“So what’s the problem?”
My mind spins with all my stupid mistakes. I’m not sure which one to choose from. I rub my eyes, trying to bring the room back into clear focus.
“There was this waiter,” I begin, and I hear him groan on the other end of the line. “Yeah, this waiter and he looked like Alex—it wasn’t just me, Rebecca saw it too, and…” I stare at the opening credits of the next episode of About the House. Rebecca smiles out at me, tempts me with a coy toss of her hair. “Kind of freaked me out, the way he looked like Al, red hair and all that. Guess I sort of unraveled.”
“Unraveled?” he coughs. “What the hell does that mean?”
“I flirted.”
“You idiot.” He sounds genuinely angry. “You’re a total idiot, you know that?” His voice rises with irritation.
“Thanks for the sympathy.”
“I’ve been sympathetic for a long time, but that’s the stupidest thing I’ve ever heard,” he says. “Why would you flirt with some guy in front of her?”
“Because I miss him,” I snap, sitting up in bed. “What do you think?”
“You either love her or you miss him. You’re gonna have to choose, man. You can’t hang in between like that. She’s been through a lot of heavy shit. She doesn’t need that. She doesn’t need you flirting with some guy right under her nose.”
“That wasn’t all,” I confess, swallowing hard.
“What the hell else?” he thunders. Casey’s nothing if not capable of tough love. If I’d called Marti, I’d have gotten exasperation, but definitely more compassion. Maybe deep down I needed my gay friend to knock me into line.
“She found me watching that Huntington tape. The one by your TV,” I remind him. “Alex’s last contest.”
It was made about two weeks before he died, and I’d needed to watch it after my first time surfing again since that day, but I didn’t try explaining that to Rebecca when she was so upset.
“How’d she react to that?”
“She didn’t tell me…” I blow out a heavy breath. “Until after I flirted with the waiter.”
“Oh, Michael.” He only calls me Michael when he’s either very upset or extremely frustrated with me. “You’re right. You have screwed up, pal.”
“Thanks a lot. I called for your help.”
“And here it is.” His voice grows serious again. “Alex is gone. He’s been gone. You’ve found someone you love, someone who loves you. But you gotta decide what you want. Right now, I’m not sure you know.”
“I want her.”
“But you’re still holding on to what you had. It’s gone. Alex is back on the riverbank somewhere, but the river kept on flowing. With all of us.” His voice becomes thick with emotion, and he clears his throat before continuing. “I loved him too, you know. Seriously. But he’s dead, Mike, and he isn’t coming back. It’s time to accept that fact.”
It’s like staring in the mirror. Like staring right into Alex’s eyes. I sense him, gazing back through me. Quietly I admit, “I can’t figure out how to let go.”
“And she figures that’s her fault,” he says, startling me back to the moment.
“It’s not her fault.”
“But it’s hard to see past all those scars, man. They pack a load of power. No wonder she figures you’re not telling the truth.”
I’m reminded of my conversations with her about Andrea’s parenthood—how the secrets upset her—erosions in her perception of me as a straightforward honest guy. Especially when I’m flirting with the damned waiter right beneath her nose. Secretly watching videos of Alex. “She doesn’t believe I’m really attracted to her.”
He sighs into the phone. “She believes the mirror, Mike, not you.”
“You’re right.” My voice is hushed with the reality of what I’ve done to her—to us. “God, you’re right.”
“So what’re you going to do about it?” he asks.
Staring at her on the television, a plan begins to take form in my hazy, semi-sober mind, and despite the booze, the plan is very clear.
“Simple, Case,” I say. “I’m gonna get her to believe.”
Chapter Twenty-Five: Michael