Page 24 of Right With You
The waiter delivered our drinks and a large molcajete full of guacamole. I held my beer out to her and she grinned, touching the margarita glass to the neck of my bottle.
“To you, for showing up even though you didn’t want to.”
She laughed and shook her head, but took a sip of her drink, so I did the same.
“Alright. I need a little more than just that we’ll meet the family together. I’m guessing you want to act like a couple, right? Like, we’re showing up already engaged?”
I nodded. “Yes. I told my grandfather I was about to get engaged so it won’t seem out of place that’s done. I’ll get you a ring because he won’t believe it otherwise. He’s insisting on bringing the woman he had in mind for me.” I took another sip of my beer, nerves bubbling up with the next thought. “We’ll need to be convincing.”
She crunched on a chip holding a heap of guacamole and chewed, but bobbed her head up and down like this statement didn’t scare her away.
Dieu merci.
“I figured. But, can I ask why you won’t tell him the truth? I don’t mean to sound like I’m judging you for this because I know families can get weird, I just… I want to understand why you’d push through this with someone who is nearly a stranger, rather than be upfront with him.” Her dark brows pinched together, and the concern in her voice rang clear.
Her question might’ve been something I’d prefer to brush off, but she wanted to understand, and if she was actually going to do this, she deserved to.
Plus, a not-small part of me wanted her to know I wasn’t merely lying for lying’s sake. I wasn’t a habitual deceiver, and this was an unusual situation. I’d talked through some of this with Kenny and Stone, but she deserved the details if she was going to do this.
“My grandfather is an exacting person. He’s hard-working and not cruel, but he does expect people around him to toe the line. He wants obedience and loyalty, and I have not given that to him in years.” I took a breath, then a drink before continuing, unsure of how she’d feel about this next part.
“You know I’m not judging you for any of this, right? I mean, I know people say that—no judgment—and it’s basically impossible. So I can’t say I won’teverjudge you in some way, but I’m not currently making a list of your failures. I’m not looking for choices you’ve made that are wrong and tallying them up. I don’t want you to think that.”
A pang of something brutal sank between my ribs at her tone and the gentleness in her eyes. How did anyone meet her gaze and not instantly stumble?
This was a rare quality—this genuine desire to hear and understand someone without instantly evaluating them. Her impulse to reassure me she wasn’t seeing what I viewed as personal failures in the same way was nothing short of generous, to say the least.
I took another swallow of my beer. “Thank you. In that spirit of not judging too harshly, I’ll tell you that I graduated fromlycéeat seventeen and staged my first rebellion. My mother had just died and my father disappeared into his grief.”
“I’m so sorry, Luc,” she said, stretching out a hand toward me before retreating.
The show of empathy brushed against me, alluring and innervating.
With a nod to acknowledge her words, I continued, knowing if I stopped for long, I’d struggle all the more to finish. “All my growing up years, my grandfather’s expectations were clear. We would graduate at the top of our classes, then go to school in the UK or one of a few select prestigious schools in the US, and perhaps tack on a master’s degree, and then come home to France and begin working in the family business. Soon after, we would marry someone advantageous from a list of possible people and from there, live out our days representing and furthering the family name.”
“Sounds inflexible.”
“Very. And I had planned to do as asked, but after my mother died, it all seemed so ridiculous. My father, after a brief period of depressive mourning, had launched off, constantly traveling for months at a time and sailing around the world. Doing outrageous things only super wealthy people did to keep him distracted from the reality that my mother was gone and my grandfather had no sympathy for it. He’d always hated her and hated that my father had chosen a poor American waitress when they met.”
My heart ached saying the words aloud, as though giving voice to them made them matter. As though her job or financial status had anything to do with her value as a human being.
The waiter delivered our plates of food—her chimichanga slathered in queso sauce and my fajitas—and we both picked up our forks. She dug in, and I assembled my first fajita as I continued.
“So in the infinite wisdom of a bitter seventeen-year-old, I went a little wild. I partied and burnt money as fast as I could light it on fire in the dumbest ways, and then, once that only slightly ruffled my grandfather, who seemed to see it as a fleeting phase he could wait out, I flew to Japan and spent a year modeling there.”
Elise coughed right as she was swallowing a gulp of her margarita and slapped a hand over her mouth. After a moment, she managed to get it down and dabbed a napkin across her lips.
“Sorry. I—” She cleared her throat and laughed behind her hand.
“My modeling is that hilarious?” I joked.
Her eyes fluttered shut and only then did I notice the trace of a blush rising to her cheeks. I straightened, deeply curious what was going on in her head.
“No. It’s honestly not a surprise at all, other than maybe why you didn’t make it a whole career. I just… there had been rumors you were a model. But you obviously look like that…” She waved her hand in my direction and her eyes darted around my face. “So. Yeah. Now I know they’re legit.”
I shifted in my seat, trying to identify why she wouldn’t look me in the eye now, and suppressed a grin. Call me a fool for enjoying that this woman found me attractive, but with as opaque as she was, at least there was that. I likely wouldn’t have enjoyed anyone else being frazzled by my appearance, but for some reason, knowing Elise wasn’t entirely immune to me gave me… hope.
What an odd thought.
