REVAMPED AS OF APRIL 2014
Mort had been so attentive in making sure Carmen stayed off of her feet for an entire week as the doctor had directed - he hardly left, and took his role of nursing Carmen back to health extremely seriously - that Carmen willed herself to force her conversations with John Shooter out of her barely found it in himself to leave her alone at night to go back to his own house at night, so most nights, he didn't even bother.
After the first week, however, Carmen had started feeling antsy and more able to do things on her, insisting that Mort didn't need to put his own work on the backburner just to babysit her. He reluctantly began allowing Carmen a little more time on her own - and in that time, the nagging reminder of John Shooter's warnings leaked slowly back into her brain.
It wasn't possible that she was just a replacement, was it? The question nagged her as she poured made herself a fresh pot of coffee. It nagged her through her French Toast. It nagged her as she opened all of the emails - mostly from Rob, with a few from Mel Carter, and an influx of spam messages - that she had put off the previous week. Finally, it got to the point where she couldn't help it anymore. She got into her car - the Mercedes Rob was loaning her that she honestly couldn't stand - and made her way to Mort's house.
Mort looked extremely surprised when he came down from upstairs where he had been working and saw Carmen walking through the door, having plucked the spare key out from the loose floorboard on the patio where she knew Mort left it. He rushed down the stairs and ushered her towards the couch.
"Whoa, whoa," he said, sitting down next to her. "You shouldn't have come all the way out here, you could've called if you -"
"I need to talk to you about something," Carmen said sternly, enough so that Mort froze and blinked at the serious timbre of her voice. "I know this is probably all kinds of taboo, but... am I anything like her? I mean, was she... anything like me?"
"Who?"
"Amy."
Shit, Mort thought to himself. This was the part he had never looked forward to - and the part he knew he probably had deserved for quite a while now. He let out his breath in a low whistle and folded his hands in front of his face.
"Yes. Well, no," he stammered unsurely. What was he supposed to say? If he said anything good about Amy - the Amy Scaletti he had fallen in love with married, given his last name to - Carmen would think he still loved her. If he said anything bad about Amy - the selfish minx who had declared them over without Mort's knowledge - Carmen would think he still wasn't over what she'd done.
"Which is it?" Carmen pressed, her brow furrowing in worry.
"Why does it matter?"
"Before you met me, were you over what she did?"
"You helped me-"
"I was a rebound?" Carmen asked. Mort suddenly realized what Carmen must have felt like, all of the times Mort instinctively confronted her with suspicions about Rob, when he couldn't be deterred from his suspicions no matter what Carmen said.
"No," Mort said, raising his eyebrows. "No, Carmen, you were not - you are not a rebound. Okay?"
"So you didn't love her anymore?"
"No, I d-"
But Mort froze - he wanted to give her a real answer. The real answer, which he couldn't quite figure out how to explain in a way that wouldn't set her off, was that it was complicated. Everything had happened because of the fact that he loved Amy. Even when he hated her and wanted her to disappear off the face of the earth, he loved her. How could you just stop loving someone you had spent more than ten years of your life with?
His silence, however, left more to interpretation than Carmen was able to process, and her eyes narrowed - Mort felt panic rising, and his throat tightened when he realized that she had come to a very different conclusion, and he couldn't even stammer a good enough explanation to talk his way out of this. Carmen gave a small sniff of what sounded like disgust... or disappointment... or something...
Whatever it was, she got to her feet and crossed her arms over herself and glared at Mort.
"Thanks. Good talk," Carmen said - Mort stood up and tried to pull her arm back to stop her from leaving, but she had already walked out the door.
"Carmen, wait!" he called out after her as she walked out to the car. "Carmen, I don't -"
He didn't know where this was coming from, and Carmen was in no mood to explain. She climbed into her car and, as her hands clasped onto the steering wheel, she realized she was shaking. A part of her knew she was being unfair, that she should have given Mort time to process such a loaded question - but after all she had done for him? Wasn't all of that enough for her to get what she wanted to hear?
"She'll calm down," Mort muttered to himself.
Will she?
"Yes." Mort said resolutely, retreating to the couch and burying his head in his hands. "She'll calm down, and then I'll go over to her place and talk to her. I'll get my thoughts together, and everything will be fine."
The problem was that Carmen wasn't on her way home. Once she pulled out of Mort's driveway, she made her way down Lake Drive, through town, and out of Tashmore Lake.
"Hello?"
Rob wasn't entirely sure why Carmen would be calling - she wasn't the call-to-say-hello type, and he was fairly certain that anything Carmen needed, Mort would be more than capable of getting for her.
"I'm on my way into the city."
"What?!" Rob snapped - he was currently at work, and moved to shut his office door so the rest of the staff at A-List didn't need to hear his conversation. "What do you mean you're on your way here? What's wrong?"
"Who's that?" came a few voices outside the door. "Rob, is that Carmen?"
"It's the boss!" Rob snapped before turning his attention back to the phone, hearing the voices that belonged to Andrea, Melanie, and Chloe Carter, three girls with whom Rob and Carmen had been friends since their college days. The three had met because their names had all been next to one another on a class-sign in sheet in freshman year, and they had been inseparable ever since.
"I needed to get away from Tashmore Lake. I couldn't be there," Carmen said breathlessly over the phone. "I just - I needed to get away from that place, and from Mort - it was just too much."
"So you decided to come into the loudest most dangerous city possible. Genius," Rob said offhandedly.
"The Carters still have that spare room in their place, right? Just for a few days?"
"Are you serious?" Rob coughed in disbelief. "Carmen - I'm pretty sure they've come into work hung over every day since we met them, and you trust them more than you trust me?"
"Can you please ask if I can crash at their place?"
"Fine." Rob conceded. We walked over and opened the door - true to form, the three ladies had been eavesdropping outside, so he gestured for them to come in, closing the door behind them. "Carmen's in town for a while and needs a place to crash -"
"Yes! Absolutely!" Melanie said with a grin, nodding eagerly so that her bright blonde curls bounced around her face. Chloe and Andi echoed the sentiment, and Rob rolled his eyes. He'd just need to get the story out of Carmen some other time - if a night with the Carters didn't destroy her liver and put her back in the hospital first. "When does she get here?"
Carmen never thought she would see the day that New York City - its gridlocked streets, its rude drivers, its aroma of urine and air pollution and shawarma - wouldn't feel like home. But now as she arrived and pulled into the parking garage of the complex of condominiums where the Carters lived, she realized that after a couple months in Tashmore Lake, she didn't feel like she was woven into the cloth of the city the way she used to. She felt out of place, out of her routine - she had grown so used to the woods, to going to the general store, to lunch with Mort.
"Hi, Boss!"
Carmen yelped loudly when she saw a face poke into view outside of her open car window - a blonde-haired, green eyed girl with a wide smile. She had been so lost in her own thoughts that she hadn't noticed Mel Carter pulling in right next to her.
"Long time no see," she said brightly while Carmen got out of the car, reaching out and hugging Carmen warmly - Melanie Carter had always been such a sweet girl, it was a wonder that she remained friends with Chloe and Andi. Carmen certainly didn't have any female friends to whom she was that dedicated. She awkwardly returned the hug and gave a lopsided grin.
"I'm sorry for the late notice, by the way," Carmen said as Mel led her up to the elevator. "I'm just - going through some stuff -"
"Wait! The girls are gonna wanna hear all about it when you get upstairs - Chloe picked up a few bottles of Moscato already," Mel laughed. "It's not every day that you're back in town, and Rob tells us that you've had an interesting couple of months since you left."
"Interesting is one way to describe it -"
"Hey Boss!"
The minute Melanie opened the front door to the condo, Carmen was met with the sight of the other two Carters, pouring glasses of Moscato just as Mel had warned. She chuckled, shaking her head in disdain.
"You guys definitely don't waste any time," she smirked, sitting down on one of the armchairs in the living room.
"We have a lot of ground to cover," Chloe said, holding a glass of wine towards their former boss which Carmen accepted hesitantly, taking a sip. She realized she hadn't had a drink since moving to Tashmore Lake, and admittedly, getting a little alcohol into her system felt good.
"This is just the pregame, by the way," Andi pointed out, seeing how slowly Carmen was drinking. "Once we're done playing catch up, we're going out - there's this great new place -"
"I'll pass -"
"No you won't!" Melanie said, leaning on the arm of Carmen's chair. "I've had a badass headache all day, and they're not even letting me stay home, so you get to suffer with me. I'm the designated driver," she shrugged.
"I didn't bring anything except my wallet and my phone," Carmen admitted, scratching the back of her neck consciously. "You guys aren't seriously going to drag me out when I'm in pajamas -"
"You can wear something of mine," Mel supplied. "I've been neglecting hitting the gym lately, so they're a little snug on me, but you've gotten skinny."
"She looks great," Chloe commented, to which Mel answered that she looked like she needed a hamburger.
"Anyway," Carmen interrupted, not too keen on getting into a conversation about her weight. She cleared her throat and took another sip from her glass of Moscato, and remember how these three, Rob, and herself had used to all hang out together and drink wine, talking about the day they'd be rich young professionals who could afford the 'good stuff' - yet here they were, years later, still drinking the same old stuff.
"Anyway, spill," Andi said, crossing her legs at the knees and leaning towards Carmen. "Word around the street is that you're dating a writer? Mort Rainey?"
"He's got the whole J.D. Salinger, grungy recluse thing going, doesn't he?"
"...I'm going to need to be much more drunk for this," Carmen answered, downing the rest of her glass and pouring herself another.
"So have you slept with him?!"
"I didn't run off and join the convent, what do you think?" Carmen slurred, taking another swig from her glass - by now, she'd had enough so she didn't feel nearly as uptight, even leaning slightly against Mel, who was still perched on the arm of Carmen's chair as they lounged around.
"You whore!" Chloe said, reaching over and throwing a small pillow in Carmen's direction - Carmen reached out and just barely managed to get the almost-empty wine bottle out of harm's way before being hit by the pillow. She made to pour herself another glass until Melanie plucked the bottle out of her hand and put it aside.
"I think you need a break."
"I think she needs a shot!" Chloe giggled shrilly, to which Carmen replied with an uncharacteristic giggle of her own.
"But seriously," Andi pressed, continuing her series of questions - Carmen had always known that Andi was a relentless interviewer, but only now realized how thoroughly unpleasant it could be to land on the receiving end of her gifts. "Why are you here if you have a boyfriend like that out there? Where there's fresh air and free parking and a lake to go skinny-dipping in-"
"It's complicated," Carmen said, waving one hand dismissively. "He used to be married -"
"We know, his wife is dead - it was all over the news, remember?"
"No, I don't, because I was too busy working," Carmen smirked, raising her glass in a cheers-like gesture. "But anyway - there's just... too much going on with that."
"So you're dumping him."
"No."
"So what? You're gonna get mad - and you're not going to do anything about it?"
"They're gonna have great sex is what they're gonna do," Chloe laughed raucously. "Don't you remember when she was still with Robbie and we all rented out that house in Annandale together?"
"Oh, god!" Mel said, suddenly joining in. "The way they would just argue and argue and all of a sudden - thunk thunk thunk -"
"Those were the thinnest walls I've ever lived in!"
Carmen snorted unceremoniously and buried her head in her hands, groaning as though covering up their chatter would make them actually stop talking. "Can you not remind me about that?" she groaned. "Just because that's what Rob and I used to do doesn't mean that's how I am with Mort."
"I still think you and Rob were a good couple," Mel said offhandedly.
"You're drunk."
"Nope. Sober," Mel said, patting Carmen sanctimoniously on the head. "I'm just saying, there's tension. So. Much. Tension. But if you love Mort, that trumps tension any day."
"I... I think I've had enough," Carmen said, shaking her head and getting unsteadily to her feet. "I'm gonna go lay down -"
"But we're still going out! Pre-gaming!" Chloe whined. When it became clear that Carmen was really done for the evening, the three girls let her retreat into the spare bedroom, curl up under the sheets, and sleep through the night.