Chapter 29
Jake
Ialways thought the whole “record-scratch moment” was exaggerated. Something screenwriters made up. Until I had a record-scratch moment of my own.
I knew that voice.
It was Charlotte.
“Charlie. Hey. Ah . . . wow. I did not expect to see you here,” I said.
I looked immediately to Ali. She had an expectant smile on her face. I was going to have to introduce them. Shit.
“Charlotte, this is Ali. Ali, this is Charlotte.” I stuck with their names and didn’t elaborate on who each was to me. I wouldn’t know what to say to describe Ali and me. We hadn’t really talked about labels yet. And things might still be delicate on her end. I didn’t want to misstep.
Charlotte’s name clearly registered with Ali, however.
“Hi,” Charlotte said. She seemed as baffled by this moment as I was. “Jake, I haven’t seen you in so long. How are you? What are you doing in town?”
“Oh, I um . . . Well, Ali and I are here to visit my dad. See where I grew up. What about you? Wait, do you work here?” I only then noticed she was wearing a server apron and was holding paper plates of food in each of her hands.
“Yes. This is yours, I think.” She held up the plates. “Are you number forty-four?” She referenced the number I’d received from the concession stand after ordering our food.
“Yeah. That’s us.”
She leaned down and set our plates on the table in front of us. When she stood upright again, she turned her back to Ali and rested her hip against the long table. Angling my direction.
“It’s so good to see you,” she said, disbelief still plastered on her face.
“I moved back a little over a year ago. My dad. He needs care. I wasn’t .
. . LA wasn’t working out anyway.” She stuttered through an explanation.
One that I knew was not the story she wanted for herself if she was back living here.
“Oh, that’s—” Not knowing how to finish that statement without sounding like an asshole, I switched gears and decided to focus on her dad. “I’m sorry your dad isn’t doing well.”
“Are you still in Lakeside? You look so different. Have you gotten stronger?” she asked with a tap of my biceps just below the sleeve hem of my T-shirt, the questions practically tumbling out of her.
Ali snickered a laugh, and her eyes stretched wide, looking down toward the table in a Can you believe she just said that? kind of way. The couple seated next to us at the table took notice too.
“I am. Still in Lakeside. Finished the house. The practice is thriving. It’s good. I’m good.”
“I bet the house is beautiful. I miss”—she glanced in Ali’s direction—“the lake. A lot.”
Ali cleared her throat. “When does the polka band start?” she asked. A darkness had settled behind her eyes.
“W-What?” Charlotte pulled her eyes away from looking at me. “Oh. Not for another hour or so. They’ll want to auction off all the meats first.”
“In that case, babe, maybe we should eat up. So we can get a dance in when they start their set,” Ali said to me.
Charlotte started to laugh.
“Is something funny?” Ali asked.
“I’m sorry. It’s just . . . well, Jake . . . come on. You don’t dance.” She said to Ali, “I hate to break it to you, but this guy doesn’t do things like that.”
“Oh. Well. I think you don’t know much about the Jake I know,” Ali said with a tight edge to her voice as she reached across the space between us for my hand.
“This guy is always doing things like that.” She winked at me.
A gesture and a statement—I didn’t smile, but I could feel one trying to happen somewhere inside me. The way Ali saw me.
Charlotte stood stock-still, looking at our clasped hands.
“Anyway . . . Charmain, was it? Thank you for bringing us our meals. Oh . . . Oops. I think you gave Jake mine.”
“It’s Charlotte.”
“What?” Ali asked.
“My name is Charlotte, not Charmain.”
“Oh. Oops,” Ali said with a smile. “Mmm . . . I cannot wait to sink my teeth into this grilled chicken dinner.” She said chicken with extra emphasis.
“I think I’d like some hot sauce on the side.
” She turned her head toward me and wickedly added, “Babe, will you spice up my dinner for me? You are so good at it.”
I nearly spit out the sip of beer I had just taken but quickly recovered and shook my head at Ali.
She was being so naughty. I knew exactly what she was doing, bringing up the chicken dinner thing.
Rubbing it into Charlotte’s face. Was this what jealousy looked like on Ali? Was she staking a claim on me?
I peeled my eyes away from her and turned my attention toward Charlotte out of politeness. “Thanks, Charlie. We’ll take that hot sauce if you have any.”
After Charlotte left us, I eyed Ali. “Babe?”
“Yeah?” she questioned back. “What? I say that all the time.” She shrugged.
“Hmm . . . no you don’t. Not to me, at least. I hear you call Misha that all the time, but not me. Are you being territorial?” I said the last bit playfully, leaning into her game.
She shrugged. “No. I just . . .”
“Hey, you have nothing to be jealous about,” I said, and I grabbed her hand, pulling it to my mouth.
“That is Charlotte, right? The woman who left you brokenhearted at the altar three years ago?” she asked.
I nodded. Did the couple near us lean in?
“She’s very pretty,” she said. I could tell it was a leading comment.
“She is, I guess. I don’t notice anymore,” I said, looking right at her.
“Well, she is. And I can tell she regrets every moment since leaving you.” Her voice was tight. Strained. All the lightness gone. Was it all an act?
“You can’t know that. She wanted a bigger life. I wish her all the best.”
“Sounds like that ‘bigger life’ landed her right back in her hometown—your hometown. And I don’t see any ring on her finger. So . . . chances are you haven’t been replaced.”
“Don’t care. She has been,” I said, looking directly at Ali, searching for the playfulness. She can’t be serious. It almost sounded like she believed it.
A long, daring pause settled between us.
I felt other eyes on us too. Our tablemates were glued to the drama unfolding between Ali and me.
“I need the restroom,” she finally said and stood.
I stood with her and pointed toward where the bathrooms were.
While she was gone, Charlotte scurried back over with the hot sauce.
“Here you go,” she said.
“Thanks, Charlie.” She lingered. She looked .
. . sad. Charlotte was a beautiful woman.
Her appearance hadn’t changed much in the three years since she called off the wedding.
But her eyes. Her posture. She looked tired and sad.
It tugged at something inside me. An instinct to care. To show compassion.
“How are you? Really?” I asked.
“I’m okay. My dad requires a lot of care, so he keeps me busy, and then I work here.” She shrugged and tears started to well in her eyes. Shit . . . I’d had no intention of making this a full-blown conversation. But now I was in it.
“Hey. It’s okay.” I stood up and gave her a sympathetic hug.
“I’m just so sorry, Jake. I . . . About everything. I shouldn’t have left like that,” she said.
“Yeah. I’m not going to lie. It sucked. But I got over it. I’m doing fine,” I said.
“Just fine?”
“No. I’m better than fine, but . . . I’m not sure you are.” I sighed. “It may seem hard right now, but you’re tough. You got this.” I rested my hands on the sides of her arms. I suddenly realized I was touching Charlotte again. She crawled in for a hug. I felt my arms wrap around her in response.
This woman had shattered my heart and left me questioning everything in my life.
Our embrace felt familiar. We were from the same small town.
We’d known each other practically our entire lives.
So the familiarity of our hug didn’t surprise me.
What did surprise me was how benign the hug felt.
Like maybe I should have felt something, but there was nothing there.
I think it was exactly how I would have felt had anyone from my past come over to say hello.
I didn’t expect that hugging her would help me realize how much had changed since our breakup.
And how grateful I was to her for stopping us from making a huge mistake.
I did not love Charlotte anymore. And the love I once felt for her was maybe not the kind of love that we should have been trying to build a life on.
I did not feel anger or pain about losing her either. I felt . . . relieved.
If you had told me on that day she left that within three years I would grow to feel gratitude for what she had done, I would probably have thrown a punch.
No fucking way was I going to feel grateful for that level of abandonment and humiliation.
Her method and timing were shit—there was no arguing that.
But also maybe because our relationship was so lacking—in communication, in lasting partnership, in maturity—she didn’t have any other way out and I was so blinded by practicality and duty that I didn’t see it either.
It made me realize how brave Charlotte was for doing what she did.
How intuitive she’d been at just twenty-seven years old to cut and run.
To strive for something more. In doing the hard thing, she’d also freed me as well.
She did the hard thing for both of us. Charlotte was my past. Charlotte would always have a place in my heart, but simply as someone I used to know.
Someone I felt love for but did not love.
And I was so certain of that because my future had just walked back to our table.
“Ooh, this is getting good,” I overheard the older woman say to her husband as Ali approached.