Chapter 7: Chapter Six

The day that had started with a promise of spring warmth had chilled into the threat of an ice storm. Anita belted her dark-blue winter coat against the descending frost and headed out of the studio to her little hatchback. She had set the alarm, hadn’t she? It wasn’t OCD if there was a potential threat. She could not miss Wednesday night dinner with her parents for anything. If someone wanted to leave her another weird letter, they could stick it through the mail slot.

Singing along to Hozier on the radio, Anita pulled in front of her parents’ stately Tudor mansion fifteen minutes later. Her family home was set deep into the Pennsylvania woods, with a circular driveway leading to the dark oak front door. Her mother must have heard the car in the driveway—she had already opened the front door and was leaning against the jamb. Marina’s dark-brown curly hair was silhouetted from the warm light within the house, her smile so bright that the starlight illuminated it. Anita stepped straight out of the car and into her mother’s arms, the scents of garlic and cinnamon and warm bread wrapping her up like a cozy cable blanket. They moved as one through the front door.

“It smells delicious.” Anita unbelted her coat, the warmth of the house in sharp contrast to the outside. Marina hung the coat from one of the elegant iron S hooks in the white-tiled foyer.

“Ah.” Her mother waved away the compliment. “Just a little bread and soup.”

No place like home. Anita followed her down the short hallway to the kitchen, dominated by a large white marble island and gleaming stainless-steel appliances. Bread and soup to her mom meant avgolemono and olive bread, both of which were Anita’s favorites and Marina painstakingly made from scratch.

Her mother’s internal Cypriot mainly manifested when she cooked or entertained. Patrick had practically been a second son in high school and college. Marina would stuff him full of grape leaves, loukoumades, kebab, and pasta.

Seriously, she needed to stop thinking about Patrick. If only for the sake of her dreams.

“Where’s Dad?” Anita asked, standing at the kitchen island. She had slipped off her shoes at the front door and loved the way the cool, gray cork floor felt under her stockinged toes.

Marina shook her head with a laugh, and she opened the refrigerator for a bottle of wine. “He took a job teaching at Drexel two days a week. The man does not know how to retire.”

“But on a Wednesday? That’s my dinner day.” Anita pursed her lips slightly as her mom filled two glasses with Sancerre. It wasn’t totally out of character for him to miss a golden opportunity to harangue her into considering med school again. Like she would.

“I reminded him. He says he will try to make it home by dessert. He never remembers how long the train takes from Center City.”

Anita swirled the golden liquid in her wineglass, then lifted it to her nose and inhaled deeply. Her mother had impeccable taste in wine. Besides, the alcohol might soften the tension in her shoulders. “Mmm, what’s for dessert?”

Marina winked, a wicked grin crossing her features. “It’s a surprise.”

That meant chocolate, the cure for basically any ill. Thank goodness for her mother.

“Come on.” Marina picked up her glass. “Dinner’s on the table. You must be hungry after working all day.”

They sat together in the breakfast nook, surrounded by tall glass windows on all sides that let in the view of the verdant and elegantly landscaped backyard. There in the corner was the apple tree that did not grow apples but had branches long and lean. Anita used to recline in those branches to read. And there were the rosebushes Patrick and their ballroom club friends Tina and Louise had once chopped too eagerly, deadheading the robust blooms and causing Marina to blanch like a ghost.

“How’s work?” Marina asked.

Anita sipped at her warm, citrusy soup. Heaven. Weird letters and uncomfortable emotions about her best friend were easier to shove down deep when well-fed. “It’s good. Busy. There’s a Saturday dance I have to coordinate next weekend. Toni’s been at me to add more Zumba and athletic classes, and Ricardo is pretty much booked solid.”

Marina broke off a piece of olive bread. “Isn’t the Keystone coming up soon? You must be disappointed, since that awful man left you high and dry.” Her mother never could quite bring herself to say Mikhail’s name. Anita suspected it stemmed from the time he declined to eat her homemade souvlaki because she could not guarantee it was gluten-free.

She should definitely have known.

“It isn’t Mikhail’s fault, Mom. He found another partner. And we wanted different things, anyway.” She pushed her spoon around the bowl of soup.

“Still.” Marina huffed and refilled her daughter’s glass. “You love the Keystone. I’m sure some of your students are going. At least you can do that.”

Anita swallowed, the soup burning the back of her throat slightly. Of course, her mother would have asked. If only her dad had been there to demean her life choices. “Well, actually, Mom, I—I found a partner for the Keystone.”

Marina’s spoon clattered in her soup bowl, and she nearly pushed her wineglass into the loaf of bread. “You did?! That’s wonderful! Who is it? Tell me all about it.”

“Um, well, it’s—it’s Patrick.” Anita could not meet her mother’s eyes. How had Anita Goodman come to need such pity from her best friend? She had worked so hard, had been nationally ranked in high school and college. “He volunteered, you know. I think we are going to do Latin. I mean, his Standard is excellent, but he has more of a feel for the Latin choreo, and—”

Her mom’s warm hand covered her own, and Anita finally lifted her eyes. To her surprise, Marina’s face was lit by an enormous smile, and tears glistened in her almond-shaped eyes. Her legendary smile creased her entire face from lips to forehead to pixie ears.

“This is the best news I have heard in a very long time, my Anita.” Marina slapped the table and raised her eyes to Heaven. “Thank goodness! Finally. You have a partner you like, who likes you. This is excellent news!”

Anita whipped her hand away from her mom and hid it on her lap. “Wait, what? I’ve always liked my partners, Mom.”

Marina waved a hand and rolled her eyes. “Oh, please, Anita. I am your mother. I know.”

“Mikhail and I were practically living together.”

“He was using you, because you are better dancer than he.” When Marina was on a roll, her accent deepened. “Don’t deny, you never really liked him. I do not know why, but you never think you deserve someone good, and you use these other men to deny the fact that Patrick is in love with you.”

Anita sat dumbstruck.

“Don’t look at me like that, love.” Marina sipped her wine. “I think you think you know it, too. Which is why you never agree to dance with Patrick before. You are scared. But love, love like that, it is the only thing worth having in this world. But you have to take risks for things that are worthwhile. Love should not be convenient.”

Anita’s mouth had gone completely dry. Where was the bottle of Sancerre? She could not deal with the deluge of maternal wisdom with an empty glass. Besides, she was wrong. One hundred percent wrong.

Her parents had met when he was a study-abroad exchange student at Cambridge, and they “were like struck by thunder,” according to Marina. She followed him back to the United States, married him, and finished her own education in his hometown of Philadelphia. She had gotten a job as a second-grade teacher to support him through medical school and residency.

Not everyone had such a fairytale romance. Anita had certainly never cracked the code.

“Mom, no. Patrick is my friend. Keystone is in just three weeks. It’s insane. He is insane, for agreeing to do this. It has absolutely nothing to do with love.” She had at least liked her other partners. Hadn’t she? Tyler had a slight mirror obsession, and Giorgio had refused to wear deodorant, but those were not really deal breakers. Particularly if someone did not have time to date outside their profession.

Marina rolled her eyes dramatically. Anita had never been to Cyprus, but her mother certainly did an excellent caricature of herself. “My darling Anita, you are so smart, but you have always refused to see what is right in front of you. Any way you wish to see it, this is a good thing. You will go to Keystone, finally realize you are perfect for each other, and then finally your father and I will have our grandbabies.” She clapped her hands together once and did a small opa dance in her seat.

Anita sighed. At least soon there would be chocolate. There was no use arguing with her mother when she got on a rant like this. It only made things worse.

****

Anita put the plastic container of pie and the plastic-wrapped piece of olive bread on the passenger seat in her dark-green hatchback. Her mother’s leftovers were the world’s greatest invention.

“Are you sure you don’t want to take anything else?” Marina had put on a thick dark cable sweater to walk her daughter to her car. Anita tucked her chin into the collar of her coat. The temperature seemed to have dropped twenty degrees just in the few hours she had been at her parents’ house.

“No, I’m fine.” Anita kissed her mom’s cheek. “Thank you for dinner. I’ll see you next week.” She needed at least a week, if not another decade, to put the idea of Patrick being in love with her out of her head.

Anita turned on the car and rolled back down the circular driveway to the street. It was nearly pitch-black, the moon barely a sliver and the stars hidden by thick clouds that had appeared with barely any warning. Most of the time she enjoyed being farther away from the city’s bright lights, but on a night like tonight, she wished for a little more illumination. Anita shivered despite her woolen coat and the car’s seat heater. She never quite understood what was meant by a devil moon, but this was certainly a contender.

She turned left out of the driveway and noted distant headlights moving quickly behind her in the rearview mirror. Kids joyriding. Every year, sadly enough, there were terrible accidents on the roads surrounding Lewis. They tended toward the dark and serpentine, and it was particularly easy to misjudge turns when the weather was unfavorable. Or when people had been drinking.

Anita yawned and directed her car into the proper lane. She needed a better night’s sleep. She would absolutely not dream of Patrick tonight.

Curses, why had she even put that thought in her own head?

Lights flashed in her rearview mirror. The car again. Why were they driving so fast? It was aggressive, too fast for the sharp curves and poor visibility.

Anita checked the speedometer. She was going eight miles over the speed limit. “Go around me!”

They did not. The car kept accelerating closer to her, then braking and dropping back. The cycle repeated. Nearing her, almost close enough to tap her rear bumper, then backing off, the glare from their headlights receding.

Assholes. She did not need to deal with this. She put on her right blinker and pulled into the shoulder. Let them pass her. If they were in such a rush, they could flip on Dead Man’s Curve in a quarter mile.

The car roared past her, its engine growling like an angry hippopotamus.

Good riddance.

But then the car stopped about fifteen feet in front of her, its brake lights bright-red eyes.

Anita slammed on her own brakes, pushing with both feet. Her little hatchback squealed in protest. Shit, she could not afford new tires. What kind of asshole—

Her voice caught in her throat.

The car’s rear lights stared at her through her windshield like a goblin in a Halloween movie.

Shit. Anita hated horror movies.

If only she knew more about cars. It was big, like an SUV? It was impossible to determine the color in the dark night, even in the gleam from her own headlights.

If only she could find her phone. She scrabbled on the passenger seat for it, but her hands stilled. The red-and-white rear indicator lights were getting brighter.

Her breath in tight pants, her gaze glued to the rear bumper of the SUV.

What the fuck?

In the middle of the deserted road, the SUV backed up until its rear bumper was level with her front bumper.

Of all the times to be stranded by herself.

Her phone. There it was. She grabbed it off the seat, never so grateful for its giant pop socket with waltzers in silhouette as she was now. Where was the emergency call button?

There. There. She found it.

She inhaled, her muscles contracting, her breath shaky, but she could do this. She poised one finger over the tiny green phone icon. Just one more inch backward, and Anita would call. One more inch. “Come on, dickhead,” she whispered.

Then, almost as suddenly as it had stopped, the SUV’s engine roared, and the tires squealed on the pavement before rocketing down the road at what was clearly an unsafe pace.

Anita dropped the phone onto the passenger seat beside her plastic storage container and put her head between her legs.

What the hell had that been?