“That’s right, Analise. He did. Dane wanted you to do well on your skit, and you did beautifully.”
“Yeah,” she said, and I could hear her pride in just that one word. “I’m okay,” she repeated before she handed the phone back to the camp director, and this time I could gauge her meaning better. She was still my Analise. She was still the sensitive kind of kid who worried about life changes and other people gossiping about her and the unnerving unpredictability of the future.
But, as I’d also discovered about myself, she could keep this latest blow in perspective. She knew there had already been much bigger calamities and much harder adversities…and she’d managed to live through them. She’d be able to live through this one, too.
~*~
The afternoon and early evening entertainment shows were nothing compared to the ones at night. The all-male hosts of “late-nite comedy” showed no self-restraint whatsoever when it came to using material from my life for their opening monologues.
“Hey, guys, is it just Dane Tyler and me who think so, or are widows getting younger and hotter all the time?” said that balding asshole Gregory Carrington.
I’d never liked his brand of humor much. Now, I felt justified in despising him forevermore.
“I mean, you hit forty and a whole new demographic opens up,” he added with an idiotic laugh. The live audience smirked and snickered right along with him as he riffed on the aging actor/merry widow theme before finally moving on to another victim.
I curled into a ball of mortification on my bed, just imagining my parents watching that clip. And I realized that Dane’s family had been forced to tolerate this kind of crap for over twenty years. His mom and his brother must have felt as powerless and humiliated as I did. Time and time again. Not to mention how it must have affected Dane himself.
To make the night even more fun, right after that segment aired, I got an email from my boss, Principal Jack Richardson at Mirabelle Harbor Junior High.
“Sorry to bother you during vacation, Julia, but could you please give me a call at home tomorrow?” Jack wrote. “Personally, I know better than to believe what the tabloids print, but you and I may need to work together to do a little PR damage control before the new school year starts. I got a number of messages from ‘concerned’ parents today…”
Terrific.
At least Jack wasn’t calling for my immediate resignation, although I was sure there were parents of incoming seventh and eighth graders who’d be proclaiming in hushed whispers to anyone who’d listen that I was “morally unfit” to be teaching their innocent children this fall.
And sometime after two a.m. I finally gave up my internal fight and just called Dane’s cell phone.
“Hey,” he whispered when he answered, his voice raspy.
“Did I wake you?”
He sort of laughed. “Not even close to sleep.”
“Where are you? Still in Illinois?”
“I don’t want to say, Julia. For your sake. Just in case someone’s listening in or tapping my phone or hacking my emails or whatever. I don’t want to involve you in this mess anymore.”
“I’m already pretty deeply involved. I’m the ‘Merry Widow’ after all.”
“Fuck them.”
“Yeah, well.” I swallowed. What I could say? “How, um, are Cat and Marissa taking the news?”
“Okay and rather badly, respectively,” he replied. “You don’t want to know the details, and I shouldn’t talk about it on this line anyway. Just in case.”
“I understand that. But we are friends, Dane. If you need to—”
“We’re friends, huh?”
“Yes,” I said. But, of course, a part of me knew we were more than that, too. Whether or not we should be.
Dane let me marinate in those unspoken words for a long while before he said, “It doesn’t matter anyway, though, does it? You’re still convinced that what I feel isn’t ‘real,’ right? That it’s just a fantasy?”
“I wouldn’t claim these past two days were fantasy-like,” I said, trying to lighten the mood, but I knew what he was trying to say. And he knew I was purposely pretending to misconstrue his question.
He sighed heavily.
“What’s that sigh mean?” I asked.
“Just too much carbon dioxide in my lungs,” he murmured, mimicking my words from Thursday afternoon. From just before we made love for the first time.
I held the phone in silence, remembering.
He cleared his throat. “Truth is, I know you’re entitled to run away from me, especially after all of this media shrapnel was fired at you. I have no right to try to hold onto you. But make no mistake, you are running. This tabloid shit is an excuse—a very convenient and very understandable excuse—but all the same, I know it’s not the entire reason. And I can’t blame you, but I’d hoped for better for us.”
After having had the thin layer of hard-won peace ripped away from my life this weekend, I just couldn’t see any other alternative but to let go of whatever this thing with him was.
“I’m so sorry, Dane,” I whispered. “The price…the risk to my daughter and to me…it’s just too high.”
Maybe I’d expected him to argue back, or at least keep talking to me for a while longer, but he didn’t. He must have guessed that I wasn’t changing my mind.
After a lengthy pause, he just said softly, “Understood. You’ve dealt with a lot and, unfortunately, my presence in your life isn’t doing you any good. I wish it weren’t true, but I know the best thing I can do for you, Julia, is to say goodbye.” And he hung up.
Chapter Nineteen
Four and a half days later, on the last day of July, Shar called for an emergency meeting of the Quest group.
It had been a hellacious week, with media people calling and stopping by uninvited, speculating about me and my relationship with Dane in their print and digital publications. But I couldn’t give them much, even if I wanted to. There wasn’t anything to say—he was gone. And I thought, under the circumstances, that I’d been working through the ordeal reasonably well.
My best friend, however, felt otherwise.
“You’ve been trying your best to sort through everything that’s happened, Julia, I know,” she told me gently. “But this situation is creating a major life change for you. A huge disruption after you’ve already had a serious life trauma. You’re smart and you’re grounded, but you can’t be expected to think clearly when your world is so messed up.”
I tried to shrug this off. “It’s so comforting to know that no one has very high expectations of me. Really takes the pressure off.”
She squeezed me in a side hug. “Given everything you’ve had to endure since December, I think you have the mental and emotional fortitude of a saint, girlfriend. But some of the things you’ve been telling me this week have me worried. You need a broader perspective than just what I can give you. And that’s where other friends come in. Other people that I feel confident you can trust.”
She sent me a significant look, and I knew why. One of the most common refrains of our conversations over the past few days was how hard it was to know who I could confide in. Who wouldn’t betray me or gossip about me. That fear had made my already very private world even more insular.
“While you’ve been dealing with the press this week,” Shar said, “I’ve been doing a little investigative reporting of my own, and a few people you know have helped.” She led me to her car. “C’mon. We need to get you over to Elsie’s house for a little gathering with just the inner circle of the Quest crowd. A few of us have some interesting information to share with you.”
~*~
When we arrived, Elsie had a teapot filled with steaming Earl Grey waiting on the table for us, a platter of lemon bars, and a room with carefully closed blinds and dim lighting.
She hugged me. “You won’t have to worry about anyone pestering you here. And anything that’s said in this room will stay here. I promise.”
“T
hanks, Elsie,” I whispered.
Then, to Shar, she said, “The others are on their way.”
The “others,” in this case, included Vicky, who slipped in the door a few minutes later; Nia and Olivia, who came together (neither were members of the Quest group, of course, but they were women Shar obviously felt confident confiding in); and to my utter surprise, Rosemary, who was Elsie’s longtime friend, although I’d always think of her as Dane’s stage manager at the Knightsbridge.
I glanced sharply at Shar. Was this really a good idea?
In response to my silent question, she nodded and mouthed, “Trust me.”
Once we were all gathered together and had gotten comfortable in Elsie’s living room, I had to admit that I felt surrounded by a cocoon of pure friendship. Every single woman present, Rosemary included, radiated a vibe of acceptance and helpfulness. Shar most of all.
Which was why I was a little surprised by her conversation opener.
“Remember the hockey movie Dane was in with that redheaded actress—”
“Amy Coleridge,” I supplied.
“That’s the one,” Shar said. “They were the main characters in Center Ice Draw. He was an up-and-coming local hockey player and she wasn’t really a fan of the sport, until she met him. Then he got that big pro contract. She thought he’d be too busy for her and he thought his lifestyle would be holding her back from her own dreams. You know the story, right?”
“Right,” I said. I knew the plots to ALL of Dane’s movies, a fact that my best friend was more than aware of…which made me suspicious.
“So, they broke up,” Shar continued, “but it really wasn’t about the contract or the temporary separation that would cause. It was all about them both being afraid to face their fears. Each of them really wanted to be with the other one but they were scared to go after the relationship.”
All of the women in the room were nodding in unison.
I narrowed my eyes at Shar. “So? Stuff like that happens in movies. It’s called dramatic conflict.”
“I know, I know,” she said. “But the point is that the characters made a mistake and, eventually, they realized it. The only thing that was keeping them apart was fear, and once they finally admitted that, they could figure out a way to move forward. He was all worried about wrecking her life, and she used the fact that he was becoming famous as an excuse to avoid him. But it wasn’t the fame that was the problem, it was the fear that he was one of the few people in the world who had the power to break her heart.” Shar crossed her arms and gazed steadily at me. “Sound familiar?”
I crossed my arms, too, and cleared my throat. “Amy Coleridge’s character didn’t have a ten-year-old child to consider. Someone whose life would get swallowed up by the hockey player’s fame.” I shook my head. “I’m telling you, it’s not that I’m afraid of dating anyone ever again, it’s just that it should probably be someone…normal. A guy from the area. Like, maybe, my college boyfriend, Ben—”
Vicky shot me a dubious glance.
“—or somebody like Kristopher.”
Elsie’s eyebrows shot up and she actually scowled at me.
“I don’t mean him specifically,” I said. “He’s been acting strange and getting on my nerves. I just mean somebody like him. You know, like Bill from the Quest group.”
Shar squinted at me. “Were you ever remotely attracted to Bill?”
“Well, no,” I had to admit. “But he’s nice and lives in the area and is normal—”
“I’m not sure any guy is actually normal,” Nia interjected. She glanced between Shar and Olivia and blushed. “Please don’t get me wrong, Chance is an amazing man. But just because he isn’t internationally famous doesn’t mean it was easier for us to find a middle ground than when I was dating a well-known CEO.”
“Which CEO?” Olivia asked.
“Oh—Grant Jordan,” Nia said.
“Of the Jordan-Luccio Corporation?” Rosemary asked, looking impressed.
Nia nodded.
Shar, who I knew already considered Nia to be her sister-in-law, despite the fact that Chance hadn’t yet popped the question officially, studied the young woman with heightened curiosity. “I haven’t heard this story…”
Nia waved her off. “It’s not really worth telling beyond the fact that it proved to me that ‘trusting your instincts’ and ‘following your heart’ aren’t just clichés. We need to do both when it comes to love.”
She sent me a warm, kind look. She might be younger than I was by a decade, but she was a wise young woman.
Shar’s attention was still on her, though. “Wait, are you saying you went out with Grant Jordan before you met my brother…or, um, simultaneously?”
Nia laughed. “We’re here to help Julia tonight,” she replied in a classic evasion maneuver that made me grin for the first time in hours. “But let’s just say that your brother wasn’t exempt from relationship fear or any less difficult to deal with just because he wasn’t a celebrity.”
Olivia and Rosemary, the only two in our group who were currently married, both nodded with vigor, muttering something to each other about their husbands. It was too low for me to hear, though.
Shar’s lips twisted in amusement. She pointed at Nia. “We’re not done with this conversation, but you’re right. Tonight is about Julia.” She turned to me. “I’ve been listening to you talk about Ben, Kristopher, and Dane in private all month. And all of us here have heard the public stuff, too. The late-night jokes about you and ‘the movie star.’ The tabloid insinuations.”
I cringed, but Shar and the other women around us looked at me with nothing but understanding and compassion.
“Every single one of us here knows that was unfair and had to suck,” Vicky said.
“It was complete sensationalistic trash,” Rosemary added. “I don’t even know you very well, Julia, but I know that.”
“And I know who’s to blame for it,” Elsie said with steel in her usually gentle voice.
This got my attention. “Who?” I asked.
“Bill from the Quest group is an extremely nice guy,” Elsie began. “He also spent fourteen years as a prosecuting attorney. He knows how to get confessions out of people.” She paused and took a deep breath. “He and I are friends from way back, and when I had my suspicions about the source of that witchy reporter’s information, I put him on the case. Turns out that your feelings of irritation toward Kristopher are justified. He was the one who contacted that Caryn woman from the Tinseltown Buzz. The one who gave her your personal cell number. The one who told her those things about Analise, among other details.”
Honestly, given Kristopher’s bizarre actions, I couldn’t say I was shocked, but a murderous red flooded my internal vision all the same. “Did he have any idea how much damage—”
“He did,” Elsie said quietly. “That’s the really troubling part. Kristopher told Bill how jealous he’d been when he saw you drive off with Dane after the radio station interview. He wanted Dane Tyler out of your life. The reporter had given out her card to practically everyone in the place, so he had an easy way of reaching her.”
“That bastard,” Shar breathed. But I could tell this wasn’t news to her. It was why she’d insisted I come to Elsie’s tonight.
Elsie leaned forward. “I learned some other things about Kristopher from Bill, too. Apparently, he and his sister came from a very unhappy home. His dad wasn’t physically abusive, but he was verbally so. Bill found out that there had been some neighborhood complaints about yelling, even as recently as a few years ago. Did you know about that, Julia?”
“No. Although, looking back, it makes sense to me now, given how Kristopher always avoided talking about his parents or having me in the same place as them. Both he and his sister Tricia left home as soon as they could. And his father died three years ago. I’d already suspected that might be why he’d waited until well after the funeral to return to Mirabelle Harbor.”
“I’m sure that was a part
of it, but it was more than that, too,” Elsie told us. “In Tulsa, Kristopher had a girlfriend. Bill was able to draw that information out of him, but it took him a few days to piece together the rest. It seemed Kristopher had begun to replicate his dad’s behavior in his own relationships but, unlike his mom, his girlfriend didn’t put up with it and wouldn’t just ‘forgive him’ when he apologized. She broke up with him, and he responded by hounding her. Constant texts and phone calls. Stopping by unannounced. Showing up unexpectedly in public places where he knew she’d be. She finally got a restraining order on him. He told Bill he was ‘embarrassed by the fuss she made,’ and that’s why he left Oklahoma. He still doesn’t acknowledge his culpability in that situation.”
This, too, made sense. I thought of that weird, unexpected visit he’d made to my house. His possessiveness and argumentativeness that day. His contempt toward Dane and toward me, too. And, yet, the bizarre way he expected me to just “let bygones be bygones” after he’d intentionally tried to destroy my reputation—it was as if he thought he could then swoop in and be my “rescuer.” The guy needed some serious therapy.
“Elsie, thank you,” I said. “It’s a lot to take in, and I’m not happy about it, but it makes several things that happened seem clearer to me. Please thank Bill for me, too. I will as well when I see him next.”
The older woman came over to me and hugged me tight. “We all thought you should know.”
“I appreciate it.” The other women in the room were looking at me with empathy, but I got the distinct sense there was more that they wanted to tell me. “What else?” I asked.
Vicky cleared her throat. “You know how you mentioned your college boyfriend Ben earlier?”
I remembered. I also remembered that she hadn’t looked pleased when I said his name. “Yeah. Dare I ask, what did he do?”
“I dug a little into his background for you,” Vicky said. “Once Shar told me that you’d heard from him in the middle of all the crazy press stuff this week and were thinking of, maybe, meeting him for drinks or something, I contacted several friends of mine from the college.”
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