(Almost) Happily Ever After

by Annabelle Costa

  I start to get out of the car, but Will grabs my arm. “Hang on,” he says.

  I frown in confusion. It’s taken us five minutes to get into this spot, and now we’re going to keep waiting in the car? I’m hungry, dammit. I want my shrimp shumai. “What’s going on?”

  Will nods at the crowd that had been watching him, which is quickly dissipating. “Just wait till they’re all gone.”

  I grin at him. “Don’t you want to meet your fans?”

  He shrugs and gestures at his chair in the back seat. “They already got to see one show. They don’t need to see the other one.”

  “What are you talking about?” I say. “They won’t care that you’re in a wheelchair.”

  “I just…” He sighs. “I hate the moment when somebody realizes I’m disabled. It’s always awkward.”

  I’d never heard him say anything like that before. “How often does that even happen?”

  “Constantly,” he says. “Like if there’s some client I’ve talked to on the phone only, and then they finally meet me, I can always see how surprised they are. And not in a good way.” He shifts in his seat. “It’s even worse with women. You know, romantically.”

  “You’ve already got a woman,” I point out.

  He smiles crookedly. “True. Thank God. It was worse though. I’ve been set up with so many women who weren’t appropriately warned.”

  My cheeks burn slightly. I know that I was guilty of not properly warning his date prior to a set up (back before we were together, obviously). And he wasn’t thrilled about it, although he seemed to take it in stride.

  “The worst was when I was in law school though,” he recalls. “It was when I was working in the Columbia undergrad library during my first year so that I would have money to, you know, eat.”

  “Yeah, you told me about that,” I say. It’s hard to believe now that Will is so loaded and successful that he came from a relatively humble background. His parents are both elementary school teachers and he said that his accident kind of decimated their savings. He and his brother both had to go to college on scholarship.

  “Anyway, I worked behind the front desk and there was this really cute undergrad girl named Olivia who used to do the flirty thing with me every time I’d see her,” he says.

  “The flirty thing?”

  He rolls his eyes. “You know what I’m talking about. The flirty thing you girls always do.”

  “I have no idea what you’re talking about,” I say, even though I kind of do.

  “Anyway.” He shifts again. “We were talking for weeks, practically every day, but I was always behind this big desk. Still, I thought most likely she knew that I… but I wasn’t sure. I was hoping she knew.”

  I bite my lip. “I’m guessing she didn’t know?”

  He shakes his head. “She came in one day around closing time and caught me in one of the aisles, shelving some books. Christ, the look on her face…” He sighs. “That was definitely the end of the flirty thing. And the start of the awkward, no eye contact thing.”

  I poke him in the arm, trying to get a smile out of him. “I thought you dated some crazy classmate when you were a law student?”

  “Will you stop poking me?” Will smiles obligingly. “Yeah, that was later. Stephanie. She was a real nut job. She dumped me for signing at Saperstein and Hitchcock. Told me I was selling my soul to the devil.”

  “She didn’t really say that to you, did she?” I giggle.

  “Verbatim.” He shudders slightly. “Christ, I’m lucky to have you, Libby. You don’t know what else is out there.”

  I don’t know what he’s complaining about. The men I dated before Will were all complete nightmares—probably much worse than his former girlfriends. The last boyfriend I had before him blew me off on my birthday to cheat on me. I’ll bet Stephanie wouldn’t have done something like that.

  Now that the coast is clear, we get out of the car and make our way to the dim sum restaurant. Chinatown is one of my absolute favorite places in the city. I love that every other store is filled with cheap purses, fans, or jewelry. And all the other stores have food that is literally in your face. The stink of raw cuts of fish hits my nostrils, although the truth is that I kind of love that smell. Will pauses in front of a barrel that is crawling with live crabs.

  “Maybe we should buy some crabs?” he suggests. “I’ve always wanted to cook crabs.”

  “I have to tell you,” I say, “if you want to be the first guy to give me crabs, you’re a little late.”

  Will looks up at me, his eyes widening.

  “I’m kidding,” I say. (I’m not kidding. But don’t worry—I’m cured.)

  The other great thing about Chinatown is the tiny turtles. If you’ve ever been to Chinatown, you know what I mean—at every store, there are these little pools of tiny baby turtles swimming around. They’re so freaking adorable. I really want to buy one and take it home, although I suspect that once it grows up into an adult turtle, it wouldn’t be nearly as cute.

  “You know those things are teeming with disease, right?” Will says as he watches me ogle some tiny turtles. “I’m pretty sure they’re also illegal to sell.”

  “I’m just looking,” I say.

  “Yeah, right,” Will says. “I know you. One day I’m going to find like ten baby turtles crawling around our bedsheets.”

  “No, you won’t,” I say. I crouch down to get a better look at the adorable little green blobs crawling around their tank. “What do you think turtles eat?”

  An elderly Chinese woman who is as tiny and cute as the turtles comes out of the store and hovers over me. “Only two dollar each,” she tells me, waggling her sparse eyebrows.

  Two dollars! What a bargain!

  “She’s not buying any,” Will says firmly.

  The woman looks up at Will, as if noticing him for the first time. She stares at him for a good several seconds, her eyes lingering far too long on his still legs. Finally, she points at him. “You. Do not move. Be right back.”

  Will and I exchange looks. “Does she think you stole something?” I ask.

  “I know what this is about,” he says quietly. “We should go. Now.”

  What’s going on? Does he know this woman? Did he do legal work for her?

  Will’s got his hands on his wheels and he’s ready to take off, but the woman sprints out of her store before we can get going. She’s holding a brown bottle, which she shoves in his face.

  “You take this,” she says. “Twice a day. You walk again in one month.”

  I can see him trying not to roll his eyes. “No, thank you,” he says as politely as he can muster.

  “This is cure,” she insists. “Old Beijing medicine. Cured thousands of men. You take twice a day and you walk again. No need chair with wheels.”

  I have a feeling this is exactly what Will saw coming, based on the expression on his face. He shakes his head. “I’m fine. Really.”

  The woman studies him for a minute and maybe figures out it’s a lost cause, so she turns to me. She holds the bottle out to me. “You buy medicine,” she insists. “Convince your husband to take twice a day. He walk again. Be big and strong like other men. Only ten dollar.” She glances down at the turtle pool. “I throw in free turtle.”

  “No.” Will looks horrified now. “Come on, Libby.”

  Honestly, if Will weren’t right next to me, pulling on my arm, I probably would have bought the medicine. I mean, some of that Chinese medicine works in ways people don’t understand. Like acupuncture—how do you explain that? But it works. People have had actual surgeries with acupuncture being their only anesthesia. Maybe there’s something in that bottle that could really help him.

  “It’s total bullshit,” Will says when we’re half a block away, navigating through the substantial midday Chinatown crowds. If I were using a wheelchair to get through this traffic, I’d be hitting everyone in sight, but he’s so good at maneuvering after twenty years, it’s second nature to him.
When he gets to a curb, he does an easy wheelie over it without breaking stride, like he’s not even thinking about it. “You get that, right?”

  “Yeah, I know.” I hesitate. “But really, I mean, isn’t there a small chance that it might work?”

  “There’s zero chance,” he says. “Okay? There’s a better chance of me winning a twenty million dollar Powerball jackpot than some stupid potion getting me to walk.”

  “You don’t play the lottery,” I point out.

  “Exactly.”

  He doesn’t say anything more about it and I figure there’s no convincing him. He’s probably right anyway. In retrospect, it’s silly to think that a little bottle of medicine can heal a twenty-year-old injury. That old lady was totally playing us.

  We get to the dim sum restaurant a few minutes later, which is, of course, totally packed. Although he was okay on the street, the chair is a bit of a liability in here, and he has to mumble “excuse me” to several people on our journey to the host’s table to leave our name. Except as soon as Will wheels up to the host, the dapper man’s face breaks out in a grin, “Will Kaplan! How you doing?”

  He grins up at the host. “Busy. You?”

  “Busy too. Which is good!” The host claps Will on the shoulder. “Will Kaplan don’t wait for table. You go right to front of line.”

  I see Will’s ears turn pink. “No, that’s okay, Ming. Really.”

  “We got table for you right now,” the host says insistently.

  “No, really,” Will says. “We’ll wait our turn. I have to talk to my girlfriend anyway.”

  “Okay,” the host agrees reluctantly. He looks at me. “This one here is genius. He know everything. Fix all problems.”

  We go off to a corner to wait, although all the seats are taken. Will gestures at his lap and I settle down in my favorite spot. “Let me guess,” I say. “You gave him some legal help.”

  He shrugs. “I recognized Ming in our waiting area at work and offered to be the one to take his case. It ended up being a really simple matter. He was so grateful though. Nice guy.”

  I tug on his collar. “So what did you want to talk to your girlfriend about, huh?”

  “Oh yeah.” He smiles and reaches behind his chair, to the small backpack he sometimes hangs back there. He pulls out a rectangular Tiffany’s box and my heart leaps in my chest. “I bought this for you because… I know I screwed up ditching you when we were supposed to get our marriage license. I wanted to do something to make it up.”

  “So you thought jewelry would make it up to me?”

  “Yeah. Does it?”

  “Hell yes.”

  I open the box and can’t help but gasp slightly. It’s a gorgeous white gold chain with a swirled heart pendant. He knows my weakness for heart pendants.

  “I want to wear it now,” I say. I don’t care if someone tries to murder me to steal this necklace. I’m wearing it. Well, maybe not in the subway, but I’m probably safe here.

  Will helps me by attaching the clasp in the back of my neck. I feel his fingers lingering over the small of my back, and all the hairs in the back of my neck stand at attention. When his lips graze the back of my neck, I feel myself melting.

  “I’m going to make everything up to you,” he whispers in my ear. “I promise, Libby.”

  Right now, I’m willing to forgive just about anything.

  Our name gets called way faster than it rightfully should. If it were just me, I’m sure I’d be getting dirty looks, but nobody seems to mind that Will is skipping ahead. The restaurant is packed to the brim, and Will does his usual thing where he grabs chairs and tables to help propel himself forward without needing to put his hands on his wheels. The host leads us to a large circular table and pulls away a seat for Will.

  If you’ve never experienced dim sum, it’s one of the most fun ways to eat a meal. Instead of choosing food from a menu, people come by with carts full of steaming trays and you get to pick out what you like. It’s a really good way to get really full really quickly. Will and I love it—we used to come to this restaurant every weekend, but his latest case has made our visits much less frequent. Even though he’s in the middle of a big case again, I’m hoping maybe it won’t be as bad as the last one.

  “So what’s this big publicity case you’re working on?” I ask him as we wait for the first cart to come by.

  “I can’t really talk about it yet,” he says.

  “Is it as big as you thought?”

  He thinks for a minute. “Bigger.”

  I squeeze my fists together under the table. This is so exciting. My husband-to-be is part of some huge case. He’s going to be famous. He’ll be like the Clarence Darrow of the twenty-first century. Or Alan What’s His Face. And of course, he’ll definitely win because he’s Will, and if anyone can win, he can.

  The bad news, of course, is if it’s such a big case, it’s not going to leave him with much free time for me. As much as I’d love to persuade him to help Reid and Josh fight the Hanford Corporation, it’s obvious he’ll be much too busy. Still, maybe he can at least offer some advice.

  I’m about to tell him about those poor pigs when a waitress arrives at our table with a cart filled with sticky white buns.

  “Pork buns,” Will says happily.

  I laugh. “You’re like the worst Jew ever.”

  “We’ll take one plate,” he says to the waitress.

  The waitress sets the steaming hot buns in front of me. Usually pork buns are one of my favorite things to eat, but now, looking down at them, I feel slightly queasy.

  The pigs are kept in crates for their entire lives where they can’t even turn around.

  “What’s wrong?” Will asks me as he chews half a mouthful of pork bun.

  They cut off the tails with dull clippers. And break off their teeth with pliers.

  Will raises his eyebrows at me. “Libby? You look really pale.”

  The mother pigs do nothing but birth baby after baby until her uterus prolapses and kills her.

  “I…” I swallow hard. “I don’t think I can eat this.”

  As I say it, I realize the truth in my words. How can I eat these things now that I know how horribly the animals are being treated? How can I eat any animal? The guys were right last night—how can I claim to love animals when I eat them?

  Will’s eyes widen and he grabs a napkin off the table. “Why? What’s wrong with it?”

  “Nothing,” I say quickly, before he can spit the pork bun into his napkin. “I just… I don’t know if it’s right to eat pork. Or beef. Or any meat.”

  “What?” He stares at me, stunned. “But… you love meat.”

  He’s right. I really do.

  “Yes, but…” I clear my throat. “I love animals more. And I hate the idea of a pig being caged and killed just so I could eat it. Don’t you think that’s sad?”

  “Not really.” Will shrugs. “It’s a pig.”

  “Right.”

  He rolls his eyes. “You think pigs are so wonderful? Believe me, if a pig had a chance, he’d eat you and everyone you care about.”

  “Will, I’m being serious,” I say. “Pigs are great animals. They’re really intelligent and they’re social, friendly creatures. They’re really protective of their babies too.”

  He shakes his head. “I had no idea you felt so strongly about pigs.”

  “Well, you know how I feel about animals.”

  “But you never had a problem eating them before.”

  I bite my lip. He’s right, of course. As much as I love animals, I never considered being a vegetarian before. But I never realized how inhumanely the animals we eat are treated. I never really thought about it until last night. I’m so self-centered.

  “I’ll eat seafood,” I say. “I think that would be okay. But definitely not any mammals.”

  “Where is this coming from all of a sudden?” His face darkens. “Does this have something to do with those hippies you ate dinner with last night? Are they the
ones feeding you this tripe?”

  “Tripe?” a waiter speaks up from behind us. “You want plate of tripe dumplings?”

  Will shoots the waiter a look. “No, that’s okay. Thanks.”

  “Listen,” I say, “it’s not that big a deal. Most of this stuff is seafood anyway. I can still have the shrimp shumai and the seafood dumplings.”

  “But…” Will’s brows scrunch together. “What about Hawaiian pizza, Libby?”

  Right. The cornerstone of a ham and pineapple pizza is, of course, the ham. But when I think of the way pigs are being treated, how can I eat that in good conscience?

  “Maybe we can get a veggie pizza instead,” I say. “Or we could do half veggie and half Hawaiian?”

  Will’s shoulders sag. He looks so unhappy over this whole thing, which I honestly don’t entirely understand. What difference is it to him what toppings I get on my pizza?

  In any case, it’s clear this isn’t the right time to start asking for legal advice.

  Chapter 13

  “For the record,” I say to Mia, “I think it’s ridiculous that you’re shopping for maternity clothes when your waist is smaller than mine.”

  It really is. Mia’s slender figure hasn’t changed a bit since a baby started growing inside her. At worst, she looks like she might have a food baby. I watch her as she inspects a pair of corduroy slacks with an elastic waistband that she most definitely does not need. “I’m sick of going to work with my pants unbuttoned,” she says.

  Just to validate my point, a saleslady approaches me and says brightly, “So how far along are you?”

  Seriously, they should teach the salespeople at maternity stores to be a bit more sensitive. Well, at least she didn’t ask me if I’m having twins.

  “It’s for her,” I say through my teeth.

  “Oh!” The saleslady looks at Mia’s slim waist and seems as befuddled as I am. “Well, um, congratulations! Can I help you?”

  “No, just looking,” Mia snaps. She hates to be accosted by salesladies in stores. My theory is that the salespeople see her and all are tripping over themselves to dress such a gorgeous figure. It’s a certainty that Mia will be one of those pregnant women who looks like a non-pregnant woman with a basketball under her shirt. Whereas I’ll certainly gain like eighty pounds and have ankles swollen like tree trunks.