Chapter 3 #2
“It’s rotten. But you’ll be better for it. You don’t need them!”
“Why do you have to do that?”
“Do what?”
“Put a positive spin on everything. Why can’t you just listen and agree with me, for once?”
“I am agreeing with you.”
“It doesn’t feel like it,” Cece said, annoyed with herself for getting annoyed at Jonathan. He was just trying to help.
“I’m sorry,” Jonathan said. He pulled her close then, pinning her arms against his chest. “Really. They had no right. You deserve better.”
Cece softened and buried her face in the crook of his arm. Makeup be damned. “It isn’t just a job to me, you know? This is my career.”
“I get that, Cece,” Jonathan said, taking her by the elbows and putting some distance between them, “but maybe this is a good thing.”
“You’re doing it again.”
“I can’t help it,” Jonathan said, his voice rising excitedly. “There’s so much we’ve got to look forward to—planning for the wedding, and we’ll be house shopping soon enough. It wouldn’t be the worst thing to not be tied down.”
“What are you saying?”
“I’m saying you can take some time off if you want. Get some perspective. Reset.”
“You don’t think I should try to find another job.”
Jonathan’s face was taking on a vague look of exasperation.
“You don’t have to worry. Not anymore. I mean, don’t get me wrong, I appreciate that you work.
I respect it. Do you know how many of my friends’ wives have never lifted a finger?
It’s one of the things I’ve always admired about you—your work ethic.
But it’s not like you need to hustle anymore…
I mean, you don’t need to prove yourself to anyone. ”
The tears had long dried on Cece’s cheeks. Something hard and sharp was forming in her chest. She resisted the urge to scream. “I like being an actuary. I’m good at it.”
“Well, sure,” Jonathan said, “but you’ll have to take time off when we start a family.”
They’d discussed the possibility of children, although the conversation had always felt more hypothetical than realistic to Cece, as if it were one of many possibilities for their future.
It wasn’t that Cece was opposed to kids; she just wanted them to happen on her terms. There was so much more she wanted to accomplish and achieve before she was known only as a mother, a singular identity.
She thought Jonathan had understood this—she’d voiced her feelings more than once, and he’d always agreed, nodding vigorously, as if she were making the most obvious of points.
But now, with Jonathan pacing before her, she understood that he’d always had certain expectations about the life they were going to lead.
Cece saw that once they were married, there’d be little financial need for a job.
In a down year, Jonathan made ten times her salary, but she’d never imagined putting her career on hold.
She never imagined he’d suggest such a thing.
Didn’t he know her better than that? It was the feeling that Jonathan had never really taken her career very seriously from the start that gnawed at Cece while she sat in the tenuous silence.
Hadn’t she had these doubts before? Why had she ignored them?
Or worse, why hadn’t she recognized them until now?
The disparity between their families had always been a point of concern.
Jonathan could trace his heritage back to the Puritans.
Their name adorned the new dining hall at Deerfield Academy, as well as the new wing of his hometown library in Newton.
As for Cece? Maybe her mother’s father chipped the family name into some subterranean brick.
Had her father’s name been chanted to the rafters of University of Tennessee’s natatorium by his teammates after breaking the school record in the two-hundred-meter breaststroke?
This was the extent of her ancestral legacy.
But these concerns had remained idle worries, background music to their flourishing relationship.
Money and comfort had a way of gilding everything in gold, and Cece had found it difficult (she’s ashamed to admit) to stop, to question, while summering at Jonathan’s parents’ house in Weekapaug, touring Christmas markets in Germany, and swimming in the ice-chilled waters of Lake Como, Jonathan on a pebbled beach, Aperol spritz in hand, his sun-splashed face at once expectant and unassuming.
How nice it had been! The little luxuries Cece had never known: steaming hand towels in first class; hotel rooms with their own dedicated entryways; the food…
the food! How easily these things (so many things!) smoothed the edges of Cece’s concerns.
Of course, it wasn’t just about the money—that would have made things clearer in Cece’s mind.
It was how Jonathan made her feel most of the time—secure, self-assured, good about her life choices—that made things more confusing.
“And what if I don’t want that?” Cece heard herself say.
“Want what?”
“A family, a house in the burbs…”
“You’re saying those things like they’re bad.”
Cece didn’t know how to help Jonathan understand, to make him see.
He’s just trying to help, she told herself, gnawing the inside of her already pulpy cheek.
With every solution Jonathan proposed, every ounce of positive spin, Cece felt like she was drifting further and further away from the adult version of herself she’d always imagined: independent and strong, sole author of her story.
But why did it matter? She loathed herself for resisting an outcome most women her age would kill for.
She could hear her sister’s voice, warning Cece not to sabotage a good thing.
Was that really what she was doing? And if this was right, why did it feel so terribly wrong?
“I just told you I was fired,” Cece said, her cheeks burning. “Your response can’t be that everything’ll be okay because you’re rich and I can have babies.”
Chin to the ceiling, Jonathan pushed out a long whistle.
Later on, Cece would wonder if this outcome was unavoidable, whether all their seemingly inconsequential disagreements and quarrelling had brought them, inescapably, to this moment, or if it had all been preventable if she’d held her tongue, excused Jonathan’s well-meant solutions, considered the beautiful panoramic view afforded by their luxurious apartment.
“You seem determined to have a fight,” Jonathan said in that maddeningly calm and measured voice of his. “Is that what you want? I’m trying to think constructively here.”
Without a plan, Cece gathered her things and stood. Even in the bright and airy apartment, she felt suffocated, as if someone had been covertly siphoning oxygen from the room. “I’m going out. Since when did explaining yourself constitute starting a fight?”
“Be reasonable, Cece. You just got here.”
Was she being unreasonable? Even in hindsight, Cece can’t be entirely sure.
Jonathan’s proposal a few weeks ago had suddenly put everything in perspective, and imagined or not, she was staring down the barrel of a marriage tinged with quiet desperation.
“I think you just like the idea of me, Jonathan,” she said, and opened the door to leave.
“You say all that crap about supporting my career, but you don’t mean it, not really.
You’d rather just throw money at the problem. ”
If Cece’s intention was to make him angry, she was successful. “Just for reference, Cece,” Jonathan said bitterly, retreating into their apartment, “things like families, like homes…traditions…you know, happiness…those are things that normal people want. Money’s got nothing to do with it.”
At first, the walk around their neighborhood was only meant to clear her head; Cece had every intention of returning home and apologizing to Jonathan.
She was being unfair. Through the prism of their engagement, everything had suddenly appeared permanent and immovable.
She’d panicked, but the feeling would pass.
Jonathan would understand. If anything, Jonathan was understanding!
Raindrops spattered the wind as sidewalks turned to dirt paths.
Birds, atwitter, rose from the reeds, and Cece realized she’d walked far from the apartment, through Kosciuszko Park, where she stood at the water’s edge.
Scrambling over the darkened rocks, she moved closer, until the Sound lapped the tips of her shoes.
She felt the chilled water soaking her socks.
Someone called from the path for her to “watch out,” and Cece stepped back, but not before slipping the ring from her finger and burying it in her jacket pocket.
She would go back, but only to pack her things and tell Jonathan it was over.
“What did you say was in that stuff?” Cece says. The women are taking another well-earned break after their second battle with the Japanese wineberry. Cece’s lying on a lounge chair, her thighs pushing through the bottom where it’s missing the plastic bands.
Lorraine, sun hat nudged back on her forehead, offers the jar again. “A little sugar, black tea, yeast, and bacteria culture.”
“Never mind. I thought I’d changed my mind.”
Lorraine shoves off her Crocs and begins to unclip her overalls. “I’m going for a dip.”
Cece does her best to hide her alarm.
“Relax,” Lorraine says, jettisoning a sock with a flick of her foot. “I’ve got shorts on underneath.”
“I wasn’t worried.”
“Sure,” Lorraine says, lumbering to the shallow end, where she lowers herself in with a grunt, grime-smeared shirt and all. “Where did you end up finding a job? Or do I need to worry about you making rent this month?”