by Jayne Denker
"It was not the right thing! She should have…I don't know…at least postponed the wedding until she was sure it was what she wanted. But she didn't, and they ended up wasting how many years? No. What she did was completely and utterly wrong."
Smiling slyly, Hannah murmurs, "Your bias is showing."
"Excuse me?"
"As I was saying…one thing's for sure: you've been in love with Conn for years."
If I had any more ice cream, I would have choked on it. "Hannah!" I exclaim in my best scandalized tone. "How many times have I told you? There's never been anything between—"
"And I haven't believed you. Not even once."
"I thought you were my friend."
"Friends call bull when it's warranted, and now is one of those times. What you say and the way you look at Conn…they don't match." Before I can argue further, she puts a reassuring hand on mine. "You keep forgetting I've been in love. I know what it looks like. I know what it feels like. And you, my friend, show all the telltale signs."
I could keep protesting. Or I could give up. Tears suddenly brimming in my eyes, I whisper, "I think I'm in way over my head, Hannah."
Hannah, ecstatic that she's able to comfort me for once instead of the other way around, pulls me into a hug. "I knew it! I knew it! Oh, darn—I shouldn't gloat, right?" She pats the back of my head like I'm a spaniel. "This is about you. You and Conn! It's so exciting!"
As she gleefully clutches me tighter, I manage to argue, "It's not exciting. It's the wedding all over again."
"Because you're crazy in love with him?"
"Because Sasha's cheating on him with Jack. Again. And I can't tell Conn. Again."
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
If this were a normal evening, Hannah and I would sort this mess out—what to do about my feelings for Conn, whether or not to share my suspicions about Sasha with him. But this, apparently, is no normal evening.
First Hannah's reply is drowned out by a bloop, bleep, and then a few buzzy honks from an emergency vehicle trying to work its way through the festival crowd. I don't have time to wonder what's going on before my phone starts ringing. I struggle to get it out of my purse.
Then the words in my ear don't make sense. I don't realize I'm frowning in confusion until Hannah asks, "What's wrong?"
"Uh…" It's as if I'm not sure. I should be, yet oddly enough I have to think about it.
"Melanie?"
"My…my dad," I finally manage to say. "It's Officer Pauline. She says he…I…um…have to go."
"Wait. What?"
I'm already making my way back up the pier toward town, Hannah scurrying to keep up with me.
"Melanie! What did she say?"
We're back at the food truck area quickly enough that I don't have to answer her. The scene speaks for itself.
"Dad!" I shout, pushing through the crowd that's gathered.
I can see his face twisted in pain as the paramedics lift the gurney into the back of the ambulance. He has a cannula for oxygen, and he's swathed in thin white blankets up to his neck.
"Wait!" I shout to the paramedics. "That's my dad. What's going on?"
There's a light touch on my shoulder, and I turn to find Sasha giving me her serious-doctor face. "Melanie. I need you to keep calm."
Which only makes me want to punch her. "Tell me what happened."
"Conn's parents called me. They were with your father. He wasn't feeling well. He collapsed just as I got here from the inn, and I called 9-1-1. He's in a lot of pain."
"Is it his heart?"
"I don't want to diagnose him without tests."
There's some confusion as to whether I can ride in the ambulance with him or not. Then I find myself being led to Hannah's car while the ambulance makes its way back out of the crowd, so agonizingly slowly I want to start pushing people out of the way myself. I keep glancing back as Hannah tugs me along.
* * *
"Melanie? He's fine." Hannah's voice sounds like it's coming from a mile away as she says in a soothing tone, "Okay? Your dad is fine."
Apparently this is true. The hospital employee told us so. I was so happy to hear it I didn't even care the person bringing the update was a bored-looking woman with a clipboard and a weary, impersonal demeanor instead of a hot Grey's Anatomy doctor with a colorful, perky scrub cap covering his magnificent hair (who then helped me celebrate the good news about my dad by spiriting me off to the on-call room).
My father is fine now that he's been divested of one rebellious appendix. The operation was a simple one that only took minutes, with no complications. My brain absorbed the words uttered by Definitely Not a Grey's Anatomy Hottie, but my nervous system hasn't caught up yet.
My dad is okay. It wasn't something serious. I repeat those words to myself, over and over. I'm embarrassed I spent even five minutes planning his funeral. (Come on. Everybody who's experienced a loved one's health scare has done it.) I feel drained yet wired at the same time. Suddenly the waiting room is too small and stuffy, and Hannah's back-patting is too irritating. I want to go for a run, feel a cool breeze on my prickling skin, get away from the worry and the tension and the peculiar hospital odors.
All I do, however, is take Hannah's free hand. "Thanks so much for staying with me. Now get out of here, okay?"
Hannah had intended to leave for Ohio early in the morning. Instead, she put off her trip to be here for me while Charles was in surgery.
Over her protests I insist, "Go home. You need some sleep before you start driving. I'm going up to the room to wait for my dad to come back from recovery anyway."
"I don't want to leave you alone."
"I'm not alone."
Not only has Hannah been waiting with me all night, so has Sasha…and Conn. Sasha followed the ambulance in her car, and Conn came rushing in after he heard the news from his parents. I'm grateful I have my good friends here with me…and, okay, Sasha too.
"You're sure about this?" Hannah asks me. Bless her loyalty—she's shed her fascination with the good doctor, even though she cuts Sasha more slack over what happened at the wedding than I do.
"I can handle it."
Hannah kisses my cheek and stands up as Conn and Sasha come over with coffee, including one for me. I can barely look at Conn. Not only because of how we left everything earlier—well, yesterday, as it's a new day now—but also because Hannah's right here, watching me. She's sworn to keep quiet about my feelings for Conn, and I trust her, but I'll rest easier when she's back in Ohio for a while. Without her around I'll be able to pretend nothing happened, convince myself that my feelings toward Conn haven't grown into something I can't handle, and get everything back on track. No matter what kind of mess is going on in my own head, it's imperative that it stay there. I can't have it spilling out and wrecking everything.
I have such high hopes for myself sometimes.
I'm an idiot sometimes.
"I'm going to get going too," Sasha says softly after Hannah leaves. "Conn?" She addresses him expectantly, as though he's automatically going to go with her.
"I'll stick around for a while," he says which, judging by her perturbed expression, isn't what Sasha wants to hear. "I'll drive Melanie home."
"Why don't you leave Melanie your car? I thought we could chat on the way back to Abbott's Bay."
Oh boy.
"No," is Conn's abrupt answer. "I'll try to call you later in the week."
Is it my imagination, or does Sasha look almost angry? She doesn't say anything about it, however. Instead, she turns to me again. "Would you like me to talk to the doctor for you before I go?"
As if I couldn't possibly understand without her translating for me. I call my excellent manners into play and smile serenely. "That's sweet of you, Sasha, but I'll be fine."
Out of the corner of my eye I catch Conn watching me. I wonder if he thinks I'm a complete wreck under my placid exterior. I am, and not only because of my dad. Conn has changed his clothes; I fixate on his muscles defined by h
is uncharacteristically snug Henley paired with loose, weathered jeans, and it's suddenly hard to breathe.
"Would you both excuse me for a minute?"
I hightail it down the hall, but I have no idea where I'm headed. Away from Conn is the only motivation I've got right now. I blindly duck around a corner, trot several yards past a set of propped-open double doors. Leaning up against the wall, I close my eyes and try to quiet the jackhammer stuttering in my chest.
"M? You okay?" Conn has followed me. Of course. He's quite aware I am not, in fact, okay. "It was all good news about your dad, right?" he asks, stopping only inches away. "I didn't miss anything?"
I nod, unable to speak. I have to get hold of myself, and quickly. Unfortunately, my body decides it can't be in close proximity to this man any longer—not without my brain shutting down. Keeping my eyes down, I step to one side, muttering assurances that there was no bad news about my dad and I'm fine and…walk into a wall I didn't notice was there.
Then the wall speaks. "Okay. What the hell's going on?"
Dammit. I step back, away from the solid surface of his chest. "Nothi—"
"Yeah, yeah, 'nothing.' Right." I don't answer, so Conn prods a little more. "Is this about what happened earlier? I thought we were, you know, okay."
"We are," I answer a little too quickly. "We're fine. We're great."
"Then why can't you look at me?" he asks in a softer voice. It's the one that used to warm me down to my toes. Now it makes me come close to bursting into flames.
I force my eyes up from the three buttons on his shirt, past his whiskered chin, quickly past his lips (dear God), and to his eyes, greenish-gray right now, filled with concern. I have to reassure him and be convincing about it. Not that he'd ever drag the truth out of me—harness an entire whale pod and it wouldn't exert enough force for that—but I have to get him to stop staring at me before I lose it.
"Really, everything's fine." I force a smile—a weak one, but it's the best I can do right now. "I'm going up to my dad's room, like I said."
"Want me to come with you?"
God, he's not making this any easier. "No. Thanks though." I can't resist putting my hand on his arm as I add, "I want to stay a while. You should go home. I can get an Uber."
* * *
"Hey, Daddy."
"Mrf."
He looks better than I expected, albeit groggy. He raises his hand in greeting, as though the grunt might not be enough, while I drag a chair close to the side of the bed.
"You scared me there for a minute, old man." I'm not sure why I'm keeping my voice down, except it's three o'clock in the morning and, although there's plenty of activity at the nurses' station, the rooms are all dark, peppered with colored blinking lights—a hospital pretending to sleep in the wee hours, when it never really does.
My father mumbles something, and I lean closer. He repeats himself. "Told you I was sick."
"You've been waiting years to say that, haven't you? Well, you just used up your 'legitimate illness' allowance for the next decade."
"Party pooper. I hear I've got stitches."
"Congratulations."
Charles drifts off to sleep, and drained of adrenaline, I manage to drop off as well, despite sitting upright in an uncomfortable chair. I spend an unclear amount of time in some hazy twilight, dragged out of it at least once by the bustling arrival of a nurse checking on Dad and several times by my own half formed dreams that aren't soothing or otherworldly. What figures most prominently is the stuff I need to banish from my brain: Conn, Conn and Sasha, Conn and (I don't even want to think it) me. None of it is healthy, but apparently none of it is going away anytime soon either. Especially if my subconscious keeps fabricating scenes I won't let my conscious mind entertain. My whole body heats up at the thoughts that have drifted in as I dozed. The worst was an altered version of what happened between me and Conn before the wedding. Instead of his fond words, gentle touch to fix my hair, and a kiss on the forehead, he did a whole lot more. And I let him.
I never had those kinds of thoughts back then. Conn was an adult, untouchable, in love with Sasha. There was no fodder to spark a teenager's fantasies. My relationships consisted of unremarkable, age-appropriate high school and college boys.
When Conn returned to Abbott's Bay years later, alone and divorced and bitter, he was still just a family friend, now going through a rough patch, so I made sure I was there for him. Our age gap dissipated, and we grew closer based on our shared past and common interests. We saw each other every day at DBC, we hung out watching TV or playing video games a few times a week, and I let him vent about his divorce when he needed to.
Everything was fine, until last night when everything went kablooey. Now my feelings don't fit in the box labeled Conn anymore. Like grappling with an overpacked suitcase, I've figuratively sat on the lid and hopped up and down on it, but no luck.
I groan a little and rub my forehead. All my muscles ache, and it feels like sandpaper is tucked under my eyelids. Then there's a hand on my shoulder, heavy and warm, and I jump a mile.
"Come on," Conn whispers.
I stare at him, uncomprehending. He inclines his head toward the door and gently tugs me out of my chair.
"But…" I hang back, gesturing toward my still-sleeping father.
"You're exhausted. I'm taking you home."
"But…" My vocabulary certainly is suffering, that's clear.
"I told the nurses you'll be back to pick him up this afternoon. He's not going to be discharged any sooner. Okay? It's all under control."
Conn puts his arm around me and guides me toward the bank of elevators. While we stand in the cold, too-brightly-lit hallway, he gives my neck a gentle nudge, directing my head toward his chest. I let it fall there, and I close my eyes. Just for a moment.
Conn leads me through the parking garage and helps me into his vintage Mustang, first clearing a leather folder and some official-looking papers off the wide vinyl passenger seat. Expanding his business…of course he is. I should have known DBC isn't in financial trouble. Conn is practical, intelligent, and levelheaded, with a good business sense.
I shouldn't be too surprised Sasha's sniffing around him again. He's everything any woman could want: smart, ambitious, funny, clever, and gorgeous, but not obnoxious about any of it. She probably regrets letting him go, and she wants him back. The whole Jack thing though…I can't figure it out. Although lots of women find his, er, package attractive too. Swap ambition for status and millions in the bank, and wrap it up in a slick, polished appearance, and you've got a guy lots of women would consider a keeper as well.
I rest my head against the window and watch the Massachusetts landscape slip by, hazy and dim, as the sun rises pink through scattered, thin clouds. Conn doesn't try to engage me in conversation. He just drives. Someone else would have prattled on about how fortunate my dad was, would have told a story about their aunt's neighbor's brother-in-law who had major complications when his appendix burst. Conn, however, knows the value of silence, and I'm grateful for that. I'm also grateful he's taken so much time to look out for me and my father—time he doesn't have.
I break the silence with a tentative, "Hey, thanks for all this."
"Don't worry about it."
"Well, I feel bad. You're away from the restaurant and…everything." I don't mention Sasha specifically. I don't know if my theory is correct and she does want him back, but she really wanted some one-on-one time with him last night for something, which she missed out on solely because Conn was too nice to leave me alone at the hospital.
He shrugs as he takes a traffic circle at full speed, and I slide against the car door. "It's fine. Tommy's opening for me today."
"Not just the daily schedule. You have all the investment stuff to deal with, and finding a good location in Provincetown. You're extra busy."
"So are you, I hear. Hannah says your calendar is wall-to-wall appointments these days."
"Well, I'm good at what I do." I wink, h
oping I look confident and cheerful.
Grinning ruefully, he snakes his car up the two-lane coastal road toward home. "Okay, you were right, I was wrong. I thought Your New Best Friend was a really dumb idea when you first told me about it, but you've made it into something special that helps a lot of people."
I decide to accept his praise graciously. He doesn't need to know one of the "helpful" appointments coming up is going out with Chelsea, the daycare owner, for a karaoke night because she can't convince any of her friends to go with her. Doing karaoke isn't only an excuse to drink and raise hell; it can increase someone's confidence and sense of adventure, so it is life-affirming. But I don't feel like sharing my justification for taking on the assignment.
Instead, because he passes up my street while we're talking, I ask, "Where are you taking me, exactly?"
"My house. I'll make you breakfast."
I've spent plenty of time at Conn's over the years without thinking twice about it, but now, with all sorts of inappropriate thoughts about him rattling around in my head and screwing up my innards, his kind invitation to get me fed after a sleepless night makes me simultaneously uncomfortable and strangely excited, like there's some sort of potential there. But that's only in my head. Where I have been spending way too much time. It's making my thoughts all warped and delusional and unhealthy. Conn, on the other hand, has no idea what I'm thinking. To him everything between us is exactly the same as it's always been.
He parks the car in his driveway, jumps out, and opens my door. After a moment or two he prompts, "You coming?"
I realize I've been sitting here, motionless and weak, for a little too long. "Sorry. Can you just…give me a minute?"
"Sure." He's worried about me—I can see it on his face—but all he says is, "What do you need?"
"I don't know."
Then I'm out of the car and heading for the steps down to the beach. Conn is beside me in an instant. "Want company?"
"No. Thanks."