Chapter 29 Cam W — The implosion
My tongue will tell the anger of my heart, or else my heart concealing it will break
The Taming of the Shrew, William Shakespeare
Miranda was surprised to see me at dinner, but with her whole family there, she couldn’t disappear to apply a light-sensitive face mask.
I looked like I’d been in a car wreck, which I very nearly had today thanks to Lucy’s driving.
I was on crutches, my facial bruises had turned a sickening yellow, and I had a fresh bandage that Juliet had applied this afternoon after a doctor had stitched up my forearm.
“Cam, lovely to see you!” Leah greeted me. Everyone turned their heads, my appearance prompting Juliet to throw a glare at Miranda.
Miranda smiled and said a very quiet hello. I touched her arm lightly, leaning to one side on my crutches. “Hey, can we talk for a minute?”
She was wearing tight black jeans and a loosely fitted blue top. Gorgeous, as usual, but incredibly sheepish looking. “Um, not right now. It’s the dessert. I forgot to take it out of the freezer. I mean, put it in the freezer. I’m just gonna be busy with the freezer for a bit.”
This wouldn’t be easy. “Wow, what happened to you?” Theo asked, not knowing his daughter had caused the broken ankle and stitches.
“Mistaken identity in a bar, broken porch step, and kite mishap. In that order.” I said weakly. This man would think I was an overgrown child. Theo smiled sympathetically. “Don’t worry. These things come in threes. You’re probably safe now.”
Juliet snorted and drank half her glass of wine. She seemed to be on edge. Not her usual “I disapprove but this is amusing” self. Seamus glanced at her uneasily.
Dinners at Cordy’s house were always a little chaotic, like a polite hurricane with placemats.
Tonight there were roast chickens, three salads that didn’t coordinate, two plates of potatoes, and a stack of bowls that kept migrating down the table as if sentient.
I sat near the end beside Miranda, which seemed to make her slightly nervous.
“Pass the potatoes, please Lucy,” Leah said, even though they were already in her hand. “Are these the buttery ones or the healthy ones?”
“The healthy ones,” Jules answered tightly. “Which means you’ll hate them.”
“I don’t hate health,” Leah protested, spooning a mountain of the healthy potatoes onto her plate to prove a point. “I just prefer butter. Cam, darling, do you take butter? You’re recovering from injuries. You should take butter.”
“I’m okay, thank you,” I said, smiling. Miranda watched me, with a look of guilt all over her face.
Miranda stabbed a carrot. I’d come braced for awkward but hadn’t anticipated the way the sight of the bandage and crutches would make her feel so guilty.
“Also,” Leah added brightly, “who sent that kite to you Cam? Jules told me about your latest accident. My dad loved kites! He used to build his own.”
Jules put her fork down, very deliberately. “Can we not pretend we don’t know?”
“Know what?” Leah asked. “Is this one of those games where I guess the thing that everyone else already … Oh, is this an internet thing? You young people make—”
“It’s Miranda,” Jules said, cutting through Leah’s sentence and the noise of clinking cutlery. Her voice was sharp enough to slice the room into silence. “It’s always Miranda.”
Every chair seemed to shift at once. Miranda froze with her glass halfway to her mouth. Cordy scraped a salad bowl noisily. I looked down at my plate, then up at Jules with a measured calm, silently begging her not to make a scene and upset Miranda.
“Juliet,” Seamus said gently, “maybe—”
“No, Seamus,” she snapped. “We’re past ‘maybe.’”
Leah blinked rapidly. “Past maybe where? Oooh, is this a progressive dinner party where you go to a different house for each dish?” Geez Leah, read the room.
Jules pointed—not at my bandage, but at Miranda. “He’s been to urgent care twice in two weeks. And had to see a nurse the other time. The bar, the step—”
“Miranda didn’t cause the bar incident,” I chimed in. Obviously we were all past pretending we didn’t know.
“Yes, she did,” Juliet said sharply. “She ordered that drink, not the cougar.”
“A cougar?” Leah looked confused.
“That was not my—” Miranda started, then shut her mouth. The table had turned into a witness stand she hadn’t asked for.
“And now the kite,” Jules went on, relentless. “Because you can’t just say thank you like a normal person, you have to turn it into a covert operation. Into drama. You got him hurt, Miranda. Again.”
“It was only six stitches,” I said, quiet but firm. “And I’m fine.” Miranda had sent the drink. I had to be careful. These things might come in hundreds, not threes, when she was behind the wheel.
“That’s not the point,” Jules said, eyes bright with the kind of anger that was ninety percent worry.
“The point is you keep hiding behind anonymous nonsense because you’re muddle-brained about what you want, and meanwhile Cam—” She stopped, jaw tight, then barreled through.
“Meanwhile Cam is not an experiment. He is not a target for your … chaos.”
Leah’s gaze ping-ponged helplessly. “Which experiment? Are we … what is the cougar thing?”
“Cougars are older women with a thing for younger men,” Lucy explained, settling back with her drink, ready for the show. Leah nodded as though thanking her for bringing her up to speed. “Ah, like Aunt Marion.”
Miranda cleared her throat. “Jules, maybe lower your voice.”
“Why?” Jules rounded on her. “So we can keep pretending this is cute? That it’s endearing? He got stitches, Miranda. He’s wearing a fucking cast. Look at his face!”
Miranda’s chair scraped. I could see her hands shaking as she kept them by her side. “I’m not trying to hurt him. I’m trying—” Her voice strangled, humiliated and defiant all at once. “I’m trying to say thank you without making it … too much.”
Jules stared at her for a long second, and something in her expression—grief or exasperation or both—softened and then hardened again. “He doesn’t want your anonymous gifts. He wants you. And you are too much. You’ve always been too much.”
The room fell into silence for at least five seconds, which is actually a long time for that many people to remain quiet.
Leah blinked. “Oh,” she said faintly. “Is that what’s happening? Lucy dear, would you like some of the healthy potatoes? Someone should eat them.”
I closed my eyes, just for a heartbeat. When I opened them, I looked at Miranda first. Then Juliet. “Jules,” I said carefully, “this isn’t—”
“Don’t you dare protect her from this,” Jules said, turning on me now.
“You paid for her retreat, Cam. You did something nice and have been a hospital frequent flyer ever since. She’s been running around like a phantom because someone—” She jabbed a finger at her sister.
“would rather invent dramatic missions than admit she has feelings.”
The words hit the table like a dropped dish.
Leah’s hands flew to her chest. “Feelings? For Cam? Oh, sweetheart—” She looked from Miranda to me as if searching for subtitles. “Is that why the kite gift was mysterious? Are we courting? Is this courting?”
“They don’t call it courting anymore, Leah,” Lucy supplied helpfully. She scrunched her nose in thought. “But I don’t think they’re hooking up. What is it guys? Pre-gaming?”
“He paid for your dream because he believes in you. And instead of saying ‘thank you, Cam,’ you got him punched, broke his ankle, and sliced him open with a kite.”
“That is not fair,” Cordy snapped. “You know Miranda. She panics when she’s scared or overcome. She panics and turns it into crafts.”
“It isn’t fair,” Miranda said, throat burning.
“Because I didn’t ask for him to do that for me.
” She flicked her gaze to me, the room narrowing to me and the white strip of bandage.
This was fine. I’d sit patiently in her storm any time.
“I didn’t ask you to pay,” she said with a slight hiccup, like she was about to cry.
“I know,” I said.
Leah dabbed at her eyes with a napkin as if the conversation were a sad movie and she’d come unprepared.
“Why do men do these things secretly?” she murmured to no one in particular.
Theo continued to eat his salad as though this was normal, which as someone who would kill to be part of the Bard family, was worrying.
Miranda’s vision went glossy. “You had no right,” she said to Jules, the room swinging slightly. “None.”
“No?” Jules’s voice cracked on the edge of something that sounded like fear.
“I’ve watched you drift in circles for years, Miranda.
Always playing at ‘almost.’ You’re brilliant and kind and you treat your life like it’s a room you don’t want to turn the lights on in.
Grow up. Be responsible for the messes you make. Stop acting like a carefree teen.”
Cordy broke into the tense standoff. “Jules, maybe we can talk when—”
“No,” Jules snapped, dangerously lost in her anger. “I’m sick of it. We always cover for her. We always let her be a tornado, but she’s in her mid-20s. My God, she made us into caretakers from the moment she could walk.”
“Oh, and that worked for you sometimes, didn’t it Juliet?
Who took the blame for the negative pregnancy test in the bin when you were 18?
Me! Even though I was 16 and a virgin. But hey, that was expected of crazy, reckless Miranda, so you were happy enough to let me cop the blame for that one, even though Mom made me read a fucking family planning book and sat me down for a lecture.
And poor Andy was constantly eyeballed by Dad when he came around, even though we were never even together. ”
“Fuck,” Lucy muttered into her wine, the excitement she had experienced earlier diminishing at the dark turn the conversation was taking.
“That was yours? Oh, Juliet,” Leah shook her head sadly.