by Towne, L. E.
“Great dessert, I’ll have to be on the treadmill for two hours tomorrow, but worth it.” Ross sipped his coffee. Sienna thanked him and settled in next to Jack, her hand resting comfortably along his leg.
“So we’ll have to plan a big book launch party in the spring. I’ll be glad to get back to wearing real clothes, and Edie will be old enough to stay with my mom by then.”
“You mean, Dylan.” Jack chided her.
The baby was a girl that much they knew, and yet with only a month to go before her arrival, the couple was still quibbling over a name. Sienna wanted Edith, after her favorite author, Edith Wharton. Jack’s choice was for Dylan Thomas.
Sienna smiled.
“Of course, Dear, whatever you say.”
Ross laughed. “Dude, you have no chance. You know that, right?”
Jack sipped his coffee. Sienna went back to the subject of a party.
“They will do some sort of publicity right? For the launch? Of course, you guys would know all kinds of people that can organize it, even if the publisher doesn’t.” She put her hand to her swollen belly. “Oh, that was a big one. Too bad that planner you worked with does only weddings now.” She put down her cup. “She’d be fantastic. What was her name?”
Jack looked at Sienna for a solid moment. He drank more coffee. “I’m not sure,” he said absently. Sienna gave him an odd look. It wasn’t like Jack not to remember names. Jack had that kind of memory. Sienna prodded him.
“Come on, Aislyn, Amber, something. She’s from Denver.”
Ross looked down at his cup. The liquid in it rippled with a slight tremor. He held his breath.
“Azure Worth.” Jack gave in.
“That’s it,” Sienna said. And then she saw the look on Ross’s face. “Oh, shit. I totally forgot. I’m sorry, Ross. I don’t know where my brain is at these days.”
“No, it’s okay. I didn’t realize that. . . Jack had mentioned her.”
“You know I’m no good at keeping stuff from Sienna. Sorry.” Jack said, and he looked at Ross with genuine sympathy.
“I didn’t know about the wedding planner stuff. She quit CTC?” Ross looked to Jack. “Have you seen her?” His voice was edgy. He leaned forward in his chair, watching Jack. Sienna patted her stomach again and excused herself. Jack leaned back and watched her ambling gait as she left the room.
“A couple of months ago. Sienna’s Boss’s son got married in Vail. Az did the wedding. It was a surprise to see her.”
“Why didn’t you tell me?”
Jack shrugged. “Things were going so well for you and the book that I—” He stopped and frowned at Ross.
“I can’t believe you didn’t tell me.” Ross sat back and ran his hand along the back of his neck. They’d had the good Pinot for dinner, but neither man drank anything stronger out of deference to Sienna and her allowed half-glass of wine. Now he wished for three fingers of Jameson. Something warm and strong to calm his suddenly jangled thoughts. “How is she?”
Jack shrugged. “Good I guess, I think being single agrees with her. She seemed happy.”
“She’s divorced?”
Jack sighed. “Buddy, don’t go there.”
Ross stood abruptly, pacing.
“No, I want to know. She’s divorced? When?”
“I don’t know. I thought you and her hashed all this out. Decided to go your separate ways. She didn’t call you?”
“Last I knew she was working things out with him.” Ross stopped in front of the plate glass window. The sleet had turned to snow and it glittered in the streetlight as it fell on the suburban neighborhood. The scene took him back to his childhood, when he and Ben would play in the snow until well after dark, their snow forts lit by the porch light until their mother insisted they come in. The suburban life didn’t seem quite so mundane or unpleasant now. It’s not the years you have to worry about, but the days. Words from an old man working at the B and B he’d visited came back to him. Harv had told him it’s no big secret if you’ve got the right woman. Jack seemed really good living out here. Ross watched Jack’s reflection in the glass.
“Hey, let’s go out back okay? I need a smoke.” Jack handed Ross his coat and the two men walked through the kitchen. Sienna stood at the sink, her rounded form contrasted with her worried features. She impulsively hugged Ross. He patted her back, reassuring her all was well.
They listened to the quiet hush of falling snow as Jack lit a cigarette. He sucked in tobacco smoke and blew it into frigid air. “She didn’t hear back from you. You were all set to marry Dani, so I guess she decided that was that.” Jack put his free hand inside his jacket pocket.
“Back from me? She never called me. I thought she was staying with him. She never answered my calls.” Ross mentally went back to their last meeting, at the speakeasy. They were on the dance floor, she was wishing him well. “I have things to say,” she’d told him, but then, she didn’t say anything. He stopped. She’d asked about the wedding. He brushed his hand over his short hair angrily. How could he be so dense?
“We talked about the wedding. I had the proposal to Dani all planned out in my head, so I assumed that’s what she was talking about.”
“She wasn’t?”
“No. I mean, I thought maybe you’d told her, that I was going to propose. But she was asking about Ben and Rachel.”
“Talk about crossed wires. That really sucks.”
Ross paced the small deck, avoiding the covered lawn furniture. Snowflakes drifted across his eyelashes and he blinked. Jack stood in the shelter of the covered doorway, watching him.
“And the reason for that, is—”
“You’re an idiot.” Jack finished.
“No. The reason I gave up on Az is she never called me. I left her tons of messages. I called, I emailed, but there was nothing.”
“There was something, obviously. She told me she called. It was later, but she called. Next thing she knew is she saw you in...” Jack snapped his fingers, trying to remember.
“Omaha.”
“Omaha, yeah. There’s a romance destination if I ever heard one. When she saw you in Omaha, you jumped at the chance to tell her about the big California plans.”
Ross laughed ruefully. “Yeah, and we all know how that worked out.” At least the return of the ring had given him two more month’s rent on the apartment.
“Again, you’re an idiot.”
“I’m an idiot.”
A-3
Azure’s phone rang as she pulled away from the restaurant. It was a thirty minute drive home and she hated driving in the rain, especially at night. She’d take a snowstorm any day. Several drops of water slid down her neck followed immediately by a shiver. She pressed the speaker phone on her steering wheel.
“Hey Aunt Margaret, how are you?” She put a cheery tone to her voice, in spite of how she really felt.
“So-oh, how did it go-oh.” Her aunt had this habit of drawing out all monosyllabic words, as though she felt sorry for them, being only one lonely syllable. Because of this, her speech had a hint of conspiracy in every sentence.
“It was fine. He was nice,” Az replied. The rain beat harder on the windshield—she flicked the wipers on high. They mocked her at every swipe. Liar, liar liar.
“Nice. That doesn’t sound promising.” Aunt Margaret’s voice crackled on the line.
“Well, it’s the best I can do. He was nice. I was nice. It was all nice. We had a nice dinner in a nice restaurant and made nice conversation about relatively nothing important and you were right, it was nice to get out.”
There was silence on the other end, not even a crackle.
“Azure dear, I’m trying to help you here.”
She grimaced. Anything, but Azure dear. She could handle her aunt and mother’s meddling. This was the only method they knew in familial relationships—if no one screwed with your life, you simply were not loved. But she hated the condescending concern.
“I know, and I appreciate your wanting t
o help, but Eli and I are fine. I have my business, my son, and friends. I’m good.” And she was, now that she had survived dinner with the very nice guy they’d set her up with.
“You’re far too young to be alone. You need to get out there. The ex has been gone, how long now?”
She sighed, not wanting to talk about Jonathan. Ever since the divorce both her mother and her aunt had taken to calling him the Ex. It was like he who shall not be named.
“His name is Jonathan.” Steam rose from her wet coat as the heater finally blasted warmth. She negotiated the onramp to I-40, still not believing she had driven across Denver in rush hour traffic to meet this guy at a stupid Olive Garden. “It’s only been ten months. Eli needs some time to get used to just us. I don’t want—”
“That’s almost a year.”
“So, isn’t a year like, normal?”
“Not anymore, especially for the one that decides to get divorced.”
And there it was–the crux of the whole conversation. She’d chosen to divorce her charming husband and her family thought she’d lost her mind. Why would a sane woman leave a man who was faithful, kind, a good father and employed? Well, recently employed anyway.
“I’m almost home, so...I need to go. Love to you, love to Mom.” She knew that her Aunt’s next call would be to Az’s mother. She supposed she should be glad it hadn’t been a conference call. Aunt Margaret and her mother were known for their double-teaming.
Meddling relatives aside, Azure decided she was happy. She loved wedding planning, her son was doing relatively well and she had friends, a new place to live—a new life. So why couldn’t she sleep? Night after night, she’d go to bed exhausted and lay there, willing thoughts to go away and dreams to come. When she did sleep, the dreams were always of him.
The rain beat against her bedroom window in torrents. As she listened to it, it sounded more and more like footsteps on a treadmill. Her eyes closed and she saw the sign in front of her—gym. The words were lettered across the glass doors of a small workout room. It held a few treadmills, stationary bikes and ellipticals. Most people there at five am were focused on the news channel on the overhead TV.
He lay in bed that night, thinking over Jack’s words. He racked his brain, going over the messages, the emails he’d sent, their goodbye at the speakeasy party. Ross threw the heavy comforter back and climbed out of bed.
Once in front of his laptop, he spent several minutes going through his email. He sorted by name and then by date. He’d written a total of 196 emails to Azure over the year and few months they’d been in communication. She’d answered 147 of those emails and several, (he hadn’t bothered to count), had turned into long back and forth conversations. This was where he lost focus and found himself re-reading and re-living the relationship. He laughed at some conversations, was deeply touched by others, particularly the one about her tragic accident in college. How she’d lost her first boyfriend and then gone to England and met Jonathan. Tearing himself away from memory lane, he began to look in earnest, searching for anything from her after a certain date. There was nothing. He pushed his chair away in frustration. He needed to pee.
It was in the bathroom that he thought of his old phone. Ransacking the bedroom closet, he pulled out old files and boxes. He didn’t get distracted this time, nor was he concerned about neatness. Empty boxes and papers covered the floor. The box for his new phone was pushed to the back of the closet. The old phone, a blackberry type model, rattled inside when he shook the box.
“Ah, ha.” The exclamation burst out of him as he found the phone and switched it on. Nothing happened. Of course, the battery would be dead. “Okay, charger, charger, where is the—”
There was a niggling thought at the back of his mind. Could Dani have somehow messed with his phone? He grabbed his new phone off the night stand and traded sim cards with the old one. It was a miracle that it worked. Her name was still there in his list of contacts. He thumbed through the texts, all his with no reply. Finally, he’d gotten to one of hers, but it was back before their ill-fated hotel room scene in Minneapolis.
He looked up to see his image in the mirrored closet door. He sat on the bed, one leg curled under him, wearing his favorite dark blue sleep pants and nothing else. His new glasses—the black rimmed ones he wore only for close work, had edged down his nose and he pulled them off. Somehow, he was certain there had been a message. Maybe it was lost in cell phone land, or a dropped call never recorded. Maybe it was intentionally deleted, but he was sure there had been something. And that something probably would have changed his life.
He really was an idiot. He paced his bedroom, and then moved his pacing out into the small living-room and turned the radio to the jazz station. It didn’t really matter what had happened to the message. He wouldn’t consider the possibility now that she hadn’t tried to call him. That she hadn’t contacted him to say that she wanted him. That she wouldn’t have said there was a possibility for the two of them. He couldn’t think that way. He had to stay positive. His mind flooded with images of her, happy in Denver, or England. Maybe she was already with someone else? How could she think he’d choose Dani over her? Well, he’d basically told her that, hadn’t he?
He sat down at his laptop, prepared to send the most important email of his life. Sifting through all the words he’d wanted to say over the past year and hadn’t. He had to choose the perfect combination. The best plan, the right words that would determine his next move, his next everything. Nothing happened for several moments. There were no words or plans. He was about to give up and go to bed when his focus changed from the blank screen in front of him to the music that surrounded him. The DJ’s voice came through his sound system, mellow and velvety in the early morning hours, and introduced a classic song by Theolonius Monk. Ross smiled up at his poster and closed his laptop. He pulled out a legal pad.
Dear Azure,
Forgive me for interrupting your life with this. I don’t normally write letters to people, especially not letters professing some undying love or something. It’s just not me. I live in the real world, the practical, the physical. The go to work, pay bills, shut up and be happy world. That was the plan. Then you came along and obliterated everything I thought I knew.
He breathed deep, falling into a familiar calm anticipation as he wrote the letter, listening to Theolonius’ perfected syncopation. Not something rigid or methodical, but a random jumble of notes composed into something wild and wonderfully impulsive. The piece wasn’t planned. It wasn’t laid out in some kind of process. It came from the heart, relying on years of experience and an ear for what was right, to create its own perfection.
A-4
“Jonathan, he’s doing as well as can be expected. His teacher says he’s getting along better in class.” Az sighed, the phone crooked beneath her chin as she stirred macaroni into boiling water. “He’s listening more, seems less distracted.” The underwater sounds and annoying voices of Nemo and Dorie floated in from the family room, informing her that Eli was still engrossed in his video game. He wouldn’t overhear them talking about him.
“I knew I shouldn’t have left the country so soon.” Her ex-husband’s tone only served to frustrate her more. Jonathan spent his life regretting his decisions, blaming himself for any tiny hardship.
“Well, there was a job there and not here. And Eli will love visiting you and your parents.”
“So Malinda’s flying with him? To London?”
“Yes, she’s there all summer—at her grandmother’s place in Scotland.”
“All bloody summer!”
“In Scotland, not England—I know it’s not quite the vast amount of territory you want between you and Mal, but you won’t see her once she drops Eli off, I promise.” Malinda pulled no punches about how she felt about Azure’s ex, but he usually bore her animosity in typical stoic silence. “She’s doing us a favor, taking him. I don’t want him to fly that distance alone.”
“They take care of them, y
ou know.” Jonathan still held to his point of view, but he didn’t belabor it. “So how’s he doing at night?”
“Great,” Azure was quick to respond—pleased to report good news. “It’s been several weeks since he’s had an accident. Of course, I restrict liquids in the evenings; make sure he uses the bathroom before story time. You need to keep to that.”
“I know what he needs Az. I’m still his father.”
She jabbed at the pasta with a wooden spoon, trying to separate the clumps.
“I’m just saying—”
“I’ll go easy on him. Let me speak with him again, before I ring off.”
She handed Eli the phone in the family room, smiling at his words to his father.
“Dad, I’m at level six already. I’m with the turtles.”
These days, one needed a decoder ring to communicate with their kids. And of course, no kid today would even know what a decoder ring was. Prizes in cereal boxes were a thing of the past. Eli’s conversation was all about the jet stream and turtles while he ate macaroni and cheese.
Mal would be over after dinner, and they’d go over the details for Eli’s trip to England. Az was very grateful that her friend had offered to accompany Eli. Mal traveled quite a bit for her freelance job as a photographer, though she made more from her blog site than actual pictures. This summer, she was trailing some classical cellists across the UK, and using her grandmother’s farm in southern Scotland as a home base.
Az wasn’t sure how she felt about Eli going. Of course he needed to see his father, and with the distance, it only seemed natural to be there for a significant period of time, but she would miss him greatly. Not only was she losing Eli for several weeks, but Mal too, and with her, a very limited social life. Not that she was complaining, because Az was sure her mother and Aunt Margaret would be more than willing to fix her up with some other “really nice guy” to fill the hours after work.