Return (Coming Home #1)

by Meli Raine

  That gets a more genuine laugh. Whatever storm I’ve triggered in him seems to be passing. “Claudia was livid when they took you instead of her,” he says with a fake casual tone.

  My ears perk up. Is he sharing gossip, for fishing for information?

  “I kind of guessed.” Another gulp of my cooler coffee feels like a bit of me is restored. “She wasn’t happy to see me yesterday,” I add.

  “She was up there?” His eyes light up. Reading his signals is giving me a headache. I pinch the bridge of my nose and close my eyes. Am I getting this wrong? He seems to be attracted to me, but then he shuts down in anger. And now he’s looking at me like I’m Claudia’s BFF who can put in a good word for him.

  Middle school. I’m in the grown-up version of middle school. Great.

  I nod and drink more. The cinnamon feels comforting. The sense of shameful unreality lingers on my skin like dried sweat. I pretend to look at my phone. I pretend I have a pressing message.

  “I have to go!” I exclaim. “The dean needs me to get his lunch. He’s working through.” Please believe the lie.

  Eric’s laugh is bitter, but he stands with me. “He has you fetching his lunch?” Shaking his head, it’s clear Eric disapproves. The cloud of weirdness lurks, ready to shadow me.

  We duck to leave the tiny little coffee hovel, the sunshine so bright it leaves me feeling cleansed. All the strangeness back there is gone, and Eric’s walking with confidence, smiling at me like he hadn’t just been terse.

  Confusion settles in my bones. I just want to go back at my desk, even if The Claw is there. At least I know where I stand with her. Knowing someone hates you is somehow easier than not knowing what Eric is feeling toward me.

  “Just be careful in there,” Eric cautions. A landscaping crew is busy fixing dried-out, brown patches of grass. They carefully cut out the dead spots and drop in a piece of bright green, lush sod. One week until the students move in. They have to make the campus look good for the parents. By mid-September the dead patches will be back. The hundreds of thousands of flowers planted all over campus will be dead.

  No one will care about appearances again until Homecoming.

  “In where?” I ask as we reach the Human Resources office. His stride slows and we stand before the glass doors, our reflections clear in the sunlight.

  “Dean’s office. You don’t want to be on Claudia’s bad side,” he explains.

  My rippling laughter pours out, loud and pealing like a bell. I can’t help it. Great whoops of giggles continue. It takes me three minutes to calm down. I have to wipe tears from the corners of my eyes. Mascara comes off on my knuckles.

  “Claudia’s...bad...side,” I gasp. “Little late for that. She’s hated me since elementary school.”

  Eric frowns. “That’s right. I forgot you’re a townie.” He shrugs. “Well, then, you know more about her than me.” That makes him scowl deeper, then squint at me, holding his hand like a military salute. He’s shielding the sun from his eyes.

  The look he gives me has new respect in it. I still have no idea what this guy is thinking or feeling. He is so different from Mark, who just tells you, upfront. Like it or not.

  “I’ll just try to stay away from her claws,” I whisper, leaning toward him.

  He startles, then laughs. But it’s a slow, halting chuckle, one that makes my skin crawl.

  “Have fun with your HR paperwork,” he says, now very distracted. As he walks away he doesn’t acknowledge my wave. I don’t know what to think.

  But being on Claudia’s bad side? Been there, done that, have the emotional scars to prove it.

  My time at HR is brief and fabulous. The benefits specialist, Debbie Hansen, is my new best friend. Yes, I can take classes this semester. I pay a fifty dollar fee per course, so my checkbook comes out and two hundred dollars later, I’m a full time student again, as long as I rush my paper to the Registrar’s office and enroll.

  My phone tells me it’s long past time to check in and get the dean his lunch, so I go back to the office, happy again. All I need now is to find four classes that don’t clash with work and that fit into my graduation needs.

  Simple. Do-able. Achieveable. Zippidy-do-da. Things are finally going my way.

  The weirdness with Eric is washing off, replaced by a flash of Mark’s kisses last night. I am instantly transported back to his hands on my ribcage, the warm scent of cedar and masculinity, how his breath hitched when my own tongue met his tease for tease, search for search.

  The heat inside me simmers nice and low, ever present. I imagine my hands in his silky hair. His lips on my earlobe. His promise to come back and talk.

  Talk.

  Right.

  My step quickens and I practically run up the stairs, bouncing with a happiness even Eric’s moods can’t ruin. The custodians are stripping the waxed linoleum floors and my normal path is obstructed. That rush to get everything nice and clean for the parents means staff are inconvenienced. I don’t care.

  A staircase I wouldn’t normally use is free, so I climb up. It’s an old, pinched little set of rickety stairs, like an afterthought. When I was a student here someone told me it was for servants to the university president when his offices were in this building. That seems unlikely. I think the stairs were probably for workmen to get downstairs to the basement furnaces easily, or up to the roof.

  I stop and look up. The stairs do go all the way to the roof. I can see the padlocked door, two stories up.

  It reminds me of my new little home. Except the padlock is intact on this door.

  The stairs get me to my floor and as I’m walking to the office, I hear muffled voices.

  “We need to start charging for coffee, Sean,” says a woman’s voice. Older, like a smoker’s, with a barely held-back cough. “The graduate students are drinking it by the gallon and not putting in the suggested donation.”

  “Effie, if we just bought one of those Keurig machines we could make people pay. They’d have to slide seventy-five cents in and we wouldn’t have this problem,” a male voice answers. I’m two doors down from my office. Academic Advising. Effie must be Effie Cummings, the department coordinator who is older than my (dead) grandmothers.

  She makes a grunt of disgust as I walk by. “Buy something new. Why is that everyone’s answer? People don’t act the way they should and that means we buy something new? No! Of course not, Sean! We make them change their ways.”

  Their voices fade out as I roll my eyes. Seems easier to just buy a Keurig. Heck, I’d pay seventy-five cents for an easy cup of vanilla caramel coffee two doors away. Hmmm. Maybe I should mention that to Sean. Must be Sean Hofstadtler, my former academic adviser.

  Actually, now he’s my academic adviser again, I realize. My hand still holds my enrollment papers.

  A zing of glee shoots through me. I can’t wait to tell Amy I’ll be a full-time student again. Coming home is working out. My future is on track.

  And tonight, Mark might visit me again. Whatever comes next, I know it’s going to be just fine.

  As I walk through the threshold to my office, something green catches my eye, inside the dean’s office. His door is ajar, and I see long, black hair. Claudia. Damn.

  Ignoring her, I step behind my desk. A sticky note on my monitor reads:

  Gone to lunch with the vice chancellor. No need for take-out after all. Please deliver expense reports to anthropology for grant project due today.

  The note is in the dean’s messy scrawl, which I’ve managed to learn to read in two days. Whew! My being delayed doesn’t cause problems for my boss and his lunch. Everything’s working out for me today on so many levels.

  Whatever Claudia’s doing in her dad’s office isn’t my business, though I arch an eyebrow and wonder. Trying not to look, I busy myself with some emails that came in while I was out. One of them asks for a list of students nominated for a history department prize. I can’t find it in the computer’s hard drive, so I stand up. Taking a deep breath, I re
alize I have to search the filing cabinet near the dean’s door.

  Ah, well. Claudia can’t hurt me, right? Worst case she makes a dig. I can handle digs today. Bring it on, Claw.

  As I cross the room I don’t look, but I can’t turn off my peripheral vision. She’s wearing a long, silky green dress with black heels taller than a small dog. Her arms reach up around a man’s neck, his head bent down. Her neck moves and she’s kissing him. Hard, with tongue, hips grinding into his.

  She makes sounds that are meant to be shared in intimate places. I made those kinds of sounds last night in my trailer. I should know. The memory makes my cheeks burn, my belly tighten. But at least I don’t make out with men in public like that.

  I turn away in shock. In her father’s office. Where people can find her. This is a new low, even for The Claw. As I slowly open the filing cabinet drawer, the sound startles the two. They pull apart.

  Two pairs of familiar eyes lock on me as I bend over the long array of files, trying not to stare. One pair is Claudia’s.

  The other is Mark’s.

  Chapter Fifteen

  I am going to puke. I literally clap my hand over my mouth and turn away. I walk as fast as I can without running. Some part of me hears Claudia snort, then laugh. I break into a run, slamming through the Women’s Room door and bolting the lock in the single-seat room.

  I can feel Mark behind that door.

  Or can I? Maybe I imagine it. A creeping cold fills my veins. My heart slaps against my ribs like it’s dying. It is. It shouldn’t. I should know better, right? I sit on the toilet and let the tears fill my eyes. My throat tightens. My skin turns hot. I start to breathe hard. I sit down on the toilet and run my palms over and over my slacks. I tug at the hem of my red cotton shirt. As I look down I see my teardrops mottling the deep red cloth.

  I don’t have any right to be hiding in the bathroom, crying over Mark and Claudia, but here I am.

  I can’t even text Amy for support. My phone is in my purse. At the desk Mark is kissing Claudia in front of.

  The cold wall feels strong against my palm. My mouth fills with a salty taste. My tears are flowing down my cheeks and over my lips. What is Mark doing? I know what Claudia’s doing. That evil grin tells me everything. She knew Mark and I were an item years ago. It must give her great pleasure to see me in pain.

  Pain.

  Why am I so tortured by watching that kiss? I have no claim on Mark. We’re not dating. He isn’t my boyfriend. The tiny bathroom feels like a cocoon. A safe place to hide. My mind races as I sniff and fresh tears cover my cheeks. I’m crying for what I thought I had. I’m crying for the confusion Mark puts in me.

  I’m crying because I am embarrassed I ever thought I could restart my life here.

  And I’m crying because it sucks to kiss a guy and find him kissing someone else the next day.

  Red fury fills me. I imagine Claudia’s face and the rage turns to a blinding hot flame. She’s so...ugh. Why does she enjoy watching other people suffer? What kind of person finds pleasure in that? A sadist. A sociopath. A crazy person who doesn’t deserve to spend time with real human beings with genuine feelings and tender hearts.

  Maybe that’s my problem. I’m too tender. Too soft.

  Too human.

  I look at the door, wondering what to do next. I can’t hide in here until the end of the day. The dean will be back soon and I have those expense reports to do for the anthropology project. If I don’t do them, I’ll look bad. I’m already on thin ice with this job. The paycheck is too important. Being this close to the source of my dad’s problems is too critical. I can’t clear his name if I can’t gather information.

  Suck it up, Carrie, I tell myself.

  Like I have a thousand times before. I should have it tattooed on my wrist.

  I might as well pee if I’m in the bathroom. Then I wash my hands and wipe my face with cool water. I lean against the cold tile wall. It is soothing. A balm. A reminder that the world is solid and unmoving. It just is. All these feelings don’t affect things.

  Only people.

  With tender hearts.

  You don’t kiss someone like Mark kissed me last night and then touch that...woman. That bitch. You just don’t. What’s wrong with Mark? Why?

  Why why why why why....

  That’s what makes the tears come back. The humiliation of walking out there and facing him. Her. Them. I have to harden myself. I have no claim over him. Mark’s a grown man with a good job with the police department and he can date anyone he wants.

  He seems to want Claudia. That kiss had more tongue in it than a butcher’s window display.

  I can’t think about this now. At home with a pint of ice cream? Sure. Over coffee with Amy? Yes. But now? Now I have to put on my emotional suit of armor and go into battle.

  Without a sword or a horse.

  The teardrops form a ragged line on my boobs. I turn on the hand dryer and pull my shirt out. The heated air dries the tears quickly. I take a deep breath. I inhale so much air my stomach feels like it’s going to explode. My lungs fill like balloons. The feeling of pressure calms me down. Centers me. Gives me resolve for what comes next.

  I look in the mirror and see me. Just Carrie. Long blond hair and bloodshot eyes and a face that is open and sincere.

  Not good enough. Try again.

  I harden my eyes and practice not smiling.

  I fail. I look like a puppy dog begging you to like me. Really like me. Play ball with me and take me home from the shelter.

  Mark does this to me. He makes me want to let my guard down. I want to trust him. I still love him.

  A stabbing pain makes my chest tighten. Great. Let’s add a heart attack to my list of Things That Suck About Today.

  Tap tap tap.

  “Excuse me? Anyone in there?” says a shaky voice. Sounds like an elderly woman.

  I shake my head slightly and run my fingers through my hair. “Just a minute!” I call out, then re-evaluate myself.

  I look fine.

  Better than fine.

  And I’m going out there calm, cool, professional and most definitely no longer interested in Mark.

  He just opted himself out of my life, kiss or no kiss.

  I open the door and a frail old lady smiles at me kindly. “You’re new? I’m Effie,” she says, holding out a tiny, birdlike hand. I take it, gentle, and she grips it like she’s a sailor. Her handshake is stronger than Brian’s, and that’s saying a lot.

  “Hi,” I gasp. “Carrie. I’m in the dean’s office.” Her voice sounds like the voice I overheard just moments ago. I was right. This is Effie Cummings.

  She squints. “Oh, so you’re the new girl! I’m so glad they didn’t hire that daughter of his.”

  I like Effie already.

  Her hair is bright white and in tight curls all over her head. She has that old lady hump and wears a white silk shirt and a red shell cardigan over it. Mom jeans and black flats finish the look. Her glasses are surprisingly stylish, square lenses with gold along the top only. When she smiles you can tell she wears dentures, and her eyes light up, a bright golden color that makes me think of whisky.

  “I don’t know what to say to that,” I answer in a low voice.

  She winks. “That means we agree about her.” She squeezes my hand and eyes me carefully, like I remind her of—

  “Oh!” she says in a sudden rush of words, “you’re little Carrie! Joe’s daughter.”

  Oh, God.

  “I haven’t seen you since you were a wee bitty thing,” she continues. “Maybe five or six. I worked with your father back then, in purchasing, but they moved me to the medical school campus shortly after. Brought me back here to the academic advising department two years ago.”

  I give her a polite smile. I have no idea what to say.

  “And I am so sorry to hear about your father, Carrie,” she adds in a quiet voice. “Joe didn’t deserve what happened to him. He was a good man. I never believed he was guilty.”<
br />
  Tears. My nose starts to tingle and I feel the tears fill my eyes. Effie looks at me with such compassion and reaches for my elbow. We share a knowing look. It’s the kind of look you never, ever exchange with strangers because there’s too much raw feeling in it. And yet Effie is real.

  No bullshit here.

  “Thank you,” I choke out. “Now I really don’t know what to say.”

  She smiles and points to the bathroom. “Forgive an old woman with a bladder the size of Claudia’s conscience,” she whispers, “but I need to go. You watch out for that girl, Carrie. She’s up to no good in her father’s office. Let’s have a cup of coffee sometime this week and I’ll show you the ropes.”

  And with that the door shuts and she’s gone.

  It’s like I just met my fairy godmother.

  With a bladder problem.

  I steel myself for what comes next and walk slowly back to my office. If I go in there, I’ll be the center of attention. Mark will have some sort of reaction. Claudia will gloat. I’ll melt into a puddle. I grab a sheaf of papers from the copier and act like I was just getting some copies. No biggie. It’s not like I ran away after catching my—

  My what?

  My nothing. Mark is nothing to me.

  Less than nothing, now.

  Mark’s in the dean’s office, whispering furiously with Claudia as I walk in. Claudia looks through a crack in the door and shoots me a dirty glare, then slams the door shut just as Eric walks into my office.

  I feel like I am a thousand threads unraveling at once.

  “Hey,” Eric says, a troubled look on his face. His aftershave wafts past me as a breeze blows through the office window and it grounds me. The scent reminds me of Mark. Of men. Of power and masculinity and suddenly I remember.

  Eric’s a man, too.

  “Hi!” I say a little too brightly, happy for a diversion. “What are you doing here?”

  He frowns and says in that lovely accent of his, “Is that ‘what are you doing here?’” His tone is happy. “Or, ‘what the hell are you doing here?” This time, his tone is nasty.

  I can’t help but laugh. “The first.”

  “Whew.” He gives me a half grin and comes closer, his hand on my forearm. “Look, Carrie, I’m sorry about earlier. I was in a bad mood.” He frowns and washes his palm over his chin, the gesture making his aftershave stronger as it tickles my nose. I can smell coffee on his breath and his skin is warm against mine.