“Is this where you tell me anyone could have made this?”
“No way! I mean, you’ve gotta know something about color theory to pull this off.”
Cece catches a security guard watching them from the corner of the room, the white baseboards scuffed black from his restless heels. She wonders what he sees. Does he think they’re a couple? Is he calculating how long they’ve been together, whether they’ve got a shot? Or does he just think they’re those kinds of friends who are super close—the ones with the pact that they’ll marry if they’re both still single at forty? And what might Cece think if she saw her with Jonathan, just as they are now? Would she think they make a good couple? Or would she wonder why a guy like him would ever date a girl like her? Or would it be the other way around? Cece wants to ask Jonathan why he’s persisted, why he’s willing to give them another chance, but there’s nothing less appealing than insecurity, and so she remains silent.
They peruse the other rooms, sometimes together, other times apart, letting the artwork pull them in whatever direction it might. They find a rhythm of sorts, a silent dance where they take turns pointing out details and flourishes that strike them. To no one’s surprise, Jonathan is drawn to Roy Lichtenstein’s depiction of an exploding military jet with a comic-book-likeBLAMwritten above. His excitement and wonder remind Cece of how much she enjoys his boyish enthusiasm and near complete and utter lack of self-consciousness.
As they make their way to the American wing of the museum, Jonathan catches Cece’s hand and squeezes it, a grin on his face, and then lets it fall. “This is fun,” he says. “We should do it more often.”
“I think you’d get bored,” Cece says. “I might get bored.”
They stifle their laughter, but not before eliciting a few icy glares from other patrons. A nervous electrical current bounces in her chest. They were always good at this, going on dates, being out in the world, anonymous but together. Cece remembers this feeling well: when they walked down crowded city sidewalks, when they stood side by side at monotonous social events, pinching each other’s elbows whenever their tone swerved into snarky, when she’d doze off on road trips and wake to find Jonathan at the wheel, alert and poised, checking his mirrors, passing people with ease. She remembers it so clearly now—safe, protected within the walls of an impregnable castle perched on a mountaintop, immune to the buffeting winds of fate.
Only halfway through the American collection and Cece is exhausted. This happens to her in museums. One moment she’s brimming with energy and insight, the next she feels as if she could sleep for days, spent from the endless act of perceiving, studying, and analyzing. Jonathan’s energy also seems to be flagging, and they agree to cut the rest of the visit short in favor of an early lunch somewhere nearby.
They snake their way through the collection of Americanpaintings, giving a cursory glance before moving swiftly on, compelled by the promise of lunch. And even though her head is light, and her stomach is grumbling—she’s only had coffee this morning and a zero-fat yogurt—Cece finds herself drawn to a painting on a far wall closest to the exit. In the foreground, men at work, their faces are bland and featureless, only brushstrokes, except for one, the man in front with a thick rope looped around his shoulder. He is bigger than the others, sporting a distinct beard, a streak of red under his eye. A bruise? A cut? Behind the laborers, an enormous wooden boat under construction, the frame bowed, like the ribs of a giant. Cece is drawn, as if by invisible threads, to the big man’s hands wrapped around the rope, clasped as if in prayer. Morgan—the last person Cece wants to be thinking about, but now that he’s entered her mind, she can’t help but fixate: What’s he doing at this precise moment? Is he wondering what she was crying about the other day? Does he ever think of her?
For lunch, Cece recommends Louis’, an unpretentious sandwich-and-burger spot on Crown. She’s on a strict budget, especially with her job at Rayburn up in the air. She’d planned on going to talk to Richie the day after her fallout with Santiago, but she hadn’t been able to muster the energy.
“I was thinking tapas,” Jonathan says. “This new place just opened up. The chef has a great restaurant in the city, too, really good.”
Mediterranean certainly sounds more appealing than sandwiches, and with no illusions about who’ll be footing the bill, Cece is more than willing to yield to Jonathan’s preferences.
The restaurant, with its sleek surfaces and cream-colored tablecloths, reminds Cece of all those fine-dining establishments native to Midtown, the ones catering to patrons with little food sense but plenty of money. Accompanying the tapas are a lot of frills: edible flowers, foam, a hovering trio of waitstaff. There’s a stiffness to the ambiance that grates on Cece, but any qualms she has quickly evaporate upon sampling the food: croquettes with downy potato centers, luxurious ham sliced paper-thin that melts in her mouth, fried squid that is at once both crunchy and featherlight. The wine, the wine! From somewhere she can’t pronounce, chill and crisp on her tongue, the taste of wet stones lingering on her lips. She’d forgotten how nice it was to eat and drink well; she’d forgotten how easy it was to let Jonathan take control. What sequence dishes ought to be served, what wine paired best with their meal, what dessert would leave them satisfied but not stuffed—he decided it all. Cece quickly found herself relaxing, sinking into the plush velvet cushion of her seat.
“Anything promising on the job front?” Jonathan asks, dabbing at the corners of his mouth with a thick napkin.
That’s right, Cece thinks. She never told him about the oyster farm job, the job she doesn’t really have anymore. Still, she wants to see how he’ll react. The timing had been bad at the distillery, although if she’s being honest, timing didn’t have much to do with it. She doesn’t know how Jonathan will react to hearing about her work at Rayburn. Then again, why should it matter? Isn’t this new version of Cece supposed to be different? How can she expect things to go differently for them if she makes the same mistakes?
She takes the plunge. “I’ve been working at an oyster farm forthe last month, but it’s just temporary. I actually have an actuary job interview on Monday in the city.”
“An oyster farm…like a place where they grow oysters…in the ocean.”
“That’s pretty much it,” Cece says, watching Jonathan for any signs of disapproval. “I’ve been really enjoying the work. It’s completely different from what I’m used to doing…Lots of manual labor.”
“Sounds like you really like it.”
“I guess I do…I don’t know. With your job, don’t you ever wonder whether you’d be happier doing something else for a living? Or whether you’re missing out on some other career because you’ve been on the same path for so long?”
Jonathan scans the silk-draped ceiling. “I guess I’ve never thought about it. There’s always something to do, but that’s just the nature of the financial market. It never sleeps. You can always be doingsomething. And what makes me happy isn’t necessarily the work, but the things I get to do with the money I earn, like that trip we took to Italy together, having this lunch with you, or driving my new coupe with the top down. Those things bring me happiness.”
“When you say it like that, it doesn’t seem like such a difficult decision.”
“You’re having second thoughts about your oyster career?”
“What would you say if I told you I wanted to keep working on this oyster farm?”
“I’d say go for it.”
“Be serious.”
“I am.”
“A month and a half ago, we were engaged, now you’re okay with me going into aquaculture, a field I know barely anything about.”
“Married, a house and kids. Do I want those things? Absolutely, but it doesn’t mean we have to have them now. And if you’re really into this oyster thing, you should explore it, but you should have a plan. How much time are you willing to dedicate? When will you call it quits if you don’t meet certain benchmarks? Is it something you want to make a career out of? Do you want to scale up the business? Or do you want to start your own farm? I’ll support it. Heck, I could even give you seed money to get it off the ground. Just show me a road map, Cece. I need to understand where you’re going, but if you shut me out and panic, then I’m in the dark. I’ll admit, I got out a little over my skis. All my friends are getting married, and my parents haven’t exactly been subtle about how much they want to be grandparents. I’m not immune to that kind of pressure. But after I told my parents about us breaking up, I think they understood.”
“But what if I never know for sure about any of those things?”
