Flirting With Pete: A Novel

by Barbara Delinsky

  Brianna remained Casey’s closest friend. She had been a lifeline in recent years, filling the void where family might have been. The knowledge that she was on the other end of the line now made Casey feel more herself, which surely explained her excitement.

  Intuitive as ever, Brianna asked a curious, “What’s up?”

  “You have to see something. Are you busy?”

  “Just woke up. It was a late night.”

  “Partying?”

  “Arguing.”

  “Oh dear.”

  Brianna sighed. “Same old same old. He wants me to be something I’m not. But he’s gone now, off to Philly for the weekend. Cheer me up. What do I have to see?”

  “I’m going to give you an address. It’s on Beacon Hill. How quickly can you get here?”

  Brianna was the only person Casey had ever told about her connection to Cornelius Unger. Now she was silent a second too long before asking a cautious, “Are we talking Leeds Court?”

  “The same.” Casey had driven her past the house more than once. “Do you remember how to get here?”

  “With my eyes closed. Do I have to dress up?”

  Casey smiled. “Dress down. I literally ran over.”

  “Give me twenty minutes.”

  *

  “Yours?” Brianna asked as they stood side by side at the front gate, looking up at the house.

  “Apparently.”

  “How cool!”

  “That’s one word for it,” Casey mused. “Another is pathetic. I’d have been happier with a phone call before he died. Or a letter. A letter would have been nice.”

  “He wasn’t the type, Casey. You knew that.”

  “I did. But there was always a part of me that said he was just so bashful or shy or… or something… that he didn’t know how to do it. I always had a little bit of hope that he’d find a way.”

  “Maybe this is his way.”

  “The grand gesture?”

  “I’m serious,” Brianna said. “This is his house. It’s him.”

  An iron gate rattled halfway around the Court. They looked that way just as a man came through. He was in his thirties, tall, and finely sheathed in a multicolored racing shirt and black biking shorts. As they watched, he reached back to lift a shiny yellow racing bike up and over the gate.

  “Oh my,” Casey whispered. She wasn’t referring to the bike.

  Brianna leaned close to whisper back, “Who is he?”

  “Beats me, but he is very nicely built.”

  The man was straddling his bike as he strapped on his helmet. Settling a tight butt on the seat, he fit his first shoe to its clip and was about to push off when he saw them. Dismounting again, he walked his bike over and smiled.

  “If you’re looking to buy this house,” he warned, “I have to tell you there’s a ghost in there. His name is Angus, and he lives in the master bedroom.”

  “Is that so?” Casey asked with a smile.

  “I’m told, but then there are ghost stories about most of these houses. Are you looking to buy?”

  “That depends,” said Brianna. “Would you recommend the neighborhood?”

  He considered the question. “It’s getting better. Getting younger, slowly, as the old guard dies off.”

  Casey tossed her head toward Connie’s house. “Was he old guard?”

  “From the looks of him, he was. Personally, I never talked with the guy. He kept to himself, wasn’t outgoing, if you know what I mean. It’d be neat to get fresh blood in here. Are you two related?”

  It wasn’t the first time they’d been asked that. Brianna was dark-haired to Casey’s light, but they were the same height, had the same build, and often, like now, dressed alike.

  “Friends,” Brianna said.

  “We roomed together in college,” Casey explained. “I’m the one looking at the house. She’s along for the ride.” Lest he misunderstand the relationship, she added, “She has a boyfriend.”

  “With whom she’s on the offs,” Brianna said quickly, “and she“— she pointed a thumb at Casey—“has two in tow.”

  “Wrong,” Casey told her. “Dylan’s just a guy pal, and Ollie’s done.” She looked at her neighbor. “What’s a nice guy like you doing in a stuffy old place like this?”

  He grinned. “Thought I hit it big in investment banking, so my wife and I moved in. Now that the market has stalled, we’re expecting a child. I guess I like being mortgaged to the hilt.”

  Brianna hung her head. “He has a wife.”

  Casey sighed. “The good ones always do. When is your wife due?”

  “August. She was biking with me until the doctor nixed it. If you have other questions about the street, though, ring our bell. She’s Emily, and she’d love to talk. I’m Jeff, and I need to bike.”

  Lifting a finger to his sleek helmet, he reclipped his shoe and pushed off. Wisely, he held his backside off the seat while the bike bounced over cobblestones. He sat only when he turned the corner onto West Cedar. Seconds later, he was out of sight.

  Not one to pine over a lost cause, Casey steered Brianna up the walk. “Come. You have to see this place.”

  *

  They walked through the living room, then went up the stairs, explored the guest bedroom—“Your colors,” Brianna remarked in passing— and did no more than peek into Connie’s room. They opened and closed the doors of the third-floor rooms, admired the roof deck, and looked at the kitchen. If Brianna noticed that the paintings on the stairs leading down to the lower level were by Connie’s wife, she was wise enough not to comment. They peeked in at the den, then the office, but the latter was simply a prelude to the garden. Like Casey, Brianna was instantly drawn there. The sun had moved enough to touch the seat of the wood bench under the chestnut tree, so that was where they sat. The spot was as private as any room inside.

  Brianna studied the house. “That is wisteria on your pergola. It’s beautiful. The whole place is beautiful.”

  Casey drew up her knees and wrapped her arms around them. She didn’t look at the house, but kept her eyes in the garden. The greenery soothed her. “I wish the timing were better. So much else is going on in my life right now.”

  “Have you decided whether to accept the teaching position?”

  “No.”

  “When do they need to know?”

  “Last week.”

  “Is it your mom that’s holding you back?”

  “Partly. I could move her to Providence. If she was there, her friends might visit her more. I didn’t like the facility I saw, though. The one here is better.”

  “But you always wanted to teach.”

  Casey did look at the house then. She imagined Connie was standing at the window, looking out, saying the same thing, but in a scolding way. “Relocation is a problem, and it’s not just my mom. It’s my practice. It’s my friends.”

  “Is Oliver really done?”

  Casey crinkled her nose. “Yeah. Maybe I’m crazy. He’s a nice guy.”

  “Last week he was a ‘great’ guy.”

  “Well, I really wanted him to be, but he isn’t. I mean, some woman will think he is, but me? No. We’re at different places. He’s already there— has the law practice, the BMW, the house in the suburbs.”

  “And the kids.”

  “Yup, every other weekend, but I love the kids, they’re great, they’re really fun and interesting and spontaneous.”

  “Sounds like you like them more than you like Ollie.”

  “I do, which is why it’s over between him and me, before the kids get hurt.”

  “How about Dylan? Truly just a pal?”

  Casey rocked a little. “Yeah. Zero chemistry.” Considering the discussion over, she inhaled deeply. “These flowers smell so good. The whole garden’s a gem.”

  “Makes moving to Providence more difficult.”

  “Not because of this,” she said; she refused to let Connie be the one to hold her back. Any one of her other qualms about moving was far mor
e compelling. “I can sell this.”

  “It’s the kind of place that you used to dream of owning. Why would you sell it?”

  “Because it was his.”

  “That’s why you should keep it.”

  “If I keep it, I invite him to judge every little thing I do.”

  Brianna could analyze feelings and thoughts as well as the next clinician. What Casey loved about her, though, was that she was first and foremost down-to-earth. So now she said, “Casey, he’s dead.”

  “Technically,” Casey agreed. “Spiritually, not so. In my mind he’s all over this townhouse.”

  “Is it him, or the ghost that lives in the master bedroom?”

  “Angus? Good name for a ghost, but no. I’m talking about Connie. He’s there in the broadest sense of the word.”

  “Well, I didn’t see it. The place is nearly as impersonal as your condo.”

  “Excuse me? My condo isn’t impersonal. My stuff is all over the place.”

  “Mess doesn’t mean personal. Mess simply means that you aren’t neat, and that isn’t what I’m talking about. Your walls are bare. Your bookshelves are filled with professional books. Your refrigerator contains absolutely nothing that would give a clue about you or your friends.”

  “My bulletin board is filled with personal pictures.”

  “Tacked on. Taped on. Balanced precariously on one another, like you don’t know if they’ll stay or not and you don’t really care. You’ve been talking about putting up drapes since you bought the place, but you haven’t shopped for them once.”

  “Drapes are expensive. I’m strapped just paying the mortgage. If I sell this place, I can pay the mortgage ten times over.”

  That awesome fact silenced them both. In the ensuing quiet, the city sounds emerged. Traffic thrummed over Beacon Hill from the highways, rocked by a siren, the honk of a horn. A chopper flew over the State House. A bus grunted and grumbled down Beacon Street.

  It was all there, but distant. Casey felt removed from the outside world. Here in the garden, the smells were of clean earth, budding flowers, and water trickling over timeworn stone. As for the siren, the honk, the grunt and the grumble, they were softened by the rustle of leaves when a gray squirrel ran up the nearby oak toward the bird feeder hanging there. Dashing out on a limb, it dropped headfirst down the cage surrounding the tube of seed. When it couldn’t squeeze through the bars, it tried to gnaw its way through one bar, then a second and a third. In time it gave up, leapt to the ground, and ran off.

  “Does it feel discouraged?” Casey mused. “Does it feel confused? Does it feel like a failure in its parents’ eyes? No. It just… goes… on. I think I’d like to be a squirrel.”

  “No, you wouldn’t. I saw one mashed on the street on my way here. That happened because it lacked the brains to look both ways.” Brianna slid her a wry grin. “Not that you always look both ways either.” The grin faded. “Will you mention this to Caroline?”

  Casey felt the gnawing inside that thought of her mother always caused. “I already have. She didn’t bat an eyelash.”

  “Oh, Casey.”

  “I’m serious. I thought it might get her going— you know, fire her up to look me in the eye and say something perfectly reasonable and totally guilt-inducing.” She met Brianna’s gaze. “Not a word.”

  Brianna didn’t say a word, either. She might have said, Of course not. She’s as close to being brain dead as a person can be without actually being brain dead. But Casey didn’t want to hear that. They had argued about it more than once. Casey clung to the belief that Caroline heard something, felt something, thought something. Medical science said that the likelihood of it was slim. Still, there were brain waves. They were weak. But they were there.

  “Would she be happy about this, Brianna?” Casey asked.

  “Yes. Caroline adores you. She wants the very best for you. She’d be thrilled that you’ve come into this.”

  Casey wanted to believe it, but she had her doubts. She felt like a traitor just sitting here in Connie’s garden.

  Feeling the weight of that thought, she slipped down to the bare earth. From all fours, she sat back on her heels, then gently lowered her upper body until it rested on her thighs. Her forehead touched the ground. Letting her arms trail beside her, palms up, she closed her eyes and drew in a long, slow breath.

  The earth smelled rich. It felt moist against her forehead. Taking one deep belly breath after another, she focused on clearing her mind. She focused on releasing the worry, focused on relaxing, focused on the positive force of the energy her body created.

  “Does that help?” Brianna asked from somewhere above.

  Casey focused on the primordial coolness of the earth. She breathed slowly and deeply. “Mmm.”

  “Is that your phone rattling on the table?”

  “Ignore it,” she murmured between more of those same slow, even breaths. After a minute, she rolled her head from side to side, gently stretching her neck.

  “It’s still shaking,” Brianna advised in a voice that moved toward the offending sound.

  “Take a message,” Casey instructed. Her mother wasn’t going anywhere. The doctors were alarmists. Her friends could wait, she didn’t want to talk to Oliver or Dylan, and her clients didn’t call on her cell phone.

  “Hello?… No, this is Brianna. Who… Oh, hi, John. Casey can’t come to the phone…. No, she’ll be a while…. I’m sure you wouldn’t be calling if it wasn’t important, but she can’t talk right now.”

  Casey released a breath. Pushing her upper body erect, she put out a hand just as Brianna returned with the phone. When she put it to her ear, she said, “I hope this is good.”

  “I think it is,” John informed her airily. “I’ve made a decision. I’m leaving the group.”

  Casey’s spine stiffened. “Leaving the group for what?”

  “Walter Ambrose and Gillian Bosch. They have an office ready for me. A receptionist is already calling my patients about the change.”

  “What about us? What about our group? What about the rent?”

  “The way I see it, I paid my rent every month. If Stuart chose to keep it, that’s the landlord’s problem. Let him go after Stuart, and as for the group, it’s not working for me anymore. I’m outta here, Casey. I have a practice and a reputation.”

  “So do I,” Casey said.

  “I have better things to do than bicker with you ladies.”

  “So do I,” Casey insisted.

  “I’m gone.”

  “So am I,” Casey fairly cried, and she didn’t back down. Swept along by indignation from one condescending dig too many, she told John her plans as they popped into her head. It was only when her thumb ended the call that she raised wide eyes to her friend in an expression that said, What have I done?

  Chapter Four

  Casey didn’t say a thing. She simply held her breath and looked at Brianna.

  It was a long moment before Brianna said, “Not that you always look both ways either.”

  “Okay,” Casey admitted, reasoning aloud, “I’m flying by the seat of my pants here, but it isn’t so crazy, is it? I have an office inside all set to go. There’s a waiting room with its own entrance. There’s zero rent.”

  “You just said you were going to sell.”

  “That was before John bailed out. Without him, there’s no group.” As she said it, reality hit. “We’d have to find another psychiatrist, because a group practice needs at least one, and that’d mean getting word out and interviewing candidates, but even before that comes the question of whether I want to stay with Marlene and Renée. And then there’s the issue of finding a new place, because there’s no way we can come up with the back rent, especially now that John is washing his hands of the whole thing. He’s right; the rest of us did pay our rent. Stuart signed the lease; Stuart collected our money; Stuart pocketed it and rode off into the sunset. If the landlord goes after anyone, it’ll be him. So maybe I should be worried that something t
errible has happened to him, but he and I never clicked. Now I understand why. He’s abandoned his wife, about whom I do worry, but Stuart? We’re talking a snake, here. He’s off somewhere, living on my hard-earned money. Well, I have an ongoing practice, and I need a place to see clients.” She looked toward the office. “Can you imagine meeting with clients in there, looking out, and seeing this? It would be totally therapeutic.”

  “It’s your father’s.”

  “Was. He’s dead. You pointed that out.”

  “Right, and when I did, you said that in your mind he isn’t.”

  Casey took a deep breath. “Well, I’ll just have to work on that. And you and I both know that the best way to do that is to confront it. Confront him. Beard the lion in his den. And here’s his den.”

  “Will you sell your condo?”

  “I don’t know. I haven’t thought that far. I mean, we’re not necessarily talking a permanent decision. Staying here could be a totally temporary thing.”

  “How temporary? Providence can’t wait very long.”

  “Things happen for a reason,” Casey said as she lifted the phone. “If I go to the effort of setting up shop here, calling clients, starting over even for a little while, maybe I’m saying that I’m meant to be in Boston. Maybe my mother will wake up. Maybe Mr. Right lives here on the Hill and will see me if I hang out on the roof deck long enough. Maybe I want a clinical practice more than I want to teach.” She pulled up a number with her thumb and made the call. “If that’s so, maybe Stuart’s disappearance and John’s defection were in the cards all along.” With expectant eyes on Brianna, she waited for the friend she was calling to answer.

  “Hi, there,” said the voice on the answering machine. “It’s Joy. You got me at a bad time, so just leave a message and I’ll return your call.”

  At the beep, Casey said, “It’s me, and I’m sorry you’re not free, because plan A is for you to be right here, right now with Bria and me. Since you’re not home, we go to plan B. I’m throwing a move-the-office party tomorrow morning, and I need you there. We’ll be packing up Copley Square and moving to Beacon Hill, and the prize at the end is brunch in the Garden of Eden. So be at my office at nine tomorrow morning. I know it’s early, but, trust me, it’ll be fun. See ya then.” She was smiling when she ended the call, and quickly pulled another number from those programmed into her phone.