When We Were Young

by Jaclyn Goldis

  “What’s going on, Abrams?”

  She didn’t try to conceal her painting. It was jammed with evil eyes. Scrawny ones and bloated ones. The evil eyes she’d started to draw back in Corfu. “I think I’ll be taking some days off, Mark.”

  “How many days?”

  “All of the days.” She stood, suddenly extraordinarily happy. “All of the days in the future, I’ll be taking off.”

  She collected her blue sheets of paper and followed security out of the building. She put her things in storage and went to Bali the next week.

  Having to tell Grant the truth now was even scarier than that day Joey gave up everything she’d tried for so many years to want.

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  Joey

  Florida

  2019

  “You remember I told you about Leo?” she said quickly because she was going to lose all her nerve if she didn’t.

  “Leo. No? Should that name ring a bell?” Grant walked back over to the door to check out the mezuzah. He seemed pleased with his handiwork.

  “He’s my old boyfriend. From Corfu.” She wiped her sweaty palms on her sweater. “He came to Florida to see me yesterday.”

  Grant’s eyes caught hers. They flickered with shock. “You saw your ex from Corfu yesterday? And you didn’t tell me?”

  “Kind of.” She walked over to the couch and sat down, hoping he’d follow.

  He didn’t. “You either saw him or you didn’t, Joey.”

  “I did,” she admitted. “But he had a crazy thing to tell me, about—”

  “Crazy, like, he’s still in love with you?” Grant laughed, but it was a laugh with an edge of maybe I’m right, tell me I’m not right.

  “More crazy, like severely fucked-up stuff about my family.”

  “So he’s not still in love with you?”

  She opened her mouth, willing the right thing to come out. But nothing did.

  “He is. God, Joey! I can’t believe you went and met with him without telling me. How would you feel if I was telling you the same story about Lauren?”

  Lauren was Grant’s tiny blond yoga-instructor ex who also owned a gluten-free bakery in Hollywood that Joey sometimes stalked on Instagram and once had even gone to and confirmed Lauren’s tiny blondness. She’d pretended to herself she was just getting a cake to surprise Siya for a lunch date on her birthday, even though Siya was all about gluten. To add insult to injury, sweet, bubbly Lauren had insisted on adding one of their new peanut butter chip cookies free for the road. It had, of course, been delicious.

  “I’d feel shitty,” Joey admitted. “Really shitty.”

  “That about sums it up for me right now,” Grant said. “Do you…I mean…do—”

  “No! Of course not. I love you. Only you. Look, I need to tell you the full story. What I learned about my family. The real reason Leo came back was to tell me why—” She had been about to say why he broke up with me. “Why our families stopped going to Corfu. Basically, my mom was having an affair with his dad, Rand, for like, the entire decade we summered on Corfu.”

  Grant froze, hovering over her, still not sitting. “Your mom was cheating on Scott?”

  “Yeah,” Joey said quietly. “For ten years. And that’s not the worst part. Lily is their daughter. She’s not my dad’s. Can you believe it?”

  Finally Grant sat beside her. He didn’t say anything.

  “I guess Leo has been waiting on telling me until Lily turned eighteen. Which, you know, happened recently.”

  Even as she said it, she was digging her nails into her palm. It still didn’t feel real. Just two days ago, Corfu had seemed a million miles away, like everything that happened there was locked away under key. Or maybe she’d just locked it away. Or thought she had, or could.

  Grant didn’t say anything, and his silence was freaking Joey out. He walked to the bar cart by the balcony and selected the decanter she’d picked out on a flea-market trip with G. She remembered how fun it had been, to buy a few things to adorn her and Grant’s new conjoined life. White milk-glass goblets. The crystal decanter she’d imagined Grant using to do this very thing—pour himself scotch—but not in this weird, distant version.

  “Say something, babe,” she whispered. “Please.”

  Grant finally joined her on the couch. He swirled his whiskey on his knee. “Leo.” He seemed to be turning the word around on his tongue, unsure of which direction to fling it. “God, that’s just insane about your mom. And Lily. It’s horrible.”

  “I know.” Joey laughed, a laugh that had tears spilling out along with it. She was so glad he could go there, that he could start there, instead of with Leo.

  “Oh, Jo. Come here.” Grant set down his glass and tugged Joey into him, and she sank gratefully into his embrace. But the hug was achingly short. Grant pulled back, his face clouded over. “And so…Leo knew this secret in Corfu. It’s why he broke up with you, isn’t it?”

  Joey so didn’t want to say it. “Yes. Grant, I’m—”

  He put out a hand this time. To stop her, but also to keep her away. “It’s like, I know I’m supposed to comfort you right now. And I want to, Joey. I really do. But I’m pissed at you, and I’m pissed at this Leo character. I’m mad this is all happening right before our wedding. And honestly, I’m mad at myself for not just…like, part of me just wants to hug you forever.”

  Joey inched closer to him at that. She wanted so badly for him to hug her again too. She’d nearly closed their gap when he drained his glass and got up to pour another.

  Her chest felt paralyzed with desperation. “I just want you to know…I just want one thing not to be in doubt. I’ve always wanted to marry you. None of this changes that.”

  “Doesn’t it though?” He spoke in such a strange tone. Not an angry one. Just curious. Like he was probing her to see whether she preferred peanut butter over almond butter, New York City over LA.

  “No. It has to do with a lot of people—it affects a lot of people—but not us.”

  “Huh. That seems wrong.” Grant returned to the couch. “He…Leo. You loved him.”

  “It was fifteen years ago.” She tried to smile. “You’ve loved other people too.”

  “But none of them have returned telling me they still love me.” Grant winced. “That’s not your fault, no. But you decided to see him right before our wedding. And you took away my opportunity to decide how I’d feel about it. Admit it, Joey. You didn’t tell me because you knew I’d say how uncomfortable I’d be with it. And so instead you just did it. That’s not how a partnership works. That’s not how I want my partnership to work.”

  Joey opened her mouth but couldn’t think of a thing to say to defend her behavior. She slid across the leather toward him, forcing herself into him, she knew, but Grant’s love language was touch. Maybe if he felt her skin again, she could fill in their cracks. She slipped herself under his arm, hoping for that imperceptible shift, for him to allow her back inside. But he didn’t, not after a few uncomfortable minutes. So she slowly untangled herself.

  “That’s not how I want our partnership to work either,” she finally said. “I swear it isn’t, Grant. But I think…” She tried to choose her words carefully. “This doesn’t have to change anything. I’ve told Leo in no uncertain terms that his…declaration is not reciprocated. I didn’t ask for it, Grant.”

  “I don’t know, Joey. I think you wanted to see him. Leo.” Grant put his thumbs to his chin and his forefingers to his temples. His other fingers dangled, and then he pressed them all into his face. “Admit it. You couldn’t see him for fifteen years, and you wanted to see if you still felt something. Hedge your bets.”

  “No! That’s not true!”

  But wasn’t it? Joey trembled on the couch. Wasn’t it a little true?

  Grant cradled his head in his hands. Joey realized she’d never seen him cry. On their first date in Florida, he’d told her about his older brother, Sean. How Sean was a marine in the Gulf who’d returned believi
ng he was still at war. How Grant was fifteen when Sean came back. How twenty years later, Sean still had bouts of thinking he was at war. They’d been at dinner, a romantic place in Mizner Park, and Grant’s eyes had bored into their slice of key lime pie. He’d said the only time in his life he’d cried was the day his brother had come home. It wasn’t his brother anymore. Just some prisoner of a faraway war. Grant had said it was an irrevocable day. She’d wanted to throw her arms around him then, but she couldn’t in that fumbling beginning stage. Later when she could, she’d hugged him extra hard for his brother.

  Joey feared Grant thought this too was an irrevocable day.

  “Look,” she said. “Look. I’m not going to lie to you. I loved Leo once. I did. When we left each other that last summer, it was hard. For a long time, I thought about no one but him. But fifteen years is a long time. I moved on. Especially with you, I did.”

  Grant lifted his face. His soft, brown eyes she called Baby Bear Eyes were shot with streaks of red. She’d discovered the Baby Bear Eyes soon into dating, when Grant told Joey that he didn’t think he’d really loved another person since Sean came back from war. That he’d believed scary things happened to the people he loved. That it had taken Joey to show him it might be worth it to risk it.

  “I don’t know if you moved on,” said Grant. “I wish I did, but I don’t. It feels like I don’t know a lot of things about you.”

  “You know everything about me. Everything! You know watermelon,” she said, referring to their time in Bali when Grant had asked her simple questions to get to know her, and she hadn’t been able to spit out the answers. Watermelon versus papaya, he’d posed, and she’d found herself at a loss. He’d helped her find herself. What they had was so good, and real. How could she make him see that the two of them were the realest thing she’d ever had?

  “We don’t have to let Leo affect us,” Joey whispered.

  “Is he still here?” When she didn’t answer, Grant said, “He’s still here. Of course. Because the two of you are sitting on a bomb of a secret that you have to figure out. And because he still loves you.”

  She didn’t want to pursue that one again. “Nothing has to change with you and me,” she whispered.

  “You think Leo in town isn’t going to change things? We’re getting married in ten days, Joey.”

  The we’re getting married soothed her a bit. “We’ll table the whole secret, obviously. Deal with everything after we get married.”

  “If we get married,” Grant said, just as there was a clatter by the foyer.

  “If?” She felt the same stunned terror as the night Leo pulled her from Taverna Salto.

  Grant went to the door and returned holding up two pieces of their mezuzah. “Looks like I did a shitty job nailing it.” He didn’t smile.

  Another time Joey would have teased him about his subpar handyman skills. Anything he tried to fix eventually collapsed. Bookshelves fell. Toilet rolls clanged to tile.

  “Doesn’t bode so well for us.” He sat back down on their couch and slapped the mezuzah fragments on the coffee table. One broke into more pieces.

  “Lucky we got gifted a few others,” she said with a weak smile.

  He didn’t respond.

  “Grant…please don’t say the if we get married thing again.”

  “I don’t know.” Grant stood. He pulled her up with him, his hands drifting languidly to her hips. Gratefully, Joey sank into his chest. “I’m so sorry about your mom,” he whispered. “About Lily. I really am, Jo.” His voice broke, and she pulled him tighter even as she felt him go. Sure enough, he set her back at arm’s length. “I need to get my head straight. I’m gonna sleep at Evan’s tonight.”

  “Don’t leave! Please, Grant, don’t. I won’t ever see Leo again! He asked me to meet tomorrow, you know, to discuss when to tell Dad and Lily, but I’ll tell him I can’t!”

  Grant just stepped his way through the maze of shower gifts without glancing back. “Well, this Lily thing has made that all moot, don’t you think? You’re gonna have to see Leo eventually. So go ahead. Meet him tomorrow. If we’re so strong like you say we are, it shouldn’t change anything, huh?”

  When Joey was left alone in the dark, she knew he was right. She had wanted to see Leo before her wedding. Before she committed. Joey might be furious at Bea, but right now that paled in comparison with her fury at herself. She’d finally put Corfu behind her, only to let it come right back through her door.

  * * *

  In the morning, no call or text from Grant. Just a reminder from her mother of their long-standing appointment for lunch and urgent wedding decisions. Joey responded I’ll be there, but please don’t think what I know now is in any sense of the word dropped. With a hazy detachment, she surveyed her puffy eyes. They begged for concealer. She indulged them.

  When she made it outside, there was Leo straddling a motorcycle, his face to the sun. The moment was almost intimate in its rapture. Leo returned his head upright and blinked a few times.

  “Hey there, Jonesey.”

  “I should have known you’d be on a bike.” She took the helmet he extended but hesitated. It felt too intimate, the two of them squished together on a bike. She should have just told Leo she’d meet him wherever they were going. But it seemed too late to back out now.

  “Why go for aircon blasting in a box when you can get the real thing for free?” Leo started the motor. “Climb on.”

  Joey clicked the helmet straps shut and slipped on a pair of round see-through orange sunglasses that Grant joked made her look like she was eighty and a beetle.

  “I need to be back by noon. Lunch at the parents’.”

  “That’s fine.”

  “And I don’t want to touch you.” Joey didn’t know that was going to come out. Her cheeks flamed.

  Leo grimaced. “I suppose I deserve it, Jonesey. But that’s a little impossible given what we’re working with here.”

  “Yeah, fine.” She climbed on behind him. “Groovy.” She didn’t think she’d used that word before, ever.

  “Groovy,” he repeated. “You can hold on to the bar in back.”

  “Is it as safe?”

  “As what?” She didn’t want to say your waist. “Hold on wherever you want, Jones. The world is your oyster.”

  “Is it?” she asked lightly.

  But Leo had already started the motor. Joey gripped the bar behind her. Then, as they sped off, her cheek rested against the fuzz of Leo’s shirt. So quickly, so lightly, that maybe it didn’t happen at all.

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  Joey

  Florida

  2019

  Leo parked the bike beside a row of yachts bobbing in the Fort Lauderdale harbor. The world rang in Joey’s ears.

  “Nice, yeah?” Leo collected her helmet and stored it alongside his own beneath the seat.

  “Yeah.” She wove her fingers through her hair, working out the tangles. “What are we doing here?”

  Leo pointed and started walking. “We’re here for that.”

  She trotted to catch up, following his finger point to an astoundingly large boat. “For a yacht?”

  Leo stopped at the yacht, called Arthur. “Yep. It’s mine now.”

  “You came to Florida and randomly bought a ginormous yacht?”

  “Not randomly, exactly. I’ve been thinking about it for a while, and Fort Lauderdale’s a good place to buy. You know how I am, Jones. I get an idea and—”

  “Ten seconds later it’s done.” Joey smiled but was still in shock over the massive boat being his.

  “I’m gonna gather up a crew to take it to the Bahamas for the winter.” Leo leaped onto the platform and stretched out his arm.

  “So coming to Florida is killing two birds with one stone?” Joey left his arm dangling and hopped up on her own.

  Leo squinted as the sun took its aim. “I guess. Leave your shoes and come on up.” She followed him around the Jet Skis docked in the back and then up a couple of stai
rs. Leo went to the captain’s wheel.

  Joey sank down to a couch, stretched out her legs, and pointed her toes. The couch was covered in the softest cream leather and flanked by a table. “Wow, Leo. You’ve made it, huh? What you always dreamed of.”

  “Oh, I don’t know if I’ve made it, Jonesey. I have investors. It’s not just me in this game.”

  “Funding aside, you’re buying a huge, luxurious yacht. I think if you look up making it in the dictionary, this would be it.”

  “Actually, I already have one yacht. That one’s in Europe with my crew. So this will be my second.”

  “Wow.” She digested it. “I’m really proud of you, Leo.” She meant it so thoroughly that she felt sad Leo couldn’t experience the soar in her chest, like it was happening to her, the fruition of his long-held dreams. “I really am.”

  “Thanks.” In a minute’s span, Leo had pulled levers, twisted knobs, and checked the satnav. Now he crouched on the floor, unsnapping covers adhered to the boat’s sides.

  “Can I help?” she asked.

  “Sure.” He handed her a cover. “Fold this and stick it in the salon.”

  Joey took care folding it and carried it into the serene, well-appointed space he’d motioned to. The salon. She could imagine celebrities in it, tech moguls, nibbling on olives and drinking from fizzy flutes, talking and complaining about nothing.

  The carpet was tan, fresh, and luxurious. In her lawyer life, she’d glided atop carpet like this. Thick carpet cleaned each night by a troop of underpaid fairies. Perhaps the part she’d detested most about her old life was the way her peers had ignored the help. The men and women tasked with grunt jobs would enter offices to empty trash, to deliver mail, and would exit as ghosts, as if garbage cans refreshed themselves, as if mail flew in on the backs of storks.