4. 2006
A fter Kevin left her the first time, Julia could not stand to remain in that echoing house in Menlo Park, with all its attendant responsibilities, in that neighborhood that had always felt alien to her. And with Paige unable to sleep at night, crying for her father, Julia wondered if they all needed a change of scenery.
“Why don’t you move in with us for a while?” her mother suggested. “The only thing I’m doing since my heart attack is volunteering at the church, and I’m bored out of my mind. I can help you with Paige.”
So Julia covered the furniture, turned off the lights, and arranged for someone to care for her fish while she was away. She packed up the few belongings she and Paige could bring with them, and moved into her parents’ house.
After settling in, Julia brought Paige straight to the downstairs addition.
“You brought that?” Paige said with a faint smile, gesturing to the painting Julia had hung on the wall. Julia had framed it together with the purple “Grand Prize” ribbon Paige had won at her school’s cultural arts contest .
“Youngest winner in school history,” Julia reminded her, rumpling her hair. “Look what else I brought.”
“My easel,” Paige murmured.
“The walls in my old bedroom are looking pretty bare. Will you paint me something to fill them?”
Paige got right down to work, and Julia left her smiling. She returned upstairs to the kitchen, where she found her mother chopping onions for dinner.
“Can I help you with that, Mom?”
“No thanks,” her mother replied, setting the knife down and moving to the tea kettle on the stove. Casting a wry smile at Julia, she added, “Though maybe I should let you get some practice, if you’re really serious about going back to work at the restaurant.”
Julia laughed. “Don’t worry; I won’t be doing any cooking. I’m just helping Dad with all the stuff you used to do. And that’s only until I can get a proper job and my own place to live.”
Handing Julia a cup of tea, her mother asked, “What kind of a job are you going to look for?”
“I have no idea.”
“Well, I do. I have a very obvious idea. Why don’t you start an aquarium service company?”
Julia dismissed it with a wave of her hand.
“Why not? You have two amazing aquariums in that house of yours. You and Kevin practically made a full-time job out of it already. You have connections from all the societies you belong to and all the conferences you go to. And you have some experience from your time working with Rob and Tim when you were in high school.”
“Yeah, but Mom, starting a business like that takes a lot of time and money. I don’t have either of those things right now.”
“Why don’t you rent the house out while you’re not living in it?”
“Because I’d have to either put all our stuff in storage, or rent it furnished and let a tenant trash it. And on top of that, I’d probably have to get rid of my aquariums. Find new homes for all my fish and animals. And I still have no idea where Kevin is or what his plans are. He could show up any day, and then I would have gone to all that trouble for nothing. ”
“Can’t Kevin’s family help you in some way?”
“I won’t take charity from those people. As far as they’re concerned, I’m the prole who ensnared their golden boy.”
“That’s ridiculous. Don’t they know how hard he worked to ensnare you?”
“No. They still blame me for Kevin breaking it off with the heiress.”
“But it took him two years after that to finally win you over!”
Julia shrugged. “They have a blind spot, where he’s concerned.”
Her mother reached across the table and took Julia’s hand. “Maybe he fooled us all.”
“What do you mean?”
“I don’t know. He seemed so down to earth for someone with his background. You were both so passionate about marine biology and saltwater aquariums.” Her mother shook her head in dismay. “It really seemed like it was meant to be. I just pray there turns out to be some perfectly good explanation.”
“Unless he was kidnapped, what excuse can there be?”
“Julia,” her mother said gently, “do you think he’s gotten himself in some kind of trouble? With his business dealings?”
“If so, I haven’t found out about it yet.”
“Then what do you think he was running away from?”
Julia sighed. “I think he was just miserable. He was under a lot of pressure to go into venture capital with his dad when that was never what he wanted to do with his life. I think what he really wanted was to go back to school for marine biology or rejoin the Peace Corps, or something like that.”
After a moment’s hesitation, her mother asked, “How is Paige holding up?”
“Terrible. She cries every night, and every night I explain it to her all over again.”
“Explain what?”
“That it wasn’t her fault. That she didn’t do anything wrong to make him leave. But you know what a daddy’s girl she is.”
They sipped their tea in silence for a minute, until they heard the door downstairs open.
“Mom, Grandma, come look!” called Paige .
Julia and her mother filed downstairs. Julia had hung a clothesline on the wall where Paige could clip her paintings while they dried, and three already hung there.
“I know how much you love them,” Paige said to Julia, gesturing to an orange sea star hanging on the line, complete with bumps and ridges.
“That’s right!” exclaimed Julia, squeezing her around the shoulders. “This is going to make me feel right at home once it’s hanging in my room.”
“I hear your teacher kept some of your paintings because she’s sure you’re going to be a famous artist one day,” her mother said to Paige.
Julia added, “Her teacher’s not going to bother saving for retirement anymore.”
Beaming, Paige pointed to another painting hanging on the line. “This is for you, Grandma.”
Her grandmother gripped the paper by the corners. “This is the hyacinth growing in my garden, isn’t it?”
“I don’t know what it’s called. I just saw it and I liked it.”
“Were you working from a photograph?”
Julia tapped her head. “Her photograph is up here.”
“That’s amazing, honey,” her mother said to Paige. “Thank you.”
“And this one,” Paige continued, pointing to the juvenile emperor angel fish hanging next to her grandmother’s hyacinth, “is for Daddy when he comes home. It’s his favorite.”
Julia’s heart sank. “That’s sweet, Paige. Would you like me to keep it in my room for now?”
“Yeah,” Paige said, still beaming. “Hang it on your wall, so he’ll see it when he comes home.”
On Julia’s first day at the restaurant, her mother showed her around the kitchen to re-familiarize her with it.
“A lot has changed since you’ve been here,” she pointed out. As they progressed toward the walk-in, she looked suddenly awkward. “Here’s an old holdout you might remember.”
Julia looked, and saw him. Moving quickly by instinct and reflex, shouting back and forth in both Spanish and English with the other staff.
“He’s busy, Mom. Let’s keep moving.”
Her mother looked relieved, and nodded. She pressed her lips together grimly, and led Julia away to the walk-in.
After the walk-in, there was no avoiding it. Julia had to pass by his station again. But he was gone, replaced by someone else, at least for the time being. She only saw him one other time that night out of the corner of her eye, back at his station, his eyes trained down at the work before him.
The next day, while updating the work schedule, she stood half-hidden where she could watch him as he worked. He was more or less the same William she remembered. The same tousled hair somewhere between blond and brown. The same intense blue eyes, of course. Certainly he was not quite as slim at thirty as he was at twenty. Though he was still lean, his body had filled out to the proportions of a grown man.
He worked with his sleeves rolled up. As he moved, a flash of black on the underside of his forearms caught her eye. Two new tattoos. Between the distance and his quick movements, she could not make them out.
A prep cook walked past, and he called out, “Amanda.”
Amanda stopped right in front of him and touched his arm. He leaned into her ear and said something to her that Julia couldn’t hear over all the noise in the kitchen. Amanda stepped back, reached into her coat pocket, and pulled out a hair elastic. Began gathering her loose blond hair into a ponytail. His hands never stopped working, but he watched as she took her time, twisting it around and around itself into a knot, tying it in place. It was obvious what she was doing. Playing with her hair showed off her cleavage to advantage. When she was done, she flashed him a flirtatious grin before strutting off.
He watched her go until she was out of sight, a slight smile on his face. Clearly, he had become much more comfortable with flirting in the intervening years.
His eyes abruptly locked on Julia. He held them there in an icy way that he had never directed at her in the past. And he wasn’t smiling anymore.
She flinched and ducked around the corner, out of sight.
She spent as much of the rest of the afternoon as possible in the pantries, refrigerators, and freezers, catching up on inventory. At the end of the night, on her way toward the back door, she found William approaching from the opposite direction, loosening the buttons of his white chef’s jacket. Interaction was impossible to avoid now.
He slowed his approach and stopped a few feet in front of her. “How are you doing?”
“Okay.”
“What are you doing here?”
He really didn’t know. She said, “I could ask you the same thing.”
There was no reply, no smile. Only that relentless stare.
“I needed a job,” she answered.
“Aren’t you a marine biologist?”
He really, really didn’t know. “Oh, that. Turns out I wasn’t much of a scientist, after all. But you probably could have told me that.”
Still, he stared. She knew he had a thousand questions, but that he dared not ask any of them. She felt oddly terrified at the sound of her own rambling voice.
“It turns out I was mostly interested in watching marine life, not studying it. So I set myself a new goal. My new goal was to squeeze out a kid, let my husband skip out to a foreign country, and come home to live with my parents and work for my dad. So you see, all my dreams came true, and I have nowhere to go from here but down.”
After the initial shock wore off, she saw the corners of his mouth lift a bit. “You haven’t changed much.”
Her expression hardened, thinking of his interaction with Amanda the prep cook. “You have.”
Once again, his expression became as hard as hers. Slowly, he peeled off his coat. The shirt underneath his coat had short sleeves, and she saw the flash of black on the underside of his forearms again. He held the coat in his right hand, down by his side, and she could see the compass tattoo on that arm .
“How long are you staying here?” he asked. Clearly wondering how soon she would clear the hell out of there.
“Only until I can get another job.”
Slowly, he switched hands and held the coat in his left hand now, giving her a clear view of that arm.
She felt herself reeling, and forced herself to look away from it. Without another word, he slowly pushed past her, into the break room.
It has nothing to do with me, she told herself repeatedly as she burst out the back door, allowing the tangy air to revive her senses. Really, what are the odds that it actually has anything to do with me?
It had been one of the defining moments of their relationship, the night she showed up in the mermaid costume. But his topless mermaid had her back turned, distinguishing her from the typical pornographic mermaid tattoo, but also obscuring most of her face. It could have been any face. There was no call for Julia to infer that it was some reference to herself. Especially not after the scene she had just witnessed between him and Amanda. Clearly, they had been flirting for a while. Hell, he was probably already fucking her.
He was not the same William of eleven years ago. That William was long gone, and it was her own fault. She had thrown him away with both hands.
That night, Julia stopped into Paige’s room to kiss her as she slept. Paige stirred, and mumbled, “Daddy?”
Julia’s stomach clenched. “No, honey, it’s Mommy.”
Even in the dark, Julia saw Paige’s eyes open. “Where am I?”
“Grandma and Grandpa’s house, remember?”
Paige looked around. “Where’s Daddy?”
“He’s not here, sweetie. Mommy’s here.”
Julia watched Paige’s expression change as she remembered.
“Can we find him?” Paige asked.
“I’m trying.”
Julia gathered Paige up as the tears started. She rocked her, stroked her hair, and sang to her until she dropped back to sleep again .
Then she shut herself up in her own room and sat on the edge of the bed a few minutes. She didn’t feel good about not kissing Paige when she came home, but maybe it wasn’t worth it, risking the waking and the tears.
She felt herself frowning, and wished to God that Kevin could see the grief he had brought down upon his special pet.
On the other hand, she wished he would just stay the hell away. For good.
She looked toward the closet. Considering. Resisting. Finally, she got up and opened the closet door. Pulled out an old shoe box, bound around and around with packing tape. Set it on the bed beside her, and stared at it a while.
She found a pair of scissors. Cut open the tape, and slowly lifted the lid.
She hadn’t looked in here for years. Not since shortly after he mailed it to her in Santa Barbara.
She reached inside. Pulled them out, one at a time. Poems and songs that he had written about her, chronicling his growing feelings over the course of two years, the entire time they had known each other. In all that time, she had never even known he was still writing poems and songs, until he mailed them to her.
One after another, she read them. There was no sap or sentimentality to them. An outsider reading them might never have guessed what they were about. But she knew.
Beneath the poems and songs were the photos. Copies of the ones he had given her when they were together, and new ones that she had never seen until he mailed them to her. The one he had taken of them together at A?o Nuevo. The ones she had snapped of him alone at Julia Burns State Park. The ones he had taken of her, just before he proposed.
She knew what lay underneath that – a box containing a silver chain with a mermaid pendant. And finally, carefully preserved in a black velvet ring box, his diamond ring.
She had not had the heart to throw it all away. She had sealed it all up and kept it hidden all of these years. Taken it with her, from one home to another.
She had convinced herself that she was in love with Kevin. That yes, William was her first love and would always have a tender place in her heart. But that she was over him, and had moved on with her life.
Except she hadn’t. Which was why she still kept this box.
She spent the next several days talking to the lawyers. Enrolling Paige in school. Driving back and forth between the house in Menlo Park and the city, retrieving more things that they needed. Maintaining and enjoying the fish tanks in the house – her one bit of solace in the past couple of months.
When she brought Paige home from school one afternoon, she said, “I have a surprise for you.”
She brought her downstairs. As soon as Paige spotted the twenty-gallon fish tank, she squealed and said, “I thought we wouldn’t get one until we moved into our new place.”
“I decided I just couldn’t do without. Besides, I thought this could serve as inspiration for your art,” Julia explained.
“Can I help you?” asked Paige.
“Of course. The first thing we need to do is add the live rock.”
“What’s that?”
“It’s coral skeleton. It makes the aquarium look nice, but it also puts in lots of bacteria and other stuff to keep the water nice for the fish. Ready to help me put it in?”
She let Paige put the live rock on the bottom of the tank and add a layer of live sand. “Why are we putting a dinner plate over the sand?” Paige wondered.
“When we pour our saltwater in, the plate will keep the sand from getting all stirred up.”
Then Julia directed Paige to a garbage can in the corner of the room, where she had already mixed up a batch of saltwater and tested it. She showed Paige how to slowly pour the saltwater over the dinner plate to fill the tank, and then they hooked up their pumps and filters.
“Now what?” asked Paige.
“Now we have to wait for about a week before we can add any fish.”
“Why?”
“Because you have to let the tank cycle. All the bacteria from the live rock have to grow in the water and make it safe for the fish.” At the look of disappointment on Paige’s face, she added, “Hey, you know what? You’re lucky. When I was a kid, we didn’t have live rock, and we’d have to wait weeks before we could put any fish into our aquariums.”
“Can we bring a sea star from home?”
“Oh no,” Julia laughed, rumpling her hair, “this is just a very small tank. Fish only.”
“Oh. Well, can I pick the fish then?”
“Sure, but we have to make sure they’re the right fish for this tank. We might start with a damselfish; they’re pretty strong.” Julia peered at her a moment. “Would you like to be in charge of taking care of this tank?”
“Really?”
“It’s a lot of work. You’ll have to feed the fish twice a day, and help me keep it clean and safe for the fish.”
“I can do it,” Paige insisted. “I’m going to do this when I grow up.”
Julia felt a little pang. “I’ve told you about my Uncle Rob, haven’t I? He was Grandpa’s youngest brother.”
Paige nodded. “He raised you.”
“He and Tim. They used to design and take care of aquariums for other people. I used to work for them, and I just kept on learning over the years.”
“That would be fun.”
“You think so? Because I’ve been thinking about starting my own aquarium company.”
“Yeah! Then, when I grow up, we can work together.”
Julia laughed and kissed her on the forehead. “Another family business. Well, you can’t say it doesn’t run in our blood.”
That night, after Paige went to bed, Julia sat a while at the kitchen table, nursing a cup of chamomile tea. Contemplating.
Eventually, she picked up the phone in the kitchen and dialed her sister’s number.
“You had to make a business plan for your bakery, didn’t you?”
“Yeah,” said Alison. “Why?”
“Teach me everything you know about business plans.”
When Julia came back to the restaurant the next week, she studiously avoided seeing William. She trained her eyes to the ground any time she had to pass his station, and escaped out the back door when it was time for her break.
But to her chagrin he was standing there, looking out on the water as he used to do all those years ago. He hadn’t seen her yet, so she turned to flee.
“What kind of a job are you looking for?”
Damn it. She faced him, and forced a chipper smile. “Whatever I can get that’s legal and requires clothing. I have no work experience.”
His eyebrows raised. “Really?”
“Yeah. I’ve been doing the whole mommy thing all these years.”
She searched his eyes for some sign of triumph, mocking, or insincerity of any kind. But she found none.
“I’m sorry the marine biology thing didn’t work out for you,” he said.
“Well, it’s like I told you the other day. Working for my dad became my new lifelong dream, so I forbid you to feel sorry for me. What about you? Did you finish your degree?”
“No.” He hesitated. “I worked here for a while, and then I went up to work on the salmon boats in Alaska the next summer. Then, in the winter, I worked on the crab boats.”
“My dad told me you had gone to do that.”
“He did?”
Julia nodded. “How long did you do that for?”
“A little over five years.”
“Why did you come back?”
“Because I finally got hurt. I bought myself a flight on a Coast Guard helicopter to Anchorage, and a week’s stay in the hospital. I took it as a sign that it was time to come home.”
“A week. How badly were you hurt?”
“Well, I got whacked in the head by a crab pot. It fractured my skull. I had to have surgery, but I was lucky – it didn’t do any more damage than that, and a concussion. ”
Julia felt alarmed by his account. But she said, “And you decided to go back to work as a cook?”
“I came back to work here, since I can pretty much do this job in my sleep.”
“You know, you just insulted line cooks everywhere. That’s not an easy job.”
He looked sheepish. “You’re right. But the job does come naturally to me.”
“Do you enjoy it?”
“Yes. I’ve always liked cooking, as you know.”
“But it’s not this,” she replied, gesturing out to the fishing boats.
“No, that’s over now. There’s even less future in that around here than there was back then.” After a moment, he asked, “Did you ever finish your degree?”
“Yes, I finished it. But I never went on to grad school.” She didn’t bother adding the part about how she found herself pregnant, and got married instead. “And there was no way for me to really use just a Bachelor’s degree.”
“I can think of one thing you can do with it.”
Julia heard a shuffling behind her. Amanda’s scowl traveled the length of Julia’s body as she passed her by, slinking up to William.
“Hey, Will, I wondered where you disappeared to.”
Will. That’s when she knew – they really were fucking each other.
William’s eyes lingered on Julia a moment longer. Julia retreated back inside the restaurant and didn’t hear what he said in response to Amanda.
Jealousy. The very emotion that had driven Julia from William in the first place. Oh, how the tables had turned.
She thought she had exorcised it from her mind, this idea, this smallest hope that William might ever begin to think of her again. But it was now official – there was no hope.
Julia had the next day off of work and spent it moping around the house and snapping at Paige, much to her mother’s chagrin. Alison observed this state of affairs when she came over that evening. After dinner, as Paige ran off to play, Alison said, “I think you can put Paige to bed tonight, can’t you, Ma?”
Their mother smiled knowingly at Alison. “I sure can.”
Julia peered quizzically at her sister.
“You, my dear, are depressed,” explained Alison. “It’s a state I’ve seen you in far too much recently. Well, no more. Tonight you’re going to get away from it all.”
“No, I don’t think so.”
“Yes, I do think so. Now come on. I’ll help you get dressed. You’re gonna look like a star.”
“I can dress myself, thanks.”
“Very well, but I will be inspecting afterward, so don’t disappoint me.”
Julia donned the only dress she owned anymore that seemed to say “night on the town.” She slipped on a pair of heels and, true to her own sense of style, topped it off with a scarf and a hat.
Alison knocked on the bedroom door and entered when bidden. She flicked a critical eye over Julia and said, “Love the jaunty hat and scarf. Hate the dress. Is that really the best you’ve got?”
“I’m not trying to look like a cougar.”
“You’re thirty years old; you’re not a cougar.” Alison went to the closet and rifled through Julia’s clothes. “Hmm. That really is the best you’ve got. Time to go shopping.”
“Thanks.”
“Hey! Guess who’s going to meet us at the pub?”
“The pub?”
“Yeah, of course! We’re going to MacGowan’s to listen to some live music. So guess who?”
Julia shrugged. “The Queen of England.”
“That would be a laugh, this close to St. Paddy’s Day. No. Holly.”
“Oh, no. Please tell me you didn’t.”
“Come on! I thought surely of all the people on the planet, she was a safe bet. How long has it been since you’ve seen her?”
“Not since Gran passed away. Look, I just don’t feel like detailing my personal failures to anyone, but especially not to someone who graduated magna cum laude from Stanford Law School. What did you do, tell her my sob story and get her to come out of pity?”
“No, she’s totally psyched to see you! Dropped everything to come do it. And she’s Holly, for Christ’s sake; she’s not going to judge you, especially when there’s nothing to judge. Now get your coat and purse; we’re out of here.”
Since MacGowan’s was within walking distance, they were there in no time. They went through the front, blooming green with St. Patrick’s Day decorations, to the back room so that they could eat and have a little more quiet. They found a seat, ordered some pub grub and were knocking back their pints of stout when Julia heard a voice behind her say, “Holy crap, I can’t believe it’s really you!”
Julia clambered to her feet and forced a smile as she turned to hug Holly. Holly held Julia by the shoulders and looked her up and down.
“You look exactly the same.”
Julia couldn’t say the same for her. Her formerly gargantuan, frizzy mane was now smooth and sleek. She had traded her nerdy glasses for a set of contact lenses, and apparently had a wardrobe consultant.
“You look great,” Julia said.
Holly waved her hand modestly and pulled up a seat next to Julia. “How are you doing? Alison told me you’re living in the city now.”
“Living at home with my parents, yeah,” Julia replied. Eager to divert the conversation away from herself, she said, “So how is your non-profit going these days? I forget what you do.”
“I help immigrants seeking asylum in the United States. I specialize in women who are victims of violence in their home countries.” She pulled out her business card and handed it to Julia.
How illustrious, Julia grumbled inwardly. “That’s so amazing!”
“It’s a lot of hard work, is what it is. What about you? What are you doing?”
“Oh, my sister didn’t tell you? Well, let’s just say I’m in between jobs.”
At that moment, the waitress came to take Holly’s order. While she gave it, Julia stared off into space, fuming. The band had arrived and Julia heard them setting up in the next room. She prayed for them to hurry up and start playing already .
When she finished ordering, Holly turned back to Julia. “You know, we’ve got more work than we can handle at our office. We really need a receptionist and a legal secretary. You could start off in reception, and my paralegal and I could train you on the secretarial aspects of the job over time. It would only be on a part-time basis, but it would get your foot in the door in a law office, if that’s something you’re interested in.”
“Right. Alison put you up to this, didn’t she?”
“What? No,” Holly insisted, taken aback.
“No!” Alison echoed more vehemently.
Julia could tell that they weren’t lying. “Oh, Jesus. I’m sorry, you guys. It’s been a rough couple of weeks, and I’m really out of sorts.”
Holly squeezed Julia’s arm and smiled. “Well, that’s what we’re here for.” She picked up her glass, held it up. “Sláinte.”
Julia and Alison clinked their glasses against hers. “Sláinte.”
The band began tuning their instruments in the other room. Their food arrived, and while they ate, Alison caught Holly up on her baking business and everything else she was doing. Julia was happy to let them dominate the conversation for a while. Finally the band began playing and conversation became difficult.