“Why didn’t you?” Audrey asks.
“I was too proud. Or too afraid, I guess. That he’d say no. Or he’d say yes and then resent me.”
“Would you have, Tobias?” Audrey’s voice floats in on the breeze. “Would you have stayed?”
I want him to say no so badly I can practically taste it. It feels ripe in my mouth—a berry about to be plucked.
“I don’t know,” he says. “Or no. I guess the answer is no. She didn’t have to ask; I went. I hated it, but I had to.”
“And you came back?” Audrey asks. “Why?”
“Because I couldn’t live without her.”
The table hangs in silence. No one moves, not even to pick up a wineglass.
I never questioned that Tobias was the one for me, but what if all this missed opportunity, strife, and heartbreak didn’t point to the epicness of our relationship but instead its precariousness? Its fragility. Maybe Jessica was right—we hadn’t grown up, we hadn’t taken responsibility. I somehow believed the universe would do it for us. I believed it tonight, still sitting here. But what if the work had been up to us all along? Timing is everything, Jessica told me when he left. And tonight, we are almost out of time entirely.
TWENTY
ONE DAY IN EARLY OCTOBER, Tobias came home to tell me he wanted to strike out on his own. The time had come. Things at the new gig had gotten worse and worse. Not only was he miserable, but he felt like he had taken ten steps backward since the course he’d been on in L.A.
I knew he wanted to return to photographing what he loved, and I knew it was just a matter of time before he’d want to pursue another job or begin to build his solo résumé. The fact that it was at this juncture, when he was dead broke, when we were barely making rent and had just gotten engaged, didn’t seem to be troubling him. He was a ball of energy as soon as he walked in the door.
“I’ve been thinking about it for a while,” he said, coming to sit with me on the couch. “But today it just hit me—why wait? I want to be able to focus on my own work.”
“Wow,” I said. “Okay.” Living with someone who didn’t like his job, who I now knew felt resentful, wasn’t fun. I wanted him to be happy, and I wanted him to finally have the career I knew he wanted. But I also wanted to sleep indoors, and eat, and have a wedding. I tried to do the math. “Tell me what you’re thinking.”
I could feel his excitement, and I went to get us something to drink. I pulled a bottle of expensive champagne Matty had bought us as a housewarming gift when we moved in that we’d been saving. I brought it out with two glasses. If we had to talk about this, we’d talk about it with booze.
“I’ll give my notice tomorrow, they’ll find someone, and I think Lane will probably fill in in the meantime.” Lane was another assistant who was part-time. Tobias liked her. “And then, first things first: I need to build a Web site.” Tobias was talking with his hands, the way he did when he was really animated. I popped the champagne and poured.
“I’ll get Matty to help me on the tech stuff, and then I want to approach the clients I worked with in L.A. I don’t expect all of them will say yes, but maybe one or two.…”
I handed him a glass. His eyes were shining. I had seen it so rarely those days. On the beach in Montauk, maybe not since. If what he was saying was true, if the work would come, I wanted to get behind him. Maybe this was our problem. His unhappiness with work had leaked over into our personal life. If he started getting happy there, he’d be happy here.
“Cheers,” I said. “I think this is a great idea.”
“Yeah?” Tobias looked a way he very rarely did: sheepish. “I mean, I’d maybe need you to cover the entire rent for a month. Two, at the most. But then I’ll be making way more than I do now, and I’d pay it all back.…”
My heart started to speed up in my chest, but I didn’t let it show. I put my hand over his. “Baby,” I said. “That’s fine. We’ll make it work.” I was little more than scraping by at Random, but I had some savings. My parents had bought bonds when I was born and sold them at my college graduation—the money amounted to about ten thousand dollars and had grown since. I’d use that. It was worth it to see him this happy.
“I love you,” he said. He kissed me fiercely. “And I want to start talking about the wedding. We should do it in the spring. Why wait, right?”
My heart seemed to expand out of my body. It grew so big that it encompassed us both. It thumped all around us.
“Spring,” I said. “That sounds great.”
“Or we could elope.” He took my glass out of my hand and set it down. He pulled me into his lap.
“Like Vegas?” I asked. I put my hands on his face. He hadn’t shaved in a few days and his chin was all stubble. It tickled my skin as I rubbed back and forth.
“Like city hall,” he said. Tobias leaned in to kiss me and then pivoted me around until I was straddling him.
“My mom would freak,” I said. I was breathless now. We still had sex often, but it had lost some of the intensity, the connection I used to feel before L.A. And here it was again, blazing between us on the couch.
“Don’t forget Jessica,” Tobias said, working my neck. “She’d kill you.”
“She’d kill you,” I corrected him.
We looked at each other and burst out laughing.
“Have you shown her the ring?” he asked.
I had. We’d had dinner the week after, and she seemed happy. All she wanted to do was talk about the wedding—where we’d have it, what I’d wear. I let her. I had fallen more and more in love with the ring the more I wore it. I didn’t even take it off at night. I loved the small hint of gold, the way it picked up the sun.
“Yes,” I said. “She said it was nontraditional. You know Jessica. She just needs to feel like things are her idea.”
“Even me?”
“Even you,” I said. I kissed him on the cheek. “I’ve learned some things from our sales and marketing departments,” I said. “You should make Twitter and Instagram accounts with your photos, and I’ll help you promote them.”
He threw his head back in a show of disdain.
“It’s important,” I said, needling him. “You need to create a presence.”
“A presence.”
“A presence.”
“How do you think I’m doing right now?”
“Decently,” I said. I raised my eyebrow at him, and then in one swift motion he picked me up and threw me over his shoulder.
Tobias wasn’t much bigger than me—taller, maybe a touch sturdier, although barely since he’d gone vegetarian. He’d lost the muscle mass he’d returned from California with. I teetered on his shoulder as he stood up and wobbled to the bedroom. He clutched my legs tightly as he tossed me on the bed.
“I think this is going to be good,” he said. “I can feel it.”
I felt, if not convinced, then relieved, alleviated. There was some thing to focus on now. I felt like we had finally found the thing to solve, and the way to solve it.
10:48 P.M.
WE ARE DEEP INTO DESSERT. Ice cream will only hold its shape for so long.
“I was never one for sweets,” Audrey says. “But this is delicious.”
She lifts a bite of praline ice cream onto her spoon and feeds it to Conrad, who opens his mouth willingly.
“Divine,” he says, licking his lips.
“Incredible soufflé,” Robert says. “I used to try and make them, but I never quite got the rise right.”
“The trick is not to overwhip the egg whites,” Audrey says.
I try to imagine Robert in his kitchen, an apron on, a doting wife chopping up vegetables and two little girls at his feet. If he were a friend, I think, I’d have been happy for him.
“So good,” Jessica says, her mouth full of a giant bite of soufflé.
Tobias sips his espresso. He turns to me. “I never regretted coming back,” he says. “Sometimes I was upset that the work stuff wasn’t turning out the way it had in L.A. But it wasn’t your fault, and I should never have made you feel like it was.”
“We were getting married,” I say.
“We were,” he says. It’s sad; he’s sad.