Can't Help Falling

by Cara Bastone

  “The one I called for you.” He held up his phone.

  “Don’t be silly. You don’t have to get me a cab. I’ll just take the train. It’s not far.”

  “I already called it on my way home. They’ll charge me if I cancel. Just take the cab. You babysat for free.”

  “Do you have a death wish?”

  “What?” Tyler swallowed. He was just trying to be nice by calling a cab. He couldn’t win with this woman!

  “She’s fourteen. She’ll chop your head off for calling it babysitting.”

  “Oh. Right.” He cleared his throat. “Any more advice for tonight?”

  He bustled her out the door and into the elevator.

  “Yes, actually.”

  “I’m all ears,” he said exhaustedly, thinking longingly of a hot shower and his laptop in bed while he tapped out his article.

  “Don’t go getting super into women’s soccer.”

  “What?” The elevator dinged open at the lobby just as he whirled on her. “How did you—”

  “Tyler, that one didn’t take a psychic. Kylie was the one who called it. She said, ‘I bet he’s gonna get all into women’s soccer and make us bond over it.’”

  “And I’m supposed to heed that? No fourteen-year-olds want to bond. Aren’t I supposed to be forcing her to bond?”

  “I don’t know. I just know that she’s expecting you to go all buddy-buddy over soccer, and she’s dreading it. So, my advice is don’t force the issue.”

  Tyler was fuming as he followed Fin out onto the sidewalk. He checked his phone and saw that the car was idling out front. He stalked forward, nodded to the driver, and held open the back door for her.

  “You’re that mad at me just for trying to give you a heads-up about this?” Fin asked, her fingers gripping the top of the car door that separated them.

  “No, Fin. I’m not mad at you. I’m just sick of feeling like a dope for wanting to get to know my sister. It’s pretty much been the most prevalent feeling I’ve had for about two months now.”

  She stared at him, her expression inscrutable, but at the very last second, he could have sworn something almost soft passed across her light eyes. She turned too quickly for him to really make it out, then she was sliding into the back seat.

  “Dope?” she said, cocking her head at him. “I wouldn’t say dope.”

  “Dare I ask what you would say?” he asked dryly.

  She bit her bottom lip, a split second of humor in her eyes.

  “Goodnight, Tyler.”

  He closed the door, shaking his head at her, his jaw clenched against an unexpected smile.

  CHAPTER NINE

  “SO...NOW YOU’RE playing house with Tyler?” Mary asked Fin as the two of them sat on the floor of her fancy-schmancy home-goods-and-furniture shop in Cobble Hill. Mary had put up the “back in twenty minutes” sign, flipped the lights off and now the two of them were hiding from the view of the sidewalk behind the register counter, eating the sandwiches that Fin had picked up on her way over.

  It had been two days since the basketball game and Fin was still riding high.

  She’d been focusing on the time spent with Kylie, which was why it surprised her so much when Tyler was the first thing that Mary zeroed in on after Fin filled her in on the whole story.

  “I’m not playing house with Tyler,” Fin insisted haughtily. “I’m—”

  “Coparenting with him?”

  “Mary!” Fin was both exasperated and amused by her new friend. Mary had this way about her. She was all sunshine and smiles. So much so that you didn’t always happen to notice the very bitter medicine she was spooning down your throat.

  It wasn’t very many people who could get Serafine St. Romain to take bitter medicine, but Mary Trace was one of them. Originally one of Seb and Tyler’s tribe, Fin had only met Mary a little over a year ago. New friends, but fast ones too. They were both straight shooters, both experts in their fields, both business owners and they both had a certain eye for the way physical objects should look and feel in a space.

  There were few home-decorating shops that Fin was drawn to; most of them were too staged, too fake. But even before she’d known Mary personally, Fin had frequented this shop, occasionally buying a knickknack.

  Mary had been very vocal about her appreciation for Fin’s ability to help her rearrange the items that weren’t selling well. The first time that Fin had ever visited her at Fresh, she’d absently rearranged some mugs that Mary had set out a few weeks prior on one of the shelves. Apparently the mugs started selling like hotcakes. Now, every few weeks, she paid Fin for an hour of her time to come in and make sure the energy in Fresh was, well, fresh.

  But first, the sandwiches. “I’m not coparenting with him. None of this has anything to do with Tyler.” Fin thought for a second, wondering if that was just an out-and-out lie. “Well, very little of it has to do with Tyler. Most of it has to do with Kylie. And me.”

  Mary still looked skeptical. “It’s your way of helping out or something?”

  Fin picked at some of the seeds that ran the edge of her sandwich. “I’m sure a shrink would tell you that I’ve been rejected as a foster parent enough times that I’m desperate to help any kid who happens to cross my path. But...Kylie and I really are kindred spirits.”

  “Have you gotten another rejection on your foster parent application since we last talked?”

  Fin set her sandwich aside this time, her appetite souring. “Remember I told you that my neighbor volunteered to look over my file?”

  “Right. She said that she might be able to give you some pointers on what to change.”

  “Yeah. She’s gone through the process and had to apply twice so she figured she could help.”

  “And?”

  Fin sighed, feeling the fresh sting of tears in the backs of her eyes. She waited until the sting had reduced to an ache, and the ache had reduced to a dull thud before she kept talking. “The news...wasn’t good.”

  “What was wrong with your file?”

  “Unfortunately, it’s not the file. It’s me.” Fin couldn’t help but squeeze the amethyst that hung around her neck, allowing it to do its subtle magic. “I’m single. Strike one. I’m self-employed and paid mainly in cash. Even though I report it all, apparently that’s still strike two. I run most of my business from various unlicensed locations, like my apartment or my clients’ homes. Strike three. I turned half my kitchen into an herb garden of sorts, which to anyone coming to inspect, looks like I’m growing weed. Strike four. I believe I’m a psychic. Strike five. I’m attractive and unattached, which means to them that I’ve either got some secret fatal flaw or I’m just using a kid to fill the hole in my heart while I wait for the right man to come along. Strike six. I’m out.”

  “I think you’re only allowed three strikes.”

  “Then I guess I’m out twice.”

  Mary huffed out a big breath, making strands of her blond hair puff away from her face. She looked genuinely stymied. It was one of the things that Fin liked best about Mary. She wasn’t a half listener. When you were discussing something with her, her entire focus and energy was on you. “Who knew it was so hard to foster a kid?”

  “I mean, honestly, I feel terrible for even complaining about the process, considering that in many ways, I believe that foster parents should be screened more. Most of the people who do this are good people, but there are always some bad seeds in there that should have been weeded out. Via learned about that firsthand.”

  Mary set aside her own sandwich, which alerted Fin to the seriousness of whatever Mary was about to say. Mary loved eating and rarely stopped once she had started. “Fin, I’ve never really asked before, but what was your experience with the foster system?”

  Fin appreciated Mary’s candor. She knew her well enough to know that Mary’s question came from a desi
re to know more about Fin as a friend. There was very little morbid curiosity mixed in. Fin didn’t mind sharing her past with people who truly cared about her.

  “I bounced around to a few when I still lived in Louisiana.”

  “New Orleans?”

  “No. I was out in the bayou at the time. Hence the accent. You don’t usually hear quite this much Cajun twang in New Orleans.”

  “But I thought you’d lived in the city for a while?”

  “I did. My last two years down south, when I was technically under my mother’s care, we lived in New Orleans.”

  Mary grimaced in understanding. “You say technically...”

  “She wasn’t around much. I was mostly on my own. The best thing she ever did for me was sign me over to Aunt Jetty.”

  “Her sister?”

  “Yup. That’s when I moved up here to Brooklyn. A few months after that, Via moved in as Jetty’s last foster daughter.”

  “Is that why you want to be a foster parent? Because of Jetty?”

  Fin frowned. She wouldn’t have put it like that. Every other time she’d tried to explain it, she’d always talked about her own experiences, how she’d wanted to give back to a system that hadn’t let her drown when she was too young to stay afloat on her own.

  But now that Mary put it like that, with such a simple question, the answer suddenly seemed obvious to her.

  “Oh.” Fin laughed absently and fiddled for a moment with the amethyst necklace. “I...guess that’s a big part of it. I saw the way Jetty saved Via’s life as a foster parent. And Via is pretty much the most important person in my life. I’ve never really realized that I’ve had the privilege of seeing the system from both sides. Both as a foster kid and witnessing my aunt be a foster mother. Hmm.” She turned one raised eyebrow at her friend, her eyes narrowed. “Smart cookie.”

  “Just something to think about,” Mary said, taking a comically large bite of her sandwich and making Fin laugh.

  They let the conversation float away toward lighter topics and they found themselves clicking through the webpages of a few artists and furniture makers who hoped to sell their wares at Mary’s shop.

  A half hour later Mary walked Fin to the door. Fin knew, without having to ask, that there was something dancing on the tip of Mary’s tongue. Words she wasn’t sure she should say or not.

  Standing with the door to the shop wide-open, Fin leaned in the jamb. “Spit it out, Mare.”

  “All right, all right, I’ll just say it then. I don’t want to be in your business, Fin. But after knowing you just a little bit, it occurs to me that you have a bit of a blind spot—Wait. Let me start over.”

  Fin had rarely seen Mary as flustered as she was right now, tugging one hand through her fine blond hair and pinching the collar of her sweater closed against the chilly December air.

  “I’ll just say this.” Mary swiped her hand definitively through the air. “Tyler is a good person.”

  Fin’s brow furrowed again. Why were they back on the Tyler topic again?

  “Okay... Sure.”

  “No.” Mary vehemently shook her head. “When I say good person it’s not a meaningless platitude. I mean truly, truly good. I believe it to the soles of my feet.”

  There was a beat of silence for a moment where Fin wasn’t exactly sure what to say.

  “I could give you examples, if you wanted,” Mary prompted.

  Fin burst out laughing. “I don’t need examples. I believe you. Really, I do. I’m just trying to figure out why you’re standing in the cold, determined to get me to understand this.”

  Mary shrugged. “He’s my friend. And you are too, of course. But I know for sure that he’s going to treat you well, and I just want to make sure that...”

  “That I do the same.”

  “Bingo.” Mary looked a little sheepish.

  Fin leaned in for a hug. Mary jolted a tiny bit, because touching was something that Fin rarely did. Touching was extremely meaningful to her, imbibed with power and intimacy, and she treated the act with care and reverence. But Mary was a natural hugger. After a stiff second of surprise, her arms were wrapped warmly around Fin. Fin could feel, pouring off of Mary and into the world, Mary’s good intention. She could feel Mary’s love for her. And Mary’s love for Tyler.

  “I’ll keep it in mind.” Fin took a few steps back. “See you soon?”

  “I’ll give you and Via a call this weekend. Maybe we need a fancy dinner on the town or something.”

  “Sounds great.”

  Fin waved and headed down the street toward her train stop, but deviated at the last second, opting to walk home instead. Cobble Hill was far from her Ocean Avenue apartment. She’d have to walk all the way across Gowanus, Park Slope and through the park. But it was a brisk December day, early afternoon, and Fin decided she felt like a walk.

  Mary’s words played in her head, not because of what she’d been saying about Tyler, but because of what she’d inadvertently been saying about her.

  “Blind spot about what?” Fin wondered to herself, wincing when she thought of the way Mary had straight-up told her that Tyler would always be kind to her, but that she couldn’t be trusted to be kind in return.

  Was that really true?

  It was definitely true that she valued other things, like honesty and clarity, over kindness. So, did that translate into her being stone-cold?

  Think of the thing you want the most in this world...

  She blocked thoughts of her mother and tightened the buttons on her coat, though she was physically warm. The picturesque brownstones of Cobble Hill gave way to the longer avenues of bodegas and apartment buildings, fenced-off parking lots surrounding public schools. When the wind changed, she could smell the noxious soup of the Gowanus Canal. People passed her, but her head was down, her eyes on each step directly in front of her. Fin didn’t always love Brooklyn, but at that particular moment, with too much on her mind and so many steps to take before she was home, Fin was grateful to live exactly where she did.

  * * *

  “TYLER, WHY ISN’T there beer in the fridge?”

  Tyler, distracted by the recipe he was reading, swam up from the depths of his thoughts. He focused on Kylie, who stood in front of the open fridge.

  “What?”

  He hadn’t been sleeping well since the basketball game. His editor had loved the piece he’d written, but had been on his ass for more of the same, and Tyler simply didn’t see how the games were going to fit into his new schedule with Kylie. He couldn’t be out of the house two to four nights a week. It wasn’t fair to her. But also, they needed income. For things like the beef Stroganoff he was about to attempt. And the overnight field trip fees she’d asked for this morning. And—hold the phone. Had she just asked him about beer?

  He blinked his scratchy eyes and tried to catch up.

  She closed the fridge and turned to face him, her arms crossed over her chest and an almost ornery expression on her face.

  “Yesterday, when we went out for dinner, you got a beer.”

  “And...that bothers you?” he guessed.

  “No. It doesn’t bother me...” She let her words hang, as if he was supposed to be able to stitch together her meaning from simply that. But...yeah. He was coming up with nothing.

  “Then what the heck are we talking about here?”

  She squinted at him, chewing the inside of her lip. “It’s because of me, isn’t it? You don’t want to have beer in the house because you think I’ll steal it or something?”

  He barked out a laugh of surprise because that thought had simply not occurred to him. Worried she’d steal the beer? “No! No. I just—” He cut himself off, knowing that the strength of the fishing line suspending this entire moment depended on whether or not he said the next part right. “I just, I know that your mom drank around you, and uh, maybe
drugs? I guess I just wanted you to know that that isn’t going to happen here. You don’t have to worry about that in this house.”

  Something went flat in her dark eyes and she turned away from him, taking two steps back toward her room.

  It had been weeks of painful silences between them with Tyler stepping dubiously around all sorts of fishing lines, and in a sick way, he was almost glad to have swiped one clean in half. He’d been feeling like there was no room for error with her and that kind of precision was exhausting.

  She was walking away from him; he’d said something he shouldn’t have—apparently—but that was weirdly much more his comfort zone than the awkward silences in which he stewed over the perfect words to say next. He wasn’t a perfect-words kind of guy.

  “Wait, Kylie.”

  She paused.

  “Don’t go. Look. I know sometimes I end up saying the wrong thing...”

  She turned and shrugged like, Yeah, what about it?

  He couldn’t help but laugh. “But I guess I just want you to know that you can tell me if I’ve said the wrong thing. If what I just said hurt you or made you mad, well, you have to tell me.” He knocked his knuckles against his skull. “This is more than just a pretty place to rest a hat. I can learn, Kylie.”

  She pursed her lips and looked at him like he was an idiot, but the expression seemed like a win. She was trying not to smile, he was almost certain. “Yikes. You get the ladies with jokes like that?”

  Tyler let out a puff of an unexpected chuckle. She’d never razzed him before. “Not lately.”

  She gave him a skeptical look, like she doubted the fact that he’d ever had the ability to get girls. “I’m going to finish my homework before dinner.”

  Okay. So. Conversation over.

  Before it had even really started. He watched her go and sagged back against the counter.

  The kid was a master at getting information while revealing nothing herself.

  He turned back to the recipe, read it once more and started pulling things out of the fridge. For a moment, he stared at the empty shelf where he usually kept a six-pack of beer. They’d had a quarter of a real conversation, a world record for them.