Happy Hour (24 page)

Alyssa decided to go down to the hotel bar and have a drink. Beer or wine
wasn’t going to be strong enough to relax her at all, so she ordered a whiskey and
nursed it. While sitting there, watching people, couples go in and out of the
bar, holding hands, cuddling up with one another anger overcame her. She could
have been a half of one of those couples. She shot back the drink.

“Easy there.”

Alyssa looked up to see Darren standing next to her.

“Hey. What are you doing here?”

He sat down opposite her at the small table. “I was worried about you.
Charlie and I got to talking about how difficult this all has to be for you. I remembered
you said that this was where you were staying and since it’s on my way home, I
thought I’d stop by, see if you needed anything, see if you were doing okay. I
was planning on giving you a call to see if you’d come down and have a drink
with me, but you beat me to it.”

“I guess I did.” She tried to smile at him. The waitress came by and
Alyssa ordered another drink.

“I’ll join her,” Darren said. “Must have all hit you pretty hard.”

She nodded. “It’s not Ian or Charlie and the family. It’s something,” she
sighed, “I have hidden something from people I love, from myself really, for so
long and now it’s come back to haunt me and I don’t know how to deal with it.
But I know that I have to.”

“This have to do with Ian?”

“Yes.”

“Do you want to talk about it with me? I can keep a secret.” He smiled
his big, beautiful smile that lit up his entire face and, for a second, Alyssa
forgot the pain that she was in.

The waitress came back with their drinks and Alyssa took a long sip.
Setting the glass down, she studied Darren for a minute and then she did
something she hadn’t done in years: she trusted a man.

“Four years ago, I was engaged to a man, and a few weeks before we were
to be married we had an engagement party. I actually planned to tell him the
following day about Ian. What I wasn’t prepared for was that my fiancé’s best
friend, whom I’d never met, would be someone that I really had met. Someone
that I once knew.” She took a long drink from the whiskey. “I thought I would
never see this man again. But I did. And I met his lovely wife, and found out
they had five children with another on the way.”

Darren listened and encouraged her to go on.

“This man—James—who was my fiancé Terrell’s best friend, is also Ian’s
father.”

Darren’s eyes widened and he studied her for a second before responding.
“Are you serious? What did you do? Did this guy know you’d had his child?”

She pursed her lips together and shook her head. “No,” she finally
replied.

“Why?” he asked, his eyes narrowing. “Why didn’t you tell him?”

She closed her eyes tightly for a second, images racing through her mind.
When she opened them, she blurted out her painful secret. “Because he raped
me.”

Darren’s jaw dropped. “Alyssa, my God, What did you do?”

“I broke off the engagement and I didn’t tell Terrell the truth. This man
had been his best friend since childhood. At the time I felt that if I could
get away from the past and not let anyone know about it that would be the best
way to handle it. Now it’s caught up with me.”

“I hate to ask this, but how did this happen?”

“The rape?”

He nodded.

“It was one of those situations you hear about on the news, and maybe
that was partly why I never told anyone. I wasn’t sure anyone would believe me
in the first place. I was eighteen, a freshman at Columbia. My parents were
abroad, and for the first time in my life, I felt like an adult, you know? I
wanted to major in art and I had a closet of an apartment that I shared with
another girl. Things looked good. I was out grocery shopping one night and
that’s where I met Jimmy
at the grocery store off campus. He bumped into
my grocery cart. He was good looking, funny and charming, and a few years older
than me and I thought that was sort of cool. He joked with me in front of the
fruit tables for fifteen minutes, chatting before he asked me out. I said yes,
of course.” She remembered everything like it was yesterday.

Darren shook his head.

“He took me to an expensive restaurant and we talked all evening and I
liked him. But then he started coming on to me and I wasn’t ready for that. I
hadn’t had a lot of experience with guys. I was a virgin and never dated much
in high school.

After dinner, he drove over the Brooklyn Bridge. I asked him where we
were going and he kept saying that it was a surprise. I knew I was in trouble
when he parked in an alley. I told him again that I wanted to go home, but he
told
me
that we were there to get to know each other better and I would
get home when he got me there.

“That’s when he lunged for me, ignored my cries and pleading for him to
stop. He tore my clothes, not caring what I said. Finally I gave in because I
had
no choice
. Six weeks later I found out that I was pregnant and I
made the decision to have the baby and give him up for adoption. The best part
is that when I spotted him at our engagement party, he acted like he didn’t
recognize me.” Alyssa was surprised that she didn’t feel like crying or choking
on emotion. She didn’t feel as though she were suffocating—something she’d felt
time and again when she thought about that night. Telling the story to Darren
was almost like talking about a book she’d read or a movie she’d seen. The
distance of it all and time had seemed to make it easier, and she let out a
relieved sigh.

“You’ve been carrying that,
all that
for this long?” he finally
said.

“Yes,” she whispered.

“Alyssa, you don’t need to carry it alone any longer. You are so brave,
woman. Unbelievably courageous.”

“You can’t tell Charlie or Ian. Please.”

“No. I know. I won’t. But what I can help you through this. You should
not do this alone. That bastard needs to be called out on it and, whether or
not he is a match for Ian, he needs to pay some restitution.”

She shook her head. “Darren, I don’t need a hero here.  I am grateful you
want to help me, but I don’t need you going to battle with this man. All I want
is for him to be tested and if he is a match, for him to donate the bone
marrow. I don’t need anything else.”

He sat back. “If that’s what you want.”

“There’s one thing, maybe,” she said.

“Anything.”

“Maybe you could make the initial phone call to get his number and then
call him.”

“It’s done. I’ll do whatever you need.”

“Thank you.” She smiled and in so many ways felt relieved. After
finishing their drinks, Darren walked with her to her room. They planned to
meet in the morning. He gave her a kiss on the cheek and started back to the
elevator.

“Darren?”

He turned around.

“Will you stay the night with me?”

Kat was dreaming—something about a waterfall in Hawaii and eating
pineapple. Nice, but then a monkey was at her side tugging on her arm and
saying her name in a small voice. Maybe it wasn’t Hawaii after all. Were there
even monkeys in Hawaii?

“Kat, Kat, Kat. My bed.”

“Your bed?”

“Uh-huh. I wet it. I’m sorry.”

Slowly Kat realized this was no longer a dream and the tugging on the
T-shirt she slept in wasn’t coming from a monkey. It was Amber. Kat sat up.
“What is it, honey?”

“I wet my bed,” Amber said in a quiet voice.

Kat slid out of her bed. Christian softly snored. Not much woke him,
especially after a long night at the restaurant. She took Amber’s hand and led
her into the bathroom. They both blinked their eyes several times as Kat
flipped the switch and assessed the situation.

“I’m sorry,” Amber said again, tears pooling in her big eyes.

“You don’t need to be sorry. Accidents happen. Let’s get you out of the
wet jammies and clean you up.” Kat helped her out, ran some warm water in the
tub and wiped her off, and then dried her. “Go get in bed with your daddy and
I’ll change your sheets.”

“Thank you.” Amber hugged her hard. “I don’t wet my bed too much, but
sometimes I do. Mommy says it’s when I’m tired.”

“I am sure you were very tired. Now go and get in bed.”

Kat stripped the sheets off the twin bed in Amber’s room. The urine had
soaked through and there had been no protective sheet on the bed. Amber had
stayed with them plenty of times and never wet the bed, so Kat hadn’t prepared
for this. It took her a good fifteen minutes to get it all cleaned up and she
knew she couldn’t put new sheets on until the following day. So she went back
to her bed where a little girl and her daddy slept. When Kat lay down, Amber
immediately scooted up next to her and began twirling Kat’s shoulder length
hair in her fingers. Kat realized that she was becoming this child’s mother
and, oddly enough, she welcomed it. Amber felt as much her own as the boys did
to her, and then she remembered that tomorrow Emily would be coming to pick
Amber up for the weekend and she sighed.

In the morning, she woke tangled up in the soft white sheets and brightly
striped duvet cover, with Amber’s arm across her shoulders. Divine smells
wafted from the kitchen. Coffee, for sure, and was that vanilla and butter in the
air? Christian was making his famous Grand Marnier French toast. How lovely.
Oh, and bacon. Kat loved bacon. Who didn’t love bacon? What was he trying to
do? She’d be signing up for Weight Watchers after this morning.

Kat eased Amber’s arm off of her and rolled over. What a sweet face to
wake up to. Tangles of blonde hair whisked across her little heart shaped face,
her long dark eyelashes covering the pretty hazel eyes that now looked at Kat
with trust and love. She had no idea that she would fall so deeply in love with
this child and so quickly. Yes, she’d known her for years, but their
relationship had always been strained and because of Emily’s brainwashing.
Usually Amber only wanted to be with Christian when she’d come to stay, but it
was different now. Amber was smart and Kat sensed that the girl felt abandoned
by her mom. Kat silently agreed that Amber was right: Emily had dumped her and
moved onto a new life, a new family. That felt familiar.

She thought of Venus, who was probably off on her morning hike and then
headed to yoga and meditation. So much for the oodles of time that she’d
promised to spend with them. Since she’d landed, her mother had been on the
hunt for yoga studios, spas, organic food markets, psychics, and New Age
bookstores. Today, though, after Emily picked up Amber, Kat had agreed to join
her mother in a yoga class, and then supposedly Venus had some big, fun
surprise in store for her. Kat didn’t have much time for surprises. Saturday
night was a big night at the restaurant and Christian would need her there.
Since Amber had moved in, they’d decided to hire another sommelier and Kat had
cut her work at the restaurant in half.

Amber stretched and yawned, sleepy eyes blinking. “Hi, Mommy.”

“No honey, it’s me, Kat.”

“But you are a mommy.”

“I am.”

“Can I call you Mommy Kat?”

Kat pulled her close and hugged her. “Of course you can.” Mommy
Kat—funny, but cute.

“Something smells good,” Amber said, and sat up.

“Sure does. Maybe we should head into the kitchen and see what’s going
on.” She took Amber’s hand and they walked down the long hall of their ranch
style home. The house was done up Southwestern style with jute rugs, lots of
leather seating, and bench stools in traditional handwoven kilims in colors of
seafoam green, bright orange, and dark brown. While the house had been in
escrow, Kat and Christian had taken a long weekend jaunt to New Mexico and fell
in love with the southwest style and flair.

The smells from the kitchen grew stronger—garlic and onion were in the
mix now. And there was laughter. Who was Christian laughing with? Her mother?
Yes. Shit. Her mother was probably filling his head with her stupid New Age
crap. Wait a minute, more laughter. Jeremy? He was up before ten o’clock? It
was only eight-thirty.

“Hey, guys,” Kat said, interrupting what seemed to be an inside joke as
Jeremy, Christian, and her mom stifled their laughter. “Looks like I’m
interrupting. What’s going on in here?”

Amber let go of her hand and ran to Christian, wrapping her arms around
him, “Daddy, Daddy, what are you making?”

“French toast. And, no, you are not interrupting. Your mom was telling us
about the time when she dressed as a punk rocker on Halloween and showed up at
your high school to pick you up.”

“Mom! Did she tell you that it wasn’t Halloween yet?” Kat made a face at
her mother, who looked bright and cheery with her auburn hair (colored by
natural dyes) pulled back tightly, and her makeup (all mineral and natural) applied
perfectly. Kat ran her hand through her mussed brunette hair through which she’d
noticed had a few strands of gray, and wrapped her comfy terry cloth robe
tightly around her, moving toward the coffee pot.

Her mom waved a hand in the air. “Please. It was a week early. I loved
the costume and thought you’d think it was funny.”

“No. I was mortified, especially when Chad Becker who I had a huge crush
on saw you and you winked at him.”

“I was only having fun.”

“What’s a punk rocker?” Amber asked.

Christian laughed. “Yes, Nanny V, do tell us what a punk rocker is?”

“I wasn’t just any punk rocker, you know.”

“No, Mom. We are so not going there.” She poured her coffee.

“Who were you, Nanny?” Jeremy asked.

Kat turned to him, surprised to see him dicing tomatoes. “What are you
doing?” Kat asked. “And why are you up?”

“He’s chopping tomatoes for me,” Christian said.

“I’m up because Christian woke me about an hour ago and asked me to take
out the trash and come help fix breakfast.” He answered without his usual sarcasm
and Kat squinted suspiciously at him. Jeremy shrugged. “I didn’t mind.”