As If It Was Real, page 1
As If It Was Real
Beca Lewis
Perception Publishing
Copyright ©2023 by Beca Lewis
All rights reserved.
No portion of this book may be reproduced in any form without written permission from the publisher or author, except as permitted by U.S. copyright law.
Contents
Prologue
1. One
2. Two
3. Three
4. Four
5. Five
6. Six
7. Seven
8. Eight
9. Nine
10. Ten
11. Eleven
12. Twelve
13. Thirteen
14. Fourteen
15. Fifteen
16. Sixteen
17. Seventeen
18. Eighteen
19. Nineteen
20. Twenty
21. Twenty-One
22. Twenty-Two
23. Twenty-Three
24. Twenty-Four
25. Twenty-Five
26. Twenty-Six
27. Twenty-Seven
28. Twenty-Eight
29. Twenty-Nine
30. Thirty
31. Thirty-One
32. Thirty-Two
33. Thirty-Three
34. Thirty-Four
35. Thirty-Five
36. Thirty-Six
37. Thirty-Seven
38. Thirty-Eight
39. Thirty-Nine
40. Forty
41. Forty-One
42. Forty-Two
43. Forty-Three
44. Forty-Four
45. Forty-Five
46. Forty-Six
47. Forty-Seven
48. Forty-EIght
49. Forty-Nine
50. Fifty
51. Fifty-One
52. Fifty-Two
53. Fifty-Three
54. Fifty-Four
55. Fifty-Five
56. Fifty-Six
57. Fifty-Seven
58. Fifty-Eight
Author Note
Acknowledgements
Also By Beca
About Beca
Prologue
Daniel Jacobs stared at his father’s paintings in wonder. How had he missed what a beautiful artist his father had been?
I suppose if I would have stayed home, I would have known, Daniel thought. Perhaps then I could have helped him, if he would have let me.
Instead, Daniel had traveled the world looking for adventure, trying to escape his father’s abusive nature. Maybe if he had seen his father’s art, he would have discovered this hidden part of his father. One that saw such beauty and had such skill to bring it to life.
It turned out that his father was a mystery. Daniel thought he had known his father well—a cruel man to his wife and son, both of whom he had abandoned to concentrate on his art.
But everything he knew about his father had to be partially a lie. How could a man like his father paint like this? What had he missed about him? And now that his father was dead, would he ever find out what was real about his father and what had been a lie?
Daniel shook his head, his mind swirling with unanswered questions. The man who had never shied away from conflict, who wielded an indomitable influence over others, who navigated life with reckless abandon, had ended his own existence, all the while he was crafting these magnificent works of art.
Perhaps, Daniel mused, he had never truly known his father at all.
One
Cindy Lee Jones sat in the corner of the room, knees pulled up to her chest, and let herself wallow in her misery. Her unhappiness was deep and unyielding. She tried to picture how she felt as a color and failed. Black wouldn’t be deep enough. Maybe a muddy, ugly brown. No. Not even that.
And that she was thinking about her misery as a color made it even worse. She thought like an artist. Why wasn’t she one?
Surveying the room, she saw the fruits of her labor, a testament to her wretchedness. Paintings were piled two or three deep against every wall, leaving only the doorway and window unburdened. The turned away canvases seemed to accuse her, whispering that someone else could have imbued them with greatness, something she could never achieve.
She had tried. How she had tried. The evidence lay before her, paintings not even worth a second glance. The idea of ever feeling pride or satisfaction seemed distant, almost impossible. Part of her yearned to destroy them, to slice through each canvas like a wrist, letting paint bleed in place of blood.
Even the large canvas on the easel was a disaster. An attempt at something different, only to result in another failure—a reflection of herself. It was time, Cindy thought, to admit she was not an artist and to seek an alternative path. But such thoughts only anchored her further into the room’s dark corner.
Despite dedicating her life to the craft, traveling to study with masters and practicing daily, she had gained nothing but a keen eye for great art. It was this critical eye that fueled the success of her art gallery. But it also shattered her illusions of being an artist.
It felt so unfair. She adored the process of painting—the scents, the colors, the surprises that emerged on the canvas. But the disappointment was too much to bear. The dream of being a great artist seemed destined to be abandoned, leaving her to find solace in her gallery and her friends.
However, this realization only deepened her sadness. Everyone around her was finding happiness, while she was left feeling jealous and ignored. Her role was that of a helper, never the one at the center of the story.
April was moving forward with her dream of designing homes, and slowly looking more like herself now that her serial killer husband, Ron Page, had died.
Marsha was exploring the freedom of being herself both by continuing her relationship with Nicky and creating a dance and theatre studio in the house Ron had given April.
Bree and Booker had stopped pretending they were just friends, and Bree looked as happy as she had ever looked. All of Bree’s secrets were out in the open now. Besides, Bree had her daughter, Mary, and her daughter’s family—baby Rho and husband Seth. Their story was like a fairy tale. Hard at first, then happily ever after.
Cindy thought that Judith and Bruce were also moving closer to declaring themselves a couple, even though everyone knew that they already were.
And even though Cindy was happy for all of them, she knew that the feeling deep inside her was one of jealousy. She was now the odd woman out, and no one seemed to notice. Instead, she was someone people counted on when they needed her, but never, ever, someone in her own right. And definitely not an artist. She had no choice but to accept her fate.
It looked like being helpful to other people was going to be her legacy, and Cindy knew she had to accept that as enough for her. Because at the moment, she didn’t have a choice in the matter. This was all she was going to get.
Cindy struggled to her feet, leaning on the wall for support. It was time for a change. It was time to take care of herself. It used to be she could just stand up. Now she had to practically be a contortionist just to get to her feet.
She knew Marsha was teaching a class called chair yoga. Maybe it was time to take it. How many times does it take for you to notice what needs to be done and then do it? Cindy asked herself. For others, just once. For herself, not so much.
Well, that changes now, Cindy said, brushing herself off as she walked to the door. She put her paintbrushes down on the table, turned off the light, and shut the door. She’d send someone in someday to clean up the room and get rid of every trace of art in it. Maybe turn it into a guest room. It was time to move on.
And although she didn’t enter the room again for a long time, having given up on her dream of being an artist, she never did get around to having the room cleaned up either.
Because, as fate would have it, Cindy’s life was about to change in ways even she could not have imagined.
Two
“I don’t know what to do about her,” Marsha said to April.
April knew who Marsha was talking about. Since the girl had started taking dance classes with Marsha, that’s all Marsha seemed to talk about. The new girl.
Marsha and April were having Sunday brunch in the newly installed upstairs kitchen, with its handcrafted cabinets and granite countertops. It was small but beautiful, every appliance thoughtfully placed where it could be used but not always seen.
After Ron died, they had changed the plans of the Ruby House. Ron had wanted elegance and grandeur, but Marsha and April wanted something comforting and effortless. They had both lost someone they loved, and that had changed them. Who they wanted to be in the world now was something they were discovering together.
Although April’s husband, Ron Page, had turned out to be an evil man, that didn’t change the fact that for over thirty years, April had loved him. She mourned both the passing of her husband and the father of her children, not the man she found out he had been.
Marsha had lost her father. This time for good. Not knowing who he was her whole life, she had thought he was dead. But then she met her father, Harry, and she learned he had watched over her all her life.
Harry’s death, after only knowing him for a few days, threw everything Marsha knew about herself up into the air, and it was only now settling. Marsha mourned both the man, and like April, the life they could have had together if secrets hadn’t kept them apart.
While only half listening to Marsha talk about the new girl—she’d heard it all bef
At the end of the hall was another bedroom with its own bath. It was meant to be a guest room, and April prayed that someday her children would be willing to come visit. They were still reeling from the discovery of who their father had been and blaming April for not knowing.
For April, it was double the pain. She lost the man she thought she knew and her children at the same time. She sighed and turned her thoughts to how much the house had changed and what it meant to her.
Downstairs was a large studio with sliding doors that could turn the large room into small rooms when needed. At one end of the studio, they could lift the floor a few feet to make a stage. A dressing room and two bathrooms were now where the dining room and kitchen used to be.
An office for the studio and her new design business jutted out from the front of the house. Seth had worked his magic, and it looked as if it had always been there. With a mini refrigerator and a coffee machine, it had everything they needed to meet with clients and students.
April loved every part of the downstairs with its constant influx of students and sometimes a client for her, but mostly she loved that the upstairs was a private space just for her and Marsha.
The kitchen was common ground, and it was where some of their best discussions took place. Instead of a dining table, they had a booth big enough for six, and a board that slid out at the end to accommodate even more people when all the Ruby Sisters and their friends came over.
Instead of a wall, there was a window that looked out onto the backyard garden and the newly installed large deck. The backyard and deck were Marsha’s favorite places in the house.
Sometimes Marsha took her classes out to the deck to practice. “Being outside changes everything,” she would tell them. “Let nature teach you how to dance.”
At first, her students didn’t understand, but some of them were feeling the difference it made to dance under the trees. Marsha also taught morning yoga on the deck and planned to stay out there until it became too cold.
Across from the booth, on the other side of the kitchen, there was another large picture window. The red maple tree that lived in the front yard took up some of the view, but they could still see the driveway to the house, and in the winter, when the leaves were gone, they could see almost all of Main Street. To both of them, it felt as if they had a pulse on the town, while keeping their lives as private as possible.
April brought her attention back to Marsha, who had stopped talking and was waiting for April to focus on her.
“I’m sorry,” April said, “Daydreaming.”
Both of them knew it was more than that. And Marsha understood. She did the same thing sometimes—drifted off thinking about something else—or just not thinking at all. Two wounded souls finding their feet again. The perfect pair of friends.
Still, she was anxious about the new girl, Emma Drake, so when April asked, “What did she do this time?” Marsha was happy to tell her. Maybe April could come up with a solution to help her.
Not that Emma wanted help. Emma made it abundantly clear that Marsha was to stay out of her life. She was only in dance class because her mother made her come. She claimed to hate it.
And Marsha could leave it at that, except Emma had talent and loved to dance, which is why she had waived Emma’s fees when her mother explained their situation. Because despite everything she did to pretend that she didn’t like to dance, to Marsha’s discerning eye, it was crystal clear that Emma was lying to herself and everyone else.
But it wasn’t just her talent that had caught Marsha’s eye. It was that Emma was troubled. Something was going on that made her act out. She constantly disrupted the class, alternating between loud or sullen. The rest of the class was suffering from her behavior, and Marsha knew she should tell her she wasn’t welcome there anymore.
And why she hadn’t done that yet was what she wanted to talk over with April. The girl was hurting. She and April were still hurting. Maybe they were the ones who could discover what was going on, and then help Emma.
The Ruby Sisters had pulled each other out of one problem or another all of their lives. What would they have done if they hadn’t had each other? Especially this past year. It was a year from hell, and at the same time, because they had each other—it had overflowed with love and grace.
Maybe they could do the same for Emma and her mother, Veronica. Because even though it was the girl Marsha was talking about, it was Emma’s mother who had really caught her eye. Because although Emma’s mother looked as if she was doing fine—always well-dressed, polite, and smiling—Marsha knew the signs. Something was wrong. And although it was Emma doing the acting out, it was only because her mother wasn’t.
Three
“Are you sure this is going to be okay with your mother?” Daniel asked Robert for what seemed like the tenth time in the past week.
And Robert answered the same way each time. “She’ll be ecstatic that I am coming to visit.”
“You know, you never say that she’ll be happy that you are bringing a friend, and you know that’s what I am really asking. It’s because you’re not sure you should bring me, isn’t it? Maybe that’s why you wrote a letter instead of texting her or calling her. You didn’t want to hear her say no.”
Robert looked over at his friend and realized he would not stop asking until he told him the reason he had written. Daniel was a questioner. Never satisfied until he found out an answer to a puzzle.
He and Daniel had met ten years before on a train traveling across Europe. Robert couldn’t even remember where the train was going or why he had been on it. Too many trips to remember all of them.
At the time Robert had been traveling with his current boyfriend, he didn’t remember who it had been. All he remembered was that he had become bored and went looking for someone to talk to. He’d gone to the dining car, figuring someone had to be there.
He saw Daniel right away. He was hard to overlook. Robert judged him to be about ten years older than himself, tall, dark, and good-looking. Daniel had been sitting at a table by himself with an Ansel Adams book of photography open in front of him, which he was staring at mindlessly as he ate his sandwich.
Stopping at the table, Robert had said, “How did he capture the essence of that place just using black and white?”
Startled, Daniel had looked up, and then gestured for Robert to sit down with him. The conversation they had that day lasted for hours and continued through the rest of the train trip.
Robert’s friend had gotten off at the next train stop once he realized Robert was no longer interested in him. But it wasn’t because Daniel was gay. He wasn’t. It was because Robert had discovered that with Daniel, he could have conversations about ideas, and he was no longer bored.
Daniel was on the train because his heart was heavy with the tension from a strained meeting with his father at his art studio. The encounter had left him emotionally drained, so he opted for a spontaneous journey to clear his thoughts. The rhythmic motion of the train promised solace, providing Daniel the space he needed before eventually returning to his life in New York City, where he taught photography and occasionally sold his captivating images.
For the rest of that train ride, Robert and Daniel discussed many things. They both had an eclectic view of the world. Not the same one, but that helped to make their discussions more lively. However, they had many things in common, one of which was that they both enjoyed living a slightly untethered vagabond life.
After that trip, they went their separate ways but kept in touch through Facebook and Twitter. However, they hadn’t seen each other again until a few weeks ago, once again by chance., this time in New York City. Although New York was Daniel’s home, Robert had only vaguely remembered that fact. He was passing through, as usual.
However, this time Robert wasn’t traveling for work. After learning the truth about his father, the desire to write anything, or to be with anyone, had dried up. He had some money saved up and was then just roaming around, looking for himself, he supposed.
