You Were Meant For Me

by Yona Zeldis McDonough

  Down the aisle came Lauren and Bea with their escorts. Courtney’s mother followed, accompanied by her brother. Sophie performed her task with great enthusiasm; some of the red rose petals ended up in her hair and one landed right on her nose. The little ring bearer accompanied her solemnly, the bands of gold balanced on a red velvet pillow. Next was Harris with his parents and, finally, Courtney, on the arm of her favorite uncle. She really did make a striking bride, and the assembled guests murmured appreciatively as she slowly walked toward her groom. But Courtney seemed unaware of them; she was utterly focused on Harris. During the ceremony, she kept looking at him, and when it was time for the kiss, she had to duck a bit because even in flats she was taller than he was. Something about this—the awkwardness in this picture-perfect moment—struck Miranda as the best, most authentic moment of the entire ceremony; her eyes welled.

  On the receiving line, Courtney was alternately beaming and hugging. When Miranda reached her, she whispered, “Love you,” in her friend’s ear. And then, “What’s with Evan?”

  “Love you too,” Courtney said before the next well-wisher moved in. She ignored Miranda’s question.

  Miranda made her way to the dinner tables, which had been decorated in a similar fashion to the altar; the tablecloths and napkins were red, and the centerpieces were clusters of tiger lilies, red rosebuds, and goldenrod, into which acorns and pinecones had been woven. As she sat down, she saw the place card right next to hers read Evan Zuckerbrot. Courtney had struck again.

  Evan sat down just as the salads were being served. But because they each had table mates on either side, it was impossible to exchange more than small talk. There was a break before dessert, and as Miranda got up to check on Celeste, he followed her.

  They went down a flight of steps into the room where Jordan and another girl were attending to the kids. Max had dozed off on an armchair while Sophie and a few others were coloring with crayons. Plates of partially eaten food were scattered around, along with glasses of juice, one of them spilled. She spied Celeste in a playpen that had been set up in one corner. As soon as she saw her, Celeste called out, “Mama” with evident joy. Miranda lifted her up so Evan could see her.

  “Look at you!” He turned to Miranda. “She’s grown so much. And she’s talking now.”

  “Mama was her first word. It’s pretty much her only word. But still.”

  “And the matching dresses—love it.” He took the ever-present camera from his shoulder and held it up. “Do you mind?”

  “No. Knock yourself out.” Miranda stood patiently while he snapped several photographs but could not understand the point of all this. Why had he come? He was in no hurry to tell her. Evan was different, she realized. There was something more self-contained about him. More remote and less open. The slight reserve made him seem more appealing somehow. Sexier. It was an unsettling thought.

  “I’m going back upstairs.” She kissed Celeste on the forehead and handed her to Jordan. “They’ll be cutting the cake soon.” Evan didn’t say anything, but he followed her to the room where an elaborate, three-tiered cake had been set up on a crimson-covered table. Courtney stood next to Harris, a knife in her hand. Miranda watched while she made the first cut, extracted a slice, and fed it to him. There was a cheer and a server deftly took over. Waiters began circulating with trays of champagne, and guests were drifting back to their tables, where platters of truffles and cookies had been set out.

  “No cake?” Evan took a bite of the piece on his plate.

  “Not now.” Miranda scanned the room. A band had replaced the quartet and was tuning up; soon the music—and dancing—would begin. “Let’s get out of here.” She took Evan by the hand and led him away.

  “Where are we going?” He was still eating the cake.

  “We can take a walk,” she said. “In the garden.”

  For a moment she thought he would say no. But he set down his plate. “All right.” They retrieved their coats and stepped out into the night. The sky was filled with puffed, charcoal-dark clouds through which the moon—not quite full—peeked. She turned to Evan. “Why are you here?”

  “I told you: I’m your plus one.”

  “Evan, stop it! You came here for a reason, and I want to know what it is.”

  “Courtney invited me; I didn’t want to turn her down.”

  “Courtney! When did you talk to Courtney?”

  “That doesn’t matter. The point is I’m here. You’re here. It’s been a while. I thought maybe we could talk.”

  “Fine.” She was getting mixed signals. Was he here because he wanted to get back together? Or to say a final farewell? “What did you want to talk about?”

  “Well, I could tell you that it broke my heart when I found out you’d slept with Jared. That I loved you. Because I did. And I loved Celeste too. That I thought—hoped—we could be together. The three of us. A family.”

  “I didn’t sleep with Jared. I told you that. You just didn’t believe me.” Now he was the Evan she knew and remembered. The Evan she had—and how foolish she was for not realizing it sooner—loved all along. But he hadn’t finished. He was still talking.

  “I didn’t tell you about me, Miranda. There just wasn’t the right time or the right opening.”

  “Tell me what?”

  He looked so pained that she almost wanted to say, No, it’s all right. Don’t tell me. But he seemed to need to tell. Whatever it was.

  “A couple of years ago, I found out that I couldn’t have kids. The motility of my sperm is, like, nonexistent.”

  “What are you talking about? When did you even try to have a child?”

  “I don’t want to go into all that now. But it’s been weighing on me ever since: how I would explain it to someone—if there were someone to explain it to. How she would react. All of it. And then you came along. I fell for you right away. And then when I met Celeste, well, it seemed perfect. It wouldn’t matter if I couldn’t father any kids of my own. Because we’d already have her; she would be mine too.”

  Miranda was silent. He’d offered her a precious gift and she had not properly cherished it; was it too late to claim it now? “Evan.” Miranda’s voice was uncertain. “You said loved. Past tense. You loved me. You loved Celeste.” The wind had come up and was blowing the hair into her face; impatiently, she pushed it away. “Do you still love us? Do you still love . . . me?”

  “There’s someone else now.”

  “Oh.” Facebook-generated images of Thea—rock-scaling, oar-wielding, tent-pitching Thea—burned across Miranda’s mind. “Well, then, I guess there’s nothing left to say except that I hope you’re happy with her. Very happy.” She began walking back toward the conservatory, moving more quickly with every step. Behind her she heard Evan say, “I’m sorry, Miranda,” but she didn’t turn. What for? To see his pitying look? Better not to have that be the last image from this mortifying conversation.

  Reaching the glass doors, she pulled one open and stepped back inside but did not head back to the party, where the sounds of the music had grown louder and more boisterous. Instead, she went down the stairs to fetch Celeste. She would call a car; no one would notice if they slipped out now. The strains of music grew softer and more subdued as she moved away from them. Miranda’s evening was over, and it was time to go.

  THIRTY-THREE

  Evan wove through the New Year’s Eve crowd in Times Square wearing a down jacket, ski hat, and scarf, but even though the temperature was in the single digits, he wore no gloves, not even the ones whose fingers he’d snipped off himself. Anything on his hands was an impediment; he needed his fingers, cold as they were, to be able to react to the unfolding pageant as the boisterous group waited for the ball to drop.

  He stopped, attention caught by the group of young women all wearing the same glitter-encrusted hat, and he stood depressing the shutter as the girls laughed, talked, and i
n the case of one, swayed to music that only she heard, courtesy of her earbuds. Then someone attempted to muscle past them, and the whole mood shifted. Evan turned his eyes elsewhere and kept moving.

  He’d been photographing the New Year’s Eve scene for about a dozen years, and he looked forward to it every time. He loved the raucous energy of the crowd and the visual juxtapositions created by the faces and the bodies, the signs, the billboards, and the flashing lights. And then there were the costumes—despite the bitter cold, he saw sequins and stilettos, poufy dresses and miniskirts, glasses whose frames were made from the digits of the new year, novelty hats and sweatshirts. The camera could capture it all.

  What was different this year was that Thea was with him. He’d told her she didn’t have to come—it was sure to be noisy, crowded, freezing and, since he’d be preoccupied, not much fun. None of this daunted her. “I’ll be your shadow; you won’t even know I’m here.” And it was true: she kept out of his way, leaving him free to work.

  As the clock approached midnight, the mood amped up. And when the giant, glittering ball was released, the crowd chanted out the seconds as it descended. Ten, nine, eight . . . A roar erupted when the ball touched down; there was a lot of kissing, and one girl tossed big handfuls of confetti into the air. The tiny flakes rained down all over the shoulders and heads of those nearby, creating snowlike patterns on the dark coats and jackets; Evan snapped quickly and, he hoped, deftly. When he finally brought the camera away from his face, there was Thea, ready for her own New Year’s Eve kiss.

  He stayed a little longer to photograph, and then they wended their way to Gallagher’s, an old Irish bar he liked on Forty-fifth Street. The place was crowded, but they were able to find a spot near the back. “Your hands are like ice.” Thea took his palms in hers and began rubbing. “You’ll get frostbite or something.”

  “I’m used to it,” he said. He realized he was starved; shooting could do that to him.

  Over hot toddies—it was too cold for champagne—and baked clams, they toasted the new year and made plans for the next day. “Mike and Gaby invited us to an open house tomorrow afternoon; I thought we could stop by,” said Thea.

  “Mmm.” Evan was noncommittal. He’d met Mike and Gaby before and had not liked them—she was coarse and loud; he was a backslapping jerk. A party at their place was not something he was looking forward to, but he didn’t want to disappoint Thea.

  “I said I would bring a six-pack or two; she knows better than to ask me to bring any food!” Thea popped a clam into her mouth. A few bits of confetti had settled in her coppery hair, and her cheeks were still pink with cold. She was pretty, she was fun, and as Audrey had pointed out several times, she was really into him. So why did he feel so remote and lonely?

  They ordered another round of hot toddies and the corned beef hash that Gallagher’s had probably been serving for the last forty years. It wasn’t a great dish, but it was a familiar one and Evan ate quickly, wondering how Miranda would have rated it. Ever since he’d seen her at the wedding, she’d been on his mind. Her father had died; the adoption was going through. She was very much alone in the world, raising Celeste by herself, but she’d seemed undaunted and even content. Jared Masters was not part of her world, at least not the way Evan had envisioned after seeing her with that damning mark on her neck.

  “Are you okay?” Thea asked. “You seem kind of quiet.”

  “I’m fine,” he said. “Totally fine.”

  They went back to her apartment, but by this time, it was so late and he was so tired—the adrenaline rush of shooting had wound down—that he begged off sex.

  “That’s okay,” she said cheerfully. “Tomorrow is another day.” She kissed his nose and went to sleep. Evan lay beside her. He thought of that morning when Miranda had come to him after her shower, dropping her towel as he reached for her. He loved sex in the daylight, with everything made so achingly clear. And she’d been so beautiful that day. All days really—he never got tired of looking at her. Miranda had kept insisting that she hadn’t slept with Jared; maybe she was telling the truth. And even if she had slept with him, he could understand now how easy it would have been to succumb to that temptation—the baby, the father, the whole package neatly tied up with a bow.

  Next to him, Thea shifted and turned; her slender, even bony, back, was facing in his direction and he stared at it. He wanted to love her, he’d tried to love her, but he did not love her. And he did not think he could begin another year struggling to find or manufacture what just wasn’t there.

  * * *

  February in Gilead felt like spring; Jared was in his shirtsleeves, the light jacket he’d considered this morning left hanging on its hook by the door. Today he was helping the fledgling small-business association throw a luncheon; there were four members and they had invited other local small-business owners as well as those in a twenty-mile radius. The idea was to encourage some of these outliers to relocate to a designated stretch of Gilead’s now-defunct main street; reduced rents, low-interest loans, and tax abatements were just a few of the enticements being offered.

  The luncheon was taking place at Lulu’s, and Jared had spent a good part of the morning helping her get the place ready for the buffet; together they had pushed the tables together, covered them with her collection of vintage embroidered cloths and various swaths of fabric, set out glasses, dishes, napkins, and cutlery.

  “You don’t have to do this stuff,” said Lulu. Her dreads had popped loose from the scarf that covered them. “I can get Pedro or Jean Paul to do it.”

  “I don’t mind.” He moved a stack of dishes from one side of a table to another. “It’s fun, actually.”

  “Must be different from your big-city days.”

  “Not as different as you think. I did my fair share of staging apartments before the buyers came through.”

  “Staging?”

  “You know: rearranging or eliminating furniture, putting some flowers in a vase, lighting a scented candle—grapefruit or pine are always winners—opening the blinds to show off a good view or closing them to disguise a bad one.”

  “Did you like it?” She had gone into the kitchen and returned with a tray filled with mugs, no two alike.

  “The staging?”

  “No, all of it. Living in New York, being part of that life. I’m guessing maybe not, because you’re here, right?”

  “I’m here.” Jared looked around. The place looked good—not sophisticated or chic, but homey and welcoming. And the smells emanating from the kitchen—Lulu was serving a shrimp chowder, fried catfish, and banana cream pie, among other things—well, they were as good as anything in that Big old Apple he’d left behind. “I’m here and I like it just fine.”

  Lulu’s cell phone chimed a few musical notes and she paused to answer. “Hello, baby.” Her boyfriend? “That’s all right. Sure.” She paused, listening. “That sounds great, baby. Great. You be a good boy now. Mama loves you.” She clicked off and glanced in Jared’s direction. “That was my son, Nicky.”

  “How old?” asked Jared.

  “Eight. He lives with his daddy and I only see him on weekends—at least for now.”

  “It’s complicated?” Jared thought of Celeste; he was planning to call tonight to check in and see how she was doing. He hadn’t seen her since he’d come down here in December, but he’d been in regular touch with Miranda.

  “In a word—yes.” She began rolling the cutlery—knife, fork, spoon—into the napkins. “You have any kids?”

  “A baby daughter.” He fished his phone out of his pocket to show her a picture. “But she doesn’t live with me because—”

  “Because it’s complicated.” She smiled. “I know.” Lulu arranged the rolled-up napkins into a wide fan shape and glanced at the clock—shaped like a black cat with a tail that moved as it ticked—and said, “They’ll be here soon. I’d better see how J
ean Paul is doing in the kitchen.”

  She was right. At the door was Marybeth, the owner of a stationery store that specialized in letterpress and handmade cards. She had a small following already, and hers would be a great business to lure into town. Jared ushered her inside. “Wait until you try some of Lulu’s popovers; your mouth will think it’s gone to heaven.”

  Marybeth smiled. “That’s why I’m here. Lulu’s got a reputation, you know.”

  “Well, we’re hoping you’ll like it enough to decide to stay.”

  Jared followed as she made her way toward the back table, where the platters were being set out by the waitstaff. In the center was the tureen of spicy shrimp soup; he could smell it from here. Lulu was certainly pulling out all the stops.

  The rest of the invited guests started coming in after that—fabric store owners and ice-cream makers, the weavers, bakers, lighting designers, and potters. Each small, many artisanal, and all exactly the sort of businesses to attract shoppers, strollers, potential renters or buyers—and in so doing, resurrect the moribund street. Jared was in his element here, talking up the avenue, the town, and the entire enterprise. He had no time to eat, which was a damn shame, and was able to get in only a few sips of Lulu’s limeade.

  When the last guests—a couple with a small garden supply business they were currently operating from their house in the next town over—left, the tables were pretty much decimated. A lone wisp of a popover sat in its napkin-lined basket; the soup tureen was empty, as were most of the platters. Jared was hungry and reached for what was left of the popover. But the day was a big success—he’d hoped for five to six new members to sign today and they had actually gotten ten. At least three were considering relocating and had scheduled appointments to look over vacant spaces and discuss terms.