“I know it was your career, but nothing really happened that night, did it? You had no real reason to run away.”
“You think nothing really happened that night, Meg?”
Heat crawled along her cheeks when he said it like that, bringing her past into her present and holding up a mirror to her wanton advances that night. She didn’t need him to taunt her.
“I moved to Nebraska,” he said, changing the subject smoothly.
So it was true.
“I got a job out there.” His words punched into her heart like a heavy blow from a hammer. He’d moved halfway across the country and hadn’t thought anything of it. She’d thought of him every day for the next year, because thinking of him had gotten her through that year looking after her mom and her siblings, and missing out on going to college. But he’d upped and moved away, and carried on living a normal life, getting another job and carrying on as if nothing had happened.
She really hadn’t meant anything to him at all.
All that pretending to care for her, all that concern over her failing grades, hadn’t really mattered at all. She was done. Ten years she’d waited for an explanation, and he’d given her this? A warning from the Principal was enough for him to pack his bags and leave.
She sipped her coffee and cursed that the drink was too hot to drink and she was now desperate to leave. He had aged well for a man in his forties. The years had been kind to him. Not an ounce of flab was to be seen, not from where she was sitting. Her eyes had been quick to examine his hands and she saw that he wasn’t wearing a ring. It made her wonder whether he was single.
“I need to go,” she said, quickly stirring her coffee, helping it to cool down, before she started to think foolish thoughts.
“Now? But we only just got here.”
Something low beeped just then.
“Sorry,” she said, fishing her cell phone out of her bag. “I have to take this.” It was one of her clients. “Of course,” she said. “I have, hang on.” She pulled out a notepad and rifled through her bag looking for a pen. “I don’t have a—” But Lance held out a pen for her.
“Go ahead,” she scribbled down the details, asked a few more questions, and stole a quick look at Lance who was watching her with a bemused look on his face. “Great, thank you.”
She hung up. She wanted the promotion as much as she needed to breathe but this encroachment on her life, with clients’ calls coming at all hours, was a stiff price to pay. She would need to find a better balance, not be so fast to respond to client calls. Defer and delegate, she could do that one day when she had reached management level.
“Sorry about that,” she said. She caught the time on her cell phone. “I have to go. I hadn’t realized I’d been here that long.
“But I haven’t finished.” He grabbed her hand as if to stop her from getting up. “Wait, Meghan.”
She moved her hand away. “I think we’re done. I really do.”
“You haven’t heard all of it.”
“I’ve heard enough.”
“My sister died,” he said, taking her by complete surprise. “Anna.”
“No!” she exclaimed, horrified, her fingers spreading like a fan against her breastbone. “What happened?”
“They’d been involved in an accident. A pickup truck collided with an 18-wheeler on the highway and my brother-in-law, Brett, wasn’t able to stop in time. Their car hit the collision head on. My sister didn’t really have a chance. Brett was in a coma. Luckily, their daughter Sarah had been at home with Brett’s parents who’d been visiting. Sarah was only eleven months old. My parents flew out to Nebraska and Brett’s family rallied around but everything fell apart when my sister died. I had no choice but to be there for Brett and Sarah.” She listened to him, her fingers touching her parted lips. “I’m so sorry,” she said, reaching for his hand. Something melted away inside her at that moment. “Nobody ever said a word about it. I never knew.”
“Principal Fielding had already given me a warning. He’d told me he didn’t like the things he was hearing. He didn’t really believe me when I told him that all the rumors were lies. I hadn’t intended to leave, but with news of Anna’s death, it seemed like the perfect solution. How could I not be there for my niece? She was only a baby.”
How selfless of him. “Anna would have been proud of you.” She felt choked up thinking about it.
“We helped as much as we could. Sarah was very young but she missed Anna terribly and it was difficult to settle her and take care of but we managed. Brett was in a coma for a month and it was touch and go. I hadn’t intended to stay there, but within a week of Anna’s death, it was obvious that my parents couldn’t completely look after Sarah on their own even with Brett’s family helping out. We did the best we could but there’s no replacement for a mother.”
Now she understood. “How’s your niece now?” she whispered.
“Like any other teenager. She’s fine. Like I said, I think she was too young at that time to realize the significance of her loss. In time, Brett recovered. My parents couldn’t stay out there forever. They returned home once Brett was released from the hospital but I stayed on. Anna and I were so close. She was my baby sister. I felt responsible for her child, for her legacy. It was heartbreaking to see Sarah and to know that she would never know her mother. Something like that changes you, it wasn’t only the way Anna died and how it happened and the tragedy of it all, but the real sadness was in the day-to-day, of knowing she wouldn’t be around to see her daughter grow up, and would never know what she had left behind. That she would never see her daughter taking her first steps.” His voice died to a whisper. “I wasn’t in my right frame of mind to contact you. I couldn’t do it. I couldn’t deal with that, and with what I had happening in my own family. I meant to, but I didn’t…and when this happened...” He looked away.
She stared down to find that their hands were joined together on the table. She didn’t pull hers away because right there and then, on his face, she could see the suffering that he had kept inside. “You should have told me,” she whispered, her voice croaky. “One phone call is all it would have taken. I could have tried to help you. I could have been there for you like you’d been there for me.”
“How could I have told you?” he asked, their fingers still touching. “You had your own set of problems. It wasn’t the right time, Meg. It took months for Brett to get better and then I thought you’d be off at college and that you’d be starting over and you would forget about me. What we had back then was no more. It was a moment. I got caught up in that moment, you did too, maybe, and then the moment passed. You get that, don’t you?”
No, she didn’t. It hadn’t been like that for her. If he thought it was a moment, then the moment had dragged on for her. She’d been caught up in it for years. No way could she now bring herself to tell him that he’d left her broken. She couldn’t tell him that when her mother recovered it was the start of her problems, that she never went to college, but took a year out, that she worked and tried to keep the family together while her brother and sister went to school, while her father dipped in and out of their lives without a care. She couldn’t tell him that and make him feel worse than he already did.
“Isn’t it weird how we’ve ended up in the same place, Meg?”
She didn’t say anything. But she agreed.
“Who’s the guy?”
“Someone from work. Why?”
“No reason.”
“Thanks for the coffee,” she pulled her hand away. “I really must go.”
“Don’t be like that, Meg.”
“Don’t be like what?” she asked, blinking, her cheeks heating up at the way he stared at her. She couldn’t put her finger on it, or explain why the flush crept up slowly. Or why deep down inside her body felt all fluttery.
“Cold and distant, like I can’t reach you.”
“Reach me?” she asked, curious, then jumped at the sound of a beep from her cell phone. It was a
text from Vincent. “Drinks.” She’d forgotten.
“Drinks?”
“Work drinks.”
“I thought you had a late night at the office.”
“I do, and then we’ve got work drinks later. I was going to grab a sandwich. I haven’t had lunch, unless you count a bar of chocolate as lunch.”
“You shouldn’t skip lunch,” he told her.
“You always told me,” she said, remembering.
“That’s because it annoyed me, the sight of so many pencil thin schoolgirls going without meals. Not hungry, don’t want to eat,” he bleated, attempting to mimic a young girl’s tone.
“I’m grateful that you told me,” she said, holding out her hand for him to shake.
“Shaking hands? Is this what we do now?” He expressed surprise but took her hand anyway. She watched, puzzled as he dragged his hand across the back of his neck. “Can we meet again?”
“I don’t think it’s a good idea.”
“You use that phrase a lot.”
Her eyebrows pushed together as she tried to get what he alluded to.
“You’re very cautious,” he said, elaborating.
“I’m not a risk-taker, no.”
“It must be part of the job.”
She shrugged. It was better to leave things where they were. Her cell phone beeped again and she saw that Vincent had texted her again. “I better go. Thanks for the coffee.”
Chapter 14
“His sister died?”
“Yes, and his brother-in-law was in a coma.”
“And they had a young daughter?”
“Yes, she hadn’t even turned one yet.” Even thinking about it now made her sad. She hadn’t been able to get it out of her mind for days and now that Friday night was here, she’d called Arla over. She needed to tell her friend.
“That poor man,” Arla sighed.
“I had no idea what he was going through at the time.”
“How would you? We were knee-deep in exams,” said Arla.
“True.”
“But don’t you see?”
“Don’t I see what?” Meghan asked.
“No wonder he never called you,” said Arla, getting all excited, her big eyes sparkling. “He had his own shit to deal with.”
Her forehead puckered. “We’ve already established that.”
“Imagine if that hadn’t happened,” Arla continued, “the two of you might have ended up together…you might even have had babies and all that stuff.” Meghan fixed her gaze on her deluded friend. “It was a high-school crush, Arla, and nothing more than that.” Analyzing it now, as she had been doing, and holding up to a light the very things she had buried long ago, Meghan doubted whether she’d meant anything to Lance Turner. No wonder he had completely forgotten all about her.
And yet it had been the strangest feeling the other day when he’d told her everything. It felt as if a heavy weight had been lifted from her shoulders. “I didn’t realize that I’d been carrying so much resentment with me. I held onto what he and I were, or the promise of what we could have been, right up to the time before my dad left. Maybe that was the best of us.”
“You’re talking as if you and he had a thing going on, Meg. Are you sure you didn’t?”
She huffed. “We didn’t. I’ve told you everything.” Nothing was going on except for what she’d built it up to be in her mind. The more she thought about it, the more it seemed that he always did the right thing.
“Are you going to see him again?” Arla asked, breaking off a chunk of chocolate from a huge bar.
“Why?” She hadn’t been able to stop thinking about him, but she’d managed to convince herself that it was because of the shock to her system, of seeing him again after so long. No other reason.
The piece of chocolate between Arla’s fingers hovered in mid-air. “You haven’t stopped talking about him, is why.” Meghan opened her mouth in protest, considered her friend’s words, and knew that she was right. She’d been talking about Lance Turner for most of the evening.
“You said he still looked hot.”
“I didn’t say ‘hot’.”
“You didn’t have to. I could tell. And age wouldn’t be an issue this time.”
“Why not?”
“You have been thinking about it!” Her friend plopped the chocolate into her mouth.
“I have not!” So what if he was twelve years older than her? She wasn’t sure of her feelings towards the man now but it wasn’t anger anymore.
“What are you going to do about it?”
“Nothing.”
“You’re going to leave things as they are?” Arla asked.
“What is there to say?”
“But he bared his heart out to you. He told you some deep tragic stuff. It should have moved you. Aren’t you moved?”
“Of course I’m moved,” Meghan replied, haughtily. “I’d have to be a statue not to be moved by what he told me, but what am I supposed to do?”
“What do you want to do, Meg?”
She’d been wondering that herself for the past few days. She had something of his to return. Her gaze slipped to the pen which lay on her coffee table.
It would be an excuse to get in touch with him again.
Chapter 15
She didn’t want him to get the wrong idea, but she called his university anyway and asked to be put through to the Department of Mathematics. How could he get the wrong idea? She was only returning what was his and yet she already felt a quiver in her stomach.
“Lance Turner?” the receptionist asked. “Putting you through.”
Meghan bit her lip, feeling anxious as she fiddled with her earring. “Hello.” A woman answered, in a sing-song voice, completely throwing her off guard.
“Uh,” she was startled to silence. “Uh, I was after Lance Turner, I think I’ve been put through to the wrong—”
“No, you’re in the right place,” the woman replied. “I’m in the wrong room.”
“Is he there?”
“No. He went home earlier. Don’t tell him I was in his office.”
Meghan scrunched up her nose. She wasn’t about to tell Lance any such thing. “Uh.” Now she was getting tongue-tied. “I-uh, I have something of his that-uh, uh.” She was getting tongue-tied and it wasn’t even him. What was wrong with her? She’d been calmer and collected when she was a student.
“I-uh have a pen of his and I was hoping to drop it off.”
“You have it! He was complaining about it going missing the other day.”
“I forgot to give it back.”
“Why don’t you call him on his cell? I’m assuming you’re not one of those blood sucking reporters. If you have his pen, you can’t be.”
“Uh—” She bit her lip again, feeling embarrassed by her lack of composure and for using Neanderthal grunts as a means of response.
“Do you have his number?”
“Uh, no.” She didn’t want his number. She really didn’t. That would make him think she’d deliberately called up the college to get it. “I can call back another time.”
“It’s up to you but he’s in and out at all different hours. It might be better if you call him first.” Meghan was about to protest but the sweet lady at the other end rattled off Lance’s mobile number leaving her no option but to note it down. She thanked her and hung up, staring at the number. A direct link to him. Shivers scurried along her spine, something she didn’t understand and she twiddled the pen around in her hand. She’d read the inscription many times. “Love, Anna.” No wonder he was complaining about losing it.
He sounded suspicious when she called. “It’s me, Meghan,” she said, holding her breath in.
“Meghan!” His voice instantly seemed softer. Happier even.
“I have your pen.”
“I know.”
“Oh,” somehow she’d assumed, from the way that his friend mentioned it, that he’d been looking for it.
“I wasn’t sure how to ge
t it to you.”
“I could come and pick it up,” he suggested, “Or you could drop it off, or—” He didn’t mention the third alternative. A part of her was tempted by the idea of going over to his place and seeing him again. Because he hadn’t pursued her for the pen when he knew she had it, and she sensed that he was playing it cool. If he’d wanted to see her again, he would have used it as an excuse to seek her out. She knew Vincent would have.
“I can come by quickly and drop it off,” she offered. “If you give me your address.”
“Do you have a pen?”
“I do now.”
They both giggled and a tingling feeling spread all over her. It was excitement and anxiety bunched together into one big lump in her stomach.
“Jamaica Plain?” she asked, scribbling it down. “You’re not far from me. I’ll see you in ten.”
“I’ll be waiting.”
Less than a quarter of an hour later, she found herself outside his door and was reminded of how different it was compared to that last time when she’d been a scared and distraught school girl, soaked to the skin, her world collapsing around her with her mom lying in the hospital.
From the other side of the door she heard his voice, loud and angry and her nerves tensed up, like violin strings pulled taut.
“No comment,” he growled, opening the door with a sullen look on his face. He beckoned her in. “Why can’t you people stop hounding me?” He asked, his nostrils flaring. “I have no comment to make and I don’t do interviews.” She walked in and glanced around, noting the bare walls and sparsely furnished interior. She stole a sideways glance at him. Seeing him in his casual trousers and open neck checked shirt added another five years to his age but he still he looked good.
“Please don’t call here again,” he said and slammed the phone down. She giggled at his politeness.
“What’s so funny?” he asked.
“You. Trying to be rude.”
“It’s been almost two months,” he said, throwing his hands up in exasperation. “I wish they’d find another story to write about.”
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