Craving Perfect (21 page)

As much as I hated to admit it, I really missed Carlos. I hadn’t realized until now just how much.

I twisted off my engagement ring and tossed it inside my purse as I waited for the light to turn green, rubbing the skin where the ring had pinched me. I never would have believed that an engagement ring from Max Kramer wouldn’t feel right.

But it felt nothing but wrong.

The light turned green and I drove down Scottsdale Road to University Avenue. In my rearview, I spotted a black pick-up. Its windows were tinted and all I could see was a yellow glare from the streetlights reflecting off its windshield.

The pick-up truck followed me all the way home, staying behind a safe distance, never getting too close.

“What’s the patient’s name, again?”

“Grace Mills,” I said through gritted teeth.

The hospital clerk clicked something into the computer with long red fingernails. “Middle name?”

I cleared my throat. Then I turned to Elena. Elena could only shrug her shoulders. “I don’t know.”

The clerk’s fingernails stopped tapping across the keyboard. Her gaze lifted, holding mine in a suspicious stare-down. It probably didn’t help that I wore sunglasses inside the building, only because I wanted to hide my black eye. “What did you say your name was again?” Her beady eyes traveled down to my forearm where they rested on my cross tattoo.

My jaw clenched as I gripped the edges of the counter more tightly. “My name isn’t the issue. We’re trying to find Grace Mills. And we’re wasting time.”

Her eyebrow arched. “Oh, really?”

Elena’s hand pressed against my back as she leaned closer to the counter. “Ma’am, please. We just got a message from someone named Ellen Lannon at the hospital. Or maybe it was Eileen. She called just a little while ago. We drove here as quick as we could.”

The clerk exhaled through her teeth just as Kathryn and Eddie raced through the front lobby. “Where is she? Is she okay?” Kathryn’s eyes darted between Elena and me, demanding answers that we couldn’t give her. Instead, we parted to make room for her at the counter. Eddie stood behind her like some kind of protective kachina, his hands on her shoulders.

“Are you family?” The clerk’s tone grew more impatient.

I was ready to rip the counter in two. Elena’s hand pressed down harder on my arm in warning.

“Yes, yes, yes! I’m her sister.” Her voice caught on
sister
. Kathryn was becoming more hysterical. “Is she here? Is she okay?”

The clerk resumed the clicking across the keyboard with her scary looking fingernails that could double as claws. She stared back at a computer screen that only she could see. I wished that I could read the blue reflections scrolling across her eyes. “They’ve got her stabilized,” the woman said finally.

Kathryn crumpled against the counter.

“She’s on the seventh floor, room 706. Intensive care.” The clerk’s eyes paused long enough to rest on Elena and me. Her head tilted. “Family only.”

Kathryn’s nostrils flared and her back stiffened. She grabbed my shoulder. “They’re family. And they’re coming with me.”

We started walking, quickly.

“Be sure to check in with the night nurse when you get to the seventh floor,” the woman called after us.

I followed Kathryn to the elevator. Eddie ran ahead. He kept pressing the UP arrow with his thumb. I considered racing up the stairs, just as the bell dinged.

The elevator doors opened. It was empty.

Kathryn kept covering her mouth with her hand, alternating between breathing heavy and stifling a whimper.

“She’ll be okay. She’ll be okay,” Eddie kept muttering, all the way till the seventh floor as Kathryn covered her face.

I vacillated between wanting to believe Eddie and wanting to kick him down the elevator shaft.

Good thing the elevator rose to the seventh floor faster than it had arrived when we were waiting for it.

All four of us rushed down the hall toward Room 706 as soon as the door opened, not bothering with the night nurse.

“Hey!” a voice said from behind another counter as we made our way down the hall. The nurse jogged after us in shoes that squeaked across the floor.

Kathryn burst into the room first, followed by Eddie. “I’m Kathryn Mills. I’m her sister.”

Two men in blue scrubs wearing masks stood over Grace, or what looked like Grace. It was hard to tell with all the tubes and machines snaked around her body. The second man moved forward, blocking entry to the door for everyone but Kathryn, ushering us all outside the room with his raised palms.

We had to watch the nightmare from behind a glass wall, struggling for a glimpse, a shred of understanding as to what was happening.

One of the men began to talk to Kathryn. She began to cry into her hand again, nodding every so often.

“What do you suppose they’re saying?” Elena whispered beside me.

I shook my head, numbly. I wished I knew, but at first glance, it didn’t look good. Grim reality washed over me. Elena and I had been through all of this before with our mother—the medicinal smells, the tubes, the blue scrubs, and hushed conversations that always delivered bad news.

Finally Kathryn sat beside the bed and I got a better look at Grace. Her face was more gray than pale and her hair was pulled back. She looked so small in the hospital bed, covered in a white sheet and connected to clear tubes, even more than
Mamá
had during her final days at the hospice. I blinked away the memory, trying not to imagine the worst, but the scene was achingly familiar.

I waited for Grace’s eyelids to flicker, just once. More than anything, I wanted her to sit up and open her eyes. I’d move the building to see that happen.

“Please, Grace,” I mumbled. “Please. Don’t leave. Not now.” My hands reached for the glass, pressing against it.

I don’t know how long I stood there, my hands braced against the cold glass.

Finally Elena whispered, “Carlos, let’s sit down.”

When I looked down at my sister, a hot tear stabbed my eye.

The last time I’d cried was the night our mother died.

When it got really quiet in my condo, especially in the middle of the night as I lay alone in my king-sized bed, I thought that I heard Kathryn’s voice. I hoped it was her. Despite how angry she made me, I missed her. More than I ever imagined.

And why was it the smallest noises always sounded creepier at night—the air conditioning vent, the refrigerator’s hum, a police siren in the distance. But here was the weirdest part: sometimes I even smelled Kathryn’s lavender perfume.

We had lived together all our lives; even during college we lived at home with Mom and Dad. We’d never been apart, except for one grueling summer when I was twelve and Mom made me go to Camp Fire Girl camp for a week. It was brutal, despite the nightly marshmallows and s’mores around the fire pit. I was homesick from the first night, from the first minute.

But then the phone would ring inside my condo or the windows would fill with sunshine, and I’d shake away the humming and buzzing and the memories and talk myself into feeling better. Kathryn would be happier—freer—without me. I was sure of it.

So I’d get out of bed, drag myself into my enormous shower, drive myself to Goldie’s Gym in my shiny convertible for my daily workout and try to get used to my brand-new life. Thankfully Julie’s miracle concealer did wonders for the dark circles that sprouted underneath my eyes.

With each passing day, the past grew dimmer. The sounds grew fainter and I slept less fitfully.

Becoming Callie Collins was the right decision.

After my blowup with Max, my new life fell into a surprisingly comfortable routine. I’d even stopped checking on the treadmill at Goldie’s Gym. It was like hanging on to a concert ticket stub from a favorite concert, long after it had ended. Finally I just needed to throw it away.

Mornings before work I went to Goldie’s Gym, afternoons were spent at the station and evenings usually revolved around whatever Channel 2 needed me to do—auctions, fund-raisers, parties, even a few interviews. Occasionally, very late at night, when I was at my loneliest, I’d bake. That was always my most favorite time of all. I’d listen to jazz and old Sinatra and feel better.

Baking also made me quite popular at Channel 2. I couldn’t help but stifle a grin one morning when Kirk said, “You could sell these!” as he helped himself to a second raspberry scone, extra powdered sugar.

If he only knew!

Although a single morsel never touched her perfectly shaped and chemically pouty lips, even Alexandra seemed to snicker less often at my almost daily homemade treats.

But she’d grown more distant since the women’s shelter fundraiser too. Sure, she made comments about my shortened workouts or an odd purse and outfit pairing, but they had become less snide and frequent. I think we finally began to tolerate each other.

Max was another story. In the last month, I’d received enough flower bouquets to open up a nursery and apologies for several lifetimes, even though I’d returned his engagement ring with an apology of my own. In a way, I began to feel sorry for him. I knew what rejection felt like.

And then there was Carlos. I’d progressed from my daily infatuation for Max Kramer to waiting for a glimpse of Carlos at the gym. His cool body language made it abundantly clear that he wasn’t interested.

But I was up for the challenge.

It wasn’t difficult to learn where Carlos lived. The Goldie’s Gym Front Desk Guy would give me anything I wanted, including extra towels, water bottles, and directions to Carlos’s house. Being Callie Collins had its advantages.

One night after work, I waited for Carlos outside his house. Pathetic, I know, but I was desperate. It gnawed at me that Carlos of all people couldn’t see me, couldn’t sense the real person behind my eyes. I kept waiting for him to look at me at the gym with that lightbulb-just-went-off-inside-his-head expression, like when I smiled at him a certain way or said something remotely familiar such as “Thanks for the towel.” But mostly he ignored me.

Carlos lived in a one-story pink stucco house that could probably fit inside half of my condo. His neighborhood was wedged between the shadows of steel skyscrapers in downtown Phoenix and train tracks that carried a constant stream of slow moving graffiti-covered freight trains. The tidy houses looked out of place, as if the city had built around them as an afterthought. It was sad, really. But his neighborhood, with its front window flower boxes and clothes lines hung between back yards, seemed oblivious to the surrounding blight.

A patchwork of cars and trucks lined both sides of his street and some looked abandoned. My shiny car stuck out like a black eye but at least I could park in front of Carlos’s house, away from the corner streetlight.

When I drove up in front of his house, it was no longer day but not quite night. The sun hung to my back in a sliver of orange just above the horizon. Inside the Flores’ home, a light glowed from a back room. At first I thought I’d knock on the front door, make some kind of lame excuse about forgetting my gym ID and would he have seen it or something. But an excuse wasn’t necessary.

Carlos barreled out the front door, a gym bag slung over his shoulder, five minutes after I arrived. He hurried toward his black truck parked alongside the house.

My stomach fluttered at the sight of him.

And my window of opportunity was closing.

Before I could chicken out, I stepped outside my car and crossed the sidewalk. My heels clicked my approach along the pavement. “Carlos?” A stereo played loud music somewhere down the block as the latest freight train chugged in the distance.

Carlos turned. He raised his hand over his forehead, shielding his eyes. “Yeah?” He squinted toward me against the setting sun. Then his jaw dropped.

I walked toward him on the narrow sidewalk till I stood in the glow of the front porch light. Moths danced around the exposed yellow light bulb. I wanted to blurt everything all at once but fortunately I just started with a feeble “Hi.”

“Callie?” His voice was as stunned as the expression stretched across his face. “What are you doing here?”

I exhaled, trying to remember my rehearsed speech, stumbling over words that I hadn’t planned on saying. “Well. I. You know. Well,” I stammered in vintage Grace Mills fashion. Where was Callie Collins’s confidence and Toastmaster speaking skills when I needed them?

Carlos walked closer, looking me up and down, as if he couldn’t quite believe I was real. He settled for, “Are you lost?” as he looked down the street for someone else to pop up behind me. A doctor with a straitjacket, maybe.

I ignored his obvious surprise. “Yeah. You could say that I’m a little lost.” Strangely, just hearing his voice loosened the muscles in my shoulders. “I need your help, Carlos.” Every part of me wanted him to recognize something about me—the tone of my voice, the desperation in my eyes, my smile—but he looked at me only as someone who could never exist in his world.

Carlos blinked, relented, and then finally shrugged. “Well, okay. Where do you need to go?”

My throat tightened, my knees weakened with the weight of his question. “Home.” I held on to the word. “I think I want to go home.”

“You think or you know?”

“I know.” I paused. “I’ve finally made up my mind.”

He chuckled. “Well, you’re a long way from home,
chica
, in case you hadn’t noticed. Somehow I don’t think you live on the south side.”

“I know.”

“Good. That’s a start.” He paused. “Then what do you need from me?”

“Don’t you know who I am, Carlos?” I took a small step closer and reached out my hand, just for a moment. “I’ve been waiting for you to see me. Don’t you remember?”

His chin pulled back. Then his eyes narrowed. “Have you been drinking or something?” He mumbled something in Spanish.

“Me? Hardly. I mean, I hardly ever drink. Only occasionally. Sangria, sometimes.” My stuttering returned. “I just needed…” I paused and drew back a steadying breath. “I just needed to talk to you. To apologize. To make everything right.”

“Apologize for what?”

I swallowed. “It’s kind of complicated.”

“Well, I’m kind of late.” He glanced down at his bare wrist. “So, if you would tell me where you need to go, I’d be glad to help you out. Give you directions.” He hitched his bag higher on his shoulder.

“Where are you going?” I wanted to go with him. I didn’t care where.

“I’ve got an appointment.” He twirled his key ring around his forefinger. “And I’m late. So…”

My chest tightened. I hated that Carlos wanted to abandon me, wanted to be as far away from me as possible. I took another step toward him.

He stepped back.

I reached for him but then my arm dropped to my side. “I can’t believe you don’t recognize me. Don’t I remind you of anyone? Anyone at all?”

His eyes widened.
Loca
, he muttered. “Hey, lady, you’re starting to freak me out.”

I inhaled. “
Think
, Carlos. Think back. Think hard.”

He shook his head with a nervous chuckle. “I have no idea what you’re talking about.” His eyes stared back at me blankly.

“Nothing?”

His head shook again.

I moaned. “I’m running out of time.”

He chuckled. “Yeah, I can kind of see that.”

“You can?” My shoulders lifted, hopeful.

“Look, I’m not interested. If that’s why you’re here.”

“Not even a little? Why?”

“I’m not dating. At the moment.”

“Why?”

His lips sputtered. “I’m training. Don’t need the hassle.”

“Is there someone else?”

“
Was
,” he said abruptly. “
Was
someone else.” Then his lips pressed together, as though he wished he’d kept silent.

I felt like I hit a sore spot. Carefully, I asked, “Who? Anyone I know?”

“No one you’d know,” he murmured quietly.

“Try me.”

“I said, you wouldn’t know her.”

But I didn’t look away. If anything, my eyes bore harder into his, refusing to budge.

He smirked. Then his chin lifted. “Her name was Grace.”

My eyes widened. “Did you say
Grace?
”

He shook his head and then reached for the handle to his driver’s door. “Now, I gotta go. I’m late.”

“Grace
who
?” My question came out like a gush of air.

“Don’t matter.” He opened the door and threw in his bag.

“But, what happened?”

Carlos sighed, visibly agitated. He climbed into the driver’s seat.

“I need to know,” I said when he wouldn’t answer. “Please.”

He looked at me through his opened window. He smiled but it was a sad smile. “She just up and left one day. No word. Just left.” He paused to inhale. “Satisfied?”

I nodded, slowly, my mind simultaneously numb and racing with all sorts of things I wanted—needed—to tell him. But none of it would make sense here.

“Now, would you mind if I got going now?” He didn’t bother hiding his irritation. He turned the ignition.

“I’m sure she had her reasons.”

“Who?” he laughed.

“Grace.”

His head snapped back, still laughing softly, but he said nothing.

“Maybe she’ll come back to you?”

He laughed again, a sad sort of chuckle. “Doubtful.”

“I’m sorry, Carlos. I’m so very sorry.”

His eyes widened. “You’re sorry? For what?”

A lump formed in my throat, so raw that I could barely speak. It hurt to swallow.

“Look, this isn’t the best neighborhood after dark. You should probably get going. Trust me.” His engine revved.

“I did trust you,” I said, but he didn’t hear me over the engine. “And I should never have left you too. You most of all.”

Another engine rev.

Without another word, I spun around and walked down the sidewalk, my stiletto heels echoing louder across the pavement the farther I got from his truck. They clicked down the street all the way to my car. In the distance, the freight train sounded a lonely horn.

Carlos didn’t pull out of his driveway until I got inside my car. He watched as I sped down his street toward Sixteenth Street and the freeway. I drove east, tears streaming down my face, angry at myself. I’d made such a mess of things.

There was only one more place to go.

When I reached the Desert Diner, I parked my car across the street. I shut off the engine and gazed up at the red-brick building. My eyelids felt as heavy as my head. It was an effort to lift them. I shook my head, forcing myself to focus.

The dark street was mostly deserted. Someone turned off the light over the front door, to the diner, although a light glowed from inside the windows.

My eyes traveled up to the apartment. The curtains were open to the living room and the window glowed a pale yellow. I closed my eyes, picturing my parents inside, watching television, listening to music, watching a movie, planning menus, paying bills. Simple things.

I closed my eyes, picturing all of it at once, inhaling a deep breath of it and holding it inside like a wish.

When my eyes opened, I looked back at the apartment windows. They’d all grown dark and I sighed. I brushed away a tear on my cheek before turning on the ignition to pull away from the curb.

With my right hand, I reached into my opened purse on the seat beside me. I grabbed all of my cash.

Carefully, I drove down the alley behind the diner, my tires creeping over the gravel. “Charlie?” I called out from my window. My voice bounced between the buildings. “Charlie? Are you there?”

I turned off the engine again, listening for movement. The light from the diner’s back door light shined across the hood of my car. I squinted against the glare.

Cardboard rustled and I turned toward the noise. A shadow emerged beyond the headlights, first the silhouette of a head, and then the rest of a body. I should have been terrified, but I’d seen it a thousand times. Not seeing him would frighten me even more.

Silent, Charlie approached my car. His face a ghostly pale, he wore his usual Army jacket, his hands stuffed in the front pockets.

“Hi, Charlie. It’s me…Gr…” My lips pressed together, stopping myself. “Well, let’s just say it’s me.” I paused to smile at him. It was so good to see a familiar face. “I’ve got something for you.”