Page 29 of The Facilitator, Part 2

I t was nearly midday when Mackenzie shook me awake. He sat dressed in jeans and a white shirt on the edge of the bed. I smiled when I saw him.

“I made you tea, some time ago, so it’s probably cold,” he said.

I pushed myself into a sitting position and looked at my watch.

“Jesus, why didn’t you wake me earlier?” I asked.

“Because you looked so beautiful, and you needed the sleep.”

He stood and picked up the cup and saucer. “How about I make you a fresh one?”

“I’ll get dressed and then be down,” I replied.

I swung my legs over the side of the bed and was amazed at how sprightly and refreshed I felt. I expected to ache like mad, what with horse riding and Mackenzie riding.

I took a quick shower and then pulled on some underwear and a red sundress.

I found some flip-flops in my case, which was yet to be unpacked, and walked down the stairs.

Mackenzie was in the kitchen and I smiled as he made me another cup of tea.

I imagined he’d either brought the tea bags from home or had someone scour for Twinings English Tea. I doubted the local store stocked it.

“Thank you,” I said, as he handed me the cup.

“Come and sit outside,” he said.

I followed him back to the table and chairs we’d sat at the previous evening. He sipped from a mug already filled with black coffee.

“How do you feel?” he asked, staring at me.

“You often ask me that question,” I said, deflecting.

“Because it’s important to me,” he smiled. “And I got the deflection.”

I chuckled and took a deep breath. “I feel like something changed last night. I felt such a deeper connection with you, Mackenzie; it overwhelmed me. I wanted to cry, I got fearful for a few seconds.”

“Fearful of what?”

“That you’ll leave me one day and I have to say, that will destroy me,” I whispered.

He didn’t answer but I knew he felt the same. I didn’t need his words; I just needed to see the expression on his face. It told me all I needed to know.

“I think, only now, you understand exactly how much I love you,” he said.

“I get it,” I said, as I wiped a tear from my cheek. “What are we like, huh?” I chuckled.

“Are you hungry?” he asked.

“No, funnily enough. What plans do we have today?”

“We’ll go and see my dad when you’re ready. I said we’d take him, and Sandra, for an early dinner. He likes to eat late afternoon, if that’s okay?”

“Perfectly okay. Am I okay dressed like this?”

“Sure. It’s getting hot, you’ll appreciate the lightness of that dress.”

Before he could say anymore, his mobile rang. It had been sitting on the table, alongside a jug of coffee. He picked it up and before he placed it to his ear, he showed me the screen.

“Hey, Jerry, how are you?” he said.

I couldn’t hear what was being said, but Mackenzie seemed to frown quite a lot. He cocked his head to one side as he refreshed his mug from the jug and sipped on the warm coffee.

“How do you know about this deal?” he asked, then listened some more.

“I think you should email me all the details you have, let me look into it. Lauren and I have plans for the next few hours, but get that over to me soon and I’ll read later, okay?”

He clicked off the call and placed his phone back on the table.

“Jerry has the most amazing offer, something I would never have dreamed of investing in, to tell me about.”

His mimic of Jerry’s east end of London accent was so spot on I chuckled.

“Did he tell you anything about it?” I asked.

“No, he said that, for now, it has to stay top secret and only a couple of people know. He was told not to tell anyone, and he very much overemphasised ‘anyone’ but he felt I needed to be in on the deal.”

“Well, I guess that was kind of him,” I said.

“Maybe. I’ll see what this top secret prospect is when he emails over details.”

I finished my tea, ran a brush through my hair, and then tied it in a high ponytail. I swiped some mascara over my eyelashes and a little gloss over my lips. I didn’t need a handbag, and it felt quite liberating to leave my phone on the bedside cabinet. I was back down in less than five minutes.

“Are you sure I’m appropriately dressed?” I asked.

“Listen, Lauren, my dad will insist on paying, which means we’re likely to end up at the diner, and he’ll tell you he eats there to support the owner and because he genuinely likes the food.”

“Maybe he’s telling the truth,” I said, partly teasing, partly chastising him. It was quite a snobbish statement from a man I knew not to have a snobbish bone in his body. It surprised me.

“I think he’s going to love you,” Mackenzie said, with a laugh.

We left the house and I immediately missed the sound of the sea. We drove just a short distance to an urbanised area and the complex of identical cream-rendered bungalows and flats.

We parked the car and Mackenzie held the door open for me to exit.

We walked through a perfectly manicured garden, and I realised it was fake grass, past a seating area where a gentleman raised his hand to Mackenzie.

He waved back as we neared his dad’s ground-floor flat.

It was opened before he knocked, and a man so very different to Mackenzie stood there smiling.

“Lauren, my father, Mackenzie Miller, the first.”

He reached out with his hand and clasped it around mine. He shook, roughly, and smiled broadly. “Mack, call me Mack. Come on in, Sandra is doing her hair, she’ll be hours yet,” he said.

The apartment was larger than I was expecting. It was cool with all the drapes pulled and the air conditioning on high. I was surprised by how modern it was decorated. Pieces of abstract art adorned the walls. Mack caught me staring at one.

“I paint, sometimes I even manage to sell some,” he said, with a chuckle.

When he did that, there was no doubting he was Mackenzie’s father. Although so different in looks, their voice and their laugh were identical.

“I love that red one. I’d hate to insult you by asking what it is, but…what is it?” I said.

The harmony between father and son as they laughed made me laugh along with them.

“Now there’s a sound I don’t hear very often,” I heard. I turned to see a much younger woman leave a room. She closed the door behind her but I’d glimpsed the bed.

“Sandra, I’d like you to meet Lauren,” Mackenzie said. He rose and accepted her kiss to his cheek before she turned to me.

“Lauren, we’ve heard so much about you. We’re thrilled to finally meet you,” she said.

She spoke like someone much older, or perhaps someone who had been in the company of someone much older for a long time. I had to conceal my surprise.

“I’m sorry that it’s taken this long for us to visit,” I said. She raised her eyebrows at me and I guessed I’d said something wrong.

“How about we take a walk down to Ed’s? You know how much we like eating there, and I think Lauren here will enjoy what he has to offer,” Mack said. I didn’t want to look at Mackenzie and see his smirk.

“I think that’s just fine,” I replied.

Sandra and I walked ahead. She pointed out friends of theirs and I laughed at some of their anecdotes. She looked over her shoulder.

“Come on, old man,” she said, before laughing.

“You were his nurse, Mackenzie told me,” I said, curiosity getting the better of me.

“The elephant in the room, huh?” she replied. I frowned.

She shoulder bumped me. I really wasn’t sure how to respond, and then she laughed.

“Yes, I’m exactly thirty years younger than Mack. I was very young and only just licenced when I worked with him. That was a long time ago. I liked him, he made me laugh, I made him laugh, and we decided to make each other laugh from then on.”

I guessed her to be about forty years old.

I wasn’t sure if Mackenzie ever told me how old his father was, but he looked to be in his seventies.

Still, if it made them happy, as Mackenzie said, who were we to comment?

I could imagine, after losing his mother, having his father take up with someone the same age as his son would have caused Mackenzie a lot of pain.

I thought, in that moment, his father a little selfish and I understood how Mackenzie felt.

“I was just curious about you being a nurse,” I lied. She was kind enough not to acknowledge the lie.

“Tell me about you, Lauren,” she asked.

We chatted about my job; I altered how I’d initially met Mackenzie, hoping he’d do the same. Perhaps we should have concocted a story some time ago.

“How are you liking Charleston?”

“What I’ve seen so far, I love it. I can’t imagine how it must make Mackenzie feel every time he leaves here.”

“Often, he can’t wait to leave. It brings back sad and bad memories for him, but this time, with you, who knows? Maybe Mack will get to see more of him.”

I didn’t want to answer that, nor did I want to get involved in why Mackenzie didn’t visit his father that often.

“Here we are,” she said. We paused to let the men catch up. “I’m sorry it's the diner, but it’s a thing those two have. Mack doesn’t like to be paid for, and he doesn’t like his son to pay for him even more.”

“The diner is fine with me,” I responded.

We walked in and were immediately greeted by Ed.

A large man, with the longest beard I’d ever seen, walked over and gave Sandra a bear hug.

In fact, Ed could have the same stature as a bear.

After he’d hugged her, he was introduced to me.

I held out my hand to have it waved away.

I squealed as I was lifted from the ground in a hug.

I could hear Mackenzie laughing behind me.

“It’s a pleasure to meet you, Ed,” I said, when he finally set me down on the floor.

He shook hands with Mack and patted Mackenzie on the back, as you would a child. We were shown to a booth near a window and I slid across the black leather, Sandra followed in beside me.

Mackenzie was encouraged to sit opposite me. “So he can’t rush to pay for the meal,” Sandra whispered. It all seemed a little unnatural and calculated.