Flirting with Forever

by Cara Bastone

  He smoothed the strap of her sundress one more time, and Mary quickly rose on her toes to kiss his cheek. She placed her hand in the middle of his chest to steady herself and John knew instinctively that she was seeking his heartbeat again, the way she had when they’d been dancing.

  Little did she know that she didn’t have to hunt it down, that it was already hers.

  CHAPTER FIFTEEN

  NAOMI TRACE’S ATTIC was not the kind of place that had secrets. Every single item was perfectly labeled in a perfectly sized storage Tupperware. Besides, the things she stored up there only took up half of one wall anyhow. The woman was infamous for ruthlessly tossing away keepsakes. Mary had clear memories of her mother nodding briskly at an A-plus essay Mary had brought home and then promptly tossing it into the recycling, seeing no reason to keep it.

  Which was why Mary was surprised to find herself in the attic on Sunday morning, her mother pointing to which clear plastic boxes she wanted Mary to shuffle around.

  “That one there. No. Wait, it’s the one next to it. Yes.”

  Mary blinked at the perfect label that ran along the side of the box. “Photographs,” it read.

  She was surprised to see that her mother kept a miscellaneous box of photographs in the attic because Naomi was strictly a photos-belong-in-photo-albums sort of person. Mary had thought that all the photos her parents owned were currently neatly shelved alongside their John Grisham and Agatha Christie collections in the living room.

  But here she was, staring down at a plastic shoebox filled to the brim with old photos.

  “Here,” her mother said impatiently, gesturing for Mary to hand over the box. Then she reached her hand out and firmly helped Mary step out of the maze of other boxes. Mary had a flashback to her childhood. Slipping at the edge of a pool and falling into the deep end before she could swim. There was the sun, too bright through the water, the white-bubbled panic slipping out of Mary’s nose and mouth. And then there was her mother, a firm hand under Mary’s armpit, yanking her up and out of the water, pushing her wet hair back from her face. “You’re all right,” her mother had said. Firm, clear, comforting.

  “Come, sit,” Naomi said now in that exact same tone of voice.

  Mary was a little mystified. Her mother was perched on top of one of the larger storage boxes, moved to the side just enough for Mary to have room as well. This was unusual. When her mother had asked her to help her in the attic, Mary assumed that there was some baking utensil or end-of-the-summer decoration her mother wanted brought down. It hadn’t occurred to her that her mother had wanted to sit in the warm attic and look at forgotten photos.

  Mary sat down. Naomi was already digging through the box.

  “Wait!” Mary stilled Naomi’s shuffling fingers with a hand and reached in to pull out some old Polaroids she’d never seen before. “Is this the day I was born?”

  “Oh, don’t look at those. I look like I’d been baking on the side of the road for a week.”

  But Mary was stunned. Her mother never looked less than perfect and here she was, so young it was almost painful to look at her, her blond hair messily pulled back, her cheeks red, her eyes swollen, staring at a little bundle in her arms in utter amazement. She’d never seen so much emotion on her mother’s face before. Mary dug through and found two more. All of them were obviously taken within the same few minutes. Because there was Mary’s wrinkled, mutinous face poking out from the hospital-issued pink-and-blue blanket, there were Mary’s parents beaming for the camera, looking like they’d been through the ordeal of a lifetime. And then, lastly, there was a photo of Naomi asleep with Mary on her chest. Naomi’s hair was sticking out every which way, her mouth gaping open she was sleeping so hard.

  “I can’t believe you let someone take these,” Mary mused. Naomi did not approve of candids.

  “I didn’t let anyone take them. Tiff insisted.” Naomi sniffed.

  “She was at the hospital the day I was born?”

  Naomi nodded. “She told me I’d treasure these photos one day.”

  “And now they’re in a box in the attic,” Mary said drily.

  “Well, I didn’t throw them away, did I? Here, put them back in. It’s not what I’m looking for.”

  Mary did as she was told, but she watched her mother carefully. It was true that her mother hadn’t thrown the photos away. In a house with not an extra ounce of fat on its bones, maybe that really did mean that, in a way, her mother treasured these photos. It just also meant that her mother couldn’t bear to display a photo where she didn’t look Hollywood-ready. Mary reflected on all the photos in frames downstairs, family portraits taken by professionals, all of them. And even the ones in the albums were all particularly flattering to her mother.

  There was a series of photos lining one hallway of her mother’s pageant days. Glamour shot after glamour shot of Naomi looking utterly stunning, even with her outdated coif of a hairdo and sparkly, outrageous gown. The only photo they had of Naomi showing any emotion other than a beatific smile was the single photo of the Miss Connecticut crown being placed on her head. Tears streamed down her face as she stared in shock out at the crowd. Mary had seen plenty of media representations of pageants in which the winner delivered a sort of practiced shock in order to endear herself to the crowd. But anyone who looked at that picture would know that Naomi truly hadn’t expected to win the title.

  “Here,” Naomi said, shoving a small stack of photos into Mary’s hand. “This is what I wanted to show you.”

  Mary thumbed through the photos. They were of her mother and father at various events. A couple shots from some barbecue, a few from school events of Mary’s. Mary was in early high school in these photos, her swim team sweats in one photo, a homecoming dress in another photo. Then there were two of her mother on her own, candids. Her slicing carrots for a salad in one of them and her in the driver’s seat in the other. In neither photo was she aware she was being photographed.

  “Tiff took these ones too.” Mary knew instinctually.

  “Tiff took pretty much every photo in this box.” She sniffed again. “She just loved taking bad pictures of me.”

  Mary squinted up at her mother in surprise. “You think these photos are bad?”

  To Mary’s eye, her mother looked relaxed and natural in the candids, as lovely as always. In the posed ones at the school events, her mother looked just how she’d remembered her looking from that time period. Nothing bad about it.

  “You don’t see the crow’s-feet and the turkey wattle?” Naomi asked caustically, pointing at the virtually nonexistent flaws in each photo. “My hair was starting to change texture, and I had no idea how to style it yet. Hence that hairstyle. I’d started to gain weight too. Hadn’t yet joined Weight Watchers.”

  “Mom...” Mary trailed off, shocked at her mother’s harsh appraisal of herself, at the realization that her mother kept a box of ugly photos tucked away in the attic.

  “I wanted you to see these, Mary. Do you have any idea how old I am in these photos?”

  Mary’s stomach dropped out, through her feet, through to the second floor of the house, and kept on going down to the kitchen and straight into the basement.

  “I see you’ve upped the ante and decided to start harassing me with visual aids.” Mary was proud of herself for keeping any of her anger and outrage and pain out of her voice.

  “I’m not harassing you, Mary. I’m trying to show you something. I wasn’t that much older than you in these pictures.”

  These pictures, where, in Mary’s eyes, her mother looked utterly lovely. Yes, she looked forty years old. But she was forty years old. Where the hell was the crime in that?

  Her mother stood suddenly, grabbing Mary’s hand and practically dragging her down the attic stairs. They wound up in the hallway with the pageant photos. Naomi pointed with a manicured, shaking finger at the beautiful twenty-year-o
ld girl there. “You know the story, Mary. You know how your father and I met.”

  “Dad was a dorky broadcasting guy up in the booth that day,” Mary said in a voice shaky from her adrenaline, from her disbelief at what was happening. “He fell in love with you during the competition and found you in the dressing room after you won. Brought you a bouquet of crappy daisies and asked you on a date.”

  “Your father was not dorky,” Naomi claimed. “He was just...less fashionable than some other men. But he was kind to me. And sweet and smart.”

  “Mom!” Mary took her mother by the shoulders. “How come you can’t defend yourself the way you just did Dad? He was totally a dork. A computer nerd. You are beautiful in these pictures.” Mary held up the plastic box. “Why can’t you see reality?”

  “You have no idea, Mary,” Naomi hissed. “You have no idea how long it took for us to get pregnant. You have no idea what it’s like to really watch your body change with age. You have no idea—”

  “You were twenty-five when you got pregnant! What do you mean it took you a long time?”

  “All our friends were pregnant already. Your father and I took years, Mary. Do you know how humiliating that was? How happy I was when you were finally here?”

  “No, Mom. I didn’t know any of that. Because you’ve been hiding the evidence in the attic like a crazy person.” Mary shook the box of photos. “I really can’t believe this is happening. You think that showing me these photos of you at age forty is going to scare me into running out and getting married and knocked up? You think I don’t know what it’s like to watch my body change as I age? You think I’m the exact same as I was in my twenties? You think I haven’t changed my style and my beauty care regimen and my exercise routine? I’m aware of my age, Mom. It just doesn’t affect my happiness.”

  Naomi pinched the bridge of her nose. When she spoke, it was with a shaky, synthetic patience. “Your father fell in love with me because of my looks, Mary. At first, at least. When we’d been married and been through life together, he loved me for different reasons. He’s loyal and faithful and sweet. But it was this that got him. This.” She pointed again at the beautiful girl in the pageant photos. “And I’m begging you to keep an open mind.”

  “An open mind?” Mary asked in confusion. “An open mind? You’ve got to be kidding me. You’re telling me to have an open mind? You’re the most closed-minded person in my life!”

  Naomi reeled back. “I’m not closed-minded. I’m realistic. And it wouldn’t kill you to get your head out of the clouds.”

  “Mom, I don’t have my head in the clouds. I started a business over from scratch. A successful business. I’ve almost doubled my savings in the last three years. I’ve picked up and rebuilt in just a few weeks since the break-in. I have valuable relationships.”

  The doorbell rang and both Naomi and Mary jumped. The two women froze, eyeing one another.

  A flash of guilt crossed Naomi’s face.

  “Who’s at the door?” Mary asked suspiciously.

  “I asked you to keep an open mind. Please, Mary.”

  “Mom. Who. Is. At. The. Door.”

  “I’ll get it!” her father yelled as he came up the basement steps, oblivious to the civil war that was breaking out in his own home.

  “Mom—”

  “Carver!” her father said in surprise at the front door, two rooms over. “What a surprise! Come in!”

  “Sorry,” said a familiar voice that made Mary’s stomach plummet. “I didn’t mean for this to be a surprise. Naomi invited me for lunch.”

  Mary took her mother by the elbow and dragged her up the second-floor stairs to the room where Mary was staying.

  “Carver Reinhardt? Carver Reinhardt? Is this a joke? You invited my high school boyfriend here as a setup?”

  “Open mind,” Naomi replied in a voice that was significantly less sure of herself than it had been for the last few minutes.

  Maybe that was because Mary was actually letting her fury and outrage show on her face. She was done holding it back. She turned to her overnight bag and began stuffing her belongings back into it.

  “What are you doing?” Naomi asked. “You’re packing?”

  “I’m leaving. I’m going out the back door, and I’m getting on the train, and I’m going home.”

  “Mary, you have a guest! You can’t just—”

  “No. You have a guest. And I suddenly understand everything. I see exactly how little you think of me, Mom. How little I matter to you. I’m nothing because I don’t have a man or children. To you, I’ll always be half a person until I have those things.”

  “Mary—”

  “No. Don’t tell me that I’m wrong. I know I’m right. Otherwise you wouldn’t have invited Carver Reinhardt into my childhood home in some sort of sick setup.”

  “Oh, forgive me for setting you up with a handsome, successful man.”

  “I do not forgive you. For any of this. And I won’t be returning until I have an actual apology from you. Until you understand that I am a person. Full and complete. And so was Tiff. And if I choose to be buried between strangers, that does not make my life less significant than yours. This is beyond fucked up, Mom. I love you, but this is untenable. If you ever want to call me or come to Brooklyn, I’ll take the call. I’ll never turn you away. But I will not be calling you, and I will not be coming back here. Not until you apologize for this.”

  Mary zipped her bag with a flourish, kissed her mother on the cheek and sneaked out the back.

  * * *

  THE NEXT DAY as he strode down the hall toward his office, John’s mind was deeply mulling the details of Hang Nguyen’s case. Her trial had been in full swing for the last two workdays, and after Hang took the stand this afternoon, things would come to a close. He knew better than to have high hopes, but what he did know was how hard he’d prepped for this case. How many extra hours had gone into it. And how much he truly, deeply believed in her innocence. He’d just come back from a meeting with her where they’d gone over her testimony, and if John did say so himself, he thought that her quiet, polite, eloquent honesty had a good chance of pushing her into the jury’s hearts.

  John had his eyes on the email he was reading on his phone. It wasn’t the motion in his office that suddenly drew his eyes upward. No, it was the sudden lack of motion. John had the immediate impression of deer frozen in the headlights as he, one hand on the doorknob to his own office, looked up and absorbed a tableau of oh, shit.

  Because Richie Dear was halfway crawled over top of his own desk, his shirt partially unbuttoned, his hair and reading glasses equally askew. And underneath Richie was a man. A man by the name of Crash Willis.

  John took in the scene before him, outwardly placid, inwardly befuddled. Crash Willis? Richie was making out with Crash Willis?

  John said nothing aloud, just let his eyes fall to the floor, where he saw a mess of papers and office supplies that had obviously been swept aside in the heat of the moment.

  “You better not have broken my stapler again,” John said, almost nonsensical in his battle to understand whatever the hell was happening in front of him. “I had to buy the last one with my own money.”

  “Ah. I’m...gonna go.” Crash’s voice was shockingly hoarse. Devoid of all bluster and irritating smugness that was usually sewn into the very fabric of his being.

  John had the wherewithal to step into the hallway, give the two debauched men a moment to right themselves in their place of work. He heard a few rushed, intimate whispers, the rustle of clothing, and then Crash was practically sprinting down the hall, the back of his neck an electric pink.

  John stepped back into his office and shut the door behind him. “Crash Willis?”

  “Oh, shut up,” Richie said, sitting on his desk with his legs swinging in childish circles, one hand sliding down his face.

  Richie
looked just as chagrined as he did pleased with himself. Rumpled and confused and...thrilled.

  “Richie,” John tried again, striding over and taking his friend by the shoulders. “Crash Willis.”

  Richie laughed. “I know, John. I was there.”

  John folded back into his own squeaky swivel chair and rested his temple on his closed fist, studying his best friend. “You’re what? Sleeping with the enemy?”

  Richie’s feet swung in wider circles. “We haven’t quite gotten there yet, but I sure as shit hope that’s where this is heading.”

  John groaned. “First a cop and now an ADA? What, do you have some sort of Darth Vader fetish or something?”

  Richie laughed, and it was full of relief. John wondered if Richie had thought that he’d actually be mad at him over something like this. Richie looked so relieved that John was joking with him.

  “Crash isn’t on the dark side. He’s just a douchebag. A little lost.”

  “I didn’t even realize he was gay,” John mused.

  “Yap. I’ve known since he started working here.” Richie studied his fingernails for a few seconds. “He doesn’t hide it. You’d know that if you ever did more than trade barbs with him.”

  John frowned. What a weird freaking morning. Because here he was, feeling guilty about being a dick to Crash Willis.

  “I...thought you had feelings for Hogan Trencher.”

  Richie frowned, like he couldn’t believe that John could be this dense. “Hogan’s straight, John. Get over it.”

  John was quiet for a minute, musing inwardly on how complicated it would be to have feelings for someone who didn’t, couldn’t ever, have feelings for you. He wasn’t exactly sure what was going on with Mary, but at least he knew that she found him to be handsome. There was that little nugget to cling to. He momentarily considered a world where Mary wouldn’t ever even find him attractive. How painful that would be. It was in that moment, no matter how John personally felt about Crash Willis, that he decided to be happy for Richie.