by J. Haymore
“Whatever,” he says, then turns and leaves. I am stunned. He’s walking away from me, and his last word is “whatever”? God.
He pushes through the door and is out on the sidewalk in a few seconds. And then he’s gone.
I feel sick. Literally nauseated. At this moment, I feel utterly alone.
But I’m not. I’m not alone, and even if I were, it’d be okay. Everything’s going to be all right.
I text Ethan.
How are you this morning?
All right, but I miss you. Everything okay?
I’m not going to tell him about my Kyle angst.
Yes. Miss you too.
Dinner tonight?
I’d love that.
Okay, I’ll pick you up at six. Dress casually. And pack an overnight bag.
A shudder pulses through me. An overnight bag. I miss sleeping with Ethan. I’ve been home for two nights and it feels like forever, especially when I’ve spent the prior week and a half in Hawaii sharing a bed with him.
I pay the bill and leave the diner. I head to Westwood and shop for a few hours, finding a variety of blouses and skirts I can mix and match for work. I stop by Trader Joe’s, putting all my shopping bags into the cart as I browse the aisles to get food for the next few days. I optimistically assume I’ll be having most of my dinners with Ethan, so I buy a box of cereal, milk, and some salad and sandwich supplies. When I’m mulling over the sliced cheeses, I see movement out of the corner of my eye. Someone stops right next to me. And when I look up, I freeze.
Justine Lindberg is standing right next to me.
She’s wearing a curious smile, an “I know you, don’t I?” smile. And then she laughs, and her facial features relax. She’s placed me. “Oh my God. You’re Ethan’s girlfriend, right?”
I open my mouth, but I really have nothing to say to her.
She holds out her hand. “I’m Justine. Justine Lindberg. I used to know Ethan a long time ago. We were…” She hesitates, as if taking a moment to properly choose her words. “We were very close.”
Yeah, I’ll bet. I hold out my hand, but I give the handshake of a limp fish. “Hi.” I don’t offer my name.
“It’s Tara, right?”
I feel sick all over again. I wish I hadn’t left the apartment today. I really do. There’s something to be said for agoraphobia.
My heart beats at the base of my throat, and my breaths come in short, sharp bursts. I don’t know what to say to this woman…this woman who was with Ethan for six years. Six years.
She gives me a wide smile. She is beautiful—with mahogany-brown hair and a small, lithe body. She’s wearing classy skinny jeans, wedges, and a royal-blue silk blouse. Her jewelry is thick and gold—gold bracelets, gold earrings, a thick, long gold necklace.
Why would Ethan pick someone like me over this elegant woman?
“It’s so great to finally meet you,” she says enthusiastically. “Ethan’s told me so much about you.”
If it’s possible to get even stiffer, I do right then, my shoulders squaring. I don’t like the idea of Ethan talking about me with anyone…especially her. Plus, he said he told her to leave us alone, and she said she would. So is she lying or has he spoken to her in the last couple of days? And if she said she’d leave us alone, why is she in my Trader Joe’s?
She tilts her head, her well-made-up brown eyes blinking at me. “You’re so pretty,” she says graciously. “I can see why Ethan is so entranced.”
I glance desperately to the front entrance of the market. If I just left my cart and hurried out, maybe I could get away from her.
Justine gives a small huff of laughter. “Oh, goodness. You feel uncomfortable with me, I can tell.”
I say nothing.
“I really don’t want you to feel uncomfortable around me. But it’s my fault—I am so sorry for what happened at the airport the other day. So sorry. I was just ecstatic to see Ethan again after all that he—that both of you—went through while you were sailing. I really wish he’d kept you with him and introduced us right then and there.” Her lips purse. “Seriously, I have no clue why he hustled you and your friend off like that.”
Because he was afraid you’d go postal, maybe? I think. But of course I don’t say it. Then I wonder if that’s actually the truth. She doesn’t seem like the kind of woman who’d go postal—at all. She seems genuinely nice.
Which makes no sense.
She waits for me to say something, but I can’t. I simply can’t. I’m trying to stave off a panic attack, trying to modulate my breaths back to normalcy. As she gives me a questioning look, I nod, as if to acknowledge what she just said.
Her smile grows wider. But it’s not sinister like the Joker smile—it’s wide and genuine and pleasant. “So do you live around here?”
I nod tightly.
“Wow, it’s a small world. I just moved into the area.”
Oh no. Noooooooo, I groan inwardly. One thing I really, really don’t want is Justine Lindberg living near me.
“I guess we’re new neighbors, then,” she gushes. “It’s so great to be near someone I know…well, I know through a mutual…”
I hold my breath, waiting for her next word. Lover? Oh God, no, please don’t say it… Boyfriend? Partner? Those are just as bad…
“…friend,” she finishes.
I grip the handle of my shopping cart tight and force my wooden lips into a semblance of a smile that I’m sure looks more like a grimace. “Well, it was nice to finally meet you, but I’m in a hurry, and—”
“Oh, no problem,” she says. She gestures to the loaf of bread in her hand. “I’m done anyway. I’ll walk you out.”
I turn my cart away from her, trying to hide my cringe. I feel her following just behind me as I walk toward the checkout. She maintains a respectable distance and doesn’t speak, but somehow she ends up in the checkout line ahead of me.
We don’t speak as we go through the line, then she waits for me as I complete my purchase. When I’ve paid, I grab all my shopping bags, and Justine says, “Oh, no way. You can’t carry all that! Let me help you.” And she takes two of my bags before I can grab them myself.
“Thanks,” I say. I sound like a sullen twelve-year-old.
I chew on the inside of my cheek. I don’t know how to act around this woman. She caused me a huge amount of grief on my first day back in LA. Those horrible feelings twisted into something like pity when Ethan told me she was bipolar. Now she just seems like a fun, pleasant woman.
I don’t trust that, though. Maybe I’ve finally become more cynical about people. I’m not going to give Justine the blind trust I gave Mick on the Temptation. Mick ended up being a sociopathic stalker who was trying to kill me. I don’t think I’ll be able to trust anyone so blindly ever again.
We walk back toward my apartment, Justine chattering about how she just moved down to LA from San Jose and how she doesn’t know anyone in the area besides Ethan, and now, me. She speaks of Ethan like he is a great, long-time friend, kind of like Kyle is to me.
But she’s not. I have to remind myself of that. Because she and Ethan were together for six years. You can’t be with someone for that long without the thought crossing your mind that it might be forever.
I think of Justine and Ethan together, and it hurts. They’d make a gorgeous couple.
I need to get away from this woman. Being close to her is only going to make me crazy.
“Anyway,” she’s saying, “I really hope we can be friends. Ethan said you had a new job downtown. What kind of a job is it?”
“It’s a financial analyst position for—”
“Oh my God, that’s so great. You recently graduated from college, right?”
I nod.
“Business major?”
I nod again.
“That’s fantastic. My degrees are in electrical engineering and computer science. Did Ethan tell you?”
I shake my head no.
“He didn’t? Well, he dropped out when
my dad offered him a job—my dad saw Ethan’s brilliance and gave him his big break in the tech industry. I stayed at Stanford for another two years to finish my bachelor’s.”
I blink at her. This is insight into Ethan’s history he’s never told me.
“My dad loved Ethan, and to this day he doesn’t regret the decision to take him under his wing. He’s as proud of Ethan as if he were his own son.”
“You don’t have brothers?” I ask.
“No, it’s just me.” She grins. “Guess my dad secretly wanted a son. He got him with Ethan.”
Ugh, that statement makes me nauseated.
Ethan works for himself now, so I ask, “Do they still have a close relationship?”
Justine sighs. “They’re not as close as they once were. Our breakup was…challenging.” She slants a glance at me. “Sorry—I don’t mean to make you uncomfortable.”
“No, no, it’s okay.” I asked for it, after all, I think with an internal sigh.
“Ethan moved down here after we broke up,” she continues. “It was tough for everyone, but my dad still adores him. Ethan lives hundreds of miles away, but they still talk once in a while.”
“I see,” I say.
“I don’t have a mom,” she continues. “She died in childbirth with me. So it’s just me and my dad. No brothers, no sisters. My dad never remarried.”
I blink at her. “Oh. I’m so sorry.”
She shrugs. “I never knew my mom. But it was something Ethan and I had in common. He had no dad—I had no mom. We talked about it a lot when we first started dating. I don’t know—growing up with one person missing leaves a part of you missing, I think.”
“Right,” I say quietly. “I get it.” I wonder if Ethan feels like that’s something we have in common too. I’ve lost both my parents; Ethan’s lost his dad.
“You do?” Justine gives me a quizzical look. “Wait… Don’t tell me you’ve lost a parent too. You’re too young—”
I cut her off. “Both my parents died when I was little.” I don’t bring up Emily. I don’t want to get into the Emily story. Especially the fact that my sister dated Ethan too.
Justine stops short. “No way.”
I stop and look back at her. “Yes. They died in a car crash.”
“Oh, Tara. I’m sorry. I don’t remember my mom at all, but this is different.”
“Well,” I say quietly. “It was a long time ago.”
“Still. It sucks. It truly sucks,” she says emphatically.
We start walking again, side by side on the sidewalk. Traffic rushes by.
“Is that where you hurt your leg?”
I glance at her, startled. It’s so odd that I keep forgetting about my limp these days. “Oh. No.”
“Oh, okay. Sorry.” She gives me a soft smile as if to say, No problem if you don’t want to talk about it. Sorry for prying.
We continue on to my building, and she gives me stories about Ethan. He was shy in college, reserved and studious, but evidently, the girls in the dorm loved him. At one point, they had a running bet to see, not who Ethan would sleep with first, but who Ethan would notice first.
After he left college, Ethan grew obsessed with development of tech startups. He was brilliant at the business end of things, while her dad was the more technical one. Once Ethan earned her dad’s trust, the business, which was already successful, became insanely profitable.
I find myself absorbing all this like a sponge. Truth is, I love hearing about Ethan. About what he was like when he was in college, after he left college, when he was first diving into his career. I love learning about Ethan when he was at a point in his life where I am now.
We reach the door to my apartment building, and I slow my steps. “This is me. Thanks for carrying my stuff.”
“No problem.” Justine hands me the bags. As I turn to unlock the front door, she says, “Hey, would you like to go out for coffee sometime?”
“Sure,” I say in automatic polite response, the word slipping out before I can call it back.
What the hell have I done?
Justine
I’m feeling powerful, Dear Diary. Calm. In control. And generous.
I’ll give Little Sister one last chance. One. Last. Chance.
Chapter Thirty-Two
I keep myself busy for the first half of the week thinking about and planning for Thursday. I’m so excited about this new job—about the professional opportunities that a career like this opens up. This was my dream job when I first started applying in the spring. I was offered three other positions, but I really liked Javier and his team, and the potential for advancement and constant challenge at Continental Bank seemed very high.
I think of how I’m going to approach this—how I can turn this job into a lifetime career. I need to take it seriously. Basically, I need to kick ass. And I’m fully prepared to do that.
Late Wednesday afternoon, I’m taking a break from doing a pre-employment thorough cleaning of the apartment. I’m standing in the kitchen scooping out a generous portion of cherry ice cream when my phone rings. The display tells me it’s Javier Lombardo.
I jam the spoon back into the ice cream, press the talk button with a smile, and use my professional voice. “Tara Jameson speaking.”
“Hi, Tara. This is Javier.”
My grin falters a little. Javier’s voice is low and dark. It sounds like someone close to him just died.
Before I can answer, he continues.
“Look, I’m really sorry about this. You can’t know how sorry. But I’ve just received a call from human resources. Unfortunately, we have to rescind your offer of employment.”
My mouth opens, but no sound comes out. What? Why? my mind is screaming. Why why why?
There’s a long silence. I don’t know how long. All I can hear is the frantic pounding of my heart and my breaths as I gasp into the phone.
No. No, no, no, no. This was… This job symbolized the start of my new life. My healing from the loss of Emily and my depression and physical injuries. It was not only the milestone to mark my new life, but my milestone to mark the fact that I’m now a grown-up. A mature woman with a life of her own. Completely in control of her universe.
But Javier’s words have ripped that all away from me. They have taken that control away. That milestone has been smashed to tiny fragments, and I have no idea where to go or how I’m possibly going to get there.
“Tara? Are you there?”
I swallow hard. “Yes,” I push out in a stringy voice. “I’m here.”
“I’m really sorry about this.” Javier sighs. “I’d do something if I could. I really thought you had a huge amount of potential. But my hands are tied.”
“But why?” I manage.
Javier is silent for several seconds. Then he sighs again. “It was your drug test. There was an error at the lab, and the correction to your results just came in today. You tested positive for methamphetamines.”
“What? That’s impossible.”
“I’m so sorry. Our policy is no tolerance on the drug testing for new hires.”
“But I’ve never taken methamphetamines! Or anything else. There has to be a mistake.”
“That’s what I thought too. We double- and triple-checked with the lab. They are a hundred percent sure these were the correct results.”
“But I’m not—”
“Look, I know you’re not a drug addict or anything.” He gives a humorless laugh. “But it’s clear from these results that you did take methamphetamines at some point before taking the test.”
“I didn’t,” I say stubbornly.
“The results say otherwise.”
“It’s got to be a false positive.”
“I asked about this too. There’s not really anything over the counter that could cause a false positive for this test.” He pauses. When I don’t say anything, he adds, “I am really sorry. I was looking forward to working with you.”
“I…” My words die in my throat. I
don’t have anything to say.
After a moment of complete silence, Javier says awkwardly, “Please feel free to call human resources if necessary. Good-bye, Tara.”
And he hangs up.
He hangs up.
I don’t move. I keep clutching the phone to my ear. My head feels like it’s going to explode.
Methamphetamines? What the hell?
I sink to the kitchen floor and hold the phone limply in my hand. After several minutes, I dial Ethan’s number. I get his voice mail, which I expected. He’d said his calendar was full of meetings today. I tell him to call me when he can, and I hang up.
The hours crawl by. At some point, I get up and clean up the ice cream that’s started to melt all over my countertop.
I have no job. I’m not starting work tomorrow. There will be no career at Continental Bank.
I want to call Ethan again, but that would seem too needy. And Kyle doesn’t want to hear from me right now.
Instead of calling either of them, I force myself to go to my office and sit at my desk. I don’t know what I’m going to do—just try to distract myself somehow, I guess.
As soon as I open my new laptop, my e-mails pop up. There are eleven of them. Eight of them are junk. One is from Aunt Jo asking if I want to go with her to the Hollywood Bowl next week. One is from Ethan. It contains one line:
I miss you.
I smile a little, and it feels like ice is cracking away from my face.
The other non-junk e-mail is from a company I applied to work at in the spring when I was interviewing with Continental Bank. They were one of the offers I passed over in favor of working with Javier. Taking a shaky breath, I open the e-mail.
Hi Tara,
I’m not sure if you remember meeting with me this past April, but as you know, I was really impressed by your interview. I realize this is a long shot, but I wanted to let you know we still have an opening for a junior financial analyst, so if there’s any chance you’re available again, or if you know of anyone who might be as qualified as you for the position, I’d love to hear from you!
Thanks for your time,
Robin Chaplin
