Mrs. February

by Karen Cimms

  I wanted to tell him I loved him. Needed to tell him. When I tried to speak, his movements quickened. I moaned. “Chase, I—”

  “Don’t,” he rasped thickly into my ear. Then he clamped his mouth over mine, preventing me from speaking while he distracted me in other ways.

  Maybe he knew what I was trying to say, and he wasn’t ready to hear it. That was okay. I could wait. We were heading in the right direction for the first time in a long time.

  Chase held me close like he’d always done. I could feel myself drifting off, the combination of the late hour, the half bottle of wine, and the peacefulness of being well-loved promising a restful night’s sleep.

  The bed shook a short time later. My eyes flew open as he sat on the edge of the bed, clothes in hand.

  “What are you doing?” I sat up, clutching the sheets.

  He turned his head only slightly. “Go back to sleep. I have to go.”

  Confused, I tried to clear the cobwebs from my sleepy brain. “Why?”

  “I have to go,” he repeated, slipping into his shorts.

  “Please don’t.” I was begging. I didn’t want to, but I couldn’t help it. Humiliation swept over me. I tried not to cry, but I didn’t have much success with that either.

  I struggled to keep my voice low. “Did you just come over here to get laid?”

  “Wh—”

  I scooted closer and thumped his back with an open palm. “Did you?”

  “I came because you asked me to.” He sat frozen for a few seconds. “And because I needed to. I needed you.”

  “Then stay.” The tears were falling faster now.

  He turned to look at me then, and his face was as sad as I’d ever seen it. He didn’t say anything; he just lay back down and held me. He stroked my arm and kissed my forehead. His fingers ran through my hair.

  I settled in, content.

  But when I woke in the morning, Chase was gone.

  Chapter Thirty-Six

  I had no time to feel sorry for myself. I had promised to drop Zac off at the restaurant so he could spend time with his grandmother. Instead, I called Mom to ask if she could pick him up and if I could borrow her van. That settled, I took a quick shower and then carefully and subtly applied my makeup. When Mom arrived in the van, I dropped them off at the luncheonette and headed to the Sunoco station.

  “Hey, Rain,” Dylan called as I walked straight into the back. My car was still alongside the building where Chase had parked it. He nodded to it as I approached. “What happened?”

  “I lost control during the storm last night and went off the side of Weston Road. When I didn’t come home, Zac called Chase. He rescued me.” I smiled to let him know how much I appreciated his brother. Not that he would believe it.

  I craned my neck, hoping to see Chase in one of the bays. “Where is he?”

  “Chase?”

  “Yeah, I need to talk to him.”

  He looked at me strangely. “He’s off today. He works every other Saturday now. He wanted some free weekends. I can’t blame him, but that means I have to work the opposite weeks.”

  Five years of working every Saturday, and now he changed his schedule? I tried to ignore the little bubble of hurt, especially after years of begging him to take a weekend now and then. Other than his two weeks of vacation each year—one week down the shore and the other fishing up in Canada—Chase only took off the first Monday after Thanksgiving to go hunting.

  I nodded as if I’d forgotten. “Okay. Just wanted to talk to him about the car.”

  “I didn’t really get to look at it, but you’re probably going to need a new rim. Looks like you blew a tire. Other than that, just some dings and dents—barely noticeable in that old piece of junk.”

  Fuck you, Dylan. “What’s that going to set me back?”

  “That aluminum alloy rim could run between seventy-five and a hundred. The tire, probably a buck fifty, but I’m sure we can take it out in trade.” He winked, and I gave him a tight smile, although I really wanted to slap him.

  “Thanks. Have Chase call me when he has it figured out.”

  I climbed back into Mom’s delivery van and headed to Chase’s apartment. I’d been by a couple times to drop off the kids or pick them up, but I’d never been inside. I had no idea how he was living, but I assumed it was as bare-bones as his apartment had been when I met him. He had always been generous with me and the kids but pretty basic when it came to himself.

  To say Chase looked surprised to see me was something of an understatement.

  “Rain.”

  “I’m sorry to just drop over like this, but we need to talk. You left—”

  He quickly stepped toward me, pulling the door closed behind him. Not quick enough, however.

  “Chase?” a woman called from inside. “I wish I’d known you were out of flour. I would’ve picked some up on my way over. I’m not going to have en—”

  She stopped when she saw me.

  “What are you doing here?”

  I was tempted to ask Callie Stankevich the same question, but I had enough of my wits about me to realize that I had no right to know what—or who—Chase was doing unless it involved my children.

  Chase looked as if he was about to vomit. I stammered something about Zac losing his glove and asked if he’d left it there.

  “Let me look,” she offered with a lift of an eyebrow and a sardonic smile.

  As soon as she’d disappeared, Chase stepped closer.

  “Listen—”

  I held up my hand, grateful that the wide, dark sunglasses I wore would cover the tears that threatened to spill over.

  “Please, don’t.” I was unable to disguise the slight break in my voice. “You don’t owe me any explanations. Actually, this answers my question.” I turned to go, not waiting for Callie to come back and tell me she couldn’t find my son’s glove in her boyfriend’s apartment. It was sitting on Zac’s dresser, wrapped around a baseball and secured with several rubber bands.

  Tears clouding my eyes, I nearly got T-boned backing out of the driveway. Chase raced out the front door and down the driveway, but I didn’t stop.

  Ten minutes later, I was standing in Diane’s kitchen.

  “Why didn’t you tell me?”

  “Tell you what?” She continued emptying the dishwasher.

  “That Chase was dating Callie Stankevich.”

  “No way!” She stopped cold, brandishing a handful of glasses pronged like crystal fingers. “Where’d you hear that?”

  “I didn’t hear it, I saw it. I saw it when I went over his apartment to talk about—to talk.”

  “Maybe she was there on a house call.” She set the glasses down on the counter.

  “She’s not a visiting nurse, and he’s not sick.”

  “Don’t you think Wally would’ve told me if Chase was seeing someone?” Before giving me a chance to answer, she opened the back door and hollered for Wally.

  “Don’t ask him in front of Dennis and Bobby,” I begged as she stormed down the steps. “They’ll just go running right to Chase.” The whole group of them were a bunch of gossips, each and every one of them. I knew it from working at Blondie’s all those years ago, and even though I hadn’t hung out much with “the guys” since marrying Chase, they probably hadn’t changed much over the years.

  “Wally!” she bellowed again from the back stoop.

  He stuck his head out of the garage door and bellowed back. “What?”

  “Get over here!”

  Wally could easily have picked Diane up and put her in his pocket, yet when she was mad, he jumped. He started up the path toward the house.

  “Yes, my love?” If I hadn’t still been in shock from seeing Callie with Chase, I might have smiled.

  “Don’t give me that shit. Why didn’t you tell me Chase was seeing Callie Stankevich?”

  Wally glanced at me nervously. “Um …”

  “Spill it!”

  “I didn’t think it was my place.” He s
tuck out his lower lip defiantly.

  “Bullshit. You tell me everything.”

  “Yeah, I figured you’d tell Rain, and I didn’t want her to be hurt.” He looked at me sadly. I gave him a small smile of gratitude.

  “That’s no excuse. How long has this nonsense been going on?”

  “Look,” Wally said, his testicles redescending. “They’ve been separated for a while now and divorced for several months—no offense, Rain. But it’s really nobody’s business who he dates.”

  Diane stepped off the stoop. I realized she was holding a ladle in her hand, and I wondered if she was going to strike him with it.

  Apparently, so did Wally.

  He took a step back.

  “I don’t know. A few months. February or March.”

  “What?” she shouted.

  I felt as if someone had just knocked the wind out of me.

  “I’m sorry,” he said to me again.

  I darted back inside and grabbed my purse off the kitchen table. “I have to go.”

  “Wait,” she called after me.

  I was already halfway to the front door. “I have to go.”

  As I started running, I heard Diane shouting in the back yard. “Well, I hope you’re happy!”

  My cell phone began ringing as I climbed into the van. I checked in case it was Zac or Izzy; it was Chase. I sent the call to voicemail and backed out of the driveway—careful this time not to risk totaling the van—and headed home.

  There were two missed calls from Chase on the house phone, but no messages. I deleted the message he left on my cell phone without listening. A little while later, he sent me a single-word text: Sorry. I deleted that too.

  As ridiculous as it sounded, some small part of me had believed we’d eventually figure things out and he’d come home. Even when I thought he might’ve hated me, I believed his emotional response to me was because he used to love me—might still love me. After last night, I believed it more than ever. Never in my wildest dreams did I think he had moved on.

  Not only was I hurt, but I felt foolish too. I’d had every intention of telling him this morning that I wanted to try to figure things out, no matter what it took. I loved him, and I’d been certain he loved me too, right up to the moment I saw Callie Stankevich standing barefoot in his living room.

  The house phone rang again. This time it was Diane. I let it go to voicemail, picked up my cell phone, and called my mother.

  “Could the kids stay tonight?” I asked, trying to sound bright and casual. “And can I keep the van? I have plans.”

  “What kind of plans? Do you have a date?” I was a terrible liar.

  “Kind of. Just going out with some girlfriends.”

  “It’s about time.”

  “Okay,” I said, ignoring her comment, “I’ll drop Izzy off and bring some clothes for Zac, after she gets home from Emily’s.”

  My next call was to Lisa.

  “If I pick up the stuff, will you bleach my hair this afternoon?”

  “Are you serious? Like you used to wear it?”

  “Just like that.”

  “Why?”

  “I’m not a fan of this dishwater blond.”

  “Well, sure. I just put the boys down for a nap. C’mon over.”

  The girl who looked back at me from the mirror that night was comfortably familiar. Her dress was too short and too tight, but I didn’t care. I’d tried to be someone else for the man I loved and nearly been destroyed in the process.

  This me? This me I understood. This me I could hide behind the glossed exterior. This was the girl who looked like she would take no shit. The girl with the heart made of stone—at least what was left of it.

  If Chase could move on, maybe it was time I did as well. Other than my father, I had loved only two men in my life, Preston and Chase. Both of them had broken my heart.

  Maybe the third time would be the charm.

  The night was a bust. I went by the Hilton, Club 78, and a few other places we used to hang out, but as I should have expected, everything had changed. The guys were either with someone, or if they weren’t, it was pretty clear why. I was approached a few times to dance, mostly by much shorter men, who would ask during a particularly slow song so they could bury their head in my cleavage, and by one man who kind of scared me. I ducked out when he wasn’t looking.

  I might’ve had a take-no-prisoners look on the outside, but on the inside, I was still surprisingly the fifteen-year-old girl mourning another loss as much as I’d mourned the loss of my father. Maybe even more.

  I pulled into Blondie’s around ten. It was too early for the guys to have arrived from the track, so I thought I would say hello to Irena, have a quick drink, and call it a night.

  “Proszę, proszę! Kogóż ja widzę! Witamy z powrotem!” she called out when she saw me. “Look who’s here.”

  She was a tough old broad, but she’d always been good to me. I smiled.

  “Thanks, Irena,” I said, slipping onto a stool. “It’s nice to be back.”

  The place was unusually quiet for a Saturday night, a big difference from the pounding music that still reverberated in my ears from the last couple of places.

  Irena poured me a shot of tequila, nestled a wedge of lime on top of the glass, and pushed a salt shaker toward me. The familiar drink made me think of Chase, but I didn’t have the heart to refuse it. I licked the back of my hand, sprinkled it with salt, licked it off, did my shot, and bit the lime. It had been awhile, and I shivered.

  “Na koszt fimy,” she said, offering another on the house.

  I took it obediently. Lick, sprinkle, lick, swallow, bite.

  “You ready to come back?” she asked. “I need someone to liven up this place and bring in some paying customers.” She scowled at the beer sippers in the far corner.

  Chase would have a coronary if I even considered working in a bar again—but I guess that was no longer my problem.

  I squeezed the lime again and idly licked a few drops from my finger, trying to cover the surge of emotion I was sure would be obvious on my face. “Maybe.”

  “Are you serious?”

  “I don’t know. Maybe. What nights?”

  “Whenever you want to work. Weekdays, weekends, you name it.”

  It was tempting. I could use the money. Chase was generous with child support, especially considering Izzy wasn’t his child to support, but he treated her the same as he treated Zac. My mother could only afford to pay me so much, and utilities at the house cost a lot more than they had back in my old one-bedroom apartment.

  “Okay.”

  Irena broke into one of her rare smiles—good thing, because I couldn’t keep from grinning as well.

  “How about three nights a week?” I asked. “Is that too much? Maybe Fridays, Saturdays, and Tuesdays?”

  “Mondays,” she insisted. “It’s dead in here Mondays. You’ll pack the place.”

  I had to laugh. “I didn’t pack the place when I was twenty-two. I doubt I will at twenty-nine.”

  “You come to work looking like that, and we’ll have to take reservations.”

  Yeah, this was where I belonged. Not at a country club, and not at the Hilton.

  Like it or not, this was who I was: a shameless flirt, tapping kegs and pouring shots.

  Chapter Thirty-Seven

  Early July

  I nearly drove the rollback into a ditch.

  Big black letters on the marquee at the edge of Blondie’s parking lot boasted the latest special.

  Rain Storm returns Monday!

  Half-price drinks from 6 to 7

  Drink specials all night!

  “What the fuck?”

  I waited for several cars to pass me, then backed up and pulled into the parking lot. Two in the afternoon or no, I had a strong, sudden need for a beer.

  The place was dark and nearly empty. I didn’t see Irena anywhere; she must have been resting up for the big doings that night. It was so quiet I could hear my pul
se pounding in my ears.

  “What can I get you?” The hipster bartender spun a napkin down in front of me. I didn’t come here that often, maybe for a quick beer or two after the race on Saturday nights, but I usually recognized the bartenders. This kid with his beard, man bun, and tattoos was new.

  “Heineken.”

  He snapped off the cap. “Bottle or glass?”

  “Bottle’s fine.” I grabbed it and took a long, hard pull.

  “Looks like big doings here tonight.”

  “I guess.” He lifted his eyebrows as if to indicate they might not be as big as Irena hoped. “Some old bartender’s coming back tonight. Irena thinks she’s going to bring them in in droves.”

  “Old, huh?” Yeah, I was fishing.

  “Well, not old. Probably in her thirties. Old enough.”

  If I hadn’t been so pissed, I might have smiled. Rain would’ve decked this kid.

  “Popular?”

  “I guess. From what I understand, she was a legend when she worked here.” He rolled his eyes. “Irena’s excited that she’s coming back. Hey, if she fills the place, better for all of us, right?”

  “Mmm.” I finished my beer.

  “You want another?”

  I shouldn’t have. I was working, and Dylan would have had a cow if he’d known I had the rollback parked at a bar in the middle of the afternoon.

  “Sure. So this, um, Rain Storm. She’s only working Monday nights?”

  “Weekends too. Mondays are slow, so Irena’s hoping she’ll liven things up, I guess.”

  Indeed, Miss February had packed the place back in the day. The guys loved her.

  I rubbed at a sharp pain in my temple. Maybe an aneurysm. How was I going to sit here three nights a week to make sure nobody got out of line with her? I had to stop doing this to myself. This was the reason I’d started seeing Callie. To stop driving myself crazy or drinking myself to death. But one night with Rain had brought everything back to the surface. I had been close to caving and begging her to take me back when she showed up at my place for god knew what reason. Now she wouldn’t take my calls and had gone back to working in the bar.