This Could Have Been Our Song!: A coulda woulda shoulda ballad (41 page)

“Really? After all this time you still think that routine of yours will work on me,” she tells me.

“I don’t know what you mean,” I tell her. Sadly, I know e
xactly what she meant.

“Okay then. So we can go back to the party where we will be civil,” she declares, walking toward the door.

“Wait,” I shout. She stops. “Are you really getting married?”

“No I’m not. I’m only wearing an engagement ring,” she says.

“Isn’t it the same thing?” I’m coming closer. “It is to me.”

“That’s great but it’s not about you. It’s about Greg and me, so we’re free to interpret this any way we want to.”

“Luce,” I whisper. I try to touch her but she violently pushes my hands away. “I’ve fucked up. I’m sorry.”

“How many times have I asked you to stop calling me Luce?” she lashes out, taking a step back. “Whatever you’re trying to accomplish, Marcus, is not going to work. You’re too late, months too late,” she continues.

“I love you and I’m sorry it took me so long to say it back.”

“You broke my heart! Not once but twice. Are you asking me to go for round three?” she screams.

“So you just stopped loving me, loving us?” I ask her. I’m trying not to match her tone but it’s not easy.

“And you? You magically started? When did you get this epiphany?” she asks.

“Does it matter?” I tell her.

“No, you’re
right, it doesn’t because there is nothing you can tell me that would make me walk away from Greg. I love him,” she says.

“No, you love me, Lucia,” I tell her. We’re so close we’re almost touching.

“Maybe so. I won’t lie about that. But I do not want to be with you. I want to be with him. He makes me feel loved and safe.” She backs away. “Look at me; I’m myself again. Being with you, it took that from me.” She keeps backing away, “I like who I am when I’m with him and that’s why I love him so much,” she tells me.

“Ten years of blind devotion is better than one year of us?” I blurt out bitterly. This can’t be…

“Right now it is and you have to accept it,” she bites back. She backs herself all the way to the door. “Or not. I honestly stopped caring about your feelings a while ago. You never really cared about mine until now.”

The door opens before she touches the handle and Beesly walks in. “There you are,” she tells us.

“We’re done. I’m going back there,” Lucia tells her.

“Yes. Please. You’re on in five, Luce!” Beesly says.

“Yes I am! I need to go grab Lucita,” she quickly responds and runs out of the room.

This is how it ends? I need to go grab Lucita? I honestly stopped caring about your feelings a while ago?

“It fucking hurts doesn’t it?” Beesly sneers.

“Nice to know that you’re enjoying this,” I tell her.

“I’m not. I didn’t last August and I’m not now,” she says.

“Why didn’t you tell me about the ring and the rest?” I ask her. She let me come here and pour my guts out.
“Because today isn’t about you. It’s my husband’s birthday, Marcus; therefore it’s about him,” she says.

“I lost her, B,” I tell her, sitting in one of the chairs.

She comes and sits next to me. “Oh, Cushion, you lost that
battle
, it’s true. I’m not so convinced about the war,” she says in her most reassuring voice.

“The war?”
I ask.

“The Trojan one lasted a whole decade. So…why don’t we go back in there and listen to
Hélène
singing. We can always strategize tomorrow and any day after that,” she says, taking my hand and leading me to the door.

I give her the warmest, most loving hug I’ve ever given her. Matt is really the luckiest bastard I know. “Thank you for being on my side,” I whisper.

“What can I say? I still think she’s the female you,” she says and closes the door.

I have a feeling that it’s far from being over.

Catch up on the Lucia, Greg, Marcus love triangle and their lives in This Would Have Been Our Song! Catchy Tunes
And Dancers in Spring 2014. Secrets are revealed and lives are changed forever...

Don’t miss the preview at the end of this book
!

Eight and an half months ago…

I’ve had always hated the fabulous Altogether Women, the ones who had all their shifts in order, who knew where they were going in life and with whom. Never a cloud in sight in their destinies forecast; they purely made me sick to my sto
mach…until I became one of them.

I now was a member of that exclusive, wonderful club, The Altogether Women Society. We Altogether Women had fu
lfilling careers; we opened our own small music production companies and were our own bosses. And we were successful at it! We kept being nominated at all the famous music award shows – platinum, gold, diamond awards, you named it, we got them all over our walls.  In our spare time, we toured the world in style with our perfect fiancé. How perfect did you ask? Mine was the one and only famous choreographer, Greg McMullan, ranked fifteen sexiest men alive in 2010. He was patient, kind, supportive and an incredible sex partner. Oh, he was also so crazy about me, almost as much as I had been crazy about him. Nah! He was with an Altogether woman; he was counting his blessing every day. I should have done the same because since
my
last birthday I had been missing being Altogether every day. 

Axelle was standing at the main entrance of the hospital when I arrived. This wasn’t the way I had planned to spend my birthday. It was supposed to be our usual birthday brunch, but Noor and Axelle both cancelled on me a couple of weeks ago (and the worst older sister awards went to…) and now Noor was in labor! Four weeks early! On
my
twenty-eighth birthday!

“Fancy meeting you here,” Axelle told me. She let me pass in front of her and we walked toward the maternity ward. She looked like she hadn’t slept in weeks. Her hair was kept in a tight but not-so-neat bun. There were huge dark circles around her beautiful grey eyes. In simple wool leggings and a large black sweater, no make-up and really awful glasses, she was staring back at me waiting for me to take the bait. But I was an Altogether Woman now; I hadn’t had a bad hair day in almost a years.

“Geez, Lelly, you look like crap!” I flipped my hair to make a point and took a seat next to her in the sitting room.

“Don’t you think I know that? Fraser is against sleeping. That baby is driving me bunker,” she whined very loudly.

“It’s because you named him Fraser! He’s making you pay for it. Who can blame him?”

Fraser Anderson was about eight months old and the third addition to the Anderson family. It should have been a breeze for Lelly, not a nightmare. Then again, they called him Fr
aser…

“You, on the other hand, look lovely on this very early Mo
nday morning,” she said and approached me for a hug. “Happy birthday, Luce. Somebody is stealing your thunder,” she whispered in my ears.

“Yes, it’s just like Noor or her spawn to do such a thing,” I laughed back. I did look good and I only slept for about three hours. Greg threw me a massive surprise party last night; we drank, we danced, we drank, danced some more then it got a bit fuzzy, more drinking was involved. Not that I had a hang
over; these were things of the past. I eyed my detox shake and grabbed a quick sip – still needed to get rehydrated.

“So how long do you think it’s going to take?”

“Noor in labor? Who knows? When did she get here?” Lelly asked me.

“Why are you asking me? Didn’t I catch you on your smoke break?” I received a call from Andrew, Noor’s husband, about an hour ago saying that Noor was on her way to the hospital, so I rushed downtown.

“But Greg called me. He said that Andrew called you,” Axelle said. Her face was getting red. She was getting angry. “Where’s Andrew, Lucia? And you better say inside with Noor.”

“In Dublin,” I let out and for the first time in more than a year, I felt fear – not an Altogether Woman feeling at all. “So, you’re not with Noor?”

“No, I just got here! I was just having a puff before going inside.”

“She’s on her own in there?” I panicked. Axelle wasn’t even listening to me anymore; she ran to the nurse’s station, co
mpletely frantic, barking orders. It was just like Nooradine Mpobo-Riddell Burton to get herself into this kind of predicament.

“She gave me the room number. Let’s go,” she said, taking me by the arm. “Why is he in Dublin?”

“Auditions, I think.”

We walked as fast as we could. Lelly looked like she was about to explode. I stopped her before she opened the door.

“Okay, I’ve never been through labor before and you’re the one with three births under your belt. You need to come down before getting in there,” I told her.

“I’m calm. But Andrew better get here within the next few hours,” she warned.

“He will! That’s his firstborn; he would never miss that,” I lied back. Yes lied – that self-centered jerk. I had no confidence in him. Lying: not an Altogether Woman thing at all;
she
was slipping away. I opened the door to find a very terrified Noor and my heart sunk. “Noora-noora…”

“Oh my God, it’s really happening,” Axelle said. She sat next to Noor and softly caressed her face. “You’re going to be a mother!”

Noor’s response was a long squeal followed by very heavy breathing.

“A contraction?”
I asked, standing on the other side of the bed.

“Where’s my fucking epidural?” Noor screamed at the nurse once she had calmed down. “This sucks ass, Lucia!”

I took her in my arms and she buried her faced in my chest.

“I’m not joking; it really sucks. Why does it have to be this painful?”

“So when is your husband getting back to Toronto?” Axelle asked, gently rubbing her back.

“Axelle…” I warned. Noor looked worried enough as it was; there was no need to add Andrew in the mix.

“I’m just saying,” she continued and sent me an angry look, “it’s only a seven-hour flight, therefore no excuse!”

“He’ll be here,” Noor said.

“Of course he will,” I told her. I looked at the nurse and the anesthesiologist discussing Noor’s case.

“Why did he have to go all the way to Dublin?”

“Out! Lelly, get out!” I said under my teeth and I didn’t wait for her response. I pulled her out as the anesthesiologist started to talk to Noor.

“What do you think you’re doing?” she said in the corridor.

“You’re not helping! Go home. I’ll stay with Noor until Andrew gets here. And he will,” I ordered her.

“You know nothing about labor,” she pleaded.

“And you need sleep and rest. My God, Lelly, you’re so angry these days. Just go. I’ll keep you posted,” I yelled back and went back inside.

Noor looked much more relaxed. “They gave me something to calm me down for now.”

“Good. I sent the wicked witch away. It’s just us
for now
,” I said. I sat next to her on the bed and gently rubbed her back just in time for another contraction to start. This was crazy. What did I get myself into? Self-doubt is also not an Altogether Woman trait.
She
was fading ever further away…

Thirty six hours later, Noor, her doctor, her nurse and a very exhausted, not-so-Altogether Woman anymore finally heard a baby’s small but piercing cry.

“It’s a girl!” the doctor told us. He looked at the nurse and me before she handed me scissors. “You want to cut the cord?”

Oh boy, do I?
Andrew, where the fuck are you?

“It was my birthday, you know,” I told the nurse before ta
king the scissors from her hand and cutting the umbilical cord as per her instructions. Now all cleaned up, they gave
her
to me: this little – no, tiny – reddish-looking baby. “Thirty six hours, lass; you sure know how to make an entrance. You’re your parents’ daughter,” I whispered to her. I could have sworn that she smirked back at me.

Oh, Baby Burton, it was on like Donkey Kong.

“Meet your baby girl, Mama Noor.” I placed her in her arms. I was so proud of her; she did so well today and yesterday.

“Fuck…” she said, looking at her daughter. She touched her tiny nose and tiny mouth, and Baby Burton opened her eyes. She had our eyes: big, beautiful and grey. “Hello,” Noor told her. She wriggled back. Smart cookie this one, and she wasn’t even ten minutes old. She gave her back to me. “Andrew must be outside, waiting to see her,” she yawned.

He wasn’t.

I stared at Noor’s tired face until they wheeled her out of the delivery room. “Looks like it’s just you and me, kiddo,” I said to a very awake Baby Burton. “Was that a hint of a smile? cheeky girl.” I held her tighter when I saw the nurse approaching, “I’ll go with you; no need to take her away just yet.”