The irony that he drank to forget the actions of a drunk was not lost on him . . . it just didn’t stop him from hearing that voice, from sensing that hole at his feet, from succumbing to the longing to slide into the welcome amnesia of too much alcohol.
Setting the coffee aside, he walked from the house to his second, smaller garage. There it was, the 1963 Thunderbird, the same make and model that Lynn had been driving on the day she and Maddie had died. He’d bought it a few months back, with some notion that he could restore it and somehow restore—what? Not his past, he’d known that was lost to him forever.
His sanity. He’d thought, in his tequila-influenced state, that it might save him from crazy.
But today, when he looked at the gleaming new paint job and then noted the garden hose hanging from the exhaust pipe, he saw crazy.
Yet he didn’t immediately make tracks for the nearest bottle of booze and that first, easy step into oblivion. There was something else stirring in his head, another bad dream, but this one kept his feet on the floor and kept him moving through his ordinary-day schedule. By mid-morning, he was at his business across the parking lot from Malibu & Ewe.
He made the motions. Checked in with the manager, bullshitted with the cook, pretending he gave a crap that the order of cabbage they used in making their most popular menu item—Baja tacos—was short. Earlier that morning, he’d also played the I-give-a-rat’s-ass game with the assistant who helped him manage the other various properties he owned about Malibu.
The residences rented for exorbitant prices, and he found an odd pleasure in going on maintenance calls himself—the owner of the multimillion-dollar property showing up to unplug a toilet. Today, there was no shit to deal with. Too bad, because he was in just that kind of mood.
He didn’t take a morning latté to Cassandra. He was self-aware enough to know that witnessing her accident had stirred up all the black ash inside his chest. He’d nearly choked on it as he’d seen the boulder tumble, heard the crash, felt her bones rattling in her skin as he pulled her from the damaged car. The recollection hammered at him.
And honed his need to see her—even as he knew he shouldn’t.
Until three P.M. he managed to stay away. Then, arguing with himself the whole while, he strolled across the asphalt to Malibu & Ewe. He carried the coffee that she would just happen to drink if he just happened to set it on the countertop by the cash register.
Inside, he found her sitting on one of the couches beside a customer. Her long hair rippled down her back and her attention was riveted on the piece of knitting in her hands. She didn’t notice he was in her shop.
“Oh, how sweet,” she said, her voice soft. She held up a tiny garment. Peachy-pink.
A baby’s sweater.
The blackness ever present at Gabe’s feet shot up, rising as dots in his vision. He would have admitted it to no one, but he had the distinct concern he was going to drop to his knees. Cassandra with an infant’s clothing in her hands. Fear couldn’t come close to describing how he felt at the sight. Petrified was better. Claustrophobia was in the equation.
This was the other nightmare he’d been living with since waking up in her bed. Cassandra pregnant. She’d been queasy after her accident with the boulder. He’d tried telling himself that was normal, not natal, but now, like then, a wave of heat washed over him, followed by a dousing of icy cold.
Cassandra. Pregnant. If it was true, he couldn’t allow himself the indulgence of alcoholic amnesia. If it was true, he’d have to resist with all he had because it wouldn’t be right to check out on her like that.
Why couldn’t that night after the Beach Shack be clear in his head? Why couldn’t he recall that they’d had great sex without the fear of the consequences? But he couldn’t remember and she’d never brought up the issue.
Her friend Carver claimed Cassandra was set on “Spill All.” If that was so, why couldn’t she have said something simple about that night? Something like, “Hey, we had a phenomenal time in the sack, and there’s no worry that I’m knocked up.”
But of course it had already been made clear that he hadn’t provided her with a phenomenal experience that night. Though that still didn’t solve the mystery of whether or not he was less than nine months from disaster.
He could ask . . . but no, he couldn’t. He was just that terrified of the truth.
His knees were going soft again. He had to get away. He had to get air.
Outside the shop, he dumped the latté in a can and pulled in deep breaths of salt-laden oxygen. He scanned the cars coming in and out of the lot, and like the other night, noticed a vehicle cruise the area a couple of times before settling into a space. He kept his eye on the little car, surprised to realize that the driver was none other than Marlys Weston.
He didn’t think she’d been the one circling the lot that other time, but he waylaid her anyway as she approached Malibu & Ewe.
“What are you doing here?” he asked.
She scowled at him. “I thought maybe I’d get into knitting.”
“There’s a lot of other yarn shops in the Los Angeles area.”
“Excuse me, but I didn’t consult my yellow pages. I thought about knitting and then I thought about here.”
Gabe wanted to leave it alone, but Christ, this was the woman who’d caused Cassandra and her sisters grief by dishing to the tabloids about their father. “Your mischief won’t be welcome here.”
“You mean
I
won’t be welcome here.” For a moment, her cool mask slipped and he caught a glimpse of vulnerability in her eyes. “The mean one isn’t in there, is she?”
He could almost laugh. It was easy to guess who she was thinking of. “Nikki?”
Marlys nodded. “Definitely the mean one. Juliet’s too well-bred to make a scene if I walk inside the shop. And as for Cassandra, she’s . . .”
Now it was Gabe’s turn to scowl. “Cassandra’s no push-over.”
“No. She’s incredibly talented, though. I saw some of her designs the night of my father’s book launch party.”
“Incredible covers it,” he murmured. He glanced over his shoulder at the shop, thinking of the woman inside. Her clever fingers, her generous spirit, her honest heart. No way would she keep something so important from him, he thought, relief making him unsteady again. Of course Cassandra would have told him if pregnancy was a real concern.
“What’s with you two, anyway?” Marlys asked. “Nikki’s got Jay, Juliet’s married to Noah. Does that make you Cassandra’s . . . ?”
Man
. The word popped into his head and, damn, it startled him, coming three seconds after the realization they hadn’t made a baby. Why did he find it so easy to claim Cassandra? Maybe because he’d already done it once, when he’d spoken to her father’s sons outside the medical building. The word
wife
had slid from his mouth.
“I’m her friend,” he said now instead, as if he’d ever actually been one to her. The truth was, their relationship had all been one-sided. It had been like that with Lynn, too, in the last years of their marriage, and God, wasn’t it easy for old patterns to reestablish themselves.
“Friend?” Marlys repeated, then her attention shifted away from Gabe. Gazing over his shoulder, her eyes narrowed. “There are those kids,” she said. “From the other day. They have matches again. And cigarettes.”
He whipped around to catch a glimpse of a posse of scruffy preteens descending the path that led to the beach below the bluff. He took off after them, just as one glanced over his shoulder. Shouting something to his buddies, the kid sped up, herding the other boys along with him. At least three of them had lit cigarettes in the forks of their skinny fingers.
Half-sliding, half-running along the narrow, sandy path behind the boys, Gabe stopped the chase when they hit the firm sand of the beach and took off like bullets. Two of the little shits ran backward, their middle fingers up in the air, we-got-you grins on their faces.
Shaking his head, Gabe turned back up the path. Maddie would have been closing in on that age, he thought. If she’d lived, would his sweet little girl have turned into a smoking, swearing hellion?
He’d never know.
At the thought, the despair he’d been holding back all day engulfed him. Stilling, he closed his eyes and suffered through the first crippling pangs of grief and remorse. Lynn’s annoyed voice in his head: “Couldn’t you at least once take her to dance practice?” Maddie’s plea: “Daddy, Daddy, don’t you want to watch me pirouette?”
He tasted ash in his mouth and he knew it was from his heart incinerating all over again, just as it had done with such regularity over the last three years. It was a wonder he was still alive.
It was no wonder he so regularly wished he wasn’t.
His feet started to move, knowing that he wouldn’t find what he needed to cope out here. Breaching the top of the beach path, he glanced over at Malibu & Ewe. He could go in there. He could pretend he had a repair to do or that he wanted a mug of her disgusting dandelion tea and then he could hope that her presence or her chatter might stifle the voice drifting from the beckoning blackness. Already it was loud in his ears.
Come to me. Come to me.
But squaring his shoulders, he turned the other way. There was no reason to resist the call and avoid oblivion, and his friend deserved better than to be subject to his despondency. Instead, he’d join other old acquaintances. Good ol’ Bud. That wily Jack Daniel’s. Jose Cuervo was always up for a night on the town. He’d just meet his companions some place where the bartender wouldn’t call Cassandra.
As he walked through the parking lot, he noticed Marlys’s car had gone. Apparently they’d both decided there were other places they’d rather be.
Nine
The only rock I know that stays steady, the only institution I know that works is the family.
“Come to me,” Cassandra said into her phone.
“What?”
On the other end of the call, Gabe coughed out the question.
“Come to me over here at Malibu & Ewe. Better yet, just meet me on the beach down below the shop.”
“Why?”
She looked out her window and across the parking lot, dimly lit by the security lights that switched on at dark. His SUV was angled in one of the painted stalls, so she was certain he was still inside the business, though it had closed fifteen minutes before. “Stop asking questions and just do as I say. I have chocolate.”
The suspicion in his voice turned to disbelief. “You do not.”
“I do.” And she hoped the surprise of that would render him curious enough to do as she asked.
“I’ll bet it’s carob,” he said, with mild disgust. “You know how I hate carob. It tastes like stale malted milk balls. So I think I‘ll pass on your offer.”
She’d been afraid he’d say that. From what she’d been told, he was heading for a more destructive diversion altogether. “It’s real chocolate, Gabe.”
“Froot Loop—”
“You owe me. Didn’t you tell me that the other night?”
“What other night?” His suspicion was back. “Exactly when?”
She hardened her voice. “I think it was right after the bartender informed me that the stink on you was, indeed, exactly what it smelled like.”
There was a weighty pause.
“Please, Gabe.”
Please don’t go for the booze over the beach with me.
His sigh was heavy, too. “Give me a few minutes.”
A few minutes were enough for her to build a tidy little bonfire in the concrete fire ring at the bottom of their bluff. She always stored some wooden pallets in her small side storeroom for just such a whim—though it was usually a summer impulse. Yet tonight was perfect for what she had in mind, with clear skies, little wind, and temperatures that had swung once more from winter to spring.
Spread on the sand near the flames was a beach blanket she’d bought on a trip to Tijuana. Unpacked on it were the contents of the basket that she’d used to lure Gabe to the beach. She heard his voice before she saw him, the sound of his footsteps absorbed by the soft sand.
“That actually looks like real chocolate,” he said. “What is all this stuff?”
“It’s s’mores makings.” She’d already punctured a marshmallow with one of the expandable forks she’d found inside the basket. “What kind of roaster are you? I prefer the slow toast, going for golden brown.”
“Wait a minute.” She heard the raised eyebrows in his voice and congratulated herself. Curiosity was proving to be a successful means of distraction after all. “Not just chocolate, but marshmallows, too? Aren’t they made of that Evil White Stuff, namely . . . sugar?”
Could he see her shrug in the light from the fire? “The gift is from Edward Malcolm the Fourth. Graham crackers, chocolate, and marshmallows. I was going to dump it all, but why should I when that’s exactly what he did to me two years ago? Worse, months later he decides he wants me back and he still can’t believe I won’t fall into his arms. Ergo, the persuasive present. It isn’t going to work, but I’ve decided we shouldn’t waste the goodies.”
Instead of sitting on the blanket as she was, Gabe continued standing. His voice was sharp. “He came to the shop today?”
“If he did, I didn’t see him,” she answered, remembering she’d told Gabe about Edward’s ongoing and annoying insistence that they retry their relationship. Apparently her landlord had been listening then, too. “I looked up at one point and the basket was on the counter accompanied by a note with his name on it.”
Gabe stepped onto the blanket and she gave herself another metaphorical pat on the back. “I don’t like it,” he said.
“I don’t like Edward.” Cassandra held up the second fork that she’d already threaded with an uncooked marshmallow. Her hands were covered with fingerless gloves that matched the thick sweater she’d handknit herself. “But I haven’t had a s’more since I was sixteen.”