He puckers up his lips a little as he says, “Hm. Explains the lipstick.”
I don’t know what that means, so I decide to let it go.
Chris pulls out his phone and types, at the same time asking me, “So have you told Giovanni about your plans?”
Was that a dig or a genuine question? “It’s a little early for that. Most men spend the beginning of the relationship trying to get laid, not trying to pick a groom’s cake.”
“You know us well,” Chris admits, then puts away his phone. “I just called Lyft. Michael, my Lyft driver, will be here in four minutes.” He gets up from his seat, and he does seem to be swaying a little. “Good night, ladies.”
Jessie and Holly both say good night. Chris looks at me and smiles. “Lovely as always to see you, Miss Osorio.”
“Hold on. I’ll walk you out,” I tell him.
We make our way outside and stand in front, silently waiting for his ride. Finally, I tell him something that’s been bothering me all night. “I don’t have a fear of intimacy.”
He turns to me as though he’s going to argue but then says, “Okay.”
“I don’t. I don’t know why you would say something like that. I’m actually really nice.”
He thinks about my statement, nods a little to himself, but then he tells me, “Women who date married guys usually have a fear of intimacy.”
I brace for a fight, ready to lay into him. How dare he say I’d date a married … Oh, wait.
“It’s complicated,” I explain.
“It always is,” he says sympathetically.
I want to hide. How did he figure that out? I shrug and quickly lie, “Anyway, I have Giovanni now, so it’s ancient history.”
Chris nods, agreeing with me. “He seems like a really good guy. Decent guy.”
“He is,” I quickly agree.
A black Prius slowly pulls up to us.
“There’s my ride,” Chris says. “See you tomorrow?”
“Yeah, okay.”
And then he just stands there, staring at me. “What?” I ask.
“When you hear the word ‘sex,’ who do you think of?”
I smirk and shake my head slowly. “None of your fucking business.”
He smiles and puts his hand on the passenger’s side car door handle. “Fair enough, Miss Osorio. Fair enough. I’ll see you tomorrow.”
“Fair enough, Mr. Washington.”
He gets in the car, and I watch it slowly pull away. When I come back in, Holly mocks, “Chris and Natasha sitting in a tree…”
“Stop it,” I mutter, heading back behind the bar to clean up.
“Seriously, what was going on there?” Jessie asks.
And the way she asks makes me feel guilty as hell. Which is ridiculous, because I didn’t do anything wrong. “Nothing. I was just walking a drunk customer out and making sure he got home safely. Geez.”
The conversation soon turns to gossip about the night’s customers, more ribbing of Holly about her new guy (whom she clearly likes), and a very odd rendition of “Heard It Through the Grapevine,” which we all decide has to go onto our all-girl playlist, even if Gladys Knight is backed up by the Pips.
Overall, a very good night.
Then, around three o’clock, I get a text.
I’m here. I miss you. Are you available now?
It’s from Marc.
I turn off my phone.
Chapter Forty-two
JESSIE
I don’t think there is a more lonely time to be awake than four A.M. I’m lying in bed in pitch darkness Saturday night, staring at the ceiling, wide awake, and wondering how long it will take to adjust to my new nightlife.
It’s not the early hour, though. It’s the guy I’m thinking about.
After my last text to Giovanni, Kevin and I spent a few hours online looking at Paris flats. Kevin gave in to every demand I had: I wanted to make the kitchen my own, I needed at least two bedrooms, I needed to be in the city. It’s almost like I was trying to find fault with the places, and I couldn’t.
It didn’t help that Giovanni texted me about an hour into my apartment search.
Are we still going to the fund-raiser Monday night?
I wrote back truthfully.
Of course. I can’t wait.
I can’t either. I have to go present my wines now to a hundred people. Will be out of commission for a while. But call later if you want to talk.
I did want to call. I ached to call.
But then I felt guilty for how I felt. Kevin didn’t deserve that. Here he was, giving me Paris, marriage, a life. Magic.
But would it be magic? And isn’t everyone’s definition of “magic” different? Isn’t that what we talked about with loving the wine you’re with—that it’s not going to be the same wine for everyone. It’s the same with men. It’s the same with magic. You have to find your wine. Your magic.
What’s my magic? If I dreamt of doing something I knew I would never fail at, what would it be?
If I was the heroine in a romantic comedy, who would I want running after me in the rain?
It’s noon in Paris. I should be talking to my future partner about how torn I am. I sit up in bed, turn on my light, and text.
You up?
I wait at least ten minutes for an answer. Nothing.
Finally, I call Kevin.
“Hey there!” he says, and I can hear the smile in his voice.
“Hey,” I say back. “Do you have a few minutes?”
“I have all the minutes in the world. What’s up?”
Just rip off the Band-Aid. Take a breath and then spill. “I can’t move to Paris.”
That’s it. That’s all I say. I want to inundate Kevin with a million reasons why. But when it comes down to it, there’s no point. I can’t move to Paris. What more is there to say?
Kevin doesn’t say anything for at least a minute. I know because I watch my phone’s timer click 0:31, 0:32, 0:33 …
He finally asks me a question, and it throws me. “Is there someone else?”
“No,” I tell him honestly. “There’s the idea of someone else. That there’s someone out there who I can be effortless with, if only for the first few months. Where, yeah, maybe five years and two kids in we’re exhausted, or overdrawn at the bank, or finally getting a vacation, and it’s at a hotel with waterslides. But where everything with us isn’t always such a struggle. It’s not supposed to be this hard, Kevin. We’re not even married yet, and these last three years have already been so hard. I just need something easy. And living in Paris, while it’s a really great dream, it’s not my dream. And it wouldn’t be easy. And it wouldn’t be home. And I’m home. This is where I’m supposed to be.”
“You would never be overdrawn at the bank,” Kevin says, deflecting my heartfelt statement.
“You’re not getting it,” I say, a little angry. “So let me make it even clearer. I want someone who wants to be with me. From Day One. Who doesn’t go halfway around the world without telling me the real reason why. Who doesn’t need to be talked into spending the rest of his life with me. Maybe I don’t deserve that guy. And maybe the guy isn’t even out there. But it’s what I want. And I’m going after what I want. And hopefully I won’t fail.”
Kevin doesn’t say anything for a bit. Then he says, “Okay. I’ll stop bothering you.”
Another zinger, designed to bait me into saying, “You’re not bothering me Kevin.” Instead I say, “Thanks.” And then, for lack of anything better, I add, “You have a good life.”
More silence. Then Kevin makes a final mistake, which just shows me I made the right choice. He says, “Take care of yourself.”
Most people have a favorite line from a movie. Mine is from the 1970s sitcom The Mary Tyler Moore Show. In the pilot, Mary breaks up with her boyfriend after she realizes he’s never going to propose. After the breakup, as he is leaving, he says, “Take care of yourself.”
And she responds with my favorite line ever (whi
ch I now say to Kevin): “I think I just did.”
We’re off the phone within a minute. I’ll admit as I stare at my cell, I feel a wave of sadness start to flood over me.
And then I hear the ping.
I am. I just got off the phone with Nat. Can you talk this late?
And the wave of sadness immediately dissolves.
Giovanni and I spend the next several hours talking, and before I know it, the sun is out.
Which, okay, sounds a little suspicious, but we were just talking.
I am never going to do anything physical with him. He is Nat’s, and I know that.
Around seven, we fall asleep by putting our phones on the pillows next to us.
I am out in five minutes.
When I wake up a few hours later, I ask him, “Are you still there?”
“Hm?” he grunts sleepily over the phone. “Yeah, I’m up. How did you sleep?”
“Better than I have in weeks.”
We talk throughout the morning, taking only bathroom breaks. We finally get off the phone as I park my car at the bar just before two for our early open on Sunday. I know I am texting him more than I should throughout the afternoon.
But I can’t help myself. Life is short. How do I not be with this amazing man, at least in spirit?
You can be with someone emotionally, and not physically, right?
Right.
Right?
Chapter Forty-three
HOLLY
Joe and I spent much of Saturday texting, which was fun. We also decided to Facebook and Google stalk each other, which was even more fun.
You got to meet the prime minister of Canada?
I did. It was a fluke—I was guest starring on a show the week he came to Vancouver. You’ve been to the Gobi Desert? Impressive.
Not really. I was shooting a car commercial. And it was so cold, my snot froze.
Charming.
Hey, if you were a date, I would be much more genteel.
I had a blast learning all about him and seeing all of his pictures. I found some intriguing ones of his last commercial.
You worked with sharks? What was that like? Did you get to swim with them?
Yes. And I’m kind of chuckling right now. The difference between men and women: My male friends were impressed that I worked with Margot Robbie. You’re impressed with Jaws.
Very. And I’m so jealous. I was recently asked what I would do if I knew I couldn’t fail, and I said swim with sharks.
You’re a strange and wonderful woman.
As much fun as I was having, I specifically didn’t talk to him on the phone that day. This was intentional. There was a small part of me that had thought about kissing him Friday night, and I needed to silence that part of me. But texting seemed okay. Until Saturday night, while I was at work, and he wrote this:
Hey, you don’t have to be at work until 4 on Sunday, right?
Actually, we open at 3 on Sundays, so I need to be in at 2. Why?
Any chance your friends could cover for you for the first few hours?
I glanced at the text while I was behind the bar listening to Chris and Nat spar.
“So you’re telling me you would spend five hundred dollars on a blender,” Chris asked in dismay.
“If I was the maid of honor and my sister registered for it, yes,” Nat insisted.
“It’s a blender. Forget it, I’m giving her cash.”
“Of course you are. Because nothing says, ‘I don’t know a thing about you,’ quite like cash.”
At the time, I decided to suppress the urge to blurt out, “You guys are so going to hate fuck.” Instead I asked Nat, “Is there any chance you guys might be able to cover for me for a few hours Sunday?”
Jessie was suddenly beside me excitedly asking, “Why? Do you have a date?”
“How did you … No.”
“Then why are you looking at your phone?”
“Look, can you cover for me or not?” I snapped.
Fortunately, Nat saved me without requiring further explanation by saying, “Jess, leave her alone. And yes we can. Have fun, whatever you’re doing.”
I happily typed …
I’m good to go.
Awesome. We’re going somewhere casual. Wear a swimsuit under your clothes. Oh, and bring rock shoes.
Wow. It’s a nondate, and the man is still trying to get me out of my clothes. Why on earth do I need rock shoes?
(1) I said “Under your clothes.” I’ll pick you up at 10. (2) Not telling.
I spent the rest of the night trying to figure out where he was taking me.
Sunday morning, I spend about half an hour getting ready and debating which swimsuit to wear. I have a hot pink bikini that I really love. But when I try it on and look in the mirror, all I can see is my stomach protruding out like I’m two months along. I quickly change into a dark blue one-piece, which pushes everything in but makes my hips look huge. Next, I change into a pastel blue bikini top with matching swim skirt, which looks ridiculous. Why did I ever buy this? What idiot designer said, “You know what women really need when they’re swimming? A skirt to float up around them and make them feel like the hippo ballerina in Fantasia?”
I change back into the hot pink bikini, but add a cute light pink cover-up. I throw my rock shoes into my bag, but wear sparkly sandals that show off my pretty pedicure. Then I spend at least fifteen minutes on makeup, and I’m good to go when Joe rings my bell at exactly ten A.M.
The second I open the door, I wish I had spent a little more time on my makeup. I hate myself for thinking this, but damn! He looks cute. Nothing noteworthy about the outfit, just a dark blue T-shirt with khaki swim trunks and black rock shoes. But it shows off his semi athletic build: you know, in shape but not Schwarzeneggery about it or anything.
“Hi,” I say, giving him a quick peck on the cheek. “Am I dressed appropriately?”
“You are, and you look amazing.”
“Thank you. You too.” I hold up my straw beach bag, “Rock shoes are in the bag.”
As we head out and I lock the door behind me, I once again ask, “So, will you tell me now?”
“Nope. I said it was a surprise.”
“But I hate surprises,” I tell him as we walk out to his car.
“Why?”
“Because I’m neurotic and need total control over everything in my world at all times.”
“So naturally, you became an actress,” he jokes.
“That’s the neurotic part. Speaking of neurotic…” As we walk past Sven’s apartment, I grab Joe’s hand, pick up my pace, and command, “Let’s go! Let’s go! Let’s go!”
Over the weekend, I told Joe every (nongraphic) detail about my disastrous night with Sven and even described how I’ve been avoiding him with the maturity of a fifteen-year-old.
Joe and I hightail it to the curb and stop in front of a bright blue Mercedes-Benz. “Wait, this is your car?”
He sighs. “You hate Mercedes.”
“No, I hate white BMWs,” I tell him. “A blue Mercedes is okay. I mean, ridiculously overpriced—”
“I’m sorry—am I sleeping with you?” Joe interrupts.
“What?” I ask, a little thrown.
He smiles and repeats his question, slower this time. “Am. I. Sleeping with you?”
“No,” I answer, a little offended.
“Then you don’t get to make fun of me for my car,” he says jokingly, as he opens my door for me.
“Touché,” I concede.
He walks around his car, gets in and turns on the ignition with the press of a button.
“It’s a hybrid,” I say, a little surprised.
“It is. And in your favorite color.”
As Joe pulls his car into the street, I ask, “How did you know blue was my favorite color? That can’t be on Google.”
“You told me after I told you my favorite color was plaid,” he tells me, referring to one of our many text conversations. “And speaking of things
you told me … Behold!” Joe turns on his radio, and a screen pops up on his dashboard showing his Bluetooth has connected to his iPhone. Joe presses the square that reads “Playlist for Holly.”
And on comes Panic! at the Disco’s “I Write Sins Not Tragedies.”
“Whoa!” I squeal like a teenage girl. “You made me a mix tape!”
“I did. Not one song I would normally listen to on my own. Everything from Taylor Swift to *NSYNC … Pretty much if an artist could be asked to perform during the Super Bowl halftime show, it’s on there.”
I press the button on his screen to read the list. “Oh, Madonna! Where on earth did you find ‘Causing a Commotion’?”
“iTunes. I also found that song you mentioned from Morris Day and the Time. I kind of liked that one—sounded like Bruno Mars.”
“You like Bruno Mars?” I ask.
“He’s all right. Not as much as the Arctic Monkeys, but good.”
“Did I request the Arctic Monkeys?” I ask.
“Well, when one of their songs came on at the diner, you said you liked them, so … let’s say you did.”
* * *
An hour of midlevel Los Angeles traffic later we are on the 710 heading toward Long Beach. Joe pulls into the left lane, heading toward downtown.
I am intrigued. “Are we going to the pier?”
“Sort of,” he says, and pulls into a multi-tiered parking structure for the Aquarium of the Pacific.
“Hey, I’ve always wanted to come here,” I say, my face lighting up. “Do you know they have otters here?”
“Really? They also have sharks,” Joe tells me, giving me a smile.
I narrow my eyes at him. “Wait. This wouldn’t have anything to do with my wanting to swim with sharks, would it?”
He shrugs playfully. “Maybe.”
It totally did. On Sundays, the aquarium does what they call “Animal Encounters.” For a fee, you can go behind the scenes of the exhibits and interact with sea lions, penguins, sea otters, or (drumroll, please…) sharks.
As Joe and I sign liability waivers, I share my fear of sharks with our guide for the tour. She quickly calms me down by pointing out that there are over four hundred different species of sharks, but only ten to twelve of them are actually dangerous to humans. I tell her that makes me feel better, but in my head I’m hearing John Williams’s score from Jaws.
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