It felt nosy, to say the least. A sneak peek into her heart and mind when she wasn’t even here. But I took it, shaking my head. “This is weird, Parker. We didn’t even know each other that well.” Even as I said it, I knew I was kind of lying. In fact, I would venture to say that, in the end, I’d known Greer better than most people. But Parker didn’t know why.
He shrugged. “Sometimes that makes it easier.”
Easier… I had a flash of brilliance. “I will help you pick a surrogate if you’ll help me get the rest of my things from Thad’s place.”
He nodded. “Sure thing. Do you need some furniture moved or something?”
I shook my head, realizing, depressingly, that I was thirty-five years old and I didn’t own so much as a piece of furniture.
“Just my clothes and shoes.” I looked down at my feet, feeling tears come to my eyes. “I can’t face it alone.”
Parker nodded but didn’t say a word. He understood.
I texted Thad: Coming to get my stuff.
Three bubbles appeared immediately, and he said: Can we please talk? Please?
You can talk while I’m packing, but I can’t promise I’ll listen.
I knew already that there was nothing Thad could say to fix this.
I opened the door, turned, and said, “Well, aren’t you coming?”
“Oh! You mean like right now?”
“Well, yeah.”
Parker flashed me that megawatt smile of his and said, “Well, Liabelle, I guess we both have a lot of big hurdles to jump. If we’re going to get started, there’s no time like the present.”
I couldn’t have said it better myself.
Greer
SEPTEMBER 18, 2011
I NEVER IMAGINED I COULD be so excited about meeting a man’s parents. That’s usually the part that annoys me, the part that means that we’re getting too close. It’s the part I try to avoid. But it has been almost four months now, and Parker was going home to North Carolina, and he wanted me to come with him.
I have to say, as much as I love him and as brilliant and wonderful as I think he is, I was definitely prepared to have to pretend to like Cape Carolina. I thought it would be Podunk, but I was totally wrong. I mean, it’s small. But it is one of the most beautiful places I have ever been. Parker and I stayed in the guesthouse, out on the end of a wide peninsula. There are views of this pristine blue water with marsh grass interspersed. And Mrs. Thaysden has impeccable taste.
Parker and I jumped off the dock and swam and kayaked. We lay on the teak chaise lounges at night and looked at the stars and talked for hours. I told him I loved him, which I have never done first. But I do love him. And I love his town, and its amazing coffee shop and two of the best restaurants I’ve ever been to and a handful of perfectly curated stores. It’s totally noncommercial and super quaint, like Palm Beach was about a million years ago.
And his parents are a total dream. His mother is this tiny woman who wears pearls all the time. She was soft-spoken and cooked this amazing meal for us. I have a feeling that Parker had a super-traditional childhood with a mom who stayed home and a dad who worked and his grandparents, like, two miles up the road.
It worried me because that’s not what he would be getting with me. When I told him that, he laughed. And he said the most perfect thing: “Greer, I love you for you, who you are now and the woman you will become. The last time I checked, you fall in love with a person, not a lifestyle.”
He’s right, of course. But I have seen more people than you can imagine fall in love with a lifestyle and not a person. And, at a certain age, I understand how that can happen, how the search for the love of your life can become the search for a person you could be happy with.
Is it crazy that I’m almost positive Parker Thaysden is both?
Amelia
LEGACY
PARKER DIDN’T SAY ONE WORD as he drove me to my old apartment, and I loved him for that. I was deep in thought about what I wanted to say, what Thad might say. And I felt this dark sadness wash through my very veins. Last week, I had been professing my love for the entire world to read. I had been that sure of my happily ever after. And now here I was: alone. Well, except for Parker.
Thad couldn’t help it if he liked men. But he didn’t have to marry me. He didn’t have to sweep me up into a fantasy of being starving(ish) writers together and living this romantic footloose and fancy-free, child-free life together.
“Liabelle, where are you staying?” Parker asked when we were almost to the apartment building that I had called home for so many years. “Do you want to stay with me?”
For a moment, it seemed like a tempting offer, but I waved it away. “Remember Philip who works for Clematis?” I couldn’t control the jealous pang that shot through me that he was still there and I was gone.
Parker nodded. “Oh, sure. I know Philip. Cool guy. Sheree is great too. I’ve seen them out and about.”
As we pulled into the parking lot, Parker put the car in park, looked over at me, and said, “Are you sure about this?”
I nodded resolutely.
Thad was standing in the doorway. He grabbed my hand, and I pulled it away. “Don’t!” I hissed, realizing how visceral my anger was.
“This way,” I said to Parker, as Thad trailed behind saying, “Amelia, I made a huge mistake. It was just an experiment.”
“Experiments are for college, Thad. Not your midthirties,” I said calmly as I emptied my drawers into my duffel bag. Parker emerged from my closet with a huge armful of clothes, and I couldn’t help myself. “Oh my God. Every man in my life is coming out of the closet these days.”
Parker laughed, not even nervously, as he left the room.
“But that’s just it,” Thad said. “It isn’t about that. It’s all about love. And I love you, Amelia. I really do.”
I stopped then and looked at him. “Thad, you have known me for six years. Does this seem like something that I am going to be okay with? Do you think the Amelia Saxton that you know is going to say, ‘Oh, Thad, I forgive your long and torrid love affair with the only man who has ever given me proper highlights?’ ” I slammed the drawer I was holding down on the bed.
Thad walked up to me and said soothingly, “People make mistakes. I made a mistake. Please give me another chance at our life.”
I wondered briefly if I was being hasty. I put my finger up and ran down the steps to the car, where Parker was deeply entrenched in a pile of hanging clothes.
“If I caught him with another woman, would I give him another chance?” I asked.
“Oh, um,” Parker said, “I’m not really—”
“I mean, am I being biased and judgmental in some way here?”
“Well, I—”
“No,” I decided, picturing a woman in her underwear on my couch. “No. I would be done either way. Hell, I’d be more done, if that’s possible.”
“So this is really more of a rhetorical line of questioning?” Parker said, pulling his head out of the car.
“Sorry,” I said. “I just want to make sure that I’m doing the right thing. Can you imagine that he wants me back? Of all the absurd things.”