Sebastian sat down next to me and pulled me into his arms.
“It’s okay, baby. I’m here now.”
I leaned against him, a half-sob escaping from my chest. It felt good to be held: it felt safe, protected.
“How … how did you know…?”
“My mom,” he sneered, “she called Shirley to tell her good news.”
“And how did she…?”
His head dropped.
“Brenda told her. She saw us … last night at the restaurant. She followed us.”
The blonde at the window.
“Yes, apparently you were very cozy going into a hotel last night,” Estelle added, triumphantly. “And he was missing for two nights without a word. And you,” she said, pointing to Shirley, “you hypocritical bitch—you lied to my face to cover it up! I wouldn’t be surprised if you knew about it all along.”
Shirley gasped and Mitch looked angry.
“Not to mention the box of condoms I found in his room,” continued Estelle, enjoying her moment in the limelight. “And a woman’s bra—yours, I presume. In my son’s bedroom! Slut!”
Sebastian stared at her, his face curiously blank.
Silence crept across the room like ice. I started to shiver and seemed unable to stop.
David’s face was frozen in a mask of shock.
“This boy?” he whispered. “You’re leaving me for this boy?”
Sebastian shot him a look of pure hatred, while Donna held her hand over her mouth as if trying to push back words that sprang to her lips. Mitch shook his head and Shirley took a step forward seeming to reach out toward us. Ches looked as if he wished he could be anywhere but here—I understood that emotion very well. I was watching my life implode in slow motion.
“It’s okay, Caro,” Sebastian crooned, kissing my hair over and over. “It’s okay now. I love you, baby.”
It was Donald who broke the spell.
“It isn’t fucking okay,” he said in a low voice, full of loathing. “It really isn’t fucking okay. She’s been screwing half the Base and now she’s got her claws into you. You’re so fucking naïve you can’t even see it. Christ! Why did I have to have a son with shit for brains?”
Sebastian was on his feet in seconds.
“Don’t you dare talk about her like that! You’re so fucking wrong! You think everyone is like you, but they’re not! You think it’s a secret that you’ve been fucking that little nurse all those nights you’ve been working late, Dad? You’re just a fucking joke and you don’t even see it!”
Donald hit him so hard that Sebastian flailed across the room and crashed to the floor. He struggled to his feet, blood pouring from his nose and launched himself at his father.
Ches and Mitch ran forward trying to pull him off. Sebastian had got in several good body blows before they peeled him away. He was incoherent with rage, shouting and swearing at his father.
Donald rubbed his ribs, and seemed to grow calmer as Sebastian’s fury increased.
“Sebastian!” I breathed. “Don’t, please.”
He turned and stared at me and his face softened. His body went limp but Mitch and Ches hung onto him.
“Tesoro, please!”
I reached out for him and he stretched his hand toward me. Cautiously, Mitch let him go and nodded at Ches for him to do the same.
Sebastian swept me into his arms and pulled me to his chest.
“Don’t listen to that fucking asshole, Caro,” he mumbled, his bloodied nose making his voice thick. “He’s nothing. Nothing.”
“Is that right?” said Donald, nastily. “I’ve supplied your life with everything you’ve got: the clothes on your back, the roof over your fucking head! I’m the poor sucker who has a half-wit for a son, but that’s the point, isn’t it? You’re still my son—and that whore of yours has been fucking an underage boy. All I have to do is call the police and that bitch will be in jail so fast, she won’t have time to say a prayer.”
There was a horrified silence and I closed my eyes, fear and disgust burning through me.
“Hey, come on, man,” said Mitch, quietly. “There’s no need for that.”
“No, indeed,” said Donna, sounding appalled. “There’s no need to involve the police. I’m sure we can sort this out without resorting to anything so … so serious.”
But Donald was too far gone in his anger and hatred to listen. Or maybe he was finally saying what he’d come to say, to find another way to bully and belittle his son, to control him.
“And you know what?” he said, viciously, “She will get jail time—I’ll see to that. Corrupting a minor at her age: that’s not a misdemeanor, it’s a felony. She’s been plying him with alcohol, too, did you know that? And when she finally gets out of jail, after being finger-fucked by every hairy-assed lesbian in the slammer, she’ll have a reputation as a pedophile. Try getting a job with that tag around you, bitch! I’m going to make you fucking pay.”
The whole world came crashing down. All my worst nightmares coming true in one foul-mouthed rant from an evil man who had bullied and beaten up on his son for years.
Sebastian’s face was chalky white under his tan.
“You can’t do that!” he whispered.
“Just watch him!” sneered Estelle, her eyes glittering. “Your little whore of a girlfriend will get what she deserves.”
I hung my head, unable to shake off the weight of her despising words.
“Just because you hate me,” said Sebastian, his voice tight with emotion, “there’s no need to take it out on her.”
He wiped the blood from his face with his jacket sleeve
“Oh, listen to you!” spat Estelle. “Do you think you’re some sort of white knight who can charge in and save the day? You’re so pathetic! You ruined my life from the day you were born, mewling and puking, always hanging around my neck, a pathetic child! You don’t know anything!”
Shirley gasped and Mitch grabbed her arm; Donna was pale with shock and anger, the horror of Estelle’s admission washing over them both.
“I’m not a child!” yelled Sebastian. “I’ve been looking after myself since I was eight years old because you were too drunk to look after your own kid. How many times did I have to help you up the stairs because you were too shit-faced to walk, Mommy? How many times did strangers drop you at the door because you couldn’t even manage to call a cab? And as for my father, you’re just a fucking joke. Everyone here knows that you’re just a pathetic hole-chaser with an alcoholic slut for a wife. Caro is the best thing that ever happened to me. We’re going away together and you’ll never see us again.”
Sebastian stared at his parents triumphantly. Estelle looked winded and turned to Donald.
“No, you’re not,” said Sebastian’s father, with chilly finality. “You’re not going anywhere with that whore.”
“You’ve said that enough times now, buddy,” Mitch interrupted with a warning tone. “No need to say it again. And you reel it in, too, Seb.”
“Butt out, Sergeant!” snarled Donald. “This has fuck-all to do with you. It’s hanging around with your loser family that started all this in the first place. He’s my son and what I say goes. So listen good, boy: if you go anywhere near that bitch, I’ll call the police and she’ll be finished.”
Sebastian tried to throw himself at Donald but Mitch and Ches held his wrists and Shirley wrapped her arms around his waist trying to calm him down.
Donna gasped. “Donald, no! Think of the scandal!”
Donald smiled and turned to me.
“If you contact my son in any way: email, text, phone, letter, flying fucking carrier pigeon, we’ll prosecute. It’s a felony—you’ll go to prison. At the very least, you’ll be on the sex offender’s register for the rest of your fucking life—you’ll never work again. And the same goes for that fucking asshole of a son of mine if he tries to contact you.” He turned his eyes back to Sebastian. “Ever.”
Sebastian was yelling obscenities, trying to get to
his father; Mitch, Shirley and Ches were desperately holding him back.
“And as for you, son,” Donald continued, “you can kiss goodbye to any idea about going to college; I’m not wasting another penny on you. But I’ll tell you what you will do—as soon as you turn 18 you’ll be enlisting. Do it, or your bitch will be facing jail time.”
I was still sitting on the couch, white-faced and shocked, body trembling, barely able to take it in.
Donna spoke in a shaky voice.
“Donald, really! There’s no need for this. Surely if Caroline promises to leave quietly, we need say no more about it. Sebastian will be 18 in a few months and…”
“You’re such a fucking hypocrite, Donna. You’d really do anything for the reputation of this shit-hole of a Base, wouldn’t you?”
Donna’s mouth opened and closed several times but she seemed unable to speak again.
“And another thing, you fucking whore,” said Donald, glaring at me again. “The statute of limitations is three years: three years. You come anywhere near my son in that time and you know what will happen to you. Same goes if he contacts you. I’ll know! If you’re so much as in the same state I’ll make sure you get what’s coming to you.”
Three years. Oh, God.
I turned to Sebastian, love and loss filling me as my eyes started to blur with tears.
“Don’t listen to him, Caro!” gasped Sebastian, desperately. “He won’t do it, he won’t! He doesn’t care enough about me to bother. Don’t listen to him!”
“You’re right, you little shit,” smirked Donald, rubbing his ribs again. “I don’t give a damn about you, but believe me, it would give me a great deal of pleasure to send your little bitch to jail, if only to wipe that smug look off your fucking face.”
Shirley gasped and Donna looked disgusted.
David was lost and shattered, his gaze drifting around the room as if he couldn’t recognize anyone.
But it was Sebastian’s face that I couldn’t take my eyes off. All the fight had gone out of him and he sagged in Mitch’s arms.
I did this. I did this to him. All my rehearsed excuses flew away: I despised myself. And it was time to let him go.
“No, Caro!” breathed Sebastian as he read the decision on my face. “Don’t let him win.”
Like a sleepwalker rising to Judgment Day, I stood.
Mitch dropped his hands, releasing him, and Sebastian was in my arms for one last time. He held onto me so tightly I could hardly breathe, burying his face in my hair.
“I have to go now, tesoro,” I said softly, stroking his neck.
His grip tightened around me. “No!” he gasped as if he was in great pain.
“Yes. Sebastian, listen to me. I want you to have a good life, tesoro, a big life. I want you to be happy, to fall in love…”
“No, God, no, Caro! Don’t say that!”
“Yes! Do it for me.”
“I’ll always love you, Caro. Don’t give up on us. Please don’t give up. I’ll wait for you. It’s only three years. I love you!”
But it wasn’t just three years, was it? I knew that now.
“I love you, too,” I whispered so softly I didn’t know if he’d heard me. “Ti amo tanto, Sebastian, sempre e per sempre.”
I tried to peel his hands away from my body but he wouldn’t let go.
“No!” he cried over and over again. “No!”
“Oh, for fuck’s sake!” snarled Donald in disgust.
Somehow Mitch and Ches managed to pull Sebastian off; he tried to fight them but his spirit was broken.
I turned to Shirley and Donna, their faces filled with pity.
“Look after him,” I said softly. “Ches, I … just be his friend.”
Ches nodded, unable to speak.
“Oh my dear, dear child,” said Donna, tears in her eyes.
I looked at my husband, whose silence was more eloquent than a thousand words.
“Goodbye, David,” I whispered. “I’m sorry…”
He stared at me blankly, then dropped his head into his hands.
I turned to go, my eyes sweeping over Estelle’s malice, David’s bewilderment, Donald’s triumph, the sadness in the expressions of Donna and Shirley, and the anger darkening the faces of Ches and Mitch.
Then my eyes rested on the man I loved; the man I vowed I would never see again because he’d been hurt enough—by me.
“Caro, no!” he cried again, tears falling down his face, mingling with the blood.
“I love you, Sebastian. So much, tesoro.”
And then I walked away, leaving behind all the goodness and beauty that I’d ever known in my life.
Despite what happened that day, despite what happened later, I can’t bring myself to regret the events of that summer, because Sebastian taught me how to love.
END OF PART ONE
PART TWO
tHE EDUCATION OF CAROLINE
prologue
When a woman turns forty she is no longer young, but not yet old.
At least, that’s what I was told by friends who had reached that milestone some years ahead of me. I wasn’t concerned, although perhaps I should have been: my work as a freelance journalist was always uncertain, my mortgage large, my pension minute, with the future unwritten. So, yes, turning forty should have bothered me, or at least sparked my interest a little, but you can’t force yourself to feel, can you?
I never dreamed that my past would catch up with me, and that I’d be drawn back into the erotic madness of a decade ago.
But then again, perhaps life is what happens when you least expect it.
CHAPTER 1
I gazed around the table at the faces of my friends, bathing in the warmth of their love.
Nicole smiled back at me and raised her glass.
“Well, today’s the day,” she said, winking at me. “The big 4-0! Not that you look it: beotch! Happy Birthday!”
Jenna and Alice lifted their cocktail glasses and clinked across the table.
I smiled wryly.
“Well, some days I certainly feel forty. But not today—it’s so great that all you guys made it.”
“Are you kidding?” said Nicole. “Of course we made it—and I never go to Brooklyn, so you should feel really honored, Venzi!”
“Here we go,” muttered Alice, “the ‘I never leave Manhattan even to see how the peasants live’ speech.”
“Up yours, Alice,” snorted Nicole.
I laughed, happy to hear their bickering, which was as familiar and innocent as air.
These were my friends, but I thought of them as family. And they had all come to my favorite Italian restaurant in Brooklyn to celebrate with me.
“So, you’re leaving us again,” sighed Alice. “Up, up and away on your travels.”
“It’s not exactly a vacation,” retorted Nicole.
She would have raised her eyebrows except she’d been for her monthly Botox treatment, and the upper part of her face was currently immobile.
It was true: it wasn’t a vacation—I was going away for work. And I was living my dream.
I’d come a long way since arriving in New York ten years ago, penniless and unhappy, fleeing a failed marriage and a doomed affair.
It hadn’t been easy, although I doubt that moving to the Big Apple is easy for anyone. But for me, it meant living by myself, by my own efforts, for the first time in my life. I was scared and adrift in a city I didn’t understand, where I knew no one.
At first, I’d lived in a horrible, low-rent hostel, before finding a tiny apartment in Brooklyn’s Little Italy—a place that became my home for the next eight years. I cleaned people’s apartments to earn money for food and rent, while saving what I could to go back to school to study journalism and photography.
I’d been in New York for less than two months when 9/11 happened. The world changed on that day: everyone’s lives were different, as if we’d lost our innocence. The smoke and ash had hung in the air for days after; the feeling of shock
and despair lasted much longer. And then came the anger: it was so strong, it was like a nightmarish creature that haunted your waking dreams. You couldn’t see it, but you could feel it, glimpsed in the faces of people around you—those expressions you caught out of the corner of your eye, that showed the rage was still there.
But there was also a sense of togetherness, maybe of shared experience. It was as if the whole city came together to care for each other. We mourned together, we tried to pick up the pieces together. It was as if we were one big family, living through a crisis together. It was just a different atmosphere. Everyone wanted to help out, everyone had some sort of connection to those buildings.
Somehow, selfishly, it fit in with my own sense of loss: not just the life I’d left behind in California, but also because I’d lost who I was.
A year passed before I opened my eyes, shook myself from my torpor and found a way to live again.
An old acquaintance from San Diego had helped get me some ad hoc work on local newspapers and, from there, I’d managed to begin my freelance writing career. At first it was just small features: a food festival in Brooklyn; a music festival in Queens; but gradually the scope of my writing became more wide-reaching, adventurous even.
It was shortly after that, when a piece I wrote called ‘The New Immigrants’ about asylum seekers, had caught the eye of a national newspaper editor and, suddenly and unexpectedly, I was on my way. For the past six years I’d been lucky enough to earn my livelihood as a foreign correspondent, working freelance for several major newspapers.
Two years ago, I’d even saved enough to put down a deposit on a tiny, 1920s bungalow in Long Beach. My mortgage was scarily large, but I wanted somewhere of my own: somewhere I could come home to as driver of my own destiny, and queen of my own castle.
I’d loved living in Brooklyn and was sorry to say goodbye to my favorite coffee shops and restaurants. There was a real sense of community in the neighborhood, and the area thrummed with the vibrancy of the constantly changing wave of people that passed through.
The Education of Sebastian & the Education of Caroline Page 37