I nod. “Yes.” In the box is a set of keys to my house and an opener for my garage. “I love you, Shawn, and I trust you.”
His face breaks into a huge smile. He leans forward, taking my face in his hands. “I love you, Eloise Kahn.” And then he kisses me right into my bones, pulling me tightly against him, and I know that letting him in, to my life, my heart, my home, is both the bravest and the best thing I’ve ever done.
Nineteen
I check on the chickens, which are spinning in the oven on the rotisserie spit. I do love these Gaggenau ovens; they have all the bells and whistles. I’ve got a pan of fingerling potatoes with shallots and lemon underneath the chickens, soaking up all the delicious chicken juices and fat and crisping up beautifully. The first sweet asparagus of spring, thin as pencils and tender enough to eat raw, are prepped in the steamer, for last-minute cooking. And on the counter, a tall chocolate cake with billowy, vanilla-scented frosting, Ian’s favorite. The whole meal is for him. Today he’s at the callbacks for America’s Junior SuperChef, and the production team requested the whole family be present for some background interviews, which makes me very hopeful about his prospects. In the meantime, this meal will be exactly what he will want, whatever happens, whether he wants celebration or comfort. And it is nice to have a quiet afternoon to cook and think.
The past few weeks have been both wonderful and confusing. Wonderful because Shawn and I have fallen into a lovely and comfortable routine. Most weekday evenings he will come over and we’ll either make dinner together, order in, or go out for something easy. We’re discovering our favorite casual places, the places every couple needs as a go-to. Opart for Thai food, Buona Terra for Italian, Mythos for Greek, Hachi’s Kitchen for sushi. We’ll eat and hang out; we’ve been discovering that our tastes in television are pretty similar, and have been introducing each other to our favorites. He’s got me hooked on some of the darker, more obscure British procedurals like Happy Valley and Broadchurch, and I’ve turned him into a true fan of The Great British Baking Show. We’ve been bingeing on alternate nights, cuddled up close on the couch with a big bowl of popcorn, Simca snuggled in her new favorite place, next to Shawn with her head in his lap. I think she is as in love with him as I am.
He’s taken to going home most weeknights, unless we really get into some hot and heavy bedroom play, just because it’s easier for early mornings. But he always stays over on Tuesday nights so that we can get up and do the Wednesday pool class at East Bank together. On weekends we alternate planning dates and events. I’m still knocking social activities off my list, so we have gone to a trivia night, a special reception and showing of Gone with the Wind at the Studio Xfinity space, and a Friday night art opening at the Museum of Contemporary Art. We’ve had dinner with Teresa and Gio, my mom and Claire, and two couples that are friends of his, one of the other doctors in his practice and her husband, and an old college buddy and his wife. Both women pulled me aside to tell me that they are so thrilled for us and that they have never seen Shawn happier, so that made me all warm and fuzzy. And we are talking about planning our first joint dinner party, which should be fun—except I want to invite Teresa and Gio, and that would mean leaving out Lynne, which feels crappy, especially because not inviting Lynne would be something of a relief.
Everything couldn’t be better or easier or more fun, and I’m less and less nervous about meeting his parents in a couple of weeks. But the other day Marcy brought something up that afterward kept bugging me. We were having brunch on Sunday, just the two of us to catch up, and she asked about the Shawn and Lynne thing.
“Here’s the thing I can’t stop thinking about,” she said over scrambled eggs with chorizo and cheddar at Toast. “I know that Lynne was going by Linda in California, so you wouldn’t have known who he was talking about when he mentioned her. But what about her mentioning you to him? Eloise is not a common name, and he knew she was originally from Chicago. You would have thought that when he met you and heard your name, he might have asked if you by chance knew a Linda? Chicago is a small town, and Chicagoans love nothing more than connecting the dots. Why didn’t it ever occur to him that you might be the Eloise his ex had told him about?”
I didn’t have an answer, and it nagged at my brain. I hadn’t ever thought about it before, but it did seem odd. I’m almost forty, and I’ve literally never met another Eloise. It did seem strange that he could be married to her and never question if the Eloise he met in Chicago might be the Eloise he had heard about from his ex-wife. After a couple of days, I decided to be an adult, and just ask him.
“She never mentioned you,” he responded. “Trust me, if I had known she had a best friend named Eloise and met you, I would have asked if you knew her.”
“Never mentioned me? What about Teresa?”
“Nope. She never really talked much about her Chicago life at all. I knew she grew up in Hyde Park, but that was about it. I’m five years older than you guys, so it wasn’t like we would have had any peers in common; I was already in college when you started high school. To be honest, she was always very much about the present, who she knew and was spending time with in the moment, and the past was just not a part of her life.”
Never mentioned me or Teresa. I couldn’t tell if I was more relieved that he hadn’t had a reason to suspect the connection, or more hurt that our years of friendship hadn’t warranted so much as a mention to the most important person in her life. When I called Marcy, she was perplexed.
“Wow. That is weird, no?”
Despite my wounded pride, I couldn’t seem to help myself; I was compelled to defend Lynne. “Well, by the time she met Shawn, it wasn’t like we were in touch. I wasn’t exactly going to be invited to the wedding. It’s not like she was obligated to reveal every friend she ever had in high school.”
“Maybe. But I still think it is a little strange. I knew you for two days before you told me about Teresa and Lynne, your best buddies from high school. Just like you knew about Jackson and Tracy and Lily from my high school days. Casual mentions, but mentions nonetheless. Look at how you and Teresa have picked it back up, even though you are rediscovering each other as grown-ups—there is still that energy between you, that dynamic that says that you are super special to each other, with long and deep history.”
“And I don’t have that with Lynne?” This was more of a statement than a question, but my voice went up at the end anyway.
“Well, do you? Tell me this: Since she came back into your life, have you found her to be added value? Is she bringing anything into your world that is good or important?”
I thought about this. “The bet.”