Chapter 9 #2
"Is it fine though? And does it have to be?" A few tendrils of her long, dark hair slipped free from a claw clip. She batted the hair away, saying, "Just because you can't see the bruise anymore doesn't mean it won't hurt if you press on it."
I was quiet for a minute, thinking of all the bruises I ritualistically pressed. The ones I kept black and blue just to prove to myself they existed. They'd been real.
"I have several follow-up questions for you but two big ones before we go any further," Jamie said, wiggling two fingers.
"First, how long do we have until your critters are back from their visit to the sixth grade?
And second, do you have any more cookies or food items you'd share with me?
I cleared out my snacks last Friday and most of my working memory too because I forgot that I graze all day long. "
I glanced at the clock. "We probably have another half hour." The last days of school were completely lawless. Schedules? We didn't know her. "I have contraband almonds. Do you want those?"
"Audrey, love, I almost ordered delivery of a taco platter for twenty.
The only reason I didn't is that they don't open for another two hours.
So, yes, I'll take your almonds even if you throw them at me individually like I'm a sea lion while you tell me what happened with this old, iron-balled boyfriend of yours. "
"He was there," I said as I emptied out the goods cached in my closet. "At the reunion. I didn't think he would be, but he was. We met for coffee the next day and we talked and—and he asked me to go on a trip with him out west to visit his mother and pretend to be his fiancée."
Jamie blinked a few times and then shrugged as if this wasn't unusual at all. "And you said yes."
"I did, because I've broken all my promises to him in the past and this is the one thing I can do. But now I think I've made a huge mistake," I said, the words running together. "More like a series of mistakes."
"Here's what I need you to do. Give me the minute-by-minute recap of this reunion. What was said, how it was said. Full dramatic reenactment." She rolled her hand as she chomped on the nuts. "Walk me through it and I'll decide if mistakes were made."
I continued organizing the closet as I went back to the tent on the tennis courts, with the wine down my dress and the blueberry feta crostini I hated. To the dance floor and the bathroom, and the next day at Semantic and the long drive back to Boston.
I didn't love voicing the tragic comedy vibes of this, especially with me playing the part of the tragedy, but I trusted Jamie enough to tell her the whole, horrible truth.
"Wait, wait, wait," she said. "Wait a minute. Just wait. You're telling me his mother is deathbed-dying and she commands him to get his single-dad shit in order with you and he says, 'Wedding bells ring in the morning.'"
I still wasn't sure I understood why he'd offer up such a thing, even on the verge of losing his mother. Maybe I didn't have enough experience with deathbeds. I could see him pacifying her with some vague promises but an engagement seemed like a hard stretch. "Basically, yeah."
"Oh my stars and garters," she murmured.
"But the joke's on him because she made a full recovery," I continued. "I mean, the 'healthy as a horse, jumping jacks up and down the hospital halls, picking up her life and moving to Sedona with her bestie' kind of recovery."
"That boy put himself in a world of hurt, didn't he?
The holy spirits must've heard him rolling those dice and said, 'Bet.
'" She cackled as she scooped up another handful of almonds.
"What's his endgame? Is he going to need you to marry him and live happily ever after to stick this lie to the wall? "
"No. We'll go to Arizona and do that thing and then be done with each other. Sometime around the end of the summer, he'll tell his mother it ended."
Jamie brushed salt from her fingertips. "Yeah, I don't need a crystal ball to tell you that's not happening. I've been down this path before and I can promise you it never ends that way."
I stared at her as she snatched a stale box of cheese crackers off my desk. "Except that's exactly what will happen. We've agreed." It sounded like I was trying to double underline my words. "I'm helping him and finally getting some closure after all these years."
"Sure you are."
"What?" I peered at her. "What does that mean?"
"It means I'd really appreciate daily updates. Hourly, if you can manage," she replied. "It also means you should splurge on some new bras and undies for this trip. Cover those bases."
"We're not— I'm not—no. No. That's not what's happening here."
"Of course not," she drawled.
"He has no interest in me anymore," I said, and I could hear myself fraying.
Could feel where he'd held me on the dance floor, in the bathroom.
The way he'd stared at me across the café table, a picture of disinterest until it came time to launch this wild setup.
"That's over. It's done. And he's not looking for anything.
He's busy with his son and that's not where it's going with us. "
"Yeah, you're probably right," she said, elbow-deep in the box of cheese crackers. "Fuck that guy."
I went to respond but stopped myself. Closed my mouth.
Frowned at her. "You say that like it's a suggestion, not an insult.
It was 'fuck that guy—question mark' and not 'fuck that guy—period, end of crude, declarative statement.
'" I blinked a couple hundred times. "You meant it in a derogatory sense, right? "
"Go with your gut. You already know which one is right. But I hear condoms are north of ninety-five percent effective and no one's ever sad about packing extra lube."
"I'm posing as a fraudulent future daughter-in-law and stomping all over a nice woman's dying wish.
Condoms are the last thing I'm going to need.
We fly out in a few days and there's a greater than zero chance this is going to blow up in our faces," I said.
"All I need to know is whether I'm making a huge mistake. Should I back out?"
She downed a handful of cheesy dust. "What's this boy's name? You haven't mentioned it yet."
"Jude," I replied. It was nice saying it out loud after going all those years only hearing it in my head.
"Heavens help us." Jamie set down the box, her mouth round and eyes wide.
"I've never once seen that smile from you.
You just turned into a bright, shining sunbeam.
" She reached for me, closing her cheesy-dust-free hand around my forearm and giving me a meaningful shake.
"You still have feelings for him. Big feelings. Serious feelings."
"That's not it." I said this and I meant it…
but I also knew seeing Jude made me feel like I was waking up from a long, dreamless sleep.
He forced me to the edge of my limits and pushed me to say exactly what I was thinking, even when I took aim at him.
There were no comfort zones when he was around, no boundaries to speak of, and something about that was outrageously freeing.
It also felt like he pushed me off a new cliff every five minutes—and wasn't that fitting for such an overgrown super-specimen of a man? With his commanding personality that'd never once been compared to an antacid, and his well-fucked hair.
I really had to stop thinking about that last one.
Jamie balled up the empty cracker bag and started ripping the box to shreds. "If it's not big feely feels, what is it?"
After a gaping pause where I overthought my entire inner world, I finally said, "We have a past but not a future."
She nodded. "What if things change? What if he says—"
"They won't."
"Hypothetically speaking," she said, "would you be open to a future?"
I crossed my arms, protecting the darkest of the bruises no one could see, and shook my head. "It's just for the summer. Then, it will be over."