Bunches (18 page)

If I can meet her by the beach,
maybe we can go for a walk. I don’t want to walk on the same beach where I
walked with JJ, and I don’t want my friends to interrupt our conversation, so I
suggest a place not to far from where she’s staying. Our meeting isn’t until
this evening, which leaves me the entire day to fret and stew.

I’m afraid, but Lizzy and Noah
give me a hug and tell me it will be fine.

“I should head back to my place
and shower,” I say, examining the worn jeans I’m wearing. That breaks the mood,
and we all laugh.

“Are you sure you want to wash
his scent off?” Noah teases. I give him a playful shove as Lizzy giggles.

Noah starts laughing and holds up
his hands. “Sorry, had to.”

I’m a little upset that I haven’t
heard from JJ, but I push that thought away and don’t say a word about it out
loud. He’s probably really busy, depending on how bad the fire was. I wonder if
I should text him, but I’m so consumed by the idea of seeing Mrs. Rockwell that
I can only take one step at a time.

I head home. Snick is waiting for
me by the door and I pick him up to cuddle him. After one last check of my
phone I hop in the shower.

Finally, it’s time for me to meet
her. Taking a deep breath, I check my appearance in the mirror for what must be
the tenth time in the last hour. I look tired and my face is pale and pinched.

If she’s come all this way right
before her daughter’s wedding, she must have something pretty important to say
to me.

After no contact for five years,
since Michael and I laughingly waved goodbye to her and his dad one night
before we went to the movies, now she wants to talk to me. To see . . . me.

I always expected to marry
Michael, so it was important that the most important woman in his life like me.
Now I have no idea what to think, so I just try to remember what I knew about
Suki Rockwell. She was small and she worked as an interior decorator. She gave
no quarter and took no nonsense. She was well respected in the community.

Michael, as the youngest child
and the only boy, was spoiled, but he loved his mother even though she was
distant with him. I remember him once telling me a story about wanting to bake
cookies with her when he was little. She had agreed, but had stayed in her
business skirt and jacket, placing a perfectly ironed apron over her clothes.

Under no circumstances was the
kitchen to be dirtied by this endeavor, she had informed Michael. He remembered
that day like it had just happened. He said it was the moment when he realized
that order and doing the right thing were more important to his mother than her
own children. He was sad about it.

Mrs. Rockwell is the only figure
standing on the beach near the Inn where she’s staying. Her back is to me and she’s
gazing out at the sea. When she turns and catches sight of me my heart leaps
into my mouth. She’s a small woman - Michael got his height from his father -
and she has some gray in her hair now, and small lines around her mouth where
there were none five years ago. Grief will age you like nothing else can.

I approach her cautiously as her
eyes fill with tears.

Michael’s mom opens her arms to
me and I rush into them. “Oh, Nora,” she breaths through sobs. “I’m sorry. I’m
so very sorry.”

We cling to each other.

Mrs. Rockwell and I spend nearly
an hour together. I can barely remember what we said, but at the end I’m
smiling and laughing at the same time. I do know that she has forgiven me.
Well, that she never really blamed me in the first place. She knew Michael
loved the lake and that the undiagnosed heart condition was a ticking time bomb
no matter where he was. The last thing she told me was that she was glad he was
with me when he died, because that meant he had died happy. For my part, I can
barely speak, but I manage to nod. And I hug her. I hug her really tightly.

I’m about to leave, having cried
what feels like every ounce of water out of my body, when Mrs. Rockwell’s voice
stops me. I turn to look at her, and she seems stronger than she’s looked all evening.

She cocks her head. “Nora? Just
for the record, I think guys get scared too. My son did. When he first saw you
he came home” - her lip trembles, but she forces herself to go on - “and said
he had seen the girl he was going to marry. I remember the day, because he was
so young and I had had a long day at work. When he said that, when I saw the
distant, happy look on his face, everything else just melted away. I had never
seen that look on his face before.

“A mother just wants her kids to
be happy, and he was happy thinking about you. I’ll never forget it. If the
guy’s worth it, you have to give him some time, and yes, I do think he will
come back. You are a wonderful girl, Nora. My son saw it. It makes perfect
sense that other men would see it too. You should be happy. He would want
that.”

I thank her and hurry away before
either of us starts crying. I will always love Michael and there will always be
a spot in my heart for him, but the rest of it belongs to JJ. And I’m going to
him now. There’s been a fire at the Remember, and I need to be there for him.

The Remember is still smoldering.
The front window is blown out and all I see inside is a  black hole. At least
the place was closed when the fire started, and none of my employees were
there. I would never forgive myself if something happened to one of them.

The day is cloudy and overhung
with clouds. The sky is threatening rain, but that won’t do me any good. The
fire is already out. It’s just a mess.

There are people milling around,
a couple of officers keeping gawkers away, and a man from the fire department.
Two of my managers are on their way.

“Sorry, man,” says Sylvan. “I
heard over the scanner.” My good friends claps me on the back. He’s not in
uniform. He was probably sleeping when he heard.

“Thanks for coming,” I say, my
throat feeling tight. He nods.

“Do you think it was
intentional?” Sylvan asks.

I shrug and lower my voice.
“Probably,” I say. “The fire inspectors seem to think it’s a possibility.”

Sylvan’s eyes darken. I have a
bad feeling it has something to do with my going to the Black Jack last night.

“Don’t retaliate,” Sylvan warns.
“I won’t be able to protect you.”

“I’m not that guy anymore,” I
say. Because of Nora.

“I know,” he says. “I just felt
like I should say it.”

I rub my hands together and look
back at my place, the place that was my grandfather’s. “Thanks for the heads
up.”

“What are you going to do?”
Sylvan asks, walking closer to the store front. We duck under the tape to get a
closer look.

“Rebuild,” I say. “It was my
grandfather’s place. I can’t just leave it like this.”

Sylvan doesn’t say anything for
so long, I get tired of the silence.

“Just ask,” I say tiredly.

Sylvan glances at me. “What
happened last night? After you two left?”

“Nothing,” I say. “I wouldn’t do
that. Not so soon after Jessie.”

“Wouldn’t do what not so soon
after me?” says a voice behind me. I close my eyes. Could it have been worse
timing, saying what I just said? Sylvan busies himself with examining my burned
bar as I turn to talk to my ex-girlfriend.

She’s standing there in a
sweatshirt and workout pants. She isn’t wearing makeup, and her hair’s in a
ponytail. She was probably running when she heard.

“Hey,” I say lightly.

Her eyes are filled with hurt as
she says softly, “Have you really moved on so quickly?”

“Jessie,” I say, exasperated.

Her lip trembles. “I came as soon
as I heard. I’m really sorry about the Remember . . . do I know her?”

I sigh. “Jessie, I can’t talk to
you about this,” I say. I feel horrible, like someone’s punched me in the gut.
Jessie’s and my breakup was a long time coming. Hell, she wanted it too, but
that doesn’t mean I had any right to hurt her. It’s the last thing I wanted.

“You’re right,” she says, taking
a deep breath. “Look, I’m sorry. I know it’s the right thing. It’s just hard to
imagine you with someone else.”

I nod. “Thanks.” One thing seeing
Jessie proves: I love Nora. She’s it for me. The one and only. I see Jessie and
I see a friend. I see Nora, my heartbeat quickens, and I can’t help but smile.
I wish she were here now. Damn, why didn’t I bring her?

Jessie points past me to the
Remember. “I mean it when I say I’m really sorry about that.”

I shake myself, remembering who
I’m with, and glance over my shoulder. My chest tightens just looking at my
granddad’s years of hard work.

I should text Nora.

“Anyway,” says Jessie. She steps
forward. I don’t realize what she’s doing until it’s too late.

When Jessie flings her arms
around my neck and hugs me I have a chance to see over her shoulder. Nora is
standing on the street corner, a dumbfounded expression on her face. My heart
sinks and I start to push Jessie away, desperate to get to Nora.

But it’s too late. The damage is
already done. I haven’t told Nora what’s happened at the Remember yet, because
I haven’t had the chance to tell anyone. And now she’ll be thinking I haven’t
called her because Jessie met me there. Could I be more of an idiot?

By the time I get to the corner
Nora is nowhere to be seen. I look frantically in each direction and pull out
my phone and call her, but her phone’s off, so I send a text.

“It’s not what you think. Please
call me ASAP.” I’m so panicked I can’t even breathe as I stare at my phone.
Nora.

This is what happens when things
are good.

I go back to my apartment and
text Lizzy and Noah, who come over to be with me. Earlier I had been full of
the good news of my conversation with Mrs. Rockwell, and I do fill them in on
that, but now something else fills my mind and weighs down my heart.

“You’re going to wear the floor
out if you keep walking like that,” says Lizzy. She’s sitting on the couch with
Noah. I rushed back to them after I saw Jessie mauling JJ . . . and JJ not
doing anything about it.

I make a face at the cliché. “How
could I be so stupid?” I wail.

“You weren’t stupid,” says Noah
sympathetically. “You don’t know what was happening.”

“It was pretty obvious,” I say
with despair. “I don’t deserve to be happy. This proves it. He spends the night
at my place. Okay, nothing happened, and he’s not the kind of guy to dump me
because I don’t have sex with him. At least, I didn’t think he was that kind of
guy, but he leaves to go to the Remember, because it was on FIRE, and she meets
him there? He said they were over, but they obviously aren’t.”

“You can’t assume anything,”
Lizzy insists. “You should talk to him.”

“I don’t need to talk to him,” I
say, shaking my head defiantly.

“Look,” says Lizzy, “this is a
good thing you’ve got going. If you overthink it you’ll ruin everything.”

I glare at her. “I’m not ruining
anything. I’m just facing the facts. I came here this summer knowing I didn’t
deserve to be happy. Nothing has changed.”

Lizzy just shakes her head. I
know she’s frustrated with me, but I’m too hurt to care.

“JJ loves you,” says Noah. “It’s
obvious every time I see him.”

“He has a funny way of showing
it,” I say. The image of Jessie throwing herself at JJ, and JJ just standing
there and catching her, plays over and over again in my mind. I want to cry or
scream. I want to throw something. Snick is curling himself around my leg; my
frantic pacing has worried even my poor cat. Carefully I bend down and pick up
his fluffy body.

“I’m sorry,” I murmur into his
fur, not looking at my friends.

“See, even Snick is worried about
you,” says Lizzy.

“I just can’t get the image out
of my head,” I whisper.

“Has he called you?” Lizzy says.

“I don’t know,” I say quietly. “I
turned my phone off.”

“Oh, well, that’s helpful,” Lizzy
drawls.

“You have to talk to him,” she
says. “Just let him explain.”

I’m not sure there’s any
explanation that could get that image of Jessie and JJ out of my head. All I
know is that my heart hurts.

Lizzy would say it’s good that my
heart hurts, because that means it’s living and pulsing and not so buried. But
at the moment I just want to talk to JJ.

For a few brief moments I was
walking on cloud nine, but I don’t deserve it. Now I’ve been brought back to
reality, which is that I’m not that good a guy, and Nora deserves better. A
bartender’s life is no life to bring a woman like Nora into, especially not a
bartender who watched his mother be murdered.

I’m standing on the sidewalk in
front of the Remember. Nothing can be cleaned up yet, since everything is still
wet from the fire hoses. It’s a bright and sunny day. I’m frustrated that
something so sinister can happen on such a gorgeous day, but I’m also used to
it. My mother died on a day like this, and that above all is a day I’ll never
forget.

I haven’t texted Nora again,
although she’s on my mind, probably even more than the fire at my bar. I’m
guilt-ridden, but that doesn’t change my actions.

“It’ll be okay,” says Lila,
patting my arm. I glance at my employee. “The Remember,” she says, “that’s why
you look so worried, isn’t it? Or is it because you went home with a girl that
isn’t your girlfriend last night?”

I glare at her. We’ve known each
other for years and I’m comfortable doing that. “First of all, my personal life
is none of your business. Second of all, I’m single, and lastly, I escorted a
friend home. That’s it.”

Lila shrugs. “So, I guess you
aren’t upset about the Remember as you are about the girl.” She walks away.

The Remember is a shambles and it
will take months to repair. I feel like I don’t have any control over my life,
and Nora is leaving. In all honesty she deserves better than me. I will help
her see that.

As I once said to Sylvan, some
things are too important to ruin. I feel that way about Nora, but the first
thing I did was put my relationship with her at risk. All that keeps going
through my head now is, how could I?

When I look at her, my body
reacts and my heart feels like it’s home. But some things are too important to
ruin. Nora deserves better than me.

She’s sitting on my stoop,
looking small and lost. I want to rush to her and put my arm around her, but I
can’t. It kills me inside that I’m the one who’s put that look on her face.

“Hey,” I say, coming up to her
and shoving my hands in my pockets. She looks up at me with lost eyes.

“Hey,” she says in a quiet voice.

The look on her face terrifies
me.

I know she’s there to end it with
me and I can’t breathe. I decide to save her the trouble. I mean, she saw me
with my ex-girlfriend’s arms flung around my neck after I had spent the night
in her bed. Talk about a betrayal of trust. I take a deep breath, about to do
the hardest thing I’ve ever done.

“Look, Nora,” I say. “I can’t
imagine hurting you. The expression you’re giving me right now? It’s like a
stab wound to my heart. But there’s been a lot that’s happened in my life. I
don’t know if I’m capable of . . . I mean, I thought I was. I want to be.
Capable, that is, of taking care of you the way you deserve. I’m just so afraid
I’ll be my dad all over again. He didn’t give a shit. The way he acted was
disgusting. I could never forgive myself if I ever hurt anyone. Sometimes I
worry that the darkness is in me, too.”

“Maybe you need to share it,” she
says hopefully, taking my hand and squeezing. “Maybe the story will get easier
if you have someone to share the burden with.”

The very fact that she’s so
openly good is exactly why I have to do this.

I shake my head, feeling sick.
“Will it take the memories away? Her screaming? She screamed and she screamed.
I wasn’t there for her. The one person in the world who always cared about me
and I wasn’t there. I had no idea how bad it was, because she sent me away.
Thinking back on it, of course I know she did it on purpose. She was trying to
protect me, always, but it ended up costing her life.”

Nora just keeps holding my hand.
She’s letting me speak and letting me get it out. She’s not judging me or
telling me to be a man. She isn’t even saying it wasn’t my fault, which I know
is what she thinks. I was the one who hurt her this morning and now she’s
listening to my pain. Is this girl even real?

“How is it possible that I have
to be the one telling you not to be afraid to care?” she says, accusation in
her voice. “We’ve both been hurt, that’s what makes this so amazing.”

“I know you’ve been hurt,” I say,
“I just don’t want to do more damage.”

“Are you saying that you can’t be
with me because you’ll ruin it, so you might as well ruin it now? You’re
scared!”

I run my fingers through my hair
and watch her face closely. It’s entirely open and trusting. To me. I can’t
believe I’m about to do this.

“I just don’t think I can take
care of you the way you deserve to be taken care of right now,” I say quietly,
no longer able to meet her eyes. “I know you deserve better. This morning
proves it.”

She recoils from me. It’s a look
I hate. My heart squeezes in my chest. “Lizzy and Noah told me not to read
anything into this morning and to let you explain,” she says, her voice
shaking. She pauses, trying to get hold of herself.

My heart is jumping around in my
throat as I wait to hear what she’s going to say.

I have no idea what it looks like
to hurt someone you truly care about, because I have never done it before. It’s
easy not to hurt someone when you don’t truly care about them, as awful as that
sounds. But this is painfully different.

I’m not even looking at her and I
see her face crumble. Her lower lips quivers and she carefully removes her hand
from my hand. I feel vacant and empty.

“You’re right,” she says. “For
the last five years all I’ve thought is that I’m too screwed up to love someone
. . . or to have him love me back. You’re right.” She takes a shaky breath as
silent tears start to stream down her perfect cheeks. “But I’m willing to try.
This is me trying.” She spreads her arms out in front of her.

She’s rocking back and forth
slightly. I just want to take her in my arms, but instead I step away, putting
physical distance between the emotional barrier I’ve just put up. She gives me
a hurt look.

“I’m sorry,” I whisper as my
insides twist.

“But it’s you,” she says, her
voice suddenly hoarse. “It has to be you. It can’t be anyone else.”

“Nora,” I say, turning to her.
“You can find someone who cares about you the right way and who won’t hurt
you.”

“You don’t have to hurt me,” she
cries. “It’s a choice. No one else will understand what happened like you do.
You said Jessie was just checking in, because of the bar.”

I shake my head. “You think that
now, but there are plenty of good guys out there. Guys who don’t hurt the girl
they’re in love with the morning after the first night they get to spend with her.

She gives me a wide-eyed look. I
guess she’s never heard me say that I love her before. Well, she might as well
know the truth here at the end.

“I don’t know what you’re talking
about,” she whispers, her eyes searching mine.

I can’t repeat it. Not now. My
throat is burning and I’m going to be sick.

I say, “Go find a good guy. Look
at Sylvan.”

Nora snorts and rolls her eyes.
“Your friend who’s in love with my friend, who’s dating a guy she doesn’t love
anymore?” she says quietly. I see surprise register on her face. It’s something
she hasn’t said until just now. I have yet to meet Steven, but I assume I’ll
meet him at Amelia’s wedding, which is turning into an extra extravagant
affair.

Hundreds of people are invited
for the outdoor ceremony and the party afterward. I’m nervous about going, but
it will be nice to see friends I haven’t seen in years. I haven’t been back to
Boston since my mom died. Now I have to go for Amelia.

“I don’t want a good guy,” she
says, her voice becoming stronger. “I just want you.” She bites her lip and
gets up, still refusing to look at me. She walks out and my whole world goes
black.