push me over the edge that night.  I didn’t act great.  Brooks was furious, Lanie was crying, all the people there were horrified.  Zara posted about it later with these beautiful pictures like everything had been great, but…”  It had been absolutely awful.  “Brooks keeps thinking this is all about him.  He thinks I’m on something, that I have some kind of substance abuse issue, and that’s what’s wrong with me, that was why I wrecked my old car.”  I closed my eyes.  “Maybe I do.  I had two drinks at lunch, and I kind of hit another car today.”

“Scarlett.”  Now he sounded pissed.

“I know, ok?  I left a note.”  Another breath.  I hit my fist into my thigh, and it was so sore from the workout I had done, that it almost made me cry with the pain of it.  “I know how awful I am.  I shouldn’t tell you stuff about myself because now you know it, too.”  I took a lipstick out of my purse and tried to put it on but my hand shook too much.

“Scarlett.”  His voice sounded very deep, but very soft.  “I don’t think you’re awful.”

“You just called me a brat.”

“Sometimes you act like one,” he agreed.  “That doesn’t mean I think you’re awful.  Why don’t you come home?  We can talk about this more.”

I sat up straight.  “No.  I’ll be back next week, probably.  I’ll see you then.  There’s something wrong with my phone so don’t be surprised if I don’t get back to you.”  I bit my lip.  “If you wanted to get in touch with me, or whatever.”

“I will want to get in touch with you, so when I call, answer.  Don’t tell me that your phone isn’t working because you want to ignore me.  Got it?”

I nodded because for just a second I couldn’t speak.

“Are you already pretending that something’s wrong with the phone?” he asked.  “I can hear you breathing and a car just honked in the background.”

I got my voice back.  “No, I was just ignoring you because you got so damn bossy.  Dial it down, Private.”

“That’s sergeant, not private.  Yes, ma’am.”

I smiled.  The driver slowed as we pulled up to the terminal.  “I’m at the airport,” I told him.

“Call me when you land, and don’t forget.  Even if it’s late.”  There he went, bossy as ever.

I smiled again, despite the pain I was feeling in my body, especially in the region of my chest and my heart.  “Ok.  Bye.”  I hung up before he said something else nice.

The driver turned around.  “Don’t worry about your brother.  Most marriages end in divorce, anyway,” he told me over the back of the seat.

“Yeah, thanks,” I answered.

∞

“What do you think?”

I looked around the all-white living room, with huge picture windows overlooking the Pacific.  “Simona, it’s beautiful.”

She preened.  “Right?  I’m so glad I changed everything.  I just said, white.  I want it all white.  Nothing else but white.  White.”

Yes.  It was like walking in a cloud.  “You got what you wanted,” I commented.  Simona usually did.  She was the only one I knew who had been able to talk her way out of nearly every graduation requirement for her college major.  But probably the fact that her grandparents had donated the money to build the new football stadium hadn’t hurt her in that cause. 

Simona talked more about decorating and the textures she had chosen—what she and her designer had chosen—and how everyone was so over unlacquered brass finishes in bathrooms and if she saw any more velvet on furniture she would die.  Usually, this kind of conversation would have fascinated me, but my mind kept wandering out to the ocean rolling up on the sand outside her windows.

“Do you want to go down to the beach?” I asked her, interrupting a discourse about her method of distributing throw pillows.

She looked surprised.  “Um, ok.  I can’t think of the last time I was down there.  Sometimes I forget that the ocean is even there.  Yes, sure, let’s go.  My pedicure is tomorrow, so it’s fine.”

Simona had been the friend who had gotten back to me first when I had started reaching out as I sat on the bike at the gym the day before.  I did know a lot of people, like the majority of my sorority sisters still lived in the Los Angeles area, but as it turned out from the responses that were slowly trickling in, getting together with them wasn’t going to be easy.  Simona had been home after a quick trip to Abu Dhabi to check on the progress of her family’s new hotel and said she would have time to get together on Sunday, briefly, before her massage and after her trainer came.  Almost everyone else I had heard back from had either given me a date they were free a few weeks from now, suggested we meet for coffee from 11:29-11:37 or another truncated time slot, or gave me another answer to the effect of, was I crazy for thinking they had free time? 

I knew how it was, because I was busy too.  And Klere was also, apparently, since she wasn’t getting back to me now at all.  She had posted some pictures of herself making out with her boyfriend, blurry, arty selfies, so I was pretty sure she was in town, but she wasn’t picking up any form of communication from me.

Simona and I left her all-white house and went to the beach.  It was beautiful—not very warm, but beautiful.  If I closed my eyes and just felt the sand and listened to the water, I could pretend that I was in Hawaii.  Which made me think of Nate, and what he and Joey and Pia were up to.  They had been gradually making rounds of every cultural site in San Francisco and today was the modern art museum, which they hadn’t been very excited about but were forcing themselves to visit.  I had called him the night before when I got to the hotel, late, just briefly to say that I was there.

The first words out of his mouth were not a greeting.  “Did you lock the door?” he asked me.

“Yes, of course!” I had told him.

“And the bolt,” he reminded me.

“Check.  Got it.  Did that sound like real military talk?”

“Not at all.  Are you running in the morning?  Please tell me that you didn’t try to take the brass knuckles through airport security.”

“I’m going to the hotel gym and taking on the treadmill,” I assured him.  He told me goodnight and to try to sleep.  Then I had checked the door again, and spent the rest of the night avoiding my mom and Zara (who never gave up on calling), and watching a local high school boys’ golf tournament.  And then some African stick fighting, because they had good channels at this place.  The whole time I had thought about the night before, when I had fallen asleep with my cheek against Nate’s hard chest, listening to his heartbeat and lulled by his rhythmic breathing.

“This beach is overrun,” Simona announced, interrupting my thoughts and pointing at a man taking pictures.  “I wish we could put up some type of electric fencing so it would be residents only.”

“Riff raff,” I agreed, but inwardly rolled my eyes.  What in the hell was she saying, she wanted to electrocute the tourists on a public beach?  I started to walk along the shore, swinging my sandals.  “You were always pretty good at keeping people out,” I reminded her.  Simona had been the head of the recruitment committee for our sorority, and she had once black-balled a freshman for saying that she put olive oil in her hair.

“Are you serious?” Simona had asked her.  “Do you know that it’s to cook with?  There are specific products for your hair.  You should try those.”  Then she had made a big mark next to the girl’s name on the list in her hand, very ostentatiously, while shaking her head.  The girl had started to cry, knowing it was over.  At the time, I had thought it was pretty funny, but looking back, I thought of how it sucked for the olive oil girl.

“I mean, Malibu is fine, and all,” Simona said to me now, “but it would be better cordoned off.”

“Tell me about the new hotel in the UAE,” I suggested to change the subject.  Simona’s great, great-grandfather had started off with one hotel, and it had become a global empire of which she was now a part.  The hotels were not quite the best, the most luxurious, the toniest, but they did generate a lot of cash, and Simona had always been rolling in it. 

I listened to her tell an interesting story about berating local officials for their stupidity and provincialism.  That, combined with the memory of the frizzy-haired girl who had used the olive oil, made me start to wonder why I had called Simona.  If anyone else had been able to spare the time, I wouldn’t have gone to her new house in Malibu.

“But what’s happening with you, Scarlett?” she asked me.  “I want to hear all about your love life.”  This was surprising, since she hadn’t even asked yet why I was in Los Angeles.  “I was so sorry to hear that you and Mats broke up.”

I could tell how sorry she was, by how she was smiling gleefully.  “I’m not,” I said shortly.

“Are you with anyone new?”

I shrugged.  “I’m going out, but nothing serious.  Are you seeing anyone?”  This gave her the opportunity to go into rhapsodies about her latest boyfriend, the son of an Italian racecar driver.  She showed me his picture, and he was pretty cute.  Just a little soft-looking, in my opinion.  I wouldn’t have gone for that.

I got tired of Simona pretty fast, but it all worked out, because she had her massage lined up.  I backed out my rental car and wondered why I still had her name in my phone.  Why had I ever hung out with her in the first place way back in college?  I had thought she was funny when she was snotty and rude, but now I just thought she was snotty and rude, and there was nothing amusing about it. 

I checked to see who else had gotten back to me and listened to a voicemail from Daria, who had been my freshman year roommate.  We had lost touch a little bit when I had rushed and moved out of the dorms after our first year and she had been working a lot while juggling her classes.  We were different enough that I had at first wondered why they had ever put us together as roommates, but it had turned out that we got along really well, and we had become good friends.  “Hey, Scarlett!” she had said into my phone.  “I was so happy to hear your voice!”  She invited me over for dinner with her family, if I wouldn’t find them all too annoying, and if I didn’t mind take-out.

I found myself wanting to go, to see her family and her house.  I had met her husband but I had only seen pictures of her two kids, one named…she was named after a flower, I was sure, and the baby was named after a stuffed animal, like Rose and Puppy or something like that.  I texted Daria back and told her that a take-out dinner with her family would be great and that I was looking forward to it.  Oddly, that was true.  In the past, I had generally been annoyed by kids.  My own niece and nephew had always irritated me extensively, interspersed with moments when I thought they were kind of cute—except for the last time I saw them and had watched how much fun they’d had playing with Pia, and the cuteness had seemed to overwhelm the annoying parts of them. 

Now, since Klere was still unresponsive and I didn’t have any plans besides going to Daria’s for dinner, I had the whole day in front of me, by myself in a city that didn’t feel like I knew it very well anymore.  So clearly the only thing to do was to go shopping.  It took forever, but I drove down Highway 1 into Santa Monica to look around, then to Rodeo Drive and Melrose.  I didn’t buy anything for myself, but I did find a few things for other people, including when I went into a really cute pet store to shop for Pia.  I texted Joey to get her neck size and Nate called me right back.

“What are you doing, Agent Scarlett?” he asked me.

“I’m buying stuff for Pia.  To accessorize,” I explained.  I stopped and put my bags down so I could focus on talking.  His voice sounded nice.

“Pia needs to accessorize?”

“It wouldn’t hurt anyone,” I retorted.  “When was the last time you thought about it?”

“That would be never.”

“Well, don’t worry, because I picked up a few things for you and Joey, too.  By the way, do you know your sleeve length?  I guessed a thirty-seven.”

“I have no idea what my sleeve length is.  Why do you need to know that?” he asked warily. 

“If you’re going to accompany this woman to fancy dinners, you need something other than your one, white shirt.  But if you wear that, don’t worry.  I got you a few ties.”

He actually groaned.  “What are you trying to do to me?”

“I’m going to force some style on you.  Joey too.  Tell him we’re going through his t-shirts when I get home.”

“Joey, when we get out of this museum, we need to hide your t-shirts,” he said away from the phone and I heard Joey ask what in the hell he was talking about.

I smiled.  “You’re all going to look great when I’m done.  Especially Pia.”

“She is the cutest,” he admitted.  “I don’t like to use that word too much, but I have to give it to her."

Pia was the cutest dog, of course, but right now I was thinking of how cute Nate was.  Even Pia couldn’t match him.  “I’m on my way to meet a friend for dinner.  My old roommate.”

“Are you driving carefully?”

I thought about the rental car.  It had insurance, so it was fine.  “I’m an excellent driver.”

Nate laughed.  “We all know the truth of that statement.  When are you getting your ass home?”

“Miss me already?”  I stood up from where I had been leaning against a shop window and waited for his answer.

“I just want to get my hands on the ties you bought for me.”

Ok.  “I’m not sure,” I told him.  “I haven’t been able to talk to Klere yet.  I’m going over to her house tomorrow even if I don’t hear from her.”

“Be careful down there, Scarlett Fever.”

“I will,” I answered.

“And come home soon, with or without the ties.  The three of us are anxious to see you.”

“I will,” I said softly, and we hung up.  I got a bottle of wine and some flowers and headed over to Glendale, but my mind was a lot farther north, back in San Francisco where people (and a dog) were anxious to see me.

Chapter 10

Two large, brown eyes stared at me through the crack between door and its frame.  “I’m not supposed to open this,” the little voice told me.  “You’re a stranger, which is someone that I don’t know.  It could be someone who looks very normal, but it just means that I don’t know you.”

“Um, I’m your mom’s friend,” I answered.  “You can open the door for me.”

“That’s what a stranger would say.”

She had me there.  “Can you go get your mom and your dad and ask if they can open it?”

The eyes watched me for another moment, then the door shut and locked.  A moment later I heard adult feet pounding up to it and it swung back open.  “Scarlett!” Daria exclaimed.  She hugged me and then stood back, pushing strands of hair out of her face and wiping something off her cheek.  “I was just changing a really poopy diaper and Iris said there was a stranger trying to get into the house.” 

Iris.  That was the flower name.  “Hi,” I said.  “She’s a good guard.”

“We’ve had to talk about that a lot.  We had a little issue because a guy came to the door with religious tracts while I was trying to put Teddy down for a nap, and Iris invited him in.  He turned out to be very nice, though.” 

Teddy.  That was the stuffed animal name.

Daria looked down at her hand and frowned, and I really hoped that hadn’t been poop from the aforementioned diaper that she had just wiped off her face.  “Here,” I said, and held out the stuff I had brought.  “For Iris and Teddy.”

“Wow, what’s all that?”  She looked at the bags with surprise.  “Thank you!  Why don’t you carry it into the kitchen?  I need to wash my hands, immediately.”

So it probably had been shit, literal shit on her face.  Oh, God.  I trailed after her through the tiny living room into the tinier kitchen where she washed her hands vigorously and scrubbed her cheek while she talked.  “Ivo—remember my husband?—he was supposed to be home by now but he got caught in traffic.  I bet you really miss LA freeways,” she said, and picked up a round-faced baby out of a playpen shoved next to a table covered with stuff.  “Sorry, it’s really a mess in here.  This is Teddy,” she told me, and kissed the baby’s fuzzy head.  He burped and a white, curd-like substance ran down his face.  Disgusting. 

Daria seemed unconcerned and mopped at it with a kitchen towel.  “He always does that with formula,” she explained.  “I’m trying to wean him a little before I go back to work, but this guy is all about the boob.”

“Aren’t they all?”

She laughed and took the flowers.  “These are beautiful!  And wine?  Thanks, Scar!”  She put the flowers in a glass of water, and opened the shopping bags to ooh and aah over the gifts I had gotten for the kids, the toys and clothes.  I had maybe gone a little overboard but Iris was loving it all and Teddy bit his new stuffed penguin’s beak enthusiastically.  “Scarlett, they’re going to wish you lived closer by,” Daria told me.  “Thank you.”  She signaled to Iris, who said it also.

“You’re welcome.”  I watched Iris try on the beret I had picked out for her.  She could really carry off hats.  She looked at me proudly and I got a huge smile on my face.  “It’s a great color for you,” I pointed out, and she studied her reflection in the oven door and nodded thoughtfully.  That was something I had always liked about my niece and nephew: no matter what they had on, whatever degree of mismatched awfulness it reached, they always thought that they looked great.  But Zara was usually pretty careful about what they got to wear outside of the house.

The doorbell rang.  “That’s dinner arriving,” Daria said.  “And still no Ivo.  Can you hold the baby?”  She kind of pushed him into my arms before I could say no and went off saying something about finding her purse.

I held Teddy slightly away from me and he looked at me with the same brown eyes that his sister Iris had.  She was watching me too, probably keeping an eye out to make sure I treated her brother right.  Older siblings were good like that.  I tried to recall holding my niece and nephew and what I had done with them but didn’t seem to have many memories of being around them when they were so small.  “Hi,” I told the baby.  He just stared, so I held him closer and patted his back.  Despite the white gunk still that was still a little visible around his mouth and the poopy diaper that Daria had mentioned, he didn’t smell terrible.  He actually smelled kind of sweet.  I sat down on the one chair that didn’t have a pile of papers, toys, or clothes on it and stood the baby on my lap.  His legs folded underneath him and he kicked his feet.

“He doesn’t stand up?” I asked Iris.

“He doesn’t do much,” she informed me, and rolled her eyes at the stupidity of babies.  I smiled at her again and Teddy smiled back, a toothless little grin.

“You can do that, can’t you?” I asked him.  “You’re a great smiler!”  He did it again, the show-off.  I held him closer and rubbed my cheek against the soft fuzz of his dark hair.  He leaned forward with a plop and tried to gnaw on my onyx pendant with his gums, slobbering on my chest in the process.  I held up the chain so he could get a good taste of my necklace, wondering if Daria would mind.  From the casual way she had handled the poop on her own face, I thought not.

She came back into the kitchen with a bag full of take-out boxes.  “I’ll just set the table…I’ll just clear the table,” she corrected herself.  “Would you like something to drink?  I don’t have much other than water from the faucet.  Ivo was supposed to bring home a better selection.”

“I brought the wine,” I offered.

“Yes, thanks!  Um, it’s been a while since I had anything alcoholic, with breastfeeding, but the opener must be somewhere…”  Daria stated digging in a drawer just as Iris went on a pretty major rant that she was never, ever going to get her dinner, never, and she was soooo hungry.

“Daria, don’t worry about the wine.  I’m great with water,” I said as I bounced Teddy a little.  I wanted to get him to smile again.  I didn’t see another of those, but I did elicit a burp.

“This dinner isn’t what you’re used to,” Daria said.  She swept crap off the table and put plates down, then looked at one and frowned, and put it in the sink instead.

“D, usually I eat alone, and not any actual food.  So this is really a step up,” I told her.  That was what I had been doing, anyway, before Joey and Nate showed up.  They were really into eating meals and Nate liked to make sure that I partook of something, too.  I wondered what they were having for dinner after the art museum. 

“Really, you aren’t always doing big nights out on the town?” Daria asked me.  She pulled out forks and then put all of them into the sink also.  “Something’s wrong with our dishwasher,” she mentioned, and studied the utensils in the drawer.  “Ok, these are better.”  She set them next to the plates.  “I always pictured you at nice restaurants all the time, going to all the new, cool places with interesting people.”

“Yeah, not so much.  Mostly I work,” I said.  “Tell me what you’ve been doing lately.”

“Well, you’re looking at most of it!”  She leaned down to kiss Iris’ head, then put her into her booster seat.  “And the sequel,” she continued, and reached to take Teddy.

“No, it’s ok.  I can hold him.”  I flipped the baby around so he could face out, and he left off sucking my necklace.

“Are you sure?”  Daria moved the toys, clothes, and papers off the other chairs and then started opening the containers of food, sparking a prolonged discussion with her daughter about who would be eating the steamed vegetables.  “We all will,” Daria concluded firmly, and I nodded.

“Me, for sure.  I love vegetables,” I announced, but Iris looked like she knew I was lying.

While we ate, Daria filled me in on what else she had been up to, since we hadn’t seen each other for a while.  She hadn’t been able to come up for my ill-fated engagement party due to pregnancy complications, which had thankfully worked out ok.  Because here was this warm, sweet baby on my lap, trying with clumsy hands to reach for my semi-clean fork while I ate off it.

“So yeah, I’ll be back in the office about twenty hours a week, which I’m hoping doesn’t turn into me being there part-time but expected to produce full-time results, like what happened to the last two people who tried to cut their hours.”  She shrugged.  “I’ll have to wait and see.  My office hasn’t always been great about women returning to work.  About babies in general.  When I was pregnant with Iris, I heard a lot of comments about pregnancy brain, and when I came back after my maternity leave, I also heard a lot of snide remarks about my commitment and divided loyalties.”

“Maybe you should get a new job, after you kick them in the—” I stopped, and glanced at Iris.  “It probably isn’t a good idea to kick people.”

“That’s basically what Ivo has been saying to me, too,” Daria agreed.  “It’s really not a wonderful company to work for in general and I don’t like what I do there, besides collecting the paycheck.”  She shrugged.  “I started off thinking that I would be this big writer and I’m still editing technical manuals.  Iris, no.  Use your fork.”

Iris replaced the handful of rice, brushing it off her hands back onto the plate.  “It feels funny when you squish it between your fingers,” she noted.

Daria shook her head.  “It’s still a no.  Scarlett, tell me what’s new.  Same job?  That’s what brought you down here?”

I explained briefly why I was in Los Angeles, not bothering to make it sound at all exciting and important as I usually did.  And, with the help of the basic Spanish I knew Daria would understand from her high school language requirement, I managed to convey that Klere was a loca addict of drogas who might be in trouble with the policía.  I also said that she was about as intelligent as a box of piedras, but that she was very savvy about manipulating her followers and using various companies (beverage, beauty, clothing, and other) to get a lot of trips, gear, and money.  And furthermore, that I had no idea how I was going to get her to do any of the things I wanted, which were mostly to wear our clothes while she was clean (not physically dirty and also drug-free) and then post gorgeous pictures of herself talking about how she was inspiring us as our muse.  I thought that plan was maybe just a pipe dream.  “She’s kind of terrible,” I concluded.

“And why are you working with her?” Daria asked.  “Why would you want to?”

“She’s exploding in popularity right now so we need to use her while we can.”  I winced.  That had sounded awful.  “I mean, her follower count is through the roof and they’re right in our target audience.  It’s the best exposure money can buy.  A lot of money.”

“I have to figure out how to make myself a social media influencer.  Right now, I can barely influence her.”  Daria pointed at her daughter, who was still ignoring the vegetables on her plate.  “Iris, eat them.  I mean it.”

“I think you have it really good,” I said, looking around the crowded, dirty kitchen.  “I think this is awesome.”

“Really?”  Daria suddenly smiled hugely at me.  “Thanks.  I used to spend a lot of time being pretty jealous of you, you know.  You always had money to do things, to buy things and travel.  You never had to worry about paying your tuition.”

“Because I sponged off my grandmother.”

“And you always look so beautiful and put together.  Even when you first wake up, you look good!”

I swallowed.  “I’m not very put together, not at all.  I’m not doing great.”  I put my cheek down on Teddy’s head again.

“Scar, what’s the matter?” Daria asked, her voice full of sympathy.

I shook my head, rubbing gently against the baby’s hair.  “I had a bad thing happen and I can’t seem to bounce back from it.  I’m fighting with my family.  I hate my job.”

“I’m sorry.”

I nodded and tried not to cry.  I hadn’t felt this close to it in a while.

“Here.”  Iris took off the beret that I had given her and reached to put it on me.  “You can have this back.”

“Thank you.”  With a huge effort, I pushed back the tears.  “You should keep the hat.  It’s really great on you.”  She nodded solemnly and returned it to her own head.

“Hello,” a voice called from the front door.  “Daria, there’s a car on our lawn!”

Her husband was home, and yes, I’d had a little bit of a hard time parking. 

Iris leaped off her booster seat, saying, “Daddy daddy daddy daddy daddy!” and raced off to find him, and even Teddy seemed to get that his father was there and made a squawking sound.  After learning that the car was mine, Ivo offered to remove it from the yard and find a more street-like parking space.  He kissed Daria hello and rubbed her neck while listening to Iris tell him, at great length, about not being allowed to use the knives in the knife block because she could cut off her finger, but she absolutely, totally would not cut off any finger, and anyway, she had a lot of them, so what was losing one?

“I agree with Mommy,” Ivo told her.  “No knives.”  He took Teddy from me and kissed him too, and we finished dinner after he put my car on the street somewhere.  I had liked Ivo when Daria met him at school, and I still did.  He seemed to cover the husband/father stuff very well.  He took charge of getting the kids ready for bed while Daria and I cleaned the kitchen, which was really just putting the dishes into the dishwasher that she didn’t think worked.

“You guys seem good,” I noted.  “You and Ivo.  From the fifteen minutes of observation I just had.”

“Yeah, it is good.  It’s not easy, having two tiny people around and juggling the money stuff, but marrying Ivo may be the smartest thing I ever did.  He still tells me that the day I called him from the circulation desk to hound him about returning an interlibrary loan book was the best day of his life.”  She smiled.

“Lucky,” I commented.

“Him, or me?  I’d say both of us.”  She closed the dishwasher door, struggled to make it stay vertical, then slammed it with her hip.  “We need to get this fixed.  Sit back down and talk to me for a while about what’s going on with you.  I’ll make some tea.”

It took me a while to convince her that I really, really still hated tea, and then she didn’t have it anyway.  “Now, tell me,” Daria commanded, sipping a cup of hot water instead.

I told her, some.  About realizing that I didn’t like much about my job, for starters.

“It just doesn’t seem like you,” she commented.  That was what Nate had said, too.  “I mean, the fashion stuff, yes.  But having to grovel and cater to these crazy people?  I feel like you’d be telling them that they could go shove their heads up their asses, like you did to the RA who yelled at me for losing my key.”

“I hated that woman.  I hope she really did try to do it.”  I sighed.  “I wanted a career in fashion in my hometown, and positions like that don’t exactly grow on trees.  I only got this job because of a favor, because of the people I knew, not because I deserved it.  I only kept it because my mom’s friend had to step in when I got fired.”  I shook my head.  “That’s another story.  I guess I wanted to be good at it, and to prove to myself that I could do it and be successful on my own, without favors, without my family’s money or anyone’s influence.  I don’t mind working hard but the groveling and catering part,” I stopped and shook my head.  “No, it really isn’t me.  And lately, I’ve been really wondering what, exactly, I’m working towards.”

“If it’s worth it.”

I nodded.  “If it’s worth it,” I agreed.  “If I even like anything about it at all.  If I’m going to kill this influencer when I go to her house tomorrow.”  I patted my bag.  “I’ve been carrying around our contract for her and I have to get her to sign it.  If I don’t, I may have to take a contract out on her.”

“If you’re as unhappy as you seem, then I think you should look for something else to do,” Daria said, and I nodded again.  She was right.  “And with how much I’ve been dreading returning to work, probably so do I.”  She sighed.  “Ivo keeps telling me to stay home, take a break and figure out what I want to do next, but things are tight enough as it is.” 

“Remember when we used to talk about having our own business, our own website?  I was going to track all the trends, know what people should be wearing and where to find it, and you were going to write it all up?”

She nodded now.  “We were going to sell stuff, too.  A ‘carefully curated collection.’  I can barely say those words now without getting nauseated.”

I laughed, tension spilling out of my mouth with the sound.  “Why?  I still think it’s a good idea.  I know exactly what people should and shouldn’t wear, and I bet you can still make it sound interesting.  We could sell stuff and never use the word ‘curate.’”

“Honey, come kiss everyone,” Ivo called from across the little house.

She stood.  “You come too, and say goodbye to them.  Then we could go out and have coffee or a drink, or actual tea, and talk more about what’s going on with you.”  As she said it, her face practically split in two in a yawn.

“No, I’ve talked enough about myself for tonight.  But let’s stay in better touch,” I suggested, as she led me into the kids’ tiny room and I also got to kiss them goodnight.

After she got out of the bedroom without the one more story that Iris had requested, Daria walked me to where Ivo had moved my car down the block.  “Scar, you made me a little worried about you,” she said as the rental beeped itself unlocked.

“No, I’m fine.  You’re right about my job and I’m going to start looking around.”

“What about the other things you said, about fighting with your family?  You and your mom, and you and your gorgeous brother?  And what happened that—”

I turned and hugged her.  “I’m going to figure it all out.  Thanks for listening to me bitch.”

“Hardly.  That’s what friends are for.”

I thought about that statement a lot as I drove back to my hotel and I also thought about Nate and Joey.  How Nate had pretty happily rearranged his life to help his friend when he needed it and how I myself had said that Joey would have done the same.  I hadn’t had friends like that since college, and I wondered if I had ever been that person for anyone else.  Daria seemed to like me, but I wasn’t exactly clear on why.

But I got sick of self-pity.  Hanging out with Daria and her kids, seeing how much they all loved each other, made me rethink some things I had been doing lately with my own family.  I called my mom back first.

“Oh, thank goodness!” she answered the phone.  “Why haven’t you returned my calls?  Are you all right?  What have you been doing?”  She kept going for a while but ended with, “Where are you, Scarlett?”

“I’m on a work trip in LA.”  I had a question of my own.  “Mom, why?  Why did you set up that lunch with Brooks?”

She was quiet for a moment.  “I don’t like what’s happening between you and your brother.  I’m sorry now that I didn’t tell you that you’d be meeting them and not me, because Lanie said you were very angry.”

Lanie.  Of course, Lanie.  “Would you like it, if I tried to make a fool of you?”

“I wasn’t trying to make a fool out of you, and if you had done the same to me, I would have known that you were acting out of love and trying to help me!  You need to talk to your brother—”

“No.  No, I don’t.”

She tried again.  “If you just told him—”

“No!  No, I’m not going to tell him!  And if you do, I will never, never forgive you.  I’ll never speak to you or see you again.”  My heart was pounding so loudly in my ears that it was all I could hear, until I went through a red light by mistake and horns blared.

“All right.  I don’t like to see you like this, honey.”

“I’m fine,” I answered woodenly.

“And now Zara is upset, too.  Something about you spreading rumors about Bradley?  She’s been trying to get in touch with you.”

“I’ll call her next.”  I didn’t have anything else to say.  “I don’t want to fight with you, Mom.  I have to go.”

“I love you, Scarlett.  Even if you’re angry at me, I know you love me, too.”

“I do,” I choked.  “Bye.”

I waited a while before I called Zara because I was seriously dreading it now.  “Hi.  It’s me, your sister.”

“Scarlett!” she exploded.  “I must have called you fifty times!”

Seventy-two, because I had wondered and counted.  “Yeah, sorry.  I’m working in Los Angeles and I’ve been busy.”

“I have to talk to you about Brooks.”

“No, Zara.  I don’t have anything to say about that.  If Mom wants to try to facilitate some stupid reconciliation, it’s not going to work.”

“What?  What are you talking about?  What do you need to reconcile with Brooks about?  No, I want to discuss what you said to him about my husband.”

I thought back to when I had seen my brother at the horrible lunch with Lanie.  What, exactly, had I said about Bradley?

“Did you tell Brooks that Bradley was behaving, um, affectionately with you?” my sister asked.

“Um…”  Had I?  I had been so angry, I had said a lot of things.  I thought I had blurted out that Bradley had touched me.

“I wish you had said something to me, first, rather than spreading rumors and stirring up our brother!  I talked to Bradley and it was all such a misunderstanding.  You see, in his culture, there’s so much hugging, and touching!  He didn’t mean anything by it.”

“Bradley’s ‘culture?’  Do you mean like how he grew up in Sacramento?” I asked, flummoxed.

“He’s part-French,” Zara said, as if that explained everything.

I remembered back to one boring dinner when Bradley had pontificated about his family tree, after taking a DNA test that purportedly linked him to some kind of royalty.  “Didn’t his European roots go all the way back to his great-great-grandparents or something like that?  I don’t think that counts.  Anyway, I don’t think you can blame another culture for his behavior,” I said, getting angry.  The car next to me swerved as I may have drifted a little close. 

“I don’t want you to worry,” Zara continued as if I hadn’t spoken.  “He understands how you could have misinterpreted brotherly affection and he’s not mad at you,” she told me.

“Well, that’s a real fucking relief.”

“So maybe you could talk to Brooks,” Zara continued, ignoring my sarcasm.

“About what?”

“You know how Brooks gets so overprotective!  You jumped to conclusions and now he’s totally flying off the handle, yelling and freaking out.  I was gone with the kids, but I guess he came over to the house yesterday afternoon to talk to my husband.  Brooks didn’t understand the whole French thing.  He kind of,” she lowered her voice, “scared Bradley.”

“Brooks went to your house and scared your husband?” I asked.  Because if Brooks had gone to bawl out Bradley, that meant he believed me when I had told him that Bradley was being pervy.  And also, maybe that meant he still cared about me.  Or maybe it meant he was just trying to help Zara.

My sister kept talking about mix-ups and cultural diversity until I cut her off.  “Zara, I’ve been to Europe, ok?  And I understand about how other countries do things differently, like in England you drive on the left and in Belgium you eat fries with a fork.  This isn’t that.  Bradley has been making comments to me since you met him and I don’t like it.  He graduated to touching me and I want him to leave me alone.”

She was silent.

“I’m sorry,” I told her.  “I’m sorry he acts like that and I’m sorry I didn’t tell you sooner.  I didn’t think that you’d believe me, and I know how much you love him, so I just told him to shut up or fuck off or whatever.  But then he grabbed my ass, and made remarks about my breasts, and he cornered me at Mom’s house and made me feel really uncomfortable, and that’s it.  I don’t want to be around him.”

There was another huge silence and my heart was beating hard.

‘“I have to go,” she said, in a small, chilly voice.

“Ok.  I’m sorry,” I told her again.  I wasn’t sorry that she now knew, because that part felt kind of like a relief.  I was sorry that her husband was an asshole and I was sorry that she wasn’t going to be my sister anymore, because just as I had thought, she didn’t believe me and she hated me.  Zara didn’t answer, but the call ended.

I released a breath of the stale air conditioning.  Los Angeles was on the water, but I felt very far away from it.  I needed to see the waves again.  I executed a U-turn in the street, which was not easy with all the other cars, and headed west, toward the Pacific.  I would just go for a walk on the beach and look a little. 

My phone made the same horrible noise of someone calling me, and this time, I wanted to answer, because it was Nate.

“How’s tricks?” he asked me.

I sighed.  “Not great.  I just told Zara that her husband has been coming on to me.”

“And how did she take that?”

“It went exactly as I had expected.  I think I can now consider myself an only child.”  I closed my eyes and then remembered I was driving.

“Wait a minute, are you driving?” Nate demanded.

“No.”  Because I had just whipped into the right-hand lane and stopped.  Cars started to act annoyed but I had put on my hazard lights, so whatever.  “Zara hates me and thinks I’m lying, just like I thought she would.”

“Let her sit with it for a while,” Nate reasoned with me.  “It’s a lot to take in about her husband.  They have two kids.  But she’ll realize—”

“No, she made her decision.  There’s no use in talking about it, it’s done.”  A police car pulled up behind me and flashed its blue lights, so I waved and started the car moving again, breathing in and out through my nose to calm down.  “How was your day today?” I asked him.  “As good as that?”

“Before we talk anymore, get off the street.  Put down the phone and pull in somewhere.”

How the hell did he know?  I got myself into a fast-food place parking lot, all dirty and seedy.  “Ok, Sarge.  I’m parked legally.  Pretty much.”

“Good.  Stay there,” he told me, and I saluted the phone.  “My day was fine,” he finally answered.  “I realized I’ll never appreciate modern art and I’ve reconciled myself with that.  Pia seemed to like it the best out of all of us.  Tell me about your dinner with your friend.”

I did, about Daria’s sweet kids and how much fun I’d had with them.  “It was so good to see her, but I felt like she was just about to fall asleep, so now I’m going back to the hotel.  And then tomorrow I’ll spring myself on Klere, hoping she’s still here in California somewhere.”  I stopped, and sighed.  “Do you really think that Zara will forgive me?”

“There’s nothing for you to get forgiveness for.  Anybody who saw the way her husband looked at you knew that he was a fucking perv.  I think she’ll see that.”

I didn’t know if that was true, but I really, really hoped so.  “After I see Klere, then I’m coming home.”

“Good.”

His voice sounded strange.  “What’s the matter?” I demanded, and there was silence.  “Answer me right now or I’m going to call Joey and ask him.”

“Don’t call him, he’s asleep.  I was just thinking that it’s funny,” he told me.  “When we were in Hawaii, when I thought of you, I wanted to put my fist through something.”

“Thank you.  That statement is just like a warm hug.”

“You were rude, condescending, nasty,” he continued.  “And Jesus, you were a fucking mess when you got that sunburn.  Like a human lobster.  The peeling was a horror show.”

“Fuck off.  I’m hanging up,” I told him.

“No, don’t.”  He paused.  “When you left and went home, I thought of you a lot.  Not how rude you were, or how the peel was frightening.  I thought more how you were pretty funny.  How nice you had been to Joey.  How you kept leaving plates of fruit around for me.  Did you only eat fruit when you were there?”

“Mostly.  But the plates of fruit weren’t for you.  I was hoping there was a house elf.”

“Your diet is terrible,” he told me.  “I don’t think you ate anything before we came to stay with you.”

Yeah, well.

“You kept coming inside the house to get more mangoes or whatever, and you kept finding stuff to talk to me about.  Whenever I looked up, there you were, pretending that you weren’t watching what I was doing.”

“So this has turned into a story about how you came to realize that I was a stalker?” I asked.

“I came to realize that I liked you some.  Even though you made it difficult,” he conceded. 

“Well, maybe I feel the same way.  Some.”

“And then when we came to California,” Nate continued, “I liked you more, and now…I want you to come home.  I don’t want you down there, by yourself.”

I nodded.  I was not liking it too much, either.

“Are you sleeping at all?” he asked me quietly.

“Not too much,” I admitted.  “It was better when you were there.”

“For a long time, I had to take pills to knock myself out.  It was getting to be a little habit, so I stopped, but I have a hard time, too.  It was good to hold on to you.”

I nodded again.  I didn’t trust my voice.

“Are you nodding at me?”

“Yes,” I choked.

“I’ll see you soon.  And we’ll sleep better, together.”

I nodded again, my heart hammering away, and he laughed, which sounded just like pure happiness to me.  We hung up and I sat in the car for a while in the dirty parking lot.  Then I started up the car and turned back out onto Glenoaks Boulevard, and the smile on my face was real.

Chapter 11

About a second after I got on the road, my phone started spitting out notifications.

“Scarlet! Its me your in LA,” my screen announced.  Oh, my God.  It was Klere!

I typed furiously, because I was realizing more and more that communication from her was a little like purported sightings of the Loch Ness Monster: few and far between, and also not to be relied upon.

Me: I’m here, in Los Angeles, California.   [Just to make sure there was no confusion.]

Klere: come hlp

Me: What’s wrong?  You need help?

Klere: no come hlp

Me: Are you ok?

Klere: Yes! Hlp!

Me: I don’t get it. [I wanted to bash my phone against the car window]

Klere: come to hlp.

Realization dawned on me.  I had looked into her before, reading everything I could, and I had suddenly remembered where she lived.

Me: Does HLP mean Highland Park, the neighborhood?  Do you mean that I should come to there?  To your house?

She didn’t answer but I was already pulling up the map to the address I had gotten earlier when doing background research on her.  If she was there, I wasn’t going to be just an influencer to the influencer: I was going to be the woman in charge.  We were going to go by my playbook now and not hers.  My face had lost the Nate-induced smile when I saw Klere’s messages, and now I set myself for battle.  Klere had been calling the shots, but now, since quitting my job was possibly on the horizon and since she was nuts, I was going to try things my way rather than following her lead.  No more groveling and catering.  I drove as fast as I could over to Highland Park, which, with the current traffic situation, was not very fast.

Klere’s house was painted completely black, even the trim and the front door.  It probably looked pretty chic in the daytime, but at night with no lights on, I drove right by it twice, thinking it was a hole before I realized that there was a building hiding there in the darkness.  At least I was able to pull right up in front to park, and mostly on the street.  I used the flashlight on my phone to find my way up to the front porch, past the crunchy lawn, dead plants, and various religious statues—there were at least 20 of them.  Either Klere wanted to cover her bases, God-wise, or more likely, she didn’t want to miss any religion-as-a-fad possibilities for her pictures.

I rang the doorbell above a large Buddha on the porch, but I didn’t hear it make any sound, and there was a weird, burned odor when I pressed it a second time.  I knocked and knocked then listened.  There was definitely noise in the house, some kind of humming and thumping.  I took off my shoe and pounded the door with it.

“Klere!” I yelled.  “Open this.  Klere!”

The black door flew open and there she was, almost invisible inside the dark house until I turned my phone flashlight on her.  “Yes?  Oh, is it you, Scarlett?  What are you doing here, all the way up from San Francisco?”

“I told you I was down here and we needed to meet,” I answered, trying to stress that Los Angeles was actually south of where I lived.  “You just texted me and told me to come.”

“And you were hanging here on the porch with our little elephant guy and the pretty flower girl?” she asked, patting the concrete head of Ganesh and smiling in the direction of the painted Virgin Mary.

Holy shit.  “I’m coming in,” I told her, and she kept smiling and moved out of the way.  As I entered, I felt for switches and turned on the lights.  There was no way I was wandering around with Klere in the dark.

A pink glow filled the room and I looked up and saw the colored bulbs in the fixtures.  I took a step and a voice yelled, “Hey!”  A man lay on the floor, stretched across the entryway, and almost under my feet.

“Jerry, get up!  Jerry, this is Scarlett.  She’s going to give me some money,” Klere announced.  “Stop pouting down there!  You’re rolling around on the floor like a tapeworm and scaring the cat,” she scolded him, then turned to me and smiled.  “Scarlett, this is my partner, Jerry.”

“Will you stop calling me that?” Jerry asked, scrambling up off the floor.  He was covered in dust and cat hair.  “I’m not your partner.  I’m your other.”

“He means that he’s my other self,” Klere explained to me. 

“Can’t you give me the respect I deserve?” Jerry continued.  “A tapeworm?”  He kept talking about how she wasn’t treating him right, how he had sacrificed for her.  I looked around the house, hoping he didn’t mean he was actually sacrificing things, like animals or people.

“Sure, sure,” she muttered, and gestured to me.  “Come on and sit in the med room.”  She squeezed around her other in the narrow hallway and I avoided touching his body too as I followed her.  He was dirty, and not just with the grey fluff of dust from the floor that even the soft lighting showed up.  It looked like it had been a while, quite a while, since he had bathed.  His face and hands and neck looked grimy, and since he wasn’t wearing a shirt, I could see dark streaks of what could have been grease on his bony, starkly white torso.  As I walked behind Klere and looked more closely, it looked like it had been a while without soap for her, too.  Probably pre-Old Mexico, judging by the mess that was her hair.

“Ok, so what do we need to do so I can get the money from you?” she asked me, sitting in a black leather sling chair that I recognized from her pictures online.  It was one of her favorite places to pose.  “I need it, or I wouldn’t have texted.”

I spelled out our expectations about number of posts, hashtags, image content, etc.  Then I pulled out the contract.  “We can’t do anything until you sign this,” I told her.

“Do you have a pen?”

I handed her one.  “Aren’t you going to read it?”

She paused in the act of scrawling out her name.  “Should I?  I never read these things.  They’re so boring.”  She moved to the next page and scribbled again on the line.  “Hey, are you interested at all in Jerry?”

“Interested, how?” I asked.  “Interested like I would want him to be in your posts?”

“No, like, are you interested in having sex with him?  He’s been on my case all day and I am so not in the mood for him.  He’s, like, not very good, you know?”

I shook my head.  “No, I don’t want to have sex with him.  No way.”  The man himself wandered in and lit up a bowl.  “Can you smoke that somewhere else?” I asked him.

“This is our med room,” he said, offended.

“What does that mean?”  I looked at Klere.

“Where we go to mediate.  And medicate,” she explained, and opened the big metal cabinet facing her chair.  It was chock full of pill bottles, baggies, and paraphernalia.

I closed my eyes for a second.  Then, since I had decided that I was taking charge, I opened them again and stared the dirty guy down.  “Jerry, Klere and I are working.  Go somewhere else.”  He looked very aggrieved, but he left and took the pipe with him.  I turned back to Klere.  “I know that you didn’t read the agreement you just signed, but I do want you to be clear that your pictures with our merchandise have to be up to your usual standards.  By that I mean, specifically, that you’ll have to take a shower before you post anything with our clothes or accessories or mentioning our brand.”

“Oh, I will, for sure,” she assured me.  “I just haven’t in a while.  I figure, if I’m not working that day, why should I bother to take a shower?  Who am I trying to impress?”

“Yeah, I don’t take showers to impress anyone.  I bathe to be clean,” I said.

She nodded thoughtfully.  “It’s definitely an idea.”  She jumped up from the chair.  “Are we all done with the boring stuff?”

I thumbed through the papers to make sure both copies were initialed and signed on every place I had indicated for her.  “Looks like we are.  Do you understand that you’ll make a minimum of—”

“Just leave it here and let Jerry read it and he’ll explain it to me.  He handles all that stuff.  He’s my lawyer.”

“That guy?” I asked incredulously.  “That dirty, whiny guy, he’s your lawyer?  Like, a real one?  He passed the bar exam?”

Klere nodded.  “He’s really smart, except when it comes to me.  He still thinks we’re monolingual.”

“Monogamous?” I asked.

“That too, except I mean that I have another guy set up in an apartment in Quebec and we speak French together.”  She looked me up and down, appraising.  “We should go out!  I just took some…”  She reached for an amber prescription bottle from their stash and squinted at the name on it.  “I just took some of these, and I’m ready to have some fun.”  She shook the bottle, offering it to me.

I ignored it and looked at my phone.  “It’s pretty late.  Where do you want to go?”

“Let’s go dance!  You took me, now I’ll take you.”

“No, not tonight.”

“Come on,” Klere wheedled.  “If you do, I’ll throw in an extra post, free.”

“Why do you want me to go with you so much?” I asked.

“I’m bored, and you’re hot.”  Klere narrowed her eyes, studying me again.  “I want to find a piece of ass for tonight and they’re definitely going to come around if you’re there.”

“No, I don’t think so.”  I had gotten what I came for.  Now it was time to settle onto the couch next to the bed that I wouldn’t be able to sleep in and watch TV until all hours.  “I’m going to head back to my hotel,” I told Klere.

“Two extra posts,” she bargained.  “Come on!”

I thought for a second.  “Write it in the contract and initial the change, and fine.  I’ll go.”  I would stay for the shortest amount of time possible while she picked up someone, then I would be out.

“I’ll drive,” she suggested.

“No, we’ll take my car.”

“Bye, Jer,” Klere called as we left, and I heard the weird humming I’d noticed earlier coming from another room.  “Is your car parked in my yard?”

“All the grass was dead anyway.”  I sat in the driver’s seat for a moment before I started it.  This was against my better judgement.  The last time I had gone out with Klere, I had run into—

But that would be impossible in Los Angeles.  I would just stay for a moment, and it would be fine.  I had just gotten her to agree to more exposure than she had ever given to any other brand, according to the research I had done.  That included the car company, Scemo, which had flown her to Italy and let her drive on their test track in a bikini, barefoot.  She had almost run down their CEO as he watched her and took pictures.  I would be legendary, almost, if I got her to do all this.  Legendary in my own office, anyway.

The moment Klere got in the car, she started getting in touch with people to let them know where we were going.  That was pertinent information for me also, as the driver.  “What’s the name of it?” I asked her, after she had said that this place didn’t have a real address.

“Turn right.  Oh, I meant left!” she lamented as I started to follow her directions.  I shot across the road and made the left.  “It doesn’t have a name, either, it’s so secret.  Isn’t that fun?  You can do anything there.”  She talked more about the things she had done: sex, more sex, drugs, and then even more drugs.  It sounded great.  Just great!

She finally directed me to stop, and I found a spot that I thought was probably fine for the car, and Klere led me down one street after another, deeper into a neighborhood that made me increasingly nervous.  “I’m almost sure it’s here,” she kept saying for block after block, until finally she shrieked, “Yes!  There it is.  We can stay here until breakfast and then go down to the beach and do tree pose to greet the sun!”  She considered.  “Naked.  That will be a great shot.  I’m gorgeous with backlighting.”

We walked right up to the front of the line, past all the other grungy would-be club goers slouched against the wall of a dirty alleyway.  The big bouncer at the door nodded at Klere and grinned at me as he opened the door for us.  “Nice,” he told her, pointing my way.  “Great tits.”

“Screw you,” I answered him, but he let me in anyway, down a narrow flight of stairs into a teeming mass of people that reminded me of snakes writhing together in a pit.

Klere went right out into the middle of the crowd, pushing and wending her way through.  I followed her onto the dance floor and tried to let go, to have fun and relax.  I moved with the music and put a smile on my face.  Bodies bumped and rubbed against me.  The smell of sweat and the thick odor of perfume and various drugs filled my nose and mouth.  Someone grabbed my hips and ground into me and I yanked myself away, into another woman who shoved me back.  I couldn’t get a full breath in.  My chest moved up and down, faster and faster, as I fought for more air.  Lights flashed and the crowd screamed, and the music pumped through me.  My vision started to blur in a weird way.

“Scarlett, what’s the matter with you?” Klere yelled, punching my arm.

“I don’t like this,” I managed to say, “I don’t want—” and I got so dizzy that I grabbed onto her and started to crumple a little.

“Fuck!  Come on.”

I felt her pulling me back through the slick, packed bodies, up the stairs again and into the fetid alley. 

“What’s the matter with her?  What’s she on?” I heard the big bouncer ask.

I leaned against the dirty wall, trying to get myself back under control.  When I opened my eyes, Klere, the bouncer, and most of the line of people were staring at me.  I walked in an unsteady path over behind a dumpster and I threw up.

I heard feet shuffle up behind me.  “Scarlett?”

“Just a minute,” I told Klere.  “I just need a minute.”

“The guy at the door got you a bottle of water.  What did you take?”

“Nothing.  I just don’t like crowds.”  I wiped my mouth on my sleeve.  I felt so dirty and disgusting I wanted to dip myself in antiseptic.  “Thank you,” I said, as I took the water from her.

“I probably have something that could bring you back down, even you out.”  She dug in the pocket of her tight jeans and pulled out a small assortment of different colored pills.  “Want one?”

“Klere, no.  I don’t need anything to bring me up or down or anywhere.  I swear, I’m not on anything.”  I breathed in through my mouth so I wouldn’t smell the dumpster and my own vomit.  “I just felt sick with so many people around me, touching me.”  My stomach rolled again, thinking about it.  “Go ahead, you can go back and have fun.  I’m sorry.”

Klere looked at me, very quietly.  “Remember how you didn’t want me to go with those guys?”

“What do you mean?”

“It was the first time I came up to San Francisco, the day when I tried on stuff in your ratty little showroom.  You guys are really pretty small potatoes compared with the other people I deal with.”

I stared at her, with her filthy hair and sweaty face.  “Uh huh.  We’re very lucky that you’re working with us.”

“I was so surprised because you talked up this fun trip up to San Diego, but you only gave me a few outfits and it wasn’t really worth my while.”

“San Francisco.  You were up in San Francisco.  San Diego is south of here,” I couldn’t help correcting. 

“Really?”  She thought for a second, then shrugged.  “Anyway, after you got me a terrible lunch, we went out with some of my friends and I met some guys.  I went home with them to score and you didn’t want me to go.  You tried to stop me,” Klere reminded me.

Even in the state I was in, I was shocked that she remembered that.  “Yes.  I thought it was dangerous for you to go with them.”

“Yeah, that was nice.  That was why I did the posts for you and everything.”  She shrugged.  “I mean, it worked out fine because they were ok lays and then I got with Mary later for some coke, but I thought that was nice that you tried to help me.”  She hooked her hand at me.  “Come on, let’s go get a drink somewhere.  Somewhere quiet.  You can tell me what you want me to write because I’m not good at making stuff up on my own.”

“I thought you had just taken your pills and wanted to hook up.”

She shrugged.  “Yeah, I may as well just fuck Jerry if you don’t want to.  He’s sitting at home humming and jerking off, waiting for me, and it’s probably easier just to be with him and not to have to deal with someone else.  Like, I’m used to Jer.”

“Yeah.  It sounds really romantic.”

Klere stared at me, then she started to laugh.  “I don’t want romance.  I can get that from the guy in Quebec.  That’s in Canada, to our west,” she explained, then looked at me as I shook my head.  “North,” she said firmly.  “Let’s go.”  I followed her slowly down the alley and away from the club, through the tangle of dirty streets and back to my car.  Of course, Klere knew about an after-hours bar, too, and I drove us there very slowly, still feeling like I wasn’t really better yet, still thinking about the fingers on my hips, digging in and holding me.  I didn’t know if that was what had done it, but I kept feeling like I was going to be sick again.  

I pulled it together to get things done.  We sat at a little table and plotted out the posts she would put up, the composition of the pictures and the text below.  We drew up a calendar of when she would use each one and put reminders in her phone.  I drank club soda so I would stop feeling so nauseated and she had most of a large bottle of scotch as we talked.

I dropped her off at her black house around three, to go and have sex with her dirty, whinging boyfriend.  “Maybe next time you come, we can go to the beach and greet the day,” she said as she got out.  “But I probably won’t ever see you again, so as we say in Quebec, au revoir.”

“Sure.  See you later.”  I drove back to the hotel and took a long shower, washing away the sweat, the puke, and the drug residue I had probably picked up from Klere.  I stood with the water pouring down my body, still remembering the feeling of the bodies packed around me, the hands on me, feeling and groping and touching.  I got out of the shower as fast as I could and threw up again.

Shit.  I sat on the tile floor, dripping puddles around me, fighting down the nausea.  This was more than just being upset about the club.  I tried to think of what I could have eaten to get so sick, but whenever I thought of food, my stomach went wild again.  I stood to rinse out my mouth at the sink and caught a glimpse of myself in the mirror.

Dark circles and bags under my bloodshot eyes.  Pale skin, maybe even a little green undertone.  Colorless lips, hollow cheeks.  There it was.  The truth was starting to surface.  I looked hard into my own eyes and then watched my chest heave up and down as I breathed faster and faster.

Ten minutes later, my hair still wet, my clothes shoved into my bag, I was on the road in the rental car going towards the I-5, and headed back home.

∞

I leaned against the wall next to my apartment door as I looked for my keys, since I didn’t have the energy to hold myself upright anymore.  I’d had to park the rental car about five miles from my building and walk, dragging my bag.  I’d stopped to puke along the way—in fact, I’d stopped to puke several times in my race through the night up through the Central Valley from Los Angeles to San Francisco.  I was exhausted and feeling like I might not make the next few feet to the couch to lie down and then never, ever get up again.

But Klere was up, because I’d been reading her first post as I drove, and it was perfect.  She wore our clothes and posed with a sketchbook in her leather sling chair with succulents behind her, pencil in her mouth and pensive, like she was planning what to design for us next rather than staring at what I now knew was really in front of her in the med room: the giant drug cabinet.  But she looked gorgeous, and clean, and the text and hashtags were all exactly right.  The post was racking up comments and attention.

Pascale had seen it too and had been trying to get in touch with me, sending happy face emojis and leaving voice mails that I hadn’t been able to bring myself to listen to.  On Monday mornings, she was with her trainer.  She had a thing for him, and calls while she was working out while he was there were filled with interruptions of soft giggles and compliments about his strong muscles that I just couldn’t take this morning.  I sent her a text as I drove over the Altamont Pass (and stopped to vomit) saying that I wasn’t feeling well but that Klere was on track and I would be in on Tuesday.  Just after this fun interlude, Daria got in touch also, saying that she hoped I wasn’t as sick as she and Ivo were, and she was assuming that it had been something in the take-out vegetables from our dinner together because Iris hadn’t touched them, and she was feeling absolutely fine.  I was glad that at least Iris had avoided this spew-filled torture.  I could only think of one time when I had felt physically worse.

Standing in my hallway now, it was like all the energy that had gotten me to this point had deserted me.  I almost slid down to the carpeted floor; I couldn’t find the keys; I could barely bring myself to knock.  Listlessly, I brought my fist up and hit at the painted metal and a moment later, Joey opened the door.

“Scarlett?  What are you doing here?  I thought you were in Los Angeles!”  He stared at me.

“I’m back,” I told him, and I stumbled inside, dragging my bag across the floor.

“Did you get an early flight?”

“I drove,” I answered, just as shortly.  “I wanted to come home.  Hi, Pia.”  She wagged.

“Are you all right?”  He tried to help me with the bag but I kept on going, straight into the living room.

“I don’t feel well.”  I lay down on the couch and looked for my blanket.

“Here,” Joey said.  “Did you want this?”  He took it from the new chair and spread it over me.  “Can I get anything for you?”

“No.  Thank you.  Is Nate here?”

“He went out for a run but he’ll be home soon.”

I must have fallen asleep some.  At least, I closed my eyes and tried to ignore the nausea for a while.  I opened them when I felt someone taking off my shoes.  “Brooks?”

“It’s Nate.  What are you doing back here, sick as a dog?”

“I drove,” I explained.  “I got sick from the vegetables.”  My stomach turned over just talking about them.  Never, never would I eat vegetables again.  Never.

“You got sick from what?”

Rather than try to explain, I searched in my pocket for my phone and opened it up to Daria’s messages.  I closed my eyes again as he read through.

“Food poisoning,” he summed it up.  “You don’t look so great.”

I pulled the blanket over my ugly face.  “Leave me alone.”

He didn’t.  He got me crackers, and chalky medicine to drink, and water.  Pia lay across my legs for a while and I slept pretty fitfully.  I had listened vaguely to the sounds of Nate and Joey coming and going, talking quietly, the door opening and closing.

But when I opened my eyes in the late afternoon, I definitely felt an improvement.  I tested it by sitting up slowly.  Ok, I was still fine.  I stood and wobbled.  Maybe I would stay on the couch.

“Better?” Nate asked from across the room.  He was sitting at the table with his laptop open on it.  I had the fleeting thought that he looked so cute while he was working, then immediately remembered how I didn’t look cute myself, not at all.  I put the blanket back over my head.

“I’m fine,” I said, the fabric muffling my words.  I listened to his very quiet steps approaching and then he pulled it away and looked into my face.

“Your lips are cracked,” he said.  I covered them with my hand.  “You need to drink.  Can you keep it down?”

Could anything be less romantic than discussing your vomit?  “I’m fine,” I repeated.

He got me a big glass of water anyway, and sat on the coffee table across from me.  “I can’t believe you drove all night, by yourself.  That was a dumb move,” he said.

“I made it, didn’t I?”

“You have to take better care of yourself,” he said.  He put his hand on my leg and squeezed gently.  “I almost had a heart attack when I came in and Joey said you had driven up here, sick like this.  No one even knew where you were.  What happened last night?”

I told him about going to Klere’s, about the crowd of dancers, about getting sick.  “But I got Klere to sign the contract.  She’s already posting for us.  So I did it.”

Nate did not look happy or appeased.  “You did it, sure.  But look how you ended up.”

“Have you ever heard of kicking someone when she’s down?”  And I was still pretty down.  I looked at the shirt I was wearing, noticing some disgusting stains.  My hair was full of knots and tangles.  And I was sure my face was…it was probably as bad as it had been the night before in the mirror.

“I’m not trying to kick you when you’re down.  I’m trying to get you to think before you act.  Driving alone through the night with no sleep, while you’re sick?”

Well, when he put it that way.  “Yeah, ok, next time I get food poisoning, I won’t drive six hours on my own.”  Nate stared at me, hard.  “I need to go change,” I said, pulling away from his hand and standing up without swaying like I had earlier.  “I can’t take myself.”  I looked into the master bedroom as I passed it.  “Where are Joey and Pia?” I called back to him.

“They went to the doctor.”

“You didn’t want to go?” I asked.

“I wanted to stay with you.”

All right then.

The second shower did make me feel better, but I refused to look at myself in the mirror when I got out.  I didn’t want to see the same scary apparition that had stared back at me in Los Angeles; I didn’t want to know if the truth of me was coming out on my face.  But I was sure that I needed to do some major repairs before Nate saw me again, which meant that I was going to have to look, and also that I needed the bag I had dragged into the living room when I had arrived after my terrible drive.  “Nate?” I called, cracking open the bedroom door.  “Can you bring my bag here?”  He didn’t answer and I put on underwear and a t-shirt over my wet body and went out to find it for myself.  He was back at the table, looking at the laptop, and now also talking on the phone.

“No, you have to be on top of that.  I don't want to hear it,” he was saying.  I tried to take the bag and quietly pull it toward the bedroom with me, but of course he heard.  His eyebrow went up when he saw me and his mouth dropped open as his gaze moved up and down my body.  “Uh…” he said into the phone, and the doorbell rang.

I dropped the straps and went to peek through the eyehole.  And there was my brother, Brooks, looming and angry, right outside.

Chapter 12

I opened the door, my blood boiling up, ready for battle.  “What?” I greeted my brother.

He glared at me.  “What in the hell are you doing at home?  You don’t work anymore?”

My neighbor across the hall chose this moment to come out with a bag of recycling.  She looked at Brooks’ ass appreciatively and then sneered at me.  We’d had an issue about me giving out the door code a little too easily for her liking and she held a grudge.

I flipped her off.  “Come inside,” I told Brooks, and yanked on his sleeve.  I slammed the door behind him, right in my nosy neighbor’s face.  He followed me as I stalked into the living room and Nate said into his phone that he would have to call back later and stood up from the table.

“What are you doing here?” I asked my brother, wheeling on him so fast that I made myself feel sick.  “How dare you come here after ambushing me over the weekend?”

“Ambushing?  Talking to my sister at a nice restaurant is an ambush?”

“Tricking me into going to lunch with you and your spineless fiancée, yes, that’s an ambush.  Telling me that you weren’t going to grace me with your presence anymore, that I was going to be shunned and excluded from our family, yes, that’s an ambush.”

“Don’t call Lanie names!  And when did I say that you’re excluded from our family?” Brooks seethed, his voice rising to a yell.  “If anyone—”

“Hey.”  Nate’s voice cut through our noise.  “This is her house.”  He didn’t yell back, but he made himself heard, and both Brooks and I shut up momentarily.  Nate turned to me.  “Calm down and hear what he has to say.  And he’ll say it calmly too,” he continued, and shot my brother a look.

Brooks looked like he wanted to murder us both.  He opened his mouth and closed it, breathed hard, then spoke again, his voice back under careful control.  “Scarlett, why haven’t you been answering me?”

My chin went up.  “I don’t have anything to say to you.  I blocked you.”

“What are you doing home right now?”

“Not that it’s your business, at all, but I had food poisoning.”  As I said it, I thought about the last time I had told him I’d had “food poisoning.”

Clearly, Brooks remembered too.  “Oh, really?” he asked, his words smothered in derision.  “Again?  Sure, I’m sure you do.  I remember before when you suffered from a case of ‘food poisoning,’ when you were in the hospital last fall and no one would tell me what the hell was going on.  That was just before you had a breakdown over Christmas dinner, then had to go on the unexpected vacation to Hawaii.  Is that what’s happening here, again?  Are you planning on taking off and running away, going to rehab, going on a bender, doing whatever the hell you were doing without letting anyone know what was wrong with you?”  He swallowed hard.

“Of course not!” I answered, irate.  “I’m sick, you asshole!  I threw up about a thousand times.  Do you want me to do it again now, on you, to prove it?  I’d be happy to!”

“If you’re expecting to pick right back up with your life like the last time you checked out, it won’t work.  Juliette won’t be able to get your job back for you.  You’ve burned the last bridge with her.”  He looked me up and down.  “Are you really here drinking with this guy, holing up in your apartment to have a private wet t-shirt contest?”

Nate was hearing all of this, all of this crap about me.  I looked down and saw the t-shirt I had thrown on after my shower plastered to my chest.  I folded my arms over my breasts and felt my face turn bright red.  “Screw you, you fuckwit!”  I burst out.  “I—”

“That’s it,” Nate cut in again, his voice like steel.  “Scarlett, enough with the name-calling.”  He turned to my brother.  “She’s sick and she’s missing work today.  That’s about all you need to know.  No matter how worried you are about her, you can’t come over here and act like this, bullying her.”

Brooks opened his mouth but Nate just shook his head.  “Nope.  This is done.  The two of you act like you’re about ten years old.  She’ll talk to you when she’s ready, not before.  You can show yourself out.”

I couldn’t believe it.  I had never, ever heard anyone stand up to Brooks like that.  Because 1) he was so big, most people just bowed down to his superior size and 2) usually he was on the right side of things, so it was like arguing with the Pope or Jesus or something.

Brooks kept staring at Nate, and I had never seen my brother physically attack someone, but I had a terrible feeling I might pretty soon.  “You have a lot of fucking nerve,” he told Nate.  “Staying here and living off her.  And what the hell were you doing on my mother’s porch with her?  I walked in on you unzipping her dress.”

Nate just looked right back at him, not intimidated at all.  “You don’t need to worry about me.  I’m not doing anything to hurt Scarlett.”

“I’m supposed to trust you with my little sister?” Brooks said furiously.

“Yes.”  Nate nodded.  “You’re going to have to.  Time to go.  Come back when you can act like a man instead of an angry little boy.”

Which was exactly what my brother had said to me, that I needed to grow up.  I had to admit, it felt pretty good hearing it used against him, instead.

Brooks looked at me, then back to Nate, and threw up his hands.  “Fine.  I called you repeatedly this weekend, I went to your office this morning and the receptionist said you were sick.  I’m not trying to fight with you but every time we’re together now, that’s all we do.  You make it impossible for me, and maybe we had it right at that lunch.  Lanie and I will move to Texas and until then, we should just stay apart.”  He didn’t look angry anymore; he just looked defeated.  “Maybe I’ll see you sometime.”

I nodded and stood looking after him until the apartment door shut behind him, then I sat down suddenly on the couch and put my face in my hands.  What in the hell was I doing?

“Your brother loves you a lot,” Nate commented.  He sat on the coffee table again, so our knees touched.

I peeked through my fingers.  “He just said that he’s moving away.  He doesn’t want to see me anymore, ever.  I don’t think he cares about me at all.”

“Baby, it’s pretty clear, isn’t it?”  Nate’s hand rubbed up and down my thigh.  “He came running over here because he’s worried about you.  Don’t you think he has other things to do on a Monday morning than bang on your door and tangle with me?  And you called him a fuckwit.”

“He is!” I protested.  Nate frowned at me.  “Mostly, he is,” I modified. 

“Why, because he wants to marry the woman he loves, and not have his sister fight with her all the time?”

“Because he chose her over me!  You weren’t there.  You don’t know what happened before.”  The last part ended on a mumble.

“So tell me.  Tell me, Scarlett.”

I had already said enough.  “I’m going to go for a run,” I told him, and started to get up.

“No, you’re not.”  His hand pressed down on my knee.  “Do you hear yourself?  You’re literally trying to run away.  You spent the last twenty hours throwing up your guts and not eating, barely sleeping.  Stay here with me.”

I looked at him for a moment and then I just held out my arms.  He got that grin, the half-way, sideways one, and sat next to me on the couch, nestling me into the circle of his body.

“Did you figure that you could distract me?” he asked, and laughed softly into my wet hair.

I closed my eyes and leaned against his chest.  “I’m not trying to distract you.  I just wanted you to do this.”

“Sure, we can do this, too.”  His hands rubbed the muscles of my back and I sighed.  “I have to say, it didn’t look good when your brother walked in here.  You in the transparent shirt, I mean.”

I sat up a little.  “Could you really see?”

Nate’s eyes went down briefly to my breasts.  “Everything.  It was something.”

I put my head back down, and closed my eyes.  I wasn’t sure how to process that information.  “Brooks thinks…”  I stopped.

“You two will work this out and his opinion of me doesn’t matter.  People have thought a lot worse.  I know the truth, and you do, and that’s enough.”  He pressed my head into the curve of his neck.

“You called me baby,” I told Nate.

“Did I?”  His hands stilled, then returned to rubbing my back.  “I guess I did.”

∞

When I walked into the office on Tuesday morning, late for me, my co-workers burst into applause.

Pascale actually hugged me.  I just stood stiffly, hoping she would let go.  “Scarlett, amazing.  Amazing!” she told me.  “You’ve just gotten more attention for us in twenty-four hours than in the previous five years of our brand’s existence.  Amazing!” she repeated, and hugged me harder.  She was really strong from all that exercise she did.

“Thanks,” I said when she finally released me.  “I’m glad it worked out.”  I was, and it was nice to be appreciated there, but I hadn’t fundamentally changed my opinion that I didn’t like this job.  After accepting some congratulations, I went into my office and went to work, and after a while, everyone returned to their usual state of complaining about everything and forgot about Klere and her posts for us.

I looked around my office and decided that today was part two of getting my life squared away.  That was what Nate called it when I got my shit together about things.  After we had cuddled on the couch for a while the day before, he made me eat some more of the fancy crackers I had bought before Joey had first arrived but neither of them had ever touched, and I did seem to feel even better with some bland food in my stomach.  Nate had gone with me to return the rental car, then we dropped off my actual car at a garage where he had gotten an estimate while I’d been away.  They were going to fix the damage to the body from the minor incidents I’d had, and also turn off all those lit-up symbols on the dashboard that were supposed to be warning me of stuff.  We picked up my dry cleaning and brought it home.  We got the mail again, which Nate seemed to feel was a daily chore, rather than the semi-annual one it was for me.

By that point, I was feeling exhausted, so a run probably would have been a bad idea.  We had gone up to the apartment to hang up all my dry-cleaned clothes and he looked around the crowded guest bedroom where I was supposed to be sleeping.  He had mentioned it looked like a tornado had gone through it, but as someone who had grown up with earthquakes, it more reminded me of how things looked after a pretty big one.  Stuff everywhere, scattered and fallen, a real mess.

“I know, it needs a little work,” I had told Nate, and his eyebrow had arched at the word “little.”  “I’ll clean it tomorrow.”  We had eaten dinner when Joey got home, and then, with him watching us very carefully, had gone together back into that bedroom.

“We’re sleeping, Scarlett,” Nate told me, when I started to get antsy and twitchy.  “That’s all.  Come lay down and go to sleep.”  And again, I had, settled in his strong arms, feeling the beat of his heart against my back.  When I had woken up, he was already in the kitchen talking to Joey and Pia.  And I had slept the whole night.  It felt like a new world when you had actually rested rather than watching dog agility contests, hurling, and kabaddi on TV until the sun came up.

Getting my life squared away at work meant going through all the things I had meant to get to, the projects that were just not as important as the emergencies that Pascale kept piling on top of them.  After lunch, which I ate, I came out and handed Javier an envelope.

“Here.”

He looked up from his short chair in his tiny work space.  As befitting his status as the intern, Pascale had him sitting behind a desk that would have fit Daria’s daughter better than a fully-grown adult.

“What is this?” he asked me, taking it gingerly.

“You asked me to write you a recommendation for the graduate fashion management program at Alta California College.”  I flicked the envelope.  “There it is.”

“Really?”  He looked at it even more warily.  “Um, is it, like, favorable?”

“Did you think I would write you a mean recommendation?”  Clearly, by the look on his face, he thought I might.  “Well, I didn’t,” I told him.  “I think you’ve done a good job here, and that’s what I wrote.  They can call me and I’ll say the same thing.”

Now he looked utterly shocked.  I considered that I hadn’t ever said that to him before—maybe I hadn’t ever said that to anyone before.  Javier got a huge, beaming smile on his face.  “Thank you, Scarlett.  That really means a lot to me, coming from you.”  He held the envelope to his chest.  “Thank you!”

“You’re welcome,” I answered, a little gruffly.  When I went back to my office, I saw him bolt over to his friend the receptionist, waving the envelope around.  I went back to clearing my desk of all the things I had meant to be doing for weeks, months, longer.

Nate had told me that he was coming by to pick me up, since I didn’t have my car, and we could walk home together.  Which had meant me planning ahead and picking an outfit that went with the sneakers I had put at the bottom of my leather work tote, after I dumped out the expensive water bottle I never really drank from, anyway.  I was on the phone when he walked in and I saw him talking to the receptionist.  Then Javier drifted over, then a few more of our staff and even Pascale, until I could only see Nate’s head above the crowd because he was taller than everyone else.

“No, no modeling,” he was saying when I came out.  He was also grinning.  “That thought never crossed my mind.”

“I mean it, you really have quite the look,” Pascale said, and then she gave him quite the look of her own, eying every part of him like he was a slice of bread she was desperate to eat.  It had been at least five years since a carb had crossed her lips.  “Were you in the military?

“I was,” Nate agreed, and there was a general, lovelorn sigh from my co-workers.

“I can give you some names of agents if you’re interested in looking into it,” Pascale told him.  “Maybe underwear or swimsuits.”  She stared directly at his crotch and everyone else did too, including the receptionist who stood up from her chair to get a better view.

Nate looked shocked and I stepped in.  “Let’s go,” I said, and elbowed my way through my co-workers to block their view of his package.  He put his arm around my waist and we walked out, as everyone at the reception desk whispered.  I definitely heard the word “ass” more than once.

“So that’s what it feels like to be ogled,” Nate commented when we got to the street.

“You could model, if you wanted,” I told him.  The people at my office hadn’t seen what was under his clothes; I hadn’t seen everything, but enough to know that what he had was truly spectacular.  “Juliette, Lanie’s mom, was a very successful model before she started her cosmetics company.  I used to do some print stuff when I was in high school and college, just for fun.”

“Why do you do that?” he asked me.

“What, model?  I just said, for fun.  I didn’t plan on making it my career.”

“No, this,” he told me, putting his hands over his cheeks.  “You cover your face when you talk about yourself.”

I’d had no idea I did that but I knew immediately why I did.  “I don’t know why.  Weird habit, I guess.”

“Uh huh.”

I had that feeling again that he knew more about me than I had let on.  We walked for a while as I thought about how to explain it.  “Did you ever read the book The Picture of Dorian Gray?” I asked.

“It’s not ringing any bells.”

“I had to read it in high school.  I mostly read it in high school, parts, and the summaries online,” I corrected myself.  “It’s about a guy who stays perfect looking on the outside but he has this picture in his attic or something that gets uglier and uglier as he does bad stuff.  The painting shows the real guy, his true character.”

“Ok.”  Nate looked down at me.  “And?  Or are we just having a literary discussion?”  He put his arm back around me, and squeezed my waist.

“That’s what I think is happening to Bradley.  Not with a painting in the attic, but with his actual face.  He used to be really good looking—even I, who hated him pretty much instantly, could give him that.  But now he looks so awful.  Like the whole, terrible truth about him is starting to show for everyone to see.”

“I think his face shows that he drinks too much,” Nate said.  “Not some supernatural thing.”

“Maybe,” I said, unconvinced.  “But I think that happens.  Like my old friend Simona, who I visited in Malibu.  She used to be gorgeous in college.  But now she looks like…”  I thought.  “A fossil.  Like her face hardened.  She’s definitely not as pretty as she used to be.”

“Everybody gets older.”

“No, it’s not just that,” I argued.  “It’s showing.  How she’s mean, how she treats other people badly.  But my friend Daria, she just looks better than ever.  She’s really tired, and she definitely needs a haircut and some serious highlights and I could help her with her clothes.  But she looks like she glows from inside.  She looks beautiful.”

“You know what I think?  I think you spend way, way too much time worrying about how things look.  And if you think that you’re ugly inside, and it’s going to show on your face, you’re wrong.  On both counts.”  He stopped in the sidewalk and let go of my waist to cup my face in his hands.

I thought he was going to kiss me, right there next to the playground in Franklin Square.  Instead, he leaned his forehead down to mine and rested it there.

I tried not to yank myself away.  With him so close, looking into my eyes, it felt like he might be able to see everything.  Finally, I couldn’t take it and pulled back.

“Klere put something else up,” I said, as I started walking quickly away, and I launched into a description of what she had done.  I heard Nate sigh as he followed me.

“It sounds like you had a good day,” he said.  “Joey did, too.  Kiana called him and wants to come visit.”

“Really?  That’s great!”  I thought.  “Is this to get back together, or is it something else?”  Maybe she just wanted to get laid.  Or maybe it was just “absence makes the heart grow fonder” and after she spent some time with him, she would remember why they broke up.

“I don’t think he cares why she’s coming,” Nate said.  “He’s just so happy that he’ll be able to see her again.  I thought that getting away from home, being somewhere new, it would help him to get over her.  If anything, he’s crazier about her now than ever.  He keeps saying that the more people he meets, the more he knows that there’s no one like Kiana.”

“She’s lucky that he feels that way.  She’ll be lucky if he can forgive her for leaving him.”

“She put up with a lot of shit from him.  He has some things to make up for, too.  But I hope they can work it out.  Or I hope he can use this as a way to finally move on.  If I have to hear another story about the perfection of Kiana, I’m going to lose it.  I’ll throw up like you did yesterday.”

I held up my hand and shook my head.  “No vomit remarks, please.  It’s too soon.  It may always be too soon.”

Nate laughed and grabbed that hand.  We walked the rest of the way back to my apartment just like that.

Joey was, to say the least, extremely excited by the prospect of his ex-girlfriend’s visit.  He started in on the perfection-of-Kiana stories with me too, and I saw what Nate meant about puking over them.  No woman could have reached that ideal, except maybe Lanie, according to my brother.  “I have an idea,” I announced, during a break in a saga about Kiana’s giving heart and thoughtful treatment of others, as evidenced by when she let someone with only two items hop ahead of her in line at the grocery store.  “Let’s go out to celebrate.”

“Celebrate Kiana coming, and celebrate you getting the job done with that naked girl,” Nate put in.  He had been looking at Klere’s social media and had been unimpressed by the lack of clothing in some of the shots.

“Also, celebrate how well Joey is doing with his new medicine and how cute Pia looks in her new collar,” I added, and her tail thumped.  She looked great and she seemed to know it.

“Does going out mean us wearing the clothes you brought?”  Nate looked pained.  He had thanked me for the new, spiffy stuff, but I knew he was happier in a t-shirt.

“It does,” I told him.  “Put on your dress blues, soldier.”  I paused.  “I’ve been reading up.  Did that sound military?”

Nate pushed my hair out of my face to touch my cheek.  “It’s just like being back in the barracks.  I think I’ll go try that tie.”

I went into the guest bedroom and ran through the list of restaurants on my reservations app with availability for a party of three, plus one dog.  I paused halfway down at one name and my heart beat a little.  We could go there, to La Méprise.  I had always liked it.  I quickly booked a table before I could think too much more about it.

“I made a reservation at a place in the Marina,” I called to Nate and Joey.

“Is that the neighborhood near the Palace of Fine Arts?” Joey asked.  “Pia, come here.  Your collar is crooked.”

“Yes,” I called back.  “Near where I go to the gym.  The restaurant is called La Méprise.”  I swallowed and carefully put on another swipe of mascara.  I had been there many, many times.

Joey whistled when I came out and I whistled back at all three of them, impressed.  “See?  Isn’t it nice to dress up sometimes?” I prompted.  Both guys said yes and thanks again, but I also saw them running their fingers under their collars.  We all looked great, and just in case we saw anyone, we were ready.

“This is really nice,” Joey said when we walked into the restaurant after the ride over.  “We fit right in.  You do know what looks good, Scar.”

I shrugged and glanced around at the diners in the familiar room, but I didn’t see…

“Right this way,” the host announced.  He showed us to our table, Pia walking very sedately behind him and looking very solemn and elegant while I swiveled my head right and left, looking at the faces.  We sat down and I continued to peruse the guests at the tables.

“Scarlett.”

I turned quickly to Nate.  “Yes?”

“What are you looking for?”  He squinted at me.  “You’re staring at everyone in the restaurant.”

“I usually know people here,” I answered honestly.  This was Mats’ favorite restaurant, only a block from his house, and he came here at least once a week.  We had come here together all the time, to the point that I had the menu memorized.  But I didn’t see him or any glimpse of his new fiancée, Missy, whom I knew I would recognize from studying all her social media pictures.

Nate handed me the wine list.  “You know this stuff better than we do.  Pick.”

I did, and then, just after I had ordered a bottle, Mats walked in with a fairly pretty girl, a little on the short side and with very ugly shoes.  Yes!  I bit back down the smile of satisfaction.  Her outfit looked like something that Lanie would have worn, and that said a lot.  I stared down at my menu, pretending to study it while I ran a hand through my dark hair.  Mats had always loved my hair and I knew it looked great, much better than his fiancée with the bad bangs.  I twirled a long lock around my finger, hoping Mats was watching.  I decided to sneak a peek.

Someone was definitely watching me, but it was Nate.  I caught his eyes and then looked away, heat rising up in my cheeks.  I dropped my hands to my lap, my hair falling forward over my face.

“What is this about sweetbreads?” Joey mused. “Why would you have dessert bread for dinner?”

“It’s not really bread, it’s offal,” I told him.

“It’s awful?  Too sugary for you?” he asked.

“Let’s cut the Stooges routine.  It’s not bread at all, it’s organs.  Glands,” Nate told him, and I burst out laughing at Joey’s face.  Since I knew the menu backwards and forwards, I had already picked my salad, dressing on the side.  Seeing Mats had reminded me that I had both eaten lunch and only walked a few miles that day, nothing real in terms of cardio.  I would have to have the naked lettuce, as Joey called it.

“Do you know him?”

My head snapped up from where I had been pretending to study the menu again, but actually trying to look out of the corner of my eye at Mats’ table.  Nate was staring across the restaurant, right to where the host had seated my former fiancée and the frumpy Missy.  I glanced over briefly and Mats was staring back, before he turned pink and looked away.

“Yes, I know him,” I said.  “Joey, what did you decide on?  A gland?”

We had a nice dinner after that, and I managed not to look over at Mats and friend again.  I had a great time, laughing and talking, especially with Nate.  Mats could eat his fucking heart out.  At the end of the meal, when I was holding Pia’s leash as we all walked out, she happened to go over towards their table.  Since I tugged her that way.

“Oh, Mats,” I said, pausing in utter surprise.  I flipped my long hair and saw his fiancée’s eyes on it.  “I didn’t see you there.  You just kind of blend, you know?  And who is this?”  I smiled at her.

“Missy,” Mats told me.

“So nice to meet you, Prissy.”

“Missy,” he corrected nervously.  He stood, clutching his napkin.  What a wienie.

“Oh, my mistake!  You must be the new girl.  Mats and I don’t talk about you very much when we’re together,” I explained.  Her lower lip trembled, visibly.

“Missy…” Mats said, looking down at her, but then he stopped, and looked back at me.  I moved my shoulders back, breasts out.

“Prissy—I mean, Missy, I really enjoy your outfit,” I told her.  “My job is in fashion, so I work with beautiful clothes and people who are very careful about their appearances.”  I stopped and eyed her.  “It’s really refreshing to see someone who just doesn’t care what she looks like.  You’re kind of like a break for my eyes, after spending my day with so many gorgeous women, wearing such interesting, flattering things.”  I smiled, hugely.  “Anyway, great to see you again, Mats.  And to meet your beauti—anyway, your date.  I have to run.”  I turned, triumphant, looking for Nate so I could point him out, and Joey too.  Unfortunately, they had already left, but Mats had seen me eating with them.  So I just waved, still smiling, and walked out, making sure to swing my hips a little so Mats could get a good view of my butt as well.  I led Pia out to the front where I hoped that at least Nate and Joey had remembered to wait for me.  They both needed some manners lessons, still.

“Are you guys ready?” I asked brightly, when I joined them on the curb.  Joey held out his hand and I passed him Pia’s leash.

“We’ll see you later,” he told me, and the two of them walked off toward a waiting car.

“What—where are they going?” I asked, confused.

“Back to your house.  Who was that guy?” Nate asked me.

“Um, no one.  I mean, he was someone I knew.”  Why was I lying?  My heart was pounding like I had done something wrong and gotten caught, like when my friend had shoplifted in high school and the security guard stepped in front of us at the door of the big makeup store.  I wasn’t in high school anymore, and I hadn’t done anything wrong.  “Whatever, Nate.  Stop glowering at me.  That was my former fiancé.  Having dinner with the next woman he’s planning to marry.  We’ll see, though.”

Nate’s face was as cold as ice.  “That’s why you were acting that way?  Flirting with me at the table, touching me, flipping your hair.  Walking around with your chest stuck out, shaking your ass.  What in the actual fuck, Scarlett?”

Oh my God.  He was so jealous!  I smiled again.  “Nate, really?  I broke up with him, remember?”  I stood on my tiptoes and put my hands on his shoulders.  “I don’t care about him at all.  I don’t think I ever really did.”  I pressed my lips to his.

It only took me a moment before I realized that Nate wasn’t kissing me back.  He put his hands on my shoulders, put me down on my flat feet, and looked me in the eyes.  I had been wrong about him being jealous.  This was now the second time that I had kissed him, and he had rejected me again.  Obviously, it was a no. 

I was a no.  Still.

Chapter 13

Joey was going to drive me crazy.  “Will you please sit down?” I snapped at him.  “You look fine.  Everything is fine!”

I had been a little on edge for the past few days, since we had gone out to dinner at La Méprise and run into Mats.  And everything was really, really not fine.

“I just want to impress her,” Joey said, studying himself in the mirror and trying to smash down a piece of hair that didn’t want to comply.  “I’ve been working out, eating right.  You picked my outfit.  It’s good, right?”

Kiana was coming today.  Joey was going to meet her at the airport and then they were going to stay at a hotel for a few nights.  Which meant that I would be alone, again, in my apartment.  I was happy about that, because it would be good to have my own space again.

Right.  Super happy.

“Joey, what if when you see her today, Kiana is wearing a garbage bag?  Or she gained ten pounds?”

He turned away from his reflection, puzzled.  “I don’t care what she wears or how much she weighs.”

“Exactly.”  I stared at him.

“Ok, I get it.  But I’m trying to win her back,” he explained, and I rolled my eyes.  From his side of the phone conversations that I had overheard, she was as good as won.

“She’ll leave Tuesday, and then I’ll come back to stay here.  If that’s ok,” he said, looking at me cautiously.

“Whatever, it’s fine,” I answered, getting up from the table.  This was where Nate had sat to do his work.  “I’m going for a run.”

“Didn’t you just get back from swimming?”

I passed my hand over my wet hair.  “I need to do more.”  Swimming wasn’t enough, and running probably wouldn’t be, either.  But I had to do something, because I couldn’t stay in this apartment that was so empty and awful.

Nate was gone, back to Hawaii.  It had felt like Joey punched me in the stomach when he casually mentioned it.  Nate hadn’t slept at my apartment after the dinner at La Méprise, but I’d had too much pride to ask where he was that night.  Then when I got home from work the next day, all his stuff had been gone.  Yesterday, after practically the whole week had passed by with us avoiding the topic of Nate and with me dying to know where he was, Joey had volunteered that Nate had flown to Kona that morning to check in on his business.  He then added that Nate planned to return when Kiana left so he could get back to his new bodyguard job here in San Francisco.  I had shrugged like I wasn’t really paying attention, I didn’t really care, when actually the words that he was gone were a gut punch, and that he was coming back made me almost dizzy with relief.  But I just shrugged, like he hadn’t been in my thoughts at all. 

Actually, I had replayed the scene outside of La Méprise again and again in my mind.  After Nate had rejected my kiss, we looked at each other for a moment.  I had stared into his dark eyes and felt dueling flames of shame and anger burn through me.  “I get it,” I had told him.  “I get it.”

“You don’t get shit, Scarlett,” he answered.  His eyes were like ice.  “I don’t know why I’ve been wasting my time.”

I couldn’t stand it, the way he was looking at me, the way his voice had sounded when he said my name.  Like it was a bad word.  I’d had to leave before I started to cry.  “Fuck off, Nate!  Get the fuck out of my house, you freeloading asshole.  My brother was right about you.”  Then I had turned and walked—ran—in the other direction in the shoes I could barely stand in.  And when I finally took a car home, Nate had been gone, and Joey hadn’t met my eyes. 

I hadn’t seen Nate at all that week, and I’d hardly seen Joey and Pia, either, since the three of them spent so much time together.  I was back to working all the time, cocooning on the couch at night where Nate had slept, watching handball, badminton, and strong man competitions instead of closing my eyes.

“I’m going to go to the airport to get her,” Joey said, pulling me out of the memory.  “I’ll see you on Tuesday.  If you’re sure it’s ok for me to come back to stay here.”

“Of course it’s ok!” I snapped.  “It’s not your fault that your friend is such an asshole.”

“Nate’s not an asshole,” Joey said.  “Don’t say that.  Don’t even think it.”

I was totally taken aback by the anger in his voice.  “You don’t know—” I started to defend myself.

“I saw how you were acting at the restaurant the other night, all weird and flirty.  You picked that place so we would run into your ex and you could use Nate to show off that you had somebody new.  I saw you make the woman at the other table so upset.  That was your ex’s new fiancée, right?”  Joey shook his head.  “It was embarrassing, how you acted.  It wasn’t right to treat Nate that way, either.  All he’s been doing is trying to help you.”

“I don’t need his help, and I don’t need advice on how to act from a guy—”

“Go ahead,” Joey told me.  “Say it.  A guy who can’t take care of himself?”

“A guy who lost the love of his life because he treated her like shit!” I said instead.

“Yeah, I did,” Joey said quietly.  “And now I see what mistakes I made, and I’m trying to fix them.  I’m trying to fix myself to be the person that Kiana needs.  I hope I can make this up to her and it’s not too late.  I hope she can see how sorry I am.”

“Why don’t you buy her a fucking cake,” I suggested.  “You can write ‘I suck, Kiana’ on it and you guys can eat it at your pity party.”  I grabbed my keys and my shoes and slammed the front door behind myself.  My neighbor came out and told me to stop making so much noise and I almost threw my shoes at her.  Instead, I pulled them on and gave her the finger, then made myself run down the stairs, scared the whole time, instead of waiting for the elevator.  I just kept going out onto the sidewalk, and I ran so far that I got a little lost in the city I thought I knew so well.  It turned out that I didn’t know anything.

When I got back, the apartment had never seemed so quiet and empty, even filled with the new furniture and all the stuff.  I looked around the kitchen at the towel that Nate folded into thirds and hung carefully after he used it, at the new spices lined up in straight rows in the cupboard, at the containers of leftovers stacked in the fridge, labeled and dated.  He was really a control freak about keeping things orderly.  I picked up some cold spaghetti from the week before and realized I was hugging it as I thought of him.

Jesus Christ.  I went into the guest bedroom, where all my stuff was still all over the floor, piled and messy.  I had a little time before I had to go, so I started to get that catastrophe squared away, too.

The room looked better by the time I got into my newly repaired car, with all the dents flattened out and the dashboard lights extinguished.  I drove north, across the Golden Gate Bridge that Joey had been so crazy about and where Nate had warned me to watch the road.  I did watch what I was doing, and I didn’t look at my phone while I drove, because it practically put him over the brink when I did that.  “It’s against the law,” he had said about a million times.  I realized my hands were shaking as I went into the Robin Williams Tunnel above Sausalito and came out again into the sunlight.

It was my mom’s birthday, and she had emailed, not called, to invite me to come to a party at her house.  “Zara is dealing with her husband herself.  I don’t want you to get into any kind of scene with him,” she wrote.  I nodded to myself.  I would just stay far away and keep with groups so he couldn’t corner me.  Plus, I had my brass knuckles in my purse.  “Your brother and Lanie are fine with you coming if you can behave yourself and keep your distance,” my mom had continued.  “I do want you there, honey, but I don’t want problems.  I just want to enjoy the day.”  That was what I had become, the person who had to be handled ahead of time so she wouldn’t ruin a party.  Even so, I got furious when I thought about it, to the point that it almost blurred my vision.  Why did I have to change my behavior to hide from Bradley, why wasn’t he getting emails warning him to stay away from me?  Why were Lanie and all her teary feelings more important than me and mine, why wasn’t my mom warning Brooks to behave himself and not start arguments with me? 

I rubbed my burning eyes.  Because I was the problem, not them.  That was why.

The phone rang and I immediately hit the button on my steering wheel to answer, without thinking.  And my heart sped up, hoping about who it might be.  “Hello?”

“Scarlett?  It’s Mats.”

“What?  Who?”  I was so taken aback that I couldn’t really process it.

“Mats.  Your fiancé,” he answered, confused.

My brain clicked into gear.  “You’re my former fiancé.  Why are you calling me?”

“Well, it was really good to see you the other night,” he said finally.  “I’ve been thinking a lot about you since then.”

I was sure he had, after the way he had been looking at me at the restaurant.  Like I had been cold water in the desert.  “Really?” I asked.  “How sweet.”

“I mean, I guess, we broke up and all…” 

I waited for a moment, but that seemed to be it.  “Did you call me for a specific reason?” I prompted.

“Uh, yeah.  Um, remember Roberta Frisell?” he asked.

I thought.  Vaguely, I remembered a short girl with unfortunately thick ankles who had been really nice.  I wished, suddenly, that I hadn’t thought of her ankles before I thought of how nice she had been.  “Yes, sure.  What about her?”

“She’s having a brunch at her house tomorrow.  She asked me about you the last time I saw her.  Maybe, I don’t know, if you don’t have, I mean, if you…”

“Are you asking me to go out with you, Mats?”  I jerked the wheel a little and straightened out before I got close to another car.  “What about Missy?”

“We’re taking a break,” he said, but it sounded a little tremulous.  “We’re taking a break,” he repeated, sounding surer of himself.

I thought for a moment.  “Send me Roberta’s address and I’ll meet you there,” I told him, not really sure of what I was doing, except that it felt nice that Mats wanted me back.  And maybe I hadn’t ever loved him, not the way I was supposed to for a marriage, and maybe he was a wienie, but he had never treated me badly and I had liked him, mostly.  Wasn’t that enough?  Anyway, maybe that was what I was going to get.

“Great, great.  I‘m glad you can come.  I missed—”

“Mats, I’m going into the tunnel in Sausalito and I’m going to lose you,” I lied.  “I’ll see you tomorrow.”  I hung up, and my hands shook more.  What was I doing?  I turned up music, loudly, like I did to the TV.  I wanted to drown out my mind.

There were plenty of cars at my mom’s house because she had a ton of friends.  I parked off the lawn, just in case anyone wanted to check on my car later.  “You can’t be next to the fire hydrant,” one of her nosy neighbors told me, coming out of his house to wave me away.  So I moved it again.

I remembered coming to my mom’s house for parties, before everything changed.  I had loved to make an entrance, me in my gorgeous clothes and my perfect hair, my cute fiancé at my side.  Mats had been pretty good at these things when I succeeded at pulling him off his phone.  Now I entered quietly, coming around through the side at the kitchen door and startling the caterers.  But I did make a beeline to my mom when I stepped quietly into the living room with the other guests.

“Happy birthday, Mom.”  I handed her my gift.  She was always easy to shop for, because she loved whatever we gave her.

She stepped away from the crowd of her friends and hugged me, and I forced myself to relax.

“Scarlett, I’m so glad you came,” she told me.

“I won’t cause any problems.  I promise,” I said.  “I’m going to stay away from everyone.”

“Oh, honey.”  She looked incredibly sad, and I felt incredibly guilty for making her feel that way on her birthday.

“I’m going to go get a drink.  Of water,” I clarified, and stepped quickly away.  I surveilled the room and located Bradley, near the bar, of course.  He was wearing a hideously bright, tangerine-colored blazer, so he would be easy to spot.  It was like a warning beacon.  I saw Brooks and Lanie, who were always easy to see because of their height.  Brooks was looking over at me, but he turned his head when we locked eyes.  Ok, simple enough.  I would be able to avoid everyone pretty easily.

I talked for a while with my mom’s friends, but then I gravitated to my old bedroom to get away from their questions about my love life, my career, my friends.  My mom had moved to this house right after I had gone away to college so I had never spent a ton of time in the room and it didn’t feel totally my own.  But all my old things were still there, in case I wanted to come back to stay, I guessed.  Or until I got my act together and cleaned it out, like my brother and sister had done with their rooms.

I heard voices coming from behind the door.  “No, Zayne, you’re this guy.  Make him walk like this.”  It was my niece, Isla.

“What are you guys up to?” I asked as I came in, and they looked guilty.

“We’re just playing with these old toys,” Isla said defiantly.  “We aren’t hurting anything.”  She put her hand on her little brother’s shoulder protectively.

Even my niece didn’t like me.  “That’s fine,” I told them.  “You can play with anything in here.  This was my old dollhouse.”  It was huge, a gift from my dad when I was little.  Since I didn’t have a younger sibling to boss around like Isla did, my dad had played with me for hours, moving furniture and dolls through the little rooms.  “This is the Parsnip family,” I told them, kneeling and picking up the dad doll.  “Meet Bernard Parsnip, his wife Lucinda, and their kids, Travalia, Duke, and Indigo.”

“That’s fancy,” Isla said, and I nodded.

“It took me a long time to come up with their names,” I explained.  I patted down Lucinda’s hair and made her wave.  “She was a doctor and Bernard used to sell junk bonds.”

“What is that?” my nephew Zayne asked, daring to speak to his nasty aunt.

“I’m not sure,” I admitted.  “I heard it once in an old movie, and when I said it to my dad, he laughed.  So I kept it.  My dad was your grandpa.”

“The one who died,” Isla explained to her brother.

“Yes.”  I cleared my throat.  “Lucinda, are you home from work yet?” I asked in my old Bernard Parsnip voice.  “I’m going to make vegetables for dinner.  I think the kids love them.”

Isla giggled.  She picked up Indigo Parsnip.  “Daddy, we hate vegetables!” she answered.  She handed her brother the Duke doll, but first he did the voice wrong, then he said the wrong thing, too, so she had to do some coaching.

We played for quite a while, moving the furniture to the upper levels because of the impending tsunami, planting a roof garden of pizza and candy that we grew out of paper, preparing for the zombie attack (that was my nephew’s idea, and Isla graciously let him have just the one).

“Better make some more arrows, son,” Mr. Parsnip-through-me directed Zayne-as-Duke.  “I’m a deadeye with my trusty bow.”

“Hi, Uncle Brooks,” Zayne answered.

I looked up quickly.  Brooks was leaning against the door frame, smiling slightly.  “Hi, Zayne.  Are you guys having fun?”  My nephew nodded enthusiastically.  “You always tried to make me play dolls, too,” Brooks said to me.  “I was a lot older than you,” he added quickly when Zayne looked askance at the Duke and Travalia dolls in his hands.

“You weren’t so much a dollhouse guy,” I agreed.  “It was more Dad’s thing.  My thing with him.”

Brooks nodded, still looking at the wooden house.  “Your mom is looking for you,” he told the kids.  “She wants you to have lunch before the birthday cake.”

“Cake!”  It was a magic word.  Both of them took off like shots. 

I stood too and brushed off my hands, then futilely at the wrinkles in my clothes.  “After you,” I told my brother, but he didn’t move.

“Scarlett, I’m sorry.”

I stopped dead.  “What?”

“I’m sorry I came to your house, barged in yelling like that.  I’m sorry I made it sound like there was something untoward going on between you and your boyfriend.”  Brooks sighed.  “I’m just sorry.”

“He’s not my boyfriend.  He doesn’t even like me.  Nothing ever happened, not like what you were thinking.”  I twisted my fingers together.

“In any case, it isn’t my concern what you do with men.”  He looked a little nauseated.

It reminded me.  “Nate said you wouldn’t have come over like that unless you still loved me.”

Brooks now looked shocked.  “Of course I love you!”

Thank God.  Oh, thank God.  I took a deep breath to try to steady myself as the flood of relief swamped me for a moment.  “I’m sorry, too.  About a lot of things.”  I stared hard at my fingers, now in a big knot.

“I talked to Bradley.”

“I heard from Mom.  You believed me about him?”

“I had seen him looking at you, the…”  He trailed off after glancing down the hall where our niece and nephew had trotted off.  “He as much as admitted it to me.  He seemed to think it was a good excuse that you were ‘hot,’ and asked me not to tell Zara.  I guess he forgot that we were discussing my sisters.”  Brooks looked furious.  “He said that you led him on.”

“I absolutely, one hundred percent did not,” I said evenly.  “I find him repulsive and I would rather chew on broken glass than have anything to do with him.”  I remembered the glass I had put in Bradley’s tire, and felt a small measure of satisfaction.

“I believe you.  Zara is insisting that you were just confused.  She said it happened because Bradley is French.  His great, great-grandfather, I think.”

And suddenly, I had to laugh.  “That’s what she said to me, too.  As if we can punt this to another country.”

Brooks laughed too, and it looked like it surprised him.  “She and Mom never want to admit the truth about people.”

“Not about the people they love.”  I shrugged.  “Another sibling down for me.”

He wasn’t laughing anymore.  “Scar, I just want to know that you’re all right.”

“I’m fine,” I said.  “I’m going to stay away from you and Lanie so we don’t fight, ok?  I can be around and not cause problems for everyone.”

Brooks took a step toward me.   “Are you sure that’s how it has to be?”

“Yes.”  Because I couldn’t seem to control myself with people I loved.  The familiar shame coursed through me, coming up into my throat and constricting it like a vice.  All I did was treat them terribly: my mom who was afraid to invite me to her birthday party, my sister whose marriage I had almost ruined, my brother having to protect the woman he loved more than anyone from his vicious, empty sister.

And Nate.  I had tried to kiss him, again, forcing myself on him when he clearly didn’t want me.  Suddenly I didn’t feel triumphant that I had made Mats’ fiancée upset, that I had made Mats come back to me.  I just felt embarrassed.

“Scarlett?”   Brooks was waiting.  “Let’s go downstairs.”

He followed me down the steps into the living room.  The lunch tables were set up outside on the stone patio surrounding the pool, and Juliette March called to me as I walked by one.  She patted the seat next to her, and then she called to her daughter.  Lanie walked up too, very slowly.  I wondered if Juliette even noticed how reluctant her daughter was to sit with her and be near her, or maybe it was just because I was at the table.  Lanie sat down across from us, looking like there was really no place she’d rather be less.  But this wasn’t my fault, no one could pin it on me.  I had been there first, I could point out, in case anyone got mad at me later.

Juliette started right in after the salads were served.  “Scarlett, I heard that you scored a major coup with an influencer.”

I laughed shortly, again.  It just sounded so stupid.  “Yes, I guess it was a coup, if a coup means I got a woman to post pictures and captions that people looked at for a few seconds then forgot.  It wasn’t a very big deal.”

“Your boss seems to think that it was,” Juliette told me.  “We have the same trainer and she tells him everything,” she explained.  “Pascale is thrilled with how you’ve been doing.  She thinks you’ll really go far.  Because you picked a career that can take you places.”  She looked sadly at her daughter, and I knew that Juliette had never been pleased with Lanie’s choice of profession, teaching kindergarten.  We ate our salads, without dressing for everyone but Lanie.  I didn’t have a lot to say about Klere and her posts, or about my job, which I seemed to like less and less on a daily basis. 

Juliette put her fork down, signaling that she was finished after two pieces of lettuce and a tomato.  “I love how you’ve adopted this pendant as your signature piece,” she said, indicating the onyx necklace of my mom’s that I now wore all the time.  My hand fisted it involuntarily as I thought of dark eyes with lines of grey in them.  “You always have such a high taste level, Scarlett.  You can make a white t-shirt look interesting.”  Again, she glanced over at her daughter, who was wearing a white t-shirt that did not look interesting.  In fact, it looked like it might have been one of my brother’s undershirts.  I peered around for him now, but he was nowhere to be seen.  Lanie looked like she was grinding her teeth together and the other people at the table squirmed a little.

“I don’t think wearing pretty clothes is such a great skill,” I announced.  “I don’t think getting a woman to take a topless picture of herself wearing a skirt from our summer line is really a coup, either.  It’s all useless and pointless.”

Juliette seemed shocked.  “That’s an unusual thing to say about your job, Scarlett!  And I hardly think that fashion is pointless.”

Lanie shook her head.  “Always being concerned about how things look, that’s what’s pointless,” she muttered.

“What?” Juliette asked, tilting her head.  “Honey, as much as you like to think it’s not true, people do judge by first impressions.  How things look does matter,” she argued.

“Juliette, why don’t you give your daughter a little break?”  The words shot out of my mouth and everyone at the table turned to look at me.  “After all these years of you carping at her, she still doesn’t dress well or have nice hair,” I continued.

Lanie’s eyes blazed up.  “Thank you, Scarlett!”

I threw up my hands.  “I’m trying to say that you don’t give a flying…you don’t care, because other things are more important.  My brother, for example, who thinks you’re the greatest thing since sliced bread.  All the kids you teach to be good little people, my mom who can’t for a moment shut up about how wonderful you are.  I’d say that’s more important than that weird shirt you’re wearing.”

“Oh.”  Lanie paused.  “Then thank you, sincerely.”

“I don’t know if you can see how much your mom loves you,” I told her.  “She is actually trying to help you, and she always has been.  She can’t understand that just because you choose something different from what she would have, it doesn’t mean it’s bad.  But Juliette, you have to give it a rest.  Lanie’s going to move to Texas and never speak to you again, and no one would blame her.”

The table was dead quiet.  Juliette had turned bright red with anger and Lanie was teary.  I had done it again, making a scene at my mom’s house.  I pressed my lips together, afraid that I would start to say more and make things worse.  Entrees were served and still no one said anything, and not even the clink of forks interrupted the terrible silence at our table.

Juliette stepped into the void.  “I have been trying, Lanie.  I’ve been watching what I say.  But…”

The heads of the other guests swiveled the other way to wait for Lanie’s response.

“I know, Mom,” she said softly.  “I appreciate that you try.  I wish that you would appreciate that I’m not Scarlett.  It’s very hard for me when you compare us.  It would have been better if she was your daughter.”

I snorted with laughter, loudly.  I couldn’t help it—as if I would be better for anyone.  The heads all turned to me.  “Sorry,” I gasped, but I laughed harder.  Oh, God, this was so inappropriate—I knew it, but I couldn’t stop laughing.  To the point that Lanie started to look concerned.

“Scarlet…”  Her eyes went past me, over my shoulder and the other tables to the pool.  “Oh, no.”

I turned too, and what I saw made my laughter stop.  “Oh, no,” I echoed.  Because my brother had Bradley by the lapels of his tangerine-colored blazer and was holding him over the edge of the water.

“You son of a bitch,” I heard Brooks say, and everyone else at the party heard it too, because it was loud, and almost all the background talking and noise had died down while we watched him dangle my brother-in-law.  “You’re cheating on Zara with her?”

“What?” my sister screeched.  She stood, and her chair tipped, the metal clanging loudly on the stone patio.  “With who?”  Then she turned and looked right at me, her finger slowly rising to point.  Even from the distance, I could see her eyes fill with tears.

I shook my head.  “No!” I tried to tell her, but it came out like a hoarse croak. 

It was at this moment that my mom came out of the house, holding her grandkids by the hand and all three of them smiling.  “Who is ready for cake?” she called to the crowd, then stopped dead when she caught sight of the scene at the pool.  “Brooks?  What are you doing?” she yelled, and at the same time, my niece said, “Daddy?”

Brooks startled and let go of his hold on the fabric, and Bradley windmilled his arms and hit the water with a yell, the splash covering my brother with a wave of droplets.  Bradley popped to the surface, sputtering and still yelling, his blazer darkening to safety orange as he flailed around in the water.  Zara marched over, took her kids’ hands away from my mom, and left.  Lanie jumped up and ran to Brooks and dragged him after Zara, my mom followed them into the house.  The rest of the guests and I just stared at Bradley, bobbing around like a lifeguard’s orange rescue can.  He made it back to the edge and dragged himself up onto the patio, gasping like a dying fish on the stones, his formerly crisp outfit plastered to his body and his formerly styled hair plastered to his face.

“Well,” I said to my table.  “That certainly was exciting.”  They were all gaping, open-mouthed.  Including Juliette, who usually liked to congratulate herself on her sangfroid.  I did my best fake smile, like I hadn’t cared that my sister had just publicly accused me of fucking her husband.  “Unfortunately, I need to be on my way.”  I patted the air around my lipstick with my napkin as if I had actually consumed any food, still smiling at everyone.  “So nice to see you all.” 

I walked carefully between the tables, the smile pinned on my face, my chin in the air, and stepped around my soggy brother-in-law.  I went back out through the kitchen and got myself home to San Francisco, where I could hide beneath the blanket that now had a lot of dog hair on it and watch replays of curling.

∞

It was just so quiet in my house.  I got dressed in the guest bedroom, stepping over the neat rows of shoes and boots, glancing through all the clean clothes which hung on the racks along the walls.  It no longer looked like a post-earthquake scene in there but it still didn’t feel any more comfortable to me.  I started humming, tunelessly and off-key, to fill the silence of no dog, no Joey.  No Nate.

I couldn’t seem to find an outfit, either.  Usually dressing wasn’t a problem for me.  I generally started the selection process by thinking about the occasion.  Well, ok, then: today was a brunch with my former fiancé, maybe my new boyfriend, surrounded by people who used to be my friends but whom I had dropped out of my life like burning coals.  What was the appropriate look for that?

I couldn’t begin to envision it, so I moved on.  My next step would usually be to consider which of my assets I wanted to highlight at that occasion: breasts?  Butt?  Face?  Legs?  Hair?  And then I would pick a dress, or sweater, skirt, or whatever, that called attention to that particular feature of mine through color, cut, or fabric.

At this particular moment, I didn’t want to emphasize anything.  I wanted to call ahead and find out what color the walls were painted so that I could dress to camouflage against them in order to to hide from Mats and my former friends and acquaintances.  All in all, I just didn’t want to go.  But I asked myself what else I had going on that Sunday.  I had already gone to spin class and for a run, too.  And stretched, and done sit-ups.  I had also talked to my mom the night before about the scene at her birthday party.

She had been mostly silent when I asked about Zara.  “I can’t believe your brother did that,” she had finally said.  “Zara is distraught.”

“I don’t think that’s Brooks’ fault,” I defended my brother.  “It goes right back on Bradley, Mom.  What happened with him, um, falling into the pool, that was because he’s an asshole.”

“That was what Lanie said too,” my mom had told me, and for once, Lanie and I were of one mind.  “We told the kids that their father and Uncle Brooks were playing and they seemed fine with it.  You know how Zayne always likes to get in the pool, whether he’s fully dressed or not, so it made sense to them.”  My mom had paused.  “Scarlett, it wasn’t…what Brooks said, about Bradley being unfaithful.  Zara seemed to think…”

“No.  Absolutely not.  I would never, ever, do that to Zara.  And I wouldn’t touch him if he was the last man on Earth.  Brooks believes that Bradley was harassing me.  Do you?”

My mom didn’t answer for a moment.  “I just can’t imagine that Bradley would act like that, when he always was such a good husband and father,” she finally had sighed.  She meant, he was always a good husband and father besides the alcoholism and sexual harassment issues, and now, according to Brooks, the cheating.  And she couldn’t even think of an excuse for it this time.  We had ended the call after I had lamely told her happy birthday, and after she told me that maybe we could celebrate it another time.  Like next year.

I looked at my phone now, to check the time, and saw that I was already running behind.  Breasts, I decided.  That would be the feature I would emphasize with my clothes.  No, legs.  If everyone was looking down at my legs, hopefully they would be distracted from looking at my face.  Despite what Nate had said to me before, about all the bad inside not showing there, I thought he was probably wrong.  He had admitted he had been wrong about me.  He had thought that I was worth something maybe, like his time and effort, and how off had that been? 

To show him that I could improve, I drove slowly and carefully, even though I was late, and I didn’t look at my phone once, even when it was buzzing with new information.  See, Nate?  I thought as I circled and finally found a perfectly legal parking spot that my car mostly fit into.  I can do this.  I can be a good driver, I can follow the rules.

It was only after I parked that I checked what I had been notified about.  First, Pascale had called three times, and sent several messages telling me to get in touch, asking if I had I seen it, the news about Klere.  I shook my head at the phone; I had no idea what Pascale was talking about.  I opened Klere’s pages and there was a picture of her in front of the med room cabinet, the one with all the drugs.  The cabinet doors were open and everything inside was in perfect focus in the shot.  I gulped.  She was pointing to it all with a serious expression, and the caption read, “See all this homies but now no going to reehab with my other boyfreind #sober #bestfreindsgetclean #cupelgoals”.

I looked at it, a little stunned.  I thought that it was possible that Klere meant she was going to rehab with the other guy she had mentioned, the one she had set up in an apartment in Canada, to our west.  But the second possibility was that she was going with the boyfriend who had introduced himself to me as her “other:” Jerry, the dirty guy from Los Angeles.  Maybe they were going to “reehab” to clean up together, #bestfreinds #cupelgoals.  I hoped that was true, and I hoped for the best for her.  Pascale’s later messages were all about how Klere hadn’t finished the cycle of posts for us, and how we were going to enforce the contract we had with her, about getting lawyers involved, and how bad would it make us look to go after a woman in rehab?  I ignored all this and focused on the positive: Klere was making a good change.

And if Klere could do it, well, maybe I could, too.  I wrote to Pascale that I would look into it tomorrow at work, and that I was not going to be available for the rest of the weekend.  Then I straightened the short skirt that showed my legs and went go to meet my former fiancé, who would maybe be my future boyfriend, and also see a lot of the people I used to know.  Maybe I could return to being the woman I had been before it happened.  I was going to try, and this was as good a place as any to start.

Chapter 14

“No.  No!”  The three women advanced on me so quickly as I stood in the doorway that all I could do was freeze in place.  “Scarlett?  Scarlett Wolfe?”

I nodded slightly at them.  “It’s me.”  I swiveled back to our brunch host and tried to look happy to be at her apartment, even though I already felt like I was wilting inside.  Never mind going back to the woman I had been—I just wanted to run and hide.  I managed to finally force a smile.  “Thanks for inviting me, Roberta,” I said to her.  She said some nice things before turning to greet another incoming guest, and I made myself turn back to face the music.

“Oh my God, it is you!” the women squealed in unison.

“We haven’t seen you in forever.  Have you been in hiding?”

“Maybe it was hard, Mats calling off the wedding,” one cooed with false sympathy.

“No, that was my—” I started to say, before I was interrupted with more conjecture.

“I thought you were dead or had disfiguring plastic surgery.”

I resisted the urge to put my hands over my face, the way Nate had called me out for doing.  I put my chin high in the air and purposefully pushed past, looking around for Mats among the other guests.  “I was the one who called off the wedding,” I corrected them over my shoulder, and then couldn’t help adding, “and Mats and I are here together today.  I haven’t been around because I’ve been busy working and traveling.  Nothing disfiguring.”

“No, you look great,” one of the bunch admitted,  sounding more than a little disappointed.  “Come talk to us,” she urged, and I ended up standing in a large group near the drinks table.  I looked a little longingly at it, but I wasn’t going for liquid courage, because I told myself that 1) I didn’t need it and 2) I was making positive changes, like Klere.  No drinking.  These were women I had gone out with, gone to exercise with, invited to my engagement party.  I could deal. 

“Scarlett, we all thought you fell off the face of the Earth!  Explain what urgent business called you away from us last fall.”

I stared around at them, most of them people I had known for years.  My mouth opened and closed.   Looking at their faces, I thought that maybe not all, but some of them…they knew.  And I had been wrong, because I couldn’t deal.

“Oh, there’s Mats, finally,” I announced.  I stepped away, and as I did, I heard someone whisper that I had said that I’d come with him, and then I heard the name that had been on my mind, too: Missy.  I tilted my chin higher and walked up to my former fiancé.

“Hi, honey,” he said, and kissed my cheek.

Honey?  He hadn’t even called me that when we were together.  I looked up at him questioningly, and he blushed.

“That’s what I call…called, uh, you know,” he tried to explain.  “Drink?”

“No.  No, thank you,” I corrected myself, and now it was his turn to look surprised.  Yeah, ok, I got it.  Say thank you more, noted.

Mats sipped the liquid in his glass.  Like most everyone else at the party, he was avoiding the buffet table laden with delicious-looking food.  Carbs, sugars, fats, meat, lactose, and whatever else, everyone at the party was avoiding something.  In my case, I was sidestepping alcohol and also explanations about why I had been MIA; for Mats, it was synthetic food dyes and the fact that as far as I knew, he was supposed to be marrying another woman.  “What happened with you and Missy?” I asked him as he finished a swallow of the drink.

“Uh, Missy?”

“The woman you were engaged to the last time I saw you,” I helpfully explained.

“Oh, right.  I told you, we’re taking a break.”

“Why?”

He started to hem and haw and I told him to get on with it.  It took a little while, but he finally did.  “Well, ok, it was when I saw you at La Méprise that night.  It made me think that I’d made a mistake, breaking up with you.”

“I broke up with you,” I reminded him, and he shrugged a little.  Clearly, not in his own mind.  “What specifically made you think that we’d made a mistake when we called it quits?”  I graciously gave him the “we.”

“You looked…”  His eyes widened and he looked at my chest, then my accentuated legs.  “You looked so beautiful.”

“And Missy isn’t.”

“In her own way,” he answered.  “But the comparison…”

“Oh, Mats.  You’re such an asshole.”

His eyes now almost popped out of his head.  “What?”

“Do you actually remember us together?  We fought constantly.”

“You fought with me,” Mats said.  “Not the other way around.”

“Is that really what you want for a wife?  A woman who’s bawling you out all the time?  That Missy may have a truly atrocious haircut, but she clearly loved you.  What in the hell are you doing here with me?  Seriously, don’t be such an asshole.”

He just stared at me.  “Why did you come today?” he asked finally.

I thought for a moment.  “I was lonely.  I thought maybe I could go back and settle for what I had before, but I don’t want to settle.  I did like you, but I’d rather be lonely than be with you again.”

Mats blinked.

“No offense, of course.  You knew this wouldn’t have worked the first time around.  You were relieved when I told you we shouldn’t get married.  And you got engaged so fast, you couldn’t have had a broken heart.”

“No, I never really loved you either,” he said, getting his own jab back into me.

“Then it shouldn’t bother you that I’m leaving you now.  Go back and beg Missy for forgiveness, and if you’re very, very lucky, she’ll listen.  Oh, one more thing.”  I typed quickly and sent him a contact from my phone.  “If you do get back together, you could try to work the name I just sent you into conversation.  It’s a stylist, Emilio, who can really help her hair.  Not that it matters, since she can tolerate you and that’s what’s important, but it might make her feel better.”  I thought she might need it after a certain person (me) had mocked her looks to her face and caused a break-up with her fiancé.  I felt it was the least I could do.

Mats cleared his throat.  “I think I got nervous, imagining just one woman for the rest of my life.  When I saw you…”

“One woman is all you need, but that woman certainly isn’t me.”  Feeling generous, I added, “I don’t care if you go back to telling people that you broke up with me, not the other way around.”  I even patted his little-boy cheek, all smooth and round, no interesting scars, nothing to indicate that life had made him tougher and stronger and he had come out of the hard, scary things as a better man.  “Bye.  Again, bye.”

And that was that.  I had walked into the party thinking that maybe I was going to salvage things and that Mats was the way to go, but everything I had said had been right.  I would rather have been lonely.  And Emilio really could save Missy’s bad bangs.

I looked for our host, Roberta, to say that I was leaving.  I had to walk by the women I had broken away from before, and I heard them.  I stopped when I caught my name, and I heard what they said.

“Scarlett…”

“I never would have thought it.  She always acts like she’s—”

“Better than all of us?”

“Perfect!  She acts like she’s perfect.”

“It’s true, though.  I heard it from one of the guys there.  Can you believe her?  She has a lot of nerve after that night.”

There was laughter and I must have made some kind of sound, or moved involuntarily, so that they noticed me.  They turned, almost as one, to look.

I didn’t say a word, and I left.  Later, I didn’t remember getting into my car, I didn’t remember driving home, or going into my apartment.  I didn’t remember anything, including about that night last fall.  All that was in my head were vague impressions about getting dressed to go out, and then I remembered meeting a guy that my mom and her friend had pushed at me as a possible new boyfriend.  But my next memory was that he was gone, and I was dancing, and drinking, and then I woke up in a hotel room, alone, having no idea how I’d gotten there.  And I knew what had happened, even if I didn’t remember it.

I got back on my couch and pulled my blanket around me, tight, and I turned on the TV and put up the volume so I couldn’t hear the voices in my head.  The women at the brunch today.  The doctors and nurses last fall, at the hospital where I had brought myself the morning after, asking me what hurt, what I taken, what I had drunk.  The police asking who I had been with, what I remembered.  My mom crying and asking if I was ok, wanting to know what they had done to me, asking the doctors what was wrong with me and why was I screaming.  I put my hands over my face, almost expecting to feel it disfiguring beneath my fingers.

I didn’t know.  I didn’t know anything.  And I didn’t want to remember.

∞

“I don’t feel well,” I typed.  “Sorry, I won’t be in.”

“Again?”  Pascale shot the word back almost immediately, but I didn’t bother to answer that, or anything else she was writing about Klere and getting our money back, or how we could get her to post about our brand while she was in her rehab program. 

I was busy looking at flights.  If I hurried, and spent an obscene amount of money, I could be in Kona, in Hawaii, by the late afternoon.  I hadn’t even bothered to shower that morning—I was still in my pajamas as I took a bag down from the closet shelf and started grabbing random shorts and shirts and shoes and shoving them in.  I put on clothes, also without noticing much what I was doing, and was ready to go, heading out the door, when I looked again at the phone in my hand.  I stopped in the hallway and dialed.

“Scarlett?  What’s wrong?” my brother answered my call.

“Nothing’s wrong.  Nothing immediate is wrong.  I just wanted to tell you myself that I’m going back to Hawaii.”

“For a vacation?”  Brooks sounded confused.  But he didn’t immediately hang up at the sound of my voice, so I kept talking.

“I’m going for a long time.  I’m going to stay there.”

There was a huge silence.  “When did you decide this?”

Sometime in the scary, sleepless hours of the night before.  “I’ve been thinking about leaving my job, and some things just got clearer, and I’m going to go.”

“Is this because of that guy?” Brooks asked.

“No.  He and I aren’t…he’s not…”  I sounded like Mats.  “Just no.  I’m ok, I wanted you to know that.  You don’t need to worry about me.”

Another silence.  “I’m already worried.  I don’t think you’ve thought this through.”

No, I hadn’t.  But I had to leave, immediately.  “Brooks, you know I haven’t been happy here for a while.  That’s an understatement.  I need to make some changes, with everything.  I,” I cleared my throat.  “I’m not going to be drinking anymore, so there’s that.  I have savings, and I’m going to take a minute and look for a job I really want to do, rather than hating going in to work every day.”

“I didn’t know you felt that way about your job.  And I’m glad about what you said about drinking.  I think that’s a really good choice.”

I nodded, even though he couldn’t see me.  Since he wasn’t Nate, he didn’t guess what I was doing, so I spelled it out.  “Me, too.”

“Scar, I don’t know…this Hawaii idea seems very rushed.  Have you talked to Mom about it?  Zara?”

“Only you.  I’ll call Mom later.  I don’t think Zara will want to talk to me.  Since she blames me for her husband being a jackass.”

“She kicked Bradley out,” he responded.

I nearly dropped the phone.  “What?  She did?”

“She did.  They had a long talk after he made it out of the pool at Mom’s.  Then Zara took the kids to the zoo in Oakland and I went over to supervise him moving out of their house yesterday afternoon.  She’s going to call you to apologize.  I told her what I’d heard, that Bradley was having an affair with his new personal shopper.  Zara believed me when she considered what he had been wearing lately.  That made it easier for her to accept everything else her husband had been up to.”

“I did question that orange blazer he had on yesterday.  It’s for sure?”

“The woman is telling everyone in the city about it, including people I know.  Remember Luca Visconti?  He called to tell me what he’d heard.”

“Shit.”

“Zara’s very sorry about what she said to you, and how she…pointed you out at the party.  It was easier to blame you than him, I think.  But you didn’t deserve that.”

I had been feeling for a long time like I deserved everything that I got, that every bad thing that happened was a punishment I had coming.  It felt nice to hear that I didn’t in this case, but I still had the urge to go for a run before I left for the airport.  I checked to see if I had time.  Maybe if I went very fast, and very hard.  “Brooks, I have to go.”

“Call me when you get to Hawaii.  I don’t think I’m saying the right things to you, Scar.  I still feel like I’m missing something here.”

I was nodding at him again.  “I also wanted to say that I love you a lot.”  The words came out very fast, then I pressed my lips together as hard as I could.

“I love you, too.  Scarlett—”

I hung up and dropped my bag in the hallway, then went to go take off the strange outfit I’d had on and put on my running clothes instead.  I closed the apartment door, quietly this time, but then pelted down the stairs and through the lobby.  This was going to have to be fast so I could get to the airport on time.  Fast and hard, to make it hurt.

I stopped as I got to the glass doors, because there was a man standing at the bottom of the two steps that led up to my building.  He carried a bag like he was coming to stay, and I could see his eyes with the grey running through them, just like the onyx necklace tucked under my shirt.  Those eyes were looking right into mine.  I opened the doors and walked to the top of the steps, where he waited.  I stood staring, not quite believing that he was really there, and definitely not knowing what to say to him. 

Nate broke the silence.  “I’ve just been standing out here, thinking about going in.  I got the idea that I needed to come back here.”

I nodded.  “I’m glad you came,” I managed to get out, but then I just froze again.  I didn’t know where to start.

“Just say it, Scarlett Letter.”

I breathed in a sharp gasp.  “I’m sorry.  I’m sorry I acted that way at dinner and I’m sorry for what I said to you…”  He held out his arms and I moved into them, and then I just clung, my arms around his neck and my legs around his waist, holding on as hard as I could.  “I’m sorry.  I’m sorry!” I kept repeating.  Nate held me just as tightly, and I felt him kissing my hair.  “I’m sorry, Nate.”

Vaguely, I heard the doors of my building opening and closing as my neighbors left for work, but I had my face buried in his neck, eyes squeezed tightly shut.  “Let’s go inside,” he said finally, and very reluctantly, I unlocked the nutcracker grip I held him in and slid to the ground.  “Hang on.”  He took my hand, removed the brass knuckles, and put them in his pocket. 

I didn’t let go of his hand as he picked up his bag with his other one, and instead of taking the stairs as he usually did, he waited with me for the elevator, his arm around me.  I leaned into his chest, my face pressed against the hard muscle.  “Joey said you were coming back,” I told him.  “But I wasn’t sure of when.”

“It was supposed to be tomorrow, and I wasn’t supposed to come back here.  I wasn’t planning to.”

I tilted up my face to look at him.  “Were you just going to forget me?”

“I wasn’t going to forget you, ever.”  The elevator doors opened and we got in.  I didn’t think I wanted to know any more.  I just wanted to hold on to him and keep him.

“Are you taking a trip?” Nate asked as we walked into my apartment.  With his foot, he pushed the bag I had quickly packed out of our way.  My bikini top was stuck in the zipper, dragging on the ground, and one flip flop appeared from beneath the wheels as he moved it to the side of the hallway.

“I was going to Hawaii,” I said.  “I needed to get away.”

“And you were running,” he said, pointing at my shoes.

I kicked them off.  “I needed to.”

Nate led me into the guest bedroom, but then he stopped dead. 

“What happened in here?”  He looked at the organized shoes, the neat hanging racks divided by clothing type, the jewelry cases stacked on the new dresser (which I had filled with the clothes that I had actually folded.  Mostly).

“I cleaned it up.  I got it squared away,” I announced.

“I’m impressed,” he said, and smiled, the look I loved to see on his face.  He took my hand and led me to the bed, where he sat down.  “I flew all night,” he told me, and yawned.  “And I don’t think I slept much last week, back in the hotel.”

“Me neither.”  I stood between his knees and put my hands on his cheeks, feeling the scruff of his beard.  Nate kicked off his shoes and lay back, then held out his arms again.

Thank God.  I lay down next to him and he pulled me close against him.

“This is much better,” he murmured in my ear.

“Nate, I’m so sorry.”

“Go to sleep now, and we’ll talk when we get up.”

I let my eyes close, and I slept.  I forgot about my flight to Kona, and I didn’t feel the need to run anymore, either.

When I woke up, I heard Nate in the kitchen.  The bathroom was still steamy from his shower when I went in, with his shaving stuff placed neatly on the edge of the sink, his toothbrush and toothpaste lined up next to each other.  I turned on the shower too, and when I came out, I smelled breakfast.  I couldn’t think of the last time I had eaten, really eaten a meal.  I was so hungry that I didn’t bother to put on clothes.  I walked out, still dripping, wearing only my towel.

“Eggs, fruit, toast.  Coffee.”  Nate pointed at a stool.  “Have a seat and eat.”  I did, and as I stuffed my face, I asked him about how things were in Hawaii, which he seemed not overly pleased with. 

“Howie—he’s the guy who I’m paying to fill in for me—he’s not doing the job the way I want him to,” Nate explained.  “I ran through half my properties and made him a list about a mile long of things he needed to do.  Worse than your list for your grandmother’s house,” he told me.  “Howie just doesn’t pay attention to detail.”

I looked at the fruit, cut into careful cubes on my plate, and I couldn’t help smiling.

“What?” Nate asked.

I pointed at the melon, and then I started to laugh.

“Are you mocking me, Red Skelton?”

For some reason, that fruit was the funniest thing I had ever seen.  Or maybe it was just that the relief that he was there was making me slightly hysterical.  “Even the banana,” I gasped.  “You make square banana pieces.”

Nate started to shake his head, but then he looked at the plate too, and he started to laugh with me.  He rubbed his eyes.  “I didn’t even know I did that.  I can stop that with the square bananas.”

“No,” I told him.  “Don’t stop anything.  Because I’ll take you just the way you are.”

Nate slowly stopped laughing.  “With these?”  He pointed at the scars on his face.  “And these?”  He pulled up his t-shirt, revealing the ones on his side.  “With me as a working stiff, living in the islands, no college, no—”

“Just the way you are,” I told him.  “What about me?”  I waited, all the laughter gone from me also.

He didn’t speak right away.  “Do you know why I was so upset at that restaurant?”

I felt my blush begin immediately, blood rising with shame up into my face.  “Because I acted like an idiot.  I was trying to make Mats jealous, and make Missy cry.  I thought it would make me feel better.  And when you were angry, I just…I just wanted to make you feel as terrible as I did.”

“It wasn’t fun to have you act like that with me, to watch you put on that show.  But I was upset,” he said, and paused.  “I was upset because I hadn’t realized how much it would bother me to see you with someone else.  I had been telling myself that I was helping you out, that when Joey and I went back to Hawaii, I would leave you in a better way and then forget you.”  He stopped again, then walked around the kitchen counter to stand next to my stool.  “I saw you smiling and talking to that guy and I could picture the two of you together, having some ritzy San Francisco life, cocktails and going to museums in fancy clothes, and I was going back to my old pickup on the Big Island, drinking beer on the beach in the t-shirts you hate.  I know you hate my t-shirts,” he said, cutting me off as I opened my mouth to protest.  “I thought about trying to let you go, all your prickly crap, and underneath all that, the heart you try to hide.  And I couldn’t think how I was going to do it, just walk away and leave you with another guy.  That’s why it hurt.”

“I’m sorry,” I said softly.  “I don’t know if it will make you feel better, but Mats did want to get back together with me after that night.”

“Yeah, that cheers me up a lot.”

“No, it should.  Because I told him no, obviously, clearly, no.  Even if there was no you, Mats and I were terrible together.  He’s not anything that I need.”  I cleared my throat.  “But there is you.  And I hope you can deal with me, with the crap, and the mess, the bitchiness, and everything else.  Because…”

“I think I can do that.  If you can deal with the neatness, and the t-shirts, and the…well, compared to what you’re used to, the relative poverty.”

I stood up, so we were very, very close.  “I don’t want anything else but you.”  I untucked the corner of my towel, and it fell away onto the ground, leaving me just as I was.  No clothes, no makeup, no hair to hide behind.  Just me.  But I didn’t reach for him, or try to kiss him again—I waited, my heart thumping so hard I thought that Nate would be able to hear it, too.

His mouth fell open a little and I heard him take a breath.  He took a step closer.  He put his hand on my bare shoulder and ran it down my arm.  I bit my lip and waited.

Nate tugged my arm and I stepped forward until my breasts brushed the soft cotton of his t-shirt.  He bent his head and I tilted mine and for the third time, we kissed, but this time, we both wanted it.  His mouth parted, his tongue teased across my lower lip, and at the same time, his arms enfolded me, pulling me tightly to him.  I wrapped my arms around his neck and tried to get even closer.  We stood, kissing, the towel on the floor at my feet.  His hand moved up to support my head and I relaxed into him, not thinking or feeling anything except for Nate.

He moved his lips slightly away and I made a little sound of disappointment and tried to pull him back.  I was almost dizzy with the kisses, the staccato of my heart, the warm emotion that was pouring through me and into him.  He let go of me and I got a little frantic, clutching him.

“I’m taking this off.  The shirt you don’t like,” he murmured, his lips against my neck, then his tongue tickled around the curve of my ear.  He picked up his head and ripped off his t-shirt.  I ran my hands up his chest, over the indentations of muscle, his hard nipples, his warm skin.  I scratched my nails down his back and he pulled me to him again, kissing me deeply until I was breathless.

I wasn’t going to let go, but I wanted to move us to the bedroom, to take off the rest of the clothes he had just put on.  I wanted to feel his weight on top of me and feel his hands touching me, every part of me.  “Let’s—” I started.  Nate bit my neck gently and I broke off, gasping.  I arched and pushed my body to his.  “Bedroom,” I tried again.  He splayed his fingers and ran them up my hip, over my ribs, to cup my breast.  My head fell back then and as his fingers teased my nipple, his teeth nibbled my neck and jaw.  I stopped trying to talk.

“We’ll go to the bedroom,” Nate agreed, his words soft in my ear as he licked, again, and I barely nodded.  My legs felt weak and useless, but I walked with him into the room I had straightened and fixed, and stood as he disappeared briefly into the bathroom, to the black bag that had sat on the sink.  Now he displayed a handful of condoms.  “I brought these, just in case.”  He looked at me.  “I thought, I hoped, we might need them.”

I was all for getting one on, immediately, and I reached for his zipper.  “I’m naked,” I explained nonsensically, and Nate nodded.

“I noticed that,” he told me, and helped me remove the rest of his clothing.  Instead of going straight for the condom, he put down the square wrappers next to the bed and lifted me, like he had done before, putting me in the middle of the mattress.  Then he stood and looked over my body, and I did the same to him.  There were the scars that he had shown me, and God, there was Nate, hard and ready and wanting me.  I reached out for him, needing him so much that I made another sound, almost a sob.

Nate lay down and tucked my body against his.  “You ok, Scarlett?  Is this ok?”

“I want you,” I answered.  I rubbed my skin against his, pressing my breasts against him.  I took his hand and moved it from my hip back to my chest.  His fingers tweaked my nipple and he bent his head to put his warm mouth over it, suckling.  My hands went to his head and brushed through his short hair as I held him, cradled to my breast.  His mouth moved to the other side, and then back to my throat.  He was moving faster, breathing harder.  It was starting to feel urgent to me, needing him now.  Right now.

I moved my legs apart to fit his erection between them, feeling the hard warmth at my core.  I pushed my hips against his, and massaged our bodies together, rubbing him against me.  I moaned now, and Nate did too.  He held my hips in his hands and kissed me again, hard and deep.  His mouth moved over my body, my shoulders, my breasts, my hips, my inner thighs, my—my—

I rolled my hips again, frantically, when his head came between my legs.  He pressed my thighs open and put his lips against me, and his tongue, and his teeth.  With his fingers deep inside, he licked, and sucked, and I just broke, crying, moaning, screaming, chanting his name, Nate, Nate.

“Scarlett, I have to—I need—”

I knocked the lamp off the nightstand as I reached for the condom.  I was desperate, too.  He sank into me so deeply that I caught my breath and my head fell back.  Oh, my God.  Oh, like that.

“Just like that,” Nate said, hearing my thoughts, and I told him yes, yes, yes.

I was saying it, then I was screaming it, as he pounded into me, his fingers on my hip, his thumb on my clitoris, caressing me, and I lost myself completely as I came, clinging and shaking.  Nate pulsed inside me and moaned, and then stilled, heaving with deep breaths, nuzzling my hair with his lips and nose.  He moved his hips and I called out, and almost came, again.

“Not bad,” he agreed, as he slowly pulled away and rested on his side next to me.

I turned into him, and he encircled me with his arms.  “Not bad,” I agreed.  I listened to his heart thumping hard in his chest.  “I…oh.”  I gave up on words and just sighed in satisfaction.

“Who needs to run, when we can do this?” he asked me.

I felt better than I ever did after a run.  Nate kissed my hair, my forehead, my cheeks, then pulled me even closer, swinging his leg over me so I was completely engulfed by him.

“How do you always smell so good?” he asked.  “In Hawaii, I could always tell when you had been in a room by how good it smelled.”

“Really?  I didn’t wear any perfume while I was there.”

“It’s just you, then.”  He breathed into my neck.  “I love it.”  His exhalation made me shiver.  I closed my eyes and burrowed in and he laughed.  “I remember when I first saw you.  I got all these messages from this woman yelling about an air conditioning emergency—”

“You don’t need to remind me of that.”

“And then I walked in and there you were lying on the couch, naked.  I couldn’t believe my eyes.  I couldn’t even say anything at first, I just stood there with my mouth open.”

I pinched his rib.  “Pervert.”

“Yeah, well, you might have done the same in my shoes.”

I definitely would have done the same if I had come across him naked.  I had been right about what was underneath it all; it was spectacular.  Phenomenal.  I moved my hips against him, thinking about how he felt inside me.  But he hadn’t wanted me before, back in Hawaii.  “You didn’t kiss me.  I kissed you, but you didn’t kiss me back.”

“Yeah.”  He grasped my hips and moved me on top of him.  “I knew there was something going on with you.  Would that have been right, for me to get involved with you then?”

I moved restlessly, thinking back to the mess I had been  back in Hawaii.  I was better now.  I was sure that I was.

“Scarlett?”  He pushed the hair out of my face, tucking it behind my ears.

No.  I knew what he was asking, and I didn’t want to tell him.  I sat up, straddling his hips, and reached behind myself, teasing him with my fingertips.

“I don’t—ok, yeah.”  His eyes closed.

I scooted down his body so that I could hold him in front of me, working both my hands, the pads of my fingers and my nails.  Nate parted his legs.

“Is this what you want?”  I reached and stroked his balls and his hips lurched up.

“Yeah,” he sighed, eyes open now, watching me.

I literally held him in my hands, kneeling on top of him, and I felt like I was in charge, the captain of this ship.  Maybe the sergeant.  “Ok, soldier.  It’s time to get back to work.”

“If it’s the same job I was doing earlier, I’m ready to do my duty,” he answered.  I squeezed a little and he moaned, hips rising again.

“Are you sure you’re up for it?”  Oh, he was definitely up for it.

Nate’s eyes opened.  “Are we playing games now, Miss Scarlett?”  He grinned up at me.

“In the bedroom, with a condom,” I told him, and he flipped me on my back so fast I squealed, and a moment later, he plunged into me so hard and deep that I did again, but with pure pleasure.

Chapter 15

Nate and I showered again much later, but this time together.  I carefully washed each part of him, running my fingers along his scars.

“Can you feel this?” I asked, tracking my fingers down his torso.

“Not from here, all the way to here,” he showed me.

I put my hand between his legs.

“Yes, that I can feel,” he gasped.  “You’re going to kill me.”

“Four times is all you can do?” I challenged him.  He showed me that it was not, and did some interesting things with the water from the handheld shower head.  After that fun interlude, Nate suggested going out to dinner with Kiana and Joey, who had apparently been texting him while we had been very busy.

“Dinner?  Isn’t it a little early?”  I looked at the clock on the microwave.  “My God, is that right?”

“We’ve been boning all day,” Nate politely informed me.  He sat down on the couch, head back, looking happily exhausted.

“That’s a classy way to put it,” I mentioned.  I sat next to him and held on to his wrist.

“Here’s some class for you: I’ll wear a tie tonight,” he offered.  He moved my fingers so that we were holding hands and I gripped his tightly.

“I’ll take you up on that.”  I knew that we should talk more, and I wanted to make sure that things were ok, but I hesitated, swallowing, and he pulled me to sit on his lap. 

“Scarlett, what?”

I ran my thumbs over his dark eyebrows and my finger down his nose, just to touch him.  Then I kissed him and took a deep breath.  “Does this—does all this—does it mean that you forgive me?”

Nate tilted his head.  “I do.  Are you still angry at me?  I was upset and I said some nasty things.  I left you.”

The way he said it like that…I put my hand to my mouth.

“Scarlett, I’m sorry I did that.”

I kept my knuckles pressed against my lips, and nodded.

“Baby, I won’t do that again.  If we’re angry, I won’t leave, and you won’t lash.”  He held me against his chest, tucking my head into the nook under his chin.  “You can cry, you know.”

No, that was a bad idea, and I managed to pull myself together.  I picked up my head.  “I’m ok.  I’m glad we’re ok, too.”

Nate was just looking at me.  “I am, for sure.”

“Great, me too.”  I forced myself to let go of him and got off his lap.  “I better get dressed, then.”

“Are you walking slowly because of everything we did today?”

Yes.  I laughed.  “Don’t flatter yourself.  I went to yoga earlier,” I said over my shoulder.

“I really enjoy your flexibility.  I’ll help you get dressed.”

His “help” meant that things took a lot longer, but that was fine with me, as I held on to the edge of the dresser and orgasmed, his fingers inside me, his other hand gripping my ass.  I gave him an assist too, with his tie, and with his penis, so I called us even.

Finally, and very tardily, we met Kiana and Joey at a restaurant out on Clement Street where I was fairly certain we wouldn’t run into anyone I knew.  I drove, looking before I backed out of my spot in the garage and not brushing up against the cement pole as sometimes happened by mistake, and not checking my phone the whole way over to the restaurant as I usually did when I drove.

“Is this off?” Nate asked, picking it up from where I had stuffed it in my car’s console. 

“Oh.  I think maybe it is,” I said.  I considered the fact that I hadn’t really thought about my phone all day, and I hadn’t cared at all.

“Do you plan to stop for that yellow?”

“A yellow light is a warning that you should speed up because it may turn red,” I explained, but I stopped anyway.

“That is not what a yellow light means.  At all.”  He shook his head.  “I don’t think I’ve ever seen you go so long without getting on your phone for something or other.”

I looked at it, the screen black.  “I have to call Brooks back.  I told him I would call him when I got to Hawaii.”

“You’re talking to him again?”

“Some, I think.  I told him I was sorry.”  There seemed to be a lot that Nate had missed in the past few days.  I went through the story of Bradley falling—getting dropped—in the pool, and how he was cheating on Zara.  How she had thought that I was the one cheating with him.

“That’s ridiculous.  That’s terrible that she would think that about you and call you out like that.”  I looked over at him as I drove and Nate put his hand on the wheel, straightening out the car.  He was sitting bolt upright, his face furious.  “She should know better!  And she should have been defending you, not accusing you.”

“My brother did.  He believed me.”

“Everyone should have.  Are we going to see this Bradley again?  Where does he live?”

“No, you can’t intervene with him,” I said, but it felt so nice that he wanted to jump in and defend my honor or something.  “It’s understandable that my mom and Zara didn’t think…that they took his side.”

“No, it’s not, not at all.  They should be ashamed of themselves.  You should have been able to tell them, immediately, that he was a fucking—”

“I don’t blame them.  He made me feel uncomfortable for years and I never said anything because I didn’t want to make Zara upset.  I want my family to love me.  I don’t want to lose them.  My dad died and I can’t…”  I was having a little trouble talking.  I paused to calm down before I kept trying to explain.  “I think it was just me acting, uh, off at the end of last year.  It made Bradley feel like he could make a move, ramp it up from just being creepy and suggestive to touching me, stuff like that.”

“You mean, when you were most vulnerable, he tried to take advantage of it.  And your mom and sister,” he started, but then said, “Pull over there in the bus stop, Scarlett.  I’m going to drive.”

I did, because I was having a hard time staying in the lane, with the shaking in my hands.  I stopped the car.  “I don’t want to talk about this,” I said, trying to sound strong and authoritative.  Instead, I sounded like I was going to cry.  I got out and walked around the back of the car and Nate caught my arms.

“You can tell me, Scarlett,” he said, and just briefly, I let him hold me, but not too long.  I felt like I was kind of on the edge of something and I pulled away, but Nate kept my hands in his.  “Call your brother and tell him you’re not going anywhere right now, that you’re here with me, and you’re fine.  Don’t make him worry about you.”

I did call once Nate was driving, but Brooks didn’t pick up, thank God.  I didn’t want to get into answering questions and sounding loopier than ever: “I’m going to Hawaii for good.  Wait five minutes, because I might change my mind.  Yes, now I’m staying in San Francisco.”  I knew these weren’t words that would engender a lot of trust in my good judgement.  I left a message that I was fine, that everything was good and I was with Nate, going out to dinner.  I just didn’t mention which state I was in.  Then I ignored the enormous number of notifications on the screen and turned off the phone again.

Joey was sitting facing us in the restaurant, his back to the wall, as he and Nate liked to do.  He got a huge smile when he spotted his best friend.  I hoped I was included in it, but we hadn’t said goodbye on the best of terms.  In fact, we hadn’t actually said goodbye, I had just stormed out after insulting him.  I bent and hugged Pia, because I had missed her a lot, and Joey and Nate greeted each other like they had been apart for months.  When Nate turned to the woman I assumed was Kiana, I let go of the dog, and stood up.

“Hi, Joey,” I said cautiously.

“Scarlett.”  He hugged me, too.  “You doing better?”

And I almost started to cry, again.  “I’m fine.”  I spoke very low.  “I’m sorry about what I said to you.  You were right that I was being a bitch, ok?”

He looked down into my face.  “I don’t think I called you that.  I’m glad you and Nate worked it out.  Come meet my girlfriend.”  He smiled at her, so proud and happy.

“I’m glad you guys worked it out, too.  Are you…?”  I raised my eyebrows.

“We’re together.  I’m not going to move back in when I go home to Hawaii, but we’re heading in that direction.”  He lowered his voice.  “Before I leave San Francisco, can you help me pick out a ring?”

“Joey!  Of course!”  I kissed him on the cheek, and I heard a very angry throat clear.

“I’m Joey’s girlfriend, Kiana,” the woman spat out.  I quickly turned to her.  “You must be Scarlett.  Joey has told me all about you.  How he lived with you.”

“I talked about you a lot,” he said, smiling.  Kiana did not smile. 

Oh Joey, you idiot.  I shook her hand and we moved to sit down.  “He’s told me so much about you, too,” I said, to pour oil on the waters.  “About every other word out of his mouth is ‘Kiana.’  Ever since I met him.”

“Really?”  She looked at Joey, and her angry face softened.

“I thought you were a saint, for sure,” I mentioned.

She even laughed a little.  “No saint.  Definitely, no saint.”

We had a nice time after that.  Kiana wasn’t a saint, and she wasn’t the physical embodiment of a goddess, as Joey had described her as.  She was a nice, pretty woman, a little loud, maybe, and with unfortunate taste in dresses.  But Joey looked at her like he’d never seen anything better in his life, and he held her hand under the table.

We talked about how he was doing, physically, because Kiana wanted to know from Nate.  “I know you won’t bullshit me,” she said.  “Tell me, because Joey only says things are great.”

“I think things are great,” Nate admitted.  “I have to agree with him.”

“See?  The new medicine is good, everything is good,” Joey assured us.

“You’re not cured, though,” Kiana said, her face crinkling in concern.  It was written right there, how much she loved him, how worried she was.  “You have to be careful still.  Yes, Joey?  You’re not going to start taking chances, not taking the medicine, drinking?”

He leaned over and kissed her cheek.  “I’m going to do right, honey.  I’ll show you.”

If I’d had doubts whether Kiana deserved him or really wanted their relationship, they were gone after this dinner.  It was as plain as the ugly flowers on her dress that they were in love, that they were meant to be.  I watched them both carefully, looking for signs of problems, but I didn’t see any.  Nate and I drove them back to their hotel.

“I’ll see you tomorrow?” Joey asked as we said goodbye, then looked back and forth between Nate and me.  “I don’t want to get in the way.”

“We’ll see you tomorrow,” I told him firmly. 

“Come home from work before midnight!” he urged me.  “Nate and I will cook a good dinner.”

Work.  I hadn’t called in all day, I hadn’t gotten back to any of the people who were probably desperate to bother me with their issues, I hadn’t even read one thing from Pascale, and we generally didn’t go 15 minutes without some kind of contact.  “See you tomorrow,” I told Joey again, and goodbye to Kiana.

“I wonder if I’ll see her again,” I thought aloud when we were in my car, back on our way to my apartment.

“Of course you will,” Nate told me.  He put his hand on my knee.  “You’ll see her when you visit me.”

Joey was doing so much better.  He said his doctors were going to keep track of him when he went home, working with the doctors in Hawaii whom he had seen before.  He wouldn’t need to be here, and then, neither would Nate.  He would be leaving, and probably soon. 

I unclicked my seatbelt and Nate immediately told me to put it back on.  “Just a second,” I told him.

“Scarlett, what?  Wait, hold on, not while I’m driving.”  He grabbed my hand, which was already heading down his pants.  “We’re almost home.”

“It’s too far.”  I moved my fingers under his, rubbing, and he groaned a little.

He put my hand against his chest and pressed it firmly in place.  “When we’re in Hawaii, there will be wide open roads with no other cars.  We can pull over and go at it to our hearts’ content.  In this city, with everyone around us, I don’t want to put on a show.  And if you do that while I drive, I’m going to put more dents in your nice car than you ever did.”

Why did he keep talking about Hawaii, leaving me?  I sat back in my seat and slowly put on my seatbelt.

“I’m not leaving you.  I’m talking about us being there, together,” Nate told me, his eyes on the road.

“Uh huh.”  I twisted in my chair.

“If you tell me right now that you want to go for a run, I’m going to tie you to the bed.”

“That might be something we’d both enjoy,” I said, and he groaned again.

“I’m driving faster,” he told me.  “How fast can this go?”

“I’ve done over a hundred, but that was on the highway.”

“Scarlett Begonia, please say that isn’t true.  And if it is, never do it again.”

I turned to him, my mouth open.  “You know?”

“Uh huh.”

“How do you know my middle name?  I never tell anyone!”

“You happened to leave your passport lying open on the floor when you got back from Los Angeles.  I picked it up and saw.  I looked,” he admitted.  “Scarlett Begonia, just like the old song.”

“In his distant youth, my dad was a Deadhead, I think just to annoy my grandmother.  You can’t tell anyone.  Not Joey, or anyone!  I have it crossed out on my driver’s license but when I did it to my passport, they made me get a new one.”

Nate shook his head.  “Yeah, they don’t like it when you alter official documents.  You’re something else.  I happen to love your name.”

“My dad did, too.  That’s why I won’t change it.  I’m glad you like it, Nathaniel Tor.  And now, never, never say it again.  It’s between us, ok?”

“I won’t tell a soul.”  He made a cross over his heart.  “I’ll keep your secrets.”

I swallowed.  “Just drive faster.”  He nodded and brought my palm to his mouth to kiss it.

We held hands to run up the stairs, and as soon as I closed the apartment door behind us, he pressed me back against it, his hands moving up and down my body, touching me everywhere.  By the time we made it back to the bedroom, our clothes were strewn along the hallway behind us.  Nate stood behind me, his hands gently kneading my breasts, and I let my head fall back onto his chest, letting him hold me.  He bent and kissed my cheek.

“I’ll go back home, but we’ll figure it out,” he told me.  “Stop thinking what you’re thinking.”  His arm anchored me against his body.  “No, don’t pull away.  Stay where you are.”  His one hand continued to massage my breast, but his other stroked down my stomach, tracing lightly between my legs.  My knees wobbled as pleasure surged up around his fingertips.

“What if I come?” I asked, my words gasping from me.

His fingers delved deeper.  “Let me feel it.”

My hips writhed against his hand, pushing myself closer.  I was so close.  So close—

Nate moved me onto my hands and knees on the bed, his hand still working inside me.  And when he entered me, I did come, almost crying.  We lay on our sides after, and he made circles on my nipple with his palm.

“That wasn’t what I meant.”

“Hm?”  He picked up his head and looked down at me.

“When I said, ‘What if I come?’  The orgasm wasn’t what I meant.  But that was very, very good.”  More like mind-melting.

“You were talking about coming to Hawaii,” Nate said.  He nodded and rubbed his cheek against my hair.

“I was already on my way when you got here,” I explained.  “I’ve always loved it there.  I hate things here.  Why not try somewhere new?”

“You need to consider it more.  Moving your whole life isn’t something you decide to do in the morning then pack your bag and go that afternoon.”

I understood him perfectly.  My body stiffened and I tried to scoot away from his arms, but they just held me tighter.

“No, stop thinking that.  I’m not telling you I don’t want you to move,” he said.  “I’m saying I want you to think it through.  What it would mean to be on an island two thousand miles out in the ocean, away from your family, for example.”

“Brooks is leaving.”

“You’d be going farther.”

“We’re all splitting up, splitting apart.  My mom will probably spend most of her time in Texas when Brooks and Lanie are there.  She’s talking about buying a little house so she can come and go and not bother them.  Zara—I don’t know what she’s going to do, but she has her own life going on.”

Nate kissed my head again.

“I won’t bother you,” I said.  “I would do my own thing.  I’ve been thinking a lot about a new job, and I have an idea that would keep me really busy, with my old roommate, Daria.  You would hardly know I was there.”

“I think I’ll know.  I plan to have you naked in my bed each night.”

I turned on my back so I could see his face in the dim light.  “Really?”

This time he kissed my mouth.  “Really.  Haven’t you noticed that I like being around you?  Joey and I didn’t have to spend almost every waking moment back at this apartment when you weren’t at the office.”

“I guess you were here a lot.  When you weren’t driving off to see that medic.”

He kissed me, harder.  “We went out twice, and she’s a nice woman.  But then I told her that I was pretty crazy about someone else, so I wouldn’t be able to see her anymore.” 

I picked up my head to kiss him back, and hooked my leg around his to pull his body on top of mine.

Nate settled his weight on his elbows.  “I want you in Hawaii.  But I don’t want you to come if you’re running away.”

I reached and pulled his head down to mine again.  I wasn’t quite sure what I was doing, but I wanted to be doing it with Nate, right now, and always.

∞

I stared at the clothes racks.  Once again, I couldn’t pick anything, and once again, it was because I just didn’t want to go.  I held a shirt in front of myself, then another, studying the effect in the mirror.  It was a no, and another no.  “I can’t get dressed for work,” I announced.

“Go late,” Nate told me, handing me a cup of the good coffee he made each morning.  “You don’t have to be there at the crack of dawn.”

“I don’t have to go at all,” I mentioned.  “I could just quit and disappear.”

He met my eyes in the mirror. 

“I won’t do that, though,” I sighed.  “I’ll go in and talk to Pascale and explain.  I don’t want her to stick the intern with everything I’ve been doing.  His head would explode.  But maybe I’ll suggest that he take on some of it.”  I warmed to the idea.  “I could keep helping him out.  I could continue working on some projects from…wherever I end up living.”

“The Big Island,” Nate told me.  “That’s where you’ll be living.”

I tried to keep myself from smiling.  “Well, I guess there is a certain draw.”  He kissed the back of my neck.  “I meant the weather,” I explained.  He bit and I squealed.  “Maybe I’ll go in late.  There are things to do here to stay busy.”  I reached behind both of us to feel his ass a little.  God, it was good.

“Joey will be here any minute,” Nate pointed out.  But he moved his hips so that I could feel him growing hard against my butt.  He felt huge and I started to feel very ready myself as well.  “It wouldn’t be good to welcome him home with the sounds of you screaming my name.”

“Maybe we should exercise instead.  Actual exercise and not…”  I sighed.  His tongue was back on my ear.

Nate picked up his head.  “Yeah, that’s a good idea.  I’m stopping now.”  His hand ran over my ass and squeezed.  “Ok, now I’m really stopping.  We’ll continue that later.  Put on your clothes and leave the weapons here,” he told me.

When I came out into the living room, pulling my hair into a high ponytail, Nate was sitting at the table, talking on the phone.  He looked serious, concerned.  “I will,” he said.  “I’m not making any promises, but I understand.  Yes.  Bye.”  He put it down and looked up at me, still very serious.

I finished my hair.  “Everything ok?”

He nodded.  “Let’s go.”

This time it was Nate running fast, to the point that I finally tugged on his shirt.  “Excuse me, are we in a race?”  I wasn’t feeling the need to punish myself this morning.

He did slow down, but he also turned and looked at me, his face still stern and now anxious.  “Sorry.  It really doesn’t work to run away, right?”

I shrugged.  It was my main strategy, and I did ok with it.

“I have to talk to you about something and I don’t know how to bring it up.”

“Oh, my God!  Are you getting back together with her?” I demanded.

He stopped dead.  “What?  Who?”

“The other woman.  That medic.  Was that who was on the phone with you just now?”

“Scarlett, no!  No, we weren’t—no.  Of course not.”  His eyebrow drew down and he winced a little.  “That was your brother on the phone.”

“Brooks?”  I was now totally confused.  “Why was he calling you?”

“He talked to your mom yesterday after you told him you were moving.  He was afraid you were becoming suicidal or something, Scar.”

“No, of course not.  I called him to say I was fine!”

“You said you loved him, and Brooks got afraid it was some kind of goodbye.  He pretty much demanded that your mom tell him what was wrong with you.”  He picked up my hands.  “Your mom told him some things.  She said—”

I stepped back, fast.  “No.  That’s none of his business.”

Nate came forward and took my hands again.  “Your mom told him this morning that someone hurt you before Christmas and put you in the hospital.  He’s having a fit.  He thought you were in Hawaii with me, and your cell phone is off, so he looked up my number.  I told him that you’re ok.  That you would talk to him, if and when you’re ready.”

I felt dizzy.  Brooks knew?  Nate knew?  My mom was telling everyone?  “I’ll never forgive my mother for this.  Never!  She promised me she would never tell.”

“Scarlett, he said he’s been trying to get your mom to talk to him for months.  She didn’t get into details.  She didn’t tell him—”

I took off running toward home.  God damn it!  Brooks knew?  Everyone would know.  Everyone at that brunch had been talking about it.  Now Nate, too.  I stopped abruptly because my stomach lurched and I thought I was going to be sick.

Nate was right alongside me.  He put his hand on my back.  “Scarlett, please—”

I ran again, gagging a little, but not caring if I threw up all down my shirt.  Back to my building, back to my apartment, where I tried to shut the door but Nate was still right there.  “Go!” I told him.

He shook his head.

“I didn’t want anyone to know.  I don’t want my brother to know, or my sister!  Or you.”

He waited.  He didn’t look angry, or disgusted, or like he wanted to leave because he couldn’t stand to look at me.  So I talked a little more.  “They called my mom from the hospital, but I didn’t want her.  I didn’t want to have anyone there with me.  I only went to the ER because I didn’t know what they had given me.  It was something in a drink.  I didn’t take it on purpose.”  I gulped for air.  “I’m not an idiot, ok?  I’m not so stupid to take drugs in a club and then go off to a hotel room with a bunch of men I don’t know.  I’m sure I didn’t do that.  I couldn’t have done that.”

Nate nodded.  I reached for his shirt to hold the fabric and he took my hand instead, squeezing it hard.

“I don’t remember much.  I just remember waking up.”

“What did the police do?” Nate’s voice was as hard as diamonds.

Another wave of dizziness passed over me and my stomach flipped.  “They looked into it, some.  I said…I said I wouldn’t cooperate.  I didn’t want them touching me anymore, doing more tests, asking me more questions I couldn’t answer.  There were people with real problems who needed help, not just some stupid woman—” I broke a little.  “What if I did take it on purpose and go off with them?  I don’t remember.”

“Scarlett.”

I put my hands over my face, holding it in place, keeping it from disintegrating.  “How could I have done that?  I couldn’t, right?  Isn’t that right?  I couldn’t have done it on purpose.  I didn’t go with them on purpose.”  Nate held me.  I could feel both of us shaking.  I balled my hand into a fist.  “I should be angry at men who took a drunk, whacked out woman to a hotel room.  Shouldn’t I?  They knew better.  I am angry at them.”

“Good.  They’re the ones who deserve it.  They’re fucking rapists.  They’re criminals.  And if the police won’t go after them, then someone else should.”  His hands were fists, too, and his face looked so mean and angry that it would have be scary except that I knew it wasn’t for me.

I was trying to work it through in my mind, but I had spent so long trying not to think about it, it was like I was rusty.  “But if I made the decision to take—to go—no, if I put my drink down—I must have.  I must have put it down and someone put something in it.  Right?  Don’t you think?  I wouldn’t have done it on purpose.  Isn’t that right?  But I’m so angry at myself.”  I felt hot tears run down my cheeks and I rubbed my fist into my eyes then slammed it against his chest.  “I’m so angry.”  What was he going to think of me now?  I tried to stop crying and I looked up to see his face, to try to read what was in his thoughts.  “Klere went to rehab and she’s going to get her life straightened out.  I can, too.  I can fix it,” I told him.

“God damn it,” Nate growled.  “I’m going to fucking tear their heads off.  It doesn’t matter if you planned to get high or if you drank too much.  You were out of your mind and you weren’t—”

“I didn’t do it!”  I tried to convince both of us.  “I wouldn’t have.”

“It doesn’t matter.  You’re ok now.”  His hands rubbed my back.  “You’re ok.”  He made his little clucking noise, the way he had first done in Hawaii when I was sick.

“Brooks was always telling me to be careful.  He would meet my boyfriends, and he taught me where to kick a guy, and then—I don’t want him to know.”

“You don’t have to say anything to him if you don’t want to.  It’s your choice.  I’ll tell him that you’re ok, because you are, Scarlett.  You just have to stop punishing yourself for this.  You have to stop all the things you’ve been doing to hurt yourself.”  He took my face in his hands and looked at me.  “You’re ok.”

I pressed closer to him.  Maybe I was, or maybe I could be.  Maybe I was already partway there.

Chapter 16

It had been a few months since I had been back to my old house north of the city, the one my brother and Lanie rented from me.  When we turned into the driveway, I spotted Brooks at the window, and before I got my car door open, he was standing on the porch, waiting, arms crossed, tension pulsing out of him like a neon sign.  At first, I tried to fake a smile but then I stopped.  I had decided to try to be a little more honest with my feelings, because, as it turned out, keeping everything suppressed and hidden hadn’t been working that well for me.  And I no longer felt like I was going to scream, or scream and hit someone, or run off into the sunset while screaming and hitting someone.  I was moving in better direction.

It had been a strange few days.  Joey had arrived right after I went through my whole breakdown, opening the door to me sobbing in the hallway with Nate keeping me on my feet.  He had utterly freaked out, seeing me that way, and without really meaning to, I told him my whole story too.  I had just meant to calm him down, to show him that I wasn’t sick or dying and that Nate wasn’t either.  Somehow it was easier to say it the second time, and I knew that Joey, who had done a few things he wanted to be forgiven for, might understand how guilty I felt.

He had understood, but telling him hadn’t worked to calm him down, not at all.  Nate had to physically prevent him from running out and trying to find whoever had been in that hotel room with me to kill them with his bare hands.  Then I got worried that getting so worked up was going to affect his health.  Pia had been worked up too, so I took her into the bedroom to lay down with me and Nate.  Joey sat on a chair that I had recently unearthed from beneath a pile of clothes.  He just wanted to keep an eye on things.  The four of us in that tiny room had to have been a funny sight if anyone else had walked in, but I was glad that they were there.  With Pia against my back, and Nate holding me closely to him, and Joey watching over us, I fell asleep, and I slept like the dead.

I hadn’t woken up until the evening, apparently making up for the months of insomnia.  When I finally did roll myself out of the bed, I felt almost sick from all the crying, all the emotions.  And still, three days later, I was on a razor’s edge of breaking down again.  I had cried when I went into my office to explain to Pascale that I was going to leave my full-time—way past full-time—job with the company, and to my utter shock, she had started to cry, too.

“I’m so sorry to lose you!” she blubbered.  “The hours you put in…so many hours!”

I nodded.  It had been a lot.  Too much.

She grabbed my hand to look at my wrist.  “Oh my God, these bangles are gorgeous.”  She hiccupped.  “We’ll never find anyone with your sense of style.  Never!”

“Javier is amazing,” I told her, wiping my eyes with the tissue I now carried 24/7.  We looked out her glass door at him (and the rest of the employees) spying on us.  They all put their heads down.  “If you give him a full-sized desk, I think he’ll do great things.  I’ll still be around to help if you need me.”  She had taken me up on that offer.  So now, we were working on a contract that would allow me to continue to do some work part-time, and supervise special projects, and keep me with a little income while I started my next venture.  I told everyone at the office that I was moving, because I was.  I was really going to do it.

But first, I needed to square away more things, with my sister, and my mom, and my brother.  I had started with Zara, the day before.  We had met for lunch while her kids were at school, and it had been a mistake to try to make amends in a public setting.  Both of us had ended up crying so hard that we made quite the scene in the restaurant and the waiter had to bring us a pile of extra napkins.

“I’m sorry I didn’t believe you about Bradley!  I’m sorry I thought you would do that to me, and I know you wouldn’t,” Zara had sobbed, and I had apologized too for being distant and weird and abrasive and mean and all the other ways I had acted over the last few months.  Bradley and Zara were living apart, the kids were confused, Zara was a mess.  She blamed a lot of his problems on the alcohol, and he had gone into treatment, which was great.  I didn’t put as much on his drinking, but I hoped he would quit and it would make a difference for him—for them.  It was clear to me that Zara wanted to make their marriage work.  I just wasn’t going to be able to be around him, probably ever, and I told her that.  She seemed to understand.  I didn’t mention that if Bradley so much as looked at me sideways, Nate had said that he would kill him, and he meant that sincerely.

I had left it undetermined in my mind if I was going to share with her what had gone on with me, and in the end, I hadn’t.  Zara was too sad, too wrapped up in her own problems, and feeling so sorry for the way she had acted toward me.  I didn’t want to pile onto her misery.  And I didn’t get into it very much with my mom, either, when we met up at her house.  I just said that I was sorry to her, also, and that I was working on things.  We had both cried enough to fill a bathtub, even without me going much farther than that.

And now, after all that crying, I was at Brooks’ house.  I was going to have to talk to him, really talk to him, and I had brought Nate as my reinforcement.  I was afraid that my brother would freak out more than Joey did, and I just needed the support. 

My car door was open; Brooks was waiting on the porch; I didn’t get out.

“Scarlett.”  Nate reached over and unclicked my seatbelt.  “Let’s go.  He’s not going to bite you.”

Instead, Brooks came down from the porch and nearly squeezed me to death in a hug.  Which set me off crying, again.  Thank God Lanie wasn’t there, because she cried at the drop of a hat, and the two of us probably would have flooded the house.  But it did remind me of something.

“What I’m going to say, you can tell Lanie, ok?”  I said as we went inside.  “You guys probably shouldn’t have secrets.”

“Thank you.”  Brooks motioned us to the couch, and then he actually took out a pen and paper.

“What are you doing?” I asked him.

He was surprised.  “I’m going to write things down, facts, dates, et cetera.  If we want to bring the police back in—”

Nate plucked the pen from his fingers and shook his head.  “Worry about that later.  Just listen.”

Brooks nodded slowly, and he sat back in his chair.  “Ok.  I’ll listen.”

“First.”  I took a big breath and tried very, very hard to hold in the tears.  “I want you to try not to get mad at me.  Because I’m already angry enough at myself.  I just can’t—please don’t get mad at me.”

I heard Brooks inhale, preparing himself.  “Ok.  I won’t get mad at you.”

So I held on to Nate’s hand, and I talked to my brother.  I explained how I hadn’t loved Mats, not like how Brooks loved Lanie, but how it still had been hard when we broke up.  Hard because suddenly I was alone, and in a new house, and everyone was telling me to get back out there, to meet someone, that I was such a beautiful girl, there had to be a guy for me.  “I was trying to make an effort but it was like I was only partway there, not really into it.  I started drinking more—I was trying to get in the mood, I guess.  To make myself happier, relaxed, fun like I used to be.  It didn’t work.  Mom kept trying to fix me up and I finally decided to go.”

I told him about that night, what I remembered, what I had pieced together.  I realized I was trembling and clenched my muscles, trying to stop.  I told Brooks and he listened.  His face looked frozen.

“I’ve been so angry.” 

My brother nodded slightly at me.

I couldn’t think of how to explain it.  “It made me just so furious that it had happened to me, that I had let it happen—”

“No.”  Nate looked at me.  “No, you didn’t let that happen.  They did it.  They were in control of the situation, not you.”

“That’s what it is.  I didn’t have control anymore.  My body felt like it didn’t belong to me, like it had betrayed me, or I had betrayed it.  And then there were guys walking around, going out to eat, going to the beach, and there I was just—just…”  I stopped.  “I was just all wrong.  I was so angry,” I repeated helplessly, not knowing how to put it into words.

“I understand that feeling,” Nate said.  “It’s a terrible thing when you lose control, when your life gets out of your own hands.  When your own body isn’t even under your control.  I got angry, too, when that happened to me.  I raged.”

I looked at him.  “That’s what I’ve been feeling like.  Like everything has been out of control, especially me.  I haven’t been able to control my mouth and I say the worst things.”  I turned back to my brother.  “I’ve said them to you, Brooks, and I’m sorry.  To Lanie, to Mom.  I wrecked my car.  I haven’t slept right or eaten right and I haven’t been able to face anyone, my old friends, because I’m so different now, and because there are stories going around…”

“Stories?”  Brooks had been taking all this very quietly, masking whatever he thought.  But now he sat up straight and his hands clenched into extremely large fists.  “What kind of stories?”

“Some of them—some of the guys there that night—they must have talked.  About me, about what happened.  And I saw one of them, it must have been one of them, a few weeks ago.  He remembered me.”

My brother got up from the chair.  “Who.”

“Sit down,” Nate told him.  “You and I can discuss taking care of that later.”  He shot Brooks a look.

“I don’t want anyone to get into any trouble over this.  Either of you,” I said, glancing back and forth between them.

“You don’t need to worry about it,” Nate said.  He kissed my knuckles, which were white from clutching his own hand so tightly.

“I don’t understand why you didn’t tell me,” my brother said.  He looked bleak.  “I kept asking you—I kept insisting that you were angry at me because I got engaged to Lanie and you weren’t the bride anymore.”  He put his face in his hand, covering his eyes.  “Fuck, Scar.  That whole time, I was yelling at you.  Why didn’t you tell me how stupidly wrong I was, if only just to make me shut the hell up?”

My throat was very, very tight, like my vocal cords were piano wires.  “I couldn’t tell you.”  I tried to cough to loosen my throat but it didn’t work.  “I didn’t want you to know.  And I was acting horrible, so I deserved it that you yelled at me.  When you announced at Christmas that you were getting married, I ruined it.  You guys were so happy and excited and I ruined it.  It felt like I was losing you, like I had lost myself.  Like Lanie was taking you and Mom, and I was such a mess, who would want me, anyway?  Only Bradley.”

That was a mistake to say.  Brooks’ face started to turn red.

“No, no, forget that,” I said quickly.  “Forget that part.”

“I wish you had told me.”

“I love you so much and I didn’t want to disappoint you,” I said my voice getting very high and wavering, and then I did start to cry again.

“What?  Why would you disappoint me?”  Brooks shook his head back and forth.  “No, of course not.”

I wiped my eyes and tried to say it all while I could still talk.  “I didn’t want you to think of me like I was a victim, I wanted you to be proud of me, always.”

“Scarlett, I am.”

“I knew you’d blame yourself somehow, like it was your fault because Dad died and you didn’t do a good job, and it’s not.  It’s not your fault.”  I could barely say it, but I knew it was true, so I forced the next words through my tears and out of my mouth.  “It’s not my fault, either.  No matter how I acted or what I drank or didn’t drink, or took or didn’t take, I didn’t want that to happen to me.”

And my big, strong, tough brother, the one who had always been the rock I leaned on, started to cry.  “I didn’t want to make you sad,” I sobbed, but he grabbed me off the couch and hugged me. 

And then I knew that things were going to be all right between me and my brother, no matter where in the world we were living, no matter who we married or didn’t, no matter if we fought and yelled and got mad or if we laughed and cried.  Because that was what love was.

∞

Two weeks later, all my loose ends were tied up.  I had a contract to keep working with Pascale and my old team, just a few hours a week, just to supervise.  I had been in contact with Klere to wish her well, and to let her know that our brand would support her in the future, whether she posted more for us or not.  I had finally been able to convince Pascale of the value of that decision: even if we weren’t really big-hearted and generous, it was better to appear that we were, because Klere still had a lot of followers.  In fact, more than before, because people were really into her new, somewhat-introspective posts, #cleaningitup #reehab.

But personally, I really did hope for the best for her, and when I wrote to her, she answered me really quickly saying thank you.  She added that if I ever came up north to Los Angeles again, I should definitely stop in to see her and Jerry.  They were going to get married when their 90 days were up.  I decided that if I did ever visit her, I was going to bring the gift of a globe, with gold stars marking our positions on the earth.

I had been talking a lot with my college friend Daria.  I had been thinking that our old plan, our fashion website, might still be something worth pursuing.  Luckily, she agreed, either because she had gone back to work and it was terrible, or because she actually thought it was a good idea.  Either way, she was on board, and we were going to try it.  We could both work from home, which was good, since I wasn’t moving to Los Angeles to her, and she wasn’t moving to Hawaii.  Where I would be living, starting today.

I looked out the rounded window of the airplane as we backed out of the gate at the airport.  I was really doing it, not with a single bag with a bikini stuck in the zipper, but in an orderly, neat way, the Nate way.  My apartment was packed up and most of my belongings were on a boat moving across the Pacific.  In just a few moments, I would be going that way, too.

My family had come to drop me off, and it had been hard to say goodbye.  Very hard.  In fact, I got a little weepy just thinking about it, because apparently my crying gene had kicked in, and now they could just call me Lanie, that was how little I was able to hold it together.

I sniffed and touched my eye on my sleeve.  It was ok, because I wasn’t wearing much make-up that could smear.  I had streamlined my look to leave the fashion house behind and it felt nice to see my face in the mirror rather than a lot of product.  Plus, I only spent an hour getting dressed now, which gave me a lot more time to do other things with Nate.  It still took me 56 minutes longer than it took him, though, and that included his shower.

The plane thumped as we moved out of the gate and toward the runway.  “Is she ok?” I asked Joey.

“Pia?  She’ll do fine.  She was good on the way over here.”

I reached down to the floor of the airplane and scratched her black fur.  I had decided that I was going to get a dog, after I moved out of my temporary home at my grandma’s, and I got my living situation stabilized.  I loved Pia so much, though, that it was going to be hard to find a dog who could compete with her.  “Sweet girl,” I whispered, and she wagged her tail.  I would just visit her a lot at Joey’s brother’s house, where he was going to stay when we got to the Big Island.  I felt this was going to be very temporary too, because Kiana and I had been talking a lot and I knew that she wanted him back with her, and on top of that, the ring that Joey had picked was just gorgeous.  I had cried the whole time we had been at the jewelry store and Joey had to explain about a thousand times that no, I was not the bride.  And also, no, I was not sorry that I was not the bride, I was actually happy-crying.

“You’re a basket case,” Nate had told me, and kissed me in front of everyone.  “Is that the kind you like, then?  Like, silvery?”  He’d squinted at it, pursing his lips.

I had thought about the time and effort I had put into getting the perfect engagement ring from Mats.  The setting, the stone, the way he proposed—it had all been carefully scripted by me.  “I like silver, gold, and anything in between,” I’d told Nate.  “I just like you.”

I stopped petting Pia on the floor of the airplane and sat up to kiss him, rubbing my nose across the scars on his cheek.  He picked up the armrest so I could cuddle closer.  We were totally #cupelgoals.

“Did you tell her, Jedi, or did you think she was going to read your mind like you did hers?” Joey asked Nate casually from my other side.

“Tell me what?”  Oh, no.  “What’s the matter?  What’s wrong?” I demanded.

Nate leaned forward and glared at his friend.  “Why don’t you stay out of this, Rabbit?”

“Tell me.  Tell me right now,” I said.  “I insist!”

“Oh you do, do you?”  Nate laughed.  He seemed to do that more and more.  “You insist, Scarlett B?  My beautiful flower?”

“Watch it with the flower references,” I muttered.  Joey still didn’t know about my name.  I raised my voice.  “Tell me.  Immediately.”

Nate sighed.  “I was going to wait until we were on the beach at sunset.  Or up on Mauna Kea at night under the stars.  In other words, somewhere beautiful, not in this dirty airplane.”

“Nate!  You better tell me, right now.  No secrets between us.”  My heart had started beating hard in my chest.  The plane taxied up to the end of the runway and the engines cranked up to a roar.

“Ok, Scarlett…” he lowered his voice to a whisper, “Begonia.”  There was a long pause.  “I was going to tell you something good.  I hope you’ll think it’s good.”  He kissed me again, hard.  “I was going to tell you that I love you.  That’s it.”

“That’s it?”

“Yeah.”  He looked annoyed.  “That’s it.”

“He already knows that you love him,” Joey announced.  “It wasn’t a mind-reading thing.  I knew it, too, everyone can see it.  Do you have any gum?”

I handed him a piece.  “You already know how I feel?” I asked Nate.  “Well, then, I guess I don’t have to say it.”  I looked at him, with so much love, and joy, and happiness brimming up inside me, that tears started again, and I didn’t try to stop them.  My voice got husky.  “But I will tell you, because I’ve been wanting to say it, too.  I love you, Nate.”

“On a beautiful beach, or beneath the stars, or on this airplane.  Anywhere, Scarlett.  Always.”  He kissed me, and leaned his forehead to mine.

The plane lifted into the air and we flew off together, my heart soaring up so high, I didn’t think it would ever come back down.

Epilogue

“Iris!  Please tell your brothers to swim back in,” Daria called to her daughter.  “They’re out too far.”  Her preteen daughter rolled her eyes, serious sass, and ran down to the beach. 

“Teddy!” we could hear her yell from our position on the lanai.  “Get Eli and get your butts back up here!”  Pause.  “Why?  Because Mom says.  You have the brain of a hermit crab.”

“Kids,” Daria said.  “They’re pure gold.”

I laughed, and so did my sister-in-law, Lanie.  Her three children were down on the beach with their dad, digging a hole, like Brooks and I had done when we were little.  It fascinated his kids as much as it had captured me at the time.  Brooks and Lanie had made the move to Texas and their family just kept expanding.  I didn’t get to see them as much as I wanted, which, if I was being honest with myself, was weekly.  Daily would have been fine, too.

But we all made a big effort to be together, which had brought them to our house on the Big Island for Christmas.  We had strung lights around the palm trees and told their kids that Santa could surf, just like their Uncle Nate.

Zara and her two children were here too, out walking on the beach looking for shells, I thought.  Bradley, of course, was back in California, or at least not here, which was good.  They had separated years ago, after Zara had realized that the work she was putting into saving their marriage just wasn’t worth what she was going to get out of it: a life with a guy who was at his core, pretty much a jerk.  But he had stopped drinking entirely, and tried his best as a dad (which I did appreciate, even as I hated him). 

We all kept our mouths shut about Bradley for the sakes of my niece and nephew and for Zara, who didn’t like to be reminded of it all.  She still did better when she was ignoring things.  She had a long-term plus-one, Russ, who I thought was going to make it official between them sooner rather than later.  He was probably with them right now, carrying the bucket of their gear, because he was a good guy.  I thought she deserved to have somebody nice to her after the time she had spent with somebody who wasn’t.

My good guy lifted his head from the barbecue.  “Almost done.  Is everybody ready?”

“The table is set, we are hungry.”  I raised my voice to holler to Brooks on the beach.  “Gather the troops!”  He raised his hand and I heard his voice calling the kids as I turned back to Nate.  We had been together for a lot of years now, but still, when I saw him, when he looked at me with those dark eyes, my heart beat a little harder. 

I smiled and held out my hand, because I had missed him while he and Joey had been so busy cooking.  Kiana was pregnant (again, for the fifth time in about as many years) and between dealing with all their brood and his tired wife, Joey hadn’t been much help with the gigantic dinner.  And my help, as usual, had been politely declined.  “We want people to enjoy the food, Scarlett B,” my husband explained.  “Have a seat, and let the experts take this one.”  But he had said it with his hand on my breast and his teeth about to work on that part of my neck that drove me a little wild, and those maneuvers removed any possible sting from the words.  And I really didn’t want to cook, anyway.

Nate wiped his hands on his t-shirt and came to sit behind me on the chaise.  He broke out the ties only on very specific occasions now, like Joey’s wedding.  Our wedding had been us on the beach, barefoot, no neckwear required, and absolutely perfect.  “I can sit with you guys for just for a minute.  I’m at a critical point in the dinner, the point at which all the food could burn and our guests would go hungry.”  He rubbed my shoulders, then palmed my stomach.  We had taken our time to get married while I sorted out my issues and he helped me, and we took a little longer before we decided to start a family while I worked on my business with Daria and he grew his. 

But this little one, the little girl gently kicking under his hand, was much anticipated, by our dog child, Keiki, who rested at my feet, and by our son, Joseph Brooks, currently being carried up on his uncle’s shoulders from the beach.  And she was much anticipated by her parents as well.  Her father had teared up when he heard we were having a girl.  I, as per my usual, had cried my eyes out. 

I turned my head so I could see his face, and nuzzled into his chest.  This was definitely my favorite place to be.

“You guys having fun?”  Nate kissed my lips now, and gently rubbed my tummy, our growing family.  “Are you happy, Scarlett?”

“We couldn’t be better,” I told him.  I rested against my husband, his arms around me, the ocean rolling on the shore before us.  I was surrounded by all our family and a lot of our friends.  Nate and I were together with our kids, in beautiful, blue Hawaii, where all my dreams had come true.

about the author

Jamie Bennett is a reader turned writer (but still a reader).  Due to writing this book, her current passion is watching unusual sports.  She particularly enjoys talking about herself from the third person point of view.

Her many other novels are available on Amazon.  You can reach her via Instagram and Facebook @jamiebennettbooks (and join the Rocinante group for extra updates).

Thanks for reading!

And if you enjoyed this book, please leave a review!

Read Lanie and Brooks’ story in THE ONE I’M WITH

“You didn’t have time to get it straightened?  Or work on the color?”

“They couldn’t fit me in,” I told my mom, which was a lie.  I hadn’t tried to get in for an appointment because I liked my hair the color it was, brown with a little red left over from the summer sun.  And since I had gotten older and better at taming it, I didn’t mind my curls anymore.  Not as much as I had as a kid, anyway, when at one point I had wanted to shave my head and had sold lemonade and other items from our refrigerator to get enough money to buy a wig.  My mom had been too busy to mess much with my hair; she had sent me to her stylist, but on the days when there wasn’t a professional around to handle it, my nanny had pretty much thrown in the towel on all issues regarding my head.

My mom nodded, now clearly disappointed, and twisted my hair into a knot, securing it with pins.  “There, now we won’t have to see it as much.”

“Thanks.”  My voice sounded dull.  I had thought it was fine but now I guessed that she was right, it hadn’t looked very nice the way I’d styled it myself.

She tilted her head.  “You know, you have my neck.”  She looked at herself in the mirror in front of us and tapped under her chin with her fingers. 

“Really?”  I smiled.  My mom had such a graceful, long neck, like a queen.  I turned my head and looked at myself in the mirror to check to see if I did, too.

“Everything else from your father, though.”  She bent and put her face next to mine, and it was true.  We looked nothing alike, because she was pretty much the feminine ideal of beauty and I was…not.  There was nothing wrong, exactly, but I wasn’t my mom.  Even our expressions were different: a big smile on her face and a sulky frown on mine which I turned into a neutral stare back at her.  My mom’s eyes flicked down.  “Lanie, did you stuff your bra?” she asked.

“It’s just padded,” I answered defensively.  “A little, subtle padding.”

“Subtle?  It looks like you have pillows in there.  Very unnatural.”

Which was kind of ironic, given the amount of injections, surgeries, peels, creams, and other aids my mom used to look “natural.”

“This looks grotesque.  They have to come out,” she instructed me, and I reached down my dress and pulled the pads—ok fine, I pulled the pillows out.  The dress kind of clung, and the effect just wasn’t the same without them.  I frowned down at my deflated chest.

“Much better,” my mom approved.  “Natural is better.  I remember when I was modeling and all the girls were having breast enhancement surgery but I wouldn’t do it.”

Why would she have needed to?  She was a size two and her bra was a D-cup.  Her pillows were real.

“They told me that I wouldn’t get on MTV without having it, but I did.”  She nodded, satisfied.  “And I was always glad, later, that I didn’t have to deal with some of the problems from those old implants.  Not that surgery is always a mistake,” she added quickly, and I saw her studying my face.  She had never pushed me into getting anything done, but I knew that she wouldn’t have objected if I had come up with the idea on my own.

“Thanks for helping me with my hair, Mom.”  She had come to my house to check on me and after a while had taken the brush to step in.  I knew that she really wanted to help, and I was grateful for that.  I just always wished that her assistance didn’t make me feel so bad.

“I can do your makeup,” she suggested hopefully. 

“I’m done with my face,” I answered and I could read in her expression what she thought of my work.  “Don’t you need to get back with your own hair and makeup people?”

She gave herself one last look in the mirror.  “You’re right.  I know Ava is busy, if you want to come up to the house a little early to give her a hand.”  She kissed me on the head, careful not to disturb her handiwork with my hair.

“Maybe.”  No way in hell.  But then I did find myself wandering up a little early for the party, not to help Ava but to check things out.  My mom really did it up for her parties, even the minor ones like this, which was just to introduce an artist newly arrived from Russia to people in the art scene.  It was close to Christmas, so everything had a vaguely holiday feel, but nothing too overt because she hated Christmas parties and thought they were tacky.  She had a long list of things that she considered in poor taste and part of Ava’s job was to make sure none of them appeared in my mom’s eyeline.

Ava looked as frazzled as I’d ever seen her, which meant that there was a tiny line on her forehead between her eyebrows and that was all the sign of worry on her face.  She looked beautiful in a red sheath dress (nod to Christmas) with a flower on the shoulder that no one, including my mom, would have called tacky.  I hid behind some of the potted trees that had been brought in for décor and watched her supervise the servers, the florists, the valets, everyone.  She didn’t need my help.

Finally she spotted me, despite my best efforts at camouflage.  “Guests will start to arrive in about ten minutes,” she greeted me, while checking her phone.  “You have just enough time to go change.”

I looked down at my dark green cocktail dress (nod to Christmas), which I had liked, until this moment.  “I already changed.”

“Oh.”  She looked me up and down and then shrugged.  “I guess being comfortable is the most important thing.”  Her eyes returned to her phone.

“It’s not like I’m wearing yoga pants…”

Ava held up her finger as she read something on the little screen.  “I’m going to lose my mind,” she said, her voice perfectly even.  “The caterer left two cases of champagne unrefrigerated.  Nightmare scenario.”  The tiny line reappeared: her worried face.  “Talk to you later, Lanie.”

I went back behind the trees, then, as the guests came, emerged to talk to the people I knew.  I managed to get out of attending most of my mom’s parties so I hadn’t seen most of them for a while.  My mom’s new husband, Kristian, came downstairs finally, wearing a scarf in a way that made me want to vomit a little when I thought of how long it had taken him to achieve the specific drape of it.  He caught me sneering and shot me a look of death.  We did best when we ignored each other.

My mom was in her element so I watched her for a while.  I had done that when I was younger, then gone up to my room and stood in front of my mirror to imitate her.  I had held up a flute of orange juice and practiced her laugh, how she threw her head back and shook her hair, and the habit she had of putting her hand on the arm of the person she was talking to, widening her eyes and kind of pursing her lips so that she looked absolutely fascinated by what she was hearing.  I had watched myself do it in the mirror, but I always looked like I was smelling something bad, rather than that I was interested.

I talked and talked to people, and listened a lot, and had a cocktail, and some of the canapés, and waited.  The Wolfes were notoriously late to parties.  I saw my mom’s husband, Kristian, lead the new artist around, introducing her, their arms interlocked.  I studied Ava, standing with a man in a suit the same color as her dress.  I watched as she leaned forward, putting her hand on his arm, then threw back her head and laughed, shaking her hair.  She really did it well.

I waited.

They all entered the room together.  Scarlett with her new fiancé, a San Francisco guy who was always on his phone, both of them already looking bored and Scarlett very sullen, too.  The oldest Wolfe child, Zara, wearing heels that added four inches to her height, clinging to her husband as if she needed the support.  And Mrs. Wolfe, Pamela.  She was walking with her son and smiling at something he was saying to her.

Brooks.  It was Brooks—I inhaled a bit of canapé and it lodged in my throat.  I coughed but the hard piece of bread stuck there.  I kept coughing until tears streamed down my face, blinding me.  I held up a napkin and tried to return to my spot behind the trees, hacking away.  The crowd parted like the Red Sea, as if I was spreading consumption or French pox or something and not being asphyxiated by a bread crumb.

“Lanie?  Lanie, are you ok?”  Brooks appeared in my face, concerned.  “Here.”  He grabbed a drink off a passing tray.  “Take a sip of this.”

It was not how I had planned our reunion.  There was no cooing like Mae West, no running one of my long, painted nails down his cheek.  They were still all bitten, and anyway, who could talk like Mae West when she was bringing up a lung?  I coughed again and took a gulp of liquid from the cold glass Brooks handed to me.  It burned fire down my throat.  In honor of the Russian artist, my mom was serving icy-cold vodka, straight, and I had taken in at least half the glass.  I spat it out, right onto Brooks.

Oh. Holy. Shit.

He licked his lips.  “Vodka.  Tasty.”

“Brooks…”

He started to laugh.

I mopped at his face with the napkin I had been coughing into but then realized how disgusting that was.  “I’m so sorry!”

He used his sleeve and wiped off the rest of the liquid.  “It’s fine.  I should have expected it.  I remember wearing your ice cream cone at one point, a hot dog you shot out of a bun, and a chocolate doughnut with sprinkles that landed in my hair.  I prefer the vodka, actually.  You ok?”

I gave one last, halfhearted cough.  “Yes.  Part of the canape got…never mind.  How are you, Brooks?”  I used the napkin to wipe under my eyes.

“A little wet, and smelling like a distillery, but other than that, I’m great.”

“Oh, shit.  I’m really sorry.”

Brooks laughed again.  “No, I am great.  I’m happy to be home.  California in December is a much more friendly place than New York is.”

“I’m glad you’re back.”  I sounded ridiculously fervent, like I was saying “amen” in church.

“Me too,” he said.

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