by Sally Thorne
For just one moment, he’s filled with stained-glass color and his eyes brighten to cornflower blue. I wish I had my camera. Then he remembers something and resumes a half-hearted chipping at the wall.
I exhale. “Well, I’m glad she’s not getting Loretta’s sapphire. Thank fuck for that. I don’t suppose—”
“No. She left it to me. It is for my bride.” Jamie says my bride in a stupid falsetto voice. Heaven help whoever he eventually decides on.
“At least let me wear it. Or look at it.”
According to Loretta, the sapphire turned black from being buried in a flowerpot during the war. Which war, I’m not sure. Is it the truth? Not sure. My favorite ring in the world is now living a fate worse than a flowerpot’s: It’s in Jamie’s safe.
“Name your price.” I just can’t shut my mouth. “I’m guessing a cool billion?”
He’ll never budge on this. “I’m gonna need that ring one day. The twins aren’t getting any younger. Time for us to find a couple of unlucky victims to deal with our bullshit, for life.”
“I’m sure your bride would prefer something from Tiffany. Let me have the ring, please. I might . . . I might not be around that long.” I let my voice go feeble as I play the crappy-heart card and Jamie sees right through it. Even Tom half laughs, his possessive bristling easing off.
I sigh and give up. “Make sure she’s someone I won’t hate, sitting there wearing my ring when we all go on that cruise when we’re eighty. She’ll come drink whiskey Old Fashioneds with me before lunch and maybe let me try it on.”
If Tom has a wife and it’s not me, I’ll lure her out of his cabin at night and hoist her old bones overboard.
“We’re going on a cruise when we’re eighty? Can’t wait. I’m going to be so loaded.” Jamie smiles, positively romantic about his future bank account. Then he remembers something. “Don’t get your hopes up. She thinks I’m a nightmare. But yeah. She’d day-drink on a cruise ship with you.”
It’s a sore point and I really, really want to press it, because Jamie is actually having to do some chasing for once. I love her, whoever she is. “Well, sounds like she’s got your number. What’s her name?”
“Nope.” His ears are red. Frustration gets me right by the throat. Judging by his body language and the crowbar in his hand I’d better leave it. Once, I knew every single thing about my brother. How can I get back to that place if he forever shuts me down?
I wonder if Tom knows. He shakes his head with a shrug.
“Can’t wait to go on that cruise with you and your elderly husband, Tyler,” Jamie tries, but I wave him off with a scowl.
“So, we’re agreed, this is a bedroom?” Tom is in the entrance to the dining room, and also his own personal hell. I know what he’d whisper about Tyler—in the dark, rhythmically knocking the air out of me. That fucker cannot have me.
He’s buckling something around his waist, slow, like it’s revenge. It’s an honest-to-goodness tool belt. There’s a hammer on one side. It sits low on his hips and I can’t take it.
Everything boils up inside of me, and the floor vibrates under my feet, my bones shake, my heart bumps. The stitches unravel out of the shirt I’m wearing, my heart unspools like cotton and I can’t handle ten more seconds of not kissing him. I put my hand on my hickey and bite my lip. I clench everything so I don’t make a sound.
He convinced me last night that I’m beautiful. From the look in his eye, I convinced him he’s a sexual genius. The faintest smirk touches his lips. “Darce? You want a bedroom, right?”
I cough to clear my throat. “Make it a room fit for a princess. Wallpaper and a fireplace and a four-poster bed. Make someone fall in love with that room.”
“Sure, like it’s so easy,” Jamie replies to me with some snark in his voice. “He’s not your slave.”
“Oh, ’cause he’s your slave?” Tom’s phone buzzes in my pocket. “Tom, it’s your mom. Gosh, pretty early for her.” I hand him the phone. Then I round on my brother. That familiar feeling is in the air. A Barrett Battle.
“So, you got Tom to knock down my fireplace.” I know this is wrong. This won’t lead to anything good. But I have to start getting Jamie used to the fact that Tom is going to choose me over him from now on.
“I told him I trust him. Isn’t that what you do? Trust him? Why not now?” Jamie plants his feet right where the fireplace was and holds out his arms. “The room is huge. There’s some chance of making it look modern now.”
Tom is speaking in soothing tones on his phone and slips out the front door. “He’s going to crack,” I say as I watch him leave. “How much more can get piled on him? I’m trying to help him.”
“You’re never going to help him. Ever. You’re a monkey on his back.” Jamie hopes that hurt. When it doesn’t, he tries again. “He’s only here because I asked him to be.”
“He’s only here because I’m here.” I’ve just blurted the wrong thing, and this time Jamie doesn’t mistake what I mean. He laughs and looks me up and down like I’m nothing special.
“Who do you think you are?” He asks it sweetly. It’s those same words he used in our big fight. The words that echo in my head every time I take out the trash at the bar or open a box of fifty novelty mugs.
“Who do I think I am? I’m Darcy fucking Barrett!”
Jamie laughs now. My short charade is over, clearly. “You think you have a chance with him?”
My temper is an erupting volcano. “I do have a chance!” I point at my neck. “That’s his! He’s mine now!” It’s so satisfying, watching the air leave Jamie’s body. It’s luscious. I’ve won. “He’s mine. He loves me. I’m keeping him.”
“Keeping him,” Jamie splutters. “Keeping him? You’re sleeping with Tom? Darcy, what did we talk about?”
“You can’t stand to see me happy.”
“Oh, and Tom looks so fucking happy,” Jamie counters. “Did you at least handle the morning after like a grown up?” He sees the minute hesitation in me and swoops on it. “You just did what you always do. You enjoyed yourself, did zero feelings, and you’re going to be gone the next time a flight goes on sale.”
“Not this time I won’t.” I even surprise myself with my intensity. Jamie blinks and backs up, but he quickly rallies.
“Only because you have no passport. Ever find that thing?”
“Give. It. Back.”
“I don’t have it,” Jamie says, and he’s telling the truth. He looks out the front window, distracted. “Seriously, Darce, why’d you have to pick Tom? He’s way too good for you. You took advantage of him. He’d do whatever anyone asked him.”
“Well I asked an awful lot of him last night.”
“See? Compare yourself to him, would you? He’s nothing but good and honest and deserving of a happily-ever-after. You’re just . . .” Jamie racks his brain. “You’re human flotsam, you know that?”
The phrase hangs in the air like a gong.
“What did you just call me?”
Jamie recovers seamlessly. “You’re trash compared to him.”
“No. Call me what you called me the first time.” I feel like my veins are full of hot water. “You called me human flotsam. Human flotsam.” I advance on him and he begins to back away. Images of Truly’s phone flashing with repeated notifications begins to make sense. Her blush. Her averted eyes. The way she changes the subject from Jamie, every time without fail. “How? How did you get to her? Truly is your worksite mole?”
I pick up a brick and throw it at him. It hits the wall and takes a chunk out of it. Jamie bends down for a brick of his own. Now it’s on. It’s World War IV, with bricks instead of a dinner set.
“I can talk to whoever I want,” he yells back at me, and throws the brick past my hip. “I don’t have to fucking answer to you.”
“She’s mine. My friend. My best friend.”
“Well, he’s mine.” We circle around each other, furious. This is the fight that we never got to finish. A thin trickle of water r
uns between us but I barely register it. All I can see is my brother’s furious face, red embarrassed ears, and the sheen on his brow.
I scream in frustration. “How? Tell me how you got her. Explain it to me.” I pick up another brick and weigh it in my palm. I imagine throwing it at his face and it’s vivid. “You couldn’t just leave that one person alone. The one person I wanted all for myself.”
“She’s my friend!” Jamie roars.
“No, she’s not!” I throw the brick and it takes a devastating chunk out of the floorboard. “Just because you think you’re God’s gift to women doesn’t mean she’ll fall for it.”
That knocks some wind from his sails. I remember what he said—She thinks I’m a nightmare. “I’m telling the truth, Darcy. She’s one of my best friends. We’ve been emailing each other.” I laugh derisively at that, but Jamie silences me. “I needed a way to keep an eye on you after our fight. I emailed her from the Underswears website. She replied. I liked it.”
I advance on him with my hands outstretched. I’m going to kill him. And her. And everyone. “Jamie, you little fuckwit.”
“Stop it,” Tom says from the open doorway. He’s got his phone in his hand and a grimness in his expression. “Stop it, both of you.” He looks up. The tarp covering the hole in the roof is leaking. “I leave the room for two minutes, and this.” He sees the new damage we’ve caused and the brick in my hand. “What have you done, Darcy?”
“He knows everything. That we’re together. You’re mine, one hundred percent.”
Tom just walks to me and takes the next brick from my hand. And he doesn’t say anything.
“Well?” Jamie snaps. “Well?”
“I can’t do this anymore,” Tom says. He’s cold and furious. Something inside me begins to slide.
“Just tell him that you love me, and we’re together, and we’ll go up and fix the tarp and stack the bricks. Tom, tell him.”
“I asked you for one thing. Don’t tell Jamie until the house is sold. Three months of waiting for me. But that was too much to ask.”
“I’ve waited my whole life for you.” I bite my lip. I put my hand out for him but he steps out of reach. “I’m sorry. You know what I’m like, I just—”
Tom glances at his watch. “Yeah, I know what you’re like. I asked for three months. You lasted thirty minutes.” He refuses to tell my brother that he loves me.
“Hello, I’m right here,” Jamie says sarcastically. “You wanted to lie to me?”
There’s more to this. “Shut up, Jamie. What was that phone call? What’s happened?” I step into him again.
Tom exhales and closes his eyes. “My mom is being evicted as we speak. Just . . . furniture and cats and she’s hysterical.”
I hate how my hands are not registering on him. “This early on a Sunday?”
“Her landlord is a jerk. I need to get there.” The anger is dulling away into a frightening flatness.
“Look,” Jamie says, flicking his eyes to mine with alarm. “We got out of hand, like we do, but we’ll fix this—”
“We’ll go now,” I interrupt Jamie urgently. “We’ll all go and—”
“Aldo was right.” Tom is looking up at the hole in the ceiling. “I’m not cut out for this. I’m not the boss. I’m the muscle.”
“You’re doing great,” Jamie and I say, practically in unison.
“I wouldn’t have even made it this far without Darcy. I can’t manage the phone and the site. That much is obvious. How unprofessional, right? Enlisting the client? I never saw Aldo do that.”
“Aldo had you to delegate to. You can’t delegate to yourself,” Jamie argues.
Tom is unswayed. “So don’t you think that’s going to be a problem when I move to the next site, and when life gets hard again for you and you leave?” He looks at me.
“You’ve got everything wrong. I’m not going anywhere.” I look at my brother and widen my eyes. “Help me.”
“Let’s just relax,” Jamie says, attempting Tom’s special tone and failing miserably.
Tom puts a hand on his hip. “Enough lies. Jamie, I fucked up the budget.”
“Fucked it up, how?” Jamie’s eyes sharpen. Money is his Achilles’ heel, and it’s pinching. “How much?”
“My entire five percent, probably. I used an old spreadsheet for the project. I didn’t update it with the new rate I promised my crew to move over with me. Plus the motel costs for the core three. I just . . . fucked up.” He lifts his arms and drops them. “A completely stupid simple error, and I was too distracted to notice it. So there you go. Some more ammunition for you to bring up over and over, for the rest of your life. Ha ha, remember how Tom couldn’t swim? Remember how Tom screwed up his first solo job ever?”
“I want to see the spreadsheet,” Jamie orders him. “Now. We have a contract—”
“I’m well aware.” Tom turns his eyes to mine, and there’s a starkness in them now. “And I’ve been lying to you about something.”
“I don’t care what it is.” I will not break under this, whatever it is. “I don’t care if she’s still got her ring. If the wedding is back on. If you’re already married. It won’t stop me from loving you.”
He silences me. “I’ve got your passport.”
Everything drains out of me, and my Achilles is lanced clean through. “What?”
“I found it the night I arrived. It was on top of the fridge. Out of your eye line.” The faintest tinge of a smile is on his face. “I put it in my pocket, and I kept it. I had a million little moments I could put it somewhere you could find it, but I didn’t want to. I wanted to keep you here. So yeah,” he says as he walks toward the back door with Patty at his heels. “I’m not the perfect person you both require me to be.”
The screen door slaps. I go to chase him, but Jamie stops me.
“Let him cool down. Look what you’ve done.” He passes a hand over his face, rattled. “What the hell?” He looks at the back door.
“I’ve never seen him look like that,” I go again for the door but Jamie hooks his arm around my waist.
“Let me go.”
“No, I won’t.” Jamie’s holding me so hard it hurts. “If I let you walk out, that’s it. It’s going to be you and him, versus me. You’re both going to completely forget about me.”
I would reply with sarcasm but I hear the fear in his voice. “You’re not going to be cut out. Nothing changes, except for me and Tom.”
“If I find out that he’s just been hanging around me all this time to get to you, I don’t know if I can handle that. That guy is my only real friend.” Jamie’s body is defensive—arms crossed, looming over me, but his eyes are like he’s a scared kid.
“Of course that’s not true.” I put a hand on Jamie’s elbow. “Let’s all just talk about it. You stay here and manage the site. I’ll go with Tom and get his mom.”
“Okay. Take her to Mom and Dad’s.” He thinks of something. “I’m settling soon on my investment property. I’ll rent it to Tom’s mom.” Jamie notices something out the front window. “The foundation guy is here. With doughnuts.” He opens the door for him. “Yeah, come in. Hi. We’re just in the middle of a crisis, but . . .”
Jamie and I spend a minute or two trying to fake it that we’ve got it together. Chris marvels at the hole in the ceiling, and we pretend that it’s no big deal. We don’t have a gaping, terrible hole in the center of our universe, leaking rain like tears.
“I’ll go get Tom,” I tell them both. I walk down to my bedroom, but he’s not there. I walk up the side of the house. I am stepping alongside the prints left by my heels this morning. How fucking typical. I keep walking the same impulsive, selfish path.
Tom’s truck has reversed almost out of the drive. I’m running, but I’m not fast enough. I try. I’ve chased him as far as the corner of Simons Street when I lose all power, and in his rearview mirror if he looked he’d see me doubled over, cursing my heart, cursing myself.
But I feel like this time
he doesn’t look back for me.
* * *
AFTER TWO DAYS without Tom, I am a stone-cold wreck.
“He’ll be back tomorrow,” Jamie tells me, but his usual confident tone is slipping. He hands me a mug of tea. “Drink this.”
“I can’t.” I twist around on the front steps and put it down with a slosh. “I can’t.” The sunset is soaking everything in obnoxiously pretty colors.
“You’re gonna have to eat or drink something. And sleep at some point. Your hair’s gonna go gray at this rate.” Jamie slaps my medication bottle in my hand. “Take them.” He sits next to me with a groan. He’s tired after living two days of Tom’s life. “I can’t believe how much shit he deals with.”
Jamie went into recovery mode after he scooped me off the pavement and my heart regained the ability to pump. He half carried me inside, sat me on the closed toilet lid, and commandeered Colin the moment he walked in.
“I’ll double your daily rate to be site manager. Tom’s got an emergency.”
“Done,” Colin said. There’s no I told you so glint in his eyes, only concern. “Okay, boys, set up, and I’ll task Chris. Power’s off from nine sharp.” With Colin’s experience, Jamie’s bulldozer will, and my phone-answering skills, the renovation has continued to tick along.
“We need him back,” I groan desperately, mashing my palms against my closed eyes. “We broke him.” I hear a car engine. I sit up. It drives past, and I exhale and put my head in my hands. “Did you call Mom and Dad?”
Jamie has his arm around my shoulders now.
“Tom was there yesterday. He dropped off his mom around dinnertime. She’s in their spare room, the nice one that opens to the ocean. She’s okay. There are identical cats everywhere.” Jamie takes out his phone and shows a picture that Mom sent. There are black and white cats on the bench. The couches. The windowsills and on top of the fridge. “Mom’s kind of loving it. She calls them all Mr. Tuxedo.”
There’s another shot of Tom’s mom, Fiona, waving at the camera. The smile doesn’t reach her eyes. It reminds me of when we gave her our welcome basket, all those years ago.
