Bait

by M. Mabie

  The thought of her being hungry, or ill, after recently losing my mother the way we did, lurched at my gut.

  She needed to eat.

  I said softly in her ear, “Good morning, Betty.” I put my lips on her shoulder and left them there. “Let me make you breakfast.”

  She laughed a little, “What are you going to make me?”

  “Pop-tarts.”

  She stretched her arms above her head, and in her stretch her ass pressed deliciously into me. “What kind?” she said through a wake-up yawn.

  “What does it matter? A Pop-tart is a Pop-tart.”

  “So not true. Some Pop-Tarts are good, some aren't.” She rolled to face me. “So what kind do you have?”

  “Maple and Strawberry, I think.”

  “Okay, I'll let you make me breakfast then. I'll brew the coffee.” And she grinned.

  “This is something new now, isn't it?”

  Her eyes looked thoughtful. “This feels all new. A new day.” I grabbed her by the ass and lifted her to my stomach to lie on top of me.

  “I like new days when they start like this.” I paired our foreheads. And she closed her eyes.

  “Me, too.”

  We made Pop-Tarts and coffee and sat outside. Blake cut up a melon that I'd brought in from the garden. It was a little foreign and a lot more natural than I thought it should be. Even after all of this time and everything, we still knew how to be Casey and Blake.

  We remembered how to talk to each other. In a matter of an hour, it didn't even feel like we'd been apart.

  I charged my phone and called my family to let them know I was still alive. They all sort of got the hint that I needed some space after I'd told my sister Morgan to, “leave me the fuck alone for a while.”

  It was rude and so I apologized when I finally reached her.

  “I'm sorry I snapped at you the other day, Morg,” I said before we got off the phone. “I wanted some space, but I'm glad you wanted to be here for me.”

  “It's okay. I know it’s hard. I just love you so much and I hate seeing you unhappy.” She started crying. “I don't want you to be alone.” Her heart was so big, so tender. My baby sister lived to help others.

  “Hey now, don't cry. I'm not alone.” I looked at Blake on the patio through the big window, she was smelling one of the flowers. I didn't feel alone anyway.

  “You're not. Who's there, Aly? Troy?” She sounded hopeful.

  I couldn't lie to her. It wasn't my style. “Blake’s here.”

  “Casey, she's married!”

  “I know,” I said. I knew that more than anybody.

  “So what is she doing there?” She never seemed to like Blake and whenever her name came up she acted offended. Morgan's morality and sense of right and wrong was like a compass. Everything was simply good or bad to her. Which was a bad way to be, but Morgan was good to her core.

  “She came to see me. Don't be like that Morgan, you might be smart, but you don't know everything.”

  “I know what you looked like after her wedding. I know you love her and she married someone else. Those seem to be valid reasons for me to dislike her. How would you feel if someone treated me that way?” She told me once that she wanted to be a nurse, but she was more equipped to be a lawyer.

  “I'd tell you to think for yourself and be happy. This isn't your business. I love you, and thanks for your concern, but she makes me feel better. You don't get it. You only know the story, Morg. I've lived it.”

  She sighed on the other end. “I love you, too. Stop talking to me like I'm a little girl.”

  “You are a little girl.” I laughed. “To me.”

  “Whatever. I've got to go. Please, be careful and be good to yourself. Can you meet me for lunch next week?”

  “I will. I’ll talk to you later.”

  “Okay. And Casey?” she said as an afterthought, “I'm glad she makes you feel better, it’s about time she did.”

  How is it that my younger, my least experienced sibling, was wiser than all of us?

  The day wasted away. We watched television. We had sex on the half wall of the stone patio. We made food and listened to music. We took a walk down to the shed. The red “Bait” still written on the back wall facing away from the property.

  “This really is something, isn't it?” she said that night as we looked at the sky, even though it was nearly starless. We watched the clouds pass between us and the moon. It felt a little symbolic.

  “I think so.”

  She rolled over and looked at me, all business. “I like it.”

  “I know.”

  “I want this,” she said in exasperation, falling back against the blanket looking up again. “I want this!” She screamed into the night.

  What it must be like in her shoes. I'd spent the better part of the past year, or more, trying to figure that out. Listening to her cry out for what she really wanted, lying there beside me, and hearing it was that. There. With me. It breathed life into my person.

  “Then take it,” I said.

  “I'm trying. I want a divorce. I don't love him like—” and she paused, but I heard the full sentence. She’d never told me she loved me. And I’d only told her in a fight.

  She asked, “Can you give me a little more time?” Her voice was barely a whisper.

  “I can try, if you mean that.”

  “I mean it.”

  “How long is a little time?”

  “I don't know. I just got married. My parents—” she paused again, leaving another dangling sentence in the damp night air.

  “Just say it, honeybee. We passed polite a long time ago.”

  “I don't want my parents to hate you. I don't want them to hate me, either. I just married Grant. They've known him a long time and they’re so close. They won't understand all of this.” She rolled in my direction. “I need to start talking to them. I can talk to my dad. I just can't spring it on them. I need to give it time. Maybe a year.”

  Another year? Fucking hell. But what was one more at that point? It would take me more than that to get over her, which was fact.

  I thought about what she was offering. She wanted me to wait. More. A year. A year wouldn’t be so bad as long as we still had communication. Without that, I’d smother in my head. She asked me for time to ease out of a marriage that looked great on paper, but shitty on the wall.

  We could at least count on Reggie to be on our side. He never liked Grant to begin with, according to Blake.

  But could I patiently wait while she went back to him?

  I answered the best I could, the only answer I ever had for her. “You know I can't say no. That's what this is all about. I can't say no to anything you ask of me, and you can never say yes to me in return.”

  “I say yes to you more than you know.” Blake sat up and hugged her knees. “I say yes to you on the inside.”

  That made sense. It was fucked up and nobody else could possibly get what she meant, but to me, that was real.

  “Don't make me wait too long. Please, Blake. Not a year,” I pleaded.

  She didn't go to work on Monday. I showed her how I made my first homebrews in the basement and we decided that someday she'd make one of her own.

  We talked about things we'd never discussed before. Things that were listed under the category of Future. Each moment felt almost fictional.

  She worked on Tuesday and the rest of the week. Things moved. The cogs of life started to turn.

  We even had Cory, Micah and Foster over on the weekend.

  If I was going to win a life like the one I was pretending was real, then the wait would be worth it.

  It was perfect. I felt relief like I'd never known. Having Blake around morning and night, being able to touch or kiss her on cue of any whim I had to do so, was fucking life changing. It was like that time she let me sample the cheesecake, giving me just a taste so that I knew what I was fighting for.

  This life. This was what I was fighting for.

  The onl
y difference was this time she was the one who had to do all the fighting. Maybe she was reminding herself how much she loved the cheesecake, too.

  In those two weeks, we thrived. I hadn't seen her bite at her nails once. She was my Blake, and it suited her so well.

  Thursday, November 5, 2009

  THE NEW SLEEPING ARRANGEMENT with Casey suited me fine.

  Waking up with his arms around me felt like the way waking up should be. The most horrific part was realizing that all along he was right. It would be too hard to wake up with him not there.

  I had promised Grant I would come home for a weekend and it seemed that Casey’s and my time was on fast forward right to that day. Both Casey and I knew it was coming. I'd told him the night before over dinner, that even though I didn't want to leave, I had to.

  He got quiet for a while, but he didn't fight me. Maybe we were all fought-out by then.

  “I hate it,” he said. “I hate you going back to him. Every cell in my body says no.”

  “It won't be for long.”

  He leaned forward and ran his hands over his head, and I noticed how much it had grown in only the past few weeks. He was frustrated and I physically watched as he denied himself telling me not to go.

  “I'll be back on Monday.”

  He looked out into the setting sun. “Monday then.”

  The next day he said he was going to go for a bike ride while I waited for the cab. He didn't want to watch me leave.

  I left a note for him in the bed that we’d shared for fourteen nights in a row. I also left my ships.

  As I sat in the porch swing waiting on the car, a little silver, hybrid pulled into the drive next to Casey's black Lexus RX.

  It was Morgan. Just what I needed. She didn't like me much, Audrey had alluded to that fact.

  “Hello, Morgan,” I said politely as I watched the yellow cab turn down the lane and begin that way. I stood to ready the bag I was taking back with me for the weekend.

  “Hi, Blake. Is Casey here?”

  I started down the sidewalk, knowing that one of us would have to step aside. Even though I was years older than her—she was inches above me, tall like her brothers—we both stopped feet apart, at an impasse.

  “He's on a bike ride.”

  “Does he know you’re leaving?” she asked as she noticed the cab pulling up behind hers.

  “God, yes. He knows I'm leaving. It's only for a few days.”

  She smiled, but it lacked authenticity. “Good. He seems a little better on the phone. I came to see if he wanted to go get some lunch, since I got out of class early.”

  “I'm sure he would like that. He won’t be long. You should wait for him.” I smiled and tried to show her what a real one looked like. He always talked about how Morgan was a sweet girl, but to me she seemed a little short.

  “I think I will,” she said and stepped to the side so I could pass with my small suitcase that I was rolling behind me.

  “Thanks,” I said as I walked toward the taxi. “Morgan?”

  She turned back to me and popped her hip and tilted her pretty blonde head. “Blake.”

  “When Casey is hurting, I'm hurting too. I just want you to know that.”

  “Good, then stop hurting yourself and come back.” Then she gave me a genuine smile. “Please.”

  There she was. There was the sweet sister Casey had told me about.

  When I got home, I was surprised to find that Grant was already there. Quite surprised really.

  Go figure, on the day I was initiating the demise of my marriage, by speaking my mind and being honest with him and myself, he’d be there like a perfect husband.

  That's how I’d decided to go about it anyway. Honesty was supposed to be the best policy, or some shit like that. I was going to be truthful. See what happened.

  There he sat, in our house, the house he gave me that never was a home. It isn’t a home if you don’t feel like yourself when you’re in it.

  “Hi there, you,” he said when I walked in and dropped my bag.

  “Hi. I didn’t think you’d be here,” I said quietly.

  “I haven’t seen you in two weeks. Of course, I’d be here. I missed you.” He smiled at me and I forced a smile back, acknowledging inwardly that it probably looked like Morgan’s.

  I hadn’t called much, but he didn’t either. I could only guess he’d been busy and assumed I had been, too.

  The San Francisco office was busy, there were many projects in the planning stages, but honestly I could have done most of the work I added to my plate from Seattle.

  I’d only been in that house, with him, for minutes and I already felt drained.

  He was home. Like he should have been.

  That night went slowly and also faster than I’d hoped. I was staring bedtime in the face. I tried to fake being asleep on the couch while we were watching something on CNN. On another night it would have naturally put me to sleep. But on that night, my adrenaline was off the charts and my heart raced like a frightened bunny.

  Still, I closed my eyes and laid my head back like I would if I really was tired. And deep down I was tired. Just not the sleepy kind. I was tired of pretending. Tired of all of it.

  I wasn’t shown mercy.

  I managed to fall asleep, but I woke up in Grant’s arms as he carried me to our bed.

  Dread washed over me like it had before.

  I felt it. My intuition knew that I was about to have sex with my husband and my soul knew it was about to be unfaithful to its mate.

  Like time and like again, being with Grant made me think about Casey with another woman. Aly. That was a game my mind loved to play with me.

  Grant’s lips on me. Her lips on him.

  Grant removing my shirt. Her breast in Casey’s mouth.

  My stomach lurched. My moaning, again, misinterpreted for desire.

  Then, my thoughts of Casey saved me. He came to me through my senses. I was able to pretend it was his fingers caressing me, his body entering mine.

  It was a fuzzy view, but I fought like hell to see it as my husband touched me in all of the ways he’d thought I’d loved.

  My defenses knew what to do and propelled my body into action. I knew what he liked, too. I needed him to come for my thread-bare sanity to return.

  “Call me, Betty,” I begged, needing that extra push to aid my show.

  “Betty,” he panted in my ear on cue. “I missed you so much, Betty.”

  It was erroneous. I was abysmal. In those moments I hated myself, but I’d decided to tell the truth. So I said the truth, but I wasn’t speaking it to Grant. I was talking to Casey, my words falling on the sheets of my husband’s bed.

  “I missed you, too,” I said and I swallowed the lump in my throat.

  “I’m going to come,” he admitted like he always did.

  “Yes, please,” I said, knowing it was almost over. I pinched my eyes tight and pictured Casey’s face giving me his best smile, I mentally held tight to it as Grant cried, “Betty!” into the pillow beside my head.

  When I was sure that he was asleep, I got up and retrieved my phone and went outside to send a message to Casey. On my way, I grabbed my favorite mug, the one that originally said, “Lou likes trouble” and filled it with cold water from the tap in the door of the brand new stainless steel refrigerator.

  I sat on the concrete stoop just outside the back door.

  Me: Remember the mug you bought the morning after we met?

  Casey: The yellow one or the striped one?

  He replied almost immediately and oxygen reentered my bloodstream.

  Me: The yellow one. I still have it.

  I bit at my thumbnail waiting for him to reply.

  Casey: It’s a good mug. Is it Monday yet?

  Me: Almost.

  Casey: I want you here. I can’t sleep.

  Me: I can’t either.

  A feeling in my gut knew that I had to stay in Seattle. The right thing for Casey was for me to stay and get thi
s marriage ended as fast as possible.

  I wanted him, but I wanted him in a permanent way. I didn’t want to go back for another two wonderful weeks and then have to leave him all over again. It wasn’t fair.

  But I couldn’t tell him in a message. I pressed the call function and his line rang.

  “Honeybee?” he said as an answer.

  I could feel the agony for both of us and I hadn’t even said hi back yet. I sat there actively reminding myself to breathe in and out. Preparing my throat for the ugly words that were about to pass through it.

  In the long run, this was the best way. The only way. This would cause the least amount of damage for us, if we really did have a future.

  I was done with yanking him around.

  “I don’t think I can comeback on Monday.”

  “What?” he shouted on the other end. My eyes screwed shut. That one word brought home exactly what was coming and my heart broke hearing the distress in his voice. I wished it wasn’t me who’d always made him sound that way.

  “Blake, don’t even start with this shit. You’re coming back,” he demanded.

  “I want to, Casey, so bad, but I need to do this right. I can’t keep going back and forth. It’s not fair to anyone and it’s making me crazy. I don’t want to hurt anyone, but I keep hurting us. I just don’t want to hurt any more people than I have to. I can’t come back to you until this is done.”

  “So, fine! Make it done by Monday. Even better.” I heard something smash, it sounded like a bottle. “I knew you were going to do this.”

  “Listen to me before you get mad. Please.” I felt my pulse everywhere. Was there ever a more shitty situation?

  “Mad?! Is that what you think this is?” he asked.

  There I was hurting him again. How could I even make this right, make this all up to everyone.

  I rushed to add, “It will make me do this faster if I have to leave you alone. Does that make sense?”

  Reminding him of how I felt about being without him had to work in my favor. It was all I had left.