by Lucia Black
“I’ll visit, yes. All the time. But you and Cal will need your space at first.” She wiggled her eyebrows and gave me a knowing look.
“I don’t know about that,” I scoffed.
“What do you mean? I’ve seen him before, Mari. If I wasn’t so happily married, I just might make a pass myself.”
“Mama!” I gasped. She never said things like that. We moved in unison to a rack of blouses. “He’s attractive, I’ll give him that, but there’s nothing between us. And it’s not because I haven’t been trying.”
“You hardly know him,” she said placing a silky peach top over her arm. “Just give it more time. From what your father says he’s a really great man. A man he’d be happy for you to be with, under any circumstances.”
“I’m not saying he isn’t.” I moved to another rack of clothes, trying to choose my words carefully. “We have nothing in common and he’s so . . . he’s so stiff. Like a robot. And he won’t even let me get close enough to get to know him . . . and I’ll be his wife.” I moved the blouses on the rack so quickly I wasn’t even looking at them. Saying these things out loud to someone felt so good I didn’t know if I’d be able to make the angry spewing stop. “All his niceness feels fake because he blows hot and cold. One minute I think I have him figured out, and the next he’s a completely different person.”
Mama approached me like I was a wild dog she needed to be cautious of. “Mari.” She put her hand on mine. “Love comes in time. That gushy mushy stuff people feel in the beginning isn’t love. It’s just lust. Don’t beat yourself up for not feeling lovey dovey just yet.”
My shoulders slumped. I knew she was trying to make me feel better, but her words did just the opposite. “I don’t . . . I don’t know what I feel.”
She gave me a sad smile and then steered me toward a wall of dresses further in the store. They were organized by color and she went right for the creams and ivories. She loved the lighter colors on me. She said dark hair and tan skin called for them.
“Give this thing with you and Cal a chance. And not just because you have to, but because you owe it to yourself.”
She held up a slinky dress with silver beading up to my chest. I didn’t even feel like shopping anymore.
“Yeah,” I sighed. “But like you said, I have to—no matter how I feel, so it doesn’t matter.
Mama put the dress down and searched through the rack for another. “You want him to be open with you and show you who he is, but have you done the same for him? Does Cal know anything about you?”
Damn mothers and their supernatural ability to always know everything about everything. “No. We haven’t talked about much of anything personal like that.”
“When you see him, are you open and asking questions about him? Or are you sitting there stiffly, only thinking about smiling for the cameras?”
“The latter,” I mumbled.
“See? You approached this closed and guarded. How can you expect him to be any different?” She smiled. “Make that your goal. The next time you are together, I want you to tell him at least one truth about you. And then ask him something in return.”
She pulled a short ivory dress with a keyhole back and tulle skirt off the rack. The sleeves were long and embellished with tiny crystals.
“Okay,” I agreed. “I will.” I knew she was right. I was so angry at the entire situation. I didn’t even give him a chance. I was angry at him, but I knew my father. My father ran the business negotiations. I knew how it worked. My father saw an opportunity and went for it. Cal didn’t ask to marry me. I looked to my mother and said, “I love that dress.”
“Then let’s go try it on.” She waited just outside the dressing room as I changed.
“You know, Mari,” she said through the door, “love, no matter how it comes to you, isn’t easy. It’s never a fairytale. It can be harder than you can imagine at times. It will always take work, and most of the time that work boils down to good communication.”
I slipped the dress over my head and fell in love. The way the lights hit the beading made it sparkle and the color held a pink undertone. “I know, Mama.”
“Even me and your father,” she went on. “As much as we love each other, we nearly fell apart after Luciana died.”
I stopped admiring myself in the mirror and instead only concentrated on the floor. “I know,” I whispered.
“But instead of bottling our feelings up inside, we talked to each other and that’s how we got through.”
I didn’t want to talk about it. Luciana wasn’t just my sister. She was my twin. When she died of leukemia, she took half of me with her and I’ve never been the same since. Even though we were only eleven when it happened, it was still too hard for me to think about it, let alone verbalize those thoughts. It might’ve helped them to talk about it, but it made me want to shut down.
“I’ll open up to him. I promise.”
“That’s all I ask—that you try. Now, do you have the dress on?”
I wiped the few tears that had escaped from my eyes and opened the door to the dressing room. “What do you think?”
Her face lit up, giving me all the answer I needed. “You look so beautiful.” She held out her hand for me to do a spin and I obliged. “Let’s buy it.”
I wasn’t going to argue with that.
When I locked myself back in the dressing room, my phone buzzed in my purse. Every time a call came in, I couldn’t help but want it to be Preston. It never was. And I knew it was a good thing.
It was no different this time. It was Leann from the hospital confirming I’d be in the next day to volunteer. She’d text to confirm every week and every week I’d text back and tell her I was coming. I’d never missed. But she was a creature of habit.
After I texted her my reply, I opened a new text to Preston, just like I had done a million times since that day. I never knew what to write and even if I did I wasn’t sure I’d actually send it. Things ended horribly between us, but at least they ended.
I shoved my phone back into my purse and left the dressing room. We made our way over to the checkout counter, but Mama stopped once we got to a table of lacey panties.
“Do you need something nude to wear under the dress?”
I glanced at all the pretty frilly undergarments and lamented that what I wore under my clothes would likely never matter again. Or at least not for a very long time, anyway.
“Maybe.” At least I could enjoy them, I reasoned.
“Whoa,” my mother said, coming to a halt like what she saw frightened her. “Look at that. I bet Cal would like you in that.”
It was a black bra and panty set, but mostly made of straps. It came with an attached choker and garters giving it a bondage vibe.
“I don’t know.” I laughed. “Cal is pretty vanilla. He’d probably just clutch his pearls if I wore that.”
Chapter 17
“I’ll get you, my pretty, and your little dog too.” I cackled the words, mimicking the tone and movement of the Wicked Witch from the movie as I turned the children’s retelling of the Wizard of Oz so the kids could see the pictures.
The kids erupted into squeals of delight and fear alike.
“This is too scary, Miss Tessa,” Emma, one of the younger girls said from beneath her blanket. “Only read parts about the puppy.”
“What do you think she was doin’ when she read the part about the little dog? That was a part about the dog,” Dante, an older kid added. He had been hanging out by the edge of the hospital room, too cool to listen to me read, too bored to have anything else to do.
“I don’t care about the dog so much as I care about the shoes. Will you read more about the shoes?” Samantha asked.
Her request was met with several groans from the group of about a dozen kids I had been reading to.
I laughed and closed the book. “Will you look at the time? It’s nearly lunch and I should know better than trying to read to you so close to lunchtime because we all get loopy and
haaaangry.” I made a silly face and wiggled my arms. “Should we pick this up after we eat?”
That was one thing they could all agree on. Nurses came to get them, a couple could walk on their own, but many sat in their wheelchairs as they were escorted out of the room.
It was so weird how being at the children’s hospital could make me so happy and so sad at the same time.
I loved the kids. And they loved me. No one—and I do mean no one—did all the character voices and overdramatic hand gestures like I did. I could make them forget where they were, even if only for a little while. But sometimes someone would be missing one week to the next, and it wasn’t because they got to go home.
Those were the days I could hardly stand to be in my skin. The days where everything felt too familiar, like a story I knew all too well.
I kept coming back anyway.
I left and headed for the cafeteria. All the voices did take a toll on my own, so I decided to treat myself to a fruit smoothie that was probably more cream than fruit. I had just gotten to the register to pay when an arm shot out from beside me to hand the cashier a platinum card.
Cal seemed to materialize out of nowhere. One second I was in my own space—the place I went just for me, just because I wanted to—and the next Cal’s broad shoulders, imposing height and chiseled jaw were there, crowding me.
“Let me get that,” Cal said.
“What are you doing here? I thought I wasn’t going to see you until next week.”
“You will. I just needed to talk to you now.”
He finished paying and then we walked together in silence until we cleared the crowded cafeteria and moved into a much quieter hallway.
“Thanks for the smoothie,” I said. “But what did you need to talk to me about that Karen couldn’t just handle over the phone?”
“Every time we see each other, you end up walking out on me pissed off. We’re going to nip that in the bud right now.”
His words stopped me mid-sip, feeling as equally annoyed and impressed with his directness.
“Excuse me?”
“There’s a little sandwich shop down the street. Let’s go grab something to eat. The press isn’t allowed in the hospital, so all we need to do is take a short walk.”
For a second, I thought maybe, just maybe, Cal had wanted to set things right between us for the sake of our mental health and emotional wellbeing. I was dead wrong. “Right. Of course. That’s all this is.”
Cal glared at me and it took all my resolve not to shrink away. “You know what this is. C’mon. Don’t forget to smile.”
The effortless fake grin plastered on his face sent me over the edge “You’re a bossy asshole, you know that?”
“Yes. But I’m not the one who got us plastered to the front page of the newspaper looking like we had a huge falling out.”
“We did have a huge falling out,” I said, returning his glare.
Cal turned and headed down the hall and toward an exit of the hospital and I had no choice but to follow. In my head, I was pointing out to him that it was his fault I ran out in the first place, but I bottled that anger up and hoped it wouldn’t start eating me from the inside out.
We made our way out of the hospital walking side by side and most likely looking like a picture-perfect couple, but on the inside we couldn’t have been further apart. I watched Cal as he held the door open for me. He didn’t smile, he didn’t acknowledge me, he simply did it because that was what was expected of him. I meant nothing to him.
Before we made it even three feet down the sidewalk, Cal’s security detail flanked us. They wore black suits, earpieces, and stone-faced expressions. Getting one of them to fuck me in the future would probably be impossible. They weren’t playing any games. And forget about the secret service.
We continued to travel in awkward silence. I couldn’t have even guessed what Cal was thinking, but I was doubting if I’d ever get to feel like myself again instead of a phony. Luckily the sandwich shop was close, just as Cal said, and I could at least have food to distract me. He stopped at a weathered white door, framed by two picture windows. Of course he held the door open for me. He even placed his hand on the small of my back as I passed by. It left me feeling empty.
I must’ve driven past the shop hundreds of times, but I never noticed it before, and I wondered how that could’ve been. A little bell chimed as we walked in. The shop was charming and quaint with only a handful of wrought iron tables and a chalkboard menu. Cal ordered for me, but I didn’t complain because it was something I would’ve ordered for myself, and then led me to the table right next to the window.
The presence of the security standing around outside and in was starting to gain attention already. Cal kept a calm yet happy expression on his face, and I tried my best to do the same.
“You do a lot of high-profile volunteering.” He took a bite of his ham and cheese.
It wasn’t a question, so I didn’t know how to respond. “Mmm hmm,” I mumbled, taking a bite.
“It makes you look great on paper when you do, and you get all the good press, but why the children’s hospital? It didn’t appear on any of your listed places when I looked you up.”
My smile wavered and the bite of sandwich turned to ash in my mouth. “You’re asking me why I volunteer?” I stared at him and he gave a slight nod. “Sometimes people volunteer because they want to, and because it’s the right thing to do, and not for any other reason.”
Cal glanced out the window. “You’re carrying a four-thousand-dollar Louis Vuitton right now. To volunteer at a children’s hospital. Which one do you carry when you volunteer at the homeless shelter? And remember to smile when you answer. We’re being watched.”
I plastered a saccharine smile to my face “Fine. I admit I like some of the finer things that my life has provided. I admit I do things to look good on paper. I do things to look good for my family. I even do things for my family that I have absolutely no desire to.” I stared at him pointedly, raising my eyebrows and pursing my lips before going back into character. “But the children’s hospital is for me and you have no right to question my reasoning. I have done nothing but try with you, and all you do is treat me like shit. I don’t know why. I also admit I could try harder with you, but you make it impossible because you don’t even try with me, at all. If you hate me so much, I don’t know why you even stick with this arrangement. So if you don’t mind, I would appreciate it if you would fuck off and not insult me for caring about something, you judgmental self-righteous prick. ” I took a sip of my smoothie. “And look, I said it all with a smile.”
He sighed, and his shoulders loosened a bit and he relaxed his jaw, the opposite reaction from I was expecting. “You’re right, Tessa.”
“What?” I asked, caught completely off guard.
“Everyone who knows you tells me how great you are. That you are genuinely kind. I should’ve known you didn’t have ulterior motives. It’s hard not to expect that of people when you’ve been in politics as long as I have. And I didn’t give you the chance to prove otherwise. I just expected you to be someone else, given your family and who they are.”
He paid me a compliment. And he actually sounded sincere. I loosened the death grip I had on my smoothie and relaxed into my chair. “Um . . . thank you,” I said, not knowing what else to say.
“I’m sorry for being—what was it? A self-righteous prick?” I blushed and nodded. “I haven’t been fair to you, at all. I would like to try this again, if you’re okay with that.”
“Try what again? I don’t understand.”
“Everything, actually.” I sat and stared at him in silence, waiting to comprehend what he was talking about when he spoke again. “Hi, I’m Calvin James, but I’d like you to call me Cal. I like soccer and rowing, old music, symphonies, and the clichéd long walks on the beach.” I stared at him, dumbfounded. “And you are?” he prompted.
I busted out laughing and he politely waited for me to finish before nodd
ing his head as if to tell me it was still my turn.
“Hi, Cal, I’m Tessa Moretti . . . I, um . . .” Mama flashed to my mind. All she asked of me was to communicate with Cal. She said if I wanted him to open up to me, I had to open up to him. I promised her I would and now Cal has given me the perfect opportunity to do it. I wanted to do it. He was making an effort. “I’m a student teacher at NYU where I just defended my thesis for my master’s in political science. I wanted to become a professor. I, um, I like ice cream. And I like mornings, especially when the air is crisp. I like the beach too, and I really value privacy. But I come from a family, you see, that uh, has a lot of money and is connected to a lot of businesses on the east coast, so it’s not been easy to keep to myself. I love to read, oh—and I have a thing for purses, and I don’t know why.”
He smiled and it felt real for once. Like he was happy we were talking, and I honestly felt relieved.
“I don’t think this is going to work,” he said, a serious tone taking away the comfort I just started to feel. But then he smiled. “You like mornings. That’s just . . . who actually likes mornings?”
I laughed at his change. “Aren’t you running for president, Mr. James? It’s my understanding the president’s day starts at like four a.m.”
“Don’t remind me,” he said. “It makes me reconsider my entire career choice.”
“So . . .” I said, trailing off. “What do you do when you aren’t working?”
“Well, generally speaking, I’m always working. I don’t have much time these days. But I love movies. I’m constantly on the move, so being alone in my apartment or in a hotel room, I like to watch a lot of movies. Any genre, really. I suppose, in a way, I also like a level of privacy,” he answered, never taking his eyes off me. “What about you? I see that you like to volunteer. What about the children’s hospital speaks to you?”
My eyebrows pinched together. “Is this a real question, Cal? This is sort of what started this whole conversation. Please don’t toy with me just to get answers—”
