Sample Chapter 8

Eight

 

    

     When Marcia asked Isabel if something had happened to cause Phil to decide on a different center, she did not expect that to be the case.   Now that Marcia knew, she would have to tread carefully when she called Phil. She had been embarrassed by the whole situation. She was the one who convinced Phil's doctor to send him to the Center to continue his therapy for the injured ankle. Now that Phil had gone to his doctor to say he wanted to make a change, it would make the doctor think twice before referring another client to her.

     As she was dialing Phil's number, she said to herself her goal was simple, to get Phil to change his mind. Beneath it all, however, she also hoped that it would be an opportunity for Phil and Isabel to get together again. Maybe the second time could be the charm.

     “Mr. Pierce?” this is Marcia.

     “Dr. Gomez?” Phil said, surprised that she would call him herself at home.

     “No, Marcia.”

     “OK, Phil not Mr. Pierce,” Phil said.

     “Got it.   How are you?”

     “OK, I guess,” Phil replied.  

     “I spoke to Dr. Klein who told me of your decision to leave the Center, and I wanted to know if I or any of my staff had done something that led you to make this decision.”

     “All of you have been great,” Phil replied.

     “I am glad to know that,” Marcia said. Phil had not expected to receive this phone call and did not know where this was going. He could not tell her it was because of her niece. How could he?

     “I just spoke to my niece Isabel and she seemed to blame herself, thinking she might have been the reason for your decision.”

     “huhh”, Phil was thinking.  Things were taking a turn he didn't expect. What's wrong with this family? he said to himself. Everyone seemed to know about everyone's business.

     “I was calling to ask you to reconsider,” Marcia continued, “We want you back at the Center.  You were making good progress.  Besides, although she didn't come out and say it, I know that Isabel would want to see you again.”

     “My decision may have seemed childish. The fact is I just didn't want Isabel to feel uncomfortable knowing I was around, after she told me that she didn't want to ever talk to or see me again.” Phil said.

     “Well, you don't know much about women, do you?” Marcia said, “We don't always say what we mean.  Sometimes, you cannot just give up.  If you love someone, sometimes you have to fight for her. ”

     “She told me that she loved Richard,” Phil said.

     “As I said, you have a lot to learn about women,” Marcia said. Then she told him a joke that she once heard, about a man who went to see God, after God had agreed to answer one question for him.

     The man then asked God “Tell me about the meaning of life.”

     “This is a very complicated question,” God responded, “Ask me another one.”

     “Tell me how to understand women.”

     “Well,” God said, “The meaning of life is.....”

     The story caused Phil to laugh and Marcia said, “What did you expect a woman who is engaged to say?  That she didn't love her fiancé?  All I am saying is that if you are making this decision to leave because of what happened between you and Isabel, you might not have gotten the complete picture of the whole situation.  If you love her, you should not give up so easily.”

     “OK, let me think about it.” Phil said, “I thought I was doing what was best for Isabel, what she would want me to do.”

     “I hope you decide to stay with us.  Even you do not, I hope you give yourself a second chance with Isabel,” Marcia said before she hung up.

     Phil didn't know what Marcia had against Richard. But a jolt of happiness ran through his body.  Could it be that Marcia was right?  Could it be that Isabel shared his feelings?  If so, he would know soon, because it was time to go watch the ducklings play again. 

 

     Stacy always thought that it was easy to love someone like her. She was very beautiful and could be nice and charming when she wanted to. In Phil's case, it would take a little work because she had hurt him. Now that she was in Miami, she was not going to leave any stones unturned.

     Before, she could move to the next step in her plan, she needed to have Phil's full attention.  Michelle had told her that she overheard Jeremy talk about a woman who was paralyzed that Phil liked, who was receiving treatment at the rehabilitation center that Phil was attending.  She needed now to have a talk with her. But first, she needed to know who she was. It was like going for a movie audition. Always take your rival actors seriously. You don't always win a part in a movie by simply repeating lines in front of a casting director. Sometimes you have to bend the rules.  She didn't get to where she was by being nice.  She didn't play nice in business and she didn't intend to play nice in love either.  The way Stacy saw it, if two women wanted the same man, one would have to lose him.  Stacy was not going to lose to an invalid.

 

     That afternoon, when Isabel rolled her wheelchair in front of the lake after her therapy, she was surprised to see Phil sitting on the end of the bench.  She knew that her aunt was good at handling people and she wondered what Marcia might have told Phil to make Phil change his mind. 

     Phil turned when she pulled her wheelchair next to him, on his left, and said “the ducklings are having more fun today than usual.”

     Isabel turned to look at the ducklings playing in the lake.  But in reality, she was not seeing them.  Her mind was racing, her palms sweating, and her heart palpitating. She was so happy to see him. She wondered whether she would ever be able to resist him.  She tried it before and had to endure a long and sleeplessness and painful night.

     “Phil, I'm sorry for what I said to you yesterday,” she said.  Phil could see the pain in her face and wished he could hold her.  How do you hold someone in a wheelchair?  He didn't know how. Even if he managed to, would she push him away?

     “It wasn't you, Isabel.  It was me.  I realized that telling you how I felt about you when you don't know much about me might have been overwhelming to you and I’m sorry,” Phil said.

     “You are the last person that I would want to be mean to. I really felt very bad about what happened. I should have told you that I was engaged, and when I heard this morning that you might never come back, I wanted to take back everything I said to you,” Isabel said.

     Then Phil grabbed Isabel's hands and held them in his palm, Isabel fidgeted. She felt her fingers burning from his touch. “Isabel, I love you and I know that you're engaged to be married.  But I want the person you marry to be me.  I will not rest until I know I've earned your love.”

     “The thing is that I love you, too.” Isabel said “But it's complicated. I am engaged and we don't even know anything about each other.”

     “Well let's start,” said a happy Phil.   They didn't kiss, but Isabel felt good to be next to him, to feel his love for her. She wondered what it would feel like to be kissed by him. She knew that she was still engaged.  She was feeling guilty about the situation. But she was happy that her hands were in his hands, the hands of the man she loved.

 

     Isabel and Phil spent the next few hours talking about Isabel's family and how Isabel had to become a mother to Rebecca after the passing of Isabel's own mother. They talked about Isabel's college years and how she started her computer company.  Isabel didn't talk to Phil about Rebecca's pregnancy.  She felt that she would be violating Rebecca's privacy.  Isabel, on the other hand, also learned that Phil searched for his real parents, but never found them, and also how he created a company that provided trial expertise to law firms.  They felt so much at ease that neither one wanted to leave. 

     It was very late when both decided to depart from the Center.  Phil had never felt such happiness before, and Isabel was feeling drowsy from so much love and so much fear of the future.  Richard was spending a couple days in Orlando.  What was she going to tell Richard when he got back? 

 

     Unbeknownst to Phil and Isabel, someone had spent the past hour watching them from a car in a parking lot across the lake.  As Phil and Isabel left, Stacy started the car.  Stacy had seen enough. It was now time for her to act.  A smile spread across Stacy's face. She only acted when it mattered. Like an academy award winner in a blockbuster movie, she was going to rise to the occasion.

 

     When Isabel reached home that evening, all she wanted was to take a quick shower and go to bed.  She had had a wonderful afternoon with Phil.  But overall it was a bad day.  She could not simply walk away and hurt Richard who had treated her well, but yet she didn't want to lose Phil.  By the time she fell asleep, she was tired of thinking, tired of all of the emotions flooding her heart.

     The next morning, she was still distraught over what took place between her and Phil.  Some people viewed cheating as sleeping with someone who is not your partner or spouse.   To her, loving someone else was also cheating. She felt like she had cheated on Richard with Phil.

 

     When Phil woke up the next day, he was still very ecstatic about the day before. He never knew that sitting and holding hands could feel so good.  He was still in deep thought about Isabel, when the phone rang.  It was Jeremy.

     “Hi old buddy.”

     “Hi Jeremy, how are you?”

     “Fine. Guess what?”

     “What?” Phil asked.

     “I'm on my way to the airport.”

     “Good. Are they kicking you out of the country?” Phil joked.

     “Don't be funny,” Jeremy responded, “I am flying to Miami today.”

     “Cool,” Phil said. “What time do you think you'll be here?”

     “My flight leaves at 11:00 in the morning and I should be in Miami in about an hour and a half.  After that, I have a meeting at 3:00 pm.  So, I should be at your place by 6:00 pm.”

     “Great. It'd be fun to see you.”

     “I'm not sure. How is your Greek tragedy going?”

     “What Greek tragedy?”

     “You, falling for a woman who is in a wheelchair and engaged to another man.”

     “This isn't a Greek tragedy.  When you meet Isabel, you will love her.”

     “Has she told you that she was going to dump her fiancé for you?” Jeremy asked.

     “Well no, but she loves me.”

     “You just confirmed my point. You love her and she loves you, right?” Jeremy said.

    “Right,” Phil agreed.  Once Jeremy meets Isabel, he will change his mind about her, Phil thought to himself.

     “Tell me, Phil, do you know what Romeo & Juliet, Tristan and Isolde, Cleopatra and Mark Antony, Orpheus and Eurydice, and Napoleon and Josephine have in common?” Jeremy asked.

     “They are famous love stories.  I didn't know that you read them,” Phil said.

     “I don't,” Jeremy said.

     “So, what do they have in common, Mr. love expert?” Phil asked, in a mocking manner.

     “They are considered great love stories but they never end well for the two people who are said to be in love.” 

     “What does that have to do with us?” Phil asked. But deep inside he knew what Jeremy was trying to say.

     “Wake up and smell the coffee, Phil,” Jeremy impatiently said, “You both claim to be in love with each other, but she didn't promise you that she would break up her engagement.  How do you know that she won't go ahead and marry her fiancé anyway?”

     “Jeremy, you have to understand that it's hard for her,” Phil said, trying to convince Jeremy. “Isabel and her fiancé had been together for several years before I came into the picture.”

     “I hope you're right. In any event, I can't wait to meet the woman who has made you lose all of your senses,” Jeremy said before hanging up.

     Jeremy's call had Phil worried. Now he was not so sure anymore about himself or what Isabel would do.  Would Isabel sacrifice their love and marry Richard because of her promise to Richard?  Would Jeremy prove to be right? Would they become ill-fated lovers like in the tragedies?

 

     That afternoon, when Phil reached the Center, he was hoping that the sight of Isabel would wipe away all of the doubt he had about the two of them since his conversation with Jeremy.  He sat on the bench and waited for two long hours, but Isabel never came.  The ducklings were not there that day.  It was as if Isabel's absence had silenced them.  Phil never believed in fate. But now he wondered whether he should. As he was about to leave, Marcia then came to join him.

     “Waiting for Isabel?” she asked.

     “Yes, but I'm worried. I thought she had a therapy session today,” Phil asked.

     “She did but she didn’t show up,” Marcia simply said.

     “Is she OK? Do you know where she is?”

     “I don’t know. I called but she wasn't home,” Marcia answered.

     “You're not worried?” Phil asked, with his own worried look.

     “It has been a tough week on Isabel. Besides her accident and everything going on at home, now she must make a decision about you and Richard,” Marcia simply said.

     “But you said she wasn't at home,” Phil said, not understanding why Marcia didn't seem worried.

     “You know,” Marcia began, “the day Isabel's mother passed away, Isabel walked out of the hospital and for several hours everyone was looking for her and couldn't find her.  Do you know where she was?”

     “Me? No, I don't,” Phil replied, realizing that Marcia was waiting for him to answer.

     “Well she had gone to church to pray.  You see, since Isabel was young, when she was in pain or hurt, she would go to her room and pray.  She is a very special woman.  I hope that you know that anyone that she loves should consider himself lucky,” Marcia said.  She was looking at him as if giving him a warning to never hurt Isabel.  How could he ever hurt Isabel?  All he wanted was for them to be happy and to spend the rest of their lives together.

     “Do you think she went to church to pray because of us?” Phil asked, with an incredulous look on his face.

     “I don't know. You should ask her when you see her,” Marcia said before she walked away, leaving Phil staring at the silent lake.

 

     Stacy hated when things didn't go as planned.  This afternoon was one of these afternoons.  She had gone to the Center and walked to the back, by the lake.  Incredibly, no one asked her anything. She had learned from one of the landscapers that the woman who liked to sit with Phil by the lake was the niece of the director of the Center, and her name was Isabel.  As she walked by the empty bench, she looked at the still lake, wondering if something ominous was lurking beneath. Stacy never liked Florida lakes because you never knew when an alligator would show up.  

     Stacy remembered one day visiting a park near Tallahassee, Florida, called Wakulla Springs State Park.  The park had a large lake that was full of alligators.  She didn't have a problem with tourists wasting their money on boat rides to see alligators. What she didn't understand was that a lot of the kids were swimming in the water, not understanding they might be an alligator's next snack. Apparently, they were doing this because statistics showed that there had only been one accident involving a fatality at the park, and that was a very long time ago. Stacy called this type of irrational behavior, the NOT ME theory.  It was the same thing with shark attacks. They rarely happened and when they happened, experts always tried to explain them as rare accidents, making people feel more comfortable that it would never happen to them. Each person going into the water thinks, it’s not going to happen to me. NOT ME.  Unfortunately, it usually happens to one of them.  Stacy didn't like sharks or alligators, and didn't believe in the NOT ME theory. 

     In fact, the only time Stacy had ever come close to an alligator was having a fried alligator tail on her plate.  She wondered whether that man-made lake had any alligators in it.   She didn't see the ducks that were playing the day before.  They must have been eaten, she assumed.  She didn't like ducks either.

     As she walked back to her car, she said to herself that Isabel must be one lucky woman by choosing not to show up the day Stacy chose to talk to her. Sooner or later, Isabel's luck would run out.  Sooner or later, Isabel would meet Stacy. 

 

     As Isabel was driving home from church, her phone rang. The caller ID showed the call was coming from the Center.

     “Hi, Tia Marcia,” she said through the bluetooth-enabled speaker. Soon after her accident, she had bought a used minivan which was retrofitted with car hand controls to bypass the pedals.  Without blue-tooth technology, it would have been nearly impossible for Isabel to use the phone and drive at the same time.

     “Isabel, Phil was here this afternoon and was worried about you.”

     “I was at church.”

     “I guessed that, when the nurse told me that you had canceled today's therapy session.”

     “Have you decided what you are going to do?” Marcia asked.

     “About what?”

     “About you and Richard.”

     “I don't know. I did make a promise that I would marry Richard.”

     “Oh yes, where is he? I have not seen him lately. Is he in Orlando?”

     “Yes. He is going to be there for at least another week or so, because of construction projects.”

     “I bet.”

     “What?”

     “Nothing,” Marcia said, “Phil seemed to really love you.”

     “I love him too, but I can't just walk away from Richard.”

     “Let me know how I can help you.  I like Phil myself,” Marcia said

     “I can tell,” Isabel said, “Somehow, I always sensed you had something against Richard. But I don’t know why.”

     “Why don't you ask him what he does when he goes to Orlando?”

     “I told you what he does,” Isabel said, not understanding her aunt's fixation with Orlando.  As far as she knew, her aunt had never even gone to Orlando.

     “I guess you're right,” Marcia said, giving up. “By the way, before I go, I did speak with Mark's parents today.”

     “What did they say?”

     “I didn't tell them about the pregnancy but they knew something was up when I told them that we wanted to talk to them about Mark and Rebecca.”

     “Did they say anything?” Isabel asked.

     “We are meeting them this Saturday for lunch at the Habana Cafe on Bird Road.”

     “Why the cafe? Do they like Cuban food?” Isabel asked.

     “We’ll find out, won't we?  Besides, they’re not paying so they have nothing to complain about,” Marcia said, “And, Isabel?”

     “Yes.”

     “Don't miss any more of your therapy sessions.”

     “Yes, Doc,” Isabel laughed.

 

     Isabel reached home as the phone in the kitchen was ringing.  She picked it up and her heart jumped when she heard Phil on the other line.

     “Isabel?”

     “Hi Phil, how did your exercises go today?”

     “Boring and painful. Are you OK?”

     “I’m feeling better.”

     “When I didn't see you today, I was really worried.”

     “I needed to go to church and pray. Tell me, Phil, Are you Catholic?”

     “Me? Does it matter?” Phil asked. He was afraid to say the wrong thing.  He didn't know where this was going.

     “Not really. But I just wanted to know. Do you go to church?” Isabel then asked.

     Phil didn't know what to say.  “You mean on Sundays?” Phil asked. Phil was buying time. He needed to think. Was it a test? Was there any meaning behind the question?  He understood that women were complicated. Was there a double meaning behind most of their questions?

     “No I just wanted to know if you go to church,” Isabel simply said. She could feel that Phil was scrambling to give her the correct answer and said reassuringly. “Whatever the answer is, it will not make me think less of you Phil.”

     Phil, a little relieved, said “I go sometimes.”

     “When was the last time you were at church?” Isabel asked.

     “At my friend Jeremy's wedding. I have also gone to the typical masses, weddings, funerals, birthdays, etc,” Phil said.

     “There is no birthday mass,” Isabel said with a laugh.

     “I mean baptism,” Phil immediately corrected himself.   He was failing the church test.

     Changing the subject, Isabel said. “I missed you today too, but I needed to go and pray. It's been a very difficult time for me and I just wanted some divine guidance, if you will.”

     “I know. I would like to help, but I don't know what to do.”

     “No thanks,” Isabel said with another laugh, “You have done too much already.” Isabel was in a good mood.  She still didn't know what she was going to do.  She knew that Richard would be coming back in a week.  He had called but she had yet to return his call, afraid of what she might say.  If only a week wasn't so short. She said to herself.

     “Isabel, my friend Jeremy is coming to town this evening and I wanted to know if you have any time in the next day or so. I told him a lot about you and he would like to meet you,” Phil said.

     “I can do better. Why don't the two of you come over tomorrow evening to have dinner with my sister and me? She makes a mean pasta.”

     “How can pasta be mean?” Phil asked.

     “Have you ever seen a jalapeno spaghetti sauce?” Isabel teased.

     “Nope. That sounds scary.”

     “Well, prepare yourself to be very afraid tomorrow,” Isabel said with a laugh.

     For the next hour, Isabel and Phil talked about everything and nothing, laughing and teasing each other. It was as if time stood still, as if Isabel was not engaged.  As she hung up the phone, Isabel noticed the engagement ring around her finger. She regretted having accepted Richard's marriage proposal. She knew it was childish to feel this way. She didn’t know at that time that she wasn’t in love with Richard.  All she knew now was that she was an engaged woman, and the love that she and Phil felt for each other could not make the ring disappear.