Deeper Illusions Read online

  “We? You said to meet you there,” I said. I actually had the devious plan to stand him up and run. Of course, running was not as simple as it might have seemed, seeing as I was short of cash. But my mind was thinking desperately that I could hop a Greyhound to Los Angeles or somewhere, then try to figure things out from there. Poor Lena would be left high and dry, which would mean that there would be one more victim of my bad decisions, but I was only thinking of myself and Dalilah.

  And how much I still couldn't face Ryan.

  Yes, Nick said that Ryan and Nat aren't exactly a couple, which was ridiculous to me. Gorgeous, sweet Nat, and he doesn't want her? Well, I used to think she was sweet, anyhow, before she slept with my husband. Ex-husband. Nope, current husband – Nick was right, that divorce is now null and void.

  Nick was looking at me, with a pissed-off and incredulous expression. “Yes, I know I said meet me there, but I immediately thought better of it. I don't trust you to meet me there, and Ryan would kill me if he knew that I found you and let you slip through my fingers.”

  “Why are you here, anyhow?”

  “Business. I've been hired to design a building out here, and, lucky you, I've already had our meeting, and I was prepared to go home this afternoon. Stopped in to this Starbucks for a cup of coffee, and, boom! There you were.”

  “Yeah. Lucky me.”

  Fate was stalking me in the guise of Nick.

  “Well, now, let's get into my rental car and head up there, shall we? We have about four hours to wait for the plane, so we can use this time wisely.”

  I immediately felt threatened. What did he mean by that? I used to be so trusting of people, but after Andrew raping me, and Ryan cheating on me, my faith in the male gender was faltering.

  He was looking at me and smirking.

  “Nick, I can't go. Please let me just meet you there in a few hours. I have to pack and everything.”

  “Nope. You're coming with me.”

  Another pushy guy.

  Just then, Dalilah starting screaming, and I picked her up, bouncing her up and down. I reached into my diaper bag for some bottled breast milk, and she took the nipple and started sucking hungrily.

  While I fed her, I said to Nick “I do have a job, you know. I have to be there in about a half hour.”

  “Baby, you aren't coming back here, so you might as well tell that job that you quit.”

  “I have a roommate, too. What's she going to do? I agreed to watch her kid while she worked, and she watched mine while I worked.”

  “Set her up. Give her the money for day care and rent until she can find something else.”

  I sighed. That was probably what I would have to do, to make things right. Which would mean that I would have to get the money out of the bank, the money that I swore I wouldn't touch in my lifetime. Or, I could just get a cash advance on the Visa card. I had about $10,000 left on it. “I guess I’ll have to do that,” I said. “I wonder if $10,000 will do her for awhile?”

  I was sounding like Ryan now, throwing away money like water.

  “Whatever you gotta do to make things right.”

  “Well, we signed a 12-month lease. I can't just leave her high and dry.”

  “I don't care what you do. All I know is that you're coming with me. And we have four hours to get things straightened out. Because, trust, I have a lot to tell you.”

  “Let me call Lena,” I said, digging out my cell phone. Dalilah was still sucking hungrily on the bottle, so I balanced her with one hand, while calling with the other.

  “Let me take her,” Nick said. I nodded, and handed her to him while she cooed. He cradled her in his arms and continued to feed her. He seemed mesmerized by her. “Goddamn, she's the spitting image of her dad,” he said, raising her above his head.

  “That she is,” I said, calling Lena. She answered the phone. “Lena, it's me, Iris.”

  “Iris the gajillionaire who acts like she's a bum?”

  “I said I was sorry about that. Listen, there's been an emergency.”

  “What kind of emergency?”

  “I have to go back to Kansas City for awhile.”

  “How long is awhile?”

  “I might not be back.”

  “Thanks. Now I'm stuck with the entire rent, and will have to pay for day care. Thanks a lot.”

  “About that. Um, would $10,000 tide you over until you can get out of your lease and find somebody else to watch Samuel?”

  “You're just going to give me $10,000?”

  “Yeah. I figure that will cover my half of the rent for half a year, plus some of the day care for half the year as well.”

  “What's the catch?”

  “No catch. I just need to make things right with you.”

  “You're not so bad after all. Sure, I'll take that.”

  “So I need to transfer the money into your bank account.”

  “Ok. You better not be a scammer,” she said, as she read off her bank account and routing number.

  “Thanks Lena. Sorry it didn't work out. I thought it would be pretty fun to share a place with you,” I said, while I worked on getting my cash advance, then transferring the money into her account.

  “No, thank you,” she said. “You take care. Why are you going back, anyhow?”

  “I need to fix the mess I made. That's why I'm giving you this money – it wouldn't be fair to leave you in a mess as well. I should have a motto of only screwing up one person at a time.”

  She laughed. “I have to admit, that's a good motto to have in life.”

  “Take care of yourself.”

  “You too.”

  I got off the phone and watched Nick, who was enchanted with baby Dalilah. He was cooing to her, baby-talking her, and rubbing her round belly. She laughed out loud, as he tossed her a little bit into the air. “I’m your Uncle Nick, your Uncle Nick,” he said, picking her up and down. I looked at him expectantly, and he finally turned his attention to me. “We good?”

  I nodded, feeling resentful. I knew that I would eventually go back when I was ready, but I wanted to go back on my own terms. And when I was ready. That was key. At that time, I was still in la-la land - working my job, trying to adjust to being a single mother, and trying to forget about Ryan and his new family in Kansas City. Also, I was trying to forget his awful betrayal. His awful betrayal.

  Now, I was going to have to face it, and I just wasn’t ready.

  “So, how old is Dalilah?” he asked.

  “I would imagine she’s the exact same age as – what is the name of Nat and Ryan’s baby?”

  “Christopher.”

  “She’s the same age as Christopher.”

  “So, about four months, huh?”

  I nodded, suddenly realizing that I had been out here for about eight months. Eight months since I last saw Ryan. I had to admit that he did look like a ghost of himself when I saw him. I wondered how he looked now.

  “Oh, crap,” I said, suddenly remembering Madison. “I can’t go until I get my cat.”

  Nick rolled his eyes. “Where is your place?” he asked. “I’ll call one of my buddies out here to bring you the goddamned cat.”

  I gave Nick the address, and he got on the phone. “Yeah, Jack? I need you to do me a favor”… “I need you to pick up a cat and bring her to the Starbucks here on Market Street.” Then he gave the guy my address, and looked at me and gave me the thumb’s up. “Thanks, man,” he said. “I owe you one.”

  Then, not fifteen minutes later, I saw a dark-haired man in a leather jacket and sunglasses approach us with a carrier in hand. I could hear Madison yowling. Nick got up and took the carrier, giving the guy an iced coffee that he ordered before Jack came on the scene. He patted him on the shoulder. Then he looked at me. “Here she is,” he said, giving me the carrier. “Now, let’s move.”

  We walked to Nick’s rental, Nick carrying Dalilah and me carrying Madison. The car was a spanking new Ferrari. “Crap,” Nick said. “We can’t take this car wit
h Dalilah and the cat.” At that, he called somebody to come and pick up the Ferrari and take it back to the rental place. “We’re going to have to hail a cab,” he said, getting off the phone and motioning for the cab that was approaching. It stopped, and we got in after I fastened Dalilah’s car seat. Nick sat up front.

  We got to the airport hangar, where there was a bar, and Nick got a Scotch, which was what Ryan always drinks. I got a glass of iced tea. Dalilah was still nursing, and I was trying to do everything right. I was feeling stressed about the poor cat, but I hoped that she could calm down some and fall asleep. As it was, she was still mewling and crying in her carrier, and my heart broke a little.

  “So, go ahead. Give me all the dirt of what has happened since I’ve been away,” I said.

  “What’s there to tell? Ryan is devastated. He barely talks to me anymore. Nat does, though, all the time. She’s good friends with Alexis, so she hangs out with us a lot.”

  “Alexis. You’re hanging out with her?”

  “Yeah. I’m living with her now.”

  I raised my eyebrow. This was getting more like Days of Our Lives every second.

  “When did that happen?”

  “The shit hit the fan after my soon to be ex-wife found out about Ryan and me. As I knew it would. Fuck her, though. I shouldn’t make any apologies for that.” Nick motioned for the waitress. “At any rate, it was bound to fail. We were just too different.”

  “But Alexis? Really?”

  “Yeah. Listen, I’m sure that Ryan told you that the three of us used to be together?”

  “He said something about that.”

  “Anyhow, we spent a summer in college at a Hampton’s house. We all messed around with each other, and Alexis and I started to have a thing for each other. Just each other. It was kinda a mess, to tell you the truth.”

  “Kinda a mess?” That was an understatement.

  “Yeah. Word to the wise – never get into a three-way relationship with your best friend and his girlfriend. It never ends well,” he said, shaking his head.

  “Thanks, I’ll take that advice.”

  “Anyhow, Alexis and I hooked up a lot behind Rielle’s back over the years. Alexis was always in love with Ryan. Always.”

  “Sounds familiar,” I said, thinking of Nat.

  “When he married you, she finally gave up, and, well, we were single at the same time. We always liked each other. And, most importantly, she’s perfectly fine with my bisexuality. I can be exactly who I am around her. So, now we’re together.”

  I sighed. Why did I foresee a messy quadrangle between Nick, Ryan, Alexis and Nat in the future?

  “Thanks for catching me up. But what about Ryan?”

  “As I said, he doesn’t talk to me much. I call him all the time, but he is very laconic.”

  I remembered that the word “laconic” was what Sarah said about Ryan before he met me.

  “So, what I know about him I hear from Nat,” Nick continued. “Poor Nat doesn’t know what to do. Nate actually wants her back. He told her that he doesn’t care if Christopher is Ryan’s, he wants her back. But Nat doesn’t want to go.”

  “And why not?”

  “I don’t think you realize how much that girl is in love with Ryan. She makes it out like it is a little crush, but it has always been far more than that. So, even though she can’t get Ryan to touch her, and she can barely get him to talk to her, she’s sticking it out.”

  Sticking it out. With my husband.

  “So, what does Nat tell you about Ryan?”

  “That she thinks he hates her. He does blame her for what happened to him and you. He has a point.”

  “But he keeps her there.”

  “Well, of course. His presumptive child is there, although, as I said, I highly suspect that. He has told Nat that they are basically roommates who are raising a child together. Nothing more. She won’t accept that, though. She always thinks he’ll come around.”

  “I take it he’s not coming around, though?”

  “No. He has told her, point blank, that he will never love her. When she asks why not, he always just says that he’s still in love with you, and he never sees that changing.”

  My heart melted still further. “He says that? That he’s still in love with me?”

  “Have you not been listening to me at all? He’s told anybody who will listen that you are his soul mate. Ryan isn’t the type to take that sort of thing lightly.”

  “What about his, uh, relationship with you?”

  “What about it? Listen, I really don’t consider him to be bisexual. Yeah, he and I get into it, and I know we have feelings for each other that go beyond bros. But he doesn’t get around with guys. I do, though, and I still do. I make no apologies for that. As James Dean said, why would I want to go around with one hand tied behind my back?”

  I would imagine that the men he gets are as smoking hot as the women he gets.

  I was afraid to ask the next question. “You said earlier that you didn’t think he was back on drugs. Are you sure of that?”

  “No, not sure. But Nat doesn’t think so. He doesn’t sleep much and he doesn’t eat much, so he is starting to take on the junkie look that he had in college. But she checks for track marks, and doesn’t see any, so she doesn’t think he’s using. Oh, and there’s one other thing.”

  “What’s that?”

  “Nat says he paints rather obsessively. I mean, he’s at work a lot, but when he comes home, he really doesn’t pay attention to Nat, or Christopher, for that matter. He goes into his studio, and he paints portraits of you.”

  “He does?”

  “Yeah. She said he must have 50 portraits of you in that studio. Oh, and by the way, there still isn’t a stick of furniture in that house. Aside from the baby room, that is.”

  “What? Where do they sit and eat and stuff?”

  “Orange crates and TV trays. They sit on the floor. Except, of course, for the baby room, like I said. Nat got that decorated, but he refuses to get furniture for any other room in the house.”

  I wondered where Natalie slept.

  I didn’t want to know.

  But I asked anyhow. “Where does Nat sleep?”

  “She has a bed in the baby room. It’s a nice queen-sized bed.”

  “Why no furniture?”

  “Because he thinks that you will be home at any minute, and he promised you that the two of you would decorate the house together. Are you starting to get the picture here?”

  “But Nick, he doesn’t know about Dalilah. How I lied to him. He probably will never forgive me.”

  “I don’t think he should’ve forgiven you for the stupid stunt you pulled when you went off the grid like that. Jesus fucking Christ, why would you do that? Don’t you see that your actions were the snowball that started the avalanche that resulted in all of this bullshit happening?”

  “I wasn’t in my right mind.”

  “I know that, and I’m sorry for what happened to you, but you made some really poor decisions there. Any normal woman would’ve called a friend, or gone to a rape crisis center. But no, not you. You decided that the best course of action would be to go to a drug house and get high.” Then he looked thoughtful. “Come to think of it, that was Ryan’s reaction to trauma, too, so I guess that you guys do have something in common.” Then he looked at me again. “But not calling him and turning off your phone was inexcusable. And just plain stupid.”

  “I didn’t want to be found. I didn’t want to go back into that house.”

  “Don’t you think for one second that Ryan is sensitive enough not to make you go into that house again? As much as he protects you and takes care of you, and you think that he would just go ‘la la la, I think I’ll make my wife re-live her trauma every time she looks at the kitchen floor?’”

  “How did you know it was on the kitchen floor?”

  “I found some blood there. I didn’t tell Ryan that, though, over the phone, when he called from Tokyo. He wou
ld’ve gone absolutely ape-shit.”

  Dalilah started screaming again, and I picked her up and put her on my lap. I put a pacifier in her mouth and felt her bottom. “Would you excuse me? I have to change her.”

  “Sure,” he said.

  When I got back, I put Dalilah back in her bassinette.

  Nick continued. “Anyhow, I had never seen Ryan so enraged when he found out what happened to you. He immediately knew that it was Andrew who did it, and I literally had to talk him out of finding him and killing him. He literally would have. Ryan maybe a putz when it comes to women, but he’s not a pussy. He’s been around tough people in his life, and he felt he could take him.” He shook his head with a smile. “A retired government assassin, and he thought he could take him. That’s Ryan for ya.”

  “Ryan told me something about that. He told me that you talked him out of killing him.”

  “Yeah, I had to. The only thing that brought him to his senses that I told him what impact it would have on you. It took him less than a second to realize that you would suffer even worse for his actions, so he put the gun away. But I had never seen him so devastated and angry as he was at that point.”

  Nick confirmed what Ryan told me about his feelings about my rape. I was reminded, anew, of how much Ryan was affected by what had happened to me.

  “Now, of course, Ryan and his father are strained again,” Nick said. “The father was the one who hired Andrew, although Ryan had him checked out independently. Andrew was clean. Turns out he was far from clean, and he had a target for you.”

  “Target for me? What does that mean?”

  “It means that the bastard lied about Rochelle hiring people to come after you. Rochelle did no such thing. Andrew lied and said that she did, so that it made it seem that you really needed his protection. He was apparently concerned that he wouldn’t get the job unless he made it look like there were a bunch of people out there, gunning for you.”

  “How did you find that out?”

  “It’s hard to prove a negative, but Ryan hauled Rochelle in for a lie detector test about it. She passed with flying colors.”

  “Sociopaths usually can beat those tests.”