Page 76 of This Is How It Started
That’s what I thought. Weird priorities, but whatever.
“How are you?” He still looks like he can use some sleep. Perhaps the chair is his way of working out his and Jess’s breakup, the equivalent of me writing letters in a tree house.
“Other than feeling like an asshole, I’m holding up.”
We both sit on the dining room floor with our backs against the wainscoting. I draw up my legs and rest my elbows on my knees, like the last time we were together. “Hannah is divorcing Stephen.”
“Wow. Yet I can’t say I didn’t see it coming. Stephen’s a dick. What happened?” Campbell scootches closer to me.
I have the sense he already knows and is stringing me along so as not to give away his source. “Did Adam already tell you?”
“Tell me what?” Campbell has no game, so I know he’s telling the truth. No one has told him about Legally Blonde, Harry Asia’s or the Fairmont.
“Nothing, never mind,” I say. “Why do you think Stephen’s a dick? I mean, besides the obvious.”
“Isn’t the obvious enough? He’s so caught up in his own world, half the time he doesn’t know Hannah’s alive. I figured it was just a matter of time before she got sick of it.”
“Or she got sick of him running around.”
“Ah.” Campbell leans the back of his head against the wall. “The plot thickens.”
“The plot thickens.”
“Stephen’s got himself a side dish, huh?”
“It might be a side dish and couple of desserts. But yeah, it kind of looks that way.”
“Tell Hannah I’m sorry.”
“Hannah’s not talking about it, so please keep it just between us.”
“Our secret, then.”
In that moment I consider telling him about Beth. About how betrayed I feel that Josh kept her a secret from me. About all the reasons he should’ve told me. About the lingering questions that still haunt me. Did Josh love her more than me? But I don’t because to say it makes it all the more real, and it’s not how I want to remember Josh and me. It’s not how I want Campbell to remember Josh and me.
“I should go,” I say but don’t move to leave.
“Yeah, I should get back to building my chair.” But like me, he doesn’t stir either.
Instead, we sit on the floor, watching the shadows play across the wall, feeling the way it used to with us. I don’t know if it’s him or me, but one of us tucks our hand into the other’s.
And that’s when he leans over and kisses me. His mouth on me feels at once familiar but also electrifying, bringing back a rush of memories, some happy, some devastating, like the last time he kissed me in the tree house seventeen years ago. His hands cup the back of my head, and he takes the kiss deeper, filling me with a renewed yearning for him, for what we had, for what we gave up. As I lose myself in his arms, I think maybe the yearning is not new, maybe it never went away.
And then I see Josh’s beautiful face and pull away.
Chapter 27
Elijah’s Not Coming
Mom insists that this year we celebrate the first night of Passover. It’s the one Jewish holiday we occasionally observe. Never for the full eight days because no one in the Gold family has the willpower to forgo bread, pizza or pastries for that long. But one night a year we can handle.
Besides, Hannah could use the family time. Stephen has moved out, and they’re seeing a marriage counselor during their “trial”—Stephen’s word, not Hannah’s—separation. Although he’s asked to join us for the seder, Hannah has said no. There’s a reason my father used to call her “Hard-Hearted Hannah” after the Ella Fitzgerald song when we were kids, even before she got a Stanford law degree. I, for one, applaud her steadfastness.
Fuck Stephen and his multitude of blondes.
In any event, it’ll just be the four of us tonight asking Moses to set our people free. And since tradition dictates that the youngest asks the four questions, that responsibility will fall on me.
Adam is at Mom’s when I arrive, stretched out on her living room sofa, watching something on TV. Mom is in the kitchen, making up the seder plate.
