by Katie Dowe
“It’s not like I can hide the pregnancy for much longer. I just… I liked this. I wanted to preserve that memory in my mind. The feeling that someone could like me. But it was unfair to you. I probably shouldn’t have agreed to this.” Aleshia huffed again, standing up. The food tasted like dust in her mouth. She didn’t have the stomach to take it down anymore.
“Don’t be.” Cameron said, though his voice suggested otherwise.
Time wasted. I wasted this man’s time. I’m wasting my time, deluding myself. For what? What do I think I’m going to achieve out of this?
To his credit, he placed down the money for the food under his plate, and held out one arm for her to take. A surge of gratefulness went through Aleshia, even as she checked surreptitiously the other members of the bar. She expected him to storm out, and who would blame him for the gesture? Instead, he at least let her preserve some shred of dignity in the bar, and they exited, without much attention drawn from the patrons.
The drive back home occurred in silence. The dream Aleshia dared herself to imagine for a moment, lay shattered at her feet, swallowed up by the darkness.
He saw her off, made sure she reached the front of her apartment block safely, then zoomed away in his Chevrolet Impala. She saw a possible future vanishing away with his wheels as well, and never in that moment, did she find herself hating the tiny life inside her more.
Inside her apartment, sat in front of her laptop, which had been on standby, she fought to control her livid emotions. It wasn’t fair. The life inside her couldn’t help doing what it did, growing and growing. It didn’t know it had a mother who hated it.
Aleshia breathed deeply. I’m sorry. This isn’t fair. It’s not your fault. I’m sorry. She tentatively patted her stomach. Although she thought the words, the fury remained. She kept up the stream of reason. I don’t hate you. Not really. I just hate the situation. Things should have been better. I don’t hate you. I’m sorry. I’m sorry.
The tears fell at last. She kept wiping her cheeks as she sobbed, but the tears refused to stop.
I’m sorry.
Chapter 5
“Do you know any other good estate agents?” Aleshia waited for her sister to reply. She’d been up since seven in the morning, deliberating on her next course of action.
Although Cameron insisted to her he would help search for a place, Aleshia didn’t want to see him again. She hated replaying the frozen disapproval of last night, of being hit with the reality that she couldn’t flirt or admire attention to such a degree, without due consequence. She had responsibilities. It didn’t matter if they were unwanted. She should have kept things purely professional, and never even hinted of her interest. Hell, she probably should have confessed instantly she was looking for a place because she was pregnant. It would have restricted their interactions to a more professional air, and less of a friendly, hopeful tease.
“I know of other estate agents, yes,” Vaneese said slowly, registering the implications of what her sister said. “What brings this on?”
Aleshia played with her bowl of cornflakes, long since soggy from exposure to milk. Her laptop was open on one of her editing tasks, with excel track-sheets of her marketing projects on a separate tab. “I think I need to see more options, is all. I didn’t like the properties I saw when I went with Cameron to them.”
“Girl, you wouldn’t know a good property if it slapped you in the face,” Vaneese countered. “This is nothing to do with the property. It’s to do with Cameron himself, right? Did the drinks not go so well?”
“No,” Aleshia admitted. “They didn’t.”
“Tell me more. Unless you'd rather say it in person.”
The spoon dripped milk as Aleshia raised another wet pile of cornflakes to her mouth. She wiped grit from her eyes with the other hand, congealed at the corners from her crying session last night. “After we talked about, you know, properties, because the bar we went to was real nice, and I was thinking I wouldn’t mind a place like that as well – he started asking if I was single. He was intending to ask me out on a date, Vaneese. I liked the idea a lot, but, you know…”
“I think I can see where this is heading. Go on.”
“Yeah. I spent too long dodging the elephant in the room. The pregnancy and the recently estranged ex. So when I did drop them into the conversation, it was like the Berlin wall had suddenly sprung up between us. Our evening ended very shortly after that.”
“Bastard,” Vaneese hissed, in defense of her sister. “I don’t care if he’s Dijon’s friend, when I find him, I’m gonna strangle the living daylight out of him.”
“Oh, come on, Vaneese. What would you expect? I mean, if I found out my potential date was pregnant and still had the number of their ex on their phone, I’d be running out the door screaming.”
“You told him about having the number? For fucks sake, you idiot, you shouldn’t have mentioned that. Like, there’s some things that need to be said. That isn’t one of them. Also, why haven’t you deleted it already?”
“Stop. I know. I can’t. Okay? I just can’t. Stop bugging me about it.”
Vaneese drew in a sharp breath. Aleshia pictured her grabbing painkillers from the tabletop, ripping them open to swallow and calm herself down. Whenever Vaneese reached a high stress threshold, she resorted to pills. Sure enough, Aleshia caught the distinctive rustle of material, and the thud of glass touching a solid surface.
“Fine,” Vaneese eventually said. “Part of me hoped maybe you could talk to someone nice, and not a complete controlling asshole like that scumbag Peter. Dijon was telling me that his friend was having some difficulties in his life, with commitment, and so on. Said he was likely to go through the rest of his life perpetually and depressingly single. But perhaps pushing him on someone who has some commitments of their own to sort out isn’t the wisest option.”
“You can say that again.” Aleshia felt sour resentment at her sister, and a small stab of jealously. Vaneese took things for granted at times. She was just so supremely confident that her plans could never go wrong, that nothing she ever said or did had any faulty logic or reasoning behind it, that it galled Aleshia. What made matters worse, was Vaneese usually turned out to be right as well, so if you didn’t believe her on something the first time, she would then gloat about the fact she was right for days. Weeks.
“However, he will find you a good property. And that is the reason why we sent him your way in the first place. Just stick with him. Alright?”
“No. I don’t want to look at him. Can you just – forward me to a good agency?”
Vaneese remained silent a moment. “I think you’re being rash.”
“What is hard to understand about this? We went out, it was fucked up. I know he liked me, but once he found out about my condition, things went south. He might be a professional, but I’m not gonna enjoy the Mount Everest atmosphere when speaking and visiting properties with him. Just get me someone else. Or I’ll do it myself.”
Her sister snorted disdain. “You don’t need me to do the legwork. Just contact the agency he works for and request a different agent if it’s such a bother for you. Agency is Miami Summers Properties. I won’t give you the number because you can Google it in about a second. Good luck. And come see me later. I expect it. And I’ll be harassing you over the phone all afternoon if you don’t. Bye.”
There was a click – Vaneese had hung up. Aleshia scowled at her phone. She considered turning it off for the afternoon, just so she wouldn’t have to worry about being stalked by her sister. Then, a beep sounded – a new text message appeared. Cold dread snaked through Aleshia when she saw the message was from Peter.
Like a driver stopping morbidly to observe a car crash, she tapped on Peter’s name. The message thread showed.
Missing you baby. Can we talk?
Oh, that message was so innocent, so artfully placed – directly counteracting the previous one, which was a hate-spew of volatile emotions. Whore was one of the nicer words
there. If she bothered contacting him directly, it would allow him to use that manipulative, guilt-lashing tongue to grind her down into a tiny pebble. She stared at his name for a while, then made herself feel a thousand times worse by scrolling through the message thread, before she grew a thick shell over her heart, and analyzed the words objectively, from an author’s point of view.
Peter stuck to the same patterns, she observed. Anger, insults, accusations, followed by wheedling, cringing messages that showed how sorry he was, he didn’t mean what he said, and that he missed her. His habit of skipping or changing subjects entirely when she mentioned the idea that he was welcome to be a father to his child, but she didn’t want to be in a relationship with him anymore, glared out. It was as if his ego simply couldn’t handle the fact that she didn’t want to be with him. He assumed that she had to be with him now, because of the child. So, when she refused him, over and over, he kept resorting to the blackmail over the unborn child, that he would only be a father if she came back.
Aleshia scrolled through two months of exchanged communications before she had enough. Nothing remained there of the love she thought they once shared. The words scattered across the back lit mobile screen were attempts at extortion, stamping down on any notion of respect, caring and love, in favor of the pervading desire to control. All this combined with Aleshia’s weak kicks of argument, reminiscent of a fish flopping on land. She couldn’t argue against Peter. Her words were sucked away, diminished, made unimportant under the weight of the accusations.
Emptiness scratched at her, when considering if she loved him or not. There was nothing more for her to give.
Stopping the thoughts from spiraling further, she browsed for Miami Summers Properties, clicked on the site, and checked for the number. The time showed as eight-thirty. Her heart leapt again when her phone rang, and she saw the caller was Cameron Lovell.
“For fucks sake,” she whispered, staring at the phone as if it was a dangerous animal. Should she answer? Ignore?
Unwillingly, her hands reached over, and tapped the answer button. At the end of the day, Cameron Lovell was still an estate agent. “Hello?”
“Good morning, Aleshia. Are you busy today?”
“In the afternoon, yes.”
“If you’re ready in an hour, I can introduce you to a property. I think you’ll like this one.”
Aleshia bit her lip. If Cameron Lovell had a property lined up for her, it would seem silly to reject it. She debated obtaining the address and then phoning the agency for a different agent, then resigned herself to the idea of meeting up with Cameron Lovell once more. “Alright. I’d like to see it. I can be ready.”
“Good. Do you want to make your way over or do you want me to pick you up? It’s on South Beach. If I’m picking you up, I’ll be there in an hour and ten.”
Again, Aleshia reminded herself she seriously needed to buy a new car. She didn’t want to live on rentals – but so far, she hadn’t found desperate need to drive. She furiously clacked on her keyboard, typing the words MUST GET CAR. “If it’s not a problem, I wouldn’t mind being picked up. Thanks again for this.”
“No problem. Dijon and his wife will have my head if I don’t put you in a suitably perfect property. See you soon.”
“See you.” The call ended.
Aleshia glared in deep suspicion at her screen. She could almost picture Vaneese contacting Cameron Lovell on the side, probably as soon as their impromptu conversation had ended. She would definitely have words with Vaneese later, to sort facts out. She didn’t want Vaneese arbitrarily interfering with her life, although there was always the slim chance that this call happened of its own accord, uninfluenced by her sister. Maybe Cameron had always intended to contact her once he found a suitable place – though it also suggested he spent time in the evening and morning searching exclusively for her. Aleshia honestly didn’t know what to think.
Best not to dwell on it too much. She finished off the chapter she was editing, leaving just three chapters to go, which she planned to complete tonight. Showering and digging into her wardrobe proved simple – the weather here never seemed to vary from anything other than hot, with humidity in the air. She found with the humid climate, the heat became uncomfortable at times.
Rain thumped on the windows, interspersed by periods of sun. Glancing outside showed a street full of people who still wore their summer clothes, but used an umbrella to shelter them from the pelting rain. It made a dreary kind of sense – wearing full waterproofs would likely boil them from the insides like a lobster thrown on the pan, though the rain appeared murderous in nature.
Aleshia settled for her jogger pants, as they dried fast when wet, ankle high boots, along with a vest top and her lighter brown hiking jacket, once her best companion for the average Minnesotan day. At least I have a valid excuse for bringing it to a hot country. All that damn rain.
Lastly, she dabbed on as much makeup as she dared, keeping it light so she wouldn’t resemble a circus clown or look like she was wearing a mask. She spent time on her eyelashes, coating them with mascara so they stood out on her face, thick and long. When she smiled, dimples appeared on her cheeks. Dark eyes stared at her from the mirror, huge and expressive. Her mother used to describe them as windows to the soul. As a child, they gave her a fresh innocence, as an adult, they made her look younger than she was, not always a good thing, especially if she forgot her I.D when going out to a bar or club.
Cameron Lovell picked her up outside the apartment at ten minutes to ten, watching her step out of the apartment in her jogging pants and brown rain jacket, shrugging off the pounding of the heavens above as she sidled into his car. Aside from polite greetings, and a brief explanation of the address they were going to, the journey conducted itself in silence. The quiet bit into Aleshia. Some of the rain slid from her coat to the seat, and the waterproof quality of the leather meant it either clung to the outside, or formed snail lines to the rubbery bottom. More people chose to drive their cars because of the weather, causing long trails of traffic by the lights, and revealing some slightly illegal responses by the more irritable drivers, who didn’t want to sit in a line waiting, beeping their horns in anger.
“On seconds thought,” Aleshia said. “Maybe I shouldn’t bother with getting a car just yet.”
Cameron glanced over at her. Dark eyes coolly avoided hers. “I suppose if your work is online based, you don’t need to bother so much with traveling. Only if you want to make trips. Though you can likely get away with just using the local services.”
“Yeah. I’m just used to owning a car.”
He examined her, mouth twisting slightly. “How come you don’t have one here?”
Aleshia returned a recalcitrant stare of her own. “Slight issue that occurred from joint operating a car. Wouldn’t let me use it or take it when he knew I was considering breaking up. Hid the keys. I got my mom to shuffle me away when he was at work one day.”
The realtor blinked at her. “That doesn’t sound nice.”
“It wasn’t.” She smiled. “Though I’m fairly sure you’re not interested in hearing some of the horror tales of my ex.”
The traffic inched forward. Eventually, Cameron said, “You should have just found that bastard’s keys and sped off with the car.”
“Probably. Except it would likely break down with any journey longer than fifty miles. I’m better off with a new one that’s not falling apart.”
They passed the time with small, polite forays into some topics, with nothing touching or hinting of the disastrous proposal the night before. When they finally crossed the MacArthur Causeway and headed into South Beach, Cameron Lovell pulled his dark blue Chevrolet Impala into a spot that showed the skyline of Miami in the distance, across the waters.
Cameron Lovell pointed at a small house with a balcony that jutted out, with all that separated it from the water being a road. The house itself seemed small compared to the others on either side of it. It looked rather unassuming
from the outside.
Inside, however, was a whole different story. Aleshia gaped at the interior. Whoever had been in charge of the decorating evidently decided that they liked the idea of living inside a tree. The walls had a polished, wooden gloss to them, and the doors curved, with the arches carved to resemble tree branches intertwining. The floor again displayed the same smooth boarding pattern, with the occasional brown or green rug carpet flung over it.
“It’s like a hobbit den, but for humans,” Aleshia said, eyes almost popping at the level of artistry that had gone into the house. Even the balcony that showed could be entered by a sculpted archway.
“The original owner had a thing for carpentry. He likes designing off the wall products, and wanted to focus on a house that felt like it was alive.” Cameron showed the kitchen – small, but able to fit three people in it at a pinch, and the larger living room next to it, that led out to the enclosed balcony. “It’s small, even though it has three bedrooms. Most of the focus is in the living room and balcony. The bedrooms themselves are small, with double beds. If you care to look.”
Cameron was right. The bedrooms and bathroom in proportion to the rest of the house were small. The bathroom had enough room for an enclosed double shower, a sink and a toilet. The bedroom each had a wardrobe fitted into it. “You can choose to keep the furniture or not, of course. The owner is somewhere in the Czech Republic at the moment, looking up the architecture in Prague for his next project.”
Aleshia, looking through the house, had already pinpointed a good spot for her to work from in the living room. One of the bedrooms had a small mahogany desk unit, and a dark armchair with a puffy green cushion. She examined the two sofas in the main room, which were leather and brown, complimented by dark green rugs, a dark coffee table with a few non-descript magazines piled under it, and the fresh, rugged wood feel of the walls, and the doorways. There were also two tiny rooms which could be used for storage, under the stairs, and next to the bathroom.