Free Spirits

by Linda Wisdom

  “I never said I was in love with Michael!” Alex argued, even while she hurt inside. She hadn’t heard from him in several days and she refused to lower her pride enough to call him at the hospital or at his apartment.

  “You don’t have to! In the past twenty-four hours you’ve gone through three boxes of Kleenex, two rolls of toilet paper and now you’re blowing your nose on a paper towel! You didn’t even react when the police called you to tell you they found Jason’s secret safe with his DayRunner and files detailing his illegal deals.” He threw his hands up. “Doesn’t that tell you something?”

  “It tells me I need to go grocery shopping.” she sniffed.

  “Both of you calm down,” Marian ordered. “And you calm down, Patrick. She’s suffering enough without you bellowing at her.”

  He glowered at his wife. “I don’t bellow.”

  “Yes, you do.” Marian headed for the paper towel holder, only to find it empty and no new rolls under the sink. She handed Alex a napkin. “I’m sure Michael is only trying to give you time to come to terms with all that’s happened. You’ve had a lot to deal with lately.” She turned to her husband. “Perhaps it’s a good thing Alex has had these few days to decide for herself that we didn’t have anything to do with their falling in love. Once she realizes that, they can start planning a future together.”

  “And if Michael changes his mind?” Alex blew her nose on the napkin and grabbed another one. She dreaded to look in the mirror. She was always a sloppy crier who ended up with a bright red nose, swollen eyes and splotchy skin.

  “He won’t,” Marian said with strong confidence. “I’ve seen the way he looks at you. The man has love written all over his face.”

  Alex’s head snapped up when the doorbell rang. “No, not now!” she wailed, praying and dreading it was Michael.

  “Alex, let me in!” Beth shouted.

  “Worse.” She sighed, sliding off the bar stool.

  Beth couldn’t hide her shock when she saw her friend. “You look like hell.”

  “Thanks, I needed that. I suppose you want to come in,” she mumbled.

  Beth sat on the chair arm. “Alex, what happened between you and Michael?”

  She winced. “Blunt, aren’t we?”

  “He walks around looking like death warmed over, and you look just as bad. We’ve been so busy lately that a lot of us are working double shifts, Dr. Duffy included. What else can I be but blunt?”

  Alex dabbed carefully at her swollen eyes. “He wanted me to take some time and decide how I really felt about him.”

  “So you’re backing away,” she predicted. “The idea of falling for another doctor is frightening you.”

  She shook her head. “No, I just don’t want to enter into another doomed relationship. I’ve had more than my share, and I’m trying to be cautious this time around.”

  “I’d say, looking at you that you’ve already made up your mind.” Beth eyed Alex’s wrinkled clothes, which looked as if she’d slept in them, which she had. Her hair hung limply around a face blotchy from all her tears. To be concise, her friend was a royal mess. “Put the two of you out of your misery and call him, Alex.”

  “What if he’s changed his mind?”

  Beth sighed at her friend’s stubbornness. “I don’t think that should worry you. Still, someone better do something soon,” she said before leaving.

  “I think I’ll go to bed,” Alex muttered, dragging herself into the bedroom. She missed Michael so much! But how could she feel that way so quickly, when they hadn’t spent a lot of time together? Except what time they had was the kind of quality time most couples could only dream of. They’d never run out of things to say, subjects to discuss. It was more than sex with them. It was a meeting of the minds. From the time she walked in the apartment sobbing she’d made the biggest mistake of her life, Marian had been baking her brownies and Patrick had been ranting about the instability of the female mind. Alex just remained curled up in a chair crying. By now her head was pounding from all her tears and the smell of burned brownies.

  “There’s got to be a way to get this settled once and for all,” Patrick could be heard muttering as she closed the bedroom door for some much needed privacy while she licked her wounds.

  Michael was plain miserable. Even work didn’t ease his pain this time. Being home was even worse because he couldn’t get away from reminders of Alex from the sheets on his bed to the silk flower arrangement on his coffee table. Except he didn’t want just things here, he wanted the person who’d placed them here. He wanted Alex.

  It had been a rough day, and now he sat on the couch cradling his third beer bottle between his hands and thinking about getting good and drunk. But he knew that wouldn’t blot out the pain he’d been carrying around for the past forty-eight hours. At this rate he’d be insane by the time the week was up.

  “Why are you so afraid, Alex?” he said out loud. “Why can’t you just take a chance? You think I’m not scared of what’s gone on between us?”

  He tipped the bottle upward, allowing the cool liquid to trickle down his throat. When it was empty he resisted the urge to throw it against the mantel.

  Images of Alex flew through his mind: cute and saucy on the softball field, warm and womanly that night they went out to dinner and seductive when they made love. There were so many sides to her, he knew it would take years to discover them all and that’s exactly what he wanted from her. Years together.

  “Is that so much to ask?” he mumbled, setting the bottle to one side and reaching for another on the coffee table. “I should go over there and tell her she’s had more than enough time to figure things out.” He conveniently forgot it was his suggestion in the first place. “That we’re meant to be together.”

  He quickly downed his beer and headed into the kitchen for another bottle, unaware his gait was more than a little unsteady.

  “You really think that’s going to help?”

  “I sure do.” Michael stopped and spun around. A tall silver-haired man in a blue suit stood in the kitchen doorway. While he didn’t know the man, he felt there was something familiar about him. “How did you get in here? Not to mention, who are you?”

  The man smiled. “Trade secret, Michael. Yes, I know your name and quite a few other things about you and about Alex. She loves you, you know.”

  “Yeah, I know, I just don’t think she wants to admit it. Wait a minute, how do you know about Alex?” he asked suspiciously.

  “Could I give you a suggestion?” the older man went on, ignoring Michael’s question. “Go over there and tell her that you’re ready to plan a wedding.”

  “She’d tell me it’s too soon for a wedding. In fact, I’m a little leery of going that far myself.” Suddenly Michael didn’t think it odd to speak to a stranger. “I admit I love her, but we haven’t known each other very long.”

  The man continued smiling and shook his head. “Tell her the truth, Michael. You want to tie Alex to you in all the ways you can because you don’t want to lose her. She’s very special and deserves just the right kind of man. You’re that man. The two of you have suffered enough. Don’t let her sit there crying and imagining that you’ve changed your mind about her. She’s a stubborn cuss, but I’m sure you can handle her. You two belong together.”

  “This is crazy. I still don’t see how you…” Michael turned to the refrigerator and pulled out another beer, but when he turned back he found the doorway empty. “Three beers and I’m already seeing things. It’s time to take that cold shower.”

  “Why don’t you try a nice hot bath?” Marian suggested, pushing a reluctant Alex into the bathroom. “You’ll feel loads better.”

  “Mom, I know you see a hot bath as the cure for every ill known to man, but I don’t think it’s going to work here,” she told her wearily.

  “You won’t know until you try. And use those bath salts you like so much.” Marian closed the door.

  Alex stared at the door, knowing if her mother
could have she probably would have locked it, too. She caught a glimpse of herself in the mirror and winced. “Pretty bad, Alex. You look like something even Suzi Q wouldn’t drag in.”

  She twisted the tub faucets, and while the water ran, she decided it might not hurt to wash her hair.

  “Let’s just go all out.” Alex slathered her hair with a special mud conditioning pack, twisting the heavy strands on top of her head, then patted a mud mask on her face which left her red and puffy light-colored eyes glowing eerily from the dark greenish-brown circles around them. “This almost looks like an improvement.”

  After an hour soaking in water that turned from steaming hot to a tolerable cool temperature, Alex had to admit she felt more human. She’d just climbed out of the tub when she heard a sound at her front door.

  “What on earth?” She hurriedly donned her robe and left the bathroom. Her eyes widened. “Oh, no!”

  She raced for the living room only to find the door swinging open and Michael stepping inside.

  “That door was locked!” she cried.

  “I thought you opened it,” he told her, looking around to see if she had company.

  “Go away!” Alex moaned, turning around. “Please, go away!”

  “No.” Before she knew it he stood behind her with his hands on her shoulders. “Enough, Alex. We need to get this straightened out between us.”

  “Not now!” she wailed, wanting nothing more than to do just that. But she wanted to clean her face first so she didn’t look like something out of a horror movie. “At least, let me clean up first.”

  “Yes, now,” he said firmly. “If you want to wait in regards to us getting married, fine, but don’t think I’m going to let you put me off for too long. All right, it happened fast for us. So what? It just means we’ll have more time together. Is that so wrong? Is it so wrong for us to want to be together all the time?”

  “Oh, Michael.” Her voice carried pain, but this wasn’t your usual lost-love pain. “No, it’s not wrong at all.”

  He stared down at what he knew to be rich brown hair that now was matted with thick mud. When he turned her around, he found her face as gunked up as her hair.

  “You don’t do this a lot, do you?”

  Her lower lip trembled. “Mom said a bath would make me feel better. I figured I might as well pamper the rest of me, too. You shouldn’t see me like this.” She looked as if she was about to cry, and judging from the swollen red eyes she’d already indulged in more tears than most people shed in a lifetime.

  Michael tried hard not to smile. “I may as well see you at your worst, as well as at your best.”

  She looked up a bit warily. “Really?”

  “As real as you can get. Besides, I was told by someone to get over here and talk to you.”

  “Beth interfered again,” she groaned. “When will she stop?”

  Michael shook his head. “No, actually, I think he was a figment of my three beers, but he seemed like a nice guy. Silver hair, stocky build, eyes your color…” his voice trailed off when she stared at him.

  “Blue suit?” she asked in a small voice.

  He nodded.

  Alex walked over to a table and picked up a framed photograph. “Is this him?” She held it out to Michael.

  He looked as if he wasn’t sure he wanted to touch it. When he looked at the likeness he blanched. “It couldn’t have been. It doesn’t make any sense. He just appeared out of nowhere and started talking about how I should get over here and get all this straightened out. I had no idea how he got in the apartment or who he was. Next thing I knew he was gone.”

  Alex spied her parents on the other side of the room, looking proudly at the reunited couple. “I thought you couldn’t leave this apartment,” she accused.

  “Special circumstances,” Patrick told her. “And you should be glad I did. He wasn’t looking too happy, either.”

  “It couldn’t have happened,” Michael muttered, shaking his head, too lost in his own thoughts to notice Alex talking to thin air. “The picture probably just stuck in my mind and somehow those three beers I drank on an empty stomach hit me the wrong way.” He didn’t sound convincing to anyone, most especially himself.

  Alex was eager to wash off the conditioning pack and mud mask, but she was also afraid to leave Michael alone. Still, he’d basically proposed, and that meant her parents were gone. She didn’t see them around anywhere. She felt sad they had left so abruptly. She would have liked to have said goodbye. “Thank you,” she whispered. “You were right. Michael is perfect for me.” She turned to Michael. “Come in the bedroom while I take a quick shower,” she urged, grabbing on to his hand. “You’re right. We do have a lot of talking to do.”

  Michael muttered to himself as Alex pushed him onto the bed while she disappeared into the bathroom. Five minutes later, she reappeared with her wet hair slicked back from her newly cleaned face.

  “So you feel I’ve straightened it out in my mind?” she said softly, sitting down beside him.

  “You better have, because I’m not staying away any longer. I know how I feel and I don’t doubt how you feel. Sometimes I think I’ve known since the first time I saw you, Alex, concussion and all,” he replied. “I want us to go the whole way with marriage, a house and kids. I know we can make it work, as long as we talk things over together.” He brushed his knuckles across her cheek.

  She touched her bottom lip with her tongue. “You have a way with words, Doctor. And I thoroughly agree with your idea. I want us together, as long as you mean all the time.”

  Some of the tension as he waited for her answer left his body. “If you don’t mind having a roommate. While you cheered my apartment up a great deal, I like yours much better.”

  She looked down at their clasped hands. “My parents are probably very happy they turned out to be right.”

  Michael chuckled. “Someday we’ve got to talk about these so-called ghosts of yours.”

  “You already saw my father, I think that’s enough for you,” she told him wryly. “I’d still like to know how he got over to your apartment.”

  Michael lay back against the bed. “Later. Right now, we have other things to discuss.”

  Her arms went around his neck and pulled his face closer. “But not now.”

  “No, not now.”

  Alex had no idea how much time passed when Michael left the bed, muttering about getting something cold to drink from the kitchen. She drowsily asked him to bring her a Coke as she daydreamed about asking Beth if she’d mind being her maid of honor again. Yes, Michael did have a point. Weddings were nice.

  “I hope you’re happy, Mom and Dad,” she said out loud, hoping they could hear her.

  “Of course we are, darling,” Marian said from the foot of the bed.

  Alex smiled. “I thought you two might have already left. After all, Michael and I are getting married and you said that’s why you were here.”

  “True, but we thought about it and decided it might be nice to stay around and see our first grandchild.”

  She stilled. “Please, no. Michael really doesn’t believe in you as it is. There’s no way it would work out.”

  Marian laughed softly. “Alex, my dear, I don’t think that will be a problem, because we invited one of his relatives to explain things to him.”

  The next thing Alex heard was glass breaking in the kitchen and Michael’s muttered curse, before his incredulous “Aunt Chloe, is that you? But you’re dead!”