A Sudden Crush

by Camilla Isley

  She can’t compete with me? She is jealous? How can she be jealous of me?

  “I know, I know. She probably hates me too. She must think I stole her life. I am married and ‘ave a baby, and she is thirty and single.”

  That makes my blood boil! You did steal my life.

  “No, my nipples are killing me, I just want to go home and feed Marcela. We are going to go now. I am glad this night is over. Thank you for talking to me. I will see you soon. Bye, baby.”

  I remain in my stall, afraid to breathe, move, or make any kind of noise. After a few minutes, I hear the world famous Adriana Amaral leave the room and I can finally exhale.

  I sneak out of the stall and out of the restroom and follow the angel with my gaze as she reaches Liam, who is waiting for her near the entrance of Milstein Hall. I watch them confab briefly and then head together toward the exit. A heavy weight lifts from my chest, and a deep sense of disappointment replaces it. Liam’s sudden departure is such an unexpected anticlimax I feel almost cheated. On one hand, I wanted to have some retribution, look him in the eyes and tell him that he can push me down as much as he wants but that I would always rise up again. On the other hand, I am relieved I don’t have to confront him—or her—and I can finally enjoy this evening, and our victory more than anything else. Plus, knowing that a Victoria’s Secret Angel is actually jealous of me is retribution enough for a lifetime.

  39

  Catch Me If You Can

  “Joanna?”

  Did someone call my name? I’m too engrossed in my conversation with Abraham George—board director extraordinaire of the Adawell Prize—to notice or care. We won! It still seems so incredible. Me—Joanna Price, CEO of my own company, editor and publisher of an Adawell Prize winning book.

  But when Mr. George suddenly stops talking mid-sentence—interrupting the very nice stream of compliments he was showering me with—and stares behind me with an embarrassed expression, I have to acknowledge something is going on. I turn around and follow his gaze toward a man standing on the other side of the hallway. His face is hidden in the darkness of a giant mammoth’s shadow.

  “Jo.”

  Now that I am paying attention, I freeze as I recognize his voice.

  “Liam?” I ask, shocked.

  But I saw him leave with his wife.

  “What are you doing here?” I ask in a too-shrill voice.

  “I need to talk to you.”

  I’m too stunned to respond. I move my head from right to left, from Liam to Mr. George and back again, mesmerized at the absurdity of the situation. That is when Mr. George decides he doesn’t want to be part of this cozy reunion and politely excuses himself. I barely notice Liam taking his place in front of me, and I do not register what he’s saying to me. I look at the director quickly shuffling toward an awkward-free zone. Once he turns a corner, I shift my gaze back to Liam, who is still talking.

  “Excuse me, what?” I interrupt him.

  He seems taken aback by my sudden rebuke, but regains his cool almost immediately and continues with his speech unfazed. “I’m sorry it took me so long to come to talk to you, Jo. I was under a lot of stress. I had so much pressure on me I thought my head was about to explode.”

  “Liam, what are you talking about? Why are you here? Didn’t you leave with your wife?” I particularly stress the word wife. I can feel bile rising in my throat. After the anxiety of the night, the anticipation, the edginess…I had finally relaxed, but now it’s like all the adrenaline is racing through me, making my heart pulse ridiculously fast and my stomach cramp.

  “Adriana had to go home early to…” He doesn’t finish the sentence.

  “To nurse, I imagine.” I finish the phrase for him and stare at him, almost feeling icy daggers shooting from my eyes. If a stare could freeze, he would be a solid block of ice right now. “What do you want from me, Liam?” I need to get out of this situation. I don’t like the way my body is reacting to him. Unfortunately for me, it turns out I am not Liam-immune yet.

  “To say I’m sorry. To explain...”

  His words briefly distract me from my fleeing instincts. I cross my arms in front of my chest and narrow my eyes at him.

  “You’re sorry?” I hiss. “And what is it exactly you are sorry for?” All the suppressed rage that I’ve held toward him in the past year is suddenly mounting inside of me, an incandescent magma ready to erupt from my mouth in a stream of fury. “For not looking for me and leaving me for dead in the middle of nowhere, or for marrying literally the first person you saw after you thought I was dead? Are you sorry for not giving me even five minutes of your time after you discovered I was alive, and hanging up on me with no second thoughts? Are you sorry for having me fired, or are you sorry you were too much of a coward to stand up for me?”

  “All of it,” he whines. “I am sorry for all of it. Joan, it has been hard for me too without you. Something is missing. Some days I can’t think, I can’t sleep, I can’t write—”

  “You mean you can no longer use my ideas in your books because I’m not there to supply them,” I yell. “You erased me from your life without blinking, and now what? You come here saying you’re sorry?” My chest is heaving with agitated breaths. I realize with despair that I am about to cry. I will not break down in front of him. I won’t. I take in my surroundings, my eyes desperately searching for an escape route.

  “I know I have no right to be here—” Liam says.

  “No, you do not, and I don’t have to listen to you. You had a baby with another woman, Liam. A baby,” I wheeze like an angry cat.

  “Liam, I’ve finally found you.”

  I turn to see Ada walking toward us, still talking. “I need you to talk to one of the executives of—” She stops abruptly when she spots me. “Am I interrupting something?”

  I immediately seize my chance to vanish. “No, I was just leaving. Good to see you both.”

  I don’t wait for Ada or Liam to reply, and walk away toward the museum’s entrance at a quick pace. I peek behind my shoulder to see that Liam and Ada are arguing, and it’s clear he’s trying to brush her off. I quicken my pace.

  “Joan.” I hear Liam calling after me from a distance; he’s running after me.

  I collect the hem of my gown in my hands and start running too. I’m almost at the exit. I can see the entrance’s columns just a few yards away. When I get there, I turn around to assess my advantage over my pursuer. Luckily, I see that Carl Maxwell, the CEO of Bucknam Publications, has stopped him. I breathe a sigh of relief. If there’s one person in the world Liam cannot tell to go get lost, it’s Carl.

  I exit the museum and see with pleasure that there is a line of yellow cabs waiting at the foot of the steps. I hop down the stairs as fast as the Jimmy Choos will allow me, which is not very fast. I think my entire body is sweating with nerves, and my feet feel slippery inside my amazing-but-slightly-impractical-for-running shoes. I’m about halfway down the steps when I hear Liam calling my name again. I run down without looking back. And that’s when it happens…as I quicken my pace, I feel one of my feet slip out. I bounce forward, half barefooted, for a couple more steps before I can stop my momentum and look back.

  There in the middle of the steps is my fabulous shoe, and just behind it stands Liam. I look from the shoe to Liam, and back again. If I run back to get my pump he’ll catch up with me. So, in a split second, the decision of abandoning one of my precious shoes is made and I run toward the safety of a yellow cab. I barge inside, screaming like a madwoman to the driver.

  “Go, go, go, go!”

  “To where, miss?” the driver asks, unimpressed.

  “You go—I will tell you where later. Please go,” I scream, anguished.

  The driver doesn’t need any more prompting, and presses his foot hard on the accelerator. As the cab whizzes away, I barely have time to see Liam reach the bottom of the stairs and stare after me with my beautiful, beautiful shoe in one hand, and a disappointed expression of regret on his
handsome, handsome face.

  I glance at the car’s clock; it’s midnight! How Cinderella of me, I think, as the yellow cab whisks me away from my ex-Prince Charming. Actually, the cab’s color is the same shade as a pumpkin, and the driver could easily pass for someone with mouse-y ancestors. The only missing thing will be the happily ever after at the end of this story.

  I lay my forehead on the cold taxi window and look at the New York buildings swooshing in front of me as two lone tears make their sorry way down my cheeks.

  40

  One Shoe a Princess Will Not Make

  The taxi ride back to Tracy’s apartment takes forever, and when I get there she’s not home yet, so I go to bed without seeing her. The next morning I give her a brief account of the happenings of the night before, stressing more the win rather than the Liam encounter. But we don’t have much time to talk as my bus is scheduled to leave super early, and we barely have time to eat breakfast before she has to accompany me to the station. Once there we say a quick goodbye, and she promises to check whether they have a crystal-covered shoe at the lost and found of the museum. I wonder what Liam did with it…

  The journey home is a nightmare. The bus has a technical problem halfway through, and I’m forced to spend Sunday night in Cleveland when the travel company cannot find a replacement bus in time. So it’s already Monday evening by the time I get to my office slash apartment. I am dead tired—my entire body seems to hurt from twenty something hours of bus-sitting—but my brain is even more damaged by the same amount of time spent Liam-obsessing. I don’t know if running away was the best choice, and I am tired of thinking about it.

  When I finally get inside my house, I’m welcomed by an array of unexpected mail deliveries. It’s already dark outside, but as soon as I turn on the office’s lights I notice that my entire desk area is practically covered in flowers. However, my attention is drawn toward a brown, voluminous package waiting for me in the middle of all the flower vases. I remove the postal wrapping to discover a lilac box with a white ribbon on top that has an envelope wedged underneath it. I slide the envelope out from under the ribbon and stare at the two letters on the back. Jo. For no reason at all, my pulse accelerates. It could be anything. A congratulatory gift most probably, but somehow I sense it’s something different altogether. I undo the ribbon with trembling hands and open the gift box. Under the cover there is my shoe, the one I lost, the one Liam found.

  I take it out and look at it, mesmerized. I kick away one of my flats and slide the crystal-encrusted shoe on. A perfect match. A lump forms in my throat. I press the envelope to my chest and run up the stairs to my apartment in one flat and one Jimmy Choo. I don’t know why, but I feel that I’ll need the privacy of my room to read whatever is in the envelope.

  Once I reach my room, I jump on the bed—weird shoe combo still on―turn on the bedside lamp, and begin to read.

  Jo,

  I know how much you love shoes, and this one looked like the very expensive kind. I hoped my attempt to return it was rightfully perceived as a straight-out bribe to try to win some of your favor, or at least some lenience toward my person. I know I do not deserve it, and that writing to you is once again the easy way out. In the many months we have been apart, I have lost count of the times I wanted to do it and yet did not. Of the times I wanted to talk to you…to explain.

  Yet, how can I explain something that to this day is impossible for me to comprehend? The night the plane crashed—the night our lives were forever changed—I saw you disappear into the dark sky. Nothing and no one could have convinced me you could have survived such a fall, and to this day the only logical explanation I have is that a miracle took place that night. The desperation I felt upon landing safely, the guilt—for being angry with you because we were late at the airport, for not trying to switch seats and sit next to you, for not being with you, either lost forever in the storming sky, or safely on the ground—were too much for any human being to take.

  I found myself in a strange world, one without you by my side. You know I don’t speak a word of Spanish, and the local authorities hardly spoke any English. I was among strange faces in a reality I could not accept. Adriana was there, a kind face among many unknown ones. The day after the crash, she found me rambling in English to stunned-looking Spanish-speaking only clerks. She helped me deal with the police and the rescue teams, and I think I latched on to her as a way to survive. Please do not think for a moment that I wasn’t heartbroken. I was. Your loss overwhelmed me in a way I was not prepared to handle. I needed something to fill the emptiness your disappearance had left me with.

  When your family arrived, your brother tried to give me hope, but I couldn’t let myself hope. I do not know how to explain my resolution—I can only say that my logical side refused to question what my eyes had seen. I lost myself in my pain, and went to some bar in town and almost drank myself to death. Once again it was Adriana who found me. She brought me back to the hotel and took care of me while I was in a feverish delirium. It was her kindness that drove me to her more than anything else. When I became sober again, I knew that if I didn’t want to be lost in the labyrinth of my suffering mind, I needed someone by my side.

  Was I too rushed? I was. Was I inconsiderate of your family, of their feelings, of your supposed memory? I was. I had to be. It was the only way I knew how to pull through. Do I regret it? Initially, I did. Even before you called, I used to dream of you every night. I lived in a world with Adriana during the day, and in another with you in the dark hours. We had an awful lot of conversations I wish I could tell you about. You have never been out of my life, Jo, not for one second after I met you. I love you, I never stopped loving you, and I don’t think I ever will.

  But the first time I looked into my daughter’s eyes, all my doubts disappeared. I found a new sense of peace and finally put my demons to rest. She is the most beautiful thing that has ever happened to me, and I could never wish she wasn’t here. Was it destiny? Was this how things were supposed to go down? Was all this pain the means to have Marcela in my life? I don’t know, but I’m glad she’s here, however that came to be.

  The one thing I will always regret is how I treated you. I had myself so forcefully convinced of your being gone that when you called, my brain could not cope. I could not accept that our being apart was solely my fault, and not the consequence of a tragic accident. Knowing you were alive, and that I had tied myself to a new life where there wasn’t space for you, for us, broke me again. I wanted to leave, but Adriana was already pregnant and I couldn’t abandon her when she was the one who had saved me, so I stayed. It was the right thing to do; I guess I am learning as life goes on. And I love her too.

  I didn’t have you fired, but you are right; I didn’t do anything about it either. The thought of seeing you again…I knew all my good intentions would have flown out of the window the moment I saw you. I didn’t have the strength then, and I don’t think I would possess it now. Seeing you the other night was such a powerful, physical shock.

  Jo, please believe me when I say you are the love of my life and will always be. I miss you every day and escape to you every night. I wanted you to know, I needed you to know, that our love wasn’t unimportant or perishable. It is enduring, real, and still a very important part of my life. I don’t know if you will ever find in you the strength to forgive me for what I did and didn’t do.

  Tonight I will wait for you in my dreams. I hope you will meet me there. Tonight I will not let you run away in a yellow cab. I will hold you close and never let you go. I will be your prince and make you my princess with a lost shoe. Please come meet me once upon a dream.

  With love,

  Liam

  The bastard…using Disney movies against me! As I finish reading I notice I’m sobbing. I don’t recall exactly at what point in the letter I started crying. I reach for a Kleenex on the bedside table and re-read the letter from the beginning. When I finish it, I hug the paper sheet close to my chest, lie back on th
e pillows, and close my eyes. It’s hard to take in everything he says—it is painful, but somehow soothing at the same time. Knowing that he loved me, and that he still does in a weird, twisted way, makes me feel free to move on. It feels as if the notion that Liam didn’t care at all about me was the one thing preventing me from moving on with my life.

  I reach for my phone and open Twitter. Liam is obsessed with the site. In fact, I type in his username and see that he just shared something about HBO developing a script around his latest book. I search on YouTube for the final scene from Sleeping Beauty and share it on Twitter. It’s weird how Liam and I are still following each other. I wait for a couple of seconds with a beating heart for his reply. It appears almost immediately:

  Thank you #OUAD

  It’s cryptic enough for only me to understand. I shake my head; this is how it’s done, then. I am re-pacified with my ex-husband through a lost shoe, an apology letter, one video share, and a “Once Upon a Dream” hashtag. I play the Disney song one more time and close my eyes, ready to meet my prince and say goodbye to him forever in our dreams.

  41

  Three Months Later

  The past few months have been a haze of editing, formatting, interviews, speeches, and book signings. 143 Days into the Wilderness, my debut novel, was released three weeks ago and it’s another number one bestseller for Price Publishing. As Claire predicted, the public went simply crazy. They all wanted to know what had happened on “The Island,” even if I’ve repeated countless times that most of it is fiction. My team was amazing. They managed to pull all the strings together in a surprisingly quick amount of time—one of the upsides of being such a small imprint—and the book was released in record time.

  I haven’t had much time to think about Liam or the letter since, but beneath my uber-busy-with-work surface I’ve felt calmer. The letter gave me the closure I so badly needed. If anything, since I started editing the book, it’s another man who has occupied my thoughts.