by Gina LaManna
“That’s not true.”
“It’s true,” I wailed.
“No, I mean I had the housekeeper pick up more at the store. We have them. At home. Two boxes. In the cupboard.”
“Are you sure?” I turned what were almost watery eyes on him. “Because they don’t come in boxes.”
“Jars, canisters, whatever. The containers that hold them.”
My lips turned into a pout; I felt like I still wanted to have a breakdown, but Anthony had just taken away my breakdown material.
Anthony shifted his weight from one side of the seat to the other. “Lacey, what’s happening?”
“I don’t know…” the screeching wail was back; my defense against the tears. “I feel sad.”
“We’ll find your cousins. Is this about your cousins?”
I turned towards Anthony. “I don’t know what it’s about!”
“How? How do you not know why you’re sad? Is it the mini-marshmallows?”
“No.” I reached for a Kleenex in the glove compartment. I honked my nose once. “It’s never about the marshmallows.”
“Sometimes I think it’s about the marshmallows.”
“No!”
Anthony looked like a stick figure drawing trying to drive, all stiff and rigid. “I want to help, just tell me what to do.”
“I’m trying to figure it out, Anthony, just give me some time. I’m a mess.”
“You’re a little bit of a mess.” Anthony peered over at me. “That’s why we’re going to shower.”
“You’re not supposed to tell me I’m a mess!”
“You know what? Let’s not talk. Let’s play the quiet game until we get home.” Anthony reached forward and turned the radio on. “Does that work for you?”
My body twisted sideways as I tried to settle in the seat. I nodded, but I couldn’t get comfortable. I flopped around a bit, craned my neck this way and that, thought about those damn marshmallows, until finally, I leaned over the center console and rested my head on Anthony’s shoulder. “Can I set my head here?”
His sigh of relief brushed away the few stray hairs that had wiggled out of my ponytail. “You can rest there anytime. My shoulder is always available for your beautiful head.”
“My head’s not beautiful right now, Anthony.”
I didn’t expect the swerving motion, seeing as how we were on the highway. But Anthony veered the wheel right, applied the brake, and pulled us to a stop on the shoulder.
“What are you doing?” I raised my head from that comfy resting place on Anthony’s shoulder and looked him in the eyes. “Is everything okay?”
“That’s what I want to know.” Anthony leaned back in the seat, looking at me out of the corner of his eyes. “I can only concentrate on one thing at a time, and I’m picking you over driving. Now, can you tell me why you broke down over some mini-marshmallows?”
I shrugged. “I don’t know.”
“Can you try?” Anthony’s voice took on an almost pleading sort of tone. “I really want to help, but I’m not Meg.”
“Not Meg?”
“I’m not psychic.” A small smile curved Anthony’s mouth upwards. “Too soon?”
My own lips twitched to match his. “You know she’s just mispronouncing sidekick every time she says that, right?”
Anthony laughed, and my tears started to disappear. I inhaled one of those breaths that fills up the entire chest, and when I let it out, a lot of that stress floated away with a hiss of air leaving my lungs. “Don’t you ever think emotions are confusing?”
Anthony fixed his gaze out the window. “Not really.”
“But how…why?”
“I learned a long time ago that emotions don’t help me sort through problems.” He stared at the cars passing by on the highway. “So I mostly ignore them.”
“That’s not healthy.”
“Maybe not, but it works for me.” He turned his head back in my direction. “I can put my emotions away. There are pros and cons to that, absolutely; for example, I don’t get as sad or as upset as you, but I also don’t get as happy. It’s a trade-off.”
“But why would you not want to experience happiness?” I considered his words. “Even if it does mean some sadness.”
“Because sometimes, the lows get too low, and it’s hard to imagine that the highs might ever be worth the pain.” Anthony’s voice took on a metallic, almost robotic tone. “So it’s easier just to not worry about feeling either. At all.”
My heart broke a little bit. “What would have ever caused you to believe that?”
“Lacey, will you go on a date with me tonight?”
“Now?” I swallowed. “I’m not sure I’m in the celebrating type mood. My cousins are still missing, and…”
“It’s not your typical date,” Anthony said. “I want to show you something. Something I should have shown you a while ago. It’s time I explained a few things to you.”
“A few things like…” I trailed off. “Anthony, you don’t have to explain anything. I love you just how you are. If it’s going to hurt you to talk about, or if you’re not ready, I don’t want to push you.”
“It’s time.” The robotic intonation was back. “What do you say we go back home; you jump into the shower, take a long, hot, relaxing rinse, and I’ll have hot chocolate waiting for you when you get out. With mini-marshmallows.”
I scooped up Anthony’s hand from my thigh and gave his palm a squeeze. “That sounds wonderful. What can I do for you?”
“Nothing.”
“But—”
“If I have one request,” Anthony interrupted, “it’s just for you to be open when you hear what I have to say tonight.”
“I’m always here to listen.”
“Shall we?” Anthony nodded towards the road.
“One more thing.” I sat up further. “Can we please stay close? For our date, I mean. If we get a phone call about the girls, we’ll have to cut our date short to find them. I can’t leave them out there, Anthony.”
“Of course,” Anthony said. “I’ll be honest. It’s not much of a date. More like a stroll; I find sometimes that walking around, thinking about other things, letting a case simmer in the back of my head gives me better ideas than trying too hard. Sometimes solutions that hadn’t presented themselves before worm their way to the surface, and all of a sudden, details you’ve been missing stand out as clear as day.”
“Then I think a date is exactly what tonight calls for.” I kissed Anthony on the cheek. He caught my face in his hands, and turned the simple peck into a hot, deep kiss, his fingers holding my head close to his.
When he broke away, he smiled. “Shower first?”
“Are you saying I smell?”
“Never.”
“It’s okay, I smell.”
“A little.”
“It’s the mud on my boots.”
“Tell yourself whatever makes you feel better.” Anthony laughed as I gave him a light pinch on the arm. “Anyway, I like you getting dirty. Means you have to shower, and it just so happens I’d like to join.”
CHAPTER 24
One steamy shower, two steamy hot chocolates, and three steamy toaster strudels later, I bundled myself into a scarf and a heavy winter parka. When I stepped outside, Anthony looked up from his perch against the car and gave me a soft smile. He opened the passenger’s door on his Audi with a flourish and a deep, exaggerated bow.
“Well, hello Vanna White. Look at the service; now this is what I call a date.” I pecked him on the cheek, his skin still toasty from the delicious shower we’d shared only minutes before.
After sliding in the car, I flipped down the mirror. My face was still red from some combination of steam, kissing, and cold air, though even a red face was a vast improvement from before. Heck, I’d even managed a few swipes of mascara and some rose-tinted chapstick. I was feelin’ like a million bucks.
“Do I need anything else?” I asked as Anthony climbed in the car. I glanced down at
my boots, jeans, sweatshirt, and mittens. “I dressed for outside, like you said. I hope you’re not planning to take me somewhere fancy. Otherwise tell me, and I’ll go change.”
“You’re dressed perfectly for where we’re headed.” Starting the car, he cranked the heat up and had us out of the estate and past the guards in no time at all.
“You know, it takes me an average of twenty-two minutes to get in and out of the estate with all the security,” I said. “I timed it.”
“Every time?”
“I mean, it’s an average. Sometimes less. But sometimes more.”
“Maybe they just like looking at you.” Anthony eased into a more comfortable driving position before glancing over at me. “If you hadn’t agreed to date me, I’d stop you every chance I could get.”
“Would you…frisk me?” I asked. “Because I probably would have let you.”
I winked, my spirits a little higher than before. How had Anthony and I forgotten to go on dates together already? I made a mental note to take him out to dinner sometime. This was fun; teasing each other, putting on pants, eating food that wasn’t made out of hearts, stars, horseshoes, clovers, and blue moons.
Fifteen minutes later, Anthony turned his blinker on and announced that we’d arrived.
“Thank you for taking me here,” I said as he parked the car in a tiny parking lot somewhere off I-35. “I would’ve gone nuts at home waiting for information on the girls, and this…this is a nice distraction. You always know the right thing to do.”
His face, which had brightened at my compliment, turned serious again. “No, Lacey, I don’t, and that’s precisely what I want to talk to you about.”
I slid over in my seat, pulling myself onto my knees in an odd, cramped position until I could grip Anthony’s chin in my hand and make him look me in the eyes. “Nobody’s perfect. But you’re perfect for me, got it?”
Anthony blinked.
“Do you understand?”
He looked down. “I hope so, Lace.”
“I know so.” I brought him in then, hugging him to my chest. “You’re perfect for me. That’s all that matters.”
CHAPTER 25
“Do you want to know how I started working for Carlos?” Anthony looked up from the darkness at the back of the cave. We sat inches apart, close enough to feel the weighty silence between us, far enough that we weren’t touching.
“I’ll admit, I’m curious. At the same time, I’m used to mystery when it comes to you. For crying out loud, I love you, and I’m not even sure about your last name!” I gave a light laugh. “I do love you, Anthony, and I want to know about your past. But I also don’t, if that makes sense; I don’t want to force anything.”
“We’ve been dating a while now, and you deserve to know.” Anthony cleared his throat. “You deserve some answers from a man I hope you’ll consider marrying someday.”
I hadn’t expected him to drop the marriage card so soon. Strangely enough, it didn’t feel wrong. We were practically living together, and we loved each other. Marriage was the next logical step.
“I trust you to tell me what I need to know.” I picked up a pile of sand with my fingers, the cave shielding the ground from the snowfall. “And I don’t think it’s my right, nor my business, to know everything. You don’t know every detail about my past, and that’s okay because you know the important things.”
Anthony sat in silence, staring at the crystalline grains. He’d driven us to a small, local park just outside of downtown St. Paul. A sign at the entrance read Battle Creek Regional Park, a place where Meg and I had spent many afternoons as kids – climbing these hills, dodging in and out of these caves, and dipping our feet into the frosty little stream. Under the dark of night and the deepest corners of winter, the park was deserted. Snow-covered fields sat tucked between tall hills covered with trees, their branches sagging underneath the accumulating flakes. During the summer months, shrieks of sugar-filled children filled the air. Tonight, it was peaceful.
A creek ran through the center of the park. On hot days, it gurgled alongside a pleasant walking trail. Now, the bubbling brook had frozen to an icy snake winding its way through the park, crackling as the temps dropped to single digits. A series of caves sat hidden in the largest of hills, white sand spilling from their mouths. This was where Anthony had brought me.
Now, we sat huddled together with the snow falling around us in light, fluttering gusts, the ground thick with powder.
Anthony cleared his throat. “I started to tell you this story on your birthday, but then I got started kissing you, and I just couldn’t stop.”
I smiled at the memory. Anthony had bought an ice cream cake with my name on it. Just my name, and nobody else’s. Nobody’s secondhand anniversary cake or birthday present. It hadn’t been made for Shannon’s Sweet Shoppe or Joanne-the-Bomb-dot-com. Not Sylvia, not Nadia, not Stacia, not Connie, not Marsha…just Lacey.
“All I know is that you lived in a shack in Stillwater when you first came over,” I said. “Somehow, you got involved with Carlos. I’m guessing there’s a few pieces missing in there?”
“I was just a boy,” Anthony said. “When I came over from Italy, I didn’t own anything. The shirt on my back didn’t belong to me. I’d stolen it.”
“Why did you leave Italy?” I promised myself that, no matter what Anthony said, I wouldn’t cry. After all, I already knew the ending to this story. He’d survived, and now he was mine. “I don’t like thinking about you alone like that.”
He reached out a hand. “Can I save that story for a different day?”
“Of course,” I said. “Whatever you want.”
Anthony waited a few beats, inhaling and exhaling in sync with the rhythm of my heart. “You must understand, Carlos and I had some mutual…let’s call them connections back in Italy.”
Connections, I thought. The way he said the word, I didn’t think he meant friends.
“So after I escaped to America, it was only a matter of time before Carlos heard I was in the country. We weren’t complete strangers since he knew my family. It didn’t take him long to find my hideout.”
“The shack?”
Nodding, he looked straight at me, but his eyes didn’t see me. Staring so intently at an invisible memory, I wondered for a moment if he’d decided not to continue.
When Anthony spoke again, the sound of his voice drew my gaze back to his face, a tenderness in his eyes battling with the hard line of his jaw. He was so many things, this man; complicated, yes. Warm and cold, all at once. Stern and loving in the same second. Unforgiving and kind with every move. Watching his face was like watching an incredible puzzle come together; each piece was so different than its partners, each one so vibrant and colorful and unique. Pieces full of brightness and pieces heavy with darkness that drew together and formed one complete, complex image.
“Carlos found me, then dragged me back to the estate. He took me in, fed me, and clothed me. And he wasn’t the only one.” Anthony’s eyes crinkled with the softness he reserved for special occasions. “Your grandmother, she cared for me and nourished me in so many ways.”
“I bet you didn’t get a whole lot of nourishment from her pancakes,” I said with a lighter tone.
Anthony laughed. “I was in no position to complain about anything. They let me live in the barn out back, which wasn’t anything special to them. But to me, it was a castle. I loved it. Still do.”
“Me too.” I smiled.
He hugged me tighter. “I love it even more now. Before it was shelter, but now, you’ve made it our home.”
I meant to let him keep talking, but since we were in the middle of a heart-to-heart, I had to clear the air on the correct location for my underwear drawer. “Anthony,” I hesitated. “Do you want me to move in with you…for good?”
His back stiffened. “Excuse me?”
Shifting towards him, the white sand cascaded over my boots. “You haven’t asked me to move in with you. Not officially.”
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He shook his head. “What are you talking about?”
“On Christmas when you showed me your house, you said it could be ours if we wanted. You said I could stay there for a day, a week, a year, or whatever.”
Anthony did a double blink a la Cartoon Network. “I thought you had moved in.”
I bit my lip. For a man whose powers of observation were supposedly the best in the business, sometimes I had my doubts. “I’m not sure if you’ve noticed, but I don’t keep all that much stuff at your place. I know that I’m not Miss Moneybags over here with ten truckloads of junk and furniture to haul over, but I do have a few suitcases.”
Anthony’s tanned skin turned a few shades lighter. “I’m sorry, I thought I’d made that clear. I built it with you in mind. You and me. Us. I don’t think in terms of me anymore. I think about us as a pair.”
Looking down, I drew a tic-tac-toe board in the sand. Maybe I was blowing this a little out of proportion.
Then Anthony interrupted my doodling with a nervous laugh. “And if you haven’t moved in, then why did you leave those…those things in the bathroom last week?”
I tried to stifle a grin. “Tampons?”
Anthony looked away. “Do we have to talk about it?”
I leaned my head against his chest and let the subject drop. “Look, maybe I should’ve brought this up sooner.” My gaze wandered down to my boots, which were partially buried in the luxurious white sand. “I thought maybe you’d bring it up in conversation sometime, but then I just started staying over more and more.”
“And now you stay over more nights than not.”
“Yes, but Anthony, I still go home a few times a week. To my home. I still have an apartment with Clay.” I nuzzled closer. “I still carry my underwear to your house in a purse.”
“Why would you carry underwear in a purse?”
“Because! I never know which nights I’m going to stay over and which nights I’m going to leave and go to my apartment. So I have a few pairs stashed to be safe.”
