“Lucky, girl, don’t be insulting.” Chef Omer softened the words with a smile. “Somebody substituted this one for the real thing.” Using the knife, he began slicing the truffle.
Numbed by the day, I didn’t even cringe.
“Why?”
With the point of the blade, Chef Omer popped out tiny beads of iron, which bounced, then rolled across the table.
I watched them for a moment, then looked up, locking the chef’s eyes with mine. “And where is the real truffle?”
* * *
Hunger gnawed at my stomach—churning acid that I was certain would one day eat a hole in the lining, if it hadn’t already. The pain propelled me to Nebuchadnezzar’s, our award-winning, twenty-four-hour buffet-style feast. I’d told the Big Boss the name was too long, but he’d insisted on accuracy. Now, everyone called it simply Neb’s. When I ate there with my father, I rubbed it in at every opportunity. I’m shallow like that.
For a regular glutton like me, the choices were immobilizing . . . almost. Today, I chose sushi and fruit. “I’m working on making better choices,” I told the sushi guy behind the counter. He nodded and smiled, but gave me that glazed look as if he hadn’t understood a word I’d said.
Grinning and nodding back, I reached for a plate with a little line of raw red meat curved over wads of rice. Unappealing and unappetizing, the identity of the fish remained a mystery. But, committed as I was to a moment of self-betterment, that didn’t matter. I grabbed a few more things that looked like they would swim away if I tossed them in a bucket of water. Nothing like grazing from the tidal pool.
Waltzing by the fresh section, I grabbed some cantaloupe and honeydew melon, then a swing through the sugar section yielded a piece of chocolate layer cake. Everybody knew that some days, one required chocolate to keep the homicidal tendencies in check. Chocolate, the new health food—if not your own, then somebody else’s.
A table by the window directly in the stream of sunlight called to me. Casino workers were like cave dwellers—no windows, no natural light, our vitamin D levels were probably nonexistent, so sunlight held the addictive allure of a psychotropic drug, and rounded out my health-laden meal.
One of the staff brought wine, half of which I downed in one pull. Then I settled in to tame the beast inside. I powered through some sushi and most of the fruit. A sense of peace and calm settled over me, and I let myself relax and unwind just a bit. Of course, the glass of wine—a nice Viognier they kept just for me—helped as well. The panic subsided. Life came into focus.
Stupid me. I knew better. Like a red cloth waving in front of a bull, letting my guard down tempted the Fates, goading them to take action.
Teddie caught me mired in indecision as I eyed the remainder of my sushi and the radiant delectableness of the cake. “Saint or sinner? Hard to choose, isn’t it?” He leaned in, as if he needed to get my attention.
He didn’t. My heart had felt a subtle change in the universe the minute he’d walked in. Feigning indifference to him took everything I had. Saint or sinner? Friend or foe? Good questions.
“A little of both, I should say. I’m trying to eliminate toxins.”
He shot me a lopsided grin—the same one that used to make my insides go all gooey. It still did. “Not with that hunk of yellowfin tuna. The amount of mercury in the thing would probably make it glow in the dark.”
My shoulders sagged. I just didn’t have it in me to banter with Teddie. He was like an emotional black hole, sucking all the vim and vigor out of me until I was a sad, quivering mess of hurt and pain. “Please go away, Teddie. Leave me alone.”
Lifting my face to the sunlight streaming through the glass, I closed my eyes and concentrated on the warmth, pulling peace and strength from it. Taking a few deep breaths, I settled myself, then opened my eyes, hoping to find myself alone. Instead, I was looking squarely at the man who had stolen my heart, then had gone gallivanting around the world with it. He’d parked himself in the seat across from me. Pain seared through me, singeing nerves as it flared, then subsided to a white-hot heat of betrayal in the pit of my stomach. Betrayal. I’d never learned how to deal with that, and life was rubbing my nose in the fact.
Pushing my tray away, I took a moment to feel. As Miss P. reminded me every day, I would have to face Teddie, to deal with the pain. I didn’t want to. In fact, I’d gladly sacrifice a secondary body part to avoid it. But life had forced my hand.
A waiter appeared at my side. “Another glass of wine, Miss O’Toole?”
I shook my head, but didn’t take my eyes off my dining companion. “Not today. Diet Coke, please.” For some odd reason, I didn’t want anything more to anesthetize the pain, to dull it so I wouldn’t say what I needed to say. I waited until the waiter had drifted out of earshot. “Do you have the contract? I’ll sign it, if that’s what you want.”
Surprise flashed in Teddie’s eyes as he placed both hands palm-down on the table. “You would?” He seemed taken aback.
“My first obligation is to the Babylon. Your show was a big draw, but Christo just can’t do the whole female impersonation thing like you can. Numbers are dwindling. I’ll give you a shot, but if you don’t get the attendance up, I’ll shut you down.”
“You’d like that, wouldn’t you?” He leaned back, crossing his arms in a reflexive, defensive posture.
“Of course not.” Pausing, I took a sip of the Diet Coke the waiter had slipped in front of me while I contemplated what to say. The day had defeated me. Teddie’s appearance had cut me open like a laser—my emotions, held so tightly in check, spilled out. “I believed you. I trusted you. My trust was misplaced. You can only be yourself, Teddie. To ask more of you would be ridiculous . . . not to mention a recipe for disaster. I learned that the first time.”
First time!
Where had that come from? Why did I open the door, even if it was just a crack?
“Would you like to give us another shot?”
How I wished I had a definitive answer to that. My head said no way in Hell, my heart wasn’t so sure. On top of the fact that body parts often betrayed me, now they were fighting among themselves. Not only was I out of synch with the world, now I was out of step with myself. I felt manipulated, as if all those close to me didn’t trust me to handle my own life, my own heart, my own hurt. Frustration and anger boiled over. “You know what I’d like? I’d like to turn back the clock. I want the life I had six months ago. The life we had before you left, before you told me you didn’t love me anymore, before you chose a life on the road over a life with me.” Oh, I know, probably a really stupid litany to hand him.
Everyone told me I should act indifferent, should play the game, but games just weren’t my thing.
Teddie leaned forward, his eyes a dark, serious blue. He leaned on his hands, closing the distance between us. “We can have that back. I want it, too.”
“We can never go back.” I didn’t even try to hide the defeat in my voice.
“Why not?”
“You lied.” Simple words. Horrible reality.
“I promise you, I never lied to you.”
How I wanted to believe him. “You told me you loved me, then you told me you didn’t. One had to be a lie. Which one?”
“When I said them, I thought they were true.”
I picked up my fork and poked at the raw fish. If he had a point, I didn’t want to hear it. I chewed on my lip as I thought about how far I really wanted to go with this.
Teddie waited. He knew me so very well. I’d have to be more careful before I gave a man that kind of advantage again. A little cynicism for self-preservation purposes seemed highly advisable.
Decision made, I set the fork back on the table, carefully aligning it with the edge of the tray before I looked at Teddie. “Do you know what a broken heart feels like?” When he opened his mouth to speak, I silenced him with a shake of my head. “Let me tell you.” Memories flooded through me as I opened myself, tore down the walls I’d hidden my heart behind. Every fiber of my soul vibrated under the assault. “First, you can’t believe it’s real, you go completely numb. You know your life is shattering—you can feel the shards as they rip through you—but you can’t process it. You can’t believe it’s happening. Your heart dies.” I swallowed hard, fighting the tears that, since Teddie had left, had taken up permanent residence behind my eyes, waiting to burst forth at the first hint of weakness.
Teddie reached a hand across the table. “Lucky . . .”
Before he touched me, I jerked my hand out of harm’s way. “Don’t.” I crossed my arms, telegraphing my vulnerability, but I didn’t care. I needed to do this, and he needed to hear it.
“Unable to feel, your brain takes over. Maybe it plays old tapes, maybe logic kicks in, I don’t know. But reacting is rote.” I paused, reading his expression. For a moment, I thought I saw my pain reflected there. “Remember after you told me you didn’t love me, I took you to my office and cleaned you up—you’d had that horrible fight with your father?”
His eyebrows snapped into a frown. He remembered.
“Then I insisted on taking you to the plane and watching you go.” I drew a ragged breath. “I don’t even remember exactly what I did after that. I drove, I know that. But for how long or where I went . . .” I shrugged. “I do remember my father found me at that special place you and I used to go near Red Rock, but the rest of it is gone. If only it had stayed that way.” I looked at him and tried for a sardonic grin. I don’t know if I succeeded—his face remained stoic, passive, yet I could see the raw edges of pain, which made me feel a bit better. “Reality, it sorta sucks, you know?”
“It doesn’t have to.”
“No, and it really doesn’t anymore. It sure did, though.” I felt like picking up my knife, but I resisted—holding a sharp object in my hand at this juncture seemed a bit unwise. “You know what the worst part was?”
Teddie didn’t say anything—he knew a rhetorical question when he heard one, he always had. I liked that about him, still did . . . despite my best efforts.
“I had to go home. I had to sleep in the bed we had made love in the night before.”
“One last fuck before I left, I remember.” Hurt resonated in his voice. “I didn’t intend it to be that way.”
I could tell he meant it, but that didn’t lessen the betrayal. “But the sleeping part wasn’t the worst part—I could take pills that made me sleep the sleep of the dead, no dreams, no memories. No, sleep was a welcome escape, but the waking up part?” I let out a ragged breath. There were no words to describe the pain, or if there were, I couldn’t summon them. “Oh, yeah, the waking up part. First, just as you’re shrugging off sleep, you remember the happiness, the unmitigated joy of the life you thought you had, the love you thought you shared, which brightened every moment, every thought. The warm blanket of joy, wrapping us both in the ecstasy of the present and the promise of the future. Then, you open your eyes, and reality hits you like a spear through your chest, opening a sucking, gaping hole. You can’t breathe. And for a long time, breathing is all you concentrate on—it takes everything you’ve got.”
“I know,” Teddie whispered.
I narrowed my eyes. “You don’t know.” The words were hard and flat, angry. “You left. It was your choice. Don’t play me, Teddie, don’t ever play me again.”
“I didn’t . . .” He was wise enough to stop and let me continue.
I drew in a deep, refocusing breath. “So, you breathe. And you try not to feel. But you walk around a corner, you hear a song, a snippet of conversation,, and a memory assaults you. You try not to cry. Sometimes you do. Other times, you feel defeated. Then you have conversations with yourself, wondering, speculating as to what went wrong, where did the dream get lost? How could he say he loved you, then one day, he just didn’t anymore? One night, you’re planning the future, savoring the day. The next, it’s all over. Who does that?” I looked at Teddie, and this time, my question wasn’t rhetorical. “What kind of man makes that kind of decision without any discussion, without any attempt to figure things out?”
“I just thought it was the right thing for me.” Teddie floundered. My question clearly had him back on his heels.
“I don’t know what the word ‘love’ means to you, Teddie. Well, actually, right now, I have a pretty good idea. It meant you wanted me.”
“That’s not true.” His expression held righteous indignation, but his words didn’t pack the same punch.
“Whatever it meant, you didn’t love me enough to even try. And that’s what hurts the most.” There, I’d said it. I’d finally admitted the truth not only to him, but to myself as well.
Lost in our own thoughts, neither one of us said anything for a bit. For me, saying these things out loud helped establish emotional order. For the first time in months, I felt the glimmer of hope, of possibilities, of strength . . . and it felt good.
“You know,” I said, picking up the thread I’d abandoned. “After I got pretty good at breathing, I thought I’d be okay. But I wasn’t. I kept believing that somehow, someway, you’d realize what a mistake you made, and you’d come home.”
“I
am
home.” Teddie’s voice ached with my sadness. “If I could erase my leaving, my bad choices, I would.”
“I know. But you can’t.”
“Why not? Let me show you, Lucky. Please?”
One of those carefully mended cracks in my heart opened just a little, letting loose a drop of hope, of misguided wishful thinking. “We can’t go back. Words, once said, can never be unheard.”