Everything She Ever Wanted: A Different Kind of Love Novel

by Liz Durano

  Before long, my friends drag me away from Harlow, eager to catch up with the latest news about my life, my work, and of course, my date. They all want to know who she is, how and where we met, and most of all, when. That’s the big question—when—since they know I just got in a few days ago, alone. But the fact that she’s a pediatric transplant surgeon is enough to shut them up before we go for the tried and true: shooting the breeze as we attack the food.

  I’m just glad that Claudia isn’t here. Gabe told me she had suddenly other plans as soon as she learned I was bringing Harlow, and secretly, I’m glad she didn’t make it. She’d have busted a gasket if she’d seen Harlow. I know Claudia wishes I’d forgive her—and I have—but I’ve also moved on. Besides, Tony, her boyfriend who’s now working on a TV set in Vancouver, was the guy in that damn bathroom that night, and I have a misdemeanor on my record, thanks to him.

  An hour later, while Harlow is outside talking to Nana and Sarah, I run into Gabe reading something on his phone as I emerge out of the bathroom. When he looks up and sees me, he nods his head as he puts his phone away. “Hope you don’t mind, but I just looked Harlow up, and wow, I can only dream of doing what she does.”

  “Transplant surgery?”

  “Do you have any idea how long it takes to be one, man? I can only dream of doing that. Assistant Director of Transplant Surgery at Miller General! She even helped set it up!”

  I can’t help but feel a surge of pride at Gabe’s enthusiasm as I do my best to walk casually to the refrigerator and take out a bottle of water. Gotta stay cool like I’m not already freaking out over how to persuade Harlow to stay longer than she’d planned. Maybe we could get to know each other better with no departure date looming over our heads. I lean on the kitchen sink and face him, twist open the lid and take a sip of water. “Thanks for dropping off the test results, man. Sorry, I missed your texts. I had turned off my phone.”

  “I promised you I’d drop it off, and that’s exactly what I did. And I’m not talking as a doctor here, but it’s because of her, right? The test?”

  I shrug. “Maybe. Or it could be, you know, I was curious.”

  “Whatever your reason, man, it’s always good to know that stuff anyway,” Gabe continues, before his brow furrows and his voice lowers. “Look, don’t take this wrong, alright, but some of the aunts are freaking out. Isn’t she, like, older than you?”

  My guard goes up. What the hell? “And your point?”

  “It doesn’t bother you?” Gabe peers at me curiously before turning to look outside the glass doors where we see Harlow talking to Nana, Letty, and Alex. Sarah and Benny are there, too, and they’re all laughing at something Letty is saying. One of the quadruplets with a pink headband is cradled in Harlow’s arms, and my chest tightens. Harlow is glowing, cooing to the four-month-old who’s looking up at her and reaching a pudgy hand to touch Harlow’s face.

  “Should it?” I ask, irritated. My patience meter has suddenly run out of tokens. “Is that why you invited her, so you could point that out to me, like I had no clue? What am I? Stupid?”

  Gabe brings his hands up in mock surrender. “Whoa! Dax, chill, alright? I’m just asking; that’s all. I don’t mean anything by it, honest to God, man.”

  “Then why are you asking? It’s none of your business, Doctor.” I twist the cap back on the bottle of water and walk away, but Gabe stops me with a hand on my arm.

  “Look, Dax, I’m just worried about you, alright? She’s still married, for crying out loud—to the fucking Director of Transplant Surgery, of all people.”

  “She’s getting a divorce,” I say through gritted teeth. “It’s not final yet, but she’s working on it. That good enough for you?”

  Gabe exhales. “Alright, sorry, I’m butting in where I shouldn’t. Guess there’s nothing to worry about then.”

  “There isn’t. Since when is it your business to worry about me?”

  “Since you lost it when Claudia cheated on you. You could have killed Tony in that bathroom, did you know that? What if I hadn’t been there?” Gabe says, his voice calm. “Look, I don’t want to see you hurt, alright? I mean, you really like Harlow, and I don’t blame you.”

  “And your point?”

  “Nothing; you just like her, and honestly, I couldn’t be happier for you,” Gabe says. “You know I’ll do anything for you. You’re my brother from another mother, remember?”

  His hand on my shoulder snaps me out of my irritation, and I take a deep breath and exhale. “Come on, let’s go outside before someone asks her to give them what the color of their piss means.”

  But as Gabe and I make our way back outside, there are two facts about Harlow that I can no longer deny, no matter how hard I choose to ignore them. Harlow is way older than me, and she’s still, technically, married.

  Two hours later, with Gabe’s cousins and friends forming an impromptu mariachi band howling away in the backyard, I finally find Harlow alone in the kitchen discarding paper plates into the trash bin. Without a word, I take her hand and lead her into the laundry room, the only empty room in the Vasquez household. I don’t care that the dryer’s going and the washer’s thumping against the wall as it goes through its spin cycle. I cradle Harlow’s face in my hands and kiss her long and hard, trapping her between me and the wall. I’ve never wanted any woman as much as I want her, and it’s not that I want to fuck you right now kind of way, but the, you’re the one that I want to wake up to forever way. It’s scary as hell, but something shifted when I saw her with Letty’s baby.

  One day, she’ll be holding ours.

  But even as that thought comes to me, another one hits me right in the solar plexus, sucking the breath out of me.

  Just how bad did Harlow want to have a baby? Does she still want to get pregnant now, enough to lie to me about being on the pill?

  The thought jars me for a few moments, and I pull away from her, frowning.

  “Are you okay?” she asks, frowning.

  “Yeah, I’m fine. I just missed you,” I say as I rest my forehead against hers. I’m not lying. I have missed her, even if right now, I feel myself panicking, my decision to fuck her without protection coming back to haunt me. But surely it can’t happen, can it? Not after a few rounds in the last few hours, or when the condom broke last night? But what if it does?

  “I missed you, too, Mr. Drexel,” she murmurs.

  “Everyone loves you, Harlow.”

  “They love you. They can’t stop telling me all about you and you and Gabe’s antics growing up,” she says, laughing. “And they’re so proud of you, too.”

  “This is my second home, so they know all my secrets. Unfortunately.” I roll my eyes as Harlow giggles and nods in agreement. Her smile pushes all doubts out of my head. I don’t even hear the washer thumping against the wall, not even thinking that all I need to do is open the lid and adjust the damn load to make it stop. But no, I’m smitten, and it’s bad.

  Her expression turns serious. “But something’s bothering you, Dax. Is anything wrong?”

  “Just tell me when you’re ready to leave,” I mutter.

  “Are you ready to go?”

  I gaze into her eyes, drinking her in. “I am, though given that we’re at a Vasquez barbecue, it’s gonna take us, at the very least, an hour to say our goodbyes. They’ll do their darnedest to get us to stay.”

  “Is that the way it usually goes?”

  “Pretty much. Never a dull moment around here.”

  “So I guess we better get started saying goodbye then,” Harlow says, glancing at the door as we hear the sound of voices outside. “We’re also not alone. People must think we’re bumping uglies in here. Either that or the spin cycle’s giving me too many ideas.”

  But the spin cycle’s the least of our problems, for as Harlow pulls open the door, Dyami and Gabe’s nieces and nephews on the other side scatter back, staring at us with wide eyes and open mouths.

  “How long have you guys been eavesdropping out h
ere?” I demand as the washer thumps rhythmically against the wall behind us. Thump-thump-thump.

  “So was the doctor giving you an ex-uh-mi-nay-shon in there?” asks one of the younger kids as I grab Harlow’s hand and storm out. Forget the lengthy goodbyes. I just want to be alone with Harlow even if I end up offending half of Taos to do it.

  Chapter 19

  Harlow

  Why do I feel like the honeymoon is over? To say that the barbecue was a disaster for Dax and me would have been an understatement, even though on the outside we’re all smiles as we say our goodbyes. Somehow, somewhere, someone said something and everything simply unraveled. Now Dax is clearly upset, and it’s not even about the children eavesdropping on us. But even if he doesn’t tell me, I know what it is. After working in hospitals for so long and my month-long stint at Andrea’s South Valley clinic in Albuquerque, I know enough Spanish to understand most of what everyone is saying when they think I’m not paying attention.

  She’s so much older than him. Did you know she’s still married?

  I know people can’t help themselves, especially when they’re right. I am older than Dax, and I’m also still married even if I’m in the process of getting a divorce. And Dax isn’t an idiot. I’m sure someone said something to him along those lines, wiping that familiar grin that I love off his handsome face for the rest of the afternoon. He’s introspective now, and as we drive back towards the Pearl with music streaming from the speakers, I can see the whites of his knuckles as he grips the steering wheel.

  “They’re right, you know,” I say, breaking the long silence between us that not even Paul Simon singing about loving someone like a rock of ages can ease.

  “What?”

  “Whatever they were saying about me. That I’m much older than you, and that I’m technically still married.”

  “You and I both know you’re getting a divorce, and as far as I’m concerned, that means you’re not married,” he mutters. “Did they say that to your face, or behind your back?”

  I shrug. Everyone was too polite and in awe of me being a transplant surgeon to say anything to my face. “Does it matter? It’s true anyway. Until my divorce is final, I’m still married in their eyes, and it doesn’t take a rocket scientist to figure out that we’re sleeping together.”

  “So? Is there a law against that?”

  “I’m also so much older than you.”

  “So what? Does it bother me? No. Did it bother me before we got together? No.” Dax exhales before continuing. “I see men walking around with women half their age, and I don’t see anyone complaining. But turn the tables around, and suddenly, everyone’s got their panties in a twist. What is so wrong about you being older than me?”

  “I don’t know, Dax. It just is… to a lot of people.”

  Dax eases the truck to a stop, parking next to a row of cars along the side of the road just before the Rio Grande Gorge Bridge, though he doesn’t shut off the engine.

  “Is it a big deal to you?”

  My hesitation gives him the answer he’s waiting for, and before I can say anything else, Dax shuts the engine, opens the door and gets out. For a few moments, he paces the ground before he walks around the truck to open my door. “Why don’t we take a walk before I drop you off?”

  “On the bridge?”

  “Why not?” Dax’s eyes narrow as he studies my face. “Are you afraid of heights?”

  “A bit,” I reply, swallowing for my throat suddenly feels dry. “Alright, I am. It goes pretty far down, doesn’t it?”

  “We are about 565 feet from the bottom, yes, so you could say it goes pretty far down.” Dax looks out towards the bridge, and I follow his gaze. There are a few tourists on it, standing against the railing and taking selfies. Some take pictures of the view with their phones. Two cars away, a van parks and a family of three hops out, including a young child, eager to see the gorge below.

  “Why don’t I drop you off and give you some time alone?” Dax says, pushing my door close but I stop him. If all those people can do it, why the heck can’t I?

  “No, not yet. I’ll walk with you on the bridge first, and then you can drop me off. I’ve always wanted to check out the view, just not by myself,” I say, forcing a smile.

  “What if you freak out?”

  “I won’t. Besides, I’ve got you with me,” I say, hoping to get a smile from him but I don’t. I hate the chasm that’s springing between us as we stand in front of each other. I hold out my hand hopefully, and Dax takes it. “Promise to hold my hand all the way to the end and back?”

  He nods. “I promise.”

  It’s a miracle that I manage to walk to one end of the bridge and back without hyperventilating, even though I have to let go of Dax’s hand when the family of three passes us and I grab hold onto the railing. But with Dax by my side, it doesn’t feel as scary as I thought. Sure, the bridge shakes when cars drive through it, but it’s sturdy just like the man standing next to me, looking up at the sky, big puffy clouds covering the mountain ridges straight ahead. Too young for me or not, Dax is far from the boy I keep telling myself he is.

  “Mama used to take us on hikes along the Rio Grande. Not right below us, but a bit farther up,” he says as we lean against the railing. Wind whips at my hair and face and I love the feel of it against my skin. “When Dad would fly into town, we’d all go to Arroyo Seco and go fishing for wild trout. It’s a short drive from here, along the 150 toward Taos Ski Valley. My mom taught me how to flyfish. Even Dad.”

  “I wish I could have met her,” I say as Dax brings his arm over my shoulders and I wrap my arms around his torso.

  “I do, too. It’s been five years since she died.”

  “I’m sorry,” I murmur as I look down the eastern side of the gorge and see a battered car halfway down the ridge. I look away, not wanting to know how it got there. “What was she like?”

  “She was amazing,” Dax begins, his voice deep and low against my ear. “She moved out here when she was pregnant because she couldn’t stand another day living in New York and trying to be a Manhattan socialite. She was a proud New Mexican, and she was determined to raise her second child here. Sarah wasn’t thrilled, of course. She was eight by the time I was born, and she was not a happy camper moving out here.”

  “Yet here she is.”

  “She moved to New York for college but came back after she experienced her first blizzard and said, fuck that. When she returned, she met Benny, and they had Dyami, and they’ve been on and off ever since. But that’s only because my sister’s a firecracker,” Dax says, chuckling before he turns serious again. “Mama flew out here, had me, and then Dad had no choice after that but to commute between New York and Taos. She wanted me to have a normal life out here around family. Lots of family.”

  “Did he mind it? Having to travel just to see his kids?”

  “Maybe at first, but I would have been too young to notice. By the time I was the little terror about town, he looked forward to staying for weeks at a time. He had to drive down to Santa Fe to work remotely, but it beat having him in New York. He owns a brokerage firm in the Financial District although he’s cut down his hours at the office so he can oversee my company’s finances. So for weeks at a time, it was just Mama and Nana raising me, two strong women who took no prisoners. But they gave me the idyllic childhood people write about in books. I was happy as a clam, and nothing, not even vacations in Paris or Rome could take me away from here. Sarah says I’m just like Mama, rooted to the earth, the sky, the wind, and the Rio Grande. And she’s right.”

  “What happened to her?”

  “Ovarian cancer. She didn’t catch it till it was Stage 4 when she suddenly looked like she was eight months pregnant and at that time, we were all on vacation in Tuscany. I think they called it ascites, or something like that. But until then, she never told anyone that she’d been in so much pain. All that time, she thought she just had a bad back, along with some major bloating that she self-medicated wit
h whatever she could find. After we got back, Dad took a leave of absence from his company and stayed here the entire time—two full years. I wanted to take care of her, but I was only twenty, trying to be the big man when I was so far from one. But I did what I could.”

  “Did she receive any chemo? Radiation?”

  He nods. “She went through surgery first to remove all the cancerous parts before any of the radiation treatments could be done. Later on, she signed up for trials, but even she knew that none of them would help. By the time one of the medications seeped out of the skin of her palms and her feet, she knew she was close.” Dax pauses then smiles wistfully. “But until then, looking at her, you wouldn’t know she had cancer, Harlow. She had such light inside her. She still volunteered and helped out any way she could. She learned how to draw, make pottery, and even learned a new language, Italian. She had to keep busy, she said, because she knew it would be all over if she stopped.”

  “You’re so much like her. You’ve got so much light inside you,” I say, pulling him closer. I bury my face against his chest and inhale his scent. I don’t even break it down this time. To hell with pheromones. He smells like a man.

  “That’s when I drew all my designs, the ones that won awards years later,” Dax continues. “They were all done while we were in Flagstaff during her final weeks. Most of them looked impossible, even on paper, like cherry wood molded to appear like organic waves on staircases, designs people swore wouldn’t work but they did, just as Mama said they would. There’s this creek behind the house we have in Flagstaff, and she loved to sit by the water listening to the birds and the rustling of the leaves in the trees. Nana, Sarah, and Dyami came out there, too, during those last weeks. Benny, too. None of us wanted to leave her alone.”