Before and Ever Since (9781101612286) (7 page)

By the time my mind wrapped itself around that memory, the ringing filled my ears and the blackness of the night washed over me until the room's brightness dimmed to nothing. I felt the tightness around my chest, squeezing the air from my lungs.

Instead of freaking out that time, I focused on the wall against my hand, and waited for the light and rush of air. True to form, it came within seconds, snapping the tightness around me as if it were a rope. I sucked in sharply and opened my eyes.

•   •   •

I was back. Sitting on the floor next to the window box. Thinking that there was some sort of point to the madness. There had to be.

•   •   •

I
WAS AT THE GROCERY STORE, TRYING TO TRULY CARE ABOUT
the organic choices that were so inconveniently stocked on the top shelf. As opposed to the saturated fat and preserved-for-the-next-eighty-years crap that always rested at eye level. I wanted to care about being healthy like Holly did. I wanted to eat right and drink half my body weight in water and burn up my treadmill melting away that little pooch that my jeans managed to flatten but did a parade wave when I was naked.

Not that too many people were seeing me naked lately. Or anyone, actually. Not that there wasn't the occasional potential for opportunity—there was the guy from the video store that seemed overly friendly, but then I got to thinking about how often I saw him there, and if he was there as much as I was, then he really was kind of sad. And then that was depressing, so I changed video stores.

And there was Chris at the office where I had to show up once a week for the roundtable meeting so the powers that be could see what we had in the works and that we weren't just sitting at home playing solitaire. He asked me on some form of date every single week. I went to lunch once, and realized that while Chris was nice, and certainly persistent, his fascination with his clothing was a little off base. Everything was perfectly pressed and pristine, but in addition to that, he wore only blue. Light blue shirts, dark blue pants, navy blue suits, midnight blue shoes. It took fifteen kinds of willpower not to buy him a red tie and watch him implode.

I'd only had three real relationships in the ten years since my divorce, and all of them ended on a fizzle. Once the initial hot factor wore thin, there wasn't enough to fall back on. I hadn't found love again. Not like before. And I was good with that. I'd learned to love my own company and relished not having to answer to anyone or clean piss off the floor. The only shining prize I'd received from a man was Cassidy, and she was the light of my life.

So, as I gazed upon the choices before me, I pulled my hoodie jacket tighter around my body and grabbed the eye-level crap. Who would care if I got ugly and fat? Kevin? Certainly not. He would celebrate. Ben? I wasn't going there.

My cell buzzed in my pocket, and I dug it out, noting it was the light of my life.

“Hey, doodlebug.”

“Hey, what do you think about having a birthday party for Nana early?” she asked.

I stopped walking. “Her birthday isn't until next month.”

“I know, but if Aunt Bernie comes before then, she may be on the road and we won't get a chance to celebrate with her.”

My girl. She loved her Nana. They were cut from the same cloth. Same love of history, same itch to see strange places, same love of ornery dogs.

“Okay, that's fine,” I said, turning and nearly ramming carts with a woman who looked like queen of the soccer moms. Seriously. She even had the mommy version of the uniform on. “Sorry,” I said to her, smiling. She probably thought I looked like queen of the couch potatoes.

“Where are you?” Cassidy asked.

“The grocery store.”

“Again? Didn't you just go there?”

I cursed my bad lying. “Oh, I forgot a few things.” I pushed my cart faster, wanting to get done and get home. “So, anyway, that's fine if you want to do th—” I choked back the last word as I rounded an aisle into the produce, and there stood Ben. Fondling peaches.

“What's the matter?” Cassidy asked.

“Nothing,” I said under my breath, jumping backward and tugging my cart with me.

“So, you're good with the party, Miss Anti-Party?”

“Absolutely,” I said, doing a U-turn and heading the opposite way. “As long as all I have to do is show up.”

“That's cool, I'll get with Aunt Holly,” she said. “She likes that stuff.”

“Well, right now she doesn't like Nana much,” I said, laughing. “But maybe that will change.”

I dead-ended at the meat section, thinking I could stay there, then had a panicked thought that he
was
a man and would probably buy meat.

“Shit,” I said under my breath, forgetting Cassidy was still chattering.

She stopped. “What?”

“Oh, nothing, baby, I just—can't find the sea salt.”

I darted across the endcaps till I found what was sure to be a safe aisle, and jumped in there with the tampons and sanitary pads. And then flattened myself as best I could to all the pink packaging, just in case he tended to look down each aisle.

“Did she tell you that Josh and I are going over there for lunch tomorrow?” Cassidy said.

“What? She who?”

“Nana,” she said dramatically. “She called and invited us over.”

My mind ticked off all the various reasons why there was no worse idea than that.

“Um—”

“And if you don't have anything to do and can be nice, you can come, too,” she said.

Oh, I did have things to do. I had tons of things to do, but there was no way in hell I was missing it. My mother hadn't invited me, but what was family good for if you couldn't crash a party.

“I'll see,” I said, glancing around to see if anyone saw me talking to the tampons. “I thought you had to work.”

“Not till two.”

“And Josh?”

“Not till the next day.”

Of course. We said our good-byes and I strongly considered stalking the registers from afar to make sure he left. Then again, if I'd just hurried up, I would have been gone by then.

As if on cue, he passed my aisle, slowly pushing his cart as he studied a piece of paper in his hand. I stopped and froze in place, holding my breath, not blinking or breathing till he passed. Then I ran for the registers like the chickenshit I was, not caring that I'd only grabbed four of my thirty-something needed items. They'd be there tomorrow. Or no—the day after tomorrow, because I had a lunch date with karma.

I quick-scanned the registers for the fastest choice and picked one with an elderly man with only a pack of toilet paper and a box of candy under his arm. I'd be out of there in minutes, as compared to all the other lines sporting three and four people each, with mountains overflowing their carts.

I did a little shuffle move, waiting for my turn, looking behind me every five seconds. Why the hell was I so paranoid? Why was I hiding in
my
grocery store, in
my
town? He should be hiding from me. And no sooner had that thought crossed my brain when he rounded the corner, and I ducked.

Pretending to closely inspect the latest celebrity gossip on the rack, I silently begged the checker to hurry the hell up.

“Price check on four!” she called into a microphone, holding up the box of candy.

“It's five ninety-nine,” the elderly man said.

“I have to check, sir,” the pink-cheeked checker said, pulling out a reference card to prove it.

Great. I picked a newbie with anal retention.

“I actually saw it, too, and it was five ninety-five,” I said, nodding from my bent-over stance.

The girl looked at me with giant eyes. “He said five ninety-nine.”

I blinked. “That's what I said.”

“No, you said five ninety-five,” the man said.

“That's why we check it,” the girl said, nodding.

“For four pennies? Seriously?” I said. I really actually kind of hissed it. “Don't y'all scan everything now, anyway?”

The girl scowled at me. “The scanners are down,” she said.

The man just kind of shrugged, and I gave him a weary look. Of course the old man didn't care. All he had planned for the day was to sit on the toilet and eat chocolate caramels.

Finally, a greasy-haired stock boy ambled up, holding a hand out for the box. The old man looked almost physically pained to watch it leave with the boy, as if he'd taken great measures to select that very box and didn't trust the boy not to switch it.

I was still very much bent over when legs stopped behind me. Somehow I knew who they belonged to before I ever looked up.

“You okay?” Ben asked, not sounding particularly sincere.

I slowly lowered my stoop to a crouch, pretending fascination with a tabloid.

“I'm fine, how are you?” I asked, hoping I sounded as uninterested as he did.

He reached over me and plucked the tabloid out of the rack, giving off an aroma of warm soap when he did so.

“The end of the world, huh?” he read off the headline. “Nostradamus's prediction keep you up at night?”

I saw the humor in his eyes, but I refused to play. “Lots of things keep me up at night,” I said, rising to my feet and hoping to pull off dignified. I smiled, looking at his handbasket. “You're all about the mac and cheese, I see?”

He tilted his head in a small shrug. “Don't have much time for cooking lately, have to go for fast and filling.”

I nodded, noting the stock boy finally returning with the vitally important four-cent price difference, and I got to move ahead. The checker glared at me and tapped in the prices of my four items, slinging them behind her.

“So, you cook?” I asked over my shoulder.

“Sure,” he said, setting his basket on the counter. “My mother taught us never to be dependent on a woman.”

I felt the jab and turned to try to understand it. He had a hell of a nerve saying something like that to me. “Ever get married, Ben?” I asked quietly.

The dark eyes went darker. “No.”

“Then I guess you learned well.”

I felt the heat on the back of my neck as I grabbed my bags and turned toward the exit. A younger piece of me ached inside. The rest of me that knew the score ran like hell.

CHAPTER

5

I
RESCHEDULED MY LIFE AROUND HIM—AGAIN.
B
EN DIDN'T
realize it, but just his presence was jacking with my life, my job, my family, my sanity. I hadn't cleaned a thing or washed a dish in three days, I hadn't updated my listings, watered my thirsty herb garden, or met with a single new client since Ben had arrived on my mother's porch. Every phone call I received, I put to voice mail. Every e-mail for showings, I scheduled for another day or deferred to another Realtor.

There was an argument to be made that I didn't need to put off any of those things for him. He hadn't given
me
a second thought when he ditched me after professing his love and getting into my pants. Why was I giving him any thoughts at all?

Keeping me up at night
—ugh, his attitude reminded me of how he used to be with everyone else. Girls at school hated him for his arrogance but were drawn to his good looks long enough to get a taste of him. Guys gave him a wide berth and ignored him, because those who were cocky enough to try to knock the top off that arrogance got the shit beat out of them. There was no winning against Ben or Bobby Landry. They were too well trained in the art of fighting dirty.

But with me, he was different. No show, no pompous attitude. He was real with me, a normal guy, with normal thoughts and conversations, and a not-so-normal home life. We didn't hang out together at school, or even after graduation, since I went to the local college and he worked in a lumberyard. But at night, we'd catch up. The girls he dated probably never knew about me because they weren't around long enough to get that invested. Kevin, on the other hand, couldn't stand him.

He hated that Ben and I were friends and never lost an opportunity to tell me. Partially because he didn't trust Ben with his lothario ways. Also, I heard through the grapevine once that Ben had a talk with him after one of his straying flings. I never asked about that, but I believed it. Ben was protective of me.

Well—until he wasn't.

So, I stood outside my mother's house again, looking from Ben's truck to Cassidy's little bug and cursing my life. Knowing him, he would probably keep himself completely out of the picture, but I couldn't take that gamble. I had to make sure that he and Cass didn't spend too much time together.

I could hear the chatter as I took the garage route and approached the back door. Actually it sounded more animated than chatter, and when I opened the door, I was greeted with Tandy rushing me like a pit bull and the view of Josh and Ben competing in an arm wrestling match there at the bar. Cassidy and Mom were cheering them on over the perpetual droning of the TV, as if it were a sporting event.

So much for knowing him.

I closed the door behind me, held a foot out to keep the dog down, then stood in stunned silence while the two men—and that was a loose term for Josh—grinned at each other and refused to blink. Looking at Ben, I was reminded of his earlier fighting days. Even at forty-two years old, and evenly matched by the looks of where their arms were, he looked almost relaxed. His face wasn't red with exertion, no veins bulged at his throat or temples. He still knew how to psyche out an opponent and play that mental game.

Fair-haired, pale-skinned Josh, on the other hand, looked as if he might erupt at any moment. His ears were turning purple.

“Go, baby, you've got this,” Cassidy said, her hands on Josh's shoulders.

I saw Ben glance up at her like he wanted to laugh, then he shook his head almost imperceptibly. I could hear my heart in my ears as he looked at her. I wanted to tell him not to look at her, not to laugh with her, to go back to hammering something or gluing something or whatever it was he was doing before Josh probably dared him into this. I would have just about given my right pinkie finger for him to leave the house completely. Leave before he looked too closely and saw what seemed so blinking-neon-sign blatantly obvious to me. Maybe it was just because I was looking for it, maybe it was because I knew, but it was crystal clear to me the very second they laid that tiny slimy screaming human on my chest. She was all him.

Her hair changed to golden, but everything else about her features and even her skin tone was closer to his than to mine.

I looked over at the appetizer spread my mother had set out, trying to calm my nerves with a sense of normal. But there was nothing normal about that table. She had a freaking food array set up as if she were entertaining the mayor. Cassidy let go of Josh long enough to reach for two cake balls she popped into her mouth at the same time.

“My lord, Mom, who else is coming?” I asked.

“Actually, I didn't even know you were coming,” she said with a wink. “Just something I decided to play around with.”

I looked at her—at Ben—back at her. “You're going to cook, now?”

I plucked a rolled something-or-other-that-looked-like-turkey off a plate and topped it with a Wheat Thin. My mother stopped cheering and moved to rearrange the plate I'd evidently just tainted.

“It's just food,” she said, adding a ladle to the cheese dip.

I raised my eyebrows and attempted a chuckle around my turkey-something. “Mom,
just food
is usually potato chips in a bowl. And why a ladle?”

“Why not?” she asked.

“Because since when do we step up from just finding a really large chip?”

“Oh, for pete's sake,” she said, her eyebrows furrowing, “You act like I fed you out of pig troughs. It won't kill you to step it up a little.”

“Damn,” Josh said, making me turn around.

Ben had finally finished Josh off with a flourish and shook his hand, laughing. “Thanks for the invite, bud, that was fun. Haven't done that in a long time.”

“What, won? Or just wrestled?” Josh said, smiling through what I'm sure was an ego hit, being taken by a man twice his age.

“Both,” Ben said. He slapped Josh on the shoulder and got up. “Need to get back to it.”

He gave me the briefest of looks before turning away. I felt the weight of it like it was dropped from the moon.

“No, come on, Ben, why don't you eat lunch with us,” Cassidy said, reaching out to tug his sleeve. “We have enough food here to feed China. I mean seriously.”

Some funky noise escaped my throat and everyone turned to me.

“Are you choking on your own spit again, Emily?” my mother said, which would have been infinitely better than the horror I already had going on.

I tried laughing, but it felt crazy, so I just shook my head. “No, I'm fine. Um—Cass, I'm sure
Mr. Landry
is on a schedule.”

“Nonsense,” my mother exclaimed, looking at me with that parental flash of eternal disappointment. “There's a ton of food, and he's an old friend of
yours
,” she emphasized for that extra punch. “Of course he's eating with us.”

Ben looked like he wanted to leave and never return. “Really, I'm fine, I need to—”

“Sit down, young man,” Mom said, making the corner to the cabinet to pull out glasses.

Ben pulled out his stool and obeyed, and if it weren't for the turmoil going on in my head, that would have been humorous. Cassidy went to help put ice in the glasses, and Josh was given a handful of silverware to dole out. I stood there like a lump, not quite knowing what to do with myself.

“What are these things?” Cassidy asked, leaning to point at a tray of yellow spongy-looking balls on a green platter. She picked one up gingerly and sniffed it, pushing a crazy blonde curl out of her face with the other hand.

“Cheese puffs,” Mom said. Tandy morphed at her side as she spoke the words, as if that were an order for her to beg. Of course Mom complied, pinching off a piece for her.

I picked up my plate and put things on it blindly, not even seeing the food. My appetite was gone, my stomach was a swirling mess, and all I could do was go through the motions.

“We could call Holly,” I suggested, suddenly feeling a need for an ally. “She might be able to get off work for lunch.”

“Holly isn't speaking to me, remember?” Mom said as she hovered over everything like a honeybee.

“Why not?” Cassidy asked.

“Because I didn't ask her permission to sell the house,” Mom said.

She said it all snarky, but I knew that it was really eating at her. Holly was always the sweet one and the one to do no wrong. Holly's marriage and pregnancies came in the correct order. Her college education went the whole four years instead of just two and a half, because her grades got her scholarships and mine didn't. Her kids went off to fancy colleges, mine was a waitress. But I'd take Cassidy's brain over her two snobs any day. Cass was smart as a whip; she just hated formal education.

But Holly being off the map was odd. She would normally be the one making sure everyone had the same number of ice cubes, enough napkins, enough tea—and that's when I realized I'd found something to do.

I made my way around to grab the pot, which Mom grabbed at the same time.

“I've got this, Emmie,” she said. “Go eat.”

“No, I've got it,” I said, pulling back. “You go eat; you've worked hard on all this.”

“And ate a lifetime's worth while I did it,” she said, shooing me.

“Please, I beg you, let me make the freaking tea,” I muttered under my breath so no one else would hear. Mom's eyebrows raised and she let go of the pot. “Thank you.”

The fire I turned on under the little red pot was nothing on what my blood was doing. I could feel the heat tickling my hair. But it was okay as long as I didn't have to sit there at the same table with the man that—my heart stopped as I looked up on that thought and found him staring at me, hard, his arms crossed and leaning on the bar. I dropped the teabags and gasped as I had to dig them out of the burner before they caught fire. I darted a look around to see if anyone noticed through Mom and Cassidy's gabbing and the increasing volume of the TV in the background. No one except Ben, of course. And his face gave away nothing.

Josh had swiped the TV remote off a nearby stool. I watched him hold it down by his leg and click the volume up two more notches on whatever Fox News had to say, as he feigned interest in a barbecued weenie. Now there was an interesting twist. Car-washing Josh interested in world news. I also noticed that the knickknacks and pictures on top of the TV and table were now gone. It was really disappearing. Our life there was slowly being packed away.

Okay, I thought, as I soaked the teabags and everyone had sort of settled in somewhere with a plate. Mom was standing over hers, but that was pretty normal for her. Cassidy was busy stealing food off Josh's plate, and I needed to calm the hell down. Yes, I'd been dealt a freaky hand lately. The new “home movies” were just a bit over the top, but I was clearly meant to figure something out. Just hopefully not during lunch. And Ben coming back was something I couldn't control. He didn't look to be going anywhere, so I was going to have to learn how to coexist with him. With him and Cassidy. I clutched at my middle on that one.

Ben, thankfully, had stopped watching me and seemed very interested in the food. He was pulling the cheese puffs apart and studying them. The stuffed pork loin I hadn't even noticed before, he appeared to be analyzing before he savored each bite.

“Mrs. Lattimer, how'd you make this?” he asked, holding up another slice of the pork loin that had cream cheese and jalapeños oozing from its middle.

Mom beamed. I wanted to know that answer myself, since we certainly never got food like that. We had roast and rice and gravy or baked chicken with mashed potatoes. Sometimes spaghetti. Sometimes sandwiches. Sometimes milk hash on toast. Most definitely nothing got stuffed or puffed. And I'm pretty sure that Mom had never bought cream cheese before in her life.

“Let me show you,” Mom said, pulling a book out of a drawer, one that was laden with Post-it notes and flags. She turned to a page and showed him, and he read with interest as she copied it onto a neon green Post-it note.

Another interesting twist. Not only was he just basically
not dependent on a woman
, but he also had a culinary eye beyond mac and cheese.

“So, Ben, where'd you go when you left here?” Cassidy asked.

I was pretty proud of myself for getting the tea inside the pitcher on that one, and I refused to turn around. I wanted to know, too, but every time Cass talked to him directly my fingers and toes went numb.

There was a pause, and I didn't know if the heat on my back was from his eyes or my own anxiety. “Lots of different places at first,” he said slowly.

“So you traveled around?” Cassidy asked. “I want to travel so bad; I want to see stuff like Aunt Bernie does.” I did turn around on that, and she laughed at my expression. “I do! She just goes where she wants to go. I want to do that—except not when I'm sixty.”

“We'll do it,” Josh said, giving Cass a squeeze. “We'll go anywhere you want to go.”

Not washing cars, he wasn't. I let out a sigh and pushed the negative away.

“I hope you get to, doodlebug,” Mom said, and there was a lacing of sadness in her voice. I realized at that second how familiar those words were to her. “Don't wait for someday.”

“My Paw-Paw had a poster that he circled all the places he wanted to go,” Cassidy said to Josh.

“Good lord, girl, you remember that?” Mom said. “You were barely eight years old when your Paw-Paw died.”

“Yeah! We'd go look at the stars and then talk about Japan and Greece and Alaska, and then he'd give me peppermints.”

I laughed in spite of the headache tapping on my skull and headed back around to where my plate awaited. “I remember those same talks. Except without the peppermints.”

“So did you go anywhere interesting like that, Ben?” Cass asked him, making me grip my fork a little harder. I really needed her to stop calling him Ben.