Saying Yes to the Mess

by M. Kate Quinn

  Chapter Three

  When he came to pick her up, Freddie wore new jeans and he might have even run an iron over his button-down shirt. This was not good. Instead of his normal fleece-lined denim jacket, he wore an oversized black woolen coat. The look was almost formal for a guy like Freddie. And that made it all the worse for Rylee to let the poor guy down. Her stomach was a tangled knot, as if her guts were doing a cat’s cradle.

  “You look really nice.” His appreciative smile was another indication that this was a serious night and not at all just a Saturday grabbing a burger at Jabberwocky’s downtown pub. Freddie was usually oblivious to what she wore, certainly didn’t dole out compliments. Bad, bad.

  Rylee smoothed a hand down the green blouse, a gift from her mother. The silkiness of the fabric was too flimsy for wintertime, and she’d have much preferred wearing a cable-knit sweater. But when her mother had painted on that pout of hers and asked why she wasn’t wearing the blouse, Rylee plucked it from the gift bag and cut the tags. Besides the gooseflesh that was already marching along her bare arms, she worried the pretty blouse coupled with her cute black skirt could send Freddie a mixed message.

  “Thanks.” She produced a smile and quickly shrugged into her long black woolen coat, buttoning up to the neck. “Um, you too.”

  “Cool purse.”

  It was a birthday gift from Rosie, a too-tiny, can’t-fit-anything-in-it, long-handled clutch. But just looking at the girly, red patent-leather thing with its ridiculously large bow made her grin. So Rosie. “Makes you swanky,” Rosie had said when she’d given it to her.

  She stepped out into the night air and pulled in a deep breath, the cold stinging her lungs. She was ready. Tonight she’d have “the talk” with Freddie over drinks and dinner to mark her thirtieth birthday. The timing was right. She’d tell him that before she could move in with anyone, she had to first live alone, establish herself. The plan made all the sense in the world.

  At Rob’s Steak House they checked their nearly matching black woolen dress coats, and Freddie slipped the numbered tag into his shirt pocket.

  When they’d been seated in the dark, ornate dining room, a middle-aged lady named Margaret delivered their drinks. Rylee worried the linen napkin she held between her hands under the table. Where to begin?

  “So”—Freddie lifted his glass—“let’s toast.”

  “Okay.” Her guts crocheted themselves into a doily.

  “To you, Rylee.” He tapped his glass against her wine goblet.

  She took a tiny sip. The merlot was delicious, fruity, and pungent. She’d savor it.

  Freddie tipped his head in contemplation, his eyes kind of googly. To hell with a ladylike sip. She guzzled the merlot.

  “You’re a great girl.”

  Another gulp of her drink, as if it were fruit punch and not a fine wine. “Freddie,” she began just as Margaret came up to their table and asked if they were ready to order.

  Freddie told her they hadn’t looked at the menu yet, and when she retreated, his eyes zeroed in on Rylee again. She swigged from her goblet.

  He reached across the table with one open palm. “Give me your hand.”

  Her chest locked. What was he up to? She slid her right hand across the starchy tablecloth, just in case he went insane and had something to slip onto a finger of her left hand. He took her hand and closed his fingers around hers. His hand was clammy, like cold cuts.

  “You know how much I care about you, Rylee,” he said, all tenderness and sincerity yet, sadly, zoom free.

  She cleared her throat. “Freddie, there’s something—”

  “I’m moving to LA.”

  Her heart stalled in her chest and then did a kind of whirligig. “Did you say you’re moving to California?”

  “Yes.” He squeezed her hand with that half-a-pound-of-boiled-ham paw of his. She tugged free. “I know this sounds kind of out of left field.” He uttered a sheepish chuckle. “But I’ve had it in the back of my mind for a while now.”

  “You mean all this time when you were asking me to move in with you? How did that fit into your plan? I’m confused.”

  “Rylee.” He shook his head and looked up at the ceiling before he met her gaze. “I’m so sorry. Did you think I was asking you to move in with me, like as a couple?”

  “Yes, of course. That’s what you said.”

  “No, no, no.” He shook his head as if there were a bee in his hair. “It was a business deal. I’m sorry you misunderstood. I’ve got eight months left on my lease, and Gerry’s going to take it over but needed a roommate. I thought of you immediately when you lost your apartment.”

  “Gerry? You actually thought I’d enjoy living with Gerry?” A vision of Freddie’s bass player came to mind. Gerry, in his black socks and Birkenstocks even in wintertime, his grizzly head of hair that hadn’t seen shampoo in ages, his breath that would definitely wilt her African violets, her roommate? “You wanted me to cohabitate with a Neanderthal?”

  “He’s a good guy.” Freddie’s mouth quirked in a half grin. “Give you the shirt off his back. As a matter of fact, that’s his coat I wore tonight.”

  “He doesn’t bathe.”

  Freddie emitted a whoop of laughter. “Maybe you could have been a good influence on him. And you’d have loved Bonnie and Clyde.”

  “Who are Bonnie and Clyde?”

  “His Maine coon cats. Brother and sister. They’re no trouble at all. Hairy, though.”

  “I’m allergic to cats, Freddie.” She blew out air. “Welts. I get welts the size of silver dollars.”

  “Really? Wow. That’s pretty big.”

  “I don’t understand. You and I were going along fine dating. Things were good—you know, decent—and now you’re moving to California and when it came to me, all you thought of was your apartment?”

  “Well, you’re the one who said you couldn’t stand that you had to move in with your parents. I figured it could have been a win-win. See?”

  “No, Freddie, actually, I don’t see. You should have let me know all sides of that deal when you made the offer. You should have told me that your ultimate goal was to move to California to, what, become a famous musician?”

  “You sound angry.”

  “Not angry. Just surprised. I feel like you tried to pull one over on me.”

  He shook his head slowly this time, as if he were oh so sad, and suddenly Rylee thought he might be a shyster disguised as an unassuming, dimple-chinned struggling artist. “Not at all, Rylee. That’s not my style. Look, let’s just cut our losses, huh, babe? I mean, we had fun, right?”

  She was speechless. All she could do was guzzle merlot. She watched him over the rim of her goblet. Who was he?

  “Oh.” He pulled his mouth into a rectangle. “By the way, I found somebody for the apartment, so that’s not an option now. Sorry.” He let the rectangle of his mouth snap back into a kind of solicitous curve that begged for a punch. “But you’ll find something.”

  “I have some stuff at your place I’ll need to collect.”

  “Already thought of it,” he said with pride, as if he’d studied for a quiz. “I put it all in a bag. It’s in my car. Your pajamas, the box of tampons, body wash, your floss, everything.”

  “I see. How handy.” She drained the rest of the wine and placed the goblet onto the linen tablecloth. “When do you leave?”

  “We have a flight out of Newark on Monday.”

  Did he say we? “Who’s going with you? Johnny? Ray?” Those were the other guys he played with, the keyboardist and the drummer.

  “Abigail.”

  “The redhead who plays the triangle?” Rylee let out a scoffing sound and didn’t care about the heads that turned at the table next to theirs. Abigail with the tattoo on her leg of the leprechaun guy from the cereal box? She snorted again. Maybe Abigail was magically delicious. “Does she think she’s going to tap a triangle into fame and fortune out in California?”

  “No,” he said with an exagge
rated pout and a knit brow, a countenance of contrition. With that face, he could be in a confessional booth right now. “We sort of fell in love.”

  In her heart of hearts, she didn’t care if Freddie fell in love with Abigail, the magically delicious triangle banger. She really did not. What did matter was that this was another one of her lose-lose situations. Did she ever learn? Apparently not. She did not see a hint of this coming. And here she’d been afraid of hurting him, had been concerned that he was going to propose, and meanwhile her tampons and dental floss were waiting for her in his car. Freddie wasn’t the joke. She was.

  She threw the linen napkin onto the table and grabbed her purse. “Well, I think this evening is over.” She gave him an open palm. “Let me have the tag for my coat.”

  “I’m sorry.” He fished the cardboard disk from his pocket.

  She couldn’t give him the reprieve. No, she would not tell him it was okay. She was sick to the point of puke with telling people it was okay. Go to LA with Abigail and be happy. Live on love, whatever. “Good luck,” she did manage to say. “I hope it turns out the way you plan.”

  She turned on her heel and went to the coat check before he could mutter another gratuitous sound. She pulled out her phone and hit the app for the new driver service, EZridr, a simple swipe of her finger summoning a ride, indicating the destination, and making a payment all in one.

  The car arrived in record time, and she dashed to it. With the door open, she heard his voice behind her. “Rylee,” he called. “Don’t forget the bag with your stuff.” He thrust a handled brown paper bag at her.

  She yanked the bag, tearing off one side of the handle. She jumped into the car and slammed the door.

  ****

  In the back seat of the SUV, swallowed in the big heavy coat, her purse strap slung across her body cadet-like, she clutched the damn paper page of her belongings. She seethed.

  Then she sneezed. She sneezed again. Three more times. She started to itch, her neck, her hands, her torso. She lifted her arms, and her heart sank. This coat had no cuffs. Hers did. She reached into the pockets and pulled out a half-eaten Twix bar and a condom packet. Shoot me. The attendant had given her the wrong damn coat. She was wearing Gerry’s coat of germs that had to be covered in cat hair. Thank you, Bonnie and Clyde.

  She had to get out of this thing. She wrestled first with the purse’s strap, which was somehow tangled with the seat belt. She tugged and pulled and nearly choked herself in the effort. She coughed and sneezed again. The SUV twisted and turned along the roadways, and she fought to stay upright as she tugged at Gerry’s fleabag of a coat.

  “You okay back there?” The driver’s big eyes stared at her from the rearview mirror.

  “Yes, I’m fine.” She sneezed and scratched at her skin while she gyrated around the back seat.

  She continued a kind of calisthenics in freeing herself from the coat of death. Finally, as planned, the driver brought her to Maple Avenue in downtown Sycamore River, right in front of Jo-Jo’s Java House where she’d planned to bide some time and sip a coffee concoction to avoid a barrage of questions from her mother and stepfather that returning at this early hour would cause.

  Before the driver had even put the vehicle in park, Rylee opened the door and threw out the hairball of a coat. She missed a mesh garbage pail by a mile. This birthday sucked. This night could not get any worse.

  Chapter Four

  Darius was late, very late. But because The Memory Center took such a personal interest in its residents, they were even willing to accommodate his crazy schedule. The woman, Toni, was waiting for him to get there, even though it would be beyond six p.m. when he’d finally arrived.

  As the train pulled into the station, self-reproach churned in his belly. Here it was mid-January and he hadn’t been to see Pop since Christmas. Sycamore River wasn’t across the continent. The only excuse he had was that he wanted so much for his show to be a success and get picked up for a second season that he’d put all his time there. When it came down to it, Wirth More was worth most. He was a shitty son, even if Pop rarely even knew he was there whenever he did visit. He should be there.

  He was reminded of Christmas, how he’d stood at the old man’s bed with a gift of new flannel pajamas and slippers and Pop had stared at him with those cloudy blue eyes absent of any recognition. A garish grin broke across the old man’s face.

  “Happy birthday,” Pop proffered a gravelly attempt of joviality. “Is it my birthday again?”

  “No, Pop. It’s Christmas. Merry Christmas.” Darius put the packages on the end of the bed. “These are for you.”

  His father pulled the shoebox into his tentative grasp, and his bumpy arthritic fingers fought with the paper.

  “Need some help?” Darius stood beside the bed, feeling helpless.

  Pop looked up from his task. “So how old are you, boy?”

  “Me? Pop, I’m thirty-five.”

  “Well, happy birthday, then. Where’s your mother? She should be here. Hey.” Pop’s face had taken on a clownish gleam. “Did I ever tell you how your mother and I met?”

  A smile slanted Darius’s mouth now as he pressed his head back against the train seat, hoping the steady vibration of the car rumbling over the tracks might lull him for a few minutes, give him a chance to regroup.

  Amazingly, it happened every time he visited his father. The story of how his old man had won the heart of Arabella, his wife of forty years. When Mom died from a ruptured aortic aneurysm five years ago on her way to the hospital, Darius swore his father’s mental decline began that very day. In a way he’d lost them both in one shot.

  It had started with simple things. Telling the same story over and over again, that coup of how he’d convinced the young Spanish beauty Arabella Vega to marry him by surprising her with the oil painting that cost him his 1970 Pacemaker fishing boat with the twin diesel engines. On and on, Pop told the tale, laughing at how his Arabella jumped for joy and accepted his proposal, not caring one iota that his rigid parents didn’t like her because she was Spanish and her disapproving parents doubted the future she’d have with a struggling electrician.

  Mitchell Wirth had won his bride, and when he reiterated the tale, even now his eyes shone like the old days, the clouds in them breaking way for the light that flashed again, if only for a single moment. Nowadays Darius didn’t mind his father’s droning on and on simply for the glimpse of life that came to his eyes.

  His mind played a series of clips of the stuff that had pushed him to seek a nursing home for his father. The forgetting to pay a bill, not remembering to eat lunch or dinner, forgetting to bathe or change out of his pajamas were all problems with Darius in Hoboken and Pop in Sycamore River. The going back and forth had been tough. He’d hoped hiring someone to check up on Pop on a daily basis would have bought them some time, but the old guy’s decline had come swiftly. Finally, when he almost burned his house down by trying to start some logs in the fireplace, which was electric and not wood burning, Darius investigated nursing homes.

  The Memory Center, located just north of Sycamore River and set on acres of rolling knolls rimmed with tall sturdy pines, had all the qualifications and was his top pick. It cost a fortune, but with selling the house and the pension from the electrical union combined with his social security checks, Pop had an opportunity to live in the best facility New Jersey had to offer for the aged with all stages of memory loss.

  And now they wanted a briefing. The work he needed to do on prospects for the show would have to wait. Right now, his mind was on his father and The Memory Center.

  ****

  The cab from the train station dropped him off in the front of the old mansion that had been converted into the nursing home back in the nineties. Previously, the place had belonged to a former governor’s daughter who bequeathed the dwelling and grounds to the memory foundation, as their family had suffered the ills of Alzheimer’s and dementia.

  Inside the marble entry, Darius went
to the left where double doors led to the main office. He figured the room may have originally been the parlor, and although at one time the space may have been a place of easy conversation and visiting, he was sure no such activity would happen here in this space today. Something was wrong. He didn’t know exactly what, but he was about to find out.

  Toni, a small and spry woman, ushered him into an office where he sat in a maroon leather side chair and waited. He eyed the place. He’d been in this room before. This was where he’d come to discuss having Pop take residence. The administrators had been very nice, accommodating. The facility was small and personal, and he’d been satisfied that it was the right place for his father to live in comfort and receive the proper care for the time he had left.

  Sam Gerard, the head of the finance department, entered the room, his short, square body clothed in a dark gray suit that fit him well. Darius wished he had dressed more formally, looking down at his jeans—his good jeans, but still—and his leather bomber jacket.

  “Thank you for coming,” Sam said.

  “What’s this about? Is everything okay with my father?”

  “His doctors say he’s doing as well as possible at this point, Darius. I’m sure they’ve discussed with you what to expect.”

  Darius nodded, fighting to file away the ugly news of those expectations.

  Sam flipped open a file folder that sat on his desk blotter. “There is a problem, Darius, that I hope we’ll resolve in the best way possible.” He pinned Darius with his gaze. “Your father’s funds have run low, and with his monthly contributions, it’s just not going to be enough for him to stay with us.”

  It was as if the floor had fallen away and Darius floated through space. How could the three hundred thousand dollars that came from the sale of his parents’ house be all but gone already? What about Dad’s stock portfolio? The bonds he’d cashed in? “That can’t be.” He had had the cost all figured out. He was a numbers guy, damn it. “We had this conversation when my father arrived. I was assured we were set for a good while.”