Chapter 23
Will’s mom hadn’t known why his dad wanted the number, and she had said she wouldn’t give it to him without checking with Will first. Any temptation he might have had to talk with his dad, to see why he was reaching out now after all this time, had been snuffed out by the realization that his own father hadn’t had his phone number in the first place, which only twisted the knife deeper.
Will had asked his mom not to share it, she had supported his decision with no further questions asked, and they had wrapped up their phone call before he’d gotten in line.
My dad asked my mom for my phone number, he had texted Ali while he’d waited to pay.
Shit. Why?
Don’t know. He wouldn’t tell her.
What did you say?
I told her not to give it to him.
I don’t blame you. It’s also messed up he didn’t already have it.
Will had known Ali would get it.
What did Rachel say?Ali had asked.
Haven’t told her.
Are you going to?
Will had thought about telling her about the call but had quickly decided against it. Not knowing quite what to make of it himself, he hadn’t wanted to complicate things so close to when he would be telling her about Creative Vices.
No I don’t think so, Will had written back.
You should. It’s a big deal and it’s clearly bothering you.
Sometimes Ali knew him too well.
That’s why I told you.
I’m flattered. But I’m not your wife.
In a vacuum, Ali would’ve been right. But Rachel having a good reaction to learning about the interview was the top priority. Will had gambled too much to lose focus now, to open his emotional floodgates and saddle Rachel with his unresolved feelings in the midst of this trip.
It might be revealed in short order just how big a mistake he’d made when emailing Beatriz. But letting a brief lapse in his dad’s long-standing disinterest get in the way of the plan’s chances at success? That wasn’t going to happen. Will wouldn’t let it.
So when he’d met Rachel at the automatic sliding doors that led outside, and she’d noticed that he’d looked distracted, he’d said that he’d been working on something fun yet chill for them to do that evening at the hotel and had just left out the part where his deadbeat dad had attempted to reappear in his life with zero warning.
“Is the fun-yet-chill thing related to what’s in the shopping bag?” Rachel had asked as they walked back to the car. Will had also picked up a box of microwave popcorn and some candy and asked the cashier to put them and the DVD in a bag to keep them all hidden.
“It’s quite possible.”
She’d taken a long drag of her slush. “Well, it’s like I always say: you can’t go wrong with a gas station surprise.”
“‘Gas station surprise’ sounds like bad sushi.”
“Or an even worse sex position.”
They’d arrived at the hotel a few hours later, and Rachel had gone to check out the pool area while Will waited to check in. It had been the perfect opportunity for him to ask Steven C., the guy working the front desk, how he could go about reserving the theater room for that night.
“Oh, right,” Steven had said after a moment of trying to place what Will was talking about. “You don’t really reserve it ahead of time. Just come back to the desk, and as long as it’s available, one of us will be happy to open it up for you.”
“But what if it’s not available?” Will had pressed as Steven went back to typing. The amount of information he’d been entering seemed incongruous with whatever it must take to give someone two keys to a hotel room.
Steven had stopped and looked at Will again with the impatience of someone nearing their break or the end of their shift or possibly the end of their rope with customer service as a profession.
“It’ll be available,” he had said.
And Steven had been right. When Will and Rachel returned to the front desk at eight o’clock carrying an ice bucket full of popcorn that they’d popped in the microwave in their room, Janelle P., Steven’s more pleasant replacement, showed them from the main atrium, down a hallway, to a little side room just past ballroom B.
“Enjoy,” she said, flicking on the lights for them and departing with a smile.
Will let Rachel walk in and then closed the door behind them, which was when he realized theater room was probably a touch too generous in describing the space. It wasn’t that it wasn’t nice; there were four puffy armchairs in a row facing a large screen on the wall and a projector in the back that was hanging from the ceiling and connected to both the digital media and DVD players sitting on the shelf below. That said, someone other than an overzealous marketing person writing website copy likely would’ve called it a halfway decent man cave, and a spartan one at that, provided that this someone was also in the habit of using stupid terms like man cave to begin with. But for what Will had in store, it would be just fine.
Rachel went over toward the shelf with the two players and inspected the second shelf beneath it, which had 20 or 25 DVDs on it, mostly of the animated and/or PG family comedy variety.
“Are we watching Grown Ups 2?” she asked with her back still to him. She had been into it when Will had told her they were having a movie night while making the popcorn, but she was having a hard time faking enthusiasm for the in-house library.
“Only if you veto this,” he said, producing It’s Complicated from their fudge shop tote bag, which they’d used to transport their drinks from the room.
Rachel turned around, and he saw the excitement come back. “Aww, our first movie.” She walked over and put her arms around him. “Is this what you bought at the gas station?”
“It is. I’ll never look dismissively at a five-dollar DVD bin in a Chevron again.”
She smiled at him but didn’t say anything.
“What?” he asked.
“Nothing. I’m just amazed sometimes by how much you think about me.”
Will laughed. “I mean, I love you, and you’re pretty great to think about, so it’s not that surprising, is it?”
“What I mean is, plenty of people never get to experience what we have together. It’s no one’s destiny to find someone who loves them the way you love me. Because if it were, that would mean there were billions upon billions of people like you out there. And there aren’t—there really, really aren’t. I’ve never met anyone else like you in my life, Will, and I hope you know that I know how goddamn lucky I am to be married to you.”
Her words literally took his breath away. It was hard to imagine there’d be a time this week when his stock would be higher than it was then, their foreheads resting against each other, with him bending down to reach hers. In that sense, it was the ideal moment to tell her she had a flight out of Nashville bound for LAX this coming Monday morning.
But the way she’d been looking at him, talking about him, he didn’t feel emboldened. He felt ashamed for lying to her. Especially when she added:
“I wish we could just freeze like this.”
If he didn’t know better, he would’ve thought she sensed there was trouble coming. And who knew? Maybe she did.
“Just imagine if I’d gotten you some Dots too,” he whispered, not wanting to think about it. “We’d probably be naked already.”
Her hands were flat on his chest now, and she patted him lightly with both before heading for one of the chairs. “Guess you’ll never know. I still can’t believe I let myself run out.”
“You should probably check the bag, then,” he said as he went over to the DVD player.
He was dropping the disc into the tray when he heard her laugh.
She’d found the new box of Dots.
“Thank you,” she said after he hit the lights and sat down next to her. They had switched into their sleeping clothes as soon as they had gotten to their room, and there was just a hint of embarrassment in Rachel’s tone as she snuggled into her chair in her sweatshirt from Taylor’s Eras Tour and burgundy leggings, holding the Dots like a beloved stuffed animal. Mostly, though, she just sounded thrilled.
The movie started, and soon, the two of them were holding hands between their chairs, Will quickly growing to appreciate the ways in which this was better than if they’d had something closer to a real movie theater to themselves. That would’ve had a certain wow factor, sure, but rom-coms weren’t the kinds of movies that suffered much from being viewed on a smaller screen, and it still felt way more cinematic than anything they could’ve achieved in either their hotel room or on their couch at home. Plus the seats were more comfortable, and they hadn’t had to dress for anything other than a walk down to the lobby.
It all added up to a low-key, distraction-free environment in which the movie they were watching was at liberty to dredge up feelings about his dad that he was doing his best not to think about.
It’s Complicatedis a divorce movie, or at least a movie where Meryl Streep’s character’s divorce from Alec Baldwin’s is a defining plot detail. Will had known that going in, of course. But when he had seen it for the first time, he had been so focused on Rachel and their date—they were only a couple of months removed from the coleslaw, so he was still very actively trying not to screw anything up—that he hadn’t invested too much in what was playing out on the screen. Now, the “will they/won’t they” of two exes considering getting back together for real after sleeping with each other a few times, and the mix of happiness and confusion and hurt the idea of this reunion triggers among their adult children, was taking Will back.
Back to when he was a kid and used to stare out his bedroom window at night, wishing on anything he thought might be a shooting star that his dad would reappear.
Back to when he’d thought his parents would get back together once he was a little bit older and no longer so much work.
Back to when he’d invited his dad to his and Rachel’s wedding and allowed himself to imagine what it would be like to see his parents dance a dance together, not as husband and wife but just as two people who had once loved each other enough to have him.
But none of that had happened. His dad hadn’t thought enough of him and his mom to have even been tempted to come back like Alec Baldwin, and his mom had never met a Steve Martin who would love her the way she deserved to be loved.
Will knew it probably wasn’t his place to feel that way about his mom. She’d be the first to tell you a long-term commitment was the last thing she was looking for in a relationship. But he couldn’t help it, especially as she got older.
He’d gotten good at telling himself this impulse to want to see his mom with someone had nothing to do with him, that he’d let go of his desire to have a father figure in his life when he’d finally given up on his dad.
Except giving up and letting go are two different things.
It’s toward the end of the movie when Meryl Streep and Alec Baldwin’s kids find out their parents have been hooking up again, and they’re so shaken by it that they all retreat to the eldest’s house. When Meryl comes over to explain what’s been going on and that the affair is over, she finds her three 20-something children have piled into one bed, reverting to their younger selves and waiting for someone to make sense of everything for them. Rationally, they’d given up on the idea of their parents ever being a thing again, but it’s clear the emotional pull of such a scenario had never let them go.
This time, there wasn’t anything to keep Will from crying, and he didn’t want to admit to himself that he knew why he was.
His and Rachel’s hands had drifted apart over the course of the two hours, but they were almost shoulder to shoulder in their chairs, and she reached out and started rubbing his back.
“I’ll tell you one thing,” she said once he’d wiped his eyes, her hand still on him. “Young Krasinski may be my Sally Field.” She was referring to the eldest’s fiancé, who was played by John Krasinski in the middle of his run on The Office.
Will chuckled through a nose-clearing inhale. “I thought Obama was your Sally Field.”
“Obama is in his own category. But Krasinski reminds me a lot of you.”
“Is it just because his character got high and was a little bit of a mess?”
“Oh no, you were a much bigger mess. Like, much, much bigger. It’s more just that you carry yourselves in similar ways.”
“I don’t know whether to take that as a compliment or be worried that you’re going to replace me with a better-looking version.”
“You’re being ridiculous. I could never do that to his wife.”
Rachel’s laugh filled the darkened room, and Will took what was left of the popcorn in return.
The movie ended, and they sat there for a minute. It presented a perfect opportunity to explore his emotions about his parents’ divorce, so naturally, he tried to keep the focus on the story they’d just watched and away from that of his family so he didn’t risk bringing up the call from his dad. It was just too much with everything else he was trying to manage.
“Is it just me,” he said, “or was this movie an odd choice for two college sophomores on a date? I mean, it’s great, and the cast is amazing, but wasn’t there something a little less filled with middle-aged angst?”
“Probably. But I was still in the information-gathering stage of our relationship, and this was a test.”
“The movie was a test?”
“Yup.”
“Of what?”
“Everything about you seemed so thoughtful and kind. I was pretty positive that was who you really were, but I figured if you’d sit through a Nancy Meyers movie with me and then talk about it afterwards without getting all bro-y, I’d know for sure.”
Will tried to think back to what he could’ve said after the first time they’d seen this movie. He was coming up blank.
“If I had known our entire future depended on the strength of my It’s Complicated take, I definitely would’ve put more thought into it.”
“‘Entire future’ might be a little strong. But you passed with flying colors.”
Ice bucket in tow, Will got up to turn the lights back on. It took a little while for his eyes to readjust, and he was at the DVD player taking the disc out before he could open them all the way again. And by then, his curiosity got the better of him.
“What did I say, anyway?” he asked.
Rachel was putting her Dots box and their empty cans in the tote bag and getting her slippers back on. “You don’t remember?” she said, continuing with her cleanup.
“I don’t. I hope that doesn’t retroactively ruin it for me.”
“No, I think you’re in the clear at this point.”
“So, what was this extremely well-thought-out opinion of mine?”
She slung the strap of the bag over her shoulder and looked at him, and he could tell by her expression it wasn’t a happy memory for her.
“You said you had a hard time relating because you couldn’t remember the last time your parents had been in a room together.”
He’d been trying to avoid the clouds gathering on the horizon all night, but there were his own words, reminding him it was pointless to look away.