4. Much to the Chagrin
4
MUCH TO THE CHAGRIN
Harlow
The problem with the dinner is my father thinks he’s a matchmaker.
I sweep into Dad’s home with olives and cheese—because a polite guest brings a gift, even if she’s the daughter of the host—and Dad tugs me aside and whispers, even though we’re the only ones around, “Vivian would be perfect for Bridger.”
He says it like he can’t believe how fantastic this idea is.
When it’s awful.
Why is he doing this? Is this because he left Joan last week? Or maybe Joan left him—he never clarified who was the leaver and who was the leavee. But he’s keeping busy like this ?
“Vivian as in the new junior agent at Astor Agency?” I ask, hunting for a believable reason why Vivian is bad news for Bridger. Astor is Dad’s lit agent for his solo writing, like the novels he’s written in the Sweet Nothings world. None of his books have ever hit as big as the ones my mother penned—the ones Dad and Bridger launched to worldwide fame.
“Yes. Good memory,” he says.
“Is it a good idea to hook Bridger up with someone at your agency?”
“Why not?” Dad asks breezily, like he can’t conceive it wouldn’t be.
Because he can’t. Because Dad hasn’t a care in the world. He’s rich, he’s good-looking, he’s brilliant. He wants for nothing. He doesn’t even have the decency to miss his newest ex-fiancée.
But I can’t let this match happen. “Doesn’t she also rep one of the writers on your show? Isla, I think?” I ask, a little desperately. But as arguments go, conflict of interest seems pretty valid.
“Even better,” Dad says brightly. “More they have in common.”
Dammit. Foiled.
“Just seems risky,” I add, trying to mask my irritation, maybe failing.
“Harlow,” he chides gently. “Remember what I’ve always told you?”
I seethe. As if I could ever forget the instructions he gave me long ago when he said: Darling, I know you’re trying to be helpful, but it’s better you don’t get involved. Roselyn doesn’t need to know about my guests. It’ll only upset the delicate balance of an adult relationship.
I certainly won’t step on his matchmaking toes tonight.
He grabs a fresh wooden board from the counter. “This arrived today from Sur La Table. You can help set it up. You have such a good eye.”
And that’s that. The match will be made. The food will be displayed.
And I, evidently, have an eye for arranging food. That’s what my double major in French and art is all about. But I put that eye to use as I attractively arrange the olives and cheese on the wooden board, next to the grapes and crackers.
When the guests arrive a few minutes later, I deeply regret agreeing to dinner.
This is hell. I have to sit through this meal while my dad plays matchmaker with the pretty young agent.
Vivian’s attractive in a standard New York City entry-level-professional sort of way—straight brown hair clipped back, a black sweater, chandelier earrings, and trendy boots.
As my dad circulates with a board of figs, nuts, and cheese, she makes small talk in the living room with Bridger about the supposed golden age of TV, and how the entertainment business is blessed with so many options these days.
Boring .
He seems to listen intently, but he says little, maybe because she talks a lot. He wears his five-o’clock shadow like a 1950s ad exec, and he looks like he spends his working hours on the phone, talking, negotiating, wooing. He also sports pressed black pants and a shirt the shade of a ripe raspberry.
But it’s not the one I told him to wear and that pisses me off too.
After ample praise from his guests for his charcuterie skills, my father heads to the kitchen to assemble an encore, nodding not so subtly for Vivian to follow him.
Naturally, I follow, too, a few steps behind.
No one notices I’m there. Dad taught me to be invisible when it comes to adult affairs, so I use that to my advantage as I beautify the board.
“What do you think, Vivian? Is he the bloke for you?” Dad asks her.
Jaw ticking, I listen as I layer figs.
“Well, what’s not to like? He’s handsome, well-educated, and he’s making bank. He could be the one,” she says. I want to tackle her. Who cares if Bridger has money?
I damn well plan on making my own money when I am out of school. I don’t intend to be dependent on anyone else’s wallet. Besides, love shouldn’t be about what someone makes. It should be about how someone makes you feel.
“There you go,” my dad says, chipper.
I hate my father all over again, in a fresh, new, feral way.
But I try to tamp down my anger as the man of the matchmaking hour walks into the kitchen to pour himself another iced tea. Bridger helps himself to a pitcher from the fridge, and after he fills up his glass, he spies the board I’m finishing. He plucks an olive from the center.
After he bites into one, he rolls his eyes in pleasure. “Olives are my guilty pleasure,” he says to me.
Yes. To me.
Take that, Vivian.
“Don’t feel guilty about pleasure,” I say, flashing a smile his way.
Vivian edges up to the board. “I better try one too,” she says, then bats her lashes, reaching for an olive as well. There’s a competitive tone, even a territorial one, in her declaration.
Something flames up in me—a thick plume of jealousy as she sets a hand possessively on his forearm.
Get off him.
But immediately, deep shame washes over me. He’s not mine. I need to stop entertaining this crush with my supposed strategy.
I need to stop feeding it.
I need to stop feeding it, or it will never die.
All through dinner, I fasten on a proper smile and I play the adult game, talking to everyone else.
Not Bridger. Not Vivian. Not Dad. Just the three other guests, until finally, they’re gone. Vivian is the last, waving at Bridger as she leaves.
“Good night, Vivian,” he says, evenly. It’s a friendly tone, one I instantly recognize. It’s the way he spoke to me after my crash. Then at the send-off party. It’s the way he’s talked to me since I’ve known him.
Until the party the other week, when we stole behind the tree and he asked me questions.
When the door snicks shut, Vivian’s gone. It’s just the three of us, so I slide into chore mode along with the two business partners. As we ferry dishes to the kitchen, my dad gives a big-eyed look to Bridger.
“So, what did you think of her?”
Bridger gives an I’m going to let you down smile. “I’m not sure we’re the right fit,” he says.
Yes! Yes! Yes!
“I wasn’t suggesting you get married,” Dad says with a laugh.
“What’s wrong with marriage, Ian?” Bridger counters, baiting my dad as he returns to the table to pick up stray forks and glasses.
I hope this clean-up lasts forever. I’m dying to hear the details.
“I suppose it’s fine for some people, but I don’t think of you as the marrying kind,” Dad says, now loading the dishwasher as I rinse the plates.
“If she were right for me, maybe I’d be the marrying kind,” Bridger says to my dad, a teasing note in his voice as he hands me a plate to rinse.
I take it, giddy to hear him talk so freely. I stay silent so they’ll keep going.
“So when you meet the right woman, you’ll be down on one knee?” Dad asks him.
Just like you, Daddy .
“I guess we’ll see when I meet her,” Bridger answers.
“Okay, mate. What are you looking for in a bird?”
Bird. Jesus. I stop biting my tongue, chiming in at last. “Dad, maybe consider saying ‘woman.’”
“Young people. Always so PC,” he says with an eye roll as he closes the dishwasher.
“It’s not PC to call a woman a woman,” I correct.
“What is it then?”
“The way you should talk, Ian,” Bridger says decisively.
“See?” I retort with a cocky tilt of my head.
Dad laughs like he’s just so amused by me. “Send them to college, this is what happens.” He turns his full focus back on Bridger. “Good thing for Lucky 21 that you and I aren’t the same generation,” he says.
No kidding. Dad’s in his late forties. Bridger is thirty. His birthday’s in late March.
“Why’s that, Ian?” Bridger asks.
“Gives us an edge that you’re younger, since you know how people should talk these days,” Dad says.
“You could learn too,” Bridger counters, and wow. That’s hot, how he talks to my dad, standing his ground. “And that might also be why we have different ideas of what makes a relationship work, Ian,” he says, smirking, perhaps a sign that he knows more than the industry knows about my dad. It’s no secret he’s been married four times. But I’m not sure his philandering ways are common knowledge. But Bridger must know.
What does he think of my father’s affairs? He can’t possibly condone them.
“What makes a relationship work, then?” Dad asks, reaching for an open bottle of wine from the kitchen counter and pouring the rest into a fresh glass. “Shared interests? Common beliefs? A little humor?” He asks as if those are totally unbelievable.
Bridger leans against the counter, scratches his jaw. It’s a power move, casually gearing up to win this poke-prod debate with my father. “All that,” he says, then takes a beat before he delivers the punch, “and knowing all the lyrics to every song in Ask Me Next Year .”
I swallow a gasp.
He says that last line with a wry smile.
I’d told myself my crush was over. I’d almost tricked myself into believing it. But inside, I thrill at the words. I know all the lyrics to the musical Ask Me Next Year .
Every single one in every single song.
Does Bridger know that?
Is that comment for me?
Dad laughs. “You win this round. You and your show tunes. You know, Harlow is a Broadway baby. She loves all musicals,” he says, then checks his watch. “Need to make a call.”
On that, he breezes out of the room, down the hall, and out of sight.
I don’t move a muscle. I’m still vibrating here in the kitchen. Finally, I look up at Bridger, meeting his inky-blue gaze.
There’s no strategy, only instinct as I, almost under my breath, repeat the chorus to the bittersweet ballad in the show.
“He Can’t Be Mine.”
Bridger turns to me slowly. “What did you just say?” His question comes out quieter than the dark night.
But I don’t utter those words of longing again.
Instead, I say, “It played for two months in 1998.” I’m warm everywhere as my heart climbs into my throat. My insides are spinning. I’m sure my feelings are tattooed across my face, living, breathing ink marks saying I have it bad for you.
“And hasn’t been revived since, much to the chagrin of musical theater diehards everywhere,” he says, and his eyes sparkle as he stares at me with…wonder.
“Yes. Much to the chagrin,” I add.
I can’t stay this close to him without revealing everything, so I retreat to the living room and open a book I left on the coffee table the last time I was here. But the pages are full of drunk lines weaving in front of me. I can’t concentrate. I’m tipsy just being near him.