All Shook Up (8 page)

"Hondo knew something was wrong. He dragged me from the pool and wrapped me in a beach towel. A few minutes later, Lang came marching out of the house," I say. "He yelled at me for an hour. But he wasn't angry that I'd tried to kill myself. He was pissed off that I interrupted his song-writing session that night. I didn't even know that's what he was doing at that hour. He told me I was giving him chest pains, and he didn't know how much longer he could survive as a single parent."

"Two weeks later, I got the call from Hondo and came home to find Lang dead. The first thought I had was that I'd killed him with my neediness. I couldn't get that thought out of my head until I started drowning it in vodka."

This time, I don't ask before reaching out and pulling Sophie onto my lap. I hold her tight against me until her breathing returns to normal.

As we sit here, intertwined, I wonder what the hell our new normal is going to be.

Scene 23 ~ Hondo

It's going to work. I can't believe it, but it is. I couldn't tell Sophie about it until I knew for sure. I wasn't willing to have her see me as a failure. Now, I can tell her what I've been doing at work all this time, "taking meetings" and wearing formal clothes.

I leave the building with my laptop back-pack and head toward my seven-year-old Toyota. Soon, I'll be leaving the building with a leather bag and heading to my new Mercedes.

On the way home, I stop at a florist and pick out an arrangement of yellow orchids in a blood-red square vase. I hesitate when the woman behind the counter shows me the display of cards. I finally pick out a plain red one and turn it over to write the message.

"Sophie, welcome to our new life. Love, Ho"

Fifteen minutes later, I walk in the front door and set the vase on one of the end tables in the living room. Nicole is in the same place she always is, behind her laptop and stacks of mail. I smile at her.

"Have you seen Sophie?" I say.

"Not in a while."

I leave my bag on the couch. I already loosened my tie on the way home—I can't believe how stifling a strip of silk can be—so I pull it off and drop it on my bag.

As I walk to the closet, I take off my jacket, preparing to hang it up.

"Hey, Sophie," I say.

But she doesn't notice me. Sophie and Mark are lying on the floor together, kissing.

I turn around and go back to the living room, where I pick up my bag and tie. Screw the flowers. I can't look at them now.

I tell Nicole good-bye as if nothing's wrong, walk outside to my car, and drive away.

###

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Copyright 2014 by Josey Alden. The names, characters, places, and incidents are products of the author's imagination or have been used fictitiously.