“Okay. But we should still take it one step at a time.”
“Charley, I’m not going to beat this,” Tricia said quietly.
The tears rose again, and this time it was Charley struggling with her words. “Can you let me hear what the doctors have to say first?”
“Of course. I’m sorry. I shouldn’t hit you with all of this at once.”
“Do you…do you need me to come over this weekend?”
“No, but could we talk maybe Monday night? Watch the game together on the phone?”
“Yes. Give me your number so I have it now. And your email. Are you still working?”
“So far. You have my number. I called several times.”
Charley didn’t say anything. Tricia laughed. “You deleted me. You didn’t keep the number, did you?”
“Well, you’re the one who suggested I hated you.” Charley picked up the crumpled paper with Tricia’s number on it that she’d tossed onto her nightstand and smoothed it out.
“I got worried when you didn’t call me back. I told you it was serious.”
“That was wide open to interpretation. You didn’t say what serious meant.”
“I couldn’t tell you what it was over the phone. Who leaves that kind of message, ‘Hi, this is your ex, I’m dying of lung cancer, please call me.’”
“I can see that now. And please stop saying that. You can’t tell me your doctors have said you’re going to die.”
“Doctors never say that. They fight even when you’re on life support.”
“If they’re going to fight, you’re going to fight. Do you understand me? I’m not signing up for anything else.”
Tricia was silent.
“Oh, fuck, I’m signing up for everything, aren’t I?”
Tricia sobbed, catching Charley off-guard. She wanted to reach through the phone to hold her.
“Tricia, I’m here now. I will get you through this.” It hit Charley what finality those words might hold. Charley heard Tricia clear her throat and knew she was pulling herself back together.
“I’ll call you Monday. You’ll pick up?”
“Yes, smartass, I’ll answer.”
“I do love hearing you call me that again.” Tricia gave Charley her address, too.
“Nice ’hood. Wow.”
“It’s where…” Tricia hesitated.
“Where Reagan wanted to live.”
“I’m sorry…”
“Look, I think we have to stop apologizing for what’s in the past now. There’s too much we’ll be dealing with going forward to let that get in the way.”
“I will apologize til the day I—”
“No. No more apologies. Let’s be done. You want me on board? We’re done with that.”
“Okay. Truce.”
“Thank you. Monday night, then. Oh, wait.” Charley couldn’t believe she’d nearly forgotten Joanna’s text asking to go out for drinks Monday. “Look, I may not be home until close to nine.”
“Oh. Something going on?”
“Big presentation at work. Emily needs me on tap.” So much easier than lying to Brooke.
“Wow. Your boss kind of owns you, doesn’t she?”
“Not really. I like what I do.”
“Okay, nine. And, Charley?”
“What?”
“I love you.”
Charley closed her eyes to ward off the pain and found it surprisingly diminished. “I know.”
Tricia hung up. Charley sat back against the pillows and reached for Bing as the tears came. Because she didn’t expect them, because she thought she had better control, because she knew Tricia was now in her past in more ways than one, they swept her away. She cried into Bing’s fur until he became alarmed and evacuated the bed with Bob in tow.
When the tears abated, she lay back and went over the conversation with Tricia. She knew she had, indeed, signed up for everything. She was suddenly overwhelmed, feeling at a loss and adrift again, but it wasn’t from the same place she’d been when she’d left Tricia. That had felt akin to being alone on an ice floe in the Bering Sea, even with all the support from her friends. As she picked up the phone to call Brooke, the time on the alarm clock came into focus. Seven fifteen a.m. She couldn’t call her at this hour.
Needing to get out of her head, Charley fed the cats and got to work cleaning the bedroom. It was way too early to move any furniture to chase dust bunnies, so Charley worked some of her tension off cleaning the moldings instead. Then, I’ll sit down at the computer and research “lung cancer.” Then I’ll call Brooke. After that, maybe I can jump out the window.
A half hour into the research, Charley found herself fighting a stress headache and took some Advil. Staring out the window while waiting for it to work, she wondered how old the child would be now that Tricia had wanted to have. Or rather, that she’d wanted Charley to bear for them. But children had never been in her life plan. She’d fought her on the issue even as she put in applications for graduate school from Iowa to NYU, and she had lost the battle around the time she worried over the essay to Columbia University. Tricia’s arguments wore her down so she struck the bargain: If I don’t get into school, we can get pregnant. But if I get in, no more talk about children. Tricia had agreed. And Charley went to church to pray for a master’s degree.
One of the many saints she entreated must’ve taken pity on her; she received the letter of acceptance from Columbia University on April Fool’s Day. But Tricia had brought up the children question again right after Charley graduated, and she answered by taking her degree off the wall, handing it to Tricia, and walking out of the room. If she’d let the bargain go then, that child might be twelve or fourteen, would have weathered a nasty divorce, and would now possibly be facing young adulthood without one of her mothers. Charley wasn’t sure she could’ve handled that.
At one minute past nine, Annie answered the phone. “You may get up early on a Saturday, but the rest of the world doesn’t.”
“I am so sorry, Annie. You know I wouldn’t call at this hour unless it was important. Is she there?”
“I’m doin’ pretty good, thanks. And you?”
“Ouch. Okay, I didn’t think you wanted small talk.”
“I’m busting you, sweetie. Hold on. She’s actually in the shower. We’ve been up for a while.”
A moment later, Brooke picked up. “Hey, what’s up?”
“Hi. I’m sorry to interrupt your morning.”
“Not interrupting. I finished putting a smile on Annie’s face about an hour ago. You’re cleaning, I’m sure. Unearth King Tut yet?”
“Tricia called me at six.”
“Whoa. You really did unearth King Tut. And six a.m.? That’s nasty. What is wrong with her? Did you carry out our plan?”
“I couldn’t. It’s far more serious than I thought. She has lung cancer, Brooke.”
“Oh my God.”
“Reagan left her a year ago. She’s asking for my help.”
Charley heard Brooke exhale. “This is bad. And I know the answer, but I’ll ask anyway. What did you tell her?”
“Of course, I’ll help her. I would hate myself if I didn’t.” Charley told her what she’d learned online and how overwhelmed she felt already.
“Look, we all despised her for what she did to you, but we will all be here for her. But really for you. And don’t believe everything you read online. What hospital is she using?”
“Memorial Sloan Kettering.” Charley related the entire conversation.
“What a nightmare.”
There was a long moment of silence Charley didn’t have the strength to try to fill.
“Are you going to tell Neely? And you had a date with her last night, yes?
“I canceled it. And no, I’m not going to say anything to her yet.” Charley wasn’t sure if she’d say anything to her at all.
“You canceled? Are you okay?”
“Still not ready yet.”
Brooke sighed. “Hey, do you want to bri
ng her to the dinner next Saturday?”
“Brooke, next weekend is kind of far from my mind right now.”
“I’m sorry, I’m not doing a very good job being your shoulder, am I?”
“I know you’ll be there when I need you.”
“Well, I think I should be there for you tomorrow night. I know you’re already thinking of bagging the NFL dinner. Don’t. Let me come get you and we’ll go together. Might do you good to get your mind off this.”
When they hung up, Charley put on ESPN’s College GameDay and sat down to listen to the commentators fight over the day’s games. It was easier to float away on football than to try to make sense right now of what lay ahead.
Chapter Thirteen
Monday morning, Charley already had a game plan for talking to Emily about Tricia and went right into her office without even knocking, shutting the door behind her. She didn’t want any staff member walking in on this conversation. Emily looked up in surprise.
“Good morning. I hope you had a better weekend than I did.” Charley laid the whole scenario out. Of course, it meant coming out to Emily, which she’d chosen not to do when the perfect time had presented itself several weeks ago. She supposed she was still conditioned by the years when one didn’t in Corporate America. Emily listened first with surprise, then with growing concern, asking questions. Charley had anticipated the kind of time she’d now be spending with Tricia, between medical appointments and help she might need at home, and she let Emily know how she intended to dovetail that in such a way that it wouldn’t affect her presence in the office.
Emily nodded. “Whatever you need in the way of time, take it. Let’s talk every morning, though, so I know how you’re both doing and so we can keep on top of things here without them overwhelming you.”
Charley nodded and turned to leave.
“And, Charley, thank you for letting me know. I realize you could’ve kept this as hidden from me as I kept Terry from you.”
“No, I couldn’t. You’re right, I’ll probably be needing things down the line…time off, maybe even a short-term leave. And you deserve to know what’s going on. We can’t be a good team if we can’t trust each other.”
Charley pushed the envelope to get everything on Emily’s list done before walking out the door for Anita’s class. Burying her emotions in the job at hand had always been her way of getting through. Today was no different.
The stress of the day fell away as Charley walked to the Y. She wound her way through a route she’d never used before, a hiker’s way of forging a new path, called a desire line, through unknown territory to discover what was there. Only in this case, it wasn’t unknown territory, but the concrete canyons of the city she knew so well. With stores and restaurants always closing, though, new places opening in their spaces, and old buildings being pulled down all the time, replaced by new modern glass slivers, it was like discovering new territory. With every step, she thought of meeting Joanna for that drink tonight after class, and that Joanna had asked her this time. Before she could examine it too closely, she was at the door of the Y.
There was a Post-it note on Joanna’s locker. Charley pulled it off. In the weight room. See you after class. Charley got the pen out of her jacket pocket and drew a small picture of a thumbs-up on the bottom of the note and put it back on the locker higher than she’d found it so Joanna would know she’d seen it.
After class, she found Joanna sitting on the bench in front of her locker, a towel around her neck, defeat seeming to rest on her shoulders beneath it.
“So,” Charley said, “the weight room win this round?”
Joanna looked up and shook her head. “I ramped each machine up forty pounds. I think that might’ve been a mistake.”
“Ouch. How long have you been lifting whatever you’ve been lifting?”
“Not long enough, apparently.” She rubbed her right bicep.
“Think you can still lift a drink?”
“Very funny.”
“We can always postpone our second ‘not a date’ if you need to.”
Joanna shot her a look of warning.
Charley ignored it, smirking. “Well, you did say you had a good time the other night when you asked me out for this drink tonight.”
“Do you get a hernia carrying that ego around?”
Charley was a little surprised despite hearing the dry humor in Joanna’s voice “I don’t have…I have an ego, don’t I?”
Joanna pulled her shower gear out of the locker, the trace of a smile on her face.
“Fine, I was just poking fun at your facade, anyway.”
“I don’t have a—” Joanna put a hand on one hip and cocked her head at Charley.
Charley heaved a false sigh and laughed. “I’ll be ready in five minutes so why don’t I meet you upstairs?”
In the lobby she settled on one of the upholstered benches and watched the members, a fascinating crossroads of many nationalities, come and go. Appreciative of well-dressed women, Joanna being one, Charley wondered what ensemble she’d have on tonight, and she wasn’t disappointed when Joanna finally came up the stairs and scanned the lobby for her. She wore the sharply pressed navy slacks Charley had seen before, with a thin red belt at her waist, a white sweater over a white shirt, both smoothly tucked into those pants, and a plaid down vest tying it all together. Red tasseled loafers and the red scarf around the jacket’s collar completed the outfit; she looked like she’d stepped out of the window display at Brooks Brothers.
Being the object of Joanna’s search gave Charley a sense of power that resonated in her core. She relished it right up until the moment Joanna was standing next to her and she saw the tiny pair of handcuffs on the silver chain at her throat. The sight froze her. A second later, she felt the reverberation between her legs. A gold cross, a seagull on a delicate diamond-laced chain, Charley had even seen a necklace with an emerald caduceus on Joanna once, but never anything like this. She was forced to refocus when Joanna touched her arm to get her attention, and by the ghost of a smile that passed across her face, Charley knew she’d been caught staring at the jewelry. And then Joanna’s light lemon scent washed over her, rendering her immobile again.
“I thought we could go to Bar and Books over on First Avenue and Fiftieth,” Joanna suggested. “Have you ever been?”
Charley smiled.
“I thought you’d like that.”
As Charley opened the Y’s front door, it was evident that the temperature had dropped, but not significantly enough to affect her.
“You’re not cold?” Joanna snuggled the scarf into the vest, zipping it to the very top as a cool breeze from the East River swept down the street.
“I grew up near the Canadian border. This is still Indian summer in my book. Where are you originally from?” Charley asked.
“California.”
“Ah. Whereabouts?”
“Southern part.”
Charley hoped she would mention a town. “Nice and warm, not like here. A beach town?”
“Mm-hmm.”
Charley asked several more questions of Joanna about her past, getting successively succinct answers, which caused her to wonder if she’d somehow gotten off on the wrong foot tonight. Joanna had definitely not been this cagey last week. She began to wonder if ivy found it as difficult trying to gain a foothold on a brick wall. The silences that Charley decided to fill with odds and ends about herself were one thing, but there was so much she wanted to know about this woman. The thought crept in that Joanna might be a different kind of difficult than Tricia, but she dismissed it. Hardly enough evidence. She sought the balance stone in her pocket and reminded herself of her beach walk advice to just let go. But she couldn’t. The necklace kept coming back, too. Was it merely a fashion statement skating the edge of that “bad girl” persona that some women liked to try on? Charley was inclined to think otherwise. Joanna seemed too comfortable in who she was to try anything on. There had to be a reason for that particular necklac
e. Or was there another woman behind it? That would be difficult…
Charley thought about what she could ask to discover answers to those questions as they entered the intimate space that was Bar and Books, but she drew a blank. In truth, she wasn’t sure she wanted to know the meaning behind the necklace or who else might be attached to it.
Joanna picked out a small table in the back of the room, near the fireplace, not waiting for the maître d’ to seat them. Charley stood by the wingback chair and perused the titles of the books that lined the shelves near her, sighed, and eyed the rest of the shelves full of books that stretched in either direction all around the bar.
“D’you know, I think I could live here.” Charley sat down, giving the shelves a backward glance.
“Mmmm. No, I’d choose the beach.”
“Oh, now wait. Now I have a problem.”
“You don’t like the beach?”
“I could also live there,” Charley said, seeing Long Beach in her mind.
“I don’t know. You can only live in one place.”
The firelight caught Joanna’s necklace, and Charley was drawn to it again. “I beg to differ. Lots of people have second homes.”
The young woman working the room arrived at their table, and Joanna ordered a Johnnie Walker Red and asked her to bring the check with it.
“Make mine Black,” Charley told her.
“You don’t strike me as a second home kind of woman.”
“No?” Charley was intrigued. Did that mean Joanna had been giving some thought to what kind of woman she was? And did that mean there wasn’t another woman in her life?
“I’d say you’re a minimalist.”
Charley nodded slowly, thinking of everything she’d left behind when she’d walked out on Tricia. “You could be right. But it didn’t happen by choice.”
“Hmmm.” Joanna studied her. “Hurricane?”
Charley studied her for a moment. “You might say so. Divorce.”
“Oh…”
The young woman brought their drinks, along with a bowl of nuts and another of pretzels. She handed Joanna the check.
“I hope you’re not thinking of picking this up,” Charley said, nodding at the check.
Forging a Desire Line Page 11