Pretty Scars

by CD Reiss

  Yet, there I was.

  “Even if you’re right,” I started.

  “I’m right.”

  “Even if you’re right. What am I supposed to do now?”

  “What do you want? If you could do anything, what would it be?”

  “Am I supposed to believe my own parents lied to me? To make sure I married Peter? That’s crazy. I can’t even deal with the fact that Gabriel’s alive now, and when I looked at him—”

  “With the scars. Were they that bad?”

  “Terrible. And I love him. Same as the day he die—was attacked. All the love was just waiting. I was waiting and I didn’t even know it. I’m going to be with him, Margie. I’m not going to let Peter be a consolation prize or put up with his crap out of guilt anymore. This is it.”

  “It’s not that easy.”

  “You said it was just a practical matter.”

  “How does that equate to easy?” She put down her tea and rubbed her hands together. “Want to know a secret?”

  “No. Please.”

  “Remember when I went to study abroad? In Ireland?”

  “Barely.”

  “Kind of sudden, wasn’t it?”

  “Maybe? I was twelve and there were a lot of us running around.”

  “I was pregnant.”

  “Margie! What?”

  My older sister didn’t have children. She’d never have children. And even though she lived with a man she was obviously sleeping with, to me, she was as sexless as a Barbie doll.

  “I know you think I have it easy. But I didn’t. Ireland wasn’t a semester abroad. They shipped me off to a convent in a country where abortion was illegal.”

  “Did you have it?”

  “The baby? Yes.”

  “What happened to her? Him. It. Whatever.”

  “He was born and he was taken away.” She came close to me and held up her finger to stop more questions. “That’s all you need to know. My point is this. Listen closely. What I’m about to tell you is true.” She lowered her hand and leveled her eyes to mine. “Our father will do whatever he has to do to make this family into his image of perfection, and our mother will allow it. Sometimes that protects us. Sometimes, it breaks us. But it’s never, ever with our consent. So I’m asking you. What is your image of your life? What do you want? You can’t fight him by flailing blindly. You need a plan, and you need to execute it around him. And you need to know this. If your vision isn’t his, he will do everything he can to get in the way.”

  I felt like a pinball springing between bumpers.

  Finding Gabriel. Leaving Peter. I had no control. I was subject to the physics of my decisions. Now this? A life-altering lie perpetrated by my own family?

  “So,” she continued. “Before I’m late for work. What do you want?”

  “Gabriel. I don’t care how.”

  “And Peter Thorne. Are you done with him?”

  “Yes.”

  “Okay. Take that. Hold it. That’s your direction. Daddy’s going to do everything to prevent you from leaving, and not just because Catholics don’t accept divorce. Your marriage is something he made, and he’s going to defend it.”

  My sister and Drew were at work, and I sat on the edge of Margie’s couch with my decisions made, coffee cold on the table in front of me, waiting for Los Angeles to wake up. At noon, I picked up the phone. I didn’t need Aiden Klerk anymore. I’d take care of that first.

  “Hi, this is Carrie Thorne. Is Mr. Klerk in?”

  “Hold please.”

  As if a past hope called to me, the hold music was Ballad of Blades. I was about ready to throw the phone when Klerk picked up.

  “Mrs. Thorne.”

  “Mr. Klerk. I wanted to thank you for helping me. But I don’t need your services anymore.”

  “That’s fine. We’ve had a bit of a bump in the road I need to mention before we cancel your retainer.”

  “A bump in the road?”

  “Did you tell your husband you retained me?”

  Could a person freeze and melt at the same time?

  “No.”

  “He approached me last night at a client dinner. I’m quite sure his presence there was not a coincidence.”

  Small again, living with the fear of consequences I couldn’t predict, I pressed my knees together and put my elbows on them as if I wanted to curl into a ball. “What did he say?”

  “He said he knew you hired me and he wanted to know what for.”

  “Oh, God.” I was going to be sick.

  “When I told him it would be unethical to reveal my client list, he said it was his money paying me, and thus his right to know.”

  I couldn’t make a sound.

  “Mrs. Thorne?”

  “I’m here.”

  “I don’t, as a rule, talk about clients. No matter where their money is coming from. He was escorted out. Now, I’m not a betting man, but if I was, I’d put a few dollars on him making it a point to talk to you personally very soon. He was not happy.”

  “Okay.” My agreement was tinged with fear. I wasn’t ready to deal with Peter.

  “We have a team in New York,” he said. “Do you need security?”

  “I don’t know.”

  I’d denied hiring Klerk, but I obviously hadn’t been that convincing.

  “Can I give you a word of advice?” Klerk asked.

  “Please.”

  “The truth is a weapon. It neutralizes whatever’s being held against you. Some people… a certain kind of person… they get vicious when disarmed. There’s no harm in protecting yourself.”

  “Let me think about it.” Having his offer in my pocket gave me the strength to stand up. I wasn’t alone. I didn’t have to take it all on myself.

  “Don’t take too long,” he said.

  “Do you know how he found out I hired you?” I took my cup to the kitchen and poured more coffee.

  “No. But we found something. We followed the money into Adam Brate’s past. To the beginning of his career. When he—quote unquote—came out of nowhere. We found his first booking agent out of London and interviewed him. He said Adam Brate already had enough money to launch and he, the booking agent, said before Adam Brate got his own fees, he was paid… sounds like for six months, through a shell company.” He paused as if he needed to read it to get it right. “ODRSN.”

  The coffee was cold and bitter. I nearly choked on it.

  “Does that ring a bell?” Klerk asked.

  I hadn’t known until that moment if Gabriel’s research into his father’s death and the money behind it was correct. My body bent so I could sit, but there was no chair in the kitchen, so I slid down until I hit the floor, back to the cabinet, knees pressed to my chest.

  “It’s my father’s,” I croaked.

  “Are you sure?”

  “Yes.”

  “Would your father have any reason, two years ago, to give an unknown cellist payments?”

  That night. In Venice.

  I never had any proof he was dead.

  Had Gabriel faked death for the money?

  It was one thing to chase the fantasy that Gabriel had lived through that attack. And another to think… No. That hadn’t been faked. No one could fake that much blood.

  The screams were real.

  Or had they been mine?

  “Mrs. Thorne?”

  “I have to go.”

  I wasn’t going anywhere. I was never going anywhere. I was trapped.

  I wanted to do what Gabriel had done. Disappear into the world with a fake name. Break the life I was given and create a new one from the pieces.

  But that was a childish fantasy. What I needed was reality, so I called my sister.

  “Klerk said Adam Brate got his start with Daddy’s money,” I told her before saying hello.

  “How do you know?”

  “It’s a long story.”

  “I’m off the clock.”

  I sighed and sat on the edge of the bed. She needed as
much information as she needed and no more. “Gabriel’s father was in a lawsuit over some buildings in Atlanta. The money was funneled through ODRSN. It’s a—”

  “I know what it is. Are you sure?”

  “One hundred percent. Our father’s involved. I don’t know how. And the other thing. Peter knows I hired Klerk.”

  “Jesus.”

  “I know. And he still hasn’t called back. He could be anywhere.”

  “I shouldn’t have to say this,” Margie said, “but I will. I didn’t tell Peter or our father anything.”

  “I know it wasn’t you. He was already suspicious.”

  “So where is he?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “Great,” she muttered. “Think like an abuser, Carrie. Where’s Peter?”

  My chest seized before the answer crossed my lips. “On his way.”

  “Is it alarmist to suggest you leave my apartment?”

  “No, I…” I stopped. I wanted to wait for him. Get it over with. Say what needed saying and be done with it. Running away would just prolong the agony. But it was more than possible that I was drunk on the confidence of a decision.

  “Carrie,” Margie said when my pause went too long, “get a hotel. I have cash in the top drawer of my dresser. Don’t use a card.”

  Even after everything, I didn’t believe Peter would hurt me any worse than he ever had.

  No. He’d hurt me. But he wouldn’t harm me. He wouldn’t do anything he couldn’t get away with. He had too much to lose.

  “I’m fine,” I said. “It’s cold out.”

  “I’m sending Drew home,” Margie said.

  “Don’t waste his time. I’m going to call Peter again in an hour and he’s going to pick up. Trust me.”

  “If he doesn’t pick up in an hour, then?”

  “Then you send Drew, or I get a room at the Plaza.”

  “Cash,” she said. “Pay cash. And lock the door.”

  “Fine.”

  “Carrie,” she said before I could hang up. “If you could do anything, what would it be?”

  I laughed at the impossibility of my fantasy, then spoke it out loud.

  Peter didn’t pick up at one, or two in the afternoon. Each time his secretary said he was out, I was relieved because I knew I’d call him again and eventually I’d leave him.

  I was less sure about Gabriel.

  A shower would warm me up and get the scent of rage and shame off my skin.

  The hope I’d held since getting to New York seeped from my heart to my skin, washing off like sweet-smelling filth. Nothing replaced it. It had expanded inside me like a balloon and left hollowness where it had been. My lungs compressed, choking out a breath wet with snot. Tears exploded, mixing with the hot water. All my energy went into my sorrow, draining my legs of strength until I was crouching on the floor of the tub with my face between my knees. I wept at Gabriel’s rejection. The loss of hope. The way I’d been used by people who loved me.

  My fingers were wrinkled and my eyes were painfully swollen when I turned off the water. I knew what I had to do. My path was laid out before me, but I’d walk it with a broken heart.

  I went out to get a late lunch, passed a pizza place, sandwiches, bagels, sushi, barely registering my options as I paced past. The idea of food eclipsed my appetite for it. My mind was on a hamster wheel of what I had decided, what I didn’t know, and what hurt me the most.

  I was leaving Peter and starting fresh. School. A career. My own life. My own decisions. It would be hard at first. My husband had control of every dime in my trust. I didn’t have a salary to sock away or a credit card in my name.

  And my father. My family.

  I didn’t want them to finance a new start.

  But Adam Brate had gotten his start with Drazen money.

  Gabriel was Adam Brate.

  If Gabriel had survived and been bought off, he could kiss my ass too. He could take the solo career he’d always wanted and shove it right where the sun didn’t shine. Whatever he had been paid to fund his ambitions, I was worth more.

  Nothing had changed, right?

  Gabriel was as dead to me as he’d ever been.

  He’d been in the world the entire time, and everything he’d said he felt for me?

  He’d sold it.

  He was alive and he’d sold what we had together.

  I stopped at a pay phone and put a cold quarter in the slot for the Waldorf Astoria, room 2220.

  The lions at the entrance of the New York Public Library were named Patience and Fortitude. The stone steps were wet, and the pedestal under the lion to my left—wasn’t sure which virtue he was named for—was covered in a crackling of ice. The sidewalks were packed with people who had their heads bent over coffee cups or up toward a gray sky cut by angles.

  A limo pulled up on Fifth Avenue and was barely at a complete stop when the back door opened and a man got out in a hat and sunglasses. His scarf was pulled over his face.

  I was so angry at him I couldn’t bear giving him the courtesy of a how do you do. “Take that off.”

  “What happened?” he asked, condensed breath huffing through the fabric of his scarf.

  How dare he hide? How dare he cover himself after turning his back on me?

  When I reached for him, he didn’t pull back. Even when I dragged the scarf off his face and jerked the sunglasses away, leaving him bare except for his hat and eye patch.

  “How much?” I growled.

  “How much?” He looked truly baffled.

  “How much did my father give you to…” To what? Break up with me? It had been so much worse, and the difference between a breakup and the loss of hope gathered into a breath-hitching sob. “To leave me there by myself and just fuck off.”

  He said my name like a prelude to an explanation, but he could shove his excuses right up his ass.

  “How much were we worth to you? How much to break me? How much did that get you? You left me. You turned your back and cashed your check. You had your money and you were done. That was it the entire time, wasn’t it? Money.”

  Until I saw the way he glanced at the people who stopped and stared, I hadn’t realized I was screaming. Nor did I care.

  “Did it make you happy?” I yelled. “The money? How much was it?”

  “What’s the difference?” he shouted back. “Look at me, Carrie. Look at me. You weren’t going to love me. You were never going to be able to stomach this face.”

  “You didn’t trust me enough to even try. You asshole…” I pushed his chest with everything I had. And not just him. I pushed my father. My mother. Peter. All the fury came through a shove that moved him back half a step but made him look as if I’d smashed his heart under my heel.

  “I’m sorry,” he said. “You’re—”

  “Is this guy bothering you?” A white woman in a red pompom hat and navy down jacket got between us, looking me in the eye.

  Over her shoulder, I saw a guy in a matching red pompom hat in front of Gabriel.

  “No! I’m bothering him,” I said.

  “Are you sure?”

  “Lady, I know you mean well.”

  “Because he looks homeless.” She wrinkled her nose when she nodded, as if she didn’t like having to tell me that sort of thing, but if I was too ignorant to notice, then she’d reluctantly break the bad news.

  Gabriel was wearing a Burberry coat and had just gotten out of a limo, but it was his face. No matter what he did, he’d always have that face. For this lady, that made him homeless. For someone else, it would be stupid, or simple, or angry, or crazy. People would always see that first and put him into a category that made them comfortable.

  “He’s brilliant,” I said, poking her chest. Maybe it was time Red Pompom Lady stopped trusting beautiful women on sight. “And he can buy and sell dopes like you by the dozen. So back up. I’m pissed off enough at him to take it out on you.”

  Her eyes widened and she turned to her partner, who was blocking Gabrie
l with his significant bulk.

  “Honey,” the lady called.

  I pushed her out of the way and got between Pompom Guy and Gabriel.

  “Back up,” I said. “He’s mine.”

  He put up his mittens, not convinced yet. “Just trying to—"

  “Get out of here before I take your eye out too.”

  They backed away slowly. A crowd had gathered. I could see the heroes among them. They wanted to save me from the scarred man I was yelling at, even though I was the aggressor.

  I spun around to face him. “And you—”

  “Should probably go,” he said.

  We were so close, I could feel him against me. His warmth. His humor. His music. It all emanated from him, pushing against me like a vibrating field.

  Yes, I was turned on, because he was Gabriel and I was Carrie and this was meant to be.

  “No, you stay right here and take my forgiveness like a man.”

  “You forgive me? I can’t forgive me.”

  “Ma’am?” another voice from behind me. Beauty’s savior on a fine white steed.

  “Is this going to happen all the time? With these people?”

  “That’s why I hide my face,” he whispered.

  “Ma’am, we called the police, so…”

  I laid my hands on Gabriel’s cheeks and kissed him hard—to make a show of it. The scar tissue on one side was stiff and rigid, but I didn’t let go. I kissed him until his hands slid around my waist and the sweet softness of his lips turned to urgency and the show for the Samaritans became a real thing between us. Slowly, he accepted control. I surrendered my mouth to his and he claimed it with his tongue and the rattle of a groan in his throat, holding me up when my legs went to jelly.

  I’d forgotten what it was like to be kissed like that, and I never wanted to forget it again.

  When we came up for cold, foggy breaths, he leaned his forehead against mine. “God, Carrie. Little bird. I’m so sorry.”

  “Actually”—I leveled my gaze on his—“I kind of understand. But,” I dropped my voice to a whisper, “I’m still pissed.”

  “I kind of understand.” He pulled me close. “But I don’t want to let you go.”

  “You have to. I have things to take care of.”

  “Things.” He said it as if he knew I was talking about Peter. “Are you safe?” He pressed his lips to my cheek. “Is he going to lose his shit?”