Dark Redemption Page 8

  The woman is wearing a flowing white summer dress with her hair pulled up to the top of her head, propped up by a pair of sunglasses.

  The man next to her, the one with the expensive haircut and a nice tan, like someone who plays a lot of tennis in his free time, is dressed in a buttoned-down shirt and coral shorts popular with the Connecticut crowd.

  I pull my towel close around me and step in my flip-flops in the puddle that I'm creating on the floor.

  "I'm really sorry to intrude. I was just swimming with Dante."

  "Yes, of course," the woman says.

  When the light from the back hits her profile as she turns, I see that she's pregnant, recognizing her immediately.

  "You must be Marguerite," I say, extending my hand.

  She nods. "And you are?"

  "I'm Jacqueline."

  In a minute that my name leaves my lips, I can see it in her face that she recognizes me. She introduces her husband, Lincoln, Dante's brother who is much harder to read.

  After we exchange pleasantries, I look for an opportunity to head upstairs. No only am I dripping wet, the air conditioning is also chilling me to my bone.

  "If you don't mind, I'm going to take a shower and I'll be down in just a few minutes,” I finally say.

  "Yeah, of course. Take your time!” Marguerite yells after me as I head upstairs.

  I make the shower as quick as possible, washing my hair. I want to dry it, but I decide that it will be better to get down there sooner rather than later.

  I do apply a little bit of makeup to spruce myself up and put on the same exact summer dress that I've been wearing since last night, since I don’t have any other options.

  I check my look in the mirror. It's a beautiful, ornate antique standing mirror in the corner of the bedroom, which I didn’t notice last night. Everything about this bedroom is luxurious. There’s a beautiful view of the backyard and the pool, linen sheets that feel like a cloud, and a gray slate-colored headboard to match.

  The colors are painted a cool cream color and there's a painting of a seashell right across the way near the big bay window. The room looks like a luxury boutique five-star hotel, in the best sense.

  Running my fingers through my wet hair, I hesitate again debating whether I should dry it to look more presentable, but again, decide against it.

  No, they know that I slept over and we went swimming. There's no need to put on airs.

  When I get downstairs, I find Dante sitting in the breakfast nook with Marguerite and Lincoln, chowing down on pancakes and waffles.

  "Hey, you're here," he says, getting up and giving me a big warm hug. Keeping his arm draped over my shoulder, he introduces me to his family.

  "We've actually already met," I say, waving to them again.

  Marguerite has a big smile on her face, beaming from ear to ear. I don't know what he told her about us, but I have a sense that it was something good.

  I sit down next to Dante. Marguerite is across from me and Lincoln's in the middle with his head buried in his phone. "Sorry, I just have to send out this email,” he mumbles.

  Marguerite rolls her eyes. But when she sees me looking, she just shrugs and laughs it off. "Workaholic, you know?"

  I nod. “So, where did the waffles come from?" I ask.

  "Dante just made them,” Marguerite says.

  “Really? That fast?”

  He nods. I look at the kitchen and see the remnants of a busy morning in the sink. I grab one, lather it with a generous amount of syrup, and take a bite. The fresh dough and the little squares wake up my senses.

  "Wow," I mumble, taking another big bite.

  He smiles.

  When I cut myself another slice, Dante reaches over and wipes a little bit of syrup from the corner of my lips. And just like that, with a few motions, I feel like I'm part of the family and we're just having another casual breakfast at home.

  I ask Marguerite about her baby, congratulating them on the great news. She smiles and tells me how sick she has been, but it seems to finally have made the turn.

  I ask them how long they've been together and what she does for a living. And she wows me with a few stories from the ER. All I really know about medicine is what I've seen on Grey's Anatomy and to meet someone who works and lives that life every day is kind of awe inspiring.

  She asks about my work and my thesis, and I tell her that I'm about to graduate and start looking for work. Neither of them mention how difficult it will be to find a good paying job in the news industry and I appreciate the fact.

  Overall, breakfast is a success. We get to know each other a little bit and everything is pleasant. Afterward, I offer to clean up and Marguerite stays behind to help. The guys go out on the porch.

  "It's so nice to meet you," she says, putting her hand on mine as I wash the dishes. "Oh, you don't have to wash it by hand. We have a dishwasher."

  I look in the sink. I'm about halfway done.

  "It's fine. It won't take very long.” I shrug and she smiles even wider.

  "You know, if anyone would have told me that you'd be the kind of girl that Dante brought home for the first time, well, I wouldn't believe it."

  "Really? Why is that?"

  "He was always such a permanent bachelor, I thought it would stay that way forever. It never occurred to me that he'd end up with someone like you."

  The phrase end up escapes her lips and hangs in the air between us. It warms me from the inside out.

  "Sorry, I don't mean to put pressure on you,” Marguerite says. "I know how it is."

  "You do?" I raise an eyebrow. "Seems like you've been together with one person for a long time."

  She laughs. "Yeah. So maybe I don’t know, but I don't want to pressure you either way."

  "Thanks. I appreciate that.” I nod.

  After drying my hands, we go out onto the back patio and join the guys. They're talking business and politics and Marguerite quickly changes the topic to our plans for today.

  As the three of them talk amongst themselves, I glance down on my phone and suddenly remember that I have a date with Allison for which I’m half an hour late.

  "Shit," I say under my breath.

  "What's wrong?"

  "Shit, shit, shit.”

  17

  Jacqueline

  I run out of the house and down the steps. Dante catches up with me right outside his car when I realize that I don't have a way to get to town.

  "Can you give me a ride?”

  "Yes, what's going on?"

  He runs back to grab his keys and hands me my bag. We jump into the BMW and speed off.

  "Allison. I'm staying with her. We made plans to meet up at the French crepe café on Main Street somewhere. She was so angry at me for not texting her about where I was last night. And this was my way of making it up to her and I stood her up. I just forgot.” My voice trembles. “I don't even know how this happened. We went swimming and I totally was going to come back, get changed, and go see her. And then I ran into your brother and Marguerite and it just flew out of my head."

  I feel myself ranting, and he just puts his hand on mine.

  "It's going to be okay. She'll understand. We'll find her. She'll be mad. Buy her some lunch. Try to make amends."

  "You don't understand. She's just, when she gets upset, she feels like she's been betrayed." I shake my head. "I've seen her friends come and go. She'd get close to someone for a while and then that person will be out of her life, never to be heard from again."

  We drive down Main Street with its little boutiques with expensive bottles and knickknacks. Parents are walking with strollers, their older kids running ahead of them, a smile plastered on everyone's face.

  Dante finds a spot by the street and parks.

  I run into the café, even though at this point, I'm forty-five minutes late. Allison's nowhere to be found.

  Walking further down, I check the bookstore and the card place and even run into an upscale clothing store with thei
r summer line of bathing suits and cover-ups out in the front.

  I show them a picture on my phone. The woman at the cash register shakes her head and says that she hasn't seen her walk by.

  I debate whether we should go back to the cottage. Dante follows after me.

  "I'm not sure where to go to look for her," I say.

  "We can drive back to your place, in case she went back."

  "Yeah, I guess. I just want to make sure that she's not here."

  I keep zigzagging around the pedestrians and the lost tourists peering into their phones.

  Out on the corner, I spot a small bar, restaurant, a few tables and chairs out front. Peering into the darkness, I see her sitting behind the bar at the far end.

  "There she is," I say, turning to Dante.

  "Do you want me to come with you?"

  "Yes. I don't know." I shake my head. "It gives me some space."

  I walk in and wave to her. She's dressed in her new pink overalls. A little bit too eclectic for my taste. It’s from a Lilly Pulitzer line and perfect for the beach.

  "I'm so sorry about this. I can't believe I didn't show up.” I start talking even before our eyes meet.

  "I can,” Allison says, tapping her straw on the bar top. She's drinking something in a tall glass with a lime on top. “A couple hours with this guy and your whole life just doesn't matter anymore? Your old friends?"

  "You're being unfair."

  "I'm being unfair? Get the hell out of here!” she yells.

  But instead I take a seat next to her.

  The bartender comes over and I request a club soda.

  "Look, I'm really sorry I didn't show up. I had all intentions, okay? I was going to go and then Dante's brother and sister-in-law came to the house early, and we had breakfast and I just forgot. Okay? I was disoriented and it just flew out of my head. Have you ever made a mistake like that?"

  Allison nods, but doesn't seem in a particularly forgiving mood.

  A few minutes later, Dante walks in, extends his hand to her, introducing himself. She nods, looking him up and down.

  "I want to personally apologize for what happened this morning,” Dante says, leaning forward and being as charming as only he can be. "It shouldn't have happened. There's no excuse."

  She smiles a little bit at the corner her lips. She likes to be bowed, catered to, and wowed like this.

  A few minutes later, she's smiling. I can tell that Dante has made an impression.

  We walk around for a little bit, just the three of us. We get some ice cream and it melts so fast that it runs down my hands.

  I laugh as I lick it up and Dante comes over and wipes a little smudge off the tip of my nose.

  "Okay, fine," Allison gets in, "you two are too cute. I'm done with it."

  "We're going to go to the beach today, right?" I ask her, wanting to have her feel more included.

  "Yeah, of course. If you want.” She shrugs. Allison looks at Dante.

  "You girls do your thing. I actually have some work to catch up on, but maybe we can meet up later tonight."

  "Sure.” I nod, giving him a kiss.

  When Dante offers to give us a ride home, we decline. I watch him walk away and Allison laughs and calls me a smitten kitten.

  We wander around for a while and I enjoy having this time with her. I tell her what happened last night and about meeting Marguerite and Lincoln. She laughs imagining me standing there wrapped in a towel in front of them. I apologize again and she seems to accept that.

  "I know that I was being unfair and kind of a dick."

  "Yeah, you were.” She smiles and then nudges me as if to tell me that it's okay.

  We go to a few boutiques and she buys a jumper and a strapless dress. I buy two T-shirts and a pair of shorts.

  "You know, you're going to have to get a better wardrobe if you want to find a job."

  "Yeah, I'm really not looking forward to it."

  "Come on, it's going to be so fun. Let me dress you up."

  She has been begging me to do this for a while. She's always been the one that was into clothes and fashion and around her, I feel like an ugly duckling a lot of the time but in this case, I wouldn't mind the help.

  "I'm not sure they're going to have anything in my size here," I say as we walk into a particularly upscale boutique.

  Places like this have always made me feel uncomfortable. I hate the way the sizes only go up to a certain number and then stop as if women above that size don't exist.

  What they're really saying is that women above a certain size aren’t welcome in this store. She urges me to try something on by pressing a dress to my shoulders but I feel like it's going to be two sizes too small.

  "Look, I'll just find something online," I say.

  "Online? How boring."

  "No, it's not boring. It's nice. At least I can try it on at home and return it."

  Allison rolls her eyes. I wonder if she’s being insensitive or just not putting up with my crap.

  Leading her out of the boutique, Iask if she wants to go to the beach.

  "Yeah, that would be nice.” She nods.

  Back at the cottage, while I start to gather our beach stuff, Allison brings up The Redemption.

  "You know the party's tonight, right?"

  I nod.

  Frankly, I have completely forgotten about that.

  "You're going to go with me, right?" she asks, her eyes lighting up.

  18

  Jacqueline

  We have just made up and I don’t want to cause any problems but I can’t go to The Redemption.

  "What are you talking about?"

  "Come on," I say, "I can't go with you. Dante and I just had this amazing date and ..."

  "So what? Bring him."

  "No, I don't want to."

  "Why?" she asks, getting more insistent and petulant.

  "Look, I wasn't sure if I was going to go, even before I met up with him. I was kind of going there during this dark period of my life, I'm not sure that's for me anymore."

  "Oh, okay, so you found a guy and now you think you're just too good for that?"

  "No, I'm not saying that. All I'm saying is that I'm not really interested in sleeping with anyone else right now, so a party like the one at The Redemption doesn't quite make sense since that's the whole point why anyone would go there."

  She crosses her arms and flounces down onto the couch. I sit down next to her. I try to take her hand in mine but she pulls away.

  "This weekend is supposed to be about us," she says. "We're supposed to have fun. You're not supposed to catch up with an old boyfriend or whatever the hell he is to you and just drop me."

  "I know. I'm not dropping you. I'm here with you."

  "Yeah, but you're not. You want to be wherever he is."

  "No, I want to be here with you. I want to go to the beach, I want to have a good time. I want to read some magazines and a beach read, sunbathe a little too long,” I say. “I want to do all of that with you. That's why we're here, right?"

  She bites the inside of her cheek looking up at me, annoyed, pissed off.

  "I'm really sorry," I say after a long pause.

  I feel like I have apologized way too much, but it's still somehow not getting through. I want to make this right. She's my friend and my roommate, but nothing I say seems to put her at ease.

  "Well, I want to go The Redemption," she announces.

  "And you should."

  "By myself?"

  "You never needed me to go with you before."

  "But it's nice when you have a buddy, you know? It's not so scary."

  "I know, but you're going to have fun. There's going to be some nice guys there and you know, maybe some girls, too."

  She shakes her head again. "Just come with me," she begs.

  "Come on, let's go to the beach.” I try to change the topic of conversation, but it's all to no avail. Even though for a moment I thought that we would reach that point where we could ma
ke up, suddenly, everything changes.

  A darkness washes over her.

  She looks annoyed, pissed off, and the fight begins once again. If this was a two bedroom, I'd go to my room and slam the door but there's no privacy here. The bedroom is as much hers as it is mine.

  Luckily, she beats me to it.

  She grabs her bag. "I'm going to go to the beach by myself," she says, pointing her finger in my face.

  "Why? Why are you doing this? Let's have fun today."

  "No, no, I don't want you coming with me if you're just doing it as charity. Why don't you call Dante and spend the day with him?"

  She walks out of the cottage, slamming the door behind her.

  I sit back down in the living room trying to figure out what just happened. How did this conversation go so askew?

  What did I do?

  I mean, yeah, I have been neglecting her so far and this was supposed to be a girls’ trip, but how was I supposed to know that I'd run into Dante? She, of all people, knows how I feel about him.

  Allison knows everything that we've been through.

  I grab my phone out of a need to be somewhere else, scroll through some social media, and then check my email.

  More bad news.

  I applied for a job at NewsWatch and a generic thank you but no thank you message came back from Human Resources.

  I had my hopes up for this job. Allison was certain that I would get it. She even gave me a recommendation. She works in marketing, so not directly in the department for which I had applied. But she has been there for a few years and has even risen through the ranks and she was so certain that I would get it. We had already even talked about commuting to work together, grabbing lunch together, and have all of this fun at work.

  And now with a big fat NO staring in my face, I don't know exactly what I’ll do.

  A sense of despair washes over me. I know that this is just one resume and one cover letter, but I was very hopeful that they would at least invite me in for an interview.

  They didn't.