by Karin, Anya
"Oh daddy," Alyssa said, "I'm sorry this all happened to you. I should have come back sooner."
"No, no, hear me out. Taking care of me isn't your responsibility, but I do absolutely appreciate it. But no, what I was saying is that it didn't feel like home until you came back, not really. You're a lot like your mom, you know. You handle things the same way. No matter how bad things might get, you've got that easy smile that she does. Did, I guess."
She took the plate of bacon around and distributed the stuff without speaking.
A moment later, she cracked a whole pile of eggs, beat them together, and then as soon as they were sizzling gently in the pan, she turned around slowly and shuffled over to where her dad sat, threw her arms around his neck, and squeezed him as tight as she possibly could.
The drive to school brought back all sorts of memories. The long, shadow darkened canopy road from their house to town was the route Alyssa's mom took every morning to deliver her daughter to Mrs. Klipple. Her teacher for most of elementary school, and a good chunk of middle school, Mrs. Klipple brought cookies every Thursday for the kids because she baked them Wednesday for church, and there were always leftovers.
Phantom brown sugar, butter, and chocolate chips tickled her nose, right along with the actual biting smell of the pine and the junipers that surrounded the road, and the rest of the earthiness that she spent so much of her younger years loving.
As she pulled into the driveway, organizing the rest of the day's tasks in her mind, and trying not to forget what she needed to do before she had a chance to write it all down, she reached to her front pocket where she kept her phone, but it wasn't there.
"Huh," she grunted. "Wonder if-"
Inside, she heard the ringer blasting off. She had it turned up so loud that with fifty feet and three walls separating her from it, the dulcet tones of her favorite banjo duel were still crystal clear.
She trotted to the door and swung it open just in time to see the screen across the room, where she'd left it on the kitchen table, display the big, red missed call image.
"Who in the world would be calling me?" A list of the most horrible things she could imagine crawled through Lys's brain before she grabbed the phone and when she finally did, it was one of the possibilities she completely forgot: Bret.
Her heart sunk in her chest.
Of course he calls now. Of course he does. He calls as soon as I finally start getting over him. Of course he does.
Staring at the screen, finger hovering above the call-back button, she shook her head.
"Nope. Not doing this to myself. Not gonna do it." Decisively, she tapped ignore and set the phone down again in favor of a notepad and a pen to jot her tasks for the day.
"Alright, let's see. Grocery store first. Need to get some milk – not whole – and some vegetables. I think they've been living out of a freezer for a while, so they probably need some greenery in 'em. Also need to run by the dry cleaners and drop off my jacket. Oh, and I need to-"
The phone interrupted her. Somehow the normally pleasant banjo plucking made Alyssa grit her teeth. She shot a glance over at it, saw it was Bret again, and rejected the call.
"Not a chance in Hell. Nope. Not happening."
Grabbing her notepad, she remembered to write down a trip to the gym in town to set up a membership, and new shoe-laces for her dad, since he apparently decided to tug the ends off his, and just left his Reeboks tied so he didn't have to fight them.
Just as she was gathering her purse, gym clothes, dirty jacket, and keys, the phone rang again.
"Damn it! Leave me alone!" She said, grabbing it off the table. "This is gonna be a long, long day if he keeps this up."
But, when she looked, the call was from a different number. Bret's area code was 826, this number was an 860. She stared at it for a second, but as the banjo playing intensified, she wondered if it was Publisher's Clearinghouse, and answered.
"I'm sorry, I'm sorry," a familiar voice said before she had a chance to say anything.
"I haven't won a sweepstakes, have I?" She said with a bone-dry voice. The curl on her lip matched one in her voice.
"Sweepstakes? No? I don't know what you're talking about."
"So what is it Bret? You've called...let's see, four times in the last hour? Three of them while I was in earshot. And then you have the nerve to do it from a different number? Whose phone did you take? I thought you agreed not to call me until I said it was okay."
"Yeah, look, I'm sorry. I really am. I just needed to talk to you. I needed to hear your voice."
All of a sudden, Alyssa feared the entire day of plans was shot. She had carefully laid out a schedule, drawn up an efficient path, and even figured out where she'd go to grab some lunch for her dad from on the way past the post office. And in the blink of an eye, it was gone.
"Well you've got me now. And you've also got a whole bundle of nerves. What is it you want?"
"I wanted to say that I'm sorry. I was wrong. I need you back, Alyssa. I can't live without you. And, I-"
"Ugh, that's enough." She let out a long, breathy sigh. "Are you being serious right now? You told me that your start-up was going to – let me get this right – I believe you said that the company was 'going to last for sure' but that I was 'statistically not going to be around forever' right? Did I get that right?"
Alyssa's temples pounded like they hadn't since she and Bret had the fight that broke them apart after a year and a half of relationship. That was only three weeks ago, and it still made her teeth crawl to think about.
"I just don't get it, Bret. I really don't. Did something happen with the business?"
Silence.
"Oh. So that's it. Something happens with the business and you figure you may as well call me to talk about it because that's all I'm good for?" The sharpness in Alyssa's voice echoed in the phone.
"No, it isn't like that, not at all. I just really miss you. I miss waking up and calling you first thing in the morning. I miss smelling the shampoo in your hair. I just miss you."
She sighed again.
"This isn't the first time I've heard this crap from you, Bret. You know that as well as I. Why do you keep doing this to me? If you really cared, you'd leave it alone. You'd let me get my mind around everything that's happened lately and get myself back together." Lys's eyes got blurry and she wiped at them.
"Why, Bret? If you can answer that, I'll let you say whatever you want. I might even respond."
For a moment, there was no speaking. She only heard breathing from his end of the line. Then he sniffed.
"Was that a real sniffle?"
"Alyssa..."
"Sorry, that was mean."
"No, it's my fault. I shouldn't be doing this to you, but, yeah. I mean, I realized in the last couple of days, maybe a week, that I really screwed up with you. We had a good thing going and I got all obsessive about the company and fuc – uh, sorry, I mean I messed it all up."
"It's okay." She couldn't help but giggle at his self-correction. For most of the time they dated, Lys had a mouth that Bret constantly described as "sailor-salty" and hounded her to clean up. After she calmed down a little, he picked up the habit, which never failed to entertain her. "Go on, please."
"Okay. Well, that's most of what I needed to tell you. I hope that five years from now, or ten, or whenever it is that you're settled down with a great guy, living like a queen, with the little brood of kids you've always wanted, you don't remember me as the world's biggest assho – sorry. Again."
"Really," she said. "It's okay."
"About the cursing?"
"I don't give a shit about your cursing." They both laughed. "I don't care about that. I don't think you're the biggest asshole in the world, or the country, or even the state. You're not even the biggest asshole that I've ever known. Really. We're just in different places."
"Okay," he said, and exhaled. "Thanks, Alyssa. Thanks for listening to me. It means a lot. You deserve so much better than I can give
you."
Alyssa cleared her throat.
"No, I really don't. Did you hear the way I went on attack mode with you just then? I'm a hothead. I get all worked up over absolutely nothing and think the world is coming for me. I'm a hedgehog."
"Hedgehogs don't have hair that smells like yours."
She felt a hot blush creep down her cheeks, and cracked a smile, in spite of herself.
"If they used the same shampoo, they probably would." Alyssa's eyes moved along the line down the middle of the table, where a leaf would go if there was any reason to feed ten people.
"I want you to be happy. Really, I do." Bret said, in that low-toned voice that he won her over with in the first place.
She heard him say something, but her attention was completely taken by the very top of a chimney, way off in the distance. The Webb house, invisible from everywhere but right where she sat, grabbed her imagination like it did when she was a child. From here it was probably a mile or more away, she wasn't really sure, but it was sufficiently far to be barely a speck. She thought back, again, to that kind old man who taught her about which mushrooms were safe to pick and eat, and which ones would get her the most money at the farmer's market back in Newton that ran on Saturdays and Wednesdays during the part of the year it was warm enough. He certainly didn't seem like a greedy oil baron.
Every so often, when she was out in the woods where she knew she shouldn't be anyway, Alyssa popped out of them and looked at the house, or as much of it as she could see. The way the hills lay in that part of Pennsylvania, there was one that blocked a clear view of the house until you got right up on it, which she was never brave enough to do, of course. She could only ever see the second floor, what she assumed was a few bedrooms that faced west.
Her thoughts settled on the man who once stood in the window, and, she imagined, watched her. It was much too far to see what he looked like, but in her youthful imagination, that had only just started to notice boys by the time she learned about mushrooms, and started making regular trips, he was tall and dark and handsome, as heroes were supposed to be.
"Lys?" Bret's voice broke her daydream. "You still there, Alyssa? Goddamn phone keeps messing up."
"Watch your mouth," she teased. "Sorry, yeah, I just got to thinking about something. What were you saying? I drifted off."
"You fell asleep? Isn't it like nine-fifteen there?"
"Yeah, no, I had a daydream. I did sleep like thirteen hours when I first got home, though."
"Wow," he said with a laugh, "you never sleep that much. Must have been three feet from dead."
"Felt like it. That's for sure. So, what were you saying before I started ignoring you?"
He laughed and told her that all he'd said was that he wished her happiness.
"That's sweet of you," she said. "You too. I want you to be happy, too. I'm going to miss you, but my place is here right now. I've got a lot to take care of and a lot to deal with. Mom and all. Dad's really messed up over it."
"I can imagine."
"But yeah, when I get back to school – and I will get back to school, no matter what Dr. Carlton might say – I want to see you. I don't want you out of my life forever and ever. I just need some time. Okay?"
"Alright. I think that'd be for the best. I've never cared for anyone as much as I do you," he said slowly, as though he had to think of each word before he said it.
"I'm glad you called, Bret."
"You are?"
"Yeah, I think I needed to hear from you, no matter how much I didn't want to. If that makes any sense. Somewhere in the back of my mind, I was worried about you, even though I'd never show it in a million years. I'm glad you're doing okay."
"It does. Make sense, I mean. I've started thinking that pretty much everything does when you stop to think about it long enough. And if it doesn't make sense, that's because it isn't supposed to make any."
Those words came from the man she fell in love with four semesters and a summer ago. She missed him. The way he'd gotten in the past few months, she knew that was the new Bret, but not the one she had gotten so fond of over so long. She knew that Bret was never coming back. And for the first time, that was okay.
"Alright," Alyssa said. "I've got a list of stuff to do and I've gotta get cracking if I want any chance of getting it done. That is, unless you want to go buy eggplants, kale and tomatoes for me and then drop them off."
"I think that would take a lot more time than it's probably worth. That might just be me though."
"Yeah, I guess you're right." She paused for a second, and then the two of them interrupted each other saying they were glad the other one called. "Alright," she said with a laugh, "I'll call you again in a few weeks, okay?"
"I'll look forward to it. And Lys?"
"Mhm?"
"I really am sorry. I mean it."
"Don't mention it again. We're past that. We've both got our own lives and our own things to do. Promise me you won't worry about it anymore. Okay?"
"Okay. Promise."
She held the phone for what seemed like five minutes after he hung up and it had long since gone dead. Looking back at the list of times he called, she sighed softly and put down the phone, got her things and left before it could ring again.
Halfway down the driveway, even though she left it on purpose, Alyssa turned back to the house and thought about going back. She told herself that her dad might call and need something, but that wasn't likely. If something happened at school, the kids would be perfectly safe without being in immediate contact with her. After she exhausted every possible reason to go back for the phone, she arrived at reality that what she wanted was for Bret to call again.
She missed him so bad it hurt.
Or at least she missed someone, or something, that she couldn't quite put her finger on at the moment.
Halfway down the street that ran between her dad's house and the Newtown town square, Alyssa's thoughts somehow drifted back to the forest and the mushroom gathering and the house – but mostly to the man she'd seen in the window.
The air outside was cool and sharply scented with pine when she rolled down the window to try and clear her head, but nothing she could do got him out of her mind.
"Wait a minute," she said. "What if – is it even remotely possible that the guy I saw in the window was Preston Webb? There's no way. But still, tall and thin is pretty much how dad described him, right? No way. That's beyond crazy."
A deer sprinted across the road and Alyssa's attention snapped back.
Minutes later, pulling into the parking lot for her morning workout, the first of many stops she had meticulously planned out, Alyssa looked around the car for the duffel bag with her workout clothes, and then realized she left the whole thing sitting on the table beside her phone.
"Good. Very good, Alyssa." She sighed and blew a fallen lock of hair out of her face. "Well, guess I can check that off the list. I wonder what the eggplants are looking like?"
Chapter Five
"Sir, what happened to that contract?" Gadsen's aged leather voice crawled across the table as he sat. "I thought you were going to sign it and give it back to me so I could have it to the council by tonight's meeting?"
"I took care of it. It's safe and sound." Where, exactly, it was safe and sound, he refrained from saying. "What're we having tonight?"
"Roasted chicken, roasted vegetables. I hope you enjoy it. I made it with a cream sauce that I hope you find acceptable."
For all Gadsen's faults, he was a damn good cook, Preston thought. He looked across the table at his butler, at the man who had more-or-less functioned as his surrogate father for most of his life, and then formally taken over the roll five years ago. His eyes slid over the visage of the man who kept him held and captive, against all his wishes, in this massive estate. The old man's face was marked by two wars, and a half century of service to his father. Still, Preston couldn't help but feel his temples throb and his cheeks burn when they were in the same room anymore.
"Is it strange that I eat with a butler?"
"Strange how, sir?"
"Well, most people don't do such things, right? The butler brings the food and then goes off somewhere else?"
"That's true. I thought you wanted me to stay, but I can certainly go back to my quarters if you'd prefer."
"No, no, that's fine. I was just curious." He chewed a little chicken, a little asparagus.
The thought crossed his mind to tell the old man to shove off back to whatever little abode he kept. But he swallowed his tongue. As much as Gadsen aroused his most passionate irritation, it was nothing to being alone.
Alone. The word rang in his mind.
Always alone.
Preston put down his fork and pressed fingers to his temples, already beginning to throb again, so soon after he had just managed to defeat a headache.
"Tell me something," he said, and was almost immediately seized with a pounding right in the middle of his forehead.
"Anything, sir? Oh my – are you having another attack? Do you need a warm cloth?"
"Uh, yeah. That would probably help."
Seconds later, Gadsen came back with the hot towel and Preston put it around his eyes and forehead. A minute after that, the throbbing stopped.
"Thanks. That did the trick."
Opening his eyes, he was disoriented, internally confused. All sorts of questions were rolling around in his head and none of them really wanted to come out. Or at least, he didn't want them to come out to Gadsen. But still, he had nowhere else to turn.
"What were you saying before, sir?"
"What?"
"You said you wanted to ask me something."
"Oh, right, sorry. Do you remember that girl who used to sneak inside our fence and pick mushrooms? The little blond one?"
"Mmm. Yes, I remember the little demon. She'd climb under the fence, and whenever it was mended, she'd just dig deeper under it. Some sort of damnable mole, she reminded me of." The butler clenched his teeth and squeezed his fork.
"That's a little over the top, isn't it?"