Feels Like Falling Read online

  I swatted his arm. “We’re not having kids, psycho. For heaven’s sake, this is a one-time thing.”

  He handed me a cold beer dripping with condensation, then leaned over and grazed my ear with his lips. “Oh, we’ll see about that.”

  As he pulled away, my eyes met his for a second too long. Andrew grabbed my hand and pulled me through the crowd to the door. He looked down at my bare feet, handed me his beer, and scooped me up into his arms as he took off for the beach. I was laughing again, and, right before the shoreline, the moon illuminating the peaceful ocean, he tumbled dramatically, but softly enough that the landing didn’t hurt either of us. The cool sand felt heavenly on my feet, which were sore from dancing in heels.

  Andrew brushed back my hair, which was in a state of total disarray from the dancing, singing, and general sweat-inducing bar drinking. “You know what, pretty girl?”

  I smiled. “What?”

  “I like you.”

  I took a sip of my beer. “Maybe it’s this talking”—I held up my bottle—“but I think I like you too.”

  With our faces only a couple of inches apart, Andrew leaned in and kissed me. I didn’t even think, as I thought I would, I’m kissing a twenty-six-year-old. It just felt good to have a man, or, well, almost a man, as it were, wrap his arms around me.

  I giggled, a sound that hadn’t come out of my mouth in years, and he said, “See? Now, there’s a first-kiss story for our kids. Beach. Moonshine. Light breeze.”

  I rolled my eyes.

  “So what do you want to do now?”

  I shrugged. Then I leaned over and whispered in his ear, like he’d done to me a few minutes ago: “I want to win that karaoke contest.”

  Andrew’s face became serious. “Oh, Gray. We’re going to dominate. That booze cruise gift certificate is as good as ours.”

  We both laughed, and I had to admit that I hadn’t had this much fun in quite some time. It gave me the slightest pang for my mother, a woman who always used to say that fun was the point of it all, that every woman wants to feel like her life is a great adventure. I’d always thought that adventurer gene must have skipped a generation, or that my sister got it all.

  As Andrew took my hand again and led me up the beach, I realized that, at least for the moment, all of my reservations about Andrew and tonight and maybe even what my future held were gone. So I did what my mother would have done. I let go of his hand, ran up ahead, and did my best cartwheel. And I realized that, in the grandest of ironies, this year, the year I lost my mother, I might just have found a little bit of her too.

  diana: mud on a cow’s hind parts

  It was my first—and, God willing, only—weekend before I would get my apartment. I was tired from barely sleeping the last few nights and anxious about keeping it together all weekend, and my gratitude at coming to work for Gray had been replaced by the irritation that her life was moving forward and mine wasn’t. It wasn’t right. It wasn’t fair. And I was so damn tired of being the one getting the short end of the stick.

  I had splurged on a burger, fries, and a soda from the dollar menu, and I was sitting in my car finishing it up late. That’s the secret—you have to wait as long as you can to eat because then you’re still full in the morning, and you don’t need breakfast. I’d learned that as a kid. During the week I got free breakfast and lunch at school, but after that it was every kid for herself at some of the foster houses. I think people outside the system assume someone’s keeping track of whether or not kids are being fed, but that isn’t always true. And sometimes it’s the ones you don’t suspect too. Like, the ones who can’t keep house and seem kind of rude take the best care of you, and the ones that seem all perfect and holy leave you to starve while they’re throwing a bunch of table scraps to the obese dog.

  I climbed in the backseat and pulled some red polish out of my bag to get my toes looking presentable again when I saw a couple kids on the beach. It made me think of Frank and me back when I was young and things were good. I knew what they were feeling just by looking at them because I’d been there too. They’re all madly in love, and they think they’re going to be together forever. It takes you back and makes you feel warm and optimistic. But tonight I didn’t feel anywhere near optimistic. I was pissed off at everyone, even the teenagers canoodling on the beach. Might have been the lack of nicotine. I couldn’t really say.

  Stupid kids, I thought. Don’t have one damn clue about the real world. I watched that young buck moseying up the beach toward the lot where I was parked, his arm slung around the shoulders of some tiny girl in a dress so tight I could see her kidneys. I wanted to rewind time, find a good man, be young and in love. Or, more like, I wanted to rewind to the time when I was young and in love and have that same man I’d wanted deep in my heart for all these years. But since that wasn’t ever going to happen, I just went on about my business of hating these damn loud kids interrupting my rest.

  I was watching them pass by from the backseat where I was lying, when that girl stopped. She smashed her darn face right up in my window, and then she gasped.

  It took me until right then to notice that that wasn’t a girl. It was Gray. Now my heart started racing. She would find out I was sleeping in my car. She’d fire me. Then I’d be back at square one, back to nowhere to go, looking for another job. I could feel the money I’d saved for my deposit floating away.

  She opened the door like it was her car, slid into the front seat, and said, “Diana, what in the hell are you doing? Are you sleeping out here?”

  I could tell she was kind of tipsy by the way the words came out real lazy.

  “Well… um…” I didn’t know what to say, but I was out of excuses. “I’m sure as hell not crammed in this backseat for my health.”

  She shook her head. “Nope. You’re coming to my house.”

  I rolled my eyes. “I can’t go to your house, Gray. We don’t even know each other that well.”

  I wasn’t sure why I was arguing. Going to her house sounded like the best thing I could think of, like jumping into the cool ocean when you’ve been sweating waiting outdoor tables all day in a hundred degrees and full sun.

  “Oh, we don’t?” she said, putting her hands on her hips. “We sure know each other well enough that you felt the need to say I was mad at my poor dead mother.”

  “Yeah,” I said, feeling contrite. “I am sorry about that. I overstepped.”

  She nodded, but she didn’t say I was wrong.

  “Run along now, children. I need to get some sleep. And, again, I’m not coming to your house.”

  Gray leaned over between the seats real close to me. “You’re right. Better to hang out in this deserted parking lot protected by a door that I’m assuming doesn’t lock because I just opened it right up, and wait for God only knows who to get you, than to come spend the night in my guesthouse.” She stopped, and when I didn’t say nothing, she added, “With the running water and the pillows.”

  I sighed. The door didn’t lock right, and someone could get me out here.

  “But what about Trey?” I asked, my last feeble attempt to get out of this.

  “Trey sleeps in the main house because he has to be near me at all times.” She rolled her eyes. “I’m like his therapy dog or something.”

  “Who’s Trey?” her friend asked as I felt myself coming around.

  “He’s a member of the brand,” I said snarkily.

  That cracked Gray up. “See how much fun we have?” she asked. Then she got serious. “If you aren’t coming to my house, then we’re all sleeping in your car tonight.”

  “Fun,” the boy said.

  I rolled my eyes. “You win, Gray. Is that what you want to hear?”

  “It is always what I want to hear.” She reached over and squeezed my hand. “Well, I think it’s pretty clear that you’re the only one who’s fit to drive.” As I started to get out, she slid out of the seat and pranced around to the other side of the car, moving the front seat forward without me
telling her how and sliding into the back, that boy stuck on her like mud on a cow’s hind parts the whole time. All sparkling and happy like she was, she didn’t look a day over twenty-five. That was good, because that boy she was with, he had a baby face if I’d ever seen one.

  I glanced in my rearview mirror at them all cuddled in my backseat. “Can I stay too?” I heard him whisper, sticking out his bottom lip.

  “No!” she retorted. “Are you crazy, Andrew?”

  “Please? Just to sleep?”

  I rolled my eyes, because I knew that boy wasn’t staying to sleep like I wasn’t staying to play Pictionary.

  “Hey,” I said when they kissed. “This isn’t Uber.”

  Gray laughed. “Oh, sorry, Diana.”

  I eyed her in the rearview. “Honey, that boy is way too young for you, and he’s going to be gone before sunrise tomorrow.”

  She laughed. “Oh, don’t I know it. But isn’t he so adorable for tonight?”

  He was.

  “Hey,” he said, “I’m sitting right here.”

  “Oh, lighten up, Di,” she said. “We’re just having a little fun.”

  Maybe it was because she was drunk, and maybe it was because I was mad and cigaretteless, but I realized that, me and Gray, we were talking to each other like we were family already. And when I pulled up in her driveway, I started feeling like, for the first time in a long time, maybe I had a place to go after all.

  * * *

  The next morning, it took me a minute to figure out where I was when I woke up. Not in the back of my car. Not in Harry’s house. I stretched, feeling my limbs sink into the comfortable mattress, the sheets and covers feeling crisp and clean. I sighed and sank my head back into the pillows. This was heaven. Real, true heaven.

  The sun was pouring through the crack in the white curtains that blocked out almost all the light. I glanced over at the clock and popped up. I couldn’t believe I’d slept until damn near ten thirty. I hadn’t slept that long since I was probably twenty. Hadn’t ever had the chance, really, always working like I was.

  And now I didn’t know what to do. It was Saturday, so technically I wasn’t supposed to work. So did I slink out of here and back to the car? Did I stay and work as a thank-you? I was scared and kind of embarrassed to see Gray after last night, but I decided to bite the bullet, face her head-on, and make myself useful.

  I threw on a pair of shorts and a Quality Automotive T-shirt (Bobby: six kids, six moms, always getting pulled over and shaken down for unpaid child support on our dates, real winner), brushed my teeth and hair, and then walked down the steps, out the door, and over to Gray’s back door. I started to put my key in, then realized the door was unlocked. Lord. I hoped she hadn’t slept like that. But as I opened the fridge to make some breakfast, I could hear her and that boy laughing, so at least she had a man to protect her if someone came in.

  I reorganized the fridge and found some good-looking bacon and eggs I had bought earlier in the week. Making breakfast would take my mind off that cigarette I wanted so bad.

  “What are you doing here?” I heard a familiar voice ask.

  “What are any of us doing here?” I responded.

  Trey laughed. He was in a bathrobe and slippers, holding a laptop in one hand and a cup of coffee in the other.

  “Do you ever quit working?” I asked.

  He shrugged. “Do you?”

  “Touché.”

  “So I guess the date went well?” Trey whispered.

  “Sure seems like it.”

  I cut a perfect circle out of a piece of bread and was cracking the first egg, bacon sizzling away on the pan beside me, when I heard the door creak, and Gray came out of her room with her bathrobe on, smiling and giggly, that boy in nothing but his boxers trailing behind her. She stopped real quick when she saw me.

  “Diana! What are you doing?”

  “I figured you two might’ve worked up an appetite.” I smirked.

  Gray made a noise like she was shocked and said, “We did nothing of the sort! I am a lady.”

  Andrew half smiled. “Yes, ma’am, you are.” Then he looked at me, as if I were Mom and they needed to explain themselves. “For real, I just passed out here.”

  “Please do not ever call me ‘ma’am,’ ” Gray said. Then she whispered, “Maybe you should put some pants on.”

  Andrew shrugged like clothes were optional when you looked like him. She gasped.

  “What?” I said.

  “You’re making egg on toast?”

  I shrugged. “Yeah. What about it?”

  “My mom used to make me egg on toast.”

  Then she got real quiet and walked inside her big pantry. I didn’t know if I’d made her happy or sad, but either way I figured I had helped her have some real feelings about her mom. I heard some noise that I figured out was the Keurig once she came out a few minutes later with two steaming cups.

  I finished plating the food, wiped my hands on my shorts, and said, “That’s my cue to leave. Y’all have a good day. Thanks for putting me up and all.” Then, in a loud mock whisper, I added, “You look like a damn fool carrying on with that kid.”

  “Hey!” Andrew said. “Throw me a bone here. I’m having a hard enough time as it is.”

  Marcy wandered in from the backyard, wearing Uggs, worn-out sleep shorts, and an oversize T-shirt. She added, “Yeah, come on, Diana. For God’s sake, she had to sleep with Greg for a decade. She deserves a freakin’ break.”

  Trey turned to me and said, “Where exactly do you think you’re going?”

  “I’m getting my new apartment today,” I lied.

  Gray raised her eyebrows questioningly at me. Then she said, “It’s not like anyone stays in the guesthouse. Seems kind of dumb to waste your money on some apartment when you’ll be coming over every day for the next few months. The summer is just starting,” she added. “Why don’t you stay?”

  My instinct was to argue, but it’s not like I could pretend I was doing great. She had seen me sleeping in my car. No way around that one.

  “I did get you fired,” she added.

  I shook my head. I wanted to stay in that gorgeous guesthouse more than I could say, but I couldn’t do it. It was too much, too soon. It felt wrong.

  “How about we make a deal?” Gray said.

  I wouldn’t take her handout. But a deal? A deal I could do.

  “I’ve been thinking about hiring a professional organizer to get all my closets and drawers and stuff straight. How about you help me with that in exchange for rent?”

  I put my hand out to shake hers. “But it has to be in addition to my normal hours.”

  “Fine,” she said.

  I exaggerated a sigh and said, “Somebody’s got to look after you. You’re a damn mess.”

  “Preach it,” Marcy said.

  Gray laughed and backed up to where Andrew was sitting on the stool and rested against his leg. He slid his arm around her stomach. “No use wasting this gorgeous day,” she said. “I vote we finish this up on the lawn.”

  I grabbed one of the plates and walked into the sunny living room, the rays warming the floors, making them look like fresh honey.

  I breathed for the first time in a long time without thinking about where I was going to go or work or eat. For a minute, for now, I had a place in this world. I couldn’t believe it, but for the first time in a long time, I felt like I belonged.

  CHAPTER 6

  gray: strangers, plural

  Lying on my back on the grass, Andrew on one side, Marcy on the other, Diana in an Adirondack chair dozing, Trey sitting at the edge of the dock with his feet in the water, it finally hit me that I had gone on my first date in more than twelve years. I had kissed a boy who wasn’t Greg and slept with my head on his chest. I had allowed a relative stranger to stay at my house. Looking over at Diana, I realized I had better make that strangers, plural.

  But maybe this shouldn’t have surprised me. I was a notoriously generous drunk. I made
huge donations to charities, placed ridiculous bids on auction items, volunteered to help friends with projects I had no time for.

  But sharing this house that I loved so much, this place where I felt calm and free and alive, was something I had always enjoyed no matter what frame of mind I was in. And maybe that’s why it actually felt kind of right.

  Yawning, I finally said what I had been thinking for hours. “I can’t bear the thought of selling this house.”

  Andrew stroked my arm. “I wouldn’t want to sell it either. This place is awesome.”

  Marcy sighed. “For the millionth time, Gray, don’t sell it. Keep the place.”

  “I thought you had to sell it in the divorce,” Andrew said.

  Marcy laughed with a snort and said under her breath, “She could buy the whole damn street.”

  Andrew rolled over and rose up on his elbows, lifting his sunglasses to show me those gorgeous eyes. “Hot and rich. I knew it. You are the perfect sugar mama.”

  My mouth widened in surprise, and I slapped his arm as he laughed.

  “I’m kidding, I’m kidding.”

  Diana chimed in, coming out of her doze at the perfect moment, “All kidding is at least ten percent truth.” Then a moment later: “Why don’t you keep the house, if you love it so much?”

  I looked up into the sky, the clouds lazily floating by, sun warming this little patch of earth so perfectly. “I guess I thought it would be weird, you know? Like this was our dream house, and now that he’s gone, the dream is gone.” I sighed. “But I can still sort of see myself here at seventy years old, watching my grandkids run around in the yard, taking the boat across to the club.…”

  Andrew leaned over and kissed me, his warm lips melting into mine.

  “Get a room,” Diana said under her breath.

  It was one of those perfect early-summer mornings where the breeze is blowing enough to keep the heat down and the mosquitoes away and you’re surrounded by people whose company you enjoy.

  I was wondering when Andrew was going to leave so the rest of us could recap the night when he stood up and said, “Can I call you tomorrow?”