Accidental Fiancé

by R. R. Banks

  "I don't think that will be necessary," I said.

  At least this time, it was almost noon before the day had kicked my ass.

  "Are you sure? I have been taking lessons three times a week."

  That explains the increased stringiness.

  "Roxie?"

  Terri had entirely given up the pretense of being professional in the office.

  "Yes?"

  "You've got a call on line one."

  "Is it…?"

  "No. It's not Luca."

  Well, at least I could count that as a victory. Maybe.

  He hadn’t called in three weeks. And even though there was a sense of relief from not feeling my heart break more every time I knew he was on the other end of the line, there was now a sick, empty feeling in my belly. I still cared. I pushed him away but still craved his attention. I didn’t know what part of that was worse.

  I picked up the phone and balanced it on my shoulder as I reached for the folder that contained the original job description for the fundraiser, along with my plans for the event. Kevin was so dedicated and convinced he had found his calling in the experiential art that was being a living prop, decoration, and/or waiter at fundraising events, that although I wasn’t currently in the market for a 12-pound, balding merman, I might be able to find something for him to do. An eel. Seaweed, maybe.

  "Hello?"

  Kevin had thrown his arms open again. I tried to gesture for him to put his clothes on and he burst into what I could only assume was the interpretive dance of his people.

  I seriously needed to work on my hand gestures.

  "Happy seeing my best friend for a sleepover day!" Thea sang cheerfully.

  "Oh, son of a bitch!"

  I smacked my forehead with my hand.

  I also needed to learn how to use the fucking calendar feature on my cell phone.

  "What?"

  I opened my drawer and wrestled my purse out. This time I took the time to change out of my heels while I was still sitting at the desk.

  Baby steps.

  I started around the side of the desk and headed for the door. The upgraded phone in my office no longer had a twisty cord, but that meant that I was in the elevator before I realized that I was still holding it and had to jump out to bring it to Terri.

  "I'm fine," I said. "I'm not working."

  "I didn't ask if you were working. Are you OK?"

  "I'm just keeping you up on the news."

  "Did you forget I was coming in today? It's the first time since I got married! We're supposed to have a wild and crazy girls' weekend, remember?"

  "I didn't forget."

  "Then why am I standing at the airport waiting for you?"

  "You're at the airport? I thought you didn't want me to pick you up."

  "That was last time. You said you were going to be here."

  "That totally slipped my mind. I'm so sorry. I'm on my way."

  "Oh, good," Thea breathed. "I'm really looking forward to seeing you. I've missed you."

  "I've missed you, too." I was standing beside Terri's desk, bouncing from foot to foot anxiously. "Is there anything I can bring you?"

  "Maybe some coffee? The in-flight stuff was horrible."

  "Absolutely. Still no pastry to go along with it?"

  "No. I’ve put on a few pounds lately."

  "You lost fifteen pounds for the wedding. You can’t have one pastry?"

  "I’ve gained back some of that. I’m only ten pounds down now.”

  "Okay..."

  "Anyways, hurry up! I landed over thirty minutes ago and I'm starting to get the eye from people wanting me to join their cult."

  Damn. Thea had been married for five months and I was still letting her down. Was it possible to be a maid of dishonor this long after the wedding?

  I hung up and tossed the phone to Terri, not wanting to go back into my office where Kevin was, again, standing exactly where I had left him. I looked for the I-told-you-so expression on her face, but didn’t see it. Was Terri slipping?

  "You didn't tell me I was forgetting something today. How am I supposed to know I'm forgetting something if you don't tell me?"

  "I can't tell you that you are forgetting something if you don't tell me what it is you are going to forget before you have a chance to forget it. But you didn't tell me about this, so I couldn't tell you that you were forgetting it because I didn't know that there was anything for you to be forgetting about," she rambled incoherently.

  I stared at her from in front of the elevator, trying to decipher what she had just said.

  "Teach me how to use my phone calendar when I get back."

  "You'll still forget things."

  "That's why you'll remind me, too."

  "The stairs are still faster."

  The same upgrade that had brought me a phone from the 21st century had also secured a new light for the stairwell, meaning it wasn't quite as terrifying as it used to be. Still scary, but not enough to make me fling myself to the ground. Just enough that I was breathless by the time I reached the bottom. Of course, when they added in the light, the powers that be also thought it would be a good idea to increase building security and add a keypad to enter and exit the stairwell. It made no sense to me, but meant that even if I could keep myself from panicking while running down the stairs, I had to stop, stand with my back to said stairs, and put in a code to escape.

  I got the code right the first time, which almost never happened, because apparently my mind was only able to hold a finite set of numbers. If I was to keep my address, six phone numbers, eight birthdays, and my social security number in there, there was no room for anything else in immediate memory recall. So, this was nothing short of a miracle.

  What the hell was wrong with me? How could I forget I was supposed to pick her up at the airport?

  I hopped into my car and shot out of the parking garage, only to be immediately stopped in traffic. I really needed to consider getting rid of my car and just walking or using a taxi everywhere I went. The image of Thea standing in the airport, her luggage stacked around her like a retention wall to protect her from the strange people slowly descending on her, flashed into my mind. I threw my car into reverse and headed right back to the same parking spot I had just pulled out of. My arms were already raised above my head as I ran out onto the street, flailing for a cab.

  One stopped in front of me, and I made myself a mental note to do a quick rosary to the taxi gods on the beaded seat cover.

  "Drive!" I shouted when I leaped into the back seat. "I need to get to the airport."

  "I hope you aren't trying to get on a flight. Traffic's backed up for miles."

  "Are you serious?"

  "It's taken me an hour to get three blocks."

  "That's very helpful. Thank you." I looked around frantically. The taxi was creeping down the street slower than the leaves sliding by in the wind. "What am I supposed to do?"

  "I heard that the traffic is only jammed up right around this area. It's possible if you go about twenty blocks up, you could grab another cab and be on your way."

  "Oh, just twenty blocks or so. No big deal. I'll just jog it."

  "You could take the subway."

  "The subway?"

  "Yeah. That big tube that runs around under the city? It brings you to places you need to go?"

  "You are just full of interesting information."

  "Just get on the subway and head a few stations up. You'll be fine."

  I tossed the driver a few crumpled bills and got out of the car. My heart was pounding in my chest as I rushed down the sidewalk towards the nearest subway station. People were moving in and out of it like it was no big deal, so I told myself that I was probably going to survive. I had to. Thea was waiting for me. I took a steeling breath and rushed down the stairs into the station. As soon as I got down there, however, I noticed none of the people who had walked down the stairs in front of me were actua
lly going through the turnstile to get to the waiting train. Instead, they were milling around the open space, consulting the map on the wall, and then walking back up the stairs onto the street. I watched them for a few seconds, confused, before trying to orient myself, thinking back on the first time I had used the subway.

  "Do you realize that I called you on your office phone earlier?"

  I shrieked and whirled around. Thea was standing a few feet away, her arms crossed over her chest.

  "What the hell are you doing here?" I asked. "I thought you were at the airport."

  "And I thought you weren't working. As a side note, you never told me you were going to pick me up at the airport."

  "That is a horrible thing to do to me. Why would you do that?"

  "She did it for me."

  The voice made my stomach shiver and heart skip a beat.

  "Thea, what did you do?" I asked under my breath.

  "I didn't do anything," she said. "This was all his idea."

  "Why would you go along with it?"

  "Because the two of you need to talk. This is ridiculous. Roxie, I love you, but you can be so overdramatic and insufferable sometimes. Especially since the two of you broke up."

  "We didn't break up," I said. "Luca and I were never together. Didn’t he tell you that, too?"

  "He did," she said. "He also told me some other things. And you need to let him tell you, too. I'll be at your apartment when you're done."

  She started for the steps and I called after her.

  "Don't you need a key?"

  "I stole yours and had it copied during the wedding," she said. "I figured you would forget me again. This way, at least I’m prepared for it."

  "That was smart," I called after her as she disappeared up the stairs with everyone else in the station. It's slightly unnerving and possibly illegal, but it was smart.

  "Look at me, Roxie."

  I didn't want to turn around. I didn't want to see his face. I knew that if I did, the remaining few strings holding my heart together would snap. I realized there wasn't anybody else in the subway station anymore and I felt confused.

  "What is going on?" I asked.

  "You were lost," he said. "I'm here to find you."

  I felt his hand touch mine as he gently turned me around to face him. I lifted my eyes to his and drew in a painful breath.

  Chapter Seventeen

  Luca

  My heart pounded in my chest as I looked at Roxie. I wanted to reach out and touch her but the way she was glaring told me she wasn't feeling the same way. Hopefully, though, tonight would go as planned, and she forgive me and be in my arms again.

  "What's going on, Luca?" she asked again. "Where did all those people go?"

  "They left," I said.

  "Why?"

  "They were only here because I asked them to be."

  "What do you mean you asked them to be here?"

  "Do you remember when we were at the airport and I told you I have connections?"

  "You have connections that let you empty out a subway station for your own amusement?"

  "It's not for my own amusement," I said. "And I didn't just empty out the station."

  "What do you mean?"

  I gestured above my head and the doors of the train in front of us opened.

  "Would you take a ride with me?" I asked.

  Please say yes.

  Roxie stared at the waiting train and back at me incredulously. I expected to see a spark of romance in her eyes, for her to immediately catch on to what I was trying to accomplish here. Instead, she looked suspicious.

  "Where are we going?" she asked.

  "If it's OK with you, I thought we could just ride around aimlessly for a while."

  "I'm sorry, Luca, but I don't have time to just ride around with you."

  I reached out to her before she could walk away.

  "Please, Roxie. I just want to talk with you. I've been trying to see you for five months. Can't you just give me a few minutes? There's something I want to show you."

  "I think I've heard you say that before,” she said. “Last time it was a room full of old DVDs."

  "I promise it's not a room full of old DVDs," I said. "Talk to me. Give me a few minutes. If you still don't want to be here after that, you can leave. We can stop the train at any station."

  The reluctant look on Roxie's face gradually disappeared. With a sigh, she started walking toward the train. I smiled and followed her, guiding her to sit down beside each other. As soon as we were seated, the doors closed, and the train lurched beneath us. Roxie gasped and gripped the seat beside her.

  "Can I ask you something?" I asked.

  "Yes.”

  "Why don't you like the subway? I thought most people who moved to New York couldn't wait to get on it and ride around."

  She tilted her head slightly at me. "Wait, you remembered that we met on the subway?” She laughed and then glanced over at me with an inscrutable look on her face. "That's why you did this," she said. "You wanted to make the story come true."

  "As true as I could," he said. "And you really can get off at any station you want.”

  "No," she said. "I think I'd like to ride around for a little while, too. Besides, the traffic out there is horrible. The cab driver said it was completely backed up for at least twenty blocks."

  “I bet he did tell you that.”

  As I said it, her face changed with the realization of what was happening here.

  "Because you told him to," she said. "Did you also block off the street? Who are you?"

  "I might have," I said. "I had to find some way to get you down into the subway. I knew if you thought you were supposed to meet Thea at the airport, you would do whatever you had to do to get to her. She told me about what happened the day the two of you did the dress fitting, and it all kind of fell together from there."

  "So, you did all of that? Just to get me down into the subway so you could talk to me?”

  "Yes," I said.

  "Do you know I nearly punched that taxi driver in the face? He was rude as hell, and I was really at the end of my rope today. What with thinking I had forgotten about Thea, and Kevin standing naked in my office…"

  "Wait, what?"

  "Oh," she said, making a dismissive motion with her hand, as if she was trying to sweep that comment away. "It’s nothing."

  "A man standing naked in your office in the middle of the day sounds like something to me. Didn't you say that you have glass walls?"

  "Yeah, I do. But everybody knows Kevin, so it's not really that big of a deal."

  "I don't know Kevin," I said.

  "He's just a guy I hired for an administrative position about a year ago, but I thought he was interviewing to be one of the shirtless guys at first… You know what? Nevermind. That’s a long story. But basically, Kevin has decided he wants to be a performance artist, not an office worker, and was auditioning to be a merman."

  "I’m still really confused," I said. "But I'll go along with it."

  "I appreciate that."

  "I'm sorry you had a bad morning. I didn't mean for the driver to be rude to you. He's not even a real taxi driver. He's an actor. Almost everyone you saw today, actually, were actors."

  She looked stunned, as if she wasn't entirely sure how to process everything I had told her. I waited for the inevitable barrage of questions, but she didn't ask any. Instead, Roxie seemed willing to go along with it and find out how this was going to unfold.

  "Actors?"

  "Yes. I realized the only way I could get this to work was if I had the street and this station closed down for a film shoot. You know —people make a huge deal about how hard it is to make that happen. It really wasn't that difficult."

  "What kind of film?"

  "A documentary."

  "About what?"

  "A man who made an incredibly huge mistake and wanted to find the perfect way to make up for it."

  "I think I've seen t
hat one."

  "This one has a different spin, I promise."

  I brushed her hair away from her face, but Roxie turned away, shaking her head.

  "Luca, I can't just forget what happened."

  "I'm not asking you to forget," I said. “All that I'm asking you to do is hear me out. Let me explain."

  "I don't think anything needs to be explained."

  "Yes, there is. I know what Brad told you. I was there when he told Thea."

  "You were?"

  "Yes. I know he told you that he heard me talking to Greg about losing a bet, which meant I had to go to the wedding with you."

  "That's what he told me," she said. "Is that not what happened?"

  "No, that's exactly what happened."

  Roxie rolled her eyes and got to her feet.

  "I want to get off."

  "Roxie, wait."

  "You said I could get off the train at any point. Here's that point."

  "You can't just throw yourself out of a subway train on the middle of the track. You have to wait until the next station. It's about five minutes from here. Just give me until then and if you're done, you're done. Deal?"