He’d been a scrawny twenty-year-old guitar wizard, still living at home in Southie with his parents, and fresh from a two-year stint at Boston’s Berklee College of Music. She’d been an eighteen-year-old bride, radiant after her elopement with a sinfully handsome blue-eyed singer with huge ambitions and a powerful, soaring tenor that sent chills racing up and down her spine. She and Rob had been drawn to each other, two creative souls who somehow instinctively understood that whatever they created as partners would be exponentially greater than the sum total of its individual parts.
Seventeen years later, he was still teaching her. Except that the things he taught her now were more likely to be X-rated.
She knew women were supposed to reach their sexual peak in their mid-thirties. But she’d never expected this kind of raging inferno. Was it her age, or was it the man himself? Generic, thirty-something female hormones, or Casey-and-Rob-specific pheromones? There was no way to determine, with any degree of certainty, the answer to that question. All she knew for sure was that sometimes she wanted to inhale him. Wanted to swallow him alive. Wanted to meld with him in a frantic, violent coupling, wanted to wrap herself around him and rock him hard and fast until they both forgot their own names.
She’d always liked sex. What was there not to like? But in spite of the thirteen years she’d spent as Danny’s wife, she’d been woefully naïve about a lot of things. Rob MacKenzie had taken her to places she’d never even imagined. Despite the fact that her first husband had been an international sex symbol, Danny had been surprisingly Puritanical and vanilla in his approach to sex, and she’d been too innocent to know the difference.
There was nothing vanilla about Rob MacKenzie, in or out of bed. There wasn’t a shy bone in his body, and he possessed a “damn the torpedoes, full speed ahead!” attitude towards life that sometimes left her breathless and scrambling to keep up. An inventive lover, he enjoyed experimenting, and was willing to try anything at least once. For her part, she was an enthusiastic participant in his experiments, even the ones that left them rolling in hysterical laughter. He liked to talk during sex. Sometimes, he whispered sweet nothings so touching she melted. Other times, his language was crude enough to be shocking. Embarrassing.
And extremely titillating, a heated turn-on for a woman who’d been raised to wear her skirts at a respectable length and her shirts buttoned all the way to the collar, a woman who’d barely uttered any word stronger than “hell” or “damn” until she was past thirty.
Sometimes, even after a year of marriage, the transition from friends to lovers still felt awkward. Sometimes, she was overwhelmed by the complexity of her emotions. Her feelings for him had seemed clear-cut before, but now those clear waters were muddied. Who was this gorgeous, sexually-charged man who could turn her limp and pliable and ready to rumble with nothing more than a heated glance across a crowded room? What had he done with the sweet, funny, kindhearted guy she’d married, the man who was her best friend, her mentor, her keeper of secrets? What had happened to the demure and idealistic young woman she’d once been? Surely, she could find that woman again, if only she could figure out how to meld, in her own mind, the best friend and the steamy lover into the same man.
“You okay?”
She raised her head to look at him. Swept her damp hair back from her face and said, “I’m fine.”
“Then why am I suddenly getting all these weird vibes?”
“They’re all in your head. There are no weird vibes.”
“You can’t say that. They’re my vibes. You can’t take ‘em away from me. What’s wrong?”
“Nothing’s wrong. I’m just thinking, that’s all.”
“About?”
She closed her eyes, burrowed back against his shoulder, and ran a finger down the center of his chest. Smiled when she felt goose bumps rise on his skin. “If you must know, I was thinking about evolution.”
“Evolution,” he said. “Of course. That’s what I always think about after sex.”
“Oh, stop. Not that kind of evolution.”
“No slimy amphibious creatures climbing up out of the primordial goop and exchanging gills and fins for lungs and legs? Good to know.”
“Our evolution. Yours and mine. The evolution of our relationship.”
“So why the weird vibes?”
“It’s just—” She rolled onto her stomach and rested her chin on her folded arms. “Sometimes, I still have trouble with the transition. Sometimes, I’m not sure who I am any longer. Or who you are. There’s this one guy I’ve loved since the beginning of time, and he’s my sweet and wonderful best friend. And then there’s this hot, sexy guy who turns me inside out every time he touches me. It’s all so complicated, and tangled, and the threads run every which way, and I’m having trouble seeing the two of you as the same guy. Sometimes it feels as though I’ve traded in my best friend for that hot, sexy guy, and I’m struggling because I’m not quite sure how to deal with it.”
Those green eyes softened, and he slid down in the bed until they were nose to nose. “I haven’t gone anywhere,” he said. “I’m still here.”
“Yes, but now you’re naked.”
He flashed her one of those grins, the kind that always melted her, clear to the marrow. “You say that like it’s a bad thing.”
“Trust me. You, naked, is a spectacularly good thing.”
“So this whole lust scenario isn’t one-sided?”
She raised an eyebrow. “You actually have to ask that question?”
“I was just testing you.” He circled a hand around her ankle and pressed a soft kiss to the calf of her leg. “Do you ever stop to think about it? What you and I accomplished? All those years of working together. All those songs we wrote. Pieces of you, pieces of me. When we put those pieces together, like a jigsaw puzzle, magic happened.”
“I think about it a lot. When I held that first 45 record in my hands, everything changed for me. It all became real. It was a killer song, and we only got better as the years went on.”
“Heart of Darkness. That little gem made us big fish in a small pond.”
“It did. Sometimes I still think about the two of us, going out to hawk that record to the local radio stations. Me in my mother’s pearls, a thrift shop business suit, and your sister’s shoes. You came to my door looking like a rag picker, in a decrepit old Army jacket and the most hideous paisley print shirt I’d ever seen. I had to raid Danny’s closet to make you semi-presentable.”
“And then you turned around and covered your eyes while I changed into your husband’s clothes.”
“It wouldn’t have been appropriate for me to watch.”
“And you tied Danny’s necktie for me, and you told me I should wear green more often, because—”
“—it brought out the color in those nice green eyes of yours. I meant every word of it. You were so damn cute.”
“Me?” he said, taken aback. “Cute?”
“Absolutely adorable, with those gorgeous green eyes and that killer smile. Not to mention that sweet little ass.”
He raised both eyebrows. “You were checking out my ass?”
“Certainly not. I was a happily married lady. I simply noticed it, in a strictly non-sexual, extremely scientific way. You wore your pants very tight back in the day. It was impossible not to…appreciate…what they were displaying.”
“Hot damn, Fiore.” He grinned from ear to ear. “You were totally checking out my ass.”
She rolled her eyes. “Sometimes, MacKenzie, you’re such a guy.”
“My poor, battered ego thanks you.”
“You can cut the blarney. There’s not a thing wrong with your ego.” She softened. “I just loved you to pieces back then, you know.”
“Did you?”
“Part of it, I think, is that I was so in awe of your talent. I still am. You have whole symphonies living inside your head, and you pull them out so effortlessly to share with the world. And part of it is that you always took care of me
. You kept us from starving to death when Danny was too wrapped up in his music to even notice the refrigerator was empty.”
“I couldn’t let you starve.”
“No. You being you, that’s not something you could ever do. And I have so much respect for the person you are. But that’s still not all of it. I think the biggest reason I was so crazy about you was because you got me. You really, truly got me, in a way nobody else on this planet has ever done before or since. You got me, and you accepted me for who I was. And that, my friend, is a priceless commodity.”
“That day we went out hawking Heart of Darkness, I thought you were so ballsy. Quiet, demure little you, bluffing your way in to see all those deejays, just so you could get them to listen to our record. Gave me a whole new perspective of who you were.” He ran the tip of his finger along the inside of her thigh. “Gutsy broad.”
“You were right there with me, hotshot, brilliantly playing off whatever outrageous thing I said. We had a regular good cop/bad cop routine going. And it worked, didn’t it?”
“For the most part. We only got tossed out on our asses a couple of times.”
“It got us the airplay we needed. That was all that mattered.”
“You impressed the crap out of me. You were scared shitless that day, but you forged ahead anyway.”
“I was terrified. But how did you know?”
“Geez, Fiore, I don’t know. Maybe the fact that you spent half the day in various bathrooms, tossing your cookies? It was either a really bad case of the flu, or abject terror, brought on by your own audacity.”
“You don’t miss much, do you?”
“I’m a wizard. We know all and see all.” He pressed a kiss to the crook of her elbow. “You do realize I had a wicked crush on you back then?”
She raised an eyebrow. “This I did not know. Maybe because you never told me.”
“I couldn’t very well tell you. You were Danny’s wife, and totally off-limits. I had to settle for what I could get.” He rested his head against her knee, his cheek warm against her skin. “When he wasn’t around, you were mine. In a strictly non-sexual, extremely scientific way. The minute he walked into the room, you forgot I was there.” He shrugged. “C’est la vie.”
Regret clutched at her heart. She brushed her knuckles across his cheek. “Oh, Flash,” she said.
He kissed her hand. “That was a long time ago. I got over it.” He drew her back into his arms. “On the other hand, you might say that early passion was rekindled a while back.”
She circled her arms around his neck. “Sounds intriguing. Maybe you could tell me more about it.”
“I can do better than that. I can show you. The kid isn’t due home for a couple more hours.”
“But aren’t you hungry? What about the pizza?”
“Hey, it’s not often these days that I get a whole naked afternoon with my girl. The pizza will just have to wait.”
“I feel flattered. You actually chose me over food.”
He rolled her onto her back. “There will never come a time,” he said, “when I won’t choose you over food.”
***
The next morning, while Rob was puttering in the studio and Paige was still asleep, Casey cut a few of the blood-red roses from the garden outside her back door, put them in a bottle of water, and drove to the cemetery.
His grave sat high on a hill, beneath a towering elm, where wildflowers bloomed in abundance between the gravestones and a breeze continually rustled the tall wild grasses that grew nearby. She knelt before a simple granite headstone that read Daniel Fiore 1951-1987 and with her bare hands, dug into the moist soil, fashioning a trench just deep enough to hold the makeshift vase and prevent it from toppling. “I brought you roses, caro mio,” she said. “A rich and beautiful red. You’d love them.”
She rocked back on her heels and contemplated this peaceful place where he rested. “I’ve been thinking about you a lot lately.” He didn’t answer, but it didn’t matter. Death had turned Danny Fiore into a good listener. She tugged at a tuft of grass. “The other day, I was out in the garden, and a couple of those big Huey choppers flew over the house. I don’t know where they came from, or what they were doing way out here in the middle of nowhere. But those old protective instincts never die, do they? For an instant, my heart stopped, and I automatically looked around to see where you were.”
Sixteen years ago, she’d watched him—six feet four inches and a hundred and ninety pounds of edgy, cynical man—drop to the kitchen floor of their Boston apartment and curl into a shuddering ball with his arms wrapped around his head at the sound of those whirring blades passing overhead. By the time she’d figured out what was happening and rushed to slam the window shut, it was too late; the damage was already done. There was nothing left to do but kneel beside him on the floor, wrap her arms around him, and hold him until the shuddering ended and his galloping heart slowed and his breathing stopped hitching.
Post-traumatic stress disorder. Back then, neither of them had known there was a name for it. Back then, nobody talked about it. Nobody spoke about the horrific nightmares, awash in unspeakable atrocities. Nobody admitted to waking in the middle of the night, crying and shaking. He’d called it his dirty little secret, and for more than a dozen years, she’d carried that terrible burden right along with him. Nobody knew. Not even their closest friends, not even Rob, who had spent several of those years living with them. For all that time, she’d helped Danny to keep the black, broken thing inside him hidden away from the rest of the world.
But no matter how hard she tried, no matter how hard she’d loved him, she hadn’t been able to fix it. She’d been too young and too naïve back then to understand it wasn’t something that could be fixed. Danny Fiore might have left Vietnam behind, but Vietnam had never left him. It had eaten away at him for two decades, corroding his insides and tainting every aspect of his life. In the end, it had killed him. It just took twenty years to get around to it.
“Sometimes,” she told him now, “I can almost feel you standing behind me, feel your breath on the back of my neck. Or see you turning a corner a split second before I get to it. Almost, but not quite there. Some phantom presence. Then I realize it’s not really anything new. Because sometimes I felt that way even when you were alive.”
He’d been gone for nearly four years. It didn’t seem possible. He’d told her once, when they were ridiculously young and madly in love and trying to glue things back together after she found out he’d cheated on her, that if anything ever happened to him, she should get married again. Marriage, he’d said, was something she did well. She hadn’t wanted to hear it, hadn’t wanted to imagine anything might ever happen to him. They were both going to live forever, weren’t they?
In the distance, the lawn mower picked up a rock and emitted a sharp grinding noise before resuming its staccato buzz. “You were right, you know,” she told him now. “I like being married. I always did. I think I’m good at it. And I’m happy with him. Sometimes I miss you so much it’s an ache inside me, but I’m happy, Danny, for the first time in years.”
She raised her face to the morning sun and contemplated the vastness of the blue sky overhead. “Something amazing happened. Remember when you told me that if Rob would only settle down and have kids, we could borrow his? Well, he just found out he has a daughter. Her name is Paige, she’s fifteen years old, and she’s come to live with us.”
There was no confirmation on his end, but she knew he was listening. “Of course I realize she can’t be a replacement for Katie.” Nothing and nobody would ever fill the permanent Katie-size hole inside her. “But I think it will be a healing experience, having another little girl to love. She won’t take Katie’s place in my heart, but she’ll take her own place, and I hope it will help.”
She plucked a buttercup and tickled herself under the chin. Sighed, and said, “Everything just went to pieces after Katie died. I know I blamed it all on you, but it wasn’t all your fault. I should
have fought harder to save our marriage. I was just so tired of fighting. It seemed as though I’d done nothing but fight to hold us together right from the start. I didn’t expect marriage to be easy, but sometimes, Danny, you made it so much harder than it needed to be. When Katie died, I was so furious. With you, with the universe. I’d spent so many years taking care of you, and when we lost Katie, for the first time ever I stopped caring about your pain and started worrying about my own instead. I’m so sorry. You were hurting so much, and instead of helping you, I let you pull away from me.
“I don’t know if you ever thought about this,” she continued, “but I think about it a lot. About how random life is. About how a single decision, a seemingly innocuous instant in time, can alter the course of your life. All these little decisions we make every day? They’re all connected. And once a decision is made, once a path is taken, everything else falls into place like dominoes. If only I hadn’t gone to New York, if only you’d taken Katie to the hospital sooner, would she still be with us? If only we hadn’t bought the house in Maine, you would never have been on that snowy Connecticut highway on that December afternoon. Would you still be alive? Or would Fate-with-a-capital-F have sent a chunk of ice falling from a 747 out of LAX to bonk you on the head, sitting on your own deck in California? I wish I had the answer to that question, because sometimes I feel so guilty. If I hadn’t taken you back, you might still be alive. And how different would my life be now?”
She knew it was pointless to speculate. So why couldn’t she stop doing it? If only were the two most useless words in the English language. She couldn’t change the past; today was the only thing that was real. And she was so happy with her life today. As much as she’d loved him, she was so much happier now than she’d been with Danny. But if he’d lived, eventually she would have been forced to make a choice. And, God help her, she still wasn’t sure she would have made the right one.
Days Like This Page 13
