THE JUNIOR BRIDESMAID (19 page)

“Come on in,
Davis. Everything okay?” I tried to be as chipper as I could. But Davis
wouldn’t walk in. I gestured with my hand encouraging his progression to breach
the threshold of my doorway but saw his mouth twitch instead. My fake smile
began to falter. “What’s going on?” I asked with concern beginning to take
hold.

“Well, um,” he
began hesitantly. Then I watched his eyes move to the side and down slightly as
if something or someone was there. I tipped forward through the door to see
where his eyes had settled. There I found a young girl. She was small in
stature but dressed kind of trendy. If I had to venture a guess I would say she
was 10 or 11-years old.

“Oh!” I said with
surprise. “Is she, um, yours?” I asked Davis. He had never spoken about
children but it was certainly possible that it was personal information that he
just never shared.

“Uh, no, Delilah.
She’s not mine,” his eyes held mine in a way that said he was trying to convey
something. But I just didn’t have a clue what it could be.

My eyes
reflexively twitched as a horrible feeling took hold. I swallowed loudly and
turned back to the girl. “Do you want to come in?” I tried to soften my voice
so as not to frighten her.

The girl just
nodded in response. Davis went to turn from the door but before he could I
grabbed his wrist. “Don’t leave me,” I whisper scolded.

“Delilah, I’m
working. I can’t stay. I’ll check on you two in an hour but I’m sure you’ll be
fine.” He touched his other hand to my cheek as I let him go. He gave me a
reassuring smile. Davis was so nice. I was really going to miss him.

I slowly closed
the front door and turned to see the young girl. She was sizing me up and
didn’t look all that happy. There was an edge to her. She looked pissed but
emotionally shaken all at the same time. The attitude didn’t match her physical
attributes as I imagined without the perma-sneer she might look angelic. Her
hair was golden blond, her eyes warm with amber and her body was wafer thin.
Decimating the vision I was picturing, she crossed her reedy arms over her
boney chest and threw out a non-existent hip.

“I need
information. And you are the only person who could give it to me,” she stated
flatly and jutted her chin at the same time.

I shifted my
weight from one foot to the other trying to get my bearings. “Well. Do you
think you could tell me who you are first?” I crossed my arms to match her
combative stance. “We should probably call your parents. I doubt they’ll be
happy to know that you are parked in a stranger’s apartment. Stranger danger
and all. So first tell me your name and I will call your parents so they aren’t
worried.” I was starting to lose my patience. I had had just about enough of
people pushing me around and then wiping their feet on my back. I certainly
wasn’t going to take it from a pint size version that I didn’t know.

“You mean you
don’t already know my name?” she stated with more attitude. “I thought my
father was staying with you. Isn’t he here?”

Her father? My
head shook reflexively answering before my mouth could catch up. “There’s no
man staying here with me,” then it occurred to me. Maybe her father was Will
and she thought he moved in already. “Is your last name Krakow?”

She shook her head
vigorously. Like only a young child would. “My last name is Rowen. My father is
Matthew. The letter you sent me said so and that he was staying here,” she
pointed her skinny finger at me accusatorily.

Holy shit. My
heart began to pound in my chest. I could hear it in my ears. “What?” I asked
genuinely confused. “What are you talking about?” Since I was experiencing
trouble breathing I knew my words were barely audible.

“You sent me a
letter. It said that everything I knew to be true was not. That my father
wasn’t who I thought. That Matthew Rowen was my real dad and he didn’t want me
when I was born because then he couldn’t have you. It said you were glad that
his brother, Ryan, took me in and pretended to be my dad. That’s what it said!”
she began to yell. “Don’t tell me you don’t know who my father is! Where is my
father!?”

Oh no. Oh my God.
Logan was right. Stacey did send a letter but it wasn’t to Darcy, it was to her
daughter. Could Stacey actually be that crazy? My entire body began to tremble.
And then the tears arrived. I sniffled hoping to hold back the moisture. I
couldn’t fall apart in front of this girl. But acknowledging that she was
caught in the cross hairs of my nemesis was excruciating. How could a back
stabbing psycho go so far? To win…what…exactly? I didn’t even know.

“Dolly?” my voice
quivered as I confirmed her name.

She pursed her
lips and nodded fiercely. “I want to see my Uncle…I mean my Dad.”

I dropped to my
knees in front of Dolly and watched as she took a cautious step back. I couldn’t
blame her. She didn’t trust me. Why should she? I sat back on my heels and
covered my mouth with the palm of my hand trying to figure out where to begin.
Once I gathered my thoughts, I dropped my hand and began. “Dolly. I know you
are confused about a lot of things,” I started. “But nothing in that letter was
true.
Nothing,”
I emphasized. “I
didn’t send you that letter.
”

I looked into her
eyes and could see the determination that she was desperate to hang on to.
“Then how would you know whatever it said was true or not?”

My lips pressed
together knowing I had quite a fight ahead of me. This kid if nothing else was
observant and wise beyond her years.

“Okay. Listen,”
clearly I needed to try another tactic. “Have you ever had a friend who you
thought was your best friend in the whole world but they did something that let
you know that you were wrong?” I didn’t know if I was going down the wrong road
or not. I didn’t know one thing about children. My only experience was having
been one, of course.

Luckily Dolly
nodded. “My friend Shelby was looking at the things in my room and I showed her
my most favorite poster of the band Bronco Billy and The Half Calves that I
kept rolled up in my closet because I didn’t want it to get ruined and she said
that she had the same one even though I knew she didn’t. When I went to the
bathroom and came back she said she had to go and I couldn’t find the poster.
The next time I went to her house I saw it in her room and she said it was hers
all along. But I knew she was lying.”

I didn’t know what
the heck she was rambling about but I didn’t care. All I cared about was that I
had made a connection and I had something to go on.

“Okay, well I had
a friend who I thought I could trust but she turned out to be not my friend at
all,” I explained.

“What does this
have to do with my Dad?” she asked with a little less contempt than she had
started.

I shook my head
not sure how to explain the rest. She was young. I couldn’t use examples like
‘Stacey fucked my boyfriend in a closet while I waited to go to lunch.’ So I
was procrastinating trying to figure out how to explain myself and not put her
in extensive therapy at the same time.

“Well. She hates
me.” Remembering my mother’s wise words I quickly tried to qualify my
statement. “
Hate
was a word that I
was always told was bad. But there is no other word that I could use that would
explain it.” I looked down and intertwined my fingers trying to decide how to
proceed.

But Dolly
immediately interjected. “That’s what my Momma always says, too. Hate is bad.”

Really? That was a
surprise. Darcy was so full of hate for me that I was surprised that she would
have taught her daughter such a thing. But I focused on the more important
aspect of the conversation, which was that Dolly and I had something in common.
I made another connection with her and there was no way that I was going to
lose it.

“It
is
a bad word,” I agreed with her and
thereby agreed with her mother. “But right now it is more important to me that
you understand how this all happened and the woman I am speaking of isn’t a
nice person. She is full of hate. So much so that she used a precious little
girl in Virginia to hurt me.” I looked back up at Dolly to see the angel that I
knew she could be. Her demeanor had completely changed and she looked saddened.
Knowing I was making some headway I had to continue. “She sent you that letter.
Not me. Your Dad is your Dad. Your Uncle is your Uncle. This woman sent you a
note to hurt me. Not you. What she wrote was a lie. I’m so sorry, Dolly. I had
no idea that she sent it.” My voice broke at the end knowing the torture that
this little girl endured the past few weeks.

“You swear?” she
whispered her question.

“I swear. Cross my
heart,” I said into her eyes swiping an x with my finger over my chest.

That was when the
tears came. She fell apart and then fell into my arms. Her entire body shook
with what, I wasn’t sure. Relief maybe? Fear? Anger? She had the right to feel
all three.

As I hugged her as
tight as I could without frightening her, another knock came at my door. I
assumed it was Davis checking back in. I stayed kneeling on the floor with my
arms wrapped around Dolly and my back to the door. I yelled for him to ‘come
in.’

I felt Dolly’s
face lift from my shoulder to see who was walking through the door and then
felt her body pull from mine. I opened my eyes and followed her body as she
stumbled forward quickly toward the door. She threw herself into her mother’s
arms who was standing next to a stoic Hugh Rowen.

“Mommy,” Dolly
melted.

“Dolly. Where have
you been?” Darcy breathed. “We have been worried sick.” Darcy began to cry.
Though I truly never liked her, in that moment I saw a different person. A
compassionate person. A side of her that I had never seen before.

Once Darcy was done going through
the motions of relief that her daughter was safe in her arms, she looked up at
me and shot me her standard look of disdain.

She spun on her heel while
escorting her daughter under her arm and left. Hugh stood in my doorway with
the same hard look that he had left with the first time and whatever
infinitesimal strides my heart had made in the healing department were
decimated. Deep in my heart I was hoping that somehow he had realized what
really happened. That he knew that I would never hurt a child in any way, shape
or form. But if he had, he obviously didn’t care because he gripped the handle
of my front door, shot me the same contemptuous look that Darcy just did, and
abruptly pulled it closed. I couldn’t help the overwhelming devastation that gripped
my heart again. It felt like my chest was caving in. I shook my head as the
tears began to flow once more. Would there ever come a day that I would get
over Hugh Rowen? I already knew the answer to that question. The answer was no.
That day would never come.

It had been a
long, taxing final day of packing. The movers were scheduled to show up first
thing in the morning. I exhaled a heavy sigh of relief and fell back onto my
plush sofa. After a Mexican beer and a shit ton of guacamole, (yes- shit ton described
how much guacamole I had eaten,) I lied on my couch belching like a sailor.
“Poor sailors, they get all the shit expressions.” I murmured to myself as I
shifted to get more comfortable. I had packed everything that wasn’t nailed
down in the entire apartment. A few boxes were left unsealed so I could throw
last minute things in them. My beer and guacamole were my way of celebrating my
last night in my apartment in the great city of New York. I even went so far as
to top it all off with sour cream. A plethora of calories I rarely afforded
myself. I heard the ding of the elevator and footsteps heading toward my door.
I cracked a small smile knowing it had to be Davis coming to say goodbye.
Before he knocked I dragged myself up and met him at the door. But when I
opened it, it wasn’t Davis I found.

The air in my
lungs left in a hurry leaving me unable to breathe or speak.

I know he saw the
shock and awe his presence created because he averted his eyes for a couple of
beats and then looked back at me and bit his lower lip. “Can I come in?” Hugh
asked.

I shook my head to
answer. I didn’t want him to come in. I didn’t want to hear how awful a person
he thought I was or how he was happy that he didn’t have to worry about running
into me in New York City. And I certainly couldn’t bear him screaming at me
again.

But Hugh ignored
my refusal and pushed past me muttering a low ‘fuck this.’ He turned with his
hands low on his jean clad hips and blew a breath out at the floor. “I didn’t
know,” he said.

I bit my tongue in
response pressing my teeth down hard on the top and bottom so I would feel the
pain. I couldn’t answer him and not burst into tears. Focusing on the sharp
pinch my molars were inflicting on my tongue was a good distraction and a hell
of a lot less painful than whatever harsh words Hugh had come to deliver. So I
nodded barely acknowledging what he’d said and opened the front door wider
inferring that he should leave.

His head shook
infinitesimally in response.

“Hugh,” I managed
and shook my head more vigorously back still struggling to rein in the emotion.

“Delilah. I didn’t
know,” he reiterated. “Dolly just explained things on the way to the airport.”

I continued to
shake my head and swallowed several times trying desperately to choke back the
threatening tears. “It doesn’t matter now,” I hiccupped feeling my sinuses
sting.

I saw his jaw
clench before he answered. I could see in his expression that he was trying to
manage his coursing frustration. He shifted his weight from one foot to the
other and forced his fingers through his hair. “It fucking matters. Don’t say
it doesn’t matter,” he said through gritted teeth.

I swiped at my
nose because it had begun to run with the silent tears that were pooling in my
lids.