Brick by Brick (17 page)

“I only just got home from work. Nat knows I’ll clean it if she can’t.”

“When pigs fly,” I said.

Mrs. Bedwell grinned. “Well, I’m not going to let your chauvinistic housekeeping make me wait a half hour, James. Excuse me.”

She opened the bathroom door. I waited for her squawk at finding a man hiding in there.

Instead I heard nothing, then a flush and running water. Gage had escaped through the door to the bedroom.

“I don’t know what you were so worried about,” she said. “It wasn’t spotless, but it wasn’t bad. I still think it will hurt your resale value to have one huge bathroom instead of two smaller ones.”

“It’s about how we want to live, not about what whoever we sell it to wants. Besides, we’re not going anywhere. I put in too much sweat equity to sell,” James said. “Let me walk you to your car.”

“You don’t have to get testy with the person who brought you a home-cooked meal.”

James stopped. “You’re right. I just get defensive. I love that bathroom. At the end of the day, when I’m sore and tired, sometimes I take a shower while the Jacuzzi’s filling, and after, I call Natalie to come too, and we just relax. It’s pretty close to my idea of heaven.”

He’d soaked there a lot in the months after his father died, the only way he could de-stress enough to sleep.

“Really, it suits us now, and if it knocks a little something off the sale price someday far, far in the future, I think it will have been worth it.”

“I guess what matters is that you kids enjoy your house just the way it is.”

“You got it, Mom. Sure you can’t stay?”

“Don’t be silly. I told you I ate.”

“Right,” James said.

I was sure he’d remembered and repeated the offer only to appease her over our bathroom design.

“You don’t have to walk me to the car,” Mrs. Bedwell said in the entryway. “Eat your dinner while it’s hot. Natalie, you feel better.”

“Thank you, for that and for the food.”

“You’re welcome, dear. It’s good to feel needed once in a while, even though I’m sure you could have managed.”

James’s voice held new warmth. “Thanks again, Mom. See you soon.”

He watched her drive away. “Gage?” he called, good and loud. “I hope you’re hungry!”

Chapter Twenty-Three

His voice dropped to a normal volume. “Are you eating, babe?”

“I guess.” I’d try a bite, anyway. James believed a missed meal was serious, since for him it was.

Whistling tunelessly, James pulled three plates, three salad bowls, three glasses from the cupboard as if we were always a trio. He set them on the table as I struggled to sit up, then rise to my feet. When I stood, darkness closed in from the edges of my vision. I waited it out.

“Gage? Dinner!” James looked at me with concern. “You need help?”

“No. I got up fast is all.”

Gage crossed in front of me and stood too close to James. His flushed face gleamed with sweat, and the ends of his hair near his face were spiked wet. “Keys?”

“Oh, right.” James fished in his Levi’s pocket for a moment, then grinned, the handsome lopsided one. “I accidentally took them to work. My other jeans. I think I put them in the dish on the dresser when I changed.”

“Give me my goddamned keys.”

“After dinner. What the hell’s got you all pissy?”

“You do. I’m good enough to fuck, and I’m certainly good enough to drop a few hundred bucks on a dinner we end up eating out of Styrofoam boxes, but that’s not good enough.”

“What’s that in bricklayer dollars, about a buck and a half? If it matters so much to you, I’ll buy our dinners, including the tip. And all the wine.”

Did he know how little we had in checking?

“I don’t want your money. Hell, I’m good enough to buy you a fancy dinner. Good enough to clean your house, since you stranded me here. Good enough to wipe your piss off the rim. Not good enough to meet your family, though. I have to hide in the bathroom, and when I get shifted to the bedroom, where it’s hot as a fucking crematorium, you just leave me in there!”

“What, you wanted introductions? ‘Mom, this is Gage. I fuck his ass, since he won’t blow me without a snoot full of cocaine.’”

“Try, ‘This is our friend, Gage.’ If that’s true. Probably not. I’ve never had a friend scare me and humiliate me like you did the other night.”

“That wasn’t my point.”

“Screw your point. You may be able to turn me over your knee and hide me from your family, but you know what I can do? I can fucking leave!”

Gage whirled toward the bedroom and his keys. As he strode past me, I grabbed the front of his shirt, just as James had two nights before. This time it was a dress shirt, its collar open and the sleeves rolled up, but I got a good fistful and held my grip when he jerked to one side.

“Shut up!” I slapped Gage’s face with my right hand, as hard as I could. His narrow eyes widened in pained surprise.

I raised my hand to do it again.

Gage could have blocked my hand, could have leaned back well out of my reach, could have wrenched free and continued toward the bedroom and his keys. Instead he stood still, giving tacit permission. I slapped him again, and he still didn’t move away. Something came down behind his eyes, a flinty wall that closed him off from everything and everyone.

I bet Stuart saw it all the time. I could imagine it further enraging him, the man hitting harder, longer, trying to get past that wall to savor teenage Gage’s pain. The realization sliced the legs out from under my anger, which collapsed.

“Jesus, Natalie,” James said. “Knock it off. Gage, come be mad at the table so I can eat. I’m starving.”

“I’m sorry. I can’t even remember the last time I hit someone. Let’s eat, and we’ll talk afterward.” My voice made it clear I wouldn’t tolerate argument.

James put three skewers of broiled chicken and pineapple on his plate, then passed the rest to Gage with a grin, as if the man hadn’t just tried to walk out on us. “Now you know. You don’t fuck with Natalie during her period.”

He served himself a generous portion of wild rice from the casserole dish his mother had left.

Gage took some chicken and put the plate near me. With his fingertips, he explored the rising pink welts on his cheek. He hadn’t looked in my direction since I hit him, or shared a guys-only grin at James’s dig over my behavior on my period.

“I really am sorry. I’m ashamed of myself and wish I could take it back.”

Still Gage said nothing.

James filled his salad bowl. “I’d like it entered into the record that I’ve never hit you but Natalie has.” He started eating, fast, with the genuine appetite borne of physical labor.

Watching James eat made my stomach uneasy, but I served myself a tablespoon of rice and ignored the salad with its homemade dressing, which I ordinarily liked even though it rankled that James’s mother wouldn’t share the recipe.

For a couple of minutes nobody talked. I tried not to hear James eating. I slid a bite-sized piece of chicken off the bamboo skewer and cut it into quarters, but even the tiny piece of meat didn’t want to go down. I had to force a painful swallow.

Gage wasn’t doing much better, more rearranging his food than eating it. Finally he pushed his plate back several inches. “I can’t eat.”

“What, you’re on the rag too?”

“The tension in here is practically lethal.”

“We could start in on what the fuck’s going on with you, then.”

“A little tact and courtesy would be nice, James. Gage is our guest.”

“No, you’ve made it clear I’m your dirty little secret.”

“You’re not. That wasn’t why I hid you.”

“Then why?”

“I don’t know about your mother, but my mom can see right through me. She’d know something was up between us, right away.”

“So?”

“So nothing. So none of her business. So hungry, that’s what it came down to. I didn’t want the delay of explaining and justifying or telling her to butt out. I could smell the food, and all I wanted was to eat.” He took a big bite of salad.

We watched him chew and swallow.

“Besides that, she’d recognize you. Want to talk to you. Make a big deal out of you being here, and want to know all about how we met you and all the movie stars you know and what they’re like and have you been to their houses and God knows what else.”

“Better to leave me in the sweatbox than let me talk to your mother?”

“How was I to know you stayed in the bedroom?”

“How was I to know when it was safe to go back to the bathroom? I couldn’t hear a thing over the fan.”

“You’re right.” James set down his fork. “I don’t know what either of us could have done different, though. Do you?”

Gage shook his head. “Not really. Eventually I’m going to meet your family?”

“Of course, but not when I’m so hungry my stomach hurts.”

“Tell me about it.” I let myself bend forward in my chair, my arms folded over my swollen tummy.

“I’m sorry you feel so bad,” Gage said, looking at me at last. “Is that why you slapped me? Lashing out because you hurt?”

“If that was it, I’d have been smacking you all day.” Idiot. “Where do you get off threatening to leave without even trying to make things right?”

“Hollywood?” James said, even though he knew damned well that I hated attempts to jolly me out of being angry.

Gage rewarded him with a little smirk.

“Right, your little joke really helps. I’m mad at Gage, and at myself for losing my temper.”

“And at me too, now.” James took another big bite and talked around it. “We’ll apologize and the only person she’ll still be mad at is herself.” He circled his fork in Gage’s direction. “Eat.”

“She’s right to be mad at me.” Gage took a bite. “This is good.” He swallowed. “Thank your mom for me, James. Once she knows I exist.” He turned toward me again and inhaled to speak. I waited, but he broke eye contact and quickly took another bite.

Seeing them eat sickened me. I had to look away, but that made it easier to speak my mind. “We went too fast, that first night with you. I’m not usually adventurous, not like that, but I knew James wouldn’t let anything bad happen. It was just a one-night stand, but then you came back and insisted it wasn’t just for more sex.”

“In Romania, I daydreamed I was in your living room, not the bedroom.”

“That turns it from a one-night stand into a two-way street. Letting you into our lives like this was a big deal to both of us. You walking out without even trying to fix what isn’t working says maybe it’s not all that important to you.” I hated the way my voice tried to crack, and the moisture gathering in my eyes embarrassed me further. One tear spilled, then another.

Gage took my hand and placed it over the pink welt on his face. It simmered. “Look at me, Natalie.”

I must have hit the same spot both times; the single handprint fit me precisely.

“I don’t think anybody’s ever slapped me before. It hurt, more than you’d think. Tell you something, though.” He moved my hand to my face and awkwardly wiped my tears with my fingers. “This hurts worse. I’m so sorry.” He freed my hand.

“Your poor face.” I wiped my fingers on my napkin.

“It’s nothing.” He took a bite and chewed, his eyes focused on a distant nonentity. “In case it’s not obvious, I have no idea how relationships work, not ones that last. I’ll probably screw up lots more.” Now he looked at me with a half smile. “It’s okay if you have to slap me once in a while.”

“It’s not okay,” I said. “And it’s not going to happen. But you take off without trying to fix whatever’s wrong, you’re going to wish all you got was a couple of slaps.”

“What, you can make little jokes but I can’t?” James said. His smile said it was fine.

Gage’s exhaled breath shook. “Okay. Okay. I didn’t even know I was screwing up so bad. That’s how clueless I am.”

James served himself seconds and pushed plates and serving dishes toward Gage and me. “More?”

“You guys go ahead. I’m sick.”

Sick of these little crises with Gage.

Chapter Twenty-Four

Once they believed that I was all right despite not eating, they left me alone with the heating pad and a book while they finished. Afterward, James and Gage retreated from my crabby mood to the patio, even though it was still too warm.

So I wasn’t surprised when they came back in only a few minutes later.

“I’m taking Gage to the airport,” James announced. “Want to come for the ride?”

“Why?”

“Just to get out of the house. You can stay in the car.”

“I mean why are you going to the airport?” I knew, and I swore to myself that I would not cry or even show it hurt.

He’d only pretended everything had been smoothed over. Gage was returning to the beautiful plastic people who expected nothing of him. People who wouldn’t slap him for leaving at the first sign of trouble, because everybody knew there was another Beautiful Person already in line, and not one of them demanded a relationship.

The people he knew there probably laughed about people like us, with our provincial ideas about caring tied up with our sex.

“I wanted to stay until you were feeling better, but I’m making myself crazy worrying about Rowan. I know, she’s a grown woman who doesn’t report to me, but still.” He shrugged.

He’d kept his concern to himself all day. How could I be so self-involved and forget? “We understand. What can you do there that you can’t do here?”

“Let myself in and see if it looks like she’s using again. Look for a note or something written on the calendar that says where she is. Talk to the rehab people, see who her friends were, talk to them. Talk to her sponsor at the meetings. Talk to the people who go out for coffee with her.”

“Don’t forget your cell phone’s charger,” I said.

“Yeah, thanks. I’m going to need it, all the people I need to talk to.”

“Talk to your mom?” James’s tone was carefully neutral.

“I hope not, but if I come up empty, maybe.” The wall dropped behind his eyes again. “If I have to. Where could she be?”

“She’s probably fine,” I said. “Call us when you get there, all right?”

“What, from the airport?”

“Or home or her house, wherever you’re going first. Otherwise we’ll worry.”