Suit (44 Chapters #4)

by B. B. Easton

  ”Sunday, September 21 12:38 p.m.: “Hey, BB. It’s Zach. Juliet told me you got back together with your boyfriend. I, uh…I kinda felt like we had a connection, but…I guess I was wrong. It’s cool. Hope things work out for ya. See you around.”

  I stared at my phone.

  I blinked at it.

  I blinked again.

  I put the tiny device back in my purse.

  I stared at the train tracks in front of me.

  I waited for actual thoughts to form.

  Zach called?

  Blink.

  Zach. Called.

  Blink.

  Six times.

  Blink, blink.

  Zach called almost every day, and none of his calls went through.

  Ken called every day, and all of his calls went through.

  Blink.

  Zach had been trying to ask me out.

  My mouth fell open.

  Oh my God! What if I had gotten those calls?

  Some people would call it divine intervention; some would call it providence. All I know is that any doubts I’d had about guardian angels were smashed to bits with the realization that mine had been cockblocking Zach for an entire week. Like an overbearing mother, my angels had politely taken Zach’s messages at the beep, but they hadn’t let me have any of them until they were sure I was safely back on track with the guy they liked better.

  “Motherfuckers.” I laughed, shaking my head as my train approached.

  The number on the front read 1111.

  Eleven eleven always showed me the way. And, that afternoon, my cockblocking angels sent it to carry me home.

  May 2004

  “Are you gonna pout for the rest of the trip?”

  I stared out the chartered bus window at the rolling green hills and fat, fluffy sheep passing by. The sheep all had different-colored dots spray-painted on their butts. I wanted to smile and tap the glass with my finger and ask Ken what it meant. He would know. He actually listened when the tour guide talked.

  But I was far too busy being a brat.

  “I’ll stop pouting when you stop being an unromantic asshole.”

  I actually said that. I called Ken an unromantic asshole while riding through Ireland on a trip that he’d paid for.

  “Wow. Okay. So, because I don’t want to get sand in everything I own, I’m an asshole?”

  I kept staring out the window. “That was the most beautiful beach I’ve ever seen, and you wouldn’t fucking hold my hand and walk on it with me because you didn’t want to get sand in your shoes!”

  “If I get sand in my shoes, then it’ll get into my suitcase, and once that happens, it’ll get into fucking everything. We can’t just go do laundry, Brooke.” He said my name like you would say the word dumbass.

  I swung my head around to face him. “It’s not just the fucking beach. You wouldn’t stand on the top deck of the ferry boat and look at the castles with me because it was too windy.”

  “You weren’t even supposed to be up there. The wind almost blew you off the deck!”

  “And you wouldn’t let me wear your jacket in London.”

  “I told you to bring a jacket. Why should I suffer because you don’t listen?”

  “And remember at Stonehenge? There were all those pretty yellow flowers growing by the ruins, and you wouldn’t even pick one for me.”

  “Brooke, the ruins were fucking roped off.”

  “It was just a tiny little rope! No one was even looking!”

  Ken huffed and turned to stare out the windows on the opposite side of the bus.

  “We are surrounded by romance, and I feel like all you’ve done is find excuses not to share it with me. It’s too sandy. It’s too windy. The sign says no. We better get back to the bus. Wah, wah, wah.” I tilted my head from side to side, mocking him in my best whiny voice. “Is it so much to ask for you to fucking kiss me in front of a castle? Jesus!”

  Ken didn’t reply. He’d shut me out, just like he always did when the topic of his romantic shortcomings came up. We’d been living together for nine blissful, uneventful months, but every once in a while, Ken’s emotional deficiencies would cause me to erupt into a volcano of whiny bitchiness.

  It didn’t help that Allen and Amy had already gotten married, and Chelsea and Bobby’s wedding was weeks away.

  When Ken had said he was going to propose, I’d thought he meant soon. But when Christmas, Valentine’s Day, and my college graduation came and went without a ring, I’d started to think maybe he was waiting for our Europe trip.

  Yes! That has to be it! Ken is going to get down on one knee in front of Westminster Abbey! Ooh, or maybe he’ll wait until we’re at the top of the London Eye! Or he could steal me away to a quiet little meadow on the coast of Ireland during one of our walking tours, or maybe he’ll do it on top of a mountain in Wales!

  It was horrible. Every time we came upon some beautiful, scenic overlook or some magical, ancient cathedral, I’d turn to Ken and bat my eyelashes and tell him, Do it! Do it here! with my mind.

  And then he would complain about leaving his sunglasses on the bus or the crowds or the drizzle and ruin the moment—every…single…time.

  When we finally pulled up to the gates of Blarney Castle, I decided I needed to let it go. Kissing the Blarney Stone was on my bucket list, and I wasn’t going to let anything ruin this experience, especially not my own unrealistic expectations.

  He can’t help it, I reminded myself as I followed Ken off the bus. Stop trying to make him feel bad for something he can’t help. He brought you on the trip of a lifetime, so at least try not to be a shithead, okay?

  Okay. I nodded to myself as our group followed the gravel path down to the castle. Commencing Operation Don’t Be a Shithead…now.

  I thought it was going to be hard to give up my pouting streak, but when the woods opened up and I found myself plunged into the most idyllic scene I could have ever imagined—poof!—there it went.

  Blarney Castle wasn’t some imposing medieval fortress, full of sad stories and old ghosts, like the other castles we’d seen. It was just a charming little stone tower, crumbling and fuzzy with moss, nestled into a grassy hill next to a glittering pond. It was the kind of place that made you want to craft a scepter out of a tree branch and play kings and queens inside its hollowed-out walls.

  I grabbed Ken’s arm and ran down the path, stopping abruptly every ten feet to take at least as many photos.

  Run. Stop. Run. Stop. Ooh! Ahh! Ooh! Ahh! Click. Click. Click-click-click.

  And, all the while, Ken followed, silent and patient, as I fangirled over a dead castle.

  I glanced back at him a few times to make sure he was still there. To see if he was still mad at me for calling him an asshole. But he seemed fine. He smiled back. He looked around. And he reminded me that, if I wanted to kiss the Blarney Stone, I should probably do it before the bus left.

  “Oh my God, the Blarney Stone!”

  I’d been so wrapped up in the magic outside that I’d totally forgotten about the whole reason for coming. Grabbing Ken’s hand, I dashed up the hill and into the castle, shocked to discover that it was just as sunny and grassy inside as it was outside. The roof was completely gone. Remnants of old rooms and staircases clung to the exterior walls, but the interior space was completely wide open to the spring sky.

  Falling in line with the other tourists, we climbed up a tiny, twisty stone staircase, walked across a crumbling catwalk to another spiral staircase of doom, and emerged on top of the castle. The wind whipped through my auburn hair as I looked between the notches of the turret down at the pond and hills below. All that remained up there were the four exterior walls and a narrow stone ledge going around the perimeter. A ledge that we had to walk across to kiss the fabled Blarney Stone.

  I can’t believe you don’t have to sign a waiver for this, I thought, trying not to look down at the gaping hole in the center of the castle as I advanced with slow, careful steps.

  When I
finally got to the fabled stone, I discovered that it was set into a wall.

  That was separated from the walkway by a good three feet.

  Of nothing.

  Nothing but a ninety-foot drop to the lush green earth below.

  Oh, and I would have to bend over backward and lean across the gap to kiss it while a nice old Irishman held me around the waist.

  Because that makes sense.

  “Why am I doing this again?” I grinned at the twinkly-eyed little leprechaun helping me get into position.

  “For the gift of gab, las!” He beamed, wrapping his confident hands around my middle.

  I laughed and pointed at Ken, who looked completely comfortable, standing on the edge of a derelict building almost a hundred feet above the ground. “Make sure he kisses it twice then.”

  As I arched my back and placed my lips on the same stone my Irish grandparents had kissed decades before, my heart swelled with gratitude for the handsome, quiet man who’d brought me there. The one who didn’t want to get sand in his suitcase. The one who quietly went about making all my dreams come true without ever expressing any of his own.

  I snapped off a dozen photos as Ken took his turn, graceful as ever, and laughed out loud when I caught him pressing his lips to the wall a second time.

  Drunk on love, I clutched Ken’s firm bicep for stability as we meandered back down the stairs of doom, careful not to die before I had a chance to thank him for the trip.

  As soon as we exited the castle, Ken slipped my camera strap off my neck and said, “Wait here. I’m gonna get somebody to take our picture.”

  Aw, I thought. Ken wants a picture of us together. That’s kind of sweet.

  I watched as he approached a group of ladies clustered about twenty feet away. Their eyes lit up as he spoke to them—I assumed because he was so damn cute—and they beamed as they glanced from him to me and back again.

  I just love this place. Everybody’s so friendly.

  Ken hustled back up the hill as I turned and faced the woman holding my camera. I held my arm out to wrap around Ken’s waist, but he didn’t slide into my side.

  He knelt by my side instead.

  Jeez, Ken. This lady’s waiting. Do you really need to tie your shoe right—

  I turned to figure out what the holdup was. Ken wasn’t tying his shoe. Nor had his contact lens popped out. He wasn’t picking a dandelion or doing any of the other hundred things that had run through my mind when he bent over in front of Blarney Castle that day.

  Ken was down on one knee, holding a black velvet ring box, squinting up at me in the afternoon sun.

  My hands flew to my gaping mouth as I floated above the earth, suspended in my disbelief that this could actually be happening.

  It had taken nine words to get me to move in with him, but it only took eight to get me to agree to be his wife.

  “I love you, Brooke. Will you marry me?”

  I nodded vigorously, unable to take my hands away from my face, as Ken stood and opened the box.

  Then, I cried.

  There, smiling up at me, was my ring.

  As Ken slipped it onto my shaking finger, I choked out parts of all of my questions, not really completing a single one.

  “How did you…but it was gone…I went back the next day…somebody had bought it…”

  Ken smirked, lifting his eyes from my hand to my confused, elated, dripping face. “They had a really good layaway plan. No interest for twelve months.”

  A laugh loud enough to scare off the birds burst out of me as I tried to wrap my head around what he’d just said.

  “It was you?”

  Ken nodded.

  “But”—my mind flew back in time to the day Ken and Allen had come to see me at the mall—“Ken, we hadn’t even kissed yet. I wasn’t even your girlfriend.”

  Ken shrugged and dropped his eyes. “You liked it, and I liked you. I didn’t know what I was doing, but I figured I had twelve months to figure it out.”

  “Interest free.” I giggled.

  “Interest free.” Ken smiled, lifting his aqua eyes.

  “Look at me, you two!” the woman holding my camera yelled, dotting her misty eyes with a tissue.

  I wrapped my arms around my fiancé’s waist, and we turned and smiled for our first picture as the future Mr. and Mrs. Easton. And, as if that moment wasn’t magical enough, Ken did one last thing I’d completely given up on.

  He kissed me in front of a castle.

  June 2005

  On the morning of my wedding, I stepped on the bathroom scale just like I did every morning—after peeing to make sure I was as light as possible—and the number that blinked up at me was almost more exciting than the fact that I was about to become Mrs. Brooke Bradley Easton.

  Eighty-nine.

  Eighty-fucking-nine.

  The time between when Ken had asked me to marry him and when he actually did just so happened to coincide with the most stressful year of my entire life. I knew my parents couldn’t afford a wedding, and I knew my fiancé would rather sing the national anthem on live TV than shell out thousands of dollars for a party, so I took it upon myself to plan and pay for the whole damn thing.

  In order to raise the money, I’d exchanged my part-time retail job for a full-time gig, teaching a special education class for preschoolers with autism spectrum disorders. I did not have any training. I didn’t even have a teaching degree. But I knew enough about autism from my psychology coursework that I was able to pass the state exams, and the county was so desperate for someone to fill the position that I got the job…

  And immediately found out why no one else wanted it.

  Every morning, I would get up and put on a full face of makeup, and every morning, I would cry it all off on my way to work, knowing that I was going to be hit, kicked, scratched, spat on, sneezed on, screamed at, resisted, run away from, and/or flat-out ignored for the next six hours. I was given nine beautiful, adorable, significantly developmentally delayed little boys and was told I needed to teach them to speak. I needed to teach them basic academic concepts. I needed to teach them to use scissors, write their names, eat with utensils, use the toilet, wash their own hands, initiate social interactions, and sit at a table for more than five minutes. And I’d had to do it all in spite of their aggression, their various perseverations and aversions, and my own complete lack of experience.

  Then, after each exhausting, soul-sucking yet life-affirming day, I would fight rush-hour traffic all the way downtown to spend the rest of the day in class, working on my master’s degree in school psychology.

  And, as if that wasn’t enough, I’d lost my last two living grandparents, the Irish ones, and an uncle I’d been very close to, all within a few months of the wedding.

  My wedding dress was a size zero, and at my final fitting, they had to make it tighter. The forty-pound tulle ballgown bruised my jutting hip bones and clung desperately to my rib cage because those were the only things I had left to hold it up. But I was happy despite my appearance. I was happy in my relationship and happy with my grades and happy that all nine of my preschoolers had made tremendous progress by the end of the school year and happy that I was so skinny and happy that it was finally my wedding day. Sure, I was stressed out beyond belief and cried in my car every day and fainted from hunger sometimes and was constantly shivering and my hair was falling out and my feet would occasionally turn purple and go numb, but that was the price I paid for my success.

  Totally worth it, I told myself. Just look at all the goals I’m accomplishing!

  I was so sick. I was so sick, and nobody knew. Whenever the subject of my weight came up, I would write it off as stress. Whenever I had to eat in front of other people, I would. Then, I’d disappear as soon as I could to go throw it up. I’d never told Ken about my past hospitalization for anorexia. Because I was totally fine. I had everything under control.

  Riiiiiight.

  I arrived at the wedding venue—the same old mansion wit
h the gorgeous gardens that Amy and Allen had rented for their engagement party—with my bridesmaids by my side, my hair curled, my tiara on, and a skip in my step. It was going to be the best day of my life. I had planned everything to a T. Nothing could possibly go wrong.

  Then, I stepped through the door.

  The florist was a no-show.

  The wedding cake looked like a pyramid instead of the Eiffel Tower.

  It was beginning to rain, and our ceremony was supposed to be outside.

  The wedding officiant was lost.

  The DJ was having technical difficulties.

  And my stoner parents were completely MIA.

  When people weren’t busy presenting me with new problems or asking for solutions to existing ones, I would run outside in my tulle ballgown to hide and hyperventilate until the urge to scream went away.

  Sensing my impending panic attack, my sweet, sweet photographer—a plump, balding man in his forties who kept all of his camera equipment in the pockets of an army-green fishing vest—brought me a gift.

  Peeking his rosy, round face out the side door where I was smoking, he said, “I know you’re not supposed to see the groom before the wedding, but I thought it might be nice to snap a few photos of you two before the ceremony.”

  Then, he pushed the door open, revealing my future husband in a perfectly tailored three-piece suit—black with a white silk tie to match my dress.

  Ken was coiffed, clean-shaven, and looked like a natural-born formalwear model. But better than that, he looked really, really happy. I beamed at him and lifted my arms in the air like a child wanting to be held. Ken closed the gap between us in two long strides, pulling me into his arms. I rested my cheek on his chest and felt all my stress and worry and self-punishing perfectionism roll off my shoulders and land in a puddle. I no longer cared if my flowers arrived or if the sound system worked or if my parents showed up or if the sky opened up or if the cake looked like we were going to Egypt on our honeymoon instead of Paris. I didn’t give a single, solitary fuck about any of it. Because I was about to marry my very best friend.