“So Momma misses Poppa, does she?”
“Momma misses Poppa something awful. This bed feels so empty without you in it.”
“So does this one. The time will fly by. I promise.”
“I know it will. It’s not as though I’m all alone in the house. I just didn’t have any idea how much I’d miss you. I’m being silly, I know. I’ve slept alone before. I just need to pull on my big girl panties and buck up.”
“The minute I’m done, I’ll rush home to you, and we’ll party. Just you and me. Alone. In the dark. Clothing optional. Maybe, if you beg, I’ll put Smokey on the stereo. If you’re really, really nice to me, I might even make it Marvin and Tammi.”
“Are you still trying to get me all hot and bothered?”
“You can’t blame a guy for trying.”
“No, I can’t. Especially when it’s working so well.”
“Yeah?” he said with interest. “So, we could still try that phone sex thing—”
“Not in this lifetime, my friend.”
“That was a pretty emphatic no.”
“I’m not that kind of girl, MacKenzie.”
“I suppose that probably means you also don’t want me to bring you home any sex toys from the big, bad city.”
“You’re all the sex toy I need.”
“Wow. That was good, Fiore. Nice save.”
And she laughed and said, “All right, my lunatic guitar man, we both need to get some sleep. Call me tomorrow?”
“What a shame. The minute I start talking about sex toys, I scare her right off. What’s that all about?”
“I’m too sweet and innocent to know about things like that.”
“And I’m the King of Siam. So, babydoll, since you’re not interested in any phone sex tonight—”
“Or ever.”
“—I’ll call tomorrow. You sure you’re okay, kiddo? You sounded pretty shaky there at first.”
“I’m fine now. Thanks for putting up with my late-night insanity.”
“I’m pretty sure it’s written into the marriage contract somewhere. G’night, babe.”
She hung up the phone, set it on the bedside table, and was asleep within seconds.
***
It was late afternoon the next day when the knock came on her door. She answered it to find a delivery man standing on the steps holding a florist’s box. “Casey MacKenzie?” he said.
“Yes.”
“These are for you.”
She thanked him, gave him a five-dollar tip, and carried the box inside. Paige had come out of her room to see what was going on. “Flowers,” the kid said. “Wow.”
Wow was right. She must have really sounded like she was unraveling last night. Casey untied the ribbon and lifted the cover of the box, and she and Paige both gasped when they saw what was inside. A half-dozen of them. Perfect. Exquisite. Delicate. Stunning.
“I’ve never seen anything like them before,” Paige said. “What are they?”
“Orchids,” she breathed, staring at them in disbelief. “He sent me orchids.”
Other men, ordinary men, sent their wives roses. Only her man sent orchids. Always, he had to be a little different. It was the way he was wired. And he always knew somehow what would please her the most. She’d never been able to figure out how he did it. She picked up the card, thumbed the envelope open, and read the message, neatly printed in the florist’s handwriting: Miss you, baby. Home ASAP. Be ready.
Behind her, Paige was reading over her shoulder. “What does Be ready mean?”
Casey knew precisely what it meant. It was MacKenzie shorthand for the two of them, partying. Alone. In the dark. With Smokey on the stereo and clothing optional.
“Never mind,” the kid said. “I figured it out. You just turned as red as the side of that barn out back. Too much information. Way too much information.”
“I didn’t give you any information.”
“Oh, yeah, you did. You know, you guys are way old for that kind of thing. I just—ew.”
“What kind of thing?”
“All that lovey-dovey stuff. Kissing in the kitchen. Making googly eyes at each other.” Indicating the florist’s card, she added, “Now this.”
“Too old? I’m thirty-five. He’s thirty-seven.”
“Like I said. Old.”
That night, she was still awake, reading by the light of her bedside lamp, when he called. It was still early, eleven-thirty her time, and when he said, “Hey, gorgeous,” those three syllables turned her inside out.
“The orchids are exquisite,” she said. “Thank you.”
“You’re welcome. I just thought you seemed to need cheering up, and since you said no to any, um—toys—I thought orchids would be the next best thing.”
“You always know what I need.”
“I’m a wizard. You know that.”
“And I remain perpetually amazed by your wizardry. So how are the rehearsals going?”
“Very smooth. I think we just might be able to pull this thing off.”
“And how’s the city of angels?”
“No different than it was when I left. I can’t believe I lived here as long as I did. The smartest thing you ever did was to pack your car and drive away from this place.”
“I agree. But the memories aren’t all bad, are they?”
“No, but the lifestyle…it’s plastic and pretentious and utterly meaningless. It’s not who I am. It’s not who you are. Never has been, for either of us. Speaking of plastic and pretentious, guess who I ran into this morning.”
“Who?”
“My ex-wife.”
“Oh.” No need to ask which one. “The Queen of plastic and pretentious.”
“I was headed into the studio, and this big limo pulled up to the curb, and just as I walked by, she stepped out of it. And there we were, face to face on the sidewalk.”
“That must have been…interesting. Did she actually speak to you?”
“She really didn’t have much of a choice. People were watching. Couldn’t let the world see Monique Lapierre being anything less than civil to her ex-husband. The press would tear her to shreds.”
“So?”
“We exchanged pleasantries. The old European kiss on both cheeks kind of thing. How are you? So nice to see you. Have a nice life, and don’t let the door hit you in the ass on the way out.”
“Was it weird? Strange? Did you still have, ah—”
“Feelings for her? Be serious, Fiore. That was a million years ago. I was just a kid, and it was not my finest hour. I’ll admit it was a little weird. All that fake civility, just for the sake of appearances. Especially when you consider that the last time I saw her—outside of divorce court, that is—was the night I walked away from that mausoleum she called a house, and half the dishes in the kitchen cupboard came flying out the door behind me.”
“You never told me that.”
“There are a multitude of things about my marriage to Monique that I’ve never told you.”
“Probably better if we keep it that way.”
“Unquestionably better if we keep it that way.”
“So…it was not an amicable parting.”
“Definitely not. It was a very crazy time in my life. The only emotion I felt today was bafflement. Wondering what the hell I was thinking, taking up with her in the first place.”
“I can answer that question for you. Danny summed it up quite nicely when he said you were thinking with what was between your legs, instead of what was between your ears.”
“Danny said that?”
“He did. We were both so worried about you. The way she treated you was appalling. She was such a horrible woman. Beautiful, for sure, but her beauty was only skin deep. Underneath it all, she was very, very ugly.”
“I don’t know if this will make you feel any better, but the outer shell isn’t looking so hot these days, either. Underneath all the layers of war paint, she hasn’t aged well.”
“What a trag
edy.”
“She hated you so much.”
“Believe me, the feeling was mutual. I’d never been deliberately rude to anybody, until Monique decided she was going to keep us away from each other. What I said to her that day—let’s just say it wasn’t my finest hour, either, and leave it at that. But she had it coming. She was a witch. And I’m being extremely generous, because there are far worse things I could be saying about her. Far worse things, if you must know, that I actually said to her face.”
“She told me what you said. The funny thing is, as furious as she made us at the time, she was right all along.”
“About what?”
“About you and me. She tried to keep us apart because she thought there was something going on between us—”
“There wasn’t anything going on between us! I was married, for God’s sake. And pregnant!”
“Yet here we are, a decade later, together. And, quite frankly, very hot for each other. The way we feel about each other now? It was already there between us, buried so deep we didn’t know it existed until another half-dozen years went by. But somehow, Monique saw it, and she had this primal recognition of you as her competition.”
“I’d prefer to believe she was just psychotic and paranoid.”
“Well, yeah. In addition to that. Psychotic and paranoid goes without saying.”
“Speaking of hot for each other,” she said, “your darling daughter loved the orchids, but she said we’re too old to act the way we do.”
“What way?”
“I’m thirty-five. You’re thirty-seven. We’re way too old to be having sex. It’s disgusting. Ew.”
“Who said anything about sex?”
“She asked me what be ready meant. Apparently I blushed a brilliant red, which to her delicate sensibilities was far too much information. It painted a picture she really didn’t want to imagine.”
At the other end of the phone, he let out a soft laugh. “I suppose that at fifteen, thirty-five does seem ancient.”
“Positively geriatric.”
“In that case, be forewarned, old woman: The minute I’m done with the tour, I’m blowing this Popsicle stand, and when I get home, we’re having some of that tepid, geriatric sex that we’re really too old for.”
“You’re such a perv. Be forewarned, old man: I’ll be waiting.”
Paige
The first postcard arrived three days after he left. On the front was a photo of the famous Hollywood sign, an unwelcome reminder that in her entire fifteen years, she’d never been farther west than Connecticut. On the back was a note written in quirky handwriting that looked like chicken tracks on the page. I looked for the cheesiest postcard I could find, and this was it. L.A. is a zoo. Smog hovers over the city like a dirty, wet blanket. Thankfully, by the time you read this, I’ll be somewhere else. ~ Dad
Paige snorted. Right. It would be a cold day in hell before she’d think of him as her dad. But it was a novelty, getting mail. She couldn’t remember ever receiving mail that was actually addressed to her. So instead of tossing it, she tucked the card inside her algebra book. That was an appropriate place to keep it, since they both—algebra, and the man who’d slept with her mother nine months before she was born—belonged in the same category, the category titled Things of Which Paige is Not Particularly Fond.
The second postcard arrived the next day. Venice Beach. A surfer on a bright yellow board. She’d heard of the place, but didn’t know anything about it. Paige flipped the card over. In that same scratchy handwriting, it read: Casey had an apartment just a couple blocks from here. We used to hang out on the boardwalk. Wish I was there now. Instead, headed for the Great Southwest. Such is the life of a traveling musician. ~ Dad
She turned the card over, studied the guy on the yellow surfboard, then re-read the message before tucking it into the algebra book along with the first one.
After that, they arrived daily. She wasn’t sure how he managed it, traveling on a bus, but for every nowhere place he stopped on the tour, he found a postcard to chronicle his journey, and wrote a personal message to her before he mailed it. At first, it seemed a little intense. A little sketchy, even. Until one day, she realized she was looking forward to getting home after school to see what he’d sent and where he’d been: Arizona, New Mexico, Texas. That didn’t mean she accepted any part of him, but he wasn’t one of those “how are you, I am fine, wish you were here” writers. His little snippets of life and wisdom were entertaining, so she allowed herself to enjoy them without ceding an inch on the issue of their non-relationship.
With school now well underway, life fell into a routine. The pain of her mom’s death was still raw, but she was surviving. Sandy had often told her she was tough as nails, and it was true. Nothing could stop Paige MacKenzie. Besides, as it turned out, her father’s wife was quiet and non-offensive and, strange as it seemed, with him out of the house, life almost felt…normal. Just two girls rattling around in all that space, the way it had always been with her mom. Casey wasn’t one to push the relationship issue. Instead, she took each day as it came, made lemonade out of lemons, and Paige was determined to emulate her quiet strength.
It probably wasn’t easy for the woman, having her husband gone like this, especially considering that they were usually joined at the hip. Paige had detected some tension in her stepmother that hadn’t been there before, and she was pretty sure it was directly related to being temporarily husbandless. Casey tried to hide it, but she could see it anyway. She knew he called pretty much nightly; she heard the phone ringing at ridiculously late hours, with Casey almost always picking up by the second ring. It was possible that she was a night owl. More likely, she was waiting by the phone for his call.
Either way, the routine was easy and predictable. School every day, band practice with Luke and the boys two or three nights a week, hanging with Lissa on the weekends, and the inescapable Saturday-night family get-together. She and Casey started running together, but because the days had shortened and the sun didn’t come up until a half-hour before the school bus arrived, on weekdays they ran in the afternoons, while it was still daylight. Sometimes they talked about inconsequential things. Most of the time, they ran in silence, but it was a relaxed silence.
Her father’s wife was an easy person to be with, and Paige wasn’t so stupid she didn’t realize she’d lucked out with the hand she’d been dealt. Her stepmother could have been a monster. She’d had more than one friend, back in Boston, who’d been saddled with the Stepmother From Hell. Other friends had steered a wide berth around their stepfathers. Pretty much everyone she knew back in the old neighborhood was part of what was now referred to as a blended family. Paige could count on the fingers of one hand the number of kids she knew back home who still lived with both biological parents. Nobody stayed together. Nobody stayed married. Parents changed partners like they were playing musical chairs, and it was always the kids who paid.
Her situation was a little different; it had always been just the two of them, and it was hard to miss something you’d never had. Paige had never given much thought to her lack of a father. But she’d witnessed enough divorces among the parents of her friends to know how it ripped the heart out of a kid to see Dad packing his suitcases and leaving.
So things at home, with Casey, were low-key and calm. School, on the other hand, was a suckfest. In spite of the fact that Mikey hadn’t sought her out again—or even bumped into her in the hallway—she was still the recipient of the venomous sting of rejection, as only a teenage girl could dish it out. The guys were friendly enough, but the girls—at least most of them—gave her the cold shoulder. It was more of a passive shunning than the active aggression she’d anticipated. As a kid who’d grown up on the streets of Southie and could give as good as she got in a down-and-dirty rumble, she found them laughable. Was this the best they could do? If so, then screw them. Life was too short to waste it worrying about a bunch of snotty girls who were so self-involved that their idea of pu
nishment was to deprive her of their magnificent presence. If she wouldn’t play the game by their rules, they’d just pick up their marbles and flounce off home. Well, boo-fucking-hoo.
She didn’t need them anyway. She had real friends. She had Lissa, who’d quickly become her staunch ally, and Luke, who was fun and a little crazy and always up for hanging out. She even had Luke’s geeky band mates, who weren’t all that bad once she got to know them. Besides, once she graduated and blew this crappy town forever, she would never again have to set eyes on any of those stupid chicks, so she just put one foot in front of the other, focused on her schoolwork, and ignored them with the same elaborate grace with which they ignored her.
It was the Saturday nights that made up for all the immature high-school drama, because on Saturday nights, she always saw Mikey. Since her old man was away, it became Paige’s job to carry the records while Casey did the driving. With the advent of fall weather, these little shindigs moved indoors, and because Trish and Bill’s house was so tiny, the venue changed, for the foreseeable future, to the Lindstrom house.
With the stack of record albums clutched to her chest, Paige followed Casey through the front door of her Aunt Rose’s house. “We’re here,” Casey called, juggling a bag of tortilla chips, a tub of homemade salsa, a hot container of chili and a chilled bowl of tossed salad, “and we come bearing gifts.”
Through the living room doorway, Paige could see a group of men—Jesse Lindstrom, Will Bradley, Sr., Bill, Jr., and Chuck Fournier, who taught U.S. History at the high school and was Paula Fournier’s husband—all circled around Mikey, who had apparently done something worthy of worshipful adulation at this afternoon’s football game. She heard the words “fifty-yard line” and “touchdown,” and Bill leaned over and gave his nephew an affectionate whack on the back.
“About time you got here,” Trish said from the kitchen, scurrying to lighten Casey’s load. “You can give the records to Aunt Rose,” she told Paige. “Since your uncles have defected to football land, it looks like the women are in charge of the music tonight.”
Days Like This Page 16