A Lover's Secret Read online

  But home. It was nothing like that. She took a deep breath and listened to the steady rhythmic tick of the clock. The rustle of her grandmother’s breathing. The bubble of her humidifier.

  Grandma shuffled over to her, then, dressed in her flannel white nightgown and kicking her oversized crocheted slippers in front of her with each step. Grandma was always working with her yarn. She seemed to feel as though everyone and everything needed a crochet cap or a crochet belt or crochet shoes. Jess, tiny dolls, teddy bears. Nothing escaped her kindness or her craftiness.

  “Come with me, Jessica,” Grandma said. “We need to start putting together the centerpieces this morning.” Her voice was kind and speckled, like raspberry jam, Jess thought as she kicked off her covers and followed Grandma up the stairs, observing the slow sway of Grandma’s hips, the clawed way she gripped the wooden handrail, leaving behind the scent of Ivory soap, just as she always had.

  Suddenly, Grandma fell off balance. Her frail left hand slipped off the rail and her torso lurched backward in a great arc, like a white flag whipping toward Jess, who instinctively reached her hands forward, though this would have only caused them both to tumble backward. But Grandma recovered, said not a word, and continued her pace, squeezing both handrails tighter now.

  If Grandma had been one of her patients, Jess would have immediately inquired into her balance issues and counseled the family to move her bedroom to the main floor, but she knew better than to bring it up with Grandma, who was too dignified and independent most of the time even to let Jess bring her a cup of peppermint tea. But Jess would talk to her mother about it after the wedding.

  Jess’s mother and father hadn’t been speaking to her much since she had left school, and now, she assumed, they were at work, where they spent a good deal of their time. As the owners of the biggest flower shop in the city, her mom and dad knew everything monumental or romantic before it even happened. It was just one of the many things they loved about their business. Another thing they loved was the roses, and, here, on the dining room table, they had piled crimson blooms three feet high.

  When Jess saw them—the sheer abundance, the sensory extravagance—she suddenly imagined herself stripping the petals from the buds, piling them high on the table, then stripping naked and lying atop them, feeling the rich, velvety sumptuousness beneath her bare skin.

  She shook her head. Where on earth had that thought come from?

  Grandma moved closer. “We’re supposed to cut the roses at the base and float them in the water, three blooms to a bowl. Then tie the ribbon around the fluted edge of the glass.” She paused and cleared her throat. “Now, Jessica, this seems a little complicated. With the ribbons and all.”

  Jess had created these same centerpieces dozens of times as a young girl, for weddings, parties, bar mitzvahs, you name it. “No problem, Grandma.” Jess’s voice was soft. “Why don’t you sit and crochet while I do them?”

  “Well, now, that sounds just right.” Grandma shuffled to the sideboard to retrieve her basket of yarn, and then she settled into her recliner, in the adjoining room. The rooms where connected with a wide archway, and her chair was positioned fewer than ten feet away, but Grandma shouted now, as though they were separated by a much greater distance. “What time did you get in last night, Jessica, from Kelly’s party?”

  “Oh, not late.”

  “Well that’s good. That’s good.” Grandma paused, inspected her yarn, and fished her crochet hook out of the basket. “Everything is going to be just fine, you know.”

  “Sure it is, Grandma, I know.” Since she had been home, Grandma had been given to offering numerous reassurances.

  “So when are you going to be a doctor, Jessica? Officially.”

  Jess swallowed and told herself to breathe. “I’m taking a little time off right now, Grandma. Remember?”

  “Sure you are. Sure you are, dear. Everything is going to work out for the best. You’ll see.”

  Just then, the front door creaked open and Monica’s voice cooed, “Yoo-hoo? Anybody home?”

  “We’re here, Mon.”

  Monica teetered on her heels, still in the same outfit from last night. A satiny green bra peeked out from her blouse, which was buttoned wrong, and her skirt was on backward.

  Grandma’s eyes went wide and she returned her focus to her crocheting.

  “The most amazing thing happened,” Monica sputtered, pulling a chair from the kitchen table and flouncing in it, her legs outstretched. Her hemline crept up and Jess turned away.

  “I figured something happened. You kind of disappeared on me last night,” Jess said.

  “Sorry about that.”

  “It was no problem.” Jess smiled. Monica had disappeared from the party shortly after their arrival, allowing a relieved Jess to sneak out the back door even before the strippers arrived. “Tell me all about it while you help me work on these centerpieces.”

  Monica picked up a rose and spun it between her fingers. “How did you get stuck doing this, Jess?”

  “I asked to do it, and I wanted to sit with Grandma for awhile.” The truth was, Jess knew that Grandma would have tried to create all of these centerpieces herself if she hadn’t jumped in.

  Monica whispered now, a hoarse and throaty purr. “Why are you staying here, Jess? You could move in with me. We would have so much fun.”

  Hmm. What did Monica mean by fun? She winced. “I like it here.”

  “But you’re not a child anymore, and you would have some freedom for once in your life.”

  Jess was quiet, and Monica continued. “For example, last night, this guy—one of Kelly’s cousins, I think—dropped by her party real quick to drop off something for the wedding, and let’s just say I distracted him from his mission, and then we went back to his hotel.”

  “Oh. Wow. Really?”

  “He had this body, Jess. Hard as a rock. Chiseled. And he had this move, like, with his tongue. Kind of a flicky thing and then a whirl. He was slam dang amazing. He kept… ”

  Jess shook her head and gestured toward Grandma, who was keeping her eyes on the tight, even rows of her crochet.

  “Oh, don’t be such a prude, Jess. Grandma can’t hear a thing. Andrew and I talk about shit in front of her all the time.” Monica smoothed at her hair. “The point is, your life is never going to move forward if you don’t move out of here.”

  “I just got home, Mon. I’m still figuring things out.”

  “I have an extra room available, like, today.”

  “Okay, I’ll keep that in mind.”

  “That’s what you say, Jess, but you forget that I know how stuck you are in your ways.” She lowered her voice to a whisper. “Like, I worry about you.”

  “You worry about me? Why?”

  “Well, to start, you are totally sexually repressed. Like, seriously.”

  “Geez…” Jess looked up to Grandma again. “I think she can hear better than you think she can.”

  “How would you know? You haven’t been home. You don’t know Grandma like I know Grandma. There’s a lot you’ve missed.” Monica stared at her. “And a lot to catch up on. I have about fifteen guys I could set you up with, starting today. Starting tonight. These are guys who would—”

  Jess held up her palm. “Let’s just get through the wedding. I’ll sort through some things and we’ll see about that.”

  “Really. You think about it, okay? And I want you to think about moving in with me. Because I’ve got another lady wanting to rent the room. Wanting like hell to rent it. But I’m keeping it open until you tell me you want it, okay.”

  “Okay.”

  “I’m going to go home and change.”

  “Okay.”

  Monica stood and Grandma looked up at her finally, crossing her eyes slightly.

  “Goodbye, Grandma,” Monica shouted, enunciating each syllable and patting clumsily at her shoulder.

  “Oh yes. Bye, bye then dear.”

  When the front door had clicked shut, G
randma began, “We want you to stay right here with us, Jessica—right here with us until you decide to go back to medical school, and there’s nothing wrong with you not going home with every Tom, Dick, and Harry.”

  “Grandma!” Jess’s face burned hot. “You can hear every word we say. Why do you pretend you can’t?”

  “Getting this old has to have its privileges.” Grandma winked. “Otherwise, it’s boring as hell.”

  ***

  While Jess worked, her mind raced. Why was she such a failure? How had she screwed up so monumentally? She tried not to calculate the number of years it would take her to pay off her student loans while earning eight bucks an hour working at the flower shop and living at home, but, once started, her mind wouldn’t stop. Sixteen years. Her breath came faster and her skin flushed. Sixteen years to get back to where she started. She would be forty-two before she could leave home.

  What the hell was she going to do? And how could she have aced her first three and half years of medical school, and now she couldn’t float a rose in a flippin’ bowl of water without tipping it into her lap—without getting stabbed by eighteen thorns? Each time she grabbed for a new stem, she felt a tiny stab of new pain alongside the other cuts on her hands.

  She was still at the kitchen table when her brother, Andrew, rattled open the back door. As soon as she saw him, Jess’s hand flew to her chest. Purple welts blistered from his forehead and cheek. His nose had a swollen, sideways appearance, and blood covered his shirt, all the way down the buttons to the waistband of his jeans, where it had pooled and soaked into the denim. He smelled of tequila and cigar smoke, but his eyes were blazing.

  “What happened to you?” Jess whispered.

  Andrew chuckled and shook his head back and forth a few times. Jess’s eyes widened.

  “And you stink, too. What did you do, Andrew?”

  “My bachelor party was crazy. Beyond crazy. Bat-shit crazy. I’m-lucky-I’m-still-alive crazy.”

  “Watch your language around Grandma,” Jess said.

  “Oh, you and I both know she can’t hear a thing.”

  They both turned toward the elderly woman, whose white hair trembled slightly as her crochet needle bobbed through the yarn.

  “It was so fun, Jess. So. Fun,” Andrew said.

  “Did Monica show up?”

  “Oh, God, no. At least I don’t think so. What would she have been doing there?”

  “Well, she went out with one of Kelly’s cousins last night. Went home with him.”

  “That’s sort of mysterious. He missed the boat, then. He missed the party of the fucking century.”

  “That good, huh?”

  He nodded, a hearty bobbing motion, and his over-animation provoked a sharp and unexpected feeling of irritation in her. She forced a laugh, and then felt for another rose. A thorn pierced her skin once again.

  “You know who showed up?” Andrew asked. “Jake Lassiter.”

  Jess’s heart rose in her throat, and she gulped. Suddenly, she was back in high school. In the science hallway, senior year. Just before graduation. She and Jake Lassiter had been sitting against her locker, after school, studying together for the AP Biology final. He had always been so soft spoken, so hard to talk to, but when they sat together that afternoon, she discovered a riveting, hypnotic quality she couldn’t quite define. Something mysterious and enticing that roused a sweet warmth deep in the center of her.

  When they had finished studying and he looked at her steadily for just a moment, his whiskey brown eyes sparkled at first, and then something in his expression changed and his gaze seared into her. Her breath caught and she felt a sudden racing. A tingle rose up, up through her legs.

  Jake had stood then, and she stood, too. His lips edged into a half smile, and he took her by the waistband of her jeans, pulling up ever so slightly, and then he slid against her, driving her against the lockers. His breath whispered across her skin as his hand brushed the curve of her neck. His gaze traveled up and over her chin and her lips to her eyes, and then he kissed her. First, gently, then urgently, with hunger, as his tongue dipped between the seam of her lips. When he drew away, he sucked and tugged on her lower lip, and his sweet, warm breath lingered for just a moment.

  And then it was over, as soon as it had begun. Jake had cast his eyes downward, at the tight loops of the carpet, and so she did the same. And then he was gone.

  They had never spoken about it—she had never told a soul—and it was never to happen again. Jess went to college, and she didn’t know what Jake did. She probably would have talked to him, if he had called, but she wasn’t sure what she would have said, and she wasn’t entirely sure she liked the forceful way he had done it. She knew she wasn’t supposed to like it. There were no words. He hadn’t asked permission. He had made her feel as though she’d been captured. Seized. But she had never forgotten it. It was the kiss she had silently compared all others to. Not that there had been many since.

  No one had ever known much about Jake Lassiter. He was never at the football games or the parties. He hardly said a word in class, and no one really paid him much attention. But whenever she would think of him, even now, something shifted in her. Something bloomed and opened.

  She felt this now, but also a profound and growing sense of aggravation. Was it the nagging feeling of what might have been? Or was it because Jake Lassiter had been her discovery? Her quiet fantasy, all these years. He was hers.

  “Do you remember him at all?” Andrew was saying.

  “Sort of,” Jess managed to reply. “What’s he like?”

  A deep groaning giggle emerged from his throat. “Crazy.”

  If he said that word one more time… She got it. He had fun. It was a good night. “So, Jake was the reason behind the craziness?”

  “Let me just take a step back for you here, Jess. It was primal crazy. Like, if that is what being single is like, every day, I never want to be married. I’m not sure I’ve ever had so much fun.”

  “Okay, Go on,” Jess said flatly, as she reached for another stem.

  “So Jake shows up, kind of out of the blue, and then we realize he had chartered a bus. One of those luxury Greyhound numbers. Where this thing came from, I have no idea, but we all climb in and we go up into the mountains, and when we arrive at Pinnacle Point, there are all these guys waiting to take us fucking paragliding.”

  “Wow.”

  “I know,” Andrew squeezed his eyes shut and then popped them open. “It was the most amazing, incredible, balls-out ride of my life.”

  “Wasn’t that dangerous? I mean you don’t know how to paraglide.”

  “No, no. We were each riding tandem with, like, a professional. It wasn’t scary at all, and then, as soon as we land, some guy—I don’t even know who—he hands us a glow-in-the-dark jumpsuit and a paintball gun and we have a paintball war through the valley. In the dark.”

  “Yikes.”

  Andrew laughed. “No, it was out of this world.”

  “So is that how you got all beat up?”

  His hand flew to the marks on his forehead. “Yeah. You’re supposed to be pretty far away when you shoot one another, but things just got so crazy, and we were nailing each other, point blank range. Jake got me right in the face.”

  “How charming of him.” Jess frowned. “You know, your bride is going to kill you if those welts don’t go away before tomorrow.”

  Andrew shrugged. “She is going to be pissed. But it was worth it. Totally worth it.”

  “I think you might have broken your nose, too.”

  “Seriously? You think so?”

  Jess nodded.

  “Shit.” And then he shrugged. He picked up a rose and twirled it, then laughed to himself. “Still worth it.”

  “So that was it?” Jess asked. Please let that be it. Then she asked, “Where did you sleep?”—though, as soon as she said it, she realized she really didn’t want to know. She peered over, then, at Grandma, who had edged to the right side of her
seat and had paused briefly from her yarn work.

  “On the forest floor. I think. I don’t know. I was kind of out of it by then.”

  “Sounds kind of scary. I mean did you have tents or sleeping bags, or what?”

  “I don’t know. I think I might have blacked out for that. Because, you know, the booze was flowing, too.”

  Jess imagined the empty bottles, the swollen smell of men with liquor on their breath. “So how did you guys afford all that?”

  “I don’t know. I think Jake paid for everything. Not that he said so, but Stan kept telling the guys it was all taken care of.”

  “Huh.” There was a pause for a moment. Another thorn stabbed her on the fingertip and she drew her hand back. “I didn’t realize you and Jake Lassiter had kept in touch.”

  “We haven’t.”

  “So how do you explain—”

  “Kelly is a huge fan of his, of his book. So we just dropped a wedding invite in the mail, care of his publisher, and I guess he got it.”

  “Kelly’s a fan of what book?”

  “Jess, you have got to be joking with me.”

  “What?”

  “He wrote this book. About how to live. Where have you been?”

  “Um, I’ve been busy…living.” You know, I’ve been busy racking up debt I’ll never pay off, so I can be bankrupt at twenty-six. Busy, busy.

  “Well, shit, Jess. I mean everyone has his book. It’s like a bible for our generation. Living free and having fun. He calls himself a ‘Lifestyle Artist.’ And let me tell you, he’s a Van fucking Gogh. I’m just so damn honored he came here. I would love to call all my friends and tell them that Jake Lassiter blew out my bachelor party. But they were all there. That’s what makes it so ridiculous. He’s like ape shit famous.”