Brick by Brick

by Maryn Blackburn

  “Should I get a job, something temporary?” We’d had the discussion about me working many times. James didn’t object to his wife working, but only if I loved it. I’d teased him that in some ways, he might as well be Italian.

  Now he slumped as if I’d let the air out of him. “Not yet. I’m sure if I asked, Daniel’d make me a loan.”

  “I know how hard you work. Things will turn around.”

  “They’d better, or I’m going to have to go to Daniel. Shit. So, we going to breakfast or not? I’ve kind of lost my appetite too.”

  “Forget trading waffles for sex. Let’s just do something together.”

  “Want to go to Sabino Canyon? We can pack something, eat out there.”

  And he tried, he really did. We hiked a little, had a picnic breakfast, took the tram a little, hiked a little more. He held my hand. We kissed. I smiled. He felt its phoniness.

  We came home before the afternoon turned the canyon into a furnace. I encouraged James to nap on the sofa. We had perfectly nice but uninspired sex when he woke.

  That night, I put Gage’s ruby stud earring in with my socks, safe but unseen. I didn’t want a reminder of how amazing and adventurous our sex life had once been.

  Nevertheless, I moped a few days later when I found Gage’s bottle of wine mysteriously moved to the back of the cupboard. The hope had evaporated.

  Fine. We didn’t need Gage Strickland. When James came home late for dinner that night, I’d set us a pretty table outside, where orange blossoms scented the air. I lit candles and uncorked my twelve-dollar pinot noir while he took his shower. When I heard the water stop running, I brought the food to the table in covered dishes, even though that meant more dishwashing.

  “Nat?” he called from the house. “Where’d you go?” He stepped onto the patio, where everything for an elegant meal waited, but he didn’t smile. “Did I forget a special occasion?”

  “No. I think I forgot how special you are. This is to show my appreciation.”

  His sigh was long. “Don’t be mad, okay?”

  “Why? Did you stop being special?”

  “Maybe. I don’t have time for sex tonight. I have to work on my order, because if I don’t get it in tomorrow, then I lose the contractors’ discount, and I need—”

  I held up my hand, stopping him. “This is just a nice dinner, no more.” Nothing like breakfast at IHOP. “Let’s just enjoy it, and each other.”

  He gave his crooked smile. “That’s easy. For me, anyway. Tell you what. Tomorrow night, I’ll try to make it home by six, which means I’ll actually be here by six thirty. We’ll eat out and then, who knows? Where do you want to go to dinner?”

  I grinned at him. “Don’t laugh, but I have a yen for junk food. Something bad for me.” Something we could afford.

  “Then I’m your man.” James poured me wine, but none for himself. He lifted the lid off the garlic roasted potatoes. “Smells good. So how was your day?”

  His smile warmed my insides more than any waffle. I couldn’t wait for tomorrow night.

  Chapter Ten

  The “personal shave” that would surprise James had taken much longer than I’d thought. I stepped into panties and decided minimal makeup would be fine.

  Eyes lined and mascaraed, I’d found a bra and tank top and was pulling up jeans when the doorbell chimed. I hoped it would be James, ringing with his elbow because he carried a pizza. We could eat and get right to it without leaving the house. I zipped up and opened the door.

  “Hi.” Gage was loaded with paper bags, most with handles. “Can you take this one? Thanks. He’s not home yet, huh?”

  “No. Come in.” Gage was back! I wasn’t sure how I felt about that.

  “He didn’t call?”

  “I was out, and I never check messages. They’re always for James.”

  “I tried the home number on James’s business card first. There’s a message from me. I got him at work.”

  “Oh.” I’d play the messages every day from now on. “What’s in the bags?” My nose told me the basics.

  “Hot-and-sour soup, spring rolls, shrimp lo mein, twice-cooked pork with vegetables. You guys aren’t vegetarian, are you?” Gage set the cartons on the dining room table as if he’d brought takeout a hundred times. “I’ll get plates.”

  “No, I—”

  “This is my treat. I’ll find them. You could boil water, for tea.”

  James arrived as I was setting chopsticks on napkins. “Go change. Gage will be here any minute. I left you a message.” To James’s credit, his tone didn’t contain a trace of I told you so.

  “He’s here already.” Gage emerged from the dining room and clapped an arm across James’s shoulders. James’s meaty arm wrapped Gage’s ribs, turning the manly embrace into a half hug. I hadn’t seen James look so happy in months.

  “Good to see you, man,” Gage said. “Don’t make her change. She’s dressed better than I am already.”

  Maybe I was. His jeans were new, but his faded T-shirt sported a hole at one shoulder.

  “You always lay bricks in a suit?” Gage released James.

  “I pick up checks in a suit.”

  “You got the Rincon job?” I hoped, hard.

  “Larry Kline’s giving me a trial run. Outdoor space on one executive suite. He loved the plans, even the water feature. Two minutes,” he promised Gage and me and trotted toward the bedroom.

  “So how have you been, Natalie?”

  “Fine.” I wanted to demand an explanation for his absence, but didn’t. “You?”

  “Busy. Working.”

  James reappeared in the jeans I’d thrown away. The ragged-edged splits in the denim revealed knees, thighs and a tantalizing glimpse of the lower edge of one buttock. Where was his underwear? “What do I smell?”

  We ate, James and Gage talking and laughing as much as the night we’d shared too much Bordeaux. Gage opened his fortune cookie first and laughed aloud. “‘You will successfully renew an old acquaintance.’”

  “Let me see that.” James wasn’t buying.

  Gage refused, dropping it into the half inch of soup in the carton. I leaned forward, but the red letters had already bled into blurs.

  “Open yours, Natalie.” Gage smiled at my cleavage.

  “‘Two beautiful men will grant your heart’s desire.’”

  “Why don’t I believe you, either?” James said.

  “Because I lied,” I admitted at once, dropping my fortune into the soup. “Or did I?”

  James read his. “‘If your wishes are not extravagant, they will be met.’ For real. See? Am I hoping for too much?”

  “I don’t think so.” With a bashful smile, Gage averted his eyes and stood up, collecting plates and containers. “Don’t get up. This is my version of taking you out to dinner, without people bugging us.” He cleared the table and reappeared with a large green bottle and glasses. “Champagne in the living room?”

  “What are we celebrating?” I followed him.

  “One another?” Gage eased the cork out with a subdued whoosh rather than the pop and spew I expected.

  “Must be the good stuff,” James said.

  “It should be,” Gage said, pouring.

  That meant he’d paid plenty. Well, why not? He could afford it. We clicked glasses and drank, the men smiling over the rims of the champagne flutes from our wedding, me over the thick lip of an everyday white wineglass.

  “I owe you guys an apology, not calling sooner. Things got crazy.”

  “Uh-huh,” I said.

  “Then I had to go to work, on location.”

  James waved his excuses away like so many gnats. “Where did you go?”

  “Romania. While I was there, I must’ve picked up the phone to call fifty times.” Without meeting my eyes, Gage busied himself topping off our glasses, although they didn’t need it.

  He’s unsure of himself, I thought, watching him center the stemware on the coasters, moving mine an inch closer to me, avo
iding a direct look at either of us. Shy around us, after the things we did.

  “Phone service not up to American standards?” James was practical.

  “My manners not up to anybody’s standards is more like it. The time to call was soon. Next day. Only I didn’t, and the more time that passed, the surer I was what you must think of me. I’m not like that.” His smile twisted. “Only I was, you know?”

  “I’m lost,” I said. “Can we start over, and go slower?”

  “Sure.” Again Gage topped my glass, then James’s, although we’d only taken a sip. “Remember I couldn’t stay because of a call I was expecting? It didn’t go well. At all. I had to fly back to LA and rent a car, meet with people face-to-face. Kissing ass on the phone isn’t the same. You can’t really get your tongue in there and work it, you know?”

  James grinned.

  “So I get that straightened out, pretty much, and there’s still some time before Romania for me to figure out what I’ll need there, and pack. But I’m thinking, Hell, they sell stuff in Romania, right? I’ll just fly back to Tucson.” He shook his head, the shaggy dark hair swinging. “I was literally throwing a few things in a suitcase for here when my sister called. On something. Again.”

  “A drug problem?” I said.

  “Yeah. We went through some tough times, us against the world. Rowan used to take care of me. Now it’s my turn.”

  “Is she okay?” I said.

  “So far.”

  “Is there anything we can do to help?”

  “Not unless you can order a hit,” Gage said.

  “No problem,” James said. “Natalie’s maiden name was Felluca. They’ve all got connections, right?”

  “Right,” I said. “I’ll just call my uncle in New York, or the one in Las Vegas. Who are we hitting?”

  “This guy my mom used to live with. She could get anybody, and she had to choose him.”

  “She must be pretty.”

  “I guess. She was an actress.”

  James said, “Should I know her name?”

  “I doubt it. She called it her alphabet career. She provided the T and A in some B movies for a few g’s, before she got old enough that they said C-U. She was still pretty hot, I guess, enough that there’s always been this parade of boyfriends. Some okay guys, some assholes, no father types. And this one motherfucker. Stuart. He smacked us around—Mom too—but she wouldn’t dump him. He moved in, and everything about me pissed him off.”

  “Uh-oh,” I said. “How old were you?”

  “Fourteen. Rowan was sixteen. He’d beat me with a belt. You look close in nude scenes, you can see lines on my ass. Makeup can’t cover the scars completely.”

  James raised startled eyebrows. I guess he hadn’t seen them with only firelight. “Where was your mother?”

  “Watching and biting her lip. But never once trying to stop him.”

  “How awful,” I said.

  “Pretty fucking awful. Rowan ran away, crashed with these kids near the college, a dozen of them renting this big old house. She’d call me at my friend Rob’s house, after school, to make sure I knew she was okay. Anyway, Stuart saw I wasn’t worried enough. One night he beat me until I told. I, ah, held out a long time. That’s the scars.” Gage took a gulp of his champagne and burped politely behind his hand.

  Nobody laughed. James put his hand on Gage’s forearm.

  “Fucking Stuart hit us all, but only boys got the belt. I was self-involved even then, so sure nobody had it worse than me. He went and got her and everything was just like before. I didn’t know he was raping her.” He looked at James, then me. “How could I not see that?” The fleshy point of his chin quivered, barely discernible.

  “Oh, Gage.” I grasped his hand. It hurt to see his pain, an invisible fist between my lower ribs. Forget magazines with Beautiful People. He didn’t exist in some celebrity vacuum where life was nice.

  He sniffed, avoiding our eyes. “Sorry. She ran away again a few months later, and this time she didn’t call. Protecting me. I didn’t see her for five years, and by then she was a mess, with drug problems nobody can fix but her. If I hadn’t told—”

  “Hey, no,” James said. “This is Stuart’s fault, and your mother’s. Not yours.”

  “It’s mine to fix, though, and I can’t. All I can do is make sure she’s got a place to live with the lights on and food in the fridge. I got a woman who comes in once a week, to shop and clean.”

  “You’re doing what you can,” I said, knowing it didn’t help.

  He smiled at me, but there was no pleasure or humor in it. “I have to pay her more than her other jobs, because sometimes it’s pretty bad. This time, when Rowan sold the furniture, she sold the refrigerator and the stove too. She only called because she was hungry. I took groceries over myself. She ate like a fucking animal.” He sighed. “And I leaned on her, hard, about rehab. Again. How she could have a good life, if she’d just clean up and stay that way. And she said, ‘You mean this isn’t the good life?’ and gestured to the place where the fridge belonged, like it was funny.”

  “Did she go?”

  “Yeah, spitting at me and cussing me out as bad as Stuart ever did. The place was the worst I’ve ever seen it, some major party since Bernice cleaned. So I didn’t plan for Romania and I didn’t come here, either. I spent the time on painters and carpet cleaners and new furniture and finding a guy who could bolt the appliances in. And I went to see Rowan every day until I had to leave for the shoot, because she needs all the support she can get, and Mom’s worthless.”

  “Does your mother know?” Like it was my business.

  “About the rapes? She had to know he was going somewhere when he left their bed but not the house.”

  “Maybe she was in denial?” James said.

  “Maybe her kids’ bodies were a small price to pay for somebody else footing the bills. I left when I was sixteen too. She never tried to find me until I was working a lot, making money—I was in the phone book before then. But she sure missed her boy once he had a bank balance. I shut the door in her face.”

  “That’s harsh,” James said.

  “Is it? Harsh is doing nothing while your boyfriend beats your son bloody and rapes your daughter. I only have a will so I could make sure she gets nothing.”

  James nodded. “I guess I’m lucky that I can’t imagine a mother like that. You do what you have to do.” He turned his glass by its stem, too fast.

  Champagne slopped onto his hand, but he didn’t seem to notice. “I could see my brother David becoming Rowan, in a few years. He’s stoned all the time, except at work.”

  “What does he do?”

  “Washes cars for Hertz, out at the airport, part-time. And deals dope on the side, we think. This charming underachiever shit is only cute when they’re young. He’s twenty-six now.”

  “Still young enough to have a good life, if he can get his act together,” Gage said. “Listen, enough about Rowan and my tragic past. I wasn’t trying to get sympathy, just to explain why I didn’t call.”

  “You were pretty busy there,” I said.

  “Not once I got to Romania. We waited on the weather a lot. I used to sit in my trailer and rehearse what I was going to say, and I’d pick up the phone, and…do nothing. I knew what kind of person you must think I am.”

  “This is where I got lost the last time,” I said.

  “The kind who uses fame to get laid. So shallow I screw whoever’s attractive without getting to know them, because who they are doesn’t matter. That I’m such a selfish bastard I just assume I get the middle and expect you to do all the work to please me, because I’m the center of the fucking universe.” He studied his hands.

  I did too. They were smooth and soft compared to James’s.

  “So yeah, there was Rowan, and then I was working, but I could have called. I could have sent flowers or wine, a card saying how great it was or that I was thinking about you. But I didn’t. So maybe ‘I’m not like that’ is just a
nother lie to think about while I’m lying awake at night, reviewing my shortcomings.”

  “Sounds to me,” James said, “like you need to learn how to turn all that shit off, Gage. Really.”

  “I’d sleep better if I could. So anyway, I hope you enjoyed the Chinese, and this champagne, and that you’ll accept my apology for being so selfish when I was here and for not calling after. Now let’s just get better acquainted. Nothing physical. Okay?”

  “Not so fast.” James’s reply was firm and immediate. Why hadn’t he checked with me before making a decision that wasn’t his but ours?

  “Doesn’t he get a second chance?” I felt so bad for him. How could James not?

  “He does. With conditions.”

  “What?” Gage said.

  “That you’re open with us. You’re right; you should have called. Not just because you owed it to us, which you did, but because you needed some support yourself.”

  “I couldn’t call people I only just met to whine about how hard I have it,” Gage said.

  Did I dare ask the obvious? “What about your friends?”

  “It’s Hollyweird. Nothing is what you think, including people who care about you. It’s safer to assume it’s every man for himself and they’ll stab you in the back for a walk-on. There’s a lot of good actors who can fool me every time, making like they’re my friends.”

  “Then we won’t try to fool you,” James said. “If you just want the sex and not to share your actual life, find somebody else.”

  That was callous, even if it was true. “Otherwise,” I said, “you should be calling to complain, or say hi, or ask what I’m making for dinner.”

  “Calling for no reason isn’t imposing?”

  “It’s what friends do,” I said. “And lovers.”

  Gage grinned. “So I can stay awhile, and maybe come by again tomorrow?”

  “Unless we convince you to stay over,” I said.

  “Which, if you get drunk, you should.” James poked a thumb toward the front window. “Assuming the Porsche is yours.”

  “Yeah. The part came in. Of course, they fucked me royally for storage.”