“’Course not. You trust me, remember.” He helped her over the threshold and brought her to a stop two steps later. Jagger released her arm and stepped away from her.
“Jagger! Don’t leave me!” Her hands searched for him.
“It’s okay. I’m right here.” He held his breath. “Okay, go ahead. Take off your blindfold.” Zee pulled the blindfold down. Her eyes went wide as she gasped.
Jagger had spent the past two and a half days transforming her roof into a private garden. He’d filled the space with plants and trees. Put in a seating area, even an arbor. Flower boxes and pots overflowed with every color he could find.
He’d covered the black asphalt with the cream colored, eco-friendly covering Steve recommended, and topped that with rugs scattered here and there. Close to two wide chairs sat a raised copper fire basin he’d set on a circle of stacked bricks. A small pile of firewood waited nearby. Lanterns and standing heaters stood here and there as well.
But his favorite part, by far was the four-posted structure in the back corner. He’d hung panels of sheer fabric that caught even the slightest breeze, and surrounded a hammock big enough for two.
The sun was setting and the softening of the sky backlit everything. He couldn’t have planned it better.
“Jagger,” Zee gasped in a whisper.
“Do you like it?”
The look of amazement on her face as she looked around was his answer. “H-how did you do this?”
“I got up close and personal with that rickety elevator of yours. You’re right, it’s a bloody death trap.” He swept behind her and wrapped his arms about her. “I wanted to do something special to celebrate your opening and to show you how much I’ve come to love you.”
“I don’t know what to say.”
“Say you like it.”
“I love it. Oh, Jagger, it’s gorgeous. I can’t believe you did all this in just two days.”
“Two and a half actually. I had a little help. Roger Hickey, the gardener from the estate gave me a hand. Steve helped me find some of the hardware and the paint. You pulled out of the parking lot with Leah on Friday, and I headed for the garden center.”
“It’s like I’m standing in a dream.” Zee stepped out of his embrace and walked about looking at everything. “It’s amazing.”
“Now you can enjoy your roof anytime you want. There’s shelter from the sun and the rain. There’s heat when it’s cold. Hickey says all the plants are weather hardy and in the winter, they move into the shelter back there. The pots all have rollers.”
He slipped his arm around her waist and kissed her hair. “You can drink your tea out here in the mornings. We can lie naked in the shade so your lovely veranda doesn’t burn to a crisp. Make love under the stars. It’s our own Eden.” He pointed to a small glass-topped table with champagne chilling next to a plate of chocolates. “I even got your favorite champagne.” He wanted to remind her of their champagne night from a few weeks ago.
“It’s so beautiful. You didn’t have to do this. It’s too much.”
“I wanted to.”
Zee stood stunned. “I never dreamed it could look like this. This is the most amazing thing anyone’s ever done for me. It must have cost a fortune.”
“Don’t worry about that.”
“But, how did you…? Oh my God!” Zee spun around. “You spent your money for Europe?”
“Yes, I did.” He boasted. “Every last copper.”
“But what about France? What about London?”
He reached for her. “None of that matters now, Zee. I wanted to do this for you. For us.” He smirked at her. “I guess I’m stuck here now. I’ll have to stay with you, won’t I? Isn’t that great?”
“Stuck? No!” Zee pushed away from him.
“No?”
“I don’t want that. I don’t want you to be stuck here!”
“I was kidding, Zee. Wrong word. I don’t feel stuck.”
“But you are! Don’t you see? Like your father got stuck. You were going to see the world. Y-you had a plan. You promised your Da.”
“I know I did, but that was before. I’ll keep my promise.” He shrugged. “Eventually. But now, I want to be here with you.” Zee was looking at him with a different kind of shock now. He tried to joke. “Hell, my mum will think it’s a ripper I’ve been roped down, she might even call off the firing squad.”
Jagger kept trying to pull her back into his embrace, but she was getting more and more upset. She put a hand over her heart and started to hyperventilate.
“Roped down? Is that what this is? Am I just a way to save your neck?” She pushed away from him again.
“No! Of course not. Why are you getting so upset?”
“You said it yourself. You’re stuck! You’ve put your entire future into terracotta pots!” She gasped for breath. “You might not get another chance, Jagger. Don’t you understand that?”
“No, I don’t understand. I thought you’d be happy. I thought you wanted me to stay.”
“Not like this!” Zee swept her hand. “Not roped down like a calf at a rodeo! I can’t believe you traded in your dreams for a roof!”
“What the hell are you talking about? You’re not making sense. You said you loved it.”
“I do.”
“You’ve got a bloody odd way of showing it.”
“Jagger…” Her mouth worked but no words came out. A gap cracked between them and Jagger could feel it widening by the minute. “I…” She rubbed the spot between her eyebrows. “Jagger, I’m just so stressed about the show and—”
“The show, the show, the show.” His anger finally snapped. “Do you know how many times we’ve talked about your damn show in the last three weeks? You’re obsessed. It’s just one show, Zee. There’ll be others.”
“Just a show?” Zee’s jaw dropped. “This is my big break. Daniel Bruce doesn’t do second chances. You have no idea what’s at stake here. This is what I’ve been busting my ass for the last six years. Pardon me if you don’t understand what that’s like. How could you when you’ve never stayed in one place long enough t-to…”
“To what? Matter?”
“No. Understand commitment. Understand responsibility.”
“I don’t understand responsibility? What do you call the last three years? A joy ride?” Jagger threw up a hand. “Forget it. Never mind.” White-hot rage surged through him. “What the hell was I thinking? I should have my head examined. I’ll never learn. Just when I think I have you crazy sheilas figured out, you remind me that you all come from another planet.” Anger radiated from him in sparks.
“I’m not the crazy one that spent my future on potted plants. Did I ask you to do all this? Did I ask you to spend all your money? I don’t need all of this to know you love me. I don’t need—”
He held up his hand to stop her. “That’s right, I forgot, you don’t need anything. Especially from me. You’ve been trying to push me away from the very beginning! You won’t come with me, you obviously don’t want me to stick around. I get it now.” Jagger slapped his forehead with the heel of his hand. “What an idiot I am. I should have known when you went off and took care of Zeigler by yourself, you didn’t need me. You didn’t then, and you sure as hell don’t need me now. Admit it, you don’t want me around because you’re afraid I’ll screw things up for you. You’re scared I’ll change your tidy little life.” Jagger’s planted his hands on his hips.
“Well, what did you expect from a crazy sheila?” Zee shot back. “You’ve changed everything else, why not my whole life. You just have to sweep through and change everything don’t you? You’ve done all you can to turn me into something I’m not. Hell, I’m wearing underwear that’s nothing more than butt floss! But I guess you couldn’t change how crazy I am, right?” She flung her arm at two and a half days of sweat and toil. “Now I’ve got freaking Central Park on my roof!”
His jaw felt like stone. Zee crossed her arms and glared at him. “You know I was doing fine
before you sauntered into my life with your perfect body and rearranged everything. Maybe I was happier not being with anyone.”
Her words were like a bucket of ice water. “I don’t bloody believe what I’m hearing. Maybe you need to be with someone who’ll treat you like crap. I understand Ed Zeigler is still on the market.”
Zee gasped. “At least Ed Zeigler only wanted to change the size of my boobs!”
“Well, darlin’.” Jagger felt something beyond rage and pain. He felt numb. He couldn’t look at her. He was done. “I’ll make this real easy for you.”
Chapter Thirty-Six
The sound of the door slamming punched Zee in the chest. She ran through the living room to stop him, but couldn’t bring herself to chase after him. She was going to be ill. Zee put her face in her hands and sobbed. What have I done!
“He’s leaving! You have to stop him!”
“I can’t, Nana.”
“You can’t or you won’t? Why did you do that? What’s the matter with you? You know something, one of these days you are going to get your wish, young lady. You’re going to end up a bitter old hermit and be all alone. Maybe it’s high time you started to have some trust in people. Trust in yourself. You were so happy. He loved you! I don’t understand how you could just throw that away!”
“Shut up!” Zee put her hands over her ears. “Please. Stop! I can’t listen to another one of your damn lectures. Why do I even listen to you? You’re dead. Dead! You don’t exist!” A sob caught in Zee’s throat. She snatched the ragged teacup off its shelf. “I pieced you back together after you died. Just like this damn cup. I made you up!” Zee threw the cup with all her strength against the wall and watched as it splintered in an explosion of tiny shards.
When the phone rang two hours later, Zee raced to pick it up. “Jagger?”
“No. It’s Leah.”
“Oh, God, Leah, I’m such an idiot.” She choked into the phone. “I’m the biggest idiot that ever lived.”
“What’s going on?”
“Jagger…” She was crying again, and couldn’t even form the words to begin to explain.
“What happened? He was supposed to surprise you.”
“You knew?” Zee sputtered. “Why the hell didn’t you tell me? I could have been prepared. I could have stopped myself from acting like a psychopath!”
“It was Jagger’s idea that I take you away for the weekend. He said he wanted to do something special to surprise you. I didn’t know what he was planning. What the hell happened?”
“I’ve ruined everything. He did something amazing, and I freaked out.”
Zee turned on the outside light to look at the beautiful rooftop again. When she flipped the switch, thousands of white twinkle lights came to life, making the entire roof look like something out of a fairy tale. “Oh, God, Leah.” Zee began to sob again.
“I’m on my way.”
Twenty minutes later, Zee let Leah into the apartment and fell, still crying, into her friend’s arms.
“Tell me what happened. What did he do?”
“A-all he did was to be wonderful and I said stupid, horrible things. We had a huge fight. H-he…” Zee could do nothing but point to the door to the roof.
“What?”
Zee reached into the kitchen and flipped the light switch.
Leah gasped. “Holy shit! He did all that in two days? Unbelievable.”
Zee stood with her hand over her mouth, her face wet from crying. “So what did you say?”
“I-I was stunned. I told him I loved it. Then I asked him how he did all this. It must have cost him a fortune. Leah, he used the money he was saving to get to Europe. After I realized that, I don’t know, I freaked. He joked and said now he was stuck here. Stuck. He used that exact word. I couldn’t breathe. What’s wrong with me? I should have been happy he was staying, but all I could think of was now he has to stay. That’s wrong, right? Stuck! Just like his father said. That’s messed up, right?”
“I’m missing something. This is a good thing. You want him to stay.”
“Of course, I do, but I want him to stay because he wants to, not because he has to.”
Leah frowned at her. “I’m not understanding.”
“He left himself no choice. He’ll stay because he has no other alternative.”
“Don’t you think it was his choice to use his money to do something wonderful for you? He made his choice. He chose you. He’ll stay because he loves you. Don’t you see that?”
Zee paced like a caged animal. “What have I done? He’s right, I’m a crazy sheila. I have to fix this. If he gives up his dream, he’ll regret it. He’ll come to hate me. I know he will. I still have some of Nana’s money left. I’ll give him his money back.”
“How will that solve anything?”
“If I give him back his money, he’ll have his choices again. He’ll be able to make his decision. Then I’ll know what he really wants.” She wore a path in the carpet.
“Zee, stop pacing and listen to me.” Leah grabbed her arms. “Jagger is an amazing man, but he’s still a guy. You’ve already bruised his ego by not seeing the grand gesture of his gift to you. If you give him back his money, you’ll crush what’s left.”
“I need to know for sure, Leah.”
“Girl? Look around you! If this doesn’t scream he loves you and wants to be with you, I don’t know what would?”
Zee put her face in her hands. “Oh God, I know. What have I done?”
Leah put her arm around Zee’s shaking shoulders. “You panicked.”
“Brilliant observation. But why?”
“You’re still waiting for him to treat you like garbage. You were so prepared to deal with him leaving you broken hearted, that when another scenario presented itself, you didn’t know how to deal with it. You don’t believe you deserve to be happy. You don’t think you’re worthy of having a man like Jagger actually love you.”
She was right. Zee closed her eyes to the pain that washed over her. Leah was right about it all. How could Zee have been so stupid?
Zee wandered to the middle of the roof. The champagne now sat in a bucket of melted ice, and the chocolates had softened and begun to spread. “So, what do I do now?”
Leah followed her and put a comforting hand on her back. “You go find him. You explain that you panicked.”
Zee shook her head sadly. “I said some awful, awful things.”
“He loves you. He’ll forgive you.”
“I wouldn’t forgive me.”
“You don’t love you like he does.”
Zee spent the entire night driving around trying to find Jagger. By the time class started the next morning, she was beyond exhausted. He hadn’t been at the estate. She couldn’t find him anywhere. What if something happened to him? What if he couldn’t forgive her?
She’d come to the school early, and sat on the stairs to wait for him to show up. Her favorite worn marble stairs felt cold and hard as she sat there. Funny, she never noticed how the paint had begun peeling in the corners of the stairwell. How had she missed that?
Because she was self-absorbed. Jagger was right. Leah and Nana were right. She’d been so focused on what she wanted that when happiness and joy and a life filled with love stood in front of her, she pushed by it as if she never even saw it.
Zee couldn’t stand the smell of old dead paint any longer. She couldn’t sit there. Maybe Jagger was in the parking lot. He had to be showing up soon. Could he have slipped by her somehow? Zee poked her head into the classroom. Everyone was there. No Jagger.
Leah rushed over to her and dragged her into the hallway.
“What are you doing here? I thought you and Jagger would be off having raucous, make-up sex by now.”
“He’s not here?”
“I thought he was with you. Madeline just told us he wasn’t coming. Paunchy, monkey butt man is here.”
“What? Not coming? Where is he?”
“Zee, you look like hell. Have you slep
t?”
“No. I’ve been driving around all night looking for him. He wasn’t home. I checked four times. He isn’t anywhere. Leah, I’m scared to death. Where can he be?”
“Don’t worry, honey, he’s probably just off licking his wounds. He’ll turn up. Maybe he’s out looking for you. Go home.”
“If he shows up here. Tell him, tell him…”
“I know what to tell him. Go. Get some rest. If I hear anything, I’ll call you.”
“Okay.” Zee looked about in a panic. She couldn’t go home. She’d check the estate again. Maybe she should call the police and see if there’d been any accidents involving vans with blue curtains and a bed in the back and a suitcase full of ashes.
It was noon before Zee pushed herself through her apartment door. She felt hollow with despair. Her body shook with a combination of exhaustion, hunger and thirst. She walked woodenly into the kitchen. The answering machine flashed. Zee almost knocked it off the counter leaping to press the button. Let it be him!
“You have one new message.”
BEEEP
“Zee? It’s Madeline. Leah told me you’re not feeling well. I don’t know what’s going on between you and Jagger, but after his call this morning and you not showing either, frankly I’m worried. You’re four days away from your opening. Whatever is happening, I hope you aren’t thinking of disappointing Daniel Bruce…or me for that matter. I’ve got some wealthy alums coming specifically to meet you. I hope you realize there is more on the line here. Please don’t bail on me, Zee. This show is too important…for all of us. Call me later if you need me. Bye.”
BEEEP
Leah stopped by the apartment later that day. Zee flung open the door before the second knock. “I was going to ask you if you’d heard from him, but I can tell by your face you haven’t.”
“I’ve been everywhere. It’s as if he’s disappeared. Maybe—” Leah’s frown stopped her. “What?”
“Madeline told us Jagger’s done. He said he couldn’t finish out the week and refused his pay for the last two weeks. She said Paunchy Phil will cover for him. I’m sorry, Zee.”
Zee closed her eyes. They burned from all the crying. “I screwed everything up, Leah.”
Picture Me Naked (Stoddard Art School Series) Page 23