by Calista Fox
Jenna crossed to the tall windows and stared out at the beautiful lights of San Francisco, the Transamerica Pyramid glowing along the skyline.
In the reflection of a large glass pane, she saw Tad move to the sofa so he had a better view of her as she spoke. Jenna drank more of her cocktail, then told him, “She invited me to her house one day. A stunning Victorian home with a dozen bedrooms and as many bathrooms. The hallways were a maze we played in. And then she took me up to her room.”
Jenna’s throat constricted as emotion bubbled upward. She said, “Her room was as big as this entire suite. Lavender walls, a polished hardwood floor with plush area rugs, an enormous canopy bed in the center, decorated in fluffy white with stuffed animals piled high on top of it. She had a closet full of clothes. A stereo system in the corner. A TV. A desk with her own chair. I remember every single detail, right down to the tiny lilacs on the frilly white drapes that covered half a dozen windows. The view below was of the rose garden her mother grew.”
“Oh, dear me. I know where this is headed,” Tad said in a soft voice.
“I stood in the middle of the room, completely and utterly shell-shocked. How could she have so much space? And so many stuffed animals and dolls and clothes? It boggled my mind. Linney and I had a few toys—this girl had an entire trunk full!”
“I bet you played at her house every chance you got.”
“No.” Jenna remained quiet for endless minutes, gradually polishing off her second martini.
Tad graciously poured her another one, saying, “Two is always your limit, dear heart.”
“I’m feeling the need to get nicely tanked.”
He frowned. “Careful, sugar plum. You might regret that in the morning.” He returned to the sofa and asked, “What happened with Miss Abigail?”
“I stopped speaking to her the next day. I literally pretended she didn’t exist.”
“Good Lord,” he sighed. “How devastating for her.”
Jenna said, “She had plenty of friends. She probably didn’t even notice. And besides, two months later, we were out of there.”
“Sweet Mary, this is depressing.”
She turned back to the window. “And you wonder why I never wanted to talk about this.”
“But, Jenna, how can you not? Especially with me? Or with Rafe?”
She dragged in a breath. Slowly let it out. “He knows I have a sister. He knows we don’t talk. But I never told him why. Just that we lost touch with each other.”
“Did she have friends, or was she like you?”
“A loner?” she asked, her tone a bit sharp. “She was worse, actually. Until her late teens. In fact…” Jenna fortified herself further with another sip. She’d be sufficiently anesthetized shortly, she was sure of it. And could use the break from the emotional upheaval coming to San Francisco had brought on.
She told Tad, “Linney used to give me a hard time about the journals I kept. After the frilly lavender-bedroom incident, I started recording the names of the people I wanted to remember, starting with Abigail, because she was so pretty and sweet. And she’d been really nice to me for the short period of time we were friends. I’d write down who they were, a description of them and what I liked about them.”
His gazed narrowed on her. “Why would Linney ridicule you about that?”
Jenna stared at him in the reflection in the window and said, “Because she didn’t see the point of it. She told me no one would remember us, since they’d only known us briefly. They wouldn’t recall our names… Why should we want to remember theirs?” She paused before adding, “I suppose she was right. I mean, I didn’t put much thought into it when I was a kid, but later on, it started to sink in. Eventually, I felt…inconsequential. Insignificant.”
“You’re breaking my heart,” Tad told her, a sullen look on his handsome face.
“You said you wanted to hear this.”
“Yes, but. This is all so tragic, Jenna.”
“Then I’ll spare you the rest.” She shifted away from him, but he gently clasped her wrist.
“No. Tell me about Linney. Why you two are estranged.”
He released her and Jenna returned to the sofa, needing to sit as not only the jagged feelings tore into her, but the alcohol also hummed through her system. She felt a little lightheaded. Welcomed the inevitable numbing effect. Helped it along by sipping some more.
She tucked her legs alongside her hip and said, “We were back in the Bay Area right around the time Linney turned eighteen. For this trip, we stayed in Walnut Creek. Linney came into the city several times on her own. When we were ready to roll out a few weeks later, she told us she’d met a boy who said she could stay with him and his roommates in the city. He got her a job on the Wharf. Some souvenir shop where she could cashier.”
Tad didn’t say a word as he sat next to her.
Jenna continued. “At first, I was so excited. Here was our great escape, right?” Her chest pulled tight. “We could stay someplace we liked—San Francisco offered so many opportunities! I didn’t mind if we had to live in a cramped apartment—at least it didn’t have wheels. And I’d made money doing side work at restaurants and running errands for the owners. I could keep doing that. But Linney said no.” Tears pricked the backs of Jenna’s eyes. “She told me I couldn’t go with her.”
Jenna could recall that morning in the RV park like it was yesterday. And damn if the pain didn’t slice through her just as acutely, years later.
Her voice cracked when she said, “I pleaded with her, Tad. I begged her to take me with her. I cried. Then I begged some more.”
To this day, she still felt—to the core of her being—the hot flash of rejection in Linney’s eyes. “My sister told me this was her dream and that I had to find my own dream. And since I was only fifteen, she couldn’t take me with her.”
Tad took the martini glass from Jenna, because her hand started to shake and vodka sloshed over the side.
“She ripped my heart out,” Jenna said on a sharp breath.
Silence ensued. It took some time for her to continue.
Tears tumbled down her heated cheeks as she said, “Linney drove off. My parents packed up. As we left, I raced to the back of the RV and sat on my parents’ bed, staring out the back window. Crying a river, my hand pressed to the window, as though I actually had some sort of connection with my sister that would make her change her mind. Clearly… I didn’t.”
She sniffled.
“We drove for hours and I stared out that window, believing I’d see her boyfriend’s car catching up to us. I kept thinking they were somewhere behind us and eventually they’d flag us down and Linney would take me with her. Or stay. I didn’t care which. I just needed her to be with me.”
“Or you needed to be with her,” Tad quietly said. His hand closed over hers. “She was your only real friend. The one true constant in your life.”
“Yes.” Jenna couldn’t stop the waterworks if she’d tried. Emotion flooded her veins and a new wave of tears streamed down her face.
Tad pulled her to him and she sobbed. A body-wracking crying jag she hadn’t given into since that day in the RV when Linney had disappeared for good from her life. She’d even held it together when Rafe filed for divorce. But tonight, there was no holding back.
Maybe it was the alcohol. Maybe it was something long overdue. Maybe it was because she was with Tad, and she trusted him with her heartbreak. The tears didn’t abate as he rocked her, whispered in her ear and smoothed her hair.
Jenna experienced a tinge of mortification over losing it so badly in front of someone. But Tad continued to console her, and she let the vodka cloud her mind, not fighting it.
Eventually, Jenna felt nothing at all…
Chapter Eight
Rafe knocked softly on the door.
Mere seconds later, Tad pulled it open. “Thanks for coming,” he said.
“Thanks for calling.”
Rafe stepped into the dimly lit suite. In a l
ow tone, he asked, “What happened?”
“Dirty martinis. Strong ones.”
“What?”
“Shh. She’s passed out and should probably stay that way. She’s exhausted. Cried herself to sleep, poor thing.”
Rafe’s jaw clenched. “Over what?”
“Life,” Tad said with a sigh.
Rafe moved past him and found Jenna curled on the sofa, hugging a pillow. She wore a sexy black nightie, but Rafe didn’t read anything into her being dressed so provocatively in Tad’s hotel room. He knew Tad was gay. And the fact that the other man had called him when Jenna was clearly in a rock-bottom state told him her best friend was no threat to Rafe.
He carefully scooped Jenna into his arms. She stirred and snuggled against him. Tad directed him to the adjoining suite and then shut both doors behind them, giving them privacy. Rafe put her to bed, stripped down to his briefs and slipped under the covers next to her. He tried not to disturb her too much, and she fell back to sleep immediately, with his arms around her.
She woke around four a.m. He’d not drifted off once, just stared at the alarm clock on the nightstand while he held her, listening to her steady breathing. Jenna moved against him, her backside rubbing his front. He stifled a groan as his cock sprang to life.
After stretching, she rolled over and faced him. Some of the windows in the corner suite had curtains that were partially open, letting in the moonlight. Silver rays flitted over the bed, gently illuminating Jenna’s pale-green irises. Though the whites were bloodshot.
He grimaced. “Some night you had.”
“Oh, God.” She buried her face in the pillow.
“Aspirin?”
“In my makeup bag on the vanity,” she said, her voice muffled. “Mouthwash too, please.”
He slid from the bed and retrieved the items. Then he grabbed a bottle of water from the fridge and returned to her side. He helped her sit up and she swallowed down the aspirin.
“That’ll minimize the hangover,” he said. Shifting in the bed, he set the bottle on the nightstand and then turned back to her. “Martinis, sweetheart?”
She swished mouthwash before spitting it into the glass he’d offered. Rolling her eyes and plopping back against the mound of pillows, she said, “Please don’t remind me. I can’t believe I haven’t heaved all over the place. I know two—without the additional punch—is my limit.” She suddenly sat bolt upright, winced from the pain that obviously shot through her brain and pinned him with a look. “Holy shit! Tell me I didn’t heave all over the place!”
“You’re good, baby.”
“Thank God.” She sighed. “Apparently, Tad thought I needed a little extra zap this evening.”
Rafe slipped under the covers again. “What happened tonight?”
Her body melded to his as he tucked her against his side and she rested her head on his shoulder.
In a raspy voice, likely due to her crying, she said, “I hurt Tad’s feelings at dinner. I mentioned Linney, and he didn’t know I had a sister.”
“Ouch.”
“Yeah.” She was quiet a few seconds, then said, “I never wanted to talk about her for a reason, Rafe. But Tad was so devastated I’d kept this from him all these years. Compounded with my earlier admission that you’d been the one to divorce me, and he—”
“Whoa.” His hand stopped stroking her silky hair. “First of all, he didn’t know I was the one to file?”
“No. I never mentioned it. I just signed the papers, told Tad it was over and that was that.”
Rafe let out a hiss of breath.
She lifted her head and gazed at him. “Not in reality, Rafe. But as far as Tad was concerned, I didn’t feel the need to belabor the point that I sucked at being a wife.”
“Hey, wait a minute.” He shifted in the bed until she was on her back and he was staring down at her. “I never once said that.”
“You didn’t have to. And please…” Her bottom lip quivered. “Don’t make me cry again. I can’t take more emotional turmoil this evening. I’ve hit my threshold for, like, the decade.”
He flopped onto his back. “You were a great wife, Jen. Fun and flirty. Sexy. Unbelievable in the sack.”
She let out a harsh laugh that held no humor. “That a ‘great wife’ does not make.”
“It was more than that, and you know it. The only problem we ever had, sweetheart, was that you couldn’t adjust to the life I led. So you kept running from it.”
“Rafe.” She propped her forearms on his chest.
Her hair was a mess, all disheveled and unruly from her night. Yet she was still so damn alluring.
“That is true on a lot of levels,” she said of his comment. “But the bottom line is that I am not normal, and trying to live a normal life just doesn’t work for me. And people get hurt because of it. You can’t tell me your family didn’t feel slighted because I could only engage for minutes at a time—and mostly just nodded my head and smiled as they bombarded me with conversation.”
He cupped her face with his hands. “My family thinks you’re extremely gracious. Nice, polite. A little subdued, sure.” He chuckled. “But they understand that’s your heritage—it’s different than ours. They only wanted to make you feel welcomed, Jen.”
A tear sat on the rim of her eye. “I know.” It trickled down her cheek.
Rafe sighed. “You did great with them at the restaurant. Aunt Zelda came into the kitchen to say how beautiful you looked and that it was so wonderful to see you. She said it’s obvious you love Sampogna’s because I do. And that you want it to succeed…for me.”
“That’s true.”
“How can they not think highly of you, Jen? They see things beyond our failed marriage. And honestly…so do we. Otherwise,” he looked deep into her watery eyes, “we wouldn’t have stayed in touch. We would’ve let what we shared simply fade into the distance. Instead, you’ve held on as much as I have. You, the one who’s always leaving and letting go. You didn’t do that with me or my family. Or with us.”
Rafe tucked a curl behind her ear.
Continuing, he said, “Look how easy it was for you to call Tonio and Gio to tell them you wanted to create your food and wine pairings. And how comfortable you were in my kitchen, dancing half-naked, fully letting loose? Something I suspect you never get to do…and wouldn’t even if you did, except in a place where you feel at—”
She pressed a finger to his lips. “Don’t say that word, Rafe. It practically gives me hives and you know it.”
He moved her hand from his mouth. “Fine. You know where I’m going with this. My family doesn’t think of us as divorced.” He eyed her pointedly. “Do we?”
Shock flickering in her eyes.
That she didn’t glance away was encouraging.
Rafe added, “I’m not trying to make any declarations here, or put you on the spot. I’ve got all of these thoughts in my head and feelings in my heart and I can’t make heads or tails of them. But I do know one thing.”
“What’s that?” she asked, her tone breathless, more tears pooling in her shimmering eyes.
“If two people love each other enough, how can they not find a way to make it work?”
She let out another long breath. “I don’t know, Rafe. And my head hurts too much right now to think about it.” She groaned. “No, that’s not it at all. I do want to think about it. I just…I have way too many emotions pressing in on me tonight. You know I don’t skirt accountability, but I can’t sort through all of this, either. I don’t like what I’ve done to you or to Tad. I push people away. I started doing it when I was seven. I realized that tonight when I told Tad about my very first friend. I was jealous of her and I couldn’t comprehend all the things she had that I didn’t.”
Her eyes squeezed shut and she added, “I’m ashamed I’m this way, Rafe.”
“Jen.” He pushed hair from her face and brushed tears from her face. “Since when is being human something to be ashamed of? You’ve told me you have your re
asons for feeling the way you do—and I don’t discount those reasons. I never have. After tonight, I highly doubt Tad will, either. He didn’t know some of the things I knew. And maybe there are things he knows about you that I don’t. But here’s a newsflash for you. You care enough about both of us to try to fill in gaps and bridge some of the distance that comes with your situation.”
She grimaced. “Don’t you mean my mental illness?”
“It’s not a disease, sweetheart. It’s an inherent affliction. Something emotional you suffer from. And I know more about it now than when we were married, because you’re finally opening up to me. You could have gone into the ladies room or my office tonight to recover from my family. You didn’t. You let me see how it affected you. And you didn’t shrug off Tad’s hurt feelings. You told him what he wanted to know. Do you see my point here?”
“I’m making progress?”
The hopeful look in her eyes made him smile. “You’re not the only one.”
She kissed his chest, her lips soft against his skin. “Maybe Tad will too. He hasn’t told his parents yet that he’s gay.”
Rafe snickered. “You think it’s a secret?”
“Well, they haven’t heard it directly from him. And I know they’re waiting to. I see it sometimes when they come to visit him on a job. It’s in their eyes—will he finally tell us so we can talk about this as a family?”
Her voice quavered. Something choked her up. But she didn’t elaborate. Rather, she shook her head and said, “Anyway. I just feel bad I never quite live up to anyone’s expectations. I don’t intentionally upset people, Rafe. I’m just not skilled at being everything I’m supposed to be. Outside of work, that is.”
Because that was a controlled environment? Because she was the one who was in charge when she was working? Granted, her projects were group efforts—what with collaborating with owners, staff, Tad, vendors and her production crew. But at the end of the day, everyone put their eggs in Jenna’s basket and let her run the show.
