Page 86 of Love You, Mean It

Yes, I’d resented it atfirst. Leaving New York had been so abrupt, and so tied up with grief over Dad, and the fact that everyone expected it made me bristle—which seemed juvenile inretrospect, but that “If youtellme to do it, I won’t” reaction was hardwired, one of my many genetic inheritances from Mimi.

But Theo had said it just an hour ago, and if I was honest with myself, I’d been starting to realize it before that: having my family around me; having something I could call my own (andmakemy own, if I just bothered to see the possibilities); hell, even just feeling like my design didn’t have to prove anything, like it could be something I loved but which didn’t have to define all of me…thatwaswhat I wanted.

It wasn’t just the rejection that had primed me to leave New York before I got that call from the hospital, it was the sense that I wasn’t wholly myself there. The last few months, I hadn’t even been designing things I liked, I’d just been trying to guess what someone else might want, what would crack the code. It wasn’tfunanymore, it was me being too stubborn to admit that if this was what it looked like to build a career in costuming, it wasn’t what I actually wanted. And the loneliness of the city, feeling invisible to almost everyone around me…some people thrived on that anonymity, but honestly, it felt like every day I faded a little, until one day I’d wake up and realize there wasn’t anymeleft at all, just another trim young woman walking too fast down a city block, filling the empty spaces inside with busyness and expensive tastes and ambition for its own sake, the kind that, by definition, could never be truly satisfied.

I’d told myself I’d been forced to give up what I really wanted, whined about it to my family, not because it wastrue,but because allowing myself to want the life I’d grown up in felt like failure. But how was keeping the one thing alive that connected me to my father every single day a failure? Why did I think that what I’d done to make the deli more modern, more successful, moremewas somehow meaningless? And how would cutting myself off from the place and the people that made me who I was, and meant more to me than anything else on earth, qualify as success? When I’d been in New York, I’d spoken to Ma and Bella almost every day.After I left, I texted half-heartedly with two or three friends for a month, and when the threads fizzled out, all I felt was relief at not having to pretend to care about their dates and promotions, which restaurants they’d snagged seats at and what famous people they’d spotted. Even when I was there, all of that had seemed so hollow.

“Honestly, Bell? I think I’ve been lying to myself.”

“We’ve established that.”

“Not about Theo—about the deli. I don’t need to save it for Ma or Mimi, I need to save it forme. I think…maybe I care more about this than I ever did about costuming.”

“Ohhh…oh man, ofcourse.” I could imagine Bella’s eyes going huge with comprehension.

“Right?”

“Well, in that case, I guess you’re lucky there’s something else you care about.”

“Translation: I’m fucked.”

“Not necessarily…but it’s the actual worst case.”

“So now all I have to do is convince the sensitive man I just annihilated to keep my family business open out of the goodness of his heart.”

“Or you can focus on convincing his ex that you’re fully on her team. Even if you and Sam don’t become besties, it sounds like she wouldn’t renege on a deal.”

“I suppose there’s that.”

“Ellie, I need to sleep, but…are you going to be okay? Not with the deli stuff, with, you know…everything else?” Bella paused. “I know this isn’t what you expected, and I know it hurts right now, but I promise, opening yourself up is agoodthing, even if this is where it ends for you and Theo.”

“We can debate that later. For now, I need to figure out the best way to eat crow.”

“Okay. Keep me posted.”

I was still too antsy to imagine sleeping, so I sat at the sewing table, laying out a fresh sheet of pattern paper with the intention ofdrafting a basic apron design. But before I even put pencil to paper, I paused, superstition pulsing through me—it felt like tempting fate to launch yet another project for the deli right now. Instead, I started tracing an exaggerated bell sleeve, then the gentle swoop of the wide neckline I’d need for the floral dress I’d been playing around with, pausing every few seconds to check a measurement, visualize how two sections might join, imagine the way this shape versus that would look for the shoulders. By the time I had a version I was satisfied with, the anxiety pulsing through me had faded slightly, and the clock told me it was past midnight.

I pulled out a roll of muslin, leaving it on the corner of the work table in an attempt to goad myself to keep going with the dress.

Before I slid in between the sheets, I pulled out my phone and tapped a couple of quick texts.

TO: Little Lord Doucheleroy

I just wanted to say again that I’m really, really sorry

I shouldn’t have said that and I didn’t mean it

But even though I stared at the screen long past the point when it had gone dark, there was no response.

I woke up over an hour before the alarm I’d set, and I’d showered, downed half a pot of coffee, and even finished cutting muslin for the sleeves by the time seven-thirty rolled around. If I didn’t hear from Theo by eight—the time he’d expected to get back to work, even if Paul’s cognac obsession meant it was unlikely the board would be present—I’d call.

I’d spent half the night lying awake, staring at the pebbled ceiling, thinking about what to say. Sorry, obviously and abjectly. Not that it would fix what I’d said. Calling him Ted I could chalk up to anger; telling him the brother whose death had rerouted his entire life would be ashamed of him? That was potentially unforgivable.

Which was why I had to tell him everything. The deal I’d made with Sam, the feelings I was only now acknowledging had been developing, how scared those feelings made me…and how right he was about me. About how deeply, and how long, I’d been lying to myself about who I was and what I wanted. It might not fix anything. For all I knew, it would just make him angrier. But he deserved the truth, at least.

I made it to 7:47. Theo’s phone rang…and rang…and rang…and went to voicemail.

The second time I called we skipped the rings entirely.

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