Chapter 42
Chapter Forty-Two
brUNO
The Wilder Club is all dark wood and low brass lamps, heavily air-conditioned against the late August heat.
A long bar stretches across one side of the room, scarred by years of use, while the little tables glow with dim shaded lamps. Old playbills paper the walls, and somewhere across the room an argument seems to be breaking out over the jukebox.
Kelsey and I sit with her friends in a large booth in the corner. We’ve come from a show that one of their friends appeared in, the kind of thing I would never have imagined myself attending. It was riveting, as it turned out. Kelsey had been vibrating in the seat beside me.
Over the past months, I’ve gotten to know most of Kelsey’s friends.
There’s Lizzie, who owns a chain of cookie stores, and her husband, Theo, a chemist and entrepreneur.
Mia, one of Kelsey’s oldest friends, has a big Jersey accent, big hair, and big opinions on the show.
Her boyfriend, the notorious Max Hilton, seems to know everybody, including a few of my more illustrious clients.
Kelsey’s roommates, Lola and Sienna, are wedged in together at the end next to an Italian male model with a dramatic streak.
A woman named Vicky has smuggled in a small white dog wearing a bow tie.
The dog is named Smuckers and is apparently everyone’s favorite being on the planet.
I’m not much for social situations, but these people are easy to be with.
I get into an interesting discussion with Theo on movement mechanics before we’ve finished our first round.
When was the last time I had a substantive exchange with somebody who is like a peer?
I’ve heard of his medical breakthroughs, and he’s heard of the thermal hardening process I developed for my watches; it’s been used on surgical instruments for some years.
I make a mental note to ask Kelsey about him later.
Maybe some of these people can join us for a yacht weekend.
What I’m doing most of all is watching Kelsey. I’m falling for her on every level. The ten days I spent in Switzerland dealing with my alloy people felt like a month.
Tonight she’s wearing a short red sundress with silver sneakers.
It’s hot and muggy, as summer in New York often is, and a lot of days she goes for a less-is-more style.
Which is definitely more for the way it shows off her body.
All of her clothes are so bright and expressive. Like her room. Like her.
I can’t believe I ever dressed her in that ice-blue straitjacket. How did I not see her? Kelsey is a free spirit who would never have chosen such a thing, but she wore it because she was trying so hard to blend in at that wedding.
And she never had a chance.
I grit my teeth, thinking about what those people did to her. But she came through with her head held high.
People are talking about the show. A lot of them are performers or performance-adjacent, and it’s interesting to hear what they noticed—tightness of the choreography, how the ensemble was “breathing together,” or who they thought was “pushing for the back of the house” or “playing too small.” Kelsey translates now and then, but I’ve been to quite a few shows by now.
“The short one on the right—I couldn’t stop watching her,” Kelsey says.
“Charisma,” Max says.
“She’ll be front and center someday,” says the Italian model.
The men want to talk about watches, eventually, but it doesn’t bother me like it did at the wedding. It starts with Theo, and then Max is in, and then it’s most of the table. And suddenly there’s a question everybody asks me all the time. Why watches?
“I love watches because they’re true. Constant. Dependable. They won’t let you down if you take proper care. If you can get the balance right—the rate to within a fraction of a second, the pivot centered enough—it will run true for all of time.”
Kelsey’s hand finds my forearm.
“And you’re able to get that balance?” Mia asks.
“Not yet,” I say. “It’s my North Star. But every time I finish a watch, every time I get it as right as I can make it, it’s this feeling of peace.”
I’ve never said that out loud before. It’s always been my instinct to hide what’s important, especially in front of my father. But it feels natural to say it to these people. It came up like something rising from deep water and I let it.
Later that night, the subset of us not yet ready to be done end up on the rooftop of Kelsey’s apartment building. The city at this hour is magical with lights from so many different sources, and its own ocean of noise, swelling and receding.
Kelsey has her forearms on the railing and is looking out. She’s holding still, like she does when there’s something on her mind.
I go over and stand next to her, arm against arm.
She says, “What you said about the watches. True. Constant. Won’t let you down.”
“Yes?”
She turns to look at me. “It made me think about your mother.”
“Fair,” I say, watching the lights of a plane rise up from the Jersey side.
She waits. She knows how to leave room for people.
“I took apart my first pocket watch the day after she died,” I say.
“An old silver one that had been a great-uncle’s.
I can’t remember what was going on inside me.
All I remember is being fixated on that watch, like I was in some kind of trance.
And it was a bitch to put it back together.
I got tools, I found tutorials, I worked at it incessantly, as if putting it back together would put the world back together, too. ”
“Did you get it back together, eventually?”
“I did.”
“Did it make you feel better?”
“It didn’t make me miss her any less. I guess it made me feel like I could master one small corner of my world. I could make one thing right, even though I was the one who broke it. I suppose it was nice to lose myself in making something perfect.”
The city keeps going below us.
“What was she like?”
My heart pounds. I don’t love answering this question, but I want Kelsey to know.
“She had the biggest smile you’ve ever seen, and a big laugh, and blonde hair in a high ponytail. She loved board games and swimming, and she had this way of finding humor no matter what the situation, definitely a skill that came in handy with my father around. She made giant sugar cookies.”
“Mmm,” she says.
“And she seemed to love me to the stars and back—all three of us—but it turned out to be fake.” This last I say maybe too harshly.
People are leaving. One of the women reminds Kelsey to turn out the lights when she goes in.
And it’s just us.
Kelsey turns so that her back is to the railing, never taking her eyes from me, so bright and serious in the moonlight. “Is that a little bit why you live on the yacht, do you think? Because of, you know...”
She can’t find the word. Or maybe she can find it, and she doesn’t want to say it.
“The utter betrayal of that?” I suggest.
She waits, patient as a Sphinx.
“Even a month ago, I would’ve told you no way.”
“But now?”
“I’d have to be a fool to not recognize that yacht is a little bit of a fortress. With a pretty big moat.”
She takes my arm. “Biggest moat ever.”
“I don’t want to be that person, but sometimes I don’t know if it’s too late, though. Maybe the mold is set.”
“It’s not too late at all! You’re breaking the mold. Look at you right now. What are you doing this exact moment?”
“I’m assessing a situation accurately. I don’t think I deserve a prize for that.”
“You are so full of shit. Are you in a fortress right now? No. You’re calling things out. You thought love was a scam. Of course you’d want to live on a yacht. But you’re rethinking it.”
“Maybe I am.”
“You are.”
I sigh. I want her to be right.
“Though I better warn you—if love is a scam, I’m scamming all over you right now.”
My heart skips a beat. “What?”
She grins. “Soooo scamming your ass.” She’s very pleased with herself.
I replay her words to make sure I heard that all right.
But I did.
I settle my hands onto her shoulders. “I’ve been scamming on you, too.”
She grins. It’s enormous, all dimples. “Good.”
“God, Kelsey.” I pull her to me and kiss her. “You’re unbelievable.”
“I know,” she says. “I’m a meteorite and you’re a fucking geode.”
We laugh about that, but there’s something else. I see it in her eyes, now.
“What?” she says.
“What are you thinking?”
She looks away. “Maybe now’s not the time.”
“Now you have to tell me.”
She turns back to the railing. You can see cleaning people in the building across the way. “Nobody ever talked to your mother.”
“Why does that matter?”
“If love was a scam for her, what did she get out of it? She went from the lap of luxury and three beautiful boys to a gas station in the middle of nowhere? What’s the point?”
“If she had loved us, she wouldn’t have left us alone,” I say.
She sets a hand on my arm. We watch the street below in silence.