Authors: Tara McTiernan
Sharon walked toward him, feeling how leaden her legs had become. It was like walking in water. "Alan. I'm taking you home."
He curled his lip. "What? No! The party's just begun! Come on, let's have a drink together. Celebrate the end of an era. My era. It's over. And...there will be other eras. There will!"
"I don't want a drink. Come on," she said, putting her hand on his shoulder. Up close he looked even worse, his face hatching with thousands of broken blood vessels, his blue eyes yellowish. It wasn't as bad as that day years ago at his house, but it was close. But there was something different this time. There was a smell coming off of him. Sharon knew it, from when she'd volunteered as a candy striper at Norwalk Hospital when she was in high school. It was the smell of death.
"Don't look at me like that. I'm not drinking at home. I'm here! At O'Malley's! Like a normal person..." He trailed off then, looking away as if in thought.
"Yes, that's..." She stopped, not sure how to proceed. She didn't agree with him, but maybe that was the solution in moments like this? But she couldn't agree with him. This was not normal. "Okay, let's go. I'll drive you home. You'll be in your own bed. We'll get your car in the morning."
"No!" Alan roared, turning on her, his eyes widening to show the broken-yolk that had filled the white. "I can drive myself! I'm fine!"
"No, you're not!" Sharon yelled back at him, anger filling her again, this time at life.
He pushed her away, hard, making her stumble back and fall against a nearby table edge, which bit into her thigh. Pain pushing through her muscle and into the bone, Sharon watched Alan walking toward the door for only a moment. Then she was after him, catching him at the door, grabbing at his shoulder and pulling at it. "Stop it, Alan," she cried, tears popping out of her eyes. "Stop it, now. Please stop."
He turned, rearing up full of righteous vengeance, and then somehow, through the booze, saw her. "Oh," he said, his face kind and rueful once again, the look she knew. "What am I doing?"
He let her drive him home, falling asleep against the passenger door of her car before they had gotten a mile down the road. The smell of his death filled the car. Even after she'd tucked him in and checked the house for bottles that, true to his word, weren't there, and she'd driven all the way home with the windows open, the smell would not be banished, clinging desperately to the upholstery and carpeting in her car as if to say: don't forget me.
Strawberry Daiquiri
Chelsea turned the key in the lock of her apartment door and then turned to find him watching her where he stood waiting to walk her to her car, a wicked smile on his face.
"Look at you," John said, shaking his head slowly.
"What?"
"I just can't stop. Looking at you. Do you have to go? Let's go back inside. I don't have to go home tonight. She won't miss me. Call her and say you can't make it."
"You promised," she said, breath catching. Because she did want to go back inside: inside where she could touch him and be touched by him so well that it was exquisitely delicious, making her every cell vibrate like a bell. Inside, where they could float for hours, lost in their own world. Inside, where they could find new pieces of furniture to christen: the couch, the bathroom counter, the kitchen table - been there, done that, all while listening to Nina Simone admit "I Want a Little Sugar in My Bowl" on Chelsea's stereo and laughing with delight in each other's arms. How had this happened? Chelsea found herself wondering how she had fallen so far and so fast. But she knew.
Almost two weeks ago TMB's required paper trail had been complete. Kevin hadn't even been the one to tell her, Molly had. Molly Knowles, who Chelsea had heard was in her own little bath of hot water over something she'd said to an intern. But Molly was obviously keeping her head above the bubbling surface. Chelsea hadn't been able to do the same.
When she walked into her apartment and put down her cardboard box filled with her personal effects, packed for her by Anna from HR while Chelsea was meeting with Molly, it was still morning, the sun still rising in the sky. She looked around her living room, confused by the play of sunlight across the carpeting that was usually seen only on weekends. She was supposed to be almost midway through her workday, not at home without a job or even a pink slip. Then her phone rang with the default twitter. Chelsea pulled it out of her purse, expecting to see the bank's area code. It would fit right in with the way her day was going, them demanding money now, money she had no way of getting without a job.
It was John. John! The reason she was at home now. Eyes bulging with fury, Chelsea punched the phone's send button and said, "I've told you not to call me. I begged you! And now, now I've lost my job. And it's your fault! Do you understand?"
"Whoa! What's going on?"
"I lost my job. You were distracting me with all these calls. I mean, it's my fault I forgot things, but I wouldn't have if you didn't keep calling! And emailing! And texting!"
"I thought you were kidding."
"Kidding!"
"I mean, exaggerating, being dramatic. Like you do. You know you do. I just...I didn't get that this was real. You really lost your job?"
"Yes, I really lost my job. For real." And that's when the numbness went away and she felt it pierce her. She didn't have a job for the first time in her life since she got out of Norwalk Community College with her associate's degree. She sank down onto the couch.
He said, "Oh, my God. I'm...I'm coming over there. You're at home, right? At your apartment? I'll help you. It's my fault. I just couldn't stop myself, couldn't stop thinking about you. I'll be there in fifteen. Don't move."
It hadn't been hard not to move. The lethargy following her moment of truth had pinned her to the couch for the half-hour it took for John to get there. When she'd opened the door and saw his face, the face that haunted her dreams, she'd burst into tears. He took her in his arms and held her, rocking back and forth, and she'd put her nose against his shirt, smelling his unique musky scent and letting the craving sweep over her, unhindered by the care that had left along with her livelihood.
When his hands started caressing, moving over her body in that old way, she responded in kind, giving in at last. But the familiarity ended there, their subsequent lovemaking on the carpeted floor of her living room was more violent than it had ever been before. They slammed at each other, pounding, screaming and angry, as if trying to beat back at life itself. When it was over, they lay in each other's bruised arms and shivered.
When she started crying again, softly now, he shushed her, stroking her hair and saying, "I'm going to take care of you, Chel. We're going to be together. Bianca and me, we're done. I'm getting out. I just have to figure out how. But I will, you can count on it. Something's wrong with that woman. You two aren't really friends. There's no way you could be friends with her. God, I love you. Why? Why did I fall for her bullshit?"
"Bullshit? What?" Chelsea asked, blinking with surprise, her voice phlegmy from tears and passion. Hearing him talk like this about Bianca was both horrible and pleasurable; Bianca the Perfect and Beautiful wasn't all that. Something was wrong with her. Chelsea had no idea what he was talking about.
He sagged a little, looked away. "She told me we'd be perfect together. That we'd conquer the world together. That our life would be perfection. We couldn't lose, we'd be that great of a team," he said, his mouth twisting, tone dry. "But there's no team. We're not a couple. We're not even really parents together. Seb has his nanny and me. Bianca's MIA."
"But, she...she talks about him all the time. And, she went to him...no, you're wrong. We were all out at Bembe, dancing, and she had to leave. She was so upset. Sebastian had the croup."
John's face became thunderous. "Seb nearly died. And you know why? Because Bianca couldn't give a shit. She told the nanny it was
her
problem, not to bother me or her with it. Just fix it, she said, that's what we pay you for. The nanny was forced to wait until Seb was infected, choking to death. And even then, Bianca resisted. I was away on a business trip, Hong Kong, for three days. If I had any idea he was that sick, I would've come home, I would've-" he started shaking a little and huffing out a sob.
He looked away again, bringing himself back under control before continuing, tears standing in his dark eyes and making them glisten. "If only I'd insisted on a prenup I could leave right now, take Seb. I would've left already. But no, she'd been so convincing, so soft and delicate-seeming in those days. Man, she fooled me. She fooled me good," he said, shaking his head. Then he looked down at Chelsea. "I'm going to figure it out. I promise. And I'm going to take care of you, starting right now. Whatever you need, you come to me. And stay away from Bianca. I don't trust her farther than I can throw her."
Chelsea remembered then. "Oh, no. We made plans. The five of us. It was my idea. The Thursday after next, at The Vault on the Avenue," she said, referring to one of the hottest bars on Greenwich Avenue, one she'd been dying to go to, that Bianca had suggested as their meeting place.
John shrugged. "Cancel. Make an excuse."
"Sharon knows I don't have a job, so I can't use that. And Lucie, she knows about you."
"What?" John said, the whites of his eyes showing. "How?"
Chelsea slumped. "I told her."
"Why?"
"I didn't know what to do. I needed to talk to someone. She told me to stay away from you."
John let out a small tsking noise. "Can't say I blame her. But she doesn't understand. No one on the outside will ever understand. That's why we're not going to even officially date until the divorce goes through. I don't want any of this to stain us. We'll be completely legitimate."
"Then maybe...maybe we shouldn't see each other again...not until it's safe."
John looked at her, his eyes searching hers. "Is that what you want?"
As he asked her, Chelsea realized she didn't want that at all. Wouldn't be able to deny herself him one minute more. She shook her head.
So they made their promises and plans. They kept their love locked up safe at Chelsea's Stamford apartment, shades drawn. John took care of her as he'd promised, paying her bills and rent, visiting her daily. He told her about the agreement he had made with the nanny to tell him everything, the bugs that were recently installed in the nursery and on the phones in an effort to find something he could use to shoehorn himself out of the marriage as well as get Bianca declared unfit as a mother.
He'd seen a divorce lawyer, an old buddy from college, who had warned John he would need something big, something potentially dangerous to Sebastian, in order to get custody. Mothers, even poor ones, usually got custody of the children, at least part-time, in a divorce. There was also the issue of money. He didn't want Bianca to get any of it.
"That's all she wanted all along, all she cared about," he said. "As soon as we were married, she stopped her act, showed her true self. She's an iceberg. Not a true feeling in her."
Chelsea only shook her head when he said things like that. It was impossible for her to believe, knowing Bianca for so long and only knowing a kind and warm-hearted woman, a woman who was often a victim of her own passions, much like Chelsea. Yet he believed in his vision of Bianca so fervently it was hard not to listen at all. And as the days passed, her always all-encompassing love for John only grew until it was bigger than her whole heart - and scarier. She was fully in his thrall and so utterly dependent on him, her life was starting to feel like a
Twilight Zone
episode; she felt herself holding her breath, waiting for that final twist that would reveal a shocking truth.
She also didn't want to admit to herself that John's money was a lure for her as well, that his success and wealth was beyond her wildest dreams. But there was so much more. She loved his raunchy sense of humor, his driving ambition, the clever observations that were always popping out of his mouth. More, she loved that he was a sensualist as she was: someone who could truly revel in a melody, experience actual bliss from a scent, someone who sucked up flavors and felt them penetrate deeply. The sharing of this sensitivity was at the center of her overwhelming feelings for him, cementing her knowledge that he was her soul mate. Together they would drink from the cup of life.