What bad habits are you speaking of, Claudia??
Another round of laughter from the peanut gallery. Seriously I could strangle each of them with Marga's gum. Or stick individual bits of it in their hair. Claudia would probably cry, and I could dance with glee over the chopped of locks of her precious platinum blonde hair.
"Like that slurping thing she does with her coffee?" Ursula asked. Then she made a sound that resembled flopping fish. I have never in my life sounded like that.
"Or the time she thought seahorses were fictional?” Marga laughed. That was an honest mistake! One that I made when I had zero hours of sleep in three days and still painting invites for an under the sea bash.
"Oh please, you girls don't know the half of it," Claudia finished, dismissing the two with a wave of her hand. Then she checked her watch, obviously satisfied with something. "Okay, break's over," she declared, hopping off the chair she had perched on. Did she look at me again, or was that a trick of the light? "Are we ready with those printer samples for the Valentines gifts?"
And just like that, they were gone. I suddenly lost all urge to lift myself from my paper grave, wanting to bury myself in paint and shame. Was that really who I was, a judgmental bitch who didn't know love if it slapped itself against my face like a cold fish?
Okay, fine. I may have been lying a little when I said that I was on a man-diet. In truth, I was a little lonely. I didn’t want my life reduced to this store, this business. I loved it, but I wanted something…more. Surely there was something, someone more? But I didn’t dare hope or ask. Thus the witty comebacks and sharp barbs. I wasn’t like Claudia who could just get what she wanted with a flick of her hair. I mean…I was just me.
Well. If Ben was in love with me, then let him. If he was the one who wanted to be a part of all of this, then I wasn’t going to refuse him. Maybe I did love him back. Maybe I loved him so much that I was making both of us crazy.
Love on, Benedick. Love on.
* * *
We had our first look at the website over cupcakes from Georgetown Bakery. I always thought their chocolate flavors were too strong and sweet, but their lavender earl grey is utter perfection in a little paper cup. Claudia and I were standing in line to buy the cupcakes (there was always a line for Georgetown) two blocks away from Noble Crowne while the guys set up at the studio.
I had no idea what the fuss was all about—it was just a website. We came up with the designs together, discussed edits and flowcharts together. But it was apparently a big deal for the guys to show us their work, so Claudia agreed. She told me it would be a nice opportunity for us to review how we were going to use the site to ‘grow our brand,’ but I was still a bit lost on why cupcakes had to be involved.
I sneezed. What was it about a confession of love that made me sneezy and sick? An allergy, perhaps? Obviously I never told Claudia that I knew about her little conversation with Ursula and Marga, so this whole love thing was eating me out from the inside. I kept expecting for Ben to pop out of a bush with a flashmob and a box of chocolates declaring his love for me. It was an unlikely scenario, but everything about this whole thing was unlikely.
Claudia was in too high spirits to talk to me about my pollen allergy, and prodded my arm as we stood in line.
"I'm pretty sure Hiro wants to ask me to marry him," she said, the words whispered between us in secret, safekeeping it. I looked at Claudia in surprise, nearly choking on snot. This girl was full of surprises. "Don told me he might."
"And are you going to say yes?" I asked, just a bit testily. I loved Hiro and thought he was pretty great, but come on! We were only 25, and he and Claudia had only reconnected for so long. Hiro knew something about Claudia’s depression (or at least that was what she told me), and I thought he would understand how to be a little more cautious. And what was Don doing, spreading around information like that?
"I don't know," she sighed, still keeping the corners of her lips twisted up in a smile. "It's a wonderful feeling though, knowing someone loves you so much he's willing to put up with...well...me." Claudia’s said the last few words so slowly that I wanted to hug her. It was one of those things we talked about before. If a guy found out about her dark days, would he still want to stay? She shook her head and turned to me again. "How about you, Bea? Aren't you ever going to find someone?"
"Who says I was looking?" I asked, my cheeks growing hot suddenly. This was not the reaction of someone strong, but to be fair, I was fighting a cold.
"You're blushing," Claudia said, touching my arm. Apparently my issues were a wonderful way to distract her. "I don't think I've ever seen you blush before! Is there someone?"
The line inched forward, and I sneezed violently at the thought of an awkward but endearing web designer who liked stuffing Cheetos in his cheeks and had a tendency to get in accidents.
"Uhm," was all I managed to say. "Oh look, we can order now!"
"Uh huh," Claudia said, giving me one last look before turning to the cupcake counter to give our orders.
Benedick
Once a couple of final tweaks were made to the coding, Don managed to set up the projector and the men of Messina Designs settled down in the studio and waited for Claudia and her...friend....to come back from their cupcake run. I found myself nervously shredding bits of paper over and over in my hand and biting my cheek. Why I was nervous was obvious— every time Be— she walked into a room now I fell all over myself and risked injury. This whole being in love business wasn't healthy for me at all.
Unfortunately for me, Hiro and Don had picked up on my dilemma and loved to tease me about it, in between Hiro talking about the beautiful Claudia. It just wasn't my week.
"Look at that poor dear, so sick with love he can barely sit straight," Don laughed, pointing his beer bottle towards me. Apparently cupcakes and beer were a match made in heaven, and he had insisted on getting a few for this presentation. "Can you hear me, Ben? It's me, Don!"
"I can hear you fine, weirdo," I said, shaking my head.
"So are we ever going to find out which sad sack of a woman has managed to tame your wild heart?" Don asked, ruffling the back of my hair as he walked past. Sometimes I wondered how he and I came from the same university. "Tell all."
"Oh please, do," Hiro asked, fluttering his pretty eyelashes at me. I rolled my eyes and resumed studying the website prototype. When someone logged on, I made animated versions of You-know-who's flowers bloom in front of the screen. It took me a week just to animate those flowers, trying to replicate her specific style, but they looked good. Was that what I did when I was in love? Work harder, become the only mature adult in the room?
"How about we just talk about work, like we're supposed to right now," I declared, standing up to wipe my sweaty palms over the tops of my jeans. Then I sneezed. Was it dusty in here?
"He is in love," Hiro nodded. He had a tendency to think that he was the final authority on me, but I was going to have to rectify that.
"If anyone here is sick with love, it's you, Hiro. You're the one with the crazy plan to propose to Claudia." I said, rubbing my nose with the sleeve of my shirt. I had tried to talk him out of it, of course. Who married at 25 anymore? This wasn't the sixties. Neither of them were young people destined for different paths and trapped in a forbidden love that was doomed to fail.
Which reminded me, I wanted to re-watch Star Wars.
Plus, Hiro had spent our college life and the last three years totally dedicated to work. We built Messina from the ground up, reluctantly accepted Don's money, and now that we were just about to get our foot in the door, he was going to get married? It made no sense to me, but as soon as Hiro set his mind to it, he'd gone ahead and bought the ring, the poor guy. His heart was just set on it.
Hiro was still laughing when a strange look crossed Don's face. He patted Hiro on the arm to get his attention. "You're proposing to her?”
This was news for Don? I could have sworn I heard him mention Hiro’s plans to Marga in Nob
le Crowne.
"Yeah!" Hiro exclaimed. "I was thinking of doing it on Friday— it's the anniversary of the night we met. It's funny how we never would have gotten together without you, Don. The first time when she escaped you to go to the bar, and the next when you persuaded her when we went out."
I got a strange tingle in my spine at that. It was the same tingle I always got when I realized how much Don Franco has influenced mine and Hiro's lives. He was bankrolling our whole operation, he was the one who suggested we approach Noble Crowne, the one who talked to Bea and Claudia...it wasn't comforting, but it was necessary. Hiro and I would not have been able to do a lot of the things we've accomplished without him. He just had this way about him, like he knew everything, and understood more than we all did. We always found ourselves looking to him and relying on him for things, because, in his words, “Trust me. I know.”
"She dropped out of school," Don said suddenly, shattering the happy mood around us. I could practically see it like a gif, happening over and over and over again. "Mysteriously, just vanished, and we never heard from her until Noble Crowne started. Or did you forget that?"
From the look on Hiro's face, I could tell that he had. He was always too trusting, and this was one of the moments when he had thrown his doubts out of the window. I thought he had already taken Claudia's mysterious disappearance into account.
"People told me she had an affair with some politician and had to leave university to have his lovechild," Don said, shrugging like he wasn't breaking Hiro's heart. "Obviously we know that's not true, but that wasn't the only thing I heard."
All the color drained from Hiro’s face. I wondered what the hell Don was trying to do. Sure he was our friend, but to bring this up right now, a week after it happened? It was odd, wasn’t it? He knew that Hiro was too trusting, and this was one of the moments when he had thrown his doubts out of the window.
“I’m sure she did it for a reason,” I pointed out. “You would know her better than either of us, Hiro.”
“Believe me or don’t, but that’s what they were saying.” Don said, shrugging like he wasn't breaking Hiro's heart.
There was a darkness to Hiro's face that I hadn't seen in a long time. He used to be a part of this secret fight club when he was in high school, and it once got so bad that the cops were called. He called those his dark days, and I never quite believed it until I saw the look on his face that day. He was out for blood.
"Stop," he said suddenly. "I don't want to hear it."
"So can we all just agree that this engagement idea is stupid?" Don asked. "Or at least until she can clear up that issue for us?"
"Us?" I found myself asking. "This is between Hiro and Claudia, dude, I don't think we…”
"No, I want her to tell us," Hiro declared, squeezing his fists over his beer can so hard that it crumbled. "I want her to tell all of us. On Friday."
Then the doorbell chimed and Bea marched in like a criminal on death row with two large pink boxes of cupcakes. Our eyes met from across the room, and she sneezed violently. Little did she know, it was the happy, giggling blonde behind her that was on the firing squad.
* * *
I couldn't stop Hiro. I tried, of course, bribing him with a new laptop, my PS4, or my soul just to stop his crazy plan, but an angry Hiro is impossible to tell off. I wanted to tell Bea, or even Claudia herself, but any time I tried to leave Hiro's side, Don would swoop in and make him even angrier. He even brought the supposed guy she was with to the office! I had no idea what he was doing—other than this random guy’s word, we didn’t have evidence that Claudia was seeing anyone else. Nor could I ask Beatrice without inciting World War Two with her.
I had no idea how he did it, but Hiro was a blind, raging bull by the time Friday rolled around, and my hands were tied. He was angry, the kind that made him want to hit his fists against something. The kind of angry that I always tried to pry him away from.
Leo, Claudia's brother, and his family were there, as was Bea and the staff from Noble Crowne. We had all gathered by the blooming cherry blossom trees beside the Washington Memorial. They were in full bloom in the spring, it was Claudia's favorite place as a child and the perfect place to be proposed to. The scenario was perfect. That was, until Hiro spoke.
“You lied to me.”
Bea, who I was all too aware was standing beside me, went rigid at the accusation. I wanted to reach out and hold her hand, but kept my distance.
"What are you talking about, Hiro?" Claudia asked, taking a step back and momentarily turning her gaze towards their audience. The sickening feeling in my stomach rose again at the sight of Don standing behind Hiro, essentially cheering him on.
"You dropped out of school, all those years ago," Hiro said. "I never asked because I was so focused on school, and, and my work. But it matters now.”
“How can you ask me that?” Claudia asked. “You didn’t care before.”
“Well, I do if it makes me look like an idiot when I don’t know how to defend you!”
I saw Claudia glance at Leo in the crowd, he was becoming livid with anger. Bea too. But neither of them said anything. I would later find out the real reason why Claudia had left school, only after all of this ended. Her bright, bubbly self was a mask for her ‘dark days’, days when she was so depressed that she couldn’t even get out of bed. When their father died, it took a while for Claudia to get back on her feet. All of this was very personal, and involved things that she certainly wasn’t going to share with just anyone yet. But Claudia held up a hand to stop them both, and they stilled.
"People said you had an affair with someone," Hiro continued. "They called you a slut, a whore. Is that true? You vanished, and I never heard a word from you until the day we saw each other at the studio. What am I supposed to think?"
"I thought you understood." She said, tears brimming in her eyes. "You said you loved me."
"I don't," Hiro said, shaking his head. "Where did you go, Claudia?”
“I’m not going to validate that by answering,” she said. This time Claudia released a choked sob, and I was sure I saw Leo lunge forward, but if it was to pull his sister back or to punch her boyfriend, I'm not sure.
“You liar.”
She reached forward and slapped him across the face. It was so hard that the sound echoed, and Hiro actually flinched.
"Do not," Claudia said, shoving Hiro forward. "I refuse to be reduced to a something you clearly don’t understand as well as I thought. You said you loved me, Hiro! I never lied to you, I’ve always trusted you with everything in my life. You said you understood, but now suddenly you don't? That is bullshit, utter bullshit! Who told you to talk like this? Who told you to humiliate me like this, because I know, I know it's not you. So figure it out, but when you do, I might not be there."
Then she turned her heel and left, her heels clapping in the dirt as she walked off in tears. Hiro looked dazed, his hand on his cheek, his eyes wide, and finally awake. This time Leo finally broke free of his husband's grasp and punched Hiro across the face, and I heard someone's bone crack. Hiro crumpled to the ground and Leo loomed over him.
"Don't ever come near my sister again," he barked, turning to run off and follow her into the park where she bolted in her car. Everyone cleared around us, whispering to themselves about what just happened, and I gave Hiro one last look before letting him leave with Don. Then Bea and I were the only ones left. She stood in exactly the same spot, unsure what to do next. I took a step towards her, and my hand on her arm jolted her awake.
"Everyone's left," I said gently. "Are you okay?"
"I don't know what I'm supposed to feel anymore," she said, and I led her to a nearby bench to sit down. Bea buried her head in her hands, like she did when she was stressed or tired. It surprised me that I knew that about her. "What happened to Hiro?"
"I have no idea," I confessed. "I didn't think he would let his anger go too far. But then we all do crazy things when we're in lo—,” I swallowed thickly
. "Uhm."
She looked up at me like she just realized I was there. I tried to give her a reassuring little smile, but it only made her eyes become wider. I would give my right hand to anyone who could tell me what she was thinking right then. I needed to know.
"Bea," I said gently, trying not to scare her away. "I love nothing in the world as much as I... love…you."
DAMN IT.
Chapter 6
Beatrice
I looked at Ben with wide eyes, and I felt my heart drop to my stomach. For the second time that day, I was disoriented and just a little bit confused. There it was, the confession everyone told him not to give. In the wake of the horrible thing his best friend just did, he goes and says the one thing that I know is true. The one thing I knew before all of this craziness.
He's got really bad timing.
"W-weird, isn’t it?” He asked, laughing nervously, scratching his neck. “I know, I-I know, my timing sucks," he said, shaking his head, waving his hands about as if to make me forget what he had just said. "But it's still true. I love you."
I opened my mouth to speak, but no words came out. There was an expression on his face that I couldn't identify. His brow was furrowed, his thin pink lips were pursed, but his eyes were bright and determined. Earnest.
"And you think that I feel the same way?" I asked, making him slip from his precarious position on the cherry tree, his legs flying up in front of him at the one thing that nobody thought I was ever capable of. Oh god, it took everything in me not to smile. How could I not love Ben? He was sweet and funny, a klutz, but he seemed to understand me more than anyone. We didn't need flashmobs or big gestures, this was all we ever wanted from each other. We were both too proud anyway.
We Go Together Page 6