Damaged

  She told him about the Sunday suppers, the touch football games on the beach that always ended up being tackle. She even told him how her dad and brother checked on her each morning, afraid somehow that the last vestige of Lydia had been spirited away during the night.

  And on Saturday afternoon, just before the tide came in, they sat on the sand and shared stories of loss. She confided how she had hid in her mother’s closet after she learned about the shooting. About how the whole family was searching for her, and she knew it. But she just couldn’t bring herself to leave that special place she and her mom had shared, not even to put her family’s minds at ease.

  And she explained how, when they moved out here to Breezy Point, one of her cousins took over the apartment in Manhattan. He had left Lydia’s closet just as it had been the day she died. It was locked and only Allison had the key. That’s where she went for inspiration and to focus on her designs and her dreams.

  They talked about pain and grief and how you might think you were done, had finished grieving. But still that terrible sorrow wasn’t finished with you.

  And, finally, they admitted the attraction that had frightened them both the night they met in her family’s kitchen. But for now, holding hands on the beach was all the intensity they could handle.

  They were soaking wet when they first kissed on Sunday morning, ten days after their ‘strictly business’ meeting at O’Lunney’s.

  Mike had driven out to Breezy Point just as the sun was rising. He had a backpack that held a thick chunk of Irish Cheddar, a soft Brie, two kinds of sausage and a long loaf of bread he had purchased, still warm, from the City Bakery on Eighteenth Street. He also brought a cold bottle of fine pink champagne. A colleague had given it to him after his commercial for a new electric car had won a Clio, his third win.

  There was also a change of clothes and a blanket to sit on. And the promise of a sunny day.

  Allison was on the porch when he drove up. She held two clamming rakes, carried a metal pail, and wore a sweatshirt and cut-off jeans. Despite the casualness of her attire, she looked to him like Hippolyta personified.

  He loved that she was tall. At six feet three, he had spent his high-school years bending over to try to kiss a girl. While he hadn’t yet held her, Mike knew they would fit together perfectly.

  Allison took him to her secret clamming spot, a rocky outcropping about ten feet from shore. It wasn’t visible when the tide was in, but when the tide was out you could walk there without getting wet.

  ‘When it turns,’ she warned, ‘you need to get out very quickly before the rocks are covered in water. Because if they’re covered with water, we will be too.’

  What with the laughing, the digging for clams with their toes, putting them in the bucket with the rake, to say nothing of the flirting, when the rocks started getting covered, they didn’t even notice.

  Suddenly the tide was roaring in, and by the time they had waded back to shore in waist-deep water they were both soaked and shivering.

  And laughing, as if freezing to death was the most fun anyone could have.

  ‘Take off your clothes,’ Mike said. It wasn’t a suggestion. It was an order from a man used to being in charge. ‘With this wind whipping off the water, hypothermia can set in within thirty minutes.’

  Allison looked at him through wet hair that was plastered to her face. ‘Thanks, but I’ll risk it.’

  ‘Don’t be an idiot. I flew a Medevac chopper in a war zone. I’ve seen more than my share of naked people.’

  ‘You haven’t seen me, Captain Dennison,’ Allison snapped through chattering teeth, responding as she always did to an order with plenty of cheek. ‘And should you ever be that lucky, I don’t plan for it to happen while I’m covered with goosebumps with seaweed in my hair.’

  ‘Anyone ever tell you you’re incorrigible?’ he asked, tossing her the blanket.

  ‘All the time,’ she said. ‘I used to think it was my middle name.’

  Suddenly his arms were around her and he was kissing her, softly at first, but then with increasing urgency. She did not pull away. Instead she wrapped herself around him like a vine.

  When they finally released one another, they stepped back, breathing hard. They stared, each thinking the same. Danger. This was too powerful and too soon. Neither said a word, but they both knew that what was happening between them was too rare to be rushed.

  ‘I’m not going to look,’ Mike said when he could speak. ‘Now take your clothes off while I get a fire going.’ He turned his back to her, and headed towards the dunes. ‘Rub yourself hard with one of those towels. There’s an extra pair of jeans and a sweater in the bag.’

  ‘What about you, O Captain, my Captain?’ she called after him. ‘I suppose you’re too tough to get hypothermia.’

  ‘Too stubborn,’ he called from where he was gathering driftwood for a fire. ‘Plus, I was trained for emergencies such as this by the United States Army.’

  Allison did as she was told and peeled the wet clothing from her body. She stood for a moment and stretched her arms up to the welcome sun that was already warming her naked flesh. She felt free. And powerful. And hopeful and excited and confident about her future. A gust of wind hit her and she scrambled gratefully into Mike’s warm, dry clothes. They smelled of Mike and made her a little dizzy.

  The simple meal was one of the best either of them had ever enjoyed. It felt warm, almost too warm, by the fire. Allison wasn’t sure if the heat came from the bonfire or from Mike. He had stripped and, with his blanket wrapped around him, he resembled a proud Native American.

  She had tied the belt around her slender waist to cinch Mike’s trousers. Allison had never been vain, but she did pay attention to her appearance since she was in the fashion industry. But sitting here with Mike in his clothes, with her hair tousled by the wind, she felt like the most beautiful woman on Earth.

  Mike, if he had been able to get the lump out of his throat long enough to speak, would have agreed.

  The Jones Family

  Breezy Point

  Later, at Sunday supper, Allison and Mike still did not talk business. It would have been impossible with just about every member of the Jones clan crammed into the house. The place was so crowded with family and friends, people were spilling out onto the wide decks that surrounded the house.

  Everyone was chatting up Mike and slapping Jimmy on the back like he’d just won the Irish Lottery. The knowledge that the family treasure was finally dating a guy, whom the family actually liked, was cause for celebration. If they had questions about what had happened down on the beach that led to Allison coming home in Mike’s clothes, while Mike arrived sporting only a blanket with a West Point logo, they didn’t ask them.

  The palpable chemistry between the two was another story. Gra ag an gcead amharc, the Gaelic phrase for ‘love at first sight’, was heard more than once that day.

  Neither Mike nor Allison corrected them. They had now spent ten days together and knew already what this was. Both sensed that their lives would be forever intertwined. They were in love.

  They did not speak these thoughts. There seemed to be an understanding between them that to say the words too soon would be to lessen the magic. To miss a step of the delicious discovery of one another would be cheating themselves. So they took it slowly. After all, they had time, all the time in the world.

  Or so they thought.

  Not one person at the beachfront house that day could have imagined what lay ahead for their beloved Allison and the man she was meant to be with. But even had they known, they would have been powerless to change it.

  They finally got around to talking about Allison’s idea to put Lydia’s Closet on the Internet the week after that kiss on the beach. It was after five when Mike walked into the store that once housed Allison’s tiny boutique and a lifetime of dreams.

  Packing up hadn’t been hard. The merchandise was gone, so it was just a matter of taking out signage and whatever display cases the
new tenant didn’t want.

  ‘Hey,’ Mike said, grinning. He was ridiculously happy to see her.

  ‘Hey, yourself,’ she answered, hoping she didn’t look like the Cheshire cat. It was impossible to contain the smile that split her face when she saw him.

  They hadn’t planned to see one another during the week. And both had resisted picking up the phone every time they felt like speaking to one another. That would have meant hourly calls. The intensity of their feelings was such that both drew back a bit. Not from lack of interest; far from it. But from a primal fear of letting themselves care so deeply.

  Both had experienced the profound loss of a beloved parent; for Mike, it had been both at once. A trauma like that makes one wary of deep feelings, of caring so much that you are left open to that enormous pain again.

  None of this was spoken. It was just understood, in the way they instinctively understood so much about each other.

  ‘Jimmy told me you’d found a tenant to take over your lease,’ Mike said. ‘I came to help, but it looks like you’re done.’

  Before Allison could respond, Mike was taken down by a tackle from his blindside. He was on his feet almost as quickly as he had gone down, a soldier on alert, ready to do battle. His assailant turned out to be a tiny girl of about three, sporting red roller-sneakers and a runny nose.

  ‘Tessa, I knew you weren’t ready for those skates!’

  A hugely pregnant woman about Allison’s age emerged from the back of the shop. She scooped the girl up and expertly wiped her nose, and the tears that were beginning to form.

  Allison couldn’t stop laughing. ‘Mike, meet Kimberly, my best friend and one of the “desperate housewives”, as Jimmy calls them. They make the accessories we sell. And this is my goddaughter, the dangerous Tessa Lee.’

  ‘You design, we sew. And, as you can see, I am a bit desperate,’ Kimberly said. She shifted Tessa to her hip, extracted a handful of Cheerios from her pocket and allowed her daughter to eat them, one by one, like a pigeon.

  ‘Sorry about all this,’ Kimberly said. ‘She had to have these shoes and I had to have five minutes without a whine, so there you are.’

  Mike covered his embarrassment at being taken down by a three-year-old with such aplomb. ‘I predict a career as a ninja for Miss Tessa.’

  ‘You all right?’ Kimberly asked, looking at Mike and offering her daughter more Cheerios. ‘Ally says you’re nice, so I assume you’re not litigious.’

  ‘I’m not about to ruin my reputation by admitting what just happened,’ Mike said, laughing. ‘Nice to meet you, too, Kimberly. And Tessa, I think you are skating just fine on those new shoes. I wish I had a pair.’

  The moppet smiled shyly and offered Mike a sticky Cheerio, which he ate with relish.

  ‘I’m out of here,’ Kimberly said, brandishing the faux-fur purse. ‘I’ll get started on these. What do you think? About thirty?’

  ‘Let’s start there,’ Allison said, kissing her friend on the cheek. ‘This time I plan to be prepared with enough goods.’

  On her way out, Kimberly mouthed the word ‘Hot!’ behind Mike’s back.

  The blush was back. Allison perched on a countertop. ‘Pull up a shelf and help me figure out a plan to get Lydia’s Closet noticed in a big way. And remember, I am hiring you. I don’t take charity.’

  ‘Duly noted,’ Mike responded.

  Within an hour and a half, they had hammered out a campaign: they would use social media, bus signage, billboards, and radio ads. They would start with teasers: What’s in Lydia’s Closet? Where is Lydia’s Closet? And then slowly reveal it was a unique boutique on the Web with seasonal pop-up stores in key neighbourhoods, open only for a week at a time. The final reveal would feature the ‘stay-at-home mom’ aspect of her workforce.

  Mike was going to create the ads, price the costs of buying them, and handle the placement. He wanted to defer payment for his services until the business got on its feet, but Allison wouldn’t hear of it.

  ‘I have enough money left over from my mother’s insurance policies to handle this. Of course, if it doesn’t work, I’ll be heading back to my design job at the SoHo boutique.’

  ‘It’s going to work,’ Mike assured her. ‘What you do is unique. People just have to know about it and where to find you.’

  Allison was going to design the logo for the website as well as the merchandise. But she needed help with the technical aspects. ‘Who’s the best IT guy in New York?’ she asked, pacing in her excitement.

  ‘Pete Collins. The best in the country, hands down,’ Mike said. ‘But he’s not your guy.’

  ‘If he’s the best, I want him. I’ll take out a small business loan if need be.’

  ‘I shouldn’t even have mentioned him.’ Unexpectedly, Mike had a sour look on his face. ‘I wouldn’t let you within fifty yards of that snake.’

  Allison looked hard at Mike. ‘Excuse me? What did you just say?’

  ‘The guy’s not to be trusted,’ Mike said. ‘He hits on every good-looking woman he meets, throws money and power at her, then drops her when the next new babe shows up.’

  ‘I get that part. You don’t like him.’ Allison was crisp and businesslike. ‘What I don’t think I heard correctly was that part about “not letting me …”’

  ‘It’s just a figure of speech, Allison. I know this guy. He’s not only a womaniser, he has zero ethics. Zero. He’d bankrupt his own mother to make a buck. You want no part of him.’

  Allison tried to rein in her Irish temper, which was no easy task. She took a breath.

  ‘You don’t know me well, Mike Dennison. But I have a father, a brother, four uncles and nine male cousins who have tried to protect me my whole life. They haven’t succeeded in telling me what to do, and neither will you. I take care of myself. I make my own decisions, fight my own battles and, if I mess up, I clean it up myself.’

  The tension in the room was crackling. Mike’s back was straight as a ramrod as the two stood, toe to toe. It was obvious he wanted to snap out an equally furious response, but he managed to control his anger. Fly the plane, he reminded himself.

  Finally, he spoke. ‘His name is Peter Collins. Media Blitz is the firm. Look it up. Use my name. He’ll see you.’

  ‘Mike …’

  Allison made a move towards him but he was headed for the door.

  ‘I’ll get plans for the launch to you when they’re ready. Suggestion? Watch your back with Mr Collins.’

  And he was gone.

  It took five minutes before Allison’s breathing returned to normal.

  ‘Stupid, stupid, stupid,’ she said aloud. She had tried all her life to think before she spoke, but she simply wasn’t wired that way. She knew Mike had meant no harm. But when someone, especially a man, told her what to do, she just automatically pushed back hard.

  The problem was, this time she had pushed the best guy she had ever met. And he obviously wasn’t one to back down if he believed he was in the right.

  The train ride back to Breezy Point tonight would be a long one.

  Allison and Peter

  Manhattan

  The Media Blitz offices took up two floors of a glass-and-steel structure in SoHo. The building was so modern, there were no buttons in the elevator. You simply gave a name to the concierge, stepped in the elevator, and were whisked away to the appropriate floor.

  Allison first met Peter Collins at four thirty on a Friday afternoon. The man was obviously a giant in the IT industry. Allison’s research had told her that. When she read all the accolades and accomplishments listed in his bio, she wondered why he would even bother with a tiny enterprise like Lydia’s Closet.

  Mike’s name had opened the door. That was the answer.

  Peter Collins was the antithesis of everything that Mike had led her to expect. He was professional, courteous, respectful, to say nothing of brilliant. Also great looking, in a slick sort of way.

  Allison had to control the smile that threatened to play across her fa
ce. Maybe Mike was jealous. Maybe he thought Pete would sweep her off her feet. For some reason, the thought that Mike cared enough to worry about that pleased her.

  The antipathy Mike felt towards Pete was certainly not mutual. Pete had spent the first ten minutes of the meeting extolling Mike’s virtues as a man, a role model, and a professional.

  When it came to Lydia’s Closet, she had expected to fill him in on the business and what had happened with her shop. But he already knew everything: where she had studied, what kind of goods she sold and who made them. He also had the figures on what she had paid in rent and how small her profits had been after expenses.

  ‘How do you know all that?’ she asked, not entirely comfortable with her personal information being so easily accessible.

  ‘I just like to be thorough and know whom I am meeting before I get together with a potential client. I promise you all secrets are safe with me.’

  ‘I see,’ Allison said, alarms ringing in the back of her brain, considering what Mike had said about this man. ‘You had me investigated, checked into my personal accounts?’

  ‘Not at all.’ Peter looked genuinely hurt. He pulled several printed pages from a slender file on his desk. ‘I Googled you. Then it took very little work to learn what the rent of the store was, and calculate the cost of the merchandise from your social media posts and the prices you advertised. Mike spoke so highly of you, I didn’t want to be unprepared.’

  Allison’s face burned with embarrassment.

  ‘I’m sorry. I just …’ Use your words, Allison, she told herself. ‘My skill is ideas and design. Clearly, when it comes to business I’m not ready for prime time.’

  Peter laughed easily. ‘You have ideas. I have the skills to turn ideas into profits. Looks like we will make quite a good team.’

  Within twenty minutes Peter had laid out a design for an Internet presence which was ambitious beyond Allison’s wildest expectations.

  ‘Wow,’ she said, truly impressed. ‘Mike was right about you being amazing.’