I returned to the kitchen, tugging at the dress bodice the whole way, and presented myself.
He grinned. “It fits. You look great.”
“Thank you.” I forced myself to stop fidgeting. “I have to tell you, I’m impressed. Where did you find this?”
“There’s a little clothing store on the way to the farmers’ market. I’d never gone in before, but I figured you’d need something to wear.”
My eyes widened. “Wow. That’s so nice of you. No one’s ever—I mean, you really shouldn’t have.”
We stared at each other through the coffee steam. I was suddenly very aware of the thin translucence of the dress. He wasn’t saying anything. I wasn’t saying anything. Was he thinking about the kiss? Because that would…be…trouble. Yes. Sultry, wine-flavored trouble.
I shifted my focus to my chipped pink pedicure. “Well. Thanks.”
He picked up the cordless phone and offered it to me. “If you want to—”
“No, I better just—”
“I’ll take you home.”
“My roommate will think—”
“I’m sure she won’t.”
“So I’ll just grab my purse and…okay.”
“Okay.”
He parked the car in front of my apartment building, strode around to the passenger side, and opened my door for me. As he extended a hand to help me out, I couldn’t suppress a smile. “They really drilled the whole door-holding routine into you back east, didn’t they?”
“That’s nothing. You should see me RSVP.”
“Oh, stop—I may swoon.” I grabbed my purse with both hands, zipping and unzipping the front pouch. “Well, okay. Bye.”
He stopped my retreat with a firm hand on my waist. “You look so sexy in that dress. Come here a second.”
When he kissed me, I kissed him back. I couldn’t stop myself. My mind had denied my body last night, but the body was staging a comeback this morning.
Last night’s sudden, startling heat hadn’t been a fluke—it flared right up between us again. This time felt safer—we were in broad daylight, fully dressed, apt to be separated by a carload of frat boys yelling “Get a room!” at any moment. No danger that my libido would entirely overrule my good sense.
And right on cue, a Jeep teeming with scruffy hooligans slowed down long enough for the occupants to hoot, holler, and wrest Alex and I apart.
“Damn,” he muttered as I pulled away.
“You are a freakishly good kisser.” I sighed and headed for the apartment building foyer, stammering and tripping over the curb in the process. “I should go in before this turns into a Hugh Grant comedy.”
He started in with the obligatory male postdate party line. “I’ll—”
“Don’t tell me you’re going to call me,” I warned.
“Okay.” He leaned back against the car door. “I won’t tell you. I’ll just call.”
I smiled and rolled my eyes, but I believed him. My love life was turning around. I was dating a guy who could figure out my dress size and my secret weakness for grilled cheese.
In yo face, Dennis.
I expected Cesca to pounce and interrogate me the instant I walked through the door. But the apartment was quiet. Too quiet. This, combined with the fact that she had arranged to meet Mike last night, did not bode well.
I heard a steamy hiss as the bathroom shower turned on, then Cesca’s voice echoing off the tiled walls.
“American wo-maaan…Stay away from meee-ee…”
She did not sound heartbroken and bereaved. In fact, she sounded delighted. Ebullient. She sounded like a woman who just spent the night in the throes of—
“Yo. G-dog. What up?” Mike Jessup shuffled into view, wearing scuffed Adidas slides and Cesca’s purple bathrobe. He held a bottle of Corona in one hand. Apparently, he had tried to grow a goatee since I last saw him—the soft blond fuzz clung to his chin in sparse patches.
“Mike. We meet again.”
“Hells, yeah.” He pulled a pack of Newports from the robe’s pocket. “You know. Me and C. met up last night, and then before you know it, we were back here, and it was—”
“I got it, I got it.” I glanced at the cigarette in his hand. “Could you please not smoke that inside? I’m allergic.”
“A little asthmatic distress going on? That’s cool.” He fished out a lighter. “I remember—you’ve got the whole control freak thing happening, right?”
“That’s me.” I nodded.
“Yeah, you shoulda seen your face after C. and me broke those plates. You were pissed.” He returned his focus to the Newports. “What about when you’re not here? Can I smoke inside then?”
This startled me. “How often are you planning to be over here?”
“All the time. Me and C. are back together. Back for good.”
“I see. Will you please excuse me for a moment?” I headed for the bathroom and pounded on the door.
“Come in,” Cesca singsonged.
So I barged on in. “Francesca DiSanto.”
“Oh, look who finally came home! Did your big date go into triple overtime?”
“Don’t you ‘triple overtime’ me. I want some answers.”
Long pause on the other side of the curtain. “About what?”
“Why don’t you tell me?”
Big sigh. “I suppose you’re wondering about Mike.”
“I am, yes. The last time I checked, he was fleeing from the pottery shards and I was forbidden to speak his name.”
She turned off the shower. “Oh. That. Well, that was all just an unfortunate misunderstanding.”
“I see.” I could hear the faucet dripping into the drain.
“I can feel your disapproval radiating through the shower curtain. Don’t get all prim and proper on me. I can’t explain it, Gwen. He just makes me so happy.”
I gagged. “Do you want me to yak right now?”
“That’s not very sensitive of you.”
“Come on! The guy is out there right now having beer and nicotine for breakfast.”
“You’re just mad because he used to steal your Diet Coke out of the fridge.”
“For your information, I had forgotten all about that,” I said. “Although, yeah, it was pretty annoying now that you mention it. But it’s not about the soda and you know it. It’s about the fact that he treated you like crap.”
My roommate poked her head out from behind the curtain and glared at me through the soapy rivulets trickling down from her hair. “You are not my keeper. If you are really my friend, you will respect my choice. So. Now will you tell me about your date?”
I put my hands on my hips. “You’re sabotaging yourself with him and you know it. Honestly? I think you date guys like him to keep yourself from getting into a real relationship. How can you be so smart and so dumb at the same time? It’s like you deliberately hold yourself back.”
She jerked her head back into the shower. “It’s none of your business. Lock up your Diet Coke, chickie! And by the way, nice dress. You auditioning for Our Town?” She turned the water back on, full blast.
I slammed the bathroom door behind me and marched back into the kitchen, where Mike greeted me with, “Hey, G-dog, if you and C. ever decide you want to shower, you know, together, I’m down with that.”
I opened my mouth, then decided it wasn’t worth it and stormed into my bedroom. I was already in enough trouble with “C.” Heaven forbid I offend her precious Prince Charming.
As it turned out, Cesca took care of that herself. I heard her emerge from the bathroom and join Mike in the kitchen, where their soft murmuring escalated to a screaming match in ten minutes flat. I didn’t know what the argument was about, but they both seemed quite adamant in their positions.
“If I could kill you right now, I would!”
“Nice talk from a psychologist!”
“I’m not a psychologist yet, you scum-sucking freak! Get out before I do something we’ll both regret! And gimme my robe back!”
Slam. Exit Mike.
For now.
5
My Monday morning interview with Harmony St. James got off to a deceptively good start. She showed up almost on time (I accepted her excuse about jam-packed freeways with a polite smile and no comment), ready to take on the world.
“Hi, Dr. Traynor,” she said, gliding into my office in a cloud of gentle grace and jasmine perfume. “Check it out—I’m ready to roll up my sleeves and get to work! Ask me anything!”
I did check her out, suffering a crushing loss of self-esteem in the process. She was resplendent in fawn-colored sandals with four-inch heels and straps that snaked halfway up her calves, a tight white miniskirt, a black silk sweater that dipped off one tan shoulder, and huge black pearl earrings that probably cost more than my entire year’s fellowship.
She curled up in the blue armchair near my desk and tossed her purse to the floor. “So where do we start, Dr. Traynor?”
“Oh, call me Gwen.” I uncapped my pen, flipped to a fresh page in my notepad, and reminded myself that even though I didn’t look like one of Charlie’s Angels, I had other skills. Or something. “I haven’t technically finished my Ph.D. yet, and there’s no need for formality.”
“Okay. Gwen.” She leaned forward, practically resting her chin on my desk. “Do you want to hear about my mother? My childhood? My dreams? You know, I have the craziest dreams, but they’re all in black and white, never in color, what do you think—”
“Why don’t we start with your son?” I suggested.
“Oh.” She looked a little disappointed. “Okay.”
“As Leo’s mom, you’re going to have to do a lot to help his therapy along. After all, I’ll only see him for an hour or so each week. You have him every day.”
She nodded, furrowing her brow in concentration.
“So it’s important that you and I agree on a course of action, and that we work together. You cannot reinforce bad behavior when Leo’s at home, or let him get away with breaking the rules because you feel guilty. I know he’s probably very difficult to deal with right now, I know you feel sorry for him, but you’ve got to hang in there. It may be a while before he shows any improvement—at least four or five months.”
“Four or five months?” She repeated, dismayed. “I screwed him up that bad already? He’s only in preschool!”
“You didn’t ‘screw him up,’ Ms. St. James,” I soothed, glossing over the fact that lots of clinical studies linked childhood depression to a chaotic home life and inconsistent parenting. “But you can help him feel better. Let’s start with when you first noticed changes in behavior. Children his age often start showing signs of depression after the loss of a parent or a symbolic object—a security blanket, something like that. Has there been any sudden loss like that in the past few months?”
Harmony twisted up her lips and thought. “Well, his dog died last month.”
I checked my notes from Leo’s last session. “Jellybean?”
“Yeah. He really loved Jellybean, so his poor little heart was broken. And then—oh! I know! My mom was living at my place for about nine months, and then she moved out a few weeks ago. At the beginning of June.”
“So Leo was used to living with his grandmother?”
“Yeah, but she met this old rich guy who was here on vacation, and it was love at first sight. He’s just crazy about her, and he bought her this huge diamond from Harry Winston. So she moved out to Hawaii with him. They’re getting married.”
“I see.” I jotted ‘flighty grandma’ in my notes, not really surprised by this information. Chaos and impulsivity tended to cycle down through generations.
“So then I hired Nell from the best nanny agency in town—I checked all her references, I really did—but Leo hasn’t, you know, bonded with her very much.”
“Mm-hmmm.” I scribbled notes down in my yellow legal pad.
“And then I told him a few weeks ago that we might be moving to New York City if I get this part I’m auditioning for on a prime-time sitcom, which would be huge for my career. And he threw a fit and said he hated New York and he hated me. In that order.” She lowered her voice and confided, “The casting director just called my agent yesterday and said it’s down to me or Alicia Silverstone.”
I tried not to be derailed by the gratuitous name-dropping. “And what about Leo’s father?”
She gave me a sunny, carefree smile. “What about him?”
“Is he involved in Leo’s life?”
She shook her head. “Nope.”
“Well…” How to put this delicately? “Has he ever been involved in Leo’s life?”
“Nope.”
“Look, I know these are very personal questions. I’m just trying to get a clearer picture of your home life and the family structure.”
“Oh, no problem whatsoever.” She flicked a strand of dark hair back over her shoulder. “Grover—he’s my spiritual adviser at Synchrona—says that it’s very important to be honest. Honest with myself, honest with him, honest with, you know, the universe.”
I blinked. “Synchrona?”
“That’s my spiritual group. They’re based in West Hollywood, and they’ve been written up in the Los Angeles Times, Us Weekly and InStyle, even the Wall Street Journal.” Her blue eyes widened. “They’re very into family values and morals.”
I think I had read that L.A. Times article, and if I was not very much mistaken, the word cult had been bandied about.
“Um. Great.” I forced myself to shut my mouth and not write “pseudo-religious wackjob” in my notes. “So what is your relationship with Leo’s father?”
“I don’t have one. He was just this guy I dated for a while, and then we broke up.” She shrugged. “That’s it.”
“He didn’t want to be involved in his son’s life?” I asked, thinking about how painful it must be for a little boy to feel rejected by his father.
“He might have, but…”
I looked up from my pad. “But what?”
“Well…I never exactly told him I was pregnant.” She giggled and covered her mouth like a schoolgirl caught passing notes.
The first black stirrings of suspicion uncurled in my stomach.
“Really.” I paused to take a sip of coffee and choose my next words very carefully. “And, uh…did the two of you have a serious relationship? Prior to the breakup?”
Her forehead wrinkled up. “I guess so. We were going out for a while, and then he just broke up with me for no reason.” She paused, looking guilty. “Well, I’m being honest, right? Honestly, I borrowed his credit card—this was before Twilight’s Tempest was the ratings success it is now—and went a little overboard at Fred Segal. It was the semiannual sale on Melrose. You know how it is. And then I was furious with him after he broke up with me, and then by the time Leo was born, I was dating his friend, and I don’t know…I just never got around to telling him. It would’ve been awkward.”
The room was so quiet, I could hear the seconds tick by on the wall clock across the room.
She finally opened her mouth again to break the silence. “You know, it’s possible that his friend told him about the baby after I dumped him, but I doubt it. He was pretty mad at him.”
I crossed my fingers and prayed that I was not about to hear what I thought I was about to hear. “Who was mad at whom?”
“The father—Alex C.—was mad at his friend—Alex S.—after Alex S. and I hooked up.”
Oh no. Nonononono.
“Alex C. and Alex S.” I pretended to jot this down and surrendered the entire right side of my brain to hyperventilating panic.
“I know. I seem to have a thing for guys named Alex.” She adjusted her skirt hem. “I’ve dated like ten of them. Except for the guy I just broke up with. He was a Paul.”
“But back to Leo’s father—I’m sorry, what did you say his name was, again?” I gave up subtle nudges in favor of arm-breaking shoves for information.
“Alex Coughlin.” She
smiled sweetly.
I clutched my pen so hard my knuckles went white. Luckily, she was off and running with her reminiscences and didn’t even notice my dismay.
“The other guy, his friend that I dated, was Alex Spears.” She paused to adjust her earring. “But, anyway, I couldn’t tell Alex C. that he was the dad because first of all, he had changed his phone number so I would stop calling him to apologize, and second of all, he would’ve freaked out. He had a thing about single moms.”
“Did he?” I choked out.
“Yeah.” She leaned in and lowered her voice. “See, he never had a dad. Well, I mean, there was some rich guy who had an affair with his mom, and when she got pregnant with Alex, he gave her this huge trust fund to keep her quiet. But his mom was a little bit like, the light’s on at Motel Six, but the guest has checked out, you know? So he grew up in boarding schools like you see in those old Shirley Temple movies. He had this gigantic hang-up about single parents. He would’ve been a pain in the ass about my pregnancy.” She deepened her tone and did what I had to admit was a pretty good imitation of Alex. “No child of mine is going to start his life without a father.” She shrugged. “And now that I’m at Synchrona, Grover says I should free my soul of deceit and earthly encumbrances, but I don’t even know how to find the guy anymore.”
I tried to close my mouth and look professionally detached. “Have you been looking for him?”
“Only a little bit. I checked the phone book. He wasn’t listed. But I didn’t call his office or anything.”
There was nothing left to do but repeat the stock therapist response. “I see.”
“But now that my pookie’s depressed and my mom can’t take care of him, I’ve been thinking.” She raised one blood-red nail to her lips. “Maybe I should search a little harder for Alex C.”
She fixed those clear blue eyes on me. “What do you think I should do, Gwen?”
I arrived at my adviser’s office breathless and sweaty. But the door was closed, which meant one of two things: either he was off-site or he was conducting some private administrative meeting in there, the interruption of which would result in my instantaneous death.
Exes and Ohs Page 6