Captive Hearts

by Harper Bliss

  “That’s perfectly fine. You should all do what you want to do. I have an early day tomorrow, anyway.” It’s not even seven and still light outside. But I suddenly feel so ridiculous, so out of place, so completely and utterly out of my depth, that I just want to run away, no matter how silly and old and goody-two-shoes fleeing the scene makes me look.

  “Come on, Alice,” Joy says, but doesn’t get up, “it’s just a joint. It’s really no big deal.” From the way she looks at me I can tell that it’s hurting her that I’m about to leave.

  “Then let it be no big deal to all of you without me and enjoy,” I say, with a bitterness to my tone that surprises me. But it’s as though the huge sand castle of illusion I have built in the past few weeks is crumbling so fast, I have to hurry if I want to make it out alive. “It was lovely meeting all of you. Really,” I say to the group. “I’ll call you later,” I say to Joy, who still doesn’t get up.

  Without gathering any of my belongings except my purse, I fetch my jacket from the hallway and hurry out of the door. Once I’ve shut it behind me, I take a deep breath, and make my way down the stairs, somewhat hoping Joy will come after me but mostly hoping she won’t. She’s too inebriated to reason with now, anyway, I tell myself, when no one follows me. Within seconds, I’m standing outside Joy’s building.

  It wasn’t the age difference between Joy’s friends and me—Bobby is mid forties, Justin a bit younger—or their conversation, too hip and in-the-know for me to follow or engage in, that urged me to escape the scene. It wasn’t even so much that they were about to roll a joint and share it, I assume, convivially. It’s how far removed I felt from Joy. From who she is when she’s not with me: someone who drinks too much, and smokes marijuana. But more than that, someone who, clearly, didn’t care about the distress I was feeling in that moment. And the thing is that I don’t even blame her. It’s not Joy’s duty to stop having a good time on a wonderful Sunday afternoon with her friends because her ‘girlfriend’—God, that word and the ways in which it doesn’t apply to me—is upset. Nor is it her friends’ duty to not mention Joy’s mother at all, no matter how well they can act as though Miranda doesn’t exist and there’s no connection between us.

  * * *

  When I get home and look at my reflection in the mirror, which now always makes me think of Joy’s bedroom mirrors, I say to myself, my voice dripping with sarcasm and sadness, “Welcome back, Alice.”

  Chapter Seventeen

  As agreed before she left for Paris, Miranda only arrives at work around lunch time the next Monday. The very first time she went on one of those weekends, a few years after we’d founded the firm, I had told her, “If only you had the same work ethic as I. This firm could be so successful.”

  Miranda, with her usual snark, a quality I’ve often vocally lamented but appreciate in her nonetheless—and recognise so much of in Joy—said, “I didn’t become my own boss to listen to my business partner boss me around, Alice. If you want to work eighty hours a week, be my guest, but me? I have a life to live. A life outside these office walls. I do wish you’d do the same.”

  Today, I’m grateful for the different ways in which we lead our lives. Throughout the morning, though, I seem to have picked up one of Joy’s habits: I can’t keep my eyes off my phone. After I got home last night, I broke my promise to Joy and didn’t call her because I failed to see the point. What would I have said to her while she was drunk and stoned? Yet, I found myself sleeping only the lightest, most fitful of sleeps, my ears perked to catch the smallest noise. Someone at my front door, perhaps. Or, at the very least, the beep of my phone. Unfortunately, it was one of the most silent nights of my life, the silence only punctured by the desperate sighs coming from my mouth and my restless body writhing against the freshly ironed sheets.

  It’s only when Miranda knocks on the door of my office, just at the very moment she peeks her head inside, that my phone finally releases me from my agony. I reach for it, but can’t read the message while I’m talking to Miranda.

  “How was your trip?” I ask.

  “Wonderful as usual,” Miranda says. “Excellent food, great wine, and the most beautiful city in the world. What more can I ask for?” Her gaze rests on me for longer than it usually would. “Can I come in for a second or are you in the middle of something?”

  My eyes wander to my phone, but I push it away. “Of course.” I nod for her to sit.

  “Don’t take this the wrong way, Alice, but that super-healthy complexion you brought back from Portugal has vanished completely and seems to have been replaced by something else… Are you all right? There’s isn’t anything… medical going on, is there?”

  “No, no, I’m perfectly fine,” I’m quick to say—perhaps too quick.

  “You’ve been different since you came back. More easily distracted, I guess. And, well, today you just look so un-Alice-like. Is it something else? Something I can help with?”

  “My dinner disagreed with me and I didn’t sleep very well last night, that’s all.” I suddenly feel very self-conscious about my appearance. Is my lack of sleep so visible? Or is Miranda so apt at spotting it because we have, after all, known each other for most of our adult lives. And if she can so easily see this, what else does she see?

  “Yeah? Are you sure? I’m—” My phone beeps again, repeating the new message alert. I never managed to switch of that annoying function. Miranda continues undeterred. “I’m worried about you, that’s all.”

  “I’m fine. I promise you.” Ridiculously, I hold up my hand the way a girl scout would. “Just a few rough days, and this weather isn’t helping.”

  “I’m always here for you if there’s anything at all you want to talk about,” Miranda says with great earnest. She must be really worried about me. While I appreciate her concern, I can only sigh inwardly at the impossibility of this entire situation. I could also use a conversation with my best friend right about now.

  “Thank you, Miranda. I appreciate that.” Inadvertently, I stare at my phone again. I have no idea how I can even keep a straight face. I’m so unfamiliar with this sort of emotional distress.

  “I’ll let you get that,” she says.

  Shame rises from somewhere deep in my gut, translating into a fierce and sudden blush on my cheeks. Luckily, Miranda is already turning to leave.

  “Don’t work so hard, Alice. Really, I know you enjoy your job, and so do I, but it’s not worth it in the end. It never is.”

  “I’ll go to bed early tonight,” I say to her back as she exits my office. As soon as I see her round the corner, I read the message on my phone.

  Sorry, is all it says.

  Sorry? That’s it. What am I supposed to do with that? I’m guessing not even youth is a good enough cure for the hangover Joy must be suffering today—the physical and the emotional one.

  I type back: I’m sorry too. I hope you understand why I couldn’t stay.

  Early on, we agreed to not text each other while at work, and I feel increasingly ill at ease as our text message conversation continues. But I certainly can’t call her when Miranda could walk back through my door at any second. I put a stop to the texting back and forth—which is something I never did before I met Joy—and invite her to my house to talk after work.

  While I eat a quick sandwich at my desk, I question Google about ways to conceal dark circles under one’s eyes and other obvious signs of fatigue and distress.

  * * *

  Because I presume Joy will be hungry, I buy ingredients for a salad so I can serve her dinner when she arrives. By the time I reach my house, she’s already there, her backside perched on the steps in front of my door.

  “I hope you haven’t waited too long?” I ask, awkwardly.

  “Fuck, Alice,” she says. “What are we doing?”

  This is it, I think, she has reached the same conclusion as I have. The supreme thrill of the first few weeks is starting to wear off, and we are left with the cold hard facts of our situation: no matter
how you twist or turn it, it’s impossible.

  “Let’s go inside.” I quickly let us in, ignoring the knot coiling in my stomach. Because, really, all I want to do is take her in my arms and tell her everything’s going to be okay. To kiss that frown from her face, to bury my nose in her hair. But it would just be more lies, more fooling ourselves. “Do you want something to eat?” I ask when we’ve reached the kitchen.

  “Alice, please.” Joy reaches for my arm, curls her fingers around my wrist. “Listen to me. I’m not someone who hides what I feel. I’m sorry about, er, letting go so much last night. I was blowing off steam, you know? This whole situation has been stressful for me too. I’m close to my mum and I’m finally at a stage where I could actually tell her about the new person I’m seeing, but instead, every time we talk, I can’t say anything at all. I feel like I’m going back into the closet and it’s killing me.”

  “I understand. I feel the same way.” We’re both still wearing our coats. It stands in such stark contrast to how naked we were when we first met, as though we’ve had to add layer after layer to survive our lives after coming back from Portugal. The knot in my stomach seems to be making its way up to my throat, lodging itself there. “I know there’s only one solution.” While I know this needs to end, I also know it’s going to hurt me in ways I’ve never been hurt before—not even when Alan left. To have to kill something that’s so glorious, that feels so good, that’s still in such an early stage it’s still brimming with vibrancy and possibilities, is so hard, I don’t even know how to say the words.

  “We have to tell Mum,” Joy says. “If we want to stand any chance at all, we have to tell her, because if we don’t, it’s going to eat us alive. It’s going to be the end of us before we’ve even begun.”

  “W-what?” I stammer. Because this was decidedly not the solution I had in mind. “No. I don’t agree. I don’t.”

  “What do you mean you don’t agree? You just said you did. You said you knew there was only one solution. I mean, apart from running away, there is really only one way to go about this.” As she says this, I see how the moment of realisation comes and transforms her face into something so devastating I almost need to look away. “Oh fuck, no, Alice. I’m not breaking up with you. I’m not even having that conversation again. We’ve made our decision. Nu-uh.”

  “Miranda will not accept it. I will lose her. I will lose my best friend and business partner. She may very well decide to leave the firm because of this.”

  “Oh, so it’s a choice between me and my mum now, is it?” I see the fight rise in Joy, see how her muscles tense and she straightens her spine. “Well, I dare you to walk away from this. Let’s see how fucking miserable that’s going to make you.”

  “Don’t you see how impossible this is for me?” I plead.

  “She’s my mother, Alice. I am her flesh and blood. If I’m willing to stand up for us, for this beautiful thing that is growing between us, then why can’t you?”

  “I don’t know. Because I’m a coward. Because I don’t want to be that person to Miranda.”

  “And what person would that be? The woman who makes her daughter happy? If you take away your fear, there’s not a lot left of your reasoning, if only you could see that.”

  “My fear? How about your naiveté? Do you really think Miranda is going to accept us being together because she wants you to be happy?” I shake my head in defeat. “I think your reasoning is much more flawed than mine.”

  “Look, I know you’re scared.” Joy injects some unexpected tenderness into her tone. “And overwhelmed and probably feeling just as crazy as I am right now. But, Alice, you must understand, I’m not letting you go. The way you’ve made me feel since I arrived in Quinta is so much more powerful than anything I’ve ever felt for any other woman. We have something special and, I guess, if you can’t see that and if you don’t feel the same way, then yes, that’s a reason to end it, but I know you feel it too. It’s plain as day. Can you honestly stand here and tell me that you aren’t crazy, madly in love with me?”

  “No.” It’s all I can say at first when confronted with Joy in most excellent arguer mode. “But you seem to adhere to this foolish notion that love can overcome anything. Let me tell you here and now that it can’t.”

  “Oh really? And how would you know, Alice? Are you the big expert on love all of a sudden?” As soon as she says it, something changes about Joy’s demeanour. She steps closer and looks into my eyes. “I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have said that. I was just lashing out. Can we take a step back? Take off our coats, perhaps, and sit down?”

  “Okay.” I take a deep breath and turn to get a glass of water. I hear Joy shrug off her coat. While I drink to calm myself down, I think about all the things I can’t say to her: what if it doesn’t work out? What if the age difference, and all our other differences, prove too big a hurdle in the end? What if we tell Miranda and months later you meet someone younger, someone more suitable, and I will have lost it all?

  We both take a seat at the kitchen table and I offer Joy some water as well.

  “Alice,” she takes my hand in hers, “in your head you’ve already played out the worst case scenario. I can absolutely guarantee you that it won’t be as bad as you think. There’s just no way. Mum cares about you too. She always speaks highly of you. You have done so much for her over the years. She wants nothing more than for you to be happy as well. I’m not claiming she will embrace you as my partner from the get-go. She will need to adjust to the idea. But while she does, we can prove to her that being with each other makes us happier than we’ve ever been. I know you need to take a leap of faith in order to go through with this, and I know that takes a lot, but you’re not doing this alone, Alice. We’re doing this together.” Joy sits back, presumably to examine the effects of another excellently made case.

  “In theory, your arguments make sense, but, I… I just don’t see it. I can’t even think about it, truth be told.”

  “Don’t you want to have tried, though? For us? Do you really think you can live with the regret if you don’t?”

  I shake my head. “I don’t know. I really don’t know. There’s this war waging within me. I’ve always been a very rational person, very reasonable and logical, and all the logic I have accumulated over the years assures me that telling Miranda is the worst possible thing I can do. But then, there’s this other side of me, a side I haven’t been in touch with for so long—if ever. And my emotional side tells me that, yes, I need to do this. That I owe it to you: for what you have done for me, to how you’ve brought me out of my shell and made a whole new woman out of me. It’s just so, so hard.”

  “I know, sweetheart, I know.” Joy shuffles closer, chair and all and puts her hands on my knees. When was the last time someone called me by a term of endearment? I have no recollection. And, of course, when I’m with Joy, emotion will win. But I can’t strap Joy to my side to carry her around with me through my everyday life. She won’t be there when I go into the office day after day to face Miranda’s condemning stare. “But we have to tell her. We have no choice.”

  As Joy digs her fingers into my thigh, I realise we could argue back and forth all night. Mull over the pros and cons until dawn breaks, but it won’t change anything in the end. There is no easy outcome, no quick fix, and, when it comes down to it, I will still have a choice to make. Head or heart. Love or friendship. Give in to fear or stand up for what Joy and I have.

  “Okay,” I hear myself say after a few minutes of silence. A few minutes during which I imagine asking Joy to leave and not contact me again. A few minutes during which I realise that, despite it being the hardest thing I’ll ever do, the choice was made for me that night when Joy kissed me and nothing was ever the same again. My fear is me clinging onto the old Alice, the always-careful workaholic who had given up on love completely. The person I see less and less of when I look in the mirror. The person I no longer deserve to be. “Let’s do it.” The determination in my voice su
rprises even me.

  Chapter Eighteen

  “See you at eight,” Miranda says on Friday and as I see her walk out of the office I can’t help but think it’s the end of an era. After tonight, my friendship with Miranda will be forever changed. Joy and I have talked a lot in the past week about the best way to go about telling her. “Let’s just go to Mum’s house now,” she said on Wednesday evening. “Let’s just get it over with.” Of course, I disagreed. Instead, I asked Joy to find out what she was doing the next weekend, and if there was a possible time when we could tell just her. Somehow, the thought of having to confess to Jeff as well made it all even more unbearable.

  So, tonight’s the night. Miranda and Joy are coming to dinner at my house, while Jeff is out of town at a, as Joy called it, ‘douchebag seminar’ in Brighton. Miranda was more than keen to accept my invitation and didn’t question me when I asked her to extend it to Joy as well.

  “I’m not sure she’ll be able to make it,” Miranda did say, “I think she’s seeing someone but I’m doing my very best not to be pushy about it. She’ll tell me when she’s ready.”

  Part of my decency died when I replied, wearing my best poker face, “I’m sure she will.”

  Because what we’re about to do to Miranda is not fair in any way, shape or form. Her life will change as well. Her perception of her daughter and her best friend will be altered forever in the course of one evening, one conversation.

  I leave work as soon as Miranda has exited the building to make sure my house is spotless. To avoid the risk of serving Miranda a non-stellar meal on a night like this I ordered a roast chicken and gratin potatoes from a deli in my street. I polish the wine glasses until they sparkle. Check myself in the mirror a dozen times and, every time, I’m able to look back less and less. Joy arrives at seven-thirty and she hugs me for a long time. First, I offered the plan of telling Miranda by myself, arguing that, perhaps, she would be able to better accept it if she didn’t have to look at the both of us while she processed the news, but Joy wouldn’t have any of that.