Page 32 of Dear Ripley

“You too,” Ripley replied, obviously bewildered by the comment.

Mrs. Sylvester chuckled. “No, dear. I meant, you know, with your ex running about the place. Can’t be easy for you.”

Ripley’s “Oh,” sounded like she’d stiffened in the exact same way I had. It was very us—and deeply unfortunate—that we still responded the same way after all these years.

Mrs. Sylvester, however, did not get the hint.

“Yes,” she said, her voice pitched like she thought she was being soothing. “Always shocking when someone comes back after so many years. Especially when they’re looking great, and doing so well.”

I was fairly certain Ripley wanted to kill her. I knew I did. And, while I didn’t think there was much Ripley wanted to team up with me for these days, I thought this might be the exception.

I didn’t usually condone injuring the elderly, but there was a line, and Mrs. Sylvester was really trying to put it in her rearview mirror…

“Chatted with her in Didi’s the other day,” she told a silent Ripley. “Still the same as ever. Doesn’t seem like she’s brought anyone with her, though. No partners to speak of. I knew you’d want to know that, dear.”

“It really makes no difference to me,” Ripley said stiffly.

Mrs. Sylvester laughed. “I know that’s what you have to say, but just between us girls, I don’t think she’s with anyone.”

Mrs. Sylvester really was the worst thing about Jackson Point. And that included an ex-wife who hated me and sent me fuck off flowers.

Why on earth she thought it acceptable to discuss my love life with my ex was beyond me. As was why she thought Ripley was interested. Eight years was a long time. I was pretty certain Ripley’s vested interest in me was long gone.

“It’s really none of my business,” Ripley said, her tone cool and signaling that she wanted the conversation to be over—could Mrs. Sylvester really not hear it?

“Of course it is, dear.” She laughed like it was some shared conspiracy. “Got to keep tabs on the ex. Better to know what they’re doing than to be missing out.”

Wasn’t the entire point of breaking up with someone to miss out on what they were doing? I was certain our divorce had been designed to stop us having tabs on each other. Perhaps Mrs. Sylvester had never gotten that message.

“Alicia is entitled to do whatever she wants. We all know she’s back in town for Harlow—who I’m happy for. She’s not here for me, I’m not here for her, and I really think it’s better for everyone if we all accept that she and I were over a long time ago,” Ripley said. It sounded rehearsed. I wondered whether other people had been bringing up the same topic with her.

Perhaps it was something she’d had to tell people back when I first left. There were a lot of people unhappy with our divorce. I’d fended off my fair share of those talking like we’d just ruined their favorite fairytale, and Ripley had been left here with them. It had been unfair and unrealistic of me to assume they’d stop saying those things once I was gone.

In the moment of quiet that followed her speech, my heart raced. It took me longer than it should have to realize it wasn’t simply because I was hiding in the pasta aisle listening to my ex have the worst conversation she’d probably had all week. It was that sense of connection with her, the comradery of both being in the same divorce, having the same feelings about people bringing it up, and the same feelings about Mrs. Sylvester and her unconscionable nosiness.

It had been a long time since I’d felt so much on the same page with someone. Of course it had to be Ripley that still made me feel that way.

Five years with Gabe and I’d never once felt like that. Even Harlow, who I was often on a similar wavelength with, never felt quite the same way Ripley did.

Getting divorced when it wasn’t a blaze of anger and disappointment was, undoubtedly, the better way to get out, but it really complicated things after. If you left hating each other, there was none of this blurriness, surely?

Mrs. Sylvester cleared her throat as if she was about to spring a gotcha moment on Ripley. “Dear, you haven’t dated anyone since Alicia left you—”

“She didn’tleave me. We decided together to split up,” Ripley replied, anger coloring her tone for the first time. She’d definitely had that conversation more than once—probablywithMrs. Sylvester.

“Potato, potahto.” I could imagine the way she was waving Ripley off and the flash of anger it would cause in Ripley’s eyes. “What’s important is that you haven’t dated anyone else. We all know you’ve just been sitting around, waiting for her to come back to you. And that’s okay, dear. That’s why I’m getting all the info for you.”

It had never occurred to me that Ripley wouldn’t have dated anyone else. A jolt of guilt at having dated Gabe shot through me, like I’d betrayed her and our marriage by seeing someone else when she hadn’t.

I couldn’t help but wonder why she hadn’t, and that made me every bit as bad as Mrs. Sylvester.

“I haven’t needed or wanted to date anyone else,” Ripley said, and her tone absolutely demonstrated that this line was rehearsed. My heart ached for her. “I’ve been building my business, looking after myself, and being perfectly happy single. Thank you very much for your concern.”

She didn’t sound like she wished there had been someone else—but that didn’t mean she wished therehadbeen me either.

The things she said might not mean anything, though. I’d spent the first few years without her telling everyone I was perfectly happy alone. When you said it enough, you got really good at sounding convincing. Say it enough times and you even started convincing yourself, no matter how much the ache deep down inside of you insisted it wasn’t true.

“Are you planning on buying any of that pasta you’re making out with?” Harlow’s voice asked from directly behind me.

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