Chapter 24
On Monday evening, as Cherry was walking up her steps, Tom walked out the front door. He had Stevie.
“Oh,” Cherry said. She smiled at them. “Hi. I didn’t see your dad’s car.”
“I rode my bike over.” Tom nodded toward the garage. “I found it in the garage last week.”
“Right,” she said. “That’s nice.”
“We’re just going for a walk.”
Cherry looked around. “It’s a beautiful night.”
“Do you want to come with?”
“Um . . .” She looked down at her wide-legged pants. She was wearing ballet flats. “Sure. I’ve been sitting at a desk all
day.” Stevie was sniffing at Cherry, trying to get her attention. Cherry petted her. “You’ve taken over my only source of
exercise.”
Tom clicked his tongue at Stevie, and she followed him down onto the sidewalk. “You aren’t going to yoga in the health center?”
“Nah.” Cherry walked with him, on the other side of Stevie. “There’s a new teacher who gets on my nerves—we’re constantly
standing up as soon as we’ve sat down, and she wears those Kim Kardashian clothes that are just tan underwear.”
“Your bike’s in the garage, too, if you want it. I dug it out and filled up the tires.”
“Thanks,” Cherry said. “I’ll get right on that.”
The last time they’d gone bike-riding together, Cherry had ended up lying in the grass, saying she felt like she was being “jackhammered in the crotch.” Tom had to walk both of their bikes back to the car.
“How’s the garage going?” she asked.
“Good. I took a bunch of stuff to Goodwill last week. And I set some speakers aside for Henry.” Henry was one of Cherry’s
nephews. “I stuck a note on them.”
“I’ll tell Hope.” They’d stopped to let Stevie sniff at some bushes. “You guys are late with your walk today.”
Tom tugged Stevie back from a patch of mud. “This is our second walk.”
“Lucky Stevie.”
“They’re more for me than her,” he said. “They clear my head.”
Cherry looked up at him. She realized that at this moment—like right now, this very second—she didn’t feel angry with him. Maybe for the first time in two years. Cherry felt light today. Hopeful.
Decidedly un-doomed. “How is your head?” she asked.
Tom lowered an eyebrow, like that was a surprising question. Fair. It had been at least a year since Cherry had asked how
he was doing—instead of some version of “What the hell are you thinking?”
“My head’s okay,” he said.
Cherry smiled a little. Sincerely. “Good.”
On Tuesday, Cherry went to Russ’s house after work. They made dinner together. Cobb salad. And made love, twice.
On Wednesday when Cherry got home, the garage door was open. She walked up the driveway to peek in.
Tom had cleared out one half of the garage, and he was working in the corner. There were new shelves. Stevie was asleep at
his feet.
“Hi there!” she called out.
Stevie lifted her head. Tom looked up, startled. “Hi.”
“It looks great in here,” Cherry said. The garage had been packed with random junk for years; there’d never been room for
their cars.
“Thanks.”
Stevie had run up to Cherry and was rubbing her face on Cherry’s pin-striped suit pants.
Tom clicked his tongue. “Hey. Get off. You’re messing up her nice clothes.”
“I’m used to it.” Cherry patted Stevie’s flank. The dog had already turned back to Tom.
“You’re wearing heels,” he said, making a curious face at Cherry.
“Yeah, I felt like being tall today.”
“They don’t hurt your back?”
“Not when I’m sitting. Are those new shelves?”
He looked up at them. “Yeah, I got the gardening stuff all sorted. It should be easier for you to find things.”
“Oh, I forgot about this . . .” Cherry pointed at a huge blue willow vase on one of the top shelves. They’d bought it at a
garage sale.
“We never figured out where to put it,” Tom said.
“Well, it’s so big . . .”
“Cool, though,” he said.
“It is.”
Tom looked over at her. “You’re in a good mood this week.”
Cherry laughed and shook her head. “Am I?”
“Yeah.”
“Huh. I guess things are going my way.”
“I’m glad,” Tom said.
“Thanks.”
Russ had Liam for the weekend, so he and Cherry crammed in one more night together on Thursday, even though Russ had some
complicated problem to manage for the mayor. He was on the phone for hours. Cherry waited on his couch and tried to read a
book on her phone, but ended up writing work emails and scrolling through Instagram and Pinterest.
When Russ was finally done, he crawled to Cherry on his knees to apologize. She laughed. She told him not to be offended but that next time she was bringing over her embroidery hoop.
He crawled between her knees and up her skirt.
Tom wasn’t at the house when Cherry got home on Friday, but neither was Stevie. They were probably on a walk.
Cherry kicked off her shoes. Then she noticed the blue willow vase sitting in a corner of the foyer—holding a huge arrangement
of dried flowers and grasses, probably from the yard. Pampas grass. Panicle hydrangea. Some sort of branch with red berries.
Tom had always been good at arranging flowers. (Tom could make anything look good.) This was striking.
It didn’t escape Cherry’s notice that he was supposed to be moving things out of the house, not in. But she took the arrangement for what she guessed it was—a peace offering.
She texted him. “Nice flowers.”
He texted back, “;)”
“Are you guys on your way out or on your way back?”
“Just at the park.”
“If I order Indian,” she asked, “will you pick it up?”
“Yep.”
“Do you want me to order something for you? Lamb vindaloo?”
Tom didn’t reply right away. Cherry called the order in. She got naan. And samosas. And mulligatawny soup. She was hungry.
She set her phone down and went into the dining room to clear some space . . . Maybe she could make some headway in the house
over the weekend, while Russ was busy. Maybe Cherry didn’t have to be so rigorous about everything. Maybe Stacia was right—Cherry could just start boxing things up to deal with after she got a new place,
when the memories would be less sharp.
The moving pieces in her life were already feeling less sharp.
That was all Russ, Cherry knew that. It made her feel very unevolved as a person that she couldn’t get over one man until she’d snagged another.
There was no complete and confident version of Cherry that had emerged from the separation and then fallen for Russ.
Cherry hadn’t bloomed until Russ shined on her. It was pathetic . . .
. . . but it was working.
Cherry focused on some vacation souvenirs (snow globes, salt and pepper shakers, figurines) that had been sitting on the table
for weeks because neither she nor Tom could decide what to do with them. She peeled off the Post-it notes and set all the
knickknacks in a box. She’d wrap them in bubble wrap later.
She checked her phone to see what time it was. Tom had texted back—“That’s okay. Thanks.” She shrugged. He could take the vindaloo home.
Cherry was making real progress on the dining room table, so she kept going. There was a complete set of china that they’d
found at an estate sale. The pattern along the border was lime green with red rosebuds. They were beautiful dishes—Cherry
would keep them. She’d use them. She carried them into the kitchen and put them in a cabinet that Tom had emptied.
When she walked out of the kitchen, with a damp washcloth, Tom and Stevie were coming in the door. He hadn’t knocked or rung
the bell.
“Hey,” Cherry said. “I didn’t get your message in time. You can just take the food with you.”
“Sorry,” Tom said. “Thanks.” He unclipped Stevie’s leash with one hand.
Cherry started wiping off the table.
Tom walked into the dining room with the takeout bag. “Did you decide to make a clean sweep and give it all away?”
“Nope. I’m keeping it all.” She glanced at him. “Unless there was something you wanted?”
Tom looked surprised. “No.” He rested the bag on the table. “You’re keeping the snow globes?”
“Yep. For now. I’ll see how I feel when I unpack them.”
“After you move.”
“Yeah, I guess.” It felt good to see the table again. Cherry just felt good, in general. She turned back to Tom. “You sure you don’t want to eat before you go? It’ll be better hot.”
Tom looked like he was still processing the situation. It made Cherry smile. Tom was forever processing. He’d probably still
be trying to make sense of their wedding by the time they were divorced.
She took the bag from him. “Yeah?”
He nodded. “Okay, yeah.”
“You get the dishes and forks.”
Cherry opened up the plastic containers of meat and rice. She laid out the bread and popped open the cups of raita and mint
chutney. She could hear Tom washing his hands. “Do you want something to drink?” he called.
“I’ll take a Coke Zero.”
“It’s kind of late . . .” He knew the caffeine would keep her up.
“It’s Friday night.”
“Time to get wild,” Tom said, coming back into the room with dishes and a can of pop. He stopped when he saw the food. “This
looks great. I haven’t had Jaipur in forever.”
Probably not since the last time they’d ordered it together. “Sit down,” Cherry said.
Tom handed her an empty plate. They sat on neighboring sides of the table, in the opposite corner from where they used to
sit.
“Speaking of the weekend,” he said, “I’m headed back to Los Angeles tomorrow.”
“Oh, yeah?” Cherry was serving herself some food. She’d ordered chicken saag.
Tom reached out and gave her a scoop of his lamb. “Yeah, just for a few days.”
“Do you have movie stuff?”
He was making a grim face, getting some rice. “Yeah.”
“You don’t seem excited.”
He raised his eyebrows, like that was an understatement. “Media,” he said.
“Like, interviews?”
He nodded. He didn’t seem to want to talk about it. Cherry tore off a small piece of naan and handed him the rest. (Tom’s
blood sugar was fine.) He took a samosa, then dropped the other one onto her plate. “Is it okay if the dumpster sits out there
while I’m gone?”
“Yeah.”
“They’ll come and empty it, but I paid for the whole month.”
“That’s fine.” Cherry was eating.
Tom took a bite. He covered his mouth. “This is so good.”