by Heather Gean
“Make you smile?” he asked. “You shouldn’t be mad. You have a beautiful smile.” I took in what he said and tried not to blush as my smile widened. His compliments weren’t as arrogant as Ashley’s. He didn’t look expectantly for my heart to melt like Ashley did. It felt honest… innocent.
The waiter returned, this time with a few rounds of shots. I gave Van a suspicious look. “Don’t act like you don’t need them to get through this night,” he said. I took two from the middle of the table, one for each hand. Van raised his eyebrows at me. “Oh ho ho. Tough girl.” He armed himself with two as well, not willing to be outdone.
“We Southern girls know how to take our liquor.”
For fun he slid two to the Japanese model still sitting at the table. She jabbered on at him for a few seconds before taking the glasses in her hands. He chuckled to himself before returning his gaze to me. “You think you’re up for this?”
“Quit stalling and drink already.” We simultaneously took one shot after another. It burned all the way down my throat before the numbing sensation took over. My head felt heavy almost instantly, and my ears tingled. “Nice,” I said through a wince, spurring a laugh from Van.
“If this is what it takes for you to get through a night like this then you’re going to be an alcoholic from the day you’re married,” he said playfully. My smile simmered down.
“Van, I need to ask you something.” His eyes responded to my serious tone in a concerned way. “Does Ashley have a drinking problem?” Van’s eyes shifted to the left, then to the right, and landed in his empty shot glasses. “It’s a simple yes or no.”
“Is it?” He sighed and leaned further forward. His voice lowered. He sounded pleading. “Rainy, don’t do this, okay? Don’t drag me into the middle. Don’t ask questions you don’t want the answers to.” Van straightened up and downed another one of the shots from the middle of the table. I found myself studying his pleading expression again, and my heart twisted and contorted into an aching pit in my chest. I knew why he couldn’t rat out his best friend, I even admired him for it, but it hurt. I followed his example and slid the last charged shot glass toward me. I barely felt it when it went down.
Suddenly, I was really down. My mood had crashed. Alcohol had a way of taking my moods to extremes. I slouched into the seat and sighed. Unsatisfied with that, I leaned forward on my elbows and ran my hands over my face. Depression raged within me and pulled me further into myself.
Ashley and the troop finally returned to the table, red-faced and grinning. “We’re taking this party down the street. You guys with us?” Ashley asked. I didn’t lift my head. “What’s the matter?” He nudged my shoulder.
“I think she’s had too much to drink,” Van said. “I’m not sure she can make it through another round.”
Lucas drunkenly added, “Ash, you can’t abandon us this early. It’s only midnight. That’s lame, man.”
Ashley contemplatively put his hand on my shoulder. The long pause let me know just how hard this decision was for him. The liquor made me sadder that Ashley would rather be with the generic group of friends he than with me. Though it wouldn’t have mattered as much to me sober, it really worked on my self-worth at that moment. I didn’t want to compete with fabulous Dee for his attention. Hell, I didn’t really care for his attention.
“I could drop her off for you, Ash,” Van said. “I wasn’t going to stay out much longer anyway.”
Ashley was quick to take the bait. “Thanks, man.” He leaned down to kiss me on the cheek. I lifted my head in time to see him give Van one of those awkward guy hugs. Ashley gave the top of my head one last kiss. “I’ll see you in the morning, babe. Feel better.” He had disappeared into the crowd before I knew it.
Van pulled me to my feet by my arm. He put his arm around my waist though I didn’t need help walking. I liked his arm there; it made me feel secure. The damp night air met us on the busy street. We wove through traffic to the nearby parking garage. I tried to collect myself as we went.
I sat lifelessly in Van’s passenger seat. He kept glancing over at me as if he was worried. We would be stuck in traffic for at least fifteen minutes. I looked at the lights of the taxis that only made me dizzy as they danced across the street. It wasn’t until we were out on the long, dark stretch of highway to the Schroeder mansion that I fought through the liquor and emotions enough to talk.
“Are you happy with your life, Van?” It was that philosophical drunk talk that sober people laughed at.
“I am.” He didn’t sound so sure, but he sounded surer than I would have.
“I hate it here.” A weight was lifted off of my chest when I said it out loud. I sighed. “I really hate it. Isn’t that ironic? They put me with my perfect match, and I can’t stand him.”
Van didn’t respond, just tapped his hand on the steering wheel along with the very low music playing over the radio. He was focused on the highway. I rambled on anyway. “I hate his money and his friends and the stupid lines he feeds me. I hate the way we kiss. It’s awkward and...” I turned my head toward Van without lifting it from the headrest. He kept his eyes on the road. “Do you know what it’s like to kiss someone and not feel anything? Nothing at all?” He didn’t respond. It was irrelevant; I needed to get everything out. “I mean, it’s horrible. And I find myself dying for a real kiss with all this crazy passion behind it. A kiss where your lips are touching but you’re dying to do so much more. Are you listening?”
Van glanced over at me. “You’re drunk. And you’re almost home.”
“I’m just saying that this marriage arrangement wouldn’t be half as bad if the sex was good, not that we’ve had sex, but I can imagine that it wouldn’t be that good. Oh god.” I lowered my face into my hands again.
Van pulled into the driveway within no time. The dark mansion loomed in front of me. I would rather have slept outside than gone in. The car finally rolled to a stop right next to the front door. The engine idled loudly. “Do you need me to help you inside?” I defiantly shook my head.
I sat up and opened the door. Once standing, I put my hand on the car to balance myself and leaned down to thank Van. Carelessly, I pushed the door shut with my free hand. Though I was numb from the liquor, I felt the pain shoot through the fingers on my left hand. Van cursed and leapt from his side of the car. I fumbled with the door handle, but it was Van who got it open. He crawled out the passenger door and quickly took my fingers in his hand. “Oh god, are you okay?”
I leaned back against the car. Tears were running down my face, but I wasn’t exactly crying. They were a reflex. The fingers Van held in his hands throbbed with pain. His hands ran over mine delicately. He chuckled softly at my clumsiness in an attempt to get me to smile. “Do you need me to get you something?” His thumb rubbed circles in my palm. I looked at his shadow-cloaked features. I could see the worry etched into eyes. It made my heart ache for some reason.
I tilted my head all the way back, sniffled, and began to laugh at myself. “I need to get out of here. I need to find someone who will look at me like I’m beautiful even beside Dee and will take me somewhere that doesn’t require a million bucks and these damn high-heeled shoes.” Van sadly smiled at my ranting. I wiped the tears from my cheeks with the back of my uninjured hand. “I want to love and be loved. Or even just… just kiss someone and mean it. Just have some other person’s lips against mine, feel the body heat.” I shouldn’t have been ranting on about kisses like that to Van. It was inappropriate, but many things are when liquor is involved. I guiltily turned my gaze downward.
“Rainy, you are beautiful,” Van said. “Even beside a thousand high fashion models. You don’t need all that make-up or expensive clothes. You are really beautiful.” Depression still had its grips on me. I looked down at the hand that Van held, and even in the darkness I could see that my fingers were swelling. “We need to get some ice on your fingers.”
I sighed and got the courage to lift my head again. I looked into Van’s conc
erned stare. “Why do you care?” I asked. I could see his heart skip beats as he formulated his response.
He breathed in deeply, scared of his own response. “I’m not sure,” he replied slowly. “Why do you have to look at me like that?” His weakness was obvious.
“Because I can’t not look at you like that.” My words may have tripped over one another, but he knew what I meant.
My heart was beating rapidly, if not from the liquor and the injury then from the anticipation. My eyes traced over Van’s lips as if they were forbidden fruit. It took everything in me not to bridge that short gap between us and kiss him. I wanted to know what it was like. I wanted the chance of kissing someone and maybe feeling something. I started to lean forward with my eyes still on his lips. They were only a few inches away. Van’s breaths fell desperately on my face. I met eyes with him intensely. The adrenaline rush made me braver. I was so close I could smell the rum on his breath. I was dying to taste it. I was so close.
“We really need to get some ice on your fingers,” Van said. Suddenly, empty darkness stood where he had. He walked around to turn off the car and shut the door. My heart panged with rejection. When he returned to my side of the car, he didn’t take my hand. His eyes avoided me at all cost.
“Van, why won’t you look at me?” It was almost a plea. Drunkenness left me vulnerable. He sighed heavily and his shoulders slouched. He hooked his fingers under his studded belt. He swayed very slightly, reminding me that he had also had a lot to drink. After another deep sigh, he returned his gaze to mine.
“Just… come in the house, please. You’re drunk. We’re drunk.”
I gave up. He was right. The pain in my hand suddenly grew sharper, and I complied with walking towards the house. My ardent desire to kiss Van slowly subsided in my fuzzy head, and I approached the front door. I turned and put my back to it before Van could reach it.
“Promise me you will sometime,” I said. My body heavily leaned against the wood. I watched Van take the last few steps up the walk.
He began to laugh quietly. “You are persistent, Rainy Clarke. If you don’t get what you want in life it won’t be because you didn’t try.” He gently moved me out of the way and reached for the doorknob. With a smile, he escorted me safely into the house.
Chapter 8
Maybe it was the sound of thunder that woke me up, or maybe it was the splitting headache. Though the clock read nine and the curtains were open, it was dismal and dark in my room. Everything was that ugly shade of gray that made you want to throw the blankets back over your head and wait until tomorrow. I rolled onto my other side and felt my stomach gurgle. I involuntarily groaned. It had obviously been one of those nights.
Fragments of my oh-so-exciting evening came back to me like the annoying pieces of a jigsaw puzzle that looked exactly like every other piece and could fit anywhere. Remembering what all I had been drinking the night before was not of the utmost importance. I knew it had possibly been the longest, most torturous day of my entire life. Perhaps it was best that I not try to remember much.
I lay in bed and attempted to recall what was on my agenda for the day. Mrs. Schroeder and I had a scheduled luncheon, but I hoped I could take a rain check. My mother-in-law relations weren’t good, but were they ever really? Mothers-in-law had reputations for being hard to get along with. It wasn’t a matter I needed to stress myself over. After all, it was not Mrs. Schroeder but the government who had the power to say if I could or could not marry her son.
I waited until ten before I thought it safe to head into the kitchen. Besides a few housemaids, I doubted I would run into anyone. Wearing my most comfortable pair of gray sweatpants, ones that I had to fight Liz to bring and only then was allowed to because I promised to designate them as sleepwear that would not leave my room, I plodded down the stairs. My limbs felt heavy and ached in anger at me for having them working off a hangover so early. I headed straight for the coffee maker and hoped to bribe my body to cooperate with me again.
“Good morning,” I heard. It startled my hand away from the coffee pot. Ashley was just coming through the swinging door into the kitchen. My smudged, day-old make-up and my baggy sweatpants made me uncomfortable in his presence. Then again, he didn’t look his best either.
“Oh yeah, coffee. Just what I was looking for. Pour me one too?” He passed behind me to prop himself on the opposite countertop.
“Sure,” I said as I filled two cups. From what I could remember of the night before, Ashley hadn’t been on his best behavior and had, for the most part, abandoned me to stay out drinking with his buddies and Dee, if she could be considered a buddy. Not to mention he had sent me home with Van, who may have been much more charming but was every bit as drunk as the rest of the crew. I turned around and passed him his cup. He took it from me with a thankful sigh. He licked his lips after his first long drink. The gray irises of his eyes were netted with red veins, and equally gray circles hung beneath them.
“I see Van got you home all right.” I took a sip of my coffee to give myself time to think of the best way to respond to that statement. It scorched the tip of my tongue.
“Surprisingly.”
Ashley half-grinned. “What do you mean by that?” He wasn’t put off by the shortness of my comment.
I paused indignantly. “Well, he was drunk. And it’s not a short drive.”
Ashley waved this away with his hand. “Van holds his liquor better than any guy I know. He was fine.” I absorbed Ashley’s reassuring tone. Did I really want to bring out the fighting statement: It was irresponsible of you to send me with him? But honestly, I’m not sure which bothered me more: the drunk part, the part where I’d been rejected by the drunk, or the part where Ashley just didn’t give a shit either way.
I blew away the steam from atop my coffee and hesitantly took another sip. I got a few gulps in before I reached the next hot layer. I leaned against the counter and looked towards the floor. Ashley was in sweatpants, too. I guessed he had decided to skip work to nurse his hangover. That was a subject changer. “You’re not going to work today?”
“I don’t think so. I’m not in much shape to. I’d be useless.” I turned my gaze away in agreement. He attempted to rescue himself from the hole I was shoving him in. “Plus this gives me the whole day to spend with you.”
“How did the rest of your night go?”
Ashley shrugged his broad shoulders. “It was great. I wish you would’ve gone with us.” My eyes were still avoiding his. He snaked his foot across and nudged mine with it. “You okay?”
“I’m fine,” I said reflexively. I wrapped both hands around the warm cup and put it to my lips again.
“You seem upset.” He was prying. I wouldn’t have advised it, but I planned to give him whatever he was fishing for.
“Well, yeah, Ash, I am a little.”
He sat his coffee cup on the counter and crossed his arms over his chest. “About what?”
I looked up at him to study his face and evaluate the authentic value of his clueless expression. “Ashley, you invited me out with your friends. I’ll admit, I drank a little too much--”
“It was all in good fun,” he interrupted. His voice was coaxing as if he thought my concern lay in my behavior.
“Please let me finish.” We were two people who liked to maintain control, and we were beginning to clash. “You invited me there, so I feel like you should’ve been a little more responsible for me. Instead, you passed me off to your friend. Your drunk friend.”
“Rainy… C’mon, seriously?” He was whining like a little boy. He took a step closer to me and reached out to touch the side of my arm. “I didn’t think it was a big deal. I didn’t mean anything by it.”
I narrowed my eyes at him. “Ashley, how much can you possibly care about me to abandon me and trust me in the car with a drunk?”
“Rainy.” He was using my name as a bargaining tool, as if by saying it I would forget I was angry and come around. He sighed deeply. “I d
o care about you. Of course I do; you’re my fiancée. You didn’t want to go with us so I honored your request.”
I sighed. He wasn’t getting the point. His masterful businessman skills of diverting and maintaining were excruciatingly annoying at that point. I put my cup of coffee on the counter and slid out of his reach. “You’re just gonna walk out? No, c’mon. Rainy.”
“I’m not going to fight with you,” I said softly. Ashley breathed in deeply and squared his shoulders.
“You can’t just give up like that.”
“I’m not giving up. I need a little time to clear my head. I can’t think right now.”
Ashley threw his hands in the air. “That’s not how it works. You can’t just bring it up and walk away and leave it weighing on me.”
“I can,” I said levelly. My temples began to throb.
“You’re being difficult.”
I lifted my chin defiantly. “Maybe I am difficult. But you can either take it or leave it.” I pushed through the swinging door. “I’m going to take a shower.”
~*~
The best thing about the Schroeder house was, unlike my apartment, that the endless supply of hot water never randomly turned cold and froze me. It was my hideout. I finally washed the remainder of the hair products from the photo shoot out of my hair, and once I had stayed in long enough to thoroughly relax and acquire pruned fingertips, I wrapped myself in one of the blanket-like towels and escaped the sauna I had created. I considered drying my hair, but then finally decided that I didn’t plan on leaving the room anytime soon so there was no immediate need to.
At my closet, where my suitcase lay open with a mountain of things spilling out of it, I sorted through the clothes. Liz had taken most of my lounging clothes out of the suitcase before I could leave, but I found a tank top and sought out a pair of loose, drawstring, cotton pants I’d remembered hiding near the bottom. By the time I remembered I had already moved them from the suitcase, I was staring at a menacingly disheveled mound of clothes. I finally pulled them out of a dresser drawer where I’d stored a few pairs of jeans and Van’s shirt. It sent my mind guiltily wondering what the hell I thought I was doing in that situation anyway. I was just causing trouble for myself. I slid on the pants and shut the drawer.