Chapter 20
“Hi,” Kat greets, and in one word with just two letters, I’m trying to decide what she knows.
I hate this.
I am not a person meant to keep secrets or hoard lies. No way. My stomach hurts and all she’s literally said is “hi.”
“Hi,” I smile, pulling open my apartment door to let her inside. I peer around the corner after her, to see if Zennie is on her way up.
“Just me,” she says, tugging off the black and blue checkered scarf looped around her neck. I close the door and slide a few of the locks closed.
“Coffee’s on, it’ll be another minute. Want any?
” I offer, curving around the counter to my kitchen.
In Christmas pajamas covered in Santas on sleighs, my feet bare and my hair in a dirty, messy wad, Kat sits on the edge of the couch, dressed in black slacks and an oversized ruby-colored fuzzy sweater with a mock neck.
Her dark hair is swept back into a low ponytail, the same style that Elle does often, and she crosses her legs at the ankle, positioning her clasped hands in her lap.
She nods. “Coffee would be good.”
Heat slides down my spine. I pull two mugs from the cupboard, and ready them before taking a seat next to my best friend. What is normally comfortable is now awkward, and the silence in the last two minutes is telling.
When Kat comes over, she’s nonstop about how the gum she’s chewing is thinning too fast, the look some gas station attendant gave her on the way in, the strange shape of a cloud in the sky that reminds her of pepperoni–something.
There’s always something on Kat’s mind, and that’s one of the many things I love about her.
I’m not used to the reserved version of Kat that shows up at my apartment at eight in the morning on a Tuesday, with a message in her heart.
She smiles, but it’s small, and controlled, almost as if she planned it. “I mean, obviously you know why I’m here, and why the vibe is off.”
“The vibe is very much off,” I sigh, relieved to have her point it out. My knee bounces and I smooth my fingertips over the tattered edge of the throw blanket on my couch. I brought it from home when I moved to college, and it’s hideous, but brings me comfort when I’m alone and sick.
“That shit is hideous,” Kat comments of the blue and white Holly Hobby quilt, that likely was brand new in 1970-something.
I nod. “I know.”
Her smile slips, and my stomach clenches.
The coffee sits, steam wafting off the tops, curling through the silent room.
“So… my dad,” she starts, and though I know this talk will be serious, and may not even end on good terms, I can’t help but acknowledge privately the little shimmer of hope that flurries through my veins.
A few months ago, Kat wouldn’t be here talking to me about her dad and me.
That wasn’t a thing. Not even a possibility of a thing.
And that was sad–loving Ford, and knowing that the possibility of us was less likely than me winning the lottery or becoming the next Anne Geddes, not that I want to put babies in heads of lettuce.
But now.
That sentence bears meaning, holds secrets, has weight. And as much as I love Kat and don’t want to hurt her, I am happy that something is between me and Ford. Because I never thought the hippy girl with faraway dreams would snag Mr. Mercer.
“I didn’t know that you…” she shakes her head, restarting her sentence, trying again. “Do you have feelings for my dad?” The way her hand unknowingly comes to her chest, fingers fanned over her heart, protective of her father’s love and his feelings.
I don’t shy away from the question. Ford went to her about us, trying to make it possible. I have to be truthful now, too. My ears have a gentle ringing in them, anxiety swirling through every inch of me. Sweat appears on my lower back from the stress of the moment.
“Yes.”
I know I can’t leave it there, and let her think I’ve been going behind her back to get at her father, because that is not me. I let out a lifetime’s worth of sighs. “I mean, you know your dad is obviously a total hunk, as much as it’s weird to admit.”
Kat shrugs. “He’s conventionally hot, I get it.”
I shake my head, dragging my thumb over a blue and white thread coming from one of Holly’s bonnets. “I’ve always thought he was hot. Since the moment I met him and had no idea what that warm, fluttery feeling even meant.”
“All the while I was trying to decide if boys or girls gave me that flutter, you were trying to figure out if boys or men gave you yours,” she teases, a soft smile curving her lips, despite the weight of reality pushing down on her brows, making them form a thin, unmoving line.
“It was a crush, over the years. Something silly, you know? I mean, I never told anyone, hey I have a crush on Kat’s dad. It was just… something I had, for me, you know?”
She bobs her head. “I do. Like the way my entire life I had that Baywatch poster up, and told myself it was because I was interested in being a lifeguard,” she says, and that is the break we both need, the two of us erupting into giggles.
Kat gets comfortable, stacking her boots on my coffee table, rattling the mugs. I want her to get comfortable, because a best friendship doesn't end with comfort, so I can assume she’s not here to throw me away.
“Think I had my dad fooled?” she asks, swiping under her eye, still smiling.
I return her smile. “I don’t know.”
Her smile falls away. “You had me fooled.”
“I wasn’t trying to fool you Kat. I wasn’t… I didn’t think anything would ever happen, I mean, obviously,” I breathe, heat crawling up my neck as the conversation takes a more serious turn.
“So… you’ve loved him forever?”
I volley my head but decide now is not the time for semantics.
“More or less, yes. As a girl it was a crush from afar, but as an adult, it’s been hard to draw the line between harmless crush and holy shit I actually know this man really well and could actually be in love with him completely one-sided forever. ”
Kat just gently nods her head, and finally after what feels like forever, she reaches for her coffee and takes a sip. She passes me mine and I do the same.
“I’m glad you’re drinking the coffee because you wouldn’t come here to end a friendship and drink the coffee,” I say quietly over the rim of my mug, eyeing her for a reaction.
She lowers her mug, but her expression brings me no ease. “I would never stop being your friend. But I do want to understand every working part of this, especially because I have a very strong feeling today is going to end with you being my father’s girlfriend.”
My stomach leaps into my throat and my heart immediately jumps, hammering in my ears.
I tug at the lapel of my pajamas, and fan myself.
“I don’t think so, Kat.” But just the mention of me being Ford’s has my body hot and fiery, a reaction I literally cannot hide.
“We’re… incompatible. Which is ironic and cruel, right?
After loving him for years? I get my chance and I’m too insecure. ”
“How do you know you’re incompatible?” she asks, lowering her mug, brows still so serious.
I lower my mug too, bringing my legs onto the couch, tucking them beneath me. Sighing, I tell my best friend everything that has been in my brain the last few days.
“I’ve worked my whole life to love me. To not listen to what everyone else has to say about me and my choices.
Ignoring my dad telling me that choosing photography over business in college was foolish and misguided.
Ignoring my inner voice that if I eat less, I will be more valuable in the world.
Ignoring every man ever telling me I’d be prettier if I were thinner.
Ignoring my inner voice saying I’m undeserving.
All of those things, I’ve actively worked against ignoring, and I’ve won, you know?
I’m not insecure. I don’t hate myself. But your dad, he’s so big, he’s larger than life.
He’s… Ford Mercer,” I explain, because if any man is a verb, it’s him.
“I can’t punish him for being a larger than life, incredible person.
But I know me. Every time I see him with Elle, my stomach will knot.
Each time a woman says hello, I’ll wonder, was he with her?
I know, it’s not him. It’s me. It’s my jealousy and insecurity but I don’t know.
I guess loving him from afar, I never really considered having him.
And never considered that he would want someone like me. ”
“Someone like you?” Only now does one of Kat’s eyebrows dip, her face marked in curiosity.
I roll my eyes and let my head tip to the side. “Come on.”
Now she narrows both eyes on me, sharp and pointing. “You come on.”
“Kat.”
“Juliette.”
“I do not look like the women that your dad dates, okay? Now I’m not saying there’s anything wrong with me because Lord knows I am not going backwards, not even for Ford Mercer, but I’m not going to be a fool here, Kat.
Okay. I don’t exactly look like the women he goes out with.
I’ve seen him over the years. And I’ve seen every single woman on his arm over the years, too. ”
She sighs. “I hate everything you just said but I understand where you got that logic from,” she says.
“I guess I never thought about what being with him would be like because I never thought it was possible. But after the cake tasting I felt like he saw me the way I saw him. Not as Ford and Juliette, people in relation to you, Kat, but as an adult man and an adult woman. I don’t know.
There was something in that cake, I think.
” I smile at my best friend, and my chest lightens when she returns the smile.
“That’s what he said,” she starts, and I try to imagine Ford talking about me, Juliette Wilson, to Kat. I can’t even wrap my head around it, and I must go flush, because she puts her hand on my ankle and squeezes.