Coming Undone

by Dane, Lauren

  She grinned. “I like that you see how fabulous my kid is. I’m totally biased, but it makes me happy.”

  He stopped, cupping her cheek briefly. “I’ve never met anyone like you. I like that you compliment me with genuine things. Sometimes there can be so much artifice between people. You don’t want to compliment too much or too intimately because you don’t want to tip your hand with the other person and it’s a power struggle or whatever. It’s ridiculous and complicated and tiring. But with you, there isn’t any of that. I like you, Elise. You’re genuine and you’re an amazing mother, and that’s another thing I like about you. I love to watch you with your kid. She’s not an accessory or an afterthought. You work hard to balance things so that it’s about her. I admire that.”

  “That’s a wonderful thing to say. All of it. Thanks.”

  “I’m parked in the same lot you are. Let’s go and I’ll be over at your place for dinner shortly. Maybe you can duck over to my place for the wine after Rennie goes to bed. Your parents are still staying with you, right?”

  “Yes, they are, and I might just take you up on that.”

  13

  He’d come to dinner with flowers for all three females. Her mother had flirted and laughed, and Rennie just rolled her eyes and started telling Brody about her life since she saw him last.

  Elise’s mother liked him, that was easy to see, and he treated Martine with respect and listened to her stories in the same patient, interested fashion he’d listened to Rennie’s.

  “Do you notice your daughter and your mother both seem to have a heart for your Brody?” her father said as they cleared up the dining room.

  “He’s a nice guy. They’re both spoiled that way with you already. You set the bar awfully high.”

  “Pffft.” He tried to look tough, but she saw his smile when he ducked his head to put away a bowl.

  Her mother came into the room. “Elise, Rennie is going to watch a movie with me and your father. We will have popcorn and soda, no caffeine of course. Why don’t you go on over to Brody’s house for a glass of wine and a quiet conversation?”

  “Are you psychic or did he hit you up for babysitting services?”

  Her mother laughed. “Darling, you’re young. Why wouldn’t you want a quiet hour or two with him? You’d planned to ask? Because Daddy and I would like you to know we are here. We’ve been begging you to go out and have fun. It’s not a chore to be with Irene. It’s one of our favorite things in the world.”

  “Thank you.” She hugged them both. “I won’t be out late.”

  “Be out until whenever you want. If you stay over, though, just let us know so we know to get breakfast ready for Irene in the morning.”

  She blushed. “I’m not spending the night. Mama, I made a promise to myself I wouldn’t do that around her until I’m sure that man will be part of our lives long-term. I spend the night in the same house she does. I don’t bring a parade of men through her life. She needs stability.”

  “The offer is there when you realize that boy in there will be with you, how you said, long-term. Now, go.”

  “Momma! Gran said you’re going to Brody’s for adult conversation and we’re going to watch Beauty and the Beast and eat popcorn and drink soda and have ice cream!” Rennie hopped around the living room. “I brought blankets down and pillows so we can all snuggle up on the couch. I haven’t never watched this with them, only you. So they’ll love it.”

  She leaned down and hugged Rennie, kissing her several times across her cheeks and nose. “You be good for them, okay? I’ll just be across the street and I’ll be back in a few hours.”

  “Don’t worry, Pops and I will be sure everything is cleaned up afterward,” Rennie stage-whispered. Martine’s aversion to wash- ing dishes was well known, and amusing to the members of her family.

  “Gotcha. I love you, Noodle.” “I love you too, Momma.”

  “Oh man, that chili was totally amazing.” Brody patted his belly as he led her into his house. He took her coat and hung it on a peg in the foyer, and she toed her shoes off.

  “Let me get the fire on so your feet don’t get cold.”

  “Thank you. But your floors are really warm.”

  “Radiant heat. Awesome isn’t it? A few years ago I finally got

  the energy to get rid of the ugly-ass carpet up here. So of course Adrian decides I need radiant heat, because he’d recently gotten it at his place.”

  Warmth from the fireplace crept toward her and she snuggled into the couch.

  “So it was his present to me. Little shit. A present is luggage or a pair of gloves, not radiant-heat floors.”

  “He loves you and he had it in his means to give it to you, so he did. And I bet you let him know how much it meant.”

  He stood and turned, cocking his head. “You’re scary sometimes.”

  “Meh. I’m not so much. I’ve seen the way you are with them. Where’s my wine?”

  “Any preferences?” He moved toward the kitchen. “I’ve got a cabernet here and beer in the fridge, if you’d rather go that way. I can also make a mean martini, if you’d prefer that.”

  “Looks good and can make a martini. I’d love a glass of wine, thank you. I have no idea why you’re wasting your time with an old woman with a kid when with talents like that you could be out with your pick of any tight-bodied twenty-two-year-old.”

  “Ha. You’re not old, you’re younger than I am. I’ve had my share of twenty-two-year-olds, but frankly, at my age I feel positively lecherous around anyone younger than twenty-six or -seven. And have you looked in a mirror?”

  He brought her a glass of wine and settled in next to her on the couch.

  “You’re anything but a waste of my time.” He kissed her knuckles before taking a sip from his glass. “So . . . Raven. I met Raven fourteen years ago. I was twenty-five and she the aforementioned twenty-two.”

  Elise snorted and he flashed a grin.

  “I had all this responsibility in my life. I’d had it for a long time, really. Even before my parents died I took care of Erin and Adrian. They were both finally out of high school and working on this band thing. Things were good. I was tattooing and building a following. She was, well, she’s not much different now than she was then.

  “Where I had all this stuff anchoring me—family, a job, a community—Raven didn’t. She was a free spirit and I couldn’t get enough. She was everything I couldn’t be. She floated around, doing whatever she wanted, whenever she wanted, and she wanted me. Which I found very attractive.”

  Elise just listened. Sometimes you needed to get it all out, even if she was sitting there listening to the story of how he fell in love with another woman.

  “She and Erin became close as well, but Adrian never really trusted her. To this day there’s distance between them. I fell and I fell hard. She told me not to. She told me that she wasn’t into longterm exclusive relationships. And when it came to it, she cheated. Well, not really cheated; she fucked someone else and didn’t hide it. To her, hiding it would have made it cheating.”

  Elise knew part of his attraction must have been that he thought he could be the one to change Raven. The more she told him it wasn’t possible, the more attractive she’d have seemed to his twentyfive-year-old self. Also, she really hated Raven at that point.

  Brody chuckled. “The look on your face makes me feel avenged. So you can probably guess I didn’t end it. I kept at it for a few years on and off. It broke me, or I let it break me. Whatever. But when Adele was killed, she came and ran my shop for months. She refused to let me pay her anything but straight commission. She handled everything up here. She stepped in during the hardest time of my life and she gave me exactly what I needed. She watered my plants, she took care of my fish, she dealt with my mail and anything else I needed while I was gone or traveling back and forth. She did it all without me having to ask. Afterward, she sat with me and Erin both, many a night, listening to us pour out our pain. She stayed here for fifteen m
onths all told, from the date of the murder until months after Erin had settled back in here, in Seattle. Everything was chaos, everything felt so hard just to deal with. And Raven made it so that all I had to do was support Erin.”

  “That’s a wonderful gift.” And it was, Elise couldn’t deny it.

  “So she’s just, well she’s just Raven. She’s not perfect. She’s not even likeable half the time. But she stood up for me and my loved ones when we needed it most. She’s been an amazing friend to Erin through all she’s gone through. She’s special to me, but I don’t make the mistake of not knowing exactly what she is and what she’s capable of. She’s not selfish, not really.”

  “She’s at the center of her own universe and that’s how it is.” You can’t hate those people, but you can try to keep them out of your life. She couldn’t hate Raven, not after that story, but Elise didn’t like her, and she didn’t trust her either.

  “But you’re not her.” He laughed at her reaction. “No, what I meant is, you’re empathetic. You take care of people—not to your extreme detriment, but you go the last mile for people and you don’t do it on your schedule.”

  “I cut my brother from my life, Brody. I didn’t have him over for barbecues or even through my front door for about six months before he died, and even before that things were strained. I’m not Raven, but I’m not you either. I don’t go the last mile. I have limits and it makes me selfish. I can accept that. Like I said, I’m not noble.”

  “You take on a lot. You carry a lot of guilt. Raven didn’t steal from me, didn’t put my loved ones in danger. Was he bad? At the end?”

  “Yes. He’d burned his bridges, so no one would have hired him even if his voice hadn’t been shot. I hated to hear his voice on the phone when I answered. Hated to see him waiting outside my building. He was a millstone and I resented that.”

  “Who wouldn’t? Come on, Elise! Who wouldn’t hate that?”

  “If he took a shower and ate a meal with me, I gave him money. I know, I enabled him. Another mistake in a long line, I’m sure. But Jesus, he looked horrible and he was sick. He was so angry all the time. He said things, hurtful things you only know when you’re close to someone. He heard things from my husband and used them to hurt me.

  “And then he’d get clean for a while and be his old self. Silly and shallow in most ways, but he had a good heart. He was so good with Rennie when she was a baby. But he always fell back into drugs. I had to keep him out of my life. Out of Rennie’s life. He ran with my ex, who had been in and out of jail, so that was always there between us. He stole from me. He shot up in my house! With my baby around. I couldn’t do it. Having a junkie in your life is hell. You live in a place of fear all the time. Dread. What will he say or do? Will this ringing phone be the police or my parents telling me he’s dead? Will I be relieved when I hear it?”

  “So it’s your fault he overdosed? After being a hard-core addict for years? At some point, you have to let go. You have Rennie to think of.”

  “Ugh, you don’t need to know more. It’s all a cliché anyway. Just turn on Intervention on cable and there we are. High-functioning children, artistic, achievers, and one of them ends up shooting up junk and blowing men for twenty dollars.”

  “While the other is an international ballet sensation who has danced some of the most challenging and sought-after roles.”

  “Right. Why are we talking about my brother again? You were just trying to help me not think Raven was the kind of girl who’d fuck you again because she was lonely and didn’t understand the promise you made to me. Not because she wanted to break us up or anything, but because she wanted to have sex.”

  Raven had come on to him at Thanksgiving, and no, she hadn’t understood his promise to Elise. Part of him had been very sad that she’d wanted him to break a promise to anyone else. He’d said no, and Raven would be out of Seattle for a while, but Elise Sorenson was a very smart lady. A smart lady with a guilt-trip the size of Rhode Island. “This is very heavy.”

  She laughed, but bitterness edged the sound. “Yeah. Maybe it’s easier with a woman who just shows up when she wants sex.”

  “Heavy in a good way. Raven is my friend in that way you like your eccentric aunt. But you and I are friends on a different level. More intimate. I’m too old to want easy and I’m glad you shared all that. But I think you take on a lot of things you can’t possibly own. What were you like as a kid?”

  “I liked everything orderly, but it rarely was. My parents are old-school in some ways, but decidedly modern in others. We had a lot of arts education when I grew up. We traveled. We went to museums in every city we visited. I started ballet classes when I was three. I went to very good schools. I got good grades. I rarely got into trouble because I probably would have been more upset than my parents if I had disappointed them. I loved school. I loved music and art and poetry and dancing. We were raised to understand learning came from all directions, and I loved that. We were sheltered in some ways. We never felt any type of want; though we did have to work for things, we lived well. Matty didn’t start getting into real trouble until he went to college. He had to work really hard, and for a boy who’d been good at everything he ever tried, that was really difficult to accept.”

  He took her wineglass and refilled it. “Why did you really stop dancing?”

  “I’d been wavering on quitting for a while. The divorce had been complicated. Rennie was getting older and it was harder to work around my touring schedule. Then I got hurt. My leg was broken in two places, the femur was shattered. I can’t dance the way I have to. I don’t have the strength or endurance I did before. So it was time. And while I miss the stage, I don’t regret my choice.”

  “Still, must have been hard to deal with. The injury and knowing you had to stop doing something you loved so much. I have all this back pain I didn’t have before. I have to take more time away from doing tats so I don’t get all bunched up. I hate that. Makes me feel old.”

  “And yet, I’ve driven by your shop when Rennie and I go to Woodland Park Zoo and it’s always packed. You’re in demand. I searched for you on the Internet, I’ve seen all the articles. Talk about a kid who was good at everything he tried. How many times do you think the word ‘genius’ has been applied to your work?”

  He burst out laughing. “Enough that it makes me happier when I’m having a shitty day. I’m lucky. I’m good at something I love to do. It’s something special to have that.”

  “Yeah. I won’t dance Giselle again, or Swan Lake, but I can still dance and I do every day. My studio is growing so well, I’m thrilled. I took a chance and it’s been wonderful. If I had to do something like run an athletic club or teach dance theory at a local college, I don’t know if I’d be as at ease with my choice.”

  “I’m glad you didn’t have to go that way, then. What are your plans for next Friday? Your mother informed me that you needed to get out more with friends and that they were quite happy to sit with Rennie while I made that happen. We do pool, barbecue and beer at the tavern. I thought I could see just how good a pool player you really were.”

  “Like a date?”

  “Yeah, why not? I mean, about ten people will be around, but everyone knows we’re sleeping together, and Adrian said I make cow eyes at you, so it’s not like people would be surprised. Plus, everyone likes you, and I like you.”

  “Okay then. I’ll talk with my mother to work something out.”

  “I think we have time for some smooching at the very least.” He grinned, putting his wineglass down.

  She placed hers next to his and clambered up into his lap. “Probably just a bit.”

  14

  “Hey there!” Erin called out as Elise opened her front door the following Friday. “Ready to play pool?” Elise smiled at the sight of her new friend. The woman was like rainbow sherbet or a sundae with sprinkles. Today her hair was a fairly normal shade, brunette, but with streaks of pink here and there.

  “Were you lying in wait o
ver there? Looking through Brody’s windows to see when I got home?” She opened the door wider and motioned her inside.

  “Totally. I think the boys got a little jealous that I was more interested in when you got home than them.” Erin laughed and hugged her.

  “I haven’t been on a date in a very, very long time,” she told Erin as they started to walk across the street to Brody’s house. “I know it’s not a romantic candlelit event or anything. It’s a group thing with beer and pool. God.” She stopped and grabbed Erin’s hand. Erin squeezed. “What am I doing? I don’t know what I’m doing. I should go home. I’m not young. I’m not hip. I’m thinking this is a date, but he doesn’t!”

  Erin hugged her when they stopped at the mailbox. “Listen here, of course you’re nervous. You’re taking all these new steps in your life. You can do this. This is life and you’re meant to live it. You’re starting over. I know, Elise, I know what that’s like. I came back to Seattle and I was a mess. Empty. Brody and Adrian stuck by me when I was a zombie.”

  Elise knew it had to have been hard. It turned her cold just thinking about not having Rennie, imagining the hell of watching a child die.

  “I admire you so much for who you are. You have two wonderful men who love you so much. It’s so clear to anyone who looks at you that you’re so strong.”

  “I made it through and you can too. Scratch that, you are making it through. Just let it happen. You’re fine. You look gorgeous and effortless as usual. Everyone likes you, including and most especially Brody. He’s a genuine person, a man who cares about the people in his life. You’re in his life. We all know you two are together, no matter what you two call it. Of course this is a date. I think you and I need a girls-only evening. When your parents go back to get their stuff next week, let’s get together, okay? I’ll come over, we can make dinner and hang out. Maybe paint some nails and do hair with Rennie and then you and I can talk. I’ll tell you my story, you tell me yours. Deal?”