The Boyfriend

by Abigail Barnette

  Neil’s brow creased with his frown. He seemed confused at our reactions, but there was no way he couldn’t have known why we were miffed. He wasn’t that clueless.

  “It’s late—“ I began.

  “It’s eight-thirty,” Neil interrupted.

  “Excuse me, I was speaking.” Normally, I wouldn’t have objected; we talked over each other often, and it was no big deal. But this was too raw and personal a discussion for me to let it slide. He looked appropriately chastened, so I continued. “It’s eight-thirty at night. We just finished dinner. Olivia has been put to bed. We’ve all been apart for a week. Instead of chilling out with us, maybe watching some Netflix or playing cards or something, you want to spend this time calling your ex, whom you haven’t been involved with for thirty-ish years?”

  “Sophie, I’m retired. You’re unemployed. El-Mudad doesn’t work. There will be plenty of time to spend with each other,” Neil protested in his infuriatingly reasonable tone.

  “There will be plenty of time to discuss all of this with Valerie, as well,” El-Mudad said, his expression stone cold.

  “I don’t understand why you two are reacting this way.” Neil had somehow convinced himself that we were the ones being unreasonable.

  And maybe our suspicion was a little unreasonable. Valerie and I had put a lot of our animosity behind us, especially now that she’d moved on from Neil and we had to all raise Olivia together. But just because she had moved on didn’t mean Neil had, entirely. At least, it appeared as though he hadn’t, and that broke my heart.

  “You know, one time someone described Valerie’s relationship with you,” I said, omitting the part where the person who’d said it had been Emma. “They thought that Valerie didn’t really want you. She just wanted you to be available in case she wanted you. Do I believe that if you snapped your fingers right now, she’d come a-runnin’? No. I think she loves Laurence. But I think that assessment of your relationship was the other way around; you’re not happy unless Valerie is single and waiting for you.”

  Neil’s expression hardened. “That’s not fair. After everything Valerie and I went through losing Emma—“

  I held up one finger. “No. No. You do not get to invoke that in this conversation. You’re not calling Valerie to offer her support or look for support yourself. This has nothing to do with Emma and everything to do with the fact that Valerie got married and didn’t consult you first!”

  “I agree with Sophie,” El-Mudad said, standing slowly. He put his hands in his pockets and looked down for a moment before meeting Neil’s eyes again. “I would never, under any circumstance, want to stand between you and Valerie when it came to dealing with your daughter’s passing or the raising of Olivia. But this is unrelated. If you don’t see that, then...I don’t know. I find it very difficult to believe that you don’t.”

  Neil made a noise of disbelief. “Are you suggesting that I’m playing dumb? Honestly, I don’t understand what’s come over either of you.”

  “Exactly! Either of us. You have two people who love you, asking you not to rush off and call your ex-girlfriend because you’re angry about her getting married,” El-Mudad said.

  Though I hated the fact that we were arguing, I really appreciated having him for backup on this. Too many times, I’d been told not to worry about Valerie, that I had misinterpreted things about their relationship. The fact that El-Mudad saw it, too, made me feel less like I was overreacting.

  “Fine!” Neil tossed up his hands. “I won’t call Valerie. Would one of you like to supervise me when I eventually do? So that you can make sure I won’t profess my undying love and run back to her?”

  “No,” I said, rolling my eyes.

  But at the same time, El-Mudad said, “Yes.”

  “Pardon me?” Neil asked, his eyes wide. “You can’t be serious.”

  “I am.” El-Mudad crossed his arms over his chest. “Think seriously, if you would, about how this looks to us. On Christmas Eve, you spent dinner with your ex-girlfriend, leaving us behind. Then, you told us you no longer wanted to go on our holiday in Venice with us. Now, you learn that your ex-girlfriend has gotten married, and you have to rush off to phone her like Ross Poldark riding to Trenwith to stop Elizabeth marrying George Warleggan!”

  My mouth fell open. El-Mudad gave me a defensive side-long glare. “I told you, I can pay attention to my phone and the television at the same time.”

  “Who are— No. No. I think both of you are making far too much of this. I already said I wouldn’t call Valerie—“

  “You said until tomorrow!” I blurted, raising my voice more than suited the conversation. I didn’t want things to escalate to shouting, but somehow I had arrived there. “You’re going to call her tomorrow and, like El-Mudad said, make it seem like I ran tattling to you!”

  “So, what would you two like from me?” Neil asked in frustration. “A written declaration that I, Neil Charles Leif Elwood, party of the first part, will never have any contact with Valerie...whatever her bloody last name is now? Unless said contact is about our granddaughter?”

  “Yes!” El-Mudad said, his tremendous patience finally gone. “Yes, I would like that very much. Because there is no reason to have any other relationship with her!”

  “Outside of over thirty years of close friendship,” Neil reminded us.

  “Thirty years of friendship in which she outed you to your fiancé to sabotage your wedding, boasted about her campaign to drive you and I apart, didn’t attend our wedding because she still wasn’t over you, then got married not only without inviting you but without telling you,” I ticked off on my fingers. “Yeah, real close friendship, Neil.”

  “I don’t expect either of you to understand—“

  “Good! Because we don’t!” El-Mudad ran a hand through his hair and laughed in frustration. “Do you know something? This was not how I wanted the night to go. I wanted to spend time with the man I love after being apart for a week. It is the first night that I officially live here. And you want to spend it on the phone to your ex? Be my guest. Don’t expect me to come second to the person you really want!”

  He stormed out of the living room and across to the foyer, then out the door, slamming it behind him.

  Neil watched him go, then turned to me. “That is a massive overreaction.”

  “No. It’s not.” I was beginning to wonder if Neil truly couldn’t see how he had made both of us feel. “And I know it’s not, because I’ve been through exactly what you just put him through. I have felt consistently throughout our relationship that if it came down to the wire, you’d choose Valerie over me.”

  “That is absurd!” he barked.

  “Oh, what I feel is absurd? That’s exactly the kind of gaslighting Ross tried on Demelza, and look how that turned out!” I shouted.

  A combination of anger and puzzlement scrunched up Neil’s face. “Who are these people you two keep talking about?”

  “It’s a show!” I stamped my foot. “Now, excuse me. The man we love just stormed out of this house into the freezing cold with no coat on, and I would like to go save him from pride-induced hypothermia!” I stomped into the foyer, grabbed one of my winter coats from the closet—and one of Neil’s since El-Mudad’s stuff hadn’t arrived yet—then stepped outside and slammed the door behind me.

  Chapter Nine

  The soles of my ballet flats crunched on the salt carefully applied to our front steps and walkway by the grounds people. My breath clouded the air; my anger had probably raised my temperature enough that it looked like steam from a nuclear power plant’s cooling towers. El-Mudad hadn’t gotten far. I saw him stalking off toward the garage.

  “Hey!” I called, jogging to catch up with him.

  He slowed and turned, rubbing his hands over his bare arms. “You should go inside, Sophie. It’s cold.”

  “Um, duh? That’s why I’m here.” I held out Neil’s leather coat. El-Mudad was a bit broader in the shoulders, but it still fit him. “Put this on, o
r you’ll die.”

  “It’s not so bad,” he argued through bloodless lips. He took the coat and jammed his arms into the sleeves.

  “Don’t take it out on the lining,” I said, trying to joke. I’d never seen El-Mudad angry before. I had no idea if humor would work on him. He gave me an annoyed glance, and I sighed. “You know, we’ve never fought before?”

  “I’m not fighting with you,” he clarified. “I’m fighting with Neil.”

  “No, I meant ‘we’ as in the...triple ‘we’.” I jerked my thumb over my shoulder to indicate the front door. “I think we’re all having our first fight.”

  “The first of many, if Neil doesn’t stop this asinine obsession with his ex-lover’s personal life.” He ran a hand through his hair. “I’m overreacting. I know I am. I’m overreacting.”

  “I don’t believe in overreactions.” I hugged myself in the hopes that gathering my coat closer would somehow generate warmth. “I just believe in reactions.”

  “Liar.” A smile touched the corners of his mouth. “You apologize for overreacting all the time.”

  “It’s different when it’s me,” I grumbled.

  “It always is. And that infuriating ego is one of the many reasons I love you.” He reached up and touched my cheek with his practically frozen hand.

  “What about Neil’s infuriating ego?” I asked, and El-Mudad’s expression hardened.

  “I just can’t understand this...toxic obsession with Valerie. I see how you react to her. I know you feel the same.” He stopped abruptly and tilted his head back, looking straight up into the sky as though he could wish our problem into space.

  “Am I that obvious?” I slipped my arm through his and gave him a nudge. “Come on. Let’s go inside the house. We don’t have to go make up all nicey-nice with Neil. We can just talk.”

  “You’re right. He’s probably on the phone to her right now, anyway,” El-Mudad said bitterly.

  “He won’t be.” I could state that with absolute confidence. “He’s fucked up enough with me over her in the past. There’s no way he would lie to me about calling her.”

  El-Mudad didn’t say much as we followed the gentle curve of the drive. It split in two, one path arcing off to return to the main gate, the other rounding the house to lead under the porte-cochere. I didn’t have my key to the kitchen door on me, but I did have the code to the security box. I punched in the numbers with frozen fingers and held the door for El-Mudad.

  “We took the long way,” he said with a humorless laugh. He sounded so tired. Worn down by the Neil-and-Valerie-bullshit-extravaganza. I almost wanted to warn him that he hadn’t seen anything yet, but that just made me angry. There wasn’t any reason either of us should have to deal with any more of it.

  “You want me to make some coffee?” I asked.

  He tossed Neil’s coat over one of the tall chairs at the island and headed for the big round table in the breakfast nook, where we’d just eaten dinner only a little while before. He put one hand over his stomach and grimaced. “No. The acid...I’ll be up all night with heartburn.”

  “Tea? Hot cocoa?” I felt like we needed something to drink to have a heart-to-heart over.

  “Would it make you feel better to make tea, Sophie?” he asked, seeing straight through me.

  “I’ll put the kettle on,” I replied, though our Bunn kettle already held hot water. I filled two mugs and put them on a tray, then grabbed an assortment of tea bags, two spoons, and a small box of sugar cubes.

  El-Mudad whistled sarcastically when it set it on the table. “Elegant.”

  “Shut up. I’m American. We don’t know how to do this stuff.” I took a mug and pushed it toward him, careful not to slosh the water.

  “Sophie...” he began, his tone changing slightly. I raised my eyebrows and made an affirmative noise to prompt him to continue. He said, “What do you mean, Neil has fucked up with you over Valerie before?”

  Being so in love with El-Mudad, it was easy to remember that we hadn’t always all been together. He hadn’t been with us during those first early, turbulent years. And he probably thought the worst, when I’d phrased it that way. “Nothing like you’re thinking. I swear. He’s never cheated on me.”

  El-Mudad’s shoulders relaxed, confirming my suspicions.

  I went on. “It was not for lack of trying on her part.”

  “She tried to seduce him?” His eyes narrowed, his already low opinion of Valerie visibly sinking further.

  Maybe it would have been nice to have him on my side in loathing Valerie, but it wouldn’t have been fair of me to encourage him to hate her. “Not that I’m aware of. But she did try to sabotage our relationship. The first time I met her, I overheard her trying to shame Neil by saying I was his midlife crisis. At Emma’s wedding rehearsal dinner, I caught her bragging to someone about how she could break Neil and me up.”

  El-Mudad leaned back in his chair and crossed his arms.

  “I know, I know,” I said in response to his long, slow exhale. “And Neil didn’t react well to the situation, at all. He just tried to keep the peace. Which involved trying to convince himself that Valerie was completely uninterested in him. And trying to convince me of the same, despite everything I’d heard and seen. I mean, I basically threatened to beat her ass in a restaurant bathroom. It’s not like I didn’t know what was going on.”

  El-Mudad closed his eyes and shook his head, as though he were in pain. “Why would he do that? Why would he not listen to his wife?”

  “I wasn’t his wife at the time,” I clarified. “Although, that’s not an excuse. He was being clumsy. Not necessarily malicious. He’d just wanted everyone to get along, for Emma’s sake. I think he saw some point in the future when he and Valerie wouldn’t be forced into such close proximity as they were raising their daughter, then sending her off to college and getting her through early adulthood, then planning the wedding...”

  “But they work together. They own a company together,” El-Mudad reminded me. “He was never planning for such a time.”

  “The company is...that’s complicated.” I picked at my thumbnail. It was petty of me, but I hated seeing her name next to my husband’s every time the company was mentioned in the media or we had to visit the New York office. But I knew why he’d founded the company with her. “Elwood and Stern would never have been Elwood and Stern if he hadn’t gotten her pregnant. It’s as simple as that. He felt guilty for not staying with her, and apparently that was his version of atonement.”

  “So, there is a lot of guilt there.” El-Mudad considered. “But you’ve yet to physically assault her, yes?”

  I laughed, heat rising to my face. “Okay, that was not one of my finer moments. But things have gotten better.”

  “Because of Olivia?” he guessed.

  “No. Before that.” I thought back to the weeks before my wedding to Neil and how I’d had to track her down at her office to get her RSVP. “We had a talk. A not pleasant one. But she admitted to me that she was still in love with Neil, and that she had been for a very long time. Once it was out there between us and we’d both acknowledged it, Neil couldn’t deny it anymore. And after that, things really did get better. Before, that, even, if I’m being totally fair to her. Which isn’t something I’m great at. She helped me when Neil had some trouble after his mother died. She was there for me when no one else could be after his...bad time. Like, all I had to do was call her and she dropped everything and came through for me. She’s not a villain. She’s a person. Anything evil about her…I built that up in my head.”

  “And now, you have Olivia to think about. And you can’t find it in your heart to hate Valerie anymore,” El-Mudad finished for me.

  I squirmed. “Okay, I never said that. And I won’t be held to it.”

  The door to the hallway opened just a crack and Neil peeked in. “I know I’m intruding but...may I intrude?”

  El-Mudad pushed the chair next to his out and Neil approached cautiously. I checked out E
l-Mudad’s expression to gauge what sort of front we were putting up together. I didn’t want to gang up on Neil, but I didn’t want to play Devil’s Advocate for him, either. I couldn’t get a read on El-Mudad’s calm, unconcerned face.

  “We were just talking about Valerie,” I said, laying all the cards on the table. “And her history when it comes to you and me.”

  “Ah.” Hopefully, that was an indication that Neil knew not to try any reframing bullshit to make her look better to El-Mudad. “Well, there certainly is...history. But things have gotten better, haven’t they?”

  “They have,” I agreed. I had to give him that, since I’d just been arguing that exact thing to El-Mudad only moments before. “But that doesn’t mean either of us are ready to let our guard down where she’s concerned. Because right now it doesn’t seem like this is a problem of her not being over you so much as a problem of you not being over her.”

  Neil paled. “What? No, that isn’t—“

  “That might not be what it is, but it is how it appears,” El-Mudad said. He reached for Neil’s hand and covered it with his on the tabletop. “And knowing my history with Bijou...”

  “I would never. I swear, I would never hurt you that way,” Neil promised. I believed him; he’d cheated on one person before in his entire life and he still felt guilty about it.

  Founded-a-company-with-the-woman-he’d-done-wrong level guilt.

  Maybe that was what El-Mudad needed to hear. “Baby...I think you should come clean to him. About why you and Valerie broke up.”

  Neil looked at me in shame and alarm. I simply waited.

  “I...cheated on her,” he said, glancing up to quickly meet El-Mudad’s eyes, then casting his back down again.

  El-Mudad slowly withdrew his hand from Neil’s and sat back.

  The temperature in the room seemed to drop. Though I’d known about Neil’s infidelity and the way El-Mudad’s marriage had ended after an open relationship had veered into adultery, I’d never connected the two in my mind. I had no doubt, having heard the story and Neil’s true remorse over what he’d done, that he’d learned his lesson. And although I had been jealous and suspicious about Valerie since the night I first met her, I knew her in a much different way than El-Mudad did. Like her or not, I’d been through a lot with Valerie. It just pissed me off when she tried to be more important in Neil’s life than I was. It was a battle of egos between us. Not a fight for Neil.