AllFreeNovel
Share Us
“Oh, please,” he said. “Please don’t try to make me any more of a fool than you already have. I have spent years loving you, only to find it meant nothing to you.”
“You didn’t love me for one goddamn day,” I said. “You loved having a movie star on your arm. You loved getting to be the one who slept in my bed. That’s not love. That’s possession.”
“I have no idea what you’re talking about,” he said.
“Of course you don’t,” I said. “Because you don’t know the difference between the two.”
“Did you ever love me?”
“Yes, I did. When you made love to me and you made me feel desire and you took good care of my daughter and I believed that you saw something in me that no one else saw. When I believed you had an insight and a talent that no one else had. I loved you very much.”
“So you are not a lesbian,” he said.
“I don’t want to discuss this with you.”
“Well, you’re going to. You have to.”
“No,” I said, gathering the letters and envelopes and shoving them into my pockets. “I don’t.”
“Yes,” he said, blocking the door. “You do.”
“Max, get out of my way. I’m leaving.”
“Not to see her,” he said. “You can’t.”
“Of course I can.”
The phone started ringing, but I was too far away to answer it. I knew it was the driver. I knew that if I didn’t leave, I might miss my flight. There would be other flights, but I wanted to catch that one. I wanted to get to Celia as soon as possible.
“Evelyn, stop,” Max said. “Think about this. It makes no sense. You can’t leave me. I could make one phone call and destroy you. I could tell anyone, anyone at all, about this, and your life would never be the same.”
He wasn’t threatening me. He was simply explaining to me what was so clearly obvious. It was as if he was saying, Honey, you’re not thinking clearly. That won’t end well for you.
“You’re a good man, Max,” I said. “I can see you being angry enough to try to hurt me. But I’ve known you to at least try to do the right thing most of the time.”
“And what if this time I don’t?” he said. And there, finally, was the threat.
“I’m leaving you, Max. It either happens now or it happens later, but it’s happening sometime. If you decide you want to try to bring me down over it, then I guess that’s just what you’ll have to do.”
When he wouldn’t move, I shoved him out of the way and walked right past him out the door.
The love of my life was waiting, and I was going to go get her back.
WHEN I GOT TO SPAGO, Celia was already seated. She was wearing black slacks and a gauzy cream-colored sleeveless blouse. The temperature outside was a warm seventy-eight degrees, but the restaurant’s air-conditioning was on high, and she looked just a little bit cold. Her arms were covered in goose bumps.
Her red hair was still stunning but now clearly dyed. The golden undertones that had been there before, the result of nature and sunlight, were now slightly saturated, coppery. Her blue eyes were just as enticing as they always had been, but now the skin around them was softer.
I’d been to a plastic surgeon a few times in the past several years. I suspected she had, too. I was wearing a deep-V-necked black dress, belted at the waist. My blond hair, a bit lighter now from the gray that had been creeping in and cut shorter, was framing my face.
She stood when she saw me. “Evelyn,” she said.
I hugged her. “Celia.”
“You look great,” she said. “You always do.”
“You look just like you did the last time I saw you,” I said.
“We never did tell each other lies,” she said, smiling. “Let’s not start now.”
