When I finished, stilted applause stumbled across the room, and the teenagers whooped, but I didn’t pause. It wasn’t about me, it was about my gift to them, so I went right into Yiruma’s “River Flows in You.” His simple, repetitive, magical melody coursed down my arms and through my hands to the keyboard where it floated up and out and around the room.
Next came Beethoven, then Tchaikovsky, then Mom’s favorite, Floyd Cramer, followed by Dad’s, Scott Joplin. And somewhere in there, I decided Shanty was a lot smarter than I gave her credit for. She had told me to do something that makes me happy, and even though it sounded shallow and oversimplified and corny . . . it worked. Playing the piano had almost always made me happy, and it was something I needed to be doing.
If I wanted to stop wallowing.
“I’ve heard that last song before. What’s it called?” Mirinda leaned on the side of the tall piano, letting her arm fall lazily along its top, and behind her, a green broom rested against the bathroom door. Her eyes seemed to be daring me to speak.
My back was to the shop, and I glanced over my shoulder, surprised to see it deserted other than the two of us. Even the chairs were turned over and resting on tabletops. I scratched my chin. “The Entertainer.”
She nodded. “You played that song at a talent show years ago. I was ten or eleven. I thought you were übertalented.” She rolled her eyes, and then shook her head, like a nonverbal yeah, whatever. “Anyway, I’m closing up the shop now.”
“Sorry. I wasn’t paying attention.”
Her hips shifted from side to side, and she seemed to still them by shoving her fist against her waist. “What’s that group you meet with here? Shanty and that other girl?” Her mouth wrinkled into that unattractive smirk she seemed to save just for me.
“Just a support group.”
“Like, for divorce, or what? Cause Shanty’s not divorced, and that other girl looks too young.”
“Nothing like that. It’s just for self—” Oh, great. I was breaking the first rule of the group: that blasted confidentiality. “It’s sort of personal, you know?” And besides, if she had a problem with low self-esteem, Graham would have recommended she join us. Maybe.
The tight lips returned, but this time she added the chest thrust. “Of course.”
I didn’t care if she got snippy. I wasn’t going to reveal anything about Shanty and Nina without getting their approval first, and odds were they wouldn’t give it. Not for Mirinda. Not for a Barbie doll.
She reached for her broom, but just then, the front door opened. She glanced past me and flinched, and the broom handle slid down the wall and clattered against the floor. She bent and reached for it but missed. Finally, she grabbed it with unnecessary force. When she stood, her face was flushed, either from bending over or from embarrassment, and her gaze flitted from the piano to the front door to the kitchen, then back to the broom handle that was now firmly anchored in her hand.
I smiled a little, though I knew I shouldn’t relish anyone else’s discomfort, but it was a tremendous comfort to know even a woman as confident as Mirinda could get flustered under the right circumstances. Now her role as supershy Madam X was beginning to make sense. The only thing left to wonder was who on earth could put her into such a state. I glanced over my shoulder at the man standing just inside the door, and I felt as though my heart had fallen to the floor along with the green broom. It was Graham.
Chapter Thirty-Two
He stood there, frozen, with his hand resting on the handle of the door, and I thought he might turn and bolt back to the parking lot. Mirinda swept her way to the counter, calling with forced nonchalance, “We’re closing, Dr. Harper, and I’ve already cleaned the machines.”
“No worries.” He bounced on his heels. “I just came by to see . . . Cecily.” His palm swiped his lips, and I was beginning to think that simple movement was a tell—a neon sign flashing an alert every time the good doctor told a fib. “I noticed your car outside.” He stood in front of me now, cocking his head toward the parking lot.
“Did you?”
He studied me and glanced at Mirinda, who was wiping the counter with her back to us. Then he smiled as though he had been caught with his hand in the bank bag at a garage sale. “Can we talk? Outside?”
I wasn’t sure I wanted to talk to him. Earlier, I had wanted to. I had thought I might die if I didn’t see him soon, but now? With Mirinda all flustered and dropping the broom? No, not really.
I walked to the door without looking back at either of them.
Graham bumped into a chair that was perched on the top of a table by the door. It banged as he grabbed it to prevent it from falling to the floor.
Then we stood on the sidewalk with our backs to the door of Midnight Oil, staring at the old courthouse across the street. I wanted to accuse him of something, but I didn’t know what. There was no code of ethics against therapists buying lattes from their clients.
“Did you come here for coffee?” There was a punch to my voice, but I didn’t care. “Or did you honestly just happen to be driving by”—I turned from side to side, searching the shops on the square—“even though most everything has closed for the night?”
His shoulders slumped. “Okay, no. I didn’t just happen to be here. I was checking on Mirinda.”
“Checking on her.”
“She’s a little rickety right now. Got a lot going on in her life. And in her mind.” He gestured down the sidewalk. “Let’s walk.”
I heard the key turn in the lock behind us, then the street fell into darkness as Mirinda flipped a switch inside. I fought the urge to turn and look at her.
Graham didn’t.
Brett had taught me how difficult it was for men to keep from staring at women like Mirinda. Especially when they all but begged for the attention. Graham wasn’t like Brett—at least I didn’t think so—but he was still a man.
We walked down the cracked sidewalk, passing a string of small shops. One appeared to be a consignment boutique, and the market-savvy shop owner had left a single light shining inside, illuminating the makeshift window dressings. I planted my feet and inspected a distressed farmhouse table, set with bright-colored Fiestaware and rustic iron accents.
“So.” I spoke louder than necessary. “Do you always check on your clients at their workplaces?” A simple question with a complicated underlying meaning: Are you infatuated with Mirinda, pushing the law, messing with my fragile heart? Are you tired of my plainness?
He wasn’t looking at the shop display. Instead, he faced me solidly. “Only the tough cases.”
The tough cases. His words fell on my ears, inched into my brain, then seeped into understanding. I turned and continued walking. Graham didn’t say anything else, just walked next to me, and I began to wonder about something. “Is that why you took me to the park for lunch that day?”
He stopped abruptly, his shoes gritting against the cement of the sidewalk.
“No,” he said firmly. “I admit, some of my conversations are strategically planned, but not because you’re a tough case. You’re not.”
“I’m not?”
He chuckled. “I just want to be with you because I like you.”
“You like me?”
“I thought I made that pretty clear last night at the campsite.”
My thoughts turned from logic to emotional mush. I glanced back. Fifty yards away, Michael Divins’s Corvette pulled up in front of Midnight Oil. Mirinda loped out, but Graham didn’t turn around this time.
I was so silly. So insecure.
We started walking again, past a chiropractic office and then an empty shop whose windows were covered with “For Lease” signs, but it wasn’t until we’d walked all the way to the other side of the square, to the dark and silent windows of Soccer Mom’s, that Graham slipped his hand into mine. And I was glad.
In fact, I squeezed it. Just like I had done all those years ago at the prom. Just like at the carnival. He had squeezed back both of those times t
oo, firmly but not hard enough to hurt.
“Graham?”
“Hmm?”
“Do remember that time in high school—”
“Of course.”
I stopped again. “You don’t even know what I was going to say.”
“Sure, I do.” He lifted my hand to his lips and kissed my knuckles. “The time we held hands in your car. It was after senior prom. Or during, really. You were having a hard time.”
That was an understatement. It was the anniversary of Mom’s death, and I had let Brett talk me into going to the prom anyway. “It’ll do you good,” he had said. But it hadn’t. It had only reminded me how much I missed her. I ended up feeling as though I had betrayed her memory—or worse. It felt as though I had smeared dirt on it. Brett had been crowned prom king, and someone else—maybe Zoe Gomez—had been crowned queen.
“Nobody ever thought Brett and I were right for each other,” I mumbled.
“Do you think you were?”
“At the time I thought so.” I snickered, a hard, bitter sound. “But I was a fool.”
“That’s harsh.”
I gave his hand a tug toward the courthouse lawn, lit by the glow of old-fashioned streetlamps. “Okay, so maybe I wasn’t a fool.”
“You were in mourning that night at the prom. You were grieving the fact that your mother had missed your entire high school career, and you were still in mourning when you left for college. Maybe even when you married Brett.”
“But it had been years since she died.”
“Grief takes time, Cecily.”
“Well, why didn’t somebody stop me from going away to college with Brett? Why didn’t my dad?”
“He was in worse shape than you.” I could hear a smile in his next words. “And I was just a kid with a crush. I wanted to talk you out of leaving, but I thought my reasons were selfish. They were selfish. I didn’t know enough about anything back then.”
“I always thought you were high that night.”
“Understandable mistake.” He sounded sad. “But I wasn’t. I was right there with you, one hundred percent.” He led me to a bench, and I snuggled against his side as he put his arm around me.
It felt good. And right. And real.
His fingertips brushed my wrist, up my arm, to my neck, and he nudged my chin until I was looking into his eyes, which were shadowed because he was lit from behind. When we kissed, it wasn’t anything like it had been the night before. It was gentle. Purposeful. As though we were trying to undo the regrets in our past and to prove to ourselves that we were who we wanted to be now.
I let my lips part, inviting him to kiss me more intimately, and when he responded, I felt myself getting lost in his touch. He leaned over me, blocking the light, blocking the sounds in the distance, blocking the entire world. And I was safe, sheltered, and desirable.
He pulled away, settling against the back of the bench, calming himself. Then he reached up, and with his fingertip, he tucked the long side of my hair behind my ear. “I’m falling for you, Cecily Witherspoon.” He used my maiden name, maybe accidentally and maybe because he didn’t want to remember that I had ever been Brett’s wife. “I’m falling hard.”
His voice was gruff, and I became ever so aware that Graham wasn’t a teenager anymore. He wasn’t a drug user. He wasn’t fumbling for my hand in the parking lot outside the prom, wishing he had been my date. He was here. He was now. And I was falling for him too.
Chapter Thirty-Three
Write about a mistake you made and how it impacted your life in a positive way.
For crying out loud. Where did Shanty come up with this stuff? The question seemed to be directed straight at me. But no, that was silly. Everyone makes mistakes that turn out for the better.
I sat cross-legged on the hood of my Jeep, which was still undrivable and was parked in the garage. Dad said he’d fix it as soon as possible, but I didn’t see a need to rush. It was only a car. I smiled. It was only a car, but it was also the place Graham and I had kissed for the first time.
I gripped my pen tightly and continued to write in my notebook.
Well, there’s no doubt about the mistake I made. My problem is seeing how it’s affected my life in a positive way. That’s probably Shanty’s goal for this entire journal entry. For me to see it as a positive instead of a negative. Not sure I’ll ever be able to do that. Maybe I will . . . I don’t know. For now, I think I’ll stick with trying not to view it as a horrible thing.
I’ve been dwelling on my past mistakes for way too long. No, not just dwelling on them, I’ve been nurturing them until they’re about to take over my life. Okay, let’s get real. They DID take over my life, but that was the old me. Now I’m thinking differently.
But . . . ugh. Why do I still feel crazy?
I slid off of the hood and climbed into the driver’s seat, where I punched the radio on, glad that my dad had charged the battery. I tuned the dial to a classical station and was immediately rewarded with Rachmaninoff’s second piano concerto.
Shanty would probably tell me I’m defining myself by Brett’s actions (duh) and that I’m subconsciously keeping myself locked in bitterness. She must be right because when I stop to think about it, I can actually feel the prison bars. I’m beginning to wonder if that’s due to the lack of forgiveness that everyone keeps telling me I need to work on.
The sound of the pen against the paper had become scratchy, the handwriting pointed and sharp. I traced over the word forgiveness, then traced it again and again until it darkened so much it was almost unrecognizable.
I firmly believe Brett doesn’t deserve forgiveness, but he’s not the only one it affects. Graham said I would feel better if I forgave him. Am I driving myself insane because I can’t forgive my ex-husband? Am I holding myself hostage to these negative feelings?
I rested the notebook against the steering wheel and stared at the closed garage door until I worked up the nerve to write my next thought.
Is it my own voice I hear when I look in the mirror?
I paused with the pen suspended above the paper, trying to decide if I should scribble out the question. But of course it was my own voice. Who else would it be? Sometimes I told myself I was remembering things Brett had said to me. Sometimes I told myself it was a demon. Sometimes I simply blamed it on my low self-esteem. But that was a crutch.
Maybe I need to forgive myself as much as I need to forgive Brett. Is it even possible for a person to forgive herself? Maybe not so much forgive myself as get over myself. Give myself a break for not being what Brett wanted, or what I wanted, or whatever I think society wants. If I really tried . . . I could stop caring about all that.
I could be me. And I could like me.
I really could.
At least . . . I THINK I COULD.
My cell phone shrilled loudly, causing me to jump, and I scrambled for it in the passenger seat. I was surprised to see it was Shanty. When I answered, she didn’t even give me time to say hello.
“Cecily, I need you and Nina.”
“Okay . . .” Shanty never called me, just texted. “Should we meet at Midnight Oil? I can be there in thirty minutes or so.”
“No. Not there.” Her voice sounded funny. Flat.
Slowly, I shut my notebook. “We can come to your place then. I’ll call Nina.”
“That would be good.”
“Is . . . everything all right?”
“No.”
I wanted her to tell me more, but for once, she wasn’t talking. “Are you sick? Are the kids all right? Did something happen?”
There was silence on the other end of the line, then Shanty’s clipped answer. “It’s Al.”
Those two words sent a ripple of apprehension through me. She could have meant any number of things, but my mind automatically rested on the worst. I closed my eyes and asked one more question. “Is Al . . . sick or something?”
“No.” Her simple answer was slow in coming, and filled with an implied explan
ation. “Al’s not anything.”
Chapter Thirty-Four
Shanty was almost unrecognizable. I had never seen her look so small—in a way that had nothing to do with her weight. She had turned inside herself, folding her spirit into a tiny ball of despair, her trademark smile completely wiped from her face. The beaded braids that normally bounced around her shoulders now lay on the floor near the end of the couch. Apparently she had cut the extensions from her natural hair, which stuck out in tufts around her head.
She wasn’t crying.
Nina and I sat on either side of her on a brown sectional sofa, the kind with an oversized ottoman at the end that created a cushioned lounge as big as a full-size bed. Two baby dolls had been put to sleep there, neatly covered with a crocheted blanket and then forgotten.
Shanty stared through the picture window overlooking the backyard. Her kids were out there, two of them climbing on the fort and another one sitting in the sandbox, slowly pouring sand from a plastic Solo cup onto her own shoulders. But the oldest child, a boy, sat cross-legged in the middle of the yard, elbows resting on his knees, head bent. He should have been in school.
“Gage saw him do it.” Shanty’s voice was sharp, unforgiving. “He saw his daddy kiss that girl. Right here in the living room.” She sobbed once, then stifled it. “I never should’ve hired a babysitter in the first place. I never should have allowed another woman into my home. No, not a woman. She’s a child. Barely eighteen.” She stood and stomped to the kitchen.
I stared after her, stunned.
Nina picked up a sippy cup from the floor, set it on the coffee table, then peered around the disheveled room. She slid to her knees and started picking up wooden puzzle pieces and Legos.
That was smart. Helpful. If we straightened Shanty’s house, maybe her mind would be less cluttered as well. She would have room to organize her thoughts and make sense of her situation. Maybe. It would help at least.
Looking Glass Lies Page 16