She Loves You, She Loves You Not...

by Julie Anne Peters

  Carly’s hanging back. Barbara rubs my good shoulder and says, “As soon as you feel you can walk, you’re sprung. Take your time.”

  She brushes by Carly, who murmurs a thank-you.

  “Boner,” I say.

  “What?” Carly frowns.

  “The dog.”

  “He’s okay,” Carly says flatly. “Geena has him.”

  Thank God.

  Carly doesn’t talk to me as we drive away from Summit Medical in a car I don’t recognize. Where’s her SUV? I don’t want to tell her about the accident. I will. I mean, I know I have to. Right now all I want to do is crash and sleep. Never wake up.

  Carly pulls into a parking lot that’s definitely not home. “Where are we?” I ask.

  “The rec center,” she says. “Where you were supposed to go.”

  God, how I wish I’d listened.

  Two Red Cross vans are parked in front, and there are lines of people at the entrance. “What’s happening?” I ask, still feeling dazed.

  “They’re bringing all the motorists here,” Carly answers.

  “How long have you been here? How did you get out?”

  “Mitchell sent a helicopter for me. I need to help inside.” She holds the car door for me as I slide out and stand shakily. It’s still raining, though not as much. A trickle.

  Carly opens an umbrella and hurries me into the building. Someone calls, “Carly, do you know if there are more blankets and pillows?”

  She says, “I’ll check.” There are rows of cots and crowds of people. Carly says to me, “Take that cot over there. Get some rest, and we’ll talk later.” She doesn’t give me time to respond before she rushes away.

  Come back, I plead silently. Stay with me.

  I sit on the cot. Then I lie down and try to get comfortable. Not easy with my arm in a sling. It doesn’t hurt as much as it did. A constant dull ache. I have someone’s Crocs on, and I wonder where my boots are. I remove the Crocs and try to sleep, but it’s noisy, so I dig my phone out of my bag. There are five voice mails, all from yesterday. The first one: “Alyssa, where are you? Why don’t you answer your phone?”

  The next one: “Alyssa, why aren’t you at the rec center, where I told you to go? No one’s seen you. Where the hell are you? Pick up, dammit. Call me!”

  With the phone to my ear, I close my eyes, and disembodied images of Finn and me together swirl in my brain, and this voice asks if I’m cursed. If I’m doomed to fall in love with the wrong person over and over again.

  Plows and tractors rumble on the road outside the rec center all morning. A couple of cops in uniform show up to announce that one lane of I-70 eastbound has been cleared, and a cheer erupts.

  Townies help people pack their gear and head out to their cars. Carly’s across the room folding cots. She looks beat and harried, but still strikingly beautiful. A familiar voice makes my head swivel. Arlo. I get up and migrate over to the coffee station. “Heard about your accident,” he says, serving me a cinnamon roll and coffee.

  What did he hear and from whom?

  “Damage report.” He motions with his chin to my arm in the sling.

  “Dislocated shoulder.”

  He waves it off. “Minor inconvenience. I could use some help here.”

  You never realize how much you miss a limb until it’s incapacitated. I take over serving rolls with one hand. “How’d you end up in a chair?” I ask Arlo.

  “Skiing accident. I was sixteen. Bunch of us got stoned and decided it was too crowded on the slope and why didn’t we just ski out of bounds? I wasn’t that great a skier anyway, and I wrapped around a tree at full speed. Snapped my spinal cord.”

  “God.”

  “Yeah, we were hotshots all right.” Arlo serves up two coffees, and I hand out cinnamon rolls on paper plates. He adds, “Too bad we don’t get a do over in life. Just one chance to change the future.”

  “Or two or three,” I mumble.

  Arlo shrugs. “C’est la vie, kid. You take what you get.”

  I hand out a cinnamon roll to a cowboy dude, who smiles and says, “Thankee, ma’am.” I turn to Arlo. “Dutch.”

  “He’s safe,” Arlo says. “His place got flooded out, so he’s staying with his sister in Steamboat Springs.”

  I exhale relief.

  “Alyssa, there you are!” Geena’s leading Boner on a makeshift leash. “Thank God you’re all right.” She practically mauls me. When I wince because she squeezed my sore arm, she pets the sling and says, “Here, let me do that, sugar.” She yanks the spatula out of my hand.

  “I can—”

  She hip checks me away from the coffee station. “You want me to take Boner?” I ask.

  “Is that his name?” Geena looks at Arlo, and they both laugh.

  Boner hangs close to Geena, like he’d prefer not to be in my presence. I don’t blame him.

  Carly appears out of nowhere. “Where’s the Mercedes?” she asks me.

  “Um…” I swallow hard. “I wrecked it.”

  “Where?”

  “It was raining so hard, and the rocks were wet—”

  “Where is it?”

  “I was trying to get home.”

  “From where?”

  “Finn’s.” A lump in my throat makes my eyes well. “She’s gone.” The tears spill over the rims.

  Carly blows out a breath. “Oh, Alyssa.”

  I hiccup a sob.

  She puts her arms around me in a loose embrace, careful not to squeeze my sling, and then leads me over to a cot, where we sit. “I’m so stupid,” I say.

  “No, you’re not. You just trust the wrong people.”

  Okay, that hurt. It’s true, though.

  “Finn’s one of those seasonal employees who show up to work during ski season and then take off.” Carly adds, “With my money.”

  No, I want to say. She’s different. But she’s gone, and she took more than Carly’s money. A part of my heart feels ripped away.

  “I suspect Finn never stays in one place long enough to put down roots. Sort of like someone else we know?” She arches her eyebrows.

  I think she’s talking about herself.

  This ruckus kicks up around us, and people race out the front door. Geena dashes over. “Carly, I just heard there’s been a gigantic mudslide on Caribou Mountain.” She grabs Carly’s hand and yanks her up.

  “I want to come too.” I stand.

  Geena links her arm in my good one and tugs me along. I see Boner’s switched alliances to Arlo, or vice versa. In the parking lot, Geena remotes open the locks on the silver Lexus we drove in from the hospital, and we all get in, me in the backseat. Geena catches my eye in the rearview mirror. “Buckle your seat belt, sugar.”

  I would have anyway. Lesson pounded home.

  We have to pass Majestic, and my jaw drops. The whole town is flooded. The Egg Drop-In is submerged up to the plateglass window. “Oh my God,” I breathe. I wonder if Arlo’s seen this. His home. His business.

  Highway 102 is passable but barricaded right outside of town. Geena drives up to the ROAD CLOSED sign, and a state trooper halts her. She leans out her window. “Hey, handsome.”

  He lowers himself so his head is framed in the window opening. He and Carly exchange knowing glances. Is this Mitchell?

  He looks at me. “You must be Alyssa. We were ready to send out a search-and-rescue unit for you.”

  “Sorry,” I say in a small voice.

  Geena says, “We need to go see if there’s damage to Carly’s house.”

  “I can’t let you through.” His eyes never leave Carly’s face. “It’s bad, Carly,” he says.

  She gazes out the front window.

  Geena says, “Can you take us as far as possible so we can at least see? Pleeeease?” She puts a hand on his forearm.

  He’s still looking at Carly. “Okay. Follow me. But slowly.” He walks over, gets in his cruiser, and motions Geena to drive around the barricade after him.

  The magnitude of the mudslide
is unbelievable. The whole side of the mountain caved in. At the edge of the mud and debris, the three of us get out and inhale audibly. As far as the eye can see, there are uprooted trees and bushes, fallen boulders, construction rubble. I raise my eyes to where everyone else is looking—at the gaping hole in the mountain. Where Carly’s house used to be.

  Geena starts to hyperventilate. “Oh my Lord, my Lord.” She covers her chest and then her eyes. She throws her arms around Carly.

  Mitchell says, “The dam breached at Caribou Lake, and after the fire last year and the dry conditions this year… then all this rain at once…”

  Carly peers up over the avalanche of refuse and scrap wood. She lets out a long, slow breath.

  I don’t know what to do or say. What do you say? I know the cost of that house to Carly. All her possessions. The personal loss. The one time she may have tried to put down roots.

  Carly interrupts my thoughts with laughter. She laughs until tears run down her cheeks. Mitchell takes her arm.

  “No, it’s fine.” Carly shakes him off. “I’m all right.”

  Geena widens her eyes at me like, Carly’s hysterical. I have to agree. Geena reaches for my good hand. “You’re staying with me. Both of you. Until you rebuild, Carly, and everything’s exactly the way it was.”

  Carly returns to the Lexus and gets in. Mitchell leans down and says something to her, and she touches his face tenderly.

  Geena and I gaze up the mountain for one last look. She kind of leans into me, like she might collapse. When we climb into the car, Carly twists her head over the seat back. “Do you remember where you left the Mercedes?”

  Bile rises in my throat. “I think so. It’s close to Finn’s cabin.”

  Carly says to Geena, “Since 102 is closed, we’ll have to drive all the way around the mountain. Do you mind?”

  Geena says, “Of course not.”

  The Mercedes is a crunched heap of black metal perched on its side, with the roof bashed in.

  “Oh my Lord.” Geena slaps her hand to her chest. “How did you get out of there alive?”

  It’s a miracle, I think.

  Carly seems unaffected. Or she’s seething inside.

  “I’m sorry,” I say.

  She digs out her cell and makes a call to someone. Her insurance agent?

  I can see the cabin from here. No sign of Finn, not that I expected her to be there, waiting for my return. She’s long gone.

  We have to drive up the hill to the cabin to turn the Lexus around. Don’t cry, don’t cry, I think. Don’t look back.

  The cell in my bag rings. I can’t find it fast enough with my one good hand to answer. The number isn’t in my contacts. I have a voice mail waiting, received last night.

  I key into my messages, and Tanith’s voice sounds in my ear. “Alyssa, we heard about all the mudslides, and we’re worried sick about you and Carly. We’ll be back home in a few hours, so please call us and let us know you’re safe.” She pauses. “Do you want to say something to Alyssa?”

  Do I hear Dad breathing? A year elapses, it seems. He doesn’t speak, but he doesn’t hang up either. Say it, Dad. Say, I miss you, honey. I love you. Please come home.

  The call cuts off.

  Chapter

  24

  Geena lives in a cottage, I guess you’d call it, with a white picket fence and a vegetable garden. It’s about three blocks down the street from Arlo’s. I can see where the water rose around the foundation, but it’s already receded, and it doesn’t look like she sustained any damage inside. She has a guest bedroom with two single beds, frilly bed linens, and lace curtains.

  The realization hits me: Carly and I have nothing. The clothes on our backs.

  Geena says, “Everything I have is yours. You know that, sugar.” She kisses Carly’s cheek. Carly mumbles something about phone calls to make, and I beg off Geena’s recitation of food options with a headache. I go into the bedroom to lie down.

  What do people do who lose everything in a natural disaster? Start over, I suppose. At least Carly has friends, a place to stay until she rebuilds.

  Watching her yesterday helping people, the way she put aside her own personal tragedy—even though she didn’t know yet about the house. You’re wrong, Arlo, I want to tell him. Carly’s not selfish. She reaches out to others. To me. And she’s strong. Stronger than I’ll ever be.

  Out the bedroom window, I see Boner digging a big muddy hole in Geena’s backyard. I almost yell, Bad dog, then Finn’s voice echoes in my ears, and I try to block it out. How could she, after she knew my past? She got what she wanted and then left. Talk about selfish.

  Voices drift down the hall to the bedroom, and I listen at the door. The cop, Mitchell, is here. I get up and venture down the hallway, and he’s sitting at the kitchen table eating cherry pie and drinking coffee with Carly and Geena.

  He glances over at me. He has these aquamarine eyes and auburn hair.

  Geena says, “Oh, hi, sweetie. You feeling better?” She scoots back in her chair. “Sit here.”

  “I’m fine.”

  Mitchell speaks up. “They’re clearing 102 now, so I expect by tomorrow we can begin the recovery operation on your home. We’ll salvage as much as we can, Carly.”

  “Don’t bother,” Carly says with a yawn. “There’s nothing I want.”

  Nothing? Not the baby clothes? The pictures?

  How about my stuff? Not that I had all that much.

  Geena walks over and feels my forehead under my bangs. “No fever. You look awfully pale, though. Come. Sit.” She steers me to her chair, and I practically fall into it.

  Mitchell smiles at me. He has kind eyes. And the way he looks at Carly, you know he’s in love with her. “Well, ladies. Always a pleasure.” He stands and snags his trooper hat off the back of the sofa cushion. He thanks Geena for the pie, and Carly walks him out.

  Geena says in a lowered voice, “He’s a hottie, isn’t he?”

  I wouldn’t call him hot. Not like Jason.

  She adds, “You want dinner now? You must be starving. We eat dessert first around here. I have apple or cherry pie, and ice cream, and every kind of Lean Cuisine they make.”

  “No,” I tell her. “Thanks. I just want to sleep.” I drag myself up from the chair, and my eyes catch the movement out the kitchen window. Through Geena’s potted herbs, I see Carly and Mitchell at his cruiser. He pulls her into his arms and kisses her.

  Geena says, “What size are you?” She clamps her hands around my waist. “I bet you can wear all my skinny clothes.”

  The kiss goes on and on.

  “You have your mom’s bone structure. Lucky you.”

  Lucky me.

  Carly returns, sweeps through the living room, and retrieves her coffee cup from the kitchen table. She refreshes it at the coffeepot and says to me, “We need to talk.”

  Geena goes, “That’s my cue.” She grabs her purse and heads for the back door. “I need to pick up my bc pills, if the pharmacy’s open. I’ll get you girls toothbrushes and shower gel and shampoo. What else?”

  Carly’s staring at me.

  “Oh, and dog food.” Geena heads out. “Boner,” I hear her say. “What a name.”

  Carly pats the chair back, and I sit down. “I’m sorry about wrecking your Mercedes,” I tell her. “I’ll pay for the damage.”

  She slides into a chair across from me. “I have insurance.” She takes a drink of coffee. Setting down the cup, she says, “I talked to your father.”

  My pulse races. When? Why? Is Carly the one who gave Tanith my new cell number? My eyes fall away from Carly’s unwavering gaze. “He hates me for what I am.”

  She lifts her cup and says, “I’m sure he doesn’t hate you. He doesn’t understand that you’re your own person, that you make your own choices and decisions. You need to let him know.”

  “I tried. He won’t accept me. He refuses to believe I’m a lesbian.”

  “Oh, I think he believes it.” A wry smile crosses her
lips, and she sips her coffee.

  “I’m sorry for… for judging you,” I say. “I had no right.” The same way others have no right to judge me. They’re not God. Dad has no right. I need him to accept me, support me, honor my decisions. “Tell me about Jason and Angelica.”

  She sets down her cup and presses her fingers into her eyes. “Alyssa…”

  “I know it’s painful to talk about them, but I kind of feel they were my family too.” I add gently, “Please?”

  She sighs. “What do you want to know?”

  “How did you and Jason meet? I heard it was at the Egg Drop.”

  “Christ. Nothing gets past anyone in this cow town. Yes, I was working as a waitress, temporarily. Waitressing is good experience to have, by the way. You’ll always be employable. Jason was in his first year of residency, and we just clicked. You know?”

  Chemistry. You have it or you don’t. “How could you afford to build that house?” I know doctors are rich, but aren’t first-year residents just starting out? On TV they are.

  “He was loaded. His family was—is—wealthy. He had a trust fund that’d take care of us for the rest of our lives.”

  Wow. “Does he have a lesbian sister around my age?”

  Carly lets out a short laugh. “An only child. Sorry.”

  “Damn. So how long did you date before you got married?”

  “Not very. I found out I was pregnant, and we hurried it up.” She lifts her cup to her lips again. “I keep making that mistake.”

  My face must color because Carly adds, “I don’t mean Angelica was a mistake. Or you either. You were just unplanned.”

  As in unwanted?

  “Let’s get back to what I wanted to talk to you about. I’m not rebuilding the house. I should’ve sold it to begin with. It only reminds me of the past, and it’s not good for me to live in the past. Mitchell isn’t going to like it, but I’ve decided to take the insurance money and do what I’ve always wanted to do.” She gets up, carrying her cup to the sink. She doesn’t go on.