CHAPTER 37 WOULD YOU FIGHT FOR MY LOVE?
WOULD YOU FIGHT FOR MY LOVE?
Orchid
During a break in their media agency meeting, a junior planner hugged Orchid hello, then plunked ice into a glass. Even with fist-high heels, she only came to Orchid’s shoulder.
“So, how were your holidays?”
Orchid twisted open a sparkling water. “Not bad. I hung out with friends. How about you?”
“I stayed local. Went to a bunch of Christmas parties. Drunkfests.” She rolled her eyes, which made Orchid chuckle.
“Come to think of it, wasn’t the last time we saw each other at the agency holiday party?” Orchid said.
“That’s right, that was some night. Did you have fun?”
“Yeah, it was good.”
“Weren’t you talking with one of the agency presidents? I forget his name,” she continued. She poured water from a pitcher into her glass.
“You mean Phoenix Walker, from counterAgency?” Orchid asked, startled. She’d been so immersed in the intensity of her feelings, first of hope then fury, it’d escaped her that the party was a public forum.
“Yeah, that’s his name.” The petite woman brightened. “How do you know him?”
“We worked on some pro bono accounts, a long time ago.”
“Oh, wow. You’re lucky.”
“Yeah, it was good while it lasted.”
“That was before his accident?”
Orchid blinked. “Accident? What accident?”
She looked confused. “Maybe I’m thinking of someone else. I get mixed up between all those boutique agencies. Maybe it was the guy at Z—”
Orchid interrupted her pondering. “When was the accident?”
“In the summer, I think. Really scary. I didn’t ride the subway for weeks after that. Some homeless guy tripped one of the agency heads onto the subway tracks. Amazing that the guy survived. The train did a number on him, I heard.”
“Really? Then it wasn’t Phoenix, because he looked incredible. Like he always does.” She felt herself blushing.
Her friend shrugged.
A co-worker stepped over and saved her from further embarrassment. “La-dies, meeting’s star-ting,” he pronounced.
That night, Google yielded a small sensational blurb on the perils of riding New York City subways. A picture of the empty station accompanied the article dated August 1. There was no name of the victim and his or her condition was never updated. Nor was the perpetrator found.
Searching Phoenix’s name as she’d done many times these last months returned the expected pages of interviews, press releases, bios and news of the agency’s accolades.
Nothing connected the two, yet Orchid went to bed with strange new questions swirling.
February in the city, the frigid temperatures unforgiving, Orchid pulled her coat closer for the trudge home from work. She glanced into windows as she walked. As she passed one eatery, the back of a familiar head caught her eye.
Orchid entered the restaurant and wandered towards the bar where she’d seen the mirage.
She rounded the corner to familiar features.
She drank in the refined cheekbones, chiseled jawbone and dark brows.
As she looked up, she was met with a cold glare.
Caleb locked eyes with Orchid. He was dressed in a crisp white shirt, collar open to reveal the black leather cord and horn pendant, and tailored black pants.
No wonder Orchid had thought it was Phoenix; Caleb was clothed like a stylish ad man tonight.
Orchid asked what she’d tried to forget for the last five months. “How are you? How’s Phoenix?”
Caleb narrowed his eyes. “What do you care?” he asked.
He turned away from her and Orchid caught him by the arm. “Is he still with that girl?”
He glared at her. “Like I said, what do you care?”
“What do I care? Yeah, why should I care?” she asked, jealousy welling as she pictured Phoenix with the slender birdlike woman at the agency holiday party.
This seemed to fuel Caleb’s fury. “That’s right, you don’t care. You left a guy while he was in the hospital. When he could’ve died. You didn’t even come in person. I hope you rot,” he spat, pushing his face inches from hers.
“Hey! I didn’t do anything. I don’t know what you’re talking about.” She stepped back, shaken. “Wait, what do you mean, hospital? What do you mean, he could’ve died?”
“Don’t play dumb with me.”
“Is he okay? Is he hurt?” she asked.
“Oh, you are a piece of work,” Caleb spat and turned heel. He stormed out of the restaurant, slamming the door outwards as if a force of nature had flung it open.
She walked home, thinking. First, her junior media planner. Now Caleb. What happened?
Crazy possibilities ran through her imagination. Caleb spoke in the past tense, yet his rage was viscerally present. For the first time in months, uncertainty mingled with the bitter taste in her mouth when she thought of Phoenix.
The image of his business card, stark and white, came into focus. Her thumbs flew over her screen, as she texted a number her subconscious hadn’t forgotten. “Phoenix, I saw Caleb tonight. Are you okay?”
The same silence that marked the prior five months stretched over the next day.
Spurred by a growing uneasiness, she called Phoenix’s office. A woman answered, her tone tight and efficient, explaining that she could transfer Orchid to voicemail. There, his recorded baritone reminded her of his easy laugh, late nights together at his agency, and his ever-present kindness.
A feeling swept over her. One she didn’t want to admit to herself. Still? She hung up the phone.
Snowdrifts sealed Phoenix in his building as tight as his misconceptions sealed his thinking into the same derailed track. Hell of a winter.
“Did you see Orchid?” Phoenix asked without preamble when his brother answered his call. Seeing her name appear on his phone had tightened his chest, as if it’d only been last week since they’d kissed and said goodbye at the airport.
“Yeah. Seems to have amnesia. Played dumb over your accident.”
“How’d she look?”
Saying Orchid’s name nudged him off-kilter so he couldn’t even react to the hard edge in Caleb’s voice.
“Fine, I guess. What do you care?”
“I don’t.”
“I mean, that bitch never even came to see you in the hospital.”
“Yeah, because I never told her I was in the hospital.”
“What? Why not?”
“Aw, c’mon, there was no way we were going to work.
She can’t even look at a scratch, and I’ve got a little more than a scratch,” he said, glancing at the blunt end of his arm and picturing her look of disgust as his coat slipped off where his hand should be.
He felt as sick at her reaction as she seemed to feel about his injury.
Caleb grunted, his fury dissipating. “Is that really your call to make?”
“Maybe not. But I saw her over the holidays and she was pretty repulsed by me so, yeah, there’s no way this could’ve worked. Now she keeps trying to reach me. First time in five months.”
“So, what’re you gonna do?”
“I dunno. What would you do?”
“You gotta decide.”
He thought of solid, dependable Rina. And her complete acceptance of him.
“What’s to decide? I’m not even single.”
One message from a woman, even someone as talented, smart and beautiful as Orchid, had no power to change that.