Heaven and Hell (6 page)

That might be a weird thing to do but I
figured it also would be fun.

And there was no one to care so why the heck
not?

And Memphis would get into it. Then again,
she pretty much liked to do anything just as long as her human was
around.

That said, I had to stop, enough was
enough.

My cell on the bed rang; I moved from the
mirror to it, saw it was Celeste, flipped it open and put it to my
ear.

“Hey, Celeste,” I answered.

“
Allô, ma chérie,
we’re downstairs.
Are you ready?”

God, her voice was even awesome.

“I’ll be right down,” I told her.

We rang off; I grabbed my evening bag (an
evening bag! Seriously, I was out-of-control) and headed
downstairs.

I was dressed to the eights (my gown being
definitely to the nines, or even tens) but, upon seeing Celeste, I
noted she still totally outclassed me. Even so, when she saw me,
she did this cool thing where her head dipped to the side and her
hand elegantly swept through the air, a nonverbal indication she
thought I looked great.

And, coming from her especially, that
felt
great.

Jeez, totally, I liked her.

When we greeted, I reminded myself to grab
her upper arms and touch cheek to cheek on both cheeks as she
always did with me, with shop assistants and her friend Gertrude
who we’d run into at the spa. It was really too bad Americans
didn’t do that. It wasn’t only chic, it was sweet.

Then she swept me out of the hotel, I did
the cheek thing with Thomas at the car and off we went in Thomas’s
big burgundy Jaguar to dinner.

Celeste and Thomas lived on Lake Como and
had for nearly a year. His business took him everywhere and Celeste
had confided in me while shopping that it was likely they’d be
moving again soon.

I hoped (but didn’t share this with her)
that maybe he’d be sent to Chicago or New York so I could visit,
take all my fabulous clothes and shoes and pretend to be awesome
like her again.

And also, I hoped this because I liked
her.

They took me to an eatery that was off the
beaten path but they declared was the best in a fifty mile radius
and they would know considering Celeste also confided to me that,
though French and enjoying her food (even if, on her slim frame, it
didn’t show), she was a terrible cook so they went out all the
time.

They were not wrong about the restaurant and
I decided this at first glance. It was fabulous. But as we were
shown to our table, I became enchanted. It had lots of Christmas
lights strung everywhere and tables with small, compact
arrangements of cream flowers set in the middle and peach
tablecloths draping low that lined a balustrade of a long, stone
terrace that faced the lake. The Christmas lights twinkled off the
polished crystal and silver on the tables. And, to top that, there
was soft music playing from a real live string quartet at the end
of the terrace.

It was the most beautiful restaurant I’d
ever been to in my life and in the last three and a half weeks, I’d
been to some lovely ones.

“This is gorgeous,” I breathed, walking
closely with Celeste who had her hand snug in the crook of my
elbow.

“What did I say?” she asked, grinning at
me.

“You don’t lie,” I replied, grinning back at
her.

“Oh yes I do,
ma chérie,
” she
informed me, lifting her other hand with thumb and forefinger an
inch apart then she leaned closer and whispered, “
Petites
bombards,
to Thomas, after shopping.”

My grin became a smile and I noticed Thomas
and the maitre d’ had stopped so I looked to him and our table and
that was when I saw Sampson Cooper three tables down, sitting
facing me and across from him was a brunette. Her back was to me
but I could still see she had on a fabulous dress, she had
unbelievably beautiful, glossy, long, thick, dark hair and an
amazing figure if her shoulders, slim arms and the line of her
exposed back were anything to go by.

I stopped breathing again and this time it
didn’t feel so good.

Okay.

Shit.

Okay.

Shit!

There it was. I was an idiot. I’d totally
misread the situation. Clearly, his supermodel-esque girlfriend
slept in or skipped breakfast in order to do pilates or something.
And he
was
just being nice to me.

Shit.

Luckily this time Thomas guided me to the
side of the table where I’d have my back to Sam and his woman. Even
more fortunately, he did this before Sam saw me.

The maitre d’ held my chair and pushed it in
while Thomas moved to do the same with Celeste across from me.

I looked to the lake and my heart restarted
but my stomach felt funny and that didn’t feel so good either.

It was late. They ate late here or at least
Celeste and Thomas did. They’d picked me up at eight thirty. The
sun was beginning to set on the lake and the view was amazing.

I still wanted to cry.

“Kia, is everything all right?” Celeste’s
melodious, French-accented voice came at me and I looked to
her.

I had to get myself together.

Okay, I was an idiot. Three days ago, I had
breakfast with my fantasy man and stupidly thought that I’d see him
again. I had not allowed myself to fantasize about what seeing him
would mean; I was smart enough not to set myself up for that kind
of disappointment. I just looked forward to doing it because he was
a nice guy and, in the end when he got me to relax, he was easy to
talk to.

But I didn’t think when I’d see him he would
be with a beautiful woman.

That sucked.

But, whatever.

Right?

I was in a fabulous dress and fantastic
shoes, sitting in a beautiful restaurant next to a world famous
lake with people who were worldly yet kind.

And a year ago I was in a rotten marriage
with an abusive husband and I’d given up on life because I’d
convinced myself there was no way out.

Sam probably barely remembered me,
considering how many people he had to meet in his life. He
certainly wouldn’t recognize me from the back.

So. Onward.

Onward!

This was my motto since Cooter took a
shotgun blast to the head.

Freaking onward.

I smiled at Celeste and whispered, “Better
than all right. Thank you so much for bringing me here. I don’t
even have to eat and it’s my most favorite restaurant in the
world.”

Celeste smiled at me as she reached across
the table, took my hand and gave it a squeeze. I squeezed hers
back. Then I smiled at Thomas.

Then I took the menu I belatedly noticed the
maitre d’ holding out to me.

* * * * *

I was sitting on the balcony of my hotel
with a snifter in my hand filled with one piece of ice and a
healthy dose of Amaretto.

I’d ordered a double.

Dinner was delicious. The company even
better. And Sam hadn’t noticed me.

He also hadn’t left (not that I noticed,
unless there was another exit) by the time we left. He would have
to walk by our table and he didn’t. I didn’t want to be but I was
on edge all night, waiting for him to do it and hoping he didn’t
notice me.

But, even though we ate four seriously
delicious courses and took our time, he did not walk by our
table.

And when we left, I made certain to get up
and walk out without looking back. I put everything into doing it
casually, appearing natural so Sam wouldn’t read the effort like
he’d done at breakfast.

But it didn’t matter if I pulled it off or
not. Even if he noticed and recognized me, it was highly likely he
wouldn’t care. In fact, he told me himself such behavior would be a
relief.

So there I was, having a nightcap, staring
at the dark waters and the blinking lights dotting the sides of the
lake and doing this because I was really full and would never sleep
even if it was way late but also because, even if I was alone on
the balcony and no one could see me, I really didn’t want to take
my fabulous outfit off yet.

I lifted my snifter and took a sip. I’d
always liked Amaretto. My mother drank Amaretto sours everywhere
she went. She made desserts with Amaretto in them. Dad had bought
her an expensive set of Waterford snifters for Christmas when I was
ten years old so she could further enjoy her Amaretto. She was an
Amaretto freak. We had a bottle in our house at all times.

This she had given to me. I loved Amaretto
too. Though, when Cooter was alive, the bottle I kept in the house
I hid because it pissed Cooter off I spent so much on a bottle of
liqueur I sipped on a very rare occasion when he wasn’t around.
Clearly, he didn’t think me going through a bottle of Amaretto once
every year and a half and him going through a case of beer once a
week was fair.

On this thought, my eyes welled with tears
and I pulled in a deep breath, rethinking my solitude and my double
of almond liqueur on top of three glasses of wine at dinner.

This had been happening unexpectedly,
mysteriously and with relative frequency since the day after my
plane touched down in Paris. I had not shed tear one since Ozzie
came to the house and broke the news, I hadn’t even felt my nose
sting but since I started my vacation, it seemed to happen all the
time.

I had no idea why and I had, until that
moment, been so busy I was able to power through it without giving
any headspace to wondering why.

But now, alone, sated, a wee bit tipsy,
relaxed, my guard was down and my head flooded.

And it flooded with a memory, years ago, of
having dinner at Mom and Dad’s house. After dinner, Dad and Cooter
had gone into the living room to watch something on TV and Mom and
I had done the dishes. When we were finished, we sat down at the
dining room table which we were wont to do when Dad and Cooter were
lapsing into food comas in front of the TV (Mom was a comfort food
cook, as in, that was all she ever made) and it was time to right
all the wrongs in the world.

It was just that, that night, Mom had a
specific wrong she wanted to right.

At that time, I’d been married to Cooter for
a year and a half. Looking back, I couldn’t say Cooter treated me
with love and affection in the three years we were together prior
to getting hitched, he’d treated me being on his arm like it was
his due. But he’d never been cruel. Then, for whatever reason it
commenced, Cooter had started to tear me down three months after we
got married. This started small, incidences I could easily sweep
aside as bad moods or anxiety due to a change of life, marriage,
mortgage, needing to grow up fast and hold down a job in order to
take care of home and hearth.

But it quickly escalated.

So by that time, I’d had huge chunks torn
from me.

And for some bizarre reason, I thought I was
hiding it from the world. Even my mother.

I should have known that no way could I hide
anything from Essie Rigsby. First, she was a Mom with two kids and
had been, at that time, for twenty-three years. Second, she was far
from stupid. I’d never been able to pull one over on her.

Not ever.

And that night, when she sat at the foot of
our dining room table, her back to the living room and I’d sat at
her side, the wall obstructing me from Dad and Cooter’s view, Mom
had not delayed.

Her eyes settled on me, they were troubled,
I instantly clawed at the tattered edges of the personality that my
husband was stripping from me, pulling them close in the hopes of
using them to protect me from what I knew was to come but I didn’t
succeed before she leaned into me, her hand cupping my cheek and
she whispered, “You know, your Dad and I are always there for
you.”

Tears filled my yes and I looked away.

Her other hand came up so she was holding me
by both cheeks and she made me look at her again.

“Kia,” she kept whispering, “no matter what,
no matter where, no matter anything, we’re always there for
you.”

“Okay,” I whispered back.

She said nothing more, just stared in my
eyes.

I sat across from her and kept my mouth
shut. I didn’t know why then and I didn’t know why while sitting
beside Lake Como drinking my favorite drink which was also my
mother’s favorite drink and therefore reminding me of her. Maybe it
was pride that was not allowing me to admit I made a huge mistake.
Maybe I still had hope that Cooter would show me the glory he’d
promised to me. Maybe I was in denial and didn’t want to face what
was happening to me.

But I said nothing.

And I never did. Not for seven years. Not
one of the times I tried to escape him. I said nothing.

Seven years.

I’d lost seven years and that was on me
because help was half a mile away.

A tear slid down my cheek and Lake Como went
fuzzy.

“Not even a smile?”

My body jerked as the question came from
close in a deep, rough-like-velvet voice tinged with something I
didn’t quite get, impatience or annoyance, and I twisted in my
wrought iron, comfily padded chair and tilted my head back to see
Sam standing right beside me.

In the muted outside lights that lit the
balcony but didn’t take from the view, I saw his face shift as he
whispered, “Jesus, Kia.”

Oh God.

Shit!

I quickly lifted a hand and dashed it across
my cheek, stupidly thinking maybe, even though his eyes were locked
on my face, he’d miss it and I casually said, “Hey, Sam.”

“Are you okay?” he asked.

“Yeah, great. Just enjoying a nightcap,” I
answered and his brows snapped together making him look slightly
irritated.

“Are you okay?” he repeated.

“Yeah,” I replied then suddenly he bent at
the waist, put one hand into the arm of my chair and his face was
three inches from mine.

I sucked in breath at this move and his
sudden proximity and pressed into the back of the chair but I
didn’t have far to go and only gained an inch before he spoke
again.