Intoxicated (29 page)

I closed my eyes. She had nailed it. Was
everything so transparent, so obvious? Had I been hiding from the
truth for years, clinging to hope that things would change? Was a
relationship with Eric worth giving up my promotion? Would he ask
me to?

The sinking feeling in my stomach suggested
he would.

“Relationships are about compromise,” I said
quietly, “and he said that we would figure out a way to make this
work. I have to believe that he was sincere. If it pissed him off
that bad that I moved away, he would have broken up with me
already.”

Blake placed her hand on my shoulder. “I hope
for your sake that you’re right. I don’t want to see you get hurt.
Just make sure that in the end, no matter what happens, that you’re
happy.”

She stared off into the distance wistfully,
like she just realized she should have taken her own advice. I
wanted so badly to open the dialogue about her and Chris, but I
held my tongue. With the new insight I had gained from Matthew I
figured now wouldn’t be the time. If she wouldn’t tell me something
as innocent as why we hadn’t decorated for Christmas yet, I doubted
she would wax poetically about her brother going to jail and
breaking up with her steady boyfriend.

Even if I had been able to find my courage,
she rose from her stool prior to anything else being said. That was
Blake, breezing in and out of conversations. So totally put
together on the outside, so broken on the inside. She never stayed
anywhere long enough to engage on a higher level. She could
dispense advice to me, but couldn’t handle the magnifying glass
being turned on her. This time she excused herself to her office,
latching the door quietly but figuratively slamming it shut against
further intrusion.

Unable to shake the nagging feeling my
conversation with Blake had produced, I grabbed my cell and headed
to the garage. I snapped a picture of the new car, captioned it
simply “It’s here!” and sent the photo to Eric. Praying silently, I
retreated to the living room. I slumped down on the sofa. This
could go two ways. I prepared myself for rejection, but instead the
phone rang mere seconds later.

“Nice,” Eric said when I answered. I wondered
if he used the same shorthand on all of his calls, or just with me.
Like he was too important to be bothered with pleasantries, instead
jumping right into the meat of the discussion. “Do you like
it?”

“Yeah, I mean I’ve only driven it for about
half an hour so far, but it is really nice.”

He chuckled, and my stomach slowly began
unknotting. “See, I told you were missing out on a lot. Sure the
Honda gave you plenty of good years, but automotive technology has
come a long way in the fifteen years since it was made. Now I won’t
worry as much about you driving down to Indy to visit.”

“As much?” I asked, encouraged by the fact
that he worried at all.

“Of course I worried about you. You were just
too stubborn to notice. So what’s up? You’re not the gloating type,
so there must be something going on.”

I shifted on the couch, crossing my legs
under me. “I just wanted to hear your voice,” I admitted, settling
into the cushions.

“Well, here it is. Bad day?”

“No, not really. Just lonely, I guess. And
thinking about the holidays. Now that I have reliable
transportation, I am coming down for Christmas for sure.”

“Awesome. At your dad’s? Or here?”

“I haven’t talked to him about it yet.
Everything just kind of fell into place tonight with the car coming
in and all. I mean, I was pretty sure that I would have it before
Christmas, but I didn’t want to start planning something I couldn’t
follow through with.”

“Right.”

“So you’re free Christmas Day then? I wasn’t
sure what was going on with your parents.”

“Oh, they’ll be down in Florida like usual.
So I’ll eagerly be waiting for your arrival. You are coming alone,
right?”

“If you’re asking about Blake and Matthew,
they are staying here, yes.”

The relief on the other end of the line was
palpable. It saddened me that I had to compartmentalize my life
this way. If I was with Eric, I couldn’t be with my Fort Wayne
faction. To be honest, he barely tolerated Gracie, but maybe she
was okay because she was local. His unspoken invitation probably
would have included Blake as well. She hadn’t seemed to annoy him,
either. It was really just Matthew he couldn’t stand. But since the
siblings were more or less a package deal, one not welcome meant
they both weren’t.

“Well, figure out what you want to do and let
me know. You could always come down Christmas Eve and spend the
night here.”

Even though he was miles away, I still shook
my head. “I’ll be tired with working and all. I’ll just get a good
night’s sleep and head out in the morning. Depending on what the
weather looks like, it may be stressful driving.”

“It seems like we very rarely have white
Christmases here. You will probably be just fine. And you’re only
working until noon anyway.”

“I’m not sure,” I hedged. “I’m salaried now.
Word is that management is expected to stay longer.”

“On Christmas Eve?” he countered, picking up
on my bold-faced lie. At the branch level at least, all employees
had zoomed out the door the second the clock struck twelve. In
fact, the four working hours were largely unproductive. It was a
running joke that corporate was just out to make us miserable by
not extending the holiday.

“It’s just what I’ve heard. Maybe they are
trying to scare us into submission. Or into staying late until year
end so we meet our goals. We are fairly close to hitting production
based on the applications we have in house right now. There is a
big push to get as many loans closed as possible to have them on
the books this year.”

Once I pulled out the shop speak, he
relented. Being in sales, he couldn’t argue with my logic, even
though it was totally off the cuff. Talking about production goals
made him forget that the majority of the business world would be
shut down for the holiday, so any progress made after hours would
be minimal at best. Maybe he just didn’t want to consider the
alternative.

“Well, if you do get off at a reasonable
hour, my offer still stands.”

“Okay,” I said, unable to close the door on
his optimism completely. I could always fabricate a story about a
closing gone wrong or some similar chaos ensuing. Or, if the
festivities at Blake’s didn’t last as long as I planned, I might be
able to hop in the car afterward and head down. Maybe that’s what I
would do. It made my head spin to juggle wanting to be in two
different places at once.

“See what you can do, okay? Unless you need
the extra time to wrap your gifts. I know how you
procrastinate.”

I laughed. He was right there. And the
pseudo-pleading thing tugged at my heart. I wished that I could
shrink myself and hop through the phone line into his condo. When
he was like this, it was easy to forgive him for his trespasses. He
turned on the charm and I dissolved. Everything that I questioned
became foggy, unimportant.

“I will see what I can do,” I promised. “I
miss you so much.”

“I miss you, too.”

His tone was hushed, as if he didn’t want to
admit it to himself. I couldn’t doubt his sincerity when he said it
like that. This distance thing wasn’t just hard on me. Considering
this was the first time he was the one left behind, it probably hit
him harder than it did me. But being a guy, he refused to show
it.

I swallowed down a yawn, suddenly aware of
how late the hour was getting. I pulled my cell from my ear to
check the time. It was nearly eleven already. If I would have been
up in my bedroom, this would have reminded me of our college days.
Often, we would end our nights on the phone with one another. I
would curl up in my bed at dad’s, dressed in a tank and pajama
pants, the phone cradled against my shoulder. I would close my eyes
and imagine Eric in his dorm room miles away, whispering to his
roommate that he needed privacy. We would talk about anything and
everything: parents, friends, papers due, exams upcoming, how much
we both looked forward to when we could see each other again. His
voice would be my lullaby, helping me to drift off to a peaceful
sleep. I would fight exhaustion as long as possible just to hear
it.

As if he could read my mind, he stated the
time. “We’d better get to sleep.”

“I know,” I said sadly. “I love you.”

“I’ll see you soon, Lauren. Good night.”

With that, he was gone. I stared at my silent
phone for a moment, disappointed that he couldn’t bring himself to
say the same to me. I had gotten something of an admission of
affection from him, which was more than usual but less than what I
truly wanted. It was always one step forward, two steps back with
him. If I waited long enough, eventually he might catch up with
me.

“Rome wasn’t built in a day,” I muttered to
myself as I flipped off the light in the living room and mounted
the stairs.

A ribbon of light still shone under the door
to Blake’s office. Inside, I could hear the humming of her sewing
machine. No doubt she was working on making someone’s dreams come
true. Maybe even the client that had called her tonight. I had
grown used to the sounds of her working late into the night;
instead of bothering me it was now more like one of those white
noise machines that people kept by their beds. I paused at the
threshold, knocking gently to announce my presence. I turned the
knob slowly, intending to pop my head in to tell her goodnight.

Her sewing machine was set up facing away
from the door, so her back was turned to me as I entered. Either
she hadn’t heard the knock or she was intent on finishing her
project for she just kept on working. I cleared my throat and she
jumped half a mile out of her chair.

“Sorry,” I apologized quickly, feeling ten
ways of bad.

“It’s okay,” she said huskily, sniffling and
wiping at her eyes quickly.

“Are you okay?” I asked. If I had just seen
things correctly, she was crying. To make sure, I circled around
the table so she faced me. She had almost wiped the evidence away
before I arrived.

“I’m fine. Just multitasking.”

She pointed to the fabric that hung down
between us, half in, half out of the machine. If I had to guess, I
would say it was a curtain of some sort. The gauzy blue creation
puddled to the floor.

“Working and having a nervous breakdown at
the same time?” I inquired. She nodded. “Do you want to talk about
it?”

Her shoulders slumped and for a moment she
sat there, debating. I stood and waited patiently. For whatever
reason, I wasn’t as tired as I had been when I came up to the loft.
Perhaps it had everything to do with a possible breakthrough in
Blake’s formerly impenetrable veneer. If she wanted to talk, I
wasn’t going anywhere. I would hate myself for it in the morning,
but it was a sacrifice I was ready to make. Nothing a few cups of
coffee couldn’t make tolerable.

Wordlessly she rose from the sewing machine
and went out to the sitting area. I followed her out, stopping by
the bathroom for a handful of tissues. I handed her one as I sat
down beside her on the loveseat. I propped my back against the arm
on my side as she blew her nose. I remained silent as she pressed
the diamond stud back down flat against her nostril. Apparently
nose rings migrated in times of intense emotion.

“I’m sorry,” she said finally, tossing the
tissue to the small table in front of us, “sometimes I forget you
have a degree in accounting and not in psychology. If you don’t
want to listen to any more of my family’s shit, just tell me.”

“Don’t worry about it. I’m a good listener. I
think. Did you and Matthew have a fight? I’ve never dealt with
sibling rivalry myself, but I’m willing to give it a shot.”

“No, nothing like that.” She shook her head,
pulling her knees to her chest and wrapping her arms around them. I
expected her to rock back and forth. Instead, she sat still as a
statue. I waited. She took a deep breath and began quietly.

“I haven’t celebrated Christmas for a long
time. Not for religious reasons or anything like that. By choice.
Sure, I get paid to decorate other people’s houses for it, but for
me it hasn’t existed for years. Since you are here though, I
decided that I would try because it means a lot to you. I thought I
would be okay with it, like I could pretend you were another client
or something, but tonight it just really hit me hard.”

“Blake, you don’t have to do anything on
account of me. If you have a problem with it, just tell me and
we’ll drop it. It’s no big deal.”

“But it is a big deal. I have this irrational
mental block against a holiday. It’s stupid. If you remember the
scrapbook, you probably noticed that the articles about the
sentencing were written about this time of year.”

I nodded, wanting her to continue. Matthew
had already shared this much. Of course, she wasn’t aware of
that.

“Christmas was huge in my parents’ house. I’m
sure you can imagine that with my dad being a lawyer and my mom
being a socialite, we got some pretty extravagant presents. Any
excuse they could find to buy gifts they embraced wholeheartedly. I
got a brand new car for my sixteenth birthday. I got a Mercedes
when I graduated high school. Christmas gifts were no different. We
got shopping sprees, vacations, you name it. I was raised that way.
I didn’t know any different, didn’t understand that things like
that weren’t normal.

“The first time Matthew got arrested, it was
pretty much a slap on the wrist. His license got suspended, my dad
coughed up money for a fine, stuff like that. All with the
understanding that it would never happen again. No harm, no foul
more or less.