by Mj Fields
I spend the day drinking and looking through the classifieds, hoping to find something moderately priced in Manhattan, which is a joke. I also spend the day crying, because my pride was rocked today. Crying because I hurt his feelings. And crying … just crying because, basically, life isn’t what I dreamed it would be for the last four years. And because I have no idea how I read that wrong.
Such an idiot.
At seven o’clock, he’s still not here, which is probably a good thing because I’m a mess.
After fixing my face, I use the bathroom and realize that the world is absolutely against me. I have my freaking period.
I’m on the damn pill, and I get my period.
Such a joke.
I’m a joke.
After dealing with the girl flu, I walk into his kitchen and grab the second bottle soon realizing there’s less than a glass inside. So, I do the classy thing and drink right out of the damn bottle.
I hear him clear his throat as I swallow down the last of it and set the bottle on the counter. But I miss, and it crashes to the floor, shattering.
“Oops.”
I can’t even look at him, so I squat down to begin cleaning up my mess.
“Don’t fucking move,” he snaps.
And that’s all it takes to break the dam, and I’m crying again.
He swoops me up in his arms.
“What the hell are you doing?” I ask.
He sputters then sets me on the couch, and none too gently, which completely ruins the sweetness in his first actual time of picking me up in his arms. Then he makes his way to a closet, pulls out a small vacuum cleaner, and plugs it in.
I jump up. “I can—”
“Sit down!” he snaps, and I freeze. “You’re barefoot, Stella. Christ, use your head.”
“Barefoot, but not pregnant.”
He takes two steps back like I struck him with my words. “What the hell does that mean?”
I point to my belly. “Got my period.”
“Last I checked, it’s Midol that helps with that.” He leans down and picks up the largest piece of the bottle, the one with the label on it. “Not Stella Rosa.”
“I liked the name.” I stumble back and fall right on my ass where he put me on the couch.
I look at him, and concerned eyes look back at me, then he scowls. “Stay put.”
“You hate me.”
“I hate broken glass and cluttered messes, Stella. Not you.”
“It’s the wine.”
He looks at me out of the corner of his eye as he sets the chunk of glass with the label on it into the unbroken bottom. Then he looks away.
He carefully picks up the larger pieces and puts them in as well. Standing up, he then steps over the splinters, walks to a cupboard, and opens it, pulling out a garbage bag.
I sigh.
He looks back at me.
“Sorry.”
He shakes his head and looks away. “Don’t be.”
I curl up into myself and pull the white cashmere blanket from the back of the couch to cover my pathetic self up.
I hear the vacuum cleaner being turned on. It’s oddly comforting.
“Stella,” he whispers.
“Hmm …” I inhale. “Elijah.”
“I think you need to wake up and eat something. If not, you’re going to feel like hell tomorrow.”
I open my eyes and see him standing over me, arms crossed over his chest.
“I deserve to feel like hell.” I pull the blanket over my head.
“You’re the absolute worst houseguest I have ever had.”
I sit up and push myself off the couch. I avoid looking at him as I begin walking down the hall.
He grabs my hips and chuckles lightly behind me. “It’s true.”
“I know. I suck.”
“You’re also the best one.”
I look back at him, and he turns me around.
“Also, the first.”
I almost laugh, almost, but then I see he’s quite serious.
“Your sisters?”
“My sisters went to boarding school in Europe after my father died.”
“Surely they visited for holidays and summer vacation.”
“They did. And when I had to sell the house and downsize to keep the company afloat, they stayed at hotels, because there wasn’t enough room.” He shakes his head. “Well, there was, but not what they’d grown accustomed to.”
“Well, now you have four extra rooms. You should have them stay.”
He turns me around and walks us to the kitchen island where I see two take-out containers.
“You brought dinner?”
“Sit and let’s chat.”
I sit down and feel a lump growing in my throat.
“We need to take this slower.” He looks at me like he sees the fact that I am falling apart. “It’s not you, Stella; it’s me.”
My hands cling to my chest.
He takes them both in one of his. “Not like that.”
“Is there any other way?”
“Stella, you have to be okay with this because, believe it or not, you’re what’s gotten me through all the shit in the past. All of it. I need you to remain strong.”
I nod and swallow back the lump.
“I’ve never needed anyone in my life like I need you.”
Yet you’re pushing me away.
“There’s a lot going on at work. I need razor-sharp focus. When I know you’re upset with me, I can’t concentrate. As soon as I get it figured out, then we focus on us.” He takes my hands and kisses the back of each. “You asked me for truth and honesty, and it doesn’t get more true or honest than that.”
I look down, fighting my natural instinct to pull my hands away, to get up and leave. Honestly and truthfully, where will I go? I have no one in the city anymore.
“Say something, Stella.”
“Give me a minute.” I clear my throat.
“I’ll give you forever.”
I squint my eyes shut.
“Stella, I need you strong. That’s when you’re at your best. Like how you were not only as a kid, but with your dad.”
God, how does praise feel so much like punishment?
I push out some words, “I’m strong.”
“Yeah?”
I nod.
“We’re good then?”
I nod again.
“Eat with me?”
“Of course.”
Silently, we sit and eat, me focused on how to keep the salmon and rice down, him focused on his phone.
In bed, it’s him who closes the distance.
“Feel better now?” He pushes an arm under me and pulls me over closer to him.
Looking up at the white ceiling, I reply, “Yep. Stronger than ever.”
“That’s my Stella.” He kisses the side of my head. “What’s the plan for the rest of the week?”
It hits me then.
“I think I’ll go to the house and get it ready to put up for sale.”
“That’s a good idea. It’ll keep you busy.” He chuckles. “And sober.”
Sober … somber, same difference.
“Yeah.”
“You’ll feel better in the morning.” He reaches over, grabs the back of my knee, and then wraps it around his body.
“You gonna stay there?” He takes my hand and kisses it then sets it on his … yep, he’s hard.
“I think yes.”
He rolls his hips a bit. “I’ll come stay with you this weekend and help out with whatever you need.”
I look up at him. “Really?”
“Of course, really.”
I smile.
He pushes my hand down. “I already miss you, Stella.”
I cringe. “I have my period.”
He rubs his thumb across my lips. “I know.”
“So, you want me to—”
“Yes, it would make this week a lot more bearable.”
I’m not sure I know how to feel abo
ut this.
“Am I any good at—”
“The best.” He rolls his hips again. “I think.” He winks. “Remind me?”
So, I do.
Forty minutes ago, my handsome, successful, millionaire boyfriend of five years dropped me off at the Whitehall Terminal. He carried my bags, hugged me, kissed me, told me he loved me, hugged me again, and then told me he’d call later. He even stood and waved while the ferry pulled away from the dock.
Fifteen minutes ago, I walked out of St. George terminal on Staten Island, watching the app on my phone for a car to bring me to my childhood home on Monroe Avenue.
Now standing on the sidewalk in front of the modest, three-bedroom house, I still can’t force myself to look up. This will be the first time I’ve been here alone. I should have called Mom or waited until Bruno was home on leave, but I wasn’t sure when that would be.
I close my eyes and breathe in the island scent. That’s what Dad called it. Said he loved it, that there was no place better on the entire planet. When we went to Hawaii, checking off all the places he’d ever wanted to take us after he found out he was dying, he admitted to Bruno and me that maybe he was wrong. And he was.
It always drove me nuts when people in our high school picked on the place that I called home. They would say it smelled, that it was New York City’s dump. That it was the forgotten borough. They would joke that it didn’t deserve to be called a New Yorker. They would say it was the only Republican borough. My parents were Democrats. And me? I don’t give a damn about politics. Oh, and they would tell a girl by the last name of McCarty that it was full of Italian mobsters. McCarty isn’t even Italian. I’m half-Irish. The pale skin says so. The black hair … debatable.
I swear I can hear Dad telling Bruno how to hold his glove. Mom laughing, holding hands with us as we sang and danced in circles. Dad spraying us with a hose, and Mom, too. I can hear them both cheering as Bruno rode his bike down the street then screaming when he ran into a parked car. Mom cleaning scraped knees from rollerblading incidents, and Dad telling us to get back on the horse.
Everything in my life happened here. All the good, including Elijah and I admitting our feelings and him asking me to be his. All the bad, too, like my parents’ divorce, my father’s death, Bruno leaving from here to go to Paris Island for his training. And right now, because I’m hurting. My relationship with Elijah also makes that list.
“You gotta take the good with the bad, Stella, and hope that the good outweighs the bad,” Dad had said a few days before he passed.
I open my eyes, still trained on the sidewalk beneath me, and force myself to look up.
I hold my hand over my heart because I was expecting sadness and gloom, yet what I got was a place that warmed my heart.
When I left for London, I wasn’t ready to let the house go, and Mom didn’t want it. She and her new husband had been paying the property taxes and maintaining it. They wanted Bruno and me to have time to decide what we wanted to do with it. We finally made the decision to sell, but now looking at it, I secretly hope it takes a long time.
Although Elijah and I didn’t have many lengthy conversations when I was in London, the longer ones were about the market. He kept saying it’s a seller’s market and I should take advantage of it.
Mom and her husband were doing one hell of a job. The landscaping was straight out of a home and garden magazine. Perfectly pruned bushes, blue and white flowers planted around the flag pole, hanging baskets with ferns on the freshly painted porch, and big, white and blue hydrangea flowers in full bloom.
I look up at the windows, seeing that all the trim is freshly painted, like the porch. Even the detached garage had finally been sided to match the Yankee Blue siding of the house, something Dad always wanted to do but never had time.
It’s almost exactly as I drew it for him. Just missing a few things, like an open-air breezeway from the house to the garage, and the driveway hasn’t been sealed.
I walk to the side door and notice that even the side of the house has been landscaped and the small porch landing has a railing around it.
I take out my phone and see a missed message from Elijah.
Elijah: Stella, watching you lean over the railing as the ferry left port was honestly one of the hardest goodbyes to date. If you need me, I will be there.
And another.
Elijah: I understand you’re upset, emotional, menstruating, but at least let me know you’ve made it to the house and you’re okay.
As I’m reading, another pops up.
Elijah: I’m trying here. Christ, let me off the hook. I have an important board meeting to get ready for tomorrow morning.
I type out a bullshit message.
Me: Sorry, poor service here on the island. I’m here. I’m good. Have a productive day.
And send.
8
Stella
Present Day
After a few hours of walking in circles through the near-empty house, I sit in the middle of the living room, listening to an old playlist that Dad, Bruno, and I made one day to pass the time. Five For Fighting’s “100 Years” is playing. I’m not crying. I’m celebrating. One hundred years packed into forty-five, just the way he made us promise we would.
I take a sip of Stella Artois, Dad’s favorite beer and apparently the reason for my name, that I found in the fridge. Then I lean back, holding myself up with one hand, and look around. I’m surrounded by boxes that say flooring and tile, while others with pictures of light fixtures and even a huge kitchen sink. I know all these updates need to be done in order to get a good price for the home my father worked so hard to pay off, but … damn.
The living room is the only room that’s walls are already painted white like the realtor suggested. The rest of the house’s walls are still yellow and pale blue. The living room is also the only room that has the new flooring down. It’s bamboo, and I only know this because it’s stamped on the boxes holding what I assume is enough to refloor the entire house.
“It looks good.” I nod as I look around the space.
“So do you,” I hear and jump up, spinning around and placing my hands over my heart to stop it from jumping out of my chest.
“Are you trying to kill me!”
Aaron laughs as he walks over and taps the volume button to turn down the Bose speaker that I have my phone synced to.
“I knocked for an hour. Had to text Bruno to get the code to get in.” He smiles and turns toward me. “Knock, knock.”
I shake my head but play along. “Who’s there?”
“Ya.”
“Ya who?”
“Yahoo! I’m just as happy to see you, Stella McCarty.”
“Dork.” I laugh as I pull my thumb out of the bottle neck, I stuck it in when I jumped up.
Aaron notices. “Catlike reflexes.
I put the bottle up to my mouth, tip it back, and take a drink.
He walks past me toward the kitchen as he yells over his shoulder, “Sure, I’d love one.”
I follow him in.
He opens the refrigerator door, grabs a beer, twists off the cap, and then leans against the counter. He tips his beer to me. “To new beginnings.”
I take a moment too long to tap my beer to his.
“This is what he wanted, Stella.”
I nod.
“You gonna be able to do it?” he asks before taking a drink.
I nod and take a long drink. I swallow it then tell him, “Bruno doesn’t want it.”
“And Stella?”
“Can you imagine Elijah living in a place like this?” I joke.
“I’d think if it’s what you wanted, he would.”
I roll my eyes and finish the beer.
“What was the eye roll for?”
I set the empty beer bottle in the sink then walk to the fridge and get another. He takes it from me, twists off the cap, and hands it back to me.
“Thanks.”
I start to pull it away, but he pu
lls it back.
“Gotta answer my question first.”
“I don’t think Elijah would move here, no.”
He stiffens as he releases the bottle and gives me a familiar look, the same one he gave Elijah at the fundraiser.
I don’t want to talk about it, so I tell him, “And, as many great memories as I have here, there are bad ones, too. I can’t see myself living here.”
He visibly relaxes, taps his beer to mine, and says, “I get that.”
I take a drink and watch him study my face as he takes a swig off his bottle. I know it’s been years since we’ve really spent any time alone, but I know him. Something’s different. He’s hiding something.
A smirk curves up at the corner of his lips.
I narrow my eyes, and he laughs.
I truly believe that people are put in our lives for a reason. Take Elijah for instance. Even though I’m confused and the pace seems to be stalled, he’s always been there for me. Aaron, his smile and his laugh … He has a knack for making difficulties dissipate, burdens blow away, and worries seem weightless.
Until right now. Something is different.
I swallow down the mouthful of beer and shake my head. “I call bullshit.”
Eyes never leaving mine, he takes another drink.
“Spill the tea.”
He shakes his head.
“Oh, come on,” I prod. “I know you have an opinion. You have an opinion about everything.”
“You have me confused with someone else.” He pulls himself up and sits on the counter. “I’m just the guy in the wings.” He smirks and takes another drink.
Setting my beer on the opposite counter, I put my hands behind me and hoist myself up while telling him, “You’ve been a great friend until now.”
His smirk turns into a smile. “And what does that mean?”
“It means, as my friend, you’re supposed to answer my question.”
He runs his hand through his hair and leans back against the cabinet. “Remind me what the question was.”
“You said you ‘get that.’ I call bullshit.”
“Then there wasn’t a question.”
“You’re infuriating, you know?” I lean back now.
