Enough! This is so not worth the energy I’ve already expended on it. I force all thoughts of Adam from my mind, with the aid of my cocktail. I slug down the rest of the drink, then tie up the garbage bag and head for the back door, Godiva at my heels.
Night has fallen, and a cool breeze caresses me as I step out onto the porch. I set the trash bag down on the patio and zip up my Splendid sweatshirt, then grab the bag and head for the barrels. Godiva bounds to the lawn and starts vigorously sniffing the area, as though she’s a police dog looking for a corpse. If she finds one, the joke will be on me.
On the side of the house, I find the three bins marked Trash, Recyclables, and Vegetation. I realize I should have recycled the paper plates and the Sprite can, but I’ll be damned if I’m going to forage through the trash bag now. I lift the lid of the brown bin and drop the bag in.
“Hey there.”
I recognize the voice immediately. I never forget the voice of a person who has insulted me. I wander to the wooden fence and peer over it. Matt Ryan sits in a patio chair in an alcove on the side of his house, a few feet from a blazing space heater. He wears faded jeans and a tattered blue long sleeve t-shirt. A guitar fits snugly in his lap. In the ashtray on the small table beside him rests a joint; I can tell by the sickly sweet smoke wafting into my eyes. Next to the ashtray is a bottle of Patrón and a shot glass.
“Hello.” My tone is curt. Not because I look down on pot-smokers and tequila drinkers, but because I’m still annoyed by the dressing-down he gave me this morning.
He strums the guitar once, then proceeds to noodle on it for a moment. I don’t think he’s trying to impress me, but I recognize talent when I hear it. Still, I keep my expression neutral.
“How’s it going?” he asks. He stands and places the guitar, strings down, against the chair then approaches the fence. His dark hair is tousled, his five o’clock shadow is peppered with the barest hint of grey. His dark blue eyes shine in the dim light.
“Fine,” I reply. “Just taking out the trash.”
He peers at me over the wooden slats. “No more AC/DC?”
I cock my head at him. “I traded it in.”
He nods and gazes at me appreciatively. “Better.” A chuckle escapes him. “Not that you didn’t rock the AC/DC tee.”
“Oh, sure. According to you, I looked like a head-case.”
“You’re not still peeved about that, are you? Come on. I bought you some quality beans this morning. Surely you can forgive a guy for making a joke.”
“I’m not good at being the brunt,” I admit.
“Allow me to make peace with you then,” he says. “I’ve got a bottle of tequila and some ganja. Prescription stuff for my dodgy shoulder. You can lambaste me properly for being an ass and we can move on.”
I shake my head, completely taken off guard. “No, thanks. I have to, uh…I’ve got a bunch of stuff…I really need to…”
He waits patiently for me to finish. As I struggle to come up with an excuse, I can’t help but acknowledge what a freaking hunk of a babe Matt Ryan is. If I were twenty-five and sitting in an Irish pub in New York, with the Knicks game on the TV, and Bugs Moran and the Trouble Boys playing their dance tunes on the stage in the next room, this would be the man I’d want to take home at the end of the night.
“Come on, Meg” he says. “Just for a few minutes.”
Godiva ambles over to me and licks my hand. Without a word to Matt, I tug at her collar and lead her into the kitchen. Then I close the door and tiptoe back to the barrels. Matt is still there, just beyond the wooden slats. He smiles when he sees me.
“The gate’s open,” he says, gesturing toward the front of the house.
One minute later, I’m on the other side of the fence.
Eleven
Barry: Our guest today is the creator of the online dating site HeartsandSouls.com, and she’s going to tell us how to find true love. Um…Meg, where are you going?
Meg: I’m just going to give myself a quick lobotomy, Barry. Be right back…
* * *
I shouldn’t do a shot. I know I shouldn’t. But the way Matt Ryan holds the shot glass out to me, a mischievous smile playing at his full lips, makes it hard to resist. And it feels so nice to just be me, not Auntie Meg or Big Sis, not playing a role or needing to be responsible for anyone other than myself. I know that tomorrow morning I will be back on duty, and I know that I cannot mess up. But right now, at this moment, I can do a shot with a handsome man and not worry about the consequences.
I glance at the ashtray. “This seems like a serious party for a Tuesday night.”
“I would think it’s tame, by New York standards,” he replies.
“Yeah, well, I’m not in my twenties anymore.”
“How old are you?” he asks. His tone is casual, as if it doesn’t make the slightest difference to him what my answer is. And why should it?
“Thirty-nine,” I say. The lie slides smoothly out of my mouth, but then, I’ve had a lot of practice with this particular falsehood. I take the shot glass from his fingers and down the tequila with one swallow. “So, what’s the occasion?”
Instead of answering, he picks up the guitar and starts plucking out the notes of the ‘Tequila’ song.’ When he finishes the stanza, he switches to ‘Tequila Sunrise.’
“You’re pretty good at that.”
“Thanks.” He stops playing long enough to do another shot. “This isn’t a party,” he tells me. “If it were a party, I’d have a piñata.”
The shot mixed with the vodka I ingested earlier is having a very mellowing effect on me. “Piñatas are great. I’ll take any excuse to swing a bat at an inanimate object that can’t fight back.”
He chuckles, a low throaty sound that vibrates through my bones. “I just had one of those days,” he says. “The kind that can only end with tequila and reefer.”
I think of South Coast Plaza and those five long minutes of sheer panic that felt like an eternity.
“I lost my nephew today. At Bloomingdale’s.” My confession surprises me. I rarely reveal personal information to people I’ve just met, especially when the information makes me look like an idiot.
He furrows his brow and looks at me with concern. “That must have been scary. I assume you found him?”
“If I hadn’t, I wouldn’t be here. I’d be on a slab in the morgue because, traction or no traction, my sister-in-law would have found a way to murder me.”
He laughs again, then pours another two shots, hands me one and holds his up in a toast. “Here’s to days that can only end with tequila and reefer.”
We simultaneously slam the shots. As we set the glasses on the table, our fingertips brush against each other’s. I pull my hand away and peer at Matt. “It’s funny, but you don’t seem the least bit high.”
“You have a great voice,” he says out of nowhere. “I can totally understand why you have a radio show.” He closes his eyes and leans back in his chair. “Say something. Anything. Just talk for a minute.”
“I take it back. You are high.”
He smiles. “I only took one hit, I promise. I have chronic pain in my shoulder from an old baseball injury. Help yourself, by the way.”
“No thanks. I’m not opposed but it’s a trigger for me. I quit smoking a while back and I still miss it. So, you know, no inhaling.” I mentally rewind the conversation. “Wait, did you say an old baseball injury?” It’s my turn to laugh. “Seriously? That is so cliché.”
“Cliché but true,” he counters. “I don’t use that line to impress women, if that’s what you were thinking.”
“I wasn’t.” I stretch out in the patio chair Matt has provided for me. It wobbles beneath my butt. “So…What was so bad about your day?”
He shakes his head and says nothing.
“That’s not fair. I told you mine. It couldn’t be worse than losing a child.”
“I had to fire someone.”
“Not Jenny of the green tea latte,” I s
ay.
“No, not Jenny.” He grins. “That would be like cutting off my right arm.” His grin fades and his expression turns serious. “I’m an architect, but a couple of years back, I took over my dad’s construction company. We’re full service, you know? From design to execution.”
I pretend nonchalance, but I’m impressed. Matt Ryan doesn’t come across as an uptight entrepreneur. He comes across more like a surfer. And this makes him even more attractive.
“Anyway, Greta’s been with my dad from the beginning. But she’s, well, she’s older now—past retirement age—and making mistakes that have cost us a couple of jobs.”
“You gotta do what you gotta do,” I say with a shrug. “You can’t be sentimental when it comes to dead weight.”
“Wow. That’s cold. Remind me never to work for you.”
I swallow hard. I know I’m a tough bitch—I pride myself on that fact most of the time. But I don’t like being a cold bitch.
“Anyway, it’s easier said than done. I mean, my dad agreed, totally supported my decision. And I gave her a great severance package, but…the way she looked at me…I just felt like a complete asshole.” He gives me a sheepish smile. “Thus the tequila.”
“And the marijuana.”
“No, that’s for my—”
“Shoulder injury,” I finish for him. “Right. Sorry.”
We sit in companionable silence for a couple of minutes. “How long have you lived in Golden Gables?” I stress the ‘Golden Gables’ bit, making it sound like a jibe.
“You don’t like it here?”
I shrug. “It’s just so suburban.”
Matt pretends to shudder. “Oooh, yeah. You’re right. Lovely little community two miles from the Pacific Ocean in the most revered climate in the world. Awful.”
“Heaventree Lane? Paradise Circle? Morningstar Road? Whoever planned this community wasn’t just smoking reefer. They were dropping acid.”
He grins at me. “Yeah, well, these houses were built in the late sixties, so there you go. I’ve been here two years. My fiancé and I were going to move in after we got married.”
“Your fiancé? Uh oh. That doesn’t sound good.”
He shrugs. “What are you gonna do?”
“What happened?” I ask. He gives me a funny look and I roll my eyes. “Too personal? Come on. I just told you about losing my nephew! That’s pretty personal, right?”
“And I told you about Greta,” he counters.
“Oh, please. No contest. Losing a nephew and firing someone aren’t even in the same category. Seriously, what gives?” When he doesn’t answer, I shrug. “Sorry. I just…I interview people all the time so I can’t help myself. On one of my shows I harassed a senator for cross-dressing until he broke down and sobbed like a little girl. On the air. I’m not really one to tread lightly.”
He chuckles, then puts up a hand in surrender. “It was a lot of things,” he says. “But the beginning of the end was when she told me she didn’t want to take my name. It meant a lot to me, but she refused. I thought it said a lot about how our marriage was going to go.”
“Typical. You’re such a guy, Matt.”
“Thank you.”
“What I mean is, how would you feel if you had to give up your identity? What if we lived in Japan where the man has to take the woman’s name? I bet you’d be against it.”
“Is that Japan?”
“Whatever. I’d never change my name again.”
“Again?” He squints at me. “You were married?”
“For five minutes, so it doesn’t count.”
“I think we need a judge’s ruling on that.”
I stick my tongue out at him and he laughs.
“Anyway, like I said,” Matt continues, “there were a bunch of problems in our relationship, and when we put them all together, it was clear we shouldn’t get married. But by the time we called off the wedding, I’d already given up my apartment and closed escrow on this place, so I figured, what the hell?”
He reaches for his guitar and I take the opportunity to scoot closer to the heater.
“Are you okay? Do you want to go inside?”
“No, I’m fine. Except for my feet. Too bad you don’t have a dog.”
“My fiancé and I had a dog. Charlie. She got him in the settlement.”
“No shared custody or visitation rights?”
He shakes his head. “I didn’t want to confuse him.” He strums a C chord, then starts to pick the introduction to ‘Blackbird.’
I close my eyes and listen for a moment, then find myself singing the lyrics of the first verse. “Blackbird singing in the dead of night / Take these broken wings and learn to fly / All your life you were only waiting for this moment to arise.”
Matt stops playing and I open my eyes to find him staring at me. “Wow. You sound great.”
“I love that song,” I confess, dropping my gaze to my lap, to my sandals, to anything other than Matt’s intense blue-eyed scrutiny. I never sing in front of anyone, not even people I’ve known for years. It strikes me how comfortable I feel with Matt. I don’t think I’ve ever had such an instant connection with someone. This realization is unnerving.
“You could have been a rock star,” he says.
I shake my head. “That was Danny’s dream, not mine. Do you jam with him?”
“Every Sunday night. I’m the only guy he can count on since I’m single. How long are you in town?”
“Till Wednesday.”
“You’re not staying for Thanksgiving?”
“I have plans back in New York,” I tell him. Which is a lie, unless you count eating Chinese food with Damien on my couch and watching Thursday night TV.
He nods. “Let’s do another shot then take it from the first chorus.”
“I really should go.” I gesture toward Danny’s house. “I haven’t been on a computer since Sunday.”
“Ah. Facebook?”
“And Twitter and about six hundred emails.”
“Popular woman.” He continues to noodle the Beatles tune. “Come on. Just one more shot and one song.” He gives me a Cheshire grin, his blue eyes sparkling. “Just one. Then you can get your internet fix. What do you say?”
I know I shouldn’t. And again, I do.
* * *
Daylight streams into the guest room through the crack in the curtains and I flop my forearm over my eyes in a futile attempt to block out the morning. Just as I doze off, my cell phone pings, and although the volume is set to low, the sound reverberates in my head. Ouch. Tequila. That last shot might have been a bad idea.
I reach blindly for my phone, bring it to within an inch of my face, then pry my eyes far enough apart to read the digital display. I have one new email. And also, it’s six-freaking-fifty-six. AM. Jesus.
I crawl to the side of the bed and push myself to my feet, my eyes barely open. My head feels like I have steel wool for brain matter and my mouth is full of cotton. But at least I wasn’t awakened this morning by a hungry toddler with a Hoover for a mouth. (Even in my drunken stupor last night, I took preventative measures, just in case: I slept in my bra and wore a tank top under my new PJ Salvage pajamas, figuring the more layers the better.)
I trudge down the hall, past the closed doors of my niece’s and nephew’s bedrooms, thankful that the little darlings are still asleep. The door of the master bedroom is also closed, but I hear the shower running, so I know Danny’s up. I continue on through the dining room, and congratulate myself for not stumbling over the furniture since I haven’t yet managed to open my eyes all the way. My plan is to get a cup of coffee into my system as quickly as possible, hopefully before the kids wake up, and follow the dose of caffeine with three ibuprofen.
But when I reach the kitchen, instead of heading for the counter I barely make it to the table before I fall into a chair. I drop my arms onto the table top then lower my head to the crook of my elbow. I’ll just take a brief rest, I think. A few minutes to recharge. Then on to
coffee.
I don’t know how long I’m out, but when I come to, there’s a small puddle of drool on the placemat under my face. I lift my head to find a young girl seated across the table staring at me under a wave of reddish-brown bangs. I jerk with surprise, inadvertently wiping away the drool with the sleeve of my pajamas. The sudden movement causes my head to throb.
“You must be Cera,” I croak. She leans back in her seat and crosses her arms over her nonexistent chest. “When did you get here?”
She puffs out her lower lip but doesn’t answer.
“I’m Meg,” I tell her. “Danny’s sister.”
“I know who you are. I’ve seen pictures. My mom thinks you’re a weenie.”
I’d roll my eyes if I thought it wouldn’t hurt. “Yes, well, the feeling is mutual. Nice jeans, by the way.” Even though she’s Caroline’s daughter, I have to admit, her outfit is pretty cool, from the Abercrombie jeans to the dangly iridescent beaded earrings that perfectly match the sequins on her Roxy top. “How did you get here from the airport?”
“My father arranged for a car service since Danny couldn’t manage to come pick me up.”
Am I allowed to smack her even though she isn’t related to me by blood?
“Well, Danny’s just a little bit busy, what with your mom in rehab.”
“It’s not rehab,” she says with a grimace. “Rehab’s for drug addicts.”
“It is rehab,” I argue. God, my head hurts. “Physical rehabilitation. I know that’s a pretty big word. So, how was your flight? Did your luggage make it?” She looks at me like I’ve sprung another head from my shoulders. O-kay. Is that a tough question for an eleven-year-old? “Luggage? Suitcases?”
She rolls her eyes with no problem whatsoever. “I’m not a baby! I know what rehabilitation means and I know what luggage means, and anyway, I did carry-on.”
“Good for you.” I try to think of something else to say that won’t piss her off any further. “So why do you spell your name C-E-R-A instead of S-A-R-A?” I’ve always wondered about this, but never asked my brother.
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