Chapter 17
The trees surrounding the church were just starting to bud with blossoms. Rob couldn’t stop himself from slowing as he passed beneath them. Though the church itself was nothing special to look at—brown brick, chosen because it was where Gabby herself had been christened twenty-nine years ago and where her parents continued to attend services each Sunday—Rob wanted to stop and stare as if before a great work of art in a museum.
Beside him, Zuri raised a questioning eyebrow, so he gestured at the blossoms. “There’s just nothing like an East Coast spring.”
She cocked her head and took in the trees. Her face softened the same way it did when she came across a particularly beautiful painting in her research.
“It is lovely,” she said. Then she waggled a finger at him. “But don’t start getting wanderlust, not when you’re on the tenure track.”
“I suppose there’s beauty in cacti too,” he said, and began to move forward.
“Wait. If you want to keep looking, we are”—she checked her watch—“four minutes early.”
“No, we’ve got the next few days to gawk at trees.”
The travel here had been easy. But everything was easy with Zuri. They anticipated each other’s needs, their priorities and interests almost all the same. Of course they would agree to get to the airport two and a half hours before their flight. They’d each made a list of podcast episodes they wanted to listen to on the car ride out to Long Island, and they laughed when they showed them to each other because those lists were almost identical. He loved her insights when they discussed the episodes afterward, the careful way she chose her words, wasting nothing. He even loved the way she challenged him when he was wrong—not taking offense, swiftly dismantling his argument and then moving on.
Moving in together had been easy too. They’d done it three months ago now. Together, they’d made list upon list—packing, tasks to do—and checked off all the boxes. And all the while, they’d been checking off boxes on another more subconscious list: the qualities they wanted in a partner. Cool under pressure? Check. Respectful to the movers? Check. Strong work ethic, ability to be a team player, a willingness to give each other personal space when necessary? Check, check, check.
Now, their apartment was starting to feel like home. Leaving paintings and pictures unhung would be an affront to Zuri’s whole world order. Her willowy frame clad in overalls, her dark braids tied up in a head wrap and amber eyes narrowed in focus, she’d created a gallery wall in their living room, photos of them together and with their families, framed pictures of both her and Rob at their PhD ceremonies, plus some work from up-and-coming artists of color who could use the support. No surprise that an art history professor could turn a plain beige wall into a thing of beauty.
A few weeks ago, they were sitting at their dining room table, doing work, and Rob went to make them mugs of tea. When he put hers down on the table in front of her, she caught his hand. “Hey,” she said, “we live together.”
“We do.”
“That’s lovely, isn’t it?” She pressed his hand to her lips. Zuri was not always touchy-feely, which made these moments of affection and intimacy all the more special. Rob blew on his mug, struck by gratitude that he had found someone he liked and admired so much. Their lives locked into each other like puzzle pieces. In that moment, as chamomile wafted up in front of them, the warmth of her full lips on his skin, he’d decided to make this trip as special as possible.
It was all too easy when he and Zuri were together to sink into quiet contentment, sitting side by side as they did their research or a crossword. Arms linked, the two of them had fast-forwarded straight into a comfortable middle age, despite only being thirty. That was perfectly fine with Rob. Even as a teenager, he’d felt that he had the soul of a forty-five-year-old.
But this long weekend out east, well, this would be something different. They’d be staying on Long Island, going up to the North Fork for a small vacation since they were out here anyway. Rob had researched inns and wineries, planning the most romantic itinerary he could. First stop, Christina’s christening and the ensuing reception. A chance for Zuri to spend some more time with Angus and Gabby, and for Rob to meet his unofficial niece. Then, on to North Fork, and the rest of their lives.
Rob held the church door open for Zuri, then followed her inside. Immediately, piercing wails echoed off the walls. There, in the growing crowd of well-wishers, were Gabby and Angus and a small yowling human with a tuft of dark hair on her head.
Though Gabby had dressed up nicely, she looked exhausted, purplish half-moons under her eyes. Angus waved at Rob, beckoning him over with the energy of an average human, which meant that he was exhausted too. Rob and Zuri made their way through the church to say hello.
After a round of hugs, Gabby thrust the baby forward. “Meet Christina.” Christina, clad in a puffy white dress, scrunched up her face, on the verge of bursting into more tears. “She’s perfect, but she’s a holy terror.”
“We really do love her, though,” Angus said.
“Yes, more than anything. We’d die for her. If she doesn’t kill us first.”
The two of them looked at each other and let out a sleep-deprived laugh that bordered on unhinged.
“So, are you back at work?” Zuri asked in her calm, steady manner, and Gabby nodded. “How is that?”
Gabby sighed. “I wouldn’t say that maternity leave was a natural fit for me, so it’s good to be getting out of the house again.”
“The problem is that everyone is so grateful to have Gabby back,” Angus said, “that they’re loading her up with work and assuming it’s the only priority in her life, like they don’t remember the reason she had to take three months off in the first place.”
“At least they gave me three months,” Gabby said with a dark look.
“Ah yes.” Angus grimaced. “I hate to say a bad word about my employers, but Insight Capital was not the most understanding about paternity leave.”
“I’ll say the bad word,” Gabby cut in. “Those fuckers are such an old boys’ club. You know what they said to him when the baby was coming?”
“What?” Zuri asked.
“They were like, ‘Congratulations, we can be flexible and give you as much time as you need with your family.’ And then how much time off do you think they offered him?” Rob opened his mouth to make a guess, but Gabby just kept going. “A week and a half.”
“A week and a half,” Angus echoed. “It was not good.”
“His bosses think that’s generous because they all have stay-at-home wives plus multiple nannies, and can barely remember their own children’s names.”
“Shh, some of them are here.” At that, Angus turned around and waved at a cluster of men, all of them smooth, besuited, and bored-looking. As the men nodded back, Angus puffed his chest out in a way that seemed unnatural on him.
Gabby pursed her lips, steam practically coming out her ears. But then she noticed someone walking up behind Rob, and her scowl melted away, replaced by a relieved joy. Her shoulders loosened, her eyes brightened. Natalie, Rob thought, before he even turned around. That was the kind of look reserved for Natalie.
Sure enough, there she was, waving and smiling at Gabby. She wore a simple dark green dress made out of some sort of sweater-like material. Formfitting. She looked more put-together, somehow less wild, than the young woman she’d been the last time they’d been together, nail polish slightly chipped and dresses wrinkled, all impulse and need, untamed.
A broad-shouldered blond man followed a step behind her. All-American and hearty, a Boy Scout all grown up. Something about him communicated that he was capable and could easily build a fire in the woods. This must be the Jeff Angus had talked about. Not the kind of man Rob would have pictured Natalie with.
What kind of man did he picture her with? This question was difficult to answer. Her dress really was about as formfitting as it could be without veering into inappropriate, an impressive balance to strike.
Natalie’s smile faltered just a moment when she saw Rob, and Zuri standing next to him. She and Rob caught each other’s gazes. Color flooded into her cheeks. His own face felt hot. And then the two of them exchanged a silent agreement: Enough. They were adults in serious relationships with other people. They didn’t have to be the best of friends, but they could grit their teeth and be perfectly pleasant.
“Hello, so nice to see everyone!” Natalie said to them all, and after the necessary introductions, she held out her arms for Christina. “It’s the love of my life! Come here.” As Natalie took Christina into her arms, bouncing and twirling her around, an image of her as she’d been in that lake house bed with him flashed into Rob’s mind, causing an uncomfortable prickle down his spine. He swallowed and squared his shoulders, then felt someone’s eyes on him. Gabby was giving him a look, different from the distant fondness with which she usually regarded him. Like she knew something. Like if he stepped out of line, she might defenestrate him. Rob made his expression blank, and moved a few inches farther away from the nearest window.
Angus put a hand on Gabby’s arm. “I think it’s almost time.”
“Right, we should go prepare. And, shoot, we have to track down Melinda. Christina needs a godmother.” Gabby took Christina back from Natalie. “Not too late for you to convert to Catholicism and take it on instead.” Natalie grimaced. “Sorry, was that inappropriate?”
“Yes.”
“I’m kidding. Mostly.”
As Gabby and Angus headed off, the awkward foursome turned back to one another. Natalie took a breath, ready to make an excuse and move on, but Jeff leapt in.
“Rob and Zuri! Tell me all about yourselves. Where do you live? What do you do? How did you meet?”
His eyes were bright, full of energy. Not a Boy Scout but a Scout leader, ready to take them through a round of icebreakers.
Zuri gave him the summary—Arizona, academia in linguistics for Rob and postcolonial art for her, they’d sat next to each other at a lecture on the role of the humanities in higher education.
“And did you know right away, when you met each other?” Jeff went on. “Or was it more of a slow burn?”
What kind of a question was that to ask strangers?
“Hm,” Zuri said carefully. “Somewhere in between. I was interested in him when we met, but you want to get to know someone and make sure you’re compatible, of course. And how about you two? What do you—”
“Oh, love at first sight for me,” Jeff said.
“Sorry, no, I was going to ask what you two do?”
Natalie turned to Jeff and lifted her eyebrows, indicating that he should go first. He enthusiastically took the hint. “I work with the New York City Parks Department, helping with their education programming. So there’s a lot of coordinating with the public schools around the city, bringing the kids in to explore the parks and learn about nature.”
“It’s extremely cute,” Natalie said.
“That sounds fascinating,” Zuri said, and Rob nodded in agreement.
“It is!” Jeff answered. Then he proceeded to talk about it until Rob didn’t find it fascinating any longer. Natalie nodded thoughtfully as Jeff went on, adding the occasional supportive comment. Smiling at his jokes, even though she must have heard this job spiel many, many times. Avoiding Rob’s eyes or (and he didn’t know why this alternative bothered him) not concerned with his reaction to Jeff at all.
How serious was this relationship? Not that it mattered to Rob if Jeff and Natalie were about to elope or about to break up. He just liked to have all the information.
When Jeff stopped talking, Rob realized he had no idea what the man had been saying for the past thirty seconds and thus had no idea how to respond.
Luckily, Natalie jumped in. “Well, maybe we should go see if—”
“Wait,” Zuri said, “but what do you do?” Zuri often took it upon herself to make sure that men didn’t dominate career conversations while their overlooked girlfriends stood silently by. In normal circumstances, Rob appreciated this. Right now, though, he wished Zuri had let Natalie make her excuses and go to a different corner of the church. Perhaps even another church entirely if she so desired.
Natalie’s mouth tightened, as if she were suppressing a sigh. “Currently my main job is as an office manager for a start-up.” Her eyes darted to Rob, then away. What had happened to her writing? Had she chucked it entirely? Rob hoped…he didn’t know what he hoped. He shouldn’t particularly care. He didn’t. You wanted people to achieve their dreams, though. He opened his mouth to ask, then caught himself, trying to keep his face neutral.
“Oh? And what does that involve?” Zuri asked.
“Fascinating stuff like keeping the fridge stocked. Making sure we don’t run out of pens.”
“Pens are important,” Rob said.
“Are they?” Natalie asked. “Does anyone use pens anymore?”
“I use them all the time,” Rob said.
“It’s true,” Zuri said. “I’m always finding them around the apartment in the oddest places.”
“You two live together?” Natalie asked, an almost indiscernible waver in her voice, and Rob nodded.
“Don’t sell yourself short,” Jeff said to her, then turned to Rob and Zuri. “She also does some amazing freelance writing projects on the side.”
“Yes, that’s true.” Natalie tucked her hair behind her ears. “Anyways—”
“Anyone reading any good books lately?” Jeff asked, seeming to get that Natalie wanted to change the subject. “I, for one, have been loving the new memoir by Tyler Yeo.”
Rob let out a half snort. Zuri put a hand on his arm. “Robert read that on the plane ride over.”
“I wouldn’t have taken you for the target demographic,” Natalie said.
“Well, it was front and center at the airport bookstore, and I’d forgotten to pack a novel.” Forgetting a book was out of character for Rob nowadays, but he’d been focused on making sure he had more important things safely tucked away in his suitcase. At the airport, he’d wanted something engaging and not too complicated, and Yeo, It’s Tyler! had seemed like it would do.
Tyler Yeo had been the lead in a comedic action franchise back in the early aughts, about a guy who discovers a portal in his college library. Angus and Rob had gone to see the second one at midnight, along with teenagers across the nation. Tyler hadn’t exactly been an amazing actor. He’d been good-natured, serviceable, bolstered by the more interesting performances around him. (And honestly, the idea of him spending time in the college library was…well, let’s just say he didn’t have much going on behind the eyes.) The third installment had never happened, amid rumors of on-set drama, and Tyler’s follow-up projects hadn’t done well. This memoir had been marketed as a nostalgia trip, perhaps offering some behind-the-scenes secrets as to why The Portal Makers had really fallen apart.
“How many stars would you give it?” Natalie’s tone was dry. Teasing him? Goading him? Zuri and Jeff smiled politely, oblivious.
Rob straightened his shoulders. “Two and a half. On a sentence level, it was well written. But overall, a disappointment, obviously written more to set himself up for a comeback than because he had anything insightful to say.” He turned to Jeff, whose smile was sagging. “No offense if you’re enjoying it.” He turned back to Natalie, unable to stop himself, for some reason, from bashing Jeff’s apparent new favorite book. Natalie listened with a calm expression, one eyebrow slightly raised. “But he was so determined not to offend anyone in the industry who might give him a job that he caveated himself into banality. Where were the interesting stories? The stakes? It was just, ‘Oh, this person was awesome on set, and I liked this one too,’ and on and on until I nearly fell asleep.”
Silence stretched out between them all for a moment as Rob concluded his rant. Jeff’s mouth hung open. Perhaps Rob had gone a bit too far in insulting his book recommendation.
Natalie cleared her throat. “Well,” she said, “I tried. Tyler didn’t give me much to work with.”
Rob’s stomach fell onto the floor. “No. You…?”
Natalie turned to Zuri, her expression still mild. “One of my freelance writing gigs was ghostwriting.”
“Oh,” Zuri said. She opened her mouth, then shut it again, at a loss for words.
“As I said,” Rob began, feeling inexplicably terrible, “on a sentence level, it was well written.” Zuri elbowed him. “But I’m sorry.”
“It’s fine,” Natalie said.
“I think it’s a fantastic book,” Jeff said. “And Nat worked so hard on it.” For just a moment, displeasure flickered in Natalie’s eyes, her mouth turning down, before she returned to neutrality. No one besides Rob seemed to register it. To notice, one had to have been looking closely at Natalie’s lips and eyes. Why was Rob looking so closely at Natalie’s lips and eyes?
“She beat out a ton of other writers for the opportunity,” Jeff went on.
“Thanks, love.” Natalie kissed him on the cheek. Jeff gazed back at her in adoration. “But, hey, I’m not precious about this one. It was a job, not a passion project. And most readers seem to be enjoying it just fine. Not everyone has Rob’s exacting standards.”
“?‘Exacting’ is the perfect word,” Zuri said. “You should see him try to make a simple cup of coffee. It requires just the right bean, a precise amount of grinding time.”
The two women shared a smile, one that seemed genuine. Rob tried not to be too offended that it had come at his expense.
“And can you even taste the difference?” Natalie asked.
Zuri looked at Rob, then said, loyally, “Yes.”
“Well,” Natalie said, and tucked her hair back behind her ears, “I’m not supposed to be broadcasting my involvement in the book. So please don’t put this conversation all over social media.”
“Don’t worry,” Zuri said. “We don’t do social media.”
“A really cool thing about it is that we got to meet Tyler!” Jeff said. “Well, Natalie spends a lot of time with him, but he took us both out to dinner. And let me tell you, he is fun. Super-nice to everyone.”
“Yeah, he’s a wonderful guy.” Natalie paused. “Definitely required a lot from his ghostwriter, but wonderful.”
“So handsome too. I almost felt a little jealous, Natalie hanging out with him every day,” Jeff said in the hearty, jokey tone people tended to use when something wasn’t quite a joke at all.
“Don’t worry,” Natalie said. “He’s only into supermodels.” Jeff blinked, and she quickly went on, “And I’m only into you.”
Thankfully, at that moment, the ushers at the church indicated that guests should find their seats.
“Well, goodbye,” Rob said, then took Zuri’s hand and began to power walk toward the pews, hoping that the crowd would separate them quickly enough from Jeff and Natalie. Still, he couldn’t help listening in as, behind them, Jeff nudged Natalie, handing her his phone. “Look at this. This is Drew’s place, the one I was telling you about. Exposed brick. And there’s enough room for my bike in the hallway!”
“Oh,” Natalie said. “It’s a little expensive, isn’t it?”
“You’d think so, but we can get it without a broker’s fee, so that’s huge. I ran the numbers, and it saves us hundreds of dollars a month.”
“Hm.”
“We’ve just got to let him know by tomorrow, because otherwise his landlord wants to list it.”
At that moment, Rob spotted an opening, a pew with only two seats left, and beelined in. Zuri settled beside him as the crowd carried Jeff and Natalie over to a different part of the church. Finally, Rob exhaled.
“Well, that was awkward,” Zuri said, opening up her program. “No way for you to know about the book, though.”
“Mm.” Rob stared up at the front of the church. “That Jeff guy is irritating, isn’t he?”
“In what way?”
“He just kept talking. And talking.”
“I think he was a man meeting new people, trying to make conversation.”
Rob harumphed.
“I love you, but you were not giving him much to work with.”
“You shouldn’t set traps for people like that. Just say that Natalie ghostwrote the book.”
“It’s fine. I’m sure she doesn’t particularly care what you think. Why would she?”
“Authors can be sensitive.”
“Well, maybe she’s not one of them. Besides, she’s not really an author, is she? She’s a ghostwriter.”
“She is an author.” Rob’s voice came out louder than he’d intended, and Zuri raised her eyebrows in surprise.
“I didn’t realize. Good for her.”
Rob glanced over at Natalie, a few pews over, as Jeff kept showing her pictures on his phone. Yes, good for her, ghostwriting at such a high level. The book wasn’t to his taste, but it was selling, so maybe that would open up some doors. And good for her, moving in with her boyfriend, who seemed competent and devoted, if exhaustingly so. And good for her, wearing dresses that were formfitting but not inappropriate for church, although said dress was getting less appropriate as she crossed one leg over the other and the fabric inched up her thigh, and—
Zuri took his hand in hers and squeezed, and the anxious, unsettled feeling in Rob drained away, replaced by the sensation of her warm palm in his. He squeezed back, grateful, as the christening ceremony began.
After Christina had been sprinkled with water—looking none too pleased about it—and the godparents had done their duties (half-heartedly in Melinda’s case, and the godfather was some cousin on Gabby’s side that Rob had never seen before. Rob couldn’t help feeling that he and Natalie would have done a better job of everything except the religious part), the guests milled around in the receiving line. After, they’d go to Gabby’s parents’ house for a small reception, a fifteen-minute drive away.
As Rob and Zuri waited their turn to exclaim over an older and wiser Christina, Rob spied Angus’s parents. “I should introduce you to the Futon King and Queen,” he said to Zuri.
She was worrying at her back tooth with her tongue, face furrowed. “Sorry, I’ve had something stuck in my teeth ever since the ride over. Let me run out to the car. Then I’ll meet the royalty.”
“Sure,” he said, his attention half on Angus’s mother, who had spotted him and was waving him over.
“Be right back.” Zuri disappeared as Angus’s mom poked her husband, then pointed to Rob, and the two of them came bustling over for a hug.
“Robert! Who was that beautiful creature on your arm?” Angus’s mom shouted as she wrapped her leopard-print-clad arms around him. “Is she running away from us?”
“No, I think she just had to grab something from the car—” he began. But a thought struck him. If she had something in her teeth, she’d want the dental floss. Rob always packed the dental floss in his toiletry bag for them to share when they went on trips together. He extricated himself in a panic. “I’m sorry, I also need to run out to the car for a moment!”
Stomach plummeting, he raced into the parking lot after Zuri. She had the trunk open, looking into the mouth of his suitcase, bracing herself with one hand on the car’s back bumper. No, no, no.
“I’ll find the floss for you!” he called. “It’s deep in there, and…”
But he was too late. Wordlessly, she turned around, her hand clasped around the ring box he’d hidden next to his toiletry bag. She held it up and slowly raised one eyebrow.
“Huh. What…what could that be?” he stammered.
“You tell me.”
He hadn’t had much doubt about her answer when he’d bought the ring. After all, they’d talked timeline. They would move in together, and then if that went well, they’d get engaged within the year. “I wouldn’t mind being surprised,” she’d said once when they discussed the issue. “Though certainly not in public. If you propose to me on a Jumbotron, I will have to say no.” This was on the earlier side of their year deadline, but there was no denying that the move-in had gone well, right?
Zuri wasn’t one to shy from honest conversations. Still, it could be hard to tell what was roiling beneath her placid, slightly cool exterior. Sometimes, he’d catch her staring off into the distance, her expression impenetrable, and he’d worry that he didn’t actually know her at all. What if, all this time, she’d been feeling that their move-in hadn’t met her expectations? That the twenty-four seven version of Rob was too much? He did grind his teeth at night, and sometimes during the day too without realizing it. A bad habit he was trying to break. Perhaps the noise of it was too loud when she was trying to concentrate on her work, and she could not sign up for a lifetime of that. Or maybe it was that he’d been uninspired in his research lately, had been having trouble mustering up enthusiasm for his lectures, and she was losing respect for him. Perhaps it was simply too soon, or perhaps the idea of forever was already unpalatable to her, and her mind was scrambling for the kindest way to let him down.
He looked at her more closely. She was very still, barely blinking as she waited for him to respond. But there. There was a tiny curl at the edge of her mouth, a hint of amusement that he’d seen before, watching her teach classes, when a promising student was so close to giving the right answer and Zuri knew they were going to figure it out. It gave Rob hope, even if he was furious with himself for ruining the surprise of it all. He was supposed to present the ring during a stroll on the beach, after dinner at a seaside restaurant with flickering candles that people had rated highly for the romance factor.
“It’s not supposed to happen like this. Not in a parking lot—” He cut himself off. “Can you pretend, for another day or two, that you didn’t see that?”
“Yes,” she said. Her tone was level, but her eyes were shining.
Rob cleared his throat, shifted side to side, and couldn’t stop himself from asking, “Yes to what? Pretending you didn’t see it or marrying me?”
“Well,” she said. She looked down at the ring box again, then back up at him, her mouth turning, finally, into the widest smile he’d ever seen her give. “To both.”
His irritation at the ruined surprise disappeared immediately. Overcome, he stepped forward and kissed her then, the two of them holding tight to each other in the parking lot. A gust of wind kicked up around them, pulling some of the blossoms from the trees, and Rob thought that he’d never been happier. Everything that had happened in his life up until this point made sense, had been lighting his way to her. He’d had to go to Arizona, a place he did not love, to find the woman he did.
Momentarily, an image of Natalie floated into his mind. Because he was grateful for how that had turned out too. Thank God he hadn’t given in to his momentary impulses with her back on that lake trip. He had protected this relationship when it was delicate so it could grow into the steady, sturdy thing it had become. Now, the life that he and Zuri were going to have together unfurled before them, the future bright and harmonious.
“I’m going to do a very nice proposal overlooking the water,” he said. “This doesn’t count.”
She laughed then. A Zuri laugh was precious, not given out lightly, throaty and beautiful.
“All right. I’ll wipe this from my memory.” She tucked her head into the crook of his neck while blossoms swirled around them. They stood there together, their hearts beating against each other as the church doors opened and people began to make their way toward the reception. “But first, give me a few more seconds to enjoy it.”