Work of Art

by Monica Alexander

  But now, after having seen her, I wanted to relive all of those moments I’d been referring to when we were talking about permanence and lasting scars. I had so many of those that I equally hated and loved. And I wanted to remember what I’d fought so long to forget.

  Like how she used to sing Disarm to me, and she had such an awful voice. Then she’d laugh, and it was like music in and of itself. I listened to the words now, and in my head I heard her singing off-key. It made my chest ache.

  And I loved it. And I hated it.

  I was getting married in two fucking days, and I couldn’t stop thinking about someone else. Was this how Courtney had felt? Had she looked at me and seen someone she loved but not enough when compared to the guy who held her heart. Beckett was his name, and he’d met her when they were in high school, and he’d loved her and asked her to marry him, and he’d claimed her for himself long before I ever came along. I didn’t think I’d ever had a chance.

  And now, was I doing the same thing to Trish? I was starting to think that maybe I was going to marry the wrong girl. Harper had been the love of my life, but we’d just been kids, yet we’d gone through so much together. And so much time had passed, and when I saw her now, I still had feelings of longing and want that were more than just physical. Sure she was beautiful, but she was so much more than that.

  But I was getting married in three days. I’d made a commitment, and I couldn’t back out now. I couldn’t hurt Trish like that.

  As I pulled up to the house, glad I could find it in the dark, I saw there was a light on in the front room, but I didn’t see any sign of the plumber. I wondered how long he might be and grabbed my messenger bag off the front seat, figuring I could get some work done from my laptop while I waited.

  I found the key under the mat and let myself in, marveling at how much the house had changed since I’d visited it with Brandon. All of the furnishings that the previous owners had were gone, and the place was sparse, minus the white couch, two end tables with lamps and the coffee table in the living room, and I felt fortunate that there was at least somewhere to sit. I would have been pissed had Brandon asked me to hang out on the floor for a couple of hours.

  I’d just settled onto the couch and propped my feet up, figuring Brandon wouldn’t mind, when my cell phone rang. I looked down to see it was Trish. She was in Monterey for the week doing all sorts of last minute wedding things with our mothers, and she called every night around the same time.

  “Hey baby,” I answered, putting her on speaker and laying the phone on my lap.

  “Hi,” she gushed. “How are you? Did you have a good day?”

  “Sure. I worked, and now I’m sitting in Sonoma waiting for a plumber.”

  “What? Why?”

  I sighed and stretched my arms over my head. “Brandon called. There’s some plumbing issue at his new winery house, and since he’s not flying in until tomorrow, he asked me to come out here and meet the plumber.”

  “Brandon has winery house?”

  “Uh, yeah. I thought I told you that.”

  “No, you didn’t,” she said, and I felt like complete shit for omitting something as big as my best friend moving to San Francisco.

  “Yeah, he bought it a few weeks ago, and he’s moving to the city after the wedding.”

  “Oh,” she said, and I knew what that meant. She really hated Brandon, and I was sure she wasn’t thrilled about the fact that he and I would be able to hang out more.

  “Yeah,” I said, talking for the sake of talking, because I felt like an absolutely jackass for not telling her. “He’d been talking about quitting his job and sinking his money into an investment, so he finally took the leap.”

  “So that’s why you were talking about leaving the firm? Because Brandon Cooper wanted to leave? What did he do, plant the idea in your head that you could have a better life if you quit your job too? Then you guys can pal around and chase women, is that it?”

  She was suddenly spitting venom, and I wasn’t sure what to say. She’d never gone off on me like that before.

  “Trish, calm down. He’s just a friend, and just because he likes to be loose with his social life doesn’t mean I’ll do the same. I’m marrying you, and I’m a one woman kind of guy. You know that.”

  She huffed. “Yeah, well, we have a lot of things on our calendar this summer, and I need you to be at these events. I can’t have you running off with Brandon whenever the mood strikes. You have obligations to me and the organizations I support.”

  Okay, she’d obviously been around our mothers too long. And I wasn’t exactly okay with the way she was treating me like a child.

  “You know what Trish, I’m a grown-ass man, and if I choose to be friends with someone you don’t like, and hang out with him when the mood strikes, then that’s what I choose to do. I’ll be a good husband, and I’ll fulfill my social obligations, and I’ll represent my family, but I won’t be told what to do, do you hear me?”

  She sucked in a gasp of air, and it was as if she’d just heard herself and what she’d been saying. “Oh, my God, Ryan. I’m so sorry. I’m so sorry,” she gushed, and then she started to cry. “It’s just this wedding. There are all of these last minute things, and I’m really stressed, and I’m not sleeping, and there was this problem with the flowers and our mothers are driving me crazy. I can’t do this. And I miss you, and I just wish it was Saturday so we could walk down the aisle and be married. And now I’ve made you mad, and I’m so, so sorry. Please know that it wasn’t my intention, and I love you. Please don’t be mad. I’m sorry. I don’t want to dictate who you can be friends with.”

  I let out a low, calming sigh when she finally stopped talking, but she was still sobbing in my ear.

  “It’s fine, Trish. It’s fine. I’m not mad.”

  She still continued to cry. “No, it’s not fine. I know I’ve never really liked Brandon, but I want to try, for you, because he’s your best friend. I’ll do that for you. I’ll do anything for you, just please don’t be mad at me. Please!”

  “Trisha!” I said, raising my voice, and I heard her sniffle one last time. “I’m not mad. I know you’re under a lot of pressure. I get it. It’s okay.”

  It really wasn’t, but I couldn’t let her hang up the phone thinking we weren’t okay when we wouldn’t see each other until the next night. That was too cruel.

  “I’m sorry, Ryan,” she repeated. “I’m sorry, and I love you.”

  “Me too,” I responded softly, trying to calm her down. I’d never seen her so hysterical before, and it was sort of throwing me for a loop. “Now tell me about the issues you’re having. Is there anything I can do?”

  “No, it’s fine,” she said, sniffling once more. “Everything is being sorted out, but it’s just a lot. There are so many details that go into weddings that I never knew about. And the wedding planner has been amazing, but I don’t know. It’s just a lot.”

  I knew all about weddings and what went into them, Courtney planned them for other people the whole time we were dating, and I’d heard the horror stories. But she’d always made it look so easy. It was what she was best at, but I wasn’t about to bring her up to Trish. They’d met twice, and of course Trish knew the dirty details of what had happened between us, so I tried not to speak positively of Courtney or at all. She was better left in the past.

  “Well, I’m glad to hear that things are being ironed out,” I told her, just as I heard a car pulling up in front of the house and headlights scan over the front windows. “Hey, I think the plumber is here. Can I call you later?”

  “Call me tomorrow. I think I’m going to have a massage in my room and go to bed early. I love you, Ryan.”

  “Me too. Talk to you tomorrow.”

  I hung up the phone at the same time there was a knocking on the front door. I stood up to answer it expecting to see a man with a tool box, but instead, I saw Harper, and by the look on her face, I knew she hadn’t been expecting to see me either.

 
“Ryan?” she questioned.

  “Hi. What are you doing here?”

  She shook her head in confusion. “Brandon called. He said there was a plumbing issue, and he needed me to meet the plumber. When I drove up, I figured he was already here, but you’re not a plumber, are you?”

  I shook my head and smiled at the thought of messing around with toilets. That so wasn’t me. “No, I’m not.”

  Then she giggled. “Good, because I was starting to wonder how a plumber could afford a Porsche.”

  I stepped aside so she could enter the house. “So Brandon called both of us?”

  She shrugged. “I guess so. He left me a message asking me to come out here, and I tried to call him back, but I only got his voice mail, so I figured I’d come anyway.”

  “He must have called me right after he left you the message, figuring he needed to get ahold of someone.” A knock on the door had us both turning our heads toward the sound. “That must be the plumber,” I said.

  When I opened the door, there was a man in his sixties carrying a tool box. “Hi, I’m Anthony. I’m here to fix the issue in the downstairs bathroom.”

  “Come in, Anthony,” I said, stepping aside and accidently bumping into Harper as I did. I turned to look at her. “Sorry.”

  She shook her head. “It’s fine. No worries.”

  I watched her for a few seconds as she appraised her surroundings. She was wearing a green army jacket, so I couldn’t see the butterflies on her arms, and I sort of wished she wasn’t so covered up. The bottom half of her hair was still pink, and I wondered if she planned on wearing it that way to my wedding. I hoped so. It was sort of sexy.

  Shit. What the hell was wrong with me? I was checking her out and talking about seeing her looking sexy at my wedding. I was sick.

  “So, are we just going to stand around or is one of yous guys going to show me where the bathroom is?” Anthony asked in a distinct Philly accent.

  “I’ll show you,” I said, stepping forward so I could put some distance between Harper and me.

  When I came back into the living room a few minutes later, I noticed that she’d settled onto the couch and had taken off her jacket to reveal a plain white t-shirt, the colorful butterflies on her arms once again on display.

  I sat at the opposite end of the couch and looked over at her. “You don’t have to stay. I’m happy to hang out and wait for Anthony to get finished.”

  I was partially willing her to leave, because very inappropriate thoughts were swirling in my head, and I sort of needed them to stop.

  She shrugged. “I’m good. I figured maybe you can use some company. Unless you want me to go, that is.”

  I really don’t want you to go, but you probably should.

  “No stay,” I said quickly. “Some company would be nice.”

  “What are you working on?” she asked, leaning toward me. I caught the scent of her strawberry shampoo and inhaled deeply even though I knew I shouldn’t.

  “Just this report for a client. It’s really boring,” I said, closing my laptop. “What’s new with you?”

  She gave me a strange look. “You mean since you saw me last night?”

  I nodded. “Yeah, what did you do today?”

  She let out a long breath of air. “I worked on editing some photos for this show I have at a gallery at the end of August, then I went into work and did three piercings and two tattoos, but one took me about three hours, so I’m sort of exhausted.”

  “Really, what was it of?”

  “It was this really intricate tribal design that I did for this guy a few weeks ago, and he was coming back for the color. It spanned a good portion of his arm, so it took a while.”

  “How did you get into that anyway? Tattooing, I mean.”

  She shrugged. “When I moved out here, I was broke, and I needed a job. My dad gave me a place to live, but I wanted to contribute, and I needed to have money for when . . .”

  She trailed off, and I wasn’t sure why.

  “For when what?”

  “It doesn’t matter. But, hey, thank you for helping me find my dad all those years ago. When my mom kicked me out, I had nowhere else to go, and he took me in without asking one question.”

  “Why didn’t you go to Yale, Harper?”

  It was a question that had plagued me for years.

  She sucked in a breath. “I couldn’t.”

  “Why? Was it the money?”

  She shook her head, and I noticed her eyes had filled up with tears. “No, it wasn’t the money. I could have taken out loans.” Then she took a deep breath and seemed to steel herself. “The truth was, I didn’t want to run into you.”

  “Oh,” I said, knowing that was as valid a reason as any.

  “Ryan, I’m going to say something, because I might never get to say it again, and I need to get this off my chest.”

  “Okay,” I said, not sure what she was going to tell me, but I wanted her to feel okay opening up to me about whatever it was she needed share.

  “You hurt me so bad that summer, and I don’t think you realize that, and I get that it was so long ago, but I don’t think I’ve ever really let go of what you did to me,” she said, and then the tears started flowing.

  And I was thoroughly confused. “What I did? What about what you did?” I asked, trying to keep the accusation out of my tone, but I was sort of pissed. What had I done exactly?

  She looked up at me in shock, her eyes watery and her cheeks wet. “What do you mean what you did. You broke up with me in an email and told me to have an abortion after telling me that we were going to move out together and raise our baby. You just changed your mind and didn’t even have the decency to tell me face-to-face. I had to find out about in a fucking email! And then you wouldn’t return my calls.”

  I reeled back at what she’d just shared, because it couldn’t have been farther from the truth. “No, no I didn’t,” I said, quickly. “I didn’t do any of those things. You’re the one who told me over email that you’d decided to have an abortion.”

  She looked at me in horror. “No I didn’t,” she insisted.

  “Well, I have the email,” I countered. “I know what you said.”

  I’d read that email a thousand times over the years. I practically had it memorized.

  “I didn’t have a goddamn abortion, Ryan. I had the baby,” she said, and my world suddenly tilted on its axis. “And you know that because you signed your rights away.”

  “What? What the fuck are you talking about?” I asked, getting to my feet and raking my hands through my hair. She was a crazy person. She was spouting out untruths, and I wasn’t going to stand for it. “You told me in the email that you had an abortion while I was away on that sailing trip. How could you have had the baby?”

  “Ryan, what are you talking about? I never sent you an email saying I had an abortion. I wouldn’t have done that. I didn’t do it.”

  I looked up at her. “So, what? You just told me that to hurt me when you really had the baby? Where is it now? Why don’t I know about this?”

  She was looking at me like I was crazy. “You do know about it. I have a letter from your lawyer that you signed stating you gave up your parental rights.”

  “What? What letter?”

  The she stood up and faced me. “Oh my God, Ryan! This is so aggravating. Why are you playing dumb? Why?”

  “I’m not playing dumb, I swear. I have no idea what you’re talking about. Here’s what I know. During the two weeks I was away on that sailing trip, I got an email from you, and you told me that you had an abortion, and I never heard from you again! That’s it.”

  “I called you like ten times,” she growled. “And you didn’t call me back.”

  “I was pissed,” I shouted. “I thought you had a fucking abortion without telling me first. It wasn’t something I could forgive and forget very easily.”

  She threw her hands up in exasperation. “Well, that’s not what really happened. What happened wa
s that I got an email from you telling me that you couldn’t be a father and that you wanted me to get an abortion and that we were done. And then you wouldn’t return my phone calls, so I moved out here, decided to have the baby and raise him myself. Then when I was six months pregnant, I got the letter from your lawyer.”

  I froze. “Him?”

  “Yes, him,” Harper said, and she started to cry again, covering her face with her hands.

  “Well where is he now?” I asked, knowing we had to get back to the part about the letter and the email, but this was much more pressing. I had a son that I’d never known about.

  Harper looked up at me after a few seconds, her eyes damp and so full of emotion. “He died seven years ago,” she said softly.

  And I think I literally stopped breathing.

  Chapter Eighteen

  Harper

  Instantly Ryan’s arms were around me as the tears continued to fall. He gripped me tight, and it was exactly what I’d needed seven years earlier when I’d stood with my dad and watched my son’s small casket being lowered into the ground. And I’d never, ever forget the feeling of helplessness as I stood there wondering why a sweet little boy had been taken from the world too soon and robbed of the love that I had for him. But more than anything that day I’d cried for Ryan and the choice he made and the fact that he’d never know his son.

  Tyler was the most amazing little boy. He was sweet and caring and always smiling. I knew Ryan would have loved him if he’d taken the chance to know him, but he’d never wanted that. And because of that decision, he’d missed out. And just like it had that day, my heart broke for him all over again.

  “Sorry to interrupt,” a voice said then, pulling me out of my memories and back into the present where Anthony the plumber was watching me cry against Ryan’s chest.