Love, Chloe

by Alessandra Torre

  He steered me in their direction and they looked up at our approach, the woman’s eyes skipping past Carter and landing on me, a glint of recognition in her eyes. I smiled politely and looked away, to the other tables, wondering if Carter’s parents were already there, absently trying to remember the last name of the couple in front of me, in case this chat turned into actual conversation.

  But then Carter hugged the woman, and I heard the word Mom cross his lips. And everything stopped in the heartbeat it took for my sluggish brain to put two and two together and finally understand it all.

  Carter’s connection to Presa Little.

  His job.

  His apartment, so much nicer than mine.

  He wasn’t just the super. He was the owner. This old couple who had barely let me rent an apartment—he was their son. I snapped to attention and put a little more into my smile, my efforts dampening under their withering stare.

  Carter turned, pulling out the closest seat. “Chloe?” he offered, his eyes meeting mine cautiously.

  I wanted to kill him. I wanted to grab his shirt and drag him outside and yell every question coursing through my mind at him until he confessed everything.

  But I didn’t. I smiled graciously and took my seat. I placed my napkin in my lap and nodded a hello to his parents. I sat through the painful first moments where no one spoke and ice water settled in glasses and waiters hovered.

  And then, the silence was over. Carter’s mother opened her mouth, and hell poured out.

  I’d sat through a few painful dinners in my life. This was the worst. It was my interview, times five. The questions didn’t stop; they peppered at me from across the table, and I wanted to duck for cover, wanted a bathroom break, wished I smoked just for an excuse to escape.

  When his father asked about my parents, I paused, glanced down at my menu, this hell not even half over, and debated about my answer. Tried to weigh truthfulness over first impressions. Knew, no matter what happened with Carter and me, they would eventually find out the truth.

  “My parents?” I stalled.

  “Yes. They work with investment portfolios, isn’t that correct?” Carter’s mother tilted her head and peered at me as if I was a specimen to be cut open.

  I considered dodging the question. I hadn’t even told Carter about my parents and their situation. But I didn’t. “He did work with investment portfolios,” I said carefully. “But the SEC has suspended his license. I’m not sure what my father will do now, assuming that he avoids jail time.”

  That shut them up. His mother’s mouth fell open a little, her eyes widening. Beside me, Carter inhaled, and his father set down his drink, the glass hitting the table with a loud clink.

  I didn’t stop. I told them everything, wincing a little at how cold I sounded when I spoke about my parents. I couldn’t help it. If the last year had shown me anything, it was that my self-centeredness was an inherited trait, and that every I love you from their mouths had been a lie.

  “So…” his mother said primly. “Your parents are criminals and you are an … assistant.” She stretched out the final word in such a way that made my job sound as bad as my parents’ crimes.

  “Yes.” I took a deep sip of wine, finishing it off. “That’s correct.”

  “I see. And the chances of your parents being exonerated are…?” She raised an eyebrow at my empty wine glass, then at me.

  “Pretty much nil.” I shrugged.

  She sighed, and I glanced at Carter’s father, who had stopped talking about fifteen minutes earlier. His face was stiff, and I looked to his son. It was a mistake. Carter looked hurt, and I couldn’t help but glare a little in response. I wasn’t the only one who’d been secretive about my parents. I had spent our entire relationship with this image in my head of Carter’s life, his upbringing, his future. It certainly hadn’t involved a mother wearing Chanel with a four-carat diamond on her finger, her nose raised higher in the air than Nicole at a staff meeting. Everything I had envisioned … a rough youth, clawing his way to financial independence … all of that was false. The damn man had probably attended a better prep school than me.

  And it was right about then, with my dinner plate carefully set down before me, that I realized two things. First, that any worries I’d had over Carter and his future prospects were unfounded.

  Second, I wasn’t relieved by that realization. Instead, I was … I stared down at my dinner and tried to process my feelings. I was disappointed. Disenchanted. Not just with Carter, but with myself. I was no longer the fallen society girl who had fallen in love with a poor boy and tossed away her materialism. I was the fallen society girl who would climb right back into her old life, clawing up the chest of her sexy boyfriend.

  Much more fairytale. Much less inspirational.

  I picked up my fork and tried to find my appetite. Tried to perk up by telling myself that the worst of the evening was over.

  Famous last words.

  79. Walking the Plank

  We left the restaurant, my hand stiff in Carter’s firm grip, his parents huddling together against the wind. I breathed it in with relief, grateful for fresh air after the tension-filled dinner, his mother’s judgment choking me the entire meal. She thought I was a gold digger, had all but called me one during the meal, multiple insinuations made that I was with Carter for his inheritance. An inheritance I hadn’t even known about. It was ridiculous.

  I couldn’t wait to get home, was almost distracted enough by the idea to miss his mom inviting themselves over. I blinked, turning my head against the wind, toward their conversation, just in time to hear Carter politely push them off.

  His mother, damn her soul, didn’t back down. “Don’t be silly, Carter. I haven’t seen the building since … gosh. Since we interviewed Chloe. Let us check in on our investment, sweetie. It’s the least you can do.” Her eyes glowed at me, and I wanted to throw up my hands in frustration.

  “You don’t mind, do you Chloe?” Oh … the witch. Bringing me into it.

  I gave my best smile. “Of course not.”

  She eyed me with suspicion. “Well. Let’s go before it gets too late.”

  Oh yes. One thing I agreed with. Let’s move this disaster along as quickly as possible.

  We walked the few blocks home, Carter and I following behind his parents, their slow shuffle painful to follow. I gripped Carter’s arm and watched the street, the road bumper-to-bumper, an odd occurrence at 10 PM on a weeknight. I looked up ahead, trying to see past the mess of traffic, hoping to see the source of the problem. Probably an accident. Maybe a brazen New York jaywalker got hit. It was a wonder we didn’t all end up splattered on these dirty streets. I glanced up at Carter, wanting to whisper an apology, wanting to laugh about this ridiculous situation, but his body was tense, his eyes straight ahead, and I didn’t.

  Just across from our apartment building, his parents suddenly stopped, right in the middle of a crosswalk. I swallowed a response, pulling on Carter’s arm to go around the suicidal couple. It was then, stepping around them, that I saw what had slowed traffic, the face of our building transformed, and I stopped, my eyes darting in a hundred places at once.

  I saw our building through wisps of my breath in the crisp night air. Beside me, my silent boyfriend, a man who had been tense all evening, something I had attributed to stress over his parents, then anger over my secrets. I hadn’t even considered something else. Something like this. When had he done it all?

  The trees before our building were wrapped and draped in white lights, white rose petals lining the front walkway, our front planters suddenly overflowing with jasmine, orchids and roses. But the real impact was the building itself, the white brick illuminated with a light show, images dancing across its surface, the production impressive in its detail and clarity, the twelve stories a giant canvas of all things Chloe.

  Me, as a child, in pigtails, running through the Miami surf, my head thrown back in a laugh. The image disso
lved into a more recent one, me sipping a drink, my eyes on the camera, my mouth curved into a smile. I tried to place the image but then it was gone, replaced with a slow-motion shot of me, spinning in the New York snow, my arms outstretched. I remembered the day, Cammie and Benta and me in Central Park. It was a couple of years ago, and I smiled at the memory. I snuck a glance at Carter but couldn’t read his expression, his face in shadow.

  Across the street, the parking lot had been emptied, all the cars gone—all except my gleaming Maserati—music started. Lilting, haunting music, and I stepped forward to get a better look, moving through the stalled traffic, everything unreal, as if I was in a dream.

  A grand piano. There was a grand piano in the empty lot, a woman in a red evening gown seated before it, her hands quick on the keys. Beside her, a man in a tux stepped forward, his steps confident and strong toward me, and I stopped, suddenly understanding everything about this situation.

  This wasn’t a dream, a romantic surprise orchestrated by Carter.

  This was a nightmare, dressed in Armani and striding closer.

  I turned and found Carter. He was still on the sidewalk, his mother’s mouth in his ear, his head forward, ignoring her words, his eyes on mine. The building’s display changed, a new image of me, and the transition lit his face, giving me a brief peek at the confused hurt there.

  “Chloe.” I turned on reflex, and dropped my eyes to Vic, who knelt on one knee before me. “Will you marry me?”

  “What?” The word sputtered out of me. I darted my eyes to Carter, stepping back, and Vic caught my wrist.

  “I know.” He said the words softly, almost tenderly, his voice hushed as if he had a secret, his tone so serious that I stopped.

  “You know what?” My mind flashed through all the things that he could know. About my embarrassing pant-rip incident in Sephora on Tuesday? My one, super-quick spin around the block in the car he bought me because I just couldn’t help myself?

  “About the baby.” He pulled on my hand and stood, his eyes on mine, warm and loving, the man before me a Vic I had never seen. He looked at me as if he worshipped me, excitement radiating from him, his hands moving to cup my shoulders.

  “The baby?” I repeated blankly. I was vaguely aware of the crowd growing around us, a crowd that included Carter and his parents. In the city that never slept, that loved a show, the attention had strayed from the hundred-foot light show and turned to us, hushed whispers darting from the crowd, camera phones out, and … somewhere … a girl awwed. I wanted to find her swoon and break it in half. Grab her shoulders and shake some sense into her. Tell her that roses and giant displays of affection didn’t equate to real love or good decisions.

  I tried to step back and he held on. “I know you’re pregnant,” he said softly. “And I know it’s mine.”

  “You’re pregnant?” Carter suddenly spoke up, stepping closer. He was angry, I could hear it in his voice, and I looked from Angry Carter to Loving Vic, the role reversal strange.

  “No!” I pulled at Vic’s hands, prying them off my shoulders and stepping back, turning to Carter, giving him my full attention and ignoring Vic altogether. “I’m not pregnant.”

  “Yes she is.” Vic spoke with such authority that I almost believed him, my mind skipping back to my last period, trying to do a rush job of figuring out if pregnancy was a viable possibility.

  “How do you know?” Carter turned to Vic, and as I watched his fists clench, I was transported back in time to the bar, to their fight, and steeled myself for a repeat. I watched with dread as a confident smile spread across Vic’s face.

  He had something, knew something. And I was both terrified and fascinated to find out what it was.

  80. My Big Fat Mouth

  Vic pulled out his cell phone. Held it up and read a line aloud.

  “Day 3 and counting. I don’t know what to do. I still don’t know who the father is.” Someone in the crowd gasped and Vic glanced their way and winked. The asshole was enjoying this, all eyes on him. He looked from Carter to me, made sure we were all listening in, and then continued.

  “To which Cammie replied, ‘Just wait it out. Don’t tell anyone.’” Vic dropped the hand holding the phone and smiled at me. “Right, Chloe? Isn’t that what you texted her? That you didn’t know who the father was?”

  Cammie? Texts? Suddenly I got it, my irritation with his stealing my phone and documenting my texts trumped by the fact that his stupid misunderstanding caused all of this. A gigantic spectacle over nothing. I laughed and waved my hand at Carter, hoping to dispel his panic, my words not coming out fast enough to stop this train wreck. “That’s not about me,” I scoffed. “It’s about Nicole.”

  “Nicole?” Vic’s voice finally held a hint of doubt. He cocked his head at me, no recognition of the name.

  “YES. Nicole Brantley, my boss? The star of the film you just financed?” I stopped myself before I wasted any more time than necessary clueing in a man who didn’t deserve an explanation to begin with.

  I grabbed Carter’s hand, trying to make my next words clear enough to end this.

  “Vic, go home. I am not pregnant. That text wasn’t about me. I’m not marrying you, we are over.” I spoke clearly, enunciating every word, hoping that Carter’s parents were following all of this.

  “It was. You are—” He frowned, his dense skull still not getting it. “I saw the text messages…” he protested.

  “About my boss,” I repeated, and I think he saw the truth in my eyes. “She’s pregnant. It was about her.”

  “Not you?” He sounded almost disappointed.

  “No.” I stepped away from him. “Go home,” I repeated, a little gentler.

  I turned to Carter and noticed the crowd. Still watching, still listening, their faces rapt, their phones out, probably Periscoping the whole thing. My eyes dragged over them and I tried to remember what I had just said, how loud I had said it, and my stomach dropped.

  Suddenly, I felt queasy. But it didn’t have anything to do with being pregnant and everything to do with the fact that I might have just broken Nicole’s pregnancy, and her affair, to the world.

  81. The Worst Kind of Goodbye

  I ignored the crowd and stepped close to Carter, wrapping my arms around his neck. I whispered an apology into his ear and pulled him down for a kiss.

  He resisted, his mouth stiff when it connected with mine, his hands wooden on my hips, and I had a moment of desperation before he softened. When his mouth finally yielded, fingers digging into my waist, I sighed against his kiss.

  There was a loud clear of a very old throat, and Carter pulled his head up, our kiss breaking. We turned and saw his parents, twin visions of disapproval, both staring at me as if I were the devil.

  “I’m afraid I don’t feel up for seeing the building after all,” his mother said stiffly. “All of this has left a rather bad taste in my mouth.” She gestured to the light show, which was still running, a hundred-foot image of Vic and me kissing now front and center. It would have been funny if I’d been an innocent bystander. Now, with the image towering above us, on the side of their building … it was terrible.

  “Goodnight, Mother.” Carter didn’t apologize, and I knew I should step forward and say something … the right thing, something that would put all of this behind us.

  I drew a complete blank. I tried to hug the woman, and she stepped back. I revised the approach and held out my hand to his father. He shook my hand quickly, pulling his palm back as if I was diseased. “I’m so sorry,” I said helplessly. “I’m really not pregnant.”

  Wow. If there was a list of things you didn’t want to say to your boyfriend’s parents during an initial meet-and-greet, that would be it. I’m really not pregnant. Super classy stuff. I tried again. “It was nice to see you both again. Maybe we could have lunch next week.”

  “I don’t think so,” his mother sniffed. Ouch. You’d think, given my night, she could have let me down gen
tly, hid at least some of her disdain.

  I watched as Carter hugged them both, and then they left, practically running to an awaiting car, the tires almost screeching on the pavement in their haste to head back uptown.

  My stomach dropped as I watched them go, and I wondered if this was IT. The end of everything—my job, my apartment, and my relationship.

  82. Finally Saying the Words

  The crowd dispersed, someone turned off the Chloe lightshow, and Vic sped away with a glower. Carter and I made it to my door, and then just stared at each other: two awkward people with no clear direction.

  “So,” he finally said.

  “Yeah.” That was my brilliant response. I felt too tired and too emotional to discuss it all. A part of me was still upset about his lies, or omissions—the fact that he never told me that his parents owned the building we lived in, that he’d grown up just as pampered as I had. Along with being tired, I was vulnerable, rubbed raw by Vic’s public display of affection—an incredibly romantic proposal from a man I had once loved deeply.

  “I’m gonna head in,” I finally said.

  He didn’t like that. His mouth tightened, his hand came up and yanked through his hair, a sigh hard off his lips. “Chloe,” he said, and it was the end of the sentence, neither of us eloquent.

  “I’m going to bed.” I unlocked my door and hoped he’d stop me. Rolled the strap of my purse over my shoulder, and gave him a moment of opening, plenty of time for something to be said. But he stayed quiet, and I stepped inside, then the door was shut and I was alone.

  Truly alone.

  Vic was fully gone from my life. I had seen it in the sag of his shoulders, the moment he had finally understood that I wasn’t his responsibility anymore. It saddened me that he’d gotten excited over the idea of a baby. That he had planned that big proposal with the thoughts that we could start a family—a life—together. Six months ago, it would have made my heart sing. Of course he’d assumed it was a Worth child. That was the type of man he was. Confident that, in the race of sperm, his would always win. But something had died between us, out on the street. Maybe it was the public humiliation of my snub, maybe it was seeing me turning to Carter and physically choosing between the two of them—I don’t know what it’d been, but something changed. I searched for feelings of regret, but there was none, only relief at the end of that chapter.