Beach Reads Boxed Set

by Marie Force

  Juliana caught the day’s last flight off St. Thomas. She didn’t take a deep breath until the plane took off, when she was certain Jeremy hadn’t come after her. If she never saw him again it would be too soon. More than anything, she was mortified that Barbara and Gary had been forced to witness the horrific scene in the bar.

  As the plane made its way to Miami, the shock wore off, and Juliana began to shake. Her thin sundress offered scant protection against the air-conditioned cabin, so she asked the stewardess for a blanket and wrapped it around her shoulders. Once the trembling subsided, she wept quietly into the blanket.

  What a mess she had made of things, and what a stupid fool she’d been to give him a second chance. She should have ended it with him that day on the beach when he said he wanted to see other women. Instead she’d walked away from the best guy she had ever known for someone who wasn’t worth it.

  In Miami, she learned she had just missed the last flight to Baltimore, so she booked a flight at six the next morning. Tapping into the wad of cash Jeremy had gotten for their trip, Juliana bought an overpriced sweat suit and sneakers in one of the fancy airport boutiques as well as a toothbrush and hairbrush in the newsstand. With her purchases in hand, she went outside into the warm night to take a taxi to a hotel near the airport.

  The room was small and inexpensive, but it was clean. After requesting a four thirty wake-up call, she took a long, hot shower and changed into the sweat suit. She would have ordered some food, but the thought of eating made her sick, so she lay down on the bed and stared up at the ceiling.

  The wake-up call turned out to be unnecessary because Juliana never fell asleep during that long night. But she did make some decisions. Before she did anything else, she was going to find out if Mrs. Romanello was right when she said Juliana could stand on her own two feet in any situation. One year was ending and another was beginning, and she would spend this year alone.

  For the first time in her life, she would live by herself. She would take the time she needed to recover from everything that had happened in the last few months and to figure out what she wanted next. She couldn’t go running back to Michael after what she had done to him. Maybe during this year she would discover that it was over with him, too. Or maybe she would find out that he was what she wanted more than anything. If that was the case and he loved her as much as he said he did, he would still love her in a year.

  She got up in the morning satisfied she had a plan to put her life back together, to find some self-respect amid the ruins, and to put her love for Michael to the test of a lifetime.

  The skimpy sweat suit was no match for the frigid cold in Baltimore. Shivering her way home in a taxi, she wished for the winter coat she left in Jeremy’s car in the long-term parking lot.

  At the Collington Street house, she spent the last day of the year, what was supposed to have been her wedding day, packing four years of her life into three suitcases and six of the boxes Jeremy brought home from Florida. She took only the things that mattered most to her, leaving behind all reminders of their ten years together.

  By five o’clock she had loaded the last of the boxes into her car. Climbing the front steps one final time, she peeled the key off her ring and left it on the kitchen counter. She took a last look at the room full of memories that only a few days ago had seemed strong enough to build a lifetime on. Then she set the alarm, pushed in the lock, and closed the door to that life forever.

  It was only when she got into her car that she realized she had nowhere to go. She laughed so hard she cried as it settled in on her that she had no idea what to do. Remembering that Michael was right around the corner and would want her to come to him, she wavered in her resolve to be on her own.

  But only for a moment.

  Wiping her tears, she started the car and drove to the only place in the world she had left to go—home to her mother.

  The new and improved Paullina welcomed her daughter with open arms and a closed mouth. She never said “I told you so,” didn’t ask any questions, and, if anything, seemed to appreciate the opportunity to mother her wounded child.

  On New Year’s Day they read the notice in the Baltimore Sun about the wedding in St. John that hadn’t happened. Jeremy sent it in before they left, and Juliana had forgotten about it until she saw it in the paper. She hurt when she thought of Michael seeing the article and thinking she had actually gone through with it.

  Receiving love from a mother Juliana had long ago given up on was an unexpected gift in the midst of disaster. It was tempting to settle in, put her feet up, and let her mother take care of her for a change. But that went against the promise she made to herself in the Miami hotel room. So within a week, Juliana signed a one-year lease on a furnished studio apartment in Fell’s Point. Even with the rent she could still swing the cost of Allison, the home health aide who had brought about such a miraculous change in Paullina.

  Juliana moved her meager belongings into her new apartment and spent the first night wide awake, thinking about Michael and wondering if he’d seen the announcement in the paper. By the time the sun came up in the morning, she knew she had to do something about that. Picturing him in his bedroom getting ready for work, she reached for her cell phone and dialed his number from memory.

  “Juliana,” he said, his voice flat with shock.

  She closed her eyes tight against the instant rush of tears.

  “Baby, what is it? Are you all right?”

  “I didn’t marry him,” she said softly.

  “But the paper… I saw it…”

  She winced. “I’m sorry you had to see that. He sent it in before we left, and it was a holiday weekend. . .”

  “What happened?” he asked, incredulous.

  “The blowup you predicted occurred about twenty-four hours before the I dos.”

  “Are you okay?”

  “I’m better than I was.”

  “God, Juliana, you can’t imagine what’s been going through my mind. The thought of you. . . in bed with him. . . It’s been making me insane.”

  “I never slept with him after we got back together. I was making him wait for a wedding that never happened.”

  Michael released a tortured groan. “So where’ve you been for the last week?”

  She swallowed hard. “I’ve made a few decisions.”

  “What kind of decisions?”

  “I signed a one-year lease on an apartment in Fell’s Point.”

  “Why, Juliana? You could’ve come here! You know that!”

  “I need some time to figure things out. To decide how I feel…”

  “About me?”

  She hated the despair she heard in his voice—again. “No,” she whispered. “About me. I need to be by myself, Michael. I have some things I need to prove to myself.”

  “Baby, please… Don’t do this. I love you. No matter what’s happened, that’ll never change. You don’t have to prove anything to anyone. The biggest mistake you made was being loyal to someone who didn’t deserve it. Don’t punish yourself—and me—for that.”

  That he still could be so forgiving astounded her. “I need to do this for me. I know it’s hard for you to understand, and I don’t expect you to wait for me. I just didn’t want you to think I’d married him.”

  “I appreciate that—more than you’ll ever know—but don’t tell me not to wait for you. Did you hear anything I said to you the last time we were together?”

  The lump lodged in her throat made it difficult to speak. “I heard every word,” she said softly.

  “You promised me, Juliana.”

  “I haven’t forgotten.”

  “You’re really going to do this? You’re going to put us both through this?”

  “I’m sorry.”

  Sounding resigned, he said, “Can I call you?”

  “It would be better if you didn’t.”

  “Better for whom?” When she didn’t answer him, he said, “What happens at the end of the year?”
/>   “I don’t know.”

  “Come find me, Juliana,” he said urgently. “You know where to look.”

  “I’m so sorry for all the pain I’ve caused you.”

  “You’ve caused me more happiness than anything in my life. I’d wait forever for you.”

  “Bye, Michael.” Her heart aching, she ended the call while wondering—and not for the first time—if she was taking too big a risk with the most precious thing anyone had ever given her.

  She ate alone, slept alone, shopped alone, watched television alone. It took a while to get used to the quiet, but after a month she had grown accustomed to it. By then she had also managed to set the record straight with just about everyone in her life—she hadn’t married Jeremy despite what the paper said. The salon had been abuzz about it for three or four days until someone else’s drama took center stage and Juliana’s was mercifully forgotten.

  In the second month, she decided to try something else she had always wondered if she could do—she signed up for a class at Johns Hopkins University. The introduction to architecture class met twice a week for three hours, and Juliana loved it. Between work, school, and visiting with her mother and Mrs. R, she began to feel human again as February inched toward March.

  She received a heartfelt letter from Jeremy’s mother in April, apologizing for the horrific way her son had behaved and expressing her undying love and affection for Juliana, who wrote back to say the same things. Barbara had always been lovely to Juliana, and it wasn’t her fault that her son had acted like such an ass.

  Her class ended in May, and Juliana was delighted to receive an A. She danced around the small apartment when she received her grade in the mail, and it took all her willpower not to pick up the phone to share the news with Michael. She knew he would be so proud of her.

  In June, he made news of his own when he resigned from his job. The Baltimore Sun ran a front-page article that recapped his role in the Benedetti trial and contained glowing quotes from Tom Houlihan, Judge Stein, and others in the criminal justice system who worked with him during his five-year tenure. Juliana read and re-read the article, looking for any clue to his plans, but he said only that he was moving into the private sector. She cut out the article and the large photo that ran next to it. As she hung the photo on the wall next to her bed, she was startled to realize it was the only picture of him she had.

  She took Mrs. Romanello out to dinner at least once a month, and that’s how she found out in July that Jeremy had sold the dream house, moved back to Florida, and married a girl named Sherrie.

  Mrs. R clucked with disapproval as she delivered the news. “I don’t know what that boy is thinking, but rushing into marriage with another woman isn’t the answer to his problems.”

  “Maybe it’ll work out for them,” Juliana said with sincerity. She had nothing to gain by wishing against the success of his marriage—apparently to the girl who called his cell phone all those months ago and set off a chain of events that changed their lives forever.

  After she dropped off Mrs. R, Juliana drove down Chester Street for the first time since she last saw Michael. She slowed to a stop outside No. 8 and watched a young couple carry a baby stroller up the stairs. Even though she was sad that he had sold the place where they lived together, she was delighted to know he was in Newport seeing to pipe dreams.

  In late August, she was strolling through the mall at the Inner Harbor on her lunch break one day when a teddy bear dressed as a bee wearing a tiara caught her eye in a window. She walked into the store to buy the bear, flooded with thoughts of her own Queen Bee. That night she called Monique Griffith to ask if she would mind if Juliana visited Rachelle.

  Monique hesitated before she replied. “I’m sorry, Juliana, but we’ve decided it’s best that she not have any reminders of the trial or of that time in her life.”

  “I understand,” Juliana said, even though she was disappointed.

  “She’s doing so well, and it’s not that seeing you would be a setback—”

  “I’d be a reminder.”

  “Yes,” Monique said, sounding relieved that Juliana understood.

  “I’m thrilled to hear she’s doing well. I have something I’d like to send her. Would that be all right?”

  “Of course. I’m sure she’ll love anything that comes from you.” She gave Juliana the address. “Michael called a couple of months ago. I was sorry to hear you two aren’t together anymore. I always thought you made such a lovely couple.”

  “That’s funny,” Juliana said with a small, sad smile. “Rachelle said the same thing. I miss her. I only knew her for such a short time, but I think about her all the time.”

  “She’s a special kid to go through what she did and come out of it so unaffected. Ever since those monsters were killed in the courtroom, she’s like a new person.”

  “Will you keep me posted on how she’s doing?”

  “Of course. I have a school picture I could send you if you’d like.”

  “I’d love that. Thank you.”

  “Thank you, Juliana. Your friendship made an enormous difference to her at a very difficult time in her life.”

  “Every minute I spent with her was such a joy.”

  They hung up with promises to keep in touch. Juliana lay awake that night thinking about Rachelle and Michael and the night she cut their hair in the hotel room. How far they all had traveled since then.

  Paullina died in her sleep in September. The medical examiner said she’d had a massive heart attack and didn’t suffer, but Juliana was devastated to lose her mother just when they had finally begun to form a real bond. It was left to her to call her brothers and sisters with the news. Donatella and Vincent came right away to their mother’s house where they waited for Domenic and Serena to arrive from the West Coast. Juliana couldn’t remember when she last saw her older siblings, but the minute they came in the door it was like no time had passed.

  They got through the wake and funeral where it seemed that Allison, the home health aide, was more distraught than any of Paullina’s five children.

  “Thank you so much for everything you did to make her last months so comfortable.” Juliana hugged the sobbing Allison. “I wasn’t kidding when I called you a miracle worker.”

  “She was a lovely person, and I’ll miss her.”

  After the funeral, the siblings spent two days cleaning out the house, each setting aside things they wanted to keep. On the last night before Domenic and Serena were due to fly home, they sat on the floor of the empty living room and finished the food that had poured in from neighbors and extended family.

  “We’ve been talking, Juliana,” Donatella said as Domenic opened a second bottle of wine.

  “About what?” Juliana asked.

  “We all agree that you should sell the house and keep whatever you can get for it,” Vincent said.

  “No way. It belongs to all of us.”

  “You’re the one who did the heavy lifting with Ma for all these years,” Serena said. “It’s only fair you should get back some of the money you put into the mortgage and her other expenses.”

  “You guys, really,” Juliana said, enormously touched by the gesture. “I wouldn’t feel right about it.”

  “It’s a done deal,” Domenic said. “We’ve already decided.”

  “Are you sure?”

  “We are,” Vincent said. “She would’ve died a long time ago if you hadn’t taken care of her and forced us to help.”

  Donatella nodded in agreement.

  “I hope we can see each other once in a while,” Juliana said. “I know we all have our own lives and you guys have families in California, but maybe we can try to get together once or twice a year.”

  They agreed to try. Over the third bottle of wine, Juliana told her brothers and sisters about everything that had happened to her in the last year. She found it hard to believe that it had already been a year since she met Michael in the airport. Her siblings were stunned to hear how m
uch danger she’d been in during the trial and astounded by the way her relationship with Jeremy ended.

  “So,” Vincent said with a wry grin, “Mr. Wonderful didn’t turn out to be so wonderful after all, huh?”

  Juliana smiled. “You don’t need to look so pleased, Vin.”

  He made an attempt to hide his grin. “Sorry.”

  Juliana laughed and threw a wadded up napkin at him. “No, you’re not.”

  “What I want to know is why you haven’t gone after Michael like you promised him you would,” Donatella said. “What the hell are you waiting for?”

  “I was just about to ask the same thing,” Serena said.

  “I’m thinking about it,” Juliana confessed. “When my self-imposed year is up, we’ll see.”

  “Don’t think too long,” Domenic advised. “He sounds like a good guy.”

  “He is,” Juliana said softly, missing him more in that moment than any other in the last nine months.

  Her mother’s house sold in November, and Juliana was staggered to clear just over forty-six thousand dollars after she paid the taxes. She wrote a check to Jeremy for seventeen thousand dollars and sent it to him via his mother with a note that said only, “Thank you for paying off my mother’s mortgage. Please accept the enclosed check as reimbursement.”

  Part of her windfall went toward the early December purchase of her first-ever new car—a silver Honda Accord. She said a sad good-bye to her old Tercel, which had served her well for many years and was one of the last remaining links to her old life. The rest of the money went in the bank, giving Juliana more of a nest egg than she’d ever had in her life.

  By then it had been almost six months since she hung Michael’s picture on the wall, and she had fallen into the habit of telling him about her day as she lay in bed each night.

  “Do you still want me?” she asked the picture one cold night about a week before Christmas. “Am I really supposed to take this huge gamble that you’ll still love me?” Have I ever said anything I didn’t mean? The memory was so powerful he might have been in the room with her rather than hundreds of miles away.