There was only one boy I’d ever touched, and I surprised myself with how I could handle someone else. I liked the way he felt different, the newness of his skin, the length of his body. The way he’d cup my face in his hands and stare deep into my eyes, as though he were lost in me. Needing only this.
We didn’t sleep much. When I dozed, he rolled on top of me and started again. He was gentle and caring. I was warmed by his touch.
I woke up first, opening my eyes, half expecting to see Bobby there. But it was Monty, and the sobering realization of what I had done shot through my body like a piercing alarm. I jumped up, searching for my clothes, my ring, something to cover my body. And my guilt.
I thought of Bobby. Monty’s lean body was curled inside my blankets. He looked so peaceful.
“You have to go.” I shoved him awake.
He opened his eyes with a smile that mistakenly thought I wanted more.
My voice, buried deep within my throat, trembled. “You have to leave.”
Disappointment clouded his face, and he got up and found his clothes. I sat on the bed, shaking. Before walking out the door, he came to my side of the bed and lifted my chin with his fingers. His eyes tried to catch mine, but I resisted.
“Last night was amazing.”
CHAPTER 14
Midtown Miami is packed this time of year. The newly developed neighborhood north of downtown hosts an eclectic range of trendy shops and restaurants, and tonight we’re seated at a table by the window in MC Kitchen.
“Miami’s beginning to feel a lot like Soho,” Bobby observes. The Howards are running late, and the extra minutes alone are filled with small talk, like the changing Miami landscape.
“You’re avoiding the issue,” I say.
He closes the menu. “What do you want to talk about, Em?”
He doesn’t mean to patronize, but it’s there, in his voice. We’ve spoken very little since last night, and it’s added to an already uncomfortable strain. I fell asleep to Monty wedged between us and woke up to Bobby gone. He didn’t see the girls in the morning; meetings kept him tied up most of the afternoon. “You dropped a bomb on me . . . we should talk about it.”
“Em, I understand you’re upset, but there’s not much else to discuss. It’s only a meeting.”
I signal the waitress and sit stiffly while tension gnaws at us. “Zoe’s threatening to quit debate. And Lily got a C minus on her math test.”
“Moving will be good for us,” he says without looking up.
The attractive brunette arrives and pours water into the glasses on the table while Bobby asks for something stronger. She leans over him with the drink menu, and her perky breasts bounce between us.
“You should’ve been there this morning,” I say. “Zoe put her contact lenses in a cup of water, and Lily drank them. The screaming went on for hours. Zoe’s pissed she has to wear her glasses. It’s hard enough being made fun of. Now the glasses.”
“Doesn’t she have another pair?”
“It was her last.”
He picks up his phone and responds to a text.
“We should’ve canceled,” I tell him, peering over my shoulder at the crowded restaurant. “I should be home with Zoe.”
“Drew knows the group vying for the Ross. I want to talk to him about it.”
I grab my napkin, and the silverware clatters against the table. “I’m never going to agree to this.”
“You might,” he says, finding my eyes and holding. “When you and the girls are lounging in your private pool in your new backyard.”
Sexy Waitress returns with Bobby’s drink. Her eyes rest on his longer than I like. Placing the glass on the table is an art form for her. I expect her to land in his lap.
“We’ve never cared about that stuff,” I say, watching him down the shot in one gulp. My eyes fill with sadness, and I wonder if he can see. A whisper escapes. “Please don’t go.”
He motions for another shot. “I have to go. Besides, Em, you’re better at this. I don’t know what to say to Zoe.”
“You’re being stubborn. Take her for new contacts. Do something. Anything!” I plead.
And this is who I married. The man who can turn away from the people he loves after they’ve shown their true colors. “You think I don’t have feelings about what happened to Zoe?” My words are broken, and I would scream them out loud, but they are stuck in my throat. “I have huge feelings, but I don’t get to voice them. I don’t get to ignore her or fly to New York because it’s too hard to look at. I have feelings, Bobby. Deeper than you’ll ever know.”
The stirrings of a forgotten time. My secret is so close. I’m sure he can feel it tickling his neck, skipping down his spine. I need to escape. From him and from his judgments.
“It’s different. She’s different.” His eyes lower when he says this. “I failed her somehow. I should’ve been able to stop her from hurting herself.”
What would it do to him if I said she hadn’t hurt herself? That she said it wasn’t a big deal?
“Come on, Em.” He appraises the set of breasts that are refilling my glass of water. “Can’t we be normal people for one night?”
My fingers play with the buttons on my blouse. “Normal people?” I scoff. “Tell me what we should talk about. You want to talk about the neighborhood again? How about we talk about our waitress’s bra size? Or I know. Let’s talk about the magazine article again. We can tiptoe through the tulips in our little denial parade.”
He swallows the drink in a single swig, and silence descends like a curtain. The noisy restaurant accentuates the rift growing between us.
“We can talk about Elle and Kinsley,” he says, leaning back in his chair and wiping lint from his blazer.
I lean back in my chair, too. “Now? We’re going to revert to talking about our employees and their impending marriage?”
“You’ve said yourself they’re more than our employees.”
He’s not wrong. I’m just too tense to comply.
“They’ve set a date,” he continues. “I’m going to officiate.” His deep brown eyes burrow into mine. “Thanksgiving Day. A celebration on the beach, like we had.”
Headlights shine through the window, lighting up the glasses on the table. The Howards’ Mercedes pulls in to the valet, and I take a sip of water. “That’s terrible timing. It’s too soon.”
“His mother’s not well. They want her there.”
The news snaps me back to reality. Kinsley’s mom, Fern MacNeill, has always been dear to us. Fern ran our beach for more than twenty years before turning the reins over to her son. Kinsley was Lily’s first crush, even though he is years older. He crafted matching step stools when the girls were three. He carved their names into the wood. Red and pink for Lily. Yellow and orange for Zoe. Lily thought her colors signified love. Now Fern was sick. We’d put them in touch with our doctors and promised her the best care. But it was a bad cancer. And we knew it was only a matter of time.
“The girls will have something to look forward to,” he says.
I pluck myself from the melancholy doom of a wedding framed in death. “Zoe doesn’t want to go to a wedding, Bobby. She wants to hide in her room and pretend she’s invisible.”
His response is lukewarm. “It’s a little too late for that, don’t you think?” He averts his eyes, and not even my stare can pin them down.
He is quiet, which is almost worse than blaming and disapproval. I’ve known him long enough to know where his mind ventures when it involves the women he loves. Possessive and a tad insecure. He can’t fix everything, but he tries. It’s maddening for him to imagine any of his girls being touched, exploited, harmed. That’s why I had to safeguard him all those years ago.
Outside, Lisa is staring at her long legs in the window’s reflection, and I am bracing myself for what’s to come. My gaze rests on the changing sky. Whether shifting from day to night or night to day, the canvas is always on the cusp of something new and magical. I want to trust
the beauty of the purple and gold.
“Let’s make this quick,” I say.
The Howards approach the table. Bobby rises and shakes Drew’s hand, while I force myself to greet Lisa. She hugs me hard. People do that because they think they can take away your pain. These are the times when I wished for a drink. I could drown myself at the bottom of a glass, flail in the abyss where others numb their problems. But after Monty, I vowed never to drink again. It was easy to explain to Bobby that alcohol didn’t agree with me, how it made me literally sick. Instead, I take turns digging my fingernails into the palms of my hands and drinking enough water to have me fleeing multiple times to the bathroom.
It’s not Lisa’s fault I’m bad company. Each time she sinks her pitying blue eyes into mine, I want to get up from the table and run. Under a mane of blonde, freshly blown hair she says, “I can’t imagine what you’re going through, Em. Zoe’s such a good girl. Who would do this to her?” She rubs my shoulder when she says, “It’s terrible.”
I thank her. Multiple times. But I have little more to say. I shouldn’t have come. I try to catch Bobby’s eyes, but he’s deep in business. I can always tell by the hypnotic stare, how they latch on to topics like foreclosures and market fluctuations, Miami’s ever-present diversity.
Lisa talks, her red lips sip some colorful drink, and I feel bad that no matter what she says, it’s not going to help. When we get off the subject of Zoe, she informs me of all the latest celebrity gossip. It’s what she does best. And she has a way of sharing it like she’s doing us all a favor.
“I can’t even make you laugh tonight,” she says, giving up. “Not even with the story about Amy Schumer? Oh, honey. Let’s do a girls’ day. You, me, Dara, Cookie. We can go to Palm Beach. Get out of town.”
“I can’t leave Zoe, Lisa.”
“We’ll take the girls!”
“I can’t,” I tell her, tying my napkin in knots. “We need to be home.”
“Grace is really upset. She feels horrible for Zoe. All the girls do. We love her. Whatever we can do.”
I appreciate her kindness, but I can’t help reading into what she’s saying and not saying: she’s happy it’s not Grace.
The food arrives, and I have never been less interested in pan-seared snapper and garlic spinach in my life. I move it around the plate with my fork, because I can’t get it to my mouth.
“You have such discipline,” Lisa says. “I starve myself all day for a good dinner.”
This is not about staying thin, and I scoot closer to Bobby. That’s how I hear him tell Drew about his meeting in New York and vie for information about the buyers.
It happens quickly. One minute, I think I can survive on denial and celebrity hook-ups, but then Bobby’s foolish notion of selling the hotel grabs me by the neck, and I’m fighting for air. Lisa gabs about a shop that opened in Bal Harbour, how they’re invited to the VIP opening, and I should come with her. “It’ll be good for you to get out.”
I’m grinding my fingers into Bobby’s thigh. “It’s an awful idea, Drew, don’t you agree?”
Bobby shoots me a look.
“The Ross is a legendary hotel,” Drew replies with his rounded cheeks while the ravine between Bobby and me widens. “She’s one of the original landmarks. I’m sure you have courters contacting you all the time.”
“We do,” I say, reminding the men how we’ve never entertained them before.
“The market’s shifting again, Emma,” Drew explains. “There’s a rise in newer, pricier, commercial competition.” The exact term is trendy and how South Beach is one of the hottest luxury destinations. “It doesn’t hurt to listen to an offer. I know these guys at STK. They’re impressive.”
He prompts Bobby to define what makes the Ross stand out, and Bobby thinks about it. His eyes fill up with the love she brings forth in him. “So much of it is the people. Other hotels and their modern designs can’t emulate it.”
“So why do you want to let her go?” Drew asks, his light eyes glimmering with interest. “Maybe I’ll take her off your hands.”
The table is quiet, awaiting Bobby’s response. There’s no way he’s going to tell them the truth. He’ll turn it into an opportunity, but I know differently and so does he. I force a smile at Lisa, who is always bored by business conversations. If I succumb to my irritation, I’ll hurl plates.
Lisa shrugs it off, though with her recent Botox it’s hard to decipher the emotion. “Boys and their toys.” She waves her polished fingers in the air.
I disagree. The Ross is way more than a plaything.
“Let them be,” she says. Then she shimmies closer to me like she has breaking news. “You missed a classic PTA meeting. Stacey Fisher lured parents with the promise to wear her high school prom dress. It was standing room only! She looked like a jar of pink frosting. It was fantastic.”
This is why we’ve remained friends as long as we have. She could always make me laugh. Though tonight my lips are pressed together. “I know you’re trying, Lisa. I’m just not in the mood.”
Dessert arrives, and Lisa polishes off an entire chocolate budino by herself. The men sip coffee, and I sit in numbed silence, the next crisis filling my veins.
When we get to the car, the door hasn’t even shut before I rip into Bobby. “You’re making a big mistake.”
“Emma, I’m sorry. I know you’re upset.”
“You have no idea how I feel. None. You’re not sorry, so why do you keep saying it?” Our knees practically touch in the compact car, but there is nothing connecting us. The engine roars to life, and we make our way down a deserted Miami street. His eyes on the road are cold and unreachable. “I’m such an idiot. I really thought you’d drop it. I thought you’d change your mind.”
He doesn’t answer. His jaw is tight. I place my palm on his leg, and he covers mine with his. “You’re angry,” I say. “You’re not seeing things clearly . . .”
“Emma, don’t.”
His fingers wriggle away, and I latch on tighter. “Bobby, this is crazy. You said it yourself, the Ross has what no other hotel on the beach has. We’ve redone floors and balconies before. Isn’t this drastic?”
“It’s a meeting,” he repeats.
We’re stopped at a light, and my silence turns his head. He’d have to notice my eyes, how they’re inconsolable, how my lips are sealed shut. When I speak, my words are a desperate plea. “Why are you doing this?”
His tone is unconvincing. “I like these buyers. It feels right.”
“You’re confused! You’re angry! It’s not a reason to sell our home!” I feel a headache coming on. “I’m as invested as anyone. I’ve been there through the ups and downs. I’ve watched you turn her around. Against the odds, against the competition, you’ve survived. Why now?”
“We can make a nice profit on a sale.”
“Bullshit. You’ve never cared about the money.”
His head is turning from side to side, and he refuses to listen. Frustration fills me, the kind that wants to grab hold of him and shake.
“Answer me,” I plead.
Sadness washes out of his eyes. His lips part, but nothing comes out.
He doesn’t know, but I do. If he rids himself of the Ross, maybe it will erase what Zoe did. We start over—start fresh. It wipes out the pain and embarrassment. We’ve always referred to the Ross as our third daughter. Her maturation comes at a time when he’s fragile and wounded. How easy to sell her rather than to deal with the changes. It crosses my mind I was right to lie all those years ago. He would’ve gotten rid of me, too.
Bobby drives faster than usual along the Julia Tuttle Causeway. By now, I’ve released his fingers, though I wish I didn’t have to. I almost tell him to slow down, but keep my mouth shut as I look out the window. The bay is speckled in flashing lights, and the city sparkles in the distance. Before long, we are pulling up to the hotel. The valet greets us and asks about our night, but neither of us replies. We step inside; the noise and activity colle
ct around us. The elevator ride is silent. We face each other with an aged pageant queen between us. When she departs on her floor, her pungent scent remains. He moves in front of me and peers into my eyes. We are locked in a battle until I turn away.
After checking on the girls, we take careful steps toward our bedroom. “Look around,” I demand, turning to our family portraits on the wall, Lily’s backpack thrown on the floor, our wedding picture framed along the bar. “This is our life . . . our kids . . . our home.” It’s not easy trusting what I have to say, but I reach deep inside. “You don’t get to give up on us.”
He’s stubborn and unconvinced when he says, “I’m doing what’s best for us and the hotel.”
“You think moving is going to change what happened? You think we’re going to start over playing house somewhere else? It’s not going to fix what happened.”
“Emma, please, it makes sense. You can’t see it now, but it does.”
“No, you’re wrong,” I say. “You have three girls here. All of them are growing. So what do you do? You sell one and abandon the other. And what will happen to the third?” I will only ask him one more time. “Please don’t do this, Bobby.”
“I have to.”
And it really doesn’t matter that he’s leaving, because he’s already gone.
CHAPTER 15
“Mom, what’s wrong?” Zoe’s the child who is attuned to the changes in my temperament. It’s after school, and we’re driving to Lily’s lacrosse scrimmage in Plantation. Lily sits shotgun, and Zoe is in the back.
I catch Zoe’s eyes in the rearview mirror, and she seems better today, other than her outdated glasses. “I’m fine, honey.”
Bobby left on an early morning flight and has been in meetings ever since. Lily’s beside me complaining that she should be driving the car, reminding me for the umpteenth time about getting their permits. I clutch the wheel. I can’t think of anything worse than being in a car driven by one of my kids. Well, maybe I can.
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