Chapter Thirty-Two
LUCY
Lucy stepped into her suite with her mind still buzzing from Nicky’s confession about the tattoo, and the orgasms that followed.
As a person who hadn’t felt strongly enough about anything to have it emblazoned permanently on her skin, the fact that he had her name on him felt significant.
Permanent in a way that had nothing to do with the ink itself.
‘Hi,’ Chloe said, emerging from her room in a floral silk robe and wearing little moon-shaped sheet masks under her eyes. ‘How are you?’ she asked in a tone that Lucy recognized as deep concern. Lucy’s guilt and shame from earlier in the evening flared right back up again.
‘I’m good. I’m fine,’ Lucy sighed.
‘How’s Nick? Still itching to go three rounds with Devin?’
‘No, he’s … fine .’ Lucy inhaled deeply. ‘I’m so sorry about all that, Clo,’ she said, wrapping her daughter in a tight embrace. ‘I guess I need to have a conversation with Devin. He clearly has some unresolved feelings about the divorce. I just didn’t know—’
‘It’s been almost two years, Mom. And he’s a grown-up. I think it might just be that he’s never seen you with someone else since. And so happy, too. That’s on him, though. His shit to work out.’
‘Maybe,’ Lucy tried. ‘But I could have done more. Noticed something. Been more considerate—’
‘Uh, pretty sure he should have been more considerate tonight.’
‘Yeah, but he was drunk,’ Lucy said in a voice that she realized too late was actually quite small and sad.
‘Unless somebody else forced his mouth open and tipped the bourbon in, I think that is also on him.’
Lucy huffed, ‘Yeah.’ She meant it, but someone needed to tell her guilty conscience.
‘Okay,’ Chloe said, her voice lighter. ‘Enough of this heavy stuff.’ She stepped out of Lucy’s arms. ‘The wedding stylist gave me this goop to put on my hair tonight. She told me to comb it through completely and wait thirty minutes before taking my shower. So, I need your help. We’re on a deadline here, lady. The bride needs her beauty rest.’
‘Lead on, Bridezilla!’ Lucy teased.
Fifteen minutes later, Lucy was pretty sure she’d ruined her favorite sleep shirt, and that they’d dirtied every single towel in the suite.
‘Is this just overpriced mayonnaise?’ Lucy laughed as she combed through the great globs of white stuff in Chloe’s hair and slapped them from the comb into the bathroom sink. ‘I think this is just mayonnaise.’
‘It does smell a little like a deli in here now.’ Chloe laughed back.
‘Is it thirty minutes from the time we put the goop in? Or thirty minutes from the time we’ve combed it out?’ Lucy asked, flicking an errant blob of hair mask/mayonnaise from her hand.
‘The directions were vague, at best. Let’s go with from the time we put it in,’ Chloe replied, wiping a smear of white stuff from her forehead. ‘If this crap breaks me out on my wedding day, I’m going to sue.’
Lucy continued combing, and flicking goop mostly into the sink. (But also, the mirror, the counter, and a spot on the ceiling that would no doubt be the topic of much speculation by the cleaning crew.)
Lucy gazed at her daughter in the mirror and when she received a small smile back, Lucy decided to broach a subject that had been needling at her subconscious all night.
‘Hey, Clo?’
‘Yeah?’
‘I’m sorry that your grandparents aren’t here for your wedding. It’s inexcusable and I’m sorry if it hurts you. They’re—’
‘I know who they are, Mom,’ Chloe interrupted, still smiling. ‘I know that they love me. In their way.’
Jesus, this girl is something. ‘You are truly amazing, Chloe.’ Lucy beamed. ‘You always meet people exactly where they are. No judgment. No pettiness.’
Chloe’s eyes flicked down to her engagement ring and back again. ‘I don’t know about that. I try with Chandler’s parents, but I just don’t understand them. That said, I do know that they love him.’
‘Like I said, amazing ,’ Lucy repeated.
‘Just a good student, like someone else I know,’ Chloe said pointedly to her mother, while dabbing a towel at her hairline. ‘I read that Love Languages book in one of my psych classes. You know the one I mean?’
‘Gary Chapman?’
‘Yeah. Some of it seemed heavy-handed, like are there really only five love languages? That’s a stretch, but I think the concept rings true.
’ Chloe’s eyes caught Lucy’s in the mirror.
‘Daddy’s love language is an AmEx Black Card.
When he gives me money it’s his way of trying to make me happy and safe.
’ She took a breath. ‘Yours is more traditional – support, hugs and praise, kind words. Grandma and Grampa’s is more subtle, sure, but when I get a postcard from them or a little gift from some crazy place they’ve traveled to, I know that they’ve been thinking about me and they’re telling me that they love me.
In their way. So, when they cross my mind, I’ll text or send them a little something.
I love them back in a language they understand.
I get Daddy extravagant gifts. You, I call or hug. ’
Lucy took Chloe’s hand and smacked a kiss to it. ‘I love you, Chloe.’
‘I love you, too, Mom.’
Well, at least she’d gotten something right in her life. She didn’t know how, because parenting had felt like decades adrift at sea, trying to keep her head above water. But clearly, she’d accidentally made some good choices where Chloe was concerned, because her daughter was fucking awesome.
God, Lucy was going to miss Chloe when she and Chandler were living in Boston. The empty nest bit sounded great, but also, maybe, a little bit heartbreaking.
Chloe squeezed her mother’s hand and said, ‘Hey, aren’t you supposed to be giving me advice on the night before my wedding?’
Lucy couldn’t help herself. ‘When a man and a woman love each other very much, sometimes he puts his—’
‘Not about the wedding night,’ Chloe interrupted, rolling her eyes. ‘About marriage .’
‘Oh, God, Clo,’ Lucy grumbled. ‘You don’t want my advice on that.’
‘Why?’
‘ Why? ’ Lucy repeated indignantly. ‘Because I’m clearly terrible at it. That’s why.’
‘Okay, even if that were true – which I’m not a hundred percent sure of, by the way – you could probably offer some advice on what not to do.’
Oh, boy. Could she. The problem there would be where to begin, and how many hours Chloe had to spare to hear it all.
Chloe asked, ‘What’s the most important thing? To do, or not to do. Your choice.’
‘I mean, why not just ask me to solve poverty or racism or something easier instead?’ Lucy tutted.
Their eyes connected in the bathroom mirror, Chloe’s crinkled under-eye sheet masks clearly telling her to get over herself and get on with it.
Maybe Chloe really needed to hear something from Lucy, was nervous and worried about her future with Chandler and how to make it work. Shit.
‘Um,’ Lucy began, searching her mind for some sage words of wisdom. When none came, she said, ‘I think listening is important.’
That was true. Okay, score one for Mom.
Lucy continued, ‘Not just hearing , but listening. Without judgment or trying to come up with responses or retorts. Especially in a disagreement. Save the replies for after your brain has had time to process.
‘In that same vein, you always hear “never go to bed angry.” Well, that’s a crock of shit.
Sometimes if you don’t go to bed angry you don’t really give yourself time to think things through, to come at them from a different angle that’s clearer in a new day.
Sometimes trying not to go to bed angry just means that things aren’t really settled, only glossed over.
The compromises can make you resentful. And resentments grow over time. ’
‘This is good, Mom,’ Chloe said with a smile.
‘Thanks.’
‘Anything else?’
Lucy inhaled deeply. Tried not to choke on the emotion that welled up. ‘I just want you to be happy,’ she said. ‘Really, truly, bone-deep happy.’
‘I am,’ Chloe said. And Lucy believed her.
Lucy added, ‘Just know that if that changes, for whatever reason, that it’s a problem. Maybe not a terminal one – marriage counseling is a thing for a reason. But you shouldn’t just live with it. For fear of failure or expectations or any other reason. Okay?’
‘Okay.’
‘Promise?’
‘Yeah,’ Chloe said, smiling at Lucy in the mirror. ‘I promise.’
‘Good,’ Lucy said. ‘Now, surely it’s been thirty minutes?’
‘Probably. Plus,’ she added, bringing a strand of gloppy, white-painted hair to her nose. ‘I think my mayonnaise is turning.’ She sniffed again. ‘God, do you think it’s Miracle Whip?’
Chloe stood, headed to the adjoining section of the bathroom with the shower and toilet. Then she stopped. ‘I just want you to know that I want you to be happy, too.’
‘Thanks, Clo. I am.’
Chloe’s gaze grew pointed, serious. ‘With Nick, you are.’
Lucy sighed, trying to formulate a response that was at least part truth. ‘I am. But another thing you should know is that sometimes that’s not enough.’
‘Explain that to me, Miss Bone-Deep Happiness,’ Chloe said, cocking her head with attitude.
‘Our lives are completely different. There’s no path to even being on the same continent, Chloe. We had … have … had history that made this all a bit … more than what it would have been if we’d just met for the first time.’
‘What kind of history?’
‘The complicated kind. It was high school, but also not. And …’ Jesus, it’s almost impossible to explain without actually explaining . What is going on with Nicky is so singular. ‘It doesn’t matter. Just know that I am happy now. And I will be again, even if Nick Broome isn’t in my life.’
Saying the words gave her a physical pain in her chest, sharp like a stab wound. Oh God, this time it’s really a heart attack, right?
No, as she rubbed at the spot, the pain faded. What was left was an aching sort of void.
‘I’m only dropping this because I am currently a ham salad,’ Chloe said. ‘Consider it to be continued.’
Chloe padded into the next room, and closed the door. A moment later, Lucy heard the shower running and began the arduous task of un-mayonnaise-ing the place.
As Lucy swiped at the greasy blobs, she mentally replayed her words to Chloe – about listening.
She had felt a shift between her and Nicky.
From the uncomplicated fun of a short-term fling, to what felt like the building blocks of something more lasting.
The elements were the same in a practical sense – the laughter, the sex, the talking – but entirely different in value and intent.
Nicky didn’t seem to simply listen to facts about Lucy and her life, he seemed to memorize and store them.
Like he was laying them down as the first crucial course of bricks in a tower.
Given that Lucy’s own approach was to kick down any stubborn bricks that happened to find themselves sticking inside her, the idea was terrifying. There was no future for them. There was only going back to their separate realities, which were so far removed from one another that it was laughable.
In a perfect world, could there be more with Nicky?
Sure. Lucy wasn’t an idiot. He was fucking incredible.
If things were different, she would latch herself on to him like a koala, clinging to his chest forever.
Probably. Maybe. But things weren’t different.
There was fantasy and then there was reality.
She had made the distinction. Whatever they had between them wasn’t going anywhere.
Also, she really was the absolute worst at relationships.
Why would one with Nicky be any different?
She made bad choices about men. Even if she did want to just throw caution to the wind and jump into something with him, it would probably go straight to hell in a handbasket anyway.
Because her decisions about relationships and who to get into them with was obviously critically flawed.
Exhibit C: Devin. Her judgment was completely untrustworthy.
Lucy knew, from hours of insomnia-fueled doomscrolling, that she had been married more times than the statistical American average. That had to mean she was also statistically crap at it, right?
Furthermore, maybe everything seemed so good between her and Nicky because they hadn’t gotten to the part where she felt resentful about picking up his socks and he decided that grading papers at midnight was too much.
They were in the honeymoon phase. She’d seen it enough to know the signs.
When that passed, who was to say that things wouldn’t be just as terrible as they had been with Brandon?
Or as awkward as with Sam? Or as one-sided as with Devin?
And, of course, all the conjecture was fantasy because she was gearing up for the tenure review that she’d been working toward her entire adult life and he was going to be on another fucking continent .
Lucy looked at herself in the mirror, rearranged her slimy, stained clothing and said, ‘Get over it.’
The door to the shower room flew open, clanging against the wall so hard it made Lucy jump.
Lucy shrieked, ‘What’s wrong? Are you okay?’
Her daughter stood in the doorway holding a bath towel over her front, rivulets of white gloop streaming over her face and into her eyes.
‘You’re her, aren’t you?’ Chloe asked.
Lucy suddenly wondered if wedding stress could give a healthy twenty-one-year-old a stroke. She sputtered, ‘Chloe, what are you talking about? Are you okay? Do you feel dizzy? Does one of your arms feel weak?’
‘I’m fine,’ Chloe grumbled, flicking watery white mess off her forehead. ‘The love languages. It got me thinking. Nick Broome’s is probably music, right? It’s you! The history . The complicated kind . You’re her! You’re the “Breathing Room Girl”!’
Oh, shit.