by Julia Kent
“Amanda, it is so nice to meet you. I hope you enjoy cilantro,” she says in a voice that carries some kind of subtext with Andrew.
I look at him. Andrew makes a face and his lip curls up in disgust.
“I love cilantro!” I chirp.
She gives him a look. “See? It is only you.”
“Are you one of those people who think it tastes like soap?” I ask him.
“No. I just don’t like it.”
“How can you not like cilantro?” Consuela and I ask in unison. Her voice contains sheer horror, mine pure curiosity.
He responds by pouring us each a generous glass of wine until the bottle is empty. A server appears as if summoned and replaces it immediately with another.
Good thing neither of us is driving.
“Fine. No cilantro. You will have to suffer through a most exquisite polenta dish without the best herb,” Consuela sniffs, her disapproval evident. Those eyes flash with a mock anger that just might hold more anger than teasing.
“I’ll survive,” Andrew says dryly with a wink.
“You have a savage palate,” she retorts, storming off with a wink to me, her hand cradling her glass of wine. Whew. Mockery wins.
“I take it you two are friends,” I say as I drink half my wine. It’s so smooth. And I’m now more nervous from having met the Consuela Arroyo than I am from the fact that this date is going in directions I never fathomed.
“Connie is an old, old friend of Dad’s.”
“Ah.”
“Not that kind of friend.”
“I never thought that. She’s not his type.”
“What does that mean?”
“Doesn’t James stick to dating women who can’t legally purchase alcohol on their own?”
A fine spray of expensive white wine goes flying out of his mouth as he chokes on my words. It’s a beautiful sight, really. A kind of performance art I wish I could capture on film.
“Who told you that?”
“Who do you think?”
“Shannon really thinks that about my dad?”
“Well, between Becky and Stacey and Kelly and—”
He holds up one palm, flat. “Got it. Point taken. Don’t need to hear my dad’s To Do list.”
“More like his Done list.”
He frowns. “Now that you mention it, when my prom date ditched me to go hang out with my dad, I did think it was a little weird.”
I gasp. “That actually happened?”
“No.”
I can’t find anything to throw at him—other than myself—so I just laugh.
“My dad’s not a complete lech, you know.”
“I’m sure he’s a well-rounded, sophisticated man who’s misunderstood.”
“Let’s not go too far. He’s a grey fox who likes his women young.”
“He dates zygotes.”
“He has his reasons.”
Talking about James McCormick isn’t my idea of a fabulous date conversation topic, but there’s a reason why we’ve veered into this territory. “Is everything okay with your father?”
“You mean other than dating women who could star in the Hunger Games movies as tribute?”
“Right.”
Andrew closes his eyes, his shoulders rising, then falling, with a deep breath. “Why is it so easy to talk to you?”
I shrug and drink. The wine is loosening me up.
“Because you are talking to me?”
“You’re not going to let me live that down, are you?”
We both know he’s talking about the past. About ignoring me for so long.
“That depends on what happens next.”
“What do you want to have happen next, Amanda?” Oh, the way my name spills out of his mouth. It’s like being licked up my spine.
Consuela appears at that exact moment and announces, “Polenta with churro in a non-cilantro monstrosity!” and sets down two piping hot cruets on small plates with an overblown flourish that makes us both burst into laughter. His voice is deep and strong, his mirth rumbling and profound. I’m so accustomed to his stoicism that this side of him—which I suspected lingered far beneath the surface—is a joy to experience.
A revelation.
“The salmon is next,” Consuela tosses over her shoulder as she disappears into a curtain of greenery.
I roll the stem of my wine glass between my fingers.
“I want more of this,” I say with a sigh.
“Polenta?”
“Talking.”
“Just talking?”
I smother my smile with a taste of the food. It’s divine. So is he.
“What about the wedding?” I ask after finishing my first bite.
He pauses, fork in mid-air. “Isn’t that a bit presumptuous? Can we finish our first date before talking about weddings?”
“I meant Shannon and Declan’s wedding.”
He sets down his fork and reaches for his wine, downing the entire glass in a series of gulps that make the thick lines of his neck move like a dancer on stage.
“Of course you did,” he declares, pouring more.
I freeze.
There are so many ways I can interpret that. I decide to play dumb.
“Has Marie talked with you about our roles?”
“Best man and maid of honor. We stand at the front of the church and I give a toast and maybe we dance with each other. You throw a bachelorette party and I hire a bunch of hookers for Declan to get in his last chance and—”
I start coughing. “What?”
“Kidding.”
“You better be.”
“Declan’s too head over heels for Shannon. Worst case, we’ll go to Vegas for some crazy times and he’ll spend half the night blabbering about how great she is.”
“Sounds like fun.”
“That’s true love.” He gives me a pointed look. “I guess. I wouldn’t know.”
“You’ve never been in love?”
He ponders the question while taking small bites of his food.
“Good question.”
“You’re stalling.”
“No.”
“No, you’re not stalling, or no, you’ve never been in love?”
“Never been in love.”
“Never? Ever?” I can’t keep the incredulity from my voice.
“No.”
“Wow.”
“What about you?”
“Me neither,” I admit.
“Then why do you sound so surprised that I haven’t ever been in love?”
“Because I’ve never met anyone else who would admit to it, too.”
“Then there’s a pair of us—don’t tell!”
Did he just quote Emily Dickinson?
“Are you saying I’m nobody?” I ask with a smirk, my tongue poking out to lick the rim of my wine glass. Let’s see if he passes this test.
Please let him pass this test.
“It’s quite dreary being somebody.” He smiles. “Trust me.”
I melt into my chair, and it’s not from the wine. My God.
“You are quoting Dickinson.”
“They shoved it down our throats at Milton Academy.”
“I wrote my senior honors thesis on her.” I can tell he finds this amusing, and he’s sitting across from me with an impish air, but what he doesn’t understand is how much I am reeling inside. The unspoken connection between us is now, word by word, being spoken. And it has a language of its own that unfolds like that yearning we all hold, cradled in our hands like a fragile, sleeping bird, in the part of ourselves where we protect our truths.
“Does that make you an expert in being nobody?” he asks.
This is too much.
I stand abruptly, shaken to the core. Every muscle inside me tenses, tightening as if needing to express emotions that cannot come out in any other way. The kinesthetic nature of this is like a keening without mourning, a visceral sense that two different layers of life are colliding and in the resulting chaos
nothing makes sense.
“Amanda?”
I wander away from our pergola and over near the edge of the rooftop garden, along the perimeter of the building. The ledge rises to my ribcage, a planter three feet wide surrounding the area. A tiny, hand-written sign says Chef’s Herb Garden. The scent of lavender and thyme, oregano and basil, fills the air on the ocean’s sea salt balm.
The wall of Andrew’s body behind me startles me with its warmth, his hands hovering at my shoulders. He’s hesitating. All I have to do is lean one inch back. Take one step backwards. He’s met me more than half way and now it’s my turn, but there is so much inside me whirling like a cyclone that I stand in place, uncertain.
I’m nobody.
Who are you?
“Who are you, Andrew?” I whisper into the night.
He comes to me, hands breaking that final inch of uncertainty.
“I’m somebody who has finally realized he’s been a nobody for far too long with you, Amanda,” he says, his voice earnest and honest. All banter and jokes are brushed aside like my stray strands of hair that his hand moves, clearing a space on my shoulder for his lips to kiss. He pulls me back against him, arms enveloping me.
We look out into the night.
“That’s the same ocean I sat and watched the other night when you were at the marina,” I marvel.
“Yes.”
“And we’re the same people.”
“Yes.”
“What’s changed?”
He turns me around, fingers on my chin, tipping my face up until our eyes meet.
And with one word he answers me before capturing me with a kiss that makes entropy seem like fate.
The word?
“Everything.”
Chapter Fifteen
“Did you sleep with him?” Amy asks as we drink our morning coffee and I relive last night’s events.
Well, most of them.
We’re sitting in her living room, Chuckles ignoring everyone as Marie makes us look at pictures of highlanders in kilt tuxedos.
“I am not going to kiss and tell,” I reply.
“I didn’t ask if you kissed him.”
I pretend to zip my lips.
Amy changes topics and tries to convince me that I should move in with her.
“This place is dirt cheap,” she urges. “You could see Andrew whenever you want without being texted by your mom. You want independence.”
“But I don’t want to sleep on the couch like you used to.” The apartment only has one bedroom. Shannon let Amy live here rent free but now that she’s gone, Amy’s paying the entire amount.
“You’d be so much closer to your job. Plus, the landlord says he’ll divide the bedroom and turn it into two with a simple wall and a second door.”
Tempting.
“Will the guys really go commando?” Marie calls out. “True highlanders don’t wear underwear.”
“The wedding is in July, Mom,” Amy calls back. “In Massachusetts. If you’re going to make all those men wear wool kilts and socks, they’ll probably gratefully go without underwear just to prevent heat exhaustion.”
Marie nods. “Good point.”
“But then there’s the issue of ball sweat,” Amy adds.
Marie frowns and jots down notes on a sticky pad. “Ball sweat? That’s a real thing?”
Amy nods. “They make a special product for it.”
“There’s a product to cure ball sweat? Balls have sweat glands? Where do they hide the pores? And how do you know this?”
“Venture capital project at my job. They’re coming out with a new product for breast sweat.”
“Now that I know about first hand,” Marie says with a knowing nod. “Breasts do more work than people appreciate. The Girls work up a sweat on a regular basis.”
Considering the fact that Marie hasn’t been pregnant or breastfed in well over two decades, I don’t really want to know what kind of ‘work’ her chest girls have been up to.
Shannon walks in. Chuckles runs to cuddle with her ankles, then rubs his butthole all over her calf.
“Hi to you too, Chuckles. That’s exactly how Declan greets me most nights.”
“Ewwwww,” Amy says, plugging her ears. “I hear enough about Mom’s sex life. Don’t need to know more about yours.”
“Honey, does Declan have a problem with ball sweat?”
“Huh?” Shannon gives Amy an evil look. “What have you been telling her?”
“Amy says the groom and groomsmen will need testicle powder if I ask them to go commando for the wedding.”
“Testicle powder? Is that going to be a wedding favor?”
“Do they make such a thing?” Marie asks, interest piqued.
“Sure,” Amy says. “Personalized bottles and everything. Think of the possibilities. Shannon and Declan, Dry Forever, with the date stamped on there and a logo of a dove. People will always associate your wedding with smooth sacs.”
Shannon throws Chuckles at Amy’s head. He lands perfectly in Amy’s lap, his butthole sliding down the length of her forearm as he settles into a liquid ball of fur in her lap.
“Don’t do that to the flower girl!” Marie barks.
“The what? Amy’s a bridesmaid, not a flower girl.”
“Chuckles is the flower girl.” Marie says this as if she were saying, Chicken is the main course.
Chuckles looks as shocked as Shannon, which is pretty hard to do when you don’t have eyebrows, but he pulls it off.
“You’re making my cat be my flower girl?”
“The McCormicks don’t have any little girls in their family. We only have Jeffrey and Tyler as ring bearers. I saw this adorable idea on Pinterest for how to use family pets as flower girls, and—”
Pinterest is a tool of Satan.
“My cat is going to be my flower girl because of a Pinterest board.”
“At least the men will have dry balls,” Amy says, um...dryly.
“What about Chuckles?” Marie asks.
“What about him?”
“Will he sweat under his kilt, too?” Marie scribbles on yet another sticky note. “Check to see if they make cat ball sweat powder,” she says to herself as she writes.
“Under his what? You’re making Chuckles wear a kilt tuxedo?” Does Chuckles even have balls? I don’t want to look.
I can’t help it. I look.
No balls.
“No, silly. Just a kilt. Cat’s can’t wear tuxedos!” Marie says in a voice filled with scoffing that we would even entertain the thought.
“Cats can’t be flower girls, either.”
“Of course they can! You’re a trendsetter now, Shannon. You’re marrying one of the most famous billionaires in the U.S.”
“Declan’s not a billionaire, Mom.”
“Not yet. Soon. Someday James will die and—”
“Mom!”
“What?”
“Don’t talk about James dying!”
“Why not? We all die one day.”
“But you make it sound so...gauche. Like we’re all just waiting around for James to die so Declan can get his money.”
Chuckles looks at Marie like he’s waiting for her to die so he can get out of being the flower girl at Shannon’s wedding. In fact, he looks like he has specific plans to kill Marie in her sleep by smothering her with a—
You guessed it.
Kilt tuxedo.
“Mom, Chuckles doesn’t look like he wants to be in the wedding,” Amy says out of the blue.
“How do you know what Chuckles wants?” Marie challenges. “Are you the Cat Whisperer?”
“Because I’m the only one who loves him anymore, and because he lives with me. Chuckles is my soul mate. My best friend. He’s the only one who loooooves me now that Shannon moved out and Amanda won’t move in.”
Chuckles is frowning at Amy like she’s gone off the deep end.
“He’s just a cat,” Marie says.
“That’s right, Mom,” Shannon argues.
“And cats can’t be flower girls.”
“We’ll talk about it later,” Marie says in a voice that really means, I’ve made up my mind and will do whatever I want and act like your opinion doesn’t matter.
“Elope,” Shannon whispers.
Marie stiffens.
Chuckles smiles.
“Shannon, you and Declan need to have a rehearsal dinner for the bridesmaids and the groomsmen. We all need to be there to begin to talk strategy.” Marie’s change of topic only serves to confirm the fact that Chuckles the Highlander is a done deal.
“Why would we host it? Isn’t that traditionally done by the groom’s parents?”
“You know James will just have one of his preschoolers...I mean, assistants, do it for him. A more intimate affair is in order.”
Shannon’s shoulder’s slump with defeat.
“What Mom means is that we need to get everyone together. And by ‘everyone,’ she means James McCormick. And save a seat for his wallet. It’s big enough. In fact, it should be the guest of honor,” Amy snarks.
“Huh?” Shannon looks like someone hit her with a rolled-up newspaper.
“Dad doesn’t have enough money saved to pay for the kind of wedding Mom’s planning, so James will cough up the rest,” Amy declares bluntly.
Shannon recoils in resigned horror and turns to me. “Traditionally, it’s the bride’s family who pays for everything except the rehearsal dinner and the honeymoon. Plus, Daddy’s pride is going to take a beating. But James said it’s all a business write off under the perfect circumstances, so...” She looks around the apartment. “Do you have an extra spray bottle of water? If Daddy and James get into another fight...”
“That’s old-fashioned tradition, honey. When you’re marrying into high society like this, it has to be different.” Marie sniffs, half-paying attention to the conversation as she rearranges eighty sticky notes. It’s like watching someone play Wedding Tetris.
“Right,” I say to Shannon. “It’s like groom and bride gifts.”
Shannon reddens.
“I see.” She goes uncharacteristically quiet.
All three of us—make that four, if you include Chuckles—look at her.
“What do you mean, you see?” I ask.
“When you put it that way...”
