The Fixed Trilogy: Fixed on You, Found in You, Forever With You

by Laurelin Paige

  “Here’s another one.” Liesl read the highlighted quote. “‘Don’t cry, I’m sorry to have deceived you so much, but that’s how life is.’ It’s from Lolita.”

  I cringed. Nabokov. One of my favorites. “Put it in the to-go pile.” On the notepad next to me I scribbled down the quote.

  She stacked it with the others that had been highlighted—the books I planned to get rid of. “What do you think it means?”

  I shook my head and looked over the list in my lap. There were several from my favorite books and some from books I’d never read:

  “People could put up with being bitten by a wolf but what properly riled them was a bite from a sheep.” — James Joyce, Ulysses

  “He who controls the past controls the future. He who controls the present controls the past.” — George Orwell, 1984

  “Blameless people are always the most exasperating.” — George Eliot, Middlemarch

  “Once a bitch always a bitch, what I say.” — William Faulkner, The Sound and the Fury

  “There ain’t no sin and there ain’t no virtue. There’s just stuff people do.” — John Steinbeck, The Grapes of Wrath

  “It’s not my fate to give up—I know it can’t be.” — Henry James, The Portrait of a Lady

  “There is no harm in deceiving society as long as she does not find you out.” — E.M. Forster, A Passage to India

  There was another page, much of the same. If there was a hidden message, I couldn’t find it. “I’m beginning to think none of them mean anything. They’re simply ominous quotations intended to mess with my mind.”

  Liesl snatched the list from me. She scanned it quickly. “I think she’s talking about herself. She doesn’t think she’s harming anyone, she’s not going to give up, she thinks she controls stuff, and she’s a bitch.” She tossed the notepad to the ground and reached for another book. “So spill it. Why did you so badly want me here for this only mildly entertaining task?”

  I twisted my lips. “I didn’t. There’s something else.” With a deep breath, I spilled the plan that had occupied my mind since waking.

  When I was finished, Liesl sat back against the couch, her forehead pinched. “So let me get this straight—you’re going to obsess and stalk people on purpose?”

  “Research,” I corrected. “Research, dammit! Not stalk.” Though the idea sounded much better in my head than when I said it out loud.

  “You’re obsessed with your boy toy’s past. And you want to track down people to research whatever he’s hiding from you. Right? Or did I miss something?”

  “That’s exactly it.” I nodded more enthusiastically than necessary. “That’s not stalking. That’s talking to people. People who have insight into Hudson. If he won’t tell me what I want to know, then I can ask them. Get a clearer picture.”

  Liesl shot me a disapproving glance.

  “Why is this not an ideal plan?” I’d hoped she’d be more supportive. Especially since parts of the idea were already in action.

  “Because you have a history of being, you know...” She clicked her tongue and circled a finger in the air next to her head, the universal sign for psycho. “I’ll just say it. Cuckoo. You’ve been cuckoo. And I haven’t been to that many of your group thingies, but I seem to remember that snooping and prying and digging into people’s stuff are all on the no-no list.”

  I shut my eyes so I wouldn’t be tempted to roll them. Liesl had been to a few of my meetings. I hadn’t realized she’d actually paid attention. “This is different.”

  She nodded. “Yes, it is.” Then she stopped nodding and raised a brow. “How exactly?”

  Inwardly I groaned. To me, the difference was obvious. “The other times it was a compulsion. I couldn’t help myself. This time, I’m choosing it. It makes it totally different.”

  “Uh-huh. Totally different.” She didn’t seem convinced. “And why am I here? ‘Cause if you want me to tell you you’re not crazy, that’s not happening.”

  “Then, well, fine. Think I’m crazy.” Liesl’s version of sanity wasn’t necessarily one for the textbooks anyway. “But I also need your help.”

  Her eyes lit up. “You want me to take down that Selina bitch?” She punched a fist into her palm a few times.

  “Celia,” I corrected. “What is with you and getting names wrong?”

  “It’s fun to watch you get all I-know-everything and correct me.” She smacked her gum with a wide smile. “I really will take Ms. Celia Werner down if you want me to. I’ll kick her ass so hard she’ll lose that cute bubble butt of hers.” Without any guilt she added, “Yeah, I checked out her behind. Sue me.”

  “Um, no. No ass kicking. Please.” Liesl could do it, though. She was a brute when she wanted to be. And wouldn’t that be awesome to see Celia with her pretty little face bruised and bloodied?

  But that hadn’t been the help I’d needed from Liesl. I had another plan in mind. Perching on the coffee table next to where she sat on the floor, I put on my puppy dog eyes. “I was hoping you could come with me to see someone.”

  “Oh, Jesus. You’re trying to convert me to stalking too?”

  “There’s no stalking.” It wasn’t in the plan, anyway. “I just need to talk to a lady that doesn’t want to talk to me. I’m hoping if I’m not alone, she might be more amicable.”

  Liesl grinned, obviously flattered with the request. “You think I’m intimidating, don’t you? You want me to intimidate the fuck out of her.”

  “Yeah. Sure.”

  Her smile widened.

  Then it fell. “God, I don’t know, I don’t know!” She stood up and began walking in a circle. “The whole thing seems really fun. And I want to be a good friend. But I’m not sure if I should be supporting you or putting up a big fat stop sign in your path.” She brought her hands to her forehead, massaging her temples. “What to do, what to do? Maybe we should call Brian.”

  I flew up from the table. “You should be supporting me. Please! And we don’t need to call Brian.” I heaved a lungful of air out, trying to calm down. My plan could work without Liesl’s help, but I needed her to understand, at least. Needed her to realize how close to the edge I was, how, as far as I was concerned, this was my last chance. My last chance at sanity.

  “Okay. You might be right—this might not be the healthiest of ideas.” I waited until Liesl’s eyes were on mine before continuing. “But here’s the thing—if I don’t take some control over this limbo state that my relationship is in, then I’m going to end up doing the stalking and obsessing and all of that anyway. I’m being proactive. I’m taking a stand for once instead of letting a guy walk all over me. Because if not this, I only have two other choices—let Hudson and me stay in this ‘time apart’ mode, which is asinine and unproductive and really leaves me as a doormat. Or break up. And I’m not ready to lose him.” My lip trembled with the raw honesty. “And I don’t think he’s ready to lose me. Or he would have ended things already.”

  Liesl’s eyes grew compassionate. But also concerned. “You are so overthinking this, Laynie.”

  I threw my hands emphatically to the side. “No! I’m not. I’m fighting for the guy I love.” My eyes stung with the tears that seemed to be ever-present as of late. “Yes, I’m pissed that he’s not fighting for me, but maybe he doesn’t know how to fight for anyone. Maybe he needs me to show him.”

  If Liesl still had reservations, she hid them. “All right, I’m in. What else am I going to do with my afternoon, anyway?”

  “Really? Thank you. Thank you!” I hugged her. Though her company wasn’t crucial, I was desperate for it. Her presence helped with the unending loneliness that occupied my heart since Hudson had walked out the door.

  When I let her go, she shrugged dismissively. “It’s all good. Besides, this book project is pretty much done.”

  I looked around at the mess. There were still a few unmarked stacks that needed to be shelved. That could be done later. “Then I’m ready to go if you are.”

  �
��Yup.” She grabbed her backpack from the couch. “Where we headed, anyway?”

  “Greenwich Village.”

  I’d told Jordan that I’d be leaving later. I texted him now and found he was already waiting in the parking garage. After grabbing my purse and my cell phone, we stepped in the elevator.

  We stood next to each other, leaning against the back wall. Liesl nudged my shoulder. “Have you considered that you might not like what you uncover with all this?”

  The sinking feeling in my chest wasn’t just from the descent of the elevator. “I’m pretty certain that whatever it is, it might kill me.” That was the bitch about the situation—Hudson had confessed pretty shitty stuff already. If he couldn’t tell me this, it had to be bad.

  So why was I so desperate to find out?

  Because that’s who I was. And whatever this was, it was who he was too. “It might kill me, but I need to know. And then I can move on, preferably with Hudson.”

  It didn’t fix the bigger problem—Hudson wasn’t being honest with me. But maybe if he realized that I really would love him no matter what, he’d be able to let his last walls come down and we could finally start working on rebuilding our relationship together.

  ***

  Since neither of us had eaten, we stopped to grab souvlakia from a food cart nearby before heading to the Village. By the time we got to Mirabelle’s, it was nearly four. I wasn’t positive that Stacy would still be there, or that she’d be available to talk. Or that she’d answer the bell when I rang. Their clients could only come by appointment. If she wasn’t expecting anyone, would she open the door?

  Maybe showing up unannounced was a long shot, but when she’d hung up on me, this was the only way I could think of to get a few questions answered.

  At the door, a sudden flashback of the first time I’d been there flooded my memory. I’d been so nervous, standing there waiting with Hudson for his sister to answer. It had been our first outing as a couple—as a pretend couple. The fear that I’d mess up the charade had been immense, but more than that, the sizzling energy between me and the man that stood at my side had threatened to light me on fire. Threatened to consume me.

  In the end, it had consumed me, and that was why I was there now—burned and blistered and broken.

  Before ringing, I turned to Liesl. “This is where I need you. There’s a peephole. If Stacy looks through it and sees me, I’m not sure she’ll open the door.”

  “Cool. I got this.”

  I moved to the side of the building and made myself flush with the wall. At my nod, she rang the bell. The door opened almost immediately.

  “Hi. Vanessa Vanderhal?” Stacy asked Liesl.

  She must have been waiting for a client. Before Liesl could answer, I stepped into view.

  “Oh, no. Not you.” Stacy began to shut the door.

  But Liesl wedged her shoulder in the entrance before the opening got too narrow. “Hey, she only has a few questions. Nothing that’s going to take more than a few minutes. You’re the only one she can ask. Can’t you help a girl out? Woman to woman?”

  I’d known Liesl could be intimidating. I didn’t realize she could also be charming.

  Stacy narrowed her eyes, considering. Considering was better than I’d expected, to be honest.

  I looked to Liesl, mentally sending her signals to lay on more charm since it seemed to be working.

  She apparently wasn’t on the same wavelength. “If you aren’t interested in doing this the easy way, I’m willing to go another route. I’ll introduce myself—I’m Liesl. I have a triple black belt in karate and I do competitive boxing on the side. So come on. Let us in.”

  The extent of Liesl’s fighting skills was kickboxing at a nearby gym. But Stacy didn’t know that.

  Stacy groaned. “Oh, all right. Come on in. But make it quick. I have a client in fifteen.”

  I was more relieved than I realized I would be. There were too many questions about the video that could only be answered by three people. And I wasn’t about to ask Celia. “Thank you, Stacy. We’ll be in and out. I promise.”

  She widened the door for us to come in. “Yeah, yeah.” To herself, she muttered, “I knew there wouldn’t be an end to this.” As soon as we were in, she let the door slam and crossed her arms over her chest. “What is it you want to know? I didn’t stage the video, if that’s what he’s convinced you.”

  Obviously we were having our conversation in the front entry of the store. At least she’d let us in.

  “No, he didn’t.” I supposed he deserved credit for that—for not denying that the kiss had taken place. By avoiding telling me anything, he’d avoided making up a lie. Was that an effort to remain true to our promise to be honest with each other? If so, didn’t he realize that concealment was just another form of lie?

  “Actually,” I said, “he won’t tell me anything about the video at all.”

  “Ah, I see.” Stacy rubbed her gloss-shined lips together. “And so you’re asking me instead.”

  The judgment and superiority lacing her words irked me to no end. I wanted to shake the woman by her thin shoulders and tell her she didn’t know. That she couldn’t understand.

  But I was trying to play nice. And why would she understand anyway? My best friend was having a hard time figuring out why it was so important to me to uncover Hudson’s secrets, why would a practical stranger get it?

  She wouldn’t.

  I gritted my teeth. “Yes, that’s exactly what I’m doing. I’m going behind his back and asking you instead. It’s definitely not one of my finer moments.”

  Stacy stared at me hard for several seconds. “Well, we’ve all experienced some of those, I suppose.” Her shoulders relaxed ever so slightly. “So he doesn’t know you’re here?”

  I shook my head.

  “And you’re not planning to tell him?”

  “No.” Guilt shuddered through me like a cold chill. Hudson hadn’t asked me not to talk to Stacy again, but I’d promised to be open and truthful with him. Not telling him felt secretive. Sure, he wasn’t living up to his promise, and he’d called for a fucking break—those facts probably excused me from the open-door policy. But I’d said I was done keeping secrets. Period. Either I meant it or I wasn’t worthy of him in the first place. And if I wasn’t worthy of being with him, why did this whole detective scheme matter?

  I changed my answer. “Actually, that’s a lie. I will tell him.” If I ever actually had a chance to speak to him again. “I told you before—we’re working on honesty. I can’t betray him.” Even if he’d betrayed me by not being forthcoming.

  My transparency had likely cost me Stacy’s cooperation, but my only other option was to lie to her. And that seemed shitty too.

  She pursed her lips, her eyes darting back and forth between me and Liesl. Finally, she sighed, leaning back on the counter behind her. “What do you want to know?”

  Knowing our time was short, I jumped right in. “Why did you film Hudson and Celia kissing? I mean, what did you plan to do with the video in the first place?”

  “Prove he was lying.” She said it matter-of-factly, as if I’d understand with just that much. When she realized I didn’t, she expounded. “I was supposed to meet him that night. For coffee—I think I told you that before. As I was walking up, I saw him with her. He’d protested so much about them being a couple that I knew he’d deny it again. So I filmed it. As proof.”

  My chest tightened. Oh, how the protest story sounded familiar. Still, there were holes. “But you never showed it to him.”

  She shook her head. “I didn’t end up needing to. I walked up to them right after I filmed it. While they were still...like that.” She cringed as if the memory of seeing them kissing hurt her.

  I knew how that felt. And it hurt doubly that Stacy was upset about it. She obviously had something with him, even though he’d denied it. How many women had he been with that he’d told me he hadn’t? Was Norma also on that list?

  Well, that I�
�d find out tomorrow, if all went as planned.

  Stacy brushed a strand of golden hair off her face. “I’d filmed them in case they stopped before I got there. In case he denied it. But he didn’t.”

  No, denial wasn’t Hudson’s thing—redirection was. And avoidance.

  Or maybe that was just with me. “What did he do when he saw you?”

  Stacy’s nose crinkled as she recalled the scene. “He acted surprised, even though I was supposed to be meeting him. Or maybe it was because he’d lost track of time or forgotten he was meeting me. I don’t know. Celia apologized first, which was strange because I didn’t realize she knew anything about me. Then Hudson apologized. Most of the explaining came from Celia. I guess he was shocked to have been caught or something. I really didn’t listen to most of what she said. I was shocked as well. And too busy feeling stupid.”

  “Feeling stupid?” This was where I needed clarification. Hudson had seemed honestly perplexed when I’d mentioned Stacy had been there to meet him.

  “Yes, stupid. He’d made me feel like he liked me, you know?” She seemed to be recalling an old ache that hadn’t healed entirely. “And all the time he was with her. Why would he do that? ”

  “Why do any men cheat on their women?” Liesl asked then returned to biting the nail she’d been working on since we’d arrived.

  I frowned. Of all the negative traits I was realizing about my lover, I sure hoped cheating wasn’t one I had to add to the list.

  Stacy protested the logic in that. “He asked me to meet him, though. Hudson Pierce doesn’t seem like the type to mix up his dates. If anyone could successfully pull off an affair, that man could.”

  That’s exactly why Norma scared me. But, like Stacy was saying, if Hudson were really with Norma—or back then, with Celia—wouldn’t he be better at covering his tracks? That was the part that didn’t make sense.

  Maybe Stacy had misread his intentions. “How did he make you feel like he liked you? I thought you only accompanied him to that charity event last year.” Taking a stab in the dark, I added, “I didn’t realize you were together.”