Diving In (33 page)

He’d do fine. She’d taken his heart and stomped on it, but he’d survive. He saw the world more clearly now, like getting a terminal diagnosis and seeing what really mattered in life.

Making money wasn’t ever going to make him happy. In spite of what he’d told himself months ago, he’d gone into business with Brand to impress his father. Not to become financially independent—like he’d fooled himself into believing—but in a last-ditch attempt to earn his father’s respect.

He wasn’t going to do that anymore. Even if his father never respected him, Ansel would respect himself. He’d continue to find value in his life—much like his mother did—through lending, helping, playing, living. He’d try to explain that to his father, but he wouldn’t try to change himself to make the old man happy.

Kevin Jarski’s sixtieth birthday party was in two weeks. Ansel wanted to be there. He’d even decided to help his mother with the arrangements.

He picked up the phone again and called Mel Jury’s cell, not knowing where she was, not even which country.

“You’re an angel!” his mother said after he’d made his offer. “It will mean so much to him!”

“No, it won’t,” he replied, “but that’s okay.”

“It’ll mean a lot that you’ll be there.”

“I need to tell you something, Mom,” he said. “You’re not going to like it.”

“Is that why you buttered me up first?”

“No. I was going to do that anyway.”

She exhaled loudly. “All right. Let’s hear it.”

“Dad and I had a fight in September.” He waited for her to tell him what she knew.

All she said was “Yes?”

“He wanted me to live my life differently than how I was living it. I told him to go to hell.”

She breathed out again. He thought he could hear her lips pressing together.

“I didn’t use those exact words,” he continued, “but that was basically it. I told him I wouldn’t draw from the family accounts anymore. I haven’t.”

“And you’ve run out of money and would like to make up?” Her voice was deceptively polite. It was the voice that used to send chills down his back.

“No. I don’t need money. But I do need my father.”

The line went quiet.

“Mom?”

Another loud exhale, this one from the diaphragm. “Oh, I’m so glad. This has been a horrible year, waiting for the two of you to pull yourselves together. Just horrible.”

“Did you know?”

“Of course I knew, Ansel. Your father doesn’t have a painful bowel movement without letting me know about it.”

He laughed, relief flooding him. “I figured. That’s why I called you.”

“I’ll get him on the phone. Just—”

“No. Not now. I’ll talk to him at the party. He’ll be happy to get away from everybody you invited and yell at me for a few minutes. That’s my little present to him.”

“I can’t promise I won’t jump the gun, Ansel. I don’t keep secrets from him. He’s my life partner. You’ll understand someday.”

“I doubt it,” he said, sinking back into the chair. He had a moment of feeling very not good. “I’ll set everything up with Jordan. You liked the food at the restaurant, right? Dad can have the party there?”

“It was very interesting. I’m willing to eat it again.”

“Is that what you put in your Yelp review?” he asked. “That’s kind of faint, as praise goes.”

“It doesn’t matter what I think. He had a line out the door. Are you sure he’ll reserve the entire place just for us?”

“I’m sure.”

They talked menus and timing. Then Ansel asked his mother something he’d wanted to do for a while but had been afraid of looking weak to his father.

“I’d like to go into business with you, Mom,” he said firmly. He wanted to continue what he’d been doing with friends but on a formal, larger scale. “Saving the world.”

She paused. “But that’s what you have been doing, Ansel. Didn’t you know that?”

Feeling his throat tighten, he repeated something about the menu before hanging up.

He sat in the chair and stared out the window at the park, the phone abandoned in his lap.

He was watching a man ride his bike with a small white dog on his chest in a baby carrier, thinking about Nicki, when his sister called.

He wasn’t sure he wanted to talk to Rachel right then. She’d want to know everything. Everything. If she didn’t know already, with her twin sister magic.

He hit the button. “Hi, Rache.”

“I’m not getting married, and you’re not going to say a word about it,” she said.

He got up and walked into his kitchen. It was smaller than a suburban home’s walk-in closet but wonderfully affordable.

“Okay,” he said, relieved he’d escape from a conversation about his own love life.

Silence stretched between them. “Okay,” she said. “Thanks.”

“No problem.”

“I’m actually packing right now,” she said. “I hear I’ll see you at Dad’s birthday party.”

Unless the tireless Melinda Jury had sent an email while she was on the phone with him, it was too soon for his sister to have gotten that news from their mother. “Where did you hear that?”

“Oh, you know.”

“No,” he said flatly. “I’d like to.”

“Okay,” she said with a sigh, “I talked to Brand an hour ago.”

“Since when do you talk to Brand?”

“We don’t talk every day or anything.”

“But you barely know him. I didn’t think you even liked him.”

“I didn’t used to, but then I got to know him last summer.” She cleared her throat. “We went out for a little while.”

“Went out where?” Then Ansel grimaced. “No way.” Shaking his head, he took containers of yogurt and orange juice out of the fridge to make a smoothie. Liquefying products in a blender could be therapeutic.
 

“He was sweet.”

“Sweet? Brand?”

“A real gentleman. But he was in love with somebody else.”

“Thank God,” he said. “I didn’t realize how glad I’d be about that.”

“They’re worried about you. Well, Diane’s worried. Brand’s pissed.”

He shoved a frozen banana into the blender. “Maybe I shouldn’t have left like that. I was just about to get the car and go for a drive when the shuttle showed up. I’d assumed I’d turn around and go right back.”

“You should. I’m afraid to call Nicki. My brother’s being an asshole.”

“When the plane was landing at SFO, I finally saw what everyone else had seen all along. Nicki was just looking for sex.” He swallowed hard. “She doesn’t want anything else from me.” He banged the lid over the blender and punched the highest setting.

When he turned it off, Rachel sighed. “You don’t know that.”

“I’m just another challenge for her to cross off her bucket list. She’d been afraid of seeing me again after college, just like she was afraid of swimming or bridges or whatever. She built up a tolerance, got her fix, felt good about herself”—he yanked a bag of strawberries out of the freezer—“and it has nothing to do with me. She got what she needed.”

“You haven’t given her a chance.”

“If I go back to Maui, we’ll just get back in bed together and drag out the inevitable. Better to have a clean break now.”

“I can’t believe you’re saying this. You didn’t even talk to her.”

“We talked. She ended the conversation. I’m happy to continue it, but not there. If she’s interested in talking more, she can come find me in the real world.”

“You’re hurt and afraid and dumping all of this on her, instead of—”

“I told her I loved her. She told me to fuck off.” He shoved an icy strawberry as big as a baby’s fist into the blender. “It’s not me who’s afraid.”

“Give me a break. You’re terrified.”

“Not anymore. I put myself out there—”

“And then ran away!”

He fired up the blender again and enjoyed the horrible noise. When it had pulverized the sugary mass into a rosy paste, he punched the off button. “She needs some time. I’m giving her time.”

“Sounds like you’re the one who wants time.”

“Maybe I do.”

“Can I tell her you want to see her when she gets back?”

“I’d tell you to mind your own business, but that’s not going to happen.” He pressed his thumb over the blender’s ice crush button until Rachel yelled at him over the noise to cut it out.

He took off the lid and scowled into it. It would be a waste to pour it out, but his stomach was too tense to digest anything. “By the way, I know you set us up,” he said. “Believe me when I say I don’t appreciate it.”

“I’m sorry,” Rachel said with a sigh. “I thought you two would really like each other.”

“Yeah. We did. That was the problem.”

Chapter 28

T
WO
WEEKS
LATER
,
ON
A
Friday night in mid-July, Nicki pulled her laptop bag from under the seat in front of her and waited for the aisle to clear so she could get off the plane.

The other passengers looked happy, well-rested, and sun-kissed. She, however, was recovering from a bad burn after spending the day on a catamaran tour, and the skin on her shoulders was coming off in sheets. The flesh underneath was pink and tender, sensitive to the pressure of two bags slung across her body.

Her knees were still a little shaky from the landing as she walked off the plane, but she’d been writing through most of the trip and hadn’t ordered a drink, popped a pill, or blown a gasket. She hadn’t even squeezed the Phobic Phoebe stress ball that had finally arrived at the condo. The extras—Betty had sent two dozen—were in her suitcase insulating a hand-painted vase she’d purchased at an art show in Lahaina. The show had been one of the excursions she’d forced herself to make. She’d refused to mope in the condo.

He hadn’t come back; he hadn’t called. She’d relived the fight in her mind over and over, concluding only that he’d wanted more than she could give. She wished he’d given her more time, and it galled her that he’d left like that.

The air inside the terminal was cold and humid, like a basement after a rainstorm. She found Betty waiting in the baggage claim; her green hair was now as purple as grape soda. On her, it looked more natural, almost black.

“Thanks for the ride,” Nicki said. “Love the hair.”

“I’m going through a conservative phase. Jaynette’s driving around so we don’t have to pay for parking,” Betty said. “Is that all you brought?”

Nicki looked around for the right baggage carousel. “I checked a couple bags. Sorry, but I couldn’t carry it all on.”

“A couple? Just for the weekend?”

Nicki moved her laptop bag to the other shoulder, flinching at the sting of the strap tugging at raw flesh. “I’m not going back.”

“But you’ve got three weeks to go! In Maui!”

“I’ve had enough.” She didn’t have anything else to prove to herself there.

“Damn, what a waste. I’ll tell her to drive around again,” Betty muttered, starting to text on her phone. “I wish Jaynette could get time off work. She and I could take your place. Fly out after the reception after chugging champagne.”

“Sorry, it’s already occupied.” Brand and Diane had moved into the Jury-Jarski condo as a cost-saving measure. Diane was also taking Ansel’s place in the real estate deal; although, because his abandoned possessions were still strewn all over his bedroom, they would be moving into the room Nicki had used.

“What’s with the two backpacks?” Betty asked.

“Ansel forgot his computer.”

Betty lowered her phone to gape at her. “You’re his
mule
?”

“Gives me an excuse to talk to him.”

“You already have an excuse to track him down and smack him upside the head,” Betty said. “Talk to him then.”

“I’m not angry anymore,” Nicki said. “We both went a little crazy. Being away from home can do that to you. You forget who you are, do things you’d never do otherwise.” Painful, pleasurable memories cascaded over her. She didn’t know if she’d ever have such a comprehensively sensual experience again in her life. She didn’t know if she’d survive one.

The first suitcase appeared on the carousel. Nicki maneuvered through the cluster of bodies and hauled it off the belt.

“That’s exactly why you should’ve stayed there,” Betty said, taking it from her. “Keep doing that stuff. The blog’s on fire.”

“I’ve got to talk to you about that. I’ve got some ideas about the future of Phobic Phoebe.” The second bag came into view.

“You’re going solo,” Betty said. “I knew it. Blogs are too easy to set up these days. You don’t need me.”

“Not going solo. I thought I’d put all of the posts together in a book and self-publish them online. You and I would have to look into the copyright issues, get that all figured out before I do it.” She’d needed something other than school and an empty apartment to come home to.

“What do I have to do with it?” Betty asked.

“It was your blog. You deserve a cut of the proceeds.”

“What’d I do? Nag and complain, that’s what.”

“I couldn’t have done it without you,” Nicki said.

“You’ve brought me enough traffic to my blog to compensate me.”

“That doesn’t feel right,” Nicki said.

“Look, if I lived my life to get rich, my parents wouldn’t be so embarrassed in front of their friends.” Betty pulled the handles up from each suitcase and started walking to the doors, dragging them behind her. “I do this for fun. Have your own fun.”

“All right, I will.” Nicki followed her out the automatic doors toward the taxis, buses, and cars. A cloud of cigarette smoke from the tobacco-toking corral near the door hit her in the face. Outside, the fog was cold and soupy, a typical July evening in the Bay Area. Jaynette had double-parked at the end of the curb and floored it when she saw them.

“How are things between you guys?” Nicki asked quickly, eyeing the approaching car.

Betty waved at Jaynette. “Not bad. She asked me if I’d consider meeting her father. He lives in Idaho, so I’m a little freaked. Not my target demo, you know?” She dragged the bag off the curb and knocked on the old hatchback’s trunk. “Pop it, yogi!”

Jaynette was a yoga instructor. Not the best driver, if Nicki remembered correctly.

Her hands became clammy. As she hefted a suitcase into the hatch, she reminded herself that if she didn’t survive the drive across the Bay Bridge, she wouldn’t have to see Miles celebrate his marriage tomorrow.