Driving in Neutral (32 page)

And what she’d done to Maxwell aside, something else still burned in the trench of her stomach. The other horrible thing she’d done was leave her best friend’s wedding without offering an explanation, without finishing the job she had set out to do—without seeing it through to the end, without telling Ella where she was going. The Wrath of Olivia had taken over, turned her into an automaton of fury—until remorse turned her into a bag of shame.

Throughout her weeping and ranting she’d driven on autopilot and at last had reached her destination. She stopped in front of her sandy six-flat and stared up at the third floor and the curved bay window of the apartment she called home.

Six months in the pretty place and she still felt like a house sitter. There was no way this apartment would ever feel homey now. She couldn’t bring herself to go upstairs to give it another chance. Instead, she sat in her Aston Martin and argued with herself about what she should do or where she could go.

Option A had her checking into a hotel.

Option B meant driving back to Lake Forest and Hutton House to apologize like hell.

Options C and D pointed to her sister and brother. She immediately ruled out those two choices because Julia would want to know why her little sister showed up at her Glencoe home on Ella’s wedding day, while stern, fatherly Hector would shout at her for acting so silly. And rightly so.

After she exhausted the list of alternatives to going upstairs, guilt finally gave way to self-pity and Olivia did the only thing that felt right. She sat in her car in front of her un-homey house and cried again. Over the course of ninety minutes, a cycle developed. She’d stop crying then seethe with anger, only to have guilt kick that away until she bickered with herself and dissolved back into tears.

“Time travel? Meet me at eight-thirty? Well it’s eight-thirty now, and oh yeah, I’d
love
to travel back in time—just to
let
you pass out in the elevator, you claustrophobic prick! Oh, that would be fun. That would be a joy to see. I’d go back, and back, and back just to watch you keel over.
Just between the two of us? It’s nobody’s business?
I
liked
my job you fake bastard!” She sagged over the steering wheel. “Olivia, you’re stupid, stupid, stupid.”

With the engine off, the interior of the Aston Martin quickly became a muggy little space that smelled like leather, perfume, and perspiration. She had a headache from crying so much, but she’d finally come up with a new course of action.

Sweaty from sitting inside the car, her face tearstained, her nose a bright red that rivaled Rudolph’s, she trudged inside, shoving open the inside security door, toeing off the painful three inch stilettos and leaving them in the foyer before plodding miserably upstairs.

“I saw you out there in your car.” Mr. Peck blocked the landing with his little body. He took off his black-rimmed glasses, letting them hang on the chain around his neck, and looked her up and down, lingering on the bit of thigh the slit in the dress exposed. “Welcome to the building,” he said in a gravelly voice, his moustache twitching. “I’m Daniel Peck, no relation to Gregory. I live right below you. You’re Olivia Regen. The mailman told me. You’re very quiet and I like that. You’re lovely, just like my daughter Rosalie was. Now quit your crying. It will be better in the morning. It always is. You go inside and clean yourself up. No man is worth crying over. I know it’s a man you were crying over because no one can make a woman bawl like that except a man. Trust me. I’m a man. I’m a father and I’ve been a husband. I know what I’m talking about. Men, we’re all idiots.”

She sniffled, finding the moment utterly surreal. “N-nice to meet you, Mr. Peck.”

“Go on, sweetheart. Go and change. I’ll bring you a cup of coffee.”

“Coffee?” Olivia swabbed at her nose gracelessly, using her wrist.

“Yes, coffee. The Limeys think they’re right about tea being good for whatever ails you, but they’re wrong. Coffee gives you clarity. Go on in. I’ll be there in a minute.” Mr. Peck moved aside to let her pass, and when she didn’t go he put a knobby hand on her arm and gave her a gentle little push. “Just leave the door unlocked. I won’t let anyone bother you.”

Once inside the confines of her apartment, Olivia yanked off her bridesmaid dress, washed her face and put on a pair of underpants. After she’d yanked on a summer shift dress, she came out of the bedroom to find a steaming cup of coffee on the end table beside the telephone. Mr. Peck had also left her a little plate with four homemade chocolate chip cookies. They were still warm.

Olivia sank onto the sofa and reached for the aromatic brew. She ate all four cookies in rapid succession, but took her time drinking the coffee.

Queer little Mr. Peck had been right; the coffee cleared away the heavy fog of pain and reset her focus—although that could have been the result of the sugar jolt from cookies too. Still, her tears dissipated and a modicum of sense moved back into place.

She went downstairs, left the clean cup and plate outside Mr. Peck’s door, and walked outside to her car. She pulled the phone from the glove box and called Vivian at Hutton House.

The cheerful housekeeper didn’t ask questions. She simply followed instructions and took the phone down to the boathouse, keeping a running commentary on her progress until the phone was in Ella’s hand.

There was a low buzz in the connection and occasional static, but Ella’s agitated Atlanta lilt was clear. “Olivia, where the hell ah you? Where did you and Emerson go? Ah can’t believe you left mah wedding!”

Coughing, Olivia cleared her throat, trying to get rid of the constriction as she spoke. “I left him…I left… Ella, I’ve been a terrible friend. You entrusted me with this important event. This was your day,
your day
and I took off. You needed my support and I couldn’t give it to you. I didn’t…I wasn’t there for you and you’ve always been there for me in every way, especially with Karl—”

“Karl?”

“Oh, how could you miss him and the blonde with the big tits he had hanging all over him. This…this just happened. I didn’t think. I really didn’t think about anything or the consequences. Oh fuck, I abandoned you over a man, and you’re worth so much more. You’re far more precious.” Emotional tears spouted again, rushing down her cheeks to merge with her snotty nose until she sobbed, “I’m sorry. I was only thinking of myself and I should have been thinking of you. I’m so fucking sorry.”

Ella swore. “That son of a bitch! No, wait! Wait.” she said. “I don’t mean that. I’m just…just so shocked. Oh, Craig! Craig!” Ella inhaled and the connection crackled for a moment, then the sound was muffled, as if she’d put a hand over the phone while she told Craig about her horrible, now former best friend. The cadence of her voice blended into a dulled mumble, but Olivia heard Craig’s expletive of shock.

“Olivia!” Ella said, her voice thick with tears. “Olivia, I am so, so sorry. We want you to know how…how I just want you to be happy, happy like I am with Craig. Happy like you wanted me to be and if you think this is what you have to do to be happy I’ll…support you… If this is what you had to do, if this is what you want, what you feel is right, then do it. I love you no matter what.”

“Really?”

“Yes, sugar. You’re my best friend in the whole wide world. I was a tremendous pain in the ass and you gave me a beautiful wedding despite that.”

Olivia bawled helplessly. She needed to know someone loved her and clearly Ella did, just as she always had. “Thank you,” she whispered. “I have to hang up now.” She switched off her phone and looked out the window to her apartment. It took five seconds for her to decide to go to a place she always loved, a place that felt homey and comfortable. There was no need to pack. Her bags were still in the car.

She took a deep breath, counting to four, exhaling for the same length of time. Two minutes later, with a clear head, she started the car’s engine. The tires squealed as she pulled away from the curb.

Emerson did a shitty job parking Pete’s Jeep. He launched himself from the Wrangler, and headed for the building, his anger as liquid as running lava. He had not stopped sweating since he’d been locked in the damn pantry. When Vivian found him in there, perspiring in his boxers, he’d estimated he’d sweated out the equivalent of three pounds of water weight.

While he’d been trapped inside, he hadn’t passed out the way he nearly did in the elevator, but he did have a few moments where he wigged out, and the result was a cross between a panic attack and tantrum. The shelves of linens and condiments had borne the brunt of his exasperation, terror and confusion.

Emerson discovered you most definitely could
not
unlock a door with a rolled up napkin, bag of dry roasted peanuts or a bottle of maple syrup. Candlesticks were pretty useless too and eating saltine crackers did nothing to quell the persistent nausea in his stomach the way his ex-wife mentioned it did for her morning sickness, but he tried it anyway, winding up queasier with salty crumbs in his matted, sweaty chest hair.

He’d hollered and yelled and pounded on the pantry door and walls, having fantasies the end of the world would come before anyone heard him. He’d lolled on the floor in front of the door, his lips close to the crack of light, and he sucked in huge gulps of air, worried the carbon dioxide level inside the pantry would turn his brain mushier than the claustrophobia.

When he heard the sound of heels on tiles he’d thought Olivia had finally returned and he swore, believing it had been her warped attempt to cure him of his phobia. His anger swelled into his anxiety again and when the door knob rattled, he got to his feet and slicked his damp hair back out of his eyes, wiping his nose, ready to pull her inside, lock her in and shout until she understood how it felt to be so vulnerable.

Vivian had opened the door and looked amused about his undressed state and the mess he’d made in the pantry, but she was very kind. She stood in the open door and didn’t ask for an explanation. But Emerson did explain—or rather, he raved about not understanding how the woman he’d fallen in love with could lock him inside a very tiny space with no windows or oxygen.

And then, with a grim or amused expression, Emerson was still too upset to discern between the two, Vivian had given him a glass of water, which he drank greedily, and she mentioned Olivia had left.

With Karl.

“
That fuckwhistle douchestick
” had sprung from his cracked, dry lips, and Emerson grabbed his discarded clothes from the floor of the pantry. He tore out of the kitchen, dressing as he ran up the back steps. He threw open the door to Olivia’s room to discover she’d cleared out her things, and it felt like he’d been kicked in the chest by a three inch spiked heel.

It was impossible and he didn’t believe it. He didn’t want to believe she’d gone anywhere with
Karl
.

Christ, he’d never driven so fast in his life and he’d never been to Olivia’s house before. He wasn’t even sure which apartment was hers, but he knew her building’s address. He leaned on a door buzzer, the only one without a name in the foyer of the six-flat. He pressed all the bells until someone responded.

“Who is it?” a creaky voice emanated from the small intercom.

“It’s me,” he said. The internal security door buzzer released the lock and he yanked the door open and bolted up the stairs, darting by the small elderly man who stood in his open doorway on the second floor.

“Who are you?” the older man demanded, a startled expression on his wrinkled bespectacled face as he moved onto the landing to watch Emerson rushing up the next flight of steps. “Hey, ‘
it’s me’
, who are you?” he called out, climbing the treads.

Emerson heaved an intolerant sigh and paused, his fist ready to hammer on Olivia’s door. “Maxwell,” he said.

“Uh-huh. And what do you think you’re doing,
Mister
Maxwell?”

“Visiting my…”
What
was he doing? Who was he visiting? Who was Olivia anyhow? Was she simply the woman whose lavender-scented neck he wanted to wring or was she his girlfriend?

Or lover?

Or future wife?

Flustered by the uncertainty, Emerson inhaled sharply. “It’s none of your business why I’m here!” he rumbled.

“You rang every buzzer. I heard you down there.” The elderly man had reached the landing. “You’re the
it’s me
I let in.”

“No, the lady in this apartment let me in.”

“No, she didn’t.”

“Yes she did.”

“Bullshit. She did
not
!”

Emerson was skating the rim of what was left of his patience and he barked like a neglected junkyard dog, “Mind your own business, Grandpa! Go home and watch a game show! Have a glass of warm milk and go to bed!”

“I know I’m old, but don’t you think you can push me around. I
know
the lady isn’t home.”

The old man took two steps forward and leaned close, right under his nose. Two narrow fingers poked into Emerson’s chest. He caught the sweet fragrance of chocolates and sherry.

“If you don’t leave,” the wizened man pushed his glasses up his nose, “I will kick your ass, call the police, and toss you out on the sidewalk myself.”

Emerson had a good thirteen inches and seventy pounds over the little man. For a fleeting moment he felt the menace in the old man’s tone, but he turned his back, ignoring the threat, and began to pound on Olivia’s door, bellowing, “Olivia, open the damn door! Open this door
now
! You owe me an explanation, so open the fu—”

The foot that hit him squarely in the coccyx resulted in a jolt up his spine, and it was breathtaking. Emerson sagged against Olivia’s door, the pain shooting along his arms to his palms now flattened on the face of the door, the surge finally ending as it left the tips of his fingers.

When he turned, the wizened gentleman had his fists raised in an old-time pugilistic stance, his chin tucked against his chest. “You going to leave or do you want another kick up the ass before I call the police?”

Olivia was not about to sacrifice twelve of her favorite CDs to another failed love affair. She’d lost enough of her music collection to Karl. Besides the music she’d left in her office, the irreplaceable photos of her parents were there too. Since lunchtime was when the fewest E&P employees were around, she infiltrated the building to collect her precious things. She crossed the lobby and got in an elevator car—the one place she knew she didn’t have to worry about bumping into Maxwell. She rode to the twentieth floor and moved through the empty linoleum tiled hallway. As quietly as possible, she unlocked her office, left the keys in the door, and went inside to stuff the pictures and CDs into a wide shoulder bag.