Relapse in Paradise

by Roxanne Smith

  She stopped when she reached the door and pulled it open to let herself out. “By the way, your deduction is correct. I was with Ryder last night.”

  He gaped at her. Everything inside seemed to collapse until the air wasn’t filling his lungs completely.

  With her next words, she both saved and condemned him. “I paid Kale’s debt. You’ll never see Ryder again, and The Canopy is safe.” She searched his face while hers remained passive. “Until you find someone else to rescue, anyway.”

  Chapter 13

  “Where is she?”

  Ginger Stacey hadn’t aged a minute. The seamstress looked up from her sewing through a thick pair of glasses and squinted. “Boston?” She slowly removed the spectacles.

  “Hi, Ginger. I’m looking for Jordan. I need to speak with her.” He’d been sitting outside her mother’s small shop in Chinatown for the last hour, waiting for her assistant to flip the Open sign and unlock the door.

  The older woman—she had to be in her sixties by now—gave him a warm smile. “It’s good to see you, too.”

  He reined in his impatience. Ginger had always liked him, even at his worst. He had no idea why. Jordan had claimed her mother knew who influenced who in their relationship, which made more sense these days. “I’m sorry. It’s good to see you, too. You look well.”

  She shrugged and returned her glasses to their perch on her nose. “Eh. Arthritis eating up my bones, but I suppose I do okay.” She eyed him keenly. “You ain’t been drinking.”

  A matter-of-fact statement deserved a matter-of-fact reply. “Sober two years.”

  She nodded and began sewing again, not surprised. She must’ve known. “What’re you chasing her for? She’s as sober as you are, but not for long.” There was only sadness and weariness in the remark. No condemnation. “You ought to walk out of here the way you came in.”

  “I should. But I won’t.”

  He found Jordan at her mother’s new house in Makiki. He tapped on the screen door, even though Ginger had given him permission to enter the house.

  Jordan came to the door. Not dolled up but wearing oversized gray sweatpants and a baggy T-shirt, her long hair piled onto a sloppy bun high on her head, her faced scrubbed clean of makeup.

  This had been his favorite version of her, once upon a time. The sleepy, next-morning Jordan. She’d sleep off the booze and be too tired for anything except coffee and snuggling on the couch to watch crappy television. She looked young, vulnerable, and sad, blinking at him through the mesh screen.

  “I figured I’d see you today. Didn’t know it’d be here, though.” She opened the door.

  Boston stepped inside and followed her as she padded into the kitchen.

  She held up a carafe. “Coffee?”

  He didn’t intend to hang around long enough to finish a cup. “Nope. I’m here—”

  “Oh, I know why you’re here.” She poured herself a mug and beckoned him to the living room. She curled herself into a big chair and left him the couch. “Your girlfriend found your liquor stash.”

  Ah, sweet confirmation. Too bad he hadn’t been clever enough to bring some kind of recording gadget along. “I want to act shocked. I really do.”

  “I know Emily’s type. We both do, Boston. She’s like my brother. I swear, if Phillip wasn’t already married, I’d match-make the hell out of those two.” Jordan blew on the hot coffee and took a cautious sip. “I had to show you how little faith she has.”

  For a minute, his temper slipped. He grabbed the arm of the couch so hard he wouldn’t have been surprised had it come off in his hands. “Where do you get the nerve?”

  “Not nerve. Desperation. What if you slip up, d’you think of that? She’ll drop you like a rock. At your most vulnerable, she’ll walk out and turn her back on you.” Jordan set the mug down on the coffee table between them and leaned forward. “A woman like Emily will never—can’t stress it enough—never understand the struggle like I do. Without some measure of understanding and forgiveness, no one succeeds. Hani forgave your slip two years ago, but would Emily?”

  “Why are you so convinced I can help you?” He’d rather keep asking questions than answer any of hers.

  “Because, look at you!” Jordan came to her feet. “You’re sober, stone-cold, and for two years. Two years. I can’t fathom it. Show me, Boston. Take me through every step, every day.”

  Did she think he had some magic pill? “There’s no secret to it.” He paused. Well, maybe there had been something. An idea hatched. “Actually, I couldn’t have done it without The Canopy. If there’s a reason for my sobriety, it’s the shelter.”

  She gave him a flat stare. “No way it’s that simple.”

  He scratched his chin. Actually, it was. “Homeless and with nothing to lose, Hani and I begged and saved for three years to buy that place, all while simply struggling to survive. It had a busted out window. No kitchen sink, no working toilet. But it was ours. Once we had it running, I couldn’t afford to stop trying. I had to get real work to subsidize donations.” He shrugged. “A lapse would spell the end.”

  “All right.” Jordan settled back into the chair. “Okay, so The Canopy. That’s brings me back to Emily. Some fancy-pants loafer-wearing lady like her will keep dating the CEO of a soup kitchen for how long, ya think, before the novelty wears off? Couple months?” She scoffed. “Get real, dude.”

  Boston drew in a breath to reply and stopped.

  A fair point. How long would Emily find his management of The Canopy charming? How long before she suggested he get a real job?

  But that wasn’t the heart of the question.

  The real meat came down to whether or not he’d do it—quit The Canopy and go back to a squeaky clean life in order to appease Emily.

  Jordan had honed in on his doubt with uncanny precision. “Your clothes are all wrong. You gonna take her out on the town dressed like you can only buy half a pair of pants at a time? Or is she supposed to whittle herself down to your level?” She reached across to him and grasped his wrist. Her eyes, more remarkable for their lack of makeup, pleaded with him. “If you say The Canopy is the answer, I believe you. Because I’m not like her. I want to be your partner. I want to be beside you. You’re good enough for me, Boston.” A small smile. “Probably too good.”

  He blinked. “Never thought I’d hear those words emerge from that mouth.”

  “Well, this mouth”—a small, secret smile blossomed on her full lips—“is serious about this. I want to change. I want to be like you. Mostly, I want to show you how strong I can be. Stronger than her.”

  * * * *

  Emily left The Canopy after breakfast.

  No sign of Boston, but it was more a blessing than a curse. She didn’t return to her apartment. Instead, she went to the beach. She purchased a beach towel from the grocer inside the Hilton Hawaiian Village and nestled into a spot beneath a lone palm offering enough shade to allow her to read the screen of her cell phone.

  She stared at the contact name and chewed the inside of her cheek like a ferret on No-Doz. When Quinn had been living in London three years ago, her love affair with Jack had been front-page news. Not in America, not internationally, but definitely as far as England had been concerned, since Jack Decker was involved, and he had something of a tabloid presence long before Quinn showed up. All Emily ever had to do was plug her sister’s pen name into a search engine and she learned the latest gossip.

  Disappointment sat heavy in Emily’s gut. Either Boston had slipped up, or Jordan had pulled off some high-level sabotage. She held her breath and dialed Quinn, who answered on the third ring, sounding not the least bit distracted with writing. Small blessings. “Hi.”

  “Hey, you! How’s the vacation? Are you orange from tanning oil yet? I’m really looking forward to seeing you orange.”

  Emily’s breath caught. Suddenly, it seemed like too much to bother with, too much to unload. And, at the same time, nothing at all. She b
urst like a dam, and poor Quinn couldn’t get in a single question without Emily verbally rolling over her—from the appropriated Hilton funds to the bottle of whiskey in Boston’s couch, Emily laid everything out.

  Quinn made several noises, none of which were actual words. When she finally spoke, what came was so unexpected, Emily nearly dropped her phone in the sand. “So, you love him.”

  “What the hell—did you hear anything I said?”

  “Of course I did.” She paused for breath. “I also heard what you didn’t say, Em. Let’s not fart around the issue.”

  Emily rolled her eyes. Didn’t matter whether Quinn could see it. “Your English is on the downslide. I hope it’s not transferring onto the page.”

  “It is, actually, but it makes for less stiff dialogue. And, honestly, you’d be surprised at what a well-timed fart joke can do for a scene. Now, listen to me. I am, of course, the foremost authority on unexpected love affairs. First, I’ll say what you obviously can’t. You love Boston. I can hear it in your voice, Em, and I have personal experience with the special brand of denial you’re in.”

  “He’s an alcoholic. I don’t know if I believe—”

  “You don’t believe it for a second, like I never bought Vickie’s allegations against Jack. But you have to do that job thing where you try to see every possible angle, but you can’t apply yourself in real life the way you do in a boardroom. In reality, we have to put faith in the people we care about. There’s nothing more important. Don’t let doubt wriggle into a secure area.”

  Emily ran her fingers through the sand near her thigh, her legs stretched out in front of her to where only her toes escaped the shade of the towering palm. “I don’t feel like myself out here. I’m weird and emotional. Nothing makes sense. Blake—”

  “No, don’t tell me. Let me guess. Blake is like the sand, right?”

  Emily studied the sand on her fingers. “Yeah?”

  “Pretty from a distance. Annoying in most close-up circumstances.”

  “Well, compared to Boston, he’s—”

  “Oh! I know this one. Compared to Boston, Blake is a saltine cracker—a little plain and too salty.”

  Emily abandoned the sand and cradled her face. “You see what I mean? I’m not myself. I’m losing perspective.”

  Quinn’s voice turned sad. “No, Em, you’re gaining it. As for the whiskey, you can’t know. But you can choose what to believe.”

  “I guess I believe him. I mean, I want to. It feels right. But evidence is evidence.”

  Her sister turned exasperated. “I write crime scenes for a living. Evidence is only as good as how it’s interpreted. You have to tell him how you feel, Em. You really do. If I’d have done so with Jack from the get-go, I’d have saved us both a lot of heartache and needless turmoil.”

  Frustration bubbled inside Emily. If only she had more experience with this kind of thing. “Jack was a sure thing. You knew it, even if you didn’t trust it to begin with. You knew. The signs were there whenever you were brave enough to read them. Boston isn’t like Jack.”

  Quinn huffed. “Thank God. This family can’t handle two of him.”

  “Boston’s like…” Emily peered out over the ocean and for once tried to find exactly the right words. “I guess he’s like me. He plays it close. At the first hint of confrontation, he tucks himself away and it’s all sarcasm and rudeness. It’s like a door slamming in my face, and I realize I’m vulnerable, too, and I do the same thing. We’re both afraid, so we both shut down. The whole whiskey fiasco was something, Quinn. He flew off the handle and smashed the bottle.”

  “No one likes to be doubted, Em,” her sister gently reprimanded. “Although, that’s something you two will need to discuss. He can’t break stuff when he gets upset. You’ve got some really nice pottery at your place.”

  “I love how you’re assuming a future.”

  Quinn’s attitude ran a little too close to amused for Emily’s liking.

  As if hearing the thought, her sister grew serious. “And I love how you’re fighting it like I did. But the stakes go up, and it stops being cute. You’re going to screw up and lose it all. So, Emily, here’s what you do. You take some time to yourself, put your heart into decisive action—don’t let that big, think-y brain of yours get in the way—and figure how you feel. Then, for the love of everything righteous and holy, do something about it. Break the cycle of fear between you and Boston. One of you has to be vulnerable.”

  Why does it have to be me? Why did she always seem to be the one who changed or sacrificed for someone else? “He should come to me. Jack came to you.”

  “Boston’s wounds are deeper than yours. You can be the damsel or you can be the hero, but not every damsel gets rescued. This ain’t no fairy tale, sweetheart. Don’t prescribe to the rules of one.”

  Of course it wasn’t a fairy tale. It wouldn’t be, would it? Not for Emily. “And if it goes wrong?”

  “I’ll be waiting at LAX with a five pound container of ice cream.”

  Emily slumped against the rough bark of the palm tree. At least she had something to look forward to, either way.

  * * * *

  She breathed in through her nose and out through her mouth. Eyes closed. In and out. In and out. Over and over. Emily dropped her chin to her chest and wiped her sweaty palms on the frayed denim shorts she wore. One last deep breath and she raised her knuckles to Boston’s door. She hadn’t seen him since they argued yesterday. No telling what sort of greeting she’d get, so she tried to not expect anything.

  When no answer came, she tried the knob. He’d have to get over her inviting herself inside.

  Emily stepped over the threshold and froze at the sight of Jordan lying on the love seat, clad in a damp bikini, her wet hair fanned around her head.

  Her eyes popped open. She lifted her head. “Oh. It’s you.” She closed her eyes again and laid her head back.

  Emily refused to be shaken by the scene, but doubt crept into her mind. Nothing she’d come to disclose were things she’d willingly say to Boston in front of his ex-wife. “I came for Boston. I suppose he’s not around?”

  Jordan groaned and sat up. “So much for a nap. Boston’s in the shower.” She stood and stretched, displaying her lithe body, ribs poking out like they were trying to escape. “Wanna leave a message?”

  “You got the couch wet.” Of all the inane things to pop out of her mouth, that probably took the cake. “You could’ve at least put a towel down,” she added for the sake of having something to latch onto. As if it were her couch and she had any right to be concerned.

  Jordan gazed lazily at the damp spot and shrugged. “Surfing is wet work.”

  “Surfing, huh?”

  She stretched again, this time side to side. “Me and Bos went this morning. Man, the waves are great after the storm we had. It’s been such a long time, too. Before the drinking got heavy, we would go around the clock.” She dropped her arms to her sides and smiled at Emily, a cruel, knowing smile. “Looks like we’ll be able to pick up the old habit.”

  Obviously, something had transpired between Boston and Jordan in the last twenty-four hours. What had Emily missed?

  Jordan studied her openly. “There aren’t enough cut-off shorts in the world to hide what you are.” The statement accompanied a head-to-toe perusal. “You’re all pencil skirts, support hose, and low-heeled pumps. You’re neutral tones and fresh flowers at the breakfast nook each morning, ten dollar gourmet lattes and organic veggies. You ‘do lunch’ and drink cosmopolitans.”

  Emily’s face grew warmer with each tick off the list. Yeah, she drank designer coffee and purchased daisies to brighten up her apartment. She purchased organic when possible. However, she favored an old-fashioned beer over a fruity cocktail. It gave her a small boost of confidence—Jordan knew about Emily. But she didn’t know Emily. “It’s called having taste, Jordan. You should try it some time. I’m not ashamed of what my money buys me. I did
n’t grow up wealthy. I worked for it.”

  Jordan scoffed. “Gee, I’m so impressed. You think Boston cares? You know what you are to people like us? A reminder of our failures.”

  “I don’t think Boston’s a failure.”

  “Are we making this about you now?”

  “No, I—”

  “Emily.” Jordan pinned her with earnestness in her emerald glare. “There’s too much wrong about it, and you know I’m right.”

  Funny how it began as a head game. Emily had deliberately poked and prodded at Jordan by pretending an interest in Boston. Now, here she was, with a genuine interest in Boston, and Jordan was still fighting to put an end to it. She said the truest thing to come to mind. “There’s enough right about it.”

  “Let’s tally it up, shall we? For fun’s sake. We’ve got a minute before Boston comes in here and tells you himself.” She sashayed over to stand in front of Emily until she had nowhere else to look.

  “Number one.” She held up a bony finger on her bony hand. “You’re a cement wall. Completely unforgiving. Lapses happen. We slip. Sometimes, we go back to square one. You don’t have what it takes to forgive him when it happens.”

  Emily wanted to argue but couldn’t.

  Jordan held up a second finger. “Two. You’re stuck up. Own it, okay? Boston doesn’t have fine clothes and styled hair. You prepared to take him to a corporate dinner in his shredded khaki shorts and a faded T-shirt? Can you see yourself showing off your little beach prize to your high-flying friends?”

  Emily called to mind the last corporate dinner she’d attended. Formal dress. Five-star catering. Peers from all over the southwest in attendance. Blake had been at her side, and a perfect match. Her reaction to imaging Boston at her side shamed her. He wouldn’t fit in. She’d die of embarrassment before they ever made it to the entrée course. The doubt had to be gleaming from her face like a fine sheen of sweat.

  Jordan smiled like she saw it as plain as day. “Three. “A third finger went up. “Money. He doesn’t have any. At some point, you’ll ask him to give up The Canopy—to give up himself—to change for you. You’ll say things like ‘meet me in the middle,’ and maybe he’ll do it. But then, he won’t be Boston anymore. He’ll be bits and pieces of himself, and the rest will be shades of you.”