Room to Breathe

by Liz Talley

  “I don’t know how,” she whispered against his lips.

  He released her hands. “You know what you need to do. You just said it. Be real.”

  “But I can’t fix everything that’s messed up. I can be real with you. I can let you see me.”

  Gage stepped away and wiped his mouth. “You can’t use me to make things better for yourself. I can’t exist in some pretend world in your head. I want you, but you have to fix you.”

  Ellery didn’t say anything. The empty space between them felt profound.

  Gage watched her. “Do you understand? What we just did is a temporary fix to make you feel better.”

  “But a good one,” Ellery said, feeling aggravated. Why did he have to think? She didn’t want to examine anything other than the way their bodies fit each other. She needed something good, even if it was wrong. Just one little bit of something that made her forget her life.

  His laugh was almost bitter. “Babe, I’ve known women like you. I know what you want. I can give you that, but the thing is, I’m sorta done with putting myself out there so someone like you can get off and feel good about herself. I want more in life, Ellery.”

  “What are you even saying?” she asked, her gaze narrowing.

  “I’m saying don’t use me. I’m saying fix your shit. And I’m saying when you figure out what you really want, then come see me. Until then”—he took her forearm, pulled her from the door, and opened it—“don’t let the door hit you on the ass.”

  “Gage, I wasn’t . . .” Ellery’s words died because she didn’t have the words. She didn’t think she needed words . . . she wanted action. She wanted to capture what she’d felt beside that moon-soaked lake last night. Standing with him beside that water had been the best she’d felt in forever. She wasn’t using him. Not really. He made her sound like a horrible person, and she wasn’t.

  “I’m not a Band-Aid, Ellery. You can’t patch over the bad with someone like me. It’s not fair. It’s not healthy. If you want to talk, I can do that. But I’m not going to screw you and then watch you sashay away with the guy who gave you a big diamond because you’re too afraid of living honestly. That’s what I’m saying.”

  Ellery swallowed and tried to stop the angry tears gathering in her eyes. Back to square one on the crying thing. Back to the starting line on the race through a shit-strewn uphill path. Back to feeling out of control in the worst of ways. “I don’t know how to do what you want me to do.”

  “That’s the thing, babe. This isn’t about what I want. This is about you stripping all this shit away until you’re down to bare bones. This is about you examining who you are and then deciding who you truly want to be. You may not understand what I’m saying, but I hope you do. I hope you want more than what you’ve allowed yourself. Because, Ellery, I want you, but if I’m going to have you, I want all of you.”

  His words did something to her. I want all of you.

  Pursing her lips together, she rounded the open door, passing by him as he held it open. “Thanks for the insight, Dr. Phil. And so you know, I wasn’t trying to use you.”

  “Maybe not, but you would have.”

  At that moment she hated him because she knew he was right. Her life was in shambles, and she reached for someone to save her. The sexy bartender who seemed to see right through her could have made her feel better, but she hadn’t given one thought to what it might have done to him to give her the sweet escape she needed. Her hand curled into a fist, and she thought about hitting him, which was the most idiotic response she’d ever had, but the truth he’d handed her was almost too much to take. Anger laced with humiliation trampled her common sense.

  How dare he kiss her like that and then lecture her as if she were a child?

  He noticed her closed fist and caught her hand before she disappeared through the doorway. Uncurling it, he reached into his back pocket and pulled out a Sharpie. Capturing the cap between his too-white teeth, he put the pen to her palm. Then he curled it back closed. “Call me when you’re ready.”

  Then he walked back to the bar.

  “In your fucking dreams,” she called back, slamming the door, wanting to rub off the phone number he’d written on her skin . . . but also praying she didn’t smudge the number because obviously she was completely nuts.

  She stood in the foyer of the winery looking at the glass door of the gift shop. She had the irrational urge to kick the door. But then Marin, Evan’s sister, appeared outside the winery’s main door. She juggled two grocery bags and a ring of keys. She paused when she saw Ellery standing in the foyer, looking, no doubt, angry as a spitting cat.

  The older woman opened the unlocked door, looking confused, but managed a passable smile. “Uh, hi. Can I help you?”

  “Only if you have Xanax and a time machine,” Ellery said, hurrying past her.

  “You and me both, sweetheart,” Marin called as Ellery headed for the exit.

  Ellery didn’t stick around to apologize. Instead she hustled toward the winding staircase that would take her back to Vine House. Where her keys sat on the dresser next to the “do me” red lipstick she’d carefully painted on last night.

  Only one thought pounded in her head.

  Run.

  She couldn’t deal with touring the vineyard with her mother like what had happened that morning was no big deal, and the thought of bumping into Clay made vomit rise in her throat. Josh would be off to Shreveport to meet his precious study group, and though her friends had made such a sweet effort on her behalf, she was almost certain they were as happy about a free weekend out of town as they were about celebrating Ellery’s birthday. But the absolute biggest reason that she had to run was because she’d just thrown herself at a guy who obviously had the moral conscience of a priest.

  He’d told her to get her shit together and then come see him. Ha. Screw him. Like she needed him to tell her that her life was shitty. She knew that.

  So Ellery Witt did something wholly immature, totally selfish, and freaking spineless. She climbed into the Lexus her father had bought her and pecked out an email to Evan.

  Dear Evan,

  I’m not the person you think I am. I should have been more up front with you from the beginning. You’re a nice guy and don’t deserve to be jerked around. I am having some issues and can’t pull myself away tonight. Please understand that my life is crazy right now. Has nothing to do with you. You’ve been great.

  Dee Dee O’Hara

  Ellery stared at the way she’d signed the email and wondered if she should have put something different. Not having an answer, she hit the send button, put her car into drive, and drove away from everything that knotted so hard in her life that she would never get it untangled.

  CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

  “Hey, boy. Did you miss me?” Daphne asked, setting the braided leash on Tippy Lou’s bar and stooping to rub Jonas behind the ears. Her dog gave her a very calm lick and then sank onto his haunches and sighed. No doubt he longed to stay with the woman who fed him broth, rice, and pumpkin over the canned diet food he’d been prescribed by the vet. “Ready to go home?”

  Tippy looked up from where she seemed to be balancing her checkbook. “Of course he’s not ready. He’s in love with me.”

  “Everyone is in love with someone who spoils them the way you do that dog. Thanks for letting him stay here with you.”

  Tippy made a chuffing noise and gave a nod. “Tea’s on. Have a cup, and tell me about what’s going on.”

  “Well, I think the best description of what is going on is a shit show.”

  Tippy smirked and readjusted her readers. “I surmised as much from the expression on your face. Your aura is putrid, honey.”

  “Yeah, I would say that’s accurate.” Daphne managed a wry smile as she made her way to the kitchen, Jonas dogging her steps.

  “Did you find Ellery?” Tippy asked.

  “Sort of.” Daphne blew out a breath and sank onto the stool opposite Tippy. Jonas moved to a patch
of sunlight streaming through Tippy’s sliding glass door. Outside the world was bright and shiny, a foil to the storms brewing inside Daphne. She needed to stop the coming rains, but she had no clue how to abate the changing winds or redirect the dark clouds on the horizon. Ellery wasn’t answering her texts, emails, or calls. “She went to Dallas. Rex called the credit card company and got them to check for activity. I think she treated herself to room service and nothing more. The last twenty-four hours have been about as awkward as I can ever remember. Eh, maybe telling my parents I was pregnant at sixteen was worse, but this was a close second. Throwing a party for someone who bails is a little uncomfortable. No one to blow out the candles.”

  Tippy Lou gave a flash grin, took off her readers, and set them on the bar. “Ellery’s being an asshole.”

  Daphne shrugged. “Maybe she’s got cause to be.”

  “That’s what you think?” Tippy asked, rising and walking toward the stove, where a red teakettle happily chortled. Snagging two cups and a few tea bags, Tippy came back and poured the water. Dropping in a tea bag, she shoved it toward Daphne. A fragrant curl of steam unfurled, automatically making Daphne feel better. Somehow a cup of tea always made things look a little brighter. “How do you figure?”

  “Well, for one thing, she caught me with Clay.”

  “Whoop-de-do. I mean, you’re a person, Daphne. Not her virgin mother,” Tippy said, sinking back onto her stool and pushing her checkbook aside. “Big deal. Everyone has sex . . . or at least wish they could again.”

  “Don’t act like you’re too old to have sex, Tippy. You’re in your sixties. Not dead.”

  Tippy laughed. “I’m not too old. I’m too set in my ways. And weird. Don’t forget weird.”

  Daphne smiled. “You’re wonderfully weird.”

  “I’ve always thought so,” Tippy said, flipping her gray braid across her shoulder in dramatic fashion. “But we digress. We’re talking about your daughter’s unwillingness to accept that you are a person. And that she herself, in fact, is a grown-up. Grown-ups don’t pitch fits and run away merely because they disagree with what a person—mind you, an adult person who has every right to have some happiness—does. She has no right to approve or disapprove of your life. Thus she’s being an asshole.”

  “Tippy, she’s my daughter. And this isn’t a cut-and-dried situation. There are a lot of nuances—her failure to get the internship, her fiancé ignoring her, and her father cutting her off. Add to that me messing around with Clay, and that’s a lot to take in. For heaven’s sake, she came into my room, and I was half-undressed with the man.”

  “Well, bully for you, my dear.” Tippy cupped her teacup and leveled a hard stare at Daphne. That look in her eyes was one she’d used on Daphne for too many years to name. When Daphne had lost her mother when Ellery was three years old, Tippy had made a concerted effort to fill the shoes of the woman she’d been best friends with for years. Tippy and Daphne’s mother, Norma, had grown up together, more sisters than neighbors. As Norma lay dying of breast cancer, she’d made Tippy Lou promise that she would look after both Daphne and Ellery. Tippy didn’t make promises lightly.

  Ellery loved Tippy Lou and her outrageous and horrible sense of style. One would think Ellery would find overalls and tie-dye offensive to her stylish sensibilities, but her daughter loved to visit Tippy, curling up on her green tweed couch to read feminist tomes or flip through old photo albums, smiling at the faded photos of days past. Ellery agreed with almost everything Tippy Lou suggested, whether it was voting women into political office or planting verbena in the hanging baskets on the front porch, and Tippy Lou had adored Ellery from the time she crawled across the linoleum with her hair in blonde pigtails to the time she opened her college graduation gift and cooed over the vintage Yves Saint Laurent scarf. Still, that didn’t mean that Tippy Lou didn’t know Ellery’s (or Daphne’s) flaws and point them out whether she was asked or not.

  “I didn’t want her to find out about Clay, and I damn sure didn’t plan to repeat the mistake I made with him,” Daphne said, renewed misery pressing in on her. Everything was so . . . awful, and she didn’t know what to do about it.

  “So why was your shirt unbuttoned?”

  “Because he was consoling me.” Daphne looked at her teacup.

  Tippy Lou laughed so hard she nearly fell off her stool. “Oh, well, then. Clay should get hired on at Coburn’s Funeral Home. People would no doubt pay double to be consoled by him when their loved ones bite the dust.”

  “Stop laughing.”

  Tippy wiped her eyes. “Okay, okay. I’m sorry, but that was funny.”

  “I didn’t mean he was actually consoling me. It’s just that Rex showed up and acted like an ass on Friday night, embarrassing me in front of a very cute and very single vineyard owner. Then Rex invited me to sit with him at breakfast and proceeded to tell me all about his financial problems. Then—”

  “Wait,” Tippy interrupted, holding up a hand. “Rex, the best businessman on the face of the planet, is having financial problems? Of course, I know exactly why. It’s called pussy.”

  “Tippy.” Daphne frowned. “Stop using that language.”

  “Why? That’s his problem. I know Cindy and her tastes. She had her hand out before she spread those legs. I heard they’ve been traveling all over the world wearing matching Rolexes. Ain’t that cute? And let me guess . . . he wants you to fix it for him.”

  Daphne wanted to argue with Tippy but couldn’t because the older woman had hit the bull’s-eye. “You’re good. You should have been a detective.”

  Tippy Lou’s eyes danced. “Can you imagine me being a detective? I would end up in jail ’cause I would have to slap someone . . . or kill them. People are too stupid for me to be carrying around a gun. I’d do us all a big favor and clear out the shallow gene pools.”

  Daphne stared at her fingers curved around the mug. “Yeah, let’s not give you a badge or gun just yet. Besides, Rex is a good businessman as long as someone is there to remind him that what is in his checkbook isn’t what he is actually worth. I was the one who had to monitor his desire for a bass boat or a new hunting rifle. But anyway, Ellery overheard me fussing at Rex for paying all of her bills instead of making her do it. She was angry that we were talking about her, and then she said something that flabbergasted me. Ellery accused me of cheating on Rex.”

  “What?” At that Tippy finally stopped looking gleeful. Color flooded her cheeks, and anger crackled in her normally serene eyes. “How in the world did she get that idea? Oh, wait, I know.”

  Daphne caught Tippy Lou’s eye, and in unity they both said, “Rex.”

  “He implied that when I was traveling for a writing conference I betrayed him. Have you seen the guys who go to children’s writing conferences? I mean, there are a few decent ones in the bunch, but a Clay Caldwell they ain’t.”

  “And Rex told Ellery that you cheated on him? I can’t believe that shit.”

  Daphne blew out a breath and took another sip of tea. “Oh, he tried to back out of it by saying he never said for certain, but it was as plain as the nose on my face that he’d led Ellery to believe that garbage. I don’t know. It just upset me that she would think that I would do something like that. How could she think I would end my marriage because I wanted to get laid?”

  Tippy picked up her cup and sipped. For a few seconds, the older woman stared out the window where the autumn sunlight danced through the dying trees. “You know, Ellery has had a lot of trouble accepting your career. It’s always been odd to me that a girl who claims to be progressive and forward thinking would get so caught up in a net of familiarity that she would forget it’s a net.”

  “I don’t follow.”

  “Ellery claims to be a feminist, but she’s not putting that claim into practice. She creates the perception of a career woman determined to succeed while at the same time holding on to traditional norms. You were a mother who sacrificed all for a daughter. You worked so she could have ballet
lessons, tutoring for AP calculus, and clothes for formals. Ellery liked you as you were because she understood your role. You were her mother, and that meant in itself an ultimate sacrifice for her pleasure. When you signed your first book contract, Dixie Doodle began to compete with her for your time. Traveling as Dee Dee O’Hara meant you were sharing yourself with other little girls. You weren’t always at mother-daughter sorority teas, soccer playoff games, and you sometimes couldn’t bake the cheer squad cookies. Maybe you stopped sending her little ‘thinking of you’ gifts and stopped surprising her with visits to the spa. She may have said it was no big deal when you apologized, but deep down she noticed and didn’t like that you weren’t the same mother you’d always been. She started building up resentment against your career. Pair that with the fact her career never left the gate, and you can see why it was easy for her to believe Rex. Easy for her to be angry at you.”

  Daphne sat stunned at her friend’s insight. Ellery was angry because Daphne hadn’t given her the attention she thought she deserved? Or angry because she thought she deserved the success Daphne had? “I always thought she was pleased about my success. I spent so much time feeling embarrassed that I wasn’t a career gal like her friends’ moms. Yeah, I had to sacrifice some things, but I didn’t think she cared. Ellery always seemed annoyed when I volunteered or made a fuss.”

  Then she remembered Ellery’s words from a few months ago . . . something about it being unfair that Daphne had bumbled into something she hadn’t even planned for, but that someone like Ellery, who had prepped and planned for her life, had failed. Daphne had wondered about the envy laced in that comment.

  “Never had kids, but I taught a few. They say one thing and mean another. They push, they pull. They’ll tell you the truth you don’t want to hear, and they’ll lie as easy as a hot knife through butter.” Tippy sat back and folded her hands over her broad stomach. Her brown eyes watched Daphne.