He was packed up and ready to head home for the final showdown with CJ. “Do you have a Kevlar vest?” Yoli was only half kidding.
“No shit. This is not going to be pleasant.”
“Good luck.” She was more than a little scared for him.
“My luck changed today, Yol. Mia Silver is back in my life. I never thought I’d have the opportunity to say those words again,” he acknowledged with a sad smile. “The hell of not knowing is over. I now know why she left me. And now — Karma. Today the universe finally rights itself. Karma is truly going to be a bitch.”
Chapter Four
Driving through Newport Beach toward their house on Linda Isle, Schooner almost felt a sense of relief that this would no longer be his home. He didn’t know where his home would be or where he was going, but just knowing what he was about to do gave him a feeling of renewal.
“You told her what happened to me.” That knocked him for a loop. Whatever was said to Mia must’ve been pretty on target and devastating for her to believe CJ and not to have just told her to go fuck herself. For Mia to doubt what they had, what they shared and his love for her, CJ must’ve been very convincing. He wondered if she’d somehow caught wind of enough to be able to spin a tale close enough to reality. Maybe someday Mia would tell him, because he knew CJ sure as hell wasn’t going to be spewing any truths today.
As he pulled into the driveway of his modern white and glass home it struck him that this was the last time he’d be driving up as a resident. He wasn’t sad about leaving it — it was just he and CJ living there now. No more nights of helping Holly with her homework or playing video games with Zac. He’d need to make arrangements to have his boat moved so that he could have access to it.
Walking into the foyer with its white terrazzo floors and sweeping rounded staircase with the wrought iron banister, he noted how cold an environment it was. It was a house, not a home. The views of the harbor were beautiful and the sunsets spectacular, but the house felt as much like a shell as he did.
Appearing at the top of the stairs, CJ stood and posed for a moment before she began her descent with perfect pageant girl poise, a talent she had never lost. “What are you doing home so early? Did you forget something?”
“No. I haven’t forgotten a thing.”
“Why are you home?” CJ reached her husband at the bottom of the stairs.
“Come,” was all he said as he strode into the family room.
“Schooner, what is going on?”
He pointed to the couch for her to sit and she did. He stood before her, looming over her, 6’2” of solid built muscle and in a deadly calm voice he asked, “What exactly did you say to Mia Silver that made her leave school and never come back?”
“What are you talking about?” She looked up at him, blue eyes wide.
“I want to know what you said to her.” Schooners arms were crossed over his muscular chest.
“I don’t know what you are talking about and you are asking me to remember something from over twenty years ago. What is going on?”
“I’m giving you the opportunity to come clean, CJ, before I leave you.” Schooner felt no emotion and having this conversation was so much easier than he anticipated. He felt nothing.
“Leave me?” Her voice rose an octave. “What are you talking about?”
“We’re done.” The shock factor alone was worth the price of admission.
“I don’t understand. What happened? Where is this coming from?”
“You know exactly where this is coming from. It took a while, but it did catch up to you.”
“You’ve spoken to Mia?” Her voice was tight and she had visibly blanched beneath her spray tan.
His nod was almost imperceptible. “I have.”
“What did she say?” CJ was fishing.
“She told me about your conversation with her and why she left. But now I would like to hear your side of it.” He had not moved an inch, standing there formidably, his muscular forearms still crossed defensively over his chest.
CJ was silent. When she finally spoke, her tactic was diversionary. “Has it been horrible with me? Have we had a bad life?”
He was not going to be thrown off course. “I loved her, CJ.”
“And I loved you, Schooner.”
His voice was deadly soft. “No you didn’t. You loved the idea of me. You didn’t care how much I hurt when you caused me to lose Mia. That’s not love, CJ. That’s manipulation. There is no coming back from what you did. It was malicious and done with the intent to destroy. Mission accomplished, Baby. And although I’d love to stand here and blame you for destroying my life, I can’t do that. I take that responsibility. I did a great job of destroying my own life. Now it’s time to rectify that.”
Schooner turned and walked from the room, heading for the staircase.
“That’s it?” she screamed after him.
“That’s it.” He didn’t bother to turn around.
Rushing into the foyer, her anger finally starting to peak, “So, you’re going back to Mia?”
Schooner looked down on her from the upper landing, “No, CJ, I’m leaving you.”
CJ followed him up the stairs into the massive glass walled master bedroom. “You are going to believe some woman you haven’t spoken to in over twenty years over your wife?”
“I’m listening,” he didn’t turn around to look at her as he wheeled an oversized suitcase duffle out of the closet. It still had tags on it from the last trip.
“Did it ever occur to you that she’s after money?” Venom dripped from her words.
Schooner stacked trousers, jeans and shorts on the bed. “Nope. It never occurred to me.”
“Well, maybe it should.”
“Maybe you should start talking.” He brushed passed her as he entered the closet and grabbed a week’s worth of button down shirts.
“I can’t believe you are doing this,” her voice was shrill.
He finally stopped and looked at her. “Believe it, because it’s a done deal, Babe.” It occurred to him that they even fought like WASPS. He was ending a twenty year marriage and there wasn’t even passion in their fighting. Par for the course of a passionless marriage.
Next was socks, underwear, tee-shirts and polos. The duffle was now laying across their beautiful sleigh bed and he began to load the clothes in neatly. CJ stood there and silently watched. Schooner walked into the bathroom, electric razor, toothbrush, hairbrush, travel toiletry case, sundry items.
CJ stood next to the bed, arms crossed. “Maybe she’s the liar, Schooner, not me.”
He looked at her and smiled and shook his head at the absurdity. That didn’t even dignify a response.
CJ changed tact, “I don’t want you to go. Let’s work this out. Zac and Holly will be heartbroken. Don’t break up this family, Schooner.”
He moved back into the closet and emerged with several pairs of shoes and sneakers and then began to go through his nightstand — favorite watches, passport, a second wallet. He loaded the last of his belongings into his duffle and zipped it.
He stopped and looked at CJ, his voice even. “I will always be there for the kids, but I cannot live another day with you. There isn’t enough counseling in the world that could ever make me want to be in the same room with you, CJ, let alone stay married to you.”
“Why are you being so mean?” she yelled back.
“Mean? Oh, I could be really mean here after what you have done. This is not mean. I’ve been pretty straight with you today and you have chosen not to come clean. Not to be honest. I’m not surprised, but I did hope you would just own up to it.” He moved passed her out of the bedroom and started toward the staircase.
“There is nothing to own up to. I haven’t done anything wrong. You are making me out to be some kind of evil monster. Mia left you of her own free will and now she’s making up some kind of lie about it. I had nothing to do with that girl transferring schools.” CJ followed him down the stairs to the f
oyer.
Schooner opened a coat closet and grabbed a black and royal blue ski jacket. He unzipped the pocket and looked inside, smiled and zipped it back up. “You know, I actually think you might believe that.”
“Of course I believe it. It’s the truth.”
“Your relationship with truth has never been an intimate one, CJ.” He slung the ski jacket over his shoulder and grabbed the handle on the wheeled duffle and headed toward the front door. He stopped and turned around. “My lawyer will be in touch.”
And he walked out the door.
Exiting Linda Isle onto Bayside Drive and heading toward the Pacific Coast Highway, Schooner was astounded at how dispassionate that whole process had been. No screaming, no yelling, no tears. Very little emotion at all. He had expected somewhat of a scene, even anticipating his own anger being an issue. But it wasn’t. Yes, he was disgusted with CJ and her actions, livid about what she had done to him and Mia, angry at her inability to tell the truth. But she wasn’t worthy of any of his emotions, not even his anger — and he didn’t give any of them to her. He was not going to give her that control. And the feeling was victorious.
Schooner Moore had only one thing on his mind that Monday afternoon as he drove away from his home on Linda Isle, and that was hearing Mia Silver’s sweet voice again that night.
Chapter Five
He couldn’t sleep. It felt like an endorphin high, as if the cells in his body were a multi-level pinball machine that released ten balls at one time and he was working four flippers trying to save them from being lost down the dead center of the machine. They had talked until 1:45 A.M. his time and it was now a few minutes before 6 A.M. — almost 9:00 her time. She might already be at work — or maybe she slept in because he had kept her up until almost 5 A.M. eastern time. He had to know. Now that he found her, every second not in contact gnawed at him.
He grabbed his cell and hit her number.
“Hi,” he could hear the sleep in her voice.
“I keep waking you,” his morning voice was gravelly and sexy.
“Mmmm, you do,” she didn’t sound unhappy about it and he could picture her stretching under her blanket.
“Do you want to go back to sleep?” It was impossible to wipe the smile off of his face. In the pre-dawn hour, he was in bed talking to his Baby Girl.
“Mmmm, let me think — talk to Schooner or sleep. Such a tough decision,” she teased, “I wasn’t sleeping very well anyway.”
“No?” Tell me your thoughts, Mia.
“No. I was having weird stress dreams. You know when you really can’t tell if you’re awake or asleep.”
“What were they about?”
“They were about you, Schooner. I couldn’t get to you. I knew you were there, but I couldn’t find you. People kept telling me to go places, that you were there. But you never were. So actually, I’m glad you called,” she sounded distraught, as if the dreams were still holding onto the edges of her consciousness.
He could feel the small crack in his heart. He knew that nightmare all too well. That nightmare had been a long seated reality. “You can get to me any day, any time, any hour and I mean that. If you wake up from a bad dream. You call me.” Though I’d rather be there next to you to hold you. I can almost remember what that felt like. Almost.
“Call you. Wow. That’s so weird. I’m so used to living without you.”
He sighed, “I know. I was just thinking that I can almost remember what it felt like to have your head on my chest.”
“Almost,” she repeated and he could hear the sadness.
“Ok, I’m just going to say this and please just be honest with me about how you feel, ok. I’ve just gone for over twenty years without you and now that I know where you are and I know what happened to us, every second feels like hell. I want to be there with you. I want this exile to be over, Mia.”
“Well, then you need to get your ass on a plane.” Now that was his Mia Silver.
“I can do that.” Damn, this woman knew how to make him smile.
“Then do it.”
“You’re a demanding little thing.”
Mia laughed and he smiled just listening to that sweet sound. “It’s part of my charm, Schooner. You know that.”
“So, are you going to charm me?” He could feel himself growing stiff. Just hearing her voice and picturing her cute little devil grin.
“I thought I already had. Have I lost my touch?”
“Mmmm, I distinctly remember your touch.” And he did, although it was his hand now doing the touching.
“And I distinctly remember touching you.”
“You do?” Tell me more.
“Mmm-hmm, a girl never forgets her first.”
Melt. Pure heart melt. Her first, that’s how she remembers me, as her first — he was beyond elated. Yes! Your first and your last, Baby Girl. Her first. She had no clue the impact those words had just had on him.
It took him a few moments to speak again. “You’ll always be my first.”
She laughed, “Schooner, aka Mr. Stud Muffin Tennis Star, I was far from your first.”
He was shaking his head no, “Quite the contrary, Baby Girl. I may have had sexual encounters before you, but you were very definitely my first.”
Mia was giggling and he couldn’t wipe the smile off of his face, “Pretty boy, you just want to get laid.”
“Well yeah, but you were still my first.” And I want you to be mine, Baby Girl.
“I love that you think of me that way.” Oh Mia, Mia, Mia …
“You sound surprised.”
“Schooner, I’ve spent most of my life thinking you never actually cared about me, that I was a charity case.”
A sudden, surprising burn stung at the back of his throat as the air of the conversation changed abruptly. Charity case? What the hell had CJ said to her? “Mia … ,” and he had to stop to compose himself. Charity case. Holy crap. “It breaks my heart to think that you even went a single day thinking that what we shared was not real.”
“I’m not going to lie. It’s a big mind shift, Schooner,” her voice a whisper.
“I was lost without you, Mia.”
“But I didn’t know that. I thought I meant nothing to you. I went over and over and over every minute we’d ever spent together and wondered how I missed it. How I’d misread the situation. Wondered if you were just wearing one of your masks with me because I was an obligation?”
“Oh Baby Girl, you were the one who taught me I didn’t need any masks. You were the first person in my entire life that I felt comfortable enough to reveal myself to. And yes, I did have an obligation to you — and that was to protect you because I loved you. And I failed.”
They were silent for a few minutes before Mia broke the silence.
“Schooner, I’ve lived my life thinking I had been hopelessly in love with a guy who didn’t love me back. It took a long time to get you out of my head, and my heart too, and you crept back in at the most unexpected and inopportune moments. I wasn’t one of those people who was like, “I was hurt and I’m going to build walls up,” but I was cautious. And I wanted to be in love again. I wanted to feel what I knew I was capable of feeling. What I felt with you. I wanted that high again,” she paused, “It’s just so hard for me to process that reality, my reality for twenty-four years, feeling that I never meant anything to you, with what you have told me in the past twenty-four hours.”
It would be so much easier if I were there with you and you were in my arms. He wanted to jump in and take over, but he was afraid the ice he was skating toward her on would crack. “I know, Baby Girl.”
“Say that again.”
“Say what again?”
“Baby Girl.”
His real smile was out of control. “You like hearing me call you that?”
Mia just moaned.
“Don’t do that,” he admonished.
“Don’t do what?”
“Don’t moan, Baby Girl.”
“
Why not?”
“You make me want to touch myself.”
“Mmmmmm,” she moaned.
Sigh, “Baby Girl, do you have any idea what you do to me?” There were smiles at either end of the phone at the reprise of the words that started a lifelong love affair.
“Schooner … ”
“Yeah, Baby Girl … ”
“It’s smoochal.”
And in that moment he knew, twenty-four years of heartache were over. They had their demons to work through, but what he felt, what she felt, was real. It was real. It had always been real. They would work through the demons together. And he could not get her into his arms soon enough. She was his and no one was ever going to take her from him again.
Chapter Six
Schooner Moore strode into his office at an uncharacteristically late 9 A.M. on Tuesday morning. He was surprised that Yoli hadn’t sent out a search party to see if he’d survived the showdown with CJ the prior afternoon. Passing Yoli’s office, he poked his head in, but she wasn’t there.
Setting his latte upon his desk, Schooner pulled out his laptop and started to boot up. It was time to find a flight to New York. Non-stop and first class were the criteria he punched in.
Smiling, he picked up his cell to call Mia. At least this time he wasn’t going to wake her. It hadn’t even been twenty-four hours yet since he’d first heard her voice again, yet his whole world had changed. What a difference a day makes, he mused.
“Hey you,” she answered.
“Hey you,” he smiled with a volley back. “Ok, I’m sitting here looking at flights.” She didn’t respond, so he continued, “You’re being quiet. Are you ok with this?”
“I’m just too busy smiling.”
“Me too. Ok, it looks like I can get a redeye out of here tomorrow night, be there early Thursday morning.”
“Tomorrow night? That’s really far away.”
Schooner laughed. “I know, isn’t it, but it will give me the chance though to get everything in place here to take off for a few days.”
“Me too, I guess.”
Moore to Lose Page 24
