Been Searching For You

by Nicole Evelina

  “Not this again,” Will muttered across the table.

  Sensing an argument brewing, I took a few large swallows of wine.

  Beside me, Alex tensed. “Father, I will not defend myself to you again. I know I’m the black sheep of the family because I chose a different path, but that ship has long since sailed.”

  “Perhaps, but you could have at least chosen to teach at Princeton or one of the other Ivies—a school worthy of the Grantham name.”

  “More stuffing, anyone?” Evelyn interrupted, offering the bowl with pleading eyes. I accepted, and she thanked me with a strained smile.

  “So you’re saying you’d rather have me eight hundred miles away than in the same city? I stayed here for you, for the family. I couldn’t abandon the family after Mom died.”

  “Now we’re a sacrifice you were forced to make? Please, son.” He sighed. “Princeton is your alma mater. Think of the connections you could have forged. The biggest mistake you ever made was letting emotion—grief for your mother—cloud your judgment.”

  I stood, unable to listen to the argument any longer. “Mr. Grantham, I realize I don’t know you or your family very well, but you are being terribly unfair to Alex. He is tenured at one of the top five universities in the country. Just because it’s not classified officially as ‘Ivy League’ doesn’t make it any less prestigious. During my work with the university, I’ve talked to plenty of prospective students, and they tell me they feel just as much pressure to get into this school as any Ivy League institution. You owe Alex an apology. He obviously thought of his family before himself when he chose his career path—one he loves and is very successful at, I might add—so father or no, you have no right to condemn him.”

  Silence greeted me as I closed my mouth and sat down. Heat instantly flooded my cheeks. Every pair of eyes was staring at me. Most wore expressions of shock. Evelyn looked at me, slack-jawed. Will was grinning as if he wanted to offer a slow clap of approval. Oliver’s face was beet red.

  “Regina never gave us these problems,” was all he said before throwing his napkin onto his plate and storming out of the room.

  “Well, that’s one way to make a first impression,” Lila teased as we shoved through the glass doors to the veranda, where a fire pit burned brightly in the middle of a semicircle of overstuffed patio chairs.

  “Oh, I doubt they’ll ever forget me.” I said, holding out my cup of hot cocoa for an infusion of Baileys. When Gemma barely dribbled it in, I motioned for the bottle. “You saw what just happened in there. I’m going to need more than that to recover.” I poured until the bottle glugged and my drink was more tan than chocolate brown.

  “We like you though,” Will put in on behalf of all the siblings.

  “And they’re the ones who really matter,” Alex said, putting an arm around me.

  I turned to him. “You’re not mad at me? I feel like I should apologize for disrespecting your father.”

  “Nah, no harm done. He commands so much respect in his day job he feels like he’s automatically owed it rather than needing to earn it like everyone else. You were the only one who could have put him in his place.”

  I shrank back in my chair, bringing a mittened hand to my mouth. “But will he hate me from now on? I don’t plan on going away anytime soon.” I smiled at Alex.

  He returned my grin. “And I’m not letting you go.”

  “He may need to cool off a bit,” Arthur said, “but I bet in the long run, you’ll find he admires you for standing up for his son. That’s what strong women do.” He smiled at his wife. “Our mom was a strong woman. He’d want nothing less for any of his sons.”

  “Amen to that,” Gemma said, holding up her mug for a toast.

  Will appeared from seemingly out of nowhere, carrying a tray with two shot glasses and an old-fashioned brown bottle that reeked of alcohol.

  “What in the world is that?” Lila asked, fanning her face.

  “This, my dear”—Will leaned down to kiss Lila on the nose—“is the famous Grantham Goldmine. This is the stuff that made our granny and great-granny rich. Medicinal whiskey was legal to sell—provided the patient had a doctor’s prescription. Just so happens that before the men in our family were lawyers, they were chemists who ran pharmacies. Every new member of the family has to taste it. It’s tradition.”

  I wrinkled my nose at the dusty old bottle with its weathered, torn seal and peeling, faded label. Anything that came out of there surely had to taste like skunk water or worse. “Shouldn’t we wait for the wedding?”

  “Nope. Girlfriends count, especially on the holidays.”

  Gemma and Marcie nodded in unison.

  “We’ve both been through it and lived to tell the tale. You’ll survive,” Marcie said.

  Will handed me a shot glass of the amber liquid. I sniffed it gingerly. The ethanolic fumes took my breath away.

  “Well, I haven’t been responsible with anything else I’ve said tonight, so I’m certainly not going to worry after this.” I held my glass up to Lila, who grimaced in solidarity.

  “Ready?”

  She nodded.

  I threw back my head and opened my mouth, letting the liquid warm my tongue, my throat, and slowly my belly. I closed my eyes, savoring the surprisingly smoky, oaky flavor. It was rich, the kind of elegantly sumptuous flavor that hinted at expensive cigars smoked in mahogany-paneled rooms.

  I opened my eyes to see Alex grinning at me. “Oh my God. That was amazing.”

  “Wow,” was Lila’s only response.

  Arthur rubbed his hands together in glee. “All right, we’ve done the family thing. Now let’s get to celebrating in earnest.” He removed several highball glasses from behind an outdoor bar I hadn’t previously noticed. “Who wants some?”

  We raised our hands, and Will poured two fingers’ worth into each glass, hesitating before Alex.

  “Alex?”

  He waved his brother away. “No, thank you. One is my limit, and I had that with dinner.”

  “Oh come on,” David taunted. “You can slip just this once. It’s not like you’re in AA.”

  “Yeah, don’t be a p—”

  Marcie cut Will off with a look that could have frozen Lake Michigan. “There are ladies present.”

  “I was just going to say ‘punk.’” Will sulked. “All right, all right,” Alex said. “One. That’s it.”

  Famous last words. One turned into two—or three if you were Will and Lila, who were dancing suggestively to music only they could hear—while the rest of us took turns trading dating horror stories. My cheeks hurt from laughing by the time it was my turn.

  I counted off my travails on my fingers. “Let’s see, I’ve been stood up, left for the guy’s best friend twice—once was a girl, once was another guy—been the victim of many, many blind dates, one of whom ended up being my high school Spanish teacher—”

  “Ew! No. No way that’s true!” Gemma screeched through peals of laughter. “That is so wrong.” She stuck out her tongue and fake hurled like a cat having a hairball.

  I raised my right hand. “Swear to God. Granted this was like a decade after I graduated.”

  “Yeah, but still.” She shuddered.

  “Hey,” Marcie drawled to Alex, “you’ve been awful quiet. Surely you have some dish to share. Maybe on this one?” She sloshed her drink in my direction.

  “If you don’t tell them, I will,” I threatened.

  He laughed. “I don’t have any horror stories.”

  “Yet,” I amended with a giggle. “It’s only a matter of time.”

  Alex circled his head in a half nod, half shake as if unsure whether to agree with me. “You said it, not me.” After a pause, he found the story thread he was looking for. “Well, she is a bit of a klutz.” He proceeded to recount the night of Mia’s birthday—when I fell down the stairs coming offstage—my less-than-graceful golf game on our first date, then added in the night I decided to try to be all naughty-maid sexy and seduce him in th
e laundry room. “She fell off the dryer and hit her head on the shelf holding the detergent. Needed six stitches.”

  “Truth.” I pointed at my temple, where a fine white line would forever tell the tale. I pulled Alex close. “But at least you got to play doctor afterward.”

  “TMI! TMI,” Casey squealed.

  Alex was laughing so hard he was practically crying, face beet red. “Then there was the time we went ice skating in Millennium Park, and that jerk cut me off, forcing me down by the boards. When you tried to see if I was okay, you realized you didn’t know how to stop and nearly sliced my finger off with your skate blade.”

  My smile evaporated. “We’ve never been skating, Alex. That wasn’t me.”

  He turned glassy eyes on me, unperturbed. “Sure it was, babe.”

  My chest constricted. “No, I’ve never been ice skating. You and I talked about going when we got back to avoid the tourist rush, remember?”

  He looked at me quizzically. “Are you sure? I could swear—”

  Marcie looked from me to him and took the glass of whiskey from his hand. “Okay, you’ve had enough.” She motioned between the two of us. “And neither of you are driving anywhere tonight. There’s more than enough room for you to stay. Come on, soldier.” She helped Alex to his unsteady feet before passing him off to Will.

  “But if it wasn’t Annabeth, who was it?” Alex asked as they ushered him in from the cold, one supporting each arm.

  Marcie turned to make sure I was out of earshot.

  I wasn’t, but I couldn’t get myself to move. I needed to know even though I dreaded it. Please let it be from a movie, or maybe he’s mistaking me for his sister or one of his in-laws. I could have even handled a high school girlfriend. But even as I thought it, I feared I already knew the answer.

  “It was Regina, dear.”

  My head throbbed with the beating of my heart, and my tongue tasted like rusty nails. I didn’t want to open my eyes because I knew any light, overcast or sunny, would send stabbing pain through my head.

  “Oh, God, I think I died and someone forgot to tell me.” Alex’s thick voice came from over my shoulder.

  “Uh-huh,” I croaked, burrowing further into my pillow. My eyes popped open a few seconds later when I heard Alex bolt out of bed and half-walk, half-trip to the bathroom. Yep, I was right. Some invisible force was jamming an ice pick into my brain in time with my heartbeat. I squeezed my eyes shut and willed my stomach to be calm.

  A perfunctory knock at the door was followed by Casey’s head and a quiet whisper, “You guys awake?”

  I motioned her in. But before I could answer, Alex loudly retched in the bathroom.

  “I guess that answers that.” She slowly backed into the room, carrying a tray with two steaming mugs of coffee and a small plastic creamer container. “I thought you guys could use this.”

  I gladly accepted a cup. “You are an angel.”

  She smirked and shrugged. “The blessing and curse of being a light drinker is taking care of everyone else the next morning. But I don’t mind.” After a slight pause, she started to back away. “Oh, there’re scrambled eggs downstairs if you get hungry.”

  I could have kissed her. “Thank you so much.”

  Reaching for the door handle, Casey nodded toward the bathroom. “Make him take aspirin and B-12. And both of you drink lots of water.”

  I grinned at her. “Thanks, Mom.”

  The caffeine was just starting to dull my headache when Alex reappeared, pale with a slightly greenish cast about his skin. He slumped into bed, smelling of minty toothpaste or mouthwash. “This is one of the reasons I don’t drink more than one.” He gladly accepted the mug I held out to him. “The other is that I get out of control and talk way too much.”

  I rearranged myself into a sitting position, knowing I wouldn’t be able to stay upright for long. “Well, it could be worse. At least you don’t get violent. How much of last night do you remember?”

  He stared at the wall. “Bits and pieces. It comes in flashes.”

  “Do you remember telling the ice skating story?”

  Alex sighed and hung his head. “Unfortunately, yes. I take it they told you it was actually about Regina?”

  “Yeah.”

  “I’m so sorry, Annabeth. I really did think it was you. Maybe I conflated the memory with our future plans.”

  Or maybe you’re still not over her. It doesn’t seem like your family is. I kissed his cheek. “It doesn’t matter.”

  He turned toward me. “Yes, it does. You are what matters now. I should never have had her on any part of my mind, conscious or unconscious.”

  “But how could you not? It didn’t occur to me until I was lying here last night, trying to get the bed to stop spinning, that this was your first Thanksgiving without her under this roof. You were together for years, so she became part of the tradition. And here I am changing everything.”

  “That’s still no excuse.” Alex shook his head then groaned, hand to his temple. “Oh, not smart.”

  “Stop apologizing. You are forgiven.” I set my cup on the nightstand and curled into him, laying my head on his chest.

  “Did you really tell my dad off last night, or did I dream that?”

  “Oh, that was painfully real. I’m not looking forward to facing him today.” I buried my face in this chest, which muffled my voice.

  “He’ll probably act like nothing happened to save face.”

  “I hope so.” I wondered if I should mention his reaction, and I decided to go for it. “He compared me to Regina, you know. That’s probably why she was on your mind.” I didn’t believe that for a second, but I hoped it would soothe him.

  No response from Alex.

  I lifted my head. His eyes were closed, mouth slightly open, chest rising and falling in a gentle rhythm. He was asleep.

  I slipped out of bed. Once in the bathroom, I downed aspirin and B-12, staring at myself in the mirror. Ugh, I really did look terrible—hair askew with brown frizzy curls pointing in every direction, ugly purple rings under my eyes. For a split second, my vision blurred, and I saw what I imagined to be Regina’s perfect face staring at me.

  I watched Alex sleep a moment before climbing back into bed. He and I were fine, but I wondered if I would ever be free of her ghost.

  CHAPTER FOURTEEN

  December

  My hands and feet were numb by the time I flounced into the office—an hour late thanks to the face-gnawing, subzero Chicago cold and particularly icy streets. For the thousandth time, I wondered if I would be better off buying a car—not that I could afford one—and braving the insane drivers rather than relying on public transportation. Changing out of my snow boots and into flats, I said a silent prayer of thanks to whatever god had given me the sense to not try to walk to work today. I would have had frostbite on every part of my body.

  “Hey, you made it in.” Miles greeted me warmly, sliding into his desk chair across the eight feet of space that separated our desks. In his hand was a piping hot cup of coffee, which I took gratefully.

  “Barely,” I muttered. “Thanks.”

  “Rick wants to see us in thirty. Just thought I’d warn you.”

  I blew on the steaming black liquid. “Is this about the Warren account? If so, I should probably tell you some of my newest ideas for the magazine they want to create. I think we can help them make their employee communications interesting and fun.”

  “I have no idea what he wants, but he’s called in Nick too, so it’s got to be big. I think it may be the announcement.”

  My stomach plummeted. We’d been dreading this day for months, and it had finally arrived. I took a shaky breath. “Will Laini be there too?”

  “I don’t think so. Sounds like all the teams are meeting simultaneously with their respective bosses. She can’t be everywhere at once.” Miles put an arm around me. “Hey, we’ve been through worse. We’ll be fine. With our talent, they don’t dare fire us.”

  We went
through the motions of reviewing a few projects, comparing mock-ups with designs awaiting approval, but neither of our hearts was really in it. We were counting down the seconds. Finally, Miles’s computer dinged a five-minute warning.

  Nick was already sitting at the small round table in Rick’s office when we arrived. We both took seats.

  Rick started in without preamble, leaning against the front of his desk as he spoke. “Glad you’re all here. Since today is the last day before the agency closes for the remainder of the year, I wanted to tell you about some changes that will be happening in our department next year. The board recently decided we would be more efficient if we structured our teams a little differently, and the partners have agreed to give it a try. Right now, all of the creatives and account execs are on an even playing field, reporting to me as part of the creative team. They’d like to see what happens over the next quarter if we split into teams by clients. That means the writing and design teams, like you two—” he pointed to Miles and me “—will report up through their account executives—Nick—to the managers—in our case, Laini. So basically the account executives are now the supervisors of the designers and writers for their projects.” He paused to let that information sink in, stroking his gray-and-white goatee as he prepared for whatever was next.

  “What?” The word burst from my lips before I could stop it. “But Nick was just censured for his conduct with U of Chicago. Now he’s getting a promotion? No way Laini signed off on this.”

  “She didn’t have to. The board trumps her even though she’s a partner.”

  “What does he know about production?” Miles asked, sending a pointed glare at Nick at the same time I asked, “Where will you be in this new structure?”

  “Nick knows everything he needs to know—what the client wants, what they like, etcetera. Really, this is best. He’s already the most intimately acquainted with the projects anyway, even more than I am sometimes.” Rick turned his stern gaze on me. “I’m being transferred to New York to work with a startup team there to explore the possibility of a new office.” He shook Nick’s hand and patted his back. “Congratulations, Mr. Zarrino. I’ll leave you three to discuss this transition as a team.”