Made For Marriage Page 4

  I register what she’s said after I see the spread she’s set out on my desk. Fried chicken, biscuits, and mac-and-cheese.

  “This is a mess,” I say.

  “Yes, and you haven’t eaten since when?” Stella asks.

  “I ate a spoonful of peanut butter and a multivitamin this morning.”

  She opens up all the takeout containers, places a spork in my hand, and tucks a paper napkin into my collar as a bib to protect my outfit. “That’s not breakfast. You need your strength because after this, we’re going for a walk outside because I need to get this baby out and I’ve heard that helps. Also you’ve been indoors so much that you’re going to lose your vacation tan if you stay inside a second longer.”

  Over the next couple of weeks, I gain my emotional strength back. I eat actual meals. I begin running again. The baby comes and I’m overjoyed and distracted by the little bean. I throw myself into helping watch the two older girls along with Lucille,.Luke's former neighbor who's like a mother to all of us.

  On one visit, Lucille and I spend a Saturday prepping freezer meals for the family. As we’re cleaning up, she looks me over and sees right through what I’m doing with myself: keeping myself as busy as possible so I don’t have to think about Fabian. Or Hugo. Or whoever the hell he is.

  “Honey, the best thing for you to do is get back out there and get yourself some more action,” Lucille says, handing me a plate and a cup of tea and gesturing for me to sit down at the kitchen table.

  I sigh and stare at the huge pat of butter on her homemade banana bread that she sliced just for me. “I really don’t need all this butter and bread on my hips.”

  “Don’t talk like that, not in my house.”

  I nod and I don’t correct her that this isn’t her house, technically. She’s here enough that it might as well be. I just dutifully eat the banana bread. She doesn’t have to twist my arm too hard. It is delicious and makes me feel warm and alive for the first time in weeks.

  Lucille may know how to bake banana bread, but she’s crazy if she thinks I’m ever going to risk my heart again.

  I just don’t see that happening.

  Chapter 12

  Hugo

  Enjoying my morning coffee at a small beachfront cafe while watching the sun rise over the turquoise water of Fiji, I admire my boat that's anchored offshore. It's not a yacht, and it's not quite seaworthy enough to get me all the way to the South of France, but it's good enough for now.

  Laney said Fiji was her favorite vacation spot, so this is where I came. I may never see her again, but the island makes me feel closer to her, in a way. It's a peaceful, simple life. I try not to ponder too deeply on the one thing that could make it better. One person, rather. Her.

  I left prison with just enough money tucked away in my Swiss bank account to make it to this tiny island and buy that floating barnacle bucket masquerading as a sailboat. I couldn’t bring myself to face my proud grand-mère and ask for the favor of letting me stay with her while I get back on my feet. My parents have understandably disowned me, and I can’t face the family matriarch until I’ve made something of myself.

  Maybe I will pull myself together, but none of it will mean anything without Laney. Who falls in love with a one-night stand? What was I thinking? Best to move on. She probably has.

  As if by some cosmic joke, she appears. At first, I think it must be a dream.

  I rub my eyes and do a double take at the familiar form, and it's most definitely Laney: chin high, french-braided hair, and swaying hips poured into a pair of running shorts. Her hair looks different, longer, even more blonde. But that’s definitely her. Her full eyebrows, her kissable neck. I’d recognize those calves anywhere. It seems like just last night those legs were wrapped around my head in my hotel jacuzzi.

  The fact that I don’t have a swanky hotel room or a jacuzzi to offer her anymore no longer matters.

  My heart thunders in my chest. I stand up so fast, I knock over my rickety chair and my coffee tumbles from my hand. She halts in her tracks, startled by the clatter and the subsequent cursing at the spilled coffee that burned my hand. I decide to stop acting like an idiot, frantically trying to clean myself up, and look at her. I can see in her expression she does not recognize me right away, but is looking at me with concern, as if I’m having some kind of episode.

  “Are you OK?”

  At the moment I say her name, “Laney,” recognition floods her face. Once again those eyes see right through to my soul, even twenty yards away. My heart goes from breakneck pace to a standstill. Everything around her fades away and I have tunnel vision. My hands, feet, and face start to sweat.

  I can’t read her. Goddammit, my entire existence has been about marking people and reading people, and now, when it truly matters, I can’t tell what she’s thinking. It’s only about three seconds that we hold each other’s gazes, and then, in the fourth second, she runs away. When I say run, I mean she takes off at a full sprint away from me.

  “Wait!”

  I hastily clean up the mess I've made at the cafe and then take off after her. “Laney!”

  Wow, she runs fast.

  “I just want to talk to you!”

  She shouts, “Go away!” Eventually, I catch up to her and she tries to dodge me.

  “I’m not going to grab you. I just want to talk.”

  “I don't want to talk!”

  She then runs into the surf.

  “Where are you going? To your home under the sea?”

  She shouts over her shoulder, “Maybe!”

  “Laney, please stop!” I have to shout to be heard over the crashing waves. “I’ll walk away now so you don’t drown yourself, OK?”

  I still myself and shove my hands in my pockets. “There. Hands in pockets. I’m not going to try anything. I’m sorry if I scared you.”

  She stops in the surf and turns to me, calf-deep in the water. “What happened to the accent, Fab...I mean Hugo? I mean... First of all, can I just say I knew something was off the minute you introduced yourself? You might as well have said your last name was Escargot! And, pretending you don't know what Tex Mex is? What’s wrong with you?”

  “I had to make up an identity to protect you, in case the feds found out you were with me.”

  The way she’d looked at me the night we met had made me feel ten feet tall. The way she’s looking at me now makes me feel like a ten foot tall hairy monster who is scaring her to death. I can’t stand that I’m making her feel this way.

  “I know it was only a night, but you broke my heart. You could have told me the truth.”

  “Let me explain, please.”

  She shakes her head and a tear falls from her eyes. “No, I’m going to talk now. When I went home and found out who you were? I think I was catatonic for a week. I’d never had a one-night stand before in my life and then this happens? And now you’re here? On my vacation? Did you follow me here?”

  I shake my head. “No, I live here. I came here as soon as I was released from prison because…because you said this was your favorite place and you've been in my head for two whole years. I do work on charter boats, fishing boats, whoever wants to pay me. It's not much but it's honest work. I thought it would mean something to be here. But to be honest, I haven’t felt that life had meaning since I saw you last.”

  She stares at me for a moment and drops her head. “This is too much.”

  “Laney.”

  “I’m sorry. I have to go.”

  And with that, she sprints away from me for the second time in fifteen minutes.

  But I’ll be damned if I miss my chance with her.

  Somehow, there must be a way to get through to her. I thought I came here to live simply and die alone. But I see now that’s not how it has to be.

  If this isn't fate, I don't know the meaning of it.

  Chapter 13

  Laney

  “Laney, you can’t stay in the hut for the rest of the trip.”

  Poor Stella. S
he has her hands full. Not with the baby. The now-two-year-old is taking a break from the sun with me indoors, napping on my lap while I read a book. No, poor Stella has her hands full with me, the dead weight she brought along on her family vacation. “Who says I can’t?”

  “Please come to the bar with us. Lucille is here; she’ll watch the kids.”

  I consider it. The truth is, I could use a drink.

  I sigh. “What are the chances we would end up on the island as him, two years later? Did you even know he was out of prison?”

  “No, I’m sorry. I should have checked up on him. This toddler has run me ragged. Usually I’m on top of things when it comes to your well being.”

  I have to smile as I remember how Stella ran exhaustive background checks on every blind date I’ve been on in the last two years.

  Luke is waiting for us at the beachfront bar, and has stools reserved for us. They’re so sweet together but so real that it doesn’t hurt my heart to be around them. Watching them gives me hope. Hope that one day I’ll attract someone who’s not a complete mess or a con artist.

  While they chatter, I watch the surf, sip my mai tai and adjust my strapless sundress. I gotta get some sunshine on this cleavage if I want to wear a low cut dress at all this summer. As I’m adjusting the girls, I feel someone staring at me.

  I glance up and see Hugo, watching me from the shore.

  I forget what I’m doing for a second and my hand freezes on my chest.

  “What is it, Laney?” Stella asks. Before I can strategize to prevent what’s about to happen, Luke swivels around in his chair, sees Hugo, stands up, walks over and punches him right in the jaw. “That’s for Laney.”

  To Hugo’s credit, he doesn't fight back or run away. He takes his lumps. Literally. Stella remains peacefully sipping her drink; clearly she feels the knuckle sandwich was justified.

  I walk up and see Hugo lying in the sand, rubbing his jaw.

  “That’ll do, Luke,” I say “Go back to your wife.”

  It wasn’t necessary for Luke to punch him like that. But something about the way these two men behave in the aftermath of that punch pricks at my heart a little bit. Luke leans over and offers Hugo his hand. Hugo nods and takes the obliging hand and gets to his feet.

  “Did I break anything?” Luke asks.

  Hugo rasps. “Other than my ego? No.”

  This is all so weird.

  Luke offers to punch him again if I would like, but I decline.

  “Let’s walk and talk, I guess,” I say to Hugo.

  When we’re alone, we make our way across the beach to firm sand, walking and talking while the gentle surf tickles our feet.

  “I want you to know, I did nothing in that prison for two years but think about you. I sat in my cell and wrote you a letter every single day. I even used my connections to track down your address. But when it came down to it, I didn’t want to hold you back.”

  Well, that was quite a conversation starter, I think. “You didn’t hold me back. You held yourself back. You should have forgotten about me.”

  Hugo breathes. “You’re wrong. You have no idea what you did to me.”

  I reply, “Why don’t you fill me in, then?”

  Hugo pauses his walking and reaches into the back pocket of his frayed cotton shorts. My eyes grow big as I see him take out a worn, folded envelope. He unfolds it and pulls out the sheet of notebook paper. Both sides have been covered in neat penmanship, single space, in blue ballpoint pen.

  He pushes his hair back away from his eyes and tucks it behind his ear, clears his throat, takes a deep breath, and reads.

  “Dear Laney, first I want to confess everything. I want you to know everything that happened to me that day when I first saw you...”

  He goes on to describe how he had been planning to leave on his yacht that same day, but then recognized Stella at the hotel bar having brunch and gave in to the urge to commit one last caper. His letter tells how I apparently looked into his soul erased all of his desire to carry out the con.

  The letter goes on to say he doesn’t regret getting arrested, because if he’d left when he’d planned to leave, he would never have met me.

  He reads the ending: “I hope someday, even if we never see each other again, that you will forgive me, and that you can find a way to look back on our night together fondly. You changed my life for the better. You made me see the good in humanity, and for that I don't have any other choice but to say thank you, and I’m sorry I wasn’t the man you deserve.”

  He folds the letter up and places it in his back pocket. “I don’t expect you to respond to that right away.”

  I exhale the deep breath I’ve been holding in and say something that I know he doesn't want to hear, but needs to hear. “I don’t want to be responsible for teaching you to be a better person. I’m not your teacher, or your mother, or your conscience. You’re going to have to figure out right and wrong for yourself.”

  And then, I run back to my little hut and cry myself to sleep.

  It’s not what I wanted to say. But I knew it was the right thing to do. And it hurts even worse than the day I learned that Fabian was not real.

  Chapter 14

  Laney

  I wake up the next morning feeling slightly better, slightly calmer, if still a tiny bit heartsick. Still better than how I’ve felt for two years. I step out onto the beach to take in the ocean breeze, wondering what I might get up to today.

  It’s supposed to be a relaxing morning, but instead I see written in the sand in full view of everyone’s hut on this side of the resort, my name in 20-foot letters and a giant heart.

  Looking up and down the beach, I see him standing at the bottom point of the heart. He’s looking at me, arms outstretched.

  I cannot tell a lie; it does impress me a little. Hugo went to some effort.

  People are noticing it now, and walking up and down to read it, and they see him looking at me, and then they see me, and I feel as if I’m being put on the spot. I’m not sure what I’m supposed to do with this. Run over and declare my undying love for him? I feel like I barely know him, and he barely knows me.

  I wave, but inside I want to run and hide like a hermit crab in its shell. If only they made those human sized, that would be perfect for how I’m feeling right now.

  I go inside and put on my swimsuit and sunscreen, tie up my hair, and grab the cutest pair of sandals I can find. I can’t let him confuse my day.

  Happily, I settle in next to Stella and Lucille at the pool with my novel. Stella says something about how Luke has taken the girls mini golfing and then to a water park for the day so it’s just us girls. That suits me just fine.

  The three of us women spend all day chatting in the loungers and swimming in the pool, and it’s glorious being tucked away in the confines of the resort instead of feeling exposed on the beach. At one point, Lucille grows tired so Stella walks her to her room for a nap.

  Before Stella returns, I feel a strange presence casting a shadow over my closed eyes. I open them and say, “Hi, you’re in my sun, can you move?”

  A strange man chuckles when he hands me a cocktail that I didn’t order.

  I don’t take it.

  “Do I know you?”

  “You will, soon enough.”

  I squint up at him through my sunglasses and see a tall, beefy fellow sporting brightly colored board shorts and hairy knuckles. Although I don’t personally have a problem with board shorts, I do care about rules and regulations.

  “This resort has a dress code for the pool area. Board shorts are not allowed. Fitted swimsuits only.”

  He guffaws in that typical way certain people guffaw when they don’t think the rules apply to them, and it raises my blood pressure slightly.

  “I noticed you drinking these last night at the bar with your friends. And I saw how that one skinny dude was bothering you so I thought I’d introduce myself and let you know I’ll keep an eye out in case he bothers you again.”


  My lips open as if I’m about to inform him that the man from last night, Hugo, was not bothering me. But this man is a stranger and I don’t owe him an explanation.

  “No, thank you,” I say with a smile.

  “Too early to drink? Haha, it’s 5 o’clock somewhere, and you are on vacation.”

  Some people just don't know how to take a hint.

  “It’s not that. It’s just that I don’t want one right now. And I definitely don’t take drinks offered to me directly from the hands of a stranger.”

  His face changes from cheesy to offended in a snap. “What, you think I’m trying to roofie you?”

  I smile even bigger and enunciate harder. “I wouldn’t know. I don’t know you at all.”

  He sputters and his voice gets a bit louder now. “Just trying to be nice. What the fuck do you think, I’m going to try to pull that kind of shit at a nice resort like this?”

  I do not like the way he’s trying to make me feel, and I am done. “Sir, I know one solitary fact about you, and that is you don’t give a rat’s ass about rules or about minding your own business. So, it follows that I would be concerned that you have an inflated sense of entitlement. So let me inform you. I am not obligated to take a drink from a stranger, and if you were a nice person, you would understand.”

  I’m not exactly raising my voice, but it’s not at its usual pitch.

  There must be some kind of homing device attached to me, because the next voice I hear is Hugo’s.

  “This guy bothering you, Laney?”

  The hairy knuckle guy makes another gas bag sort of noise. “We are just fine, thanks. But I’ll take an order of French fries, since you’re asking.”

  I roll my eyes at both of them and stand up. Sweetly, I say to the guy with the drink, “Enjoy drinking alone until you learn how to take no for an answer.” To Hugo I say, “Thank you, Hugo. You’re a doll, really. But I’m handling it. And I saw your sign on the beach this morning. It was lovely of you. But I need to tell you something. These big gestures don’t mean anything to me.”