So Much for My Happy Ending (20 page)

“April!” I snapped my eyes open at the sound of Allie calling my name. Jeremiah let his hands go limp and the music stopped. He grinned at me and for a second I felt as if we had both done something that we should feel ashamed of. But that was ridiculous. He had just played his music, and I had just listened.

Allie got up and draped her arm around my waist before giving me a friendly shake. “Where have you been? I thought you forgot about me.”

“No one could forget about you, Allie,” I said, struggling to keep my tone light. “I just totally lost track of time. Forgive me?”

“Always.” She gestured to the three guys I didn't know, “April, this is Dallas, Gary and Paul. And of course you already know Jeremiah.”

We all exchanged quick hellos and small talk. After a few minutes Jeremiah suggested that the group take a half-hour break. Dallas and Gary went inside the house, so it was just Paul, Allie, Jeremiah and me.

I liked Paul. He was funny in a crude kind of way and he was clearly very into Allie. I could tell by the way he smiled at her while fiddling with his guitar pick. “Hey, um, you still want to see those records I was tellin' you about?” he asked. “I even have some old 45s from the seventies. You'll dig 'em.” It was clear from the way he angled his body toward Allie that the invitation did not extend to Jeremiah or me.

Allie smiled and looked up at me to see if I was okay with being abandoned.

I nodded and gently shoved her away. “Go, I know you love that kind of stuff.” Allie couldn't care less about 45s, but as long as he had a mattress and a naughty attitude she'd be a happy camper.

Jeremiah stuck his thumbs into the empty belt loops of his jeans and transferred his weight back onto his heels. “So you thirsty? Allie's drinking margaritas. I can mix you one if you want.”

I started to refuse but then an image of Tad punching a hole in his office wall flashed before my eyes. “Actually, a margarita would be great.”

I followed Jeremiah inside. Dallas and Gary had already made themselves a sandwich and were in the living room watching football on a television that was probably a few years older than me.

Jeremiah directed me to the kitchen. He reached into the refrigerator and pulled out a half-full blender of what looked like margarita mix. “You like it strong?”

“What?” I felt my cheeks heat up.

“Do you like your margaritas strong?”

“Oh…yeah…strong is good.”

Jeremiah mixed the drink quickly and poured it into a plastic cup identical to the one Allie had been drinking from. He sat down at a small brown kitchen table that someone had probably picked up at a neighborhood garage sale.

I pulled out a chair opposite him and took a long drink.

“You okay?”

I stared at the slushy liquid in my cup. “What's the deal between you and Tad?”

Jeremiah shifted uncomfortably in his chair but remained silent.

“What aren't you telling me, Jeremiah? What part of Tad's past do you think I need to be protected from?”

“I don't think you need to be protected from any of the shit Tad may or may not have pulled in the past.” Jeremiah rolled his knuckles along the wood surface of the table. “What's got me worried is the shit he might try to pull now.”

I heard a crinkling noise and realized that I was squeezing my cup a little too tightly. I relaxed my grip and pulled on my reserves of courage. “I need you to be a little more specific. Is there a reason you don't like him? Did you have a thing for Jackie?”

“Nah, Jackie and I were buds, but she was a bit much for me. She's a little too emotionally charged.”

“Tad says she's a pathological liar.”

“Pathological? No, that's overstating it, but she has been known to put a weird spin on the truth. I remember her telling me about this dude she'd been dating—claimed he had smacked her around and she had a bruise on her cheek to prove it. So I went to the guy's house to set him straight. When he came to the door I could see he had been majorly worked over. Jackie'd given him a black eye, busted his lip open and bloodied his fucking nose. Then I find out she threw the first punch. Now, I know that there's no excuse for hitting a woman, but if some chick tried to use my face as a punching bag I'd take the bitch down.” He shrugged as if to apologize for any possible offense I might have taken. “So I figured the shit she told me about Tad needed to be taken with a grain of salt.”

“All right.” I waved my hand in the air impatiently. “I promise I'll take it with a whole liter of salt, just tell me what she said.” Jeremiah hesitated again. I leaned forward and grabbed his hand. “Come on, you want to tell me and I think…I think I really need to know.”

Jeremiah nodded. His eyes took on that vacant look of someone who was remembering the past. “One of Jackie's problems is that she's a my-way-or-the-highway kind of babe. But what's cool about her is she knows her faults and she owns up to them. What you see is what you get. No manipulation, no guessing games. Tad's the total opposite, or at least he used to be. He comes off as this real laid-back guy who will bend over backward to help his friends. But when you think he's helping you get what you want, what he's really doing is convincing you to
want
what
he
wants. He was just as controlling as Jackie but he hid it a lot better.”

The sound of cheering coming from the next room brought Jeremiah back to the present. He got up and pulled a beer out of the refrigerator. “Never understood what the big deal was over football. If you're not going to play the game, then why would you get all excited about watching a whole bunch of grown men roll all over each other?”

“Is that what Jackie told you?” I whispered, ignoring his last comment. “That he was a control freak disguised as a laid-back boyfriend?”

“No, that's just my take on it.” Jeremiah used a bottle opener to pop the top off his beer. He sat down again without getting a glass. “Jackie…Jackie told me he was unstable.”

I felt my heart skip a beat. “Define unstable.”

“See, that's the thing…I can't. Even she couldn't really put her finger on it. She said he'd get seriously wigged out over stupid shit. Like she would ask him if he ever planned to go to Atlanta to see his parents and the guy would just lose it.”

I felt my back stiffen, this was sounding too familiar. “Tad's parents are in Georgetown,” I said absently.

“Really? Shit, I would have sworn it was Atlanta. Anyway, she thought he was a little whacked, and when they split up he got…weird.”

“Weird?” I could barely speak. I could hear Tad making those comments about his partners, and then there was the way he had stared at the wall in Barcelona….

Jeremiah was looking in every direction but mine. “Yeah, but like I said,
Jackie's
weird, so I…”

“Just explain Tad's
weird.
”

Jeremiah lifted his beer, and just before drinking he mumbled, “He used to scratch the walls.”

T
he sweet slushy margarita oozed onto my skin as my hand squeezed the life out of my plastic cup.

Jeremiah jumped up and grabbed a few paper towels and tried to catch the spill before it reached the floor. I pushed my chair back without bothering to dry the ends of my sleeves, which were now soaked. “I gotta go.”

“April, did something happen?”

“No, no, I was just wondering why you acted so weird around him, that's all.”

Jeremiah shrugged.

I had thought I could handle this conversation but he had hit too close to home. I didn't allow myself to think about the scratching and I certainly wasn't ready to hear about it from Jeremiah. Somehow, talking to him about my problems with Tad felt like a betrayal. “Look, I have to find Allie.”

“Well…Paul's record collection is in his room and if they haven't come out by now…”

“Got it, could you just tell her that I had to leave?”

I turned to run out, but Jeremiah grabbed my arm. “April, what happened?”

I looked down at his hand, but not with the warning glare I had given Tad. I wanted him to hold on to me. In fact, I realized that I wanted him to hold on to a lot more than my arm, and that was not good. I gently pulled away and Jeremiah didn't resist.

I took a deep breath. “Jeremiah, I'm fine…There's just something I forgot I had to do. I'll see you later, okay?”

“Yeah, all right, if you say so. Look, you call me if you need me, got it?”

“Got it.” I walked out to the living room and said my goodbyes to Dallas and Gary. Jeremiah escorted me to the door.

“I'll talk to you soon,” he said definitively. He held the door for me and I forced myself to walk—not run—out of it.

When I got to my car I tried to figure out where to go next. Home was out of the question. What if Tad had left work early? How the hell was he going to explain that wall to his partners? I thought about his bizarre comments regarding Sean.

Suddenly I knew who I needed to talk to. I pulled the Club off my steering wheel and headed for Dawson's.

 

When I got to the cosmetics department Caleb was finishing discussing something with the Clinique counter manager. I pretended to look at the items displayed at an adjacent counter until he eventually noticed me. I mouthed the words
Need to talk
.

He gave me a quick nod of acknowledgment before returning his attention to the manager. A few minutes later he was by my side.

He took a decorative bottle of eau de toilette out of my hand. “Don't try this one, you'll regret if for the rest of the day.” He regarded my still-damp wrists and lifted one up to his nose. “This is nice. L'eau de Cuervo, is it?”

“I've had a really bad day,” I answered. “Do you have time?”

“For you? Always.”

“Yeah, but this isn't exactly a five-minute crisis. I need to unburden on you.” I moved my hands over my face and then pulled my skin back in a this-is-me-after-collagen kind of way. “I shouldn't have come—you can't deal with this at work. I can't even deal with this at home.”

Caleb furrowed his brow before beckoning to one of the makeup artists behind the Estée Lauder counter. “Denise, spread the word that I'll be in a meeting and am not to be disturbed unless there's an emergency.”

“Got it.” Denise's brown bob bounced as she vigorously nodded her head.

“I'm talking asteroid-hitting-the-earth kind of emergency, okay?”

Again Denise readily agreed and then scampered off to do Caleb's bidding. He leaned over to me conspiratorially. “It's good to be the king.” He then made a sweeping gesture in the direction of his office. “Shall we?”

We walked across the floor and stepped through an unobtrusive-looking door that led to the only Dawson's manager's office (outside of Liz's) that actually looked like an office. Caleb had a real desk, with drawers and everything, and he even had space for two filing cabinets. He gestured for me to sit.

“You're a mess,” he noted. “You didn't style your hair, your long-sleeve tee might as well have a sign on it reading Time for Goodwill, and worse yet, you're not wearing any makeup. What happened?”

“Something is wrong with my marriage. And something is very, very wrong with Tad.”

Caleb scooted his chair closer to mine. “Tell me.”

Where to start? “He scratches the walls.”

“Excuse me?”

“When he thinks I'm asleep he takes his nails to the walls and he scratches. It's like a cat sharpening its claws, except cats are more…emotional about it. Tad just sort of—” I searched for the right words “—zones out. He zones out and he scratches.”

“Well,” said Caleb slowly, “maybe it's just a nervous tic.”

“A nervous tic,” I repeated. “Right, that could be it.”

“Lots of people have them,” Caleb said.

“Like that thing Shelley Long did with her face while playing Diane on
Cheers
.”

“Exactly.”

“Or the way Julia Roberts was always fidgeting with her jewelry in
Pretty Woman.
”

“Another perfect example,” he agreed.

“Or that thing Jack Nicholson would do with his ax in
The Shining
.”

“Oh, come on…” Caleb rolled his eyes. “Unless rivers of blood have been running through your hallway, I think you can rule out the possibility of Tad being possessed.”

“He forged my name on a credit card application, had it sent to a P.O. Box, charged it up to eleven thousand some odd dollars and then didn't pay it for two months.”

Caleb's eyes looked like they were about to pop out of his head. For a full minute I waited while he struggled to come up with a response.

I buried my face in my hands. How bad was my life that its retelling left the master of witty repartee speechless?

I felt Caleb's hand on my knee and I looked up at him pleadingly.

“How did you find out?” he asked.

I let it all spill—the phone call, the office visit, Tad's weird remarks, Jeremiah's account of Tad and Jackie's dealings with him in the past, everything. I knew that it would skew Caleb's view of Tad forever, but I needed to talk to someone who I knew would never steer me wrong or pull a punch.

Caleb listened intently. A few times during my account his phone rang but he just pressed a button and had the call forwarded to voice mail. It occurred to me that if Caleb would have had the decency to stay in the closet, I would have married him.

By the time I was done, Caleb was staring at the floor. When Caleb avoided eye contact it meant he had a big bomb to drop. Finally he took a deep breath. “April, is there any chance that Tad is doing drugs?”

I froze. Tad on drugs? I reviewed everything that had happened up to that point. The scratching, the erratic behavior and mood swings, the honeymoon, the money issues…drugs would explain all of it. Drug abuse was a serious problem, no question about it, but it also would mean…I felt a small twinge of hope fluttering in my belly; if Tad was using drugs his behavior would make sense! My problems would have a name and a solution!

I stood up, unable to contain my mounting excitement. “You're right, of course, you're right! He's just been hiding it from me, that's all.”

Caleb gave me a funny look but I think it was in response to my smile rather than my words. “Have you ever seen him do any?”

“No…well, that's not true—once every blue moon he has a joint. I've seen him do that.” I shook my head. “God, how could I have been so blind?”

“April sweetie, contrary to what those public service ads say, a hash brownie does not a heroine addict make.” He swiveled back and forth in his chair. “However, the conduct you've described would be consistent with that of a cokehead. Have you noticed him sniffing a lot?”

I dug my teeth into my lip and tried to conjure up a helpful memory. “Oh!” I snapped my fingers in the air. “Two weeks ago we had dinner at Sean's house—he's one of the partners at SMB. Tad was sniffing the whole time. He blamed it on the cat. God, what an idiot I was to buy that one, huh?”

“Um, is he allergic to cats?”

“Well, he says he is, but addicts lie to cover for their habit. Come on, Caleb, I know you saw that episode of
Oprah.
Maybe…maybe he has been coordinating his drug use with the times he knew he would be in the presence of a cat! That would make sense, right?”

Caleb stared at me like I had begun to grow a second head.

I clapped my hands together impatiently, “Come on, Caleb, I like your explanation—help me make it work!”

He nodded solemnly and tapped his finger against his chin. “Maybe he's not sniffing it. Maybe he's smoking it instead.”

“Crack?” I asked doubtfully. Tad wouldn't even touch a scotch that was less than thirty years old, so I had a hard time picturing him forsaking cocaine in order to indulge in a cheaper substitute.

“Who knows, I'm not exactly an expert,” Caleb sighed. “Drugs are one of the few vices that I've never really indulged in.” He met my eyes. “What are you going to do?”

“Well, that's the great thing about addiction.” I put my hands on my hips authoritatively. “There are steps I'm supposed to take. Steps that someone else has already thought up for me. First I confront him. He'll probably respond by getting angry and defensive because that's what addicts do…”

Caleb raised an eyebrow. “
Oprah
again?”

“No, that's from
Dr. Phil
. But who knows, maybe Tad's hit bottom and he'll admit to having a problem immediately. If not, I stage an intervention.”

“Now, that's
Oprah,
right?”

“The point is, I can handle this.” I leaned down and gave Caleb a tight embrace. “I can handle this, Caleb. It's going to be rough but we'll work it out.”

Caleb used the fact that I was precariously balanced to his advantage and pulled me down onto his lap. He wrapped an arm around my waist to help stabilize me. “Hon, you need to think this through a little more. People on drugs can be dangerous and it sounds like Tad is in a real bad place right now.”

I flashed back to the moment Tad had grabbed my arm, the fist through the wall, even the argument we had over the rent. I had seen the look in his eyes. He had wanted to hit me. But the important part was that he hadn't. Even while I was threatening to cut off his penis Tad had still managed to control himself. That said something. Tad did pose a threat to me, but not the kind that Caleb was talking about. “Tad wouldn't hurt me,” I said with more confidence than I had a right to. “On the other hand, if I don't do something soon my credit might be put on death row.”

 

It was after six by the time I came home. One of the local radio stations was doing a “best of the '80s” feature and “Purple Rain” started blasting through my speakers just as I pulled into the spot in front of our garage. I sat through the whole damn thing, including the two-minute guitar solo. That song did seem to speak to my situation, but I had learned early in life that when on the brink of depression pretty much every sad ballad seemed to be written specifically for me. Plus, I would have been willing to listen to an extended rendition of “Knocking on Heaven's Door” performed by *NSYNC if that's what it took to prolong the inevitable. I nibbled on my nails and looked at the front door.

“On the count of three,” I instructed myself. “One, two…” I got out of the car and went inside the house.

The first thing I noted was the sound of Mozart. I hung up my coat and took a moment to see if I could recognize the movement. I wasn't very good at that kind of thing but Tad could name a composer, movement and symphony after hearing three notes. When we were first dating I had asked him what it was about classical music that spoke to him. His answer was that it centered him. I remember being struck by his choice of words; Tad wasn't one of those people who went around trying to find his center. Now I was thrilled to hear the music; maybe it had brought him back from left field.

I found him in the kitchen. He sat at our small wood table with a half-filled glass and a quarter-filled wine bottle. My eyes zeroed in on the red liquid. Maybe the drug was alcohol. It didn't fit as well as cocaine but anything was possible. I tried to envision a future filled with apple cider and near beer.

Tad looked up from his glass and offered me a somewhat apologetic grin. “I know it's in bad taste to drink alone but I'm having a really bad day.”

I retrieved a glass for myself and emptied the rest of the bottle into it. “Bad day or bad trip?”

Tad looked genuinely confused. “I don't understand.” He was slurring his words. One look at the empty whiskey glass by the sink told me that he had started with something harder than Merlot.