Pursuing Sarah (Sarah Series Book 2) Page 11

  “Seriously, what are you doing here? Our dinner is for tomorrow.”

  He kissed my cheek and played with my right hand. It still felt odd to have him touch me in any other way than a nudge when he grabbed for the bowl of mashed potatoes.

  “Show me your room.”

  “Uh, you’ve seen my room.”

  “Have not.”

  “Yes you have. Remember? You helped me move my new dresser into it.”

  “Come on. That was a couple of years ago, and it wasn’t as if I was checking it out. I couldn’t even tell you the color carpet it had in it.”

  “I don’t have carpet.”

  “Well, let’s check it out then.”

  “Michael.” I raised my brow in a this-isn’t-happening sort of way.

  “No, I just want to relax and talk in a way I don’t have to whisper. Rose is right down the hall.”

  He was right. My room was on the other side of the house. That’s why she shared my room until she was three. I couldn’t bear to think of her so far away from me. Even if it was just twenty more feet.

  “Okay, but nothing’s happening.” I pointed like I do with Rose when she says she’s cleaned her room. I know that only means she shoved half her dolls underneath her bed and the other half under her covers.

  “Boy Scout honor.” He held up two fingers.

  “You were never in the Boy Scouts.”

  “Yeah, well. I’d never do anything against the institution.”

  “Fine, come on. We’ll talk.”

  I led him down the short hall into my room. I’d received my People magazine that day and was in the middle of reading it when he texted. It lay on my bed. I was running late that morning, so my sheets were turned down. I had the ones with the penguins skiing downhill on them. It helped on hot days to see a cold habitat animal. My side table lamp was on, and a bottle of polish, a sleeve of crackers, and the remote was next to it.

  “So this is what your room looks like? I guess I remember a little of what it was like.”

  “Yep, this is it.” I stood in the doorway, far away from the bed, and him.

  He jumped on my bed and grinned. “Much nicer than the couch at Gary’s. What type of mattress is this? Is it that Tempur-Pedic?”

  “Uh, no. It’s your standard soft, sold at the Mattress Warehouse. I got it for half price at their reopening sale. Since then, they’ve had two other reopening sales. I’m not sure what’s going on there. I never see them shut down once.”

  He patted the bed. “I don’t bite, you know. Sit down and take off a load. What are you reading?” He picked up the magazine and perused the page. “Oh my goodness, did you see this girl’s dress? I can’t believe she picked that designer. How dare she?”

  “Okay, okay.” I plopped down and took the magazine from his hand. “I try to stay in the know. Like whose dating who, who’s broken up after a year of marriage, and who looks sickening while nine months pregnant.”

  “What’s this?” He grabbed my polish and held it to the light. “Passion flower. Eww, sounds sexy.”

  I took the bottle and set it down. “Are you going to mess with all my things?”

  “It’s just so different.”

  “So different?”

  “Yeah. Maggie has thermometers, baby monitors, and non-fiction books lined up on her nightstands.” He made a face. “Oh my gosh. Then there’s this nasty-smelling lotion she rubs on her arms every night. It smells like something you’d wear in the forest to ward off wildlife.”

  I bit my lip. Maggie talk. And why wouldn’t he? He’s lived with her for like ever. Well, longer than me. I stayed over at her house a few times growing up. I tried not to make it a habit—it seems like everything I did, I did it wrong. She didn’t like eating in her room…or painting nails…or loud music…or not showering before bed. If I ever got sad for not having a mom to raise me, I’d just spend time with Maggie, and I got over it quickly. God love her, though; she was the most grounded friend I had.

  “Do you miss her? At all?”

  He put the polish back and looked at me. “I guess I miss the routine. Like if someone played the same song while you ate dinner. No matter that it was a horrendous song…the one with the lyrics you couldn’t understand. I guess if you heard it every night, you’d sort of wonder why it wasn’t playing when one day it did. You know, you’re used to it.”

  “So how is it at Gary’s?”

  “Lonely. I’m used to hearing Charlie and him tugging on me every minute, wanting me to do this or play that. And Maggie yelling because I forgot to set out the trash that morning and now it’ll stink and attract raccoons.” He pressed the bridge of his nose and squeezed his eyes shut. “Man, what happened, Sarah?”

  At that moment, I heard a knock on the door. I waited, wondering whether I was just hearing things. Then it knocked again. I pulled the curtain back and saw Carter’s car. I turned to Michael and said, “It’s Carter.”

  “What in the world is he doing here? It’s nine o’clock.” He looked up from his watch.

  “Who knows. But you stay back here, and don’t, for any reason, come out. That’s the last thing I need.”

  “Fine. I’ll stay right here. I just hope I don’t fall asleep. Because when I fall asleep, there is no getting me moved. I’ll just have to stay for the night.”

  “Yeah, right.”

  I pulled the door shut and went to the front. I hadn’t been this popular since I got two concert tickets to see George Michael, and I didn’t know who to take. That week, I got Emma’s Hostess cupcakes at lunch, the opportunity to wear Louise Masterson’s high heels to the dance, and Maggie’s mom agreed to take us skiing if I’d pick her daughter to go.

  “Hold on.” I lunged for the doorknob.

  “Hey,” Carter said, looking at the ground when I pulled open the door.

  “Come in.”

  He went and stood by the gray chair I had sitting next to the sofa. It was merely for decoration. It was as hard as asphalt to sit on.

  “Is anything wrong?” He seemed very anti-Carter tonight—no witty comebacks…no friendly banter.

  “Did I interrupt you? Were you getting ready for bed? Watching a movie? Were you doing anything important? Tell me and I’ll go away.”

  Did he know and was just quizzing me? I think Michael parked out of sight. Small towns…you got to love ’em.

  “No, I’m good. What’s wrong?”

  He appeared to be stuck on watching his feet shuffle. I bit on my fingertip and waited for him to utter a word.

  “I’ve been sort of out of the picture lately, have you noticed?” He racked his hair. “I mean, has it been obvious? I’m still on top of my work, but I’ve been ducking out of reality when it comes to my personal life.”

  “Um, I guess I’ve noticed.” It was difficult when I was weighed down with three tons of guilt for talking to Michael.

  “Well, I’ve been steering clear of you in particular. I didn’t want you to think I was giving a cold shoulder.”

  Me? “No, I haven’t felt any cool breezes.”

  He let out a sigh of air and moved over to the couch, first sitting down, and then on second thought, standing and walking back and forth from one end of it to the other. I stayed back, watching him wiggle in agony of whatever was on his mind. I hoped Michael wasn’t listening.

  “It’s just that something’s happened. And I keep hearing what we talked about in my mind, play over and over. About how you feel about something, and how my feelings are changing, and well…well…”

  Oh my gosh, just spit it out. On second thought, don’t! I’m hiding someone in the back room.

  “Carter, maybe now isn’t a good time. I’ve actually—”

  “I’ve been seeing Paige.”

  It was as if someone had unplugged me. My gaping mouth was where the power source was pulled. It just hung open. I could feel my tongue begin to dry. Paige?

  I swallowed. “You’re seeing Paige?”

  I sat down.


  “Yeah, well, sort of. I mean, she came home because her big-mouth mom told her I’d sold the house, and she was scared I’d sold all her things.”

  “I’d venture to say she got scared you moved on.” But what do I know? I’d only gone through Relationship 101 a couple hundred times. I saw this episode five times.

  He tilted his head in a sort of way that he didn’t understand our English language at that point.

  “Anyway, one thing led to another. And after the name-calling and shouting was finished, we stepped back, looked at her stupid canister set and crazy shower curtain that I never understood why she’d buy a mermaid overlooking the city scape—I mean, the mere thought of a mermaid should be in water and—”

  “Back to Paige, Carter!”

  “Yeah, well, after we took stock in all this crap I had finally managed to box up, we realized it might’ve been a mistake.”

  “Your marriage?” I couldn’t help getting in my point…and a dig.

  “No.” He looked at me sideways. “Breaking up.”

  “Carter! She left you to go to Memphis with Jacob Maloney! And they lived there while he trained thoroughbreds. Paige said she told you she’d made a mistake by marrying you!”

  I know, I know. It all sounded like nails on a chalkboard, or squirting lemon juice on his open wound. But someone had to let the air out of his pretend tires of matrimony bliss with that giant man-eater. The big moons in his eyes weren’t letting any light in.

  “Well, gee, thanks for setting me straight, Sarah. I guess I realize why I didn’t want to come over and tell you my good news.”

  “Good news? Good news? No, good news is ‘Hey, my house burned down, but I’m fully insured.’ Or, ‘Hey, my car blew up at the gas station, but I reached in and saved my phone.’ Yeah, that’s good news. Because all those things don’t mess with your mind, Carter. New house, new car, no problem. But then you have this tidbit about Paige, and how she’s blowing you up from the inside, and you can’t even recognize it. And there won’t be any insurance on that to replace. Because the damage is organ deep. When she leaves you again, and you know she will, you’ll be a shell. And it will take time to rebuild all the stuff you’ve already come so far in building.”

  He just stood there. I was getting all worked up, veins throttling in my temples probably, as I felt the blood pressure spike…and he stood there, one hand on his hip, head crooked to the side, and this I-can’t-believe-you look on his face.

  “You know, sometimes I wonder back to the day I married Paige. Do you ever go back to the day you got all dressed up and said ‘I do’ to Sam?”

  He knew perfectly well I did. But I figured he was returning my air strike on his newfound love with one of his own. Well played, Carter.

  I shook my head just a tiny bit.

  “And you’re standing there, an aisle stretched between the two of you. And you’re all gussied up. I’ve seen the pictures. You wore your hair up, and you were carrying a bouquet of flowers. Me, I was shaking in my tuxedo. And I look through the crowd of heads that are all turned to watch her join me, and I see this beautiful girl. And she’s smiling at me. And I know at that moment, that it’s going to be the best moment of my life.”

  “And then do you ever pinch yourself, and replace that with the moment you go home and see her packing, and she turns to you with those green, evil eyes of hers and says, ‘Carter, I’m leaving.’?”

  He shook his head. “Some of us try to think of the good things, Sarah. Like why we said ‘I do,’ and not the moment our hearts stopped beating. And now I’ve got a shot of following through with moving on. With her. She’s moving back.”

  “With you?”

  “Yeah. We’re going house hunting.”

  “House hunting?”

  “She doesn’t like the new one. And I get it—it’s small. Half her stuff wouldn’t fit in it.”

  I shook my head and bit my tongue. “Okay.”

  He stared at his feet. “I just wanted to come and tell you before you saw us somewhere together. That’s all.”

  I stared at his feet, too. “All right. Well, thanks.” I looked into his eyes. Would he ever get over Paige? I sincerely doubted it. And would she ever let him go of her little web? I would never say it to him, but all she was doing was damage control. After she’d seen he wasn’t moving on past her, she’d move out and take another piece of him with her.

  “I’ll get going, now, I suppose. Tell Rose I said hey.”

  “Sure.” I half-smiled. I felt as though I should be telling her he said bye instead. I couldn’t see us ever hanging out again. Not with that woman hanging around.

  He gripped the doorknob and turned before walking out.

  I said nothing, just watched.

  Michael waited a few minutes to come out of the hallway. I’m not sure how much he’d heard. I plopped down on the sofa, feeling as though I’d just been run over by a semi-truck. The group of friends I’d managed to collect and enjoy for years was all splintering away. One at a painful time.

  “Hey, I think I’ll take my cue and leave. It’s late.”

  I stood. “Did you hear any of that?”

  “Yeah. It’s sort of hard not to. Your walls are paper-thin.”

  “You’re telling me. Every morning when Rose wakes up to watch her cartoons, I get to dream of Barbie princesses in my sleep. Somehow they filter into my unconscious hours.”

  He walked through the room, hesitating before he got to the door. “We did an exercise in marriage counseling about what I could remember about my wedding day.”

  “What do you remember?”

  “I remembered the preacher had this awful breath, and I looked and saw Maggie go cross-eyed. Then I remember thinking that this was the smartest decision I’d made.”

  I felt my brow contort. “I think we all do at that moment.”

  “Yeah, well… I’ve got to get going. I’ll pick you up around four thirty tomorrow.”

  “Okay.”

  He gently swung the door open and closed it after him just as gingerly. I went to bed that night, stuck on the aisle of my own wedding, wondering what I was thinking then.

  It was two thirty when I arrived back home. Rose was overjoyed to be at Shana’s house. The party was decorated in Little Pony theme. Five little girls ran around, tee-heeing, and bouncing off the walls as if someone had given them caffeinated booster shots. Turning five was one thing, but putting five girls together who were all turning five, and you had major issues to deal with. I flashed Bea a sympathetic look before I left. She assured me earlier that her husband and sister were on stand-by should she need help. I would’ve stayed for a few hours had I not been otherwise obligated to go out with Michael. I didn’t exactly have a lot of outfits to choose from for our mutual dinner of eating out together. I wanted it to be something nice. Something better than if I was going to Burger King.

  For years, I looked at my pretty dresses in the closet…hearing that pretend voice I made up when I read that book about de-cluttering: “If you haven’t worn it, used it, or seen it on a daily basis in a year, toss it out.” I used my reader voice to portray my fourth grade teacher…whiny, naggy, and a little bit scary. I bought the book because I seemed to be becoming a hoarder. Even vintage cereal boxes had become tough to throw away.

  My closet, after the Salvation Army purge, was now made up of skirts (for my professional days), eight shades of khaki pants (for the I’m-too-late-to-care days), jeans (for the weekends), and one dress. I was with Maggie when I bought it…sort of ironic I was wearing it to go on an outing with her soon-to-be ex. We laughed when I picked it up off the rack. I was messing around, holding it up to my neck, and she said it would boost my morale to buy it. Sort of like setting a goal of when I shed my mom jeans and soared out on a real date. And although this was no real date, it was better than something I’d wear to work. I’d try to ignore the fact it was fire-engine red, sleeveless, form-fitting, and rode just above the knees. Thankfully I’d been walk
ing at lunch with some of the other teachers. I didn’t feel like a complete blob in it.

  I checked the time—4:00—looked at myself for the hundredth time, and paced. Why couldn’t this be anyone else I was geared up and ready to see standing on my front porch? No, that wasn’t exactly truthful. That was just the guilt eating away at me. The misfortunate turn of events in two people’s lives who I loved dearly. For crying out loud, I’d had kind of a thing for Michael since middle school through sophomore year in high school. After that, he was just a face in the crowd. Someone who eventually dropped off my radar.

  I remember when he’d run up and down the gym, throwing that basketball to his teammates. His sweaty brow, his dark hair, and that killer smile. If only he’d have looked up and had seen all the swoon oozing out of me. On second thought, maybe not. I wasn’t exactly the most eloquent at that point in my life. And word around town was that I was a latcher. Someone who squeezed the death out of a first date. Stalker might’ve been mentioned, but I escaped that identity when I went into hiding my freshman year of high school.

  I stood in front of the floor-length mirror in my bedroom, shook my head, and took a deep, cleansing breath. This was going nowhere. It was a chance for adult conversation with a charming man. Understood. Crappy, but understood. Had fate been kinder… I digress. I was ready. But he wasn’t there, so I pressed my phone screen and hoped to see a picture of my Rose. Bea sometimes sent these out, making me feel as though my little girl wasn’t hopelessly missing me as much as I was her. But I get it; there’s a quiet riot going on at that house. Pictures would wait.

  I scrolled down my email, refreshing the twenty thousand or so that stays littered on my screen. I’m the type who doesn’t know what the delete button is for. I hovered over one that seemed to be from Marta. Blast from the past! I thought about her at times, wondering whether she was still cranking out the ol’ yarn factory—hosting new knitters, and explaining to the new ones how they’d one day feel natural holding two long needles and counting at the same time.

  As I read through it, it stated Robena was turning eighty, and Marta was holding a celebration at Sully’s, an amazing restaurant downtown that served the best lobster rolls. My stomach growled at the thought of the butter dripping from the white meat. I stared at the date and time. The likelihood I’d go was slim to none. Still, it was nice to think about my friend and love the fact people were going to shower her for one day. She might even park her scowl at home for those few hours and shock them with a smile. One could dream. Then it dawned on me…the date was for the week Rose was going to Disney with Aunt Heidi. Uncle Pete’s grandchildren from his first marriage were visiting from Maine, and they planned a trip to Disney. He’d gotten a sweet deal from some online site and Aunt Heidi extended the invite to Rose and me. I declined because it was the week of open house at the school. New students, returning students, and faculty were expected to attend.