"I'm not completely useless, you know. I'll be fine." He stood and headed to the door.
I watched in complete confusion. He'd actually heard me? It sure seemed like it. But then why did he sound so calm and unconcerned? He didn't seem offended at all.
He left without a word, and I sat stunned on the couch for a bit then turned to Saffron. "I think we're free, baby."
Saff opened one eye and gave me a huge sigh then went back to sleep, and I picked up the first resume and began to read. I'd nearly reached the bottom of the page when my cell phone signaled a text message.
Sorry, I shouldn't have come with such a lame plan. I'll bring a better one once I have it.
I rubbed my temples as the headache surged again. Seriously? What was it going to take to convince him to back off? I'd made it simple enough that Rudy or Lola could have understood it, so why didn't Brian get it?
I felt like I'd run into a brick wall as understanding smashed into me. He did get it. He knew I didn't want to do this any more.
He also didn't care.
My feelings and opinions were completely irrelevant to him. He'd decided how things were going to be and I would fall into line.
Or so he thought.
Another brick wall. So everyone thought. Charles, my mother, Jimmy, Crystal, even John Franklin the contractor... they all assumed they could do what they wanted with and to me. I'd told John otherwise, though, and he had moved those shelves. I had won there.
I felt the faintest glow of achievement and pride over that, and encouraged it to grow and brighten until I was full of such energy and drive I felt like I might explode. I'd done it once, I could do it again. I'd made a start with Brian today, and I would do the same with my mother. Tomorrow. One confrontation a day was sufficient.
Other than the confrontations with Kegan, of course. Far more than one a day there.
But those were different. Yes, we bickered and disagreed, and yes, I did want him to back off on his interference with my work. Most definitely. But he never acted like I shouldn't have my own opinions. He respected me, even when he disagreed. He did listen to me.
I picked up my phone to respond to Brian, and after giving it some thought sent:
No.
Really, what else needed to be said?
*****
Brian didn't contact me again that night, but I knew he would. I also knew how I'd handle it: I would be like a non-stick pan and let his greasy aggravating behavior slide right off me. I couldn't change him, but I could change myself and how I responded to him. That would be a huge step in the right direction.
I reviewed fifty resumes that night, and not a single one was even a tiny step in the right direction. Crystal had obviously mobilized her friends to send us garbage applications. The ones from names like Donald Duck and Edward Cullen were easy to weed out, but some were so close to real that I couldn't discount them. I had to go through each one individually, searching for clues to its truthfulness.
When I told Kegan about it the next morning he posted a revised version of the job ad under a new name, which did stem the tide of spam but also brought a new deluge of resumes. I wanted to do the hiring, because it was so amazing that he was letting me do it, but the whole mess was making me crazy. Combined with how close Magma was to opening, I had so much to do I barely had time to breathe.
On Thursday night, after leaving Steel "early" at eleven, I was again on the couch working through the applications when my phone rang.
Ding dong, the witch is dead!
The thought, "I wish she were dead," flashed through my mind and then guilt and horror exploded through me. How could I possibly think that about my own mother?
"Mary, when are you coming home? Poor Charles needs you."
I rubbed my eyes. This was not the time I'd have chosen for this, but maybe that was for the best. Less time to prepare meant less time to get myself freaked out. "Mom, you know he has a girlfriend."
She didn't act shocked, and she didn't ask me how I knew. She just said, "Oh, that won't last. He's meant to be with you."
I opened my mouth to ask where she got that from, then closed it. How could she be so delusional? I'd intended to make her admit that Charles and I weren't meant to be together, but now I couldn't imagine she'd ever do that. But I could insist we never discuss him again. Not quite as good, but certainly better than how things were now.
Before I could figure out what to say, though, she said, "So, he's coming over this weekend and I think you should too. It's time to patch this silly thing up."
I brought back my memory of making John change the shelves and again let it swell within me. When I felt alive and energized, I said, "No, it isn't. And it never will be."
"Oh, Mary, honestly. So Charles made a few mistakes. He's still your husband."
I thought of Kegan agonizing over whatever he'd done to Candice and Jen. Charles hadn't spent a millisecond agonizing over me. "He's not, Mom. The divorce papers are filed."
"So you get remarried."
"Mom. Please listen." She tried to cut me off but I said, "No, listen," and kept going over her protests. "Charles and I will never get back together. He has a girlfriend, and I have a boyfriend, and I wouldn't want him back even if we were both single. We won't remarry, we won't get back together, and I hope never to see him again. It is over. And if you talk about it again, I will hang up the phone."
She didn't say anything. I didn't either, for the first time. Usually when she went silent I filled the gap with my own words and ended up saying more than I'd intended, offering something I hadn't wanted to give. Not this time, though. I held my silence, though the urge to apologize was almost unbearable, and in the end she cracked first.
"That city isn't good for you. You're not yourself. Come home."
"Mom. I am home. I live here now. I'm more myself now than I've ever been. And I love it."
Another silence. I waited this one out more easily than the first.
She sighed. "Oh, Mary. You were so much better with Charles. I just think—"
But I didn't hear what she thought, because I said, "I'm sorry, Mom, but I told you. Goodbye," and pressed the "End Call" button.
The guilt that rushed me made what had come before seem like a pleasant tickle, but I grabbed Saffron and hugged him to me and managed to get through it. Yes, I hung up on my mother. But I gave her fair warning. And while I felt terrible, I'd never felt so free either.
And I felt terrible about that too.
*****
While I was still thrilled Kegan had passed the hiring duty on to me, I devoutly hoped I'd never have to do it again. He didn't overtly pressure me to hurry up, but he did ask me at least once a day how it was going, and by Friday afternoon I'd had enough.
"No different from how it was before lunch. I've called twenty people and seven of them turn out to be actual applicants. Two of those have other jobs already and one says he can only work weekends because he's in jail during the week, which doesn't sound promising. I still have nearly sixty applications to go through and they're still coming in."
He held out his hands in a "calm down" gesture, but I was beyond being calmed.
"Brian keeps texting and coming over to show me his non-existent job plans, and though I keep ignoring him and leaving when he shows up he won't quit. And my mother is convinced I belong with Charles and I hung up on her on Wednesday and she hasn't called back which I think means I'm a huge bitch. Maybe even huger because I'm glad she hasn't called. And—"
I pulled in a breath to continue.
Pain ripped through my chest, like a sharp skewer driven through my breastbone.
I gasped at the shock of it, losing what little air I'd managed to catch.
Kegan caught my shoulders. "What is it?"
I took a tiny breath and winced, then put my hands over the middle of my chest, trying to somehow ease the continuing pain. "It hurts. When I breathe."
He gripped my shoulder with one hand and dialed three
digits on my desk phone with the other. "I need an ambulance. My girlfriend's on anti-coagulants for a blood clot and she's getting pain when she breathes. I think she might have a pulmonary embolism."
Chapter Twenty-Six
"You don't need to be embarrassed."
I moved closer to him, disturbing Saffron, who meowed in protest before resettling on my lap. "Well, I am. And how did you know the right terminology? You called it a pulmonary embolism on the phone. Not that it is one."
"I did some research online after you were diagnosed so I'd know what to watch for."
I put Saff on the floor and snuggled up to Kegan. "That's so sweet."
He kissed my forehead. "Don't be embarrassed, seriously. I'd rather go there and have them say it's not the clot than keep you at work and find out later it is."
"Yeah." The ambulance workers had said the same thing but I still felt like an idiot. "I had no idea stress could do that."
"Me either." He cuddled me closer and I let myself relax against him as he said, "I didn't even know we have joints along the middle of our ribs."
"Yeah. Weird." The emergency room doctor had diagnosed my pain as a stress-related inflammation of those joints combined with not enough sleep and a side dish of dehydration, and prescribed painkillers, lots of water, and a relaxing weekend. Kegan had bought the first for me on the way back to my place, kept pressing the second on me, and was pushing hard for the third.
"You're officially off this weekend."
"I'm not. What about the hiring? And Magma? And Steel, for that matter."
"You won't be ready to handle any of that if you're getting chest pain all the time."
"It was once."
"It was the first time," he corrected. "It'll happen again if you don't take care of it." He brushed his fingers over my hair. "I don't want you in pain."
"Me either, obviously. But I have to be there."
Kegan eased me off his shoulder and held me away so he could look at me, and I realized I'd never seen his eyes so soft and warm. He tipped my chin up and kissed me just as warmly. "I love that about you, how you don't give up. And you're not. You are regrouping before the battle starts again next week."
I widened my eyes. "It'll be a battle?"
He grinned. "Figure of speech. Look, you've booked interviews for next week, right?"
I nodded. "Monday right after lunch. Six interviews."
"So you'll take this weekend off, and then you'll be ready for them. With any luck, one of those six will be perfect and you won't need to go through any more applications. And maybe you should stay at my place to keep Brian away from you."
I'd given Kegan the story in the taxi back to Steel from the hospital, how Brian was still bothering me despite my absolute refusal to engage with him. I'd repeated, "No. Go home," so many times that I'd had a dream in which it was all I could say, but he still kept calling and coming over. "Yeah, maybe. Can Saffron stay over too?"
He bent and looked deep into the cat's green eyes. "Do you promise not to shed?"
Saffron stared back unblinking.
"I'll take that as a yes."
I laughed. "I wouldn't."
Kegan pulled me close again. "You know, you are having some success with Brian." He held up a hand to stop my protest. "I know he's still trying, but you've sent him away every time. You didn't give in even once. That's progress, right?"
"Yeah. I guess it is." I might not be able to teach Brian new tricks but apparently I could learn them myself.
"So reward yourself with a weekend off."
I sighed. "I really can't."
"I'm your boss. I say you can. So you can."
I wavered. I did want a break, and I knew I needed it, but...
"Do it for me if you won't do it for you. I need to know you're okay."
I snuggled into him, my heart melting. "You are the sweetest thing ever."
His phone rang but he didn't reach for it. "No, that would be you. You'll get some rest, right?"
"Answer your phone."
I could hear the smile in his voice when he said, "Not until you promise."
The chest pain had frightened me badly. "I promise."
He gave me a quick kiss and pulled the phone from his pocket. "Hey, Tess. What's up?" He listened for a moment, running his hand over my hair, then said, "Yeah, she's here too. Want me to put it on speakerphone?"
Apparently she did.
"Hi, Tess," I said once he had it working. "How are you?"
"I'm great. You guys?"
I looked at Kegan, touched my breastbone, and gave my head a quick shake. I was fine, so why bother discussing my brush with medical science?
He smiled and wrapped his arm around me. "We're great too. Forrest's good, I hope?"
"I'm perfect."
Kegan laughed. "Not what I hear, man, but if you say so."
"I do. Look, what are you doing Monday?"
"Working. Probably me at Steel and Mary at Magma, but we have no real plans yet."
"Well, we do," Tess said, her voice full of excitement, "and now you do too. Will you come to our wedding at five o'clock?"
"This coming Monday?"
She laughed. "I know it's really soon, but we've been planning it for a few hours now. Does that help?"
I giggled, caught up in her obvious delight. "Sure, why not? Why so soon, though?"
"He asked me this morning, and I want to marry him before he changes his mind."
We laughed, and Forrest said, "No, that's why I want it to be so soon. Seriously, though, we don't want the media to find out, and we're both happy to do it this way."
Charles had wanted the big white wedding. I'd wanted something much closer to what Tess and Forrest were doing. No prizes for guessing what I had. "That sounds amazing. Can we help at all?"
"Um, yeah," Forrest said. "We were hoping you'd cater it. At Magma."
I sat up straight and stared at Kegan, who said, "I wish you could see her face, guys. I think you gave her a heart attack. How many people are you expecting?"
"Twenty, max. It'll probably be eighteen. Including you two, of course."
I relaxed back against Kegan. "Okay, I can handle twenty. I was envisioning two hundred or something. The dining room at Magma doesn't have any ceiling lights yet, though. I can try to rush the contractors but they're waiting on some special plaster."
"No problem," Tess said. "I want lots of candles and no lights anyhow."
"Perfect. And what do you want to serve?"
"We liked everything you had on Monday at Steel," Forrest said. "But it's all up to you and Tess. It's her day. Whatever makes her happy, okay?"
Kegan cleared his throat. "You got it." I wondered if he too had been touched by the love in Forrest's voice, the love that had brought tears to my eyes. I'd never heard such emotion from a man. I burrowed into Kegan, blinking, and he stroked his hand over my head again.
"Any chance you guys could come over to discuss it?"
We could, so we ended the call and I gathered a few favorite cookbooks to show Tess and we headed out. On the way, I stopped to pick up my mail. The usual bills and flyers and a catalog for the previous occupant of my apartment...
And an official-looking envelope from the Family Court of Ontario.
I opened it right there by the mailboxes, and sure enough it held my divorce papers. They were dated February first, so thirty-one days from then I'd be a single woman. I didn't know why the additional delay: maybe to make sure the paperwork reached Charles before the effective date? Although, since he'd been with Lois since the summer the effective date clearly didn't matter to him. Truthfully, the effective date had been the day I walked out.
I handed the papers to Kegan and he flipped through them then handed them back. "I'm not sure what to say."
I sighed. "Me either."
"Can I say you're gorgeous?"
I leaned against him. "Yes, please."
He put his arm around me. "Well, you are. And sweet and sexy and one
hell of a chef. Now let's go put a wedding reception together in three days."
I laughed. "Think it's possible?"
"Absolutely, if you're involved. But are you okay with being involved?"
I stared at him. "Why wouldn't I be?"
"You need your rest."
I shook my head. "It'll be fun. Tess isn't demanding, and we'll come up with something great. I love menu planning." I grinned at him. "Anything for a break from reading résumés."
He kissed my cheek. "Good stuff. And my gift to you both is staying out of your way."
I kissed his cheek too, then his mouth. "Sounds good."
*****
It was good. Wonderful, actually. After we chatted with Forrest and Tess for a bit, Kegan said, "We should let the ladies work," and took Forrest out for a few drinks to celebrate while Tess and I sat on the black leather couch in their lovely apartment, with vibrant paintings by her sister Pam and other artists adorning the walls and Tess's amazingly detailed miniature scenes on shelves, and began figuring out what to serve.
I only got a few hours sleep each night, since planning even a small wedding in a weekend was an incredible amount of work, but I enjoyed every moment. I didn't have to do any of the stuff I'd started to dread at Steel and Magma, the staff management and coordinating contractors and all that. I only had to put together a menu, make all the food with the help of the kitchen staff, and come up with little touches to make it even better. Exactly what I loved doing.
Kegan didn't interfere even once, and he didn't complain that I spent next to no time in his restaurants over the weekend. He did fret a little about how hard I was working, but seemed to understand that I was enjoying it.
Saffron took to Kegan's condo like he'd lived there all his life, and every night when I came in the two of them were curled up together on the love seat awaiting my arrival. My two adorable boys. We kept the cat out of the bedroom, since he wasn't remotely abiding by the no-shedding promise Kegan insisted he'd made, but I spent three nights in a row in there with Kegan and I loved it. We'd spent the night together a few times since Niagara but never night after night like this. We had breakfast together each morning before I rushed off to see Tess, and drifting into sleep in his arms was bliss. Despite all the work I was doing, the weekend felt more like a vacation.
Toronto Collection Volume 1 (Toronto Series #1-5) Page 97