Love Me for Me Read online

  “Yes.”

  “Where are you? I’ve been waiting about fifteen minutes, hoping you’d get here.” Without so much as a pause, she continued, “How are you dressed?”

  Libby looked down. Her golden hair—a two hundred dollar investment, her hairdresser had told her—dangled in her line of vision. “I have on a sundress.” She thought of her shoes, pondering how she’d clean them up with no cleaning supplies in the house.

  “Oh, good! I want you to meet me at Miller’s.”

  “Miller’s?” The only time they ever went to Miller’s restaurant was for Sunday dinners. It sat right on the water and had the most spectacular array of seafood in the area.

  “You’re home! I’d like to celebrate!”

  What Celia really meant, Libby was certain, was that she needed to keep her head held high, her chin up, and act as though her trip home were just a blip in her path to success. Coming home is just a slight setback, nothing more, she could almost hear Celia saying. Libby felt like crawling into a hole somewhere to hide in embarrassment. She couldn’t keep her head held high feeling the way she did. She wasn’t successful. Anymore. And the insecurity she felt because of it was nearly more than she could handle.

  “Can I meet you in twenty minutes?” she said, trying not to fall apart right then and there. When she ended the call, she turned back toward the sea air to give her calm. She’d need it before facing the town she’d run away from so many years ago, never looking back.

  Chapter Two

  Libby tried not to notice the scenery outside as she drove the rental car down the familiar route to meet her mother. In twelve years, it hadn’t changed at all. Every single place that she passed by had a story: the library, the place she’d spent so many silent hours, where she found solitude from her battling parents; the recreation center where she’d practiced day after day, trying to secure a swimming scholarship; the park, her escape when she needed time to think.

  She pulled the car along the curb outside Miller’s restaurant in front of a small strip of shops and got out. She pretended to fiddle with something in her handbag, but she was really stalling. The very last thing she wanted to do was to meet her mother there. Just thinking about it she felt anxious.

  When she was young, she’d worried that she would disappoint her mother, but now, she knew that she probably had already done that, so the thought of facing her, listening to her try and spin the situation into something that she could boast about, was horrifying. From the time she was a little girl, her mother had paraded her in front of her friends: Libby knows all her ABCs! Show them, Libby! Or, Libby just got first place in the swim meet! Now, there she was again, most likely going to make a show. Libby! She could hear her now…

  “Libby?”

  She stopped moving. She knew that voice—and it wasn’t her mother’s. With one word, he’d sent her heart thudding inside her chest. Her eyes still on the items in her bag, she was too mortified to look at the person in front of her, yet the excitement of hearing his voice made her lightheaded. Her hands began to tremble. Whenever she got nervous, it was very difficult for her to calm down, and she hoped she wouldn’t rattle right off the sidewalk.

  “You decided to grace us with your presence?” he said.

  She shut her bag and looked up. There he was. It had been more than a decade since she’d seen him, but he looked just as he had back then. His sandy brown hair was a little longer but not much. His green eyes still light against his suntanned skin. She waited for the crooked grin that went all the way up to his eyes, his gentle expression as he looked down at her, the protective way he put his arm around her waist—but as she snapped into the present, she realized she wouldn’t get any of that. Her heart was drumming so loudly that she was nearly sure he could hear it. She searched his face for any indication of how he felt about their meeting. Other than the shortness in his tone and the tiny crease between his eyes, his face was expressionless. That alone gave her enough of an answer.

  “Pete,” was all she could get out. Memories of all the insensitive things she’d said to him so many years ago were clouding her ability to form words. It made her flustered.

  He swung his gaze up to the sky and then looked back at her, his head shaking so subtly that she had almost missed it. “Fancy seeing you here,” he said, his eyes taunting her for a reaction. “I can’t imagine why you’d come back.” His arms were crossed, the muscles tight and flexed, as he glared at her. His hands looked more weathered, older, but she remembered them perfectly—the way they’d felt as he dragged his fingertips up and down her back while she rested on his shoulder, the coarseness of them as he held her face in his hands.

  His words cut her right through to the bone. He hated her for the way she’d left, and she didn’t blame him. Pete had wanted them to go to college together. He’d applied to Virginia Tech and the University of Richmond so he could stay close to his family. He wanted to be able to do things like go out on the boat with Pop when he felt like it and help his mom around the house if she needed him. He wanted Libby to be by his side like she had been since they were kids. Going to a state school would have allowed them to come home and be with their families more often while still giving them enough distance to be on their own together. But Libby’s mother had always told her she could get into the Ivy Leagues if she just put her mind to it, and, in the end, her ambition won out. She applied to Columbia University in New York City and she got in. Breaking the news of her acceptance to Pete had exploded into the type of argument that changes everything. It wasn’t just a disagreement; it was a complete attack on the kind of life he’d chosen to pursue.

  The day she’d told him about Columbia was the first time she’d ever seen disappointment in his eyes. She’d sent off her applications for Virginia Tech and The University of Richmond along with the one for Columbia, but she knew she couldn’t spend her days in White Stone—and with Pete, she knew she would.

  “Give me one good reason you should go there, Libby,” he had asked that day.

  “Because I need something more. I need to get out. There’s nothing for me here,” she’d caught herself saying. She bit her tongue, knowing she’d made it sound as though Pete wasn’t worth staying for. She hadn’t meant it to come out that way, but it had. What she’d been trying to say was that for her whole life, she’d learned she had to achieve to be successful. In White Stone, she just didn’t have enough opportunity to achieve to her potential. It wasn’t about Pete. “I can’t get anywhere in life if I stay in White Stone. It isn’t the place for me.” She’d called it an insignificant town.

  “I refuse to believe this,” he’d said. “That’s not what you want. It’s what your mother wants for you.” His cheeks were flushed, his jaw clenched. She’d never seen Pete Bennett cry before, but his face in that moment was about as close as she’d ever gotten to seeing it.

  Pete’s implication that she couldn’t make her own choices rubbed Libby the wrong way. She was old enough to decide for herself what she wanted from life and, while her mother had strongly urged her to apply to an Ivy League school, ultimately it was up to Libby. And she wanted to get out of White Stone. “Then you must not know me as well as you think you do,” she’d said, irritation pelting her insides.

  What she’d been too proud and angry to admit on that day was that, while she wanted out of that town, she was heartbroken about leaving Pete. He didn’t see her cry into her pillow every night for weeks after she’d left him. He didn’t know anything about the emptiness she’d felt day in and day out as she spent nights away from him, alone, in a new place where no one knew her. On more than one occasion, she’d almost picked up the phone to call him, to hear his voice, but she was too afraid he was angry with her. So she’d shut her eyes and imagined the crooked way his mouth turned up as if he were about to break into a laugh, the way his eyes squinted when he smiled. But that image always changed to the last expression of Pete’s that she’d seen: the sadness, hurt and disappointment.

/>   The guilt that she carried still sat deep within her, and it hurt like crazy to feel it again. But it had been for the best! She had too much drive, too much ambition to be stuck in that town without any opportunities for something bigger, for life on a grander scale. What is life without achievement? she thought. Working hard for things made her feel like she was doing something worthwhile. Hadn’t he realized that by now?

  “There you are!” her mother’s voice plowed right through the heaviness hanging in the air. Libby pulled her attention from Pete to find her mother walking out of the door to Miller’s, an apprehensive look lurking beneath an artificial smile. “Hello, Pete,” she said, sending a fluttering look over to him and then away. Her eyes settled on Libby. “Our table’s ready.”

  Libby turned back to Pete, but he was already walking away. She had so many things she wanted to say, so many feelings about the last twelve years, but she’d missed her chance. What kind of life had he made for himself? Was he married? Did he have children? The image of Pete swinging a child up onto his shoulders, a woman by his side, sent a wave of jealousy through her stomach and up to her cheeks. It was a shocking feeling to have, but it was clearly there, raging inside. She’d rolled her dice, put everything she had on her choice, and, in the end, the odds had been against her. Now she was right back where she’d started, and she didn’t even have the comfort of the ones she loved to help her through it.

  “Come in, Libby,” her mother said, patting her arm and ushering her inside. As Libby walked up the wooden steps to the restaurant, she watched Pete out of the corner of her eye, and she could have sworn that he’d looked back, just once, in her direction.

  The hostess showed them to their table. Libby sat down and wadded her linen napkin in her lap. Why is this happening to me? she wanted to yell out. I planned perfectly! I did everything right! It wasn’t my fault they cut staff at work. It wasn’t my fault Wade left me… Right? The more she pondered her problems, the more unsure she became. She started to question her presumptions, and more questions filled her mind. Did I do something at work to be the one they let go? Am I not as sharp as my colleagues? Did I become a burden to Wade?

  “Can I get you anything to drink?” a waitress asked as Libby scooted her chair farther under the table as a nervous impulse. She couldn’t tell if it was just her own paranoia, but it seemed like the waitress was looking at her as if she knew her. But then she wondered if, perhaps, the woman thought she looked out of place there.

  The culture in White Stone was different than in New York. Libby hadn’t really noticed it until she’d been away. They dressed differently, more casual. Businessmen wore polo shirts and trousers on dressy days and jeans on Fridays. The women wore informal clothes to work mostly, and everyone, no matter who they were, wore T-shirts and shorts in their off time. The only time people felt the need to dress up was for church and special occasions. Libby looked down at the Diane Von Furstenberg sundress she’d gotten at Barneys last week. It made her feel like an outsider.

  “I’ll have a water,” she said before looking down into her menu and trying to hide there.

  “Nonsense!” her mother piped up. “Let’s have wine. Don’t you want a glass of wine, Libby?”

  She peered over the menu at her mother. Celia Potter was the only person she knew who didn’t follow the area’s dress code. Her mother had on a brand-new-looking red and white dress, the fabric some sort of textured cotton. Her lips were as red as the flowers splashed across the garment. Her make-up, her hair, it was all done to perfection, so much so that it looked odd. Libby wished, for once, that she could reach over and tousle the over-sprayed salt-and-pepper waves that framed her mother’s face.

  She didn’t want to hurt her mother’s feelings, but the thought of alcohol made her insides turn over. In the state she was in, it would give her a pounding headache. “No thanks, Mom. I don’t want wine.”

  “Well, I’m not going to make a scene by arguing,” she smiled a tight smile, her eyes darting around, probably to see if anyone had noticed the exchange. “I’m just glad to have you home, that’s all.”

  The waitress waited politely by their table, her eyebrows raised in expectation of Celia’s order. Libby wondered why that girl had ended up in White Stone. For Libby’s entire life, her mother had told her she could do better than her home town, go away to college and do something grander with her life. She was taught to produce only perfection in the hopes that she could get out of there. And yet, Celia Potter had stayed.

  She probably likes being the big fish in a small pond, Libby thought. If she did, that was the only thing she liked. She had been a stay-at-home mom for Libby until her father left them. Celia Potter had grown up in Las Vegas, and she had been a PR representative for one of the casinos, where she’d met Libby’s father. She followed him to Virginia but after he left them, there wasn’t a whole lot of corporate PR work to be had in the area. And by that time Celia had been out of the game so long she didn’t have much to show for herself in terms of experience, so she’d settled on a job as a receptionist at the local dental office.

  The waitress was still waiting on Libby’s order.

  “I’ll just have an iced tea… and another iced tea for her. We’ll both have a salad,” Celia ordered without consulting Libby.

  After the waitress left them alone, Celia leaned across the table. “You don’t have to be so gloomy, honey. Be glad to be home.”

  There was no reason to be glad. She was the exact opposite of glad. Libby had been completely happy in New York. She didn’t belong in White Stone. She didn’t look like the people in town, she didn’t act like them, and certainly she didn’t live like them. But now, who was she? She’d lost her job in Manhattan, she had nowhere to live, and Wade had left her.

  The conversation the night Wade broke up with her had been surreal. He was away on business, and she wanted to feel closer to him. Libby was reasonable enough to know that if she hadn’t called him that night, she’d have eventually faced the same outcome, but she still wished it could have happened differently.

  I don’t think we’re compatible anymore.

  After two years of being together, that was how he’d ended it. With that one statement, Wade showed a side of him that Libby had never known existed. She knew why they weren’t compatible and, until that moment, she hadn’t wanted to admit it. They weren’t compatible because she wasn’t successful anymore. When she’d had a lucrative career, he’d been very attentive, romantic, interested. But the longer she sat in their apartment looking for jobs, not going anywhere, not getting out of her pajamas until late in the morning, the more he’d distanced himself. He’d been so busy on his trip that he was unable to take her calls for most of that week. That’s the way she’d rationalized his silence before their break-up. In the end, he’d left her with barely an explanation. He’d come home long enough to suggest that she find somewhere to go as soon as possible, and then he’d left again—where to, she had no idea.

  All the plans she’d made for their wedding—the reservations, the deposits, the appointments—had to be canceled. With every phone call, she sank further into her depression, constantly reexamining herself and wondering if she’d achieved what she had based on her merit or if it had all been some terrible fluke. She’d hit her very lowest at that point, and she wondered if she’d ever get back up to the top. It seemed like a daunting climb.

  “Hello-o!” Celia waved a hand in front of her face.

  “Sorry.”

  “Honey, I… I’m just going to say it. You look depressed.”

  Ya think? “Really?”

  “Would it help to see someone about it?”

  “Who? Taylor’s mom? She’s the only shrink in town, and, since I spent most of my childhood at her home playing with Taylor, I don’t think she could be very objective.” Libby noticed her tone and shrank back into quiet. It wasn’t her mother’s fault she’d lost everything. The last thing she wanted to do was upset her mother. I’ll bet you’re
doing damage control in your head right now, she thought as she looked at her. Libby had already ruined her reputation as an overachiever for her mother. She’d better not make it any worse.

  Celia waved her hands in the air. “Let’s not talk about it. I’d much rather discuss what you thought of the Roberts’ place. Is it livable?”

  “Well, there’s no way I can sell it and make a profit the way it is currently, but that’s okay because I’ll be here to oversee the remodel.”

  The realization of what was ahead of her was slowly sinking in. She was about to start living and working in the town she’d worked so hard to leave. Was she destined to live out her years like her mother had? In New York, she felt there was nowhere to go but up, but in White Stone, there was just nowhere to go.

  Her mother had gotten her a job at a small firm in town owned by an acquaintance of Celia’s named Marty Bruin. Libby was overqualified for it, but it had been the only offer of employment she’d received. It wasn’t even a full-time job; it was a temporary, part-time position that she’d only gotten because she was Celia’s daughter. It was just something to keep her afloat until she could get back to New York.

  Compounding things, she hadn’t told Wade that she’d planned to prolong putting the cottage on the market until she could get back on her feet. She didn’t really know what to tell Wade, and she didn’t really know what she wanted to do with the cottage. In a perfect world, she’d sell it, get a job back in New York, and return to her happy life, but that wasn’t an available option at the moment. At least she could use the house to hide away until she figured out what to do. She couldn’t hide, however, from the inadequacy she felt coming back.

  “I know the house isn’t much.” Celia pulled her from her thoughts, “Your investment is the property.”

  Libby nodded as the waitress brought their drinks and set them on the linen-covered table. As she looked around at the tiny, southern restaurant’s interior, over half of the faces recognizable, she thought to herself how much she wanted this to be temporary. Even if the only things she had were her laptop and a change of clothes, the first thing she’d do after lunch was get online and start sending in job applications. She was getting out of there as soon as she possibly could.