The Bride (The Boss) (17 page)

“People are going to ask questions about ‘how does this all work’ for ages. They’re gonna make the same old jokes and you’re gonna be expected to laugh at them. Why not make some money off that?”

“Hey, yeah…”

“Not that you need the money,” she added.

That soured the air. I wanted to ask her why she kept referring to me not needing money. Okay, so I didn’t need it—I believe Valerie snidely referred to it as landing on my feet once before—but that didn’t mean I wanted to just give up and do nothing forever. That would be so boring.

And I wanted to ask her if she and Deja were okay, financially. Because it wasn’t like Holli to be so focused on money. My annoyance came second to my worry. But how did you ask your best friend if she was broke?

I didn’t want to come off as the lofty savior who could sweep in and fix everything for the poor, impoverished waif. Holli hated it when her parents did that. I just stared at her, like a deer gazing frozen into the headlights of an oncoming car, unable to do anything but let the moment hit me.

And that was when Emma arrived.

I heard her footsteps, her disgusted, likely exaggerated cough, and realized that the blue haze surrounding Holli and I had spilled into the hallway. “You have got to be joking!” she shrieked, and I scrambled for the remote, aware too late of the loud grunts and moans issuing from the speakers.

“It’s me!” I called out to her. “Just me and Holli, watching porn!”

Emma stepped in warily, as if her brain believed me, but her eyes were still scared. “And smoking all the marijuana in New York City, apparently.”

“Join us?” I patted the bed. “Room for one more.”

Her gaze flicked to the screen. “Perhaps another time.” She pointed to the tray. “Does Dad know about that?”

“Uh,” was all I could say, and I nodded, unsure how to proceed.

Holli piped up, “Who do you think gave it to us?”

“No, of course he did. That’s bloody perfect.” Emma pressed a hand to her temple. “Just keep it down, okay? I have to work in the morning.”

“Quiet as church mice,” I swore, holding up three fingers in a Girl Scout salute. When she’d left, and we’d heard her door close down the hall, Holli lit up, inhaled deeply, and said on an exhale, “Tell me you can’t get material out of that.”

I unmuted the television and lowered my voice. “I really, really like Emma. But I am going to be so glad once she’s married and living with Michael. Neil and I are never alone anymore.”

“Hey, you’re the one who hooked up with a single dad,” Holli reminded me.

“I know I did. I just thought that since she was in her mid-twenties…” I was glad the grunts of the dude on the screen would cover up our conversation. I’d never want to make Emma feel like I was pushing her away from her father. Neil lived for the time he spent with her, and I found myself missing her when she was gone for a few days. But we did have difficulties, living as a couple with another adult in the house.

“Why isn’t she staying with Michael?” Holli passed the joint to me.

I shook my head to decline it. “I’m good, thanks. It gets too hot when it’s little like that. But yeah, Michael has a roommate situation. Tere are like, four of them living in this loft. It would be a little too
New Girl
for her.”

“Whereas we were more
Don’t Trust The B
,” Holli supplied in a pinched voice.

“Exactly. And it’s not like Michael could live here.” The strangest feeling of dread crept over me. “Oh god. You know, they don’t have a house yet. I was expecting her to move out when they got married, but where are they going to go?”

Holli lifted her eyebrows and tilted her head, as if to say, “glad I’m not you.”

They didn’t have a place to live. Were they even looking? What if they didn’t find anything? “You don’t think they’d actually want to come live here with us?”

She shrugged and stubbed out the roach. “There’s more book material for you.”

* * * *

We’d been meeting our therapist, Dr. Ashley Kenner, at seven p.m. on Thursdays since November. It was a preemptive move we’d made when we’d realized that coming back to real life was going to be more difficult than anticipated. Her office was on West 59
th
street, near Columbus Circle.

Our first appointment after the holiday was also our first appointment after Neil had returned to work, so I wasn’t surprised when it seemed he would show up late. I was waiting in one of the stylish lime-green leather armchairs when he arrived. The waiting room was done up with stark white walls and spotlighted stills of ripe Bartlett pears. The floor was gray marble tile, with a huge white area rug. A receptionist sat at a very mod white metal desk at one side of the room. It was her, “Good evening, Mr. Elwood,” that made me look up from my magazine.

Just from the office, Neil looked tired, harried, and in a hurry—as he should have been, since he’d made it with just three minutes to spare. Still, seeing him was the best part of my day, and today was no exception.

“I’m so sorry, darling, I’ve done it again.” He hated being on time anywhere; he considered five minutes early late.

He hung his long black coat on the gleaming steel coat rack by the door, then came to where I sat. He wore a slate-blue suit of raw silk with a one-button jacket closed over a classic white shirt with an open collar. I could have sworn he’d left the house with a tie.

“Bad day then?” I asked, tugging on his collar when he bent down to kiss me.

“Not a wonderful day. Valerie let five
Porteras
staffers go after emails to one of Gabriella Winters’s assistants were found on the company server.” He unbuttoned his jacket as he took the chair beside mine.

“What was it this time? Or can’t you tell me?” I was still very cautious where
Porteras
was concerned. I never wanted to sound like I was pressing for information, but I couldn’t believe that Gabriella would care about
Porteras
after a year—and since she’d started her monumentally successful new digital magazine.

“As far as I can tell, these were all friendly correspondences. But Rudy issued multiple warnings against fraternization and confidentiality over the past year, and our position on this sort of thing is very clear. To be honest, I’ll be glad when I’m shot of the whole place after Valerie scoops it up this weekend.”

Since Neil had been working out of the New York offices of Elwood & Stern at the time they’d acquired
Porteras
, he’d stepped in as interim editorial director, a title he’d passed on to Rudy, and which would now be given to Valerie. Well, Valerie wouldn’t be interim. It had been her idea to buy the magazine because she’d wanted to run it herself. After she got entirely moved to New York—and only three blocks from us, sarcastic hooray—Neil would be able to turn his focus back to
Auto Watch
and the general operations of his company.

“Wait a minute… weekend?” Disappointment curled up behind my ribs, and I sighed, accepting and dispelling it at once.

He grimaced. “I have to fly to London. We’re selling print and distribution rights to
Porteras
in six more countries. But I’ll be back on Monday. Do you want to come with me?”

“No.” As much as I would miss him, I wasn’t getting on another plane again for a while. I still wasn’t fully recovered from our holiday. “I’m trying to get over my homesickness now that we’re back in New York for good. It would be like running into an ex.”

“My fiancée used to date London,” he said with a tired laugh. “That’s a bit disappointing. Emir was going to be in town. He wanted to see us. But I’m sure he’ll understand.”

Before I had to argue with my body to stop throbbing at the mention of hot three-way sex, the frosted glass door to Ashley’s office opened and she stepped out. “Hey, you guys, come on in.”

Ashley—she preferred for us to use her first name—was young, in her early thirties, with shoulder-length blonde hair and blue eyes that reminded me of a Disney princess’s. When we’d first met with her, Neil had deemed her too young to be a capable counselor. I think he’d been looking for another gruff, middle-aged man like his therapist in London. But I’d asked him to reconsider, and though we’d only had a few sessions,, he’d grown to like the no-nonsense approach that made Ashley such a sought after doctor in Manhattan.

Ashley’s office had the same white walls and gray floor, and the same huge plate glass with a gorgeous view of the park. Black shelves held a few books and her credentials, and a small desk was tucked against one wall. A comfortable stuffed black sofa sat in the middle of the room, across from her own black armchair and small, glass-topped table. She motioned to us to have a seat and picked up her iPad as she sat down and smoothly crossed her flawless legs. She tapped something on the screen and looked up with a pleasant smile. “Well, don’t keep me in suspense. How did the holidays go?”

“Wonderfully,” Neil said, looking to me with a smile he couldn’t contain, no matter how many times we’d told people the news. “We’re getting married.”

It didn’t look like it came as a shock to her. She smiled and nodded. “I’m happy to hear it.”

So, they had talked about this in his one-on-one time. Very sneaky.

“And congratulations,” Ashley went on. “Have you set a date?”

Neil looked to me, hesitating before he spoke. “W-well, not exactly. We’re very distracted right now with my daughter’s wedding, so planning anything is…”

“We probably won’t even want to go to our own wedding, once this one is done.” I was trying to laugh it off, but I saw a tell-tale twitch at the corner of Ashley’s eye.

But she didn’t say anything, yet. “How did meeting the families go? I know there was some concern there.”

“My mom hates him,” I said with a shrug. “It is what it is, I guess. She’s not going to cut me off, so…”

Neil reached for my hand and squeezed it. I knew he perceived himself the cause of a wedge between my mother and me, but I didn’t. Mom had done the wedging, and I’d helped.

“A lot of her dislike was totally avoidable,” I admitted. “Perhaps I did not adequately prepare Mom for meeting Neil—”

“The age difference was an issue. Sophie’s mother was expecting a twenty-five-year-old.” Neil sounded as uncomfortable as he had when it had been happening.

“Okay.” Ashley’s eyes went wide. “We’ll be talking about that today. Maybe Sophie should go first?”

“I think that’s a wonderful idea,” Neil said, standing. “I’ll show myself out.”

Our sessions were ninety minutes long, with thirty spent in individual counseling, and thirty spent together at the end. Dr. Ashley never divulged what one partner talked about to the other partner, which was as much a relief as it was maddening. It was very easy to imagine that Neil went into his sessions and complained ceaselessly about me, even though logically I knew that was absurd. He’d already admitted that he talked more about himself in his sessions than about me, and I found the same to be true on my side.

As the door closed behind him, I sighed and faced Ashley. “Okay. I didn’t do what we talked about.”

“And you were so ready to!” she said with a little laugh to disguise her frustration. “What went wrong?”

“I chickened out. But I went to plan B.”

“Good!” she encouraged me. Plan B had been to confess to Neil and prepare him for my mother’s expectations before he met her.

But I was supposed to have done that before we left New York, so he’d have a chance to decline the visit. “But not until we were already in Michigan.”

“Okay. Let’s just take the good out of all that bad and focus on that. You did tell him. That’s a big improvement from where you were when you first came in.” Ashley had a way of framing things to seem way more positive than they were. I wondered if that was a normal therapy technique, or just something she used with her most deeply fucked up patients.

“Thanks,” I said, not feeling particularly worthy of the praise.

“I’m assuming you learned something from the experience?”

I had. I’d been dreading admitting it. “Obviously, I learned that it’s far easier to tell the truth immediately, rather than hide it. But I also learned…ugh.”

Ashley didn’t say anything, but waited with an interested expression.

“Maybe I’m not as comfortable with our age difference as I thought I was. And I’m not saying I’m uncomfortable with Neil’s age. I’m just uncomfortable with everyone’s reactions. We’re adults, and we love each other, but I feel like we have to keep having the same conversation every time we meet someone new.” I sighed. “I feel like I have to constantly prove that I love him.”

“Because of his age, or because of his money?” she asked gently.

“Both,” I admitted.

“You just got engaged. I assume that means you love him,” Ashley said with a tilt of her head. “Why?”

“Why? Why do I love him?” Was she supposed to ask me something like that? Was I supposed to answer it?

It didn’t seem to matter, because when I opened my mouth, all I could manage was, “Well…um…I…” before my stomach dropped into my toes and I felt lightheaded with panic. Of course I loved Neil. We’d just been to hell and back together. I was never happier in my life than when I was with him. But why did I love him? Why couldn’t I think of an answer?

“You can’t tell me why you love him,” Ashley began, a slow smile forming on her mouth, “because you’re
in
love with him. Love isn’t rational, and you are. That’s why you’re having such a difficult time. If you were sitting here and saying that his age was a problem for you because you wished he was younger, I might advise you to reconsider your engagement. But it’s only a problem because other people are making it an issue. Should other people’s opinion of your happiness be detracting from your happiness?”

I was about to argue that my relationship with my mother was very important, and that it did affect my happiness, but it sounded so stupid in my head already that I probably didn’t need to say it out loud. “You’re right. It shouldn’t.”

Seriously, I should have been doing therapy years ago.

After my thirty was up, it was Neil’s turn. I sat in the waiting room, sucking up the free wifi to look at wedding dresses on my phone, and tried to think about what I would say to him when we met at the end. The time passed quickly, as it usually did when my mind was roiling through everything I’d just talked about. When Ashley invited me into the office, I sprang up and hurried in.