Unattainable Read online

  The wrought iron gates groaned under her touch as she shut them behind her. Home sweet home. Then the front door popped open.

  “Mommy!”

  That child really was the cutest thing Anna had ever seen.

  She bent and scooped her little one up in her arms and kissed her face until she giggled. “Hey, baby doll girl.”

  “Daddy wouldn’t play with me. He’s working—ever.”

  “Forever ever?”

  “Mm hmm. I’m not having fun.”

  She carried Regan into the house and kicked the door shut behind her. Her husband’s desk light glowed out into the dark hall, casting shadows even in the middle of the day from where he’d forgotten to shut it off before he left.

  She walked in and flipped the switch to darkness.

  “Did you feed Regan?” she called to the sitter.

  Silence.

  “Did Michael?”

  “What? Yeah,” the sitter answered from the kitchen. “She didn’t eat much, though.”

  The little girl held up three fingers. “I ate mac and cheese, and candy and chocolate.”

  “Great.” She swung the three-year-old around until her feet firmly touched ground. “How about a sandwich?”

  The wrinkled little nose gave the answer.

  “Chili?”

  “Chili! Yes! I like chili.”

  The sitter waved as she scooted down the hall on the way out to her car. She was only ever at the house an hour or two here and there, filling the occasional gap where she left and Michael arrived or vice versa. She sure didn’t let the moss grow, did she?

  Tires squealed as the sitter’s car gripped a corner taken too fast just down the block.

  Another one bites the dust.

  Anna absently got the can opener and a pot. “Baby doll, you want to sit outside with mommy and play in the sprinkler after you eat?”

  “Okay! Can I eat outside, too?”

  “Sure. Mommy has a letter to type up anyway. We’ll sit on the patio.”

  And on the patio, ice tea in hand and chili in front of her daughter, she’d remind herself to start talking in first-person again.

  The green smell of freshly cut grass and roses flowed over her with the breeze. She set the laptop down on the table, flipped it open, pushed her sunglasses up on top of her head—and began.

  Dear Ms. Dovesky,

  I found your name on the Leaven web site as the official public relations contact for the band. I’m writing to let you know you have your work cut out for you.

  I recently took my niece to one of their concerts in Boise, Idaho and through a twist of fate, won tickets for a private party and meet and greet.

  Instead of what we were promised, we wound up being herded through a 100-degree tent, left to stand in the sun for nearly an hour, then not allowed to take photos or get so much as a stinking autograph.

  Now, the guys in the band were friendly enough, but the lead singer? He was sullen and distant to put it nicely. In fact, my niece never even got to speak to him. I realize he probably has an inordinate amount of people pass through his life, but he isn’t so damn charming that he can skate by treating people this way when he gets a whim. I noticed on your official web site’s forum that many others are having the same experience with him.

  At the very least, could you get an autographed photo to my niece so it wasn’t a complete bust for her? She’s a teenager. God knows why, but John Leaven’s signature would mean something to her.

  Sincerely,

  Anna Anderson

  She put in the proper mailing address, hit send, and shut the laptop with a snap.

  “There. Purged. Dislodged. Done.”

  “What’s dislodged mean, Mommy?”

  “In my case, broken loose and gotten rid of.”

  “Oh.” Regan pulled the band out of her waist-length hair and ran like a wild thing through the sprinkler again. She stripped her clothes off down to the panties in the blink of an eye. “Naked butt!” she yelled, hysterical with giggles.

  The phone beeped with a text from Michael. The plane carrying him from Boise back to South Carolina had been on time, and he was boarding.

  “Safe travels. Call when you get to the hotel,” she read aloud into the tiny microphone. Voice recognition was easier than regular texting with long nails.

  “Daddy’s gone?”

  She stared at the nonresponsive phone for a minute before putting it down on the patio table. He’d probably switched the phone into airplane mode, but all was well. It always was.

  “Looks like it’s back to you and me again,” she said to Regan.

  “You come play with me!”

  And so she did. But after that, she cleaned the house, ran to the grocery store, picked up the packages left at the post office, and came back home to tell the recruiter for an enormous coffee company that yes, after she was finished with her latest perfume contract, the amount they’d offered for her to review and analyze their new line of samples at home would work out just fine.

  •

  Two weeks later, Heidi received an autographed photo and guitar pick in the mail from Leaven’s public relations agency in Los Angeles. She was over the moon.

  For a while after that, John Leaven stayed out of Anna’s mind.

  THREE.

  August

  In a blink, the summer began to pass, and Michael had been able to visit for a weekend out of his two weeks away. Regan received a bag full of stuffed animals from the airport gift shop, and this time, she didn’t cry when her father left again. She pouted and scowled, recovered, then bounced off to watch the Disney Junior Channel. Such had become the pattern of their dysfunctional routine. It had started this way when they moved into the house, and never let up.

  He called each evening to talk with Regan, to talk later with Anna, but by the time the workday was over, they were too drained for much in the way of a conversation that mattered.

  Where once a perpetual contentment had resided where joy should probably have been, a faint unease now crept.

  “It’s work, sleep, eat, work for a while,” he said. “I don’t know any way around it if we want to pay the bills.”

  “We’re doing fine with the bills,” she answered. “And I think after this contract is up and your mall is built, they should look for a new contractor.”

  “Construction management project manager. CMPM. We don’t grow on trees you know.”

  “Whatever.”

  Neither do husbands.

  Now it was afternoon again, and in front of her on the kitchen counter, Anna had a new coffeemaker, several sealed packets of coffee and a stapled pile of forms a mile thick for each of those samples.

  She’d plunked ten grand from the last perfume contract into the family savings account that week, and would collect another thousand for each analysis of these coffee samples.

  She hadn’t signed back on to the perfume lab. She’d wisely, oh-so-professionally explained she was simply taking some time off—in case one day she wanted to return. Their letter of reference had been glowing, written during the initial uptick in sales created by the simplest tweak to their fragrance.

  And they were doing better than fine with the bills. After five years, they were finally getting their heads above water. They could live for months on their savings if they wanted—a refreshing place to be.

  Her sister sat on a stool on the other side of the counter, a cup of that coffee in hand. “This one tastes almost exactly like the last one.”

  Anna settled onto a stool herself. “They’ve done something to this one. Added hazelnuts, I think. It’s awful. Bitter. Acidic. You can smell it as soon as the water hits the grounds.”

  Jess stretched her short legs until her feet touched a rung on the stool. “If you say so.”

  Three boys and one Heidi later, and Jess was still strangely in shape. Short. But in shape. Anna also suspected Botox, but she’d never worked up the guts to ask.

  “Mommy? Can we go to Disne
yland?” came the sleepy question from the sofa.

  “When you’re about a foot taller we can go again. When you’re big enough to go on all the good rides.”

  Regan yawned, inch-long lashes settling onto soft pink cheeks. “I’m not a baby anymore. I’m a child. We can go next tomorrow Saturday.” As fast as that, she was out.

  “I remember when sleep was so easy—” Jess said. “I remember when everything was so easy.” The buzz of the cell phone on vibrate bouncing on the counter top stopped her. “You wanna get that?”

  Anna shook her head. “Someone’s been calling off and on this week. No number pops up. No voicemail.”

  “Telemarketer?”

  “It was last time I picked it up. I just don’t feel like dealing with one right now.”

  Regan snored gently on the sofa. “She really is your little mini-me,” Jess said.

  “I see some of Michael in her. Around the eyes and—the attitude.”

  “She has your hair. Hers is the exact same color as a bar of gold when the sun hits it. You know, like yours used to be—before the L’Oreal.”

  “Oh bite me.”

  Jess hopped off the stool and grabbed her purse. “One more crack about how far that jump always is for me, and I will bite you.”

  “Me? I would never.”

  Jess paused. “Michael is coming back, isn’t he?”

  “Of course he is,” Anna said. “Truthfully, I think he’s in over his head on this one. The crew is too small and that site is huge. Really, really huge. He said a few weeks, but—”

  Jess shook her head. “There’s no way. Those projects can go on for months. Years sometimes.”

  “The pay is amazing, but I’m worried. Regan misses him all the time. Seeing him every two weeks is just … crappy.”

  There were times when frustration surged up inside her, and she pushed it down. Hard. Michael was choosing to be away. He could choose to be home if he wanted to. Which told her he didn’t really want to. Such realizations were difficult to face, but she mulled them over, never one to run toward denial.

  Those were the thoughts that ran mercilessly through her head lately, the ones that woke her up during the witching hour and kept her laying there with her eyes watching shadows on a dark ceiling until the sun rose. Something had to give, and give soon.

  Jess squeezed her before heading out the front door. “Don’t worry. Think of military wives. They don’t see their men for a year at a stretch. You’ve got this.”

  “Yeah. I’ve got it. Hey, Jess. You’re not pregnant again, are you?” The vibe had come out of thin air this time.

  Her sister smiled, brows drawing together. “How did you— Never mind. I should be used to you by now. I’ll let you know what the doctor says, but yeah. Yeah, I think so.”

  And then she was gone, her news hanging in the air behind her.

  During times like this—when the house fell completely silent—Anna felt her sanity return. She’d been perfume contract to perfume contract for so long, juggling babysitters in between while Michael was away on shorter trips, that the change left her unsettled.

  What had she done with her time outside of work before she had a family? She’d gone to the gym a couple times a week. She tubed the river, walked through the zoo, sampled food from hole-in-the-wall restaurants.

  There were the scores of books she read. The random pastries she baked. She’d zip-lined. Roller-skated at the rink across town. Ice skated there when the owners converted it every winter. Laughed … Traveled. Dated. Made out during movies. Held hands. Had someone to talk to.

  She took her phone off the counter and eased onto the sofa beside Regan. But here was depth. Here in this child was a reason for being that overshadowed all the rest. She’d felt a pride she’d never felt when the little girl had learned the alphabet and how to count before age two. And when Regan threw her arms around her daddy’s neck when he came in from work, there was no emotion like it on earth—it connected them even when nothing else did.

  The phone in her hand vibrated again, and she slowly pushed herself off the sofa and tiptoed down the hall before touching the green “accept” button.

  “Hello?” she said quietly.

  The pause that followed was a mere second.

  “You think I have an inordinate amount of people pass through my life?”

  That was the precise moment her present world stopped spinning—and then started again anew.

  Her heart thudded in her chest. The sound of adrenaline-laced blood buzzed in her ears. But on the outside, Anna Anderson would have appeared completely calm, had anyone been there—or awake—to see her.

  “I’m pretty sure of it,” she said.

  Her mind raced for a thousand things to say. Something clever, witty, poignant—anything. There was no mistaking that accent, that rich, lush voice.

  “You’re a hard woman to track down, Anna.”

  “How did you?” she asked at length.

  He was silent for several more heartbeats. “I have a lot of time on tour buses. I read books. I get on Pinterest. I Google things.”

  I’ve been cyber-stalked by a celebrity?

  She sank cross-legged down onto the hardwood floor. “Um. My niece appreciated the autograph. It made up for the meet and greet, so thank you.”

  He was struggling on the other end of the phone. She could feel it. This wasn’t the norm for John Leaven, she was certain, even though she didn’t know what the norm really was.

  “That’s why you called, right?” she asked.

  “Yes,” he said. “And no. I wanted to make sure you’d enjoyed the show.”

  “It was amazing. Your music—I could listen to it for days, honestly.”

  “What’s your favorite song?”

  She laughed as her adrenaline level rolled inside her something closer to reasonable. “You know, I have no idea! I know the words by heart, but I never looked at any of the CD cases for the titles.”

  “Wow. Not what I expected.”

  Good, she thought.

  “I listen to the music, but—and don’t take offense—I didn’t know your name either. Not until just before we walked into the tent.”

  He made a sound low in his throat. Quiet. Sexy.

  Oh boy.

  “You buy CDs? No downloads?”

  “Both!” she said. “Both.”

  “We got absolutely skewered after that gig. Take a look at the Ticketmaster site and scroll down through the reviews. People hated it.”

  “That’s crazy,” she said. “Everyone around us seemed to love it.” He was looking for reassurance from a stranger? Something else?

  “They said I was disconnected from the audience. I didn’t look up. Stared at my feet. Didn’t speak. That sort of thing. They didn’t hold back on the criticism.”

  “I felt like you looked up all the time—right at us even. And why would anyone want a band to talk through a concert when they could just … play their music?”

  “Right?” he said with the first hint of a laugh.

  I don’t know what to say to you, rock star.

  “Well, look,” he said. “I’ve gotta run. We’re doing sound checks in a few, but next time we’re back in Boise I’ll make sure and have a couple passes set aside for you and your niece.”

  “Sounds—”

  He wasn’t on the line anymore.

  •

  He paced inside the tour bus, then took the Tracfone and dropped it squarely into the garbage can. Then he took off his blue shirt and tossed it on the floor, grabbing the black instead.

  From the look of the crowd outside the gates and the other acts on the bill, they’d have to adjust more than their look—their set needed fixed last minute as well. Desperately. Not metal enough to keep up, he supposed. Play a ballad, and the online review-addicts in the crowd would probably skewer them again.

  Somebody in management needed shot for booking this one.

  He stared in the direction of the dead phone. When
one ran out of minutes, he threw the whole disposable thing away. It saved him from having to talk with anyone to whom he or his band mates had given a number and later regretted. Women mostly. Except the phone never really rang these days. When he rid himself of enablers and suppliers, he’d become strangely isolated, now hadn’t he?

  That was a step in the right direction, tour management said. Maybe. But it also had felt damn lonesome for the past few months. Sometimes it flat out infuriated him, the idea of a room full of three-piece-suits telling him how his life should run.

  It was even more infuriating when they were dead on.

  He scratched the back of his neck and hung his head for a moment. In just this one case, he knew for certain, the suits were right. He wanted to live—not become one of those tabloid headlines about some addict found dead in a hotel room. Hell. He wanted to thrive.

  Big changes required—well, big changes. And so this tour was different from anything he’d ever done.

  No more girlfriend-of-the-moment mixing vodka into the Red Bull backstage to help keep him off-kilter. Controllers couldn’t manipulate those who surrounded themselves in strength and sound judgement—he knew that. And he was trying that particular ideology on for size. For once in his sad life.

  No more Tracfones from here on.

  No more glitz over substance.

  No more smoke and lights instead of quality.

  No more of everything he’d been before.

  And they’d finally found their sound. It was a glorious thing. They’d moved from music too driven by the bands that had first inspired them as teenagers to something so distinct that people wanted to listen.

  Yet Anna Anderson was right. An inordinate amount of people flowed like water right into his life, through it, and right back out. He was the stone. People were the river. With a dash of cynicism, he realized that it was the stone that was always worn down to nothing in the end.

  He swore through clenched teeth and wished there were more minutes on the phone. He wished the house he’d put up for sale would just sell so the last pathetic vestiges of a former life would go. Even with the price dropped fifty thousand last month, no one was biting.