Just Like Candy

by Kimberly Kaye Terry

  “So now you’re like the rest of them?” he questioned, his face stormy.

  “What rest? What are you talking about?”

  “Like that damn Anita Watson, or hell, even Gail’s own grandmother for that matter.” He angrily turned away and stalked over to the large bay window and stared out into the darkened night.

  Candy threw her legs over the side of the bed and walked to the bathroom and found her discarded T-shirt. She shoved her arms through the sleeves, and without bothering to try and find her panties, she wrapped her fabric around her body, quickly clothing herself.

  She felt vulnerable and exposed at the moment with him dressed and angry at her—and at himself.

  “Hell, her own grandmother was quick to be negative, was the first one to say I had no business raising Angel when Gail died, but she damn sure didn’t want to have anything to do with raising her, so I raised her as my own, on my own. I may have had a real hard time coming to terms with what happened between her mother and I, but I never deserted her.”

  Candy walked up behind him and placed a hand on his back, and was so startled when he spun around, his face red with anger. She took an involuntary step back.

  “Davis, I know you’re angry, I know that you’re frustrated with a lot of things going on with Angel. I’m on your side; please don’t make this into something it’s not. Sometimes a child needs to know where she comes from, in order to understand where she’s going. That’s all I’m saying, baby. It’s not your job to screen what she should or shouldn’t know about her mother. It was her mother. It’s her right to know.”

  She tried to lay a soothing hand on his chest but he pushed her away and Candy refrained, barely, from flinching.

  “You have to trust she’ll be okay, Davis. The knowledge of who her mother was, that she wasn’t this perfect woman you’ve created in your mind, this vision of what the perfect mother is, won’t make her think less of her. She’ll be fine. She’ll be more than fine. She won’t feel there’s this constant image of perfection she has to live up to. Some unattainable perfect person who she’ll constantly let down.”

  Candy released a deep breath and tried to stem the flow of tears running unchecked down her face as she spoke. “Angel deserves not to have to constantly try and live up to perfection,” she insisted. “No one is perfect.”

  “So I should raise her like your father did, Candy? Tell her that her mother didn’t give a damn about anyone but herself? Should I tell her everything she did, she did with calculation, that she manipulated everyone and anyone?” he asked, shrugging her hand away from his arm.

  His voice was filled with such cold disdain that Candy felt the effect as though he’d opened up a window and allowed the cool air from outside the frosted window to come inside.

  She crossed her arms over her breasts in defense.

  “You’re a fine one to talk about the mores of parents. You, whose parents didn’t even bother with the normalcy of marriage,” he laughed harshly. “How loving and caring mothers are, how misunderstood. Yours was such a shining example. She didn’t stick around to give you any guidance at all. But unlike Gail, she didn’t have the convenience of death as a reason not to. And look how great you turned out without the guidance of a mother. Half the time you’re thumbing your nose up at convention, the other half you’re trying to prove you’re just as good as everyone else. That you’re no longer the little homeless girl everyone made fun of, and no one wanted around. Well I’m sorry but I don’t want that for Angel.”

  The retaliation was swift and brutal, and the minute the words flew out of his mouth, the minute he’d ended his tirade, they both stared at each other in shock. Both were stunned at his words.

  “Go straight to hell, Davis,” she forced the words out without allowing a quiver to enter her voice. His words caught her unawares and struck hard like a tight-fisted punch.

  Candy took an involuntary step back, her hand went to her chest, settling over her heart as though she’d felt the blow directly there. But she was proud of the steady way she held his eyes, the total lack of emotion she allowed to enter her voice.

  “Damn, baby, I didn’t mean that the way it sounded…I had no right—” he began, advancing toward her, a hand held out in conciliation.

  Candy continued to walk backward; the only emotion that showed was her nostrils flaring, jaw clenched tight as the impact of his words hit her.

  “No, you meant what the hell you said. People only say in anger what was brewing in their hearts all along. Just like children, who haven’t learned to control their words, in anger we say what we mean,” she replied, her voice low, controlled, as she was teleported back in time to the little girl, the little homeless girl who was taunted and laughed at by others.

  Just as he began to walk toward her, hand out in conciliatory apology, Candy heard a sound outside the partially closed bedroom door.

  She and Davis both turned at the sound and heard the distinct sound of crying and raced toward the door. Davis reached it first, and flung the door open wide and there, standing in the shadowed hallway, was Angelica, tears streaming down her stricken face.

  31

  “H ow much did you hear, Angelica?” Davis asked and reached out to take his daughter in his arms.

  She wrenched her body away, backing away from him. “I heard enough, Daddy,” she whispered and Davis’ heart broke, with the very quiet and almost adult sadness in his Angelica’s voice. “Aunt Milly dropped me off a few minutes ago to grab my teddy, and I heard you and Miss Candy arguing, and wanted to know what you’d said to make her mad,” she said and looked away.

  That she naturally took Candy’s side and assumed Davis was the reason for the argument didn’t escape his attention. At any other time he would have been glad, as it showed how much she cared for Candy.

  However, at the present, his entire concentration was focused on wondering how much she’d overheard, praying she’d come in on the latter part of their conversation, and was upset they’d been arguing and not because she’d actually overheard what had been said.

  “If you didn’t want me, if you only stuck around because you felt guilty about Mama being sick, then why didn’t you just give me away?” she cried.

  All hopes that she hadn’t heard the details were dashed. Although he didn’t turn around, didn’t need to, Davis felt it the moment Candy was standing behind him, in the open doorway.

  “Sweetheart, please…” he reached out again and this time she turned furious tear-stained eyes in his direction.

  “Oh yeah, that’s right. Nobody wanted me. You were stuck with me.”

  Her small chest heaved as the tears streamed down her small face. She wiped her face with the back of her sleeve and tried to stop the flow of tears as she glared at Davis.

  Davis withdrew his hand, but hunkered down to eye level with her and placed both of his hands on her narrow shoulders, forcing her to turn around and face him.

  “Look, sweetheart, I’m sorry. It’s not true that no one wanted you. You overheard a conversation I wish to God you hadn’t, and Daddy was feeling upset and said things that weren’t true.”

  When she refused to look at him, tears running unchecked down her face, he felt close to tears himself and turned to look at Candy who stood in the doorway, helplessly observing their exchange.

  “I need to talk to my daughter. I’ll be back,” Davis said and Candy nodded her head in agreement, not able to look at him. She wanted, desperately needed, to get away from him as quickly as she could before she completely broke down.

  “That’s fine. Don’t worry about me, go take care of Angel,” she said and quickly turned away.

  She saw him hesitate, and silently prayed he would just go and take care of his daughter so she could get away.

  “Will you stay? After I take care of her, you and I need to talk as well,” Davis said, quietly.

  Candy turned around and faced him, her bag slung over her shoulder and a determined smile plastered on her
face.

  “I think I’d better go, Davis. I think it’s best for everyone right now,” she replied, trying damn hard to keep it together.

  “Look, you have to wait for me, you don’t even have your car here. Let me take care of Angel, and then you and I can talk. Please.”

  “Go take care of your daughter,” was her only response and with a slight hesitancy he nodded his head and stood, placing Angel’s small hand in his and walked away.

  Once he and Angelica reached her room, Candy withdrew her cell phone from her purse and called Karina.

  Candy was relieved when she said she could pick her up within ten minutes.

  She flipped the receiver down on the phone and quietly walked down the hallway toward the winding staircase. As she walked past Angelica’s room, she could hear the low rumble of Davis’ voice, and was just able to see, through the crack, the way he held Angelica’s hand tightly with his own.

  32

  W hy Candy thought the blues would take her blues away, she had no idea.

  The stirring, soulful melody and heart-wrenching lyrics of love gone wrong poured out of her small stereo speakers and invaded her chaotic mind, as she sat in her favorite rocker in her living room.

  She absentmindedly scratched behind her cat’s ears while he purred loudly, eyes half-closed and content, sitting in her lap.

  At least one of them was happy, Candy thought staring sightlessly out of her small living room’s window at the fading light of the day.

  With her hands sunk deeply in Rus’ thick fur, her head pillowed by the slightly worn cushion on the old rocker, she inhaled, deeply, and blew out a short breath.

  She was still able to smell him on the overlarge T-shirt she wore.

  Candy closed her eyes and listened to the lyrics of the song.

  Karina had called her earlier, but like all of the messages she’d gotten over the last week, Candy had ignored it, and allowed the calls to go directly to voice mail.

  “You know, ignoring the machine won’t work, any more so than you taking time off at the center, or hanging out, all by yourself in your house. And neither is ignoring Davis going to do you a bit of good. When are you going to talk to that man?” This had been the latest message on her machine and Candy had ignored it, as she had the others.

  It had been nearly two weeks since she’d seen or spoken to Davis Strong. And in the two weeks, he had spent the first week calling her, coming by the center, trying to speak to her, but she’d always managed to avoid him, or be surrounded by others so she’d been able to slip away and not have to talk to him.

  After a few days of avoiding him in person and his calls, he’d taken to sending her e-mails. She’d promptly deleted them, not having any real desire to even read what he had to say. There wasn’t anything she wanted to hear from him. Not now. Maybe not ever.

  With a sigh, she leaned further back into the rocker. When Russell made mewing sounds, she allowed him to jump from her lap and leaned back into the rocker.

  When Karina had picked her up from Davis’ home she hadn’t asked what happened and Candy hadn’t felt like sharing at the time.

  She was not only hurt but mad as hell. She’d come to care more about Davis and Angelica than she should have. And she felt ten times the fool, for doing so. He had no right to say the things he had, to attack her like that, no matter how stressed he was over his situation with his daughter.

  She understood that he was stressed. She understood that he was uncertain about how to broach the subject of Gail to Angelica, how much to disclose, how much was too much…too little. But she wasn’t the bad guy. She only had their best interests at heart.

  For him to claim she needed to work through her own abandonment issues before she could give him or Angelica any advice stung, deeply.

  It stung even more when she went home and cried herself to sleep. Not because of the words he’d slung angrily, in the heat of the moment.

  No, she understood that. It pissed her off no end, but she understood it was anger and frustration, mostly self-directed, that spurred his tirade.

  The reason she’d cried herself to sleep was because some of his comments had hit home.

  Damn.

  When he’d said she was a fraud, she’d angrily told him off, yelled at him, telling him he didn’t know what he was talking about. The issue was him and his daughter and the fact he was too damn scared to tell her the truth about her mother and get over it. He was the one lying and avoiding the past, pretending it was something it wasn’t, for no good reason. He was the one with the issues. Not her.

  Damn, damn, damn, she thought.

  Davis forced her to acknowledge her own unavoidable demons, and in doing so, she came face to face with a few revelations that had been stewing in her subconscious for years.

  They weren’t issues she was unaware of. Simply, she’d placed them in individual compartments in her brain, and mentally bookmarked the delve into later…much later file. But she’d never quite gotten around into delving into that particular file.

  It was too painful.

  She sighed. “But sometimes life has an annoying habit of forcing a woman to clean her mental office,” she spoke out loud as she continued to stroke Russell’s thick pelt.

  She’d always been comfortable with who she was. Well, as much as any woman could be, she thought. But Davis’s hurtful words had forced her to acknowledge painful truths. She did thumb her nose at conventionality for a reason.

  As much like her father as she was, or told herself she was…there was a part of her that always wanted to fit in.

  When her mother, and later her brother, left them, Candy had been heartbroken, and no matter how many times her father expressed his love, told her she wasn’t the reason they left, she’d secretly harbored a desire to go with them.

  And that had made her feel the guiltiest of all.

  As a new song began to play, by one of her favorite acoustic guitar artists, she allowed herself to be swept up in the smooth rhythms, letting the disturbing thoughts ease from her mind. Or go back to their delve into much later file, she thought.

  She welcomed the satin tones and haunting lyrics as they washed over her, enveloping her in their heady embrace.

  She parted her lips as the feathery strokes played against her bottom lip, tugging and pulling. She felt the velvety strokes against her straining nipples, the simultaneous touches leaving her breathless…

  She quickly opened her eyes, realizing what she was doing, or about to do.

  Lord, have mercy.

  Not only had the last two weeks been difficult as she thought of her past, while trying to avoid speaking to Davis until she sorted out her tangle of emotions, they’d also been nearly impossible in trying to keep thoughts of him, of them making love, out of her mind.

  And she wasn’t helping matters by sleeping in his T-shirt just so that she could envelop herself in his scent. A T-shirt she’d worn every night since they’d separated.

  All alone she sat smelling his shirt just to catch a whiff of his scent like some Victorian maiden whack job. With disgust, she tore the shirt from her body. Wearing nothing but her wrap and a sports bra, she flung the shirt to the floor.

  She raised herself up from the chair and followed the loudly mewing Russell into the kitchen to feed him. While in the kitchen she decided to brew herself a fresh batch of chamomile and rosemary blend herbal tea.

  Lord only knew she needed something to calm her chaotic mind, if simply listening to music had the stimulating effect of arousing her, her thoughts obviously on Davis.

  She’d thought of Angelica, as well, over the last two weeks. Candy hadn’t expected to see her the previous week, knowing the schools were out for spring break, but she’d thought she’d be in the following week and when she hadn’t, Candy had been tempted to call their home, to find out if she was okay.

  Maybe that had something to do with why she hadn’t seen or heard from Davis over the last week.

  Whatever th
e reason he’d stopped his calls and e-mails the last few days, Candy reminded herself it was what she wanted…what she needed for the time being.

  “I don’t need someone in my life who is trying to validate who he is, and in the process forcing me to self-examine.” Candy spoke out loud, to the room at large.

  She filled the yowling tabby’s bowl and placed it back down on his place mat and rubbed the top of his head. “Don’t you agree, Rus?” she asked, but of course, as usual, Rus only had eyes for his food.

  “Again…the male chromosome has no respect for species, men are all the same. One thing on their mind, and again, it doesn’t seem to be me.”

  Candy felt as though she’d said the same thing, on more than one occasion, to an unresponsive audience. She watched as the big tomcat began to devour his food in record time.

  Afterward he strolled away from his dish, plopped his butt down on the floor, raised his leg and licked his balls clean.

  “Dang, Rus…that is so nasty.”

  He paused mid-lick and his golden, slanted eyes assessed her. Candy could have sworn he gave her a wink, along with a superior look that mocked her, telling her in cat language that because he could…he did.

  With a loud mew, he returned to his task and Candy had an irrational desire to throw something at the smirking cat.

  Yes, males were all the same, didn’t matter the species.

  Give them what they wanted and they licked their balls and forgot all about you, she thought.

  Despite her dour mood, she laughed out loud at her ridiculous thoughts as she poured her tea and carried it out of the kitchen to return to her living room.

  After she placed the mug of steaming tea down, Candy picked up the discarded T-shirt she’d thrown to the floor and held it between her hands, absently, her mind a million miles away as she caressed the soft, worn cotton.