Hydraulic Level Five (1) (43 page)

The first time he called, he apologized for kissing me.

The second, he asked me to pick up the phone.

Third, he said he would try to reach me at Hector’s home phone number if I didn’t answer.

Two glasses of wine and a mild buzz later, I curled up on my bed, clutching my pillow like a teenager, my cell phone in hand. I watched the display glow each time he called.

Samuel Cabral. 212-555-0368.

Samuel Cabral wanted me. This beautiful, brilliant, damaged man—he told me he still desired me, had never stopped desiring me. No matter how many times I replayed our kiss in my mind, I couldn’t hammer it into my psyche. The thought was so foreign after so long. A warm light burned in my gut, searing through stone limbs all the way to my toes. Despite my fear, it felt good to be wanted.

The fourth time he called, he spoke with my voicemail. “I’m such an idiot.” He sounded like he’d scalded his throat with hot sauce. “I really screwed this one up, didn’t I? So much for taking our friendship slowly, easing into it again. Here I was, lecturing you on rash behavior and then, like a horny sixteen-year-old kid, I turn around and beg you to kiss me. Firecracker…I’m sorry. Please call.”

I called him back after I listened to his message.

“Kaye?” he answered. “Where are you?”

“I’m at home, Samuel. Where else would I be?”

Relief infused his voice. “I’m sorry, so sorry.
Por Dios
, I wish I’d handled that differently.”

“Samuel, let’s just get through the wedding tomorrow, okay? It’s taking an emotional toll on both of us, more than we realize. Besides, you can’t take all the blame for this—I kissed you back.”

“I don’t regret it, Kaye. Maybe I shouldn’t have kissed you. But this idea you have in your head about not measuring up? It’s got to stop, and I’d do anything to dispel it.”

“Like tell me you want me?”

“It was the
truth
.” He sounded affronted.

And I had asked for truth. But the truth left me reeling, as if the rug I’d walked on for nearly seven years had been yanked out from under me and I’d hit the ground, hard. Now I got a good, close look at the bare floor for the first time.

“I don’t know if I can trust you. And I don’t see how dredging up old feelings is going to help either one of us. We have a helluva lot of baggage.”

“Would you rather have me lie? Let you believe for a while longer those casual dates were somehow better than you? That I wanted them with a modicum of the way I want you?”

“No.”

“Kaye,” he sighed, “I’m not perfect and I’m going to screw up. I know you don’t trust me, and that’s a consequence I’ll have to live with. But I promised you on the camping trip I would do whatever it took to make sure you didn’t regret giving our friendship another go, and I meant it. I just…I need to know if you’re with me in this. Because as long as you still want this friendship, I want to fight for it.”

“I want it, Samuel. I just need to sort through a few delusions.” Like the fact that my friends could read Samuel better than me. Molly would have a field day with this. “You threw me for a loop and I’m not sure I’ve caught up.”

“Next week—can I count on you to ask your question? I’ll read the letter you gave me, and don’t forget about our book.”

The book had completely slipped my mind. Dang, the man was persistent. And pushy.

“I’m still in, but so help me, Samuel, I don’t know if I can handle another week of turmoil. Please promise me your book doesn’t have anything about a long-lost brother in it.”

I heard him exhale. “No. It’s all us, Firecracker.”

“Thank you.” A whoosh of air escaped my lungs as well. I ran a hand through my hair, shaking my head at the unbelievable turn in our relationship. Oh, if the tabloids only knew. I quietly laughed at how they’d spin it:
Siren Author Drowns Ex-Wife in Kisses, Drives Her Over Edge.

“What?”

“I was just musing about the tabs. The other evening in Boulder, when I teased you about your plan to smooch your ex-wife in the middle of Pearl Street? I didn’t know you were serious.”

“Hmm. It
is
rather daytime talk show-ish, isn’t it? Now all I need is for some fan to charge the stage and claim I’m her baby’s daddy.”

I cringed at the phone. Ugh, was that even a possibility? I didn’t want to think about him picking up women at his book signings. What if it was a signing TrilbyJones had scheduled? Frickin’ craptastic.

“Kaye? That was a joke. A pretty bad one, evidently.”

I breathed out. “Too soon, Cabral. Too soon.”

“Kaye?”

“Yeah, Sam?”

There was a pause, and I heard a smile in his voice. “I still want you.”

“Shut up.” I bit my bottom lip, holding back a smile of my own.

“Kaye?”

“Yes, Sam?”

“You’re lovely.”

“I’m going to bed now. Goodnight.”

“Kaye?”

I groaned. “What, Samuel?”

“Sleep well.” Ha. Fat chance.

“I hope the ghosts of all those crickets I killed come back to haunt you.” But I smiled regardless of what my brain told me. “Sam?”

“Yes, Kaye?”

“You sleep well, too.”

Chapter 19: Belay

To keep a raft from slipping down river, one person
will wrap a rope around tree or rock, allowing them
to hold fast under the tremendous pull of the current.

D
ANITA
C
ABRAL
H
AD
F
ORCED
me to play “wedding” with her when we were children. She’d been the bride and I’d been relegated to various roles, such as
madrina
, cake-maker, or groom (one time she even scribbled a goatee on my face with a black marker). Sofia purchased old
quinceñeara
dresses at a consignment store for us to play with, and one was a fluffy, white number with poufy sleeves and lace trim. Danita snatched it as her “wedding dress.” With several clothespins and a rhinestone belt, she tailored the frilly frock to her eight-year-old frame. If Angel and Samuel made the mistake of showing their faces during dress-up time, they were stuffed into Alonso’s old suit coats and obliged to join the wedding party.

As much as Dani had loved to play wedding, when it came to the reality of marriage, like her brother, she was stone-serious. Many in Lyons thought it odd that Angel Valdez and Danita Cabral were just now tying the knot after a decade of dancing around the other like mating birds. I wasn’t surprised. Dani and Angel always did things in their own time, never bowing to pressure—even as our classmates settled into married life, two by two. I think Angel always knew he’d marry Danita, so he waited her out, biding his time in the Air Force. And given the disastrous outcome of Samuel’s and my short-lived marriage, they were determined not to marry until both were ready to walk down the aisle.

Today, they were ready.

My friend was a portrait of regal beauty as her mother finished with the row of tiny buttons along the back of her wedding dress. Only Danita could carry off the gown she’d chosen. It was not-quite white, but more of an antiqued, silvery white Dani called “candlelight.” With hair piled high on her head, like a blackened wick gracing the top of her long neck, she really did remind me of an elegant candelabrum. She turned in front of the full-length mirror in her bedroom, showing off every ruched curve.

“Well?” she asked, taking a deep breath.

Molly’s eyes glowed, her aubergine skirts rustling as she bobbed up and down. Tears gathered in my own eyes. I swiped at them, already forgetting Molly’s earlier threat not to smear my mascara.

“Danita, Angel’s going to faint dead away. You are, by far, the most beautiful woman I’ve ever seen. Supermodels got nothin’ on you.”

She nervously smiled at me in her mirror, tucking one final bobby pin with a trembling hand. “I know this is right. But
Ave María Purísima,
I can’t stop shaking!”

Sofia wrapped warm arms around her daughter and whispered encouraging words into her ear. Molly and I exchanged quick looks. But Danita closed her eyes and nodded, breathed in, and grabbed her beaded purse and shoes.

“Kaye,” she said as settled onto her vanity bench, tightening the ankle straps of her shoes, “about Samuel.”

My smile fell. “I’m working on it, Danita.”

“No, no, I’m not hounding you. I just…” She glanced between me and the other three women in the room, biting her lip. “Can you give Kaye and me a minute?”

“We’ll be in the living room, baby,” Sofia said. “Don’t be too long.” They picked up their things and left.

Danita turned to me and grasped my hands. “This is difficult for me to do. I need to apologize for pushing so hard with my brother. It’s hard on you, I know, but I’ve wanted the whole family together for so long, united for my wedding day, one way or the other. I thought changing your name would help you move on, once I discovered Caroline was in the picture. That maybe Samuel would feel like he could come home more often if he had evidence the divorce was water under the bridge,” she admitted. “And then that backfired, so I pounced on New York.”

“Danita, come on. You’re getting married in a couple of hours. Don’t do this now.”

“I just want to get this off my chest—go in with a clean slate, you know?”

“You’re getting married, not walking the aisle to the electric chair.”

She half snorted, half sniffed. “I just want my family together again.”

I sighed. “Dani, you have nothing to apologize for. We
are
together, aren’t we? We’re all here for you and Angel. We love you. And if you want Samuel to come home more, just ask him.”

Danita nodded, her grip on my hands tightening. A tear dripped from her eyelashes and splashed onto our fingers.

“I’m just so scared, Kaye. And if you tell anyone, Samuel included, I’ll—”

“String me up by my ta-tas, yes, I know.” I met her eyes. “Why are you scared?”

“Don’t get me wrong, I want to marry Angel more than anything. But what if we completely suck when it comes to marriage? We’ve managed so well up to now…what if we screw it up? He’ll be deployed again…”

I hugged her neck. “Dani, being terrified just means you aren’t cavalier about exchanging vows. But you can’t be self-defensive in a marriage. Go into it balls out. Just love hard.” Her pink lips twitched and I realized what I’d just said. “Okay, so I’m obviously speaking from past mistakes. You want some real advice? Don’t eff it up like your stupid sibling and BFF did.”

“That was really inappropriate.” Danita was fraught to hold her laughter.

“Hmmm, more advice from my past mistakes…Oh! The first time he says, ‘That’s not the way my mom makes it,’ smack him. You can’t let that crap go.”

Dani rolled her eyes. “Yeah, I’ve already heard that one.”

“And never, ever tell him he reminds you of one of those
Family Circus
kids, even if he does. Samuel fumed for a full week over that one.”

Danita couldn’t contain her laughter anymore. Soon, we both heaved and clutched our ribs, our faces red and tear-streaked.

“Oh man, he does!” Danita wailed. “I can just remember Samuel when he was a kid, tugging on Mamá’s pants and asking her how to spell ‘spell.’”

“Or when he used to shove all of his hair forward and he’d have that cowlick sticking up in back? All he needed was a closet full of purple T-shirts and black pants!”

Molly pounded on the door.

“So help me, Danita Cabral, if you or Kaye ruin those fabulous up-dos again, I’ll shove your bouquets so far down your throats, your asses will sprout flowers!”

We pulled ourselves together, touched up our hair to save the flowers, and hit the road.

“All right, floozies,” Danita exclaimed with fierce determination, “let’s go take Angel Valdez out of the game.”