The Set Up (60 page)

The snap of her lighter forces me to avert my gaze. In that one moment it takes me to catch my breath, she’s already lit up a cigarette and the wind is blowing the smoke my way. I freeze up. My mind returning to the days when she had all the control.

We’re driving down the road in her station wagon. She hates this car. “I hate this car, I hate it.” She says it over and over.

“I like this car, Mommy,” I say.

She turns and looks at me as if she’s bitten into a sour apple. “What on earth do you like about it?”

“It’s big, and I have a lot of room.”

“Why do you need room when we’re driving?”

I like that she’s having a conversation with me and I want to keep it up. “So I can change seats when the smoke bothers me.”

Her hands clench the wheel. “Well, the smoke wouldn’t bother you if the air-conditioning worked and I didn’t have to leave the windows open.”

I want her to be happy. “I like the wind in my face too, Mommy.”

“Oh,” she says with another gust of smoke, and then she closes the windows and says, “I want you to stay in your seat. Then we’ll see how much you like this piece-of-crap car.”

I’ll never tell her how much I like anything again.

She’s silent, as if waiting for me to greet her.

I won’t give her that control.

The hostility I’m feeling toward this woman is rolling off me in rough waves, and I have to force myself to speak. “What are you doing here?”

She inhales and holds the smoke in her lungs.

I’m watching her.

She looks the same. Always so put together. I notice her red painted nails and matching lips. The tip of the cigarette she’s holding between her fingers is red as well. “I wanted to see you,” she says.

The snort that escapes my throat isn’t intentional, although deserved.

Smoke pours from her nostrils in two streams of air. “Sweetie, I know you might not believe me, but I’m worried about you.”

Sweetie?

Really?

Picturing her with her coffee and cigarette, hair in rollers to calm her frizzy curls, sitting at the kitchen table every morning when I wandered out of my room, saying to her, “Good morning, Mommy,” and her returning with a “Good morning, sweetie,” is the only happy memory I have left of her. “Please don’t be.”

She nods. “Well, I am. I came to warn you to be careful.”

The problem with wishing for things is that when they happen, they aren’t always the way you dreamed they would be. This mother/daughter reunion is nothing like the one I’d dreamt about so many years ago. Feeling like that eight year old again, unnerved and unsure, I can’t find the words to respond to her. To tell her she doesn’t get to warn me, or worry about me, or do anything for me. She gave that right up long ago. “Of what?” I ask with a laugh, considering it was her lover who I needed to be careful of.

She pushes her sunglasses up onto her head, and with that same way she always had, she turns the conversation into whatever direction pleases her. “You’ve turned out to be a really beautiful woman.”

Eyes the same color as mine stare at me. I’m speechless. Wordless. Lost. Alone. Suddenly, I’m that same girl I was who couldn’t stand up for herself.

“I’m sorry to just show up like this, but I’ve been going to your apartment and you haven’t been there. I’m headed home today and thought I’d stop by here first.”

Feeling small and helpless, I somehow manage to say, “That’s great, you managed to find me after all these years.” The bitter tone sounds nothing like my voice.

She draws the smoke into her lungs one more time and holds it before letting it out. “I know you don’t want to talk to me and I can understand that, but I think you should know Tom had nothing to do with the reporter’s death or Tory’s death. He was framed.”

I’m staring at a reflection of myself. Same face shape. Same hair. Same eyes. Yet, she’s a stranger. I don’t even know what to call this woman. Mom. Mommy. Mother. Allison. Mrs. Lane. Mrs. Worth. My throat locks with bitter emotion. “Yes, I’m sure he was.”

“Charlotte, listen to me. Tom was not involved with any of this. Tory came to Detroit on her own. She didn’t tell us. I have no idea what she was up to. Out of the blue she called her father and said she’d gotten herself into trouble and asked him to come help her, but he arrived too late.”

“Not involved! Tom was not involved! Are you kidding me?”

“Charlotte, please, calm down.”

“He attacked me. Tried to kill me!” I cry.

“Listen,” she tells me, her body shaking, “I spoke with Tom just before the incident. He told me he overheard a conversation at Hank’s office, and that you had somehow gotten information that could look very bad for him, and that it was misleading. He just wanted those documents back. He felt they were his, after all.”

“He broke into my apartment and tried to kill me when I walked in on him looking for those documents, did he tell you that?”

She shakes her head no. “I never spoke with him after that conversation.”

“Well, he did try to kill me.”

“I’m not disputing that. But he is the one who died.”

“Because of what he did,” I say sharply.

Ignoring that very real fact, she goes on to say, “Charlotte, there is something going on. Something far beyond what you think. There’s too much at stake for so many people. Please destroy whatever evidence you think you have.”

So she does know there is more than just something that could make him look bad, and obviously so did Tom. It has to be able to do more than make him look bad. It must make him look guilty. That is what he was doing at my apartment, shredding whatever he could find, as if he could destroy it all.

She goes on. “You have to stay away from Hank Harper, or anyone he is close with, which includes that troublemaker boy from next door.”

Anger bubbles through my veins. “Don’t talk about Jasper.”

She nods, conceding.

A nod isn’t enough. “You don’t get to talk bad about him.”

“Very well,” she says.

I swipe at a stray tear.

Shocking me, she reaches over and places her hand on my knee. “There are so many things I want to tell you, Charlotte, but now is not the time. You might not believe me, but I have always loved you. I just couldn’t take care of you the way you needed, and especially not with your father as my husband. I have many regrets in my life, and how I left you will always weigh heavily on my shoulders.”

Finding the courage to stop her, I raise my hand, showing her my palm. “Please, please don’t do this. Don’t apologize like an
I’m sorry
can make up for everything.”

Dropping her cigarette to the ground, she stands and puts it out with her sole. Her red sole. Thanks to Eve Harper, I know she’s wearing a pair of Louboutins.

Seems fitting.

Nice shoes is what she got out of life instead of me
.

“I know I hurt you,” she says standing over me.

I look at her. “Hurt me? Are you kidding me? I was a little girl who needed her mother. You crushed me.”

She hands me a card. “This is my address and phone number. If you ever need anything, or just want to talk, I’m here for you.”

I stare at the smooth linen card scrolled in gold, but don’t take it.

She shoves it inside the purse I have on the ground beside my feet. “It was good to see you, Charlotte. Please remember what I said,” she tells me and then heads toward the corner and stops at the red light along with the cars.

Shaking, I stare at the card for at least two long minutes. When I look toward the corner, I see her getting into a cab. Then she’s gone and I’m left sitting here with my insides torn apart. Melancholy coils around my heart and I try hard to unwrap it.

Reverting to old habits, faster and faster my fingers twirl in my hair.

She’s gone. Forget about her. Anything she said was to make herself feel better.

Time passes. I have no idea how long I sit here as I watch the cars go by and replay this encounter with my mother a thousand times in my head.

Ring. Ring.

The sound of my cellphone has me jumping off the bench. Fumbling through my bag, I find it and see Jasper’s name flashing on the screen.

I take in a deep breath and answer it. “Hi.”

“Hey, where are you?”

“Are you back so soon?”

“Yah, I’ve been back for a while, and I was starting to get worried about you.”

A gust of wind blows my hair in my face. “I’m across the street sitting in the park, trying to get some work done.”

“Oh yeah, are you?”

Feeling a little off kilter, I’m not following him. “Am I what?”

He gives me a half-hearted laugh. “Never mind. Just stay there. I’ll be right down.”

The line goes dead.

Shoving my laptop away, I try to collect myself before he arrives. Breathing in and out, I count the cars that pass. Soon enough, that long, lean body is striding my way. With his tousled hair and long bangs, he could have been a model for Abercrombie and Fitch.

He catches me staring at him and deliberately struts like he’s on the catwalk. He’s carrying a bag in his hand and swings it back and forth. When he’s close enough, he gives me one of his smiles that makes me melt.

The whole world is right when I’m with him, no matter how wrong parts of it are.

Stopping in front of me, he drops the bag to the bench and reaches for my hands. I offer them to him. Tugging me to my feet, he pulls me to his lips and kisses me. Needing the feel of him, I wrap my arms around his neck. In an instant, he lifts me off the ground. It’s as if he knows how much I need him. We don’t even exchange words—we don’t have to.

Setting me down, he says, “Hi.”

“Hi,” I return, trying to keep my voice steady.

In one swoop, he sits down on the bench and I’m on sitting on his lap sideways. “What’s going on? You’re upset,” he whispers.

“How do you know that?”

“I heard it in your voice.”

“Something happened,” I say and let it all out. Telling him about my mother’s visit is easy. Containing my emotions isn’t. He listens. Interjects much less than I would have thought. Ignores the part about Hank. Isn’t fazed that she called him a troublemaker. I shouldn’t have told him that part, but it really bothered me. All the while, I go on and on, and he continues to listen until I have no more to say.

A pause. A breath. A harsh word or two. And then he asks me, “Do you think it might help you if you talk to her?”

Turning away from him, I answer, “No. There’s nothing she can say to me that could make anything right.”

The tenderness in which he brings my head back to look at him makes my heart swell. He opens the bag at his side and pulls out something round that is wrapped in tinfoil.

I smile. “I told you I’d be fine.”

He unwraps it. “I know. But I also knew you wouldn’t eat. So here is a bagel sandwich, egg whites only, no ham.” He grins.

I take it and it smells delicious. I am hungry.

“Listen, Charlotte,” he says, “it’s your call what you do about your mother, but I can’t help but think there’s a part of you searching for what you lost. I just think telling her how you feel might help you find it. That’s all.”

Determined not to let this woman cause me another tear, I wipe the few away that escaped while I was telling Jasper about her visit, and then take a bite of my sandwich. Once I’ve chewed it, I say, “I don’t want to talk about her anymore. Take me somewhere. I want to do something fun today.”

There’s an expression in his eyes—a cross between amusement and apprehension. “Well,there is something going on today.”

“Let’s go,” I answer without an ounce of hesitation.

“Hang on,” he cautions. “Have you ever heard of Jobbie Nooner?”

I shake my head no and take another bite.

“It’s an annual summer tradition that takes place near Gull Island. Kind of like the Mardi Gras of the Midwest, or a summerfest. Drew and Jake are headed out there, and asked if we wanted to join them.”

“Great, let’s go,” I repeat, and wrap what’s left of the sandwich to stuff it back in the bag.

His fingers link with mine in the one hand they can. “I have two things to ask you before we go anywhere.”

The sexy sweetness in his face and tone is enough to make me say yes to anything he has to ask before I even know what it is.

Jasper studies me in a serious manner.

Sliding off his lap, I turn to face him. “What?”

Nervously, he runs a hand through his hair. “This is going to come out all wrong. And you’re probably going to want to tell me to fuck off.”

I furrow my brows. “First off, I never tell anyone that, and secondly, I doubt anything you’re about to say will upset me.”

He takes my hand again and then he blurts out, “Will mentioned you were thinking about going back to your apartment today. I don’t want you going back there. If you don’t want to stay with me, let me help you get a place that is . . . safer, more secure.”

Totally not expecting to have this conversation yet, I speak without thinking. “Right now it’s my only option. I won’t take your money and I can’t stay with you forever.”

He fixes me with his gaze. “Then don’t stay with me. Move in with me.”

“Wh—what?” I stutter.

“Let me try it another way. Charlotte Lane, will you move in with me?”

I breathe out, “You don’t mean that.”

Inching closer to me, he says, “I never say things I don’t mean. I think you already know that.”

For some reason I can’t say yes without knowing this is what he wants, not just what he thinks I need. “It’s too soon. We aren’t ready for something like that.”

He sweeps the hair off one side of my neck, and his hot lips brush my ear. “We’ve known each other for twenty-eight years; if anyone is ready, we are. And besides, I’ve really gotten used to having your sexy little body sleeping next to me at night. I’m not sure I can fall asleep without your little snoring noises.”

I shove him. “I do not snore.”

He grabs for me and pulls me back to him.

I swim for a minute in his gaze.

“I’m serious, Charlotte. I want you to move in with me. When we’re together everything just feels right. This might sound selfish, but you make me want to be a better person. And if living where we work becomes an issue with the guys coming and going, we can find a temporary place until the Lightning Motors offices are built.”