Adult Assembly Required, page 9
A small smile started to play across Asher’s face, and he nodded. “Yes, that’s a good one, but hopefully not that.”
“Then there’s the one that smells like it’s going to be all strawberries but actually has a hint of rhubarb in it, which for one second makes you panic that it’s going to be sour but then the ice cream chimes in and everything’s lovely again.”
Asher shook his head. “That was my sister’s favorite, but not mine, so I don’t think that’s what she made.”
Polly grinned. “Then no, I guess not.”
Asher closed his eyes. “The chocolate sauce I hope she made reminds you of that birthday where you got everything you wanted, even the things you hadn’t dared ask for, and where the chocolate cake remains the cake you measure all other birthday cakes against.”
Polly laughed, while everyone else stared at them.
Laura leaned over to Bob and whispered, “Does everyone here talk like that?”
Bob grinned. “No, I would have said caramel, strawberry, and chocolate, but, you know, maybe they’re made for each other.” He sat back and gave a very subtle shrug at Polly and Asher, who were now recounting tales of best birthdays ever. It turned out that eight had been a high point for both of them.
* * *
• • •
Once dinner was over, Maggie started gathering plates, and they all leapt up to help her. She raised her hands. “Could you pick me some more roses, Bob?” she asked. “I want some for upstairs and I forgot to do it earlier.”
“Where did you get the ones on the counter?” he asked. “They’re not from the garden, and peonies aren’t even in season.”
Maggie clapped her hands to her mouth. “Oh my god, I am so sorry, I completely forgot in all the excitement.” She smiled at Laura. “Those are for you! They arrived today and I put the card somewhere . . .” She got up. “Hang on.” She went into the kitchen and came back out, holding a tiny square envelope. She handed it to Laura, who was blushing deeply. She was pretty sure who they were from.
She was right. Opening the card, she read the message and closed it. “Thanks, Maggie.”
There was an expectant silence.
Impatiently, Polly broke it: “Well, who are they from?”
“Nick,” said Laura. “A friend from home.”
“The brokenhearted ex-fiancé?” crowed Polly.
“No,” Laura replied firmly. “He’s not brokenhearted, he’s stubborn.” She turned to Maggie. “You’re welcome to break up the bouquet.”
Bob was already on his feet. “I’ll cut some more roses, we have plenty.” As he turned he added, “Those roses have no scent anyway.”
“Go off,” said Polly, raising an eyebrow. “Don’t hold back. Diss the roses.”
He pulled out his clippers, sauntering down the stairs to the rose garden. “I’m a rose snob.” He turned and looked at Laura. “Want to help me choose again?”
“Sure,” she replied, happy to get away from the table, where Polly and Anna looked like they were revving up to ask her searching questions about her nonrelationship. Indeed, as she followed Bob into the garden, she could feel Maggie, Polly, and the others watching them closely. She put her hand behind her back and raised her middle finger. Polly snickered.
It was later than the previous evening, and the scent in the rose garden was heady.
Laura said, “I can’t decide what smells better, the roses or this thing.” She poked at a plant with white flowers.
“The jasmine?”
“Yeah, sorry, not good with plant names.”
He was quiet and stepped closer to her, selecting the blooms he wanted. She moved back to give him room and abruptly felt uneasy. The flowers had thrown her; Nick had always loved a splashy gesture and he’d sent her flowers more times than she could count, but the fact that he’d sent them here was irritating. She hadn’t given him her address, which meant her mom had given it to him, which meant her mom was still talking to him, which meant her mom was still on his side.
“I’m going back inside, it’s colder than I thought,” she said.
“I’m nearly done,” he said, pausing to look at her. But she had already started moving away, and he watched her go, wondering if he’d said the wrong thing, despite having literally said three words. Regardless of what Polly might say, Laura had blushed over the flowers, so even though she said “ex-fiancé,” maybe she still cared a bit. Bob kept clipping roses and tried not to feel crestfallen. He was used to being alone, it was fine, plenty more fish in the sea. They could still be friends.
As Laura approached the patio again, the conversation stopped and Polly’s voice was slightly concerned as she said, “Everything OK?”
“Totally,” said Laura as she breezed past them. “I got cold. I’m going to get a sweater.”
Maggie and the others turned to watch Bob crossing the garden, holding his roses.
“What did you do?” asked Polly accusingly.
THIRTEEN
Once in her room, Laura threw off her clothes, grabbed her fluffy dressing gown, and sat on her bed cross-legged. First she texted Polly to tell her she was tired and had headed to bed. Then she took a deep breath and texted Nick. It was pretty late there, but if she was lucky she’d wake his ass up.
Her fingers flew. “I got your flowers.”
There was a pause, then the three dots appeared. Dammit, he’d been awake.
(heart emoji) “That’s great. I hope they were beautiful.”
(three dots)
(flower emoji) “Like you.”
Laura rolled her eyes so hard she almost dislocated an eyelash.
“Nick. We broke up. Please do not send me flowers.”
“We’re still friends.”
(three dots)
(over-the-top crying sad face emoji) “Aren’t we?”
Laura took an even deeper breath and hit FaceTime. She hated texting with Nick; he liked to send multiple short texts instead of one longer one, which meant she would start to answer the first whatever he’d said, then a second one would come in so she’d have to erase the first one and write an answer that addressed both whatevers, and then he’d do it again. And it wasn’t like he couldn’t see she’d started to answer; he could see her dots! Laura once told her grandmother this single personality trait would have been the final straw had his habit of calling her irritating nicknames and telling her what to do not already done the trick.
However, when his sleepy but familiar face loomed up on her screen, she smiled despite herself. This was the difficulty with Nick; he was charming and largely harmless, but also spoiled rotten and convinced of his own arguments. Everything was easy with him except, it turned out, achieving escape velocity.
“Hey, dollface,” he said. “You look as gorgeous as ever. Burning the midnight oil?”
Laura frowned at him. “No, that would be you.”
“Really?” He checked the time. “Oh, yeah. What time is it there?”
“Three hours earlier than you.”
He grinned at her. “Sweetie, please tell me. Don’t torture me.” He snuggled down, and Laura realized he was in bed, which shouldn’t have been a surprise. “You know how bad I am at math, honey bunches of oats.” This was an old joke. His father had won the Fields Medal when he wasn’t much older than Nick was now, and the fact that Nick was getting his PhD in biophysics had been viewed by his family as a compromise because he couldn’t handle “real math.” They still referred to him sometimes as “poor Nick.”
She shook her head. “I mean it, Nick. Yes, we’re friends, we’ve known each other forever, but we’re not going to stay friends unless you back the hell up. If I can quote Taylor Swift, ‘we are never, ever, ever getting back together.’ ”
Nick rubbed his face with his hand and pouted. “Yeah, yeah, so you keep saying. Look, I can’t help it if I want to try.” He smiled, one of his melting smiles that made grandmas hand over their babies and babies hand over their ice creams. “You can take all the time you want, sweet cheeks, I’ll wait patiently till you’re certain.”
“I’m certain,” said Laura firmly. “This is what certain looks like.”
“Who knew certainty was so sexy?”
Laura frowned at him. “Quit it. Seriously.” She paused and sighed. “OK, seeing as we’re on FaceTime . . . can I see him?”
Nick grinned and gently lifted the duvet.
“Androcles!” Laura said to the obese one-eared cat who’d been fast asleep against Nick’s body until the comforting warmth of night had been ripped away. “Hey, baby, how you doing?” Her tone was soft and loving, and the cat blinked. He could hear a familiar voice, and if he wanted to, he could probably work out where it was coming from, but he didn’t really want to, so he closed his eyes, lowered his head, and went immediately back to sleep.
“Aw, baby,” said Laura. “You’re not going to forgive me?”
Nick covered him up again. “I guess he needs time, just like you.”
Androcles was named after the ancient dude who pulled the thorn out of the lion’s foot because Nick was a physicist, not a historian. He’d found the cat in Riverside Park, wet, cold, and apparently dead under a tree. One ear was hanging off, one paw was hugely swollen and clearly infected, and fleas were holding a swap meet on his spine.
“And then,” Laura remembered Nick saying several years before, “the vet pulled this huge freaking piece of wood out of his foot and all this disgusting crap came out and that’s when I thought of his name.”
Laura had looked at him. “But Androcles was the one who pulled the thorn, not the one who had the thorn.”
Nick had shrugged and called the cat Andy for short. He was pretty much the only thing Laura missed about New York.
“Are we clear?” asked Laura one last time. “No more flowers, no more nothing. We are old friends, that’s it.”
Nick looked at her and seemed irritated. “I get it, Laura. But you can’t change the way I feel, and I still want to be with you.” He thought of something. “Besides, you need taking care of, whether you like it or not.”
Laura shook her head. “I really don’t, Nick. I’m totally fine.”
“Really?” He looked skeptical. “Done a lot of driving yet?”
Laura frowned at him. “No more flowers.”
“No promises. It’s a free country, baby bear, I can send flowers to any beautiful woman I want to.”
“Go right ahead,” replied Laura, “but take me off your list or I really will cut you off completely.”
He shrugged, clearly not believing a word of it. “Night, sugar cube.”
“Night, Nick.”
She disconnected, then picked up her pillow and screamed into it silently.
* * *
• • •
Earlier, back on the patio, Polly had put down her phone and addressed the others.
“She’s going to sleep, she’s tired.” She looked at Bob. “I guess it wasn’t your fault after all.”
Bob turned up his palms and shrugged.
“She’s been through a lot,” said Maggie. “I’m not surprised she’s tired. The accident, moving across the country, losing everything in a fire . . .”
Anna looked at Polly. “Have you ever been engaged?”
“Nope,” said Polly. “I was briefly married, but we never got engaged.”
“How long were you married?” asked Asher curiously.
“Thirty-six hours,” said Polly. “I was married and separated in the space of a weekend.” She gazed out into the garden. “It seemed like a completely brilliant idea at the beginning, but it wore off.” She squirmed around in her seat and tugged down the top of her pajama pants. There, on her hip, was a tattoo of two rings and a date, with the date crossed out and JK! tattooed next to it in ironic Comic Sans.
“It’s a very important commitment,” said Polly. “You have to be sure you’re ready, ’cause you’re living with it forever.”
“Yeah,” said Bob. “I guess that’s why most people get engaged first.”
Polly looked surprised. “I suppose . . . I was talking about crappy tattoos, but you’re not wrong.”
* * *
• • •
A little later Bob walked quietly down the hall as he headed to bed. Passing Laura’s door, he overheard her talking sweetly on the phone, asking someone to forgive her. As he’d been tidying the kitchen he’d seen the card from the flowers in the trash. Unable to stop himself, he’d read it:
I love you, please come home.
—Nick
His mouth tightened and he hurried to his own room, ready to close the door on the day and on any hopes he’d ever had about Laura. No big deal. It didn’t matter at all.
FOURTEEN
Back in the garden, Asher looked across the table at his mother and wondered when she’d gotten old. She was as lovely as ever, full of beans and vivid curiosity, but she looked . . . tired in a way he’d not noticed before.
“So,” he said, pouring himself the last of the red wine, “what else is new? I’ve heard all the neighborhood stories, what about you?”
Maggie shrugged. “You know all there is to know, which is to say, nothing. I play cards with my friends, I work, I read, I cook, nothing’s changed.”
“Just new tenants.”
She nodded. “Just that. New tenants, new clients, same old me. It’s like a soap opera; every so often there’s a cast change, but the show keeps on running.” She smiled. “I’m not sure that made sense.” She rubbed her forehead and tried to summon more energy. She’d been incredibly excited to see her son and she was still filled with joy that he was home, but she was also really tired and it was way past her bedtime.
Asher laughed. “I got it. How’s Ollie? I haven’t even seen him.”
Maggie said, “He’s probably in Polly’s room. She’s slightly allergic, I think, so of course he tries to spend as much time on her as possible.”
“Who wouldn’t?” said Asher, and immediately kicked himself. He didn’t dare look at his mother.
“Huh,” she said, and waited for him to elaborate. He didn’t, so eventually she said, “So, what’s the plan, now that you’re back? When does the new job start?”
“Next week.” Asher examined one of the more generous pizza crusts, and decided it was worth nibbling. “Do you want to help me find a place to live?”
“You’re not going to live here?” Maggie was disappointed. “I can throw out a tenant, say the word.” She paused. “Not Bob, though, because look at the garden.”
Asher grinned. “My attic room is twice the size of my Tokyo apartment, it’s fine. I’ll probably be here for a month or two, but I’m a grown-up, Mom, I’m too old to live at home. I’m thinking of buying a place, maybe.”
“You are?” Maggie failed to keep the surprise out of her voice.
He nodded. “Yes. Japan was expensive, but as I pretty much worked, slept, and ate ramen, I saved money.” He looked at her, steadily. “I’m ready to take my place in the adult world, buy a home, get married, have kids, get into debt—you know, the American dream.”
Maggie laughed. “Fair enough, but you’ll need to go out and find a girlfriend to start with.”
Her son smiled at her. “Any suggestions?”
“None you haven’t thought of already.”
Asher looked into his wineglass and shook his head. “I’m jet-lagged, my mind isn’t working very clearly.”
“Polly’s very attractive,” said Maggie.
Asher shot her a quick glance, but she didn’t say anything further.
“I hear a but coming,” he said, tipping his head to one side. “What is it?”
“No but,” said Maggie, drawing circles on the tablecloth with the edge of a spoon. “I’m not sure Polly’s looking for the complete American dream, picket fence, babies thing.” She stopped spoon circling. “But of course I could be totally wrong.”
“What kind of guys does she like?” He caught himself. “Or girls, of course.”
Maggie frowned. “Absolutely no idea. Guys, I think, but don’t quote me. She’s never brought anyone back, so I couldn’t tell you. She goes out a lot, and she certainly parties, but maybe she’s super fussy.” She looked worried. “You’re not thinking of reaching out to Madeleine, are you?”
Asher broke off a piece of pizza crust and offered it to Daisy, who was snuffling around the table legs like an ankle shark. “No,” he said firmly, “not at all. I’m sure she’s married by now anyway.”
“Good,” said Maggie. “I hope she trips and breaks her nose. More than once.”
“Wow,” said Asher, “so you’re over all that then?”
Maggie leaned across the table and patted his hand. “You hurt my kid, you hurt me.”
“I’ve forgiven her,” said Asher.
“Good for you,” replied his mother. “I am less emotionally mature than you. I never forget.” She uncrossed her ankles under the table, subconsciously getting ready to stand up in case she needed to punch someone.
There was a long, long pause. Then Asher said, “Have you forgiven Sarah?”
Maggie looked at her son, her eldest child, and nodded. “Yes,” she sighed. “But that’s not really the point, is it? She doesn’t appear to have forgiven me.”
Asher stood and started gathering the few remaining dishes, thinking of his sister. “I called her from the airport, she hasn’t called me back yet.”
Maggie watched her son and gave an almost imperceptible shrug. He carried some dishes into the kitchen, and when he returned, he was ready to change the subject.
“Have you been dating at all?”
