Page 62 of Fathers of the Bride
I tried to distract myself by changing the subject. “I should text Kelly that I’m okay. People will be telling her what happened.”
“I’m sure it’s already on the Internet.”
My stomach lurched. The idea that video existed of me being flung into the ocean—Oh my God! Now I really needed to text my daughter. I felt my pockets for my phone. It wasn’t there. I did another search. It still wasn’t—
“I lost my phone,” I said.
“Well, that’s not surprising,” Andy said. “You did a lot of flopping around in the ocean.”
“I was swimming.”
“We can call it that.”
His phone continued to signal him. He was getting texts, emails, phone messages.
“The phone was waterproof,” I said, pointlessly.
“I guess that doesn’t matter if it’s lost somewhere in the Santa Monica Bay.”
“No, I guess it doesn’t.”
Of course, I could have texted my daughter from Andy’s phone, but that raised some uncomfortable questions. What would she think about our being together? And did our being together mean anything? Sure, we kissed, a little. Maybe a lot. But that could be it. He could be just dropping me off at home. He should just drop me off at home.Ishould make sure he’s only dropping me off at home. I’ll call Kelly from the landline the minute I walk in the door, I decided.
“Do you need to answer any of that?” I asked about the dinging in his pocket.
“Um, no, no. I don’t think I need to answer it. I think the only person I want to talk to is here in the car with me.”
“That’s very sweet but, you might be getting an important call.” Yes, I’m that person. The one who can’t listen to a ringing phone without answering it. Not knowing does terrible things to my psyche.
And then, my husband did the most amazing thing. He opened the driver’s side window and threw his phone out into the middle of Santa Monica Boulevard.
I gaped at him for a moment, then said, “You could have just turned it off, you know.”
26
Andrew Lane
“I’ll callBarry in the morning and have him—”
“Garth,” Miles corrected.
“Oh, yes. That’s right. I’ll have Garth send over a couple of new phones. We’re still on a family plan, you know.”
“I didn’t realize.”
Well, of course he didn’t realize. He never saw a bill—but then I never saw any bills either. One of the lovely things about having an accountant is that you just dump whatever bills you receive—unopened—into a large manilla envelope, drop it off twice a month and they pay them for you. It was like magic. Yes, it was your money, but you didn’t have the pain of giving it away yourself.
“I’ll have Garth send over two of the latest phones, ones with all the bells and whistles.”
“Oh God, it took me almost a year to learn the last set of bells and whistles.”
“Well, I can ask for an older phone. One more like the one you had.”
“No, I want the bells and whistles.”
I knew he would.
At Doheny, I turned north, passing the condo I shared with Raj. Since we left the pier, I’d had one thought over and over. He can’t really believe I meant it, can he? Given the circumstances, I felt like I’d had no choice. I was put on the spot, so how else was I supposed to react? I’m sure the whole thing could be solved with a reasonable conversation.
