20. Jonah #2
“I met him when I was twenty. I had an opportunity to dance with the New Orleans Ballet Theater at the Orpheum in the corps for Swan Lake. A dream, obviously.”
“He was a ballet dancer?” Jonah asked.
“Oh, no.” She gave a quick laugh, as if dating Baryshnikov was out of the question.
“He played in the Louisiana Symphony. He’d been in it for years, since he was older, almost thirty then.
He played cello like…” She shook her head.
“Like absolute perfection. He’s the principal cellist now, a really impressive feat at thirty-four, but back then he was just a section cellist, but still… ”
But still “absolute perfection,” Jonah thought, hating himself for being jealous of her cello-playing ex.
“Anyway, we were together a while, almost two years, and I got the opportunity to try out for a New York company. We decided to give long-distance a go, which we did, pretty successfully, considering I struck out professionally in New York and was so sad.”
“Then you came back to New Orleans.” Atlas was getting fussy, and Jonah needed to hear whatever she wanted to say about Owen so he could get back to pleading his case.
“Yes, and we lived together and…well, we didn’t get engaged.
” Her voice dropped with what he knew was a deep hurt.
“But he kept saying he was just so busy with work and moving up to the next chair and practicing and traveling, but all the while, Jonah, he said what you said…it doesn’t matter. Until…it did.”
“What happened?”
She just lifted a shoulder as if she had no idea.
“He was staring down the barrel of thirty-five and I guess a biological clock started ticking for him. He wanted kids. He started going full speed into the possibility of surrogacy. Even though he’d said he was okay with no kids or adoption, he just…
changed. Like overnight. And then…” She closed her eyes and took a minute, the only sound Atlas chewing on the collar of Jonah’s T-shirt. “He met someone and dumped me.”
Jonah grunted. “Oof. That had to hurt.”
“Hurt?” She gave a harsh, cold laugh. “It destroyed me. It annihilated me. It made me realize I will never trust another man and I’m better off without one and I never, ever, ever want to cry that hard again. My father, of all unlikely people, picked up the pieces.”
And every word Marcel had said made total and complete sense.
“But before all that, Jonah?” She put her hand on his arm. “He said every single word you did. ‘I don’t care. I love you. I have you. We’ll figure it out. Babies aren’t the thing.’ He meant it. That’s the part you need to hear. He meant it.”
How was he supposed to fight that?
“Pepper, I’m not him,” he said. “You can’t base your judgment of every man on him.”
“I know. You’re very different. And you do have a son. But once you’ve been through something like that, you just don’t…you can’t…well, I can’t ever take a chance like that again.”
“You have to.”
She turned and looked directly at him. “No, I don’t. And, frankly, I won’t.”
The chewing stopped and Jonah looked down to see Atlas had conked out, eyes closed, tiny lips open.
He tried again. “Pepper. I’m not Owen.”
“I know you’re not. Not now, anyway. But what about in four years, when Atlas wants a sibling, and you’re a successful chef and you want to grow your family?
What if we were married and all you could think about was what I cannot give you?
What if you suddenly decide it’s Atlas I love and not you? ’Cause that’s what my dad thinks.”
“That’s crazy, Pepper!” he insisted, and meant it. “Everything you’re saying is speculation and not based in any fact.”
“You think that now, but I know…I know.”
Her hurt was audible, and if he could punch Owen the absolutely perfect cellist in the throat, he would.
She wiped the corner of her eye, fast, like a person who was not allowing herself to cry.
“And I will not do it again. I will not even start. I would rather end it here in this driveway tonight than wake up in five years next to a good, kind man who is grieving children he won’t ever have.”
He sat very still.
“So. I am going to…leave.”
“Excuse me?”
“I’m going back New Orleans and I am going to teach my classes, and you are going to find another nanny and you will become the chef Isobel Vega wants you to be, and we are going to be two people who knew each other one stormy summer in Florida.
I will remember you for the rest of my life as the sweetest thing that ever happened to me, and you will be free to find a woman whose body works and have as many children as you want. ”
She stopped, out of breath.
“Pepper. No.” He wanted to hold her so much his arms hurt, but moving would wake up Atlas and then she’d use that as an excuse to take off with the echo of her horrible run-on speech haunting him all night.
“I’m sorry, Jonah, this is my call to make. I am the one who has lived it. You have not lived it yet. I am not going to let you live it.”
He searched for the words to change her mind.
“Listen to me, you are not—this is not love speaking. This is fear. And, not that I want to one-up you, but the woman I thought I was going to marry got in a car one night when we had a three-week-old newborn and never came home. You think I don’t know hurt or fear?
You could not make it back to Crestview tonight and don’t think I won’t worry, because I do. Every time you leave here.”
She closed her eyes.
“You may be right,” she said softly. “But it doesn’t change what I am going to do. And that is never love you, Jonah. Or Atlas, although it might be too late for that.”
He drew back. “You could love me, though.”
“I don’t love you now and I just don’t…think…I ever will.” She spoke haltingly enough that he knew she was done with her backstory script about her medical issues and ex-boyfriend pain. Now it was new territory, and she was making it up as she went along.
“I won’t,” she added, sounding like she was trying to convince herself. “I’m not capable of it, and you’re…not…” She swallowed and looked hard at him. “You’re not the right man for me.”
He almost laughed at how insincere she sounded.
“You’re not,” she continued. “You’re…a chef. I grew up with one of those. Never home, guaranteed divorce.”
“Oh, really?”
“Yes, really. And it would be bad for you to date your professor’s daughter. I think the school would frown on it. Could cost you the spot in the culinary program.”
“Yes, I know these reasons, Pepper. I suggested them to your father, who swatted them down.”
“Well, they’re valid,” she insisted, stabbing her key in the ignition. “And I have to go. Please. Goodnight.”
He stared at her and made no move to get out of the car.
“Goodnight, Jonah.”
Atlas squirmed, about three degrees from waking. “Will you be here on Wednesday?”
She stared straight ahead, then sighed. “No,” she said, the word hitting him like a brick to the head. “After this…I just don’t think it’s a good idea. I’m sorry.”
“Pepper!”
“I don’t want to leave you in the lurch. I can ask a friend or—”
“Why? Why would you quit?”
“Because I can’t keep seeing you and hear your arguments and…and…” She put a hand on Atlas’s back. “I can’t fall any more in love with him or…” She lifted her gaze and met his. “You.”
He just stared at her, unable to comprehend this.
“Please don’t fight me, Jonah. It’s my choice.” She turned the key. “I’m sorry. I’m so, so sorry. I am. You know the truth and we really shouldn’t be in the same place together anymore. I have to…” Her voice trailed off.
“You have to protect yourself from the unknown,” he said softly, reaching for the door handle because either he or Atlas was about to cry. “So…goodbye. I don’t need your friends to help. I don’t need…” This much pain again. “Bye, Pepper.”
As he started to get out, she turned and reached for Atlas, a little horror on her face, as if she just realized she’d not only lost Jonah, but this baby she loved so much.
She gave a whimper and Atlas woke up, stared at her, and broke into a huge smile that visibly crushed her.
At least he was trying to help his dad out.
Without another word, Jonah climbed out of the car and walked to the house.
She backed out slowly and pulled onto Gulf Shore, her lights disappearing in an instant while Jonah stood in the driveway in the purple night, holding his son.
The word he had not let himself think for months and months welled up like a sob.
Cursed.
His mother died. His girlfriend died. And now this. His whole life was—
Atlas slapped his face and giggled.
“You think this is funny, young man?”
The gummy smile just grew. “Da! Da-da! Da-da!”
Jonah stood very still, staring at this beautiful, tiny, miraculous creature who didn’t know any pain or heartache or…curses.
“Da-da,” Atlas repeated.
Jonah started laughing. “Once more for the people in the back, buddy!”
“Da-daaaaa!”
Jonah’s eyes filled with tears he couldn’t stop if he wanted to. He wasn’t cursed, he realized with exquisite clarity. He was…Da-da.
“It’s you and me, buddy,” he said gruffly. “Just two dudes making our way in this messed up world.”
Atlas dropped his head on Jonah’s shoulder. “Da-da.”