Chapter Fifteen #2
And they were, which meant I had no choice. I knew I had to do it, and sooner rather than later. I’d only hoped the audience would be smaller and of the Applebee’s variety.
After settling the details of the event, which was to take place the following Friday night, the girls goaded Nina into teaching them how to do handstands on the beach, leaving me to sit in awkward silence with Alex, as Mia, Kitty, and Greyson tumbled into the sand, trying to imitate Nina’s graceful balance.
“Think I should sing the song about my injured hand for karaoke?” The thin white scar on his finger shone in the sunlight.
I knew he was trying to make me laugh, but I wasn’t in the mood. “I don’t think anyone would get it.”
Alex turned his chair to face me. “You seem mad at me.”
“I’m not.”
“Then why can’t you look at me?”
I pivoted my chair to face him, taking in the stubble on his jaw, the patches of silver along his temples that, even in the two months we’d known each other, had expanded. “See? I’m looking at you. I’m not mad.”
“Upset, then.”
I knew he wouldn’t drop this unless I said something. “August is a hard month, okay? My nephew and I have the same birthday. It’s got nothing to do with you.” Mostly true.
“I didn’t know.”
“Well, now you know.”
Alex looked as if he wanted to say something else, but I hopped from my chair to my feet before he could open his mouth. “I better go show them how it’s done.” I left him and joined Nina and the girls, who’d given up on handstands and were doing cartwheels instead.
“You look like you’ve just escaped Alcatraz,” Nina said, putting her hands on her hips when she stepped out of a cartwheel.
“I feel like it.” I glanced over to where Alex sat with two empty chairs beside him, then turned to the ocean. “What’s with him?”
Nina raised an eyebrow at me as if to say, Are you that oblivious?
“It’s not that. If it were, he would’ve kissed me.”
“Maybe he’s just confused.”
“What does he have to be confused about?”
“Oh, I don’t know. The strength of his feelings for you? I say we lock you two in a room and see how long it takes before you’re all over each other.”
“Be serious!”
“I am being serious. Maybe Alex likes you, but Ocean isn’t sure.
Or maybe it’s the other way around. I hate him, but I kind of love Aloe as your couple name.
No.” She snapped her fingers. “Jocean! That’s even better!
It sounds like a boy band.” She grinned at me, then ducked into another cartwheel before I could shove her.
“You are the worst best friend!” I called after her, even though we both knew it wasn’t true.
—
The night before my karaoke debut, Nina took Mia and Kitty for a walk down the beach to the pier.
I’d stayed behind to catch up on the blog.
I’d hardly looked at my website since posting about Coral Castle.
After responding to comments and emails, I sat at my desk, a blank document on the screen.
Every day it got harder and harder to tap into the positive persona I projected on the blog.
I hadn’t written my post for the dinner party yet because I wasn’t sure how to start.
I’d talk about my cooking disaster (it would be charming, relatable, funny).
I’d omit that it had been Mia and Kitty’s dastardly plan to get me and a certain someone closer together.
I’d talk about the laughter, the conversation, everyone’s fancy outfits, but the post would stop at dessert.
No warm, buzzy feelings in the kitchen, no dishwashing with a disheveled Alex.
No talk of Samson, no meltdown on the beach, no almost kiss and subsequent rejection.
I spun in my office chair, unsure how to start. My phone rang, and as soon as I looked at it and saw the word Mom, I set my feet onto the floor, braking hard mid-spin. Mom never called just to catch up, only to deliver bad news. I held my phone to my ear, answering before I could decide not to.
“Mom?”
“Jo?”
My mother’s voice brought me back to the night Samson died.
It had been past midnight when my phone rang, and I’d nearly bumped my head on Britt’s bunk when I sat up, thinking it was morning and my alarm was going off.
It had been disorienting, waking up in the middle of the night to the word Mom flashing on the screen.
Jo, my mother had said then, her voice thin and wavering. I hadn’t heard her so broken since Dad died. For the last seventeen years she’d been nothing but angry.
When she’d told me about Samson, I hadn’t felt anything.
Not right away. Because it was impossible.
I’d only seen him two months before, when I’d come up for New Year’s Eve.
We’d talked about going to a Marlins game.
I’d watched him feed a spider to the Venus flytrap Kitty had gotten him for Christmas.
At the time he died, I was throwing a black light party in the Sky Lounge. That can’t be right, I’d thought.
“Jo?” my mother said again, bringing me back to the condo. I thought of Beth and Mark. Had something happened to one of them?
“Yes, Mom?”
“How are you?”
How are you? I breathed a sigh of relief—no one was in danger. But even so, I was on edge. “I’m . . . fine. Just work and spending time with Mia and Kitty. How are—”
“Have you talked to your sister lately?”
My stomach sank. As I’d predicted, Mom had bad news to bear. “Not for a few days.”
“You might want to check on her. Mark moved out yesterday, and I know how close you two are.”
A tinny buzzing started in my ears, making it hard for me to hear what she said next. Something about an apartment downtown, Beth looking for boxes. “Mark . . . moved out? But I thought they were working on things.”
“Life isn’t a fairy tale, Jo.”
As if I didn’t already know that. “Yeah, Mom. I’m aware.”
“Well, call your sister.”
“Okay, I will.”
I waited for her to say something, anything. But after a few seconds of silence, she only said, “That’s all I wanted to tell you. Love you,” and hung up.
I lowered my phone, my hands shaking as I navigated to my favorites and tapped on my sister’s name.
I’d known Beth and Mark getting divorced was a possibility, of course I did.
But this was Beth and Mark! And even though I’d told myself love only ends in hurt, I’d held on to a thread of optimism for them.
Hadn’t they been through enough already?
“Is it true?” I said as soon as she answered.
“Where are the girls?”
I leaned back into my office chair. “Walking to the pier with Nina.”
Beth sighed, and the sound confirmed everything.
“So it is true.”
“Did Mom call you? Because I told her—”
“What? To keep it a secret from me? I can’t believe you’d tell Mom before me. I can’t believe this is happening at all.”
“This is why I didn’t tell you. And I didn’t tell Mom, she dropped by without warning, and it was obvious Mark was packing his stuff.”
I leaned back into my chair and spun a lazy circle with my eyes closed. “But on the phone you two sounded so . . . good?” The last I’d spoken to them, Mark had called her Betty, the nickname he’d had for her since high school. I hadn’t heard him say it in so long; I’d thought it was a good sign.
“It’s not like we hate each other,” Beth said. “It’s mutual. Amicable.”
“But you still love him, right?”
Beth sighed again. I could picture her sitting at the barstool in her kitchen with a hand against her forehead. She was probably still in her scrubs from work, ugly clogs on her feet, exasperated, as always, by her little sister. “Yes, but—”
“And he still loves you?”
“I think so, yes.”
“Then I don’t get it.” I knew it wasn’t my job to care so much about my sister’s marriage.
Supportive little sister! I reminded myself.
But Mark had been family since we were kids.
I knew he was a good man. He loved my sister.
He loved the kids. He loved me. When I lived with them, Mark had taken the time to help with my homework.
When Beth worked evenings at the hospital, he’d insist he could put the kids to bed by himself.
Don’t you have a paper due tomorrow? he’d say.
I knew it wasn’t about the homework. He was just trying to make sure I didn’t end up as a third parent.
You’re still a kid, Jo, he’d tell me whenever I tried to take on more responsibility at home.
Beth was quiet for a moment. “Sometimes love isn’t enough, Joey.”
The words hurt, though they shouldn’t have.
I knew it was true. Love and grief were dangerous, especially when they got caught up together.
My mother’s love for me—and I did believe she loved me—wasn’t enough.
My love for Dad and Samson wasn’t enough to save them.
My love for Alex—and yes, I had to admit that what I felt whenever I saw him, whenever I thought about him, whenever he touched me, was love—wasn’t enough for him to love me back.
“Please don’t tell Mia and Kitty,” Beth said. “We want to tell them together.”
Tears tracked quietly down my cheeks. I wiped them away, frustrated with myself. “Yeah, of course.”
After we hung up, I closed my laptop and laid my head on my desk, and then a memory came, as strong and sudden as a Florida rainstorm.
I could feel my sister’s couch sagging beneath me.
Samson, a few months old, asleep on my chest, his finger wrapped around my pinkie.
I could see into the kitchen where Beth cooked dinner, singing off-key (neither of us had inherited our father’s talent for singing).
Mark was on the living room floor, Mia and Kitty climbing all over him with their toy ponies.
The evening light slid through the window, dust suspended in its beams. An insignificant moment.
A miracle I remembered at all. I’d felt the kind of peace you only had when everything in your life aligned, when the good outweighed the bad, which for me wasn’t often.
If only I could remember this one moment, I’d thought, taking a snapshot in my mind.
And yet, I hadn’t thought of it again until now.
I lifted my head, light bursting stars across my vision. The memory, which should have been sweet, left a bad taste in my mouth. The tile was cold against my feet. There was no singing. No music played. No beams of light fell through my window.
But there was Alex. His door eased open across the parking lot. I waited, tense. Would it be good to see him and know he simply existed? That he was safe, even if he didn’t love me back?
But it wasn’t Alex who stepped out of his unit.
It was the blond woman from the bar, the one he’d been with the night we met.
The “not date.” Alex followed out after her.
He leaned against the doorframe and folded his arms over his chest. I was too far away to make out their expressions, but when the woman put her hand on Alex’s forearm, I remembered what the girls had said about the event planner from Coral Castle—blond, an old friend.
They’d said she’d touched him like that and what it meant.
But that couldn’t be right. Alex said he hadn’t dated anyone in years. He’d said it was too complicated.
As the woman talked, Alex stared at his feet and shook his head.
Whatever was happening between them, I could read the tension from here.
She stepped closer, and he looked up at her.
He nodded, and then she leaned in and kissed him on the cheek.
She placed her hands on his arms and embraced him.
I waited for Alex to pull back. He’d tell her what he’d told me, Event Planner, I don’t—
But instead he put his arms around her. They stood like that, holding each other, and for a moment I couldn’t look away. This didn’t look like the sort of hug you’d give a friend after they stopped by for a visit. It looked like it meant something.
They were still in each other’s arms when I turned away. I didn’t need to torture myself by seeing what happened next. As I stared down at the tile beneath my feet, everything clicked into place. Alex pulling back from me on the beach. Alex saying he was unavailable. It all pointed to one thing.
Nina had been right. Alex not being into relationships wasn’t a hard-and-fast rule. But it turned out I wasn’t the exception.