Almost Always: A Love Unexpected Novel (6 page)

Eight

I got up before the sun and threw some jeans and t-shirts into a bag. I was on my way before the sky had a trace of light in it. I realized, an hour out of Stockbridge, that I didn't have the cast list with me so I couldn't have called Kason if I wanted to. Maybe that was just as well. If I was going to do this 'thing' with him on his terms, calling him with a family crisis was probably not a good move.

I had the theater's number in my phone and I left a message for Tom that I'd have to miss two, maybe three night's rehearsal on account of a family situation. When I thought Jenn would be up, I intended to call her and see if she could pinch hit for me at least one of those nights. I told Tom to give me a call when he got the message and I'd explain. I decided I would leave it up to Tom to explain—
if
anyone was interested—why I was missing.

The ride was quiet and gave me time to give a great deal of thought to Kason. Much as I was curious about the circumstances of Elsa's death, maybe it
was
none of my business. But, being brutally honest with myself, it wasn't her death that was eating me alive. It was the fact that Kason had loved her enough for 'expectations'. He had loved her enough to
expect
a lifetime spent by her side. To expect a family, a life, friends, homes, travel—all the things that couples do.  He had planned with her and dreamed with her. Irrational though it was, I was jealous of a dead woman. The only woman, apparently, who ever earned the right to expect anything out of Kason Royce.

I managed to hit the Upper West Side by seven-thirty thanks to my early start. I avoided the worst of rush hour and was home by just a little after eight. I got the Eep squeezed into a parking spot in front of the Caperelli's house and walked the few yards to our stoop. Mom was waiting at our open door.

It was so great to hug my strong, beautiful mother. After the emotional upheaval of the past few weeks, I found her more comforting than ever. My parents are solid and everlasting—a constant reminder of goodness and love in the world. They are not complicated or mysterious; they're the kind of blessing every child should know. I embraced my mother with gratitude just as I always did when I returned home from time in the Berkshires.

Mom and Dad had always understood that Jenn and I worked the Berkshires because it was a good way to make great pay in a pretty setting not too far from home. New York City is not a place with abundant summer jobs. The Berkshire Hills offered us jobs in the arts and recreation that we couldn't match anywhere else. But we were always aware that the area belonged to people like Suze and Nicky, Brian and Cole, and yes, Kason. It was always a good thing to come home to a place where we didn't feel like strangers.

Mom and I had a cup of coffee on the stoop and watched the neighborhood bustle alive with kids on their way to school, people scurrying off to work and shop. Mrs. Caperelli came over with a coffee cake from the bakery and we went inside to share it. Mom gave her an update on Dad. He'd called at seven to complain about being cooped up in a hospital and to tell her that the nurses were all angels. He said the meals weren't as bad as people always say they are, but to bring an Italian sub from Delmonico's Deli when she came. Mrs. C would make sure the report was properly 'distributed' through the neighborhood.

My Dad was sitting up in bed watching the news when we got to his room.

"Daddy!" I hugged him gently, trying not to move him too much. He had his left arm in a sling and I could see the bandages around his rib cage. There was a cut above his right eye held together with stitches. I hated to see him like that.

"What are you doing here, Angelcakes? Marjorie, I'm fine. Why did you call Annalise?"

"Mom called to keep me from worrying when I saw you getting beat up on the news. She didn't ask me to come, in fact she told me not to. But I wanted to be here."

"Well you're a sweetheart and I'm always glad to have my little girl home."

"I wish it was different circumstances. Dad, you need to stay out of these messes. You're getting older . . . " It frightened me to think of how many close calls he'd had over the years.

At that he laughed harder than he should have until his ribcage stopped him. But he was still grinning when he threatened to put me over his knee and show me just how old and weak he was.

"Daddy, you've never laid a hand on me, so I would have nothing to compare it to."

We talked most of the morning away and shared the Italian sub plus his hospital lunch among the three of us. He was right, the hospital lunch wasn't half bad. After lunch, I left them to nap a little—he in his bed and she in the recliner next to it. I watched them doze off together just as they did most Saturdays and Sundays after lunch.

I wondered if Kason would ever get to that point with . . . well, with anyone. Did he and Elsa take a half-time nap during Sunday football like my sister Amy and her husband Phil? Or did he and Elsa nod off poolside after a two-Mimosa brunch like Olivia and Ben?

Try as I might, I couldn't stop wishing that somehow, some way I would take a cozy nap beside Kason someday. I knew there'd be more sex. I knew I hadn't begun to experience the kinds of intimate pleasures his body could bring to mine. It thrilled me to think of it, it really did. But at that moment, in that hospital room, the intimacy I really longed for was dozing beside him in the quiet peace of a lazy afternoon.

***

I took a walk around a nearby park and let my parents rest. I took out my tablet reader and thumbed through a couple of magazines. I watched young parents strolling their children along the walkways, people taking their dogs out for a mid-afternoon pee and vendors wrapping up their lunchtime shift. They rolled their carts with hot dogs, pretzels and sodas toward wherever it is that food carts go to sleep at night.

I went back to the hospital and spent another hour or so with Dad and then Mom and I called it a day. I was tired from the early start that morning. I had acclimated myself to late nights and sleeping in. Getting up at dawn, combined with my worry about my parents had worn me out.

Mom and I picked up take-out Chinese and I was sound asleep in my room by eight-thirty.

"Annalise, Jenn's on the phone." My mother called me downstairs the next morning and handed me her phone.

"Hey Jenn, why are you calling on Mom's phone?"

"Annalise, I have been trying to call you since about ten last night!" Jenn sounded frazzled and frustrated.

I went over to my purse where my forgotten phone, now dead, lay at the bottom. "Sorry Jenn, I was so tired I left my phone in my purse and it went dead. I don't even think I brought the charger. Damn."

"Annalise, Kason Royce showed up here last night. He said he had been phoning the number Tom gave him all through rehearsal. He seemed kinda frantic. He wanted to know how to find you and thought maybe I had another phone number."

"You could have given him Mom's number." Kason . . . frantic because he couldn't get in touch with me? Yessss!

"I didn't know if that would be okay, so I told him I would get in touch with you myself through your Mom's phone this morning. I told him I had talked to you earlier and that everything seemed fine."

"If you don't mind, go ahead and call him and give him Mom's phone."

"Sure thing, ‘Lise. How's your Dad?"

"Beat up, but fine. He's too tough to let a few thugs get him down."

"Keep me posted. I've gotta go to work now. I'll call Kason right after I get off the phone."

"Thanks, Jenn. Talk to you soon."

Not two minutes later, Mom's phone rang again. She handed it to me.

"Annalise," I heard Kason say in a very serious sounding voice. "Tell me what's going on. Tom only mentioned you had a family emergency. I wish you had thought to call me."

"I didn't think I should involve you. I didn't want to assume . . .
expect
anything."

"We'll talk about how wrong you are to throw that at me later. Please fill me in."

I walked out of earshot of Mom and told him everything. About Dad and the unions, about the threats, the bricks and my father's continued defiance of men far more powerful and ruthless than he would ever be. I told him because I wanted someone to lean on. I wanted to know that someone as powerful as Kason was on my side. He didn't disappoint me.

By ten in the morning, Kason was having coffee with Mom and I. He'd taken a helicopter from the Hills. Taishi came with him and was sitting outside on the stoop with a newspaper. He was doing his best to appear casual.

My mother was smitten by Kason's movie-star good looks as I knew she would be. The charm he turned on full blast for Marjorie Harding didn't hurt, either. The sharp-edged side of Kason that I had glimpsed more than once was utterly missing from the solicitous, gentle persona he showed to my mother. He drew a lot more information out of her than I had ever been able to. I was surprised at just how serious the situation had become in the four years I had been an occasional presence in my parent's house.

"Mrs. Harding, before I arrived, I had my research team get as much background as they could on the thugs who attacked your husband. They aren't just ordinary working men looking for a fair shake. These men are dangerous and your situation is serious."

"Kason, you're scaring Mom." I was alarmed at how pale my mother had become as she listened to hm.

"There's every reason
for
her to be scared. And you, too." He turned back to my mother. "I've taken the liberty of getting you and Annalise a couple of rooms at a hotel for at least for the night. I'm going to need some time to properly address your situation at the right levels."

"Is that really necessary?" Mom wasn't used to anyone simply stepping in and taking control. She and Dad had a pretty democratic relationship.

"I'm sorry if it sounds like I am an alarmist, but why take the chance? The fact that I had no trouble persuading the police chief to station a guard outside Mr. Harding's room leads me to believe I'm more right than wrong about the situation."

Mom looked like she was about to cry. I took her hand. "Mom, try not to worry. Dad's going to be just fine. Maybe with Kason's help we can stop this once and for all."

She sniffed her agreement. "I can't thank you enough, Kason. I'll just go up and throw a few things in a bag and I'll be ready to go." She hesitated at the foot of the stairs. "Do you think we could at least stop by and see Don before we go to the hotel?"

"Of course." Kason came over to me and gathered me in his arms.

"Thanks for coming, Kason. I didn't realize the situation had gotten this bad. You know, I've been away most of the last eight years."

"I know. Right now I have to go and meet some people. There's a lot more to this than a couple of roughnecks angling for a brawl. I intend to get to the bottom of it."

"Don't put yourself at risk, too." I didn't like the thought of Kason ruffling other powerful feathers.

"There are risks getting out of bed in the morning." He ruffled my hair. "Taishi will see you settled in and he'll . . . be around. Try to enjoy the hotel." And with that he was out the door.

Nine

We were hidden in plain sight. The night at in Brian's loft, Kason had offered me "any experience you ever imagined and wanted to try". Without knowing it, he had chosen something I'd longed to do for as long as I could remember—stay at The Plaza.

Mom and I were whisked through the lobby and up to an unimaginably lush suite looking out over Central Park. There were two bedrooms—one upstairs and one down, a dining room, living room, butler's pantry and three bathrooms. It was as big as my parent's house in Park Slope and a lot prettier. My mother was speechless. By now it was nearly lunch time. The events of the morning had given me a huge appetite and I suggested to Mom that we go find somewhere to eat.

"Or, would you rather eat in the room?" I looked at the ornate dining set and giggled. "I'd almost be afraid to eat at that table."

Mom got up to answer a knock at the door. The floor butler who had escorted us from the elevator to our suite had a rolling cart with several serving platters covered with silver domes.

"Mr. Royce thought you might be hungry. He sent this selection for you."

"He certainly thinks of everything, doesn't he?" asked my mother.

I didn't answer her. I was too busy salivating over the array of goodies the butler was putting on the dining table. There must have been twenty-five different items. Little bowls of different salads, cheeses, cold meats, olives, flatbreads and rolls were all laid out in perfect presentation. We sat down to a feast complete with some crisp and fruity white wine that seemed to go with every bite.

My mother isn't speechless often and when she is it doesn't last long. I knew I'd face the twenty questions sooner or later.

"How did you meet Kason?" "Have you known him long?" "What does he do?" (
Always
a personal favorite of mine.) "Where is he from?" And the ultimate, ever uncomfortable, never truly answerable, "Is it serious?"

"No it isn't serious, Mom. He's got issues . . . I'd rather not get into it."

"Like what?"

"Did you not just hear what I said? Kason has set some very clear limits on what kind of 'relationship' he will and won't have."

"Oh? Don't you get a say in it?"

"Not if I want to continue to see him."

"I see."

"I'm glad
you
see because I am utterly confused."

"Well he seems a very nice young man. He's successful, handsome and obviously," she swept her hand around the room, "cares a great deal about your well-being."

"Mother, I'm not sure Kason is capable of caring in the way you and I would define it. But, yes, he has been very kind and generous. He's gone out of his way to take control of our problem."

"Do I detect a note of uncertainty?"

"I'm not sure I'm comfortable with the way he swept into our circumstance and made it his."

"I think you should be flattered. A lot of men would have wanted nothing to do with it. And Annalise?"

"Yeah, Mom?"

"There are still some men left in the world who aren't all about expressing their every feeling. You young girls want to turn all your men into females in male bodies. There's something left to be said for men who aren't as 'sensitive' as women seem to demand today."

"Well you don't have to worry about Kason being sensitive or overly expressive. He's much more what I think your generation defined as 'a man's man'."

"Your father's a 'man's man' and he's been the best husband a woman could ask for," Mom said with a touch of defensiveness.

"Don't go off, Mom. Daddy hung the moon for me and you know it. Maybe that's part of what attracted me to Kason in the first place. He is utterly masculine."

"Well he shares that with your father, along with breath-taking good looks and a fortune bigger than many small countries."

We both laughed over that. My father is a craggy man who'd never win a beauty contest and whatever material worth he has was hard won, inch by inch.

"Is it okay if we explore the hotel? It looks like there's a lot more here than there was twenty years ago. I think it's been that long since I was inside the Plaza."

"Sure, let's take the tour."

***

Mom and I walked the entire huge first floor of The Plaza. There was a gourmet food court that sucked us in right away, even though we had just finished a huge lunch. The shops were elegant and the décor everywhere was stunning. Taishi kept a low profile but was never far. If Mom noticed him, she never mentioned it. I wasn't sure whether it made me feel safe or creeped me out to have him shadow us like that.

Around three-thirty, Mom wanted to go back to the room and phone Dad before she took a little rest. As soon as we got into the room, her cell phone rang. She fished it out of the suitcase she calls a purse and answered.

"Why, hello Kason!"

I still had a dead phone, so it was logical for him to call Mom. My body instantly reacted to knowing he was on the end of that connection. All my nerves stood at attention and I could almost imagine an order for "increase blood supply to sex organs!" going out from the command center in my brain.

"That's very kind of you, but I am really quite exhausted. I have my eye on that marvelous deep tub in the master bath. Really, this suite is fit for royalty." He said something that made my mother giggle like a sixteen year old. "Well, you're sweet to say that."

"Of course, I'll be fine. My daughter probably deserves a break from me, anyway." Mom looked over at me and smiled. "You best make it pizza or burgers, though. That child's brought nothing to wear but her usual uniform."

At that, I scowled at her and held my hand out for the phone. "Here's Annalise, then. Nice talking with you, too."

"Hi Kason."

"Hi Annalise. I wanted to take you and your mother to dinner tonight, but she . . . well, you heard."

"She's been good all day, but I know the worry and the stress has to be catching up with her."

"I understand. Would you be comfortable leaving her at the hotel and having dinner with me? I'm sure she'll be quite safe."

"I'd love to. She's right about the jeans and T-shirt, though. We'll have to make it casual."

"The only casual I like is what I do at home. There are too many great restaurants around The Plaza to miss the opportunity for a spectacular meal. I'll cook you the best pizza you ever ate in my clay oven when we get back to the hills."

I reluctantly offered to grab something to wear at Bloomingdale's or Macy's but my heart sunk at the prospect of what it was going to cost me. I should have known better.

"Nonsense. You're only a couple blocks from Bergdoff's. Taishi will take you there and take care of anything you need. I've never seen you dressed up. Surprise me."

"But . . . "

"You have plenty of time and they're sure to have something you'll like."

"But . . . "

"Annalise, you're repeating yourself. Is it so much to ask that you have a proper dinner with me? Humor me."

I felt guilty and ungrateful then. "Of course, Kason. What time?"

"I'll come for you at seven-thirty. I'd like to say hello to your mother before we go out."

"She'd like that."

"Try to enjoy the shopping. Many women would love to have carte blanche at Bergdoffs."

I was tempted to say that I was sure 'many would' but I bit my tongue. "I'll see you at seven-thirty then."

"Very good then. Bye."

Half an hour later, I was sitting in a salon with a woman who was trotting back and forth to some unseen room to fetch dresses for me. Taishi had escorted me past racks and racks of beautiful clothes and into a back room with a couch, a triple mirror and the breathless woman who introduced herself as Ms. Summerland. After I had refused champagne, wine, coffee and tea, a tray with some designer water appeared on the table beside me.

She asked me about my 'tastes'. I'm quite sure that by the time the first three sentences were out of my mouth she realized that I had no 'taste' at least not the kind she could use for guidance. I told her I liked bright colors and black and white but that I wasn't big on earth tones. She asked me which designers I favored. I shrugged. Taishi stood by the door and wore the same expression he always wore—unreadable.

When she was gone I looked over at the non-committal Taishi. "Look, Taishi," I began. "I get the feeling you don't like me much, but I could really use some help here. I don't know anything about clothes like this or what Kason would expect. Can you at least nod if something looks good to you and shake your head if it's horrible?"

I think that was the first real smile I ever saw the little Asian guy give. "I think I can help you out."

"And don't set me up, okay? Don't choose something awful on purpose. Please."

"I wouldn't do that to you, Miss Annalise."

I believed him. Something in his attitude had changed. Maybe it was my mother, our life, the way our family was together. I was grateful for the ally.

In the end, I found a very chic, almost vintage looking dress that had small cap sleeves, a small stand up collar and a slit up the right side to the mid thigh. It was poppy red with black buttons across one shoulder. It fit beautifully, hugging my curves and accentuating my small waist.

"How about this one? I like this best of all I've seen." I twirled around in front of Taishi who grinned at me.

"It is very reminiscent of a cheongsam. That's a traditional Chinese dress. I love it. It's classy, but the red is out there. Good choice."

"Okay, the red one it is. Thanks for your help, Taishi."

"There's one thing . . . "

"What's that?"

"You can't get away with that . . . underwear. You've got all kinds of lines."

By the time Kason picked me up for dinner my outfit consisted of the red dress, a sleek and seamless black bustier with matching satin thong, thigh high black hose and a pair of Christian Louboutin black pumps whose red soles were perfectly matched to the red of the dress. Taishi insisted I have the matching black clutch as well. "Kason has a penchant for small details, so you might as well get the whole look right." We found some earrings in the 'costume jewelry' department at Bergdoffs that looked great—big black enamel buttons with a Chinese symbol inlaid in red crystals. The earrings were the only part of the ensemble that I had managed to find a price tag on.

"Taishi, these earrings are $424.00! And they aren't even real!"

"You're right, they're dime store crap, but Kason will understand. You had to have
something
to wear in your ears."

"Taishi . . . ?" He gave me a look that said "go on". "You're awfully good at this. Does Kason pull this
Pretty Woman
act frequently?"

"Frankly, I've only known him to do it once before . . . a long time ago."

Elsa
. Should I find that a good thing or a bad thing?

"The women Kason usually dates can afford to dress themselves in style. They're after a lot more than a cocktail dress and a couple grand in shoes." He smiled at the shock on my face as I clutched the shoe bag a little tighter. "Besides, Annalise, no one's got better taste than a gay man. If anyone can help a pretty woman look her best, I can—
if
I want to."

"You're . . . "

"Yes, I
am
one tough mutha of a body guard for an alpha guy who hasn't got a gay bone in his body. It works for us. Someday I'll tell you all about how we met but right now, I think you need to start primping." He ushered me into my suite and by the time Kason rang the bell I looked like I
belonged
at The Plaza getting ready to have dinner at Le Bernardin with a financial wizard who took my breath away.