Stone Cold, page 6
The last thing I remember before passing out on the living room couch that evening was Jovie covering me with a blanket before adjusting my pillow so I wouldn’t have a kink in my neck.
I mumbled something to her about not being half bad.
She replied with a coy, “Yeah, I know.”
Everything turned black after that.
Who’d have ever thought that would’ve been the last time we’d hang out, the three of us?
Certainly not me.
I doubt Jude did either.
“You know, I’m still waiting for you to reply to that last message,” she winks and crinkles her nose. “You left me on a cliffhanger.”
“I didn’t feel like answering it.” And it’s the truth.
“That’s your prerogative, I guess.”
I’ll admit, I debated sending her another clever deflection last week, but then I got busy with work and decided it was best just to leave it alone. Besides, some things are better left unsaid.
“You know Jude lives here too,” I say, leaving out any mention of Stassi because it goes without saying.
She lifts her brows. “Okay …”
“You haven’t run into him yet?” I swear he’s never home. Stassi’s always got him running to this festival or that concert or this new restaurant.
She shakes her head, her ponytail flicking over her shoulders.
“I’ve only been here about a year,” she says. “I moved here with my ex … and I guess I haven’t gotten around to leaving yet.”
My chest tightens at the idea of Jovie being with someone new, some faceless pencil dick who probably doesn’t deserve her. From the second time we met, I knew she could never be mine. But even after Jude left her, I never once stopped to picture her with someone new. No need to torture myself.
We linger in silence for a beat, as if neither of us wants to go, yet there’s nothing more to be said.
Her full mouth curls at the sides, flanked by two perfect dimples as she stares up at me through a fringe of curled lashes. I’ve known far too many people who let themselves go after college. The stress of a corporate gig, a robust travel schedule, and a social life that revolves around drinking on the weekends tends to do that to a person. But Jovie looks even more beautiful than she did the night I first saw her.
There’s a calmness about her, as if these last several years in the real world have given her the kind of education she couldn’t get from a four-year institution.
Jovie waves her package of steaks. “I should probably get home and feed Domino.”
“Right.” I rake my hand along my jaw, taking her in for what very well might be the last time.
“It was nice seeing you though.”
Most of the time, when people say that, they never mean it.
“You too,” I say.
She walks away, turning back once more. “You should really think about answering my question …”
“Not a chance.”
She laughs before spinning on her heel and heading to the front of the store to check out.
A moment later, I realize I’m standing there wearing a dopey grin. I’m sure I look like a damn lunatic.
I wipe the expression off my face, get back in line, and order my filet mignon.
Years ago, I used to wonder what would be worse: Jude and Jovie getting married and me having to spend the rest of my life watching my best friend live happily ever after with her? Or Jude sending Jovie packing and me never having to see her again.
It never occurred to me that there could ever be anything in between.
Now I know.
Only I don’t know how I feel about it.
None of these scenarios end with me getting the girl.
Chapter Twelve
Stone
* * *
Age 20
* * *
“Can I ask you something?” Jovie asks before flopping onto Jude’s dorm bed. He should be back from class in the next hour, but she claimed she was already on this side of campus and it was easier just to wait here.
“Uh, yeah. Sure.” I don’t look away from his computer.
“Do you honestly not remember meeting me the first time?”
My fingers stop clacking away at the keyboard, and I turn in my chair to face her.
“What are you talking about?” I ask. “What kind of question is that?”
“The night I met Jude … I met you right before I got sick in the bathroom. You got me a hard lemonade and we talked about my name. You really don’t remember?” She rolls to her side, resting her cheek against her hand.
“You’re talking about something that happened last year,” I say. “I can’t even tell you what I ate for breakfast this morning.”
She picks at a loose thread in his comforter. “Maybe you were drunk.”
“Maybe.”
Her scrutinizing gaze flicks onto mine. “You didn’t seem drunk though.”
I shrug. “I don’t know what to tell you.”
I’m not proud of my dishonesty, but that ship sailed last year when Jude introduced us for the first time and I immediately decided to pretend like that was our first time meeting. It’s too late to go back on that, and in the end, it wouldn’t serve a purpose. No one would benefit from it. It’d only make things awkward. Besides, my intentions were honorable. I didn’t want Jude to know the girl I’d been crushing on was the girl he’d been talking to that entire time. He deserved to be happy, especially after Brittany.
“I finally listened to that Wilco album you told me about,” Jovie changes the subject.
“What’d you think?”
“I liked it,” she says. “I listened to track 2 on repeat for, like, two straight hours yesterday.”
“Love track 2.”
“See.” She cracks a smile. “We have more in common than you think.”
I’m well aware.
The two of us—aside from our night and day personalities—share more of the same interests than she does with Jude. For starters, we both love indie and classic rock but we opt for classical during study sessions. Jude prefers silence or nineties music—nothing in between.
Jovie and I share many of the same favorite restaurants—Cerro’s on Hudson, The Screaming Burrito on Halleck, and the campus-town Nathan’s hot dog stand at 2 AM on a Saturday night after the bars close.
When it comes to politics, we lean the same direction while Jude leans staunchly toward its opposition.
Any time the three of us attempt to pick a movie together, inevitably Jude and Jovie disagree. She, like me, prefers the artsy independent flicks, while Jude has never met a Marvel Cinematic Universe blockbuster he didn’t love.
“Hey, babe.” Jovie climbs off the bed when Jude strolls in.
He drops his backpack on the floor and wraps his arms around her.
I look away, returning my attention to my research paper after jamming ear pods in and dialing the volume up enough to drown out the sound of his lips on hers.
Chapter Thirteen
Jovie
* * *
“What do you think of this one?” Monica pulls a vintage Pucci scarf from a rack at the downtown Portland Flea and Fashion market Saturday morning.
“Let me see.” I place my iced coffee on a nearby table and take the colorful silk fabric from her, inspecting the edges for fraying and the rest of it for moth holes. Lifting it to my (currently functioning) nose, I inhale its scent to ensure it doesn’t smell like it’s been sitting in someone’s dank basement for the last forty years. “Green light.”
“You think it’s worth two hundred though?” she asks.
“Everything’s negotiable. Offer them one-fifty and see what they say.”
Monica carries the scarf to the woman behind the next table, and I browse a rack of vintage designer sunglasses, trying on some oversized 3203s by Nina Ricci. I check my reflection in the lens of another pair, giggling when I see how ridiculous I look. Unfortunately I’m no Jackie Kennedy Onassis. I’m more of a bleach-blonde, free-spirited, hopelessly romantic Lee Radziwill. I put them back and try some vintage Ray-Ban aviators next.
“Got it,” Monica says when she returns. She folds the beautiful silk piece into fourths and tucks it into her bag. “Did you still want to hit up that jewelry stand on the end?”
“Yes,” I say, returning the sunglasses to their stand. “And then can we grab brunch? I’m dying for some buttermilk pancakes from Becky’s Diner.”
I check my watch. If we get there in the next twenty minutes, we should be able to snag a table without a huge wait.
Ambling down the cobblestone streets, we pass a booth selling gigantic cinnamon rolls and coffee, another one shilling freshly cut flowers, and a third offering aura readings.
“Have you ever done that?” I nudge Monica’s arm and point to the aura booth. “I wonder what color my aura is.”
“Yours is probably yellow or orange. Like sunshine. Maybe some pink too, for love,” she says. “What do you think mine would be?”
“Blue,” I say. “Because you’re loyal and true. Should we try it?”
Monica shakes her head, her lips bunched. “I can think of a hundred other things I could do with that fifty bucks.”
“You have a point.” I glance down at my toenails in desperate need of a pedicure. Several weeks in the throes of a book deadline has made them an afterthought. I make a mental note to get them done later today.
“Oh, hey, can we hit up the jam stand super quick?” Monica points across the way. “This place has the best marionberry jelly, and Chauncy loves their apple butter.”
We cut across to the other side of the street, weaving through pockets of Saturday morning browsers, young families pushing strollers packed with flowers and flea market finds, and locals walking their dogs. Maybe I should have brought Domino, but he doesn’t seem to want to do much of anything lately. I can hardly get him off his bed half the time.
I’ve been FaceTiming with Ida throughout the week, and he wags his tail when he hears her voice, but he still barely eats. I think he took three whole bites of the steak I made for him last night. I saved the rest of it for later, in case he changes his mind about starving himself. Ida assured me that as long as he’s eating something he’ll be fine, but I still feel awful.
I browse a selection of artisanal jams and jellies while Monica buys her jelly and apple butter. At the last minute, I decide to buy a jar of raw wildflower honey. At twenty bucks, it’s no drop in the bucket, but it’s better use of my money than the aura reading I was considering a minute ago.
We zag back across the street, making a beeline for the jewelry stand I was eyeing on our way here.
“What is it about shiny pretty things that makes me feel like a kid again?” I slide an oval-shaped mood ring over my left index finger, and the stone gradually changes from deep, dark indigo to a vibrant violet, which is supposed to mean happy or excited. “Did you ever have one of these?”
“I had a million of them,” she says. “And my sister lost each and every one. Or so she claims. I’m pretty sure she was just giving them away to her friends …”
I place the ring back and inspect a pair of lotus flower earrings.
“Some cultures believe the lotus signifies strength, resilience, and rebirth,” the jewelry maker says from behind her table. “In Buddhism, it stands for fresh starts and new beginnings.”
“These are certainly beautiful.” I hold them up to my ear and check my reflection in a nearby mirror.
“The silver really brings out the blue in your eyes,” the woman says.
“I agree,” Monica chimes in. “You should get them. Have to admit, the meaning behind them is pretty spot on for you. Maybe it’s a sign …”
“All right, fine,” I say, handing them to the woman. “They’re too perfect to pass up.”
“Twenty-five dollars even,” she says. “And for an extra five, I’ll throw in that mood ring.”
“Sold,” I say, digging my debit card from my bag. I hand the ring to Monica. “Don’t let your sister steal this one.”
She slides it over her right ring finger before placing her palm over her heart. “I love it, thank you. And I won’t let her anywhere near it.”
With our purchases in tow, we trek down the cobblestone street once again, this time heading toward the infamous seaside Commercial Street for brunch. Every time I finish a book, I always look forward to grounding myself back into reality. It usually requires something to see, something to touch, something to taste, something to hear … and the Saturday flea market almost always ticks all of those boxes.
As much as I love mentally residing in some far-off land where people fall in love and no one gets hurts and they all live happily ever after in the end, it’s never a bad thing to step away from that from time to time.
“What’s Chauncy up to today?” I ask after we put our names on the wait list.
The hostess said it would be fifteen to thirty minutes, so we step outside and find a place to sit in the sunshine.
“Getting a quick eighteen holes in with his dad and brother at the club,” she says. “The usual.”
“Are things getting better between you two?”
Last I knew, they were two months into marital counseling.
“Yeah, actually,” she says. “He’s been making more of an effort to be present, and he’s been doing little things for me lately—making me coffee when I’m running late for work, surprisingly me with lunch dates or leaving roses on the kitchen table for me to come home to … he’s trying. And I am too. I’m learning to pick my battles. For instance, when he leaves his beard shavings in the sink instead of rinsing them out … I wipe the sink down myself instead of biting his head off. And when he leaves his gym shoes by the back door for me to trip over, I calmly move them out of the way instead of throwing them into the garage like a crazy person.”
“That’s good,” I say with a chuckle.
“Marriage is hard as hell, Jovie,” Monica sighs before bumping her shoulder against mine.
“If only you’d told me that a year ago.”
Monica rests her cheek against my shoulder. “You couldn’t have known Jason was going to be a royal douche. I honestly thought you two were perfect together. He made you laugh. You had fun. His family adored you and your family adored him …”
I’d met him via Tinder of all things, after a string of failed Hinge and Bumble dates. And I had zero hope or expectations that he was going to be different from any of the others. But when he suggested we hit up a karaoke dive bar and wasted no time taking center stage and commanding the audience with a cheesy Tom Jones number, I fell hard. Not because he was an amazing singer, but because he didn’t give a damn what anyone thought about him. He was simply up there having a good time and putting a smile on people’s faces.
Our second date entailed morel mushroom hunting in the woods—a first for me but a unique and memorable experience nonetheless. We scoured some woods outside the city for four straight hours and came out with a small bag that we ended up giving to grandmother, who was so thrilled by our gift that she cried happy tears and promptly invited us in so she could show me how to fry them “the Whitlock way.”
For our third date, Jason arranged a picnic in a lighthouse—another first for me. And while I sipped sweet wine and nibbled on expensive cheeses, he read to me from a book of sailor stories.
To say I was quickly enchanted by him would be the understatement of the century.
Everything was wonderful until the ink was dry on our marriage certificate a few months later—that’s when the real Jason came out. Detached and moody, his kisses became fewer and further between and he began staying late at the office and spending his weekends with “friends.” After a month of living together, he told me he needed space; that he felt suffocated by my sheer presence.
I thought we were hitting a rough patch, that he was probably just stressed with work and adjusting to married life and we’d come out of it soon enough. I figured if I backed off and stayed patient and supportive, all would be fine.
But things only got worse.
We weren’t married but six months when he served me with divorce papers.
The hostess steps outside and calls my name, and it’s perfect timing because my stomach won’t stop rumbling, and I’d much rather be shoving my face with buttermilk pancakes than reminiscing about my failed marriage.
“Your server will be with you shortly,” she says after seating us at a small table in the middle of the restaurant.
I’m perusing the menu and trying to decide between fresh squeezed orange juice or a glass of iced tea when Monica gasps.
“What’s wrong?” I glance over my menu.
“Don’t look now,” she says. “But, um, Jude and Stassi are at the table behind you.”
My stomach drops and my blood runs cold. I ran into Stone yesterday at the grocery store and he mentioned Jude lived in the area. I figured I was bound to run into him eventually—I just wasn’t expecting that to be here and now.
I’m not sure how I missed them on the way in …
“Did they see us?” I keep my voice low, but loud enough for her to hear over the tinkle of cutlery on plates and the chatter of customers.
Monica leans to her left a couple of inches, stealing a quick peek past my shoulders.
“Um, yeah,” she says before giving a quick wave.
“Oh my god.” I keep my head down. “Did you just wave?”
“Jude waved first,” she says. “I was waving back.”
Jude waved? He could have easily pretended like he didn’t notice but instead he went in the complete opposite direction of that.
Our server trots up to our table, crouching down with his pen and pad of paper in hand.
