Soaring (12 page)

So I was sitting there alone, as always, in a way that felt like it would be forever, wondering where the day went.

The only thing I’d done was make plans to go out with Josie and Alyssa to begin Cliff Blue Project: Phase Two on Wednesday, Alyssa’s day off from her salon.

That’s all I’d done.

Except wallow in my misery.

The doorbell rang.

I stiffened, feeling every sinew tighten inside me, and closed my eyes.

Shit.

Mickey.

“You’re a big girl, Amelia, you’ve gotta grow the fuck up,” my mouth told me.

I was right.

I had to grow up, get up, and go to the door.

I thought moving to Maine was the first step to the new me.

It wasn’t.

Walking to the door to face Mickey was.

Shit.

As hard as it was, I uncurled, got off the couch, headed to the door and I did this swiftly. Not because I wanted to get to the door. Not because I was smart enough to go fast in order to get something unpleasant, harrowing and utterly mortifying over and done with as quickly as possible.

Because I didn’t want to leave Mickey waiting.

I allowed myself slight relief that I’d at least had a shower and changed clothes that day before I unlocked and opened the door.

I lifted my eyes and put every effort into not wincing when I caught his.

Then I said, “Hey.”

“Hey, Amy,” he replied gently.

“I’m sorry,” I said quickly. “I’m sorry you had to come over here and I wasn’t big enough to go to you and apologize. I’m even sorrier I did what I did. I was half-asleep but that’s no excuse. You shouldn’t have anyone touching you who you don’t want touching you. I don’t know what came over me. But I do know, and want you to know, I’m really so
very
sorry.”

“It isn’t that, darlin’,” he said quietly. “You’re very…”

He trailed off but kept his eyes pinned to mine and I knew in that instant he did it so they wouldn’t wander. They wouldn’t become assessing.

But his next word and the hesitation said everything.

And it destroyed me.

“Attractive.”

I fought back another wince.

“It’s just that you don’t shit where you live,” he went on. “And, babe, you live right across the street and we both got kids.”

That was a lie. A kind one. But it was a total lie.

He didn’t want me, plain and simple.

I was just his…“attractive” neighbor.

I gave him that because he needed to give it to me and I needed to let him.

“You’re right,” I agreed.

“You’re a good woman, Amelia.”

God, that was completely lame.

But worse, I wasn’t even that.

“I…I’m…” I shook my head. “I can’t say how sorry I am. You’re a good neighbor. You’re a good guy. You’ve been so very kind to me. And you’ve got great kids. Can we,” I shrugged, hoping it was nonchalantly, “forget this even happened?”

That’s when the grin came but it killed that it wasn’t easy.

“Absolutely.”

I swallowed before I nodded and said, “Thanks, Mickey.” I drew in a breath and let it out finishing, “And again, I’m really sorry.”

“Nothin’ to apologize for. It didn’t happen.”

A good man. A kind man.

A man with great kids, all of whom I’d now go out of my way to see extremely rarely.

It was wave from the car or haul my behind into the house if I had the bad fortune to be out when they were out time.

“Right,” I said, injecting a firm thread in my voice. “I’d ask you in for a glass of wine but I don’t have glasses and I’m kinda in the middle of something.”

His grin got easier. “I’d say I appreciate the offer but I don’t drink wine and I also got shit to do.”

He was lying.

Then again, so was I.

It was over.

This should have caused me relief but instead, it dug deep then curled out long tentacles, the tips spreading acid through every part of me.

“Okay.” I started to close the door. “See you around, Mickey.”

“Hope so.”

That was a lie too.

I pushed my lips up into a smile.

He held his grin as he lifted a hand and turned away.

I didn’t wait politely to close and lock the door, I did it immediately.

I turned back to the room. The recessed overhead lights were on, dimmed, but I’d normally never turn on overhead lights. I’d use lamps.

Except I didn’t have any.

My feet wanted to take me to my bedroom, the bathroom there, the mirror there.

I didn’t let them.

I walked to the kitchen and I did this thinking,
fuck it
.

So when I got to the kitchen, I opened a bottle of wine and poured a healthy portion into a plastic cup.

I took it out to my deck. Since moving in, I’d been out there, not much. When I got to the railing and stopped, I felt the chill coming off the sea and I liked it.

I needed deck furniture.

I needed a to-do list.

I needed a to-do list with a variety of headings, this likely ending up the length of Santa’s gift list.

But first, I needed to make a decision.

Stay this low and allow myself to sink lower.

Or get my head out of my ass and pull myself together.

I’d come out to Maine to do the latter, and within a few weeks, ended up kissing my handsome, good guy neighbor, in one fell swoop killing a promising relationship of friendship and camaraderie and turning it into an awkward relationship of avoidance and unease.

I needed to talk this out and to do it, I wanted to call Robin. I wanted to tell her all that had happened and listen to her saying the things she always said to me. How sweet I was. How smart I was. How beautiful I was. How I deserved good things in my life. How I deserved to be treated properly. How I deserved to be cherished and protected and respected.

But I wasn’t taking Robin’s calls, only exchanging quick texts and emails, which would now be only texts since I’d sold my computer.

And I’d cut myself off from Robin.

I couldn’t call Josie or Alyssa because I could tell they were close with Mickey and they’d think I was crazy, stupid, weak and lame for doing what I did.

And in the awkward relationship stakes, they’d side with Mickey. He was
their
friend. I was just a new acquaintance who was grasping onto friendship with all I had because I was so terribly
needy
.

And I knew they would, not only because they’d known me two weeks and him for ages, but because my friends who hadn’t defected because I’d lost my mind after Conrad left me had defected when Conrad left me.

No.

I had to figure out what I wanted.

I had to figure out who I was.

I had to create a home.

I had to win back my children.

I had to build a life.

I had to get some self-respect.

I had to stop acting like an idiot, weak and selfish and stupid.

I had to start looking out for me.

I had to stop being so needy. I no longer had a husband to fulfill me. I had lost the children who, simply breathing, gave me all I could need. I had to find something for me that would fill those voids.

And I couldn’t sink any lower. I couldn’t live another day feeling like I had that day. I couldn’t live another week, another month, an eternity, feeling like I had since Conrad told me across the bed we shared, the bed we made our children in, that he was leaving me for another woman.

I’d left my life behind because it was not a good life.

And I’d come to Maine to change that life.

So I had only one choice.

No matter what it took, no matter how much time, no matter that it made me bleed, no matter what it cost me, no matter that it would take everything I had and force me to find more, I had to do what I’d come to Maine to do.

I had to make a home.

I had to heal my family.

I had to find me.

I had to let go of the old.

I had to pull myself together and start anew.

Chapter Five

Off and Running

“We got…a bowl.”

Alyssa announced this after she pulled said bowl out of its bag and protective tissue wrap and set it on the edge of the bar of my kitchen.

I stared at the bowl.

Josie, standing by Alyssa, spoke.

“It’s a nice bowl.”

“We’ve been shoppin’ all day, all over the county, and we bought…a bowl,” Alyssa countered.

“Decorating an entire house doesn’t happen in a day, Alyssa,” Josie informed her.

“I hear that,” Alyssa returned. “But you go to fifteen shops in three towns over a span of nine hours, you get more than…a bowl.” Then, even though I was wandering to my kitchen dazedly, my eyes still aimed at the bowl, I knew she was addressing me when she stated, “Girl, you got a couch and a bed. You don’t even have a TV. You gotta step this shit up.”

I stopped in the kitchen and took my eyes from that bowl. A beautiful bowl. No, an astonishingly beautiful bowl; big, wide, squat, the outside a rough slate gray, the inside lip a lustrous blue, so blue it was nearly black cascading into a indigo that was so gorgeous, in all honesty, it took my breath away.

Thus I’d bought the bowl, the only thing I’d bought after fifteen shops in three towns.

I moved my gaze to the sun setting over the sea.

It was still light, the hues shading the clouds baby pinks and buttercreams.

But I’d looked out those windows for two and a half weeks. I knew the shades would shift and change. There would be deep peaches, soft lavenders, blazing orange-yellows, startling fuchsias, cobalt blues…all reflected in the sea.

“Amelia, are you all right?”

I heard Josie’s question but I was staring at baby pink and buttercream.

“Babe,” I felt a light touch on the small of my back and Alyssa’s whispered words close to my ear. “You okay?”

“Syrah,” I murmured.

“Say what?” Alyssa asked, not moving from me.

I turned, dislodging her hand and looked between them. “The Syrah glasses from that shop by the cove. All the reds from there. Pinot Noir, Cabernet. I didn’t like their white wine glasses and the champagne flutes were abysmal. But I’m getting their red wine glasses.”

“Uh…is she sayin’ shit you get?” Alyssa muttered to Josie.

“She’s talking about those wineglasses at the Glassery,” Josie told her.

“She’s gonna buy different types of glasses for different types of red wine?” Alyssa asked.

“Shh, Alyssa! I’m sensing an epiphany,” Josie replied, lifting a hand and shaking it at Alyssa.

“That armchair, the beaten leather one with the tacks,” I kept going as if they didn’t speak. “That leather was so supple. Amazing. With the ottoman. Up on the landing.” I lifted my hand and pointed across the space at the large landing opposite the kitchen. “And an eighty inch TV, mounted on the wall. Big, so you can see it from anywhere in the room.”

“Gotcha. Now roll with it, roll with it, babe,” Alyssa encouraged.

I focused on her. “The stoneware from Williams-Sonoma. A mixture of the orange, blue and green with the matching swirling pieces in here and there.”

“Loved that shit, keep goin’,” Alyssa urged.

I looked to Josie. “Those lamps from that lighting warehouse. Terrible displays but that standing one and the matching table one, in iron, looking like they’re made out of loops. The standing one in the sunken area, the one on a table up top. Bringing the two areas together.”

“Those were beautiful, Amelia,” Josie said softly as I felt a hand again at the small of my back, gently pushing me.

“The daybed at your interior designer’s showroom,” I kept at it as Josie backed up and Alyssa pushed me toward the front door. “In fact, that whole area. That cream painted iron side table that looked like tiered flowers. The rug that was all pebbly. The fantastic lamp that had that pearly base that looked like it was made from the inside of shells. I want that in my bedroom on the other side of the fireplace. Oh, and those rugs. The memory foam ones. Three of them for the kitchen, sink, work area, stove.”

“How much time we got?” Alyssa muttered.

“Some of the specialty shops will be closed, but we can still get to the mall,” Josie replied, backing out my front door that she’d opened.

“Toss pillows,” I mumbled. “Pottery Barn. Those huge downy ones with those covers in those deep colors.”

“Beep the locks, bitch, we’re outta here,” Alyssa ordered.

I heard the locks on Josie’s Cayenne beep.

Alyssa shoved me in the front seat and Josie got behind the wheel while Alyssa hauled herself into the back.

And away we went.

It took another four hours and we closed down the mall, but we got my stoneware, the kitchen rugs, the toss pillows and new towels for all the bathrooms. We also got new bed linens that would match the seating area. Further, we found a new set of bed linens for Olympia’s room, a paisley of bright pinks and oranges, her favorite colors.

In fact, the Cayenne was not small, but it was stuffed full by the time we made it home.

And Josie had called her designer, reserved the items I wanted, all I had to do was go in with my credit card and arrange delivery.

The next day, I went out to do that and get the rest (what I could fit in my car, which was a single lamp and the wineglasses) and I ordered what needed to be delivered and set up, including a new TV, DVD player, receiver, Xbox, printer, laptop and desktop PC. I’d even found a table that worked with the chair for the landing, highly distressed wood planks at top and bottom, positioned and cut round, held together by swirling bands of wrought iron.

It was amazing.

The rest of the day I ran load after load in the dishwasher, cleaned and put away the wine glasses, laundered and put away the towels, the same with the linens, making the beds.

The day after that, the deliveries began, the TV mounted, the system set up, the receiver connected to the house’s surround sound system (though all the components had to be put on the floor since I didn’t have a media cabinet), the computer stuff set up, also on the floor in the back room.

I needed a desk.