Chapter 30 #2
“We’d like to call Jennifer and Perry over to the dance floor for their first official dance as spouses!”
I miss their first dance because I’m busy at the bar, replacing the drink that wound up on Shawna and spiraling.
I drown my double-pronged anxieties: Nick and Shawna on one side of my brain, a job I don’t really want in upstate New York on the other.
Nick watches my mom and Perry dance, while physically restraining Kira from joining them on the dance floor. Shawna and her mom haven’t left his side. I’m a little too far away to catch his attention, not that I have any idea how to politely extricate him from this situation.
The DJ executes a very abrupt transition and other couples trickle onto the dance floor. I watch Shawna’s mom physically push Nick and Shawna forward and I realize this is my karmic retribution for waiting too long to be honest with my mom. I fucked around and I’m finding out.
I take the world’s longest sip of champagne, set down the glass on the bar top, and head for the dance floor, only slightly wobbly.
I tap Shawna firmly on the shoulder and challenge her to a dance-off.
Okay, no. The champagne hasn’t hit me fast enough to be that confident in my dancing ability. I vaguely recall my mom telling me that Shawna did dance team in high school.
My target is the person on the dance floor who actually does exude that kind of confidence, despite her rather unorthodox movement technique.
I grab Kira’s hand with a dramatic flourish and she bursts out laughing.
She immediately asks me to dip her. I comply, barely keeping my footing because she commits—letting herself go completely limp in my arms. She requests other moves: I spin her around, pull her through my legs, dip her about seven more times.
We do every viral dance she can remember—sometimes being chronically online pays off.
When the song ends, I find myself looking around the edge of the dance floor for Nick. Instead, my eyes connect with Shawna’s. Maybe I’m imagining things, but I swear there’s some kind of knowing expression on her face.
When the song ends, she leans close to Nick, says something I can’t quite hear, pats him on the back, and leaves the tent.
I must have intimidated her with the Tootsie Slide.
Nick makes his way over to us. “Everything okay?” I ask, twirling Kira again.
“Yeah. I think Shawna was a little…confused.” He lets out a huge sigh. “I told her I’m not available,” he says. “Because I’m in a new relationship. And it’s kind of promising.”
Kira attacks him with a bear hug, demanding to be dipped.
“Kind of?”
“It would probably be more promising if we weren’t sneaking around behind her mother’s back like fifteen-year-olds,” he whispers. His tone is amused, but there’s a serious undercurrent that gives me pause. “I need to get Kira over to Nora’s.”
“We’re going to King’s Island tomorrow,” Kira says. “Mom, Dad, Grandma, Auntie Zoey—”
“You didn’t mention that,” I say.
We’re still in the middle of the dance floor, surrounded by twinkle lights and sentimental music. But instead of Nick holding me in his arms and rocking side to side, I’m picturing him taking pictures at an amusement park with his ex-wife’s family in front of the Beast roller coaster.
“Kira really likes when everyone’s together,” he says. “Come over later tonight if you’re not too tired?”
“Maybe. I should probably find my mom…”
Shawna and Christina work fast.
“How long have you been lying to me?”
Mom corners me outside the bridal suite as I’m leaving the women’s restroom.
“What?” I’m a little less steady than I was an hour ago.
“About Nick. Christina is my colleague. Do you have any idea how embarrassed Shawna is? How humiliated I feel right now? Being the last person to know about my own daughter?”
“Mom, that wasn’t—”
“On my wedding day?”
“It happened after you came up with this whole setup scheme,” I say.
“ ‘Scheme?’ I saw two people in the same stage of life who I thought might hit it off.”
“And I was afraid to tell you—”
“You suddenly took an interest in the neighbor after I told you about Shawna?” She tilts her head, scanning my face, like she’s looking for a key piece of evidence. “Did you do this on purpose?”
“What? No! It just happened. And I didn’t tell you because I knew you’d blow up at me and say it’s a bad idea. Which is exactly what’s happening right now.”
“It is a bad idea. He has a child and you have no idea what you’re doing with your life. What on earth are you thinking?”
“Mom—”
“It really scares me, Sam. When you lie and manipulate people? It reminds me of your father.”
Perry jogs over to us, apparently oblivious to the ton of emotional bricks my mother has just dropped on me.
“Jen! My dad’s about to do the toast,” they say. “You ready? I think it’s better to do it now while he’s still relatively sober.”
I watch Mom recompose her face into a smile. “Let’s go.”
I don’t know if Perry’s father remained sober for his toast, but I certainly did not. The run-in with my mom sent me right back to the bartender.
I’m standing at the edge of the park, far enough from the reception that the guests won’t see me with a duffel bag slung over my shoulder, ordering a Lyft.
“Samantha.”
Apparently, I’ve been discovered.
Hal is wearing a suit and no knit cap. It’s jarring. It doesn’t fit with the carousel of images in my brain. I picture Jughead Jones at prom and I’m almost certain he still wore his crown.
He takes a step back with his hands up. “Don’t hit me.”
Given the night I’ve had up to now, I can only imagine the intensity of my resting bitch face.
“Why are you here?”
“I was supposed to be your plus-one.” He approaches again, cautiously. “You blocked me. I had no way of knowing whether you wanted me to be here.”
“The blocking should’ve been a pretty good indication of what I wanted,” I say.
“Okay.” He nods. “I’ll go.”
He turns and starts crossing the street.
“Where have you been for the last month?” I ask. “You just stopped showing up to work.”
“Why would I want to pour shitty drinks if we’re not talking?” He stops suddenly. “I spent a little time in New York.”
“With your author friend?”
He shakes his head. “She’s back with her boyfriend.” His mouth twists and he steps back onto the sidewalk. “I didn’t have sex with Leen that night. I want you to know that.”
“ ‘That night.’ ”
He rolls his eyes. “Yes, after you froze me out, I saw her again.”
“You led me to believe you weren’t interested in fucking around with other people. Was I so off-base to assume that meant we were exclusive?”
“We never actually said we were exclusive,” he says.
“But you knew that’s what I wanted.” I look at his noncommittal face. “Like, please, just admit that so I don’t feel like we’re living in two different realities. Tell me the truth.”
“You caught feelings,” he says. “I understood that.” He reaches into his pocket for his key fob. “Do you want a ride?”
“Don’t touch me,” I say, but I start walking down the block toward his Prius. “I’m only agreeing to this because of surge pricing.”
“I take it you haven’t been saving yourself for me, either.”
“Definitely not.”
We get in the car and he starts the engine.
“I’m heading back to New York later this week. I have a place to crash in Manhattan.” He pauses. “You should come. We can split the cost of gas. You can stay as long as you want.”
“Why would I do that?”
“It’s New York; you study art. I’m sure you’ll figure something out. Sometimes you just have to take a chance.”
“Yeah, I don’t think I’ll be taking chances on anything that involves you.”
We’re stopped at a red light. My head’s pounding, probably from the many glasses of champagne, but also because I can’t shake the look on my mom’s face.
“Hear me out,” Hal says. “I don’t see why we can’t stay friends.”
“We were never ‘friends.’ There’s nothing to go back to.”
From our first conversation, there was a very specific crackle in the air between us that told me this wasn’t a friendship. I can’t run our relationship through a low-contrast filter to dial down the bright spots and dark shadows.
“Okay.” He nods. “That’s fair. But why can’t we try it as a new thing?” We continue up High Street. “You could at least unblock me? I miss you.”
He seems to wait for me to reciprocate this sentiment.
But I’m not sure I do. I miss aspects of Hal.
I miss flashes of inside jokes and little moments I’ve captured like scrapbook memories.
I miss the individual panels where it feels like Lydia and Jughead are in some version of love, but not the entire book where Lydia spends thirty-two pages never asking for what she wants.
How is it possible to know for certain that you’re better off without someone in your life…
but still miss them? Why am I the one still holding on to these goddamn balloons?
“Actually, I might stay here,” I say.
He jerks his head to the right in surprise.
“In Columbus? Why?” I see it the moment that realization hits—that I’m really not saving myself for him.
“Ohhhh. Fuck. The middle-aged guy? I mean, what is this actually about?” he says.
“Proximity? Doing something transgressive in front of your mom? Finding a replacement dad? Jesus, Sam. You can settle for a Chili’s manager ten years from now if you want. Don’t do it now.”
“You don’t know a single thing about him,” I say, regretting engaging with this.
“I do. I clocked his whole nice guy scheme immediately,” he says. “I told you exactly what he wanted.”
“Actually, he told me himself. Which is a lot more than I can say for you.”
“You can’t deal with the fact that I’m a fucking real person, with the same messy problems and contradictions as you. You give up on things when you don’t think you’re winning. Now you can be the smartest person in the room again.”
I wanted attention from Hal so badly that I’d twist myself into knots trying to be whatever he wanted. Like some rigged puzzle I could never quite solve. How can someone feel like my whole world and also hurt me over and over again?
“Pull over,” I say. “I’m not doing this with you. Not tonight.”
He accelerates through a green light. “We’re three blocks away. Come on. Don’t be so dramatic.”
Something about that phrase is so familiar.
For a moment I get lost in a memory of asking my dad why he was skipping another weekend.
Of hearing those exact words when I stress cried because I stalled his truck while he was trying to teach me how to drive a stick shift.
Of showing a hint of vulnerability or hurt.
“Look, I don’t know how to do this,” Hal says. “And I realize things are fucked between us. But we understand each other in a way that other people don’t. I think you know it, too.” He turns into a guest parking spot at The Bixby. “I get you. That guy never will.”
I reach for the door handle, pausing to look at this weird version of Hal, hatless and in a suit. I finally see him for what he is, without romanticizing any part of him. And I know in my gut, or whatever the deepest part of my body is, that I will never be vulnerable in front of Hal ever again.
“I always was the smartest person in the room,” I say. “I just let you believe you were.”
“Jesus.” I’ve never seen Hal look so genuinely wounded. “I just poured my fucking heart out to you.”
I get out of the car and swing my duffel back over my shoulder.
“Don’t be so dramatic,” I say, slamming the door.