Chapter Six

Who Wrote the Book

Mandee

I awake to my book of love on my chest. I needed to write inside its pages last night, but I just couldn’t.

Why?

Love wasn’t on my mind. Grayson Falcon and probably the biggest regret of my life was.

I dodged a kiss. Several kisses, in fact.

I cover my face and groan before closing the book and pushing it under my pillow. I know what love isn’t. It isn’t what I feel for him. That is pure lust. Not that I am beyond giving in to lust...I am. I just don’t want to hurt Phoenix, and she would be the person I cried to when the secret was revealed and the knowledge that I would want to be under him, over him, kissed by him, again and again. Because, aside from his illegal good looks, he is honest about not wanting love, and I am more than sure he’s the kind of guy I could absolutely fall for and get crushed by. But, the fact remains; I am incredibly attracted to him, more so than I have ever been to anyone.

“You know what would happen then, Travis Tritt?” I ask my orange and white tabby as he jumps up on my bed like he does every morning when I wake. I hold my hand over my heart. “Ouch. Ouch would happen.”

Rubbing his head against me, he flops down for a belly rub.

“You’re such a good and faithful boy, Tritt,” I tell him, rubbing between his ears now.

Faithful like Blue, I think to myself. Safe, steady, predictable Blue.

Well, predictable until last night when he kissed me much differently than he ever has before.

Different isn’t always better and timing is everything.

I could lay here all morning and think about Gray and the missed opportunity, or pull my head out of the clouds and focus on the final stages of wedding reception preparations.

“Okay, Tritt, shower time,” I tell him, giving his belly one last rub before getting up. “You’re an odd cat.” I laugh as he hops down and follows me into my bathroom. “Belly rubs? You’re supposed to hate them.”

I strip off my nightgown and look in the mirror, totally naked. Naked, I don’t like the way my body is shaped. I suppose it could be worse, but ever since...that night happened, I just don’t care anymore. Even with dating Blue, I haven’t worried about it. But, right now, as I look in the mirror, I have definitely decided my Grayson Falcon fantasies are done. No way would I want a man with a body like his looking at me in any other way than sisterly.

I push down on my lower abdomen, my little pouch of horrors, and groan. I turn around and look at my naked behind. As I flex tight, it looks good. Relaxed, it’s a little too jiggly.

“Gotta keep on hiking, Tritt.” I sigh as I walk over and start my shower. “Maybe I’ll find another itty-bitty kitty who needs a new home like you did.”

I came across Tritt the day I saw that man in the woods singing. That man who I have yet to decide was real or something imagined. Tritt has been with us ever since.

I scrub my scalp as I think about the whys of not approaching and thanking him for giving me that song, that voice, that...light, when everything was dark. A regret I have lived with for years.

As I rinse, I remind myself of the whys. It was dark, I was in the woods, alone, and approaching a man would have been the dumbest thing I could have ever done. Yet, I still wish I knew.

What if he was the one? The one who I, Mandee Carlin, was meant to be with. What if he was the one, like my father was the one for my mom?

I heard the story a million times while we lay in her bed and talked. Back then, it was as if she was telling me a story. Now...Now I see it as she was trying to teach me what exactly to look for when my “one and only” came into my life.

Mom knew immediately that Dad was her one and only. “It’s a feeling you get in the pit of your stomach, Doodle.” She would smile, even though I knew she was in pain. “A feeling that you will doubt, until that first kiss. I knew immediately that there was no one in the world more perfect for me than your father. It was as if he was sent to me from heaven. I know now, he was.”

My father would often smile ever so slightly at her when he overheard this story. It was a much different look than he normally wore—one with no feeling.

Thinking back on it now, knowing I haven’t seen that look on his face in years, the one undoubtedly of love and reminiscence of the good times, I wonder if she was his one and only...forever.

They had bought the bar before she was diagnosed. They worked together daily, side by side, and I remember going with them a lot of the times during the day when I wasn’t in school...until she couldn’t anymore.

I also remember he was not at the bar as often as he was now. I know he did go every night to cash out and lock up when we slept, but he was home every night for dinner. He made every school event and was by her side when she needed him, which was often. There was no doubting they were not only deeply in love, but each other’s best friends.

They had one “date night” on the weekends, every week. When she was well, they went to the bar and danced. She always wore a dress and heels. When she wasn’t well, it was here, on the porch or in her room.

Regardless of where it was, Dad always brought her flowers. Red daisies. Always red daisies. It has been five years since I have seen one in this house.

On their date nights, my maternal grandmother stayed here with me. We would play Old Maid every week, eat rainbow sherbet and peanuts, and watch her “shows.” Matlock was her favorite.

She passed away six months before Mom, also from cancer, and we didn’t even know she had it until one month before her death.

I step back from the water’s hot stream and turn off the shower. Then I wring out my hair and step out onto the mat.

Tritt rubs against my leg, like he always does.

“You’re a weird cat, you know. Cats aren’t supposed to like water. But I did find you in the lake, didn’t I?” I say to him as I bend over and wrap my hair in a towel.

After I’m dressed and ready for the day, I look in the mirror. I have learned the fine art of using a round brush and hair dryer to make my very thick hair behave. It’s a trick my mom, who donned the same hair, taught me. Yet, I didn’t master it until she was gone.

She taught me everything she could in the short amount of time I had with her. But now...Now it seems like one minute it was a lifetime ago, and the next, like it was yesterday.

I feel a lump form in my throat, a telling sign that I need some me time. Me and my thoughts, me and my ability to lose it, and not be what is expected of me. What I want to be for him.

I walk out into the kitchen where Dad is leaning against the counter, dressed and ready for the day.

“Got home late last night,” he comments then takes a sip of his coffee before grabbing the cup he made for me and handing it over.

I nod and take a sip of my coffee. It’s perfect. Just the right amount of creamer.

“Blue go with you?” he asks, staring over his mug at me.

I am tempted to tell him yes, then toy with telling him no, then I decide on a shrug, slight smile, and another sip of my coffee.

“He’s a respectable young man,” Dad says, still eyeing me.

I don’t know why, possibly the near emotional meltdown I am always holding in, mixed with true concern with my father’s well-being, but out of my mouth comes, “Will you ever love again?”

His eyes widen, and he stops mid-sip.

I feel almost as if I have done something horribly wrong; dishonored my mother in some way, disappointed my father by breaking the unspoken rule that hangs over us to not speak of her unless on the anniversary of her death, a holiday, or her birthday.

The near shocked expression leaves his face, and the emotionless mask again covers it. “No,” he says, turning his back to me, setting his cup down, and gripping the countertop.

Again, I can’t help myself. “Would you want her to never try to love again if you had been the one—”

I stop mid-sentence and jump when his fist hits the counter.

“No more!” he says as he turns.

He’s angry at me. This is the only other emotion I ever see on his face—anger—but never directed at me. Usually, it’s at Phoenix because she pushes his buttons, or a customer who may say something wrong in front of me, or the one man who dared speak up when he told him to watch his mouth in front of me and the man laughed and asked him if he had not seen the videos of me all over the internet when I was at college.

It was embarrassing when Dad dragged him out of the bar and barred a customer for the first time ever for life.

Still, I couldn’t shut up. “I would have made her. I would have, because she—”

“Mandee, I said enough!” he yells, causing me to jump again.

It makes me angry.

“She died; you didn’t! She did!”

His eyes grow wider, his fists clenching at his sides. Then he points to my bedroom door. “Go. Now.”

“No,” I challenge him.

“Goddammit, Mandee!” he snaps.

My eyes fill immediately.

I don’t know why I am pushing. I don’t know why I am speaking up. I don’t know why I feel all this...this need to push him, but I do and it hurts. Regardless, I can’t stop.

“She would—”

“Get out!” he yells. “Get out and don’t come back until you are done talking about...about...”

I grab my purse from the counter and run out the door.

As soon as the fresh, cool morning air hits my face, I lose it. Tears roll down my cheeks, and I know I am moments from needing to scream, to yell, to cry out and rid myself of all the pain I feel. This time, it’s not for her, it’s not for me.

It’s for him.

He’s not living. He’s not, and I can’t, either.

I dig in my purse for my keys and grab them while attempting to swallow back tears. I do not cry here. I just don’t. Then I run to my truck and get in.

As I drive down the road, I can barely see and I’m going too fast, but if I don’t get to that spot, the place I can fall apart, someone will see me, and I, Mandee Carlin, do not fall apart.

I am the daughter of a dead woman and a man who doesn’t feel. I am the woman who made a mistake that everyone from New York to Lake Hopatcong, New Jersey has probably seen, judged, and laughed at. I see them every day, and I look down, smile a little, and keep quiet and to myself, because that is how it has been when I am here since she died.

When I finally arrive to the turnaround spot, I pull in, turn off the truck, jump out, lock it with the key fob, and then run to the place I can let it all out.

“Mandee?”

I look left and see him. I see Grayson Falcon. And as hard as I try, I can’t keep it back, so I turn my back to him and start walking.

“Sweetheart, what the hell is wrong?”

“Go away, Grayson, please just go,” I say as I begin to run.

As I pass trees and try not to trip over fallen limbs, rocks, vines, all while holding in the need to scream, to cry, yet unable to since Grayson may hear.

Finally, when I see the lake, I slide down on my bottom to get to its shore, kick off my shoes, and begin to grab the hem of my dress, when I remember he could have followed me.

I look back and see he’s not here. Thank God. Then I look around more to be sure before pulling the pink baby doll dress over my head and tossing it on a nearby rock.

Within seconds, I am in the water.

Under the water, I scream as I swim farther and farther out. Then I come up for air before going back down again to release another scream.

When I make it to the floating dock, I hang on to the old wooden edges, take in a deep breath, and then push myself under and scream again. When I pop up, I consider doing what I would normally do next and pull myself up onto it; instead, I rest my forehead on the side and allow the tears to flow again.

When my arms tire of holding on, I allow myself to lean back and float while the August sun heats my body, cold from the lake’s water.

I stay there, floating, existing, mourning her, regretful for what I said to him. But, deep inside, I am so very sad for me, Mandee Carlin, of Lake Hopatcong, New Jersey, who all those shrinks she has ever seen were probably right about.

I float in the water, weightlessly, affecting no one, not even stirring the water, simply existing.

When I have made peace with my anger, released it in tears and screams and allowed my body to float and release the tension, I simply float, eyes closed, kicking my feet ever so often, moving my arms when I feel I should and allow myself to drift toward reality’s shores.

I feel my foot drag across the lake’s floor and sigh as I push my feet down and stand, opening my eyes.

I gasp when I see him, Grayson, standing on the gravel, my dress over his shoulder and a towel in his hand. His square jaw, peppered with a few days’ worth of growth and slightly lighter than that on his head, his jaw is tight, and I see the muscles in it working. His eyes are so deeply connected to mine it renders me almost unmoving.

The way he looks at me is unrecognizable. Angry? Annoyed?

When his eyes leave mine after what seems like an eternity, then move to my lips, I wonder if there is something on them. Then they slowly, very slowly, move down my body. At this moment, I remember I am in a bra and panties, in front of Grayson Falcon, sexiest man alive.

I quickly sink down to a seated position and curl into myself, hiding myself, incredibly insecure and horrifically embarrassed.

“You’re blue, Mandee, and blue isn’t a good color on you. Come on; get up out of there.”

“Just go,” I say, trying to sound strong, but it comes out quite the opposite.

With my head still buried in my knees, I hear the splash of water and peek up to see him walking toward me, fully clothed.

“Grayson, just go,” I beg.

“Not happening. Get up,” he says in a very demanding voice.

I look up. “Why? Why did you—”

I stop when he reaches down, grabs my elbow, pulls me up, and looks down at me.

“You’re a friend.” The way he says it through his teeth doesn’t seem very friendly at all. “And Phoenix’s.” Again, he looks down at me, and I am painfully aware that my nipples are poking out.

“That is not because of you,” I defend.

He shakes his head and wraps the towel he’s holding around me before taking my elbow and pulling me beside him through the knee-deep water.

When I pull my elbow back, he looks over his shoulder as he pulls his shades down, shaking his head, which makes me angry. So does the fact that I am following him, so I stop.

“Why did you follow me when I asked you not to! Why!”

I feel the telling sign of tears, the lump in my throat, my mouth watering.

I reach up, snatch his glasses off his face, and put them on, somewhat concealing my emotions

His eyebrow creeps up.

I stick my nose in the air and stomp past him through the water. I get to shore, push my feet into my flip flops, and begin climbing up the bank. Then, when the earth gives out beneath me and I slide back, he catches me. That’s when the tears begin to fall.

“Don’t have to pretend with me, Mandee. We all got shit to deal with. This is a good place to deal with them,” he says, lifting me up and carrying me up the bank, which is effortless for him. I don’t even fight it. I let him.

When he walks the opposite direction that I came from, I don’t even bother to ask why.