Broken Wings (A Romantic Suspense) (35 page)

“What was that?”

“I just tripled your salary.”

“Are you going to send Tiny Tim a goose now?”

I snort, and then break out laughing. Oh God, I haven’t laughed in years. Alicia stares at me.

“Oh my God. I’m She-Scrooge.” My laughter quickly melts into sobs again. “How did this happen to me? I don’t want to be this way.”

“What way to you want to be?”

“What are you, my therapist now?”

“No, but I have three girls. The oldest is in college. I’ve seen worse than this.”

I
 
blink at her a few times. “Really?”

“A sixteen year old’s boyfriend freakout is a force of nature.”

“I never had a boyfriend until I was… older than that.”

“Your stepbrother.”

“Yes.”

She shifts in her seat and shrugs. “You want to tell me about it.”

“Stop saying questions like they’re statements.”

“That was a statement,” she sighs. “You do want to talk, you’re just trying to find the words.”

“I haven’t had a real conversation with another human being about anything but my work in five years.”

“I can tell,” Alicia says, dryly.

I give her a look.

“My daughter looks at me like that when I say something she knows is right.”

I look at the computer again. I have more emails.

An urge strikes me. I open the browser, navigate to Twitter and type my name in the search box.

I suck in a deep breath when I read what I see. There must be thousands of tweets. I glance at Alicia and bite my lip, and scroll through the screen.

There’s a hashtag.

“I have a hashtag,” I blurt out.

#EveDestroyedMyLife

Trembling, I click the link.

For the next twenty minutes, I sit in silence and read, my face a still mask. The tweets go on forever. This only started yesterday.

I had 19 years of seniority and a pension. #EveRuinedMyLife

I snap the computer’s screen down and stare at the door, trembling. Then I get up.

“I need to get out of here.”

“You’re in your pajamas.”

I look down at myself.

“Go take a shower and change.”

I am not used to be ordered around, at least by anyone but my father, but I do as she says. My shower turns out to be half an hour standing under the hot water followed by brushing my hair and dressing in the only casual clothes I have, an ancient sweatsuit at the bottom of my bottom drawer, which I don’t remember even putting there. I don’t have sneakers, either. I don’t care; I put on a pair of slippers and make a mental note to buy some sneakers. When I step outside, Alicia is waiting for me.

“Should I have the car brought around?”

“Do you have a car?”

She nods.

“Let’s take yours.”

I feel strange walking out of the house, down the path that winds around the back to where Alicia and the other staff park. Her car is a boxy minivan. The inside smells strongly of fabric softener for some reason. I sit in the front seat next to her, and she starts the engine and looks over at me.

“Where would we be going, then?”

I sigh. “I want a cheeseburger.”

“What kind?”

“I don’t know. Pick one.”

Some twenty minutes later, I find myself sitting in her minivan while she wheels it around the curving drive-through lane of a McDonalds. She stops before pulling up to the speaker.

“What did you want, hon?”

“A quarter pounder.”

She orders, pulls up, and I realize I have no cash on me. My God, I’m making her pay.

“I’ll pay you back,” I say, as she pulls into a parking space facing the road.

She passes me my food and I spread the paper open on my lap.

“You don’t have to pay me back. It was nine dollars.”

I peel the top of the bun off and use a napkin to wipe it clean, leaving a thin layer of mayonnaise-ketchup-mustard mixture soaked into the bread, then settle it on top of the patty and take a bite.

“If you’d said something I’d have ordered it plain for you.”

 
“I like it this way.”

She eyes me while she chews. “You mean you like to order it and then peel everything off.”

“Yes. They just put too much on.”

“Okay.”

Every bite is like torture. The food is fine, the memories are not. It’s like every bite tries to stick in my throat.

“Evelyn,” she says.

I put the half-eaten burger on the paper in my lap and thoroughly clean my hands with a pale yellow napkin. I fold the burger in the paper and stick it back in the bag, and take a long pull on the soda she bought me.

“Thank you for lunch,” I say, barely more than a whisper.

Alicia says nothing else until she balls up the wrapper from her fish sandwich and tosses it in the open bag. She reaches for the key, to start the van.

“Wait.”

Her hand sinks back to her lap. I stare straight ahead.

“This is what happened.”

Chapter Seven

Evelyn

Mrs. Vanderburg placed the folder in my hands.

“You’ve done very well, Eve.”

My face lit up in a smile so hard it hurt. This was a strange week. I was saying goodbye to my tutors. A dozen admission letters rested in two neat stacks on my desk, behind Mrs. V. Of all my teachers, she was the one I loved most. For the last four years, all through high school, she visited three times per week to instruct me in mathematics. I missed a few points on the papers she handed back, but I didn’t care. I was excited and full of fear at the same time, my stomach doing backflips.

Today I would be saying goodbye to a fixture in my life. When you are eighteen years old, four years is a long time. In all those years of instruction, I’d never seen Mrs. V wear anything but an ankle length dress, usually buttoned to her neck. She looked like she belonged in a Victorian period piece, except for her big oversized glasses, more practical than stylish. In the years I’d known her, half-moon shaped bifocal lenses had appeared in those glasses, and her tightly wound bun went from silver to mostly white.

I almost didn’t bother looking at the papers. It was a foregone conclusion at this point. The paperwork had been filed, and I had my diploma, the equivalent of an honors track diploma at a regular high school. Deep down I’ve always suspected that
every
homeschooled student earns a perfect grade point average, but I know I earned it.

“Have you decided where you’ll be going?”

I blinked a few times and glanced at the letters.

“I’m not sure yet.” My voice was tiny then, soft, barely more than a whisper.

“You have quite a selection to choose from.” The note of approval in her voice makes my pride swell.

She took my hands, and cleared her throat, but she was becoming choked up. I felt my eyes burn in return.

“Students like you are the reason I wanted to become a teacher,” she told me, with a wistful sigh. “I worry about you, though.”

“Why? Did I do something wrong?”

She smiles and pats my hand. “No, sweet girl. You did nothing wrong. You are a kind, sensitive, well mannered young woman and you are very intelligent, and, if I may say so, quite beautiful. Just look at you blush.”

I was blushing.

“Be very careful,” she said, a note of warning in her voice. “You’re very trusting. Soon you’ll be on your own, with no one there to look out for you but yourself. You have to be very careful, especially about young men.”

I nodded. “I know. F-father talked to me about this.”

She let out a long sigh, released my hands and folded her own in her lap.

“Eve, normally I would not say this, but what will he do, hmm? Fire me? Your father is not always right. I want you to be cautious. He wants to control every aspect of your life. In truth, I think you’d have prospered in traditional school. A private institution, perhaps. You are very intelligent and learn quickly, but there are some lessons only people your own age can teach you, and
 
you’ve been deprived of them. I don’t know why.”

She cleared her throat.

“I’d ask you not to repeat any of this. I depend on recommendations in my line of work, you understand.”

I nod. “Of course, I’ll keep anything you say in confidence.”

“‘Be careful’ doesn’t mean ‘stay away from every boy’. You’re intelligent. Use that intelligence. Trust your instincts. Avoid situations where you can be taken advantage of. Promise me, though, that you won’t shut people out. Make some friends. It may take you a while to learn how. Don’t wall yourself off. A life lived alone is not a good life.”

I nodded again. “Thank you, Mrs. V.”

She scrubbed at her eyes with her fingers.

“You know, I have to leave now.”

“You could stay for dinner.”

“I don’t think your father would like that, dear. No,” she sighed again, and I realized she was beginning to choke up. “I need to go. I have an appointment this afternoon, anyway.”

I stood up and walked her to the front door of our house. At the door, she shocked me by throwing her arms around me. She hugged me. I stood there rigid, unsure what I should do. She held me by the shoulders and gave me warm smile.

“Remember what I said. It’s time to leave the nest.”

“Thank you,” I said, not sure what else to say.

There was an awkward pause, and with a hitching breath she descended the front steps and walked down the street to her car. I waved as she drove off, and felt a crushing weight in the pit of my stomach as I walked back to the study that served as my classroom. My next tutor taught history and English and
 
we were not so close. Our final interaction was professional, the advice given more about choosing a field of study. I had already chosen. I would be studying business. Tonight, when Father came home, I was expected to inform him which school I would attend, and begin making the arrangements. After
 
the history tutor left, I sat at the desk and arranged the envelopes into piles. I was tempted to choose a college in Oregon, as far from home as I could get, but the idea of being so far away made my fingers tremble and my palms sweaty. It went in the No pile. I don’t even know why I applied.

I don’t know why I applied to any of them. The envelope sat fat in front of me, heavy with the future. I was offered a full scholarship, not that we needed it.

When Father came home I was waiting for him in the hallway. It was the same, every day. I lurked near the door, walked over as he entered and took his briefcase, and told him about my studies for the day as I walked with him to his office. Once inside I set his briefcase by the desk. He sat down behind the broad expanse of oak and bored into me with his icy blue eyes.

“Well?”

I did my trick. It’s a clever trick.

I opened my mouth and his words came out.

“A good choice,” was all he said. “You’re excused. Dinner is at six thirty.”

Father employed a domestic to cook and clean for us. Most never lasted more than six months. Imelda, the latest, had been there for nine. She was quiet, only a few years older than I was, and had a way of looking through me as if I was not there. I ate my serving of steamed vegetables and lemon pepper chicken slowly, cutting neatly, taking small bites.

Dinner conversation was never our strong suit.

“Tomorrow afternoon, you will come with me.”

“Yes, sir.”

I didn’t ask where. It wasn’t my place.

“We’ll be visiting Karen Amsel.”

“One of your clients.”

“She’s more than a client.”

My stomach twisted. I looked at a bite of perfectly grilled chicken stuck on the tines of my fork and resisted the urge to put it down. I needed to clean my plate.

Girls are supposed to have opinions about their fathers dating. I wasn’t sure what I thought about it. I knew he’d been spending a great deal of time with her for the last several months. He’d been eating with her, but I assumed
 
he was simply working late. My father was a financial advisor, working with any number of high profile clients. Mrs. Amsel was among the richest. I’d never met her. He wasn’t one to show me off to the clients. When they came to the house, either on business or for a social call, I was told to stay in my bedroom. Mrs. Amsel had never paid a call, socially or professionally.

“We’ve discussed marriage.”
 

“I see.”

“I expect you to be on your best behavior.”

“Yes, sir.”

“You’re excused, when you finish.”

Picking at the vegetables took longer, but I finally finished and took our plates back to the kitchen. Imelda had gone home. She would wash up in the morning. I stacked them neatly in the sink, returned to make sure my
 
chair was neatly pushed in, and left. Father paid me no mind, reading the
Wall Street Journal
as he sipped his evening coffee.

I retreated to my bedroom. I wasn’t allowed to use the Internet except for school and television was also forbidden. After my evening shower, I settled into bed with a book. I had a box of romance novels tucked under my bed. One of my tutors gave them to me when I asked her about them. I’d read them all five times and half of them were on the verge of losing pages, but I carefully repaired them with tape and glue. Tonight, though, I leaned back and read one of the books I was actually allowed to purchase on our last trip to the store.

By nine o’clock I was in bed, dead tired from rising at five. Tomorrow would be a strange day, only a little stranger than all the rest of the days until I started whatever advanced reading I needed for my college courses. I wouldn’t have anything to
do.
I’d never had that much leisure time in my life. For as long as I could remember, my studies continued during the summer.

The next morning I put my responses to my acceptance letters in the mailbox. I’d scheduled a tour for July and I would be receiving my orientation paperwork soon. I was almost giddy at the thought, biting my lip in excitement.

I dressed in a light blue sun dress for the… date? Meeting? Was I being presented? I wasn’t sure what to call it, or what it would be like. What if this woman disliked me? I’d be out of the house, soon.