“Gotta say, I saw it coming with you and Manny. I’ve seen less epic bro-mances on Brokeback Mountain.”
He rolled his eyes.
She grinned. “He’s a beautiful person. You know I love Manny.”
“Yeah, I know.”
She took hold of her pin-straight hair and twisted it at the back of her head like she’d planned to put it in a bun; only she let it go and it fell to her shoulders again. Kyle always wondered why she did that when she had something serious to talk about—well, serious for Sam. Finally she spoke again. “Rebecca just a plaything between you two?”
He frowned. “Hell no. I really like her. Manny might already be in love with her.”
Sam twisted her hair again. “Wow. You sure know how to keep things interesting around here.”
“Well you’ve been in Paris, acing your first two semesters in international law, so I guess it’s my turn.”
“Yeah, about that…”
“About what?”
“I dropped out.”
Kyle leaned in. “What? When?”
“Three months ago. I’m designing naughty lingerie, like I always wanted to.”
“Holy shit, Sam. Mom and Dad don’t know, do they?”
“No, and I think they have enough to deal with right now, don’t you?”
Kyle had to agree. Another shock might put Olivia over the edge.
“That was one of my corset bras Rebecca was wearing in that photo. I gave it to her up at the lake.” She let her hair spin loose again. “From the look on your face, I guess she kept my secret.”
Kyle let it sink in that Rebecca knew his sister’s secret before he did. “You could have told me.”
“Confide in Mister Perfect? No thank you.” Sam put her hand on his shoulder. “But now I think maybe I was wrong about that.”
“I’m proud of you, Sam. You know that, don’t you?”
“Thanks. I’ll keep that in mind when Mom and Dad disinherit me.”
Chapter Nineteen
Kyle spun the white cocktail napkin on the small, scuffed wooden table with his index finger. The bar was an old dingy dive at the ass end of the Bowery, a holdover from the neighborhood’s grittier days and a place he’d frequented on more occasions than he cared to remember. It was a place where lost people went to never be found. Nobody gave him a second look. Since the interview, he drew a crowd almost everywhere he went.
Manny strode in, leaving the bright daylight behind him with a snap of the closing metal door.
Kyle took another sip of vodka and watched Manny’s approach while his heart went to war with the well-laid plans he’d agreed to only days before.
Manny stopped at Kyle’s table and shoved his hands into his front pockets, his muscles bunching with the motion. “So, why did you want to meet here?”
“Sit, please.” Kyle could see his reluctance. He swept his hand over Manny’s thigh, encouraging him, and his hand nearly caught fire with the need to touch more.
Manny appeased him, though his expression was cautious. He tossed a copy of page six onto the table. Kyle recognized the headline: Bachelor Hunter off the Market.
Manny sniffed. “Just get it over with.”
“I love you. You gotta know that.”
“But.”
“It’s not like it would be the end of us. Just a few more weeks and we’ll be free to be together the way we want to. But for now, I need to make sure no one suspects we have anything between us. To the press it will just be me and Rebecca who are involved.” He paused, trying to look Manny in the eye, though all he saw there was ice. “They’re threatening to investigate Olivia on her use of the office to get us assigned together. If they know we’re lovers it will make things a thousand times worse.”
“What does Rebecca think about this?” Manny jabbed at the article featuring a staff picture of Rebecca from the library.
“She won’t take my calls.”
“Hmm. Go figure.” Manny folded his arms over his broad chest. He examined Kyle with searching eyes. “How the fuck did we end up here again?” His nose twitched, an acidic sneer marring his lips. “Oh, I know…you’re a coward. I never thought I would say that about you, Kyle, but it’s the fucking truth.”
Kyle flinched at his pointed words. “This isn’t like last time.”
Manny raised his eyebrow. “No? Olivia just going to let you off the hook once she’s reelected? What about the fast track to the presidential race? That just suddenly going to go away?”
Kyle started to answer emphatically, but now he wasn’t so confident. “We could keep things on the down low, be more careful.” He slid his hand onto Manny’s knee under the table, but the words felt sour in his mouth.
“I’m done hiding. If you’re not, then we have a problem.” Manny stood up.
“Manny, please. Just give it a try.”
“When you won’t even give us a chance?” He shook his head. “I love you, Kyle. I will always love you, but I fucking deserve better than that.” Manny got up. “Don’t call me.”
Kyle didn’t answer. The things he should say seemed to be caught in his throat. He watched Manny walk past the string of rickety tables to the door. A flash of light split the shadows, and then he was gone.
* * *
Manny wished he was scheduled for work, wished he had more to do than laundry. But even that didn’t get done. Instead, Manny got on his bike and rode the trafficked streets from one end of Manhattan to the other. At least he’d stopped checking his phone every five minutes. He hadn’t done that in days. Rebecca had only answered one text anyway, telling him she’d gone home to her parents and that she’d be back in a few more days to get her things.
Emptiness plagued him, and the apartment only seemed to remind him of everything he’d lost in the last few months. He found himself in the real estate office at the end of his block just as the evening light started to settle upon the city bricks. He’d sublet the place. The helpful woman manning the desk told him it would be a cinch to get the apartment rented in such a prestigious building. She even had some suggestions for reasonable rents further downtown. But Manny wanted out of the city. He was a small-town soul and completely out of place in the hustle-bustle of Manhattan. An hour commute to work would suit him just fine.
He thanked the agent and passed over the spare key that Rebecca had mailed from her parents so they could show the place when he wasn’t there. Then he left, feeling no less miserable than when he’d walked in.
The wife of one of the other pilots had recently given birth, and Manny was happy to take on the extra shifts. Work, eat, sleep; it was all he wanted. If he’d had any chance of forgetting that the Hunter exhibit opened the first week of the month, the calendar reminder Rebecca had surreptitiously placed on his phone weeks ago took care of that. A Hunter-free lifestyle was going to be hard enough to achieve with Olivia’s campaign ads airing every five minutes. He had no intentions of purposely subjecting himself to a run-in with any of them.
He deleted the reminder and shoved his phone back in his pocket, thankful to be headed back to work for his afternoon shift.
* * *
Rebecca stared at the e-mail again, her expression a sheet of blankness reflected in the screen of her laptop. It had been almost two weeks. After a fountain of shed tears, even her face was tired. She hadn’t known how long she planned to stay in Aurora, with her little brothers fighting over the TV remote and the familiar banter of her parents. She felt safe and sheltered and suffocated all at once. As time went by her emotions began to dull and her time in Manhattan seemed like an odyssey she’d fooled herself into thinking was real.
Manny and Kyle had both tried to reach her, but she’d avoided their calls, first because she needed to think and later because she hadn’t figured out what to say. She only knew one thing: the weeks she had spent homeless, in a dead-end job, without most of her stuff had been the best time of her life.
A soft voice came from behind her. “If you’re going
to make it there in time, you’d better leave now.” Maddie Sinclair rested her hand on her daughter’s chair.
Rebecca fingered the frayed edge of fabric on her mother’s dining chair. She’d spent many hours in that chair doing her homework; she’d spent every holiday in it that she could remember, with the people she loved. “I quit, remember.”
“Says here that you’re welcomed back if you change your mind. Craig wants you to host the opening like you planned to.”
Rebecca slumped against the chair and closed her laptop. “I really don’t think I can go back, Mom. I was made a laughingstock on TV. The whole city thinks I’m some kind of wanton slut.” After the first week, Rebecca had finally broken down and talked to her mother about the disastrous interview, dirty details and all. She had listened quietly, without judgment, and had simply given her a hug and a cup of tea. Then she had let her sulk away the last few days in peace.
Maddie stood for a while with her arms folded, tapping her finger against her elbow. Then she sat down opposite Rebecca at the dining table.
“Listen to me, sweetheart. You took a big step heading off to New York to chase your dreams. It was a risk, and I was proud of you for it.” Maddie paused and squeezed her shoulder, the left one, right above that old nagging scar. “I’m still proud of you. So you got some egg thrown in your face, and it was embarrassing. OK. But the shameful part wasn’t any of your doing. Lambasting someone for ratings, that’s shameful.” She placed her hand on top of Rebecca’s, and it was warm and gentle there, squeezing just enough. “Sweetie, you’ve done nothing wrong. What goes on behind your bedroom door is your business, not mine, not Olivia Hunter’s, not your boss’s.” She tucked her finger under Rebecca’s cheek. “I raised you to have good common sense. I didn’t raise you to be a quitter, did I?”
Rebecca managed a weak smile. “No, you didn’t.”
“Well, I packed your bag already. Go back there and keep them from stealing your happiness.”
“I’m scared.”
“Good. That just means you’ve got something worthwhile waiting for you.” Maddie smiled and cupped her cheek.
Somewhere deep down Rebecca hoped that was true. For the first time, her career wasn’t tops on the list.
* * *
Gotham Heli-Transport had started to feel like a second home for Manny, especially since his current residence suddenly lacked the good vibes he’d once come to look forward to each day. Return flights were more common than departures in the afternoon, and they usually consisted of executives heading out to a lunch meeting or the occasional high roller hopping a flight to Atlantic City. But the two women waiting in the reception area were neither of these things. Through the glass window, Manny judged them to be about his mother’s age. They dressed like they were twenty years younger and they were passing a flask between them.
Manny checked the manifest. Sofia and Deborah, scheduled for a tour of the skyline. It was a quick enough trip, and afterward he’d kick up his feet in the back office and hope the sports pages gave him a good enough distraction.
“Welcome,” he said with a dutiful smile. “We’ll be getting up in the air in just a few minutes. Are either of you first-time passengers in a helicopter?”
“Oh wow, are you our pilot?” one of the ladies said with a breathless giggle.
The other turned to her and raised the flask. “Cheers to us!”
Manny swallowed his disdain. He was in no mood. “My name is Manny. The tour runs about twenty minutes. If you are ready, I’ll review the safety protocols.”
They were in the air in little time, their chatter and revelry heard in his headset.
“Deborah is cancer free, Manny. We’re celebrating.”
This got his attention. “Congratulations, Deborah. That’s wonderful.”
“Today I’m not looking back. We’re going to get drunk, get silly, and live life. You have no idea what I’ve been through.”
Manny caught sight of her over his shoulder for just a moment. Her smile was soft and genuine, her eyes full of determination. She reminded him so much of his mother in that moment. “Actually, I kind of do. My mother had breast cancer.”
“Had? Is she cancer free also?”
“She wasn’t as lucky.”
“Oh, that’s so horrible. I’m sorry, Manny.”
“No, I’m sorry to put a damper on your celebration.”
“Don’t be silly. What was her name?”
“Carla.”
“Here’s to Carla,” Sophia said.
Deborah finished her swig. “Manny, are you single? He’d be great for Gretchen, wouldn’t he? My daughter. Second year nursing student. Cute as a button.”
“Thanks, but I’m not really on the market.”
“Girlfriend?”
He shook his head. “It’s complicated.” Boy, wasn’t that the understatement of the year?
“Since when is that a relationship status?” Deborah asked.
“Since they put it on Facebook,” Sophia snickered.
Deborah’s tone turned serious. “Listen to me, Manny, life is too short. Uncomplicate it, and don’t wait.”
He shook his head. “Deborah, you make it sound so easy.”
“You want hard? Try radiation every other day and puking out your guts all the other time. Following your heart shouldn’t be hard.”
Manny considered that for a moment and how great it would be if they could just have the space to see where the future took them. If they could shut out the rest of the world and explore the possibilities. The times they all spent together were some of the happiest times he’d ever had.
The tour ended with Manny still lost in his thoughts. As he set the helicopter down, his phone vibrated in his pocket. A quick look brought him a glimmer of hope. Normally he wouldn’t dare answer his phone with passengers around, but the screen read Mystery Girl, and there wasn’t any confusion about how much he wanted to hear her voice.
Somehow he thought these passengers would give him a pass. “Part of complicated is calling.”
“Well answer it!” Deborah said with both hands thrashing the air for effect.
He couldn’t help but laugh.
* * *
The ride back to Manhattan stretched four hours in front of her. Rebecca would have liked to say that the word late wasn’t in her vocabulary, but three attempts at a humidity-proof hairstyle and one wardrobe meltdown later, she was afraid she’d miss the entire first hour of the exhibit opening. She chose the lesser-used county road to get to the interstate, hoping to avoid any traffic from the outlet stores. The thunderstorm that had been threatening all afternoon finally let loose a torrent from the sky, and the crappy windshield wipers on her secondhand sedan tried their best to keep up. She told her iPhone to dial Manny again, praying this time that he’d answer.
“Hey there, Rebecca.”
Just the sound of his voice filling her car made her feel better. She took a big breath and let her heart spill out on the exhale. “I know I’ve been off under a rock, but I really want to talk to you. I freaked out, but I’m finished with all of that now, and I really need to tell you how much I—”
The impact sounded like a sonic boom and felt more like she’d been sucker punched in the face. White. All she could see was white. Somewhere under the haze of surprise, Rebecca realized she’d hit something big with her shit can of a car. If she could only get the airbag out of her face, then maybe she could figure out what the hell had just happened.
She heard her name being called over and over again, though it sounded far off under the thundering pulse in her ears.
Focus returned slowly as though she were emerging from a tunnel.
“Rebecca!”
Rebecca pulled on the door release and was thankful it gave way with a hefty shove. She slid out into the pouring rain, then reached back in headfirst to fish out her phone from where it had skittered.
“Rebecca!” She followed Manny’s voice and found it on the passenger side flo
or.
“I’m here. I’m…OK.”
“What happened?”
Rebecca rounded the front of her car, the rain pounding on her bare shoulders and soaking through her halter-top. “Oh God! I think I hit a deer.” The poor creature lay halfway under the car, completely still in the gathering puddle surrounding it. “Oh Manny, I think I killed it.” Her eyes welled up with the realization.
“Where are you?”
“I didn’t even see it. She must have darted out from the woods.”
Rebecca suddenly felt sick. She reached up to cover her mouth and felt the sting of split flesh there. Rain continued to pour as a few cars rushed past on the two-lane road.
“Baby, please tell me where you are. Are you hurt?”
“No, I don’t think I’m hurt, not badly at least. I was headed back to Manhattan from my parents’ house in Aurora.” She paused, getting her bearings. “I’m on Route 305 outside of Hiram.”
“Listen to me. There’s an airfield in Hiram. I want you to call a tow truck and ask to be dropped off there. I’m coming to get you right now.”
“Manny, I’m fine. You don’t have to do that.” She tried to sound strong, but her car was totaled on top of everything else. No apartment, no job, and now no car. She had nothing left and yet she clung to the phone as if all that mattered was attached to the other end.
Manny called her bluff. “The hell I don’t. You are not missing that opening.” Manny paused a moment, and his voice turned softer. “And I am not going to stand for waiting six hours until I can see you.”
The words rushed out of her mouth. “Manny, I’m sorry I left like I did.” Her voice sank lower. “Like I didn’t owe you anything.”
Manny was silent, and Rebecca knew it was her fault.
“I was freaked out over that horrible interview…but I don’t want you to think I’m ashamed of us.” She leaned on her car door, somehow not caring that her makeup ran in streams down her cheeks under the pouring rain. “And I miss you and Kyle so much. The past few weeks were amazing.”
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