Spring Romance: NINE Happily Ever Afters

by Tessa Bailey

  “Chloe? Your lover’s name is Chloe?”

  “Ewww, Uncle Charlie! Don’t call Chloe Daddy’s lover. She’s just a one-night stand.” She gives me a hopeful look. “Right? Because if you’re seriously dating her I am going to curl into a tiny ball of horror and just die right here on the couch, because it would be soooooo embarrassing to ever have to face her.”

  “Chloe what?” Charlie asks, his eyes slanting with a slow, taunting grin.

  “Just Chloe,” I answer.

  “What’s her last name, Nick? You know I dated a Chloe in high school. There aren’t that many in Boston.” His smile broadens and my fingers curl into my palms. Can’t hit my own brother.

  Not okay.

  “She was fine. Better than fine. A little wild and crazy, and she had this thing she did with her tongue that—”

  “STOP!”

  Being six years older than Charlie has its perks, chief among them that my angry voice has been programmed in him since birth.

  “It’s the same Chloe.”

  Elodie’s eyes widen. She looks just enough like Zooey Deschanel that I do a double take.

  “Wow. You look just like Katy Perry when you stare at your dad with that look of extreme shock,” Charlie tells Elodie. He gives her a weird grin before looking at me. “Chloe Browne?”

  “Right.”

  “You’re sleeping with my ex.”

  “I’m sleeping with an extraordinary thirty-five-year-old professional woman who likes my company as well.”

  We stare at each other.

  “This isn’t awkward at all,” Elodie says.

  In French.

  “C’mon. Not fair. I regret picking Spanish in high school,” Charlie whines. “If I’d have known you’d marry a Parisian, I’d have chosen French.”

  “If I’d have known how wonderful Chloe was, I’d have dated her in high school before you could.”

  “She was fifteen. You were twenty-one and about to have the twins. That’s kind of sick, Nick.”

  “Daddy!” Elodie gasps.

  I fold my arms across my shoulders, puffing out my chest. “You know what I mean.”

  Charlie digests this information by drinking an entire beer in one long ribbon of swallows, then holding up a finger.

  Elodie starts clapping in anticipation.

  And Charlie burps like a dog with indigestion.

  And not a dog who has access to a bong.

  “I can see how that was funny when you were little, El, but come on. Charlie was a teenager then. Now he’s just a thirty-something man with a Peter Pan complex.”

  Charlie grins. “Thank you.”

  “That wasn’t a compliment.”

  “Depends on your point of view,” he says with a nonchalant shrug that triggers unexpected fury in me. Must be nice to slack your way through life.

  I’m about to say as much when I’m interrupted.

  “I’m­sorry­Daddy­Ishould­never­have­called­Chloe’s­phone­and­caught­you­having­sex­and­that­was­wrong­please­don’t­hate­me,” Elodie says in one long, unfurling ribbon of panicky blabber.

  Charlie’s eyes narrow. He ignores the firehose of contrition pouring our of his niece. “You and Chloe. No way. She’s way too carefree for you.”

  “I don’t hate you,” I say to Elodie.

  The relief on her face is palpable.

  “And what the hell do you mean by that?” I ask Charlie, going into full-on older brother domineering mode.

  “Daddy, I think he means you—”

  Charlie holds up a palm, aimed at her. “I can speak for myself. What I mean is…” He falters, frowning. “I mean that the Chloe I slept with—”

  “Ew!” Elodie squeals. “You shared Chloe?”

  We’ve gone from dangerous territory right into full-blown toxic soup. The is the Chernobyl of family conversations.

  “Not at the same time,” Charlie helpfully clarifies. “Twenty years apart.”

  “I don’t understand,” Elodie gasps. “What does he mean, Daddy?”

  “I need an interpreter too, honey.”

  Charlie takes a deep, irritated breath. “Chloe needs a guy who’s passionate and impulsive. Romantic and wild. She needs a guy who—”

  “—who likes to use a strap-on,” Elodie elaborates.

  I drop my empty beer bottle. It crashes to the floor, cracking unevenly, pieces skittering along the kitchen floor like they’re desperately trying to escape.

  Charlie’s face twists with horror. “Elodie! How do you know what a—what that—what?”

  “STOP!” I shout, closing my eyes. “WE ARE NOT DOING THIS AGAIN.”

  “Again?’ Charlie’s voice shoots up an octave. “You’ve had previous conversations with your daughter about strap—” He can’t look at her. “About—that? Those?”

  “No.”

  “Then I am very confused.”

  “Now you know what it’s like to have a conversation with you, Charlie.”

  “Hey, man. I talk about dog bongs. Not—”

  Elodie bends at the same time I drop down, both of us carefully picking up the larger pieces of green glass among the broken bits.

  “Dog bongs? That’s a thing?” Elodie asks.

  I groan. “Please stop. Stop now. For the sake of the remaining brain cells I have left that aren’t waving a white flag of surrender, let’s reboot this entire conversation.”

  “L’ex de Chloé vend le strap-on qu’elle lui avait mis, Papa,” Elodie blurts out.

  My hand jerks so badly I cut myself, the red bloom along the line of my palm filling in the pale skin. “She what?” I say in English, followed by a string of profanity in French.

  My daughter did not just say, Chloe’s ex-lover is selling the strap-on she used on him, Daddy.

  “That’s why I came to see you.”

  Charlie appears with the broom and dust pan. Elodie waves my hands away, urging me to go to the sink. The two continue cleaning. I run my wound under cold water and close my eyes, wincing.

  “It hurts that bad?” Elodie asks.

  “This conversation does, yes.”

  “I meant your hand.”

  “The hand is a welcome distraction from talking about Chloe, strap-ons, dog bongs, and my sex life.” Never thought I’d utter the words dog bongs and my sex life in the same sentence.

  Charlie eyes us with suspicion. “What did you say in French? I heard strap-on again.” He looks away.

  Neither Elodie nor I answer, instead focusing on cleaning the mess. The cut’s so superficial it stops bleeding almost instantly, leaving a sting from the beer. I rummage through the kitchen junk drawer and find a Band-aid, absentmindedly applying it.

  A Disney Princess looks back at me. Jasmine. She was always my favorite. It’s the hair.

  How long has it been since I’ve cleaned the junk drawer?

  Elodie makes a great show of taking out her phone, tapping on the screen, and showing us an auction.

  “eBay? What does eBay have to do with Chloe?” I ask.

  “It’s not eBay, Daddy. It’s an auction site where you sell all the things your ex gave you that remind you of them.”

  Can you sell your children on this site?

  “Like eBay for relationship revenge?” Charlie asks, perking up. “Smart concept. I’ll bet they got great venture capital funding.” Charlie has worked for nine different start-ups since dropping out of Yale.

  All nine have failed.

  “Right. Most of the sales are for engagement rings, wedding dresses, books and mementos. That kind of stuff. Sometimes it’s furniture or books. But, um, this one came up and it’s going viral.”

  She turned the glass screen toward me. I squint.

  A strap-on.

  “How did you find this?”

  “Buzzfeed and TMZ are covering it.”

  Oh, hell.

  “It’s getting that much coverage already?”

  “Is that her, Daddy? I came as soon as I saw it. I know you
’re not serious with her or anything, but I thought you should know. She should know. It’s so embarrassing and—”

  I hold up one finger, buying time.

  Chloe’s batshit-crazy drunk ex-boyfriend has gone on this website for people who want to sell their gifts from exes and has started one hell of a smear campaign.

  The ad for the strap-on reads:

  Khloe Brown was the love of my life.

  She dumped me for no reason. Three years down the drain.

  We had a love that was so rare. So accepting. So nonconformist. We created our own world and lived in it, inhabiting a space no one else ever had the right to enter.

  And now she’s gone, screwing a coworker who looks like every corn-fed Midwestern basketball player lead actor combined with the intellectual curiosity of George W. Bush.

  I start choking. Is he talking about me? Stretching up to full height, I look down. No belly. Flat abs. My arms are long, and I can still do a slam dunk on the court. Knees hurt like a sonofabitch the next day, but I can do it.

  I ignore the GWB comment.

  “Daddy? Why are you, uh…examining yourself?”

  I quickly return to the description on the phone. There are worse insults than being called “corn-fed Midwestern basketball player lead actor.”

  I went to see her at work. Sent her eight dozen roses. Pleaded with her, and her new fuckbuddy got me in a headlock and beat me until I bled.

  “What?” I shout. If that were true, I’d be charged with assault. Idiot.

  “Keep reading, Daddy.” Elodie shakes her head and offers me another beer. “Keep reading.”

  Nothing bled as much as my heart, though. I shared a love with Khloe and a sensuality that is without parallel. Do you see that dildo in the picture? It represents her.

  Beer really hurts when you inhale it.

  Charlie has his own phone in hand. He picks up where I leave off as I hack up a lung and some intellectual curiosity.

  “She was a stunning Amazon warrior princess in bed, riding me like the stallion that I am. For dumping me the way she did, refusing my calls and texts and visits—”

  “VISITS!” I say with a gag. “Visits! The asshole’s been stalking her.”

  “—for throwing away my love and support, all the nights we spent together, all the years I devoted to her, I sell this lot of items she gave me with one purpose in mind: that the money should go to a group with purpose and honor. I will donate all proceeds and match the amount.”

  “Who’s he donating the money to?” I ask, not wanting to know.

  “A men’s rights organization led by a pick-up artist,” Elodie says with obvious acrimony.

  “Of course.”

  “And!” Charlie continues, trying to read as he laughs. “Should my heartfelt words touch the cold iceberg of my beloved’s heart, I will withdraw this auction in full so we can live out the destiny that we were meant to have.”

  “Pegging is a destiny?” Elodie mutters.

  I do not want to know how she knows that term.

  “What else is for sale?” I ask, cringing.

  “A Coldplay t-shirt,” Charlie says.

  “He’s a monster!” Elodie shrieks, as if that’s somehow more offensive than the strap-on.

  “What’s wrong with Coldplay?” I ask, genuinely confused. “I like their music.”

  Charlie and Elodie exchange a look of camaraderie in their shared disgust.

  “That’s what’s wrong with Coldplay,” she mutters, adding a shiver.

  “And a bunch of very nice cashmere sweaters, size M,” Charlie continues. “An original vinyl print from a Dave Brubaker album he says was a gift from her.”

  She has good taste.

  “And a Rush album.”

  Maybe not.

  “A very nice Rolex and some Montblanc fountain pens.”

  “Chloe must be horrified,” I say, slumping into a barstool at the kitchen counter. I feel my pulse in my hand where I cut it. “You said it’s all over social media now?” I ask Elodie, who nods.

  “Wait!” Charlie shouts. “The last sentence says: May someone else put this strap-on to good use, so you can get screwed just like Khloe screwed me over.”

  I read over the same words. “Bastard was with her for three years and still doesn’t know how to spell her name right? Khloe with a K is a Kardashian,” I grumble.

  “The auction is riddled with typos,” Charlie explains with a shrug.

  “Guy must have been drunk,” I muse. Poor Chloe. The strap-on issue is intriguing. I cringe.

  “Daddy, how can you like Coldplay and know who the Kardashians are? You’re a pop culture contradiction.”

  “I’m young enough to pay attention but old enough not to care, honey.”

  “What’s the name of the guy? The asshole ex?” Charlie asks, eyes gleaming.

  “Joe.”

  “Joe what? You know his last name?”

  “Joe Blow.”

  Even Charlie rolls his eyes.

  “Why?” My voice goes low. Charlie is scheming. This can lead to no good.

  “Because I have an idea.”

  “All of your ideas suck, Charlie.”

  “Only the ones involving other people’s money.”

  Fair enough. “I can call Anterdec and find out from security.”

  “You’re going to rescue Chloe again, aren’t you, Daddy?” Elodie is breathless with the excitement of a young woman who sees potential in every situation but has not yet experienced the full consequences that potential can bring.

  “Again?” Charlie’s eyebrow goes up.

  “Daddy tackled him in the hallway at work when Joe came after Chloe! He was like a Navy SEAL!”

  “A Navy SEAL, huh?” Charlie can’t help but laugh. “They teach you that at RISD?”

  “Yes. I took a course on ‘Evasive Maneuvers When Choosing Fabrics for Branding.’ It was useful when I finally got to business school at Harvard.”

  “What’s your idea?”

  “Find the guy. Contact his wife. Blow the lid on the affair.”

  “How’d you know it was an affair?”

  Charlie shrugs. “No guy that desperate isn’t married.”

  Good point. “And then what? I don’t want this to come back and bite Chloe.”

  Charlie taps on his screen and grins. “I don’t think you have to worry. I just Googled Khloe Brown, the way he spelled it—look.”

  The top news story shouted in all caps:

  PORN STAR KHLOE BROWN PEGGED AS ONLINE AUCTION MYSTERY WOMAN

  “Chloe spells her first name with a C and there’s an E at the end of Browne,” I say slowly.

  “He misspelled it. On purpose?” Charlie asks.

  “Definitely drunk.”

  “Gotcha. Good thing. Looks like Perkie Workie’s getting a nice PR boost.”

  “Perkie—what?”

  “That’s Khloe Brown’s character. You know…in her series.”

  “Series?”

  “Her porn series. She’s this milkmaid who—”

  “Got it. Done. No need to elaborate.”

  “I only know this because at my last job, our developer team had just worked on an integrated USB device system for the production company for her series, and—”

  I ignore him, reaching for my laptop bag, logging in.

  “What are you doing?”

  “I have an idea.” I find the site, Never Liked It Anyway, and search for the strap-on.

  “Whoa. Five hundred eighteen bucks for this thing. Eleven hundred for the entire lot,” I say, rubbing my hand on my chin, my stubble irritating the cut on my palm.

  “Deadpool made pegging cool,” Elodie elaborates. “Prices are higher for—”

  “Would you stop saying that?” I grouse.

  “What? Deadpool?”

  “No.”

  She smirks at Charlie, who stifles a laugh.

  I put in a bid.

  “You’re going to buy Chloe’s strap-on?” Charlie asks,
agog.

  That’s right. I can be carefree. Just watch me.

  Carefree with my Visa, that is.

  “Just curious how this works,” I say with a meaningful throat clearing.

  “You’re hardcore, Daddy.”

  “I don’t think this is a particularly strong example of anything, my dear.”

  “You’re saving Chloe.”

  I don’t know what I’m doing, frankly, but I won’t admit that to my kid. I just know that shutting down Joe’s antics is priority number one. The longer this stays online, the sooner it’ll get back to Chloe, and possibly hurt her personally or professionally.

  Five minutes after a call with Anterdec security, I have Joe’s last name.

  And Charlie gets to work.

  Chapter Eleven

  Chloe

  Your average Sunday. Read the papers, drink coffee, do laundry, look at Facebook. Wish Nick would call. Go for walk, take shower, wish Nick would call. Scoop catbox, wish Nick would…

  You get the idea.

  At six p.m., I decide on an early dinner for one. I am putting the chicken breast in the baking dish, closely supervised by Minky, when the back door bursts open and there’s Henry, with Jemma just behind him.

  “Hey!” I greet them. “There’s only one chicken breast but we can make chicken chili. I have tomatoes and…”

  “Chloe, what the hell? Why aren’t you answering your phone?” Henry interrupts.

  “It hasn’t rung..?”

  Now that I think of it, it hasn’t rung all day. Which is odd.

  “The social worker called,” Jemma says urgently. “Yvonne called us because she couldn’t reach you, and we’re your emergency contacts. Li had the baby. A baby girl, just like in the ultrasound.”

  There is silence. I just look at them.

  “Chloe, honey?” Jem puts her hand on my arm. “There’s more. She had the baby, and then she disappeared. She checked herself out of the hospital. No one knows where she is.”

  I’m still staring. This is not in the birth plan.

  “No one knows..? Where.. but where..?” I stammer.

  “The baby is at the hospital. Li signed all the papers with Yvonne before she left. The baby is yours, but the hospital social worker and Yvonne have been calling all day and you didn’t answer. Why haven’t you answered?”

  “It didn’t ring!”

  “Well, we’ve got to call them right now. And get over there. We’ll drive you.” Henry hands me my jacket. Jemma’s turning off the oven and putting the chicken back in the refrigerator.