Chapter Nineteen
“You are certifiable.”
Gayle nodded and stared into her coffee, her chest tight with anxiety. “I know. But…I thought he’d want it, you know?”
“What else have you bought him?” Evelyn sipped her lemon-choked water while the two women sat in the Brew Corner coffee shop the Monday after her abortive attempt to convince Noah she only had his best interests at heart. In the stupidest possible way, she now realized.
“Well…” She traced a line of spilled salt on the table.
“Jesus, Gayle.”
“I know, I know. It was stupid. But I…he…shit.”
“Well, is it over now?”
“Probably.” She sighed and looked around, recalling their many hours spent here, laughing and talking in between bouts of energetic sex. “Crap.”
“Do you love him?”
She blinked, then stared at her friend. “I can’t… I mean…”
Evelyn grabbed her hand and held on tight. “I know you think you can’t. But I haven’t seen you as happy as you’ve been for the past few weeks in so long.”
“I don’t deserve to be happy.”
“Will you just stop?”
Gayle glared across the table. “You have no right to tell me anything about this.”
“You know what? I think I do.” She put down her glass with a thunk and leaned forward on her elbows, her blue eyes blazing with something Gayle thought might be anger. It wasn’t as if her friend didn’t have it in her. In fact, Evelyn Fitzgerald’s temper was legendary in some circles. The woman suffered few fools and even fewer whiners.
But…aren’t I entitled to a little whining? Have I not earned the right to feel confusion, even frustration regarding my emotions when it comes to men? Jesus. Cut me some slack.
Evelyn grabbed her hand, surprising her out of her self-righteous reverie. “Listen to me, Gayle Connolly.” Her grip tightened when Gayle tried to wriggle out of it, unwilling to hear a lecture, even if it might very well be deserved. “You’ve been through hell. The sort of hell no wife or mother should have to experience. But you’re in a different place now. I can tell you are. I’ve known you almost my whole damn life. I supported your whole move-to-California thing and celebrated all the amazing things that happened to you once you did.” She paused. Gayle was shocked to see tears in her friend’s eyes, which of course triggered her own. “And I mourned with you when you lost everything. I love you. I’m here for you.” She let go of Gayle’s slightly numb hands and sat back in her chair, her lips set in a firm line. “Which is why I’m fully justified in saying this now—it’s time to get your head out of your ass.”
The self-righteousness rose in her again as she flexed her fingers. “My head is not—”
Evelyn lunged forward again. “Yes. It is. I think you think you’re doing the right thing. You mean well taking Noah on like…like some kind of a project. But he’s a man. A grown man with a heart to go with…the rest of him.” She raised an eyebrow. Gayle could barely stop the giggle before it burst out of her. “And from what I can tell—and you know I know all, over there at the brewery with my family’s name on it—he is miserable right now.”
“I told you. I tried to fix it.” Gayle’s voice sounded weak even to her, which was something she hated. She and Evelyn had grown up dirt poor but had both managed to right themselves, to find happiness, love, success in spite of their crappy start in life. Weakness was something neither of them could tolerate, especially in themselves. Gayle had been reminded more than once this was both a strength and a liability. Ethan used to get so furious with her when she’d go off on a tear about some employee, or brewery rep, or store manager or another for what she deemed ‘sheer fucking incompetence’.
“You can be an intolerant bitch sometimes,” he liked to say. And he’d say it mildly, while doing something else, as if it weren’t a giant insult. “Lighten the fuck up, darlin’. Your life isn’t so damn bad. And remember, not everybody is as lucky as you.” He’d follow it up with a hug, a kiss, a fondle, which almost always led to sex.
Gayle closed her eyes against the next thing that would happen when she put the words ‘Ethan’ and ‘sex’ together in her head. But instead of his lips, hands and body, she got Noah’s. Something new, wonderful, recent and, she realized, something she missed very much right now.
“God damn it,” Evelyn muttered, rising, hand over her lips. “I’ll be right back.” Her friend made her wobbly way to the bathroom and Gayle fought back the urge to scream, something that wouldn’t go over well in this crowded hipster coffee bar her friend Trent owned. Instead, she focused on all the kids in the place. Babies filled strollers or got nursed at various tables. Toddlers babbled, fussed, laughed and ran around the place willy-nilly. Moms and dads and more than a few grandparents bought them yogurt or donuts or whatever they wanted, followed them around, tried to have conversations around it all.
When the sight of it didn’t make her want to cry more, she realized something. She sighed and stared out of the window, pondering the odd moment for a few seconds. A hand touched her shoulder, but she didn’t move. Lips grazed her ear, but she didn’t flinch. A voice—an oh-so-beloved, familiar deep voice filled her consciousness. “Go, Gayle. Be happy for a change. It’s what we want for you.”
She shook her head, squeezed her eyes shut, and dropped her hands into her lap, twining her fingers together, determined to ignore it. But the voice, Ethan’s voice, kept saying to her, “Go. Be happy.”
“I will never be happy,” she whispered through her clenched jaw. “I won’t. I won’t. I won’t.” But her heart wasn’t pounding. Her pulse didn’t race. No tears threatened. She felt somehow light, or lighter than usual while this bizarre thing happened to her in the middle of a crowded coffee joint in her hometown.
She sensed Ethan’s hand on her back. It made her feel safe. She wanted to lean into him, to make him hold her one more time. To tell him she was sorry for being such a silly, temperamental bitch about the private plane thing. What had happened to her husband and son on that plane had been a total fluke of the air, the weather, of fate. It had nothing to do with the soundness of the plane.
“I love you,” Ethan’s voice said. “I love you, Gayle, but if you don’t stop being such a crazy cow right now, you’re going to lose something you deserve—another shot at life.”
“I don’t want a life without you and Liam,” she insisted, loudly in her head and whispered from her lips.
“But you have one and you’d better get the fuck up off your ass and live it.”
Gayle glanced at the ceiling, smiling at her dead husband’s plain-spoken manner. She missed it, along with everything else, even his mule-headedness. Noah wasn’t exactly as forthright—okay, brusque was a better word for it. Noah was even-tempered, calm, yet firm —so different from Ethan, from what she’d lost. But it was soothing in a way Ethan had never been. Life with Ethan had contained plenty of sharp edges. They were almost too much alike sometimes. Noah…he was more of a complement, a completion, filling in her personality holes while she did the same for him.
But he was so damn young. Wouldn’t people talk about them? Snigger behind their hands at her, the cougar-y widow with her hot stud by her side.
Who the fuck cares? The man is my equal. And I…I might just love him.
Sighing, she leaned slightly to one side, imagining Ethan there, his strong arms around her, his lips pressed to her hair. “Go, Gayle. Be happy. I mean it.”
“How’s Liam?” she whispered, glad Noah had spent some time forcing her to talk about him so she could mourn him properly.
“Go,” Ethan repeated instead of answering her. “We love you, honey. But we need for you to move on.”
And just like that, the strange, ghostly moment was over. Evelyn had shown up at some point and sat, sipping and watching her. “You all right?”
Gayle nodded, glancing at her over-priced, untouched coffee, now gone stone cold in front of her. “I…I need to go.” She got up slowly.
Evelyn smiled at her and held out her hand. Gayle took it, never more grateful for her friend’s steady presence.
“Good luck,” Evelyn said. “But go easy on him. Don’t be so…bossy.”
Gayle flushed hot, recalling how much he bossed her, at least behind closed doors. A sudden surge of panic filled her chest, blooming up into her throat. “I…I gotta fix this.”
Evelyn dropped her hand and picked up her glass. “Keep me posted. Our Labor Day picnic is coming up. I’ll need to know if you’re bringing your plus one.” She winked. Gayle rolled her eyes and headed for the door, intent, yet worried she might well be too late.