Solo (Symphony Hall)

by Lauren E. Rico

  “Is that so?” he challenges with a raised brow. “Who else was in the running for the tenure spot, Dr. Markham?”

  “No one. I’m the only one with the qualifications.”

  “You’re the one with the highest qualifications,” he corrects. “Who would be in line after you?”

  “No one. There is no one,” I insist. “There’s me. The next person is one degree, three years’ experience, and several publications away from me.”

  “Exactly. A huge chasm to overcome if you were interested in the position, isn’t it? There’s no making up that kind of a breech unless the person ahead of you is no longer eligible.”

  “Well, sure, if you want to twist it around that way,” I admit with more than a little skepticism. “But that’s absolutely not the case here. The next one in line would be Tessa Morgan and we’re very close friends.”

  His lips curl up into a sad smile. A knowing smile.

  “Very close, hmm? Close enough for her to catch the clues that you were involved with someone? Close enough to be jealous that that someone wasn’t her? Close enough to know your schedule and where you could most likely be found by a reporter looking for a salacious photograph? Are you and she that close, Dr. Markham?”

  I’m confused. And then I’m not. I shake my head. “No. Absolutely not. She’d never do that to me. She cares about me and what happens to me.”

  “Does she? Does she really? And, if she does, are you sure her motives are just friendly?”

  I open my mouth to tell him how wrong he’s got this, but I find the words are stuck in my throat. I’ve always known that Tessa has wanted more from our relationship than I was willing to give. I’ve never been ready for anything—for anyone—after Casey. And when I was, it was Katherine. Sure, if she knew, she might be upset. Pissed off, even. But only if she knew.

  Holy. Shit.

  She knew.

  The force with which this realization hits me is enough to knock the breath from my body. I am such a fucking idiot. How could I have not seen it?

  “Betrayal is a brutal thing,” the senator is saying even as my head is spinning. “There’s the impact of the betrayal itself. Then there is the aftermath. The sting of knowing that someone you trusted has intentionally inflicted injury upon you.”

  No, no, no. No way! Why? How? I can’t process the questions that are flitting through my mind.

  “We’ve failed Katherine,” he says to me. “And I don’t know how either of us can ever make it up to her. I don’t know how she could ever forgive either of us. What I do know is that whether or not we can, she will. My daughter’s heart is bigger than the both of us, Drew.”

  “I don’t know what to do,” I whisper, swiping at the rogue tears that have slipped past my once-steely veneer.

  “Oh, I think you do. Get to the bottom of why this Tessa person is trying to hurt you and Katherine. Then you make it right with my daughter. I think you’re the only one who can.”

  I’m on my feet and out the door before we can exchange another word. And all I can think is that I hope to God he’s right.

  …

  The door swings open so hard that it slams into the adjacent wall and rattles the windows of Tessa’s office. She doesn’t jump. She doesn’t gasp. She doesn’t even look alarmed.

  “Why?” I ask, breathlessly.

  I can see by the look on her face that I don’t need to explain what I’m asking. She already knows.

  Tessa shrugs. “Five years is a long time to wait for the next tenure slot to open up, Drew.”

  “But—but you’re my friend!”

  Now she smirks at me and her face twists into a sneering mask.

  “Friend. Yeah, that’s exactly what I’ve been. Sweet Tessa. Dear Tessa. Good old Tessa. Always there for you to talk to, cry on her shoulder. Tessa who was there to pick up the pieces when that psycho bitch Casey killed herself. I was patient, Drew. Oh, was I patient. I just knew there’d be a time when you were ready. And I’d be there, waiting for you with open arms. And you’d see me as more than just your buddy.”

  I shake my head in disbelief. “What the hell are you talking about?”

  Now she’s shaking her head. “Such an imbecile you are, Drew. So blind. But you know what? I’m not blind, Drew.”

  “Tessa, you don’t know what you’re talking about—”

  “Don’t I?” she spits at me. “Funny, how Kate shows up with a new coat and accessories from one of my favorite stores right after you ask my advice on where to get a gift for your mother. Didn’t think I caught that one, did you? Well I did,” she informs me snidely. “And, Christ, Drew, the way you and Russell Atherton were at each other’s throats and then…you weren’t. The way you’d smile when you thought no one was watching. Suddenly you weren’t complaining about Kate Brenner. Suddenly you were telling your old pal Danny what a great conductor she is and getting him all the way here to see her—that girl that you ‘hate’ so much. Yeah, I was watching, Drew. I saw all of it. And then, I made sure Kevin Kilpatrick saw it, too.”

  She’s crazy. Totally, completely, certifiable. How could I have not seen this before now? I’m trying to decide how to respond to her little monologue when she opens the top drawer of her desk and pulls out a thin silver chain with a heart dangling from it. Engraved on the heart are the initials “KB.”

  “What is that?”

  “Why, it’s Kate’s bracelet! I suppose you didn’t notice it? Well I did. On several occasions, in fact. And then, I spotted it in a very interesting place. On the floor mat in your car that day we went out to Ruby’s.”

  “So you took it?”

  She shrugs. “I’m not even sure why I grabbed it. I just did. And I put it in my pocket for a rainy day. Well, guess what, Drew? It’s raining,” she says with a smile that sends a chill down my spine. “Oh, sure, I licked my wounds for a while, but then it struck me. Maybe I couldn’t have you but I could have your job. Something I wouldn’t get as long as you were qualified and eligible. That’s when I saw my opportunity.”

  I know what’s coming and, for a moment, I consider getting up and walking out of this office before Tessa can say another word. But I realize that I can’t, because I deserve this. When Tessa was hurt, her first instinct was to destroy me. When I was hurt, my first instinct was to destroy Katherine. Yes, I deserve every putrid thing she’s about to tell me because I believed the worst of the person who I loved the most.

  “When you refused to give him any information about Kate, Kevin Kilpatrick came sniffing around my office,” Tessa informs me now. “And, lucky for him, I kept his business card. We struck a deal. I told him everything I knew and where he was most likely to find the two of you together. All he had to do was agree to tell you it was Kate who gave him the information. And how convenient! There I was to help you pick up the pieces of your broken heart. Oh, sweet, gullible Drew. You screwing a student is the best thing that’s ever happened to my career. So, thanks for that, at least.” She looks so pleased with herself. I can’t decide who I’d rather kill—her or myself. Quite possibly both.

  “Tessa,” I say slowly, quietly, as if I’m approaching a skittish woodland creature. “I had no idea you felt that seriously about it. About us. I—I just didn’t want to screw up our friendship.”

  She leans forward across her desk.

  “That’s bullshit and you know it. All this time, all these years, you’ve told me you weren’t ready for a relationship. You didn’t want a relationship. What you meant is that you didn’t want a relationship with me. Right?”

  She’s right. I can’t deny it. Maybe if I hadn’t been such a coward for so long, we wouldn’t be here—in this ugly, fucked-up situation—now. I take a deep breath and a seat, my eyes fixed on hers.

  “I am sorry,” I apologize in a considerably less agitated tone. “I’m really, really so sorry. You’re right. I wasn’t honest with you, Tess. I didn’t want to hurt you, but that’s exactly what I ended up doing.”

  She si
ts back in her office chair, arms folded in front of her chest.

  “Yes, well, too little, too late. Don’t you think?”

  “I do, actually.”

  She seems surprised by this comment and one of her perfectly plucked eyebrows arches with interest.

  “Good. I’m glad you realize there’s no going back from where we are.”

  When I don’t reply, she seems to soften the least little bit.

  “Not that we can’t try to go forward. Start again. With time, maybe, we could get back to what we’ve shared all these years. Maybe even more,” she ventures softly.

  I consider her carefully. She’s beautiful. And smart, and funny. Any man would be lucky to have Tessa Morgan in his life and in his bed. Any man but me, that is. I give her a small, sad smile. She returns it tentatively.

  “You’re right, Tess,” I say, my voice hoarse with emotion. “There is no going back. But there’s no going forward for us, either.”

  “What—what do you mean?” she asks, her well-practiced, hard-ass facade cracking before my very eyes.

  “There will never again be anything between us. Not friendship. Certainly not love. At this point, I don’t even hate you. I’d have to care about you to hate you. I could have maybe gotten over your betrayal of me. Maybe. But what you’ve done to Katherine…what you made me think of Katherine…I just can’t.”

  I stand up and take Katherine’s bracelet from the desk and turn toward the door.

  “Wait. Drew, what are you saying?”

  I stop, but I don’t face her.

  “I’m saying that we’re done, Tessa. I hope you enjoy your tenure. I hope it keeps you laughing over wine and has dinner with you and goes to movies with you, because I suspect it’s going to be the only friend you have for a long time.”

  She gasps from behind me, but she doesn’t utter a single word as I open the door to her office and walk out of it for the last time.

  Chapter Fifty

  Kate

  I am lost, deep within a cloud. I try to move, but this isn’t your garden-variety puffy, fluffy cloud. This one is thick as pea soup and it’s heavy, like a wet blanket pinning my body flat. My every attempt to move or shift or even open my eyes is met by an oppressive resistance. After a time, I just give up and allow myself to sink back into the white fluffiness, my mind hovering within a kind of limbo…aware but not. Alert…but not. Alive…but not. I have no idea how long I hang like that in the ether. It feels like months.

  When I finally break through the cloud shroud, my entire body constricts with my effort to draw a deep breath. The resulting wheeze is loud and ends abruptly in a fit of coughing so violent that I sit bolt upright, opening my eyes to a room I have no recollection of entering.

  “Katherine?”

  My head swings in the direction of my name and I’m met by stormy brown eyes. Drew looks as if he’s been hit by a truck. Repeatedly. His clothing is wrinkled and his hair disheveled. There are deep creases across his face from where it rested against the back of the chair he’s been sleeping in.

  “What are you doing here?” I croak.

  He gets to his feet and puts his hands on my shoulders, gently pushing me back against the pillows behind me.

  “I was worried about you,” he says, now adjusting the cotton blanket so that it covers my chest.

  He’s taking care of me. Again. It’s that thought that brings it all crashing back to me. The awful fight. The way he left me on his porch. The police. Each memory hits me like a slap to the face, so that when he moves to put his soft palm to my cheek, I flinch away from his touch. An instant of confusion crosses his face, but then I see it all come flooding back to him as well.

  He drops his eyes to my hand on the bed next to me, bruised around the site where they put the IV needle. When I follow his eyes, I see it. My bracelet has been returned to its rightful place on my wrist. It takes him a long moment, but he looks up finally and I can see it all in his eyes. His regret, his pain, his loneliness. But I can’t let his hurt be my priority. I know better, and look where it got me. I will never be so foolish again so long as I live. Never.

  “Katherine,” he begins softly, “I don’t know what to say. ‘I’m sorry’ seems so inadequate. I was wrong. God help me, I was so, so wrong and I’d give anything to do it over again.”

  I snort, as best I can in my present condition, but it only sends me into another coughing fit. He moves to pat my back but then he pulls away. Smart. The way I’m feeling I might just tear his arm off with my bare teeth. It takes a full minute before I can speak again.

  “Yeah, I’d give anything to go back, too, Drew,” I rasp weakly, closing my eyes against the throbbing pain behind them. “I’d give anything to be able to turn back time so I could kick my own ass before I let my guard down. Before I let myself believe you could possibly be the one person in my life that I could finally count on.”

  He reels back, as if a physical punch accompanies my words.

  “Katherine, I—”

  I hold up a trembling hand and he stops. “Please, Drew. Please just go. We don’t need to see one another again. Under the circumstances, I’m sure Dr. Morgan can arrange a substitute on my orals committee.”

  Something I don’t recognize flashes across his features at the mention of Tessa Morgan’s name. He shakes his head firmly.

  “No. No, no, no. That’s not how this ends,” he declares stubbornly.

  His words make me smile faintly. “Oh, but it is, Dr. Markham,” I inform him bitterly.

  “No. First of all, it was Tessa. She used you, Katherine. She used you to get the tenure position. She’s the one who called Kevin Kilpatrick. She figured it all out and gave that son of a bitch the story.”

  I sit bolt upright and gasp at the burning sensation that fills my lungs.

  “What? Are you kidding me?”

  He shakes his head solemnly. “She found your bracelet in my car. I’d asked her where I could buy a nice coat for my mom and she suggested that place. That place in Charlotte where I bought your coat.”

  “Oh, fuck! You didn’t!” I moan, pressing my palm to my forehead. Men! Stupid, clueless men! “Of course she recognized the scarf, you idiot!”

  “I know, I know,” he groans in response, shaking his head with regret. “She started to put all the pieces together. She was jealous of you. Of us. And she thought that this would somehow get her what she wanted. When she realized I was never going to have feelings for her, she decided to settle for going after my tenure slot.”

  “Holy crap,” I mutter more to myself, than to him. “That bitch. She started this mess for a little job security?”

  He nods. “That and some unrequited affection she had for me,” he says, floating a shy smile. But I’m not biting this time.

  I snort again.

  “Poor Drew. All the girls want you. Oh, wait…all the girls but me, that is.”

  He winces visibly.

  “Please don’t say that.”

  I shrug.

  “Whatever. Just go. Go before we’re both splashed across the front page of the tabloids again. Go before you end your career. Go before you ruin my life any more than you already have.”

  The supreme sadness that settles over him is unnerving. When he stands up, I realize he’s actually going to do it. He’s going to leave because I asked him to. But part of me hopes…what? I shake my head slightly as if it will thrust the ridiculous thoughts from my mind.

  But Drew doesn’t leave. He inches closer to where I’m lying.

  “Move over,” he says.

  “What?”

  He tries to sit next to me, pushing me up against the bedrail.

  “Move. Over.”

  “Go to hell.”

  And then he’s shoehorning himself into the small hospital bed.

  “Get out!” I object, wheezing with the effort. “No, I don’t want you here!”

  But he doesn’t listen. He nudges me to the right, situates himself to the left on his ba
ck and pulls me against him until my head is nestled in the crook of his arm, my casted arm draped over his chest. I’m enraged and I push at him, trying to force him out, but he is as immoveable as a mountain.

  “Drew, I don’t want you here!”

  “It’s okay, Katherine,” he says in a soothing tone. But it doesn’t soothe. It enrages me.

  “Get the fuck out!” I say louder. He just holds me tighter.

  “You’re going to be okay,” he says in that same manner that makes me want to strangle him.

  “No!” I shriek, if you can call a loud, hoarse croak a shriek. “I don’t want you here, you son of a bitch! You said you loved me and then you threw me away!”

  Whoa. Where the hell did that come from? Wherever it is, Drew just pulls me tighter to him.

  “It’s all right,” he says in a voice barely above a whisper. “I’ve got you now. I’m not going to let you go again. Not ever, Katherine.”

  I open my mouth to spit venom at him, but that’s not what happens. Against all fury, against all rage and determination, a strangled, deep-seated wail emerges from some dark place within me. I don’t even recognize myself as I gasp in as much oxygen as my pained lungs will allow and release it in a sobbing rush.

  Drew puts his free hand, the one that isn’t wrapped around my side, on my forehead and strokes my hair back off my face. “It’s okay, Katherine,” he repeats again and again until I am clinging to him, face buried in the safety of his chest, tears cascading and dampening his shirt underneath where my cheek rests. He shushes me, holding me firmly against him, gently stroking my hair, and catching my falling tears with his thumb.

  I don’t know how much time has passed when my sobs peter out into their hiccupping, shuddering aftermath. Drew just holds me.

  “Never,” he whispers. “I will never let you down again. I swear to God, Katherine. I swear it.”

  Epilogue

  Drew

  No one is more surprised than Barry Green when the tenure committee awards the new position to him. And with it came a nice bump in salary. So nice, that he asked if he could rent my “cabin.” Seemed like the perfect solution to me after I’d made the decision to leave town. Why stay? There’s nothing for me there now.