Flirting With Pete: A Novel (8 page)

“Have you decided whether to accept the teaching position?”

“No.”

“When do they need to know?”

“Last week.”

“Is it your mom that’s holding you back?”

“Partly. I could move her to Providence. If she was there, her friends might visit her more. I didn’t like the facility I saw, though. The one here is better.”

“But you always wanted to teach.”

Casey did look at the house then. She imagined Connie was standing at the window, looking out, saying the same thing, but in a scolding way. “Relocation is a problem, and it’s not just my mom. It’s my practice. It’s my friends.”

“Is Oliver really done?”

Casey crinkled her nose. “Yeah. Maybe I’m crazy. He’s a nice guy.”

“Last week he was a ‘great’ guy.”

“Well, I really wanted him to be, but he isn’t. I mean, some woman will think he is, but me? No. We’re at different places. He’s already there— has the law practice, the BMW, the house in the suburbs.”

“And the kids.”

“Yup, every other weekend, but I love the kids, they’re great, they’re really fun and interesting and spontaneous.”

“Sounds like you like them more than you like Ollie.”

“I do, which is why it’s over between him and me, before the kids get hurt.”

“How about Dylan? Truly just a pal?”

Casey rocked a little. “Yeah. Zero chemistry.” Considering the discussion over, she inhaled deeply. “These flowers smell so good. The whole garden’s a gem.”

“Makes moving to Providence more difficult.”

“Not because of this,” she said; she refused to let Connie be the one to hold her back. Any one of her other qualms about moving was far more compelling. “I can sell this.”

“It’s the kind of place that you used to dream of owning. Why would you sell it?”

“Because it was his.”

“That’s why you should keep it.”

“If I keep it, I invite him to judge every little thing I do.”

Brianna could analyze feelings and thoughts as well as the next clinician. What Casey loved about her, though, was that she was first and foremost down-to-earth. So now she said, “Casey, he’s dead.”

“Technically,” Casey agreed. “Spiritually, not so. In my mind he’s all over this townhouse.”

“Is it him, or the ghost that lives in the master bedroom?”

“Angus? Good name for a ghost, but no. I’m talking about Connie. He’s there in the broadest sense of the word.”

“Well, I didn’t see it. The place is nearly as impersonal as your condo.”

“Excuse me? My condo isn’t impersonal. My stuff is all over the place.”

“Mess doesn’t mean personal. Mess simply means that you aren’t neat, and that isn’t what I’m talking about. Your walls are bare. Your bookshelves are filled with professional books. Your refrigerator contains absolutely nothing that would give a clue about you or your friends.”

“My bulletin board is filled with personal pictures.”

“Tacked on. Taped on. Balanced precariously on one another, like you don’t know if they’ll stay or not and you don’t really care. You’ve been talking about putting up drapes since you bought the place, but you haven’t shopped for them once.”

“Drapes are expensive. I’m strapped just paying the mortgage. If I sell this place, I can pay the mortgage ten times over.”

That awesome fact silenced them both. In the ensuing quiet, the city sounds emerged. Traffic thrummed over Beacon Hill from the highways, rocked by a siren, the honk of a horn. A chopper flew over the State House. A bus grunted and grumbled down Beacon Street.

It was all there, but distant. Casey felt removed from the outside world. Here in the garden, the smells were of clean earth, budding flowers, and water trickling over timeworn stone. As for the siren, the honk, the grunt and the grumble, they were softened by the rustle of leaves when a gray squirrel ran up the nearby oak toward the bird feeder hanging there. Dashing out on a limb, it dropped headfirst down the cage surrounding the tube of seed. When it couldn’t squeeze through the bars, it tried to gnaw its way through one bar, then a second and a third. In time it gave up, leapt to the ground, and ran off.

“Does it feel discouraged?” Casey mused. “Does it feel confused? Does it feel like a failure in its parents’ eyes? No. It just… goes… on. I think I’d like to be a squirrel.”

“No, you wouldn’t. I saw one mashed on the street on my way here. That happened because it lacked the brains to look both ways.” Brianna slid her a wry grin. “Not that you always look both ways either.” The grin faded. “Will you mention this to Caroline?”

Casey felt the gnawing inside that thought of her mother always caused. “I already have. She didn’t bat an eyelash.”

“Oh, Casey.”

“I’m serious. I thought it might get her going— you know, fire her up to look me in the eye and say something perfectly reasonable and totally guilt-inducing.” She met Brianna’s gaze. “Not a word.”

Brianna didn’t say a word, either. She might have said,
Of course not. She’s as close to being brain dead as a person can be without actually
being
brain dead
. But Casey didn’t want to hear that. They had argued about it more than once. Casey clung to the belief that Caroline heard something, felt something, thought something. Medical science said that the likelihood of it was slim. Still, there were brain waves. They were weak. But they were there.

“Would she be happy about this, Brianna?” Casey asked.

“Yes. Caroline adores you. She wants the very best for you. She’d be thrilled that you’ve come into this.”

Casey wanted to believe it, but she had her doubts. She felt like a traitor just sitting here in Connie’s garden.

Feeling the weight of that thought, she slipped down to the bare earth. From all fours, she sat back on her heels, then gently lowered her upper body until it rested on her thighs. Her forehead touched the ground. Letting her arms trail beside her, palms up, she closed her eyes and drew in a long, slow breath.

The earth smelled rich. It felt moist against her forehead. Taking one deep belly breath after another, she focused on clearing her mind. She focused on releasing the worry, focused on relaxing, focused on the positive force of the energy her body created.

“Does that help?” Brianna asked from somewhere above.

Casey focused on the primordial coolness of the earth. She breathed slowly and deeply. “Mmm.”

“Is that your phone rattling on the table?”

“Ignore it,” she murmured between more of those same slow, even breaths. After a minute, she rolled her head from side to side, gently stretching her neck.

“It’s still shaking,” Brianna advised in a voice that moved toward the offending sound.

“Take a message,” Casey instructed. Her mother wasn’t going anywhere. The doctors were alarmists. Her friends could wait, she didn’t want to talk to Oliver or Dylan, and her clients didn’t call on her cell phone.

“Hello?… No, this is Brianna. Who… Oh, hi, John. Casey can’t come to the phone…. No, she’ll be a while…. I’m sure you
wouldn’t
be calling if it wasn’t important, but she can’t talk right now.”

Casey released a breath. Pushing her upper body erect, she put out a hand just as Brianna returned with the phone. When she put it to her ear, she said, “I hope this is good.”

“I think it is,” John informed her airily. “I’ve made a decision. I’m leaving the group.”

Casey’s spine stiffened. “Leaving the group for what?”

“Walter Ambrose and Gillian Bosch. They have an office ready for me. A receptionist is already calling my patients about the change.”

“What about us? What about our group? What about the
rent
?”

“The way I see it, I paid my rent every month. If Stuart chose to keep it, that’s the landlord’s problem. Let
him
go after Stuart, and as for the group, it’s not working for me anymore. I’m outta here, Casey. I have a practice and a reputation.”

“So do I,” Casey said.

“I have better things to do than bicker with you ladies.”

“So do
I,
” Casey insisted.

“I’m gone.”

“So am I,”
Casey fairly cried, and she didn’t back down. Swept along by indignation from one condescending dig too many, she told John her plans as they popped into her head. It was only when her thumb ended the call that she raised wide eyes to her friend in an expression that said, What have I done?

Casey didn’t say a thing. She simply held her breath and looked at Brianna.

It was a long moment before Brianna said, “Not that you always look both ways either.”

“Okay,” Casey admitted, reasoning aloud, “I’m flying by the seat of my pants here, but it isn’t so crazy, is it? I have an office inside all set to go. There’s a waiting room with its own entrance. There’s zero rent.”

“You just said you were going to sell.”

“That was before John bailed out. Without him, there’s no group.” As she said it, reality hit. “We’d have to find another psychiatrist, because a group practice needs at least one, and that’d mean getting word out and interviewing candidates, but even before that comes the question of whether I want to stay with Marlene and Renée. And then there’s the issue of finding a new place, because there’s no way we can come up with the back rent, especially now that John is washing his hands of the whole thing. He’s right; the rest of us did pay our rent. Stuart signed the lease; Stuart collected our money; Stuart pocketed it and rode off into the sunset. If the landlord goes after anyone, it’ll be him. So maybe I should be worried that something terrible has happened to him, but he and I never clicked. Now I understand why. He’s abandoned his wife, about whom I
do
worry, but Stuart? We’re talking a snake, here. He’s off somewhere, living on my hard-earned money. Well, I have an ongoing practice, and I need a place to see clients.” She looked toward the office. “Can you imagine meeting with clients in there, looking out, and seeing this? It would be totally therapeutic.”

“It’s your father’s.”

“Was. He’s dead. You pointed that out.”

“Right, and when I did, you said that in your mind he isn’t.”

Casey took a deep breath. “Well, I’ll just have to work on that. And you and I both know that the best way to do that is to confront it. Confront him. Beard the lion in his den. And here’s his den.”

“Will you sell your condo?”

“I don’t know. I haven’t thought that far. I mean, we’re not necessarily talking a permanent decision. Staying here could be a totally temporary thing.”

“How temporary? Providence can’t wait very long.”

“Things happen for a reason,” Casey said as she lifted the phone. “If I go to the effort of setting up shop here, calling clients, starting over even for a little while, maybe I’m saying that I’m meant to be in Boston. Maybe my mother will wake up. Maybe Mr. Right lives here on the Hill and will see me if I hang out on the roof deck long enough. Maybe I want a clinical practice more than I want to teach.” She pulled up a number with her thumb and made the call. “If that’s so, maybe Stuart’s disappearance and John’s defection were in the cards all along.” With expectant eyes on Brianna, she waited for the friend she was calling to answer.

“Hi, there,” said the voice on the answering machine. “It’s Joy. You got me at a bad time, so just leave a message and I’ll return your call.”

At the beep, Casey said, “It’s me, and I’m sorry you’re not free, because plan A is for you to be right here, right now with Bria and me. Since you’re not home, we go to plan B. I’m throwing a move-the-office party tomorrow morning, and I need you there. We’ll be packing up Copley Square and moving to Beacon Hill, and the prize at the end is brunch in the Garden of Eden. So be at my office at nine tomorrow morning. I know it’s early, but, trust me, it’ll be fun. See ya then.” She was smiling when she ended the call, and quickly pulled another number from those programmed into her phone.

“Brunch?” Brianna asked.

Casey made the call. “Um-hmm.” She put the phone to her ear.

“Your maid?”

Casey nodded. “You should taste her omelets.” A movement at the office door caught her eye. “Here. Look.”

Meg emerged with another tray. If the point was impressing Brianna, her timing couldn’t have been better.

“Hi, Darryl,” Casey said when the phone was picked up. “You’re the man I need.”

“Is this a romantic proposition?”

“If it were, your wife would kill me.” Standing to get a closer look at the goodies on the tray as Meg approached, Casey said into the phone, “I need you both for tomorrow morning. Actually, I need your pickup truck.” She explained about moving as the tray settled on the patio table and two places were set. “Jenna will be delighted. She hated my group from the start.” Jenna, Darryl’s wife, had gone to grad school with Casey, Brianna, and Joy. “So it’s fitting she be there when I make the break. And there’s a treat at the end— brunch in a Beacon Hill garden.” The plates now held the chicken salad that Meg had mentioned earlier. It looked spectacular. “You’re gonna
love
this, Darryl. Hey, I have to run. It’ll be fun. Can you make it?”

“Wouldn’t miss it,” Darryl promised.

Ending the call, Casey focused on the table. The chicken salad was mounded on a bed of Bibb lettuce and was accompanied by cantaloupe crescents, carrot and raisin salad, and crusty bread with dipping oil. As if that weren’t enough, Meg was filling two glasses from a pitcher.

“Tell me that’s fresh lemonade,” Casey ventured.

Meg beamed. “It is. Dr. Unger liked fresh lemonade second to iced tea.”

Casey was saved from reacting to that by Brianna, who said, “I
love
fresh lemonade.”

So did Casey. She also happened to be thirsty. After taking a long drink from one of the glasses, she turned to Meg. “Here’s a question. If I were to have a dozen people over tomorrow between eleven and twelve, could you make us brunch?”

Meg’s eyes lit with childlike enthusiasm. “I could. I used to work with a chef. We did brunch all the time. Twelve people is easy as pie. What would you like?”

Casey and Brianna exchanged anticipatory looks. “Pie,” Brianna echoed, “as in quiche?”