31. Emerson Oversimplifying
emerson: oversimplifying
“I LITERALLY CANNOT EVEN BE in the same room with you,” I said as I marched onto the set a week after the Halloween Hoedown.
Chase sighed. “So you could stand to be on the same plane with me last week, but you can’t be in the same room?”
Well, sure, it was true that I had flown home with Chase. But that was always the plan. Plus, I hadn’t known then that they had broken up. They hadn’t seemed broken up, which must have been hard.
“And why is it that you can’t be in the same room with me, Emerson?”
I glared at him. “You know why, Chase. You get my sister to fall in love with you, you come home with us, and then—bam!—you break her heart. And I will have you know that that is not an easy heart to break.” I was very, very worked up.
“She doesn’t even like most people, so the fact that she even deigned to love you was a very big deal. ”
Chase smirked at me. “She doesn’t love me, Emerson. She loves you.” He did this little maneuver where he pursed his lips inward, like maybe he had said something he shouldn’t.
I took a step closer and peered at him. “What is that supposed to mean?”
He shrugged and tried to act casual, but there was something very odd about the way he had phrased that. “Well, I just mean…” he stuttered.
I took another step closer. “Chase, why did you break up with my sister?”
“Who says I broke up with her? Why are you blaming me? I think we both know it’s more likely that she broke up with me.”
Before I could answer, another Murphy appeared: Vivi. Chase hugged her. She did not hug him back. “What is wrong with you?” she asked.
And then there were two pairs of blue eyes with crossed arms staring at him.
I mean, I knew people broke up all the time, of course.
And, yeah, I had said on more than one occasion that this was probably a fling.
But then I saw them together for a whole weekend in Peachtree Bluff.
And those two people were in love. My sister was so darn tight-lipped about the whole thing that I figured I’d have a better chance of getting Chase to crack.
So far, no dice. But now I had backup. Just like we had planned.
Vivi and I were distraught. And we needed answers.
Chase sat down in a chair by Craft Services.
“My mother is crying over you,” Vivi said. “She has been for, like, a while. Do you understand what that means?”
He laughed. “Well, I’m crying over her too.”
“Sure,” I said. “But you cry all the time…”
“Yeah,” Vivi chimed in. “I’ve seen you cry at, like, numerous dog videos on Instagram.”
“The one where the golden retriever puppy ate the onions and—”
He looked like he was going to cry again. “It isn’t real, Chase. No one would be sadistic enough to put a dying golden retriever puppy on Instagram. They are trying to get you to buy paw print kits. Move on.”
“I don’t think I’ve seen Mom cry since…”
She looked at me. I was trying to remember if she cried at our dad’s funeral. I’m sure she did. I was just so little. But now that I really thought about it, maybe we should get Caroline some therapy. It wasn’t normal to cry as little as she did. I snapped my fingers. “Grammy died!”
“Yes!” Vivi agreed. “When we spread her ashes on Starlite Island.”
We shared a look of pride and Chase seemed confounded. “I didn’t really break up with her. It’s just that there was something we couldn’t agree on, and I kind of—”
“Gave her an ultimatum?” I interrupted. Because I knew where this was going. I could feel it. No one gave Caroline an ultimatum and lived to tell the tale.
“You’re oversimplifying something complicated,” Chase said. “And she wasn’t upset. I mean, she was upset. We’re both upset. But she understood. She was very calm and loving about the whole thing. We are both very sad, but no one is mad.”
Vivi looked at me. “She’s different with him, isn’t she? I mean, is it only me?”
I shook my head. “No, she’s definitely different. She’s, like, calm.”
Vivi nodded.
“Hello!” Chase said, snapping his fingers. “Can we focus on me here?”
We both turned back to him, and Vivi said, “Chase, I, like my mother, like approximately six people, and I am related to them mostly. I thought you were going to be my stepfather, and I wasn’t going to try to sabotage you or anything.
You didn’t just break up with Mom. You broke up with Preston and me too. ”
Chase’s eyes welled, and he jumped up to hug Vivi.
“I’m so sorry,” he said. I could tell he was crying in earnest, and it irritated me because he didn’t deserve to get to feel upset about this.
“I didn’t mean to hurt you. Not any of you.
” He pulled away, wiping his eyes. “It’s just that your mom and I want different things… ”
He trailed off and got this far-off look in his eyes.
“We could really help diagnose this if we knew what those different things were,” I said. But I got the feeling he wasn’t going to say, which intrigued me even more. My best guess was that Chase wanted a baby and Caroline didn’t. But she wouldn’t give me a straight answer when I asked her.
He just shook his head. “But, like, maybe I’m realizing that I miss her so much that I don’t really care about those other things?”
He looked at Vivi and me and something suddenly occurred to me: “You know, this is not an appropriate conversation for us to have in front of her daughter.”
Vivi scoffed. “I’m sorry. I’m in this now. This affects me in all the ways. Plus, I’m as close to Chase’s age as Mom is.”
I couldn’t help but laugh. I did the quick math. “You are not,” I argued. “She is four years closer to his age than you are.”
Vivi furrowed her brow. “But that’s weird, though, right?”
I shrugged. “No weirder than anything else, I guess.”
“Well, at any rate, I’m not leaving. I am in the middle of my own romantic drama, if you’ll remember.”
“Oh yeah. How’s QB one?” Chase asked.
She grinned. And her grin told me that QB1 was Tyler. No question about it.
“We’ve been texting a little,” she said.
“Like, flirty texting?” I asked. I knew we had potentially bigger fish to fry, but my attention span around romantic matters was similar to that of a gnat.
She grinned again.
“Okay, but what about poor Lake?” Chase said.
Vivi shrugged. “Poor Lake and I have had zero conversations about exclusivity, so I can pretty much guarantee you that poor Lake is hooking up with like three girls.”
“Just remember you’re sleeping with everyone he’s ever slept with,” Chase said protectively.
I sort of liked that he said that to her. It was easy for your mom to remind you, but then she sounded naggy. When a hot movie star reminded you, it was kind of legit. And my heart sank because he would have been a good stepfather to her. It was all so unexpected and so very sad.
“Ew,” Vivi said. “I’m not sleeping with him, Chase.”
He nodded. “Good. But don’t lead the poor boy on forever if he isn’t the one you want.”
Perfect segue. “So what about you, Chase? Who’s the one you want?”
He bit his lip. “What if she doesn’t forgive me?”
“She shouldn’t,” Vivi said.
I nodded in agreement even though we had no idea what we were agreeing about.
I mean, she could have done something truly appalling.
That wasn’t out of the realm of possibility.
But, then again, she was my sister, and I loved her madly, and I was always on her side, even when, technically, she was wrong. (Which she would tell you was.)
“Will she forgive me?”
That was hard to say, considering we didn’t know what he had done.
“Ordinarily, I would say never ever,” Vivi said. “But she has a soft spot for you.”
I nodded. “The kid is right. There’s a small chance. But we need to play this just right.”
“We?” Chase asked.
Vivi and I looked at each other and laughed.
“Yes, we,” Vivi said.
“Honey,” I added, “you are not even near the level of facing off against my sister without our expert guidance.”
Vivi nodded vehemently.
“So, I can’t just, like, go over there tonight and apologize?”
Vivi and I looked at each other and laughed again. I patted Chase on the back. “Oh, honey. You really are so very young.”
“But we will teach you our ways,” Vivi said. Then she looked at me. “Aunt Em, I think I have an idea.”
That was a good thing. Because the only person strong enough to face off against my sister was a human of her own creation.