Despite my recent state of panic, I started to laugh a little. “She’s Lanie’s mom and my mom’s best friend. She owns a big beauty company, makeup and hair and skin products.” I tried to explain about her and Lanie, how Juliette was always trying to “fix” her daughter’s lack of style and looks and how Lanie had finally rebelled. “The way Juliette goes about it is wrong, but I do think that she’s trying to help Lanie. Juliette helped me with my job,” I added. “She isn’t all bad but my brother can’t stand her now. Anybody who crosses Lanie…” I stopped. That list included me.
“He sticks up for his girlfriend. That’s good.”
And I agreed with that. “Brooks is a good person. He’s really protective. My dad died when I was in middle school and Brooks kind of stepped into that for me. Like, he intimidated my prom date, he moved me in when I went college and checked the locks on the doors. He was always,” and I stopped again, because I was off on another sad path to nowhere. “Whatever.” I cleared my throat and smiled, a big, fake one. “What you think of California so far?”
“I like it. San Francisco is a beautiful city.”
“It’s no Waimea,” I said, and he smiled, the side of his mouth quirking. His was real.
“It’s no Waimea,” he agreed.
“Tell me about where else you’ve lived,” I asked, and he did, about the different bases where he had trained and been stationed, and a little about where he had been deployed, and I kept asking questions like my mom to get more details. The more he talked about his tours, the scarier it all sounded to me.
Finally he looked at me and shook his head a little. “I don’t usually say that much about it. I was fortunate to come home mostly in one piece, and that’s the end of it.” His fingers went to the scars next to his eye and I wanted to put mine there, too.
“Is your eye real?” I asked, because I had been wondering.
“No. Looks pretty good though, right? It took a while to get used to it, to rebound and pull myself back up, but now I’m fine. You can come back from things.” He was just looking at me.
“Like Joey. He can come back from his things, too,” I said quickly and stood up, letting go of his hand. I had been gripping it the entire time we talked and my fingers were stiff. I reached for the zipper of my dress.
“Right, like Joey,” Nate agreed. “Here, I’ll help you.”
He was tugging up the zipper when Brooks walked in. My brother looked at Nate like he was going to kill him and then turned to me, his face full of fury and, yes, disgust. “Mom wants to talk to you,” he told me, his voice carefully controlled. He turned on his heel and left.
I didn’t care. I didn’t care what my brother thought about me and what I was doing with my life, because I never asked for his opinion just like he never asked for mine.
Nate followed me as I trailed after my brother into the living room. Most of the crowd of guests had cleared out and my mom was back on the couch with Joey. My niece and nephew were clustered around Pia. “Oh, Scarlett,” my mom said happily. “I’ve been having such a nice time talking to your friend.” I swore that I could feel the anger rolling off my brother. God only knew what he thought Joey, Nate, and I were up to. Not that it mattered, I reminded myself. Brooks said something to Lanie and left. Whatever.
“Your mom gave me a lot of ideas for how to lure Kiana back to me,” Joey said, and my mom patted his shoulder.
“I’m sure it will all work out between the two of you. You’re doing the right thing by working on yourself first,” she assured him.
Talk like that made me antsy. “Did you need me for something?” I asked brusquely.
My mom didn’t blink. “Joey looks tired, so it’s time for you to go, but I found this for you.” She took a silver chain from her pocket. “You were asking me if it was still around. You can have it, honey.”
I took the necklace from her and the square onyx pendant dangled from my fingers, then I clasped it around my neck. It was just like I remembered it, the shiny black stone broken by the little grey lines. I glanced up at Nate to check the color of his eyes against it and he was looking back at me. It reminded me to say something.
“Thank you,” I told my mom, and let her hug me, although I couldn’t help that I stayed pretty stiff. “Bye,” I said in a general way to my family (except Bradley, because he could go fuck himself). I glanced over at Lanie as I left but she looked away. She was kind of a whiz with makeup, her mom being the cosmetics guru, and she had cleaned up her face until you could barely tell that she had been crying. But I bet that my brother knew, and knew exactly why, too. She had probably run immediately to tell him what a bitch I was after I had let her have it earlier.
Joey was quiet when we started for home and both he and Pia fell asleep in the back of the car. Pia was always on duty, but Joey had taken off her vest so that she could run free and play and she had gone for hours of fetch, sniffing, and general revelry in my mom’s big back yard. Then both she and my nephew had taken an impromptu swim in my mom’s pool before my sister ordered them out. I felt like the day had gone well for everyone in the back seat. I glanced over at Nate. “Did you have fun?” I asked him.
“Sure.”
“Sounds like about as much as I did,” I agreed.
“Your family isn’t so bad. Your brother seems like a stand-up guy. Your mom ignored all her guests to talk to Joey and give him advice.” He glanced in the back at his friend. “He seems a lot more positive, pretty optimistic. That wasn’t true for a long time. He was drinking too much, which didn’t help with his seizures, or his ability to hold down a job.”
“That’s why his girlfriend left him, not his injuries?”
“She stuck with him through a lot, but he dug himself into a pretty deep hole. Kiana leaving him was inevitable.”
“You thought he should be able to pull himself together,” I said. “Like you did.”
“Well, he needed help to do it, but yeah. At one point, he had to be the person to take control of his life. And I think he’s doing it now, so good for him.”
Yep, good for Joey. He was able to pull himself up by his bootstraps and go on.
“Slow down, Red Farmer,” Nate said.
“What?”
“And keep your eyes on the road. Don’t look at me. Why the hell are you driving so fast?” The thick steel cables of the bridge were flashing by the windows.
I took my foot off the accelerator where I had been jamming it down hard. “I guess I was in a hurry to get home.”
“You have something to do?” he asked.
I was saved from answering that I just needed to burrow under a blanket when my phone rang. “I have to take it, it’s my boss.” I glanced in the mirror at the back seat at my two sleeping passengers and hoped Pascale wouldn’t be screaming her way through an exercise class as I answered.
“Hi, P.”
“Scarlett?” The sounds of my boss’ labored breathing filled the car.
“Pascale, are you ok?”
“I’m on a bike in the Marin Headlands. It’s a really technical trail.” Huff, huff. “I’m actually surprised I got a signal. I may still lose you.”
“Maybe you could call me back—”
“I had a great idea about Klere,” she interrupted me. “Have you been reading her lately?”
I had to read her stupid posts; keeping up with her and her cohorts on social media was part of my job. “Yes, I thought she’s really been on point lately about cable knits for fall,” I told Pascale. In fact, stupider things about sweaters had never been written, but whatever.
“That was what I thought, too,” my boss puffed into the phone. At least she wasn’t yelling, but the deep breathing filling my car sounded pretty obscene. “Klere is very intuitive, very modern. I was so impressed with what she wrote about our line, even if she did have some spelling issues.”
Of course, Klere hadn’t written any of that; I had spoon-fed it to her, misspellings included on purpose. I heard someone in the ba
ckground yell, “Watch out!” and Pascale gasped.
“That was close!” she told me. “I want to get Klere’s involvement again. She’s blowing up right now and I’m so glad for your connection with her.”
I tried to stop this runaway train. “Pascale, you know that she didn’t—”
“You and Javier will start to work on this project tomorrow.”
“Work on what, exactly?” I stopped. “It’s Memorial Day tomorrow, anyway. The office is closed.”
“Just you then,” she corrected herself. “No need for the intern.” There was a screeching noise. “Shit! That was close. This is a tricky descent. I see Klere as our muse. Our fashion inspiration.” There were more yells in the background, “Stop!” and “Slow down!” “Yes, our muse. At least that’s what you’ll tell Klere. You’ll work closely with her to develop an online story of herself as inspiring our next collection.”
“And by ‘develop’ you mean that I’ll be writing the material and feeding it to her,” I clarified.
“Exactly. Shit! Watch out!”
I heard a scream and a distant crash.
“That will mean me in Los Angeles with her,” I suggested.
“Yes, probably, and also setting up a space for Klere with you in our office if she wants one. We’ll have to see how much she actually wants to get involved,” she said. Oh, God. I hoped for a total faked involvement. “Work on your approach to her and outline a potential plan for me,” Pascale continued. “I want to take over all her accounts, reach maximum exposure. I think the key will be to develop a careful timeline for Klere to follow. But after your success with her before, I trust that you can make it happen.”
Sure, knowing what I did of Klere, it totally seemed probable that I could make her follow a careful timeline. I hadn’t been able to make her take a free cup of coffee.
“You and I can meet tomorrow,” Pascale said. “I’ll be in, I’m assuming you’ll be there too.”
“I will,” I said woodenly.
“Shit!” The sound of a tremendous crash sounded through the speakers of my car. Pia woke up and barked and I smacked the button to end the call.
Joey sat up and yawned. “Did your boss just say that you need to come in tomorrow on the holiday?”
“Yeah.”
“They really depend on you a lot,” he said admiringly.
“No, not at all,” I answered. They had been fine when I had taken off for Hawaii. The world would still turn if I didn’t show up the next day and make a social media PR plan for a woman who spelled the “cable” of “cable knit” with the E before the L. “My job doesn’t matter at all. But I’ll have to be there tomorrow.”
Nate’s eyes were on me, I could feel them. “Let’s go get your stuff from the hotel,” I said.
“Huh?” Joey asked from the backseat.
“I’m going to stay with Scarlett, too,” Nate told him, and my mouth went dry.
“Wow,” Joey said. “Wow, Scarlett!”
Yes, I felt the same way.
Chapter 7
“Hello?” I dropped my keys on the kitchen counter. It was funny to see all the stuff in that room now: the rack with clean dishes, the towel hung up to dry, the tea kettle on the stove. There was definitely stuff, but it was all neatly arranged, put away, and organized.
“Hello?”
I walked into the quiet living room. No Pia came running up. Maybe the three of them weren’t back yet from meeting up with their buddies, but it was getting pretty late. They had gone to the Presidio, the former Army base which was now a national park, for the Memorial Day commemoration. I had gone into my office, where Pascale and I had worked silently. Usually I liked to be there without a lot of other people bothering me, but today I had wanted to run out. My mind had wandered a lot, over to my brother and what he had said about me going crazy, and to Lanie and what she had said about how I was hurting him. To Joey, and how exhausted he had been when we got home the night before.
To Nate, and how adding one more person into my apartment made the space seem a fraction of its size. Because for whatever reason, he just seemed to take up all my oxygen when I was in a room with him. Probably inviting him to stay had been a mistake.
I looked at the couch, where he had insisted on spending the night. “You take the bed in your own house,” he’d told me, then looked at me carefully. “Unless—”
I hadn’t liked the idea that he was peering into my thoughts. “Ok, great,” I had answered, then spent a very sleepless night in the guest bedroom on the new mattresses that had recently been delivered. I sat down back in my usual spot on the couch now, where Nate had been the night before. I picked up the pillow he had used from where it had been sitting on top of the neatly folded blanket. He and Joey both said they liked things “squared away.” My nickname in college had been “Mess,” so I wasn’t quite that way, but I hadn’t had enough in the apartment to get messy before now. I reached for the remote as I usually did but today it took a while before the mind-numbing sports could block out my thoughts.
I must have fallen asleep, because when I opened my eyes the fishing competition was over, soft clinks of dishes came from the kitchen, and Pia was asleep on the floor at my feet. I got up quietly to sneak into the bedroom to correct any damage caused by sleeping with my face smashed into Nate’s pillow, but the man himself came out of the little kitchen carrying a tray that I had recently bought with a meal set up on it.
“Joey had a seizure today,” he said, and I sat back down on the couch. “He’s resting right now.” Nate went into the bedroom, and when he came back, I was full of questions.
“Is he ok? Did he go to the hospital? What happened? Why is he home? Did he get hurt? What did you do? How is Pia? What did she do? What about the new medicine?” I had more, too.
Nate held up his hands in the same gesture I usually gave to my mom: the “stop-the-interrogation” sign. “He’s fine, Pia’s fine. They’re both tired and he’s pretty groggy. If you’re going to have a seizure, the place to do it is with a bunch of combat medics around you.”
“Why did it happen at all?” I demanded angrily. “I thought he came to San Francisco to get this fixed! Do these so-called doctors even know what they’re doing?”
Nate eyed me calmly. “First of all, we haven’t been here very long.”
Was that right? It felt like they had been there for a while. I counted the days on my fingers to make sure.
“It hasn’t been enough time to ‘fix’ a serious medical issue, if it can be fixed,” he continued. “He usually has at least a few every week, different types. Not always this serious. I’m a little surprised it hadn’t happened already, but it was bound to.” He sat down on the couch too, and rubbed the heel of his hand into his eye.
“You’re tired, too.”
“Yeah.”
“Is it scary, when it happens?” I asked, and I knew it sounded like I was four years old.
“It’s very scary. And I have to admit, I guess I had been hoping that it was fixed, too.”
I thought for a second and then went into the kitchen. When I came out, I handed him a plate with a sandwich on it.
Nate looked shocked. “Uh, thank you. What’s in this?”
“Turkey.”
He picked up the top piece of bread. “Just turkey? I’m going to add some other things, too. Want half, chef?” I nodded and got a turkey, cheese, mustard, avocado, and tomato sandwich when he came out of the kitchen. His version was probably better than mine.
“You could have called me,” I told him.
“Figured you were busy at work. And we had enough of a crowd there at the hospital.” He looked at me. “I will, if there’s a next time. I called Kiana and told her. She reminded me that she’s his ex-girlfriend and that she doesn’t care, but then she started crying and asked if she should come to California.” Nate put almost the entire half of his sandwich into his mouth and chewed. He swallowed before he spoke. “I’m going to bed. It’s late.”
>
That meant I had to give up the couch, so I got up slowly. “Ok.” I looked a little longingly at the TV. I could play with my phone or my laptop, but I always started to work when I had those open.
“You ok in the guest bedroom? The new bed is all right?” he asked.
“Sure. I’m great,” I told him. Just great. I turned to head to bed also, but had another thought once I got to the cramped, stuffed room. When I went back into the living room to voice it, Nate was standing next to the couch in his underwear. Only his underwear. I stopped dead.
“Can I help you with something?” he asked calmly.
Nothing verbal came out of me. I opened my mouth then closed it.
“Scarlett?”
Function now, vocal cords! “If something happens with Joey during the night, come get me,” I said quickly, in a voice that didn’t sound like mine. I bolted back to my bedroom. Oh, holy fuck. That had been a beautiful sight. Nate’s tan, lean, muscular body, his wide shoulders and the stomach and abs I had glimpsed in Hawaii, and then those long, strong legs…
I sat on the bed and looked at fashion websites and delved into Klere’s background to distract myself from worrying about Joey and from picturing the mostly-naked man in my living room. It didn’t really work.
∞
Three days later, I was still distracted—if anything, I was worse than I had been before. Having Nate in my house was…difficult. On top of that, everyone in my office was in crisis about one trivial thing or another, my mom had been keeping up her schedule of daily calls, freaking out about Brooks being back in Texas and if he and Lanie were moving there, and I was still worried about Joey. I needed to get out and breathe.
“Going for a run?”
I dropped my keys on the fake wood floor of my living room. “Shit, you startled me! Yes, I’m going running.” I turned away so that Nate couldn’t see my makeup-free face before I slipped on sunglasses and pulled the new baseball hat he had gotten for me down low.
“Going incognito?”
I scowled. I was not at my top form right now, and I was very tired after yet another night of not-sleeping in the guest bedroom. It was much, much worse in there than on my couch, with no TV for distractions. I had been on my phone for most of the night watching replays of a lot of the sporting events I had already seen, answering emails, and reading fashion blogs. I needed the big screen, the surround sound, to really make me concentrate on something other than the thoughts swirling in my head.
Lovely You Page 10
