Homecoming (5 page)

Survivor's guilt
, her therapist had called it—the one Eleanora insisted Lyse see when she was fifteen and the nightmares had been at their worst.
Because you lived and your parents died.

Removing her cell phone from her pocket, she ignored the old texts and messages and dialed Carole's number.

She hadn't realized it before, but she really needed to hear her best friend's voice. Maybe then she could find the strength to pull herself together and be strong for Eleanora.

“Holy my God, where the hell are you?” Carole said before Lyse could even open her mouth.

No
hello
s or
how are you
s from Carole. Her best friend always got right to the point.

“I'm in Los Angeles—”

“Bemo ate a box of crayons from his toy box last night and we ended up at the emergency room—”

“Wait,
what
happened?” Lyse said without missing a beat. She was used to Carole's habit of changing the subject on a dime. “Is he okay?”

“Gonna be pooping rainbows, but otherwise he's great. He thought it was hysterical. I did not,” Carole said. “You listen to my message? I doubt it because you sound way too composed. Someone broke into your place this morning—it's not a mess, but your computer's gone.”

Lyse stopped in the middle of the sidewalk, the neighborhood sounds—car engines, trash cans being dragged up driveways, the chatter of children playing behind gated yards—growing louder as her sense of reality flipped upside down.

“No, I didn't,” Lyse said, finally. “Listen to the message, I mean. Damn, you're kidding me . . .”

Through the phone line, she could hear Carole shaking her head.

“I don't kid about that kinda stuff, baby.”

“Fuck.”

“Yeah,
fuck
is right,” Carole echoed, but she whispered the word
fuck
. Carole was a single mom whose little one, Bemo, had big ears and a nasty habit of repeating whatever he heard adults say. “I'm on it. The police came—but your neighbor got hit, too, so they think it's hopheads looking for stuff to sell for drugs. Now, why are you in L.A.? What's up with Eleanora?”

Carole knew Eleanora from her great-aunt's visits to Athens. Eleanora adored Bemo, and he was just as smitten with her.

“It's bad,” Lyse said, and her throat tightened. “Really bad.”

“Hmm,” Carole said.

“She's dying,” Lyse said, and swallowed hard. “I haven't gotten into the specifics, but apparently there's nothing they can do.”

“Oh, babe, I'm so sorry,” Carole said—and the pity in her best friend's voice almost broke Lyse.

For the first time in years, she wished she had a smoke. “I want a cigarette.”

“No, you don't,” Carole said—a hard edge to her words.

Carole had given up smoking when she'd unexpectedly gotten pregnant with Bemo. Then she'd threatened to ban Lyse from the delivery room unless she quit, too. Bemo was a toddler now and Lyse had never regretted the decision . . . until today.

“What's up with leaving all the lights on at the nursery?” Carole continued, changing the subject again. “You just can't do that, Bear. Overhead is expensive enough as it is without you adding to it. You can leave on the necessary-to-plant-life lights. Everything else, no.”

After Bemo was born, Carole decided she was sick of working for other people, and she persuaded Lyse to leave their jobs at one of the local nurseries and open The Center of the Whorl together.

Carole was the business brains behind the outfit, and Lyse had the magic touch with the plants. So far, they'd done pretty well for themselves, but when you owned and worked your own business, you were always waiting for the other shoe to drop. Especially where finances were concerned.

“Yeah, I was in a bit of a daze when I left . . . Eleanora called me while I was still at work.”

There was a break in the conversation—as if Carole were waiting for Lyse to say more, and when nothing came she said softly:

“You okay, Bear? Other than Eleanora and the house? 'Cause you sound weird.”

Lyse was dying to tell Carole about the strange things she'd been experiencing, but she knew they'd just sound ridiculous, and Carole was nothing if not pragmatic.

Lyse pulled off the hood of the shawl, letting it bunch around the back of her neck and shoulders. The drizzle had stopped, and the crisp, clean smell of growing things filled her nostrils. She took a deep breath, enjoying the earthy smell.

“Uhm, yeah, I'm okay . . .”

“What are you gonna do?” Carole asked, using her
I'm a mother, so don't bullshit me
tone. “How long are you gonna be out there?”

“I don't know,” Lyse said, running her hand along the front of a tall redwood fence while she walked. “I guess I'll talk to her doctors, see if there's anything she hasn't told me. Figure out what I can do to make her happy while she's . . . you know.”

“Damn, Bear.”

An older man was leaning against his chain-link fence, watching Lyse as she talked. It made her feel exposed, standing there on the sidewalk, so she decided to walk faster.

“I don't want to talk about it anymore,” Lyse said. “Talking about it just makes me want to cry—and I don't want to do that right now. Tell me about the house, okay?”

“Sure thing,” Carole said—the last bit of
thing
cut off by a loud screech on Carole's end of the line.
“Bemo, no! I said no cookie right now—”

Lyse couldn't help but smile. The thought of Bemo—Carole's ridiculously adorable hellion of a three-year-old—standing in the middle of the kitchen, hands on hips, shaking his auburn curls, and demanding his mama's attention was just too damn wonderful.

“I miss Beams already,” Lyse said, feeling an ache in her heart the size and shape of Carole's toddler.

“You want him? I'll put the little monster on a plane to Los Angeles right now.”

She knew Carole was only teasing. Bemo was the greatest thing that'd ever happened to her best friend, and she would never let him out of her sight. Still, the thought of Bemo hanging out with Eleanora was, like, the best thing ever.

“I'll take him,” Lyse said. “Eleanora would love to have him come stay.”

“Yeah, he is pretty damn adorable,” Carole said, and Lyse could hear the pride in her friend's voice.

“He's the best,” Lyse agreed, wishing she were back in Athens with Carole and Bemo instead of hiding out in Los Angeles. In many ways, Carole and her son were as much a part of her family as Eleanora was. She'd been there holding Carole's hand when Bemo was born, so if that didn't count for something, she didn't know what did.

“Here, take the cookie. I need quiet while I talk to Bear,”
Carole said to Bemo. “Jeez Louise, that kid has
energy
! Okay, so where were we?”

“Do I need to do anything about the house?”

“They broke a window, but I've got a glazier coming,” her friend replied, and Lyse could hear the strain in Carole's voice as she hoisted Bemo onto her hip. “Beams and I can go over there tonight and start putting it back together for you.”

“You wouldn't mind?” Lyse asked, surprised to find herself standing in front of a tiny modern glass-and-metal coffee bar that definitely hadn't been there when Lyse was growing up.

“Of course. It's my job to help my best friend out,” Carole said. “And please send my love to Eleanora, okay?”

“I will,” Lyse said, peering around the row of hedges separating the coffee bar from the local elementary school. “I just wish she were a little easier to reach. It's difficult to really break through to her.”

“She raised you, and she loves you,” Carole said.

“I know.”

There was nothing to add. Carole had called it: Eleanora loved her and she loved Eleanora. Lyse just needed to hold on to that and let it help her through the messed-up times.

“Hey, I need to run, but thank you. For letting me know what's going on,” Lyse said. “Am I terrible? I just can't even think about what's happening back there right now. And you can handle the nursery on your own for a while?”

“I can run the place blindfolded, Bear,” Carole said, and Lyse could hear Bemo screeching to be let down. “Plus—and I didn't want to say anything until I knew for sure—but Frank is gonna come and stay with us while his place is being renovated. He says it'll help him learn to be a proper dad, and I'm willing to let him try.”

Bemo's dad, Frank, was in the picture, but he spent time with Bemo only when he felt like it—which she knew upset Carole. This was a big step forward where Frank was concerned, and she really hoped it didn't end badly.

“I think that's great,” Lyse said, the smell of coffee hitting her in the face. “If you trust Frank, so do I.”

“He's gonna be on Mr. Mom duty—even if he doesn't know it yet,” Carole said, mischievously.

“You're so funny.”

“And that's why you love me—
Bemo! Stop harassing the cat!
” Carole obviously had her hands full. “Gotta go, too, Bear. Love you.”

“Love you. And Beams!” Lyse said, cradling the cell phone to her ear; she could hear Bemo laughing maniacally in the background as the line went dead in her hand.

She slid the cell phone back into her pocket and decided she needed some caffeine after that interaction. She'd have a latte or something, sit there and let her brain process the fact that someone had broken into her place . . . because that was just
insane
. There wasn't anything in her place worth stealing. No money, no high-end electronics . . . She didn't even own a television—

“Penny for your thoughts, pretty lady.”

The voice came from behind her, a rich and commanding male baritone. Surprised, she jumped like a cornered cat, whirling around to find the most captivating man she'd ever seen standing on the sidewalk, grinning down at her.

“S
orry, I didn't mean to frighten you,” the man said, looking anything but contrite.

“I was just a little lost,” Lyse replied, embarrassed by the way she'd initially responded to him. “In my head. I do that. Take a walk in there and get lost.”

The man laughed, throwing back his honey-blond head, so all she could see were straight white teeth and pale pink lips stretching into a wide grin. Even when he was done laughing, the smile stayed in place, and she didn't know if she was supposed to be offended or pleased that the man found her babbling hilarious.

“You look concerned,” he said, feigning seriousness—though there was still a twinkle in his blue eyes.

“Well, I don't know if you were laughing
at
me or
with
me—”

“Both,” he said, grinning again.

She realized he had sexy eyes, pale blue irises flecked with gold, the skin around them cross-hatched with tiny lines from laughing too much. There was something else interesting about them, too. The pupils were very large, even in the daylight, and Lyse remembered reading somewhere that dilated pupils made a person more attractive.

Whether this was really true or not seemed inconsequential—because it wasn't just his eyes that drew her to him; it was his whole vibe. The way he carried himself, the calm confidence exuding from his lean body. This was a man who knew who he was and what he wanted—and, if she wasn't careful, Lyse was going to end up on his “wanted” list.

Trying to distract herself, she looked past him to the covered patio. Here, people sat scattered around small chrome patio tables drinking coffee, working on their laptops, or chatting. Behind the patio and through the building's plate-glass front wall, Lyse could see the interior of the coffee bar, the line snaking around the front of the register as a couple of young baristas filled orders.

“You going inside?” the man asked, scratching the side of his nose with a curled finger, the sleeve of his green flannel shirt slipping down to expose the vivid black-and-purple edges of an octopus tentacle ringing his wrist.

The tattoo reached out from inside the folds of his sleeve, and Lyse was certain if she was ever so lucky as to see him without his shirt on, there would be even more octopus to discover.

The man saw Lyse noticing his tattoo and gave her a languid smile.

“That's Clyde,” he said. “Wanna see the rest of him?”

Without meaning to, she found herself nodding, and suddenly he was stripping off the flannel—a weathered wifebeater kept things chaste—and turning his forearm toward her, so she could see Clyde the octopus in the flesh.

“Incredible,” she said, and, without realizing what she was doing, found herself reaching out to touch him.

She yanked her hand back but continued to marvel at the beautifully rendered piece of art. It was all swirling tentacles, rounded body, and haunting amber eyes, the vertically slit pupils reminding Lyse of a cat's eyes. Clyde wasn't alone on the man's skin. His arms and torso, at least what she could see of them around the wifebeater, were covered in intricate nautical-themed ink, his body a misguided mash note to the sea.

She felt strangely vulnerable standing in the middle of the sidewalk with this man. She wasn't just looking at his tattoos. She was sharing something intimate with him, speaking a wordless language that was all about context, made up of tentative, shared looks and shyly averted eyes—and then before she could really process everything, the show was over. He was pulling his flannel back on and buttoning it into place.

“I love it,” Lyse said. “Clyde's gorgeous.”

“Appreciate that,” he said, taking a green knit cap out of his back pocket and pulling it down over his head, a few naughty strands of blond hair poking out. “So what's your deal? You live around here?”

Lyse wanted to say that yes, she lived here. That this was
her
neighborhood, and
he
was the interloper—but nostalgia didn't make her the owner of a place. Just because her most poignant memories were made here didn't mean Echo Park belonged to her.

“I used to live here. Up the street, actually,” Lyse found herself saying. “But I haven't been back in ages.”

The man nodded.

“It's a special place,” he said. “You feel it in your bones. When you belong somewhere. From the moment I set foot here, I knew it's where I was meant to be. Sounds stupid. Don't know why I'm telling you this . . .”

He seemed embarrassed by his words, as if he'd unconsciously divulged too much information about himself.

The funny thing was that she understood completely. He'd described the exact same feeling she'd had standing on Eleanora's front porch one wet afternoon twelve years ago, hope burning in her heart like a precious flame. She remembered shaking like a leaf, terrified she'd have to go back to the children's home—just the memory of the place with its urine stink and unwashed-body smell made her feel ill—but then she'd looked up into Eleanora's wise granite face and realized she was home.

Home.

The word caromed around inside her head.

“Where did you just go?” he asked, grinning at her.
The man couldn't stop smiling, could he?

He was right. She'd been a million miles away and hadn't even realized it. Now it was Lyse's turn to be embarrassed.

“Sorry,” she said, looking down at her hands, at the bitten cuticles and ragged nails.

“It's a charming quality,” he said. “I'm Weir. By the way.”

“That's a very sexy name you got there, Weir,” Lyse said, looking up at him through lowered lashes, surprised by her own flirtatiousness.

“Oh . . . yeah?” he said, and blinked, taken aback—no, not taken aback . . .
flustered
. She'd thrown him off his game.

“Sorry,” she squeaked, embarrassed again. “I don't normally flirt so unabashedly. So, let's start over. I'm Lyse. And I'll be on my best behavior from now on.”

“Nice to meet you,
Lyse
, who will be on her best behavior from now on,” Weir said, nodding as if he liked the feel of her name on his tongue.

She brushed her bangs out of her eyes, annoyed with them for getting in the way
and
for making her feel like an awkward teenage girl all over again.

“Well . . .” Lyse said, and let the word linger.

“Well . . . I'm gonna go inside,” he said, and lifted his arm, indicating she should go ahead of him. “After you?”

She shook her head.

“Maybe in a minute,” she said, quirking her eyebrow in the coffee bar's direction. “Is the coffee good?”

“Well, I think so, but I'm biased.”

“Why's that?” she asked, teasing. “You own the place or something?”

He shook his head, more blond hair falling out from beneath his knit cap.

“Nah, just roast the beans they make their coffee with,” he said, grinning. “A man's gotta eat, and roasting coffee is the way I do it.”

Then, when she didn't make a move toward the coffee bar, he shook his head and went through the gap in the hedges without her.

“See you around, Lyse?” he asked, turning back to look at her.

She shrugged.

“Maybe,” she called after him.

“I hope so,” he said, and then she watched him cross the patio, admiring the confident way he carried himself—and she might've checked out his butt a little, too, just because she could.

He paused halfway across the patio to talk to a teenage girl who was sitting at one of the tables holding a sketch pad in her lap, a bright pink scarf wrapped around her long neck.

The girl looked up from the sketch pad, smiling at Weir as he talked, though she remained strangely quiet. Lyse felt a stab of envy. The girl was gorgeous, and obviously a favorite of her new friend.

She was tall and willowy, her long legs tucked up underneath her as she reached for her coffee, delicately sipping from the lip of her mug. As Weir continued to talk, the girl's thick reddish-brown hair fell forward, gentle curls framing her face before slipping down her back in thick waves.

Lyse was too far away to hear what Weir was saying, but suddenly the girl's golden-brown gaze had turned in her direction, the dark almond eyes sliding over Lyse, cataloging her.

Lyse smiled back at the girl, trying to defuse the awkwardness she felt at being examined like a bug under a microscope, but the girl only blinked back at her, long lashes floating like butterfly wings as they brushed the tops of her cheeks. Lyse's smile froze as the girl cocked her head, brows furrowing, before returning her attention back to Weir.

Odd,
Lyse thought as she watched Weir wave good-bye to the girl, then open the heavy metal door to the coffee bar and go inside.

She decided she didn't really want a latte anymore. She felt out of sorts, and the thought of dealing with Weir again was off-putting. He was obviously a ladies' man, and she was just another pretty lady to play with. She turned on her heel, starting to move away from the patio entrance, but stopped when she felt a gentle tap on her shoulder.

It was the teenage girl—and Lyse had been right. She was tall. Well over six feet with a coltish quality about the way she moved, as though she weren't quite comfortable in her own skin. Up close the girl's beauty was less formed, more immature, like standing in front of an Impressionist's work and seeing the chaotic slap of brushstrokes that from far away resolve into lush landscapes and intricate human forms. Lyse noticed the smattering of light-red freckles on the bridge of the girl's sharp nose, the pimple on the girl's chin, the chapped lips. They were tiny flaws, barely worth mentioning, but somehow they made the girl seem more human and less like an alien creature from the planet Supermodel.

The girl stood there, hands twisting together in front of her waist, eyes skittering here and there: anywhere but Lyse's face.

A shy one,
Lyse thought, feeling for the girl.

She'd been a shy kid, too. It was only in college, when she'd finally found a group of friends she trusted, that she blossomed and stopped giving a shit about what other people thought of her.

“Hi,” Lyse said, breaking the silence.

The girl blushed, her golden cheeks flushing a deep pink, and then she held up her right hand, producing a slender pointer finger. Like a magician in the middle of a silent stage show, she was telling Lyse to hold on.

Lyse nodded, and the girl took off, returning a moment later with her pad. She pulled a pencil from her back pocket and began to write, her brow furrowed in concentration. When she was done, she brandished the pad in front of her:

I'm Lizbeth. Are you the Bear?

Lyse was surprised by the use of her pet name, and she must've made a funny face because before she realized what was happening, the girl was abruptly retracting the pad, embarrassment flaming her cheeks again.

“No, don't run away,” Lyse said, reaching for the girl's arm to stop her from leaving—she was curious to find out how this kid knew who she was. “You're right. I'm Bear, but no one here calls me that except my great-aunt.”

The girl nodded, held up a finger. After a few seconds of scribbling, she flipped over the sketch pad again:

She said you were coming home today.

Obviously the
she
being referenced was Eleanora—who else could it be? Lyse's thoughts froze as something about the exchange with the girl hit a bull's-eye deep inside her unconscious mind, illuminating something she'd been too dazed to put together earlier that morning:
If she hadn't told Eleanora she was coming home, how had her great-aunt known to pick her up at the airport?

The thought was unsettling.

“Who are you?” Lyse whispered, taking a step back.

The girl reached for Lyse's hand, her long fingers fluttering like frightened birds, but Lyse jerked her hand out of the girl's reach.

“Don't touch me,” Lyse said, still backing away. “I don't know you and you're freaking me out.”

The girl wrote on the sketch pad, her pencil working furiously:

Please, don't be upset. I don't want to freak you out.

“This is the oddest conversation I've ever had,” Lyse murmured, and the girl smiled, nodding in agreement—but then she was back, writing on her pad again.

“Look, it was, uh, nice to meet you, but I gotta go,” Lyse said—and she took off before the girl could finish writing out her last thought.

It was a graceless exit, and she wasn't proud of herself for it, but she needed a break from all the weirdness.

As she continued down Echo Park Avenue toward the little bodega, she tried to keep her mind clear, concentrating, instead, on the loud slap of her heels as they beat against the rough sidewalk. But
not
thinking was an almost impossible task. Try as she might, she couldn't stop the bizarre, half-formed thoughts from running through her head.