Wildest Dreams (Thunder Point #9)(90)

“Charlie!”

“He’s been good to us! He helped us! He chased those junkies and got your special things back and he got hurt!” He looked at her earnestly. “What’s the matter with you? Are your secrets worth more than a good friend?”

“You have never talked to me this way! The trouble has already started. All because you defy my rules!”

“You were never against me like this before,” he said. “You were always my best friend. Now you don’t want to be anyone’s friend!”

She could tell he was fighting tears.

“You’re not the only one who can run away, you know. Is this how it was in your home? Your parents acting like they hate you, like they don’t care what you need?”

“You know nothing about it!”

“I’m trying to know about it but you won’t let me!”

They stared each other down for a moment.

Their hamburgers arrived and the talking stopped. But Charlie didn’t eat. He pushed his plate away. “I’m not hungry,” he said. “I’m going home.”

He pulled his jacket on and stormed out of the diner, leaving Lin Su to sit alone with two plates of food. Stubbornly, she cut her burger in half and began to eat. When she had finished half her burger she asked for two take-home cartons. She carried them across the street, went through the flower shop to the back stairs and up to her loft. Charlie was sitting on the sofa, laptop open.

“Eat your dinner,” she said, putting the carton on the coffee table. Then she went to the bedroom, longing for a door to close.

* * *

The days after that confrontation with Charlie were dark for Lin Su. She felt abandoned all over again. Blake called almost every day and she sent him to voice mail where he left messages asking her to please open her mind to the many positive possibilities. He even said, “I know you’re listening to my messages because you’re stubborn and hardheaded but you’re not that stubborn and you know I care about you and Charlie. Please, let’s at least talk.”

She tried to stop listening to his messages, but since he would never really know, she listened. And she longed for him.

But he was causing her to lose control of Charlie and she couldn’t allow it.

Charlie had defied her. He continued to be Blake’s friend and student, working out there. They probably talked about what a fool she was behind her back and with a heavy heart she checked around for another job, relieved that none materialized.

“I know there’s a problem,” Winnie said. “I just don’t know what it is.”

“There’s no problem that I’m aware of.”

“Charlie is troubled, you’re troubled. Blake doesn’t stay for dinner with us anymore.”

“Ah, that. Well, that didn’t work out for me, Winnie, that’s all. I’m afraid I just don’t want to date Blake and there’s no way to find a happy medium. Charlie is understandably disappointed,” she said, trying to back Winnie off the trail. “I was afraid of exactly that, afraid that in seeing Blake, Charlie might have expectations. We’ll get through this. Charlie and Blake seem to remain friends at least.”

Winnie stared at her for a long moment. “You really underestimate me. My body is deteriorating but my mind is as sharp as it ever was. Remember that when you spin me a tale.”

“I have no idea what you mean,” Lin Su said.

“And there you go again...”

* * *

Somewhere in the second week of December, Peyton went into labor. There was some excitement as her ob-gyn had been concerned about the baby’s position and when labor was well under way he hadn’t yet turned. They didn’t wait long before doing a C-section and bringing a large, healthy baby boy into the world.

“I’m the last one left,” Grace complained. “They all went early and I’ll probably be two weeks late!”

Lin Su was remembering how terrified she was when Charlie was due to be born. Not of giving birth but about how she would live, how they would survive. She’d even called Marilyn twice. Please, don’t turn your back on me now! I have a son coming anytime and I don’t know how we’ll make it!

We gave you everything, Marilyn had said. We gave you a luxurious lifestyle, a fabulous education, everything a child could want. If you put him up for adoption, I might reconsider. But I won’t have you take further advantage of us.

In the midst of this traumatic month, Winnie had chosen to support a fund-raiser. It was a black-tie event in North Bend. “I bought us a table. We’ll all go together. Lin Su, I’ll need you with me. I want you to go. I want Charlie to go.”

“Ah, Winnie, I will go to make sure you have all the assistance you need, but I’ll go as your nurse, not your guest.”

“No, that’s not how it will be. I have dresses for you to look at, dresses I’ll probably never wear again. Or, if you prefer, Grace is going to shop for something in the maternity style and you can go with her to find your own cocktail dress.”

They argued back and forth for a while but the argument was won by Winnie. Not because she was so eloquent but because she badgered Lin Su into trying on one of her dresses and Lin Su fell in love. She hadn’t worn a beautiful, fancy dress since high school, since that other life.

Charlie wanted to opt out of the gala and just stay home, but Winnie wouldn’t hear of it. “You’ll want to go to this one,” she said. “Blake is the speaker. It’s a fund-raiser for the Neighborhood Club of Coos County. Troy is getting you a shirt and tie.”