Page 14 of My Favorite Bad Decision
Rob, my ex-boyfriend, charmed people, too. We’d met during the single year we’d overlapped at the University of Virginia: my first year of medical school, his final year of his master’s program. It was a year when I shouldn’t have had a spare minute to think about dating, but I couldn’t resist him. He was handsome, sure, but it was quiet strength I liked most. He was friendly to everyone, but he was also the person you’d look to if shit went downhill. If he was a character in a movie, he’d be the general, the captain—the leader who’d inspire you to go out swinging.
Miller’s a lot like that too. How strange that the guy I loathe and one I loved have so much overlap.
I talk to Stacy and Maddie for the first hour of the walk. Twice a year, the Arnaults take a family vacation—usually somewhere sunny and warm. As they describe past family trips, I fight a burst of envy. Not at the trips themselves—I’ve been to most of the places I’d like to see. I envy their cohesion. My parents split when I was small and though they still get along—my mother’s current husband is now best friends with my dad—we never had that traditional family feel. For the most part, when my mother was traveling, she dumped us with my dad, and my father would attempt to take us on a trip and wind up working the whole time while we sat in the kids’ club. One of the things that appealed to me about Blake, right from the start, is how much he wanted to be a hands-on father. Of course, Blake says a lot of things he doesn’t entirely mean, but I’m hoping that wasn’t one of them.
Stacy is telling me about a disastrous cruise they went on when Gerald charges past us. “Chat a little less,” he says, “and walk a little faster.”
“Is it wrong that I’m praying he falls?” Stacy asks.
I laugh. “Not as wrong as me actively planning to make it happen.”
After several hours, we emerge from the rainforest onto the beginning of the Shira Plateau, a distinct dividing line between the rainforest and the drier, more barren moorlands, where Gideon announces we will be taking a break.
I climb onto a boulder and stretch my arms overhead, looking over the grassy plains and the dense treetops below.
There is so muchland, so muchgreen. That this is just a tiny piece of a single country, surrounded by other countries, is a realization that hits me anew.
I’m an ant, one of a million ants, and my contributions will mean very little, if anything. For me, that’s a relief.
For a long time I’ve felt as if I needed to have a very big life—that I needed to have the best clothes and go to the best parties and get a better seat at Fashion Week than other people; that I needed to have a job like my father’s, one that has everyone stopping by our table at Le Cirque to pay homage even though Iloathethe way people stop by our table.
Standing here, I can almost believe it doesn’t matter— that whether I’ve got the best seat at Fashion Week or never attend again won’t make a difference to anyone in a hundred years and probably makes little difference to anyone now. My father is powerful and important, but in fifty years, he’ll be a footnote at best. And if it doesn’t matter...who do I decide to become? Because I doubt I’d remain on the path I’m taking now.
I sit on the boulder, laughing to myself as I recognize these thoughts. Am I about to grow as a person? I really hope not. I don’t want my father to be right about the need for this trip.
“We’re in fucking Africa, man,” says Alex, climbing up beside me. “It’s wild, you know?”
I smile. “Yeah. It’s pretty wild. It’s so…vast.”
It’s a stupid thing to say, but Alex won’t judge me, mostly because he’s not an asshole like Miller. But it’s actually pretty cool that I’m doing this. I’m excited to see the terrain in the days ahead and I can almost picture eventually forgiving my dad.
Alex pulls out a bag of gummy worms and shakes some into my lap. “I know you said you’re not doing sugar, but come on.”
“It was not my best plan,” I reply as I throw a few in my mouth.
I glance over my shoulder to make sure we can’t be overheard. “So, which of you two doesn’t want to go into the cabinetry business with your dad?” I ask, nodding back toward his sister.
He laughs and sighs at once. “Neither of us. Maddie just got into a masters program for social work and I want to get my real estate license, and we’re in a standoff about who tells him we’re jumping ship first.”
Legs appear on the boulder beside mine. Muscular, olive-toned legs. I follow them up to Miller’s scowling face.
“Are you drinking enough?” he demands.
“Miller, I’m twenty-eight, not twelve. You fret over me more than my mother does.”
“That’s setting the bar pretty low,” he grunts in response. “You probably learned to crawl because she kept forgetting to feed you.”
“Shows how much you know,” I reply. “I probably learned to crawl because she was refusing to give me anything but skim milk.”
Alex waits until Miller’s walked away before he raises a brow. “So the two of you really never dated?”
My laughter is equal parts shocked and amused. “What? No. He dated mysister.”
He glances back toward Miller. “Not necessarily a deal breaker for a lot of guys.”
“Well, it’s one for me,” I say firmly. “Especially when the guy in question ishim.”
It’s only later, as we set out again, that I remember the most relevant point wasn’t that Miller dated Maren. It’s that I’m about to marry someone else.
