“I got my GED last spring.” Need I mention she was starting to annoy me?
She lowered her voice and cast her eyes across the room toward Win. “Is it true that the reason Win broke up with you is because you went into business with his father?”
“I’d rather not talk about that.”
“So it is true?”
“It’s complicated,” I said. That was true enough.
She looked at Win, and then she made sad eyes at me. “I could never give up that for any business,” she said. “If that boy loved me, I’d be, What business? You’re a way stronger person than me. I mean it, Anya. I totally admire you.”
“Thanks,” I said. Chai Pinter’s admiration had managed to make me feel horrible about every decision I’d made for the past two months. I pushed out my chin with resolve and pulled back my shoulders. “You know, I think I’m going to step onto the balcony for some fresh air.”
“It’s like one hundred degrees,” Chai called after me.
“I like the heat,” I said.
I opened the sliding door and went outside into the sweltering early evening. I sat down in a dusty lounge chair with a cushion that was bleeding foam. My day had not begun in the afternoon with Felix’s baptism, but hours before at the club. I’d been up since five that morning and even the meager comforts of that old chair were enough to lure me to sleep.
Though I have never been much of a dreamer, I had the oddest dream in which I was Scarlet’s baby. Scarlet held me in her arms, and the feeling overwhelmed me. All at once, I remembered what it was to have a mother, to be safe, and to be loved by someone more than anything else in the world. And in the dream, Scarlet somehow transformed into my mother. I could not always picture my mother’s face, but in this dream, I could see her so clearly—her intelligent gray eyes and her wavy reddish-brown hair and the hard pink line of her mouth and the delicate freckles sprinkled across her nose. I had forgotten about the freckles, and that made me even sadder. She had been beautiful, but she didn’t look like she took guff from anyone. I knew why my father had wanted her even though he should have married anyone but her, anyone but a cop. Annie, my mother whispered, you are loved. Let yourself be loved. In the dream, I couldn’t stop crying. And maybe that is why babies cry so much—the weight of all that love is simply too much to bear.
“Hey,” Win said. I sat up and tried to pretend I hadn’t been sleeping. (Aside: Why do people do that? What is so embarrassing about being asleep?) “I’m leaving now. I wanted to talk to you before I went.”
“You haven’t changed your mind, I suppose.” I did not look him in the eye. I kept my voice cool and even.
He shook his head. “You haven’t either. My dad talks about the club sometimes. Business continues, I know.”
“So what do you want, then?”
“I wondered if I could stop by your place to get a few things I left there. I’m going to my mother’s farm in Albany and then I’ll only be back in the city for a bit before I leave for college.”
My tired brain tried to make sense of this statement. “Leave?”
“Yes, I decided to go to Boston College. I don’t have a reason to stay in New York anymore.”
This was news to me. “Well, good luck, Win. Have a fantastic time in Boston.”
“Was I supposed to consult you?” he asked. “You certainly never consulted me about anything.”
“You’re exaggerating.”
“Be honest, Anya.”
“What would you have said if I had told you I was going to ask your father to work for me?” I asked.
“You’ll never know,” he said.
“I do! You would have told me not to do it.”
“Of course I would have. I would have told Gable Arsley not to work with my father, and I don’t even like him.”
I can’t say why, but I grabbed his hand. “What things of yours do I have?”
“You have some of my clothes and my winter coat and I think your sister might have one of my hats, but Natty can keep that. I left my copy of To Kill a Mockingbird in your room, and I might like to read it again someday. But mainly I need my slate back for college. It’s under your bed, I think.”
“There’s no need for you to stop by. I can put the stuff in a box. I’ll bring it to work, and your dad can take it to you.”
“If that’s what you want.”
“I think it would be easier. I’m not Scarlet. I don’t crave pointless, dramatic scenes.”
“As you like, Anya.”
“You’re always so polite. It’s irritating.”
“And you always keep everything inside. We’re a terrible match, really.”
I crossed my arms and turned away from him. I was angry. I wasn’t certain why I was angry, but I was. If I hadn’t been so tired, I feel quite sure I would have been better able to keep my emotions in check.
“Why did you even come to the launch party for the club if you weren’t going to at least try to forgive me?”
“I was trying, Anya. I wanted to see if I could get past it.”
“So?”
“It turns out I can’t.”
“You can.” I didn’t think anyone could see us, but I wouldn’t have cared anyway. I threw my arms around him. I pushed him into the side of the balcony and pressed my lips against his. It only took me a couple of seconds to notice that he was not, in fact, kissing me back.
“I can’t,” he repeated.
“So that’s it. You don’t love me anymore?”
For a moment, he didn’t reply. He shook his head. “Not enough to get past this, I guess. I don’t love you that much.”
To restate: He had loved me, just not enough.
I couldn’t argue with that, but I tried to anyway. “You’re going to regret this,” I said. “The club is going to be a huge success, and you’re going to regret that you didn’t stand by me. Because if you love someone, you love them all the way. You love them even when they make mistakes. That’s what I think.”
“I’m meant to love you, no matter how you act, no matter what you do? I couldn’t respect myself if I felt that way.”
He was probably right.
I was tired of defending myself and of trying to convince him to see things from my point of view. I looked at Win’s shoulder, which was less than six inches from my face. It would be so easy to let my neck drop and ease my head into that cozy space between his shoulder and his chin, which seemed designed specifically for me. It would be easy to tell him the club and the business with his father were terrible mistakes and to beg him to take me back. For a second I closed my eyes and tried to imagine what my future would look like if Win were in it. I see a house somewhere outside the city—Win has a collection of antique records, and maybe I learn to cook a dish besides macaroni and frozen peas. I see our wedding—it’s on a beach and he’s wearing a blue seersucker suit and our rings are white gold. I see a dark-haired baby—I call him Leonyd after my father, if it’s a boy, and Alexa, after Win’s sister, if it’s a girl. I see everything and it is so very lovely.
It would be so easy, but I would hate myself. I had a chance to build something, and in the process, to do what my father had never been able to do. I couldn’t let that go, even for this boy. He, alone, was not enough.
So I held my tired neck erect and kept my eyes fixed forward. He was going, and I would let him.
From the balcony, I heard the baby start to cry. My former schoolmates took Felix’s tears as a sign that the party was over. Through the glass door, I watched them as they filed out. I don’t know why, but I tried to make a joke. “Looks like the worst prom ever,” I said. “Maybe the second worst if you count junior year.” I lightly touched Win’s thigh where my cousin had shot him at the worst prom ever. For a second he looked like he might laugh, but then he repositioned his leg so that my hand was no longer on it.