Chapter 34

Chapter 34

Layla

“Law & Order is much more interesting,” Etta said. “No offense.”

I laughed. “None taken. Not much goes on in traffic court that’s too exciting.”

The cashier called next, and Etta and I went to the window to pay her fines. The ADA had agreed to drop the driving without a license tickets in exchange for Etta pleading guilty to an unsafe door opening and broken taillight ticket—both hefty fines but not moving violations.

Etta had laid her confused old lady act on so thick, the ADA actually apologized for having to hit her with something. The judge, on the other hand, saw through Etta’s charade and gave her a twenty-minute lecture. I was pretty sure Judge Peterson might be a year or two older than Etta. But it was taken care of, at least.

On our way out of the courthouse, we ran into Travis Burns, an attorney I hadn’t seen in a few years. We stopped to talk, and I introduced Etta.

“You look great,” he said.

“Thanks. So do you. What are you doing in traffic court?”

“Son of a VIP client got a DWI. You?”

I looked to Etta and smiled. “Etta’s a VIP, too.”

After a few minutes of chatting, Travis tilted his head. “Let’s get together soon. Catch up over drinks?”

“Sure. I’d like that.”

Etta wasted no time commenting when we walked away. “He’s a real looker.”

“Travis is a nice guy. Good attorney, too.”

“Damn, Gray is an idiot.”

When I’d picked Etta up this morning, she’d told me Gray had visited the other day and told her about us. She’d said it was none of her business, but thought it was a shame. I’d thought maybe I’d evaded a longer conversation about what had transpired between Gray and me. But it seemed that thought had been premature.

Even though I thought his reason for breaking things off was bullshit, I tried to pretend I understood. “Our timing was just bad,” I said to Etta. “He’s got a lot going on.”

“Excuse my language, but that’s big bullshit. The man has his head up his ass. Life threw him a curveball. I get it. But you don’t stop swinging. You firm up your grip and smack it out of the park.”

We walked down the courthouse steps and headed over to the parking garage. I usually took the train to court in Queens, but I’d wanted to pick Etta up, so I drove.

“You have to want to be with someone enough to overcome any obstacles,” I said. “Gray didn’t.”

Etta stopped walking. “Is that what you think? That he didn’t love you enough?”

“I think it’s clear from his choice, Etta.”

She shook her head. “Dear, you know I’ve known that boy since he was in diapers. He’s loved three women in his life—his mother, God rest her soul, me, and you. He took three years in jail for a wife he cared about but never loved and married out of convenience. The man sacrifices for the people in his life like no other I’ve ever seen. That’s what breaking things off with you was, sweetheart. He has it in his head that keeping you is not fair to you, for some reason.”

We finished walking to the parking garage, found my car, and started on our way back to Etta’s. What she’d said kept running through my mind. I’d been so shocked and pissed over what Gray had pulled that I’d never really stopped to think that maybe he was doing it to set me free. A selfless act like that did seem like more of a Gray thing to do than a dump-and-run because he was “too busy.”

I drove the entire way to Etta’s house lost in thought. She must’ve known I needed to mull over what she’d said, because she gave me space. I pulled into her driveway just as a man walked out of her house. He seemed to be about her age and wore a pair of slippers to carry out a bag of garbage.

Oh wow. Etta has a boyfriend.

I smiled. “Looks like you have better luck with men than I do.”

Etta furrowed her brows and then realized what I’d thought. “That’s Rip,” she said with a laugh. “He’s renting the apartment downstairs.”

“Rip? As in Gray’s old bunkmate?”

“The one and only.”

Rip waved and walked to the passenger side of my car, opening the door for Etta.

He extended a hand to help her out, and I exited the car to say goodbye.

“Rip, this is….” Etta said.

He walked around the car and captured me in a bear hug. “I know who you are. Had to hear about you every day for long enough.”

I smiled. Gray had shared Rip’s story with me. The two men had a lot in common—both punished for things they did for other people. “I’ve heard a lot about you, too. Gray had said you were getting released soon. I didn’t realize it had happened.”

“Yep. Pretty Boy picked me up a few days ago. Set me up with a nice apartment to stay in, too.”

“Oh. Wow. Well, welcome home.”

Rip told Etta he was going to weed her garden and gave me another hug. “It was nice to finally meet you, Layla. I guess I’ll be seeing you around soon.”

I nodded, not wanting to explain that he probably wouldn’t be. Once he was out of earshot, I said to Etta, “I guess he doesn’t know.”

She smiled. “Oh, he knows. We had dinner with Gray the other night.”

I shook my head, confused.

Etta took my hand. “Let me tell you a little story. I think I already told you how me and my husband met—walked right into each other in the lobby of The Plaza Hotel—and how I once gave him the boot for a lie I’d caught him in. Well, he’s a man, so of course that wasn’t the only time he screwed up.

“In 1967, Henry was drafted into the Vietnam War. A few weeks before he was set to leave, he broke it off with me—told me he’d fallen for another woman and didn’t love me anymore. I was heartbroken. It took me about a year before I started to move on. Back then, women were old maids if they were single at twenty-five, and my mother had started to pressure me to get back out into the dating world. Eventually, I met Fred.” Etta looked down and smiled like she remembered him fondly. “Fred was a wonderful man. He treated me like a queen and made me smile at a time when I didn’t want to. I adored him. But…I never really loved him like I had Henry.”

“You married Henry, though, not Fred, right?”

Etta nodded. “Two years after I started dating Fred, he asked me to go to a fancy restaurant for dinner on my birthday. I had a feeling he might propose. I really cared for him. I knew he would make a wonderful husband. But it didn’t feel right, because I didn’t love Fred like I’d loved Henry.”

“Did Fred ask you to marry him?”

“He didn’t get the chance to. The night before my birthday, I went to The Plaza Hotel. It’s where I’d met Henry the very first time. His father was a doorman there, and I’d gone for lunch when my grandmother was in town. I’d always thought the place was magical. Just being in the lobby gave me goosebumps; it was so beautiful. So, I got all dressed up like I was going on a date, and I went and sat in the lobby for a few hours, thinking about what I’d do if Fred proposed the next night. I decided in that lobby that I couldn’t marry him, no matter how good of a catch he was. I would’ve been settling for Fred, and neither of us deserved that. After a few hours, I figured I’d go home. But you know what happened?”

“What?”

“I walked out the door at the exact same minute a certain man in uniform was walking in.”

My eyes widened. “Henry was walking in when you were walking out?”

“He most certainly was. He’d gotten discharged, and just that day he’d arrived back home. His dad didn’t work the door anymore. His knees had gone bad. Turned out, he’d become the hotel’s elevator operator. He spent his evenings sitting on a chair, so I hadn’t seen him, but Henry was coming to see his dad.”

“Wow. That’s so crazy.”

“It is, isn’t it? Eight million people in the city, and we were both at the same place right at that moment. Henry asked what I was doing there. And I explained I came to do some serious thinking about a man I’d been seeing for a while. I’ll skip the part where I made him grovel and just tell you Henry had broken things off with me because he was going to war and didn’t want me to waste years waiting for him when he didn’t know what he could offer me if and when he came home. Men were coming back not right back then—or worse, not coming back at all.”

“So you married Henry.”

“Eventually. I forgave him because he did have my best interests at heart—even though he acted like a jackass making that decision for both of us like he did. Next week would have been forty-five years. We couldn’t afford to get married at The Plaza, of course. But we went for drinks every year on our anniversary.”

I smiled. “Thank you for sharing that, Etta. But the situation with Gray isn’t quite the same, even though I know what you’re getting at.”

“I really hope it works out for you two, because once you’ve had true love, anything else feels like settling, and no one should ever settle when it comes to love.” She squeezed my hand. “Thank you for today, sweetheart.”

“Take care of yourself, Etta. You have my number if you need anything at all.”