Hydraulic Level Five (1) (35 page)

“Oh for the love of—Samuel Caulfield Cabral! It doesn’t have to be even. Just whip the ribbon around the handle and knot it.”

“Admit it, Kaye. You are envious of my bow-tying dexterity.”

“No. I just don’t want to be stuck in here the rest of the afternoon.” I rolled my neck, worked out the kinks. “Let’s get these crates loaded, delivered, and crash in front of a TV for a ghost hunting marathon and cold drinks. You can put those magic fingers of yours to good use, Cabral.”

Samuel’s lips twitched. Molly snorted into her hand.

I bent over the basket to hide my chagrin. “
Neck rubs
, you creepers. What is wrong with you people? I can understand Samuel having a dirty mind—he’s a writer. But seriously, Molly.”

“I grew up around my stepsister. I knew what French kissing was by the age of seven, thanks to her and her boyfriend. And once Samuel started cramming his tongue down your throat, you weren’t much better.”

“Molly!”

She waved a dismissive hand. “Back rubs and ghost hunting, huh? I’m in…” She glanced between Samuel and me. “Unless the two of you just wanted to hang out alone. Because that’s fine. In fact, I think Cassady mentioned something about biking tonight, so I’m busy anyway, and that ghost hunting show is kind of lame. Really.”

Samuel discreetly hefted a crate and carried it out of the room, escaping Molly. I sighed. My perky friend was bound and determined to solve the world’s problems, starting with her immediate circle, and there wasn’t much I could say to keep her interference to a minimum.

Audrey returned with a crate of plump red apples, her brown curls bouncing around the paisley scarf tied over her head. She pointedly avoided Samuel, had been since he’d arrived at The Garden Market just after lunch. Whenever he addressed her, Audrey offered him a biting little smile, which clearly said, “you poor boy, you really screwed up, didn’t you?” I’d been on the receiving end of that look a million times.

“You’ve done a remarkable job with the store, Ms. Wexler,” Samuel said as he returned from the Jeep. “It seems to be doing very well.” Son of a shrew, could he be any more Eddie Haskell?

She lifted her shoulder. Oh yes, she was in the playing-it-cool mode she’d perfected over the years—the classic shrug I’d witnessed a thousand times with my dad. “The Market draws quite a few loyal customers. Did you know your mother shops here regularly?”

“She’s told me you have the best produce in the area, and you know how choosy she is.”

Audrey flushed at the compliment. I rolled my eyes and Molly silently laughed. Samuel was certainly laying it on thick, even pulling out that killer white smile he used when he really wanted to charm someone.

Dad, however, seemed more than willing to forgive and forget with his golden boy.

“Hey there. How’s Lyons’ star ballplayer?” He emerged from the storeroom with an armful of bulk trail mix containers, strutting like a perpetual sixteen-year-old and beaming like one, too. He set down the containers and slapped Samuel on the back with a tanned arm. “I heard you were in town and wondered if I’d see you around at some point.”

“Nice to see you again, Mr. Trilby.” Samuel pulled his hand from Dad’s strong grip.

“Call me Tom.”

Dad and Samuel had gotten along, for the most part. There was the time Samuel nearly punched him when I’d found out he was sleeping with Audrey, mom’s friend. After catching them
in flagrante delicto
on our Formica countertop, I’d wailed into Samuel’s T-shirt like the emotional fifteen-year-old I was, about how Dad was ruining my life and how, for once, I wanted him to think of my feelings first. After taking me home, Samuel hauled it over to Dad’s and nearly got himself benched for the next three games. The whole thing was convoluted and seedy, and I’d never loved Samuel more for throwing himself into the middle of it for my sake.

Audrey turned her cool look on Dad. His jaw set in stubborn defiance. Ah, they’d argued about my ex-husband.

“Hey, Samuel, when are you going to dish on your celebrity pals?” Molly asked, breaking the uneasy silence.

I stacked another ten baskets in a crate, fluffed the white tulle in each, trying my darndest not to appear interested. Audrey tried, too, but her greatest vice was celebrity gossip.

“I’m not going to dish, Molly. There’s nothing to tell—just a bunch of people who move in circles which happen to be splashed across tabloids.” Samuel eased past my dad and Audrey, lifting the crate from my arms.

“So you have no issues ‘dishing’ about Kaye, but celebrities are off limits? At least tell me if Indigo Kingsley’s had work done. Molly says nose and boobs, but I’m pretty sure those puppies are real. What do you think?”

“Audrey!” I hissed.

Streaks of red crept up Samuel’s neck as the three of them stared him down, waiting for an answer. He cleared his throat. “I wouldn’t know. I was never in a position to find out what sort of work Indigo may have had done.”

I was torn between complete embarrassment and amusement. Fortunately, Dad stepped in.

“So, Samuel, have you been down to Lyons High’s ball field lately? We put in new dugouts last year…”

We loaded crates as quickly as possible and hit the road before Audrey pounced again.

“Kaye,” Samuel asked as he stretched his long legs in my Jeep’s passenger seat, “how much have you told your dad about what happened between us?”

I fiddled with the air controls. “Not a lot. You know how he is. If I remember correctly, our split happened during his
Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance
phase. He was already trying to talk me into a ‘Chatauqua’ visit to discuss truth in the modern world, said it would ‘cleanse my spirit.’ If I’d told him everything, he would have strapped me to the back of a motorcycle for a three-week quest to achieve inner peace of mind.”

“And so the Paddler Outdoor Adventures crew strapped you into a kayak, instead.”

Ugh, he had me there. “Okay. I probably should’ve talked to my family, but honestly, if they knew the entire truth, you wouldn’t have lasted five minutes in that store.”

Samuel tensed. “The entire truth?”

“The drugs. On second thought, Dad might have offered to toke it up with you at a Buffett concert.”

He nodded, but his fingers still clutched at the seatbelt across his lap. Once more, guilt infused every inch of his face. Reaching over, I pressed his hand.

“Hey, relax. The whole question and answer thing isn’t so scary. I survived, didn’t I? Albeit, I
did
have to resort to a voicemail.”

Samuel threaded his fingers through mine, his hands and wrists clammy. “I’m sorry for what I did to you, Kaye.” He grimaced. “That apology sounds pathetic, doesn’t it?”

I pulled my hand away and wrapped it around the steering wheel. “I didn’t tell you those things to make you feel guilty or to fish for an apology. I told you because you asked for honesty, so there you have it.”

“Do you want to talk about your voicemail?”

I shook my head. “I told you everything I wanted to say. Now it’s time for
my
question for
you
. Brace yourself, Cabral. I have about seven years’ worth of questions stored up, ready and aimed at the big ol’ target on your forehead.”

“Whenever you’re ready, fire away.”

But only silence drifted between us as I stirred up my courage. I fiddled with the radio, settling on a mellow alternative station. In between navigating the empty road to Boulder and ignoring Samuel’s hints that I drove too fast, I glanced at him, gauging his mood. Tired. It was most noticeable when I caught him unaware—the way his entire body sagged into the seat, purplish, puffy eyelids, limp lips. Something ground him down, and he was doing his best to hide it from me.

“You still look exhausted. Worse than yesterday.”

He rolled his head, gave me a half-hearted smile. “I haven’t slept well the past couple of nights.”

“From the looks of you, I’d say you haven’t slept all month. The trip home is really doing a number on you, huh?”

“You know what they say about vacation: you need a vacation to recover from it. Normally I have a very strict daily routine. Wake up at six. Go for a run. Breakfast. Work. Lunch. Work some more. Dinner. Then entertainment, public appearances, or more work, depending on what Caro’s booked. In bed by eleven. My body’s thrown off, that’s all.”

“Wow. That’s…glamorous. I would have expected your days to be a bit more exciting.”

He shrugged. “I know, lifestyles of the rich and famous.”

“Why the stringent routine? You were anal-retentive, but never
that
anal-retentive.” I treaded carefully, instinctively knowing I was prying open a sensitive topic.

“Is that your one question?”

I grinned sheepishly. “No. This is just a warm-up question.”

“Breaking the rules already? Cheeky.” He tugged my ear, eyes crinkling thoughtfully. “Why my strict routine? It’s necessary to keep me focused. And I suppose it’s a way to cope.”

“With what? Stress?”

“Yes.”

I chewed my lip. “In the short time we were married, I knew you were stressed out. We both were. When you left, I tried to blame it on your stress, but I think I knew, deep down, it wasn’t just stress.” My mind raced, sorting itself out as I spoke. I kept my eyes riveted to the windshield because if I dared look at him, he’d see my weakness for him. “You were restless. Dissatisfied. For so many years, I believed you were dissatisfied with
me
, and that’s why you left. But now I wonder if it was more than just me…”

“Kaye, I told you it wasn’t you.”

“I know, but you never gave me another explanation.”

“Well, for what it’s worth, I handled it poorly.”

I pulled into the first hotel’s parking lot but didn’t kill the engine. Unbuckling my seatbelt, I turned to him. “I’ve thought a lot about this lately…Nicodemus really got me stewing. Ever since you were six, there was this unfathomable sadness in you. I couldn’t do anything about it, so I pretended it wasn’t there. And finally, it disappeared. But it never really went away, did it?”

Samuel’s ice eyes searched my face. “It would come and go. Usually, I could push it back and simply enjoy being with you. But each time it returned, it was a little bit more intense. It began to linger, even when I was with you. Sometimes, especially in college, it grew so strong that the only way to keep my head above water was to steel myself against it. I reminded myself how much I would disappoint you, my parents, our friends if I ever let it swallow me. And when that didn’t work…”

“The drugs.”

He nodded.

“I wish you’d told me.” I folded my arms around my ribs, suddenly scared for him. I didn’t want to ask what he meant by it swallowing him, and I was extremely glad we’d never found out the hard way.

“When Alonso told me in New York you’d been doing cocaine for a while, I was sure he was wrong. I never believed I could be so incredibly blind as to not know my own husband was doing coke. But then, I never saw how sad you were until it was too late. I guess I
was
blind, huh?” Tears pricked my eyes, and I flipped my sunglasses down to hide them from Samuel.

Samuel leaned closer to me, his voice also quiet. “I intentionally hid it from you, Kaye. The more practiced I became, the easier it was to hide the sadness and the drugs. And I justified lying because the truth would only hurt you.” Samuel glanced at my hands, and I thought he was going to pry them away from my body. But he stayed where he was, giving me my space. He closed his eyes, his head falling against the seat.

“The cocaine stimulated my mind, zapped me out of my funk to the point where I could come home from work with a smile. I added an extra mile to my morning run to hide my weight loss and cope with the restlessness. I worked on my book late at night to hide the insomnia. And the increased sex drive…well, we were newlyweds. Lots of sex was never our problem.”

I felt my cheeks burn. Correction: sex was never a problem for us in the heat of the act. The problem was post-coital guilt, even after he’d put a diamond engagement ring on my finger. Before, to my twitterpated, teenaged self, our decision to wait sucked about an hour before curfew on Saturday nights, but was a relief Sunday morning in the church pew.

It was this very values system that made everything he revealed so hard to swallow. This was
Samuel
. Straight-laced Sam Cabral. Even now, it was difficult to picture him snorting white powder or simply
carrying
the paraphernalia with which he’d been busted.

He continued. “I also led you to believe my job with
Latin Colorado
kept me busier than it actually did. I wrote about
music
, Kaye. There wasn’t a whole lot of research I needed to do because you and I lived and breathed the local music scene.”

“So where were you if you weren’t at your job in the evenings?” My voice cracked, and I knew I wouldn’t be able to hold back the tears much longer. I bit the inside of my mouth and tasted metal on my tongue.