by Gold, Alexis
He buried his face in his hands and let the stress that had bound him so tightly break away from him, and all the emotion he had pent up in him rushed out. Tears rolled down his face and he let quiet sobs erupt from him as the knowledge that Isabella was gone tortured him.
When he had collected himself, he determined he was going to have to do all that he could to find her. He left his office and headed to her house, but it was locked up and no one was there. He realized he was going to have to go the family restaurant and ask them about her.
***
Isabella left Michael’s office and headed straight for her house. She packed her suitcase in record time and called Marisol, asking her to come pick her up. Marisol was there right away and didn’t ask any questions either on the phone or when her sister climbed into the car with her suitcase.
“I need a ride to the airport, please,” Isabella said quietly.
Marisol pursed her lips. “Okay.”
There was silence for a few miles and then Isabella spoke. “I’m going to Papi and Nanna’s in Florida. You were right. I went to talk to Michael about the newspapers and I overheard him talking to Glenn and one of his campaign supporters. They were talking about how they had planned it all, how Glenn told him to get engaged to me so he could swing the Latin American vote to him, how they planned the wedding so soon because I was going to guarantee the Latin vote for Michael, how they planned the engagement and wedding as publicity stunts to get Michael into the news in a positive way before the election rather than as just a politician running for office. They wanted us to be a popular celebrity couple in the news so people would want to vote for him because of that.” She felt like her heart had broken in two, and saying the words out loud actually speaking them, seemed to give them more life, and it was one of the hardest things she had ever said.
Marisol shook her head and said softly, “I wish I hadn’t been right. Of all the times in my life that I have been wrong about things, I wanted this to be the biggest one. I’m so sorry, Isabella.”
Isabella closed her eyes for a moment to hold back the tears that threatened to fall again. “I’m sorry, too. I wanted you to be wrong. I wanted him to be the person I believed he was… the person I fell in love with.”
“How long are you going to stay with Papi and Nanna?” Marisol asked quietly.
Isabella covered her mouth with her hand for a moment and then closed her eyes. After a long minute, she opened her eyes back up.
“Until it doesn’t hurt any longer, until he isn’t the only thing on my mind. Until I can come back to Manhattan and people don’t look at me and bring him up, when I can be here and they will only think of me as an individual when they talk to me or see me.”
Marisol wiped tears off of her cheeks. “That’s going to be a long time. I’m going to miss you more than everything.” She spoke softly and wiped another tear.
“I’ll be in a good place where I can heal. It’ll just take a long time.” She wove her fingers together and clenched her hands tightly.
They drove in silence a while until they were almost at the airport.
“What do you want me to tell Mama and Papa?” Marisol asked.
“Tell them the truth.” Isabella sighed, leaning her head back against the seat. “Just don’t tell them where I went. I don’t want anyone to know where I am for a while.”
“Okay,” Marisol said softly.
They reached the airport and Isabella hugged her sister tightly, thanked her and took her bags to the ticket counter. She bought a one-way ticket to Florida and a few hours later, she was on a plane, leaving the north and all of her problems behind her.
When she landed in Miami later that evening, she ran into her grandparents' arms, and then they tucked her safely into their car and drove her to their sweet little house on the beach in the Florida Keys.
She was exhausted when they finally got to the house, and she was grateful that her grandparents hadn’t asked her anything other than whether or not she ate, and they were quick to give her food they had brought with them to the airport on the chance that she would probably arrive hungry.
Isabella slept deeply that night and woke up to a peach colored sunrise. She walked out to the beach in back of her grandparent’s house and spent the day under an umbrella, soaking in the relaxing, healing salt seawater and air.
She went into the kitchen later in the afternoon and helped her grandmother cook dinner. They were slicing, dicing and spicing when her grandmother brought up the reason behind her visit.
“M’hija, what is it that brought you here?” she asked, not looking at her granddaughter directly.
Isabella had known that it would probably be coming, and she took a deep breath and kept her answer short. “I just needed a break. Things in New York are so crazy right now. I needed to spend some time with my Nanna and Papi.” She wrapped her arm around her grandmother’s shoulder and kissed her cheek, then went back to the fish she was preparing on the counter.
Her grandmother looked sidelong at her. “Aren’t you supposed to be getting ready for a wedding? You don’t have time for a nice long visit with us if you are trying to plan for a wedding,” she said simply.
“Nanna,” Isabella said, taking another deep breath, “there isn’t going to be a wedding.”
Her grandmother looked up at her and raised one eyebrow. “Really? Why is that?”
“Because I don’t want to marry a man who doesn’t really love me,” Isabella answered her.
Her grandmother nodded and made a thoughtful humming noise. “What is it that makes you think that he doesn’t love you?”
Isabella finished the fish she was working on and reached for some fruit to make a dessert with. “I heard him talking to his campaign manager about the plan he had to marry me so that he could use my ethnicity to gain all the Latin American votes in the state. He said he’s been in on the plan since the very beginning. I can’t marry a man like that.”
“What if he really loves you?” her grandmother asked softly.
Isabella put the back of her hand up to her mouth to hold back her emotions and then took a deep breath. “I wish he did, Nanna, but he doesn’t. It was all about votes and not at all about me.”
“He was going to marry you, my darling, do you think that he would marry you if he didn’t love you at all?” she asked, reaching for her granddaughter and placing her hand on Isabella’s shoulder.
“I thought he loved me. I believed him when he told me that he did, but when I heard him talking, I knew that he was telling the truth, that more than any other reason, he was marrying me for the votes.” Isabella could not stop the few tears that escaped her eyelashes and traveled down her warm cheeks.
“Sometimes,” her grandmother said, “when we believe the worst about a situation, we can lose sight of what is really important, or even what is the most important. We can lose sight of the love that we should be looking at every situation with. All love is real, my dear, because love does not lie, love cannot lie. There is oftentimes too little love, and so the love that was once there may vanish and go away, but when we really care about people, then that isn’t a lie. Even if it was only a little love, it’s still real love. You had enough love in you that were willing to spend the rest of your life with that man. He had enough love for you that he was going to do the same. You felt love when you were with him, and that wasn’t a lie. That was real. I wonder how much of his plan was political and how much of it was real love. You have to look at all of it, preciosa, or you may lose the most important love you have ever known.”
She watched her grandmother and listened to her talking, realizing that the wise woman was speaking a truth she had never considered. Her grandmother sat her at the table while the food cooked and handed her some cool tea.
“Your Papi and I have not always had it so easy, but we had to treat each other with love. That’s why our marriage has worked and lasted so long. We always try to look at each other through the eyes of love. W
hat you had with that young man, that wasn’t hollow and it wasn’t nothing, or you would have felt it. You would have known it much sooner. There was something real there and that’s what you felt. That’s why you fell in love with him and why you wanted to stay with him, because you felt what was real, deep down. That’s why you hurt. It doesn’t hurt if it wasn’t real, and you can’t lose sight of what is real. Keep that close to your heart, my dear.”
Isabella was weeping silently by that point. Her grandmother was right; she knew she was right. She just didn’t know what to do with it. “I don’t know what good it will do now, but I will keep your wise words in my heart, Nanna. Thank you so much.” She reached over to her grandmother and hugged her tightly, thankful she had her in her life.
The words her grandmother had spoken stayed with her, and as she slept that night, she dreamed of him, and in the dream they were on a boat out at sea. The waves were small and calm, and light played lambent upon them, but then the waves grew large and the boat rocked wildly, water splashed and sprayed into the boat, and as the boat grew dangerously close to capsizing, and she and Michael were both crying out in terror, clinging to the sides of the boat, all she could hear was her grandmother’s voice strong and gentle in the wild waves and wind, saying, ‘Hold tight to each other, not to the boat, or you’ll never make it’.
She cried out louder, telling her grandmother she couldn’t let go of the boat or she would surely drown, but her grandmother persisted with kindness and gentleness, saying to her, ‘If you do not hold to each other, you will not survive. The boat will not save you’. She struggled in her dream, trying to determine whether she should hold on to the boat or let go and grab on to Michael. Michael was looking at her with wide open eyes, waiting, and then he reached out one hand, and she panicked, knowing she had to make a choice, she shook her head no and he reached his hand out further to her, and finally she took his hand and closed her eyes tight.
Before she knew it, the waves subsided and she found that the boat had stilled and they were in calm water and warm sunlight. They were holding fast to one another, and neither of them was touching the boat. She marveled at the miracle and cried out again in thanks to her grandmother, and then she woke up and it was another new day.
***
Michael had gone everywhere looking for her except the restaurant, and he knew deep in his heart the entire time it was the only place he would find her. He opened the door with hesitation, took a deep breath and walked in, heading for the desk. Selena was standing there, and when she looked up and saw him, her face saddened in profound disappointment.
She caught his gaze and spoke first. “Hello, Michael. What can I do for you?”
He was surprised that she would ask if she could do anything for him. “I’m looking for Isabella,” he said humbly, pushing his hands into his pockets. “We have a lot to talk about.”
Selena only nodded at him. “She’s not here,” she said with a pout.
“Selena, I really need to talk with her. I have to fix this. Please, would you let her know I’m out here?” he pleaded.
Selena bit her lip and looked over her shoulder, then looked back at him. “Hang on. I’ll be right back.” She disappeared into the back of the restaurant. A long while later, she reemerged with Marisol. When Michael saw Marisol walking toward him, he was sure that his stomach had dropped out of his body right through the floor and a wave of nausea hit him. His palms grew damp and his heart raced madly as she strode toward him with purpose. Her eyes were intense and she spoke with a low voice when she reached him.
“You.” She jabbed her finger at his chest. “You come with me.” Then she turned and headed into a secluded dining room with him. The room was closed off except for banquet use, so it was cavernous and dark, save for the few lights along the wall that offered a dim glow. She flicked a switch and the lights over the door came on. She pulled a chair over for him and pointed at it.
“Sit,” she said firmly. He felt suddenly as though he was in an interrogation, sitting by himself on the one chair underneath the direct lighting. She pulled a chair up near him and sat in it but he felt no less comfortable.
“You’re lucky I didn’t kick you out of this restaurant on sight. Not that I need to ask this, but what do you think you’re doing here?” Her eyes were unblinking and they made his heart shudder with trepidation.
He took a deep breath. “I came to find Isabella. I have to talk to her. I have to tell her what is really going on.”
Marisol gazed at him for a long minute, and then said, “Tell me what’s going on.”
He felt like he wouldn’t get very far with a woman who had never liked him to begin with, but he also had the distinct impression that he wasn’t going to get to Isabella without going through Marisol first. He realized what a Herculean task he was really facing and it was daunting to him, but he knew he had to try.
“Well, the newspapers had it wrong. My ex-fiancée Kelsey leaked a story to them to break Isabella and I up and she only had part of the truth, not all of it. I want to make sure that Isabella knows the truth before she decides to leave me. She has to know all the facts.” He spoke with genuine honesty, and he hoped it was enough to show through for Marisol.
She studied him with piercing eyes and was as still as a statue while she regarded him. “What is the truth?” she asked him.
He took another deep breath. “The truth is, that it was a plot at the beginning. It was a plan designed by Glenn Todd who was my campaign manager. He had become aware that I was dating Isabella, which I was doing because I liked her, and he ran all the numbers and discovered if we could sway the Latin American vote, I would win the election, so he told me I had to ask her to marry me and I had to have the wedding before the election. We had to have a big splash of an engagement, which we did, and we had to have the wedding within six weeks of the engagement so that it would stay in all of the newspapers and media long enough to keep everyone interested in what we were doing. He wanted us to be the popular celebrity couple that everyone fell in love with, have the fairytale wedding, and then be voted into office by all of our voters, or I guess, they would be fans at that point.”
Marisol glared at him through narrowed eyes and he felt his soul shrivel under her gaze. He continued.
“I agreed to it, and it’s something that didn’t feel right when I agreed to it, but then it felt worse later because I fell in love with her for real, and the more time we spent together, the more she helped me, loved me, and drew me into her life and into the family here, the more I loved her and wanted to be with her, for real, for the rest of my life.
“When I proposed to her it was for business, and that’s the truth, but since then, she has come to mean more to me than any other person in my life, and I cannot live without her. I was so lucky to have her and I knew it. I was lucky to have all of you. I have grown to love your whole family, Marisol, and I don’t want to be without her or any of you, no matter what happens with the campaign. I realized how much she meant to me and all I could do was thank my lucky stars that we were already engaged and that she was going to be my wife.”
Marisol’s expression was unchanged. He kept going.
“Then something really stupid happened, which is what always happens anytime there’s a lie involved. Kelsey decided she wanted me back more than she wanted me to win the election or be happily married to the woman of my dreams. She tried to talk to Glenn about being with me and Glenn told her absolutely not, he told her to stay away from me. That wasn’t good enough for her, so she went back to see him again, and that time, she seduced him and slept with him. He wanted her and she knew it. She made him tell her what was going on with me and found out about the marriage plan and she was willing to screw him for it. He spilled his guts and told her everything. She ran to the newspapers and told them the whole story except the part about how she got the information, of course, and then she made a point of going to see you two and she told Isabella. Mission accomplished, except
she ruined all of our lives in the process.”
Marisol smiled slightly at the corner of her mouth. “I punched her,” she said quietly.
Michael couldn’t help the grin that spread over his face. “I heard about that. Actually, there are photos of it all over social media. You’re a big star now in Manhattan. Everyone loves you. The thing is though, Isabella believed her and she believed Glenn, and now she’s gone.”
Marisol narrowed her eyes at him again. “She heard you saying that you had agreed to it, Michael, she heard you admitting to the whole plan!”
He shook his head. “She couldn’t have heard everything I said, then, because I admitted to it and then I found out Glenn had slept with Kelsey and I fired him on the spot. He left the office right then. Glenn said he didn’t see her there. Did she see Glenn?”
Marisol frowned and shook her head. “No, she didn’t see him.”
“Well, he was fired right then, and he left my office. I was talking to my biggest campaign supporter as well, and I told him how much I love Isabella and that I was going to make sure she didn’t believe that it was all true. I told him the truth, which is that it was a plan in the beginning, but then it was real, and that’s what it is right now. That’s what it will always be, real, true love.” He leaned forward and looked into Marisol’s eyes with desperation. “I love her, Marisol, and I can’t be without her. I’ll do whatever it takes to make her realize that. I have to have her. Please, help me Marisol. Tell me where she is, tell me how I can make it right with her, and I swear to you, I will love her with all of my heart for the rest of my life.”