Feels Like Falling

by Kristy Woodson Harvey

  The TV was on when I walked into Phillip’s room, and he was staring at it, but he looked over at me. “Hi, buddy,” I said. “Can I turn your TV off?”

  “Okay,” he said, as I hit the button on the remote.

  I sat down in the other chair with the starfish cushions on it right beside him. “How you doing today?”

  He didn’t say anything, but he smiled at me, light behind those green eyes of his.

  “You won’t believe it,” I said enthusiastically. I had gotten so good at having mostly one-sided conversations with him, at being as excited as I could manage to maybe give him a bright spot in his day. “I’m finally working on opening a restaurant. On a boat!”

  “A boat,” Phillip repeated.

  I nodded. “You’ve met my friend Cheyenne. She comes by to see you sometimes. Her husband is helping me get it all fixed up, and I’m saving up some money to get it started. You’ll work there when I get it open, right? Help me some?”

  “Yeah,” he said.

  I wanted to hug him, but I didn’t. I could see it clear as day. The two of us in my little boat restaurant, rambling around our new place together at night… with Frank. When I saw Phillip and me together in my head, Frank was there too. And that’s what gave me the strength, I think.

  As I pulled into Frank’s driveway a few minutes later, I thought about the first time he ever brought me here.

  I felt sick to my stomach looking out onto the beach, remembering that right there on that dune, that’s where we’d made that baby. At least, I think so. There was something so special about that night. I knew then that Frank and me, we’d be together forever. I turned to the house, but before I even got a chance to walk up the steps, I heard Frank’s feet thudding down. When he turned the corner, I was standing right there on the bottom one, just waiting and smiling.

  He put his hand on his chest, a little out of breath. “Di, you always did know how to get my heart racing.”

  He leaned in to kiss me, but I backed away.

  That handsome face fell.

  “Please, Di. Please don’t be here giving me bad news. I can’t take having you and then having to be without you again. Please.”

  “Frank, I’m so mad at you,” I said. “Still. All these years later. You abandoned me just like the rest. Worse than the rest because you knew how hard it was for me to let anyone in. How can I ever trust you again?”

  He took my hand, and I let him. “Di, it isn’t an excuse. I realize that it isn’t. But I was twenty-two years old, and I wasn’t just in danger of losing those stores. I was in danger of losing my family.”

  My ears perked.

  “Look, like I said, it isn’t an excuse, but my momma and daddy weren’t taking away the stores; they were taking away themselves, our relationship. Everything. I loved you. I wanted you, and I see now that I made the wrong choice, but at the time I couldn’t imagine my life without Christmases around the tree at the beach house and Easter lunch at Grandma’s. It was too much. It was too big a choice. So I didn’t choose. I just hid.”

  Now, I know for most women, that wouldn’t be a good explanation. But for me, it couldn’t have been better. Because I had never had a family. At least, not in the way I wanted to. And if I ever had, I wouldn’t have let it go either. I’m damn sure about that. I was okay on my own. I was. But when you have a family and then you lose it, all you want forever is to get that back.

  “I have never moved on past that day you walked away.” He put my hand up to his heart. “I’ve carried you right here all these years. I love you, D. It’s as simple and as complicated as that.”

  I could feel the panic rising in me that he couldn’t ever really love me, that he was going to leave me, that if I let myself fall, even a little, it would be over, just like everything else. I couldn’t bear it. “You don’t even know who I am, Frank,” I practically shouted, my voice suddenly shaking with fear and anger and passion. “You have no idea.” I could feel myself trying to push him away; I was terrified that he would find out who I really was and leave me. I had to tell him now. He had to know the real me. It was easier for him to leave me now than later. “Two months ago, I had sixty bucks to my name. I was homeless. I was living in my car. I was washing my underwear in a sink at the marina.” I was so worked up I had to pause to look away. “That isn’t something new for me, Frank. I’m not some shiny, hopeful eighteen-year-old anymore. I’ve been through things that I could never even explain to you. Life has worn me down. Life has won.”

  He took my face in his hands. “I don’t care where you’ve been or what you’ve done. I don’t care about any of it, Diana.”

  “Your mom was right,” I said, my voice still raised. “I’m a trailer trash orphan. That’s all I’m ever going to be. I will never be good enough for you.”

  “Diana,” Frank said quietly. He rubbed my arms, trying to soothe me. I was having trouble breathing. He bent down just a little so his face was even with mine. “She has always been shortsighted and she has always been wrong about you. You are more than enough for me. Hell, you are the only one for me.”

  I was calming down now. I was hearing him. And this huge part of me knew that he was right. We were meant to be. There was no other way to describe how it felt.

  “I love you no matter what,” he said. “I love you more than myself. I love you more than time.”

  There were tears in my eyes now, but I didn’t want him to see so I looked away. All I could manage was, “What if it isn’t as good as we think?”

  “If what isn’t?”

  He sat down on the bottom step and patted beside him.

  “Our life together,” I said, sitting down, our hips touching. “What if it was all fun and games when we were kids, but now, as adults, it’s just drudgery like everything else? I can’t bear to ever be like that with you. You’re the one I’ve always carried in my heart, that great love I held on to and compared to everyone else.” I looked down at my polished toe peeking out of my sandal. “If that’s gone, Frank, I don’t think I can bear it.”

  He put his arm around me and pulled me in close to him, pushing my head against his strong chest. “We’ve spent the last two decades dreaming about our love. Let’s spend all the rest of them living it.” He looked down at me. “Okay?”

  It was the perfect thing to say. It was the exact thing that all those nights I lay awake in bed alone or beside yet another wrong guy I had hoped and prayed to God that I would hear out of those very lips, lips I hadn’t laid eyes on in so long that their memory was fading. Lips I couldn’t quite see, but, if I closed my eyes, I could feel them on mine, just the same as it had always been. I felt that race in my heart and that ache in my stomach, the warning bell that told me to run. Could I be this happy? If I was this happy and it ended, would I ever be able to go back to living like normal again?

  I don’t know what gave me the strength. But I nodded. “Okay.”

  He kissed me long and hard, and I felt in that moment that everything in my life that had been tough—losing my mom, all them foster homes, losing Frank, losing my baby—this moment was where all that got made up for. I might have been a forty-year-old princess. But I was going to have one hell of a happily ever after.

  CHAPTER 14

  gray: corporate takeover

  As I adjusted the collar buttons on Andrew’s shirt, which he had paired with freshly pressed khaki shorts, I realized I was pretty sure that I’d never seen him in an oxford. It was sweet that he was dressing up for me to take him out in public for the first time.

  “So why is this thing in the middle of the day?” he asked.

  “I don’t have the faintest idea,” I said. “I am happy to say that I didn’t have one thing to do with planning this soiree.”

  “It’s because it’s a fund-raiser,” Marcy said. “And, theoretically, people drink less during the day and then the charity doesn’t spend as much money on booze.”

  “Theoretically,” Andrew said in a tone that implied
they hadn’t met us yet. We all laughed.

  “Hello,” I said. “Three for Howard.”

  The lady sitting at the table, wearing glasses with a chain to keep them around her neck, said, “I see Howard for two.”

  Andrew put his arm around me. “That would be her idiot ex-husband.”

  He kissed me on the cheek, and Marcy added, “And his trampy new fiancée.”

  The woman looked shocked underneath her half-glasses and sort of stuttered, “Um… yes… I see Howard for three right here. Sorry I missed it before.”

  Andrew took my hand, and we walked into the party, surveying the scene.

  “Oh, man,” Marcy said. “These people just keep getting older.”

  Andrew snickered behind his hand.

  “Y’all need to behave, okay? I brought you both out in public under the condition of good behavior. You can shotgun beers at the Beach Pub later as a reward if you can keep it together now.”

  In his haughtiest voice, Andrew said, “Well, my love, in that case, I shall go rustle us up some chardonnay. Not too oaky. No, not on a day as warm as this.”

  Marcy and I giggled. As I watched Andrew walk away, I could feel eyes on me. I turned and did a double take.

  He was tall, dark, and age-appropriate. He was handsome, but not ruggedly like Andrew. There was something that made him imperfectly attractive, like maybe his nose was a little bit too big for his face. He didn’t have to say a word for every person in that room to know that he was powerful. He was in charge. He was a man.

  “Oh my gosh,” Marcy whispered to me. “Who is that guy?”

  As if he had heard her, he turned. His eyes met mine for a moment too long, but it was as if I couldn’t look away. He had me locked in his gaze. He winked and smiled and sauntered to the bar.

  “You can’t be serious?” Marcy said.

  “What do you mean?” I asked breathlessly, using all the energy I had not to follow him.

  She took a step back and turned toward me. “Do you see me?” she asked, running her hands down the length of her torso in a body-skimming dress with her tan, mile-long legs peeking out from underneath.

  “You are stunning. If I were into women, I would be all over you.”

  “Awww, thanks, sweetie. So why was Mr. Corporate Takeover there giving you the stare-down and didn’t even notice me?”

  “I don’t know what you’re talking about,” I lied.

  “What did I miss?” Andrew said from behind me, making me jump.

  He handed me a drink. I smiled, coming back to earth, to this cutie-pie I was with.

  “Oh, noth—there they are!” Marcy finished in a sharp whisper.

  I looked toward the sign-in table to see Brooke gliding in, her long blond hair waving in the breeze, looking about as gorgeous as one could expect, on Greg’s arm. He was smiling victoriously, as if he were signaling that he had won some sort of contest. You couldn’t blame him, really. She was stunning, to say the least.

  His smile vanished when he saw me. I waved and slipped my hand into Andrew’s. It probably seemed like a ploy, but, in all honesty, I felt like I needed his support. It was the first time I had seen my almost ex-husband and his new fiancée out together, like, at an event. It wasn’t that I wanted him back. But she was on his arm where I had been for so many years, and that was undeniably strange.

  Brooke smiled at me. While she was chatting with the hostess, Greg beelined in my direction. “Hi, Greg,” I said nonchalantly.

  Andrew put his hand out and said, “Hi, I’m—”

  Greg cut him off. “I know who you are.” He peered at me. “Gray, could we have a moment, please?”

  Andrew looked at me questioningly. I nodded and smiled at him, and he gave me a quick kiss on the lips and said, “It’s time for a new beer. Can I get you one, man?” as he walked off.

  Greg looked at him as if he were speaking Greek, which was not one of the five languages that Greg was fluent in.

  “Are you serious, Gray? Bringing our son’s tennis teacher to the party? Are you trying to make me jealous or something?”

  I laughed and took a sip of my wine. “I’m definitely not trying to make you jealous. I tried to fend him off, but the man is very persistent.”

  “So you’re telling me that this isn’t a one-time thing.”

  I waved my hand. “No way. We’ve been together a couple of months now.”

  He looked at me in astonishment. “You have to be kidding me. What is he, twenty-five?”

  I smiled into my glass, trying not to laugh at Andrew and Marcy making faces behind Greg’s head, about twenty feet away. “Well, twenty-seven.” I didn’t want to, but I couldn’t help it, so I said, “Wait. How old is Brooke again?”

  “Twenty-eight,” Greg said, his face getting sort of red. I knew I couldn’t push him much further, and I loved that I could have this effect on him.

  I made a face like she was on her deathbed. “Gosh, Greg. That’s kind of old.” I patted him on the shoulder and whispered in his ear, “Maybe try going a little younger with your next fiancée.”

  He crossed his arms. “Oh, and just so you know, there’s no way I’m letting you off the hook for that piddly sum you offered me.”

  I rolled my eyes. “That’s more money than most people make cumulatively in their lifetime. I think it’s very fair.”

  “I’m glad you think that,” he whispered. “I don’t, and my lawyers don’t either.” He paused. “See you in court.”

  That made my stomach turn, but I just smiled brightly and said, “Good move. After I testify, you’ll get nothing. I can’t wait!”

  I was lying, but it felt good to say it anyway. Then I walked past him and bounded in what I hoped was a charming and adorable way toward my charming and adorable date.

  “So how’d it go?” Marcy asked.

  “Let’s just say that giving someone a taste of his own medicine has never felt so good,” I said. Andrew’s arm felt familiar and comforting as it slipped around my shoulders. But I had to admit that when I saw Mr. Corporate Takeover at the top of the steps, staring at me again, a shiver went down my spine.

  diana: sink the ship

  Walking up the steps to Frank’s house that day, all I could hear in my head was trailer trash orphan over and over. And Frank’s momma, she wasn’t wrong about me. Back then, I had been making crazy good money waitressing at the Island Grille, and I’d got me some nice clothes and rented one of them cute, tiny houses on the outskirts of Cape Carolina. But that didn’t mean Frank’s momma couldn’t see right through me. I was, at my very core, a trailer trash orphan—or, more aptly, a project orphan, which was even worse.

  Frank squeezed my hand and looked at me funny like he thought I was going to throw up or something. “She’s not here, Diana. It’s not like my momma’s going to pop out of the paneling.”

  But, oh my Lord, she was everywhere. She’d sewn the curtains and decorated the bookshelves and found all them shells lining the coffee table. “We’re being crazy, Frank. Nothing’s changed. Your momma’s still going to hate me.”

  He shrugged. “I’m almost forty-five years old, Diana. I don’t care what my momma thinks.”

  It was easy to say, standing there in her living room, in the family house she always knew she would pass down to Frank one day, that he didn’t care. But he had to care. Or maybe that was just the fear talking. It was waiting in the wings, hiding in the background of every happy moment, asking, What’s going to sink the ship? What’s going to go wrong this time? I didn’t consider myself a pessimist, but I couldn’t wrap my mind around things being this good.

  He led me into the tiny kitchen and poured a glass of wine and handed it to me. “You just need to relax,” he whispered in my ear, kissing its lobe, then the nape of my neck, then my collarbone.

  I took a sip, feeling soothed.

  “I thought it was going to be just me, so I was going to throw a steak on the grill, but I’m happy to take my girl out if you’d rather.”
<
br />   I smiled. “I think dinner in sounds like just what the doctor ordered.”

  Cooking dinner with Frank felt easy, like we’d been doing it forever. He put the steaks on the grill, and I chopped the zucchini and onions and squash and tossed them in a little olive oil and threw them in a pan. He popped the bread in the oven, and I took the butter out of the foil. We carried our plates and wine to the tiny dining table on the corner of the porch. The house was small, modest, and nothing fancy. But the view of the ocean, waves crashing on the shore, was spectacular.

  “Momma and Dad built them a new house over on Ocean Ridge right before he passed,” Frank said. “So this one’s all ours if we want it.”

  All ours. It wasn’t lost on me. I smiled at him, the second glass of wine washing away my worries. He was right. He was a grown man. His mother didn’t control him anymore.

  “What about the stores?” I asked. “How can you live here and keep them all going?”

  He chewed his steak and smiled. “I sold out of all of ’em but the Cape Carolina one.”

  I looked at him wide-eyed. That chain of stores was his family’s pride and joy. They had something. Not just one but five stores that were real profitable. “Why’d you do that?”

  He shrugged. “You see it, the chain stores—the real big ones—they’re popping up on every corner. I knew I couldn’t compete.” He wiped his mouth and took a sip of wine. “Walgreens wanted my corner lot in Charlotte and paid me all kinds of money. And one of the auto parts giants bought the other three all in one deal.” He shrugged. “It was kind of hard because it’s family, but, I mean, I still got this one to tool around in—pun intended. Wasn’t like I was ever going to make that kind of money out of the stores. Selling out was the right decision.”