Starting Over (7 page)

“Okay with me . . . I don’t know, I guess dating Cameron?”

“Ohmygod, ohmygod, ohmygod,” Carrie says in a rush of excitement. “She’s already on a first name basis with him!”

“Girls! Stop, relax for a second,” I say, trying to take back control of the situation. I look my daughter in the eye. “Josie, I need to know if you have even one tiny reservation about this. Because if you did, I wouldn’t dare go ahead with it.”

With a bright smile she says, “I am more than okay with this. I just want you to be happy more than anything, Mom.”

And with those words, even if nothing were to ever happen between Cameron and me, even if I never date another man for the rest of my life, I feel relieved and assured that my daughter is more awesome than I could have hoped she could ever be.

Yeah, my daughter is a force to be reckoned with . . . and I like to think that I have a lot to do with that.

CHAPTER NINE

I
t’s been a week since the Halloween dance, and nothing has happened. Then again, I haven’t attempted any sort of contact with Cameron, so I only really have myself to blame. But he hasn’t contacted me either. I can’t fault him though, what with me giving mixed signals and sort of leaving him hanging about whether I would take him up on dinner.

Here’s the thing . . . it’s been so long since I’ve dated, I’m not sure if I’m supposed to call him or if I’m supposed to wait for him to call me or if I’m supposed to wait until we run into each other again or if—

Oh my God, Vanessa
, I tell myself.
You’re going to drive yourself crazy!

I’m not dead though. I am aware of how much the dating world has changed since I was last out there. However, my knowledge is strictly limited to what I’ve read in books and seen in movies and television shows. Which isn’t a very good barometer, in my humble opinion. I do not see myself being that ballsy woman who storms into his classroom in the middle of the school day and says something like, “Cameron, let’s do this!”

Cameron, let’s do this?

Really? Ugh, that would be more than embarrassing, and what man in his right mind would fall for that awful line?

I need to work on that part of it. Hopefully, I’ll get there soon, because the word on the street, or at least from Maria, who has now become semi-friends with me, is that one of the other moms—the one who was drooling over Cameron at the Back to School Night—is setting her sights on him . . . openly. And by openly, I mean dressing scantily and showing up unannounced at the school for a quick hello, bringing him treats like cupcakes, at least on two occasions that I’m aware of, and making sure her child stays for extra-credit assignments so that she has an excuse to pop in.

Maria says that this certain mom is a word I’d rather not repeat, because I don’t know the lady at all other than what I’ve heard, but it rhymes with bore. I’m not sure if that’s true or not, but if I were a man looking to just whet my appetite, I’d consider it. Why not?

At the end of the day, everything inside of me is telling me that I need to take the next step. It’s the matter of gathering up the courage to take that step that’s the hardest part. I’ll get there though. I can feel it.

A knock on the door as I’m preparing dinner startles me. Josie’s in her bedroom upstairs, so I wipe my hands and go to answer it. I peek through the peephole to find a man on the other side I’ve never met before, in a pair of jeans and a button-down dress shirt. He’s holding something in his hands that I can’t make out clearly. Since I don’t know this guy, I undo the locks but keep the link on and see immediately that it is an envelope he has in hands.

“Are you Vanessa Holt?” he asks by way of introduction.

“Um, yes. Who are you?”

He thrusts the envelope in the small space that the door allows, and it falls inside my house at my feet. “You’ve been served,” he says and then walks away quickly.

The man is already in his car and pulling away by the time I can process all of this. I slam the door shut, lock it, and snatch up the envelope from the floor. I have no idea what this is in regards to, so I open it and take the documents out while walking back to my kitchen.

When I see the plaintiff’s name, Matthew Ford, my legs start to give out on me. The breath leaves my lungs as if I’ve been sucker punched in the gut. Luckily, I’m right by the couch, so I sit down to try to finish reading the document.

I don’t get any farther than a few more lines when I see the term “petition for paternity,” and I’m having a full-on panic attack.

How dare he do this to me? To Josie? Who in the hell does he think he is that he can just waltz back in from out of the blue after thirteen years and pull this crap? Not to mention the stupid letter that, yes, I’ve been ignoring, but it made it seem like he was trying to be amicable about it all. But then he pulls this stunt? And how in the hell did he find out that his name doesn’t appear on the birth certificate?

My head feels like it’s spinning with questions and thoughts that have me on the verge of a full-on nervous breakdown. I glance at the stairs up to where Josie is none the wiser . . . yet. The threat of losing her to him terrifies me so suddenly that I start to cry, big and heavy tears run down my face as silent sobs rack my body for a few minutes.

I wipe the tears and try to compose myself. Taking a few deep breaths, in and out, again and again, until I’m semi-normal. Normal enough to take action and get up off the couch and call the one person I know I can turn to that will help me.

Digging through my purse, I find my cell phone and call Alex, who picks up on the second ring. “Hey, I was just going—”

When I hear his voice, I start to lose it again.

“Vanessa, what’s wrong?”

“It’s Matthew,” I manage between my sobs. “He’s suing me.”

“I’ll be right over,” he says and hangs up.

In the ten or so minutes that it takes Alex to arrive, I splash my face with water and try to collect myself again. I also tend to the food that I was preparing for dinner. Josie’s still in her room, completely unaware of the hurricane that has come to our front door. And I’d like to keep it that way.

Alex was my crutch during the time I was pregnant with Josie, after Matthew decided to skip out on us. And he’s been the father figure in her life, the only one she’s ever known. He’s also the only person I ever confide in when there is something going on in my life, or Josie’s for that matter, so I trust him implicitly with this.

As soon as he’s in the house, he takes one look at me and wraps me in his arms.

I’m technically the big sister, but he’s always acted and treated me like a precious little sister, and I find that in times like this, I’m glad that he’s always been that way with me. Because I need it, especially now.

“Are you okay?” he asks with me still in his arms, and I don’t answer. “Do you want me to kill him?”

This gets me to chuckle, and I pull back long enough to wipe my eyes and nose against his shirt. “Hey, I kind of like this shirt and so does my wife. It’s one of her favorites, actually.”

“I’m sorry. I’ll buy you a new one and you can tell Julia it’s my fault.”

Alex turns me in his arms, then keeps me tucked to his side as he walks me to the kitchen counter. He props me carefully against the counter and then rummages through my cabinets to get a glass. After filling it with water from the sink, he promptly hands it to me. “Here, drink this and then take a breath.”

I do as he says. When I’m done, I hand him the glass, and he sets it on the counter. His eyes dart to the stairs and then back at me. “Does Josie know anything about this?”

I shake my head.

“Okay, good. Don’t tell her yet.”

“I wasn’t planning on it, Alex.”

“Are you okay enough to tell me what happened?” he asks gently.

Nodding, I reach behind me and thrust the legal paperwork at Alex. As he’s reading it, I say, “There was just some guy at the door. He asked if I was Vanessa Holt. I said yes and then he tossed this inside the house, and that’s pretty much it.”

“A process server?” he asks.

“Yeah, one of those, I guess.”

He finishes reading the document and then folds it back up. “Basically it’s saying that he’s filing to be declared as Josie’s father since his name is not listed on the birth certificate. After that, I’m not sure what the rest of it means.” Alex pauses and his eyebrows furrow together in thought. “How would he know about that?”

“I don’t know,” I say, sounding just as confused as he does. “I’ve been asking myself that same question. He didn’t want to be a part of our lives, so I didn’t add him when Josie was born. And he never said anything about it when he wrote me so—”

“He wrote you?” Alex asks with a shocked look on his face. “When
the hell did he write to you? And when were you going to tell me?”

“He wrote me a letter and sent it to Dad’s office a couple weeks ago.”

“I need to see this letter, Vanessa, now.”

I find the letter still at the bottom of my purse and give it to Alex to read; his jaw gets tight and flexes as it sinks in. “Jesus,” is all that he says after he’s through.

I’m sitting on the couch while Alex paces in front of me, running his hand through his hair and not saying another word for a long moment, until I can’t take it anymore.

“Alex,” I say nervously. He stops pacing and looks at me. “What am I going to do? I’m really scared here. I can’t lose Josie.”

My brother’s eyes soften and he comes over and crouches in front of me. Taking my hands in his, he says, “Vanessa, I’m not going to let that bastard take anything away from you. Ever. You have my word.”

We lock eyes before he adds, “Do you believe me?”

I nod and smile and thank God that I have Alex in my corner. Honestly, I don’t know what I would do were it not for him. I’m not inept and I can take care of myself; I’ve been doing it for a long time, but in times like these, I need someone in my corner who is going to go to bat for me, whatever the cost.

“Okay, this is what’s going to happen,” he announces. “First, don’t say a word of this to Josie yet. Second, I’m going to call an attorney friend of mine tonight and see what he recommends your next course of action should be. If I had to guess, he will say to get a family lawyer, so I’ll also ask for a recommendation. Third, you’re going to go about your day and the next day, and the day after that, as if you never got this, because Josie is old enough and smart enough to pick up on anything that is bothering you.”

“I’m going to have to tell her though, eventually,” I say to myself more than Alex.

“Vanessa, you honestly didn’t think she would go her whole life without having to know one thing about her father, did you?”

It seems like a child’s answer even to my own ears when I say yes. In my heart of hearts, I knew the day would come. I never dreamed it would be today, or even tomorrow, for that matter. It was always in the back of my mind though: a deep dread, like getting several root canals all at once. But I have always been able to compartmentalize that part of my life as if it were all a bad dream so that Josie would never have to feel the shame or rejection that Matthew imparted on us all those years ago.

“I’m going to tell her, Alex, but I’m not ready yet.”

Alex stands up and lets go of my hands. “Are you going to be okay if I leave now and start making some phone calls?”

“I think so,” I say and stand up to hug him good-bye. “Thank you, Alex. I don’t say it enough to you, but I mean it more than you’ll ever know.”

He pulls back and kisses me on my forehead. “You’re welcome. Love you.”

“Love you too, baby brother.”

After Alex is gone, I do exactly as he instructed: I go back to getting dinner on the table for my daughter and me. And when we finally eat together later that evening, I try my best to hide the fear just underneath the surface that this is the calm before the actual storm that has been brought to our doorstep.

CHAPTER TEN

T
he next week is a complete and utter blur. From the face-to-face meeting with my new attorney, Antonia Gomez, Esquire, to the pile of work at the office, and to the planning of what is supposed to be Josie’s thirteenth-birthday weekend getaway with my family, by the end of the week I’m feeling downright worn out.

Meeting with the attorney actually made me feel a whole lot better. She very calmly went over everything in the petition in detail. I expressed to her my fear that even though Matthew’s been MIA all these years, that this will eventually lead to a request for visitation, or worse, custody. But after hearing the whole story, my attorney thought that a possible ruling would work out in my favor, especially since he was out of our lives before Josie was even born. So I wrote a big check as a retainer for her services with a huge smile on my face, glad to hand over the reins to her and ensure that Matthew’s petition and all that it entails doesn’t get any worse before it gets better.

Now it’s Thursday, the night before all of us are driving up to Orlando to spend the weekend at Universal Studios, since that’s what Josie asked to do for her birthday this year. She’s already in bed, and I keep telling myself that I’m only tired and just need a little sleep. After I finish packing, of course, which I haven’t even started yet.

The problem is I know the aches and chills and the tenderness in my throat are all the telltale signs of strep. I’m prone to strep at least once a year, and I’ll be damned if it doesn’t always pick the worst times to show up and ruin everything.

So I go to bed earlier than usual, telling myself that extra sleep is what my body needs, only to wake up the next morning with a full-blown fever and my throat feeling as if I had swallowed a glass full to the brim of razor blades.

“Mom, are you awake yet?” Josie asks as she raps on my bedroom door. “Don’t we have to meet at Uncle Alex and Aunt Julia’s house in an hour?”

I can barely lift my head off the pillow long enough to tell her to open the door. “Wait, don’t come too close, I’m sick as a dog.”

“Oh no! Mom, you can’t be sick this weekend! It’s my birthday and we’ve been planning this forever.”

The disappointment on her face is clear as day, and I don’t blame her. We’ve been planning this mini vacation for a few months, and if I were her, I’d be panicking too.

“I’m sorry, sweetie.”

She crosses the threshold into my room and touches my forehead. “Mom, you’re burning up.”

“I know I am. I think I have strep throat.”

“Again?”

“Yes,” I say dryly. “Again, unfortunately.”

I look at Josie, who is concerned for my health, yes, but also concerned that she’s going to be sitting at home all weekend with a sick mother to look after. So I decide to make an executive decision. “Sweetie, can you hand me my phone from the nightstand, please?”

Dejectedly, Josie reaches over and grabs my cell phone, then hands it to me. I get my mother on the phone.

“Oh dear, Vanessa, you sound awful,” she says within a second of me saying hello. “You’re not planning on still going, are you?”

“No, I’m not going to be able to go,” I say and glance at Josie, who’s waiting for the other shoe to drop. “That’s why I’m calling you. Can you swing by here on your way to Alex’s house and pick up Josie? She’s already packed and ready to go.”

Josie screeches so loudly that whatever my mom says next is lost on me. “Mom, sorry, can you say that again?”

“Are you sure you want to stay home by yourself?” my mom asks. “I’ll be worried about you, sweetheart.”

“I’m sure, and I’ll be fine, Mom,” I say to her.

She sighs loudly on the phone. “Okay then, your father and I will be there in about twenty minutes.”

“Can you let Alex and Julia know? I’m too tired to talk for too much longer.”

“Of course I will,” she says. “Now you go and get some rest. And make sure to eat some warm broth with toast and drink some apple juice and lots of water. And see if you can get your doctor to call in a prescription for you directly to the pharmacy.”

“I will. Thanks, Mom.”

I toss the phone onto my comforter and settle back in my bed. The chills pick back up then, and my teeth start rattling. Josie notices as she’s still celebrating in silence on the side of my bed.

“Do you need anything before I go?”

I rattle off a list of things, which she brings to my bedroom before I hear the honk of my parents’ car outside. She kisses my cheek and says a heartfelt, “Thank you, love you, and get better soon,” before running out of there faster than I’ve ever seen her. I have to laugh and shake my head, because at least she thought to say anything before bolting. Before I forget, I call my doctor’s office, which is by now so used to me having strep that they do in fact call in the script for me at the local pharmacy. But I fall asleep, or pass out is more like it, for the next few hours and never pick it up.

The next day, I still feel like a Mack truck hit me at full speed. But I have to gather enough strength to at least make it to the pharmacy and pick up my meds. If not, I’ll definitely be looking at having strep much longer than usual. Because with the antibiotics, the worst part of it is gone within a day, two days tops.

I pull myself together in the form of ratty sweatpants, a busted-up old concert T-shirt, and flip-flops, and tie my hair up in a messy bun before heading out, not even bothering to look at myself in the mirror, because really, who cares?

After I park my car in the mini strip mall parking lot where my pharmacy is located, I take a while to gather up the energy to open my car door. So I rest my head on the steering wheel for a moment. A light tapping on my driver’s side window scares the living daylights out of me, and I turn to find Cameron standing outside.

Of course he would be here today of all days, when I look like this and feel like crap. And with all the drama surrounding me as of late, I haven’t had a moment’s peace to stop and think about him . . . us . . . whatever this is exactly.

I give a small wave before snatching up my purse and opening the door, the whole time thinking to myself that this is it. Now that he’ll get a good look at what I look like, he’ll go running for the hills and to the arms of that woman who’s trying to bribe him with sweets and cleavage . . . or at least that’s how Maria has put it.

“How are you?” he asks, shoving his hands in his cargo shorts. His black T-shirt, which fits him perfectly and makes it more than obvious to me that he’s in shape, says in simple white block letters, “Gravity gets me down.” He’s also wearing the eyeglasses that he had on the first day I met him at the school. God, he has no idea how cute he is.

I clear my throat and sound like a frog up and died in my mouth when I answer him. “I’m doing okay.”

“Oh no, you’re sick. What are you doing out? You should be in bed getting plenty of rest.”

“Well, I would be doing that,” I manage to choke out, “but my whole family is away for the weekend for Josie’s birthday, so I’m on my own until tomorrow afternoon. So that’s why I look like a mess and why I’m here,” I say and point to the pharmacy. “I’m picking up my meds.”

Cameron smiles but doesn’t say a word.

“Why are you smiling like that?” I ask finally.

“Because it seems like you need some help today.”

“Not really,” I say. “I live about three blocks away, so I’ll be home sooner than later and back in my pajamas.”

“Vanessa, I cannot in good conscience allow you to be alone in this condition.”

“Cameron, I—”

“I will not take no for an answer,” he says with an authoritative voice. He crosses his arms on his chest after pushing his eyeglasses up the bridge of his nose. “We’re going to go inside, get your meds and any other supplies we’ll need. And if you want me to run anywhere else, we’ll make a list, and I’ll pick up everything while you get back to resting and feeling better.”

I try to protest, but he reaches out and grabs my hand and pulls me inside the pharmacy. He’s so incredibly sweet to be doing all of this for me, yet I can’t help but wonder if he’s absolutely nuts. I mean, who goes around volunteering to babysit someone they barely know when they are sick, on a Saturday, no less? Nobody, that’s who. Then again, I don’t really know many people, and the people I really do know are all away. So, why not let him take care of me? If anything, it will keep me from having to do a thing, which is really what I want to be doing.

In short order, Cameron picks up my medicine along with a
couple of Twix bars that he says are a necessity, cherry flavored throat
lozenges, Vick’s VapoRub, and last but not least, Tylenol.

“Okay,” he says and ushers me outside to the parking lot. “I think we’ve got everything we need here.”

In a whirlwind, I’m back in my car and he’s following me home. And somehow, I’m totally fine with this. Because when I get home, he parks his car, follows me in, makes quick work of giving me my meds, and then commands me to change into my pajamas again and get back in bed and go to sleep.

And I do go back to bed. But the idea of Cameron hanging around in my house while I’m in my bedroom starts to eat away at me. Enough so that I know it will be impossible to fall back to sleep.

I tiptoe down the stairs and spot him on the couch in my living room, trying to figure out the remote control situation for the television.

“It’s the other remote,” I say to him and drag myself the rest of the way until I plop myself down on the other end of the couch. Pointing at the remote control that’s still on the coffee table, I add, “That’s the one that controls everything. The remote you’re holding is old and doesn’t work. I should just get rid of it, but I can’t seem to part ways with it.”

“What are you doing? You’re supposed to be in bed,” he says and grabs the other remote.

“I tried. Didn’t take. So here I am. Entertain me.”

“Entertain you?” he asks with a grin. “Hmm, did you have any
thing in mind?”

“You can go on to my Netflix account and maybe we can pick a
TV show neither of us has watched before and marathon it. You game?”

“You’re on.”

Cameron and I eventually settle on
Mad Men
, me because I think Jon Hamm is supersexy, and him, well, I think he’s just agreeing to watch it because I want to watch it. He presses Play on season one, episode one, and then immediately pauses the show.

“Are we quitting already?” I ask.

He laughs and stands up from the couch, reaching behind him
to
pull the blanket I have draped on the back of it. Then he comes to where I’m sitting in a ball and covers me with it, taking great care to tuck it in underneath my feet and pull it right up to under my chin.
The whole time, his eyes are soft and his forehead is crinkled in concen
tration, while moving with much thought and careful consideration.

Before he goes back to his side of the couch, I say, “I think I’m good, thank you, Cameron.”

He nods and goes to sit down, then presses Play and we start our little marathon . . .

I only stay awake long enough to watch the very first scene, and then I’m out like a light.

A soft nudge on my shoulder wakes me from a deep sleep. When I come to, I see that it’s nighttime and the television is off, and Cameron is crouched on the floor beside me.

“Hey there,” he says quietly. “How are you feeling?”

I rub my eyes and cough a little to clear my throat. “I still have the chills and I still sound like garbage.”

I do, my throat is killing me, and I feel as if I could go right back to sleep for the next twelve hours.

“Is the show over? Did he jump off the building for real?” I ask him.

Cameron smiles and rubs his mouth to stifle his laugh. “No, and no. I kind of dozed off there toward the last episode I was watching.”

“What time is it anyway?”

“It’s around ten o’clock. I didn’t want to wake you up to see if you were hungry, but since it’s getting so late, I thought I’d at least let you know that I was gonna head out.”

“Oh, okay,” I say, and then kind of start dozing again.

“Vanessa?”

“Just give me a minute, I’ll be right there and . . .” I say, trying my best to stay awake. But this sickness is kicking my ass and winning.

The next few moments are kind of a blur and kind of an out-of-body experience, because I’m not absolutely sure, but it feels as if I’m being carried up the stairs by Cameron; either that or I somehow picked up the superpower of flying when I got this case of strep throat. Even stranger is when I’m placed in my bed, then reach out to grab a fistful of Cameron’s T-shirt and pull him down into my bed with me. More odd still is when I snuggle into his arms and sniff all the sunshine goodness that is his signature scent while burrowing into his warmth.

During the course of my broken sleep, I’m slightly aware that I’m sharing my bed with a man for the first time in many, many years. I’m cognizant of the fact that it’s Cameron, which brings a smile to my face even as I’m semi-restless. And that he’s holding me so close to him, like a prized treasure, and running his fingers through my hair with tenderness while my fever breaks and the dreams finally come.