Close to You Read online

  I didn’t have an answer for that. Instead, I rounded on him.

  “Why the hell do you care, anyway? You divorced her five years ago.”

  “Hey! Watch your tone. You might be grown, but I’m still your father. Get off your damn high horse and go see your sick mother.”

  The line went dead. I threw the phone onto my bed and held my face in my hands.

  xxx

  All of my earliest memories had to do with my mother’s drinking.

  When I was four or five, I had an obsession with GI Joe. I had several different kinds, and they all served their purpose in my mind. I would plan the day like someone would plan a shopping list: First, he went there; then, he went there; and then boom. Explosions.

  I was laying on the floor in my room, hiding out and moving the figures around the floor, lost in my own world where GI Joe always saves the day, just like the heroes on TV. I heard the floorboards creak, the sound making my ears perk. It was my mother walking around, and even then, I knew to be on alert when I heard her coming. My dad had day shift, so it was just me and her when I wasn’t in school.

  I remembered stiffening, the same way you would if you saw lightning, waiting for the loud thunderclap that would surely follow and rattle the windows. My bedroom door opened and she was there, wrapped in a blue bathrobe in the middle of the afternoon, her eyes bloodshot and angry. Searching for something.

  “Still playing with those?” she had asked me, and she had knelt down to see what I was doing. I had everything laid out so perfectly: three guys in their positions, overlooking a landscape of toppled over trucks and cars. Like a movie of my own making.

  “Yes, Mommy,” I said, showing her my doctor. “He’s healing everybody.”

  She sniffed, loudly, and grabbed him out of my hands. “What happens if he’s the sick one, instead?”

  “Uh,” I said, thinking. I had never thought of it that way before. Did doctors get sick, too?

  I watched, as if in slow motion, my mom rip the arm off my doctor and drop the severed arm to the ground. It smacked against a Hot Wheel and bounced away.

  “He’s sick. How’s he gonna heal your soldiers?”

  Tears welled up in my eyes, drowning out my mother holding my doctor. I looked down at my hands.

  “Why’d you do that, mommy?”

  She didn’t answer. She placed the broken GI Joe next to me and left the room.

  When I was ten, I got a part in the school Thanksgiving play. I was the turkey, and I had one line. (”Gobble gobble”). The night of the play, only my dad had shown up. Afterward, I had asked him where my mom was.

  “She’s sick tonight. She’s sorry she couldn’t make it.” Even as a ten-year-old kid, I knew he was lying. By then, I had come to understand that alcohol was more important to my mother than her own child, but I wouldn’t have been able to say that in words. It was something I just knew; it was something that could be sensed, like tension in a room or a storm coming your way.

  At home that night, my mom wasn’t there. She returned the next day, stinking and waxy, her eyes glazed over. She stumbled on the way to the bathroom.

  When I was eighteen, I signed my life away to the Army. I had done it in part because I wanted to make something of myself, but also to escape my mother. She didn’t come to see me swear in, and I didn’t see her for two years after that, until I took leave for Thanksgiving. She hugged me when I came home, but she looked at me like she didn’t even recognize me.

  “You’re taller,” she’d said, and she’d gone to uncork some wine. And then, of course, Emily. My mom had been so thrilled that I was going to be a father. It had seemingly, somehow, rejuvenated her. She said she was so excited to be a grandma.

  But after Emily miscarried and I’d broken the news, my mother had told me that it was all my fault.

  I haven’t talked to her since.

  Were there good memories? Sure. My mother’s cooking when she felt like doing it, or her taking me to the park on rare occasions, or showing me how to darn a sock. Those things stuck out in the mass of all that blackness, but it wasn’t enough.

  xxx

  Two days later, on Monday, Michele still hadn’t called me. I considered a hundred times picking up the phone and reaching out to her first, but something about that didn’t feel right. Some conversations were better done in person.

  It was clear to me now that, whatever happened between us, it was only a one-time thing. Michele wasn’t ready to be with someone, and frankly, neither was I. If I’d learned anything about love and relationships, it was that no matter what you did, no matter how much you suffered and no matter what you felt, it was never enough.

  She’d be safer without me, anyway. Brandon was a complication that neither of us needed. I’d still be there for her if she needed it, but a nagging suspicion told me that she wouldn’t show up at my apartment if she felt unsafe.

  She’d probably just pack up and run.

  I grabbed my phone and dialed Brandon’s number, just to get it over with. He’d called me the night before, but I’d let it go to voicemail.

  “Well look who it is. I thought I’d never hear from you again.”

  The sound of Brandon’s voice raised the hair on the back of my neck. I wondered how I’d never heard it before, that sinister quality to it. Or was I just imagining things?

  “Hey, man. I’m sorry I haven’t been in touch.” I paused, mustering up the courage to flat-out lie to him. Despite everything I now knew about him since I’d met Michele, I was still talking to the man who saved my life.

  “The reason I’m calling is because I have to drop the case. My mom is real sick in the hospital, and I have to take some time off to be with her.”

  Only half a lie. I exhaled. The hard part was over.

  “What? I’m sorry to hear that, Iain.” He didn’t sound sorry. In fact, he sounded irate. “What’s wrong with her?”

  “Something with her liver. They’re running tests to find out exactly what.”

  “Wow. It’s all so fleeting, isn’t it?”

  I swallowed, not answering his question. It felt, oddly, like he was baiting me.

  “Anyway, I wanted to tell you that before my mom got admitted, I wasn’t able to find any trace of Michele. I’ve been doing this for four years and never had anyone give me this much trouble.”

  “You don’t say?”

  “Yeah. I’m thinking she’s probably not in Brooklyn at all. Maybe she went to Florida?”

  “Florida?”

  “Yeah. Didn’t you say that’s where her mom lived?”

  There was silence on the other line. My heart inexplicably began to race, apprehension stilling me as I waited for his response.

  “Hmmm. I suppose that’s a possibility.”

  “Well, I’m sorry I couldn’t be more help, Brandon. Good luck finding her.”

  “Thanks,” he said, but he didn’t sound thankful at all.

  After we’d hung up the phone, I released a giant sigh of relief.

  Now it was time to talk to Michele.

  Chapter 18.

  Twenty minutes later, I sped-walked to Catfish, where I hoped Michele was working. The frigid night was bearing down on me with claws out, and snowflakes were beginning to fall, the beginnings of the storm all the weathermen had predicted.

  I had it all in my head, exactly what I was going to say to her. That I understood why she hadn’t called me, and that I also thought it was for the best. I wouldn’t allow her pretty eyes and perfect lips to distract me.

  Walking through the doors of the bar, I was greeted with a warm rush of air. I nodded to the bouncer, remembering the way he’d been staring at Michele the first time I walked in here. I frowned and looked toward the bar, seeing Michele there, pouring drinks and smiling at someone.

  And then, as if I were a magnet, her eyes flicked toward me. Her smile dropped. She obviously hadn’t been expecting to see me.

  Steeling myself, I made my way up to her, taking a seat at
one of the stools. It was steady here tonight, with a few dozen people drinking, playing pool and talking. Another bartender I hadn’t seen before was going back and forth, serving drinks and clearing glasses.

  “Hey,” I said as I sat down, removing my gloves and plopping them on the bar top. I gave her a smile that was completely forced.

  Seeing her up close after everything that happened last week was making me forget why I came here. Her hair, usually down, was piled on top of her head in a messy bun, and I couldn’t help but watch her body, knowing exactly what all those curves looked like under her clothes.

  “Iain,” she said, an emotion in her tone that I couldn’t place. She hovered some feet away from the edge of the bar, clutching an empty glass. She didn’t ask me if I wanted a drink.

  “That storm is starting out there,” I said lamely. Everything I came to say seemed to have fled from my mind. “Could I get that IPA again?”

  “Oh, we actually ran out of that yesterday.”

  “Uh, okay then. Just surprise me.”

  It occurred to me that I had said almost that exact same thing the first time I came here - Surprise me. Michele didn’t say anything but moved toward the taps, pouring me something dark and setting it in front of me.

  “Look, I don’t want to be rude, but I’m pretty busy here tonight. I don’t have much time to talk.”

  “That’s okay,” I replied immediately. I was willing to wait.

  Michele gave me a funny sort of look then walked away toward some waiting customers. I sipped my drink, brooding, wondering if I was a complete asshole to show up here tonight. Probably, but I needed to say what I came here to say. Otherwise, I might have just lose my nerve.

  I finished one drink, then a second. Finally, after about an hour, the bar started to settle down, and several people left.

  “You want another?” Michele asked as I downed the last sip. Her eyes were searching mine, her lips parted. In that moment, I was certain I’d never seen anyone more beautiful than her.

  “No thanks. I’m good.”

  Silence passed between us, the sounds of the bar loud and deafening, at least to me. I listened to the sounds of people talking, laughing, of glasses being slapped onto tables and music playing from faded speakers. Every time the door opened and closed, a rush of cold, biting air moved toward us, engulfing me.

  I wanted to say it - to break it off, to tell her that I dropped the case and she had nothing else to worry about when it came to me. But I found myself focusing instead on the worst possible things, like her delicate hands, the way she leaned against the bar, the way she looked at me.

  And that was when I knew that I couldn’t do it.

  “Looks like the snow is coming down pretty hard out there,” I heard, and I saw a guy talking into his phone, his face red from booze. “Gonna try to wait it out.”

  I looked back toward Michele, but she had already moved on to the other end of the bar.

  xxx

  An hour later, and there were only a few stragglers. The second bartender had gone home about a half hour ago. The snow had fallen incredibly fast and according to the news on one of the bar TVs, it had no plans of stopping. Many people had ditched the bar early in hopes of catching a taxi before the roads became too dangerous, and the sidewalks were covered in ice. The newscasters warned everyone to stay indoors.

  I’d caved in and was nursing one last beer, more to pass the time than to feel its effects. I wondered if I was incredibly stupid to still be here when it was obvious that Michele was avoiding me. She was doing everything in her power to look extremely busy, from polishing the already polished bar to cleaning glasses that I was pretty sure were already clean to staring blankly at the TV even though it was reeling the same things over and over.

  It was going on midnight, and her last customer paid and left, huddling into himself as he left the bar. The snow was halfway to his knees.

  “Closing time,” Michele said after he left. The bouncer came up to us, his eyes narrowed suspiciously at me before gesturing at her.

  “Can I get a shot for the road, Lila? It’s a long trek home. Especially with all that shit out there.”

  “Sure, Jacob.”

  She pulled a bottle of what looked like well whiskey from the shelf and poured him an overlarge shot into a rocks glass. He downed it and groaned.

  “You okay if I head out? Or, I mean, I can stay,” he said, pointedly. I resisted the urge to sock him square in his face.

  “Um, it’s cool, Jacob. We’re friends. Just turn the light off on your way out.”

  We were both silent as Jacob left, shutting off the Open sign on his way. He stomped in the snow, cursing, before slamming the door shut.

  And just like that, we were alone.

  “What a night,” she whispered, then she removed her apron and pulled her hair down. I watched the strands cascade down her neck, wondering how they’d feel on my fingers. Then she turned and looked at me. “You’re persistent. Anyone ever tell you that?”

  “Ha.” I finished my glass, pushing it toward her side of the bar. “Oddly enough, nobody ever has.”

  “Something tells me that you’ve come to convince me back into your bed.”

  “I -”

  “It’s not going to work.” She grabbed my glass, taking it over to the sink and washing it quickly. “Look, I’m sorry I didn’t call you... after. But it’s just not a good time.”

  I stared at her, unmoving.

  “I’m grateful,” she said, drying the glass off and setting it down with some other freshly washed glasses. “I’m grateful for everything you did for me, and I had a… really good time with you. And… I don’t know. In another life, maybe it would have… been something.”

  She folded her arms across her chest, not in defiance, but like a shield. I sat back, my hands resting in my lap.

  “Why?” I asked.

  “Why what?”

  “Why can’t it be something now?”

  Shit, why had I asked that? She was handing me everything I wanted. Everything I came here to say - she’d said it for me. So why had I gone and twisted it back around?

  Michele looked startled, but recovered quickly. She picked up a rag and started wiping down the already clean bar, looking away from me as she spoke, her cheeks reddening.

  “Because. I’m still married, technically. For one. And for two, I’m...broken. Surely you see that?”

  My fists clenched. “Michele, if you think you’re fooling me into thinking for one second that you view yourself as a married woman after everything that asshole has done to you, you’re damn wrong.”

  “Maybe I don’t, but everyone else would.”

  “Who gives a shit what everyone else thinks?”

  “I - I don’t. I don’t give a shit, but - dammit, Iain.” She threw her rag down and it slapped wetly against the bar. Then she looked at me, hurt in her eyes. “You’re missing the point!”

  “I’m missing the point? I’m not the one who’s running away from something real.” I ignored the stab of guilt whispering at me that I was not being completely honest. I trudged on, standing up and walking along the bar until I was standing in front of her, the bar still separating us. I rested my hands against it, leaning in. “Tell me the truth, Michele. Why haven’t you called me?”

  “Because I can’t do this.”

  “Do what?” I asked, my hands pressing against the flat surface. Michele refused to look at me. “Do what?” I asked again.

  “Be with you. Be with anybody,” she replied finally, her voice so quiet I almost didn’t catch it.

  “Why not?” I pressed. I bid her to look at me, but she only looked down.

  I considered, briefly, whether I should just walk away. It would have been so easy - to wash my hands of it and disappear into the blizzard. I’d be cold, but at least I’d be leaving for good, which was exactly why I came here in the first place. But looking at her now, I couldn’t imagine leaving. I couldn’t imagine anything more tha
n this moment.

  “Michele, look at me.”

  I didn’t expect her to do it, but she did. Her eyes were red and wet, and my heart lurched in my chest at the sight of them.

  “I came here tonight to tell you that I called Brandon and told him I was dropping the case,” I started. She tensed that, but I continued. “I also came here, originally, to tell you that I didn’t want to see you again.”

  Something sparked in her eyes, her brow knitting at my words. “What?”

  “Yeah. But then I saw you again and it all went to hell.”

  She opened her mouth, then closed it. Then she opened it again. “You’re better off without me.”

  “Michele….” I sighed and turned away from her. I stared out into the bar, darkened and empty. Maybe I’d been reading her all wrong. Maybe it was for the best that we part ways. It certainly would be the easier path. “Of course. That’s your choice.”

  I walked back around to my coat, grabbing it off the stool and pulling it on. I zipped it up hurriedly and took my gloves. I didn’t look at her.

  “I told Brandon… I told him that I didn’t find you and I figured you went to Florida, hoping to throw him off.” I fiddled with my gloves as I spoke. “And, Michele... I hope you find what you’re looking for.”

  I turned and headed toward the door, telling myself that it was better this way. She didn’t want me in her life, and she wasn’t my responsibility, anyway. I’d done my part to keep Brandon away from her - everything that came next was on her.

  “Iain, wait.”

  The sound of her voice stopped me in my tracks. I turned my head, dreading what she was about to say. She came around the bar, heading toward me, her face unreadable. My heart sped up.

  She stood before me, her body tense and poised. I fought the urge to touch her, to smooth her furrowed forehead and kiss her lips. She brushed at the front of her shirt nervously, her eyes on me warily.

  “Iain, I’m scared.”

  “Of Brandon?”

  “Yes. And of you.”

  I shifted uncomfortably in place, not understanding. Did she think I’d turn around and tell Brandon where she was?