Come Back To Me (6 page)

“You do?” Tess asked, a little miffed by his innuendo.

“Of course. You’ve called me on eight occasions, the last one being yesterday at four.”

Tess looked at him inquisitively.

“I’m not very good at returning calls,” he admitted. “It’s not that they’re not important.” He held Tess’s gaze as he spoke of his inability, or lack of desire, really, to return phone calls, and his rampant ability to take on far too many things at once.

Tess warmed to his confession. She told him, with a little laugh, that he was not at all like her, that she was just the opposite—she leaned toward the compulsive side; every phone call returned, every milestone met, every client followed-up with. Then she quickly added, “I don’t mean that how it sounds, like I’m better than other people. In fact, I think it’s a detriment, being so compulsive about things.” What was she doing? Where was her upper hand? For once, Tess had no ulterior motive during her client meeting. They fell into a conversation about missed opportunities for him and instances when she’d driven her clients crazy with constant follow-ups. Worrying about sealing the deal had fallen by the wayside. Tess liked Louie’s off-beat personality. At 3:30, when the completely capable receptionist buzzed Louie’s phone, Tess had not only
not
sealed the deal, but she’d accepted his invitation to dinner—to further discuss how they might work together.

The phone rang as Tess was heading out the door to meet Louie for dinner. “Hello?”

“Mrs. Johnson, I’m glad I caught you.”

Mr. Levy’s voice made Tess’s heart race.
Damn
. She’d been avoiding the overzealous insurance agent. “I’m just on my way out the door,” Tess said, hurriedly.

Mr. Levy rattled on, “Can we schedule a time to talk? I’ve been leaving messages for weeks. We have insurance that needs to be tended to. The funeral—”

Tess interrupted him, “Sorry, I have to go.” She hung up the phone without an ounce of guilt. “Where the hell are my keys?” she strode toward the table by the front door, snagging the keys with her shaking hands.  Pushing the sadness away and replacing it with a feeling of hope had become almost a physical task as much as a mental one. The mantra she’d adapted,
He’s coming back, he promised
, helped her through the excruciating emptiness that she knew would easily disable her if she let it.

Tess entered the quaint Thai restaurant five minutes later than she’d hoped, the smell of fish, lemongrass, and garlic hovered in the air. The lights were dim, creating an aura of relaxation and romance. Romance! Suddenly Tess worried that she’d given Louie the wrong impression. They had decided to meet to discuss work, hadn’t they? She was sure they had. So why were her nerves all tingly?
You’re pregnant and married, remember?
The restaurant was busy, and for that she was thankful, though she was sure she’d overdressed in her black slacks, pale yellow blouse, and black blazer. She quickly decided it was a good thing to be overdressed. She looked professional, and that was just what she needed to portray.

Tess mentally transformed from nervous woman to business professional, standing up straighter, and tightening a curt smile across her lips. She was led to a darkened corner by a beautiful Asian woman as thin as the day was long. Louie stood when she arrived, welcoming her with a smile. Dressed in the same jeans and t-shirt he’d worn earlier to the office, he made no apologies for his appearance and didn’t comment on Tess’s either. Tess wasn’t sure if she found his nonchalance rude or appealing.

Conversation came easily. Louie told Tess about a client that he had met with in the afternoon, a gentleman who owned five retail chain stores and had recently “lost” his accounting records. Tess could not imagine having the patience to deal with that type of situation. She’d have confronted the man about poor business practices or tax evasion. Louie explained that he’d told the client to find them before April, or he’d have to back out of being his accountant. He was ethical, Tess concluded, and she found that to be admirable.

“So tell me about the phone calls,” she said. “What can you possibly gain by not returning phone calls? How do you stay in business, much less grow a business?”

Louie smiled and flagged the waitress over. He ordered another glass of wine for himself and another seltzer water for Tess.

“I do return my clients’ calls,” he said and took a bite of his Shrimp Pad Thai.

“So it’s just non-clients that you ignore?” Tess asked.

“No, I don’t
ignore
anyone. Usually, my secretary, Kay, returns calls that are from non-clients, and if they appear to be potential clients or need my attention,
then
I return them.”

“So…” Tess was a little annoyed about his lack of explanation about her phone calls.

“So I wasn’t ignoring your calls. I know you’re a headhunter, and I haven’t really decided if I want to use one or not.”

“I thought you had used Klineman Staffing, and before that, PermaStaff.”

“You do your research,” he smiled. “Impressive.”

Tess prided herself on knowing how to win a client over, memorizing their hiring practices better than they know them themselves, which was easy because it was rarely the principles doing the actual hiring. Be persistent, professional, and offer them a fair market value for services rendered. Last, but not least, always present candidates that are thoroughly screened and tested, their backgrounds investigated, and only represent the people that she, herself, would hire in her own office.

“Let’s see how good I am at this game,” Louie said conspiratorially. “You’ve been in business for ten years. Your first office was a small townhouse in Rockville. You moved to Bethesda seven years ago and have been renting the same office space ever since. You’ve negotiated a smaller increase in rent the last two years than other renters. Your right hand is the lovely Alice Workman, and your primary means of support is mid to upper level management—although as far as I can see, you work with just about any type of business, with the exception of law firms, and—”

Slack jawed, Tess blinked rapidly. “How do you--“

Louie smiled broadly. “You see, two can play at these games.” He took a sip of his wine, and his eyes danced above the rim of his glass, then suddenly became serious.

“Well, you nailed it—dead on,” Tess nodded, perhaps she’d met her professional match. Her mind reeled through a way to one-up him, but while her mind was running, he kicked her legs out from under her.

“And…you recently lost your husband,” he said in a serious, quiet tone.

Tess’s smile faded. She rolled her lips into her mouth.
He’s coming back. He’s coming back to me.
She steeled herself against the pressing heartbreak and straightened her back against her chair. “I haven’t lost him,” she said confidently.

Louie cocked his head and furrowed his brow. “Oh, I’m sorry. I thought…the crash…”

Tess shook her head. “They—” she waved her hands as if displaying an item, “his family, my friends—they all believe he’s gone, but I don’t think so. They simply haven’t found him yet.” Her voice told Louie to back off, and he did.

He nodded. “Alright then.”

An uncomfortable silence passed between them.

“Let’s talk about hiring practices. What can you offer that no one else can?” Louie taunted.

Madonna interrupted Tess’s thoughts, more specifically, Madonna’s “Vogue.”
Odd choice for a man’s ring tone.
 

“Excuse me,” Louie turned away from Tess, whispering into the phone. “Is she coherent?” Louie ran his hand through his hair and said with a sigh, “Okay, I’ll be there soon.” Louie turned toward Tess, a concerned look in his eyes. “I’m sorry. I have to go.” Without further explanation, he excused himself from the table, paying the bill on the way out the door.

Tess slipped into her car and replayed the evening in her mind. She wondered who had called Louie.
A wife? Babysitter?
He hadn’t mentioned a wife or a child, but then again, Tess had never asked. She had been too caught up in enjoying the diversion from her grief. What was she doing? How could she have pushed Beau aside in her mind like that? Guilt wooed her. She wanted to feel stricken—lost even—by Beau’s absence, as she had in the weeks prior. She knew she should feel those emotions, and yet, somehow, each day, she was becoming stronger. Her faith that Beau was not gone forever extinguished her fear that he might have been. It was almost as if he were on a business trip, and she knew he’d be coming home—only she didn’t know when.

Iraq

Beau stared at the photo of Tess, remembering fondly the afternoon it had been taken. They’d been dating for about a month, and Beau was head over heels in love with Tess. They were fishing on Kevin’s father’s boat, joking about one of them falling in the water. Tess was deathly afraid of any body of water larger than a swimming pool, and she wasn’t too keen on those, either. She’d clung tightly to Beau’s arm. Suddenly, the wind kicked up and the small boat rocked from side to side. Beau had to pry himself away to help bring down the sail, and somehow, at the very moment that Beau had turned his back, the boat had tipped. Tess had gone flailing into the water, shrieking and petrified. Kevin and Beau had pulled her out seconds later. 

He ran his hand over the picture. Tess hated everything about that photo, from her soaking wet hair to the frightening memory it held. Beau’s love for the photo was equal to her hatred, for the simple fact that five minutes after it was taken, Tess had held onto Beau like a lifeline, soaking wet and shivering. Through chattering teeth, she’d told Beau what he’d been waiting to hear—that she loved him.

He was not ashamed of his tears as they streamed down his cheeks. He could not have stopped them if he had tried. Flashes of memory flooded his mind, the sounds of explosions echoed in his ears. He lay on the strangely-printed blankets, wondering how and why he had survived the helicopter crash. Whatever the reasons, his life had been handed back to him, and for that he was grateful. His mind ran in circles. He had to come up with a plan. He had to get back to Tess.

Suha wiped his tears, speaking in her broken but understandable English. “She is yours, yes?”

Beau nodded slightly. His cheeks hurt, but he could no better hide his pushing smile than walk away from his makeshift bed. “Tess,” he whispered.

“Tess. She is beautiful, yes? Your wife?” Suha asked.

Beau nodded.

“She will be worried. You will,
come back to me
,” Suha said, and placed the shiny, dented, pocket watch in his right hand, curling his fingers around it with a gentle squeeze.

Beau closed his eyes, relishing in the feel of his watch, their watch.
Yes, I will
, he thought.
I will come back to you
.

“Sleep,” Suha said, and for the first time in many weeks, Beau closed his eyes without anxiety.

Chapter Seven

Tess lay on the table in her obstetrician’s office, her belly covered with warm, gooey gel. She stared at the black screen of the ultrasound monitor, tapping her fingers on the paper sheet below her.

“Excited?” Dr. Roberts asked.

My husband’s missing, I had dinner with another man, and I’m lying here naked under a paper gown. Would you be excited?
Tess shrugged.

The ultrasound wand pressed against her abdomen, sending a cool shiver up her arms. The outline of a bubble came to life on the monitor as Dr. Roberts expertly aimed the wand to the right, down, then to the left, ever so gently. A tiny shape appeared. Tess’s heart jumped, “Is that her?”

“Well, I don’t know if it’s her or him. It’s a little early for that, but yes, that’s your baby,” he smiled.

Tess lifted her head, “That’s my baby? That tiny thing? Is she okay?” Her baby had become real.

“So?” Alice said from her usual morning perch in Tess’s office. They’d sat across the desk from one another for eight years, and never once had Tess dodged Alice’s questions as she had that morning. Alice had received the finalized paperwork from Mr. Mason and had been trying to gather details of Tess’s meeting with Mr. Tole.

Tess sipped her water, wishing it were cappuccino, and lifted her eyebrows. “The deal’s not sealed just yet,” she said, avoiding Alice’s glare.

“Okay, I got that much. So where do we stand? Did you discuss business at
all
last night?” Alice became annoyed with the silence, “Tess? Hello? What is it?”

“I don’t know, okay?” Tess said, frustrated. “I
think
we’re going to seal the deal. I mean, we always seal the deal. So yes, we
will
seal this deal.” Her words were confident but her mind was not. “There’s something…I don’t know…weird about this guy.”

“Weird?”

“Yeah, but in a not-so-weird kind of way.” Tess knew that she was avoiding Alice’s eyes, and she didn’t know what was going on in her own head. She’d had a client meeting—she’d had a million of them. Why was she so hung up over this one?

“Okay, Tess, spill. I want it all, every last detail,” Alice said curiously.

Tess looked up and smiled. “There are no details to spill. We had dinner. We talked about work…sort of…and about life. He’s just,” she looked out the large picture window that overlooked the busy streets of Bethesda and let her mind wander to the prior evening. What was it about the evening that had her so dumbstruck? She couldn’t define the fine line that she teetered upon, wavering between comfort and discomfort. Alice’s voice brought her back to the present.

“Just what, Tess?”

Tess shook her head and shrugged. “He’s the kind of guy who runs a business in jeans, Alice. Jeans! It’s just…I don’t know.” She scooped up a pile of files from her desk and rose from her chair. “Let’s get started setting up interviews for Mason Press. Who do you have in mind?” she hurried out of her office with Alice close by her heels and spread out the files on the conference room table. They were discussing potential candidates when the phone rang. Alice answered it on the second ring.

“Sure, she’s right here,” she put the caller on hold and handed the phone to Tess. “It’s Beau’s mom,” she said. Tess gave her an annoyed look, waving her hands as if to say she was not there. Alice busied herself with the files, pretending not to see.

“Hi, Carol,” Tess feigned a smile. Tess closed her eyes and listened to Beau’s mother’s plea for a memorial service.

“We can’t move on with our lives until we have closure,” Carol said.

There it was—the words that pulled Tess’s heart right from her chest and infuriated her all at once. Heat raced through Tess’s veins. “He is not dead,” she said into the phone.

Alice’s head shot up. She glared at Tess with disbelieving eyes.

Tess held the phone a few inches from her ear, and Alice could hear Carol’s tearful pleas on the other end, trying desperately to talk some sense into Tess. Tess’s cheeks burned, her eyes filled with tears. “Carol,” she said in a detached, professional voice, “I have to go now.” Tess hung up the phone and stormed out of the office. Alice was on her feet in seconds, following Tess into the ladies’ room. Tess locked herself in a stall and sobbed.

Alice pressed her hand against the stall door. “Tess?” she said softly.

Tess sniffled, blew her nose.

“Do you want to talk?” Alice asked.

Tess steeled herself for what she knew would come next. She’d tell Alice that Beau was still alive, and Alice would tell her that she needed to deal with the reality that Beau was dead. She’d heard it so many times already from Alice, from Carol, from Kevin. If she heard it one more time she thought she might throw up. She knew what she believed, but she also knew that no one else held that same belief. No, she decided. She would not go through that again. If Carol and Robert needed a damned memorial, then so be it. She didn’t need to be part of it. She’d be damned if she was going to have that useless discussion with anyone else—ever again. She lowered her hand to her abdomen and thought, I can do this.
For you. For us.

She wiped her eyes, held her head high, and pulled her shoulders back before exiting the stall.
Alice.
Alice knew how to push her, make her do things that she didn’t want to do. Alice’s full lips turned down at the ends, her eyebrows drew together and lifted ever so slightly. The emotion Alice gave her was real, and Tess couldn’t, no matter how much she steeled herself, turn her back on that. Against her will, tears tumbled down her cheeks and she fell, sobbing, into Alice’s open arms.

Back at her apartment, Alice set her purse on the impeccably-clean black countertop and settled into the white Scandinavian recliner. She still got a rush of excitement from the crispness of the black and white furniture, highlighted by smooth wooden braces that arched and essed. Scandinavian designs made her feel successful and comfortable. In her condo, she was in control, and she liked it that way. Everything had its place, and it was rarely set awry. A few male visitors had left their shoes in all the wrong places, carelessly tossed their shirts onto the floor—something she despised—and had, in general, made her wish they would leave shortly after they had arrived. Alice felt complete just the way she was. She didn’t understand the gushing need that so many women had for men in their lives. Even Tess’s preoccupation with Beau had been almost too much for Alice to endure.

She enjoyed the amenities she owned, which did not come cheap. She’d been knee deep in debt when she’d taken the job with Tess, and it hadn’t taken long for her to understand the earning ability that Tess possessed.

Alice quickly discovered which tasks she could take over, enabling Tess to build the business, and rendering the need to hire two more recruiters. Alice’s salary had soared, as did Tess’s, and Tess was generous with the profits, a little too generous, if you asked Alice. She tossed an extra thousand dollars to the recruiters whenever they had produced more than ten thousand dollars of income during any one-month period. Alice never complained, though. Tess had always been fair with Alice, allowing her to naturally increase her responsibility without question, and with the added responsibility, she increased Alice’s salary exponentially, while still providing lofty bonuses. Alice had quickly climbed out of debt and into a place of comfort, maybe even a little elitist. She reached for her black, designer telephone.

 “Hey, Alice, what’s up?” Kevin was in good spirits.

“A lot, let me tell you,” Alice sighed. “Can you meet me somewhere?”

The last time Alice had asked Kevin to meet her was when Alice wanted to complain about Beau sweeping Tess away on an unplanned vacation in the middle of their busiest season. She’d wanted Kevin to step in and talk sense into Beau, delay their trip.

He hesitated, then agreed. “When?”

“Tonight.” It wasn’t a question.

Alice assumed Kevin didn’t have plans. Her assumption was correct, of course, and she didn’t care if it undermined his masculinity—nor was she perturbed at his annoyed tone of voice when he answered, “Yeah, sure. Bailey’s Pub, eight o’clock?”

He could not say no to Alice when it might concern Tess.

Alice strolled into the pub ten minutes early. Though she stared straight ahead, the hostess seemingly her only focus, she was not oblivious to the lascivious, hopeful stares emanating from the men at the bar. As disinterested as she appeared on the outside, inside she was scoping, planning. It wasn’t their lifted eyebrows or the way they tried too hard to look cool that roused her or enticed her curiosity. Conquering men, being in control of which one, how long, and what she’d let them do, had become a finely-tuned art. Men had such weak minds. It almost disgusted her how easily they could be had. She stood tall and proud, and followed the waitress to a nearby table where she would wait for Kevin and let the horny hoverers stew. She ordered a drink, knowing that if she didn’t, eventually one of the bar oglers would order one for her, and she’d just as soon skip that playful game tonight. She had Tess on her mind and wasn’t in the mood for fake flirting. Cat and mouse games bored her. She’d make her choice, introduce herself with the sole purpose of getting her chosen stud into bed, use him, and cast him off, as she’d done hundreds of times before.

Kevin breezed into the pub, stopped at the bar, then sat across the small round table from Alice. “I ordered you a piña colada from the bar,” he smiled. “You look great.” Alice’s cocoa brown silk sleeveless shirt set off her eyes perfectly.

“Down boy,” she laughed.

“No worries there,” Kevin smirked.

His
not interested look
came across loud and clear. “Anyway,” she sighed, “How are you?”

“Great.”

Alice caught the hesitation in his response. “Not great, huh?” she asked

Kevin shook his head. His hair had grown since Alice had last seen him, falling below his eyes and hiding them perfectly.

“Beau?” she asked gently.

He nodded, clasped his hands together, rested his chin on them, and looked up at Alice through his wavy bangs. He breathed in through his nose.

“It’s been harder than I thought it would be.”

While Alice had felt Beau’s loss as a devastating loss for her friend, she now realized that she hadn’t felt it personally. For the first time, she questioned her own lack of emotion. She fiddled with a napkin. A strand of insufficiency wheedled its way through her thoughts. 

“It must be hard to lose your best friend,” she said.

Kevin pinched the bridge of his nose between his thumb and forefinger and closed his eyes. When he reopened them, his mood had changed dramatically.

“Yeah, well, what are you going to do, right?” he announced with feigned bravado. He looked around the pub and noticed the glances toward Alice from a neighboring table of men. He chuckled inwardly. “So, what’s up?”

Alice took the hint and refrained from inquiring any further about the emptiness Beau had left in Kevin’s life. The change of subjects suited her just fine.

“Tess,” she said, and half-smiled, “I’m worried about her.”

“I haven’t seen her in a while,” he confessed. “It just got to be too hard.”

“Because seeing her reminded you of Beau?” Alice asked.

He shook his head. “Because Tess wouldn’t let him go.”

“That’s kind of why I’m here,” she confessed. “I think she’s really in denial.”

“Denial?” he laughed. “She’s in no-way-in-hell-is-my-husband-dead land, not denial. She’ll have no part of any conversation about Beau being gone.” He gulped down his beer and waved to the waitress, pointing to his empty bottle. “I tried. I spent time with her, even cut her grass a couple of times, but it was just…too hard. She really believes that he’s alive.”

Alice wasn’t surprised by his statements. Her own observations had her concerned. “Do you think she really believes it, or she just doesn’t want to talk about it?”

Kevin leaned back in his chair shaking his head. His voice grew louder, “Nope. She believes it. She still checks Skype every night—or at least she was still doing it a few weeks ago.”

“Really?” That surprised Alice.

“Yup, and when I tried to talk to her about that, she laughed at me, like I was the crazy one.”

Alice immediately stood up for Tess, “I don’t think she’s crazy, Kevin. Maybe she’s depressed, or in denial, but not crazy.”

“That’s just it, Alice. She’s going through her days like there’s nothing wrong, but she won’t even let us have a memorial service for him. That’s why I stopped going over. I need that. I need closure. He was my best friend for God’s sake.” He stared at her.

She looked down. Normal people knew how to comfort others. All she could do was push through the discomfort. “I know,” she said awkwardly. “There’s got to be something we can do. We can’t just turn our backs on her. This is seriously wrong. I mean, Beau’s gone. He’s not coming back, and she’s causing conflicts with his parents, and now you.” Alice shook her head.

“I talked to Carol and Robert. They called me this morning. They’re going to hold a memorial anyway, and if Tess doesn’t want to be part of it, then so be it.”

Conflicting emotions beleaguered Alice—guilt for knowing about the memorial and feeling as though it was the right thing to do, and heartbreak for recognizing that it went against Tess’s wishes.

 “Can you talk any sense into her?” Kevin asked.

“I have to admit, I kind of tippy toe around the topic myself. I didn’t realize that she really thought he was alive. I figured she was just having, you know, a hard time with it.”

A few drinks and two hours later, they laughed about Kevin and Beau’s hunting trips—Kevin with his bow and arrow (he had yet to actually kill any animals), and Beau with his camera, hunting his prey.

“There’s this one raccoon by my grandfather’s hunting cabin. It gets into the trash every time we’re there. I swear I’ve been trying to kill the damn thing for five years, and Beau’s been trying to capture it on film.” He laughed at the memory. Kevin told Alice that Beau had always seemed to him like an old married man, even when he was single. Marrying Tess had brought a certain contentedness to Beau that Kevin had secretly envied. He’d had a hard time committing to the movies, much less a lifetime.