CHAPTER 20
I WOKE UP STILL SHEATHED in my bath towel and with my head on a damp pillow. For once I was glad for Lisa’s help, since it had given me the opportunity to nap. The clock on the nightstand told me that I needed to get up immediately if I was going to make it on time. Five more minutes, I thought, closing my eyes. I remembered the afternoon. It was an apt ending for a turbulent relationship.
His accusations ran through my head, angering me. How dare he? He’s willing to destroy a marriage, and for what? It pained me to wonder if he’d done this with other women. And where were they now? I couldn’t shake the image of David asking another woman out to dinner, flirting with her and flashing her that seductive grin.
My stomach flipped when I thought about the upcoming event. I needed it to go well, since it was my idea. I wished then that Bill could have made it. But he would have hated it anyway, I told myself. My phone revealed several missed texts from Gretchen and Lucy confirming our plans for the evening. At least I would have them for support.
~
“What happened?” Ava squealed when she opened the door to their apartment. Her eyes shone with excitement as she questioned me about the bruise. I attempted to give her the shortest version possible. “Then what?” she asked. And then asked it again.
“I’m going to let Gretchen know I’m here,” I said finally, desperate to escape. I followed the sound of her blow dryer and found her bent over, a mass of blonde hair.
“Gretch!” I yelled as I stood in the doorway.
She flipped her head back and looked at me, startled. “Hey,” she screamed over the noise. She held up her hand. “Five minutes.”
I dropped on her bed and glanced around the familiar room. It was surprisingly unremarkable for Gretchen, with just a bed, a dresser and a hamper in the corner. I picked up US Weekly from the bedside table to scan the first few pages.
“Shoes!” Gretchen exclaimed suddenly, motioning to my feet.
“Brian Atwood. A little gift from me to me for all the stress,” I said. “Do not tell Bill.”
She dropped her towel. Without her heels and make-up, she seemed smaller than I ever remembered, but trim too, like she’d been working out more. I watched her wrap herself in her robe and tried to see her as a lover might. My nagging suspicion hadn’t gone away. Did David find her attractive?
She started toward her vanity and paused. “What is that?” she asked, staring at my face.
I frowned. Apparently I’d done a poor job of covering it up. I resolved to invest in better concealer. She was looking at me expectantly.
“Mark Alvarez again, the guy from Bill’s case.”
“The guy who confronted you last month? Shit! Are you okay? What happened?”
“Can I explain when Lucy gets here? It’s a long story.”
“No.”
“I’m okay, don’t worry. All intact.”
Her mouth sat open for so long, that I began to count the seconds. She made a noise finally. “K, but no excuses when she arrives.”
She sat down at her vanity and shook a bottle of foundation. “How was your week otherwise?”
“Great,” I said enthusiastically. Without warning, I began reciting Mack’s e-mail in my mind, and I shook my head forcefully to make it stop.
“Umm, okay,” she said with a laugh.
“How was yours?”
“Mine actually was great . . . Liar,” she accused. “Our biggest client complimented me in front of my boss - you know what a witch she can be. Then a headhunter contacted me today. I’m seriously considering leaving, I mean . . . ”
I had the sudden urge to hear from her that nothing had happened with David. Despite his assurance, it still gnawed at me. I squirmed inwardly as she talked, itching to ask about Friday night. The more I thought about it, the more it made sense that he must be the surprise guest. A player like him and a single girl like Gretchen, who always got her way when it came to men. They belonged to the same social circle - yes, it only made sense. “How was fishing?” she asked, making a gagging face.
“Fishing?” I asked. It felt like a lifetime ago, until I remembered it was the same night as the gala. “The usual,” I said. “Lucy said you had an interesting night?”
“Yes! I’ll wait ‘til she gets here though,” she said, tenderly brushing blush onto her cheeks.
“No,” I demanded, causing her to look at me. “Er, I want to know now, I’m excited.”
“You’re acting weird,” she said. “Why are you all pitchy?”
“I’m fine.” There was that word again. I’d never realized how often I said it. “Tell me about Friday night.”
“Oh so you can wait but I can’t?”
“I bet you love telling your story. Mine is just depressing,” I rationalized.
“All right, but don’t tell Lucy I told you first or she’ll be mad. Guess who I hooked up with? You never will.”
My teeth clamped when I experienced the overwhelming feeling that David had lied to me. Another act in the David Dylan show. My head began to purr with a dull vibration. Did he actually think I wouldn’t find out? Did he care? Once she said it aloud though, it would help cut the cord once and for all. Anxiety ate at my insides and in my head, I screamed at her to spit it out.
“One of the hottest guys in Chicago,” she continued. “Any guesses?” I wrung my hands in anticipation. “Even hotter than Frat Guy,” she said, referring to an infamous one-night stand from college. Her fingers pulled at her lids as she skillfully smoothed on liquid eyeliner. “Or remember that guy David from Lucy’s engagement party?” My heart hit the floor and tears pricked my eyes. How could he - “Even hotter than him!” she squealed.
I released my bottom lip, and a tear made of pure tension fell before I could stop it. I was overcome with relief, followed by body racking embarrassment.
“Olivia! What is the matter?” she asked, peering at me in the mirror.
“Nothing,” I said, furiously wiping at my eye. What was I thinking? I felt ridiculous and relieved all at once. After last night, I was ashamed at myself. How did I think I couldn’t trust him? He’d put his life on the line for me. She turned in her chair, eyeliner in hand, and glared at me.
“Tell me,” she demanded.
“No, don’t worry, I’m just PMS’ing,” I lied. “Who’s the guy?”
“Graham Broderick,” she said flatly. I had ruined her moment. I looked up, racking my brain. “Here,” she snatched the magazine from my hand and opened it to an earmarked page. She held it up an inch from my face.
“Oh!” I exclaimed. “From that movie - what’s it called . . . ? He’s like a real celebrity! And you’re right, very gorgeous.” Definitely not hotter than David, I thought smugly.
“Well,” she said with a smile, turning back to the mirror. “He was at the event, and my date knew him from high school. He was totally flirting with me so eventually we ditched the party, got drunk and ended up back at his lakefront apartment.”
“What about your date?” I asked, trying to keep my interest level high in an effort to distract her.
“Oh, I don’t know. He was just a friend. I left him at the party.” I tsked and shook my head at her. “Anyway, Graham’s my date tonight, so that should get you guys some good publicity.” She expertly whisked on mascara, glancing back and forth between her reflection and me. She screwed the cap back in and came to sit by me on the bed. “Tell me. What is it?”
I struggled with myself. If I voiced my feelings for David, they would be real. And after the way we had left things, I didn’t know if I’d ever see him again – so did it even matter? What if I were to tell her for nothing?
But the weight of my rollercoaster feelings since day one had me questioning everything, and it was beginning to scare me. Since the moment I’d laid eyes on David, he’d been an inescapable presence in my thoughts.
“I . . . ,” I paused. “I don’t know how to say this,” I said to myself. “I think I’m . . . I don’t know. I’m attracted to someone else.”
“Oh, sweetie, that’s okay. That’s normal.” Relief briefly crossed her face as she patted me on the knee.
“No,” I sighed. “I’m falling for this person. I have feelings for him.” It was the first time I’d let myself think it. And definitely the first time I’d said it out loud. I didn’t expect it to feel so true. And it wasn’t as ridiculous as I’d expected. I looked down at my fingers, which I’d wrung red.
“What?” she breathed, and I wondered if I should repeat myself. “But Bill . . . You guys are happy aren’t you?”
“Yes,” I said emphatically. “I think so. Yes. It’s not really about him at all . . . .” Her composed face did not reveal the judgment I’d expected to see. I reminded myself that this was Gretchen I was talking to, not just anyone. Lucy, wholesome and trusting as she was, would have the opposite reaction. “But,” I started again, feeling the tears returning. “I don’t know what to do. I love Bill, and I’ve never even felt the urge to be with anyone else. Ever,” I said with emphasis.
Gretchen nodded thoughtfully as she processed the information. “And you think you feel that strongly for this guy? Why?”
“I feel,” I paused, my eyes darting around as I thought. “Connected to him in some way. I think he feels it too, but it gets stronger whenever I’m near him, and I can’t stop it. I can’t stop it,” I repeated to myself. “And we kissed and it was . . .” I exhaled, letting the sentence hang.
Those Windex eyes grew bigger than I’d ever seen them. “Wow, Liv. You kissed? I’ve never even heard you talk about another guy since you met Bill.”
“It just sort of happened, and I feel so,” I could choose so many words, I thought. “So guilty,” I decided.
“Oh, Liv.” She wrapped my forearm in her hand. “I can’t tell you what to do,” she said, recognizing the imploring look on my face. “But,” she proceeded, and appeared to be searching for the words. “Bill has always been . . . ,” she paused thoughtfully, watching me. “Safe. You fell in love slowly and without any hiccups. I saw what your parents’ divorce did to you. You stopped taking risks. You stopped knowing how to open up, and Bill was safe. Is safe. He has always loved you, and he’d never hurt you.”
Her words were eerily similar to Lucy’s. I wondered if there was something they knew that I didn’t. Some reason why Bill shouldn’t love me as much as he did. It almost felt as if they didn’t think I was good enough for him.
“That doesn’t mean you owe him anything though,” she continued. “I know how you can get. Stop being so hard on yourself and take some time to think about what you really want. Not what you think others want, but what you really want deep down.”
A little of the struggle lifted from my shoulders as Gretchen took it on, but it was hard to ignore the question burning in her eyes.
After another moment of silence, I spoke. “I can’t tell you who. Then there’s no turning back.”
She looked disappointed. “Well, my point is, I remember that passionate side of you; I know it’s there, and it was hard to watch it die during the divorce.”
“My parents fought a lot at the end, but I never expected it to get so bad,” I mused. “I didn’t know they would split. I thought they loved each other.”
“It was for the best, honey. They were miserable and they were making you miserable. Seeing you almost cry right now, well, I’m shocked. It’s been a long time.” My heart clenched to hear her say it out loud.
“I know, I’m sorry. I hate crying in public.”
“Public? Liv, it’s me. This isn’t public.”
“Yes, that sounds stupid, doesn’t it?”
“I remember when we were kids, Liv, you assumed you were going to have it all,” she said, looking up. “The best job, the best house and the cutest husband. You said he was going to be the best guy in the world, and the tallest too, and that you would love each other more than anyone. Do you feel that way about Bill?”
“Bill is tall,” I said proudly.
“Liv?”
I blinked furiously at her. “Gretch, that’s childish stuff. Everyone thinks that way when they’re ten years old.”
“Not me.” She shook her head. “I just wanted to be happy. I thought that being happy meant finding someone to marry and a good job. I didn’t know other kids who said they would be the best at everything, and have the best of everything.”
I laughed lightly and nodded. “I had high expectations because my dad did. I thought he could do better than my mom. I didn’t want anyone to ever think that about me.”
“Nobody does. Everyone loves you.”
“Do they?” I sighed, thinking of David’s earlier accusations. Do they love me as I am? Gretchen looked hurt so I touched her arm. “Of course, I know you do. I love you too, so much. I never would have survived without you and John, you’re the reason I made it through.”
She gave me a beautiful smile, and I was sure I saw tears in her eyes. “So what about Bill? Is he all of those things?”
“I don’t think anyone can be all of those things. I think I may have been a bit idealistic,” I said, rolling my eyes. “But he is as close as it gets.”
She bit her lip, and her eyes avoided mine. “What are you going to do?” she asked.
“Move on. What choice do I have?” I paused. “But for now, I’m going to have a carefree night with my girlfriends. You’d better get dressed or I’m leaving your ass behind,” I joked. “I can’t be late for my own party.”
Her eyes lingered on me a moment before she stood to get dressed. I watched her sort through her closet in an unusually silent manner, pulling out article after article. I wasn’t sure if telling her was the right choice, but I felt better.
Lucy’s voice in the other room cut into my thoughts. On my way into the kitchen, I was almost knocked over by Bethany when she rushed up to hug me. “I heard you were attacked in an alley downtown by a murderer rapist!”
“What?” Lucy screamed. She rushed over and skidded to a stop in front of me. “Oh, your face!”
“No, no, that’s an exaggeration,” I said glaring at Ava.
“Wait,” Gretchen called from her room. “I haven’t heard the story yet!” She raced in, clutching at her robe as it threatened to fly open.
“This is the last time I’m going to tell this,” I prefaced.
They listened intently as I recounted my story. It sounded so grim as I told it, and I felt awful for bringing the mood down. When I got to the part about David, I sniffed and rushed the words out.
“What? That’s crazy,” Lucy exclaimed.
“Well, you know he works by us Luce. We’re profiling him for the Most Eligible issue,” I explained to Ava and Bethany. Sounds about right said someone. “He was on his way home from the office.”
“At ten o’clock at night?” Lucy asked. “That’s an extreme coincidence.”
“I know,” I said with a shrug. “I was very lucky. Anyway - ”
“Wait, hold up,” Gretchen interjected. “Since when is David part of that issue? This is the guy from Lucy’s party, right? Is he going to be there tonight? I didn’t know - ” suddenly she gasped loudly, and we all looked at her. “Oh. My.”
“What?” Bethany asked.
Her eyes grew wide and she covered her mouth, staring at me. “Oh my God!” she said, the words muffled by her hand.
I grabbed her arm and began pulling her into the bedroom. “Sorry, can you just give us a minute?” I asked them, pushing her with more force. Shock covered her face, and I shut the door behind us.
“David Dylan?” she hissed. “He’s the one you’ve fallen for?”
I panicked, not knowing how to respond.
“Oh, Olivia. No, no, no. Forget what I said earlier. He’s a total womanizer.”
“How do you know?” I retorted. I wasn’t sure why I snapped at her, it wasn’t news to me.
“I can just tell, Livs, I know tons of guys just like him. Someone like that can be . . . dangerous. He knows how to make you feel special. Believe me, he’s handsome, charming and sexy. There’s no way he’s not single for a reason.”
“Sounds familiar,” I said with intent to hurt, because I didn’t like what I was hearing.
“Well,” she said, seemingly unfazed. “I learned from experience. From guys like him.”
I gulped, embarrassed by the conversation. “Look,” I started. “We can talk about this later. I don’t want anyone else to find out,” I said, signaling toward the kitchen.
“Is that story true?” she asked seriously. “Or were you with him that night?”
“It actually is true, weird as it sounds. I was at work late, and we did run into each other.” I decided not to reveal just yet that I had spent the night in his apartment.
“And when you asked me to cover for you?”
“I met him for a drink to explain that nothing could happen between us.”
“It takes a drink to explain that?”
“Olivia?” Lucy called from the other room.
“All right, all right, come on, before they get suspicious,” I said, pulling her arm.
“We’re not done with this conversation,” she warned.
We were met with a sea of confused faces when we returned. “Sorry,” Gretchen said. “I - I thought I forgot . . . to turn off my curling iron,” she said haltingly. I rolled my eyes inwardly and continued my story in an effort to distract them. I left out as many details as possible, telling the story as though David were less impassioned.
When I finished, they were stunned. Lucy was almost in tears, but I assured her that I was feeling better and that the police were taking care of it.
“Next time that happens, you call me right away. David is a hero,” she said with starry eyes.
“No,” I said, trying again to downplay his involvement. “Anyone else would have done the same thing.”
She shook her head. “He is something else. I always thought he was so polite. He’s just a good guy,” she mused. I looked at Gretchen imploringly.
“All right, I’m almost done getting ready. Liv, make me a drink?” Thank you, I mouthed.
“Are you sure you’re feeling up for tonight?” Lucy asked me quietly. I nodded enthusiastically. Though the weight of the morning’s news weighed heavily on me, I knew better than to reveal it. Lucy would send me home if she found out Davena had passed.
“I need to have some fun,” I said. “Plus, I really need to be there. This whole thing was my idea.”
“Thanks for inviting us Liv. All my friends are super jealous. Is there going to be dancing?” Ava asked.
“Yep,” I nodded. “And I think dancing might be just the ticket.”
Lucy bit her lip, furrowing her brows. “I haven’t been dancing since that spring break we went to Mexico.”
“Oh, this will be nothing like Mexico,” Ava chimed in. “It’s at the Gryphon, right Liv? I’ve been to the club upstairs. Very classy.”
“It is,” Bethany nodded.
“Good, because I’m scarred for life after Tijuana.”
I laughed and squeezed a lemon into the drinks. While delivering one to Gretchen, I paused to admire my sleeveless leather mini-dress. It hugged in all the right places, and nude pumps elongated my legs. I needed more cover-up on the bruise, I decided. My lips were glossy and colorless, and the bulk of my hair was pinned at the top of my head, with a few pieces escaping to frame my face.
I thought that for someone whose insides were so tangled, I could pass for a normal, happy human being. And maybe I’d have to for a while. Gretchen stepped out then in silver skinny jeans, a white over-sized tank and red platform pumps.
“Let’s do this,” she said after a long sip of her drink.