When We Were Young

by Jaclyn Goldis

  Joey smiled. Her best friend was so not into fashion that this whole conversation was funny. “Of course I know what they are, but I’m shocked that you do.”

  “Well, let me tell you, Mr. Manolo knows his stuff. Somehow they were soft like pillows. I’m going to have to hide this month’s credit card bill from Aadesh and do an exorcism to forget the price myself, but I’m going to be a hot matron of honor!”

  “You’re always hot.” Joey kept a distracted eye on Leo. “Wait a sec, ’kay? I have to go to the bath—”

  “Look.” Siya thrust her phone into Joey’s face. “Those are them.” They were gorgeous, simple and caramel-toned, with one strap over the toes and another around the ankles.

  “Perfect. Love.”

  Siya thumbed to the next picture. “Oh, that’s all. That’s me and Kyra though. She’s a millennial, very into the animal ear thing.”

  “You guys are so cute. And by the way, we’re still millennials.” Joey was all for embracing their age, but she didn’t need to be aged up.

  “Elder millennials.” Siya winked. “I saw the Netflix special.” Siya raised her margarita. “Hey there, Team We Love Joey, I want to toast our bride. To Joey being a complete klutz and surfing into Grant!”

  Joey giggled. She raised her margarita and clinked her best friend’s glass. God, she still really needed to get the message to Leo. She stood just as Lily rose from her chair and tapped her champagne glass. Joey flopped back down.

  Her sister was resplendent in the way only possible for a brief window in time and if you hit the genetic lottery. She wore a pale-blue mini slip dress paired with a nude suede duster coat. Her strawberry hair was flat-ironed, and her makeup Kardashian-contoured.

  “I want to give a toast too.” Joey’s eyes darted outside. The second Lily was done, Joey absolutely had to deal with Leo.

  “Joey is, as you all know, my older sister. And she may not know it, but I’ve always looked up to her.”

  Joey glanced up, surprised.

  “Joey worked really freaking hard as a lawyer. She’d come home for the High Holidays, and it would just seem like all her energy was snuffed out.” Lily shifted her weight so her right hip bone jutted alluringly through her dress. “I knew she wasn’t happy. Mom always said Joey was a really talented artist. There was this one painting she did. I found it in Jo’s closet at home. It was this face with these mesmerizing eyes. It wasn’t finished.”

  Joey’s heart went from producing unexpectedly warm feelings toward both her sister and Bea, to positively arrested.

  “It was just true. It was this really true painting. And I was really proud of her when she left law to pursue her art. Jo, I don’t know if you remember, but we talked on the phone before you went to Bali. I asked if you were scared. You said, I spent the last ten years being bored. I’m excited to be scared about something. And you know what? That’s when I decided to start my YouTube channel! You may remember, my Instagram was really successful at that point, but I wasn’t sure about the video component. It seemed so, like, in your face…”

  As Lily went on, Joey froze. She watched the Leo back turning. The Leo back rising. The Leo back becoming not a back anymore, but a front.

  They locked eyes. Joey stood cemented in place on tracks as the train chugged closer. Leo broke into a smile. He began to walk over.

  Now Lily was saying, “And Joey wasn’t sure about YouTube, but she’s, like, Gen X.”

  “Elder millennial,” Siya corrected loudly.

  “Well, I’m Gen Z, and we are all about YouTube…”

  Leo was almost at the door. Joey waved her hands a couple times and then realized her lack of subtlety and attempted headshakes to convey the urgency of the situation. Leo glanced behind him. He turned back, his face confused.

  “Joey, who are you waving at?” asked Bea.

  Like synchronized swimmers, heads went to the door.

  Joey steeled her hands against the table edge. Leo stood in the frame, smack beneath the SAME BACK FOREVER sign.

  “Hey, Jonesey.” Those green eyes wandered. They registered Bea. The eyes flickered with shock.

  Then, for what seemed like forever, his eyes locked onto Lily.

  Chapter Thirty

  Joey

  Florida

  2019

  Bea spoke first, in a falsetto. “Leo! Leo Winn. Joey, did you know Leo was here?”

  “Leo? You’re the Leo?” said Lily.

  “That’s the boy from Corfu?” said G. “The one who wasn’t Jewish? What’s he doing here?”

  “Joey’s Leo?” said Siya. “That’s your Leo, Jo?”

  Leo walked in. Slowly, Joey said, “Everyone meet Leo. Mom, you remember him, clearly. Leo’s in town for the wedding.”

  “I’m in town for the wedding,” repeated Leo, his eyes fixed on Lily.

  Bea looked almost manic, her eyes darting and wild. “Well, my goodness! Leo!”

  “This was accidental, us running into him now.” Joey gave her mother a meaningful look meant to convey, We’re obviously not planning some showdown here.

  “You’re Leo!” Lily rose. “I’ve heard so much about you! Dad told me you were one of my first words. Eo!”

  Leo smiled. “I was honored for that.”

  Leo hugged Lily, and when they stepped apart, Joey watched their faces arrange in the same smile—lips pressed together but a sheen to their eyes.

  “No one ever talks about Corfu. You don’t know how lucky you guys were. I’ve basically only ever gone to Vermont or on press trips.”

  “Lucky,” repeated Joey, her heart yammering.

  “Corfu.” G shook her head. “I never understood why you vacationed on that miserable island.”

  “I mean, like, I’ve Googled it so many times,” said Lily. “There’s this place, I forget what it’s called. It’s this rock thing you swim under with the person you love. One day, I want to do a shoot for my magazine there. It’s my dream.”

  Leo’s eyes met Joey’s. “Sidari.”

  “Yes! I have to go there.”

  Bea’s face turned the gray of her wrap dress. “So Leo, when did you get in?”

  “Last week.”

  “And have you met Grant?”

  “Not yet. But we’re doing dinner Tuesday, right, Jonesey?”

  Joey nodded. Under the table, Siya pinched Joey’s thigh, or tried to, but ripped jeans were made thick back in the early aughts.

  “Jonesey.” Bea slapped on an overwrought smile. “This is feeling like the Twilight Zone.”

  “Leo.” Lily put a hand on his shoulder. “You have to come by this week. I have so many questions about Corfu. I want to hear all the stories.”

  “I can tell you the stories, darling,” said Bea.

  Lily ignored her. “So will you, Leo?”

  “Leo’s pretty busy, Lil,” said Joey, and relief shone on her mother’s face. “He’s not just here for the wedding. He’s also here to buy a yacht.”

  “A yacht,” said Bea. “So you’re a—”

  “Captain.” Leo shoved his hands in his jeans. “I have a little charter business. I’m small potatoes next to a lot of the outfits, but I enjoy it. It’s a nice life.”

  “You’re a captain on yachts?” said Lily. “That’s so cool. Could I maybe—”

  “Lil, Leo’s yachts are his job,” said Joey. “They’re not for photo shoots.”

  “What I was going to say,” said a frosty Lily, “was I want to hear about it. We have practically no family, you know, Leo. Most of them died in the Holocaust. Dad always says the Winns were like family.”

  “We’ll make something happen,” said Leo. “I promise you that.”

  Lily beamed. Joey felt an irrational hit of annoyance toward her. Like they were competing for Leo, and again Leo was going to choose Lily.

  “What is Leo really doing here?” Bea had displaced Siya from her chair and now whispered half an inch from Joey’s ear.

  Joey sipped her margarita, trying to calm down h
er nerves. “You know he’s in town. That’s the whole reason all your lies unraveled.”

  “I knew it, but to see it is another thing. I don’t get what you both are planning to do. Destroy all our lives? Now? Before your wedding?”

  “No. Not before my wedding. We’ll tell Dad and Lily after. Lily’s eighteen. She has a brother, Mom. She has a biological father she doesn’t know about. Leo has kept your secret for fifteen years.”

  Bea rolled a piece of hard gold confetti between her fingertips. Then she dug the edge of the confetti into her forearm, carving two lines into an X-shape. She stared at the X like it held answers. “I know this is my fault. I knew long ago this day would come. I just didn’t expect it on your wedding.” Her mother slid her wedding ring up over her knuckle and then pushed it back down again.

  “Well, that makes two of us.” Joey watched Leo and Lily talking. Seeing them for the first time together as siblings was such a weighty reality to digest.

  Suddenly G rose from her chair. “I have something to say. Now, this is my first bachelorette party, but I did think it was going to be more fun. Where is the dancing?”

  “Yes.” Lily rose. “G, you’re totally right! Do you want to try to twerk?” She smiled slyly at Joey, and Joey managed a tiny smile in return.

  “A twerk, you say. Yes. Lily, turn the music up!”

  Bea wandered off, and Leo slid into her abandoned chair. He said, “Will the real bachelorette please stand up?”

  Joey motioned to a gyrating G. “She must have missed out her time around.”

  “No twerking for you?”

  “No twerking. I’m just kicking it over here with my margarita.”

  “I’ll kick it over here with you then. If that’s okay.”

  “It’s okay,” she said.

  * * *

  Much later, after a surprise performance orchestrated by Lily of an apparently on-the-cusp-of-superstardom local pop singer, everyone left.

  Siya and Lily helped G out in a chain of linked arms. Joey wasn’t surprised that Siya was heading off to sleep. Since they’d been kids, Siya had favored a grandparent-hour bedtime, and her four-year-old twins had only pushed it earlier. On her way out, Siya whispered in Joey’s ear, “Tomorrow. Me and you. Every. Last. Detail.” She had that menacing look, like when Joey accidentally drove her car over the prom dress that had slid off Siya’s trunk.

  Bea went last. “I’m sorry,” she said to Leo, and had to stand on her tiptoes to achieve an awkward pat of his shoulder. “I always wanted to tell you that.”

  After they’d all gone, Joey teetered near the door. She wondered vaguely where her shower slides had gone.

  “Careful, Jonesey.” Leo chuckled. “Still barefoot, I see.”

  “Always.” The sudden quiet of the place struck her. It was in that void that Joey realized she was drunk for the first time in years. Quite possibly wasted.

  “Easy, J. How are you getting home? I’ll wait with you while you call an Uber.”

  “I’m staying here. Lily got us rooms.” She leaned on Leo’s arm for support. They walked through the door. One side of the SAME BACK FOREVER sign detached as they left, flapping against Joey’s head.

  “I’ll walk you to your room.”

  “Okay.”

  They made it to the elevator bank. “So was your bachelorette party everything you ever wanted and more?” Leo grinned. “Other than me crashing it, of course.”

  “It was a nice night,” Joey said. “I felt really loved.”

  “I sense a but.”

  “Well.” Joey stared down at herself. “I’m wearing jeans from high school, Leo. They surprised me. You know how I feel about surprises.”

  Leo’s eyes flitted down to her jeans. “Those jeans look nice to me.”

  Men. Joey rested against the elevator door. Leo shifted her over to the wall.

  “Lily seeing me already was disastrous,” he said. “I’m sorry.”

  “It had to happen sometime, right?”

  “Yeah. God. It was amazing to see her. She’s really something else.”

  “You don’t know the half of it.”

  “No,” said Leo. “Other than my Google searches, I guess I don’t.”

  Joey winced. “You will, Leo.”

  “I’m sorry I ruined your bachelorette party.”

  “You didn’t. I didn’t even want a bachelorette party. You know…I don’t love being the center of attention. Not to sound ungrateful. It was beautiful. Just, I guess if it was up to me, I would have opted for something quieter.”

  Leo looked thoughtful. “What would you have wanted? You know, if you’d gotten to choose? Maybe we can still grant your wish.”

  Joey stared at him. “What are you now, my bachelorette fairy godmother?”

  Leo smiled. “Maybe I just am. At least I can do something to make your life better, not worse, while I’m down here.” Leo pressed the button to go up. Joey pressed the button to go down.

  “Well then, you’re on, Winn. I know what I want,” she said as the down elevator dinged. “But you’re going to need to take me there.”

  Chapter Thirty-One

  Joey

  Florida

  2019

  Joey raced to the checkout counter with a cake and a squeeze tube of blue frosting teetering in her hands. Her biceps wedged a jar of Merenda against her chest. Joey had convinced the nice manager of Publix to import it from Greece, vowing to be an avid customer. (She’d kept her word.)

  The frosting Joey had scrawled on the otherwise standard vanilla sheet cake now bobbed up against the plastic top. She ran past a shelf with Doritos. Gosh, Doritos were delicious. But Nacho Cheese Flavor versus Cool Ranch? Pausing to ponder, Joey set the cake down beside her bare feet. The cake had previously been adorned with HAPPY JOEY DAY! Now the entirety of the H clung to the plastic top, so the cake just read APPY JOEY DAY!

  “Jonesey!” Leo’s voice tore through the vacant market.

  “Coming!” Abandoning the Doritos, Joey lifted the cake and ran. Then she changed her mind and swiveled backward into a Roger Rabbit. After a few moments, she was breathing hard, but it was very fun to Roger Rabbit. But God, it was also exhausting to Roger Rabbit.

  Joey stopped, panting in the produce aisle beside a crate of interesting objects. They were waxy yellow-green, shaped like stars. Joey picked up a fruit, twirled it around. It was fascinating, in a way. Star fruits? Huh.

  “Joey!”

  Joey went to the checkout line in a manner she felt to be restrained and sober and un-Roger-Rabbit-like. She placed the cake, frosting, Merenda, and star fruit on the conveyor belt. The checkout girl had already rung through Cinnamon Toast Crunch, milk, Sour Patch Kids, wooden spoons, paper bowls, and two bottles of water.

  Over the beep-beeps of the scanning machine, Joey said, “Leo, what are you going to eat?”

  “There’s an entire cake here, Jones.”

  “It’s my cake!” Joey’s stomach rumbled at the threat of him. The cake wasn’t even that big. “If you want cake, Winn, I suggest you get your own.”

  Shit, was she really going to eat all this crap? But she’d hardly eaten all day. And it wasn’t necessarily a binge if it was in full view of Leo.

  Leo laughed. “So I’ll have cereal. Or are you going to eat the entire box of that too?”

  “You can have cereal,” she allowed.

  “Maybe I’ll even eat this,” said Leo, tossing the star fruit into the air and then catching it as they exited the market.

  “You can’t eat the star fruit. It’s my inspiration.”

  “For what?”

  “A star fruit show. Maybe I could be a…sculptureress? Sculpturrrr…you know.” Joey plopped onto the pavement by a row of shopping carts.

  “Jones. Let’s eat at the hotel.”

  “I don’t want to eat at the hotel. It’s Joey Day! You promised me it’s Joey Day. Can’t we eat right here where I want to on Joey Day?”

  As Leo sat down beside her, Joey’s he
ad did a washing cycle spin, and the stars came down to dance with the happy shopping carts.

  “Have some water.” Leo handed her a bottle, and after a tiny struggle, she popped open the top and chugged. Leo composed their cereal bowls. “I have such a memory of you, our first summer. You were up in arms that Corfu didn’t have Cinnamon Toast Crunch. Remember how we protested?”

  “Oh God.” Joey crunched down on Cinnamon Toast Crunch deliciousness. “I totally forgot that. You were such a good sport. I made you march with that insane poster.”

  Leo slurped up a spoonful. “You made me a believer, Jones. You wanted it so badly that I got all riled up too. Didn’t we march for days until old man Kristo finally capitulated? I’ll see what I can do. He was so peeved.”

  “Super peeved. But the next summer, he had Cinnamon Toast Crunch.”

  “You were so determined, Jones. Passionate when you believed in something. Full of big, unique ideas that came to life when you painted them.” Despite her inebriation, Joey had a lucid certainty that she was indeed those things once. In a strange way, she felt closer now to the kid who’d campaigned for Cinnamon Toast Crunch than to most of the stages she’d occupied since.

  Somehow, the memory of strong, little Joey emboldened her. “Leo, you know that day on the beach, when I told you I looked for you in Nice?”

  There were a few spoonfuls of cereal-worth of silence before Leo said, “Yeah.”

  “You said I wasn’t the only one with ghosts. I couldn’t let you finish then. I was going to jump out of myself or something. I don’t know why, but I need to know. Did you…did you ever look for me too?”

  Leo stared beyond her, beyond the lot, at Federal Highway. A green car careened by, then a white one. Then no cars at all. “The truth is, after we split, I spiraled, Jones.” Leo rubbed his eyes, his cheeks, made fists with both his hands—and then slowly unfurled his fingers.

  “I mean, I put on a good front. First, I got that gig as a deckhand. Then I got promoted to second mate. I was throwing it all into work, but if I’m truthful, I saw you at the bottom of every beer I downed. I was angry. Scary angry. Pissed off at the world. Especially at my father.”