What’s up with Aaron trying to intervene? I’ve always known he was manipulative, but did I have my head buried so deeply in my ass I didn’t see him trying to manage me? Is he trying to hasten the sale to Juliana because he doesn’t want me to think it through? To think about the larger picture?
Alan, our host, comes up. “You know what I don’t understand?” he asks.
“Topiary transportation?” I ask.
“You two,” he says. “You have such independent lives, but when you’re together, anyone can see the sparks fly. Do you have a secret of some sort?”
“If you’re asking for relationship advice, you’re in the wrong place,” I say.
“Am I? Plenty of people I’m looking at right now spend less than half the year with their spouses. Some of them spend zero time at all. But they’re not like you two. It always seemed extreme that you didn’t bring her around, that you led such separate lives. But it’s not the quantity, it’s the quality, isn’t it? You have chemistry, but also this friendship. You like each other. You laugh together.”
Francine’s the one laughing. Over across the roof, she’s laughing, gesturing, pointing north, probably in the direction of whatever ballet school she’s recommending. I think to tell him it’s a charade. But even if I was in the mood to let him in on the secret, it’s not entirely true that it’s all a charade. We have chemistry. We have friendship. We have history. We’re attracted to each other. We laugh together. We lead separate lives, yet we’re married.
“Or do you work well as a couple because you’re apart so much?” Alan asks. “Do you wish you were together?”
I stare across the rooftop at her, bathed in the festive lights strung overhead like giant stars.
Yes. I wish we were together.
The thought forms before I can think better of it. I’d risk it. I’d risk the hurt. The pain. I’d risk all of it.
The thought hits me like a sledgehammer.
Eventually she’s back and Alan takes off to do host things. I coax her to a couch. She needs to not be standing.
“You remembered my mania about the whole ‘getting up from a lying position without your hands’ thing,” she says. “I didn’t even remember that.”
“I remember. Every time I do it.”
She pokes at my abs. “I’m sure it’s easy for you, what with your hardbody weightlifting ways.”
“That’s right,” I say.
“I can’t anymore,” she says, meaning she can’t get up without the use of her hands. Because of her knee. “Not now.”
“I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to put your mind back on it again.”
“Like I don’t freak out about it twenty-four seven already,” she says. “Running every doom scenario possible. Go ahead. You want to ask me how bad it is.”
“I don’t need to,” I say. I already know. It’s bad.
“Teaching that class yesterday in that beautiful space...I had this realization that that’s where I’m happiest, even the most fulfilled.”
“Wow! That’s massive,” I say. “Isn’t it?”
She sighs sadly and looks out over the chockablock buildings, all muted grays and browns except for where the sky reflects. The sun is gone, but there’s still brightness. For now.
“Isn’t that a valuable insight?”
“No. Because I don’t know who I am without that goal. This European tour, dancing in front of the ruins, being this international ballerina, it’s what I’ve been dreaming of all this time—it feels like all my life. Striving and striving. When I think of letting it go…it makes me want to weep.”
I curl my fingers around her forearm. I’m not the kind of man who’s good with people or who knows what they need on an emotional level. I barely know my own mind, but I want to show her that I’m with her. I am with her. Or I want to be.
“I know what you think,” she says. “I know you think I shouldn’t do the tour because of my knee. You think I’d mess it up even more. I’d let down the whole company.”
“It’s not my decision,” I say. “I’m the last person to suggest you stop being extreme.”
This gets a smile from her.
“How about you tell me this,” I say. “What are the chocolate chip cookie dough parts? Of the ballet tour? And what’s the boring ice cream?”
“I think you’re being sneaky,” she says.
“What parts?”
“The whole thing is chocolate chip cookie dough,” she says tersely. “That’s the problem.”
“Come on, you know that’s not true. Tell me.”
She touches the buttons of my sports jacket, one and then another, then adjusts my lapels. “The chocolate chip cookie dough is very plentiful. Dancing in front of the ruins, obviously. Being specifically chosen for this prestigious tour out of a large pool of hopefuls. That’s chocolate chip cookie dough, dude. A European dance tour! Fabulous hotels! Dream come true.”
“So dancing in front of the ruins, accommodations, and having been invited. What else?”
“What else…” She adjusts my collar. “Kind of, that somebody thought enough of my skills to literally pay for me to fly to Europe in order to dance for people.”
“That’s a restatement about having been invited. What about the dance itself? The ballet itself.”
“It’s an original creation of Sevigny’s.” She shrugs. “It’s very challenging technically, and I’m proud to be nailing it. But Sevigny’s not really thinking about the ruins on an artistic level. The ruins are just one stop on a tour that’s all about showcasing his choreography.”
“Like how?” I ask.
“This feels like an exercise in frustration,” she says, swinging around so that her legs are on my lap.
I settle my hands lightly over her knee, wishing I had ice, wishing I could trade knees with her. “Tell me how the dance would be different if it were pure cookie dough.”
“If I had my way, the dance would be done in complete response to the ruins. It wouldn’t be as polished. I’d want it more exuberant, the way the girls dance. A less breakneck tempo. Better costumes.”
“So the cookie dough parts of your upcoming tour are being invited in the first place, which you’ve nailed. Being able to do a technically difficult dance, which you’ve nailed. And the accommodations.”
“And being on a worldwide tour as a ballerina,” she insists. “Going down to have a café au lait in a café on the ancient streets.”
I slide a palm over her calf, down to her sock and back up. Why is she knocking herself out for something she’s not a hundred percent on? She’s barely twenty percent on it.
“So you like it in theory, just not in reality,” I say.
She raises one brow. “You’d better not be suggesting I blow off this tour. Because then we’d have a problem.”
“You hear me suggesting that?” I protest.
“I think you’re thinking that I should do my own damn tour. Maybe with the girls. Make that my whole thing. I think that’s what you’re saying.”
“I said all that?” I tease.
She pokes my chest. “I think you should screw off.”
I grab her finger and brush a kiss on her knucklebone.
“Not this again,” she says.
I move on to the next knuckle.
“It’s a lifelong dream,” she says. “My dream since I was a kid. And you want to act like it’s boring ice cream parts.”
“I think you fought for it,” I say. “I think you are the most tenacious person on this rooftop.”
“No, you’re the most tenacious person,” she says.
I brush my lips over another knuckle. “It’s a thing we have in common.”
“Who knew!” she says.
A rush of déjà vu hits me. The memory of a conversation from the night we were married.
“What?” she asks, tilting her head. Her silky hair catches the light from atop a nearby building. “I can see those gears in your mind turning and churning. Tell me.”
>
She’s waiting, really wanting to know. She so hates being the last to know things. And somehow, I can’t resist. One brief trip to the past. “We knew that night.”
“We talked about it?” she asks.
“We talked about being tenacious that night. That people get it wrong, like they take it weirdly personally. We talked about being both outsiders.”
“I hate that I forgot so much of it,” she says. “And I hate so much of how I acted.”
“It’s past. We don’t have to talk about it.” I glide my palm along her calf, soft and cool. “Don’t worry about it.”
“Maybe you don’t like to talk about it, but I want to know. Tell me what else happened,” she says. “I know you remember.”
“For one thing, I had no idea that you were such a lightweight.”
“Such a lightweight,” she says.
“I wasn’t used to drinking either, but—”
“But at least you remember our nuptials!” she says.
“We were acting in…an uncharacteristic way,” I say.
“Like how?”
I shake my head. I shouldn’t be going back there. The level of happiness I had that night is what made it hurt.
She’s looking at me now, eyes piercing. “I want to know. And don’t say it was tequila. Tell me really.”
“One highlight,” I sigh, “or possibly a lowlight, was us holding hands, running down the strip. And at one point, skipping.”
“Wait, what?” Her eyes go wide. “No. Are you making that up?”
“Sorry to say, I’m not.”
She fake punches my arm. “No way!”
Skipping. That’s what she did to me then. “It was a little bit ironic, but not entirely.” It was actually ecstatic. She opened me up and unraveled me and made me feel so much joy.
“Us. Skipping,” she says. “Holding hands and skipping. You are so shitting me!”
“I’ve tried to suppress that part.” Which is true, but not because it was dorky. Because it was good. We were both drunk on tequila, but I was drunk on impossible things, and that’s a far more dangerous drink.
“Skipping,” she says, stunned.
“Hey, don’t shoot the messenger.”
“No, it’s…” She sucks in her lips, staring at a giant bush that’s shaped like a duck. “What else. How did we…get the idea to you know, get hitched?”
“We were doing this whole thing with Igor and Monique. Something about giving them a stable family life. We were on a side street by this run-down chapel. They posted the marriage certificates the way restaurants post menus, all in different styles. You found one that had little birds holding banners, and a place to put names of children that would be members of the blended family. It was all bordered in gold foil. Calligraphy, etcetera. You were like, ‘We have to get this!’”
“The wedding was my idea?” she asks.
“Well, you really wanted the certificate showing we were a family. And we didn’t even keep them. We taped them up on a lamppost outside the Bellagio to announce it to the world. You felt that it was…beautiful and ephemeral,” I say. “Those were the words that you used.”
“Wow,” she says.
“It seemed like a good idea at the time,” I say, trying for lightness.
Seemed like a good idea at the time. Understatement of the year. She was the only thing worth having in the whole entire universe.
“We went back to my place because I had chocolates.” I straighten her socks so they line up with each other. They’re white with black smiley faces. Francine will go elegant, but she always reserves some part of her outfit for fun. Always the little rebel. “You ate every one of those chocolates before crashing on my bed. I crashed on the couch out in the living room. When I woke up, you were gone.”
“I blew town,” she says sadly.
“You blew town.”
“And we were married,” she says. “Why didn’t you let me know?”
“I thought you’d find me when you figured it out,” I tell her. “When you were ready.”
“And I had no idea.” She sighs dolefully. “I acted like such a complete and utter asshole. I’m so sorry.”
“The past is in the past.”
“I know, and I know you don’t like to talk about it, and I don’t blame you for not wanting to, but Benny—” She swings her legs off my lap, sitting up, like she wants me to get this. “I want you to know, I loved the thing we had going. I loved it even before that night. You were this bright spot in everything, this genuine person in a land of fakery. And I had to go and ruin it by making all those unwelcome passes at you. I felt like an ass.”
“What are you talking about?” I say.
“When we got back to your place. You were right to reject me.”
I frown, not sure what she’s apologizing for.
“You know. Me kissing you and trying to unbutton your shirt, and you were like ‘Francine, no, we can’t.’ The few good things I remember from that night are blotted out by my awful behavior. I had to ruin it, you know? I was so screwed up back then. And I behaved so shamelessly with you, and then I compounded it by ghosting you the next morning instead of staying there and apologizing.”
My mind is reeling. What?
She presses a fingertip to my lips. “Let me get this out for once. You texted me,” she continues, “and you were so sweet. I felt so ashamed, you have no idea. I couldn’t face you, even through texting! Of all people, it’s you I made a fool of myself in front of. I would think about it over and over, wishing I’d acted differently.”
Twenty
Francine
* * *
Benny’s watching me, surprised. As if this all is news to him. Maybe he’s just being nice.
“I had such a crush on you, but that’s no excuse,” I say. “If only I’d pulled my head out of my ass sooner on the guys I dated. But I’d decided I needed to be with a rich, flashy boyfriend and have everything be glittery and pretty dresses and limos and nightlife—that was my stupid plan of how I’d fit all of the life I’d missed into one summer.”
“I had no idea.”
“And of course you were annoyed at least half the time and focused on robot things. And then that night...I was so inappropriate. You were being nice to me, and I felt so ashamed for getting drunk and forcing myself on you.”
He studies my face, baffled. “You didn’t do anything wrong.”
“Don’t candy-coat it,” she says.
“That’s why you left? Because you felt bad for trying to kiss me?”
Laughter erupts from the far corner. People are having fun on this beautiful spring night, creating a soundtrack that’s utterly wrong for the conversation that we’re having. “And I was too immature to know what to do,” I add.
“You do know we kissed at the wedding ceremony, right?”
“We did?”
“Enthusiastically,” he says. “I was all there for it. But by the time we were back at my place, we were obviously both too drunk…I didn’t want to do anything we’d regret. You shouldn’t have felt bad.” He frowns. “So…that’s why you left?”
“Well…yeah,” I say. “And I want to officially apologize already.”
“You don’t have to,” he says strangely.
I feel this weight come off my shoulders. “Okay.” I smile. “Wow.” I feel like we just cleared something up, but Benny doesn’t seem happy. Does he truly not forgive me? “What is it?”
“Ummm…I just had it wrong too, I guess.”
“What?” I ask. “Did you think I got temporary amnesia or something? Abducted by aliens?”
“No...”
“What, then?”
“Nothing. I had it wrong, that’s all.”
“No, tell me!” I grab his shirt sleeve and tug on it playfully. “Now you have to tell me. We’re confessing all.”
“It’s not important.”
“It is to me! Don’t not tell me,” I beg. “Don’t shut me out.”
/> “I thought it was all just…maybe some sort of a joke. Or a game for you,” he says.
I stiffen. “What do you mean?”
“Well, you’d come off that relationship with that jackass casino guy, and I thought you needed maybe…an ego boost.”
My throat feels tight. “Like I was just using you? Maliciously…”
“Not maliciously…” He shoves his hand through his hair.
“But you thought I was using you? Like I was toying with you? Did you think I left the next morning because you’d served your purpose? I discarded you like a used paper towel?”
“Well, I don’t think it now,” he says.
“But you thought it up until now?” I ask.
His hesitation is all I need to confirm the worst.
I feel crushed—I can’t help it. “So all this time, that’s the kind of person you thought I was?”
“I got it wrong. What does it matter? I see I was wrong,” he says.
“Why would you want me to play your wife if that’s what you believed I was capable of? Why would you want me around? Was it…payback? I’ve been completely falling for you all this time, and you’ve been secretly harboring this dark thought about me? And when I tried to apologize about the past, you won’t let me!”
“I had you wrong,” he says. “I wasn’t thinking it through in that way.”
“And you made me stay as punishment. Did you think it while we were having sex, even?”
He sucks in a ragged breath. He’s lost his cool, suave-guy demeanor. I finally have old Benny back—too bad he thinks I’m the moral equivalent of Godzilla. “We need to rewind this whole conversation.”
I fling up my hand. “I don’t want to rewind anything.” There’s a sob trapped in my chest, clogging my lungs.
Monica breezes over just then, smiling, setting candles for the nearby table. “How’s it going? We’re bringing a cake out in five.”
I stand. “I’m so sorry I’ll miss it,” I hear myself say. “I have to get going, but Benny will stay.” I plaster on the best fake smile I can manage. “Later, honey,” I chirp.
Just Not That Into Billionaires Page 19
