One Step Away (A Bedford Falls Novel Book 1) (9 page)

Marisa didn’t attempt to change his
principles and accepted him for his better qualities: just enough
intellectuality to keep things interesting (despite sometimes
lacking common sense), a fun-loving, easy-going nature, a
spontaneous streak that she found intoxicating, and an amazing
body.

“Marisa,” a female voice called out.

Hearing her best friend since middle school,
Lauren Zarsky, in the vicinity, she turned around, only to get
enveloped in a reticent hug, which mirrored Lauren’s approach to
life: conservative and jaded but extremely loyal.

“Glad you came,” she said, her impenetrable
expression betraying her words. The familiar scent of ginger
drifted from her body as she broke their embrace. “Denny couldn’t
come,” she said, shrugging. “You’re stuck with me.”

Although Lauren maintained a dour outlook on
life, she never caught a cold or contracted an illness or disease,
while her boyfriend balanced that with unbreakable optimism but
always seemed to get catch a cold every season and suffered through
so many health afflictions that his doctor could grow rich just
from tending to his numerous maladies.

“How’s he feeling after the injury?” Marisa
asked.

“It’s just an ankle sprain. But knowing
Denny, he’ll turn it into a broken ankle before long. It’s why I
never liked football. Brutal and pointless.”

“I just saw someone,” Brad said from behind
Marisa. He grasped her shoulders and pecked her on the cheek. “I’m
going to see what’s up.” He headed off into the crowd.

“Brad’s looking good,” Lauren said, watching
him walk away. “If I were single, I’d steal those candles from your
mother’s home and give him a night he’d never forget.”

Marisa couldn’t help but laugh out loud. She
had no idea what Lauren had in mind, and she had no interest in
finding out. But she wasn’t threatened by the comment because
Lauren would never leave her seven-year relationship; although
unmarried, she and Denny owned a home together and offset each
other’s extreme attitudes and opinions, which seemed to work for
them. Besides, Marisa had known her friend long enough to realize
that she would never find the backbone, or the interest, in staging
such a wicked seduction.

“Congratulations on the promotion,” Lauren
said with actual enthusiasm, which she used all day at the flowers
shop she owned and operated. “How does it feel?”

Marisa’s thoughts diverted to Alexander. If
he hadn’t opted out of interviewing, would she have still gotten
the job? It reminded her that two weeks from now, she would no
longer see him every day. While they currently worked on different
floors, they met for lunch daily. She didn’t realize how much she
needed his presence, his quirky jokes, and his unwavering belief in
her. Then she recalled their unexpected conversation this afternoon
outside Lance Albrecht’s office, and she felt nauseous.

“What’s wrong?”

“I’m glad, but—Alexander got a new job. He’s
going to be the new director at Vista Heights.”

“Oh. Well, maybe that’s a good thing. It
gives you both a chance to move on.”

“What do you mean?” Marisa asked, surprised
by the resentment in her voice.

“Nothing,” Lauren said, scrambling for an
explanation. “It’s just…I always felt that he kind of had a thing
for you.”

Another spasm rippled through Marisa’s
stomach. But Lauren’s remark explained why she would never give up
on their friendship: Marisa counted on her friend to say the things
that she couldn’t or wouldn’t admit to herself, even if she did so
at the most inopportune times. After all, Lauren had known—and
liked Alexander—for as long as she had known him.

“I could tell you never wanted to admit it,”
Lauren said. “So now that we’re talking, how do you feel about
that?”

“Like I’m going to be sick.”

Lauren, who now looked like she had secretly
wanted them to get together, lowered her gaze. “Only not
love-sick?”

Marisa shook her head, dejected.

“What happened?” asked Lauren, picking up on
the unsaid.

Marisa sighed. “He told me he loved me.”
Tears filled her eyes. “I didn’t know what to say, except that
workplace romances are a terrible idea and that I didn’t want to
lose his friendship. But he’s hurting right now. And it’s my fault.
And I can’t help him get through this.” She paused. “Isn’t that
what best friends are for?” Then, after a few seconds of silence,
she looked up at Lauren to see her discouraged expression. “Oh, I
didn’t mean that you weren’t also—”

Lauren broke into a rare smile. “You two
were always closer than we ever were.” But melancholy gripped her.
“You two have this thing…whenever you’re together, you’re on the
same frequency. And no matter how hard anyone else tries to get the
same reception with you, they can never find the same signal.”

Marisa felt so touched that Lauren wanted to
have a closer relationship that she pulled her into an embrace.

“Wow,” Lauren said in a dry tone,
“uncomfortably intimate much?”

“Shush,” Marisa said, releasing her.

“What are you going to do? About
Alexander?”

Now that he had shaken the core of their
relationship, Marisa couldn’t pretend that it had never happened.
She’d never disrespect his feelings like that. But what could she
say? Should she wait for him to bring it up? And if so, how much
should she say? She didn’t want to hurt his feelings, but there
didn’t seem to be a way around it.

Once more, indignation roiled inside her
because, in a sense, Alexander had hijacked her best friend. Her
abdomen clenched tighter. “What should I do?”

“You have to talk about it,” Lauren said.
“You can’t get around it. If you value his friendship, you have to
be firm and direct. You can’t leave any room for misinterpretation.
You have to tell him that he is your best friend. And nothing
more.”

If she did that, Marisa couldn’t predict how
Alexander would react. And that worried her. After all, if she
couldn’t call upon her intuition to guide her this time, how could
she claim to know him as well as she thought? It reminded her of
her own mother’s indifference to relationships.

“But…” Lauren said, leaving the sentence
unfinished.

“What?”

“If you tell him the truth, and you should,
you have to be prepared for the fallout. That you’ll lose his
friendship.”

*

After Brad excused himself from Marisa and
Lauren, he made his way toward Alexander, the ever-present grin
pricking his lips upward.

“What a hideous smile,” Damon said with
genuine fright. “You know this dude? Is he hoping to play Joker in
the next Batman flick? Jesus. I’m going to hit the john.”

Brad was a heavy metal enthusiast who wore
tattoos of Eddie, the skeletal-like mascot of the group Iron
Maiden, on muscular biceps that peeked out from under his navy blue
polo. He spent as much time in the gym working on his physique as
he spent angling to beat the market with the actively traded mutual
fund portfolios he managed for one of the largest brokerage
companies in the country. A belt consisting of bullets, which
exposed his desire to return to the 1980s metal scene, secured an
expensive pair of blue jeans. Deeply tanned with clear blue eyes
that met every person with a cheery smile, he had flecks of silver
at the temples of his slicked-back brown hair, the only trait that
convinced others he’d recently turned forty.

Having one day caught Alexander gazing at
Marisa with more than just friendship in mind, Brad confronted the
situation by ridiculing him in private, stating that Marisa would
never consider him as a potential boyfriend. Since then, whenever
they crossed paths, Brad took great pleasure in tapping around the
issue by pretending that Alexander took home a different woman each
night.

Brad stopped next to Alexander at the bar,
leaning his back against the counter so he could watch the
customers standing around the tables spread out before them.
“Alexander the Great,” he said. Because Iron Maiden had performed a
song named after the world famous conqueror, Brad found it
essential to repeat the title each time they met, which served as
the only positive remark he’d ever made in Alexander’s
presence.

“See any beauties?” asked Brad, eyeing a
brunette with a huge rack. “Anyone you want to take home?” He
chuckled. “I can put in a good word. Help you get laid. How long
has it been, anyway? A decade?” He laughed again, a hollow sound
that reverberated with the same pitch and pattern each time he
found something funny. “Two decades?” He shook his head in
disbelief. “I don’t know how you do it. I’d bust. I’d literally
bust.”

“Really,” asked Alexander with a smirk. “How
would that look, you busting? And busting what? A move? Your balls?
What would you bust, since you said it’s literal?”

“What do you mean?” Brad asked, realizing
that Alexander had insulted him, but unsure exactly how or in what
way.

“Amazing. How do you process a thought with
no brain activity? How does that work?”

Brad pushed off the bar and turned toward
Alexander, glaring down at him, winding back his arm, prepared to
launch a vicious assault. “You’re insulting me?”

“I guess not, since you’re questioning it.”
Alexander’s sarcasm had gotten him into similar jams throughout
this life, but he always relied on his quick wit to bail him out
and it never let him down. To avoid watching Brad’s right fist
smash into the eye, he decided to divert the man’s attention. “It
must bother you to always say ‘Alexander the Great’ each time we
meet. Why don’t you come up with something that rhymes with it? You
should try something true and original. How about ‘Alexander, I
hate’?”

“Hmmm,” he grunted, grasping his chin as
though doing so induced deep thought. “I like that one: Alexander,
I hate.”

“But see, you can’t use an insult I created
for you.”

Brad stroked his chin with greater
intensity. “Right. Something true. Something original.”

To avoid laughing in his face, Alexander
said, “How are your funds doing for your clients?” Brad had come to
the irrational conclusion that his market “intellect,” and constant
need to be the center of attention, would one day earn him a
featured role on CNBC, the premier cable channel that focused on
the stock market.

Brad’s wicked grin returned, glad to reflect
on his favorite subject. “It’s insanity. With the market wavering
all over the place, my clients aren’t expecting miracles. How about
you?”

“I’m just waiting for the price of gold to
go down, so I can buy some for my portfolio.”

Sneering and giving Alexander a dubious
sideways glance, Brad said, “Gold is a sucker’s bet.”

“Over the past decade, the stock market has
produced a goose egg for most people. In that time, gold is up over
300 percent.”

“Because it was in the basement. The price
had nowhere to go but up.”

“In the first decade of the 2010s, the U.S.,
China, Japan, and central banks around the world created money like
they fear their printing presses will break. And if Europe and the
U.S. don’t pay off their debt, we’re headed for some serious
inflation.”

“That’s all speculation.”

“No, that’s backed by historical fact.”

“Nonsense.”

“If you print money, you are reducing the
value of the currency in circulation. Unless the Fed recalls those
hundreds of billions of dollars, we’re going to see prices rise
across the board. China is buying fewer T-bills and buying gold
instead. So is India, Russia, Brazil. If you believe the crap your
company keeps shoveling to your clients, don’t say I didn’t warn
you. A few years from now—”

Brad broke into a fit of laughter, but a
lopsided grin took the place of his confident smirk. “A few years
from now? Who knows what will happen a few years from now. A few
years from now, I’ll be married to Marisa.”

Until now, Brad had always alluded to the
fact that Alexander would never find his way into Marisa’s heart.
Not confronting this fact only increased the potency of dancing
around the subject. But because Alexander had used evidence to
prove his point, which Brad interpreted as a direct threat to his
belief system, not to mention his career, he disregarded the
frivolous banter and scored a direct hit by drudging up Alexander’s
unrequited feelings for Marisa. Since a guy can always tell if
another man is attracted to the woman he’s seeing, he decided to
trample his hopes.

“This is a discussion,” Alexander said, “But
what I stated are facts. And here’s another one: Marisa will never
marry you.”

“Really,” Brad said, moving in closer.
“Why’s that? You going to steal her from me?” He stopped just
inches from Alexander, bearing down on him, nostrils flaring. “That
what you’re telling me?” The tattoos of the Iron Maiden mascot,
Eddie, flexed on both biceps. His ghastly skeletal smile widened,
as though excited at the prospect of causing Alexander serious
harm. Brad sized him up, smirking as though he needed only five
seconds with Alexander before claiming victory. “You think you’re
man enough?”

The time for sarcasm had passed. Seeing
anger replace Brad’s usual smug expression triggered a warning
siren in Alexander’s brain. Staring up at a bigger, stronger
opponent, he didn’t blink, didn’t give the slightest indication
that he wanted anything less than to resort to fisticuffs. Of
course, he’d prefer to handle this situation like a gentleman. But
apparently, the balled up fists in his pockets didn’t agree with
that solution. After all, every impulse told him to comply with
Brad’s request and let violence end their dispute.

Then the past rushed back to him: all the
damage; all the pain; all the blood he’d spilled, and all the
screams in the background because of his violent actions. But this
evidence served as mere precursors to the real torment Alexander
suffered from: constant self-doubt and countless nightmares,
resulting in endless indecision that affected every relationship
and every conversation for years after that pivotal moment. Even
now, two decades removed from that childhood fight, one where he
beat a kid unconscious, he nearly flinched from the memories. Then
another thought saved him from considering the past…