I Take You (26 page)

There’s a sudden silence. I look up.

The sidewalk ahead of me is blocked by about a dozen toddlers. They’re wearing name tags and matching green shirts. Holding hands in an adorable little chain.

I know those shirts. I know the middle-aged woman leading them. It takes me about three seconds to place her.

“Mrs. Carter?”

My preschool teacher shakes her head. “Lily Wilder. Your
language
.”

I close my eyes. “Sorry. I’m just … sorry.” I turn and walk in the other direction.

“So it’s a coincidence?” Lyle says. “You would have slept with Philip even if it didn’t help your career, even if you wouldn’t get anything out of it? That’s what you expect me to believe?”

“I don’t expect you to believe anything, Lyle. But think about what you’re saying, and compare it to reality. You review my hours. You see how much I bill. You know that I work as hard as you do, and that I get my share of shit assignments. Right?”

He’s silent.

“I have some news for you, Lyle. When a woman chooses to have sex, there’s not always some ulterior motive. We’re not necessarily seeking power, or procreation, or relationship security, or career advancement. Sometimes, we just want sex. I’ve gotten one thing out of sleeping with Philip. I’ve gotten
sex
out of it. This is probably hard for you to understand. It’s probably a little scary, because it doesn’t align with your extremely limited understanding of how women work. It doesn’t cohere with the message you’ve heard all your life.”

Whoa. The message? I need to be careful. I’m starting to sound like Ian.

“Look, Wilder,” Lyle says. “I don’t care—”

I cut him off. “You do care. Obviously you do, or you wouldn’t be jeopardizing a twenty-billion-dollar lawsuit just to fuck me over. You care, and so I’m explaining this to you, in the hope that you will see how wrong you are. Here’s the basic point, Lyle. There is no capital-W woman. No standard model who explains us all.”

My voice is rising now, and I’m gesturing wildly with my free hand. An elderly couple approaching on the sidewalk gives me a wide berth. Can’t say I blame them.

“You want to know why I slept with Philip? Because I
felt
like it, Lyle. Maybe I gravitate toward older men because I have a thing for grey hair, or because most men my age are boring, or because I have some serious,
serious
daddy issues. But you know what? Actually, I don’t gravitate toward older men. I like younger men, too. I like all sorts of men. And I will continue to like them, and sleep with them—or
not
like
them, and
not
sleep with them—based on
my
preferences, and not the preferences of presumptuous, narrow-minded people like you. Bottom line, Lyle? You’re wrong. About me, and about everything else. Is that clear? Any questions? No? Good. Then why don’t you and your puny, tyrannical, terrified little penis go fuck yourselves, okay? Because nobody else ever will.”

I hang up. I’m breathing heavily.

So this is what ease, contentment and happiness feel like.

Awesome.

I check the time and run to the Green Parrot.

I don’t know what
the hell I’m doing, in the middle of a work crisis, two days before my wedding, meeting Teddy at a dive bar on Whitehead Street. But here I am, and there he is, a beer in front of him, looking guarded and bored and restless and irritated.

I sit down across from him. He glances at my elaborate hair, and I immediately feel self-conscious. A stray curl grazes my cheek, and I hurriedly tuck it behind my ear.

“I thought you couldn’t drink on duty,” I say.

He picks up his beer and takes a sip. “I’m not on duty.”

He gives me a patient smile that doesn’t extend to his eyes.

“I just ran into our old preschool teacher,” I say.

“Mrs. Carter?”

“She’s still not a fan.”

“Surprise, surprise.” He glances around like he’s checking for the nearest exit.

“Gran told me you joined the army.”

He nods.

“Why?”

He takes another sip of his beer. “Love of country.”

“Come on.”

No answer.

“Did you go overseas?”

He sets his beer down. “Is this really why you asked me here, Lily?”

“I wanted to see you,” I say. “To catch up.”

I cringe. That was completely the wrong tone. Teddy knows it, too. He spreads his arms wide like, Here I am.

“Why are you mad at me, Teddy?”

“I’m not mad at you.”

He’s acting so cool and collected. He’s doing it to irritate me, like he always did. And it’s working. So I start needling him, like I always did.

“You’ve been mad at me since we saw each other on Monday. Don’t lie. I still know when you’re lying.”

“Don’t be so sure,” he says.

The bartender comes over. I ask for a glass of water. I turn back to Teddy. “Why are you mad at me?”

“I’m not.” He won’t look me in the eye.

I try a different tack. “Do you like your job?”

“Yes.”

“Are you good at it?”

“Yes.”

“Is Melody your girlfriend?”

“Melanie,” he says. “And yes.”

“Do you love her?”

He doesn’t answer.

“Why are you mad at me, Teddy?”

“I’m not.”

“How’s your mom?”

“Fine.”

“Why are you mad at me?”

“Because you left!” he shouts, slamming his hand down on the table. I jump. His beer tips over and crashes to the floor. The bartender looks over. A few people glance up from their drinks.

“Happy now?” he says.

“They made me leave,” I say quietly. “I didn’t have a choice.”

“I wrote to you,” he says in a low, angry voice, “over and over and
over.
You never wrote back. You never called me. You were supposed to come back. You promised.”

It was always this way with him—he’d hold it in and hold it in, and then the dam would burst.

“Things got complicated,” I say.

“No
shit
things got complicated, Lily! But you got to leave. I went to prison.”

“It wasn’t prison,” I say, instantly regretting it.

He laughs in disbelief. “Are you kidding me?”

“Sorry,” I say. “I’m sorry. That’s not what I meant. I just—I don’t know, Teddy. I was fourteen. I freaked out. I didn’t know how to deal. Lee was—”

“This is not about Lee.”

“Of course it is! If I hadn’t acted the way I did, he’d still be alive.”

Teddy leans across the table toward me. “Lily, this is
not about Lee.
Lee was fucked up long before you got to him. This is about you and me. How you loved me, and I loved you, and you abandoned me.”

“I didn’t—”

“You got to start over up north with your rich dad. And I went to jail. Sorry,” he raises his hands in mock surrender. “Let me correct that. I was involuntarily enrolled in the Avon Park Youth Academy. Funny, though. It didn’t seem like much of an
academy
at the time, what with the gangs, and the drug dealers. The frequency with which I got the shit kicked out of me. The way my mom couldn’t stop crying every time she visited. But yeah, that was high school. Go Raiders.”

Now I’m the one who can’t look him in the eye.

“You want to know why I joined the army? I had no fucking
choice
, Lily! And boy, was
that
a fun four years. Afterwards, I came back and joined the FDLE—not an easy task, thanks to my juvenile record, but having almost been killed twice in Afghanistan, and having collected a few wounds and a few medals, I was lucky enough to impress people in high places.”

I feel a tear roll down my cheek. I wipe it away.

“So, Lily, old friend, that’s what I’ve been up to,” he continues relentlessly. “It sure is nice to catch up with you after all this time. Now it’s your turn. Remind me—how long were you in that fancy hospital?”

“Nine weeks,” I say in a small voice.

“Nine weeks. And then on to boarding school, right? And college. And law school. Where do you work now? Some big firm in New York City, right? Sweet. How’s your office? Got a nice view of the park?”

“I’m sorry,” I say. “Teddy, I’m so sorry.”

“You. Deserted. Me. You didn’t write to me
once.
To hear from you would have meant the world to me. Because you meant the world to me.
But you were gone. And you’ve always been gone. But now you’re back, to get married. And I’m supposed to be happy about that. Happy to see you.”

“You hate me,” I say.

He sits back in his chair, suddenly deflated. All the anger gone. We look at each other across the table. “If it’s any consolation,” I say, “you couldn’t possibly judge me as harshly as I judge myself.”

He leans forward, furious all over again. “Oh no? Guess what, Lily. Judging yourself—knowing you’re doing something wrong but doing shit about it? That doesn’t make everything okay.”

I hold up my hands. “Fine, Teddy, you win. You don’t want to hear it. So what’s the point of all this?”

“You’re the one who wanted to see me! Let’s have a drink, like old friends, right? I never wanted to see you again! Monday night, okay, that was me. I don’t know what I was thinking. I heard you were back, and I acted on impulse. I’m so sorry I did. Because I saw what you were doing. You looked at me, and you decided to play it like nothing ever happened between us. Like we were just two old friends, two pals, just palling around. I saw you make that decision. I saw it in your eyes. And that means you know. You know what you did. And don’t tell me you don’t, because I always know when you’re lying, too.”

I’ve been looking down, but now I look at him, and suddenly he’s a boy again, with a boy’s hurt, angry face.

“I loved you,” he says. “I loved you, and you threw it away.”

I reach across the table for his hand, but he pulls back.

“No way. You’re too late.” He stands up and walks out of the bar.

I watch him go. Then I put my head down on my arms.

He’s right, of course. I abandoned my best friend in the whole world. My best friend, and my first love. I ran away because it was easier to run than deal. I left a trail of destruction in my wake and pretended not to notice. Then I acted like I could charm my way back here, into his life, and everything would be fine between us. I could tell him my problems, and he could help me.

Will’s mom nailed it. I haven’t just changed—I’ve gotten worse.

I think about work. How I love to mock and criticize my terrible client, distance myself from it in my head. Attack it as a purely selfish
organism that’s using one crime to perpetrate another, doing whatever it can to promote itself and its own interests above all else.

Sounds familiar.

I finally realized this morning that I love Will. That I want to get married. And I managed to beat his mom at her own game, clearing the way for my own happiness.

But what did I win, exactly? The opportunity to keep lying. And lying and lying and lying. To the one person in this situation who hasn’t lied. The one person who has always told the truth.

“Excuse me?”

I lift my head. The bartender has come over to sweep up Teddy’s broken glass. “You can’t sleep in here,” he says, smiling apologetically.

“I’m not sleeping, Lloyd. I’m marshaling my extremely limited resources.”

“Would you like a drink?” he asks.

“No thanks,” I say. “I have to go.”

I leave the bar
and go back to the hotel. I have a little time before the big family dinner, so I sit out on the balcony, thinking. Then I take a long shower. I put on makeup and adjust my hair. I iron my favorite dress. I’m suiting up, putting on my armor. Only I’m not sure who I’ll be fighting. Maybe just myself.

When I get to the restaurant, I linger for a moment in the doorway of our private dining room. They’re all in there, arranged around the table like a painting. It’s not a staid family portrait this time, though, but one of those big, splashy scenes by Caravaggio or some other Baroque artist. You know the ones—set in a gambling den or tavern, filled with color and movement, capturing an assortment of thieves, brigands and loose women in the moment right before the knives come out.

Dad is at the head of the table, consulting the wine list with a baronial air, pausing from time to time to smile at the waitress fawning over his shoulder. Ana is to his left, scowling and muttering to herself as her thumbs fly rapidly over her phone. On her other side, Will’s dad is desperately trying to impress Jane by relating some convoluted legal anecdote. She’s nodding politely and playing with a large sapphire ring on her right hand, clearly wishing it was filled with poison. Mom is next to Jane—or would be, except that she’s on her knees, hair in her face, trying to stop the table from wobbling. Across from them, Gran is holding forth about the colossal stupidity of the Supreme Court while Anita is tapping her fingernails impatiently on the table, trying to get a word in edgewise.

And there’s Will, glancing at his phone, looking around anxiously. Waiting for me.

It’s so easy to see how this night could have unfolded. After the first rush of introductions and hasty conversations, everybody would relax. Settle in. Wine and food would loosen us up. Dad would charm Will’s parents. Ana would fascinate us with political gossip. Gran and Anita would manage to find common ground. Harry would tell funny stories about Will as a kid. We would begin the slow, rocky process of getting to know one another, of forging the big, messy, fractious union that surrounds every marriage.

I bet it would have been fun.

Will finally spots me in the doorway. He jumps up and comes around the table. He kisses my cheek. “Wow. You look beautiful.”

“Thanks. You look great, too.” I’ve never seen him in a suit and tie. He even shaved. He looks so handsome. I swallow hard. “Will? We need to talk.”

“Let’s get a drink,” he says. “Just you and me.”

He leads me back down the hallway and into the bar of the restaurant, where he picks a table in the corner. A waitress comes over, and Will orders a beer.

“Anything for you?” she asks.

I shake my head. It’s time to do this.