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Elliot died inside. “Can’t ever.”
Part Two
Fifteen Years Later
A sting in my
Heart
The pain stays, but
You won’t
W. McAllister, “Bumblebee Breakup”
Elliot drifted quietly off into a daydream, nodding every now and then to give the appearance he was paying attention. Relationship counsellors should be alert, always considering everyone’s point of view, but it was hard when clients didn’t even try to communicate with their partner. Not that the couple before him were his clients, as such.
They were actors for Ask Austen film studios, where he was working—temporarily—as a relationship and intimacy consultant. Since he’d started the gig three weeks ago, Beth and Walter Clay had been pleading him for advice off the clock.
The first week, he gave them advice.
The second week, he gave them advice.
The third week, it was clear they weren’t willing to take it.
“Elliot?” Beth said, perched stiffly on the couch. “Elliot, did you hear what he just called me? That’s not appropriate.”
Her husband, lounging back into the cushions, didn’t look the least bit sorry. “She’s overreacting.”
“He’ll end up a lonely old fool if he keeps that shit up.”
“She’ll end up a lonely old bat if she can’t find humour in anything.”
Elliot forced himself to concentrate and shifted on his wheelie chair before them. “Beth, Walter. The key to a healthy relationship is and always has been communication. Being open with one another. Listening to what you each have to say, how you feel.”
“I know how he feels—”
“You anticipate how he feels. You need to be clear. Spell it out.”
Beth grabbed her phone and started tapping into it.
Elliot stifled a groan. “While it might be tempting to text out your feelings, it leaves too much to interpretation. Tone gets lost.”
“Not the way I write my messages,” she sniped.
“Here’s what I want you to do. Go for a big walk and talk to one another. Look into each other’s eyes. Start sentences with I feel . . . because . . .”
Beth scoffed. “We didn’t come to you for a linguistics lesson. What he needs is a third party to confirm he’s wrong.”
“I’m sorry, you’re speaking to the wrong counsellor.”
Walter looked at Beth and lowered his voice. Not enough that Elliot didn’t hear him. “He’s right. He is the wrong counsellor. What does a single guy know about relationships?”
He was trained to deflect such criticisms. Plenty of people who came to him worried about his seeming lack of personal experience, and he always had his answer. He’d studied psychology and counselling for five years, had gone on to train as an intimacy consultant, and he’d acquired many skills and techniques to help relationships in trouble.
It shouldn’t hurt to have Walter dissing his expertise. But the personal attack did hurt. It always did.
He was thirty-three and single, and none of his relationships—barring one—had lasted more than half a year.
“Oh my God, you’re so right. He’s a never-been-married marriage counsellor.”
“What would he know!”
“And he’s attractive too, when he smiles, so it can’t be for lack of options. He must just be really bad at relationships.”
Elliot cleared his throat, and Beth shrugged at him. “No offense.”
Thank God he barely had to deal with them as actors as well—they didn’t seem particularly convincing at their job.
Beth and Walter smiled at one another. “You’re such an assertive woman.”
“I know.”
“It’s a damn turn-on.”
Beth giggled and Elliot watched as they hustled out of the room. Maybe that train wreck would make it after all.
A comforting thought. He liked the idea there were no lost causes.
He slumped deep into his chair and tipped his head up to the ceiling. He didn’t spend all his time morosely contemplating the past. Just . . . a lot of it. And having his temporary office set up in the music studio—the second, smaller one; it was all they had available—the past kept punching him in the face.
Guitars hung on the wall above the couch. Behind him was a complicated looking sounding board and computer equipment filled a large crescent-moon shaped desk that overlooked a soundproofed room. At the other wall, furthest from the door, stood a piano and next to that, in the corner behind a large potted palm, was an old oak desk they’d brought in so he could do all his paperwork.
Working there, every day, with a piano in his peripheral vision . . .
A knock came at the open door and Elliot lifted his head. Louisa. And bless her, she had coffee cups and a small basket of fruit on a wicker tray.
“God, yes,” he said.
She laughed, handed him a cup, set the tray on the little table beside the couch, and sat.
He sipped the blessed liquid.
“I wanted to bring muffins from the break room, but they were gone. I had to settle for fruit.”
“You didn’t have to bring food in at all.”
“I think I did. You never eat unless reminded. And you look like you could use a lot of reminding.”
