Chapter 29 Lillian #2
The envy seared so bright during senior year that Lillian mistook it for desire for Gigi’s boyfriend, Benjamin. But when Lillian
got with Benjamin, she realized her mistake. She broke up with him on prom night after seeing Gigi in her dress. She was a
mermaid, a fairy nymph, a devil, and an angel all in one torturously gorgeous body. The blurry line between being jealous
of a guy’s girl and wanting her for yourself took Lillian a while to figure out. That was even how she and Alex had met. He’d
been dating one of the paralegals at her office, a striking woman named Tamara who now despised her.
***
“One of us might as well get to be with Gigi,” Lillian said to James, now at the Pink Pony bar. “It’s not going to be me,
so might as well be you.”
“Now I feel like a jerk.” James tugged at the collar of his medical coat.
“Come on, I’m not that fragile. I have enough to worry about with my broken engagement.”
James asked how she was feeling about that. Relieved, she said. Yet lost too. “Alex was my best friend. And now, just like
that, he’s cut me out.”
“He knows the reason?”
“Yeah, but he says that makes it worse. That I was deceiving him the whole time. I really did love him. Do love him.” Lillian missed him, the way he would text her every morning to wish her a good day, how he would cook her breakfast
on Sundays, the one day she let herself sleep in. “Just not in the way you should if you’re going to commit your life to someone.”
“You did the right thing.” James had such a reassuring way about him. “Hopefully you can be friends someday.”
“Hopefully you and Gigi can be more than friends one day,” Lillian said, trying to tilt the conversation away from her. “Once I stop hogging you all for myself.”
He shook his head. “Gigi thinks I’m the dullest person on the planet. Can’t really blame her. You should’ve seen me on our
first date. I was as stiff as a scarecrow.”
“I know the feeling,” Lillian said. “But Gigi will be obsessed with you once she gets to know you. She loves surprises, loves
layers. Just try relaxing around her. And tell her how you feel .”
“So she can publicly reject me and make a spectacle in front of all my patients?” James said.
“Gigi is a lot of things, but she’s not cruel,” Lillian said.
“Dumping you as her friend seemed pretty cruel.”
She had filled him in on just a little of the backstory. “She was going through a lot,” Lillian said. “With her dad and everything.
I don’t know if she’s told you much about him...”
“No,” James said. “He hasn’t come up.”
Lillian nodded. “Gigi takes a while to warm up. But she’s good at her core.
” Lillian searched through her memories for an example that would illustrate it better.
“Like one time on the playground, these kids had captured turtles in a sand pail. They made it a game, picking up the turtles, dropping them from the top of the playground slide. Gigi couldn’t stand it.
She snatched the bucket and ran to the lake to release the turtles.
She got detention for being late to class.
But she saved them. She saved those little turtles. ”
Lillian’s heart compressed. After so much uncertainty since ending her engagement and quitting her job, unrequited love was
actually a relief. She knew what to do with it, how to hold it.
“That’s a nice story,” James said. “It’s also from about twenty years ago. I want to know who she is now.”
“Then go and find out.”
James considered it.
“You should tell her about your mom,” Lillian said gently.
James had told Lillian his mom had passed away when he was in college. To cope he’d poured himself into school and his residency
and now his practice.
“And scare her away?” James said. “Women tend to see me as damaged goods after I drop that happy little story.”
“Nothing softens Gigi quite like sharing traumas.” She was smiling but serious too. “Just try to spend more time with her.
Drop the doctor persona.”
“It’s not a persona.” He seemed hurt by the insinuation.
“I didn’t mean it like that,” Lillian said. “I just mean let her get to know your different sides. And I’ll set the record
straight if the townspeople give you a hard time.”
Lillian wanted to think that she could come out in the open with everything, but she knew she’d probably still wiggle around
the truth a little while longer.
“Don’t let other people’s opinions hold you back,” Lillian carried on. “We can both learn from Gigi on that one.”
Paula and Kitty bustled into the Pink Pony, scouting for seats at the bar.
“Did you hear Georgiana was seen bolting out of Ronny’s apartment two minutes after she’d entered the other night?” Paula was saying.
“Good for her,” Kitty said. “She can do so much better.”
Lillian smirked at James, who looked cheered by this gossip.
James stood up. “Have this stool,” he offered to Paula. “I was just heading out.”
“No, no, Dr. Kentwood,” Paula said. “We don’t mind sharing, do we, Kit?”
“Of course not,” Kitty said, and they cozied up.
James insisted on giving up his seat anyway, saying he had to get some sleep. “We’ll talk tomorrow?” he said to Lillian.
She nodded. The ladies whistled as James departed.
“You’re one lucky girl, Lillian,” Paula said.
“He’s one lucky guy,” Kitty corrected.
“We’re both lucky,” Lillian said, turning away to make their drinks, not that her face would betray much emotion. She’d learned
to cover up nearly everything by now. It was one of her greatest skills and also, perhaps, her fatal flaw.