by Mary Campisi
He shrugged, looked away.
“For Michael, it is easy to have people think this way of him. That way they will never be disappointed. But one day he must learn that in the end, he will be the one who is most disappointed. I think,” he said, tilting his head to get a better look at his nephew, “that it is time for honesty, time to let the town know that Michael Androvich is the creator of such beauty and also a man of honor, and integrity.”
Michael shoved his hands in the back pockets of his jeans, said nothing.
“Now, Alexandra, how can my nephew help you?”
Chapter 18
Michael let himself into the house, headed for the refrigerator. Miller, Brisk Iced tea. Miller, Brisk Iced Tea. Ah, what the hell. He grabbed the can of iced tea and popped the top.
Nick should be home any minute now, and then they could have their talk. He’d had to bullshit him a little, tell him something was up with Uncle Frank that needed discussing right away. Hell, if he’d have so much breathed her name, Nick would have clammed up, told him to go to hell. At least that’s what Elise told him last night when she’d called his house to beg him to talk to Nick. What the hell, they must have all held a big pow-wow, decided to gang up on the men, get them to work on Nick. First it had been Alex, then his mother, then Elise.
Elise. Shit. He was thinking about her too much lately. Last night when she’d called him, he’d been lying in bed, and just for a split second, he’d thought, hoped, she’d just wanted to talk to him, Michael, but the first words out of her mouth had been Nick. She still didn’t get it, did she? Nick was off-limits to her, he loved Alex, even though right now he might hate her, and if things didn’t work out between them, he’d be through with women for a while. Caroline had done that to Nick, too, purged his heart of feeling for a long time. And then, Alex Chamberlain had driven into town in her black Saab with her fifty-dollar haircut and fancy pearls and he was a goner.
Until she fed him the big lie. But the bitch of it was, and he hated to admit it, she really did seem to love him. He almost felt sorry for her yesterday, crying on Uncle Frank’s shoulder, her little nose red and puffy. Almost. He was here because he’d promised his uncle he’d do this and that was the only reason. Elise Pentani had nothing to do with it, either. So what if she was disappointed in him? So what?
He took a gulp of iced tea, sank into the recliner and fished around for the remote. He’d just found an old rerun of Gunsmoke when the screen door banged open.
“Michael. Is that you?”
“In here.”
Nick walked into the living room carrying a beer. “What’s up with Uncle Frank?” He sat down on the couch, kicked up his feet on the oak coffee table.
“He wanted me to tell you… Shit, I don’t know how to say this.”
“Then just say it.”
Michael flipped his cap up, scratched his forehead. “You know those bowls and boxes he makes?”
“The ones everybody begs for? The ones the company from New York wanted to market last year? Yeah, I know those boxes.”
“Yeah, well, he hasn’t made a box or a bowl since his accident.”
Nick laughed, took a swig of beer. “Funny, Michael. I’m not in the mood for jokes. His accident was two years ago.”
“Right.”
“So, if Uncle Frank isn’t doing the woodwork, who the hell is, huh? Santa Claus?”
“No.” Michael fidgeted in the recliner, tried to get comfortable. “I am.”
“You?” Nick laughed again, this time louder.
“That’s right. Me.”
“Come on, that kind of work requires hours of concentration, skill, dedication…”
“And I’m not capable of anything like that, right?” He was getting pissed. “Why? Because I’m the screw up in the family? Because I could never be responsible for anything worthwhile? Right? Is that what you’re thinking?” Shit, now he was really pissed.
“Hey, settle down. That’s not what I meant. I guess you’re capable, I just never thought of you as doing anything like that.” He took another drink. “So what’s the real story? Why’s Uncle Frank pretending he’s not making the stuff?”
Michael gave him a surly look. “Because he’s not.”
Pause. “You’re really making the bowls? And the boxes? Even the ones carved out of cherry with the scrollwork?”
“That was my design.”
“Hell, do you realize what kind of business you could have? How much money you could make? Shit, Michael, you could name your own price!”
Michael shook his head. “They’re not for sale.”
“But—”
“Not everything’s for sale, Nick. You should know that better than anybody. I’m doing it because I love the feel of wood in my hands, love to create something with it.”
“Then at least come out of the woods, give that up.”
“How can I give up the smell of pine, the leaves, the earth? There’s nothing like it after a rain. I can’t give that up. It’s a part of me. I might as well cut my hand off.”
“I’ve been waiting, hoping you’d take over the business.”
Michael rubbed his jaw. “I might help out… but I don’t think either one of us wants to run the business. We’d suffocate. Why not turn it over to Rudy? He’s grown up with wood just like us.”
“You really don’t want it?”
“No.”
“Okay then. Rudy. Hmm.”
“Or Gracie,” Michael said. “She’s a tough-ass kind of broad. She’d keep the guys in shape.”
“Gracie,” Nick said. “I like that. Gracie Ann Androvich Romanski, CEO of Androvich Lumber.”
“Yeah, print that on her diaper bag.” Both men laughed.
“Thanks, Michael. I appreciate your help and I’m sorry if I misjudged you.”
Michael lifted his drink, saluted his brother. “It’s okay, really. I know I can be an asshole sometimes.” He cleared his throat. “That thing about Caroline… I never should have doubted you. You were my brother, I should have trusted you more.”
“It’s over. It’s been over a long time now,” Nick said. “Let it go, okay?”
Michael nodded.
“Good.” Nick tipped his head back, finished his beer. “That wasn’t as bad as I thought it would be. When you said you needed to talk, I had no idea what you needed to tell me.” He laughed. “This was nothing.”
Michael cleared his throat. “Actually, there is one other thing.”
“Oh?”
“Uncle Frank wanted me to talk to you about it. It’s coming straight from him.”
“Sure. Anything for the old man. What is it?”
“He wants you to talk to Alex.”
That stopped him. His eyes got real narrow and he cleared his throat—twice. “How does he know about her?”
“She came to see him, I mean me, and he was there. There was this instant connection between them, she cried on his shoulder, told him what a bad girl she was and how sorry she was for all of it and, well, you know Uncle Frank. He tried to make her feel better, told her you’d meet with her, help her persuade the town to stand firm and fight her uncle.”
“Christ.” Nick rubbed a hand over his face, “How could he do this to me?”
“The hell of it was, she seemed so damn sincere, especially the part where she told him she loved you.” He eyed his brother, saw the involuntary jerk of his shoulders. “Yeah, it was probably all a scam, but I saw her face, it looked damn sincere.”
“She’s a good actress.”
There was a ton of pain in those words. “Maybe she’s not acting.” Did Michael believe that or was he just saying it to make Nick feel better? No, he believed it.
“Hell, what do you know about it? You’ve got Elise Pentani so confused and mixed up she can’t think of anything but telling me what a worthless piece of scum you are.”
“Elise?” She’s in love with you, fool, not me. She can’t stand me. “Elise and I don’t exactly see eye to e
ye.”
“You could do worse than settle down with Elise, you know.”
“I’m not settling down with anybody. Besides, she hates my guts.”
“If she hates your guts so much then why was she so upset when she found Cynthia Collichetti half naked at your house? Huh? Oh, didn’t think I knew about that? Elise told me all about it… several times.”
She was upset? How upset? Of course she’d be upset, she thought he was worthless, a reptile of the lowest form. “This isn’t about me,” Michael said, changing the subject. “Alex’s uncle is holding some kind of town meeting tomorrow night to try and persuade the rest of the town to sell out so he can build that rich-bitch resort of his. She’s going to try and talk people out of it, tell them the downside of selling out and all that, but she doesn’t think anybody will listen”—he scratched his chin—“unless you give her your stamp of approval.” He downed the rest of his iced tea, burped, and said, “So don’t be such a chickenshit, talk to her, will ya?”
***
Nick turned the phone over in his hands. Once, twice, three times. Michael was right. He really was a chickenshit. But damn it, he didn’t want to talk to her, to hear her voice, to see her in his mind. He wanted to forget her, be done with it, over, now, not tomorrow or the next day or next week; but how the hell was he going to do that when he had to have a conversation with her that was only going to start the remembering all over again?
Hadn’t he vowed after Caroline that he was never going to let himself get into that kind of situation again, where you gave your heart, your soul, your trust, where everything mattered so damn much? Lisa hadn’t mattered, much to his mother’s pleasure, neither had the ones before that. Until Alex. She mattered.
Shit.
This one was going to be a long, slow death, the kind that sucked you dry, left you hollowed out and decaying, half insane with remembering, filled with bitterness and longing that you’d deny to your grave.
It hadn’t been that way with Caroline. Her death was merely the culmination of a tortured relationship gone bad. He’d loved his wife, but he couldn’t save her, couldn’t stop her from suffocating their marriage with her insecurities, her neediness, her paranoid reactions to life. She’d died long before they pulled her charred body from the second-story bedroom on Freeman Avenue. If he were honest, he’d have to admit that the Caroline he knew and loved had died the day she left Restalline, withering a little more each year, like a flower without water, until the essence had disappeared, crowded out by insecurity and clumps of neediness, burying all indication of what had been.
He’d promised Michael he’d call. Uncle Frank was expecting him to do this—so was his mother, his sister, hell, who else thought he ought to call her? Fine, he’d do it and be done. He grabbed his cell, punched out her number.
“Hello.”
It was her. “It’s me, Nick.”
“Nick.”
He didn’t like the way she said his name, like she was sucking in oxygen. “Michael said you came to see him.”
Silence. “Yes. Yes, I did.”
Why was she so hesitant? Where was the take-charge, ball-busting Alex he knew? Was she trying to be demure, hesitant, so he’d feel sorry for her? Too late, she’d get no sympathy from him. “He said your uncle’s holding a meeting tomorrow night at seven.”
“Yes.” Pause. “Can you be there? I… I wouldn’t ask if I didn’t need your help.”
“What, you mean you blew your credibility?” He knew he was being a jerk, but he didn’t care.
“If you called to make me feel worse, that’s not possible. So, are you going to put aside our differences and try to make these people see sense or not?”
There was a trace of the old Alex. “Seven o’clock. I’ll be there.”
“Thank you. Do you think we should meet before that, try to come up with a plan?”
“How about something new and innovative, like the truth?”
“You’re never going to let this go, are you?”
“Probably not.”
“I’ll see you tomorrow night.”
“Right.” Click. Nick tossed his cell on the couch and rubbed his eyes. He had to stop acting like a wounded animal ready to lash out, rip flesh from bone. She was only a woman… one woman… and he was more than one kind of fool if he thought he could just blink twice and forget about her.
***
You’ve got Elise Pentani so confused and mixed up she can’t think of anything but telling me what a worthless piece of scum you are…
You could do worse than settle down with Elise, you know…
If she hates your guts so much then why was she so upset when she found Cynthia Collichetti half naked at your house? …she told me all about it…several times…
It was early morning, the sun hadn’t been up more than an hour and Michael was walking the trail, preparing to take down two big oaks that were wedged between a copse of cherry and walnut saplings. There was an art to dropping them without disrupting the younger trees, but Michael would have the oaks on the ground before the rest of the crew showed up. Twenty minutes, tops. He set down his saw, sized up the first tree. It was a big mother, wide and burly, with branches that were the size of trees and roots—thicker than both of Michael’s legs—protruding from the ground.
Mornings in the woods were his favorite time. It was the only time he could really think… He touched the bark, felt the coarseness of the wood…his mind wandered…
Nick didn’t know what the hell he was talking about. Elise wasn’t in love with Michael. Hell, she couldn’t stand his guts. She loved Nick, she’d always loved Nick. But there’d been a time or two when he’d wondered what it would be like to nip at the soft spot just beneath her ear, trail his lips down her throat, hear her moan as his hand closed over one melon-sized breast. They were fleeting thoughts, maybe dreams of some sort, coming to him right before he fell asleep at night, or at predawn, or shit, coming to him once when he was banging Cynthia Collichetti. He’d felt like a real slime bucket after that. What kind of man bangs one woman while he’s thinking about another one?
Elise Pentani wasn’t interested in him and he wasn’t interested in her. Michael swore under his breath, picked up the saw, pulled the cord. It ripped to life and he took the first cut, the same cut he’d made thousands of times before.
Even if for some crazy, ridiculous minute, he thought about wanting to be with her, it would never work between them. He made a second cut, angled the saw. Never. Just because she got along with his kids and they were always pestering him to see her, it didn’t mean they’d make it as a couple. Cut, cut, angle. So, okay, he was attracted to her. So what? So what? She was repulsed by him, his language, his actions… everything. He’d seen it on her face, in her dark eyes. She’d never love him. She loved Nick. The tree hit the ground in one thundering whoosh, slicing a path between cherry and walnut.
Michael eyed the tree with the distracted disinterest of one who’s performed the task so many times he’s already five steps into the next process. He checked his watch. Ten minutes left before the first crew showed up and he still had one more tree to take down. The second oak was some fifty feet away, its path blocked by the branches of the one he’d just taken down. He revved his saw again, started cutting a trail.
If she hates your guts so much then why was she so upset when she found Cynthia Collichetti half naked at your house? …she told me all about it…several times… Damn that woman! What he did was none of her business… none at all. So why did it bother him so much that he’d hurt her?
When the saw kicked against a knot and the blade ripped into his shirt, Michael jerked back, cut the motor, and stared at the bright red color seeping through the torn material on his shirt. Shit! He’d sliced himself. Damn carelessness, that’s what it had been. He grabbed a handkerchief out of his back pocket, eased his shirt up over his forearm. Damn! The flesh was torn in a jagged line, ripped open, oozing blood. He managed to tie the handkerchief a
bove the wound, then pressed his fingers against the area. Shit, of all the stupid-ass things to do. How many times had he told his men, Never cut in the woods alone, things happen when you least expect them to. And then the most basic rule of all; Keep your mind on what you’re doing. I don’t want you thinking about anything but the tree in front of you, not the woman you screwed last night or the one you’re gonna screw tonight. Understand?
He felt dizzy, lightheaded. Michael eased himself onto the fallen oak. His shirt was soaked in blood, his fingers wet and sticky. He closed his eyes and hoped the crew would be on time.
***
Elise hurried out of the elevator, rushed down the hall to the visitor’s waiting room. Nick was sitting in a tan vinyl chair reading the paper. “Nick? Where is he? What happened? Can I see him?”
Nick looked up, set the paper aside. “Michael’s fine. He came out of surgery a little while ago. Mom’s with him right now.”
“Oh, God.” She sank into a chair beside him. “If the crew hadn’t come along when they did… if they hadn’t found him… he would’ve been out there all alone… he could have…” She pressed her fingertips against her temples. “Oh, God.”
“Elise.” Nick took her hand. “He’s going to be okay. The doctor said he tore up his arm, but with therapy and time, eventually, he should regain full use.”
“How much blood did he lose?”
“Enough. They gave him two units in surgery.”
She shook her head, fought back tears. All these weeks and she could think of nothing but cursing Michael Androvich for the way he’d hurt her, been cruel, thoughtless, rude. The thought of that woman with him tortured her every night, deprived her of sleep and common sense. And then there were his taunts, pounding in her head, over and over, You come here again, Snow White, and I’m gonna think you’re looking for something…and I’m gonna give it to you. Why did she care? Why?
The answer flowed through her, hard, steady, true. Somewhere underneath all of that tough, outward irascibility, that crude front, was a gentleness, a softness in hiding, too timid and unsure to emerge. She’d glimpsed it—at Marie Lendergin’s wedding when he’d looked into her eyes and almost kissed her. And the first time, when she’d come to his uncle’s birthday party and found out Nick had already left with Alex. Michael had saved her from humiliating herself with tears and disappointment. He’d told her to forget Nick, forget falling in love with him. How had he known when she’d kept it such a well-guarded secret from everyone else? How had he figured it out?