Page 59 of The Fall Back Plan
This time, she smiles. “His father. His father, the state senator, whose father was once the mayor of the fine city of Chicago. His father and mother, who live in Glencoe, the most exclusive suburb of Chicago, in a house worth more than ten of mine, with a pristine view of Lake Michigan.”
I glance around the kitchen. “This was not a cheap house.”
“No, it was not.” Her tone is almost grim, not proud like I might have expected. But then again, I’m still trying to figure out what to expect from this fascinating zigzagger. “Anyway, when you have that kind of political pedigree and that zip code and that job title, you don’t want your only son getting too serious about a girl from nowhere without people of her own.”
“You’ve got people. I’ve been to your bar. I’ve seen it.” It’s easy to tell that Ry or Mary Louise would take a bullet for her, mainly because I saw them both try.
“I have no distinguished ancestors. Certainly not from a respectable Midwestern family that built their wealth during the Industrial Revolution. Anyway, one night Phillip tells me he wants to come over and talk to me. He has flowers delivered, and I get nervous. I think he’s going to propose. I stress over what to wear. How to do my hair. I think, ‘This is a moment for the wedding slide show, better look good.’ Then Phillip comes over to my place, which was half the size of this house but cost way more. And do you think he proposed?”
“I think he did not. Also, I’m sorry I was a massive jerk with my fake-out proposal earlier. You were so worried about a date, and I was trying to make you laugh by taking things to a ridiculous extreme.” Could I have done anything more thoughtless?
She waves off my apology. “It was almost funny.”
“Thanks?”
“At least it didn’t send me into a doom spiral.”
“Fine. I’ll take it. So Phillip comes over and does not propose.”
“He does not. But he comes to tell me that he was going to. According to Phillip, he went to request his grandmother’s ring for the proposal, but instead, he got a lecture. His dad feels I’m not an asset to his son’s ambitions.”
“Please tell me that when Phillip Freaking Horsley said this, you flipped over a table, told him to kiss your assets, and kicked him out.”
She smiles. “I did kick him out.”
“Yes!” I do a fist pump. “And then you realized you were better off without him, and you wouldn’t waste an ounce of emotion on him or on regretting your choices.”
She drops a pat of butter into the skillet where it makes a satisfying sizzle. She keeps an eye on it, but I suspect she’s not seeing it as much as she’s watching a replay of events in her mind. “Yes, no, and no.”
“Meaning?”
She tips the pan this way and that to spread the butter. “Meaning I definitely realized I was better off without him. But I also realized that I’d somehow built my life around him to the point that when we broke up, I didn’t know what to do with myself. I couldn’t think of anyone I could call to hang out with. No one from the office. And all my other ‘friends,’ I knew through Phillip.”
She gives the pan a hard shake, and I feel bad for it.
“I felt like I was waking up from a spell.” She picks up the bowl and brings it to the stove. “He’d done this magic trick of being from a stable family. A respected one, even. They had money and connections, the same house his whole life, a vacation home. A Christmas card list.”
The spatula scrapes softly across the pan as she moves the eggs around, and I decide now is not the time to tell her that she shouldn’t be using a metal spatula on a nonstick pan.
“We broke up, and then, I don’t know.” She shakes her head. “I realized I wanted the stability and the Christmas card family more than I wanted Phillip. I realized I hated my job and didn’t like the people I worked with that much. Too single-minded. I realized I didn’t like my too-modern condo. And worst of all, I didn’t like myself.”
“Jolie.” I know my voice sounds strained, but I can’t help it. “I don’t like hearing you say that. Permission to approach and hug?”
“Stand down, Sheriff. I don’t need a hug.”
ButIneed to hug her. Still, I say only, “Understood. Continue. Does Phillip come slinking back, realizing he’s made the biggest mistake of his life?”
“I wish. But it’s worse.”
I wince.
“Yeah. That about sums up what happens next, which is that after I’ve stewed about it for a couple of days, I gather the few things of his he’s left at my place, like a beanie that always looked stupid on him and a Nintendo Switch. Do you know how pathetic that is? How did I not see that in two years, he was subtly signaling how little he wanted our lives to overlap?”
The pan gets another angry shake.
“I text Phillip to come get his stuff. Phillip does not come over. Phillip’s mother comes over.”
“You’re kidding.”
