Unsuitable Men (15 page)

“Tracy!”

The tone of Brendan’s voice was one she had never heard him use before. Not with anyone. Apparently someone was a little peeved that she was going after his girlfriend.

“Well it’s true,” Tracy said, trying to sound unaffected. “There are all manner of opportunists around these days, so . . .”

Meghan just stood there looking shell-shocked and confused. Brendan came to stand next to her, glaring down at Tracy like she was some kind of lab specimen. And Shawn just looked like he was enjoying the show.

“Tracy, shut the hell up,” Brendan said.
“Stop it
.
”

She stared stubbornly at him for a moment, turned on her heel and walked away, shoving her way blindly through the crowd. Inside, she collided with Riley, on her way out to the backyard.

“Riley, I hope you don’t mind if I . . .” she began, but then she felt a hand on her arm and the next thing she knew, she was being pulled along like a recalcitrant child. Brendan pushed open the door that led to Shawn’s studio and kept walking until they were in the privacy of the live room.

“Why’re you being such a bitch?”

“How am I being a bitch?” she asked. “By pointing out that this woman is a little late to the party, so to speak? That she’s someone Riley and Shawn don’t know at all? Someone who’s insinuated herself into . . .”

“She hasn’t
insinuated
herself into anything, Tracy.”

“No, that’s right. She hasn’t. Because
you
brought her in the front door.”

“I don’t even understand what we’re talking about. What, you think Meghan’s a spy for TMZ or some shit?”

Tracy rolled her eyes.

“Then what? Help me out with this Tracy. I’m trying to figure out what has you trippin’ and I’m coming up blank!”

“Because you’re an
idiot
,” she said.

And then Brendan did something that further enraged her. He actually
smiled
. That thoroughly disarming smile that made her weak at the knees.

“I
am
an idiot,” he said, still smiling. “Because I put up with tantrums like this from you at least weekly. And I keep coming back for more. So I guess you’re right, I’m an idiot.”

“Well you don’t have to put up with them any longer, Brendan,” she said, trying to get her voice to stop shaking. “We’re done.”

“
Done
?” he asked, his voice bored.
“What are we done with? We were never anything anyway, right?”

Tracy swallowed the golf-ball sized lump in her throat. “I’m glad we’re on the same page.”

“We aren’t even reading from the same book, sweetheart,” Brendan said, his face impassive.

“Then there’s nothing else to say,” Tracy said, turning to leave. She only hoped she could get away before she did something stupid like start crying. But Brendan grabbed her arm again.

“You already embarrassed yourself tonight. Don’t make it worse by embarrassing Riley too,” he said. “They have speeches and a whole thing planned. As the godmother, you’re going to have to find some touching shit to say.

“So what you’re going to do now is you’re going to go stay here for a minute, pull yourself together and then come outside and do something for someone else for a goddamned change.”

And then he left her there.

Tracy wearily climbed the stairs to her bedroom and kicked off her shoes.
Fine
. So she and Brendan were done. She couldn’t complain about not having closure; there was that at least. And she was sure that strange void in her chest would dissipate soon.

After she’d left the sanctuary of Shawn’s studio and returned to the party, Riley had quickly assembled the guests in the loggia—probably alerted by the scene with Brendan that she’d better do it quick because something was about to blow—and there were toasts and thanks and general good wishes.

Just as Brendan had warned her to do, she’d made a sweet speech about how much she loved her new godson, and how much she loved Riley and had come to love Shawn as well. Then Brendan took his turn as the godfather and didn’t look at her the whole time. After the speeches were done, she’d made her excuses to leave, taking care to do so while Riley was occupied with other guests and couldn’t take the time from them to interrogate her.

As she left, she saw Brendan talking to Meghan, his hand on her shoulder as though comforting her. Probably apologizing for the unprovoked attack she’d suffered at the hands of the crazy woman in a designer dress.

In her purse, her cell phone rang. She groaned.
No. Not now.
If Riley wanted her to explain, she just didn’t feel like . . . Then she realized; it was Brendan’s ringtone. She let it ring until it went to voicemail and ignored it when it rang again. The third time, she picked up, but said nothing, just listening.

“Open the fucking door, Tracy.”

She hesitated.
Open the door?

Still holding the phone to her ear, she went to the top of the stairs, looking down at the front door, but couldn’t see anything from that vantage point.

“Open the door,” he said again, his voice calmer this time.

The only thing that made her decide to do it was the realization that he had to have left almost immediately after she did, or driven very, very fast. That had to count for something, surely.

He crowded his way in as soon as the inner door was open a crack, and Tracy shut it behind him, leaning against it, afraid to look up at his face.

“You make me fucking crazy, you know that?” he demanded.

Tracy said nothing, focusing on his shoes. He had great taste in shoes, and they all looked very expensive. Shoes and shirts were his vices. And that ridiculously pricey car. As vices went, she supposed that wasn’t so bad. She’d definitely known worse.

“Meghan didn’t come to the party with me. She came because Riley invited her. She came on her own.”

Slowly, she raised her chin and looked at him. He looked no less angry than he sounded. So he’d finally figured out what made her mad, huh? Or, more likely, Riley told him she was fishing around for information about when he’d arrived with Meghan.

“You didn’t have to go off on her like that. If you were pissed at me, come at me. Why be a bitch to someone who’s never even done anything to you?”

She has done something to me
, Tracy thought.
The fact of her existence does something to me.

“You need to handle your shit, Tracy. Because tonight? That mess was just . . . sloppy.”

“I’m sorry,” she said finally.

“Why are you even here?” he continued, his voice softer. “We were supposed to meet back at my place.”

“Because we ended it.” she said quietly.

“Oh you meant that?” he said, his voice impassive and sounding unconvinced.

Tracy said nothing. No, she didn’t mean it. She didn’t mean a word of it but had been worried that he believed she did, and that her foolish pride would prevent her from taking it back. She shook her head.

“I didn’t think you did. So I expected you to go to my place.” Brendan said.

“If you thought that,” she said, hesitant to challenge him in his current mood, “why did you come here?”

“Because Tracy, whenever I think of the rational thing a person would do, you generally do the opposite.”

She couldn’t help it. That made her smile.

“It’s not funny,” Brendan said. He ran a hand over his face and sighed. “Anyway, I’m drained from all this shit. I’m going home and going to bed.”

He came toward her and moved her gently out of the way, opening the door. Then he paused and placed something on the entryway table. Tracy looked at it and almost couldn’t believe her eyes.

“Brendan,” she said.

“That’s a key to the apartment.” He explained what needed no explanation. He didn’t turn to look at her as he spoke. “Your key.”

“I didn’t come to the apartment,” she admitted, “because I thought maybe you’d have Meghan there. Especially after what I said about us being done.”

“Meghan doesn’t come to my apartment, Tracy,” he said, his voice tired. “Not for a long time. And no one sleeps there. No one ever has. No one but you.”

She was glad his back was still turned, because she couldn’t contain how overjoyed that news made her, even as she wondered why it should matter so much.

“Brendan . . .”

“Goodnight,” he said, cutting off whatever she’d been about to say. “And don’t use the key to try to come over tonight, either. I think you’ve shown me enough of your ass for one day.”

He shut the door quietly on his way out, which was almost more condemnatory than if he had slammed it. Still, once he was gone, Tracy permitted herself the pleasure of a wide, self-satisfied grin.

Five days. It had only been five days. And why was he even counting? Not too long ago, he’d slept every single night in this very bed, alone. And preferred it that way. Now Brendan found himself delaying the part of his day that involved going home to his empty apartment even though it meant he could watch basketball uninterrupted instead of flipping back and forth between NBA TV and the Home Design Channel to satisfy Tracy’s insatiable and inexplicable appetite for information about how other people decorated their houses.

Late last week when they were eating out for dinner for a change she’d mentioned casually that she had to go home to Atlanta “for a couple of days” and Brendan told himself that he was a little relieved; that it would be good to get a break and be alone for a little bit once again. Tracy was beginning to get a little too comfortable at his place, he thought, and he was getting way too comfortable having her there.

Most nights now it was assumed—though never declared—that she would sleep over. It seemed natural now that she sometimes showed up around midnight after a work event or a dinner with clients, just because she didn’t feel like going all the way to Brooklyn. And neither did she comment on those nights when he checked on Lounge Two-Twelve and came in just before dawn, crawling into bed next to her still reeking of alcohol but too exhausted to shower first. All she ever did was roll over and sometimes murmured something along the lines of, “
you stink
,” before wrapping her arms tightly about him.

So it’s good
, he told himself,
that she’s going away
. He could reset a little bit, get his head screwed back on, because as things stood, he was beginning and ending almost every day with her, and that could only end badly in the long run. But for now, he was alone in bed and “the long run” seemed like a long way off.

This afternoon, he’d run into Meghan, or to be more accurate, she stopped by his office. Although she didn’t say it—because Meghan wasn’t one to push—Brendan knew she was wondering why he’d been so scarce lately. Instead she sat across from his desk and made small talk with him, her voice light but her eyes hopeful. He felt like he owed her something, an explanation for his abrupt change of course where she was concerned, but he couldn’t think of what to say. So he’d let the conversation go on until she had to leave, and even told her he would call her, though he knew it was
a
lie.

It was only nine-thirty and he was home, with what suddenly felt like an abundance of free time. He tried to remember what he used to do before he had a woman to come home to. The clubs and parties were still an option; there was always someplace to go; events where he could find pretty women who were willing and excited and almost didn’t expect to be taken seriously.

A woman like that would take the edge off a little bit; the edge being his increasing discomfort with Tracy—who didn’t even live there—being away. Brendan slung his legs over the edge of his bed and had resolved to find one of those events, and maybe even one of those willing women, when his phone rang. He reached for it and wasn’t at all surprised to see Tracy’s name on the console. Smiling, he shook his head. Maybe she had some kind of radar or something. All he had to do was
think
about being with someone else and she materialized.

“I want you to come to Atlanta,” she said as soon as he answered.

“Excuse me?” Brendan said. “Who
is
this?”

On the other end of the line, Tracy gave an exasperated sigh. “Brendan, I’m serious. Could you?”

“What’s going on?” he asked, sobering up. “Are you okay?”

“No. I want you to come.”

“What’s the matter?”

“I just want you to come,” she said again, as though that should have been explanation enough.

Brendan closed his eyes and shook his head. All it took was for Tracy to want something, and like a sucker he wanted to give it to her. No matter the inconvenience or cost to his own priorities. If she was spoiled—and she was—he sure wasn’t improving matters much.

“You’re going to have to tell me more than that, sweetheart.”

“Okay, never mind,” she said, her voice listless. “You don’t have to.”

Fuck.
Now he was going to have to figure out whether there was anything work-related he could accomplish while in Atlanta.

“When were you planning to come ho . . . back to New York?” he asked, hoping there was a way to stave off a trip that already felt inevitable. On the other hand, if she was going to be back in a couple nights, he could manage that. Piece of cake.

“Now it looks like the weekend or sometime around there,” Tracy said.

Another
five
days?!

Brendan considered for a moment. Nothing to get all bent out of shape about though, right? He wasn’t some lovesick
teenager
. He could go ten days without seeing his
girlfr
. . . without seeing Tracy. In fact, wasn’t he just thinking that the break was what he needed? And he damn sure didn’t have to fly all the way to Atlanta just because she called him pouting about something she didn’t even want to tell him about.

He sighed. “What time was that shuttle you took out there?”

“Seven-thirty a.m.,” Tracy said, her voice animated once again.

“I’m not taking
a seven-thirty shuttle,
” Brendan said
. As if that was taking some kind of stand
, he thought bitterly.

“There’s a nine as well, I think. They leave every couple of hours,” Tracy said. “I’ll book you one. How’s sometime around noon sound?”

“Fine,” Brendan said.

“Tomorrow?”

“No, not tomorrow. I need more time than that. Time to set up some meetings or something.”

“Okay, so I’ll go online and find you something as soon as we hang up and email it to you,” Tracy said. “For Wednesday then?”

All of a sudden she’d turned into a travel agent when it came to getting something she wanted. But how could he get mad when what she wanted was him?

First night in Atlanta, and Brendan was looking forward to getting the best sleep he’d had in almost a week, Tracy’s butt pressed into his groin right where he liked it. In fact, he was almost asleep, and about to pull her into their usual spooning position when Tracy raised her head from where she’d been resting it on his abdomen and got up, heading for the bathroom, grabbing her dress as she went. Through half-shut eyes, he watched as she smoothed her hair, taking extraordinary care with it—considering it was already past ten p.m.—before pulling her dress over her head.

“What’re you doing?” he asked sleepily.

“I have to go home,” she said.

“Curfew, huh?”

“Brendan . . .” she sounded exasperated, and let her voice trail off into silence.

“So what time do you want me tomorrow?”

“Seven. We always have dinner at seven.”

“So what’s the set up going to be? Why am I there?”

She turned away from the mirror to look at him. “What do you mean?”

“What am I? You invite some guy over to your mother’s house, there’s bound to be questions, right?”

“You’re a friend from New York who’s in town for business,” she said, as though it was obvious.

Brendan sighed. He didn’t do families and parents. Never had. Particularly not under these ambiguous circumstances. But if he was being the “friend from New York” he wouldn’t be subjected to the same scrutiny as a “boyfriend from New York” so he felt pretty confident he could handle it, as much as he didn’t want to.

“But why am I going, Tracy? I could meet you
afterwa
. . .”

“
No
,” she said quickly, coming to sit next to him on the bed. “I need you there.”

Need. She said she needed him there. If she said ‘want’ he might have tried to wriggle his way out of this ill-conceived plan of him having dinner among her family. He might have been able to conjure up some other obligation, like getting together with some local producers or something. But to have her say she needed him; that was difficult to ignore.

“Okay,” he said finally. “I’ll be there.”

“Thank you,” she heaved a sigh, and leaned in to kiss him quickly on the lips before sliding her feet back into her shoes.

Her voice still held an edge that had been there from the moment she met him at the airport. She was different here; more like the Tracy he used to think she was at her very core—pulled together in a way that almost severe; contained, and tightly-wound.

When they got to his hotel room she didn’t spare a moment before undressing. On her face had been a look of almost solemn determination as she strained against him, relentless in the pursuit of release. Brendan knew she was working something out in their sex, like it brought her comfort somehow. When she reached her goal of sexual exhaustion, he put a hand under her chin, turning her head so she would look at him.

“I’m right here” he said.

And her face had softened a little bit, and he kissed her, because there was still something in her eyes he couldn’t read. Brendan didn’t know why he needed to provide it, just that she craved reassurance. After his kiss, as she looked at him, he felt her relief. A part of him was dancing just on the edge of panic, wondering why he had come all the way to Atlanta where he had little or no business, to be with this complicated and difficult woman who was very quickly—and scarily so— becoming an important part of his world.

Afterward, Brendan was looking forward to sleeping with her next to him again but that wasn’t in the cards. It worried him that he cared so much, and that it wasn’t just about the sleep but about the fact that he liked having her there, in the crook of his arm, her head on his chest.

Now fully dressed, Tracy leaned over the bed once again.

“I love that you came,” she said. “Thank you.”

“If I’m not mistaken, you came too. A couple times,” he said, taking refuge in humor as always.

Tracy rolled her eyes. “So I’ll see you tomorrow evening?”

“Yup,” he made a popping noise with his lips as he said the word.

“Wear something nice,” Tracy said as she shut the door. “Not a tie or anything, but nice.”

As soon as she was gone, sleep seemed out of the question, so Brendan swung his legs over the edge of the bed and reached for his phone. There had to be some trouble he could get into in Atlanta.

Tracy needn’t have been so worried about Brendan coming over. He couldn’t have been more perfect had she given him a script. He arrived at her mother’s house ten minutes early, bearing gifts, no less; bouquet of flowers for her mother and a bottle of wine for dinner. The sweater over his shirt was overdoing the choirboy act a little for her taste, but when he winked at her as she greeted him at the
door,
she knew he was hamming it up a little, making fun of her request that he “wear something nice.” He was always dressed well, he seemed to be saying, but if she needed him to take it up a notch, he could do that too.

“Mrs. Emerson, you have a lovely home,” he said, as her mother led him into the living room.

Tracy watched as her aunts and cousins took him in. He was arresting to the eye at first because he was tall, but when you looked closer, you saw that there was more. He had chiseled good looks framed by expertly shaped facial hair lining his jaw and ending at a neatly sculpted goatee. Tracy had watched him from bed on many New York mornings maintaining it with the precision of a surgeon, running his small, electric razor about the perimeter and then down under his chin and over his Adam’s apple. She liked kissing him there, right on that interesting and uniquely masculine bulge at his throat which seemed to be a particularly erogenous zone for him. Tracy shook her head, wondering why she was
even thinking about that while standing in her mother’s showpiece living room about to have what was sure to be an uncomfortable meal.

Looking up, Tracy saw as her cousin, Jocelyn’s eyes lit up at the sight of Brendan and for a moment regretted telling everyone that he was “just a friend from back in New York who’s in town for a little bit.” She even thought she saw Jocelyn stick out her chest a fraction of an inch further as they were introduced. Although she was just behind them, Tracy could tell from her aunts’ and cousin’s reactions that Brendan was turning on his patented panty-dropping smile. Internally, she rolled her eyes.

Her mother, she noticed, seemed to be somewhat affronted by Brendan’s charm. She called men like him “showy” considering their good looks and easy manner with people to be vulgar in some unspecified way. But Brendan was not that kind of man, Tracy thought, offended by her mother’s unspoken judgment; he was one of the most genuine people she knew, one of the kindest . . .

“Is Mr. Emerson here?” Brendan asked. “I would love to meet him if . . .”

“My husband is very ill, I’m sure Tracy may have told you,” her mother broke in. “He’s upstairs and has his meals in his room now. I’m afraid the only visitors he has now are close family and a physical therapist.”