Page 59 of One More Time
‘Sometimes,’ she said, closing her eyes as if remembering. When she opened them again, she added, ‘But I had it easier than a lot of people. Brandon is filthy rich, so a lot of thoseconcerns weren’t an issue. You just keep going, right? As a parent. You just keep working and doing and going. Plus, I had a month every summer to work. Write my book, articles, whatever.’
‘You wrote a book?’ he exclaimed, unable to subdue the excitement.
She chuckled darkly. ‘All part of the job. Publish or perish.’ It came out like a groan, and Nicky wondered about it, but didn’t want to push. Not when she was just freely offering up all this good stuff.
‘Can I buy it?’
‘Not on Amazon or anything but—’
Nicky grabbed his phone. ‘Website. Now.’
Lucy laughed and took the phone from him, clicked the browser. ‘It’s boring. Not exactly what I’d hoped. My department chair—’ She stopped herself. ‘Anyway, doesn’t matter, just expect to use it to cure insomnia or as a doorstop.’
She handed the phone back and he saw the book,Pop: American Culture in the 20th Centuryby Lucy McManis. He noticed that the site took Apple Pay and in seconds had it ordered. He made a mental note to get Damon to ship it out to wherever he happened to be when it finally arrived in LA.
Nicky asked, ‘What happened with Sam?’
‘He fell in love with James.’
‘Really?’
‘Yeah. Sam and I were really good friends. He’s bi. I knew it all along. That part wasn’t a surprise or anything.But I thought we were sort of … comfortable. I guess I should have noticed that it wasn’t everything he wanted. Then he fell inbiglove with James. All the trimmings. Honestly, it didn’t hurt that much when it was over. I was happy for him. To get the full package deal.’
‘Very mature of you,’ Nicky said.
‘Or maybe we shouldn’t have gotten married in the first place.’
‘Devin seems like—’ Nicky couldn’t decide how to word it.
Lucy finished, ‘He wants me to be slowly eaten by sharks?’
Nicky laughed. ‘A little?’
‘Yeah.’
‘I caught that. He’s younger, right? Like, thirty-five?’
‘On the nose,’ Lucy replied. ‘We were uh, hot and fast. He’s a jock through and through and it just … fizzled. We had nothing in common. The physical part was there, but everything else was … missing, I guess? It was fun and great and then it wasn’t. It was a terrible idea to get married. His, but still. I knew better. Iknewit. It was dumb of me. A recurring theme, in case you hadn’t picked that up.’
Nicky had never seen a broken marriage – his or anyone else’s – that didn’t have some culpability on both sides. He wondered why she kept putting so much of the blame on herself.
‘Think you’ll ever get married again?’ Nicky asked, grateful that she had her eyes closed and her head tipped toward the ceiling. It was a crazy thing to ask, and he regretted it the second it was hovering there in the air between them.
Lucy laughed. ‘The only way I’ll get married again is accidentally.’
‘How does a person accidentally get married?’ he teased.
Lucy smiled. ‘I don’t know, someone asks “do you want chicken for dinner?” and you say, “I do” and there happens to be a priest there?’
Nicky followed her wild thinking. ‘You’re sightseeing in a church and you stumble through a door and find yourself on the altar just as the guy is saying “do you take this man to be your lawfully wedded husband?”—’
‘And I hear, “did you take a wrong turn, dumbass?”’
‘And answer, “yes.”’
‘Exactly!’ Lucy chuckled. ‘Like that.’
In her laughter, Lucy’s head had migrated from the sofa to his shoulder, and it felt like a gift.
