InHap*pily Ever After (Incidental Happenstance) (65 page)

            “Yes, your
majesty,” he said with chattering teeth.

            “I can’t believe
the power’s still out,” Lilly said, handing Tia a flashlight. “Come on and hold
that for me. I knew there was a reason I kept that old coffee percolator.
Marcus kept telling me to throw it away, said it was an old piece of junk…we’ll
see what he has to say about it when he has hot coffee in his belly this
morning!” As usual, she said it plenty loud for her husband to hear every word.

            By the time
they got back up the stairs the fire was roaring and the candles were
flickering again.

            “And this is
why I’ll never own an electric stove,” Lilly said, turning the switch, striking
a match, and putting the pot of water over the flame. “You can’t live in
Chicago and not expect your power to go out a few times a year.”

            They huddled
around the fire and drank their coffee, Marcus praising Lilly with overzealous
adulation about the incredible intelligence she must have to keep the old
fashioned coffee pot. Tia loved watching them interact—they teased each other
constantly, but they both knew each other so well that they saw it for what it
was—an expression of love.

            When they
finally warmed up, and the sun peeked out from behind the clouds, they decided
to venture outside to check out the snow and shovel the driveway. For once the
weatherman was right—the storm had dumped about eight inches, and the wind had
sculpted it into drifts that were in some places well over a foot deep. Marcus
fired up the snow blower while Tia and Lilly grabbed shovels and started in on
the front porch. Tia was glad for the mental distraction and the physical
demand on her muscles—it took her mind off her troubles for a little while.
She’d come to no conclusions; in fact, she’d been working really hard to push
it way to the back of her mind, and she knew that she wouldn’t have been able to
do that anywhere else but here; wrapped up in the warm embrace of a loving
family that didn’t question her motives for running away.

            Marcus dug out
a crank powered radio from the basement and they listened to it as they sipped
hot chocolate and warmed their frozen toes and fingers by the fire. They
learned that the storm had done some major damage, and that there were a lot of
trees that had fallen, which was the primary reason for downed power lines.
Clean-up crews were working 24/7, they said, but it still might be a couple
days before the power was restored to all customers. People were urged to stay
inside and to check up on their elderly neighbors—roads weren’t being plowed
because the plows couldn’t reach them and stores and restaurants were closed.
They were already announcing school closings for the next day, fully aware that
busses wouldn’t be able to get through. Lilly did a little victory dance when
they announced that Jefferson was on the list. “Hooray, snow day!” she sang.

            Tia helped
Lilly move all the food from the fridge and freezer to the garage or the back
porch, where she filled a bucket with snow and dumped things in. They decided
to make a huge pot of beef stew and share it with some of the neighbors who
might be unable to cook. Smooth jazz played on the radio as they chopped
carrots, onions, celery, and beef by candlelight, filling a huge pot and
setting it on a slow simmer. While it cooked, Marcus worked his way down the
street with the snow blower, clearing other driveways and meeting up with
neighbors who were doing the same. While Lilly and Marcus made the rounds with
containers full of hot stew stacked on a sled, Tia made some phone calls.

            “Dylan’s
pissed, and Jessa wants you to call her,” Lexi said without emotion. “Of
course, they don’t believe me when I tell them that I don’t know where you are.
Thanks to you, they think I’m the world’s best liar.”

            “Sorry about
that, Lex, I don’t mean for you to be in the middle. I just know that Jessa
will give me the third degree and I’m afraid I’ll crack under her
interrogation.”

            “Wait, are you
saying that you’re more afraid of Jessa than you are of me?”

            “Unequivocally.”

            “But she’s
like, four foot nine, or something. I could squash her like a bug.”

            “Five foot
one, and you wouldn’t stand a chance.”

            “OK.
Seriously. Something’s going on, and I think I’m the only one who doesn’t know
about it. Jessa’s frantic when she calls me, and Dylan’s downright unhinged.”

            “Dylan called
you?”

            “Like four
times already today. He says to tell you that, ‘appearances can be deceiving,
and that he loves you more than anything.’ What does that mean, Tia? It’s all
cryptic, and I don’t like to be caught in the middle but out of the loop.
What’s going…” her voice cut out, and then she was back on the line. “That’s
Dylan on the other line. Again.” Tia’s heart started pounding. “Hold on a sec.”
Tia pulled the phone from her ear and hovered her finger over the end button,
but couldn’t bring herself to hit it. She heard Lexi’s voice again, and put the
phone back to her ear. “He says he needs to talk to you. I don’t know what’s
going on, but I don’t like it. If you two are fighting, let him apologize and
be done with it. You know that you’re going to make up eventually, and all the
two of you are doing is irritating me and Jessa. I gave him your number. I love
you, goodbye—work this out with Dylan.”

            The phone was
already beeping when she hit the button to end her call to Lexi. Her hands were
sweating, her heart was thumping like a jackhammer, and she was shaking all
over. She was fighting a battle with herself, and neither side was going to
win. Part of her desperately wanted to hear Dylan’s voice, to hear him say that
it was all a horrible mistake and that none of it actually happened, but she
knew it wasn’t true. The phone rang six times before it cut off mid-ring and
fifteen seconds later, it started ringing again. Tears fell from her eyes as
she held it in her hand until finally she punched the pillow on the guest bed,
jammed her finger onto the power button on the phone, and tossed it onto the
comforter, backing away from it as if it were alive.

            She knew it
would only be a matter of time before he got the number, which was the main
reason she didn’t set up the voice mail. The phone would only be turned on when
she needed to use it, and he wouldn’t be able to leave her any messages that
she’d probably be too weak to ignore. Lies, all of it, anyway; although looking
back on her last few conversations, especially the one with her mother where
she told her everything was fine, Tia was starting to think that maybe
she
was the best liar in the world.

            The power came
back on about an hour later, just as Tia was handing over an obnoxious amount
of Monopoly money to Marcus for landing on the Electric Company. “Well, how
about that?” he mused. “I think maybe I need to charge you double.”

            They cheered
as the heat kicked on and the first blasts of warm air pumped out of the vents.
They ran around and blew out the candles, and then reset clocks around the
house. Layers of clothing were shed as the house warmed up, and the television
was turned on. Marcus wanted to watch Sunday night football, but Lilly insisted
that they watch the news. “We’ve missed out on almost two days of news, Marcus.
The world could have ended, and we wouldn’t know a thing about it.” He rolled
his eyes at her. “Besides, we should see about any damage that’s been done from
the storm. Go watch football in the bedroom.”

            “The news
doesn’t look better on the big screen,” he pouted, but he grabbed a bowl of
chips from the table and headed down the hall.

           
Com Ed says
that it still has around 130,000 customers without power; most of those are in
the southwest suburbs where the wind speeds gusted to seventy miles an hour and
knocked down a lot of trees, which in turn fell on power lines,
the news
anchor said.
They hope to have power restored to those customers by the
early morning hours, but urge customers to be patient and to check in on their
elderly neighbors.
They switched over to a reporter who was out in the
field standing on a dark street interviewing people who still didn’t have
power. Then they switched to a segment called ‘Hometown Heroes,’ and
highlighted the police and firefighters who were going door to door to check in
on residents in low income areas and delivering hot soup to families with
children. Tia wanted to smash the TV when she heard the start of the next
segment but she sat there frozen, instead.

           
In
entertainment news, Kendra Kirby is back in rehab after a judge sentenced her
to no fewer than ninety days after her third arrest for DUI in as many months.
The star of “Midnight Express” gave a statement through her lawyer that she
would ‘use this time to regain my focus so I can shine my light on the world
again.’ That comment has prompted a social media buzz and a Twitter hashtag
#lightsoutforkirby. Social media is also buzzing about a series of photos that
allegedly show the recently engaged Dylan Miller engaged in some less than
wholesome acts with a pair of Swedish adult film stars. Sonja and Melena—that’s
right, they don’t use last names—had the pictures on their website with the
title, “Our Menage-a-trois with Dylan Miller,” but were required to take them
down or else face legal action from Miller’s camp. The pictures have been removed
from the actual website, but they are still all over the internet and will
likely be appearing on a tabloid near you. Neither Miller nor his fiancé, Tia
Hastings, could be reached for comment, but Sonja and Melena are talking to our
own William Brody tomorrow morning, so don’t miss it.

            Tia turned to
Lilly with tears in her eyes. Lilly simply opened her arms and Tia slid over
the couch and into them, pressing her face into Lilly’s shoulder and letting
the tears come. She’d been here before but had hoped to never need that kind of
support again. When Nick died, no one knew quite how to handle her. Sometimes
she got so much pity from people that she couldn’t stand it, and she looked for
ways to be alone rather than deal with it. Lilly was different. She’d lost two
sons; one in a car wreck and one in a random shooting at his school; and she
knew that pity wasn’t the answer.

            Lilly helped
Tia to come to terms with what happened and to move on, and her quiet strength
and strong faith had given Tia a component that no one else had been able to
give her. Tia hoped that the strength would carry her through her life and help
her face any adversity that came her way. Apparently, adversity had a way of
breaking down even the most reinforced walls.

            “Oh sugar,”
she said, her voice vibrating against Tia’s skull. “I’m so sad for you. I can’t
imagine how you must feel. I take it you knew about this?”

            “I knew, but I
didn’t know that anyone else did. I should have, though. That’s the worst thing
about this kind of life—everything you do has the potential to be a news story,
and everyone thinks they have the right to judge you. What are they going to
think of me now?”

            Lilly stroked
her hair and let her cry. What could she say? That people would mind their own
business, or even that they would feel bad for her and give her space and
support? It wasn’t going to go down that way, and trying to sugar-coat it
wouldn’t make anything better. The majority of the public seemed to support Tia
and Dylan as a couple, and to cheer for Tia’s transformation from average Joe
to a celebrity in her own rite. She’d handled herself with class, stood tall in
the face of adversity, and didn’t let the pressure break her. Lilly could only
imagine how hard it would be to deal with everything that had been piled on
Tia’s plate, and she was proud of the way Tia maintained her quiet dignity and
didn’t let things go to her head.

            But like most
things in life, there was a flip side to that coin, and it was considerably
less shiny. Tia had already paid a price for her new life; she’d had to give up
her career, her house, and her ability to be normal; Lilly knew that the reason
she’d begged out of helping to deliver the stew to the neighbors last night was
the fear that she’d be recognized. She knew now that Tia had come to her
because she could remain anonymous, and no one would think to look for her
here. The pressure cooker was over full heat, and she felt like she was about
to blow.

            There were
those who envied Tia’s new life, and even those who took pleasure in talking
about how she didn’t deserve it. That horrible Penelope woman seemed to be
recruiting them, and they’d verbally and even physically attacked Tia for
nothing more than falling in love with a particular man. They were going to be
all over this, and they would definitely make it news.

            “Oh honey,
what can I tell you? I wish I could say that they will feel sorry for you and
that most of them will understand that you’re hurting over it, but you know as
well as I do that some them will judge you, and that a few will even take
pleasure from your pain. I know it’s futile to tell you that it doesn’t matter
what they think; that it only matters what you think and how you handle it with
Dylan; but you and I both know the truth.”

            “I honestly
don’t know what to think,” Tia sobbed. “It hurts so bad that I can’t think past
it; not right now, anyway.”