Chapter 21 #3
Nora was in a deep sleep when Dev showed up in Coronado.
Her head was thick from the wine she’d drunk with Emily on the patio the night before, where after two glasses each, they both admitted that they weren’t ready to lose the only parent they had left.
She had drunk enough that she crawled into bed just before midnight and quickly fell asleep.
When Julia gently shook her awake, she was in the middle of a dream.
A dream she had from time to time where she sees her mother in the middle of Fifth Avenue, standing right in front of Bergdorf Goodman.
Nora sees her there and instantly, suddenly, freezes, unable to move to cross the street even though the light is green.
“Nora.” Julia’s voice shook her out of the dream, and she opened her eyes. The light was pale gray in the room, barely dawn.
“What time is it?” she croaked. Her throat felt dry. She hadn’t drunk enough water. “Did Dad call already?”
Julia shook her head. “Not yet. But Devlin is downstairs.”
“Dev?” She sat up quickly. “Here?”
Dev wasn’t supposed to be in Coronado. He was supposed to be in LA. She was supposed to rent a car and drive back up there herself on Sunday, and anyway, today was only Wednesday.
“I offered him some coffee.” Julia frowned. “But he asked me to wake you. He seems… upset.”
“Upset?” Nora croaked. Her mind felt thick, everything around her hazy, and for a brief moment she wondered if she was still dreaming.
But Nora blinked, and Julia was still hovering above her, frowning. No, she was awake. And she got out of bed and quickly pulled on yoga pants and her old Northwestern sweatshirt before running downstairs, Julia following behind her.
Dev turned and glanced at her from the couch as soon as she hit the living room. Julia was right. He did look upset. His normally animated features were weirdly stoic.
“What’s going on?” Nora said.
Julia moved toward the couch, her eyes trained intently on Dev, her lips pursed to form a question as if ready to cross-examine him.
Before Julia could say a word, Nora said: “Dev, let’s go take a walk.”
“I didn’t expect you to show up here,” Nora said as they crossed the street to the path that ran down Ocean Boulevard.
It was just barely dawn, the sky an almost eerie blue-gray.
“But now I can show you everything I love about this island.” Nora kept talking as Dev’s pace sped up, and she struggled to keep up with him.
“Sunrise for one. We can make it to the bay side of the island in about twenty minutes, and by then the sun should just be coming up over the bay. It’s usually gorgeous.
Of course, I’ve only seen it a few times because I’m never awake early enough—”
Dev suddenly stopped walking, and Nora came to a skidding halt.
He turned abruptly on his heels to face her and put his hands on her shoulders—not gently, like he had last weekend in Malibu, but firmly, holding her at arm’s length.
“Dammit, Nora. I thought you really liked me, that this was real,” he said.
“I do,” Nora insisted. She reached up to grab his hand on her shoulder but he jerked away. “Dev, what’s going on?”
He pulled out his phone and handed it to her. “Explain this to me.”
She looked at what was on the screen. It appeared to be an article of some sort, with a headline that read: “Nora May Speaks Out: The Truth About Devlin St. Claire.”
Nora shook her head. “I don’t understand. Some fake hit piece?” People wrote shit about Dev all the time—she’d never seen it bother him before. But to see her own name? This was something unexpected. And she briefly felt excited, until she remembered again how mad Dev had seemed.
“Read it,” he said gruffly. “It’s not fake.”
She glanced through the first few paragraphs, and it did appear to have quotes from her.
Or, rather, an inside source who was close to her, who said that she had pretended to have feelings for Dev to get publicity for the movie.
But that what she really thought was that Dev was too self-absorbed to ever really love someone.
That he was nothing at all like Will the Wizard.
Not a kind bone in his entire body. She actually physically flinched when she read that line, and she stopped reading and looked back up.
“I never would’ve said that… it’s not true. And I don’t even know who this inside source is,” Nora stumbled. “This is all made up, Dev.”
“Keep reading,” he insisted.
She scrolled down. The Devlin St. Claire affair was all smoke and mirrors. Nora May has actually been in a relationship with an unnamed Broadway producer for years.
And then it hit her. Leo? She remembered his eagerness for her to get close to Dev, get photographed, his insistence that he would make it work for her career.
She hadn’t talked to him in months. Was this all him?
She suddenly felt like she was going to throw up, and she sat down on the sidewalk and tried to catch her breath.
“Which producer?” Dev asked.
Nora focused on breathing. In and out. In and out.
“Goddammit, Nora,” Dev said. “You’ve been in a relationship with a producer this whole time?”
“No,” Nora said. “I mean… yes. I mean… I was sort of… before. But not since you and I got together. Leo and I were never—”
“Leo fucking Marks?” Dev reached down to grab his phone back. “You sold me out for that asshole?”
“How do you know Leo?” she asked dumbly.
“Is that really what matters now?”
Nora shook her head, and suddenly it felt like anything else she said was going to make everything worse.
So what if she and Leo had been in an on-again, off-again relationship for years?
She hadn’t spoken to him in at least six months.
She did love Dev. She had nothing to do with this article.
She just had to figure out a way to explain so Dev would understand.
“You thought this was all a fucking game.” Dev spoke quietly but his voice bubbled a little, like he was about to explode. “And I thought, for once… you and I, this was real life.”
“It was,” Nora said. “It is. You know how I feel about you. You know what we have is real.”
“I don’t know anything,” he said.
“Dev, please.” She hated the way her voice sounded so small, desperate. She stood up and tried to reach for his hand, but as soon as she touched him, he yanked away and started walking back toward his car.
“Dev!” she called after him. But he kept on walking. “Devlin Stolarski!”
He flinched, stopped walking for just a moment, but he still didn’t turn around. And then he continued and got in his car.
When Nora made it back to the house and got her phone from the nightstand, she saw she already had a text from Leo: You’re welcome, kiddo.
Dad, as it turned out, needed a second round of chemo, and when Veronica went back to school in the middle of August, Julia called her sisters and asked what they thought about going out there to check on him.
He lived alone (he’d lived alone for years, since Nora left for college), and she knew he had a close-knit group of friends nearby, but still, she didn’t like thinking about him in that great big house all by himself going through so much chemo.
“Someone should go,” Nora agreed. “But I don’t know if it can be me. I have a full travel schedule to promote this movie.”
Julia had recently spotted her sister on a billboard off the beltway (advertising the film) and she had pulled off to take a photo to send to the sisters’ chat. Even V had been impressed when she’d shown her that.
“I mean, I guess I could see if there’s anything I could skip…” Nora’s voice trailed off.
“No way. Dad wouldn’t want you to miss any of that,” Julia assured her.
“I don’t think I can do it either,” Emily said. She told them about the two baby orcas, a new exhibit at the museum that was opening in September. “By Thanksgiving things will be calmer, and I’ll make sure to see Dad then. But I can’t take the time off right now.”
And so, after a moment of quiet on the line, Julia stepped in, stepped up, as she always had her whole life: “Well, don’t either of you worry, I’ll do it. I’ll go out there myself.”
“I told you, you didn’t have to come. I’m doing just fine,” Dad said a few weeks later, as he opened the door and ushered Julia inside. It was chilly, considering it was still technically summer, and Julia was only wearing a light jacket. Freaking Chicago, she really hadn’t missed it.
“Can’t a daughter come for a visit? I wanted to see you,” Julia insisted as she walked inside.
It was funny how their childhood house never seemed to change.
Same furniture, same carpet, same neolithic gas stove Nora had spent her whole life being afraid to light.
She hadn’t been back in a few years, as Dad had routinely come to visit her in Maryland for holidays, birthdays, celebrations.
But now, stepping inside, it felt like a time capsule.
“Yeah, but you’re so busy, sweetheart. I know how hard it is for you to get away.”
She shook her head. She’d actually left Maryland with little fanfare—Ted had told her to take as much time as she needed in Chicago, and that he would manage V’s schedule (with the help of the neighborhood moms who said they’d run the carpools without Julia for a few days).
Veronica had barely shrugged when Julia mentioned she was leaving to check on Grandpop, as well as shot down Julia’s suggestion that she make him a card to cheer him up (What am I?
Like five?). “It’s really fine, Dad,” she insisted now. “I can take a few days away.”
She put her bags down and gave him a hug.
Her arms fit around his usually big frame too easily.
She could feel what his thick sweater was hiding—he’d lost a lot of weight.
“I’ll make you a bunch of food while I’m here and we can freeze it,” she said.
“Do you still have the old freezer in the garage?”
“Of course I do! Where would it have gone?” Dad asked, and Julia laughed.
The next afternoon, in the midst of Julia making her fourth lasagna to put in the garage freezer, Dad woke up from a nap on the couch.
“Julia?” he called for her, his voice sounding thready.
“Can I get you something?” she asked, walking into the living room. “Are you cold? Do you need a blanket?” Her whole life, Dad had complained about the cold in Chicago, and now that he looked so frail, she worried it might feel even worse.
He patted the spot on the couch next to him. “Sit.”
“I have one more lasagna to put in the oven,” she said.
“Forget the lasagna.” His eyes stayed fixed on her face, and he patted the seat next to him again.
She complied and sat next to him.
“My Julia,” he said gently. “You never sit still, do you?”
“I’m sitting now,” she said.
“Okay.” He gently patted her thigh. “But you have to remember to sit, even when I’m not right here to insist.” Julia smiled, and then he said, “It’s funny how sometimes I feel like I blinked and all you girls grew up, just like that.”
She nodded. “It’s what all the parenting books say: The days are long, the years are short.” That had yet to feel true with Veronica, though. Sometimes it felt like she was trapped inside some kind of preteen parenting hell that she might never make her way out of.
“But you’re all grown up. You need to remember to sit, to take moments for yourself. I’m not going to be here forever to remind you.”
“Don’t say that!” Julia said quickly.
“Why not, it’s true. The only thing certain in life is death.”
“And taxes,” Julia added.
Dad chuckled. “You get that sense of humor from me, you know.”
She nodded. She did know, or at least thought she did.
She didn’t know what she inherited from her mom by comparison.
She stared at him for another moment, hating how frail he looked.
She hated cancer and the ability it had to make a person you loved wither right before your very eyes.
And then she wondered if she would ever again have the chance to ask him the one thing she’d been trying to for twenty years.
“Dad,” she said, forcing herself to voice it now. “Since we’re talking about death… will you tell me the truth now?”
“The truth?” His face turned, confused.
But she kept on staring at him. “About Mom,” she said softly. And then his face fell. Understanding. He shook his head.
“Please?” she said.
He didn’t say anything for a few moments, and he twisted his thin fingers together in his lap. “I love you three girls so much,” he finally said. “I made a promise, a long time ago, that I would do whatever it took to protect you.”