1985: Careless Whisper (Love in the 80s #6)

by Misty Provencher

  The faint magic of James’s eyes vanishes. “Why didn’t you say you’ve been listening to a bunch of tapes?”

  “Who cares?” Sheri says. “There was nothing on most of them anyway.”

  “They were all mix tapes besides the one about Evelyn’s birthday party, and the one with Paul on it,” James clarifies. My eyes drop away from his at the mention of the whole Paul thing. James clears his throat. “I thought it would be best if we all listen to the rest together.”

  He was looking for more answers about Paul and me. He already found everything there is to know.

  “So we can get this all over with, and go back to living our life,” Sheri says, snaking her hands around James’s waist. She locks tight over his belt buckle and I turn away.

  “Yeah, we all want that,” I say, leading the way into the kitchen.

  We make coffee and listen to tape after tape, scanning through them, but by the third pot, Paul offers to take Lisa’s kids downstairs and put them to bed.

  “You’d do that?” Lisa asks.

  “But I get to sleep on the fold-out bed tonight,” Paul barters.

  “If you get them all to sleep, you can have it,” Lisa says. “I’ll sleep with Alabama on the blow-up mattress.” Alabama and Winter shoot downstairs after a bribe of popcorn and a VHS cartoon rental Lisa brought along.

  Eve leans back in the kitchen chair, stretching and yawning. “I’m tired of listening to old mixes and, honestly all, I’m bushed.”

  “Bushed? Really, Evie Nicks?” James says with a snicker. Eve rounds on him and I’m not sure if she’s going to use her new lumberjack status to bust him in the mouth, but then with one look at James’s face, so wide open and playful, she breaks down and laughs too. Lisa, Sheri and I crack up along with them.

  “Ok, whatever,” Eve pushes back her chair with a final har har har and we all say good night before she goes off down the hall.

  “I’m sleepy too,” Sheri pouts, using her baby voice as she curls into James. “Wanna take me to bed, James?”

  Lisa stares pointedly at James. “She needs to go to bed, James.” Whatever Lisa’s no-nonsense tone doesn’t cover, her tight jaw does. James gets up and excuses the two of them, shooting Lisa a kiss my ass kind of look that isn’t lost on either of us.

  Once the den door shuts, it’s just me and Lisa and I grin at her for the first time in seven years. And she grins back.

  “I can not stand that little tart,” Lisa whispers to me.

  “Me either,” I say and we giggle like we used to, which is very bittersweet, because I said the same thing about Lisa, and a whole lot worse, about seven years ago.

  “Okay, next tape,” she says, popping out the last one. She slides in the next and hits play. Dire Straits, Money for Nothing, blasts from the speakers. Lisa and I automatically bang our air drums and air guitar in perfect sync with the end of the wispy I want my MTV intro. and then we spot each other across the table and give them up just as quick, our laughter dying down as we grasp our coffee cups instead.

  “Still a couple of dorks,” I say.

  “Speak for yourself.” Lisa grins. I feel rewarded by her smile, but my mind can’t help but wander back to how deeply I loved and trusted Lisa and what she did with James despite it all.

  “Always do,” I say and Lisa’s grin falls away. Dire Straits knits notes in the air between us. “We should just keep fast forwarding. Otherwise, this is going to take days.”

  “We’ve got days.” Lisa jams down the fast-forward button and the song squeals before shuffling the tape along. She presses play again and Cock Robin’s The Promise You Made comes on. Lisa stretches her arms over her head like she’s really tired. “I used to like this one. I bet this tape was mine.”

  The song shuffles around our awkward pauses.

  “We both liked it,” I finally say. “That’s why this is taking so long. We keep listening instead of fast forwarding.”

  “Yeah, well.” She cracks another smile and I miss who we used to be again, sitting at this same table, for years and years. She rubs her fingernail against her lips. “I think we made this tape that last summer we knew each other.”

  And there it is. Leave it to Lisa to lead the elephant straight into the room and sit it down, right between us.

  “Sounds like it,” I say, and then with a quick glance at Lisa, “I know where this conversation is going, and I don’t want to go there with you.”

  Her fingernail stills. “You know what, Jones? You’ve never wanted to go there with me, and that’s why we’re here now. Do you even know how much I’ve missed you?”

  That hits me harder than if she’d busted open my lip. My throat swells and I have to take a drink of coffee without looking at her. And then, still without looking at her, I ask, “I’ve always wanted to know why you did it.”

  “Which part?” she asks.

  “There are parts?”

  “God, Grace,” she whispers and her voice sounds stringy, like she’s going to cry. I only heard Lisa cry once, and it was when she came home from the clinic, hollow and sad. “We were so young and it would never have worked. It was just a mistake. That was all it was, but I regret it every day of my life.”

  “Which part?” I say.

  “All of it,” she says. “You don’t know how it ruined me. There’s so much I needed to talk to you about and couldn’t. By the time I got the guts to, you were already gone and…”

  The phone rings. Mounted on the wall, Gada’s push button sounds like it’s banging around inside a metal pot, the ring is so loud. Lisa looks away, dusting off her tear ducts with the pad of her index finger, as if she’s getting rid of fallen eyelashes instead of tears.

  I get the phone. “Hello?”

  “Grace?” It’s Emilio. “I was hoping you were on your way over here.”

  “Nope. I’m still here,” I say and he sighs. “I told you I needed to stay and this really isn’t a good time, Emilio.”

  “So that’s it? Is it because of him?” he asks, but then he clears his throat and buries the first question with a second. “Are you coming to the hotel?”

  “I told you I wasn’t.”

  He sighs. “I was hoping you changed your mind. I wanted to let you know I got an earlier flight out. I’m leaving tomorrow morning, first thing, if you care.”

  I’m finding that to be an impossible task.

  “Alright,” I tell him. “I’ll talk to you when I get back home then.”

  “No, Grace, that’s not going to work,” he says. “This isn’t good for me—what’s happening over there. Look, I can see you’re in love with the guy. It’s kind of pathetic, considering that’s what was and you’re choosing to turn your back on what is. I’m not going to stand by, on hold, while you figure it out.”

  I’m not going to argue about how I’m not in love with James with Lisa sitting behind me. What’s pathetic is that Emilio wants to throw tantrums, run away, and insist that I chase him. All his bad boy cred just shot out the window and he’s on the other end of the phone, continuing to plead his case.

  “You’re in denial about what’s going on at your subconscious level,” he says. “I know you better than you know yourself, so I think I can safely say that you are using classic avoidance tactics in regard to your true feelings.”

  I crush the end of the receiver against my lips. “Stop with the psycho-babble already. There’s nothing going on at a subconscious level with me, or any other level for that matter. The way you’ve handled this whole situation—”

  “You were sighing about him in your sleep,” Emilio says flatly. “You told him you loved him.”

  Little sounds come out of my mouth, things that translate to fuck you and you’re crazy and you’re full of shit. If my subconscious was spilling about James, it’s probably due to shell shock, from being stuck in a house with him and Emilio at the same time. I grit my teeth. “How can you blame me for that?”

  “You’re exploring the idea of him when you are r
elaxed.” Damn, but he puts on his shrink-tone the same way I put on my professional bitch persona: one fucked up layer at a time. “And that means that you haven’t resolved your relationship to him.”

  “Which is exactly what I told you. That’s what I’m here for. To resolve things.”

  The shrink tone falters and the Bronx boy emerges. “Yeah, yeah, you told me a lot of things, Grace,” Emilio barks. I tip my head away from the receiver. He once told me that it took years of therapy to erase that accent, but here it is—proof that the past can not be erased. “The point is, if you want to be with me, then come to the hotel and leave with me tomorrow morning, because otherwise, I’m leaving.” There’s a long pause, where I think he believes I’m going to jump in and tell him I’m on my way, but don’t. His exhales push through the phone line. “I want you to know something, Grace. I’m not leaving because I want you to be happy. It’s because I want myself to be happy. I deserve that. I’ve done nothing but try to help you, but now I deserve to help myself.”

  “Go,” I say. I’m exhausted. “Be happier then.”

  “Oh, fuck you, you cold bag of bitch!” He sort of shrieks the last part and it would be funny if it wasn’t the man I thought I loved. But, as he slams down his receiver in my ear, it’s a relief.

  When I turn around, Lisa has left the table.

  But James is standing in the opening to the kitchen, his arms folded across his chest and his shoulder against the frame.

  “Want to talk?” James asks.

  “There’s nothing to say, really.” I give him a sad grin. “He proposed.”

  “And you said no,” James says with a slight frown. The empathy erases any crinkles that might’ve been around his eyes. Like always, James gets to the core of me with minimal wordage.

  I shrug, numb. I go to my chair at the table and sit. “We weren’t meant to be.”

  “Blessings,” James says. I smile. That’s something his mother used to say, whenever one of her sons escaped a trip to juvie, or someone backed off on a threat to sue her for whatever damages her boys had caused. James gets a mug from the cupboard and pours a cup of coffee. He takes the seat beside mine. “Want to talk anyway?”

  “Not about Emilio,” I try to grin, but I’m kind of exhausted. “I’m all talked out about that. I think he used up all the words.”

  “Alright,” James says. “I promise. Nothing about Emilio.”

  “But that only leaves one thing, doesn’t it?” I say. “And I don’t think I want to talk about that either.”

  James grips his mug, looking down into the black liquid. “I’m sorry, Gracie, but I want closure, I need it. Don’t you? Do you understand how messed up I was after you left, and I found out what had happened between you and Paul? I haven’t even talked to my own brother until we both showed up here this week.”

  So, that’s what this is about. Shifting the blame. Especially now, after what just went down with Emilio. James wants to start up again about that one, tequila-fueled kiss, rather than talking about how he made a baby with my best friend. I tick my head to one side with a sour laugh.

  “You’re going to compare one drunken mistake to you getting with my best friend?” I say.

  “Seriously?” he snipes back. “You’re going to try to justify getting with my brother as a drunken mistake? And, news flash, what happened between me and Lisa only happened because of you.”

  “Wow.” I half-mouth, half-speak the word as I slump back in the chair. I never thought he’d admit it so easily, but it just rolled right off his tongue! “You are a skunk, do you know that? If you think it’s cool to do my best friend because of what happened with me and Paul, you’re out of your gourd.”

  James leans toward me, pushing his coffee aside. “What did you care anyway? You were already off to bigger and better things. I’ve always wondered, Grace, did you know all along that you were leaving? Did you get with Paul because you didn’t know how to break it off with me? Or did you want to be with him all along and just didn’t have the balls to tell me?”

  His nostrils are flaring, his eyes wide and wild. Anyone else would be frightened of James Stryker staring them down like this, but not me. I’ve seen the beast inside James before, and because I know where it comes from, I know that the beast will never turn on me. He’ll roar and rage, but I’m not the one he’ll lash out on.

  The beast was built from the anger of his dad beating his mother and abandoning the family, and once loose, it could easily pummel a man to pieces, but the beast had never, and would never, strike a woman. Not after James spent years defending his mother from all the other beasts that went in and out of their lives. James’s anger was very focused, and although it could smolder in his eyes at me, there was way too much of the soft, sweet James to lose complete control.

  “Don’t sit here and try to turn this all around,” I snap at him. “You act like I got with Paul, the way you got with Lisa. You obviously did a lot worse to me, and to her, than I ever did to you.”

  “How could it be worse?” he flares. “Lisa and I were never in love with each other. She’d tell you that herself.”

  “Love? That’s what would make banging my best friend all okay in your head? My God, James,” I explode, “Paul and I were never in love either! We shared one fucking kiss!”

  The expression washes off of James’s face as if I’d slapped him.

  “You are completely delusional!” His lips pull at the corner of his mouth as if he doesn’t know whether he should sneer or laugh. “I would think you’d know by now, a kiss isn’t the way it happens!”

  I’m not even listening to him anymore. I’m just waiting for him to stop talking, so I can blast him. My voice climbs and I don’t even care if I rattle the house or wake the kids downstairs. If James wants to air this all out, then, by God, we might as well do it and I don’t care who hears it. It’s time to set the record straight.

  “If you mean babies, oh yeah—I know perfectly how that happens, Mr. Nowhere-To-Be-Found!” I shout at him. “I was the one who was there to hold Lisa’s hand all week after it happened. I was the one who stayed by her side and covered for her, so nobody would find out about what you did! Not even me!”

  There are simultaneous footsteps on the basement stairs and ones coming down the hall from my old bedroom.

  “What I did?” James hollers back. “What the fuck are you talking about, Grace? You held Lisa’s hand after what? You were long-fucking-gone by the time anything happened between me and Lisa!”

  Now I feel slapped. My arms and legs tremble with the roaring momentum of seven years worth of anger, but my jaw sags open as I try to make sense of what he’s saying. Why is he still playing dumb? That’s his big closure plan—to play stupid, now that I’ve called him out?

  Eve comes to a dead halt in the mouth of the hall. Lisa steps up into the kitchen, wide-eyed, with Paul right behind her. Sheri drifts into the archway between the living room and kitchen, but for the first time, she doesn’t run in to swaddle James in her arms and glue herself to his leg. Shocker.

  “What the hell is going on?” Lisa asks, but her tone doesn’t have the usual fuck off vibe. It’s the most timid she’s ever sounded—big surprise. “I heard my name.”

  I’d answer her, but this fight is already way past allowing spectators to jump into the ring. It’s between James and me and I’m not about to tap out, or let Lisa, or anybody else for that matter, tap in. This is a seven-year itch that’s finally getting scratched so hard, the truth is busting out all over the place.

  “You…” I wave a quivering finger at him. I wish I could get my voice steady, but calming down is impossible. “You got Lisa pregnant! Gada took her for an abortion and we took care of her! Lisa wouldn’t tell me who the father was, but I found out. It was you! She finally told Gada when she was all healed up and ready to go back home!”

  Eve gasps and Paul’s head snaps sideways to stare at Lisa as her palm shoots up to grip her forehead.

  “What t
he fuck are you talking about?” James shouts. He shakes his head like I’m an imbecile, sticking to the same old act that has always served him well. He always used this defense when we were kids and he got caught vandalizing or stealing or feeling me up in Gada’s basement: deny, deny, deny.

  “Oh my God, Grace,” Lisa says, “You don’t know—”

  I round on her, teeth bared. “Shut up and stay out of this, Lisa! I know everything and this is between me and James!”

  She shakes her head. “No, you really don’t,” she says. She keeps shaking her head. Protecting him. Damn, but I’m not sure she left any room on my back for more of her knives.

  But what throws me off is James’s face. He’s pasty, swaying a little in his chair. “It was Lisa?” he asks, glancing at her. “Lisa was pregnant—not you?”

  “What the hell are you talking about, not me?” His denial is making me crazy. He looks so convincing—he must’ve been practicing this ‘shocked innocence’ look all these years because he’s got it down.

  “You didn’t get an abortion?” he asks.

  “Stop it, James! You know what you’re doing!” I fire at him. “Deny, deny, deny! You know it was Lisa! It was your kid! And you sure-as-shit know if I’d been the one in trouble, I would never have hid anything like that from you.”

  He looks like he’s going to barf. “That’s not what Gada told me.”

  “What?” Gada? I step toward him, my eyelids compressed, as I try to squint through his bullshit. I can’t believe he’s dragging my dead grandmother into this. “What do you mean, what Gada told you?”

  “Wait,” Paul says, moving into the kitchen, “who got the abortion?”

  “Me,” Lisa whispers, her gaze stuck to the floor.

  “You?” James’s head twists in her direction, his eyebrows nearly hitting his hairline. It’s like he’s been hit with a stun gun. And so have I. He’s not that good of an actor.

  “Whose baby was it?” Paul cocks his head to one side and I see his throat squeeze as he swallows. “Did it belong to James?”