by Mary Campisi
Sam jerked his head up. “Kiki?” He shoved Rita aside and jammed his glasses on his face.
“What the hell are you doing?” She stood in front of him, looking like an avenging angel in her McArthur High hoodie and long dark hair. “And who’s this?”
“Rita,” he said stupidly.
“Rita?”
“I’m working with your father on a legal matter,” Rita said, slowly easing her skirt to mid-thigh. It was still seven inches too short. “Retirement and stock portfolio.” She let out a husky laugh. “Every person’s nightmare.”
Pull down the damn skirt! Sam cleared his throat and said, “I had some technical questions and she was helping me.”
Through the fog of smoke and bourbon he saw his daughter’s face, eyes bright, mouth pulled flat in disbelief. Of course, she didn’t buy it, the girl wasn’t an idiot.
Sam grabbed his jacket and scooted to the edge of the booth. “Actually, we were just finishing up here, weren’t we, Miss—I mean, Rita?” He couldn’t even remember her last name.
“Sure.” She gave him a long, slow smile. “But we should get together again and finish up, don’t you think?”
“Uh—” God no, what had he been thinking? What had he almost done? “I think I can handle it myself from here.”
“No, you definitely shouldn’t go it alone.” She flicked her sheen of blond hair over her shoulder and stood. “Besides, I always finish what I start.” Rita slid a business card out of her purse and set it in front of him. “Call me. Tomorrow.” Her blue eyes dug into him.
He nodded. “Sure.” Hell would freeze over twice before he got near her again.
“Nice meeting you, Kiki, isn’t it?” Rita brushed past without waiting for a reply.
“Well,” Sam blew out a long breath and said, “Glad I got that settled. Your mother worried about those accounts, and I thought this would be a good time to get it straightened out. You never know when you might need your retirement. And—” he stopped. He could tell by the look on his daughter’s face that she knew he was lying. “Kiki, honey, nothing happened. I swear on my life, I’m telling you the truth.”
She stared at him out of green eyes, so like her mother’s it almost felt like he was confessing to Cyn. He’d like Kiki to ask her mother what she was doing sprawled on the front lawn of The Bird’s Nest. He’d bet a lot more than a little touchy feely was going on with Steve Miller. He rubbed his eyes beneath his glasses. Shit, she was the whole reason he’d started this tonight.
“Kiki, say something.”
“I saw Alec Rohan’s number on the caller ID and thought you might be there. When I got to his office, it was already closed, but your car was parked on the street so I started checking every bar and restaurant in a three block radius.” Her voice dipped and she said, “I thought you’d come to see him about filing for divorce and I wanted to stop you. But I guess I was too late.”
“No, Kiki, it wasn’t what it looked like.”
He watched in slow motion as she raised her hand and snapped it across his cheek in one loud whack. For a half second, shock delayed the burn on his skin.
But it was enough time for his daughter to turn and run.
Chapter 20
“Hear ye, hear ye.” Shea waved a large manila envelope in the air and swooped into a grand bow as she presented it to Derry. “Let it be known that Alec Rohan is the first to cave.”
Derry snatched the envelope and clutched it to her chest, laughing. “Actually, I think we both caved at the same time.”
“It’s probably a love letter in legal jargon,” Cyn said. “And a special request for a Victoria’s Secret private showing.”
“Silk or satin?” This from Shea.
“Crotchless or edible?”
“Why not all of them?” Derry grinned. “I can’t wait to get home.”
“I know, me, too,” Cyn said.
Only Shea remained silent.
“So, come on,” Cyn coaxed, “open it. Maybe it’s a love letter, legal style.”
Derry tore open the envelope and yanked out several pages.
“Well?” Shea moved closer. “Cyn and I are dying. Read it out loud.”
“We want to hear love talk, lawyer style,” Cyn said.
Derry shifted the papers in front of her and began to read in a thin, hollowed, voice. “On this day, October 4th, 2005, let it be known that Alec Montgomery Rohan has filed for divorce from Derry Amelia Rohan, in the state of Virginia.”
“Oh, my God.” Cyn gasped.
“No,” Shea moaned.
“Bastard.” Derry ripped the papers in half. “He can go to hell!” She tore the crisp, white stationery again and again, like a human shredder bent on obliterating every word.
“Call him, Derry. He’s just upset.”
“Come on, Cyn, do you picture Sam sending you divorce papers because he’s upset? Alec planned to do this. I should’ve guessed it the last time I talked to him.”
“Maybe that’s what lawyers do when they’re upset,” Shea said. “He doesn’t mean it.”
Cyn shot her a Stop right now and don’t say another word look. “Do you want me to call him?”
“What? And make me look like a complete, worthless imbecile?” Derry swiped at her tears. “No way. If this is what he wants, then fine. It’s what he’s going to get.”
“What about Charlie?” Shea’s words slipped past her defenses.
“I’ll fight for him. He’s my son. So what if it wasn’t my egg, I’ve raised him as my own for the past two years. That makes him mine, too.”
Cyn wouldn’t remind her that a month ago Derry was the one considering whether or not she should divorce Alec and never see him or Charlie again. Hopefully, Alec wouldn’t bring this up. Stupid. Of course he would.
“What a mess.” Shea ran her fingers through her strawberry-blond, Ann Margaret hair and rubbed her temples. “We were supposed to come here to make sense of our lives, not totally screw them up. Now, Alec’s divorcing you, and who knows what Sam will do when Cyn tells him about Steve Miller and the sleaze pictures. And the stash of money she made but didn’t mention.” Her breathing came in fast, unsteady puffs. “And if Richard knew where I was, he’d already have sent my papers. Christ, what a total screw up!”
“You know, this wasn’t what I thought would happen when we came up here,” she continued, twisting a chunk of hair between her fingers. “I kind of hoped Richard would miss me, and give a second thought about the baby, and I don’t know, I thought he’d come after me.”
“All men are assholes,” Derry said, sniffing.
“Yeah, that’s right.” Shea snuck a look at Cyn. “Except Sam. He’s a good guy.”
“Oh shit.” Derry swiped at her face but the tears kept pouring out. “Shit, shit, shit.”
Then Shea started crying. And Cyn thought of Sam, and the truths she’d have to tell him when she got home. How would he ever understand? “Dammit,” she mumbled and threw her arms around her friends, letting her own tears come.
***
Derry wouldn’t admit she was miserable, but Cyn heard her last night. She knew crying when she heard it, no matter how much a person tried to muffle it in the pillows.
“Why don’t you just call him?”
“And do what? Beg?” Derry shook her head. “If he wants a divorce, that’s exactly what he’s going to get.”
“I don’t like the way you say that.”
A tiny smile flitted across Derry’s lips. “I’ve already called Morton Flenstein. He’s agreed to take the case.”
“Morton Flenstein as in the celebrity lawyer?”
“Hmmhmm.”
“Don’t do this, Derry.”
“I haven’t done a thing but protect myself and nobody can fault me for that.”
Couldn’t she see that Charlie would be the casualty and that all the real estate and bank statements in the world wouldn’t mend that destruction? Cyn was trying to think of another tactic to make Derry listen, when the
back door flew open and Tula Rae raced in, face flushed, long braid flying.
“Shea’s bleeding! Come quick.”
Cyn and Derry jumped up from the kitchen table and ran after Tula Rae’s skinny legs.
“Out back. Behind the shed,” Tula Rae puffed, pointing to the stained wood structure on the far side of the property.
When they reached the shed, they found Shea doubled over on the grass, clutching her stomach, red-blond hair draping her face.
“Shea!” Cyn knelt down and lifted Shea’s hair. “Oh, Shea.”
“The baby,” Shea breathed out in quick, agonized gasps.
“Just stay still.” Derry pulled her cell phone from her jeans pocket. “I’ll call 911.”
“I can’t lose my baby.”
“Be still, child.” Tula Rae stroked Shea’s back. “Be still.” She closed her eyes and chanted, working her bony fingers from Shea’s neck to the small of her back.
Shea’s eyes drifted shut, her breathing evened, and she released her grip on Cyn’s hand. And all the while, Derry and Cyn stared at the bright red spot leeching into the seat of Shea’s tan pants.
***
Sam poured a tall cup of black coffee and called Alec Rohan’s house the morning after the incident at Yesterday’s Lounge. He wasn’t chancing a call to Alec’s office for obvious reasons and her name was Rita.
He didn’t blame the woman for what happened. No one had forced him to grab her ass or stick his tongue in her mouth. He’d done it all on his own with the help of several bourbons and snapshots of his wife with another man clogging his judgment.
In twenty years of marriage, he’d never been unfaithful, never come close to thinking about being unfaithful. He loved his wife. He’d always loved her. But seeing those pictures of Cyn with another man, knowing that she’d ended up on the front lawn of her rental, half-undressed and out of it at three or four in the morning, and knowing that she had to have done more than sip 7-up and engage in idle chatter for all those hours…Knowing that, was what drove Sam to the bourbon and the woman.
If Kiki hadn’t shown up, would he have let Rita unzip his pants and slide under the table and do him, as she’d phrased it? He hoped not, but truth was, he didn’t know.
“Alec? This is Sam Cintar. Thank God I caught you before you left for the office.”
“Sam, you sound like shit. What’s wrong?”
“It’s about your assistant, Rita. I…she showed up last night after you left.”
“That damn slut, whatever she told you isn’t true. The woman’s a nutcase. Only goes after married men. She’s probably banged half the office, only the ones with wives though. I think it turns her on to know she’s screwing somebody’s husband. I fired her yesterday. Nobody’s going to threaten to blackmail me—”
“You fired her yesterday? Before you met me for drinks?”
“Right. Why? Whatever she told you, she’s lying.”
Sam stared at the calendar in his office. The numbers and days blurred in front of him. If only he could erase yesterday, even last night, even fifteen minutes. “She didn’t tell me anything.”
“What’d she want?”
“I…to talk.”
“You watch out, or you’ll be next.”
Sam pinched the bridge of his nose beneath his glasses, willing the throbbing between his eyebrows to stop. “I think I was next,” he said in a flat voice.
“What are you talking about?”
“By the time she showed up, I was half lit. She”—he hated saying it—“started kissing me.” And then she straddled me.
“Did she flip that blond hair and get that indignant ‘I don’t want you anyway look’ when you told her to go to hell?”
Sam sucked in air. “Actually, I didn’t tell her that.”
“Oh, so you were a gentleman about it.”
“No, I wasn’t.”
Silence. And then, “What the hell are you saying, Sam? You didn’t screw her, did you?”
“No.”
“Thank God. The woman’s a walking STD.”
“I did do some things though.” The words fell out in a stilted heap.
“Shit.”
“I don’t even know how it happened, Alec. I kept thinking about those pictures of Cyn and that guy…”
“Christ.”
“Rita was straddling me, right there in the booth when my daughter showed up.”
“Ah, Christ, you’ve got to be kidding.”
“I pushed Rita off, tried to make it sound like it was a business meeting, but Kiki’s not stupid.”
“So, now what?”
Sam rubbed the back of his neck. All he wanted to do was crawl back into bed and forget everything, but the look on Kiki’s face last night as she stood there watching him seared his memory. “I don’t know. I honest to God don’t know.”
“You’ve got to tell your wife,” Alec said.
“Tell her? I can’t do that.” Sam started to panic just thinking about it.
“Look, I don’t know what she did down there, but if you want to keep your marriage together, you need to tell her. And, you’ll need to confront her about this Miller guy,” he added.
“Under the circumstances, I don’t think you’re in any position to give me marital advice.”
“My circumstances are exactly why I’m giving you advice. I should’ve been honest with Derry when Charlie’s mother first approached me. I wasn’t and it cost me my marriage.”
Chapter 21
Kiki refused to talk to him for two days. Sam let it go because, truthfully, he didn’t know what to say to her. She’d caught another woman crawling all over him, straddling actually, in the back booth of a bar. The whole incident reeked of sex and sleaze, not something a father wants his seventeen-year-old daughter to witness.
On the morning of the third day, Sam straightened his tie and knocked on Kiki’s door.
“Go away, I’m still sleeping.”
Sam gently opened the door and peeked inside. A fluff of pink comforter lay balled in the middle of the bed with long strands of brown hair streaming out one side. He walked to the edge of the bed and touched his daughter’s hair. “Kiki, we have to talk.”
Silence.
“Kiki”—a trail of hair slid through his fingers—“you can’t ignore me forever. We have to talk.”
“There’s nothing to say,” she mumbled under the comforter.
“There’s everything to say and we need to say it before your mother gets home.”
She flung the comforter off and glared at him. “You mean we need to work on a story so she doesn’t find out the truth.”
“No, that’s not it at all.” But it was. His behavior that night was disgusting and his daughter had witnessed it.
“Really?” She scooted up in bed and pushed her hair from her eyes. “So, you want Mom to know you were practically having sex with some woman in the back booth of a bar?”
“I was drunk,” he stammered, “it’s been a tough few weeks. Your mother and I…we…”
“Oh, God, you’re getting a divorce.” Her face pinched white.
“God no, nothing like that.” Was it?
Her eyes were on him, accusatory yet hopeful, as she said in a small voice, “What’s going on? I want you to tell me the truth.”
There was no truth that Sam could share, not when he wasn’t sure what that was, so he said, “Your mother and I have some issues we need to straighten out and we can’t do that until she gets back.”
“Did you cheat on her?” Kiki’s eye’s filled with tears. “Are you leaving her for that bitch in the bar?”
“No.” She cheated on me. “I love your mother.”
“Then you’re not getting a divorce?” She was suddenly five again, asking if her dog, Henry, would live forever.
“No,” Sam said, but he hesitated a second too long.
Kiki grabbed him around the waist and burst into tears. “You can’t get a divorce. You can’t.”
Janie s
tood frozen in the doorway, eyes wide, lower lip quivering.
Sam took a deep breath and reached out to motion her to him. Janie ran to him and buried her face against his white shirt. He hugged his daughters tight and murmured, “Nobody’s getting a divorce. We’re a family.”
Kiki lifted her dark head and met his gaze. “And we’ll do whatever we have to, to stay a family. No matter what it takes.”
***
If she kept her eyes closed, maybe it would all float away as if it had never happened. She’d read once that the human will was the most powerful driving force in a person’s life. All she had to do was will it to disappear.
Shea took several deep breaths, filling her lungs, full, fuller. Relax…
The smell of hospital disinfectant and rubbing alcohol invaded her brain, squelching her mantra. She was in a hospital. She was hooked up to an IV.
She remembered the blood gushing between her legs as the ambulance attendant lifted her onto the stretcher.
And then the cramping started.
“Shit.” Shea slowly opened her eyes. A huge bouquet of black-eyed Susans, her favorite, crowded the window ledge. A basket of daisies sat next to it with a pink teddy bear perched on top. Her gaze fixed on the bear.
“Shea?”
She turned her head toward the door as Cyn entered, looking like a swirl of strawberries ’n cream in a pink and white shift and matching sandals.
Shea managed a thin smile. “Hi, Cyn.”
“I brought you some things I thought you might need.” Cyn deposited two huge shopping bags on the chair beside her. She leaned over and dropped a kiss on Shea’s forehead.
“How long do you think I’m staying here?”
“You lost two pints of blood. The doctor wants to run a few tests, give you a chance to get your strength back before he lets you go.”
“Cyn, people have C-sections and they’re out in two days. Miscarriages happen to hundreds of women every day.” Her throat clogged but she forced herself to say, “It’s a simple D&C. It’s no big deal.”
“I know how much you wanted this baby.”
Shea swiped at a tear. “I guess it just wasn’t…” She couldn’t finish.
“I’m so sorry.” Cyn put her arms around Shea and stroked her hair.