by Eden Rivers
A bit ticked off at this point, she set Barnacle down and got up to pace around the living room. It had taken her a long time to figure out what she wanted with this career move, and damned if Brenda was going to confuse her this late in the game.
“But working with kids will be different. It’s what I studied, what I wanted to do.”
“You’d still be helping people with great big problems. Problems they expect you to help them fix. That’s what drained you the first time around. Don’t give up the chance to find something you’ll enjoy doing.”
Damn, damn, damn, damn. Brenda was confusing her. And her inner psychologist hastened to jump into the debate. What if Brenda had a point?
“Bren?”
“What, honey?”
“What if I’m grabbing onto this because the jobs with teens are all far away? When I made this decision, I’d been thinking about what a mess I made of things in the past. Oh, God, what if I’m subconsciously setting whatever I have with Ian up to fail because I’m…”
Fucking scared to death to be hurt again.
Nothing could have startled her more than Brenda’s hysterical laughter.
“Oh, Val, I’m sorry. I can’t help it. Give me a minute.” A series of snorting noises followed on the other end of the line as Brenda fought for control. “It’s just hearing you try to analyze yourself. I haven’t heard you get all psychological like that in ages.”
Shit. When did free give way to scared shitless and reverting to old habits?
“I don’t think you can take this on analytically. You have to feel your way through this one. Trust your instincts.”
“Look, I’m sorry I dumped all this on you. I’m going to take a hot shower and then lie down a while.”
“Hey, what are friends for? I’ll be taking the train from Boston, so I probably won’t be back until around nine. Make sure you’ve got all the doors locked, and leave the lights on in the shop, as well as upstairs. Okay?”
“I will.”
“And whatever you do, promise me you won’t tell Ian it’s over until you’ve had a day to calm down. You need to talk to him, but not until your head’s clearer.”
“Okay.” She would have told Brenda anything at this point. More than anything, she wanted to get into the shower and then take a long nap.
“’Bye. I’ll see you tonight.”
“’Bye, Bren.”
Before she made it halfway to the bathroom, the phone rang again. A quick glance at caller ID showed an out-of-state area code ‑‑ not Ian, and most likely about a job.
“Hello?”
The conversation washed over her in slow motion as she assured the caller that yes, she’d love to schedule an on-site interview at the New Mexico HMO. Just a formality, they assured her. Unless she turned out to be an ax murderer when they ran the background check, they’d been so pleased with her phone interview that the position was hers if she wanted it. Once schedules were coordinated, the office assistant would call to set up a date for the on-site interview.
As if someone else spoke for her, she heard herself say she’d be delighted to accept the position, and she was excited about the opportunity to work exclusively with teens.
“Thanks so much for calling. I’ll look forward to meeting you when I fly out for the interview.”
Stunned, she sat back down on the couch. She’d made the right decision. She needed to have a job lined up before fall, and this one fell right in her area of interest. Now she could cancel the phone interviews she’d set up for this afternoon and tomorrow ‑‑ the ones she didn’t have the energy to cope with. Most of all, she could stop obsessing about her career crisis and move on with her life.
Move on with my life.
Sometimes, with grief, it worked best to face the pain head-on. If she stayed, who knew whether she would have been able to work things out with Ian? As things turned out, she wouldn’t have the chance to discover the answer to that.
She called Ian’s number and waited for the machine to pick up at the beach house. At the sound of his recorded voice, her vision blurred, and she bit her lip to hold back tears.
“Ian, it’s me. I didn’t want to interrupt your day at the journal, but I figured I should let you know. I…” Damn, this hurt. “I just got an offer for a position in New Mexico. I’m sorry it worked out this way. I think it’s best if we don’t see each other for the rest of the summer. It…”
Damn, damn, damn. She wiped her face and tried to say the rest without sobbing. “It would just make it harder to leave.”
She’d wanted to say more, but couldn’t hold her voice steady. As she disconnected, she felt as if she’d sawed off a limb. He wouldn’t call home to check his messages until after work. She could drive over to the beach house and delete the message, take it all back. Wait until she’d calmed down, like she’d promised Brenda, and talk to him then.
But with her starting a new life in New Mexico, anything but a clean break would prolong the pain. If she repeated that often enough, maybe she’d start to believe it.
* * * * *
When Val got back to the apartment, she hit Delete on the answering machine without bothering to listen to the messages. She’d taken to doing the same thing with voice mail on her cell. Most of the messages would have been from Ian, with a few from Abby, Jeremy, Nathan, or Tyler thrown in for good measure. If Ian needed closure, she’d give him that. But not yet.
The pain ripped at her like an open wound ‑‑ too fresh, too confusing. For the past few days, she’d helped Brenda clean up the shop and place orders to replace the stock damaged during the break-in. Whoever broke into the store hadn’t had time to take anything before Kevin chased him out through the window, but he’d left a mess of shattered figurines and china in his wake.
“Val, is that you?” Brenda emerged from the bathroom, a towel wrapped around her head like a turban. “I just colored my hair, and I’m afraid to take off the towel and look.”
She didn’t have the energy to ask what color. “I’m sure it looks great.”
“Hey, I took a few messages while you were out. Ian, Abby, and Jeremy called.”
Damn, she could erase messages on the answering machine, but she couldn’t stop Brenda from answering her own phone. “Thanks.”
“You need to talk to him, Val. You’ve put it off long enough.”
“I know. Just give me a couple more days to pull myself together.” She scooped up Barnacle and lay back on the couch.
When the phone rang, she begged Bren with her eyes, pleading silently for her not to pick up the receiver.
“Yes? Oh, of course.” There was a pause, and Val had the sense Bren wasn’t talking to Ian, or one of their ‑‑ his ‑‑ friends. “No, I’m sorry. She’s not in right now. This is Brenda Howard, her assistant.” Another long pause. “I’m sorry, but Ms. Keating has decided not to relocate for family reasons.”
Val shot off the couch toward Brenda, but by the time she made it across the room, she’d said good-bye and hung up the phone.
“What. In. The. Fucking. Hell. Did. You. Just. Do?”
“Told the coordinator of the applicant search committee that you regretted you’ll be unable to take the New Mexico position, and therefore, scheduling a follow-up interview wouldn’t be necessary.” Brenda stood her ground. As Val towered over her, she removed the towel from her head and started untangling her newly raven black hair with her fingers.
“You have no right! What were you thinking?”
“Here’s the thing. If you want that job, and you’re so sure this is the right thing for you, I’ll call back and apologize. Tell them I’m a roommate with a grudge or something.”
Brenda walked across the room and picked up a hairbrush from the shelf. “But if you have any doubts, if you’re not sure about this, I recommend you head into the kitchen, grab a carton of Ben & Jerry’s, and thank me for giving you a second chance to get your shit together.”
For a moment, no one spoke, and tensio
n hung heavy between them. Even the kitten froze in place, darting glances from Val to Brenda, its whiskers twitching nervously.
Brenda crossed the room, picked up the phone, and held it out to her. “What’s it going to be, Val?”
Oh, God, if she followed through with this, she’d be right back where she started. “I’m not sure. Put down the phone.” With that, she sat down in the middle of the living room and started to cry.
Brenda came over and put her arms around her, rocking her back and forth like a small child. She’d ended things with Ian because of a job she didn’t end up taking. Or had she almost taken a job she didn’t want, because she was frightened of where things might go with Ian? She couldn’t begin to sort things out. She only knew it all hurt like hell.
* * * * *
By Friday morning, Val guessed she must have deleted a thousand messages. Nearly a week after her run-in with Lisa, she still couldn’t bring herself to face Ian or any of the others.
This morning’s paper announced the capture of the man responsible for the break-ins at local retail establishments. The cuts on his hands helped police identify him. She threw the basket of clean laundry on her bed and started sorting socks. Halfway through the chore, she put her finger on what bothered her about that article. She hadn’t seen Kevin, the real hero in the story, since the night of the break-in.
And she knew that, more than anything else, meant her relationship with Ian was over. Evidently, she hadn’t made it past “denial” in the stages of grief. But Kevin’s absence drove home the fact that she’d ruined whatever chance she and Ian might have had to sort things out.
“Hey, Val? You home?”
Crap, it must be lunchtime already. With the shop closed until Monday, Brenda had way too much time on her hands. Besides coloring her hair ‑‑ though Val had to admit, the Goth chic look worked well for her ‑‑ Brenda had dragged her to two clubs, three restaurants, and a wine-tasting event.
Val anticipated the overly cheerful litany of Bren’s latest plans with a mix of dread and resigned acceptance. She wouldn’t be able to say no, since Bren had been wonderful through all this.
Brenda’s offer to let her stay on at the store through fall gave her the time she needed to sort out what she wanted to do next. Although she knew she wasn’t as useful as someone with managerial ‑‑ not to mention retail ‑‑ experience, it was time to let someone help her out with her life. She didn’t dare make major decisions at the moment, so she’d put the job search on hold.
“There you are. Hey, that’s my shirt mixed in with your things.”
Val tossed the shirt to Brenda and sat on her bed, awaiting instructions.
“Abby’s in town. She stopped by the shop during my cleaning frenzy earlier, but I told her you were napping.”
“Thank you so much.”
“Don’t thank me. First of all, I’m pretty sure you were napping, since all you seem to want to do is mope.” She shoved the empty basket out of the way and sat down beside Val. “Second of all, I told her to come back this afternoon.”
“Shit.”
“For someone who knows a lot about psychology, you’re being a gutless coward.”
“Uh, thanks?”
“Abby said Ian would have been here by now, but something came up in Boston, and he couldn’t get away.”
Val nodded. Seemed like neither of them could face a meeting. Although at some point, they’d need to establish some sort of closure. She was tired of avoiding the beach for fear of running into Nathan or Jeremy. And since Brenda offered to take her on as a semipermanent employee, she’d be around until she had some sort of epiphany concerning her career goals.
* * * * *
Ian shut the door to his office ‑‑ noting that the fact that he had an office again, not to mention an editing position, would have excited him a couple of weeks ago ‑‑ and put his head down on his desk. As soon as the door shut, he felt Kevin’s presence in the corner. Kev hadn’t left him alone for more than a few minutes, ever since he’d called home to pick up his messages and Val had blown his world apart.
At the tentative tap on his door, Kevin did his vanishing act, and Ian yelled for whatever scatterbrained writer or intern couldn’t solve her or his goddamned own problems to come in. Well, he said most of it in his head, but he was close to saying something like that out loud.
“Ian, do you have Carlos’s article on your desk? I need to sign off on that one before it goes to print.”
“Here. I finished going over it a few minutes ago.” He handed the neat stack of papers to Eileen. His new boss. Hell, that was tough to swallow.
As a writer, he’d answered to Rochelle. And Rochelle had enough years on him ‑‑ and enough editorial and managerial experience ‑‑ to win his undying respect. But when Rochelle took that damn position at the shall-remain-nameless fucking big-time newsmagazine, Eileen got the top job. Jesus, if he’d known Rochelle’s position was going to open up, he never would have left to write that damn book.
“Looks like everything’s here. After lunch, do you have time to go over salary guidelines with me again?”
Ah, the best part ‑‑ seeing as he had years of experience around here, he had to show Eileen how to run the place.
“Sure. I’ll meet you in your office at one.”
When the door clicked shut behind her, Kevin appeared, sitting on the corner of his desk.
“Okay, I know, I wanted to get back into editing, and presto, I’ve got my old job back.” He looked up at his brother the ghost. “Other people don’t have ghosts hanging around on their desks, you know?”
Oh, hell. “Sorry, I didn’t mean that. And I know I should be happy for Rochelle. She’s going to rock the world in New York. It’s not her fault they needed her ASAP and she couldn’t stick around and train Eileen. I’ve got my old job back. That’s what I wanted, right?”
Kevin shook his head.
No, not he wanted. Not most of all.
“Okay, so I wanted Val, would have followed her to New Mexico if I had to. But according to Brenda, it sounds like she’s going to be staying in Gulls’ Harbor for a while, and she still doesn’t want to talk to me. So it’s over.”
Which no doubt had Kevin lurking around his office to ensure he wouldn’t throw himself off any high buildings or jump in front of a bus. “You know I enjoy your company, but you don’t have to hang out here. The only person I’m likely to throw in front of a bus is Eileen.”
Ghosts might not be able to laugh, but Kevin offered a glimmer of a smile before leaning back to settle in for a long visit.
* * * * *
Lacking reasonable alternatives, Val opened the door and invited Abby inside. Determined to do whatever she could to put off the inevitable, excruciating conversation about Ian, she led Abby back to the kitchen, poured iced tea, set a plate of Oreos on the table, and tried to think of another plausible stalling tactic.
“Val, sit down. You’re making me nervous.”
Edgy as hell, she settled in one of Brenda’s antique kitchen chairs, ran her finger along the droplets of condensation on her glass, then picked up an Oreo and shoved the entire thing in her mouth. That ought to be good for a couple of minutes of not being able to say anything.
“I would have come by sooner, but the Boston Orthodontists’ Convention took over my week. Nicole and I ran around like crazy women until we wrapped things up last night.”
Val nodded through her cookie crumbs.
“Ian wanted to be here, too, but he couldn’t get away from the journal before the weekend. I’ll let him explain why in person.”
Again, she nodded. But when she reached for another cookie, Abby grabbed her hand.
“Look, I don’t want to torture you. I’m sure whatever is going on, you’re not very happy right now.”
Hell of an understatement.
“I’ve been driving myself crazy trying to figure out what went wrong, and I’m sure Ian has too. So can I ask some simple yes or no ques
tions?”
Feeling rather stupid by now, but unable to come up with anything to say, Val nodded and swallowed the cookie crumbs in her mouth.
“You breaking up with Ian ‑‑ does it have anything to do with the games you were playing Sunday night?”
“What did Ian tell you about that?” Okay, so Abby and Tyler already knew they’d been having phone sex, but details were another matter. A rush of heat crept across her face, no doubt turning her tan bright crimson.
“Good, you can still talk.” The edge to Abby’s voice hinted at underlying anger.
A week ago, this woman had kissed her on the beach. Now, this awkward conversation represented another step toward closure, nothing more. Val wanted to reach out and cling to her, and press her face against Abby’s silky yellow top as Abby assured her that somehow, miraculously, everything would be all right.
“Ian was ‑‑ upset ‑‑ after he got your message. We talked a lot that night, and he told me pretty much everything. He thought he’d pushed things too far, and you got panicky and bolted.”
“No, it had nothing to do with that.”
“The four of us, then? Me and Tyler, and Nathan and Jeremy?”
“No, exactly the opposite. I’m as torn up about losing all of you as I am about ending things with Ian. The night someone broke in and Nathan came to get me, and he and Jeremy took care of me…” Unable to go on, she tucked her knees up by her chest, stretched her old T-shirt over her legs, and rested her face in her hands.
“Look, I don’t know what to tell you.” Abby’s chair scraped against the tiles, and a moment later, Val felt warm hands on her shoulders. “Ian’s hurt, upset, and angry. Mostly hurt. At this point, I don’t know what he’d do, even if you showed up and begged him to take you back.”
Abby touched Val’s cheek, brushing her fingers through the damp streak. “But I’m here, and no matter what happens with you and Ian, you’re my friend.”
Startled, Val glanced up at Abby. She looked like she meant it. Her chin had a stubborn set to it that indicated she’d go against Ian’s wishes if necessary, but she planned to stay in touch with Val.