Chapter 7
Seven
The papers scattered across Jonathan’s tidy desk are as jarring as a faux patina finish on an old silver tea set.
Jonathan is something akin to terrified.
“Rue . . . ?” He palms his tie to his chest and slowly lowers into his sleek office chair, regarding the chaos like it might attack him.
Even with the worried lines creasing his forehead, he’s the perfect image of man meets dentistry.
Meanwhile, I look like my whole life has barely survived a zap in an electric chair.
“What is all this?”
“My mother,” I say flatly. “And my husband. And my father.”
“Okay . . .”
“I lied about Nash dying,” I blurt, immediately hoping the words haven’t been heard.
Jonathan’s slack jaw lets me know they indeed have.
I’m nauseous but have nothing to lose. “He was so insufferable I think I wish he would have. But really, he just left. Took the position in DC the same day I found out I was pregnant.”
Now his eyes are wide; I don’t bother telling him Nash doesn’t know about Bennie. It won’t change anything.
“I sent him divorce papers. I thought we were over. My mother had other plans—no shock there.” I laugh; it’s demented. I’m demented. “And I’m still married.”
“Married?” he echoes, calm.
I want him to yell. I need a reason to scream.
To be screamed at. All I’ve felt for the last two days is hopeless desperation as I try to keep some semblance of control over my life.
My body is vibrating with how bad things are and I need a release.
To fight. To fuck. Something. Instead, he thumbs through the postcards and blows out a long breath, silent.
“Say something.”
“This is a lot.” The lines on his forehead deepen as he stares at the postcards. “You lied.”
“Not just to you.” It’s a shitty excuse. “I didn’t know what else to do. It was a mistake. He was . . .” Too many things to list. “I was trying to forget. I’m sorry.”
He picks up the newspaper article about my father. “And this?”
“Another surprise.” I explain everything as he reads—my old dad, my new dad. “I’m the secret love child of a treasure hunter.”
Jonathan surprises me by laughing and my eyes narrow.
“Sorry.” He clears his throat. “This is a little amusing, don’t you think? Your dad is a treasure hunter, and you’re still married to a—what did your husband do again?”
“A traveling substitute teacher.” It sounds just as absurd now as it did eight years ago and the lift of Jonathan’s lips lets me know he agrees. “He was a high school history teacher for years,” I add, like it changes how stupid I was to fall for him.
I should have run for the hills when he said staying in the same school year after year was for the dull at heart. Should have pumped the brakes when he told me he preferred living out of hotels and short-term rentals to having a house laden with to-do lists.
Instead, I—a woman who never had a desire to leave the town I grew up in—ignored every warning sign and fell in love with a transient teacher like a dumbass.
And worse, as wrong as we were for each other and even all these years later, knowing where he is and having a stack of postcards from him in my possession has my heart pounding faster than it has since the day he drove away.
“Traveling substitute,” Jonathan repeats with a chuckle. “That’s right. Forgot about that. Who knew such a thing existed?”
“He’s a tour guide now,” I snap, blowing my bangs out of my face. “And why is that funny?”
“C’mon.” He angles his head, gesturing with the article. “You don’t see how unlikely this is?”
I know he is right, and yet I am livid. “Why?”
His smile dims—slightly. “Rue. You have to see how ironic this all is. You like order as much as I do. The predictability of things. It’s why we’re so good together. This is like you saying you married a clown and found out your dad is one of the Three Stooges. It’s just so far from who you are.”
“I was . . .” I do not say besotted. “Confused.”
Jonathan rounds his desk to where I slouch. “I don’t like that you lied to me,” he says, “but . . . I’ve been divorced. I know it’s complicated.” He smiles sympathetically. “We can take care of this. Probably resend the papers within the week.”
He shrugs, like it’s no big deal. Like me having a husband who is alive instead of dead and a treasure-hunting dad who doesn’t know I exist is just another day of filling cavities and reminding people to brush their gums.
“The other thing is—” He clears his throat. “And don’t get mad—I reached out to a friend who sells commercial real estate about Old Vines.”
I snap upright. “You what?”
“He’s getting us a number, just in case you decide it’s time to sell.”
I clench my fists in my lap. “Why?”
“Just in case.”
“We aren’t selling, Jonathan,” I argue. “Where is this coming from?”
“It’s coming from me being worried about you,” he says, matching my tone. “And seeing this clearly. You’re too close to it. Too distracted by everything else to see it the way you should.”
“You mean the way you think I should.”
“Yes,” he says, not backing down. “The way I think you should because I’m right, and you would agree if you weren’t in the middle of it.”
Maybe it’s the money, the tumor, the reminder that Nash exists on the same planet as I do, or my mother confessing that she wonders if she married the wrong man, but at once, I look at the mayhem of papers and almost cry.
I wish my dad—Ed—whatever I’m supposed to call him now—were here.
He’d know how to manage this. He’d tell me how to remove my emotions from the equation, to stop being hysterical, and provide four easy steps on how to fix this like a wikiHow article.
Of course, if he were here, the money wouldn’t be gone, he would have dealt with my mom’s brain, and I wouldn’t know about my secret dad. He also would have warned me about Nash from the beginning. Oddly enough, I wouldn’t have wanted to listen.
If I had, I wouldn’t have Bennie.
That starts me down a whole new rabbit hole.
“Rue?”
“Yes.” I physically shake my head to come back to the conversation. “I’m sorry. I’m not selling. I’m—” I rub my forehead, looking from the paper in his hands to the papers on the desk. “I’ll figure this out. I’ll find the money before we get married.”
“Find the money?” He scoffs. “You don’t just find this amount of money.” He sets the article on his desk and kneels in front of me. “I’m worried about you.”
“Don’t be. I’m fine. I’m—” I look at the papers. “Fine.”
“Maybe you should get away.”
“What? To where?” I don’t even mention the fact that the only place I can afford to get away to is a cozy nook under a bridge.
“Anywhere.” His eyes search mine. “This is a lot. You aren’t being logi—”
“Is this about selling?” I cut him off.
“It’s about everything,” he counters. “We’re getting married, and this is a lot of stress. You aren’t yourself and sometimes getting away helps. Clear your head. Come back with a fresh perspective.” He looks over at the newspaper. “Go to the coast for the weekend. Meet your dad.”
“What?” He can’t have just said that. “Why on God’s green earth would I do that?”
“Because you need to take a break from all this. I’m going to the mountains for a few days with my brothers and friends for that long ride, but what are you doing before the wedding?
” I say nothing because that’s the answer.
I don’t have a lot of friends, I’ll see my sisters at the wedding, and my life is Bennie and the store.
“It would be good for you. Aren’t you at all curious who this man is? ”
I pick up the article and regard Rueben Vance’s mug shot.
With everything else, I haven’t given much thought to meeting him, but maybe I am a little bit curious about the man my mom was so swept up in.
But it’s not the fact he’s my unknowing father that I’m thinking of as I study the article this time, it’s the money. Worth millions today.
Millions.
“What if—” I look at Jonathan, my gears turning. “What if there really is a treasure?”
“Okay . . .”
“Maybe I can find it. If this was-was-was some career path for him, maybe he knows how. Or he can show me? Millions of dollars? That could—” Optimism makes my heart beat a little faster. “That could fix everything.”
“Your plan to save your business and pay for your mom’s brain surgery is to find some mythical treasure?”
He says it like it’s a joke. Like there’s no way in hell I would ever say yes. Like it’s not who I am.
It isn’t.
It’s the most unlikely gamble of my dwindling time, but something grows and grows inside me like a hot air balloon stuffed in a shoe box.
I don’t know my father, the gold might not even exist, and I’ve only been to Charleston once for an elementary school field trip.
But even logical thinking must have its limits, because when I open my mouth to give him an alternative, I say, “That’s exactly what I’m going to do. ”
“You’re what?” He jerks to a stand, aghast.
“You said I should go. My mother seems to think I should meet him. So, I’ll go.
To Charleston. To meet my dad and look for this gold and—” I remember I’m still married.
How weird to have so much bad news in my life that it won’t all fit into my brain at once.
“—finalize my divorce with Nash. I don’t trust the mail. ”
“I meant go have a cup of she-crab soup and spend an afternoon at the beach with him, not base your future on it.”
“What’s the difference?”
“What’s the difference?” He scoffs. “A lot. Starting with this not being who you are.”
“Maybe it is,” I challenge. “Maybe the daughter of a Stooge and someone who marries clowns is exactly the kind of person I am. What then?”
“Then I’d say you aren’t the person I thought you were.”
“Well then maybe I’m not.”
It hangs there, us toeing a line of pissed off as we stare at each other—we’re fighting—but for the first time since this whole disaster started, hope swoops through my belly like a pendulum, and that’s something worth fighting for.
The article said the gold was worth millions—it could be my solution to all my problems—every single one of them. Enough money to save the business, to give Bennie a good life, and pay for the best surgeon for my mom. I don’t care if Jonathan doesn’t agree with it, I’m doing it.
“Either way,” I say with a softer voice. “I have to try.”
“Treasure hunting?” Jonathan couldn’t be more skeptical if he tried. “With a dad you’ve never met?”
“Yes.” Then a thought: “Come with me.” Maybe a getaway is exactly what we need to get me excited about a wedding. “It could be fun. You could meet him. We could be like one of those couples on the Amazing Race.”
“I have work,” he says without hesitating. “And the trip planned.”
“Right.” This makes me pause. “Can’t you take a couple more days off? I’m sure there are places to ride bikes in Charleston.”
His eyebrows form two lines of skepticism. “For a treasure hunt that will lead nowhere?”
Doubt blooms. About everything. It might not be the most orthodox plan, but I also don’t know how to do this—meet a new dad, divorce an old husband, and fix my life with lost gold—alone. It feels . . . impossible.
When I see he’s not changing his mind, I force down the knot in my throat.
“You’re right.” I gather the papers. I don’t have time to argue or beg.
My mind zeros in on this plan. Maybe the mayonnaise-eating psychic was onto something.
The solution is in plain sight, but only if you’re looking.
Not that I believe in psychics, but if I did, this could be the solution she was talking about.
And I can prove to my mother that what Nash and I had is nothing like the torch she’s carried for this Rueben.
She’ll have to accept I’m marrying Jonathan. “I’ll go alone.”
This is insane. Completely impractical. A treasure hunt? No—gold finding. But I have no other plan. No idea how to fix our problems other than selling the store, like Jonathan suggested.
I can’t accept that option. Not yet. Not with everything else.
“And your husband?” he asks, watching me stuff the box of my secret past like a maniac for the second time today. “You think he’ll—what—just sign the divorce papers after eight years?”
It’s my turn to laugh. Nash will be the easiest part of this to manage.
From any other man, a stack of postcards would appear to be a grand romantic gesture, but knowing Nash, it’s been some juvenile form of entertainment. I can feel the annoying slant of his smile under my skin as I picture him over happy hour beers. “I send my estranged wife mail all the time.”
The notion makes my blood boil.
When I thumbed through the postcards, origins including DC, Boston, Philadelphia, New York, and the last, Charleston, it was clear that he’s barely sat still long enough to take a piss these last eight years.
He will sign the papers. He’s been sending me his address for this very reason.
Plus, the one that came last said as much.
He’s probably getting bored of his own game.
I don’t even have to tell him about Bennie.
The past will be the past. Fully. Officially.
I may have loved him before, but I certainly don’t now.
“We were over before we started.” I slam the lid on the box. “He’ll sign them. And if you’re so worried, come with me.”
“Worried about you and a teacher-turned-tour-guide?” His tone irritates me way more than it should. “I’m just trying to understand how this happened.”
“He’s an idiot,” I tell him. “That’s all you need to know.”
“And if he wants to see Bennie?”
I nearly drop the box.
“About that.” I laugh in a way that isn’t funny. “He actually do—”
The door to his office opens and a smiling hygienist appears. “Your next appointment is ready.”
Jonathan nods, looking at me when she exits. “You know this is ridiculous, right?”
Yep.
“It isn’t,” I tell him. “Maybe all this gold needs is someone like me to find it. Someone logical. Someone with fresh eyes.”
The way Jonathan looks at me reminds me of all those times my mother had an outlandish idea and my dad talked her down from it like a hostage negotiator.
He always managed to convince her she was being extreme, but Jonathan isn’t changing my mind.
He might not want to come, but I have to go. There’s no other option.
With the box in one hand, I wrap my free arm around him in a hug. “Just trust me on this,” I say into his chest. “And if it doesn’t work, I’ll look into selling.”
“Promise?” he asks.
“Promise.”
I don’t intend on letting it come to that.