A Thousand Starry Nights

  Carter’s phone rings, and he answers it in a barking manner. It takes a moment for me to decipher that it’s Stevie on the receiving end.

  “They’re coming. You’re family is on their way.” His hands run wild over me, gingerly, as if I were an expensive porcelain doll that might have finally shattered. “Tell me, are you hurt? Should I take you to the hospital? Please tell me what happened.”

  Carter is furious, frantic, and, desperate for answers. In one brief moment, he’s eclipsed all of the affection that Henry had ever felt for me.

  Tears come as yelping squeals emit from my throat. My insides burn. My brain is on fire. I’m horrified that this, right here, is my reality—me naked, dripping with my husband’s blood as the boy who once held my heart so secure rages with worry.

  “Nothing happened. I’m fine. I promise. It was just a silly argument that got out of control.” I shake my fist, horrified to find those purple panties still clutched in my hand. “Oh, God.” I tuck it under the blanket.

  “Look at me.” Carter gently touches his finger under my chin. There’s such love in his eyes, such reassurance, something that borders a paternal affection. Being a father has made Carter twice the man he ever was. “Did he hit you?”

  Did he hit me? I blink into the thought. “He pinned me.” I clutch at my wrist. “He did other things.” I’m not about slice open the sexual details with Carter.

  His jaw clenches. Carter’s lip jets out as if he were about to cry or roar with anger, both. He pulls me in and holds me like that, tight in his arms, and I break. Tears fall over his shoulder hard and fast. Carter is holding me again, circumstances be damned. And stranger than that, I’m letting him. His rock hard chest presses against mine, the blanket falls away, and my bare flesh touches his soft shirt. His chest bucks a moment as he takes a deep breath.

  “I’ll never let him hurt you again. You’re safe, Aspen. You’re safe,” he whispers into my ear over and over like a lullaby.

  And I feel exactly that with Carter.

  A rumble emits from the doorway—the barking of a dog followed by the scramble of footsteps.

  Lincoln and Kinsley burst through the door along with a salt and peppered husky.

  “What the hell?” Lincoln speeds over with Kins, both with matching looks of fright.

  Carter stands as they fall over me with their concern.

  “I’m fine.” My fingers extend for Carter to come back, but my brother gets in the way. “Everything is fine, I promise.”

  “The hell it is.” Lincoln lifts the blanket over my chest.

  “Relax, I was naked when I got here.” I try to cinch my sweater shut, but it’s twisted behind me. Carter hooks his gaze to mine. He’s been waiting patiently for the truth. “I got into an argument with Henry.” My eyes grow heavy as I struggle to look away from Carter. “I won’t be going back.”

  “You’re coming with us.” Lincoln insists.

  Carter steps in with a wild look of panic, with promise and hope all at once. “She can stay here.”

  Lincoln turns briefly and growls at Carter as if he were a predator. “She’s coming with me.” He turns back and runs his finger down my cheek with the medical reserve of a doctor. “He’s dangerous.” I’m not sure if he means Carter or Henry at this point.

  Stevie sails through the door with Ford in tow, and Carter takes his brother aside and speaks with him.

  Stevie falls to her knees next to Kinsley.

  “Are you okay?” Her eyes are alive with fury.

  “I’m fine. I wish everyone wasn’t running around this morning because of me. I just need a shower and some clothes.”

  “She’s coming with us.” Lincoln isn’t letting up.

  Kins pulls my hand to her chest. “I have clothes you can borrow.”

  “I’ll buy you clothes,” Stevie asserts. “I heard Carter say you can stay here as I came in.” Do that, she mouths.

  Lincoln gravels out a dark laugh. “No fucking way. Do you need me to carry you to the car?”

  “No. I promise I’m good. I can walk.”

  Lincoln heads over to Ford and Carter with that don’t-fuck-with-my-sister-look on his face.

  “What the hell?” Stevie hisses. “Did Henry hit you?” She eyes the blood on my hands, and her face lights up with glee. “Did you kill him?”

  Stevie is just waiting for me to produce a body to hide, Henry’s preferably.

  “I’m alive, and he’s not dead. That’s all that matters.” I close my eyes a brief moment, and I can still feel Carter’s beating heart pressed to mine. “There is just one more thing.”

  “What’s that?” Kinsley leans in with anticipation.

  I pull the lace underwear from out of hiding, and they both gawk at them as if I had somehow produced a magical bird.

  “Oh my, God!” Sheer delight spreads over Kinsley’s face as she snatches them from me. “I’ve been looking for these everywhere!”

  * * *

  Wordlessly I travel with Lincoln and Kinsley back to their home in Pacific Palisades. The wind picks up and burns against my skin as I make my way into their clapboard bungalow that our father gifted my sister with a few years back. I myself have no animosity over the issue, unlike Stevie. It’s his money, and if he wants to gift my sister entire city blocks, it’s none of my business. Besides, I’m too busy siphoning from company accounts to notice.

  “I’ll get us some coffee,” Kinsley chirps as if I’ve come to visit for a spot of tea—naked with her underwear in tow.

  “Oh, no you don’t. Explain to me how these pretty little panties got into my couch.”

  Lincoln wipes the disgust from his eyes. “Isn’t it bad enough you’re sleeping with one married man? They’re not the newest version of a Birkin bag for fuck’s sake.” He barks the words at her prompting me to reach into my briefcase and dish out Henry’s phone.

  “Crack this code, would you?” I give it to him and motion toward the fireplace in hopes he’ll leave Kinsley to me.

  Stevie bursts through the door and treks on over, and Kinsley clams up again. Before we left Carter’s house, Stevie whispered something into Kinsley’s poor, impressionable ear, and, now, I’ll probably never get a straight answer. But I can surmise. I’m not an idiot. Stevie often feels the need to orchestrate other people’s destinies, hers included. It stems back to losing Claire and I’m guessing before that as well.

  “Done.” Lincoln comes over and hands the phone back to me.

  “Nice work.” I scroll through Henry’s text messages first. His mother, me, Richie his drinking buddy, someone named Nikki. “Who’s Nikki?” I touch her name and a million little blue bubbles pop up. Holy hell. Miss you. Can we talk? See you soon! I’m on tonight. An entire stream of briefly worded messages prompting his replies to be even that much more abrupt—me too, no, see you there, can’t wait.

  Henry is having an affair. The heft of the world lands on me as his own phone testifies against him. I’m being coated from the inside out by the heavy, lead-filled words that bounce across the screen. I’m baffled. First that he would have the energy, and, second, that he has a willing taker. I try to envision her for a second with her perky name, her matching perky ponytail, her bikini-clad body, face of a teenager with glossy pink invitation-to-a-blow-job lips. Is it the girl from Ned’s with the doughy breasts?

  I switch gears and check out his emails, but the queue is still empty. I check his spam, and it too is suspiciously blank. I’m back to square one with a target on my head. Or maybe this entire nightmare will go away. He was emphatic that he’d take care of this himself. Perhaps Henry, by some miracle, has started laying golden eggs and can finally pay those imbeciles back all by his lonesome.

  “Explain this.” I shake the underwear in Stevie’s face because it’s evident my sisters both know something. “I want an answer to something this morning, damn it. Just tell me what this is about.”

  Stevie snatches them from me and spreads them out with her fingers at opposit
e ends.

  “Those are mine!” Kinsley snatches them to her chest. “Thank you very much.”

  “I’m guessing La Perla made more than one.” Stevie smarts, but that worn look on her face tells me a different story.

  “Nope. Still mine.” Kinsley punches her thumb through the lace. “I always tear it in the exact same spot when I’m pulling them up. Get the same hole every time.”

  “You’re a freaking idiot, you know that?” Stevie buries her head in her hands a moment before reverting her attention to me. “You weren’t home last week. Your back door was open, and I slipped in and planted them.”

  A hard groan tears from me. “The morning I took him to breakfast.”

  “You told me you would leave him if he were cheating.” Her forehead breaks out in a series of lines.

  “Are you Nikki?” I had to go there. This is Stevie the-determiner-of-destinies after all. I’m aware of what she’s capable of.

  “No!” Her entire face opens with glee. “But God, I love her.”

  Lincoln comes by with champagne flutes filled with orange cheer.

  “What the hell is this?” I ask, taking it from him.

  “Mimosa’s for one and all. We’re celebrating.” He raises his glass, and my sisters follow. “Virgin for you.” He nods to our expecting sister, and Stevie gives an emphatic nod back. Stevie doesn’t drink regardless of the state of her uterus. I don’t imbibe much either although I’m starting to see the celebratory light. “To Aspen,” Lincoln thunders.

  “To Aspen,” they chime back.

  The mimosas flow freely for the next hour as I wallow in this newfound state of flux while floating in one of Lincoln’s sweatshirts because he was “tired of seeing my tits.” Kinsley let me borrow a pair of sweat pants that cost more than my entire wardrobe.

  Kinsley and Stevie exchange as many dating horror stories as possible just to try and make me feel better, and we laugh our asses off as if I weren’t still wearing my husband’s jugular on my hands. Crawling on my knees this morning, I didn’t think I’d be laughing again so soon, if ever.

  Stevie rubs her thumb over my cheek, her large doll eyes drinking me in.

  “You’re a badass, Aspen. You’re a great artist, too.” She combs the stray hairs from my eyes. “You’re an independent woman who is fierce and doesn’t need to be tied down by some loser who expects you to be his wifey while he treats you like dirt.”

  “Thank you.” I try to buy into her words. Me, a badass. I can’t quite wrap my head around it because, for so long, I was nothing more than a doormat. I would have been more productive as a speed bump on the freeway. I was Henry’s doormat. His wifey. “You know—” I cradle my glass as I draw my knees tight to my chest. I can still feel him penetrating me without mercy. What’s the matter, Aspen? I don’t do it for you anymore? No, Henry you don’t. Never did, never will. Go drink your beer, smoke your entire stash. I don’t give a shit any longer. “Last night I dreamed that men were after me, and my life was endangered unless I baked them cookies. Cookies. Even my nightmares have domesticated themselves.” I wipe the snot off my face with my sleeve as the room takes a delicious dip from the buzz I’m cultivating.

  Lincoln tilts his head to the side, intrigued. “What kind of cookies?”

  Stevie swats him over the leg. “Would you stop?”

  “Uranium-enriched cookies.” I shoot a look to my brother. “Don’t laugh. It’s true.”

  “I’m not laughing.” Stevie raises her glass to me. “See? That’s an interesting, badass, dream. Was Russia involved?”

  Kinsley shakes out her blonde head of curls, looking more than slightly confused. “Is there a Russia? I thought it was USSR?”

  “Take a history class, watch the news”—Stevie looks as if she might vomit—“pull your head out of your husband-stealing ass.”

  Speaking of ass, the rest of my dream consisted of my fear of rough anal sex at the hands of the terrorists because the cookie dough was out on the docks somewhere, and I knew I’d have to pay the price.

  “So did you bake the cookies?” Stevie needles me as if she heard my inward dialogue.

  “No, I paid the price.” I woke to Henry filling me rough and greedy from behind. My own terrorist in my own home.

  Go figure.

  I curl up on the couch and float to sleep while wrapped in a delicious warmth. For the first time in two years I feel safe.

  I wonder how long that will last.

  Carter

  Six times I called Stevie begging for an update before she let me know Aspen would be returning to work the following day. I thought of saying fuck it and heading over to see her. I thought of paying a special visit to Henry but for sure said fuck it to that. I struggled all night with the urge to go to Aspen, my Aspen, who I would never hurt in a million years, but, in truth, I had done that long before I ever gave Henry the chance. Mercifully, the night rolls into a brand new day, and I shower and shave with a sense of excitement because, in a few short hours, I’ll be seeing Aspen again. I want to hold her like I did yesterday and assure her everything will be all right.

  I feed Harley before heading out. I’m thinking today’s the day I bring Aspen home to cook for her—something quiet, intimate. I want to be there for her, her friend, her chef, her personal fluff and fold, whatever the hell she needs me to be. I’m halfway to the car before a familiar silver SUV blocks my driveway. Cher.

  “What’s up?” I unlock my truck as she stomps on over. Cher is attractive on paper, but when you peel her open, you find a swarm of maggots embroiled in their own living hell. I’ve never met a more miserable human being. So far, sweet Abby shows no signs of emulating her mother.

  “What’s up?” She tilts her blonde hair toward the sun. She’s wearing mirrored sunglasses, and I can see my discontent with her in duplicate on the lenses. “A little bird just told me that you have Aspen listed as a contact on our daughter’s trip slip. Anything I should be made aware of?”

  “I think that’s confidential who I have listed as a contact. The trip is during my week.” I’m not sure whether to be pissed or flattered that she cares so much to dig into my life.

  “You do realize we share joint custody.” She flips her hair back, and something in me twitches. All of her habits, her do-without-thinking foibles that I once regarded as cute now irk me to the point of wanting to stab my eyes out. “Abby is talking about her nonstop. I want to go back to the art gallery. Aspen, Daddy’s friend,” she mimics Abby with a horrible whine, and it makes my blood boil. Her arms fold tight across her expensive leather jacket. Cher is a walking billboard for luxury brands, the complete opposite of Aspen in just about every way. “Is she here?” She gives the house an accusing look. “I want to speak with her if she’s going to be around my kid. I don’t want her spending the night in front of Abby.”

  Aspen spending the night? In some ways I’m jealous of this contrived version of my relationship with Aspen.

  “She’s not here, and I need to get to work.” I scratch at the back of my neck as the sun bears down on us unreasonably hot this early. “Look, I’m sorry she gets under your skin. Abby’s only met her once. There’s nothing between Aspen and me except for a stale friendship. We work together. The end.”

  She lets out a mocking laugh. “Is it ever the end with you two? Second verse same as the first. She’s a manipulative bitch, Carter. When will you see that for yourself?” She shakes her head incredulous, and I fight the urge to tell her it takes one to know one. But that wouldn’t be true. Cher is the only master of manipulation around here. “You tell her to be careful around my daughter. I’m that little girl’s mother. There’s no way in hell she’s going to waltz back into our lives and steal my baby.” She hikes her hands up around her head as if trying to ward off a swarm of bees.

  “Whoa.” I grab a hold of her by the shoulders as her angry eyes scour over mine. “Nobody is taking Abby from you. Abby loves you. You alone are her mother.” If Cher is about anything, she??
?s about repetitive assurances. “Aspen is just a friend, regardless of whether or not you want to believe that. She never stole anything from you.”

  “The hell she didn’t.” She yanks her shoulder back as she stomps down the driveway. “She stole you.”

  * * *

  Aspen. I give a polite knock to her open door as she and Pepper share a laugh over something. She looks stunning today. Her hair rests over her shoulders, shining like a dark halo. Her eyes, clear as the sky, illuminate the room without even trying. There’s a softer air about her. A genuine happiness in her eyes, and it all comes crashing to a halt when she spies me at the door.

  “Come in.” She stands to greet me. It’s her way. I wish she didn’t feel the need to be so formal around me. There’s nothing more that I’d like than to bring her comfort in every way. When we were together, if you could call it that, Aspen would open her arms like wings. There wasn’t a day we didn’t hold each other until it felt as if our bodies would melt as one.

  Pepper trots past me before looking back to Aspen. “Book club is fun. We’ll carpool. We can go to dinner first. Make a girl’s night out of it.” She glares at me when she says that last part before zipping out the door.

  “Sounds like a hot date,” I tease then immediately regret my words. “Sorry.”

  “Don’t be.” She collects her things. Aspen is dressed in a low cut navy dress that on any other woman would hang like a sack but on Aspen it lovingly conforms to her curves. “Where to?” She bites down over her lip as she makes her way to me. “But before we go, I want to say thank you. Stevie told me that she called you that morning after I got off the phone with her.” Her shoulders rise. “You didn’t have to come for me.” She swallows hard. “But I’m glad that you did.” Her hand rises to my collar and gives it a tug before she cinches her purse to her side. “Lincoln took me out last night and helped me get a new phone, some clothes.”

  “That was nice of him. Your brother is a good guy.” A little psychotic around the edges but a great brother.