Soaring

  This was a good move.

  He shifted away, saying, “Certainly.”

  He took it out.

  I gave him my number.

  He punched it in then bent and gave me another brief champagne, minty kiss before he leaned away and said, “Goodnight, Amy.”

  “’Night, Boston,” I mumbled.

  Then he stood there as I let myself in my front door.

  I gave him a small smile as I closed the door and I did not wait a polite time so he wouldn’t hear me lock it against him.

  I should have told Josie about my lunacy so I could call her and pick over that tediously boring date.

  Or I should have shared with Alyssa.

  Or I should have found a more mature way to deal with Robin so I could pick over everything with her.

  Most especially the fact that, no matter how tedious, I had moved on so far that I was to the point of dating, something else which I wished I could pat myself on the back for.

  On this thought, I wandered to my kitchen counter, dropped my sleek new clutch to it and pulled out my phone.

  I went to Robin’s text string and typed in, Haven’t heard from you in a while. All okay? And hit send.

  It was a puny attempt at communication but at least it was something.

  I was staring at my phone, like Robin was hanging around waiting for me to text so she could reply immediately (when she was possibly making voodoo dolls of her selfish, thoughtless, gutless ex-friend who didn’t have the courage to lay it out about the way it needed to be, and sticking pins in it, something I knew she did because I’d done it with her—repeatedly) when it rang in my hand.

  I stared at the display giving me a local number I didn’t recognize.

  It wasn’t late. Not early, after nine so really too late to call and do it politely (according to my mother, who had a cutoff of nine o’clock for some Felicia Hathaway reason).

  That was, unless you were in California, got a new phone with a new number that you hadn’t shared, and wanted to call your wayward daughter or friend and blast it to them.

  It was hours earlier in California.

  Shit.

  Even on this thought, I took the call, putting the phone to my ear. “Hello?”

  “You went out with that dick.”

  I stared at my counter.

  It was Mickey.

  “Mickey?” I asked to confirm.

  He didn’t confirm but he didn’t need to.

  What he did was ask, “You talk to Josie about that guy?”

  “I’m not really sure how this is any of your business,” I replied.

  “You didn’t,” he stated. “You did, Josie woulda told you that that asshole tried to steal her home from her. Lavender House.”

  I blinked at my counter.

  Lavender House, Josie’s house, was beautiful. Stunning. And it was pure Josie, imposing and welcoming at the same time.

  Further, she’d told me it had been in her family for generations.

  She loved it. She loved the family in it. In all that was Josie, who was her brand of kind and sweet but still kind of a hard nut to crack, those two facts were plain to see.

  “What?” I breathed to Mickey.

  “Yeah. And not up front. He did it nasty. Freaked her out. Scared her shitless. Brought back family, the bad kind Josie hadn’t seen in years, who not only got up in her face publicly, but also tried to break in to steal shit in the middle of the night.”

  “Oh my God,” I whispered.

  “Good people, Boston Stone,” he said sarcastically and my spine snapped to.

  “You could have said this to me yesterday, Mickey.”

  “You weren’t big on listenin’ to me yesterday, Amy.”

  “That’s because you were being kind of a jerk yesterday, Mickey,” I retorted.

  “Kind of a jerk lookin’ out for you, Amy,” he shot back.

  He was kind of right about that so I changed tactics.

  “I’ll have you know,” I began, “that my daughter was standing on the sidewalk and she heard what you said about her father.”

  “I’m sure that’s supposed to make me feel bad,” he returned instantly. “But it doesn’t. See, I’ve been tryin’ to puzzle out why a woman who makes unbe-fucking-lievable cupcakes, who plays Frisbee in my backyard, who’s got so much money she doesn’t have to work but she doesn’t spend her time at the spa and instead spends it at a goddamned nursing home, who looks about ready to rope my kid to the chair at the fuckin’ possibility he might do something dangerous for a living, that happening in a fucking decade…why that woman has only got her kids for two days of the month.”

  I sucked in a breath.

  But Mickey was not done speaking.

  “Instead, they’re with your ex, who’s a fuckin’ dick.”

  “Mickey,” I breathed. “Are you spying on me?”

  “Red Civic in your drive, babe, not hard to see.”

  Time to give Auden a garage door opener and I couldn’t believe I hadn’t already.

  And if my son didn’t respond to a text to come get it (which he wouldn’t), I’d mail the thing to him.

  Mickey spoke into my silence.

  “You’re loaded so it can’t be that you don’t have the cake to hire a decent lawyer to look out for you. So not sure what it could be. ’Cept he did what dicks like him do. Especially dicks like him who think they can treat women the way he treated you. He convinced you that you were a piece of shit when he is and you went down without a fight.”

  Oh God.

  “Mickey, please—”

  He again spoke over me. “And maybe he’s convinced your kids you’re a piece of shit too. They’re old enough to get to you if they wanna see their mom. But that Civic isn’t in your drive but a coupla days a month. So maybe your girl heard me and woke up a little to the way it really is, Amy, and I gotta tell you, I don’t feel bad about that shit at all.”

  “I…can’t talk about this with you,” I told him shakily, his words rattling me.

  “Not surprised,” he replied and then socked it to me. “Down without a fight.”

  I forgot about being rattled and snapped, “None of this is any of your business.”

  “Yeah, you’ve made that clear.”

  What did he mean with that? How did I make that clear?

  No. No, I didn’t care.

  “Not clear enough,” I returned. “Has it occurred to you with all you’ve said about things you know nothing about that perhaps you are treating me much like Conrad did?”

  “Oh no,” he whispered and a chill chased up my spine at the sound of it. “No, you fuckin’ do not, Amelia,” he kept whispering sinisterly. “If you were mine, no matter if you fucked me, you’d get respect from me. I know that shit because my wife sunk into a bottle, she fucked up our lives, our future, our kids, and she never gets that shit from me. You cannot tell me that whatever it is that happened between you two is as bad as you pickin’ booze over your family. So you cannot tell me the way he spoke to you was what you deserved because I know that shit isn’t fucking true.”

  Again, he was right and this time, not kind of.

  This time, he was really right in a way that again rattled me.

  “I can’t imagine why we’re discussing this,” I said defensively. “We hardly know each other, and again, my business isn’t yours.”

  “I figure you’re right, you can’t imagine why we’re discussing this because even someone who gives a shit about you, we hardly know each other or not, lays it out straight with no bullshit, you’re so deep in what he’s taught you to believe, you refuse to see.”

  Again.

  Right.

  Again.

  Rattled.

  “Maybe we should stop talking,” I suggested.

  “Maybe,” he returned.

  “Like, ever,” I went on.

  “You want it that way, Amy, in your big house all alone, accepting the dregs when a woman like you should be handed everything, yo
u got it.”

  Before I could reply, he hung up on me.

  I took the phone from my ear and stared at it, asking, “Did that just happen?”

  The phone and the entirety of my house were unsurprisingly silent.

  He convinced you that you were a piece of shit when he is and you went down without a fight.

  Mickey’s words pummeled me so hard mentally, my entire body jerked.

  Did I?

  Did I go down without a fight?

  It felt like I’d been fighting for years. Anytime I saw Conrad or Martine, anytime I forced them to see me, I fought.

  But I didn’t.

  In the game they made me play against my will, each time that happened, I wasn’t fighting.

  I was showing them my cards.

  So it wasn’t a big shock that they’d bested me.

  And maybe he’s convinced your kids you’re a piece of shit too.

  My husband had cheated on me. He’d left me. He’d destroyed our family.

  I thought we’d been happy. For years, years, I’d run through moments, snippets, hours, weeks, months and the only thing we consistently disagreed about was how he didn’t want me to spoil the children. Outside of that, I’d never found a single second where he’d given me any indication things were going wrong.

  Conrad had never sat me down and shared something wasn’t working. He’d never found his time to find his way to say something I was doing upset him, troubled him, annoyed him.

  He’d never said or done anything.

  Heck, we’d made love, doing it most enjoyably, until the night before he told me he was leaving me!

  “Oh God,” I breathed, staring unseeing at my phone. “I’d showed them all my cards and they’d bested me.”

  I lifted my head and looked at my reflection in the glass of my wall of windows.

  It was wavy but it was me.

  Great highlights.

  No-longer-Felicia-Hathaway dress that very much suited me.

  And I knew I had elegant, stylish, strappy, high-heeled sandals on my feet.

  But that was wrapping.

  All of that, all of it, was me.

  It had always been me.

  And I let Conrad—and Martine—convince me differently.

  “They bested me,” I whispered, my hand curling tight on my phone. “Those assholes bested me. All of them bested me.”

  I glared at my image in the glass.

  Time to grow the fuck up.

  On that thought, I stomped through my fabulous, multi-million dollar, Prentice Cameron house right to my unfinished den/office/whatever-I-wanted-it-to-be.

  I fired up my computer on my used, massive, intricately carved baronial desk and I sat down in the officious, completely awesome, leather button-backed chair behind it.

  I waited and when it was ready, I pulled up my email.

  I typed my father’s address in.

  Dad, I wrote.

  I’m aware you and Mom have been calling. I’m emailing you now to explain why I’ve not picked up.

  Before I left, I told you I was moving to Maine in order to be closer to my children. My relationship with them the last few years has deteriorated and it’s crucial I do the work I need to do to focus on healing that breach.

  And I do believe you’re aware that there’s a great deal of work to do on that. Therefore, I’ve been doing what I intended to do when I moved to Maine, focusing on just that.

  I don’t wish to hurt or offend you by suggesting you or Mom are distractions, however, I’m sure we all can agree that Olympia and Auden, as well as myself at this current juncture, are the priorities.

  I wish to assure you I’m here. I’m safe. The house is even more wonderful than I thought it would be. I’ve met people and made friends. I’m volunteering. And although the road has been very bumpy, I’m settling and have hope I’ll find happiness here…with Auden and Olympia.

  You have my sincere apologies I didn’t share that with you sooner. I’m sure you were worried and I’m terribly sorry I made you feel those feelings. But I must share now that there may be lapses between you hearing from me because the work I must do must take all my attention. I’ll try not to let the time go on this long before you get an update from me.

  I would enjoy receiving emailed updates from you and Mom as well. I’ll do my best to reply as soon as I can.

  My love to you and please extend that to Mom.

  -Amelia

  I only read it once for typos before sending it.

  I held absolutely no hope that it would stop my father from attempting to get in touch with me to lambast me verbally, but I didn’t care. I was beyond caring. I was tired of being bested. I was tired of allowing myself to feel less than I was. I was tired of being what others wanted me to be and not being me.

  So I did my daughterly duty.

  If Dad couldn’t read that message and decipher what I needed and instead demanded what he needed back from me, he could go jump in a lake.

  I shut down my computer, waltzed back to the kitchen, opened a bottle of wine, poured a glass in one of my exquisite new glasses and walked to my armchair that was made of leather so supple it was buttery.

  I turned on the light.

  Having used up large reserves of courage I didn’t know I had, I didn’t curl up in my chair and call Robin like I should.

  I called my brother.

  It was the right thing to do.

  We both bitched about our parents, Conrad, and I told him about the way my kids were behaving and the things Alyssa and Mickey had said about Conrad and Martine.

  With all of those things, supportive to the last, my big brother forcefully agreed.

  Alas, he was extremely angry at my children, but then again, maybe he (and I) should be.

  In the end, it was exactly what I needed.

  We hung up and I did it smiling.

  All my life, I’d allowed myself to be beaten, even gave away the ammunition to make that so.

  Right then, I was curled in my chair in my elegant shoes and pretty dress with my exquisite wineglass and I decided on yet another part that was me.

  That shit was going to end.

  Completely.

  Chapter Nine

  Nice Dress

  “From the gentleman down the bar…for you,” the bartender said.

  I looked from him down to the fresh cosmopolitan he put in front of me then down the bar at an attractive man with blond hair, a little gray at the temples, his smiling blue eyes on me.

  “Holy shit,” Alyssa said, sitting on a stool at a nice restaurant with a respectable bar one town over called Breeze Point.

  “Lovely,” Josie, sitting on my other side, murmured.

  We were out “trolling” as Alyssa put it, or “having girl time with the possibility of something happening” as Josie put it.

  I decided to think of it as the latter as well as an opportunity to wear another of my going out outfits.

  But at that moment, when the possibility of something happening happened, I didn’t know what to do. I hadn’t had a man buy me a drink in so long that I forgot what I’d done when they did.

  Since my current drink was running low, I lifted it to my lips, finished it and put my fingers to the stem of the glass of the new, shifting my eyes back to the man.

  I smiled.

  He smiled back again.

  “Pure cool,” Alyssa approved.

  “Well done,” Josie did the same.

  I looked to Josie and noted, “He’s only sent this because you both have huge rocks on your fingers.”

  They did. Although Josie’s was a fair sight bigger than Alyssa’s, neither ring failed to state the giver’s intention that these two women were t-a-k-e-n, taken.

  And they were far more attractive than me, both tall, both blonde and both stunning.

  “You say shit like that again, I’m bitch slappin’ some sense into you and don’t you doubt it,” Alyssa muttered.

  I looked to her
to see her eyes squinty on me, but I did doubt it.

  Alyssa would never do that. She’d threaten it repeatedly (if needed), but she’d never do it.

  “You’re hot,” she went on to declare.

  “I’m not a tall, built blonde,” I pointed out.

  “No, you’re a petite, beautiful brunette with big knockers, awesome gams and a great ass even though you pushed out a coupla kids and the rest of you is still too skinny,” she retorted. “Now shut up or I’ll bring a catfight to Breeze Point, I don’t care how ritzy this place is.”

  “She’s right, you know,” Josie said and I looked her way. “There are many varieties of…hot.”

  Josie using a slang word, something she rarely did, made me giggle.

  “Now grab that drink, sister, and get that great ass over to that hot guy,” Alyssa ordered.

  I looked to her in surprise.

  “Me go to him?” I asked.

  “He laid it out,” she said by way of answer. “You got your bitches with you. Don’t make him come over here and lay it out in front of your bitches. It’s already hard enough to put himself out there, buyin’ a drink for a beautiful woman, settin’ himself up for a crash and burn seein’ as he’s cute but you’re all that’s you. Don’t make it harder.”

  I saw her point (though I might not have entirely agreed about “all that’s me”) but I didn’t like this.

  And it struck me that I didn’t like this because I was me.

  I was greedy.

  I wanted it all.

  I wanted a man who had confidence enough in himself not to lay it out but to lay it out. I wanted a man who looked at me and was so drawn to me he’d put himself out there for me. He took the chance to walk over to me with my friends and show me how much he wanted me. I wanted a man who would demonstrate he wanted me so much, he’d do anything to have a shot with me.

  He’d buy me a drink.

  He’d walk over and speak to me.

  He wouldn’t give one thought to “shitting where he lived” because he was my neighbor. Instead, he’d want me so badly he’d throw caution to the wind just for a chance to be with me.

  That’s what I wanted.

  And that was what I would get or I’d take nothing.

  Shock of shocks, I was okay being alone in my big house with mostly me as my company. I wasn’t going to settle for just anybody so I’d be less lonely because I was no longer lonely.