She found him at the bar by the pool. His once-immaculate suit was destroyed—jacket gone, bow tie askew, shirt halfway untucked. His previously neat hair was back to being tousled and undone. He was laughing with a hot female bartender. Darlene took the spot next to him and folded her arms.
He took her in, blinking slow and disdainful. “I’m busy.”
“I’m not leaving until we talk.”
“For Chrissake.” He rolled his eyes. “Take a hint.”
Darlene didn’t move.
“Fine.” He twisted to face her. His sneer was gone. In its place was pain. “I heard you. Talking to Charles. In the bookstore. You left your phone on after I called you.”
The rotten thing in the back of her brain oozed all over her. Sound fell away. “What did you hear?”
Zach cleared his throat, darkly dramatic. “I’d sooner marry a donkey than date Zach Livingstone. And a really clever line from William Shakespeare.” Zach picked up a half-empty glass of champagne and drained it. “He sounds interesting. I’ll have to look him up.”
Darlene’s mind went static with horror. She grabbed his arm. “I didn’t mean that.”
He removed her grip. “But you said it.”
“I didn’t mean it,” Darlene pleaded, desperate and horrified. “I was trying to impress Charles.”
Zach didn’t look angry or bitter. He just looked crushed. “But you said it.”
“Zach!” Bitsy was approaching, somehow still looking like a Sunday picnic.
Zach’s emotions wiped from his face, transforming to simple happiness. It was eerie how quickly he could throw up a wall, play the joker, the fool. Darlene had challenged his family to see Zach in a better light right here at this house, only two months ago. She’d defended him, and in return, he’d been a loyal friend. And this was how she’d repaid him: dragging his kind heart through the mud to impress her pretentious ex. What a pathetic thing to do, and oh God, he’d had to sit with that for the week leading up to his sister’s wedding. She’d do anything to make this right. But before a single gesture or sacrifice became clear, Bitsy was at the bar and Zach was all over her like a rash.
“Darling,” he purred, one hand around her waist. “You are upsettingly sober.”
Bitsy’s smile was bright as she leaned into Zach. “Can’t have consensual sex if I’m blackout.”
They both laughed like lovers conspiring. It was a punishment, and it was working. But even now, Darlene could see the difference in Zach’s seduction of Bitsy versus herself. There’d always been a vulnerability in Zach’s eyes when they were together, belying the depth of feeling he had for her. With Bitsy, he was back to being a game show host.
“Zach,” Darlene said. “Can we please talk?”
“Go, enjoy the party, Mitchell. There’s loads of really smart people here.” He walked his fingers up Bitsy’s bare arm. “You’re so brilliant, Bits. How much do I have to pay you to snog me?”
Bitsy curled into him, delighted. “Darling, I am completely free of charge.”
The only way to stop this was with honesty. As much as everything inside her was wincing, saying No, no, don’t do it, Darlene willed the words to leave her lips. “Zach, I have real feelings for you.”
Bitsy glanced at her. “What?”
Darlene moved closer. “I care about you, Zach. I like you. A lot.” She gazed desperately at Bitsy, willing girl code. “Please. Five minutes.”
Bitsy took one look at Zach’s expression and backed up. “I am not about drama or being used to make someone else jealous.” She stepped past Darlene, pausing to murmur in her ear, “Just so you know: Zach is adult Disneyland. Get tested.”
And even though it was meant to be a warning, it just made Darlene see Zach clearer—as someone who treated his insecurities with casual sex because he didn’t think he deserved anything better.
Darlene drew him away from the bright lights and shouted conversations, toward a copse of red maple trees on the far edges of the backyard. The party was just a smudge in the middle distance; they were alone. An owl hooted. An unseen animal rustled in the undergrowth. Shadows pooled over Zach’s face as he slugged from a bottle of red wine that spilled down his shirtfront like a gush of blood.
“What I did was wrong, Zach,” Darlene began. “I’m sorry, I’m so, so sorry. I was trying to impress Charles by being mean about you. He’s always made me feel intellectually inferior, and I still feel insecure around him. Being mean was immature and cruel. What I said was a lie, Zach. I was lying.”
“Am I just a joke to you? Stupid Zach Livingstone, just a clown who’s always on call—”
“No! No, Zach—”
“A donkey?” His voice rose, furious and devastated and ringing with passion. “A fucking donkey?” Zach threw both arms wide. Red wine arced in the air, splattering to the earth. He was shouting. “Jesus Christ, I worshipped you. I was so absolutely, ridiculously in love with you. For months. Bloody months.” His expression was raw pain. “But now all I see is someone who thinks I’m an idiot.”
“But I don’t think you’re an idiot.”
“I don’t get it. I don’t get any of it.” He jammed the heel of his hand into his eye, rubbing hard. “Why’d you ghost me after the Harvard Club? You were feeling it, I know you were, then poof! You clammed up. Why?”
“I needed some… boundaries.”
“Why?” He was frustrated, shouting at the stars. “Talk to me, tell me how you’re feeling, God.”
“I didn’t know if I gave in and let myself—let us—be something, that you wouldn’t just, like, run off with some other girl in a few weeks.”
“What the hell did I do to make you think that?” He was so close she could smell the red wine on his breath. “You were all I could think about. It was only you. And then you go and say—that. To Charles.”
“But I didn’t mean it.” Her heart was jackhammering in her chest. This wasn’t how she imagined saying it. But now, it might be the only thing that could save them. “Zach, I… I care about you.”
Nothing. Silence, but for the throbbing bass of the distant speakers. Zach went still, suddenly alert. His eyes darted back and forth between her own. “Care?”
“Yes.” She nodded. A tear slipped down her cheek. “I care about you a lot.”
“Care?” He repeated it like he knew it was code for the word she couldn’t say, even now. “God, what is wrong with you? Why can’t you talk about your feelings?”
“Because I’m not you, Zach!” Darlene exploded with guilt and anger, her defenses blasting apart. “I don’t get to be you. I don’t get to waltz through life. I don’t get to make mistakes. I don’t have a safety net. My life is really hard, in a million ways you will never understand, and I screwed up. I screwed up, and I’m sorry.”
Zach listened, astounded. Shame-faced. He nodded, rubbing his forehead. “Fair. Yes, of course, that’s bloody fair.” Then his hand fell to his side. “So how does making me second-best to Eeyore fit into that?”
“I don’t know. It doesn’t. I just need you to know that despite everything, I had—have—very… strong… feelings for you.”
Zach stared at her. Really stared. “Do you love me, Darlene? Is that it?”
Yes, that was it. And he needed to hear it. But no words left her lips. She wasn’t from a lovey-dovey family, she couldn’t parse this alcohol-soaked fight they were having, this wasn’t the way you said things like this. Fear, anger, and sadness muted her truth. Like it so often did.
Zach wiped his mouth with the back of his sleeve, looking undone and messy and tragically romantic. “So, what—was this all about the money?”
A whip of anger cracked through her. “No, it’s not about the money, I don’t want your money, and fuck you for telling Bitsy. She basically said I’m a call girl.” The truth of it boiled in Darlene, and she became more furious. She was making it worse, but she couldn’t stop. “I guess because I didn’t drop my pants for you right away like the one million girls
you’ve banged in New York, you purchased me. Do you have any idea how messed up that is? God, in what world did I ever think you’d change? You’re nothing more than a privileged little boy too scared to stand up to his own parents.”
Something inside Zach’s face collapsed. He sagged, wincing, like he’d just been punched in the stomach. Then he took another slug of wine, half of it splashing down his chin. “Wow. Tell me what you really think.”
Regret consumed her. She was supposed to be making things better. “Shit, I’m sorry.”
“Don’t be. I quit.”
“You quit what?”
“Us. This. Our band. You and me.” He started stumbling back toward the party, “I’ll mail you the check.”
“Zach, wait. I didn’t mean—”
He yelled over his shoulder, each word bitter and hard. “But thank you so much, Mitchell. For always seeing the best in me.”
The farewell she’d given Charles in the bookshop. But it had never been Charles who saw the best in her. It was Zach.
71
Liv, Sam, Ben, and Dottie thundered up the steps of the brownstone, squealing and thoroughly soaked. The afternoon storm had come out of nowhere.
“Oh my gosh!” gasped Liv, as they flung open the front door. “We’re drowned rats!”
They made puddles on the hardwood floors as they trooped inside, all talking and laughing at once. Sam toweled off Ben’s hair and carefully wiped his glasses while Liv fashioned a cozy dress for Dottie out of an old pink T-shirt.
“Pink’s my favorite color,” Sam’s daughter told Liv.
“Last week you told me blue was your favorite color,” Liv replied, tucking a lock of blond hair behind Dottie’s ear.
Dottie grinned as if caught out in the most fun lie possible. “It’s also pink.”
“You can have two favorites,” Liv told her, kissing the top of her head. “You can have as many favorites as you like.”
It hadn’t always been this easy. In fact, this might very well have been the first easy day.
Ben had taken relatively well to Sam being Liv’s boyfriend. “I already guessed.” There’d been a few rough patches, but overall, her son was doing much better. Sleeping through the night, more confident with strangers. Dottie had taken more work. She wanted to know if Sam and Liv were going to get married, if Liv was going to move in, if this meant she would see less of her real mommy. They worked through her questions and concerns, but Dottie hadn’t allowed Liv to play with any of her toys until recently. Consistency and patience had been the key. An interest in fairy costumes didn’t hurt. Slowly, the kids got used to a new routine of dinner together when Dottie wasn’t with Claudia, who had an empathetic smile and an easygoing parenting style Liv admired.
And then today—today had kind of been perfect. They fed ducks in the mucky park pond, played a boisterous game of tag among the piles of yellowed leaves, then set upon one of Sam’s elaborate picnic lunches. Ham and gruyere sandwiches, ginger lemonade, and, the big surprise, a double chocolate cherry cake, with five candles. Liv blew them out in one blow.
For years, she’d been ambivalent about turning fifty. For most of this year, she’d been downright dreading it. She’d no longer be young. Things would get more difficult; healthwise, careerwise, wrinkles-and-flappy-skin-wise. But as she sat on the plaid picnic blanket in the brisk autumnal air, rugged up and laughing with the ones she loved, Liv wasn’t thinking about what was ending. She was enjoying what was beginning.
Now, back home, the brownstone was a cacophony of hot showers and changes of clothes and Who wants hot chocolate? and Me, me, I do! It reminded Liv of years ago, when they’d have the cool neighborhood parents and their kids over for Phone-Free Fridays. The little ones hanging from the willow tree in the then-landscaped backyard, the adults cracking open beers to talk national politics or neighborhood gossip. When Eliot was at his best and things between them seemed pretty good. When it was a home, not just a house. When they were a family, not just the two of them, unmoored and trying to find their way. Now, watching Sam help the kids get into their pj’s, she recognized that family and happiness could be rare, transitory states, not guarantees. It made her value them even more.
The overgrown backyard was getting pelted with rain. Sam peered out, folding his arms. “You know that willow tree’s got to come down.”
It felt like proposing she get her teeth yanked out and replaced with dentures. “So you’ve been saying.”
Sam rubbed his neck. “No, you seriously need to get it out. It’s hurricane season and—”
“I know.” She pulled him away. “Why don’t you go microwave some popcorn.”
“Real men don’t microwave. We make it from scratch.” He headed into the kitchen. Liv stayed by the patio doors. The willow was dying. But what Sam didn’t know was she and Eliot planted that tree. The year they got married and bought the brownstone, over two decades ago. It’d been there for all the milestones: Ben’s birthdays and sitting shiva for her father and sticky summer evenings watching the green-gold fireflies blink on and off, like bits of floating magic. Even though their marriage had ended, the relationship held more good memories than bad. The weeping willow, that big, messy Muppet of a tree, had been there for all of them.
And it was her house and her tree, and it was staying.
After everyone was dry, they settled in to watch a movie. The Wizard of Oz had just started on cable. Dorothy meeting the munchkins, her whole world in Technicolor. Sam grabbed a handful of popcorn. “I love this movie.”
“Me too.” Liv draped a woolen blanket around their knees and kissed him on his deliciously salty mouth.
Ben and Dottie affected disgust. “Ewww!”
“Oh, stop it,” she said, poking them until they giggled.
By the end of the film, Ben and Dottie were curled into their respective parent, rosy and boneless with sleep. Liv snuggled next to Sam, his long arm draped around her.
“I love this,” he murmured.
An old movie and hot chocolate and their children safe and warm and happy. Everyone safe and warm and happy. “I love this too.”
He shifted to face her, his eyes turning soft and serious. “Happy birthday, baby. I hope you had a good day.”
“I had the best day.”
Outside, the rain roared. It didn’t unnerve her. Because the man next to her would be the single standing house after a storm that razed the entire street. His words were quiet, but sure. “I love you, Liv.”
She’d known this was coming. In the weeks and months prior, she was worried the words might make her feel anxious or guilty. When she’d spoken her wedding vows to Eliot Max Goldenhorn, she’d promised to love him, and only him, always. She’d never even considered loving someone else. But life had other plans. Now, she was here, with another man, and her child, and his child. All together, filling her with a contentment and ease she barely believed was possible. And so she’d be damned if she didn’t tell him God’s honest truth. “I love you too, Sam.”
Dorothy clicked her ruby red-slippers, sending her home, to the people she cared about.
But Liv was already there.
* * *
Later, after Sam and Dottie had left and Ben was asleep in bed, Liv was stacking the dishwasher when she heard movement in the front office.
Savannah was at her desk, working. Damp blond hair fell around her face like a curtain.
Liv yawned. “What are you doing here so late?”
“Tying up some loose ends from the Livingstone-Choi affair,” Savannah replied, vague.
“God, that was a lovely wedding.” Liv leaned back against the doorframe, hands in her dressing gown pockets. “The pictures are gorgeous.”
Savannah’s head snapped up. “The pictures are in?”
A minute later, Liv was clicking through the selects. She paused on the first kiss. A dynamic, fantastic shot. Multicolored confetti flying against a cerulean sky. The front row of family on their feet and cheering. Both wome
n locked into a romantic, passionate embrace. Liv smiled. “That’s a framer.”
Something splashed on the keyboard. Liv whipped her gaze to the ceiling. “Jesus, was that a leak?”
Savannah sniffed. “Liv,” she said, in an oddly strained voice. “I have something to tell you.”
Leaks were expensive. And even though the business was back up and running, Liv had definitely not budgeted for a new roof. “Hmm?”
“I’m… I mean, I think I am… a little… or maybe a lot… gay.”
“Oh. Cool. Yeah, think I was starting to get that vibe.”
Savannah had never been wowed by any of the grooms. And overly wowed by the brides.
“I did the whole college lesbian thing for a minute,” Liv added. “Didn’t pan out.” She squinted at the ceiling. “You haven’t noticed any water in here, have you? It hasn’t rained in a while, and I might’ve missed—”
Savannah burst into loud, hysterical tears.
Oh. Not a leak.
Liv made peppermint tea. She’d never had to slip into the role of counselor and confidante with Savannah. Six months ago this would’ve disgusted her. Now, their knees were touching as they sat side by side on the pale pink sofa. Savannah unleashed: never meeting the right guy, always having very close female friendships, Feel Good and her parents and Honey and Honey’s ultimatum.
“I like her. A lot. But I don’t think I’m ready to be someone’s girlfriend, and that’s what she wants. What she deserves.”
“In a relationship, timing is everything,” Liv said. “Maybe the timing just isn’t right. It’s not easy, doing what we do,” she added. “Working every day with other people’s dreams, making them real. Finding love yourself and sustaining it long-term, when there’s absolutely no script—that’s hard.”
Savannah’s face was wet. “Be honest. Do you think I’m… That this is all… kind of… strange?”
“Strange?”
Savannah’s gaze dropped to her tea. The words were a whisper. “Wrong.”
The wave of desperate, maternal love took Liv by surprise. She lifted Savannah’s chin up so she could speak to her directly. “There is nothing weird or wrong about who you’re attracted to, or who you love. Heterosexuality is just more common. It’s not more normal.”
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