Page 81 of My Favorite Lost Cause
“Charlie, we danced at the Graves mansion just like Margaret and William did. You kissed me just the way William kissed Margaret when he told her not to marry George. You went and got the puppies back from Harvey; William went and got the broach back from George. Margaret used to watch William exercising in the yard, and I used to stare at you doing push-ups?—”
He laughs. “You still stare, but who could blame you?”
I ignore this. “You see my point, though.”
“This is why hot girls are a menace,” he replies. “Because if youweren’thot, I’d think everything you’re saying was pretty weird. But youarehot, and therefore, it’s simply quirky and sort of adorable. Rich men always wind up raising kids who decide to go into shit like performance art, and you know why? Because they got seduced into breeding with a weird girl they found adorable.”
It’s so deeply insulting, but I’m fighting a smile.
“So in this scenario, you’re the smart man, and I’m the weird girl who’s destroying your potential offspring?”
“We’re not passing our combined genes on, so it’s not an issue,” he replies. “But yes.”
On Thursday,I leave for New York to meet the ad director. At my mother’s urging, I’ve agreed to stay for the weekend.
Charlie drives me to Charleston and never says a word about where things stand, or who I’ll be seeing during my time in the city. Maybe he’s looking forward to the break from me and has had his fill—he seems to hit that point pretty quickly with most females, and it’s not as if we have any kind of agreement. For all I know he could be off to Smokies tonight to chat up the bartender with the teeth. I hope that he won’t, but I’ve been wrong about people before.
Like the last guy I married.
He pulls in front of the terminal and we both climb out of the car. He meets me curbside and hands me my bag.
“So,” I begin. And then I say nothing because there’s nothing I can say and also too much to be said.
“So,” he replies. “I’m not going to later find out you were hanging out with Andrew, right?”
I grin. He found a way to introduce the topic, thank God. “I don’t know. Do I need to warn you about the bartender with the teeth?”
“Maren, I was never interested in the bartender with the teeth.”
“You said she was pretty.”
“She wears that Pink Floyd T-shirt all the time,” he says. “A, I hate Pink Floyd. B, I bet she can’t name a single song by them. She’s just wearing it because it’s trendy.”
I laugh. “That’s incredibly picky, Charlie.”
“Do you want me to belesspicky?” he asks, wrapping his hands around my hips.
What a ridiculous, roundabout way to discuss exclusivity without ever having to say it aloud. Because if wedidsay it aloud, we’d both be forced to recognize how pointless it is when this isn’t going to last.
“No.” I’m not entirely able to meet his eye. “I don’t want you to be less picky.”
His lips press to mine. “Maren,” he says. “No matter how picky or not picky I am, there isn’t a chance I’ll be doing anything except waiting for you to come back to me.”
I’m flooded with relief, my heart soaring high. We can’t come to anything, but it’s enough that he’s mine right now.
Kitand I are in my mother’s large, lovely kitchen, seated at the hundred-thousand-dollar lava stone table while my mother paces, wineglass in hand, telling Kit why she can’t have fewer than four hundred wedding guests.
“Do you want to tell her, Maren,” Kit says, “or should I?”
“Mom,” I say, “Kit is rebellious by nature and Miller will do anything she asks because he’s so sickeningly whipped, so if you keep pushing her, she’ll just elope, and you’ll be lucky if you ever meet your grandchildren.”
“You wouldn’t dare,” my mother gasps, sloshing wine from her glass as she rounds on Kit.
Kit looks up with one brow raised. “What have I ever done to make you believe that, Mom?” she asks. “Plus, I’m returning to medical school, my fiancé’s in the middle of starting a new company, and I hate most of the people you would want to invite anyway, so I already have all the inducement I need to elope, and you trying to get me to agree to your flower selectionand some crazy seven-color dream board you’ve created—entirely in colors I hate, I should add—is exactly what will send me over the edge.”
My mother’s hands go to her hips. “Teal and chocolate brown are this season’s black!”
“I wouldn’t want to get married in black either,” Kit replies. “Call me crazy.”
