Days Like This (19 page)

Other times, when they needed a
break from work, they’d go out and walk around the city, and they’d just talk. 
About the music, about the writing, about life and love and family.  About
hopes and dreams and disappointments.  About her marriage, and about his
lackluster love life.  She was wise and warm and nurturing, and no matter what
problem he might be experiencing, she always seemed to have the right answer. 

The relationship that developed
between Rob MacKenzie and his best friend’s wife was impossible to classify,
and after a while, he stopped trying and just accepted it for what it was. 
There was nothing sexual about it, nothing romantic.  He’d long since gotten
over his initial reaction to her, and as far as she was concerned, there was
only one man on the planet, and that man’s name was Danny Fiore.  What they
felt for each other was strictly platonic.  They were simply two people with an
extraordinary friendship who just happened to be male and female. 

Except that there was something
else, something he couldn’t put his finger on, some inexplicable connection
that went beyond simple friendship.  Sometimes it almost felt like a marriage,
only without all that messy sex stuff.  Whatever this thing was between them,
it was genuine, it was intense, it went gut-deep, and it wasn’t going away any
time soon.

In spite of the fact that she was
one of the strongest women he’d ever met, he had this big-brother protective
vibe going on.  Sometimes Danny did stupid-ass stuff, and somebody had to make
sure she was covered.  Travis still hadn’t fully forgiven Danny for seducing
his kid sister, and Trav’s idea of protection was so far over the top it was
laughable.  So it was up to Rob to be the one who always had her back. 

He never questioned whether Danny
loved her; once that gold ring went on his finger, Fiore was a changed man. 
But sometimes he seemed like an emotional cripple, and for whatever reason,
Casey seemed to believe he needed coddling.  So while she took care of Danny,
Rob took care of her.  It was an odd little three-way thing they had going, but
for some crazy reason, it worked.  For years and years.

Until one night, on a moonlit
beach in the Bahamas, he screwed it all up.

For the past four years, he’d wandered
alone through an arid musical desert.  After four years, he should have
adjusted.  After four years, it shouldn’t still feel as though his right arm
had been amputated.  But it did, and he hadn’t yet figured out how to deal with
it.  For a dozen years they’d worked as a team.  A dozen years of making
beautiful music together, of living inside each other’s heads.  Through the
lean years, when they struggled and starved.  Through the fat years, when they
wrote and produced hit after hit for Danny Fiore, when they won Grammy after
Grammy for the magic they created.  For a dozen years, they’d meshed like cogs
in a wheel. 

Then Katie died, and Casey’s
marriage to Danny went south.  She hadn’t spoken to her estranged husband in ten
months on the night when Rob MacKenzie, mildly sloshed and without conscious
intent, had kissed her on that damned beach and started something they couldn’t
possibly finish.  The next day, he’d given her an ultimatum:  fish or cut bait.

She’d chosen to fish.  She’d
picked Danny.

And their twelve-year musical partnership
had completely unraveled.

***

She came in through the shed and
saw him standing at the kitchen sink, and the look on her face said it all.  While
razor blades danced in his stomach, she crossed the room to him and he closed
his arms around her and they clung to each other.  After a time, he said
bitterly, “Why do you keep doing this to yourself?” 
And to me
, he
thought, but didn’t say it.

“Don’t,” she said.  “Please don’t. 
Just hold me, and don’t say anything.”

He opened his mouth to speak. 
But the words wouldn’t come out.  All the garbage rolling around inside him had
rendered him utterly incapable of expressing what he wanted, what he  needed,
to say. 

So he did what he always did.  He
shut up and just held her.

The start of the school year was
always the same.  The crisp September weather, the guys with their shiny new
sneakers that would be scuffed and dirty by next week; the girls with their
MTV-inspired definitions of cutting-edge fashion.  Textbooks that needed to be
covered by week’s end and a locker that was located several city blocks away
from any of your classes. 
The Breakfast Club
, her all-time favorite
movie, pretty much had high school nailed:  you had your jocks and your nerds,
your popular kids and your burnouts and your untouchables.  You had yearbook
club and glee club and French club.  Lousy cafeteria food, stunning boredom,
and a major jonesing for the lazy days and sandy beaches of summer.

And algebra.  God, how she hated
algebra!  While Mrs. Silverburg wrote equations on the board in her spidery
handwriting, Paige doodled in her notebook.  When the bell rang, she was the
first one out of her seat, snatching up her backpack and heading for the
cafeteria.  The food might be lousy, but it was sustenance.  Juggling her backpack
and her food tray, she stood lost in the bustling crowd, searching for an empty
table.  When she found one in a far corner, she squeezed between packed tables,
past snotty girls and obnoxious guys, finally dropping the backpack and the
tray on the table.

For the first two days of the
semester, she’d eaten lunch with Luke and a couple of his geeky friends.  But
after he dropped Physics and picked up Lab Bio, they no longer shared the same
lunch period.  Since hell would freeze rock solid before she’d sit with those
geeks without Luke there as a buffer, she sat by herself, a lone island of
solitude in the midst of chaos.

At the next table, a trio of
girls who looked like they spent too much time watching
Beverly Hills, 90210
were whispering and giggling, undoubtedly over something trite and
meaningless.  Sometimes, she really hated chicks.  They were so superficial. 
Guys were much more straightforward.  Simpler.  And their interests didn’t
revolve around hair or makeup or the latest teen idol.  Paige picked up her
fork and poked at the UFO—unidentified food object—on her tray.  The gray
sludge may or may not have been shepherd’s pie.  The jury was still out on
that.  She thought longingly of her stepmother’s cooking, which was the
second-best thing about being dragged off to this alternate universe.

She was halfway through the UFO
when a red and gray L.L. Bean backpack dropped heavily to the table, and the
first-best thing about being dragged off to this alternate universe sat down
across from her.  Those dark eyes studied her wordlessly, and a funny little
flutter tickled her stomach.  “Hey,” she said, surprised.  This was her third
day at Jackson High, and the first time she and Mikey Lindstrom had crossed
paths.

“Hi.  How’s it going?”

She set down her fork.  “It’s
high school,” she said.  “How good could it be?”

“That’s a valid point.  You
settling in okay?”

“As okay as can be expected.  How
come you’re not eating lunch?”

“Free period.  I already ate.”

“Oh.”  She cast about for
something else to say, but she’d never been good at small talk, and every time
Mikey Lindstrom walked into the room, her palms began to sweat. 

In an unnerving and intimate
gesture, he reached out and plucked the dinner roll from her tray and tore it
into two pieces.  “Dad says you’re in his sophomore English lit class.”

“Lucky me.”

“What else are you taking?”  He
popped a piece of bread into his mouth.

“Spanish, Intro to Western Civ,
U.S. Government—”  She rolled her eyes.  “And the icing on the cake, my old
friend, Algebra.”

“Not a math person?”

“I shudder at the thought.”

“If you need help, let me know. 
I’m a whiz at math.”

“I appreciate the offer, but I
don’t think it would do much good.  I’m a hopeless case.”

“You severely underestimate my
powers.”  He glanced at the wall clock and finished off the dinner roll. 
“Better eat faster, the bell rings in two minutes.”  He stood, picked up the
backpack, and she tilted her head so she could see all six feet of him.  “If I
don’t run into you before then,” he said, “I’ll see you Saturday.”

“Saturday?”

“The weekly family get-together?”

“Oh.  That.”

He almost smiled.  The corner of
his mouth twitched, and for a second, she thought he was going to lose the
battle.  But, to her disappointment, Mister Solemn won.  Shouldering the heavy
backpack, he gave her a final cursory glance, and he was gone.  She watched him
snake his way through the crowd, greeting and being greeted by a half-dozen
people, clearly some kind of demigod in this twisted microcosm of life known as
high school.

The bell rang, and she gathered
up her things, made her way through the crowd to deposit her tray, then
shouldered her backpack and headed off in the direction of her Spanish class. 
A petite, dark-haired girl in jeans and a pink-and-white-striped knit shirt
fell into step with her. 

“Hi,” the girl said.  “You’re new
here.  We have Spanish together.  I’m Lissa Norton.”

“Paige,” she said.  “Paige
MacKenzie.”

“So, what do you think of
Señor
Hooper?”  Their Spanish teacher was a short, white-haired man who’d peppered
his walls with travel posters, but Paige highly doubted he’d ever left the good
old U. S. of A.

“I think it’s really lame that he
makes us call him
Señor
.  This isn’t exactly Barcelona.  Or even
Guadalajara.”

“I know.  Stupid, isn’t it?  So,
I saw you talking to Mikey Lindstrom.  How do you know him?”

She should have known Lissa had
an ulterior motive.  People were so predictable.  And sometimes disappointing.   Paige
squared her jaw. “He’s my step-cousin.  My aunt’s married to his father.  What
the hell difference does it make to you?”

“You can pull in the claws, New
Girl.  I’m on your side.  I just thought I should warn you.  Your little
tête-à-tête did not go unnoticed.  The local gossip lines are already burning
up with the story.”

“What story?”

“New Girl Snags Attention of
Hottest Boy in School.”

“There is no story.  We’re
related.  Our families break bread together.”

“Whatever.  I just wanted to make
sure you were prepared.”

She stopped dead in the middle of
the hallway, causing a near-collision.  Grabbed Lissa by the elbow and dragged
her over to the lockers that lined the wall.  “What?” she said.  “Prepared for
what?”

“The jealousy.  The hating. 
Every one of the girls in the prom queen set have made a play for Mikey, but
he’s shown zero interest.  So you can imagine the buzz it generated when he was
seen sitting with the new girl.  And an underclassman to boot.”

“Shit.”  Not that she was looking
to be Miss Popularity.  On the other hand, she really hadn’t expected to start
out in a new school with all her markers in the negative column before she even
spoke a word to anyone.  If she was going to fail, she’d like to at least do it
on her own terms.  “Okay,” she said.  “You know these people.  I don’t.  What
do you propose is the best way to deal with it?”

They started walking toward class
again.  “If there’s nothing going on between you and Mikey,” Lissa said, “ignore
them.  It’ll eventually die down.  If there
is
something going on
between you and Mikey, ignore them.  It’ll eventually die down.  Probably.”

“Great,” she said.  “That’s just
great.”

When she came through the door after
her morning run, the first thing she saw was the duffel bag, crammed with
clothes, perched on a kitchen chair.  Her Samsonite carry-on bag sat on the
table, its yawning mouth open and waiting to be filled.  But it was the guitar
case that cinched the deal.  She knew that case, knew it intimately.  Could
clearly remember the day, seven or eight years ago, when he’d called her and
said, “I need help picking out a new guitar, Fiore.  Come with me.”  And even
though what she knew about guitars you could put in a thimble, she’d gone with
him anyway, had listened intently while he explained the virtues and vices of
various brands and models, then watched in mild horror as he pulled out his
American Express card and paid six thousand dollars for a Fender Stratocaster. 
Although he kept it tuned and polished and played it regularly, he never used
it for studio work.  It was his performance guitar, and that one fact told her
that wherever he was headed, the trip would probably involve buses or planes. 

Her stomach went into free fall. 
It had finally arrived, the moment she’d dreaded since the day they married:  He
was leaving her.  Not forever, of course.  But once the precedent was set, more
partings would inevitably follow.  She should know; she’d lived the life for
years with Danny.  She understood how it worked.  That didn’t mean she had to
like it.

He came into the room, carrying a
fistful of toiletries.  Toothbrush, toothpaste, deodorant.  When he saw her
standing there, he stopped dead and said, “Hey.”

She glanced at him, at the
assorted luggage, then back at him.  “Is it something I did?  Something I said?”

“‘scuse me?”

“I really thought you’d give the
marriage a little more time before you decided to bail.”

“Hah.  Very funny.  You should
take that comedy act of yours on the road.”

“It seemed funny to me.  And it
looks like you’re the one who’s going on the road.  Is there something you
forgot to tell me?”

“You have no idea,” he said,
cramming toiletries into the bag as he spoke, “how sorry I am to be springing this
on you without any warning.  But you weren’t here, and it was a crisis
situation, and Chico needed an answer right away.  So I made an executive
decision without consulting the boss.”