chapter eleven
The time between Thanksgiving and when we left for Philadelphia flew by. I was always at work before everyone else, and almost without fail I closed the office every day. I put out fires, I trained Monica, I even did payroll a few more times. It was crazy, hectic, impossibly frantic. There were days when I barely saw daylight, ate every meal straight from the microwave, and the only time I sat down was to pee. And even then, I was reading e-mails. Please, like everyone doesn’t bring their phone to the bathroom to read?
And through the crazy, the hectic, the impossibly frantic life that I was leading, I was getting my shit done. I was not only handling it, I was actually now ahead of the curve. I’d turned some kind of time management corner and was holding my own. I walked not with a drag but with a bounce; I rushed from meeting to meeting and job site to job site with a renewed sense of purpose. I was tired, but I was happy in a weird way. I was getting the swing of things. I was still stressed, but it was a good stressed.
I was ahead of schedule on the hotel project, and I was even able to start working on a few Christmas projects. If you were very wealthy, you didn’t do your own Christmas decorating—heavens, no! You hired it out. Initially I thought that with Jillian being gone I’d need to contact some of the other design firms we were good neighbors with to farm some of it out, but I couldn’t do it. I needed to make sure that everything at Jillian Designs functioned the same way as when Jillian was actually in residence. So I slept less. And got to work on decking the halls with boughs of Red Bull.
Simon was home. His trip to Plymouth should have kept him busy until right before the reunion, but now he had some free time. Something he usually didn’t have much of. But now he did. After coming home one night to a present in his own shoe from Clive, he agreed that instead of spending a few nights a week over in Sausalito, it would be easier to just move out there and bring the little shoe pooer. So Clive was now a country cat. And he had a stay-at-home daddy.
The two of them had a ball, exploring the new house and spending hours looking out the window wall. Clive had never had so much room, and he relished all the closets and beds he could hide in and under. Simon took over the nightly game of Hide the Pounce, something that I unfortunately didn’t have time for anymore. One chilly night I came home late and found Simon holding Clive up to the window, making paw prints where it was foggy and talking about how far away the city of San Francisco was.
He grinned when he saw me, but didn’t stop talking about how cold the water was and how Clive should not try to swim back to the city. Clive nodded sagely and pressed another print to the window.
Now that Simon had so much free time, he was biking most days, sending me texts and pictures from all over Marin County. He had a favorite restaurant, a favorite place to get coffee in the morning, a favorite deli; he had a new favorite everything.
For the record, his favorite position remained whichever one I was in when he was inside me. And while I was exhausted most nights, I still managed to sneak in naked times with my Wallbanger. Such a hardship.
And with all this free time came unexpected visits. Office pop-ins. Several phone calls a day. He was around all the time, and didn’t seem to understand why I wasn’t around all the time. He logically got that I was working more than ever, and that I was happy. Didn’t stop him from trying to pull me back into bed each morning.
And shit, that was hard. Because it is incredibly difficult to get out of bed every morning when you have a rumpled Wallbanger holding on to your pajamas. Because, and I say this with pride, his favorite position remained whichever one I was in when he was inside me.
Seriously, though, he was around all the time. He’d also reminded me several times that I was not. Hmm.
Jillian and Benjamin were leaving Italy and heading to Prague, planning on spending a few days in the city and then exploring the Czech countryside. I marveled over the pictures she e-mailed me, letting her tell me all about the amazing time she was having with her husband. She was relaxed in a way I hadn’t seen her in years, and she was sure to tell me how much she appreciated her “office dynamo” handling everything so that she could take this time with her new husband. It was weird hearing her refer to Benjamin as her husband; they’d been engaged for so long he’d been her fiancé the entire time I’d known her.
I’d asked her once what made them finally decide to go ahead and set a date. We’d been sitting in the conference room, sampling cakes the baker had brought by one morning, trying to decide which one would be the wedding cake. I caught her looking down at her ring, smiling a secretive smile, and I asked her.
“I don’t know. One day I just looked at him and knew I was ready to be his wife. I’d built my business, I’d accomplished all of the goals I’d set in my twenties and a bunch I’d set in my thirties, and it just felt like the right time.” She grinned, pulling the chocolate buttercream with raspberry filling back toward her for another taste. I had a feeling this one was going to be the winner. It was. “Plus, have you seen his ass? Oh, look who I’m asking, the president of the Benjamin Fan Club,” she joked.
“I’ll have you know I won that election fair and square. It’s not my fault Mimi and Sophia didn’t know we were voting that day. Fair and square,” I explained.
Speaking of my friends, all was quiet on the Sophia and Neil front. They hadn’t seen each other since Game Night, and Mimi was planning to try again before Christmas—something I was trying to talk her out of. But when she invited them both to her Christmas party, neither one tried to get out of it. In fact, they both seemed to be looking forward to it. Who knew who they’d bring this time? They both continued to date, and often, but it rarely went beyond to a second date.
Color me surprised.
In order to jet off to Philadelphia for an entire weekend in the middle of one of my busiest seasons, I worked practically round the clock, evenings, and Saturdays to clear my schedule enough so that I could leave everything behind and just be with Simon. It was never a question of not going; there was no way on earth I was going to let him do this alone.
He was so nervous.
The night before we left he had a nightmare, and today on the plane he barely spoke. When he did speak, he was curt and quick. When the plane touched down, he turned to me and said, “I’m going to apologize right now for being a dick this weekend, in case I am. I’m not planning on it, but if it does happen, I’m sorry.”
I patted his hand, and kissed his nose. “Apology preaccepted. Now show me your hometown— I can’t wait to see your Liberty Bell.”
He half smiled, and took my hand as we left the plane.
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Philadelphia was a city I’d never been to, and I wished I had even more time to explore. But this weekend wasn’t about indulging my reenactment of the Rocky Run up the steps of the art museum, but more about me being wherever and whatever Simon needed. Besides, apparently they moved the Rocky statue from the top of the stairs off to the side anyway. Pffft.
We picked up the rental car, threw our bags into the back, and headed to the hotel. With the trip cross country, it was already dark by the time we got to the part of town Simon grew up, but he lit up when he began to call out places he recognized. And places he didn’t.
“When did that bike shop close down? Oh man, this was the place I got my first bike without training wheels. Why is a minimall there; when did that go up?”
“When’s the last time you were here, Simon?” I asked.
“Um, a few weeks after graduation, I think,” he said distractedly, his eyes going back and forth on both sides of the street.
“You really haven’t been here since you were eighteen?” I asked, astonished.
“Why would I have been back?” he asked, making a turn and taking us right into the middle of the town square.
When Simon said he grew up in Philadelphia, that wasn’t technically true. He grew up in one of the many feeder communities, the smaller townships that made up the outlying areas. I knew he came from money, but I didn’t know he came from Moneyville, USA.
His hometown was plush. And darling in the way all northeastern towns looked to anyone who grew up in California. There was something to be said for growing up in a town that was almost three hundred years older than the one I grew up in. Most of the houses we passed could only be described as estates.
The town square was quaint, with tidy little shops framing City Hall in the center. Two story mostly, with a few turreted three stories on each corner. People were shopping as the lightest dusting of snow fell, sparkling on the wrought-iron railings and—oh my God—honest to goodness real iron horse head hitching posts! Like, where people used to tie their horses to! Like, in olden times!
“Simon, we have to walk around a little, look how cute your town is! Look at all the shops, and, oh, look at the Christmas tree in the middle!” I cried, pointing. In front of City Hall was a large tree, bedecked with red bows, gold ornaments, and white lights.
“Babe, they put up a Christmas tree in front of City Hall in San Francisco every year.”
“This is different; this is so stinking cute! Everything is so old! What’s that?” I asked, pointing to an old Gothic house with a plaque outside. Each window had a wreath; the windows upstairs even had candles too. It was so pretty, it must be of some historical significance.
“It used to be . . . Yep, it’s still a Subway.”
“Station?” I asked, confused.
“No, like the sandwich shop,” he replied, laughing at my fallen expression. “I can’t believe it’s still open; no one eats there. Not when there’s Little Luigi’s. You still want a cheesesteak?”
“Am I breathing?”
“One cheesesteak coming up,” he said, turning the car down the last corner of the town square. “You gotta understand, everything here is old. Every building used to be something else; every building gets reused for something else,” he explained, pulling into one of the parking spots that was diagonal along the square. “Except for that stupid strip mall where my bike shop used to be.”
He turned off the car and walked around to my side. Stepping out, I breathed in the snowy air, feeling it prickle in my lungs. The cold felt good after the long plane ride, and it was nice to stretch my legs a bit as we walked down the block.
As we walked, he pointed out the different shops: the bakery where they made the best sugar cookies, the place where he got his new shoes every year for school, and as we walked and he talked, he seemed less and less nervous.
“Thank God, it’s still here. Little Luigi’s,” he said, where there was a line out the door into the cold night. It moved fast though, and soon we were inside. It was a hole in the wall, with only three tables and a counter. They were grilling the steaks on a big black griddle, peppers and onions sizzling. People were barking out orders, wrapping sandwiches, and the smell was heavenly.
When it was our turn, Simon ordered for both of us. Two steaks, cheese, onions, mushrooms, with both sweet and hot peppers on the side. And the funniest thing happened. When he ordered? This accent came out of nowhere. I’d never heard it before. Not New York or New Jersey; this was very specific. As I listened to everyone around me, they all had it. Some thicker than others, and Simon’s was fairly light, but it had definitely popped up. Huh.
Grabbing a handful of napkins, he spied a family leaving one of the tables and was able to nab it. Leaving me with the table, he went back up for the sandwiches. I’d seen Simon order from a man with ten baskets of spring rolls on his head in Saigon. I’d seen him order sausages from a giant woman in an apron in Salzburg. And nowhere had I ever seen him more at home than he was in this sandwich shop in suburban Philadelphia.
With a wide grin, he returned to the table. He showed me how to spread out the paper to catch the drips, added salt and pepper, then how to hold it so it didn’t spill out over the sides. Then he bit down, and pure bliss came over his face. And he made a sound I’d only ever heard him make once. And he was very happy when he made it.
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