by Phoebe Fox
It was an old joke between us—Michael had always called me Veruca Salt, because, as he said, “You want everything now!”
I grinned back.
“Some things don’t change. What did they say?”
“No word yet. We have to be patient.”
“What do you mean, no word? Jim tanked this morning. Listeners were literally begging for me. What more do they want?”
“These things take some time, Brook. Right now they may still be thinking that Jim will get his wheels under him and gain steam.” He took a long sip of his beer and leaned back. “But don’t worry—what you do isn’t easily replicable, and they’re going to figure that out.”
I folded my arms across my chest, scowling.
“You said play hardball. You said sit out one show. How long are we supposed to wait for the station to decide they need me after all?”
He took another sip of beer so maddeningly calmly and leisurely I wanted to lean forward and shove the bottle into his teeth.
“As long as it takes.”
“Dammit, Michael!”
At my raised voice Jake stirred from his comfortable curl under my feet, and I leaned over to soothe him, cutting an apologetic glance to the three other patrons nearby.
“Brook…” Michael put the bottle down and leaned forward to meet my eyes. “Please trust me. And if you can’t do that”—he picked at the damp label of his beer—“at least have faith in yourself. You can do this. You’re worth more.”
I leaned back and blew out a long breath. “Fine. I’ll be ‘patient,’” I said, with air quotes. “What’s next on your terrifying bucket list?”
“I want you to ask the newspaper for a raise.”
“What?”
That little stand-off resulted in another fifteen minutes of spirited back-and-forth. But he was like speeded-up time-lapse photography of water wearing away stone, smoothing down every hard edge of my resistance with unexpectedly solid, reasoned arguments that left me no rational option but to agree.
“You are killing me, Michael,” I grumbled, but I didn’t mean it.
Lisa Albrecht’s head was going to explode, but I was going in there to stipulate more money for continuing my column.
I couldn’t help a smile; I had to admit that I loved Michael’s view of me and what I did—his confidence in my abilities and their value. And it was so good to be able to talk to him like this, after so much bitterness between us. I reached across the table for his hand where it still worked at shredding the beer label.
“Thanks, Michael,” I said fondly. “I’m really glad you came back.”
He looked up, meeting my eyes, and for a moment the guileless directness in them felt as though we were sitting there naked in front of each other. My heartbeat quickened as neither one of us averted our gaze, and he slowly moved his hand so it engulfed mine, twining our fingers together. Relishing the warmth, the connection, I let him.
“Brook?”
You know how you can be really familiar with someone—your regular checkout person at the grocery store, say—and then when you run into them out of context, in a restaurant or at the beach or a concert, you have the disorienting feeling of knowing you know this person and yet not quite being able to place them right away?
That was what I felt when I heard an instantly recognizable voice calling my name in a place where I had no reason to expect to hear it.
Ben’s mother, Adelaide, and I had gotten close when I’d dated Ben. Laid up with a bum knee while her son was working out of town and I was watching Jake, the vibrant, active woman had been lonely enough that I’d taken to bringing the dog by and visiting with her a few times a week. Her warmth and acceptance filled the hole where I’d always wanted my mom to offer those things, and when I’d broken Ben’s heart, losing her friendship was one of the hardest casualties of war to bear. I hadn’t seen her since, though I always hoped that one day we’d run into each other.
But not here. Not now…while I was sitting at a table with a man who was not her son, in what looked like a cozy little moment of intimacy.
And not when Ben stood beside her on the sidewalk not fifteen feet away, still as a statue as he looked at Michael and me with shadowed eyes I couldn’t read.
But I didn’t have long to try to interpret his reaction—the moment Jake heard Adelaide’s voice, the dog leaped to his feet so fast that his big, broad back shot up against the edge of the table. He lunged toward Adelaide as the table jostled, upsetting our drinks and sending both bottles crashing to the pavement. Chilly liquid splashed my ankles along with a sting like fire ant bites—glass shards, I registered dimly as I vainly tried to control the ecstatic dog yanking against his leash so hard my shoulder practically dislocated.
“Are you all right?” Michael yelped, shooting to his feet as Jake finally pulled me out of my seat and sent me catapulting toward Adelaide, on the other side of the flimsy roped-off patio area.
Strong arms somehow caught me just before I went facedown into the sidewalk, and I looked up to meet Ben’s bewildered eyes as his hands gripped my shoulders to steady me. I’d seen this look in them once before—the morning after we broke up, when he’d surprised me and Chip Santana in partial flagrante on my back porch.
“You’re supposed to be at the airport,” I said nonsensically.
“Mom caught an earlier flight.” The words were clipped.
Jake had dropped his butt to the concrete with a single upraised hand from Adelaide—no one else could control the beast the way she did—and she gently stroked his head as behind me I heard a phalanx of servers flock to the scene to clean up the mess.
In that frozen second I locked gazes with Ben, wanting to explain, yet wondering why I felt I needed to.
“You got hurt,” he said.
I nodded, heat filling my eyes. “Yes. But so did you.”
He frowned and looked down at the hem of his spotless khaki pants. “No—it didn’t get this far.” He let go of my upper arms and pointed to my ankles.
Little pinpoints of blood dotted my skin from the shattered bottles, a few thin rivulets streaking down in places.
“Oh,” I said. “It’s…nothing.”
“You need to make sure to get the glass out, Brook,” I heard Adelaide say, and I turned to her.
“Adelaide. It’s so good to see you. Welcome home.” My smile wobbled. I hadn’t realized how much I’d missed her ’til I saw her. She looked just the same—maybe tanner from her cruise, a little bit thinner, but so dear and familiar I wanted to lean over and hug her.
Michael interrupted before I could. “Hey, there—friends of yours, Brook?” He came up behind me, standing too close, but I couldn’t step away without practically throwing myself into Ben’s arms where he still stood in front of me just across the rope barrier.
There had been a half a dozen times that I’d considered telling Ben about Michael being back in town, but I hadn’t. I’d been afraid that mention of my former fiancé would bring up every doubt, every bit of mistrust I’d earned after the Chip Santana debacle.
Now that I was about to be forced to introduce the man I’d once loved to the man I still did, I would have given anything if I’d said something before.
“Adelaide…Ben,” I said, nearly choking on my own tongue. “This is Michael.” I muttered the name, but I saw from the way Ben furrowed his eyebrows and then blinked and recoiled slightly that he’d made the connection.
“Sorry to interrupt,” Ben said, not quite looking directly at me. “Mom wanted to grab a bite on the way home. I can take Jakie now, if you like, so you don’t have to cut your evening short.”
“No, I don’t mind bringing—”
“It’s all right. If I take him I can save you the trip.”
“This is your dog?” Michael asked b
ehind me, and in the tight sound of his voice I heard his understanding of who Ben was. Who he was to me.
He stepped up next to me, but his eyes were glued on Ben, who met his stare with a direct one of his own. For a moment it was a strange little Mexican stand-off, Adelaide and me on either side as the two men seemed to be sussing each other out, each one clearly knowing exactly who the other was. I wanted to fix it—to assure Ben that nothing was going on with me and my ex, regardless of how it looked; to assuage the hurt I’d heard in Michael’s voice. But anything I said to either of them would only make things worse.
Adelaide gave me a long glance with none of the accusation or even disappointment I deserved. Just kindness and a gentle acceptance. “I’m awfully tired, dear,” she said to Ben, laying a hand on his arm, though her eyes stayed steady on mine. “I think I’d just like to go home.”
Ben seemed to remember she was there only when she touched him. He started, breaking eye contact with Michael and moving his gaze to me.
“I don’t mind bringing Jake over later. Really,” I said to him softly, but I heard the desperate edge to my tone. I needed a reason to come talk to him alone. To explain.
But he simply reached for the leash, his warm fingers brushing my wrist and then, to my surprise, giving a slight squeeze before he gently took the lead from my hand. “I’m only trying to make things easier on you, Brook,” he said quietly.
“We should go, dear,” Adelaide said to Ben, offering me a smile that didn’t match the sad look in her eyes.
I watched them turn and move along the sidewalk back the way they’d come, Jake not even glancing back in my direction, Adelaide’s thin, strong hand touching her son’s shoulder briefly before they turned a corner and were out of sight.
twenty-one
“That was him. The guy you wouldn’t talk about.”
We were sitting at our table, and Michael asked the question to my bent back as I leaned over to clean my cuts with a wet cocktail napkin and check for glass. He’d offered to do it, but the intimacy of that had made me recoil—and I needed something to focus on to avoid his searching gaze.
His question wasn’t accusatory—it sounded more like a statement, and I simply nodded, unwilling to raise my gaze and meet his eyes.
“You still care about him.”
“It doesn’t matter,” I said dully.
“You had his dog…obviously you’re still friends.” There was a long pause, and then: “Why are you here with me instead of him?”
I glanced up at him, confused. “You’re…you’re helping me. We’re friends.”
His lips tightened and he crossed his arms. “It’s more than that, Brook, and you know it.”
I shook my head. “No. We said—”
“I don’t care what we said! Are you really telling me you were totally unaware of what’s going on? All our banter, falling into all our old habits so easily? You ask me about my sex life since I blew things up with us…And then the way you hugged me in your office…And tonight? Honestly, Brook? Who are you trying to fool—me, or yourself?”
I stared at him, my mouth open, but nothing coming out of it.
“Um…would you like us to bring you more drinks, or should we release your table?”
Our server was standing beside us, our mess having been neatly tidied, and I realized the other patrons on the patio were now watching me and Michael like we were a dinner theater show.
Which we were being, with all the drama that had played out in the last five minutes. I swallowed, mortified. Public scenes weren’t my thing, and reminded me unpleasantly of my rock-bottom with Kendall.
“No…thank you,” I told the server. “We’re going.” I stood and reached toward my purse, still hanging on the back of my chair, but Michael had beaten me to the punch, throwing a twenty on the table and taking my elbow to lead me out.
I wasn’t processing what had happened—it had all gone too fast. Adelaide was back and Jake was gone and now I had no reason to see Ben except at our regular Sunday meeting at Dog Beach—and I had no way of knowing whether he’d show up for that again. What was the look in his eyes when he’d caught me from falling? Beneath his confusion I almost thought I’d seen hurt—but why? Just because the scene reminded him of the last time he’d happened upon me with someone else, before everything between us came to a crashing end?
I mindlessly let Michael walk us all the way to Hendry Street before I finally stopped to look at him.
Meanwhile here was another man I’d once cared about—wanting a new beginning. A desire I’d been pretending not to see so I didn’t have to make any choices…and risk making the wrong one.
“I’m sorry,” I said, looking up at him.
He looked confused, then cautious. “Why are you sorry?”
“You’re right. I knew there was more going on. With us. I just…” I blew out a long breath of air, looking up to the Cigar Bar, where Sasha and I used to swagger in once in a while and choose stogies from the chilled vault and sit at the bar smoking them like mafiosos. Back when you could still smoke inside. Back when we were younger. When the biggest choice we had to worry about was whether it was worth making ourselves nauseous from the cigar smoke.
I looked back to Michael, who was watching me with no trace of his usual levity. Waiting.
“I was trying not to…to rush into anything,” I finally finished, searching for a truth that wouldn’t hurt either one of us.
One corner of Michael’s mouth lifted in the grin I knew so well. “Brook, I was asking for a date, not a lifetime commitment. Not yet,” he added quickly. “But I mean, not necessarily either, unless that’s what we—”
Despite everything, I laughed. “It’s okay. I know what you mean.” I threw my hands out to the sides in a giant shrug. “Jesus, I’m so tired of this minefield between us.”
“Yeah. Me too.”
What had I been thinking? Michael had come all the way back across the country to make things right between us, to show me he’d changed…to ask for a second chance. And I’d been keeping him at arm’s length, in reserve, while I chased after someone who’d long since moved on. Making an idiot of myself.
Someone passed by too close, bumping my arm. “Sorry,” the girl called with a backward wave, shiny hair swaying behind her like a liquid curtain.
I turned to Michael. “Ask me out.”
“What?”
“Ask me on a date. Right now.”
His eyebrows lifted. “A little bossy, aren’t you, Veruca?”
“Come on,” I said, filled with a strange urgency. “Do it.”
He looked to the sky as if for divine intervention. “You know, I’m only feeding the demon if I cave to your demands. This kind of thing has to be organic.”
I just faced him, hands behind my back.
He crossed his arms and leveled an implacable look at me, but I could see he wasn’t trying that hard to outwait me. “Fine,” he said. “Brook. Will you please go out with me?”
I rolled my eyes. “That sucks. You have to be specific.”
“I don’t remember you being this high-maintenance.”
“Come on.”
He let out a long-suffering sigh. “Brook…will you please accompany me this Friday night, March fourth, at seven in the evening, for dinner and cocktails?” He raised one eyebrow. “Do I need to specify the menu?”
I swayed into him, bumping his shoulder with mine. “No. That was really good. Yes, Michael,” I said fiercely. “I’d like to have dinner with you.”
“Good God. That was harder than the Israeli-Palestinian peace talks.” But he was smiling at me, his eyes warm.
We walked side by side back to our cars, and I managed to keep the smile on my face until I waved goodbye and pulled away.
twenty-two
With one major exception last year during the most mortifying of my breakup breakdown, there hasn’t been a single decision, piece of news, or life development that I haven’t shared with Sasha.
Except this one.
It wasn’t that I didn’t want to. Partly I just felt stupid—I’d done exactly what she told me not to in pursuing a friendship with Michael, and it had wound up backfiring, exactly as she said it would: I couldn’t imagine there was any reason for me to hold out hope with Ben after he’d seen us together. And if I told her that afterward I’d finally agreed to an actual date with Michael…well…I knew what she’d say. And I didn’t want to hear all the reasons my decision was foolish.
I already suspected it was.
But I had the rest of the week to worry about that. For now, I could focus instead on work—always my comfort when my personal life was overwhelming. Michael had tasked me with asking Lisa Albrecht for a raise, and that was a battle I needed my loins well and truly girded for.
“I have four things on fire and exactly three and a half minutes for you, Brook, so enter talking,” Lisa said without looking up from her monitor as I walked into her office at lunch on Wednesday afternoon for our appointment.
“And hello to you too, Lisa.”
She let out a long-suffering sigh, but finally glanced at me. “Really? Every single time?”
“It’s a social nicety. And it makes people feel as if they matter to you.”
She made a dismissive gesture in the air. “Why would I lie to them?”
I crossed my arms and leaned against her cubicle opening, perfectly willing to wait the abrasive woman out.
Another gusty sigh, and then: “Fine. Hello, Brook. How are you today?” She said each word woodenly, as if it were a memorized script, but I considered it progress that Lisa actually made an effort.
“I’m good, thanks for asking. Sounds like you’re having a tough day.”
She leaned back in her upholstered seat, motioning for me to sit on the chrome-and-fabric chair opposite her desk that took up most of the rest of her cubicle. “A sick photographer. A reporter who’s lost somewhere in Cape Coral and missing the ridiculously non-newsworthy dog parade that we nonetheless are supposed to be covering. A story that’s such a mess, I’m wondering whether my reporter actually understands English. The usual. Tell me you have something good for me.”
