Right Here, Right Now

by Georgia Beers

  “Enough,” I said loudly. “I have had so much more than enough.” The four of them exchanged glances, apparently looking to one another for direction. “There is a mountain of boxes in my reception area. Your boxes. Again. My bathroom key is nowhere to be found. Again. The window to the stairwell door has a crack in it now, and I’d bet good money it came from a kickball.” I shot a look to Brandon. “And seriously, with the music? Seriously? This is a goddamn place of business, for crying out loud. You’re not the only business here.” I lifted my arms in a gesture of what the hell? They looked like the proverbial deer in headlights. Well, all except Brandon, whose expression darkened as he reached for his computer and turned the music down. “Where is Alicia?”

  Nobody said anything. Again, they looked to one another, then back at me.

  “I’ve been texting her for a week. When she texts back, it’s a word or two, which seems very unlike her. I need to talk to her.” To my own horror, I heard my voice crack the tiniest bit, and I hoped nobody else noticed. When still no answer came, I raised my voice. “Where is Alicia?”

  “Who do you think you are?” Brandon said to me, and the growl in his voice very much matched the anger that suddenly clouded his face.

  “I’m sorry?” I asked, surprised by his tone.

  “Brandon,” Gisele said, and it sounded like a warning.

  “We don’t work for you. You are not our landlord.” Brandon took a step closer to me, but stopped several yards away. “We don’t answer to you. We have a boss. And just because she’s banging you, that doesn’t mean you suddenly get to demand information from us. You think you’re special? You don’t know anything about her.” He turned away. Then, as if having an additional thought, turned back. His eyes narrowed at me, the most eye contact I’d ever gotten from him. “Maybe she doesn’t want to talk to you. Maybe she’s over you and is just waiting for you to take the hint. Ever think of that?”

  “Brandon.” Gisele stood from her desk, her expression very serious.

  “What?” he snapped, his anger obvious in everything from his facial expression to his tone of voice to his body language. He dropped into the chair at his desk and turned the music up again.

  I stood there, blinking rapidly, in shock. I couldn’t move. My face burned with that toxic combination of fury and shame. My clammy hands trembled. I couldn’t move. I wanted to—God, so desperately. But I couldn’t.

  Gisele was suddenly by my side. “Come with me,” she ordered, her voice soft but her grip on my arm firm as she steered me to the door.

  I let her lead me, still stunned by Brandon’s vitriol, by the things he’d said.

  At the door to my office, we stopped and Gisele peeked her head in. “Hey, Mary? I’m taking Lacey for an off-site meeting. You got Leo?”

  “We’re good,” Mary said. She stood up from her desk so we could see her over the boxes, Leo in her arms. He had cheese on his chin, I noted absently.

  I continued to let Gisele lead me. Neither of us spoke until we were on bar stools at Boomer’s and the bartender waited for our drink order. The last time I was there, I was with Alicia, so the irony was not lost on me.

  “We’ll each have a glass of Pinot Grigio, please,” Gisele told him, and then went silent again until our glasses were set in front of us. She slid mine closer to me and held hers up, waiting for me to touch my glass to it.

  I blew out a breath and clinked, then took much too large a gulp, wincing as it went down.

  I could feel Gisele’s eyes on me. “You all right?” she asked, her hand on my arm.

  “I can’t believe that just happened,” I said, in total honesty. “Oh, my God, I was such an asshole.” I took another gulp of wine.

  “Well…but, Brandon can…lack finesse,” Gisele said, her tone telling me that I wasn’t wrong about my own behavior.

  “Doesn’t matter. I was totally out of line. He was right. No wonder he hates me. He’s hated me since day one.”

  “That’s true.”

  I snapped my head around to face her.

  She laughed. “What? You said it. I’m just confirming it.”

  “Why, though? Why? I mean, I’m not Google, but I’m a nice person!”

  Gisele sipped her wine, much more sophisticated about it than me. “Look, I’m not disagreeing with you. But he has his reasons, silly and high school as they are.”

  When she didn’t elaborate, I widened my eyes and held my hands out, palms up. “Care to share?”

  Gisele debated.

  I watched it happen.

  She really was beautiful, her complexion smooth and dusky, her hair swooping to the left, the rust-orange-colored top she wore making her seem approachable and friendly. Finally, she made eye contact with me, hers deep, rich brown and soft. “He’s very protective of Alicia. Always has been. They’ve known each other since they were teenagers. Brandon and Alicia’s brother Ryan grew up together.”

  “Alicia has a brother?” She’d never mentioned one, even after I went on and on about mine.

  Gisele inhaled, let it out slowly. “Yeah, I figured she hadn’t mentioned that. Alicia had a brother. He died.”

  “Oh, God.” I covered my mouth with a hand. “No, she never said.”

  “She wouldn’t. She just…doesn’t.” Another sip of wine. I started to think it was serving as liquid courage for Gisele. “So, Brandon is protective of Alicia.”

  “But why does he feel the need to protect her from me? I mean, from the minute I met him, he hasn’t liked me. And he’s made it pretty obvious.”

  “Brandon doesn’t like anybody at first. It’s just how he is. But once it became clear that Alicia did like you, he went into protection mode.”

  I furrowed my brow. “I’m not following.”

  “Once Alicia likes you, you have the potential to hurt her. At least that’s how Brandon looks at it. Brandon knows her well, and I’m sure he saw it right away. I know I did.”

  “Saw what?” I was so confused. I felt completely out of the loop, like I was standing outside a house and looking in the window while all the people inside carried on conversations I couldn’t hear.

  “Saw that she was attracted to you,” Gisele said, a hint of frustration in her voice.

  “Oh. Oooohhhhh.” I finally got it, finally followed. I needed a beat, sipped my wine and we were quiet for a moment. Finally, I said, “Well, I don’t think it matters at this point. She’s sort of…gone.” My eyes welled up, much to my own mortification, and I tried to hide it behind my glass.

  Gisele closed a hand over mine, then motioned to the bartender for refills. “You don’t know everything,” she said gently.

  “Yeah, as Brandon made clear to me.”

  Gisele wet her lips and she looked suddenly nervous. No, not nervous. That was too strong a description. Uncertain was better. She looked uncertain, and I got the impression she was weighing pros and cons of telling me…something.

  Our refills came, and she took what seemed like a fortifying mouthful of hers. Then she turned on her stool so she fully faced me, her knees bumping my thigh. “May is a hard month for Alicia.”

  I waited, sensing big stuff coming.

  I wasn’t wrong.

  Gisele blew out a big breath and I knew somehow in that moment, she was trusting me with sensitive information. “When Alicia was thirty-five—so about three years ago—her father passed away from cancer. Pancreatic. He went very quickly. Almost too quickly, before the family had much chance to prepare.”

  I swallowed hard. “That’s awful.”

  Gisele nodded and went on. “Ryan was five years younger than her and had always had trouble. He was just one of those guys who couldn’t seem to find the right path, you know? He barely graduated from high school. He never went to college, didn’t really learn a trade. He tried lots of different jobs, but nothing stuck. And then he found drugs. He was a mess for a long time. I can’t even tell you how many times Alicia had to go looking for him in terrible parts of Philly, bail hi
m out of jail, how often she tried to help him. Their parents were heartbroken, watching their son struggle so much and not be able to pull himself out of the muck. But on his thirtieth birthday, Ryan somehow made the decision to put his whole being into recovery. Nobody knows what happened to change his mind, but he was determined.”

  I sat riveted, on the edge of my stool, picturing all of this in my head.

  “He was doing great. Alicia and her parents were right there by his side, which…I give them a lot of credit for, because he’d been trouble for years. He caused their parents so much worry and stress, said horrible things, stole from them. But he made massive changes and they supported him, especially their dad. He went to meetings with Ryan, helped him find a job. They became closer than ever.”

  I saw where this was going and my heart broke a little bit in my chest for this man I never met, this man with the same genes as Alicia. “And then their dad got sick?”

  Gisele nodded sadly. “And then their dad got sick.” She paused like she needed a moment to collect herself. A sip of wine, and she continued. “Like I said, he went really fast. I think he’d put off going to the doctor because he was so focused on helping Ryan get better. But it was barely six months from diagnosis to his death, and Ryan…” She grimaced, drank more wine. “He didn’t handle it well.”

  “I don’t imagine he did.”

  “He went into a major downward spiral,” Gisele said, not surprising me at all. “Fell off the wagon in a huge way.” She paused, blew out a big breath. “He overdosed on heroin. Alicia found him.”

  “Oh, God. Oh, no.” My eyes filled with tears of sorrow, tears of sympathy. Despite the number of times I’d wanted to kill my brother, I couldn’t imagine finding Scott’s dead body, how horrific that would be. How scarring. How traumatic. How life altering. “Poor Alicia.” A tear slipped down my cheek. I didn’t bother wiping it away.

  “Almost exactly a year after that, Alicia’s mother had a massive heart attack at work and died.”

  This time, no words came out of my mouth. I just sat there, mouth open in disbelief, throat clogged with sorrow. I shook my head very slowly.

  Gisele nodded. “I know,” she said, and we sat quietly for long moments.

  “So,” I finally said when I felt like I could talk without bursting into tears. “Alicia lost her entire family, all within a year of each other.”

  “All in May,” Gisele confirmed with a nod. “Her dad, then Ryan a couple weeks later, then her mother the following year.”

  “God, no wonder she hates this month.”

  “Right?”

  We sat quietly again before I finally asked, “Where is she?”

  Gisele shrugged. “She tends to go off the grid for a few weeks during early May. She’ll be back.”

  I turned to look at Gisele, held her gaze for a long beat before summoning the nerve to ask my question. “Do you know her address?”

  We continued looking at one another, and I could see the internal debate going on inside her. Finally, she gave one nod, pulled out her phone, and asked for my number. Then my phone beeped. “I texted it to you.”

  I pulled out my own phone and glanced at it. When I returned my gaze to Gisele, she was still looking at me. “Why?” I asked, startling myself with the question. “Why give it to me?”

  Gisele turned to her wine, turned the glass in her fingers for a moment before speaking. “Because, despite what Brandon said up there, you are special. Alicia cares about you, I can tell. And you obviously care about her. So…” She shrugged as if running out of words.

  “Thank you.” My voice was barely above a whisper.

  “You’re welcome. Just…tread lightly, okay? It’s only been two years since her mom died, and she’s still…raw.”

  “I promise.”

  We sat there, the two of us, side by side. Gisele had turned back around and now we each had our forearms on the bar, sitting like twins, lost in our own thoughts. My heart was crushed for Alicia. I couldn’t believe one person had to endure so much loss. No wonder she barely talked about her own life, instead keeping me occupied by asking endless questions about mine. It was a good strategy.

  At the same time, we each slid off our stools, knowing we needed to get back to our offices, at least for a little bit before the end of the day. It was Thursday afternoon and the crowd in the bar was growing, anticipation of Boomer’s famous Thursday happy hour wafting through the air. I paid the tab, waving Gisele off.

  “You did me a big favor today,” I told her. “And I’m grateful.” I signed the receipt and turned to her. “I’m going to go over there tonight. I’ll see if Mary can take Leo home with her.”

  “I’d offer to take that little love muffin, but…” Gisele nodded her thanks at the big man holding the door for us. “I have a date,” she whispered.

  “Wouldn’t be with a tall, handsome man who has the same last name as me, would it?” It felt good to lighten the mood even just for a minute.

  “It would.”

  I grinned at her. “I have so many things I want to say, but I’m not going to say anything except, enjoy yourself.” We hit the stairs to our office building. “And report back to me!”

  Gisele laughed, her eyes dancing, and a thought hit me: she was excited. She was looking forward to a date with my brother. I was really happy. For both of them. I made a mental note to check in at some point soon and see how it had gone.

  For now, though, I had other things on my mind…

  Chapter Sixteen

  Alicia’s town house complex was nice, newly built and modern. I remembered when it was still in the construction stages not more than a year or so ago. The buildings were all sided in either a pleasant slate blue or a beachy sandy beige, bright white trim on all the windows and balconies. Alicia was in number seventeen, and once I located it and parked, I saw it was an end unit.

  And then I sat in my car and stared at her white front door.

  I was parked right next to Alicia’s Beemer, so I was reasonably sure she was home. A pepperoni pizza sat on the seat next to me, because I assumed she probably wasn’t eating, given all the emotional turmoil I expected she was experiencing. Or wasn’t eating much. Of course, this was all utter conjecture on my part. For all I knew, she could’ve been having a party in there.

  “Only one way to find out,” I muttered into my empty car. I got out, went around and grabbed the pizza, then walked up the walk, slowly.

  At the door, I stood for a beat. Two. I focused on my breathing, did my best to calm my racing heart. Alicia might not even let me in. Despite Gisele’s assurance that Alicia did find me “special,” she could be mistaken. Right? She could be totally off base, and I could’ve been right in my assumption that Alicia was done with me.

  “Only one way to find out,” I muttered again, and pushed the doorbell.

  There was a peephole, so Alicia would open the door knowing it was me. I schooled my expression to be open and friendly, not too cheery and not too morose. It wasn’t easy.

  I was debating ringing the bell again when the door opened slowly and Alicia stood there looking tired and weary and very, very sad.

  “Hi,” I said softly.

  “Hey,” she replied and leaned her head against the edge of the door.

  “I thought maybe you could use some dinner.” I held up the pizza box and gave her sort of a half shrug.

  She stood aside and held out an arm, waving me in.

  I tried to hide my surprise and entered her house wordlessly.

  The foyer was narrow, and a small table stood sentry against the wall where a black-framed mirror hung above it. Alicia’s keys were there on its surface, but there were no knickknacks. Aside from the mirror, the walls were bare. A doorway to my right led into the kitchen, and I followed Alicia in so I could set the pizza down. The room was small but functional, all modern appliances in stainless steel, the cabinets a deep, beautiful mahogany, the countertops dark and speckled. I wasn’t sure if they were gran
ite or soapstone or what. All I knew was that they were not laminate and they were not cheap.

  Alicia pulled plates from an upper cabinet, saying nothing as she found a spatula and dished out a slice of pizza to each plate. I watched her, watched her eyes, her hands. Next, she retrieved a wineglass and filled it from the open bottle of Merlot on the counter. She handed it to me, took one of the plates, and walked through the second door in the kitchen that, I assumed, led to the living room. I picked up my plate and followed her.

  The town house gave off a weird vibe, and it was immediately obvious to me why. I mean, it was gorgeous. Super modern, lots of bells and whistles. The hardwood floors were beautiful and rich. The gas fireplace in the corner was inviting, even in spring. The enormous French doors that opened onto what seemed to be a significant backyard area were elegant. But the place felt…stark. Unlived in. I noticed a stack of boxes in a corner. There were built-in shelves on one wall, and aside from a good-sized flat screen TV, they were bare. There were no photographs, no collectibles, nothing that would tell me a single thing about the woman who lived here. The couch was gray with a couple of red throw pillows and a red afghan in a heap, making it obvious that somebody had taken up residence there recently. The TV was off and I wondered, sadly, if Alicia had simply been lying there, staring into space.

  She sat on the couch and set her plate on the coffee table next to a wineglass that was half empty. I took a seat next to her and we ate in silence, which was both weird and totally not. I sipped my wine, which was velvety on my tongue, and finished my pizza, then watched as Alicia ate the last bite of hers. I was grateful for that, at least…that she’d eaten. Her face was drawn and it seemed she’d lost weight since the last time I’d seen her, which didn’t seem possible but looked like it was fact.