15. The Cards Don’t Lie
Chapter 15
The Cards Don’t Lie
R ose
I hung up the Last. Bridesmaid. Dress and stretched my back. They each hung in garment bags labeled with the women’s names. All done .
And the evening all to myself. I hadn’t seen much of Jason since after Mom and Lily left. He’d gone to bed early, completely beat from all the hard work he’d done on the storm damage, and he was up earlier than me to pull out the damaged floors and drywall in what had been my apartment bedroom. After another shower and a quick kiss, he went out with Antoine and a couple of other friends.
Unless I pounced on him tonight, we would have gone our first whole day without sex, and his distance was a pit in my stomach.
It was only seven o’clock. I didn’t want to do anything but mope, but our laundry had piled up with everything we had going on, and I guess I had time to watch some guilty pleasure TV.
Lord knows I needed something to distract me. Our first day without devouring each other. When he was in the house with me, however briefly, I kept trying to engage in our regular conversations, but he’d been so surface-level. How was I doing on the dresses? He’d like to get the yard work done before it rains. Would I mind if he went out tonight with friends?
I forcefully sorted our underwear from our colors. He’d been weird ever since I’d confronted him about his mom. But I didn’t regret it. I didn’t have my mom’s expertise, but it was clear to me that he needed to be honest with her. If he was in love with me like he said he was, shouldn’t he be willing to have an uncomfortable conversation with her about us?
His words haunted me. After how I left, I feel like I have to atone forever. After how he left.
A man who could lie to his mother could lie to me. A man who could leave his mother, could leave me.
I wiped a hot tear from my cheek. The back pocket of Jason’s khakis crinkled. I pulled out a well-worn sheet of paper and tossed it on top of the washer to give him later, whatever it was.
Wait—my name was on that paper, written on the outside in Jason’s all-caps architect’s print. I shoved his pants in the washer and picked up the paper, carefully unfolding it. It was a copy of my middle school bucket list, with a code Jason had added at the top in blue pen: checkmark = done.
So that’s what the waterfall and Christmas shop had been about. He’d been trying to help me finish my list.
Beneath the copy of my bucket list, Jason had started his own bucket list—get a tattoo? Damn, that would be hot. But that was all scratched out, and next to it was a list titled “What I want in a life partner.”
The paper trembling in my hands, I left the clothes and went into the church. Sat at the table. Stared at the paper. How long had he been trying to help me finish my list? I couldn’t even figure it out. Because my eyes were stuck on the word honeymoon and my name underlined at the culmination of his “what I want in a life partner” list. On our names written together with his last name like he was a lovestruck teen. Exactly what I used to write in my middle school diary. He even added a version if I wanted to hyphenate. What man did that sort of thing?
He told me he loved me. I didn’t know he was this serious.
To have a honeymoon, you’d have to be married. Jason would never marry someone he couldn’t tell his mom about.
Heather’s “Fergalicious” started playing on my phone, followed by the doorbell ringing.
The list still in my hand, I went straight to open the door and threw myself into Heather and Abby’s arms.
“Baby, what’s wrong?” Abby asked while Heather noooo’ed . “Why are you crying?”
“How did y’all know I needed you?” I sobbed, pulling them into the church.
They hugged me back while shutting the door behind us.
“Do I have to kick Deck Daddy’s ass?” Heather asked. “Because I’m way tougher than I look.”
Abby ushered me to the sofa and held and shhed me as I cried myself out while Heather rubbed my back and murmured soothing words like “it’s okay” and “I will cut a bitch for you.”
“Do you want to talk about it?” Abby asked.
I pulled away and handed her the bucket list, grabbing the tissue box off the coffee table.
“What’s this?” She pushed her long braid over her shoulder and held the list so Heather could see it too.
“My bucket list from when I was in middle school. He must’ve made a copy of it after we dug up the time capsule. I can’t believe he’s had it all this time.”
Abby frowned. “Help me understand, love, because this is adorable.”
Heather looked around the church. “Is he home?”
“No. He’s out with friends.” I blew my nose until I had a healthy collection of snot rags on the floor. “I was doing laundry, and I found it in his pocket.”
Abby rubbed my back. “Why is this making you cry?”
I spilled the whole story. About Kasey and Jason’s mom and how my mom suddenly decided after nearly thirty years that maybe marriage wasn’t so bad. I told them about Fellatio Misty and how Lily mocked me, about how I now lived with my landlord who was “in love with me” but also wanted to keep me a secret from the people he actually loved.
“How can I trust him? I mean—Heather, you’re as commitment-phobic as me. Isn’t this shady as hell?”
“For sure. But girl…” She picked up the list and held it out to me. “I’m so confused. This is the list of a committed man. Why won’t he talk to his mom?”
“I don’t know. Maybe none of this matters, anyway. The worst part of Lily’s bullying is that she’s right. I’m a flashpanner. I always break up with men when things get too serious. But I can’t tell if Jason’s safe—i.e. not serious about me—or somebody I need to break up with. I’m stuck in this limbo.”
“Are those really the only two options?” Abby asked gently. “Stay because he doesn’t love you, leave because he does?”
“I don’t know. Those are the only two things I know how to do.”
“No, no,” Heather said. “You also know how to love yourself first and make hard choices when you have to. Maybe consult your tarot cards, pray about it. Get your head straight about what you really want, and trust yourself.” She squeezed my face in her hand. “You’re too amazing to stay with someone who isn’t proud to be with you.”
I blew my nose. “What I really want is to go back to playing around and having a ton of amazing sex and none of these Serious Thoughts and Complicated Feelings.” I tossed my tissue on the pile. “Everything was perfect before.”
Abby squeezed me. “If only you weren’t so lovable. Jason never had a chance.”
I laughed and rolled my eyes.
“Why don’t you come to dinner with us?” Abby asked. “Could you use a girls’ night?”
I nodded. “I could. Y’all.” I looked between my two closest friends. “I’m so sorry. I was avoiding you and your offer to live with you. I’ve been so embarrassed that I failed in New York, and I was worried y’all would think less of me. Especially after throwing me a going away party and sending me off with all that money y’all collected.”
“Stop right there.” Heather leveled her brown eyes at me. “First off, you didn’t fail in New York. You rocked your internships. Lovelace Bridal even featured one of your designs in their fashion show! It’s ungodly expensive to live in New York, especially as an artist, who are never paid enough. For as long as I’ve known you, you’ve talked about having your own label, and from where I’m sitting, you’re well on your way.”
“Absolutely!” Abby said. “Even if you had failed up there—and you didn’t—we love you and will support you no matter what. You’re so talented, and so hard-working. The only way you could fail is if you give up. And you’re too driven for that.”
“Thank you.” I dabbed at fresh tears. “I love you, too.”
They wrapped their arms around me in a big cuddly hug.
“We know,” Heather said. “Now go dress yourself in somethin’ slutty.” She threw her long, balayaged hair behind her. “And let’s make some boys cry because of how hot we are.”
Jason was already in bed when I got home. I almost went to sleep on that air mattress out of spite, but I’d missed him too much.
I’d no sooner crawled into bed when he rolled over and sleepily pulled me into his arms, kissing my head. With my back to his front, it didn’t take long for simple caresses on my arm and belly to arouse both of us. After a quickie in the dark, we fell asleep in each other’s arms.
But he was gone when I woke up. I found him working in the rectory, pulling out sheet rock and refusing all my offers of help. Not even taking advantage of the clear message I was sending with the “Deck Daddy nailed me” tank top I was wearing without a bra.
But he agreed to let me smoke-cleanse the church, at least. So I did it in my tank top and panties just to lure him between my legs if he happened to walk inside. And now the air smelled pleasantly of mugwort and lavender. And since he sadly still wasn’t nailing me, I sat down to talk to my tarot cards about him.
I settled onto his plush living room rug at the coffee table with some tea and my favorite deck. Knocking three times on the stack of cards, I murmured, “Tell me about my relationship with Jason.”
I shuffled a few minutes more, focusing on my question, then I chose a card and laid it face down on the table. The golden goddess on the back of the card gazed encouragingly at me.
But I couldn’t bring myself to turn it over.
The door opened behind me on the side wall. “Jason?”
I snapped my head toward Mrs. Betty’s voice. She was three steps in, and my heart banged against my rib cage. I froze. She was about to catch me in my panties in her son’s house. It was bad enough I wasn’t wearing a bra.
But it was too late to hide. I couldn’t reach the throw on the chair without getting up, and it would look suspicious to be wrapped in a blanket with it being ninety-seven degrees outside, anyway.
She breathed in and waved the air, coughing. “What’s that smell?” She sat her purse down at the pew by the door and called for Jason again.
I had to admit I was sitting here before she turned and saw me and wondered why I was being rude. “Hi Mrs. Betty,” I called out, waving but not getting up. I grabbed my phone and texted Jason.
Mrs. Betty turned toward me then walked forward quickly, a frown on her face as her eyes darted around from me to my tarot cards, to the smoking bundle of mugwort in the abalone shell on the side table. I got up from being cross-legged to kneel on the floor, guiltily pulling down at the hem of my tank top to cover my panties, but that only made it more obvious I wasn’t wearing a bra.
“Why are you sitting in my son’s living room half-naked?”
All the blood left my face. She was an archangel down from heaven to condemn me.
“Have you been smoking weed?” Her gaze fell to the coffee table, to my box of clearly marked tarot cards. “Why are there tarot cards in my son’s church ?” Her voice went up an octave.
“Mrs. Betty, I can explain—”
“You don’t have to explain anything. My son does. He should never have rented a room to a godless Guidry girl—” She clapped her hand over her mouth.
“ A godless Guidry girl ?” I echoed. “What’s that supposed to mean?”
Jason burst through the front doors. He jogged up, his wide eyes looking in between us.
“Jason Colin Soniat, I came by to see how things were coming here with the repairs,” Mrs. Betty said. “And you told me that this girl was living in that spare room after the tree fell in her bedroom, but she’s sitting here with hardly any clothes on. Where is Rose living, Jason? Tell me the truth.”
He took a big breath, his hand to his cheek. “You’re right, Ma, and I should’ve told you. I’m sorry. Rose is living with me. We’re together. Rose is my girlfriend.”
Mrs. Soniat went quiet. Fuming. I was sixteen again, caught by my high school boyfriend’s mom making out in his bedroom. Except I wasn’t. I was a grown woman, and this situation was ridiculous.
“So you moved in, seduced him—”
I stood up. “I didn’t seduce him. We’re—”
“Can you please put some pants on?” She covered her eyes and turned away.
Jason gestured at me like, woman put some clothes on . I grabbed the throw and wrapped it around my hips like a sarong.
“Jason, my heart is broken. I can’t believe you kept this from me, after everything that’s happened.”
“Ma, it’s not like that.”
“And did she talk you into doing these drugs?”
“It’s not drugs,” I asserted. “It’s mugwort, and we weren’t smoking it. It’s to clear the space.”
She turned on me. “Is that some kind of pagan ritual? And to bring tarot cards into my son’s home—” she broke off, her throat catching. Jason reached for her, but she waved him away from her. His face fell.
“Are you two serious about each other?” she demanded.
“Yes,” I blurted, then turned at Jason’s silence.
His mouth was wide. He stared at his mom, then turned to me. “I…”
I waited, but that was all he said. One singular personal pronoun.
My stomach dropped. The man I thought I was falling in love with looked between his mother and me and took a step toward her as she went for her purse.
He ran a hand through his hair as his mom walked out the door. “Did you have to be half-naked playing with your tarot cards in the living room?”
And then he followed his mom out of the church, calling for her.
The door shut. For a moment, I stood staring at it, my heart in freefall.
“I don’t mean anything to you, do I?” I asked his quiet house.
I looked down, flipped over the card. The Tower.
Figures.
My tears fell on my cards as I gathered them and shoved them back into their box. I doused the smoking bundle of herbs in its shell on my way upstairs. I siphoned all my emotions into an imaginary box in my heart and locked it.
After ordering an Uber, I calmly threw three changes of clothes into my bag. I changed my shirt, throwing Jason’s tank top onto his bed where we’d made love so many times. Threw on some shorts. Laced up my tennis shoes without socks. Swept down the stairs and shoved my iPad and charger into my backpack. And his mom’s handkerchief. I still had to deal with that.
I packed up my sewing machine, hurriedly wrapping its cords and sticking it into its hard plastic case.
As I walked toward the parking lot, Jason stood talking through the open window of my Uber driver. I checked the license plate against my app.
Jason’s expression grew panicked as his eyes fell on everything I was carrying. “Where are you going?”
“Home. Where I should never have left.” I murmured a hello to the woman who nodded at me, clearly trying to stay out of this drama, and started putting my things in the back.
“Baby, this is your home, with me,” he said softly.
The broken tone of his voice made tears fall down my face. “If I can’t do what I want in my home, then it’s not really home for me, is it?”
“Rose—”
“If you really loved me, you would’ve told her.”
“Baby—”
But I wouldn’t let him speak. “I love that you love your mom. I would never have come between you. But you chose her anyway.” I got in and shut the door.
“I didn’t—I wasn’t trying to.” He put his hands on the car, talking through the closed window. “Please don’t leave. Can’t we talk about this?”
“No. You want to please Big Daddy StudFinders and your mom? Fine. You do you. Because you sure as hell won’t be doing me. I’ll send somebody back for all my shit.” To the driver, I said, “You can leave.”
He called my name as we pulled away, but I didn’t turn to look at him once. I pulled out my phone and texted him with trembling fingers.
Jason
The silence of the church was deafening. Burning herbs hung in the air. My hands were shaking. What the fuck just happened?
I sat heavily onto the pew by the door. Rose’s tea was still on the coffee table, as if she’d walked away just for a moment.
But that look on her face. She wasn’t coming back.
When the tears came, my elbows were on my knees and my head was in my hands. I did this to myself, like all the worst things in my life.
With Kasey, I chose what she wanted over what I wanted. With Rose, I chose what Mom wanted over what I wanted. What fucking StudFinders wanted, over what I wanted. I’d acted so evolved over the last two years. But treating Rose like that was the opposite of how I wanted to live.
I pulled out my phone and texted her, ignoring her formal notice to leave the apartment.
She may not even be going to her mom’s. Shit. I’d be screwed if she went to a friend’s house. I’d never find her.
Who was I kidding? The way she left, the way she looked at me—she didn’t want me to follow her.
Minutes went by, and I couldn’t even tell if she’d seen my text.
Hard knocking on the front door.
“Rose?” I dashed to the door and threw it open.
Becca stood on my front porch, arms akimbo. “What in the holy hell is happening? Mom just called, yelling something about you lying and Rose in her panties?” She opened her mouth to say more but stopped, leaned in closer. “Jason, are you crying? Are you okay?”
I roughly wiped my face and stood back, gesturing her inside.
Only a few steps in, she turned to me and put her hand on my arm. “Jason, you’ve done so much since the last time I was here!” She pulled me toward the couch. “I want to see everything, but first, talk to me.”
I took a big breath. “Rose and I have been together since we evacuated.”
She smiled and raised her eyebrows. “ Together together? And be honest, because if you mean like a couple together, Lily owes me fifty bucks.”
I nodded. “Rose is my girlfriend. Was—she was my girlfriend.” After my last break-up, I mostly felt numb. But by the time I finished telling Becca the highlights from the moment Rose and I kissed to the moment she walked out, my chest hurt so badly I could barely breathe.
“And you didn’t tell anybody because of the StudFinders people?”
I rubbed my eyes with the heels of my hands. “And because I was afraid of how Mom would take it.”
“I know.” She sighed and rolled her eyes. “She’s ridiculous about them for some reason. I think she’s never forgiven Ms. Dahlia for giving me a vibrator when I turned eighteen, and it’s extended to Lily and Rose.”
I shook my head and grabbed her arm. “Stop there and don’t elaborate. It’s not Ms. Dahlia’s fault, it’s mine. Mom’s disapproved of everything in my life since I came back home. She’s been pressuring me to date a woman she approves of, like fucking Misty, and completely ignoring me when I tell her no. And Misty literally propositioned me after I told her I wasn’t interested.”
“Wait, what did she do?”
I shrugged with my whole upper body. “She’s obsessed with offering me blow jobs, for some reason. And no matter how many times I tell her to fuck off, she won’t stop. And Mom doesn’t believe me.” I pulled my phone out and showed Becca the conversation.
Her jaw dropped as she scrolled through it. “That bitch is out of the wedding. I didn’t want her in it in the first place. That was all Mom.” She handed me back my phone.
“I’m so fucking done with her.” I took screenshots of Misty’s latest propositions and sent them to Mom. “There. Now Mom’ll have to believe me.” I set my phone aside and put my head in my hands. “But none of that matters. I fucked up. I hurt Rose so badly, she’s never coming back.” My voice was consumed by my crying, and Becca hugged me close.
“Jason, my heart’s broken that you’re so sad. You really love her, don’t you?”
“I love her, and I love Mom, and I can’t make anybody happy.”
She squeezed me tight then released me, wiping my tears and smoothing down my hair. “It’s so weird to see you all grown up, crying over a woman when I remember you crying over a Superman action figure you lost. Mom must feel that even more than I do. She always says that having a baby is like having a piece of your heart walking around outside your body. It can make her a little extreme.”
“But I did this to her. I hurt her so badly when I left, and I don’t think I can ever make up for it. Kasey—”
“Kasey wasn’t the whole problem, and neither were you. I’m not trying to downplay what you went through, or what Mom went through missing you. But I was there from the beginning of that whole thing. Mom basically gave you two choices: break up with Kasey or leave with her and try to find some peace and happiness.” She shrugged. “None of us hated her at first. But then we all started noticing how you always deferred to her in everything. Your whole personality changed from the lovable, happy goofball we’ve always known to this somber man who always looked distracted and miserable.
“That’s when she started laying into her. The religion stuff was just a scapegoat and what Mom turned to when she was sick with worry, missing you. We were all worried about you. Even Alex expressed concerned emotions and not just jokes, if you can believe that.”
A corner of my mouth quirked up.
“My point is that Mom was at fault too. She didn’t give you a minute’s peace when you were already under enough stress with Kasey. And I’m sorry I wasn’t there for you more. I was so wrapped up in getting that new pharmacy started, and Brad was trying to establish his law practice. It’s no excuse, but sometimes you don’t realize something’s a huge problem until it goes critical.”
“I wish I’d never left with Kasey. I wish I never even met her. But you’re right, I didn’t feel like I had a choice. With her always in one ear, and Mom always in the other—and I thought I loved her. I thought Kasey was my future.”
“You did what you thought you had to do. I know. And it sucked. But you don’t have to atone forever. You have to let Mom take responsibility for her part in it too, or she’ll never learn how to talk things out reasonably. You can’t be under her thumb forever. That’s no way to live.”
“Gah, under her thumb . That’s what Kasey used to say about Mom. When Rose said it to me the other day it made me want to shed my skin.”
“You might have some trauma. Have you thought about seeing a therapist?”
“I went for a long time after Kasey. But maybe I need to go back.”
She grinned. “So, you and Rose, huh? Lately, you’ve been the happiest, most Jason-like you’ve been in literal years. We’ve all noticed it, but none of us figured it out. Well,” she amended. “I had suspicions.”
I put my face in my hands. “Me and Rose. It’s—it was so good. I love her so goddamn much. We were really partners. We worked so well together.” I paused. “We played so well together. We supported each other, and she trusted that I would make good decisions.”
“Stop talking about her in the past tense. You had a fight, is all. Do you know how many fights Brad and I have had?” She gestured to my phone, which I’d just checked for the thousandth time since she’d been here. “Did you try calling her?”
I shook my head. “I texted her, but she hasn’t written back.”
“Maybe give her some time to cool off. In the meantime, you know who you have to talk to, huh?”
I shook my head vehemently. “I’m not talking to Mom.”
She shook my knee. “You dumb little brother. Not wanting to talk to Mom is the whole reason Rose left. If you want her back—I assume you want her back?”
“Yeah, more than anything.”
“Then you have to pick Door Number Three, the ‘stand up to Mom and talk to her about big things’ option you didn’t take last time.”
“But how do I let go of this guilt? I’m just going to let her railroad me again.”
“Let her cool off, and talk to her at the rehearsal. Rose’ll be there too, and it’ll be a chance for the three of you to be adults and work it out.”
“I can’t bring that kind of drama to your wedding rehearsal.”
“Jason, there’s gonna be drama with both of them there. You might as well let me set a place card for it. It’ll make me feel more in charge.” She smiled, but I couldn’t.
“But what if she never gives Rose a chance?”
She shrugged with her hands up on either side of her head. “I don’t have a crystal ball. But Rose is awesome. Mom’ll come around when she sees how happy you are and that Rose isn’t trying to keep you away from us. Just because they don’t get along immediately doesn’t mean they won’t ever get along. The important thing is that you’re here, you’re talking to each other, and you’re trying. That’s all she wants. That’s all any of us want.”
I laughed without humor. “You make all of this sound so easy, but it’s not. The way I treated Rose, she’ll never talk to me again.”
Becca ruffled my hair. “You don’t know that. Love always finds a way.”
If Rose really loved me, that might be true. But did she?