Ava
We stroll up Park Avenue and over to Central Park, past the Wollman ice rink and along winding leafy paths that almost make me forget I’m in the middle of one of the biggest cities in the world. “This is so pretty,” I say, breaking a long silence.
The air is filled with the scent of flowers and freshly cut grass and hot dogs, a thought that makes me laugh.
“What’s so funny?”
“How this entire city smells like hot dogs.”
He laughs along with me. “Yes, I suppose it does. Since we didn’t get to eat, you want one?”
“A hot dog for breakfast?”
“Why not? Think of it as hair of the dog—literally.”
I laugh at that. “Sure, that actually sounds good.”
“Coming right up.”
While I take a seat on a bench, he fetches hot dogs for both of us and icy cold bottles of Coke. “Mustard,” I tell him when he points to the condiments.
He sits next to me, hands over my hot dog and the soda, and we eat in silence.
“This might be the best hot dog I’ve ever had,” I tell him.
“Street hot dogs are the best. I haven’t had one in years.”
“Neither have I.”
He hands me a napkin that I use to wipe the mustard from my lips, and I think once again how easy he is to be with. I feel like I’ve known him much longer than two days.
“I was engaged,” he says, breaking a long silence.
I’m not sure if I should say something or let him speak. Before I can decide, he continues.
“She ghosted me.” He glances at me to gauge my reaction. “You know what that means?”
I shake my head. I’m not familiar with the term.
“She ended our relationship without telling me. She quit her job, moved out of her apartment and basically exited our life together without a single word to me.”
I can’t contain the gasp that escapes my lips. He probably thinks I’m expressing shock over what was done to him, but what truly shocks me is how similar his situation is to mine.
“Did you ever find out where she went?”
He nods. “Amy and Jules hunted her down, confronted her, got her to admit that she’d met someone else and wasn’t sure how to handle me or our family or all the expectations that come with being ‘engaged to a Tilden.’” He puts air quotes around those last four words.
“They demanded she return the seventy-five-thousand-dollar engagement ring I’d gotten her—and made her pay for the canceled wedding. ”
“I’m so sorry that happened to you.” The hot dog sits like a brick in my belly. I should tell him something similar happened to me, but John didn’t “ghost” me. He’d been called to duty in service of our country. He could be dead for all I know. It’s not the same thing.
“Thank you.”
“Did you love her?”
“I really did. And when she dropped off the face of the earth, I went crazy trying to find her, thinking something awful had happened to her. People covered for her, including people I’d considered friends.
They said they didn’t know where she was.
I called in the NYPD, made a fool of myself looking for a woman who wanted out of our relationship badly enough to fake her own disappearance.
Do you know what kind of planning it takes to disappear in the age of social media? ”
I swallow hard. Emotion rushes through me, making me feel weak and sick.
I should tell him that I understand, that I get how painful it is to lose someone you love with little or no explanation.
But I haven’t told anyone what happened to me, and I probably ought to tell my sister before I tell her new brother-in-law.
The thought of telling anyone, of having to relive it, makes me dizzy, nauseated and sweaty.
Naturally, Eric notices because he pays attention. “Are you all right?”
“I’m fine.” I understand the courage it took for him to share his painful past with me. I can’t make it about me. I shake off my emotional reaction so I can focus on him. “What happened just now with your mom?”
“Any time she sees me so much as talking to a woman, she gets all excited, thinking this is going to be the one to save me from myself.” He gifts me with the lazy grin that would indicate he hasn’t a care in the world to anyone who doesn’t know better.
“I couldn’t subject you to that, and I was in no mood for it myself after such a good day yesterday.
That was the first really good day I’ve had since everything happened, and it’s all thanks to you. ”
“It was a good day for me, too.”
“I’m glad. If I promise to keep my mother and her expectations far, far away from you, do you still think you might be persuaded to see me again?”
I smile, because he’s so adorable and charming. And he’s fragile, just like me. “I could be persuaded.”
Camille
I cozy up to my new husband, having raised the armrest between us in the first-class seats.
After waiting so long to get to this day, I don’t want anything standing between me and Rob.
There were times in the last year of finishing law school and planning a wedding while I was in New Haven and he was in the city that I questioned my sanity.
But yesterday had made it worth all the sacrifices and sleepless nights. It was the best day of my life.
Rob’s head rests against the seat and his eyes are closed, but his hand is wrapped tightly around mine.
We’re exhausted after the best kind of sleepless night.
We partied with our guests until the wee hours and then went upstairs to our suite and made good use of the king-size bed.
Wanting our wedding night to be special, I’d suggested we stop having sex a month ago.
Pent-up Rob was a wild man, not that I’m complaining.
I know exactly who I married, and wild or not, he’s the right man for me. Of that I’ve had no doubt since the day we met at the fundraiser for his dad two years ago. We’ve been together ever since.
We have ambitions, big ambitions, plans we’ve shared with no one, except his father, who’s vowed to help us get where we want to be.
Bob Tilden understands ambition. It took him all the way to Albany, but unlike his son, Bob doesn’t seem to have higher aspirations for himself.
He certainly has them for the eldest of his four children.
Yesterday was much more than a wedding. It was a merger of sorts between two New York families that traced their roots back to the Mayflower.
Like me, Rob was raised to believe that anything is possible, and we plan to ride the wave of possibility as far as we can. We have a twelve-year plan that includes him running for office within the next two years, and the wheels will begin turning in that direction upon our return from Hawaii.
I’m going to start my career as general counsel to an organization that provides aid to children in crisis.
In pursuit of our goal, I turned down huge offers from major law firms. Rob told me that every move we make will be scrutinized later, so we’re determined to make every move count, starting with the job I accepted as a top graduate of Yale Law.
“You could’ve done better,” my dad had said, his disappointment apparent.
Yes, I could’ve done a lot better, but Rob is paying off my law school loans as a wedding gift. His family has money. Lots of it. Since we don’t need to work for a paycheck, we will work toward the goal.
“How about Eric and Ava?” Rob asks, the gruff timbre of his voice indicative of a hangover.
“I know! How cool would that be?”
He opens his eyes and looks over at me. “She won’t hurt him, will she?”
“Ava? She’s a lamb. She couldn’t hurt a fly.”
“From the little time I spent with her, she seems very sweet.”
“She is very sweet. What you see is what you get with her. Don’t worry.
” Though Ava is three years older than me, I often feel like the elder sister in our relationship.
Where Ava is quiet and reserved, I’m outgoing and determined.
People have often joked about whether we have the same father, and the jokes have hurt Ava on more than one occasion.
I hate that, because I love my sister, even if I struggled to maintain a relationship with her while she was in San Diego. Now that Ava is back in New York, I hope we can be closer than we’ve been in the past.
“I do worry about Eric,” Rob says. “After what happened with Brittany the bitch, he can’t handle another disappointment.”
“You’re getting a little ahead of things by making them into a couple. They hung out yesterday because they were paired together. That might be all it is.”
“Don’t forget he spent the night in her room.”
“Because she got drunk, and he took care of her. She told me nothing went on, and I believe her. Something happened when she was in San Diego. I don’t know what it was, but it was something.”
“How do you know?”
“She’s different. Quieter, even more reserved than she used to be, which is saying something. I’ve tried to get her to talk to me about her life out there, but she never would.”
“Keep an eye on the situation with Eric, will you? I couldn’t bear to see him go through another disaster like Brittany.”
“I’ll keep an eye on it, but Ava’s not a bitch, and she could never do something like what Brittany did. You have nothing to worry about. Besides, how much fun would it be if your brother and my sister got together?”
“Lots of fun.”
A flight attendant comes by to offer drinks. Rob orders a Bloody Mary.
“That sounds good. Make it two, please.”
“Coming right up,” the attendant said.
“A little hair of the dog, my love?” I ask him.
“Let’s hope it works. I feel like death warmed over.”
“Two weeks in Hawaii will fix everything.”
He brings our joined hands to his lips. “This is the part I’ve been most looking forward to.”
“Me, too. The wedding was amazing, but the honeymoon…”
He leans in to kiss me. “Will be epic.”