by Jill Barnett
Cale stumbled back. “What the hell?”
She was struggling on the edge of the counter to get her shorts up. Cale whipped around. “Jud? Shit!” He pulled up his jeans and fumbled to get them together. “What are you doing here?”
“Watching the show. This is better than a stag film.”
“Shut the fuck up, Jud.”
Laurel zipped her shorts, her face red as a tomato, then she looked down and silently began buttoning up her shirt.
Jud held up the bra. “You lost this.”
Cale grabbed it. “Get out of here.”
“It’s nice to see you again, Laurel. All of you.” Jud’s voice was controlled, low, and calm, but his hands were shaking. He was consumed with a red and helpless rage, and all he wanted to do was hit Cale.
His brother came at him. “Stop it!” Cale grabbed Jud by the shirt.
“Let go of me.” Jud was so close to losing it. “Now.”
Laurel stood in the center of the kitchen, sliding her sandals on. “I’m leaving.”
Cale let go of Jud. “No. Don’t.”
“I’m going home.” She walked past them both without looking at them.
“Babe, wait!”
“Let her go,” Jud said tightly.
Cale looked at him, then rushed past him. “You asshole.”
It took only two strides and Jud grabbed his brother, jerked him back, then swung him around and pinned him against the wall with his forearm against his neck. “I said, let—her—go.”
“No!” Cale tried to shove him away.
Jud pressed his forearm deeper into Cale’s throat. It was so easy.
“Let me go after her, you dick.” Cale’s voice was strangled. He struggled, then pulled Jud’s arm out from between their bodies and shoved him backward into the dining room chairs. “I want you out of here.”
By the time Jud scrambled up, his brother was out the door and gone.
Laurel ran all the way home, taking different streets so Cale couldn’t follow her. It was dusky out, not dark enough to hide. She wanted the ground to open up and swallow her. As she rounded the corner of Descanso, the streetlight came on. She raced to the house, stopping just before she hit the steps, using the open gate post to steady herself; then pressed her hands to hot cheeks burning from her own foolishness. All she heard was a ringing in her ears and the pounding of her own heart.
The front porch light was off but the lamp in the front window was on. She wondered if her mother was still mad at her. What would she say when she walked in?
“Laurel?” Cale stepped out of the shadows between the houses. He was breathing harder than she was.
She turned away. “Oh, God, Cale. Not now. Go home. Please.”
He grabbed her arm and turned her around. “Come here. I’m sorry, babe. I’m so sorry. Jud was an ass. I don’t know what happened. Maybe he was drunk. Something was wrong. That’s not like Jud.”
She couldn’t tell him she’d met Jud before, and it was becoming her habit, running away from his brother crying and humiliated. Cale tried to pull her into his arms, but she shook her head. “No, please.”
“Are you mad at me?”
“I’m mad at myself.” The disgust in her voice was hard to miss. It was crazy, this tilted world she lived in. The night air was warm, yet she was shivering, and afraid her teeth would start chattering any second. To her horror, when she took her next deep breath, she began to cry.
“I’m sorry, baby,” Cale whispered. “I’m sorry.” His face looked panicked. She gripped his shirt in her fists, sobbed into his shoulder, and couldn’t stop. Clearly he didn’t know what to say or do. It was an immensely awkward moment.
“I don’t understand why he was even here,” Cale said, as if he were talking to himself.
“Did he know you were coming to the island?”
“We didn’t talk this week. But he’ll leave.” Cale’s expression became hard and determinedly thinned. “I’ll make certain he’s gone. I won’t let him ruin the little time we have left together.” He tilted her face up to look at him.
He had the kindest eyes. She remembered thinking that when she first met him. This was a man who wouldn’t hurt her.
“I love you, baby.”
“I know you do.” When he told her that, she felt safe. Someone loved her.
“I have an idea. We’ll take the runabout out tomorrow and have lunch at the Isthmus. Okay?”
She nodded.
“Your mother’s standing in the window.”
Laurel turned and looked, but didn’t see anything but the soft yellow light from the lamp.
“I saw her in the back of the room.”
Was her mother there watching them now? She had changed that much? Now she was sneaking around to watch them. What happened to the mother she could talk to? What happened to the mother who didn’t judge her? “I’d better go inside. We had a fight earlier.”
“You’re okay now?” he asked.
“Yes.” But she was lying. What happened tonight embarrassed her terribly. She had seen a black side to love. It wasn’t this beautiful thing that made you fly. It wasn’t about the heart. Tonight it was about shame.
“I’ll pick you up in the morning. About ten.” With a quick kiss and a wave, he walked away.
Laurel closed the front door and faced her mother, standing in a dark corner of the living room.
“What did he do to you?”
“He didn’t do anything, Mom. He loves me.”
“You were crying. I saw you.”
“I know, but I’m okay now I don’t want to talk about it. Please. I’m home tonight. I didn’t stay over. You should be happy.”
“Laurel please . . . what’s happening to us?”
“I’m tired, Mom. Good night.” Laurel closed her bedroom door without another word. She didn’t want to talk. She didn’t want to think. She didn’t want to feel. She just wanted to go to bed.
17
On the eastern side of the Isthmus, lofty date palms lined up like arborous soldiers along a pale, sandy beach, guarding the sleepy blue cove and its long, rustic pier and outbuildings, some dating back to the Civil War. Speeding there in Cale’s runabout did much to recover Laurel’s wounded spirit. Enfolded by the panoramic vastness of that blue, blue water, everything else in the world seemed suddenly inconsequential.
They picnicked near the water’s edge, and ate well—curry chicken sandwiches, crab-stuffed deviled eggs, and peanut butter brownies, foods she’d prepared early that morning—and swam until Cale spotted a leviathan hammerhead, then there was nothing left to do but loll in the sand like indolent sea lions, overly drunk on the sweet addiction of spicy food, sex, and summer sunshine.
It was close to four when they sped around the point toward the cove house. Cale stiffened at the wheel, suddenly looking around, then quickly powered down and sagged back against the seat, swearing.
“What’s wrong?”
“Victor’s here.”
“Your grandfather?” She looked at the silent, crouching house. “Are you sure? I can’t see anyone.”
“Oh, I’m sure. Look.” He nodded south toward a white yacht anchored near the opposite point.
“My God . . .” Laurel looked at him in shock. “It must be close to a hundred feet.”
“A hundred and ten.” Cale brought the boat closer to the house, where she spotted a white and blue launch docked, the kind luxury yachts carried to motor in from deepwater anchorages. Cale laughed bitterly. “Victor doesn’t do anything in a small way.” He pulled in behind the launch and cut the motor as she tied off the lines. “We’ve got trouble, babe.” His tone alarmed her.
“Do you want me to leave?”
“I don’t know.” Cale paused, searching the landscape. “It’s too late for that now.”
The low roof and planes of the house spread out in wings from a whitewashed deck, where his grandfather—casually dressed in nautical red and blue—stood in relief. In less time than a hea
rt could beat, a riptide of suppressed emotion charged the air, and the world became all too complicated.
“Should we wave?”
“Maybe my middle finger.”
“Cale,” she whispered. “That’s awful.”
“I have a feeling you’re about to see awful.”
“Why? Did you two have a fight?”
“No, but we’re about to.” He took her hand. “Come on.”
Victor Banning let them come to him, standing stone still and so intimidating. Was he even breathing? This was a man who gave little away. “Hello, Mr. Banning. It’s good to see you again.” She didn’t move closer. Victor Banning was not someone you wanted to hug.
“Laurel.” He nodded sharply. “I need to speak with Cale. Alone.”
“No. She stays.”
“Do you think if she stays, I won’t talk to you about the reason I’m here?”
“I don’t think that for a minute. I want her here. This concerns her. Right?”
Cale’s grandfather looked at her. The hard edges in his face melted some. “This is not about you, my dear.”
“I think maybe I should leave you two to talk.”
“No.” Cale wouldn’t let go of her hand. “This is because of our past, not you.”
Victor directed his words toward her. “I pulled strings to get Cale into USC, Laurel, on his word he would concentrate on school.”
“That’s not true.” Cale was angry. “He said school or a girlfriend. Not both. He made me choose between med school and you. That’s why he’s here.”
Something vital drained out of her. The acrimony between Cale and his grandfather made each breath taste rancid. Cale’s hand tightened its hold on hers in a white grip, but even with the bright afternoon sun beating down on them, even with him touching her, she felt a chilly isolation.
“He made me choose two days after graduation,” Cale said.
Laurel understood then. His grandfather wouldn’t know that that was after they had first made love.
“Whenever Cale has a girl in his life, his grades go down the drain. He consistently chooses women over responsibility. This is medical school. There can’t possibly be time for a girlfriend. I’m sorry, Laurel, but you are detrimental to his future.”
Overhead, the strangled cries of the gulls seemed like good timing, since there was nothing left to say.
“I won’t walk away from her, Victor.”
His grandfather grabbed Cale’s arm. “Listen to me. I bought your way in and I can buy your way out. Choose. You go back with me now, or you go with her.”
What kind of anger and jealousy made men see things in only black-and-white—all or nothing? Neither of these two men seemed able to acknowledge that most of life could be shades of gray. Laurel turned to Cale. “I won’t be the reason you don’t become a doctor.” She pulled her hand away and stepped back, using distance as her armor.
“Laurel, don’t.” Cale’s voice shook with emotion when he reached out to her. She couldn’t look at him, and didn’t want to look at his grandfather.
“You won’t make the right decision, Cale. I have to,” she said, and just walked away, so simple an action, so easy, but it wasn’t until she was on the road where the gravel crunched brokenly beneath her feet that she realized she was crying.
For long seconds Cale couldn’t move. Laurel’s words played out in his mind, one at a time like beads on a rosary. Anger and humiliation and something empty—that she could walk away—left him unable to think clearly. He stared at the place where she had just stood, dumbfounded and aching.
“Well, I guess there is no choice to make.” His grandfather hadn’t moved.
“I have to talk to her.”
“Leave her alone. She’s a smart girl. Let her find someone better for her.”
Cale rounded on Victor. “I’m not going with you unless I can talk to her, dammit!”
“You have no bargaining power.” Victor laughed sarcastically. “I’m making the decisions. Would you really throw everything away now? She left you pretty easily, Cale. You realize that, right?”
Victor could wound with such casual ease; he honed in right to the place Cale was the weakest.
“I’ll give you five minutes, then I’m taking the launch back. If you aren’t on it, no school.”
Cale ran after her. “Laurel! Wait!”
She turned, walking backward and holding her hands up. “Cale. Don’t do this. Go back.” She was crying. “You have to go back.”
The harder he ran, the louder she was shouting, “Go back! Go back!” But he caught her and pulled her against him, holding her even though she hit his chest with her fists. “Don’t. You can’t do this. You can’t do this!”
“I love you. I love you.” He leaned down and whispered, “Don’t leave me. Don’t leave me.” He knew when she sagged against him he had a chance. “Listen. Listen to me, baby. There’s no way Victor can know what I’m doing at school. We’ll be careful.”
“You already tried to sneak behind his back and he found out. You never told me, Cale. You hid that ultimatum from me, yet you say you love me?”
“I do love you. I wanted to protect you. Medical school isn’t just my future. It’s our future. Promise me, Laurel. You have to promise me.”
“Cale. Look at the last two days. My mother. Your brother. Your grandfather. The world is trying to tell us something.”
“What? That my brother and grandfather are assholes?”
“Maybe we should listen.”
“Can you really walk away so easily? I can’t, Laurel. I’m willing to fight for you. Today was beautiful. I can’t forget it.”
“I never thought love could be so hard,” she said. They ached together in cloudless gray silence. He understood she must feel the immense, unbearable reality that everyone was against them.
“Trust me.” He tilted her chin up so she had to look at him. “School starts in two weeks. I won’t be able to see you at first, but I’ll call you. We’ll wait. We’ll be patient. We’ll pretend. We’ll be smarter than he is. Once I’m there for the first year, he can’t stop me. They won’t kick me out. I’ll have proven myself. I’ll get the grades. You can’t leave me. I need you too much. We can do this.”
“I don’t know what to do, Cale.”
“Let me handle my grandfather. I have to go back with him. Before I go, tell me you won’t leave me.”
She seemed to be searching for something in his face, but she took a deep breath and said, “I won’t leave you.”
“You swear.”
“I swear.”
“Smile for me, Laurel-Like-the-Tree Peyton, smile for me and tell me you love me.”
“I love you.”
“Me too.” He let her go. “Remember. Me too.” He ran back toward the dock and could hear the putter of the boat engine. His tennis shoes thudded on the boards of the dock as Victor drove the launch alongside, almost like he was taunting him. Cale took a huge leap and landed so hard the boat rocked and tilted. He had to grab the side to stay put, and water sloshed up on the deck and soaked Victor, who powered up the boat and headed for the yacht.
Cale boarded the Catalan as fast as he could get away. Her diesel engine was running, and he heard the anchors coming up. The two-hour cruise back to Newport would be an interminable hell.
He was already drinking a beer in the salon when Victor came in. “You’re a fool, Cale. You thought you could sneak around behind my back? You think I don’t know anything about your life?”
He wondered why Victor gave a damn about any of this, including his life and his future, when Jud came up from the cabins below. It didn’t take a rocket scientist to understand what had happened. “It was you. You told him about Laurel, didn’t you? Damn you, Jud.”
His brother didn’t deny it.
Cale was so pissed he threw the beer at him and missed, then dove for him and punched Jud hard three times before his brother connected one. Cale tasted the salt of blood in his mouth, ta
ckled Jud, and they rolled across the floor. Cale had him by his hair, pounding him.
Jud caught him with an upper cut, locked his legs around him, and flipped him on his back, so Cale hammered his knee up blindly and nailed him in the kidneys. They rolled into the glass table. The lamp tilted, hit the floor, and shattered next to Jud’s head. At one point Cale heard the crew, glanced up as they ran inside, all talking at once. The first mate grabbed his arms. Another grabbed Jud, which helped . . .Cale could knee him in the stomach.
“Stop!” It was Victor’s voice.
The crew held them by their arms, so they used their feet. Every foul word Cale knew spilled from his tongue. For every one he shouted, Jud had another more vile one.
“Stop holding them!” Victor shouted this time. “Get back to work and let them fight it out.”
Suddenly released, he and Jud tumbled to the floor. Victor stood there like God, watching them beating the crap out of each other. Cale turned back to tell Jud to stop and look at the old bastard, but his brother’s fist nailed him on the chin, and everything went black.
18
During the early weeks of fall, Laurel talked to Cale every night. But with six technical lectures a day, he began to miss nights and often fell asleep on the phone. It became okay not to talk every day, every night, so she worked the dinner shifts at the restaurant and came home after eleven smelling like the night’s special.
Soon it was routine: home, shower, phone, bed; life became all about brushing her teeth, grating nutmeg, creating béarnaise sauce, and doing her laundry. She didn’t think about the things that seemed so important mere months ago. She didn’t wonder about true love and all its mysteries. She didn’t go to bed on dreamy what-if’s, and when she walked, her feet were planted solidly on the ground, none of that floating along on sheer adoration. No tender mist softened her gaze when she looked in the mirror; everything was sharp, hard, and real.
A rare week arrived when she pulled two golden lunch shifts in a row, but Cale had lectures both nights, so she came home at four in the afternoon reeking of rosemary, onions, and salmon. Not five minutes later, the doorbell buzzed. Jud Banning leaned against the porch post as if he’d been there for a while. “Jud.”