Chapter 13 #2
“I’m pretty sure this is the nicest car I’ve ever been in.”
“How do you manage to make that sound like an insult?”
“It’s not an insult,” I protest a bit too fervently.
“Now I know it’s an insult. Come on, what are you really thinking? I can handle it.”
I decide to take him at his word. “Who cleans your car?”
“What?”
“Your car. Who takes it to the car wash, gets the inside vacuumed and detailed, et cetera?” Because in addition to being the nicest car I’ve been in, it’s also the cleanest. It’s got that new-car smell and everything. And I’d bet money that’s not Alex’s doing.
“I fail to see why that matters.”
“Of course you do.” I snort.
Alex stares at me for a moment. He’s turned completely in my direction, leaned back against his door, arms crossed in front of his chest, one knee brought up so his shoe is on his seat. I wonder if his shoe is leaving a mark. A mark I’m sure won’t be there long.
“I have an assistant—”
“I fucking knew it.” I laugh.
“Whom I pay very well, I’ll have you know.”
“Well, congratulations,” I say sarcastically. “What’s your assistant’s name?”
“His name is Sam.”
“And how old is dear Sam?”
“Twenty-two.”
“And how does twenty-two-year-old Sam feel about assisting a boss only three years older than him?”
“You know, I’ve never thought to ask.”
“Alex, I hate to break it to you, but Sam deserves a raise.”
“You don’t even know how much I’m paying him.”
“I don’t need to know.” I laugh, then remark, “I think this is the longest you and I have talked one-on-one the entire time I’ve known you.”
He’s silent for a long time. Long enough for me to wonder if I’ve said something wrong.
“This is the longest I’ve talked one-on-one with anyone in a while. The person I talk to most is Sam, who, as established, I know nothing about. How pathetic is that?”
“What about Ingrid?” I ask. I need the reminder of his wife to be out there, hanging tangibly in the air between us, because every other aspect of this conversation is quickly endearing him to me, and even though I wouldn’t say I’m drunk, I’ve had enough to drink that I am now constantly, in the back of my mind, realizing just how attractive Alex is and marveling that I’ve never noticed it before.
“Ingrid and I don’t talk,” Alex says, his voice almost toneless. Betraying none of his feelings toward the words he’s just spoken. “Not for a while now. Did you know the average age for a first divorce is thirty? I always was an early bloomer.”
I’m about to say something that will undoubtedly be woefully unhelpful when my phone vibrates inside my purse. Alex waves as if to say Go ahead. I look at the text and immediately regret doing so.
“It’s Ellie,” I tell him, staring down at the screen. “He’s wondering where I’ve run off to. Said he saved me a dance.”
Alex nods in sympathy. “We’re still here. We can always run back inside.”
There’s that we again.
“I don’t want to go back inside,” I mutter.
Something in my tone must give me away, tell him that it’s a little more than an unrequited crush or even unrequited love that’s keeping me firmly planted in his passenger seat.
“Is everything okay?” he asks carefully.
“Yeah, it’s fine.”
“You can tell me. You don’t have to—if you tell me to drop it, I will—but if you have something to get off your chest, I’m all ears. I talk to our mutual friends once or twice a year. I’m not about to spill any of your secrets.”
I don’t know why I decide to tell him when I haven’t told anybody, not even Madison.
“Almost a year ago, shortly after Ellie proposed to Cat, he and I went out. We got a little drunk.” I see Alex’s eyebrows arch in surprise—no judgment to be found anywhere on his face—and I jump to assure him, “Nothing happened. He wouldn’t—I wouldn’t—
“Anyway, he confessed that he used to have feelings for me, early on when we first became friends. Just a crush, but… and then he laughed, ha-ha, isn’t that weird to think about now? And I somehow made myself laugh with him—yeah, that’s so weird.
“We met the same night he and Cat met. Did you know that? I fell for him almost immediately, but nothing ever came of it. All these years, I’ve thought it was because it was one-sided.
That he never felt the same way. But to know that he might have—it just sucks.
It sucks, and I think I would have been better off never knowing.
“Neither of us has brought it up since, but part of me hasn’t stopped wondering: Does he know how I feel about him? I don’t kid myself that I’ve been subtle. I mean, you know, and Cat probably knows. Madison knows I used to feel that way, but I think I’ve convinced her it’s over.
“But if he does know, then what the hell kind of game was he playing? Why mention it?”
“That asshole,” Alex mutters. He looks absolutely furious on my behalf.
“You shouldn’t call him an asshole at his own wedding.”
“We’re not at his wedding. We’re in the parking lot outside. It’s totally different.”
“Is that eye for technicalities the skill that made you a billionaire?”
“I’m not a billionaire.”
“So I’m thinking a few years ahead. My question stands.”
“Was it actually a question? It felt more like a sarcastic remark.”
“What can I say, I’m a good multitasker.”
“You’re a good deflector is what you are. We’re not talking about me, we’re talking about what an asshole Ellie is.”
I should defend Ellie. I know I should. But for the first time in all the years I’ve known him, I can’t find it in me. “What else is there to say?” I ask.
“Oh, not much. Except that him saying that to you was absurdly selfish.”
“I don’t know if that’s fair,” I weakly protest.
“I think I’m being more than fair, actually, ’cause there’s a lot worse I could say. I just—I don’t get it. Why are you so hung up on him?”
Why do I love Ellie?
I’ve asked myself a million times. I wish it were a simple answer.
Why does anyone love anyone?
How do I explain that when I’m with Ellie, I feel like the very best version of myself?
Or at least, that’s how I felt at the start—before jealousy stepped in and warped everything.
But even now, jealousy and all, I look at Ellie and see so many things I wish I had more of. Empathy. Compassion. Patience.
I didn’t fall in love with him all at once, so I can’t pinpoint a single reason or moment. All I know is that over time, I realized I couldn’t imagine my life without him in it.
I’ve on occasion wondered if I’m just a masochist. If part of me is in love with the impossibility of Ellie. If part of me likes the poetry of yearning.
But I don’t want to give voice to that, so I shrug and say, “I wish I knew.”
“You can do better. Both in a partner and in a friend. It isn’t right for him to string you along.”
“Like you said, he probably doesn’t realize I have feelings for him. Not particularly observant, remember?”
“Okay, so let’s take you out of the equation. Pretend it’s not about you, and it isn’t, because—no offense—you don’t really matter here.”
“Hey,” I object, insulted.
“I know. Hurts, doesn’t it? Push that aside, and think about the situation objectively.
Ellie had just gotten engaged to the woman who is allegedly—what did he say in his vows?
—his best friend, his confidante, and—oh yeah—his whole heart.
” Alex looks nauseated. “She said yes to spending the rest of her life with him. He should have been over the moon, and instead he turns to his other best friend—who also happens to be in love with him, but benefit of the doubt or whatever—and confesses his past feelings to her. Why do that? What’s his motive? ”
“Who’s to say he had a motive? Maybe he was just reminiscing.”
“There’s always motive to everyone’s actions, either conscious or subconscious.”
“Well, aren’t you the cynic,” I mutter.
“I’m not a cynic, I’m a realist.”
“The most cynical thing a cynic can do is call himself a realist.” I laugh.
“Fair enough,” he concedes. “Cynical or not, I have a point, and you know it.”
“What’s your motive in inviting me out to your car, then? What do you expect to gain from this?” I challenge.
“Distraction,” he says simply.
“Distraction,” I repeat, my voice flat.
“I am, as you pointed out, a cynical man, currently in a marriage nearing its end. The last thing I want to do is pretend to be happy for two people starting their own doomed legal entanglement. Even less so now that you’ve proven what I suspected for years—that Ellie is a jackass masquerading as a nice guy. ”
“You’re supposed to be his friend. You came to his wedding,” I counter. I should be appalled. Alex is the first person I’ve ever heard say anything bad about Ellie, and though I would have, until eight months ago, been his biggest defender, part of me is eating this shit up.
“Don’t insult my intelligence, Josephina,” he says with a droll eyebrow raise.
I would usually protest someone’s use of my full name—I’ve gone by Joey for so long that my own name sounds foreign to me, my brain slow to register that when someone says it, it’s me to whom they’re referring.
But I let it slide as he continues, “You and I both know that the only reason I was invited tonight was so I could buy them a good gift, which they will surely pick apart once they receive it, measuring it against some criteria they have in their heads of money spent versus the guest’s income.
They’ll probably even let you in on their verdict—please tell me how I do. ”
I pause, unsure how to respond, because that’s exactly what’s going to happen.
Part of it already happened. I was in the room when Ellie and Cat debated whether or not to invite Alex, and I was the person in favor of inviting him because he’d buy them a good gift.
It had all been fun and games at the time, but now I feel ashamed.