He took a breath and cleared his throat. “Remember when you were getting those harassing phone calls at the station?”
She frowned. That was certainly a time in her career she wanted to forget. “Yes.”
He swallowed. “It was…me.”
She looked at him for several minutes as if she couldn’t quite make out what he was talking about, then asked a really stupid question, because it was the only thing that came to mind. “What do you mean it was you?”
“It was me making the calls. Getting past Leslie. Causing problems with your listeners, with Stan, with your ratings. It was me.”
He would have done better if he’d just slapped her—that was tangible—because this other feeling, this sinking, sick feeling in the pit of her stomach she couldn’t handle. “Why?” she whispered, the word catching in her throat.
“I wanted to…put you in your place. But that was before—”
“Please leave.”
He stepped toward her and she moved back. “Summer, please.”
“Out. Now. Don’t come back.” Her voice was totally emotionless, and that frightened him more than if she’d started screaming and throwing things.
He reached out to her.
“Don’t touch me. And I don’t want to have to tell you again to leave. Don’t call.” She laughed a nasty, pained laugh. “Don’t write, and don’t stop by.”
“If that’s the way you want it,” he said, barely above a strangled whisper.
“No, it’s the way you made it.”
He blew out a breath of defeat and walked out the door.
“It’s a lucky thing I like that Christmas gift, huh?” she whispered in concert with the closing door.
A single tear slid down her cheek.
Chapter 6
The days all seemed to blend together. The nights were a hazy blur of unanswered questions, restless sleep, and more of the same nothingness when the sun rose.
At least once an hour, Summer asked herself why? Why had he done something so despicable, and what had she done to him to evoke such cruelty? His single-mindedness in “putting her in her place” nearly cost her job. In the final moments before exhaustion overtook her, she’d always arrive at the same place she started: Tre Holland was not the kind of man she could trust with her heart.
“You did what?” Diane couldn’t have been more stunned by her brother’s confession if she’d opened the door to find Dick Clark and Ed McMahon telling her she’d won the American Family Publishers Sweepstakes.
Tre couldn’t even look at Diane. For that matter he could barely look at himself. His own stupidity and overwrought male ego had cost him the one woman who’d finally made a difference in his life.
“I was the one making the phone calls,” he mumbled.
“What in heaven’s name was on your mind?”
Diane took a seat on the couch, staring at her brother as if he were a complete stranger. “So what are you going to do to fix it, Tre?”
“There’s nothing I can do. She won’t talk to me. She won’t let me explain.”
“I suppose you’re just going to leave it like that. Summer was the first woman I’ve seen you with in years that made any sense to have in your life. Of course she told you to get lost. I would have done the same thing.”
“Diane, I really don’t need a lecture.”
“You need something!” She folded her arms defiantly, but more to keep from knocking him in the head.
“I screwed up. I admit it, and yes, that’s all there is to it. I’m going to respect her wishes, Di, and leave her alone.” He took a breath and laid his next tidbit of news on her. “I’m leaving the station, Di. I’m going to New York for a while.”
There was no longer anything he could say that would surprise her. “If you think that’s the answer,” she said, “then run, ’cause that’s just what you’re doing.” She stood. “I have things to do.” She walked out, leaving him alone with his conscience.
“You need to give him a chance to explain, Summer,” Kia said as they sat together in their favorite Mexican restaurant in Georgetown.
Summer dipped a taco into the guacamole dip and put it in her mouth, chewing slowly. She washed it down with a short swallow of Corona before replying. “There’s nothing to explain.”
“Of course there is. What he did was stupid. But he could have gone along and never said a word. He didn’t. I think if nothing else it shows you the kind of man he is.”
“Yes, a man who thought very little of me. That’s not the kind of man I want to be with.”
“I’m going to say this, then shut my mouth about the whole thing. He may have had some infantile notion, some bizarre reason that escapes logic to do what he did, but that was before he got to know you. And quite frankly, I’ve considered playing some nasty trick on you to get you to come down off that high horse you’re always riding.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
“Let’s face it, Summer, you’re not the easiest person to get to know. Whether you do it intentionally or not, you give out this hands-off attitude that’s as potent as that expensive perfume you wear. It’s intimidating and not very endearing. But that’s for those people who don’t know you,” she qualified. “But you don’t make it easy. You’ve spent so much of your life trying to solve other people’s problems, you’ve never taken time out to discover who you are. You’ve shielded yourself behind your degrees, your drop-dead wardrobe, flashy foreign car, and Einstein intellect. It’s not an easy wall to climb over or knock down.”
Summer raised her eyes from her half-eaten plate of food and looked at her friend. Her friend who seemed to have always been there. The one who always stood up for her in the schoolyard when the other girls taunted her about being too smart or thinking she was too good. The one who listened to her cry when she talked about the horrible arguments her parents had and how lonely she felt. The one who always tried to include her in her life, even while she struggled against it. Kia knew her like no other and still she remained her friend.
“What do I do, Kia?”
“Do you love him?”
“Yes.”
“Then you’ll figure it out. But only if you really want to.”
For days Summer wrestled with her conscience, which battled valiantly against her heart. A part of her wanted to hear what he had to say, forgive him, and pick up where they left off. Another part of her, the scared little girl, was afraid that to forgive would open the door to more betrayal. How could she ever hope to trust him? What would he do the next time she did something that offended his machismo?
She never had the chance to get the answers to her questions. When she went to work, three days before Christmas, there was a staff memo announcing the resignation of Tre Holland. Effective immediately. Until a new program director was hired, the memo stated, Leslie Evans would step in during the transition. Stan was in quite a state and could be seen periodically walking through the halls, talking to himself.
She took the memo, balled it up, and tossed it into the circular file. So much for that.
Tre sat on the edge of his hotel bed in New York, staring at the phone. It was Christmas Eve. He wanted to call Summer, tell her how sorry he was, and beg her forgiveness. But he didn’t think he could stand it if she hung up on him. The closest he’d come to her was hearing her voice on the radio since he’d become a devout listener. He’d done everything in his power to stay out of her way and had arranged his schedule so that they wouldn’t run into each other before he left D.C. It had been pure torture.
He’d lain awake at nights, chastising himself for his stupidity. What was more than stupid was the deceit. He knew that’s what hurt Summer the most. In an inane attempt to keep it from appearing too obvious that it was him making the calls, he’d still made several more even after they started seeing each other.
But when he found himself falling head over heels in love with her, he knew he couldn’t keep from her what he’d done. Looking at it now, he almost w
ished he had. At least they’d still be together, and he wouldn’t be sitting alone in some strange hotel room on Christmas Eve.
Diane had asked him, he thought reluctantly, to join them for Christmas dinner. But the spirit wasn’t with him.
To say the station was in a bit of a turmoil after Tre’s sudden departure was not to say enough. Leslie had her hands full trying to fill Tre’s shoes and still put together the New Year’s program at Blues Alley. Fortunately the DJs had done as Tre had instructed months earlier and had prepared their playlists.
However, Summer didn’t care one way or the other. All she wanted was to get from one day to the next without either screaming at her walls or crying into her pillow.
With Leslie as the new, temporary program director, one of the other engineers, Charles, someone Summer hadn’t worked with much, had taken Leslie’s place.
He gave her the five-second countdown to her show. She adjusted her headphones and leaned toward the microphone.
“Welcome to my world,” she crooned into the mic. “You’re tuned into ’Round Midnight. I’m Summer Lane, offering up some late-night talk with a dash of soul. Tonight’s topic, folks, is deceit. Why does it happen, and what to do about it when it does. I’ll start taking your calls right after a solid favorite from Vesta Williams, ‘Congratulations.’ Listen to the words.”
While Vesta belted out her signature song of pain and betrayal at the altar, Summer wondered if Tre was out there listening. As much as she’d tried to put their brief but passionate affair behind her, she couldn’t. She missed him. Terribly.
Being a rational, educated woman with a doctorate in psychology, she could understand the outlandish reasons why people behaved in an inappropriate manner. She could put a clinical tag on just about any behavior someone exhibited. Her rational, educated doctor-self knew that Tre’s behavior was a result of ego, insecurity, and a need to challenge her on a level that worked or was comfortable to him. Did that make him a bad person? No. It made him human.
But it was the irrational, emotional, nonclinical side of her that was affected. Summer Lane, the woman. That was the part she was struggling with.
“That was Vesta singing about deceit by someone she loved and thought loved her. Let me take tonight’s first caller.” She listened to Charles give her the name of the caller through the headset. “Karen, you’re on the line. Talk to us.”
“I’ve been betrayed before,” Karen began. “And it was the worst thing that ever happened to me.”
“Do you want to tell us about it?” Summer gently coaxed.
“The man I was engaged to for two years broke it off two weeks before our wedding because he was in love with his office manager.”
“What did you do?”
“Cried for about a month.” She laughed. “Didn’t go out, except to work.”
“What turned you around? You don’t sound as if it’s still affecting you.”
“It does, sometimes. But then I started thinking, what if I’d married this man and found out later? He could not have said anything and kept going on with me like nothing was happening. Now after I got over the hurt, I was glad he told me. I’m happily married, have two beautiful kids, and I can’t even remember what had me interested in him in the first place.”
Summer chuckled. “I’m glad things worked out for you, Karen. Take care. That’s some sound advice from someone who’s been there. But sometimes it’s not that easy to let go of the hurt, especially if it’s been inflicted by someone you love and trust. It takes time to rebuild trust again.” Do you hear me, Tre? Are you out there listening? I need time.
“Our next caller is Gloria. Hey, Gloria, welcome.”
“Hi,” she said in a low voice.
“What do you want to share with us tonight?”
“That other caller made it sound easy to get over being deceived. It’s not. Not for me—and I don’t know what to do. A part of me just wants to kick him to the curb. Another part wants to take him back and work things out.”
Was this woman telling her story, or what? “Forgiveness is a process, Gloria. It’s not something that can happen overnight. Now, not trying to get into all the details, but has he tried to apologize, explain…?”
“Yes, but I didn’t want to hear it.”
A pang knocked inside Summer’s chest. “Before too much time passes, you need to give yourself a chance to hear what he has to say. It may help and it may not. But at least you’ll know what you’re dealing with. Right now you’re operating on hurt and anger.” Don’t I know it. “I’m sorry, but that’s all the time I have, Gloria. I hope everything works out for you.”
“Thanks.”
“Next up, we’re going to hear from Nick and Val with ‘Ain’t No Mountain High Enough,’ because if love is meant to be, you’ll find a way over any obstacle.”
The rest of the show went smoothly, the balance of the callers had their usual complaints about their significant others. But Summer’s thoughts kept drifting back to Gloria and how similar their situations were. She needed to follow her own advice. Or at least she should have. Now it was too late.
Tre turned off the radio when Summer’s show ended. How come it was so easy for her to give advice, but not take it, he wondered, just as the phone rang. He frowned. Unless the call was from another time zone, it was 2:00 a.m. in his neck of the woods.
“Hello?”
“Hi, it’s me. Diane.”
“Diane—” He listened to his sister’s outlandish story, first with his mouth open in disbelief, and then he roared with laughter.
Chapter 7
“Don’t you want to come over, Summer? I’m having a few friends stopping by for some holiday cheer,” Kia said, while pouring a cupful of rum into the bowl of egg nog.
“Believe me, I’m not in the mood for holiday or any other cheer, Kia. But thanks.
“So what are you going to do for Christmas, sit in your condo and feel sorry for yourself?”
“Yep. Anyway, I’m on the air tonight. I need to get my act together for that.”
“Don’t you ever take a break? You need a life outside of work.”
“Keeps me busy.”
“And your mind off Tre,” Kia added.
Summer sighed. “Yes, that, too.”
“Haven’t heard from him, huh?”
“No.”
“Have you tried calling?”
“His number is disconnected. When he took that job he totally closed up shop in D.C.”
“If you really wanted to talk to him, you’d find him. What about his sister? You said she was pretty cool.”
“Yes, but I couldn’t drop my troubles in her lap. I don’t know her that well.”
“All’s fair in love and war, my sister. What you need to do is drop your pride and talk to his sister.”
“Thank you, Dr. Ruth.” She chuckled. “Who’s the psychologist here, me or you?”
“Hey, I don’t need a degree to figure out that you blew it sister-friend. And you’re either too stubborn or too insecure to do anything about it.”
As usual Kia was right. “Listen, I have to go, and I know you have things to do.”
“If you change your mind, the shindig starts at six. Have a good show if I don’t talk to you.”
“Thanks.”
“And Summer—”
“Yes?”
“Merry Christmas, girl.”
“Same to you.” Slowly she hung up the phone. “Yeah, Merry Christmas.”
Gloria called the station again that night and every night into the week. Each time Gloria called, Summer tried to talk her through the heartbreak of her lost love and offer sage advice on how she could restore her self-confidence enough to bridge the communications gap that separated them.
And the more she talked with Gloria and saw the tiny steps toward progress that she was making, it made her think more and more of Tre: how much she missed him in her life, how if any relationship is ever going to work there needs to be room for f
orgiveness and a willingness to listen. Some space to accept honesty and find a way to deal with it. Something she had not allowed.
It was two days before New Year’s Eve when Gloria called again.
“We have one of our regulars on the line tonight, who’s been making a lot of progress in dealing with her feelings about her relationship. Hi, Gloria. Talk to us.”
“Hi, Dr. Lane. I just wanted to say thanks for talking with me. It’s been a great help. We’re going to spend New Year’s Eve together.”
“That’s wonderful, Gloria. I’m glad things are working out.”
“It took talking to you to realize that he’s really a good man who made a mistake. I could have lost him for good if I’d held on to the hurt any longer.”
Like I did. The icy finger of regret poked her in the heart. “I’m glad for you, and I know our audience, who’ve been rooting for you, are happy too.”
“Thanks. I just hope everyone can find that special someone in the new year.”
So do I. “Good luck to you, Gloria. Here’s a song for all of you out there who have struggled through breakups, and rejoiced in finding each other again, and ask the question, ‘Is It Still Good To You?’”
As Summer listened to the words of the song, she realized she didn’t want to wait any longer to find out. She needed to talk with Tre. She needed to hear his explanation. As soon as the holidays were over, she was going to stop by his sister Diane’s house and beg her to tell where Tre was. Maybe even intercede on her behalf if it came to that. She wouldn’t intrude on Diane and her family now, but come January second, Summer was going to be the first face Diane saw darken her doorway.
On New Year’s Eve morning, there was a brief staff meeting to go over the final details of their live broadcast.
“Leslie and Charles will be behind the scenes, setting up, beginning this afternoon,” Stan said. “I know this is going to be one of our best programming events ever. From what I understand from the manager of Blues Alley, the place is sold out.”
Holiday Fantasy Page 16