by Kyra Davis
“Wait!” I say, stopping him. A few of the other patrons look up, startled by the urgency in my voice. I sink a little lower in my chair. “Tell me,” I say, softer this time, “how’s June?”
“She’s wonderful.” I can hear the smile in his voice. “She’s already getting excited about middle school next year.”
“Middle school?” I exclaim. “How the hell did she get old enough to be in middle school next year?”
Brad chuckles. “Beats me. I tell you, this aging business is pretty disconcerting.”
I laugh, run my finger around the edge of my cup. “I guess we all have to do it. Is she happy? Does she like school?”
“Yes and yes,” he replies.
Okay, so she’s already way ahead of where I was at her age. “Is . . . is she still close with her mom?” Do I want to hear the answer to this?
There’s a long pause on the other end of the line, and then Brad says, “Nalla isn’t really in the picture anymore. She has a job in Massachusetts, but . . . she’s just not cut out to be a mom.”
“Oh?” I say, trying to sound surprised.
Again Brad chuckles. “It’s okay, you can say I told you so. For well over a year I tried to find a way to save Nalla from herself, just as you predicted . . . And then at a certain point I couldn’t ignore your words of wisdom anymore, not when I was seeing so much evidence that you were right. I finally wised up.”
I don’t say anything. I really shouldn’t even be on this call.
“The whole white knight thing, it blinded me to a lot. I made some huge mistakes and, I’m just lucky I figured it out before I ended up doing serious damage to my daughter. Mercy, I don’t think I would have figured it out if you hadn’t said the things that you said. When I finally stopped . . . well, I suppose the right word is enabling. When I stopped enabling Nalla, it was because I couldn’t stop thinking about your warnings. You saved me. Again.”
“Brad . . . I . . .” I take a moment to swallow those emotions that are threatening to overflow. “. . . I really have to go.”
“Okay,” he says quietly. “I just wanted to say that and . . . to say happy birthday. It really is wonderful to see you doing so well. You really are doing well, right?”
“Yeah, I actually got myself together,” I say with a little laugh. “I don’t even drink anymore. I don’t drink in Belgium, a place where drinking the local beer is a point of national pride. And I . . . I like myself. I usually like myself a lot, actually,” I say with another laugh. “I’m okay.”
“I . . . I can’t tell you how much it means to me to hear you say that. You deserve so much. Before, I don’t think you ever realized how truly extraordinary you are.”
“Like no one you’ve ever met,” I say softly, remembering his oft-repeated phrase.
“Yeah,” he agrees. “Like no one I’ve ever met.”
This is going to kill me. “I—I really have to go,” I say for the umpteenth time. “It was so good to talk to you, Brad. I’m, I’m just so happy to hear things are going well.”
“Ditto, Mercy.”
“Okay, okay, um.” I squeeze my eyes closed. “Okay, good-bye Brad. Take care of yourself.”
“Good-bye, Mercy.”
I hang up quickly before he can add anything else. The café is still buzzing around me, and for a moment I think I’m going to cry . . . but then my BlackBerry rings again.
“Hello?” I squeak.
“Listen,” Brad says quickly, “I promise this will be the last call. I’m not going to force this, not if you’re really happy with the life you have there with . . . with him. But you contacted me and now I’m talking to you—I’m finally talking to you—and I have to use this opportunity to tell you something.”
The other patrons are drinking espresso, nibbling on pastries, hanging out, laughing, debating; it’s all so very normal, and yet here I am in the middle of it having the most extraordinary moment of my life. “What do you need to tell me?” I ask.
“I’m still in love with you. More than that, you’re the love of my life.”
“Brad,” I whisper. I lean forward and put my forehead against the table in front of me. Now I can sense other patrons looking over here, but it’s okay, they’ll just chalk it up to another American eccentricity. “It’s been six years.”
“Exactly,” he agrees. “Six years since I first fell in love with you, and so now I get it. I get the purity and the permanence of the love I have for you. This isn’t about infatuation or lust. It isn’t just a lingering crush from my younger days.”
So I am crying now. I don’t know what to say, what to do!
“Do you think about me, Mercy?”
Don’t answer, don’t answer . . . “Yes.”
“I think about you every day and I dream about you almost every night. You’ve been haunting me for six damn years and now I have you on the phone and I—I have to at least tell you. You have to know that.” He pauses and then adds, “Do you remember that night when we had dinner, you, me, and June? And I jumped up and rattled off that Buzz Lightyear line?”
“To infinity and beyond,” I say meekly.
“Yes, to infinity and beyond.” Once again I can hear the smile. “And you stood up and you wrapped your arms around my neck and you whispered, I love you.”
I close my eyes. “Yes, I remember that.”
“What those words did to me, the sincerity of them . . .” Brad pauses, then adds, “I don’t know how you feel about me now, but I know you loved me once.”
“Yes,” I say. I still do. “It was a great evening until—”
“Until I let Nalla screw it up. I know, and I want to say this again, you were right about her. And you were right about how I used to try to save everyone regardless of whether or not they wanted saving. And . . . and you were right to leave. I know that. I see what you’ve done with your life and I . . . I know you’re in a good place now. I can see it in your smile. God, the photos of you . . . I just can’t stop looking at them! And I know you’re okay and I know you needed space to become okay. And I know I needed to get my shit together, too.”
“Well, not as much as I did,” I say with a little laugh, “but yeah, you kinda did.”
“I know,” he says warmly. “My mistake is that . . . I gave you too much time. I know now is probably too late. I know that . . . six years, it’s ridiculous. But I want you to know that all that time . . . it didn’t change things for me. I want you to know that, Mercy.”
“Why?” I sob, almost pleading. “Why do you want me to know that?”
“Because I can’t handle keeping it to myself anymore,” he says simply. “I can’t handle the burden of my silence, not now that I’m talking to you. I’m selfish that way. But you know that.”
“Oh my God,” I say, laughing, “you and your declarations of selfishness. You are the least selfish person I’ve ever met in my life. You’re unselfish to a fault.”
“I’m selfish in that I don’t want to give up on you, even if you’re happy with the life you have with this other man,” he says solemnly. “I’m selfish because if I knew there was a way for me to just win you away from him, I’d do it, damn the consequences. But I don’t know if there’s a way. You know. And . . . if you’re happy with him, Mercy, then . . . I’ll really try to be happy for you. I’ll try hard. But I’m not going to stop loving you or wanting you. That’s simply not something I’m capable of.”
The tears are streaming down my face. The other patrons are now looking legitimately alarmed. “I gotta go.”
“I love you, Mercy.”
Don’t say it, don’t say it, don’t say it . . . “I love you, too.”
And I hang up.
CHAPTER 40
WHEN LOGAN GETS home, I have lamb loin chops with rosemary warm and ready to serve. I’m trying to shake off the afternoon, although . . . how do I do that?
And poor Logan, he’s spent the day coaxing bigwigs to invest in his documentary. He looks exhausted and a little
lost. I rush to take his coat and give him a gentle kiss before leading him into the dining room. I’ve used about a bottle of Visine to get the red out from all my crying. “Long day?” I ask in French with the most upbeat tone I can manage.
“Complicated,” he replies with a sigh. “A complicated and confusing day.” His head turns toward the kitchen. “You do not have to make dinner every night. But . . . it does smell fantastic.”
“I spent years, years at Trader Joe’s learning all these recipes. The very least you can do is let me put them into practice,” I tease as I go into the kitchen to arrange the food pleasingly on the plates. I take the opportunity to do a few deep-breathing exercises. A deep breath, and then another, and then I plaster on a smile, grab our dinner plates, managing to also carry a beer for him and a Perrier for me, and reenter the dining room. “So tell me,” I say as I take my seat and give him his meal, “what made it so crazy?”
He hesitates, tapping his fork against the lamb chop as if to test the solidity of it. “I think I have an investor. A big one.”
I put down my Perrier before I can even get it to my mouth. “How big?”
He’s still staring down at his plate, contemplating. When he finally answers he says, “He will invest three million.”
“Logan!” I squeal and start to jump up from my chair ready to throw my arms around him in celebration. But he stops me with a look.
“He wants me to expand the project,” he continues. “He wants to take it beyond Belgium. He thinks it would be better if I look at how Belgium is handling its influx of immigrants compared to how Germany is handling it and the UK, France, or Sweden. It will be a much bigger project.”
“Is . . . that something you want to do?” I ask warily as I settle back into my seat.
“It’s not a bad idea,” he muses. “Follow a few different immigrant families, look at their experiences in their respective new home countries. Look at the issues. Maybe it is not a single documentary after all. Maybe it is a BBC miniseries or, I don’t know, something for France Télévisions. It is something to think of . . .” His voice trails off and he takes a long sip of his beer, his food still untouched. “We should switch to your language,” he says, switching to English.
“Okay.” This is not a good sign.
“There would be a lot of travel,” he continues. “We would be apart much more.”
“Logan, if this is an opportunity you want, you have to take it. I—”
“We will not survive it,” he says simply. “If we spend more time apart than we do now, what we have together will end. Our . . .” He takes a moment as he searches for the right English word. “Our bond is . . . fraying. I am using the right words, yes?”
I press my fingertips into the solid wood of the table. “Yes,” I whisper. “Those are the right words.”
“Where is your home, Mercy?” he asks, looking up at me, and for the first time I see his eyes are red, too. “Where does your heart live? Not here, not since your birthday. Is it still with him? The one who showed you magic at a tar pit? The one who gave you the earrings?”
I look away, my lips pressed tightly together. “Logan,” I eventually say, “what you and I have . . . it’s beautiful.”
“It is,” he agrees in a whisper.
“It’s the healthiest relationship I’ve ever been in,” I continue, talking a little faster now. “I don’t want to just walk away from that!”
“But you are thinking of walking away,” he says quietly. “No?”
I shake my head even though both of us know the gesture is a lie. “I learn from you!” I say desperately. “I’ve learned what it is to be supportive without . . . oh, I don’t know . . . without needing to be enabling.”
“Enabling,” he repeats, clearly not grasping my meaning.
“You don’t take drugs,” I say plainly with a little smile. “You’re not self-destructive or self-sacrificing to a fault. With you I’ve learned how I can be part of a two and still be a one. Does that make sense?”
“Yes.” He puts his beer down without letting it out of his hand.
“What we have . . . it’s good!” I choke out, my voice finally breaking. “And you’re . . . you’re good to me and I . . . I want so badly to be good to you.” I abruptly get to my feet and turn toward the wall as I wrap my arms around myself. “I’m so sorry. God I’m such a bitch. I’m so, so sorry.”
After a moment I hear him get up from his seat, and then he places a hand on each of my arms. “So you are honest,” he says softly. “Or as honest as anyone can ever be with a lover.” But then he releases me, steps back. “But I wish you would answer my question. Because . . .” He grows silent for a moment before saying, “Because I believe I have lost your heart. Even if I stay, you will leave.”
I close my eyes. I’ve walked away from a lot of things before, but never from something this comfortable. Logan isn’t just my lover. He’s my friend.
And as a friend he deserves to know the truth. I take a deep, shaky breath and force myself to face him. “You mean so much to me. I love what we have, but . . .” I look away. I can’t say this.
His smile quivers slightly as he continues to hold my gaze. “But even though I used to be right for you, that is not true anymore, is it?”
The end of that last sentence was not just a reflection of his native tongue. I hear the note of hope that lingers around the question mark. Faint, vulnerable hope. He wants me to tell him he’s wrong. He wants me to tell him we’re still meant to be together.
And I can’t do it.
“No,” I whisper, “it isn’t. And I . . . I want to change that. Maybe I can try to change that.”
“Ah,” he says with a heavy sigh, and I can see now that he’s swallowing tears. Again that horrible silence as he averts his eyes, takes a small step back. I can’t breathe in this silence. I can’t move. “It won’t work,” he says quietly. “You can’t change it. I wish to God you could, but no.” He squeezes his eyes closed for a moment. “It won’t work.”
“We’re going to end it? Just like that?” I ask through tears. “Years thrown away because I had one conversation with a man I haven’t been with in over half a decade?”
“You spoke to him?” he asks dully, and I look away. “You are honest,” he says, almost more to himself than to me. Then he looks up with a weak attempt at a smile. “I have known this was coming. I hoped it would not, but . . .” He scratches at his cheek, hiding a tear. “I knew. Maybe some flowers are only meant to last a season.” He steps forward, pulls me to him again, and gives me a long, lingering kiss. “Good-bye, Mercy Raye.”
It’s our last kiss.
Some flowers are only meant to last a season.
CHAPTER 41
WITHIN DAYS I’VE moved my stuff into my girlfriend’s garage on the other side of Brussels. But I don’t call Brad. I have to give myself time to grieve this most recent loss. I may never have felt as strongly about Logan as I’ve felt about Brad, but . . . that doesn’t mean that he wasn’t important to me. And now I have another decision to make. I need to decide if I’m going to stay in Belgium, where I’ve begun to build a career for myself, or if I’m going to leave my band, my new home, and . . . and what? Go back to where I was six years ago?
And so I call that producer again. He still wants to work with me. He is even willing to pay for a flight to LA. It’s a big deal. When I talk to my band, most of them are pissed that I’m even considering it . . . everyone except for Rubén, my Spanish guitarist. He graciously takes me aside after everyone is done chewing me out.
“Is it just the producer?” he asks.
I stare sullenly at the ground in lieu of answering.
“I know you moved out of Logan’s . . .” he begins.
“I’m in love,” I snap, my nerves now totally fried. “I’m in love with a man in San Francisco. And I don’t know if we have a snowball’s chance in hell. It’s been over half a decade since I’ve seen the guy, but I love him. So, you know, th
ere it is.” I wipe angrily at a tear. “I don’t want to disappoint everyone—”
“Fuck everyone,” he says. “If you are in love you have to go.”
“You and your Latin-lover sensibilities,” I grumble, but I do it with a smile. “Everyone here is right. Things are going well. Giving it all up just when we’re beginning to build a real name for ourselves . . .”
“You write the songs!” Rubén points out. “You lead us. When they write about us, they only write about you. And there’s a reason why everyone wants a Latin lover,” he says. “It’s not just that we are the best in bed, it’s that we know about the ways of the heart. You love him, you go.”
I look up into his eyes. “Really?” I ask. “The best?”
He smirks and puts his hand on my shoulder. “Sadly, you’ll never know. You’re in love with an American.”
THE NEXT DAY I quit the band, and a week later I’m flying off to Los Angeles to meet with the producer.
And I still haven’t called Brad. The truth is, I’m scared. Not scared in the same way I was when I was a twenty-two-year-old girl. I don’t worry that I’m going to hurt myself if I end up disappointed. But that doesn’t mean this fear is easily dismissed. I don’t care how stable you think you are, when the heart is involved, the fear of rejection is always overwhelming and intense. But perhaps being distracted by matters of the heart is exactly what I need to keep myself from being too freaked out about this matter of my career. I mean, what am I thinking? I was getting good-paying gigs, and now I decide to start from scratch again? Really?
But . . . but my heart isn’t in Belgium. And Logan’s right, I can’t change that.
And when I do meet with the producer, well, we just gel. It’s the first time in forever that I’ve talked to someone who understands my style, but has suggestions that can improve my work without taking me in a totally different direction. I’ve never been a solo act before. But . . . maybe at age twenty-nine I need to be trying new things. If I’m going to change things, maybe I change everything.