“They’re good girls!” I yell. “We uproot them for one single mistake? Have you no empathy for what Zoe’s going through?” I stammer, unable to comprehend. He’s really doing this. It wasn’t just thinking out loud. “This will kill her!”
He tries to calm me down. He comes close, but I step back. “Miami has beautiful homes on the water. We can have a backyard. Privacy. There won’t be so much scrutiny.”
“But you love this hotel . . .” I am crying into my hands. “How can you even consider leaving?”
He is stubborn. And determined. “I love her. I’ll always love her, but the Ross is a business, Em. Selling now is a viable option. Our other properties keep me busy, and the renovation’s going to be pricey. Why drop millions of dollars into her when the girls have a few more years and then they’ll be in college? I’d love to have a home with you. We can get a boat, be alone, instead of sharing our backyard with hundreds of guests.”
“These people are our family.” It comes out as a sob, and I shake my head. “I won’t do it. I’m not moving.”
He searches the floor, and his reply is icy. “You may not have a choice.”
Our history unravels. The seam of our story rips open. “How can you do this? What about Jonny? Why are you arguing? Is it because of this?”
He won’t meet my eyes. “I’m waiting to hear the offer . . .”
“He’ll never agree to this,” I argue. “Never.”
He looks pained. Removed. Far, far away. The big-hearted boy I’d fallen in love with was slowly disappearing. “Jonny trusts the way I manage the hotel’s business.”
“This is about Zoe, isn’t it?” I persist.
“No,” he says, finally meeting my eyes. “Let’s listen to the offer.”
“I’m never going to agree on selling. We made a life here. This is our home. The staff . . . this will devastate them.”
He’s stone-faced. He never likes to see me cry.
“Please don’t do this,” I beg. “The Ross is the one thing I’ve come to count on. The one thing. Please don’t take her away from us.”
He grabs me and cradles me in his arms. I try to resist, but he pulls me tighter, tugging while he whispers to my hair, “It’s going to be all right, Em . . . I promise you.”
“Zoe will think it’s her fault,” I cry.
“Shhhh,” he says and kisses my forehead. “She’ll be happier. We all will.”
He leads me to the bed, where we fumble beneath the covers. My sobs subside. My heart, though damaged, returns to its usual pace. He thinks curling around me can defuse what he’s thrown at me. It can’t. I let him do it because it feels better to have his arms around me than to be apart. I fall into a fitful sleep only to be jerked awake by troublesome dreams. I stare at Bobby’s face while his peacefulness mocks me. It hurts to look at his tanned, rugged complexion, his lips that have loved me in ways I’ll never explain. I don’t know this man, but perhaps we don’t know each other.
All I want is to slip back inside our memories, to be on the beach again with Bobby holding me, free from secrets and scandals. He’s tugging at my bathing suit while we slip beneath the ocean’s waves. He’s reaching for my hand as we shuffle through a crowded nightclub. He’s pressing himself against me as we lounge in the hammocks behind the hotel. He’s staring at me, his eyes telling me I should be having his babies.
Because what came after changed everything.
CHAPTER 13
Upon graduation from high school, Bobby enrolled at the University of Miami, and I entered a small liberal arts college in Vermont. He would tease me about my dreams of becoming an actress, and in between the laughter, he’d whisper in my ear how I’d move to Florida and run the hotel by his side.
“Is that a proposal?” I’d laughed. When I gave myself to him on that beach, I had promised all of me, to him, solo tú, wholly, for the rest of our lives. I had become his Achilles heel, the area of rare weakness. And this need to have me, while making me forbidden to anyone else, made him foolish at times. He could be jealous, stormy mad when I called him late at night to tell him about the scene with the fancy New Yorker, or the cowboy from Kentucky. He knew it was only acting, but he struggled. “How do you touch these guys every night?” It was why he rarely came to my performances. Our bond was tight, and though his jealousy was childish and unwarranted at times, he did his best to block out the intimacy I shared with others. Those were the nights we’d fall asleep with our ears pressed to the phone receiver, me holed up in my room beneath a light snow, he with the traffic crackling on US 1.
“I wish you were next to me.”
“Feel that?” he said. “My hand is on your leg.”
I laughed. “Bobby.”
“Spread a little wider. Let me in.”
I always did what he asked.
“Do you feel me, Em?”
“Uh huh.”
“I’m going to put my lips on you. Is that all right?”
I giggled. “Yes.”
His voice dropped. His own breaths were deep and winded. “You’re so pretty, Em. I’m looking into your eyes. Can you see me?”
“I see you.”
“What do you see?”
“You want me.”
“Do you want me?”
“Yes.”
“Touch me.”
“I am.”
“How does it feel?”
“Go deeper.”
“I don’t think I can be any deeper inside you.”
“I love you, Bobby Ross.”
“I love you, Emma Grant.”
The memory thrusts forward and lodges deep inside. Bobby turns away from me in his sleep, and it reminds me how separate we are. In those moments, on those phone calls, all we had wished for was a way to see each other through the wires. We could have never predicted the future—that one day our own child would have that capability and it would cause her so much pain.
The girls in my freshman dorm couldn’t understand staying faithful to someone who lived so far away. “I can’t help the way I feel,” I’d say.
“But you’re so young,” they’d continue. “You should be out having fun.”
Physical separation was inconsequential. We were never really apart. He was planted in my soul, and I in his.
“Don’t you want to know what it feels like to be with another guy?” one of them asked.
I had watched Bobby’s parents for years. When your cheating father abandons your mother, you’re drawn to loving couples. Abel, our stepdad, came into my and my sisters’ life as though he’d always been there. And our parents were content, but there was something about the elder Rosses that had me observing them like a favorite play. The answer to my friends’ question rested in Mrs. Ross’s speech at an anniversary dinner in the grand ballroom. She toasted to her groom, their love, and never needing more than what they had. “That’s what it means to be happy.” And I tucked that notion inside my heart. I was happy with Bobby; it was uncomplicated. I never needed anything or anyone else. Until first semester senior year. Until Monty Greer.
His name sheaths my cheeks in shame. Until recently, I hadn’t thought about him in years. I could do that. Make it so it didn’t happen. Pretend I’m the immaculate bride. When it crept up, I knew how to bury it back in its tomb. People who lie actually believe their lies. I believed my lie. Because that’s how badly I wanted it to be true.
Monty was the fellow actor whose perfectly arranged features and natural talent were trumped by his brash behavior. He was the kind girls were warned against. Charming and dangerous, he had a seductive side that always enraptured those in his pursuit. Because of his sharp acting skills, it was impossible to know when the honesty stopped and the game began.
Monty was used to getting what he wanted. And he wanted me. He mistook my soulful eyes and flushed cheeks to mean something when we were playing Antony and Cleopatra. And he’d hold me a little tighter, kiss me a little longer, and I chalked it up to being in character.
Bobby and I were engaged the week before we returned to school. It was a romantic beach proposal, and I was completely caught off guard when my parents and sisters showed up at our celebratory dinner. Bobby was careful and kind when planning the weekend. He toasted to the two of us. Solo tú. You and me forever.
Plans were under way for a June wedding in Miami. It was the happiest time of my life—and the scariest. I’d been feeling overwhelmed those last few weeks, agitated and on edge. Whoever said the engagement was a blissful period hadn’t stepped inside my story. Early feelings of loss and abandonment surfaced. I loved Bobby wholly, but I was terrified to be a wife—to love one person for the rest of my life. My father couldn’t do it, and I wondered how much of him lived within me. My sisters and I were busy choosing dresses and flowers, on the phone for all hours of the night. What they didn’t know was when they’d squeal, “You’re the luckiest girl in the world,” I would hang up the phone and throw up in the bathroom. I couldn’t accept the goodness coming my way. I was afraid things were moving too fast. I was afraid to have regrets. I was worried about graduation and starting a career. And mostly, I was petrified of marriage. Petrified of making mistakes. Learning I wasn’t lovable enough. The anxiety darkened my sleep and affected my schoolwork and performances.
An article in the school’s paper gave me a less-than-glowing review of a performance I’d put my all into. “Stiff and forgettable” felt harsh and unjustified. Bobby was pressuring me to transfer to Miami to be with him, and his demands, coupled with planning a wedding, classes, and the troupe, were beginning to take their toll on me. Bobby arrived for a visit; he said he had a “surprise” for me. I don’t like surprises, and he knew it. We argued. Our one disappointing attempt at sex was just that. He chalked it up to nerves. I chalked it up to poor planning. He left, and something within us was broken. He never did end up giving me the surprise.
Later that same week, Monty and I were rehearsing in my apartment. I don’t even remember the reasons why we ended up there, but at that point it was entirely innocent. One minute we were pulling apart a scene and the next, the stage was set for disaster. I left the room for a bathroom break and returned to Monty waiting at the door. “Bobby’s on the phone.”
The panic swept up my body. “You answered my phone?”
I pushed past him, and he went outside to smoke a cigarette. “Bobby?”
“Monty’s there? He’s in your apartment?” Bobby despised Monty. He’d been accusing me for months of flirting with him. Mostly in a playful, teasing way—how we’d kiss on stage—but now he was furious. I saw him through the phone. Nostrils flared. Pacing the floor. “Are you fucking him? Is he the reason you didn’t want me to come last week?”
I stared at the round diamond. “Don’t,” I said, his jealousy unleashed on me like a weapon. “We’re getting married in a few months. I’ve never given you reason to doubt me.” My voice was broken, shaky, but deep down I was pissed. I was tired of the jokes about Monty. Tired of the unjustified accusations. Tired of having to defend myself without cause. Tired of dress swatches and tablecloths. Bobby yelled. Cast blame. Made threats. Questions I didn’t want to justify. The miles that separated us had come to a head. We always knew it wouldn’t be easy.
Monty returned, and I told Bobby I had to go. “I’ll call you when we’re done rehearsing.”
“What the fuck, Emma? I want to talk to you.”
“All you’re doing is screaming at me and accusing me of things I’d never do! I’m sick of it.” It was our biggest fight ever. The accusations couldn’t be taken back. My head was dizzy from yelling.
The last thing he said to me before hanging up was “Maybe he can make you happy.” He had never hung up on me before. Ever. Seconds passed, and he called me right back. I didn’t pick up the phone. It was my turn to be furious. When the incessant ringing continued, I threw the phone off the hook.
Practicing scenes after that was impossible. I was dead inside, but I couldn’t give Monty the satisfaction of knowing he was at the center of our argument. I knew the divide between Bobby and me was taking its toll, but his attack was unjustified, and it triggered a flare in me I couldn’t tamp down.
It was late in the afternoon when we called it a day. The fight was resting on my conscience, but I agreed to join Monty and our theater group downtown for drinks and a revival of The Philadelphia Story. I thought a night out would be good for me. Instead, I was Tracy Lord, the Hepburn character who had gotten herself drunk (for the second time in her life) and took an innocent dip in a pool with someone the night before her wedding to another man. Lord’s fiancé, George, saw her in the pool, assumed the worst, and when he confronted her, she turned it around and broke off the engagement, citing his lack of trust. By then, the rest of the story didn’t make a difference. I was living it.
I normally wouldn’t drink so much, but I was exhausted by decisions that had to be made for the wedding and riddled with growing confusion. Bobby. His anger. The unwarranted attack. Soon it became automatic. My cup was empty, and someone would fill it. It didn’t matter if I liked it or not. It numbed the worry and muffled Bobby’s voice.
The rolling hills of Vermont had produced a chilly mist, and one by one, the group began to fade, until it was Monty and me nursing our beers. His antenna reached inside me, sensing a weakened resistance. At once he settled into himself.
“You look pretty when you’re vulnerable,” he said. It was subtle enough to feel authentic.
“It hurts,” I told him, the wound still fresh from the recent review, the alcohol making me flimsy.
“It’s the artist’s way,” he said. “We hang from the sky on a delicate string while random strangers criticize. Besides,” he continued, “it’s supposed to hurt. That’s how you get better.” His green eyes latched on to mine, and I could understand Bobby’s jealousy. “You’re good, Emma. One of the best.”
Monty and I had shared many hours together rehearsing and role-playing, touching and being close, though there was nothing intimate about us. That he became my confidant was a quirk of fate I should’ve paid attention to. We talked about everything but the theater. Music. Politics. What our futures looked like.
“Did you grow up a Bears fan? Do you think you’ll go back there after college?” he asked.
For the first time, I didn’t know the answer.
He didn’t mention Bobby once. Neither did I. The ring between us, though garish in size, was invisible to Monty. And to me. I was so angry at Bobby. Each sip lessened the ability to care. I was in a daze. The alcohol was a cozy shawl I had no problem sinking into.
Without costume and theatrical makeup hiding his face, Monty could be sincere and kind. Alone, without an audience, he was a handsome blond with expressive green eyes. Someone whose lips were sensual and exciting. I welled up when he talked of his brother’s passing and rested my hand on his palm.
We left the bar. It had been a wicked, biting cold, the kind of chill that sliced through your skin. It reminded me of Chicago. So when we arrived at the door of my building, and he asked me if he could come up before making the long walk home, I didn’t think twice about letting him in.
As the night wore on, he became better looking. Wittier. This is what getting drunk did to people. Or maybe my feelings for Bobby prevented me from seeing anyone else. My roommate was out, and we were sitting on the couch watching Melrose Place. His hands were freezing. He snuck his fingers against the back of my neck, and I fell into him, laughing.
“You’re incredibly sexy, Emma.”
I smiled, feeling the crimson cover my face. Giddy Emma. I tried to hide it with my hands, but he grabbed them instead. In retrospect, I couldn’t believe how easily I let him in. And
then things got kind of blurry and he said, “Do you have anything here to drink?”
“I can’t,” I said, noticing how woozy I’d become. Was it only a few hours ago that we watched The Philadelphia Story? The innocent dip in the pool. A friendly walk home. Then the splintering of things. The fight with Bobby that launched that night hit me with a freezing punch. He handed me a glass, and the cold liquid slid through my body. And then another.
His lips came down on mine with an unexpected force. He moved in closer and grabbed my face and my hair. I closed my eyes and smelled that pinch of Bobby in the air, but it wasn’t enough to make me move away. This was something else. Scorching hot, a term my mom would use when she described the Florida summer. But this wasn’t the Florida I knew. This was dangerous, a collision of temperatures that had me all mixed up.
I kissed him back, opening my mouth wider. We’d kissed before in front of hundreds of people, but this was nothing like a scene from a play. His lips were icy cold, steamy hot, King Lear, and Romeo suffused with something treacherous. A gear switched in me, and I had no way of pulling it back. I was playing another role, one that satisfied a host of dangerous needs.
Bobby was a million miles away. My mind was cluttered with lights and movement. Everything around me was whirling and swaying, and it centered on the feeling deep inside that I couldn’t stall. It felt good. It felt so good to be kissed and touched and wanted. To be with someone else.
He lifted me off the couch and carried me through the door of my room. My bed was unmade, and he dropped me on the sheets and lay on top of me. I closed my eyes, and flecks of light floated in the air around us. It could have been the snow outside my window. I slipped inside the dream I was having, the one where I was awake and alive, the one where I was beautiful and free. I didn’t stop him. I didn’t push him away. I didn’t say no. I slid the ring off my finger and plopped it in a drawer.
I was completely lost in Monty Greer. It was like no role I’d played before. Soon he was peeling off my pants. My shirt came off over my head, and he was kissing my neck, my eyes, my hair. I could touch every inch of him and still feel it wasn’t enough. I wanted him inside me. What took Bobby and me years to reach, Monty and I mastered in less than a few hours. I was too drunk to have regrets. Too excited to stop.
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