Chapter 16
16
KATE
H e broke my heart. I know I should’ve walked out, never looked back. That’s not how I’m made though. Mickey can’t give me what I want—an authentic relationship where I don’t have to sneak around but at the same time, he is the only man who can give me what I need.
A woman with some pride wouldn’t have stayed over after he didn’t say anything back to me, nothing substantial, nothing real. He likes spending time with me and likes going to bed with me. That’s it. Which, if we were both in college that would be fine. But I’m pushing thirty and he’s looking at forty from the wrong side. That means the expiration date for casual flings is long past.
That night I spent at his place, madly in love and half crazed with it—I thought if I really let go, if I showed him exactly how I felt about him, that he’d understand. That he’d finally get it and want to meet me halfway. Maybe he wouldn’t declare his undying love for me but at least say he wants to be exclusive or that he wishes he could claim me and tell the world I’m his. That was my dream. That I was somehow so perfect for him that he couldn’t help rising to the occasion and telling me he wants to go for it, all in, go public and tell the world we’re together. That its more than just sneaking around and fucking on every surface in the crow’s nest and his house. I’m not complaining about the fucking—it’s five-star excellence, but it’s not enough. Big talk from a woman who got rejected and still stayed over for five orgasms.
The next day, I don’t hear from him at all which is unusual. I guess I have to get used to that. It’s not Wednesday for a couple more days and we don’t have a meeting scheduled for today. If I want to find him, I know when he’ll be at the Pearl, but part of me is ashamed to chase him down like that. I had to have some scrap of dignity or self-worth left. I woke up in his arms feeling lit from within just from the remnants of all that pleasure we shared. But it came back to me in episodes, complimented by the things he didn’t say and the time and silence I gave him in case it was just a need to gather his thoughts.
No, he’s a straight shooter, right? If he loves me, he’d have said so by now. We were adults, weren’t we? It makes me want to get on the first bus out of Boston and ride till I see the Pacific Ocean again. It still wouldn’t be far enough. The memory of him will follow me everywhere. The way I feel when he kisses me, the glory of triumph in his eyes when I reach for him again and again always wanting more. I got into this thinking I was strong, practical, that I could handle some casual hooking up with my teenage crush. I was just lying to myself and I didn’t think about the consequences, the fact that I’m going to walk around the rest of my life haunted by the weeks I spent with Mickey O’Halloran.
I delve into my prep course review materials and force myself to block out any distractions. This is what I can control. Living my life, pursuing my goals, and getting the hell out of Southie. I have to stick to the plan because deviating from the plan and having an affair with my brother’s best friend was dumb and self-destructive. My impulsive tip over the edge from desire into reckless abandon looks like some high-level self-sabotage or a pitiful cry for help when I think about it objectively. I wanted attention and connection. I felt bad about failing in LA. So the obvious answer was to move back home, get a job to save money for my CPA, and get distracted by the sexy, off-limits boss.
For a couple of days I keep a strict schedule of work, studying, and blaming myself for how miserable I am. When Wednesday comes around, I argue with myself all night, barely sleeping. He messages me once after three days, saying he’ll see me in the crow’s nest. I debate whether to go and treat it as a business meeting, communicating only the bare minimum of work-focused information and resist any attempts he might make to touch me or even speak on a personal level.
I abandon that idea because I know I’m not going to be able to resist him. I could cancel and say I’m busy. It might get me in trouble at my job by refusing a meeting with the boss, a meeting that was my stupid idea. Or option three, the choice the craven part of me begs for. Go to the Pearl, lock the door, take my pleasure and let him have me for an hour. Then walk out until the next week like I’ve had enough to hold me. Like I don’t feel my body scream for him every second of the day, like I don’t miss him to my core and wish I could call him like six times a day to hear his voice and tell him whatever boring thing I’m doing in the office. Missing him, mostly.
An hour before the meeting, I change into a soft pink sundress that hugs my curves and has a flared skirt that reminds me of vintage dresses that girls wore to dances in the fifties. It’s sweet looking and my reflection convinces me to leave my hair down. It’s a little cold to wear the sundress but I’m doing it anyway. I put a jacket on and head out.
At the Pearl I freeze up for a moment, thinking I look like I’m in costume, neither buttoned up in work appropriate clothes nor wearing something chic and expensive like the gamblers at the roulette table on the main floor. I wonder why I wore this. Because you want him to see you in it. As a grown woman in her favorite dress. Not as an accountant or stripped down as a secret lover on his couch. For once in your life, you want him to look at you and take notice.
I ride the elevator, scan my thumbprint and swing open the door. For an instant I’m scared he won’t be here. That I’ll be stood up and sitting here in my sad pink dress like a wallflower past her expiration date. I’ll wait ten minutes and leave, I decide.
But Mickey’s here, and there’s a tablecloth on the table we usually use for computers and paperwork. Dishes sit beneath silver domes and there are candles lit, a bouquet of pink stargazer lilies in a vase. He stands up and comes to take my hands, kissing my cheek.
“I was hoping you’d come. I thought I’d better make it worth your time,” he says.
He’s so handsome standing there, and he’s ordered dinner and gotten my favorite flowers. I take off my jacket and hang it on the back of my chair. It feels formal and weird but I’m the one who wanted to set a weekly date to see him and presumably hook up. I sit down, smooth my dress and when he pours wine in my glass, I put my hand on his wrist.
“You didn’t have to set up a lavish dinner,” I say. I like that he did it, and it’s romantic. I’m not sure why I object to it. Maybe it just feels feigned. This is something a lover would do for their other half. And by no means were we in anything that could be labeled as a real relationship, so why pretend to do things like we are?
“Look at you in that dress,” he says. “I love your hair down. You never wear it like that.”
Where is his swagger? I wonder. The most confident man I ever met is almost hesitating.
“Wearing it down looks right with this dress. I know it’s old-fashioned looking but I love it,” I say.
“I love it, too. I—” he goes to a drawer and takes something out, brings it to me. It’s a velvet box. “Open it.”
I feel my heart thump as I lift the lid. On a bed of creamy satin there’s a stunning diamond necklace. It’s delicate and gleams with a bluish fire under the candlelight. I touch the stones with my fingertips, a row of round diamonds with narrow baguette diamonds between them. I look up at him again, a question in my eyes.
“According to the jeweler it’s a vintage midcentury riviere necklace,” he says. He takes it from the case and places it at my throat, fastens it. I feel the coolness and weight settle against my skin. It feels strange and awe-inspiring.
“My dress is from the fifties,” I tell him “So they go together. When did you—”
“I got it a couple of weeks ago. I’ve been waiting for the right moment. I think this is the right moment. Do you like it?”
My fingers flutter to my neck and touch it. I nod. “It’s perfect. Thank you. But I can’t—I don’t need a diamond necklace. I’m here to save up for the test to do my CPA. I’m not a sugar baby or something.”
“I know,” he says. “I wanted to get it for you so I did. There are no strings attached. You can walk out of here with it now and say you don’t want to see me anymore.”
I’ve hurt his feelings. He is keeping it light, but I see how serious his eyes are and how tense his shoulders look.
“I don’t mean it wasn’t nice of you. You’re very generous. But I didn’t come here to get a fancy dinner and some gifts, Mick. I’m here to see you.”
“I know,” he says, “but I did this because I want to. You deserve to feel special and I want to make that happen. If I can only get Wednesday nights then they need to be great nights. This is just good planning,” he says.
Good business , is what I hear between the lines. He’s trying to keep me happy. Treat me like a mistress who gets dates and presents to mollify her so she doesn’t make demands. I touch the necklace again and decide that I’m not turning it down on principle. I’m keeping it.
Mick takes my hand, snatching it up from the table and kisses it. I don’t know what to think other than he’s very good at being the handsome, charming lover. I’m supposed to play the pampered mistress, I guess. I let him hold my hand and kiss it, saying complimentary things about how beautiful I look. I’m scowling a little to myself. He’s not acting like himself and I feel off-balance.
Is it because I chose this, to be his secret with the standing weekly date, and now I think I sold myself too cheaply? I gave up on anything real with him and settled for hiding in the shadows for as long as I’m in town. I gave up hope is what I did, and now I feel like this is something seedy.
It's like I’m outside my own body sort of floating above the scene instead of being present. He notices that I’m distracted and asks if I’m feeling okay.
“I guess I’m just tired. And this feels different to me, like it’s not real life anymore.”
“We’ve spent a lot of evenings in the crow’s nest,” he says. “Do you want to go somewhere else? My house?”
He’s solicitous and considerate, but it feels fake. Like we’re playing roles now. Or maybe we’ve been playing roles all along and I just now noticed it. I can’t shake the weirdness, the sense that something’s not right.
“No. I just want to know, why dinner? And jewelry? Why now?”
“You let me know that you thought you were catching feelings for me. I got to thinking maybe I led you on and let you think there was gonna be a big love story with a happy ending. But I don’t ride off in the sunset, and I’m a Southie boy. I’m not gonna follow you to LA or give up the business. I won’t turn out to be the good guy. It’s only fair to let you know what I can give, and what I can’t. This, I can do. I can have my secretary order dinner, and I can buy you something nice to let you know I like having you around. You decided on a night you want us to meet, and I can respect that. It doesn’t mean I don’t miss you the other days of the week, but that was what you wanted after I laid my cards on the table. So this is where we are.”
He's so reasonable about it, and he seems patient and clear, like he’s respecting my boundary or something. I want to knock the plates off the table and tell him I don’t want this. I want things the way they were but better, with more of his time and attention, whole days spent together, weekends in bed, growing closer instead of putting our affair into a box and labeling it ‘Wednesdays 8pm’. I’ve painted myself into a corner and don’t know how to fix it.
I take a drink of my wine and shake my head. “Just forget I said anything.”
“Which time?” he challenges, which I don’t expect.
I expect him to say okay and then go back to the wining and dining routine. But I see it now. This is Mickey when he’s pissed at me. I almost smile to myself because now I get it. That’s what felt off to me. Not just that I don’t like the arrangement we made. I could sense him acting differently toward me and it was the way he covers frustration or anger—with charm.
“All of it. Especially when I said I had feelings for you. That’s where I screwed up. I either scared you off or made you mad because this is what I get. Old wine and older diamonds.”
I reach up and unfasten the necklace, feel the weight drop off of me. “Here. I’m not that woman. Maybe your others wanted presents and stuff. I just wanted to know you and be with you. Maybe keep this for someone else.”
“There isn’t anybody else,” he says, and his mouth is a hard line now. Good, I think, now we can both be mad.
“You’ll find somebody soon enough. Look at you,” I say almost derisively. “You look like a goddamn Versace ad.”
“I’m Irish, not Italian,” he says unnecessarily.
“You know what I mean. The jaw, the hair, the piercing eyes. Suit, expensive watch. The whole package. Your picture could sell a lot of cologne.”
“I’ll keep that in mind if I decide to branch out in my business,” he says. “I don’t get you Katie. You tell me this is what you want and now you’re mad. What gives?”
I shake my head. “It just feels like, okay so I say I love you and you don’t want to have that conversation but you also don’t want me to leave, so you get me some big dumb present so I can pretend that’s proof of your feelings that you don’t admit to or at least I have something expensive to hold onto instead of any kind of commitment. It’s a substitute for emotional availability.”
“What?” he says.
“You don’t love me but you felt bad enough about it that you got me a gift to try and smooth it over,” I simplify.
“When the hell did you ever say you love me?” He says and gets to his feet. He’s pulled on the front of his hair so it’s sticking up and looks less perfect. I’m meanly glad about that.
“At your place. When I said you feel like home to me, and I’ll be chasing after anything that reminds me of this until I die.”
The other night he was silent for so long, I thought he’d turned to stone. Now he’s the opposite. He looks sort of frantic.
“For God’s sake, Mick, I told you an hour with you is better than—”
“Twenty-three with someone else. I know. How was I supposed to know that means you love me?”
“How could you not know it means that?” I burst out. “How can you be so smart in business and so fucking stupid in life? I’ve ruined myself over you, and I signed up for it, I know. This is my fault. I’m the idiot who said I’d take one hour, that I wanted you however you much you can give me and it’s not a hell of a lot.”
“But I told you—” he starts.
“I know what you told me!” I interrupt. “And I know how stupid I am for wanting anything more than the pitifully little you’re willing or able to give. But I’m done now.”
I stand up and hold out the necklace to him. He doesn’t take it. Instead, he rounds the table and grabs me by the arms. “Do you think I’m going to let you walk away from me?” He almost growls.
“Yeah, I do. Because you’re too chicken shit to be with me for real. Why not just let me go?”
“You owe me an hour. You said so, that an hour with me was better. I want my hour.”
“Maybe you don’t deserve an hour,” I say defiantly.
“Maybe I don’t, but I still want it.”
“I can’t go on like this, Mickey. I’ve saved up what I need for the prep courses and testing to get my license. I’m your temporary money man and that’s all I can be. Until Benny Ragucci comes to take my place.”
The ragged laugh he gives has no humor in it. “You think Benny’s gonna replace you?”
“Is Wednesday night not in his job description?” I ask bitterly.
“There’s nobody on the goddamn Earth that could take your place and if you don’t know it by now then you’re not as smart as you think you are. If this is it, just get out.”
He shakes his head in disgust, turning his back on me. I say no more, dropping the necklace onto the table with a heavy, resounding clunk.
I take my leave and make it all the way home before I start crying as I unlock the door. Of course it’s the one time Rory is at home. He’s got a game on TV and he’s scrolling on his phone.
“What the hell’s wrong with you?” He asks.
“I’m fine,” I mutter and go to my room. He doesn’t get up and ask if I’m okay or if I want to talk. There’s no reason why he should. He’s never been the model big brother to me anyway. I pop in my earbuds and listen to an audiobook to take my mind off of things, but it doesn’t completely halt the tears running down my face.