she pictured it, she imagined her own, lonely version, where she’d been the last entry on her aunt’s priority list. A tax write-off each year when her relative insisted Rebecca attend expensive business trips on the pretext of “celebrating” her birthday. She’d never accept a serious relationship where she was less important than a career or a bank account.
Mr. Roselli was right. What mattered was that they were leaving together. She should be happy for them. Was happy for them. For herself? Not so much. Who did she have left? Her chubby pug, Freud, was the only plus-one in Rebecca’s life, though she loved her little mouth-breather with a passion.
She closed her raincoat and returned their hugs, careful not to get too close in case they caught her nightmare of a cold. Gratefully, she accepted the white envelope they slid across the table, then walked out into the humid, glistening world that was a spring-soaked Manhattan night. Taxis and buses flashed by in lighted, swishing blurs; though if the out-of-focus effect was from her own tears or the rain, she wasn’t sure. Either way, life was misery.
It wasn’t until she’d walked for over ten minutes, deep in thought, that she realized she’d missed her subway entrance. That figured. Could the night get any worse?
She pulled out her cell and asked her neighbor, Marcy, to take out Freud. Since Marcy had a parrot Rebecca watched when Marcy went on business trips, they’d worked out a trade once Laura left.
After the call, she contemplated her contacts list and scrolled to her aunt’s number. Kathryn Lindon. How easy it’d be to press that dial button and see if her connected relative could help her find a second job. She owed her aunt a thank-you for the gifts she’d sent while on a recent Paris trip—something she always did when traveling—an expensive raincoat and purse delivered yesterday. They were the kinds of items she tried never to sell in a consignment shop, since her aunt would consider that the ultimate insult.
Yet if Rebecca phoned, she’d only get Kathryn’s voice mail, followed by a call tomorrow from the cowed assistant through which Rebecca and her aunt usually conversed.
Nope.
No support there, unless the expensive flowers and a card bearing the generous check her aunt used to discharge (pay off?) her obligations would suffice. The cash would help. The I-told-you-so’s that’d come with it...not so much.
No doubt Aunt Kathryn would repeat the doom-and-gloom prophecies she’d made when Rebecca graduated from her master’s program three years ago.
“Use your head,” Rebecca could hear her aunt say over a glass of pinot. “You’re working a low wage job and spending nearly all of it to share a space slightly bigger than a walk-in closet. Start a private practice and move home where you belong.”
And the worst thing? It’d been tempting. Taking the hard road was...well, hard, and getting more difficult by the day. Especially with her school dragging its feet on granting her a permanent position. Denial of tenure was a scarlet letter D on your résumé, alerting every other district that you weren’t good enough. Made even getting an interview near to impossible.
If she didn’t get tenure at her current school, she’d fail at her bid for independence and not have the life she’d dreamed of, one filled with people who made time for her...put her first. Was that too much to ask? Laura had joked that Rebecca’s expectations were so high no one could reach them, but she’d rather be alone than compromise, even when her chances looked worse by the minute. Somehow, loneliness was more bearable when you were actually alone.
Rebecca sighed and shoved her phone back in her pocket.
No. She wouldn’t call.
Aunt Kathryn’s way of helping was money. Rebecca, on the other hand, wanted to make a difference by doing—exactly why she used her psychology degree to work in a public school system with at-risk teenagers. She didn’t want anyone else growing up feeling as though their problems didn’t matter...that they didn’t matter.
She’d just lost one job that mattered a lot to her. Tomorrow, when she confronted her principal about why the school board still hadn’t voted to grant her tenure, something they always did months earlier, in January, would she discover she might lose two?
Suddenly the rain picked up and a gust flipped her umbrella backward. If the car heading Rebecca’s way hit the huge puddle beside her, she’d be—
She shook her drenched self.
—a drowned rat.
Gross. How many toxins swam in that street soup? She mashed her broken umbrella closed and took deep, calming breaths. Guess this night could get worse. What she really needed was a friend. When a rivulet of cold water snaked down her back, she ducked beneath the nearest awning, and her breath caught at the bright sign in the window.
The White Horse Tavern.
She’d heard of it...but where?
The place looked friendly enough, at least, and was a good spot to take temporary refuge from the storm. Rebecca reached for the wrought iron handle and her hand slipped, missing it completely. She stepped closer and wobbled, tilting to the left. Why was she so woozy? A couple whisked open the door and paused, eyes wide as they took in her weaving form.
“Sorry,” she muttered, and stumbled to the side. The berth they gave her spoke volumes. If only they knew cold medicine was her drink of choice—the effects of which, combined with her muscle relaxers, were kicking in with a vengeance. Everything seemed fuzzy. She needed to get her bearings before heading home. Maybe she should splurge and grab a cab. Rebecca felt less and less sure she’d make it on her own, after all.
* * *
AIDEN WALSH RETURNED the departing couple’s wave and leaned against the wooden bar. It was 12:40. A little early for closing time, but this was Sunday. His younger siblings returned to school from their break tomorrow. Besides, it’d be just like rebellious Connor, his fourteen-year-old brother, to still be on the Xbox. With a superintendent’s meeting tomorrow, Connor’s expulsion on the table for a school yard brawl that’d happened the day before vacation, the kid needed to toe the line. Help, not hinder, what was already an impossible family situation.
Aiden squeezed out a washcloth over the cleaning fluid pail, hard. If his brother wasn’t readmitted, how would Aiden pay for private education, or worse, home school the kid? Money and time. Two things always in short supply.
“Excuse me,” a young woman’s voice called from the open door. “Are you still open?”
With a suppressed sigh, Aiden glanced up and spied an unsteady woman bracing herself in his doorway. He tried not to stare, but she looked like she’d face-planted in a puddle then fallen asleep in it. With her eyes at half-mast, her nose and cheeks red, and the ends of her blond hair dripping, she reminded him of his cat, Grinch, when he got caught in the rain: woeful and bedraggled in a way that made Aiden chuckle and then scold himself...and want to make it better.
“Come in.” He strode forward, his pace quickening as she swayed. No one passed out in his bar. Especially not a lady. His hand snaked around her waist and held fast as her exotic scent washed over him.
There was no other way to describe it: she looked and smelled expensive, from the satiny feel of her coat to her leather purse. In fact, noticing the designer plate plastered across the top of the bag, he remembered seeing the same kind in a Fifth Avenue window, a purse his sister had pointed out. Three thousand bucks. Enough to pay for Connor’s
