Talk to Me

  Talk to Me

  Stephanie Reid

  Talk to Me

  Copyright © Stephanie Reid 2014

  Published by Stephanie Reid

  This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are either products of the author’s imagination or used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

  All rights reserved. No part of this publication can be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, without permission in writing from the author or publisher.

  Cover design by Steven Novak Illustration

  http://www.novakillustration.com

  Formatting by Polgarus Studio

  http://www.polgarusstudio.com

  CHAPTER ONE

  For Emily Simon, reading a person’s body language was a subtle science and an exact art. A skill that took practice, patience, and focus.

  She had no shortage of practice, but lately she’d been a little lacking in the patience and focus departments. Possible signs of burnout to be sure and a serious liability for a professional counselor like herself.

  “Okay,” Sandra said, her voice just audible over the din of the busy Starbucks. “You go first. Show me how it’s done.” The intern from Emily’s office had a face lit with enthusiasm, her green eyes widening at the prospect of a challenge.

  Emily had felt that way once, that sense of intrigue upon meeting a new client. It was why she’d become a counselor in the first place.

  Because people were fascinating—enigmatic puzzles waiting to be unlocked, waiting to be set free from the problematic thoughts that kept them chained to their misery.

  She smiled, Sandra’s eagerness contagious, and tried to muster some interest in their create-a-backstory exercise. She glanced around the coffeehouse, searching for a subject. Someone who gave hints of an internal struggle.

  Across the store, the door opened, and a young mother did battle with a giant double stroller, a third child tugging on her shirt. “But I wanted to go to the park,” the toddler said, his tone one step down from DEFCON temper-tantrum.

  The mother sighed, held the door open with her backside, and ushered the toddler inside before following with the bulky stroller.

  Emily tipped her head discreetly toward the woman. “All right, how about her?” she asked. “You see the way she sighed and then held her breath for a second? She’s holding back what she really wants to say.”

  Sandra nodded, her head moving in sync with the straw she bounced up and down in her frozen coffee. “She’s probably thinking, ‘You wanted to go the park? Well, Mommy wanted to sleep through the night. We don’t always get what we want, buster.’”

  Emily laughed. “Exactly. Everyone always wants something. Everyone always needs Mommy. But who takes care of her?” She held her hot caramel coffee drink under her nose, taking in the familiar aroma and studying the young mom. “She’ll never admit she needs something else, though.”

  Giving her order to the cashier, the woman ruffled her surly son’s hair, an absent-minded gesture that spoke of her unconditional love.

  “She wants to be there for her kids,” Emily said. “She loves them, wants them to come first. But it doesn’t change the fact that she’s tired.” She set down her cup. “So, if she’s your client, that’s what you’re listening for. You’re listening for those times when she expresses guilt for needing things for herself: a cup of coffee, a moment of quiet, whatever it might be. And you challenge her assertion that she should constantly put herself on the back burner. You ask her to consider what would happen if she gave herself permission to do something for her.”

  “I see.” Sandra turned her head, glancing at the crowded tables around them. “That one’s pretty straightforward. I imagine most moms feel that way to some extent, don’t you think?” Her gaze jumped from person to person, no doubt considering all the people-watching targets before making her choice. “Let’s find a real challenge.” An amused smile twitched at Sandra’s lips and Emily turned slightly to see what had captured her attention.

  “How about them?” Sandra asked.

  Two tables over, a leggy blonde sat across from a frowning man in an expensive suit. They were clearly engaged in a heated exchange—the woman speaking in harsh whispers that didn’t quite carry—but Emily didn’t need to hear the words to get the gist.

  “What do you see?” she asked Sandra.

  “He has wandering eyes.”

  The man got up from the table, shaking his head with an air of dismissal, and headed for the men’s restroom. Immediately, the blonde reached for the phone the man had left on the table. She snuck periodic glances at the bathroom door in between searching frantically for something on the phone.

  “Oh, that cheating son of a bitch,” Sandra said, mouth dropping open.

  Emily shifted her focus to Sandra. “Hold up there, rookie.” This was the danger of putting too much stock in body language. It was all about interpretation. And in this case, Sandra might have some biases coloring her perception. “You’re not seeing evidence of his infidelity. You’re seeing evidence of her mistrust. She’s checking his phone. She’s suspicious. But that doesn’t mean he’s a cheat.”

  Sandra tilted her head, her skepticism evident in the small wrinkles creasing her forehead. “Sometimes, when it walks like a cheat and talks like a cheat, it is a cheat.”

  Her sardonic grin didn’t fool Emily. Whatever was causing Sandra to project on this couple—it wasn’t funny. “What’s going on with you and Kyle?” she asked.

  Sitting up straighter in her chair, Sandra focused her attention on stirring whipped cream into her frozen coffee. “Nothing, why?”

  Sometimes not saying anything at all was the fastest way to get someone to open up. Emily raised her brows at Sandra and waited.

  Sandra sighed. “I think he’s cheating on me,” she blurted, pushing her drink away from her on the table and crossing her arms over chest.

  Emily listened as Sandra recounted every piece of evidence against Kyle. She tried to focus. Really, she did. But she’d been listening to people all morning. And after this coffee break, she’d be going back to her office to listen some more. She’d take her clients’ problems—their fears, their grief, their pain—and she’d help them sort through and unpack them. She’d invest in them, in the counselor-client relationship. And then she’d go home to an empty apartment.

  Where there’d be no one to listen to her.

  Attention wavering, Emily’s distracted gaze drifted around the crowded coffeehouse and landed over her friend’s shoulder, where a man with somber, dark-brown eyes stepped in line and waited to order. Immediately, she felt a pull, an unidentifiable force that wouldn’t let her look away from him.

  Sandra waved a hand in Emily’s line of sight, leaning to the side and blocking Emily’s view of the broad-shouldered stranger. “Hello-oo?” Sandra sang. “You still with me?”

  “Yeah, sorry.”

  Sandra turned her head, tracking Emily’s gaze, then turned back to Emily. She smiled knowingly. “Why, Miss Simon, are you checking out Mr. Serious over there?”

  Emily’s cheeks warmed. “What? Mr. Who?”

  “Mr. Serious, the guy whose biceps are trying to escape from the sleeves of his polo shirt.”

  “Just people-watching,” Emily said, mumbling the words behind her coffee cup.

  “Okay, let’s hear it,” Sandra said. “What can you tell about him from his body language?”

  Emily studied her newly assigned subject, who stood several feet away from them with his arms crossed over his chest. He stared at the wall-menu, his thick eyebrows drawn together, forming an intense expression, his narrowed gaze never wavering—not
even when an elderly woman, shuffling toward the restroom, bumped into him.

  “He seems pretty focused,” Emily whispered, not wanting to be overheard. “More focused than you’d need to be to order a cup of coffee. He’s thinking about something else…No, that’s not right. He’s trying really hard not to think about something.”

  “Ooo, you’re so good at this.” Looking back at their target, Sandra asked, “So, what’s his story?”

  “I don’t know.” Emily looked again at the man in line. “He’s not the type that has his story written all over his face.”

  “Well, let’s find out then, shall we?” Sandra grabbed the Caramel Macchiato out of Emily’s hand and tossed it into the trash bin next to their table. She’d moved so quickly, Emily hadn’t been able to react.

  “What the hell, Sandra? That was still full!”

  “And now it’s gone,” she said and tilted her head toward the serious looking stranger. “Go. Get yourself a drink. And maybe a little somethin’ somethin’.”

  Emily stuck her tongue out, but secretly, it thrilled her to have an excuse to get closer to the enigmatic man. She stepped in line next to him, studying his profile. His face held few distinctive features. Average nose. Average jaw. Your average Joe.

  And yet…he captivated her. Was his hair red or brown? A little of both—auburn maybe. He had a small scar on his right temple—a short jagged line—conspicuously white against his sunburnt skin.

  Did he do something dangerous for a living? She hoped not. She wasn’t interested in dangerous. Not the real life kind anyway. But the fantasy kind…She smiled to herself, her brain conjuring an image of him as an international spy—a la James Bond—traveling to far-off countries, kissing exotic foreign women with those full lips of his.

  Those lips that were moving. Was he speaking to her?

  “I’m sorry?” she asked, giving herself a mental shake.

  “Please, go ahead,” he said. “I have no idea what I want.”

  Caught in the act of staring, every ounce of blood rushed to her face. She hastily stepped around him and made her order.

  “That’ll be four dollars, fifty-two cents,” the cashier said.

  Emily rifled through her wallet and mentally cursed Sandra for sending her up here. She had exactly four singles, a nickel, and a piece of lint. She searched for her debit card and realized with a horrible sinking feeling in her stomach that she’d forgotten to put it back after doing some online shopping the night before. Damn her and her chronic forgetfulness.

  “This is so embarrassing, but I seem to have misplaced my debit card—”

  She was about to change her order when a deep voice behind her said, “I’ve got it.”

  Mr. Serious held a five-dollar bill out to the cashier.

  “Oh, my gosh. No, that’s not necessary. Thank you, but—”

  “Truly, it’s no trouble.” He nodded to the girl behind the register, encouraging her to take the bill.

  Cheeks burning, Emily held her four singles out to him. “Here,” she said. “I was just a bit short.”

  He looked like he was about to refuse, so she grabbed his hand and placed the money in it before he had the chance. He looked down to where she forced his fingers to close around the crumpled bills and then back up, his gaze locking with hers.

  Still.

  Everything went still. The world stopped. The noise of the coffee shop fell away, and she was aware of nothing but the warmth of his hand against hers and the startling depths of his dark brown eyes. Forget average. His eyes were anything but.

  “And for you, sir?” the girl asked, bringing Emily out of her daze.

  “Thank you.” Emily yanked her hand away, forced her gaze from his, and moved the short distance to the pick-up counter.

  “Ah, yeah. I’ll have a medium coffee, black,” she heard him order.

  “A grande coffee then?” the girl asked, clearly annoyed that her customer did not speak Starbucks.

  “Is that the same as a medium?”

  “The grande is sixteen ounces, sir,” she answered between smacks of gum.

  “A grande black coffee then.”

  Rolling her eyes, she asked for the next vital piece of information. “Which roast?”

  He sighed. Apparently, ordering coffee was turning into more of an ordeal than he’d expected. Emily smiled at his exasperation. He mumbled that the pick-of-the-day would be fine and counted out a couple of singles from the money Emily had forced on him.

  The young cashier handed him the change with ill-concealed boredom and not even a have-a-nice-day.

  He stood next to Emily at the pick-up counter, and she smiled. “Don’t take her attitude too personally. I’m guessing she thinks black coffee is a terrible waste of barista training.”

  Mr. Serious looked at her and offered a half-smile, his laugh hesitant, as if he hadn’t expected to find anything funny that day.

  She smiled and tried to think of something, anything, to say to strike up a conversation. It wasn’t her habit to converse with her people-watching subjects, but something about him tugged at her. Perhaps it was the way his own laughter seemed to take him by surprise, or the quiet intensity of his dark-brown gaze. Whatever it was, she felt hooked to an invisible line, reeled in by his silent presence.

  “Grande Caramel Macchiato.”

  The barista’s sharp tone broke Emily’s reverie, and with that, she lost her nerve, grabbed her order, and returned quickly to her table.

  “Chicken,” Sandra said.

  “Shut up.”

  * * *

  Finished with another long workday, Emily pulled into the driveway of her brother’s house. What used to be her parents’ house. Her childhood home.

  Whenever she came here, her chest tightened at the bittersweet swirl of memories.

  It didn’t matter that Sean and his wife Julie had completely gutted and rehabbed the old American Foursquare. She still saw her parents everywhere. And she missed them with an ache that had eased only in small degrees since their passing nearly a decade ago.

  Her mother would have loved what Julie had done to the front of the house. The flower boxes on the front porch were exactly what Emily’s mother would have planted had she had the time. Her parents, both professors at Northwestern University, had been very active—both in their scholarly pursuits and in their children’s lives. However, such a packed schedule left little time for housework. But disheveled house aside, they’d been just about the best parents a kid could ask for.

  Sitting in the car, she pushed her memories aside and thought again about the ambiguous text message she’d gotten from Sean that day.

  On ur way home from work, stop at house. Need favor.

  If Sean needed to ask this favor in person, then it was safe to assume it was something Emily wouldn’t want to do. No doubt he planned to use some of his big brother voodoo magic to get her to agree to whatever it was he needed.

  And that was what worried her.

  She got out of her car, the door of the old Mazda squeaking when she slammed it shut, and walked up to the house.

  She smoothed down the front of her chic, dark linen pantsuit and tipped her chin up in an effort to exude adultness in the face of her older brother, who never failed to make her feel like the little sister.

  After a quick warning knock, she let herself into the house.

  “Sean? Julie? Anybody home?”

  Sean came out of the kitchen and into the foyer, greeting her with a bone-crushing hug. The Simon family was certainly affectionate but not in the hug-you-every-time-I-see-you kind of way. Sean’s enthusiastic greeting could only mean one thing. She was not going to like this favor.

  “Hey sis, what’s up?”

  “I don’t know, Sean. You tell me. What’s with the cryptic message?”

  “What? No ‘Hi Sean, how are you doing? How’s the family?’”

  “Hi Sean, how are you doing? How’s the family?” she mimicked, but moved on before he could summon
an answer. “Now, what do you want from me that you couldn’t just ask in a text?”

  “Geez. Somebody woke up on the wrong side of her empty bed this morning. You need to get laid. You’re way too tense.”

  “Shut up, Sean.” Oh, yeah. She was just full of witty comebacks today.

  “Oh, come on. You know I’m only teasing.”

  She sighed and tried to unruffle her feathers. “I know. It’s just…Your text has had me on edge all afternoon. I’ve been trying to guess what you could possibly want that you’d need to ask me face to face.”

  “And what did you come up with?”

  “You and Julie want to expand your family but need a surrogate this time?”

  He laughed. “Next to no chance of that ever happening. For one thing, three kids are enough. And two, I doubt we would need a surrogate.” A proud-papa grin spread across his face. “We can’t even share the same bar of soap without Julie getting knocked up.”

  “Eww! Sean, I don’t want to hear about my brother’s fertility.” She stuck both index fingers in her ears and sang, “La-la-la-la-la!”

  Realizing what she was doing, she removed her fingers from her ears. Not even two minutes with Sean and they’d already reverted to childlike behavior. She cleared her throat and reminded herself that she was an adult now.

  “So, really Sean, what’s up? Is everything okay?”

  His expression turned sober. “Let’s talk in the kitchen. Julie and the kids are at the park and won’t be back for a while.” He walked into the kitchen, looking back at her over his shoulder. “Can I get you something to drink?” For full sucking-up value, he added, “Maybe some fresh coffee?”

  “Sure. Thanks.” She followed her brother into the kitchen.

  Her sister-in-law had done a fabulous job overseeing the recent remodeling. She’d brought in modern cabinetry and appliances but managed to maintain the charm of the old house by preserving the original wood trim and crown molding. A hanging pot rack topped the kitchen island and held an assortment of copper cookware. The walls, painted a warm gold, made the room inviting and homey. Emily certainly felt more at home here than at her own place, though that probably had less to do with the decor and more to do with the love and laughter of the occupants. Here, she was surrounded by family. At her apartment, she was surrounded by…her apartment.