Chapter Twenty-Four
Twenty-Four
“MAYBE WE SHOULD HIRE A REAL EDITOR?” JACKIE ASKED as she and Imani crowded around Emma’s laptop. Jackie had laid out a spread of snacks and champagne to celebrate Emma’s engagement and make the most of her proposal video. They had just spent the last half hour attempting to coherently intercut Nicolas’s footage with a video of Emma explaining what it felt like to get engaged for the second time. It wasn’t going well.
“I think it’s fine. YouTube is chaotic anyway,” Imani countered. “No one expects it to be perfect.”
“I just need to figure out how to blend the two audio tracks,” Emma lamented as she tried to be precise on iMovie, which required a level of fine motor skills she did not possess.
“This is so dumb. Let me just hire a professional. We don’t want to blow a chance to go viral just to save a few bucks.” Jackie was already reaching for her phone, so Emma closed her laptop and gave in.
“Fine, but I want final approval.”
“I personally think you should do the whole thing in black and white with a kind of ominous space opera feel,” Imani suggested as Jackie looked at her in total confusion.
“She’s kidding,” Emma clarified. “Imani thinks this whole idea is a disaster waiting to happen.”
“What? Why?”
“Why do I think Emma marrying some random finance guy to prove a point is a bad idea?” Imani asked sarcastically. “Hard to say.”
“Have you met Matt yet?” Jackie asked. “Because once you meet him you won’t be worried. He’s a gem.”
“Jackie’s in love with my fiancé,” Emma joked before realizing how strange it felt to refer to someone other than Ryan as her fiancé. She made a note of the sensation on her phone so she’d remember to bring it up on the podcast. Will had told her to jot down her thoughts as they came up so she’d remember what each stage of the operation felt like. She’d taken his advice but had failed to inform him that she’d been officially engaged for almost a week now. Even though they were basically texting each other all day, every day. The podcast was about to launch and all the work that required had forced them to shift into what was finally starting to feel like a friendship. A friendship with a romantic history, but a friendship nonetheless.
Emma rationalized her reluctance to share the big news with Will by convincing herself it would be better to do it in person and on mic. But part of her acknowledged that once Will knew about the ring that was currently being resized by Matt’s jeweler, things could change between them. Will might pull back just as Emma was starting to become more and more reliant on his emotional support and witty retorts. She could tell Will was expecting her plan to fail and wasn’t sure how he would react to learning it was going better than she had ever imagined.
“How could I not love Matt?” Jackie replied to Emma’s jab. “He’s going to be my brother-in-law and he has excellent taste in diamond rings.”
Emma didn’t have the heart to tell Jackie that while the ring was beautiful, it didn’t feel like her . She’d preferred the three- stone arrangement with a yellow gold band that Ryan had found after Emma sent him a series of inspo photos. Her new ring felt rather ostentatious for a therapist who rented an office space next to an El Pollo Loco. But maybe her clients would see it as proof that she knew what she was talking about.
“Do you love Matt, Emma?” Imani asked as she popped a pita chip in her mouth.
“Oh, you know, what even is love? Is it a feeling? Is it a moment in time?” Emma mused in an attempt to evade the question. Based on Imani’s and Jackie’s faces, it hadn’t worked.
“Have you said ‘I love you’ to each other yet?” Imani probed.
“No. But I think that’s okay. We had a big discussion the other night about doing things on our own timeline and not having to follow the standard order of a relationship.”
“I love that,” Jackie said with a vigorous head nod. “He seems so understanding.”
“Yeah, it took a lot of the pressure off,” Emma admitted as she tried to determine whether to share the next part. She was afraid of Imani’s reaction, but talking things out with trusted confidantes wasn’t something she could only recommend for other people without doing it herself. “He even suggested that we wait until the wedding to…you know.”
The silence that followed felt like the worst drop in a rollercoaster ride. It instantly filled Emma with regret and a wave of nausea.
“You aren’t going to sleep with him before you get married?” Imani finally asked, rather diplomatically. That’s how Emma knew it was bad; Imani saved diplomacy for dire situations.
“Nope. He thinks— we think—that waiting might help set us up for a more successful marriage.”
“How?”
When Matt had pitched the idea, it had made sense to Emma, but now that she was trying to replay his argument, the logic was foggier. “It will…make it more sacred.”
Imani snorted in disdain. “Since when does sex have to be sacred?”
“It doesn’t,” Emma clarified. “I think he just wants to try something different after what happened in his last marriage. He’s still recovering, and I don’t want him to do anything he isn’t ready to do yet.”
“Wait,” Jackie interjected. “ He’s the one who asked to wait? I didn’t know men did that. Do you think there’s something wrong with his…” Jackie gestured down below.
“Not that I know of. And even if there was, it wouldn’t be the end of the world. There are plenty of workarounds.” Emma thought about the weeklong, incredibly informative seminar she’d attended on sexual dysfunction the previous year. “I just think he needs to trust me more or something. And once we’re married, we’ll have built that trust.”
Imani snorted again.
Emma turned to her, annoyed. “You don’t buy it?”
“I think you’re both putting too much emphasis on a piece of paper. Things aren’t going to change the moment you get married. He’s not immediately going to get over his trust issues and you’re not suddenly going to fall in love.”
“I know that. But I do think there can be power in ceremony and ritual. They mean something to people for a reason.”
“You’re right,” Imani agreed. She had been the one to convince Emma that spirituality and psychology could mix after all. “I just don’t want you to ignore any issues that might come up in the next few months because you assume they’ll work themselves out once you’re married. We both know it never works like that.”
“My relationship got better once we were married,” Jackie countered. “Mostly because I was no longer constantly bugging Chris about when we’d get married. But I do think it can be smart to test the car before you buy it.”
“I think she’s talking about sex,” Imani stage-whispered to Emma.
“I don’t know, she could also be talking about his Porsche.”
“Matt has a Porsche? Never mind, just risk it,” Jackie replied. “Sex is overrated anyway.”
***
“This should only take a few hours.” Emma leaned over Matt’s fancy sports car’s console to kiss him goodbye. “I can grab an Uber home.”
“Nope. No rideshares for my fiancée. Just text me when you’re done and I’ll come pick you up. There’s a new taco place—”
A loud knock on the window interrupted their conversation. Emma turned to find Will staring into the car with a grin. She rolled her eyes at him while trying to calm her accelerated heart rate. She was not planning on this interaction.
“That’s my producer, Will,” Emma explained as she opened the car door. Will backed away from the Porsche to give Emma room to get out before reclaiming his spot at the now-open door.
“Hey, man.” Will leaned into the car for a handshake. “Nice to finally meet you.”
“You, too,” Matt replied, even though Emma barely talked to Matt about Will. It seemed safer that way. Less opportunity for potentially troubling information about her complicated feelings to slip out.
Once the handshake was complete, Emma intervened before Will could say something embarrassing—or life ruining. She also didn’t want Matt to mention their engagement before she could tell Will privately. She knew she owed him that courtesy out of respect for their peculiar relationship. Now that that disclosure was imminent, Emma was increasingly nervous about his response. What if Will was annoyed the podcast had been cut out of the proposal? Or worse, what if Will was happy for her, relieved, even? The fact that this concern existed at all was proof that Emma liked jealous Will a little too much.
But, Emma reminded herself for the umpteenth time, Will had made his choice. And now he had to live with the fallout. Which might include a lot more time with Matt now that he was officially her fiancé and a likely future guest of the podcast.
As the thought of Will interviewing Matt threatened to induce a panic attack, Emma took a few calming breaths to place herself back into the present moment. A moment in which she very much wanted Matt to drive away before things got even more awkward.
“I’ll see you soon,” Emma sputtered as she nudged Will toward her apartment building, where they were planning to record.
“Bye,” Will sang out in a pitch that felt like he was poking fun at her. “Wow.” He whistled. “That’s a good-looking man.”
“Are you surprised?”
“No, but it is a good reminder to renew my gym membership,” Will joked as she punched in the building code to open the front door. Emma tried to push away the guilt she was feeling for unintentionally shoving Matt’s perfect hairline in Will’s face. Matt wouldn’t be chauffeuring her around if Will hadn’t rejected her first, so any discomfort he was feeling was really his own fault.
Emma loved when a reframe absolved her of all responsibility.
“Thank you for helping me with this,” Emma said a few minutes later as she not so carefully put her West Elm dishes in a packing box. They were four years old and purchased at a big discount. It didn’t feel worth the time to individually wrap each one. Especially if she was going to be moving in with Matt soon.
“I’m not here to help. I’m here to document,” Will replied as he unpacked a new kind of mic that he could attach to her body as she moved around.
Alan had finally found a subletter for Emma’s apartment, some son of a friend of one of his tennis buddies. Emma had the weekend to get all her stuff out once and for all. It was the end of an era that had already been on life support.
“If you do help, you get to go through my stuff.”
“Now you’re talking. I call the nightstand drawers.”
Emma laughed, pleased that she had already removed her vibrators during an earlier sweep. Will was more than welcome to pack up her emergency flashlight and overnight moisturizing gloves.
“Have we moved up at all?” Emma asked as calmly as she could. The first episode of the podcast had officially launched yesterday, and the last Emma had obsessively checked they were number seventy-six in Apple Podcast’s top one hundred shows under Society Emma was officially on the record.
“If you help me with the kitchen, I’ll also let you do the medicine cabinets,” Emma offered as she handed Will a box.
“Deal. Would love to know what’s holding that bizarre mind of yours together.”
“I keep all my psychotropics in my purse, thank you very much.”
“Damn,” Will replied with a grin. “So where is all this stuff going? Your parents’ house?”
“Some of it. But I’m sending most of it to storage units. Until we figure out what to keep and what we won’t need.”
“‘We’ meaning you and Matt?”
“Yeah,” Emma said, avoiding his gaze. “I think the plan is I’ll move into his condo after the wedding and then we’ll look for a house together in the New Year.”
It seemed fitting that if she and Matt were going to wait to have sex they might as well wait to move in together to make the marriage part feel even more special. So what if that was unconventional in the modern era? That was basically the theme of their entire relationship.
“Things seem to really be working out between you two,” Will said in an incredibly neutral voice. It was as if he had declared that the sky is blue, or fire is hot, and he had no personal opinion about it. But in Emma’s experience, people rarely didn’t have an opinion about something.
“They are,” Emma agreed.
This was clearly her opening to share the big news. Yet unlike her first engagement when she couldn’t stop herself from thrusting her ring finger in everyone’s face while squealing, she was having a hard time getting the words out.
Bracing for impact, Emma cleared her throat of nonexistent phlegm and sputtered, “He even officially proposed the other night.”
Emma turned to look at Will just as the glass he was packing slipped out of his hand. It shattered all over the floor.
“Shit, sorry… Just my way of saying congratulations, I guess,” Will added sheepishly. “I always break stuff when I’m excited for other people.”
“What a cool habit,” Emma replied with a grin, selfishly relieved that he seemed frazzled instead of ecstatic, “Let me go get a broom.”
After Will insisted on being the one to sweep up the mess, they took a break on the couch and shared the one remaining LaCroix in her fridge. She made sure to split it evenly into two of the remaining glasses so she could drink at her own pace.
“I don’t think I’m handling this very well,” Will said unprompted.
“Handling what very well?”
“You being officially engaged or whatever.”
Emma nodded, not knowing what to say next. Her ego wanted to hear him profess that he had made a big mistake and couldn’t stand the thought of her with another man. But her heart didn’t like to see Will hurting.
“You thought it would all have blown up in my face by now?” Emma teased to lighten the mood.
“Honestly…yeah. Or that you would have come to your senses or something. Not that Matt isn’t a catch. He has a great handshake and a hundred-and-twenty-thousand-dollar car.” Will laughed at his own observation, but it sounded forced.
“Is it making you rethink—” Emma stopped herself. She wasn’t sure if she was breaking Matt’s trust by even entertaining this type of conversation. But she also felt like she needed to know Will’s answer, or it would plague her like a fire ant trapped inside her brain. “Is it making you rethink turning me down?”
Will let a bunch of air out through his mouth as he considered how to answer. “No. Because even if we want similar things in the end, I think we just disagree too much about how to get there. You move fast and I’m more like a sloth with nowhere to be.” Will then proceeded to do his best sloth impression with his arms and face. It was rather good.
“How many sloth videos do you watch on average?”
“Not many. Ten to fifteen a week.”
Emma smiled. “I think we both made the right choice. Crushes come and go all the time. Just because we have chemistry doesn’t mean we have to freak out or end the podcast.”
“Wait, do you still have a crush on me?” Will asked with his eyebrows raised and a smirk forming on his lips.
Of course I do , you imbecile , Emma wanted to shout. Instead, she replied, “I’m not answering that one on mic.”
“Oh, I turned the recording off once I broke the glass. There is only so much of myself I can share with the entire world. Even if it makes me a hypocrite.”
Emma shrugged. “We’re all hypocrites. The goal is to just slowly lower your amount of hypocrisy over time. But good luck finding anyone who doesn’t contradict themselves in some way or another.”
“That’s a good point. You make a lot of good points.”
“Annoying, right?” Emma joked as Will laughed. She wondered if she’d ever fully get over how much she loved the sound of making him laugh. Maybe once she and Matt had a kid—pregnancy hormones were known to change a person. Which led her to another thought.
“What about you? Are you back on the apps?”
Will gave her a look, trying to figure out if she was setting a trap.
“It’s okay. If we can talk about my engagement, we can definitely talk about your dating life.”
“You sure?”
“Absolutely,” Emma lied. She’d always wanted to be the kind of girl that didn’t get jealous. Unfortunately, she was the kind of girl who briefly cried after learning through Facebook that her middle school boyfriend had gotten married before her.
“I’ve been on the apps a bit. Nothing really to report there. But Anika has been trying to set me up with one of her friends.”
“Why haven’t you let her?”
“I don’t know. Seems like it might be messy if things don’t work out.”
“Messier than this?” Emma asked as she gestured between the two of them.
“Fair. I guess I’ll ask for her friend’s number. Got to do something to keep me occupied while you look for a house with your soon-to-be husband.”
“Hobbies are important,” Emma agreed even though the thought of Will with someone else made her nauseous.
“I guess we should get back to work,” Will announced as he stood up and went to restart the recording. He sat down at the dining room table and leaned into a mic that was still attached to his computer. He transformed into his producer role as he asked, “So Emma, does moving out of your old apartment feel significant or symbolic in any way?”
“Yeah, it kind of feels like physical evidence that I’m moving on.” She started to pack up the contents of her coffee table. “It’s weird but seeing my body take action has been helpful. It reinforces that I’m starting a new life.”
“And how do you explain an adult below the age of eighty-five owning so many animal statues?” Will asked with mock seriousness, all evidence of their charged moment already gone, and their friendly banter reinstated.
Instead of answering, she threw a small wooden goat at his head. The mic caught it crashing into the wall behind him.