He was holding a glass, but it was a champagne glass, and the neck of a bottle poked out from the top of an ice bucket, rather than the usual wine box taking up half the coffee table.
Joanna noticed candles as well. Every candle she had was lit, and a few more had been brought in. The lights were turned low, and the TV was off.
“Champagne?” she asked. “Are we celebrating something?”
“I hope to be in a few minutes,” Stephen said, leaning over and kissing her neck. “How was your day?”
“Long,” she lied. “I thought my last table would never leave. Catfish brings out the dedicated eaters.”
He chuckled, still nuzzling her neck. Goose bumps rose on her arms. “Yes, it does,” he said.
She backed away a step. “Didn’t you work tonight?”
“I called in,” he said. “I had some things to take care of. No big deal. We’ve been pretty dead. No catfish at LaEats.”
“What kind of things?” Joanna asked. She still hadn’t taken the champagne glass, and Stephen set them both on the coffee table. He looked nervous, tortured. “What’s going on?”
He grabbed both of her hands in his and pulled her toward the couch, sat her down, and then sat next to her.
“It’s our four-month anniversary,” he said.
“Right,” she said. He’d reminded her that morning with a text.
“And four months doesn’t really sound like all that long, but it seems like it’s been so much longer. You know what I mean?”
She nodded. “We’ve been friends for four years—that’s probably why. You’re not getting bored already, are you?” She wasn’t sure whether an affirmative answer here would be a good thing or a bad thing.
“Of course not,” he said. “Actually, quite the opposite. I loved meeting your family over the holidays. And I loved having you meet mine. They adore you, by the way.”
Joanna smiled. “My mom would date you herself if she could get away with it,” she said.
“Anyway, do you remember the infamous While You Were Sleeping wine night?”
How could she forget? Stephen was fond of bringing up that night every chance he got. How he’d put it all out there for her, and how she’d jilted him. Left him with lips pouched and heart in hand. She nodded.
“You remember what we were talking about before I admitted liking you?”
“Secret crushes,” she said, feeling like her mouth was barely opening. He knew. He had to know. Her secret crush on Sutton was not so secret, and he knew. God, was he about to do something really stupid like ask her to have a threesome or some awful bullshit?
“Secret marriage fantasies,” he corrected. “So even though four months doesn’t sound like that long, I’ve been thinking about this since before that night way back then.”
Joanna’s mouth went dry as she realized what this was really about. It wasn’t the secret part that he was focused on tonight. It was the marriage part. Her legs tensed, as if to run. But instead she sat still, mute, wide-eyed, as her best friend lowered himself to one knee next to the couch.
Details were lost on Joanna. She didn’t know if Stephen gazed deeply into her eyes or if his hands shook as he reached into his pocket. She only half heard the words that were coming out of his mouth—known for a long time . . . meant to be together . . . best moments of my life—but all she could really hear was a terrible ringing in her ears.
An hour before, she’d been so lost in Les Misérables that she had temporarily forgotten that Stephen existed. That was bad, right? You didn’t marry someone whose existence slipped your mind in deep moments, did you? Or maybe those were the people you were supposed to marry—the ones who were so deeply embedded in your life, you could let them go and still be able to come back to them later.
Insanely, Joanna’s mind turned to her mother in that moment. She would be beaming, wringing her hands together happily, mentally planning Christmases with her grandchildren. She would be so happy. Floating for days. She would get miles of bragging out of it. Everyone she knew would hear all about Joanna’s romantic proposal from her best friend, who just happened to be the most amazing man. With good teeth, she could hear her mother say. You know how important dental hygiene is.
Next thing she knew, Stephen was holding out a black velvet box, which he opened to expose a sparkling solitaire. Not too garish, but enough to show importance—just what she would expect from Stephen. She could hear her breath whistle in and out of her skull. Her hands were coated with sweat.
She realized when she finally glanced at him that he was waiting with an expectant look on his face, which must have meant he’d asked the question and she hadn’t heard it.
But it had been a mistake to look at him, she realized. Her heart melted at the sight of him. She loved him so much. He was the last person in the world that she would want to see hurt, even if by her. She’d been so destroyed the last time she’d hurt him. She’d had to disappear for a month. If she said no now, she just might have to disappear forever.
The thought blurred everything for her. She loved Stephen, but she also loved Sutton. She knew that much. She’d never allowed herself to love a woman before, so she didn’t know if what she was feeling for Stephen was love love, or just best-friend love. She didn’t know how to find out.
And in that instant, she was struck with the knowledge that whether she accepted Stephen’s proposal was not a matter of her own happiness. Perhaps it never was, and never could have been. She had an obligation to him, to her mom, even to Alyria, from whose advances she’d run away. This was not about Joanna being true to herself, even if she didn’t know who Joanna herself was. This was about expectations.
She let out a gasp, which Stephen might have taken to be one of surprise, of elation, but was really just a realization that she had been holding her breath for a few beats, and in that gasp were tears and laughter and all the things that the proposed-to are supposed to release at that exact moment. It was picture-perfect, really, Joanna’s reaction. Stephen relaxed, smiled deeply, as she nodded. His fingers fumbled out the ring, which he slid onto her finger—a perfect fit, of course—and then he wrapped her in his arms, going for a hug first instead of a kiss, which Joanna thought strangely platonic for the occasion, but she didn’t mind. She was too busy trying to stay upright, trying to wrap her head around what she had just done.
She’d just accepted a marriage proposal.
From a man.
The die had been cast, to use an old, tired expression. Like it or not, Joanna had resolved her confusion. She’d made her decision.
He had bought dinner. Fancy dinner. A risk, Joanna thought—what if her answer hadn’t been cause for celebration? They ate and sipped champagne and sat tangled together on the couch that would forever hold a memory for them. They decided to spring the news on their friends and parents later. They wanted to enjoy being the only ones who knew for a while.
“When?” he asked, picking up her hand and inspecting the ring for the hundredth time. “God, you have beautiful hands.”
“I don’t know,” she said. “Do you have a date in mind?”
He laid his head on her shoulder. “Tomorrow.”
She laughed hollowly, something tugging at her deep down. Not tomorrow. Far from tomorrow. She needed time. “I’m talented, but I don’t think I can put together a wedding in one day.”
“I bet you could,” he said, picking up her hand again and kissing it. “How about June?”
Joanna did the math. It was February; that would leave them four months. “I don’t know. June is so cliché,” she said. “December?”
He wrinkled his nose. “Then our special day would always be competing with Christmas,” he said.
“What about next April?”
He pulled away, took her in. “You’re making it farther and farther away.” He turned, gathering his knees up
on the couch next to her, and took both of her hands in his. “Listen, I don’t care when it is. I really don’t. I just want to marry you. But I really, really don’t want to wait that long.” He kissed her hands in between each word of the last sentence.
Her heart melted. He really was so good to her. “Okay,” she said. “October. Fall. It will be beautiful with the leaves and everything.”
He mulled it over. “Yeah,” he said. “Fall. I think I like that. An outdoor wedding?”
“No way. The weather.”
“Good point. How about the little chapel up at the college?”
“That’s fine.”
“God, I can’t wait,” he said, and he lunged up against her, tipping her back onto the couch. “I love you, future Mrs. Wilkinson. Have I mentioned that?” He kissed her.
“Maybe once or twice,” she said, giggling, between kisses.
“Once or twice, huh? Then I’m about five trillion behind schedule. I love you. I love you. I love you.” He worked his way down the side of her face, down her neck, into the collar of her shirt. Joanna let herself be carried away in his kisses, in the dreamy image of the perfect fall wedding, in the life with her best friend.
And, later, when she pulled up memories of Éponine, a lifetime of wedded bliss with Stephen, dotted with the occasional fantasy about Sutton, seemed totally doable.
• • •
Three hours later, Joanna woke in a panic. Stephen had left sometime around midnight, kissing her so many times at the door, her chin felt chapped. He’d wanted to spend the night, but had an early morning interview at a bank. I’m getting a legit job for us, Joanna, he’d said. I’ll go back to school if I need to.
Now, lying in bed alone, the base of her neck ringed with cold sweat, Joanna tried to imagine Stephen heading to work in a tie and a polished pair of shoes, coming home at five, ready for a home-cooked dinner made by his loving wife. She tried to imagine herself in that role—carrying a cookie sheet to the front door or planting azaleas in the front lawn or dusting a piece of furniture they’d found together “antiquing.” She tried to imagine not going to Sutton’s shows.
The champagne and steak sat disagreeably in her stomach, and she rushed to the bathroom and crouched over the toilet. She made retching noises and strained until her nose ran, but nothing came up.
She sat on the tile floor in her underwear, staring at her twinkling diamond through terrified eyes.
After some time, Joanna went back to bed, but sleep wouldn’t come. The bed felt too hot, the room too cold, and there was no such thing as a comfortable position. It seemed like daylight was lifetimes away. She couldn’t stay there.
• • •
The Tea Rose Diner was never very busy during the overnight hours, but that didn’t stop Annie from keeping it open. The lore was that her mother, who had owned it before her, had closed the Tea Rose only one time, on a Tuesday night when Annie’s sister, Betty, had the croup. They said that Leonard Franklin, a regular nightly patron up until the day he dropped dead at ninety-six years old, had waited outside on a bench by the front door all night, unsure what to do with himself without his coffee and late-night pancakes. Annie’s mother had vowed, then and there, that the Tea Rose would never close again, and even though Annie had no Leonard Franklins to speak of, and only the rarest witching-hour customer, she kept it open out of loyalty, often working the overnight shift herself.
This night was no different. There was only one patron in the Tea Rose when Joanna arrived at 4:13 a.m. A homeless woman, hunkered over a cup of coffee in a back booth.
“Can I get you something?” Annie asked when Joanna slid onto a stool at the bar. Had Sheila been working, she might have said, Hey, Joanna, you still going grapefruit or are you eating like a normal person today? But Annie didn’t know Joanna like Sheila did, and the bleary hour of the morning made it unlikely that she would memorize anything about her now.
“Coffee,” Joanna said, her voice late-night scratchy. “And Boston cream pie, please. Two slices.”
Annie nodded and bustled away. Joanna could hear the rumble of a dishwasher running somewhere in the back, the hum of the pie case, which Annie opened to scoop out two slices of Boston cream pie. It was quiet. Peaceful. Just as it had been the morning she had come here to disappear five months before. Until.
Annie came back with the pie and the coffeepot. She turned over a mug in front of Joanna and poured. “Late-night snack or early breakfast?” she asked.
“More like therapy,” Joanna said. “So a little of both?”
“I think you’re not the only one needing some therapy tonight,” Annie said. She tipped her orange curls toward the woman in the back booth. “Been here for hours. She’s probably had four pots of coffee herself, and I haven’t seen her get up to pee once. She’s crying it all out, as far as I can see.”
Joanna turned and tried to unassumingly peer at the lady. She was nearly doubled over the table, writing in a notebook, her arm curled protectively around it, as if shielding it from the wandering eyes of a nosy crowd. Something about her looked familiar, but Joanna couldn’t quite put her finger on it.
“Personally, I don’t think she should be drinking all that caffeine,” Annie said. “Not as big pregnant as she is.”
Big pregnant.
It dawned on Joanna that she did know who the woman was. The blond, matted hair, the thin arms, the bedraggled look. Maddie Routh.
“Holy crap,” Joanna breathed, and she was up and out of her seat before Annie could even ask what the problem was.
Joanna made her way to Maddie Routh’s booth and slid into it without asking permission. At first, Maddie made no move to indicate that she had noticed Joanna’s presence at all. Just kept writing in her notebook, leaned in close, her shoulders hunched, every so often stopping to wipe her beet red nose on the back of her hand. But after a few seconds, Joanna reached across the table and lightly laid her hand on Maddie’s arm, stopping the pen. Maddie looked up, confusion turning to recognition, turning to weary acceptance.
“Did the other one send you?” she asked. Her nose was so clogged with tears it came out as Did the otha wud sed you?
“Other what?”
“The other one who’s been following me around. The one who came to my house. The one who follows me to the grocery store. I saw her there, you know. She pretended she was looking at the Pop-Tarts, but she was watching me—I know it.”
“Are you talking about Melinda?” Joanna asked. She knew that Melinda had felt a particular need to reach out to Maddie, had been talking about it for some time now, their obligation to make sure she was safe and okay. Had been the first to suggest it, now that she thought about it. Melinda had a particular connection to Maddie—one that she herself probably couldn’t quite pinpoint. “No, she didn’t send me.”
Maddie Routh sniffed. “Great. There are two of you after me, then. How long until the third one starts?”
“I didn’t come after you,” Joanna said. “It’s just coincidence. I couldn’t sleep. I came for pie.”
Maddie Routh stared pointedly at the table in front of Joanna. Joanna gestured toward the counter, where her pie and coffee still waited for her. She could see the steam swirling up from the coffee mug.
“What are you writing?” she asked.
Maddie looked down at the paper. “Names,” she said. She moved her arm so Joanna could see. The paper was filled with words in columns, bunched in tiny writing, crammed together. Hundreds, it looked like. Maddie turned the page back and Joanna saw an identical page under it.
“For the baby?” Joanna asked.
“It has to have a name, right?” Maddie said. She leveled her bloodshot eyes at Joanna, and Joanna could have sworn she could swim in the depth of anguish there. “I’ve got to give it a name. Maybe if I give it a name . . .” She trailed off, but Joanna guessed she could finish the se
ntence. Maybe if Maddie could give her baby a name, she would start to want it.
“Can I see?” Joanna asked, holding her palm up for the notebook.
Maddie seemed to think it over, and then pushed it across the table. “Michael wanted to name it Max, boy or girl. Can you believe that? The three Ms: Michael, Maddie, and Max. We argued over it. Twice. But it was mostly play argue. I mean, I didn’t like it, but I would have gone with it if it was really important to him. I don’t know if he knew that. Do you think he knew that?”
“I didn’t know him,” Joanna said. “But I’m sure he did. It seems like you guys were happy.”
Maddie smiled a wobbly smile. “We were. So happy.”
The wobble was contagious. Joanna wasn’t sure whether she would have been able to sound so sure and convincing if someone would have asked the same of her and Stephen. Were they happy, or was she just pretending because it was easier to pretend to be happy when you were wearing someone’s engagement ring?
She glanced at her hand. She’d taken the ring off before going to the diner and slipped it into her jewelry box. She’d worn it only hours before taking it off the first time. Surely, this was a bad sign.
“I can’t name it Max now,” Maddie said. “Not without him here. Not with me telling him that I hated the idea.”
“Sure,” Joanna said. “I get it. You have some really nice ones here, though. I like Ruthie May. Very cute.”
Maddie pulled the notebook back across the table and slung her arm over it protectively. “No. It won’t work. None of these will work. Because all I can think about when I think of this baby is Max. It’s supposed to be Max. It’s supposed to be one of the three Ms, not the two Ms. There was never supposed to be only two Ms.”
“Maybe if it’s a boy, you should go with Michael,” Joanna suggested. “And Michaelyn if it’s a girl. Pay tribute to him, and then it really will be like three Ms.”
Maddie squinted at her, not unkindly. “Why are you here?”
Now, that was the million-dollar question, wasn’t it? Joanna thought. Why was she here exactly? She knew why—the Tea Rose was her hideout—but was she really ready to admit that?
Second Chance Friends Page 18
