Until Now (2 page)

Approximately five seconds after I arrived at Bay Street Fitness the next morning, the manager stuck his head out of his office and pointed a thick, angry finger at me. “You,” he growled. “Come here.”

I waited until his bald head disappeared back inside before letting out a cheek-puffing sigh. An angry Wade made for a long and awkward shift. Abby, one of the personal trainers, caught my eye and mimed an attacking-bear pose, teeth bared and fingers curled like claws. I bit back a smile as I stashed my purse behind the front desk. Then, making sure my long, auburn ponytail was straight and smooth, I headed toward my fate.

“I have a really good explanation,” I said, stepping into the small office. Wade was standing by his desk, his large girth taking up half the room.

“Not only did you call
twenty minutes
before your shift to say you’d be late,” he said, ignoring my words, “but then you don’t even
show up
for your shift. Without a call, I might add.”

“I know, I’m sorry. But—”

“Nina had to cancel her evening Zumba class so she could fill in for you! Tell me, please, on what planet this is acceptable.”

Wade’s head was getting shiner by the second, the way it did when he was either pissed off or straining under the crushing weight of his barbells. “It’s not,” I cut in before he could get going again. “It’s not acceptable. But you know I would never blow off a shift like that unless I had a legitimate reason.”

He crossed his arms, muscles rippling beneath his dark skin. “Out with it then, Ms. Calvert, and it had better be good.”

I told him what happened, not leaving anything out. With each word, his tense, coiled stance relaxed just a little bit more. Wade was a parent—he had two young daughters who he absolutely adored, and a sweet wife who would never in a million years just up and leave them.

“What does your stepfather have to say?” he asked, his anger melting into concern.

“I haven’t spoken to him yet.” I sank into the padded chair across from the desk and adjusted the strap of my red Bay Street Fitness tank. “I’ve tried the only number I have for him, but it must be for a cell that doesn’t work in Europe.”

“When is he due home?”

“Next week, I think?” Alan was an investment banker, one of the top-tier guys, and traveled almost constantly. I never paid attention to his comings and goings.

“Call his work and see if you can get his hotel name,” Wade suggested.

I hadn’t thought of that. I knew what bank he worked for, and that he had a receptionist who Mom often accused him of banging. Surely, she knew where he was. “Good idea,” I said, attempting a smile. I watched Wade soften, like the giant teddy bear he was.

“Think of yesterday as your one and only freebie,” he said, pointing at me again, this time without the murderous glint in his eye. “If you weren’t so popular with the regulars, I’d can you right now.”

I smiled for real this time, relieved. I needed this job. Not just for the money, but because the health and fitness aspect of it aligned somewhat with my chosen career path. After taking (and acing) a human biology class in my senior year of high school, I’d decided that I wanted to become a dietitian. Here at the gym I was basically a receptionist, but at least I got to watch the fitness trainers work their magic, teaching clients how to transform their unhealthy flab into strong, hard muscle.

“Now,” Wade said, his voice turning stern again, “get out of here before I change my mind.”

I quickly obeyed. When I emerged from the office, Abby was still stationed by the front desk.

“On a scale of one to ten,” she said, “how shiny did his head get?”

“Eleven,” I replied, slipping behind the desk and booting up the computer. “It was blinding.”

She took a long drink from her water bottle and smirked at me. “You’ve been working here for like a year now and this is the first time I’ve ever seen him pissed at you. Usually he thinks the sun shines out of your ass.”

I shoved her playfully. She laughed and headed back to the gym area, probably to meet with a client. Once she was gone, I got down to business, organizing my workspace before the place opened for the day. Mostly, my job consisted of booking and confirming appointments, answering phone calls and email, directing people to rooms or machines, and keeping everything clean and stocked. I was never bored, especially not on Saturdays, one of our busiest days. For once, I was actually looking forward to the crazy day ahead. Maybe if I kept busy, I wouldn’t worry so much about Drake and Lila.

When I’d woken up that morning to find the master bedroom still empty and both kids whining for breakfast, I knew it was time to figure out a plan. Or at least some semblance of one. Part One involved working my way down Mom’s list of trusted babysitters, praying I’d find someone who was free today and could get here in the next hour. Luckily, I had. Part Two involved showering and making it to work on time. Another success.

Part Three would come later, after work, and it involved a hell of a lot more than luck.

* * *

When I got home at five, I found the twins running around the massive backyard while their teenage babysitter, Britney, played with her phone on the deck. I stood in front of the kitchen window and watched them unobtrusively for a few moments. They were chasing after a giant beach ball, squealing whenever the chilly, early-May breeze took it and sent it flying. They looked so carefree.

I thought of my own childhood, spent in apartments and tiny houses that rarely featured a yard big enough to run around in, and felt suddenly grateful that my brother and sister had room to spread out. I’d hated this sterile-looking house when we first moved in during the summer before my last year of high school, mostly because it was just another prop in my mother and stepfather’s sham of a marriage. The twins made living here tolerable even though they were props too, the next logical step in Mom and Alan’s playing-house adventure. Marriage, mortgage, babies. Clearly, this happy-suburban-family fantasy had developed a few cracks over the years.

“Robin’s home!” Lila shrieked when I stepped out onto the deck. She ran toward me, honey-blond pigtails bouncing against her ears. Drake followed at a slower pace, stopping every few inches to inspect something on the grass.

“Thanks,” I said to Britney, who stood there, smiling at me expectantly. Oh right. Money. “I’ll be right back,” I told her, and slipped back into the kitchen. Mom always kept an envelope of cash in the cupboard above the fridge for paying babysitters. I stood on my tiptoes to get it, but came back empty-handed. No envelope, no wad of cash. She’d taken it. Of course.

I grabbed my purse instead, hoping I had enough on me to cover Britney’s eight-hour day. Sliding out a few bills, I returned to the deck. “Is this enough?” I asked, handing her the money as Lila crash-landed into my legs.

Britney’s eyes popped for a second, then she quickly made her expression flat. “Sure,” she said, waving at the kids and then bolting off the deck like I was about to grab the cash back from her. I wasn’t sure how much Mom usually paid sitters, but obviously I’d overshot it.

“Robin, Robin, Robin,” Lila chanted. “I’m hungry and it’s
my
turn.”

I ran my hand over one silky pigtail. “Yep, it’s your turn to pick dinner. Drake!”

He looked up from his crouch in the grass, the wind tousling his hair, which was the same honey shade as Lila’s. With a pout, he stood up and started toward us.

“Drake hit me,” Lila said, shoving up her jacket sleeve to show me the proof. Her arm looked smooth and unblemished.

“He did?” This was odd. Out of the two of them, Lila was the aggressive one. “That wasn’t very nice.”

Drake, overhearing this, let out a wail of indignation. Satisfied, Lila darted into the house, leaving me to handle the aftermath. As if I didn’t have enough aftermath to deal with already.

“It’s okay, Drakey,” I said as I scooped him up in my arms and brought him inside. “I know you didn’t mean it.”

In the kitchen, Lila was shoulders deep in the pull-out freezer, hunting for frozen pizza boxes. I set Drake down to help her, but he immediately clung to my leg like a baby koala. “Where’s Mommy?” he whined. “I want Mommy.”

I sighed. It was bound to come up sooner or later. Drake was the closest to our mother, a regular little mama’s boy. Even she couldn’t resist those huge, liquid brown eyes of his; they held the power to thaw even the frostiest heart. “She’s…away on a trip,” I said, improvising.

Drake let out an ear-splitting yowl, and Lila took this as her cue to start flinging the contents of the freezer all over the kitchen floor. A bag of frozen peas landed near my feet, little green balls spilling out and rolling under the stove. I took a long, deep breath, closed my eyes, and counted backward from ten. I had to talk to my stepfather, and soon. I was a twenty-one-year-old college student, barely able to take care of myself half the time. Not someone’s fulltime Mommy. Not yet. Possibly not ever.

“Okay,” I whispered to myself. “Okay.”

I detached Drake and sprang into action, finding the pizza, replacing the frozen food, plucking peas off the floor. And through it all, I tried to block out the nagging voice in my head, the one that knew, deep down, that no one was coming along to save the day. The kids only had one person they could count on now, and I was it.

* * *

Later that evening, when the house was finally quiet, I grabbed the cordless phone and punched in the long-distance number I’d managed to acquire during my lunch break today. My stepfather’s receptionist had no qualms about providing me with his trip itinerary, including the name of his hotel and his room number. I hit ‘call,’ not caring what it would do to the phone bill. It wasn’t like I was the one who paid it.

“Room three-thirty-seven, please,” I said when a man answered. “Alan Madsen.”

“One moment, please,” the man said in his clipped accent.

The phone rang endlessly. I should’ve known. It was midnight in London right now, and Alan was probably out at a pub, or a strip club, still in the midst of wining and dining whatever potential clients he’d gone there to schmooze.

“Jesus! What is it?” an annoyed voice barked into the phone.

Taken aback, I couldn’t speak for a few seconds. It was unmistakably my stepfather’s voice, but it sounded raspier than usual. Breathless, like he’d just gotten in from a five-mile run.

“It’s Robin,” I said, sitting on the sectional couch.

“Who?”

“
Robin
.” In the background, I could hear the murmur of another voice, distinctly female. It hit me then, what I’d interrupted, and my muscles tightened into a full-body cringe. He hadn’t just gotten in from a run. No, he’d been in the middle of screwing some woman who was not my mother. A co-worker, probably, or maybe some local woman he’d picked up in Trafalgar Square.

“Robin,” he repeated, as if trying to place me. I didn’t see my stepfather often, but usually he remembered my name, at least. “What’s up?”

I swallowed my disgust and said, “Mom is missing.”

“What do you mean, she’s missing?” The female voice muttered something unintelligible, and then there was a rustling sound, a body sliding out of bed.

“She didn’t show up at the daycare to pick up the kids. And when I got home, all her stuff was gone. Clothes, shoes, money, pills, everything.”

“She’s probably with one of her friends. Yvette…or Justine. Call them.”

I rubbed at a damp spot on my jeans—bathwater overspill from Lila, who liked to “swim” in the tub and create minor floods. “I did, earlier. They haven’t heard from her in days. She’s gone.”

“She can’t be
gone
,” Alan argued. “I bet she’ll be back by the end of the weekend. She’s probably just trying to get a reaction out of me because I—well, I’m sure she hasn’t gone far.”

“She’s gone,” I said again. Then, to let him know his cut-off sentence hadn’t slid by unnoticed, I added, “Why do you think she left?” What I really meant was,
What did you do to piss her off now?
She was used to his cheating, so it must have been something major.

“I don’t know,” he replied. “Who knows what goes on in that crazy bitch’s head?”

Resentment bloomed in my chest. Not because he’d disrespected my mother, but because he seemed to be taking this so lightly. “Well, that crazy bitch abandoned two babies,” I bit out. “Who you haven’t even fucking asked about, by the way.”

“Look,” he said, sounding like the smarmy, quick-tempered Alan I knew. “I can’t deal with this right now, okay? I have another week here, back-to-back meetings…I can’t just hop on a plane because your mother decided to throw a tantrum and run away from home.”

“Why did she leave?” I asked again, teeth clenched. Since I was the one left behind to clean up their mess, I at least deserved to know what happened.

Alan sighed, and I pictured him standing there in his London hotel, the River Thames visible in the window behind him as he ran a hand over his bald spot. “I asked for a divorce,” he said, the anger gone from his voice. “I want a divorce.”