After Nola rang off, Sabrina sat cross-legged in front of the television and ate her sandwich and chips, channel-surfing while she stewed. All of the stations were broadcasting either Christmas specials or old CSI and Law & Order reruns. Sabrina turned the television off and sighed. There was a lot to be said about drinking alone, and none of it was good.
But that’s precisely what she wanted to do.
She eyed Gage’s tequila bottles. Since the night of the gala, they’d saw even less of each other due to their hectic work schedules and a flurry of last-minute holiday parties. But when they happened to be in the house at the same time, he was polite and deferent. He sought her approval for small things, like installing fire alarms and putting a stronger dead bolt on the front door. Then he paid for both. The night before when she was tending to Molly, he asked to drop her off so he could have her car detailed. Sabrina had no idea how to reciprocate in kind, so she insisted on paying the entire month’s electricity bill.
She didn’t know how or where Gage planned to spend his holidays. He’d mentioned receiving holiday invitations from some station buddies but nothing about visiting family back in Iowa. He’d said that he had people, and Sabrina assumed that meant family. Earlier that week, she’d come in to find him stalking the patio, talking to whomever he talked to late into the night. She heard him saying something about promising to send more money.
Maybe she wasn’t the only one with family problems.
A bottle of Patron beckoned from the mantle. Sabrina was struggling with the thick cork cap when the front door opened. Gage came to a halt and looked at her askance. One hand balanced several containers of takeout, and the other held a plain brown bag. He looked relaxed and well fed. A healthy flush was in his cheeks.
“Hola, Senorita March. Or should I make that ‘Ole’?” he asked, apparently sensing the distant thunder in her mood.
“Leave me and the tequila alone,” she grumbled. “I had a shitty holiday. Or maybe I should call it ‘Christmas interruptus’.”
He set the bag and containers on the coffee table.
“Then that’s not going to help,” he said pragmatically. He eased the bottle out of her grasp and returned it to its place on the mantle. “And I refuse to see a perfectly innocent bottle of Gran Platinum be used as an outlet for angst. That’s why cheap beer was invented. Although I don’t think that’s a good catharsis either.”
“It sounds as though you had a good night.” She hated the hitch of envy she heard in her voice.
“Indeed I did. Good food and even better company. However, looks like there’s a little lag time between my good night and yours.”
“What d’you mean?”
With a mild smile, he tipped her dejected chin with a finger. “Look, I’ve got smoked duck, lo mein and those cute little origami-looking things filled with cream cheese. I’ve even got the cheap beer — everything you could possibly need to drown your sorrows. But grab your jacket. First.”
“Where are we going?”
“No more questions,” he said. “Go jump in the car while I stash the food and brew in the fridge.”
Sabrina waited in the passenger seat and picked through the dirty pennies in the change compartment with her fingernail. An envelope was stuffed in the visor slot along with some old gas card receipts. She plucked it out. Inside the envelope was a birthday card of the extremely naughty variety signed with a bunch of XOs by someone named Erin. Sabrina didn’t realize that there were people over the age of thirty who dotted their I’s with hearts. Of course, that was assuming that Gage played with women his own age. She sniffed and shoved the card and envelope back into the slot, noting the Chicago return address and postage mark, dated April first. That made Gage what, an Aries? Not that she bought into astrology any more than she did tarot cards, Ouija boards or the I-Ching. Gage Fitzgerald was not a man governed by planets.
Or anything for that matter.
As Sabrina thought of her father and the partials, suddenly that seemed like a very good trait to have.
CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE
Gage never claimed to understand everything about women.
And especially not Sabrina March.
But when a woman reached for the hard stuff, she was hurting inside. The drawn look on her face and the way her shoulders drooped as though she’d been carrying around the weight of the world when he took the tequila bottle away from her were all too telling.
Something was whirling around in that pretty head of hers. Whatever it was, it wasn’t related to the here and now. It was something long ago but not forgotten. It was something unsettling and confusing, the same something that had made her awkward and distant when he’d done small fixer-upper work on the house for her in the spirit of the holidays.
“I think I know what’s wrong — generally speaking,” Gage told her as he slid into the driver’s seat. The engine started up with a massive rumble.
“Which is what?” she asked in a muffled voice.
“You’re good at getting handling stress on the job,” he went on. “I commend you. Politics would drive most sane people to drink. You go to the gym and run on your little hamster wheels instead. But—”
“But what?” She looked at him hopefully.
“—you have no outlet for emotional stress,” he concluded.
“You don’t know me well enough to say that,” Sabrina countered with a vaguely defensive ring in her voice.
“No?” Gage glanced at her and elevated a brow. “I’m no professional, but I’d say marrying a man you knew you didn’t love doesn’t exactly put you among the ranks of the emotionally healthy.”
“And you’re going to help me change that.”
“Just think of me as your spirit guide. A totem.” He injected a dose of wicked mysticism into his voice for good effect.
“Gotcha, guide,” Sabrina said wryly as he pulled the GTO off the main road and onto a lane that fed onto the expressway. “So now what happens?”
“Now? Music, of course,” he said sagely as he pushed a CD into the car’s player. “Not Christmas music. No sleigh bells ring-a-ling-ing. We are far too jaded for that.”
“We are?”
“Well, you are,” he corrected himself. “’Tis the spirit.”
Then he cranked up the volume so the alternative metal boomed through the GTO’s massive sound system. He stole another look to see the ghost of a smile dance across her mouth. Then she exhaled deeply and sank deeper into the seat.
Gage felt his mouth twitch into a grin. After dinner at a Chinese restaurant with Gideon and some of his other single station buddies, he could have predicted this as the least likely scenario: cruising down the highway at eighty miles an hour with Sabrina in the passenger seat and Rage Against the Machine thumping through the speakers.
The vast stretch of expressway ahead was empty. Gage wasn’t sure how long he drove; he was aware that the nimbus of downtown lights was growing smaller and smaller in the rearview mirror and that the woman sitting beside him had finally relaxed and was now sorting through his CD collection. The air whistling through the GTO’s canvas top smelled clean and bright. Finally, he turned around on an overpass and backtracked in the opposite direction. He took the Barton Springs exit and threaded the car around the curves that curled along the edges of the park.
The Zilker Christmas tree loomed in front of them. During the rest of the year, the tree functioned as one of the city’s existing moonlight towers. Now it served as a framework for the streamers of lights affixed to a bright star-shaped crest that swooped down to a wide, circular base. The intricate pattern of gold and red formed a dizzy spiral pattern. Gage pulled the car over on the shoulder and killed the engine.
“See?” he asked Sabrina. “All you needed was a little cruising and head-banging. Worked when we were teenagers.”
“It worked for you, you mean,” she said mindfully.
“Hell yeah. Girl problems, school problems. When the bad stuff starts to pile up, you ge
t in your car and drive it all out.”
“No offense, but holidays with the partials can cause the kind of duress typically addressed with prescription pharmaceuticals.”
He shot her an enigmatic look. “Oh, honey, we’re not done by a long shot. I brought you here to this festive, seasonal landmark for a reason.”
“Why?” Sabrina eyed him suspiciously.
“For the same reason anyone comes to the Zilker tree. Now we shall proceed to—”
“No, Gage,” she protested.
“—twirl.”
“Absolutely not,” she said adamantly.
“C’mon. It’ll be fun,” he cajoled.
She gave him an incredulous look. “You want us to twirl? You’re unbelievable.”
Gage turned in his seat so he could see the other emotions that crossed her face. One of them was definitely temptation. The lady needed to cut loose. Have a little mindless fun for no other reason than that the opportunity presented itself.
“You mean you’ve never done it?” he asked. “I have it on good accord from Austin locals that spinning around under the Zilker tree is practically a rite of passage.”
“Maybe if I were sixteen again — and only after a few malt liquors,” she added.
“Ah. So you have experienced the ritual. I haven’t. So indulge me.”
Gage followed Sabrina as she grudgingly led him through the utility poles to the center of the giant structure.
“Give me the rundown,” he said, slapping his palms together.
“Let’s go over the basics. A solo spin isn’t recommended for beginners,” she informed him. “For one, you’re more likely to end up on your ass. Secondly, the average onlooker who’s out of the know may assume you’re a bit touched. Therefore, the assisted spin is best.”
“Give me the tutorial,” Gage smiled.
“Okay, Fitzgerald. Here’s how it’s done,” she said in her no-nonsense voice. “First you find a level spot.” Testing the evenness of the ground beneath her boots, she planted her feet firmly. “Now we pull against each other’s weight to create a center of gravity. Like so.” She wrapped her forearms around his and grasped them tightly, close to the elbows. He did the same.
“Next, we lean back ever so slightly,” Sabrina went on. “Then … we … spin.”
As soon as they began to turn clockwise, the streamers of lights cascading over them became an ever-changing kaleidoscope of color and light, spiraling into the center of Gage’s field of vision and ending somewhere in the periphery. It was a clever optical illusion created by the lighting specialists who’d built the structure.
Faster and faster they went.
“I think I feel sick,” he told her as the first wave of dizziness hit.
“Keep your eye on the center,” Sabrina coached.
“Okay, I’ve had enough!” He finally broke their grasp, laughing. “Holy shit.” He took a few unbalanced steps, still in the stronghold of vertigo.
“Wuss. Greenhorn.” Sabrina spat on the ground and dusted dirt over the spot with her toe. “Are you satisfied?”
“Yeah. But I need to sit down.”
They dizzily made their way back to the GTO, occasionally stumbling off course like drunks. Gage landed in the driver’s seat.
“Damn, that was a bunch of twisted fun,” he grinned. “So how d’you feel now?”
“I’ll get to back to my happy place scintilla by scintilla,” she said lightly. “Maybe more driving, more music…”
“What? You mean that wasn’t cathartic?” He pretended to be offended.
“It helped.” The smile on her face faded to a distant look. Gage tracked her gaze to the clusters of houses on the slope past Zilker Park where Christmas lights twinkled silently. The drive had mellowed her slightly, and he thought for sure he had it in the bag after the spin.
What still ate away at a woman like Sabrina?
“Sometimes I want plain vanilla, Gage,” she finally said, her voice wistful.
“What do you mean by that?”
“I want things to be simple. I want an uncomplicated Christmas with all of the typical trappings.”
Gage leaned back in the car seat and studied her. “What are those?”
She shrugged. “Trivial conversations that everyone forgets by the new year. Useless presents like sweater de-pillers, reindeer socks and cheap drugstore bath salts. Salty ham, sticky-sweet marshmallow yams, eggnog from the carton, and those terrible cocoa balls made with vanilla wafers and rum. Chocolate sounds so nice.”
Whatever the lady wants …
He reached across the passenger side, opened the glove box and produced a plain Hershey’s bar he’d bought from the radio station’s vending machine. Peeling the outer wrapper away from the foil, he neatly broke the candy bar into two halves and handed Sabrina the larger one. They ate in silence.
“You need to talk,” he told her, licking the last of the chocolate from his thumb.
“I’m not up for conversation, Gage.”
“I didn’t say we need to talk. I said you needed to. Damn, woman. How do you manage to keep all of that undiluted turmoil inside without cracking?”
“Funny you should ask,” she replied with a humorless smile. “When my mother was my age, she was in the process of having a nervous breakdown. I had front row seats to the event. My mother’s not a weak woman. My father isn’t a bad guy. He just wanted a different life than the one he chose. Someone pays the price for that.”
“Just not him?” Gage tried to keep his tone neutral. So that was what this was all about. Unresolved family matters. He’d had enough of his own.
Sabrina nodded and frowned. “My mother struggled a lot after my dad left. Nola only had one job before she got married, and that was working at the soda fountain at Newton’s. She never lived on her own. Independence comes with a tough learning curve for divorced women of a certain age.”
“Can’t raise a kid by slinging hash,” Gage agreed. “How did the two of you manage?” He knew all too well what she was talking about. He thought of all the years he had lived with his grandparents, who’d gotten by on Social Security checks and his grandfather’s meager pension.
“The neighbors in the Corners stepped up to the plate. Mrs. Parker drove me to school and back while Mom was working. Some of the other ladies brought us food and their daughters’ hand-me-downs. Their husbands did handiwork around the house we were renting. We were so helpless.” Sabrina’s head bowed under the weight of her own shame. “The one thing I took away from it all was that I needed to become self-sufficient. I don’t want to turn into Nola, at least not the way she was back then. I won’t. Sometimes I don’t know what my mother was thinking when she got married.”
“That it would last forever?” Gage asked gently. “Can’t fault her for that. But sometimes marriage doesn’t last. What did you call it? A ‘calculated risk’?”
Sabrina lifted her head and said nothing. Instead, she slid down in her seat and studied the stars.
“Look, I don’t want you to think that I’m one of those adult children who can’t come to terms with the fact that mommy and daddy didn’t stay in love forever,” she said. “And it wasn’t their divorce that messed with my head. It was everything that came before.”
“What was that?” Gage was curious.
She looked at him, perplexed. “Absolutely nothing. Everything seemed normal on the surface. My father and mother never argued. He gave her beautiful, lavish gifts — a pearl necklace from Tiffany and a canary diamond from Cartier.”
Gage surveyed her curiously. “Hmm,” he mused. “So. Diamonds and pearls. Is that what you think love’s all about?”
“Of course not,” Sabrina replied. “They were just shiny, pretty things that added to the illusion of perfection. That ended the night of my thirteenth birthday party. My parents let me invite some girl friends over for a sleepover. Home manicures and pawing through Tiger Beat magazine — typical tween stuff.” She summoned up a wan smile. “Molly
leaned over my birthday cake, and I got mad at her because her hair dragged through the icing. Then the phone rang. I picked up in the hall the same time my mother picked up the extension in the study. I heard a woman’s voice on the other end of the line.”
Sabrina hesitated. Gage noticed that her gaze had become even more distant. He wouldn’t push it. She’d tell him more when she was ready.
Finally, she took a deep, shuddering breath. “In the next five minutes, I learned that my father had been in love with another woman for almost as many years as my parents had been married and that I had a five-day-old half-brother. His name is Chet.”
“So what happened then?” Gage asked.
“The party was over. The other girls’ parents picked them up. My mom drove me over to Molly’s house. I stayed there the rest of the weekend so all hell could break loose without me getting caught in the middle. When I came home on Sunday night, my dad was gone, and that was that,” Sabrina said. “But until that night, my world seemed … halcyon.”
She turned large, woeful eyes in Gage’s direction and caught the bottom of her lip between her teeth. For a split second, he didn’t see her as woman; he saw her as a girl teetering on the cusp of womanhood, wearing her newly burgeoning hips and breasts like an outfit she was embarrassed to be seen in. He thought of her standing in a dark hallway with a telephone receiver pressed to her ear, listening to a conversation she should have never had to hear. She would have eventually found out about the half-brother one day, because a secret like that was too big to hide. But he wished to god he could go back in time and spare her that one nightmarish moment. It had happened on her damned thirteenth birthday. No girl should have to experience that.
“You know what I think?” he asked.
“I’m sure you plan to tell me.”
“I think perfection is a front for the worst kind of dysfunction. Show me a man who tells me that his marriage is wonderful and his wife is perfect, and I’ll show you a big fat liar with a honey or two on the side.”
Something About You (Just Me & You) Page 24
