by Julie Kriss
I was in sweats. I hadn’t bothered to shower today, though I’d worked out like a motherfucker. Working out made my brain inch toward clarity, at least until my muscles gave out. “Donna,” I said, “do me a favor and level with me for once. No bullshit. Just truth.”
She shook out the match she was holding and straightened, looking at me.
“Do you tell my mother what happens in these sessions?” I asked her.
“No,” she said.
“Do you tell my brother? Anyone?” The image of Tessa and Nick discussing me had stuck in my mind, and I couldn’t quite get past it.
But that didn’t have to do with them. It had to do with me.
“No,” Donna said.
“Why do you keep coming back here?” It sounded whiny, but I was actually curious. “Why do you show up and listen to my shit? Is it just for money?”
She blinked, and for once she gave it to me straight instead of talking about crystals or auras. “I like you,” she said. “I never had a son. I look at you and I think, ‘What if that was my boy?’ If you were my boy, I’d come here and talk to you. So that’s what I do.” She sat in the chair across from me, a thoughtful look on her face. “Also, you’re so clearly at war with yourself, and you’re so close to getting past it. So very, very close. I just need to push you a little ways along.”
I stared at her. This woman had more insight than doctors and therapists who had ten times her education. “Be honest,” I said. “The problem isn’t my chi or my aura or the crystals in my house. The problem is me.”
She frowned. “That’s not quite the right way to see it. You create the problem, yes. But you’re also the solution. They’re both you.”
I closed my eyes.
“What happened?” she asked, not unkindly.
I gave her the truth in a harsh, sad summary. “My girlfriend dumped me.”
“Is that so? Because the phone on the table behind you keeps lighting up, over and over. Like someone is trying to talk to you.”
I kept my eyes closed. “She told me it’s too hard.”
“Well, it is hard,” Donna said. “She’s not wrong about that. When people come across something hard, sometimes their instinct is to run. And then sometimes they regret it afterward, but they don’t know what to do.”
“She’ll do it again,” I said.
“So you forgive her again, because it matters. She matters.”
I took a breath. Tessa did matter. And I knew my phone was lighting up behind me. I’d read every one of her texts last night, watching them come in one by one. I fucking miss you. Jesus, I fucking missed her, too.
I thought about Tessa coming to my door that first time with her Hi cake, waving at the camera. “I’m not doing the same thing again,” I said to Donna. “I’m not following the same old pattern.”
“So do something different,” Donna said. “Just do something. Because Andrew, I have to say, you’ve chosen to do nothing for the past seven years. And I’m asking you, how far do you think it’s gotten you?”
I opened my eyes. “Jesus, Donna. How did you get so wise?”
She lifted an eyebrow. “You’re not the only one who’s lived life, you know. Some of the rest of us have lived it too. Now, let’s discuss essential oils.”
Thirty-Two
Tessa
* * *
“No gifts,” the woman sitting across from me said. “No poems or big gestures. And definitely, definitely nothing sappy.”
I was talking, of all people, to Evie Bates. She had just married Nick Mason, but she’d kept her last name, because she was cool like that. She owned a bakery in downtown Millwood, and when I’d tracked her down in desperation, looking for advice, she agreed to have a coffee and a pastry with me.
Evie was pretty, with red hair tied up in a messy bun. She was wearing a white tee under denim overalls, which actually looked hot on her—not an easy look to pull off. She wore very little makeup, but her skin glowed. Obviously Nick Mason, jerk that he was, could keep a woman pretty happy when he put his mind to it. And he had.
I wondered what she saw when she looked at me. I was wearing jeans, a black tee, and my big sunglasses, which I’d pushed up on my head. I’d left off the makeup and I definitely didn’t look happy. I didn’t care if she pitied me; I just wanted help.
“I don’t envy you,” she said. “Having a Mason brother unhappy with you isn’t fun. Most women can’t handle them even when they’re in a good mood.”
I slumped in my chair and put another bite of chocolate muffin in my mouth. It was freaking delicious. It was a novel feeling, being able to eat a chocolate muffin without worrying I’d have to strip later. If I could eat my feelings, then hell, I was going to. “So I guess another Hi cake is out of the question.”
“Another what?”
“I bought him a cake that said Hi on it when I wanted to introduce myself.”
Evie blinked at that, her big eyes widening. “And what did he do?”
I shrugged and put another piece of muffin in my mouth. “He didn’t want it at first, but he took it. And he ate it.”
Her jaw dropped. “Oh, my God.”
“What?”
“He’s in love with you.”
I nearly choked on my bite of muffin. “What? Because he ate cake? Everyone likes cake.”
“Are you kidding me? Look around.” She gestured to the bakery we were sitting in, which was piled with amazing desserts. “This is a freaking bakery. I’ve been giving him baked goods for years. He never eats them. I finally had to stop doing it, because he was throwing them out. When his other neighbors gave him welcome presents, he left them in the garbage can at the end of the driveway.”
I had to admit that was promising, but still. “I was pretty pathetic. Maybe he just felt sorry for me.”
Evie looked uncertain. “I guess it’s possible, but Tessa, this is Andrew. Being sorry for people isn’t exactly his specialty.”
“He didn’t know me then, though. And even when I stayed with him during the heat wave—”
“You what?”
She really seemed shocked, so I explained. “It was a heat wave, and my air conditioning was broken. He let me stay at his house and—”
“At his house?” She couldn’t do anything but repeat my words back to me, louder and louder. “He let you stay at his house?”
“I guess you didn’t know that, because you were on your honeymoon at the time. It was really nice of him. He insisted I take the bedroom, and he slept on the couch.” I felt my cheeks go hot, because those were the days before we shared the bedroom. That had been raw and life-changing and fun. I wanted it back, really bad—but I wasn’t about to share that with his sister-in-law.
Evie didn’t notice me squirming, because she’d dropped her head into her hands. “Oh, my God. This is a disaster. He’s never had anyone in his house, Tessa. Even Nick has never slept there. I didn’t know he was so nuts about you. I just thought…”
When she trailed off, I added helpfully, “You thought I was just a hot girl he was fucking, and that I was probably using him for something or other.”
“No! No.” She sat up again. “I didn’t think that. I have my own past, and so does Nick, okay? We don’t judge. I just thought—we just thought—it was casual. Andrew doesn’t have relationships.”
I brushed muffin crumbs from my hands. “Well, you can relax, because he doesn’t have a relationship now. Even though I keep trying to get him back.”
She looked at me, coming to some kind of decision. “You have to get him back. You have to.”
“I know that,” I said. “That’s why I’m here.”
“Well, you’re right. You have to get him back. He’s in love with you, and you broke it off.”
“I’m in love with him, too,” I said, because it was so obviously true, there was no point in pretending it wasn’t.
“I just hope he’s okay,” she said. “What’s been going on at the house?”
“The wellness therapist came yesterday.” It was funny—I was the one watching Andrew’s house now, instead of him watching mine. “The landscapers came yesterday afternoon. This morning someone I didn’t recognize came. A woman.”
“A woman?” Evie said. “Not the housekeepers?”
“No, a solo woman.” I pressed my lips together. The woman, whoever she was, had been in her mid-twenties and pretty, carrying a bag over her shoulder. She’d been in Andrew’s house for an hour, which I knew because I’d watched for her to come out. What pretty twenty-five-year-old came to Andrew’s house for an hour? He’d never told me anything about that. Who was she, and what was she doing with him?
Evie looked as confused as I was. “I don’t know who that is,” she said. “It isn’t on the schedule.”
“I know.” I knew the schedule, too. Maybe even better than she did. “Whoever she was, she probably thought he was hot. Damn it.”
“We can fix this,” Evie said. “We need to get you two face to face, that’s all. Let him see you in person and talk it out.”
“Well, since Andrew doesn’t leave his house, that means I have to get in. Which he won’t allow.”
Evie reached across the table and patted my hand. “We’ll think of something, I promise.”
Thirty-Three
Tessa
* * *
Evie and I didn’t have to think of something clever or nefarious, it turned out. Because in the end, Andrew did the unthinkable.
He left his house.
I came home from dropping off a load of my grandmother’s old things to charity when I saw the handmade signs taped to the streetlights and stop signs on the street. Neighborhood BBQ! Games! Music! Starts at 4 PM! It was almost 4:30, and I could hear the sound of music and laughter coming from the park at the end of the street, wafting on the smell of cooking hamburgers.
I hesitated, glancing at Andrew’s house. It was the perfect excuse; I should go over there and knock on his door, wave at the security camera, ask him to go with me. Except he wouldn’t—I already knew that. He wouldn’t go with anyone, and definitely not with me.
Still, I was lonely, and the neighbor women I’d met on my first day here were nice. I didn’t feel like sitting alone in my grandmother’s house, thinking about Andrew, even though the air conditioning was working now. It sounded too pathetic. So I put my keys in my pocket and followed the signs down the street.
The music and voices got louder, the barbecue smells stronger. It was a beautiful day, hot and breezy. I was almost at the park when Amy, one of the neighbor women, noticed me and came down the walk toward me. “Tessa!” she called out. “You came! Welcome to the neighborhood party!”
“Thanks,” I said, smiling at her. I’d come a long way from L.A., but I realized I didn’t mind.
“Let me grab you a drink.” She led me to the edge of the park, to a little spot under some trees where there was a line of coolers. “Jan, this is Tessa, remember?” I waved at Jan, who was standing over one of the coolers holding a plastic glass filled with white wine. The two women looked at each other while Amy poured me a glass. “It’s so exciting,” Jan said. “Did you see?”
“See what?” I sipped my wine. It was cheap white wine from a cooler, drunk from a plastic cup, but somehow it was delicious. “What’s going on?”
“Your neighbor,” Amy said. “Andrew Mason. He’s here.”
I lowered my glass and stared at her. “Andrew is here?”
“You’re on a first-name basis?” Jan said, her eyes wide. “Do tell.”
“Oh, my God.” I turned and looked at the crowd, which was a few dozen strong. Sure enough, on the other side of the park, I could see Andrew’s wheelchair. He had his back to me, and he was in the shadow of one of the big trees. A little boy was talking to him, gesturing excitedly about something.
He was here. Andrew was here. No one had asked him or coerced him. He just came.
I knew him. I knew how he was, how he hated gatherings like this. How he hated leaving his house at all. Why had he come?
“He’s so funny,” Amy said, gushing. “And so smart. He isn’t an asshole at all. Did you know he draws comics? My kids have gone nuts for him. My son thinks he’s actually Batman.”
“Plus he’s gorgeous,” Jan said.
“I know.” I watched as the boy said something to Andrew, Andrew replied, and the boy ran off, excited.
“She found a way to meet him already,” Jan said. “I knew it. Amy, you owe me ten bucks.”
But her voice was behind me, because I was walking across the park toward Andrew. I picked up a lawn chair from a stack leaning against a tree and carried it with me, downing the last of my plastic glass of wine. Now or never, Tessa.
Andrew didn’t turn as I approached, but the line of his shoulders tightened. Just a little. I noticed.
I unfolded my chair next to his and sat down. He was wearing jeans and a navy blue tee, a plaid navy flannel unbuttoned over it. He had a plastic cup of beer in his hand. His beard was trimmed all the way down, almost to stubble, and he’d had a haircut. He glanced at me, just the briefest look from his dark eyes. “Tessa,” he said.
I swallowed and tried to find a spine. Tried to think of something to say. “What did you say to that kid?” I finally asked.
Andrew glanced at me again, and I stared at the line of his throat where it disappeared into the neck of his tee. “I told him that Lightning Man is real, he’s my friend, and he’s watching him, especially on Halloween,” he said.
I felt myself smiling. “That’s very devious, Andrew.”
He shrugged. “Someone has to teach kids manners. It may as well be Lightning Man.”
Everything hung in the air around us—everything important and unsaid. “You’re drinking a beer,” I said.
“I’m sipping a beer,” he corrected me. “Apparently you can’t come to one of these things without drinking something. Everyone insisted.” He looked at his cup. “It’s piss warm, but if I get rid of it, someone will just give me another.”
“Well,” I said, my throat tight, “I’m glad you’re here at all.”
He looked at me then—not just a glance, but a look. There were so many things in that look: anger, fear, raw hurt. There was the humor and the strength he carried with him all the time. And he was glad to see me; I could see that, too. I could see that my presence made things better for him, just like his did for me, even if he didn’t want it to. I could see that I was making this whole situation easier for him, just by sitting next to him in this lawn chair, feeling the breeze on my face and commiserating about his warm beer.
I wanted to sit next to him like this in every situation, make him feel better every day. Just like he did for me.
“Aren’t you going to ask me why I came here?” he asked me.
“Okay,” I said. “Why?”
“Because I thought it was time.”
I bit my lip and nodded. I had a lump in my throat.
“Also, I wanted to impress you.”
That made me laugh. “Andrew, you always impress me.”
“With my remarkably bad humor and my shitty life, yes.”
“And your sexual skills.”
“Those too, of course. But I wanted to impress you some other way for once.”
I was nearly sagging in my lawn chair. This was the Andrew I knew, witty and tough and funny. I was so glad to see him. But I kept up the conversation, because I knew the last thing he wanted was to see me get sappy. “Well, it worked. I am impressed. So are the neighbors. You’ve won them over, especially the women.”
“They’re curious about me,” he said with a dismissive wave. “One old lady talked to me at top volume, as if being in a wheelchair means I’m hard of hearing. Another guy said ‘I’m sorry, dude,’ at least four times. I had to call Bea Arthur on both of them.”
I laughed again. “Did you actually say ‘Bea Arthur?’”
“I did. It was singularly ineffective. Now my neighbors think
I’m an avid Golden Girls fan instead of the dignified intellectual I really am.”
I leaned back in my chair, my eyes watering with laughter. “Oh my God, you are so badass.”
“Obviously,” Andrew said. He ran a hand through his hair. “You know, I don’t know what I was avoiding all this time. Except for the yelling lady and the sorry dude, it isn’t all that bad.”
I watched his gorgeous hand as it moved through his hair, wishing avidly that hand was on my skin instead. Then I remembered that his hair was shorter than it was a few days ago. “A haircut!” I said, sitting up straight in my lawn chair. “That girl who came to your house gave you a haircut!”
Andrew frowned at me. “Well, sure. Wait a minute—what girl?”
“The good-looking one I watched from my window.”
“You watched Candy from your window?”
“Her name is Candy?” I thumped my palm against the arm of my chair. “For real? No one is named Candy. Plus she’s younger than me, and her boobs were almost as nice as mine. I’m going to have to kill her.”
“Tessa.”
“Now I’m going to have to go to haircutting school as well as nursing school. Damn it.”
He rolled his eyes. “I didn’t see Candy’s boobs, okay? She cut my hair, that’s all.” Politely he added, “Though from what I could see, they weren’t as nice as yours at all.”
Just like that, the air went heavy between us. We were talking about sex, about us, and yet we weren’t at all. This was just how we did things, two people as damaged as we were. This was how we understood each other. And we did.
I said, “You read my texts.” It wasn’t a question.
Andrew looked away for a minute, his shoulders tensing again. “Yeah, I did.”
“I meant them,” I said. “I’m sorry for what I said. For freaking out and leaving.” I swallowed. “I’m just really, really sorry. Can we go back?”
He was quiet for a minute as the music and the voices washed around us, like white noise. I couldn’t have said who a single person was in this park right now. Just Andrew Mason. That was all.
