Chapter 24 #2
"Yeah, Ursula broke my uncle's curse and thank God it was her, because there were some women circling him that would have made me scream."
"Love you too," she said to Bess. "But you," she pointed to Eloise. "What do you want?"
"Him," she said it so easily like she didn't have to pay anything for the answer.
"Okay, then."
"Okay."
"We need one more can of this to finish up the chairs," Jenson said. "But then give them overnight and they should be good to go."
"You guys really came through. Thank you," Eloise said. "Coffee on the house for the foreseeable future."
Jenson grinned as he pulled Ursula into his side. Seeing her best friend fit against him so easily made her smile. "Bess already gives me free coffee."
"Hey!" she threw a rag at him over the coffee bar. "That was our secret and now it's revoked."
He laughed and threw it back at her. "Well, now I have free coffee because I'm so helpful."
"Yeah, we'll see who you get at the till," she replied.
Jenson laughed as he and Graham put away the tools and they got out the dessert that Eloise had brought for everyone.
"You and Tess will get an extra little bonus for helping tonight."
"I can't believe little miss stuck-up actually came on her night off to help," Bess groused.
"Hey," Eloise admonished, a seriousness in her voice that grabbed Bess's attention.
"Learn this young. How you talk about someone behind their back is a mark of your character, not theirs.
And Tess doesn't seem to have much in the way of a loving support system so we get the chance to be that for her. As difficult as she may be sometimes."
Bess, properly chastised nodded and apologized.
Eloise hugged her again and Ursula joined.
The two friends looked at each other over the top of Bess's dark head and shared a moment.
They may not ever have children, but having this with Bess was something neither of them saw coming and the sweetness of it was immeasurable.
"Okay, you guys are smothering me," Bess complained, pushing them away.
"Get used to it," Ursula said, her face in a content smile.
They all crowded around the coffee bar eating oatmeal honey bars with roasted strawberries. The smell of the varnish was strong, but Eloise thought it smelled like change and possibility. There was something distinctly welcoming in the air inside of the little coffee shop tonight.
Graham stood next to her and it didn't feel tumultuous.
They shared a look; her sad smile and his smile in return said he understood.
She knew as he made a joke, bringing out a head-thrown-back laugh that he wouldn't ask her out again and she was grateful for that relief of pressure.
She packed up the leftover oatmeal bars for him and his grandmother.
By the time people started drifting home, and the cafe was locked up, she felt excited like she was on the precipice of something, even with everything around town, and half of the town seemingly against them, she felt hope.
Then the door of a truck swung open, pulling her attention and making her smile when she saw Taylor step down onto the street.
"Hey. Smart to wait until all of the work was finished," she smiled.
He chuckled, but the mirth didn't reach his eyes. "I uh, got hung up." What he hadn't told her was that he had stood at the cafe window looking into the glowing shop and watched as Graham made her laugh. The bump of his shoulder against hers twisted Taylor's insides.
And he could see it: Eloise and Graham, walking hand-in-hand around their picturesque town.
Him talking about something in marketing and her regaling him with her whimsy and winning his heart day after day.
He tortured himself by picturing Graham picking her up at the coffee shop after a long day and kissing her softly, her pretty amber-glass eyes looking up at him adoringly.
He swallowed the lump in his throat at the idea of Graham being able to say three words to her that he never could.
And she deserved that.
Then he got back into his truck and waited, the pain thumping around in his chest like a wild animal.
Now she stepped up onto the sidewalk under the glow of an antique street lamp, unaware of the turmoil inside of him.
Earlier when talking with Ursula and Bess she had been honest, deeply honest. She felt settled near Taylor.
Seeing him lifted a heaviness inside of her.
There weren't butterflies flying about, but a wave of warmth and calmness.
His blue eyes looked over her face, but the way that they looked and took her in felt bigger than usual. He smelled different.
"How are you, after everything with Carol and going to the station?"
She nodded. "I feel okay, honestly. We haven't done anything. Though it seems like maybe someone is out to make it look like we did and that is concerning, and half the town wanting us to leave isn't helping my self esteem," she looked down at her red canvas shoes with a little smile.
She was about to bring up the woman with red hair at the club when a warm hand lightly grasped her chin and tipped it up until she was again looking into blue eyes.
They held things, ravines of thoughts and wishes, but what pressed into her heart were the regrets and lost hopes she saw there.
His usual sweet orange smell was acidic, the hickory not there.
And she knew.
Moments passed between these two souls as they stood there under the lamplight and the moon who watched with a sadness that could be felt amongst the stars.
The gentle smell of lily of the valley, which quite liked to bloom in the privacy of night, swirled around them as they had a silent conversation.
His hand had moved to rest against the side of her throat and her hand had somehow found its way to lay gently on his chest over his heart, where she knew he harbored those deferred hopes; hopes that he could never find a happy ending to.
She wanted to curse the curse itself, the one that she imagined wrapped around his heart like a thorny vine.
He pulled her into him, his warmth a comfort, though one that was saying such heartbreaking things. The way that his strong arms wrapped around her, protective.
Desperate.
She told herself she could cry later in privacy and not where it would further weigh this good man down.
So many words scrambled together inside of her, trying to make sense of this, trying to stop this goodbye.
Maybe she could love him enough for both of them?
But then her heart shook her head so sadly, and the moon seemed to take on a dimmer glow. Still, there was a verdant vine of hope in her that wanted to hold on.
"Maybe we could just be us, this, no definition and no boundaries," she said with shaking words.
He tilted his head. "That's not how relationships work, Eloise.
Not good ones. Not the kind that you need.
You're too," he stopped, his throat catching.
He let out a breath and continued, "You're the kind of woman who should have the kind of man who can love you with a fierceness that you never have to question. "
"You haven't tried to break the curse?" she asked the question that had been hovering in her throat for days.
He frowned. "I don't know if that's possible," he said.
"Do you ever think that maybe if you let someone love you-"
"Stop," he cut her off, the sharpness of his tongue like a lashing causing her to jolt back. "It is what it is, Eloise."
There was anger there. With her or the curse, or the world. All of it.
Her shoulders set as she leaned forward, a hardness entering her voice. "I think you're scared." His eyes flickered. "I think you being cursed is an easy out to not fight for something."
He laughed, a scoff that was humorless. "Fight for something?
Fight for what?!" he yelled. He was yelling at the sky and all of its darkness.
"I'm not worth it, Eloise." He thumped his chest and she tasted his desperation; smelled falling stars crashing to the ground burning a hole into the earth.
"Do not lose yourself trying to find me," he said softly.
All the anger dissipated as brokenness took its place. And she understood then.
He was more concerned about her losing who she was in a search for him.
He lifted his arms until his hands held her face softly.
"I want you to know," he started, his voice low, the rough edges leaving behind marks on her skin.
"Stop," she said shaking her head, closing her eyes against the tears she wanted to keep for herself.
"I can't." She swallowed before opening her eyes again and she wondered if she would ever again look up into his blue eyes like this.
And then knew that she wouldn't. This was the look between lovers, the look of goodbye; a giving and taking, more intimate than the touching of naked skin.
"You can't leave me with words. But I need you to know that it's okay. I'll be okay."
She saw a sheen in his eyes that nearly pulled the tears out of hers.
But then he blinked once, nodded, then leaned down, kissing her forehead, the movement rough, like he was holding back an energy he wasn't sure how to contain.
Then his lips rested butterly-soft on her throat, kissing away the invisible scar there, making her heart clench painfully before stepping back, cutting off all contact between them.
"I need to go away for a little while."
She swallowed a lump in her throat. She watched his hands ball into fists and wondered if he had a similar animal inside of him, keening and thumping against his chest at the unfairness of this.
"I'll see you around, detective," she said softly, a tremulous smile holding back the pain. She was about to walk away, then added a passionately sad note. "I think the worst part isn't that you can't love, but that you won't let someone love you despite it."
She turned then, just barely making it one step before the hot tears rolled down her cheeks.
She walked that way from downtown Salem to her favorite spot under the blooming peach tree behind The Lost Souls House; a breaking heart beating in her chest with every step, Lady Macbeth joining her and a watchful hawk soaring above them.
Once she sat below the peach tree, with a pregnant raccoon curled up with her little black hand wrapped around her pinky finger and the hawk nestled onto a branch, the light in the kitchen flipped on and out came the other half of her heart, carrying a blanket.
Silently, Ursula wrapped it around them both and tucked Eloise's head onto her shoulder where she then rested hers.
Words weren't needed. She wondered if Ursula had felt her heartache in the same way she could smell it; Eloise thought she smelled a little more human tonight than usual.
Was there anything more human than a heart breaking?
"I love you, Little Mermaid."
The tears rolled unrestrained, hot and heavy down her apple cheeks as the peach blossoms puffed and glowed, their fragrant smell surrounding them.
She fell asleep sometime when she hadn't realized it, with a bed of clover holding her head gently and the blanket that Ursula had tucked around her and the sleeping raccoon tightly.
I've caught a man by the leg, trapped him with my eyes and the sway of my hips. How easy it is, to trap a man. They should fear us, not the other way around, don't you think?
When you wake, you will be safer than before.
For a price.