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Meghan had listened when my mother told us over and over again, “You get the love you think you deserve, girls. I didn’t think I deserved much until I finally got tired of trying so hard. Then,bam! Carl. He’s the best thing to ever happen to me. Do better than I did.”
I had been dangerous in high school in ways I’d never truly understood. It was different with Rob. I was different. I was committed and respected and loved. And yet there was a part of me who was still that girl, that silly fool who wanted to self-destruct.
Those same urges were there when Garrett came by to go out for lunch. The huge difference was that I was no longer a teenager, and both Garrett and I were in committed relationships. I was clinging to the fact that men and women could sometimes be friends with no sexual undertones. I did care about Jen getting hurt, or even about her being hurt by my relationship with Garrett. And I didn’t want Rob to think that I had so little respect for him and what we had as to throw myself into an editing closet with Garrett, pull off all his trendy clothes, and fuck him on a desk.
Enough, I thought.Enough is enough.
I could have sat on that bench for hours and still be no closer to knowing what the hell I wanted. The air wasn’t getting any warmer; and even the pet owners had stopped walking by. My fingertips were so cold now that I could barely feel them, and the snow around the bench was inches deep.
The first time I had realized how different Rob was after school ended, when my mother thought she had thyroid cancer. She called on the eve of my last exam, holding it in so well that I didn’t have a clue something was wrong until I heard her voice crack. In the background, Carl whispered something, and she answered, “No, no, I’m okay, darling. Tea, please. Hot as you can make it.”
I had eventually hung up the phone and collapsed into Rob’s arms, worried, desperate to be home. After calming me down and pulling the whole story out of me, he stayed by my side. The next morning, he walked me to the exam hall and sat there, studying on the cold, concrete floor, waiting until I was done. He wrote his own final exam that afternoon, then packed us both up and drove us straight home to my mother’s. He didn’t leave my side until the doctor called the next day with my mother’s test results and gave her the all clear. She and Carl had waited three whole weeks before telling us anything. Meghan was still furious about all of that. But it had been a blessing in disguise for me. I had learned that Rob would be there for me, no matter what. That was what finally convinced me I’d found the love I deserved.
* * *
By the time I got back to the apartment, Rob had thrown himself back into bed. I could hear him snoring from the front door—he was gearing himself up for our dinner party in his own way, by being well rested. I lay down beside him and put my hand on his wrist, feeling his pulse. I tried to close my eyes, to forget about everything, even just for a minute or two. We slept for much of the afternoon, and it was the best sleep I’d had in ages. My mind was decided. Marriage. It was the only way out. It was the right thing to do.
Chapter 10
HOT, STEAMY, AND delicious, the food arrived right on time. The takeout was expensive but worth it. Not even my mother’s culinary skills extended to the complexities of Indian food. Whenever Rob and I tried to make butter chicken at home, it never turned out right. We always resorted to ordering from the place down the street. The deluxe flavor combinations alone would have been the death of me, not to mention the fact that, with my poor culinary skills, I wouldn’t know what to do with a coriander if it was dropped right in front of me.
The condo looked festive and fabulous. Our Christmas tree lit up the living room–slash–dining room–slash–everything-in-one, and the expensive Jo Malone scented candles that Camille had given me for Christmas smelled incredible. I wore a little black dress that I had found in a tiny boutique on Queen West; it was cut perfectly to my figure. I wanted to look my best, not just because we were having a dinner party but also because that same dangerous voice inside my head wanted to show Garrett what I looked like outside of work. The dress’s neckline skimmed the top of my breasts, and the drop waist accentuated my hips in a way that didn’t draw focus to the holiday pounds I’d surely put on. Plus, I’d taken a tip from the fashionistas and double-Spanxed, so there wasn’t a crease or a line to be seen anywhere on my torso. I wore completely indulgent black patent leather Louboutins. They made my calves look fabulous—even Rob seemed impressed when I came out of the bathroom scrubbed, polished, and preened within an inch of my life.
“We should have a dinner party every weekend if it means you’ll smell like this.” He held me tight around the waist and pulled me close. “Are you going to wear your ring?”
My heart jumped slightly in my chest at the thought of wearing the ring so publicly, and in front of people who weren’t our families. But the expression on Rob’s face was so warm, so heartfelt that I didn’t have it in me to deny him a little happiness. Putting the ring on now made our engagement even more official than it was already. Putting the ring on now meant I’d never be able to take it off.
“Of course,” I said. “I didn’t want to forget about it when I was in the shower, lose it down the drain and then have to call maintenance to snake the entire building. Could you imagine?”
I walked over to my dresser, a beat-up old thing from my childhood that was made of white pine, marked with crayons, and which still smelled like the sachets I had made at Girl Guide camp in grade school. I pulled the ring box out of my top drawer. Even the box had an intensity as I clicked it open to reveal the ring inside. The light in our bedroom made it sparkle like from a scene in a movie. It all felt ridiculous, but my choices were right, and I was living this life, and so I put it on. I felt the weight of the ring on my finger and fought the urge to twist it around and around as though practicing the kind of magic that might make it disappear.
“How does it look?” I held my hand forward to Rob.
“Perfect.” He smiled. “Let’s get drunk. Indian food always tastes better when I’ve had an entire bottle of cold white wine. Then at least my senses are dull enough to enjoy the spices.”
“A truer sentence has never been spoken.”
We opened the first bottle. The wine headed straight from my empty stomach to my head. I was so tipsy as I set the table that I had to recheck three times that I had enough cutlery. Rob decanted some red wine, and we sat in our warm, lovely home waiting for the doorman to ring up our guests.
“I’m sorry that Marianne and her boyfriend Cash are coming,” I said. “I wanted you to spend some time with Garrett. Outside of Beth, he’s my best friend at work.”
“I wish I knew what that was like,” he said. “Sure, we go out for drinks after work, and then there’s the bonus celebrations. Still, it’s nothing like what you guys have. It’s a sport among these guys. They’re hungry for a kind of success that I don’t care about. I need to get off the floor and into the analyst’s chair.”
“The right job will come up,” I said.
“I just have to be patient,” he said. “They party hard, some of my co-workers, but I’ve never felt comfortable being too loose around people who control so much money, let alone my future at the company. I’ve got a rep now for being a teetotaler since I don’t go out that often. But seeing them drunk and messy would just make me lose respect for them.”
“If Garrett or Beth lost any respect for me every time I got tipsy, I wouldn’t be able to show my face around them anymore. They’re not judgmental of the drunk me—at least, I don’t think so.”
“No one could be judgmental of the drunk you, Kelly. You’re hilarious when you’re tipsy.” Rob paused. “It’s a different industry, a different world. It’s not like the world stops if a publicist is hungover at the office.”
When what he was saying sank in, I grew irritated. “Are you insinuating that there’s no real value to what I do? So, I can just go off and get drunk with my co-workers all the time because television’s schlock anyway and what does it matter to the real world?”
Maybe I was more nervous than I wanted to admit, and the few glasses of wine I’d had didn’t calm my nerves. They were acting like an incendiary device. My bones felt itchy. I resisted the urge to scratch my dress right off my body.
“That’s not what I mean. No, I’m saying I think it’s irresponsible for people in my line of work to go out every night and get drunk. You need a clear head to challenge the markets. But, I mean, hey, what would the world do without television listings, eh?”
“You can be such a jerk sometimes. Really,” I snapped.
