“I’m positive! I’m not looking for anything serious, so why would I care about his reputation?”
“I don’t think his reputation is who he is. I’m telling you, he’s a charmer, but I don’t think he sleeps around as much as we’re led to believe.”
“Are we done? I’d really like to eat my pancakes in peace now,” I mumble.
“Of course, dear. More coffee?”
“Sure. Where’s Dad?”
“He left at sun up. Long day today. Three celebrity clients.”
“Fun.”
“Yeah, I’m sure we’ll hear all about it when he gets back. Are you staying here tonight?”
I sigh and pour syrup on my pancakes. “Yeah, I think I will.”
“You’re sure you don’t want to meet Zach? He lives a couple of blocks away.”
My gaze cuts to hers. “You’re kidding.”
“What if he just comes over for dinner? That way it won’t be a date, but a way for you to talk about your art.”
“Since when are you interested in art? You hated when Wyatt used to come over and talk about art.”
She gasps, placing a hand over her heart. “I never hated when he came over! I just didn’t like how he spoke to you sometimes.”
“Really? How’s that?” I say, stabbing a piece of pancake. I don’t mean for her to answer, but she does anyway.
“Like you were a child.”
My chewing slows. I was a child. He was eleven years older than I was and had the experience of an eighty-year-old.
“He didn’t speak to me like I was a child,” I say.
“You were his muse . . . his light, I guess. I see that now, but at the time, it was unnerving, the way he wanted you stuck to his side every time your father’s friends were around. As if he thought they would take you away from him. You never got that vibe?”
I shoot her a look. “Of course I did. Men are like that.”
She tilts her head, seemingly weighing out my words. “I suppose they are. Anyhow, he obviously loved you in his own way and helped you a lot. But, just think, Zach Edwin!”
The rest of the day is spent shopping with my mom and Bettina (Mia’s mom), talking about Zach and how he’s coming over for dinner. Mia called threatening to kill me if I don’t call her as soon as he leaves. At one point, between trying on shoes at Neiman Marcus and having drinks at Chili’s, my brother gets wind of the whole thing and calls me to tell me he’ll kill me if I hook up with Zach because he heard he hooks up with everybody, including a client’s ex-wife. I turn off my phone after that. I have enough chatter to listen to from Bettina and my mom as they go on and on talking about all the guys Mia and I could have married by now. I don’t know if they forget that I was engaged, or they just choose to ignore it because I wasn’t engaged to somebody of their liking.
At night, I wear one of the dresses I bought earlier, a short—but not too short—flowery dress that hugs my torso but opens up and flows past my waist. My mom insists I wear a pair of red heels with it because it’ll make my legs look miraculous (her words). When the door swings open at seven o’clock, I practically jump on my father before he has a chance to put his briefcase down. He laughs, his big Santa Claus-like laugh comes straight from his core, and he hugs me tightly.
“Someone missed me,” he says, smiling when he lets me go. His once sandy brown hair is now covered in salt, and the lines of his face are marked with every time he’s laughed—and there have been a lot of those. His brown eyes shine when he looks at me, and it makes me feel like a kid again.
“You’re the only other normal person in this house,” I whisper-shout dramatically as he continues to chuckle and shake his head.
“Nobody told you to stay alone with you mother,” he whispers back conspiratorially.
“And Bettina!”
His eyes widen. “Oh Jesus, you need a drink.”
“Or twenty.”
He laughs again, putting his hand over my shoulder.
“Thomas! You’re home!” my mom says, smiling widely as she saunters over to us, wearing a knee-length black dress.
“Are you trying to give a man a heart attack, Hannah? What are you wearing?” he asks, dropping his arm from my shoulder and reaching for my mom.
Watching them is like watching Gone with the Wind. You know, that last part, where Rhett Butler holds Scarlett O’Hara’s face in his hands? That sums up my parents. Every. Single. Day.
“Oh, stop it, Tom, you know Elle hates public displays of affection,” my mom coos as she throws her arms around his neck.
I laugh, shaking my head. “I do not, but I’ll be outside if you need me.”
“Why do you insist on setting her up on these stupid dates?” I hear my dad whisper to her as I walk away.
“Because, she needs to move on!”
“She’ll move on when she’s ready, honey. Your meddling isn’t helping. And now I have Victor calling to say he’s coming over to intervene,” he says. I freeze with my hand over the doorknob. I have a moment of clarity, where I think maybe I’ll call it a night and go home, but then remember where home is right now and decide to walk outside and sit in my parents yard.
Growing up, I had two types of friends: the ones who had overbearing parents and the ones who had parents who didn’t care what their kids were doing. I always wanted to have the second type of parents. Mine weren’t strict, unless I got bad grades, and they only meddled when . . . well, they always meddled. When Wyatt died, I was grateful for that because I would have probably gone weeks without eating had it not been for them practically spoon-feeding me. Needless to say, I’m not surprised Vic decided to follow me home after he learned about the Zach thing, especially after he made the comment about his client. This is more than his normal big brother overprotection; it’s about work.
My dad joins me outside after he’s showered and hands me a glass of white wine.
“Figured you’d need it,” he says, toasting me with his own.
“Thanks,” I respond, taking a sip and leaning back into the cushions of the seat.
“I heard you did a great job at the hospital.”
I glance at him and smile. “I think we did.”
“I’m proud of you, Elle. I know I always said art was a waste of time and you should have stuck with something else, but then you go and do things like this, and I can’t help but to be proud of you.”
“Thank you,” I say, leaning over and giving him a kiss on the cheek.
“Your mom isn’t going to give up until you find a new boyfriend, you know? I think you should just pretend you’re in love so she can let this go already.”
“Mom isn’t going to stop until I have kids.”
“I thought you didn’t want kids,” he says, taking a sip of wine. He doesn’t look at me when he says it. His eyes are far off into the distance. He doesn’t see the crumbled look on my face. Wyatt didn’t want kids. I turn my body away and mimic his pose, staring at the mountains—at the spot where I know the ocean is, but it’s too dark to see right now.
“I haven’t decided yet,” I say finally.
“Sometimes we give up a lot of ourselves for the people we love,” my dad says. “It’s hard knowing when to stop doing that, because you feel like if you love someone, you should be okay giving things up for them.” I nod and sip on my wine. “When I married Erika,” he says, recalling his deceased wife—the woman he lost years before he met my mother. “I gave up everything I loved. I gave up school and got a job because I felt I needed to provide for her. That’s what men do, you know, we provide for our woman—for our family. Then I lost her to a drunk driver and thought—what is my life now? I have nothing. And the thing is, I didn’t feel that way because I lost her, I felt that way because of the things I’d given up for her.”
I gulp a big sip of wine, knowing exactly how he feels. “And with Mom? And us?”
“Well, by the time I met your mother, I was back on track. She was younger, so I waited for her to graduate, I didn’t want her making the same mistake I made with Erika. I never wanted to be the reason she looked back on her life and regretted the things she didn’t do.”
“Do you think all men are like that? Waiting for the right time to do things?” I ask, thinking of Oliver.
“No, not all of them. I think your brother does. I think he’s waiting for his career to blossom before he settles down with somebody, and if he had met someone already, I would tell him he’s an idiot for doing that at his age, but he hasn’t met anybody that makes him reconsider, so I guess he’s on the right track.”
“Yeah, I guess.”
“My point is, Elle, you probably gave up more than you think when you were with Wyatt, and that’s not a bad thing. It’s the way of life. I just don’t want you to jump into a new relationship with that mentality. No matter how good looking your mom says the guy is.” He flashes a smile that I return.
“Well, we both know Mom’s taste is often a little screwed up,” I say, making him laugh.
“Ain’t that the truth.”