Chapter 29
I WANT TO AMEND THE terms,” Ted said to Julia, as she was pulling her suitcase out of the closet so she could pack it for Coronado.
His words stopped her, and she stood frozen for a moment, wondering if he’d changed his mind about the divorce. They’d been getting along amazingly well this past year, and most days Julia moved about her life almost forgetting about their deal.
“Amend how?” she said, pushing past him to wheel her suitcase to the foot of the bed, where the clothes she was taking were already sitting in neatly folded squares.
“I think we should amend the term about cheating,” Ted said. “I mean, four years is a long time to be celibate.”
“What?” She understood what he was saying, but she asked the question to give herself a minute to process how completely she’d misread things.
She’d started working full-time at a new job this past year.
Veronica had finally gotten her driver’s license, and they’d given her Julia’s old car to drive, which meant Julia didn’t even have to worry about school pickups and drop-offs.
Julia had pretty much thrown her entire self into work the last few months.
And now, standing awkwardly in front of Ted, asking him to essentially clarify his take on celibacy, she suddenly wondered if she and Ted hadn’t actually been getting along at all. Maybe she had just been ignoring him.
“We both agreed that our marriage is practically over. I think we should remove that term from our verbal,” Ted finally said.
Julia spun on her heels to face him, put her hands on her hips. “So now you want my permission to go fuck someone else?” Her voice shook, and her heart suddenly pounded in her chest. She didn’t even sound like herself with that language. She sounded abrasive, like Emily.
“That’s a crass way to put it,” Ted said.
“So that’s a yes?” she spat.
“Look, it can go both ways. This gives you a hall pass when you see Nate next week.”
“A hall pass?” Julia shook her head, suddenly thinking about standing with Nate last May at Belmont Park. “We had a contract.”
“A verbal,” Ted said. “And I’m saying I want to amend it.”
“What if I say no?” Julia asked.
“Why do you even care?” Ted asked. “It’s not like we’re having sex.”
“Is that all you want?” Julia asked. “Sex?” She reached up and unbuttoned her shirt halfway, exposing her white cotton bra. “Fine, we can do it right now. Then you won’t have to worry about being celibate.”
“Julia.” Ted said her name tenderly. He reached up his hands, but instead of grazing his fingertips across her breasts, the way he might’ve once, years ago, he slowly started to redo the buttons instead.
“Mom!” Veronica’s voice suddenly called out from downstairs. “I’m home. Where are you?”
Julia pushed his hands away and quickly did up the buttons herself.
Veronica had been at the mall with her friends, and Julia, who usually compulsively tracked her on Find My when she was out driving, had been busy enough packing and dealing with Ted that she hadn’t recently checked.
So Veronica’s arrival home now felt like a rare surprise.
“Upstairs in my bedroom, sweetie,” she called back, looping the top button closed, feeling her cheeks flame red and hoping V wouldn’t notice.
The bedroom door swung open and Veronica walked in, dressed in denim shorts that Julia found both too short and too tight and a pink crop top that Julia thought revealed way too much skin.
But she held her tongue. School had just gotten out for the summer.
Veronica had argued just yesterday that there shouldn’t be any dress code over summer break.
Julia had agreed to that, though now wished she hadn’t.
In general, she and Veronica had been getting along better the past few months, since they’d walked in the Women’s March together in January, wearing the matching pink hats Cecile had knitted and mailed from Florida.
They’d felt this glorious solidarity that day and Julia had been trying to cling to that, to keep the rare peace with her daughter. “How was the mall, V?” she said now.
“Jemma invited me to go to Cape May with her family this week, and I already texted Dad earlier and he said it was okay if I bailed on the Hamptons. But he said I had to ask you.” Veronica’s words tumbled out in a rush. “So can I go? Please, please, please?”
Julia tried to process for a few seconds.
Had Ted just essentially asked her if he could cheat, already knowing he would have the next week totally and completely by himself?
She was tempted to tell Veronica no, for that reason alone, that she wanted Ted to have a chaperone.
But what real reason did she have to tell Veronica no that wasn’t going to cause a huge mother-daughter blowup?
“Her parents are going?” Julia asked cautiously instead.
Veronica nodded.
“And there will be no drinking, drugs, smoking? Or sex without condoms.”
“Jesus, Mom.” Veronica’s cheeks flushed. “Daddy, can’t you ask her to be normal, just once?”
Ted grinned and held up his hands, but he and Veronica exchanged a knowing look that suddenly Julia wished she could punch right off Ted’s chiseled face.
“What would normal be?” Julia asked. “Telling you to get drunk, ruin your lungs, and get pregnant while you’re at it?”
“Daddy!” Veronica protested.
“Mom and I both trust you to make good decisions,” Ted said. “Don’t we, Julia?”
“So I can go?” Veronica squealed.
Julia felt she had no other choice but to nod. Veronica grabbed her in a brief hug and then ran out of the room, saying she needed to pack.
Julia turned to Ted after Veronica was gone and said quietly, “I should divorce you right now, tell V everything.”
“You know better than to do that to V,” Ted said, and then he calmly walked out.
After a string of false starts, Nora had finally gotten cast in a new Broadway show.
It was a supporting role, not a lead, so it almost felt like a step down after Hera.
But since it was a comedy, not a drama, Stella swore it would help show her range, help build her into something bigger for the next role.
And nearly two years after Hera closed, and a half dozen near misses, Nora was just happy to have something booked.
She’d bought herself a new Louis Vuitton bag to celebrate and then carried it with her on the flight to San Diego, stuffing it with all her favorite entertainment magazines purchased at the Hudson’s at JFK.
She settled into her seat after the flight took off, pulled EW out of her beautiful, beautiful (did she say beautiful?) new bag, stopping for a moment to lovingly stroke the beige leather.
Then she reclined in her seat and flipped open the magazine, only to be confronted with the sudden sight of Dev’s familiar, attractive face.
Devlin St. Claire and fiancée, Jade, show off their gorgeous new Hollywood Hills home!
It had been six months since Nora had texted Dev and then snuck out of his hotel room, and she’d never gotten a response. Thank you for tonight. Text me. She’d waited all that day, and then the next, and the next, checking her phone again and again. He never texted her.
A week later, she saw pictures of him and Jade (former Disney star/current rising pop star) together on Instagram, which only reaffirmed for her that sneaking out had been exactly the right way to protect her heart after all.
If only she hadn’t been stupid enough to go back to his hotel with him in the first place.
If only she hadn’t felt so much that night.
If only sex with him wasn’t different, better than anything else she’d ever had.
Well, clearly it had meant nothing to him. He was on to Jade in no time.
And now they were engaged? Ugh. She had up until this very moment missed out on that specific tidbit.
And seeing the photographic evidence in print before her, it hit differently: the two of them sitting on a white couch in a gorgeous, wide-open living room surrounded by natural light.
A huge renovated farmhouse kitchen, with Jade in an apron (baking a stupid apple pie no less).
Dev jumping into a sparkling blue pool in the backyard, a devilish grin on his face.
She examined him closely in the photos now.
Dev really had one of those faces that didn’t age at all, and he strangely still looked twenty-five even though she knew he was close to forty.
Jade had flawless olive skin, straight, shiny, long, jet-black hair, and actually was twenty-five, all of which made Nora feel even more irritated.
Also, Nora didn’t think her voice was even that good!
Her most popular songs relied heavily on auto-tune.
When Nora had listened to her live on Good Morning America a few weeks ago, she’d been totally off pitch.
Dev was both too talented and too old for her.
Not that anyone had asked Nora’s opinion on the matter, nor cared what she thought. She closed the magazine and stuffed it in the back of the seat in front of her, feeling annoyed.
And then she asked the flight attendant for a glass of wine.
It might have been fair to say Nora was still a little buzzed when she arrived in her Uber on Ocean Boulevard. Three glasses of in-flight wine had barely smoothed out the edges of Dev. She was last to arrive this year, and Emily, Julia, and Mallory were already sitting out on the front porch.