Chapter XVII
XVII
Lucy
The brunch spot Rebecca picked is an Aussie place near her apartment with cheap mimosas and big breakfast sandwiches. James and I walk to the restaurant from my place, and I know I’m acting weird—I keep dropping his hand to mess with my hair—but I can’t tell if he notices.
Last night I was sure I was going to either spill my guts about the job offer and grant failure or be super awkward and suspicious all night.
So I preempted both of those outcomes by spending too much money on a fifth of Angel’s Envy and drinking a few fingers before James even arrived.
We ended up getting drunk, watching Top Gun, and falling asleep without having sex. It was a huge success.
But now that we’re both sober, I can feel the withheld information biting at the back of my throat, wanting to come out.
It would be cruel to get his hopes up about Portland—which I’m not even considering anyway—and I really don’t need to add guilt from him to my mixed bag of emotions at the moment. So for now, we walk in silence.
James
Lucy is being weird. She was last night too, with the whiskey, like she was performing or something. Now she just seems nervous.
Or maybe she’s reacting to my weirdness. I haven’t told her that I’ve been texting with Miriam. It’s nothing of substance: She sent me a photo of her new haircut. I sent her back a picture of a chair I’m considering for the restaurant.
I keep reminding myself that I’m not doing anything wrong. But the pit in my stomach disagrees.
I thought I was doing a decent job acting like myself over the last few days, but maybe Lucy has picked up that something is different. Our vibe is clearly off. Which makes this the absolute worst time to go to brunch with Rebecca.
Rebecca, the bloodhound who can sniff trouble from miles away and never fails to call it out.
Lucy
We snag the last open table wedged among a dozen others on the restaurant’s patio. Rebecca hasn’t arrived yet, and I need her to. A gangly waiter about our age approaches as soon as we sit and hands us menus. “Get you started with something?”
“We’ll do the carafe of mimosa, please,” I say.
James gives me a little look. “Really?”
I feel my cheeks warm. “What?”
He shakes his head, looking a little embarrassed himself. “Sorry. Just after all that whiskey last night.”
“It’s brunch,” I say, as if that’s a defense.
“No, you’re right.” He turns to the waiter. “I’ll just have a coffee. Thank you.”
Now my cheeks are burning. I know I should let it go, but—“You’re going to make me drink alone?”
James scrunches his brow. I can see his defenses going up, the flex of his neck muscles. “I’m not making you do anything. I bet Rebecca will drink with you.”
“That she will,” Rebecca proclaims, striding up to the table. Thank god. She plops into her chair and looks from my face to James’s and back again. “What did I miss?”
I smile sweetly. “James just thinks I’m an alcoholic.”
James flinches. He leans toward me with a concerned—maybe slightly annoyed—expression. “Are you OK?”
I shrug my shoulders, like he’s the one being odd. “It was a joke.”
I feel Rebecca looking between us again as I pick up my menu and focus on it like it’s the most important legal document I’ve ever read.
“You two have a good week?” she asks, her tone cautious.
I shoot her a tight-lipped smile in response, trying to seem normal.
“Yeah, very good.” He smirks, then shrugs. “Sorry. You just caught our first fight.”
Rebecca laughs, and the sound of it—plus James’s apparent ease—helps me emotionally reset. “You call that a fight?” she asks. “You guys are amateurs!”
Stop being weird. Just breathe.
I reach under the table and squeeze James’s hand—an act of contrition. He squeezes back.
James
Grateful that we’re all ready to move past whatever that was, I settle into my chair.
Rebecca reaches a hand out to touch Lucy’s arm. “How are you doing today?” There’s an unusual softness in Rebecca’s voice.
Lucy also seems thrown by the tone of the inquiry. “I’m fine?”
Rebecca stares at Lucy, and I try to figure out what the hell is happening right now. Rebecca seems to know something I don’t—and maybe that Lucy doesn’t either.
Rebecca draws an invisible circle around her own face with her finger. “I thought you’d be a bit more . . . dolled up.”
“Rude,” Lucy immediately responds. Then her shoulders fall. Her face turns gray. “Oh my god.”
“What?” I put a hand on the small of her back. “What am I missing?”
Rebecca keeps her focus on Lucy. “It’s OK. It’s still early in the day. You didn’t miss it.”
“But I forgot it was even coming up!”
“You’ve had a lot going on. Don’t beat yourself up.”
“Can someone please fill me in?” I interject again, which feels disrespectful, but I also feel like I don’t know something important and am letting Lucy down.
Rebecca bites her bottom lip. “It’s her mom’s birthday.”
Oh. Fuck.
Lucy presses the heels of her hands to her forehead and stares down at the table, unable to meet our eyes. “I’ve had this tradition since she died of doing my makeup super glam on her birthday, using all the tools I inherited from her, trying to re-create some of the looks she taught me.”
Rebecca leans toward me. “She’s got this amazing case of brushes and palettes. It’s insane.”
My mind jumps to Lucy’s room. The only makeup I remember is the mascara she keeps on her bathroom counter.
Then I remember the metal trunk on wheels that lives in the corner. I’ve never asked about it or seen it open. I always assumed it held winter clothes.
I find myself suddenly hurt that she never showed it to me.
I realize that Lucy and Rebecca are still talking and tune back into the conversation. Lucy is still upset, but she’s calming down. “Maybe later I can try some of her prosthetics,” she murmurs, her brow furrowed. “Because she didn’t only do editorial makeup.”
“I’ve seen the photos,” Rebecca says with an encouraging smile. “Your mom was legit.”
“Why haven’t you shown me any photos?” I ask without thinking. I can hear the upset in my voice. It’s muted, but it’s there. I try to counteract it with a shrug.
Lucy stares at me with sharp eyes for a moment. “Why would I?”
I feel the anger rising in my throat. Maybe she meant “I didn’t think to show you” or “There wasn’t really a good time.” But that’s not what she said. Her words imply that I have no business learning anything real about her. That I am a memento of her time in New York at best.
And I suppose I am.
I exhale audibly. “You’re right. You wouldn’t.”
I drop my gaze to my menu without actually reading it, and I feel Lucy’s black eyes burning into me. Seems I hit a nerve.
Good.
The waiter walks up with my coffee, two champagne flutes, and the carafe of mimosa.
“Are we ready to order?” he asks politely.
Rebecca gives him a big, plastered-on smile. “I think we’re going to need another minute.”
The three of us sit in tense silence, and Rebecca busies herself filling the glasses. Lucy takes a big gulp from hers. I let my coffee burn my tongue.
Lucy
I drink my drink and stew, deeply upset at James for being so deeply upset at me. He just heard what a hard day this is. Am I in trouble now for, what, not sharing my grieving process with him? That’s pretty fucked.
“James, when is your flight?” Rebecca asks, and I can tell she’s trying her best to reset the mood.
“Week from Monday,” he responds dryly. “The day after Lucy’s.”
“Are you excited to get back to Oregon?”
“I am,” he says, and I know he means it. It hurts my pride—even though a few days ago I was equally amped about The Hague. Now all I feel is dread. And anger.
“I’m excited for the restaurant,” he goes on. “Being near family again.”
“Ahem,” Rebecca says.
“Inferior family,” he concedes, and Rebecca grins. I silently curse both of them for bantering when I’m this pissed.
“And I’m excited to reconnect with old friends,” James adds.
His eyes flick to me on the word “friends,” and something about the way he says it gets under my skin. He’s mentioned a few childhood friends he’s still close with, but who would merit that look?
Rebecca has evidently caught something too. “Miriam’s not still there, is she?”
Who the fuck is Miriam?
James
“She is there, I think.” Why did I add the I think? Coward. And why did I bring up old friends at all, like I was fishing for this question? Like I was hoping to make Lucy jealous?
Well, it’s done now. Change the fucking subject, quick. “Does anyone want to split the breakfast pizza?”
“Who’s Miriam.” Lucy says it more as a statement than a question. She’s staring at me, her eyes like daggers.
I meet her gaze. “Just an old girlfriend.” I try to keep my voice neutral, pushing any vestiges of upset to the side.
Lucy’s attention drops to her menu. I think for a second that she might let it go. “You’ve never mentioned a Miriam.”
Rebecca flashes me a look of apology as she takes a big gulp of her mimosa. But maybe this is good. I set aside my feelings of guilt over Miriam, and indignation takes over.
“No, maybe not.”
“Why?”
I smile at Lucy to cover just how angry I feel. “Really?”
“What?”
“You’re upset with me for not telling you about one girlfriend when you’ve told me basically nothing about yourself?”
“That’s not true—”
My brain is on fire, and I can’t keep myself from carefully enumerating the omissions.
“The first night we met you told me about your mom. Barely a word since. I only know where you’ve been from the posters on your walls.
Basically no stories from your childhood.
I don’t know if you want kids or how you got interested in law—”
“Jesus, all right, I get it. Forgive me for not boring you with a bunch of biographical details that don’t matter.”
“They matter to me.”
“Well, they shouldn’t.”
I nod, furious. “Right, because we’re just . . . whatever the fuck this is. You’d never actually be with someone like me.”
Lucy looks genuinely taken aback. “What is that supposed to mean?”
“Forget it.”
“No, tell me what you mean. You think I’m some kind of snob? That I look down on you?”
“Well, don’t you? I’m just a cook from a small town.”
“You’re a chef.”
The way she says “chef” pisses me off even more.
“That’s a bougie word for cook. Hell, you do it with your mom too.
Any time her being a makeup artist comes up, you qualify it with ‘she was one of the best’ or ‘her work was very high end.’ Who fucking cares?
Why can’t she just be a makeup artist? Why does that embarrass you?
Why does her life have to be big and important to matter? ”
A crinkle appears between Lucy’s brows. “How dare you talk about my mother.” Her voice is low and quiet.
“One of us should.”
I’ve gone too far and I know it. My anger that was so hot a moment ago is devolving into shame. She doesn’t deserve me coming at her like this. Especially not today.
My eyes are on my lap. I don’t want to face Rebecca, who I’ve never known to be this silent. And I certainly don’t want to face Lucy. But I have to. I raise my head to apologize to her.
But she’s already getting up and walking out of the restaurant.
“Shit.” Rebecca’s watching me with a look that’s half pity, half judgment. “You really love her.”
There it is. The truth I’ve been hiding from. That I hoped no one else could see. I’m not sure what to say or do.
Rebecca throws up her hands. “Go after her, dummy.”
I squeeze her shoulder as I jump up and run out the door.
Lucy
I can barely see through my tears as I hurry down the sidewalk, away from the restaurant. I’m not sobbing. I’m not making a sound. My main emotion is fury.
Fury and heartbreak.
How could James think those things about me? How could he—
Fine. Maybe I’ve diminished him in my mind, tried to keep him at a distance. But that was self-preservation. I never did or said anything to make him feel less than.
Did I?
And my mom was a fucking great makeup artist, and I will always be extremely proud of her, so fuck him all the way to hell for saying—
“Lucy!”
James is running down the street after me, already starting to sweat.
I don’t stop, but he catches up and starts walking alongside me, giving me a few feet of space.
“I’m sorry.” He stuffs his hands in his pockets, as if to keep himself from reaching out.
“That was fucked up, what I said back there. I know how much you love your mom and how much you admire her. I’m really sorry. ”
I hate that he sees the tears rolling down my face right now, but I’m too proud to wipe them. I don’t want to even look at him. “I don’t think you’re not good enough for me.”
He hesitates. “OK.”
That pisses me off. I stop and turn on him. “I don’t!”
James’s eyes are wide and soft. “I believe you. I just—” He pauses again. “I don’t think I’m good enough for you.” He shakes his head. “I don’t know why I put that on you.”
I glare at him, now mad at him for a new reason. “Well, you are.”
He gives me a tiny, sad smile. “OK.”
We stand in silence for a moment, staring at each other. I’m still crying, and I’m not sure how to stop.
“I really am sorry,” he says again. “I feel like something has been off between us since last night. And I don’t know how to fix it.”
Clearly, I’ve done a fucking terrible job keeping my shit together since getting the news about the job offer and the grant. But I still don’t want to tell him either of those things. “There’s nothing to fix.”
I can’t keep doing this. What’s the point? Why am I torturing myself—and apparently him—this way? This was only ever going to end badly.
I take a deep breath. “Maybe it’s just time for this to be over.”
James’s shoulders sink, and his hands come out of his pockets. “I don’t want that.” He closes the gap between us and takes my hands in his. Knowing this might be the last touch I ever get from him makes his fingers burn in mine. “I’m not ready for this to end.”
I pull a hand away to wipe my tears and feel him squeeze the other, unwilling to let it go. I know what I need to do. “It already has ended.”
“Lucy.” James seems unsure what to say, and I don’t want to say anything. I want to be done.
“Take care of yourself,” I mutter. I free my hand from his, take one final look at him, and turn and walk away.
This time, he doesn’t follow.