One more gimlet for me and something called a Dark ’n Stormy for him, plus a couple orders of portobello sliders later, most of which Mason ate, and I had laid out the whole story, including the manila envelope taped to the front door and Casey’s impending arrival back in Pasadena. Mason reacted with shock, disgust, hooting and hollering at some of my actions, and just the right amount of attitude so my story didn’t dissolve into misery with company. By the time I finished the drink and the diatribe, it was well past zero hour, as I sneaked a look at my watch and saw the time. I made it. Casey would have come and gone, and I was still standing. I wanted to stop talking about me, so I started talking about Mason. “What have you been up to since we met?”
“Saving lives,” Mason said, and then gave me a little more background. He was from Jackson, Mississippi. His father was a doctor who practiced family medicine and taught at the med school there, and his mother was a nurse who worked in the public schools. He picked emergency medicine as a specialty because the hours were predictable shift work and when he was done for the day, he was done for the day. No office to maintain, no insurance forms to fill out. He loved his work. “I was never going to be anything else, except maybe Batman, and being an ER doctor is about the closest to Batman you can get in the medical profession.”
He went to undergrad and med school at Ole Miss and wanted a change of scenery for his residency. And then there was the old girlfriend. “She’s an actress, so we moved out here together. But she’s, um, intense, so that didn’t really work out. Or maybe I’m a terrible boyfriend, which could also be true, so there are no hard feelings. But I liked it here well enough, so I stayed.”
“Will you ever go back to Mississippi?”
“Sure, I miss SEC football and humidity.” I was skeptical, not about the football because I know nothing about sports, but about the humidity. “No really, I do. My skin is so dry here.” In that minute, Mason Andrews seemed like the opposite of Casey Harper: genuine and charming, not a whiff of manipulation about him. If Mason Andrews said his skin was dry, it must be dry.
My own skin was starting to feel warm, and then the reality of the situation hit me: I had a room upstairs in the hotel. I could make a night of this chance encounter. I was single again, and the rules that governed our interaction last week at the museum no longer applied. I could weigh myself down thinking about how that could possibly change in a week or I could “let life come to me,” as my mother suggested. Which creeped me out a little because I didn’t really want to think of my mother at a time like this.
I immediately felt self-conscious, as if I must look like the most obvious on-the-prowl near divorcée in the place, and I certainly wasn’t the only one, as the crowd had aged up considerably in the past hour. Mason and I were now on the younger end of the scale, as Pasadena regulars filled the tables, mixing and mingling like the old friends they were. Really, I wanted to shout, I’m just here so I don’t hear my cell phone buzz. I’m not looking for anything else.
“I think I need to call it a night,” I told him. Okay, no more gin for me, no matter what he suggests. “Thank you, Mason, for keeping me company. I’m so glad I ran into you again. You’ve been very helpful.”
Mason waved down the bartender by calling out his name. “Helpful? Well, that is quite a compliment.” He paid our tab, quietly without fanfare. I acknowledged the gesture. He explained, “I live nearby and use the gym here, so this is like my neighborhood bar. I like to take care of things here.”
“That explains the wet hair and the fact that you know the bartender’s name.”
“I’m walking home. Let me escort you to the valet,” Mason said with mock formality as he stood and pulled back my chair, offering his arm.
I accepted. “I’m staying here tonight. I have a room in the hotel.”
There was a slight pause in Mason’s step, and then he offered to walk me up to my room. I didn’t object, mainly because after nearly a decade of being attached to someone else, I was caught off guard by the offer. “Sure.”
On our way out, I spotted a familiar face seated on one of the couches near the fire, in a big group of women. It was Candy, of course. And she gave me a thumbs-up.
“This is me.” We reached the door of room 301. I turned to face Mason, whose eyes were focused on mine. I noticed that his hair was dry now and looked incredibly soft. “I don’t know what I’m doing.”
“Don’t worry, I do.” He leaned in and kissed me. His hands rested on my shoulders, then pulled me gently into him. He smelled like fresh laundry and sage, and tasted like dark rum. The kiss felt wonderful. I had missed moments like this, the ones filled with promise. But I wasn’t ready. Not at all.
Mason pulled away slowly. “I can’t do this,” I whispered, almost hoping he didn’t hear me.
But he had. And, in his richest drawl of the night, he said, “I’m going to let you get some sleep, Miss Joan Blakely. But if you change your mind, you can find me here most Sunday nights.” He reached out and ran his finger across my cheekbone. His hands were rough, like they’d been washed a million times, and they probably had, given his work. I liked the friction. “Sound like a good plan?”
I smoothed his hair because I’d been tempted to do that all night. It was soft. “That could take a while. How do I know you’ll still be . . . hanging out at this bar?”
“I told you, I’m a terrible boyfriend. Don’t worry, I’ll still be here.”
I checked my phone. There were three calls from Casey and a single text. I deleted the voice mails without listening to them but read the message. Clearly, Casey felt as relieved as I did in that moment. It read: It looks like you’ve made your decision. I understand.
Chapter 5
I soaked in the silence of what we at the museum called the “Birthing Room,” a spectacular gallery of eighteenth-and nineteenth-century European paintings, many of which featured Madonna and Child. I enjoyed sitting in the quiet gallery after hours for contemplation. On my mind today was a question about why a total stranger at the nail salon gave me a little “Fight On” fist and declared, “We’re all rooting for you!”
Thanks to CandysDish.com, my situation had gone public, and my mother was right, support was staunchly on my side. Lydia, my favorite guard at the museum, whose grasp of art history rivaled that of some of the curators, had given me a thumbs-up when I entered her area, then, using her gallery voice, whispered, “Bastard. Let’s do that to him.” She pointed at Picasso’s Cubist masterpiece The Ram’s Head, a disorienting still life featuring an animal skull surrounded by deconstructed fruits, vegetables, and fish tails. She made the international sign for decapitations, saying, “Say the word.” I thanked her, fairly confident I’d never look at that painting the same way again.
From the outside world, kind notes flooded my inbox and mailbox. There were invitations for happy hours and coffee on my voice mail, from old friends and emboldened acquaintances, all of whom wanted in on my misery. Casey’s betrayal had made me a folk hero of sorts, especially to the squads of women who’d been done wrong. I couldn’t leave the house without a Pasadena matron accosting me to confess her husband’s longtime mistress, her father’s secret family, or an uncle’s illegal tax scam that resulted in the loss of a family fortune and the country club membership. Apparently, everybody’s got at least one skeleton.
As the mother of a high school classmate said to me at the gym, “We used to think that your life was so perfect, but now we know you’re one of us.”