Honey (16 page)

And then there was the evidence of her own reflection greeting her in the mirror each morning. She might have left her pricey skincare products and cosmetics back at Forty-One Park, along with nearly everything else she owned, but the good loving she was getting from Marc seemed to more than make up for it. She glowed. She only hoped that, like Sarah's, her Happily Ever After in the making could withstand the test of time—and truth.

Knowing it was her turn to speak, she cleared her throat, mouth dry despite the tea she'd sipped steadily since her arrival. “Darlings, I'd like to start by sharing some really good—actually amazing—news. I've … met someone, someone wonderful.”

Cheers, whistles, and high fives rolled through the room.

Sarah shot upright. “Where, how,
who
?”

“Anybody we would know?” Liz asked.

“Does this mean you broke it off with you know who … Jerk Face?” Peter piped up.

Struggling to stay afloat amidst all the enthusiasm, Honey grounded herself with a deep breath before answering, “Yes and yes. You don't know him but you know
of
him. Remember the snoopy doctor I mentioned last winter? Well, I've been … seeing him for months now.”

“Months!”

“But only as friends until … ”

“Until?” Brian prompted, mouth full of Oreo cookie, his fifth so far from the tray. With his beanpole body, he could afford the calories.

“Until I walked out on Jerk Face,” Honey ended, relieved to get that much at least off her chest.

“Does this mean you'll stop having so many accidents now?” The question, matter-of-fact and yet eerily on the mark, came from Jonathan, Liz's precocious nearly nine-year-old. He must have snuck in a while ago, so quietly no one had noticed—until now.

The room fell silent. Talk about from the mouths of babes! Throat knotting, Honey forced herself to meet the boy's too-knowing eyes. “Yes, sweetheart, it does.”

Jonathan shrugged. “Good, then I'm glad.”

Liz frowned. “Jonathan, what have I told you about this being ‘adult time'?”

He scraped the toe of one sneaker across the carpet. “Either I go to Mrs. Ritter's or to my room.”

Liz nodded. “Right, and unfortunately Mrs. Ritter is in Seattle visiting her daughter, which leaves—”

“My room. Okay, okay, I'm going.” Pulling a face, he turned to go and despite her discomfort, Honey hid a smile. When Honey first joined FATE, Jonathan hadn't yet turned seven. He was a little boy. At times like this, he seemed more of a miniature man. It was amazing the difference a year or two made to a child's development. She hoped one day to experience that progression more fully with her own child—hers and Marc's.

But as lovely as things were with them, any plans involving a picket-fenced cottage—or more likely, a Brooklyn brownstone—were entirely premature, albeit delicious to think about. They were still learning one another. Despite having been friends for several months, and now lovers, she knew little about Marc beyond the present. Other than his mother and “Aunt Edna,” both of whom he obviously adored and respected, he rarely referenced his family. From the old photo album she'd found tucked away in a drawer, she knew he had two sisters, one married with a child, and an older brother whom Honey got the impression was a bit of a black sheep. At one point, he simply stopped appearing in family photos. Had he moved away or, worse, died? The brother was, for whatever reason, a sore subject. When she'd brought him up to Marc, his gaze shuttered and his sexy mouth flattened into a firm line. Honey's desire for secrecy about her own past kept her from probing. Whatever else she was or had been, she was no hypocrite.

Liz's voice brought her back from her reverie. “And no PlayStation until you finish your homework.”

Jonathan's head shot up, shaggy bangs flinging free of his face. “Mom!”

Tone even, Liz said, “You know the rules.”

“I
hate
rules.”

Honey knew just how he felt. All her life she'd despised being told what to do. Ironic that she'd spent her eight years in New York living at the beck and call of others—men. Only recently had she acknowledged how her blurred boundaries had gotten her into trouble as well as kept her there, first as a paid escort and later as Drew's mistress. Both positions had begun with the promise of easy money and a luxurious lifestyle. Likewise, both had proven the adage that “all that glitters is not gold.” There was no “gold” in being someone's paid sex companion, just emptiness and loneliness and, ultimately, isolation and fear. Thank God she'd gotten out in time—and had somewhere and someone safe to go to. Marc. Still, she sometimes caught herself wishing they'd met under “normal” circumstances—and more equal footing. Being the damsel in distress to his knight in shining armor had its upside, of course, but she worried he would always see her as someone in need of saving. She had so much yet to prove, not only to him but also to herself. Especially herself.

Trudging footfalls ferried Jonathan from their vicinity. The adults fell silent, collectively waiting for his bedroom door to close. They'd been meeting at Liz's for so long that they all knew her Soho two-bedroom almost as well as she did—the latch on the kitchen cabinet that the super kept promising to replace but never did; the toilet handle that had to be jiggled or else the tank would continue to run; the heat that for some mysterious reason never seemed to make it to a certain corner of the main room. In so many ways, Liz's felt more like “home” than Honey's Park Avenue apartment ever had. And as happy as she was at Marc's, as excited as she was to decorate, as many times as he swore she didn't need to ask his permission about a single detail but could do exactly as she liked, it still felt like “his” place rather than one they'd picked out and shared together. She suspected it always would.

Hearing the confirming click, Honey corralled her courage. “Now that I've shared my good news, I have something else to share: a confession.”

Predictably that got everyone's attention. “I haven't been entirely honest with you. In point, I haven't been terribly forthcoming at all.”

“About what?” Brian asked. Liz shot him a look and Sarah nudged him with her elbow. “What?” he demanded, darting a clueless look between them.

Rather than reply, Liz turned back to Honey. “Whatever you've done, we're here to help you work through it.”

“Faith,
Acceptance
, Trust, and Enlightenment, that's what we're all about, remember?” Sarah added gently. “You certainly gave all those things to me when I needed them most.”

“To all of us,” Peter added. “So give us a chance to give them back to you.”

Honey sighed. “But I've broken our cardinal ground rule, one of the few we have. And once I tell you, I'm afraid you may have a difficult time continuing to accept me as one of you.”

They couldn't know it, but their unconditional compassion only made her feel more of a heel than she already did. Unlike her mother, stepfather, or Drew, unlike her previous “friends” and clients in the escort trade, the FATEs only ever saw the best in her. The only other person about whom she could say the same was Marc. He had a way of looking at her that made her feel like the most fascinating, most alluring woman in any room, be it crowded or only the two of them. When, if, she found the courage to come clean with him, could she honestly expect him to feel the same about the person she truly was: a high school dropout who'd whored herself, not once but innumerable times? She supposed that she should look upon this FATE session as a practice run for the total honesty she ultimately owed him.

“What's that?” Brian asked, reaching for cookie number six.

She braced herself with a deep breath. “I've lied.”

Peter sent her a look as if to say,
is that all
? “Honey, sweetie, we've all lied. Adult entertainment comes down to the art of illusion, and illusion is all about creating lies and making our clients believe them.”

She shook her head. Everyone's niceness really did make confessing that much harder. “Thanks, but what I mean to say is that I've been dishonest—currently—with all of you.”

Brian's eyes bugged. “About?”

Suddenly overwhelmed, she was hardly certain where to start. “Everything. I'm a total phony, an unforgiveable fraud. I'm not really a stylist. I never have been.” Back in Omaha, her mother had worked off and on as a beautician for various “beauty shops,” and Honey had hung around enough to pick up on the basics needed to pass herself off.

“What kind of … work do you do?” Peter asked, sounding half afraid to hear her answer.

Honey hesitated. “Until a little over a week ago, I hadn't left the life, not really. Yes, I'd left the escort agency—that much was true. But I only left because one of my clients offered to set me up—as his mistress.”

“The one you brought as your date to Peter's wedding?” Sarah asked.

Peter looked predictably appalled. “Jerk Face?”

Honey nodded. “One and the same—Drew Winterthur. For more than six years, he paid for my rent, clothes, food, all of it.”

Liz's gaze sharpened. “Am I hearing past tense?”

Throat thickening, Honey nodded. “Things got pretty … intense, and I left.”

Normally laid-back, Peter looked like he wanted to punch someone. “How intense?”

Honey drew a deep breath. “He has a … problem with alcohol—and major anger issues.”

Sober for several years, Peter eyed her. “You mean he's an alcoholic?”

From being in the group together, Honey knew that Peter's one sticking point was that, when it came to substance abuse, he had zero tolerance for beating about the bush. He called the situation as he saw it, and he expected the same raw, no holds barred realness from his friends.

This time Honey didn't pause. “Yes, he is. When we first … got together, he drank, but no more than any of the other men I … dated. Gradually it progressed to the point where he doesn't ever want to stop. And he gets angry, really angry.”

Voice gentle, Liz said, “Last winter, you didn't fall down the service stairs, did you?”

“No, I didn't. He … he threw me down.”

“Oh, Honey!”

The four of them left their seats and closed in on her, not in condemnation but support. Liz stroked her back, reminding Honey of how good a mother's soothing touch could feel. Peter squeezed her hand, his kind blue eyes never leaving her face. Even Brian threw an awkward arm about her, a gesture so sweet and uncharacteristically demonstrative that Honey schooled herself not to mind the crumbs.

It wasn't until Sarah passed her the box of Kleenex that she acknowledged the wetness on her cheeks for what it was: tears. Anticipating their as-yet unspoken questions, she grabbed several tissues and blew her nose.

Tucking the used wad away in her pocket, she said, “I know, I know. How could I let things go so far? Why didn't I walk out at the first sign? I've asked myself those very same questions and there's no good answer other than I lacked courage. I screwed up.”

“Hon, don't be so hard on yourself,” Peter said, patting the back of her hand.

“He's right,” Sarah said. “We're all human. We all see what we want and ignore the rest until something wakes us up—and usually it's not pretty. Believe me, I know a thing or two
thousand
about overlooking red flags. Failing to see what was right under my nose almost got me killed the summer before last.”

“I've found that the best thing is to acknowledge the mistake, forgive yourself and anyone else involved, and focus on moving on,” Liz added. “A big aspect of coming back from cancer is learning to release things in the past you can't change. Once you do that, it's a lot easier to be more present in the moment.”

Honey nodded. It all sounded like great advice and yet … “It's just that it came about so … gradually. At first the … abuse was all verbal—mean-spirited remarks, put-downs in private and sometimes public. Later, we'd argue, and he'd backhand me to keep me in line or pin my arms to prove he could. It was degrading, there'd be maybe a bruise or two, but before last February, he'd never done anything to seriously injure me. I suppose I was only fooling myself, but honestly I never thought things would escalate to that point.”

Liz wrapped her arm about Honey's shoulders. “Did I ever mention that this couch folds out into a bed?” She jerked her chin toward the sofa upholstered in zigzagging acid-orange stripes likely from the seventies. Like most of her furniture, it was salvaged from sidewalk throwaways or picked up for pennies from thrift shops. “With Jonathan and me using the living room as my home office, this isn't the quietest of apartments, but it's a safe space, and you're welcome to share it with us for as long as you like.”

“My place is a studio and kind of a dump, but you can crash with me for as long as you want,” Brian offered, shy-eyed.

Peter piped up. “Pol and I just finished renovating. We have an actual guestroom done all in Ralph Lauren—the fabrics, the paint colors, you name it—thanks to my discount. In the spirit of false modesty not being modesty at all, I outdid myself. It's scrumptious, and we'd love to have you.”

Sarah chimed in. “Whoa, wait a minute. What are Cole and I, chopped liver?” She whipped her head back to Honey. “I don't know how you feel about taking a hiatus from the city, but our house in Bridgehampton is all yours for as long as you want it. With the baby and my deadlines, I don't know when we'll get down there next. For sure not before summer.”

“Sarah, Peter, Liz, Brian, this is amazing of you, but I couldn't possibly—”

The blond beauty and new mom to Colvin Christopher Canning III dismissed Honey's protests with a flick of her fingers. “Puh-lease, of course you can—and should. Besides, you'd be doing us the favor. Between the baby, my book deadlines, and Cole's fundraiser schedule, we're lucky to get down there every other weekend in the summer, and we hardly ever get out there in the winter. I'll get you the keys and a ticket for the Jitney and you can have the place to yourself.”