Chapter 37: Memories and Rain

Penny's phone dinged with an incoming text. "Uh oh. Sorry ladies. That's my cue."

Lauren groaned. "And how is Mr. Fancy Pants?"

"Sadly, I couldn't tell you, unless one of you happen to be fluent in ancient Babylonian?" Penny snickered at her phone. "If I had to guess, David appears to be texting while carrying around two screaming toddlers who refuse to go down for the night."

She turned the phone to let them see:

help I Cunningham get rut ER of them down 🆘

Lauren let out a snort. "Weaponized incompetence at its finest."

Penny stuffed the phone in her purse and stood. "He's competent in... other areas."

"He better be!" Lauren called after her, as Penny stood to gather up her raincoat and umbrella.

But Lauren's teasing was playful, without the biting undertone that had once driven Penny to move out of their old apartment in Brooklyn. The two of them had long since made up and resumed their friendship. Lauren still enjoyed mocking Penny's wealthy and powerful husband every chance she got, including when she gave the speech as Maid of Honor at Penny's wedding. She had the whole room in stitches, David included, poking fun at Mr. FancyPants and his endless list of rules. All in good fun though. The only undertone these days was affection.

Cora stood to see Penny out. "Call me if you need to talk," Penny told her quietly as they lingered at the door. "Any time. Day or night."

Cora hugged her friend goodbye. "I'm fine," she lied. "Your babies need you more. All three of them."

Penny gave her a startled look.

"David!" Cora explained quickly. "I meant the twins plus David."

"Oh!" Penny laughed, but Cora wondered if she might have accidentally guessed something she wasn't supposed to know...

She would wonder about that later. Cora turned back to Lauren, still seated before the laptop. "Are we still watching this?" Lauren called.

"I figure that's it, right?" Cora said as she plopped back down.

"Not much left," Lauren confirmed. "He just stonewalled until Danna lost her temper, and then there was a suspiciously abrupt cutaway to the other contestants getting ready backstage."

"She swears like a sailor when she's angry," Cora recalled.

"By the time they cut back to her, Jamie was on his way out. Little Miss Camilla did her interview alone."

"Turn it off. I don't want to watch anymore." Cora faked a yawn. "I just want to go to bed."

Lauren side-eyed her. "Listen to me. You know I tell it like it is, right?"

"Oh God," Cora groaned. "What now?"

Lauren turned to face her. She put her hands on each of Cora's shoulders so she couldn't turn away. "Listen to me. Forget about him."

"I'm trying," Cora said.

"Try harder. That boy does not deserve to kiss the ground you walk on. He's trash. He doesn't even have a PhD. It was all a lie. Did you know that?"

"I know," Cora said quietly.

"He's a total fraud," Lauren went on. "I don't care if he knew about the cameras or not. He still played you."

"OK, Lauren. I hear you."

"Do you?"

Cora looked away. "I'm not upset about Jamie," she lied again for the second time in five minutes. "I'm upset because my personal business got splashed all over TV. Not to mention an inordinate number of pictures of my cellulite-ridden ass."

"Your ass looked perfect." Lauren scowled. "And no one's judging you. Not for any of it, OK? You looked like a real person. Unlike him."

Cora sighed. "I wouldn't mind a little less reality."

"You want me to leave the whiskey?"

Cora considered the offer but declined. She had a different bottle in mind. She'd picked it up at the drugstore earlier, and she went to her bathroom to fetch it, the moment Lauren left.

Clairol Nice n' Easy hair dye. Russet Brown.

Jamie may have shielded her privacy at the reunion, but it was too little too late. The damage had been done. She'd lied to both her friends when she said she was OK. How could she be? How would she ever be OK again? She'd shown herself naked in front of 50 million strangers. It was the quintessential shame-dream, come to life.

She'd stopped by Zabar's last night to self-medicate with her favorite chocolate rugelach—and two different people recognized her in the store. Strangers. Total strangers, who knew all the details of who she was and what she'd done.

"No one's judging you," Cora repeated Lauren's words in the mirror to herself. But she didn't believe it. They had to be judging her. Strangers would be recognizing her and judging her, every single day, everywhere she went.

Cora eyed the drugstore hair dye  kit. The shade of brown was nothing like her natural color. Much darker, with an artificial-looking reddish undertone. It didn't matter though, as long as it sufficiently disguised the honey-colored locks she'd sported on TV.

Cora looked in the mirror again, admiring her beautiful haircut one last time before she destroyed it.

An ugly sob bubbled up out of her throat. She dropped the bottle of hair dye in the sink as the tears began to flow. Grief for the love she had to let go, but more than that. Tears of grief for herself—for the version of herself she'd been in Cozumel. The truest version of herself she'd ever been.

It wasn't just a man she'd lost, Cora realized, but the person she had been when she was with him.

She began to sob in earnest.

Her phone pinged from somewhere in the living room, but Cora ignored it. She headed for the laundry hamper instead, searching for the souvenir she'd kept that final morning in Cozumel, after she and Jamie had staged their fight.

She'd been wearing one of his borrowed t-shirts that night, and she'd forgotten to give it back to him in her haste to leave before she changed her mind. She'd stuffed it in her suitcase without thinking.

For the weeks of sequestration, she had kept it. She'd put it on again at night, surrounding herself in Jamie's scent, hoping it would ease her sleeplessness.

It was no good though. Nothing helped. Before Jamie, she'd never been able to sleep with another person in her bed. Now she couldn't seem to fall asleep without him.

The t-shirt had made it all the way home to her Upper West Side brownstone. Only last night, after the reunion fiasco, had she summoned up the spine to throw it in the dirty laundry. Wash out any trace of Jamie's memory from her life. She didn't need mementos of a liar, she had told herself last night. But now she crept back over to the hamper and fished it out.

She should get rid of it. Crumple it in a ball and chuck it out the window. Let the universe carry it away on the wind. But instead, Cora stripped down to her panties and slipped it on, imagining his touch against her skin.

Outside her bedroom window, a rainstorm was blowing in. Thunder cracked and lightning lit the sky. The static in the air lifted the hairs on the back of Cora's neck, and she sensed the lightning must be close. Cora stepped outside onto her balcony, hoping that the universe would put her out of her misery once and for all.

She stood in the pouring rain, letting it soak her to the skin. If it didn't kill her, maybe it would somehow rinse her clean.

Her friends had no idea how much pain she was really in. They didn't know what had happened on the cliffs that night, or that she'd broken every promise and allowed herself to love. There was only one other person who might have any hope of understanding—and she was never going to see him again.

Cora turned her face up to the heavens and let the rain drops pelt her.

This was the universe's punishment, she knew. No more than she deserved. The pain she felt could only be a pale reflection of the pain she'd caused that other night three years ago, driving in the rain. Karma was a bitch.

Not that Cora believed in karma, really. Culturally Jewish, she didn't have much allegiance to the religious tenets of any particular faith. But she remembered the words spoken to her over and over by the attendees at Steven's funeral, the traditional phrase of Jewish mourning: "May his memory be a blessing."

Those words, intended to comfort, left a bitter taste in her mouth. She didn't want his memory. She wanted more than anything to forget.

Now, she would have the memory of two men haunting her. She'd only known Jamie for three weeks, but she couldn't bear the silence at night where the sound of his breathing should have been.

If she concentrated, she could summon up his image in her mind's eye, realistic in every detail. She could have phantom-Jamie with her in her bed any time she liked. But it didn't help somehow. It only left her colder and more lonely.

Cora shivered as a rivulet of icy water trickled down her spine.

She didn't want a fantasy. She didn't want a ghost. She wanted the real Jamie. Real and solid, with strong arms that held her safe. With weight and mass to stop the world from spinning and keep her anchored in space.

She did love him. There was no doubt. She loved him, and she loved herself when she was with him. But she couldn't be that person anymore. That Cora on the TV screen was dead. The real one had to lie to friends. Dye her hair. Numb herself with whiskey. Put the mask back on, more firmly than before.

She had no choice. She had to let them both go: Jamie and herself. How could the memories ever be a blessing? How would she ever feel anything but pain?

***

Jamie made his way down West 93rd St, shielding his face with his arm from the sheets of rain that buffeted him.

He welcomed the abuse. He'd waited for the weather to kick up before he set out on this expedition. He hadn't missed the pair of photogs lurking outside his flat downtown. The last thing he needed was for the paparazzi to follow him to his destination.

He glanced over his shoulder. No followers here. No one would be stopping him to snap a selfie in this weather.

The few stragglers who hadn't found shelter from the storm scurried with their heads down, wrestling with their half-broken brollies. Jamie had the lapels of his raincoat turned up to hide the bottom half of his face, and his forearm raised to block both the wind and the view of any onlookers.

He paused to check the number of the last building he passed. Cora's must be two more down. He'd gotten her address off Robbie after the reunion show had wrapped, arguing that someone needed to check on her after the nasty shock she'd taken. Robbie's guilty conscience no doubt helped.

And that was all he intended with this visit, Jamie told himself. To check on her. Apologize properly. Make sure she was all right.

He blamed himself for the whole sorry mess. He hadn't suspected the cameras' presence in the bungalow, but he should have. It was his responsibility. He had dragged her on the show. Out of the two of them, he was supposed to be the professional. But Jamie was used to fashion photo shoots with call times and wrap times. When it came to reality television, he was as much of a novice as she.

He might have known if he'd ever watched an episode from any of Danna Morton's previous  productions. Some reality shows left the cast alone to sleep at night, but Danna's all followed the same formula: 24-hour surveillance.

The showrunners must have realized their ignorance by night three, but Jamie had already earned Danna Morton's hatred by then. If there were any doubt, Danna had confirmed her role in the whole nasty business yesterday. She'd left him a parting gift on his dressing room table after the reunion show: A manila envelope containing the print-outs of every document and release bearing his electronic signatures, and a handwritten note scrawled across the front.

You know, for someone who likes to read so much...
- Danna XOXO

Jamie's jaw clenched. Even now, he still longed to wipe that smug smile from Danna's face after Cora walked offstage.

Cora's final words to him yesterday still rang in his ears. "Go finish the show without me, and let me walk away."

Ah, this must be Cora's building here. A man exited as he approached, and Jamie bounded up the brownstone steps to catch the door before it closed.

Let me walk away... Cora wouldn't be pleased to see him. He had no business coming here. Certainly no right to be at her door in the middle of the night. Of all the boundaries she'd set, spoken or unspoken, this one was the firmest of all: The line she'd drawn between their time in Cozumel and her real life.

He'd texted the number Robbie gave him twenty minutes ago, but she hadn't answered. A gentleman would have taken the hint. Or at least paused outside the outer door to buzz up on the intercom. But he feared if he asked permission, the answer might be no.

He had too many questions demanding answers. Too much left unsaid.

And, quite frankly, nothing left to lose.

Jamie had gone back over their final conversation atop the cliffs so many times it felt like a recurring nightmare. One moment of soul-piercing happiness, and then it fell apart. She slipped away with the early morning fog.

It didn't matter what she said. In the end, she only wanted one thing from him: her freedom. She asked him to unzip the hoodie. Asked to be released.

But why say those words to him then? "Hopelessly in love with you..."  Why kiss him in that way? Was it meant to be a kiss goodbye?

He needed an explanation or he would never get it out of his head. That was why he had to come. Boundaries be damned.

But Jamie was lying, even then. Lying to himself. That wasn't the real reason why he stood outside her door, raising his fist to pound against the wood.

The truth was simple. He longed to see her face.

He couldn't sleep. He couldn't eat. He couldn't think. He couldn't draw breath without the torment of his memories, accurate in every detail. For the past two weeks, he'd only done one thing.

Laid awake and burned.

***

Dear Readers:
If you're enjoying the story, please let me know with your COMMENTS and VOTES. Thank you! ❤️