The Sugar Queen

  She parked at the end of the road and watched as they walked up the steps and banged on the screen door.

  Chloe was shakily adjusting her clothing. She tugged on her coat and sat shivering in the seat.

  “Are you all right?” Josey asked her.

  Chloe nodded and pulled her knees to her chest.

  Josey caught some movement and looked back at the house. Julian had shot out of the door. One of the patrolmen caught him by the arm and Julian struggled against him, swinging his fist and catching the patrolman across the jaw. The other patrolman tackled Julian on the porch and together they cuffed him.

  “Chloe, stay here. I’ll be right back.” Josey left the car running and the heater on high, then got out. Neighbors had come out of their homes, and a few were on the sidewalk in front of Della Lee’s house. Josey walked up behind them.

  Julian was yelling, “Get her out of my house! She’s crazy! The woman is crazy!”

  One of the patrolmen entered the house, and a few seconds later the loud music that was holding the neighborhood hostage stopped. The patrolman came back out shaking his head.

  “She’s in there! I swear to God, someone is in there! She threw plates at me!”

  Josey backed away from the crowd, then jogged back to the car. Della Lee had left. Josey didn’t want to imagine how she got there, or how she was going to get back. The words grand theft auto crossed her mind.

  Chloe was leaning her head against the passenger-side window when Josey got in. “I’m going to take you home now, okay?”

  Chloe nodded.

  Chloe stared out of the passenger-side window. Every muscle in her body was tight, and her stomach was churning. If she didn’t move, if she kept her teeth clenched, maybe she wouldn’t get sick. She bolted out of the car and raced ahead of Josey right after Josey parked in the lot beside the old firehouse. She knew Josey was following her, so she left the apartment door open and ran to the bathroom. She went to her knees in front of the commode and started to retch.

  She stayed there on the cool tile floor for about ten minutes, her eyes closed, images of the evening swimming through her head. Desperation. Despite everything, this evening was still about desperation. She’d been desperate with Jake. She was desperate without him.

  When would it ever stop?

  Suddenly she knew she wasn’t alone anymore. She’d left the bathroom door open, so she assumed it was Josey. She shakily made her way to her feet and turned to the door, but no one was there.

  Her eyes went to the floor and there, in the doorway, was a stack of books. The book on the bottom was Finding Forgiveness, the old warhorse. Even though books hated the bathroom, Finding Forgiveness was halfway across the threshold, as if carrying the other books toward her.

  “You’re going to get wet,” she said as she walked to the sink. She turned on the faucet and splashed her face, then washed her mouth out. She dried her face and pulled her hair back into a ponytail. When she turned to leave, the books were still there, a little farther in, tiny droplets of water from the sink on the tile all around them.

  She picked them up—Finding Forgiveness; Old Love, New Direction; A Girl’s Guide to Keeping Her Guy; Madame Bovary; and The Complete Homeowner’s Guide. She carried them into the bedroom and set them on the nightstand. She stared at the stack, the syllabus of her life for the past month, a map of what she’d been through. Then she couldn’t look anymore and turned away.

  After changing into sweats, she walked back into the living room. Josey was pacing, but stopped when Chloe appeared. “Are you okay?”

  She was grateful for Josey, for her friendship. It had come at the best, the worst and the most unexpected time in her life. “I don’t know. I don’t know anything anymore. How did you know where Julian lived?”

  Josey hesitated. “It’s a long story. Did he hurt you?”

  “No.” Chloe went to the couch and sat, tucking her legs under her and grabbing a pillow to hug. “But I knew what he wanted. I’ve known that all along.”

  Josey came to sit beside her.

  “I thought I could do it,” Chloe said. “It wouldn’t have been cheating. Jake and I aren’t together. We’re so not together I’m buying a house by myself. But I couldn’t do it. I love Jake too much. Why didn’t Jake love me enough not to do it?”

  “It wasn’t because I didn’t love you enough, Clo,” Jake said from the doorway. Josey and Chloe both turned, startled. Jake was standing there, his hair disheveled, his coat buttoned wrong. Adam was to his right, behind him in the hallway. “I love you more than my own life.”

  Chloe looked at Josey.

  “I called Adam while you were in the bathroom,” Josey said as she stood. “I’m sorry. I didn’t know what else to do. But I didn’t ask him to come over, I swear.”

  Jake entered the room and Adam followed, reaching around Jake to take Josey’s hand. “Come on,” Adam said. “Let’s go.”

  “No,” Josey said, trying to shake him off.

  “It’s okay, Josey,” Chloe said.

  “I can stay.”

  “No.” This needed to be done. “It’s okay. Really.”

  Chloe watched Adam lead Josey toward the door. She could tell Josey was not happy with him. As soon as the door closed, Jake knelt in front of the couch where she was sitting and said, “Chloe, look at me.”

  She met his eyes. Those magnetic light green eyes.

  “It was Eve Beasley,” he said.

  “I know.”

  Jake looked poleaxed. “You do? Who told you?”

  “It doesn’t matter.”

  “I didn’t mean for it to happen. Neither did she. We instantly regretted it, and we haven’t seen each other since. I don’t blame it on the case. I am to blame. I know that. And if I could take it back, I would. I’m so sorry.” He tried to take her hands, but she hid them behind the pillow she was holding. “I miss you, Chloe.”

  “What about your family? Your father said to stay away from me, and your mother brought me a parting gift.” She jerked her chin toward the Christmas basket on the coffee table.

  “My dad wanted me to stay away from you until you were ready. He didn’t want me to push you. He wants you in our family. My mom brought the basket because she wants to be in your life, whether or not it’s through me. It’s their insane way of saying they love you.” Jake shook his head. “We’re parts of a crazy whole, Chloe. But we don’t make sense without you. I don’t make sense.”

  There was a clapping sound and a book that was sitting on the arm of the couch fell to the floor beside them. Finding Forgiveness. Chloe pinched her lips together, tears coming to her eyes as she stared at the book.

  Paper, string and glue.

  Separately, they were just objects waiting for a purpose. Together, they were parts of a whole. Something significant, something solid.

  They were a lot like relationships that way.

  “Let’s start over, Clo,” Jake said, and she lifted her eyes to meet his. “Let me call you up and ask you on a date. I’ll knock on the door to your house. I’ll have flowers. I’ll be nervous. I’ll wait until the third date to kiss you, though I’ll think about it every second until I do. Then that night you finally let me stay over, I’ll whisper promises, promises I’ll always keep. I’ll promise I will never, ever hurt you. I’ll promise to die before I do.”

  The first time, they didn’t have time for a conventional courtship. It had been very hot very fast. Could they really start over, and then do it the traditional way?

  “Never do this to me again, Jake.” She tried to say it harshly, but her voice shook.

  “I won’t.”

  She lifted her chin. “I have books.”

  “I know.”

  “A lot of books. And they’re going to be around from now on. You have to accept that.”

  “I’ve never had a problem with your books, Clo. They’re who you are.”

  Jake slowly leaned in. The closer he came, the stronger the draw, like food when y
ou’re hungry, or a bed when you’re tired. He moved the pillow away and wrapped his arms around her. She found herself nuzzling him, hiding her face in his neck. She would always be desperate about him. Even now, breathing the scent of his skin, she could feel it. But she wasn’t as disoriented as she used to be. She didn’t feel that panic. She felt a strange sort of grounding, like she knew she wasn’t going to lose her way anymore.

  She turned her head on Jake’s shoulder to look at Finding Forgiveness again.

  But it was gone.

  Josey kept looking back at the apartment door as Adam led her down the stairs. “She’ll be fine. You know they need to do this, or you wouldn’t have called,” Adam said.

  “I called because I was worried that Chloe was sick,” Josey said, nervous that Chloe might be angry with her. “I didn’t ask you to bring Jake over.”

  “You didn’t have to ask. It was obvious that’s what needed to be done.”

  Josey pulled her hand out of his and jerked open the door at the bottom of the stairs. “I told you, I told you from the beginning of all this, that it wasn’t our place to get in the middle of their relationship.”

  “Yes, you said that,” Adam said calmly, following her out onto the cold sidewalk. She could see that he’d parked on the street. Her car was looming large around the corner in the parking lot. “And, as I recall, I didn’t agree. Bringing them together tonight is good for them.”

  “How do you know? You have no idea what she went through tonight.”

  “Then why don’t you tell me?”

  She’d walked right into that one. “Chloe just had a bad night, that’s all.”

  “In other words, you’re not going to tell me.”

  Josey rubbed her arms, trying to close herself off from the cold. “It’s not my secret to share.”

  Adam frowned. “Where is your coat?”

  “At home. I left in a hurry.”

  He shrugged out of his yellow Thinsulate jacket. “Here,” he said, holding it out for her. She slipped into it. “They’re going to be fine. I promise. Do you want to go somewhere? Get something to eat, maybe?” He stared at her, his hands resting on her shoulders. She almost reached up to touch her mouth, even though she knew she hadn’t eaten in hours. Old habits die hard. “Or we could go to my house,” he said with a significance she couldn’t ignore. “Jake and I just had a pizza delivered when you called. It might not be cold yet.”

  She felt her chest catch, setting off a wild array of racing shivers. This past week they’d upped the notch of intimacy every time they met. Short, desperate surges in the dark of her porch or his SUV after she’d sneaked out. No one could see. No one would know. It was a secret, like most everything else in her life. It was easier that way, easier to work around her fear instead of facing it, easier not to tell her mother. Now he was asking her to put it out in the open, and despite everything, despite wanting it more than she wanted her next breath, she hesitated. “I don’t know.”

  He dropped his hands. “Are you mad at me?”

  “No.”

  “But you’re going to use this as an excuse not to come home with me.”

  She turned away from him and looked up at the brick firehouse. It was outlined in small white Christmas lights, making it look like gingerbread. “That’s not fair.”

  “It is what it is. You’re scared.”

  “So are you.”

  “But I asked anyway.”

  Josey closed her eyes. “What do you want me to say, Adam?”

  “I want you to say yes.”

  “What are we really changing here? Nothing. We’re still stuck in our same patterns. We’re still stuck here. If I stay with you tonight, it will be all over town by tomorrow.”

  He looked genuinely confused. “So?”

  “You really don’t understand, do you? I still hide. I still sneak out of my mother’s house because I don’t want her disapproval. I still worry about what people here think of me.”

  “Then let’s leave,” he said quietly.

  She gaped at him. “You’re not serious.”

  “I’m completely serious. I’ve met your mother, so I understand why you do it. But making you hide isn’t fair to you, and it’s not fair to me. Neither of us wants to be here. Let’s go.”

  “You would leave?” she asked incredulously. “Really?”

  “I would leave.” He took a deep breath. “But only with you.”

  She couldn’t believe what she did next.

  She left, all right.

  And ran home.

  Helena met Josey at the door. “Oldsey, bad thing leave tonight!” she said excitedly. “Leave when you leave! But it come back. It here now.”

  At least Della Lee had gotten home safely. “I know,” Josey said tiredly. “It won’t be long before she leaves for good, I promise. Good night.”

  “Wait. Oldgret want to see you.” Helena made an apologetic face and pointed toward the light coming from the sitting room. “She wait up.”

  Oh, hell. She squeezed her eyes shut for a moment. She’d just been worried about getting caught, and then suddenly she was. Her life was one big self-fulfilling prophecy.

  “Oldsey?”

  She opened her eyes and tried to smile. “It’s okay. Thanks, Helena.” Then she did the death march to the sitting room.

  Margaret was in her nightgown, sitting in her favorite chair. She looked up and set aside her magazine. “Where have you been?” she demanded. “And whose jacket is that?”

  Josey looked down. She’d forgotten she had it on. There was no use denying who it belonged to. “It’s Adam’s.”

  “I won’t have you acting this way, do you hear me? I had enough of you embarrassing me when you were a child. Imagine my surprise when I got up to tell you something, only to find you gone. For days now I’ve suspected you’ve been sneaking out after I’ve taken my sleeping pill. Well, I didn’t take one tonight. You’re not a silly teenager, Josey. I won’t have you acting like this.”

  “I’m sorry, Mother.”

  That was what she wanted, Josey thought. She wanted Josey cowed. She wasn’t even trying to disguise it with false concern or backhanded compliments anymore. She stood up and said, less harshly, “I wanted to tell you to pick up pork tenderloins at the grocery store tomorrow. I left instructions with Helena on how to prepare them. Rawley Pelham will be dining with me tomorrow, and I remember he likes them. He’s my guest and I would prefer if you would stay in your room when I’m with him. Also, I won’t be needing you to drive me to my eye appointment tomorrow. I’ll be taking a cab for the foreseeable future.”

  Josey watched her mother walk toward the door with her cane. She couldn’t believe what she’d just heard. “What am I supposed to do, then?”

  “You’re supposed to behave. Don’t see that Finley girl or the mailman. And don’t sneak out again. What would the neighbors think if they saw you? And what if I had needed you tonight?”

  “You just said you didn’t need me, Mother!” Josey laughed, but with an edge, very close to crying. She’d just run away from the man she loved because she couldn’t let go of the faraway hope that, if she stayed long enough, one day Margaret would love her, accept her, forgive her. “When is it ever going to be enough? When are you ever going to forgive me? Why did you even have me? Was it really just to keep his money?”

  Margaret set her jaw and walked past Josey. “I’m going to bed now.”

  Josey followed her and stood at the base of the steps as her mother walked up. “Was he really that bad?”

  Margaret didn’t answer until she reached the top of the steps. Then she stopped, her back to Josey. “Yes, he was,” she finally said as she disappeared down the hallway. “And you look just like him.”

  Josey stared at the place her mother had been. It had taken her twenty-seven years to finally figure this out. Margaret wasn’t going to be happy as long as Josey was there, but she would never tell her to leave. And Josey wasn’t going to be happy until she le
ft, but she wanted her mother to tell her to go.

  This wasn’t about forgiveness. It never had been.

  This was about two women punishing themselves for no good reason.

  And it was time for it to end.

  Twenty minutes later, Josey said, “Can I come in?”

  Adam hesitated in his doorway, then stood back. “Of course.”

  She walked into the living room of his house. It was sparse, temporary. Secondhand furniture for the most part, an unusual blue couch with purple cushions, a 1970s-era orange reading chair, and some scarred end tables. The large leather recliner and flat-screen TV above the fireplace stood out. Those were deliberate purchases for comfort.

  “I think I’m scared of your furniture,” she said, trying to smile but it made her lips tremble, so she stopped.

  “I was living day by day here at first, not sure what I should do, just that I wanted to be still. I bought a bed, the recliner and the television. All I thought I needed. Then, every once in a while, someone at work would say they were getting rid of something, and I asked if I could have it. This is what happens when bad furniture happens to good people. I do actually have some great furniture, but it’s all stored in my brother’s basement in Chicago.”

  She turned her back on him to look around some more. The television was on and she pretended to watch it. He came up behind her and took off her jacket. His jacket. She jumped a little and turned to face him. They stared at each other for a moment.

  “Why are you here, Josey?”

  She took a deep breath. She’d thought of things she would say to him on the drive over here, elegant things about fear and love and pithy things about both running to him and running away. But what she ended up saying was, simply, “You go, I go.”

  He dropped the jacket and in one step he was in front of her, his hands on her face, kissing her. There was no lead-up. It was all at once frantic, hands everywhere. Still kissing, he backed her to the couch then pushed her down to the cushions, angling his body over hers. His kiss was deeper this way, hungry, like she was candy. He feasted on her. His hands went to the sides of her sweater and slowly brought it up. Her muscles quivered and her skin prickled. He broke their kiss to pull the sweater over her head. Her nipples tightened as he looked down at her, breathing heavily.