Total pages in book: 88
Estimated words: 84676 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 423(@200wpm)___ 339(@250wpm)___ 282(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 84676 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 423(@200wpm)___ 339(@250wpm)___ 282(@300wpm)
More deflection.
“Not a fan particularly, so knock yourself out.”
“Not a fan of eggplant? How is that possible?”
“Tell me about you always looking for the worst outcome.”
“I used to think everyone did it, until my roommate, Sophia, told me I was freaking her out. I’m just always one step ahead, trying to foretell the catastrophe that’s about to happen. Then I try to plan for that, strategize. If I go into a situation with a plan for the worst-case scenario, I know I’m going to be okay.”
She says it in the light, breezy way she has, but what she’s saying is dark. It’s really sad.
“Why?” I ask.
She looks me right in the eye and moans. “God, it’s such good eggplant. With the parm.” She makes a chef’s kiss with her fingers, but I don’t respond.
I want an answer.
There’s a couple of beats of silence before she says, “I think because lots of bad things happened when I was a kid. I think I’m wired to expect the worst.” Her words feel like they’re winding around my lungs, making it hard to breathe.
“What kind of bad things?”
She rolls her eyes. “I still have my kidneys, if that’s what you’re thinking.”
“That’s not what I’m thinking.” I don’t want her to joke her way out of this. I want to hear about it.
“I guess now I’m the one being dramatic. It’s not that bad in the list of bad things that can happen to a kid. But my dad was an asshole, always coming and going, like I said. Even when I was really little, I don’t remember him being with us for long. I remember our neighbors in the next apartment would babysit me when my mom went to work in the mornings. I didn’t understand until years later that she took the job in the hotel because it finished at three, which meant she could pick me up from the bus and make me dinner and put me to bed.”
Her voice cracks on the last word. She swallows and pulls her shoulders back.
“Anyway, my dad would breeze into town like he’d been at work for the day, like I saw him that morning, even when he’d been gone for months at a time. When he’d arrive on our stoop, I’d be so happy to see him. He always brought me a toy or a book or something that was what I’d always wanted. I’d start to imagine the three of us as a family, hitting the beach, playing cards, moving to the country and picking apples from an orchard behind our house. We’d have all kinds of contests—tickling contests, copycat contests, smiling contests… I’d always be the happiest I’d ever been. And then he’d just disappear. He’d go out for milk or to get a paper or something, and he wouldn’t come back.” She pauses, and I know she’s picturing those times in her head. “I’d cry and cry and grieve him every time.”
Fuck.
This time, it’s me who reaches for her hand across the table, but she pulls it away and shakes her head.
I get it. She doesn’t want to lose it here. Maybe not ever, but definitely not in public.
“He sounds like a fucking asshole,” I say, my voice tight, fists bunched. What a dick of dicks to do that to a little kid. “Do you see him now?”
She shakes her head again and I can see the tears welling in her eyes, despite her best efforts to keep them at bay. “No. I have no interest in seeing him. My mom is my family. And my aunt.”
“Shit, I’m so sorry,” I say. I want to make it better for her, but I don’t know how. We could leave. We don’t have to be here. Maybe some deflection is what she needs. “But at least you have your kidneys.”
She bursts into laughter, dabbing her napkin at the corner of her eyes, where tears had been threatening to fall. “Exactly,” she says. “Could have been a lot worse.”
Our appetizers are replaced with our entrees and there’s no aubergine to distract Jules now.
“So you still haven’t told me the story with your fiancée,” she says.
She spilled her heart out to me. It’s only fair that I tell her why she’s sitting opposite me with a huge diamond ring on her finger.
“You thought you were in love with her and she with you. And you proposed.”
“And then her dad found out and shipped her off to college on the other side of the country. She was due to go to NYU and ended up at Berkeley.”
“And that was it?” she asks.
Don’t I wish. “I told my dad I was leaving the bakery so I could follow her out west. It caused loads of rows. My mum told me I was throwing my life away. My dad didn’t speak to me for weeks. Anyway, two weeks later, I road-tripped to California. I’d told Caroline I was coming. I figured I’d get a job locally and she’d continue in college… apparently she didn’t see things the same way.”