“Oh? And just exactly how do you plan to pay for opening your bakery? Selling your jewelry?”
Phoebe looked at the upgraded engagement and wedding rings that hung too heavy on her small hands. She wished. Trading these oversized jewels for a leaded glass window for the Cupcake Project would thrill her. She drew dream windows from memory, based on an art deco storefront she’d once seen in Harvard Square in Cambridge, Massachusetts.
“I’m getting investors. Four are already lined up. Ethical investors.”
Jake pulled the car over to the side of the road, slamming the brakes as he parked in a shallow inlet of sand surrounded by weather-dried rosebushes. He captured her wrist with a grip that bordered on painful. “What the fuck is that supposed to mean?”
Phoebe went rigid. “I didn’t mean anything. Calm down.”
“?‘Ethical investors’? You didn’t mean anything?”
“I meant approaching groups of women who pledge to invest in programs designed to do good. Like organic farms. Windmills. Or businesses to help immigrant women.”
Jake’s hand loosened.
“What did you think I meant?” She curled her toes till they ached to keep from crying, from screaming.
“Nothing.”
“You didn’t mean ‘nothing,’ Jake. You almost broke my wrist.”
He took a series of deep breaths. “Why didn’t you just say yes to the damned movie? Then this wouldn’t have happened. You do this to me all the time. By the way, I don’t want you begging for money, making me look like a cheapskate. Just let me know what you need. Do you hear? I’ll pay for it.”
War raged in her chest. Swears bubbled up. Screw you, Jake. Cravings to bolt from the car, march away, and never return, filled her.
“What do you think it will look like—asking strangers for money? Did you think of how it looks?” He took her hand and held it softly. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to scare you.”
Phoebe ripped a ladder up her stockings as she raked her legs to keep hateful words at bay. “Not everything is about you. Not everything is about the business.”
“No!” His face became so red that Phoebe worried about a stroke or heart attack. “Everything is about the business! How we live, how we walk, how we talk. We’re selling dreams, for God’s sake! Do you understand? Nobody is funding this but me.”
She didn’t understand. Phoebe really didn’t understand a word of his reasoning except this: his dreams would always trump hers.
CHAPTER 14
Phoebe
Phoebe had learned to use silence and smiles to ensure the maintenance of both her marriage and the Cupcake Project since the inception of her business almost a year ago.
She slipped her hand in Jake’s as they left the movie theater after seeing a sneak preview of On Golden Pond. “Think that will ever be us?” After speaking she considered how abnormal it was to ache for a relationship of a couple nearing the end of their lives, even one played by Katharine Hepburn and Henry Fonda.
His odd chuckle sent shivers through her. “Sure. I can be a bastard right to the end. But if we’re living nice and quiet at that age, then miracles actually do come true.”
“Why would a quiet life be a miracle? I don’t need a mansion overlooking the Riviera.”
His laugh sounded strange. “Wish for the mansion.”
She pulled away her hand and crossed her arms. “Did you go to the doctor? Is there something you’re not telling me?”
“Take it down a notch. I’m gonna be forty, not eighty.”
“Do they know what’s causing the pains in your chest? The rest?” Phoebe wasn’t a fool. Men could die before they turned forty. Twice this month, Jake woke with chills, panting, and with his heart racing. She’d begged him to go to the doctor, calling him at work every day to drive home her point.
“It’s nothing. Come on.” He pulled her close and nuzzled her neck. “You smell good. I like this new perfume. Let’s go for a walk. Doctor’s prescription. Then we’ll go home and screw. My prescription.”
She pushed him away. “Waking up at midnight clutching your chest is not nothing.”
“So you’ll miss me when I’m gone?”
“Seriously. Did you go?”
“Okay, okay!” He raised his palms. “Enough. Yes. I went.”
“And?”
“And I didn’t want to tell you. I have maybe a year to live. Two, if I’m lucky. Two months if you’re lucky.”
Phoebe closed her eyes and shook her head. “Tell me what she said.”
He brought her close for a hug. “You care.”
“You have doubt?”
“Trust, but verify,” he said.
“Spill.” They reached the quiet road leading to Greenwich’s Bruce Museum, where they often walked after seeing a movie. Though they’d only been inside the building once, they felt a certain ownership. Films were Jake’s escape—the stroll afterward, hers.
“She was baffled how a man nearing forty could be so extraordinarily vital, so exceedingly handsome. So sexy.”
“If you keep this up, you might die before we get home.”
“Okay, no big deal. Apparently I have the disease of the day.”
“Diabetes?” It ran in his family. His mother and all her sisters were on insulin.
“Honestly, do I seem five hundred years old?” He tried to give her a theatrical kiss, but she pulled away.
“Do we need to play twenty questions before I get an answer?”
“Heebie-jeebies. Sleeplessness, sweat, the pounding heart, the pain in my arm—all symptoms of panic or anxiety attacks.”
“Did she test your heart?” For heart disease, she could lower his salt, cook low fat, and force Jake to adopt whatever measures the doctor suggested. “What do you do for these attacks? Does she think you should go to a shrink?”
“I’m sure she does,” he said.
“And? What are you going to do?” Just last night, Jake had woken drenched in sweat and shaking. When she asked what she could do, he shook his head, looking so stricken she thought he might cry. Finally, still silent, he left and turned the shower on full blast. When she’d tried the bathroom door—worried his heart would give out while she did nothing—it was locked. He’d answered her knocks with only a muffled “Go away.”
“Good question,” he said. “I’m gonna walk it off like an athlete.”
“Very funny.”
“I’m not making a joke. Play in the big leagues, pay the price.”
“She can’t give you anything?”
“What? Valium? Taking drugs are your first reaction?”
“It’s not my only thought, but it’s an answer.”