Chapter 30 Correspondence Chess
A week without a job, the internet, or your sanity can go surprisingly fast. It takes Dad a full five days to ask if I want to pick up hours at the garage.
I sit at the front desk, greeting the regulars like I’m in high school again.
Greg, who’s been coming to the garage every Friday since I was born, does a double take, falling against the door, grasping his heart.
“The prodigal daughter has returned!” he yelps. “Call the Hallmark channel!”
I don’t think this is the beginning of my post–Monte Carlo, move-back-to-my-small-town breakdown.
That said, it is nice. I’ve been between apartments and cities for so long that I forgot how convenient it is to have my full clothing collection in one place, and nobody in Waterfield gives a fuck about what they’re saying online about me.
On Sunday, while I’m in a back pew, reading one of Renata’s spicy books, Mrs. Sherwood asks if I’d like her to report the people being mean about me on “the Facebook” to the FBI.
I tell her it isn’t worth her time.
I allow myself to check my phone twice per day. Once in the morning, after I wake up. Then again in the evening, before dinner. I check to see if Faust has announced he’s retiring yet. He hasn’t.
He also doesn’t text.
Or call. Or email. No carrier pigeons, either.
And on one hand, it’s kind of affirming, a big win for my intuition—Faust might not have hurt me on purpose, and he might have done an incredibly nice thing for my family, but he also doesn’t care about me the way he said he did.
He is endlessly meticulous, too intelligent for his own good.
The last thing I said was that I didn’t believe him.
Bare minimum, I think he’d text me that we should discuss what happened, if it kept him up at night, too.
I could reach out as well. I know. But in a weird way, I’m grateful for his silence. I have a lot of catching up to do on my own.
“Are you sure that you’re ready for this?” Samantha asks as the four of us stand in the grocery store haircare aisle, nervously tugging her pristine ponytail.
“No shit she isn’t,” Maisie mumbles.
“It’s just Manic Panic,” Bailey says. “It washes out.”
“And it’s my birthday, and I’m sad,” I remind them, grabbing the small orange-colored jar. “Sue me.”
Much to Maisie’s chagrin, we pick up a sheet cake on our way out, and then we’re home with cheesy birthday napkins, yellow cake, and hair dye. Samantha is very skeptical about the whole thing. “What made you want to go back to red? You look so good as a blonde.”
Bailey elbows her twin, almost knocking her fork out of her hands. “It’s her breakup hair! You wouldn’t get it.”
“I’ve dated people.”
“Who?”
“Um—”
“Who?”
I ignore their twin-mindmeld bickering, popping a bite of cake into my mouth.
It’s May 26, and I’ve turned thirty in my hometown, with my baby sisters, while wearing pajamas.
If we watch any kind of rom-com that has a breakup lasting longer than five seconds, I will sob in front of them.
The me from a few months ago would’ve had a heart attack over this.
This me doesn’t mind. Despite Bailey insisting on Pride & Prejudice, which does make me turn into a puddle of tears.
“See?” Samantha says during the gazebo scene. “Mr. Darcy would be here. That guy isn’t worth the hair change.”
“I’m not doing it for him.”
“Feminism win. Woman changes hair not because a guy has told her to but because he hasn’t.”
I throw a pillow at her, then haul the three of them to the bathroom.
At seven, Dad gets home from the garage, having refused to let me work today. I meet him on the porch with a slice of cake. He undoes his boots, washes his hands with the hose. “Good day off?”
“Not bad.”
He takes my peace offering, then seems to notice my hair, the same shade as his. “Jesus, is that my kid?”
I was already stuffed up from Pride & Prejudice.
The floodgates open back up with a snap.
“Hey now, that’s enough.” Dad sets the cake down and takes my shoulders, pulling me into a hug moments later.
Despite my waterlogged sinuses, his soft flannel shirt smells like cars and every problem of mine magically getting solved. “What did I say?”
“Nothing,” I croak out. “I’m just happy to be here.”
He lets me go, rambling over to his favorite wicker chair. I stay standing. No one eats the cake. After five painful minutes, Dad says, “I’ve been thinking about what I needed to say to you. And I wanted to tell you that I wasn’t angry, but that would be a lie.”
My chest feels like it’s bowing inward. All I can do is nod, sniffling.
“But it’s me I’m angry at,” he continues.
“I know why you did what you did, Arcadia. I’ve been trying to be strong for you since your mother passed—then when Grandma passed, too, I didn’t want you to know how scared I was about what that meant for you, or how small I felt as a father, not having money to give my children the lives I wanted them to have.
To think I could’ve brought you into this world, and…
” He scrubs at his chin softly, not meeting my eyes.
“I’m sorry. I thought that if I kept my panic inside, then you’d never see me sweat, or worry that we couldn’t get through it. But I made you worry anyway.”
Like father, like daughter. I can’t remember the last time we talked like this. It would’ve been years ago, here on the porch, one of his stay-away-from-boys speeches. “Dad…” I clear my throat. “I don’t know if we were supposed to just get through it.”
His face falls, and I continue before he can say anything else.
“What I mean is, I think we need to stop trying to do that, you know? I think you have to fall apart when something really bad happens to you. So we can… start talking about it. We should talk about it.” I pick up the cake and hold it back out to him.
“But maybe after the movies, okay? It is my birthday.”
A small smile fills his face. Tentative, but there. “Chick-flicks?”
“Yup.” Forever a girl-dad.
“You know I like those.”
I grin, and he takes the plate again. “I put your Stark-Benzin merch in the basement, by the way.” He’d left it outside, and it’s too rainy for that.
Dad had almost gotten a bite of cake in. He pauses, frowning, and I guess one of my sisters filled him in on this subsect of the drama. His daughter, his favorite driver, and a lot of tears. “You sure, kiddo?”
“They’re our team, Dad.” I inhale—try to feel all the aches and pains right here, right now. “Who even knows if Faust will drive for them next year. Plus, he’s Maisie’s investor. Gotta support the people who support us.”
And he’s not that bad. He just isn’t here, I add to myself. Dad wouldn’t want to hear it.
Then at eight, I hear the sound of someone delicately tapping our front door’s giant doorknocker, and I do think about it for one moment—Mr. Darcy, in the fog, so stupid. “Happy birthday!” Renata screams, her suitcase toppling behind her. “I’ve come bearing gifts!”
I peek behind her. “Where is she?”
“Who, Rowan?” She frowns. “She’s at home. This is the gift.”
She shoves a horribly wrapped, plane-smushed bundle of purple fabric my way. “Is this the coat?” I ask, my voice embarrassingly hoarse.
“The one and only, birthday girl.” Then Renata grabs my shoulders, the coat falling. “Your hair.”
“Yes.”
“It’s orange.”
“Correct.”
“Did you just do it?” She picks at a tendril of haunted-house-actor wet hair. “It’s so—”
“Commercial?”
“Oh my god, I’m going to pretend you didn’t say that.” She pinches my cheek lightly, eyes twinkling. “It’s beautiful. You’re beautiful. Let me inside, I want to see the depression cave.”
She steps around me, and I hear Maisie rounding the corner, the sound of gleeful hugs. If I can’t remember the last time I’ve been home, then I definitely can’t remember the last time I’ve let Renata come over. Or when we’ve been in the same place while she isn’t on full-time mom duty.
“You have to make your husband work,” she lectures the girls. “Or your wife. Or, partner. Whoever it is, if you have children, they have to do childcare.”
Samantha nods, Maisie laughs, Bailey’s tuned out. When they go to the kitchen for drinks, and it’s just me and Renata in the living room, I ask, “So, does this Bryce-childcare lecture come from a certain place, or…?”
She laughs. “Sort of. We’ve overdue for a power rebalance. I’m, uh, starting school.”
“You are?” I gasp. “Where? What?”
“It’s just online classes, for software stuff. I want to get a part-time job, you know, work from home, cool mom, Pilates, etcetera.”
“Ren! That’s major.” I squeeze her foot, the closest thing to me. I gave her a set of my own pajamas, so we’re in matching mismatched fuzzy Christmas-slash-Hannukah socks. “I’m really proud of you.”
“Yeah.” She rolls her eyes, but she’s grinning. “I might’ve told you-know-who about you-know-what, too.”
And now I’m grabbing her ankle. “You did.”
“I had to. I mean, pictures of my best friend are on Reddit, rejecting this F1 driver’s proposal.”
“Shit, I forgot to even think about that, I’m so—”
“No, it’s, like, the story of the century. You’re such a badass. And he thought so, too. And… and it was time. So, thank you. For forcing my hand.”
I love her so, so much. More and more each year.
And I might’ve struck out this time with relationship-love, but I’ve got someone to grow old with.
What a treat, to see how Renata becomes more herself.
“I’ve felt every emotion this past week,” I say.
“And none of them are badass. But thank you. For lying.”
Grinning wider, she leans over and ruffles my frizzy half-dry hair. “Look at us, being so mature. You turn thirty and your prefrontal cortex just snaps into place.”
“Like, me, or the royal ‘you’?”
“To be determined.” She leans back, eyes the door. Frowns. “So.”
“Yes?”
“No birthday flowers from the Large Rude Man?”
“He isn’t that large. And no.” I smooth my hair back into place, heart twisting. “It’s okay.”
She tilts her head. “It is?”
“Yeah. I mean…” I glance at the doorway, confirm my family members haven’t silently returned, and rest my chin on my hands.
“I need to figure out how to take care of myself. So, I’m grateful to him for not rushing in.
I’m not—I’m not okay with how it went down, but I’m not mad at him for letting it rest.”
Renata stares at me, impressed. Suddenly, she lurches forward and grabs my head, making a low buzzing noise. “Look out, she’s developing, this brain, it’s going to explode!”
I start laughing and duck away from her hands. I only stop when someone clears their throat behind us, and I fall backward, staring at Maisie from upside down. “Hey, Cat,” she says, strangely stiff. “You… you got a package.”
My eyes dart to her hands. She’s clutching a brown-paper-wrapped rectangle like it’s the nuclear codes. “She gave him your address!” Samantha yells from behind her, and Maisie pushes her back into the kitchen doorway.
“I didn’t, I had no idea he was going to send this,” Maisie babbles as I jump to my feet. “He only had the address because he needed it for investor stuff, for the restaurant, you know, the building and money…”
“Uh-huh.” I barely hear her as I take the package from her. “I’ll be back, okay?”
“Promise?”
There’s Maisie-Mouse again. I nudge her shoulder with mine. “Don’t be scared. I promise. Renata—put on Devil Wears Prada. I’ll be right back.”
His handwriting is neat, like it’d been on that Post-it Note in his bathroom.
I trace the letters with my fingertip. Fausto Ferreira Sanchez, sent from his apartment.
It’s stamped with a Priority Mail sticker, though there can’t be such a thing as overnight shipping from Monte Carlo to Waterfield, Illinois.
I peel off the address sticker in case I need to write him back. Then I peel the paper off.
Beneath the wrapping is soft leather, cool to the touch. It’s dark, and I turn it around. It’s… a book? No—there are only three letters stamped to the front in silver foil. FAU.
Confused, I try to open it, then get caught on the elastic band wrapped around the front, keeping the cover from opening.
That’s when I remember.
A journal.
He’d been keeping a journal the whole time we knew each other. He’d written about me.
With shaky fingers, I carefully slip off the elastic and open the notebook.
Out falls a piece of paper, folded, from the front.
Behind it, I see that Faust has dated every page at the top, because of course he does.
He wrote every day. I’ll be able to see, day by day, what he’d been thinking about me. How he’d really felt.
If it was or wasn’t a game for him, once and for all.
I unfold the paper. I meant it all, is written in small, neat letters.
When you’re ready, see it for yourself.
Faust.
I touch his name, the strong F, the slouching a-u-s-t, knowing what’s inside this journal will change me, one way or another.
His letter isn’t asking for me to come back.
He doesn’t sign off with love or yours or sincerely, or anything that would spoil what’s waiting for me.
Because maybe everything inside is desperately romantic and real, but he’s changed his mind.
Maybe I’m going to read about how I broke his heart after he got swindled by my baby sister.
Pain, knowledge, regret, joy. I don’t know.
But I do know that he’s giving me time to make my choice, on my terms. And I’m not quite ready for him to change me again—yet.
There’s still something else I need to do.
Setting the paper down, I take a breath and head back downstairs to talk to Renata.