Fixing Lia
Page 19
She didn’t find it until after lunch, and by that point, I was on the cusp of throwing up. I hadn’t touched the sandwich I had brought from home—Connor’s home—when I had gotten up early, unable to sleep, and made fancy lunches for all of us.
“Oh my God!” I heard Amy scream from the bathroom as I sat on the floor to search through some of Dayana’s old files. “Oh my God!” She came running into my office, holding the ring over her head and beaming. “I found it! I found my ring!”
“Really?” I got up and stepped away, but she grabbed me in a huge hug.
“I’m so happy!” she told me, shaking me around a little. “I can’t believe it was there the whole time and we didn’t see it! I had searched and searched in there, and Steve went over the whole bathroom, crawling around with flashlights and these weird magnifying goggles he bought. We just must have missed it!”
Oh, balls. “Magnifying goggles?”
Amy let go of me to step back, still smiling hugely. “He looked like a crazy bug or something, but I was so upset, he was doing anything to find it. And now I have it! I need to go call him to let him know. No, I’m marching right up to his office to show him my finger! And I’m going to the jewelry store today to get this sized so tightly that it cuts off my circulation and I can never take it off!”
I slumped back down onto the floor after she left, knowing that I was screwed. Steve would certainly realize that the ring hadn’t been there when he went over every inch of the bathroom with magnifying goggles. He would quickly figure out that I had put it there…no.
When I thought more, I realized that he probably wouldn’t. I was such a terrible person that I easily saw the bad in others, like how I had immediately spotted Dayana. But Amy wasn’t that way, and probably her husband wasn’t, either. They would just be happy with the miracle of her finding the ring and not even consider that I was a sneaky, underhanded liar and thief who had made her suffer thinking that she had lost it. I gulped. Hopefully.
I spent the rest of the day on pins and needles, waiting for Amy to accuse me, for her husband to want to kill me, for the police to come to arrest me. All that happened was that in the late afternoon, Amy emailed from her office down the hall to ask if I minded grabbing her a salad (“not the spinach, the kale—I feel kale-y today”) because she was stuck on a call but thought she needed more nutrition.
“I was so upset, I didn’t eat that much this weekend or for lunch today, and that isn’t good for the baby,” she wrote, and asked me to come to her office to get some money, and said to treat myself to something, too. After reading that about the baby, I decided to pay for her salad myself, and I slunk to the elevator thinking that I should slither instead. I hurried down the street in the freezing rain to Amy’s favorite lunch place.
The restaurant was almost empty, which gave me a chance to observe the people working there. Whoever their manager was, he or she needed to crack down on these jokers. They were standing around, talking to each other loudly, and ignoring the few customers who were having a late lunch. I thought about going back to waitress-life if/when Amy found out that I had stolen from her. A new job would probably be the least of my worries, because if she knew, her husband would know, and then Connor would know.
Connor. I swallowed. After his parents had finally left on Saturday, we had gone down to look at the damage to my house, the broken windows and Detroit River in the basement. Then we spent the rest of the weekend hanging out, planning, relaxing. I tried to relax as much as I could, anyway. He said that Jared and I needed it, that we should just take a little break from worrying. Jared certainly seemed happier, and Connor was fine too, but if he knew the truth about me—
“Hello?”
I looked up, confused. “Huh?”
“Your kale and faro salad, extra almonds, lemon vinaigrette with flaxseed oil on the side.” The cashier sighed like I had inconvenienced her by making her do her job, pushed it toward me, and went back to filing her nails. Yeah, I could go back to being a server if this was the expectation for restaurant workers. I could do this again, no problem, I told myself. I was used to it and it would be comfortable and easy, even if I had been happy doing something else. Even if working for Amy had made me want to make some changes in my life, reach for more.
I thought again about Connor when I got outside. I needed to shore up things with him right away. Just in case the truth about me did start coming out, I needed to lock down our relationship, cover it with plywood and use so many nails to hold it that no one could tear us apart. My mind seemed to be running extra fast, jumping from one scheme to another about what I could do so that I wouldn’t lose him. Well, there was always the obvious: I could sleep with him. I could try to wear a shirt, so he wouldn’t have to see me, and weren’t men just interested in the whole insertion part of the deal, anyway?
Ok, that was a good plan. He didn’t seem the type to love ‘em and leave ‘em, so once we did the deed, he would want to stick with me and work things out, even if he learned about the ring, or about me knowing the guys who had shot him. No, no. I physically shook my head against that thought. I couldn’t let myself go there, not after the terrible dreams I’d had the night before where they were coming after Connor and trying to hurt him again. I had woken up with my face buried in the pillow, crying quietly, remembering the faces I’d seen when I ran out of my uncle’s store that night.
I remembered them; I recognized them; I could have identified them. I had seen them, and they had seen me. I stopped on the sidewalk to take a breath, annoying the other pedestrians who were hurrying to get out of the rain and slush. This was going to be ok, because I would have sex with Connor, and he would care about me, and his mother wouldn’t ever admit that I had told her that I knew the shooters. She would keep the secret and no one besides my uncle knew the whole truth, and he had left us and moved to another state to get away from it.
Connor was in the building lobby when I came back with the salad. I shook the raindrops out of my hair and relaxed, even smiling at him. I wasn’t trying to lure him or anything, but I couldn’t help but be glad to see his face. The whole weekend, every time I looked over at him, I was just happy that he was there. Even this morning when I saw how cranky and frowny he was when he got up early for work, I still loved him.
I held the salad so tightly that the recycled cardboard container crushed under my fingers as I walked to him. I did love him. And I couldn’t lose him, not because of the secret I had kept from him in the past about the shooting, and not because of my behavior now with Amy and her ring. So I would sleep with him, ASAP. Tonight.
“Hi, Lia,” he said as I got closer, but he didn’t smile back at me. I froze, thinking that somehow, he already knew. How had he found out?
Then Rome Arschloch, the guy who had been such an ass-waffle to me at Atelier Anson, stepped out from behind him. “Lia?” he repeated, frowning heavily at Connor with his thin, slimy lips. “You know this girl, Hayes?”
I knew that they were working together—the last time I’d seen this Arschloch in our building, he had been on his way up to Connor’s office. I thought quickly so I could to fix any problems I may have made with him, if I had messed up any business stuff because Connor knew me. “I know him from the restaurant,” I said loudly. “I used to spit in his soup, too.” I walked past both of them, and when Connor turned to look at me, I tried to signal that I didn’t mean it. I texted him when the elevator door closed, asking if it had worked or if Arschloch was still mad at him.
Connor called me as I got to my floor. “You spit in my soup, too?”
“Not too much,” I assured him. “Seriously, I didn’t want that guy to know that we’re um, friends. Was it ok? Is he mad at you for knowing me?”
Connor didn’t answer. “Hello?” I asked into the phone.
“You didn’t have to try and cover up our relationship. I don’t give one single fuck what that guy thinks,” he bit out.
“Connor, what? Why are you so mad?”
“I’ll come see you in a while,” he told me, then hung up. And I had no idea what I had done to make him angry, when I had only been trying to help. I sat nervously in my chair, my thoughts racing again.
“Hey, Connor,” I heard Amy say from the hallway a little later. “Are you here to drag Lia away from her desk? She’s been working like a demon all day.”
I couldn’t hear Connor’s answer, and Amy said something else that I also didn’t catch. I couldn’t take the suspense of not knowing what they were talking about, so I rushed out to them and barreled right into Connor’s chest.
“Hi,” he said, hands on my arms to steady me. “Are you running off somewhere?”
“I heard you coming and I wanted to talk to you,” I answered. “Why were you upset with me on the phone? I thought I was helping you with that guy in the lobby, that mean guy.”
He moved his hands to my waist and backed me into my office. “You don’t have to help me with him.” He made a face, like he tasted something bad. “I can’t stand Rome Arschloch. I can’t believe you lost your job because of him.”
“I didn’t,” I said. “I lost my job because I was so startled to see you that I dropped about two hundred fifty bucks-worth of champagne.”
Connor leaned down, putting his forehead to mine. “So it was my fault?”
“No.” I rubbed my nose against his, feeling a little transfixed by his hazel eyes. “It was my fault. I should have just ignored you.”
“You couldn’t do that.”
No, I couldn’t do that. I moved my hands up and down his arms, feeling the hard sinew beneath his shirt, the grooves and cut of muscle.
“I don’t like working with a guy like that. He took pleasure in you getting in trouble,” Connor said.
I leaned back a little to look into his face. “So what?”
His eyebrows lifted. “So what? So, why would I want to do business with someone who didn’t treat my…friend well?”
“It doesn’t matter about me,” I told him. “Isn’t he some big casino magnate? Don’t you have to kiss his ass to keep up your relationship with him? That’s what Anson did. Just keep saying what he wants to hear,” I recommended. “That’s how it works. Give him a line he likes and tuck away your real thoughts.”
“No. I don’t like that. I can’t act like that, Lia, hiding behind some script. I told him that I knew you, that you’re great, and that I didn’t appreciate how he had treated you when you made a mistake and spilled your tray.”
“You did?” I asked, shocked. This was wonderful news—Connor thought it was normal that I made mistakes, so maybe this whole situation would all be ok. He’d be able to accept what I’d done (and hidden) as errors that he could overlook, just like he was fine with me spilling champagne on his business associates and telling them I spit in their soup.
“I should have told him to knock it off that night, but I think I was in a state of shock at seeing you for the first time after all those years. Anyway, now I’m tolerating Rome until this project is done because it’s big, even for Whitaker Enterprises,” he continued. “We’re going to develop a chain of casinos for him and I’m in charge.”
“Oh, no. No! You can’t jeopardize something like that over me.”
Connor used his hands on my waist to pull me closer. “Why not? Why wouldn’t I stand up for you, after all you’ve done for me? I wouldn’t even be here without you. And now you’re helping me with my nightmares.”
It was true that I was sleeping with him, anyway. Actually sleeping, not the sex that I had just schemed about. I had curled up on his chest on Saturday, talking about the house and making plans. Last night, we’d fallen asleep watching a sports talk show on the couch and I’d woken up this morning in Connor’s bed again, where he must have directed me. “Am I actually helping you? Really?”
“Definitely.” He kissed my forehead.
I felt so close to him. I thought that maybe I should just tell him about Amy’s ring, what I had done, and how I had returned it. Maybe he would understand how scared I’d been, and angry and desperate, too. How I’d wanted to save Jared, and myself, also. I’d wanted to lash out at someone over the unfairness of everything, and Amy just happened to be there, talking about going to a fancy party for the soup kitchen I used to depend on so I didn’t go hungry. “Connor,” I started to say.
“Hey! Oh, sorry, am I interrupting?” Amy asked from my doorway.
I pulled away from his arms. “No, not at all. Do you have something for me?”
“Just a few more things before we leave for the day. But…” She smiled at the two of us. “Go ahead and continue what you were doing, because it looked really cozy.”
“No, no,” I protested, and stepped even farther back from him. “We were just discussing…casinos.”
Connor grinned at me. “Yep, casinos. I need to get back upstairs anyway. Lia, I’ll come by to get you to go pick up Jared. I’ll skip the gym tonight so we can head out earlier. We’re meeting Commodore to talk about the water leak in the yard,” he reminded me over his shoulder as he walked off down the hall. I leaned out my door so I could see his butt as he left, and then I looked up into Amy’s eyes as she watched me stare at it. I scurried over behind my desk, using my screen as a shield.
“I knew it,” she said triumphantly. “I knew you guys would end up a couple!”
“No. No, we’re not.” I took a breath in. “Can I talk to you about something?”
“Sure.” She put her files on my desk and sat across from me. “What’s up?” She tucked her hair behind her ear with the hand that wore the ring.
“I was just wondering, did you ever keep anything from Steve?”
“Keep anything? Like a secret?” Her eyes widened. “Sure, like birthday surprises, stuff like that. But I’m bad at being sneaky, just like he is. Last Christmas, we both found our presents to each other at the beginning of December. Why?”
I took a big breath. “I did something bad, and I don’t know if it’s better to tell or to keep a secret.”
Her brow creased. “You did something bad? What?”
The words “I took your ring” were on the tip of my tongue. I opened my mouth, even, and drew a breath in to tell her. “I—I didn’t tell Connor something.” And I was a coward, too.
“Something about you?”
I nodded. “Something important, and now I’m afraid to say anything. It’s not just me who’s involved—it’s Connor’s mom, and probably his dad, and now, my brother.” I looked at Amy, knowing what she was going to say. But no, no matter what advice she was going to give me, I already knew that I couldn’t admit to anything.
She shook her head. “I can’t even begin to imagine what you mean, but whatever it is, I think you have to be honest with him. The sooner, the better, right? If secrets fester, they just get worse. You must have had your reasons for doing whatever it was, and I’m sure he’ll understand. Most people have very forgiving hearts when it comes to the people they love.” She grinned. “And it looks like looo-ve to me!”
“No,” I protested again, but yes. Yes, for me, it was.
“Tell him,” she advised, then hesitated. “Is that what’s been bothering you? You’ve been jumpy today, anxious.”
“Yes,” I lied. “Just that. Only that.”
“Can you tell me, like giving it a dry run?”
I hesitated. It felt like this secret had been weighing me down for years, an unwelcome burden on my shoulders that I wanted to push off. However, if Amy knew that I had been a coward, that I hadn’t come forward to the police seven years before when Connor had been so hurt, she would fire me just for that. Or actually, knowing how she’d been afraid to get rid of Dayana, she would probably think that I was a terrible person, hate me, but continue to suffer through working with me anyway. I would immediately lose her as a friend, for sure. That suddenly loomed as more important than losing her as an ally against the Samotnys or whatever else I had been planning to get from her.
She nodded. “Just get it over with. It’s better to have a clear conscience. You don’t want to start off your relationship based on misunderstandings.”
I almost threw up into my garbage can. “Exactly. Better. Yes,” I managed to say. She was imagining a relationship like her own with her husband, where they had fallen in love at first sight and heard music playing. Sure, I felt that way about Connor, but I wasn’t going to have Amy’s happy ending.
He came down to our floor to collect me not too much later. I tried not to act nervous and strange around him, but it was like he could see it in me somehow. Just like when my purse seemed to be made of glass, exposing my guilt when I’d had Amy’s ring in it, now I felt like my body was the same way: maybe Connor could see that my heart had his name etched on it. “Let’s go,” I told him, smiling with the same falseness that I had been using with Amy all day. Connor put his arm around me and the fake smile turned into a real one.
I sat straight and rigid in the truck, wondering if he could sense what I was feeling: the love, the guilt, the fear. “I signed Jared up for that lacrosse team,” he mentioned, making a turn onto West Lafayette. Yeah, no, he was totally oblivious to my transparent emotions.