Billionaires, Bad Boys, and Alpha Males (86 page)

Occasionally she checked The Rag and
googled Red’s name to see if there’d been any stories about their broken
engagement, but nobody had picked up on it as of yet.

Finally, enough time had gone by and she
knew it had to be done.

“I’m going to tell my parents,” Nicole
said to Danielle one Sunday morning over bagels and coffee, sitting at a little
table outside their favorite café.
 
The umbrella overhead cast them in shadow as they sat together and
talked.

Danielle’s eyes widened.
 
“Are you really going to tell them about
breaking it off with Red?”

“Yeah.”
 
Nicole took a bite of her everything
bagel.
 
It was tasty and good, and
when she had a sip of coffee to wash it down, she could almost convince herself
she felt okay about what she had to do.

 
“I don’t know, Nicole,” her roommate said uncertainly, ripping off a
piece of her chocolate croissant and chewing it slowly.
 
“What if you and Red get back together?”

“It’s been a month and we haven’t even
spoken.”

“True.”
 
Danielle stared at her plate.
 

“I’d have thought you’d be pushing me to
tell them,” Nicole said.

“Because I called your parents?”

“Ummm…yeah.”
 
Nicole grinned at her.

Danielle sighed.
 
“I guess I just see how sad you are
since the two of you split up.”

Nicole was surprised.
 
“Really?”
 
She fiddled with her coffee cup
absentmindedly.
 
“I didn’t think I
was giving off a super gloomy vibe or anything.”

“You’re not that obvious about it, but I
can tell.
 
You’re not the
same.”
 
Danielle ripped another
piece from her croissant and thought about it.
 
“I think you’re really unhappy.”

Now it was Nicole’s turn to stop and
consider what Danielle was telling her.
 
She’d been keeping busy and trying her best not to really think about
her life or her deeper emotions.
 
But when she did occasionally stop and take stock of things, there was
an instant lump in her stomach, a rush of sadness, grief really, that took hold
and didn’t want to let go.

“Okay, so maybe I am sad.
 
But it’s natural to be sad when you
break up with someone, isn’t it?”

Danielle nodded.
 
“Yeah, of course it is.”
 
She squinted a little as the sun moved
into view.
 
“I just wonder if maybe
the two of you have unfinished business.”

Nicole shook her head definitively.
 
“We don’t.”

“Okay, if you say so.”

“Danielle!” Nicole flipped her hair in
frustration.
 
“You’re supposed to be
the friend who keeps telling me to forget about my ex and move on.”

“I know, I know.”

“Anyway, I am moving on.
 
I need closure and telling my folks is
part of it.”

Danielle just raised her eyebrows and
stuffed another piece of croissant in her mouth without further comment.

After breakfast, Nicole called home and
told her parents she wanted to visit them.
 
She’d take the train to Syracuse from Penn Station and return back to
New York the next day.
 
Her father
sounded surprised.

“What’s the occasion?” he asked.

“Oh, just missing you guys.”

She decided it was important to do this
in person, not over the phone.
 
It
would be difficult but then she could really start to pick up the pieces and
get back to her life.
 
Right now she
felt stuck in place, as if the cord between her and Red hadn’t truly been
severed yet.
 

She would need to miss work on Monday,
but she hadn’t ever called in sick or anything.
 
Tomorrow she would call and tell Remi
she’d had to go home in order to deal with a family issue, and that she’d be
back on Tuesday.

A little later that morning she took the
subway out to Penn Station, then the Amtrak train all the way to Syracuse,
where her father was waiting in his blue pickup truck.
 
Getting inside his truck, she smelled
the familiar scents of grease and motor oil, rusty metal.
 
As a mechanic, her dad’s hands were
rough and usually had black stains around his fingernails.

He lit a cigarette and rolled down his
window as they drove.

“I thought you quit,” she said, as he waved
smoke toward the window.

“I did.”

“And then what happened?” she asked.

“Quit for almost eight months and then I
watched the Mets blow an eight run lead in the ninth inning against the
Orioles.”
 
He made a face as if it
still hurt him to this day.
 
“After
that I felt like I was owed a cigarette.”

“Oh, dad.”
 
Nicole hated that he smoked.
 
He’d been going though two or three
packs a day for as long as she could remember, but just the last few years he’d
really cut back and then even quit once or twice.

“It’s a horrible addiction.”
 
He looked over and smiled at her.
“Enough about me.
 
How are you
doing?”

She shrugged.

“Uh-oh,” was all he said.
 
There was a long pause as they drove
through familiar areas of town.
 
The
Costco that she’d been to a million times growing up.
 
The restaurant that kept changing owners
and names every couple of years, and nobody seemed to be able to stay in
business there.
 
Right now it was
called Fiore’s.
 

“How’s mom?” Nicole asked, trying for
casual.

Her dad took a drag on his cigarette as
they slowed at the light.
 
An old,
old man walked a dog that looked as old as him, slowly across the street.

“Your mom,” her father said, “is antsy to
hear news about the upcoming nuptials.”

His words hit her like a punch in the
stomach.
 
Like a wave hitting her,
she was blasted by the impact of how everything had ended.
 
It was really over between them.
 
It didn’t seem possible—it had
happened too fast.

“Well, we need to talk about that,”
Nicole said, watching for his reaction.

He didn’t particularly have one.
 
The cigarette dangled from his lip and
smoke trailed out the window.
 
“That
old geezer needs someone to walk him
and
his dog,” he said, as the old man and his old pooch finally got to the other
side of the road.
 
By then the light
had gone to green and back to red again.

A few minutes later, they arrived home.

“Your mother’s in a state,” he warned as
they came in through the front door.

“Oh no.
 
What kind of state?” Nicole asked him,
but he didn’t bother answering.

Her mother’s voice called from what
sounded like Nicole’s old bedroom down the hallway.
 
“Hellooooo?”

“Hey mom,” Nicole called back.

They found her mother in Nicole’s old
bedroom.
 
There were things
everywhere-clothes, magazines, books, notebooks, shoes, all of it in
piles.
 
Her mother was on her knees
sorting things.
 
She was wearing a
red kerchief on her head, t-shirt and jeans.
 
It was her typical “spring cleaning”
outfit.

“Nicole, did you want these shoes?” her
mother asked, holding up a pair of battered green and white Nikes.
 

“Those are from junior year of high
school.
 
I think I ran in them until
the soles pretty much fell off.”

“So, do you?”

“No.
 
Thanks.”
 
She walked to her
desk and looked at the various stickers and glittery, sparkly pens and pencils
that were collected next to her old notebooks.
 

“I’ve been wanting to turn this room into
an office,” her mother said.
 
“And
now that you’re an adult and getting married, I thought it was about time.”

Nicole tried to smile past the
awkwardness she knew was coming.
 
“That sounds like a fantastic idea.”

“What about these sweatpants?” her mother
asked, holding the ugly blue pants high in the air for her to see.

“No.
 
Definitely not.”

Her mother made a face.
 
“So much good clothing going to
waste.
 
And at the time you probably
cried to me and complained how cool it all was and how badly you needed it.”

“About that whole getting married thing,”
Nicole started.
 

Her father looked at her, waiting for
what came next.

Meanwhile her mother was busy sorting and
folding.
 
“We don’t even need to go
through this again,” she said.
 
“You
know how we feel, but we support you completely.
 
Now we just want to know what date and
where.”
 
She looked up at
Nicole.
 
“And if possible, I’d like
to have some input on invitations and seating.”

Nicole turned her gaze to the floor.
 
“I don’t think that’s going to be
necessary.”

“Well, why not?
 
Are you so sick of me that you won’t
even let me make a suggestion or two?”

“It’s not that.”
 
She tried to think of how to phrase it,
but she was suddenly afraid to say it aloud.

“Well then…” her mother pressed her lips
together and looked at the piles on the floor.
 
“Oh, I know what I meant to show
you.”
 
She leaned over and grabbed
Nicole’s high school yearbook.
 
“What about this?”

Nicole accepted it, paging through and
smiling a little at the memories.
 
She’d been a quiet kid, so there weren’t tons of pictures of her all
over the place.
 
But people had
written some sweet and funny comments in the front and back pages.
 
“I don’t know…maybe I’ll keep it,”
Nicole said softly, closing the yearbook.

“You’ll want to show your children
someday,” her mother said confidently.

“So, I need to explain about the
wedding.”

Instantly, her mother made a face.
 
“You don’t have to explain for my sake.”

“There’s not going to be one.”

“One what?”

“A wedding.
 
We broke up.”
 
She felt her jaw tremble and instantly
told herself to knock it off.
 

Don’t
cry in front of your mother—anything but that.

Her mother tried not to show her relief,
but Nicole could see it written on her face, plain as day.
 
“That’s too bad,” she said, trying to
sound supportive.
 
“What
happened?
 
Did you have a falling
out?”

“It just didn’t work out,” Nicole said.

Her father hugged her and she put her
face into his chest.
 
He smelled
like cigarettes, just as he always did, and it comforted her some.

“I think it’s for the best, honey,” her
mother said.

She didn’t respond.

After they spent some more time cleaning
her old room and putting clothes and things into plastic bags, they went to the
kitchen and she helped her mom cook chicken breast and rice for dinner.
 
This was like going back in
time—the same patterns, habits and routines they’d always had.
 

The familiar patter between them was
comfortable, if a little depressing at times.
 
Her mother making comments and
“suggestions” that Nicole invariably ignored.
 
But there was one piece of advice that
she couldn’t just ignore.

“What about the ring?” her mother asked,
as she rubbed garlic powder into the chicken breast with her fingers.

“My engagement ring?”

“You returned it, I assume.”

“No.
 
Not yet.”

Her mother stopped kneading the meat and
turned to her.
 
“Why not?”

“I don’t know.”
 
Nicole was chopping veggies for the
salad, but her knife was paused momentarily.
 
“I suppose the right opportunity hasn’t
presented itself.”

“There’s no right opportunity to return
an engagement ring, Nicole.”