65
Darlene didn’t mean to end up in Charles’s Brooklyn neighborhood. But when choosing somewhere to get a manicure for Imogene and Mina’s wedding, she did go slightly out of her way to visit the place in Cobble Hill where she was a regular when she and Charles were dating. A rainstorm passed while her cuticles were being cut. When she stepped outside, a rainbow arched, and the damp air felt hopeful. She wiped off a bench and returned a call to her father. They dove into a meaty conversation about two good articles they’d both read recently (a profile on Elon Musk; the history of the Black press). But when he asked how music was going, instead of listing off some recent wins as per usual, she found herself a bit tongue-tied. Her father asked if something had happened with Zach.
“No, no,” she replied automatically. Then she paused. She did want to get closer to her dad. And that meant being honest. Opening up. “Actually, yes. We… crossed a line.”
Silence. Darlene winced, waiting for his reply.
“Okay,” he said slowly. “If you’re saying what I think you’re saying…”
“I guess I am.”
More silence. “Well, I support you no matter what, but I would prefer it if you dated someone… more like me.”
Darlene sat bolt upright. She knew he didn’t mean an academic. “Oh. Well, we’re not actually dating.” Which sounded like they were just hooking up. “We’re not anything. Don’t worry, Dad. I gotta go. Talk to you soon.” She hung up, certain she’d played that all wrong, feeling disappointed, annoyed, and guilty over her father’s response.
To calm herself down, Darlene treated herself to a large decaf iced coffee, and the arts section of the paper. Then she popped into Books Are Magic, the independent bookstore on Smith Street. Browsing the airy, prettily arranged store relaxed her further. Charles had recommended some new titles in his Q and A. She’d just found one, Capitalism vs. Marxism, and was skimming the back cover, when her phone vibrated.
Zach.
So strange the way her feelings had roller-coastered over this boy. A year ago she’d be wary, ready for him to offer an excuse or let her down. Three months ago, his name would elicit the same panicked thrill as a bungee jump. Right now, it was a mix of both. She didn’t know if she could trust his affections, or hers, or if their fake relationship was in any way real. If they were truly compatible, if a relationship would survive their respective families, if she even wanted that. But she couldn’t deny the way her heart picked up when hearing his name and picturing his face. He wasn’t perfect. But he was hers. According to the contract, she reminded herself briskly.
“Hi, Zach.”
“Hey! Hi.” He sounded flustered. “Wasn’t sure if you were going to pick up.”
She pictured him running a hand through his hair, dressed in a soft white button-down in need of an iron. It’d been days since she’d heard his voice. The accent was still cute. “What’s up?”
“Look, I’m sorry about the dinner with Charles.”
“You don’t need to be sorry. I thought Charles was being a little unkind.”
“Yeah, he’s a poncey prick,” Zach muttered. “But I’m sorry if I did anything to make you not reply to any of my texts…?”
“Your texts weren’t about work. They were Monty Python GIFs.” Which truthfully had made her laugh. “Just trying to keep it professional.”
“Right. Professional.”
She couldn’t tell if he thought this was funny or infuriating.
“Can I take you out for dinner?”
“Well, I’ll see you Friday,” she replied, a bit surprised by the request. “You’re still driving us to the Hamptons for your sister’s rehearsal dinner, right?”
“Yes, but could we have dinner first? Tonight? Me in a suit jacket, you in a dress. There’s something I want to talk to—tell you—about.”
He sounded nervous. No, excited. He wasn’t going to say something was he? As in, about them? Darlene’s chest fluttered hard. She meandered toward the back of the bookstore. “We can have dinner.”
“Brilliant. Excellent, fantastic, great. Do you want to meet at—”
“Charles!”
“Charles’s… event? God no, that would be dystopic for me.”
“No, Charles is here.” Right in front of her, in the bookstore. The humidity turned his ginger curls to ginger frizz. “I’ll call you later.” Darlene dropped her phone in her bag. Now she was the one who was flustered. “Hi!”
“Hello, Darlene. Looking gorgeous, as always.”
“Gosh, I feel like I’m talking to a celebrity.” Darlene touched her cheek, unexpectedly nervous. Charles always made her—possibly everyone—feel slightly on edge.
“Well, I did just get invited on The Daily Show,” Charles simpered. “What are you doing here?”
“Looking up some of the titles you recommended. You?”
“Signing books.” Charles indicated the copies on the front table, before turning back with a complex expression. “You have to put me out of my misery. Please tell me something isn’t going on with you and Zach.”
Thank God Charles unfollowed her when they broke up, and he definitely didn’t follow Zach. He likely hadn’t seen all the pictures Zach had tagged her in. “It’s complicated,” was the simplest, truest answer she could conjure.
Her ex-boyfriend grimaced. “It’s just so frustrating.”
“What is?”
“Zach Livingstone is a human blow-up doll!” Charles spluttered. “Look, I get it: pleasures of the flesh, et cetera—but if one day I get an invite to your wedding, it’s pistols at dawn. I mean it!”
Even broken up, Darlene had a powerful urge to impress Charles. It reminded her of typical conversations with her father, the satisfaction of a flowing, erudite conversation with someone she found authoritative. Ultimately, it was why she and Charles didn’t work as a couple, but still, the old instinct flared. She racked her brain for the cleverest way to return his shot. “Don’t worry: I’m completely clear-eyed about Zach Livingstone. Thou hast no more brain than I have in mine elbows.”
Charles rewarded her effort with an extremely rare giggle. “Shakespeare truly was the master of insults.”
Darlene flushed hard with his approval. It made her feel light-headed and reckless. “I’d sooner marry a donkey than date Zach Livingstone!” She regretted the cruel boast as soon as it leaped from her lips. It was mean, but more so, it was in no way true.
Charles snorted laughter. He caught the eye of the person at the front counter and pulled himself together. “Must be off.”
She gave him a quick hug. “Thank you, Charles. For always seeing the best in me.”
He gave her a pleased grin, and headed off, calling back over his shoulder. “Remember: pistols at dawn.”
Darlene forced a laugh and tapped her elbow. But when Charles looked away, her smile dropped. That hadn’t felt as satisfying as she hoped it would.
Did Charles see the best in her? He rarely complimented her. And when he did, it was usually about her looks, never about her intelligence. She’d always cast Charles as her teacher, and she, the willing student. She could see now she’d put him on too high a pedestal.
She thought about the Cindy Sherman exhibition she and Zach went to a few weeks ago. There’d been a long line, which would usually irritate or simply bore Darlene. Zach didn’t mind at all, striking up a spirited conversation with the couple in front of them, middle-aged tourists from Germany. Charles never talked to strangers, a.k.a. “the great unwashed.” Zach connected with them effortlessly: he liked strangers. Sure, Zach had never heard of Cindy Sherman, someone Charles could offer a top-of-mind bio on in his sleep. But Zach made the wait, and the whole day, fun.
And she got to teach him about Cindy Sherman.
She got to teach Zach about a lot of things. And his willingness to learn relaxed her in a way learning from Charles never did. Being with Zach made her feel… happy. Being with Charles made her feel anxious and needy. She rarely felt anxio
us around Zach; at least, not before they’d started making out. As much as Charles taught her, she never felt like they were equals.
I feel like an equal with Zach.
Sun streamed through the bookstore’s skylight, warming her skin. And suddenly, it all became clear.
They were falling in love.
No.
She was already in love.
That was it: so plain and simple it was a mystery how it ever hadn’t been so.
She loved Zach Livingstone. And he loved her. Of course he did.
The realization bloomed electric inside her, filling her limbs until she was high and floating and giddy and silly. She loved Zach. They loved each other. Since their first kiss he’d never given her a real reason to suspect he couldn’t be trusted: that was all in her head. Darlene was struck with a desperate desire to run after Charles and redo the last minute of their conversation—but it didn’t matter. Charles was her ex, and what he thought of her and Zach was of no consequence at all.
His summer-blue eyes. His flop of hair and crooked grin. It was all hers.
Mina and Imogene’s wedding was this weekend. What a perfect place to declare their feelings, and finally consummate a love story that’d been building for two long years.
I love you, Zach. It’s you. It’s only, always, you.
Feeling queenly, Darlene put on her sunglasses and stepped out onto Smith Street.
* * *
And it was only now, four miles away on the island of Manhattan, that Zach Livingstone did what Darlene had failed to do when she bumped into Charles.
He hung up the phone.
For a long moment, he sat on the end of his bed, staring at the carpet.
Speechless.
Unable to breathe.
I’d sooner marry a donkey than date Zach Livingstone.
A freight train slammed into him, throwing him a hundred feet, crushing every bone in his body. He ended up on his bedroom floor in a broken heap, choking in gulps of air. Now I know, he thought, head cradled in his hands. Now I know what heartbreak feels like.
66
Liv and Sam were in firm agreement not to tell their children they were dating. All the holier-than-thou parenting blogs shrieked that whatever time frame one had in mind was far, far too soon, and a too-early introduction would permanently and egregiously damage the child in question. Before becoming a mother, Liv found the idea of caring what other moms thought of her parenting style downright absurd. Let alone moms on the internet she’d never even met. She still felt that way, but also, secretly, she wanted the judgy internet moms’ approval. She didn’t want to screw up the introduction, or Ben. Part of her worried she’d already screwed him up, what with his father dying, her imperfect parenting, and her own expectations. Ben’s birth was hard-won, and at first, she was looking forward to a son who was as funny and charismatic as his father. But Ben was serious and sensitive. It took effort to release those expectations and get to know the independent little human who might not roll with the punches of meeting Mom’s new boyfriend.
And so, she and Sam were a secret, skillfully skirting their children’s lives like a well-trained concierge. This was for the kids’ benefit… but it was also kind of fun. The sneaking around and stolen glances gave the relationship extra heat. And, somewhat disturbingly, was an insight into her own husband’s liaison with her business partner. In the meat-and-potatoes world of adult tedium, affairs were sweet and sticky dulce de leche.
Benny had met Sam, and so the occasional run-in was permitted: Sam was a coworker, just like Savannah. The two liked to throw a baseball under the willow tree or make dinner together. Taco pizzas or sloppy joes were Liv’s son’s favorite meals to cook with the gentle, patient chef. After a while, Ben started bringing him up in conversation: Sam said bananas float in water. Sam thinks the Mets have a real chance this year. Sam was one of twenty invited to a Friday night Shabbat, and not just because he offered to make beef brisket.
But Liv had never met Sam’s daughter, Dottie. Sam talked about her but hadn’t offered to show pictures. Sam’s ex-wife had a firm no kids on social media policy, and so his five-year-old was absent from the ghost town that was his never-updated Facebook page. Liv assumed that sharing this part of his life with her—arguably, the biggest and most sensitive part—was something he wasn’t ready for, or felt she wasn’t ready for. So she was more than aware of the significance when, one afternoon, Sam leaned back into the old sofa they’d first made love on and said, “Would you like to see some pictures?”
Liv’s heart leaped straight up in the air. “I’d love to.”
And only now, as Sam started fiddling with his phone, did the reality of a future together suddenly come into full view. A blended family. The four of them, under one roof. Would they live here in the brownstone? Sam in the bedroom she’d shared with Eliot, Dottie in the guest room, guests on the sofa? Would Sam be okay with raising Ben Jewish, would they have to start doing Christmas, what would Ben think of that? It was far, far too soon to think about any of this, and the too-early introduction of all the questions gave Liv a faint headache. Oh shit, she thought, lightheaded, as she accepted the phone Sam handed her. Am I about to meet my… stepdaughter?
A rush of hot-cold swept her body. She closed her eyes and inhaled a grounding breath. Then she focused on the picture on Sam’s phone, both panicked and excited by what it would present.
Liv had never found other people’s children as awe-inspiring as her own. Before becoming a parent, babies appeared to be squirmy, starry-eyed drool machines. Ben, on the other hand, well, Ben was a delicious and perfect baby, king of the babies, the best baby in the world!… But this sudden change of mind did not extend to every baby. Her child was magnificent. Other children were fine.
And then Liv Goldenhorn set eyes on Dottie Woods.
A new part of her heart, hitherto undiscovered, unlocked.
In the picture, a blond-pigtailed girl was mugging at the camera. She was wearing a yellow slicker, mid-stomp in a puddle. Her chubby face was streaked with mud. She was supremely, ecstatically happy.
Dottie Woods was perfect.
She also had Down syndrome.
“We found out when Claudia was pregnant. We could have…” Sam drifted off. “We didn’t.”
All at once, Liv wanted to know every single thing about her—did she have a favorite movie, who were her friends, what was her nighttime routine? Was she shy or gregarious? Cautious or a whole ball of trouble?
What did it mean to have a child with special needs?
Sam’s voice became wobbly in the near distance, telling her what an awesome kid Dottie was and that Down syndrome didn’t define who she was. “Her smile lights up the room. She’s just a typical little girl.”
A long-dormant desire awoke fast and hard, like someone breaking the surface and gasping for air.
I always wanted a daughter.
Liv started to cry. It took her completely by surprise. Sam was just as alarmed. “What? What’s wrong?”
Liv couldn’t answer. She put her head in her hands and wept.
Sam made a worried noise and shifted closer, willing to wait for an explanation. She pressed her face into his flannel shirt. The smell of his fabric softener—that clean, sweet, domestic smell—calmed her. The reasons for her emotion started to bubble up.
Because she had not had a daughter of her own.
Because her marriage had failed and Eliot was gone.
Because she loved her son so completely.
Because she was falling in love with the man next to her.
Because she was going to fall in love with this little girl and everything would change and nothing would ever be the same. And that was going to be hard, so hard, so mind-blowingly hard.
But it could also be good. It could also be so good.
“Liv,” Sam tried again. “What’s wrong?”
She looked deep into his caramel-brown eyes, pressing her hand against his cheek. The truth was t
he impossible made real. “I’m just… so… happy.”
67
Zia wrestled with discussing the money Layla needed with Clay. While it might be possible to ask one day, it was impossible now.
The Jungle of Us’s biggest financier had dropped out. There were problems with shooting permits in Brazil. The writer was lagging on the latest draft, the studio was getting cold feet about an important gay sex scene: the list went on. As one of the executive producers, Clay was doing everything he could to help put out the fires. And on top of all that, the conversation Zia and Darlene shared in their yoga studio had been placed as a blind item. Which sexy movie star is keeping a yoga-toned girlfriend secret from his many fans? Our spies say this dark-haired beauty is begging her jungle man to commit!
Zia read the gossip blog three times before the words sunk in. “But that was a private conversation!”
Clay swept his hands through his hair. He’d been in fourteen-hour rehearsals and punishing training sessions for weeks. “Doesn’t matter.”
A vague memory of two girls in matching leopard-print Lululemon came into focus. They’d spied on her? “I was talking with Darlene. I was being careful.”
“Not careful enough. I just—” Clay released a frustrated breath. “Look, it’s not a big deal…”
Zia dropped the phone on Clay’s kitchen countertop. Shame twisted her stomach. “Then why are you upset?”
“Because you need to be more discreet, Zia! Privacy protects us both.”
“I was being discreet.”
“No, you weren’t.”
“I need to be able to talk to my friends about my boyfriend!” Zia raised her voice without meaning to. “That’s normal, that’s what normal people do.”
“I guess we’re not normal, then.”
“Well, it’s starting to feel really, really wrong.”
The silence that filled the penthouse had the weight of concrete. Zia’s heart pounded beneath a too-tight new bra. This was supposed to be a relaxed and sexy night.
It Had to Be You Page 29