Falling Angel

by Tisdale, Clare

  He had been so angry with her. And yet she had to believe that he still cared about her; otherwise why would he have kissed her?

  What a mess she had made of things! Why hadn’t she just explained to him what had happened with David? It could have become a funny anecdote that they could laugh about later. Instead, she’d allowed Ben’s criticisms to spark her own anger and defensiveness.

  Struggling to maintain her composure, Cara walked downstairs to the waiting cab. She hadn’t felt this heartsick since the breakup with Barry, which had resulted in her move to Seattle. Now she had that same overwhelming urge to flee, to pack up and get out of town.

  Chapter Twenty Two

  “Volunteer Park, please,” Cara told the cab driver, a turbaned Sikh with a long white beard. He nodded silently and pulled away from the curb as she settled back against the vinyl seat.

  Now that the thought of leaving Seattle had entered her mind, Cara found she couldn’t let it go. The idea of beginning again somewhere else was very tempting. She could use the money she had saved over the past seven months to start her own event planning business. It would be hard, with no connections. But it may be harder still to stay in a place where she felt she had already screwed up her fresh start. Besides her job, there was nothing that tied her to Seattle. Her friendship with Ann had been damaged beyond repair. She had proven as duplicitous as Cara’s former best friend in Illinois, the one who had cheated on her with Barry.

  If she stayed, she would need to find a new place to live. She couldn’t share an apartment with Ann any longer.

  Cara liked the city; even the dreary winter had possessed a certain Gothic charm. Another year or two and she could see herself calling this place home. That’s why it was better to leave now, before she began to put down any serious roots.

  Cara looked out the cab window at the crush of cars. Inside them, strangers sipped coffee from paper cups, grimaced at the traffic, or yammered distractedly into cell phones. Each in their own little bubble. Seattle was a city of lone wolves. Why else would someone like Ben have ended up here?

  After checking on the arrangements at Volunteer Park, where the wedding ceremony was to be held, Cara dropped by the bride’s house, an old Victorian situated on a quiet, tree-lined street near the park.

  The bride’s mother opened the door, her face creased with worry.

  “Oh, I’m glad you’re here. Maybe you can talk some sense into my Tanya.” Cara followed her upstairs into the master bedroom.

  Dressed in her Vera Wang gown, with a veil that looked as though it had been lifted from a film set in the Elizabethan era, Tanya stood before a full-length mirror, tears streaming down her face.

  “The jerk!” she wailed. “I swear he’s as drunk as a skunk. On my wedding day! He reeks! I can’t believe I’m getting married to this guy! And my makeup’s ruined!”

  Tanya’s mother stood next to her daughter making inarticulate soothing sounds and wringing her hands. Cara handed the bride a box of tissues and told her she would call the makeup artist to come and do a touch-up. She then headed downstairs to do damage control.

  The tuxedoed groom sat on an immaculate white couch in the drawing room, head in his hands.

  “I screwed up,” he said. “My buddies kept promising we’d go home after one more shot. Tanya, I’m sorry!” he called mournfully in the direction of the stairs, before sinking his head into his hands again.

  “Everything’s going to be fine,” Cara soothed. “She’ll forgive you. She’s just got wedding-day jitters.” She handed him a glass of water and a couple of Aspirin before heading into the kitchen to brew a strong pot of coffee.

  Her cell phone vibrated urgently. It was Ingrid. Cara quickly filled her in on the morning’s drama.

  “Christ,” said Ingrid. “If it’s not one thing it’s another. Try to keep them from tearing each other’s throats out till they get to the park, could you? By then they’ll be so caught up in the drama of the day they’ll forget to be mad and hung over. At least we can pray they will.”

  “Amen to that,” Cara responded fervently. She glanced at the kitchen clock. It was almost one. The wedding was scheduled to start in less than two hours.

  It was going to be a long day.

  To Cara’s huge relief, the bride’s composure was restored along with her makeup. With a little prompting from Cara and her mother, Tanya and her husband-to-be enjoyed a tearful reconciliation from either side of the living room door (Tanya was adamant that he couldn’t see her in her dress before the wedding). A half-hour later, the bridal party headed to the park in separate limos, with Cara following behind in the cab driven by the silent Sikh, whose unruffled calm was so soothing that she doubled his tip and asked whether he could pick her up in a few hours.

  The wedding itself went surprisingly well. The weather cooperated, the bride and groom looked beautiful, the string quartet performed with panache. The officiator, dressed in a simple white robe, spoke eloquently on the nature of love and marriage to the assembled guests. Cara sat in the back row of folding chairs, craning her neck to see the action on the raised dais.

  "To quote the writer Amy Bloom; ‘Marriage is not a ritual or an end. It is a long, intricate, intimate dance together and nothing matters more than your own sense of balance and your choice of partner.’” The officiator ruffled her notes and looked up at the audience with an engaging smile. “I like the image of the dance here, implying a combination of teamwork and individual expression. It won’t work if you stand in a corner, dancing by yourself. But neither will it work if one of you is always stepping on the other one’s toes. There is an ebb and flow to a successful marriage. An awareness of and responsiveness to your partner’s spoken and unspoken cues is key to maintaining harmony and balance.”

  Her words brought tears to Cara’s eyes and she found herself reaching surreptitiously for the tissues she had stuffed into her purse in case the bride needed them. She sat sniffling through the remainder of the short, non-denominational ceremony. Smiling through her tears, Cara clapped loudly as the final vows were spoken and the bride and groom shared their first kiss as a married couple.

  By late afternoon the tents were coming down and the wedding guests departed for a swanky reception at a nearby hotel. Cara was glad that her duties were over for the day. Tanya’s mother came up before she left, took her hand and thanked her personally for her last-minute damage control at the house. “You were amazing,” she said. “I’m going to tell all my friends about you.” Cara was touched by her gratitude.

  She leaned against a tree, watching the last tent come down in a billow of white fabric, and then walked slowly along the gravel path to the road by the Asian Art Museum.

  As arranged, the cab was waiting by the curb, with the same imperturbable Sikh at the wheel. Politely, he opened the door for her and she slid in.

  “Home please.”

  I may be good at getting other couples back together, she thought, looking out the window as the cab purred slowly down the street. But I certainly don’t seem to have much luck in my own relationships. What was it the officiator said about being responsive to the spoken and unspoken cues? I was so fixated on trying to control the process and plan for the future that I completely forgot to enjoy the here and now.

  Cara looked down at her hands and noticed that the pink nail polish she’d applied the night before was already chipped. The straps of her dress chafed uncomfortably on her shoulders and she longed to get home and slip into a pair of sweat pants.

  Let’s face it, honey. Your new rules of engagement are crap. The only place they’ve taken you is Heartbreak Hotel.

  She thought of Ben, wild-faced in the alley. “I trust my gut to tell me what’s right,” he’d said. “I thought things were right with us. I was wrong.”

  Ben trusted his intuition rather than worrying whether I met some pre-established criteria for an appropriate partner. Things were right with us, and I totally screwed them up.

  Looking back, Car
a realized for the first time that she had actively pushed Ben away from her at the crucial moment when she could have cleared up all the misunderstandings and brokered a peace between them, if not a total reconciliation.

  I got scared. Scared that Ben may actually be the one, the guy I’ve been looking for all this time. Despite all my talk of wanting to settle down, I’m as afraid of commitment as he is. Afraid it will all fall apart, like it did with Barry. Like it did for my parents.

  . . . . .

  Ann was waiting for her at the kitchen table. “David called,” she said the minute Cara walked in the door. “He said he’s been trying to contact you. He’ll be here in half an hour to take you out for dessert.”

  “Thanks.” Cara walked past her without a glance.

  “Cara, we need to talk.”

  “I don’t have time. I have to get ready.”

  “Then when?”

  “How about tomorrow morning? We’ll go out and get coffee somewhere neutral and discuss this.”

  “Ok.” Ann’s eyes were as wide as a cornered rabbit’s, and Cara realized that she was scared. She had seen Ann upset, angry and sly before, but never scared.

  In her room, Cara let the green dress slide to the floor. She stepped out of it, opened her closet door and surveyed the contents. No sweat pants tonight, after all. It was kind of rude of David to assume she wanted to go out, without confirming it with her first. But she was too tired at the moment to deal with conflict of any kind. Better to go out, have a quick bite somewhere, then come home and relax. With her own thoughts such upsetting company, it was better to stay busy.

  Cara chose a semi-sheer sleeveless shirt and a black cashmere cardigan to go over it. A flared denim mini-skirt and black ballet flats. Getting dressed was an effort. She was so tired it felt as though she were moving through mud. She dabbed some Joy, her favorite perfume, behind her ears and brushed out her hair, which had been confined in a heavy, headache-inducing bun. Then she flopped down on top of her covers to rest for a few minutes until David arrived.

  She was walking in a huge field of gently waving grass, holding the hands of her parents, who periodically swung her up into the air between them. They were all laughing. Suddenly, a shot rang out, and her father disappeared. Cara felt a cold emptiness beside her and looked wildly about the meadow for him. All that remained of him was his old Cubs cap, lying on the ground. She picked it up and put it on, turning to her mother for comfort. But her mother was staring at her with blazing eyes, pointing to the hat on her head.

  “You!” she shrieked. “You’re just like him! Just like him!”

  Chapter Twenty Three

  An insistent knocking sound broke into Cara’s dream and she struggled up through layers of sleep to find herself lying on her bed with evening shadows slanting across her body. She stumbled over to the door. David stood outside it, his mouth twitching with irritation.

  “I’ve been knocking and knocking,” he said.

  “Hi David,” Cara croaked, still groggy with sleep. “I must have fallen asleep. I hope you weren’t waiting long.”

  David looked ostentatiously at his watch. “I waited outside in my car as planned for fifteen minutes. When you didn’t come out, I decided to come up. Your roommate let me in.”

  “I’m sorry.”

  “Well, are you ready?”

  Cara scrambled to collect her purse and keys as he watched with folded arms, then followed him meekly down the stairs.

  In the car, he thrust a wilted bunch of plastic-wrapped daisies at her.

  “I got these for you,” he said, as though regretting this act of largesse.

  “Thanks. They’re lovely.”

  “I thought we’d go to Capitol Hill and get some dessert, and then go dancing.”

  “Dancing?”

  “Yeah. I know a good club downtown. Been there with some of my MBA buddies before.”

  David hadn’t said anything about dancing. Cara wanted to protest that she was tired and would rather go home. But she felt guilty for keeping him waiting, and didn’t want to add insult to injury. She kept silent as they cruised Broadway, searching for a parking space.

  David lightened up in the restaurant, describing the day’s golf game at length while Cara feigned interest. She pushed her chocolate mousse from side to side on her plate.

  “How was the wedding?” he asked. Cara told him the story of coming to the house and finding the bride in tears.

  “There’s so much stress bound up in the day,” she said. “This desire for everything to be absolutely perfect. It’s almost inevitable it won’t live up to such crazy expectations.”

  “That’s kind of cynical, don’t you think?”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Why can’t everything be perfect?” He speared a forkful of chocolate cake and paused to chew and swallow. “With enough advance planning and careful selection of a partner, one should be able to pull off a perfect wedding.”

  “And what constitutes perfect, in your mind?”

  “A beautiful bride, for one,” he said, smiling at her. “A church wedding is non-negotiable, of course. I hate these secular barefoot ceremonies on beaches and in parks. It’s like wearing sweatpants to the opera. A wedding should be a special occasion. A tux for the groom, of course. For the bride, a simple white gown, attractive but modest. Liturgical texts and classical organ music, not homemade poems and folk guitars.”

  Cara had an irresistible urge to play devil’s advocate. “And I assume this perfect wedding assures marital success?”

  “Let’s put it this way,” David said. “Planning, teamwork, and shared values are the key to a happy union.”

  “What about love?”

  “Love, sure.” David looked at her across the table.

  “Seriously, Cara, you and I both know that there’s no such thing as soul mates. We’re pragmatists, you and I. That’s one reason I like you so much. Why leave such important matters as marriage to such unreliable and subjective indicators as love or a mystical sense of connection? I certainly wouldn’t choose what stocks to buy based on how much I love a particular product. I need to observe how they perform in the market over time and assess them from an objective standpoint.”

  “So, how has my stock been performing?”

  David smiled. “A little unreliable at times, but overall indicators point to a steady, healthy growth over time.” He stood up, brushing crumbs off his shirt. “Now, what say we hit the dance floor?”

  Cara was surprised when they pulled up at a small, dimly lit building off the main drag in Pioneer Square. They walked down a steeply sloping driveway to what must have been a warehouse at one point.

  A burly, tattooed bouncer checked ID’s at the door, and a pierced goth woman in a rubber dress sat by a small till, taking admission. Cara felt inappropriately dressed for the occasion. David, in his trademark khakis and button-down shirt, looked completely out of place among the black-clad club goers. He paid for them both and marched into the room as though daring anyone to stop him. At the bar he ordered two beers. Cara sipped hers and looked around.

  The club was still nearly empty. It was not yet 10 and she had a feeling this was a place that only started hopping after midnight.

  “So why did you decide to come here?” she asked David.

  He put his arm around her waist and squeezed. “I may be a conservative guy, but I know how to have fun, too.” Placing his empty bottle on the counter, he turned to face her. “Let’s dance.”

  There were a few people swaying on the dance floor. Cara and David joined them and moved self-consciously to the music.

  David wasn’t any better at dancing than Ben had been. All the same, it was sweet of him to try, she thought. It showed that he possessed spontaneity. When the song ended, Cara was already hot. She took off her cardigan and shimmied up to David, smiling.

  His eyes widened as he looked at her.

  “What’s the matter?”

  “Nothing,” he said,
backing up a little.

  “What?”

  “That shirt.”

  “What about it?”

  “Don’t you think it’s a little . . . see-through?”

  Cara looked down at her shirt. It was true; you could make out her white bra underneath it, and the faint impression of bare skin.

  “Do you have a problem with it?”

  “Ah, no,” he said, unconvincingly. “It’s just, ah, a different look for you. Not what I expected.”

  Cara stopped and looked pointedly around at the other dancers. All were dressed in various styles of fetish gear, from rubber outfits to garter belts, PVC pants, and net tops.

  Turning, she left the dance floor.

  David ran after her. “Hey! Where are you going?”

  “Home, David. I’m going home.”

  “Why?”

  Gazing into the eyes of handsome, straight-laced, upwardly mobile David, Cara realized she felt nothing but pity for him. No matter how hard she tried, or how much she wanted to, she couldn’t force any stronger emotion to come to the fore.

  She placed a hand on his arm, raising her voice to be heard over the music. “I’m sorry, David. This isn’t working out.”

  He nodded vehemently. “You’re absolutely right. Let’s go somewhere else.”

  “The club is fine. I mean this isn’t working.” She moved her hand back and forth between them.

  David frowned, as though uncertain whether he had heard her correctly.

  Cara slipped her cardigan back on and buttoned it up. “You’re a good person, David. But I’m not the woman you’re looking for. I’m unreliable and spacey and I don’t dress right. And to be totally honest with you, I like the idea of a barefoot wedding on the beach.”

  Without looking back, she exited the club.

  David followed her out onto the sidewalk and up the steep ramp to the sidewalk. “You’re making a big mistake,” he huffed behind her.

  “You’re probably right. I may regret this. But it’s how I feel.” Once on street level, Cara stopped and waited for him.