Monday

Chapter 3: Real Life

2,178 words · Chapter 3 of 40

Rhys isn't my fiancé anymore. We broke up months ago. We haven't told our friends, and after being engaged to him for so long, I still sometimes think of him that way.

I planned to tell them during this visit, without him here. We agreed by email to take turns seeing everyone. We were almost excessively polite about arranging who would go when.

He insisted I come first. Now he's in the kitchen between Bianca and Dane, and I have no idea why.

"Surprise!" Livia calls, drawing out the word.

I can't answer. I'm glad to see Rhys and frightened of being near him. His hair is long enough to tuck behind his ears, which usually means the family boat-restoration shop is busy. He's grown a beard. It partly covers his dimples, but I can still see his firm jaw and the slight asymmetry of his upper lip. I remember his mouth too well.

"There you are, sweetheart," he says in that low voice I know.

He has never called me sweetheart. Our friends shorten or alter my name; Rhys always calls me Mara. Once, when I had the flu, he called me baby with such tenderness that I cried. Otherwise it was Mara when he laughed, when he was irritated, when he undressed me. Even during the four-minute phone call when he broke up with me: Mara, you know what this is coming to.

Jules gives a delighted squeal. "Look at her. She can't even speak."

I can't think clearly enough to finish a sentence. "I—"

Before I can continue, Rhys walks over and puts an arm around my waist. He pulls me against him and kisses me.

I taste cinnamon toothpaste, feel his heartbeat and the roughness of his cheek, then his lips pressing against mine. I barely understand what's happening before he stops. My legs feel weak. He holds me more firmly as he pulls back, and I lean on him to keep from falling onto the pine floor.

"Didn't expect me?" There's nothing warm in his gray eyes. I can still taste him. Apparently the devil kisses first, then waits for you to say how glad you are to see him.

They're waiting for me to respond. "I thought you weren't able to leave work."

"I made some adjustments." His mouth tightens.

"Livia bullied him into it," Dane says, sweeping me off the floor in a hug so tight I want to cough.

Livia puts my bag on the floor. "I solved a problem. We needed Rhys here, so we got him here."

Rhys is restless, with calloused hands and parents who used to grow fruit. My veterinary surgical residency leaves me wishing for an evening alone, mopping in the dark. We have little in common. Livia and Dane are different: both organized, both lawyers, both good-looking in a carefully groomed way. He has thick, wavy dark hair, a strong jaw, white teeth and the expensive cologne he's worn for years. Despite their similarities, they took a long time to acknowledge that they loved each other.

"You disappeared on us," Dane says. "No calls, no letters."

"I'm sorry. I've been so busy."

"Well, you're here." He ruffles my hair. "And you look—"

"Exhausted?"

"It's the new face," Jules says. She sits on a stool and helps herself to spicy rolled chips from a purple bag.

"Beautiful," Bianca says. She steps past Dane and hugs me. I recognize her mild lavender scent. Her head rests beneath my chin. The three of us have always been different heights, and I've always liked how comfortable we are together.

"That too," Dane says. "I meant hungry. Can I make you a sandwich?"

Jules holds out the bag. "Or have some of these."

"No, thank you. I'm good." I sound cheerful, although I feel terrible.

Bianca frowns. "Are you sure? You look pale."

Livia bends her head to inspect me. "You really do. Are you okay?"

I feel nauseated and faint. Being watched with so much concern makes it harder to recover. Knowing Rhys is watching is worse.

"I'm fine," I say.

I wish I'd worn a bra, fixed my hair or kept the mustard from my airport hot dog off my shirt. I'd imagined seeing him again in a beautiful dress, wearing makeup I had somehow learned to apply, with an attractive new boyfriend beside me. I would feel nothing when I saw Rhys. That was the important part.

He wasn't supposed to be here.

For months I avoided telling our friends because I didn't want to divide the group. Now I need them to know, so I can get away from him.

"I need to tell you something—"

"Sweetheart." Rhys returns to my side and takes hold of my waist. "Livia and Dane have news for everyone."

My skin prickles. I'm wearing denim; I shouldn't be able to feel every callus on his fingers. I do anyway. I try to pull away, but his hands tighten on my hips. His eyes say, Stay right there. I stare back. Try stopping me. The corner of his mouth twitches with irritation.

Livia takes a bottle of champagne from the glass-fronted refrigerator. She looks unhappy. Dane stands behind her with his hands on her shoulders.

"We have a couple of things to tell you," he says. "Rhys already knows. We had to explain why it was so important for him to come this week. For all of us to come."

Jules sits up excitedly. "Are you two having a baby?"

"No!" Livia says. "Definitely not. It's the house." She pauses, swallows and lifts her chin. "Dad's selling it next month."

Everyone falls silent. Bianca sits down. It isn't the comfortable silence Livia and I shared outside. Rhys releases me and moves several feet away. Apparently he no longer expects me to try to explain.

For a moment I don't know what to do. I've lost the man I expected to marry. I no longer live near all my closest friends. We could always come back to this house and feel safe and happy together. Now we won't have that either. I'm more frightened by losing the house than I am by having to stay here with Rhys.

The summer after sophomore year, Bianca, Livia and I dragged mattresses into the living room and made one huge bed. We talked and laughed until daylight came through the patio doors. One night Bianca quietly told us she'd never had friends like us. Livia and I nodded. We held hands until we fell asleep.

By the firepit, we decided to make a pact. I thought sharing blood was unsafe, so we pressed the same spot on each index finger against hot metal instead. Afterward we laughed until we cried, making up increasingly absurd robberies and ways to implicate one another using our matching fingerprint scars.

Dane organized a cardboard-sled race down the wooden stairs. Bianca first told us about Jules beside the library fireplace. A year later, Jules cut her foot on a nail in the dock. Rhys carried her up the shaky stairs while she demanded that we throw grapes into her mouth and pretend to fan her.

Rhys and I first kissed here. I first touched him here. After the breakup, I could still come to the house where those things happened. Soon I won't be able to do that.

"This is our last visit," Livia says. She removes her silk scarf and leaves it on the counter. "Our last one here, anyway."

I wonder whether the others are trying to think of a way to stop it. If we contributed everything we could spare, would we somehow have six million dollars to buy it? I know how unlikely that is.

"Couldn't you—" Jules starts.

"No," Livia says. "I suppose his sixth wife doesn't want him keeping a house he bought with my mother. There are four wives after Mom she could worry about instead. But he's already found a buyer. It's decided."

Dane gently shakes her shoulders, trying to cheer her up. I look toward Rhys without thinking, still expecting to feel better when I see him. When he looks back, my heart beats faster. I turn away.

"There's good news too," Dane says. "Really good news."

Livia looks up from removing the foil. "Oh, yes. The other thing."

"Could you sound a little more excited about our engagement?" he asks, teasing her.

"Your engagement?" I hear myself cry. Bianca says it at the same time. She gets up so quickly that her stool falls sideways, and she catches it against the island with her hip.

Livia laughs, delighted and still a little incredulous.

"You're engaged?" I ask again.

"I know. I'm surprised too."

Jules grabs Livia's hand and admires the huge emerald in its white-gold setting. I remember my own bare ring finger. Someone will notice if I leave my hands out. I push them into my shorts pockets, which are barely big enough, and try to look casual.

"You said you'd never marry," Bianca says, studying the ring with a frown. "There were no circumstances in which you'd agree. You were very clear."

I understood why. Besides her father's repeated marriages, Livia works as a divorce attorney. For at least eight hours a day she deals with people whose marriages have failed.

"How did he ask?" Jules says.

Bianca continues, "I remember you telling me how much you disliked the idea."

Jules nudges her in the ribs. "We're celebrating, babe. She changed her mind. People can do that."

I do it all the time. I've taken so long deciding on breakfast that I missed it. Livia eats yogurt and granola every day; only the seasonal fruit changes. I wouldn't have expected her to reconsider marriage.

Livia puts her arm around Dane's waist. "Hearing that we were losing the house helped me decide." Her voice trembles, then steadies. "I want to stay with him for the rest of my life, whether we marry or not. I don't want to give up something that would make me happy just to feel sensible. I want us to be married. I don't want to keep saying I don't."

Jules rests a hand on her chest. "I'm so happy for you."

Dane smiles at Livia and strokes her shoulder. Livia turns to me with a broad, red-lipped smile.

"You two had something to do with it, actually."

I tense. I think I know what she's about to say, and I hope I'm wrong. She keeps talking.

"You and Rhys have been together for nearly ten years. You've managed even with the distance. Seeing that made me believe we could do it too."

"Eight years," Rhys says quietly.

Jules squeezes his upper arm. "Eight years, and you still have to stand right beside each other."

He's already less than three feet from me. He moves closer and puts an arm around my shoulders. "Even now, I can feel as if I've only just met Mara."

I understand the private sarcasm. Jules thinks he's being romantic and presses a hand to her chest again. Livia opens the champagne; the others cheer. I feel detached from what I'm doing, and I can't settle down.

Usually I avoid an argument at almost any cost. But the longer we allow this, the harder it will be to explain that we're no longer together.

"I'm really happy for you," I say, my voice much too high. "But I need to tell you—"

"Mara." Rhys puts his arms around me from behind and rests his chin on my head. "There's more." I try to recall somewhere I feel happy. Instead I wish I were back on Mack's alarming little plane, before I knew any of this.

Jules gasps and claps her hands.

"Still no baby," Livia says. Jules sighs.

Dane smiles with the eager pleasure I remember from Bianca's Santa Fe-themed birthday and the engraved stethoscope he gave me when I finished veterinary school. He and Livia look at each other, plainly enjoying our wait.

"Please just tell us," Bianca says.

Jules throws two chips at Livia, who knocks them aside. "All right. Go on," Livia tells Dane.

"We're getting married," he announces.

We exchange puzzled looks.

"Yes," Bianca says. "We understood that when you said you were engaged."

"This Saturday," Dane says. "Here, on the dock. Only the six of us. A little ceremony, nothing elaborate. We want our best friends with us."

I feel cold, then hot. My face and hands go numb. Rhys lets go again. I look up at him, and he seems as miserable as I am.

I don't see how either of us can leave before their wedding.

My ears ring and I can barely hear the others. Someone puts a blue champagne glass in my tingling hand. As my hearing clears, I catch Dane wishing them a lifetime of love.

"And friendship," Livia adds. "We wouldn't want to spend our last week here with anyone else."

Think of somewhere happy, Mara.

Not here. Not this place.

But I've already thought of it.