This Time Is Different Read online

  Both of his feet on the floor, he looked up at me and scrubbed his hand through his mop of brown curls. A tight swift nod over pursed lips. “Capisce,” he said.

  And I smiled at the word. I hadn’t heard it in a long time, but I remembered it. Remembered watching Full House reruns in bed with Bert after a long day of dental school classes, a toddler Grady asleep between us. Bert had picked “Capisce” up as a funny dad-ism. I bet he still said it.

  “Okay. Have fun at Peter’s. I’ll see you in the morning.”

  On his way out, he paused at the door. “See you tomorrow when we get Oddjob.”

  “We’re not naming the cat Oddjob,” I said, resolute in my statement.

  “Well, we’ll see what the cat has to say about that, won’t we?”

  22

  Thomas

  “Hey, I’m taking off. Need anything?” My assistant Ava stood in the doorway of my office.

  I glanced at the clock and saw it was nearly six. This wasn’t the plan. “I’m good,” I said, searching my desk for my misplaced phone.

  “This month’s expense report to date is in your email. Click the link to approve it for submission.”

  “Thanks,” I said. I unearthed my phone from under a stack of papers.

  “Not so fast. Dinner last night? You, E. Holloway, L. Holloway, and an A. Forsythe scribbled on the back of the receipt? A. Forsythe. Is that Doctor Dentist Angel? Because if it is, I need to tell you that it’s not okay to take a woman on a business dinner for a first date.”

  “It wasn’t our first date.”

  “Really?” she squeaked. Her mouth round and eyes big with excitement. “And it’s Doctor Dentist Angel?”

  “Otherwise known as Amy Forsythe.”

  “Good for you. Seriously. I’m proud of you,” she said, beaming.

  “Am I that much of a loser that I need to be congratulated on taking a woman to dinner?” I teased her.

  “No. You’re that much of a workaholic that you need to be congratulated on taking a woman to dinner. Are you going to ask her out again?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “Why don’t you know?”

  I glared at her. I liked Ava. She was great at being my assistant and because of that she knew a lot about me. That I liked all financial reports printed on green paper so I could easily find them on my desk. That if I had to travel, I was booked at a hotel with a functioning rowing machine in the exercise room. That when I couldn’t sleep at three in the morning, I emailed her to-do lists. But she didn’t need to know about Amy.

  “Okay, okay. I get it,” she said with her hands held up in surrender. “Have a good weekend. I blocked off that three-day period next month. And I hope that’s Doctor Dentist Angel related.”

  “Her name is Amy,” I answered in an exaggerated growl with a smile on my face.

  “Excellent,” she said brightening again. “Happy to book whatever you need on that.”

  “New Orleans. Bed and breakfast. Best restaurants you can get us into,” I said simply and looked back at my phone.

  “Wow. Okay. Looks like you won’t be needing any pointers from me.”

  “Nope, I’m good. See you in the morning.” I dismissed her with a wave and as soon as she left, I scrolled through my phone, reading the stream of texts and emoticons and stickers and gifs send by Cassie. In true Cassie fashion, she’d made her way through nearly all of the seven stages of grief over the course of the day. The last one made me happy. It was a single sentence of benediction. “As long as she’s nice to you.”

  I thought about calling Cassie back, but she was either in a good place or faking being in a good place. And I was going to let this sleeping dog lie. If she was good, she was good. If she wasn’t good, I’d get another tearful and angry phone call in a few days. But having Miller and Claire on board with the idea of me dating gave me confidence that Cassie would get there. Eventually. She might never meet Amy. And if she met Amy, she might not like Amy, but that didn’t bother me too much.

  Cassie had ridden away on her bicycle on her grand adventure to Dallas and instead of me standing there, watching and waiting to see if the speck of her that had faded off into the distance was ever going to reappear on the horizon, I needed to have an adventure of my own.

  I dialed Amy’s number and she answered on the third ring. I didn’t even bother with introductions. “I’m sorry about this morning. Can we have dinner tonight? A late one because I know you’re working late. Like nine?”

  She complained that she was in scrubs, but I wasn’t having it. We were going to eat dinner together and I was going to make up for the morning’s missteps.

  “I’ll bring over pizza. I’ll order one for Grady and if he’s home he can eat it and if he’s not, he can eat it tomorrow, and if he wants to eat with us, great and if he doesn’t want to eat with us, that’s fine, too.” She conceded and I placed a to-go order.

  Two pizza boxes sat in the passenger seat of my car. Both had everything on them. “We all can just pick off what we don’t like that way,” Amy had explained when I asked her what I should order.

  I parked in the drive and noticed her SUV was in the garage and the space were Grady’s car had been parked before was empty.

  She opened the door before I could ring the bell.

  “Did someone order a pizza?” The words came out of my mouth and all I could think of was me and Amy in some awful cheesy porn. Me, the pizza delivery boy and, based upon her scrubs, I was going to go with naughty nurse for her.

  “Oh, thank you so much,” she said, taking the boxes from me and walking to her kitchen. “I’m starving. I only had a little break at lunch and Grady . . . well, anyway, I’m glad you’re here. Can I interest you in a big cock?” she asked with waggle of her eyebrows.

  “Shouldn’t I be the one to say that?” I asked, happy to be around her again.

  “I think the wine at your house is way too classy to be big cock.”

  “The wine wasn’t what I was talking about. But yes, I’d love a glass of wine.”

  “Coming right up. I’ve already poured myself one. Plates and utensils are over there,” she said, gesturing to a set of cabinets. “Just dig around.”

  I pulled down two plates and reached for a third. “Where’s Grady?” I asked, hoping he wasn’t home, despite the fact I’d asked for him to join us.

  “Out with friends,” she replied as we settled in at the kitchen table. After we each inhaled a slice, I asked her what I wanted to know. “How was your day?”

  “It was okay. Started really great, then got weird, then got awful, and now it’s heading toward good again.”

  I scooted my chair around and hauled her bare feet into my lap, so I could rub them. “I’m sorry about the weirdness this morning. I’d told Miller that I was seeing someone and he told his sisters and Cassie didn’t like the idea. She’s come around now, but it was touch and go there for a bit. I’m not even sure what some of the emojis she texted me were supposed to mean. But she’s got her own life. I’ve got mine.”

  “I see your self-centered college student and raise you an asshole teenager. Mine called me a whore.” My hands froze their kneading.

  “He what?” Grady wasn’t my son. I didn’t have any right to be pissed off, but I was.

  Amy frantically waved her hands in front of her face. “No, no. It’s okay. Well, it’s not okay, but it’s fine. He didn’t quite call me a whore. He just implied it. He was supposed to have spent last night at his dad’s, but he stayed here. So, when you dropped me off . . . Anyway . . . But then he drove out to my office and brought me a cupcake and I think we’re okay now. I told him that he doesn’t have to like you, but that he does have to respect me and part of respecting me means respecting that if I want to have you over for pizza,” she reached up and unwound the bun on the top of her head, combing her fingers through her brown mane until it fell past her shoulders, “then I get to have you over for pizza.”

  “Thanks for having me over
for pizza,” I said, resuming her foot massage.

  “Of course. Pizza and a foot rub? Let’s do this weekly.” She took the last sip of her wine and set the empty glass on the table, twirling the stem with her fingers.

  Weekly? Oh, hell no. “Sounds good to me.” I dug my thumbs into her arch and she moaned. “Want more big cock?” I asked.

  “You got the last of it. But I think there’s another bottle of something—Thomas!” she said, finally realizing what I’d offered. Her eyes getting big and that blush I liked so much crawled up her cheeks again.

  “Where’s Grady?” I asked again, wanting confirmation that we weren’t about to get busted for making out like the last time I was over.

  “Spending the night at a friend’s house.”

  “Is he coming home?” I asked, pressing my thumbs into the arch of her foot and eliciting a pleasure-filled moan from her.

  “After this morning, my bet is that he’ll find somewhere else to stay all weekend,” she said.

  “I’m sorry about that. I really am,” I said, shifting my attention to her other foot.

  “Not your fault to apologize for.”

  “No, I got all wrapped up in Cassie and—”

  “I know,” she said with a shrug. “They’ll always come first, won’t they?”

  I shrugged too, knowing she was right, but also knowing that with her, I wanted something for myself for the first time in as long as I could remember. “I had a great time with you yesterday. And I’m not just talking about last night. Or this morning,”

  “I had a good time, too,” she said, taking her eyes from me and looking back at her empty wine glass. “And,” she said, brushing her hair behind an ear and twisting her small diamond earring, “as long as you’re okay with me kicking you out at the break of dawn tomorrow . . .”

  23

  Amy

  The text was one I’d been expecting and it was simple. Call me.

  And I knew what it was about. Bert and I typically relied on texts, not phone calls. I was being called on the carpet, as I deserved to be. And that shame about slapping Grady, that I’d kept boxed away even as I pulled out some of the items I’d shoved away just the day before, it was staring me in the face. I sighed.

  “Something wrong this early?” Thomas asked, patting down his pants pockets in a wallet-watch-phone check before he left my house. It wasn’t quite eight yet on Friday morning, but Bert was an early bird.

  “Yeah, I’ve got to talk with Bert about yesterday. About what happened with me and Grady.”

  “Wish I could fix that for you,” he said earnestly and wrapped me in a hug.

  “My teenager to bear,” I muttered. “You’ve run that particular gauntlet.”

  “That I have. It’s not pretty. Godspeed, sweet Amy.” A kiss on the cheek and he was gone.

  I didn’t linger on Bert’s text and poured a second cup of coffee while I called him back.

  “’Sup.” Ah, the ’sup greeting. Like he hadn’t just texted and asked me to call him.

  “Well, yesterday was a complete clusterfuck, if I’m being honest,” I said, diving head first into the deep end.

  “What did he do?”

  “He didn’t tell you?” I was surprised. I thought he likely had told Bert because of the cupcake on my desk, so I was surprised that Bert didn’t know the whole sordid story, complete with me having spent the night with a guy.

  “All he said was that you’d had a fight and eventually he admitted that he’d said something to you and that you’d slapped him. And I told him he had to apologize. What the hell happened?”

  And I didn’t know how to explain it to Bert. It was one thing for him to know I had been out to dinner with someone. It was a whole other thing for him to know I’d been in someone else’s bed and that someone had been in my bed this morning. “Did he tell you what he said?” I asked, hoping that I wouldn’t have to offer up my relationship with Thomas for his scrutiny.

  “Did you slap him?” Bert asked, his voice rising as he lost all patience with my non-responsive answers.

  “Yes. And I’ll regret it until the day I die.” The tears were back and the guilt grew and expanded with each second.

  “You going to tell me what he said?” His voice was gentler now, coaxing me.

  “I’d rather not.”

  “Amy—” An exasperated plea this time.

  “Bert, just stay out of it,” I cried, yelling at him as the tears fell down my hot face. “This isn’t about you. This is between me and Grady.”

  “That’s not how this works, Amy,” he ground out. “He’s my child, too. And if y’all are having problems that involve what I’m going to guess is the B-word, because I know how much you hate it, and you slapping him, then I have the right to know. I need to know.”

  “It wasn’t the B-word. I wouldn’t have slapped him over the B-word. It was worse.”

  “The C-word?”

  “No,” I seethed, wishing he’d drop it and not play this stupid game of trying to figure out exactly what Grady had said, so I decided to end it. “If you have to know, it was the S-word.”

  “What’s the S-word? Shithead?”

  “Slut, Bert. Slut. He implied I was a whore.” And I let the words hang in the air.

  After a few beats of silence, Bert spoke. “And you slapped him.”

  “Yeah. And like I said, I’ve apologized to him and we’re working through it.” My tone was even, as I tried to convey that I had this under control and it was none of his business.

  “He’s grounded,” Bert announced.

  “You don’t need to get involved. We’re working through it,” I said, brushing the tears from my face with the back of my hand.

  “Amy, that’s fine. You work through it with him, but I’m grounding his ass. He doesn’t get to call you, his mother, that and get away with a slap. No car. Rest of the month.”

  “You don’t need to rescue me,” I replied, twisting my hair up into a bun with one hand and holding it at the top of my head, letting some of the heat that had built within me to dissipate.

  “Goddamn it, Amy. I’m not rescuing you. I’ve got your back. There’s a difference.” His frustration slipped over the line to a yell and I cringed.

  “How pissed are you at me?” I whispered, my voice shaking. I wanted to hear confirmation that I was as terrible a person as I knew I was.

  “Pissed at you?” he asked incredulously, his tone softening. “For slapping him? I’ll be honest. Not really. You didn’t even leave a mark. He’s a good kid. A literal Boy Scout. I don’t know what’s up with him.”

  “He saw me on a date,” I said, glossing over the details.

  “Oh.”

  “Yeah.”

  “So, no car for the rest of the month. He’ll bum rides from friends or I’ll drive him around. And I’ll deliver the bad news. Work for you?”

  “Works for me,” I said, resigned to him once again bailing me out.

  We ended the call and as I finished my coffee, I charted a course for My-day. One that would involve a new cat and dinner with my son.

  Grady hadn’t shown up at the animal shelter like we’d talked about, but I still brought the little kitten home and settled on Honey for Honey Rider, the white bikini-clad badass from Dr. No. Grady, like his father, rarely failed to follow through on his word, so when I walked out of the shelter with Honey and Grady still hadn’t shown up, I knew that we weren’t good.

  The apologies in my office got us halfway to good, but we needed to be better. We needed to be fully good. My house was no good. This had to be neutral. Over the years Bert and I had settled on a dive bar as our neutral turf for hard talks. But I couldn’t drag my teenager there.

  An old school pasta at a windowless restaurant from the ’50s was our answer. I’d texted him that he was to meet me there. We ordered, and we ate, and we waited until the waiter set the check at our table for any real talk. Any talk about anything other than his Eagle Scout project and upcoming campin
g trip.

  “Grady, I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have. I’ll never do it again. And I love you.” The words spilled from me and I tried to hold the tears at bay by biting my lower lip. Inflicting a bit of pain to distract me from my regret.

  “I’m sorry.” He exhaled the two short words. He didn’t look me in the eye, but I knew he meant it. Even as a toddler, when he did wrong, he hid. He didn’t hide under his bed or behind furniture anymore, but he hid with his eyes.

  “Want to talk about it?”

  “Not really, but I guess that’s why we’re here,” he said, slurping up the last of his Coke with a straw.

  “If it really upsets you that much for me to date, I won’t.” And I meant it. I’d do anything for him.

  “I don’t like you dating him.”

  “I’m going to ask a very specific question, and I want, no I deserve, an honest answer. Do you not like Thomas or do you not like me dating?”

  “What do you think?”

  “I think you don’t like me dating at all.”

  “Got it in one,” he replied, signaling the server for a refill on his Coke.

  “Why? Is it because you want me and your dad to get back together? Because, Grady, sweetie, I love you so much, but that’s not happening. We’re different people. And, believe it or not, we’re happier apart.”

  “He isn’t.”

  Those simple words struck me to the core. I knew they weren’t true. But if they were true in Grady’s eyes, there was nothing I could say to convince him otherwise. Before I could speak, he did. “And, what are you going to do to this guy? Dump him?” He snagged a breadstick from the basket and leaned back in his chair, confident that he’d scored a direct hit.

  “That’s entirely not fair,” I retorted in harsh whisper. If we were going to have it out, fine. But I was not going to cause a scene in a busy restaurant.

  “Yes, it is, Mom. I’m sorry but I’m not stupid. You left Dad. And he’s a good guy. And you’re going to do it again to this guy?”