3. Ruby
Ruby
"Fine. Why do you think Ruby, of all people, can help?"
The words felt like a punch in the stomach.
Of all people. Heat rose into my cheeks and I felt my eyes narrowing at Oscar as anger fueled by hurt flashed behind them.
I quickly looked away and straightened my face, as my mother used to instruct me as a child.
I relaxed my face and looked at the rim of the glass of Coke Oscar got for me, and took a sip to help me swallow the feelings that came up as they did for the past twenty years.
Oscar didn't mean it. That was the thing I always reminded myself.
He never meant it. He said these things the way other people commented on the weather, and when I tried, years ago, to explain how his words made me feel, he said I was being sensitive.
So I stopped explaining. I had gotten very good at straightening my face.
I was an expert at wearing the mask, putting on the smile, and just being his accessory.
But underneath it, the old feeling stirred anyway, hot and familiar. Hurt, first. Then the anger that always came in behind the hurt like a second wave. Of all people. How could he say that? As if I didn’t help start the company. As if I wasn’t an integral part of it.
I left the company because of this. I told everyone I was stepping back to be home with Jeremy, and that was true, but there was more to it.
I wanted to raise Jeremy myself, without the help of nannies, which we could easily afford, but I could have worked during naps or at night while he slept.
I stepped away from working because I couldn’t take the comments anymore.
Oscar’s off-handed comments chipped away at me to the point where even the minor ones hurt.
I didn’t want Jeremy growing up hearing those comments about his mother.
I didn’t want him seeing how small I let myself become to work with Oscar. So I quit.
When Adam started talking about Ocean City, I found myself listening harder than I wanted to.
"You designed everything for our first project," he said, still facing me, his back half-turned to Oscar in a way I don't think Oscar even noticed. "Those floor plans are so good we're still using them. I think if you looked at this, you could really help. You have the eye they need."
The eye they need. I turned the phrase over. It had been a long time since anyone had described any part of me as needed.
"Tell me about the project.” The words escaped my mouth before I had a chance to think.
"Ocean City," he said. "Down the shore. We've got the land, we've got the capital, we've got plans the town keeps sending back. They don't want what we're offering."
"Which is?"
Adam's mouth tipped. "Forty traditional houses with two-car garages and a clubhouse. They’re saying it’s ‘cookie-cutter’."
I knew Ocean City. The boardwalk that smelled like Johnson's caramel popcorn and Manco and Manco’s pizza.
The dry town where family came first, the streets where people had lived in the same houses for generations and waved at you from porches whether they knew you or not.
It was a town that knew exactly what it was.
You couldn't drop forty colonials into it and expect them to say thank you. It could be a great project for us. I knew Oscar had been wanting to start developing at the shore, and this could be that opportunity that started it all. If they didn’t lose it first.
Something in me leaned toward the idea before I'd decided to let it.
I could see it, that was the problem. The minute Adam said the town didn't want what they were offering, a version of what the town might want started assembling itself behind my eyes, unasked.
Porches. Real ones, deep enough to sit on.
Rooflines that talked to the houses already there instead of shouting over them.
I made myself stop. The idea of walking back through that door, of being once again the wife who'd been allowed to help, made something in me close like a fist.
Plus, something kept gnawing at me. Why was I hearing about this from Adam?
Oscar hadn't said a word to me about Ocean City.
Not the land, not the stalled plans, not the contract Adam clearly thought they were about to lose.
We rode an hour into the city together tonight, and he told me nothing.
How long had this even been a thing? If there was a possibility of losing the contract they had to be working on it for a while.
Oscar knew I loved the shore. Was that why he hadn’t mentioned it? Was he afraid I would want to help?
"Let me think about it," I said.
Adam nodded, but I could see it wasn't the answer he wanted. He had the patient look of a man who knew how to get what he wanted.
"At least let me tell you the rest," he said. "Properly. Not here, with him scowling at me." He tilted his head at Oscar without looking at him.
"I'm not scowling," Oscar said.
"You're scowling."
I laughed before I could help it, and it loosened something. "Fine. Come for lunch tomorrow. Tell me the rest." I heard myself say it and felt a small, complicated lift in my chest, half hope and half dread.
Could I even do this?
"Tomorrow," Adam said, satisfied. "I'll bring the plans."
Oscar's attention had already moved. I knew him well enough to recognize the way his eyes caught on something over my shoulder, before his whole body leaned toward it like a plant in a window.
"There's Chad Blanchard," he said. "He’s been ducking my calls for a month. Adam--" Oscar interrupted himself and started walking in Chad’s direction.
Adam gave me a look I had known for almost twenty-five years, equal parts apology and exasperation, as he let himself be towed away.
* * *
Olivia and I found the dessert table and piled our plates with chocolate-covered strawberries, cheesecake, and bananas foster.
It was more than either of us would eat, but it was part of what we always did at these things.
With our hands full, we noticed Nicole, the third of our little group.
She was seated alone, stirring the ice in her glass, deep in thought.
We arranged the desserts in the center of Nicole’s table and sat on either side of her.
Nicole Hall was married to Dustin, one of the vice presidents. She had thick straight black hair, high cheekbones, and deep-set brown eyes that looked like she hadn’t slept in weeks.
"There she is," Olivia said, dropping several forks onto the table. "I've been looking all over for you."
Nicole gave us a smile that didn't reach her eyes. "It always ends up being just the three of us at these things," she said.
She meant it lightly, but there was something underneath it, a sadness I hadn’t heard from her before.
"You okay?" I asked.
She shrugged, still stirring. The ice clicked against the glass.
"I've been wondering the same thing," she said.
Then she pushed the glass away and looked at us.
There was something almost reckless in her expression.
Tired and reckless. As if she was finally giving in.
"Do you ever think about your life? Like, step back and actually look at it? "
Olivia laughed. "All the time. Especially now that the kids are gone."
"Are you happy?" Nicole asked her.
Olivia was taken aback for a moment. Her brow knitted and she looked out at the room. I could see she was looking for Adam, and when she found him, she smiled.
"What Adam and I have… it's like somebody hit pause on it when we had the kids," she said. "Don’t get me wrong, it was good, but everything went to them. You know, all of it, every bit of attention we had. That was a choice we made when we had kids. We wanted to make sure they knew they were loved and cared for. And I think we did that.” She smiled wistfully.
“Now that it's just the two of us again, it's like somebody hit play.
Adam and I were unpaused. Things are good.
Better than good." She said it simply, without bragging, and that was almost the worst part.
She wasn't performing a happy marriage. She just had one.
I looked across the room while she said it.
Oscar was easy to find; he always was. He stood in the middle of a knot of people with his drink held loose in one hand, his head tipped back, laughing at something, completely lit from within by the particular joy he took in a room full of people.
He was magnificent at it. He always was. He was in his element.
And the strangest thing happened in my chest while I watched him. I missed him.
Which made no sense. He was forty feet away.
We had ridden in the limo together just a couple hours before.
I would ride home beside him tonight, sleep in the same bed, and eat breakfast across from him tomorrow.
But I knew that wouldn’t change things. I still missed him. I had missed him for a while.
"I'm jealous," Nicole said to Olivia as she forced another smile, her eyes becoming wet.
"I mean that. I'm happy for you, and I'm jealous.
" She turned the glass slowly on the tablecloth.
"I don't think the man I married is in there anymore.” She casually pointed in Dustin’s direction.
“I keep looking for him, but…" She shook her head, then looked from Olivia to me, then back to her glass.
I could feel the pain in her words. I wanted to comfort her, but I was barely keeping it together myself. The last thing we needed was an ugly cry fest in the middle of the gala.
"Do people change?" Nicole asked. "My mother used to say they don't. For good or bad, people don't change. She said it as if it was a matter of fact. But I look at Dustin, I think about how we were, and she’s wrong."
"Have you talked to him about it?" Olivia asked gently.
Nicole made a small sound, not quite a laugh. "I've tried."
"He doesn't listen," I said.
The words were out before I knew I was going to say them. The two of them looked at me.