Oh, hi,” I manage to say. “Just . . . getting some air.”
Elaine looks at me, and opens her purse and finds her pack of Kleenex. I’m confused by it until I press it to my eye and it comes away wet.
We stand, looking at the water glittering darkly under the fading sunset sky. I’m too upset to comprehend I’m about to unload to his mother. Any sympathetic ear at this point will do me. It’s not like I’ll ever see her again.
“He never told me about Mindy.”
She is aggrieved, and frowns back across the lawns. “He should have. You shouldn’t have found out this way.”
“It all makes so much sense. I can’t believe I’ve been so stupid. The way he’s been acting has been pretty unbelievable.”
“Like he’s in love with you.”
“Yes.” My voice breaks a little. “He told me once he’s a good actor. I can’t believe this.”
She says nothing and puts her hand on my shoulder. Every single glimmer of foolish hope feels extinguished in this moment.
“I don’t think he has been playing a game.” Elaine’s mouth twists.
The word game only crystallizes further the hurt in my gut.
“Oh, I’m sorry, but you have no idea how good at games he is. Every day of our working relationship, Monday to Friday. This has got to be the first time he’s played me on the weekend, though.”
Elaine looks past me, and I can see Josh’s silhouette pacing along the side of the building in agitation. She shakes her head and he stops.
“Why did you come today?” She is genuinely curious.
“I owed him a favor. He told me I was coming along for moral support. I didn’t know why, but I came anyway. I thought it was something to do with him dropping out of medicine. And now I find out his ex-girlfriend is marrying his brother? I’m in a soap opera right now.”
Elaine steadies me with a hand on my elbow. When she speaks, she’s got a fond smile teasing at the edge of her lips.
“I speak to him on Sundays, and I’ve known you for as long as he’s known you. A beautiful girl, bluest eyes, reddest lips, blackest hair. He describes you like a fairy-tale character. He’s never quite decided on princess or villain.”
I put my hands into my hair and make two fists. “Villain. I feel like the world’s biggest idiot to even believe for one day he could be so . . .” I can’t finish.
“You’re the girl he calls Shortcake. When I first heard your nickname, I knew. I will tell you now, he’s never looked at anyone the way he looks at you.”
I am starting to feel irritated with this lovely woman. It’s pretty clear she’s so biased I can no longer use her as a sounding board. She cannot believe her son would do anything so hurtful. I open my mouth but she silences me firmly.
“He dated Mindy. I’m so glad to have her for a daughter-in-law. Sweet as pie. Cinderella hasn’t got anything on Mindy.”
“She’s lovely. She’s not my issue.”
“But she never challenged Josh. You have since the first day you met him. You make him angry. You’ve never been scared of him. You’ve taken the time to try to understand him, just to get the upper hand in your little office skirmishes. You notice him.”
“I’ve tried not to.”
“Neither Josh nor his father are easy men. Some men are a delight. Patrick, for example. Reasonable, calm, ready with a smile. Josh has a nickname for him, too. Mr. Nice Guy. It’s true. He is. It takes a strong woman to love someone like Josh, and I think it’s you. Patrick’s an open book. Josh is a safety-deposit box. But he’s worth it. You won’t believe me, and I can’t blame you tonight, but so is his father.”
Elaine waves Josh over and he begins striding toward us.
“Please go easy on him. You could have caught the bouquet,” she admonishes me. “If you’d put your arms out a little.”
“I couldn’t.”
She kisses my cheek and hugs me with such kind familiarity I close my eyes.
“You will one day. If you decide to stay, we’re having a family breakfast at ten A.M. in the restaurant. I’d really love to see you both.” She walks back down the path, where she intercepts Josh.
They begin urgently conferring. Great. She’s giving the enemy a warning of what he’s in for. I am so tired of being in this place, by this water, under this sky. I go and sit on a low concrete bench and try to cram my heart back into my chest. Even his mother thought Josh was in love.
“You found out about the Mindy thing.” In the twenty yards it took for him to get to me, he’s no doubt framed his argument.
“Yep. Well done. You sure fooled me.”
“Fooled you?” He sits beside me and reaches for my hand but I pull away.
“Cut the shit. I know you’ve been parading me around in front of Mindy and her family. Maybe you should have hired someone better looking than me.”
“Do you seriously believe that’s why you’re here?” He has the audacity to look shaken.
“Imagine being in my position. I take you to my ex-boyfriend’s wedding and I’m all over you like a rash. I make you feel special. Important. I make you feel beautiful.”
There’s a tremor in my voice. “And then you find out, and suddenly you’re left wondering if it was real.”
“You being here has nothing to do with Mindy. At all.”
“But she’s the Tall Blondie you broke up with after the merger, right? She’s the one we talked about in bed this morning. Your big old heartbreak. Why didn’t you just tell me this morning?” I put my hands over my face and lean my elbows on my knees.
Josh turns sideways in his seat. “We were in bed, and you were just starting to look at me like you didn’t hate me. And she’s not my heartbreak.”
I cut him off. “I could handle being a rent-a-date, but you really should have been clear with me up front. That was a dick move, and frankly, I’m mad at myself for not expecting you’d do something like this.”
Josh’s urgency is growing. He puts his hand on my shoulder and turns me gently toward him. We stare into each other’s eyes.
“I wanted you here because I always want you with me. I don’t care that she’s just married Patrick. It’s ancient history to me. How could I tell you this morning, and ruin the moment? I knew how you’d react. Just like this.”
“You’re damn right I’m reacting like this.” Like a teary fire-breathing dragon. “Didn’t I specifically ask you if there was any touchy subject I needed to know about, so I’d be forewarned? You could have told me back in the office. Days ago. Not now.”
“You would never have agreed to come under those circumstances, had you known. You would have refused to believe this weekend could be anything more than an act. Whatever your reaction, it wouldn’t have been good.”
I grudgingly admit to myself that he’s probably right. Even if he had managed to get me to come, I probably would have invented a character and I definitely would have worn false eyelashes.
He touches a fingertip to my wrist. “I’ve had my focus on other things, believe it or not. Mom’s flower arrangements. Dad’s mood. Your blood sugar. Telling you about this just faded away to the edges.” He looks across the water and pulls his tie loose. “Mindy is a nice person. But I didn’t bring you here to show her how well I’ve moved on. I don’t care what she thinks.”
“I don’t believe you can be so cool about this situation.” I can’t detect any emotion in his eyes at all as he casts his eyes back across the water, contemplating.
“She was never going to be my wife, put it that way. We were wrong for each other.”
Hearing his voice say my wife makes me go too still. Eyes frozen and unblinking. Pupils dilated to black coins. Terror and panic and possession torches my throat dry. I don’t want to examine why I feel this way. I’d rather jump in the water and start swimming.
He looks at me sideways, his face tense. “Now that I’ve promised that you’re not here as some part of an elaborate revenge scenario, can you tell me the real reason this bothers you so much? Other than my lie by omission, and people staring at us? People that you never have to see again?”
This is skating way too close to my tangled-up new feelings. I try for several long moments to come up with an answer that sounds even halfway credible, but when I can’t I get to my feet and walk so fast back to the hotel he has to lengthen his stride to keep up.
“Wait.”
“I’m getting a bus home.” I try to close the elevator door on him but he shoulders in easily. I press the button for our floor and dig for my phone to look up a bus schedule. I have no idea what time it is. I have several missed calls. Josh tries to speak but I put my hand up until he crosses his arms, exasperated.
I click through them distractedly; Danny has been trying to get ahold of me a couple of times throughout the afternoon. I have a few texts along the lines of, Do you have a font preference? . . . I’ll choose then . . . Could you call me back when you can?
The elevator bings.
Josh looks like he’s one second away from going stark-raving insane. I know the feeling.
“Leave me alone,” I tell him with as much dignity as I can and walk to the far end of the corridor, where a pair of armchairs are arranged beside a bay window. During the day, this would be a nice spot to sit with a book. In the evening, as the last peach glows of sun leave the sky, it’s the perfect place to fume.
I sit down and dial a local bus company. A late-night express is leaving at seven fifteen, and they are already stopping by the hotel to pick up someone else. The gods are smiling upon me.
Going back to the room will mean having to finish things with Josh, and I am burned-out. A husk. I have nothing left. I need to procrastinate.
Danny answers on the second ring.
“Hi,” he says, tone a little stiff. Nothing more annoying than an uncontactable client, I imagine. Especially one you’re doing a favor for.
“Hi, sorry I’ve been out of touch. I’ve been at a wedding and my phone is on silent.”
“It’s okay. I just finished.”
“Thank you so much. Did it all go okay?”
“Yep, for the most part. I’m at home now checking it on my iPad, flipping through the pages. The formatting looks good. Whose wedding is it?”
“The brother of a complete asshole.”
“You’re with Joshua.”
“How’d you guess?”
“I had a feeling.” He laughs. “Don’t worry. Your secrets are all safe with me.”
“I hope so.” I couldn’t care less at this point. It would serve me right to be humiliated in the halls of B&G.
“When are you back? I’d like to show you the final product.”
“Tomorrow at some point. I’ll call you when I’m back in town and I can meet you.”
“If you come over on Monday evening it would work for me. I’ve kept the spreadsheet that you wanted. It breaks down the time it took, along with what I think costs would be by a designer in a usual commercial setting, but also a salaried staff member.”
“I’m impressed. Maybe I should bring you a thank-you pizza.”
“Yes, please.” Danny’s voice drops a cheeky half octave. “So, what did you wear to this wedding?”
“A blue dress?” I see Josh’s reflection over me in the window and jump in fright. He takes the phone out of my hand and looks at the caller ID.
“It’s Joshua. Don’t call her again. Yes, I’m serious.” He hangs it up and slides it into his pocket.
“Hey. Give it back.”
“No fucking chance. He’s who you had to sneak off and call?” The look in his eyes is getting sharper, blacker.
“It’s work related!”
He tugs on my hands to make me stand up. A door opens near us, too close to other rooms to indulge in one of our signature yelling matches. We both purse our lips and march into our room. I try not to slam the door.
“Well?” Josh crosses his arms.
“It was work related.”
“Sure. A work-related call. Dinner? What are you wearing?” He skates narrowed eyes over me, like he’s contemplating ripping the skin right off me. I can relate. I want to punch him in the face. Energy and anger is making the air almost sulfuric. The thing about Joshua is, even when he’s furious, he’s still exquisite to look at. Maybe even more so than usual. He’s all glittery black eyes and an angry tensing jaw. Messed-up hair and a hand on his hip, pulling his blue shirt tight. It makes being angry back with him just that little bit harder, because I have to try to not notice. It’s an unachievable endeavor that I have always struggled with, as long as I’ve known him. But still, I persevere.
“You’ve got no right to lecture me. I knew this was a disaster the second I got into your car.” I kick off both my shoes across the room. “I’m leaving soon. There’s a bus.” I grab at my bag and he stops me with a raised hand.
“In between Danny and Mindy, we’ve kind of had our fair share of jealous revelations today, don’t you think? I’m going to crack if you don’t just listen to me for once.” He wrenches out his cuff links and tosses them on the dresser and shoves up his sleeves, muttering to himself. “Little fucking asshole. What is she wearing? That guy has a fucking death wish.”
The expression on his face makes me wonder if I’ve got a death wish too. I try to position myself behind the armchair, just to give myself the illusion of space, but he points between his leather shoes.
“Don’t hide. Get over here.”
“This better be good.” I cross the room to stand in front of him and put my hands on my hips, just to puff myself up. He takes a few long moments to decide how to proceed.
“Two simple issues first. Danny and Mindy.” He looks like he’s taking control of a board meeting. He practically has a presentation slide behind him.
“Do you care about Danny? Could you love him one day?” Those eyes belong to the king of the serial killers.
“I called Danny about something for work. Something to do with my interview. You already know this! Forgive me for not wanting to spill my secrets to the person I’m competing against.”
“Answer my question.”
“No, and no. He’s helping me with something I’m using in my presentation. It’s a design job, and he’s a freelancer now. He’s doing me a massive favor, working over the weekend. But I couldn’t care less if I never saw him again.”
His insane eyes dial down a few notches. “Well, I couldn’t care less about Mindy. It’s why she left me for my brother.”
“You could have told me. Back in your apartment, on your couch. I would have tried to understand. We were almost friends then.” I realize something else that’s bothering me. He didn’t trust me with this.
“I finally have you coming over to sit on my couch and you think I’m going to tell you about how I was such a terrible boyfriend she ended up with my brother? It’s not really a glowing endorsement of my character. Gee, wouldn’t you want to stick around after hearing that?” I can spot the faint wash of darker color on his cheekbones. He’s embarrassed as hell.
“Why am I even here? Moral support, remember?” I watch him try and fail several times to start.
“If anyone has broken my heart, it wasn’t Mindy. It was my dad.” He puts his hand over his face. “You were always right about why I needed moral support. No big conspiracy. It’s medicine. Me quitting, failing, disappointing. You’re here because I’m scared of my own fucking dad.”
“What did your dad do?” I can barely ask it. When I think of dads, I think of my own. A big, funny sonic boom since I was a kid, always surprising me with Smurfs and beard-burn cheek kisses. I know there are bad dads. When I see the look on Josh’s face, I wish to god he didn’t have one.
“He’s ignored me my entire life.”
It sounds like the first time he’s spoken those words. He looks at the ground, miserable. I creep closer to him. Another weird kaleidoscopic twist? His hurt makes my own heart hurt.
“Has he hit you? Has he forced you into medicine?”
Josh shrugs. “The British royal family have an expression. The heir and the spare. I’m the spare. Patrick was firstborn. Dad’s not one of those people who’s willing to dilute his efforts, if you know what I mean. They were only ever planning on having one kid too. I was a surprise.”
“You would have been wanted.” I have his crumpled cuff in my hand now, and I give him an awkward little shake. “Look at how much your mom loves you.”
“But to Dad, I was not in the plan. Patrick has always been his focus, and look where he is now. The best son, effectively the only son, making Dad proud on his wedding day.”
He won’t meet my eyes. We’re mining some old, deep, painful territory here.
“Nothing I did rated a mention. Dad wouldn’t pay a cent toward my tuition, but Mom did. I studied my ass off, like a complete sucker for punishment. Nothing pleased him.” The bitterness in his voice sounds like it is choking him.
My anger has steamed out of my pores now and I can’t do anything but put my arms around him and hug until my arms ache.
“I thought if I could become a doctor too, maybe . . .”
“He’d notice you.” Just like his mom said.
“And meanwhile perfect, golden child Patrick, who can do no wrong, was making it look easy. The thing about Patrick is, he’s so nice. He’s so goddamn nice. He’ll do anything for anyone. Even get up in the middle of the night and drive over to help me with you. Man, can he be any nicer? It makes it impossible for me to hate him. And I want to. So bad.”
“He’s your brother.” I link my arm into his. “It’s obvious he’d do anything for you.”
“There’s a perfect son, and then there’s me. I may as well be the best at something, even if it is being an asshole. I’ll never be nice. You need to imagine what it was like growing up with a parent like him. I’ve had to make myself this way.”
I think of him stomping around at B&G, trying to hide his shyness and insecurity behind that mask.
“I hate to break it to you Josh, but underneath it all, you’re nice too.”
“I’ve got no interest in being the second best at anything. I’m never being second again.”
His voice is iron-clad with determination. I think of the promotion, and some deep part of my brain sighs, Oh fuck it.
“Is this why you’ve always hated me? I’m so nice. I’m way too nice and you’ve always hated it.” I tug the sleeve of my dress a little straighter.
“It killed me to watch you try your heart out for people who were using your kindness. It made me want to stand up for you, and protect you from it. I couldn’t though, because you hated me, so I had to get you to stand up for yourself.”
“And my niceness made it impossible to hate me?” Hopefulness has rendered me pathetic.
He puts a thumb under my chin and tilts my face. “Yeah.”
“Well, this is a sad story.” When he kisses me on the cheek, I know it is an apology, and I suspect that I’ll probably accept it.
“Don’t get me wrong. I didn’t have some traumatic childhood or anything, I always had a roof over my head and so forth. And my mother is the best,” he says, affection in his tone now. “I can’t complain.”
“Yes you can.”
He looks at me, surprised.
“No one should ever be ignored, or made to feel unimportant. You’ve achieved a lot of things in your career, and you should be proud of yourself.” I emphasize the last word. “You can complain all you want. I’m Team Josh, remember?”
“Are you?” I hear some of the tension melt out of him a little. “I never thought I’d hear those words fall from your Flamethrower lips. Not after tonight.”
“You and me both. So what happened after you completed premed?”
“Surely your dad must have taken notice of you then.”
“Mom made the biggest fuss ever. She threw a party. It seemed like everyone who’d ever known me was invited. It was at our house here. It’s on the beach. I suppose it was a great party, in retrospect. But Dad wasn’t there.”
“He skipped it?” I hug him, resting my cheek on his chest. I feel his hands slide up my back, like he’s soothing me.
“Yeah, he didn’t bother to swap shifts at the hospital like Mom had asked him to. He skipped it entirely. When Patrick completed premed Dad gave him our grandfather’s Rolex. For me, he couldn’t even bother turning up. He’s always known I wasn’t cut out for it. Watching me try so hard made me pathetic.”
“So him not turning up to the party means you haven’t spoken to your father properly for five years? You’ve got to see it’s hurting your mom. She’s got permanently sparkly eyes from trying not to cry.”
“That night I got incredibly drunk. I was sitting down there by myself on the sand by the water, emptying this bottle of whiskey into my mouth. Alone. Melodramatic. Behind me is the house, filled with people, but no one had noticed the guest of honor was gone.”
He looks a little amused, but I know underneath it is a deep hurt. I remember looking at him once in the team meeting, a thousand years ago, and wondering if he ever felt isolated. I know the answer now.
“So you sat out there? Drunk? What did you do? Go in and make a scene?”
“No, but I realized something I’d worked so hard for—his approval—had resulted in absolutely no outcome. I’m like him, maybe. Why try? Why bother? I decided then and there to quit trying. I’d go and get the first job I could.”
He turns me a little in his arms, and when he holds me close again, he’s rubbing my shoulder like I’m the one who needs comfort.
“I stopped making any kind of effort to engage with him, and it was like the biggest source of stress in my life was removed. I stopped. I thought, when he wants to be a father to me, he’ll make the move.”
“And he hasn’t?”
Josh keeps talking like he hasn’t even heard me.
“The thing that gets me is, when I switched to doing an MBA at night while working at Bexley, he was unimpressed. Like he’d had any kind of opinion. Like I wasn’t even noticed or acknowledged enough to disappoint. But I have. Over and over, my entire life. My career is a joke to him.”
I’m surprised by how angry I’m getting. I think of Anthony, his face permanently twisted into a sarcastic expression.
“He’s lost something special in you. Why is he like this?”
“I don’t know. If I knew, maybe I could change it. He’s just been that way with me, and most people.”
“But Josh, this is what I don’t get. You’re so overqualified for what you do at B and G.”
“We both are,” he tells me.
“Why do you stay?”
“Prior to the merger, I nearly quit every day. But I already had the family reputation as a quitter.”
“And post merger?”
He looks away, and I see the edge of his mouth beginning to curl in a smile.
“The job had a few good things about it.”
“You enjoyed fighting with me too much.”
“Yeah,” he admits.
“How did you end up working at Bexley, anyway?”
“I applied for twenty jobs in a fit of rage. It was the first offer I got. Richard Bexley’s lowly servant.”
“You didn’t even care? I wanted to work for a publisher so badly I cried when I heard I’d got the job.”
He has the grace to look guilty. “I suppose you’d think it was unfair if I got the promotion now.”
“No. The process is based on merit. But Josh, you’ve got to know. It’s my dream. B and G is my dream.”
He doesn’t say anything. What could he say?
“So you really didn’t bring me along to show Mindy you’d moved on with some hot little dweeb?”
I know his face better than my own, and I can’t see a trace of a lie. When he speaks, there is none.
“I couldn’t face him without you. I am an embarrassment. Dropped out of med school, administrative job, lost the girl to my brother. I’m nothing to him. Mindy and Patrick can have ten children and be married for a hundred years for all I care. Good luck to them.”
I let myself say it. “Okay. I believe you.”
We sit in silence for a moment before he speaks again. “The worst thing is, I keep wondering what I’d be now if I’d stuck with medicine.”
“I’ve got so much inside me I have no idea about. I’m like the mayor of a city I’ve never seen.”
He smiles at my phrasing. “If you knew the kind of little miracles happening every moment you breathe in, you wouldn’t be able to handle it. A valve could close and not open; an artery could split, you could die. At any moment. It’s nothing but miracles inside your tiny city.” He presses a kiss to my temple.
“Holy shit.” I clutch at him.
“You wouldn’t believe the stats on people who go to bed one night and never wake up. Normal, healthy people who aren’t even old.”
“Why would you tell me this? Is this what you think about?”
There’s the longest pause. “I used to. Not so much anymore.”
“I think I preferred it when I thought I was full of white bones and red goo. Why am I now thinking about dying tonight?”
“Now you see why I can’t do small talk. Sorry Dad scared you about the cake. He’s jealous he can’t let himself go enough to enjoy something. I don’t think I’ve eaten cake in a few years. Man, it was good.”
“Filthy little pigs, the pair of us. Want to go downstairs and see if there’s any left?”
He looks at me with guarded hope. “You’re not leaving?”
I remember my plans to get the bus home. “No, I’m not leaving.”
It’s helpful he’s still sitting on the dresser. It means when I step closer and take his face in my hands, I can reach him with only a little tiptoeing. It means I can feel the tingling sparks jumping in the air between our lips, his sigh of relief that tastes sweeter than sugar. His pulse jumps under my fingertips. It’s a pretty convoluted game we’ve played to make it to this moment.
It’s helpful he’s still sitting on the dresser, because I can pull his lips to mine.
