When We Were Young

by Jaclyn Goldis

  “You’re not crazy, Jonesey. The two deserts, the two yous…”

  “Yeah?” She needed Leo to explain it to her. This was, after all, why she’d told him. Because Leo was good at making okay the things that lived in her head.

  “I know how it ends.”

  “Oh?” She followed Leo off the yacht. He extended his arm to help her down. “There’s symbolism here somewhere,” she laughed, and gripped his hand.

  “Both yous are safe. That’s how it ends. Next time you’re awake in the dark, just tell the first you to reach longer. Harder. The second you’s gonna save her. And then wake up Grant. He’ll distract you. Or else he’ll just bring you watermel—” Leo sprouted a boyish grin that tempered Joey’s irritation at his words, transporting her back to the little boy who was once her best friend, who adventured with her each summer.

  As Leo went over to talk to Lucas, Joey wedged her feet back into her sandals, thinking his watermelon dig was unfair. Grant was so much more than a guy who could be reduced to some sort of watermelon bellboy.

  She checked her phone, and there it was. A staid text by Grant standards, but he would be home later. That he’d called it home was a good sign.

  Joey went to the bike. Her mind swished with the day. She thought about the boy named Arthur and imagined deserts. She thought about Grant coming home, and what he would say.

  But mostly she thought about what her answer would be if Grant were to ask her: Who would you choose, Joey? The first you or the other you?

  Chapter Twenty-Four

  Joey

  Florida

  2019

  Bea greeted Joey in the foyer. “Guess what? The cake toppers just arrived.”

  Joey let her fringed purse slide to her parents’ bleached Persian rug. “Is that really how you’re gonna greet me, Mom?” she asked in a low voice. “By pretending like nothing has happened?”

  Her mother sighed. “I’m not pretending, Joey. I just don’t know what to say. I’ve called you so many times, and you haven’t called me back. I’m sorry for everything. I cried all day after you left.”

  “You cried all day. Okay. And now I’m just supposed to get over it?”

  “I’ll do anything to make it better. Just tell me what I can do.”

  “I guess there’s really nothing you can do.” Joey sighed. “Is Dad home? I saw his car.”

  Her mother motioned her head nervously toward the kitchen. “Yeah. He’s in there.”

  Joey nodded. She took a deep breath. “So I didn’t know you ordered cake toppers.”

  “I did.” Her mother smiled, visibly relieved they could talk normally again. She rummaged through a box on the floor. Styrofoam packing peanuts erupted like confetti.

  As if the packing peanuts were capable of generating noise, Joey’s father yelled from the kitchen, “Bea, neatly, please!”

  “He has a video camera on me, I swear.” Bea’s feet crunched on the peanuts. “Ah! Here we go.” She unveiled two items. She ripped off their bubble wrap covers and tossed them down to join the party of green peanuts. “Oh, they came out so good!”

  Joey peered over her mother’s shoulder. The Grant topper had a man bun with his tux, and the Joey topper had brunette waves, a party of multiple tiny earrings, and her bell-sleeved, boho dress.

  “You’re always talking about Grant’s man bun.” Bea handed them to her.

  “They’re great.” Joey set the toppers on the white marble console. “Thanks for them,” she managed to add.

  At the sound of Lily traipsing downstairs, Joey untied her cork wedges. Her sister now descended on the right side of the Tara-replicated double staircase that Joey considered to have been a ridiculous renovation. Lily pointed her foot dramatically like the ballerina she was not as she leaped from the bottom step. She wore a white button-down shirt that looked like she’d borrowed it from their father, but she’d buttoned it crookedly and one side draped off a shoulder. The shirt was front-tucked into tattered jean cutoffs and complemented by Lily’s hair slicked back in one of those pop-star ponytails, with harsh slashes of bronze on her eyelids.

  “Hey, Lil.”

  “Hey, Jo.” The sisters embraced quickly.

  “You’re not wearing that to meet Edith, are you?” Lily asked.

  “Umm…yes. I am.” Joey glanced down at her moody purple floral boho dress that she’d bought in her law days, even though it hadn’t meshed one iota with her then-polished, fancy life. She’d known she’d wear it someday; every time she’d seen it in her closet it had been some soothing glimpse of a future self she could still become. Now it was a mainstay in her wardrobe. Her power dress.

  “Yes, JoJo, let Lily help style you,” said Bea.

  “I think Rei Kawakubo sent me something too big,” said Lily.

  Joey had no clue who that was and wasn’t about to ask. “No thanks. I’m quite capable of picking my own outfits. This dress is MISA, by the way. You’re not the only Abrams who appreciates fashion. I’m an artist, remember?” Joey felt herself growing more affronted than Lily’s comment really warranted.

  “Are you joining us for lunch, Lil?” asked Bea.

  “I can’t.” Lily heaved a sigh worthy of a president on the brink of initiating nuclear war. “We need to put the inaugural issue to bed, and I haven’t finalized the piece about genital mutilation in China. It’s a nightmare, with all their internet blockades.”

  “Wow, so the magazine’s happening?” Joey recalled vague conversations about a feminist fashion magazine for teens that Lily was launching.

  “It’s definitely happening,” said Bea. “It’s the next Vogue. Not even. It’s the Vogue that Vogue wishes it could be.”

  “That makes no sense.” Joey winced at the spite in her words. “But that’s awesome, Lil.”

  “It is,” said Bea. “Victoria’s the guest editor too.”

  “Victoria?” Joey shook her head. Bea made a motion like she was swinging a tennis racket.

  “What are you doing, Mom?” asked Lily.

  “Her husband!” exclaimed their mother, frowning.

  “David Beckham?” asked Joey, piecing together Victoria Beckham. “He’s a soccer player.”

  “Oh.” Bea kicked an imaginary soccer ball. “Whatever.”

  “You were identifying Victoria by reference to her famous husband, Mom?” said Lily. “Not cool. I’d argue that what she’s achieved with her fashion line is far more monumental than—”

  “Out-feministed, Mom,” said Joey, surprised as a real laugh squeezed out of her. “I never thought the day would happen.”

  Bea smiled and tried to wrap Lily into her arms, but Lily squirmed away. She’d once been asked in an interview, What is your worst nightmare?, and she’d replied, Group hugs.

  “The student is now the teacher,” said Bea.

  Lily nodded. “Anyway, yeah, Joey. Victoria Beckham.”

  “Right. Wow, Lil. The whole thing sounds really ambitious. I’m proud of you.” Joey grabbed a piece of bubble wrap that was asking for it and crumpled it up in her hand. The pops felt like a little outlet for so many things that Joey couldn’t name.

  “Yeah.” Her sister shrugged. “I’m sort of aging out of the teen demographic now, but I’ve still got my pulse on things.”

  “And this is your outfit for writing?”

  “I need to feel myself to generate inspired content. What do you wear to paint?”

  “Old jeans usually and…I guess something similar to your top, actually. One of Grant’s white button-downs. I like to feel like a blank palette.”

  “For Godsakes, Joey,” said Bea. “At least put a bra on. What will Grant think?”

  “On that note, I disagree, Ma.” Lily smirked. “The no-bra look is all the rage these days. Nipples are decidedly in.”

  “Really?” said Bea, running her fingers along her chest. “That’s very interesting.”

  “Great, look what you’ve done, Lil,” Joey said, and the sisters both laughed.

  * *
*

  “So what are your thoughts on seating Evie Nicholas by Mr. Sanders?” asked Bea, sitting cross-legged in the breakfast nook. “Because they might actually hit it off, and it’s a mitzvah to matchmake if we have the chance, don’t you—”

  “Who is Mr. Sanders?” interrupted Joey.

  Bea pushed aside a plate with cold salmon to make room for her chart. “You don’t remember Mr. Sanders? At Kilwins? Who always gave you an extra piece of turtle fudge? And then pulled quarters from behind your ears?”

  Ah, Joey did remember, vaguely. The man who pulled quarters from behind her ears but then didn’t let her keep them. She’d never understood why that was supposed to be a fun trick. “Okay, but why was he invited to my wedding?”

  “We couldn’t not invite Mr. Sanders! He’s eighty-three and still on his feet every day at Kilwins, scooping the most perfect scoop of rocky road you’ve ever seen.”

  “If on his feet with the ability to scoop rocky road was the criterion to get a wedding invite, then we have an issue here. Anyway, we went over the list multiple times, and Mr. Sanders wasn’t on it.”

  Her mother had the grace to blush. “He was a last-minute addition.”

  “Seriously? Mom, I’ve told you so many times, I don’t want a big wedding.”

  Joey’s dad glanced up from a pile of mail. He’d come home from work especially for “lunch with his girls” and was wearing his yellow-checked button-down that Joey privately thought lent his skin a touch of jaundice. Her father now used his brass letter opener to carefully swipe open a hot-pink envelope that looked very clearly to Joey to be junk.

  “Dad, why are you opening that? Just toss it.”

  “You never know what’s important. And sweetheart, your mom just has a soft spot for Abe. I do too, really. He has a heart of gold.” Her father unleashed a paper and with excruciating care unfolded it, studied it, and turned it to Joey. “Twenty percent off slippers. Do you need slippers?”

  “I don’t need slippers!” Joey started at her father’s pained expression, but she couldn’t help but be on edge. This lunch seemed absolutely farcical—planning a wedding with her mother and her up-in-the-air groom to boot.

  “Joey, we already invited Mr. Sanders,” Bea said. “We can’t rescind his invitation. Anyway, you gave me full creative control—”

  “I don’t remember that.”

  “I do. You said something like, I don’t care who you invite, just please stop calling me about anything wedding-related. Does that ring a bell?”

  Unfortunately, it did. That was likely on her mother’s thirtieth phone call about the guest list. For not the first time, Joey wondered why she and Grant hadn’t eloped, why she’d consented to this supposedly small wedding that now included the old ice cream scooper/magician of her childhood?

  She knew why. Grant wanted a real wedding. He’d said, When you find something good, you max out the celebrations.

  “Okay.” Joey exhaled deeply.

  “This is a lot of work for me, Joey. You could show a little appreciation.”

  Joey gave her mother an incredulous stare.

  Her mother smiled weakly. “I’m happy to do it! Overjoyed to plan your wedding, JoJo. But it’s a lot. Like, just the other night, I was giving a one-off talk on the commercial exchange of sexuality in modern art as viewed through the lens of Olympia and A Bar at the Folies-Bergère by Manet, fascinating stuff. And instead of really getting into the moment with the barmaid’s expression, instead of taking this…this…journey with my students…do you know what I was thinking? Whether we should have gone with the lighter tablecloths.”

  “Huh?”

  “Don’t you remember? We went with black to keep with your antique, tropics-at-night vision, but I was thinking we should have gone charcoal. Yes, I’m going to swap to charcoal if they won’t penalize us. It will better contrast with the deep-green vases.”

  “We went with deep-green vases?”

  “Joey,” boomed Scott, rising. “Can I talk to you a moment?”

  “Sure, Dad.” Joey stood in a restrained fashion so as not to underscore her gratitude at escaping. She trailed her father down the hall that led to his study. It was the hall with the light always on the fritz, that displayed old pictures of the girls. Joey was on the right side, Lily the left.

  From a cross-hallway comparison, you could discern two things. First, that photography had really advanced in the new millennium. Joey’s pictures were uniformly characterized by a white fade-out at the edges, like a smoke machine on its last fumes. Lily’s were crisp and ethereal, like she was living in a fairyland.

  The second thing you could tell was that Lily had confidence. Gravitas. Moxie. Lily age five—you would listen when she commanded you to bring her apple juice. Lily age eight—you might follow her to the moon. Joey just looked kind and sincere, like a girl with the simplest internal life. Like a girl you could read through her eyes and bouncy pigtails. She liked glitter and dancing and sunflowers.

  In actuality, Joey had liked rummaging in the dirt for earthworms far more than glitter and dancing. And now she hated sunflowers. She looked into little Joey’s eyes, age eight—clad in a frilly white dress Bea had cajoled her to don, clasping a bunch of daisies and smiling. Joey was relieved when the hallway dead-ended at her father’s study.

  She sat on the beige leather chair across from her father. How many times had she flopped down here in various states of excitement and unrest? In high school, to show off her latest artwork. Later, to exchange stories from the trenches of their mutual estate planning career. The man with the trust providing a life of luxury for his dog. The lady with the trust to dispose of her hundred-thousand-dollar handbag collection.

  A Post-it hung on the windowpane. Joey squinted to see that, written in her dad’s neat script, it read, The only thing today requires of you is a smile.

  “Who’s that quote by?” she asked.

  “Oh.” He pressed a thumb along the Post-it’s top sticky part.

  “One of yours?” She knew he alternated sources for his motivational Post-its. His idol Thomas Jefferson. Thomas Edison. Sometimes Scott Abrams.

  Her father blushed. He opened a drawer, pulled out the pocket brush from which he was never far, and brushed his sandy-blond hair into its signature side sweep.

  “Scott Abrams has some genius sayings.” Joey caught a whiff of the Thomas Jefferson cologne they’d gotten him for his birthday. Past gifts had established that her father went gaga over anything bearing his idol’s name, but the lesson had since been learned—Joey should have smelled the cologne before gifting it. The scent was what she imagined was the smell of old English people returning to their musty castles after skeet shooting in the moors.

  Her father fiddled with his wedding ring. Joey bit her lip, trying to push what she knew from her mind. He was going to be devastated—wrecked—and there was nothing Joey could do to prevent it.

  “Yes, well, Joey.”

  “Moving on?”

  “Moving on. I want to say something to you. You know, your mother didn’t get to have her dream wedding, not really.”

  “What do you mean? I’ve seen the pictures. You had a beautiful wedding.”

  “Well, I don’t want to spoil any romantic notions you have, but I think you’re old enough to know. You see…” Her father’s face turned the color of the red Montblanc pen he was twirling in his fingers.

  “Mom was pregnant at the wedding.”

  Her father’s mouth gaped open. “How did you know?”

  “Dad, if you count the months till I was born, you don’t have to be a rocket scientist to figure it out.”

  It took a few moments for her father to regain composure. “Okay. We were a modern couple. It’s not why we got married, for the record. I loved your mother very much. I still do, of course. I would have married her anytime, anywhere, regardless of you on the way or not. But her parents were old-fashioned. We had to get married quickly, before they suspected. So it was a wedding on
the rush. Your mother always wanted us to do this dance to a flamenco band at our wedding. They played at a dive bar we used to go to. But they were going to Mexico that weekend to play at a quinceañera so we had a troupe of Motown singers instead. Do you understand?”

  Joey nodded slowly.

  “Good. You’re a wonderful daughter.”

  Joey managed a faint smile.

  “So you see how important it is to your mother to plan your wedding? It’s making her so happy.”

  Joey wanted to say many things to her father now, to make this a conversation that was genuine on both ends, and yet she couldn’t.

  “One more thing,” said her father. “You know, I had drinks with Grant the other night, and I want you to know how lucky you are.” Her father’s eyes blinked, portending tears. “Grant loves you so much. Do you know how I know it, Joey? Not just how he talks about you.”

  “How?” Joey whispered.

  “The way he watches you.” Now her father wept freely. “It’s how I’m okay giving away my little girl.”

  “Dad, I’m thirty-four.”

  “It’s how I’m okay giving away my little girl,” he said again, louder. “Thirty-four is young like you can’t imagine, Joey. And even when the two of you are in the middle of people and phones and chaos, Grant watches you. He always knows where you are in relation to him.”

  Joey knew this to be true. She wanted Grant to watch her again, and she didn’t know if she’d ruined it.

  “Do you always know where Mom is in relation to you?” she asked.

  Her father’s tears petered out. “Yes,” he said. “Yes, I always do.”

  Chapter Twenty-Five

  Joey

  Florida

  2019

  In the foyer, a massive blank wall ascended fifteen feet. The floor was glossy navy wood. Windows opened onto an infinity pool perched at the edge of the Intracoastal. Scattering the lawn were sufficient white sunbathing chairs to accommodate the Palm Beach elite and dangling rope swing chairs to accommodate their leggy teenage offspring. Inside, above a midcentury cabinet that cradled a giant topiary, hung an installation of textured white.