The Real Deal

In the morning I find I’ve slept like a log, the dreamless kind of sleep I like best. I wake up blinking to the sun blaring brightly through the open white curtains. April stands at the foot of the bed, wearing jeans shorts and holding a ceramic mug with an illustration of a big, blue whale shooting water out its blowhole. The caption? MORNINGS BLOW.

I give a faint wave and a raspy good morning. “Nice motto.”

“I like mornings,” she says with a shrug, her smile radiant, her freckles more noticeable in the bright sunlight.

“I like morning…” I trail off, not finishing the thought.

She leans her head back and laughs. “I bet you do.”

I park my hands behind my head on the pillow. “You look like you want to make an announcement that has nothing to do with blowing and mornings.”

She nods, and smiles wide. “It’s the first full day, and I suppose this would be a good time to tell you the Hamiltons don’t do regular family reunions.”

“They don’t?” I arch an eyebrow as she hands me her mug of steaming coffee. I sit up in bed and take a drink of the life-sustaining beverage.

She shakes her head. “Let’s just say they’re a little different.”

I smirk. “You’ve been holding back. How are they different?”

She takes a deep breath. “Take a shower, join me for breakfast, and you’ll learn what we do at the morning announcements.”

Guess I’m not the only one who’s been keeping secrets.





Chapter Twelve

April

The second day

A year ago, I dated a man who told me he was divorced. Landon and I were together for three months, and during that time, he pulled off an astonishing lie. Or perhaps I’m just an astonishingly gullible girl.

Landon was a busy guy, a creative type working in the TV business, and I’d met him on a job promoting a new international-themed travel show. He’d stopped by the photo shoot and checked out the flags from the United States, the United Kingdom, and Australia that I’d been painting on the models for the promo. We hit it off and he asked me out. Landon took me out to fantastic dinners and on wonderful dates around the city—dates that were tailor-made for me. We went to art shows, and he’d grab my hand, tug me into a quiet alcove, and kiss the breath out of me, making my head hazy and my body vibrate with want for him. Then he’d take me to his Upper East Side place, the most pristine chrome-and-white man pad I’d ever seen.

“It looks like a show home,” I’d said.

“I just moved into it, and I like to keep my place clean,” he’d said with a chuckle, then he’d lift me up on the counter, and we’d make it dirty.

He never asked me to stay the night, and he didn’t sleep at my place either. “I feel terrible, but I’m the lightest sleeper,” he’d said. “The neighbor coming home and unlocking the door wakes me up, so I need to go full eye mask and earplugs. It’s better if I sleep alone.”

I’m all for quirks, but I could live without cuddling next to a masked man all night, so I didn’t push.

He’d even met my friends. He’d gone out to drinks with Xavier, Claire, and me. A week later, Xavier spotted him at a Murray Hill restaurant with a brunette; then he slipped into the booth behind Landon’s and actually recorded the conversation Landon was having with … his wife.

It was about their mortgage, the water bill, and if she’d picked up his dry cleaning.

I was shocked and hurt, but mostly I was flaming mad. I kept our date for that next evening, and over the shrimp course, I casually mentioned what I’d learned and showed him the photo. Landon backpedaled and told me his divorce just wasn’t final yet. I hit Play on the recording.

“Babe, I need the pink-checked shirt for my meeting in L.A. later this week. Can you pick it up for me?”

He licked his lips, his eyes like a deer, but he wasn’t a skilled liar for nothing. “We still help each other out. She happens to live closer to the cleaner.”

“Right. I’m sure there’s no cleaner next to your place.” I smacked my forehead. “Oh, wait—it’s not your new home. It’s your screw pad for cheating.”

“Let’s talk about this. I swear we’re not together, April.”

I stood and parked my hands on the table, and boy, did I feel like a badass chick in a movie as I hissed, “And neither are we.” I turned on my heel, then I stopped, looked over my shoulder, flicked my hair, and said, “By the way, the pink-checked shirt is hideous.”

I’d walked out feeling like I was ten feet tall and wearing black stilettos.

But when I was home alone that night, the reality crashed down. Maybe I’d had the last word, and maybe it was silver screen worthy, but I was also the fool who’d believed him, who’d slept with him, who’d felt like she was falling in love with him.

To make matters worse, I’d risked something important.

My work.

Fine. I hadn’t known Landon was still married when I met him on the shoot. But what if I’d mentioned him to someone in the business? What if while out for drinks with work friends, I’d said I was involved with him? Then I’d be April the home-wrecker, and that wouldn’t be so good for a woman rising up in her career.

It was pure, dumb luck that his name had never come up in my work circles. I was Indiana Jones grabbing his hat before the boulder crushed it. I’d escaped unscathed, and I needed to learn a lesson.

But what was the lesson? How would I have known Landon was lying? Maybe his pristine apartment was the tip-off, but I’d dated neat men before. Perhaps the “light sleeper” routine should have been the clue, but everyone has idiosyncrasies.

In the end, I exonerated myself because the truth was this: Landon was a world-class liar. The only way to protect myself was to avoid any Landons and, by extension, any men.

In my field, talent is all well and good, but no one wants to hire the contractor who’ll sink claws into the married men.

I had to protect my reputation, and I made my choice. Shut down romantic operations for a while till I developed better radar for separating the wheat from the chaff.

Landon is one of the reasons my family wants to find a man for me. My mom, my sister, and my aunt believe the Landons of the world are born and bred from online dating, from the world of Tinder. That’s why the ladies have been sending me emails and notes and developing their plans to set me up with the men of Wistful. They want to save me from the men of the internet, and they want to bring me home.

*

After I leave the room so Theo can shower, I head outside, where Aunt Jeanie executes the first ambush.

She’s stealthy as a pussycat. As I kneel in the gardens at the back of the Sunnyside, clipping sprigs of lavender for the table, her voice floats into my ear.

“There you are!”

I straighten and stand, the flowers in my hand. “Hey, Aunt Jeanie.”

Jeanie, my father’s sister, is spry and athletic and ready for action in her yoga pants and a formfitting raspberry sports top. Her short brown hair is tucked neatly behind each ear, a few strands of silver speckled throughout. She’s younger than my father by a few years, making her sixty. An intensely athletic sixty. She gives me a warm hug.

“So good to see you. Why don’t you come back more often?”

“I try to visit a couple times a year.”

When we break the embrace, she waves a hand dismissively. “You were last here at Christmas, and that’s simply not often enough.” She drops her voice to a hushed whisper. “You could live here, too, you know.”

I smile, the kind specifically designed to placate. “I know, but the work is in New York, for the most part.”

“Pshh. We’re only a train ride away. You can work here.”

No, I can’t.

I sidestep the age-old city versus country debate. “How are Gretchen and Fredericka? Still your best workers?”

Jeanie brings a hand to her heart and sighs contentedly. “Those ladies do me proud every day.”

“Will we be enjoying any of their creations this morning?”

“Of course. Your father made the most amazing scrambled eggs, thanks to my top girls.”