Chapter 27
27
At first, I’m not sure if the knocking sound is coming from behind my bedroom door or my computer. I’m curled up in bed, where I’ve been burrowed like a gopher since fleeing Graham and Claire’s wedding two days ago. My laptop is open in front of me, currently streaming my 7,000 th consecutive episode of The Price Is Right.
Bubbie was retired from her job at the library by the time I was in elementary school, so when I was home sick, she was the one who would babysit me while my parents worked. It was there, curled up on the couch together, that I discovered the joy of daytime television. The Price Is Right was my grandma’s favorite, and so it became mine as well. Watching it now brings me right back to the warm, childhood memory. Or at least it did, before I realized that my adoration of the host has carried over into my love life.
A contestant has just guessed the exact price of a scooter, a talent he’s attributed to watching the show every single day. Normally this episode makes me smile but today I’m just feeling bitter and envious. What I wouldn’t do to go through life with that kind of certainty.
The banging sound returns, more insistent this time. I hit pause and call out, “Seriously, Mom, I am not interested in reading chakra!”
The bedroom door cracks open and a beautiful head of glossy black hair pokes through the doorway.
“Can I come in?” Asha asks. I sit up abruptly, suddenly self-conscious of my surroundings, which look very much like I’m cosplaying Depression Barbie. I’m dressed in the same fuzzy pajama set I’ve been wearing for forty-eight hours that may or may not be from Delia’s circa 2012. My hair is even more disheveled than usual, and my bed is covered in crumbled tissues and half-eaten packages of gummy bears. I brush the remnants of my Nutella and banana sandwich off my pajama shirt, slide the empty plate onto my nightstand, and then gesture for her to come in.
My stomach somersaults as she takes a seat on the edge of my bed. I’ve been avoiding her calls and texts since yesterday, not interested in hearing about how badly I’ve screwed up, how I’ve let her and everyone down. I’m still mortified that she sent me home. The thought of disappointing Asha has sent me down a shame spiral from which I may never emerge.
I never should have left the wedding. I should have pulled it together and acted like an adult. But now it’s too late, and I’ve come to accept that I will never be leaving my bed again. I’m going to live out the rest of my days here, like the grandparents in Willy Wonka.
“Hey, champ. How are you doing?” she asks carefully.
I choke back a laugh, incredulous.
“Seriously?” I ask. “That’s your first question? Aren’t you furious at me right now?”
Asha gives me a sympathetic smile. “Listen, I can’t say I would have behaved any differently if the man I loved was getting fake married to someone else.”
My jaw drops. “You knew? Did… did Sarah tell you?”
Asha shakes her head. “I found out right before Claire walked down the aisle. She asked where you were and when I said you weren’t feeling well, she told me everything.”
Hot tears hit the back of my eyes. I blink them back rapidly. I never should have kept this from Asha in the first place. I thought keeping this secret was the best way to protect everyone. And in the end, it achieved the complete opposite.
“Asha, I’m so sorry. I ruined everything. You put yourself on the line for me, and I let you down.”
Asha slides up closer to me on the bed. She reaches a hand forward to squeeze my legs through the sheets.
“You didn’t ruin everything. But I do wish you would have told me what was going on from the beginning. I’ve known you since you were in training bras. I thought we trusted each other.”
I cover her hand with mine and give it a squeeze.
“Of course I trust you. I was just so embarrassed, and I didn’t want you to think less of me. I wanted you to see me as a reliable partner, not your best friend’s impetuous little sister who needs to be dug out of another catastrophe.”
I shrug. “Not that it matters now. I’ve destroyed my chances at any future in event planning.”
Asha’s expression is unreadable. “You really haven’t checked your phone,” she says under her breath. “Well, let me fill you in. Even after her confession, I managed to convince Claire to go through with the wedding. I promised her that I would talk to you, that we would figure something out, that they could always annul the marriage if they decided that was what was right. But also, that my job was to make sure this wedding went off without a hitch and I intended to do so.”
A heaviness settles over my limbs as my rib cage goes tight. I knew that Graham was no longer mine. But somehow, hearing about it from Asha hits different. I feel my eyes well up with tears again as I nod numbly.
“Hang on there, Juliet,” Asha says, as she hands me a fresh tissue from my night table. A trace of amusement creeps into her features, and she pauses for a dramatic beat before continuing. “Even though it’s mostly been faded out of modern ceremony scripts, the preacher who was officiating asked if anyone objected to the union. He was right in the middle of his ‘speak now’ moment when someone stood up. I swear, it was like we’d all been teleported into a Taylor Swift music video.”
The hair on my forearms rises. “Who objected?”
A slow grin spreads across Asha’s face. “Trudy.”
Of all the names that Asha could have thrown at me, this was the last one I ever expected to hear.
“Trudy… objected to the wedding? On what grounds?”
The smile on Asha’s grin widens. “Apparently she said she couldn’t abide her grandson getting married when he was in love with somebody else.” My stomach bottoms out.
Trudy… knows about us? For how long? What must she think? My mind flashes back to our last conversation in her kitchen, the curious way she was studying me. The rustle of curtains in her window after Graham kissed me on her front lawn. She couldn’t have known what was going on between us. Could she?
But before my thoughts can continue down this path, Asha starts speaking again.
“And then, ” she continues. “Another guest stood up and said she objected too. Because apparently, she is in love with Claire? Turns out she’s a waitress you all met in a restaurant one night and the two of them have stayed in touch.”
A memory stirs, conjuring the mental image of our waitress from the night of our accidental double date. The way Claire grinned at that waitress, the one who she insisted looked like Zendaya.
“Oh my God,” I moan with a laugh. “This is some made-for-TV movie shit.” Then a thought occurs to me, and the amusement melts off my face.
“Hold on,” I breathe. “They didn’t go through with it? But… the hotel.” The whole reason I pushed Graham to go through with this was to show Baltimore that the Black-Eyed Susan is still a premier destination for weddings. That it should not, under any circumstances, be turned into condos.
Asha bites her bottom lip.
“Funny you should say that. Because while it may not have played out quite the way you intended it to, the evening certainly succeeded in portraying the Black-Eyed Susan as one of the most romantic spots in the city.”
I raise a questioning eyebrow. “What do you mean?”
“The press who came to cover the wedding?” Asha hesitates, like it’s obvious. “They had a field day with the story. It was the lead story on Baltimore magazine’s homepage.”
She grins. “Also, it seems one of the guests filmed the entire thing and uploaded it to TikTok. A home organizing influencer with a huge following reposted it and it went viral overnight.” She gives me a knowing smirk. Sarah. That little she-devil.
“They even played a clip of it on the Today Show ,” Asha continues. “Apparently, there’s a growing waitlist of guests who are desperate to host events at The Second Chance Romance Hotel. There’s no way Trudy is going to sell now. Seriously, have you not been online at all?”
She glances over at my computer screen, where the frozen image of Bob Barker stares back at her. His mouth is still halfway open, poised to remind everyone to spay and neuter their pets. “Oh, I see. So online, but not during this decade.”
“I’m sorry, can we back up?” I ask. “Antoine must be furious with me. I’ve certainly blown my chance at that promotion.” The irony is almost too much to bear. I pushed Graham to go through with the wedding, not just to save his family’s hotel, but also my own career. And in the end, I blew it all up anyway.
“Don’t you worry about Antoine. I’ve handled him,” Asha says, brushing an invisible piece of lint off her pant leg.
“You’ve handled him,” I say slowly. “Handled him how?”
“I told Antoine that you came down with a sudden bout of the stomach flu. You know how much puke freaks him out.” I nod slowly. During my second week at the office, one of the receptionists, who, unbeknownst to anyone else, was pregnant, threw up in the trash can under her desk. Antoine shut the entire office down for three days and even had a professional cleaning crew come through to disinfect everything. Apparently, his anxiety rooted back to a childhood projectile vomiting incident at Disney World.
“I also told him that you knew that Graham was in love with someone else. That it’s why you were spending so much time with him, to convince him to head down the aisle. That they never would have made it to the big day without you. That you knew the identity of this woman and kept that secret.” She gives me a conspiratorial smile. “All of which is true.”
My mouth falls open. “How long did you know?”
She shrugs. “I had an inkling that was confirmed when I found the two of you in the broom closet.” She smiles. “Now what are you going to do about the sad British export that’s currently pacing your living room like a puppy who’s lost his favorite ball?”
I straighten up. “Graham’s here?”
Asha nods. “Your dad has asked him several times to pace elsewhere because he’s trying to watch Monday Night Football and can’t concentrate.” Well, that tracks.
“I told him he needed to wait for me to talk to you first,” Asha continues. “Seniority and all that.” She smiles at me. “Plus, I wanted you to have all the facts before you made a decision.”
She rises to her feet. “I know you haven’t been taking Antoine’s calls either. I’ve told him that you were still stuck with your head in the toilet. But give him a call back today. He wants to offer you a full-time position.”
“Asha?” I ask. “What would you do?” I’m not even sure what I’m asking: if I want her advice about the job or about Graham. But she just shakes her head.
“Only you can answer that,” she says. “But no matter what, I’m proud of you, kiddo.”
The sentiment brings an unexpected prickle of tears to my eyes. I was so worried that I hadn’t realized how desperate I was for her approval until she gave it to me.
“Thank you,” I choke out.
She gives me a small smile before disappearing through my doorway. A moment later, a familiar head of blond hair pokes through. The sight of him sends a storm of conflicting emotions through my chest. Apprehension, anger, sadness, longing, and perhaps most distressing of all, a flicker of joy.
“Hey,” he says tentatively. “How are you doing?”
I gesture to my surroundings.
“Thriving, clearly.”
He gives me a small smile that doesn’t reach his eyes.
“I’ve been calling you,” he says.
“Yeah, I guess I’ve forgotten to charge my phone for the last two days.” I tip my chin toward my phone, which is lying on my nightstand like roadkill.
“May I sit?” he asks. I nod again, numbly as I gesture to the spot that Asha just vacated. Apparently, I’m having open office hours today.
Graham pushes his glasses up the bridge of his nose.
“I guess Asha told you about the wedding,” he hedges, his eyes carefully searching my face for a reaction. He won’t find one though; so many feelings are flooding through me at once that I’ve emotionally flatlined.
I nod again, and Graham, seemingly drawing confidence from the fact that I haven’t yet asked him to leave, slides closer to me, and takes my hand in his.
“Ali,” he says, his voice urgent now. “It’s over. We can be together. We can go back to New York. You can find a planning job there and we can… we can be together.” His voice trails off at the end as he studies my face, seeming not to find the reaction he was hoping for.
I bite down on my bottom lip as I weigh his words. He’s finally saying everything I’ve been wanting to hear for months. But suddenly, I can’t summon the joy I had anticipated.
A long beat passes, and then another.
“No,” I say quietly.
Graham’s mouth drops open. “No… you don’t want to be with me?” he asks.
I shake my head. “Of course I want to be with you,” I say. “But I don’t want to be your backup plan. Your default second option now that your original choice fell through. I know that we were in an impossible situation, but this still doesn’t feel like the right ending. I don’t want to play second string. I want to be someone’s first-round pick, you know? I wanted to be chosen.”
“Ali.” His voice is thick now, his words coming out strangled. “I choose you. Why do you think I’m here? I want to be with you. I love you.”
“I love you too,” I say, and the words cause a physical ache in my chest, because the moment I hear myself say them out loud, I realize how true they are. I swallow the lump in my throat, soldiering on.
“I thought I’d been in love before, Graham. But it’s not possible, because what I’ve felt in the past can’t even hold a candle to the way you make me feel. My whole life, I’ve felt like no one takes me seriously, like I’m just a good-time gal. Loved, yes, but not your first call when something goes wrong. Not someone people feel like they can count on. But you. You see me the way I see myself, the way I wish everyone else would see me. You make me feel like I should be someone’s first choice. And now, I don’t think I can settle for anything less. I want to be someone’s first choice.”
Graham shoves his glasses up his forehead, digging the heels of his hands into his eyes.
“Fuck,” he whispers. “I fucked everything up. I was so determined not to let everyone down and I’ve lost the one thing that really mattered.”
“That’s just it, Graham,” I say. “You have lived your entire life trying to make everyone else happy. Have you ever stopped to ask yourself what would make you happy? Do you even want to go back to New York?”
He opens his mouth, and then closes it again. A dark storm cloud passes over his features.
“It’s a good job,” he says quietly, tightly. “It’s the reason I spent so many years studying. It’s what I worked for. It’s flexible, it pays the bills. There’s no reason to leave it behind.”
“There’s one very good reason to leave it behind,” I argue. “It doesn’t make you happy. For once, do something because you want to do it. Life is too short to just get by. To live without passion, without doing the things that fill you up inside.”
“Ali,” he tries again. “ You fill me up inside.”
“I know that you love me, Graham,” I say softly. “But you can’t expect someone to spend their life with you if you haven’t figured out how you want to live life for yourself.”
Graham presses his lips together, then nods slowly.
“And what about you?” he asks after a beat. “Are you going to take the planning job? Stay in Baltimore long-term?”
It isn’t until he poses the question that I realize I know the answer.
“No,” I say softly. “I don’t know what I’m going to do next. But I’m going to follow my heart.”
“But your heart doesn’t lead you to me?” Graham’s voice is strained.
What a ridiculous question. My heart has belonged to him since the moment I pulled that cookbook out from under his car seat. But telling him the truth only sets me up to be hurt again. It’s time to let him go, once and for all.
“I’m sorry,” I say quietly. “I really hope you find what you’re looking for.”
“You too,” Graham says. He rises stiffly from the edge of my bed and heads toward the door. Before he leaves, he turns to look back at me, and his expression is so shattered that I consider taking it all back. But before I can, he disappears through the doorway, shutting the door behind him.