Coast to Coast Read online

  I pushed past Marty, knowing she’d follow me. I exited the small house and sat down on the top step of the back stoop. Marty’s backyard was seldom mowed, but there wasn’t much grass to worry about. A wide brick walk led from the back porch to a storage shed. There were two lawn chairs in the shade near the back.

  Within a matter of minutes, Marty was sitting beside me, a new bottle of beer in her hand. I just sat there on the top step, leaning against the banister, looking at her.

  “What?” Marty seemed uncomfortable under my gaze.

  “You tell me.”

  “There’s nothing to tell.” She fell silent.

  I waited. I knew Marty would eventually open up. It was just a matter of waiting it out.

  Marty took a long drink of the beer, nearly finishing it in one gulp. “Taylor called last night.”

  I waited.

  “I hung up on her.” Marty rolled the beer bottle between her hands, then stopped to inspect the label. Finally, after several minutes, she asked, “Aren’t you going to ask me why?”

  “I figured if it were my business, you’d tell me.” I knew not to push.

  “I don’t know why. I have no idea. I just got so angry when I heard her voice. I wanted to…I wanted to…” Both hands closed tightly around the glass bottle. “I don’t know what I wanted to do.” She rested her elbow on her knee and put her forehead in her hand.

  I sighed. “I haven’t seen you this bad in a long time.”

  “I should have known better. I should never have tried to make anything happen between us. I should have just settled for the sex. I should never have…” She stopped.

  “Fallen in love with her?” I finished the sentence.

  Marty looked at me angrily. Finally, she softened. “Yes. I should never have allowed myself to fall in love with her.”

  I put my arm around Marty’s shoulders. “It had to happen one of these times. Even you are not immune to love, no matter how hard you try.”

  “It’s a mess.” Marty sank back into her own thoughts, and the silence spread. Finally, she put the empty bottle down on the stair. “She has someone else.”

  “Has she told you that?”

  Marty shook her head. “She denied it, but I know. I can tell the signs. She’s never home at night. And she hasn’t returned any of my calls in the past two weeks.” She let her head drop down to her chest. “I just know.”

  “But she denied it. Perhaps you are wrong.”

  Marty let herself sink against the wall. “She lied to me.”

  “How do you know? How do you know she lied?”

  “I know.”

  “You know. You know,” I forced. “You can’t know everything.”

  “I know this.”

  “You could be wrong.”

  Marty just shook her head. “If she’d only told me. If she’d just said, ‘Marty, it’s over. I’ve fallen for someone else.’ I could handle that.” She looked into my eyes. “She said, ‘It’s not what you think.’ How in hell does she know what I think?” A deep frown spread across her face.

  “Did you tell her what you thought?”

  “Shit, no. I hung up.”

  I contemplated my friend. Marty had fallen for a woman, oh, maybe eight years before. It had lasted about a year and a half. Then, one day, Claudia had moved out. Marty had never discussed it, had refused to talk about it. But since that time, she’d never allowed herself to become seriously involved with anyone. The minute the other woman even started to look like she might want something serious, something longer than forty-eight hours, Marty was off, looking for someone new. It had been a long line of one-nighters. An unusual one may have lasted two weeks, but never longer…until Marty had met Taylor.

  Despite the miles between them, this relationship had lasted over four months now. They had seen each other three times, but the phone time was adding up.

  And what a change I’d seen in Marty! Suddenly, my friend had become talkative, almost cheery. She’d begun to want to do things and go places other than the bars where she could pick up God-knows-whom. That was, until tonight.

  “Have you eaten today?” I wondered how Marty was still upright after the amount of beer I’d figured she’d consumed.

  Marty thought about it. “I don’t think so. I picked up something on my way home last night, but the phone call turned my stomach. I think I left it in the refrigerator. There’s all sorts of food inside, but it didn’t appeal to me.”

  “Want to go get a bite? We could take my car,” I offered gently.

  Marty looked at me, seeing though my strategy. “You think I’m in no condition to drive, don’t you?”

  I smiled. “Oh, come on. Food might make us both feel better.” I stood up and walked out to my car. Marty finally followed me.

  We went to the little sandwich shop where we usually met for coffee and tea. The special that day were bacon burgers, so we each ordered one. It took half way through her French fries before Marty would talk.

  “I don’t know what went wrong. Maybe it’s the distance between us, I don’t know, but she met someone else. I should have met someone else, too.”

  “Marty,” I started. “You didn’t want anyone else. You still don’t. Talk to her, tell her how you feel. Maybe it isn’t too late.” I studied her as I ate a bite of my burger. “Have you told her you love her?”

  “No. There hasn’t been time.”

  “Maybe now is the time. Maybe knowing how you feel will steer her away from another woman.”

  “It’s too late,” Marty muttered, looking down into her fries.

  “It’s never too late for the truth,” I pushed. Somehow, I knew Marty would be missing out on a good thing if she let Taylor slip away.

  Marty filled her mouth again and let the sentiments run through her brain. She didn’t say a thing for several minutes. Finally, as she swallowed the last bite of her sandwich, she asked, “Do you really think it isn’t too late?”

  “Only one way to find out for sure,” I answered.

  “Okay, then, let’s go home.” She reached into her pants pocket and withdrew her wallet. “I’ll pay. It was cheaper than a head shrink.”

  And so I drove back to Marty’s.

  “Go on in and call her,” I told Marty as I pulled up in front of her house.

  “You’re not coming in?” Marty seemed surprised.

  “Why? You don’t need me there. You can talk to her by yourself.” I didn’t know why she’d want me there while she talked to Taylor.

  “But what if she tells me to get lost?”

  I took a deep breath. “And what if she doesn’t? Do you want me to hang around until you find out? You have to apologize for hanging up on her.”

  “Would you come in just until she answers?” Marty asked in her little girl voice. She didn’t use it often, but when she was out on a limb, it was the safest thing for her to do.

  “All right,” I said as I reached for my door handle. “But you’d better call right away. I’m not staying around to listen to make-up phone sex.”

  “Okay. Come on in. I’ll signal if I need you to stay.”

  We both got out of my car and walked up onto her front stoop. Marty put her key in the lock and opened the front door. As we walked in, the phone rang.

  Marty looked at me and hurried into the living room where her phone sat on the coffee table.

  The first thing Marty did was check the readout. Then she slammed it into her ear.

  “Sweetheart, I’m so glad you called. I’m so sorry I hung up on you last night.” Marty rushed on, not giving Taylor a chance to utter a syllable. “Please forgive me. I was going to call you. We were just walking in the front door…Yes, me and Elaine. She convinced me to go get something to eat…No, nothing else today.”

  Then Marty sat down into the big chair and listened. Her face was almost blank, but she frowned from time to time. Finally, she said. “I’m sorry…yes…because I love you.”

  That seemed like my cue to ex
it.

  I gave a small wave that I wasn’t even sure she saw, she was so engrossed in the conversation, and I went outside, closing the front door behind me.

  * * * *

  I got a call the next morning from her when we were both at work.

  “I’m sorry I didn’t see you leave last night,” she started.

  “Well, you were so engrossed in your call, you couldn’t see or hear anything else. So, what happened?”

  “She told me to not ever hang up on her again, and then we talked for almost two hours.”

  “So, are things okay again?” I asked.

  “Mostly. I was wrong about her meeting someone else. She’s been really busy at work, and there were nights she just fell asleep and didn’t hear anything. She apologized for that. She didn’t even know I’d been calling. I guess I shouldn’t just jump to conclusions. I suppose I can be wrong from time to time.”

  “You wrong? Marty Pendleton wrong? Heaven forbid.”

  “Oh, shut up, Elaine. You know what I mean.

  I had to smile. To hear Marty admit she did something wrong was a rarity, not that she never did anything wrong; she just never admitted it.

  “Things are okay?”

  “Yes…and I even said the words I love you. In fact, I said it several times. And she said it, too.”

  “Congratulations, my friend. That’s a big step.”

  Marty sighed. “I know. It felt good, and I didn’t break out in hives!”

  I had to laugh.

  “Go ahead, laugh if you must, but I said it, and I’m proud.”

  “Good for you, Marty. I really mean it.”

  “Thanks. Now we have to decide what will happen.”

  * * * *

  I didn’t hear from Marty for almost two weeks. She was never home or at least wasn’t answering her phone. So I went over to her house to check on her. I arrived at Marty’s house at the same time as Sean.

  “Hey, Sean, what’s up?”

  “Not much,” he said. “You?”

  “Just coming to see if your sister is okay. She hasn’t been answering her phone.”

  “Yes.” He nodded. “I noticed that, too.”

  I looked into the driveway of Marty’s place. “Well, her bike’s here,” I observed. “So she can’t be far away.”

  Marty drove a Harley. An old one, but a Harley. Sean and I had both tried to persuade her to buy a bike that was more reliable, but she wouldn’t part with this one, for God knows what reason.

  Sean walked up the steps and rang the doorbell.

  No one answered.

  He tried again. When there was still no answer, he tried the door. Locked. He rapped sharply. There was still no response.

  “The back door’s probably open,” he said.

  So we walked around to the side entrance. Sean vaulted over the fence to get inside. I opened the gate and walked in. And there was Marty, out cold on the back lawn. Beer cans were strewn about as if there’d been an orgy of twenty or thirty people. I stopped counting the cans when I got to fifteen.

  Sean took a deep breath of relief and kneeled down beside her. Gently, he shook her. “Marty,” he whispered softly as he pulled her to a sitting position. The smell of alcohol assailed us both. “Come on. Wake up.”

  Damn! He looked around at me and motioned to his watch. I nodded my agreement. It wasn’t even noon yet, and she was passed out cold. Or had she been here the entire night? He looked at the cans on the ground. I knew what he was thinking. What a headache she was going to have!

  Marty started to respond, her eyes still closed, a frown on her face. She tried to pull away from him.

  “Oh, no, my dear. It is time to wake up. Open those beady little eyes and look at your incredibly handsome big brother. Come on,” he coaxed.

  Marty tried to pull away, petulantly. “Go away,” she mumbled. “Leave me alone.”

  Sean smiled. This was not the first time we’d seen her in this condition. Marty lived hard and played hard. Drinking hard was not foreign to her.

  Marty lay back down, turned over onto her side and was sound asleep again.

  “All right. On your feet, soldier,” he ordered as he dragged her to an upright position. Her legs were wobbly, but he held her up.

  “Sean?” she mumbled, still groggy. She made an attempt to wipe her eyes.

  “Yes. Sean. Very good. Now tell me your name.”

  He waited. She was still quite a ways from being fully conscious. She pulled away from him, losing her balance. He grabbed her arm to steady her.

  “No.” She pouted. “Go away.”

  Sean held her upright, as he looked back at me with a ‘What now?’ look.

  “Hey, pal,” I began. “Have you been out here all night?” I looked at the blanket stretched out on the ground. “What’s the story, buddy? You’re lucky it didn’t get cold last night.”

  “I think she had enough anti-freeze to keep her warm for the rest of the millennium,” Sean told me.

  Yup. Almost one hundred proof.

  “Go away,” Marty mumbled.

  “I don’t think so, My Little Martian,” Sean said using the dreaded childhood nickname. She had always hated that.

  “Don’t call me that!” she ordered. “You flaming asshole!”

  “That’s not a nice thing to say, Martha.” I knew he was at the extent of his patience when he used her real name.

  Marty turned and looked at him with a venomous stare. “You are an ass, Jimmy!” She emphasized his name more than I’d ever heard it.

  Sean was taken aback by her foul language. He glanced toward the back yard, then back at his sister. Sometimes, her outbursts called for drastic measures. He swept her up into his arms and carried her back toward the garage. He looked surprised.

  “God, she’s light,” he said. “She always seemed so substantial!”

  Although he was several inches taller, one could tell they had both come from the same mold: the same blond coloring, the same slender body type, the same strong jaw. And the same temper.

  “Put me down!” she demanded, still not opening her eyes.

  He set her on the lounge chair and went into the garage. I had the feeling I knew what he was going to do. He came out with the garden hose in his hand.

  “Wake up, Marty,” he tried.

  “Go to hell,” she mumbled as she sprawled back into the chair.

  “All right,” he said as he turned the hose on full blast.

  Marty jumped to her feet when the water hit her. “What the fuck!”

  “Such language.” He shook his head as he continued to dowse her. “You smelled like you needed a shower.”

  “Not with my clothes on, you dipstick!” she said as she sank back down onto the chaise. She held her head. What a headache!

  “How long have you been out here?” I asked.

  “What day is today?” she asked.

  “It’s Sunday morning.”

  “I came out here Friday afternoon.”

  “And what brought this on?” I asked as I stooped down to her level.

  “She hasn’t called.”

  “Taylor?”

  Marty nodded. “I sent flowers, I sent a card, I left two voicemails, and she hasn’t called me back. It’s been two weeks.”

  “There’s probably a good explanation. I imagine she’s been busy again.” What could I say to her? “Remember what happened last time she was never home? You said she didn’t have someone else.”

  Marty hung her head in embarrassment. “She was working too hard and slept too soundly.”

  “See?” I smiled. “I told you there was a reason.”

  Marty nodded. “But then she got mad at me for accusing her of cheating.”

  “I don’t blame her,” I said softly.

  Then Marty broke into tears.

  Sean looked at me. We’d never seen Marty cry. It was unnerving. Neither of us knew what to say.

  “Well, sis,” Sean finally said, “why don’t you go in and take a
shower and get into some clean clothes. I’ll make you brunch.”

  Marty just nodded like a little child. Sean held out his hand to help her up, and she staggered back into the house.

  “Sounds serious,” Sean said to me.

  I filled him in on everything I knew had been happening in the past few weeks.

  “Damn!” he said. “It was probably the one chance she had to get herself straightened out.”

  I agreed with him. The women, well, girls, she brought home left a lot to be desired. I couldn’t imagine anyone wanting to spend any extended length of time with any one of them.

  “Let’s go see what she has to make breakfast.”

  I loved Sean’s cooking. He could make a gourmet meal out of nothing. He prided himself in his culinary expertise. We walked into the house.

  “Well, at least she has some food in here,” Sean said as he rummaged through the refrigerator. “How do cheese, broccoli, and sausage omelets sound?” He brought out a carton of eggs, a wedge of cheddar cheese, a head of broccoli, and a package of sausage links. Then he proceeded to go to work creating a meal fit for a king, or queen, as the case may be. “Pancakes?” he asked over his shoulder. “Or hash browns?”

  “No, too heavy. I’ll make toast,” I offered.

  “None for me, thanks,” Sean said. “I can’t stand that polyester white bread she buys. I should probably make her a loaf of real bread.”

  Ah…the touch of the master!

  “So, how are you and Ryan doing?” I asked as he stood at the stove.

  “Oh, it’s going really well,” he told me. “In fact, he even asked me to marry him.” The look on Sean’s face lit up the entire kitchen.

  “Congratulations!” I reached out and hugged him.

  “Thanks. We haven’t set a date or anything yet, but it’s in the works.”

  “That’s wonderful, Sean.”

  “He said that night we had dinner with you and Marty was a turning point for him. I guess next to Marty, I seemed like the perfect mate.” He grinned almost to himself. “He also liked the way I treated her. He said if it had been his sister, he probably would have belted her.” Sean laughed loudly. “I had to admit it had crossed my mind.”