by Mary Campisi
Sadly, Arianna still didn’t understand that. He tried to dismiss her from his brain so she wouldn’t mess up his ride, but damn, she refused to leave. She was the reason for the ride anyway. He’d been so angry he hadn’t been able to sleep last night. He’d gotten to work early, where he’d rummaged through some papers and visited a few condo sites, then ended up in Pete’s office, commiserating on the impossibility of ever understanding the mysterious creature known as woman. Megan had heard them ranting and popped in with an idea or two of her own, which included ignoring Arianna and finding a way to make her jealous. Both ideas fell in the “you’ll lose her for good” category, so Ash thanked Megan and promptly ditched the suggestions. What did she know anyway? She was in love with his brother.
What he’d really wanted was a confession from Arianna—big, bold, and without restraint. How about a little honesty? He didn’t care about her past; all he wanted was for her to tell him straight up. I stole from my parents, I got pregnant and miscarried. I never went to Paris. If she would just tell him, they could move on. And if she wouldn’t, they’d be deadlocked in this game until one of them broke and spilled the truth—because one way or another, it was coming out.
Ash rode until the air pulled Arianna from his brain, then grabbed a burger at a place called The Copper Spoon, and headed home. It was dark by the time he parked the bike in the garage, but he was relaxed and de-stressed, and hadn’t thought about her for twenty plus miles.
“I thought you’d never get home.”
“Arianna?” So much for de-stressing. Why was she sitting on his front steps? And were those sneakers on her feet? And a sweatshirt? “What’s wrong?” The lack of designer duds was a giveaway. Had he ever seen her in everyday “normal” clothes? He didn’t think so.
“I came to apologize.” She moved toward him. “I don’t want to fight with you.”
“Good. Great.” He waited for her to say more and when she didn’t, he motioned toward the door. “Let’s go inside.” He fitted the key in the lock, pushed the door open, and followed her into the foyer. “How long were you waiting for me?”
“An hour,” she hesitated, “or two.”
Okay, something was definitely wrong. Arianna didn’t throw blocks of time away sitting on porch steps. And then there was the obvious question: “Why didn’t you call?” Now that she was in the light, he noticed the more-than-usual paleness of her face, the tension around her eyes and mouth. The bloodshot eyes. “Tell me what’s wrong.”
Her bottom lip quivered, stilled. She shook her head and swiped at her eyes. “Can I stay here tonight?”
“Of course.” She threw herself against his chest and flung her arms around his waist so tightly he coughed. Ash stroked her hair, her back, kissed the top of her head. “It’ll be okay,” he murmured, though he had no idea what was wrong. He did know she was hurting and he wanted to help her. If she’d let him.
“Thank you,” she mumbled into his T-shirt.
“Anything for you.” And then, “You know we’re going to have to talk about this.”
“I know. But not now.”
“Okay.” He pulled her closer. “In the morning.” He led her to the bedroom, helped her out of her sweatshirt and jeans, unlaced her sneakers, and tucked her into bed. There was no sign of her usual independent efficiency, nothing visible but hurt and the need to be close to him. Ash kissed her forehead and whispered, “I’m going to wash up. I’ll be back in a few minutes.”
She touched his cheek, brought his hand to her lips, and placed a soft kiss in the center of his palm. “Thank you.”
A few more hours and they could sort this whole thing out. She’d tell him what had gotten her so upset, and if it had to do with her past, even better. They could get it all out and done with, start fresh. In the morning. Things always looked better in daylight after a strong cup of coffee. He’d bought a new roast the other day. He’d get up early and make her breakfast, then they’d talk. Ash turned off the bathroom light and checked on Arianna. She was asleep, the lines of exhaustion and hurt erased from her face. He smoothed a few strands of hair from her cheek and kissed her forehead.
“I love you, Arianna. Let me help you.” He eased into bed, tucked an arm around her middle, and drifted off with the scent of lilac and promise surrounding him.
***
She was gone. Not just out-of-bed gone, but gone. From the condo. Not answering her cell either. Ash dragged his hands over his face and scowled. He hadn’t heard the shower, smelled coffee, or found a note—almost as if last night hadn’t happened and the woman in the bed hadn’t been Arianna. But it had happened and it had been her, different and vulnerable, but still her.
What the hell was going on? He’d only wanted to protect her last night, not make love or force the truth from her. The talking was for this morning, and maybe that’s why she’d split. Maybe she’d had no intention of talking about last night, but it hadn’t seemed that way. She’d acted as though she knew things needed saying, and she knew her part in it.
Ash pulled out the special blend of Italian roast coffee he’d planned to share with her and heaped enough scoops in the basket for a full pot. If she thought slipping away while he was sleeping excused her from the truth behind last night, she could think again.
A shower, three cups of coffee, and a granola bar later, Ash walked into The Silver Strand, expecting to find Arianna. What he did not expect was Quinn Burnes at the counter, showing some woman in a red leather jumpsuit and stilettos a piece of jewelry. Burnes glanced up when Ash entered, nodded, and turned back to the woman. What was he doing here? Had Arianna brought him in as a mediator because she expected Ash to show up, or was the guy more of a bodyguard? Quinn Burnes’s presence annoyed him more than usual because, obviously, the man was filling in for her, which meant he knew where she was.
Ash worked his way back to the studio, suspecting Arianna might be holed up there, pounding away on a piece of metal or daydreaming of that jewelry collection she’d told him about. Once upon a long time ago, they’d planned to travel and work together. Even a few days ago, she’d agreed to help him broker a deal with Ian Debenidos and select the appropriate photographs for Lancaster condos and office buildings. So now what? Was he making a big deal out of nothing? Or was he fed up because there was too much distrust between them? Either way, he was in a foul mood and that mood had grown worse the second he spotted Burnes behind the counter.
Of course, the studio was empty. Nothing could be that simple. When the door to the shop jingled, Ash turned and watched the red jumpsuit in stilettos leave, carrying a silver bag tied with a blue ribbon.
“Where is she?” He moved toward the glass counter where Burnes held an onyx necklace in his left hand.
Those damnable silver eyes sliced through him. “Not here. What did you do now?”
Ash crossed his arms over his chest and planted his feet. “Not a damn thing.”
Burnes smirked. “Maybe that’s the problem.”
“Funny. Where is she?”
He shrugged and placed the necklace back in the case. “I have no idea. She said she had to go out of town for a few days and asked if Eve and I could watch the shop.”
“And you didn’t bother to ask where she was going?”
Burnes eyed him with what looked a lot like annoyance. Good, they were even. “If she’d wanted to tell me, or you, she would have.”
Ash stared at the jewelry in the case. Arianna had touched each one of these pieces, molded them into a creation all her own. Two years ago he thought he knew everything about her, why she was drawn to a particular jewel, the story behind her passion, which she’d told him had to do with her dead parents. But he’d known nothing about the real Arianna, and he was beginning to wonder if he ever would. Burnes must have felt a spark of pity because his next words told Ash what last night was really about.
“She told me her sister came to see her yesterday.”
“Her sister? Here?”
“I
guess the old man died and the sister came to deliver the news.” Burnes shrugged. “It didn’t sound like a happy reunion.”
Ash didn’t guess it would. What he remembered of the sister was a sullen, angry woman with a boulder on her shoulder and a bad case of self-pity. When he used to visit Endicotte, she’d bring a pitcher of iced tea into the garage, slosh it on the table, and leave. Not even a “Nice to see you again.” Edgar would shake his head and mutter about how she might not have the best manners but at least she’d never done him wrong. Meaning she hadn’t stolen from him and rejected his name like his oldest daughter had. “So she went to the funeral.”
“Nope. That was last week. The sister only came because the mother wanted to see Arianna.”
“It’s not going to be good.” And then, “She should have told me. I’d have gone with her.”
“And do what? Hold her hand? Make nice with the sister?”
“No. Support her.”
Burnes blew out a long breath and studied him. “This is one road she has to walk alone.”
Chapter 8
Endicotte, Pennsylvania, had begun as a logging camp that served as a temporary home for the woodsmen who worked dawn to dark, felling, chopping, and hauling timber out of the woods. As word of the lucrative opportunity to make money from hard work spread, Endicotte grew. Families settled, built homes, schools, churches, and community centers. And while the founding fathers were workers, they were not visionaries and could not see the value of an outsider coming to their town with new ideas and a plan to grow the community with more factories and businesses. Years and time wore on, and with it the continued rejection for growth through industry. Young people left for education and opportunity and did not return. Eventually, the once-thriving town shriveled, leaving a handful of family-run factories, two grocery stores, and a hospital that served the best strawberry rhubarb pie in the county but wasn’t known for much else, like honest-to-God medical care. Endicotte Memorial could run a strep test and knew a broken arm when it saw one, but the serious stuff—MRIs, CAT scans, surgery, post-operative care?—that got farmed out to Penton General, twenty-two miles away. They had been able to properly diagnose Arianna’s pregnancy, which her mother had insisted was food poisoning.
Arianna drove through town, expecting changes in the thirteen years since she’d left. There was a consignment shop where Russell’s Shoe Rack had been and a restaurant called Ginger’s that looked like the same place that had been George’s. But other than that? Same bank, same rinky-dink hair salon, same jewelry store, specializing in Timex and gold crosses. And the people? A smattering of young, old, and in between moved along the streets, nondescript and forgettable. She’d once been part of the fabric of this town, a vibrant thread that burst and sizzled before her seventeenth birthday.
Arianna sucked in a breath as the air grew stale and stiff around her. The house where she grew up was located toward the end of town, walking distance from the high school. It was a boxed two-story, not much different from the ones on either side, with a faded red awning and gray paint chipped along the wood siding. There was a patch on the roof, and the storm door didn’t hang straight.
Nothing had changed.
Odd memories flashed back—Vanessa stealing Arianna’s makeup, their mother canning tomatoes and strawberry preserves, the house suffocating from a hot stove and no central air conditioning. Birthdays with homemade cakes and a pot roast. There had been one television, owned and operated by Edgar Sorensen, official lover of all things having to do with cars and sports. At ages twelve and seven, Arianna and her sister had possessed knowledge enough to engage in conversations with their father’s friends about muscle cars and the Pittsburgh Steelers. Life had been simple and accepted, with no need to pretend or put on airs about being someone else, because being Arianna Estelle Sorensen was good enough.
Until the year she turned twelve and Cynthia Rowland passed through town. Cynthia, who corrected everyone who tried to call her Cindy, stayed ten months before her father was transferred back to Chicago to oversee the opening of a brass-casting plant. But that was enough time for her to teach Arianna how much she didn’t know, how much she didn’t have, how much she would never be like the girls in Chicago…unless she changed. Completely.
Arianna had been so desperate to show Cynthia she was worthy of her friendship that she began the transformation immediately. She modulated her speech, ditched her other friends, trimmed her hair, and took on babysitting jobs to afford new clothes. Makeup and pierced ears were next. By the time Cynthia’s family loaded their last bag for their return trip to Chicago, Arianna had developed a persona that branded her a “bitch.” She didn’t care because Cynthia promised to invite her to Chicago that summer, along with a few of their other friends.
The offer never came and the “other friends” clumped together at country club gatherings and private dinners to which she was not invited. They never said why, but it didn’t take an honors student to do a rough analysis—the other members of the group had parents who were businessmen, lawyers, accountants, pharmacists. Arianna’s mother washed dishes at Endicotte Memorial hospital and her father worked maintenance in a factory. And while she might be more intelligent, articulate, prettier, than the other members, her gene pool did not suggest it, and therefore she was excluded. The next few years were a bouncing ball of trying to fit into a place and a life she would never fit into.
And then along came Jeremy. Charismatic, intelligent, first son of Victor and Teresa Wickstam, who owned a machine shop that employed a quarter of the town. Jeremy’s mother and father had plans for their boy to take over one day, grow the business, and grow old in Endicotte.
Jeremy did not share their plan.
He and Arianna spent long hours exploring ways to leave Endicotte. They explored each other’s bodies, too, which led to the eventual grand escape. When Arianna learned she was pregnant, two months after high school graduation, one month before starting school at the community college, majoring in art education, her father threw her out of the house. Not just a rampaging “I’m furious and you need to leave,” but a “toss clothes and any belongings associated with his daughter” furious. Jeremy’s parents demanded a quick wedding and a quicker indoctrination into the machine shop business, with 6:00 a.m. start times and fifteen-minute breaks.
Arianna picked her belongings off the front lawn and moved in with Jeremy’s parents who had opened their arms and their basement to their future daughter-in-law and their unborn grandbaby. Had it been wrong to tell him she loved him and was willing to make a go of it if he were? Apparently, that had not been what he’d wanted to hear because from the second those words left her lips, Jeremy avoided her, blaming his lack of interest on his parents’ constant references to marriage, children, and a 6:00 a.m. factory start time with twelve-hour days. Whether it was the factory job or the profession of love, something propelled Jeremy into action, which involved Arianna’s family. If she could “borrow” a car and some cash, they could head out of town and eventually pay back their debt to her parents. They couldn’t take money or vehicles from Jeremy’s family because, as he told her, “You have to strike at the unsuspecting.”
Jeremy had it all figured out and Arianna believed him. There was nothing left for her in Endicotte but disgrace and a family who had disowned her. Boosting the car was easy. Her father kept an extra set of keys in the garage on the hook beside his flat-head screwdriver. And the money? Edgar Sorensen didn’t believe in banks, which was why he stuffed a tackle box in the basement with eight thousand dollars.
The tricky part was waiting until everyone was out of the house. Nobody locked doors in Endicotte and she snuck in on a Tuesday morning, hefted the tackle box into a grocery bag, and eased out of the house, all in the span of minutes. Stealing the car was the next night, after the family had all gone to sleep and the house was dark. The Impala had a low rumble, which made it quick and quiet to back out of the drive and away from Endicotte.
They drove all night and ended up on the outskirts of Cleveland when the Impala blew a radiator hose. Jeremy pulled the car to the side of the road, grabbed their duffel bags, and held out a thumb. They hitchhiked to Chicago with plans to head west, where Jeremy would work construction and take up surfing. Arianna would take classes and wait tables. The plan fell apart when Arianna started bleeding and ended up in the emergency room where she miscarried. Though she hadn’t wanted the baby, when the doctor told her she lost it, she cried. Had she somehow done something to harm the child? Had her selfish actions created a stress that was too great for the baby to overcome? Or was this part of a bigger plan?
Her answer came mere hours later, when Jeremy stood at the bedside with an envelope in his hand. He handed it to her, said it was almost seven thousand dollars and would help her get a start. His words had made no sense but his expression had—he was leaving, heading west and he wasn’t taking her.
That was the last time she saw him, though years later she spotted an article about an American surfer in Australia and even before she saw the name, she recognized the boyish face beneath the blond beard as Jeremy’s.
***
Arianna parked in the street and headed up the sidewalk. The one bright spot that colored the drabness of the house were her mother’s roses. Blood red with glossy foliage, they burst with vibrancy on either side of the steps. Lorna Sorensen had taught Arianna the art of caring for roses—pruning, fertilizing, dusting for aphids, adding just the right mixtures to the soil.