by Tess Oliver
I pulled the truck onto the long, winding road of the cemetery. It was midweek and there was no holiday so, with the exception of all the people who were there, hanging out for the rest of eternity, the place was nearly deserted.
I parked along the road near the newly planted evergreen tree. The pine scented sapling helped me find Grady’s headstone in a sea of grave markers. Grady’s plot was still so fresh the grass hadn’t filled in. Sally’s weekly bouquet of flowers were wilted from the heat. I’d only been back once since the funeral. Some people took comfort in visiting a gravesite. I wasn’t one of them. But today, I needed badly to talk to my brother.
I stopped the truck and reached for the two bottles of beer. I walked through the maze of headstones and found the one that was still shiny and new. ‘Grady Mark Stratton. Beloved son and brother.’ He hadn’t had time to become anything more than that. I glanced around at his permanent neighbors. Most had lived long lives. The dates on Grady’s were too close together. Far too close together.
I sat down and opened the two bottles of beer. I placed one on the corner of his headstone. “It’s been a long time since we drank a beer together, Bro. That’s one of the last things you said to me. So I thought, instead of flowers, I’d bring you a cold one.”
I took a chug of my beer and stared out at the landscape. Cemeteries were always scenic. The California drought and water restrictions seemed to have passed the place by. The lawns were lush and emerald green. The highway below and the birds in the trees were the only sources of sound.
“Well, buddy, I fucked up. But I guess that’s no surprise. I’m sorry. I didn’t know you still loved her. Or at least I didn’t want to know.” I took another drink. “I never stopped loving her either. I kept it to myself, but something tells me, you knew. But she’s gone now. Back to New York. Back to the start of her future, a future that’s not going to include either of us.”
I leaned back on my elbows, lifted my face to the sky and closed my eyes. My brother was never going to be warmed by the sun, or taste a cold beer, or hold a woman in his arms again. Sometimes it was easier to believe that he was still alive, living in Wisconsin rather than six feet below me in the hard earth. My chest tightened with the thought that I would never talk to him again. How the fuck was that possible? He was my brother. We grew up together. He wasn’t supposed to be gone.
I picked up my beer and drank the bottle dry. Then I sat up and poured the second one on the ground next to his headstone. “So here we are, buddy. Both of us still desperately in love with the same girl. Only your pain is gone forever, erased until the end of time. My pain is still as strong as the day I walked away from her to get on the plane for boot camp. I knew then that she wasn’t meant for me. And, it seems, things haven’t changed. I’m still just as nuts about her and she’s still just as far from ever being mine.” I stood up and stared down at the headstone. “Guess I just came here to tell you I’m sorry. I would never do anything to betray you, Grady. You’ve got to know that. I love you, Bro. Wish you were still fucking here.”
Chapter 30
Caden
I sat in the brown leather chair of the doctor’s office waiting for him to deliver the verdict on whether I would race again or not. But I knew. I already knew he was going to walk in with the same grim expression he had halfway through the tests. My leg wasn’t the same. It had been twisted and nearly shattered in a way that went completely against nature, and once you fuck with nature, you’re screwed. I found it easier not to expect good news, that way the disappointment didn’t burn so much. It was something I’d trained myself to do all my life.
It had been two months since Grady’s death and just over a month since Kenna had walked out of my life, leaving Mayfair with a quick message of good-bye through my stepmom. It had been a cold slap in the face when I realized that she no longer wanted anything to do with me. She’d managed to cleanly sever the ties on her end, but my end was still shredded and I was hurting big time.
Doctor Kessler walked in with a mouth pulled so tight, he really didn’t even need to speak. His face wore the whole fucking prognosis, as if it was written across his white lab coat. He circled around the desk to his chair and sat down.
“I’ve gone over everything, Caden, and—” He looked up at me over his glasses. “I’m sure you already know what I’m going to tell you.”
I sat back against the chair. “Yeah. My leg’s telling me the same thing. It feels as if I just put it through a meat grinder.”
He reached for a prescription pad. “Do you need something for the pain?”
“Not unless you’ve got some magic pill that can make things start to go right for me.”
He grinned with a nod. “I think everyone could use that pill every once in a while.” He folded his hands on top of my file. “Your leg can’t support the training required for this extreme sport. But, on the brighter side, you can come back in another eighteen months or so, and we can run the tests again. It’s entirely possible that we’ll have better results after some time has passed.”
“Good to know. But by then, I’ll be considered past my prime for the sport.” I reached across to shake his hand. “Thanks for your help, Dr. Kessler. Take care.”
Tanner called just seconds after I stepped out of the medical building. “What are you psychic or something? We just got finished.”
“And . . . what did the good doctor have to say?”
“The good doctor had nothing good to say. He said maybe in another year and a half, but I’ll be too damn old to start again.”
“Shit, that sucks. Let me know if you still want to work with the team though. Lots of traveling and plenty of hot women. We’d love to have you on board.”
“Yeah, I’ll give it some thought. Hey, thanks for letting me sleep on your couch these last few weeks. I’m going to head back home to Mayfair today. My stepdad is having some health problems, and he needs me to help out at the lumber yard. I need the money and something to keep my mind occupied so I don’t go nuts.”
“Why don’t you call her?” Tanner asked.
“Who?”
“Kenna, the woman who has you walking around like a fucking zombie. Call her in New York and tell her that you miss her.”
“That only works if she misses me back.”
“How do you know she doesn’t?”
I needed a topic change. “Hey, listen, tell your dad thanks for giving me another shot at racing. And tell him I’m sorry it didn’t work out.”
“I will. Let me know what you decide about working with the team.”
“Yep. Later.” I walked to the truck. It was hot enough inside to melt iron. I rolled down the windows and put on the air conditioner to cool off the sizzling steering wheel. While I waited, I looked down at my phone. Every day, every fucking day I wanted to call her and just like Tanner said, tell her I missed her.
I dropped the phone into the console and drove out of the parking lot. I turned in the direction of Mayfair.
Chapter 31
Kenna
They were all there, the three of them, perched around the conference table like a three-headed monster, waiting for their coffees.
At first I’d considered myself lucky. After a rough few days of awkward and sometimes angry conversations with Jeremy, and a few nights on the couch like an unwanted houseguest in an apartment that I’d once called home, a friend from college called to see if I knew of someone who needed a room. A family emergency had sent her roommate back home to the Philippines, and she had no plans to return anytime soon. It was the right price and the right location. And I’d even managed to grab up one of the last paid summer internships. It was in a law firm, mostly doing grunt work like getting coffee and inputting files. Nothing glamorous, but it helped pay bills.
But just a few weeks into my new living arrangements and my inte
rnship, the perceived bout of luck went completely south. The room I’d rented was on the street side of an apartment in a section of town that was noisy, dirty and depressingly ugly. The clamor and flashing lights from traffic, pedestrians and constant police activity outside my bedroom window continued long into the night. Sometimes the noise was so loud, my window shook as if the building had been hit by an earthquake. Then the internship turned torturous when I discovered that the three lawyers I worked under were the most ridiculously conceited, pompous and demanding individuals on the planet.
I kept my eyes diverted, like a prey animal trying not to make contact with the predators surrounding it, as I carried the coffees into the meeting room. Mr. Campe, a nephew of one of the partners and a man who was always the topic at the water cooler because of his after hour hot tub parties, liked his black. Not too hot or too cold. I wasn’t completely sure how I was supposed to know if it was too hot or too cold, so I just placed the cup in front of him and hoped for the best. Mr. Hoffman, a top-notch divorce lawyer, or so he liked to call himself, was probably the least vile of the three, but he made up for it by being creepy. He liked to lick his lips while he was talking to me, which made it hard for me to keep my focus because it felt as if I was being ordered around by a lascivious snake. But the worst of all was Ms. Bridger, the queen bee who had harshness down to an art and who I was certain would step over someone dying of thirst while chugging down her expensive bottled water. And her bottled water was her main source of nutrition. Every day at twelve o’clock, I had to bring her a sandwich, which was only a sandwich because something was stuck between two pieces of something else. She only ate gluten-free, sugar-free, fat-free bread, which I was pretty sure was the definition of cardboard, which was what the pretend bread looked like. And as for the pasty pink stuff in between, I had no idea what it was or if it even came from planet earth. Naturally, she only ate two, small bird-sized bites before dumping the rest of it in the trash. Normally, I would have had to bite my tongue to not remind her of waste and all the starving kids in the world, but in the case of her alien sandwich, I decided I was doing my part for the hungry kids by not mentioning it.
I placed the color free, fat-free, caffeine free cup of clear liquid on the table in front of Ms. Bridger, and as quickly as possible, made the move for a fast escape.
“Oh, Ken, hold on a minute.” Ms. Bridger’s dry bitchy tone struck my back before I managed to leave the conference room. She’d shortened my name to Ken because she claimed Kenna was too long to take up her time with.
I froze at the door, reminding myself that without the internship I really would be sleeping on a park bench. “Yes, Ms. Bridger?”
She continued on with a separate conversation with Mr. Campe and left me standing there waiting to hear her orders. I was only a few semesters from taking the bar exam, but in their world, I was still beneath them. I’d met many lawyers and law professors and thankfully not all of them were conceited buttheads like the three sitting in front of me. I had no idea how I’d gotten so unlucky as to land in an internship with the trio from hell.
I stood like a toad, ready to be stomped on in the doorway of the room, until Ms. Bridger honored me with her attention. “Ken, I have a list of errands I need you to run for me. I emailed it to you this morning, but it seems you haven’t gotten to them yet. I needed my scarf from the dry cleaners, and I didn’t see it in my office.”
“I’ve been filing all morning.”
“Well, get to it now.” She had the imperious, dismissive hand wave down to an art.
I turned to leave, but her annoying voice shot over my shoulder again.
“Oh, and Ken, I didn’t put something on the list. Stop by the store on your way back and pick me up a yogurt for lunch. And not one of those calorie-laden, ice cream substitute type yogurts I see you eating at lunch. No sugar, or fat. And plain.”
Mr. Campe had a good laugh. “What’s left? The container?” The men had a good laugh, but Ms. Bridger, who I was fairly certain had only ever laughed at funerals, didn’t appreciate the humor. In fact, she looked pissed. Of course she took it out on me.
She shot a haughty glance my direction. “The regular yogurt is fattening. I think Ken is proof of that.”
Another good round of laughter for the two men, who both had bellies round enough that their belts disappeared beneath them. I walked out before Ms. Bridger could throw another stinger my direction.
I pulled the list up on my email and headed to the elevator. I stepped in and thought what I really wanted to do was head out of the building and never look back. I seemed to be suffering a constant headache from trying to get a decent night of sleep, and my work day only made the throbbing that much worse. At this point, I had no idea what I was doing anymore. For so long I’d been convinced I was doing everything right, and now, it seemed everything right had been completely wrong.
I pulled out my phone as I stepped out of the elevator and headed out of the building. If there was one person who could put up with a good stretch of me whining, it was my mom.
“Kenny? Where are you?”
“Mom, why do you ask that every time I call? I’m in New York. Like always.”
“I thought you were working.”
“I am. I’m on a scavenger hunt for the evil Ms. Bridger.”
“Oh my gosh, someone needs to set that woman straight.”
The sidewalk was crowded with early lunch goers streaming from the high rise buildings and luxury offices. “Yeah, I would like to do that myself, Mom, but I need shelter and food more than I need the intrinsic satisfaction that I’d get from setting the woman straight. Whatever the heck that means.” I glanced down at my slightly too tight skirt. Bridger’s last words were still stuck in my craw. “Mom, your truffles have turned me into a human pillow. Stop sending me samples. I have no self-control.”
“Oh, Kenny, but you need to treat yourself when things are going badly. And you’re not a pillow. You’re as beautiful as ever.”
“Yeah, well the zipper on my skirt heartily disagrees.”
Her laugh came through the phone, and a good splash of homesickness followed. I’d realized, not long after returning to New York, that I was still very much a hometown girl. If things had worked out differently and I hadn’t let my heart get trampled, I might have just headed straight back to California with my paltry few possessions.
“Kenna, you’re just being silly.”
“How’s business, Mom?”
“Now that the summer heat is really cranking everywhere, orders have slowed. Which is perfect. It gives me time for some research and development.
“Listen to you, with your research and development and everything.”
“I need to come up with something pumpkiny for fall. Then there are the winter holidays. My head spins just thinking about them. I’m going to have to hire some help, but I just can’t find anyone as good as the assistant I had this summer.” She paused. “Are you happy, Kenny? I worry that you left here feeling blue. And now you’re all alone there in that chaotic city.”
“Mom, I’m fine. I’m a big girl. But I miss you and dad. I loved helping you with the business.”
“You know”—she lowered her voice to her famous, conspiratorial mumble, in case someone was listening, which was impossible in her own house—“He’s back in town.”
I lowered my voice too. “Who? And why are we whispering?”
She clucked her tongue. “You know who.” Apparently remembering that she was alone in her kitchen, she returned to normal volume.
“Mom, I can’t talk about it. The wounds are still too fresh, too raw. I’ve had a crappy morning and only a few hours of decent sleep—”
“Fine. Subject dropped. Like you said, you’re a big girl.” I could hear Dad’s voice in the background. Mom stopped our conversation to talk to him.
> “Mom, I’ve got to get going.”
“I won’t keep you then, but your dad said he emailed you some information about a local law school. Not as prestigious as the one you’re in, but, you know, just in case.”
“Tell Dad thanks. Kiss him for me. Bye.”
I hung up and found myself walking against pedestrian traffic, dodging elbows and scowls for upsetting the flow. I thought about the quiet sidewalks in Mayfair, where the only true impediment to a walk or bike ride was the occasional rogue squirrel. It was certainly much less stressful back home, and a small, private law school would probably be heaven compared to my school in New York. Still, as much as I missed Mayfair, I couldn’t go back and risk breaking my heart all over again.
Chapter 32
Caden
“How’d it go?” Dad asked as he looked up from his newspaper.
“Actually, not bad. I think it might work out.” My stepdad had had a triple bypass and he needed someone to keep an eye on things at the lumber yard.
“I’m sure Walt is relieved to have someone to help. And you were always a fast learner. You just never applied yourself.”
I grabbed a banana from the fruit bowl. “Dad, don’t drop into one of your old rerun lectures. I’m not a kid anymore.”
“Right. Old habits, I guess.” Dad was working hard to get back into the routine of his normal life, but he was doing everything with far less enthusiasm, almost as if someone had turned a switch and put him into slow motion. Sally was the opposite. She moved around the house at a frenzied pace as if someone had pushed the button the opposite way. I half expected her to sound like Alvin the Chipmunk when she spoke. Which was rare. She was no longer styling her hair but instead let it go wild and wavy. Her usual style of clothing had changed too. She was much less prim and neat. A few years back she never would have been caught dead in sweatpants, but now she seemed to live in them. I had changed too. I found myself, more and more, wanting to find something solid to hang onto. A steady income, a permanent place to live, and someone to share it all with. I knew exactly who I wanted that someone to be, but somehow, Kenna always managed to remain just out of my reach.
