Read My Lips: Restricted Version

RML: Chapter 12 (R)

Chapter Twelve

The next morning, Amber had just finished sending an email to her parents and her sister, letting them all know she was okay and unhurt, ending with a small note on exactly where they could shove their protection program.  She said she loved them all, but they needed to butt out of her life from here on out.  

She hit the send button, and her chat screen popped up.  It was Lucy.  “RUO?”

Amber smiled, seeing those three letters.  Usually, she kept herself hidden when on the computer, marking her online status as Invisible, since Chloe and her parents tended to hound her with well-being questions if they saw she was available.  She had no desire to talk to her family right now.  Only Lucy knew that Amber did this, cloaked herself, and her friend always started with their version of “Are you online?”   Hence the “RUO?”

“IAH,” Amber sent back, meaning “I am here.”

“Hey, whatcha up to?”

“Nothing, sending email to family.  How’s your family?”

“Good, crazy, I had to get out of there...left early this morning.  Just got back.”

“Oh, ok.”

Lucy didn’t respond right away, and Amber rubbed her weary eyes.  She hadn’t got much sleep last night.  Linc kept popping up in her dreams and kissing her senseless, and she’d jerk awake, seeing him say Macie’s name.  Then she’d drift off to sleep again, only to repeat that kiss.  One dream actually starred the dead woman.  In that one, Linc kissed Amber, then kissed Macie, and then prodded Macie to kiss Amber, and that’s when Amber decided she didn’t want to go back to sleep.  That had been 4 A.M.  

Lucy wrote back, “Ok...I sense something’s wrong.  What’s up?”

Amber chewed on her lip.  Would Lucy understand?  Could she tell her friend about Linc kissing her?  Or would she feel like she was betraying Macie by being friends with Amber now?  Lucy had always been so sympathetic about things, finding goodness and fault in both sides of an issue, so Amber wondered if her friend could be that neutral with this problem.

Taking a deep breath, Amber placed her fingers of the keyboard.  Quickly, and without thinking too much about it, she typed, “I kissed Linc last night,” and sent it.  

Then she waited and waited and waited for Lucy to reply.  The clock on her screen seemed frozen.  Time slowed, and an ache started in Amber’s chest.  The breath left her with a whoosh.  She’d forgotten to breathe.  What was taking so long?  What was Lucy thinking?

The words popped up.  “Make some coffee...I’m coming over.”

*****

Linc chewed on the pen cap and ignored the dirty looks from the woman behind the counter.  This was his fourth stop, and his fifteenth card.  He was running out of things to write.  He’d scrawled down lines from sonnets, and parts of novels, and had even plainly written, I’m sorry, I didn’t mean it, please forgive me.  But now...the only phrase he could come up with sounded cheesy.  He honestly wasn’t sure if he wanted to write it.  Would she take it the wrong way?  Would she even read it?

The hell with it.  Linc touched the pen to the card and printed, Give him enough rope and he will hang himself.  Quoted by one of the Bronte sisters.  Linc couldn’t remember which one, only that they were all a little on the odd side.  

Now, if Amber was a literal person and took that the wrong way, then this day could get interesting.  He could almost see her calling the police to check on him and make sure he hadn’t killed himself...she might even call that one policeman from last night.  If anything, Linc planned to not need a reason to ever see him again.  He still recalled how the young officer stared down at Amber.  Linc balled up his fists.  The pen snapped, and ink spilled over his fingers.  Shit.

Linc quickly stuffed the card in the small envelop and sealed it, smearing blue ink all over the flap.  The lady smiled politely, though there was a long-suffering tightness around her eyes.  Linc couldn’t blame her.  He’d been a difficult customer, going through every pink rose in the joint to choose the ones that were deserving of being delivered to Amber.  The flowers couldn’t be delivered until the next day, on Monday, but Linc didn’t care.  He wanted Amber to understand just how sorry he was about last night.  He wasn’t sorry he kissed her, but he was sorry for accidentally calling her Macie, even though he’d not really done that, but she thought so, so he was apologizing.  

Come to think of it...Linc felt pretty sure he’d actually written that exact explanation in one of the many cards...or did he?  God, he was tired.  Sleep was a joke last night.  Every time he closed his eyes, there was Amber, waiting to be kissed, and there was Macie, crying because he was kissing another woman, and he chose to kiss Amber over Macie, and that made Macie mad and Amber sad, and he couldn’t decide who to appease first.

Then of course, since he felt guilty for ordering so many flowers for a girl he’d only kissed once, and he’d not given Macie anything like this when she’d been alive, he bought a dozen white, perfect roses and took those with him.  A glance at his calendar that morning had sent him reeling and trying to gain some perspective from his dream.  It seemed a day for apologies.  

Three years.  

Had it really been that long?  Sometimes, it seemed like just last week he’d seen her lovely face and heard her laugh, and some days, it felt like an eternity, and he couldn’t remember what she looked like unless he dug out a photo.  And now that he thought about it, he’d not gone to see her since before Wil’s wedding.  Linc fingered a petal of a white rose as the cashier rung up his purchases.  Did Macie miss him?  Would she be mad because he hadn’t visited her in a while?

For the first year afterward, Linc found himself at Macie’s grave almost every day.  There were days when he cried nonstop over the still-fresh mound of dirt.  There were days and nights when he’d shown up at the cemetery, already drunk off his ass, and shouted out his anger while pounding his fists into her headstone.  He’d wake up the next morning, draped across her grave or already dragged off to jail to sober up.  And there were days when, if he sat quietly enough, he could almost feel her sitting next to him.  

He really needed to listen to her today.  He needed to feel her again.  In the past two weeks, he’d been unfaithful to Macie, in his thoughts of Amber and by kissing Amber last night.  In doing so, he had also hurt Amber’s feelings.  

I’m a real piece of work, he thought as he left the flower shop with Macie’s roses.  Dead or alive, I still manage to rouse a woman’s anger.  He sighed and hopped into his truck, heading east on 12th Street to Elmwood Cemetery.

*****

While waiting for Lucy, Amber decided to finish putting her bowl back together.  She’d never be able to mix up a batch of cookies in it, but it would be one heck of a conversation piece.  When only a few tiny pieces were left to be assembled on the whole, Lucy buzzed from downstairs to be let in the building, flashing a light near her front door.  Amber got up to push the access button on the intercom and found herself in a very sticky situation.  She had superglued both her hands to the bowl.  She hadn’t meant to, but the pieces were so tiny, she used too much glue and now...

Her cell phone vibrated next to her elbow.  Lucy texted, ‘Hey, its me...let me in.’

Okay...Amber thought.  Okay...um...how to do this?  She picked up the bowl and walked over to the intercom.  She’d just use her elbow to push the access button.  Easy.

No...no, not easy.  Problem.  A minor problem, but still a problem.  

Amber stretched her elbow up as far as she could, twisting her body, but the button was too high.  She couldn’t reach it.  Using her bare feet, she dragged a chair over, climbed up, and smashed the button with her chin.  Five minutes later, Lucy came through her door, signing, ‘What took so long--’ and burst out laughing.  ‘What are you doing?’

Amber smiled, shrugged and twitched her nose.  It was itching like crazy!  “Help me,” she pleaded.  

Lucy managed to pry Amber’s fingers off the bowl.  She set it down on the table and eyed it.  ‘Do I want to know about the bowl, or about you kissing Linc Martin?’

'All part of the same story,' Amber replied, rubbing her fingertips together in the middle of her explanation and scowling at them.  Glue encrusted half her finger pads, and now that was going to bother her all day.    

‘So...you kissed Linc, he did something stupid, and you threw a bowl at his head, hence the broken state...how close am I?’  Lucy asked.

‘One out of three...he did do something stupid, but I didn’t kiss him...well...not until after he started it.  Linc kissed me, and the bowl happened before all that.’

Lucy raised an eyebrow.  ‘Give me a second to get comfortable, then I want to hear every juicy detail.’  Lucy skipped over to the sofa and curled her feet under her as she dropped into the cushions.  ‘Okay...come tell me everything.’

Amber sighed, crossed the room and joined her friend on the sofa.  ‘Okay, but tell me something first...are you upset because Linc belongs to Macie?’’

Lucy blinked at her.  ‘Oh, honey...no!  I miss Macie, I do, but she’s gone.  It’s been three years, and I think that Linc needs to move on with his life.  I’m glad that he’s found someone as sweet as you and has stopped pining for her.’

Amber snorted.  ‘Oh...you might want to hold onto that thought until afterward.’

Lucy frowned a little with concern.  Then she huffed with a bitter understanding.  ‘Okay...tell me what he did.’

Amber told every juicy detail, even the one about Linc prancing in her kitchen on his imaginary horse.  She started with her adventure to the craft fair and ended with her cuticle scissors.  All in all, it took about...eh, twenty minutes or so.  Lucy had fixed herself a cup of coffee during the Amber’s monologue, but she had yet to drink any of it.  Lucy’s lips touched the rim of the cup, and just rested there since Amber snatched the bra off her doorknob.  

‘And that’s it,’ Amber concluded, finally resting her weary hands.  She cracked her knuckles and stretched her fingers.  ‘He left in a snit, and I haven’t seen nor heard from him since.’

Raw compassion smoldered in Lucy’s eyes.  She set her full cup aside.  “Oh, Amber,” she spoke, grasping Amber’s hands in hers.  “And I thought I’ve had some crumby dates.”

“It no date,” Amber said aloud, shaking her head.  “Chloe call him.  He drive me home.  That all.”

Lucy smiled.  “You know...you’re starting to talk better.  In that respect, I think Linc has been good for you, but...”  She sighed and shook her head.  “I’m sorry, Amber.  I wish I could tell you that it had been an honest mistake...him calling you Macie, but you do look so much like her, and he did love her very deeply.  I wish I had some advice for you, but I don’t.”

Amber smiled.  ‘I’m glad you don’t have any advice,’ she signed.  ‘My parents and sister were always too free with their advice, and I think I would like to figure this out on my own.’  Her gaze landed on her bowl, and she smiled wider.  ‘My life is like that bowl now.’

Lucy frowned and turned her head to see the pieced-together dish.  ‘How so?’

‘It was fine the way it was, beautiful, useful, but that only meant that people wanted to use it.  Now, it’s broken.  It can’t be used to make pancakes or cookies or whip together a cake.  The only reason I’d even want to keep it is because it meant something to me, and I have to love it more this way.  Before it was perfect and pretty and functional.  Now, it’s got character.  I moved up here to break apart the life I had.  I was tired of the over-protective attitudes and relying on my family.  I loved them for it...for loving me so much, but it’s my life, and I want it.  I want to make mistakes and get a little reckless sometimes, and yes, I want to spend the morning after, putting the pieces back together.”

Amber paused for a moment to bask in the warmth spreading through her.  It might have taken her two weeks and one botched-up kiss to get her head on crooked, but now it was.  She was looking at the world from a different angle.  There were things she finally wanted to experience.  And kissing Linc had only been the tip of the meringue pie.  

‘You’ve got a funny look on your face,’ Lucy signed, with a funny look on her face, too.  ‘What are you thinking?’

Excitement coursed through Amber.  She took Lucy’s hands and squeezed them.  “I know what I want to do today.”

“Oh?  What’s that?”

“Two things,” Amber said, holding up two fingers.  “But words too long for me to say.”  With a sheepish blush, she fingerspelled Independence.  And Individuality.

Lucy’s smile glowed.  “Independence and individuality...very important for women like us.  How do you want to accomplish those?”

Amber grasped a lock of hair and stared at it, biting her lip.  ‘Do you know a good hair salon?’