Blackjack and Moonlight: A Contemporary Romance

by Braden, Magdalen

  “So if it’s not an issue of exclusivity, then it must be longevity. You can’t see yourself that long with any one man.”

  “No, that’s not it. I’m not the one who leaves. It’s always the guy who leaves. Wait, no—I don’t mean I’m the one who gets jilted. It’s mutual. Relationships don’t last.”

  “So you say.”

  “Well, they don’t.” She stared at a billboard until it flashed by. Finally she blurted out, “I don’t understand your family.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Your sister, your cousins—no divorces?”

  “Nope, no divorces.”

  “Because you’re Catholic?”

  “Well, to the extent any of us is active in the church, I would say we’re cafeteria Catholics—I certainly haven’t had a problem with birth control, as you may have noticed.”

  True.

  “Is religion an issue?” he asked, his tone conversational. She knew what he was really asking.

  “No. I can respect someone else’s faith without feeling threatened.”

  Jack made a noncommittal noise.

  “I don’t know what else to say,” she admitted.

  “It’s okay. I know.”

  They didn’t speak again until he parked near her house. He carried her bag upstairs. She stood in the hall, suddenly scared to move.

  “Elise,” he said as he came back down.

  Oh, God. Here it was. She’d imagined this moment so many times, the goodbye that would end the nicest relationship she’d ever had. And here it was.

  He stopped at the foot of the stairs. “I love you. I want to marry you. But I haven’t been completely honest with you.”

  She felt her mind go blank, steeling for the final blow, the news that he was leaving. He should just rip the bandage off and let her bleed. “Go on,” she said.

  He led her over to the couch while he sat in one of the side chairs. “I can’t keep seeing you. I know you don’t want marriage, but I’ve realized I don’t want anything else. Well, it wouldn’t have to be marriage, but a commitment. Sharing a life. A future.”

  “I know.” She could feel the weight of his decision pressing on her.

  “Every time we’re together, I’ve been thinking, ‘Is this it? Is this the last time?’ I can’t turn that part of my brain off. I’ve tried.”

  Elise’s hands felt cold despite the heat of her too-stuffy house. She tensed her muscles to keep from shaking.

  “I’m worried that I’ll start to resent you for not wanting what I want. You don’t deserve that. You’ve never lied to me, never misled me.”

  “I’ve tried not to,” Elise whispered. Of course she’d lied. She just wasn’t sure what the truth was.

  “I’m sorry—I know I tried to convince you that we were meant to be together. I really thought that we were, that I could prove it in some objective way, but I was kidding myself. The truth is, I want you. I want you as I’ve wanted nothing in my life before. Nothing.”

  Wow. Not even to cure his mom’s cancer?

  Elise shook her head. She couldn’t think what to say, or even what to feel.

  Jack took her hands in his. He was so warm, it was a comfort to feel his fingers around hers. He almost took the chill away.

  “I stopped asking for the things I wanted the most because I’d get them and it wouldn’t feel right. I hadn’t earned them. I haven’t earned your love, Elise, and I never can. No plea, no argument, no glitzy presentation to make you want to spend the rest of your life with me. I can’t convince you to feel something you don’t.”

  The words “I do love you” bubbled up in Elise’s mind. She couldn’t say them. She locked on to his eyes, which were looking at their hands.

  “For once in my life, I’ll say it out loud. I want you. I have no right to your love, to a future with you. But it’s what I want. You mean that much to me, and to my happiness.”

  “Then stay.”

  He looked up. His lips twisted. “I can’t. We don’t want the same things, sweetheart. I just needed to say it out loud. I want you in the most selfish way imaginable, and I have to admit that.”

  “Oh.”

  He stood up and pulled Elise to her feet. She stared at him, numb, as he bent to kiss her. She couldn’t even think to put her arms around him and refuse to let him go.

  His kiss was unbearably sweet and tender. It was the nicest goodbye kiss she’d ever received.

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  When Elise walked in on Monday morning, there was a different secretary at Kim’s desk. Elise paused, thinking that maybe Kim had needed to stay home with DeeDee, then she noticed that the desk looked different. Bare. Stripped of the photos and clutter that marked it as Kim’s territory.

  “Where’s Kim?” Elise asked the middle-aged woman working at Kim’s computer.

  “You mean the secretary who worked here?” The woman didn’t look up. “She left on Friday. I’m her replacement.”

  Elise opened her mouth to say something. This woman didn’t look familiar. If she was new at Fergusson, asking her questions would yield nothing. Instead, Elise held out her hand. “Hi. I’m Elise Carroll.”

  As soon as the woman-who-wasn’t-Kim introduced herself, Elise went into her office and shut the door.

  She dialed Human Resources first. They refused to tell her anything. Then Elise called the firm’s staff coordinator. This call was a bit more productive, but Elise could tell that “asked to leave” was code for being fired, and that still didn’t answer the question of when and why.

  She called Kim next. No answer.

  This was pointless. Elise checked her schedule. Nothing urgent. She raced through the accumulated messages and emails. As soon as she was confident there was nothing keeping her at her desk, she packed up some work and left her office.

  “I’ll be out all day. You can reach me on my phone,” she said over her shoulder as she walked away from Kim’s desk.

  Forty minutes later, Elise stood on the sidewalk in front of Kim and Donny’s home. The home she had saved for them. For what? Only to have Kim get fired? No fucking way.

  Elise rang the doorbell.

  Kim answered, in her shorty nightgown. She’d been crying. DeeDee was perched on one hip, looking scared. Elise hugged them both.

  “I’m sorry,” Elise said. “I’m so sorry.”

  “Not your fault,” Kim sobbed into Elise’s shoulder.

  “Auntie Leese! I missed you!” DeeDee yelled into Elise’s ear.

  Elise pulled back to face Kim. “What happened?”

  Kim shrugged. “I’d missed too much work, they said.”

  “That’s outrageous. You had family commitments. Donny’s accident, for example. Firing you is a violation of the Family and Medical Leave Act.”

  “El, leave it. It’s done.”

  “Hell, no, it’s not done.” Elise was boiling with the injustice of Kim’s situation. “You valued your family over your job. Which was the right thing to do. Your values aren’t at fault, it’s the firm’s. I saved your house, I’ll damn well save your job for you.”

  Kim was hugging DeeDee, who was crying from the strain. Elise put out a hand to touch the child’s back.

  “Want a cup of coffee?” Kim asked as she walked back toward the kitchen.

  “Where’s Donny?” Elise followed Kim.

  “His mother’s. She’s been taking him to his rehab appointments.”

  “You guys—you haven’t split up, have you?”

  Kim looked up from the coffeemaker. “Of course not. Oh, sure, it’s hard. But we’re a unit. We’ll sell the house and move in with my sister if we have to.”

  Elise shook her head. “Nope. I’m going to fix this.”

  Kim sighed as she sat across the kitchen table. She pushed some dirty dishes to one side. “Sorry about this. I slept late.”

  Elise waved away Kim’s excuses. “I should have called.”

  There was a long pause as DeeDee proceeded to suck her thumb
, the side of her face pressed against Kim’s breast. Classic Madonna and Child pose.

  Finally Kim said, “Do you think you can talk to the partners for me?”

  “Yes. And if they don’t agree to rehire you, I’ll sue them on your behalf.”

  Kim stared. “Can you do that—sue your own employer?”

  Elise cocked a shoulder. “Probably not. Doesn’t matter. Better I should be out of a job than you. You’ve got a family to support.”

  When the coffeemaker had beeped, Elise motioned for Kim to stay where she was. She found mugs, some milk in the fridge, and a couple of spoons. She came back to the table with a mug for each of them.

  “So how was the wedding?” Kim asked.

  “Very beautiful.” Then Elise said, “Jack and I broke up.”

  “Oh.”

  Elise stirred her coffee. “He wants to marry me.”

  “You said no?” Kim demanded, incredulous.

  Elise looked out the sliding glass doors to the backyard where DeeDee’s toys were scattered around. There was a wading pool, with the garden hose nearby. She could picture them out there, playing with the cold spray on hot afternoons. “I never saw myself getting married. I still can’t see it. Making partner, sure. Being happy in my little house, you bet. Marrying Jack seems impossible. I don’t think I’m right for him.”

  “Isn’t he the best judge of that?” Kim looked stern until she realized what she’d said, then she cracked up. “Sorry. Bad pun.”

  Elise stood up. “I’m going to find someone at Fergusson to yell at, okay? I’ll call you this afternoon.”

  Kim reached out for Elise’s hand. “Trust Jack.”

  “Let me get your situation sorted out first. Could be I’ll be the one without a job,” Elise said lightly.

  In the taxi, heading back to Center City, Elise realized she was quite serious. She couldn’t work there, sit in her office facing Kim’s desk, if she didn’t do the right thing. The firm would probably fire her, and maybe that would be okay. Maybe it was time for a complete change of scene.

  When Elise got back to the office, she found Geoff.

  “Hey, good news,” he announced as she stormed into his office. “The retreat went great. Seems everyone thinks it’s a good thing you’re still dating Blackjack. Sorry if I worried you for no good reason.”

  “Thanks. We broke up.” She dismissed that topic with a wave of her hand. “That’s not why I’m here. Whose bright idea was it to fire Kim Skebitsky?”

  “Who’s Kim Skebitsky? And what do you mean, you broke up with Blackjack?”

  “My secretary. Her husband’s in the carpenters union. He injured his leg pretty badly last February. He’s still out on disability, so Kim handles his rehab plus childcare plus is the breadwinner for the family. She was at her desk when I left on Thursday, but no trace of her when I got in this morning. She’d been fired.”

  Geoff had the grace to look embarrassed. “Yeah, cost-cutting measures, I’m afraid.”

  “Well, go cut someone else’s costs. I can give you a dozen names of secretaries and paralegals—hell, associates for that matter—who put in less effort than Kim.”

  “It doesn’t work that way, you know that,” Geoff protested. He was starting to look cornered, like a wild animal.

  She leaned in a little. “I’ll tell you how this works. Given Donny’s injury, I think she’s got a credible claim against the firm for wrongful termination under the FMLA. And I’ll personally represent her in that lawsuit. When that necessitates my leaving the firm’s employ, I’ll be giving that case all my attention.”

  “You’re up for partnership,” he sputtered.

  “Well, I can hardly sue myself, now, can I?” Elise rested her fists on her hips and grinned at him. She was starting to enjoy this. “Fix this, Geoff. I’m not kidding.”

  While Elise waited for the firm to do something about Kim’s reinstatement, she quickly discovered there was nowhere in her life she could relax. She couldn’t stand her own home, stuffy and empty without Jack. She didn’t eat much and had trouble sleeping. No reason not to go into the office early when she was up anyway.

  The law firm was no better. Ms. Whatsername, the new secretary, seemed to sense the drama Elise had stirred up in the wake of Kim’s dismissal, so she kept her head down. Nonetheless, her presence made work miserable. Every day that Elise didn’t hear about Kim’s reinstatement pushed her closer to filing a wrongful termination suit against the firm. Throw in the hottest August in recorded history, so that even walking between the office and home was a sticky hell, and Elise’s life was officially joyless.

  Throughout all of this, she longed for Jack. She missed his smile, the sex, his addictive smell and that purr-like growl that made her go soft inside. Missing him made sense. It had been her longest relationship. Still, it was a shock when the quiet of her dream house drove her crazy. She could see Jack everywhere, hear his voice calling her from the next room and imagine him just about to join her in bed.

  Surely it would get easier as the summer ground to a painful close.

  Her workload was light in August, so she spent all her spare time preparing the complaint in case she had to sue Fergusson. That filled a couple of twelve-hour days, but finally, at seven on Friday evening, Elise admitted she no longer had a reason to avoid her house. She was only dimly aware of the wall of heat outside and the walk home didn’t thaw her out. She felt frozen to her core, icy with loneliness.

  After cleaning all day Saturday, Elise woke far too early on Sunday. In the middle of her usual routine doing the laundry, she caught herself folding a pillowcase and then putting it to her nose. It no longer smelled anything like Jack. In fact, nothing in her house had his unique smell anymore, and never would again.

  She was crying before she could stop herself, sobbing into a pillowcase because it didn’t smell of a man. It was several minutes before she could shuffle back to her kitchen and make herself eat something.

  She couldn’t understand this. Why didn’t she feel any relief just to have the whole business behind her? Sure, Jack was a great guy, and she loved him, but she’d known it was a just-for-now relationship. An arrangement that was always going to end, like particularly beautiful flowers have to die. You mourn the loss, but you also move on. They’d never be the very last flowers you’d see.

  Only she wasn’t moving on. She was weeping over the cleanliness of her linens, for God’s sake. She looked at the unadorned brown toast on her plate. She wasn’t eating well because Jack wasn’t there to remind her how good food could taste. It hurt to be alone in her bed—she didn’t fall asleep until her exhaustion outweighed her misery. Even then, images of Jack, snatches of his voice and the shadow of his touch, twisted her dreams until she had to wake up to stop the pain.

  Elise was startled when the phone rang. For a heart-stopping moment, she thought it might be Jack, magically conjured up by how much she missed him.

  It was her mother. Elise was tempted to let it go to voice mail but the “I was working” dodge seemed cruel after Peggy’s heart attack. “Hey, Mom.”

  “Ellie? I hope I didn’t wake you.”

  “I’ve been up for a while.”

  Elise must have revealed something in her voice. “Are you okay, sweetheart? You sound tired.”

  Elise tried to duck the question by asking her mother how she was doing. They talked about Peggy’s recovery, work, condo, and friends—all of which sounded just fine—before Elise felt she could decently bring the conversation to a close.

  “Okay, Mom, you sound great. Look, I’ve got to—”

  “Elise. I’m not getting off the phone to suit you. Tell me what’s upsetting you. Is it Jack?”

  It was as though Peggy knew exactly which button to push. Elise struggled to get her emotions back behind a brisk façade. The sadness surged up, clogging her throat, making it impossible to speak.

  “Ellie? You’re making me nervous. Tell me what’s going on.”

  Elise tried but sh
e simply couldn’t get any words out. Tears trickled down her cheeks. She reached for a tissue to blow her nose, not caring what it sounded like to her mother.

  “Elise, stop this. You’re not six anymore. You will stop crying right now.” Peggy’s voice cut through the fog and startled Elise.

  “What d’you mean, I’m not six years old anymore?” she mumbled.

  There was a heavy silence. Then Peggy said, “You used to cry like that. Wordless and miserable. It just reminded me.”

  Elise frowned. “What are you talking about, from when I was a kid?”

  “I—” Peggy hesitated. Finally she admitted, “The divorce upset you.”

  Elise felt her skin curdle. She must have the air-conditioning up too high. “You mean you and Daddy? What about the divorce?” She despised the fear in her voice, but she had to know. “Did you guys fight? Was I scared? Did I miss Daddy?”

  Peggy didn’t say anything.

  Elise searched for something, some idea of what it had been like. She clung to the most obvious explanation. “My parents were splitting up. Don’t all kids hate that?”

  “I think it hit you harder.” Peggy’s voice hesitated. “You cried a lot.”

  “I never cry.”

  “El, you were nearly sobbing a minute ago.”

  Elise scowled at the refrigerator, then she admitted Peggy was right. “It was just something upset me earlier.”

  “What’s this about, sweetie? Tell me why you were crying,” Peggy insisted.

  “It’s nothing.”

  “Jack?”

  No, she wasn’t going to explain about the pillowcase. She could tell it would set her off again. “He—” she paused. “We had a fight. He broke up with me.”

  “That’s insane—that man loves you.”

  Elise tried to get the conversation back to the point. “What about the divorce made me cry?”

  “I don’t see how your dad’s and my divorce has anything to do with Jack’s feelings for you.” Peggy sounded mulish, almost adolescent.

  Elise rubbed the side of her face. There was something just out of reach, some connection. Talking about it would make her cry again, but she wanted answers. “Mom, just tell me what happened, okay?”