Just a Heartbeat Away

by Cara Bastone

  A few moments later, Sebastian came striding back over, a bright smile on his face. Via looked up for just a second, but her eyes skated away before she could stop them. He slung his bag over his shoulder. “Where are we going?”

  * * *

  THE WALK OVER to the bar, just a few blocks, was boisterous and loose. Honestly, the yoga had relaxed the teachers way more than the Friday night happy hours ever did. Via walked in the front of the group with Grace and Shelly. She oohed and aahed over the grandkid pictures that Shelly was showing.

  She liked the two of them. Shelly was sweet and a little shy. Grace was much more outgoing and could be crass. They had a good friendship going and Via liked being around them.

  None of them had changed out of their workout clothes, despite the early October chill, and the bartender did a double take when the group filed in to the bar. It wasn’t too busy for a Brooklyn bar on a Monday night, but they had to squeeze to fit into the last table.

  A bolt of inspiration hit Via. Something she’d never done before but always wanted to. “First round’s on me,” she told the group.

  A series of little cheers and hoots greeted her as each person told her their order. Mostly beers and wine; Grace requested sherry.

  Via leaned against the bar, trying to get the bartender’s attention and smiling to herself. She’d never had expendable money before. Not that she really did right now either, but she had enough in her fun fund to drop a hundred bucks at the bar for her friends. It filled her up to be able to do it. She wished, as she so often did, that she could take a snapshot of this moment and message it back through time to the twelve-year-old foster kid who she’d been. She just wanted to tell little Via that she was headed for good things. Adulthood. Stability. The ability to throw a little money around every once in a while.

  Via’s phone chirped in her pocket, and she opened up the text from Evan. Her smile instantly dimmed. He was irritated that she’d made other plans. And his job interview this morning had not gone well. The bubbling happiness that had been rising through Via just a second before was hardening, forming into a dull lump in her chest.

  What was she thinking? She’d totally forgotten about Evan. She didn’t have the money to buy these drinks now that Evan was unemployed. He hadn’t had to rely on her for anything yet, but they were building a life together, and she should be thinking for two. It shamed her that she’d forgotten his money situation and the potential hard times he was going through when she agreed to go out with her friends. She’d ditched him tonight. In more ways than one.

  “What can I get you, beautiful?” the bartender asked, leaning over the bar toward her. He was older, maybe forty-five, and very handsome. He had silver in his hair and tattoos on the backs of his hands.

  Via blushed at the endearment, even though she was pretty certain that it was the kind of thing bartenders said to women all the time.

  She placed her order and his eyes widened. “Wow, hard day, huh?”

  She laughed. “It’s not all for me. I swear.”

  He tapped the bar with the flat of his hand. “You got it, gorgeous. I’ll be right back.” A moment later he tossed a tray onto the bar and started loading drinks onto it. “You a yoga teacher?”

  She looked down at her apparel. “Nope. I just led a class for my colleagues. We’re teachers at PS 128.”

  “No shit? I thought y’all usually came in on Fridays. We’d have held a table for you if we’d known.”

  “We got a table just fine. And after the yoga, apparently they all needed a drink.”

  “After the yoga, I needed an IV and about a week of vacation,” Sebastian’s voice came from over her shoulder. Via and the bartender laughed.

  “I hear that—I used to date a yoga teacher. Went to a class thinking I could impress her. Damn. Big mistake. It was one of them hot yoga classes? I saw spots for a week.”

  Via grinned at the bartender, noticing his eyes dancing between her and Sebastian. She took a step toward the bar and signed the bill he passed over to her.

  “I’ll carry that for you.” Sebastian batted her hands away from the tray and grabbed the drinks. “It’s why I came over.”

  The bartender handed over her copy of the bill and she smiled at him, trailing after Sebastian. The women cheered when he slid the drinks to the middle of the table, and Via found the two of them sliding into the last available seats, right next to one another. Well, fine. That was just fine. She couldn’t avoid him forever just because he looked like a Greek flipping god when he chaturanga-ed.

  Via looked down at the receipt in her hand, about to fold it into her pocket. “Oh.”

  “He charge you for something wrong?” Sebastian asked beside her, looking over her shoulder.

  “No, he, uh, never mind.”

  “Ohhhh.” Sebastian grinned at her, leaning over to read the receipt. “Christian the bartender left you his number.”

  She pursed her lips and shoved the receipt into her pocket, a little mortified.

  “You’re blushing, Via.”

  “Well...” She glanced over her shoulder where the bartender was busy filling drinks and chatting with regulars. “He’s very handsome. I’m allowed to blush when a handsome man gives me his number.”

  Sebastian took a sip of his beer and tipped his chair back onto two legs. He squinted over at the bartender. “Really? You think that guy is handsome?”

  Via glanced back over her shoulder. “Are you kidding? He looks like Dermot Mulroney.”

  “I have no idea who that is. But don’t you think he’s a little old for you?”

  She laughed in surprise. “He’s not old. He’s probably like forty-five or something.”

  “And you’re, what...twenty-three?”

  She forcefully pulled her face into a scowl even though it was fighting upstream against a smile. “I’m twenty-seven, thank you very much. About to be twenty-eight.”

  Sebastian blinked at her for a moment, seemed to be turning something over in his mind. But then he shrugged. “Regardless, you’re a baby. Spring chicken. And way too young for Father Time slinging drinks over there.”

  Via rolled her eyes. “Age ain’t nothing but a number.”

  He let out a surprised laugh as he took another drink of beer. “Was that an Aaliyah reference? I wouldn’t have thought you were old enough to remember her.”

  “Actually, that was an Andre 3000 reference.” For some reason she was blushing. “And I’m old enough to have listened to both of them. Though I admit the Aaliyah album was a few years old by the time it made its way to my Discman.” Her eyes got a little distant. “My parents were so thrilled to buy me that CD. They thought it was so delightfully American.”

  “They weren’t from the States?”

  She shook her head. “They came over from Italy after they got married. They didn’t have much family left there, and my dad got hired as a professor at Brooklyn College. It tickled them to no end that their kid was into the GAP and rollerblading and *NSYNC.” She looked down at the dark beer she was slowly rolling between her two palms. She so rarely talked to anyone about them. “They hated American food, though. I got grounded once when I came home with Doritos in my backpack.”

  Sebastian smiled, a complicated depth behind his eyes. She knew he understood what it felt like to speak of the dead, quasi-casually, in a bar. She was sure he knew how rarely she mentioned her parents. That he could feel just how rusty the hinges were on that particular door. And for some reason, maybe because of the kindness in his eyes, or simply because she knew he’d lost someone special as well, she wasn’t embarrassed by the moment. She leaned into it.

  “So you’re Brooklyn born and raised?”

  She nodded. “Bensonhurst, actually. It used to be a lot more Italian. I moved away after my parents died, to a foster home in Carroll Gardens. Then there was a group home in Bed Stuy. And
then I landed in Brighton Beach. With Fin and Jetty. Now I’m back in Bensonhurst.”

  “Jetty was your foster mom? And Fin’s aunt?”

  Via nodded, stiffening immediately. She didn’t want to talk about this anymore. It disturbed her that she didn’t like him talking about Fin. She didn’t know if they’d been texting or talking, or if they’d gone out yet. She didn’t think they had, or else Fin probably would have mentioned it. But there was a strange feeling creeping over her.

  She thought that he’d been getting to know her just then, but what if he’d just been fishing for details about Fin? That was fine, of course. It was a free country. But for some reason, it stung.

  CHAPTER TEN

  “SHIT! CRABBY!” SEBASTIAN stared down in horror at his phone. His waggling, attention-whore of a mutt had just bumped his hand and made him send the text he’d been debating sending for the last hour.

  Actually, he’d already decided not to send it. It was a Friday night. That was a bad time to start texting with someone. First of all, it made him look like a loser for not having plans on a Friday night already. And second, it probably made it sound like a booty call text.

  And third, he was currently texting a psychic, so she was probably going to read straight through any subtext right to the heart of what he was saying.

  Hey, Serafine. Sebastian Dorner here. Via gave me your number. Would you want to get together for a cup of coffee sometime?

  Translation: I have a major crush on your friend, and my reasons for reaching out to you are so fucking cobwebbed in my brain that I probably should never have sent this text.

  Sebastian tossed his phone aside like he’d just discovered it was made of acid. Those things were freaking dangerous. He resolved, for the forty millionth time, that Matty was not going to get a cell phone until he was at least eighteen. A cell phone needed to be handled with even more caution than a car did.

  He grabbed the remote and turned on the Yanks to try to get his mind off the text. Crabby inched just a bit farther into his lap, blinking up at him with big, innocent eyes.

  It was a badbadbad idea to go on a date with Fin. If she even said yes. Sure, she was gorgeous. She was model pretty and had all that wild black hair and the mystical thing down pat. But that was most likely just going to fluster the hell out of him. He was sure he was going to accidentally talk about Via too much. And his crush would be even more obvious than it probably already was.

  He let his mind circle back around to one very interesting piece of information he’d recently learned. Via DeRosa was twenty-seven. Not twenty-four, like he’d been assuming. Did that matter? It was only a three-year difference, so it shouldn’t really matter. But here Sebastian was, texting a thirty-year-old woman for a date, and that was only three years’ difference from twenty-seven. Ugh. His math didn’t make sense. He knew that. He knew he was highlighting certain rules and crossing out others. But it didn’t have to be airtight logic, he reminded himself. The simple fact was that Via was too young for him. Completely different stage of life.

  Sebastian took a swig of his fairly warm beer and grimaced. His life had been a hell of a lot simpler before Tyler had forced him to start dating again. Well, he amended, he was going to have run into Via DeRosa again regardless of Tyler’s pushiness. He was probably always going to have ended up with this crush.

  Seb started pulling the label off his beer bottle, careful not to leave any glue behind. He wondered if he would have had a crush on Via even if Cora was still alive. He’d first met Via in the weeks after Cora’s death. He couldn’t even remember it. Most of those early weeks were a complete blur. He was pretty sure that Matty’s grandparents, the Sullivans, had brought him to and from pre-K for the first few months, though Seb had very little memory of that time. He’d continued to go to work at the architecture firm. He’d barely eaten. Barely showered. Barely spoken.

  He was grateful that Matty didn’t really remember that time. He didn’t want Matty to think of him that way. But he realized, with a twisting pang in his gut, that if Matty didn’t remember that time, then he wouldn’t remember his mother either. And Seb desperately wanted Matty to remember Cora.

  Cora’s parents were rigid people, good with Matty, but hardly the kind of people who wanted to reminisce about their daughter. Sebastian’s parents were nostalgic people, but they were snowbirds who basically disappeared from Seb’s and Matty’s lives for everything but the summer months. Tyler brought Cora up every now and then, and so did Mary, but honestly, Seb often felt like Cora existed only within the confines of his own memories. And that terrified him, because she’d been such a force when she was alive. She’d changed every room she walked into. Injected every space with a sour-bright burst of energy and command and intensity. Cora had always reminded Sebastian of a Warheads candy. So sour it hurt, but still you wanted more.

  She hadn’t been easy to be married to. Neither had he. They’d been making it work. He could see now, though, that he and Cora had been sprinting to keep up with their lives, with each other. He, more than anyone, knew that you could only sprint for so long before you gave out. Seb wondered, painfully, if he and Cora would have figured out how to jog. Long haul.

  He couldn’t picture her at anything but breakneck pace. He’d been shocked at how quickly her flavor had seeped out of his and Matty’s life. She was such a strong presence and then suddenly, terribly, she’d been gone. And there was so little of her left.

  Seb wiped his eyes with the back of his hand. He didn’t allow himself to wonder if Cora would think he was doing a good job with Matty. He knew for a fact that she would be surprised. Because when she was alive, he’d been a subpar father. Often absent. Around for the fun parts and gone for the troublesome parts. And then right after she’d died, he’d been a terrible father.

  Neglect.

  He was lucky. So fucking lucky that Via hadn’t gotten the authorities involved. She’d given him a kick in the ass and set him on his way toward becoming a better father. Looking back, he could see now that the checklist she’d given him, the talking-to, it had been small. A sweet little nudge in the right direction. But at the time, it had saved his life. And Matty’s.

  His phone dinged from the other end of the couch, and Seb jolted like he’d accidentally sat on a beehive. Crabby sprang to his feet on the couch, letting out a surprised yelp, staring in one direction and then the other.

  “It’s all right, you sweet little dummy,” Sebastian murmured, pressing his face into Crabby’s fur as he reached past the wagging behind for his phone.

  Seb took a deep breath and ripped off the Band-Aid. He opened the text from Fin’s number.

  Like a date?

  Seb groaned and dropped his head backward. She wasn’t making this easy on him. Why did he feel like this was a test? He hated texting. He sucked at it. There was too much subtext. Too much room for error. Not enough honesty. If he’d been sitting next to her, he would have known if she’d cocked her head to one side, blushed, bit her lip. Or if she’d recoiled or dropped her mouth open in horror. Instead he just had three words and a question mark and not a clue as to whether or not she wanted it to be a date.

  She asked for your number, Seb.

  He took a deep breath and opted for the truth.

  Like a friend date where we decide if we like each other enough to go on a real date?

  He let out a long, slow breath and resisted the urge to toss his phone away again. He was a grown man. He wasn’t a teenage girl squealing into a pillow at a sleepover. He could wait for a reply like a normal—

  His phone dinged, and he pounced on it.

  Good answer. Sunday morning? Matty can come too if you want.

  Sebastian pursed his lips in surprise. That was sweet of her. And considerate. And it was an infinite relief to him to know that Matty could be his wingman on a date he was pretty sure he didn’t want to go on. Then he pictured his
energetic son sitting in a café listening to two adults talk. He grimaced.

  Better make it a coffee date at the park then?

  They made arrangements to meet at the Ninth Street playground at 10:00 a.m. Matty would be thrilled to go to the playground twice in one day. Once in the morning with Fin and once in the afternoon with Joy.

  Cool. That was great. Low pressure. No pressure at all. Just two adults getting to know one another.

  Sebastian groaned and scraped his hands over his face. This was so dumb. He didn’t want to go on a date with Fin. He just wanted to get over his crush on her friend.

  “This is all your fault,” he muttered to Crabby. The dog’s only response was to roll onto his back. He happily received the belly scratch.

  * * *

  VIA WAS IN a very bad mood when she arrived at softball the next afternoon. First of all, it had been a bad day at school yesterday. A regular of Via’s, Sarah Tate, had had a panic attack during their appointment. Sarah was a little slip of a fourth grader, always jumping a foot in the air at the smallest noise, wilting at anything that even slightly resembled criticism. Sarah had panicked because she had a scheduled visiting time with her father coming up. And honestly, she was just plain scared of him. Via hated the feeling that there was nothing she could do. She’d stayed late brainstorming with Principal Grim, was late for happy hour because of it, and then was late to see Evan.

  Which brought her to the second reason for her wildly foul mood. Evan had wanted to come watch her play, but she’d really wanted him to get a jump on his job search instead and it had turned into a very long, very messy argument. Maybe she’d pushed too far; she knew that she’d been both pushing against him and pushing against the drafty feeling in her chest. And maybe it wasn’t fair to bring that baggage into the argument and not explain it to him.