* * *
The weights clattered to the floor where I let them fall, sweating and exhausted after too many reps to keep count. I caught my breath for a minute, stretching my arms over my head and behind my back. The tension in my neck and back were for a different reason now, but it didn’t distract from my thoughts of Liza. It had been a whole week since I talked to her and my thoughts were never far from the slump of her shoulders or look on her face as she exited my car. I was icing her out again, I knew it and I was sure she did too, but I couldn’t pick up the phone and call her until I figured out what the hell I was doing. Or until Frank called with the results of the damn paternity test.
Wiping the sweat from my forehead with the back of my hand, I stood up and returned my gym to its original order, then gathered my towel and headed back to my room to take a shower. That long weekend off left me swamped at work and I had been playing catchup since then. It didn’t help that every second I spent thinking about Liza was a second I didn’t spend on matters of getting my second hotel off the ground, or the spring line ready for Fashion Week in two months.
Of course, I had people to do that but I liked to have a hand in it myself, and all of this distraction was playing hell with my involvement in the Lori Radcliffe clothing line. The last several days were spent holed up in my office, refusing calls as I made changes here and there and looked over design drawings for the new Lorelei set to open in early spring. Aunt Beatrice was the first person I talked to all week that wasn’t related to work, and yet, she was somehow related to work.
Once in my room, I stripped off my sweaty clothes and tossed them in the hamper, then flipped on the shower to the hottest setting I could possibly stand. The sound of my phone ringing from the bedroom made me cringe. I wanted to ignore it, to pretend it didn’t exist, but there was a small part of me that thought it may be Liza. The thought was irrational, especially since I told her I would call her and I knew she would abide by that, but I almost hoped she would call me. I needed to hear her voice, I longed for it, and because of this, I traipsed back into my room, fully naked, and snatched the phone from where I left it on my bed.
“Radcliffe,” I barked into the phone because, once again, I forgot to check to see who was calling before answering.
“Jackson.” The voice on the other end was feminine, but not the one I hoped for. Quite the opposite, actually.
I blew out an irritated breath, the way a bull would before it charges, before responding.
“What do you want, Natalie?” I was being harsh but I didn’t care. I had no patience for the woman’s games today, after all she had already done.
“I need to speak with you, in person.” She was curt but the usual venom and ire were missing from her voice. It caught me off guard for a minute.
“We have nothing to say to each other if you won’t sign those papers.” I didn’t mince words.
I heard a sigh on the other end and muffled sobs as if the mouthpiece of the phone were covered. I waited because this was not usual behavior for Natalie. The only tears I ever saw from her were those of manipulation.
“I, uh, I have something I need to say to you but I don’t want to do it over the phone,” she said, her voice scratchy and catching on the last word.
“Why?” I asked the question genuinely because nothing made sense anymore.
“It’s about the baby and the divorce. Please, Jackson.”
It was my turn to sigh. “Fine. Give me a half hour and I’ll meet you at your office.” I started to hang up without a response when I heard her voice again.
“No, no, I’m not at my office. I’m at the children’s hospital. Meet me there. Ask for me at the front desk and I’ll come down.” Natalie rushed the words out, breathless, before I heard the phone disconnect.
I stared at the phone for a minute before tossing it back onto the bed and returning to the bathroom. Natalie was acting out of character but she said she was at the children’s hospital so it was safe to assume her baby was still there. I wanted to feel bad for her, or the child, but my heart was so hardened against her, I felt nothing. The urge to return to my phone and call Liza hit me but I ignored it. I had to see what Natalie wanted first before I could see Liza again.
I had to make a decision, to man the fuck up and determine if I could give my whole self to Liza before I pushed away the best person I ever met. I had to determine if Liza would even want me after all that I had done. I stepped into the shower, my mind whirring in every direction as the hot water scalded my back.
I had to make a choice.
“And it’s been a week?” Nicolette asked me with confusion, her face mirroring mine.
I nodded. “He hasn’t called me, again.”
It felt like déjà vu as I went through the motions this week, waiting, hoping it wouldn’t be like last time when Jackson didn’t call or text me all week. But it was, and I was left stewing, my heart fissuring while he did it again.
“Why am I always waiting for him?” I said it aloud but I was asking myself more than Nicolette.
She shrugged, answering me. “Why do we do anything?” But I could tell her mind was on something, or someone, else as well.
We sat there on my bed for another five minutes, not speaking or looking at one another but commiserating on the state of our love lives in silence. After a bit, she stood up, smoothing her slacks before walking to the door.
“I have a meeting at nine so I probably should go. You’re not working today?” She stopped in the doorway and looked past me, to the window that overlooked an alley, her mind a thousand miles away.
I shook my head. “I am, but not early. We have an in-service. No kids today.”
Nicolette nodded, but I wasn’t sure she actually heard what I said. Giving me a backward wave, she walked from the room and the sound of the apartment door closing behind her came moments later. I was alone. Alone with my thoughts and fears, and no outlet for them. It was too cold to go for a run and I had to be to work in a half hour anyway. I longed to lace up my shoes and pound my way through Manhattan, despite the cold, but I woke up too late and now I had to get ready for work.
With a huff, I stood up and went to my closet, my eyes trailing to where I left my phone on the night table. The compulsion to call Jackson gripped me, as it had several times that week, but I refused to be the desperate woman who wouldn’t let him go. If he wanted to speak to me, he would call me, and he obviously didn’t want to. This was what I repeated to myself over and over as I got dressed, gathered my things, and headed to catch the train to Brooklyn. Jackson didn’t want me, or so it seemed. He made it abundantly clear when he dropped me off after we returned from France, and he was making it even clearer by his radio silence.
I hugged my coat to myself against the cold blast of air that tried to invade as I walked up the steps from the subway and onto the streets of Brooklyn, heading towards the school. As December wore on, the temperatures continued to drop and my mood right with it. The sun and cloudless sky didn’t help my mood, only making me wish for dark and sleep. I was glad, for the first time, that it got dark after four p.m. because I couldn’t handle the sun’s cheer when all I wanted was to sink into oblivion. By the time I reached my classroom, I had sunk into a mire of self-pity I knew was not healthy. I had a whole day of meetings and grading to get through, and what I really wanted was to climb into bed and pull the covers over my head.
The first few days of Jackson’s ice out, I wanted to change his mind, to make him see we were meant for each other; that despite everything and everyone who were trying to tear us apart, we had to be together. He made me feel things no one had ever made me feel before. I felt safe, loved, sated, and needed, all at the same time, even when he was distant, even when he was aggravatingly short-sighted, even though he still kept things from me about his past. I felt alive with Jackson in a way I hadn’t felt in years despite friends and a job I loved. My mother leaving left a hole in my chest. One that made me feel as if I were unwor
thy of love, but Jackson filled that hole in a way no one else had. I wished I could make him see it. I wanted to make him see it. Those first few days, I composed emails and text messages I never sent, rehearsed phone conversations in my head and never called. But after three days and not a word, the doubt crept back in.
Jackson didn’t want me. It was just sex. He used me. Fooled me.
The negative thoughts reigned—those of a little girl whose mother didn’t want her, who had morphed into a woman who determined the man she finally realized she loved didn’t want her either.
“You ready?”
The voice pulled me from the depths of my thoughts, so deep I didn’t even recognize I was at work, sitting at my desk in front of a blank computer screen. I looked up at my colleague, her smiling face friendly, and I forced a smile.
“Give me a minute to get organized,” I said to her as I gathered my notepad and a pen for the faculty meeting.
I needed to get my head out of my ass and pay attention. If it was over with Jackson, I had to let him go and not let the thoughts of him pull me so far down I couldn’t get on with my life.
* * *
“That’s all for today, folks. Let me know if anyone has any questions or needs help. For now, you can break for lunch and work in your classrooms for the rest of the day.” The principal wrapped up her final thought and dismissed us.
I looked at my notepad and frowned. Clearly, my little pep talk earlier meant nothing, as I had random snippets of the meeting and doodles and scribbles all over two pages. My mood still grim, I headed back to my classroom and was greeted by my vibrating phone in the drawer of the desk. My heart skipped a beat for a minute, hoping it was Jackson though I knew it likely wasn’t. Not after all this time. I wanted to ignore it and get on with my day, forgoing lunch to finish up with my lessons and grades so I could leave early but seconds after the vibrating stopped, it began again.
I answered with an aggravated sigh. “Hello?”
“Liza.”
It was Jackson. My heart stuttered before it began to hammer in my chest. I forgot to look at the display before I answered. Had I known it was him would I still have answered? I liked to think the answer was no but I knew better.
“Jackson.” I tried to say his name with indifference but it came out breathless, like I was relieved for his call.
He paused a minute before he started speaking again, and I cursed myself for saying his name in that way.
“Liza, I have something to tell you.” He was being cryptic and I was getting frustrated.
“What is it?” I snapped. I wasn’t in the mood for the games of Jackson Radcliffe this morning. I needed a break from it all to begin to heal and move on.
“I don’t want to tell you over the phone. Can you meet me somewhere?” His voice was desperate, urgent, and I wondered if he felt the same turmoil I did about seeing him again.
I fought the irritation that was building in my chest because just hours before, I was done and ready to forget about him, and now he was drawing me back in, again. I couldn’t keep going on this way, with him deciding when and where he wanted to see me before disappearing for days at a time.
“I don’t know, Jackson.” I said it with conviction but my stomach clenched with the idea of never seeing him again.
“Please, Liza. I have a lot to tell you. I know I’ve not been very open with you, but I really need to see you.”
Jackson had never pleaded with me before. Usually, he ordered and grumbled and wanted his way. I think, this time, he understood he messed up, that he pushed me beyond what I could tolerate from him. Resisting the urge to fall for his charms, I decided to hear him out at least.
“Okay. Fine. I’ll meet you. But I’m not making any promises.” I had to stick to my guns.
“I’m not asking you to. I didn’t mean to…”
“When and where?” I cut him off because I wasn’t in the mood to hear what he had to say yet.
Jackson sighed loudly but I ignored it. “Meet me at my apartment in an hour.”
“I’m at work.” I could leave early, I was basically done for the day, but I didn’t want him to think I could drop everything for him.
“When are you available?” He was being too accommodating. Something was wrong.
It was my turn to sigh. “Fine. I’ll meet you in an hour at your building.”
“Thank you,” he said. The way he said it was the same way he whispered it in my ear that night in France, and my heart constricted at the memory.
I hung up the phone, anxiety creeping in. Thoughts swirled in my head at what he could have to say to me, after a whole week of no contact. Maybe he heard from his lawyer about the paternity test. Acid churned in my gut at the thought the baby was his. It didn’t matter though. None of it mattered, because I wasn’t going to succumb to it this time. I was going to hear what he had to say, and then cut off contact. For good.
Liza’s tone wasn’t encouraging and I stared at the phone for a good ten minutes after she hung up because I had no one to blame but myself. I had pushed her away, over and over again, for self-preservation. I was selfish and bullish and refused to let her into my innermost secrets. Secrets Natalie kept and lorded over me, threatening to ruin everything I worked so hard to accomplish. But something changed when we met and I came to a realization. Over an hour had passed since I met with Natalie, and Liza was the first person I had to speak to after our odd exchange.
I met Natalie in the lobby of the hospital and didn’t recognize her at first. Her raven-colored hair was greasy and hung limp and unwashed down her back. She wore an oversized sweatshirt and leggings with a pair of old UGG boots, and was wringing her hands in front of her as she approached me.
“Thank you for coming.” Her eyes darted here and there, the dark smudges underneath making her look like a zombie against the ashen color of her skin.
She wasn’t wearing makeup. I had never seen Natalie in such a state and for a minute, I was speechless.
“What is this about?” I asked her as she motioned for me to follow her.
We walked down a long hallway, which was surprisingly deserted at this time of day, and made a right into another small hallway where a bank of elevators announced they led to the D floor. Natalie stabbed the button and wrapped her arms around her abdomen, which was unexpectedly tiny for someone who just gave birth, and waited. We stood in silence, not speaking as the elevators opened and we stepped in.
“Where are we going?” I finally asked when the elevator stopped three floors up and she stepped out.
“To see the baby.”
She didn’t say anything else, only kept walking with purpose down the hall. My stomach clenched. Was this her way of telling me that the baby was mine? I didn’t want to see it, didn’t want to make an already difficult situation more so by having to acknowledge a child I didn’t want with a woman I despised.
I froze in the hallway just before a set of large closed double doors that you apparently needed to be buzzed into before entering.
“Wait. Natalie, I can’t do this.” My hands began to sweat and I wiped them on my jeans with irritation.
“He’s not yours, Jackson.” She spat the words at me with irritation before shaking her head and looking down at the floor.
Relief swamped me, with an undercurrent of guilt I tried to deny.
“What am I doing here then?” I had to know what she was up to. What this whole damn charade was about.
“I…” She glanced at the door with unease before turning back to me. “I can’t be away for too long. That’s why I asked you here to talk. Please, I have to go back in.” She motioned to the door and I nodded with a sudden understanding.
Natalie was off-kilter, out of her element, and hurting for a child that had been born too soon. In all the years I knew her, I never saw such genuine emotions from her and this was what was throwing me about the whole visit.
“Okay,” I mumbled the words because I was unable to say anythi
ng else.
Natalie hunched her shoulders against an imaginary cold and moved forward, pressing the buzzer before it sounded, and the doors swung open towards us. I followed her around a sad room filled with tiny incubators and even tinier babies, all of them hooked up to machines. The whole ward was silent minus the beep of machines; parents huddled around the little creatures that needed the sterile contraptions to live, and my heart ached for the first time for Natalie in a way I never thought it would. She had been vile and manipulative to me but she didn’t deserve this.
“This is him,” she said, stopping just inside of a doorway, and pointed towards an incubator where a baby that was as big as the palm of my hand lay with tubes and wires covering his body, his little chest rising and falling mechanically.
I cringed because I couldn’t look at him but I couldn’t look away, and my throat ached with tears I didn’t know I had in me.
“Natalie, I’m so sorry.” I uttered the words quietly, afraid to disturb the baby.
She shrugged, wrapping her arms around her middle again, as if to ward off a chill that didn’t exist in the stiflingly hot room.
“I never thought…” she started, her voice catching on a sob, and she turned away from me, her shoulders hunching forward as they shook silently.
I didn’t know what to do or how to respond, so I stood there, my hands at my sides, and waited for her to explain why she brought me here into her room of pain and suffering.
“What’s his name?” I finally managed to ask after clearing my throat around a large lump.
“It’s Christopher, after my father.” Her eyes finally met mine and I nodded.
“A good, strong name,” I said, in hopes that the comment itself would give strength to the tiny being fighting for his life.
“I’m so sorry, Jackson.” Natalie finally uttered the words I never thought she would say in all the years of knowing her. “I have been so awful to you for so many years. It took something like this for me to realize how fragile life is, and to understand that I had no right to try to manipulate and control you the way I have.”
One Night Page 26