Symphony in Blue

by M. J. Duncan

  “I win!”

  Gwen rolled her eyes at his antics and glanced at her watch. “If you say so. It’s almost a quarter to one. Do you want to caravan down there to save time since it’s on the way to Santa Monica for you?”

  “Sure. That sounds good. I’ll call Jay when we’re driving to let him know what’s going on. Would you be okay if he maybe wanted to meet us there?”

  “Why wouldn’t I be?”

  Luke shrugged. “I just didn’t know how sociable you’d be feeling today.”

  “I’m fine,” Gwen assured him with a smile. “But thanks.”

  He nodded and pulled her into a light hug. “Any time,” he murmured as he pressed a kiss to the top of her head. “Are you feeling a little better today?”

  Gwen pursed her lips thoughtfully as she pulled away. For as much as the conversation with Dana the night before had sucked, coming clean and owning up to her mistake did make feel like the weight she had been carrying around on her shoulders was just a little bit lighter than it had been even twenty-four hours ago. “A little. Yeah. Is that bad?”

  “No.” He shook his head. “You can’t carry guilt like that around forever. You made a mistake and now you’re trying to make it right, and that’s all you can do.”

  Gwen sighed. She knew he was right, but she also had a feeling it was going to take a little more time before she would be able to forgive herself for what she had done. “Yeah, I know. It just…”

  “Sucks.”

  “Yeah.”

  “It’ll get better.”

  “I hope so,” Gwen murmured. She sighed and shook her head. “But, for now, it is what it is. You ready to go?”

  “When you are,” Luke agreed easily. “And I wanna thank you for putting so much effort into dressing up for me.”

  “Shut up.” Gwen laughed as she started making her way toward the front door. “You’re wearing shorts and a T-shirt, it’s not like you’re much better.”

  “But it looks nicer.”

  “Yeah, well, I don’t have to go anywhere except the grocery store today, so I’m good with my sweats.” Gwen picked up her keys and purse as Luke opened the front door. “Besides, it’s not like I’m trying to impress anyone, right?”

  “I guess so,” Luke conceded as she locked up after them. He slung an arm over her shoulders as they reached the bottom of the stairs, and pressed his lips to her temple. “See you there?”

  “See you there.” She smiled as his arm fell away, and opened her garage as he headed to his car that was parked at the curb a few feet away.

  Gwen blew out a soft breath as she tossed her purse onto the passenger seat and slid behind the wheel, and turned to look over her shoulder as she backed out, not trusting her back up camera to detect any cars speeding down the hill in time to prevent a collision. Even though she knew where she was going, Luke had still waited for her, and she smiled as she fell in behind him. She turned on the stereo as they rolled through Franklin, and bobbed her head with the music as she followed him down Gower toward Melrose.

  Traffic was surprisingly light going down Melrose into West Hollywood, and twenty-five minutes later they were turning left onto Robertson. Luke fit his little silver M3 into a ridiculously tight metered spot in front of the restaurant, and Gwen shook her head the triumphant grin he gave her as she drove past, looking for a space big enough for her SUV. By the time she walked back to Joe's, Luke was sitting at one of the two tables on the sidewalk in front of the diner waiting for her.

  “You find a place okay?”

  “Yeah. About half a block down.” Gwen hiked a thumb over her shoulder. “You wanna sit out here, or inside?”

  “I’m good with whatever. My headache’s down to manageable levels. How about you?”

  “Same. The shower helped a lot.”

  Luke peered through the window. “It’s still nice out, but it’d probably be easier to fit all three of us at one of the tables inside so that we don’t take up half the sidewalk.”

  “So Jay’s coming?” Gwen asked as she pulled open the door to the coffee shop.

  “Yeah. But he said he ate already, so he said to just go ahead and order,” Luke shared as they made their way past the counter that sat eight, where a trio of old men wearing identical faded blue polo shirts occupied the center stools, to an empty booth tucked in the back corner of the restaurant. He handed her a menu from the stack pinned between the little tray of condiments and the wall as he slid onto the bench facing the door and she sat across from him, and smiled at their server—a short, smiling hispanic woman in a pink Joe’s Coffee Shop tee—who arrived a moment later.

  “Can I get you two something to drink?”

  Luke nodded. “Coffee. Please.”

  “Make that two. But could you leave enough room in mine for cream and sugar?” Gwen asked.

  “Of course. I’ll give you a second to look over the menu and I’ll be back in a sec.”

  “I’m just going to have my usual,” Luke announced after she’d left. “You know what you want?”

  Gwen lifted her left shoulder in a small shrug as she looked over the menu, and then rolled her eyes as she set it back down because she ordered the same thing every time they came here. “I’ll just go with the feta omelet.”

  “I’m glad we’re so adventurous when we go out to eat,” Luke quipped with a grin. “We need to expand our horizons and try somewhere new one of these days so we’ll be forced to try something different.”

  “Probably,” Gwen agreed, chuckling softly as their server returned with their coffee and a small bowl of creamer pods for Gwen.

  “Are you ready to order?” the woman asked.

  “Could I get a feta, bacon, and tomato omelet, please,” Gwen ordered. “And a side of wheat toast?”

  The woman nodded as she scribbled on her pad.

  “And I’ll have the French toast and a guacamole omelet.”

  Gwen smirked at the way their server’s eyebrows lifted in surprise as she wrote down his order, and once she had left to turn it in, said, “One of these days your metabolism is going to go to shit and then what are you going to do?”

  Luke patted his stomach and grinned. “Get nice and fat and happy.”

  “Like you’d ever let that happen.”

  “Probably not. But I’m going to hit the gym later to help flush all that alcohol from my system, so I’ll burn the calories no problem.” He stretched his legs beneath the table and laced his fingers behind his neck. “You said you have to go grocery shopping, but what else do you have going on for the rest of the day?”

  “Laundry, cleaning, super-fun grown-up stuff like that.”

  “Wow. I don’t know how you’ll survive that kind of excitement. Do you need me to check in on you later to make sure you’re okay?”

  Gwen laughed and kicked his foot under the table. “I think I’ll be okay.” After a beat, she added, “Thank you.”

  “For what?”

  “Last night. This. Everything.” Gwen shrugged. “It’s nice to just feel like everything’s normal, you know.

  Luke nodded. “Any time.”

  SIXTEEN

  “Wait. What?!” Gwen laughed. “You’re kidding.”

  “I’m not.” Jay Bonita, Luke’s fiancé, grinned. He had made it to the coffee shop just after their food had been brought out, and had been regaling them with stories he’d heard from fellow teachers at a conference a couple weeks before. “This woman had a kid in her middle school orchestra group look at her and, in all seriousness, say, ‘The reason we can’t play Mozart is because he’s from your generation, not ours. Can’t we just play something more modern?’”

  “Wait, tell her the best part.” Luke nudged him with his elbow as he shoveled another forkful of French toast into his mouth.

  “I’m afraid to even ask,” Gwen murmured.

  “She’s twenty-five.”

  Gwen gaped at him. “You’re shitting me.”

  Jay chuckled, his warm brown eyes twink
ling with mirth as he ran a hand through his hair, sending clusters of dark waves cascading over his forehead as they slipped free. “I wish I was, but she's this adorable little brunette with an even more adorable southern accent who, I swear to god, doesn't even look like she's old enough to drive. Like, she got carded going into the bar we all went to after our session ended—and there wasn't even technically someone watching the door—and then by our server, and then the manager because they all thought the ID had to be a fake.”

  “Oh my god. And her students thought Mozart was from her generation?”

  Jay nodded. “Yup.”

  “Please tell me this wasn’t at some fifty-grand-a-year private school.”

  Luke cackled and shook his head.

  “Worse,” Jay shared with a wide grin. “She teaches at a very, very elite New England boarding school.”

  “Good lord,” Gwen groaned.

  “Is there anything else I can get you?” their waitress asked as she stopped at their table.

  Luke looked at Gwen, who shook her head, before answering, “I think we’re good.”

  “Great. I’ll leave this here, then,” she said, smiling as she placed a little plastic tray with their bill on the edge of their table.

  “What’s my half?” Gwen asked as she pulled her wallet from her purse.

  “Nothing. We’ve got this,” Jay said, grabbing the bill as he leaned to his left to pull his wallet out of his back pocket.

  “Jay…”

  “Nope.” Jay winked at her as he slipped his credit card beneath one of the little tabs on the tray and purposely kept it out of her reach. “We are buying you breakfast and there’s nothing you can say about it.”

  Gwen sighed and dropped her wallet back into her purse. “Thank you.”

  “You’re welcome.” Jay waved their server over and handed her the bill with his card, and settled back against the booth. “You wanna come help us pick flowers?”

  “Nah. I mean, thanks for asking and all, but I need to go grocery shopping still and you guys don't need me there for that.”

  “Great maid of honor, you are,” Luke teased. “Isn't helping pick the flowers and shit like one of your responsibilities?”

  “I thought I just had to get him to the wedding on time in a clean suit and give a speech at the reception?” Gwen arched a brow playfully at Jay. “Nobody said anything about flowers.”

  Jay chuckled as their server returned with his card and a copy of the transaction for him to sign. “That's between you two.” He slipped his card into his wallet and set it on the table. He picked up the blue pen from the tray with the receipt and added, “I never know what little deals you guys have going on,” as he scribbled his name across the slip. He checked the time on his phone as he dropped the pen on top of the signed receipt, and shot Luke a more serious look as he slid out of the booth and slipped his wallet back into his pocket. “But we are going to have to get moving if we’re going to get out to Santa Monica in time.”

  “You're sure you don't want to come?” Luke asked as he and Gwen followed suit.

  “Yeah. I'm good.” Gwen smiled as she slipped the strap of her purse over her shoulder. “Thanks, though.” She tilted her head toward Jay, who was already making his way toward the door. “You guys go plan your big gay wedding. But if you need a tie-breaker opinion, gimme a call.”

  “Sounds good.”

  “Okay, then.” Gwen waved a hand toward the door. “Go get your fiancé. I’ll talk to you later.”

  Luke nodded and pressed a light kiss to her cheek as he passed. “Count on it, beautiful.”

  Gwen chuckled and pulled her phone from her bag as she fell into step behind him to check that there was nothing she could think to add to the shopping list she had made the day before in her notes app, and huffed in surprise when he stopped suddenly in front of her and she ran into him. “What are you doing?”

  Luke turned and whispered in a rush, “It’s her.”

  Gwen frowned. “Who?” she asked, leaning to the side to peek past his shoulder. “Oh shit,” she muttered when she saw Dana Ryan sitting at the sidewalk table nearest the door and looking straight at Gwen’s only means of escape as she played with the straw in her glass of water.

  Dana looked stunning as ever in a simple, faded heather gray tee stamped with USC Swim & Dive in charcoal across the front, and the black running shorts she wore left miles of tanned legs on display beneath the table. Her prosthetic was more life-like than the one she had worn that day in Maui, with a skin-colored material shaped like the calf on her other leg covering the pole that stood-in for her missing tibia, and she wore maroon and gold Nike running shoes on her feet. Gwen shook her head as she forced herself to look at Dana’s face, dreading what she might find and hoping that Dana looked less angry and hurt than she had the night before. That hope, like most of Gwen’s lately, proved futile. Even the sunglasses Dana wore couldn’t hide the fact that she looked haggard, like she hadn’t slept more than an hour or two the night before, and her expression was drawn, with no hint of the smile Gwen had grown so accustomed to seeing curl her lips.

  Gwen swallowed thickly as the leaden feeling of guilt that had disappeared during their brunch returned with a vengeance, and sighed. “Of course it’s her.”

  “I can try and block you from her view,” Luke offered.

  “It’s fine. I’ll be fine,” Gwen lied. The absolute last thing she was, was fine. She shook her head and added, “With how pissed she was last night, I’m betting the odds are good that she’ll pretend she doesn’t see me anyway.” She gave him a light push toward the door. “Go. I’m right behind you.”

  “Text me when you get to your car,” Luke said as he started walking again. “Just so I know you’re okay.”

  Gwen smiled and nodded. “Okay.” Her smile slipped away as she stepped through the door Luke passed back to her. She couldn’t see Dana’s eyes because of the reflective lenses of her sunglasses, but she knew that she had been seen by the way Dana’s jaw tightened when she looked at her. “Go,” she murmured to Luke, who had paused protectively in front of her.

  He nodded and pulled his keys from his pocket as he called to Jay, “I’ll meet you there, okay?”

  The door closed behind her with a quiet scrape of metal against metal, and Gwen sighed as she offered Dana a small, apologetic smile. “Hey.” Dana bit her lip and looked away, and Gwen took that as her cue to leave. “Right. Sorry.” She turned away from Dana and toward her car. “Again,” she added softly, shaking her head.

  Because she was so, so sorry, but she also knew that it didn’t change anything.

  “Gwen. Wait,” Dana called after her. And then a little more softly, “Please.”

  Gwen closed her eyes and lifted her face toward the sun. She took a deep breath and held it for a moment before letting it go slowly as she spun to face Dana, her heart beating a hard, heavy rhythm in her throat as she held her hands out to her sides, leaving herself open for the attack Dana held back the night before. She knew she deserved it.

  “I…” Dana’s shoulders lifted as she took a deep breath, and she shook her head as she sat up straighter in her chair. “Do you maybe...” She nudged the chair opposite her away from the table with her foot and pushed her sunglasses up onto her head as she asked, “Do you have a minute?”

  It was the ever so slight tug at the left side of Dana’s mouth that showed just how unsure she was about her own request that had Gwen nodding even before a quiet, “Sure,” tumbled from her lips. Her feet felt like they were filled with lead as she made her way to where Dana sat watching her with sad, tired eyes, and she pushed her own sunglasses up onto her head with one hand as she pulled the plastic chair out far enough for her to sit down with her other.

  They stared at each other for a long moment that felt more sad than angry, the air between them heavy with a feeling of what-might-have-been instead of silent accusations. Dana blew out a soft breath and ran a hand through her hair as she finally broke
the silence with a rough, “Thanks.”

  Gwen set her purse on her lap and folded her hands on top of it. She nodded as she stared at Dana, unsure of what she could possibly say that she hadn’t already said.

  “I…” Dana’s voice trailed off and her gaze became unfocused as her eyes drifted to a spot just over Gwen’s left shoulder. When she had been quiet long enough that Gwen was about to suggest she just go ahead and leave, Dana asked softly, “How are you?”

  Gwen choked out a laugh. Of all the things she might have expected Dana to say, that wasn’t even on the list. “I’ve been better, honestly. You?”

  “Yeah. Same.” Dana sighed. “I’m running on like maybe two hours of sleep right now, if I’m lucky. I was up most of the night talking with Regan after, well, you know, and it got me wondering…” She shook her head and ran a hand through her hair. “You know what? Never mind.”

  “It’s okay.” Gwen tipped her head in a small nod. If there was something she could say that might make things even a little better for Dana, she was more than willing to try. “Go on.”

  Dana rubbed a hand over her mouth as she looked back at Gwen. “I can’t stop thinking about what you said,” she said as she dropped her hand to her lap. “And I just… I don’t know. Regan says I should just forget about the whole thing, but I…” She shook her head. “I can’t,” she confessed in a pained whispered. “And I just…I guess I'd just…”

  “Like to understand?” Gwen guessed. “I don’t know if I can explain it but I can tell you where I was at, if you think that’ll help?”

  Dana nodded slowly.

  “Okay.” Gwen tried to figure out where to begin. “My relationship with Mallory has been…not great, for a while. Distant, I guess you could say. It wasn't always, of course, but she's very…focused. And when that focus is on you, you feel like you're the center of the world, but over the last year or so it shifted and no matter what I did, it stayed that way.” She bit her lip as she remembered the many attempts to reconnect with Mallory, and how most of them were rebuffed with barely a thought. In the past year, she’d lost count of the cancelled lunches and dinners, the plans for weekends and nights out that never pushed through, and the conversations that whittled down from hours to minutes, from nearly everyday to a couple of perfunctory times a week. “It was a gradual decline, now that I think about it, but we started going out less and didn’t really talk that much, not even on the phone. She started doing her thing with her friends and I started spending more time with mine. We’d see each other at work, of course, but…”