The blue iris, p.27
The Blue Iris, page 27
“Will.”
“I’ll move to the coach house. We’ve got people commuting from Cambridge, for God’s sake. I can make it work. Guaranteed.”
“Will, that’s—”
“And I swear to God, Tessa, Thornton won’t get away with it. I just need your patience on that part, okay? We have to play the long game there, wait until after the election. Let dad make the right inroads with cabinet and then, when the timing is right—”
Tessa hugged herself. The cold shakes were overpowering her, injecting a stagger into her words. She shoved the feeling aside, determined to press on. “It’s always going to be like this, isn’t it? Strategizing. Power plays. The almighty Westlake agenda.”
Will shook his head helplessly. “I’m still figuring it all out. But I will figure it out. It won’t be this way forever, I promise.”
“You can’t make that promise.”
“I just did!”
“You can’t. It’s way bigger than you, and you know it.”
He clasped her hand between his like rosary beads. “It’s not bigger than us.” His voice caught. “Tessa, please. I need you. I need you. Please, I’ll do anything.”
Tessa looked at him—really looked, for the first time in weeks. Sadness struck her bones. He was sunken, faded. A castle with no keep. She pencilled the finer details into memory, eyes pressing like carbon copy over his hand-painted pores. The delicate line of his brow. The supple curve of his Adam’s apple. Finally, her cross-hatching complete and safely stowed, she spoke. “I’m not good for you.”
Will sighed. “That’s Eleanor talking. But all that’s going to be different now, too, because if she can’t see you’re more than good enough—”
“That’s not what I meant.” Tessa, her insides in full spasm, considered whether it wasn’t what Eleanor meant, either. Maybe Will’s mother had seen all along that being with Tessa, needing Tessa in order to feel himself, was reshaping her son into something else. Something less. “I’m no good for you. As in, I don’t know . . . unhealthy.”
Will’s face blanked. “You’re the best part of my life. I told you—I’ll fix it.”
“You can’t spend your life fixing what you’ve already done!” She touched his cheek. “And I can’t spend mine trying to keep you from breaking. We each have to be enough on our own.”
Alarm crept into Will’s features. “We are. I know it. I’ve known it since the second I saw you. I’m in love with you, Tessa Lewis. With us. I always will be.”
By now, even Tessa’s fingertips were quaking. It was physically rupturing her, this sudden and violent clarity, the way a seed coat cracks and splits in the soil, dying as its center finds light. She pulled her hand away. “No. You’re in love with an idea, a picture you landed on at seventeen years old. That girl doesn’t exist, Will. Not anymore.”
Will clutched her shoulders. “She does! You’re right here!”
Tessa stood, lifting her shirt to expose the jewel in her navel. “Staff night.”
Will forced his brow flat. “It’s nice. I like it.”
He hated it. Next, she tossed a pack of cigarettes on the table. “All summer.”
This time, he made no effort to disguise the horror. “How is that possible?”
“I lied.”
He heaved a sigh. “Fine. Now I know. These aren’t big things, Tessa.”
“No, they’re not. And still, I didn’t tell you.” She blinked, remembering how their conversations once flowed completely unfiltered. “And you didn’t notice, because you’ve been not-telling me things, too.”
Will looked like she’d pressed a gun to his forehead, and he was deciding whether it was loaded. Tessa knew then what her gut hinted at weeks ago, about Muskoka. And strangely, that was enough; she didn’t want to know. She hadn’t told him everything, either.
She drew close, tilting her forehead to his. Above her, his face drowned to a pale slur of tears. Uselessly, she tried blinking him back into view. “The idea of hurting you—” Her jaw steeled against the heaving in her chest, her throat. Her stomach roiled. “I can’t—”
“Then don’t,” he rasped, breath minty on her cupid’s bow. His tears came tumbling, splattering hot onto her cheeks. “You just finished saying you still love me.”
Tessa pressed her lips to his, their grief mixing salty on her tongue. He was right; she still loved him. Way too much to walk away.
Then, just as suddenly as when her mouth was on Luke’s, it happened again. Every synapse fired at once, unseen memories rushing like floodlights over a football field.
No . . . Tessa scuttled backwards, toppling a side table. The lamp smashed to the floor. No-no-no-no-no-no . . . The tremors erupted into heaves, her body desperate to evacuate the realization.
Then again, hadn’t her subconscious known the whole time? Kept the truth circling someplace overhead like a plane waiting for a runway?
“There’s not a luxury car in this neighborhood I can’t pick out of a lineup blindfolded.”
How many times had Tony said it? Yet, when Ainsley relayed Tony’s pillow confession to her days ago, that he’d heard not only a Bentley that morning, but a Porsche 9-11, Tessa dismissed it straightaway. The idea of Will anywhere near that corner, that he saw or heard anything at all and drove away? Left her lying there? It was absurd!
Instead, she had simply un-remembered that conversation. Locked the coach house door, sank deeper into couch-oblivion with Luke. Strung up silvery roses to ward off the truth. But now, Will’s guilt was sucking the air from this room. Physically choking her.
“I didn’t know,” he said. He inched towards her and she screamed, loud and curdling. “Tessa, you have to believe me. I didn’t know. It was so dark. I was driving too fast. I didn’t see you, or Bradley. I didn’t see anything!”
The penthouse swirled. The headlights glowed in Tessa’s memory, their oval shape horrifyingly familiar. Her temple throbbed where, she was now sure, the cold metal tip of the Porsche’s rear passenger side had clipped it ten days ago as she’d stumbled off the curb. The same car Will had pulled off the highway and under the trees after Drew and Daniella’s wedding, their hands ravenous, the tossing bouquet squished flat as they reclined the seatback. Afterwards, the car was stuck, its tires sunken in the boggy ground. Will got out, pushed the vehicle and, on his signal, Tessa gunned the engine, underestimating its pull. Mud everywhere. Tessa, laughing hysterically, kissed his soiled face, then tore his suit off all over again.
Right now, down in the parking garage, Tessa knew she’d find no dent or scratch on that car, no miniscule bit of hair or skin or blood. Nothing to suggest anything but a misguided hunch. Still, she couldn’t believe him.
There was simply no guessing what he was capable of anymore.
“Tess.” His footsteps shuffled close behind her. “Tessa, please. I had no clue you were out there! If I’d had any idea, I would’ve . . . but I didn’t—”
By the time the elevator doors slid closed, there were no more words, only anguished noises that would keep Tessa up at night.
Peruvian Lily / Alstroemeria
Abundance.
TESSA
Whatever she was expecting when Luke opened the door, his expression fell dramatically short. “Tess, hey.” He glanced past her into the street. “What are you . . .?”
Tessa had been driving for hours, with no idea where she’d been. She recalled only broken lines and bright smudges beyond the open windows, the late summer air wicking her tears, until the car rolled to a stop in front of the Lodge.
Her smile was sheepish and starchy against her cheeks as she slipped past Luke inside; it was late. He had work tomorrow. But she was desperate to lean against the solid oak of him on the screened porch, let the tide of blossoms lull the dust whirls inside her before they swelled into a raging cyclone. Tessa kicked off her flip flops, plodding into the kitchen. “We’re definitely going to need that—”
Jameson. Tessa was about to say, we’re definitely going to need that Jameson, when the words fell away like space junk. Sitting at the kitchen table, turning a butter yellow tracksuit into bedroom couture, her strawberry locks shining like Eve’s apple, was Olivia Thornton. Tessa recalled the gunmetal Mercedes she’d nearly sideswiped by the curb when she pulled in, and humiliation squashed her like an anvil.
Olivia’s head cocked in pity. “Tessa, hi. Listen, Luke told me everything. I just want—”
Tessa stopped listening at “Luke told me everything.” She met his eyes. Of course you did. People tell things to the people they’re fucking.
Luke shook his head. Slow down, Princess.
Mumbling an excuse, she made for the door. This was the karmic bitch-slap Tessa had coming to her after stringing Luke along, relegating Will’s diamond to her panty drawer, waffling between two men and offering promises to neither.
Luke caught up to her in the hallway. “Tess, wait up. Olivia’s—”
Tessa gave a jerky laugh, waving over her shoulder. “You don’t owe me an explanation.” Even though an explanation was exactly what she wanted. Had he been screwing Olivia the whole time, and flat-out lying to her about it? Was he trying to even the score?
Or maybe, Tessa really was his friend. Someone he flirted with to pass time at work, nothing more. Which would have been fine, except kissing him had pried something free, poured it into the open like a new can of paint, turning years with Will into . . . an approximation. A splattered attempt to hammer the lid back on.
She yanked the door open. “I have to go.”
Rowan, on the other side of the door, practically fell on top of her. “You’re . . . here?” He lifted his eyebrows at Luke. “You finally told her.”
Tessa shuffled past. “Oh, I’m all up to speed.”
“Wait, you’re leaving?” Rowan frowned. “Now?”
Tessa let the screen door rest against her hip, considerably less willing to storm off in front of her boss.
Luke tried again. “Tess, hold up, would you? You don’t understand.”
“No, I think I do.”
“You don’t.”
The door swung away again as Tony bounced into the crowded entry. Like Rowan’s, his eyes flicked to Luke’s, his smile wary at finding Tessa. “Hey, Tee. Are you coming or going?”
“Going. If I could make it to the damn car.”
“Dude, I still say tell her,” Tony said to Luke.
“I’m trying!”
Tessa turned with an impatient sigh. “What is it?”
Tony checked his phone. “Hurry, bro. She’s five minutes out.”
Tessa threw up her hands, annoyed to still be standing there. “Who?”
All three men looked at each other.
“Eleanor,” Tony said. “Eleanor Westlake.”
Rowan had prepared an envelope with Eleanor’s name on it, which contained Olivia’s sworn affidavit attesting to Bradley’s drunken, agitated state when he arrived home around the same time Tessa was carted to hospital. The document was accompanied by security camera images of Bradley in a wainscoted room, a towel around his waist and an angry welt down his back, along with a pair of scarlet parentheses on his right trapezius.
Coffee burns and a bite mark.
“Nanny-cam footage,” Olivia explained, “not that we have a nanny, or kids. Just an attractive housekeeper.”
Tessa looked at Luke, stunned. He lifted one shoulder. “The guy’s a fortress,” he said. “The only way at him was from the inside.”
“It might not be enough to arrest him,” Rowan said, “but it backs up your story big time.”
Olivia turned to Tessa, full of apology. “Somewhere along the line, it became easier to just look the other way, you know? He’s everywhere, controlling everything. But when Luke showed me that pic . . .” For a second, Olivia looked like she might be sick. “It was right there, all the stuff I’ve been looking away from the whole time.” She cleared her throat. “I’ll help any way I can.”
Tessa looked back at Luke. Reluctantly, he pulled up the photo Olivia had referenced on his phone: Tessa, asleep, her freshly-stitched orbital wound screaming. A collective draw of air sliced through the kitchen, Tessa’s included. Already, the memory of it had started to fade.
“Your Pop,” Luke explained, a grin creeping in. “He said, ‘I keep my own goddamn medical records. You know they like to bury—”
“Their mistakes,” Tessa finished. Pop meant doctors, but wasn’t anyone capable of digging a grave, when the shuffling of dirt took place in slow, spaced increments, each one presenting as the last? She looked at Olivia, worried. “What happens when Bradley finds out?”
Olivia smiled sadly. “I’m filing for divorce in the morning. If anybody can get me out of this marriage quickly and painlessly, it’s Peter Westlake.”
That explained why Eleanor was on her way. Olivia was going to appeal for Peter’s help, one beautiful, suffocated housewife to another. Tessa frowned. “Eleanor wants that election more than Peter. They need Bradley in their corner.”
Tony glanced at Luke, who nodded. Tony handed Tessa his phone. “Then we’ll have to convince her.”
The text thread was a thousand lightning rods at once. Breasts that defied gravity, a signature blond shade falling around them. Bare thighs spread over familiar quartz like hot casseroles on Boxing Day. Dialogue that could have been from a porn movie transcript, set into throbbing word-bubbles. Hogg’s Hollow Tina was Eleanor.
Tessa’s stomach heaved again. “Seriously, Tony? Eleanor?”
“Tessa.” Will’s mother stood in the doorway, looking her age for once, her eyes round with fear.
Tessa scooped up the paperwork along with Luke’s phone, still open to the gruesome photo of her face. “Thank you,” she told the group. “All of you. I’ll never forget it. But I’ve got this from here.”
Every light in the Lodge was on. The old bottle of Jameson sat empty on the counter.
“If we don’t hear from her by mid-week, I say we go to the media with all of it,” Tony said.
“They’ll kill the story,” Rowan said. “But I could post it at the shop, get the landscapers talking at every jobsite. All their friends and neighbors would hear. Everyone in Westlake’s voting district would still know.”
“It won’t come to that,” Tessa said. “Eleanor’s smart, and relentless. She’ll pull this off.”
It proved less enjoyable than expected, watching Will’s mother all but sink to her knees outside the Lodge, knowing Tessa had all she needed to destroy Eleanor’s reputation where it mattered most—inside her own house. Tessa couldn’t do it; Will had a mother who loved him, and right now, he needed her more than ever.
“Or,” Luke said, “they’ll come at us harder than before.”
Rowan shrugged. “Everything we have is true. We’re only asking Peter to uphold the oath he took before the bar. They can’t come after us for libel, or even extortion.”
Olivia looked surprised. “You’re a lawyer, too?”
Rowan tucked his chin. “I came close once.”
Olivia’s lips pulled together like a pink waxflower bloom. “Came to your senses just in time, then.”
Rowan’s complexion ripened.
Her boss rendered immobile, Tessa saw Olivia to the door. “Are you sure you’ll be okay?”
Olivia wafted a reassuring hand. “He’s in Vegas until tomorrow. I’m already checked into the Sutton under a fake name, and Rowan’s offered to store my stuff in his garage until I find a place. The only thing I’ll miss about that big, drafty house is the backyard.”
Tessa smiled. “I’m sure Luke will gladly design your new one.”
“You know something? I think I want to tackle it myself.”
The women hugged. “Thank you, Olivia. I mean it.”
“It’s Luke you should thank. He never stopped fighting for you, none of them did. No matter what it might end up costing them. You have great friends, Tessa.”
Tessa smiled towards the kitchen. “I’d say they’re your friends, now, too.”
Olivia winked, the woman she was before Bradley already coming unburied like daffodil shoots. “Lucky us.”
With Olivia gone, Rowan came off pause. “I’d better hit the road, too.”
Tessa squeezed him until the still-tender side of her face ballooned. “How can I ever thank you enough, Uncle Row?”
“Pffft, that’s easy. Come work for me full-time.”
Tessa laughed, though his face stayed serious. “But, Sam’s back?”
“Something tells me he’ll be taking it slow for a while.”
“Not to mention,” Luke said, “a spot just opened up in Trucks.”
Rowan looked at him. “You’ve decided, then?”
Luke nodded.
Rowan’s hand disappeared in his. “The corner won’t be the same, but I’m so proud of you. Don’t be a stranger, okay?”
Luke’s glance flicked ever so briefly to Tessa. “Like you could keep me away.”
Across the hall, Ainsley beckoned Tessa into Tony’s bedroom. She closed the door and pulled Tessa to her fiercely. “I’m sorry Will didn’t step up.”
Tessa’s tears welled anew. “Me, too.”
“I wanted so bad for Tony to be wrong.”
“Me, too.”
Ainsley wriggled from her jeans and jewelry, pulling Tony’s faded Raptors tee over her head. It was a backwards homecoming, her friend happily coupled off, Tessa flailing unattached.
“You want to hang awhile just us?” Ainsley asked. “Talk about it?”
Tessa shook her head. Ainsley, aware by now of Tony’s leverage against Eleanor, had endured more than enough Westlake talk for tonight. Besides, Tessa was still furiously outrunning the train; she couldn’t stop to examine it yet. “We’ll catch up later.”
Ainsley leaned in. “You sure?” she said, studying Tessa’s expression.
Tony opened the door to find them by his bed, Ainsley in her underwear, her hands cupping Tessa’s face. He tipped his face upward in a show of heavenly praise. “Oh, hell yes. I am SO down!” He yanked feverishly at his work boots. “Sam’s going to die for real when he hears about this!” Ainsley lobbed a pair of socks at him.
