by Ines Saint
The yearning came from a place so deep she had to look away. Completely overwhelmed, it took that most inconvenient feeling at that most inconvenient moment for her to figure out that she was in love with Jake Kelly. And the grim way he was looking at her... There was no way he wasn't about to hurt her.
It helped her fuel her helplessness into anger. At herself for being so stupid, at Robbie for deceiving her, and at Jake for looking so unfeeling when he had to know she was already hurting. "Robbie tricked me? So we could meet?" she broke the silence, her voice shaky.
Jake nodded. "I needed to speak to you in person, and I asked him to help me out."
"And he did. I'm here. What do you have to say to me?"
He nodded again. "I wanted to thank you for anonymously giving Peter your side of the story, and I wanted you to know that I didn't lie to you. When I told you I had never brought another woman to the house, what I'd meant, what was important, was that no one had stayed there with me, that there had never been... a lover. Julia's an old friend, and she only came to give me her opinion on the house before I bought it. The other woman was an interior decorator I'd requested a quote from, but we never made it through the entire house because she was pushing her husband’s renovation business on me as well, and I wasn’t interested in that."
He was saying everything she badly wanted to hear, but why did he have to look so aloof and remote? And why were the explanations so convenient? He'd said he'd never brought a woman to the house. But he had. She'd once told him things weren't always black and white, but sometimes they were. She shook her head. "Why did you feel the need to tell me this in person?" she asked. "You could've told me through Jess, or even through Robbie."
He hesitated before saying, "I know we agreed that the weekend wouldn't amount to anything, but I don't want you thinking I lied to you, either." Wouldn't amount to anything. She'd agreed. She'd insisted. But not because it hadn't meant the world to her. It was because it had. But to him, it had been nothing special or out of the ordinary. The words came back and hit her right in the solar plexus. She put her hand to her chest. When she didn't answer, he began to pace. "I don't like loose ends, and I don't want you thinking I tricked you into being with me, or anything along those lines."
Kayla blinked. Loose ends? She gave her head a quick shake. "You have nothing to worry about. I'm not going to pile on to the bad press by telling people you tricked me."
"What?" His eyes burned into hers. "That's not what I'm worried about!"
"Then what are you worried about?"
"Your feelings, Kayla! I'm worried about your feelings."
"My feelings?" She looked at him in disbelief. If he'd been worried about her feelings, he wouldn't have told her best friend that their time together wasn't special or out of the ordinary! But she couldn't betray Jess. "If you were worried about my feelings you would've smiled and asked how I was when you walked in instead of staring me down as if I was a difficult task you were trying to figure out how to tackle! No, Jake. You're not worried about my feelings. You said it yourself, you're worried about loose ends. And all I'm telling you is, you've got nothing to fear from me. Our weekend won't come back to haunt you."
Jake's eyes flashed. "It's too late for that!"
"Guys!" Robbie walked in and glanced quickly between the two of them. "This was supposed to be a discreet meeting, but I can hear you in my office."
Kayla looked down and worked to gather the frayed edges of her nerves. "It's okay. He wanted reassurance, and I gave it to him. We're good. And I really have to get going." She turned and made her way to the door.
"I came in here because it didn't sound like you were doing 'good' at all," Robbie called to her. "And it's not like you to walk away."
Jake scoffed. "It's exactly like her. When things get real, she runs away."
Kayla whirled. "Really, Jake? I've lost count of the times you've accused me of being overly emotional, and now you say I run away from my feelings? And you, who couldn't even admit that you remembered me when you saw me again after SummerDance, you, who nearly had a stroke over the figurative use of the word forever, and who now feels our time together is haunting your campaign, you're the one being real?" Kayla demanded.
Jake's face turned to granite. He looked at her one last time, the expression in his eyes unreadable, before walking past her and leaving.
Robbie gave her a tired look. "I don't think he meant what you thought he meant when he said it was too late for the weekend with you not to haunt him, Kayla." She stared at Robbie but was too emotionally spent to understand what he was saying. He pulled her close and hugged her to him. "What at am I going to do with you?"
"You know what Jake told Jess about our weekend together. I wasn't about to betray her, but it was there, between us." She held her breath to hold back tears.
"Maybe Jess took it out of context. Why else would he have come here if he didn't care?"
Kayla became so choked up, she was having trouble breathing. "Because I'm a loose end. And don't tell me I'm taking it out of context. That's the excuse every spin doctor out there puts out, even I know that. And I believe coming here is called damage control. Words come out of his mouth, but he never really says anything. And his face when he walked in! It was so cold. He was so cold. And I'm not, Robbie. I'm not. I love him. And I don't want to." And to her mortification, she began to sob.
Robbie began to murmur calming sounds into her ear until her tears subsided, and she was hiccuping. They stayed like that a long time. "I wish romantic love could be like ours. Warm and easy and comfortable and comforting. I thought it could." She sniffed.
He smoothed her hair. "It can be all this and more, Kayla. But the emotional stakes are higher and more intense. There is a risk, and there are no promises. It comes down to deciding that the possibility of the highs are worth risking the lows."
Chapter 13
Jake amped up the volume of his already hectic life. His friends and co-workers would never have guessed that he was working as hard on the campaign and the youth centers as he was at keeping a part of himself numb. He was hitting the pavement in every community, going to every meeting, and addressing every concern he reasonably could. He organized new fundraisers for the youth centers with the view of acquiring new equipment for the kids.
There were only a few weeks to go before Christmas, and Clara Dade's and Mike Summers' posed and campaigned with their beautiful families, and spoke about family values on every occasion. Jake was big on family values, but expressing it would ring hollow. Especially when both his opponents' operatives likened the lack of commitment in his personal life to a lack of commitment in general. Depending on which poll voters chose to believe, Jake was now down by at least nine percent. It seemed that only the kids at the youth center believed in him, and they were too young to vote.
"You need to go on that show, the one with the chatty females," Filip said over smooth and warming Scotch Manhattans at Filip's house on Christmas Eve. Jake was set to attend the stiff and formal annual Christmas dinner with what remained of his father's self-important side of the family, and his mother's resentful side of the family. Why they decided to continue to celebrate together, he'd never know. He wished he could go with Filip to his warm, loud, and welcoming family.
Meeting for drinks had become a tradition, but it was the first time Jake had ever wondered what it would be like to be Filip: older, wiser, and the patriarch of a family who loved and supported him.
"I think the hippie one likes you. She seems very perceptive," Filip continued before Jake's thoughts could take him further down that road.
"You watch that show?" Jake was appalled. "Those women want to skewer me, Filip, not interview me. Especially the hippie—I'm sure she's already got an eye on a nice long, splintery stick with my name on it."
"I think they just want to get to know you." Filip laughed and shook his head at him. "And they've got a way about them. They even managed to make Mike Summers squirm when they kept
innocently questioning them about trivial daily things. It seems he doesn't spend as much quality time with his family as he says he does."
Jake remained silent, too offended by Filip's idea to dignify it with a response. He took the last swig of his drink, swished it around his mouth, and got up to leave.
"Promise me you'll think about it. You should trust your wise elders more often, you know," Filip said before getting up and engulfing Jake in a fatherly hug. Jake couldn't fathom putting himself out there the way people tended to do on the popular talk show. But he was caught in a wave of affection for Filip and said, "You know I trust the people I love, Filip. I promise you I'll think about it."
"At some point, you have to risk trusting other people, too. People are right to question your commitment to the city when you've never even committed to one woman for longer than nine months. That's right, I keep count. And when it comes down to it, if you're a good person, then the truth will always set you free, and you'll have nothing to fear."
"One has nothing to do with the other. A romantic commitment is messy. It involves another person and everything that person carries inside. If you're asking me if I can give one person that much power over me, I can't. But if you're asking me if I can commit to the city, I know I can deliver, because progress is measurable and quantifiable. People aren't," Jake said with more emotion than he’d intended.
Filip squeezed his arm, and Jake cleared his throat and looked away, so he wouldn't have to see his friend's concern. Filip walked away and watching him go with such a heavy stride pained him. "You look tired," Jake said.
"I am tired." Filip sighed and turned to him again. "You know, there are times I feel there's still so much I need to witness in my life, and there are times when I just miss my wife. Her thoughts and feeling were known to me, and need them. I miss coming home to the woman I came home to for forty-five years."
Jake stepped forward to hug his friend again.
* * *
On Christmas Eve, after an early family dinner, Tania, Mia, and Kayla were helping their mother clean the house and prepare for their large family gathering the next day.
Thunder rolled, and rain patted the windows outside, while inside Graciela and Mia worked downstairs while Tania and Kayla made up songs to make their chores upstairs merrier.
When they came up with a tune they liked for their lyrics, cleaning took a back seat. Kayla took her violin out and plucked while Tania sang.
"It's a rainy day, and I feel it again.
These thoughts of you, they drag me down into hell.
You messed with my mind, and you messed with my heart.
If you bug me again, I'll shoot your male parts.
You—"
An ahem caught their attention, and they turned to see their mom. "You have a visitor," she said to Kayla in her polite 'we've got company so please act normal' voice. Kayla looked up and promptly did a double take.
Julia Hamilton, dressed as if she were going to a prep school prom, was standing right behind her mother.
Tania smiled her tight smile and followed Graciela out the door. Kayla stood and motioned Julia in. Her mom could be heard saying, "So you two were making up awful songs upstairs while Mia and I worked our butts off downstairs?"
"Yep, we're starting a band, and we're calling ourselves 'Salty Sisters'," before the sound of their voices died away.
Julia let out something that sounded like a laugh and asked, "Can I join your band?"
Kayla smiled. "That depends, can you be salty?"
"I wish I could be."
"Good enough. You're in." They laughed.
Kayla looked around Tania's old room, where the only place to sit was the bed. She sat and signaled Julia to do the same. Julia cleared her throat. "This is hard for me. I've wanted to talk to you for a long time and today, of all days, while I was on my way to a dinner, I just... I decided to come here, first," she confessed.
Julia was older than her, Kayla knew, but she was so delicate and shy that she seemed years younger. She decided to plunge in, in case Julia lost her nerve. "Is this about Jake Kelly?" she asked. And when Julia nodded, Kayla immediately said, "There's nothing between us—"
At the same time, Julia blurted out, "I'm the one who shared those pictures!"
Baffled, Kayla shook her head. "What pictures? The pictures of you and Jake in Kankakee?"
"No." Julia swallowed hard and stared at her hands. "The pictures of you and Jake dancing at SummerDance."
Stunned, Kayla could only stare. Julia wiped her hands on Tania's patchwork quilt and cleared her throat yet again. In a shaky voice, she continued. "Jake's been my best friend since, well, since before either of us could walk, probably, and there's never been anything remotely romantic between the two of us. He's like a brother to me, one of the few people I can just let go and be myself around." She looked up, an earnest expression on her face.
Still too shocked to speak, Kayla could only reach out to take Julia's hand in an encouraging clasp.
Julia breathed a sigh of relief and grew more composed. "I asked Jake to meet me at Grant Park that evening in July because I love watching people dance, and I really needed a friend. I was sure I'd lost first violinist to you. You performed with so much heart, while I focused too hard on technique.
"But when I arrived, I saw him dancing with you, and I saw the way he was looking at you, and... I'd never seen him look or act that way. I mean, he was dancing salsa, of all things, and he looked captivated and free, at once." Julia paused. "And you looked like something inside you was coming to life. Watching the two of you, I felt the way I feel when I play a deeply moving piece like I'm connecting to something I can barely understand. And I decided to take pictures, to show Jake later on. But he became busier than ever after that night, and I didn't know how to bring it up."
"But... what made you decide to make the pictures public?" Kayla asked when she found her voice.
Julia squeezed Kayla's hand as if looking for more encouragement, before answering. "It was after he came to tell me that he wouldn't need my assistance with the music program. He felt the need to explain why he'd gone with someone else, and when he mentioned your name... I couldn't believe he was trying to come off as if he'd only just met you, but I know him well, and I knew he was shaken. And Jake doesn't do shaken. So I decided to send the pictures out, to give him a jolt. I thought it would be good for the two of you. Especially after I'd gotten the position, and I had to watch you sit on the sidelines, being the substitute when I felt you deserved permanency more than I did. It was stupid, but I thought I could at least help you find love."
Kayla tried to get the full meaning of everything Julia had confessed to sink in. But she couldn't wrap her head around it. Jake and Julia really were just friends, and Julia wanted them to be together. And Julia had sent those pictures. Julia!
"Let me get this straight. You took those pictures of us that night, and you made them public because you thought that would somehow bring us together? You, um, thought you'd be doing me a favor?"
"I'm so sorry." Julia squeezed her hand harder. "Patty and I thought it would force Jake to acknowledge there was something there. I—I realize now we didn't stop to think the attention could hurt you. I guess we're more used to it, and it never crossed our minds."
"Patty? As in Patricia Kelly? Jake's mom? She was in on it?" Her mind was officially blown.
Julia gulped. "Don't be mad at her, please. I promise it made sense at the time."
Kayla was dazed, not mad.
"Um, I have to go. I'm late as it is, and it isn't a good day to interrupt you for so long. Will you be okay, Kayla? I've always felt like you were someone I could be friends with. I really didn't mean to cause trouble for you, and... and I still think... never mind." Julia shook her head and stood up.
Kayla stood up, too. "It's going to take me some time to process all of this." She exhaled. "But I'd like to be friends, too. I'm not angry, believe it or not. I believe you meant well.
" She forced a smile and walked Julia downstairs.
When Julia was set to leave, Kayla pulled her into a quick hug, knowing that even though her actions had been misguided, Julia hadn't meant harm, and it had been brave of her to confess. She was rewarded with a teary smile from Julia. "One more thing," Julia began. "The night of your first performance with Second City, Jake begged my parents to dump their original guest, and take him instead. I had never seen him so insistent and so unreasonable." She smiled. "And I know it wasn't to see me play because he's sick of hearing me play."
Kayla didn't know what to say to that. She wasn't even sure she wanted to believe it. What would happen if she did?
"What was that about?" Kayla's mom sat on the sofa and patted the seat next to her.
"Nothing." Kayla sat down next to her mom, feeling as messy inside as she ever had.
"Why won't you talk to me, hija?" Graciela sighed. "I'm not blind. I know my own daughter, and I see what's going on. But every time I ask, you shut me out."
Kayla closed her eyes. She didn't want to talk to her mother because Graciela was a hopeless romantic, and Kayla didn't want to be sucked into that. "I love you, mami, but I'm not sure I can hear what you'll say."
"How do you know for sure what I'll say?" Graciela grabbed her hand. "I know you're not me, Kayla. I don't expect my daughters to feel as I do or think as I do. But I do hope they never make decisions out of fear. Base your decisions on love and not fear. That's all I'll say."
"You know I'm afraid?"
"Yes. And I'm afraid for you," her mother admitted, her eyes shining with myriad emotions. "Things haven't worked out in this family the way we expected them to. But in the end, I wouldn't change the decisions I made out of love, Kayla, and as much as your sister flaps her mouth, I know she wouldn't either. You, Tania, and Mia—you are all the product of decisions made out of love."
The words gave Kayla chills, and she let her mom fold her into a hug. There was so much comfort in the embrace that she began to feel the tight rein she held over her thoughts and feelings begin to give way.