He waited a moment, then prompted. “What?”
“I…” Her palms grew sweaty, instantly. She felt like she could puke, though it was nerves not the baby. This should be so straightforward. In a way, so easy. But it was like she was a character in a fairy tale who’d lost the ability to speak.
“Maybe I should start?”
She wanted to shake her head, to stop him from what she feared he was going to say, but she couldn’t move. She just felt her eyes widen and burn with unshed tears.
“I think you’re great,” he started. “I mean that, you’re one of the greatest girls I’ve ever met—”
“I’m pregnant!” she blurted, then felt herself stepping backwards. She didn’t know why; she wasn’t afraid of him. Was it some instinct to back out of the place and run? She didn’t know, but she felt behind her with her hand until the wall impeded her, and she stopped and took a bracing breath to try and face him.
He’d gone pale. Seriously pale. All the blood must have left his entire head. “What?”
She nodded spastically.
“Are you sure?”
“Yes. I took more than one test.”
“How?”
“I don’t know. We used protection. Did you notice anything, ever, that went wrong with that?”
“Obviously not.”
Well, obviously so, but she didn’t say that.
“There was that one time we didn’t have anything, so I pulled out,” he said, frowning, thinking.
No, there wasn’t. That had never happened. She never would have taken the chance on purpose.
It must have been another girl.
He must have realized that too, because he amended, “No, we didn’t, what am I talking about? My head is spinning. We were careful every time—this isn’t possible.”
“I know. But it’s true.”
He drained his beer and went to the fridge. “Are you sure you don’t want one?”
“Can’t. Pregnant.”
He came back with two anyway, opened them both, and drained one after the other. “So does that mean you’ve made your decision?”
“Yes, I’m keeping it. But you’re not obligated in any way. I’m only here to tell you so you know, so you can participate as much or as little as you want to. This can be my deal alone if you want it to be, but I wouldn’t feel right if I didn’t give you the choice to be there as everything … progresses.”
He looked down for a long time, and she watched the muscle tic in his jaw. He did that during sex too, when he was trying not to come. She’d thought it was sexy then. Now it just made her feel small and troublesome.
Finally he looked up. “I want to be there, of course.”
She hadn’t expected that. “What?”
He stood up and came to her. She could smell the beer on his breath as he approached. “I want to be there for you, for you both. I’m not leaving you alone with this, you know that.”
“I don’t expect anything from you.”
“That’s what I like about you,” he said, and pulled her in for a hug. He kissed her forehead. “You’re so kind that you’re worried about what this means for me rather than what you’re about to go through.”
“Well, I’m worried about both,” she said against his chest, and gave a half laugh.
He gave a half laugh too. Nothing was really funny, but what else could they do? “We’ll make this work,” he said.
“What did you want to talk to me about?” she asked. It had sounded serious. The words he had gotten out wouldn’t register until later on, when she tried to piece together her memories of the conversation.
“Nothing. It doesn’t matter.” He kissed the top of her head again. “I don’t even remember.”
* * *
JULIA LOOKED AT her glass of water, then back at Colleen. “Would you like something stronger than this?”
“I’d love it, but just one. I’m driving.”
“I’ll just be a moment.” Julia walked over to the kitchen, opened the freezer, and took out a bottle of Belvedere Vodka. She poured a couple of fingers into a juice glass—at least she wasn’t such an immaculate hostess that she happened to have measuring tools and a shaker at the ready. But then, Julia had been a bartender in school. Just one more thing that made her cooler than Colleen. Another skill she had that Colleen didn’t—she tried to make a mojito once when a mint plant got out of control in the backyard, and had ended up with a sugary, alcoholic salad in a glass.
Julia came back to the sofa and sat down, looking only a little bit less gathered than she had when she first opened the door. “I like you, Colleen. And I respect you. And I see no need to try and paint things a different color because I want you to believe everything I say now. Yes, it’s true, Kevin and I got back together shortly before you learned you were pregnant. And yes, there was talk of getting married.”
A lump formed in Colleen’s throat. She was never going to get over this. Now that it was confirmed, it was really true. How could she ever get over this? How could she ever get over feeling second best? If she was even second—maybe he had better choices ahead of her. “I’m sorry for that. At the time, I didn’t know all of that. And, honestly, even if I had, I don’t know what I would have done. I was scared and lost and…” She shrugged, out of words.
“And following your destiny,” Julia finished. “Living the life you were meant to live. Kevin and I weren’t meant to be together. We were, as I said, just a teenage romance. At the time, yes, it felt devastating. I got a lot of angst mileage out of it.” She gave a light laugh. “But it disappeared into my rearview mirror pretty quickly. This is your life, but it was only my … lesson. One of many, many experiences that led me here.”
Colleen was awed by her grace and the kindness Julia was displaying under the probably creepy (to her) circumstances of having an ex-boyfriend’s sweaty wife sitting in her living room unexpectedly. “I know he still talks to you.” God, she hated to admit that. It was so rife with all the ugly, embarrassing implications of wondering who he was talking to and looking at phone bills and joining Spokeo to look up the number and thereby getting the address and employment information and— Ugh. It all seemed so seedy now.
“Sure, we talk now and then,” Julia said. “Mostly about how proud he is of Jay and his baseball playing and, mostly, of you and your creativity and your shop. I love the name, by the way—Junk and Disorderly. I could never come up with something like that, but there’s no way in the world I wouldn’t stop in if I were driving past.”
He’d told her that? “Thanks,” Colleen said uncertainly.
“We don’t talk that often, maybe two or three times in a year, but remember we were basically childhood friends. It can be very comforting to have those people in your life. But there has never been so much as a whiff of an implication that he wishes things had gone differently.”
“I’m—I’m glad to hear that.” She still didn’t believe it entirely. “A little amazed to hear it, honestly.”
“Good heavens, from the minute Jay was born! Well, I don’t know about the minute, because obviously he didn’t call me the minute Jay was born, but by the time I talked to him around Christmas that year, he couldn’t shut up about how great Jay was and what an amazing natural you were as a mother. I almost felt like he was lording it over my head, pointing out that he felt like he’d dodged a bullet by getting you instead of me.” She stood up. “Wait, I have something to show you.” She disappeared into another room for a moment and came back with a card in hand. “I’m afraid this proves how pitifully behind I am on putting away the last of my holiday decorations, but I need a new card box.” She held it out to Colleen. A generic Christmas card with a picture of Colleen and Jay, with a note in Kevin’s familiar hand that said, My beautiful family—I am the luckiest man on earth! Here’s wishing you and Rick all the best in the new year!
This was a shock to Colleen. She couldn’t imagine it. Not after spending fifteen years imagining Julia, and not a
fter what she was seeing now, looking around this glorious house for the past fifteen minutes. “But—”
“But what?”
Colleen was losing track of her convictions. “I took his choice away. And yours. He didn’t choose me; he chose you. He was stuck with me.”
Julia shook her head. “That’s a sad way to look at it. And inaccurate, I might add. He picked you in the first place because he wanted you. Maybe Jay came along a little earlier than you two might have planned, but maybe he had to so that Kevin didn’t make the worst mistake of his life and come back to me! It wouldn’t have served me either, Colleen. We were that old story. The kids who got together really young and couldn’t let go of each other. It wasn’t until we were forced to that we both realized what a huge mistake it would have been to stick with each other out of habit and routine. At the time, yes, he was such an integral part of my life, I was so used to having him around, that it seemed impossible that there was a world that existed without him in it. But that’s not because he was right for me—that was because I was used to him and we were such good friends that it was easy. I have a good life. A good career. Everything I could ever want.” She leaned forward and looked Colleen in the eye. “But you have given him more than I ever could have. You have given him his whole life.”
And as soon as the words were out of Julia’s mouth, Colleen knew they were true. The card was proof she hadn’t needed—or shouldn’t have needed to see. It had been self-indulgent, in a way, wondering for all these years if there were an option. Almost looking for ways to make herself feel she didn’t fit in.
For fifteen years, she’d been tense, always guarded and suspicious and insecure—that wasn’t giving her best to herself, her husband, or her son. She’d held Julia up as a symbol of her failure when Julia was, as it turned out, just a small off-ramp on Kevin’s—and now Colleen’s—road.
“I was embarrassed as soon as I arrived,” Colleen admitted. “I’m about a hundred times more embarrassed now.”
“You shouldn’t be,” Julia said. “I’ve wanted to meet you for years. And now that I have, I feel like I have a new friend.”
“You’re more gracious than you need to be.” Colleen smiled.
“My clients don’t always say that when they get my bills.” She smiled back. “But I will mention it to my husband when he gets back in town.”
“You’re married?” Spokeo hadn’t mentioned that. God, that was even worse! She’d come here based on completely unreliable information. It was incredible that she’d even ended up at the right house.
“Ten years now. My husband and I have an architectural firm in Jacksonville, but he’s in Chicago right now, consulting on a new building on the pier.”
“Wow. I had no idea. Kids?”
Julia shook her head. “I’m not the maternal sort. Neither is Rick. We’re too selfish—we like our alone time and our vacations.”
“What are those?”
Julia laughed. “See?”
Colleen stood up. “I do. Thank you so much, Julia. I appreciate your time and your patience. Honestly, I feel like such a jerk, but also profoundly relieved. It’s like a weight has been lifted off me, and I didn’t even know how heavy it was.”
“Then I’m really glad you came by.”
They went to the door and hugged, though a bit stiffly. Colleen noticed Julia smelled faintly of cigarette smoke, in addition to a crisp, apple-y perfume.
Kevin hated smoking.
And, actually, the smell of apples. It reminded him of stinkbugs; he said so all the time.
Colleen thanked Julia once more and went back to her car, feeling like her mission—as ill-advised and foolish as it may have been—was accomplished.
She looked at the sky. Dark gray clouds were gathering. It was time for them to hit the road before the storm hit them.
CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE
Bitty
Dear Stranger,
I don’t want to end up in the Guinness Book of World Records for the world’s longest, most circular suicide note, so I guess I’m going to have to be the world’s most boring diarist. I’m starting to get curious about how things turn out here, so I guess suicide’s on the back burner, and I have to set about the more difficult task of trying to figure out how to live until, you know, I die.
I thought I’d tried already, once. But staying in Winnington after what had happened with Lew was just ill-advised. A stupid idea. No one would ever accept me in that role. I’ve now been gone long enough, and reported crazy on top of that, that Candy Fitzgerald-Sonner has taken over my reign—and good luck to her. She might not have the same problems with her husband that I had with mine, but hers played grab-ass with me, and probably countless others, at last year’s Winnington Christmas parade, so I suspect she will be another one of the mighty fallen someday.
So now it’s time to tell the truth. I’d been taking the high road here, but I’m over that now. I don’t owe Lew any more respect or dignity than he offered me.
Here is what happened.
It was any old Thursday night, just a day in my life. And as was a normal part of my daily life, I was hungry. I am always hungry. I’ve been on a diet for as long as I can remember; my mother had probably limited my formula intake as an infant. (Heaven knows Jean Nolan would never have risked saggy breasts by nursing a baby—I sometimes wonder if my mother had even carried me or if, more likely, she’d purchased me on her way out of Bergdorf’s one day as a fetching little accessory.)
Usually I was able to pick up my husband’s favorite calamari dish from Luigi’s without problems because the smell didn’t appeal to me, but a waitress had just walked past with a sliced loaf of Italian bread and a garlicky-cheesy olive oil dip that smelled so good, I was almost willing to do an extra three hours on the treadmill the next day in order to eat it.
But I couldn’t. I knew I couldn’t really have it. It was all well and good to make exercise promises in anticipation of eating, but once I was finished, and in the food coma that would undoubtedly follow such a splurge, I wouldn’t feel like getting up and moving.
My self-discipline was pretty good, but it wasn’t that good. Easier not to eat the thing in the first place than to work it off later.
But, man, it had smelled good.
“Mrs. Camalier?” I heard them calling my name before I realized I was hearing it. “Wilhelmina Camalier?”
I snapped to attention. Me. Show’s on again. “I’m sorry, I’m Mrs. Camalier.” They knew it, I’d been in there many times before, but Lew had drilled into me to always point out “I’m Mrs. Camalier,” ideally calling whomever I was addressing by their first name, if it was written on a name tag.
Big me, little you.
It has become second nature to me.
The hostess held up a bag. “Your order’s ready.”
I stood up and went over to retrieve it, handing the hostess thirty dollars in cash. “Keep the change.”
“Thank you!”
I didn’t even know how much the order cost. I’d overtipped, for sure, but I couldn’t stand there and smell the bread and pasta any longer. The temptation was too great. I wasn’t made of stone.
I continued to obsess about food on the drive home. All of the things I’d love to have if only they wouldn’t ruin my figure and therefore my life. I had an image to uphold. I was a pillar of Winnington society, and almost everywhere I went, at least some eyes were on me. And most definitely judgmental.
Looking good was the only job I had.
Ever since I’d married Lew Camalier, great-great-grandson of Winnington’s founder, Lew Wallace Camalier, part of the Winnington population had looked to us with admiration and part had looked on us with scrutiny, seemingly always hoping to find some reason to discredit us. Lew swore it was because the descendants of Wyatt Smith hoped to resurrect their already-disproven claim that their ancestor had founded Winnington and Lew Wallace Camalier merely took the credit.
Personally, I suspect people were m
ore interested in exposing my husband for the jerk he is, more than looking to raise a new statue in the town’s Founder’s Square.
Of course, I couldn’t tell Lew that. He would raise holy hell at the very suggestion that his lineage was less than what he—and his mother before him, and his grandmother before her, and so on—had proclaimed it to be.
Which was, in fact, why I was bringing home the Calamari Concession. Last night, I’d raised the subject of children again—as in, it’s getting way past time, if we’re ever going to do it, we have to hurry up—and he had gotten upset with me over the “pressure.”
After fifteen years of marriage—in which we’d had sex so infrequently, I could probably count it on my fingers—if I could remember the occasions well enough to tally them, there was no possibility of “waiting to see what God wanted” or “leaving it up to fate.” If we didn’t make a concerted effort, it was never going to happen.
Truth was, he had me over a barrel. This decision, like every other, was his. He got to dictate my entire life because without him, I had no life. I was Lew Wallace Camalier’s wife, and it was a pretty good title. I, Bitty Nolan, never did anything of note. I didn’t even think I knew how to go back and be Bitty again. Imagine that—knowing who you once were but finding that person irretrievable. It was hell.
I punched the code in at the front door and stopped in the dining room on my way to the kitchen to grab one of the nicer serving dishes to display the food on. It was a rippled crystal platter that I always thought looked like a rainbow fish.
“Lew?” I called, but there was no answer.
I busied myself arranging the dish, opened the wine to let it breathe (despite conflicting reports on whether or not that was useful—it was the way my mother had done it, so it was the way I did it). Finally I got some strawberries out of the fridge, cored them, and sprinkled a little crystal sugar on them to make them pretty as a delicate little side or dessert.
Shoot, I thought, I should have left some out to eat before I put the sugar on them. I had picked one up, considered it, then put it back. If I started, it would be hard to stop and I didn’t need all that sugar or food guilt. I could just imagine Lew’s reaction if I started piling on the pounds. He was a pretty thin whip of a man, and he didn’t want his wife getting wider than him and making him look even smaller. I couldn’t really blame him for that. I didn’t want to feel like an Amazon next to him either. At five feet six inches, I was just two inches shorter than he claimed to be, yet I could look directly at his hairline, so, at least fashion-wise, my life was centered around low heels and narrow-tailored clothes.
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