Chapter 34
I don’t want to talk about it.
I don’t want to think about any of it either.
I don’t want to remember a single second of what happened after the dance ended, after the bouquet was thrown – Aunt Abby caught it midair with the agility and precision of an Olympic athlete – or after the DJ started playing again, following Boyce Avenue.
Because that’s when everyone started getting really drunk. And with drunk people come stupid ideas. So no, don’t make me talk about how dumb I was for going over to Suzi after everything, only to make her hate me even more. Or how Jasper punched Connor right in front of Mila’s grandmother.
But when I say everyone got drunk, I also mean the bride.
And now she’s sitting on my bed, a glass of ice cold Coke in one hand, a huge bowl of fries in the other, black makeup running down to her cheeks, the purple bruise under the smeared makeup already visible, her long blonde strands looking like dirty hay, asking me what the hell happened last night.
I try to explain that nothing really happened, that the night went on without any noteworthy events, but she just rolls her eyes, first at me, then at the open suitcase on the bed, packed in a hurry.
“If that were true, the breakfast table wouldn’t look like fucking North Korea, everyone scared to even open their mouths, somehow expecting to end up at a firing squad.
And let’s not forget Connor, the second person in this house to end up with a black eye, which, judging by what happened last night, probably has something to do with Jasper,” she pauses, studying my expression as I try not to get sick just by the mention of his name. Then she adds, “And you.”
Here we are. Mila promised me we’d talk tomorrow, right? Well, tomorrow had to come eventually.
“Did I get it right?”
“Robbie didn’t tell you?”
Her eyebrows shoot up in surprise.
“Robbie knows what happened? But he was with me all night and woke up hungover. He told me he doesn’t know anything.”
How drunk was she? And, more importantly, how drunk was Robbie if he can’t even remember his friends punching each other?
I squint. Take a deep breath. Then I throw myself on the bed next to her, shoving my suitcase and messy clothes aside.
“Okay, it all started when…”
Only God knows what’s running through my head at this moment, but I somehow end up right in front of Suzi, her golden skin glowing against the pink of her dress. I’m glad at least that color looks good on her. She deserves it.
Suzi freezes the exact moment her eyes catch mine as I approach her by the bar. It was the best spot I could find for both of us to have access to all kinds of alcohol. Maybe that would make this conversation a little easier. It doesn’t.
There isn’t enough rum in Jack Sparrow’s ship to make this any easier. I open my mouth to speak, then immediately shut it, unable to find the right words.
She grips her Champagne glass a little too tightly as she says, “Forget it, Julie.”
Then she steps aside to pass by me.
“Suzi!” I finally manage to get a sound out. She stops. “I’m sorry!”
I know, not creative, but it’s the best I can do. Cut me some slack! Suzi turns, and of course, she could say anything and still be right, but what she actually says completely destroys me.
“You were the woman Madame Ximena was talking about, weren’t you?”
I let out a heavy sigh, trying to buy myself some time. How do I say those stupid tarot cards were completely worthless while also admitting they were entirely correct?
“It was a drunken tarot reading in the middle of a bachelorette party, Suzi. It doesn’t mean…”
“An old connection? Are you serious?”
Fuck! Can we curse a witch? Or does she notice it immediately then makes you get hit by a bus or something?
Again, I open my mouth, but no sound comes out. Luckily, Suzi has a lot to say. She’s just trying to be a better person than me and stay silent instead of throwing me down a staircase in a fit of rage or whatever.
“You made me look like an idiot, Julie.”
“I know. And I’m sorry.” I finally manage to speak, completely honest. “If it makes you feel better, I made myself look like an idiot too. I mean, you were there! You heard everything said and saw the total mess that happened.”
“He talked to me after the toasts,” she says all of a sudden, making me lose my balance slightly.
“He did?” I ask, doing my best to hide my shock and keep my chin from hitting the floor.
I’m glad for her, at least she got some explanation. At the same time, I feel like complete garbage, which I should be used to by no, because he didn’t even bother to look at me this whole time.
“He did,” Suzi agrees. “I wasn’t just rejected and humiliated in public, he came to do it personally.”
I exhale wearily. This whole situation is a mess for me, I know. But clearly, I can understand why it’s a mess for her too.
“I would’ve never thought or even considered him as a possibility if I’d known you two were involved, Julie.”
I don’t know if she’s apologizing, justifying her own actions, or still torturing herself over the embarrassment she had to endure before finding out.
“It was a secret,” I try to justify. “A typical friends-with-benefits situation, no one was supposed to know. And it definitely wasn’t supposed to get this far, but hey, at least now everything’s back to normal.
Nothing else is going on. You got an apology, I didn’t even get that. We aren’t even talking anymore.”
“Because you said he wasn’t good enough in front of two hundred people half an hour before his best man speech?” Suzi suggests, and this time my jaw drops without control. “Then what was that you said when it was your turn to speak? He tried to fix things, and you just… you were rude.”
Was I?
He said he didn’t want any of this!
The words echo in my head again, reminding me of what he told Connor last night too. So how am I the rude one in this story?
And why is Suzi telling me this? Also, more importantly, how do she and Tony both think the exact same thing?
Am I really the problem here?
Shit! Suzi thinks I’m a bitch. She must think she’s better than me at everything.
The worst part? She’s right. Completely, perfectly right. Jasper must think the same thing right now. He must be dying of regret because…
“No, he isn’t!” Mila interrupts my thoughts. “I have no idea what happened between you two, Jules, but you didn’t see him this morning at breakfast. That wasn’t the face of a man in regret, it was the face of a man who’s destroyed.”
My heart tightens in my chest. For me, for him, for Mila.
I look at my friend as if we were miles apart. So much happened this week, and I haven’t told her a fraction of it.
I have nothing left to lose at this point, so I tell her.
From the start. From the moment we boarded the same flight in New York to the moment I swam naked with Brock Magnus. From the police station, the beach, Jasper making me sit on the couch and giving me food… to me then waking up with tortellini in my hair the next morning.
I tell her how my heart sank like the Titanic when she told me Suzi felt there was a thing going on and she asked me to switch seats at the table.
By the end, I’m not sure if my friend is more surprised, shocked, or exhilarated. It’s as if she’s watching a whole new universe unfold before her eyes. An entire book in fifteen minutes.
“So Jasper got mad because you switched seats and hit Connor?” Mila says at the end of my story.
“No,” I immediately correct, “that part happened much later at the party. Around eleven, when I went into the main house to use the bathroom and Robbie was…”
I stop abruptly. Think as fast as I can.
“Eating canapés.”
Smoking cigars. Robbie was smoking cigars. All of them were in the living room, surrounded by a thick cloud of smoke and a box of cigars on the coffee table. Robbie, Andrew, Jasper, Brad, Uncle Henry, even Mr. Carnegie.
When I step out of the bathroom, for a second I think the house is on fire.
“Robbie, goddamnit!” I shout immediately. He’s the first target because he took a puff from the huge cigar just as I walked in. The smoke he exhales is so thick I can barely see his face.
“We’re celebrating Brad!” he says, coughing quietly as he finishes speaking, his hoarse voice as if he inhaled smoke from an entire burning building. “Our father always offered cigars whenever a new daddy arrived in the family.”
I roll my eyes impatiently.
“When the baby is born, Robbie. Parents get cigars when the baby is born, not during the nine months of pregnancy. Try a better excuse when Mila asks what the hell you’re doing!”
He exhales the rest of the smoke just to speak, “Do you really think Mila has any idea what’s going on right now?”
He catches me off guard. The last time I saw Mila, she was leading the drunken conga line that started on the dance floor and ended at a tequila bottle at the bar.
“We’re all just enjoying the party and relaxing a little, Julie, dear,” Gus tells me. “Looks like you could use some help relaxing too.”
He leans toward the open leather box on the table, picks up a cigar, spinning it between his fingers as if it were a work of art, but his eyes pass through the cigar and lock on Jasper at the other end of the couch, who is holding what I assume is his twentieth Scotch of the day, by now I stopped counting.
“These are from the glory days, made on the Castro estate itself. Can’t get more Cuban than this.”
How decadent is it that even the father of the bride is telling me to drown my sorrows in booze and cigars? Maybe I should, I don’t know.
“I’ll pass for now, Mr. Carnegie, thanks,” I say, my words followed by a long, tired sigh.
This right here is definitely a war I’ll lose, so I don’t even try to fight it.
It’s only after Uncle Henry continues the story he was telling Andrew before I arrived, his hand waving the cigar dangerously close to the couch, that I do what any sensible person would do and say, “Open a window at least!”
Andrew laughs, and the cigar ashes fall onto his pants.
Argh! Men and their attempts to set everything on fire.