Too Close to Touch

by Georgia Beers

  Instead, she stared straight ahead at nothing with no idea what to do next.

  No idea at all.

  * * *

  God, I hope I’m doing the right thing.

  It was the clearest thought in her mind as Gretchen hung up the phone. Her timing was lousy, but if she was going to make a change in her attitude—hell, in her life—this was the only way to do it. She knew she needed to talk to Kylie, really talk to her. But her head was just too full and it was all she could do to keep it from exploding in a mess all over the living room walls.

  She flopped herself onto the couch to wait for J.J. They were both so exhausted. Gretchen felt like she’d been through an emotional wringer over the last week and just when she thought she was done with the tears or the pain or the regret, she’d stumble across another memory and the floodgates would burst open yet again.

  As worn out as the process was making her, J.J. was in much worse shape. He was taking their father’s death extremely hard and there was actually a little part of Gretchen that was jealous, envious that she didn’t have a close enough relationship with her father for his death to devastate her. Despite the fact that she’d been way more affected than she’d expected to be, that jealousy made her feel ashamed. What kind of person envies another’s pain?

  She briefly thought about eating, but her stomach churned in protest. The refrigerator was packed full, people stopping by all week and dropping off casseroles and pasta and loaves of bread so she and J.J. wouldn’t have to worry about cooking. They’d picked a little bit, but the kids had eaten most often.

  She looked at the pictures adorning the table across from her. She and J.J. in their adolescence, looking awkward and gawky, her mother smiling at the camera in a rare moment of relaxation and carefree happiness, her parents’ wedding picture. She squinted at that one, trying to find evidence that they weren’t as happy as they looked, but she failed. Her mother’s cheeks were rosy and her eyes sparkled. Her father was smiling like he was the luckiest guy in the world. Gretchen wondered when it all went downhill, when he decided his job and his business friends were more important than this woman he obviously adored the day he married her.

  Live life. You’re supposed to live it. She heard John Kaiser’s deep, rumbling voice in her head and wondered if it was a lesson he’d learned too late…and if so, did he regret it? Did he regret the gymnastics tournaments he’d worked through? Did he regret not being home when Gretchen had announced she was the valedictorian of her high school graduating class? Did he regret that he wasn’t present the day his wife had finally given in to the cancer and had passed into the next world?

  Did he regret that he’d given his daughter so little of his attention that she’d moved away without a backward glance? Did he regret that the two of them had never sat down and talked through their differences, their decisions, their anger?

  They were all questions Gretchen would never have the answers to, and that was a very hard pill for her to swallow. She wasn’t the kind of person who took things on faith alone—truth be told, she had precious little of it—and right now, she was having a very difficult time knowing these queries would swim around in her head forever.

  When J.J. arrived twenty minutes later, Gretchen was still sitting in the living room lost in her own thoughts. He gave her a wave and a weak “hey,” then leaned against the door frame between the living room and dining room and studied her. She looked even more tired than he felt. He’d never seen his big sister seem so small before. Her face was drawn and her eyes looked inexpressibly tired. Her old sweats and ratty T-shirt hung on her as if they were three sizes too big. Her hair was pulled back off her face, but it was out of control even in its clip, sticking out at all angles.

  It was disconcerting for him; she’d always been so strong, so larger-than-life to his younger self. He’d always trusted her to take care of things. Seeing her so lost and unable to control the happenings around her shook him up much more than he cared to admit. Not to mention the fact that he never expected her to take the loss of their father so hard.

  It wasn’t like the two of them were very close at all, nor had they been in years. He’d expected her to be sad, but not this distraught. He suspected it was more guilt and regret than grief that was bogging her down.

  “Sleep okay?” he asked softly as he entered the room and sat down beside her.

  She shrugged. “You?”

  “Eh.”

  “J.” Gretchen didn’t look at her brother as she spoke his name, but he turned to face her anyway.

  “Hmm?”

  “Am I like him?” Her voice was so small and so frightened, J.J. got his first sense of what she must have sounded like when she was six years old. He swallowed, knowing what she meant and knowing the answer, but unsure as to whether she wanted the truth.

  “What do you mean?” he stalled.

  “You know what I mean. Work has always come first for me, hasn’t it?”

  He remained silent, sensing that she just wanted to vent and needed him to listen. He nodded and she continued.

  “I thought…” She squinted, concentrating as though trying to figure out a riddle. “I thought if I could be like him, if I could be as successful and respected in my field as he was, he’d finally sit up and take notice, you know? That he’d point at me and say to his friends, ‘That’s my girl right there. Isn’t she something? Chip off the old block, that one.’ But he never even looked. And I kept trying and kept focusing until I didn’t even care if he noticed anymore. It just became who I was. I worked. I succeeded. It’s what I did. God, I treated Diana just like he treated Mom.”

  J.J. pressed his lips together, his heart breaking for his sister. He’d liked Diana very much. He’d seen what was happening so long ago and he’d even tried to tell Gretchen, but she’d been unable to accept his words. Diana hadn’t been as strong as their mother. Or maybe she’d been stronger. Gretchen turned to him then and there was such fear in her dark eyes that he wanted to scoop her into his arms and protect her.

  “I don’t want to end up like him,” she whispered. “I don’t want to make those mistakes. I don’t want to shut the important people out of my life and end up alone.”

  A tear spilled over and down her porcelain cheek and at that moment, J.J. did wrap his arms around her. It was the only thing he could think of to help her.

  “It terrifies me, J.” she muttered into his chest.

  “I know.” He pressed his cheek to her hair and tightened his grip on her. “Gretchen, if you don’t want to be like that, then don’t.” He said it as if it was the simplest piece of advice in the world.

  And in a way, it was.

  CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

  Kylie lay on the couch late Saturday afternoon watching Ferris Bueller’s Day Off for the thirty-fifth time in her life. She could recite every line and it reminded her fondly of high school. Whenever she was channel surfing and came across that film, she stopped and watched the rest, whether it had just started or it was almost over.

  Muttering lines with the actors, she could actually smell the approaching thunderstorm on the breeze drifting in through the open windows, and she felt the tingle of excitement. She’d briefly entertained the idea of turning on the air-conditioning, but the sound of the rain soothed her, despite the mugginess of the air, and she didn’t want to close the windows. Summertime thunderstorms were one of her favorite things.

  She burrowed farther into the throw pillow, getting comfortable in anticipation despite her pounding head. Taking another long slug from the bottle of water on the coffee table, she waited for her second dose of Motrin to kick in, glad she’d chosen a gray and rainy day on which to be hungover.

  Going out the previous night with Brandy had been a great idea.

  They’d had a lot of fun…until the fourth martini. Try as she might, Kylie couldn’t get Gretchen out of her head after that. More accurately, she couldn’t get the fact that Gretchen hadn’t called at all on Thursday or Friday out
of her head.

  Apparently, she’d thought she could wash that reality away with copious amounts of vodka and vermouth. Thank God Brandy had pooped out early and was ready to head home by ten. One more of those deadly concoctions and Kylie would be in infinitely worse shape than she was now.

  The good news was she’d gotten the name and number of the breeder Brandy had mentioned the previous week. Glancing at the basket of Rip’s toys, Kylie sensed that by the time the latest litter was ready to leave the mother—about three more weeks—Kylie would be ready to at least go look at the puppies. Rip had been gone for nearly four months and Kylie’s life felt empty without a dog.

  She was contemplating the possibility of some tomato soup and a grilled cheese sandwich when the phone rang. She wasn’t really up for chatting, but something in her nature didn’t allow her to let it ring.

  She’d never been one to screen her calls, and therefore got nabbed by telemarketers on a regular basis.

  “Hello?” she answered without emotion.

  “Kylie?”

  Kylie sat up, recognizing Gretchen’s voice immediately. To punish her for her too-quick movement, her head swam and her stomach churned. She bit back a groan. “Hi.”

  “Hey. How are you?” Gretchen sounded unsure, like she was treading carefully. And she should be.

  “I’m fine. And you?” Kylie tried to remain cool, to stay neutral, despite the twittering Gretchen’s voice could cause in the pit of her stomach.

  “I’m hanging in there. Hey, listen. What are you up to?”

  “Today?”

  “Right now.”

  Kylie glanced at the cable box. It was 4:27. She had no plans at all, though she almost wished she did. She also hadn’t showered and was still in her pajamas. “Um…I’m sort of in the middle of something right now, but I’ll be done by five.” She grimaced and punched the couch cushion next to her, annoyed at how easy she made things for other people, Gretchen in particular.

  “Do you mind if I stop by your place? We need to talk.” We need to talk. The most dreaded words in the history of relationships, and Gretchen had just said them.

  Kylie closed her eyes, inhaled deeply, and slowly let it out. “Sure,” she said, resigned. “You know where to find me.”

  “Great. See you at five.”

  Kylie stared at the phone in her hand for several minutes after they’d hung up. She’d had a feeling things would end up like this, so she wasn’t at all surprised. There was a pain in her chest, though, a steady, pounding ache, and she swallowed hard, willing it back down, knowing if she let it go, it would tear up and out and she’d end up a blubbering mess on her own living room floor.

  The last thing in the world she wanted was for Gretchen to know how much this was going to hurt her. She needed to stay strong, unaffected, at least until she could get Gretchen out of her house.

  She tidied the couch, took her water bottle into the kitchen, and then headed upstairs to take a quick shower, not quite sure why she was even bothering.

  Not quite fifteen minutes later, she was clean and dressed, having donned an old pair of navy blue shorts and a yellow tank top emblazoned with University of Rochester across the front. Both articles of clothing were over ten years old and worn to the perfect softness. She combed her wet hair back away from her face and momentarily wondered if she should bother drying it. But the air was sticky and the thought of the heat from the blow dryer was enough to deter her. She spritzed on some perfume, then rolled her eyes at herself. Like Gretchen’s going to care what I smell like while she’s letting me down easy.

  As she headed downstairs, her stomach growled. Thinking she was finally ready to eat something, she pulled an ice cream sandwich from the freezer and plopped back down on the couch to continue watching TV while she waited for Gretchen. She hoped they could get this over with quickly, like ripping off a Band-Aid. She was determined to be fine while Gretchen was here; she’d let the sting hit her later, when she was alone.

  Kylie was eating the last bite of her ice cream when the doorbell rang and she licked her fingers clean on her way to answer it. She took a deep breath before opening the door. The sight before her nearly caused her to choke.

  Gretchen stood on the doorstep in the rain. She was dressed simply in khaki cargo shorts and a black T-shirt and she looked positively delicious. Kylie had no control of her own eyes as they roamed down over Gretchen’s bare legs, then back up.

  Gretchen smiled uncertainly. “Hi.”

  Kylie blinked. “Hi.”

  Gretchen’s smile faltered ever so slightly as they stood staring at each other. “Um…can I come in?”

  Kylie shook herself. “Oh. Yes. Sorry.” She stepped aside and let Gretchen enter.

  “It’s good to see you,” Gretchen said, fidgeting as she stood in the foyer.

  “It’s good to see you, too. You look great.” Kylie grimaced as soon as the words left her mouth, chiding herself for letting them slip.

  “So do you.” Gretchen took in the sexiness of Kylie’s wet hair and then scanned her figure. She wondered how it was possible for a woman to wear crappy old clothes and look this alluring. She pulled her attention back up to Kylie’s face. “Can we talk?”

  “Sure.” Kylie studied her as Gretchen shook the raindrops out of her loose hair. She ground her teeth against the familiar tingle that made her itch to dig her fingers in and grab a handful of the dark curls.

  She bit the inside of her cheek, completely annoyed at herself for being sucked in so easily. “Come and sit down.” Gretchen followed into Kylie’s living room. She sat on the couch and patted the spot next to her, inviting Kylie to sit close. Kylie sat, leaving plenty of space between their bodies, not trusting herself to be in close proximity.

  “You know what?” Gretchen felt strangely exposed as Kylie’s blue eyes blinked expectantly at her. “Could I have a glass of water?”

  “Water?” Kylie noticed the slight tremble in Gretchen’s hands and forced herself to hold back a sarcastic and bitter grin at the thought of Gretchen being nervous about cutting her loose. “Sure. Be right back.”

  A couple minutes later, they sat again facing each other. Gretchen took a large gulp of her water, and then set the glass down before she spilled it all over the couch. She took a deep breath and studied her lap for several minutes. How is it possible for this to be so damn hard?

  When she looked up and met Kylie’s eyes, her heart warmed. In the depths of the blue, beneath the veneer of anger and hurt, she saw worry, concern, and love…so much of it. Gretchen felt courage pour into her and she briefly wondered how Kylie managed to do that to her—help her through hard times the way she did, with nothing but her eyes.

  “I’ve made some changes this week,” she began and then suppressed a grimace. All right, not exactly my strongest opening. Now, she had no choice but to run with it.

  “Okay,” Kylie said, drawing out the word.

  “I’ve had a lot of time to think.”

  “Mm-hmm.” Kylie flashed on the phone call from Jessica Scott that had come earlier in the week and her heart clenched.

  “And I realized a lot of things about myself.” Kylie nodded. Gretchen looked so nervous, and it was so unlike her to look so nervous, Kylie almost felt sorry for her. God, just tell me, she thought with a hint of irritation.

  “So, I made some calls.”

  Kylie could take it no longer. “And you’re leaving Emerson,” she blurted.

  Gretchen blinked in surprise. “Yes. How’d you know that?” Kylie looked out the window at the darkening sky, unable to bear looking at Gretchen’s face. This was harder than she’d thought it was going to be, the ache in her chest intensifying and eclipsing her anger, much to her dismay.

  “Jessica Scott called for you last week and said you’d called her from Poughkeepsie. I put two and two together.” Gretchen felt blindsided by the turn the conversation had taken.

  “And…how do you feel about that?”

  “About you lea
ving?”

  “Yes.”

  Kylie shrugged. “Hey, you’ve got to do what you’ve got to do, right?”

  Gretchen was surprised by the nonchalance in Kylie’s shrug. “I suppose that’s true.”

  “The company will miss you.” Kylie was still gazing out the window. “You were good for the sales force. They’ll be sad to see you go.”

  “The company will miss me,” Gretchen repeated softly. “Oh.” Suddenly Kylie’s head whipped back around. “Can I just say something?”

  “Of course you can.”

  Kylie felt the strange combination of deflation and anger as she spoke. “I’m sorry, Gretchen. I won’t say I wish things had happened differently, but I feel bad. I feel responsible. At the same time, I wish you had the balls to face this instead of running from it. I…” Her voice trailed off as if she’d run out of steam. Finishing quietly, she added,

  “I’m really sorry that things ended up like this.” Gretchen shook her head, confusion written all over her face. “The balls to face…ended up like what?”

  “Ended up with you being so uncomfortable working with me that you had to leave your job.” There was an unspoken duh at the end of her sentence that almost caused Gretchen to burst into laughter.

  “Kylie.” Gretchen was smiling widely now, a fact that Kylie found unrelentingly grating.

  “What?” she snapped.

  “I left my job so I could continue to see you. To date you.” She amended quickly, “If you want to, of course.” She waited for what seemed like hours, watching as Kylie’s mouth opened and closed several times, no sound escaping. “You look like a fish doing that. Please say something. Say anything.”

  “You want to date me?” Kylie’s voice was small, like that of a disbelieving child.

  “Yeah. I do. Very much.” Throwing caution to the wind, she added, “Actually I…I want to do more than date you.”

  “You do? Why?”

  “Why? Why? What kind of a dumb question is that?” Gretchen’s smile took any sting out of the words, but Kylie pressed on, the sternness of her voice matching that of the expression on her face.