She Regrets Nothing

by Andrea Dunlop

  “Nora. I’m sorry about that. I just didn’t want you to be mad.”

  At this, Nora laughed mirthlessly. She came to sit on the couch adjacent to where Laila was and yet somehow still a thousand miles from her. “So, naturally, creating a fake boyfriend was the way to go.”

  “I figured that there was no point in telling you unless we got serious.” Laila’s head spun; there must be a way out of this. She was used to being able to outmaneuver her cousin, but she’d mulled it over all day, and a foolproof angle had not presented itself. She could say she knew her cousin would be upset if she’d told her, but that would be admitting she’d knowingly done something to hurt her. She could say she’d just been trying to keep a vulnerable new relationship private, but Nora didn’t believe in privacy—especially not from one another. There was also no satisfying answer as to why Laila’s new love had to be, in a city of thousands of eligible men, one Nora adored. Or at least that’s how she would see it.

  “And? Are you?”

  Laila looked at her for a moment.

  “Serious? Are the two of you serious?”

  And then it came to her. Nora was a romantic; perhaps this was the angle, the path to her cousin’s forgiveness.

  “Oh, Nora, we are. I’ve never felt this way about anyone! I think he could be the one, I really do.”

  To Laila’s horror, Nora’s look became icier still. Normally Nora’s reactions were histrionic; this chilly calm was alarming. “I’m so glad for you. Now you can stop pretending to care about me.”

  “Nora, how can you say that? I love you, you know that!”

  “You know, I really thought,” Nora said, standing now and picking up her bag to take it to her room, moving such that Laila had to follow her to continue to hear what she was saying, “that if we were generous with you, if I just really tried to love you, that you could get over your jealousy of me, of all of us. I thought if we welcomed you with open arms, you would flourish. But the fact that you had to go after the one person you knew I wanted the most, and then lie to me about it straight to my face . . . it’s just beyond, Laila. Leo was right; you’re just in it for yourself.”

  Laila felt her knees go weak beneath her. This was so much worse than she’d even anticipated; the whole thing felt so terribly final. “Leo thinks that?”

  Now her cousin looked back over her shoulder to where Laila stood nearly trembling in the door frame. “Oh, Laila, everyone thinks that.”

  She didn’t tell Laila to move out; she didn’t need to. Laila steered clear of Nora for the remainder of the evening, and once she had left the next morning, she hurriedly packed everything she’d come with. She would have liked to leave every shred of clothing that Nora had ever bought for her, but the sad truth was she’d scarcely have a single thing to wear if she’d done so. The few clothes she’d brought with her from Michigan had long since been discarded.

  She showed up in Blake’s lobby later that day with two huge suitcases. She charmed his doorman, who knew her by then, into letting her up and waited anxiously by the door for Blake to get home. She ran the ideal scenario in her mind over and over to steel her nerves—she pictured him picking her up and swinging her around, carrying her off to the bedroom they would now share, and making love to her in his sweet and comforting way. The reality was somewhat less picture perfect.

  At first he’d been simply surprised to find her there. But then, as he’d taken in the luggage that sat piled at her feet, the confusion had coalesced into outright bewilderment.

  “Laila, when I said you could move in here, I meant we could, you know, discuss that as a next step if things got bad with your cousins. . . .” He trailed off, rubbing the back of his head with his palm and seeming to look anywhere but at her.

  It settled in on Laila how desperate the move had been, and she knew better than anyone that moves born of desperation were always the wrong ones. You had to behave as though your options were infinite even as they dwindled.

  “I don’t know what I was thinking,” she said, her voice quavering, “I’m an idiot. I’ll get a hotel.” And at this, a sob escaped her. She found in that moment that she was wracked by a genuine and horrible fear that she’d be left with no one. She had only a couple hundred dollars to her name after blowing the bulk of her reserves on the beautiful hotel room on Mustique. There was the pendant, which she had worn today, as this felt like the safest thing to do in transit. But she’d have to sell it: the one possession that connected her to her mother.

  “Laila, come here,” Blake said, reaching for her where she stood with all of her worldly belongings at her feet. The smell of him was comforting despite the circumstances.

  “I was taken by surprise,” Blake said, “don’t hold that against me.”

  “I get it; you said it offhand, and I took it seriously. God, you must think I’m crazy.” She pulled back and looked at him, her eyes wide and wet, hoping he saw something worth saving.

  “Laila, it was my idea that you move in here. I simply didn’t realize that you were going to do it quite this fast. I’m happy that you did, but you have to give me a minute here.”

  “I don’t think Nora is ever going to speak to me again,” Laila said. As the words left her mouth, she wondered if they were true. She saw now how easy it would be for her cousins to shut her out as easily as they welcomed her in. Her attempts to secure herself a more permanent place at their table had failed utterly.

  “I’m sure it’s not so dire,” Blake said. “We’ll talk to Liberty. She’ll help. Now, let’s get you settled in.”

  22

  * * *

  MAYBE WE should just stay here all summer,” Liberty said, luxuriating in the pleasant June sun that was streaming onto Cameron’s lush patio.

  “You won’t say that once you see the place in Sag,” Cameron said, handing her one of the mojitos he’d just made, bending over to kiss her before taking his place in the Adirondack chair next to her.

  “God, this is perfect,” she said, taking a sip, “and yes about that.” She turned and beamed at him. “Why all the secrecy? What have you got up your sleeve?”

  “Oh no, not telling. The look on your face when you see it is my part of the gift.”

  She reached out to squeeze his hand. Throughout the months of their relationship, he’d seemed extraordinarily good at giving her exactly the right thing: closeness when she’d needed it, space when she began to feel the vulnerability of that closeness too sharply. He seemed to understand her as a real and complete person in a way that no other man had been able to do. Certainly her lifelong friendship with his sister—with whom he’d become increasingly close since returning from London—was partly responsible for this, but Liberty felt seen in a new and thrilling way. In a practical sense, she found the idea of two people being made for one another ridiculous, but she nonetheless began to feel this sentiment in her bones.

  There were small moments of dissonance, of course—but these were inevitable between any couple, weren’t they? Not that they didn’t occasionally tug at the edges of Liberty’s happiness. When Liberty had first seen Cameron’s town house, she’d been immediately thrilled by the sight of the walls of built-in bookshelves and had gone to examine them close-up while Cameron went to fetch a bottle of wine. The books were an odd mix—classic novels, ancient-looking reference titles, a book labeled Volume Two of the Complete History of Haberdashery—and when he returned, she asked about them.

  “Quite an eclectic library you’ve got here,” she said.

  “Oh, those? My decorator bought them by the yard; they’re just for show.”

  He said it casually, but somehow, their presence felt obscene to Liberty. She didn’t, in general, care overly much about decor, but if she and Cameron were ever to live together, these false idols would have to go. She sometimes found herself lying in his bed at night thinking about them. She kept this to herself, naturally; she knew she was being weird.

  The other moment that had lodged in her mind but tha
t she compelled herself to look away from had happened when they’d been getting ready for bed one evening after eating a particularly rich meal with two other couples at Le Bernadin. While brushing her teeth, Liberty had inadvertently passed gas. She’d laughed about it, but Cameron had seemed mortified for both of them and a little disgusted. But this was just how men were, she told herself; they had to accept you as human a little at a time.

  “You know I don’t mind staying in the city,” she said. “But it’ll be nice to get some fresh air.” Liberty loved the summer months when the city cleared out on weekends—releasing her from the constant feeling that spending her weekends with a book made her boring. Reece often stayed in town now too, meaning Liberty wasn’t alone. Reece had once loved the Hamptons but was growing tired of it. She complained that the party circuit there was somehow more concentrated with douchebags than in Manhattan. “It feels like I run into every last person I don’t want to see when I’m there,” Reece said after being at the family’s estate in South for Memorial Day.

  “You’re going to love it,” Cameron said, “I’ve never been so sure of anything.”

  Blake’s apartment was sharp and modern, immaculate at all times. It was very much a contrast to the twins’ place, which managed to become a mess between regular visits from the housekeeper, who they then complained about, as though she ought to be taking preventative measures as well as cleaning up after them.

  It felt to Laila like she was living in a hotel at first, but soon she began to see it as her home. They spent most weekends in Montauk, and one chilly evening in late June they lay curled up by the fire, drinking an especially nice bottle of wine to celebrate their three-month anniversary.

  “I have something for you,” Blake said, dislodging himself from her side.

  “We said no gifts!” Laila said, delighted that he’d disregarded this.

  He shrugged and smiled enigmatically. He went to the kitchen, and she watched him through a dreamy haze of alcohol and warmth thinking simply: the man of my dreams. He returned and held forth a box that Laila immediately recognized as Cartier red. She had a visceral reaction to being presented with jewelry by Blake that was so intense it screamed in her brain: Yes, yes, a thousand times yes! before she could take the time to register the size and shape of the box, clear indications. And so, horribly, her first feeling upon discovering the iconic golden LOVE bracelet within was disappointment.

  “Do you like it?” Blake asked worriedly, having perhaps caught the flash—however brief it had been—of letdown that had crossed her face when she’d opened the box and not found a ring.

  “Of course! Like it? I love it, pardon the pun!” she said, flinging her arms around him on the couch, the box still clutched in her palm. “It’s the best gift I’ve ever been given!”

  This much was true. Her ex-husband and former boyfriends had all had simpler tastes; this bracelet was easily more expensive than her old engagement ring—which she’d been nonetheless compelled to return, as it was a family heirloom.

  “Good,” he said, “it’s not too much?”

  “No! I’m just overwhelmed. And delighted.”

  It could never be too much from Blake. It could never be enough.

  Cameron had hatched his plan for his perfect summer with Liberty after seeing the well-loved copy of East of Eden, which appeared to have a permanent place on Liberty’s bedside table. The other novels—some of them in manuscript or bound-galley format—rotated at a brisk pace, but the thick paperback tome remained. She had several other copies, including a rare first edition, lined up in a row on her bookshelf. She could never resist, she explained, buying a copy when she saw a different edition than those she already owned.

  He remembered a Harvard friend—a blond kid from Texas—telling him that his aunt had been married to John Steinbeck, and that his home in Sag Harbor remained in their family. Cameron had rented it for the month. It was one of two rather large surprises he had planned for Liberty this weekend. All she knew was that they were going out east. He was admittedly a little nervous, which was terrifically unlike him, and as they neared the exit to Sag Harbor, he caught himself rambling.

  “And where will the twins be this summer? They’re welcome to stay with us, obviously. Though I’ll warn you, it’s a bit close quarters.” Cameron’s was an empty offer; he could barely imagine Liberty’s ridiculous little sister with her piles upon piles of luggage put up in the funny little bunkhouse.

  Liberty smiled. “I’m not sure about Leo. Nora’s new beau has a place in East, maybe? I can’t remember. Did I tell you she’s on the outs with Laila again?” Liberty smiled and rolled her eyes. Thank goodness, she seemed not to get too involved in the little dramas of her younger siblings. To hear her say Laila’s name made his stomach churn. He’d had moments of weakness: all part of the process, he’d told himself, of expelling his last demons as he moved ever closer to his beloved. Never again.

  “Oh goodness, what now?” Cameron said. Whether his great effort to sound casual showed outwardly, he didn’t know.

  “This boy Laila’s seeing. Honestly, I don’t know the details; I try not to indulge Nora too much with this kind of thing. Once she starts making herself the victim, it’s a whole downward spiral. At any rate, Laila might be better off. I don’t think the twins are a very good influence on her.”

  “Why do you say that?”

  Liberty sighed. “Well, I practically offered Laila a job at the agency on a platter, but she didn’t seem very enthused. Maybe she just wants to do something different, but I worry that she’s caught the twins’ allergy to employment.”

  Cameron smiled.

  “I just don’t want her to get lost here—in New York, I mean. She means well,” Liberty said, “but she’s naive.”

  It occurred to Cameron that perhaps he knew Laila better than Liberty did.

  As they turned off Mill Road onto Noyac Bay Avenue, Liberty was mercifully distracted as it began to dawn on her where they were headed.

  “My God,” Liberty said as they pulled up in the drive. “It can’t be.”

  She recognized it immediately, as he hoped she would. The cottage, on a property that jutted out in a cove of Noyac Bay, was a funky little place. Cameron preferred something grander, with a bit more light, something a little closer to town or with a proper beachfront. But this wasn’t about what he wanted—or rather, it was about what he wanted most of all.

  “Look!” Liberty said as they made their way through the kitchen. “Here’s where he marked the heights of all the guests that came through; here’s Charley!” The eponymous dog of memoir fame. The backyard brought yet more delights, with its quirky, kidney-shaped swimming pool and the little writing cottage at the edge of the property.

  “Cameron,” she said, turning to him, “how did you do this?”

  Had she ever been more beautiful than she was in that moment? There was a slight breeze coming off of the quiet little bay, and it lifted her hair off her shoulders, which were covered in a little spray of freckles from the sun. He’d never seen her look less guarded, more open. He saw it then: it could all be enough if he had her.

  “I’d do anything for you,” he said, taking her face in his hands, “that’s all you need to know. Now go get settled in, I have some things to take care of.”

  So it was there on that mildly humid evening, just as the sun was going down, that Cameron dropped to his knee in the tiny writing cottage—which he had decked out with candles—and presented Liberty with an art deco ruby-and-diamond estate ring from Fred Leighton that had been burning a hole in his pocket all afternoon. He could not have orchestrated the moment any better, with the last remnants of a glorious sunset hanging over the water and fireflies flitting through the tall grass at the edge of the lawn.

  Of course she said yes. What more could she ever have wanted?

  23

  * * *

  WHEN LIBERTY arrived at the office on Monday, the ruby caught Laila’s attention before she co
uld say a word. Liberty was normally in the office long before Laila arrived between nine thirty and ten, so her late arrival alone was notable. Laila had waited far too long to make a decision about throwing her hat in for the assistant’s job, and they’d hired a girl from the endless pool of Ivy League graduates who’d streamed through the offices, one after the other, gushing about the agency’s client list. As it did not make sense to keep Laila on forever as an intern, Liberty had given her a job as a reader, paid by the hour. She seemed a little stung that Laila hadn’t wanted the job, but she’d been happy enough to keep her around.

  “Excuse me,” Laila said, stopping her cousin in her tracks as she swanned in with a soft Good morning. “What is this?” she said, grabbing Liberty’s left hand and pulling it in for examination.

  “Cameron proposed,” she said quietly, as though telling a secret; if she hoped to keep this from anyone for long, she was dreaming. It was only a matter of time before the tabloids were all over it.

  “I can see that.” Laila felt the great swell of a thousand conflicting emotions, all of which she bundled and disguised as joy. “Eeeee! I can’t believe it!” She threw her arms around her. “Tell me everything!”

  Liberty shushed her cheerfully, and Laila followed her into her office to hear the story of the weekend, the proposal, the engagement party planning that Cameron’s overjoyed parents already had well under way.

  “I wish they would give us a bit more time to have it just to ourselves, to be honest,” Liberty confessed. But Laila could barely keep her mind on the conversation at hand: she’d still been seeing Cameron occasionally, but he’d become unpredictable. He’d seem to be pulling away and then become doubly insistent that he see her. For her part, she would consider cutting him off—she had even more to lose now—but then in the moment, she’d find herself unable. In the most romantic light, she thought perhaps her and Cameron’s could be a great, clandestine love affair: that they could protect Liberty and Blake from the parts of themselves that those two innocent souls would have preferred never to see without ever involving anyone outside the family, anyone who didn’t love them. But she also knew that there was nothing like love between her and Cameron, though what bound them had its own visceral pull.