Soaring (21 page)

And I do believe you’re aware that there’s a great deal of work to do on that. Therefore, I’ve been doing what I intended to do when I moved to Maine, focusing on just that.

I don’t wish to hurt or offend you by suggesting you or Mom are distractions, however, I’m sure we all can agree that Olympia and Auden, as well as myself at this current juncture, are the priorities.

I wish to assure you I’m here. I’m safe. The house is even more wonderful than I thought it would be. I’ve met people and made friends. I’m volunteering. And although the road has been very bumpy, I’m settling and have hope I’ll find happiness here…with Auden and Olympia.

You have my sincere apologies I didn’t share that with you sooner. I’m sure you were worried and I’m terribly sorry I made you feel those feelings. But I must share now that there may be lapses between you hearing from me because the work I must do must take all my attention. I’ll try not to let the time go on this long before you get an update from me.

I would enjoy receiving emailed updates from you and Mom as well. I’ll do my best to reply as soon as I can.

My love to you and please extend that to Mom.

              -Amelia

I only read it once for typos before sending it.

I held absolutely no hope that it would stop my father from attempting to get in touch with me to lambast me verbally, but I didn’t care. I was beyond caring. I was tired of being bested. I was tired of allowing myself to feel less than I was. I was tired of being what others wanted me to be and not being me.

So I did my daughterly duty.

If Dad couldn’t read that message and decipher what I needed and instead demanded what he needed back from me, he could go jump in a lake.

I shut down my computer, waltzed back to the kitchen, opened a bottle of wine, poured a glass in one of my exquisite new glasses and walked to my armchair that was made of leather so supple it was buttery.

I turned on the light.

Having used up large reserves of courage I didn’t know I had, I didn’t curl up in my chair and call Robin like I should.

I called my brother.

It was the right thing to do.

We both bitched about our parents, Conrad, and I told him about the way my kids were behaving and the things Alyssa and Mickey had said about Conrad and Martine.

With all of those things, supportive to the last, my big brother forcefully agreed.

Alas, he was extremely angry at my children, but then again, maybe he (and I) should be.

In the end, it was exactly what I needed.

We hung up and I did it smiling.

All my life, I’d allowed myself to be beaten, even gave away the ammunition to make that so.

Right then, I was curled in my chair in my elegant shoes and pretty dress with my exquisite wineglass and I decided on yet another part that was me.

That shit was going to end.

Completely.

Chapter Nine

Nice Dress

“From the gentleman down the bar…for you,” the bartender said.

I looked from him down to the fresh cosmopolitan he put in front of me then down the bar at an attractive man with blond hair, a little gray at the temples, his smiling blue eyes on me.

“Holy shit,” Alyssa said, sitting on a stool at a nice restaurant with a respectable bar one town over called Breeze Point.

“Lovely,” Josie, sitting on my other side, murmured.

We were out “trolling” as Alyssa put it, or “having girl time with the possibility of something happening” as Josie put it.

I decided to think of it as the latter as well as an opportunity to wear another of my going out outfits.

But at that moment, when the possibility of something happening happened, I didn’t know what to do. I hadn’t had a man buy me a drink in so long that I forgot what I’d done when they did.

Since my current drink was running low, I lifted it to my lips, finished it and put my fingers to the stem of the glass of the new, shifting my eyes back to the man.

I smiled.

He smiled back again.

“Pure cool,” Alyssa approved.

“Well done,” Josie did the same.

I looked to Josie and noted, “He’s only sent this because you both have huge rocks on your fingers.”

They did. Although Josie’s was a fair sight bigger than Alyssa’s, neither ring failed to state the giver’s intention that these two women were t-a-k-e-n,
taken
.

And they were far more attractive than me, both tall, both blonde and both stunning.

“You say shit like that again, I’m bitch slappin’ some sense into you and don’t you doubt it,” Alyssa muttered.

I looked to her to see her eyes squinty on me, but I did doubt it.

Alyssa would never do that. She’d threaten it repeatedly (if needed), but she’d never do it.

“You’re hot,” she went on to declare.

“I’m not a tall, built blonde,” I pointed out.

“No, you’re a petite, beautiful brunette with big knockers, awesome gams and a great ass even though you pushed out a coupla kids and the rest of you is still too skinny,” she retorted. “Now shut up or I’ll bring a catfight to Breeze Point, I don’t care how ritzy this place is.”

“She’s right, you know,” Josie said and I looked her way. “There are many varieties of…hot.”

Josie using a slang word, something she rarely did, made me giggle.

“Now grab that drink, sister, and get that great ass over to that hot guy,” Alyssa ordered.

I looked to her in surprise.

“Me go to him?” I asked.

“He laid it out,” she said by way of answer. “You got your bitches with you. Don’t make him come over here and lay it out in front of your bitches. It’s already hard enough to put himself out there, buyin’ a drink for a beautiful woman, settin’ himself up for a crash and burn seein’ as he’s cute but you’re all that’s you. Don’t make it harder.”

I saw her point (though I might not have entirely agreed about “all that’s me”) but I didn’t like this.

And it struck me that I didn’t like this because I was me.

I was greedy.

I wanted it all.

I wanted a man who had confidence enough in himself not to lay it out but to
lay it out
. I wanted a man who looked at me and was so drawn to me he’d put himself out there for me. He took the chance to walk over to me with my friends and show me how much he wanted me. I wanted a man who would demonstrate he wanted me so much, he’d do anything to have a shot with me.

He’d buy me a drink.

He’d walk over and speak to me.

He wouldn’t give one thought to “shitting where he lived” because he was my neighbor. Instead, he’d want me so badly he’d throw caution to the wind just for a chance to be with me.

That’s what I wanted.

And that was what I would get or I’d take nothing.

Shock of shocks, I was okay being alone in my big house with mostly me as my company. I wasn’t going to settle for just anybody so I’d be less lonely because I was no longer lonely.

I was just alone.

And I was fine with that.

“If he wants me,” I mumbled, lifting the drink he bought me to my lips and before taking a sip I finished, “He can come and get me.”

“Well, batten down the hatches, babe, ’cause here he comes,” Alyssa stage-whispered loudly.

My body locked.

“Ladies,” a smooth male voice said.

I took my sip, luckily not choking, and swiveled on my stool.

He was right there, smiling at me then he looked beyond me. “If you’ll get these other ladies a drink and put them on my tab.” He looked from the bartender to me. “I’d like a moment with you to introduce myself privately.”

He lifted his hand to me.

I looked into his blue eyes that were not as beautiful as Mickey’s but they were still handsome.

Then I looked to his hand, which was not as strong as Mickey’s, and not rough at all, but it was a nice hand.

And of its own accord, my hand lifted and my fingers curled around his.

He gripped them and helped me off my stool.

I took my drink with me as he kept hold of my hand and walked me back to where he had been sitting.

As I walked, I glanced over my shoulder to see Josie beaming and Alyssa mouthing, “Go get him, tiger.”

I grinned at them and allowed myself to be led away.

His name was Bradley.

* * * * *

My phone was ringing as was my doorbell.

I grabbed the phone, seeing the number was not known but local, and since there were a lot of things happening and the call could have to do with any of these, I took the call as I rushed to the door.

“Hello?”

“Amy?”

Not Mickey.

Boston.

Shit.

It had been three days since our date.

Player move.

Boring.

“Boston,” I said, unlocking the door and opening it to a man standing there in paint spattered, white coveralls. I lifted a one minute finger to him then rolled my whole hand, stepping back and inviting him inside. He came in and I kept talking, “I’m so sorry, but I’m in the middle of something and have someone waiting.”

“That’s too bad, but do you have time to tell me you’re free tomorrow evening?” he asked.

I was.

“I’m sorry, I’m not,” I lied.

“I’m out of town on Friday and I’ll be gone a few weeks.”

Brilliant news.

My “Oh,” was noncommittal.

“I’ll call you while I’m away.”

Not brilliant news.

“I have some things happening, a number of them, I’m going to be very busy,” I shared, and that was the truth.

“We’ll find a time, Amy.”

God, I really,
really
wished I hadn’t told him to call me Amy.

I also wished he’d catch a hint.

“Right,” I said distractedly. “I really have to go.”

“We’ll speak later.”

“Okay.”

“Good-bye, Amy.”

“’Bye, Boston,” I mumbled then hung up and looked at the painter who I hoped would give me a decent quote for painting my massive, multi-million dollar house.

And I smiled.

* * * * *

After our date, I was on my front step making out with a handsome blond named Bradley.

He wasn’t boring. He was actually quite nice, very attentive, well-to-do enough to take me to a lovely place for dinner, including ordering a very nice bottle of wine, without hitting me over the head with all of this.

Thus I’d wanted him to kiss me.

He didn’t taste minty.

He tasted like chocolate (his dessert) and warmth and this coupled with his cologne that was not overwhelming but was woodsy, I liked.

He also didn’t go for a brief kiss.

He started it slow but when I liked it and showed that, he’d gone for more.

There were tongues and I was wrapped around him, enjoying myself thoroughly.

I was this until the dark against my closed eyelids was pierced with muted light and I lost some focus.

Bradley got it back.

But it disappeared completely when a faraway noise that could not be mistaken tore me right out of the moment in a way I tore my lips from Bradley’s.

I looked over his shoulder to see Mickey’s garage door going up, his black Ford Expedition gliding into the drive.

“Amelia?” Bradley called and I looked to him.

“Maybe we should call it a night here,” I whispered.

His arms still around me, arms that felt nice and strong, gave me a reflexive squeeze but he nodded.

“How are you set for tomorrow night?” he asked.

How I was set was that Junior and Alyssa wanted a date night and so did their eldest daughter, Sofie, who usually looked after he kids when they needed her to. But now she had a boyfriend who was about to go to Boston to start his freshman year of college so she wanted all the time with Conner she could get.

Therefore, I’d told Alyssa I’d come over and watch the kids and she’d fallen on that like a man dragging himself through the dessert had just hit the water hole at an oasis.

“I’m watching a friend’s kids tomorrow night. The next?” I asked.

“I have a work thing,” he muttered with disappointment. Then he gave me another squeeze. “I’ll call.”

I smiled at him, my arms still wound around his shoulders.

“That’d be good,” I said softly.

His eyes dropped to my mouth then his lips dropped there.

We didn’t make out again but our kiss was hot and heavy, just brief, before he gave me a quick peck, a sexy smile (that actually was sexy), said goodnight and walked toward his burgundy Infinity.

I watched him go for a moment before I let myself in, closed and locked the doors.

I went to the kitchen and flipped the lights before I took out my phone and did what I did more than occasionally since the last one she didn’t answer.

I texted Robin with,
Hey, things are happening and there’s a lot to tell you. You’re not replying, which has me worried. Give me a time that’s good for me to call and I’ll call. Love you!

I got ready for bed, doing it a little dreamily because Bradley was a little dreamy and it was clear he liked me, but by the time I was ready for bed, I realized that Robin again hadn’t texted back.

So, finally being grown up, I phoned her.

I got voicemail and left a message.

“Okay, now I’m really worried. Honey, we need to connect. There are some things I need to explain to you. Please call me.”

I got a book and went to my buttery leather chair but I didn’t read and slowly lost all the dreamy.

Because my friend didn’t contact me.

* * * * *

The next morning, as I was rushing into Dove House, I heard my phone chime with a text.

I dug it out as I pushed open the front door and I looked to Ruth at the reception desk.

I waved and said, “Hey,” as she smiled at me and said, “’Morning, Amelia,” and buzzed me in.

I pushed open the side door that locked the old folks in and walked through as I looked down at my phone.