“And,” I said, desperately trying to think of things to talk about, instead of the only thing I WANTED to talk about, which was what on earth he was doing here in New York. “Are you still working at your uncle’s garage?”
“Yeah,” Rob said, squeezing the slice of lime that had come with his beer in through the narrow opening of the bottle. “Only it’s not his garage anymore. He retired. So he sold it.”
“Oh,” I said. Lots of things had changed in Rob’s life since I’d been away, I could see. “Well, that must be weird. I mean, working for somebody else after working for your uncle for so long.”
“Not really,” Rob said, taking a swig from his beer. “Because he sold it to me.”
I stared at him. “You bought your uncle’s garage?”
He nodded.
“And your mom’s house.”
He nodded again.
Withwhat ? I wanted to ask. Because when I’d known him, Rob had never really been hurting for cash. But he hadn’t been rich, either. At least, not rich enough to buy out someone else’s pretty profitable business.
But I couldn’t ask him that. What he’d used to buy out his uncle, I mean. Because we aren’t exactly on those kinds of terms. Anymore.
“What about you?” Rob asked. “How are you liking school out here?”
“It’s okay,” I said. I wasn’t about to tell him the truth, of course. That I hated Juilliard and had been miserable every freaking minute since I’d started there.
Besides, I was still thinking over what he’d said. He’d bought his uncle’s garage. He was only in his early twenties, and he already owned his own business.
Just like my dad. I mean, my dad owns his own business. Several, actually.
And my momdefinitely approves of my dad.
“Doug says you’re doing really well.” Rob started fiddling with his silverware again. “In school, I mean. First chair in orchestra, or something?”
“Yeah,” I said. I didn’t point out how many hours a day I had to practice to keep it. First chair in the flute section at Juilliard, I mean. “But I’m taking a break for the summer.”
“Right,” Rob said. “Doug says you and Ruth are doing some kind of summer arts program for needy kids?”
Douglas, I was realizing, had said a lot. I was going to have to call him when I got home and ask him just what in the Sam Hill he was doing, telling my ex so much about me.
“Yeah,” I said. “It’s pretty cool. I like it a lot. Better than playing in the orchestra, actually. The kids are fun.”
“You always did like kids,” Rob said, smiling for the first time since I’d opened the door and found him outside it. As always, the sight of that smile did something to my heart. Stopped it, more or less. “You were always great with them, too.”
There was an awkward silence. I don’t know what he was thinking during it. But I know I was thinking that things had been a lot better when I’d stuck to just that. Working with kids, I mean. It was when I agreed to start trying to find grown-ups that everything had gone to hell. Between Rob and me, I mean. And, actually, for me personally, as well.
“That’s kind of why I’m here, actually,” Rob said.
I glanced at him over the rim of my margarita glass. “What? Because of…kids?”
“Yeah, basically,” Rob said.
Without another word, I took a huge slurp of my drink. And got a brain freeze. And choked.
“Whoa,” Rob said, looking concerned. “Slow down, slugger.”
“Sorry,” I said, wincing because of the brain freeze. I stuck the tip of my tongue to the roof of my mouth because that is what is supposed to cure ice-cream headaches, like the one I suddenly had.
But I didn’t know of any cure for the heartache his words had induced.
Because it had all become clear. Why Rob was here, I mean.
He wasn’t just getting married. He was having a kid.
That had to be it.
And why not? He had his own place now, not to mention his own business. He was his own boss at last. The next natural step was marriage and a child.
Which was great. Really. Just great. I was really happy for him.
But why had he felt compelled to come all the way to New York to tell me? Couldn’t he have just sent me a wedding invitation in the mail? That would have been a lot easier to handle than…this. I mean, did he have to come all the way here to rub my face in it?
“The thing is,” Rob said, leaning forward a little in his chair. He had clearly seen that I’d recovered sufficiently from my frozen-drink headache. The heartache? That was still going on, but I guess I was doing a better job of hiding that than I had the brain freeze. “I know things have been…well, weird between us. You and me, I mean. The past two years or so.”
Weird.That’s what he called it.
Whatever. At least he realized how long it had been. Since things had ceased being hunky-dory (they had never been perfect) and started being…well, what he said.Weird.
“But we’re still friends, right?” Rob’s big shoulders were hunched as he leaned towards me. The ladylike little table at which we sat—the one decorated all over in mosaic tiles, which had always suited Ruth and me just fine—suddenly seemed too small, dwarfed as it was by Rob’s man-sized body. “I mean…maybe we aren’t—whatever we were—anymore.”
Right. Whatever-we-were. That was the word for it, all right. Because what had we been, really? We hadn’t really been lovers, because we’d never made love.
But I had loved him. A part of me still did. Maybe more than a part of me.
Because I’m a complete moron.
“But we’ll always be friends, won’t we?” Rob wanted to know. “I mean, after everything we went through together.”
I thought he meant the number of times we’d been unconscious in each other’s presence, from being smacked over the head with various large, heavy objects.
But then he added, “Detention at Ernie Pyle High. That’s gotta bind people for life, right?”
I smiled then. A tiny smile. But a smile just the same. Because itwas kind of funny.
“Yeah,” I said. “I guess so.”
“Good,” Rob said, leaning back maybe a fraction of an inch and his shoulders losing a pinch of tension. “Good. Okay. So, we’re still friends.”
“Still friends,” I said. And took another fortifying sip of frozen margarita.
Because I really don’t want to go to his wedding. Not even as friends.
“Then it’d be okay if I asked you,” Rob said, starting to tense up again—I could tell by the way one of his denim-clad legs began to jiggle a little nervously beneath the tiny table—“I mean, as a friend—”
Oh my God. What if he’s about to ask me to be his kid’s godparent or something? I wondered who the kid’s mother was. The blonde from the garage that day? God. I had so known he was lying when he’d said there was nothing between them.
“So,” Rob said. “Here’s the thing—”
I took a deep breath…and held it. Really, I’m a very strong person. I mean, I have lived through a lot in my nineteen years, including a schizophrenic brother, various fistfights brought on by people calling said brother cruel names, being struck by lightning, being stalked by the paparazzi because of a superpower caused by said lightning, sent to Afghanistan to help in the war on terror, and so on.
Heck, I’ve even endured two semesters of music theory at Juilliard, which, when I think about it, was almost as bad as the war had been.
But never in my life have I felt more need for courage I knew I didn’t actually have than I did at that particular moment. I held my breath as Rob said the words I so didn’t want to hear:
“Jess. I’m getting married.”
Except that’s not what came out of his mouth. What came out of his mouth instead were the words:
“Jess. I need you to find my sister.”
Four