Can't Stop Loving You

by Janelle Taylor

  Having reached the porch, Mariel hesitated only a moment in front of the antique double doors with their oval beveled windows. Then she opened the door on the right and stepped into the hushed, carpeted foyer.

  Classical music was playing in the background. Pachelbel’s Canon in D, she noted. It was one of her favorite pieces, and the familiar strains eased the tension in her shoulders a bit.

  Inhaling the cinnamon-apple scent of potpourri, she looked around. Slowly, her eyes adjusted to the dim interior. As she gazed at the floral-print wallpaper, the french doors opening onto the large restaurant dining room, the built-in curio cabinets, and the vast stairway leading to the second and third floors, she realized that she didn’t recall what any of it had looked like back then. And no wonder. She had known why Noah had brought her here, and all she could think about was that she was about to make love for the first time. She didn’t remember being nervous or afraid—only that she had wanted to be here with him; that she had been crazy about him and knew that what they were doing wasn’t wrong. That it couldn’t be wrong.

  Lord, had she really believed that? Had she really been that naive, that innocent?

  “I’m afraid we don’t start serving dinner until five-thirty,” a voice said. “And we stopped serving lunch at three.”

  Startled, Mariel realized that there was an elderly lady standing behind a tall counter in the far corner of the room. She had a cloud of snow-white hair, wire-rimmed glasses, and wore several long strands of pearls over her sand-colored summer sweater.

  “Oh, I’m not here to eat,” Mariel told her. “I was wondering if you had a room vacancy.”

  There. She had said it. It was too late now to go back to the sterile Super 8 on the highway.

  “Yes, we do. But the ones on the second floor with private baths are all occupied. We do have rooms on the third floor with shared bathrooms—right down the hall. Will that be all right? You’d be the only guest up there.”

  “That would be fine, thank you.”

  The woman reached for a clipboard, introducing herself. “I’m Susan Tominski—my son owns the inn, and I work the desk most days. For how many nights did you need a room?”

  Mariel fumbled for an answer and settled on “Two.” Then she cleared her throat and amended, “Maybe longer, though. Or…maybe just one.”

  Yes, just one if she changed her mind about finding Amber Steadman and decided to board the first plane back home in the morning instead of waiting until Tuesday, when she had scheduled her return flight.

  The old lady looked confused.

  “I’m sorry,” Mariel said. “I’ll definitely take it for two.”

  If she had to leave tomorrow, she would just pay for two nights.

  “Are you vacationing here?” Susan Tominski asked—pleasantly, not nosily as Tammy had. Still, Mariel’s guard went up.

  “No, not really,” Mariel said, and changed the subject. “It sure is chilly today, isn’t it?”

  “Oh, the heatwave is on its way,” the woman said with a smile. “They’re saying on the Weather Channel that it’s going to be in the high nineties by this time tomorrow. Hard to believe, isn’t it?”

  “It sure is.”

  “You know, you look familiar,” Susan said, looking more closely at her, and Mariel’s stomach turned over.

  Could she possibly recognize her from that night she and Noah had been here all those years ago? Could she possibly know that Mariel had gotten pregnant and dropped out of school and—

  “You’re Sam Crowe’s niece Linda, aren’t you?” she asked, pointing a finger as though she had suddenly placed Mariel.

  “No…no, I’m not.” Relief coursed through Mariel. Of course the old lady didn’t remember her. Chances were that nobody in Strasburg remembered her. And nobody in town other than Noah had ever known what had happened to her.

  After she found out she was pregnant, she had distanced herself from her roommates and the handful of other friends she had made in her first few months at college. Before she went home for Christmas, while everyone was distracted by finals, she started telling people she had decided to transfer to a college back in Missouri because she was homesick. They actually seemed to buy it.

  “Oh, you look just like that Linda,” Susan chattered. “But then, I haven’t seen her in twenty years since she moved to Buffalo, and I guess she wouldn’t look like that anymore, would she? She’d be middle-aged by now.” Chuckling to herself, she turned to look at an old-fashioned grid of key cubbyholes.

  And then it struck Mariel belatedly that this old woman might not be the only local who thought she looked familiar. It was entirely possible that if she ran into anyone who knew Amber Steadman, the resemblance might be noticed. She should probably prepare herself for that.…

  Or you can just leave now. Just go home and forget she ever found you.

  Her hand clenching the rental car key at her side, she realized that it was what she wanted to do. Why confront the past and dig up all of those unresolved emotions? Why put herself through the turmoil of meeting the daughter she had given up? For all she knew, the girl was filled with resentment for a mother who had placed her into a stranger’s arms, then turned her back forever…or for what she had thought—hoped—would be forever.

  She didn’t want to face Amber, and she didn’t want to face the aftermath of what she had done. She wanted to go home to Rockton and try to forget, just as she had been doing for the past fifteen years. She wanted to assume she had done what was best—even if Noah had felt differently at the time. If it had been up to him, they would be married and raising a teenaged daughter right now.

  She swallowed hard, wanting that scenario to seem as horrible as it had a decade and a half ago.

  But strangely, it didn’t.

  Who are you kidding, Mariel? You wouldn’t still be married to him. Shotgun teenaged marriages never last. You would probably be long divorced by now, a single mother trying to make it without a college degree.

  So she had done the right thing, hadn’t she? Shoving aside her doubts, she opened her mouth to announce that she had changed her mind about the room. If she hurried back to the airport, she might be able to catch a flight back home this evening—

  “Here we are, room eight,” Susan said, turning back to face Mariel, key in hand. “Just go right up both flights of stairs to the third floor. It’ll be the last room on your right.”

  Mariel closed her mouth.

  Opening it again, “Thank you,” was all she said as she dropped the car key into the pocket of her shorts and reached out to take the one for room 8.

  Noah flipped through the stack of mail he had just removed from the mailbox in the entryway as he walked up the fourth and last flight of steps. Nothing but bills—Con Ed, cable, his Writer’s Digest subscription, and his Banana Republic charge account.

  He didn’t want to see that one. He had bought himself several new shirts and a few pairs of khakis and jeans last month, right after he had found a new roommate. His thinking had been that he could afford to splurge a little now that he didn’t have to worry about paying the entire rent single-handedly this month.

  But somehow, he was still broke. His twice-monthly paycheck from the ad agency never seemed to stretch far enough, thanks to the ridiculous cost of living in Manhattan. Maybe he should chuck it all, move away, and start over someplace where he could get more than eight hundred square feet for two thousand dollars a month.

  But where would he go? And what would he do? There wasn’t a tremendous demand for advertising creatives outside of New York City. He had fallen into this career more out of necessity than ambition, but the ad industry was where his experience lay, and it was based in New York.

  He made his way along the hallway—which smelled of frying onions and Pine Sol—toward his apartment, making a face as he heard the music spilling out into the hallway from beyond his closed door.

  Maybe he should just give up this place and move out into one of the boroughs or i
nto Jersey, where rents were cheaper and he could get more for his money.

  After all, this roommate thing wasn’t really working out so far.

  It wasn’t that he didn’t like Alan Henning, because he did. Well, he supposed he would, as he got to know him better. Right now they were little more than strangers. Alan was quiet, and pleasant enough, and he cleaned up after himself. The trouble was, it seemed as though the guy was always there, underfoot.

  Noah had chosen him from more than a dozen applicants in part because he said he worked odd hours, rather than nine-to-five. Since Noah worked regular business hours at the agency—aside from frequent killer overtime—he had figured that would mean he and Alan wouldn’t be in each other’s way.

  As it turned out, Alan, who was a bartender and musician, never seemed to leave the apartment until very late in the evening, right around the time Noah went to bed. And he invariably came home at about the same hour Noah’s alarm went off. He used to enjoy watching the Today Show as he got ready for work and made coffee, but Alan was usually sprawled on the couch watching music videos by the time he got out of the shower. It was disconcerting to feel as though his apartment was no longer his own.

  Of course, it never had been his own, really. He had shared the place with Kelly ever since they moved in almost seven years ago, right before they got married. But living with a wife wasn’t like living with a roommate—not until the end, when he and Kelly had realized their marriage wasn’t going to last. That was when they had entered that stage of awkward politeness, same as Noah had with Alan now.

  All he really wanted, he thought as he inserted his key into the deadbolt, was to feel like he was home. He hadn’t felt like that here in months. Years, really, because even when he and Kelly were companionably married, he had always thought that it would take children to transform their lives into that comfortable domestic mode he craved.

  He felt a pang for the life he would never have—the life he had always assumed lay right around the corner.

  Stepping over the threshold into the small entry hall, he fought the urge to cover his ears. The rock music was blasting from the stereo speakers in the living room. Still clutching his keys, with his black canvas briefcasestyle bag slung over his shoulder, he poked his head into the room and saw Alan on the couch. He wore only a pair of gray sweatpants and lay on his back, eyes closed, elbows bent, hands tucked under his neck.

  Noah went over to turn the volume down.

  Alan immediately opened his eyes and sat up. “Oh,” he said, “you scared me.”

  “Sorry. I just thought it was a little loud. The neighbors might complain.”

  “They haven’t said anything.”

  “But they might tell the super, and that’s the last thing we need. Trust me, you don’t want to make an enemy out of Nelson Santiago. He can be a real SOB.”

  “So you’ve said.” Alan yawned lazily and rubbed the scruffy half beard on his chin. With his shoulder-length dark hair and slacker wardrobe, he wasn’t the kind of roommate Noah had pictured finding when he placed the ad. But the others who had shown up had either seemed vaguely shady or were right out of college or new in New York and eager to make friends. At this stage in his life, Noah had enough male pals, and he certainly wasn’t in the mood to play tour guide.

  Alan, who was about Noah’s age and had lived here all his life, had seemed relatively low maintenance, and thus the safest prospect.

  Noah supposed he would get used to him always being around, and he seemed to mind his own business for the most part. Then again, there had been a few occasions when Noah had been certain that somebody had gone through his drawers. He suspected that Alan might have been looking for clothing to borrow, since his own wardrobe seemed to be fairly limited. At least, that was what he wanted to believe. He doubted the guy was a kleptomaniac, and besides, nothing had ever been missing. Just rumpled or moved around a bit, as though somebody had snooped.

  Even that made Noah uneasy, but he had to give his roommate the benefit of the doubt until he actually caught him in the act. Besides, maybe it was his imagination. He had been pretty distracted lately.

  In an effort to be friendly, he asked Alan, “How was your day?”

  “It was cool. How was work?”

  “The usual,” Noah said. “Crazy pace. Crazy clients. I’m lucky I got out by eight tonight.” If he hadn’t ducked out the door when he did, he would have been there until midnight. That would have made three nights in a row.

  There would probably be hell to pay Monday morning, but right now, that seemed a long way off. The weekend had finally arrived—not that he had big plans. Or any plans.

  With a sigh, Noah tossed his bag over the back of an imitation Stickley chair. Kelly had taken the real thing when she moved out. This was one they had picked up a few years ago at a tag sale while they were visiting friends up in Westchester.

  The apartment had once been furnished mainly in tag sale and secondhand store finds, but as Kelly’s salary climbed, she had purchased increasingly stylish furniture. Some of it looked just like the junk, but was what she called “shabby chic,” and cost far more. She had taken all of it with her to her new two-bedroom floorthrough in a brownstone on the Upper West Side.

  Noah looked around the living room, thinking that it basically resembled one of the houses in Whoville after the Grinch got through pillaging it in the old Dr. Seuss cartoon. There were bare hooks on the walls where pictures had once hung, and a worn spot on the carpet that had once been hidden by a potted plant. He really had to buy some curtains for the windows, which were now covered only in the ugly aluminum blinds that had come with the place. And he should go shopping for a real bookcase instead of leaving those stacks of paperbacks in a couple of plastic crates he had picked up at a bargain store on Canal Street.

  There was a lot he would do, if he ever had time.

  No, he had time.

  If he ever was inspired—that was more like it. Because it wasn’t easy to invest time, money, and energy in fixing up an apartment that was little more than a roof over his head.

  When Alan had moved in, Noah had told him to feel free to contribute to the decor if he felt like it. Apparently, he didn’t, because he had brought little more with him besides his clothes, his guitar, his CDs, and the box spring and mattress that served as his bed.

  “Did anyone call?” Noah asked, glancing at the answering machine.

  “Nope.”

  Noah fought the urge to ask if he was sure. Just last week, his friend Craig had said he left a message for Noah on the machine, but Noah had never got it. He figured Alan must have accidentally erased it.

  That could happen to anyone, but Noah couldn’t help feeling increasingly irritated with his omnipresent roommate. If he could just have some privacy, maybe he would be able to relax. Sit on the couch with a beer, catch a Yankees game…

  But the couch was full of Alan, as usual, and he wouldn’t be able to hear the announcers above the blasting stereo.

  Too bad Kelly had taken the big-screen television she had bought him for his thirtieth birthday a few years back. She had left him their bedroom TV, which he had moved to the living room. Now he wondered if that had been a mistake. At least with a television in his bedroom, there would be something to do other than lie on his bed and brood.

  His computer, too, was in the living room. There wasn’t adequate outlet space for it in the bedroom. At least Kelly hadn’t taken that, leaving the bulky desktop here in favor of the state-of-the-art laptop she had brought with her.

  Piled on the floor beside the computer were stacks of manilla folders, each containing portions of various screenplays Noah had been writing for years. He always told himself that some day he would finish one and send it off to Hollywood, and that would be the end of his nine-to-five misery. But that day wouldn’t come if he didn’t work on his writing, and he hadn’t worked on his writing in ages.

  He could blame it on Alan always being in the living room, but the
truth was, he had gradually lost his motivation to write as his marriage to Kelly became less and less fulfilling. He couldn’t remember the last time he had worked on his latest project, an international intrigue thriller that he was convinced would be perfect for Harrison Ford or Bruce Willis…if Noah ever got past writing the opening scene, finished the damned thing, and sold it.

  He sighed and sat at the desk in the corner beneath one of the two tall living room windows that faced Broadway. The blinds were open, and he gazed out as he waited for the computer to boot up. There wasn’t much of a view since he was on a low floor—just the ever present traffic dotted with yellow taxicabs and buses, and the tall, white stone-faced building across the wide avenue, with rows of apartment windows on the upper levels and several shops with brightly lit display windows on the first floor.

  Noah turned his attention back to his computer. He clicked on the Internet access icon, then, when his screen came up, clicked on the Sign On icon. His name and password were automatically entered in the system, so the dial-up was immediate.

  He remembered how, toward the end of their marriage, Kelly had changed her own Internet access screen so that her password had to be entered each time she signed on. He didn’t know the new code, and he didn’t ask her why she had changed the system so that a password was necessary. It was obvious. She didn’t want him to have access to her e-mail.

  He had wondered—often, at first—if that meant she was involved with somebody else. But by the time their divorce was inevitable, he had stopped caring. Now he doubted that she was romantically involved with anyone, or had been during their marriage. Kelly was wed to her work and her lifestyle, a lifestyle that included shopping and the spa and the gym and her uptown friends. That was fine with him. He only wished it hadn’t taken them so many years to discover that they were moving in opposite directions.

  As the Internet came up on his screen, Noah was disappointed to find that there was no little flag popping up from the mailbox icon, and the voice was silent after a computerized “Welcome.”