Chapter Twenty-Seven
Addison had spent the week thinking up ways to bump into Ben that didn’t involve her staring out the window all day, waiting to pounce. By now there was no denying, even to herself, her attraction to her ornery neighbor and nothing stopping her from pursuing him. That almost kiss had been playing out in her mind ever since it didn’t happen. Though she would be hard-pressed to admit it, she now believed he truly did not know that she was Gicky’s niece when they began their little flirtation. Still, it was hard to align flirty Ben, with Ben from the book, with the ill-tempered Ben who berated her on the sidewalk. He was an enigma, and she was determined to crack his code.
With no luck in the bump-into department by Thursday, she decided she would bake more scones and bring them over for a taste test. Surely Gicky had shared her renowned culinary creations with her neighbor, rendering him the best person to judge.
While the scones were in the oven, Addison went to the studio to meditate. She had been diligent about it for the past three weeks, and it had been getting easier every day. Plus, she couldn’t deny the positive effect it was having on her. She had transitioned from admonishing herself to “be in the moment” every few minutes to actually being in the moment.
The oven timer went off and, for the first time, the results of her baking looked like actual scones. She put a few on a plate and headed next door, filled with hope and curiosity. She had never been inside Ben’s home, even if from the pages of his novel she felt as if she knew every inch of it.
“Knock, knock,” she said out loud, while rapping on Ben’s porch door. Sally was the first to greet her, obsessively offering her paw.
“Good girl.” She kneeled down and scratched the dog’s ears. Then she broke off a piece of scone and gave it to her. Sally quickly spit it out and ran into the house.
These fucking scones.
She heard footsteps approaching and swiftly tossed the evidence of her failure over the railing into the garden. Shep appeared before her, immediately focusing on the empty plate. Addison stared at it too before handing it to him. “Hi, I’m returning this plate,” she said, oddly proud of the cover that was sure to eventually backfire. He took it.
“Ben went to the city for a few days. I’m watching Sally. I’ll tell him when he returns.”
Addison felt overly foolish. She took back the plate.
“It’s my plate,” she mumbled, before embracing next-level foolishness.
“What’s going on here?” Shep inquired.
“Nothing. Really, nothing.”
“That’s what Ben said when I asked him about you—you know I was most certainly not born yesterday.”
There was a woman’s sun hat hanging on a hook shaped like a mermaid next to the doorway. Shep saw Addison’s eyes turn toward it, the hat’s meaning sinking into her face.
“He hasn’t cleaned out even one of his wife’s things from this house,” he said. “I broached it once, and he bit my head off. He puts on a cocky face when he is out and about, but he’s still mourning Julia far more than he wants to admit. His anger is really just grief dressed in wolf’s clothing.”
He took a deep breath in and sighed, adding, “I’m not telling you this to discourage you—I’m telling you because he is worth it, and I don’t want you to give up. You know, Gicky really adored him. This would make her so happy.”
Addison did not know what “this” was but noticed it was the second time the old guy had mentioned Gicky’s happiness as it related to her and Ben. It was strange. Her mind was running in a million directions. She needed quiet, to clear her head, but she also didn’t feel like being alone.
“Can Sally come over for a little?” she asked.
“Sure,” Shep replied, fetching the pup from inside. He ruffled both their heads before they took off.
In the studio, Addison revisited her self-portrait. She had done an OK job, she thought, replicating her figure in the clay. If she were less self-critical, she might have said it was excellent. She would say that the experience of looking at herself naked in the mirror, molding the clay into her image with no thoughts of the world around her, was intimate and powerful. Maybe Paresh had gotten into her head, but she indeed felt an inner connection that was new to her. A sense of peace, even while being completely confused about every detail of her future.
She soaked a brush and wet down the torso of the sculpture, using a fine tool to draw out the lines of two sleeves, transforming the naked breasts into a shirt. She decorated the top with a pattern, testing out checks and florals and geometric shapes before dabbing them with the tiny damp brush and gently erasing them with her thumb to begin again. Thoughts of doing the same with the mistakes she had made in life filled her head—leaving them behind, starting over, making new mistakes with little consideration of the old ones.
In the end, she chose a simple chevron and began slowly and meticulously carving the light pattern with a tiny V-tipped blade, repeating it over and over. Hours later, the figure appeared to be naked only from the waist down, like some kind of free-loving floozy. It made her laugh.
Sally barked at the studio door, startling Addison and alerting her that someone was there. She wiped off her hands and headed to the front of the house. Regardless of what Shep said, she hoped it was Ben. To her great surprise, but also not surprising at all, Kizzy’s husband was standing on the other side of the screen door.
“Rome, I told you she’s not here.”
“That’s nice, but I know she is. I told her parents what happened. Apparently, they still track her on her iPhone.”
“Of course they do.” Kizzy’s parents were definitely the helicopter type. “She left a few days ago.”
“Well, her phone didn’t.”
Addison had texted Kizzy a few times since she had left, and hadn’t received an answer. She had even checked with Pru and Lisa, and neither had heard from her. She hadn’t really been worried; Kizzy was not the most responsive on her phone. Unless she was working, she wasn’t tethered to it. Which was admirable really, unless you were looking for her.
Addison opened the door and let him in, determined to give him a piece of her mind as she led him to the guest room. She hadn’t straightened it out yet. No one was due to come until her parents’ arrival the following weekend, and she’d gotten too caught up in sculpting to think of anything else.
Addison and Rome had been friends nearly as long as Addison and Kizzy had, and while there was no denying where her loyalty lay, and that she was furious with him, she did still have love for him. But right now, fury won.
“What you did is awful, Rome. How could you betray her like that?”
“I don’t know.”
“You don’t know?”
She really didn’t feel like lecturing him. Aside from her zen and all, she had always had a soft spot for Rome—mostly for the way he looked at Kizzy.
Rome looked at Kizzy like she hung the moon. Even lately, while he was apparently having an affair, he still looked at her that way. Addison had noted more than once that if she were to settle down, it should be with someone who looked at her like that. She thought again of the way Ben had looked at her when they were about to kiss, and her heart physically dropped to her stomach. She pressed her hand to her belly, as if to catch it.
“You OK?” Rome asked.
“Yes,” she lied. She wasn’t about to share her relationship woes with another disappointing version of the male species.
She shook out the linens. No phone. And looked under the bed.
“I’ll call it,” he said.
“If it’s here, it’s dead by now.”
The telltale vibrato buzzed through the room. And there it was, plugged into the bathroom outlet.
He took it in his hands and stared at it almost longingly.
“Do you still love her?” Addison asked.
His eyes welled with tears. She didn’t feel bad for him.
“You must be hungry,” she said. “Would you like a scone?”
“No, thanks.”
She stared at him for a minute longer before offering, “I’ll make you a deal. You can wait here to see if she calls me or comes back for her phone if you help me clean this place out for the white elephant sale next week.”
He agreed. And though she knew it might seem weird to some, hanging with her best friend’s cheater of a husband, Addison knew it was what was best for Kizzy. And that was all Addison cared about right now. Addison was determined to get to the bottom of what was going on with this guy in order to give her friend the proper advice. She needed to explain to him that Kizzy deserved big love—heart-stopping, earthquaking, unwavering big love. Kezia Weinstein was too extraordinary for anything less. And she knew that if Rome were being honest with himself, he wouldn’t want anything less for her.
But first—she would use the extra set of hands.
Apparently hard, mindless labor was just what the doctor ordered, because Rome was all in.
If this had been a few weeks earlier, Addison would have thrown it all in the giveaway pile, but now it felt like her Marie Kondo sensibilities were being choked by sentimentality. She had begun to love the aunt she had barely known by living in her home, on her island, among her things, and from meeting the people she loved. As if reading her mind, Rome said, “You can get a fortune for this place, Addison, it’s like you won the lottery.”
The conflict raged in her brain. She did a few deep cleansing breaths and evicted it. Progress.
“Let’s start with the attic. Wanna go up?”
She said it real casual, as if fear were not a factor. In truth, she hadn’t been able to bring herself to open the door since she arrived. She feared bats way more than dogs.
“Sure,” he said.
“OK, let’s get the ladder.”
Addison held it while Rome climbed up. Even from below, she was scared of what may jump up out at them. He put his hand on the lever and let go of it like it was on fire.
“What’s wrong?” she panicked.
He looked down at her from the top of the ladder and admitted, “I’m scared.”
Addison laughed. “Just come down.”
They decluttered the kitchen, with its multiple waffle makers, juice presses, strange-looking items that Rome guessed were potato scrubbers, and air popcorn makers.
“She was like the Noah of kitchen utensils. There are two of everything!” he joked.
She didn’t want to laugh at anything Rome said, but a chuckle escaped her lips and reminded her of what was good about him.
“Can we talk, Rome?” She didn’t wait for an answer. “Why do you want to stay married to Kizzy?”
“What kind of question is that?”
“It’s a good question.”
He didn’t answer until they moved on to the storage closet in the studio.
“You know, I barely remember not being with Kizzy.”
“Yeah, that’s not a reason.”
“Well, I love her. I love her very much.”
“Yet not enough to resist breaking her heart, again, right?”
“Didn’t you love that broken-engagement guy when you broke his heart?”
“Betraying someone you still love and ending a relationship because you’ve fallen out of love are two very different things.” When she said falling out of love, she felt like a liar. She wasn’t about to admit to Rome that she may have never been in love before. She had barely even admitted it to herself.
“Mine was the right thing to do,” she added, for Rome’s benefit.
She paused to let it set in. She knew in his heart he would want to do right by Kizzy. He held up a broken clock.
“Keep or toss?” he asked.
“That is the question.”
He climbed off the step stool and sat on it. His eyes filled with tears.
“Let me ask you something,” Addison said. “What makes you think that this time would be any different? I mean, you cheated, then promised it was a onetime thing, then cheated again—with the same woman. Are you still in touch with this woman?”
“Yes.”
“Then what are you doing, Rome? If you love Kizzy, as you claim to, then let her go. She’s young. You’re both young. You have endless days of happiness ahead of you. “
“I don’t know how to live without Kizzy. I barely remember a time when she wasn’t by my side.”
“I’m sure you will figure it out. Let’s take a break—go to the market to pick up stuff for dinner.”
“It’s OK if I stay here tonight?”
“It’s fine. You can leave in the morning. And if I hear from her, I will ask her to call you or reach out myself.”
She knew Kizzy would want it this way. Even with everything that had happened before and now, Kizzy didn’t hate Rome. She wasn’t a hateful person.
After dinner, they sat down to watch a movie. Before it began, Rome asked, “Addison. Do you think we will remain friends after this?”
“Me and you?”
He nodded a yes, and she smiled at him sweetly, even put her hand on his knee before saying, “Absolutely not.”