First Loves: A Loveswept Contemporary Romance

by Stone, Jean

  “At least you haven’t totally lost your mind.”

  “No. I feel more in control than I have in years.”

  “So why bother to see Eric at all? Get your skinny little ass back to Minneapolis and get yourself home. Today. Get out of there before you change your mind again.”

  “You think seeing him will make me change my mind?”

  “Honey, he had you over a barrel once, he can do it again. Men, they got a way of doing that. It’s chemistry or something. But you gotta remember, he treated you no better than Luis did me. Oh, sure, Eric didn’t beat you with his fists, but he did it to your heart. If you never take another piece of advice from me, take this one. Get yourself home. Now.”

  Zoe picked up the coffee cup again and noticed thick sludge in the bottom. She set it back on the stand. “I can’t, Marisol. I’ve come this far, I’m not going to run away from my feelings any more.”

  “It ain’t running from your feelings, honey. It’s running from what’s over and done with. And there’s nothing wrong with that.”

  “No. I’ve got to do this. All these years I’ve spent hiding from the world. I was scared. I thought I was scared for people to see me after the stroke. But now I realize I was just scared, period. I didn’t want to hurt anymore. Shutting myself off from the world was the only way I could avoid the pain of living.”

  An image came into her mind. In it she sat alone in her room, tearing into a bag of potato chips, biting the cellophane off a package of Twinkies, stuffing the salty, fat calories into her mouth with rhythmic precision: four chips, one bite of Twinkie. Again and again. Salt then sweet. It hadn’t mattered that her body already bulged with fat.

  She closed her eyes now. “There’s something else, Marisol. I think it’s all part of why I let myself gain so much weight. The fat gave me an added layer of protection. Because if I wasn’t beautiful, no one would bother with me. No one would love me, so no one would hurt me.”

  She opened her eyes. Tears fell from them.

  “I’ve stopped running, Marisol. Right here, where it all started. I’m going to face Eric, and I’m going to get rid of my ghosts once and for all. I’m doing this for me. Too many years I spent secretly wanting to kill him. Now I’m going to face him, and I’m going to thank him.”

  Marisol was silent a moment, then said, “Honey, I had no idea you had so much pain.”

  Zoe wiped her tears and laughed. “You know something? Neither did I. And it’s amazing how much better I feel now that I do.”

  “You gonna be okay?”

  “Yup. I may even try to catch a late flight back to L.A. tonight. I don’t think I can stand another night in this fleabag motel. I was right about one thing all along: I don’t belong here. I never did. I belong in a place with clean sheets and houses that aren’t dumps, and around people who have better things to talk about than the weather and who-said-what-to-whom.”

  “That sounds like my star talking.”

  “I don’t know if I’ll ever be a star again, Marisol. But one thing I do know—I’m never going to pump my own gas again.”

  “What?”

  “Never mind. I’ll call you later tonight.”

  The luncheonette in Chisholm didn’t appear to have a name. An orange neon sign stood atop the roof of the shiny railroad-car structure and proclaimed “Lunch.” It was already eleven forty-five: there were several cars in the parking lot, and even more pickups. A popular place, Zoe thought. A local hot spot.

  She parked the car and checked her wig in the rearview mirror, praying that no one would recognize her. No one but Eric. And not Eric—not until she was ready.

  She took a deep breath and got out of the car, wondering why her knees were trembling, wishing she could kick off her shoes so she could feel the pavement beneath her feet and be assured of her footing.

  The stroke is long behind you, she reminded herself. Your foot is fine, your leg is fine, and he’ll never notice the droop of your lip. Still, she grasped the wrought-iron railing tightly and mounted the concrete steps with trepidation, and a thudding sensation that warned her that her heart was about to fly out of her chest.

  Inside, the place sparkled. It smelled of cinnamon rolls and freshly baked bread. Cozy wooden booths lined one wall; across from them was a long, gleaming chrome-edged counter with soft padded stools. There were several customers, mostly men, talking loudly.

  Behind the counter stood a young girl dressed in a pink uniform. She leaned against the wall, her arms folded across her middle. She was smiling, listening to the banter of the customers, bobbing her head up and down to the beat of a country song playing on the radio. Zoe wondered as she made her way to an empty stool if this was the convenience-store clerk’s sister.

  The girl stepped toward Zoe. “Coffee?” she asked. She was pretty and pleasant. Still, Zoe felt sorry for her, for she was most likely doomed to life in a small northern Minnesota town.

  “Yes. Please.”

  The girl poured from a glass carafe and set a white mug in front of Zoe. “Anything to eat?”

  “Yes,” Zoe said. She wasn’t hungry, but she felt obligated to order something. That is, after all, what one does in a restaurant at lunchtime, when one isn’t spying on people, looking for a long-lost lover. “Do you have turkey sandwiches?”

  The girl nodded. “Whole wheat or white?”

  “Whole wheat, please.”

  The girl turned and spoke into a small opening in the wall behind her. Zoe looked around. She wondered if Eric was behind the wall, in the kitchen. She wondered if the others in the restaurant could hear her heart pounding.

  The girl returned. “Fresh whole wheat this morning,” she said, smiling.

  “Great,” Zoe said. She realized the girl hadn’t asked what she wanted on her sandwich. But, then, this wasn’t exactly the spa, and custom orders probably weren’t encouraged.

  Another pink-uniformed woman appeared from the back. She was older than the other girl, and blond. A leftover Nordic, no doubt. Maybe even someone Zoe would know. She studied her closely, then decided the woman was much younger than she was. Maybe as young as thirty. She wondered how it had happened that she’d turned forty yet still envisioned herself to be young.

  The woman did something at the cash register, then headed for the back room. On her way she shouted, “Eric? Hey, honey, where are this morning’s receipts?”

  Zoe nearly dropped her coffee mug. So he was here. He was in the back. Honey. She’d called him honey. Was that Eric’s wife? Her stomach knotted just as the young girl set a plate in front of her.

  Zoe remembered the first time Eric had called her “Honey.” They had been holding hands, walking along the path that encircled the lake behind her parent’s house. He bent to pick two wildflowers. The blossoms were purple and white and shaped like tiny stars. “When we get to Hollywood, honey,” he said, “we’re going to be like these flowers. We’re going to be stars.” The flowers were lovely, the thought so filled with hope, and yet, at the time, what mattered most to Zoe was that Eric had called her honey. Honey. It was what her father called her mother; what her mother called her father. It was what people who belonged together called each other. And it was the first time Zoe felt that Eric truly, deeply, forever-and-ever, really loved her.

  She stared down now at the thick turkey sandwich on fresh whole-wheat bread. Creamy-white mayonnaise oozed from the sides. Beside it a mound of potato chips was heaped, next to that a huge wedge of dill pickle. A hearty meal in a lumberjack town, where “hope” didn’t mean that all dreams came true, and where calling someone “honey” wasn’t always for keeps.

  “Anything else?” the girl asked her. “We’ve got some great pies today. Coconut custard …”

  “No. No.” Zoe clutched her hand to her stomach. The air seemed to have been sucked from the room, the way it had been … the way it had been the night she’d come home and discovered that Eric was gone. She stared at her plate. It reminded her of the school cafeteria—the s
ame basic food on the same basic plate, day after day, year after year, never changing, never ending, like life in a small town. Predictability. She struggled to think of L.A., of the new life that awaited her, with all its ups and downs, and all its unknowns. She focused on Scott, on the growing and changing he had done and had yet to do. She thought of the opportunities that lay ahead for them both, of the risks, of the challenges, of the excitement of something beyond the mundane. And suddenly Zoe knew she could no longer pretend that seeing Eric was going to fix her problems or mend her life. Marisol was right. Eric was over and done with.

  “Excuse me,” she called to the waitress. “I’m running a little late. Could you wrap this up for me? I’ll take it to go.” She had no intention of eating it, not now, not ever. Not unless she wanted to regain twenty-two pounds in a hurry.

  The girl smiled and snatched a foil container from beneath the counter. She plucked the sandwich off Zoe’s plate, dropped it into the container, then snapped on a lid and added up the check. “Pay at the register,” she said.

  Zoe fished in her purse for some change. She set it next to the plate. It could have been quarters or dimes or nickels for all she knew. The hell with waste. She only knew she no longer wanted to see Eric, and that she needed to get out of there before she was recognized.

  She took the sandwich and slid off the stool. She walked to the cash register, hoping the woman—Eric’s woman—would come out quickly and take her money.

  The door to the back room opened. A man stepped through it and walked toward the register. He was tall. She’d forgotten how tall Eric was. A memory flashed: Zoe was at a cocktail party soon after Eric had left her. A man had brushed past her—a man as tall as Eric. For one brief second her heart had stopped. She’d felt the comfort, the familiarity, of Eric’s physical presence. Then she realized it wasn’t him. And pain had ripped through her.

  Yes, Eric was tall. And he was still blond. He was not fat. He wasn’t bald. And he didn’t appear to have suffered a stroke. In his crisp white apron, he looked wonderful. Fuller, more mature, but wonderful.

  “Eric.” His name fell from her mouth too late for her to catch it, swallow it, and walk away.

  He walked closer. He stopped. He stared. “God,” he said. “What are you doing here?”

  Zoe laughed, a shrill, nervous laugh. “You recognized me.”

  He ran a hand through his hair. She couldn’t tell if it was out of frustration or if he was trying to smooth it down, trying to look the best he could. He’d always been handsome, and he’d always been vain. Then she saw a hint of a smile tug the corners of his mouth. He’s glad to see me, Zoe thought quickly; then, just as quickly, the smile vanished. Thin, wavy frown lines appeared on his brow.

  “I can’t believe you’re here,” he said, his voice so low she wasn’t sure if he was pleased or merely perplexed. He smiled again. “God,” was all he said.

  Zoe’s heart stopped pounding. In fact, it seemed to have stopped beating altogether. He was smiling at her. The way he’d smiled when he’d picked those wildflowers, the way he’d smiled as he stood in the wings at her first screen test. The years melted into nothingness, all with one smile.

  From behind the counter came the clang of a dish clattering to the floor. Eric looked away from Zoe, then back again. She blinked. Remember why you’re here, she said to herself. Remember, remember. You’re going to thank him. You’re going to thank him for having spared you a life in a go-nowhere town at a diner called Lunch.

  “I guess you wouldn’t believe me if I said I was just in the neighborhood,” she finally said.

  “No.” His smile, she noticed, was gone again.

  She put her check and three dollars on the cash register. “I came to see you, Eric. I wanted to know how you are.”

  He stood on one foot, then the other. A heavyset man in a plaid flannel shirt walked up behind Zoe.

  “Take this, will ya, Eric? Gotta get back to work.”

  “Sure, Jake,” Eric said as he reached around Zoe and took a five-dollar bill from the man. He studied the check, then rang something into the register. Zoe stepped aside so Eric could hand the man change. Eric looked at her again. “Maybe we should talk out back. I’ll have Marilyn take care of the orders.”

  “Marilyn?” Zoe asked, even though she was sure of the answer, even though she felt a stab of jealousy she couldn’t quite explain.

  “My wife,” Eric confirmed.

  The next few moments passed in a blur. Before she knew it, Zoe was standing outside at the back of the diner, next to a newly polished four-wheel vehicle. It must be Eric’s, she thought. A material show of pride in his apparent success in a small-town sort of way.

  “So what are you really doing here?” he asked, one hand on his hip, one on the vehicle, and a tone in his voice that sounded—what was it—defensive?

  “I told you. I came to see you.”

  He tapped his finger against the fender. He looked at the ground. “About what?”

  She didn’t know how to answer. “About nothing special, I guess. Just to see you.”

  “Well, now you have.” He looked off in the distance, then quickly glanced at Zoe. He blinked and looked away.

  Zoe reached out and brushed his arm. “It’s been so many years,” she said.

  “Yeah,” he said, staring back at the ground. “A few hundred.” His tone was no longer defensive. It was quieter, slower.

  “You’re married,” Zoe said.

  “Yeah.” He raised his eyebrows, still looking off toward nothing, it seemed, in particular. “Are you?”

  She shook her head. “I was married. My husband died.”

  Eric spoke quietly. “It was William, wasn’t it?”

  “Yes.”

  He didn’t respond.

  Her next question was hard to ask, but she wanted to know. She needed to know. “Do you have children?”

  “Yeah. Three.”

  A small lump swelled in her throat. “That’s nice.”

  He attempted another glance at her. “You?”

  “One. A boy.”

  “I’m surprised. I always wanted kids. I never thought you did.”

  Why had he ever thought that? Hadn’t they talked about having a family one day? Hadn’t they talked about buying a big house by the sea with lots of room for their kids and their kids’ kids? They had talked about it. She knew that they had. She remembered sitting on the beach, their thin bedspread beneath them, talking between bites of bologna-and-cheese sandwiches, kissing between sips of cheap wine. They had talked about it. But it was, of course, before her stardom. It was, of course, before he no longer loved her.

  “How old is he?” Eric interrupted her thoughts. “How old is your boy?”

  Zoe paused. “Fourteen,” she answered vaguely.

  Eric didn’t respond. He shifted on one foot again.

  Zoe tried to clear her head, to bring herself back to the present, back to reality. “Your wife seems nice,” she said.

  Eric nodded.

  “And your parents. They’re still living in Hibbing?”

  He folded his arms across his chest. “Why are you here, Zoe? Is the media doing some story on ‘Zoe’s past’?”

  “Eric, please. I haven’t acted in years.” She had no intention of mentioning her recent screen test. She had no intention of mentioning her work, the saber that had severed their love. “The media couldn’t care less about me.” Now it was Zoe’s turn to stare at the ground. “I’ve thought about you a lot over the years.”

  He turned his back to her. “What are you doing here, Zoe? Why did you come? To gloat? Well, look around.” He waved his arms at the diner. “This is what became of Eric Matthews. This is what became of Eric Matthews when Zoe Naddlemeyer got to be too good for him.”

  “I think it’s a nice restaurant, Eric.” She moved in front of him and looked into his face. It was red. Tears coated his eyes. “It reminds me of the diner over in Hibbing. The one we always went to.…” Her words
trailed off. There was no need to remind him of Charlie’s Place, where they’d shared burgers and fries and cherry Cokes … and so many dreams. Two kids, determined to beat the odds. “Eric,” she said now, “you seem to have forgotten that you’re the one who left me.”

  “Only because you were getting ready to leave me,” he said.

  “I was doing no such thing.”

  “Think back, Zoe. The last thing you needed was me tagging on your heels. And the last thing I wanted to be was ‘Mr. Zoe,’ ” He turned away from her again.

  Zoe nodded. She had been right. It was because of her fame that Eric had stopped loving her. “That wouldn’t have happened,” she said, though she knew she was wrong.

  “It was already happening.”

  She leaned against the building. “Where did you go when you left? You didn’t come back here. I tried to find you.”

  “I went to Florida for a while. Then I came back. Once I could face everyone here.”

  “Face them?”

  He picked up a piece of litter from the ground and studied it. It was a broken plastic lid from an order to go. A broken plastic lid. Not a wildflower, in the shape of a star. “It was humiliating, Zoe. You being such a star. Me such a failure.”

  She felt her heart begin to break all over again. Eric had never understood. She had done it all for them. She’d thought that was what he had wanted. And yet for all the dreams that they had had, for all the love that they had shared, this town, this place was where Eric was at home—it was where he belonged. Zoe hadn’t belonged here then and didn’t now. Perhaps that was what he hadn’t understood. “I loved you, Eric.”

  He cracked the plastic lid in his hand. “What you loved was being famous.”

  “Eric, I was scared.”

  “Scared? I don’t think so. I think you loved every minute of it.” He turned again and headed for the door. “And now I think you’d better go.”

  Tears spilled down her cheeks. “Eric, don’t walk away from me, please. Not again.”