Chapter Five
Five
FIRST THINGS FIRST: We got out of town.
Despite everything I knew about the gravity of what I’d just done, I felt surprisingly free.
All to say: Don’t knock open-top Jeeps until you’ve tried ’em.
I had just firebombed my life—and left my whole family to clean up the mess. Except for my dad, of course, as usual.
Later, I’d feel bad about it all.
But for now—at least for this one drive—I was just going to be.
I was just going to close my eyes, and sing along, and enjoy being with my old friend, and let the wind blow all my thoughts away.
We zipped down the freeway, past Texas City and its refinery flames, up over the causeway with all its roving bands of pelicans, and then down Sixty-First Street toward the Gulf of Mexico.
We’d done this a hundred times in high school. And now it felt both exactly the same and the opposite of the same.
Cooper parallel parked right there on the Seawall, overlooking the waves, and cut the engine.
We watched the breakers for a while. No talking.
Finally, he said, “What do you want to do now?”
I turned to meet his eyes, and then I said, very deliberately, “I want to get out of this insulting, ridiculous noose of a dress.”
So we went to Murdochs—a hundred-year-old souvenir shop that sold everything and sat up on stilts over the waves. We must have been a sight—a French hobo and a runaway bride just hunting through the aisles.
People were definitely staring.
But I didn’t care.
We found me some flip-flops, and some nylon shorts, and a T-shirt that said BEACH, PLEASE. Plus a couple of massive beach towels. Some heart sunglasses. And food—so much, we had to grab a second basket: chips, and cookies, and pints of Ben & Jerry’s, and every candy bar I could find.
“We’ll be eating our feelings, then?” Cooper said.
I just gave him a look, like Try to stop me.
On the way to check out, we passed a jewelry display.
It had rings and necklaces made of shells and beads in beachy colors.
Some were plastic and cheap—but a small section had pieces with sea glass inlaid in silver, made by a local artisan.
I stopped to look at them—and then I remembered with sudden horror I was still wearing Grandmother Richmond’s engagement ring.
I guess I had a hot-potato reaction to that.
I dropped the shopping basket with a smack, and then I got frantic trying to twist the ring and work it off. It had been a bit tight from the get-go, but all my yanking and tugging just made it tighter.
“What are you doing?” Cooper asked when he looked up and saw me wriggling.
“The engagement ring!” I said. “It’s not coming off!”
“Slow down,” Cooper said. “Don’t make things worse.”
But I kept pulling and twisting. “Making things worse is my whole thing.”
“For real, though,” Cooper said. “Just hold still.”
“I can’t. I’m panicking!”
“Give me your hand,” Cooper said, taking it and clamping it still in his.
“Get it off! Get it off!” I said in a panicked rush, like there was a bug on me.
“Just stay calm,” Cooper said. “Count some three-Mississippi breaths and oxygenate.” Gently, he started trying to twist the ring. But now my finger was starting to swell. “How bad do you want this off?” Cooper asked.
“Bad!”
“Scale of one to ten?”
“A thousand!”
“Okay, then. Don’t question my methods.”
“Wait—what methods?”
“Just look away and don’t worry about it.”
But of course the minute he told me to look away, I had to do the opposite.
I watched Cooper bend over my ring finger and put his mouth on the ring—and, by default, part of my finger.
“What are you doing?” I said, reaching out the other hand to stop him.
He batted it away and kept his mouth there.
It was warm. And wet. I squeezed my eyes closed. “Please tell me that’s not your tongue.”
When he stood back up, the puffy part of my finger was now, shall we say, lubricated.
He started to work the ring again—and this time, it slid off.
He held it out to me.
But I didn’t take it. I was busy wiping his spit off my hand onto Mrs. Richmond’s wedding gown. “You just sucked my finger.”
“I didn’t suck it, I moistened it.”
“That’s worse.”
“Stop complaining,” he said, still holding it out, “and take it.”
“I don’t want it,” I said.
“I don’t want it,” Cooper said.
But now I was studying my ruddy, still-puffy, ringless ring finger. “Can’t you just stick it in that rucksack of yours?”
“Why?”
“Because I’m gonna have to give it back to her.”
Cooper paused like I was crazy. “Just throw it in the ocean,” he said.
I gave him a look. “I’m not a thief. That thing’s worth a fortune.”
Cooper sighed, acquiesced, and zipped it into a pocket.
In line to check out, I kept looking at my hand. I’d been wearing that too-tight ring for four years, and it had left an imprint. The Richmonds hadn’t wanted to resize it until the deal was really sealed, which had seemed impossibly rude at the time.
I guess, in hindsight: not a bad idea.
My hand looked weirdly naked now.
It was fine, I told myself. I’d get used to it.
But I felt a wave of sadness anyway.
What was wrong with me—seriously? Why did I always have to be my own worst enemy? I was glaring down at my hand like it might answer me when Cooper jogged away for a minute, and then jogged back, stopping square in front of me.
He moved his fist into my field of vision—and then opened it.
He’d grabbed one of the sea glass rings. Pale aqua and sterling silver.
I looked up.
“For you,” Cooper said. “This one’s going to fit better, I think.”
And when he slipped it onto my finger, it turned out he was right.
THE LADIES’ ROOM at Murdochs was closed to the public for a deep clean, so even after we left, I was still ensnared in that miserable gown. Back on the Seawall, I scanned for another establishment that might have a bathroom where I could change.
“Maybe the tattoo parlor?” I considered out loud.
But Cooper shook his head. “I have a faster idea,” he said.
He led me down the steps to the beach, and we set down all our bags, rucksack included. Then Cooper held up the massive beach towels we’d bought, one in front of me and one behind, and clamped the corners together with his hands.
“What are you doing?” I asked.
“It’s a changing tent,” Cooper said.
“You want me to change right here?”
“Do you have a better idea?”
“How about not getting naked on a public beach?”
“You want out of that dress, don’t you?”
Oh, god. I did. So bad. “Fine. But you’re going to have to rip it off me.”
“Happy to oblige,” Cooper said.
Ultimately, the lace turtleneck really was the only thing holding everything up. It was lucky I was facing away from him. Because as soon as Cooper ripped the collar, the whole dress tried to slide right off.
I caught the bodice just in time, while Cooper blinked at me like he couldn’t believe what had almost happened.
“You just came so close to being totally naked.”
“Not totally naked,” I corrected. “I am wearing bridal lingerie.”
“Still,” he said, unfairly delighted. “You were one stiff wind away from watching your dress float away like a birthday balloon.”
“It’s not my dress,” I insisted again.
This time, Cooper agreed. “Not anymore.”
“Can you just hand me my stuff, please?”
He did. And then I disappeared into the towel tent. And he waited semi-patiently as I changed, saying things like, “There are so many pranks I could be pulling on you right now.”
While I changed, he listed them all—from stealing the towels to shouting “Fire!”—but he didn’t do any of them. Which surprised me a little. The Cooper I remembered would’ve been flying that wedding dress like a kite by now.
Maybe he felt sorry for me.
Or maybe—and this was hard to conceptualize—he’d grown up.
Once I was changed, and free as a seagull in my flip-flops and BEACH, PLEASE T-shirt, I wadded the dress up and walked over to a beach trash can with a dolphin painted on it.
I stuffed the dress in, but it didn’t quite fit.
It was so puffy, the crinoline flowed out over the top like the head on a beer.
I stepped back and put my hands on my hips, expecting to feel victorious.
“Well, that’s a satisfying sight,” Cooper said.
“Yeah,” I said, frowning.
But he read my voice. “No?”
I thought about it. Then I walked back over to the trash can, pulled the dress back out, and shook it.
“What are you doing?” Cooper said.
I brushed the dress off. Then I started folding it up.
“That thing is not coming back in my car.”
“It’s not your car. It’s a rental.”
But Cooper couldn’t fathom what I was doing.
The dress was not exactly easy to fold. It wound up in a wad. I found my pantyhose on the sand and used them to strangle it into a bundle.
“This is crazy,” Cooper said. Then he pointed at the trash can. “Put it back.”
But I shook my head. “No.”
“It’s been torturing you all day. Get rid of it.”
“No.”
At that, Cooper darted in and grabbed it out of my arms.
“Hey!” I said, chasing him. “Give it back!”
“Free yourself!” Cooper shouted as I swiped and missed, and swiped and missed.
We were running around in circles now.
“Give it back!” I kept shouting.
“Never!” he kept responding.
Finally, breathless, I stopped running.
Wary, Cooper stopped, too. “Why won’t you do this for yourself? Just get rid of it.”
“It’s her wedding dress, Cooper.”
“Were you not back there in that church? Did you not hear the vicious crap she said to you?”
I took a breath. “I just left her only son at the altar.”
“Don’t tell me you regret it,” Cooper said. “That dude was texting the whole time.”
I looked out at the ocean. “I’m not sure how I feel about it. But one thing’s pretty clear. Throwing that woman’s wedding dress away just now didn’t make me feel better. It made me feel worse.”
ANYWAY—THAT’S HOW COOPER ruined my wedding.
Classic Cooper.
As we sat on the steps of the Seawall, eating my pile of snacks and watching the whitecaps breaking on the black ocean, I assumed he’d be back home now for a few days.
For a little visit, at least. That he’d see his mom, and binge eat some Tex-Mex while the getting was good, and hang out with me—as penance for dismantling my life, if nothing else.
But I was wrong.
His visit to Texas lasted less than twenty-four hours.
His flight back to London left at six AM—that morning.
“What were you thinking?” I asked, staring baldly at him when he told me that. “Everything about this is completely crazy.”
Cooper nodded, like he agreed.
Then he handed me the chocolate bar I was reaching for.
Then he said, “I had something to say to you. And I wanted to say it in person.”
I studied him. “What? What could you possibly have had to say that required a transatlantic voyage?”
But he scrunched his face and shook his head. “I think now’s not the time.”
“What!”
He shrugged. “I’m not ready. Or maybe you’re not.”
“You cannot fly all the way here for less than twenty-four hours to say something that major—and then just not say it!”
But he could. And he did.
No amount of begging, arguing, threatening, or guilt-tripping changed his mind.
He took off for London at six AM, as scheduled, without ever saying the thing he’d flown to Texas to say.
And all I could do was go home. And wonder what it was.