Every Step She Takes

by K. L. Armstrong

  “Kickass can mean a lot of things,” I said gently. “Your mom is a total kickass, and she doesn’t do fight scenes.”

  “She’s a girl. It’s different.”

  “It shouldn’t be.”

  “It is for Dad,” he said, and my heart broke, just a little, at an eight-year-old boy who already understood so much about what was expected of him, the ideal his father—and the world—held for him to emulate.

  “Tell me what I can do,” I said.

  He looked from the torn book to the pages littering his room. If it happened again, I would insert myself between Colt and Jamison—as Tiana did—but I couldn’t actually interfere. This, however, was something I could do, and I picked up a page and smoothed it and said, “Give these to me, and I’ll iron them later, and then we’ll tape them back in.”

  “Iron them?” Jamison said.

  “It’s a secret method for fixing paper you’ve accidentally—or not so accidentally—crumpled.” I winked at him. “Don’t ask me how I know that.”

  “What’d you do?” he said.

  “Help me gather these quickly, and I’ll tell you.”

  He smiled, and we set to work cleaning up the mess.

  * * *

  —

  A few days later, I was on the patio tuning Jamison’s violin while Colt took the kids to the ice-cream parlor. When the door slid open and Colt stepped out, I smiled, my gaze shifting behind him for the kids.

  “Sorry,” he said. “Just me. We bumped into Belle on her run, and the kids decided to postpone their lessons by running with her.”

  Belle was his nickname for Isabella. They met on a film where he’d been the star, and she’d been brought in as his secondary love interest to amp up the film’s “international appeal.” Colt had spent the shoot trying to impress Isabella, and she’d spent it with her nose in a book. So he’d started calling her Belle and teasing her about being a Disney princess. Colt said that’s why they named their daughter Tiana—because it meant “princess” in Russian.

  Tiana had told me all this, sharing her family legends with rolled eyes but obvious affection. I’d told her the one about my name and my father’s inability to pronounce it. She’d declared Genevieve a very fancy name and said she liked Lucy better.

  Colt slid the patio door shut behind him. In his hand, he held a silver bag that glinted in the afternoon sun.

  “Your ice cream,” he said. “Only slightly melted.”

  “Rocky road!” I crowed as I opened it to find a cone and tiny tub. “Thank you.”

  “Jamie said it’s your favorite.”

  “It is.”

  “And Tiana insisted on the chocolate-dipped cone.”

  I beamed up at him. “Thank you. They’re amazing kids. You don’t need me to tell you that, but they really are. Jamison is so sweet and thoughtful, and Tiana’s a firecracker.”

  “They both take after their mom.” He settled beside me on the lounge chair. “Thank you for being here with them. I know you were hired as a music teacher, but Belle’s been so busy with her new show…”

  I bristled. Was he insinuating that Isabella wasn’t fulfilling her maternal duties? Colt’s only summer job was getting in shape for his next movie.

  “Isabella’s new show is important,” I said carefully. “The studio is taking a risk launching a telenovela in America. I’m amazed she can focus on that while keeping her office door open, eating meals with the family, and swimming and playing board games in the evenings. By seven, I’d be sprawled on the sofa.”

  “Belle is a wonder,” he said. “I don’t know how she does it, either.”

  I relaxed and felt silly for defending her. She didn’t need that. Colt and Isabella had my ideal marriage—interweaving melodies, always close, always harmonic, complementing one another yet able to stand on their own.

  I assembled my cone and quickly licked off the drips. When I saw Colt watching, I hesitated and prayed that hadn’t looked suggestive.

  “Good?” he said. “I was worried it’d be melted by the time I got back. That freezer bag worked well. I’ll reuse it tomorrow and grab Belle some on my run.”

  I relaxed again. I really needed to stop worrying whether I accidentally gazed at him too long or laughed too hard at his jokes or licked my ice cream suggestively. When he looked at me, he only saw his kids’ music tutor.

  While Colt didn’t notice me, I couldn’t help being physically aware of him. I was sitting less than six inches from the most attractive man I’d ever met…who was wearing nothing but a pair of athletic shorts.

  “I should grab napkins before this drips,” I said, rising.

  Colt’s hand clamped on my knee. My bare knee. My heart tripped, half sensual awareness and half panicked terror. It was only a quick grip, though, strong and firm, as he said, “Hold on,” and held me on the chair as he slid across that gap between us. My heart slammed against my ribs.

  “I really need—” I began.

  “I’ll get the napkins. Just…” He leaned in, close enough for me to smell raspberry sherbet on his breath. “I have a favor to ask.”

  I didn’t move, couldn’t move.

  “I’d like music lessons,” he said.

  “What?”

  The word squeaked, and all I could remember was Nylah and her warning.

  It’s not his flute you’ll be blowing.

  “I’m the only one in the family who doesn’t play an instrument,” he said. “Watching your nighttime jam sessions, I want to be part of that. Even if it’s just beating a drum with some semblance of rhythm.” His crooked smile reminded me of Jamison’s, a little uncertain, even a little shy.

  “Sure.”

  “One condition.” He leaned in even closer, heat radiating over me, and I held myself still, focused on a shaving nick on his cheek, blocking out the rest as I struggled to breathe.

  “I want it to be a secret,” he said. “Belle and I have our eleventh wedding anniversary in August. We’ll be throwing a party. I’d like to surprise her then.”

  I looked up, and he was right there, those famously bright blue eyes locked on mine.

  When I inched away, he seemed to realize how close he’d gotten and straightened. A quick glance toward the beach, and he lowered his voice. “They’ll be back any second. We’ll talk tomorrow afternoon when Belle goes for her run. That’s when we’ll do the lessons.”

  “The kids…”

  “They can keep a secret. It’s not like they won’t hear me trying to play. They might even teach me a thing or two.”

  I exhaled. It wouldn’t be private lessons, then.

  “Deal?” he asked.

  “Deal,” I said.

  He clapped a hand on my bare thigh, a quick squeeze, and then he rose and jogged off to meet his family.

  NINE

  The flight is uneventful. My driver is waiting for me at luggage claim, and soon I’m in an Upper West Side hotel suite twice the size of my apartment with a king bed, a Jacuzzi tub, a kitchen and a luxurious sitting area. Isabella isn’t just bending over backward—she’s doing triple-flips.

  It’s midnight local time, so after brushing my teeth and popping off an “Arrived!” text to Marco, I fall into bed. I sleep for a few hours and then laze drowsily until the sun lights my windows.

  After a quick shower, I pull clothing from my luggage to find a tiny white paper bag nestled between my folded shirts. I open it, and a string of silver rosary beads slides into my hand.

  Vatican rosary beads. For my mother. Tucked into my luggage by Marco because he knew she’d asked for them, and her daughter had completely forgotten about it despite having been to Vatican City multiple times since being asked.

  I joke that being half Irish, a quarter Italian and a quarter Mexican means I am one hundred and ten percent Catholic. While I’m not the most devo
ut follower of the faith, living in Rome means I can’t resist the allure of services at the Vatican. I mean, it’s the Vatican. I get there maybe once a month, mostly so I can tell Mom in our weekly calls, and then she can casually say to her church-lady friends, “Oh, my daughter went to services at the Vatican again.”

  When I’d said I was going to Easter Mass, Mom mentioned she’d love a string of rosary beads. Believe me, Easter is not the time you want to brave the gift shop crowds. Getting into St. Peter’s Square is challenging enough. I’d told Marco that I needed to grab her a string on my next visit…and then promptly forgot.

  I text him a thank-you as I dress, and we continue text-chatting while I get ready and head out. When he asks whether my room is okay, I come close to telling him all about it…and then realize I can’t.

  So I lie. I lie, I lie and I lie again, each one heaving a brick into my guilt bag. There’s only one way to ease it off my shoulders.

  Me: Hey, when I get home, I need to talk to you.

  Him: That sounds ominous.

  Me: LOL Sorry. It’s nothing bad.

  Me: Just something we need to discuss, and if I tell you now, I can’t duck out of it.

  Him: Still sounds ominous, but okay. I’ll hold you to it.

  I tell him to do that, please, and then sign off as he gathers the flock for his next tour.

  I consider ordering room service for breakfast, but Central Park summons me stronger. It’s a gorgeous day, and I’m only a few blocks from Levain Bakery, which I used to walk to every Sunday morning when I went to Juilliard. A baguette with butter and jam is calling my name, paired with fresh roasted coffee. Real American coffee, not the “Americano” I get in Italy. A bakery treat, an extra-large coffee and a bench in Central Park. The perfect way to relax before I meet Isabella at three.

  I thoroughly enjoy my morning. It’s the first time post-scandal that I’ve been able to walk in NYC with my head high, zero danger of being recognized. I am no longer the girl who fled. I am the woman who returned, as anonymous now as I am in Rome, and it is glorious.

  Which only reminds me of what I’m about to do this afternoon.

  Unmask myself to the one person who can destroy me again.

  I have questioned whether Isabella genuinely wants to apologize but only because I suspect it’s more self-interest than altruism.

  In the wake of the scandal, Colt’s career exploded. Exploded, not imploded. He was a man, after all, slave to testosterone, and clearly, I took advantage of that. To the average fan, I’d tried to ruin his career, and by God, they weren’t going to let that happen. The scandal only meant increased attention and sympathy for Colt, especially after his PR machine got hold of the story.

  For Isabella, though…It’s one thing for a husband to stray. Boys will be boys, and all that. For the woman he cheated on, the sympathy leans dangerously close to pity, underscored by whispered innuendo. Why had Colt strayed? Was she so wrapped up in her own career that he felt neglected?

  Isabella had been bumped as showrunner on her telenovela. They said it had nothing to do with the scandal. Of course, it did. When the series later failed, they blamed her, ignoring the fact that the male showrunner took her concept and steam-rolled over it. After failing to reestablish herself, she started script doctoring, which meant she could easily support herself, but to the average person, her career had failed, her name no longer in the credits.

  What if she’s still smarting from that? I have recovered from the scandal, and she has not, and she wants revenge?

  What if she lured me here to expose me? What if I walk into that room and find cameras poised to record Isabella Morales’s final takedown of Lucy Callahan?

  It is perfect reality-TV fodder. Wife wronged in the most famous celebrity scandal of the decade confronts the woman who ruined her career. Fourteen years ago, people had been ready to paint Isabella Morales with the same brush they’d used on Hillary Clinton—a strong woman who “let” her husband stray with a young employee. Now, though, in the era of #MeToo, audiences are more ready to realize they’re laying the blame in the wrong place. Of course, I could hope they’d lay it where it belongs—at the foot of the forty-year-old man who seduced a teenage girl—but I don’t think we’re there yet.

  By the time I walk from the park to my hotel, I am convinced I’m being led into a trap. So what do I do about that? Run back to Rome, pack my things and flee into the night? Absolutely not. I came here to fight, and if that’s what Isabella wants, that’s what she’ll get.

  When the car service pulls up to our meeting place, I know I am truly heading into war. Isabella has chosen her battleground with care.

  Do you remember this hotel, Lucy?

  Do you remember that weekend?

  Oh, yes, I remember it very well.

  TEN

  New York 2005

  The weekend before the anniversary party, Isabella declared we needed a girls’ getaway, so she took Tiana and me to buy our party finery. I tried to demur, but she was having none of it. The three of us were going shopping in New York.

  I’d watched this scene in movies. The ordinary girl swept into a modern-fairy-tale day, where personal dressers rush about to choose her new clothing, stylists find exactly the right cut to suit her face, manicurists and pedicurists and aestheticians and masseuses primp and polish and pummel her until she collapses in a happy heap, eating bonbons and sipping champagne as the day slides into night.

  That day, I lived the fairy tale. And Isabella was my fairy godmother, smiling over me and waving her wand and tut-tutting away my protests. Between her and Tiana, they even convinced me to get a bikini for the party.

  At the end of the day, we did indeed collapse with bonbons and champagne. A tray of hand-crafted confections from the best chocolatier in New York and a bottle of Bollinger champagne. Even Tiana got a quarter glass of the latter.

  As we lay sprawled across the bed—a California king, Isabella called it, big enough for a family of six—we lounged in our plush bathrobes and talked, and ate and drank.

  After Tiana fell asleep, Isabella and I kept talking, and my half glass of champagne left me tipsy enough to admit that when I was twelve, I wrote her a letter.

  “The only fan letter I’ve ever written,” I said. “I didn’t ever get up the courage to send it, but I wrote it.”

  She sat up. “To me?”

  My cheeks heated as I nodded.

  “Please tell me you still have it,” she said.

  I stammered and stuttered something about Mom cleaning my room when I went to college.

  “If you find it, will you let me see it?” she asked.

  “That depends on how embarrassing it is.”

  She laughed and stretched out again. After a minute, she said, “Would you come back next summer, Lucy?”

  I rolled my head to look across the bed at her.

  She smiled. “Yes, today might have been a teensy bit of a bribe. We would love to have you at the beach house next summer. The kids adore you. Even Colt is comfortable with you. I got more work done this summer than I ever did with nannies. And the kids certainly learned more. Not just music—you found what interested each of them, and you made their summer both fun and educational. They have both, separately, petitioned to bring you to LA with us. I won’t ask that. You have your own career and talents far beyond playing Hollywood governess. But if you’d like to come back next summer…”

  “Is it contingent on me digging up that fan letter?”

  She laughed. “No, it is not.”

  “Then I would love to come back,” I said, my voice cracking a little as my eyes welled. “Thank you.”

  “Good.” She smiled at me. “And thank you.”

  ELEVEN

  Before the car even stops, I throw ope
n the door and gulp exhaust-thick air, my stomach churning.

  I have reason to be angry and hurt, but so does she. Grab a random passerby and ask them to judge who has been more wronged, and they would say Isabella, and I’m not sure they’d be mistaken.

  I hurt her. I betrayed her. While my actions weren’t as horrible as the world thinks, that does not leave me blameless. I was young, and I was naive, and I made a mistake, and the moment I realized it, all I wanted was to talk to Isabella. Beg her forgiveness, yes. But also make sure she knew I hadn’t done what people said. I would never hurt her that way.

  I wanted her to know the truth.

  And she does. I sent her a letter of explanation, bleeding with every word, starting and restarting it until I hit the right note, the one that accepted my share of the blame and laid none on anyone else. She could infer where else that blame belonged and how to portion it. I would not wail, “It isn’t my fault.” I wasn’t a child. I made a choice, and it was wrong, and possibly unforgivable, and I would not cower behind the shield of youth and naivete.

  I told her the truth, and she spat in my face.

  Actually, I wish she had spat in my face. Instead, she sent that letter, dripping with vitriol and heaping all the blame at my feet.

  That is what pushes me from the car, staggering and woozy. When the driver hurries to ask whether I’m all right, the memory of that letter prods me to smile weakly and lie that I’m just feeling carsick. Then I take a moment to compose myself before striding into the hotel.

  Chin up. Press forward.

  Isabella’s choice of hotel is an act of war, and I accept her challenge. First, though, I need a moment to prepare. I take a seat on a high-backed lobby chair and pull out my phone.

  If I am about to walk into a trap—a reality-show camera crew or even a room of old-fashioned journalists—there are two people who must be warned.

  I call my mother first. I haven’t let her know I’m in New York yet. Sunday is Mass, followed by an afternoon of church socializing, and I didn’t want to interfere with her day. Now, though, she needs warning.