A Sudden Crush Read online

  My brother looks at me, unsure. He probably wants to shield me from the Internet for as long as he can, but he knows it can’t last forever.

  I stare back at him defiantly.

  “Or we could go shopping instead,” Matt says, smiling and surrendering.

  “Where’s Connor? Is he staying here at the hotel?” I want to say a proper goodbye, and maybe get his number. Who knows?

  “Oh.” Matthew frowns. “He took a flight for the US last night. He asked about you, but I told him you were asleep, so he came back five minutes later and told me to give you this.” My brother reaches inside his jacket pocket and pulls out a white envelope with Anna written on the back. “Why does it say Anna?”

  “He didn’t like the Jo part of my name. He called me Anna,” I explain, shrugging. I take the envelope and shove it in my jeans pocket without opening it. “It’s better this way—I don’t think he’s grand on goodbyes,” I conclude, not sure I believe what I’m saying.

  “Let’s meet back here in an hour and we can go to the mall, okay?” Matt says.

  “Okay.”

  I go back to my room, feeling extremely conscious of the small bump of paper stretching my pocket. I don’t know why it seems so important, but it does. I sit on the bed and notice a plastic bag lettered with the local hospital’s name lying forgotten on a chair. The bag is stuffed with the things I had on when they brought me in for the checkup. I rummage inside until I find a smaller bag filled with my watch, my wedding band, and the necklace Connor made for me. I leave the ring and watch untouched and put on the necklace. Rolling the turquoise bead between my thumb and index makes me feel closer to Connor.

  Now, the letter. I take it out of my jeans and turn it in my hands a couple of times. This is stupid. I finally tear the envelope open and unfold the sheet of paper within. I stare at its contents, baffled. It’s just three simple words…

  Take care, Connor

  I laugh hysterically. What did I expect? This is Connor we’re talking about. I laugh so much that tears form in my eyes, and then I’m crying for real until I’m laughing again. I’m a nutcase.

  25

  Home Sweet Home

  Two weeks later I’m sitting on my bed—technically my brother’s bed, since we’re in his guesthouse—having a pajama party with my best friends. Katy was my maid of honor, along with my bridesmaids Ashlynn and Tracy. Tracy lives in New York, so she’s participating via Skype. Her pretty face is on full screen on my laptop.

  “Stop touching me, you’re freaking me out!” I yell at Katy.

  “I’m sorry, Jo, but I still can’t believe you’re actually here—that you’re real,” she says with watery eyes.

  “I am, okay? So just get over it. And please don’t make me cry again, or tomorrow we’ll all have the worst headache in history.” We did a lot of crying, the four of us. First over the phone, and then in person. Admittedly happy crying, but the headache doesn’t know the difference.

  “One last hug and I’ll be done, I promise,” Katy insists.

  We all hug, including the laptop in our circle, and they finally let me go.

  I remain silent for a little bit afterward before I ask, “So you really thought I was dead?”

  “Oh, Jo, I didn’t want to believe it at first. But after three or four months it was hard to keep hoping.” Katy stares at the comforter for a little while before going on. “I honestly thought your family’s behavior was collectively delusional. I’m so sorry.” She’s getting teary again.

  Ashlynn and Tracy nod in agreement.

  “Don’t be sad, I understand. I probably would have thought the same,” I soothe them. “Do you think that’s why he married her so soon?” I don’t need to define who he and her are.

  “Oh, Jo. I am so angry with that bastard I’d like to strangle him with my bare hands. I still can’t believe the way he treated you,” Tracy rages.

  They’re up to date on the phone call.

  “When he got married,” Katy explains, “we thought that he was in denial, too, and that a rebound wedding was his way of dealing with things. We weren’t happy about it, but honestly, we pitied the guy. We wanted him to stay afloat in any way he could. But the way he shut you out completely when you called him…” She makes an angry noise in between a bark and a growl. “I just want to smack him in the face.”

  “He’s a nothing,” Ashlynn states. “It’s better you discovered it before you had his babies.” Ashlynn is the most independent and least concerned with men of us. She doesn’t plan on getting married before she’s forty, and as for babies, she thinks there’s always a surrogate if her body is not up to the task by then. “And I brought you this,” she adds, passing me a magazine. “The angel has cellulite.”

  I stare at the tabloid. The cover says, “Adriana Amaral exposed without Photoshop!” Underneath, there’s a picture of Liam’s wife in a bikini with a close up that shows the hint of cellulite on her otherwise toned tights. Well, at least she’s not one-hundred percent perfect—just ninety-nine.

  “Let me see.” Tracy’s voice comes from the PC’s speakers, and I turn the magazine toward the camera. “I left his book shitty reviews on every possible website,” she hisses from the computer.

  “Negative reviews help all the same, and he’s the shit, not his book. And I know that he’s a shit,” I say, “but I loved him.” My use of the past tense is solely for my friends’ benefit. “He was my husband, and after he finds out I am alive, what does he do? He hangs up on me because he ‘can’t deal’! What does that even mean? It made me feel like I was less than nothing. I’ve spent five months waiting for him…I was in anguish for him every second of every day, and the fact that he wouldn’t talk to me, not even for five minutes…” Two fat tears escape my lids.

  “We should make a viral tweet saying he has a tiny wiener,” Ashlynn proposes.

  “Aw, but he doesn’t.” I half laugh, half sob. I’m doing this a lot lately. “And he’s going to gain enough free publicity by my sudden reappearance. The bastard!”

  “You should shame him publicly,” says Katy. “Tell everyone how he treated you.”

  “I’ve already been contacted by the press, you know?” I chime in. “I don’t even know how they got my new number—nobody has it except for you guys. But no, tempting as it is, I don’t want to play the victim in front of all of America. And anyway, a press war would boost his sales even more…”

  “I hate him,” Katy vehemently announces.

  “You know what the worst thing is?” I ask.

  “No, baby.”

  “It’s that even after all he’s done, I still love him. In my mind, it’s hard to believe the person I spoke to on the phone is the same Liam I married. My brain refuses to put them in the same person box. It’s like I hate the guy on the phone, and love my husband.”

  I look at my friends, at a loss for words. Then I start crying—ugly crying this time.

  “Jo, hey, Jo,” Tracy shouts from the laptop.

  I turn towards her and she’s making funny faces—Reese Witherspoon in Cruel Intentions style. I look at her and I’m back to laughing; we’re all laughing. We’ve seen her making the same stupid moves countless times before, but it always works. She always manages to get a smile out of us.

  “So, this guy on the island,” Ashlynn says when we stop laughing. “Something we should know there?”

  I involuntarily blush.

  “He’s a bit of a caveman, but he grows on you after a while,” I tell them.

  “Is he hot?” Tracy asks.

  “In a surfer lumberjack sort of way.”

  “Sounds very hot to me,” Tracy comments.

  “Something happened between you?” Katy wants to know.

  “No, not really. He tried a couple of times…”

  “As in?” Tracy asks.

  “I don’t know, I think he was about to kiss me this one time. But, you know, I was married.”

  “So what now? You’re not married anymore,” As
hlynn prompts.

  “No, I know, but it’s not like he left me his number and told me to call. He left me only this.” I take Connor’s note from the bedside table and show it to them. “Plus, he must think I’m such a fool. All the time we were on the island, I wouldn’t stop blabbing about Liam.”

  “You should totally try to contact him. Why not?” Katy again.

  “I don’t know. I don’t think I’m ready for anything right now. I still need to realize I’m not married. It would be too soon to even think about something new, even if Connor wanted to.” I pause. “On the other hand, I can tell you about the times I saw him naked,” I add with a wicked smile.

  We all laugh as I tell them about Connor’s habit of fishing underwater naked, and about the times—yes, it was more than once—I caught him coming out of the water.

  “But enough about me,” I say once I’m done giving them all the details. “Tell me about what’s been going on in your lives while I was away. What did I miss?”

  We spend the rest of the night bitching about almost everyone we know. As I talk to my friends, I can almost feel one of the cracks in my heart slowly healing. I love them. Boyfriends—even husbands now—have come and gone in the years we have known one another, but our friendship truly is forever. Being with them warms my heart to the core.

  26

  Twice as Ugly

  After my night with the girls, I spend my first weeks at home in the same pajama bottoms and t-shirt, entrenched in the guesthouse in utter isolation. I occasionally emerge for a meal every now and then, but I mostly stay in alone. Katy and Ashlynn drop by a couple of times every week for an hour or so, but those are my only social interactions. It takes a while, but eventually I grow tired of crying myself to sleep every night and of spending my days stalking Liam and his wife on the Internet. I even Googled Connor in my desperation. I only found a Facebook profile that looks like an abandoned house. I almost sent him a friend request, but then changed my mind. I’d like to stay friends with him, but maybe he doesn’t want to. I wouldn’t want to be friends with me right now. Anyway, yesterday I called my boss Ada and asked her to meet me to discuss my return to the office.

  Books are what I love, and if anything is going to make me feel better, it’s getting back to work and getting lost in somebody else’s fictional life. We’re supposed to meet in thirty minutes for lunch. I didn’t want to meet her at the office in case there were paparazzi there waiting for me, so we’re going to a nice restaurant near Lincoln Park. No, I didn’t get a big head here. I know that usually writers are less subject to the public’s interest and don’t appear as often in the gossip columns. But throw in a number one bestseller, a plane crash, a Victoria’s Secret model, and a wife who returns from the dead, and you have the recipe for a nationwide scandal that is making the media crazy. And yeah, the bastard is selling more books than ever.

  My worst moment through all this media frenzy was a couple of days ago when I saw a slide show of a wedding pictures smack down. It was a me-vs-the-angel neck and neck. It was shocking enough to see my wedding pictures for the first time, but to have to watch them side by side to theirs was unbearable. Our wedding photographer must have leaked the photos to the press. They must’ve paid him a lot, too. I should sue the vulture, but I have enough negative energies in my life as is.

  When I arrive at Summer House, I leave my car with the restaurant’s valet and a hostess immediately shows me inside, informing me that the person I’m meeting has already arrived. When Ada sees me coming toward her she gets up from her booth, gives me a huge smile, and greets me with a cheery, “Honey, it’s so nice to see you all in one piece!” Which chills me to the bone, as I instantly recognize her I-am-about-to-reject-your-manuscript slash you-have-to-rewrite-your-entire-novel-if-you-want-me-to-publish-it tone.

  “Hi Ada,” I say in a subdued voice. “Great to see you, too.”

  “Joan, you look wonderful. Your hair is unbelievable.”

  I had already let my hair grow for the wedding updo, so after another five months of not seeing a pair of scissors it cascades well past my waistline. It also has a natural shatush thanks to the tropical sun.

  “Thanks,” I mumble, sitting on my side of the booth.

  Considering the situation, I decide to pace myself carefully. I avoid the job topic for most of the lunch. I wait until after we’re finished eating and have made small talk for about an hour to broach the subject.

  “So, Ada, I wanted to see you to ask when I can come back to work.” Knowing her, it’s better if I don’t circle around it.

  She finally drops her fake smile and looks me straight in the eyes. “Listen, Joanna, I have the greatest respect for you, so I’m going to give it to you straight. I’m sorry, but we’ve already replaced you.”

  “With whom?” I ask in a small voice. All my fears are abruptly confirmed.

  “Stacey,” she murmurs.

  “Stacey? But she was hired more than a year ago. I trained her! You made me train my own replacement?” I ask, shocked. “When were you planning to fire me?” Being good at my job is the last certainty I have. I can’t believe they had plans to kick me out.

  “Joan, I’m going to be blunt because I think you are strong enough to take it. Nobody was thinking of firing you, but you were engaged to Liam Grady—we didn’t expect you to come back to work after the wedding.”

  “But I never said anything about not coming back—”

  “It was sort of implied. So you had no intention of quitting?” Ada seems skeptical.

  “No.” At least not until our first baby, I add to myself. “Why would I have wanted to quit? I’m his editor!”

  “And that’s the second problem.” Ada pauses briefly, probably to choose her next words carefully. She likes me, but she doesn’t want to provide me with the grounds for a lawsuit against the company, I guess. “Listen, Joan, I would have had no problem with giving you your old job the moment you came back and asked for it, even if it meant being overstaffed. But my hands are tied. Liam is our bestselling author, and they specifically forbade me from hiring you back.”

  “Who’s they?” I narrow my eyes at her.

  “The big bosses,” she says, referring to Carl Maxwell, the CEO of Bucknam Publications, and his deputy, Bryan Anderson.

  “Did Liam have anything to do with this?” I hiss, caustic.

  “I’m not sure.” She shifts uneasily in her seat. “But even if he didn’t, I think Carl simply didn’t want to risk an awkward situation.”

  “Thank you for your honesty, Ada, I appreciate it,” I say with suppressed fury.

  “Joan, I know this may seem like a gigantic setback, but you’re bright and talented, and I mean it. You can do whatever you set your mind to. With all the publicity that you have right now, you should write your own book. I know you’ve always wanted to. Or you could start you own imprint. Today’s not as hard with the eBooks revolution, and with all the contacts you have, it will take you nothing to succeed. And, believe me, I say this against my own interest.”

  “Thank you, Ada, but I don’t know if I have the energy to do any of it right now,” I say, discouraged and overwhelmed by the whole situation.

  ***

  The rampaging fury I felt at the restaurant only takes the time of the drive home to evaporate and be replaced by utter depression. By the time I let myself in the guesthouse I’m in tears. I stare at my reflection in the mirror and someone very ugly stares back at me. Bloodshot eyes, heavy bluish bags underneath, scattered hair, and ghastly skin. Spending the past weeks inside air-conditioned spaces, hidden under the blankets, never seeing the light of day, bleached away my glowing tan in no time.

  Replaceable, I think, staring at the ghoul in the mirror. I am replaceable. Completely and effortlessly replaceable. Liam has replaced me. Ada has replaced me. It’s like going to your funeral and discovering that nobody’s there, or that nobody really cares.

  I went from the perfect life to a disaster. From a successful ca
reer at a job I loved, to being unemployed and banned from the company I worshipped. I went from being married to the man of my dreams to being single again at almost thirty. And with this face, I’m not going to have a line of beaus waiting for me at the door any time soon. Oh boy, I’m going to die alone. This isn’t real, it isn’t happening to me. It’s just a bad dream. I pinch my arm. No, I’m real. It hurts. I feel panic spread from my stomach to my chest, and suddenly I’m having trouble breathing.

  I quaff some water straight from the kitchen sink to try to calm myself, and pop a couple of pills the doctor gave me if I had trouble sleeping. Apparently, the clinical definition of my broken heart is post-traumatic stress. I change back into my pajamas and sink onto the bed. Today was pointless. I am useless. Nobody needs me. I am replaceable. Now all I want to do is to not think about anything. To not feel this desperation that has been tightly gripping my throat since I’ve been rescued. Who’s going to come and save me this time?

  I don’t have the time to elaborate, as the pills soon do their job and I succumb to sleep, losing myself in a dreamless oblivion.

  27

  A Cat Lady with a Monkey

  “Auntie Jo.”

  I wake up from the pill-induced coma to someone shaking my body under the blankets and screaming in my ears. A tiny someone.

  “Wake up, Auntie Jo, wake up,” she orders.

  “What? What time is it?” I ask, further burrowing my face under the tangled layers of bedsheets and blankets. “I want to sleep.”

  “But you have to wake up!” Sophie insists.

  “No, believe me. I have to sleep,” I protest again.

  “Auntie Jo, Manny’s arrived. We have to go to the zoo to see him.”

  Manny, my baby. I want to see him, but the thought of exiting my linen cocoon is somewhat unbearable.

  “We can go tomorrow,” I say, revealing the top half of my face.