“You can’t tell anyone, not even Jake or his mother.”
“Um, okay,” she said, hesitantly. She wasn’t sure how comfortable she was with this.
“Here it is: I hate football.”
“Sir?”
“I have had season tickets to Georgia games since two years after Kitty and I graduated. We’ve been to almost every home game and a few away games over the years, because that’s what you do when you’re a Georgia alum, especially someone in my line of work. And, of course, when Jake got old enough and we saw how interested he was in sports, I wanted him to have this experience. And I’ve learned to appreciate it the way you learn to appreciate ballet or opera if you see enough. But as for the game itself, I really can’t stand it.”
“Wow,” Marci said, dumbfounded. She had known men with various levels of knowledge and interest in sports, but had never known a middle-aged straight man to openly admit hating football. Jake knew every statistic there was about Georgia football, not to mention a dozen other sports teams, and his walls were lined with autographed balls, helmets, and jerseys. He and Robert talked for hours on end about the game: the players, recruiting, and so on.
“Jake’s old enough to get tickets for himself and Kitty could probably care less whether we do this every year or not. But do you know why I keep coming out here?”
“No, sir.”
“Because I love my family. This is the best time we all have together. It’s something that connects us. Jake loves this stuff, and it’s nice to have something to share with your son. I know so many fathers who feel totally alienated from their kids, after years of working all the time, and kids moving to other cities. I’m lucky that my son will still sit and talk to me about something. You know?”
He had the same endearing way Jake did of pausing in his little speeches to make sure you were still listening. “Plus Leah’s husband Dave, and their kids, my grandkids—they love it, too. I take the little ones to the zoo and the movies and whatever they’re into at the moment, but in no other place do we get this kind of face-time: relaxing, playing, enjoying each other, being on the same team.”
Marci wanted to get up and hug him. “Well, maybe it’s not all about football,” she said.
“Exactly. But they think it is, so this is just between us, okay?”
“Yes, sir.”
“And don’t call me sir. We’re family now. It’s Robert or Dad, okay?”
“Robert,” she said, smiling at him. “Dad” just didn’t feel right. They sat in companionable silence until Jake and her father returned a few minutes later from their walk around campus.
“Hey,” Jake said, kissing her lightly. “Have you seen how much campus has changed since we were here? Every year there’s some new building, or some new complex of buildings. It’s crazy.”
“Welcome to old age, kids,” her dad teased, clapping Jake on the back. “It always feels like the world is leaving you behind. Now, Marcella, I’ll take that chair if you don’t mind. That walk was hard on these old bones.”
Arthur and Robert smiled at each other as Jake took Marci’s hand and helped her out of the chair. They strolled around the North Quad, dodging beanbags, footballs, and stumbling sorority girls as they went. Jake told her about the changes on the campus since they’d been at school here, and particularly since Marci had moved away. She listened distractedly, feeling oddly out of place back at her alma mater, and even holding Jake’s hand. Still, for the rest of the afternoon’s festivities and the game that followed, she kept Robert’s sweet little secret tucked away in her pocket.
Chapter 19
The fall passed quickly. It seemed there was something every weekend to keep them busy. Twice a month they were in Athens for football games, and many of the other weekends, Jake was all over the state working on his recruiting documentary. He’d managed to get a small grant from a film institute based on some early interviews, so he was sometimes taking off weekdays to film the guys at their high schools. Sometimes Marci would go with him for a Friday night game and sit huddled in the stands beneath a blanket watching the action.
She’d had half a dozen temp assignments, some of them lasting two or three weeks, some shorter. And in one recurring nightmare, she served for three days at a time as the secretary to a temperamental construction manager who kept driving away the permanent candidates for the position with his expletive-filled tirades that often ended with flying coffee cups and office supplies, and nearly always ended with the secretary in tears. He didn’t bother Marci as much; she’d worked for worse, but she had no interest in the permanent position.
Jake had suggested a few times since their engagement they move in together, but the timing never seemed right with all the work he was doing on the weekends. Truthfully, Marci could have moved in gradually and stayed with him more than a couple of times a week, but she was still enjoying living with Suzanne and having a place to go home.
“So you’re ready to be engaged, but not ready to live together?” Suzanne had asked, after one of Jake’s stronger hints that she should move her boxes to his place.
“I know it sounds crazy,” Marci said. “But that’s how I feel.”
“No, that’s not crazy, honey. Neither is marrying someone because you wrote something on a napkin ten years ago. It’s all totally sane and usual, if you want my opinion.”
“It’s a good thing I asked for your opinion,” Marci fired back.
“Sorry, sorry,” Suzanne backpedaled. “You know you can stay with me as long as you want. There’s always a bottle of wine with your name on it here.”
So Marci would spend a night or two each week at Jake’s huge loft apartment overlooking the city, where they’d cook dinner and watch a movie or go out to one of the ethnic restaurants in walking distance. Typically, she forgot at least one thing she needed to get ready for work so she would dash home early in the morning to shower and dress. Sometimes he stayed with her and Suzanne, though this was less frequent because he felt he was imposing on them in their smaller space with two people and more stuff.
Marci was faced with her first year of attending two Thanksgiving dinners. They started at her parents’ house for a lunchtime meal where everyone wore blue jeans and sweatshirts, and no one was exempt from helping her mother prepare the table. Nicole and Ravi had flown down from DC and both seemed basically fat and happy. Nicky was nearly six months along; they were having a little girl who Ravi lovingly referred to as “Princess” whenever he touched his wife’s protruding belly, and her thin face was starting to swell along with the pooch she carried in front. With a little extra weight and her hair cut in a neat little bob, Marci thought Nicole looked more like their mother than ever.
Ravi was enjoying his new position as a producer for two of the weekly news shows. He joked that being behind the camera meant he was free to enjoy his sympathy pregnancy weight. They loved their new apartment, which was across the street from a nice park in a building full of young families. Nicky babbled for half the meal about the school districts, the commute for each of them, looking for a nanny, and the drama of preschool waiting lists.
The only fly in the ointment was still Ravi’s mother, who had found fresh kindling for her anger when she learned that Nicole had been pregnant before marriage. At his father’s urging, however, she had made one visit to their new apartment for a dinner that Nicky obsessed over for a week. Ravi seemed to consider this a good sign, even though she would speak to him only through his father and only in Hindi, and did not speak to Nicole at all, other than to thank her coldly for the invitation to her home.
“Hang in there,” Marci’s dad told her. “She’ll come around once she gets a look at that grandbaby.” Their mother said nothing, but stood rather suddenly to refill everyone’s sweet tea.
Later that evening, their second Thanksgiving at the Stillwells’ was a whole new world for Marci. Much more formal than her family’s tradition, she found it almost painful to pull on her nice slacks and heels with a
belly already full of turkey and sweet potatoes. Jake wore a navy blazer and tie, and drove to his parents’ house in silence. Already nervous, the quiet in the car made Marci fidgety. She bit her nails and changed the radio station every thirty to forty-five seconds. On her final stretch to the radio knob as they entered the Stillwells’ neighborhood, Jake grabbed her hand. “Relax.”
“Easy for you to say,” she murmured. He pretended not to hear her.
They were greeted at the door by Leah’s six-year-old daughter, Jasmine, who wore a puffy velvet dress with ribbon trim and shiny patent-leather shoes. She threw herself into Jake’s arms as soon as the door was open. “Gobble-gobble, Uncle Jake!”
“Hey, gorgeous!” Jake lifted her in his embrace and spun her around so that her shoes flew behind her, coming dangerously close to knocking over an expensive-looking vase of flowers in the foyer. Marci stood awkwardly in the doorway, holding a bottle of wine, afraid to get in the way of the flying feet.
Jasmine giggled wildly until Leah approached from the next room. “Jake! For God’s sake, she’s hyper enough. Put her down!”
“Time for landing,” Jake conceded. He settled Jasmine on her feet, and leaned against a nearby washstand to recover his equilibrium. “Hey, sis.”
Leah leaned forward to allow him to kiss her cheek, maintaining her scolding expression. She turned to Jasmine, who was red-faced and breathing hard. “Go out to the sunporch with your brothers and the other kids. Now. Hello, Marci. Welcome to the House of Chaos.”
Aside from the sound of the kids playing at the back, the house was anything but chaos. Every piece of furniture, banister, and doorframe in the large old home had been polished until it gleamed. Each surface was covered with a combination of crisp white linens, flickering candles, and centerpieces made of flowers mixed with gourds and fruit. Kitty must have been working on this around the clock for a month, Marci thought.
Farther inside, the atmosphere was more like a cocktail party than a simple family gathering. In addition to Jake’s parents and Leah and her family, the Stillwells’ guest list included several other couples who were either old friends or long-standing clients or both. Their enormous dining room table had to be extended with a second to accommodate sixteen adult place settings, each of which included three Waterford plates, a wine and water glass, and thick floral-patterned napkins held by sterling silver rings.
Several people Marci did not know were clustered around Kitty’s beautiful grand piano, though no one was playing it. Others hovered in the well-appointed dining room, waiting for the signal to take their assigned seats. A smaller table had been set up in the kitchen for Jasmine and her twin brothers, Caleb and Carson, along with a few other kids.
Although the Stillwells did not have regular servants, Kitty had employed three women to help with preparing and serving the meal. They wore simple gray dresses and slipped in and out of the rooms with trays of food and drink while party chatter filled the entire downstairs. Marci wished fervently that she had ironed her shirt. Better yet, she wanted to be at home with her father in her sweatpants, making leftover sandwiches and watching football.
Unlike the Thompsons’ more traditional roasted turkey, Kitty’s menu included fish and quail, with side dishes that vaguely recalled the usual feast. Green beans almandine, sweet potato soup, oyster dressing, roasted pears, figs stuffed with goat cheese, and tomato-onion focaccia, with pumpkin Crème brûlée for dessert. Everything was delicious, Marci had to admit, and everyone seemed nice. She had trouble, however, keeping up with the lively conversation going on around her.
“No, no, annuities are not the way to go. If you’d set foot in my office once in a while you’d know...”
“Can you believe we brought back six rugs from Turkey for less than four thousand?”
“You should all stay at our cabin in Blue Ridge next summer. The fishing is amazing.”
“Barbara just loves her new decorator; remind me to get her card for you...”
“Leigh Ann doesn’t golf, but if there’s shopping involved...”
Marci focused primarily on her food, while Jake chatted intermittently with the couple on the other side of him. After a while, she was drawn in as the conversation turned to their wedding.
“So when is the big day?” a chipper blonde woman asked them both. Marci had been introduced to her but forgotten her name entirely. “Of course, we’ll be on your invitation list, won’t we? I couldn’t bear to miss it! Are you going to have lots of people or keep it small?”
Fortunately, the lady did not pause between questions to wait for answers, because the truth was she and Jake had not even discussed the size or location of their wedding, much less begun to prepare a guest list. Marci struggled with how to answer, rescued as always by Jake. “We are still working on all of that. We’re not in a rush.”
“Good thing,” said the blonde lady’s husband, a bearded man in a UGA polo. “Enjoy being young and single while you can.”
His wife sent a playful smack his way. “Oh, shut up. You’d be lost without me and you know it.”
“Yes, dear,” he said, grinning at Jake. “I just meant it’s good to focus on your career before marriage and babies and all that. Right, Marci?”
The blonde woman glared at him and turned back to Marci. “So what do you do, anyway, Marci? Jake’s never told us.”
“I’m between assignments.”
“So you’re a filmmaker, too?”
“No, I’m, I guess you’d call me an independent contractor.”
“What kind of contracting?” the bearded man pressed.
“Well, you know, office work, phones, that sort of thing.”
“So you’re a temp?”
“Well, yeah. Right now I am.”
The blonde woman looked as though she smelled something unpleasant. “So is that just since you moved back from Texas? You probably had a real job before that, right?”
Marci reddened and toyed with her dessert spoon on the table. Jake put his hand on hers. His tone was definitive and clear. “Marci’s a writer, actually. A really good one.”
“Ah, well,” the bearded man said, as though the matter were settled. “Excellent, then. Great.”
The conversation turned to football. Jake squeezed her hand as he debated with the man the most likely outcome of Saturday’s game against Georgia Tech. The blonde woman entered a conversation with someone on the other side of her, but Marci thought she noticed a probing glance or two thrown back in her direction.
“You’ll get used to it,” Jake said as they waddled arm-in-arm out to his truck after dinner, going back to his loft for the evening. “Once you get to know everyone better, it will feel less intense.”
“Yeah,” Marci said softly.
“You okay?” he asked.
“Sure, it’s just...I think that woman thinks I’m marrying you for your family’s money.”
Jake laughed. “That’s ridiculous.”
“I know, but...”
“And if she thinks that,” he continued, “it’s probably because that’s why she married her husband, and she assumes that every woman thinks the same way.”
He kissed her lightly on the cheek, dismissing the subject, and opened the passenger door of the truck for her. Marci said nothing else about it, but watched the streetlights and scattered cars passing all the way back to the city.
Chapter 20
One cold Thursday night in the middle of December, Marci and Jake were holed up on the couch at his apartment, watching North by Northwest, which Jake had been appalled to learn she had never seen. Suzanne had been out of town all week in some sickeningly warm and sunny location, at a corporate retreat she’d helped organize. With no Suzanne at home, Jake leaving the next day for a final weekend of taping before Christmas, and the holidays making everything feel cozy and festive, Marci had spent several nights in a row at Jake’s without feeling trapped or anxious.
She had just finished an assignment filling in for a receptionist
at an accounting firm, where more than half the staff was out on vacation. She had made $13 an hour and read three novels between calls. Even with Friday off, for once she was actually disappointed that the assignment was over.
She lay now in her sweats and one of Jake’s old Ramones t-shirts, her hair pulled up in a ponytail and head resting on his chest. An empty wine bottle and the remains of Chinese food lay scattered on the coffee table. Despite her interest in Cary Grant and whoever was chasing him, Marci’s eyes grew heavy with the rhythmic sounds of Jake’s steady breathing. Maybe I could do this forever, she thought sleepily.
She woke to the sound of Jake at the front door, talking to someone. From her position on the couch she couldn’t see him, only the light in the tiny hallway that ran along Jake’s bedroom between the front door and the rest of the loft, which was all one big room. She sat up and squinted at the clock beneath the TV, frozen on a shot of Mt. Rushmore. It was nearly ten o’clock. Apparently, she had been dozing for a while.
Who was here at this time of night? Jake had neighbors who might be coming or going, but most of them knew he wasn’t a night owl. A fire? She felt a tiny surge of panic, but decided the voices were too muted and calm for that kind of emergency. As she stood to investigate, she heard her name. “Marci’s sleeping,” Jake said, rather firmly. “Why don’t you call her tomorrow?”
Her puzzlement lasted only seconds, giving way to complete shock when she heard the response. “Look, I know it’s late, man, and I’m sorry, but it’s really important that I talk to her.” Doug Stanton. Six months later. In her city. In her fiancé’s doorway.
She plodded numbly to the door, not knowing what else to do, compelled as much by curiosity as anything else. She put her hand on Jake’s back and felt the muscles tense beneath her touch. Coiled like a spring. “I’m here,” she said softly. Jake gave her a resigned look and pushed the door open further.
“See?” Doug said, like a child who had just proved his parents wrong. “She’s awake.” He was wearing shorts and a wrinkled button-up over a Longhorns t-shirt. His blonde curls were matted and there were deep circles beneath his eyes. Still, he grinned at Jake, making Marci want to slap him.
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