MAYBE TONIGHT - PART TWO

PREVIOUSLY

"So sorry, no can do! You're already wasting valuable time here playing nanny to Todd. He's a big boy. He'll come home when and if he wants to. Oh, and Tea? Say goodnight to my little girl for me…though its never really the same unless it comes from her real Mommy…" She smirked to herself as Tea slammed down the phone in her ear.

"Mission accomplished." She always liked to have a little fun with that one. This time, Blair had impressed even herself.

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For several moments, Tea stared down at the phone, her hand still shaking on the replaced receiver, her thoughts a jumble in her mind. She couldn't decide if the tears that burned behind her lashes were those of utter frustration or those of a broken heart. Whatever the solution, she surely felt the weight of the straw that broke the camel's back. She did her best to blink them away….she hated to cry. Usually if she just took a few deep breaths and steeled herself against the pain, she could keep the tears from flowing. In a daze, she walked slowly to the kitchen and began to methodically put away the dinner she had put her heart and soul into.

"It was only dinner, Tea. Nothing special. No big deal, right? Just another busy night at the office." The silence of the room was mocking her. "Todd's got a very important job that demands long hours. He loves you….he loves you…..Blair was just being Blair. He's never…he would never…."

Suddenly, her own words came back to haunt her.

But….maybe tonight?

He had been drifting further and further away. There was no denying it. She had to admit that he was running from her. What if he was running to someone else?

The plate she was drying fiercely with a towel fell to the floor and shattered into a hundred pieces. She stared in horror for a moment before bursting into tears.

"Damn dish….stupid, freaking, goddamn dish!" The venom and the pain in her voice went way beyond the annoyance of a lost piece in the china pattern.

She knelt among the pieces, feeling every bit as shattered as the broken china with the stupid pattern dancing all over it.

"I can't do this anymore…I can't! I shouldn't have to! Why, oh God, why do I love him so much? How could I have let myself….I opened my heart and soul to him! Promise after promise, day after day, loving him, needing him…and FOR WHAT?!" she laughed bitterly as the tears continued to defy her resolve. " I sit here alone….and he spends day and night with Blair…with his paper….with whatever else he can place ahead of me!" Tea's eyes grew wistful. "After the proposal, I thought…Oh God how I'd hoped…." She couldn't go on.

Tea bent down as if in a trance, and she began to automatically pick up the pieces of the lost plate, wishing all the time that it were as simple to pick up the pieces of a broken heart. It went beyond one forgotten night, and as much as she wanted to direct her anger at Blair, she knew that wasn't the source either.

"What is it?" she asked the silent kitchen. She was answered only by the steady ticking of the clock on the wall. " Why can't he love me? Why won't he love me?…..Ahhh…"

She dropped the plate quickly as a shard of ceramic cut deeply into her palm. Hypnotized, she watched the river of red that ran down her wrist. She could still bleed. She was still alive. If that were true than why did she feel so dead inside? So empty?

She got up slowly and abandoned what was left of her romantic dinner; she made her way slowly upstairs. Something led her to bypass the open door to her own solitary bedroom and continue on towards his room. She walked in as though she were entering a sacred place, and sat on the bed. It gave such a defiant squeak she almost laughed. He didn't want her here….apparently his bed didn't either. The bed she wanted to share so badly with Todd. Even more than a physical relationship, however, she craved an emotional one. She would give anything to get past his guard into his world….if only for a moment.

Tea ran her hand over the slightly rumpled sheets.

"Not tonight….and maybe….maybe not ever," she whispered to the room that was his, in the house that was his, full of his things. She was supposed to belong to him too. She was on the verge of pledging herself to him for all eternity. So why in these moments did she feel so far removed from him? Why couldn't he let her be a part of his world?

She thought back to the first time she had thoughts of leaving Todd, early into their first marriage. She had run to Carlotta's for guidance and a shoulder to cry on.

I don't belong there. I don't belong anywhere! And I never will!

Had the things which appeared to change so much through the months really just stayed the same?

"I let him be my everything…at the expense of everything….let him so far into my life that he is a part of me now. He doesn't want me anymore now then he did that night he wrote a five million dollar check out to my account!" She looked around, stunned by letting her fears find a voice. " He doesn't want me…he won't even try…." Her voice broke as the sobs overtook her. For a brief moment, her vision cleared and she glanced towards the closet. Her suitcase was in there. It would take only minutes to pack up her things. So little in his house was really hers anyway. Running would not take away all the pain, but it was what she knew, and she could leave before it killed her.

A sudden crash of thunder jolted her from her thoughts, and Starr's small voice cried out from down the hall.

"Daaaaaaaaaddddy!!! Tee!!!?? "

Tea ran to the little girl's room and found her sitting up, wide-eyed and frightened by the sudden crack of thunder. She dropped the rabbit she clutched with all her might and put her arms out in search of comfort. Tea's heart filled to the breaking point with love for her, and she took her into her arms and attempted to soothe her fears, immediately putting her own aside for the moment. As she rocked her protectively back and forth, she remembered all the times she had been frightened in the middle of the night as a child, desperately wishing that her mother had been there to take her fears away. She would call her softly, but she never came. She felt the pain of all those nights she had rocked herself as the silent tears ran down her cheeks and dampened her pajamas.

"Don't worry, sweetie, I'm here, ok? I'll always be here. It's okay." She could not believe that just minutes earlier she had been ready to repeat history. She couldn't walk out on Starr. And looking at her, with Todd so obviously shining through those eyes of hers, she remembered how many nights Todd had woken up as a child only to realize that his fears were real and that his rescuer had abandoned him when the going got tough. The only one left was in fact the monster himself.

"Tee? Can I sleep in your room tonight with you and Daddy? Just till God stops bowling up there?"

Tea had to bite her lip to keep from laughing. Even Starr assumed that she and Todd were sharing a bed like every other normal married couple. The innocent comment brought tears to her eyes as she realized what a wonderful father Todd was. In spite of everything else, he did love her. Starr was the living proof that he had the capacity to love.

"Sure, kiddo! But it's just us girls, tonight. Daddy is going to work a little longer. I don't think he'll make it home tonight, actually. But you and me….ya know what? We'll have a slumber party, ok?" She pulled a smile together for her stepdaughter.

Tea chalked it up to her imagination when Starr took her hand and gave it a gentle squeeze. There was an understanding in those eyes far beyond her years.

"I don't like it when Daddy works all night either. Don't be sad, Tee."

As she tucked Starr into Todd's bed, she couldn't help but look at her with a sense of wonder, and again she was flooded with a love that was almost overwhelming.

"Now neither one of us has to cry no more, Tee, cause we have each other, and in the morning, we'll both have daddy…you'll see!" She snuggled into the pillows and drifted off to sleep.

Tea brushed the tears off her own cheeks and went to return her suitcase to the closet. On the way, she placed it down next to her and kneeled down to pick up one of Todd's shirts, which he had tossed haphazardly (as Todd does all things) on the floor. She held it up to her face on impulse, rubbing the soft material against her cheek and breathing in the scent of his spicy soap. Without consideration, she stepped out of her dress and threw it over the bedpost, and buttoned his long shirt around her form.

She couldn't block the memory of how, on their first day of her role as Mrs. Manning, she had appeared at the bottom of the stairs in one of his long shirts. He had visibly squirmed.

"You don't see me wearing one of your skirts, do you? No more swapping of clothes," he'd explained in a gruff tone, the irreverent sense of humor always in good form. He'd practically had her pencil it into their contract!

Now she broke that rule. It was the only way she could think of to feel close to him while he chose to remain so far away. Exhausted, she crawled into bed with Starr, who turned to snuggle against her. Cried out and emotionally spent, she fell promptly to sleep.

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Blair had suddenly become the most meticulous writer that Todd had ever seen, and his impatient pacing had become deadly to the carpet. When she casually flipped through the Thesaurus for the fiftieth time as if she had all the time in the world, he finally cracked.

"My hair has grown another two inches since you started writing that piece, Blair. Are you planning on finishing it before I go gray?"

"Todd, good things come to him who waits. Besides, isn't it just like old times, you and me, working towards the same goal, coming out on top…a team? You and I have always been the best…at Everything …when we are together." Those eyes burned her message into his.

He regarded her silently for a second, ran his hand through his hair to stall for time, in an attempt to assess her game.

"In old times, I wasn't anxious to get home to my wife, Blair. In old times, I thought you saw in me what I know Tea does."

"Aw come on Todd….and what is that? Dollar signs? Come on! It is plain to see that your marriage to Tea has been and will be every bit as real as one of Starr's games of Pretend with her dolls! She knows the difference, and she's only six. Time you two put your heads together and figured it out. Love between the two of you can be nothing more than a sham. What could either of you know about love? The King of Loathing and the Ice Queen herself!" She laughed bitterly.

Todd didn't miss a beat.

"I know that I've learned a lot about it from Tea. And from looking at my daughter. And you….you get a gold star too for teaching me that love can be abused…messed up beyond help…"

"Oh Puleeze" Blair errupted, " You want to see a mess, look no further than yourself, your life, and that miserable so called marriage, Todd. It's all a farce. You will never know the meaning of the word."

"That's it Blair. Take me back to the good old days. The ones where you were sure to tell me all the time how no good I was….The gutter is much more fun with company, isn't it? That was the way you liked it!" His temper was rising with each word.

"That was cruel even for you, Todd! I loved you the best way I knew how. And you can deny it and use Tea to cover it up, but you loved me, too. We were good for each other, you and me. Tea's a Nobody. She always was. And your money in her pockets and your ring on her finger doesn't change that! You want to let her drag you down, too, you be my guest. You just remember that we….WE TODD…we were somebody! " Blair's eyes now blazed with this release of emotion and held an unspoken challenge.

Initially, Todd was surprised to find himself feeling sorry for her. He ha loved her enough that when she hurt him it had left him raw for a long time. Deep down, he did still feel a connection to her from time to time. But her bitter judgment of Tea made his blood boil. Potshots taken at her cut through to his soul, and he considered them inexcusable. Especially those he found to be so far from the truth.

"Tea could never, EVER, be a nobody. For your information, Blair, Delgado is my everything….the only person in this world besides Starr who continues to make THIS nobody feel, for more than your average moment, like a Somebody. She looks so deep she must have X-ray vision, because she can find stuff in me that nobody, not even me, knew was really in there! She makes me…NOT a Monster….'

"Tea the lion-tamer? There was no pussy cat in you back in our day. She beat you into her own submission! Made you what she wanted! I accepted the real you!"

"How? How Blair? You never gave the real me a shot! You didn't want to see the real me! Some parts of the real me don't fit into your little fantasy of the two outcasts against the world, so you canceled em like you cancel a stamp, Blair! And ya know what? Maybe I wasn't prepared to show it to you. And so it worked out okay like that for both of us! Tea….she was different. Right from the start I knew that she was different. She wanted to be in on it all….the fear, the horror, the rage, and the despair…that's ALL ME! And the other stuff? The stuff hidden even deeper than that? She's okay with that too! And I gave it to her….Oh how I gave it to her," he sneered with self-disgust, "No holds barred, waiting for her to break. To run. To loathe me as much as I loathe myself so I couldn't ever hurt her like I pray to God I won't hurt her! "

His voice got a quiet, far away sound to it now.

"She never did…crack, I mean….When she started to, she'd just go off somewhere and come back all fixed. Ready to dig in even deeper if that is what it takes. Even when I'd given her absolutely nothing to come back to. Can't you understand what that means to someone like me? I love her!"

He stopped suddenly as stunned at this release of emotion as Blair seemed to be to witness it.

"She….she called…I think….I think you'd better go home." Something in her tone was genuinely apologetic. His face went white.

"When…when did she call? Before? What did you say to her? What did you tell her Blair?"

"I'm sorry…I didn't realize….I….I was only trying to light a fire under her…"

"BLAIR!" He was losing patience quickly in fear of what he would find at home.

Or what he wouldn't find.

"I may have just laid the thread down to imply that you and I were…." She looked incredibly guilty.

"Great Blair…fine…wonderful…" he picked up the phone to call Tea, and the machine picked up abruptly after one ring. Blair turned away as she saw fear blaze in his eyes.

"Go Todd. I'll finish up here. Listen….if you've got as much as you say you do, then even my best attempt, which this wasn't really, by the way, could cause anything more than a small dent, okay?"

Her eyes had lost their hard edge, and held a sincere mix of sympathy and remorse.

"I'd be the happiest guy….well, as happy as Todd Manning can get….if I could chalk this whole mess I've gotten into up to you, Blair. All you did was add the icing. I've been making one big mess of a cake since day one. It's got to end somewhere….before it all blows up in my face. " For a moment, Todd looked so lost that she looked away to give him his privacy. Then she reached out and squeezed his arm.

"Go home to your….to your wife. And who knows? Maybe it will all fall into place….maybe tonight." She looked skeptical as he ran out the door, coat flying behind him.

TO BE CONTINUED