Cold Feet In Hot Sand

by Lauren Gallagher

  But no one, not even Darlene, had been concerned about Nick. Finding him and choking him, maybe, but not how he felt or why he wasn’t there.

  She took a long drink from her glass, then folded her hands beside the giant Long Island Iced Tea. “All right. I’m listening. Why did you leave?”

  Nick took a deep breath. “I love her, Deanna. Don’t doubt that for a second. But over the last few months, I’ve started to realize a lot of things about our relationship that just…” He shook his head. “I can’t be with her.”

  “Why not?”

  “The short answer? Because we’re miserable together.” He tapped his fingers on the side of his beer bottle. “Half the time, we’re each off in our own, separate little worlds. The other half, we’re fighting. She wants different things out of life than I do, I want different things than she does.”

  “Such as?”

  “Everything,” he grumbled, and took a drink. “How many kids. When to have kids. How to raise them. Where to live. Smaller stuff like the kinds of places we wanted to travel, or the things we wanted to do in our off time. It sounds like something stupid, but it’s kind of hard to be married to someone who doesn’t share your interests, you know?”

  Deanna sipped her drink, grimacing as the alcohol burned the back of her throat. “You guys had common interests when you started dating, though.”

  “We’d barely dated four months before we got engaged.” His cheeks colored. “Every couple has common interests that early in the game.”

  “Oh.” She waved a hand. “Okay, no details. I know what you’re getting at.”

  “Sorry,” he said with a subtle shrug. “You know, the really sad thing is, it took getting engaged to her to see how incompatible we are. The writing was on the wall, but once she had a ring, the neon signs started going up.”

  “Why didn’t you call it off sooner, then?”

  Nick released a breath. “I tried. I just couldn’t get up the nerve to do it. God, I even tried to get her to call it off.”

  “How did you manage that?”

  His cheeks reddened and he lowered his gaze. “I’m not proud of it, okay? I feel like a complete asshole, but I was just kind of… freaking out, I guess. So I started keeping my distance a bit. Didn’t talk to her much. Barely touched her. Worked longer and longer hours. Just kind of started being an asshole.” He rubbed his forehead with the heel of his hand. “And you know what the fucked up thing is? I don’t think she even noticed.”

  “Really?”

  He nodded. “Half the time, I’d come home late, and she’d be out with your mom or her friends doing wedding stuff anyway.” He turned toward Deanna. “I’m not justifying what I did. It was a dickish thing to do, and I regret it.”

  She shifted on her barstool. “What made you do it, though? I mean, what started it? I always thought you two were pretty happy together.”

  “I think we thought we were too,” he said. “But the cracks started showing after a while. We’ve had some really bad fights the last few months.”

  “Every couple has fights, though.”

  “These were bad. And over stupid shit, too.” He ran a hand through his hair and sighed. “You know those idiotic fights where you’re screaming at each other, no one’s listening, and you know deep down you’re not yelling about what the real problem is?”

  “Ooh, yeah.” Deanna took a long drink from the fishbowl. “Jason and I had those as part of our ‘hi honey how was your day?’ routine.”

  Nick grimaced. “So you—”

  “Jason was also cheating, Nick,” she said. “That was why our marriage ended. Not because of the stupid fights.”

  “Can’t imagine it made you want to stick around, though.” Before she could reply, he said, “Let’s look at this from a different angle. For a second, let’s forget all the relationship issues.” He watched himself work his thumbnail under the label of his beer bottle. “Let’s focus on just the wedding.”

  “Okay…”

  “It’s my wedding too, you know?”

  She cocked her head. “I never realized you thought weddings were a big deal.”

  “Well, not all the decorations and party stuff, no,” he said. “But… it’s still important to me. It’s important to me because it’s the beginning of my marriage. And…” He closed his eyes and exhaled.

  “What?”

  “I don’t care about all the pomp and circumstance. I’d have been perfectly happy with the justice of the peace, or getting married in someone’s backyard, or just a church wedding. Whatever, I really don’t care.” He looked at her, and Deanna swore there was an extra shine in his eyes. “The one and only thing I wanted, the one thing I really tried to dig my heels in for, got vetoed.”

  “And that was…?”

  He shifted his gaze back to the bottles behind the bar. “I wanted to get married where my friends and family could actually be there.”

  “I thought you both wanted a small wedding, though,” she said. “Not some huge thing.”

  “Not some huge thing, no,” he said. “But my parents could barely afford to get here, and Kristina wasn’t happy at all when I paid for my brother’s plane ticket.” He turned to her again. “My brother’s family couldn’t be here. Carlos has been my closest friend since grade school for God’s sake, and he couldn’t be here. Quite honestly, I was starting to wonder if it mattered if I was here, and I guess it just got me thinking about whether or not I wanted to be.” He shrugged and brought his beer bottle up to his lips. “And I realized I don’t want to be here, because I don’t want to marry Kristina.”

  Deanna put a gentle hand over his. “Why did you wait until the very last minute, though? If you’ve known this was coming…”

  He absently turned his beer bottle on the bar. “I guess I got as swept up in everything as Kristina and your mom did. In a different way, though. Like, every time a deposit was made or a contract was signed, I felt more…” He sighed, reaching up to rub his temples. “I guess I felt more and more locked into the whole thing. Like there was too much money and too many commitments involved, so I couldn’t back out.” He slid his fingers from his temples to the back of his neck and worked at some unseen tension. “And during the rehearsal last night, when we ran through the vows…” He trailed off, and when he closed his eyes again, Deanna half-expected him to squeeze a tear free.

  She put a hand on his arm. “Tell me, Nick.”

  “I realized what we were getting ready to do, and I just kind of freaked out. I panicked.” Opening his eyes, he turned his head toward Deanna. “And I couldn’t go through with it. I couldn’t look Kristina in the eye and tell her we’d be together forever when I knew we’d both be miserable.”

  “Wow.” Deanna looked into her drink. “I really had no idea you were that unhappy.”

  “Neither did Kristina, apparently,” he muttered. Then he sighed and pushed his beer bottle away. “This place is depressing, and I could use some air. You want to go walk for a bit?”

  Deanna eyed her drink. She’d already had more than enough alcohol thanks to that thing, and if she finished it, she’d never be able

  to drive back to her hotel.

  So she shrugged. “Sure, why not?”

  Two

  Nick kicked off his sandals and hooked his fingers in the straps. Deanna did the same, and they carried their shoes as they walked along the sandy beach.

  The boardwalk wasn’t all that crowded. It was late enough in the day that the beaches were clearing out, and early enough the bars hadn’t yet filled with people. He didn’t have to look at his watch to know it was well past the time when he was supposed to have said his vows.

  For the millionth time today, he silently begged Kristina to forgive him. Maybe once she’d had a chance to cool off and digest everything, they could talk. Face to face, like civil adults, the way they always did after they’d had one of those all too frequent screaming matches. They’d have to sort things out anyway, like dividing up posse
ssions and selling the house, and he just hoped she would hear him out. Even if she did, it killed him knowing he’d hurt her this badly. She had to be beyond devastated, and he didn’t blame her. She probably hated him as much as he hated himself right about now.

  And he was thankful beyond words that Deanna was here. There was more comfort than she could imagine in the fact that she was still talking to him. That, once her initial anger had passed, she was still a friend. Something told him that among the small group who’d come to the island for the wedding, Deanna was very much in the minority.

  As the sun sank lower in the sky, inching toward the ocean, they stopped and sat in the sand, gazing out at the reddening sky.

  He hadn’t realized how long it had been since either of them had spoken until Deanna broke the silence.

  “So what are you going to do?” she asked.

  “I don’t know. I need to talk to Kristina eventually.” He ran a hand through his hair and sighed. “I doubt she’ll speak to me at this point, but… I do care about her. I want to settle this as much as we can.” He glanced at Deanna. “Do you think she’ll, you know, come around? Eventually?”

  “Maybe.” Deanna gave an apologetic shrug with one shoulder. “She’ll need some time to cool off, but you know her. She’s not unreasonable once she’s had a chance to process things.”

  “Even something like this?”

  “Even something like this.”

  Nick hoped she was right. Kristina had a temper and could be impossible to reason with when she lost it, but once she’d caught her breath and thought about things, she was calm and rational. Under any other circumstances, he’d be certain there was a civil conversation just around the corner.

  Not this time. As he and Deanna sat in the white sand, as the sun slipped into the ocean and the sky exploded in rich, warm colors, Nick’s mind kept wandering back to the other hotel, to the room where he’d dropped the bomb on his fiancée.

  “I’m sorry,” he’d said this morning. How many times had he said that? He’d lost track. “I just, I can’t do this.”

  “You can’t do this?” Tears streamed down Kristina’s face as she threw up her hands. “Nick, it’s our wedding day. Today. How can you back out now?”

  “Look, I’m sorry.” There they were again. Those two words he’d be saying over and over and over again into the foreseeable future. “I should have said something sooner, I know, I—”

  “Sooner? You’ve been thinking about this?”

  “It’s not a sudden decision. I’ve been thinking about it for a while. I thought… I thought it was just cold feet, but I…” He’d shaken his head and looked away because the sight of her sobbing like that made him want to take it all back and go through with the wedding after all, and he couldn’t do that to her. “I’m sorry, Kristina.”

  I’m sorry. I’m sorry. I’m sorry.

  Could two words sound more useless?

  “You okay?” Deanna asked. “You got quiet.”

  “Just thinking.”

  “Can’t imagine what could be on your mind.”

  “Oh, no. Nothing at all.”

  They glanced at each other, and both managed half-hearted laughs.

  Both looked out at the fading sunset, but Nick stole a glance at her. It occurred to him that she should have reminded him of Kristina every time he looked at her. The sisters were practically twins—same long, dark hair, same brown eyes, same mischievous grin—but one never reminded him of the other. He only saw Kristina when he looked at Kristina, and he only saw Deanna when he looked at Deanna. Like now, when he caught himself stealing another glance at her.

  Oblivious to the thoughts going through his head, Deanna broke the silence. “I, um, I know you don’t need any more to worry about right now,” she said. “But I’m flying out tomorrow night. And you know when I get back to work on Monday, everyone in the building’s going to be asking about the wedding.”

  Nick cringed. “Oh, fuck. I hadn’t even thought about that.”

  “Should I tell them the truth?”

  “It’s up to you,” he said. “Depends on how many questions you want to answer. But, you don’t have to make anything up on my behalf.”

  “Good to know.”

  “I might be back sooner than later anyway. Once I talk to Kristina, I’ll figure out when I’m going to fly back. I probably won’t stay out for the entire three weeks I took off, but… I don’t know, maybe a few days at least.”

  “Maybe you should,” she said softly. “You could probably use the time to decompress.”

  “And move out,” he whispered.

  “That too.” She put a comforting hand on his shoulder, squeezing gently. “Take as much time as you need. Just tell me what you want me to say to people, and I’ll try to fend them off as much as I can.”

  Nick gnawed on his lower lip and watched his bare foot trace

  idle patterns in the sand. “I guess… I guess just tell them the truth. The wedding was called off. Give them some bullshit story about wanting to respect our privacy, and—”

  “That wouldn’t be a bullshit answer, Nick,” she said softly, and he flinched when he caught the note of hurt in her voice.

  “That’s not what I meant,” he said. “I’m sorry.” Again. Always I’m sorry. Like it makes a goddamned bit of difference anymore.

  “It’s okay. But yeah, I’ll tell them I’m not at liberty to discuss it.”

  Nick nodded. “That works.” He sighed. “Sorry you came all the way out here for a wedding that won’t happen.”

  “Oh, there are worse places in the world than tropical islands.” She threw him a sidelong glance and grinned. “I’ll manage somehow.”

  In spite of himself, he laughed. “Glad you’re not suffering unduly.”

  Shrugging, she said, “I’ll be all right. Honestly, I’m more worried about you.”

  “I’ll be okay.” He blew out a breath. “I hope.”

  “I think you did the right thing, Nick.”

  “Really?”

  “Take it from someone who’s still cleaning up the pieces of a very messy, complicated divorce,” she said. “Better to end it now and have to deal with the expense of a canceled wedding than go through with it and divorce later.”

  “I can imagine,” he said.

  Deanna gazed out at the ocean. “Wow. I guess both our love lives got fucked up this year.”

  “Yeah. I guess they did.” He glanced at her, just barely making out her features in the low light. “How are you doing, anyway? I’m sorry I haven’t asked much lately, but—”

  “Nick, you’ve been preoccupied. Don’t worry about it.”

  “Okay, but how are you doing?”

  Deanna shrugged. “It still hurts. I wouldn’t take him back in a million years, but it still hurts.” She laughed and shook her head. “I guess that doesn’t make much sense, does it?”

  “It does,” he said. “The way he worked you over would have

  hurt anyone. He’s lucky I didn’t break him in half for it.”

  She threw him a mischievous smile. “Aww, you would have kicked his ass for me?”

  “You should know by now,” he said, “any man hurts you, all you have to do is give the word, and I’ll solve the problem with a shovel and a shotgun.”

  Laughing, she smacked his arm playfully. “You are such a noble gentleman, Nick.”

  He chuckled. “Yeah, right.”

  They exchanged glances, and both laughed softly. As the quiet laughter came and went, they turned their gazes ahead. In silence, they stared out at the darkening horizon, a few inches apart but alone with their thoughts until Nick spoke again.

  “How do you think Kristina’s holding up?” he asked.

  “She’ll be upset for a while,” Deanna replied, her voice gentle. “Give her some time.”

  “I don’t suppose you’d be willing to talk to her, would you?”

  Deanna laughed. “I came out here to talk to you. Do I get to referee every
thing now?”

  He dropped his gaze to the sand at his feet. “Shit, I’m sorry. I don’t want you stuck in the middle of this.”

  “I was kidding,” she said. “Anything I can do to help, I will. You know that.”

  “Thank you.” He glanced at his watch. “I’m not keeping you from your family, am I?”

  She shook her head. “Our plans for the evening kind of fell through.”