Page 56 of Rebound With Me
I let out an involuntary sigh. “I’m great! One second!” I blow my nose and flush the Kleenex down the toilet to get rid of the evidence. I splash cold water into my eyes, dab them dry with a hand towel.
“You can do this,” I say to my reflection, before unlocking the door.
Before I can step out into the hallway, Vince guides me back inside the bathroom and shuts the door. He hugs me and kisses my neck.
“Hi.”
“Hi.”
“Sorry if they’re a little too intense.”
“Oh my God no—your family is wonderful.”
“Are you upset that I didn’t tell them about how we know each other?”
“No. God no. I get it. That’s basically what I told my parents too.”
“Okay. Because honestly, I barely even remember how we met. It feels like we’ve known each other forever.” He pulls away from the hug and says: “Okay that was literally the cheesiest thing I’ve ever said. I just threw up in my mouth a little. I don’t even blame you if that grosses you out.”
I grab his face and kiss him so hard, neither of us can breathe.
If it’s a mistake to fall for him like this, then it’s the best fucking mistake I have ever made.
* * *
After dinner, Vince drove me home and gave me my gift: two record albums (Joni Mitchell’sBlueandCourt and Spark) and a beautiful vintage record player. He said it was making him nuts that I just listened to Spotify on my phone.
He went back to his dad’s place to stay with Charlie while Neil spent the night at Sharon’s, and I listened to “Help Me” and “A Case of You” over and over until I fell asleep crying.
This morning I woke up to a call from him, asking me if I wanted to meet him in an hour at the Transit Garden, which is not far from where I live. It’s a private community garden that I’ve always been curious about, and it turns out the Devlins are members and they have a memorial planter there in honor of Colette Parks.
He said he was going to stop by there to water the plants on the way to a meeting.
I managed to tell him I’d join him without bursting into tears on the phone. It just feels like such a significant thing for him to invite me to—but it may be no different from all the other things he’s called me up to ask me to meet him for.
Regardless, I show up with a small lavender plant that I got at my favorite garden center in Boerum Hill. When I tell him I was hoping there’d be room for it in their planter, he makes a little guttural noise and says, “Thanks, that’s sweet. She loved lavender.” He smells the plant. “Yeah, she loved this stuff.” His eyes are pink-rimmed. I’m a jerk for loving that, but I’ve made him blush and get pink-eyed within twenty-four hours—I don’t want to push it.
The garden is lovely. Surrounded by a brick wall and metal fence, it’s a rustic little private oasis in the middle of Carroll Gardens. Vince is dressed for work, so I offer to do the planting and watering. They have a raised planter box with sunflowers and geraniums and marigolds.
As I’m tucking the plant into the soil, something occurs to me. “She’s not actually…in here, right? Her ashes?”
“No. She’s buried at Green-Wood. She just loved plants, so we got this for her.”
I wait for him to offer more information.
Finally, after a lengthy silence, all he says is: “She had cancer. For like a year. It sucked. It seemed like she was getting better, but then all of a sudden she just…”
“Oh, Vince.” I wipe my dirty hand on my jeans before reaching out to touch his arm. “I’m so sorry.”
“I had a hard time dealing with it. But she was just the best.” He looks at me as though he’s going to say something else, but he doesn’t. He suddenly retreats into some place that I’m not a part of, and I let him. I spend more time dusting dirt off of leaves than I need to, until he says: “You want to come with me to grab a coffee on my way? I gotta be someplace in twenty.”
“Sure.”
We hold hands on the way to the coffee place, even though he talks on the phone to Eve about some deal they’re closing for most of the way.
“You got big plans for today?” he asks, opening the door and not looking at me.
“I’m meeting Marnie for lunch and then I’m going to catch up on a bunch of professional guides and education blogs and start planning next year’s curriculum.”
