Plan Overboard (Toronto Series #14)

by Wardell, Heather

  Before I can figure out what to say, he clears his throat and says, "I'm glad it's dark so you can't see I'm blushing. I said that wrong."

  I giggle, relieved. "I started it. Maybe we really are drunk."

  "Maybe so. Maybe we should go sleep it off. Think Jenna would let me sleep in her room?"

  "It's my room, actually."

  "Then I guess it's okay." He touches my cheek lightly. "Is it okay with you, girlfriend?"

  "It is, boyfriend," I say, and after he brushes his teeth we snuggle up together under my covers with Jenna snoozing away in her little bed.

  "You're sure she can't get out of there?" Austin says softly. "She can't get hurt?"

  I burrow closer to him. I've told him this so many times but somehow it doesn't annoy me to tell him again. "I can reach her but there's no way I could crush her or anything. But it's nice being so close."

  His arms tighten around me. "Yeah." He kisses the top of my head. "It is."

  I shut my eyes and wrap my arm across his chest, feeling warm and safe and so glad he's with me. "Definitely."

  Chapter Twenty-Eight

  Half an hour after my lesson the next day we are again close, but it's nowhere near as nice: we're standing face-to-face shouting in whispers because Jenna's asleep in her bassinet beside us.

  "One lesson," Austin says, his eyes flashing, "and you're going to give up?"

  "I can't do it. You don't get it. I'm not good enough."

  "We won't know that until you try. Try the whole thing, not just one day."

  "And if I try and I can't do it? Can't get into the orchestra? Then what?"

  "Then you don't get in," he says like I'm an idiot.

  "That's the whole fucking problem," I shoot back, surprised at myself for breaking my 'no swearing in front of Jenna' plan but too angry not to. "Can't you see that?"

  He blinks at my unusual language, but says, "Apparently not. Especially since it doesn't even sound like your lesson was that bad."

  "Well, it was."

  "But you said at first—"

  "Yeah, at first it was okay." I'm speaking louder than before as fury takes me over at the memory of how Marty let me play the whole first movement of the Mozart then tore it apart right as I felt pride thinking I'd played it well. The same horror and sickness I felt then rushes through me, driving my words. "Then it wasn't. Why is that so hard to understand? Why can't you get it?"

  "I get it fine," he says, loud too. "I get that I want to help you go after this and you want to make your father happy. And I get that neither of us is going to get what we want."

  His reference to Dad sends my anger through the roof. "Get out," I almost shriek. "Just get out!"

  He turns and does what I said, even though my rage scared Jenna awake and she's now screaming.

  As the door slams shut behind him I burst into tears myself, then drop to the couch and try to calm Jenna, but I can't and I can't calm myself either and we both cry for what seems like forever until my phone rings and I throw myself at it without checking its screen.

  "Austin?" I gasp.

  "No, honey, it's me. What's wrong?"

  "I'm stupid, that's what's wrong." I keep talking over Mom's protests. "I'm an idiot and I do everything wrong and I can't play clarinet and I've let Dad down and myself down and Austin hates me and I'm a terrible mother and I'm stupid and I suck."

  "Nobody talks about the mother of my granddaughter that way," she says firmly. "I'm coming over."

  I don't say anything. I can't, because I'm crying too hard.

  "Okay?"

  "Yes," I manage. "Please."

  She hangs up without a word. It's a fifteen minute drive from her house to my apartment. She's knocking at my door in ten.

  When I open it, she opens her arms to me and I fall into them and sob like my heart's been torn from my chest. I feel like that's true.

  She eases me inside, closing and locking the door behind us, then gets us to the couch and says, "Let it out, Corinne."

  I don't need the instruction. I couldn't stop it if I wanted to. I cry with huge painful sobs that feel like they're ripping my throat apart, and she sits silently and rubs my back with one hand while rocking Jenna in her bassinet with the other.

  When at last the storm begins to slow, she says, "Look at me."

  I do, and my emotions rise again at the sight of her tear-streaked face. "Mom, I'm useless. I've screwed everything up."

  She points at Jenna, who stopped crying long before I did and is now fiddling with her purple bear. "She looks fine. The apartment's still standing. Anything else can be worked out."

  I'm not so sure.

  When I don't say anything, she says, "Talk to me. Why do you think you're stupid? Which you aren't, by the way."

  Sadness floods me again but I'm too drained to cry. I collapse back against the couch. "I am. You handled two kids all on your own after Dad left, and I can't handle one with Austin's help and all of yours too. I suck. I'm stupid and I suck."

  She stares at me. "What do you mean I handled them?"

  "What do you mean what do I mean? You did everything by yourself. You were even organized enough right after Dad left to leave us with Aunt Phaedra while you went to Florida to see YiaYia. And then you went back to school and became an architect. With two kids! And Austin has to bring me food when he comes home from work because I can't manage to get to the grocery store during the day."

  She bursts out laughing.

  I'm too shocked to speak, since I'd never have thought she'd find this amusing, but she calms herself fast and says, "Oh, honey. You have it so wrong. I wasn't organized enough to go, I was having a breakdown. Phaedra took you guys because I was losing my ever-loving mind. She planned everything, right down to packing my suitcase. I just did what I was told."

  This isn't remotely how I remember things. "But... really?"

  "Really. I was calmer when I came back, yes, but only because my mother told me in no uncertain terms that I had to pull myself together for you guys. And yeah, I went back to school, but because I knew I had to so I could make a better life for you and Galen. I did a lot of stealth crying, believe me. Nearly every day. I just didn't want you to see."

  As I try to process this, she says, "But maybe I was too stealthy. You... you feel stupid because you're not keeping up to what you think I did?"

  I bite my lip and nod.

  She shakes her head slowly. "I think you're doing a great job. And I'm sorry if I've done anything to make you feel otherwise."

  "You haven't," I say quickly. "It's just..." I sigh. "It just feels that way."

  "I think that's what motherhood is, honey," she says, slipping her arm around my shoulder. "Feeling like you're never good enough."

  "That's what being a clarinetist is too, I guess."

  She raises her eyebrows, and I say, "Had my first lesson today. I was awful."

  "I doubt that."

  "No, I was," I insist. "Marty had this huge list of things I screwed up."

  "When I get a huge list of things that need to be changed on a blueprint," she says softly, "that's good news. The bad list is the short one, because that means there are some huge things wrong so there's no point in listing the rest of the little problems. A long list means lots of little things you can change."

  "But there's no time," I say. "And I'm so tired. I'm practicing so much, and then taking care of Jenna and everything else... it's exhausting."

  She frowns. "I thought... isn't Austin helping any more?"

  An unexpected wave of tears hits me.

  "No?"

  I swipe away the new tears. "He is. He's been great. He even took care of her all by himself today for my lesson. The longest he's ever been alone with her, and the first time he took her for a walk without me." I sniff and go on. "He's got checklists on his phone to make sure he doesn't forget anything we need. He's amazing. And to thank him I told him to get out. He'll probably never come back."

  "Honey, he doesn't strike m
e as the type to offend that easily. But why did you tell him to get out?"

  I explain the fight, hearing how stupid it was as I do, and when I finish I say before she can, "I was being ridiculous."

  "Yeah, a little," she says, smiling at me. "But understandably. You're under a lot of pressure. But... look, you do know it's okay to decide the orchestra's not for you, right? Or at least not for right now?"

  I collapse back against the couch and sigh. "No. Yes. I don't know. I just... it was all I ever wanted, and Dad..."

  When I don't continue, because I can't find the words, she says, "That's the second time you've mentioned him. What's the deal?"

  "It was our thing," I say, trying to find the right words. "We went to that performance, way back when, and then he bought me the clarinet. I've wanted the orchestra ever since, and I know..." My throat tightens but I'm still able to say, "I know it matters to him that I get in some day."

  She sits silent for a moment then says, "I... Corinne, I email him every couple of years, just so he has some clue what's up with you kids. Last week I sent him a picture of Jenna, and told him you were auditioning again, and that you did before and didn't get in."

  "Okay," I say, wondering why she sounds so horrified. "He should know."

  "Oh, honey." She wraps her arm around my shoulders. "I don't know if I should... honey, he said, 'She's still playing that old thing? I'd forgotten all about it.'"

  My heart stops beating for a moment then flutters like a bird trying to take flight. "He did?"

  She pulls me into a full hug. "I'm sorry. If the orchestra matters to you, that's great, but if you're doing it for him... there's no point. Your dad only worries about himself. Do it if you want to but not to impress him. Not to impress anyone but yourself."

  I sit silently in her arms, trying to get my head around this. Am I doing it for Dad? I've never thought so. But now I feel like the only reason to do it is to get back to the fleeting closeness I shared with him before he took off. To make him want to get back to that. Did I really spend twenty years trying to be worthy of my father's attention?

  Austin gives Jenna that attention, all the attention any little girl could want, and she doesn't have to do anything but exist. And she shouldn't have to either. My 'flighty' boyfriend is a better father to Jenna than my own father ever was to me.

  That hurts, but it frees something inside me too. "If I go after the orchestra," I say slowly, seeing how it feels, "it should only be because I want to. Right?"

  "For sure."

  "That's what Austin said," I admit. "Ages ago."

  "He's a smart one."

  "Yeah."

  "Cute too. Nice butt."

  "Mom!" I pull back, laughing but trying to look shocked because I know she expects it. I'm laughing harder than her words warrant, but though a little part of me feels the pain I'd have expected on realizing my dad doesn't care the rest of me feels like dancing.

  "Hey, I'm old, not blind," she says, laughing too. "But seriously, not every guy would step up the way he has."

  "I know." I sigh, the giddiness giving way to the full realization of how I treated him today. "He's great to me, and he's worked so hard to learn about taking care of Jenna. He really does love her."

  "The peach," Mom says, nodding. "Yeah, he does. I doubted him at first but I'm impressed now, honey. Have been for a while. That guy's a keeper."

  "He totally is." I shake my head. "Too bad I just did the exact opposite."

  She nods at my phone on the coffee table before us. "You could call him."

  "Admit I was wrong?"

  She gives me a small smile. "Isn't he worth that?"

  My hand shoots forward and grabs the phone. Her smile widens and she gets to her feet. "I'll get out of your—"

  The sound of the front door unlocking cuts off her words, and in seconds Austin appears, looking intense. He doesn't even seem to notice Mom's presence as he comes straight over to me and says, "I'm sorry, I should never have said anything about your dad. Of course you want to please him. Look how I try to make my mom think better of me. At least you have a chance of succeeding. I'm so sorry. Can you forgive me?"

  "Only if you forgive me," I say, my heart melting at the passion in his voice. "You've been right all along and I've been an idiot."

  He holds out his hand. "Deal. Except about the idiot thing."

  We shake, then he pulls me into his arms. He whispers "I..." and for a heart-stopping moment I think he's going to say he loves me. He doesn't finish the sentence, though, instead hugging me even tighter.

  I want him to say it, I realize. And I want to say it to him. It's all so clear to me now, singing through me like the world's most beautiful melody. I do love him. I didn't plan to, but I do.

  But I can't say it, because the Austin everyone else knows would run so fast from such a declaration and I can't risk losing him if I'm wrong about his feelings, so I just bury my face in his chest and cling to him.

  "I," my mom says quietly, "am going to go."

  I let go of Austin and move over to hug her. "Thanks for coming over," I whisper.

  "No problem. Call yourself stupid again and I'll tan your hide."

  I laugh, surprised, and she laughs too then squeezes me tight before letting me go and turning to Austin. "Sir," she says, smiling, "you might be just about worthy of my daughter."

  He smiles back. "I'm trying to be."

  She opens her arms to him, and they hug for the first time.

  "Well, carry on trying," she says when they part. "You're doing a great job. I'm out of here. Kiss Jenna for me when she wakes up."

  "Will do," Austin and I say together, and she smiles and leaves.

  Once she's gone, Austin cuddles me close again. "I am truly sorry," he says. "I should never have walked out."

  "I should never have kicked you out."

  He kisses my hair. "Then I guess we're even."

  We stand holding each other for a long moment, until I say, "My dad doesn't care about my clarinet. Mom told me he's... he's forgotten about it."

  Austin's arms tighten around me. "I'm sorry."

  "Yeah," I say, thinking about all the planning I did and all the work I put in and all the years of my life I lost trying to make my dad care about me. "Me too."

  Chapter Twenty-Nine

  "This is nice," Melissa says, wiping drool off Nolan's chin. "A bit of adult time. I've missed it."

  "You don't get it with your husband?" Laura tips her head to one side. "I can't believe I had Grant back for three days and then they sent him to Ottawa for a week for debriefing. Sucks."

  "I bet. And I do." Melissa doesn't look away from Nolan. "But Nicholas is pretty focused on the baby when he gets to see him. Just a month to Christmas, after all."

  Laura looks confused, and I say, "Nicholas works at the bookstore where Melissa worked before Nolan. It's not quite the full holiday shopping rush yet but it's probably building up already, right?"

  Melissa nods, and we sit silent for a moment until Laura's phone buzzes. She checks the newly arrived text, then folds her lips tightly together and sets the phone down with a sharp click.

  "Everything okay?" Melissa asks.

  "Of course. Everything's great. Just great." She snatches a paper napkin off the table and rips it in half. "Freaking fantastic."

  My mouth drops open and Melissa and I exchange a glance.

  "Are you sure?" I venture.

  "Of course," Laura snaps. "Grant was just letting me know that I shouldn't worry about anything because he'll be home again soon and will take over everything I haven't been able to handle. Which is lovely, except that I've been handling everything just fine. I made plans and routines, and everything was working out. And he doesn't seem to recognize any of that. I'm getting pretty damn tired of the whole 'big man rushes in to save pathetic woman' thing he's got going, but how do you tell your husband he's being too nice?"

  Melissa bursts into tears.

  I look between my furious friend an
d my sobbing one, then offer the former the rest of my cookie and the latter a handful of napkins. They both laugh a little, and Melissa scrubs her face clean and says, "Sorry. I'm losing my mind."

  "What's going on?" Laura shakes her head at my cookie. "Isn't Nicholas being nice?"

  Melissa gives a whimpering laugh. "Of course. He's amazing. He's so great with Nolan. He can tell exactly what the kid wants when, and I still can't. Maybe because..." She buries her face in her hands.

  Laura, sitting closer, reaches out and slides her arm around Melissa's shoulders. "It's okay," she says softly. "You can tell us."

  "I wanted a girl." The words burst from her, quiet but painfully forceful. "I wanted a girl and I hate myself for not connecting more with Nolan but it just hurts so much. I thought I was having a daughter, and I didn't, and..." She looks up at me, and the agony in her eyes hurts my heart even before she says, "I'm so jealous of you. I hate myself for that too but I am. Jenna's so gorgeous and she's going to be a beautiful little girl and..."

  She gives up and drops her face back into her hands, and Laura hugs her as she cries and I wonder what the hell I can do to make things better for her.

  When Melissa begins to calm, I say, hoping it will help, "I'd be jealous too."

  She looks at me, shock replacing the pain in her eyes. "Really?"

  "Of course. Nothing worse than your plans going awry. Believe me, I know."

  She considers this. "But it's not fair to Nolan. Or to Nicholas."

  "Do either of them know how you feel?" Laura wrinkles her nose. "Not Nolan, obviously, but Nicholas?"

  Melissa shakes her head. "I couldn't tell him. He loves Nolan so much. Last night he admitted he's glad we didn't have a girl because he connects so much more with Nolan." Her eyes well up again. "Which is great, but..."

  "But not for you," I finish, and she wipes her eyes and nods.

  "You should tell him," Laura says, "and I should tell Grant that I was doing fine without him. I am glad he's back, obviously, but he's acting like I was a mess on my own and I so wasn't." She nudges me. "Thanks to the planning tips I got from this one."