The Proposal

by Jasmine Guillory

  At least she’d been able to concentrate on work again. It was a relief to dive headfirst into a story and not let herself think about Carlos, and what he was probably doing right now, and how much she missed him, and why she hadn’t heard a single thing from him in the eight days since he’d slammed his front door. The thing was, as soon as she stopped working, those things were all she could think about.

  She looked down at herself and winced. She was wearing the same leggings she’d been wearing for days and a threadbare tank top. And she desperately needed a shower.

  Twenty minutes later, she left her house, showered; in a mostly clean pair of jeans, a gray T-shirt, and her biggest pair of sunglasses; and with her hair in a topknot. See, she could act like a human being. Sort of.

  She walked the mile to the coffee shop while she listened to the audiobook of her latest true crime book. She wished she could tell Carlos to get it for Jessie.

  She still wasn’t sure if she’d done the right thing when she’d sent Jessie cupcakes. But she’d been a few hospital rooms away when Jessie had had her baby. She’d cried along with Carlos’s whole family when Eva was born, and she’d seen the tiny baby just hours later. It still hurt, more than she wanted to acknowledge, that Carlos had said it was a waste for her to meet his family, after everything they’d shared that night. But it felt wrong to pretend none of that had happened, that she didn’t care, just because she and Carlos were over. So she’d sent the cupcakes, the ones that Carlos had told her that Jessie and her husband had particularly liked. None of the spicy chocolate ones.

  She thought about sitting down to drink her large iced coffee at the coffee shop, but she hadn’t brought a book or her laptop, and she didn’t feel like staring at the tiny bright screen of her phone. She wandered down the street and half-heartedly glanced into boutiques, but she wasn’t really in the mood for shopping. After a few blocks, she turned around and walked home.

  She was still in the world of the murderous cult as she approached her building. It wasn’t until she was halfway up the steps that she saw someone standing by the front door.

  Fisher. Fisher was standing by the front door.

  “What the fuck are you doing here?” she said to him. She backed away to stand on the sidewalk. She didn’t want to talk to him in the shadows of her building. He followed her.

  “Hi, Nik.” He put his hand on her waist. She immediately stepped away. “I’ve missed you.”

  Was he fucking kidding her?

  “I haven’t missed you. What are you doing here?”

  He tossed his hair back and smiled.

  “I should have expected that from you. You’re always making little jokes, aren’t you? I hoped I’d get a warmer greeting, though, after everything we were to each other.”

  “You hoped you’d get a warmer greeting?” She had actually dated this guy. For months, even. What in God’s name had she been thinking? “After those texts you sent me? You can go straight to hell.”

  He smiled his gleaming white smile at her and tried to put his arm around her. She stepped away again, but he followed.

  “Look, I know we both got a little heated after the Dodgers game, and I’m sorry if I said anything to upset you, but—”

  “If? Was that supposed to be an apology?”

  The smile was still plastered on his face. How had she ever found him attractive?

  “Look, can we go somewhere a little more private and talk?” He looked around at the people driving and walking by them and grimaced. “Upstairs, maybe?”

  She tossed the rest of her iced coffee into the trash can at the curb.

  “No. Say what you have to say to me here. You seem to like having important conversations in public. Why stop now?”

  He sighed.

  “Just keep your voice down, okay? I got a lot of bad publicity last time. I don’t want to have to deal with that again.”

  Well, now she’d have to turn up the volume.

  “Bad publicity last time . . . I can’t even believe you. Spit it out, Fisher. What are you doing here? I thought you got the message that I didn’t want to see or talk to you anymore.”

  Finally his smile dropped away, and he moved closer to her. She backed away again.

  “Look, Nik. Haven’t you realized by now what a mistake you made? We had a good thing going. Mutually beneficial, isn’t that what they call it? Good for you for many reasons, and quite frankly, it was good for me to be seen with you. People had this impression of me that I was shallow and only good for the dumb-guy parts, and no one would even send me the good scripts.”

  For good reason. The dude had a great body but couldn’t act his way out of a paper bag.

  “But more than once,” he continued, “directors would talk to you at parties, and then they would see me with you and they would be a lot nicer to me. And my agent told me people said they thought there must be more to me if I was dating someone smart and interesting and urban like you.”

  Urban. She wondered if Fisher’s agent had really said that or if that was Fisher’s translation from “black.” At least now she knew where the out-of-the-blue proposal had come from.

  “So you proposed to me, in public, without talking to me about it first, because you thought it would help you get ahead in your career?”

  He nodded eagerly.

  “It would have! I still don’t understand why you said no. It would have been great for you, too.” He waved his arm up and down her body. “I mean, look at you. People who look like you don’t usually get to go to the places I would take you. You had so many more opportunities, dating a person like me.” He smacked her butt.

  Without even thinking about it, she took a step back, shifted her weight onto her back heel, pulled her fist back, and punched Fisher right in the face.

  “Oh wow. It really does hurt your hand,” she said as Fisher writhed on the ground at her feet.

  A woman walking with a baby stroller stopped next to them.

  “That was amazing!” she said. “How did you learn to punch like that?”

  Nik shook out her fingers. The pain was worth it. She grinned at the woman.

  “Natalie’s Gym, over on Larchmont. It’s fantastic; you should take one of her classes!”

  The woman rocked the stroller back and forth with her foot while she took out her phone and made a note.

  “Natalie’s Gym. Thank you! Great job.” She started to walk away with the baby, and then turned back and looked down at Fisher, who was still on the ground. “I bet you’ve had that coming to you for years!” She waved good-bye to Nik as she walked off.

  Nik looked down at Fisher.

  “Stop moaning. You’re fine; you’re not even bleeding.”

  He struggled to his feet and glared at her.

  “My face is my most precious commodity, next to my body. I can’t believe this.” He turned his back on her and walked to his car. “I should call the police on you.”

  “What, and tell them you got punched by a girl?”

  Nik laughed all the way up to her apartment. She kept replaying the scene in her mind where she’d punched Fisher, and it made her happier every time.

  She unlocked her front door and dug around in her freezer until she found a bag of frozen vegetables for her knuckles. Just think, less than two months ago she’d been so freaked out by Fisher’s texts that she’d had to have Carlos search her apartment, and now, she’d knocked him to the ground all by herself. Carlos would love this story so much.

  Shit. She couldn’t tell Carlos.

  She sank down on the couch and put her head in her hands.

  She had plenty of people to tell who would be excited for her. Courtney and Dana would crack up. Natalie would be thrilled. So why did it hurt so much that she couldn’t tell Carlos?

  Because Carlos would have been so proud. He was the only one wh
o knew how far she’d come. He’d seen her that night; he’d been worried about her; he’d cheered her decision to go to Natalie’s class. Courtney and Dana had guessed, and Natalie had helped, but Carlos knew. He’d been so ready to protect her, but she’d protected herself.

  He would have loved that. He would have been so happy for her and impressed that she’d stood up for herself. That’s what was so great about Carlos, damn it. Why did he have to go and ruin everything?

  Courtney and Dana had said that she needed to learn how to be vulnerable, but she’d been vulnerable with Carlos in a way she hadn’t been with any guy in years. She’d let him know how scared she was that first night they’d gone out, when she’d let him search her apartment. She’d told him what Justin had said about her writing and how it still made her insecure sometimes. She’d cried with him when the baby was born. Maybe none of those things would be a big deal for someone else, but they were for her.

  Ugh, why was she back to thinking about Carlos? She went to the kitchen to pour herself a drink. She deserved one for her triumph.

  Maybe not rosé—she wasn’t going to let Carlos’s jokes about it ruin her favorite wine forever, but why push herself right now? She made a gin and tonic and brought it back over to the couch.

  “Cheers!” She lifted the glass with her unbruised hand. It had been so great to watch Fisher fall to the ground. She took a sip of her drink, thought of the bruise that was probably already marring his perfect face, and smiled. God bless that woman in the stroller.

  She took out her phone to text her girlfriends.

  Fisher was waiting in front of my building when I got home today, and long story short, I punched him in the face.

  Mere seconds later, Dana texted back.

  !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

  And then like twenty of the fist-in-the-air and fireworks emojis.

  Courtney screeched in.

  WHAT

  OMG

  TELL US EVERYTHING

  Nik grinned and relaxed into her couch cushions. Who needed Carlos when you had girlfriends?

  She texted them the whole story—one-handed—and then, halfway through her gin and tonic, she fell asleep on the couch. She woke up two hours later from a dream about Carlos high-fiving her. When she realized it was just a dream, she started to cry.

  Should she text him and tell him what happened? God knows she wanted to. But he was probably still pretty mad at her.

  And if he wasn’t? Texting him wasn’t fair to him. He deserved more than she could give him—than she knew how to give him.

  Instead, she texted a picture of her raw knuckles to her friends. Their responses made her smile through her tears.

  Chapter Twenty-two

  . . . . . . .

  Carlos sat at his desk and stared at his phone. His meeting had been canceled at the last minute. That unfortunately gave him time to make that phone call he’d been avoiding all week.

  All week? He’d avoided making that call for the past five years.

  He picked up the phone.

  “Yes, hi. I’d like to schedule an appointment with Dr. Guerriero? Just a physical. Yes, Carlos Ibarra.” He swallowed hard, as the person on the other end took his insurance information. “I totally understand if you can’t get me in for a while—oh, you have a cancellation tomorrow? I don’t know if . . .” He took a deep breath. “What time tomorrow?”

  He hung up the phone and stared out the window. Tomorrow. Damn it.

  No, tomorrow was too soon. He should call back to reschedule. He picked up the phone.

  “Dr. Ibarra?” One of the nurses poked her head into his office, and he put the phone down again. “There’s someone at the front desk to see you. She says she’s your cousin?”

  He stood up. If Jessie had left the NICU to come over to his office to see him, it was either really good or really bad news.

  “I’ll be right there.”

  He almost ran down the hall.

  “Jessie?” He poked his head into the waiting room. The huge smile on her face answered his question. She ran over to him, and he threw open the door so she could follow him back to his office. But the door was barely shut before she threw her arms around him.

  “We get to take her home today! Yesterday they said maybe, but I was too scared to tell anyone. Last night I couldn’t sleep, partly because of the fireworks going on all night, but mostly because I was just praying that I would have my baby at home with me by tonight. And my prayers were answered. Just a few hours for them to do all of the paperwork and to give us all of her instructions. Oh, Carlos! I get to take my baby home!”

  He hugged her tight and pulled her down the hall to his office. Once the door was closed, he hugged her again.

  “I didn’t think she’d be able to go home this early. You’ve got a fighter on your hands. When they told me you were here to see me, I . . .” He wiped his eyes. “Anyway, this is wonderful. I’m so happy for you and for Eva, who won the mom lottery.” He took a step back and handed her the tissue box on his desk. “Where’s Jon? Do you need help getting Eva home?”

  Jessie took a handful of tissues and shook her head.

  “He’s upstairs with Eva. I’ve barely stopped crying since the doctors told us she could go home today.”

  Carlos gently pushed her down in one of the chairs in front of his desk and sat next to her.

  “And you, you’re okay?” He shook his head. “No, you don’t have to tell me. I’m your cousin, not your doctor.”

  She leaned over to hug him.

  “Just for that, I’ll tell you that my blood pressure is almost normal. And I can even fit into some of my pre-pregnancy shoes now. Not clothes, let’s not be ambitious, but I was getting very nervous I’d never be able to wear those Tory Burch flats again, so that was a tiny relief.”

  His office phone rang and he ignored it.

  “I don’t know who Tory is, but if that’s a relief to you, it is to me, too. Do you need anything? Food, diapers, a crib, bottles, anything?”

  She laughed, even though tears were still trickling down her face.

  “Don’t forget, you already brought me those enchiladas. We’ve already defrosted one pan and have been eating them all week. And I think my mom has spent all day every day since Eva was born cooking for her little namesake; my freezer is going to be filled to bursting soon. I don’t even know what else we need. I’m mad at myself for not letting my friends push the date of my shower up. I thought it was tempting fate, if you can believe that. Thank God someone already bought us the bassinet so she has somewhere to sleep.”

  He made a mental note to buy whatever was the most expensive thing on the registry. Okay, okay, maybe Angela was right; he could pull back a little. The second most expensive thing.

  She stood up.

  “I should go. I probably have to sign a bunch of stuff, and I can’t wait to get our little girl out of this hospital, even though I’m sort of terrified to pull her away from the people taking care of her.”

  Carlos put his hand on her shoulder.

  “You and Jon, you are the people taking care of her. And you’ll do a wonderful job, I promise.”

  She punched his arm.

  “Damn you, Carlos. I just stopped crying, and now you’ve got to get me started again?”

  She leaned in for a hug, and he kissed her on the forehead.

  “I’m so happy for you, Jessie. And I can’t wait to spoil little Eva rotten.”

  She opened his office door.

  “I can’t wait for that, either. Oh, and you thanked your friend Nik for me for the cupcakes, right? Tell her I said that was so thoughtful. I want to send her a thank-you card, but this week has just been . . .”

  He had not thanked Nik on Jessie’s behalf, no.

  “Don’t worry about it. You’ve been kind of preoccupied this week; she understa
nds.” He was sure Nik did understand, so that wasn’t exactly a lie. “Go back upstairs to your baby. Call me if you have any questions at all, okay?”

  Right, right, she was his cousin, not his patient. This shit was hard.

  “Actually, you should probably call the NICU and not me, they know this stuff better than I do. But let me know if you need anything at all, okay?”

  She nodded.

  “I will. Have I ever told you how glad I am that you’re my cousin?”

  He grinned.

  “I’m not sure, refresh my memory about why? You had at least ten or fifteen reasons, correct? Can you list them for me?”

  She walked into the hallway.

  “Never, you’re cocky enough as it is.”

  She disappeared toward the elevators with another wave over her shoulder, and he went laughing back to his desk.

  Maybe he should text Nik to thank her for the cupcakes. He couldn’t keep pretending to Jessie that he’d done that without actually doing it, right?

  And wouldn’t Nik want to know that Eva was okay and was getting to go home from the hospital? She’d been there the night Eva was born; she’d cried along with everyone else. Shouldn’t he let her know?

  He laughed at himself. That was a pretext, and he knew it. He didn’t need to thank Nik; he needed to apologize to Nik. He hated what he’d said to her that awful morning, he hated the memory of the hurt look on her face when he’d walked out of his house, and he hated that she’d remember him like that. Even if she didn’t love him back, he didn’t want her to hate him.

  An email was probably the way to do this, not a text. A text felt too immediate. Like he’d be expecting a response.

  He scrolled back through his work emails until he found her email address.