Torn

by Deborah Bladon

  I look at him not wanting to dive into a long winded accounting of why my younger brother calls me that. It's a nickname I both love and loathe. It's also part of the world I left behind across the river when I moved to Manhattan. Here, I'm Falon. That's who I want to be.

  "This is my brother, Elijah. He's a big fan."

  I could leave it right there if Elijah could grab hold of the conversation reins and ask a question about the music industry, but he can't. He's shy. He's so painfully shy that speaking directly to Asher isn't likely to happen.

  My youngest brother has worked hard to come out of the protective cocoon he's buried himself in. It hasn't been easy but he's making steady progress. The fact that he agreed to come stay with me tonight so we can tour the city's museums tomorrow is proof of that. It's a very small step but it's in the right direction.

  "I wish we had brought my guitar with us," Elijah says quietly. "I would have asked you to sign it if it wasn't too much trouble."

  I turn to look up at him. He's a typical fifteen-year-old whose height has overtaken his weight. He's lankly and long. He hasn't grown into the stubble on his face or the fierceness of his full, dark brows yet. He's a boy trying to adjust to the world in the body of an almost man.

  His hands are both clasped tightly to the backpack he hastily threw things into when I asked him to come spend tonight and tomorrow with me.

  "I'll come out to Brooklyn and sign it for you," Asher offers. "If that doesn't work you can bring it to the recording studio one day. We can work on something together. Do you write or just play?"

  Elijah rubs at his chin with the long fingers on his right hand. "You're not serious? This isn't happening."

  I smile into my palm, using the motion to try to ward off all the tangled emotions I'm feeling. I can't remember the last time I saw Eli smile like this. High school hasn't been friendly to him. He's struggled to find his footing but now that summer break has started, I thought I could help him venture outside the walls of the house in Brooklyn to discover things to actually get excited about.

  The museums were going to be a starting point. Apparently, I put too much thought into it. Everything my little brother needed to pull him from the freshmen year funk he's been in was sitting on my stoop in the form of Asher Foster.

  ***

  "This is the best chocolate cake I've ever tasted." He licks his index finger before he drags it over the last crumbs in the cardboard box. "You didn't want any of it, did you?"

  I watch as his tongue darts across his finger to scoop up the crumbs. I'd handed him the Dobb's Bakery box with the piece of cake to hold while I fumbled in my purse for my apartment keys. I took Eli up to my place, giving him an extra set of sheets, a pillow and a thin blanket before explaining how to set up the sofa bed. He was fast at work when I told him I had to go back down to talk to Asher.

  I peer into the now empty box. That was going to be my Monday splurge. It's a concept I put into practice in college when I thought I weighed too much. I briefly judged my appearance by all the girls around me. Luckily, for me, I grew out of that fast. My love of all things containing sugar makes it very hard to stay on the no-sweet path for long.

  I splurge whenever I feel like it now. I'm great at balancing what I want against what I need. Right now, I want to lick the chocolate crumbs that are sitting on Asher's bottom lip.

  "Your brother seems great. How old is he?"

  "Fifteen," I sit on the hard concrete next to him. "He's really into music. He idolizes you."

  A gentle smile floats over his lips. "You don't know how much I needed to hear that today. Not the idol part, but that he's into music. I loved it too when I was his age."

  He was Eli's age a little more than a decade ago. I silently wonder if he was as awkward as my brother is. I can't help but try to picture Asher as a teenager. I chase the thought away with a shake of my head.

  "It was generous of you to offer to sign his guitar." My eyes squeeze shut in an effort to ward off the emotion I'm still feeling from seeing my brother let go of his security blanket of silence to talk to Asher. "I'm taking him back to Brooklyn tomorrow night. I can bring the guitar back with me. If you have time to drop by my studio, you can sign it then."

  "I meant what I said to him." He shifts slightly, his jean covered knee brushing against mine. "We'll figure out a time for you to bring him down to studio when I'm recording. He can hang out for a few hours. I'll sign whatever he brings with him, guitar included."

  There's no way he can know what that means to not only, Eli, but me. "You don't have to do that, but thank you. Meeting you today made his night. It might have even made his year."

  "I know that feeling. Meeting you has made my year."

  CHAPTER 16

  Asher

  It's hard to tell under the soft light outside of her building, but I swear she blushes. She brushes her hair behind her ear, the movement sheltering her face from my view long enough for the rosiness to fade.

  "Why did he call you Seven? Is it for the reason I think?"

  Her fingers curl into her right palm, cupping her keys. "Yes. I'm the seventh child."

  There's no emotion in her words at all. She doesn't think the name is cute or endearing. She wouldn't have her keys in a death grip if that was the case. "I take it you don't like it?"

  "Elijah's the third youngest. There were ten of us born before him." Her eyes follow the path of a car as it hurries past us on the almost deserted street. "He couldn't remember all of our names, so my mom decided that numbers would be better. To her it was a no brainer. He would learn how to count and he had a system for identifying us individually."

  "He's fifteen now." I point out the obvious. "The number thing never changed to actual names?"

  "It changed. He picked up names one-by-one until he was calling everyone by their given name but me."

  I meet her gaze. "It bothers you, doesn't it?"

  She purses her lips as she moves the keys in her hand. "Only if anyone else calls me that. I'm Seven to Eli. I prefer to be Falon to everyone else."

  "Falon, it is." I bump my knee against hers. "Do you have to go up or can you stay for a few minutes so I can explain something?"

  She turns then so she's facing me directly, her hands quieting in her lap. "I'm not going anywhere. You have my full attention, Asher. The floor, or I guess the stoop, is all yours."

  She's right. There's no one else in sight. No one is going to come walking into the middle of this and save me from having to explain myself. I have to own up to what happened in her studio. I want her to understand that I pulled back because my head was in the wrong space. It had nothing to do with her.

  "I should start by apologizing for answering that call on Friday when you were taking my picture."

  It's overdue and something I should have done at the coffee shop right after our shoot. I saw how seriously she takes her work. I know that it pissed her off that I ignored her request to hand my phone to her assistant.

  "The call seemed important." Her voice is quiet and understanding. "I sensed that it was really bad news."

  No one else noticed that, not even the people who hang around me all day, doing very little to earn a paycheck. Falon picked up on it. She was the only one in the entire room.

  Maybe I gave something away in my expression when Daniel told me he was with Caterina and had looked over the emails and listened to the voicemail she saved. It could have been the way my hand fisted around the phone when he told me that my suspicions about my paternity were dead-on. My dad told his fiancée, a woman he'd known just months at the time, the truth about me, yet he never bothered once to clue me in. I've asked both him and my mom at least a dozen times over the past decade whether I'm the product of one of the affairs she had that have been well publicized since I hit it big. Every single fucking time they've laughed and told me it was all nonsense, fabricated to hurt our family by random jealous assholes or vultures trying to sell a story.

  "I was half-expectin
g it," I admit. "It was brutal hearing it though."

  She eyes me carefully, her hand reaching up to scratch the tip of her nose. "That's why you wanted me to take your picture. You wanted that moment captured. Something changed and you wanted me to document it, right?"

  I nod. She's got more insight into what's going on inside of me than I do. "I wanted that because everything felt different after that call. My family will never be the same again."

  ***

  I've sat quietly for the past five minutes while she talked on her phone to her mom. I assume it's her mom based on the number of times she's had to tell the person on the other end that Elijah is fine, and will be fine until he's back home.

  "I'm sorry about that." She lowers the phone to her lap. "My mom worries about him. She worries about all of us."

  I hesitate, knowing I should segue into this in a more civilized way, but at some point she's going to have to go back up to her place to hang out with her brother. If I don't say it now, I'm going to lose another night of sleep. "My mind has been jumping all over the fucking place the last few days, Falon. When I pulled back from you at your studio, that was… that had nothing to do with you. That was all me. I was still reeling from that call."

  Her eyes widen. "I get family drama. I've got my own to deal with."

  "I didn't handle it well. I want to start over. I'd love to take you out for dinner. It could be our first date."

  "You do realize that we've already had dinner together, don't you? It was cheeseburgers with extra mustard and soggy fries. That was technically a date."

  "I don't consider that a date. We grabbed some food after midnight. That's completely different than an actual date so I'm asking you again if you'll go out with me one night this week."

  Her top teeth catch her bottom lip as she studies my face. "You asked me that in my studio too. Let's cut to the chase. Do you always ask the women you want to fuck to go on an actual date first?"

  My brows rise at the playful way she slowly and distinctively says the word 'fuck.' I swallow hard. "Do you always talk about fucking with men before you've gone on an actual date with them?"

  "Touché," she says through a wide grin. "It depends on the man and I like to be clear about things."

  "I don't know about the other men you're going out with." A muscle in my jaw shudders. "This man would like to take you out for dinner at a nice restaurant before midnight one night. You choose what night and what we do after that is entirely up to you."

  "Entirely?" Her face brightens with a smile. "You'd put yourself at my mercy like that?"

  "I've kissed you, Falon." My fingers brush over my lips. "If that's a taste of what's to come, I'll sit right here on this stoop for days waiting for you to say yes to dinner."

  Tilting her head she brings her mouth close to mine. I can feel her breath as she whispers into the air between us. "Now, I'm the one who can't resist when you put it like that."

  The urge to reach out and grab her to kiss her again is strong but before I have time to react, she's on her feet, her hand lightly brushing my shoulder as she climbs the concrete steps, unlocks the door and disappears behind it.

  CHAPTER 17

  Falon

  "Your brother told me about the rock and roll singer." My mom pounds her fist into a ball of dough. I take a step back to shield my dress from the cloud of flour that erupts. "Why didn't you tell me you had a boyfriend, Girlie?"

  It's Falon, Mom. My name is Falon Frances Shaw. You chose my name. Use it.

  I want to say that but I wore out my voice when I was a teenager trying to convince my mom, and my dad, to call me by my name. Obviously it was time wasted.

  As I've gotten older I've realized that my desire to hear my name from the two people who brought me into this world has a lot to do with security. Everyone has memories of their childhood they'd like to box up and hide in a tomb for eternity.

  My memory like that is actually a series of memories of helping in the bakery on the weekends with my siblings and listening to my mom calling one of our names, then correcting herself by calling out another, and then another and then two or three more before she finally sputtered out the one she meant to say in the first place.

  The easiest solution to avoid that after all the disappointed looks on the faces of her kids was simple. The boys became lads and the girls became girlies.

  From that point forward, she never called any of us by name in the bakery again. If she needed help, the first lad or girlie to pop their head around the corner, put their hands to good use, rolling, kneading, icing or carrying a tray to the front.

  "Does your boyfriend have tattoos? Those boy band types always have the tattoos in all the wrong places."

  "He's not my boyfriend, Mom." I grab a small spoon from the rack that's near me, dipping the tip in a bowl of chocolate ganache. "If Eli told you that, he was mistaken. I took pictures of him for work. That's it."

  "That's not it, Girlie." She waves her hand in the air so high that flour rains down on the hairnet that's covering her dark hair. "Elijah told me that he was loitering outside your apartment after dark. He wants to be your boyfriend. Your father did the same thing before I married him."

  I've heard the story of my parents' romance a million times and if I'm lucky, I'll hear it a million more before they're too old to remember or death steals them away. My mom always tears up when she talks about meeting my dad. Right now, I don't have time to walk down that particular path of memory lane. I have to get back to Manhattan for an evening shoot that's scheduled to start in ninety minutes. I asked Eli to stay to assist me, but he wanted to get home, so we hopped on the subway right after we had an early dinner at the Italian restaurant around the corner from my place.

  "I have to work tonight." I lick the last remnant of ganache from the spoon before I toss it into a bucket reserved for dirty silverware in the industrial sink. "I'll be back again on Sunday."

  "You'll take some pastries for your clients." She gestures towards the front of the bakery with her chin. "Then you'll call when you get to your studio so I know my Girlie is safe and sound."

  I walk back to where she's still beating the dough to within an inch of its life. I lean down and kiss her forehead, using the moment to tuck the three one hundred dollar bills I've had clutched tightly in my hand into the pocket on the front of her apron. I've done the same thing twice a month for the past five months.

  She didn't ask for my help. I never offered it outright but when Eli told me he heard her talking about the bills piling up and sales slowing, I started slipping the money into her apron.

  Tonight, she does the very same thing she does every time I do it. She kisses my cheek, pats me on the back and tells me she loves me.

  ***

  I've never shied away from going after what I want in life. It's the main reason why I run one of the most successful photography studios in New York City.

  I'm not one of those people who have a five or ten year plan that they follow religiously. I set a goal and then I work my ass off to achieve it as quickly as I possibly can. If my parents taught me anything, it's that you have to work for what you want in life. No one is going to hand you a free ride, unless there's a hidden fare attached to it, be it in the form of having to sacrifice your heart or your soul.

  There's no one in this world that I owe anything to. I paid off my student loans two months ago. I did that by working hard. That's exactly what I did tonight, when I photographed a couple with their newborn baby.

  Before I took the job, I suggested I visit their apartment. In my experience, most new parents want the first professional images of their baby to be in their home. The setting adds something pleasantly abstract to the images, a sort of sense of belonging that isn't there when they sit or stand in front of a canvas under studio lights.

  They were insistent that they wanted the shoot to be portrait style in front of a pink background. I'm always up for a challenge so I asked for the time of day when their baby girl was
most alert, then I booked them in, sent Remy to find a bright pink backdrop and instructed them to dress in white.

  The results were well worth the three hours it took to get them. The shots I have are filled with whimsy and love. The photographs I took when the wife breastfed their daughter, while her husband stroked the baby's cheek, are the ones they'll treasure the most.

  I asked them to allow me the opportunity to take pictures of that very intimate and tender moment. They agreed without question. It's that initiative that I'm drawing on now, as I lean against my studio door, take a deep breath and call Asher Foster even though it's almost midnight and, according to him, we've never gone an actual date.

  CHAPTER 18

  Asher

  I think about her words as I walk down Madison, my head bowed, my hands tucked into the front pocket of my jeans. It's late for much of the city. Those who are out now, aren't looking to spot a famous face as they hurry home or to a club to pick up someone to make the night less lonely. An adventure waits around every corner in Manhattan. For me, that adventure is in the form of Falon Shaw, who called me less than fifteen minutes ago.

  Her voice was soft as she joked that she knew she hadn't woken me. She spit my words back at me about dates, and midnight, burgers and rules.

  I don't have rules. I've never had rules. If she was anyone else, I would have fucked her in her studio the other day, then walked out and even with the taste of her still on my lips, I would have been searching for the next woman to temporarily fill the growing pit inside of me.

  With a determined stride, I walk faster, my pace quickening. I cross against the light, even though a car is coming towards me. I've lived in New York City long enough to know that he'll swerve around me with a honk and a cursed warning I'll never hear.