by Mary Campisi
“Oh, what the heck.” Gina flung aside the pile of pink tulle and scooted off the rocking chair. “Get your camera, Bree. We’re about to make a memory.”
It took forever to slip Tess into her dress, but she had to be so very careful not to wrinkle it or smear the edges of the bodice with makeup. One wrong move and the telltale evidence would seep into the fabric and then all of Magdalena would hear Olivia Carrick’s disapproving remarks.
But Olivia was at the library, sixteen minutes away if she made all the lights, which no one ever did. Tess thought she heard the faint wail of a siren. She’d always had a heightened awareness of sirens, first because Uncle Will was a policeman, and later, Cash. Sirens signaled warnings like, Be careful and danger. The sound disappeared as Tess stepped into a pair of ivory heels with clusters of tiny rhinestones attached to the tops.
“Tess.” Bree covered her mouth with her hands and sighed. “Just look at you.”
Tess glanced at the full-length mirror behind her mother’s door. The ivory gown swished as she moved from side to side in a calming wave of tiny seed pearls and satin. She’d never considered herself beautiful; her eyes were a bit too wide apart, her mouth too full, her nose too long. But right now, she felt beautiful. Right now, she felt perfect.
Gina called her name and when Tess turned, she snapped a photo. Then another with Tess laughing and Bree dressed in her pink bridesmaid gown, patting a round tummy. “Let’s get all three of us.” Gina smoothed her dark hair, set the camera on top of Olivia’s dresser, and hurried to her friends. They clung to one another, smiles fixed, eyes bright, waiting for the inevitable flash to capture their picture and create a lasting memory.
If only time could have stood still.
They didn’t hear the knocking at first. Not until the sound morphed into a banging did they realize the noise was not part of the music blaring from the speakers in the living room. Gina unwound her arm from Tess’s and said, “Hey, somebody’s at the door.”
“I’ll see who it is. Tess, stay here.” Bree scooted out of the bedroom, and seconds later the music ended, making the banging on the door reverberate through the house.
“Maybe I should get out of this dress,” Tess whispered. “What if it’s one of my mother’s friends?” Of course they’d tell Olivia that her daughter had been cavorting around in her wedding gown, and then Tess would be subjected to the lectures that wouldn’t end until her first anniversary.
“Shhh, wait a minute. I want to get one more picture of us. Bree will get rid of whoever it is.”
“Cash!” Bree’s voice seeped through the bedroom door in a decibel-deafening shriek. Tess didn’t stop to consider the bad-luck omen for the groom to see the bride’s gown before the wedding or how she’d explain why they were playing dress-up when they were supposed to be making wedding favors. Nothing mattered but getting to Cash. She kicked off her shoes and ran barefoot to the front door where her fiancé stood.
“Cash?” Blood smeared his shirt, his pants, his arms. A patch of red covered his chin. But it was the hollowed-out desperation in his eyes that spoke of unimaginable horror. Had he been in an accident? Had someone attacked him? Maybe tried to knife him? She couldn’t see slashes or, God forbid, a bullet wound, but there was so much blood. She reached out to touch his cheek—a part of his body not smeared in red. “Talk to me.”
His jaw twitched. Twice. He swayed to the left but managed to straighten himself. When he opened his mouth to speak, nothing came out. Not even a croak. The past few hours faded as fast as the flash on Gina’s camera until nothing remained but Cash and the blood staining his body. She’d feared this moment from the first time he mentioned joining the police force. And now it was here, three days before their wedding. “Cash? What happened?”
Those beautiful lips, the very ones that had touched and tasted every inch of her, opened and spilled out the unthinkable. “JJ.”
“JJ?”
Cash held out both hands, palms up, splattered with blood. “It was an accident.”
Images flashed through her brain. JJ speeding down the winding back roads away from Magdalena. JJ laughing that 55 miles per hour wasn’t on his speedometer. JJ being JJ: young, unafraid, reckless. “Did he hit something? Or someone?” He’d already almost lost his license twice and would have if Cash hadn’t stepped in and seen that he took a driver improvement course. But he’d been doing so much better, had even talked about trade school to become a welder.
Cash’s face turned ashen. “JJ,” he said again.
Tess grasped his arm. “Tell me. What is it?”
He shook his head and stepped back, breaking contact. They’d tried so hard to get through to JJ, especially Cash, but there was a small piece of him that did not or would not grow up and be responsible. Why should he when his mother stepped in and rescued him from his mistakes, saying he had a learning disability or scars from losing a father?
And now, from the look on Cash’s face, JJ was about to pay for his latest mess-up. Maybe he’d even go to jail. Tess leaned forward and kissed Cash on the cheek. Whatever had happened wasn’t Cash’s fault. He’d tried so hard with JJ and whatever her brother had done was on him, not Cash.
She stepped back to get a better look at his face and followed his gaze, which had settled low on her belly. A single spot of red smeared the middle of the ivory gown. Blood red. Dead red. Hurt red. The color spread through the fabric, bleeding into the gown until it formed tiny fingers, like blood vessels.
Her brain disconnected as she studied the red spot. Olivia would be furious. They’d have to dab it with something? Hydrogen peroxide? Would that work? Possibilities skittered through her head, and all the while another part of her brain screamed, JJ, what have you done now?
“I have to see him. Now, before Mom gets home.” She’d talk some sense into her brother and make him tell Cash about the pot she found in the back of his closet three days ago. Bags of it, a scale, too. JJ swore he was only holding it for a friend, though he wouldn’t give a name, probably because he knew Tess would go straight to Cash. Well, JJ was going to tell Cash himself and the boy would take the consequences, whatever they were.
She hoped he hadn’t hurt anyone. And if he’d been drinking and driving—again—he could say good-bye to driving until he was twenty-one. Maybe twenty-five. And if—
Cash sliced through her thoughts, hard, fast, and final, with a pain that seared her heart, ripping it to shreds of nothingness. “He’s dead, Tess. I killed him.”
Chapter 3
Eight years later—Richmond, Virginia
Melanie Fleming perched her tiny frame on the edge of the massive desk and studied Tess. “Haven’t you ever wondered how the other half lives? You know, the normal half who date, get married, have children? Actually sleep in their own bed instead of a hotel room and don’t hope for a transatlantic flight every twenty days?”
Tess forced a smile and shrugged. “Not really.” That answer didn’t appease her boss who never missed an opportunity to point out the numerous shortcomings in Tess’s personal life. No boyfriend, no husband, no child. Always centering around a man, or lack thereof.
Melanie rubbed the tiny bulge in the midsection of her grape tunic dress. She was a perfect vision of thirty-something beauty with her glossy black hair, cream complexion, bright whites, and slender frame. Except for the bump, which if one didn’t know her, might attribute to an excess of carbs and not a first-trimester bulge. Melanie Fleming, CEO of Her Lips du Jour, was in the throes of several firsts: first anniversary, first business, first child. Life was proceeding according to Melanie’s ten-year plan.
But it was a life about which Tess knew nothing and in which she had no desire to participate, personally or vicariously. Unfortunately, Melanie believed everyone should share in this newfound-life-love-baby experience, and it was this faith that drove her to constantly solicit converts.
“Will you just listen for a minute?”
Even if Tess said no, Melanie would persis
t as any good saleswoman would. But Melanie was more than just a superb saleswoman. She was the owner of Her Lips du Jour, and Tess was the senior vice president of sales. They’d also been friends for almost six years, which probably made Melanie feel compelled to “help” Tess settle down into married and family life. Since there was no way to stop the inevitable barrage of well-intentioned suggestions, Tess settled back in her chair and sighed. “Okay, give me your monthly spiel and be quick. I’m hungry.”
“Tuna on wheat? Your turn to buy?”
“Sure. Talk fast.”
Melanie’s perfect face turned serious. “I’ve been thinking a lot these past two weeks.” She paused, placed a protective hand over her belly. “Since the bleeding.”
She meant the bleeding that smeared her linen pants and ripped the office with panic until the ambulance could transport their boss to Hope Medical Center where an ultrasound revealed a placenta praevia and where Melanie spent four days praying she wouldn’t lose the baby. Her lawyer husband, Judson, remained at her side the entire time, leaving only long enough to shower and shave and then returning, even spending the night beside her, his long frame crammed in a narrow cot.
Touching. Raw. Too exposed.
Tess had allowed that sort of exposure once and it had almost killed her.
“So, I’ve been thinking about things. You know, life, purpose,” she paused. “Destiny.”
Tess nodded. Next will come the part where I’m falling short and missing out on life. Then she’ll talk about men and their attributes. And then, she’ll offer to introduce me to a friend, or a cousin, or maybe one of the partners in Judson’s law firm. She tried that once, but there were three other partners…
“We’re selling the company.”
…have fun…relax…slow down… “What did you say?”
Melanie worked her lower lip until she stripped off a section of lip protectant. “We’re selling the company. Judson says I’m under too much stress and he’s worried about the baby and my having a relapse.” She leaned forward and grasped Tess’s hand. “Try to understand. I started this company and I’ve loved every single minute of it. But we’re talking about a life growing inside me, a flesh-and-blood life. I can’t jeopardize that.”
In the span of a few sentences, Tess’s world shifted and landed on top of her. Everything she’d built these last six years—her identity, her reputation, her bank account—all if it was threatened by a life that hadn’t even drawn its first breath outside its mother’s womb.
“Isn’t there a way to have both?”
Melanie’s voice reached her, soft and knowing. “Spoken from one who has obviously never had to compromise. You can’t have it all, no matter what the magazines tell us. Something always suffers, and it’s not going to be my family.” Her voice dipped lower, filled with sympathy. “It must be very difficult to be an only child, no brothers or sisters.”
I have a sister, somewhere. And I had a brother. “You get used to it.”
“And I know you aren’t big on family.”
Tess shrugged. “Sorry.” Melanie knew nothing of Tess’s life before she joined the company. It was much easier to manufacture a generic family minus two siblings and an ex-fiancé. There was no pain, no heart-on-the-sleeve sympathy from onlookers. No real feelings. Nothing. Some things should not be relived or revisited, but must be buried so deep, they could never be excavated—dead brothers, missing sisters, ex-fiancés, and a life that could have been—belonged in that category.
“What’s going to happen to my job?” The job she’d created from nothing when Her Lips du Jour was showcased at mall kiosks and home parties. Tess had worked with Melanie to grow the company and when the opportunity to expand the market overseas came along, Tess jumped on it. She’d travel to different continents to spread the luscious lipsticks to consumers and malls and glossy advertising companies. She’d embraced back-to-back travel, plane hopping, sales meetings, transatlantic phone calls in the middle of the night. Along with that came money, recognition, and company growth, escalating to a level that kept Tess moving so she didn’t have to think about that other life, those other choices.
“I’m going to take care of you, Tess. You’ll have a huge severance package and the stock from the company. You can take time and think about what it is you really want to do with the rest of your life.” Her blue eyes turned bluer. “You could do anything.”
“I’m doing what I want to do.” I am. I am.
“Eating in airport terminals? Sleeping on pillows with paper covers on them? Racking up so many frequent flyer miles you could probably fly to Australia for free?”
“Flying to Australia for free is a great idea.”
“Right. As if you’d take time for something as extravagant as a vacation. You need a life, Tess. We’re selling lipstick here, not a cure for old age.”
“I disagree. Wearing lipstick makes women feel younger.” And lipstick is safe.
“Tess.” Melanie’s tone said she thought Tess had a few issues that might be helped with therapy. Well, she’d had therapy and it hadn’t helped. Nothing had except denial—constant, merciless, gritty denial.
“What if I worked for the new owner? I could do that.” She’d worked too hard to let it slip away. “Nobody knows the products better than I do. I could help with the transition, do whatever it took.” As long as she kept moving, she didn’t have time to stop and contemplate the emptiness in her life.
“They have their own people. And besides, they’re looking at a total revamp and transitioning to other products: face, hands, feet, the usual. Online sales will be a big factor, at least for the first year.”
“But I can do all of that. I’m a great salesperson. You know that.” They’d met at a recruiting fair where Tess had just completed a sales class and Melanie was looking for a rep. The job was easy because it didn’t require the emotional attachment nursing did. How close did a person really get to her lipstick?
Melanie threw her a sympathetic look. “Everyone in the industry knows you as Tess of Her Lips du Jour. The buyers want a new look and a new name. You’ll only remind them of this company.”
Well, there it was. Washed up at thirty.
“There is one more thing.” Melanie slid off the edge of the desk with the grace of a ballet dancer, which she’d been in her younger years. She stood before Tess, glowing with pregnancy hormones and happiness, the illumination so bright Tess had to look away. “You signed a non-compete clause.”
That brought Tess around—fast. “So?” She’d signed it as a matter of course, back when she and Melanie had first met, before they became friends. A non-compete could be treacherous, but Tess had never felt threatened by its existence because she’d never considered leaving a job she loved. Then again, she’d never considered losing that job either.
Melanie cleared her throat. “Yes, well, I’m going to enforce it. You can’t work for a competitor for six months.”
“You can’t be serious.” This was her friend? The woman who had asked her to be her child’s godmother?
“It’s only because I care about you. It’s for your own good. Don’t look at me that way. I could have said a year, like the contract does, but I’m only enforcing six months.”
“I can’t believe you’re doing this.” Numbness settled in the middle of Tess’s chest, spread through her body. Friends didn’t do this. Friends looked out for one another. If she hadn’t gotten close to Melanie, she might have seen this coming, might have been able to protect herself. But how? Maybe they weren’t really friends at all. What kind of friend conjured up a make-believe family, like Tess did? As if the real ones had never lived, or breathed, or left their mark on her? Melanie kept talking, her glossy lips moving, her white teeth gleaming.
“I’m doing this for you, because if you don’t step back and reassess your life, you’ll be fifty and have no life.” Her voice shifted to a soft plea. “Just give yourself six months. Okay?”
For what? To reassess a
life she’d been running from for eight years? No, thank you. Melanie would never understand. How could she when she had a husband who loved her and a baby on the way?
“Tess? Please try to understand. You’re on the fast track to burnout. I see it, even if you don’t. Consider this a second chance. Go back to that quaint little hometown you once told me about. Rest. Relax. Watch the flowers grow.”
Return to Magdalena? Hardly. It’s not like she’d left on good terms. She’d been responsible for the animosity that split the town in two—one side supporting her, the other siding with Cash. The town had been more than happy when she’d packed up and disappeared. Maybe they’d forgiven her over the years, but who knew? A semi-annual crate of lipstick for The Bleeding Hearts Society and a special package of “Poppy Perfect” to Lucy Benito until the year she passed were not exactly a peace treaty.
There were too many years and too many ill-spoken words to simply move on. Besides, Magdalena wasn’t the kind of town that turned a page as though nothing had happened. Oh, they’d forgive, but not until they had their say, and the “say” would be brutal and demand the truth.
Why did Tess refuse to even talk to Cash when he was acting in accordance with police rules and regulations?
What if the gun in JJ’s pocket had been loaded?
And what if JJ had fired it?
After all, he’d been high.
Should Cash have stood there and waited?
Gotten himself killed because the kid robbed the convenience store on a dare?
Well, should he?
No, she could not go back and face Ramona Casherdon who must despise her for accusing her nephew of cold-blooded murder and driving him from Magdalena. And Bree and Gina? She’d dodged the calls and visits from the two women she called best friends. And then there was Pop Benito, the Godfather of Magdalena. He would certainly have a lecture ready, stronger than the high-test coffee he drank every morning. She couldn’t go back and face them because deep down, she knew she’d been worse than wrong, knew she’d driven Cash away, ruined their chance at happiness.