Chapter Twenty-Two
Jo
Paul Adelman was of the belief that there was nothing in the world that money couldn’t buy, and forgiveness was no exception.
The bigger his transgression, the more ostentatious the gift, and over the twenty-eight years of their marriage, Renata Kovalenko
had accrued villas in balmy locales; historical diamonds with names like the Heart of the East, which she loaned out to museums;
and, on occasion, seed funding for what her husband termed her “pet projects.” The day after an exposé in US Weekly dropped, detailing the Knydus CEO’s scandalous weekend in LA with a twenty-two-year-old reality TV bombshell, he presented
Renata with the gift of her dreams: fifty million dollars and the staff to kickstart a film studio. Imagine yourself sitting in the theater. The lights dim, and then, there on the screen: En Garde , he’d told her, dropping a binder of mock-ups of her logo over the splayed pages of the magazine.
Renata took the money. She’d understood when they were married that Paul was not a man who let opportunity for either business or pleasure pass him by. Once upon a time, she had admired that about him, and now she found that she could tolerate it, when the price was right. Still, the night after Boris Finnegan solemnly handed her the fresh-off-the-press printing, she’d wandered into her expansive bar, hunted down a bottle of horilka, and knocked it back straight.
“Want more for yourself than this, Josephine,” she’d slurred when I found her hours later, slumped like a felled angel at
her kitchen table next to a half-empty bottle of Nemiroff.
I stared, stunned that a woman so full of fervor could let someone snuff her out.
“I don’t understand why you don’t leave him,” I said.
Renata snorted, then lifted her head back to look at me through bleary eyes.
“Paul is a great man, but he is not a good one,” she said. “When you love a great man, you understand that that love can’t
be just yours. Men like him will love other people too.”
I refused to accept that as an answer. Before we had ever met, I’d seen Renata’s face staring back at me from magazine covers,
billboards, and, later, television shows. She commanded attention in every room she existed in, even when she wasn’t physically
present. To me, Renata was not just a woman but a monument. Her husband, in contrast, was just some guy. Sure, he was a guy
with a multimillion-dollar company, but after meeting him and his ilk, I’d been convinced that even that wasn’t impressive—anyone
with enough ancestral wealth, a deficient supply of scruples, and a dragon’s hoard of audacity could make it big.
“You’re great too,” I’d said, but I knew that any more would be overstepping my boundaries. Paul Adelman was a ghost in his own home. His interactions with his own son were stiff and stilted; with his wife, strained; with me, nonexistent. He could disappear in a puff of smoke overnight and his household would operate as it always had, probably not noting his absence until the next time they had to make a public appearance. What Paul Adelman was doing—humiliating his wife, dragging her honor through the streets—was not love . It was selfishness. It was cruelty.
Ezra had been away for a shoot on the day the article about his father’s affair dropped, but he booked a flight home the next
day. By that time Renata was back in her normal state, the only sign of her hangover the extra-large cup of coffee she carried
into her office that morning. When Ezra tried to ask how she was doing, she said primly, “Come now, we both know how your
father is,” before opining about a meeting she had had with a producer about being a judge on a reboot of America’s Next Top Model . But when Ezra asked me, I didn’t mince words. We debriefed in his room, the only place safe from prying eyes and curious
ears, and I watched his face tense with anger.
“That man is the greediest motherfucker alive,” he said of his father. “If I had the honor of being loved by someone like
my mom, I would never even think of letting them go, let alone disrespecting them like this.”
I stilled beside him, noting two things at once. First: that Ezra hadn’t yet met a woman he wanted to hold on to, not even
his girlfriend at the time, with whom I’d thought he was head over heels in love. The second: that this also included me.
“Those are some high standards,” I said. “Your mom is literally one in a billion. Does a woman like the Renata Kovalenko even exist?”
Ezra shrugged, but his expression was no less fiery. “You exist,” he said.
I snorted, rolled my eyes, forced my heart rate to slow. He didn’t mean it like that , I thought, as he steamrolled ahead, vent ing about the man who was more his benefactor than his father. He never means it like that.
But what about now? I thought, staring at Ezra’s revived text thread. What did he mean now that he knew how I had once felt about him?
Ezra: I want to see you.
Ezra: I know I agreed to wait till the benefit. But I’ll be honest with you, I don’t see the point. It can be quick. Coffee?
Or I can just come by your place? Just like old times.
Ezra: You look amazing today, by the way. Hope you and Dahlia are having a good night.
“Uh-oh, what is that face?” Dahlia said, leaning out of her seat to snatch a salmon maki off the rotary sushi belt. Her social
media platform had recently shifted focus from health care to lifestyle, and she’d initiated the transition by visiting little-known
Chicago restaurants and posting reviews. After a few of her posts went viral, she’d started getting offers for comped meals
in exchange for promotion. “I can’t believe you’re not making them pay you,” I’d complained, but as a former poor kid, I knew
better than to turn down free food.
Not that the meal didn’t come with a price. Instead of money, I paid my way through my services as Dahlia’s camerawoman and
collaborator. In true Boateng-Cortes fashion, we’d shown up fabulously overdressed: Dahlia in a tight black mock-neck dress
that showed off her tattoos and lace-up booties that showed off her calves, me in a white baby doll dress and clunky Mary
Janes that lent me four inches of height and gave my legs the illusion of length. Of course we’d taken pictures for the Gram.
I kept it cute with the caption: health care heroes
Within two minutes of posting, Ezra had commented from his official account: gorgeous . My followers immediately fell into a tizzy: @beyoncesgivenchydress had already commented: NOT ONE TRUE KISS’ ZACHARY THIRSTING ON OUR GIRL DR. JOJO!!!!
“Wait, do that again,” I told Dahlia. “I got a text. It messed up the shot.”
Dahlia gave me a knowing look but acquiesced, this time grabbing a spider roll from the rotating belts. I sat up straighter,
zooming in to capture its textures, then panned over to Dahlia, who mimed snatching it in her chopsticks excitedly. The second
I lowered my phone, she lowered her smile.
“It’s Ezra, isn’t it?” she asked.
“Yup,” I admitted.
“Told you,” she said. I threw a kick under the table that she dodged. Then she held out her hands for my phone. “Let me see.”
I handed it over, and Dahlia scrolled through Ezra’s messages, her eyebrows rising higher as she went.
Ever since I lifted the embargo on communication between me and Ezra, he’d been coming on strong . Where he’d always sort of skirted the line between amorous and platonic intent, now he was crossing it boldly and unabashedly.
He’d sent me apology hyacinths before, but yesterday’s delivery had been vibrant red camellias. (“I negotiated my terms and
got five grand this time! Thanks for the advice, Dr.B,” Raymond said gleefully before taking his delivery confirmation picture.)
Dahlia and I had looked up the meaning together and found words like passion , desire , romantic love . And then there were the photos Dahlia was seeing now, sent this morning, of Ezra looking very dapper in a navy suit, with the shirt unbuttoned just enough to show the dip of his clavicle, and another of him in a sheer, bejeweled black button-down and leather pants that made him look like he’d just walked off the set of a vampire movie. Underneath, his pretense: What do you think I should do? Play it safe? Or have some fun?
Or, he sent a few seconds later, you could send me what you’re wearing and we can try to match.
No wonder all his girls folded so easily. I’d only ever received Ezra’s charms at half power. Now that he’d pulled them out
full force, the emotional equilibrium I’d built had been upset. Twenty-year-old Josephine would have been thrilled. Twenty-nine-year-old
Josephine was bewildered. I’d gotten used to a clumsier, more earnest approach, to sincerity and directness. To a guy who
could tell me he loved me without flinching or talking around it, then promise to wait for me to catch up.
Except I’d only known Mal for three months to Ezra’s ten years. Except in those three months, Ezra Adelman might have actually
woken up and seen me in a new light. Except if my suspicions were correct, and Ezra, who I knew would never screw me over,
had feelings for me, I might regret not giving him a chance.
“God damn ,” Dahlia said, zooming in at the hint of abs visible through the mesh. “Don’t know if I realized that Adelman was built like
this. Sheesh.”
“Yes, yes, he’s irritatingly hot,” I said, groaning. “You know, maybe I should respond to Dr.Makinen. Medicine was traumatizing,
but at least I wouldn’t be bothering myself about boys .”
This time it was Dahlia who threw a kick, and unlike mine, hers landed squarely on my shin.
“Nuh-uh. You’ve spent enough of your life hiding behind the hospital. It’s high time you do bother yourself about boys,” she said. “And just FYI, I veto Ezra’s request to ‘come over.’ I do not trust that man in our
home. He’s going to eat you alive.”
Suddenly I remembered the last time I had been consumed—Mal’s hot breath against my ear, his hand holding my jaw as he plowed into me, You like that? whispered into my ear. I buried my face in my hands, flustered. Yesterday on the pier, when Mal asked me whether I’d avoided
calling him because I was confused about Ezra, I’d answered truthfully and watched his heart break before my eyes. We nibbled
at his spread for a little while after that, watching the sun dive below the horizon, and when we packed up to leave, he didn’t
hug me, didn’t kiss me, didn’t invite me home. Instead, he’d held on to the straps of his cooler backpack in tight fists,
smiled at my shoulder, and said he would see me around .
I’d hurt him and hated every second of it. When I told Dahlia this, her jaw dropped.
“This man asked you what you felt when you saw Ezra again and you said not nothing ?” she repeated, aghast.
“Yes? Because it’s the truth?” I said, confused.
One, I thought that Mal deserved to know. It was his right to decide whether what I could offer him was enough. What he deserved
was a person who could love him wholly, who could trust him with her whole heart, who wasn’t so messed up inside that when
he told her he loved her she couldn’t say it back, even though she suspected she might feel the same.
Dahlia’s hand covered mine. When I looked up at her face, her expression was grave. I groaned.
“I thought we didn’t do pity,” I said.
“Just this once, I think I should be allowed,” Dahlia said. “Jo. Speaking as your friend. Writer Boy has been good for you . He’s patient and sweet, not afraid of loving on you, and, more importantly, you are obviously so very into him.”
This too was true. When I first saw Malcolm Waters in my bedroom at the Adelmans’, I hadn’t imagined that I would ache for him. I’d thought he was pleasant to look at, yes, and shockingly sincere, but I’d imagined him as a short-lived bit of fun, an experiment of sorts. I’d wanted to experience Mal the way Ezra experienced his many paramours, with just enough depth that I could enjoy myself without putting myself in harm’s way. One toe in the pool.
But Mal had pulled me under the surface. The worst part was that he’d warned me that this was his intention. You feel like you’re on fire , he’d said, of the kind of desire he intended to inspire. And here I was now, burning to ash, terrified to bring him down
with me.
It was different from what I felt for Ezra. More. And yet.
“He knows what he’s getting into,” Dahlia continued. “You told him straight up, from the beginning, about Ezra. There was
no need to reiterate it.”
“Of course there’s a need,” I said. I thought of Renata lying across her kitchen island, then imagined Mal doing the same,
his locs splayed around him, Ampersand crying at his feet. “I don’t want to deceive him.”
“Oh my god, you’re not listening,” Dahlia said, frustrated. “Jo, I am trying to tell you that you are scaring the hoes .”
With timing I could only describe as immaculate, a waiter appeared at Dahlia’s side.
“Can I get anything for you two?” he asked, just barely holding back a smirk. He, like all the other waiters at this restaurant,
was egregiously pretty, his feminine features contrasting with the jagged tattoos that covered his hands down to the knuckles.
I imagined he overheard all sorts of commentary from the tables he waited, and that much of it was about him.
“Yeah, um... Daniel,” Dahlia said, squinting to better read his name tag. “Can I get your opinion on something not food related?”
Daniel flipped pink hair out of his eyes and gave us a crooked grin. “Sure, why not,” he said.
“Say you’re really into a girl. A baddie. One who looks like this.” Dahlia pointed to me with her chopsticks, and I sputtered,
trying and failing to keep my bubble tea in my mouth.
“I’m following,” Daniel said, ticking his eyes over me in appreciation.
“Say she’s into you too. But you’ve got competition. Some other guy—and this one is a catch: think the hot CEO guy in a K-drama.
And the kicker! She’s kind of into him too.”
“Oh dang,” Daniel said. “So I’m trapped in a classic love triangle trope.”
“Exactly,” Dahlia said. “And everything is going well, but whenever y’all are together, she brings him up. Basically reminding
you that not only does he exist, but that she’s not sure if she’s picking you or him. What do you do?”
Daniel tucked his hands into the pockets of the apron tied around his waist, considering. Then he straightened, looked from
me to Dahlia and back again.
“I mean? If she’s bad, then I kind of expect her to have a roster,” he said. “And if I’m really into her, then I’ll just have
to love on her better than the other guys until they get dropped.”
“And if, after a while, she’s still unsure?” Dahlia pressed. “Still talking about the other dude?”
Daniel shrugged. “Then I’ll have to get over it, won’t I?” he said. “Plenty of fish in the sea. Maybe someone else will bite.”
“Exactly,” Dahlia said, then, after sucking through her straw. “Okay, for real now, can I please have an order of gyoza?”
Laughing, Daniel swept back into the kitchen to fulfill her order, and Dahlia turned to me, smug.
“You’re the worst,” I groaned, but she and Daniel had successfully struck fear into my heart. Perhaps out of arrogance, I’d
assumed that Mal would wait for me. That he’d give me the space to process the mess of my feelings, that he would be satisfied
enough with the sex and the dates and the intimacy, that he would be okay with forgoing my love until I was ready to give
it.
“I’m okay with being the bad guy if it means I stop you from doing something you regret,” Dahlia continued. “What I’ll say
is this: Mal has done more to make you happy in the last three months than Ezra has managed in the years I’ve known you. If
things go south with Mal, Ezra will still be your friend and you’ll be back at your status quo. But if you go chasing after
Ezra, you will lose Mal. Will you be able to handle that?”
I imagined it. Waking up in the morning to no continuation of the conversations we’d had the night before. No more of Mal’s
bashful smiles, no more hesitant kisses that turned hungry a second in. Never speaking to Mal ever again, knowing that we
were so close to something good.
“No,” I allowed, my throat tightening at the thought. “No, I don’t think I could.”
“Then do something about it,” Dahlia said. “Look. I get that you’re scared. Ez? He’s the devil you know. And Mal might still
be a bit of a mystery. Things are great now, but you don’t know what he’ll become later, and you’re worried you’ll blame yourself
for taking the shot if things go south.”
“Yes,” I said, struck by the accuracy of her assessment. “Yes, exactly, that’s it.”
Dahlia nodded. “I get that, I really do. But Jo. Every single time I’ve taken a chance at love, I haven’t regretted it. Yeah, sure, I might end up having a hard time after things don’t work out, but eventually, I wake up, and always to a world that was bigger than it was before.”
“You don’t regret Jonathan?” I asked, invoking her ex-husband, the year of hell that had come at the hands of someone who’d
once vowed to love her through all trials and tribulations, only to reveal himself as the source of them.
Dahlia smiled wistfully, as if she were recalling a sweet memory.
“No,” she said. “I don’t.”
“But he made your life miserable,” I said, stunned by her answer. “You were functionally homeless, Dahlia, what—”
“Make no mistake, I hope that man gets a paper cut every day for the rest of his life,” she said. “But I don’t regret marrying
him because I don’t regret the person I am now .” She sighed, popped an edamame bean into her mouth. “Leaving him was the hardest thing I’ve ever done. No one supported
me. But because of that experience, I can live freely now . I might never have come to terms with my sexuality. Definitely wouldn’t have covered myself with all these doodles.” She snickered,
holding out her decorated forearms. “And my approach to dating is so different now, so much clearer. I don’t get lost in the
what-ifs anymore. I’m not planning a future with every person I meet. I just focus on what I want in the moment. I let myself
live .”
It was moments like this one when I remembered that, despite appearances, Dahlia was almost six years older than me, with the experience that came with it. I squeezed my eyes shut, then pulled out my phone. I could feel Mal’s arms around me again, feel the warmth of him against my back, the rumble of his voice against the hollow of my neck. How, that day, sitting on the grass in Mil lenium Park, I’d asked myself what it would feel like to be nestled in the comfort of his hold every day. Imagining what it would be like to free-fall.
“What are you doing?” Dahlia said.
I ignored her, gathering my nerve, and called Mal. The phone rang once, twice, thrice, and I tapped my foot, violently overcome
by a need to act, to undo the damage I’d already wrought.
Just when I thought it would go to voicemail, he picked up.
“Hey, Jo,” Mal started, his voice obstructed by a din. “Sorry, I’m a bit—” Another voice, high, feminine, interrupted him,
and Mal cleared his throat. “Yeah, I know, honey, one second...” He sighed, then said to me, “I’ll call you back later.”
Then he hung up.
Stunned, I looked down at my phone until I saw the time. Shit. It was almost five. Mal’s event at Em-Dash Books for She Blooms at Dusk was starting any minute now. My annoyance at myself for losing track of the time was the only thing that overshadowed the
raging curiosity at hearing him address another woman as honey .
“That was a very one-sided conversation,” Dahlia observed, watching as I stood up and gathered my purse.
“Do you need any more footage?” I asked Dahlia.
“Other than what you already showed me?” Dahlia said. “Nah. I think I’ll be set.”
“Great,” I said, waving Daniel over to our table to announce our departure. “Because I need a ride.”