The Beginning of Always (6 page)

Tracy was a hawk. “What?” She sat upright and hooked onto the dangling edge of my sentence with her talons. “Had enough? Huh? What’d you say?” Her eyes narrowed suspiciously at me.

I shook my head vehemently. “Nothing.” My heart began pounding fiercely and I was growing flustered. My face grew hot. It was strange to feel this way. Alistair was always a non-topic, and the fact that I had seemingly let something slip unnerved me.

It was just the job that was unnerving me, that was throwing me off. I could shake Tracy and deal with all my angst later.

But Tracy had other ideas. She jumped up and all but lunged across the desk to skitter to my side. “You know something. There’s something else here. Spill it. I can tell by the look on your face.”

“Ha!” I laughed uneasily and even to my ears, it was completely unconvincing. “You’re making stuff up. There’s nothing here, and your own drama-starved life is just dying for something bigger than this very boring ordinary profile.” My voice was too high, too strange.

Tracy stood in front of me with her hands on her hips. I stared back, hoping I had a bland, noncommittal expression on my face. Bored. Yes, I should look bored and judgmental.

As I considered what a bored, judgmental expression devoid of commitment would look like, suddenly Tracy said, “Wait. Wait.” Tracy’s mind began to whirl fast enough for imaginary smoke to start billowing from the gears overworking. “You’re from Michigan …”

Shit.

“Okay, I have a meeting,” I said loudly and began standing up, but Tracy boldly crashed both palms on my shoulders to push me back down into my seat.

“You’re from Michigan! Western Michigan! Place called St. Haven, right?” Tracy leaned forward and forced my chair to recline backwards. Her green eyes pierced into me, and all of a sudden, I felt incredibly vulnerable. Emotionally naked.

“Tracy, get off me,” I said in a stern tone.

But she didn’t let me go. Her nails dug into my shoulders. “I remember reading … Alistair Blair graduated from University of Michigan, which is in Ann Arbor. Ann Arbor is in southeast Michigan …”

I protested shrilly. “Now you’re reaching. So what? I went to school in Chicago, remember? That’s where we met? At Northwestern? Or did you somehow damage your brain since then? Do I know Michelle Obama too?” I tried to reach up to swat her grip away, but her fingers just tightened.

Tracy’s face went deadly and she got even closer to me. “Florence Reynolds,” she began in a low tone. Defeat flooded me completely at this point. “I am one Google search away from dredging up all of Blair’s vague backstory, including where he was born and where he grew up and where he went to high school. Hell, there might even be a yearbook kicking around the Internet. You tell me now if there’s something I should know, or face my wrathful questioning in two minutes.”

My gaze slid to the side, and then to the floor. There was no escape. “He’s from St. Haven,” I muttered to the corner of the carpet.

My shoulders were suddenly fire. Tracy leapt back two steps and her hands flew to her hair. She screeched, “OH MY GOD!” She laughed and slapped her knee. “Oh! This is too good!”

In response, I buried my face in my arms on the table. I groaned loudly.

“Hey. Hey! Hey! This is crazy! Oh, man, what are the chances!”

Not in my favor, that’s what they were.

“Tracy, can you leave me alone?” I said into the cool wood. But she ignored me and crouched down so we were eye to eye. I rolled my face in my elbow to look at her. She beamed, her entire expression filled with unfettered joy.

“Come on. I know you too well, you’re dying to say something. Get it off your chest. You can tell ol’ Tracy here.” She tapped the center of her chest and grinned wider. “I’m Fort Knox. This conversation is between you, me and this desk. And what? Huh? And what else is there?”

I stared at Tracy, in all her trusting joy and hilarity. I hadn’t spoken about this with anyone, ever. I supposed now was as good a time as any to figure this situation out. If I couldn’t even talk to Tracy about this, then who could I?

“The thing is …” I hesitated, but that only fueled Tracy’s fervor. She clutched the edge of my desk and leaned in.

“Yes?” She cocked her head and leaned closer. “
Yes?
” She was practically salivating over the words hovering at the edge of my lips.

I couldn’t say it. Instead, I buried my face back down in my arms. “Oh no …”

“
Spill. It
,” she whispered furiously.

“Umm …” I peeked at her from over my forearm. “This thing is … I know him.”

“
You know Alistair Blair?
”

I threw an angry look towards the door, which stood just barely ajar. “Why don’t you scream that louder?” I hissed.

Tracy smashed her forehead into my desk and gave a muffled scream. Finally fed up, I jumped up and walked over to slam the door.

“How was I not aware of this? How was no one aware of this?”

“Who the hell is going to dredge up my old high school yearbook for dirt? And as for Alistair, our town is pretty tight-lipped. It probably got out that he had a girlfriend, but that’s hardly newsworthy.”

“You were his
girlfriend
?” Tracy bolted upright and she practically screeched the final word.

“Yes. I was his girlfriend,” I said in a small voice, all emotion gone from my body. But Tracy had enough for the both of us. She hopped over and yanked me into a tight hug. My face smacked into her generous chest and her perfume assaulted my senses.

“Oh, man! This is perfect. A love story. Second chances, childhood love, all that goooooooood stuff.” Tracy rocked me back and forth as I fought to get free.

“Let me go!” My muffled cries were released, and Tracy pushed me out so I was at arm’s length from her. She was taller than me by several inches, and with her four-inch pumps, she towered at almost Nicolas’s height. Her smiling face, shining with excitement and vigor, shimmered down.

“This is another chance. It’s destiny!” she said.

I shrugged her hands off me, and this time she let me go. I sunk back into the chair and Tracy plopped down in a seat by my side. I was breathing hard, my vision was sparkling and every muscle of my body was on edge. Tracy, finally calm, regarded me with concern and finally settled down.

She reached over and placed a hand on my knee.

“Hey,” she said, her voice filled with concern. “Hey, I’m sorry I got carried away.”

“It’s okay,” I said flatly.

“Was it a bad breakup? Would it be weird to see him?”

“It wasn’t a bad breakup. We came to an understanding.” My old friend, Gut-Wrenching Guilt, returned. The separation wasn’t amicable, and we certainly didn’t truly understand it. However, I didn’t want to go into it with Tracy.

I didn’t want to go into it with anyone, ever.

I mentally kicked those old thoughts back into their cave and shackled the doors tight.

“And you never saw him again afterwards?”

I sucked in a deep breath. There didn’t seem to be enough air in the room. I was strangled by the memories. “Not really. I went to school in Chicago, and he graduated from Michigan and moved to New York. We both rarely went back to St. Haven.” I shrugged in what I hoped was a nonchalant manner. “Then I went overseas and our paths never crossed. End of story.”

Intentionally. All of this had been intentional.

“So it wouldn’t be too terrible to see him again, right?”

The memory of the end, those final few months, was too painful to go into. I refused to sink into old ways. I refused to spiral.

I wound a strand of hair around my index finger and twirled it around, pulling softly.

“It would be … strange, Tracy. It’d be strange,” I said in almost a whisper. I was still processing the chain of events that had led me to now, into the reality of seeing the ghost of my past. Because just like the boogeyman, Alistair haunted my dreams, my nights. The thought of him scared me on a deeply vulnerable level. A level I refused to acknowledge.

Tracy remained silent for a moment as I nervously drummed my fingers against the arms of the chair. This conversation was undoing me. I shouldn’t have said yes—I shouldn’t have taken the job. I should go back to Gordon and say no.

“You can say no,” Tracy said.

“What?” My head snapped up and my manic movements stilled.

Her voice was filled with regret and worry. “I mean, is this wise, Florence? Maybe you shouldn’t take it. It sounds like bad news. You’re obviously spooked. You don’t need this job.”

“I don’t,” I intoned, agreeing.

“You’ve done bigger stories with bigger people. A profile on a businessman is hardly breaking new ground,” Tracy pointed out.

“True. True.” I nodded gently as my voice listed off. I stared at the wall, my mind growing blank amidst the storm of thoughts between my ears and the roiling emotions exploding between my ribs.

Alistair … if I passed up on this chance to see him, would I regret it?

Was there anything but regret when it came to him?

Tracy shifted her chair closer to me until our knees touched, then reached out and softly pushed back my hair that was falling into my face. In a gentle voice, she asked, “Is he just an ex-boyfriend?”

Tracy, with her wild hair and deep eyes, so innocent and trusting. Her want, her desire, her very need for love was refreshing yet wholly depressing because I knew I’d never know that hunger again.

I’d never love as I’d loved before. I’d never be the same girl. I was no longer nice, no longer happy.

A part of me had died that day, and it would never come back.

“No,” I whispered. “No, he was more. But it’s over now and I can never go back.”

Tracy nodded and then slipped me into a deep hug.

“I’m sorry,” she breathed softly into my ear.

I nodded, words failing me, unshed tears denied.

Chapter 4

I
kneeled on the edge of my bed, staring at the piles before me. Clothes everywhere and nothing to wear. I groaned audibly and fell face-forward into a stack of silk blouses.

“I give up,” I mumbled into the folds. I was never going to find an appropriate cocktail-dress-slash-gown for tonight’s … thing. Alistair’s curt assistant had informed over the phone, in a condescending tone, that I needed to be in black tie formal.

I glanced up into the mirror adjacent to the bed. My reflection lay there, frozen, the backdrop a mess of low-intensity panic.

“Alistair.” I whispered his name aloud.

The sound filled the empty room, and that numbing throbbing in my chest began again in earnest.

It truly had been a long while.

Whenever I went home, people avoided bringing him up, and I steered clear of anyone would might talk about him. He was a hot topic in our little municipality. Townie who’d made it big. He was a specter, always around the corner, the memories on everyone’s tongue. But they dared not share those with me.

I considered my form in the mirror. I was wearing a camisole and boy shorts and was sprawled, arms askew, over what must have been every piece of clothing from my suitcase. I took in my arms, my neck, my legs dangling off the bed. I rolled over so I could properly face the mirror.

I had changed in my twenties. My hips had grown fuller, and my hair was shorter than I’d kept it in high school. I pressed a finger against my cheeks, pushing them in. I had gained some weight over the years—not enough to concern me, but enough to be noticeable. I had been thin in high school, and my cheekbones back then had been as harshly prominent as Nicolas’s, but now my face was a bit more filled out, softer in contrast to the angles of my youth.

I sat upright and stared into my eyes of my reflection. I supposed those hadn’t changed. I had intense blue eyes that always drew plenty of comments. My irises were a light shade, but rimmed in a deep violet, the strong striations that surrounded my pupil just highlighting the variance.

Alistair had never told me I had beautiful eyes. I wrinkled my brow. Now that I thought of it, I didn’t think he’d ever told me he found me beautiful.

But I knew how he felt about me, something that was indescribable.

And he wasn’t just handsome to me. He was the ultimate. He was the only.

I got on my knees and inched towards the mirror. My brown hair just grazed my shoulders, and besides the eyes and my generous lips, I supposed I couldn’t see anything especially remarkable. I brushed a strand of hair from my cheek and turned my head to the side. I knew I wasn’t heinous looking, but suddenly a pang of self-doubt slammed into me.

I had been good-looking enough to win Blueberry Queen of the Year or whatever back in small-town America St. Haven, Michigan, but here in New York City, next to all the willowy blonde socialites of the Upper East Side and the starving hipster models stacked up four deep in Greenwich Village, I didn’t stand a chance. Hesitancy gnawed at my core.

My hips were too wide. My ass was too big. I was too short. My legs were long in proportion to my body, but I stood a foot shorter than the glamazons that ruled this town. My waist was narrow and trim, but I wasn’t a size double zero.

Thought after wild thought raced through my brain. Alistair probably had a girlfriend. He wasn’t married, I knew that much based on the sparse media reports I’d found of him online. Somehow the thought of some perfect specimen of a woman dangling off his arm angered me.