“I haven’t even talked to her about it. While I’ve been trying to please you, I disappointed her. But here’s the thing. She’s never thrown it in my face, not once. That’s the difference. She’s never tried to shove me into a box where I don’t fit because it was what she wanted. I’m going to take art classes, I’m going to find out if I’m any good. I’m going to find out if I can be better than good.”
“And just how do you plan to support yourself?” Ward demanded. “You can’t throw your education away and expect us to pay for it.”
“I don’t. I’ll get a job.”
“At some dump of a coffee shop?” Natalie tossed out.
“If necessary.”
“It’s obvious you haven’t thought this through.”
“Mom, I haven’t thought of anything else for weeks. Look at me. Please, really look at me. I can’t sleep. I can’t eat. I’ve got a closet full of clothes you picked out and bought. My social life this summer’s revolved around the appropriate son of a friend you handpicked for me. The clothes don’t fit, and the son of a friend bores me to death. But I wore them, and I dated him, and I lay awake at night with my head pounding. I’ve been seeing Dr. Mattis since June, three times a week, and paying for it out of my savings so you wouldn’t know.”
“You’ll take a semester off,” Tulip decided, her eyes going shiny with tears. “You’ll rest, and we’ll take a trip. We’ll—”
“Tulip.” Ward spoke gently now, coming back to sit without his drink. “Simone, why didn’t you tell us you starting seeing Dr. Mattis again?”
“Because I knew part of the reason I needed to go back to him was you, and it’s not your fault. It’s just reality. It’s me not being what you hope for. It’s me closing myself into that bathroom stall in my head, and being afraid to open the door. I have to open the door. I’m sorry,” she said as she rose, “but you have to let me. I’m of age, and I’ve made my choice. I’m leaving tonight.”
“We’re going to talk this through,” Tulip insisted.
“There’s nothing more to say, so I’m leaving tonight. My bags are in my car,” she added, but didn’t tell them she intended to go to the island first. She needed that bridge before she stepped into the unknown. “Natalie’s leaving tomorrow, and you should have tonight with her. I love you, but I can’t be here.”
She walked out quickly, and Natalie ran after her.
“How could you treat them that way?” Furious, she grabbed Simone’s arm. “You’re ungrateful and mean. Why can’t you just be normal?”
“You sucked up all the normal left around here. Enjoy it.”
She wrenched her arm away, got in her car as Natalie shouted at her. “Selfish, stupid, crazy.”
As she drove, she thought of the day she’d walked out of her old coffee shop job. She couldn’t say she felt happy this time, but she could say she felt free.
*
For a year she waited tables to pay her share of the rent. She wasn’t so proud and independent that she refused checks from CiCi to help defray other expenses, including her classes, her supplies. But she helped herself there, too, by modeling for students.
As she did two nights a week—three, if she got lucky—Simone stepped onto the platform in front of a class, shed her robe, and posed as instructed. Tonight, right arm bent at the elbow, palm open and up, left hand resting just above and between her breasts.
It didn’t embarrass her to pose naked any more than it embarrassed her to sketch or to sculpt a naked model. And the modeling fees helped pay for the instruction, the sketchbooks, the clay, the firing, the tools.
She’d learned she was good, and believed she could be better than good.
*
While Patricia baked her dead brother a birthday cake to commemorate the anniversary of her mother’s death, Simone let herself back into her apartment after a long day, poured herself a glass of wine, and was happy.
CHAPTER EIGHT
In April of 2013, Essie gave birth to a healthy baby boy she and the besotted father named Dylan. As her partner retired that same month, she requested Detective Reed Quartermaine as her new partner when she returned from maternity leave.
Though she happily took that leave, she kept her finger in the pie with regular news, gossip, and reports from her future partner.
Her life, Essie thought as she crept out of the bedroom where her husband and baby slept, had taken so many unexpected turns.
She’d never expected to become a detective second grade, much less part of the Major Crimes squad. She’d never expected to have a man as sweet, funny, smart, and sexy as Hank in her life. She sure as hell hadn’t expected the dizzying wave of love she felt whenever she looked at or even thought about her son.
Her life had taken a turn one night in July, and out of tragedy, the path from it had been, well, pretty damn great.
She poured herself a glass of herbal tea over ice, grabbed one of the maga zines off the stack, walked out to sit on the front porch and watch her little world go by.
She’d probably fall asleep—and she should be upstairs doing just that. Sleep when the baby sleeps had been her mother’s advice. But she wanted the spring air and a little time to bask.
Maybe they’d take the baby out for a stroll later. And maybe the fresh air would help three-week-old Dylan sleep longer than his record of two hours and thirty-seven minutes.
It could happen.
Maybe she and Hank could snuggle up together, watch a movie—and, if she pumped first, drink a little wine.
Maybe …
She dozed off in her Adirondack chair.
Came awake with a start, reaching for the weapon she wasn’t wearing.
“Sorry! Sorry.” Reed held his hands up. One of them held a bouquet of pink-and-white-striped tulips. “I didn’t mean to wake you up. I was just going to leave these.”
“What time is it?”
“About five-thirty.”
“Okay, okay.” She sighed. “I just dropped off for a few minutes. You brought me tulips.”
“I have it on good authority—my sister—that people tend to forget the sleep-deprived mom after the first couple weeks. Why aren’t you sleeping inside the house?”
“I wasn’t going to sleep yet. Sit down. My boys are snoozing upstairs. I could use the company to keep me from drooling on the porch. Wait, go on in and get a drink first. There’s this tea, there’s beer.”
“I could use a beer.”
At home at her place, he went in, got a cold bottle, popped it. He came back, sat down with her. “How ya doing?”
“Honestly, I never thought anybody could be so damn happy. And the hits keep coming. Hank told me today he’s decided to take a year’s sabbatical. He’s going to be a stay-at-home dad. I don’t have to think about leaving Dylan with a nanny or at a daycare.”
When her eyes teared up, she slapped her own cheeks. “God, God, hormones. Will they ever go back to normal? Talk cop to me. That’ll work.”
“We closed the Bower case.”
“You got her.”
“Yeah, the greedy, scheming widow’s booked. Her boyfriend flipped. He gets the deal, she gets murder one.”
He filled her in on a couple of open cases, made her laugh over some office gossip.
“I looked at a couple more houses over the weekend.”
“Reed, you’ve been looking at houses for nearly a year now.”
“Yeah, but none looks back and says: Here I am.”
“Maybe you’re too fussy, and you’re going to end up living your life in that shitcan of an apartment.”
“An apartment’s just a place to sleep. A house has to be right.”
She couldn’t disagree, and yet. “That place I waddled into with you a couple months ago was great.”
“It was close. No direct hit. I’ll know it when I see it.”
“Maybe it’s Portland.”
“Portland’s okay. I’m close to family, I’ll be working with you. That makes up for the shitcan until I get the direct hit.”
“I’d say that’s the same attitude that keeps you from having a serious relationship, but I was the same way there until Hank.”
“No direct hit,” he agreed. “I got an invitation to Eloise’s wedding. June.”
“She’s really doing it.”
“Looks that way. Eloise is taking the plunge, and I think it’s working for her.”
“There’s something else.” She poked his arm. “I can see it.”
He studied his beer a moment, shook back the mop of hair he no longer had to shear short. “You didn’t get the alert?”
“Shit. I don’t even know where my phone is right now. Who?”