“It’s not an act.” I swirled the meat in the butter, cocking an eyebrow at him, then tossed the crab into my mouth.
Ford leaned forward, his eyes turning into a pair of smoldering embers. “What have I ever done to you, Clara Belle, besides look after you?”
I stopped chewing and had to resist the urge to pick up the largest crab leg I could and beat him over the head with it. Instead I grabbed the crab leg in question and broke it in half. “Gee whiz, I don’t know, Ford. What ever could you have done to me . . .?” I tapped my chin before breaking another part of the leg in half. “Oh, that’s right. You were fucking my sister behind my back.”
He threw his head back and groaned. “For the thousandth time, we were taking a break. How many times are you going to nail me to a cross for it? I’m marrying her, aren’t I? Charlotte and I make a hell of a lot more sense than you and I ever did. At least she appreciates what she’s got instead of pining after what she once had.”
I felt as if my body temperature had just jumped ten degrees. I could almost feel my head sweltering. “I guess your and my definition of taking a break is different because, see, my definition includes not climbing into your little brother’s bed less than seventy-two hours after said break went into effect.” I shot out of my chair and waved what was left of the massacred crab leg at him. “And you’re right, you and Charlotte do make sense. So much sense it’s staggering. You two truly are made for each other.”
Ford’s face went blank before it morphed into something that looked like hurt. I didn’t know why I was being so mean tonight. I was a better person than popping off nasty comment after nasty comment. Why was I getting caught up in it now?
While I stared at my plate of crab legs looking for an answer, Ford loosened his tie and sighed. “Listen, I’m sorry for the ways things went down. If I could, I’d go back and change how it happened because you’re right, you didn’t deserve that and it was a shitty thing for me to do . . .” His eyes narrowed on some distant spot in the water. “I guess I just got tired of playing second-string.”
I wanted to deny what he’d just said, but I couldn’t. It would have been as real a lie as ever there had been.
“He left you when you needed him most, and I spent two years with a woman who was still hung up on the guy who’d bailed on her. I spent two years trying to prove to her I had her back and wouldn’t bow out when things got tough. I spent two years flying across the country trying to prove that to her. I guess I was young and stupid and believed that with enough time, you’d come around.” Ford pulled at his tie again, undoing his collar button as well. “I got tired of pretending I wasn’t walking in Boone Cavanaugh’s shadow. I got tired of waiting to see if you could ever love me the way you’d loved him. I know I went about everything all wrong—with your sister, when we’d only just taken a break—but I did love you, Clara Belle. Some part of me always will.”
My eyes lifted from the crab to Ford. He was still focused on that distant spot in the night, taking another drink from his flask, but I caught a glimpse of the Ford I’d leaned on for support when Boone had left. The solid, unwavering Ford who would be at my side in a moment’s notice and was on-call twenty-four hours a day if I needed him. He’d made his share of fuck-ups . . . but so had I. Maybe it was time to let go of the grudge and move on. Maybe it was time to accept not everyone in the world was out to hurt me, and that sometimes timing and poor decisions were more to blame than a person intentionally setting out to hurt me.
“I’m sorry.” I shoved the plate of crab away and sat back into my chair. “I sound like a bitter, scorned woman, but that’s not really how I feel, nor do I not want you and Charlotte to live happily never after. It’s just that this damn place and these damn people bring out the worst in me. I’m happy for you two, and I wish you both the very best. Truly.” I scooted my chair away from the table and stood. Enough fresh air for one night. The stuffy, air-conditioned kind inside the restaurant seemed like a better option than carrying on this awkward conversation with Ford. “Just ignore the bitter girl in the giant peach frock.”
I backed away from the table in the direction of the door. Right after saying I was sorry, something started to lighten up inside me. Almost like I was being pumped up with oxygen and about to float away. I’m sorry . . . two words that were more therapeutic than I could have guessed. Maybe I should give them another go with someone else I’d offended tonight, just to see what happened.
“You forgot your crab legs.” Ford smiled as he swept his arm across the table. “And your drink.”
“All yours,” I replied as I pulled open the door. “Thanks again for the talk, Ford. It was . . . nice.”
His smile stayed in place. “It was . . . nice. Let’s do it again sometime soon, okay?”
When he lifted his brows, his smile shifting so it wasn’t so straight, I shot him a wave and disappeared inside. Too much was going on tonight for me to commit any time to deciphering Ford’s looks and the meanings behind those looks.
I’d barely made it a few steps inside before Charlotte shot toward me out of thin air, looking as flustered as she ever got. “Have you seen Ford? I can’t find him anywhere.” Even her voice gave away that she was stressed. Every other second, her head twisted from side to side, scanning the restaurant for him.
“Yeah, he’s right outside.” I threw my thumb over my shoulder.
Her eyes cut to the door. “Where did you just come from?”
I threw my thumb over my shoulder again. “Outside,” I said slowly, because she seemed like she was having a tough time processing things. “That’s why I know where he is.”
Charlotte’s eyes darted to mine. “You two were out there together?” she half-shrieked. “Alone? For how long? Why? What were you doing?”
At first I didn’t understand why she seemed so frantic her head was about to spin, but it didn’t take me long to understand why she was looking between Ford and me like we’d just been up to no good behind her back.
Charlotte might have been the one who’d cheated with him, but now she was committing her life to a man who was a known cheater. She’d probably spend their entire marriage wondering if that glint in his eyes was sparked by some other woman. She’d spend the rest of their relationship wondering if he’d do the same to her as he’d done to me.
For the first time in a long time, I pitied my sister. She might have been shallow and scornful and had only maybe one or two kind bones in her body, but she didn’t deserve to live in that kind of doubt. I couldn’t imagine what that would feel like.
“Charlotte, it’s okay.” I patted her arm a few times and tipped my head at Ford. “He’s all yours. I promise.”
She watched me for a minute, looking into my eyes like she was searching for the smallest fragment of a lie. When she seemed appeased, she let out a breath and moved around me. “Thanks for letting me know, Clara Belle.” Her voice was stiff, and I knew from her inability to look at me that her words held more than one meaning. “And I’m sorry about the dress. You know . . . for the zipper breaking and everything.”
She was still unable to look at me, and when she bit her lip, I knew there was also more to her apology for the dress than just for the zipper breaking.
Were Charlotte and I hinting around burying the hatchet? Was that even possible?
Before I could clarify it or consider it further, she rushed through the door toward her fiancé, who looked like he’d taken it upon himself to not let the drink he’d brought me go to waste.
As I moved through the restaurant, I didn’t get nearly as many stares and points as before. People had either gotten used to The Thing or were too tipsy to notice or care. From the way couples were swaying and shouting on the dance floor, I guessed their nonchalance might have had more to do with the latter.
I didn’t have to search the room too long for Boone. He was easy to find. Easy because he was the only person in the whole place who was sitting alone. Even the few tables around his h
ad been vacated, like he was carrying the bubonic plague or something. Seeing him shunned all over again by the same people who’d done it to him years ago made something in my chest tighten. I knew for a fact, several instances aside, that he was the best person in the place.
From across the room, I noticed my mom and dad wave at me, motioning me over. I wasn’t sure if they wanted to introduce me to some new acquaintances or some old ones, or just keep me away from Boone liked they’d tried to do for years, but I continued toward Boone. Nothing seemed more important at that moment than apologizing to him.
His back was to me, and he looked totally preoccupied with eating his dinner, but when I got within a few yards of him, his whole back stiffened. He had the same sixth sense with me as I had with him. He twisted in his seat slowly as I finished approaching him. He looked tired again, exhausted like when I’d first seen him last night in the bar.
The moment his eyes met mine, I spewed, “I’m sorry.”
At the same instant, he opened his mouth and said, “I’m sorry.”
A moment of surprise passed between us before we both smiled.
“I think I got mine out like a whole tenth of a second faster,” I said.
“Yeah, but I think I hit just the right balance of sincere meets apologetic, so let’s call it even.” He scooted out the chair beside him and motioned at it. “If you’re not scared to sit with the leper in the room, please.”
“Since when have I been scared of sitting next to you?” I brushed his shoulder with my hand on my way to the chair. He was still tense.
“Since never,” he said, resting his fork and knife on his plate. “And that’s what I always loved about you, Clara, or what’s made you so special to me. You didn’t care what anyone thought because you wanted to sit by me, or wanted to be my friend, or wanted to be my girlfriend. You had my back when everyone else was taking stabs at it, and I’m sorry I forgot that when I went off on you tonight. I know you’re not concerned with things like keeping to one’s own kind or not seeing someone who’s supposedly below or above you, so I’m sorry for accusing you of that earlier. Like I said this morning”—he thrust his thumb into his chest—“I’m a prick.”
I took a drink from the water glass in front of me, which had remained untouched tonight. Along with the other nine glasses circling the table. “No, you’re not a prick. At least not all the time. Just some of it.”
He shot me a disparaging smile before shoving a plate toward me. “I got you some crab legs. You know, as a kind of peace offering if you made your way over.” Then he scooted a not-so-small bowl beside the plate. “And I didn’t forget the butter, because I still remember the way your mouth dropped when I forgot it the first time.”
I studied the plate of crab and the bowl of butter in front of me. Something so simple, but it meant so much more given the context. Boone had been thinking about me, remembering what I liked and how I liked it. Fresh on the heels of an argument, he’d still thought to save me some food in the event I missed out.
I felt something tighten around my throat. Something that wasn’t the dreaded collar of The Thing. Something that felt a lot like an emotion I hadn’t felt in years, and one I wasn’t eager to feel again for the man who’d left me without an explanation.
“What are you doing over here all by yourself? Is it by choice or by circumstance?” I asked as he slid a drink in front of me too.
This one wasn’t a mojito like what Ford had brought me. I hated mojitos. Had Ford thought about it or asked me, he might have remembered, but Boone had remembered one of my favorite drinks from when I was a kid. It was my favorite even as an adult—Sprite with a splash of grenadine and two cherries.
“Both,” he answered, waving toward my dad, who was trying very hard to ignore the two of us sitting together. “You know, there’s that whole issue of your family hating me and me not feeling so fondly about them. Then there’s that whole thing about them holding onto a grudge better than they do the past, and let’s face it, when it comes to you and me, there’s no shortage of topics to hold grudges on, especially from a father’s perspective.”
I was in the middle of taking a sip of my drink when I shook my head. “Please, Boone. I can’t go back there. I can’t keep kicking at it.” I set the drink down, my eyes squeezing shut as I fought to keep the memories where they belonged—locked away. “I know it’s asking a lot, and given what happened between us, I know I don’t have a right to ask . . . but how would you feel about killing the past when it comes to you and me?” I forced myself to open my eyes and get on with the present, instead of fighting the past. When I did, I found Boone’s face looked similar to the way I guessed mine did—tortured. “I’m not sure I can get through the next five days with my family clinging to it in every conversation like we know they will. If we could check our baggage at the door and pretend we’ve just met and from this moment on is the only history we have, it would make things a lot easier.”
Boone searched my face for a moment, then he searched the room. Whatever he was looking for in these places, he seemed to find neither. “Are you asking or telling?”
“Asking.”
He nodded to himself, and when his eyes drifted back my way, there was something new in them. Something I didn’t recognize. This time when he searched my face, he seemed to find whatever answers he was looking for.
“Then yes,” he said with another firm nod. “Consider the past erased, history wiped clean. There’s nothing between us except this moment on, Clara. How does that sound?”
Suddenly I found myself wanting to backtrack. I wondered if I’d made a mistake. Most of Boone’s and my past was paved with the kinds of memories most people only dreamed existed, but there were plenty of the other kind too. Did I really want to let go of the good for the sake of easing up on a little, or even a lot, of the pain? Should the bad, instead of the good, dictate the past? Shouldn’t it be the other way around?
Suddenly I wasn’t so sure what I was saying. Or suggesting.
“I don’t want you to think it’s because I regret the past or regret you or us or anything like that . . .” I twisted in my seat to face him. The dress’s seams stretched from the movement. Too many crab legs.
Boone gave me a sad smile. “I know. It’s just too painful. Sometimes you have to know when to let go.” His hand lifted to my cheek and formed around it carefully, like he wasn’t sure how to touch me anymore, or if he even should. When his eyes locked onto mine, they mirrored his smile, then his hand fell away from my face. “Consider this our unified letting-go moment.”
For one brief moment, I felt lighter, as if a burden had been lifted from my back. A moment later, I felt something heavier press down upon me. Something that felt more crippling than the weight of the past. Something that felt a lot like regret.
Boone tugged at his bow tie for the who-knows-how-many’th time that day and pretended to get back to his meal. All he did was shuffle piles of seafood from one spot to another; not a single bite made it to his mouth. “So this business of yours . . . there’s quite a buzz in Charleston’s upper echelon circle about it.” Boone waved his fork at my father and his silver-haired, cigar-wielding counterparts. “What’s the deal, Clara? I thought you were against all of that capitalist, bottom-line, going-public, high-profits-no-ethics style of making money. Are these expansion rumors true? Is world domination in the five-year plan for your business and, by the way, what exactly is your business?”
I pinched at the waist of The Thing in the hopes it would give a little. My stomach felt like it had been steam-rolled and vacuum-packed inside a sheet of rubber. “I’m sorry, Boone, but I can’t do the future tonight either. Tomorrow, yes, but tonight . . .”
I scanned the room. Everyone was trying hard, or trying not so hard, to not make it obvious they were talking about Boone and me, enlightening those who didn’t know what had happened between us or speculating about what would happen between us now. I felt a hundred eyes on me, and none of them
felt particularly kind or accepting.
“Tonight, I can barely make it through the here and now.” I reached for my drink and sucked the rest of it down. I dug out the cherries when I was done and popped one into my mouth and held out the other for Boone.
He bit it right off the stem I was still holding. For some reason, I felt something contract around my navel when he did that. Something that wasn’t due to The Thing.
“Oh-kay, so what do you want to talk about or do now?” he said, chewing on the cherry before swallowing it. “If you want to do or talk about anything.”
I found myself eyeing the dance floor. It was empty again. A big shining floor for couples to dance, a live band playing sounds meant to move one’s body, and enough food and drink to make the most ornery of people merry . . . and not a single soul was out there. Not even the bride- and groom-to-be, who were still outside from what I could see, flailing their arms and making faces that didn’t lead one to believe they were playing charades.
“Let’s do what we always used to,” I said abruptly, shimmying out of my seat as fast as I could without ripping open a seam. I reached for his arm and gave it a tug.
“What was that?” he asked, not needing a lot of encouragement to go along with me.
I kept my hand wrapped around his wrist and pulled him toward the dance floor. From across the room, I felt my parents watching the two of us like they were watching history repeat itself. Like they were already scheming how to mitigate this scandal and keep the fallout a secret from the rest of the world. Who they’d have to bribe, threaten or owe a favor to in order to keep their daughter’s reputation in pristine condition.
I picked up my pace, as difficult as that was with The Thing suctioned to my body. I didn’t stop until we were in the center of the dance floor, where everyone in the restaurant would have a good view of us. The oldest Abbott daughter, stuffed inside a dress that had been in fashion three decades ago and was two sizes too small, standing with the infamous Boone Cavanaugh, who came from a family that was the proverbial gum on the bottom of these people’s shoes, who was dressed like he’d spent the afternoon skipping through a field and shooting a commercial for some sit-com about escaped mental patients.