Chapter 13
Tabitha answered her door in a short skirt and a T-shirt with BRUNETTES DO IT BETTER printed across the front. She dunked a piece of toast in her mug before kicking open the door for Eddie.
During the time he had known her, she had been a blonde, then a redhead. Now she had gone back to her natural wavy brunette hair, which she had pulled back into a ponytail exposing the small star-shaped red birthmark on her neck.
Eddie stepped inside her penthouse apartment and was greeted by the smell of brewing coffee. Some obnoxiously gorgeous blonde anchorwoman was on the TV talking about the possibility of bad weather rolling in.
“Thanks for letting me in,” Eddie said. “I really appreciate it. Have you seen Paige?”
Eddie had heard people say two women can’t be friends if both of them are pretty, but he thought it was how they saw themselves that mattered more in the equation than how they actually looked. Paige was beautiful, but she didn’t seem to know it. When people would comment on her good looks she would dismiss what they said, fending off their compliments with her palm. Tabitha, however, knew she was beautiful, and she knew how to use that beauty. When people would comment on her good looks she would say, “I was an ugly, chubby baby and don’t they always turn out to be the prettiest people?”
He didn’t know if Tabitha had been ugly or chubby as a child. He hadn’t seen any of her baby pictures, but he found it hard to imagine her as either. And if she had been ugly then she’d done a fine job of growing out of it.
Tabitha sauntered to her kitchen table, waved Eddie further in the apartment with her piece of toast. “No. I haven’t seen her. Why?”
“I don’t know where she is. I can’t seem to catch her on her cell phone. I tried calling her work, but she’s not answering. All I have is a short e-mail saying to meet her at your club tonight. I don’t know what to do.”
Tabitha shook her head and smiled. “I guess she finally left you, huh?”
Eddie rubbed his chin. “No. I’m serious. I think she’s missing. I think she may have been abducted.”
She looked at him with doubtful eyes. “You sure she didn’t just wise up and leave you for someone worthwhile?”
Paige had met Tabitha a year ago at Tabitha’s nightclub. Tabitha had been working the bar, spilling liquor into customers glasses, when Paige had dragged them into the place. They took a pair of stools in front of her. Paige bought the drinks. Tabitha poured them. They chatted about men for a couple of hours, as if he wasn’t even there.
The two women became instant friends.
Tabitha was ultra independent, successful, and had an air of confidence about her, especially when it came to men and her own body, a package other women couldn’t seem to help admiring. She was smart, oozed sex, and looked as though she could handle a man better than he could handle his own equipment. She did what she loved too, which he figured was why she didn’t approve of him. She was convinced that he wasn’t good enough for Paige. That he was the reason why she wasn’t doing what she really wanted to be doing: painting. He wasn’t sure she was wrong.
Tabitha pushed back from the table, crossed her arms, and stared hard at Eddie. “Didn’t you guys have a fight this morning?”
“Well, yes.”
“So maybe she’s cooling off. Has anyone else talked to her?”
He didn’t know how to answer that. Had someone talked to her? The cops had said they’d talked to her. But maybe they’d only talked to someone at the real estate office. He wasn’t even sure whether someone at the real estate office had actually spoken with her. Perhaps they’d just told the police she was in a meeting with a client because that was what was marked on their schedule board.
“You’re better friends than lovers,” Tabitha said.
“What the hell does that mean?”
“There’s no passion between you two. You’re working for a graphic design company so you can rent a larger place. She’s selling real estate to bring in extra cash. How fucked up is that for a writer and a painter?”
Eddie bristled. Who was she to tell them how to live? She didn’t know what they went through. She didn’t have to pay their bills.
“We do what we have to. You know how I grew up. So, I think I can speak with some authority on the subject. I just don’t think you realize what she was suggesting. If she quit her job...”
Eddie had practically grown up in a dumpster. For stretches at a time food was the hottest commodity in his young life. He hadn’t wanted to risk going back to that kind of living. What was so wrong with that?
Tabitha sipped her coffee, turned one corner of her lip up in a smirk. “When I talked to her this morning, she mentioned maybe leaving you. She said you followed her around the house acting all wounded until she finally got angry and told you to get out.”
He stared at her trying to make sense of what she’d said. That wasn’t the way it went down, which meant either Paige had lied to Tabitha or Tabitha was lying to him. Considering Tabitha’s disposition towards him he considered the latter far more likely.
“She was angry,” he said. “But she didn’t say anything about leaving me. And she didn’t tell me to get out.”
“I told her she should leave you. I told her not to even bother packing. You’ll never be able to provide for her like she deserves. You won’t even support her following her dreams.”
“Paige doesn’t care about money and you know it.”
“No. But you do. Don’t you?”
Eddie said nothing for as long as he could stand Tabitha’s questioning gaze, and he felt a bit like a heathen standing at a church altar. “Don’t you think I know where she’d be if it wasn’t for me?”
“Where she’d be? That’s exactly the problem. You think this is all about her. It isn’t. When was the last time you wrote anything? If you stay together, you’ll both end up bitter and miserable.”
Eddie slammed his fist down on the table. “You’re wrong. I love Paige. I could never be miserable with her.”
As much as Tabitha wanted to blame him for everything, there were things about his relationship with Paige that Tabitha couldn’t understand.
She hadn’t been there when they’d gone to New Orleans on their honeymoon. She didn’t know what it was like to doze naked in the sweaty heat of the city after exchanging vows. Their hours unstructured. Their days uncounted.
At night he couldn’t clearly distinguish her body from his own. They slept, awoke, and moved into one another without effort. No beginning. No end.
In the mornings they listened to the tinkling of spoons against bowls and cups against saucers as people ate in the downstairs café, the only light pouring through the open shutters of their second floor room. He remembered hearing the clack, clack of hard heels against the concrete in the street below.
Once, he’d lifted up from the bed and seen a group of women in airy dresses and large sun hats. Those women moved in a surreal slow-motion fashion from boutique to boutique, hunting happiness, what he already had.
Paige had still been painting then, and--when they’d managed to leave the hotel--she’d carried a sketchpad everywhere. Dressed in loose fitting cotton, they’d ambled through streets of the city in whichever direction took their fancy. When their stomachs rumbled, they stopped at the first restaurant they hadn’t yet sampled. She snapped photos of the waiters as they took orders, of street musicians as they played. They’d barely spoken to one another during that exquisite week, not because they had nothing to say, but because there was nothing that needed saying. His cheeks hurt from all the smiling. She’d been unlike any woman he’d ever known.
No. He could never be miserable with Paige. Not then. Not now. Not ever.
Tabitha stood up from the table and put her coffee cup in the sink. “Well, I’d love to stick around and chat, but I can’t. I’m off to see a wizard.” She palmed her breasts, one in each hand, giv
ing them a little squeeze. “A Doc’s been popping in at the club and I’m hoping for a free examination. I think it’s time for you to go.”
Eddie followed her to the door. “So you’re not worried about Paige? About her being missing? Don’t you give a damn about your best friend?”
Tabitha smiled. “The only thing I’m worried about is getting to work on time. Who knows, maybe this Doc will give me a little extra squeeze. Makes my kitty shudder just thinking about it. Unlike you, I’ll give Paige her space, buzz her later.”
“But you don’t understand. A man came into a restaurant and cut me.” He showed her his bandaged hand. “He said his name was Nicholas. He said he had her.”
Tabitha opened the door for him. “Was he hot? Did he tell you to get lost? If he did he could be my hero. Now why don’t you go back to work Eddie? Put in some overtime. That’s where you really want to be, isn’t it?”
He couldn’t believe her blasé attitude. What a friend. And no, work wasn’t where he really wanted to be. He wanted to be at Paige’s side, wherever that might be, to hold her in his arms and know that she was okay.