The One in My Heart

by Sherry Thomas

“If you say so, Professor.”

  Was there a hint of disappointment in his voice? But he had already disconnected. I put the phone back in my purse, sighed, and took a sip from my thermos. Then I stared at the thermos. Zelda and I both had the same one in different colors. I’d bought them and had them engraved with, Not all those who wander are lost, a famous line from The Lord of the Rings.

  The words had been meant as encouragement for Zelda, to let her know that even if her life must take many more twists and turns than she wanted it to, she was still on the right path.

  Now, however, I saw the quote in an entirely different light.

  Not all those who wander are lost.

  But those who never set a foot wrong often were—that was the reason they did and said all the right things, so nobody would realize that they’d lost their bearings long ago.

  I WAS YAWNING AS I came out of the train station on 79th—it was past midnight in Italy and I had to stay awake for a few more hours yet. But as I approached my house, some of my sleepiness turned into tension.

  Bennett and I had landed late, well past Zelda’s bedtime. Because of the time difference, before she got up I was already out of the house, leaving behind a note and a necklace made from squares of cobalt-blue glass that I’d bought for her on Capri. We’d texted each other throughout the day but hadn’t talked yet—one might make the argument that I was trying to put off a certain conversation.

  Zelda already had coffee waiting when I walked in the door. I hugged her. “What would I do without you?”

  The question of my life.

  “And to have with your coffee…” Zelda handed me a box of miniature pastries. “From the Somerset boy.”

  Who had also sent an extravagant arrangement of mango-colored calla lilies. I pulled out the accompanying card. Thank you for a lovely interlude. I hope for many more.

  So did I, with an intensity that scared me. The Somerset boy was an agent of chaos—like Gandalf, appearing out of nowhere to shove innocent, unsuspecting folks who just wanted to live safe and secure in their nice hobbit holes into messy, dangerous adventures.

  “Still not sure about the boy?” asked Zelda.

  I realized I was scowling at the card. “It’s early days. Anyway, we had an interesting time. Had dinner with his parents. Did Mrs. Somerset tell you about it?”

  “Yes. Bennett too.”

  “You already talked to him?”

  “About half an hour ago. To thank him for all the lovely food—he sent dinner also, by the way. Guess what he asked me? Whether I knew where his parents would be staying on the Amalfi Coast when I strenuously recommended La Figlia del Mare to you. Catches on pretty fast, doesn’t he?”

  “Doesn’t he indeed.”

  “Made me feel like quite a mastermind. Anyway, I invited him to my birthday party and he said he’ll try to get that weekend off.”

  “You’ll also invite his parents?”

  “Of course. It’s for a good cause.”

  There was a mastermind at work, all right, but it wasn’t Zelda. “Looks like you’ve got their reconciliation well in hand.”

  “I certainly hope so. But of course there’s only so much use to these civilized encounters. Nothing changes when everyone is polite. They have to shout, hurl accusations, and then break down in tears and sob about how empty their lives have been without one another.”

  She was being melodramatic, but she was right. If Bennett wanted to be part of the family again, at some point he must openly admit that not only did he care, but he cared a hell of a lot.

  Somehow I couldn’t see him doing that.

  I bit into a custard tart that was hardly bigger than a quarter and wondered what to say next. I could tell Zelda more about my trip to Europe, but I’d only be postponing the inevitable.

  “By the way, Larry de Villiers called yesterday. He said he invited himself to Mrs. Asquith’s place when he heard you’d be there.”

  The custard tart was stuck in my throat. What had he told Zelda? “I was about to tell you that.”

  Zelda’s tone was tentative. “So I guess you know about us now.”

  “He gave the CliffsNotes version.”

  Zelda smoothed the fabric of her long plaid skirt. “You must be wondering why I never told you anything.”

  “I—I assumed it was because it hurt too much.”

  “Well, he isn’t the easiest subject for me, but it isn’t as if I never talk about him. Sometimes Mrs. Asquith will have news about him for me, sometimes one of my cousins, or an old friend who knows both of us.”

  I carefully folded my hands in my lap. “So it was only me you never told?”

  “Only because I didn’t want you to think I didn’t give my all to my marriage with your father.”

  “Oh,” I said. That had never occurred to me.

  “I know I sometimes joke that it was an old-fashioned marriage of convenience—and in a way it was true: He wanted a good mother for you, and I wanted someone who didn’t try to fix me. But I did love him. And sometimes, knowing how badly the divorce affected him, I wish we hadn’t gone through with it. I thought there was no point sticking it out any longer, since we couldn’t make each other happy. Only later did I realize that it wasn’t in Hoyt’s nature to be happy—he just wanted to not be alone.”

  My father, the misanthrope who desperately needed companionship. Or simply the presence of another.

  “You shouldn’t think like that,” I said. “You shouldn’t need to be miserable for him to not be alone.”

  “I know.” Zelda tucked a strand of her beautiful grey hair behind her ear. “But he took such good care of me while we were together—I’ve never met anyone else who was completely unfazed by my problems.”

  That was Pater. He’d been the worst kind of pessimist—yet at times that pessimism turned into a stoic strength. Since he expected everything to end in tears, Zelda’s condition never bothered him.

  We were silent for some time, me slowly sipping my coffee, Zelda drinking from her cup of green tea.

  “So, Larry de Villiers called,” I said in the end, bringing the conversation back to the present.

  “He was glad to have met you and Bennett. And we chatted a bit about everything—his children, Mrs. Asquith, my work, his work—just catching up.”

  Part of me almost wished he’d spilled the beans about my interfering ways. I was used to concealing things from Zelda, but I’d never before kept my mouth shut about something that had a direct impact on her.

  I set aside my coffee cup. “If he wanted to get back together with you, would you give him a chance?”

  Zelda was nearly twice the age she’d been when she first came into my life. And—I realized with a jolt—it had been a very long time since she’d been in a significant relationship.

  Not since her divorce from Pater. A longer drought than mine. Had she not met anyone, or was it also intentional?

  “I don’t know,” answered Zelda, looking sincerely indecisive. “I really don’t know.”

  AROUND EIGHT THIRTY THAT EVENING I was nearly comatose. But after I lay down in bed, the coffee kicked in. I turned one way, then the other, adjusted my pillow several times, peeled off a layer of blanket—but it was no use. I’d become thoroughly awake, the kind accompanied by throbbing temples and a faint ache behind the eyes.

  Against the unruliness of Zelda’s illness, I’d fought long and hard for stability. But now that stability was under attack from all sides. There was Larry, still carrying a big, bright torch for Zelda after almost three decades. There was Bennett, who asked too many questions and perceived too many answers. Together they threatened to disrupt our quiet, orderly existence.

  Together they were the barbarians at the gate.

  I pushed my fingers along the ridges of my brows, trying to relieve the tension there. Several soft dings came from the direction of my nightstand. I grabbed my phone, hoping it was Bennett texting me.

  It was the Material Girls.

&nb
sp; The first text came from Lara, who was this year’s hostess for the roundup. OK, ladies, time to put our cards on the table. I’m bringing a hot, single congressman. He’s conservative in his politics, but a freak otherwise. What have you got?

  Pfft, replied Carolyn. I’ve got a Pulitzer Prize–winning investigative journalist who just escaped from a Yemeni prison. The stories the man has.

  Daff, of course, was not to be outdone. I will have you know that my man is a famous Olympic figure skater. A famous gay skater, but I’ve turned him bisexual.

  Trust my friends to always bring a smile to my face.

  I feel really lame, I tapped, for having bagged only a surgeon. But he’s actually a hotshot Silicon Valley investor with a net worth measured in shit-tons of dollars.

  It’s going to be great, replied Carolyn. Filthy-rich doctor can pay for everything, and the skater can make out with the congressfreak while the journalist records it for posterity.

  I chortled. Then I noticed that I had an unread e-mail. It was from Larry de Villiers.

  Dear Evangeline,

  I reached out to Bennett for your e-mail address—I hope that is all right with you.

  As you can probably imagine, our conversation still echoes in my head. I hear bits and pieces of it as I go through the day, and in more complete sections in the silence of the night.

  The more I weigh my character and my choices, the more I realize that you are right. By the time Zelda and I parted ways, I had become a man who could see her only in the context of her illness. And in that regard, I have not changed very much in the intervening years, or I would not have put off visiting her the moment I heard that she was unwell.

  Thank you for saying those difficult words that needed to be heard.

  Yours,

  Larry

  I set aside the phone and covered my face with my hands. From the moment I’d realized that “those difficult words” had been propelled not by protectiveness but fear and fear alone, I’d been trying to avoid coming to this realization.

  But I couldn’t deny it anymore.

  I too had let Zelda’s condition become the defining factor in our relationship. I too thought of it first and foremost. The only difference was that instead of running away, I hovered ever closer to her. Instead of cutting my losses, I doubled down and went all in.

  I fell asleep dreaming of myself standing alone in Mrs. Asquith’s garden, my hand on the sundial, the cold seeping in endlessly.

  Chapter 12

  THE MORNING OF THE ROUNDUP I remembered that when the Material Girls first inaugurated the event, we’d declared it a black-tie affair—because why the hell not.

  If you have a tux, wear it tonight, I texted Bennett. It’s black-tie.

  Hours later—he usually replied to my texts right away, except when he was in surgery—his response came. OK.

  Late in the afternoon a flurry of texts landed on my phone. Daff, in charge of the restaurant at a venerable Upper East Side hotel, rarely had Friday nights off—practically the only time she allowed herself such an indulgence was for the Boyfriend Roundup. But two of her chefs were out sick and she had to work the dinner shift.

  Instead of rescheduling the whole thing, we decided to move the roundup from Brooklyn to the lounge of a hotel around the corner from Daff’s, and push back the time to ten thirty in the evening.

  I arrived at the hotel in a gown of ivory crepe. Bennett, in a three-piece tux, was already waiting in the lobby. Both the man and the woman behind the registration counter had their eyes fastened to him.

  “You’ve been waiting to bust that outfit out, haven’t you?” I said as greeting.

  He put away his phone. “This old thing? It’s what I wear to fix stuff around the apartment.”

  In lieu of a bow tie, he’d worn his shirt open at the collar, over a silver-grey ascot scarf. I touched the cool silk of the scarf. “Nice.”

  He didn’t say anything, but only looked at me. I flushed, wondering whether my face had betrayed me again by appearing pornographically turned on. “Come on. We’re meeting in the bar.”

  He took my hand and leaned close. “You look beautiful, as always.”

  I did my best to ignore the heat that propagated through me. “Have I told you that you might be the only man present?”

  “No.”

  “Have I told you that nobody is expecting you?”

  He laughed softly. “This is beginning to sound fun.”

  The lounge was an old-fashioned space, with golden-hued murals and curved armchairs clustered near small round tables. I spotted Carolyn and Lara at a table against the back wall, chatting animatedly, Lara in a backless lavender number and Carolyn, the most fashion-forward of us all, in a stunning gown in midnight blue, sprinkled with golden stars.

  As Bennett and I approached, my friends looked up, only to blink in confusion and then outright incredulity.

  “Wait a minute, what’s a man doing here?” asked Carolyn.

  “I said I was bringing one,” I answered.

  “You always say you’re bringing one,” said Lara indignantly. “Last year you said you were bringing a vineyard owner from upstate, and a world-famous whistle-blower the year before.”

  “No, that was me,” said Carolyn. “The year before E was going to bring a superstar furniture restorer.”

  “Well, anyway, you can’t sit down,” Lara told Bennett. “This whole thing is just a cover for us soon-to-be hags to bemoan how hard it is to find a man in New York—and to indulge in some hot girl-on-girl action while we’re at it. You’re going to spoil our game plan.”

  Bennett smiled and pulled out a seat for me. “You must be Lara. And you, Carolyn. Nice to meet you both.”

  Carolyn’s parents were Chinese, and Lara was half-Ethiopian, half-Russian—they weren’t difficult to tell apart.

  “I managed to find a man with functioning eyes,” I said. “Aren’t you guys proud of me?”

  Bennett sat down between Lara and me. “I am proud of you, sweetheart. But how come you’ve never told me you were such an earthy type? I didn’t know you were into vintners and artisans.”

  Until he’d mentioned it I hadn’t realized the influence of the Vermont farmer on my selection of fantasy boyfriends. I looked him over—no, still no trace.

  Daff, our resident redhead, rushed up in a slinky green sequined dress, still putting on her dangle earrings. “Lara, you sneak. You did get lucky at the wedding, and you didn’t even say anything about it.”

  “I didn’t bring him,” said Lara.

  Daff turned to Carolyn. “Did your parents finally get off their asses and fix you up?”

  “No, they’re still very much on their asses and ignoring my sell-by date like it’s the Mayan apocalypse.”

  Daff scanned the scrumptious man who had taken the trouble to come in black-tie, even if he’d done away with the literal black tie. “Did you wander in off the street and sit down at a table full of beautiful women?”

  “No,” said Bennett, glancing at me with a cheeky smile. “I was bribed with hours and hours of sex.”

  Daff’s eyes bulged. “Seriously, E. You brought this one?”

  I shrugged. “I went out to the wilds of Manhattan and bagged him all by myself.”

  My fake boyfriend extended his hand. “I’m Bennett. Nice to meet you, Davina.”

  Daff shook his hand, still goggle-eyed. She pulled up a chair and squeezed in next to Carolyn. Carolyn draped an arm over her. “I know what you’re thinking, Daff. He’s an escort E hired for the evening.”

  “Right?” said Lara. “Evangeline, we thought you donated your vagina to science ages ago.”

  “That’s how I first saw her vagina,” said Bennett. “I was still in medical school, on the West Coast. And her vagina was so unforgettable that I tracked her down across the country—and here I am.”

  I decided I might as well go along for the ride. “It’s true. And if a man shows up at your door, saying, ‘Hi, Dr. Canterbury, I’ve broug
ht your vagina back,’ it’s only polite to invite him in and have him help you test out whether said vagina still works after all these years.”

  Lara all but spit her drink into her napkin. Daff and Carolyn leaned on each other, cracking up.

  A server came by and took orders from the latecomers; then Carolyn was all business. “Lara, did you bring the questionnaire? We have to put him through the questionnaire.”

  “Oh, yes,” seconded Daff. “Release the questionnaire.”

  “What is this Kraken of a questionnaire?” asked Bennett.

  Carolyn cackled. “Ask your girlfriend. It was her brainchild.”

  Last year, at our usual all-female Boyfriend Roundup, I’d not only suggested that we come up with a list of questions with which to torment our eventual victim, but contributed a large share. It seemed a foregone conclusion that somebody would reel in a sucker someday; I’d just never imagined I’d be that someone.

  In fact, I’d forgotten about the questionnaire altogether.

  As had everyone else, apparently. Nobody could even remember what we’d done with the questions we’d come up with. I breathed a sigh of relief—from what I could vaguely recall, some of those questions had been highly personal.

  “Yes!” cried Carolyn triumphantly. “I knew I had it. I typed it into this list-making app on my phone and it’s still there.”

  I pulled a face.

  “Now I see what I’m in for,” murmured Bennett.

  Carolyn literally rubbed her hands together before she picked up her phone again. “Okay, here goes. What’s your full name?”

  “Bennett Oliver Stuart Somerset.”

  “What do you do for a living?”

  “I’m a cardiothoracic surgeon.”

  “Where were you born?”

  “Ten blocks from here.”

  Phew. Maybe I’d misremembered. The questions were all right.

  “How old were you when you lost your virginity?”

  Nope, not mistaken after all.

  “Sixteen.”

  “What’s the most number of times you’ve had sex in a twenty-four-hour period?”

  Oh, God. That was one of my questions.

  “Seven.”