Left to Chance Read online

  By doing so, I’d honored Celia’s last wish for me.

  But ignoring calls and texts from Beck for months?

  That genius had been all mine.

  I played with words that might ease the tension when I heard stomps down the attic stairs. Then, the shift of the door handle. Carpeted floors absorbed Beck’s footsteps but they came closer and closer. I felt him stand behind me, close enough to be touching, but not. I closed my eyes and tipped my head toward the floor, dwarfed by Beck’s presence, ashamed of my own. My neck shivered and my shoulders lifted to abate the chill. Beck could have stopped it, but he wouldn’t. I wanted him to say something but I wouldn’t ask him to talk. I wanted him to hug me but I wouldn’t reach back for his hands. I used the last of the wishes I’d saved, or pretended to; I used a little prayer not knowing if I believed in anything. What I really wanted was to open my eyes and see Celia there. Even dying Celia. Any Celia. Just one more time.

  It had been stupid to think that tying a knot in the past would stop it from fraying into the future. Everything ran together here. It was messy.

  I opened my eyes and looked up and into the mirror on the far wall. Beck glared back at me. It was the faraway Beck I longed for, the kind Beck, the loving Beck, not the one behind me with a piercing glare and deep scowl. I stared through the wall he’d built to when he’d been like a younger brother to me—laughing, teasing, cracking jokes—until everything changed. I glanced away. I felt naked, but not in the good way.

  Beck placed his hands on my shoulders and leaned in. I felt his breath on the side of my neck. A quiver ran down my spine. Everything tumbled back. I smelled the soap mingled with aftershave, felt the stubble, tasted the leftover Thai he’d tried to mask with toothpaste, the morning coffee. I prayed for words of forgiveness, understanding, or even reparation. For one second I wished that we could start over, catch up, reminisce. Move forward.

  Then he whispered in my ear. “Just leave.”

  Chapter 8

  BECK HELD A GRUDGE. I didn’t blame him, but for a moment I’d allowed myself to believe that he would forgive me.

  I looked back in the direction I’d come from. Maybe Beck had decided to follow me, to make sure I was okay, to apologize for the way he dismissed me. Because that’s what he’d done, dismissed me as if he were king and I were his subject.

  How dare he.

  Beck had always been moody—turbulent, even. Now he was mean. Still, when he pressed into my shoulders I’d recalled his physical strength and how I’d always thought of him as steadfast. Beck was the boy who’d mowed everyone’s lawn and shoveled all the neighbors’ steps. He grew into the man who everyone turned to for advice. Beck always told you the truth, before someone else did. If the ground shook Beck hung on to you so you didn’t fall.

  Unless you flung yourself so far away that he couldn’t reach.

  Then there was Simon.

  Even-tempered and analytical Simon with impeccable taste in everything. Simon was kind and generous. He hired kids out of high school as part of a “Learn & Work” program that subsidized college tuition, and instructed HR to hire women returning to the workforce after staying home with children. The assistant front desk manager of the Santa Fe hotel had started as a busboy. Simon offered many people opportunities to join him on the way to—and for his stay at—the top. But make no mistake—if you couldn’t cut it, he was going anyway.

  These men were so different, but I’d lied to them both.

  * * *

  Before I knew it, I was standing in front of the house where I grew up. Seems my subconscious had guided me, dropped me off, and then peeled away.

  White siding still covered the house. Its pitched roof covered an attic not even I could stand up in, so the pull-down stairs led only to the idea of a second floor. My mother had such plans for that space. Raise the roof! A sewing room. (She’d learn to sew!) A craft room. (She’d take up crafts!) A guest room. (She’d welcome guests!) The shutters were the same ones my parents had replaced before they moved, the first thing they ever did that surprised me, but not the last. The yard was stark but neat. What happened to my father’s flowering bushes? There was no porch (how I had coveted a porch), just a few steps leading to the front door that we’d lined with terracotta pots overflowing with bright pink geraniums by the end of every summer. It had been my job to water the flowers and to deadhead the blooms. One summer Celia sketched the flowers in various stages of blossoming, and I’d photographed them. Since then I’d always photographed things that grew. Babies, kids, flowers, relationships. Those things also died. I realized that too late to change careers.

  After a minute or two, or maybe twenty, I nodded once to my house as if not to hurt its feelings, and then ran across the street to the house that would always be Celia’s. The Stillman family house had been my shelter, my family, my fairy tale. The wide steps were swept bare. There was no car in the driveway, no one driving down the quiet, narrow, two-way street, so I sat on the second step, set my camera bag on the first, and wrapped my arms around my myself so that I didn’t budge, so that my memories stayed close after years of my keeping them so far away.

  What I loved most was behind me, literally and metaphorically. I longed to feel as much value in the present as I did in the past. It was easier to stay away; it would be easier when I went back.

  I’d forgotten what it was like to be with people who knew things about me besides what I’d chosen to tell them. People who looked at me and just knew. I was friends with Annie, but to her, my life began the day I started with Hester Hotels. With Simon, it was the same. I’d always said I didn’t want to talk about my past. He never pressed. Neither did Annie.

  It wasn’t that I didn’t know what true friendships and deep relationships meant.

  I knew exactly what they meant—letting someone in, maybe letting her down, and possibly, letting her go.

  Or him.

  I reached into my bag and pulled out my phone. I would text Simon. No, I’d call him. Talk to him. Tell him things I’d never told him before. Simon was kind and considerate. Simon was handsome and interesting. I could convince him to feature some of my landscape photos in hotel rooms, or the lobbies, or the business centers. I’d explain how much taking those kinds of photographs once meant to me, about the little contest that was looming large.

  How could he understand that when I didn’t?

  Simon hired me six years ago when I had the good fortune to walk into the Hester on Michigan Avenue the day his photographer had come down with food poisoning—three hours before a big wedding. A quick look at my portfolio got me the gig. Praise from the bride’s father got me a full-time job.

  But the one time I told Simon my dream—it took four glasses of Beaujolais Nouveau—well, let’s just say he wasn’t impressed by my ambition.

  “I want to have my photos hanging in a gallery one day.”

  “Your photos hang in homes all over the country.”

  “I know.”

  Simon hugged me. “That’s not enough?”

  “Maybe not. Don’t know. Won’t know until I give it a whirl again. You know. Artistic stuff.”

  I stood from the couch and twirled around until I almost threw up, which didn’t take long.

  “Do you know how hard it is to make a living as an artist?” Simon asked. “Do you know how hard it is to be valued as an artist and not even make a living at it?”

  Why did he have to be so sensible when my head was spinning?

  “I think the fact that I’m taking pictures of rich people’s weddings proves that I know very well.”

  I sat on the couch again. “I’m sorry. I am happy here. With this work. With you.”

  “The best is yet to come,” he’d said.

  Deep down, I was choosing to believe that.

  “Well, if it isn’t Teddi Lerner.” I jolted and turned around.

  “Excuse me?” I stood and stepped back and away. “Do I know you?”

  “You did.”
r />   I recognized the voice, but more so, the T-shirt. Cemetery man. He was tall and slim, with hair long enough for him to comb his fingers through to push it back from his forehead, revealing a faint tan line. I hadn’t noticed this morning that his hair was dark blond, but he’d been wearing a hat, which had also made him look older. Maybe cemeteries just made people look old.

  He walked down two steps and I stepped back again, then he held out his hand.

  “I’m Cameron Davis.”

  I put my hands behind my back, and realized I’d left my camera bag on the step. He picked it up and handed it to me. “How did you know my name?”

  “You used to live across the street.”

  “How do you know that?”

  “I lived here too. Over there, I mean.” He pointed to the house next to the one that had been mine. “Until I was eight, that is. Then we moved to California.”

  “Oh my God! Cameron Davis! Look at you! All grown up.”

  “You are too.”

  “Well, Cammy, I took the blame for those muddy footprints you left all over my front steps, you know. My mother made me scrub them off. You were such a brat.” I laughed.

  “No one has called me that in a long time. Cammy, that is. Brat I’m kind of used to.”

  “I can’t believe you’re back in Chance. Why didn’t you tell me this morning?” I pictured myself as he’d seen me, mumbling, stumbling, ridiculous.

  “It didn’t seem like a good time. You seemed a little preoccupied.”

  “Yeah, sorry about that. How did you recognize me anyway? I’d never have known who you were if you hadn’t told me.” He opened his mouth but I raised my hand to stop him from talking. “You know about the wedding.”

  “Well, it is a small town, and I saw the camera bag, and then you looked up and I just recognized you. You look the same as when you were ten. All eyes and all hair.”

  My cheeks warmed. Facts filtered back. He was two years older than Beck and two years younger than me and Celia. We never knew where he belonged.

  “You were always really nice to me,” he said.

  “I knew what it was like to be an only child. I think I always wished you were my brother.”

  “Story of my life.” He sat on the step and I sat next to him. “I had such a crush on you.”

  “You were in third grade!”

  “Good taste in women knows no age limitations.” He bumped me with his shoulder and it felt like I’d been tapped with a brick. A brick radiating heat. “So, what are you doing here?”

  “You know, I’m here because of the wedding.”

  “No, I mean here. Sitting on the step, not even knowing who lived here.”

  “I was just…”

  “Thinking about Celia?”

  I shrugged. Most of the truth wasn’t up for discussion. “I guess I was just reminiscing.”

  “I was so sorry to hear about what happened to her. She was always nice to me, always a happy kid. This was a happy house. It still is, if that helps at all.”

  A lump lodged in my throat. I nodded. “It does.”

  New families brought their own goodness and craziness into a house and made it their home. I just carried my craziness with me from place to place.

  “Want to sit on the swing? I mean, if you don’t have anywhere you need to be? You can do all the thinking about Celia and other things you want. I won’t bother you.”

  “You’re not bothering me. I’m the one who seems to keep intruding on your space.” I didn’t ask who he’d been visiting at the cemetery. I didn’t have the energy or the emotional space.

  I held the porch railing and my hand fit over the whole wooden rail, but I saw a small hand when I looked, a little-girl hand, and how I reached the other out to Celia the first time I had admitted I needed a place to get away. I was six.

  “All this must seem a little weird,” I said.

  “A little.”

  I followed Cameron up the steps. He sat on one end of the porch swing, pushing himself to and fro the way Celia, Beck, and I had as children and teenagers. Cameron may have swung here as well, I didn’t remember. He’d lived next door to me for a year, and had floated in and out of my life without consequence or thought, the way things and people do when you’re ten. I sat at the other end of the wooden swing.

  “What brought you back to Chance?”

  The screen door opened and a girl poked out her head. Her long brown hair and freckled face looked familiar, which was impossible, except all kids sort of looked the same to me. A hazard of wedding and bar mitzvah photography.

  “Mom said to bring these out.” She held out a paper plate piled with pale cookies dusted in powdered sugar.

  “Thanks, Morgan.”

  Of course. Cameron had come back with a wife and child. Maybe children. No ghosts for him, only happy, welcoming memories.

  “Hi, Morgan. I’m Teddi Lerner.”

  “I know who you are.” Morgan’s husky voice didn’t fit her frame, and her tentative smile seemed suspicious. She was one of the girls from the café.

  Cameron lifted his index finger and Morgan closed her mouth. “That’s not polite,” he said.

  “I saw you at the Fat Chance Café. I’m sorry I didn’t recognize you just now. You’re about the same age as my—you’re the same age as Shayna Cooper.”

  Shay wasn’t my anything. Not officially.

  “Yeah, I am,” Morgan said.

  Morgan disappeared inside without a glance or a good-bye. I really needed to work on my tween communication skills, but Morgan might have also needed to work on her manners.

  I pulled a crumpled tissue from my pocket and wiped my mouth, politely depositing my gum inside. Cameron and I had played hide-and-seek almost thirty years before. There was no need to hide now.

  “May I have one?” I asked. “It’s been a long day. I’m starved.”

  Cameron held out the plate. I lifted a cookie and bit into it. My stomach rumbled its approval and gratitude. I patted it as if to say be patient.

  “Sorry about Morgan,” Cameron said.

  “Please don’t apologize. You’ve been nothing but nice—this morning and now—and Morgan was sweet.” I took another cookie from the plate.

  “She has her moments of sweetness, that’s true, but I don’t get credit for any of that. That’s all Deanna.”

  “Your wife? I’d love to meet her.”

  “No, Deanna’s my sister.”

  “You don’t have a sister, Cammy.” I grazed his thigh with a tap of my fist, then drew back my hand. Beneath the khaki shorts hid rock-hard quads. I wanted to crawl into one of the backyard holes we’d dug decades ago.

  Cameron chuckled. “I didn’t have a sister until I was nine, then along came Deanna. We lived in Sausalito by then.” He swept invisible cookie crumbs from his hands. “Morgan’s my niece.”

  Chapter 9

  I KNEW ONE THING for sure. I was humidity-challenged.

  Back at the inn, I pulled my sweaty dress over my head and stood in front of the air conditioner, held up my hair with both hands, thereby drying my face, neck, and armpits simultaneously. I turned around to dry my back.

  I should’ve rented a car. Although if I’d had a car, I’d have sat on Poppy Lane in cool-air bliss and never ended up on the Stillmans’—Cameron’s—porch. I’d smiled the whole way back as I’d eaten the cookie I’d swiped “for the road.” It was fun hanging out without fear of being reprimanded. The longer Cameron and I talked, the more we both remembered. We’d built forts with webbed lawn chairs and drank from the garden hose; we’d eaten my mother’s blondies that were supposed to be brownies (she’d forgotten the cocoa), and Cameron had even helped Celia and me during our tulip bulb–planting binge for my mother one fall.

  I’d asked nothing about his life today so that he’d ask nothing about mine. I’d have only given him my canned answer about my creative job, posh hotels, gourmet food, frequent travel—and depending on the direction of the conversation, might have
mentioned dating a nice man.

  I cringed. All I could muster was “nice man.” I moved away from the air conditioner, frozen through.

  How I missed Celia at moments like this. She’d held the key to my steamer trunk full of emotional backstory. She’d have known what to say.

  But I knew the upside to marrying Simon. He was financially secure, handsome, and smart but not snobby. He recycled, he biked, he ate locally sourced foods, he offered his employees parental leave and health insurance. He opened doors, pulled out my chair, gave me the remote, and asked my opinion.

  And there was chemistry. It wasn’t heart-pounding, belly-laughing, can’t-catch-your-breath chemistry. It was quiet chemistry. It was B-minus instead of A-plus chemistry.

  Coupled with a view of the Golden Gate Bridge, I’d negotiate some freedom to explore the world with my camera, and with Simon—that could be enough. I was thirty-nine, for God’s sake, and Simon was almost fifty.

  I could call him right now and tell him about Chance. Nettie’s on Lark was a landmark historical property, that would interest him. And that plot out by the mall. Maybe—no. He wouldn’t care that I was back in my hometown for a wedding, or that I didn’t ask him to accompany me. I could tell him about Celia and Shay and spending time with her every summer at his Chicago hotel (which I properly paid for).

  A barrage of questions I’d never even thought to ask Simon piled into my brain and landed on top of one another. We spent our time together as if we’d landed on large stones in a rushing river, then we skipped to the next one without falling into the water below. Or even acknowledging it was there.

  Inside my thoughts, the view outside of Simon’s window grew dark, the landscape no longer in full view, as if someone had activated their remote control from afar. Again, I was in my underwear, making a phone call. I sat on the bed and scrolled through my contacts.

  So many numbers and so few people I could talk to. I called Annie.