Sleeping Alone (12 page)

His impulsive gesture was turning into a disaster. “Look,” he said, “I wasn’t trying to upset you. I gave in to impulse.” He shrugged. “So sue me.”

“You think I’m overreacting, don’t you?”

“I didn’t say that.”

“It’s written all over your face. And I resent it.”

“You’re right,” he said. “You are overreacting. It was a gesture of affection, not domination.”

“You could have sent flowers, you know.”

“You didn’t need flowers. You needed your car.”

“It’s not up to you to give me what I need.”

That had to be one of the more loaded statements he’d heard in his time. “So what are you saying, Alex?”

He could almost see her spine stiffen. “I’m saying that it’s my life. I’ll make my own decisions.”

He met her eyes. “Fine,” he said. “You’ve got it.” He turned and stalked toward the door. “See you around, Alex.”

“John, wait.”

He paused in the doorway. “I’ve got a boatload of lawyers looking to catch Jaws.”

“You won’t let me reimburse you?”

“Let it go, Alex.”

She took a deep breath. “If you won’t take the money, then come to my house for dinner.”

“Real warm invitation,” he said, arching a brow. “You act like there’s a score to settle.”

“There is.” The expression on her face softened noticeably. He took it as a good sign. “What I mean is, I don’t like being in someone’s debt.”

“You’re not in my debt.”

“I’m two hundred dollars in your debt.”

“That’s a lot of dinners.”

“I know,” she said. “That’s why we should get started.”

It was tough, but he managed to maintain a neutral expression. Splitting the atom would have been easier. She was the most difficult, most confusing, most desirable woman he’d ever met. “Can I bring flowers?”

“Yes,” she said, a soft smile lighting up her serious face. “Flowers are fine.”

Her smile slid inside his heart and began to grow. “I’ll be bringing the boat back in around six.”

“Then you can come over at eight.”

He glanced outside. There was nobody around. “Come here,” he said.

“You come here.”

He did. He swept her into his arms, bent her backward like the pose on the cover of one of those romance novels he saw at the grocery store, and kissed her.

“Oh!” Her eyes glowed with delight. He took that as a personal triumph.

“I’ll be there by seven,” he said. There were times when a man had to put his foot down.

She touched the corner of his mouth with her fingertip. “I’ll be ready by six.”

* * *

The buzzer woke Brian up a little before eleven. He stumbled from bed, his head throbbing as if it was ready to burst, and made his way through the long narrow hallway to the intercom. He pressed the button and managed a shaky “Yes?”

“Delivery for you, Mr. Gallagher.”

“Sign for me, Ray. I’ll pick it up later.”

“I don’t think I can sign for this one, Mr. G. It’s your Porsche.”

“My car? What the—” He looked down and saw he was wearing the same clothes he’d been wearing the day before. His mouth tasted like a landfill and his head—Jesus, his head. Classic hangover, he thought. Probably Scotch. “Give me ten minutes.”

He made his way toward the master bathroom. Every step he took sent aftershocks rocketing through his body. Dead would be better, he thought. A hell of a lot better.

He stripped off his clothes, then turned on the shower full blast. The sound of the water splashing against the tiles made him wince. A man was in bad shape when water hurt.

Good thing he’d been lying about the depo in White Plains. If any of his clients saw him like this, he’d be chasing ambulances in Queens.

Twenty minutes later he strode across the marble lobby as though nothing had happened.

Ray the doorman was talking to a young guy in jeans and an Aerosmith sweatshirt. Brian’s Porsche was double-parked in front of the building, surrounded by UPS trucks and kamikaze cabs and messengers on bikes from hell.

“Morning, Mr. Gallagher.” Ray tipped his hat. “I’ll leave you two to settle up.”

The young guy in the Aerosmith sweatshirt jingled Brian’s car keys in his hand. “That’d be three hundred forty-five dollars.”

“Who the hell are you?” Brian demanded. “I don’t remember hiring anyone to tow my car.”

“Sea Gate Towing and Repairs.” The guy pulled an order sheet from his pocket. “Somebody named John Gallagher called in the order this morning. Said you’d take care of the bill.”

“You take plastic?”

“You name it, we take it.”

He tossed an American Express card at the guy. “You fill out the paper while I park the Porsche.” New York City streets were notoriously unkind to fancy sports cars. It was a miracle it hadn’t been totaled already.

“You can’t take the car until I get a signature,” the guy protested.

“So sue me.” He grabbed the keys from the guy and headed for the Porsche.

Some of the details were starting to come back to him, and he was less than thrilled. Would it have killed Dee to let him sleep it off on her living-room couch and leave in the morning? He was sure he could’ve persuaded her. This whole thing had his brother’s fingerprints all over it.

Nice try, Johnny,
he thought as he steered the car around the comer to the garage entrance.
You’re going to pay for it, but it was a nice try.
His little brother was trapped in the past, trying to hang on to things that didn’t exist anymore—if they’d ever existed at all.

You could level Sea Gate, and nobody would miss it. The houses, the stores, the marina, every goddamn thing. The days of catering to the B&B crowd were over, and they weren’t coming back. Brian and his partners were going to make sure of that. Sometimes it amazed him how blind people could be when they wanted to. Half the businesses on Ocean Avenue were shuttered, and not just because the owners had cut great deals for themselves. Mortgages got sold, notes were called in, fortunes changed. Sometimes a man fell on hard times he didn’t expect, and the only thing he could do was cave. It was Brian’s job to be there when it happened.

Nothing lived forever. Not people. Not towns. Not even families. He should have fought his mother’s will. She’d had no fucking business cutting him out the way she had, trying to punish him from the grave for wanting more than Sea Gate had to offer. Truth was, she’d never forgiven him for not marrying Dee. Rosie Gallagher had left her half of the marina to John, and she’d done it to spite Brian.

But he still had Eddie’s power of attorney. If something happened to his father, he—

The thought hit him hard.

Christ, what was happening to him? Eddie was his father. You didn’t wish things like that on your own father.
Live long and prosper, Pop,
he thought. Four score and ten and more.

Maybe it was those stories Dave had told him yesterday about his old man that had put ideas in his head. He hadn’t seen Eddie in a year, and the changes in him had caught Brian by surprise. Eddie’s hair was thinner, his wit slower, but you expected those changes in a man who was pushing seventy.

No, it was the other things Dave had told him that lingered with Brian. Eddie had been sleepwalking, wandering through town in his pajamas, showing up at the docks at all hours, then not remembering why he’d gone there in the first place.

Which didn’t make Eddie Gallagher the kind of man you wanted making decisions that could affect an entire town.

It was something worth thinking about.

* * *

Eddie used to love the day after Thanksgiving. The only traffic at the marina was the occasional visit from a Coast Guard cruiser or a weekend sailor trying to squeeze in one last outing before winter finally took hold. He would open up around seven in the morning, then be home to stay by noon.

“Will you look at them?” his wife Rosie used to say as they watched news reports of shoppers clogging the malls to get a head start on Christmas. “Wouldn’t catch me there on a bet.”

Rosie would make turkey sandwiches for lunch, and they’d eat them together at the kitchen table, then spend the afternoon playing gin rummy for pennies. It hadn’t taken a lot to make them happy back then. All it had taken was each other.

Gone, he thought. Those days were gone, and they were never coming back.

Dee had given him some sliced white meat and a drumstick to take home. She’d wrapped it neatly in tinfoil and given him strict orders not to share it with John.

“This is for you, Eddie,” she’d said, then kissed him on the cheek in a way that made him want to weep for what he’d lost. He sat alone in the kitchen, picking at the meat right from the unfolded square of foil like an old man eating from a garbage pail.

Bailey placed her head against his knee and looked up at him with sad brown eyes.

“As if I could be refusing you, girl.” He chucked her under the chin, then tossed a few healthy slices of meat in her dish. Maybe he would even—

* * *

“Eddie!” He heard his name clear as a bell. “What are you doing out here without a coat?”

The objects in front of him tumbled like the pieces of a giant’s jigsaw puzzle. Big blue. Yellow. Green. Brown rough tall. What were they? He looked at the man who’d called out his name. The man was smiling at him. The man knew what those things were, so why didn’t Eddie? Were they a secret?

“Hop in,” the man called out. “It’s cold as a witch’s tit out here. Lemme give you a ride home.”

The man wanted Eddie to do something, but he didn’t know what it was. He tried to take a step toward the man. He told his feet to move, but they weren’t listening. A terrible fear overtook him.
Think, you old jackass,
he told himself angrily. It couldn’t be that hard to do. Everyone around him was managing just fine.

“Damn it, Eddie, will you move your ass? I told Cora I’d be home in time for
Oprah
.”

Where was Bailey? He’d been about to feed her a slice of turkey just a second ago.

“Why the hell are you ignoring me?” Vince Troisi was looking at him through the open window of his powder blue Caddy. He wore a windbreaker with the bright yellow scarf his granddaughter had made for his birthday. “If you don’t want a lift home, just say so. I gotta get my ass back or else.”

Oh, Jesus—oh, sweet Jesus. He wasn’t home in his kitchen, sharing lunch with Bailey. He was standing in front of the 7-Eleven on the other side of town, right near the big dark green pine tree the Knights of Columbus decorated every Christmas.

“Hey, pally, I can’t wait all day,” Vince hollered to him. “Come on already.”

“I c-can’t.”

“What?” Vince cupped his hands around his mouth. “I can’t hear you.”

“Can’t m-move... c-can’t move... can’t m-move... can’t—”
Can’t remember how... can’t remember why.

“Eddie?” Vince threw open his car door and climbed out. “What’s wrong? You don’t look so good.”

C-can’t move... can’t m-move... can’t—

Vince put his arm around Eddie’s shoulders. “I’m here, pally. I’m with you. I’ll get you home.”

“Rosie will help me,” he said. “She always knows what to do.”

Vince looked at him as if his heart was breaking. “Rosie’s gone, Eddie. Don’t you remember? She died a long time ago.”

In the instant it took Vince to say the words, Eddie remembered everything. He remembered his wife and how she’d looked at the end, when the cancer had destroyed everything but her beautiful soul. He remembered the empty house... the empty bed. And he remembered that something terrible was happening to him, something so awful that it was slowly stripping him of the one thing he had left: his memories.

“Don’t forget the seat belt,” Vince said as Eddie settled in the passenger seat. “You’ll be home before you know it.”

Eddie fastened the seat belt the way Vince told him to do, and then he turned toward the window and began to cry.

Alex quickly discovered the secret great chefs hid from the masses. It was relatively easy to turn out fabulous food when money was no object. When you could load your shopping cart with radicchio and oakleaf lettuce and balsamic vinegar and perfectly aged beef tenderloins, odds were the end result would be delicious.

But hand the same chef a cart filled with on-sale chicken, red onions, and iceberg lettuce and you separated the women from the girls. What began as a tongue-in-cheek method of paying off a debt quickly evolved into a contest between Alex and her ego.

“We could bring in a pizza,” John said after two weeks of gourmet meals on a shoestring.

Alex looked up from her slice of pound cake with strawberries. “You didn’t like the coq au vin?” She’d been particularly proud of that dish—as much because of its $4.76 price tag as because of its taste.

“I ate two helpings, didn’t I?” He poured himself another cup of coffee. “You’re knocking yourself out, Alex. We can order in.”

“The way I see it, I owe you another eleven meals before I’m paid up.” She thought a moment. “I could always make you a beautiful focaccia with oven-dried tomatoes and basil.”

“I was thinking more like a pepperoni and anchovy from Carlo’s.”

“If that’s what you prefer....”

“I’m not trying to hurt your feelings,” he said, reaching across the table for her hand. “You’re putting in long hours at the diner. I figured you could use a night off.”

“Whatever,” she said, feigning disinterest.

“I didn’t mean to hurt your feelings.”

“You didn’t hurt my feelings.”

“You’re sulking.”

“I never sulk.”

“Come here,” he said.

She ignored him, turning her full concentration to devouring her piece of pound cake.

“You’re a tough woman, Alex Curry.”

“No I’m not,” she said, “but I’m learning how to be.”

“Come here,” he said again.

She laid down her fork on the side of her plate, then touched the corner of her paper napkin to her mouth. Slowly she pushed back her chair and stood up.

His chair crashed to the floor as he stood up opposite her. His eagerness thrilled her. It almost matched her own. She wanted him to come to her, to bridge the distance between them. She wanted to be needed in some way, even if it was only for the pleasure they found together in bed.

The seconds ticked by slowly, and their gazes held. She wondered how her life would have been if she’d met John, first if it had been John she’d turned to when her world fell apart after her parents’ deaths—

But those were dangerous thoughts. She couldn’t change the past any more than she could control the future. This moment was all they had.... Maybe it was all they would ever have. He had his secrets, and God knew she had hers. If she let this moment escape, she’d regret it for the rest of her life.

He took a step toward her. It was all she needed from him. She was in his arms before he took his next breath.

He swept his arm across the kitchen table. Plates and glasses crashed to the floor. The sound made her want to throw back her head and shout with joy. He bent her back on the table, pinning her down with the weight of his body.

He helped her wriggle out of her pajama bottoms. She freed him from the confines of his jeans. No preliminaries, no anticipation, nothing but a hunger so powerful it should have scared them. But they were beyond reason.

He was hot and hard as iron. She was soft and wet and yielding.

All the things they couldn’t say with words they said with their hands and lips and bodies. All the secrets they couldn’t share any other way.

* * *

Alex deposited the plate in front of the sullen-faced teenaged girl. It was the next afternoon. “Enjoy your lunch,” she said with her best waitress smile.

“I didn’t order this.” The girl gave Alex an aggrieved look as she poked at the scrambled eggs with the tines of her fork. “This isn’t mine.”

Alex checked her order pad. “Scrambled egg, wet, with dry toast. I have it written down right here.”

“I ordered tuna salad on rye.”

Alex flipped back a page. “Oh, God,” she said, offering the girl a sheepish smile. “I’m so sorry. I confused you with booth number twelve.”

“I gotta get back to school,” the girl said. “Where’s my sandwich?”

“Give me two seconds. You’ll have your sandwich, I promise you.”

She burst into the kitchen. The swinging doors banged against the walls.

As usual Will was standing by the back door, smoking a cigarette. “What now?” he asked. He didn’t sound particularly friendly, but then he never did. Their relationship had gone from not-so-good to terrible in the time she’d been working at the Starlight.

“I need a tuna salad on rye and scrambled eggs, wet, with dry toast and I need them fast.”

“Didn’t I just give you that?”

That familiar sinking feeling returned to the pit of her stomach. “I made a mistake, Will. I need you to help bail me out.”

“What’s your problem?” he asked, tossing the cigarette into the snow-covered yard. He wiped his hands on his stained apron and gave her a nasty smile. “You don’t
look
stupid.”

She felt her face turn red at his insult. “I confused booth twelve with booth seven.” Yesterday she’d served liver with bacon to a visiting vegetarian and steamed carrots and broccoli to a practicing carnivore. Both customers, she’d discovered, were capable of violence, at least of the verbal variety.

“You gotta be kidding,” Will said. “My little sister worked here last year, and even she didn’t do that.”

“Look, I’m sorry,” she said as tears threatened to complete her humiliation. “I didn’t do it on purpose.”

He cracked eggs into a bowl. “I don’t get paid extra for this, you know.” He grabbed a fork. “And I sure as hell don’t get any tips.”

Neither do I,
she thought as she packaged the rejected food for the women’s shelter. Not when she made such mess of things.

“You’re making my life difficult,” Will went on. The beaten eggs sizzled as they hit the griddle. “Where the hell is Dee?”

“You know as much as I do, Will. She said she’d be in after lunch.”

“She didn’t pull that crap when Nick was around,” he grumbled. “I can tell you that.”

“I wouldn’t know about that,” she said. “I wasn’t working here when Nick was around.”

“Damn right you weren’t.” He pushed the eggs around with a spatula. Even from where she stood she could see that the eggs were on their way to turning into yellow blobs of rubber.

“You’re overcooking those eggs,” she said.

He ignored her and turned up the flame.

“Will.” She crossed the kitchen to the stove. “The order was for scrambled, wet.”

“You said dry.”

The poor eggs were turning brown. “The toast was dry. The eggs were wet.”

“That’s not what you said.”

She flipped open her order pad and pointed to her notes. “That’s what I have here.”

She’d barely uttered the words when he picked up a skillet and threw it across the kitchen where it smashed against the far wall, knocking a can of cooking oil to the floor. Then he untied his apron and threw it at Alex.

“Will.” She tried to return the apron to him, but he was already reaching for his jacket. “We’re having a bad day, that’s all. Why don’t we—”

“You’re
having a bad day, lady. At least I know what the hell I’m doing.”

She drew herself up to her full height and stared down at him “There’s no need to curse.”

“You think
that’s
cursing?” He unleashed a torrent of verbal abuse.

“You’re disgusting.”

“At least I’m not stupid.”

If the skillet had been within reach, she would have hit him over the head with it. “You’re fired,” she snapped.

Will started to laugh. “You can’t fire me. You’re a waitress.”

“Then Dee can fire you.”

“She’s a waitress, too.”

“But I’m not.” John loomed in the doorway like a thundercloud.

Alex stepped between the two men. “I can handle this,” she said to John. “Will and I are just having a discussion.”

“I heard that discussion,” John said through gritted teeth. He stepped around Alex and went face-to-face with Will. “You’re fired.”

“You’re a customer,” Will said, looking at them as if they both were crazy. “Customers can’t fire the help.”

“They can if the customer owns the place.”

“You’re nuts,” Will said. “Tell Dee I quit.”

“Too late,” John shot back. “I already fired you.”

Muttering something about rubber rooms and electro-shock therapy, Will bolted for the door.

“Now you’ve done it,” Alex said as Will backed his car out of the parking lot in a spray of snow and gravel. “I’ll lose my job because of this.”

John looked insufferably pleased with himself. “You’re not going to lose your job.”

“Dee is going to be furious.”

“She’ll get over it.”

“What is she going to tell the owner, that one of her customers went berserk and fired the cook? I don’t think he’s going to be very happy about that.”

“I
am
the owner, Alex.”

“Very funny,” she said. “The joke’s over. Now help me figure out what to do.”

“I’m not joking,” he said. “I own the Starlight.”

“You’re telling me that you’re my boss?”

“I’m your boss.”

“Why didn’t you tell me before?”

“Because I haven’t told anybody, Alex. Not even Eddie knows.”

“That does it.” She pulled off her apron. “I can’t work here anymore.”

“Why can’t you work here anymore?”

“Isn’t it obvious?” She folded the apron and set it down on the counter. “You should have told me before I started working here, John. Now I feel like a total fool.”

“Look,” he said, “the original owner skipped town. They were going to shut down the Starlight. I couldn’t let it happen so I bought the place. You’re right. I should have told you about it.”

“Why the secrecy?”

He looked at her for what seemed like a very long time. “Damned if I know,” he said finally. “It seemed like a good idea at the time.”

“It’s Dee, isn’t it? She told me she’d like to buy the diner one day. You were protecting her interest.”

“It’s what friends do.”

“No,” she said, “it’s what
you
do. You tried to save my roof, my car, and my job, and now you’re telling me you actually saved an entire diner. Call me crazy, but I think I see a pattern emerging here.”

He turned away, but not before she caught a glimpse of pain so deep she prayed she was imagining it. But she wasn’t imagining it. She knew his pain the way she knew her own. She’d seen that pain on Thanksgiving and she’d felt it when he held her in his arms. It was what had brought them together and it was what kept them apart.

He gestured toward the front of the diner with his thumb. “What are we going to do about them?”

The shift in focus startled her for a moment. “I completely forgot we had customers.”

“As your boss, I’ll pretend I didn’t hear that.”

“I guess I’ll tell them to go home,” she said, wiping her hands on her apron. “Without a cook, there’s not much else we can do.”

“Sure there is. You’re a great cook. Why don’t you take over for Will?”

“I’m supposed to be waiting tables.”

“That chicken you made for me last night was the best I’ve ever had.”

She dipped her head, pleased by the unexpected compliment. “Thank you, but I doubt if the Starlight is ready for chicken Florentine.”

“Let me put it this way, Alex. You’re a better cook than you are a waitress. Will’s gone. We need somebody to replace him ASAP. Why not give it a try?”

She couldn’t come up with a good reason. Actually the idea had its charm. Waiting tables had turned out to be a lot tougher than it looked. She hadn’t realized how seriously people took things like eggs over easy and salad dressing on the side. Make one mistake and the wrath of God came down on your head.

“You know,” she said, “you might have something there.” The cook could hide out in the kitchen and let the waitress do the explaining when things went wrong. “But what are we going to do with the lunch crowd out there? I can’t cook and serve, John.”

“You cook,” he said, grabbing an apron. “I’ll take care of the rest.”

* * *

“Okay, Dee.” Dr. Schulman peeled off her plastic gloves and tossed them in the proper receptacle. “Get dressed, and we’ll talk in my office.”

“I’ll live?” She sat up and readjusted her paper dressing gown around her chest. She hated the brittle tone her voice got whenever she was nervous.

“You’ll live.” Dr. Schulman turned toward the door. “I’ll see you in a few minutes.”

“Easy for you to say,” Dee muttered as the doctor closed the door behind her. It wasn’t Dr. Schulman’s cellulite and spider veins that had been on display for all and sundry to see.

Was there any experience more traumatic than the yearly gynecological exam? She’d take a mammogram any day over being spread-eagled on a Star Wars table. And what was with those stirrups? What had the first gynecologist been thinking when he came up with that sadomasochistic fantasy item? She was sure it had been a male invention. No woman in her right mind would have linked horseback riding with a cold speculum.