Fixer-Upper

by Linda Seed

  27

  Martina knew she should probably break up with Chris. But, as she’d told her sisters, she didn’t want to do that. She wasn’t in love with him—it was too soon for that. But she had to admit things were heading that way, and that didn’t happen every day. It seemed like a shame to throw that away without even trying to have the come to Jesus talk her sisters had recommended.

  But what would she say? How could she get through to him?

  She didn’t know, so she decided to take a break from him while she thought about it.

  He called her cell phone in the morning, but she didn’t answer. She didn’t want to ignore him, though, so she sent him a text message.

  I’m not ready to talk yet. I need a little time.

  That seemed much more civilized than simply refusing to take his calls.

  His answer came quickly: But you are willing to talk about it? This isn’t over, is it? I hope it’s not.

  She hesitated, then typed: We’ll talk. Just not yet.

  First, she had to think about exactly what she wanted to say, how she wanted to say it, and what kind of result she wanted.

  Right now, none of those answers was entirely clear.

  As Chris’s most recent ex, Alexis might have had some insight into why he kept screwing things up with women.

  He called her one afternoon when he was out in his garage looking at the broken pieces of his Mustang. He’d been trying to work on the car, but he was so distracted by his thoughts about Martina he kept making mistakes that were going to cost him both time and money.

  He leaned against his work bench, pulled his phone out of his back pocket, and called her.

  At first, she refused to pick up the phone. Of course she was screening his calls. Then, he texted her.

  Just pick up, Alexis. I need to talk to you.

  He tried again, and this time she answered.

  “What do you want?” The hostility in her voice took him aback and made him wonder if maybe he were beyond help when it came to women.

  “Look, Alexis. I don’t want to fight. I just wanted to ask you something.”

  “Fine. What is it? I have to be somewhere in ten minutes.”

  He was sure she’d just said that to put him on the defensive. Well, fine. He’d try to make this quick.

  “Am I … Shit, I don’t know how to put this.” He rubbed his forehead with his free hand.

  “Try. I’m in a hurry.”

  He let out a breath. “Am I really awful to be in a relationship with? And if so, how? Specifics would be helpful.”

  She didn’t say anything for a moment, and he took her silence for surprise.

  “Alexis?”

  “Christopher, what the hell is this about?”

  “I just … God. I’m seeing someone, and it’s not going well. And I really want it to go well. But I don’t know how to fix it if I don’t know what I’m doing wrong. So, tell me. What did I do wrong? What’s wrong with me?”

  Another stretch of silence. Then: “That’s going to take a lot longer than ten minutes.”

  Since Martina wasn’t willing to see him right now, he had nothing better to do than drive to the Bay Area to see Alexis. She’d agreed to meet him for lunch the following day to dissect his failings.

  That was likely to be as much fun as a root canal without anesthesia, but from his perspective, being alone for the rest of his life would be even less fun than that.

  He met her at Chez Panisse in Berkeley, and they sat at a quiet table covered with white linen in the back of the restaurant. The dark, warm wood tones of the dining room made him feel as though he’d been transported to somewhere far away from his own life and all of its complications.

  But Alexis was here to remind him of them.

  “So,” he said when they each had a glass of wine in front of them and had placed their lunch orders with the waitress.

  “So,” she repeated. “You came all the way here so I can tell you what’s wrong with you?” She was impeccably dressed in black slacks and a white silk blouse, her hair and makeup perfect. She looked as though she’d just come from being professionally styled.

  “Yes. I suppose so. I came all the way here to find out why I keep screwing up with women. You’re the most recent woman I’ve screwed up with, so …” He left the rest hanging there.

  She looked at the table instead of at him. She picked up her wineglass, took a delicate sip, then put it back down precisely in the same place it had been before. Then she focused on him.

  “Who is it?”

  “Who is what?”

  “Who are you seeing, Christopher? You said you were seeing someone, and that’s why we’re here. Who is it?”

  He thought about refusing to tell her, because who would it serve for her to have that information? But then he decided, in the interests of honesty and openness, to come out with it.

  “I’m seeing Martina Russo.”

  Alexis’s eyes widened. “The designer?”

  “Yeah.”

  “You didn’t waste any time, did you?”

  That threw him off a little. “What do you mean?”

  “I mean, if our relationship were a dead body, it wouldn’t have even been cold when you started seeing her. I’m assuming, given the circumstances. You really can’t stand being alone, can you?”

  “Oh, come on. That’s not fair.” But, was it? She was right—he’d started seeing Martina very soon after breaking up with Alexis. But that was just a coincidence. When you met someone who was right for you, you had to act, didn’t you?

  Or was it because he couldn’t stand to be alone?

  She fixed him with a look that penetrated him. “You asked me here to tell you the truth, the way I see it. And now you’re arguing with me?”

  “No, you’re right. You’re right. I do want to hear it. Go ahead.”

  And she did. Over seasonal field greens and quail with parsley sauce, she told him he had never really seen her; he had wanted her around to warm his bed and to look good on his arm when he went out, but he had never wanted to know her. She told him he’d dismissed her interests, indulging them by throwing money at them but never attempting to understand or share them. She told him she’d never felt like she could talk to him about the things that mattered to her, and when she tried, he didn’t listen. And she told him she felt like he’d tried to buy her, over and over again.

  “I didn’t want to remodel Cooper House. Not really. I just wanted to feel comfortable there. I wanted to feel like it was ours instead of just yours. But you thought if you could keep me busy picking paint colors and fabric swatches—”

  “That’s not what I—”

  She reached out and gently placed her index finger on his mouth. “I’m talking and you’re listening, remember?”

  So he shut up and let her finish.

  The picture he got, in the end, was of a woman who’d been trying to reach out to him but who’d hit a brick wall of indifference while he’d tried to distract her with his wealth. The question wasn’t why the relationship had failed. The question was, why hadn’t it failed sooner?

  When she was done, he sat back and took a long swallow of his wine, thinking there wasn’t enough wine in the world to make him feel better about everything she’d said.

  “I’m sorry,” he told her, finally. “If that’s how I made you feel, I’m sorry.”

  “Well.” She smiled slightly, those perfectly painted lips curving faintly upward. “It’s not worth much now, I suppose, but it’s still nice to hear.”

  Chris stayed at his condo that night and drove home the next day feeling hopeless about his prospects with Martina. If everything Alexis had said was true—and he suspected it was—how could he hope to avoid the same problems this time around?

  The thing was, he really liked Martina. He liked her more than he’d liked Alexis, more than he’d ever liked anyone. He didn’t want to see this thing with her crash in flames the way every other relationship had done. But ho
w could he avoid it if he didn’t even understand himself?

  He’d thought a few times that seeing a therapist might be in order. He hated the idea of it—hated the concept of sitting in some over air-conditioned office designed to be soothing, the therapist handing him a box of tissues while he talked about how his mother had failed him.

  Which, let’s face it, she really had.

  Still, it was worth a try, wasn’t it?

  One nice thing about being wealthy was that he didn’t have to jump through the hoops most people did when they wanted to see a healthcare professional. He had people to jump through those hoops for him.

  He’d had a full-time personal assistant when he’d had his company. Now that he didn’t, she wasn’t full-time anymore, but he sometimes called her when he needed something done and didn’t have the time or inclination to do it himself.

  “Janet, could you find me a good therapist on the Central Coast and make me the first available appointment?” he asked via the Bluetooth in his car as he drove south.

  “Of course. What kind of therapist are we talking about? Is your knee acting up again?”

  He tried to keep his tone neutral. “Not a physical therapist. A psychologist. Someone who specializes in relationship issues.”

  “Oh. Certainly. I’ll take care of that right away.” She sounded entirely too enthusiastic for his taste. “And, I hope I’m not out of line in saying this, but …”

  “Yes?” he prompted her.

  “It’s about time.”

  Martina made it two weeks before she broke down and agreed to see him socially. The construction of his new kitchen had started, so she’d seen him in the context of work, but she’d kept it professional, wanting to give herself time to think.

  She’d intended to go longer—not to punish him, but to get some clarity about what she wanted and how she wanted to get it—but she missed him too much.

  She hadn’t been sleeping well because she couldn’t go to bed without feeling how empty it was without him there. That was pathetic, she knew, but it was the truth. She felt sad all the time, and she didn’t like feeling sad. That heavy weight of pure loneliness and regret that sat on her chest had to be lifted one way or another.

  She called him a couple of days before Sofia’s bridal shower.

  “So,” she said. “I thought maybe we should ... you know. Get together.”

  “Is this to talk about the kitchen?” He sounded tentative. “Because I don’t want to fool myself that you mean something different than that.”

  “It’s not to talk about the kitchen.”

  They met at Madeline’s on Main Street for dinner that night, and during the entree, Martina reached out and took his hand on the tabletop amid candlelight and white linen. When they’d finished dinner and she had paid—she’d insisted, and he’d known better than to argue—she invited herself back to his house.

  “Are you sure?” He looked impossibly hopeful, and it would have crushed her to disappoint him.

  “I’m sure.” They went straight to his bedroom, where they both undressed as quickly as they could and then climbed under the covers and into each other’s arms.

  “I missed you,” he said when she pressed her bare body against his.

  “I missed you, too.”

  And then they didn’t talk anymore.

  Afterward, there were issues they needed to work out.

  “I can’t just let you buy me things—especially not a piece of property,” she told him once they were dressed. It was important that she be dressed for this. “When you did that, I just ... I didn’t know what to think. And I had to think.”

  “Okay.” He nodded. “But it’s about to close escrow. What do you want me to do with it? Put it back on the market?”

  “Yes.”

  “Really.”

  “Yes, really. And then let somebody else—your accountant or your real estate lawyer or somebody—let them deal with the details of it. When I submit an offer, I don’t want it accepted just because it’s me. I want you out of it.”

  He smiled a little, as though he found her amusing. “I can do that.”

  “I know you can. But will you? Will you stay out of it so I can buy the property fair and square? So I can do it on my own, without your help?”

  He used his index finger to draw an X over his heart. “I promise. But I’m not sure why you want that. We know someone else wants to make an offer. At least, they made one last time. What if I accidentally accept theirs instead of yours? I could give you a deal. I could—”

  “No! God. Aren’t you even listening to me?” An anger that was close to despair rose in her. How could this ever work if he didn’t listen or, worse, if he tried to listen but didn’t understand?

  “Yes, Martina. I’m listening. I just don’t—”

  “Chris. If you don’t get why I want to do it this way, that’s fine. But it’s what I want. Please tell me you’ll do it.”

  “All right. I’ll do it.”

  It wasn’t enough for her, and it wasn’t fine. But it would have to do for now.

  Chris thought it was, frankly, nonsensical that Martina wanted him to treat her like anyone else regarding the real estate deal. She wasn’t just anyone else. He’d never known anyone who didn’t want to take advantage of personal connections when it came to business.

  But he’d never known anyone exactly like her, so was it beyond understanding that she might think differently than everyone else he knew?

  He’d only seen the therapist a couple of times, so he didn’t have much to draw on for insight.

  Still, they’d had a few sessions, and the therapist—a trim, middle-aged woman named Karen who would remind him of his mother, if his mother were both sober and insightful—had offered one thing that might be useful here.

  Martina’s telling you what she needs. Are you hearing her?

  Martina and Alexis both had said the same thing—that he didn’t listen.

  Okay, so he could try to listen. Even if he didn’t get why she wanted what she wanted, he could at least believe her when she told him she wanted it.

  When escrow closed, he would put the property back on the market, and he would hire someone to handle the transaction for him. He would not be privy to any of the details—like the names of anyone who might make an offer.

  And if she didn’t get the property because someone else got it first? Or if she paid more than she had to? Fine. If that was what she wanted, then so be it.

  God, women were confusing, mysterious creatures.

  28

  The day of the wedding shower dawned not with blue skies and birds tweeting merrily in the trees, but with wind, thunder, and a downpour of rain that would have sent Noah—the Biblical one, not the contractor—scurrying onto the ark.

  “Nooo!” Sofia wailed when she got up that morning and heard the rain pounding on the roof. “Why today? Why does there have to be a giant storm today?”

  “It’ll be okay,” Martina reassured her. “The shower’s going to be indoors, so it’s going to be fine.”

  “But people are driving in from out of town! Who wants to drive in this? It’s a sign, obviously. I’m not supposed to get married. Not without Mom and Dad here.” Tears glimmered in Sofia’s eyes.

  “Okay, we’re not doing that again,” Benny said. She was still making her first coffee of the day, and it wasn’t a good time to test her patience. She scowled at Sofia. “We’re not using Mom and Dad as an excuse for you to get cold feet about marrying Patrick.”

  “I’m not getting cold feet!” Sofia’s literal feet were encased in fuzzy slippers, but her figurative feet did, in fact, seem a bit chilly.

  “Bullshit.” Benny poured coffee into her mug, took a sip, and sighed in relief.

  “Sofia, we’ve been over all of this.” Martina spoke more gently than Benny had. She got up and went to where Sofia was standing at the kitchen island and put her hand on Sofia’s shoulder. “Mom and Dad would want you to be happy. They�
��d love Patrick. They would be over the moon that you’re getting married to such a great guy, even if they can’t be here to see it.”

  “And Mom would kick your ass for even thinking about backing out,” Benny said.

  It was true. If Carmela could be here, she’d be railing about how her daughter was an idiota for even thinking about letting such a good man go.

  “I’m not thinking of backing out,” Sofia said in a small voice. “But why does it have to be raining? Why today?”

  “I could give you a lecture about the water cycle and its role in maintaining a healthy ecosystem,” Benny said. “But something tells me you weren’t asking from a scientific perspective.”

  “Look. We can ask ourselves why and worry about the people who might not make it here,” Martina said, “or we can just accept what is and make this the best day possible for whoever does manage to part the Red Sea and get here.”

  “That Red Sea thing isn’t helping,” Sofia said.

  “Sorry.” Martina massaged Sofia’s shoulder a little. “Do you want some herbal tea? It’s very soothing.”

  “I want a shot of whiskey,” Sofia said, “but considering it’s seven a.m., that’s probably out.”

  “Probably,” Martina agreed.

  “Not necessarily,” Benny added. “If that’s what’s going to get you through the day without an anxiety meltdown, we can get Bianca over here and have her set it up in an IV drip.”

  “Funny,” Martina said.

  “I’ll be okay.” Sofia wiped her eyes, then grabbed a napkin from the holder on the counter and blew her nose. “I’ll be fine.”

  “What’s going on out here?” Patrick came out of the bedroom looking alarmed. “Is everything okay? Sofia? Are you all right?”

  “It’s the rain,” Martina told him.

  “Oh.” Patrick’s brow furrowed as he considered that. “Don’t they say it’s good luck when it rains on the day of your bridal shower?”