Keeping Secrets in Seattle

chapter Ten


November 12, 2003

The last few weeks have been the worst in my life. Gabe has stopped acknowledging my presence altogether. Nora came over to my house every day last week asking what was wrong, but I couldn’t tell her. When I came down here to Utah, my mother reminded me that it was all for the best. But I don’t know if living with my dad and his idiot kids and crank wife is helping at all.

Flopping down on my bed the day after Valentine’s Day, I began to count the cracks in the ceiling spackle as I dialed Gabe’s number. My heart soared as soon as he picked up the phone. “Hey, Vi.”

“Gabe. Long time no talk. How’s it going?”

“Good. Just busy with work, and…you know.”

“Wedding planning?”

“Ugh, yes. If I see one more centerpiece, I’m going to punch something.”

“Wow. Sensing some aggression. So how was your Valentine’s Day?”

“Good. I made dinner for Alicia, and then we just hung out.”

“Yeah, right. Alicia isn’t the hangin’ out type.”

“She hangs out.”

“Sure, she does.”

“What about you and What’s-His-Name? Bikes and tattoos? Beer bongs and a rousing game of quarters?”

“Ha, ha. Shut up. Landon took me to his parents’ place in the mountains and cooked dinner over a fire. It was very romantic.”

“Nice. Did you get lucky?”

“Stop.”

“What?”

“I’m not discussing it with you.”

“I’ll take that as a no.”

“That’s not what I said.”

“So you did sleep with him?”

“Knock it off, Gabe.”

“Okay, okay. So what did you need to speak to me about, Vi?”

“Well, I…”

“Were Alicia’s friends nice? They can be sort of intense.”

“Well, not really.”

“Dammit. I told Alicia that they’d better be nice. Sorry.”

“That’s not what I was texting you about.”

“Well, what was it then?”

“It’s just that…well, I…you see, when I was leaving, I…”

“Spit it out.”

“Something came up as I was leaving, and I was surprised to hear that Alicia knew about it.”

“What came up?”

“Well…actually, Cameron Hakes came up.”

Silence.

“Gabe?”

“Alicia brought up Cameron?”

“Yeah.”

Silence, again.

“Gabe?”

“So why do you need to talk to me about it?”

“Well, for starters, why did you tell Alicia about that?”

“Listen, I’m on my way into a meeting, and I’ve got to get my presentation together. Can we talk about this tomorrow?”

“Fine. Whatever. When works best for you?”

“I can meet you before work tomorrow morning.”

“Great. Where?”

“My place. Six-thirty.”

“Six-thirty in the morning?”

“I’ve got a seven-thirty meeting.”

“Okay. I’ll be there.”

“See you then. And, hey…”

“Yeah?”

“I, uh…never mind. See you then, Vi.”

…

The next day, I knocked on Gabe’s apartment door. My palms were sweating, my knees were knocking, and it felt like oxygen was low in his high-rise building. There wasn’t enough coffee in Seattle to prepare me for this conversation.

“Hi.” Gabe grinned and held out a mug of steaming goodness when I walked through his door. He looked bushy-tailed as ever—he’d always been a morning person, the complete opposite of me—and already wearing one of his tailor-made suits and a charcoal gray button-down shirt. The aroma of shaving cream lingered like an invisible cloud, and he’d nicked himself just below his jawline. I bit my lip to keep from pressing a kiss against it.

“Hi.” I gazed up at my best friend, and my eyes filled with unexpected tears. I’d missed this. I’d missed Gabe. Before Alicia came along, we’d met for coffee and doughnuts before work at least once a week. I hadn’t seen him since he’d come over to ask me to be in his wedding.

He squeezed my arms. “Hey, what’s wrong?”

I shook my head and forced a little laugh as Gabe led me into his apartment. He’d hired my mom to decorate it for him after he bought it, and it was done in what I liked to call “minimalist yuppie.” Glass tables, clean lines, and black, white, and gray furniture that was all positioned to face his extensive high-definition entertainment system that got channels from as far away as Mars. A far cry from the flea market delight of my own apartment.

We sat at his glass-topped dining room table, and I fiddled with my rainbow-colored gloves for a few minutes before looking up and into Gabe’s concerned eyes. “Nothing’s wrong. I…had a really good time downtown the other day. I’ve just missed hanging out with you.”

His face relaxed a bit. “Me, too. You sure that’s it? Did you and What’s-His-Name have a fight?”

“His name is Landon.” I glanced at him sternly. “And no, we’re doing fine.”

“Sorry. So do you want some coffee?”

I shook my head. “No, thank you. I’ve already had three cups.”

“Three? Geez, Vi.” He looked away, and I breathed a sigh of relief. Gabe’s eyes were my weakness.

I drew a long breath and set my shoulders back, feigning strength. “I want to talk about that night.”

Silence. We sat in our seats, just breathing in the coffee-scented air. Gabe and I both knew what I was referring to.

“All right,” he finally said, his jaw clenched.

I looked out the window. “I want to tell you the truth about what happened between Cameron and me.”

That name tasted rotten on my tongue, and I had to swallow the bile that rose in the back of my throat. This conversation was going to be about as pleasant as smashing my fingers with a hammer, but I had to do it. No way I was going to get through this wedding if I had to stand next to Cameron. Gabe had to decide which one of us he wanted in the wedding party more—Cameron or me.

“First off,” I said, “when were you planning on telling me that Cameron is in your wedding?”

Gabe’s eyes met mine. “I was going to, but Alicia beat me to it.”

I looked up at him, opening my mouth to explain what was troubling me, but every word that came to the top of my throat just toppled back down. Over Gabe’s shoulder, I noticed that there were a handful of black picture frames that my mother had picked to go on his dining room buffet. I’d been bugging him to get pictures into those frames for the past year.

Three of the six frames were filled. One was of Gabe and me at his twelfth birthday party, our heads thrown back, laughing hysterically. One was of Gabe and Alicia, shortly after he’d proposed. Her eyes were bright with tears, and she looked unbelievably happy, as did he. And the last was of Gabe and Cameron Hakes, their arms thrown over each other’s shoulders, both of them sweaty, a basketball under Gabe’s muscular arm.

The chair beneath me suddenly swayed, and I felt sick.

Gabe frowned at me. “Hey, what’s going on? Are you all right?”

I stood, nearly knocking my chair over, and stomped over to the picture. After flipping it facedown, I turned to face Gabe, my arms wrapped around my middle. “I just want to know why Alicia brought Cameron up in front of everyone at brunch.”

Gabe’s eyes flashed. “She brought it up at brunch?”

“Of course she did.”

He groaned. “I guess she thought it was better to get it out in the open. So you’d know that Cam was in the wedding, too.”

“How can you still be friends with him after everything that happened?”

“The same way I’m able to be friends with you, I suppose.” He looked at me with pain-filled eyes. “Vi, why are we discussing this?”

I dragged a hand through my hair. “You need to understand what went on that night. Just because we never, ever talk about it doesn’t mean it never happened.”

Gabe’s eyes pointed down at the table. “I thought I did know what happened?”

My hand came down on the tabletop loudly, sloshing some of his coffee onto the glass. “No, you don’t.”

“You slept with someone at a party while I was upstairs.” His voice was low and metered, but I saw his hand trembling as he fiddled with his mug. “I thought we were exclusive, but we weren’t. It was only our first date, and I was just a stupid, lovesick kid. I didn’t know that you liked Cameron.”

“I didn’t.” My eyes filled again. “We were exclusive.”

“Then why?”

“I should have explained all of this so long ago,” I whispered.

Gabe raked a hand across the top of his head. “Explained what? That you drank too much and had sex with my friend? Vi, I’ve had a long time to get over this. I’m okay now. I wish you could be as well.”

My knuckles were white against the tabletop. “Gabe, that’s not what happened.”

He leaned forward. “Then what did happen?”

I mustered up every ounce of strength I could find and drew a deep breath. “I only wanted to embarrass him. He was always so mean to me. So I flirted with him. I didn’t know that…” My voice trailed off as I glanced at the tipped frame. I was choked on the overabundance of words in my throat, and my eyes blurred as I looked at Gabe. I wanted to tell him. Really, I did. But I knew deep down that the moment my secret came out into the open, everything Gabe and I had worked so hard to rebuild after I came home from Utah would be smashed into a million pieces.

He shook his head. “Talk to me. What’s wrong?”

The buzzing in my head was almost louder than his voice. “This is just bringing up a lot of old feelings. That was a really rough time for me.”

He sighed. “It was a rough time for all.”

I gripped the table edge. “Gabe, that night…with Cameron…I—”

The shrill ring of Gabe’s cell phone sounded, and I released an aggravated moan. Ten steps forward, eight steps back.

He took the call and spoke to the person on the other end tensely. “Uh-huh, okay…yes, I’ll be right there. I’m about thirty minutes away.” He pulled his suit jacket off the back of his chair and slid it on. “See you soon.”

He ended the call and grimaced. “That was my boss. I’m so sorry, but I really have to go. Um…can we finish this conversation later?”

My shoulders drooped. This secret was burning a hole in my brain, and I had to get it out. But every time we got close to the truth, one or both of us toppled backward. Instead of helping Gabe see that Cameron had no place in his wedding, much less his life, I was bickering with him. We’d been sitting here for ten minutes, and I was going to be the stupid best man standing next to the devil incarnate.

“Gabe, it was a miracle you made any time for me this morning,” I told him through clenched teeth. “You say we’ll finish this later, but will we?”

He reached for my hand again. “Please don’t be mad. I’ll call you tonight, and we’ll set up a time to finish.”

I nodded, just once. Every muscle in my body was too tense to offer more than that.

The corners of his mouth tugged downward. “I know I’ve been unavailable lately, and I’m sorry.”

Damn my stupid chest for tightening every time he looked at me that way. “We used to be together all the time. Everything’s changing. We never see each other, we never talk. I miss you.”

He came closer to me, rested his keys on top of the table, and sat in a chair next to me. I suppressed a shudder when his hands enveloped mine. “I miss you, too, Vi.”

“I always knew that someday you’d be getting married, but I always thought it would be…” I bit my tongue.

He nodded, and brought my fingers up to his mouth. “I know. Me, too.”

His chair squeaked as he stood next to me. “Listen, I’ll make sure that we talk soon. And I promise that we won’t be interrupted.”

We were just a few inches apart, and I could smell his shaving cream again. I took a deep breath. “Agreed.”

We walked toward his door.

“Promise me that you’re okay?”

I took a long, deep breath. Was I okay? My health was good. I still had a pulse. My secret was burning a hole in the back of my brain. I was going to have to find some super-human strength from somewhere if I was going to get through this wedding.

“I will be once we talk again. Uninterrupted.” I pulled the door open.

He scooped me into a stifling hug. “Whatever’s going on with you, I…I miss you. Okay?” He spoke into my hair, his breath against my scalp. The inappropriateness of the way he gripped me sank down into my core as his fingers spread against my lower back, holding me against his body tightly.

Muttering my good-bye, I pulled away briskly and made a straight shot for the stairs. I couldn’t handle being that close to Gabe anymore. That was going to have to stop if I ever wanted to be able to move on.