by Tara Brown
“We should invite them to the hotel.” I didn’t go to people’s houses uninvited, and I usually conducted business on my own turf. Where it was safe and I was in control.
“No.” He shook his head, almost giving me a look like he felt sorry for me. As if in this I was the one who was roughing it. “They wouldn’t want to have some formal meeting. Come inside.” He took my hand and pulled, and that was the moment I panicked.
“I look awful. I’m not wearing makeup, and my eyes are puffy—”
“You look fine. They won’t notice. They’re not like that.” He dragged me to the door. “It’s not about that for them.” He opened the door, smiling wide at a pale small man at a little table with a pencil behind his ear and a paper in his hands. He lowered the paper and grabbed the pencil, circling something.
“Finding many mistakes today, dad?”
“Oh, aye, ya know those editors couldn’t—” He turned, pausing. “My word. The young lady from yesterday.” He slowly got up. His bushy white eyebrows and frizzy gray hair didn’t match Ashley at all, but the rest of him was an older version. Ashley was almost identical to his dad. I hadn’t noticed it when I saw them yesterday; I was in such shock, I hadn’t paid much attention to them at all.
“Welcome. I’m Ashley’s da, Martin Jardine.” He sounded like he’d lived in Glasgow his entire life. He was as Scottish as they came. He was even wearing a plaid shirt with his dress pants. I was surprised not to see a kilt. He pushed his glasses up and held a frail hand out for me.
“I’m Cherry. It’s nice to meet you.” I took his hand, shaking both our arms for him. In his eyes and skin I could see weakness and a sickly pallor and realized Ashley hadn’t been calling him a godfather. He’d been saying God, father. Like “God no, my father is ill.” And he was. My chest ached for Ashley as I realized what the money was for.
“The American girl who broke his heart, I assume?”
“I guess so?” I glared at Ashley, thinking he had broken my heart, but whatever.
“Aye, about time we meet you. We were starting to think ya were a figment of his imagination. Or he’d made a robot lady friend. That was a bigger concern.” He winked at me and jeered at Ashley.
“Dad, I told ya she’s real.”
“Hmm-hmm.” He scrutinized me, narrowing his eyes. “You’re not of English heritage, are ya?”
“Romanian and Irish.” I didn’t mention my mom being half English. He didn’t need to know that part.
“I suppose it’s not so bad. I told his mother moving him ta England as a wee lad would ruin him.” He scoffed. “Well, come on in.” His accent was intense. It mesmerized me.
“Dorrie’ll be home in a moment.” He hobbled over and held out a chair for me. I tried to take the small house in as I walked to the table and sat.
“So, tell me about your family.”
Ashley cringed, like I needed to keep some things to myself.
“They’re not very interesting,” I lied.
“Her brother goes to Harvard; he’s in law. Her sister’s a computer genius.”
“And what about you?” he grilled. Even sickly, he was ten times more frightening than anyone in my family. “What are your plans?”
“Bartending in Europe for a while.” It might have been the truth.
He paused, like he was waiting for the real answer, then burst into a laughing fit, coughing from it.
Ashley gave me a weird look, as if asking me why I was sabotaging this. But I couldn’t tell him that I had no plans, and lying to his dad felt wrong. Like he might be able to tell. Like he knew teenagers and young people better than they knew themselves.
“Don’t listen to her, Dad. She’s going to Wellesley and finishes this year with a degree.”
“In what?” he barked.
“I was hoping to work in marketing.” That was the truth, but it was an old truth. I didn’t want to work in marketing now, or at least not the kind of marketing that had me pumping more products to the über rich while I continued to lose my soul.
“Marketing.” He nodded. “So you’re lost is what you’re saying?”
“Dad!”
“No.” I smiled at Ashley. “He’s right. I’m totally lost, Mr. Jardine. I’m not like Ashley or my brother or sister, who’re set in what they want to be and so skilled toward those goals. They’ve known who they are all along.”
“And you haven’t?” He sighed and sat back. “I know this story. I see it loads at Brown. But I also lived it.” He grinned, maybe remembering. “A hundred years ago when the Earth’s crust just cooled, I was a wee lad working at my uncle’s newspaper. I thought I would be a newsman. I saw that for myself.” He chuckled a hearty laugh. “Then I went to college, and I met this girl.”
“Mom?” Ashley sounded confused.
“No, ya dafto. Muriel. She was beautiful, inspiring. I ended up taking some of her same classes, following her and hoping she might see me too.” He winced. “I didn’t realize she wasn’t my type, or rather I wasn’t hers. She was in love with our professor, Ms. Tealing.”
“Dad!” Ashley said that a lot.
“Oh, don’t get your knickers in a knot, the story has a happy ending. I met your mother in those poetry classes I’d followed Muriel to. By then I’d found my passion; Robbie Burns had lit me up with Scottish pride. Made me feel things I never imagined I would. And certainly not for an old, dead codger. But your ma fancied me for it. Even if she is a traitorous—”
“Dad!” Ashley sounded exasperated. “First time meeting someone. Not the right moment.”
“He’s a lot like his ma. Overly excited and all. Emotional people.” He winked at me, making me laugh. “Not like you and me.”
“I hadn’t noticed that side of him until I asked him about robots.”
“Oh, aye, don’t ask about that.”
“Why did I think this was a good idea?” Ashley asked himself aloud.
“Shall we get out the albums so your mother can get it over with when she gets home?”
“Not the albums,” Ashley pleaded.
I relaxed, laughing even more.
His house wasn’t how I’d imagined it. I’d pictured scholarly snobs who knew they were smarter than everyone else and rubbed it in your face.
This was far better.
Messier, but better.
I’d also imagined something perfect, pristine, and super domesticated. I didn’t know it would be shelves of books and half-written works and lamplight over desks and clutter everywhere.
I didn’t see creative chaos as how it would look but now it suited. Like Bilbo Baggins’s hobbit hole.
It was better this way. They were real. Frighteningly real.
The door swung open, and the woman I’d seen in passing yesterday smiled wide. “Oh, the market was crazy!” She came in like a tornado, with bags of groceries nearly falling on the floor. She paused when she saw me. Her eyes darted to Ashley and then her sick husband.
“Ma, this is Cherry.” Ashley put his hand out to me, like I was on display.
“Of course.” She sounded less Scottish but still had an accent. Hers was more like Ashley’s, mixed and Americanized. “I see you found each other.” She winked. “He was all sorts of worried about you being here.” She sounded unimpressed.
“I didn’t tell him I was coming.” I stood and held a hand out. “Cherry Kennedy.”
“Kennedy?” She cocked an eyebrow. “As in the great family?” She lost all the joy she’d had a second ago.
“No,” I lied. I didn’t know why I lied to her, but it seemed like the right move. We were cousins of the great family, our family also rich and connected. I wasn’t sure what she felt for them, but whatever it was, I didn’t want to chance it.
“You’re not related to them?”
“I mean, super distantly. Like maybe some cousins in common.” My siblings and I were the cousins in common.
“Interesting. And how did you two meet?” She was not friendly. Her eyes spoke v
olumes about the level of dislike she had for me or maybe my family. People she likely didn’t even know.
Sweat popped from my skin as my anxiety started to grow.
“School. Her brother’s a friend of mine from school,” Ashley covered. It was a half-truth.
“He goes to MIT?”
“Harvard, law. But he comes to the robot wars,” he lied. “Cherry goes to Wellesley.”
“Harvard law and Wellesley?” Her look of disdain was overwhelming. “So you must come from money?” She said it as if money was the worst thing possible.
“Oh, now, Dorrie. Don’t get on that again.” Mr. Jardine tried to lighten the moment, but there was no lightening it.
“Mom,” Ashley scolded.
“Where are my manners?” She forced a smile over her face, one I recognized right away. “You’ll have to excuse me. I have to put these groceries away. It was lovely meeting you, Cherry. Enjoy your trip here.” She forced herself to say it and then left, walking to a room in the back and closing the door.
“I should probably . . . ,” I said, and got up. “It was nice meet you.” I hurried from the house, leaving the door open and rushing down the road until I broke into a run. My flip-flops weren’t great for escaping, but I managed. Even with Ashley yelling my name as he ran after me.
I hurried back to the bench, not really sure where else to go. I slumped down and covered my face, wishing I’d never gone to the house. The way she looked at me was still burning holes in me.
She was exactly how I’d imagined her.
She did think she was better than me. In fact, she knew it. And for the first time I understood how it was for Ashley to be in the Hamptons. He’d done remarkably well for someone so out of sorts and his league, as I was here. I’d never struggled to fit in before. It was a terrible feeling. One I didn’t even have a reaction to.
“Cherry?” Ashley walked over quickly, heaving. “Look, I’m not much of a runner.” He wheezed and sat down next to me. He started to joke. “So that was awkward. I’m going to guess that’s how it’ll be for me with your parents?”
“What?” I dropped my hands and turned to him.
“I’m sorry about that. My mom hates rich people. She hates the blue bloods and rich elite. She thinks American royalty is the biggest joke in the entire world.” He laughed bitterly. “And I know how your family is—”
“Mother,” I corrected him. “My dad’s nonchalant, like yours. He’ll think NASA is the coolest thing ever. My mom’s not going to be like that.” I pointed in the direction of his house and laughed. “She’s going to be much worse. Much. But I wouldn’t have done that to you. What the hell was that? Why would you take me there without warning me?”
“I didn’t know. I’ve never seen her strike at anyone before.” He grabbed my hands and kissed them. “I am so sorry. I didn’t know she would act like that toward you. I thought maybe meeting you would win her over. Like seeing you weren’t some spoiled brat bent on ruining and corrupting me—”
“Oh my God,” I gasped. “I did try to do that! She’s right!”
“No, you didn’t.” He leaned in and kissed my cheek. “And trust me, my dad’s going to give her a firm tongue lashing. She won’t get away with treating you that way.”
“I can’t believe your mom hates me because I’m rich,” I said with a groan. “She didn’t even give me a chance.”
“Just like your mom won’t give me a chance once she finds out I’m not rich. Do we care?”
“Yeah?” I turned and faced him, staring into his eyes, clearly saying the wrong thing. “No? No, we don’t care. When you meet my mom for real, I promise I won’t care what she says.”
“And I don’t care what my mom says.” He smiled peacefully with the statement. “If she wants to be unreasonable, she can do it when I’m not around. And she will be apologizing to you.”
“No, please. Don’t. I honestly want to forget it ever happened.” I sighed and leaned into him. “I never imagined your mom would disapprove of me.”
“Yeah, well, she can be crazy.”
“So can mine,” I agreed. It was extra baggage we didn’t need. I’d already made enough drama to last us our lifetime.
“So, did you mean it, what you said about bartending?” He got serious.
“Maybe. I honestly don’t know what I want to do.” It was shaping up to be a crappy morning.
“Want some custard pie to go with this conversation, since I ruined yours yesterday?” He nudged me.
“I do.” I glanced up at him. “You did ruin my pie.”
“I’m sorry.” He laughed. “I was just so shocked. I couldn’t believe you were sitting there, eating. I’d worked so hard to not go back to the Hamptons and to you, and then there you were, casually having some pie three thousand miles away from home.”
“I think we both know I’ve got an unhealthy obsession with dessert.”
“Movies and dessert.” He stood and took my hands, pulling me up.
“What do you mean?”
“You relate everything in life to movies. It’s bizarre. Everything reminds you of a scene in a movie. You’re obsessed. And you’ve seen everything. You bring up quotes from movies I’ve never heard of. And you remember them better than any details in the real world.”
“No, I don’t.”
“You do. You love movies. Admit it,” he joked.
I realized he was right about that. I did love movies. I escaped through them. “Everyone loves movies,” I said, defending myself.
“No. Not many people love movies the way you do. Your love is the kind that, I don’t know, directors have. Taking the moment of reality and capturing it for film. Taking the realness of this life and creating art from it. I told you, you should be an actress.”
“I’m not actress material,” I muttered, and let him drag me along the street until we got to the café from yesterday.
The tall guy was behind the counter again. “Hey! I was worried about you when you ran out of here yesterday. The food couldn’t have been that bad!”
“It was delicious, actually.” I went to the counter. “In fact, I want more custard pie and a cappuccino, please. And I’ll buy some of your beans to take home. This Monsoon Coffee is incredible.” I turned to Ashley. “What do you want?”
“I’ll share yours,” he said absently.
“He’ll have the same.” I smiled at the barista as I paid, then frowned at Ashley. “I don’t share.”
“Fine.”
We sat and waited for our coffee and dessert, staring out the very window I’d looked out yesterday, wondering what my fate with this man would be. We watched people as the shop got busy and the food was delivered.
I took my first bite and moaned. “Oh my God.” I chewed slowly, savoring the taste and creamy texture. “I could live in England, never go home again, and be three hundred pounds heavier from all the desserts I lived on.”
“No, you couldn’t.” He ate slowly, too, clearly enjoying his. “You like dessert, but you don’t love rain or cold. You complained about spring all the time. You were ready for summer and heat and running. Running in the rain is miserable.”
“It’s warm here,” I corrected.
“It’s been freakishly warm here this summer. Normally there’s a lot of rain and cold weather. And fall, spring, and winter are all cold and wet. You’d be depressed in no time.”
“Okay, well, I could open a bakery in New York where they only use traditional English recipes.”
“That would be amazing. I’d be into that. A little taste of home in my new home.” His eyes danced with pleasure, staring at me like maybe I was home to him in the way I suspected he was home to me. Carrying around my delicately mended heart in his pocket.
“I guess.” I sipped my coffee, trying not to overthink anything. “Maybe I could be a barista here and just do summers and try to find myself, then go to Australia for winter.”
“Or you could finish your degree and try some new things
, new hobbies. Venture out of your comfort zone and see if something lights you up.”
“You mean the way you do?” It was cheesy, but I had to say it. He was the light. He made me brighter. He made me want to be brighter.
“Do I light you up?” he mumbled in my ear.
“You do.” I leaned into the sweet embrace. “You make everything better.”
“And you make everything worthwhile.” He kissed my cheek. “Want to go back to the hotel room?”
My cheeks flushed as I nodded. “We need to get my coffee beans first.”
“Okay. You go wait outside, and I’ll grab the bags.” He kissed my cheek again and wandered over to the counter.
As I headed outside, I tried not to get distracted from the promise of what was about to happen, battling with the differences between our families.
I told myself it didn’t matter.
That no matter what the future held, I was confident we would always find a way to be together. Even if it was just him and me and playing house with no view of the outside world. We could find happiness anywhere. We made it everywhere we went.
Chapter Forty-One
ET TU, ANDY?
Cherry
We strolled around the gardens, listening to the tour guide as he led us and explained everything. Warwick Castle wasn’t what I’d expected. It was really touristy. Like an English version of an amusement park.
Ashley kissed my hand and led me after the man.
“Is your dad going to be okay?” I asked the question that had been sitting with me since meeting him.
“Yeah, sorry. I should have said something. I know he looks god-awful right now. Just finished his last chemo. Doctors say he will be right as rain in no time. That was why I needed the job so badly.”
I understood. “It’s why you stayed?”
“No.” He grinned. “You were why I stayed. He was why I started. I have morals and ethics and a conscience, and I let you and your brother sell them so I could afford school and not rely on any money from my parents this year. My dad isn’t working.”
