Page 82 of The Hanukkah Hoax
They sat there in silence for a few moments, and Marisa tried to parse out what she thought she once knew with what she’d come to learn. Like any form of enlightenment, however, a ton of crap first had to be moved out of the way before one could get to the good stuff.
“You still recorded him,” Marisa reminded her. “Without his consent.”
The glimmer of camaraderie that had seemed to spark between them quickly extinguished. “I did. I had already hit record by the time he sat down, and I didn’t want to draw attention to the fact that I was wearing the glasses by turning them off. But almost immediately into our conversation, I knew I would never do anything with the recording.” She twisted her lips. “He made me realize that it was doing neither of us any good to hold on to my anger. That by doing so, I was only dragging out our bitter ending, instead of cherishing the times early on when I was truly happy. He told me”—she cleared her throat and Marisa felt the urge to look away but didn’t—“he told me to be well, to be happy, and for the first time in so long, I finally wanted to. But my social media manager got to the footage before I had a chance to tell her I’d changed my mind. The rest is . . . regrettable.”
Then she lifted remorse-filled eyes to Marisa, and she was struck by the genuine truth of her words. “I’m so sorry. I know sorry doesn’t fix anything, but I need to tell you regardless. This is not who I am. This is not who the Plant Nanny is. Not anymore, at least. That’s exactly what I told Alec when I spoke to him yesterday.”
“You talked to him?”
She nodded. “Told him everything. Apologized. I needed to clear the air as much as I could, even if it meant pushing all the foul smog of my own making back my way.”
“I, uh, haven’t spoken to him since the Ball.” But the excuse that had once felt powerful and strong, like a true statement piece, now rang hollow in the light of his true involvement.
“You should. He cares about you. I can tell you’re important to him.”
Marisa wanted to believe that, she really did, but she couldn’t ignore the impetus for the secret meeting between him and Phoebe, the one he’d chosen not to include her in, despite her being a central figure in it all. The thought pricked her eyelids, but she was helpless to blink away the memories.
I’m still not important enough to be trusted fully, though.
Marisa tried to bury her thoughts back down, but Phoebe was still talking, pulling her away from the mental dig site.
“ . . . focusing on my New York clientele will be better for me anyway. Jersey’s great, but I have more room to grow in the city. Denser populations and whatnot. Besides, so many of those high rises have restrictions on pets, so people there tend to load up on plants instead.”
“New York? What about Monica’s vendor list? Her referrals are legendary.”
Phoebe wrinkled her nose. “Didn’t get added.”
“No shit,” Marisa breathed, absolutely stunned. “I haven’t heard from Monica. I just assumed she went with you instead. That I had lost.”
“Turns out, we both lost. But hey, this whole situation could be worse,” Phoebe said, a new idea giving a bit of life back to her dull eyes. “We might be people pleasers, but at least we can enjoy good Jersey pizza in the process. Alec’s stuck with whatever passes for Chinese takeout over in England.”
Marisa’s almost-smile faltered, and her heart tripped over itself. “England?”
“Yeah. He flew back a few days ago.”
Chapter 32
The entire drive to her parents’ house, Marisa could barely keep her mind focused on the road. It was only due to pure survival instincts and her car’s muscle memory that she managed to avoid the regularly scheduled potholes riddling the Parkway exit ramp.
Never in a million years could she have expected her encounter with Phoebe to have gone the way it had. It was a jarring thing to have one’s certainties questioned, especially when precedent had done its damnedest to ensure a consistent experience, good or bad.
Nothing about her time with Phoebe had been consistent. Instead, it had been eye-opening on more levels than Marisa was ready to explore. It took a big person to admit when the rival they thought they knew was perhaps more like them than they could have imagined. And sure, did she spend her highway miles replaying all their interactions together and start picking out moments where, had Marisa been paying closer attention, she might have seen how the hurt and fanfare were all just a cover-up for deeply rooted insecurities?
Yes, yes she did. But that wasn’t the only thing playing on repeat as she pulled into her parents’ driveway.
Alec was gone. Not just gone, but across-the-ocean gone. Different-country gone. The reality of it rankled her and sat heavily on her chest with an unease that made it hard to breathe.
He hadn’t truly said those things, those awful, hurtful things that had publicly humiliated her and her business. And she’d not given him the chance to explain himself, to tell her the truth from his mouth directly.
Phoebe, of all people, had been the one to clear the air in that regard instead, and, God, Marisa wished the woman hadn’t busted out the original recording of her and Alec’s bar conversation in front of the coffee shop audience the way she had. After days of not hearing his voice, the brogue came back to claim Marisa’s heart all over again.
“She’s not your girlfriend.”
“No, she’s not. I mean, she is, now, I think, but wasn’t before, though even that doesn’t sound at all fair.”
“What is she, Alec? It’s a simple question.”
“She’s . . . she’s mine.”
