“I can’t come with you.”
It was true. I wished he could and I could see he wanted to be there for me. To help me get through this, if I could. “I need you here. My companies can practically run themselves. My investments are secure. I live entirely off of savings. I can get you to oversee things, get an interim CEO in place for a while. It doesn’t matter. I can leave for six months and it won’t matter. I’m going.”
“Where?”
“I thought I might head to the Keys for a while.”
He was staring at me. He knew I had a little place down in Florida that I hardly ever went to. I’d bought it four years ago and I’d been there twice. Jake never went to Florida. His demons still lurked there. For me, the place had something else to it. Memories from before Jake was even born. A weekend with my father, my one golden memory of him. I’d been five years old at the time but I still remember it with perfect clarity. Before my father had gone bankrupt and killed himself, he’d been a beacon of light in my young life. He’d taken me away for a few days to Key West where we’d fished and spent time together. It was one of the reasons I’d worked so hard in my own life, so I wouldn’t repeat his mistakes. In a way, I’d wanted to fix my father’s problems, by following in his footsteps, by getting it right where he’d fucked up. It was stupid, really. He was long gone. And Jake knew nothing about that memory. “You can’t just run away –”
“Why not? Why can’t I?” I could have tried to explain. Instead I just said, “I need a break.”
If anyone was going to understand that, it would be him. I hadn’t had a break from my responsibilities, well, ever. Not since Jake was a tiny little kid. I’d never wanted a break before. But without Lila, what was the point? She’d taken everything: my will, my drive. All the fun, the beauty. “I don’t want to go back to that apartment … without her in it. The office …” I trailed off. I imagined walking into my office now, remembering the jolt that hit my world when Lila had walked into it, that first day. The way she looked. That immediate freight train of attraction.
I couldn’t do it. I couldn’t go back to that. Everything would seem so goddamn empty. I couldn’t explain.
Jake surprised me by saying, “All right. Tell me what you want me to do.”
We talked through details all the way to JFK. Then I gave my brother a hug and stepped out of the limo.
I booked my flight and I left the world behind. I’d never felt so free. Or so incredibly sad.
Lila
I woke up lying curled up in a ball on my mother’s grave. Wow. A gothic way to spend the night. Sleeping in a cemetery: that was a new one. I was cold and my clothes were damp from the rain and the dew and the misty morning. But the mist was beginning to lift. The sun was already low on the horizon, a golden orb that just hung there shining its glow onto everything.
It was weird how light I felt. I’d cried ten years’ worth of tears in one night and I knew it right then: I was done. Done grieving and letting the past drag me down. Alexander had broken something open in me and allowed his light begin to heal me. Now all the fear and pain had somehow leaked out that same fissure.
I needed a plan.
Seven miles of paths and roads stretched out in front of me and figured I’d come up with something by the time I got back to the train station, which was also a bus depot.
I walked past the chicken coop I used to sleep in from time to time. And the bridge I’d slept under. I knew I’d never again return to this place.
I wondered how he was.
Had he worked things through with Shawna? Had they come up with a plan about how they would raise their child? The heartache was all-encompassing, almost staggeringly so. It was all I could do to put one foot in front of the other. So that’s what I concentrated on. Putting one foot it front of the other. I knew it was the right thing to do: give this baby a chance at a family. Just a chance. If it didn’t work out between them then so be it, but I couldn’t have lived with myself if I’d stood in the way of all that. Like a roadblock to that child’s perfect world.
Had he gone back to the city to get on with his life? I guessed he would dive back into his work, to forget about the pain of our wedding day shambles. He was probably back in his office by now, making phone calls, answering emails. Maybe he and Shawna had arranged a dinner date, to discuss details.
There weren’t that many choices. As it turns out, public transportation from small towns in western Virginia don’t offer much of a departure selection on a late-October Sunday afternoon. I chose Duck, North Carolina. I’d heard of it. People I knew in high school, whose parents had money, used to summer on the Outer Banks. I always thought it sounded fabulous. And I liked the name. Duck. It sounded friendly. So I bought a ticket and boarded my Greyhound Bus.
The bus wasn’t particularly full so I got two seats to myself.
I slept, and I dreamed.
I had stepped back in time. To a time and place where she was happy. I’d never seen a picture of my father but I had a mental image of him, etched by little gifted memories she gave me over time, like tiny drips of paint creating a portrait throughout the years. He was blond, I knew. Tall and lanky. Irresponsible but fun. Carefree. Wild and loose.
They were dancing to soft music. Laughing. They had their arms around each other and when he pulled back to twirl her I could see it. Her belly was hugely round as though she was due any minute.
His smile faded when she cried out in pain. His laughter was replaced by dark concern. Fear. Not just fear for me but fear of me. The fear of being trapped: I knew that look.
My mother screamed and reached down, holding a bloody child. The child grew before my eyes, still covered in blood and it was pulling her hand. My father grabbed her other hand and they were pulling her from either side. Pulling her apart.
No.
She shattered into a million pieces which melted into a puddle on the floor. A puddle of Southern Comfort. I could see the tipped bottle.
My father walked away, slamming the door behind him, leaving only the crying bloody child, lying on the floor, her fingers painting designs in the dark, pooled liquid.
I woke with a start.
Shit. That familiar balled ache of doom sat heavily in my gut.
God, how I hated that feeling.
The scenery floated by. Autumn towns gave way to azure seascapes. The sides of the road were dusted with sand. Something about that sand lightened my mood infinitesimally. Grand seaside houses on stilts lined the roads for a while and the bus slowed as we pulled into a small, pastel-colored town. Tourist season was coming to an end but people still milled around. Families. Children eating ice cream cones. Older couples holding hands.
I disembarked, heading towards the beach. I kicked off my shoes and walked down to the water, letting the waves wet my toes. The water was cold, too cold for swimming. But the icy freshness felt good. I walked along a ways, noticing a small restaurant perched on its stilts on a small peninsula of beach. As I grew closer I saw a sign in the window. HELP WANTED: WAITRESS.
Inside, it was warm and inviting. Someone had gone to town with the seaside-themed decorating scheme. There were fake seagulls and draped fishing nets, lobster pots, ship’s steering wheels, fish tanks, oars, you name it.
I walked up to the bar and sat on one of the stools.
The bartender was young, probably close to my age or a few years older. He was tall and all-American-looking with brown, shiny hair, squared shoulders and a clean-cut vibe. One of those guys that was a lacrosse star in high school. He had that grounded, happy-go-lucky aura to him, the one you can only get by growing up in a big, character-laden house with basements and turrets and gardens, surrounded by a mother who cooks and a father who brings home the bacon and lots of siblings: maybe a bookish one and a quirky one and a brooding older sister whose friends all have the hots for Joe Lacrosse over here. He was the type of guy you could write a hometown novel about. Or maybe not; it was just a feeling.
He was sta
ring at me, as though shell-shocked by something. Maybe I reminded him of someone. He visibly shook off his stupor, and walked over to me. “What can I get you?”
“I’m Lila. I need a job.”
“Hey, Lila-I-need-a-job. I’m Caleb. Nice to meet you.” He held out his hand for a handshake and smiled a smile so open and baggage-free I almost sighed.
I shook his hand. “There’s a sign in your window.”
“Yeah. You got any experience? Ever waitressed before?”
“No.” Jesus. I was hardly coming across as a desirable job candidate. I needed to snap out of my … whatever it was. Funk didn’t quite sum things up. “I just graduated from Princeton a few months ago. I’m new in town. Just arrived today. I’m looking for something temporary.” Was I? News to me.
“Princeton, huh? I went to Tulane. Graduated last year.”
“Cool.” What else to say? My conversational skills were suffering. Maybe it was the effects of the roller coaster ride that was my life. “I’m a quick learner.” I looked around at two occupied tables and it tumbled out before I could stop myself: “You don’t exactly look packed.” My sense of tact was off.
Caleb smiled, unruffled, quick to reply. “You’d be surprised,” he said. “People come out of the woodwork on Friday and Saturday nights. But we could get you some practice before then.”
“Really? You’ll hire me?”
“Well, no one else has applied. Most of our staff are seasonal and they’ve all gone back to school.” He smiled again. “When do you want to start?”
“I could start now.”
“Now?”
“Sure.”
Caleb studied me for a few seconds, his eyes taking in the slightly-disheveled state of me, which didn’t seem to bother him. He reached behind the bar and handed me a small black apron. “Put this on,” he said. “And you might need to pull back your hair.”
A very light heat rose to his cheeks at this comment, which made me smile; it was cute, his embarrassment at something so tame. My hair hung loose and slightly wild from my trip. Come to think of it, I hadn’t even looked in the mirror lately. A somewhat different technique than my last job interview. Just the thought of it made my stomach do a little dive; I had to put it out of my mind, which I did, or I’d be a quivering mess of despair.
“I mean, personally, I like it,” he said. “It’s just a policy.”
I smoothed my hair back, holding it with my hand. “I don’t even have a hair tie, can you believe it?”
My days of everything-on-hand superluxury were over.
Caleb searched around behind the bar and found a rubber band. “Here.”
As he handed it to me, his fingers grazed mine. This caused another open, barely-bashful smile to light up his face. He was handsome, I realized. It was a fresh, youthful handsomeness. I was just so used to the seasoned all-out masculinity of Alexander that at first impression Caleb had seemed ridiculously boyish. But he must have been twenty-two or twenty-three if he’d graduated last year. As I considered him more carefully, I could see it, that jock’s physique, that super-upright build, that sunny demeanor. I’m sure he’d broken a few hearts at Tulane.
I tied my hair back and put the apron on. “What do you want me to do first? I’m at your service.”
This, again, caused him to smile. “Wow.”
“Wow?”
“Sorry. It’s just … your eyes are very green.”
“Yeah. A lot of people comment on them.”
“And your hair …” He had that shell-shocked look again.
“Caleb?”
“Oh. Sorry. Yeah?”
“What should I do first?”
“Oh. Right.” He looked around. “You could stack these glasses. The clean ones need to go into this overhead rack.”
“Okay.”
“We close in an hour,” he said. “I usually stay and have dinner here after my shift. Put in an early order. Would you like to have dinner with me?”
I realized I hadn’t eaten since the breakfast I’d had with Eva in the limo, yesterday. On the way to the spa. To get ready for the wedding. “All right.”
Maybe a meal would help shake off this unhinged madness that felt like it was walking alongside me, like a shadow. Was I losing my mind?
Everything about me felt completely, unfathomably empty.
Alexander
I own a small house in Key West. It’s the most basic of any of the properties I own. Maybe that’s why I chose it. Who knows. Who cares. It’s two stories and has a small private beach, which explains the price tag: four million. I’d thought it a steal at the time, since it’s close to the center of town, right around the corner from Hemingway’s house, the sprinkling of old-fashioned bars, almost at precisely the most southern point in the continental United States. At the time I’d thought all of those details interesting. No longer.
The interior of the house is painted earthy colors, the furniture sparse but modern. Oversized white couches. There’s a small galley kitchen and a huge solid dining room table. There’s a wrought-iron balcony on the second floor, where the bedroom is, with a view of the private beach and the sea. And there’s a long dock for the boat. I have a housekeeper look after the place when I’m not in it (most of the time). I called her and told her to stock it with non-perishable food, whiskey, wine and beer. Then I told her to leave, that I wouldn’t be needing her services again until I contacted her. I offered to pay her her usual wage until that time came, which she accepted.
The shuttered windows were open, the tropical breeze spilling in. I took off what was left of my battered tux and left it in a crumpled heap on the floor. I found an old pair of cotton shorts in a drawer and put them on. Then I helped myself to a generous glass of red wine. It looked like blood.
I sat there on the cool wooden floor and looked out at the soft waves.
I sat there until I’d drunk the whole bottle.
Then I opened another one.
Lila
I ate dinner with Caleb, sitting at the bar, after hours. Turns out he wasn’t a lacrosse player, but captain of the swim team. He did grow up in a rambling house with his parents and siblings, though, somewhere in Maryland. I could have written a novel about it, with all the talking he did, which was fine.
I had nothing to say.
“Free dinner, by the way, once a week,” he said. To my confused expression he replied, “With the job.”
“Oh, right.”
I continued to sit there, suddenly so weary with heartache I felt almost dizzy.
“Lila?”
“Yes.”
“You all right? Would you like to go home now?”
Home.
Ah, hell. Yes, I would, Caleb. I would like to go home. To him. He’s my home. I miss him so much I think I might be losing my grip.
I realized he was waiting for my answer.
I stood up. “Yes. Sorry.”
“Where do you live?”
“I, uh, I haven’t found a place yet. I just arrived in town today. But I’m sure there’s a hotel I can stay in until I find something.”
“You don’t have a place to stay?”
“Not yet. Any hotels you can recommend?”
“Lila?”
I realized I was acting strange. Unusual. I made an effort to seem more relaxed. I smiled at him. “Thank you, Caleb. For dinner, and for the job. I’ll see you tomorrow, then? What time do you want me?”
He was staring at me in that layered way again. “Come on. Come with me.”
“What do you mean?”
“I mean my apartment is right around the corner. And I have a couch.”
I looked at him. I realized he had hazel eyes, almost amber-colored. “No. No, I couldn’t impose on you like that. It’s really not a big deal for me to get a hotel.”
“It’s really not a big deal for you to crash at my place for a night or two. I promise, I don’t bite. It’ll give you a chance to look around for a place of your own. Until y
ou find one, you’re welcome to stay with me.”
My instincts were pretty good at detecting danger and I sensed Caleb was about as unthreatening as a person could be. He was making a genuine offer. “Are you sure?”
“Of course. Come on.”
I followed him down the brightly-lit street and around a corner. He led us up a side flight of stairs to a top floor apartment that overlooked the water. He unlocked the door, opened it and flicked on a light.
It was a cute, one-bedroom studio, neat enough, although it was very definitely a bachelor pad. Not a feminine touch to be found – or that of a housekeeper, I realized. I’d become accustomed to the lifestyles of the rich and famous, as Eva had put it. It felt a little strange to be back in the land of the regular people.
Caleb rummaged around for sheets and towels. He was in the bedroom, then came out and laid a blanket on the couch. “You’re sleeping in my bed tonight. I’ll sleep here.”
“No. I’m not going to kick you out of your own –”
“I insist. My mother’s words: never let a pretty girl sleep on the couch.”
This made me smile, almost, that he was quoting his mother.
“You wouldn’t make me defy my own mother, would you?” he said.
“I guess not.”
“Please. I’ll sleep easier knowing you’re comfortable.”
“It’s so nice of you, Caleb. I feel bad.”
“Don’t. I can sleep anywhere.” He was looking down at me softly and I noticed for the first time how tall he was. Six feet, maybe. He really was the nicest guy. So easy-going. So uncomplicated. And the gold light of a single lamp flattered his all-American face. “The bathroom’s through there. Help yourself.”
“Okay.”
“If you need anything, just let me know.” He stepped towards the couch and took off his shirt in one, over-the-head motion, which messed up his hair. His back was smooth and tanned.
HONEY GIRL: BILLIONAIRE (Book 2) Page 17
