“We weren’t home when you called, and my cell was dead. I saw the caller ID when we got home…” She waved her hand dismissively. “Stop being a lawyer. It doesn’t matter. Why’d you call?”
“Oh. I was hoping to could give me Dare’s phone number, but…”
“You went to his house instead.”
“Yep.”
“Well?” Lacey prompted. “Fill us in.”
“On what?”
“Why’d you go to his house this morning?” she asked in a sing song voice. She grinned at Steven, then turned and gave Belle a suggestive wink. “You two looked mighty cozy last night…”
“What? What are you talking about?”
“You know,” she said, “when you slipped over beside Dare and he put his arm around you…”
“I don’t…” She shook her head, perplexed. Suddenly, her eyes widened. “Oh, then!”
“She was in a trance,” Steven said tiredly.
“I was not. I was simply trying to watch my movie in peace when you all showed up.”
“You were watching your movie with Dare’s arm around you,” Lacey said pointedly. “He likes you.”
“Hey, Lace,” she quipped with a disgusted snort, “what grade are you in this year? Seventh?”
“Oh, shut up. And you like him, too.”
“He has a girlfriend,” Belle said succinctly.
“What?” Lacey gasped, glancing at Steven with a horrified expression on her face. “He does not.”
“I just met her. Her name is Bianca.”
“Nuh uh,” Lacey said, disbelief still evident in her eyes.
“It’s true. Go see for yourself. The woman looks like America’s next top model. Really.”
Belle realized it was perhaps misleading to tell her friends Dare had a girlfriend. In truth, she suspected he and the woman did have a romantic history. It certainly didn’t seem unreasonable. The two made a perfect couple—both tall and gorgeous.
Belle stepped past her friends and slipped her key into the front door lock. She went inside and they followed her into the kitchen. She hung her house key from a hook beside the back door, and then sat down at her kitchen table.
Steven and Lacey joined her. “So, what do you two have planned for the day?” she asked them.
The twosome didn’t immediately reply.
“Well, speak up,” she prompted with a weary smile. “I can’t sit around here all day.”
Lacey swallowed loudly. “Well, what would you like to do?”
She tipped her head back, thinking. “I’m going to take a nap,” she announced. “I’m exhausted because I had nightmares all night along.”
In fact, she had, and hadn’t been able to fall asleep after awakening from a horrible dream around two a.m. She’d decided then and there she’d forgo the chance to spend time in Stephen King’s brain.
After pulling the covers up to her chin and staring at shadows that appeared to morph into ghostly apparitions, she’d finally flipped on a light and hurried out of her room to retrieve both dogs and the kitten. The canines had flanked her while she tried to sleep, while the kitten had curled into a ball on her pillow. When morning came, she realized it might have been a mistake bringing the dogs in, since they’d probably expect a return trip.
“Well, I’m off to bed…” She rose abruptly and left Lacey and Steven at the kitchen table.
Was it rude to leave them sitting there? Probably, but she didn’t care. She didn’t need baby-sitters, but she did need sleep. She realized she hadn’t taken a nap during the light of day for years. It was high time she did. Did napping qualify as a hobby? Millicent would be so proud.
Chapter Fourteen
Belle slept for hours, and probably would have continued sleeping had the delectable aroma of garlic chicken not wafted up the stairs and into her room. She realized she was famished and climbed out of bed. She felt better than she had earlier; lighter and less fatigued.
She freshened up quickly and headed downstairs. She found Steven cooking at the stove, and Lacey slicing up a cantaloupe. “Hello, Sleeping Beauty,” she said cheerfully. “You were out for quite a while there.”
She nodded and yawned. “You know, you guys didn’t need to hang around here all day.”
“We didn’t have anything better to do,” Lacey said too cheerfully. “Isn’t that right, Steven?” He shrugged and she shot him a meaningful look. “Isn’t that right, Steven?”
“Oh, uh, yes, that’s right. We didn’t have anything better to do,” he said drolly.
“You’re babysitting me, aren’t you?” Belle said as she reached for a slice of cantaloupe. She watched Steven with unblinking, narrowed eyes, and he cracked.
He nodded sheepishly and Lacey shrieked. “You weren’t supposed to let on!”
“Am I really as pathetic as you all are making me out to be?” Belle asked, glancing from Lacey to Steven.
“We’re just worried about you, that’s all,” he said. “You’re too, well...”
“What?” she prompted, watching him curiously.
“I don’t know… High strung?” he offered lamely.
She felt somewhat offended. “I don’t think I’m high strung.” She thought for a moment. “I guess I equate high-strung with high-maintenance. I’m definitely not high-maintenance.”
“No, no, no,” Lacey said agreeably, “you’re not high-maintenance. Not at all. It’s just that… Well, you’re right. High-strung isn’t exactly the word we’re looking for either.” She turned to Steven, searching his face.
“Belle…” He tried to pick up where Lacey had left off. “I guess it’s more, you just don’t seem to ever stop and smell the roses anymore. You go from work to your volunteer activities to more work at home and then to bed. And then you wake up and start all over again, twenty-four seven.”
“I like to be busy,” she said, reaching for another slice of cantaloupe.
“There’s ‘like to be busy’ and there’s ‘compulsive.’ Belle, how many people actually resist taking a vacation? Very few, frankly,” Steven pointed out. “It’s weird.”
She sighed. “I guess you’re right. I admit, I may have a few personality quirks to work out.” She thought for a moment. “I don’t know. Maybe my work is my identity. Do you think?”
“I don’t even think that’s it,” Steven said. “You’ve never been one to expect thanks or reward for your efforts. Typically, if one’s work is one’s identity, it’s all about the recognition he or she receives.”
“That’s not true,” she said. “I know law enforcement officers and firefighters who receive little thanks for the work they do, but they love the job. It’s their identity.”
“That’s true,” Lacey weighed in. “But Belle, with you, I think it’s more you spend your life atoning for past sins, when you really don’t have anything to atone for.”
“The tape,” she said succinctly, wiping cantaloupe juice off of her chin. “Or rather, the ‘me’ in that tape.”
“If it were me in that tape,” Lacey said, “I’d have acknowledged I was a pill, but then I’d have laughed about my sixteen-year-old self thereafter.”
“You are a pill,” Belle said. “And it wasn’t funny.”
“Okay, let me try,” Steven said tiredly. “Okay, Belle, suppose as a teenager, I had gotten into trouble. Nothing too serious, but serious enough for me to end up doing six months at a facility for juvenile offenders. But suppose, when I got out, I turned my life around, graduated high school, went off to college, and never, ever got so much as a parking ticket again.”
She shrugged. “Big deal. You turned your life around. I would never hold against you something you did as a…” She paused. “I don’t know why exactly, but my situation feels different from the one you describe. And certainly, at Legal Aid I’ve handled juvenile cases, and I’ve never held any kind of animosity toward any juvenile offender. In fact, I desperately hope they’ll turn things around.”
“So why can’t you cut
yourself some slack?” Steven asked.
She sighed heavily. “I don’t know. I really don’t. I guess because when I see that tape, I look like a—a mindless, spoiled brat. I snapped my fingers, my parents came running. You know, I think the thing that’s most hard for me to accept is that I relished the power I had then, the power to get what I wanted when I wanted it. How does a person become …that?” She shuddered.
“How does a person stop being—that?” Steven said. “Well, you did, Belle. You’re not her anymore.”
She shook her head. “I don’t know. To be honest, I’m really not sure how much the tape, and my contempt for my sixteen-year-old self, has to do with twenty-nine-year-old me.”
“I think it has everything to do with who you are today, because you make a point of letting it,” Lacey countered with frustration.
“But how do I stop remembering…?” Belle moaned.
“You just do,” she said. “Push it out of your mind. Don’t give it another thought. It’s a waste of time and energy at this stage in your life to blame yourself for something that happened years ago, and that frankly, isn’t nearly as horrible as you’ve blown it up to be in your own mind. You can’t change the past.”
The threesome remained silent for a moment, lost to their respective thoughts. Lacey was first to break the silence. “You know what, Belle?”
“What?”
“I think you need to relearn how to have fun. I think you really need to spend the remainder of your vacation focusing on getting both rested, and reprogrammed. We can help.”
“Reprogrammed? That sounds rather sinister,” she said with a shudder. “Are you planning an intervention?”
“I think this qualifies as an impromptu intervention,” Steven pointed out.
“Belle, you’ve become so set in your ways. You’ve forgotten what it’s like to cut loose and be silly,” Lacey observed.
“We need to try to show her how to achieve balance in her life,” Steven pointed out, turning his attention to Lacey. “She can be so over-the-top.”
“Oh, too true,” she said. “I mean, we’re liable to show Belle how to have a great time and she’ll take it to the extreme, because that’s what she does.”
Steven laughed. “Yeah, she’ll probably take up bungee jumping, sky diving, and deep sea diving—and all in the same day.”
“Uh, over here!” Belle called. “You’re talking about me as if I’m not in the room.”
“Sorry,” they said in unison.
Steven chuckled then, catching Lacey’s gaze.
“What?” she asked.
“It’s a good thing Belle is easy on the eyes. Imagine if she were unattractive and had her personality quirks.”
Lacey grimaced. “Oh, I know!”
Belle glared at her friends. She was too stupefied to speak. With friends like these, who needed enemies?
***
Belle yawned her way through dinner with her friends. After having slept several hours earlier, she was surprised she was still so tired.
When they were done eating, she set about tidying up the kitchen. Since her friends had cooked dinner, she felt it was only fair that she do the cleanup. Besides, she had been eager to shoo them out the front door. She wasn’t particularly eager to face another dissection of her personality traits. She was just putting the last dish into the dishwasher when the phone rang.
“Hello.”
“Hello, Belle. It’s Dare.”
“Oh, hi.” She closed the dishwasher and moved to take a seat at the kitchen table.
As she sat, she spotted Tri at the back door, pawing at it to get her attention. “Hi. Hi, baby,” she called softly.
“Did you just call me baby?” Dare asked curiously.
“I was talking to Tri. He’s watching me through the screen door.”
“Oh.” He sounded oddly disappointed. “Uh, hey, I just wanted to confirm we’re on for tomorrow. I’m looking forward to a day at the beach.”
“Are you sure you should go, being as your girlfriend is visiting?”
“My what?”
Oh, geez. Had she said girlfriend? Maybe she was being a bit presumptuous. “I mean, since you have a guest…”
“Hold on, Belle,” he said stiffly, and she heard a curious shuffling sound, and then muted voices. She thought she heard a woman’s laughter.
When Dare got back on the line, he sounded slightly out of breath. “Belle,” he said, “I don’t have a girlfriend.” The latter words were said in an increasingly loud voice, as if he were saying it for someone else to hear, too.
“Oh. But, I mean, you do have a guest. We can always go to the beach another time.”
He sighed heavily. “No, I think it’s best if I strike while the iron is hot.”
Her brows furrowed into a frown. “What do you mean?”
He chuckled. “Poor choice of words. The truth is, I’m thinking it’s a minor miracle I persuaded you to go to the beach in the first place, so I’m holding you to it.”
“Oh, okay. Why?”
“Because I’d like to spend a day getting to know you better.”
“Really?”
“Yes.”
She gave a suspicious snort. “Or because … Millicent has enlisted you to baby-sit me? Per chance, could that be your reason?”
“Why would she do that?” He laughed with surprise. “Like I said, Belle, I’d like to get to know you better.”
“Well, I find that a little hard to swallow since Lacey and Steven just spent the day with me because Millicent apparently fears I’ve gone off the deep end, and shouldn’t be left to my own devices. Could Millicent’s fears be the reason you’re forfeiting a Sunday to spend time with me?”
“I want to spend time with you because I like you,” he said, his voice adamant.
She gave a dubious chuckle. “I find that even harder to believe since Lacey and Steven just spent several hours pointing out my myriad personality flaws.”
“What? I don’t think you have any personality flaws—or no more than the average person. Probably far less than most, actually. I haven’t known you very long, but I think you’re just fine.”
He sounded so sincere, Belle found herself almost believing him. “Thank you,” she said, noting she felt incrementally better. “When you get to know me better, you may modify your opinion,” she joked, but then sobered. “I don’t know. I must be pretty awful, based upon the conversations I’ve had with my friends lately.”
Dare scoffed. “Frankly, Belle, I think you’re one of the most genuine people I’ve met in a long time. You care about people, and that means something. Hey, about the beach, I asked you because I wanted to. It’s like I told you, I want to get to know you better.”
“Hmmmm.”
“Maybe I’m a glutton for punishment,” he teased. “Hey, are you being contrary so I’ll let you off the hook? If so, it isn’t going to work.”
“I don’t mean to be unpleasant. It’s just…”
“What?”
“I don’t know. I guess I’m feeling sorry for myself.”
“Why?”
She wasn’t sure why, but suspected having her two best friends suggest she was somehow off kilter made her feel off kilter. Maybe there was something wrong with her. She had thought her work ethic was something to be proud of, but the people important to her seemed to disagree. She thought her volunteer work made a difference for others, but her friends suggested she was perhaps doing it for all the wrong reasons. Suddenly, her head throbbed mercilessly.
“Dare, I’m going to let you go. My head is suddenly killing me.”
“I’m sorry. Anything I can do?”
“No, but thanks. I appreciate your kind words. I’ve been doubting myself a lot lately, so your encouragement helps.”
Twenty minutes later, after having taken two ibuprofen tablets for her headache, Belle had just started upstairs to her bedroom when she heard her doorbell ring. Her brows furrowed into a frown. Who could it be? It
was well after eight ‘o clock.
She padded to her front door and peeked through the peep hole. Dare stood on her tiny porch, wearing a concerned expression on his face and holding something in his hand. When she pulled open the door, she spied the half gallon of raspberry cheesecake ice cream. He held it out to her.
“Hello,” he greeted with a broad smile. “Thought you could use a pick-me-up.”
She took the ice cream with a smile, simultaneously stepping aside to allow him to pass. “I could,” she admitted.
Belle noted he was wearing well-worn blue jeans that hugged his muscular thighs. His sky blue polo shirt accentuated his eyes. He was so handsome, she felt her heart quicken and she swallowed over a lump in her throat. She suddenly remembered their near-kiss a couple days before. Her face reddened at the memory, and Dare noticed.
“Are you all right?”
“Fine,” she said too brightly. “At least, I will be, after I have a bowl of ice cream.”
He grinned, seeming satisfied with her response. He followed her into the kitchen, where she pulled two bowls from a cupboard and two spoons from a drawer. Dare sat at the dinette, and she joined him there. “Oh, I forgot the ice cream scoop,” she said.
She retrieved it, and then took a chair again. She passed Dare the scoop and watched him curiously.
“I hope you don’t mind my stopping by.” He grinned ruefully as he began scooping ice cream into the bowls. “I needed to get out of my house for a while. Bianca is driving me crazy. The woman talks non-stop.”
Belle smiled uncertainly, and he continued. “I had no idea she’d be dropping in.” He grimaced dramatically. “And no idea she’d be staying for several weeks.”
So, Bianca was staying with Dare for quite awhile? She felt a pique of annoyance, though why she did was beyond her. She certainly held no claim to him. She hardly knew the man. “Is she vacationing here…?” Her words trailed off. She didn’t want to be intrusive, but had to admit, she was curious.
“She’s moving here,” he said succinctly, as he closed the ice cream carton and then passed Belle her bowl. “In fact, it turns out she’s brought her fiancé, Miles, with her. He showed up at my place moments ago. It seems they’ve decided I’m their designated realtor and landlord until they find a place of their own.”
Simply Being Belle Page 12
