by Linnea May
I had only given Lesley the most crucial information about what has happened today before showing up at her door, so I spent the first few minutes explaining the events of the day in detail.
Her eyes are glued to my lips the entire time I am speaking. She exhales with indignation quite a few times, stating her outrage at several points.
But in the end, she is just as baffled as I am.
“You’re right,” she concludes. “I don’t see why he would do something like this. I mean, there is very little for him to gain.”
“It’s a weird coincidence that she shows up now, don’t you think?” I add. “Just a few weeks after his mother approaches me with that exact same story? It’s almost as if she hired a witness.”
“True,” Lesley agrees.
“But I don’t think she lied about the dating part,” I note.
“Yeah, but that doesn’t have to mean much,” Lesley replies. “Although I understand why you would feel weird about it after seeing those pictures. Especially since he’s so reluctant to talk about this stuff…”
I glance over to her. “So, you know what I mean?”
She nods enthusiastically. “Absolutely.”
“What do you think I should do?”
Lesley takes a sip of her wine and raises her eyebrows as she looks back at me.
“Well, you know I’d always suggest talking to him first-”
“No,” I interrupt her. “You don’t know what he is like. He gets so defensive and shielded. Besides, if he’s lying or simply denying everything, what would it help?”
“Still,” Lesley insists. “You’re right, I don’t know what the big Mr. Crow is like in private and especially with you and that aforementioned… playing.”
I blush. I didn’t tell her a lot about it but had to mention just enough details to make her understand why Adriana’s words stuck with me at all.
“But you have spent so much time with him, from what little I know about him, I would think that he let you in more than anyone else before-”
“Except for Adriana,” I interject. “Or any other ex-girlfriend who might be running around out there.”
“Who he was never seen with in public!” Lesley reminds me. “Don’t forget about that part. He is serious about you.”
We both don’t speak for a while and just absentmindedly drink our wine. I still like the taste of it, despite having grown accustomed to much finer drinks. It saddens me that I cannot even remember the last time Lesley and I were sitting together like this, or the last time I’ve had this particular wine. It is almost as if I am losing a part of myself, now that I am with Cedric.
Cedric, the man who drives me crazy on so many levels. I asked for more excitement, more ups and downs in life, but I never figured it would be like this. So challenging and exhausting. So much drama.
“It’s kind of nice to see you like this, though,” Lesley comments.
I glance over to her. “What do you mean?”
“So passionate and engaged,” she says, winking at me. “You really care about him, don’t you?”
“Of course,” I whisper, looking down at my glass. “More than I thought I could ever care for anyone. It’s ridiculous.”
“It’s not ridiculous,” Lesley objects. “It’s love.”
I raise my eyebrows. “That is all well and good, but I don’t think that a crazy, evil mother and an ex with terrible accusations are usually part of the deal.”
Lesley laughs. “Maybe not, but you didn’t expect a man like Cedric to be all tame and normal, did you?”
I shake my head.
“I’ve always told you,” she adds. “We all have plenty of skeletons in our closets. If you fall in love with another person, you will eventually meet his.”
Cedric’s may be too much to handle for me, though. I feel overwhelmed and helpless, unsure what to believe and what my next move should be.
“What do you think I should do now?” I ask her.
“I told you-”
“Except for talking to Cedric,” I interrupt. “I will talk to him eventually, but for now I need to investigate this on my own.”
Lesley sighs and raises her eyes to the ceiling.
“You do have her e-mail address, right?” she asks.
“Yes.”
“Well, of you don’t want to talk to Cedric, you might have to talk to her first, don’t you think?” she suggests. “You said that she seemed kind of odd and not truly convincing when you met her. She might get tangled up even more if you press her with questions and details.”
“Or she might prove herself right…,” I remark.
“To be honest, I highly doubt that,” Lesley says. “It just doesn’t add up, all of it.”
“I hope you’re right.”
“I just wish you would include Cedric in your reasoning,” Lesley insists. “I don’t understand why you always have to do things your Renee-way.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
“Doubting him and running away from him every time you encounter some kind of obstacle in your relationship,” she explains.
“Some kind of obstacle?” I exclaim. “I think the events of last these past weeks have been a little more than that. It’s not normal.”
“Of course, it’s not normal,” Lesley argues. “But I am sure you’ll get behind this and feel silly for doubting him so much.”
“You sure have a sense of basic trust when it comes to him…,” I note.
She laughs and waves me off. “You tend to forget that I have been reading his books and virtually followed him for years. I can tell you that these past few months have been different.”
She looks at me and pauses for a moment.
“And he has never dedicated a book to anyone,” she adds. “As mysterious, broken and shielded as he may be, he has his way of showing you how much he cares. You just need to be able to see and appreciate it.”
I gulp and look down at my wine glass again.
“I do,” I say. “I do see it. I just need to resolve this by myself for now.”
“Whatever,” Lesley snorts. “Meet her, then. By yourself.”
I nod.
“But we should come up with a plan of action, so you know what to say and what to ask her,” Lesley suggests, raising her fist.
Chapter Twenty-Two
I am almost surprised to see that the e-mail address Adriana gave me works, even though it takes her a day to reply to my first message.
I write to her that same evening after she confronted me on my way home.
In order to not obsess about the whole matter too much and refresh my inbox every few minutes, like I would usually handle a situation like this, I try to distract myself. I would love to go running, but that is not an option now that Lesley and I have shared an entire bottle of white wine. So I go for a walk instead, exploring my old neighborhood and following the path that Lesley and I have used for our nocturnal runs so often.
I buy groceries, which is a pointless endeavor for someone who doesn’t need anything but coffee, milk, and alcohol, and I do my laundry. That last bit makes sense and is one of the main reasons why I am at my apartment in the first place.
Cedric texts me later that night telling me that he misses me, and I reply the same thing.
“You’ll be back here tomorrow, right?” he asks, and I don’t know what to reply.
If it was up to me, I wouldn’t see him until I have cleared things up with Adriana, but I would need a good excuse not to stay over with him tomorrow. It’s going to be a Friday, and I cannot even remember the last weekend I haven’t at least partly spent with him. He will be suspicious if I don’t plan to show up tomorrow.
I check me e-mails again. No answer.
“Dammit, Adriana,” I hiss.
I know Cedric is waiting for an answer, so I come up with the next best thing. “Most likely.”
I figure that that is something he can interpret either way. It suggests that I am planning to
see him, but that there is no certainty in it.
I could always get sick spontaneously, after all.
Adriana’s response doesn’t get to me until the next day. I read it while I am still in the office. She agrees to meet me and even suggests that we should do it as soon as possible, maybe even tonight.
I am a little overwhelmed by that but relieved at the same time because it means I don’t have to avoid Cedric for much longer. Or so I hope.
We agree on a coffee place close to my office and arrange to meet right after I get off from work. Since Cedric is probably planning to send Craig to pick me up from work tonight, I have to come up with something to tell him, so that doesn’t happen. The only thing I can come to think of is working overtime. I have done that before, so it shouldn’t make him too suspicious, and at least this buys me a few hours.
I don’t get anything done that day, even less than I have during the past few weeks. It not tragic because we don’t have any terrible deadlines to meet right now, and most of our projects are running smoothly, business as usual.
I keep myself occupied with browsing through job ads and thinking about applications. The whole idea of getting into the video gaming industry still fascinates me, and I am surprised to see how many options would be available for me in that area. It is the first time in years, probably since I graduated from college, that I am excited about something work-related.
If it hadn’t been for this whole Adriana-business, I probably would have talked to Cedric about it. I want to do that so much, especially because he has always emphasized that he would support me in any way if I wanted to try something new.
He doesn’t know much about this industry, but he sure knows what it is like to burn for something and how to reach it.
I clock out a little early that evening and scurry out of the office. My pulse is rushing again, getting worse with every footstep that brings me close to the place where Adriana and I have agreed to meet.
She is not there yet when I arrive, which is not surprising because I am more than fifteen minutes early.
I find an empty table in the far back of the Café and keep myself busy by studying the menu extensively, even though I only plan to order my usual cappuccino.
For what feels like an eternity I sit there, reading the same words again and again while my eyes keep moving over to the door. I straighten up expectantly every time a new customer enters, but so far Adriana has not been one of them.
I hope she doesn’t bring the child. I would hate for her to do that. I feel sorry for him, either way. If he is Cedric’s son, I feel sorry for him being abandoned by his father and raised by a bitter mother, something Cedric himself should be more than familiar with. If she is lying, I feel sorry for him being a used as bait by his mother to harm someone else.
No matter how the whole story ends, I don’t see how the little boy could not end up as a victim, and I truly hope that he is too young to remember any of this.
The door opens again, and this time I don’t get nervous for nothing. Adrian is standing in the entrance taking her dark gloves off as she scans the room. She is alone; there is not little boy clinging to her leg or being carried on her arm. Thank God.
She is wearing glasses today and looks even more tired and frail than she did yesterday. Her skin is so pale, even lighter than mine. It could give her an elegant appearance if she didn’t look so worn out and exhausted.
She spots me and nods as she approaches my table.
“It’s good to see you,” she says, again reaching her hand out to shake mine, which I, again, refuse to do.
“I wish I could say the same,” I say and beckon her to sit down.
She raises her eyebrows and follows my gesture to sit down opposite of me.
“No need to be rude to me,” she says. “I’m not the one who is in the wrong here.”
“We don’t know that yet,” I remark.
“Well, I do,” she says.
She takes off her scarf and coat and calls for the waiter.
“Have you ordered something yet?”
“No,” I say.
“What do you want?” she asks. “It’s on me.”
“Why?” I ask, frowning. “I can pay for my own coffee, thank you.”
She sighs. “Shouldn’t you be used to being spoiled by now?”
I glance at her through narrow eyes. How could she honestly be surprised that I don’t like her? Why on earth did Cedric date such an unpleasant person?
The waiter arrives, and we order our drinks separately.
“So, since you were the one who suggested we meet up here,” she says once the waiter has disappeared. “I’d suggest you go ahead and start.”
“Alright,” I begin. “I should probably let you know first that it is hard for me to believe your accusations.”
She nods. “Fair enough, like I said, I cannot blame you.”
“I talked to Cedric,” I lie. “He is actually the one who said that I should meet up with you again.”
Her eyes flicker at the mentioning of his name. She looks startled for a second.
“You seem surprised to hear that,” I add.
She shakes her head abruptly. “No, not at all. Why would you not talk to him? He is your boyfriend after all.”
She pauses for a moment before she continues. “What did he say?”
“That doesn’t matter right now,” I reply.
“It does to me!” she insists. “Did he deny everything? Did he even remember me?”
Damn. I’m such a bad liar, and now I am reminded why. I can never come up with a good story to back up my lies. I need to tell her something.
Right in this moment, the waiter comes to my rescue bringing our drinks, providing me with a few extra moments to consider what I should tell her. I decided that it would be best to just tell her what I think - and hope - to be the right version.
“He remembers you,” I begin once the waiter has left us again. “He said that the two of you did date at some point about two years ago.”
She smiles and nods.
“However,” I add, putting a strong emphasize on the word. “He denies having a child with you and said that you were not pregnant when the two of you broke up.”
She snorts. “Of course, he would say that. That bastard.”
I shrug and reach for my extra large cappuccino, glancing over at her as I lift the mug up to my face.
“You don’t believe him, do you?” she asks.
I take a careful sip of my beverage making her wait for an answer.
“I don’t know what to believe, to be honest,” I say. “I have to say, I am a little surprised by your appearance. Why did you show up now? Why not fight for your son’s rights? There’s a legal system that would back you up.”
“I told you,” she says. “Being a penniless nobody does not bode well when you’re trying to fight someone like Cedric.”
“You could have used media to your advantage,” I suggest, kind of proud for my quick mind in this case. “Stir up a little drama, blackmail him, ruining his reputation, I bet there are quite a few magazines or journalists who would have loved to print an interview with you.”
I am almost scared of myself. I would make a good blackmailer it seems.
Adriana looks at me, startled again, as if I had told her something she never even thought about, which, judging by her rather cunning nature, I find hard to believe.
She clears her throat and seems to need a few moments before she can come up with a good response to my scheming ideas.
“You’re naive if you think that would have worked,” she says eventually.
“If you say so,” I retort. “But still, I wonder. Why now? What made you show up in front of me this week?”
“I never knew what Cedric was up to privately after we broke up,” Adriana explains. “I didn’t know that he had a new girlfriend until I saw you in an article a while ago.”
“A while ago?” I ask.
“Yes, it
was in a gossip magazine. They usually don’t run articles about people like Cedric, but this one was different because it showed a side of him that usually doesn’t get covered by the media,” she continues. “For years now there wasn’t anything about his private life because he wanted it that way. People hardly knew where he lived. It was all about his works, his books, his writing, appearances at readings and such.”
“I know,” I comment, even though I’d hardly been aware of Cedric’s existence about a year ago. He was just another author that Lesley kept throwing at me, but for all I knew he could have been a sixty-year-old man back then.
“So, when I saw this, I figured I just had to take the chance,” she adds. “You know, I felt, like, obligated to do something because I know what kind of monster he can turn out to be. And I feel like… like I had a chance to prevent someone else from going through what I had to go through with him.”
“That’s very… kind of you,” I say. “So what do you think I should do?”
“Leave him,” she blurts out.
I raise one of my eyebrows and look at her, slightly surprised. That answer shot out of her a little bit too abruptly.
“I’m sorry,” she adds, laughing awkwardly. “It’s just, you know… why would you stay with a jerk like him?”
“You think I should leave him just based on what you’ve been telling me?” I clarify. “That seems a bit rash, don’t you think?”
“Not if you consider the consequences. He’s an evil, evil man, Renee,” she insists. “You have to believe me. No matter what he’s telling you now. He will leave you once he has claimed you more than anyone else ever could.”
“You mean once he has… impregnated me?” I ask, consciously using the word his mother has used towards me, even though I hate the sound of it.
Adriana nods. “Exactly. I told you; he is all about control, and that is his favorite way of controlling and owning a woman.”
“You’re saying that there are others?” I ask. “You’re not the first and only one he has done this to?”
Adriana takes another sip from her coffee and seems to search for an answer.
