Do-Over
Page 18
Right now, he was dressed for the weekend—jeans and a casual shirt. He looked, as always, too damn wonderful. Walking with him was a willowy woman wearing one of those light and flowery summer dresses that Cara loved, but looked like a saccharine overdose on her. Of course it worked on the brunette. Bitch.
“I invited him to the wedding,” Bri said from the next chair, nodding toward Mark’s reflection.
Cara used the mirror to glare at her friend without ticking off the hairstylist. “Why?”
“For obvious reasons, like you’re a total idiot and someone has to make you do the right thing. He’s not coming, though.”
Morgan and the brunette were directly in front of the salon, but still on the opposite side of the street, thank God. Cara wanted to retain what bits of dignity she could. A vision of her with her hair mid-ratting was no memory she wanted planted in Mark’s brain.
“I appreciate the thought—call me a total idiot and all—but it’s time to let go.”
“I’ve been seeing him in town a lot the past few weeks,” Bri said.
“Does he ever stop in?” she blurted. So much for letting go.
“No, but he always slows down.”
Cara wasn’t sure exactly how that was supposed to make her feel better.
Bri’s stylist finished anchoring the bridal veil in place.
“What do you think?” Bri asked, her voice shaking.
Cara teared up. She hoped the makeup artist would be using the waterproof stuff. She planned to be doing a lot of crying today.
“You’re beautiful,” she said, using a fingertip to wipe away the tears. “Though I’d lose the Dead Kennedys T-shirt sometime before the ceremony.”
THESE DAYS, MARK HAD a built-in excuse for being in downtown Royal Oak. He owned a brand-new condominium there—so new that it still lacked countertops. The condo developer’s detail-woman had taken to shadowing him, as though following him through the streets of town was going to make him decide on the right color of granite any faster.
When he’d asked Jerome to give his opinion, Jerome had told him that being gay didn’t mean he had taste in decor any more than being from Georgia meant he was a peach.
Not that Jerome wasn’t willing to share on another topic. He’d been more than happy to point out that in refusing to see Cara, Mark wasn’t using the brains God had given him.
His own mother had told him that he was—and this was a direct quote—“a total dumb-ass.”
Mark wasn’t a dumb-ass, just a little slow on the uptake. When he’d received the invitation to Bri O’Brien’s wedding, he knew there was no way he’d go and risk ruining her day, or Cara’s. But he had kept the note that Cara’s friend had added. One that told him the dates Cara was guaranteed to be found in Retreads.
Today, two weeks after Bri’s wedding, was among those dates. Mark peered out the front window of his condo, seeing if he could spot Cara in the shop across the street. The angle was wrong, the light reflecting off the store windows was bad, and he was worried that this scheme he’d come up with was—in his mother’s words—dumb-ass.
Because Cara had chosen, for whatever insane reason, to panic and dump him, didn’t mean he wasn’t allowed to chase her down. He’d been scared and he’d been stupid, but he was over it.
He didn’t have an excuse for his lapse in straight thinking, but he did have an explanation. He’d spent his childhood watching the reverse relationship: his dad withdrawing and his mother sitting like a martyr. After a long talk with his mom last week, he’d finally concluded that his parents’ problems were just that—theirs.
Cara was his once-in-a-lifetime shot at happiness. Or maybe in this case, twice-in-a-lifetime, which made it all the worse that he’d just about blown it by projecting his parents’ marriage on his life.
Mark double-checked his supplies: cardboard, a fat black chisel marker and duct tape. Pretty flimsy stuff on which to build a man’s future. Because he didn’t want to leave anything to chance, he grabbed his cell phone and dialed the saleswoman who’d been so pleased to turn over this unit again.
“I need you to do me a favor….”
“ANOTHER SLOW DAY at retail central,” Cara said to Stella, her newly reacquired inflatable friend. Stella was currently attired in a green silk cocktail dress. Cara had tried strapping a “Jackie O” pillbox hat to the mannequin’s mushy head, but it kept falling off.
Annabeth had stopped by yesterday and delivered Stella, whom she’d liberated—in an uninflated state—from behind one of Mark’s file cabinets. The receptionist had been brimming with S.U. news: Suzy Harbedian was pregnant, Mark was officially a partner and Annabeth had finally consented to return to college. She’d decided that she wanted to be a marine biologist, and she was sure she’d get past her problem with seasickness sooner or later. Her parents were total suckers.
Two weeks into this retail gig, Cara was ready for it to end. She was itching to start with her new firm, and to have some fun this time. As for her personal life, she planned to take it slowly.
When she felt she was capable of explaining herself, she would call Mark. She didn’t expect that he’d have any interest in picking up where they’d left off, but he did deserve a more coherent explanation of why she’d fled.
She hadn’t had enough faith in herself, or in her ability to change. She also hadn’t had enough faith in her capacity to love. And that was the saddest part of all. She was now the emotional equivalent of “all dressed up and no place to go.”
The phone rang. Cara wandered over and picked it up.
“Retreads.”
“Is this Cara Adams?”
“Yes.” The female voice sounded vaguely familiar. “Can I help you?”
“I need you to look across the street.”
“Across the street?” she parroted.
“Yes, and up. Unit 612 of the loft condominiums, to be exact.”
Which was exactly the unit that was to have been hers. “Is this some kind of prank call?”
The woman laughed. “Not at all. Do you think you could just do it?”
“Fine.” She set down the phone and picked up the pair of binoculars Bri had kept to check out the construction workers.
Someone was in her condo. Okay, her former condo. And they were taping letters to the windows.
A-R-A-C
“What?” she murmured.
Just then she saw a dark-haired guy yank down the C and move to her left.
C-A-R-A
“Oh, jeez.” Her heart slamming double-time, Cara ran back to the phone, said “thank you” and hung up without waiting for a response.
Mark. It had to be Mark. She grabbed the binoculars again and fiddled with them for a clearer view.
Slowly, more letters appeared.
I L-O-V-E Y-O-U
G-O-L-D O-R B-L-A-C-K G-R-A-N-I-T-E?
Crying, Cara grabbed the keys to the store, turned the Closed sign right side out, locked up and sprinted across Main Street.
Minutes later, if anybody down below had cared to peek between the letters decorating the windows of condo unit 612, they would have seen two lovers well on their way to happiness.
AND UP ON OLYMPUS, the do-over gods partied hearty because this was one moment that Cara Adams had gotten just right.
ISBN: 978-1-4603-0325-2
DO-OVER
Copyright © 2003 by Dorien Kelly.
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