by Olivia Miles
“I could just feel around. See if he’s bringing anyone. Might be worth showing up alone if he’s without a date.” Charlotte grinned. “Besides, the singles table won’t be so bad. Bree will be with us. We’re quite the trio these days.”
Colleen looked a little sad as she took another bite of her cake. “Well, it’s easy for me to say when it isn’t my life, but I have a feeling about you, Charlotte. In fact, I’m putting my money on the fact that by this time next year, things are going to be different for you.”
“God, I hope so,” Charlotte admitted. Catching her friend’s sharp glance, she felt her cheeks heat. “It’s not easy, doing this whole parenthood thing on my own. Sometimes I worry that I’m letting Audrey down.”
Colleen looked at her quizzically. “Are you kidding me? Audrey?” To underscore her point, she tickled the little girl, who was already giggling and gurgling, just happy to be out with the ladies.
Charlotte managed a proud smile. “I suppose she does seem happy.”
“She’s happy. And you deserve to be happy, too. Sometimes I think you don’t believe that.”
Charlotte looked down at her plate. Colleen was right about that.
* * *
It took three storybooks and four lullabies to finally settle Audrey for the night—or at least for a few hours. Charlotte sighed heavily as she closed the bedroom door behind her, careful to turn the door handle slowly, so the latch wouldn’t startle her, and then tiptoed across the creaky wooden floorboards to the kitchen. She opened the pantry, frowning at its contents, and pulled out of a box of cheddar-flavored crackers. Some dinner.
Charlotte leaned back against the counter in her galley kitchen and sank her hand into the box, woefully bringing a fistful to her mouth. Somehow, she had never imagined that when she was twenty-eight years old, much less a mother, that her nightly meal would consist of a cornucopia of random junk food. Oh, she supposed she could cook, but there seemed very little point in cooking for one; the ritual of it seemed alarmingly depressing to her, and the sheer amount of time it would take rendered it completely impossible.
In a fit of masochism, she had snagged a copy of Sunday’s society section from the office, just so she could read the article in its entirety, without her sister present. Although Kate had moved on and found someone who treated her infinitely better than Jake had ever treated either one of them, it was still a sore point in their relationship, and not something Charlotte was proud of.
Everything had always come easily to her older sister. Grades, sports, and then boys. Just once Charlotte wanted to feel important. Well, now she was important, all right. To a seven-month-old who depended on her for everything: milk, food, clothing, shelter. Nothing could have prepared her for this level of responsibility. And she was doing it all on her own.
And making a fine mess of it, she feared.
She slammed the newspaper into the trash without reading it. Jake had taken up enough of her time. There was no use thinking about those days now. She’d always had poor discretion when it came to men. It was the reason she was in this predicament now. Even though when she held Audrey close to her chest, or rocked her to sleep and stared at her perfect little face, with those indescribably sweet lips or that impossibly small nose, she knew she wouldn’t want it any other way.
Helping herself to one last mouthful crackers, Charlotte closed up the box and placed it back in the pantry, groaning when she saw the state of the living room through the doorway. Toys and picture books covered the entire floor space, and an overflowing laundry basket sat at the edge of the room, silently beckoning her. Shoulders slumping, she wandered into the living room, picked up two empty baby bottles, and carried them back to the kitchen, where she quietly washed them out and set them to dry upside down on a towel.
Often she enjoyed this time of evening, after Audrey had gone to bed and before she would wake up crying in another three hours, but tonight the apartment felt too still; there wasn’t enough distraction from the noise in her head.
Worriedly, she sat down with the day’s mail, her gut knotting with each bill, many angrily marked FINAL NOTICE. She closed her eyes and released a long breath before standing and retrieving her phone from the depths of her coat pocket, cringing when she saw the flashing light in the corner. Yet another missed call from her landlord. This wasn’t good.
With shaking hands, she began dialing the phone. She would just explain the situation and ask for an extension, just as she had last month. She’d eventually paid October, surely that was good for something, even if it had make it impossible to pay for November. And now December…
She rubbed her forehead. Tomorrow she would have a talk with Kate and explain she needed more work, or why she might have to start looking for another job elsewhere. The thought of leaving her sister in a lurch when she was hoping to spend some time planning her wedding made Charlotte have the uneasy sensation that she alone could be responsible for tarnishing both of Kate’s chances at happiness. But telling Kate the reason why would almost be worse—her sister shouldn’t have to clean up her mess, not when she had already suffered so much for it.
Charlotte chewed her fingernail, then frowned when she realized the damage she had done to the nail polish. As much as it killed her to find another job and leave the event planning company, she was starting to think there wasn’t much of a choice.
Except…Maybe Greg wasn’t the cocky, arrogant cad she had taken him for. Maybe he was—Stop it, Charlotte. He was just like all the other seasonal residents, just like all the other rich, handsome, sun-slicked guys who stopped by in the summer. He was just like Jake.
But unlike Jake, he was offering help, however indirectly, when she needed it the most. She might have been a fool in love in the past, but she wasn’t too big a fool to pass up an opportunity when she saw one.
Pushing her chair back from the table, Charlotte walked to her coat and fished in the pocket until she found the card. She stared at the name and rubbed the pad of her thumb over the embossed letters. With the other hand she dialed the mobile number listed. She reached the sixth digit and stopped. What the hell had she been thinking? What would she even say? Groveling didn’t suit her, and it certainly did little to endear one to men. Another sad life lesson she’d learned the hard way if Jake’s silence proved anything. Besides, it was what he wanted, wasn’t it? It was what he expected when he’d slipped her the card after she’d turned him down.
Well, she’d had her share of giving men their way. She was done feeding egos.
Miserably, Charlotte walked back into the living room and collapsed onto the couch, pulling a stuffed bunny from under her back and tossing it to the side with the rest of the toys she’d received as gifts or purchased at the secondhand store. She averted her gaze from the laundry and leaned back to close her eyes. Just for a minute. Just until Audrey woke up wanting to be fed. Again.
Guilt waged strong, as it always did when she started feeling this way. Was it normal to be this tired? According to most of her family, they seemed to think that she had it easy, had plenty of sleep. She could hardly complain, hardly vocalize the mixed feelings that plagued her every day. The elation when Audrey giggled, the frustration when Charlotte could finally doze off, only to be woken again. Needed.
A sudden pounding pulled her upright. She glanced at her watch, surprised to discover that only ten minutes had passed, even though it felt like the dead of night. She’d fallen asleep, deep and quick, and now…Now someone was beating on her door.
She stood, frozen in fear, and then inched to the door as the pounding resumed, wondering if she should run for a kitchen knife, and then realizing that none of them were even clean. But did that matter? she thought wildly. The pounding resumed and she pressed a hand to her stomach, feeling the hard knot under the surface. Tears welled hot in her eyes. She was tired of living alone. Tired of having no other adult to share her problems or make them a little easier.
She walked closer to the door and pressed h
er nose to the surface, an eye to the peephole, and felt what was left of hope escape her.
Her shoulders sinking with dread, she turned the locks and opened the door, coming face-to-face with her scowling landlord.
“Hi there, Mr. Livingston,” she said with forced brightness. A cold gust of air rushed in and she wrapped her arms around her chest, feeling vulnerable in her long-sleeved T-shirt and flannel pajama pants. She reached over to grab her thick wool cardigan from the back of the armchair.
“I’m here to discuss November’s rent check.” Mr. Livingston didn’t waste any time cutting to the point of his visit.
Charlotte stepped onto the porch, shivering as a cold wind blew right through her sweater. She pulled the door closed behind her and looked squarely at the older man. There was no use lying. “I don’t have it.”
“You don’t have it.” His jaw seemed to tense, and Charlotte thought of all the unanswered calls he had made. Shame filled her. This wasn’t like her. And she was trying. She was genuinely trying.
She looked down at her socked feet and shifted the weight of her body, gripping the doorknob tightly in her palm. “Not right now. No.”
“You have left me no choice, Charlotte!” the man said, and Charlotte winced at the genuine distress in his voice. He smacked the side of his rod-straight hand into his palm, causing her to flinch. “I’ve given you chance after chance.”
“I promise it won’t happen again,” she pleaded, panic setting in. “I just need a few more days.”
He shook his head sadly. “I’m sorry, Charlotte, but I have given you enough extensions. If I don’t have the money for November and December’s rent tomorrow, then you will have to leave.”
“But I have nowhere to go!” she cried. “And my baby—”
Her baby. Just the thought of Audrey, asleep inside, unaware of the fact that her mother—her only parent—was a giant screwup.
He frowned at her. “You have family in town.”
Charlotte’s response fell quiet on her lips. This was the downside of living in a town like Misty Point. Everyone knew you and your circumstances. And what they didn’t know for certain, they surmised.
“Move in with your parents. Or your sister.”
Charlotte held back a response to that. She didn’t even want to explain why neither option was possible.
“Look, Charlotte.” Mr. Livingston’s voice softened. “This is business. Put yourself in my position. I need the money. I have to cover the property tax, the maintenance. You think that sidewalk gets salted for free? I have bills and expenses, too. I have kids, too. Joey’s starting college next year. You know what that costs these days?”
College. Another hurdle to think about. At least she had eighteen years to solve that problem.
Charlotte nodded her understanding and muttered a promise she wasn’t sure she would ever keep before she closed the door behind her. She leaned back against it, feeling her shoulder blades press into the wood as she sank to the floor. What the heck was she going to do?
She checked her watch. Seven fifteen. Only a matter of hours since she’d stormed out of Gregory Frost’s house. Surely the chances of him finding another event planner by now were slim. Especially in Misty Point.
Hurrying to her phone, she called Bree to see if she wouldn’t mind coming over to sit with Audrey for a bit, and then went to her room to primp.
Chapter Eight
Bree had been in the messy, strangely unpleasant, and downright frustrating process of retiling the master bathroom wall when Charlotte’s call came. More like trying to retile the wall. The videos she’d watched made it all look so easy! So why then did some tiles jut out more than the others, and nothing exactly lined up, and certainly not without a fair bit of effort.
She closed her eyes. She’d think about all this another day. Right now, she was being asked to babysit her sweet little cousin once removed, as the family had discovered was the formal name for the connection. She’d read her books and rock her in that old, rickety chair, and she’d stop thinking about what a disaster she would be coming home to.
Bree quickly cleaned up her supplies, washed her hands, and changed. She didn’t bother with makeup tonight, and she kept her hair swept up in a ponytail. Less chance of Audrey pulling on it, and she so liked the finest strands, the ones that had maximum pain impact.
Charlotte’s apartment wasn’t far from the house, and Bree happily followed a snowplow most of the way there, only having to turn onto snowy, slick pavement when she pulled onto Charlotte’s side street. Her cousin’s apartment was on the ground floor of a two-flat, a former single-family home back in the day, no doubt, and in much need of loving care.
Maybe once she tackled her own home she could fix up Charlotte’s place a bit, Bree mused. If she ever finished, that was. What had once been a clear image in her mind of exquisite restoration was now turning into a physical mess.
A mess she wouldn’t think about just yet.
She hopped out of her car before she could think any more about that and hurried up the steps to Charlotte’s front door. She could hear Audrey wailing through the glass pane. Huh. So much for her fantasy of a nice, quiet, domestic evening with a cuddly little baby.
The door flung open, and Charlotte stood before her, Audrey red-faced and openmouthed on her hip, her nose running so profusely, Bree felt herself flinch. Suddenly arranging perfectly spaced subway tile seemed far easier than settling this crying baby.
“She’s teething,” Charlotte explained in lieu of a greeting, and opened the door wider to reveal black leggings, knee-high boots, and a cream-colored tunic. A sparkly necklace graced her neck, and…was that perfume Bree smelled?
Charlotte had told her she had a last-minute appointment. From the looks of things, it was more like a date.
The living room was, as usual, sprinkled with stuffed animals and building blocks and various plastic toys that lit up or played music. Some might call it a mess, but Bree didn’t mind. To her it felt lived in, homey. It was modest, with a mixture of furniture that came with the apartment or had been pulled out of Charlotte’s parents’ basement. But it was filled with love.
Filled with a lot more than Bree’s house was.
That heavy lump in her chest returned when she thought of what it must be like to have something to come home to other than some power tools.
“Do you want to go to Auntie Bree?” The question was clearly rhetoric. Charlotte wasted no time in handing the baby over, not that Bree minded.
She loved the soft feel of her. She never stopped marveling at how light she was, how easy to hold and maneuver.
The baby sneezed in her face. Bree blinked. Then froze. She could set the baby down, run for a tissue, but where would she put her? And she was sort of afraid to open her eyes for fear of what might seep in.
“Oh. Oh dear.” Charlotte muttered to herself as she hurried across the room to the bathroom, quickly returning with some tissue. “She sneezes if she’s cried too much.”
“Just one of her many funny habits,” Bree said, wiping first her face and then Audrey’s. The child seemed to brighten, startled by the gesture, and her sobbing faded into a hiccup. Bree laughed.
“I’m sorry to leave you with such a mess. She was asleep, but then when I got out the hair dryer, she woke up…”
Bree walked over to the couch and settled Audrey on her knee. She bounced it lightly, just enough to keep Audrey entertained, but not enough to jostle her stomach. (A lesson she’d learned the hard way the time Audrey deposited an entire bottle’s worth of milk onto her favorite silk top.) “You said you had an appointment?”
Charlotte didn’t meet her eye as she opened the closet door and pulled her coat from the hanger. “I shouldn’t be long.”
Interesting. So she was dressed up, and she’d dodged the question. Bree narrowed her eyes. “Where’s the appointment?”
“What?” Charlotte stopped buttoning her coat for a moment. “Oh. Um. Client’s house.”
<
br /> “At this hour?” Bree whistled, not buying a word of it. It was nearly eight. This was beginning to sound more and more like a dinner date.
“Well, he works, and this was the best time…”
Ah. So it was a he. Of course it was.
“Well, it’s very accommodating of you.”
Charlotte wrapped a scarf around her neck. Not the chunky, handknit scarf that she’d made in their monthly knitting club, mind you. No, she pulled out her pashmina. The hunter-green one she always wore for special occasions.
“Customer service comes first,” Charlotte laughed. “Kate drilled that into me on day one.”
“It’s my motto, too,” Bree said. She bounced her knee a little harder, wondering how to get the information out of Charlotte. “So, this client. Dating material?”
At this, Charlotte gave her a long look. “You know I don’t have any interest in dating.”
Bree gave a small smile. “If you say so.”
Charlotte pulled her handbag out of the closet—her good leather handbag, not the canvas tote she used to keep her files or Audrey’s diaper supplies—and hooked it over her arm before closing the closet door. “Well, I’m off. There’s a bottle in the fridge if she gets fussy. Just heat it for sixty seconds and do the wrist check. But she’ll probably fall back to sleep soon. And I won’t be long.”
“Good luck!” Bree called, grinning mischievously.
Charlotte paused as she reached for the door handle. “Thanks. I have a feeling I’ll need it.”
* * *
It was past eight when Greg turned off his computer for the day, only the darkness through the windows and the rumble of his stomach confirming the time. He’d always had an ability to focus, to sit down and lose himself in his work. It was a trait he’d inherited from his mother, he supposed. Even if that was one of the few things they had in common.
The picture of Rebecca was still facedown on his desk. He turned it over and studied the picture impassively, before opening a drawer and tucking it under some papers. He’d come here for a quiet Christmas. In fact, he’d come here to forget about Christmas. Didn’t he have to deal with it enough, ten hours a day from the day after Mother’s Day through December 26?