Chapter Twelve
Eliza hadn’t set out to work for NOY. Her goal upon graduating from college was to move to Manhattan with Mo so she wouldn’t have to go “home” to live with Jack and Carol. That house hadn’t felt like home since the day the U-Haul had arrived with Carol’s belongings. Carol had started to keep the primary bedroom door shut, but when it was open, Eliza hated catching a glimpse of her stepmother’s perfume on the bureau. That bedroom was also the first room they redid?—replacing the pencil-post bed Eliza had loved with one with a carved headboard. Laura’s clothing was boxed up and donated; Eliza rescued a few sweaters that still smelled faintly of her mother?—the lavender sachets she kept in her drawers and the fruity bodywash she’d liked.
There was no question in Eliza’s mind that she wasn’t going back to that house. She spent a lot of time in the career-counseling office senior year, looking for a job that would find her sociology degree appealing and would pay enough to cover rent.
Jack took her out to breakfast the morning after graduation, a rare occasion that it was just the two of them. If Eliza hadn’t been so hungover, she would have felt downright jubilant that Carol had stayed back at the hotel. As it was, she felt low-level joy. They sat opposite each other at a diner she was more used to visiting late at night with friends. The scuffed Formica tables looked shabbier in the daylight. She’d always thought the vinyl booths were black, but they turned out to be burgundy.
She sipped her hot tea while they waited for their breakfast?—scrambled eggs on toast for her, a western omelet for him.
Jack cleared his throat, and she looked at him. His polo shirt was white with blue stripes and a blue collar. His beefy arms were freckled from the sun. “I’m proud of you, Eliza,” he said.
What she heard was I can’t believe you managed to pull yourself together and get through college. It must have shown in the twist of her mouth.
“Seriously, I mean it. Life dealt you a crappy hand, and you pulled through.” He looked away, gazing in the direction of the dessert case full of elephant ears and danish that Carol never let him eat.
She nodded, biting her lip. It wasn’t the first time she’d thought of her mom that weekend. Wishing she were there.
His eyes returned to her face. “Mom would be proud.”
She felt the familiar burn of rising tears, and he reached across the table to pat her hand awkwardly. They hadn’t quite figured out how to touch each other after Laura died.
He cleared his throat again. “Anyway. You’ve got your whole life ahead of you now. I was waiting until today to tell you...”
There was only a tiny pause, but it was long enough for Eliza to decide that he was sick, too. That he was dying. That she was about to lose another parent. Or something else. That Carol was pregnant. Could she be pregnant? She’d been thirty-eight when she married Jack. So she was forty-three now. Definitely possible...
“Mom wanted to make sure you’d be taken care of. As much as she could,” he continued.
Eliza wrinkled her brow and tried to reset her brain. This wasn’t about illness. Or a half sibling.
“She set up a trust for her life-insurance proceeds and some other investments she’d inherited from her uncle. One for you and one for Scott, to be available to you when you finished school. I asked Scott not to tell you. I didn’t want it to affect whatever decisions you made. But it’s yours now.”
“Oh.” The single short word was all she could force out. Without even knowing the amount, she wanted to give it back in exchange for having Laura sitting next to her in the booth?—her cool hand brushing the loose strands of Eliza’s hair behind her ear. But that wasn’t how life worked. No exchanges, no returns. Not even if what you got was defective.
The amount in the estate was substantial. Well, substantial to an until-five-minutes-before broke college student. Certainly not something she could live on for the rest of her days. But enough that she could think a little differently about where she could live and what jobs she could pursue.
So when she came across the job listing for Nourish Our Youth, she didn’t automatically scroll past at the sight of the low starting salary. Laura had been passionate about Eliza’s and Scott’s education?—regularly attending school-board meetings and volunteering for a local organization that raised money to fund programs and projects not covered in the school budget. During her interviews with Vanessa and Johanna?—the then director of development?—Eliza kept thinking about how excited Laura would be about NOY’s mission.
Now, given what she’d learned about her biological father and his work in education, she had to wonder if there was a connection. Had they shared this passion? Did Laura’s interest stem from Ross’s? Or the other way around? Could her mom have been trying to expose her to some of her “real” father’s interests?
Her head hurt thinking about it. It was like playing a game of three-dimensional chess with invisible pieces. She sighed, staring out Grinders’ window, her cup of tea slightly too hot to drink.
“Hey. How are you doing?” Josh tapped her on her shoulder, and she turned.
“Okay. Are you getting something?”
“Yeah?—wanted to see if I could order for you, but it looks like you already did.” He nodded at her bright blue, oversize mug before heading to the counter.
Josh had texted her on Thursday to tell her that he’d learned a bit about Ross. She was dying to have him just send her the information, but he suggested they meet over the weekend. He had a deal closing at work and needed to get past that.
Eliza might have left several discarded outfits on her bed that morning before settling on skinny jeans ripped at the knees and an oversize sweater. Looking down at herself, she thought she had probably erred a little too far in the “I’m not dressing up for you and I don’t care how you think I look” direction.
Josh returned to the table, pulling off his barn jacket before sitting down. His sweater this time was chunky gray wool. It didn’t look as soft to the touch as last time. He cocked his head at her. “You look tired.”
Thanks. Thanks a lot. She had the sudden, unwelcome thought that Josh was checking up on her at Scott’s behest. Even though she’d told Josh not to tell Scott that they were in touch. Another question to add to the three-dimensional chessboard.
“E?”
Josh’s steady gaze on her made her uncomfortable. Like her carefully constructed walls had transformed to glass. “I’m okay,” she repeated.
“I can’t even imagine what you’re going through.”
She picked up her tea to take a sip even though it was still steaming. No one ever knew what to say to grieving people, and she never knew what to say back. She had spent so much time as a puddle of emotions after Laura died, and she wanted to think she was stronger now. To mean it when she said she was okay. Besides, she knew what would happen if she said she wasn’t . That automatic sympathetic gaze nearly killed her. But it was hard to lie to Josh, who was looking at her so earnestly. So kindly. With such lovely eyes. She mentally shook herself.
“Anyway, we’re not here to talk about how I’m doing.” She aimed for flippancy but wasn’t sure she quite hit the mark.
“We can, though. If you want.” He waited a moment before turning to pull some pages out of the inside pocket of his jacket. “So, I didn’t find out a whole lot, but I can tell you Ross was married once, and then divorced.” He slid the pages across to her, which appeared to be printouts from some sort of records system.
“How did you get this stuff?” she asked as her eyes jumped around the pages.
“Eh, don’t ask too many questions about that. But it’s all public record.”
She looked down again. Ross had married a woman named Hannah Briggs two years after Eliza was born. So at least he wasn’t married at the reunion. They filed for divorce nearly six years later.
“What about kids?”
“No records of any.”
She realized the irony of that statement. There was no public record of herself as Ross’s child. Her birth certificate named Jack Levinger as her father. For all she knew, she had dozens of half siblings running around.
“He lives in the city,” Josh continued. “Not far from me, actually, in the West Village. His address is on the last page.”
Eliza’s hands were shaking slightly, and she clenched them into fists in her lap. She suddenly became aware of the noises in the coffee shop?—the clatter of mugs, the hiss of the espresso machine. As if she were in a tunnel where everything was magnified. She sucked in air through her nose. This feeling was all too familiar, though she hadn’t experienced it in years.
“E?”
She wasn’t going to have a panic attack. Not here. Not now. She took another deep breath and pressed her hands against her thighs until she could feel them through the spreading numbness. “I’m okay,” she murmured. Was that the third time she’d said that to Josh in the past ten minutes? Was this veering into “The lady doth protest too much” territory?
“This probably makes it feel real,” he suggested gently.
She swallowed. “Yeah, I think you’re right. I mean, now I could write him a letter. Or send him an email. Or show up at his door.”
“You could. But I think you need to consider what a shock this is going to be to him.”
She snorted. “Um... yeah, I can relate.”
“Seriously. I’ve been thinking about this. You have no idea how he’ll react. And you’re probably already feeling...”
Please don’t say fragile.
“...I mean, you’re still raw from your dad’s death. If he’s not receptive... I don’t want this to cause you any more pain.”
She looked at him. “What would you do if you suddenly found out you had a child out there?” The question was out of her mouth before she could stop it, and she felt her cheeks flush at the idea of Josh fathering a child.
His eyes widened. “Wow. Yikes. It would be so hard to wrap my head around. I mean?—obviously any kid of mine would have to be still young. It’s not like I could have an adult kid running around. But I’d probably be a little pissed. Maybe a lot pissed. Not at the kid?—but at the mom for having kept it a secret. I wouldn’t want to think anyone I’d... I mean, that anyone I’d been with wouldn’t tell me I’d gotten her pregnant.”
Eliza nodded slowly and pushed away the image of Josh being with this imaginary woman. “I guess it was pretty lousy of my mom.” She fiddled with the empty sugar packet sitting on the table next to her mug and realized that this was the part of this crazy situation that she’d been trying not to acknowledge.
Josh sighed heavily. “She was in a tough spot. Maybe an impossible spot.”
“Yeah, ’cause she cheated on my dad.” She aimed to say it lightly, but the words were heavy on her tongue. On her heart.
“Look. You don’t know what was going on with them...”
“I know. And I’ll never know.” She blinked rapidly as her eyes filled, and Josh reached out to touch her arm.
“Hey?—I know that there’s nothing I can say that will make this any better. But if you want to talk about it...”
“Thanks.” But she couldn’t help wondering why he was here. After so many years of nothing but small talk on the random occasions they’d seen one another. “Did Scott ask you to check up on me?”
His eyes widened again. “No?—why would you think that?”
She shrugged. “I know he worries about me. And with everything going on?—maybe he doesn’t really want to deal with me right now.”
Josh pushed his hand through his hair. “I can’t imagine that’s how he feels.”
Eliza took a sip of her tea, which was now not quite hot enough. She’d missed the sweet spot, so to speak. “So, did you get that deal done or whatever you were working on?” She was anxious to get them both onto less emotional territory.
“Yeah, it closed yesterday. Thank God. A little breathing room.”
“So, what exactly do you do?”
“General corporate law. But lately I’ve been involved in a bunch of mergers and acquisitions.”
“Do you like it?”
He laughed. “Sometimes. And it’s paying off my loans. Not sure I want to do the ‘big law’ thing forever, but for now it’s okay. How about you? What foundation do you work for again?”
“Nourish Our Youth. We support disadvantaged kids. Historically, we’ve been a kind of jack-of-all-trades?—dealing with food insecurity, homelessness, all that?—but now we’re mainly focused on education. It’s pretty crazy that there’s this overlap between my job and Ross’s work in education research. My boss actually wants us to start dealing with education faculty at local universities.”
Josh raised his eyebrows.
“I know, right? Anyway. But I’m just keeping my head down and focusing on the annual gala, which I’m responsible for this year. First time it’s all my responsibility.”
“Wow, E, that’s amazing!”
“Maybe. Stressful, definitely.”
“When is it?”
“December. Not great timing with all the holiday festivities. I’d like to try to move it for next year, but I’m stuck with it for now.”
“So are you mostly doing event planning, then, or...?”
She wondered if he was really interested. “Well, all of that?—coordinating with the venue and all the vendors, staying on top of the RSVPs, swag bags, name tags?—but also trying to cultivate bigger donations. Like corporate sponsorships for the program.”
Josh ran his finger along the rim of his cup. His nails were neat and clean. Why was she looking at his fingernails? “You know, my firm has a school-law practice. I wonder if they’d be interested in getting a sponsorship. Or buying a table. We’re always supporting different nonprofits.”
Eliza shook her head. “Oh, you don’t have to do that. You’ve done enough for me already.” She gestured toward the printouts with Ross’s information on them.
“It’s no big deal. I’ll just mention it to one of my colleagues. Former office mate of mine is in that practice. So, what do you do when you’re not planning galas?”
Eliza tried to think about what her day-to-day life had been like before Jack died. Before this bomb was dropped on her. She remembered this feeling from when Laura died. The weird, elastic quality of time. How everything got a little blurry around the edges.
“Oh, you know. I hang out with Mo. She tries to get me to go to yoga with her. I try not to go. I run in the park. Travel when I can. Watch too much TV.”
He grinned. “You must be sad One Tree Hill went off the air.”
She put her palm over her face. “Oh my God. Don’t remind me how obsessed I was with that show. Wait!” She removed her hand. “How do you know it’s off the air? Unless you were watching it, too!”
“Oh yeah?—you got me. Secret One Tree Hill lover over here.” He laughed and tapped himself on the chest. “Not.”
“Too late! I know your deep, dark secret. But don’t worry, my lips are sealed.” She pinched her thumb and forefinger together and ran them across her mouth, zipping it up.
“Ha ha. No one would believe you. They all know it was only ever Everwood for me.” Josh winked at her so fast she almost missed it.
“Seriously, though, it’s embarrassing to think about the stuff we used to be into as kids, right? The other day I bought some Froot Loops. I used to beg my mom for them. So nasty!”
“Hey! They’re still my favorite breakfast cereal!” Josh grinned, and Eliza hated the little quiver she felt in response to it. Then Josh’s smile faded as his eyes strayed over her shoulder. She turned to see Carter behind her, his finger to his lips, apparently trying to keep Josh from alerting her to his presence.
“Damn! You caught me!” Carter grinned, his even teeth offsetting his perfect cheekbones, his dark hair flopping in his eyes. He bent to kiss her, the familiar scent of his soap?—a cross between wintergreen and eucalyptus?—filling her nose. She quickly angled her face away so his lips just brushed her cheek. “I was hoping I might find you here!” He put his hand on her shoulder and squeezed.
Eliza cringed a little under his hand as she thought of the last time the three of them were in a room together. The scene of her drunken meltdown. She cleared her throat and glanced between them. “I don’t know if you remember each other. Josh. Carter.”
Josh nodded and reached for his jacket. “I’ll get out of your way,” he said as he rose from his chair and indicated to Carter that he could take it.
“No, you don’t have to go,” Eliza said immediately, wishing that she’d chosen a coffeehouse other than her usual haunt to meet him in.
“No, I should go anyway. I’ve got tons of laundry to catch up on after the last couple of weeks on this deal. And some sleep, too.”
Eliza stood as Josh pulled on his jacket before picking up his empty mug. “Oh. Okay. Well?—thank you. I really appreciate your help.” She wanted to add, And by the way, this isn’t what it looks like. But wasn’t it? And why did she care what Josh thought?
“Hey, anytime. Promise me you won’t do anything right away? Give it some more thought.”
She nodded, and Josh squeezed her hand as Carter slid into the vacated seat. After she watched him go, she sat down again in her own chair.
“Babe! You’ve been blowing me off!” Carter grinned at her again, his expression taking any potential sting out of his words. That grin used to set off a chemical reaction, but all she was aware of now was the sensation of Josh squeezing her hand.
“I know. It’s been a really bad time.” You may recall, my father recently dropped dead.
“Babe.” He reached across the table, and she consciously extended her left hand, not the right one that had recently been in Josh’s. “I can take your mind off things...” He ran his thumb over her knuckles and winked at her. It was like being in a Seinfeld -esque bizarro world. Just a moment earlier, Josh had sat in that same chair and winked at her. But while Josh’s wink had been cute, Carter’s was making her queasy. She pulled her hand away, and his eyebrows drew together.
“Come on. What’s up?”
“Look. Carter. I just can’t do this right now.” Was she really going to push this gorgeous man who put no demands on her out of her life? Appears so.
Carter’s easy smile faded. “Hey. I’m not an idiot. I know you just lost your dad. But that doesn’t mean this”?—he gestured between them?—“has to stop. We’re just having fun. And you probably need that more than ever right now.”
Not a bad argument. But the thought of him touching her left her cold.
“I don’t think so, Carter. It’s just too much for me.”
“ I’m too much for you?” He winked again.
Ew. Why had she spent so much time sleeping with this guy?
“I just can’t. I’m sorry.” She picked up the coffee stirrer Josh had left behind and folded it in two before dropping it into her own empty mug.
Carter stared at her for a moment before shrugging. “Message received.”
They both stood, and Carter wrapped his arms around her as she stood awkwardly holding the mug. “Text me if you change your mind,” he whispered, his breath warm on her ear.
For a brief moment, she reconsidered. Why not invite him home? What’s wrong with one for the road? But then she pulled away. I don’t think that’s enough anymore.