Tell Me

by Strom, Abigail

  “Dinner?” she asked cautiously.

  “Yeah. There’s something I want to talk to you about.”

  It could be anything. Sam’s birthday, or . . . well, anything.

  “Um . . .”

  “It can’t be tomorrow, because Sam wants me to go to her climbing thing. What about the day after?”

  “Um . . .”

  “Eight o’clock at Benvalli’s in the Village. I’ve already made a reservation.”

  He had?

  “Well . . . all right.”

  The physical connection she’d felt over the past few days was no reason to assume he had anything romantic in mind. After all, hadn’t she imagined a physical connection with Dan?

  True, those moments with Caleb had felt different. More intense, more visceral, more . . . carnal.

  But that didn’t mean Caleb had felt them, too.

  She had a sudden picture of him in her mind, all lean muscle and physical competence in worn jeans and cowboy boots and—

  “What are you wearing?” she asked suddenly.

  Dead silence.

  Oh God. Had she said that out loud?

  “Your hat,” she said quickly, her heart pounding. “Are you wearing that stupid cowboy hat right now?”

  “No,” he said after a moment, sounding amused. “You think I wear my hat to bed?”

  Naked except for his hat. Now there was an image she didn’t need.

  “You wear it everywhere else,” she said crisply. “Sam says it’s part of your cowboy shtick, like calling women darlin’.”

  He chuckled. “It’s not shtick. I am a cowboy, or I used to be. And I’ve had that hat since I was fourteen years old.”

  “That doesn’t mean you have to wear it all the time. The day I see you without it I’ll know it’s the end of the world.”

  “The first sign of the apocalypse?”

  “Exactly.”

  Her heart rate was returning to normal. It was easy, now, to assume that whatever Caleb wanted to talk about at dinner, it didn’t have anything to do with the rogue lust that ripped through her every so often when she was around him.

  Life would stay safe and predictable and comfortable. Sam and Caleb would go adventuring again in a few weeks—Turkey or Mozambique or Nepal—and she would go back to being happy with what she had.

  A quiet life. The life of the mind.

  “Hey, Jane?”

  His voice was low now, and soft, and it did unspeakable things to her nerve endings.

  Suddenly afraid of what he might say next, she spoke before he could.

  “Okay, so, good night. I’ll see you for dinner at Benvalli’s.”

  And then, before anything else could happen, she ended the call.

  Two days later, Kiki was telling her she should dress up for dinner.

  “There’s no dress code,” Jane said, using a knife to open the shipping box that had brought them twenty copies of the new J. K. Rowling.

  “I know they don’t enforce it, but it’s a fancy place. I’ve seen women there in ball gowns and men in tuxedos.”

  “And I’ve seen people there in jeans, too.”

  “Well, that’s Manhattan for you. But come on, Jane. When’s the last time you got really dressed up for something?”

  Okay, it had been a while. But this wasn’t a date, because it couldn’t be, and because when she’d texted Caleb a few hours ago to ask if he was dressing up he hadn’t even answered her. Which was a little weird, because he always answered texts unless he was someplace without Wi-Fi. That happened more with him than with most people, but still.

  So what would he wear? A tuxedo and a cowboy hat?

  “What are you smiling about?” Kiki asked.

  I’m imagining Caleb in a tuxedo and cowboy hat. But it was a private thought, with history behind it that would take a while to explain, so she just shook her head.

  “Nothing.”

  But it wasn’t nothing. It was a smile, a real smile, and Jane would remember it for a long time.

  “Oh, he’s here!” Kiki exclaimed. “Didn’t you say you were meeting at the restaurant? And your reservation isn’t for three hours.”

  Jane looked up. They had said they were meeting at Benvalli’s, so she was 90 percent sure that whoever Kiki had seen couldn’t be Caleb.

  But it was Caleb. He was standing in the doorway of the shop, and he wasn’t wearing a tuxedo—or his cowboy hat.

  He was in jeans and an old blue shirt, one he’d had for years. It was sunny outside and his hair looked lighter than it usually did. Without the shadow of his hat, she could see his eyes clearly as they stared straight into hers.

  They looked like the end of the world.

  She grabbed the counter with both hands. Something was wrong.

  He didn’t look away as he crossed the shop. He walked slowly, as though he hated what he was doing more than he’d ever hated anything in his life.

  It seemed like a long time before he reached her. Her hands were flat on the counter, the marble like ice under her palms. He put his hands over hers, covering them completely, and even though his skin was warm it didn’t seem to touch her.

  His breathing was strange—harsh and uneven, like he’d been hurt internally. His eyes held hers, and she wished she could look away.

  Her heart was beating too fast. Instinct told her to hide, to escape before he could say anything, but she couldn’t seem to move.

  “Jane, I’m so sorry.”

  Her throat was too dry for her to speak. She stared at him, knowing something awful was coming but not yet knowing what it was.

  She had to stop him. “Caleb—” she managed to say.

  But she couldn’t keep the words from coming.

  He took a deep breath. “Sam’s dead.”

  Chapter Ten

  Two months after that terrible day, Caleb was standing in line at a coffee shop with his phone pressed to his ear. The woman in front of him was trying to reason with a screaming toddler, and he could feel his temper on a thin wire, ready to snap.

  “You have to do something,” Nina Finch was saying. “We sent her a plane ticket so she could come home for Christmas, but she wasn’t on the flight.”

  “What do you expect me to do about it?”

  His voice was gruff, and he hated himself for that. The Finches had lost their oldest child, and their youngest wasn’t talking to them.

  She wasn’t talking to anyone. Him, least of all.

  It had been two months since he’d walked into her store and told her the news. For the rest of his life he’d remember the look in her eyes, the way she’d struggled to break free of him, and the crack of her palm hitting his cheek when she’d finally wrenched away.

  “Get out of here,” she’d said. “Get out!”

  He hadn’t. He’d put his arms around her and held her close and made her listen, because she’d have to hear it eventually, and it wouldn’t be a kindness to put it off.

  It had been an equipment failure, he’d told her. One of Sam’s rappel anchors had broken and she’d fallen. She’d died instantly. She hadn’t suffered.

  “You’re lying. She’s not dead.”

  “Sweetheart—”

  “Don’t call me that. Get out of here. Get out of my sight!”

  “I’m not leaving you alone.”

  And he hadn’t. Not until Felicia arrived to handle things at the bookstore so Kiki could take Jane home, promising Caleb she’d stay with her until her parents arrived from California.

  He’d known before he’d ever walked into her shop what the price would be. The price of being the one to tell her, the one who broke the news that her sister was dead.

  For the rest of their lives, he’d be linked to that moment of shock and grief. And she’d hate him for it.

  So he hadn’t just lost one sister. He’d lost two.

  Nina and Harvey had lost more than he had. They’d lost a child. They deserved compassion and kindness and anything in the world he could do fo
r them.

  Unfortunately, there was nothing he could do.

  He’d already checked out.

  He’d felt it happen a few weeks after the funeral, when Jane still wasn’t answering his calls and he was still dealing with the paperwork that resulted from one member of a business partnership dying suddenly. He was Sam’s executor, too, which had landed him with even more tasks.

  “We should be each other’s executors,” Sam had said when they’d discussed making wills a few years before. Considering the dangers inherent in their work, they’d decided it was irresponsible not to plan for the unexpected.

  “Why would we do that? We’ve both got family.”

  “Because I know if Jane died the last thing I’d want to deal with is a will and probate and all that crap. And you know Jane—she cries when those ASPCA commercials come on. She couldn’t cope with paperwork if I died. But you’d go right into practical Caleb mode and just take care of everything.”

  The idea of Sam dying had seemed so ludicrous then. They’d been in a café in Buenos Aires when they’d had this conversation, a shaft of sunlight striking sparks off her golden hair.

  So he’d said yes. Even though he’d known that nothing is promised, that anyone can die, even the people who seem most alive.

  He supposed he should be glad that Jane and her parents weren’t dealing with any of this. But the truth was, he’d checked out. He was counting the days until he’d done everything he was supposed to do, and then he’d be gone. And it would be a long time before he came back.

  “I can’t fix this for you, Nina. I’m leaving in two days.”

  “Leaving? Where are you going?”

  “Australia.”

  “For an expedition?”

  “Several, actually. I’m going to be based there for a few months, leading treks into the outback.” He paused. “If you want to talk to Jane, you can’t do it through me. For one thing, she’s not taking my calls. For another, I won’t be back in New York for a while. I’ve given up my apartment.”

  “But, Caleb! Do you know anyone in Australia?”

  “Yeah. I know plenty of people.”

  “You know what I mean. Do you know anyone well? Do you have family there or real friends?”

  No, thank God.

  “If you want to talk to Jane, you’ll have to come out here yourself,” he said, changing the subject.

  “But we always spend the holidays here in LA. Every year. I want her to come home, Caleb. I think it’s important, for all of us. We still have three days before Christmas. We can buy her another plane ticket. Please, please, can’t you talk to her?”

  That kid in front of him was screaming louder than ever.

  “Nina—”

  “Please, Caleb. Please.”

  He closed his eyes. “Fine,” he said.

  “What?”

  “I said fine!”

  “Oh, thank goodness. Call me and tell me how it goes.”

  And before he could take the offer back, Jane’s mother ended the call.

  Goddamn it.

  Using the phone would be no good—Jane wouldn’t answer. He’d stopped by the shop a few times, but she hadn’t been there, and Kiki had said her hours had been irregular since the funeral.

  If he wanted to see her, he’d have to go to her apartment—the one thing he’d told himself he wouldn’t do.

  It was one thing to call someone who wouldn’t answer or go by their place of work hoping to see them. But to go to their home, knowing they hated the sight of you . . . knowing you’d probably get the door slammed in your face . . .

  Oh well, what the hell. What was one more bad memory to file away in the room marked “Don’t Look in Here”?

  He finally got his coffee, wrapped his cold hands around it, and took it with him on the subway to Brooklyn.

  The last time he’d seen Jane was at the funeral. Sam had asked to be cremated, so there was no gravesite horror to go through—just a memorial service for friends and family at a church Sam had liked, even though her work schedule had meant she wasn’t a regular attendee.

  It had been a perfect October day, so beautiful it had hurt . . . and as different from today as it was possible to be.

  Today was funeral weather. Gray and cold and raw, the sidewalks covered with a mix of icy slush and dirty snow. Once he left the subway station, the only warmth anywhere was in the cardboard cup he held between his hands, and even that was dissipating.

  After two blocks it was gone completely. He threw it in a trash bin without having taken a single sip.

  Another ten minutes and he was at Jane’s place.

  He was heartened a little by her tree-lined block. This was a neighborhood people cared about, the kind of place people decorated for the holidays. There were wreaths and red ribbons and little twinkling lights everywhere, and in the downstairs windows of Jane’s building a child had hung homemade snowflakes and paper chains.

  Maybe Jane had absorbed some of the holiday cheer in spite of herself.

  He walked up her stoop as someone else was coming out, so he didn’t have to get buzzed into the lobby. The Christmas theme continued here with gold and silver bows on all the mailboxes.

  One of the mailboxes was stuffed full, as though the owner were away on vacation.

  He went close enough to read the name and saw that it was Jane’s.

  Great. What if she wasn’t here? What if she’d gone away someplace?

  Her apartment was on the third floor. He went up the stairs slowly, wondering what he’d do if she wasn’t home. Wait? He might have to wait a long time. Try to track her down? She’d have to have told Kiki and Felicia where she’d gone.

  There were two apartments on each floor. The door across from Jane’s had a big wreath hung on it and a red-and-green welcome mat proclaiming “Happy Holidays!” on the floor in front of it.

  Jane’s door was unadorned. He knocked, but he was almost certain now that Jane wasn’t home. He was already trying to think of a plan B when he heard a voice on the other side of the door.

  “Who is it?”

  The voice sounded strange—a little creaky, like an unused gate. But it was definitely Jane’s.

  “It’s Caleb. Let me in.”

  Now that he’d heard her voice, he was ready to settle in for a siege if necessary, to get a look at her and make sure she was all right.

  But it didn’t take a fight. The door swung open, and there was Jane, standing in the doorway and looking at him.

  She was drunk. Even if she hadn’t been holding a bottle of vodka, he would have known from the vague, bleary look in her eyes.

  Her feet were bare, and so were her legs. She was wearing an old white T-shirt, a little too small for her, and when she lifted a hand to brush her hair off her face it rode up enough that he could see her underwear—white cotton with bright red candy cane stripes.

  In all the time he’d known her, he’d never seen Jane look like this.

  “Jesus,” he said.

  Jane nodded. “He has a birthday coming up.” She pulled up her T-shirt to give him another glimpse of her panties. “See? I’m festive.”

  She let go of her T-shirt and leaned toward him, resting the hand not holding the vodka in the center of his chest. “Actually,” she said confidentially, her face close enough that he could smell the alcohol on her breath, “I’m not wearing these to be festive. My aunt sent them for Christmas, and I put them on because I’m out of clean underwear.”

  He looked down at her for a moment and then over her shoulder at her apartment. It was a mess, the kitchen filled with dirty dishes and the living room crowded with old pizza boxes and Chinese takeout containers. Through the bedroom door he could see laundry piled up on the floor.

  He looked back at Jane. “Invite me in,” he said.

  She blinked up at him for a moment, her eyes not quite focused. Then she took a step back and gestured grandly with the vodka bottle. “Won’t you please come in?”

  He
closed the door behind him, went to the middle of the living room, and turned to face her again.

  “Okay,” he said. “Now say, ‘Caleb, you have my permission to clean this place up.’”

  “Caleb, you have my—” She stopped. “Wait a minute. You totally do not have my permission.”

  “Jane—”

  She threw the bottle of vodka onto the sofa and stormed up to within a few inches of him.

  “What’s wrong with you? Why would you say that? There’s nothing wrong with my apartment. How dare you come in here and tell me my sister’s dead?”

  She heard the words at the same time he did. He watched it happen with a sick feeling in his stomach, and when her eyes widened and she stared at him, all he could do was stare back.

  “I didn’t mean that,” she whispered, and his heart clenched in his chest.

  He closed the space between them and put his hands on her shoulders. “Jane—”

  She shrugged away from him. “It’s not your fault. It’s my fault.”

  She turned her back and took one uncertain step, and then another. He’d never seen a human being look so utterly lost.

  He came up beside her and took her hand. Then he tugged on it, gently, and led her over to the sofa. He shoved the pizza boxes off to clear a space, and then he sat down, pulling on her hand until she sat down beside him.

  “That’s not true,” he said. “It’s no one’s fault.”

  She looked at him for a moment, her face twisting as her eyes filled with tears she refused to shed.

  “I was going to tell her about Dan. I was going to give her the letter and tell her to give him a chance. I could have stopped her from going on that trip.” She took a deep breath. “But I didn’t tell her, because I was jealous.”

  “Telling her about Dan wouldn’t have stopped her from going. Nothing would have. Nothing ever stopped Sam, Jane. You know that.”

  “She would have stayed if I’d asked her to. She loved me, and if I’d asked her to stay she would have.”

  “Jane—”

  “Do you know what her last words to me were?” Her lips trembled for a moment, and she took a deep breath. “‘Stay safe, little sis. I love you.’”

  His heart clenched again. Sam, he thought. Oh, Sam.

  Jane pressed her hands to her temples as though her head had started to throb. “She always told me to stay safe. Why? When have I ever done anything but stay safe? She was the one who needed to hear that. But I never told her.”