Touch of Heartache

by Joy Penny

  “That bad?” asked Brielle.

  “That good,” answered Gavin. He smiled.

  “Okay, now I want to know more.” Brielle seemed riveted. And Lilac needed to know what was up, too.

  Gavin shrugged. “My roommates have a date here almost every night.” He paused to count on his hands. “Okay, between them, there’s been a guy here every night.”

  “You must be getting a lot of sleep with all that… activity,” said Brielle, wincing.

  Gavin looked like he was about to vomit. “Yeah, well… One of their ‘dates’ decided to hang on my couch with me before heading off to the bedroom.”

  Brielle’s nose wrinkled. “Please tell me you didn’t hook up with someone your friend brought over to bang.”

  Pretending to be shocked, Lilac gasped before giggling. Everything was so funny to her this evening. She wondered if it might have anything to do with the few glasses of Pinot Grigio she’d had with dinner.

  But Lilac knew Brielle ought to know better when it came to Gavin. Since when did he ever “hook up” with someone after one date?

  Gavin lifted one hand and then the other, pretending to “weigh” his options. “Is it really so bad if he didn’t make it to the bedroom and decided to take me out for coffee instead?”

  Still, Lilac couldn’t help teasing him about it. “Aw, coffee. Not a drink. Not the bedroom, but coffee… Sure.”

  “I don’t exactly have a bedroom to invite a guy to,” said Gavin before lowering his voice. “Until I settle in permanently, I have to entice a guy to invite me back to his place.”

  Laughing, Lilac clapped. “So innocent, this one.”

  “Besides,” said Gavin, rubbing a finger over his cheek, where a five o’clock shadow had taken root, “I’m not a one-night-stand kind of guy. So excuse me if I wanted to get to know him a little better.”

  Brielle seemed flustered. “How’s the job, though? Think you’ll have an offer by the end of the summer?”

  Lilac shook her head as Gavin’s face fell. Poor guy. “I don’t know if I want an offer. I’m thinking of this as a resume-booster and hitting the classifieds in a few weeks to see if I can find something else in Chicago.” He pointed over his shoulder with his thumb. “Otherwise, I’m just out of here.”

  “Oh, but what about coffee guy?” asked Lilac in an obnoxiously sweet voice.

  “Shut it,” replied Gavin, but he looked like he might crack a smile. Lilac loved seeing him so happy. It was too soon to tell if this would last, but he needed a pick-me-up like a little romance after all those texts he’d exchanged with Lilac.

  “Why?” asked Brielle, not up for teasing. She and Lilac didn’t often tease each other. “I thought you were really excited about working there.”

  “His boss is a huuuuugggeee asshole,” said Lilac. “Like, we’ve been having a competition for whose boss is the bigger asshole all week.”

  Gavin pointed right through the screen at her face. “No, you win that, hands-down. If Gabriel starts grabbing my ass, maybe there’ll be an actual comparison.” He paused, contemplating what he’d said. “No, even then, you’d win. I don’t know if Gabriel is married or not, but at least he’s hot.”

  Lilac gasped. “Oh my god, you never told me he was hot!” Maybe it was just the wine, but that changed things, didn’t it? Gruff, strict, and hot… Yummy.

  “Anyway,” said Gavin, clearly not agreeing that changed things at all. “Bri, you’ve barely told us what’s up with you. How’s your week been?”

  Something strange flashed over Brielle’s face. “Not much going on. I’ve been cleaning. I’ve applied for a few jobs. My sister and mom are at each other’s throats just about every day.” She shrugged. “I… Well…”

  Lilac hugged a decorative pillow she’d grabbed from the chair matching hers to the side of the desk. “Oo, please tell me this is boy-related.”

  Gavin brought a finger to his lips and said, “Shush!” as Brielle squirmed in her seat. Bingo.

  “It is!” said Lilac.

  “Not really,” said Brielle. “I mean, this guy I clean for is kind of super sort of gorgeous.”

  Gavin looked like he’d have to check the dictionary for that description. “‘Kind of super sort of gorgeous…’” He chuckled. “That’s even better than the compliments you first paid Daniel when he caught your interest.”

  Brielle crossed her arms and pouted sourly. “Don’t remind me.”

  “Details, details!” demanded Lilac, pounding a fist against her pillow.

  Brielle shrugged ever-so-innocently. “Nothing to tell. I clean for him. We had a misunderstanding the first day and I thought I would die from embarrassment, but… We’re cool now, I guess?”

  She’s hiding something. “What kind of misunderstanding?” asked Lilac.

  Brielle stared off into space and ran a finger over her cheek “He’s in a wheelchair and he was grumpy about me seeing his comic book art and I just… sort of crossed some boundary with him? I don’t know.”

  Gavin snatched his phone and his face went off-screen for a minute as he spoke. “Wait a minute. Archer Ward?”

  Lilac was lost. “Is that some kind of codeword I’m supposed to know or… some zoning info?”

  Brielle’s mouth hung open. “How did you know?”

  “Super hot, disabled, comic book artist, from your hometown,” said Gavin, tapping his head. “I have a good memory for these kinds of details. Besides, he’s only the current lead artist on The Mystified. Kind of sort of a big deal in comics circles. Kind of.” He was echoing Brielle’s words back at her.

  “I didn’t know,” said Brielle.

  “Oh my god, Brielle’s going to date a celebrity!” shouted Lilac.

  “Kind of,” said Gavin.

  “We’re not dating,” said Brielle. Her brows furrowed. She’s keeping the juiciest parts to herself, Lilac thought.

  Lilac could feel the excitement bubble up through her wine-coated bloodstream. Then a thought struck her. “But if he’s disabled, how would you two—”

  “Okay,” said Brielle, raising her voice. “Change of subject. Has anyone heard from Pembroke?”

  What kind of segue is that? “No,” said Lilac and Gavin at once.

  “I DMed her earlier this week,” explained Brielle, “and still, nothing.”

  “Ditto,” said Gavin.

  Lilac didn’t think she’d ever spoken to Pembroke without either Gavin or Brielle there as well. Was this silence unusual? It hadn’t occurred to Lilac that it would be. “I haven’t reached out,” she said, “but I included her on a few texts and she never responded.”

  “You’re the closest one to campus,” said Gavin to Brielle. Her family was from like an hour away from their college. So were Lilac’s and Gavin’s—in different directions. “She was a commuter, so she lives nearby, right?”

  “You want me to drop by?” Brielle asked. She seemed unsure. “I don’t know…”

  “Somebody ought to,” said Gavin. “If it was simply a matter of her wanting to be left alone or being busy, she should just send us a brief text saying as much.”

  Lilac shook her head. Talk about being overprotective. “Give the girl some space. We just saw her less than a week ago. Maybe she’s not even the type to care to stay in touch after graduation.”

  “We promised we all would,” said Gavin.

  “Yeah, just like every other group of college classmates in the universe.” Sighing, Lilac nodded at the camera. “How long do you think we’ll even stay in touch? We’ll get even busier with jobs, maybe husbands, maybe kids…”

  “You’re starting to sound like my grandma,” said Gavin.

  Their conversation lulled into silence for a moment and Lilac thought grimly of a future without her friends. She couldn’t let that be.

  Brielle broke the silence first with an exhausted sigh. “I should get going.”

  “Yeah, where are you?” asked Lilac. “Looks like a park.” Since when was Brielle the “great outdoors�
�� type?

  Brielle seemed to get the implication and shrugged. “Just getting some fresh air.”

  “Wow, pigs must fly these days,” said Lilac.

  “Check in with me next week about Broke,” said Gavin. “And sweep that comic book artist off his feet!”

  “Look up how you have sex in a wheelchair—” started Lilac, but Brielle quickly and pointedly ended her end of the call.

  “Li,” said Gavin. “You’re drunk. Go home.”

  “I am home,” said Lilac. “Home for a while anyway.” She blew him a kiss. “But you’re right. I’m about to pass out.”

  “Good night,” said Gavin. “Get out to the beach this weekend! Soak up some sun.”

  Lilac grabbed a bottle of sunscreen and shook it at the screen. “I’m missing my handsome single dad to apply this.”

  “No,” said Gavin. “Just no.”

  Lilac wasn’t sure if she turned off the call or if he ended it first. She woke up several hours later after falling fast asleep in her chair.

  Chapter Six

  “Willow, please turn that down. I’m trying to work.”

  Nolan’s dad rubbed his temples at the breakfast bar that functioned as his desk, the TV in the living room behind him blasting Frozen for the second time that day already.

  Willow ignored him, singing along with Elsa as she twirled around the living room, a hairbrush in her hand acting like a microphone.

  Nolan’s dad looked up to face his eldest son, who was busy flipping two grilled cheese sandwiches in a frying pan. “Don’t you get sick of hearing that at work?”

  “Other theme park,” said Nolan, scrambling to turn down the heat and turn on the overhead fan. He always managed to burn these.

  “I want to go to Disney World!” whined Landon as he trotted into the kitchen. “I hate Tildy—ow!”

  Nolan looked up to find that Willow had twirled right into Landon, knocking him over. Landon stared up in shock at the other three members of the family before remembering to turn on the water works—or at least screech and pretend tears were falling.

  “Willow!” snapped their dad. “Stop that right now and say you’re sorry.”

  Willow’s face fell as she stopped spinning and Elsa kept singing her power ballad behind her.

  Sighing, Nolan’s dad got off his stool, bending down to pick up Landon and pat his back. You’re just going to make him want to cry all the more, thought Nolan as he flipped the first and then the second sandwich over once again. It’s the only way he manages to get any attention from you.

  “Willow,” said their dad sternly, staring down at her over Landon’s shoulder. “What did I say?”

  “Sorry,” mumbled Willow quietly. She clutched the hairbrush she was supposed to be using to brush her still half-wild hair tightly at her side. “He walked right in front of me.”

  Landon screeched louder and Nolan turned up the fan as the sandwiches began to smoke heavily before he flicked the stove off entirely.

  “I don’t care,” said their dad. “Turn off that TV and sit down at the table. Now.”

  Glaring up at their dad, Willow’s bottom lip trembled, but she didn’t say anything. Their dad brought Landon over to the table and plopped him into his chair as Nolan plated the sandwiches, scooping some of the canned tomato soup he’d heated up on the stovetop into two bowls for the kids.

  “No!” screamed Landon, clutching their dad’s shirt tightly. “No! I’m not hungry!”

  “Landon,” said their dad, “it’s time to eat. Now let go—Ow! Fuck!”

  Nolan felt his insides go cold as their dad spun around to see Willow gleefully staring up at him, the hairbrush raised in her hand. From the way their dad cradled the back of his head, Nolan could only guess she’d smacked him with it.

  “Daddy said a bad word,” she sing-songed.

  “Give me that,” said their dad, snatching the hairbrush away from her. “Timeout! I thought you’d be too old for that by now, but no.” He snatched her by the hand and she tugged away, screeching. “I have had it with your misbehavior, young lady!”

  Nolan turned off the fan and crossed the kitchen, trying to head off this family disaster as their dad tossed the hairbrush on the table, making Landon’s eyes go wide as he jumped in his seat.

  “Let me go!” screamed Willow, kicking vainly toward her dad. “You meanie poopy brain!”

  “Stop!” said their dad, tugging on her arm but trying not to rip it right out of its socket. With her acrobatic twists and turns, she wasn’t making it easy for him. “The more you misbehave, the longer your timeout will be!” He closed his eyes and snapped to no one in particular as the TV boomed. “Can someone please turn that off?”

  Nolan did as asked and the room fell into a strange, uncanny silence, the likes of which his house almost never knew during the day when one or both kids were awake.

  Willow sniffled and Nolan was sure the tear that fell down her cheek was real, even if she’d known exactly what she’d been doing when she’d smacked their dad on the head.

  She’d been getting his attention, just about the only way she knew how.

  Picking up where he’d left off, their dad tugged her toward the room she shared with Landon. “Inside!” he said, loud enough for it to carry down the hall to the kitchen. Noticing his brother in distress, Nolan stepped behind Landon, who was really crying now—but quietly. That’s how Nolan knew it was real. Landon was pretty quiet when he was actually sad. Nolan ruffled his hair and brought him his lunch.

  Their dad slammed the door and Willow shrieked, a pounding coming from inside the room, probably from her punching or kicking it.

  “Stop that!” said their dad sternly. “If you don’t stop that right now, you are never getting out of that room!”

  “Dad,” said Nolan, trudging down the hall. He froze.

  His dad was holding tightly on to the door knob with one hand, leaning against the wall with the other, his head pointed down and the redness in his face streaked with tears. Willow continued to shriek and holler.

  “I can’t do this,” he said quietly, under his breath. “I can’t do this without you.”

  She can’t hear you, thought Nolan. She’s dead.

  He let go of the knob and walked down the hall, stopping in front of Nolan. The door opened almost immediately after he’d let go, Willow stumbling outside into the hallway, her face scrunched and her fists clenched at her sides.

  Their dad looked about to say something to Nolan, but he closed his mouth and patted his shoulder instead. “I need to work today,” he said at last. “I’m going out while they eat—and please get them out of here this afternoon.”

  “Dad, I have schoolwork to do—” started Nolan.

  “No!” Willow pounded her feet on a worn patch of the carpet. “We all go out together on Saturdays! It’s Saturday dinner day!”

  “They have been looking forward to this all week, Dad,” said Nolan. “You know that.”

  His dad shut his eyes and lifted a hand to cut him off as Willow shrieked behind them. “I can’t,” he said and he went into the kitchen long enough to grab his keys and pat Landon on the back before exiting out to the driveway.

  “Nooo!” shrieked Willow again. “Liar, liar! You promised!”

  “Back into your room!” said Nolan sternly, pointing down the hallway.

  Trudging back down the hall, Willow slammed the door behind her.

  Leaning on the wall, Nolan thumped the back of his head against it several times over. The house went eerily quiet again until he heard the scraping of a spoon on a bowl and he snapped back into the moment, returning to the kitchen to make sure Landon didn’t spill any soup on his clothes.

  Nolan looked up from his laptop every few seconds to make sure Willow and Landon were still doing all right in the playpen in the mall’s Kidz Cool School center. (The irony of the business having both “kidz” and “school” in its name was never lost on Nolan.) He hated to “reward” Willow especially and even Lan
don for their temper tantrums that he’d known had just been to get their dad’s attention and he didn’t like to spend the money on yet more daycare, but the Cool School was more like a playground anyway. If it allowed him some sanity and relative quiet—beside the background buzz of the people talking throughout the mall and the endless trickle of the nearby fountain—then so be it. He didn’t dare leave the mall behind entirely and find a quiet park or corner of the library because Willow was already on probation at the Cool School and if she got into one more physical fight, she was going to be banned entirely. Nolan knew she was more likely to behave if she saw him through the glass front wall of the daycare sitting there with the other moms. Of course, he kept to himself. He had no energy to organize playdates and discuss sales on kids’ clothes with moms and dads a decade or two older than him. Besides, with playdates, they usually expected you to reciprocate at some point, and he didn’t know how they’d fit even one more screaming child into their small three-bedroom ranch.

  “I’m supposed to have your room by now,” snapped Willow once earlier this week. “I’m tired of sharing!”

  Yeah, and I was supposed to be in a dorm room so you could have my room, thought Nolan, although he hadn’t said it aloud. He slapped his cheeks to wake himself up and focused on his assignment on the screen. It was going to take a few more years than planned, but he hoped to have a degree in computer science eventually.

  He wondered if an IT job would offer free daycare to his brother and sister, though. But then he wondered if at this rate they’d be teenagers by the time he got out of Tildy World and into a “real” job anyway. He sighed and saved his work, closing his laptop lid and staring off at the Starbucks at the edge of the nearby food court. He glanced over his shoulder. It took him a moment, but he spotted both Willow and Landon, each with their own little friends. They were smiling. He hoped they’d stay that way.

  He thought about asking the other people at the table to watch his stuff, but they were engrossed in their conversation and even if they had been willing, he doubted he could count on them to actually keep an eye on it. As he slipped his laptop into his backpack and slid his arms through the straps, he stared at one woman in particular, a sandy-haired woman in her forties wearing a colorful wrap over her white tank top and white pants. She reminded Nolan of his mom. Their faces were different, but the way she carried herself. He remembered being in Kidz Cool School himself over a decade ago—back when he’d been an only child, long before his mom had convinced his dad that they were financially stable enough to have more, that she’d always wanted a house full of children—and she’d be sitting here with her friends, talking. Every time he’d looked through that glass wall, she’d been here, just steps away.