Tails California (Heads and Tails) Read online

  “Don’t worry, Sals. We got the schemers. They’ll try every trick.” And all of a sudden, I heard his voice double-time because he had entered the room. He ended the video chat on his end, and I went to my phone to make sure mine was disconnected, too. “Sorry?” he offered, knowing I had pegged him dead-on.

  “If only,” I lamented.

  “I put it aside,” he reassured, although seemingly a little bothered by it. He caught my eyes, as if he thought I was going to debate. “I needed to check on things, and I’m done.”

  “Good.” I breathed in a little easier.

  “So, what are we playing?”

  ***

  Ryan and Sallie were creaming us. Even though Ryan wasn’t at his baseball level of competitiveness, there simply wasn’t any mercy. It wasn’t going to be a throw-the-game Frisbee event. But, despite our record, I do think Joel and I had more giggles with our interpretations of the words than the father-daughter team.

  After another epic fail for Joel and me, Ryan noticed that I was rubbing my upper chest and squinting my eyes. “Hey ...” He reached his arm over and touched my hand. “What—"

  “I’m all right. Probably ate too much of the delicious apple turnover at the restaurant.” But as I tried a smile, my headache seemed to get worse.

  “You sure? It’s not an allergy thing, is it?” Ryan was on alert and starting up off the floor where we were all sitting.

  “No. No. You would be jabbing into my thigh by now.” I meant the epinephrine pen, but as soon as I finished the sentence, I realized the sexual way it could be interpreted. I started to chuckle but realized Ryan wasn’t, as he normally would have been. Hoping it was solely due to concern, I reassured, “I’m just tired. Don’t want to get sick. Sorry, Joel. But I think they got us. We’ll get them another time. I think I’m going to get a little sleep.”

  “Like a nap,” Sallie suggested, I’m sure thinking it odd that adults sometimes needed those, too.

  “No!” Joel bounded up and practically bowled me over to hold on to me.

  “Joel ...” Ryan sounded as surprised as I was.

  “Hey,” I said to the five-year-old. “I’m sorry. It wasn’t our game. I seem to be striking out this weekend.” I looked at Ryan in reference to the baseball game but internally thought of our failed attempt at making love, too. “Let me get some sleep, okay, so I can feel better. Sorry to let you down, mate.”

  Joel continued to hug me. “You’ll get better?”

  “That’s the plan.”

  Ryan stuck out his hand to help me up, kind of forcing Joel to let go. “Joe, it’s your turn to pick the movie. Go see what you want, and Sallie can help. But don’t argue. It’s his turn.” As the kids went toward the television, Ryan asked me, “You sure you’re okay?”

  “Yeah,” I reiterated and spoke the truth. “I’ve just been going nonstop. I want to give my eyes a rest before going out with Willow tonight.”

  “Maybe you shouldn’t.”

  “If I still have my headache after my nap, I’ll cancel, okay?” I offered, but, in truth, I was really looking forward to an adult girls’ night out with my best friend.

  ***

  I was back awake, dressed, and ending my phone conversation when Ryan entered the master bedroom. “Hey,” I said, placing the phone on the nightstand.

  “Who were you talking with?”

  “My mom. She wants to know when we are rescheduling the wedding.”

  And, of course, she had cautioned me again about taking care of myself. Unless I was in the emergency room with an allergic reaction, though, I pretty much stayed healthy. A cold or virus were mild once-in-a-few-years-or-so occurrences, and I was, oddly, proud of that. So, I most certainly didn’t want to admit to her or myself that I might be rundown as she had predicted. But taking a nap was far from my norm.

  Ryan blew out a gust of air. “Like the wedding is the top thing to be concerned about.”

  Of course I knew there were still a lot of concerns hanging over us like the dense clouds that day, but I didn’t like his immediate blowoff of something that only a month before we were both looking forward to more than anything. “Is it at least in the top ten, Ryan? Or even one hundred?” I questioned, with, yes, a bit of bitterness.

  We hadn’t really talked about the specifics of rescheduling with everything else going on, but it was time to at least have some kind of idea, wasn’t it? It was beginning to feel like when I had been awaiting his and Kari’s divorce announcement ... and I didn’t want to feel that way. This was different and it involved the kids, but I was wearing out emotionally and, I guess, physically, too.

  “Geez, of course.” He exhaled again. “It’s trying to refigure getting to Carolina in the midst of everything else that is hard.” He dipped his head slightly as if wanting to know if I could understand, let it go for right then, or both. When I answered with a slow blink, he tried another question. “How are you feeling?” And I knew he wasn’t simply changing the subject—it was out of genuine concern.

  “Better,” I answered with a twinge of deception. “Getting there. How’s Joel?”

  “Joel?” His face scrunched back a tad. “He’s fine. Why?”

  While I was getting ready, I had thought about his son’s reaction and how it might have had to do with more than losing a game. “Ry, I think maybe he was scared of something earlier ... before I went to sleep.”

  “No. No.” His eyes squinted. “He’s fine.”

  “Really? He—”

  “Yeah. They’re both watching the movie, and I was, too. No work or anything else, by the way.”

  I smiled appreciatively. “Good. Okay, if you say so. You know, I wanted a minute to talk with you about Sallie, too. Have you noticed how she’s been acting around me?”

  “What? Do you think she’s scared, too? You really are tired.”

  I plunged on. “Ryan, she’s been really distant with me the past couple of days—not wanting to do things with me, shying away from me, not letting me help her, and, I don’t know ... kind of looking at me funny. And her artwork—it’s not precision, immaculate Sallie. She’s putting a lot of force on the crayons and—”

  “Geez, first of all, I didn’t take you as an always-draw-in-the-lines kind of gal.”

  “I’m—”

  “And, she seems to be acting the same to me. I mean, she had a traumatic thing happen to her, Bethany. She—" Why wasn’t he listening to me at all?

  “I know.” Noting my voice escalating, I took a mini breath, trying to concentrate on the fact that I wanted to help, not bother. My dad had said just me being me helped, but I wasn’t quite sure at the moment. “Look, I’m not their counselor. I’m just saying—"

  “She’s fine. They’re both fine.” His uncommon frustration rose. “And no, you’re not a counselor or a parent. I think I know my own kids.”

  If his opening statement about rescheduling our wedding didn’t tick me off, the one about me not being a parent sure the heck did. “Fine. Okay. I’ll let it go. I won’t mention it again,” I spit out and added with even more venom, “I should know my place. Everyone seems to keep telling me—the hospital, Irene ... I’m simply the whore babysitter ... someone who manipulated my way into your life for your money.” I had put up with those rumors in the beginning of our relationship from irate Kari fans, too. “Maybe I should sleep in the guest room when I get home tonight.”

  “No,” he immediately refuted in an even more agitated way. “Don’t make this into something it’s not.”

  His insistence and tone made me even angrier. Normally, I would have given more back. But surprising even myself, my body said otherwise. I started to cry ... and not a few tears I could swipe at like the day before in the kitchen. I sobbed.

  “Oh, man.” He closed and reopened his eyes.

  Ryan was not used to me crying like that. I could either give as good as I could take. Or, I would remove myself from the situation altogether.

  “Bethany ..." He took a dee
p breath and seemed to reboot with concern. “What’s going on? Joel just told me you were crying yesterday, too. And don’t tell me it was onions. There aren’t any onions in cupcakes. I know—”

  Like the tears, my words seemingly came out of nowhere, but yet were obviously just holding on to the edge of my truth. Maybe I was having my own grief burst, but my loss was a different kind. “I’m not losing you, am I?”

  “What?” he asked immediately and then repeated with even more surprise in his voice. “What?” followed by a very insistent, “No. What are you talking about?”

  Didn’t he see? Couldn’t he feel what it had been like those past couple of days? How he was acting? How it was almost as if he was distancing himself from me ... at least emotionally. And the growing beard.

  “Bethany?” The concern in his voice hit a whole new level when I didn’t answer him.

  “That, for one thing.”

  “What? What thing?” His eyes swung back and forth at me, as if they were searching for something he couldn’t find.

  “Calling me ...” I sighed.

  Bethany, after all, was my name. And it wasn’t that he never used it, but it was mostly during serious times. Things had been far too serious.

  I reached up for his face, softly rubbing the physical concern. “And this for another.” I brought my hands back down, feeling a few straggling tears reach my cheeks, probably right where my line of freckles resided. “I’m worried about you ... and about the kids—both Sallie and Joel. I’m worried about us.” I looked away because I was becoming even more emotional, plus my phone was singing out. “I gotta go,” I said, noting the phone’s message that the Uber was waiting outside our front door.

  “Sheez!” He wrung his hands through his hair.

  “Ryan ...”

  “We need to talk about all of this.” He watched as I placed my phone in my purse. “I’m just overextended.”

  I wiped desperately under my eyes, hoping the brown waterproof mascara, which matched my eyes, didn’t smudge. “Uh-huh.”

  He placed his hands tentatively and then a little more confidently on my shoulders so our eye-to-eye contact couldn’t be denied. “You are not the babysitter or any of those names that nasty woman called you. I know why we’re together. I know the real you—the woman I want nothing more than to be my wife.” My movement away from him seemed to allow his already high-tilt emotions to run even deeper. “Geez, Bethany, come on. At least promise me ... not the guest room.”

  I knew the guest room amendment would bother him. Even though it was the first place we had ever made love—a time I would always cherish and never regret—it also had a significance. He never wanted me to feel like I was a guest in the home, and he had made a point of that after our first time. And for me to sleep in there alone? Well, that would be the ultimate heart dagger.

  I turned to him once more, nodded my agreeance, and, before the waterworks started again, walked away. Just like he seemed to have reached his breaking point, so had I. Whether my emotional state had caused whatever physical ailment I seemed to be fighting or vice versa, I had, indeed, hit a wall. And I knew it wasn’t a good thing that we both were at that horrible spot on the emotional map at the same time. But it was what it was. Maybe a night out and apart was what we needed. Because the current road stretched out before us suddenly seemed darker and longer than ever before.

  ***

  After my blowup with Ryan, I even more so appreciated Willow’s suggestion to go “old school” and get a car service for our girls’ night out ... just as I had when not having a car. I was in no state to drive. My tearing eyes needed their own windshield, nonetheless trying to look out a moving vehicle’s. In addition, I wanted to drink. I wanted to let go for the night. It was something I rarely did because, honestly, I didn’t feel a need to. And bad things usually happened when I went too far. But, then again, I had been swallowed up in bad things for a month already.

  The funny/not funny part was, we were going out to console Willow. She was the one who originally needed the night out, and it was because of a man, too. She and her boyfriend of nearly two years were splitting up. It wasn’t that they didn’t care for each other, and no one was cheating. Tilman wanted to follow the Red Cross, where he worked, to South Africa. It was something he was personally and professionally super excited about. However, it was quite the opposite of Willow’s sparkly, fashion aspirations. Her administrative assistant job at the fashion magazine was only the start. She wasn’t about to leave ... and he wasn’t about to stay. And the more they talked, the more they realized what different lives they ultimately wanted to lead. It was sad. They were both good people but, in the long run, not meant to be.

  “The worst thing is,” Willow said, “we connected in so many other ways.”

  “He was fun and spontaneous and into you and—”

  “Ah, man, Bethany, you’re supposed to be helping,” she whined.

  “He was perfect for a period of time.”

  “Yeah.” She downed the rest of her drink and flagged the bartender. “I just wish I would have seen it coming.”

  “Don’t we all.” I griped and nodded to my empty glass. “Hit me up another, too.”

  “You go, girl.” As she stuck up her fingers for two, I wondered what was helping me more—talking with my best friend or the harshness of the liquor going down. Willow went right back to topic-Til. “I mean, geez, I was even starting to think I was getting a ring soon. And if you and Mr. Mean took any longer with the wedding delay, we could have had a double ceremony.”

  My drink arrived in perfect time. I practically swiped it from the bartender’s hands and gulped down a mighty swig. That one seemed even more potent.

  “When are the two of you getting hitched?” She put her own glass up to her lips.

  “I don’t know.” I tried not to sigh, but I’m afraid, especially with the aid of the alcohol, I did. “It was one of the things we argued about before I came to meet you.”

  Her head shot back a little and her eyelids lifted. “You two never fight, and you are telling me it was about more than one thing?” She was starting to sound drunk, and I was amused and a little envious.

  “Yes, we do. We disagree about things for sure, but, yeah, this one was a doozy,” I admitted. “You know, funny thing how you and a bar seem to be an end result of Ryan and I arguing.”

  “Oh, yikes! It’s not as bad as that, is it?” A best friend doesn’t forget your ups or downs, and the time just over a year before when we were sitting in a similar bar because I didn’t know if Ryan and I were going to make it, definitely qualified as a down.

  “I ... no. I hope not.” At least I wasn’t leaving town for a few days and not answering his calls. “It’s ... everything has been such a mess since ... since Kari. I thought things might be getting better, but he’s ... and the kids ...”

  “Man, those kids.” Willow was definitely drunk, but it didn’t take much with her way-too-slender model body.

  “Yeah.” I took another swig. “And, I feel guilty for wondering even for a moment why it can’t be about me ... me and him. I know that’s not fair.”

  “Girl, we’re all human.” She tapped my hand and then became serious ... well, as serious as she could be at the moment. “You need to set a new wedding date at least. Some of us are really looking forward to it. Because, you know, weddings have nothing to do with the bride and groom. It’s all about the guests.”

  I laughed because it did seem some weddings were like that. But Ryan and I had been blessed. Neither of our families interfered. And it helped that we kept the guest list low with only family and very close friends invited, i.e.: no business or media. It was also nice that Ryan was actually interested in helping plan the nuptials. For even though ours was to be his second marriage, it was his first wedding. He and Kari had eloped in the spontaneous way that two young people do when they found themselves in Vegas and didn’t want to be bothered with any outside forces. Knowing Kari’s moth
er, I couldn’t really blame them.

  “Refuse to have sex with him!” Willow suddenly shouted out, breaking into my thoughts of our day not-to-be.

  “Willow!” I looked around to see if anyone else had heard her, but either the bar was too loud or, if they did, they didn’t care.

  “Yeah,” she continued as if she was plotting to sneak backstage at Fashion Week, “just until you have a day picked out. I know that would be bad for you, too. I’m sure ...” She paused to lift her eyebrows a couple times. “I’m sure he’s good in bed.” When I didn’t answer her, but the heat in my cheeks surely did, she smiled. “But you can hold out, right? Play the headache card.”

  “Ha!” I pointed my finger at my friend, maybe feeling a twinge tipsy. “I wouldn’t need to.”

  “Why?”

  “I had a legit, good one today.”

  “Feeling better now, I guess.” She chuckled, looking at the glass wrapped around my hand.

  “Yeah. Haven’t been up to code. My stomach was acidy and I was tired ... beat.”

  “You’re not pregnant, are you?”

  I was thankful the liquid sprayed out of my mouth and not my nose ... and I hadn’t had a lot of beverage in my mouth to start with. “Geez! No. Oh, my stars, that is all we would need.”

  I reclaimed my drink and sipped with a little more determination. Then, slowly, I started placing the glass back down. My world was beginning to swirl and only part of it was due to the alcohol.

  “Willow?”

  “Yeah?” At least she was a happy drunk.

  “Oh, man, Willow, can I be pregnant?” The last part came out so slow, I think each word was its own sentence.

  “You need me to explain how you get pregnant, preacher’s daughter?”

  I playfully smacked her and her humor. “No!”

  “Why? You think you might be? I was just kidding.” Her eyes seemed to glisten with the possibility.

  Whereas mine, I am sure, were dipping darker. “I ... I don’t know. I know I am super emotional right now, but with everything—”

  “Oh, boy.”

  “Shit.”

  “Preacher’s daughter mouth,” she exclaimed.