Not To Us (25 page)

He’s made a frantic call to Kimberley Powers and her arrival doesn’t even faze me. I’m unable to tell them why I can’t speak. I can’t feel
anything
. I don’t want to feel anything. I want to tell them this, but no words come out. I continue to clutch my cell phone and I will not let them take it from me.

≈≈

It has been two nights. I know this because I’ve counted the first appearance of the moonlight twice. Somehow, the cell phone is missing from my hand. I move my head realizing this and stare at my hand, wondering, if by willing for its appearance, my cell phone will come back to me. I feel empty. I raise my hand to my stomach and feel surprise at the foreign movement.

“What day is it?” I ask in this hoarse, unrecognizable voice. Someone moves from further away. Court appears and looks into my face and then, slides up right next to me on the bed. It is semi-dark in the room, but I would recognize his face and the shape of his jaw line and his lips anywhere, now.

“Hey,” he says. There is real fear in his eyes. I trace his lips with my fingers. “Ellie, are you okay?”

“I don’t know.” My answer makes him unsure. It is a strange sight to see from Mr. Court Chandler. He’s always steadfast and certain. Tears form in his intriguing grey-blue eyes. I reach up and touch his face. “Courtney Chandler…thank you…for being here.”

My words are his undoing. He starts to cry. I know this is a rare event for this twenty-nine-year-old, high tech, charming magical man from Seattle. I almost smile.

“Ellie, do you want to go home?”

“Not yet. You?”

“Not yet.” He climbs beneath the covers and holds me to him, kissing my forehead, my cheeks, and my lips.

Yet
. We acknowledge our ending. That is enough for this night.

≈≈

Kimberley Powers predicted an Italian villa at the end of our Paris trip and Mr. Court Chandler does not disappoint. We are somewhere in Italy far away from the rest of the world. The entire entourage has left with the exception of one intense Ms. Kimberley Powers.

Kimberley’s leave-taking will commence only after a long discourse of do’s and don’ts to both of us. Do have a good time in the privacy of the villa. Do enjoy the sunsets and the sunrises from the confines of the villa. Swimming in the Olympic-size pool at the villa is acceptable, but only late at night. The don’t list is very specific. Do not go into town. Do not call Eve. Do not call whoever it is that Ellie would like to call. Do not use the phone at all. Do not use the laptop for Internet access. Do not go beyond the villa. Do not wander out, during the day, through the villa grounds. Do not leave the villa.

Court makes fun of her by pretending to write everything down that she is saying. This only sends Kimberley into a further tirade and she starts her speech over again of all do’s and don’ts. She is so outspoken, so outrageous, and so brilliant that I find myself laughing midway through her second round of speech. She seems surprised by this and is momentarily mesmerized by the Ellie former-UW-cheerleader-yeah-team! smile. She looks at me in an appraising, almost affectionate way, now. Before she leaves, she hands me one of her business cards.

“Ellie, if you ever need anything,” she says, biting her lip in vexation.

“I’m an editor from Bainbridge Island, Washington. What could I possibly need?” I ask.

“Right.” She kisses each side of my face and hugs me. She repeats the same gesture with Mr. Court Chandler. “I must say, you keep it interesting, Mr. Courtney Chandler.”

“We try,” he says in his most charming voice.

It is eerily silent once Kimberley leaves us. We’re alone. Our bubble world forms around us and is now complete. I know that we both feel this unexplainable solace from within it.

“We have three days,” Court says to me now. “Let’s not waste it.”

I walk over to him. I take his hand and hold it in my own. We are at the precipice, together. I can feel it and I know he can, too. I see the look in his eyes. He is so sure of himself, so certain. I look back at him and realize I feel the same.

“This is untenable,” I say.

“Not today, not tomorrow, not the day after that.”

I smile at him now. “Untenable,” I say again.

“But real enough,” Court says, pulling me in his arms. He kisses me and I kiss him back.

Our passion takes us to the bedroom, where Mr. Court Chandler in his masterful wisdom and endless charisma has already lit candles for this planned seduction. He hands me a glass of champagne. “I did some research, just one glass will be okay,” he says with a charming laugh.

“Uh-huh,” I say.

Yes
.
Chemo would be much worse
. I smile at him now, this benevolent smile. I can feel myself getting swept away, far away from the shores of grief and my real life with my remaining children and Michael.

We undress in this hurried fashion. I am farther along in disrobing than he is because I am wearing only a white cotton dress and lingerie.

I prepared during our last days in Paris for this moment. He sucks in his breath when he sees my body.

Any worries I might have had about how I would look to him, pregnant and completely naked, are put at ease by the way he looks at me now, though a part of me hesitates. The Ellie Shaw part. I’m about to make love to a man who is not Michael. Some small part of me cares about this, even when the unspeakable image of Michael and Carrie kissing flashes through my mind. Carrie’s words come back to me. “It was just while we were at the hospital with Elaina. We got a hotel room. We were tired and just wanted to sleep. I just wanted her back. I just wanted what we had back. I just needed him. I needed to know if we could get it back. I’m sorry. He wanted it, too, Ellie. He was hurting and he kissed me and it just happened…we both agree it’s wrong. We’re ending it.”

I’m broken from my reverie when Court calls my name. “Ellie,” he says. “Where’d you go?”

“Nowhere,” I answer.

Michael broke my heart. Michael did this to me. I’m going to be with someone. Be with Court. Have sex with him.
With someone else.
Ellie Shaw still cares about this; Elaina Miles does not. She takes over and struts towards this young god who is hers for the next three days and never hesitates.

≈≈

Infidelity is so easy, if that’s what this is. It feels like my future. Court is everywhere, like the light air of Italy all around us. I can feel his touch, even when he isn’t touching me, as if there is kinetic energy between us. We have extended our stay at the villa by another seven days. We are in trouble with
everybody
.

Kimberley has resorted to calling the villa twice a day. Her messages are direct and to the point. “Court, get your ass back to Seattle, pronto. I cannot explain your absence to Eve for much longer.”

Kimberley has inadvertently become my publicist, too. Apparently, in a fit of rage she had her staff pull any and all information on me. She knows about Michael. She knows about Nick and Elaina. She knows about Mathew and Emily, too. At this point, she is pulling out all the stops to get us to listen to her when she calls and leaves these tough love messages at the villa.

But her last message is for only me.

“Ellie, you need to get the
God damn chemo!
I just talked to your doctor, Lisa Chatham, and she says you are risking your life at this point. Ellen Kay Shaw, get your
ass
back to Seattle, now!” Her voice breaks as she finishes the message, probably done in, like so many, at the idea of cancer.

I don’t even really know this woman and she is yelling at me through the answering machine. I stand across the room as Court plays the message; his back is to me. We have just taken a forbidden swim
in the daylight
in the spectacular pool and captured a passionate moment at the far end. I’m shaking my hair out and toweling off as Court pushes play again and the message replays.

“Is she always like that?” I ask with a little laugh, coming over to him. I reach out to stroke his arm. He turns to me then and I’m stunned by the look of fury traveling across his handsome face.

“
Chemo
?” he asks, incredulous.

Our bubble of a world bursts, just like that, just like bubbles do.

“No chemo,” I say in this flat don’t-fuck-with-me imitating Lisa Chatham voice. My vehemence seems to surprise him for a moment. He just stares at me, then anger crosses his features again.

“You
endanger
your life by refusing chemo?”

Court is beside himself, all at once. He starts pacing, only clad in his black swim shorts because we just spent an intimate interlude at the pool. He rakes his hands through his wet dark hair in agitation, and then he gets this panicked disbelieving look. He stops.

“I’m taking you back,” he says in this commanding CEO kind of way. Kimberley Powers would be so impressed; I am not.

“No! I’m
not
going back. I…love it here. I love you.” He shakes his head and gets this inconsolable look. We have not used the word
love
to describe what this is between us, beyond his handwritten notes to me.

“I love you, too,” Court says in a heartbroken voice.

He comes over to me and pulls me into his arms and begins stroking my face, my lips, and the tops of my breasts as if trying to memorize my features. He leans down and kisses each breast. Then, he gets this anguished look. “I love you enough to let you go,” he whispers. “Ellie, you have to go back.”

“I don’t want…to go back.” My voice breaks because I can already sense this change in him; even the way he’s holding me now seems somehow different, more distant. “I don’t want to go back,” I say, even more resolute.

“I know. I don’t either,” he says, running his hand back and forth along my neck feeling my wild pulse beneath his fingers. “But Ellie…you have to get the chemo. It’s breast cancer; isn’t it? Those are the tiny scars I see. That’s it; isn’t it? God damn,
breast cancer
.” I can only nod, unable to speak as I see the desolation cross his face at my answer. “God damn it, Ellie! You should have told me.”

“Why?” I ask with a bitter laugh. “So you could send me back
sooner
?”

“You have to get the chemo, Ellie,” he says with profound sadness. I grab his face between my hands before he can turn away from me, sensing something in his mannerism that something has suddenly changed.

“What is it, Court?”

“My mother died ten years ago of breast cancer. I was nineteen,” he says in a hollow voice. I watch the devastation of that memory cross his face. His eyes sweep over mine with this look of disdain as if he can protect himself from feeling anything more for me with this look alone.

I make this guttural sound as if he’s punched me in the stomach, when I see his face fill with unbelievable dread and this vast desolation. It suffocates me. I can’t breathe.

“No,” he says. I can’t go through that again.”

His pronouncement is so final, I gasp for air, knowing I’ve lost him in that single moment, just like that. He is far away from me, even though he still stands right in front of me, still holds on to me, and still touches me.

He is gone. Mr. Courtney Chandler is gone.

Elaina Miles is gone, too. And, Ellie Shaw is going home.

≈ ≈ ≈