The Lonely Hearts Club (17 page)

Reilly stared straight ahead as her stomach churned and the old, deep pain surfaced. “Yes, she did.”

“And she was pregnant?”

“Yes.”

Liz wanted to know more, but could hear how it was tearing Reilly up to talk about it. For a long minute she considered allowing the past to remain buried, but somehow, she didn’t believe it was. She sensed the specter of Annie’s death walked through Reilly’s life every day and night. “But you didn’t know.”

“No.” Reilly shuddered and watched the moonlight slice over the water. She had never talked about Annie with anyone. “Annie was diagnosed as a teenager with severe diabetes. Like a lot of kids faced with a potentially lethal disease, she refused to face how serious it was. From the things she told me, she almost died a couple of times from diabetic coma because she didn’t take her meds. She was a little better about that when she got older, but she was still wild. She refused to let anything get in the way of what she wanted.”

“Her illness must have been hard for you—for both of you.”

“Annie played hard. She lived every minute hard, and you either went along with her for the ride or she left you behind.” Reilly sighed. “That wild streak also made her very attractive. I didn’t do a whole lot to rein her in.”

Liz wanted so badly to reach across the distance between them and take Reilly’s hand. Reilly’s voice vibrated with so much loss and self-recrimination, and beneath all that, with such bewilderment, that Liz ached. But she’d already crossed boundaries she shouldn’t have, especially not with someone like Reilly, who’d already been so hurt.

“You were very young.”

“Old enough. I was twenty-three when we met.” Reilly leaned her head back. The black sky, pinpointed with stars, stretched endlessly to some time and place she could barely imagine. Beneath it, she felt small and alone and just a little lost. “I didn’t see the signs. I didn’t see that she was in trouble. I didn’t take care of her.” She turned on the seat and stared at Liz. “I didn’t take care of her, and she died.”

“She didn’t
tell
you, Reilly.”

“She didn’t trust me, because she knew I didn’t want her to get pregnant.”

Liz closed her eyes, Reilly’s words cutting through her now as cleanly and brutally as Julia’s had that morning Julia had called from California to tell Liz to cancel the appointment with her OB.
I don’t want a baby, Liz. I don’t want you to get pregnant.

The message had stunned her. Hearing it repeated now only drove home how right she had been to stop the kiss, no matter how much her body had wanted more. Now, she had to think, plan, make decisions for two—herself and the child she had decided to bring into the world. She was alone, and yet she wasn’t.

“I’m sorry,” Liz murmured, and she was. For Annie, for Reilly, and for herself, knowing she would never have a chance to find out what might have been between her and Reilly.

“Ready to go back?” Reilly asked, as if reading Liz’s mind.

“Yes, I am.”

*

Bren turned on her desk lamp and angled it so that the cone of light fell only on her computer screen. She’d already turned off the room lights when she’d realized Parker and Candace were asleep. Candace, curled up on the end of the sofa with Parker’s feet in her lap, had one hand resting on the inside of Parker’s knee. They looked connected even as they slept, and young enough to be teenagers. Parker shifted and moaned quietly, and Candace immediately opened her eyes.

“You okay, baby?” she whispered.

Parker mumbled something unintelligible and then her breathing returned to the even cadence of slumber. Candace closed her eyes.

Bren smiled to herself, imagining that Candace would be embarrassed if she knew how tender she appeared in her unguarded moments. Candace had always cultivated that tough girl façade, but it wasn’t hard to see beneath it if you took the time to look. Almost no one ever did, or ever wanted to. Parker didn’t seem to be bothered by Candace’s bravado, or she wasn’t buying it. Bren wondered how long it would be before Candace realized Parker was different, and that she was different with her.

Once Bren was certain they had both drifted off again, she opened her Melanie Richards email account to check the afternoon and evening’s messages. She answered a couple of technical questions from her editor, transferred deadline dates to her calendar, and then scanned the message headers from senders she didn’t recognize. Halfway down the screen, one header caught her eye.

Re: Jae’s mistress

Bren didn’t recognize the email address. [email protected]. The message was short.

What is Jae afraid of?

Bren swept the cursor to delete, then hesitated, staring at the question.
It isn’t Jae who’s afraid.
But she couldn’t reveal herself that way—not about something she had never even told her friends. Why then, did it seem that this stranger already knew? Her finger trembled on the mouse, knowing she should ignore the message and move on, safe in her anonymity. Instead she answered, pushing against the walls of her own making.

Jae isn’t afraid. She’s waiting for the mistress brave enough to free her.

She pushed send, then closed her eyes and fervently wished for the message to dissolve in midair before it ever reached its target. What was she doing?

Her email alert beeped and Bren jumped, her heart racing. She was almost afraid to read the message. She opened her eyes and laughed at her own foolishness. A CNN news bulletin. Just to prove to herself she was being silly, she pushed send/receive again, knowing there would be nothing there. She was wrong.

I’m not afraid. Are you?

A minute passed. Two. Four. Bren didn’t move, her fingers completely motionless on the keyboard.

Afraid of what?
she typed.

Her email program was set to download mail every five minutes. She could trigger it herself, but she didn’t. She had five minutes to get up and walk away from the computer. She could turn it off, and by morning, she’d be herself again. Not Melanie Richards caught in a shadow world populated with faceless women who knelt before her, waiting on her pleasure. Waiting for her pleasure. She didn’t move. The only sounds in the room were the quiet sighs of two women sleeping.

Her mail downloaded.

To free me. I’m waiting.

As each minute ticked away and Bren resisted the invitation, she breathed easier. She enjoyed games, even solitary ones, and she recognized this one. She wasn’t about to be seduced into revealing anything about herself, but she admired the attempt. Her mail automatically downloaded again.

The Blue Diamond Lounge. Any night after 10.

Bren gasped and quickly closed her email program, then pushed her chair back from the desk as if she could somehow escape the words on her screen. The Blue Diamond Lounge was on Delaware Avenue, a twenty-minute ride from her house.

*

Liz tiptoed into Bren’s office, Reilly close behind her. The ride back had been as silent as the trip to the river. Despite the distance between them, she’d been acutely aware of Reilly less than two feet away, rigidly staring straight ahead. The tight line of her jaw and the rigid set of her shoulders suggested anger, too, but Liz couldn’t fathom its source. The sadness and regret and even remorse she understood. There was more going on than she knew, but there were only so many wounds either of them could stand to open in one night, so she had kept silent.

“Hi,” Liz whispered to Bren, who sat behind her desk with an oddly blank expression. She might almost be sleeping with her eyes open. “Bren?”

Bren swiveled toward them in her chair and blinked, as if coming back to herself. She smiled. “Did you come to wake the sleeping beauties?”

“Beauty isn’t sleeping,” Candace murmured. “Only the beast is.”

Parker grunted and made a feeble attempt to dig her toes into Candace’s midsection. “The beast is awake and ornery.”

“You’re not allowed to be horny in your condition,” Candace warned.

Parker laughed, and then immediately moaned. “Jesus, don’t make me laugh. Ow. Damn.”

Reilly skirted around Liz to Parker’s side. She knelt by the sofa and rested her hand on the top of Parker’s head. “Breathe through your mouth and try not to laugh again. It increases the pressure in your head.”

“Sorry, I didn’t mean that,” Candace said quickly. “Is she all right?”

“Can someone turn the lights up?” Reilly asked. “Parker, close your eyes.”

Liz reached behind her and raised the dimmer switch, slowly increasing the illumination from the brass chandelier in the center of the high ceiling. “Enough?”

“It’s good, thanks.” Reilly spent a few minutes examining Parker’s face. “Does your eye hurt? Not your eyelids or your cheekbone, but the eyeball itself?”

Parker hesitated and Candace leaned forward, her expression anxious.

“No,” Parker finally said. “Everything around it hurts, but my eye feels normal.”

“Is it moving beneath your eyelids? I don’t want to try to open your lids because at this point it’s only going to put more pressure on your eyeball.”

Again, Parker hesitated, and Candace slid her hand underneath the leg of Parker’s sweatpants and rubbed her calf. Bren had offered her the navy sweats to replace her softball shorts upon their arrival, and the pants were tight and too short for her.

“If you’re not sure, Parker,” Candace said, “we can go back to the emergency room.”

“No, no. I can tell. I’m okay.” Parker started to sit up and Reilly gently restrained her.

“Stay down,” Reilly instructed. “Changing position like that can also increase the pressure. If you want to sit up, roll on your side and ease up slowly with someone helping you.”

“How long is this going to go on,” Parker grumped. “I have to go to work in the morning.”

Liz laughed. “Parker, honey, you’re not going to work this week. You’ll scare the clients away.”

“Well, I at least have to work from home. I’ve got a dozen open files on my desk right now.”

“The swelling will increase for forty-eight hours, and then start to subside,” Reilly said. “We’ll get some more ice on it tonight, and the longer you ice it, the faster it will resolve. You
might
be presentable with sunglasses by the end of the week.”

“Better.” Parker closed her eyes, obviously exhausted.

Reilly stood. “I think everyone can relax. She looks fine. If anything changes, call me.”

Candace extricated herself from the tangle of Parker’s legs and stood. “Thanks.”

“Hey, I’m just glad she won’t be pitching this weekend. We ought to be a couple games ahead of them by the time she gets back.”

“Don’t count on it,” Parker muttered darkly.

“Well,” Reilly said, suddenly uneasy. “I better go.” She glanced at Liz. “Good night.”

“Good night,” Liz said, although she was quite sure they were saying goodbye. She watched her go, then slumped into the big overstuffed armchair. “What a night.”

“So where did you go?” Bren asked.

Candace looked from Bren to Liz. “What did I miss?”

“Nothing,” Liz said. “I went for a walk and ran into Reilly. We took a ride for a few minutes, that’s all.” She shot Bren an apologetic look. “I’m sorry. Were you worried?”

Bren blushed. “I should have been, but I got caught up doing something and didn’t realize until I heard you come back how long you’d been gone. You do keep your cell phone with you all the time, right?”

Liz rolled her eyes. “Yes, I have it. I promise I will never be out of contact.”

“So,” Candace said slowly, “I sensed a little…tension between you and Reilly.”

Liz studied Parker, wondering if she was listening.

“She’s out of it,” Candace said. “I can tell from the way she’s breathing.”

Bren smiled.

“We finally had our talk,” Liz said bleakly. “Let’s say there’s nothing like a good dose of reality to put the brakes on one’s libido.”

Candace shook her head. “Darling, haven’t you learned by now that you should never subject your libido to too much thought or introspection?”

“What did Reilly say?” Bren interjected.

“It’s complicated,” Liz said.

“Now there’s a news flash,” Candace muttered.

“Candace,” Bren said, her tone softly warning.

Candace held up her hands. “Okay. Okay. I’ll be quiet. It’s painful, but I’ll manage.”

Liz couldn’t help but laugh, which felt strange when so much of her resonated with sadness. “Long story short—she’s still got some unresolved issues with a former lover who died suddenly.”

“Oh, that’s too bad,” Bren said.

“Definitely trouble there,” Candace said.