Chapter Twenty-One #2
“It’s not only that he bought the bed-and-breakfast out from under our noses,” my mom said. “It’s who he did it with. Did you know he’s been colluding with Nicholas?”
Why would my brother, the heir apparent to Afton Hotels, be teaming up with a rival? “That doesn’t make any sense.”
“You would know any of this if you ever bothered to come to board meetings or showed any interest in the family business at all,” said my mother.
I rolled my eyes. “Nicholas is trying to demonstrate to the board that he’d be a superior head of the business to your father.
Apparently he’s beginning to sway people.
Getting one over on us by purchasing this bed-and-breakfast out from under us isn’t going to help our case. ”
A daring move, for Nicholas. If he failed, he might be tossed out himself. Though I doubted my father would have the guts to do that to his only son. Who else would the family company go to? Me? I snorted. “And he got Kevin on his side?”
“I’m sure your brother promised him some stake in the company if he succeeds,” said Mom. “I know this is that girlfriend’s influence. Nicholas would never think to do such a thing on his own.”
“Jessica’s not his girlfriend, she’s his fiancée.
” I could practically hear my mother’s shudder through the phone.
“And I don’t think it has anything to do with her.
” Should I say something about how my dad was bad at his job?
Probably not after so recently accusing him of murder.
That might be too much for one week. “What if you gave Nicholas more responsibility in the company? A better title? That might make him happy enough to chill out on the coup for a bit.”
“Hmm,” my dad said. My mom moved on, probably because she’d rather choke on a martini olive than tell me I’d had a good idea.
“Anyway, Pom, let’s talk about you and your options as I see them. I think we say it was mutual. Much respect on both sides, will stay friends, blah, blah, blah, all that.”
“What are you talking about?”
“Your breakup with the nanny’s son,” Mom said. “I don’t think you want any more drama in the press. Will he move out of your apartment without fuss, or are you going to need to evict him? Because that wouldn’t be ideal.”
“Would you stop calling him that?” I said.
“And I won’t need to evict him, because, as I told you, the article is not true.
I love Gabe. He loves me. We are not breaking up.
The press is always telling lies about me.
It’ll blow over in a week or two like it always does.
I don’t even know why you’re focusing so much on one stupid article. ”
“This one won’t blow over as quickly as they used to,” my mom said. “That was true when all you did was party and the most controversial thing you did was take an occasional drug or sing along to a song and say a certain word aloud that you weren’t supposed to say.”
The word was “fucking.” Why did she have to make it sound like I’d said some awful slur?
She continued brightly, “Now you’re trying to do something big and real. The press hates that. People are going to want to tear you down for trying to change how they see you. It won’t stop. Trust me, it happened to me.”
I doubted that very much, mostly because my mother had never done anything good for anyone in her entire life. But I bit anyway. “What do you mean?”
“When I was in college, I decided I wanted to save the world. We needed to fix the ozone layer, I believe. And I met a boy in the environmental club. We held a lot of fundraisers and I raised a lot of money. Together, we were unstoppable. For a few months.” That tracked.
“But cracks started opening in our relationship soon after. He would get up in arms that I’d used the family plane to visit my grandparents or hop over to the family lodge for some skiing rather than flying commercial, or that I wouldn’t stop using the only hair spray that could tease my hair into the fashion of the day, as if I were reaching up there and ripping a hole into the ozone layer myself.
We were just too different. It never would have worked. ”
I took a deep breath. “That’s not even close to the same thing.”
“Isn’t it, though?”
“No,” I said firmly. It would be the same thing if I were raising money for kids in need but personally anti giving scholarships. Or something. The situations were totally, completely different.
Right?
Crap. Now I was all in my own head. “Look, I know that Gabe and I are different people and that we come from extremely different backgrounds. I know that we were raised very differently and that we still look at things differently. I know that maybe we won’t always see eye to eye.”
I was about to continue with something grand like, And it doesn’t matter, because our love will conquer all, but my mom interrupted with, “I’m so glad you see it my way.
I’ve heard through the grapevine that Nicholas’s old college friend Chip is interested in you now that you’ve moved past your drunk-at-sunrise phase. ”
Bibi had seemed interested in setting me and Chip up too.
What was it with this guy? It almost made me intrigued enough to look him up.
I mean, if both my mother and Bibi, diametrical opposites, thought he’d be a good fit, then I was just curious—oh my God, no.
What was I thinking? I loved Gabe. I wanted to stay with Gabe.
I wanted things to work out with Gabe. Eventually Gabe and I would run into Chip and his wife (slim, brunette, wide-set eyes like mine because he could never truly get over me) at a gala and make polite conversation and Chip would hit on me in a way he thought was slick but was actually really obvious and I’d turn him down because, HELLO, I LOVED GABE.
“Some differences you can’t get past. That’s why our relationship would never work,” I said through clenched teeth, talking about Chip, because he had some nerve judging me for my drunk-at-sunrise phase when he’d gone through a phase himself where he wouldn’t stop hanging his underwear off various official flagpoles (the 9/11 Memorial one had been in especially poor taste), but before I could say that, Squeaky jumped off my lap, purring hard as he trotted somewhere behind me.
The only reason he’d jump off my lap would be to greet his other favorite person, which meant…
“Gabe?” I said, turning around and lowering my phone. My mom continued our conversation in a tiny voice with the couch cushions. I hadn’t even heard him come in.
When had he come in? How much had he heard?
Enough where his eyes were glossy. No tears striped his cheeks, but I’d never so much as seen him look like he was going to cry. “Gabe,” I said again, standing. Taking a step toward him. “It’s not what it—”
I stopped, my stomach lurching, as he took a step back.
Away from me. “I heard enough,” he said, his voice a croak.
He didn’t even stoop down to pet Squeaky or scoop him up into his arms. “Pom. I was going to propose. On Kevin’s island.
The original plan was to propose after the gala, but the murder killed that plan.
” Neither of us laughed at that terrible pun.
His face was ashy. I felt kind of like I was going to throw up, but I was frozen in place, so I’d choke.
“I thought it would be the perfect plan B: find a beautiful, isolated stretch of pristine beach, ask someone at the party to take photos from a distance, ask you to marry me, just the two of us. But then I heard what you were saying to Persimmon…”
My stomach lurched again. I’d been trying to one-up Persimmon as she bragged about her future proposal from Kevin. Of course Gabe would have dropped his plan after hearing that crap.
“And now this…” He shook his head. Took another step back. Had I heard a creak before, when I started talking about how different Gabe and I were?
Probably. Because that would’ve been the absolute worst spot for him to start listening. “Gabe, it’s not what it sounds like,” I said.
But he was still shaking his head, still moving back, ignoring Squeaky, who was headbutting his leg to get pets in an increasingly frustrated manner.
“Even so,” he said. “It’s too much. It’s too much right now.
I need some time away. You stay here. I’m going to…
” He turned, showing me his back. “I’m going to go stay with Caleb for a bit. I need some time to think.”
He took that last step toward the door, then paused. Knelt down to scratch Squeaky behind the ears and give him a kiss on his head. “Be good, Meatball,” he said, and then, like a magician, he was gone.
If it were just what he’d overheard me say on the phone, I’d run after him and plead my case. But that, combined with the whole proposal thing…
Honestly? The idea of an isolated beach proposal didn’t make me jump with joy.
Did I really want the over-the-top proposal I’d described to Persimmon?
No. It sounded like a lot of work, and what if the giant ring got lost in the coral, and also I didn’t really want to show up at a party soaking wet while everybody else was nice and dry.
But I really wanted something in between the two, and what if that meant I was shallow after all?
That there was too much of Old Pom in me?
That I wasn’t the woman Gabe thought I was, the woman he deserved?
Was I really any different than I was before? Maybe I’d tried and tried and tried to climb out of the Old Pom pit, only to realize that the walls were too high and too slippery and that I was stuck here in my old self.
My phone buzzed. I glanced at it, hoping that it was Gabe saying he’d made a mistake but that he’d forgotten his keys so I’d need to let him up, but resigned to the fact that it was my mother who’d heard from a neighbor about what Gabe just said and wanted to gloat.
It wasn’t either one of them. It was my long-dormant—at least on my side—group chat with Millicent and Coriander. They, at least, didn’t assume that the article was true.
Ugh Pom what the internet is saying about you
Pom come out with us and show them how much you don’t care
Let’s flip them all the bird!!!
What was the point of resisting?