Chapter 7
I spend a good amount of time examining the open wound on my left ass cheek in my bathroom mirror before I start to feel dizzy.
It’s a deep cut, the kind that desperately needs Neosporin and a Band-Aid.
I try to patch myself up once I dry off from my shower, but the placement of the cut makes it too hard to secure the Band-Aid properly.
I shiver thinking about the fact that I’ll have to ask Jonathan for help once he gets back from work.
I’m not sure if it’s an anxious shiver or an anticipatory one.
After spending some time re-creating my Hinge profile and texting it to Jamie for approval, I open the third book in the FBI romance anthology I’ve been devouring.
But for the first time since I started the series, I can’t focus.
All I can think about is Finn, and all I want to do is talk to someone about him, but Alex, Jonathan, and Nora are at work, and Meg is probably still asleep on the bathroom floor. So I decide to FaceTime Jamie.
She answers on the second ring.
“I was JUST about to call you!” she says, beaming.
I can hear the clack of her heels on the New York City pavement as she walks home from the office. She looks so adorably professional in her blazer.
“Look at you! New York City’s hottest new editor.”
“Editorial assistant,” she clarifies, and I brush her off.
While Jamie and I are polar opposites in almost every way, our shared love of reading has always connected us. The fact that she pokes fun at my taste in books is beside the point. Working in publishing is the perfect job for her, and I couldn’t be more proud.
“There’s a pretty serious problem with your Hinge profile,” she says matter-of-factly.
“What is it?” I can’t imagine what could be wrong. I answered the prompts with an expert mix of comedy and earnestness, and the pictures I chose show off all my best features without being too in-your-face.
“Go look at the photos again,” she urges. “And this time, try looking at them through the perspective of a guy swiping through the app.”
I pull up my profile and begin to scroll. The first photo, which I chose because I like the way my curls look when I’m fresh out of the ocean, is of me and Jonathan on the beach.
Next is a photo of me and Jonathan at the blackjack table in Vegas. This one shows that I’m not afraid to have a good time.
The next photo is of me and Jonathan at—
“Oh.” Understanding strikes me as I scroll through the last three photos: me and Jonathan at the zoo, me and Jonathan Lady and the Tramp-ing a churro at the Orange County Fair, and me and Jonathan (and Alex!) splayed out on a picnic blanket.
“This is bad,” I admit. “It’s just that all of my best pictures happen to be with Jonathan.”
“Well then let’s make sure to get some good solo ones at the wedding.” She pauses long enough to shake her head. “I still can’t believe you’re not bringing him.”
I sigh. Everyone back home is devastated that I’ve decided not to bring Jonathan as my plus-one, but I’d rather go alone than subject myself, and him, to countless questions about our relationship.
“We can’t keep having the same conversation. You don’t ge—”
“No.” She cuts me off. “If you’re gonna start up on the ‘Jonathan’s too hot to want to be with me’ bullshit, I’ll hang up. I don’t want to hear it. I really don’t, Phoebe.”
“Okay,” I tell her. “Let’s talk about something else, then. I’m picking up my dress on Friday.”
This will mark my third attempt at getting my bridesmaid dress altered.
The first seamstress I took it to hemmed it an inch too short, and the second one cinched it so tightly in the chest that my boobs were touching my chin.
I thanked them both incessantly, told them the dress was perfect, and waited until I got in my car to start crying.
“You’re bringing Nora with you, right?”
I promised Jamie I would bring someone with a backbone to pick up my dress for the third (and hopefully final) time.
“Yes, I’m bringing Nora.”
“Good. I can’t wait to see you,” she says, and before I have a second to agree, she launches into a barrage of questions about school.
“How was your first day? How are the kids? Tell me everything!”
And so I do. I tell her about the list, my attempts at flirting with Teacher Rob, and my big future plans involving Finn.
Jamie’s reception becomes spotty as she walks through an underpass, but I can still make out a scrunched nose and a furrowed brow through the pixelated screen.
“What’s that look for?” I ask.
As her features come back into focus, I can see her exhale clearly.
“I still don’t get it,” she says.
“Get what?”
“How you could have a crush on someone else when you basically already have a perfect live-in boyfriend.”
Ever since my family first met Jonathan, they’ve been fixated on the status of our relationship.
My sister on a daily basis: “Your kids would be so cute. Imagine the curls on them! And the eyes!”
My mother in the middle of my cousin’s bar mitzvah service: “Do you think he’d be willing to convert?”
“Who?” I had asked.
She’d stared back at me blankly, as if my question insulted her. “Jonathan.”
My dad at my college graduation: “My firstborn daughter.” He dabbed at his eyes with a handkerchief. “I can’t believe I’m the father of a college graduate. And before you know it, I’ll be giving you away at your wedding.”
He dissolved into hysterics while turning around to grab Jonathan, who was in the middle of taking photos with his parents, and quite surprised to find himself in the arms of my father.
“You’ll take such good care of her.” And then, in between sniffles, “Get together, you two.”
He reached into his front shirt pocket to grab his phone, using it to take a photo in, of course, landscape mode.
“This one’s for the grandkids,” he said while snapping the photo, his finger covering the corner of the camera lens.
While I can’t defend my dad’s behavior, I do have that picture taped to our freezer.
Half of it is obscured by a thumb, but in the other half, Jonathan and I are mid-laugh, our eyes crinkled and mouths wide open.
All things considered, my dad was right.
It will definitely be one that I show my grandkids.
Desperate to change the subject, I have a question about Jamie’s wedding playlist on the tip of my tongue when I hear Jonathan’s key turn in the lock.
“I gotta go,” I tell her. “I love you and I can’t wait to see you.”
“Twelve days!” she sings as I press the end call button.
The door swings open, and the smell of grease and cheese coming from the pizza box in Jonathan’s hands fills up the whole room.
The sleeves of his light blue collared shirt are rolled halfway up his arms, and a few buttons toward the top are undone, revealing a patch of chest hair I can’t help but stare at.
My mouth starts to water as I walk over to greet him.
Because of the pizza.
“Hey!” I give him a quick hug hello. “How was work?”
“Oh, you know. The same as it was yesterday. And the day before that. And all the days before that.”
Jonathan’s been working in medical device sales for the past five years in an effort to please his parents, even though he hates it and it makes him miserable.
The Coopers had expected Jonathan to stay in their small West Virginia town to take over their family business, and could barely look him in the eye after he announced his decision to study film at UCLA.
They pretty much refuse to leave their Southern bubble (West Virginia is technically part of the South, right?
I still don’t totally get it), with the exception of the one trip they made to LA for graduation, where they spent the whole weekend pointing out “druggies” (men in Birkenstocks) and “lesbians” (women in Birkenstocks).
I know Jonathan feels guilty for defying his parents’ expectations, so he continues to work at what they consider a “real job” as a way to keep the peace.
“What about advertising?” I ask for the millionth time. “Or publishing? You could talk to Jamie! Those are both jobs where you still get to be creative.”
I can’t stop myself from making suggestions every time he complains about work.
Over the summer, I made him a color-coded, alphabetized binder that includes a list of professions, their descriptions, and a detailed analysis of why they would be a good fit for him and please his parents. It’s sat unopened on his desk for months.
“I know,” he sighs, and because I know this conversation is going nowhere and I desperately need his assistance, I have no choice but to stop him before he gets too comfortable on the couch.
“Can you help me with something really quick?” I try to keep it vague, but my hand reflexively shoots to the back of my pajama pants.
Jonathan raises his eyebrows.
“Of course. What is it?” he asks. “I just reattached your mirror, by the way. You really need to start locking your car.”
“Oh!” In all the day’s excitement, I forgot about my detached side-view mirror resting in my passenger seat. “Thank you. You’re the best. I need help with something else, though.”
He waits for me to elaborate, but I begin making my way toward the stairs. “Follow me, please.”
He groans, but I hear his footsteps behind me.
“Is it another roach? We need to call the exterminator, Pheebs.”
We head up the stairs and into my room, where I hand him the Band-Aid that I already placed carefully on my nightstand.
“I need you to put this on for me. I can’t really reach.”
“Of course,” he says. “Where?”
“I’m sorry,” I mumble before turning around and lowering my pajama bottoms.
Jonathan gasps. “Jesus Christ, Phoebe, what did you do to yourself?!”
I sigh. “That is between me, Finn, and the laminator.”
I reach back and hand him a tube of Neosporin. “Here, would you mind putting some of this on the Band-Aid?”