When We Were Young

by Jaclyn Goldis

  Grant gripped Joey’s arm. Her parents filed in to her side. Lily took her bouquet.

  Wait. She wasn’t ready yet. She needed a minute. But the rabbi was already welcoming the friends and family of the Abrewmans. He was talking about Bali and true love. Joey wondered what she was supposed to say when it came down to it. Maybe they should have done the rehearsal. Was it Yes, or I do?

  Then it began to speed up. She was on a treadmill, and some manic personal trainer was pressing the faster button. Faster, faster, faster. There were the seven blessings read by Grant’s seven sets of aunts and uncles. It was so perfect, they’d said when doling out the roles. So fitting.

  She was fidgeting. She wasn’t paying attention to her own wedding ceremony. She took one hand from Grant’s and sank it into the pocket she’d had added to her gown. She felt for her evil eye charm. Her lungs sucked in air.

  There was Grant’s friend Evan coming forward with the rings. They didn’t have nephews to take on the ring bearer role, so Evan was the anointed ring bearer. There had been a lot of inappropriately old ring bearer jokes. The rings meant the ceremony was almost over, didn’t it?

  With this ring, you are consecrated unto me.

  The metal was cold as it slid onto her finger. What did consecrated unto me even mean?

  As my husband.

  Grant’s hand flashed with his new bling. The bling that was because of her.

  May the Lord lift up his countenance upon you, and grant you peace.

  Peace. Joey felt like crying at the word peace.

  Amen.

  There was rain pummeling the stained-glass windows. There was the glass on the ground wrapped in a linen napkin. Oh God, there was the glass, and when it broke—

  Grant stomped his foot onto the napkin. There was an unmistakable crunch.

  Mazel Tov!

  Grant reached over to kiss her.

  They were husband and wife.

  * * *

  Joey was struggling to get up when she heard a man’s voice. Which was strange, because what she was struggling to get up from was a toilet in the women’s bathroom. “Jonesey!”

  “Leo! Wha…Leo?” The door to the stall flew open. Instinctively, Joey crossed her arms over her chest. “Leo! I’m on the toilet.”

  “Well, are you going?”

  “No, I’m not going. I’m just trying to get all the pieces pulled back into place. You can’t imagine how many contraptions and buttons there are.”

  He seemed to focus on her and her getup. “You look so beautiful, Jonesey.”

  “I’m on a toilet, Leo.”

  “You’re the most beautiful girl on a toilet I’ve ever seen.”

  “How many girls on toilets have you seen?” Joey’s head was buzzing.

  “Jonesey, can we talk? Before you get married, like, can we really talk?” Leo was wearing a suit, yes, but it was all crinkled, like he’d pulled it out of a suitcase without time for a steam. His hair was damp and rumpled to one side with a cowlick sticking up. He looked like a man who’d just gotten laid while wearing this suit. Maybe he had just gotten laid.

  Why was Leo in the women’s bathroom?

  Why did Leo think she wasn’t already married?

  “Leo, I’m—”

  “No, Jonesey, seriously! You need to let me say what I came here to say.”

  Joey kept her arms crossed across her chest to minimize exposure of the cleavage courtesy of her gravity-defying corset meant to smooth out all lumps, bumps, and organs. “Okay, but Leo, what if someone comes in?”

  “No one will come in, Jonesey. I put the janitor’s sign out there.”

  “Where will people go to the bathroom?”

  “They can go to the bathroom in the lobby for all I care! This is important.”

  “Okay.” Joey tried to sit as normally as possible on the toilet seat. She had to get out to finish cocktail hour. Grant would be looking for her. They were supposed to be announced to Michael Bublé, whom they’d seen three times in concert.

  “Jonesey, I went to that house. I saw it.”

  “You went to what house? Can you speak in English?”

  “Jonesey!” Leo stomped a foot. “Lily told me to. I went to the house with your painting. Whatshername?”

  “Edith?” Joey was still. “You went to Edith’s?”

  “Yes! Yes! I saw your painting.”

  “Okay.” Joey slumped over again. Her arms dropped to her sides. Sitting on a toilet in her wedding dress was like balancing on a medicine ball. “So you saw it. It doesn’t mean—”

  “It means everything, Jonesey.”

  Joey felt her entire world unravel in that sentence.

  “You know why I came back to Florida, J. I came to find Lily, of course. I came so I could let go of this toxic secret once and for all, yes. But why did I really come? For you, Jonesey. Like I told you that day on the beach, in the stupidest, most selfish way. Damn it, I didn’t want to do this again. I wanted to let you live your happy life. More than anything, I want you to be happy, Jonesey. I didn’t want to ruin your life by telling you that I’ve thought about you every day for fifteen years.”

  Joey was watching a car crash, only it was her in the crash. She was crashing. Now Leo came into the stall. He came right up to her, smelling so heartbreakingly much like himself. “Jonesey, I’ve always loved you. I never stopped. I mean, I told you at the beach, but I don’t know if you believed me. I could say that, when we were kids, I didn’t know what we had, but that would be a lie. I knew what we had. I just knew it was impossible. I hoped I would move on. I hoped for fifteen years I would move on, but I couldn’t. I never really did.”

  “You had Arthur,” whispered Joey.

  “Well, I wasn’t celibate. But us, what we had—and it wasn’t because we were young and I’m idealizing it.”

  “I know,” she whispered.

  “Look, I obviously knew you were engaged when I came back here. But I hoped Grant would be this asshole or something. And you know what? I like Grant. He’s a cool guy. And I saw immediately that you loved him. That you were happy. It was one of the hardest days of my life when I saw you at the pier—”

  “Leo—”

  “It was the hardest day because I got to see you again, and I couldn’t even hug you. Not fully. Not when you were standing there, with all your same Joey-ness, that I like just as much as when we were kids. I really want to tell you, I like the person you’ve become, Jones. I like her so much.”

  “I like the person you’ve become too,” Joey whispered. “But—”

  “But that day I saw you again at the pier was also the hardest day of my life because that’s the day I had to let you go again. That’s the day I really lost hope. Until now. Until today—”

  “Leo—”

  “No, Jonesey. I saw the painting. You painted my face. Not Grant’s. Mine. It’s like the painting you started on Corfu.”

  “Yes, but—”

  “You can’t say a but about that painting. You captured me. That painting says love, Jonesey. You painted me and not him. Period. You once told me—”

  This was the tidal wave. Joey steeled herself for it.

  “You once told me you could only paint the face of the man you loved. So this is my plea, Jonesey. You and Arthur, you’re all that are important to me in the world. The logistics may seem insane, but I know we can figure them out. Our life together will be so happy, if you just give us a chance. Please don’t marry Grant, Jonesey. You can still back out. Please don’t. Please don’t. Please don’t.”

  Leo put his hands to his knees and bent his head, panting.

  “I don’t know what to say.” Joey crunched down on her lip, feeling tears collecting in the corners of her eyes. She just had to finish this with him before the dam broke. “You have to know something.”

  Leo lifted his head. “Yeah?”

  Slowly, Joey held up her left hand. The hand with her new wedding band. She studied the swirls on the gray marble floor. “I’m
already married.”

  Leo grabbed her hand. He twisted her ring. “How is that possible?”

  “The wedding started forty-five minutes ago. It just ended.”

  “But weddings never start on time!” Leo’s face shaded with the beginnings of panic. “Lily only told me, like, an hour and a half ago that I needed to go see your painting. But I figured weddings are always at least an hour late.”

  “Jewish weddings start on time,” she said quietly. “Jewish weddings always start on time.”

  The sound that came out of Leo was a sound she would not forget for the rest of her life. Joey went somewhere else for the duration of that sound. The scent of thickly diffused tuberose nearly choked her.

  Eventually, Leo rose. He walked backward to the door, tearing his collar from his neck with such vigor that a button clanged to the tile. “I’m glad you chose the bigger stall, Jonesey. I would have been right on top of you in one of the smaller ones.”

  She tried to smile, but her mouth refused to cooperate.

  “I don’t take any of it back, Jonesey. I love you even if you don’t love me.”

  Then Leo—her Leo who actually still loved her—turned and walked away. He looked back. He said, “Jonesey, you remember I said I had a first yacht?”

  “What?”

  “Before I got this new yacht, I mean. I bought my first one five years ago.”

  “Oh?” she managed.

  “I named it Jonesey.” His eyes fixed on a point over her head. “I named my first boat Jonesey. I have no idea why I’m telling you that now.”

  Leo shook his head and walked away very fast. Joey watched his back slip out of sight.

  Then the door closed without a thud, without so much as a squeak. Like it hadn’t even happened at all.

  Chapter Forty-Seven

  Joey

  Florida

  2019

  Joey was sniffling into a wad of toilet paper when she heard footsteps. She tried to stop crying and be normal. The footsteps paused at her door. Sweet little G materialized through the thicket of her tears.

  “How did you get here?” managed Joey. “Isn’t there a…sign?”

  “I’ve been here since before Leo came in, darling. My bladder isn’t as young as yours.” G reached under Joey’s arms. “Come on. Let’s get you to the couch.”

  Joey had enough control of her faculties to realize that ninety-three-year-old G lifting her off the toilet was not a good idea. She flexed her legs, but the toilet was a suction gripping her butt. With some effort, she wiggled free. As she tussled with her undergarments to return them to their proper places, she shuddered with a fresh sob. G walked her to the little sitting area with a soft yellow couch. G clicked the lock on the bathroom door.

  When G returned to the couch, she said, “You love him.”

  “You heard?” Joey coughed into her wad of toilet paper. “You heard…everything?”

  “I heard everything, and one thing is clear. You love him.”

  “I love him,” Joey heard herself say. “Yes, I love him. I really love him. I didn’t even get to tell him that. I was in such shock. What’s wrong with me, G?”

  “Nothing is wrong with you, my darling. But now you have a choice to make. Now you have to decide, who do you love more?”

  “That’s apples to oranges, really.”

  “It’s not apples to oranges. You like one better. You either like apples better or you like oranges better. It’s the stupidest saying I’ve ever heard.”

  “I love them both. Like you loved Grandfather and Milos both. Anyway…it’s too late.”

  “Didn’t you read my messages? You probably don’t want to hear this, Joey, but I loved Milos more. I always loved Milos more, but to appease my parents’ last wishes, I married your grandfather. But seventy-plus years of hindsight has shown me that life could have taken a different turn.”

  Joey thought about her sweet grandfather, who deserved to be loved the most. She stared at her finger with its new gleaming wedding band. “I don’t know, G.”

  G folded Joey’s hands in hers. “Now Leo and Grant. They are both wonderful men. Grant is Jewish, but let’s end this right here.”

  “End this? Grant’s going to be looking for me. Oh God, my husband is going to be looking for me.”

  “Forget about that for a second. It’s going to be okay.” Her grandmother patted her hair, but it was still fluffed to the heavens. “What I was starting to say is I think my mother is in heaven shaking her head. She’s figured out the rule they only tell you when you meet the Big Man. That it doesn’t matter if a man’s Jewish, if he’s the counterpart to your soul. I think my mother’s up there telling us to stand up for our lives. You get to do what you want to do. You’re not pleasing me. You’re not pleasing these two men. You just go with the one you love the most.”

  Joey heard voices at the door. Grant?

  “Hold on.” Her grandmother peeked her head out the door. Joey heard her say, “We’re having an emergency with the dress.”

  G sat back on the couch. “You don’t get to choose, darling.”

  “Was that Grant?”

  “Listen to me. You don’t get to say, God, I choose to love that one more. You just ask the question. God gives the answer. So now here’s what we’re going to do—we’re going to flip a coin.” G pulled a quarter from her purse.

  “We’re going to flip a coin? That’s how we’re going to decide my life?”

  “It’s as sane an avenue as any. Okay, heads it’s Grant, tails it’s Leo. God will make the choice. You ready?” She didn’t wait for Joey’s approval. Quickly, her grandmother tossed the coin in the air, caught it, and flipped it to rest on her palm. “Well, there we have it. Grant it is.”

  “But I don’t want it to be Grant!”

  For a long time, she and G just stared at each other. In the mirror, Joey glimpsed her face streaked in mascara.

  “Good,” her grandmother finally said. “There we have it then.”

  “There we have it?” Snot trickled toward Joey’s lip. Every inch of her toilet paper had been saturated. She grabbed a tissue from the box G had placed in her lap. “But it was heads.”

  “The coin toss.” G laughed. “Just a silly thing to get the answer out of you. You see, if it had been Leo, you’d have felt relieved. We’re not actually picking a man from a coin toss, my darling. That’s insane. So here it is. Settled.”

  “Here it is, G? Settled? I just married the wrong one.”

  “But you still have a choice, my darling. That’s the lucky thing. We don’t always have choices, Joey. My parents and Benjamin did not. Sometimes life chooses for you. So when you are presented with a choice in life, you thank God, because it’s an opportunity to be happy. And you don’t squander it.”

  “I don’t know, G. I don’t want to be like my mother, but look at me. I’m exactly like her.”

  “Your mother has her faults, to be sure. So do we all. Even you who has tried so hard to be perfect. You know, Joey, I think perfect is overrated.”

  Joey remembered how Leo had said something similar. “But how am I supposed to be with Leo? He has a son on the other side of the world. He lives on boats in the middle of oceans. If I’m with Leo, I’ll have to travel a lot. I won’t be able to be here in Florida as much with you.”

  G poured them glasses of water from a carafe on a side table. “You love to travel, Joey. You were always counting down to vacations from that awful firm. Climbing mountains, handstands on beaches, tightroping…”

  “Ziplining,” Joey corrected, an unexpected laugh gurgling out of her.

  G frowned. “I did worry, you know, but that’s not the point. And then you went to Bali, and I was so happy for you, my darling, to have that freedom and sunshine you’d longed for. But you only stayed a few months before returning to Florida for me, when I had my heart surgery. And then you ran into Grant. So who knows what you might have otherwise chosen, or where. Now your world is wide open again. And I think
it will suit you.” G nodded. “Yes, I truly think it will suit you.”

  “I don’t know, G.”

  “I do. And this is what it is to follow your heart.”

  Thunder crackled beyond the window. “But that’s just it. My heart might say Leo—it does say Leo—but it said Leo before. And then he broke it.”

  “It’s follow your heart though, Joey. The follow is the important part.”

  “I don’t know what you mean.”

  “It means, you don’t get to know how it turns out. But you have to follow where it leads. You have to trust that wherever and to whomever it takes you, is where you’re supposed to go.”

  “It’s so much more complicated than that, G.”

  Her grandmother’s eyes leaked rivulets through her rouge. “It’s not. We make it more complicated. We say we can’t undo mistakes. We say we have to live up to standards our parents set. We get too scared to try, and our whole life passes that way. You see? Now no more tears, my darling. Now we have an answer. Marriages can be undone. Things can be made right. You haven’t had children and decades with Grant. Leo didn’t just die in a coma. This is some money. This is some embarrassment. This is a heartbroken groom, who anyhow deserves someone who will love him in the top slot.

  “Rise and shine, my sweet girl. You have the rest of your life to live.” Her grandmother cupped Joey’s chin. “And what a life it’s going to be.”

  * * *

  “There’s my wife!” Grant pulled her to him and kissed her. “I was beginning to think you were having second thoughts. You were holed up in the bathroom practically all of cocktail hour.”

  “Grant, we—”

  “Okay, you two, it’s time,” said the event planner, whose superpower was surely that she appeared everywhere.

  As if on cue, Michael Bublé began to croon. The DJ announced, “And now let’s welcome Mr. and Mrs. Grant Newman!”

  The event planner flung open the doors to the ballroom Joey had yet to see. She took a few steps toward the closest table, a B-list table with a host of clapping, smiling people Joey had never seen before. The table had almost an old apothecary vibe. There were pressed botanical artworks in glass frames announcing table numbers, black-painted candlesticks, hunter-green vases with twisted vines. Antique meets the tropics. It was just…beyond.