****
“Hey you.” I stood anxiously on the doorstep in a sort of uncomfortable fidget. I didn’t know what to do with my hands so I shoved them deep into my pockets.
“Hey you!” Her smile was warm and tension eased from my coiled shoulder muscles.
“Would you like to go to dinner with me?”
“Me?”
“Yeah, you.”
“I would love to!”
“Good.”
We took Julia's car and rode in silence the few blocks down the harbor road to the Yacht club. Seemingly endless rows of sailboats, catamarans, yachts and fishing vessels floated on top of the sparkling water. Julia walked beside me up the path and into the dining house.
“I have a reservation under Alexander,” I said to the host, who stood stiffly at a mahogany podium and peered down at an open book sketched in penciled-in names and times.
“Your reservation was for six thirty.” He scowled up at me.
“Yeah, I know. We're only twenty minutes late. Is there anything still available?”
“This way,” he deigned to respond and I marveled at his ability to establish me as the supplicant and himself as lord of the manor. He left his post at the pedestal and opened the door leading to a crowded dining space.
Looking in at the room, I realized immediately that the Yacht club was the wrong place to have brought Julia. I had joined the member’s-only club to ensure privacy for Ava and Max. The diners, and there were many, were all faces I knew, people I had grown up with and friends of my parents who were eager to say hello. Julia and I weaved closely together, her hip and shoulder softly nudging mine, through tightly packed tables. I failed miserably at not making eye contact.
“Ari, how nice to see you!”
“Mr. Tregio, Mrs. Tregio.” I offered a nod and half smile and then skirted past them before they could stop me to talk any further.
“Ari, sweetheart!” My mother’s nosey church friend grabbed hold of my hand when I walked by and she clamped on to me with her old, cold and bony fingers.
“Hello, Ms. Keene.”
“How’s that little boy your mother is always bragging about?”
“He is doing fine, thank you.”
“Getting big?”
“Mmm. Bigger every day.” I have never been a fan of small talk.
“And Ava?” She asked me but looked straight at Julia.
“She’s getting bigger too,” I teased, and Ms. Keene giggled like a girl. “But really, Ava is just fine, thank you. Ms. Keene, you remember Julia.”
“Of course. Hello, dear.” She frowned.
Julia squirmed under her judgmental gaze and offered a little wave.
“I’ll be sure to tell my mother you said hello. Have a nice evening.”
“Try not to have too much fun.” She warned, gave my hand one more cold squeeze and then released me.
At last, Julia and I were seated at a center table near the windows ... like two fish in a glass bowl. The maître d' placed three menus at the table, lit a candle with an overly extravagant flourish and turned after wishing us a lovely evening.
“I take it I wasn’t your first choice for a dinner date,” Julia said, picking up the three menus, handing me one and tossing the extra to the side of the table.
“I’m sorry, Jules. I’m a jerk,” unthinkingly repeating Ava's assessment.
“Nah. I think you are sweet, Ari. Just sometimes … yeah, you’re a real jerk.” She laughed the way my mother does and touched her fingers gently to her mouth.
“Forgive me?”
“Always. I can never be mad at you. Especially when you smile like that. You know that and it really isn’t fair.”
Covering my palm over my mouth I asked, “Is this any better?”
“Not even close.” She batted her lashes. “Your real smile is in your eyes.”
“Mmm, can’t do anything about those.” I winked and regretted it.
She touched her lips again to hide her small laugh.
“So what is it? What’s going on at home?”
“A stupid fight. I don’t want to talk about it.”
“Ok.” She let me off the hook easy. “But you know, stupid fights are my specialty. Rory and I argued about socks this morning.”
“Socks?”
“Don’t ask.” She batted her lashes again.
“Tell me what’s going on with you, Julia. That’s what we need to talk about.”
“Do you think that tonight we can just be friends and talk like old times? Can we keep some topics off limits? I could use a break from all the heavy.”
“Yeah, I’d like that, a lot.”
“So…” she strummed her fingers on the crisp, white linen tabletop, searching for a neutral conversation. “The fashion show! Thank you for getting us tickets.”
“Nah, Rory did that.”
“See! I told you - you lie! You're horrible at it by the way.”
“That bad, huh?”
“You definitely need to work at it.”
“I’ll just stick to the truth then. In Rory’s defense, he did try to get tickets.”
“He’s good at trying, I’ll give him credit for that anyway.”
We fell silent again and Julia fidgeted with the silverware and napkin.
We were saved by our server, an older woman with tight skin but a head full of thick gray hair who looked down at us expectantly. Her lips were overly puffy from a recent Botox session and she covered them with bright red lipstick. “Can I get you two something to drink?”
“Water.”
“Water,” I nodded.
“Ok, two waters it is. Do you need some more time with your menu?”
Julia looked up at me and I waved her on to place her order of shrimp cocktail.
“And for you, Sir?”
“Just the water.”
“Got it.” She frowned and walked away.
“Cha! Ari! You know I hate eating by myself.”
“You aren’t eating by yourself.” I said and crunched a slender, dry and unadorned bread stick.
“You know what I mean.”
“I can’t eat right now. I just needed to get away for a minute. You are the first person I thought of and now all I want to do is fix things with her and…”
“And instead you are stuck here with me at this romantic, candle-lit dinner overlooking the pier that was intended for you, Ava and Max.”
“No…”
“I told you, you really are awful at lying.”
“Cut me some slack, Julie. I'm just trying to spare your feelings.”
“I love it when you call me that.”
“Mmm. I like it too. “Julie” reminds me of when we were younger.”
“My Daddy always called me Julie.”
“I know.”
She spun her bracelet around and around, the diamonds glinted against the water glass and the crystal candle sticks.
“What did you do to yourself?” My chin prodded the air in the direction of her Band-Aide covered wrist.
“This...” She smoothed the peeling corner down, pressing the worn-out adhesive into her skin only for the corner to roll back up as soon as she removed the pressure from her fingertip. “This is a part of the things we aren’t talking about tonight.”
“That little Band-Aide is off limits?”
“Yep. And your argument with Ava is off limits?”
“Yep.”
“So … we cannot talk about the things going on in my life, and we can’t talk about your life. What do we talk about?”
“I have no clue.”
“Gosh, who knew dinner alone would be so hard? We used to talk for hours.”
“Mmm… what happened to us?”
“Ava happened.” She rolled her eyes.
“Don’t,” I warned her angrily and she paled.
“Oh, God. I didn’t mean that, Ari. At least, I didn’t mean it like that. I’m sorry. I just … I meant that it all happened s
o fast -- you had this new girlfriend for a couple months, she went away and then all the sudden she popped back up and boom -- she was your wife and then like two minutes later you had a kid! And twenty seconds after that she’s pregnant! All I am saying is that you’ve been busy. You found your girl and you’ve had a lot going on. You’ve had a lot on your mind these last couple years. You and I just lost touch a little bit. It’s cool. I love Ava. You know I love Ava right?”
I nodded. “You’re fine … and you’re right, I have been busy. I’m sorry.”
“No, don’t be. You don’t owe me anything. You’re allowed to grow up.”
“It did happen pretty fast.”
“Uh, yeah, it did!”
The waitress returned with Julia’s appetizer.
“Thank you.” She offered me a small smile from the corner of her mouth.
“For?”
“For the shrimp,” she said as she dipped one hapless little sea creature into the cocktail sauce. “But mostly for thinking of me first. I like that you came to me. I always turn to you for just about every problem in my life. It’s nice to be needed by you once in a while.”
“I need you,” I admitted and she gave a rare but pretty blush. I regretted my words but I didn’t want to take them back for fear of hurting her feelings. It was the truth. There was something about Julia that I needed, that I would always need. “You’re a good friend to me.”
“I would do anything for you, Ari.”
“I know you would. Can I ask you one off-limit question?”
She dipped another shrimp. “Only one.”
What is going on with you? Why were you with my father the other night? What is under that God forsaken, dirty Band-Aide? Why are you always crying?
“I know Rory proposed to you. Why did you say no?”
She blinked, surprised by my question. “How do you know about that?”
“I heard you two last weekend at my parent’s house. Why did you tell him no, Jules?”
“For a lot of reasons.”
“Give me one.”
Her finger circled the edge of her water glass and she cleared away dribbles of icy condensation as she talked. “He asked me to marry him on the Fourth of July, during the fireworks. It was really beautiful and very unexpected.” She smoothed away more cool droplets from the glass one finger stroke at a time. “He scored a perfect proposal; everything was just exactly how I dreamed it would be ever since I was a little girl. Rory said all the right things. And he had the ring.” Julia looked down at her bare finger.
“Our Grandmother’s ring?”
“Yes.” She nodded shyly.
Very few possessions had been salvaged when my grandparents died and what remained had been divided among our family members. We were each lucky to get one small, tarnished keepsake. My mother, a broken pearl necklace. Lauren, a broach worn on my grandmother’s church coat every Sunday for twenty or more years. Nick, the wallet, worn and tattered, that Cal had forever carried in his back pocket. Rory was honored with the coveted ring that he one day would give to his fiancé. I had wanted the ring for my own girl but wasn’t willing to make the trade. I simply could not part with my grandfather.
“The ring is so pretty,” Julia said and I looked up, noticing immediately that she had started to cry. “It’s too pretty for someone like me. I can’t wear that ring, I don’t deserve it. I would bring too much shame to Elodie. Elodie and Cal would never have approved of me.”
“Julia! Elodie loved you. Why do you think such awful things about yourself? Elodie would be so proud of the fact that Rory chose you. You are a part of this family, Julia. Your father was a part of this family. You wouldn’t bring shame to her. Why do say that?”
“They lived and died for what they believed in. I don’t have Elodie’s respect anymore. I mean, if she were living, she wouldn’t like the person I have become.”
“What have you become?”
“That’s the part I can’t answer. I have lots of reasons not to marry Rory. I love him, Ari. I need to keep him safe.”