Chapter 8 #2
“Right. Yeah. Lorraine…She’s my landlord, but she’s cool…It’s a long story. She’s around here somewhere. Rum?”
Jonathan demurs. “It’s a little early for hard liquor. Don’t you think?”
Cece flips her phone over. When had they started drinking? “I guess so.”
“What the hell,” Jonathan says, elbows on the table. “Don’t think I’ve had straight rum since that terrible New Year’s party we went to last year.”
“That was an exceptionally terrible party,” Cece says. They touch glasses; everything is warm and tingly at once. “Why did we go to it again?”
Jonathan scrunches up his face. “That one was my fault. Had to impress one of the higher-ups at work.”
Cece remembers. Dripping ice sculptures, buttoned-up finance bros with their idle chatter, steam peeping through manhole covers on their way home, Jonathan’s arm around her.
“You were always game for those work functions. I don’t think I appreciated it enough at the time.”
“They weren’t so bad.”
“Oh, but they were. They were awful! You’d always get relegated to the significant-other table, talking about God knows what. I don’t know how you did it.”
A chuckle sneaks up on Cece, and she finds herself smiling. “There was a lot of interior decorating talk…wallpaper, sconces.”
“You’re a saint.”
“It was nothing.”
“Work was crazy back then…postponed dates, reheated meals, eighty-hour workweeks. You were my rock.”
“We had a plan. Failure wasn’t an option.”
“Maybe that was the problem,” Jonathan says, blue eyes flashing, “I mean…that’s a lot of pressure, to make things work.”
Cece is trying to listen, but she’s having trouble, vision narrowing, the room spinning out.
She focuses on the soft indentation where Jonathan’s chest meets his neck at the base of his throat.
“I’m sorry about the way we left things.
I guess I…” The rum threatens a return, sloshing in her stomach, saccharine and perfumed. “I freaked out.”
Jonathan moves instinctually to take her hand but pulls it back, realizing what he’s doing at the last moment. Pure muscle memory. “That’s on me.”
“Your family must hate me, especially your mother.”
Jonathan pushes a hand through his hair and cracks a smile. “Quite the opposite. It raised your estimation in their eyes. My mother was relieved. It seems like you weren’t the only one who thought we were rushing.”
“You mean she thought I was only marrying you for the money,” Cece says, surprised by how easily the truth comes with a little alcohol. It’s satisfying to say aloud what she’s always suspected. After all this time, honesty seems like the best chance at recovering something between them.
Jonathan scratches his stubbled chin. It’s strange to see him with any facial hair.
He was meticulous about shaving every morning before work.
“Maybe,” he says, eyes cast down in disappointment.
“I’ve been thinking a lot about what you said before, about us moving and starting a family…
I haven’t been very understanding…about our differences. ”
“Our differences?”
“Where we’re from. How we grew up. I didn’t consider how hard you’ve worked to get where you are, and how you might feel giving it all up.”
Jonathan’s contrition catches Cece by surprise. “Pretty sure I should be the one apologizing here. Aren’t you angry? Upset with me?”
“I was. You didn’t exactly let me down easy, Cece. You just sort of picked up and left. But mostly, I was worried about you. I mean, did you just make the decision then and there? Or were we in trouble before then and you just never said?”
There are so many moments Cece can recall, not glaring warning signs or fluttering red flags but the subtlest of intuitions, so small and insignificant that even now, she doubts them, cannot give them credence; and yet, at the time, they’d added up to something, something big, something she felt she couldn’t ignore.
Jonathan’s preference for taking a taxi instead of the subway, his habit of discarding hotel towels to the bathroom floor after one use, the reverence with which he spoke to her father, even after she’d told him how difficult he’d made her life after she quit swimming.
Alone, none of it was terribly bad, but it balled up into a collective feeling—a want—to get out, to escape.
The proposal and his response to her firing were the last things to tip her over.
But now, with Jonathan seated before her, cheeks cherry red from the rum, eyes searching, she feels foolish, like a child who’s fallen for a cheap magic trick.
Is she really giving him a hard time about being nice to her father?
Would any other woman in the universe judge a man for flagging down a cab instead of riding the subway?
Yes, they’d been in trouble long before she’d returned the engagement ring, but none of that seemed like Jonathan’s fault, at least not now.
The desire to propel them forward, to rescue them from rehashing the past, swells in Cece’s throat. Looking back, digging up petty injustices—nothing good can come of it. “I’m sorry,” she manages. “I panicked.”
Something like relief works its way into Jonathan’s shoulders, his body slouching forward. He gives her a tired smile and is about to say something, but then Lorraine is at their table, asking about this good-looking boy Cece is flirting with, and why she hasn’t been properly introduced.
Thankfully, Jonathan says they’re old friends, which will save Cece some explaining on the drive home.
The revelation that Cece’s been living in Lorraine’s pool house for the last month elicits an eyebrow raise from Jonathan.
Cece assures him it’s not as terrible as it sounds.
She doesn’t say anything about the oyster farm or the impending job interview when he asks what she’s doing for work, offering up vagaries instead.
“Enough about Cece,” Lorraine says, who smells like she’s had a few more drinks on the tour. “What do you do, Jonathan? Actually, no, no—let me guess.”
Jonathan gives Cece a look, as if to say, Where did you find this kook? Lorraine’s first two guesses aren’t far off—accountant and lawyer—and Cece isn’t sure how she feels about it. Jonathan grins. He’s clearly enjoying this.
“It’s got to be finance, then—private equity, something like that,” Lorraine says, seemingly pleased with herself.
Jonathan is genuinely enthused, like someone’s just read his palm. “How did you know?!”
“I have a knack for this sort of thing. Plus, I saw a fancy car out there. I’m guessing it’s yours. And I don’t think Cece here would be friends with a trust-fund kid. I knew you had a job!”
Jonathan takes it all in stride. “I’m impressed.”
Lorraine settles onto her stool. “So private equity, yes? But what kind of private equity? Specifically, how are you screwing the American people? Buying up single-family homes and flipping them? Taking over nursing homes and maximizing profits?”
“Well…I can’t say we…I’m not really involved directly in those sorts of things. It’s a big firm, you see…”
“Oh, that’s fine, just fine, I was only joshing you. Forgive me, rum always makes me say silly things, and what do I know, I’m just a geriatric botany professor!”
Cece mouths an I’m sorry to Jonathan from across the table.
Willa and Thomas stop by and whisk Lorraine away—something about a food truck outside and the best tacos al pastor she’s ever had in her life, which seems impossible in a place like Stonington, Connecticut.
“She can be a lot sometimes.”
“A character for sure,” Jonathan says.
There’s a commotion as a group of elderly tourists make their way into the tasting room—a sea of sun hats and white knee-high socks.
“Thanks for coming.”
“Thanks for texting back.”
“Why don’t we try that food truck?”
“I have to get back, actually,” he says. “I may or may not have left a few friends hanging to meet you.”
“Sorry about that.”
“Let’s make a plan. How about next week? Maybe you can give me a tour of your pool house.”
Cece can’t think of a worse idea. The last thing she wants is Jonathan walking around the rubble of her crack-up. “Or we could meet somewhere in the middle again.”
They make their way out into the parking lot, passing picnic tables and hulking cloth umbrellas.
Cece suddenly understands what Lorraine had meant back inside as Jonathan stops next to a shiny, electric-blue sports car.
He clicks a button on the key fob, and the roof starts retracting, shrinking in on itself.
Cece knows nothing about cars, but even she can tell this one is expensive.
“Too flashy?” Jonathan asks, sun behind him.
“No…not at all. I like the color.”
“I had to do something nice for myself after you threw me over. Cliché—I know. Dumped guy buys Porsche.”
Cece winces. It’s difficult—hearing it in such plain terms. “Why’d you text me anyway? I mean, I’d understand if you never wanted to speak to me again. I didn’t exactly handle the situation with grace.”
Hands in his pockets, Jonathan lets out a long breath, his cheeks deflating like a balloon. “We were good together, and I’m not one to give up easily, and while I hate to admit it—I think you were right to call things off. We weren’t ready, but that doesn’t mean we should throw it all away.”
Cece is trying to remember why it seemed so entirely necessary to throw it all away, but she can’t seem to.
“I’m still figuring stuff out,” she says, as much of a warning to Jonathan as to herself.
She almost tells him about her potential job interview in the city but stops herself.
Exercise some self-control, she thinks. It wouldn’t kill you.
The rum still on her lips, the sun warming her face—she is doing her very best not to do something incredibly stupid.
Jonathan is close, the powdery smell of laundry detergent and sunblock, his chin perfectly dimpled. “We’ve got time.”
From somewhere, Lorraine’s laugh on the wind.
Cece can’t help herself, leaning in for a quick kiss, the sun splotchy on her eyelids.
His lips are soft and forgiving. The rum’s telling her to keep going, to get in his car and drive to Rhode Island without a second thought, but she pulls back. “Hope that was okay.”
Jonathan chuckles. “Do you remember our first kiss?”
“On that trail in Central Park.”
“Yeah, and that runner screamed at us for blocking the path.”
“That’s New York for you. Then again, I’m pretty sure we were standing right in the middle.”
Jonathan squeezes her hand and slides into his car. “Let’s get back there.”
Cece watches him leave. There, Cece thinks. How do I get back there? How do we get back there?