Page 21 of The Goode Girls of Maple Lane
My frown softens of its own accord. This man is impossible to dislike.
I turn off the TV and pad my way over to the kitchen, which consists of a chipped two-by-two-foot laminate counter, a crappy sink, a two-burner gas range, a compact fridge, and a few serviceable cabinets. It works fine for my purposes, but the lack of space would probably frustrate anyone who actually cooks.
Poking through the items on the counter, I find a baking pan, eggs, flour, sugar, butter, a fancy-looking canister of cocoa, a spatula, a wooden spoon. He brought everything. I don’t even need to provide a saucepan or mixing bowl, which is good because I don’t own any.
Everett steps up beside me while I’m still marveling at his thoroughness.
“You want to measure or mix?” he asks.
I’m not entirely sure what’s happening here, beyond the obvious, but I play along.
“Mix,” I say. “Seems more forgiving for an amateur.”
He nods as if considering this while he sets a saucepan on a burner and hands me a wooden spoon, nudging the ingredients out of the way and pulling up a recipe on his phone.
“So...” He checks the recipe, turns on the burner, unwraps a stick of butter, drops the entire thing into the saucepan, and motions for me to stir, which I do, while the agonizing tension of his unaccompaniedsostretches out between us. “So, when I was a junior in undergrad, here at Cornell, I fell for a girl in one of my marketing classes.” He checks the recipe again while I keep an eye on the melting butter, ignoring a growing knot in my gut. “We started dating and things got serious pretty fast. We bought a condo together after we graduated. It wasn’t large or high-end and it was pretty far out of town due to our budget, but it was cozy, and ours, and it felt like home.” He glances over, notices I’m barely moving, and gestures for me to get more aggressive.
I do, sort of, too distracted to really commit to the task, while he measures sugar as if we’re chatting about the weather and I’m not side-eyeing him like I’m bracing for a bomb to drop.
“We got along great while we were in school,” he continues, still focused on measuring. “But once we moved in together, little things that weren’t so great became a lot harder to ignore. Differences in lifestyles and interests. We both made an effort, tried tocompromise, but by the end of our first year living together, the tensions were palpable. The claustrophobia grew and we started looking for reasons to spend time out of the home. I took on a million projects at work, a choice I’m still digging myself out of. She built a busy social life that didn’t include me.”
I break the softening butter into smaller pieces, watching them bubble and shrink around the edges while waiting with keen anticipation for the next chapter of Everett’s story.
He wrestles with the cocoa canister until it pops open.
“No one cheated,” he says as he measures the cocoa. “No one did anything cruel, deceptive, or unforgivable. We simply stopped working as a couple, finding fulfillment outside the relationship instead of within it.” He sets the cocoa by the sugar, taking a moment to brush off the counter where he spilled a little. “She recognized what was happening before I did, and one night, when I got home from work, she sat me down and told me she wasn’t happy, and she didn’t think I was happy, and it was time for us to reconsider our relationship. It sucked at the time, but in retrospect, I’m really grateful to her.” He sneaks a glance at me as he reaches for the salt. “You know me well enough by now to know I don’t walk away from things easily. I try to save them. She was smart enough to see we’d only end up back in the same place again. So, after a few weeks of hard conversations, I started looking for a new place while she looked for a new roommate, and by the time I moved out, most of the hurt was replaced by a sense of relief.”
He pauses there, and my gut finally unknots while my brain catches up, putting the remaining pieces together, what I know of them anyway. A rented apartment at the other end of the hall. Aconversation that went deeper than I realized about holding on to things. And...
“She was the woman in the hall tonight?” I ask.
He nods as he checks the butter, turns off the burner, and adds the sugar, cocoa, and salt.
“We put the condo up for sale a few months ago. It sold last week. She needed me to sign the papers, and we both thought it would be nicer to do in person. It’s been a while. I had another place for about a year before I moved in here. And Vanessa and I—my ex, obviously—we never stopped caring about each other. It was good to see her. She’s doing really well. New job. New place. A recent trip to Croatia with a bunch of her friends. She also met someone she really likes, though she’s not sure where it’s going yet.” He digs around until he finds the vanilla, which he measures and adds to the saucepan, and which I stir in with the other ingredients.
As I stir, I finally realize why he brought the baking supplies. He’s not fidgeting. I’m not fidgeting. We both have safe places to look and anchor our hands if we need to. And maybe it’s disingenuous to act like we’re busy or distracted while he’s telling me about his ex, but I don’t think so. I think he knows himself, and after only a month, I think he knows me pretty well, too.
“I’m never sure when it’s the right time to bring up old relationships. Too soon and it seems presumptuous. Too late and it feels dishonest.” He opens the egg carton and examines the eggs, but he doesn’t take any out, rotating instead to face me and meet my eyes. “Then I saw your face tonight and realized I waited too long. Or maybe I’m wrong and none of this matters, but in case itdoesmatter, I wanted you to know. I got together with my ex tonight so wecould sell our place, and maybe catch up, but also...” He flicks at the edge of the egg carton, picks at a chip in the counter, and shifts his stance at least three times in as many seconds. “I’ve been single for about a year and a half now and I’m not seeing anyone. So. Just. There it is. What I wanted to say. In case it’s useful information.”
I give up on stirring and set aside the saucepan. There’s a time for distraction and a time for attention, and this is definitely a time for attention, even if that attention involves fidgeting.
“I panicked,” I tell him.
“I had a feeling.”
“That wasn’t a simple good night hug.”
“It was definitely complicated.”
“She’s really beautiful.”
“She is.” He picks at the counter again. “She also loves high-end decor, and thinks houseplants are more hassle than they’re worth, and she’s ruthless about cleanliness, and really particular about her hair, her nails, and her clothes, and she thinks cuddling in front of a movie is boring when she could be out at a club or trying a new restaurant, and none of these are bad things, but relationships aren’t so much about who people are, as who they are together.”
A warm, expansive feeling spreads through my chest as I exhale slowly and the last of the tension in my body eases. What a gift, for him to lay everything out like this, so clearly and candidly. It’s new to me, and unexpected, and I feel like I should offer him something in return.
“Everything you said,” I tell him. “It does matter. And for the reasons you think.”
He bites down the start of a smile as a hint of pink colors his cheeks. “Yeah?”
