Romeo’s house has beenpainted since the last time I was here. It’s a stark, overbright white that looks picturesque from the street but casts a slight glare as you get closer. It’s a strong contrast to the wildness of the garden. There have been big changes since the last time I saw the garden—it was limping along, barely surviving then, but it’s thriving now. The bank of bigleaf hydrangeas has grown chest height and throws a profusion of soft pinks and pale blues along the front fence. Near the house, coral bells and daisies are punctuated by foxgloves and hollyhocks. It’s a riot of pastel colors that gives me an eerie feeling. A certainty, almost. A knowing that the person who’s been here, the person responsible for bringing this garden back from the brink, is someone who was taught to dance when others thought walking would do. Someone who was taught to tread lightly as you move through life. Someone who learned those things from his mother.
I knock twice, both times a little harder than strictly necessary, and step back. I’m armed with a fake smile, a cheap bottle of Pinot Grigio, and the worst bunch of flowers I could find in all of Alabaster. I feel worse than I’ve felt in at least three or four years, and that’s saying something. My palms are sweaty and a lumpy cocktail of every unpleasant emotion imaginable swirls in my belly.
Selby opens the door and shows me in, pausing magnanimously to give me time to take in and compliment what she’s done to the house.
It’s white. White-on-white. White on more white. Whiter than white. On top of that, she’s wearing white too. White ankle-biter jeans and a pair of very flat, thin-soled sneakers. White as well, obviously. It’s giving Baby fromDirty Dancing. Ordinarily, it’s a casual look I’ve always liked on women. Kind of sporty but put together also.
I can’t say I love this iteration.
Her tank has a broad blue stripe that breaks up the ensemble and forces the eye down to her chest. I wonder distantly whether that’s an accident. I think probably not.
“Jude!” she all but squeals, throwing herself into my arms for a quick hug, keeping her cheek turned to protect her lip gloss.
“Sorry about the flowers,” I lie.
“Nonsense! They’re lovely.” She waves it off and looks me up and down, saying, “Oh my God. I love your two-piece. It’s like,socute.”
I’m wearing a matching olive-green short-sleeved button-down shirt and shorts with a palm-leaf design paired with Italian leather loafers. It’s a look that’s light years from the athletic shorts and backward caps I wore when I lived in Alabaster, and it’s definitely not something I’d have been comfortable being seen in before I came out.
I’ll neither confirm nor deny whether I’m purposefully trying to dress flamboyantly. And I’ll neither confirm nor deny whether I’m doing it with the express purpose of getting a reaction from Romeo.
And no, I won’t be taking questions at this time.
“Babe!” she calls, breaking the word into three syllables, “Jude’s here.”
Romeo appears in the doorway that leads to the open-concept kitchen, living room, and backyard. His lips are turned up in a bright smile and his hair is neater than I’ve ever seen it. Short at the back and sides, slightly longer on top, parted on the side. Stick straight. Every strand contained, brushed, and styled to within an inch of its life. I doubt a strand would move out of place if he was hit by a tornado.
He’s wearing white too. White shorts and a white tank with a blue shirt that hangs open. The blue of his shirt matches the stripe on Selby’s almost exactly.
I swear to God, if I find out she picks out his clothes for him, I’m going to start screaming.
Mark my words, I’ll do it. Don’t think I won’t.
The dog that looks like Buddy is at Romeo’s heel, sitting and looking up at him as if his sole purpose in life is to stay as close to Romeo as possible. Romeo’s hand drops down, and he scratches gently between the dog’s ears, a slow, unconscious movement that sucks me back in time and spits me out again.
Selby moves us into the kitchen—white from floor to ceiling, obviously—and arranges the flowers in a vase, chattering happily as she snips off the deadheads, leaving her arrangement with no more than a handful of sad blooms in the final stage of fighting for their lives, and by the look of things, losing the battle. She scrunches her face and says, “Mm,so nice,” when she’s done.
Ten dollars says they’re in the trash by the time she goes to bed tonight.
“Food’s almost ready,” says Romeo. Unsurprising, given I’ve arrived a full forty-five minutes later than he asked me to.
His text got my back up. It came less than an hour after I ended the call with Sam. His name popped up on my screen and my hands started to shake before the letters even merged into something meaningful. It pissed me off.
Seven-thirty.
That pissed me off even more.Seven-thirty.After five years that’s what I get? That’s what I get after the last texts we sent each other? Life-altering texts I’ve re-read and re-read so many times over the years that I know them by heart. Texts that have kept me awake. Texts that broke me into so many pieces I’ve never come close to working out how to put myself back together again.
Seven fucking thirty?
He’s lucky I turned up at all.
“How’s the family?” he asks when he’s poured me a glass of much better wine than I brought.
Thank God for small mercies.
I’m still way too hungover to survive exposure to the crap I brought, but I’m not too hungover to feel the full force of my rage that he’s talking about my family as if he’s still part of it. I know he stays in touch with my mom. It bothers me, but I can’t find it in me to begrudge him that,much as I wish I could. I told my mom we fell out after the wedding and asked her never to mention his name to me again. I know it upset her, and she’s slipped up once or twice, but for the most part, she’s been good about it. “Is your gran doing okay?”
“Oh, sure,” I say, trying out a smarmy, devil-may-care voice I haven’t used before. “You know what she’s like. Unstoppable. A battle-ax that bakes cookies.”
