Chapter 24 It’s All Wrong, but It’s All Right #2
Jamie frowned, unsure of what that meant. Then again, he never thought to google Eve’s name. He didn’t even realize that was a thing. “Better than Lucy, you mean?”
“Obviously that,” Casey said. “But also, just, in general.” He shrugged in what must’ve been an effort to make his stalking sound casual. “And she’s gorgeous.”
“She has a play coming to the Public next year,” Jelani inserted as if none of them knew. “I saw it when it opened, but Amina Pearson is starring now.”
“What a good excuse for you to finally come to New York,” Casey said to Jamie. His eagerness would have been infectious if it weren’t so annoying.
“We’ve lived there, what, three years now?” Jelani said. “And it’s gonna be a woman that gets him to finally visit, isn’t it?”
“She’s gonna be so good for him,” Casey said.
“Guys.” Jamie cut in before his brothers’ imaginations had him engaged before dessert.
“I appreciate all of…whatever this is…but Eve and I aren’t gonna be anything more than whatever we are.
She lives in New York, she doesn’t like kids, she’s way out of my league…
” He trailed off as he realized he was listing all the reasons he shouldn’t have gotten involved with her in the first place, and he had to laugh. “It was a fling. It’s over now.”
Casey’s face expressed disbelief before he could form the words. “So…is that why you told Jack about her?”
“Well, I also told him we were friends, so I guess delusion runs in the family.”
Jelani snorted.
“Fine,” Casey relented. “If all she did was take your mind off Cruella in there, then good for you. I suppose.”
Jamie suppressed another laugh with a forkful of dressing, but Casey wasn’t wrong. If all he got out of his time was Eve was being untethered from his relationship with Lucy, then it was worth it.
It wasn’t enough.
But it was definitely worth it.
—
Thanksgiving evening persisted, with dinner and dessert consumed before guests dispersed around Jamie’s condo to do their own things: the kids played Minecraft in Jack’s room, while most of the adults did end up unenthusiastically rooting against the Texans by the end of the night, too full of food to engage in conversation or otherwise move.
Jamie was hanging out on his balcony with some pecan pie, enjoying the warm November night. Until his mother came out to join him.
“Don’t stuff yourself with pie,” was the first thing she said upon invading his peace. “You’re so trim.”
Jamie inhaled at the sound of his mother’s voice and released it slowly, mimicking his idea of a breathing technique. “I’ll be all right.”
Diane took the seat across from him. “Are you?” she asked. “All right?”
“Do I look that depressed?”
“No,” she replied with a quiet smile. She gazed at him, the typical sharpness in her gray eyes having softened over the years, he’d noticed. Age had been kind to her, mostly in the ways where it pulled back on her most severe features and tendencies. “You look good, if I’m being honest,” she said.
“Good genes, I guess.”
“You were always a handsome boy,” she said.
Of course she lived an alternate version of reality. People with sullied pasts loved to romanticize them. The fact was, between acne and uncontrollable hair and a nose much too big for his face, he was a terribly unattractive kid. He didn’t grow into his looks until well after puberty.
“If you say so,” Jamie said, returning to his dessert.
“But you are too nice.” She’d been sitting at the table for less than a minute before finding a reason to criticize him. He should’ve seen this coming.
Jamie didn’t look at her but continued to eat, responding with his mouth full. “Is that so?”
“I know you didn’t want me here. Maybe there’s no way around Lucy, but you didn’t have to allow her husband into your home, too.”
“Last time I saw you, you said I was too judgmental.” She was so goddamn fickle.
“So you swing to the opposite end and let people walk all over you?”
“Jack deserves a Thanksgiving with his family. And however I feel about it, that includes Tyler now. And you.”
Diane chuckled, her laughter sounding mocking. “Jack doesn’t care about the difference between today and tomorrow. Don’t make that child your excuse to be miserable.”
“I’m not miserable,” he shot back.
“Last time I saw you, you said no one is happy.” She cocked her head, examining him in the dim light of the evening. “You really believe that’s true?”
“I don’t know,” Jamie said, wiping his mouth of crumbs. “I hope not.”
“Your brother’s happy,” she said. “Jack seems happy.”
“I hope so.”
“It doesn’t take a lot for kids.” When he gave her a dubious glance, she nodded in acknowledgment. “Yes, yes, how would I know. But kids are resilient. And whether you admit it or not, I was a good mother. For as long as I could be.”
“Yeah, well, most people are good until they’re bad.”
“I don’t know that that’s fair,” Diane said. “When someone does something wrong, it doesn’t necessarily negate everything they did right.”
“Maybe not,” Jamie said. He chewed his lip as he grappled with the thought, taking into consideration that maybe he did judge people, situations, too harshly sometimes. His mother set that in motion twenty years ago. “I guess it depends on the impact of what you did wrong.”
“I won’t argue with that.”
Jamie sat back in his chair, surveying his serene neighborhood, even quieter than usual due to the holiday. “Was it easy to start over?” he wondered out loud.
Diane shook her head. “It was easier than being unhappy. But no, it wasn’t easy.”
“I met someone,” he said.
“Eve,” Diane replied.
Jamie laughed in spite of himself, unsure whether to blame his son or his brother, probably some combination of both.
“Yes. Eve,” he said. “She ran away from her life, kinda like you.” He stared at his empty plate, wondering what Eve was doing at that exact moment.
“She didn’t cheat,” he went on. “She didn’t have kids.
It wasn’t exactly the same. But she did just…
leave. And I can’t lie, I kinda envy it. ”
“Where would you go?”
“I don’t know. Someplace I’ve never been. Just…be somebody else.”
“Jamie.” Diane reached across the table, but stopped short of touching him.
“I don’t know you the way I’d like to, so it’s presumptuous of me to be handing out life advice.
But I’m still your mother, and maybe, if nothing else, you’ll be willing to learn from my mistakes.
Because I wish someone had told me before I ruined everything: You don’t have to be someone else in order to change. You’re not stuck.”
He made a face at the platitude. He didn’t want to tell her how much he’d been thinking about going to college, too self-conscious to share his insecurity with someone he still considered a stranger. “It’s never too late to be who I wanna be?”
“It’s trite,” Diane admitted, finally allowing herself to touch his hand, briefly, “but it’s true. The hard part is actually doing it.”
Sure, it was banal. He’d had similar conversations with friends in the past. But there was also something different about hearing it from Diane.
Maybe he’d been aching for some motherly advice all these years; maybe he instinctively knew she had the experience to back up her words.
Either way, he really wanted to believe it.
Before he could tell her as much, and acknowledge that Diane was perhaps not as bad as his anger over the years had led him to believe, Casey came outside to join them.
And Jamie was surprised by his disappointment.
Jamie loved his brother. His outgoingness, his supportiveness.
How he always made Jamie feel less boring than what was frankly, probably true.
But the same part of him that had been starved for a mother was annoyed that the little bit of time he’d gotten with her had suddenly come to an end.
She’d been at his home all evening and he didn’t mind it; it even felt right in a strange way.
But watching his mother and his little brother instantly slip into their zingy rapport, Jamie was almost jealous of the relationship they’d cultivated.
Of course, Casey was much younger when she left and didn’t have the same baggage that Jamie carried about it.
But seeing them share a laugh and a cigarette made Jamie want…
not that, but something like that for himself.
He wasn’t sure that he would ever get there.
But he wanted it.
By the end of the night, Jamie was thankful to still be in one piece, but he would definitely heed Diane’s words and never put himself in a situation like this again.
He felt a palpable sense of relief when his home was finally emptied and quiet, even if it was a mess of dirty dishes, half-empty alcohol bottles, and leftovers.
Once he’d gotten it all into the kitchen, at least, Jamie headed upstairs to check on Jack, unsurprised to find him asleep but fully dressed atop his covers.
He carefully pulled off Jack’s jeans and laid them in an open chair before properly tucking him in.
The kid still had remnants of fruit punch and peach cobbler around his mouth, which made Jamie smile as he kissed him good night.
He hoped Jack had a good Thanksgiving, if no one else had.
Jamie made a pit stop at his own bedroom to kick off his shoes.
He’d been on his feet for much of the day and didn’t realize how much they hurt until his bare soles touched the cool wood floors.
Before he could make it back downstairs, there was a buzz at the door, and he figured one of his guests had forgotten their keys or their plate, something to that effect.
He went to the security system to allow the caller back up, but he was instead met with the image of Eve standing in his building’s lobby.
She had her head lowered, so he couldn’t see her face, but unmistakably, it was her.
Her twisted-out hair, her Patagonia jacket, her shapely figure.
Clutching a bouquet of flowers. He froze.
He was so resigned to her rejection, he couldn’t fathom her showing up now.
She rang the buzzer again, effectively jolting him from his trance, and he finally answered.
“Hey,” he said, and when she smiled up at the speaker, his heart instantly started to dance in his chest.
“It’s me,” she said.
She couldn’t see him, of course, but that didn’t stop him from positively beaming as he replied to her, “I know.”