“Next one.” I hold my hand out to her, and she places another sheet of paper between my fingers.
Jo-Jo,
Can’t believe this is happening! I mean what the Hell?
I’m sure you’ll be happy to hear that we are
getting married. I finally took your advice and asked her.
Wow! I guess I should say thanks. Thanks!
I’ll be in Florida visiting her next month, maybe we can all
do lunch; your man and O and I. Won’t kill you to talk to her!
I know there’s some kind of sordid past between the two
of you, but whatever it is, she’ll get over it. You are the
force that brought us together after all. Let’s talk
soon.
The Engaged,
Turner
“Fuck,” I say.
“That’s an understatement,” Cammie walks around to where I’m sitting and flips open Caleb’s copy machine.
“She set me up! She somehow knew I went to Texas and she had one of her friends make moves on me—to keep me away from Caleb!” my voice is getting louder now and Cammie pats me on the shoulder sympathetically.
“Turner is Leah’s friend. She used him and he didn’t even know.”
“Well, she gave him Superbowl tickets. Those aren’t easy to come by you know,” Cammie pushes the start button and a whirring noise fills the room.
“I am engaged to Leah’s stogy.”
I feel like balling my eyes out and breaking her filigree egg at the same time. How could I have been so stupid? No, I wasn’t stupid. There is no way I could have known that Turner and Leah were connected. But, I should have known that she wouldn’t trust me to stay out of Caleb’s life and that she would take extra precautions. I was planning a wedding with her precaution!
“Let’s burn her house down,” I say standing up.
“Now, now, Lucy, this is Caleb’s house, too. No need to punish him for what Leah’s done.” Despite the fact she’s supposed to be Ethel, she uses a Ricky Ricardo accent.
“I just saved her from a twenty- year jail sentence,” I moan. “I defended that disgusting, evil, treacherous little bitch.”
“Yes. Too bad you’re such a kick ass lawyer huh? Anyway, there’s more bad news…”
“More? How could there be more?”
She pulls a stick out of her back pocket and places it in my palm.
“What is it?” I choke, blinking back my tears. Cammie rolls her eyes.
“A fertility monitor.”
“Huh?”
“It’s a test stick used to monitor hormone levels present in your urine…so you can get preggers…”
I flip my hand over and drop it.
“They’re trying to have a baby?” I gasp. Why hadn’t he told me that?
“She is trying to have a baby. I found that little sucker hiding out in a ‘secret’ shoebox with those letters,” she nods to Turner’s correspondence, “and a fertility chart. If they were both trying to have a baby, don’t you think her baby gadgets would be in the bathroom cabinet?”
I stare at her blankly.
“O-livia! She is trying to get pregnant because you are back on the scene She’s scared of losing him. Caleb doesn’t know! You have to stop them before he is trapped forever.”
“Why? I can’t—” I say, miserably slipping into the chair.
“A fertility chart,” I repeat and I have no idea what that is.
“Yes, it tells her the days she will be most likely to be able to conceive. What century are you from?”
“Did the fertility chart say this weekend?” I feel the breath sucked out of me now, like someone just punched me in the stomach.
Cammie nods.
“Here,” she hands me the photocopies of the letters from Turner. “Look, it’s time to do something. And I’m not talking about your usual routine of sneaky and dishonest. This time you need to tell him the truth and come clean about everything.”
“Like what? What’s left to come clean about? He already knows the big stuff.”
“Like, telling him that Leah ran you off when you left Florida and that she tried to bribe you with money…how about that?”
“That’s not going to make a difference. He already knows she’s as rotten as I am. He freaking loves immoral girls.”
“What about confronting him about his feelings for you? He found you again, even after he knew what you did when he had amnesia. He’s still in love with you, Olivia. You just have to convince him of that.”
I think about how he showed up to my condo the night before Leah’s sentencing. He was always showing up wasn’t he? Showing up at the music store, showing up at the grocery store, showing up in my office. Damn it. Cammie was right, there had to be something to that.
“Okay,” I say.
“Okay,” she agrees. “Now turn that computer on, we have to find out where they went.”
Two hours later, I walk through the door of my condo. The windows are open and the salty sea air hits my face. I take it in in great gulps and start searching for my rat fiancée. I remind myself to be calm, to act like a lady, but when I see him sunbathing on my oversized patio I swear at him loudly, so that he spins around almost dropping his water.
“Here,” I pull the ring from my finger and toss it at him. It goes careening across the tile and spins to a stop at his feet. “I’m going on a trip. When I get back, BE GONE.”
He jumps up looking confused. He is looking left to right like the answer for my erratic behavior can be found there.
“Wha—?”
I take in his salmon colored swim trunks, his Gucci sun glasses, the way he moves like a robot, and I inwardly cringe. What was I thinking?
I wasn’t! I was stuffing something in my heart. Cammie was right!
“You know Leah! All these months of me defending her in court and you never said a word!”
Turner’s face goes white, despite his ridiculous tan. He flaps his hands around like he can’t decide whether to surrender or point at me.
“You dated me for Superbowl tickets!” I am yelling now.
“Yes, but—”
“Shut up! Just shut up.”
I collapse onto a lawn chair and put my head in my hands. I feel like I am ninety years old.
“Turner, we’re not right for each other. I don’t want to marry you, I’m sorry.”
“Well,” he puffs. “Don’t I get a say in this?”
I look at him from between my fingers.
“No, actually,” I sigh and stand up. “I have to go pack.”
I head inside.
“Why?” he calls after me. “Why can’t we work it out?”
I pause looking over my shoulder.
“There’s nothing to work out. I can’t give you something that I don’t have.