by Shari Copell
It was noon by the time we got everything into my apartment. I bought pizza, we all relaxed for a while, and then the other guys left. Mom put things away in my kitchen while Dad and Asher reassembled my bed and other furniture.
We organized, moved, and cleaned the whole day. Sometime in late afternoon, I noticed my dad slumped in the recliner in the living room, head back and eyes closed.
“Why don’t you and Dad go to dinner and go home?” I suggested to Mom, who was doing a final inspection of my bathroom. “I think I can take it from here.”
“Are you sure?” She turned to me, concern all over her face.
“Dad’s exhausted. So are you,” I said gently. “Go home. I’ll see you tomorrow.”
“I’ll stay and help her, Mrs. Whitaker,” Asher interjected. “We’re almost done anyway.”
Mom glanced dubiously between Asher and me. She knew how hard I’d taken it the last time we broke up. I’m sure she was wondering if I’d lost my mind.
There were hugs all around and tears in everyone’s eyes, even mine. “My little girl’s all grown up,” Dad said. He and Mom reluctantly left, with many backward glances and little heartbroken waves.
When the door closed behind them, I sighed and turned back to Asher. “So. What’s left to do?”
He had the largest screwdriver I had ever seen in his hand. “I just have to finish putting up the blinds in the living room, and we’re done.” He smiled. “And then I have a surprise for you.”
I helped him with the blinds then he disappeared for about an hour. I used that time to unpack my toiletries in the bathroom and put some rugs down on the old linoleum in the kitchen. The fuzzy purple and black carpets from my bedroom at home clashed horribly with all the Harvest Gold, but it was all I had at the moment. It would be a while before I could afford new rugs.
Asher came back with three dozen roses, a bottle of champagne, and takeout from the Wonton Buffett downtown. He deposited all of this on my table then ran back out to his car. I watched him struggle across the alley with a large, flat rectangle wrapped in brown paper.
“Asher, you didn’t have to do all this for me,” I scolded, though I was secretly pleased he’d made an effort.
“Of course I did. This is a big moment. I wanted to be the first one to have dinner with you in your new apartment.” He furrowed his brow and looked at me. “May I be permitted to congratulate you with a kiss on the cheek?”
“Yes!” I laughed. He kissed me. Paco Rabanne again. My nostrils went wide as I inhaled.
“You need to stop with the Paco Rabanne.”
“Oh, you like it?” He put the roses in the vase he’d brought with him and set them in the middle of the table.
“You know I do.”
He pulled two plates from my cupboard, set them on the table, and then turned around for silverware. “I guess I do remember you liking Paco Rabanne,” he said absently.
I hadn’t seen him bring them in, but he had several partially burnt candles. He lit them and set them around the apartment.
“If you’re setting this up to be a romantic evening, you can just stop. It’s not going to end up where you hope it will.”
“I do want it to be a romantic evening, but I have no plans beyond this kitchen table. I’m just very excited for you,” he assured me. “Please sit down and I’ll serve you.” He was scooping beef with snow peas onto plates for both of us. He laid an egg roll alongside the mound of food and set it in front of me.
The champagne was popped open as well, though we had to drink it out of Styrofoam cups.
Asher hoisted his up into the air. “To Chelsea and new beginnings!”
I touched his cup with mine and wondered what he meant by that.
We finished eating and made small talk. I was in no hurry for the meal to end. It seemed as though my fairy godmother had waved her wand over both of us, and all was right with the world.
We cleaned up the table. I insisted on doing the dishes before we went into the living room. My mind was on the large flat package he’d brought with him, but I was in no hurry to open that either. He’d thought of someone besides himself this day, and I wanted to savor the moment.
The soap bubbles in the sink reminded me of the day I’d been locked in the freezer, but it didn’t freak me out. I simply mused over what had caused the universe to align in such a way that Asher Pratt was there for me in my moment of need. Accident of fate? I don’t know, but I couldn’t help thinking it was a good accident.
“Hurry up!” Asher called from the living room. “I can’t wait for you to see this!”
“Gimme a minute.” I grabbed a dish towel and dried my hands.
He made me sit in the brown recliner that came with the apartment before he stood the package on end in front of me. It was at least three-by-four feet in size, wrapped in brown kraft paper.
“Go ahead,” he urged, his eyes bright. “Open it.”
I took hold of the paper at the top and ripped it down the middle. It was a picture of some kind. As I continued to pull off the wrapping, I got a sense of what it was. The food in my stomach solidified into a solid lump, matched only by the lump forming in my throat.
“Do you like it?” He propped the picture up from behind. The look on his face brought tears to my eyes.
I inhaled slowly, painfully. I had forgotten that Asher was also an artist. In fact, he’d been a damned good watercolor artist when I dated him. He’d won numerous awards in the Pittsburgh area for his colorful abstracts.
The painting itself was gorgeous, but it was the subject matter that was threatening to fuck me up. On the day that I’d graduated from high school, he’d taken me to Kennywood, a local amusement park, to ride the roller coasters.
The day had been magical. Sunny, warm, perfect. He’d treated me like a queen that day. There’d been no hint of the storm to come. I didn’t know then that the biggest roller coaster I’d ever ride would be Asher Pratt.
He’d taken a picture of me that day, standing in front of the Thunderbolt, just before we got on. I was wearing a pink sundress with a white Kennywood baseball cap turned backward on my head, a blend of innocence and promise, oblivious to what was coming. I had a big grin on my face, one hand on top of my head, my hair blowing in the breeze.
He’d recreated that moment for me in watercolor on canvas.
“Oh, Asher.” It was said in a tortured whisper. My throat had closed up.
He bent over and asked again, “Do you like it?”
I looked up at him. I knew my eyes were brimming with tears. He’d captured a moment of my life when I was deeply in love with him, so alive with optimism for the future that it oozed from my very pores. How I wanted to go back to that moment, sink to my knees, and soak it in.
I couldn’t speak. I put my shaking hands over my mouth as my eyes spilled over. Something broke loose inside me—hope? I knew it was dangerous and would need to be recaptured and imprisoned again. But for that moment, I let it go.
“It’s beautiful. I remember that day like it was yesterday.”
“I remember it too. I think that was the single greatest day of my life.” He smiled, and his eyes grew misty as he looked at the picture. “You were just as beautiful then as you are now.”
“Stop it.” I practically spit it at him.
I watched him curl his hands into fists. His eyes were as round as a summer moon as he stared down at me. Things were moving there—he was thinking—but he took care not to show too much emotion on his face. It was all there in his eyes.
“What are you doing? What do you want with me?”
He exhaled in a slow hiss of air, shaking his head slightly. My stare must have been equally intense; he was the first to look away. “I dunno, Chelsea.”
“I’m not going to let you carve my heart out again. You understand that, don’t you?”
He glanced down at me. “I never meant to carve your heart out the first time, baby. What we had was real.”
I nodded
, surprised to hear him say something like that. “But I wasn’t enough for you, was I? I just don’t have what it takes to hold your attention.”
His larynx bobbed up and down as he swallowed. “You should never think that. You were more than enough.”
“Then what was it?”
“I just…” His eyes were haunted. “I just can’t…”
“Can’t what? Love someone? Make a commitment? For fuck’s sake, it’s what everyone out there hopes for! We had it. We had it, goddamn you, and you threw it away with both hands!”
The troubled look he wore quickly morphed into panic. It was my first real clue that I had not been the problem in our relationship. It wasn’t that I hadn’t been good enough. Something inside Asher’s psyche had sunk our boat. But what?
“This was a bad idea. I should go,” he mumbled, turning away.
I stood quickly, leaned the painting against the couch, and stepped in front of him. I flattened my hands on his pecs. He wasn’t leaving until I got some answers.
“Sooner or later, we need to have this conversation. I’ve spent years dissecting us, trying to figure out what went wrong. I agonized over whether I was pretty enough or sexy enough, if it was something that I said or did. But it wasn’t me, was it? There’s something inside you that won’t let you take that final step. God, you stupid son-of-a-bitch, you could look for a million years and never find someone who loved you as much as I did!” Tears welled in my eyes. I wanted to hit something in frustration. “And you felt that way about me too, and that’s why you did what you did.”
I hit a serious nerve with that little comment. I could feel his heart racing under the palms of my hands. It was the answer I’d spent five years trying to find.
For the first time in a long time, I didn’t feel like a failure. If I could just get him to open up to me…
He reached up, closed his hands around mine, and held them against his chest. His eyes glistened with tears. He kept opening and closing his mouth, but I knew he wouldn’t be able to speak without sounding weak, so he wasn’t going to speak at all.
I had to give him an out, let him make a graceful exit.
“I appreciate everything you’ve done for me. Helping me move and all. The painting is beautiful. I’ll treasure it always. I’m glad you stayed with me for a while tonight. Thank you.”
With one quick, guilty glance into my eyes, Asher was around me and out the door.
CHAPTER SEVEN
I didn’t sleep a wink the first night in my new apartment. It felt strange and smelled funny, like dust and old things. It wasn’t home. And the whole argument with Asher had my gut in knots.
Sometime past midnight I managed to drowse off, only waking when morning light began to filter between the curtains. I stared at the antique copper and glass light fixture overhead, a hundred random thoughts skittering through my mind.
I noticed there were at least two decades of dead flies resting on the inside bottom of the frosted glass. I made a mental note to clean it. If I were going to spend time staring at the ceiling and thinking things over, I didn’t want to look at fly corpses.
Suddenly, I wasn’t sure I wanted to know what happened between Asher and me. Maybe it was just better to let our past lie in the grave with a stake through its heart. Maybe I didn’t need perspective after all.
At that moment, I wanted nothing more than to hole up in my apartment for the rest of weekend and think. Too bad I had to work that night.
Reluctantly, I threw back the covers and rolled out of bed.
Willow met me at the door of Tapestries that afternoon. “What did you do to Asher? He’s a real grouch today!”
I shouldered past her with a scowl on my face. “I really don’t want to talk about it.”
She was smart enough to let it rest.
We got busy very fast that Saturday night. The Bugaloos were playing, and they had a large fan base. Despite the sissy name, they attracted a crowd that was predominantly bikers. We were packed floor to ceiling, and it was hard to get through the mass of bodies with a tray. I finally resorted to delivering drinks two or three at a time without it.
Around midnight, I mentioned to Marybeth that maybe we should cut down on the amount of alcohol we were serving. More than once that night, I’d had a strange hand under my skirt.
“Can’t do that, Chels.” She glanced over the crowd then peered back at Scott Dreyfus with a scowl. “If they wanna keep drinking, I gotta keep serving.”
“Then I’m going out to my car to get a pair of shorts to put on under my skirt. The last guy I served pulled me down in his lap and nearly had my undies off.” Though the weather was starting to get cold, I always kept a pair of shorts in my car just in case.
“Do what you gotta do, sweetheart. Just let me or Scott know if anyone makes you uncomfortable.” She glanced over the crowd again. I knew she was talking tough, but these guys intimidated her too, and she was as badass as anyone I knew.
You get felt up once in a while when you’re a waitress in a bar. Instant asshole—just add alcohol, and all that. I’d become a pretty good judge of who was just showing off for friends and who was serious about getting under my skirt. A gentle knee to the stones or a heel jammed down on a foot was usually enough to get an aggressive drunk to back off. If that didn’t work, we called out the big guns—Marybeth, Scott, and Mr. Dreyfus. We tried not to get too physical with our patrons though, especially when we were that crowded. Even a small fight could quickly escalate into a drunken riot.
I slipped out the back door to the parking lot and retrieved the shorts from my car. When I turned around to go back, I ran into a group of four scary-looking bikers. They’d surrounded my car.
I clenched my fists. Son-of-a-bitch!
“Get out of my way. I need to get back to work.” I glared at each of them one by one.
The biggest dude was already fumbling with his zipper. “I’ve got some work for you right here.” He leered at me with a mouth full of stained and rotted teeth. I winced. His breath was eighty proof.
This was serious shit. These guys meant business.
I feinted to the left, but they moved with me. I then twisted to the right, shoving the skinny guy blocking my path with as much force as I could muster, and sprinted toward the back door of Tapestries. They were stumbling around, drunk as hell. That was my only advantage.
I was moving like a freight train when I hit the door. I grabbed the handle, squeezed, and jerked. I had it open a crack just as they got to me. One of them snagged me around the waist and pulled me backward, but I wasn’t about to let go. They yanked, I held on, and the door swung wide. I dropped the shorts I was holding, latched on to the handle with both hands, and screamed at the top of my lungs.
“Marybeth! Somebody! Anybody! Help! Help me!”
More hands were on me now, prying at my shoulders and arms, trying to break my hold on the handle. My body was parallel to the ground; I could feel my hands slipping…slipping... I screamed louder, harder.
In the space of a heartbeat, Marybeth and Asher were there. Marybeth, who was no slouch in the muscle department herself, seized me by the upper arms and pulled me against her. I was shaking like a leaf. I would’ve been sobbing, but I couldn’t breathe. Asher advanced on the group with a butcher knife he’d snatched from the kitchen.
“Four against one,” he said calmly. “Hardly seems like a fair fight, boys.”
The bikers didn’t look so tough now. The one who’d been ready to unzip his fly held his hands up in front of him. “We was just lookin’ for a little fun, that’s all. Didn’t mean no harm.”
“I bet the lady thinks otherwise. “ Asher spun the knife around in his hand like a ninja with nunchucks. It surprised me. Where had he learned to do that?
“You owe her an apology.” He stepped toward the group. “Let’s hear it. Now.”
They all mumbled some version of “sorry” and melted away into the night.
Marybeth held me tightly. I thin
k she was shaking just as much as I was. “Jesus Christ, Chelsea, if you wouldn’t have gotten to the door... I need a fucking cigarette.”
Asher was suddenly in front of me. “Are you all right? They didn’t hurt you?”
“I’m not hurt.” Scared out of my mind, pissing down my leg, but not really hurt.
With both of them supporting me, we went back into the bar.
Of all the reactions Scott Dreyfus could’ve had to my near-kidnapping, the one I got blew me away.
The next afternoon Scott pulled me into his office alone, shoved me into a chair, and ranted and raved for ten minutes. I barely heard a word of it. It was only when he started in on Asher that I lifted my gaze up to him, my own temper at the boiling point.
“….and then fucking Asher tries to play hero by pulling a fucking knife on those guys! Patrons! Customers! Now they’ll never come back, and those bikers drop some serious coin when they come in here!” Scott leaned over me, his hands gripping the armrests of the chair I was sitting in. He was practically purple, spitting all over me every time he opened his mouth.
“I was almost kidnapped, you douchebag!” I glared right back at him. “If Asher and Marybeth hadn’t heard me screaming, they’d be fishing my body out of the Monongahela River right now! But that’s okay, isn’t it? As long as you’re making money, it’s all good, right?”
“Don’t you talk to me like that, you little cunt. I’ll fire you, Asher, and Marybeth if I have to. Tapestries has a reputation to protect.”
“What reputation is that, Scott? That the owner’s son is a heartless asshole who cares more about money than the safety of the female bar employees? You are so full of shit I can smell you from here!”
He drew in a sharp breath, and for one suspended heartbeat, I thought he was going to hit me.
“What the hell were you doing outside anyway?” He narrowed his eyes.