I looked at my watch. Five fifteen. I couldn’t wait to get to my date, but Harris wasn’t meeting me until eight thirty. There was something decidedly less pleasant I had to do first.
I checked my hair and lip gloss in the mirror and adjusted the high waistband of my pants. Martin said, “Are you sure you don’t want me to come with you?”
“Of course I want you to come with me. But I think if I have you there as a crutch and a decoy, I’d just be delaying the inevitable.”
Martin stood up, kissed me goodbye, and said, “You look fabulous. Knock ’em dead.”
As I walked outside, I realized that I still mostly felt like a tourist in New York. And that was a good thing. Every little detail still seemed magical and new. The world was a different place than it had been; I was a different person than I had been. My thoughts wandered to Cape Carolina and to Parker. But I pushed him out of my mind, as I had been doing more and more these past few days.
It distracted me so much that I almost walked right past the Plaza. Abruptly adjusting course, I made my way up the steps and through the revolving gilded door with the pristine Ps. And as I entered the lobby, my eyes fixed on the intricate, gilded ceiling. I passed a giant arrangement of peonies on my way into the Palm Court. I thought I was cool, calm, and collected, but when my eyes met his across the bar, I realized that, sex or no sex, great dates or not, seeing Thad again, here, in what was my town now, felt like a sucker punch. At least he was alone.
When he saw me, he stood up, ever the gentleman—except, of course, when he was sleeping with other people while we were married. He pulled me to him, and I felt his body go limp against mine, the way it used to, even after everything, even after all of it. We weren’t in love. I knew that now. But our bond hadn’t disappeared overnight.
When I finally pulled away, he wiped his eyes, and I realized the shoulder of my top was wet. I climbed up onto my bar stool, and Thad followed suit. He took my hand and said, “I just miss you so much, Amelia. Every day.”
I made eye contact with the bartender and said, “I’ll have whatever you’d make for Eloise if she was all grown-up.”
He laughed, and Thad sniffed and laughed, too.
“I miss you, too, Thad. I really do. I’m angry at you, but I’m happy for you. And I hate going through what we’re going through, but I love you for all the things you taught me about myself.” I paused. Then I finally asked, “Why are we here?”
When Thad had called and said he’d be in New York and asked to meet, I couldn’t imagine why. Our divorce was all but done. The papers would be filed next week. In Florida, they get the job done quickly.
He smiled nervously, which made me nervous. I was grateful a martini glass appeared in front of me with something that tasted like pink lemonade. Cute. This was what a grown-up Eloise would drink for sure.
“First, I wanted to apologize for everything with Kitty that day in our apartment.”
I couldn’t help but smile. “Yeah. What in the world was that?”
He shook his head. “I feel guilty saying that it has been hard for me because I know it has been hard for you. But I didn’t come out. I didn’t plan or prepare for it. I was just sort of pushed out with no warning. My entire life changed in one day, and I wasn’t ready.”
I wanted to say—snarkily—that we were both pushed with no warning, to ask him if he thought my entire life hadn’t changed.
“I wasn’t prepared for Kitty being so upset, and you know I can’t stand it when Kitty is upset.”
I nodded, trying to hide my smile. I had never seen a grown man love his grandmother so much.
“She wanted me to stay married to you,” he went on. “Maybe have Chase on the side. And, at the time, she convinced me that everyone would be happy. Kitty would be happy because I would appear to be what she wanted. You would be happy because we weren’t divorced. Chase would be happy because nothing would change.” He shook his head. “About an hour after you left, I realized how ridiculous that was. Everyone wouldn’t be happy. No one would be.”
I reached over and squeezed his hand. I could tell this was hard for him. “How are things with Kitty now?” I practically whispered. I knew that losing her might be even harder for Thad than losing me.
“She is happy, happy, happy.” He paused and looked at me intently. “Her friends accepted Chase and me right into the fold, and, well, she’s also thrilled because we’re adopting a baby.”
I almost spit out my Eloise martini.
Then he added, “Well, no. Not a baby, probably. Maybe a toddler or a teenager or anything in between. We don’t know.”
I shook my head about a million times. So. Many. Questions. First: “I thought you didn’t want kids. We talked about how we didn’t want kids like a million times. Hell, I wrote an entire New York Times piece about it.”
A reasonable person would have realized that Thad’s being gay was why he left me. But in five seconds flat, I had spiraled down into a place where he had left me because I couldn’t have children. It was ridiculous, obviously. We could have adopted or a million other options. But in that moment, no one on earth could have convinced me otherwise. It irritated me. Hadn’t I made my peace with this like twenty years ago, realized that a biological function didn’t define me?
“I know. I didn’t think I did. But Chase really does, and the more we talked about it, the more I realized that this was a new chapter for me and what I wanted had changed.”
“Well, that’s obvious,” I said more snarkily than I had meant to, but damn. I signaled to the bartender that I needed another. “And Chase? Really? I thought Chase didn’t know we were married. I thought Chase was mad.”
Thad scrunched his nose. “Well, I think Chase was a little bit worried about losing all his clients who were team Amelia.”
“Traitor,” I whispered as the bartender inserted another glass into my hand. We were speaking the same language here. “Unbelievable.”
I felt like I was in the ocean, trying to get out past the breakers, but the waves kept hitting me in the face, knocking me to the sandy ocean floor. Every time I got my bearings and tried to swim again, another one just toppled me.
“Amelia, I didn’t want to hurt you, but I didn’t want you to hear it from someone else.”
I realized I was a teeny-tiny bit drunk. And I suddenly felt incredibly tired. I knew tonight was going to end in a giant emotional scene, and Martin seemed like a better person to fall apart with than Harris, so I texted Harris. I’m not really feeling up to a party tonight. Rain check?
He texted back immediately. I’ll send the car to get you, and we can order in.
That didn’t solve the problem, but I really wanted to see him. Surely I could do that without making any stupid remarks or decisions. Plus, my little double bed in our lipsticked apartment was cute, but Harris’s giant, plush, king-sized mattress with its ten million thread count sheets and remote-control blackout shades and meditative surround sleep sounds were impossible to resist. I put my glass down, looked at the bartender, and said, “Don’t give me any more alcohol, no matter how hard I beg.” He laughed, and a water appeared seconds later.
I looked at Thad. “I’m not sure what I’m supposed to say to you right now.”