Page 32 of Return to Whitmore
“I figured you were busy,” Charlotte said. She didn’t want to tell him she’d been too frightened to look him up because she hadn’t wanted to break her own heart.
“I am busy,” Vincent said. “I’m divorced, by the way. Maybe it’s awkward to tell you like that, but now, it’s out in the open. I need it to be.”
Charlotte’s lips parted. She didn’t want to show how surprised, how thrilled, how out of her mind she was about this. She said, “I’m so sorry,” and tried to mean it.
“Yeah. It sucks,” he said simply. “But it was about five years ago. Water under the bridge.”
“Who did you marry?” she asked, although she’d spent hours looking through the photos she’d found on the internet.
“Her name is Jamie. I think you met her, briefly,” Vincent said, tilting his head as the memory floated between them. “We had a couple of kids. Quinn and Grant. Quinn is nineteen and in college, and Grant is seventeen and on his way out of our lives. He’s a rascal, but I’m going to miss him when he leaves next year.”
Charlotte felt the love Vincent had for his children reflected in his eyes and ached, remembering that she’d wanted him tofeel that way about their children, in the made-of version of their future she’d carried with her for years.
“What about you?” he asked. “Did you ever get married? Kids?”
Charlotte shook her head. “No. I mean, almost. Once.”
Vincent bowed his head in understanding. “You were always a difficult woman to pin down. I imagine you’ve broken so many hearts.”
Not as much as you broke mine, Charlotte thought but didn’t say.
Not long after that, a kitchen staff member sped from the back to tell Vincent there was a minor emergency. Vincent looked annoyed but prepared to handle it. As he got off the stool, he finished his beer and looked Charlotte dead in the eye. “Meet me at our spot tomorrow. I have a day off.”
Charlotte couldn’t believe he was referencing their spot. It was the same place they’d planned to meet the day her mother had dragged her away and over to Italy, the same place where, she was sure, she’d broken his heart.
“Do you remember where it is?” Vincent asked her, raising his eyebrows.
Charlotte felt like she was going to cry. “Of course I remember.”
“Good,” Vincent said. “Noon?”
“I’ll be there,” Charlotte said with a nod.
With that, Vincent disappeared into the kitchen, where the sound of sizzling pans was similar to the cries of an enormous jungle. Charlotte sat in stunned silence, staring down at her half-drunk negroni, wondering how any of this had come to pass. That was when Addison texted her back.
Addison: I don’t need anything from the store. Unless, maybe, there’s fresh-squeezed orange juice? But no worries if there isn’t. See you soon.
It took Charlotte a full minute to remember who Addison was. She felt entrenched in the past, lost in it, so much so that when she came to and remembered she was forty-five, that Jack was missing, that Vincent had two kids and was divorced, she was dizzy. She finished her negroni, left an enormous tip for Steve, and sped out of there.
Chapter Fourteen
April 2004
Charlotte had never imagined she’d feel this in love again. It was a floaty love, a head-in-the-clouds love, a love that tried (and often failed) to negate all the heartache she’d gone through before. But yes, she was twenty-four years old—and she was in love again.
When she’d first agreed to be Ralph’s girlfriend in the spring of 2002, she’d half expected to fall out of love with him by now, or to feel him slowly but purposely abandon her before they could get too serious. (Wasn’t that what happened with Vincent? Wasn’t that what almost all of Kathy’s boyfriends had done to her so far?)
Instead, on April 14th, 2004, she watched as Ralph got down on one knee and asked her the question she’d always imagined Vincent would eventually ask her. “Will you marry me?”
Charlotte gaped at him, her heart pounding, wet winds sweeping through her black hair. When she couldn’t find the word—not a yes or a no—she took his hands and pulled him up.His palms were warm and calloused, and his eyes were soft blue and so kind. She pressed a kiss into his lips and felt in her heart a sturdy knowledge that this man would love and protect her, if she let him. So when their kiss broke, she said yes. He took her in his arms and spun her around as twenty-plus people around them in Central Park cried out, “Congratulations!”
Charlotte could hardly believe it. In her mind, she practiced telling her mother about Ralph, about her engagement, about how normal and happy her life had turned out to be, probably just because she’d taken herself out of the equation of Francesca and Francesca’s demands.
After their engagement, Charlotte and Ralph sped back to Greenwich Village to share the news with “Seth Green,” who, miraculously, still lived with Charlotte and went by a false name. When they came into the apartment and told their news, there was a flash of something like annoyance in Jack’s eyes.He feels like I’m abandoning him, Charlotte thought. But she didn’t want to let on that she understood. She threw her arms around him. “You’re my maid of honor, Ja…” And then she bit her tongue hard, remembering to correct herself. “Seth! Seth, you’re my maid of honor!”
She laughed at the idea of entering into a marriage with such an enormous lie between them. But it wasn’t her secret to share.
Jack poured them drinks and asked them the play-by-play of how it happened.
