Wooing Cadie McCaffrey

by Bethany Turner

  Finally, a sad smile began to form on her lips, and he had to ask. “What?”

  “You’re such a good guy, and I’m sorry things didn’t work out. I really am. But you know I can’t tell you anything. That’s not my place—”

  “You’re her best friend!”

  She nodded. “Exactly. And I never should have interfered in the first place.”

  “You mean the list?” he asked. “That’s . . . yeah, I need to go back to the movies, I guess. Maybe you can help me figure out which ones in particular—”

  “No, Will.” Darby grabbed his hands to cut him off. “No. That was a bad idea. I’m sorry. I thought it would be good, but . . .” She took a deep breath and squeezed his hands firmly. “It’s over. She’s out there today, starting her new life. It’s time to let her go.”

  18

  Three Weeks Later (When Cadie Actually Started Her New Life)

  Nope. No, Darby, you can’t let Enzo get into that habit with you.”

  “But he said—”

  “Oh, let me guess what he said. Depending on the mood he was in, I’m pretty sure it was either, ‘Swoosh and I see eye-to-eye on this,’ or ‘I know you don’t understand the precedents at play, but I don’t have time to explain the law to you. This isn’t Boston Legal.’”

  She laughed. “How to Get Away with Murder, but yeah.”

  I touched the button on the screen to put the call on speaker and then set my phone down on the couch beside me so I could pull on my pantyhose. Pantyhose! Ugh. Though I had undoubtedly dressed for success every single day of my career at ASN, I had long ago begun wearing slacks most days. In addition to plain practicality, wearing slacks had also carried with it the joy of only requiring the appropriate-for-grandmas but non-chafing-and-less-restrictive knee-high stockings. Reinforced toe and all. Alas, not today.

  “At least he stays up on his legal shows. Before me it was probably Ally McBeal, and LA Law before that.”

  “So he’s playing me?” she asked with a sigh.

  “He’s totally playing you, Darb, but don’t sweat it. It’s not personal. That’s just Enzo. He’s going to test the waters and see what he can get away with.” I stood and pulled my pantyhose up over my hips and then lowered my dress back into place and smoothed the creases. “Everything else going okay?”

  Her side of the call was so quiet that I wondered for a moment if I had lost her.

  “When you ask that,” she finally said, “what are you asking?”

  I chuckled as I grabbed the phone from the couch and carried it with me into my walk-in closet to slip on my shoes. “I’m asking if everything else is going okay.”

  “But do you mean work, or—”

  “Since when do you and I have to clarify which aspect of our lives we’re talking about? We just talk, right?” She was silent again, and the line suddenly felt tense. “I don’t have time to explain friendship to you. This isn’t Friends.”

  She giggled, and the tension disappeared as quickly as it had arrived. “You’re right. Although . . .” She cleared her throat. “It is a little bit like after Ross and Rachel broke up. You know?”

  “It’s fine.” I stepped into my best black pumps and took one last look in the mirror on the back of the door before grabbing my purse and returning to the main room. I took her off speaker and put the phone to my ear. “I don’t want you to feel weird about it. I mean, I don’t know that I need updates on his personal life or anything, and please don’t tell me if he and Anna climb Kilimanjaro, but I’m good with the work stuff. Really.”

  “For the record, I still don’t think anything is going on between him and Anna.”

  “La la la la la!” If I’d been talking to her in person I would have plugged my ears with my fingers to further demonstrate my point. “I just said I don’t need updates on his personal life.”

  “I know!” She laughed and talked louder—probably in case I did actually have my fingers jammed in. “But this isn’t an update—it’s a retraction.”

  “Even if that’s true, it doesn’t change a thing, Darb. I refuse to be that girl who doesn’t want a guy but doesn’t want anyone else to have him, either.”

  “I get that,” she replied. “I just think that if you guys had actually tried to talk things through—”

  “He did try, remember? And I would have none of it.”

  My three weeks of unemployed solitude had allowed me to do a lot of thinking, and the one thought I kept coming back to time and time again was that none of it was simple. Yes, I probably should have been more open to talking with him—after we slept together, after we broke up, before I quit ASN. But looking at all of that through the lens of hindsight, with the luxury of distance and a few weeks of healing, could make it all appear so much simpler than it actually was.

  If only we’d talked. If only we hadn’t had sex. If only I’d focused, in the moment, on the great lengths he was going to, attempting to win me back. If only I’d kissed him on the Staten Island Ferry.

  Those were all very good if onlys, and it was an appealing notion—the thought of letting the if onlys, in all their simplicity, overtake the more complicated truths. Because romance is one thing, and God’s grace is bigger than our sin, but I still had no idea if Will truly loved me quite enough to want to spend the rest of his life with me, or if his attempts to win me back stemmed from guilt and regret and a desire to turn back time.

  Again, simplicity was very appealing. Maybe we could turn back time. Put God back into our relationship where we’d set him aside. Maybe we could both forgive—each other, ourselves—and find a way to pick up where we left off. Only now we’d be a little wiser. A little more cautious. A little more appreciative of what we’d always loved about each other, and what had made us so good together. Maybe we’d even be engaged, if that’s what he thought it would take. But if I still couldn’t be sure that he loved me enough for a shared vision of forever, how long would it be until more turned into still not enough?

  I shook my head. For my own benefit, I guess. “Darb, can I ask you a question?”

  “Of course.”

  I took a deep breath and prepared to unleash a few of my solitary thoughts. “Do you think God has specific people he wants us to be with?”

  “Yes,” she replied without hesitation. “Mine is Prince Harry.”

  I blinked. “Um, not sure if you heard, but he’s kind of married now. Don’t feel bad about not knowing. It was just a small, quiet wedding that didn’t really get a lot of press coverage . . .”

  “Well, you didn’t ask if I thought God was going to get us together, just if he wanted us together.”

  I laughed as I grabbed my keys and walked outside, locking my front door behind me. I turned right and began walking down Bleecker Street.

  “But seriously?”

  I heard her sigh. “Seriously . . . I don’t know. I mean, I don’t think God plays matchmaker or anything. But I guess since he can see the whole plan and the whole big picture, it makes sense to think he knows which relationships will lead to the best outcomes.”

  “That’s where I keep landing too. And I keep thinking maybe Will just isn’t my best outcome.” I rounded the corner onto Christopher Street. “I’m going to have to run. I’m about to go underground.”

  “Okay. Good luck! Remember, you don’t owe anyone anything. You’ve already got two other offers—”

  “One of them is on the other side of Queens. That doesn’t even count.”

  “And about twenty-nine other interviews lined up.”

  “Seven.”

  “So if they don’t offer you what you deserve, you need to walk away.”

  “If they don’t offer me what I deserve, they’ll probably just remind me that they paid for my apartment, and college, and my braces . . .”

  She sighed. “Be that as it may, you’re just going to hear what they have to say. You really don’t have to take the job if it isn’t something you want.”

  “I know. But the pay
for my unused leave is going to run out pretty soon. I need to figure something out.”

  “You took a week to relax, you took a week to submit resumes, and you took a week to field calls from every single company you sent a resume to. You’re not exactly desperate yet, Cadie. You do not have to take this job.” She sighed again. “I’m worried you’re going to somehow get stuck with this job. Are you sure you don’t want me to go with you?”

  “I’m fine!” I laughed. “But thank you. I’ll see you tonight?”

  “Yep. Thoroughly looking forward to getting all Maniloony with you.”

  I took one step back from the stairs descending to the Christopher Street Station to move out of the way of a string quartet attempting to maneuver their instruments through the crowd.

  “I appreciate it, Darb. Really.”

  “Not a big deal. I like Barry Manilow as much as the next girl,” she professed.

  “No, you don’t.”

  “Not if you’re the next girl, no. But as much as most girls I would be next to, probably . . .”

  “See? I don’t even need a boyfriend. I’ve got you! Will would never in a million years be caught at a Barry Manilow concert. And that was before he became someone who people recognize. Now? Not a chance.”

  “But he did give you the tickets,” she countered.

  “Gift-giving was never Will’s problem.” Even as I said the words the image of a conspicuously empty antique ring box floated through my mind as Defense Exhibit A, but that well-intentioned misfire was an exception to the rule. “But how many sports bars did I go to? How many ball games? How many times did I watch Field of Dreams?”

  “You like Field of Dreams.”

  “Of course I like Field of Dreams. But I don’t necessarily believe that all of life’s lessons can be found in Field of Dreams. I don’t get choked up every time Ray Kinsella and his dad play catch.”

  “Then something is wrong with you.” She was quiet for a moment before adding, “Do you think that’s why Will cares about baseball so much?”

  “What do you mean?”

  “I guess I would just assume that he loves Field of Dreams because it’s a baseball movie, but maybe with his dad dying, and that movie meaning so much to him with the father/son stuff . . . maybe that’s where his love of baseball comes from.”

  “Whose side are you on, anyway?” I asked with a chuckle, even if the chuckle was more than a little forced, as I realized there was a very good chance there was at least a little something to Darby’s theory.

  “Yours,” she replied. “Always yours.”

  “That’s better. See you tonight.”

  She stopped me before I could hang up. “Why don’t you meet me at the office? It’s practically on the way—”

  “From Syosset?”

  “Well, nothing is on the way from Syosset, but at least we can ride over together.”

  No matter how desperately I did not want to drop by ASN three weeks after my grand declaration of independence, the siren call of shared cab fare to Brooklyn was irresistible.

  “Okay. I’ll call you from the lobby.”

  It had been at least a year since I had visited my parents at work. The last time I had walked into their network’s studios they hadn’t even been located in Syosset but rather in that exotic Long Island hamlet known as Cold Spring Harbor.

  Truthfully, there is nothing exotic at all about Cold Spring Harbor, but I’d always had a fascination with the name—probably because it was the name of a Billy Joel album. I suppose that wasn’t enough to entice my mother. After years of suffering the garish thirteen-minute commute through meticulously cared-for tree-lined roads, she’d convinced the network to build a satellite location in Syosset. It had been well worth their investment, of course, to keep their biggest star happy.

  “Cadie, is that you?” Eileen Hardwick greeted me the moment I walked through the door. “I didn’t know you were stopping by.”

  Eileen had been my mom’s personal assistant for three decades or so, though my mom didn’t refer to her that way. She thought it was pretentious to have a personal assistant. She seemed to see nothing pretentious, however, in asking her “prayer partner” to fetch her coffee and pick up her dry cleaning.

  “Hi, Eileen.” I opened my arms to receive her hug. “I can’t say with absolute certainty that Mom knew I was coming. I actually have an appointment with my dad.”

  “Look at you.” She was smiling from ear to ear. “You look gorgeous. Absolutely beautiful.” I opened my mouth to thank her for the generous compliment, but before I could get a word out she added, “I imagine the eligible bachelors are just lined up at your door now.”

  Instead of the intended expression of appreciation, a groan escaped. “She told you?”

  “That’s really cute that you thought there was a chance she wouldn’t.” She winked and squeezed my hand before gesturing that I should follow her. “Can I safely assume that you’re here to interview for a job?”

  I sighed, as I had every single time I’d thought about it since two days earlier when my dad had convinced me to at least discuss it with him. “You can. But I’m thinking it’s not a great idea.”

  “I’m thinking it’s a horrible idea!” She entered her code into the key pad on the door and pushed it open once the whirring of the gears ceased. “So tell me, how do we feel about the guy?”

  “What do you mean?”

  “I mean, is he a dirty rotten scoundrel and I should boo and hiss whenever his name is mentioned, or is he the one who got away and I should bow my head in reverence and say a little prayer that it’s not too late?”

  I laughed in spite of myself. “Probably somewhere in between. Maybe he is the one who got away, but I don’t think the prayers are necessary. It’s definitely too late.”

  She stopped walking, and I followed her lead. She turned to face me and said, “Are you sure? If you want me to pray for a miracle—”

  “No!”

  I didn’t mean for my no to burst out with as much vehemence as it did, but I had to shut that down before Eileen got to work. “Prayer partner” may have been a deceptive title for Eileen’s paid position on my parents’ staff, but that didn’t change the fact that she was a fierce prayer warrior whose unceasing faith I had always admired.

  I shook my head, embarrassed, and began to apologize and explain my outburst, but Eileen began laughing.

  “Jill Golding had the same look on her face when I offered to pray for her to get pregnant.”

  “Didn’t Jill Golding have her tubes tied a couple of years ago?” I asked.

  She shrugged. “All things are possible with God.”

  The smile on her face, followed by another wink, allowed me to feel comfortable enough to giggle freely without insulting her. But I stopped giggling as I thought to myself, Not all things, of course.

  As soon as the thought entered my mind, guilt washed over me. My eyes flashed to Eileen, so afraid that her spiritual spidey senses had somehow detected my thought, which I was pretty sure was blasphemous. Thankfully she didn’t seem to notice that anything had changed.

  “You can go on back,” she said, pointing to my dad’s office at the end of the hallway. “I’ll let him know you’re here.”

  “Thanks, Eileen,” I muttered the best I could through my lips, which were clenched to within an inch of their life.

  I hurried down the hall and entered my dad’s office in a flurry of unleashed tears. I immediately shut the door behind me and pulled the mini-blind down over the window in the door.

  “What was that?” I cried aloud. Throughout the course of my life I had said stupid things and thought stupid things—and I had certainly done stupid things—but I couldn’t remember a single sentence ever before making me so overwhelmingly uncertain of who I was.

  Five little words had shaken me on a soul level, and not just because they were words I hadn’t meant to think.

  They were words I hadn’t known I believed.

 
; “There’s my girl.” My dad’s voice greeted me warmly as the door opened.

  I turned to face him, fully aware there was no way to conceal my anguish. I couldn’t even come up with a way to try.

  “Daddy,” I sobbed as I ran to him and threw my arms around his neck.

  “Sweetie, what’s wrong?” he asked with concern and love as he embraced me.

  It had been more than two months since I’d thrown away so much of what I believed in exchange for one night of him. One night of passion. One night of being all that mattered in the world to Will Whitaker. What did I have to show for it?

  I was broken, and the worst part was I suddenly didn’t know if my brokenness was the cause or the effect.

  “I have to tell you something,” I whispered as I buried my head in his shoulder as I had throughout my entire life. I couldn’t look at him, but I needed his help. And I couldn’t think of any way to ask him for his help without telling him everything. “I’m worried you’re going to hate me—”

  “Cadie . . .”

  “At the very least you’re going to be very disappointed. But I don’t know what to do, Daddy.”

  He sighed and pulled out of the hug, grasping the sides of my face in his hands. “I can’t promise I won’t be disappointed, but I can promise that no disappointment in the world could be bigger than my love for you. You know that, right?”

  I nodded, and he took my hand and led me to the couch along the wall. As we sat I heard the unmistakable cadence of Nessa McCaffrey’s high heels approaching on the wood floor. My eyes flew open, and I began making furious attempts to remove the evidence of tears from my face—a hopeless task.

  My dad squeezed my hand and said, “That goes for her too.”

  I knew that was true. I knew how much my mom loved me. But I also knew that there was a very good chance her disappointment would manifest itself in more mortifying ways than my dad’s.

  “Oliver, are you in here?” she asked as she knocked on the door and pushed it open at the same time. She peered around the door and saw us on the couch. “Do my eyes deceive me or is that Cadie McCaffrey I see? Is the big city girl actually gracing Oyster Bay with her presence?” She seemed to suddenly take in the woebegone climate of the room. “What’s wrong? What’s happened? Cadie, are you hurt?”