by Shen, L. J.
“If it makes you feel any better, my no-mingling policy extends to all humans, not just girlfriends,” I offered.
“That does not make me feel any better. I walked around thinking you thought I was stupid,” she accused.
“Not stupid.” I shook my head. “Not overtly brilliant, either, but definitely competent.”
Didn’t they say the truth would set you free? Why did I feel so fucking chained into this uncomfortable moment, then?
“Wow. You are like Mr. Darcy’s evil twin, but sans the charm.”
“So basically an asshole?” I groaned.
“Pretty much.”
I double-parked in front of her entrance. Pediatric Guy was slumped on the stairway. His kneecaps, ears, and Adam’s apple looked like they should be attached to a person at least twice his size. He was lanky in a half-formed-teenager way, his chest caving inward. He had glasses and an intelligent nose I highly suspected women like Madison found attractive. His cheek was propped against his knuckles as he read a wrinkled paperback like some kind of Neanderthal. An actual book with pages and everything. I bet he physically went to the supermarket for his shopping and got his own takeout instead of ordering Uber Eats. This was the kind of heathen she was associating herself with these days.
I bet he wrote her love letters and didn’t even mention her rack or ass. Prick.
She glanced at him, then at me, then at him again. What was his name? I remembered it was as generic as the rest of him. Brian? Justin? He looked like a Conrad. Something that was synonymous with douchebag.
“Ethan’s here,” she announced.
Ethan. I’d been close.
“I need to tell him about that stupid dinner. You still have my email, right? Send me the details.” She hopped outside without sparing me a look. I unloaded her suitcases like I was a goddamn bellboy. To save the remainder of my pride, I dumped them by her building without even glancing at her or her dudebro, not offering to help her take them upstairs. Let Dr. Douche do it himself.
I rounded my car and got back inside, watching her ass in that ridiculous A-line dress as she approached Ethan, flung her arms over his shoulders, and kissed his cheek. Cheek. Something not terrible happened in my chest when I realized that probably meant they hadn’t slept together. Yet.
I breathed through my nose, sending a little prayer to the universe that Ethan wouldn’t fuck my fake fiancée tonight, and looked down to retrieve my phone from my pocket.
There was a note stuck to the passenger seat. The same sticky white one with my family name engraved at the top from the Hamptons. She’d put it there when I wasn’t looking. Sneaky.
C,
You saved those jasmines because they are living things, not because I asked you to.
Also: We broke up because you’re a cheating cheater who cheats.
Also 2: What’s up with Julian?
PS:
Re: you smelling something unfamiliar. It might be a good time for your bimonthly STD check.
—M
CHAPTER SEVEN
MADDIE
June 3, 1999
Dear Maddie,
Fun fact of the day: The poppy has astonishingly flourished on battlefields, smashed by boots, tanks, and the first industrial war the world had ever seen. It is a token of remembrance in Britain.
Poppies are strong, stubborn, and impossible to break. Be a poppy. Always.
Love,
Mom. x
Objectively speaking, as far as mornings went, today’s was a particularly glorious one. The type Cat Stevens wrote songs about. I woke up at eight thirty without the help of my alarm. Layla had let Chase in at dawn, while I’d been fast asleep and she’d been bidding one of her many flings goodbye. I managed to bring my best friend up to speed about my little arrangement with Chase via text messages. Chase took Daisy on a lengthy walk. I was still dead to the world when he brought her back. I woke to him pushing the door open, cursing under his breath, complaining about Daisy not wining and dining his leg before humping it, pouring food into her dish, and scolding her for drinking vigorously from the toilet bowl. (“You’re really not winning any seduction points right now, Daze.”) I smiled as I stretched lazily in my bed, thinking about the inconvenience the journey to my neighborhood had caused him. When I opened my fridge to take some orange juice out, I found a note plastered to the door.
M,
Not everything alive is worth saving. My cousin-brother, Julian, is a prime example of that (don’t ask me what he is to me, it changes from day to day).
Also: Let’s pretend I cheated. You weren’t exactly honest either. You gave me a watered-down personality, leading me to believe you were sane. WHICH YOU ARE NOT.
Also 2: Yes, the capitals were necessary.
Also 3: Addressed the Julian issue above.
PS (technically Also 4—too much counting for you?): attached is a picture of me on a horse, age six, adorable as all fuck.
PPS:
Noticed Nathan didn’t sleep at your place. I take it he’s still a virgin?
—C
Something fell from the sticky note. A picture. I picked it up and flipped it over. It was the kid version of Chase smiling to the camera—two front teeth nowhere to be found—sitting on a pony. He had carefully trimmed tar-black bangs and a smile so jarring that the vividness of it jumped out of the picture. Begrudgingly, and only to myself, I could admit that he was right. He did look good on a horse. Not like the Old Spice dude but sufficiently adorable.
And what did he mean—Let’s pretend I cheated? He had cheated. I’d seen him with my own eyes. Kind of. Well, there was little room for interpretation. Anyway, I wasn’t opening that can of worms. I was with Ethan now. Sweet, wonderful, reliable Ethan.
The sensation of something cold and liquid on my toes broke me out of my musing, and I looked down to realize I’d been pouring orange juice into an overflowing glass for a full minute. I jumped back. Recovering, I dabbed at the pulpy stain at my feet with one hand as the other reached to write Chase a note back.
C,
Flowers symbolize life. I would never trust someone who doesn’t take care of their flowers.
Also, I will allow the statement that you were cute on a horse. Once upon a (very long) time.
PS:
Please do not touch my things again (pens, sticky notes, SUITCASE, etc.).
PPS:
It’s Ethan, not Nathan. And actually, we had wild sex all night. He had to leave for an emergency.
—M
So I lied. It wasn’t that much of a big deal. Only in Manhattan was it expected that anyone twenty-two and above should have sex after three dates. In that sense, I missed Pennsylvania.
I was going to do Chase this solid, give him his ring back, and say goodbye.
This time for good.
No more negotiations.
No more bargains.
No more heartache.
I met Ethan at a new Italian restaurant the same evening. He was twenty minutes late. For all Chase’s faults (and there were many; I could write a War and Peace–length book about all of them), he valued people’s time and never left me hanging. He wasn’t late, and on the rare times he was, he always texted with a reasonable explanation.
Chase also isn’t saving children for a living, I scolded myself inwardly. Cut a guy some slack.
I spent the time waiting reading an article about a woman who had made a dress for her upcoming wedding out of toilet paper and recycled material because she didn’t have the money to buy or rent anything fancy. I found her Facebook page, wrote her a message, and asked her for her address and dress size. I had a few dresses lying around my apartment from when I’d been a design student I could get rid of, and my Martyr Maddie instincts kicked in. I also shot Layla a quick message thanking her for letting Chase in this morning and forwarded her a picture of the Italian restaurant I was in, with the caption Maybe the perfect moment will be tonight? along with a winking emoji. It wasn’t necessarily
a possibility I was excited about, but I tried to hype myself up for it. Layla’s response came after seconds.
Layla: Nothing more romantic than garlic bread and a man who is twenty minutes late.
Maddie: Be happy for me.
Layla: I’m being honest with you. That’s so much more important in a good friend.
Maddie: He could be the one.
Layla: Keeping my fingers crossed for you. But honey, don’t date him just because you’re afraid of the Chases of the world.
It bothered me that Chase and Layla were singing the same tune, but I shoved this worry to the bottom drawer of my brain.
Ethan arrived disheveled and a little sweaty, his hair sticking up everywhere. He wore casual clothes—a pair of jeans and a faded tee—not his usual doctor clothes. He kissed me on the cheek, his breath smelling uncharacteristically sweet, and took a seat in front of me, patting himself like he’d forgotten something.
“Well? How was it?” He cut straight to the Chase. Literally. He’d come to say hi to me the previous night, but that was just to lend me a book I’d pretended I wanted to read about managing infectious diseases in preschools. It occurred to me that I was making the same mistake I had with Chase back when we were dating. I was pretending to be someone who wasn’t completely me to try to appear more appealing to the person I was dating. It wasn’t so much that I was a completely different person, but I rounded the edges a little.
What Chase had told me after we’d gotten back from the Hamptons had struck a chord with me this morning, when I’d realized I had no intention or will to read a medical book just to make Ethan happy. Chase felt fooled, and as much as I wasn’t #TeamChase, I could still see where he was coming from. I decided to be completely honest with Ethan to avoid that. To show my absolute true self.
“What, the Hamptons?” I picked up my water and chugged it down to buy time. “It was understandably weird. I got trashed at the family dinner. Chase slept on the floor. We fought every waking moment his family wasn’t watching. Overall, we looked more on the brink of a bitter divorce than a blissful engagement.”
Ethan grabbed a breadstick from a basket and nibbled at it as he cooed, “Poor baby.”
“And then his cousin-brother—I’m not sure what they are to each other; biologically they are cousins, but they were raised as brothers—invited us . . . no, more like challenged us to go to dinner at his place to celebrate our engagement. He and Chase have this weird rivalry going on. So I kind of had to agree to that.”
I blinked at Ethan from across the table, eagerly awaiting his reaction. He put his breadstick down, frowned, and then looked back at me with his good-natured smile intact.
“Sure. I mean, we’re still casual, right?”
“Right.” I nodded. “Of course. Casual. Is that what you see us as?”
“For now. Yeah.”
I was beginning to hate the word with a passion. Then something occurred to me.
“You didn’t come from work, did you?”
Ethan shook his head, helping himself to another breadstick. Now it was his turn to stall. My eyes didn’t waver from his face until he was forced to add words to his lackluster explanation. “Nope. I was at a . . . friend’s house.” He looked uncertain, rubbing the back of his neck.
“You take showers at your friends’?” I raised an eyebrow.
“A special friend?” he offered, tucking his chin down and blushing.
My brain short-circuited for a second. He was sleeping with someone else?
“I see.” Frankly, I didn’t see anything. I was blindsided and annoyed but surprisingly unemotional about the discovery.
“It’s nothing serious. I just want to be up front and honest with you since your last boyfriend wasn’t. This thing with Natalie stops as soon as you and I are more established. But I figured since we’re not intimate yet, and you are doing this fake-engagement thing . . .” Ethan trailed off, the tips of his ears so red they practically glowed.
I decided to take it in stride. Ethan wasn’t Chase. He’d never let me think we were exclusive, then gone and slept with someone else. He hadn’t given me a key to his apartment or invited me to parties or gifted me a living thing. It was still early days. We’d only kissed a couple of times. Anyway, what business did I have getting riled up about it? I’d spent the weekend wearing my ex-boyfriend’s engagement ring and Yale sweatshirt. True, we hadn’t done anything together, but it was hardly behavior worthy of a girlfriend-of-the-year award.
Also, again: the fact Ethan had slept with someone else this evening simply didn’t bother me enough to give him grief about it, no matter how much I felt like I should.
A waitress came to take our order. Once she disappeared, I sat back, watching him with a weird mixture of awe and confusion.
“Where do you want to live when you grow up?” I blurted out. It was such a weird thing to ask, three weeks into seeing a guy. But I worried Chase might have been right about Ethan being everything I thought I wanted but not what I actually did want. I didn’t want to hurt Ethan’s feelings or drag both of us into something that was doomed from the beginning.
“I am grown up.” Ethan looked perplexed, helping himself to some more breadsticks.
“You know what I mean. When you have a family.”
“Oh,” he said, looking around us distractedly like I’d just asked him if he was willing to change my adult diaper.
Say Brooklyn. Say Hempstead. Hell, say Long Island for all I care.
“Westchester, I suppose. Great school districts, clean, safe . . .”
Boring. Then again, so what? Lots of young professionals who lived in New York ended up in Westchester once they started reproducing. Monica and Chandler from Friends had.
Yes, but you’re a Rachel, not a Monica, I heard Layla saying in my head.
And it’s also a sitcom, not real life. Now it was Chase’s voice that teased me.
“Can I ask you another question?” I peeled off the sticker holding the napkin together. Ethan took a sip of his wine, nodding. He didn’t understand this game much. Neither did I. I was just trying to figure out whether Chase had really read Ethan so well or not.
“Anything, milady.”
“What did you have for breakfast?”
“Eggs on toast,” he said without missing a beat. I sighed in relief, as if this were all the evidence I needed that Chase had it wrong. It wasn’t oats. Ethan probably hated oats.
“My turn,” Ethan said. “Best way to start the day?”
Coffee, doughnuts, and talking to Dad on the phone. Mostly listening to the small-town gossip he had to offer. I was about to answer, Jogging, a granola bar, and listening to podcasts about climate change, before remembering I’d promised myself to be honest this time. So I gave him my real answer. Ethan scrunched his nose.
“What?” I winced, bracing myself for his disappointment.
“Nothing. Just . . . I don’t do gossip. I also don’t drink caffeine. It gives me terrible tremors.”
“Right,” I said. At this point, between Diet Coke, coffee, and energy drinks, caffeine had surely embedded itself into my blood type. Not that it mattered. Ethan and I didn’t have to be compatible in every single way.
“Favorite TV channel?” I smiled sunnily. “On a count of three.”
“Three . . .”
“Two . . .”
“One . . .”
“HBO,” I piped up at the same time he said, “National Geographic.” We laughed, shaking our heads.
“Favorite smell?”
His eyes lit up, just when his pasta and my pizza arrived. His was loaded with vegetables, seafood, and exotic mushrooms. Mine consisted of pepperoni, bacon, and extra cheese. We counted to three again. I said puppies. He said vanilla.
I repeat—vanilla. Just like the sex Chase had promised we’d have.
Ethan and I continued this tango for the rest of the evening, amused by how morbidly different we were. It was actually a kick-ass icebreaker. If it weren
’t for the fact I knew he’d slept with someone else mere hours ago, not to mention that I was going on a second date with my ex-boyfriend come Friday, I’d actually say the evening brought us closer.
Ethan walked me back home and had the good sense not to kiss me on the mouth when we parted ways. He kissed my cheek again, smiling shyly as he cast his gaze downward.
“I’d invite you to come up, but—” I started at the same time he opened his mouth.
“That thing with Natalie—”
We both stopped.
“You go.” I felt my cheeks heating.
“She just broke up with someone, it was long term, and she and I have this thing when we’re both single. I’m really interested in you. I’m not the sleeping-around type of guy. Honestly, I wanted to show myself that I was okay with you going out with your ex.” He rubbed at his temple. “And for the most part, I am.”
“I understand,” I said quietly. Although a part of me didn’t. I wished Ethan would have just told me the truth before we’d both compromised the beginning of our relationship. But there was no going back from what it was right now. A messy shot in the dark made by a blind, intoxicated cupid.
“Maybe it’s best if we don’t have sex until everything with Chase is over. It obviously makes you feel weird. Like I’m not fully committed to this,” I suggested.
Ethan nodded. “That’s fair. And I promise to end things with Natalie after your last date with him. You’re seeing him Friday, right?”
“For the second and last time,” I confirmed.
I pushed the door open to my building and closed it, plastering my back against it with a heavy sigh. My phone pinged in my purse. I plucked it out, thinking it might be Ethan, wanting to soften the blow of our goodbye by saying something sweet or playful.
Unknown: Don’t forget the banana bread on Friday. It’s Chase, btw.
Maddie: How do you know I deleted your number?
Unknown: When the nights get cold, the memory of your ex burns hotter. You seem like the type to self-preserve.
Maddie: You seem like a conceited idiot.
Unknown: That may be true, but you just admitted to deleting my number.
Maddie: Can I ask you something?