36. Jess
“Ican’t believe he did this.” I’m close to hyperventilating. Just envisioning the reaction Alex is going to have when an attorney I did not hire tries to intervene? It’s enough to make my stomach flip back over on itself.
“We might need to call in reinforcements,” Alyssa says as she bounces around her kitchen with a sleeping Arielle on shoulder.
“Reinforcements for what?” Scott comes in to grab his daughter and take her to bed.
“Get Anna on FaceTime,” she instructs me, ignoring my brother. “I’ll say good night to the girls, then call Teags and we’ll hash it out.”
To keep my crap together, I narrow my scope down to just one thing at a time. Getting Anna on the phone is the first order of business.
I don’t realize how much I need her until I see her smile on the screen. “How did the screening go?” she asks. “Uh-oh, you look upset. Did someone not like your movie? They’re morons! I’ll destroy them!”
The lump in my throat grows a little and my eyes well up. Anna would pick a fight with Ghandi if he threw shade at one of her friends.
“Jess, I’m heading out,” Chris’ voice comes through the door. “Your film was incredible.” He gives me a hug and kisses the top of my head. Then he gets briefly distracted, seeing Anna’s face on my phone. “Hi there.” Did his voice just go deeper by an octave?
“Hey,” Anna responds. Did her voice just go deeper by an octave?
I’ll evaluate that later. “Thanks so much for coming,” I smile at Chris. “And for, um, running interference.”
Snapping back to me, he shakes his head briefly. “He knows he fucked up, don’t worry.”
“Ohhh, I know he knows,” I respond. I don’t want Chris to get involved more than he already is, so I don’t tell him about the lawyer. We say goodbye and Anna mouths, Oh my god! when he walks out of the frame, fanning herself. I turn and Chris mouths Wow! while pointing at my phone. He spins around out of the kitchen, passing Alyssa, who’s on her way in.
Seriously, I’ll evaluate that later.
Alyssa marches back in the kitchen, ready for business. “Good, you’ve got Anna. I’ve got Teagan on this phone. She’s on break, so we’ve got to make this quick.”
As briefly as possible, we fill Anna and Teagan in on my impending panic attack. The presentation, the apology texts, the attorney call. Looking at the phone screen, I can see my face looks as drained of color as it feels.
“I mean…it’s good that he recognizes he made a mistake,” Teagan offers. “Wouldn’t it be good to have attorneys involved?”
I shake my head vehemently. “No. No way. With Alex, there will always be strings. Even if they’re not legal strings, he’ll make my life miserable one way or the other. I feel like I just got out of that world, there’s no amount of money worth going back in.”
Alyssa nods and rubs my back sympathetically. “Even though he overstepped, I think he meant well,” she offers. “Have you guys really talked much about Alex?”
“No,” I say again. “It’s still so early. I mean, he knows enough, I guess. But not a lot of the details.”
“How did you leave it after the text?” Teagan asks.
“He called right away after he got my message, but I just told him we’d talk about it tomorrow when I get my thoughts together. He said he understood and would wait for my call.”
“Well, that’s good,” Teagan ventures. “He respected your wishes and didn’t push any farther.”
I had appreciated that through my rage.
“Nothing’s been done yet,” Alyssa chimes in. “It’s not like the attorney is going to reach out blindly without talking to you first. You can talk to Connor tomorrow and work this out and then tell him to call off the dogs.”
Okay, that seems rational. The initial panic from having to deal with Alex in a courtroom again is subsiding.
“Fuck this,” Anna’s voice cuts through the line. “Jessica, listen to me.”
I can see her jaw clenched and her gaze is unwavering. Alyssa is just as transfixed as I am, and even Teagan looks nervous.
“Jess, I like Connor, I truly do. But a tiger doesn’t change his stripes, okay? At least not overnight. He overstepped with the attorney big time, yeah—but why? Because he forgot about your movie. You aren’t asking to handcuff yourself to him, you asked him to show up for one event that was important to you. On a night you were supposed to see each other, anyway. You’re in therapy for your shit, what’s he doing for his? Sure he’s sorry, sure he wants to make it up to you. But the question is: do you really believe he’s capable of being different than he has been for the last fifteen years? And if he’s not, are you capable of knowing that it has nothing to do with you? It’s a Connor problem, not a Jess problem.”
The room is silent and I look down at the kitchen table.
“Damn,” Alyssa whispers.
When I look back at Anna, her expression is softer. “I was pulling for him, Jess, I really was. I mean, I guess I still am. He needs to be better for you, though. And if he can, then that would be amazing because he is a good guy. But if he can’t, please just remember that you have all of us and we love you.”
“You’ve got your brother, too,” Alyssa adds. “And your parents and Joe.”
“Cam and I are always here for you, Jess.” Teagan smiles.
“Not to mention Hot Connor’s hotter brother. Man has aged like a fine wine.”
My eyes are wet, and my vision is blurring, but I laugh anyway. “Okay.” I wipe a tear away and square my shoulders. “Thank you for being my emergency therapists. I love you so much.” I wrap an arm around Alyssa and she reciprocates the hug.
“We love you, too, sister,” she says.
“Love you, Jess! I gotta get back in there, but text if you need anything!”
“Thanks, Ruby.”
Teagan’s cheeks blush before she disconnects.
“Love you, babe,” Anna says. “Always, always.”
“Always, always,” I repeat.
After hanging up both phones, Alyssa stands up slowly and waddles to the refrigerator. “Here,” she comes back and hands me a can of iced tea. “I know it’s not one of your fancy blends, but it should do the trick.”
“Thank you,” I say gratefully as I pop the top and stand up to leave.
“Are you going to be okay tonight? You know you’re always welcome to stay here. I nap on that couch all the time, it’s insanely comfortable.”
“No, I’m good, thanks. I think I’ll take a hot shower and crawl into my bed and try to get some sleep.”
She nods. “Sounds like a solid plan.” Once we get to the front door, she says, “So, Anna and Chris, huh?”
“Lyss, they’re perfect for each other.”
“I can see it,” she ponders. “Or it could be a total shitastrophe.”
I take a sip of iced tea and shake my head. “No way. Just wait. I’ve totally got plans.”
“Well, hopefully those plans can occupy your brain instead of everything else tonight, okay? Or better yet, think about the huge round of applause you got at the end of your film presentation. You’re so talented, Jess, you’re going to do amazing things.”
“Thank you so much.” I hug her one last time and get into my car.
“‘Connor, I appreciate the thought, but you really crossed a line. I need to set some boundaries.’” Thus begins my impression of Carpool Karaoke. Except there’s no singing and there’s no carpool, it’s just me having fake conversations with pretend versions of people I know. “No, that sounds too formal. ‘The lawyer needs to be called off, like, immediately…Yeah, I know you think I should fight this, but you don’t understand…why weren’t you there?’” My throat is closing up and the tears are threatening again. At a red light, I look down at the bracelet on my wrist. “He forgot about me already.”
I’m silent the rest of the drive home as Anna’s words bounce around my head. I didn’t tell anyone yet, but I got an email confirmation this morning; my internship application has been approved…I’m moving to LA next month and living there through the summer.
If Connor can’t make time for me now, can I really expect him to do it when I’m miles away? I don’t have the slightest idea, but I know a relationship expert who might.
Jess:
Hey, Maman. Is there any chance you’re free for brunch tomorrow?
“I thought brunch was reserved for Sundays,” Mom says as she tears off a piece of croissant and pops it in her mouth.
“Brunch is good every day, Maman,” I answer by piercing as many strawberries as I can fit on my fork and shoveling them into my face.
“Oui, so maybe one bite at a time, Jessica.”
“Desole,” I apologize.
“What’s on your mind, my love? I’m happy to have the time with you but you’re upset. How can I help?”
I finish chewing my fruit and take a sip of tea. “Did you ever have any serious boyfriends back in France? Before you came here and met Dad?”
Her dark eyebrows raise and she takes another bite of croissant while she thinks. “Oui, I was with Laurent my first year of university. We were together until right before I left to spend my semester abroad here.”
That’s news. “Wait, you broke up and then immediately came to America?”
“Oh no, we didn’t break up. I wasn’t going to be gone long, Laurent and I thought we would be together forever. We planned on marrying when I went back. But, as you know, I never went back.” Her mouth turns up into a smile, and I know she’s thinking of my dad.
“So when you came here you were in a long-term relationship…but you still fell in love with Dad? Did it…did it feel different with him than with Laurent?”
She laughs. “Oh yes, so much different. Your father was so full of life and love. He made me feel a joy I never felt with Laurent. I fell in love with him very quickly and told Laurent I could not go back to him.”
I know the first part of the story by heart, of course; my parents spent a semester together falling in love and when it was time for Mom to go home to Bordeaux, Dad proposed to her. As a teenager, I remember it being terribly romantic, but as an adult, I’m questioning how they made it all come together so easily.
“How did you know you were making the right choice to stay in America? You had to leave your whole family. All your friends. Even a chance with Laurent, who you’d known longer.”
“It was not easy. And your father was not one to make it easier.”
“What do you mean?”
Pouring herself some more coffee from the carafe on the table, she says, “the week before I was set to leave, he told me he had fun but it was not love for him. We had a nice ‘fling’, but now it was over. I was broken.”
Um…more news. How did I not know this part of the story? “Hold up, he brushed you off? I thought he proposed!”
She nods. “Men aren’t so good with their feelings as women are. He thought I was leaving, so he tried to leave me first. The proposal was after he realized he was a horse’s ass.”
I consider her words. Connor seems to be better with his feelings than I am. He always tries to tell me what he’s thinking, at least. And his gestures like bringing me breakfast or outfitting his bathroom for me…those things speak volumes.
“You’re upset that Connor didn’t come to see you last night?” she guesses.
I shake my head. “It made me sad, yeah. But I guess really I’m upset because I don’t know if I’m built for a relationship.”
Mom laughs, which, frankly, seems inappropriate. “Mon petit chou, you haven’t been in one, how could you know?”
Okay, that’s just offensive. “Excuse me, I was married.”
“No,” she sips her coffee. “That was not a relationship. That was Alex all the time. Relationships, they are work that you put in together.”
“So how did you and Dad go from breaking up to engaged, then?”
“Just like I said, we worked on it together. Jessica,” she puts her hand on my hand, “love—real love—is respect and it is compromise. Your father has been a fool many times, as I have, too. But we are a team and we talk and we figure it out.”
Mom’s mention of the word love leaves me a little flustered. “I mean, I don’t know if we’re in love…”
“You’ve been together since Thanksgiving,” she states simply.
“Not technically, Maman. I mean, we only really started as a couple?—”
“No,” she interrupts. “I know you grew up here in America, but you have French in your blood. You have been with Connor for long enough to know that you have love for him.”
I stare at her and try to process what she just said.
“But what if?—”
“He has love for you, too. It’s easy to see.”
“So I need to talk to him.”
We are still holding hands on the table and she squeezes mine before pulling away to take another sip of coffee. I decide to stuff more strawberries in my face and ponder this new revelation.
Jess:
Hey…I know I said I’d call but I’d like to see you if that’s okay instead? Do you mind if I come over?
Connor:
No!
As in no I don’t mind! Please come over. I’d like to see you, too.
Jess:
Okay. I just got back from brunch with my mom, I’ll be there in like half an hour.
Connor:
I’ll be here.
Mom’s words are on a loop in my head for the rest of the afternoon. I hear them on my way home, I hear them as I pack my overnight bag, and I hear them as I drive to Connor’s. You have love for him. He has love for you, too. It’s enough that by the time I pull up in front of his building, I’m able to admit, at least to myself, that I’m falling in love with him.
“Okay,” I say after I turn off the ignition. “You can do this. You can meet him halfway. Just go up there, tell him how you feel. Tell him about your marriage. Ask for his patience. And then…” I look beside me at the packed overnight bag in the passenger seat. “If that goes well, I’ll come back downstairs for you.”