Chapter Nineteen #2
“I’m fine,” she told Olive, because it was true. Because she needed it to be true, even as her gaze slid to Daphne, even as Daphne’s eyes met hers, even as April looked away for the four hundredth time.
“There she goes again,” Olive said out of the side of her mouth.
“Oh, shut up,” April said, then proceeded to tickle Olive’s middle, and she giggled like she was ten years old again.
April was still digging a finger into Olive’s ribs when the back door opened and Ramona came outside.
“Look who’s here, everyone,” she called, her eyes finding April’s and widening.
April frowned at the blurry shadows behind Ramona. She hadn’t even noticed when Ramona left the gathering to answer the front door, and April couldn’t imagine who else—
She froze as her parents stepped onto the patio, the twilit glow making them look almost angelic.
Almost.
They stood stoically together, the Drs. Preston and Jacqueline Evans.
April’s mother clutched the strap of her black pocketbook—it wasn’t a purse or a bag, it was a pocketbook—her brown bob cut severely just below her chin.
She wore a crisp white blouse tucked into knee-length navy shorts, as though she were attending the summer session of an East Coast private school.
Preston wore his usual khaki pants—flat front, to keep up with the times—a starchy light blue dress shirt, and a bow tie.
The bow tie was a signature look for her father, something he’d donned every day since his residency at Northwestern, claiming a bow tie was jovial and set patients at ease.
April had always found this quirk of her father’s strange, as the word jovial had never exactly described the Preston Evans she knew.
“Mom, Dad,” April said, patting Olive’s back to stand so she could get up. “What are you doing here?”
Her mother gave a tight-lipped smile. “Mr. Riley invited us.”
“He did,” April said, barely a question.
“That he did,” Preston said. “I ran into him at Gallagher’s yesterday.”
“You’ve all known our Ramona since she was nine years old,” said Mr. Riley, who had joined them to shake the Evanses’ hands. “I figured you’d want to help us celebrate as well.”
“Of course,” Jacqueline said, smiling without her teeth. “April hadn’t even told us the good news yet.”
“I’ve been busy,” April said. A paltry excuse, sure, but the only one she had.
“Well, we’re glad to have you,” Mr. Riley said, then squeezed April’s shoulder meaningfully. He knew almost as well as Ramona that April’s relationship with her mom and dad was a bit tense. But he was a parent too, and probably abided by some sort of code April didn’t understand.
“Congratulations, you two,” Preston said. He handed Ramona a bottle of wine, no doubt something French and expensive. April’s parents were wine snobs.
“Thank you so much,” Ramona said, taking the bottle and then hugging them both.
Everyone was on their feet now. Mr. Riley introduced April’s parents to Jack and Carrie, and then Ramona introduced Daphne while April stood frozen next to the firepit as though watching a play unfold onstage.
She felt suddenly young and useless.
“Sweetheart,” her mother said, walking up to her with her mouth pinched.
“Mother,” April said politely.
Jacqueline proceeded to take in April’s clothes—her usual black jeans, boots, and dark purple racerback tank—even going so far as to reach out and pluck at the material of her top, rubbing it between two fingers.
April rolled her shoulders back, just to remove her mother’s claw, and Jacqueline cleared her throat.
“You didn’t tell us you were teaching art at Cloverwild this summer,” she said.
April sighed. She’d always known it was impossible to keep secrets in this damn town, but she was hoping for a little more time before she had to talk to her parents about her poor life choices.
“I am,” she said simply.
“And your shop?” her mother asked as Preston joined them, handing Jacqueline a glass of white wine.
“We passed by there the other weekend,” he said before taking a pompous sip—pursing his mouth, making a slurping sound as he rolled the wine on his tongue, which was sort of disgusting, if you asked April.
After he swallowed, he tsked. “Closed at two in the afternoon on a Saturday. Not a great business model.”
April inhaled deeply through her nose. Slowly, letting her lungs fill completely, while she decided how to play this. She didn’t want to ruin Ramona’s engagement dinner. Nor did she want to deal with her parents’ potential horror at her aimlessness.
But she was also tired. Tired of caring, of not owning what she was doing—or not doing—with her life. She was fucking tired of keeping every thought and feeling inside and hidden until the right time, until the people around her were able to digest them.
“Closed it,” she said calmly. Factually. She folded her hands in front of her and forced her chin north a few centimeters. “A few weeks ago.”
At first her parents simply blinked at her. Her mother’s mouth opened, just a fraction, and her father looked at her as though she were bacteria under a microscope he was trying to identify. Next, they glanced at each other.
April braced herself for their disappointment, for the lecture from her father on how she’d mishandled their investment in her business, the way her mother would somehow work in April’s lack of professional demeanor as a reason for failure.
Translation: her tattoos, dyed hair, and overt queerness.
While her parents had never really expressed an opinion one way or another about the fact that April was pansexual—they’d adored Elena, after all—their long-suffering sighs seemed to stem mostly from who April was as a whole person.
Queer, straight, dyed hair or mouse brown, April herself inspired baffled expressions and furrowed brows, which only intensified as she got older.
Thirty-three and still gallivanting through life like a twenty-year-old without any ambition, passion, or plans.
April held her breath, readying herself for the same fight they’d been having April’s entire life.
“Well,” Jacqueline said finally before taking a demure sip of her own wine. “I’m very sorry to hear that.”
“Shame,” Preston said, his frown etching deep lines into the sides of his mouth, then glanced around as though desperate for someone else to talk to. He looked back at his daughter, his expression impassive. “Let us know where you land.”
Then he put his arm around Jacqueline’s shoulder and led her off to join a raucous discussion going on with Mr. Riley, Jack, and Carrie.
April stood there for a second, feeling as though she was watching her own life unfold on a movie screen, powerless to influence it, completely uninvolved in any choice. Her mother looked back at her once, but then quickly focused again on the adults in her new conversation.
April wasn’t sure why she was surprised.
Her parents had always hovered between disappointment and disinterest when it came to April, but as it turned out, the way they made her feel never dulled.
The pain was still quick and razor-sharp, drawing blood before she even realized the blade had touched her skin.
And dammit, April would not cry.
Not here.
She would fucking not.
“Apes,” Ramona said, hurrying toward her. She wore a pink tee that said Feed the Birds over a sketch of St. Paul’s Cathedral inside a snow globe, tucked into a pleated gray skirt. She looped her arm through April’s. “I’m sorry.”
“For what,” April said, her voice unintentionally deadpan.
“I didn’t realize Dad had invited them. He said it happened so fast and it was awkward, and then it slipped his mind until they—”
April untangled her arm from Ramona’s, holding up her hand to stop her best friend from talking. Because even though she knew this wasn’t Ramona’s fault—wasn’t even Mr. Riley’s fault—she didn’t want to hear excuses.
“I need a sec,” April said quietly, then turned and headed down the stone steps and along the path leading from the patio to the dock, the lake sparkling a deep purple in front of her.
She walked fast, not slowing down until her boots clomped onto the wooden dock.
There wasn’t a railing, just a flat plane of wood, a canoe bobbing in the water.
She sat down, letting her legs dangle over the edge.
Then she breathed.
Or tried to, but her body was still trying to cry, her throat tight and achy, her eyes stinging. She’d just bitten back the worst of it, finally gotten her chest to loosen up a little, when she heard footsteps behind her.
She groaned inwardly. “Mona, I said I needed a minute.”
“It’s me.”
April looked over her shoulder to see Daphne walking down the pier toward the dock, her sundress swinging around her thighs.
Honestly, it looked like something a true country girl would wear in the summer—tiny pink, blue, and yellow flowers covering the cotton, the hem teasing above her knee, the fluttery short sleeves showing off her pale arms.
And those damn buttons trailing down the front, like a tiny path leading—
April turned back toward the lake, focused on the water. “Hi,” she said. She felt Daphne sit next to her, their shoulders brushing lightly.
“You okay?” Daphne asked.
April watched the water undulate with a stronger-than-normal breeze, morphing from purple to black as the sun disappeared. Solar-powered lights clicked on around the dock, filling the space with a warmer glow.
I’m fine was on the tip of her tongue. She was fine about Ramona’s engagement, and she was fine about her shop closing, about Trudy and her brood living in her house, about her parents’ lack of care, about the uncertainty of the Devon.
But right now, she didn’t want to be fine.
She wanted to be real.
“I don’t know,” she said.
Daphne took a deep breath, her arm settling heavier against April’s as she exhaled.
“Your parents seem…” Daphne started, but then stopped, her mouth open, her brow furrowed.