The Heartbreaker

by Cat Carmine

  I slide down into my chair, my anger temporarily abated. “So, you weren’t threatening to leave? Take half the board with you?”

  He chuckles. “Hell no. Who the hell cares what you do in your spare time?”

  Who, indeed. I rub my chin. I’d shaved for the first time in weeks before coming in to the office, and the nearly-bare skin catches me by surprise. I blink up at Ray. “Who, indeed,” I muse again.

  When I get to Ed’s place, I have the doorman ring me up. I ride the elevator up to the twelfth floor, already mentally rehearsing the shit-talking I’m going to give him. I’ll make him tell me the truth. I don’t know how, yet, but I will.

  Ed opens the door right away and ushers me in. He’s wearing a silk robe of some kind, and seeing his bare legs make me feel strange. Guilty, somehow. They’re the legs of an old man — partly bowed, knobby at the knees. Before I even say anything, half the fight has gone out of me.

  “What can I do for you, Logan?” He thrusts his hands down against his sides, but the robe doesn’t have pockets, so his hands just hang there limply.

  “Why did you lie to me about Ray?”

  He freezes. “What?”

  “You lied to me. I talked to Ray today, and he claims he never had any intention of stepping down from the board. Said he didn’t give a shit, in fact, who I slept with or how I handled my personal business. Isn’t that interesting?”

  “Logan, calm down. Let’s talk about this.” He glances nervously around the apartment and then ushers me down the hallway and into his den. He nudges me towards the deep brown leather Chesterfield, but I don’t feel like sitting down. Too much pent-up anger.

  “I want an explanation, Ed,” I caution him. Ed is already pouring out two crystal tumblers of scotch. He hands one to me.

  “Thanks,” I say grudgingly. “Macallans?”

  “Of course. Is there anything else?”

  I manage a grim smile and take a swallow, then a seat. I’ve known Ed so long — and this whole situation is so unexpected — that I’m willing to at least hear him out.

  Satisfied, Ed sits down across from me and crosses his legs. I avert my eyes. That robe is seriously way too short.

  “I suppose I owe you an explanation,” he says eventually. He sighs. “It never felt right to me, you know.”

  “What does that mean?”

  “It means —”

  “Honey, what in the world is keeping you?” A woman’s voice comes from somewhere in the apartment, and my face flames red. No wonder Ed’s in his robe. I must have interrupted something. I almost — almost — crack a smile.

  “Are you coming back to bed?” The female voice purrs, before the woman herself comes around the corner.

  “Mom!” I catapult myself off the sofa. My mother is standing there wearing a robe nearly identical to Ed’s. Her normally perfectly-coiffed hair is all mussed up, especially in the back, like ...

  “Oh my God. I think I’m going to pass out.” I sit back down on the couch in a huff. Mom’s hand flies to her mouth. Her eyes dart nervously between Ed and me. “Does someone want to tell me what the hell is going on here?”

  “I’m sorry you ... had to find out like this.” Mom flutters her eyelids at Ed, and he wordlessly gets up and pours her a drink. Gin and tonic — her favorite. How exactly does he know that?

  My mother takes a hearty drink. With the aid of the liquid courage, she finally turns to face me. “I wanted to tell you, Logan. I really did. We both did. But then I didn’t want to make a big deal about it if it wasn’t anything, and then when it really turned into something, it felt like it had been going on for so long and it might be awkward to tell my children and...”

  “Mom,” I cut her off. “Please. Can you just tell me what’s going on?”

  It’s Ed that answers, instead. “Well, we’ve fallen in love, Logan. Your mother and I.”

  I nearly spit out my scotch. “Wait, you … what?”

  “It’s true,” Mom agrees. She wraps her hand around Ed’s. “I never thought it would happen for me again. You know how I loved your father so. But Ed has been so good to me over these last months and … my goodness. I feel like a girl again.” She actually giggles, and when she and Ed look at each other, I can see that it’s true. She’s in love with him. They’re in love with each other. It’s obvious in the secret smile they share, the way he runs his thumb over the back of her knuckles.

  “Are you terribly upset, Logan?” Mom says, worriedly. “We really didn’t mean for you to find out like this.”

  “I’m not upset,” I say, testing out the words and finding that, yes, it’s true. I’m not upset. I’m glad my mother’s happy. And Ed is a good man. Except for—

  “Wait, we were talking about Ray Kellerman. Why did you lie to me about him leaving the board?”

  Ed and my mother exchange another glance. What the hell is going on here?

  Ed starts to speak, but Mom cuts him off. “That’s my fault.”

  “What?” I stare at her incredulously. “What are you talking about?”

  “I was worried about you. You seemed to be wasting your life, flitting from one floozie to the next. You didn’t seem to be happy. I wanted you to have something more. So I made Ed go see you.”

  I push myself up off the couch. “Are you kidding me? This is insane. You let me think the company was in jeopardy? Why didn’t you just talk to me?”

  “We tried talking to you,” she says plainly. “Your sister and I both. You didn’t want to hear it. It seemed like the only way to get your attention was if it affected the business. That’s the only thing you care about.”

  “It’s not,” I say, but the energy has left me. I let myself sink back down onto the couch. “It’s not the only thing I care about. At least, not now.”

  And then, even though I don’t mean to, I find myself telling them everything. About Blake, about the baby, about how I’d managed to ruin everything. It feels good to talk about it, even if they don’t do anything but make sympathetic murmuring noises. I can tell Mom is excited about the idea of another grandbaby, although she’s tactful enough to not let it show just yet.

  By the time I finish, we’ve all reached the bottom of our drinks, and Ed gets up to prepare another round.

  “You know, after your father died, I told myself I’d never be with another man,” Mom says. She pulls her robe tighter around her. It’s dark out now, but there’s a fire crackling here in the den, and it’s rather pleasant.

  “Mom, you don’t have to —”

  “No, Logan, listen. I thought I’d never be with another man. I thought I’d never want to. I loved your father so much. But life is a very long book. Well, if we’re lucky, it’s long. You don’t stop reading just because you didn’t like how one chapter ended. You can’t judge it until you’ve reached the very end of the story. You have so many chapters left, Logan. So many pages left to fill. And the story can be so wonderful, if you let it. I thought my whole story would be written with your father — but it turns out life had a couple of surprise chapters in store for me.” Mom pauses to dab at her eyes. “Just promise me you’ll keep reading to the end. Please, Logan? Promise me you will.”

  My throat feels tight. “I promise.”

  We sit in silence, watching the fire die out and sipping our drinks as the pages turn, blown away like leaves in the wind.

  That night, at home, I drown my sorrows in scotch. Too much scotch, probably, if we’re being honest, here. So when Heather calls, I’m already quite a few sheets to the wind.

  “I talked to Mom,” she says, instead of a greeting.

  “Oh?” I grit my teeth.

  “She told me about her and Ed.”

  “Right.” I let out a breath. That.

  “She said you caught them together this afternoon.” I can hear her trying not to laugh. “That must have been horrible.”

  I manage a laugh myself. “It could have been worse. Still, seeing our mother with sex hair was definitely something I
could have lived without.”

  “Oh God.” Heather squeals, a very un-Heather-like sound. “I can’t even.”

  “I know.”

  “Well,” she says after a minute. “I’m glad she’s happy. Did she seem happy?”

  “Yeah, she did,” I muse. “And I’m happy for her, too.”

  “She also told me what happened with the board. I’m sorry she interfered that way, Logan. I think she feels terrible.”

  “Yeah, well.” What else is there to say to that?

  “Are you going to go see Blake?”

  “Go see her? Why would I do that?”

  “Because you’re madly in love with her?”

  “Yes, well, she’s made her feelings on that perfectly clear.” I over annunciate the words to the point that I sound like a real twat, but I don’t care.

  “Logan, she’s just scared,” Heather huffs.

  “Scared?” For a second, I’m genuinely surprised. “What would she have to be scared of? I could give her everything.”

  “That’s what she’s scared of, dummy.”

  “Hey now,” I chide, but my mind is turning her words around and around. “Can you elaborate on this, please?”

  “God, for such a smart man, you can be so slow sometimes.” On the other end of the phone, Heather sighs. “She’s scared of you, Logan. You have everything. Including a dead fiancee, I might add. No disrespect to Laura, of course, but it’s hard to compete with a dead fiancee. And then when you do something like accidentally get pregnant... I don’t know. I just think, if I were in her shoes, I’d be burying my head in the sand, too.”

  “When have you ever buried your head in the sand?”

  “You know what I mean. She’s just overwhelmed. She needs to know you’re all in with her. That all that other stuff doesn’t matter, that you love her enough to make all that other stuff irrelevant.”

  My mind is reeling. My feelings for Blake terrified me, but it had never occurred to me that she might be scared, too. Which seems … incredibly stupid, now that Heather has pointed it out. Pregnant and alone, and me too wrapped up in my own personal tragedy to be there for her. Of course she’d be scared. It’s just so hard to picture Blake as anything less than the firecracker she normally projects. Somehow, I’d let this pint-sized pixie become my rock, without being man enough to do the same for her. The thought fills me with a wordless shame.

  “You still there?” Heather asks.

  “I’m still here. I’m just thinking.”

  “Well, I hope you’re thinking about how to make this right.”

  “I am. Got any brilliant ideas for me, since you seem to be so smart all of a sudden?”

  Heather chuckles. “Well, you’re on your own for that one. But I think if you speak from the heart, you might figure it out.”

  Thirty

  “There you go,” I say, depositing the huge bouquet into Peter Lonney’s arms. We’d offered to have it delivered to his wife, but he’d insisted on coming to pick up the flowers himself.

  “Ah, geez, they’re beautiful, Blake. Your mom do these up?”

  “Yup. Just for you.” I think Mom has a soft spot for Mr. Lonney — or maybe his wife — because she always does his arrangements with extra care. This time, she’s added clusters of white bouvardia, sprigs of Italian ruscus. It’s truly stunning.

  “She’s got a real gift,” he says, with a shake of his head. “You tell her thank you for me, will you?”

  “Of course. I hope your wife likes them. How’s the dishwasher?”

  He rubs his forehead. “Well, wouldn’t you know it, we ran into an issue with the pipes that run up to it. Had to rip out that whole wall, and now we might be looking at replacing a whole whack of piping. Isn’t that the devil?”

  “That’s the devil, alright.” I grin. “So I guess we’ll see you again soon?”

  He chuckles. “Yes, I think you probably will.”

  He tips his cap and then disappears out the front door. The chimes above the big green door tinkle and then fade. The store is empty again, except for Mom, who’s in the back sorting out arrangements for an upcoming wedding. I flop down onto the stool I’ve taken to keeping behind the counter with me and take a big swig from my water bottle.

  The door chimes again.

  “Did you forget something, Mr.—” I stop mid-sentence. Because it isn’t Mr. Lonney standing there at the entrance of Bloomers. It’s...

  “Logan.”

  “Hi Blake.”

  He’s so tall and broad-shouldered that he seems to take up half the space in the shop. He moves carefully between the tiny aisles, past the display of ready-to-go bouquets and the Thanksgiving centerpieces we’re promoting right now. I can’t tear my eyes away from him. Everything about him is magnetic, even now. Even after everything.

  His eyes roam over my face as he comes towards me, only darting once or twice down to my stomach, which is still well-hidden beneath a baggy t-shirt and the well-worn green apron that I wear when I’ve been handling the inventory.

  “You look good,” he says, when he arrives at the back, where I’m standing. There’s a two-foot wide counter between us, but it might as well be the Grand Canyon. It feels completely impassable.

  “Thanks. So do you.” God, my mouth is dry. I swear I really am standing at the edge of the Grand Canyon. All I need now is a pack mule and a postcard. I take another desperate swig of water.

  “I was hoping we could talk. Do you think you can get away?”

  “Um.” My eyes dart towards the back. “It’s just me and Mom here right now, and she’s busy getting a big order together and—”

  “Blake, you can’t get rid of me that easily. I’m not going anywhere.”

  “—but maybe at five when we close?” I say at the same time.

  “Oh. Great. Okay, five would be great.” Logan tries to smile, but the expression is strained. Now that I look closer at his face, there are fine lines around his eyes that I’m sure weren’t there before. Although he’s shaved, his cheeks look hollow. He looks like he’s been through hell.

  So maybe I’m not the only one.

  “There’s a Dunkin’ Donuts down the street. If you want to wait somewhere.”

  “I’m okay. My car is right outside. I’ll just wait here.”

  “Okay. I should be out at five.”

  Logan nods, then turns and walks out of the shop. I watch him go, then peek out the window as he walks to his car.

  For the next hour, I’m at that window every spare second I get. Almost like I have to reassure myself that he’s still there. That this is really happening. He came for me. That’s good, right? That’s what I wanted?

  I feel so confused that I don’t even know anymore. I count down the seconds until five o’clock. One slowly agonizing second at a time.

  At exactly five minutes to five, Mom emerges from the back room, untying her apron as she walks towards me. “Ready to call it a night?”

  “Um....” I cast another glance out the window.

  “What?” Mom follows my gaze and sees the SUV. She frowns. “Is that your old boss?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Huh.” She smiles. “Did he come to beg you to take your old job back? He must miss you.”

  “I’m not really sure why he’s here,” I say honestly. “But I should probably talk to him. So … are you okay to lock up here?”

  “Of course. Go. Do you need me to pick you up anything for dinner?”

  “No, no, I’m fine.” I’m already untying the green apron and finger-combing my hair. There’s nothing I can do about the bags under my eyes or the fact that I’m wearing the world’s frumpiest t-shirt, but I can at least put on some lip gloss and pop a breath mint.

  After a couple of minutes, I realize Mom is staring at me. Okay, I guess that’s enough killing time.

  “I’ll be home soon,” I say, grabbing my sweater and planting a kiss on her cheek. I can feel her gaze on me as I leave the store, and I’m sure if I turned arou
nd, I’d see a whole bunch of questions in her eyes. So I don’t turn around.

  Logan is out of his car before the shop door even swings closed behind me.

  “Ready?”

  I nod. I want to hug him or kiss him or do something, but his hands are stuffed in his pockets, and there’s still that matter of the yawning canyon between us. “Where are we going?”

  “I don’t really know,” he says. “Just ... somewhere we can talk.”

  “Okay. There’s a picnic area down in Leaside Park — it’ll probably be quiet there since it’s too cold to picnic.”

  “That sounds great. Think you can direct me there?”

  “Sure.”

  He tries to help me into the car, but I brush away his hand. It isn’t because I don’t appreciate the offer, but because I’m afraid that if I touch him right now, I’ll never want to stop touching him. Logan is an addiction, and his touch is the strongest drug of all.

  He looks like he wants to say something, but instead he just hovers while I climb in, and then goes around to the driver side.

  “Take a left at the first light,” I instruct.

  He nods without saying anything, and we drive in silence. I give out instructions, but that’s it. It doesn’t take long to drive there — Highfield isn’t exactly a big town. I hated it when I was growing up, but now it seems so comforting and familiar. There’s the street everyone wanted to trick or treat on, because they gave out the best candy. There’s the house my best friend in elementary school lived in. There’s the bowling alley where I kissed Tommy Bleeker at his ninth birthday party. Every road has a memory attached to it, every square mile feels like home. Why did I ever want to leave this?

  When we get to the park, Logan stops the car. I hop out before he can come around to help me, and then we start walking. Still silent. I notice he’s carrying a bag, but I don’t ask any questions about that.

  The picnic area, as I expected, is deserted. A few squirrels dart through the fallen leaves, probably scrounging for winter nuts, or whatever it is squirrels do when the seasons change. We watch them for a couple of minutes, sitting side by side on the bench seat of a picnic table. It seems neither of us wants to be the first to speak.