I glared at the closed door and considered the situation.
No, I didn’t like being awakened this way or being visited without warning by some man I’d never even met before. But I did need the carpet to be replaced; and the sooner it was done, the better.
Besides—Ray had sent him. Albeit indirectly.
“Hold on a minute,” I called out to him.
I heard him mutter something from the other side of the door, but I didn’t even want to venture a guess as to what it might have been. Probably something less than polite and far from repeatable, given the rest of the exchange so far.
I grabbed my robe off the back of the couch and wrapped it around myself, cinching it tightly at the waist. I would have preferred an opportunity to get dressed, but I didn’t think this knuckle-head would grant me the luxury.
I opened the door with my best scowl fixed firmly on my face. I wanted to appear resolute, in control, unflappable. Maybe something bordering on frigid bitch. I didn’t want him to have any idea of just how intimidated I was feeling right now, how terribly vulnerable.
He was about six inches shorter than me, but he still had about eighty pounds on me.
And it was almost all muscle. This guy was central casting’s dream for a mob heavy, the brainless type who lumbers around threatening kneecap damage and fittings for cement shoes. His brown eyes were steely and set deep on either side of a nose that had been broken one too many times, his lantern-jawed face anchored to the rest of his body by a thick neck. I wondered how on earth this man that was standing on my front doorstep could possibly have any dealings with Ray, who seemed to be his polar opposite.
I raised an eyebrow at him and extended my hand.
“Hi, Nick. I’m Zoë,” I said, thinking maybe we could start being a little more polite.
And by we, I meant him.
He looked at my hand as though he had no idea what to do with it, then looked up at me. I stood there, rooted to my spot in the middle of the doorway, waiting for him to shake my hand. I was not going to budge. Nope, I was going to be as much in control of this situation as possible.
We stared at each other for what seemed like an eternity, and then he did something I never expected.
He broke out into an enormous grin.
“You got spunk, Zoë. I like that in a woman,” he said, taking my hand firmly in his for a quick shake. In a grip that could have effortlessly crushed bones.
I was still just a little bit stunned, so I fumbled for a response.
“Thanks. I think,” I stammered, wondering what alternate universe I had opened the door to.
“So where’s this carpet needs replacing?” he asked, releasing me from his grasp and rolling up on his toes.
It made me newly aware of the difference in our heights, and I wondered if it bothered him. I was guessing that was probably one reason for the intimidation tactics, but I might have been wrong. Maybe he just had a really strange sense of humor.
“Oh, it’s in the bedroom back there.” I gestured behind me and stepped aside to let him pass.
Into the house.
Into Neil’s house.
Into what was, for the time being, my house.
Nick crossed the threshold, and I stood looking past him to the empty street. I took a breath and reached for the door, hesitating for a moment as I shut it behind him. It clicked with a finality that seemed ominous, and I prayed silently that this was not going to prove to be a mistake.
“Let’s take a look-see, and then I’ll tell you how long I think it’ll take.”
I realized I was still staring at the door when he spoke, still wondering if maybe I should have left it open. But that was ridiculous, I thought. I couldn’t go through life leaving the door open every time I had to have a repair man in my home.
I turned away from the door to face him and shoved my hands into the pockets of my robe. He looked harmless enough, now that I seemed to have won him over.
Teddy bear, I said to myself. Teddy bear, teddy bear. He’s a great big teddy bear, I thought, plastering a smile on my face and moving further into the house to take him to the bedroom.
“Ray’s a good friend of my cousin Joe,” Nick said as we walked down the hall, answering the question I had never asked. I knew he must have sensed my discomfort, and I was grateful for that small measure of reassurance that he wasn’t some kind of creep trying to take advantage of an odd situation.
“Oh?” I said, hoping to encourage further details.
Apparently Nick didn’t need much prodding.
“Yuh. They been friends since grade school, stayed tight and all that. Anything Joe needs, Ray helps him out. Anything Ray needs, Joe helps him out. Real tight, you know? Like brothers. So Ray says to Joe he needs somebody can replace some carpeting, bada-bing-bada-boom, Joe calls me.”
We stopped at the doorway to the bedroom, and I turned to smile at him, a genuine smile this time. The man was having fun making himself sound like a cliché, so I would play along.
“And here you are,” I said.
He nodded, grinning broadly. “And here I am. Like your very own guardian angel.” He paused and cocked a dark eyebrow at me. “No offense, but I don’t normally work on Sundays. I’m a good Catholic boy, ya know? But I made an exception.” Nick gave me a long look of appraisal before continuing. “Now let me get to work, so that I don’t miss Sunday supper with my mama. She’s making her famous lasagna, with cannoli for dessert.”
“Well, we wouldn’t want that,” I murmured, swallowing the beginnings of a smile.
I wouldn’t have taken Nick for a mama’s boy, but now that I thought about it, it made sense.
“Nobody misses supper when Mama makes cannoli,” he said soberly.
I nodded mutely.
Probably nobody missed supper with Mama, period. Probably no one wanted to meet Mama in a back alley, either.
I watched as he entered the bedroom, still stunned into silence.
This might have been a bizarre encounter; but really, what in my life these days wasn’t?
There’s a dull ache that comes sometimes at night, when you’re alone with your thoughts in the dark, when there’s nothing there to distract you from the utterly deafening sound of silence. It hits with the speed and force of a missile; and sometimes it just sits there, unexploded but still deadly.
I was staring up at the ceiling, hearing nothing but the sound of my own breathing and the steady rhythm of my alarm clock ticking away on the dresser.
Three a.m. I hadn’t slept more than an hour straight by that point, and I’d gone to bed early because I’d been so exhausted.
So much for that attempt to get some sleep, I thought with a frustrated sigh.
I rolled over onto my side and punched my pillow into a fat, short mound under my head.
And there it was.
The empty pillow.
Sometimes the sight of something you’ve seen a thousand times can seem so profound, so final, so defeating.
Unbidden tears stung my eyes and clouded my vision as I stared at the pillow. Even though this wasn’t my bed, I still felt an undeniable, suffocating sense of loss. The right side of the bed was empty, un-slept in, unused. It stayed made every night when I went to sleep, because I slept on one side of the bed and never strayed over onto the other side.
As I lay in the dark, staring at the empty pillow, I wondered if I would ever have someone staring back at me. Someone whose measured breathing would give rhythm to the silence of the darkened room.
Someone to wake up to.
Sometimes the void seemed too much to handle, and there was a palpable ache for contact. It was a need to be able to reach out and touch someone, to see the rise and fall of the sheets as someone slept next to me, to feel the security of someone’s arms around me as night drifted into morning. To know that there was someone within reach who loved me more deeply and knew me more completely than anyone else ever had.
I closed my eyes and willed sleep
to come. Oblivion was my sole method of escape and the only way to silence my overactive brain, but it seemed unattainable.
The clock sounded thunderous in the otherwise silent room, chasing away even the slightest possibility of drowsiness as I lay there. Finally surrendering the idea of sleep, I threw back the covers and sat up in bed. I switched on the lamp and planted my feet on the newly replaced carpet, wondering if there was anything on television that I could lose myself in.
I shuffled down the hall to the living room and flopped resignedly onto the couch. I was so tired physically that the frenetic activity of my mind was almost cruel. As was the fact that I couldn’t find the remote.
Remote, remote, remote. Where was the freaking remote?
I dug into the cushions next to me, my eyes traveling onto the coffee table as I continued my unsuccessful search.
Resting there, where I’d left it after reading and re-reading it a thousand times, was the note that had come from Neil, something I’d never expected to see in the mailbox, especially at this point. We were two months into our arrangement, so somewhere along the way I’d given up on thinking that I might actually hear from him. Especially since he didn’t actually have a home phone line, and Ray never seemed to remember to give me his e-mail address. It was almost as though he relished being the middle man.
Ray would certainly be surprised that I’d received the letter—if I told him. Should I keep it to myself and fish for details about Neil as though he was still a complete mystery? He was, of course. That hadn’t changed by the simple fact that he’d taken a minute to send me a letter. There was absolutely nothing personally telling in anything he’d written. So where to go from here?
Oh, well, I thought with a sigh that escaped into the darkened room. Another thought for another time, when my head wasn’t already so full of things.
I shifted on the couch and tried to get comfortable, curling up on my side and reaching for the throw that was draped across the back. It was hunter green, made of woven cotton that had seen better days. The blanket clashed horribly with the color of the couch, a black and white tweed monstrosity, but it wasn’t something I ever thought about shoving into a closet.
I snuggled down deeper into the couch and pulled the throw all the way up to my chin. Once upon a time, it had smelled like Neil. It was one of the only things I could say I truly knew about Neil—the way he smelled. Now it smelled more like me, a mixture of the shampoo I used and the perfume I wore every day.
I stared into the darkness and wondered what Kate and Ray would say when they got back into town in a few days, what details of the happy proposal they would relay. It was something I knew she’d never expected, to find someone she wanted to share the rest of her life with, to abandon the well-planned life she’d nailed down for herself. But it was something I knew she wanted now more than anything.
Love will do that—derail your plans, interrupt your life.
Turn falling into flying.
I couldn’t wait to hear everything, to hear the play-by-play of just how Ray had done the proposing, and while I understood Kate’s desire to wait and tell me everything in person, I couldn't help but wonder if maybe Kate was hesitant to tell me because of something else. Maybe she thought the idea of her wedding would remind me of my own and all of the pain that I was still working through.
I was getting through it, though, I thought resolutely.
I was.
I was lonely, yes, but I wasn’t walking around like I was half a person anymore. I was functioning. And every day I felt like I was getting one step closer to normal.
I would always love Paul, I would always miss him. But I would be doing him a disservice if I quit living.
I realized I was holding my breath. It was something I often did, quite unconsciously, whenever I thought about Paul. Like time was stopped, and things were in suspended animation.
Breathe.
I exhaled and stared out into the darkened room.
I’d already made some big changes in my life lately. Maybe it was time to make some more. I poked my left hand out from under the blanket and held it up in the darkness. There was just enough light from the nightlight in the kitchen to dimly see my engagement ring. I’d been wearing it every day for the past eleven months, taking it off only to clean it when the stone had clouded from too much soap scum.
As I laid there in the dark, staring at the ring on my left hand, I wondered if it might not be time to take it off. It was a thought I’d fleetingly entertained before, only to reprimand myself for being irreverent. Surely there was a required length of time before such a thing was proper.
Was eleven months too soon?
Was it too long?
In wearing the ring, I was unwittingly making a statement: I was not free.
I reached my right hand out from under the covers and worked the ring off my finger as tears filled my eyes.
I wanted to be free.
Chapter 11
“Get these to Mrs. Green before noon so that she can get them all signed and back to us,” a voice barked at me without preamble.
The voice, hard-edged and gravelly from a twenty-year, three-pack-a-day habit, belonged to our office manager, Jane Warren. She punctuated her command by shoving a large stack of files at me.
“Good morning to you, too, Jane,” I muttered, looking up from the bank statements I’d been poring over all morning.
I capped my highlighter and flipped the cover of the top file on the stack, wondering what in these papers might be so pressing as to warrant Jane’s attitude and brusqueness. Not that anything actually ever had to have happened for her to act that way—that was Jane. Ever-poised and absolutely dripping with charm.
“No, it’s not a good morning.” she snapped, whipping around to head back to her office, leaving a thick layer of ice in her wake.
I pulled the stack of files toward me, shoving my previous project out of the way, and methodically made my way through the paperwork, signing and dating the necessary documents and affixing Sign Here flags at various points along the way.
Outwardly, I was calm and collected as I worked, silently determined in my task. Inwardly, though, I was seething. I was so sick and tired of Jane’s treatment that I could almost taste bile, the unreleased anger swelling so thickly in my throat that it nearly choked me. She’d been relentless in her imperiousness since the day I’d begun the job, and at that exact moment, it was more than I could take.
I needed to get out, needed to walk somewhere.
Anywhere. There were too many things going on in my head right now; and if I didn’t make my escape, everything would come tumbling out—and I had a feeling none of it would be pretty. Better to make a hasty exit, right? Even if I didn’t tell anyone where I was going or when I would be back. At least I wouldn’t have to do the same level of damage control I would most definitely have to do if I railed all over Jane the way I wanted to. Not that she didn’t have it coming.
I picked up the stack of files from my desk, walked determinedly to Jane’s cubicle, and silently handed them to her. I could feel the heat in my face from the unreleased anger.
“I need to step out a minute, Jane,” I said quietly.
She raised a challenging eyebrow.
“Just a few minutes. You can count it as my lunch break,” I said quickly, hoping she wouldn’t pry for details.
As office manager, she was entitled to know when everyone was coming and going, but Jane took it to the next level. She guarded the front door and the clock like a prison warden, the office bulldog even when there was no reason. For Jane, control was power, and she liked to lord it over everyone that she was the one who checked over the time sheets and kept close watch on every square of toilet paper that was used.
That was Jane.
And for some reason, she was allowed to call the shots.
Not now. Not on this one.
I turned quickly on my heel, made a beeline to the front door, and walked out into the f
resh air.
The empty, sunny, fresh air.
Deep breath in. Deep breath out.
I walked past the row of cars parked along the front of our building, across the street to the park, and down a side alley. I didn’t know where I was going, but I really also didn’t care. It didn’t matter at this point. All that mattered was that I was alone, outside, away from the madness.
No, I wasn’t pounding my fists or stomping my feet or raging at anyone. But it still felt good, this moment of freedom.
I kept walking, aimlessly, lost in thought, the quickness and urgency in my steps slowing as I calmed down.
What I wouldn’t give for real freedom, I thought.
Freedom and passion.
I was twenty-four.
Twenty-four should have been a time in my life that I was newly embarking on my journey, building my future with someone—not having to rebuild so completely that it was basically from the ground up.
Twenty-four should not have had death rob me of the love of my life.
But there I was, and I had been working hard to remember who I was before all of this. Remember who I had been when I met Paul and who he had fallen in love with. I knew I’d allowed complacency to keep me in a job where I merely filled a cubicle and punched a time clock, coming home to finish out my days as alone as I began them. I’d been with the company long enough to have made friends at work, but none of them was really someone I would have socialized with even under the best of circumstances. We coexisted, and we cooperated. None of us was really interested in more than that, so none of us really encouraged more than that.
I had my client list and my schedule of tasks, and I did exactly what I was supposed to everyday. No more, no less. I certainly wasn’t on the fast-track to greatness, but I pulled my weight. Maybe I should have been more determined to find a job that I loved, but I didn’t have the energy. I didn’t even care. I wanted to care, but sometimes I wondered if exploring that part of my life too deeply might make me truly aware of just how unfulfilled I felt at work. And what changing that would entail.
Coming Home to You Page 8
