The Truth About Air & Water (Truth in Lies #2) (7 page)

Did I mention colors? Magenta and Periwinkle. That’s what I want. Nobody has it. Everybody scrambles to find it, produce it, or replicate it because everyone wants a piece of the action for this once-in-a-lifetime event—The Lincoln Presley wedding.

Candy Baxstrom’s article for
Sports Illustrated
hit the stands today
.
She said it best, although
People Magazine
piped in too.

It’s not every day that a famous baseball pitcher, whose mother was Hollywood famous and whose father dominated Major League Baseball for so many years, marries an up-and-coming ballerina. Sure, they share a kid. Little Cara aged three and half. Sure, there’s a mystery or two there about Ms. Landon. Her past and her present. Who is she to him? Who is she? Who was she? Where did she come from? Where has she been? There’s the deal in Moscow that neither one is willing to talk about. There are so many questions. So many lies.

Presley met Landon when she was just seventeen. There is some speculation as to how old their daughter really is and where she’s been all this time. Landon is the up-and-coming star for the San Francisco Ballet Company after having danced in New York City for a number of years. She toured with the European division of the New York City Ballet Company until she unexpectedly landed the lead role in Swan Lake for San Francisco Ballet Company. A source close to the couple stated that Landon originally gave the child up for adoption to the world-famous prima ballerina, Allaire Tremblay. Tremblay was killed in a car accident earlier this year, and the child was returned to Landon. Birth records do confirm Talia Landon is the little girl’s biological mother and Lincoln Presley is the biological father, but it remains unclear as to how and when the couple actually reunited.

Presley and Landon announced their engagement in late July with plans to marry this fall after baseball season, but with the Giants run in the playoffs it’s unclear when these two will marry and where. Just last year, Presley was engaged to Nika Vostrikova, who recently took a public relations position with Presley’s current Major League Baseball team, the San Francisco Giants. Presley refused to comment on his relationship with Vostrikova other than to say, ‘the two remain good friends,’ But just what kind of friends are they? Ms. Landon won’t comment, and if she did, what exactly could she say?

The two remain good friends.

Let that sink on you a little bit. It did on me.

He said it. I asked him why, and he said, “because it was easier; you know how Candy is. Kimberley said not to worry about it so
don’t
worry about it.”

The two remain good friends.
Five little words that invariably knifed their way somewhat permanently into my troubled soul.

The two remain good friends.

And, we’re back to
Sports Illustrated
article because if I’m ever asked to pinpoint the exact moment that doubt set in like a cancer and took firm hold, I will lay it squarely upon Candy Baxstrom and her damn article and all the photographs and speculation that came with it. Somehow, they got a picture of me with Cara just outside her private preschool. Somehow, they got a picture of Nika and Linc shaking hands, and then leaning into each other like old friends do, right after one of his games in San Antonio, Texas. All Linc would say is that she travels with the team as part of her job because of her position. Is that in a prone position beneath my fiance? You think I don’t wonder? Do you know how life on the road works in professional baseball? With all sports teams? Do you know what goes on behind the scenes? Late at night when the fans go home? It’s not the stuff you share with the friends or the family.

You like to think you’re immune from it all, but then your arch nemesis, the Russian bitch from Moscow, takes a job that lands her back into your life and practically in the lap of her former lover, Lincoln Presley. There’s that. Okay. Two things. Nika’s arrival on my turf and the
Sports Illustrated
article show up on the same damn day.

Doubt sets in at a cellular level and travels straight through to mess with my DNA. It doesn’t take much. I have trust issues. As anyone who knows me will attest to.

Somehow, they got a picture of me and Linc at the airport just before his last trip to Baltimore for the Orioles game. The last game of the season. Before the playoffs. I had rehearsals. I had Cara. I didn’t go, but Nika did. Of course, I didn’t know about that. But
Sports Illustrated
made note of that too. So did
People Magazine
.

Where were we?

French silk tulle from London. The elusive color periwinkle. Nika. People Magazine. Candy Baxstrom from Sports Illustrated.

The trust issues and the lack thereof.

Manipulation. Lies. Omissions.

These things make it all but impossible for me to trust and believe in us.

The two remain good friends.

It’s an unimaginable situation all around for this supposed
bride
.
To be?
Me?

And our secret rendezvous at the courthouse is tomorrow and all I want to do is tell Marla. A part of me knows that getting married will alleviate this angst.
But am I ready? Does Linc really love me? Why does he love me?
Pastor Dan’s tough questions come back to haunt me. At a deeply sane level, I know that getting married, secretly or not, will cause all of this outer turmoil to disappear. After tomorrow, most of it won’t matter to me anymore.

But it’s
today.

Today it matters.

And I can’t tell Marla because we agreed to keep it between the two of us for a while. Linc and me. No Marla. He was insistent upon that. He didn’t want his dad to freak out, and I was worried about my parents finding out, especially my mom. She still wants to help plan everything. Thus, I’m spending a fortune I don’t necessarily have on this dress. For the sake of my mom. Well, for me too and Marla and Holly watching from above.
Us girls love the dress.

“I can’t do this. I can’t. I’m not ready.” I get the last words out before sinking to the floor and hiding my face in my hands hoping it will be more difficult for Marla to guess how bad it really is. “No. I’m not ready. I can’t do this.”

“You
are
doing this. It’s just weeks away. November. Plan B or C, right?”

If she only knew.

I look up at Marla ready to form my confession.
We’re getting married tomorrow, not a month from now. Tell me I’m not crazy.

Silence.

I say nothing.

“It’s just nerves.” She scans my troubled face. “What aren’t you
telling
me?”

The articles were bad.
People
and
Sports Illustrated
had a field day. ESPN wanted an interview now. Nika’s arrival served as the tipping point and made things worse. The fallout has been almost catastrophic.
Me.
I’m the fallout. I don’t attempt to hide my frustration.

“I can’t deal with Nika Vostrikova, my permanent nemesis as well as two different articles trashing me from here to Moscow, and getting married all at the same time.”

“It’s just nerves.” Marla glides in next to me and bumps my shoulder with hers.

“That’s the thing.” I glance at her sideways. “It’s not just nerves. I can’t do it. I thought I could. I really did, but I can’t. I’m not exactly wife material
or
a very good mother. I can’t even do toast properly.”

My mind flashes to the episode with breakfast just this morning and I begin to tell Marla all about it. Burnt toast. Overcooked eggs. Linc pretended to eat them but finally gave up and made his own breakfast while Cara watched in her usual silent way. Still not talking. More than six months out from the car accident that killed Tremblay and essentially brought her back into my life, and she’s still too traumatized by that event and the general upheaval in her life to trust either one of us yet.

“I think that Linc and Cara will survive your inability to toast bread.”

I shake my head side-to-side at her. “The trust issues seem to multiply by the day for all of us. I don’t know what I’m doing. As a mother. As a potential wife. As a ballerina. And my little three-year-old seems to have a better sense of this about me than Linc ever will. The bi-weekly visits to the counselor haven’t done much. And my ability as a mom to take care of her is suspect. And it’s all on me. Linc brushes my fears aside he just says, “We just deal.” Easy for him. He’s still on the road four days out of the week and I’m left to take care of Cara and battle these demons all on my own. I’m scared, Marla. I’m scared I can’t do this. Any of it.” I wave my arms around the dress shop.

Marla gets this determined look. “Get dressed. Let’s get out of here. What you need is a margarita, some food, and a lecture. I’m here to serve.” She grins.

“I don’t know about the lecture, but the margarita and some food sounds good.” She ignores my whine for the most part even when I add, “And, I need to talk to you. There’s more.”

Marla just vaguely nods and commands me to get dressed and tells the sales clerks to alter the dress by a good two inches all around and guarantees that I’ll fit into it just fine. She grabs my purse and hands them the Visa card. “Just put the alterations charge on her card like everything else.”

I hold my breath while the approval goes through.
It does. But I’m close to the limit. On so many fronts.

We stop in
The Promissory Note
, the restaurant bar near my house. I watch the movements of Sam the bartender with vague interest. I haven’t been here in a long time, but he remembers me from before during the whole Moscow ordeal when Marla came to this very restaurant to pick me up that fateful day.
Sam was here. He’s still here. Very dependable. This guy.

He makes us the Bartender’s Margarita Special and tells us that the drinks are on the house because we’re his friends.
True.
Sam helped me out for a few hours during one of the most pivotal moments of my life, and I’ve never even thanked him for it.

“Thank you,” I whisper to him now, holding his steady gaze with mine for a few long seconds.

He has blue eyes. Gold lashes. An easy smile. He is a blond knight in shining armor; I already know this by the deeds he’s done for me already. He bows his head like a good knight does before his queen. I half-smile as an unexpected blush steals its way across my face.

I’m flirting with him out of some weird convoluted desperation.

Why?

“How’s Cara?” Sam asks when he comes over and refills our drinks, unprompted, in fresh martini glasses rimmed with salt.

“She’s good, still not herself exactly…since…Allaire…but she’s doing all right. We go to family counseling sessions every week, and the therapist says it’s just going to take some time for her to adjust. To trust us, really.”

“Tally and Linc are getting
married
,” Marla says with extra emphasis on the last word.

I turn and flip her off underneath the bar, unsure as to why the momma bear side of her has decided to come out.

Sam responds with a lazy smile when I quickly glance up at him to gauge his reaction. “Congratulations, Tally. That’s great. I’m glad things have worked out for the two of you.” There’s this little hint of sadness that fleets across Sam’s face, but then it’s gone.

Maybe, it wasn’t even there.

Maybe, I’m really crazy and making stuff up now about what guys think and say.

“Yes, they have it all worked out,” Marla says.

“Thanks,” I say with disquiet to Sam. After the bartender retreats, I glare at Marla and lance her with the what-the-hell-is-up-with-you? look. “Sam’s a friend. A
friend
. He helped me out a lot with
everything
. You
know
that. He called you or talked to you that day.” I smile wide from across the bar at Sam in an attempt to make up for Marla’s dire warning tone. He starts to walk back over to us.

“I know. Thank you, Sam.” Marla smiles sweetly at him as he returns with two glasses of ice water for us. “I probably forgot to thank you. It was so surreal what with my crazy friend here.” She takes a sip of her margarita and pronounces it good.