Annabelle

Per-fect

Everyone needs a little struggle in her life because, when it’s all said and done, it’s the struggle that makes you strong. As I lay in bed that night after a beautiful dinner at the very upscale Chesca’s, hearing D-daddy’s snores through the doors of our adjoining rooms, I couldn’t help but wonder if maybe Lovey was a little too old to have to struggle now, if she wasn’t strong enough already. Maybe it was that she was so practiced at the life she was leading now, but she acted as if this horrible time seeing her husband in decline was business as usual. I was just his granddaughter, and, watching a nurse butter his bread and feed it to him, seeing the stares of the other patrons as she cut his meat, it took away part of that essence of D-daddy, that strength that he had, the way you knew he would always be there to protect you. Her entire world had collapsed in an instant, taking away the man that she had loved for a lifetime.

My mom and aunts, they whispered when she was out of earshot that she’d never move into assisted living. She talked a big game, they’d say, but, at the end of the day, she couldn’t part with all her things. And, while we all agreed that that level of security would probably be nice for her, I felt like maybe she’d had enough change, that having the strength to live the life she was living and still hold her head high was enough to have to deal with without having to pare down all her worldly possessions and move somewhere new.

On our walk back to the Harbor View after dinner, I had said, “I don’t know how you do it, Lovey. Taking care of him all day, every day must take an incredible toll on you. Traveling with him, taking him out to eat all the time . . .”

She had just shrugged. “I’m not going to hide him away like some sort of shameful secret. He might be an invalid, but he isn’t dead.”

She stood up a little straighter.

My heart ached to remember that Ben was thirteen years older than I, and that, chances were, I was going to be facing this same fate one day. I exhaled deeply and heard Ben’s voice in my ear: You can’t worry so much, TL. Today is all we really have.

I smiled and let myself go back to that wonderful night that changed my world forever.

After I’d slammed Holden’s car door during the epic cruise-control argument, I didn’t know things were over between us. But he wasn’t the kind of man who would come after me when we were fighting. So I didn’t waste my time looking out the window or dreaming of hearing footsteps on the concrete stairs up to my third-floor condo. As I picked up the phone to call my best friend Cameron to see if she wanted to go out, I realized it: I didn’t care if I ever saw Holden again. I wasn’t angry. I just really, truly didn’t care. Had I ever loved him? I guess we always ask ourselves that question in the aftermath of what we think will be the rest of our lives.

Cameron answered the phone breathlessly, “You have to go out with me tonight!”

“I was planning on it.”

As Cameron told me that this sexy guitarist whose YouTube videos she had helped go viral was playing at a tiny bar that night, it hit me that, though I was nearly positive I would marry him anyway, I had no real feelings left for Holden. But the thought of the calligrapher three-quarters of the way through addressing those engraved invitations was too much for me to take. The humiliation of having to send those Save the Date follow-up cards saying, We regret to inform you that the wedding of Annabelle and Holden will no longer take place was more than I could stomach.

“Whatever you want,” I heard myself telling Cameron. “But you have to pick me up because I’m going to be in a condition tonight that you haven’t seen since freshman year.”

I realized how out of place I was going to look in the bar wearing the pink seersucker Lilly Pulitzer dress that Holden’s mom had bought. It was entirely too prissy for me, much too “Sure, I’ll stay home and iron your underwear, sweetheart.” That dress looked like the woman Holden should marry.

I slid into the passenger side of Cameron’s Camry (or CAM’SCAM, as her license plate said) and laughed at her getup. Frayed jeans that looked like she’d had them twenty years, a faded T-shirt with the armholes cut off and a deep V torn, a bandana wrapped around her head, and one feather earring. “Is this some sort of costume night?” I asked.

She looked back at me. “I don’t know, pink princess. Is it?”

“I was trying to look like Holden’s fiancée.”

“And I’m trying to look like Ben Hampton’s.”

I nodded. “Can we smoke?”

She raised her eyebrows. “You haven’t smoked in like a year. What about your fresh baby-making eggs?”

I groaned. “I know this is what I’ve planned since we were in kindergarten, but I feel like my life is going to end the day I walk down that aisle.”

Cameron handed me a lit cigarette. “Duh. That’s why I’m single.” She smiled. “That, and that Ben Hampton is my soul mate.” She sighed deeply. “We’ll probably never marry, just pledge our lives to each other like Brad and Angelina.”

I rolled my eyes. “Maybe you can wear vials of each other’s blood around your necks too.”

She sighed wistfully. “Maybe.” Then she cut her eyes. “But you are aware that that was with Billy Bob, right?”

“I get People, Cameron. Of course I know that. But clearly your subscription isn’t up to date.”

“What do you mean?”

I laughed. “Brad and Angelina got married.”

“No. Are you serious? That is so annoying.”

“Yeah. Like forever ago.” I gave her my best faux-supportive smile and patted her hand. “Listen, am I crazy to marry Holden? I mean, is my life going to be the most boring thing imaginable?”

“Holden is . . .” Cameron paused. “He’s dependable. He’s predictable. He’ll never let you down. He’ll never cheat on you. He’ll always have his secretary buy you something amazing from Cartier for your birthday. I mean, he’s kind of that guy that is great husband material.” She paused again, and looked at me as we pulled into the parking lot. “But, damn, Annabelle. You’re twenty-two years old. And you’re the most amazing girl I know. You just deserve more than that.”

I put my hand on the door handle. “This is going to be the worst thing anyone has ever said, but I think I just feel like, with Holden, I don’t have high expectations for how my life is going to be. So if it turns out to be basically boring but easy, I’ll never be disappointed.”

Cameron put her head on the steering wheel. “Listen to yourself. You don’t marry ‘basically boring,’ Annabelle. You marry ‘can’t live without.’ You marry ‘heart racing through your chest and feet lifting off the ground and want to rip each other’s clothes off.’ I mean, yeah. You have to be able to get along and have similar values and blah, blah, blah. But how could you possibly get through life without that passion?”

I looked at her for a long minute. And, not for the first time, I envied Cameron. She was so self-assured. She always knew exactly what she wanted. And, lately, now that college was over and I was supposedly an adult, I felt sort of lost. I didn’t know what I wanted to do with my life. But I knew that life with Holden was something I was supposed to want. I sighed. I didn’t want to talk about it, so, instead, I said, “I need a shot.”

We both jumped out of the car and Cameron said, “Coming right up!”

I had never heard of Ben Hampton, never Googled him or had his YouTube video pop up on my sidebar. But when I walked into the sparsely attended bar, with a few ripped black leather chairs scattered around, and heard him crooning, he seemed familiar to me. He was so tall standing up there onstage, his hair as black as the guitar strap around his shoulder with these dark, piercing eyes. I’d never been the kind to get worked up over tall, dark and handsome. But, suddenly, I got the appeal. I sat down within his view, spellbound by his voice, suddenly self-conscious and wishing I looked more like rocker Barbie than bubblegum Barbie. He was so effortlessly cool, so sexy . . . But I wiped the thought away like a dry-erase doodle. I looked down at my left hand. I was engaged, after all, to hedge fund Ken.

At first I thought I was imagining it, but then Cameron whispered to me, “Your attire has so deeply offended my boyfriend that he keeps looking at you in disgust.”

I didn’t get disgust from his gaze. “Well, then maybe I should move out of his line of sight.”

But when I got up, the strangest thing happened. Ben stopped singing, stopped playing and said, “Where are you going?”

I looked around, confused, and, as I was the only person standing, pointed to myself and said, “Um, me?”

He nodded. “Sit back down.”

I sat back down obligingly, my heart racing in my chest. “I didn’t know this was the freaking opera,” I whispered to Cameron, mortified that I had been scolded.

“Excuse me, everyone,” Ben said into the microphone, looking straight at me like a sniper on his target, like no one else existed, “I’m going to have to take five because I believe I just met my wife.”

It was like jumping in the ocean. The noise all around me was suddenly muffled, and my lungs felt like they were filling with water.

Cameron whispered, “What the hell, Annabelle? How could you have stolen my boyfriend like this? We were meant to be together.”

All I could muster was, “Apparently not.”

He jumped down off the stage a few minutes later, took my hands in his and kissed my cheek.

“She’s engaged,” Cameron said indignantly, her hand on her hip.

He rubbed his fingers over the diamond on my left hand, never taking his gaze off of my face, and said, “Not anymore.”

Maybe it was because I was twenty-two and unsure, or maybe it was because I was twenty-two and totally sure, but I followed Ben out of the bar a few hours later. I had to know more about him, I had to understand why I felt so immediately drawn to him. Under the flood of the streetlight that, instead of a dingy, moth-ridden fluorescent stream, seemed like an enchanted glow under the spell of Ben, I started to come to my senses, even through the tequila haze I was in.

“Wait,” I said, suddenly feeling the two shots and two liquor drinks I’d had, “you could totally be a serial killer. I mean, this is nuts.”

Ben walked toward me, a smile playing on his lips. I felt my back touch against the vintage CJ7 Jeep that my dad would have flipped for, my heart beating so loudly I couldn’t hear anything else. He stepped closer, took my hand, and put it on his heart. “Would one sweet, beautiful girl make a serial killer this nervous?”

I leaned my head back against the window. “No . . . no. I guess not.”

I’d never felt so totally out of control. I’d never done something so unplanned. And it felt so good I didn’t want it to ever stop. I felt Ben’s hand on my face, sweeping my hair behind my ear. I looked up at him and smiled, his sparkling eyes boring right through me. I felt like I couldn’t breathe, totally overcome with wanting to be closer to him, to know him more. He leaned in and kissed me, my legs giving way. If it hadn’t been for the car behind me, I probably would have fallen onto the asphalt. As I reached my hand up to run it through his hair, I heard, “Quit kissing my boyfriend, you slut,” quickly followed by Cameron’s loudest, drunkest cackle.

I laughed too as she made her way toward the Jeep, sort of sideways and peering. The combination of the drinks and the kisses had made me a little sideways too. “You,” she said, falling into me, her mouth right on my ear, “have totally impressed me tonight.”

She leaned away, looked at Ben, swallowed with intention and said, “I mean, this girl, she always does the right thing. I mean, seriously, you have no idea. She’s like per-fect.” She made a hand gesture to punctuate the last syllable.

Ben laughed, and Cameron squinted at him. “And you,” she said, slurring, pointing her finger right in the middle of his chest. “I was in love with you until you pulled that sappy shit up onstage.”

Ben put his arm around my shoulders. “Sorry to disappoint.” He kissed my hair and opened the car door for me.

Cameron slid in right beside me, so I was in the middle of the front seat. I looked at her. “Whatcha doing there, sweetie?”

“Do I look like I can drive myself?” Cameron asked.

We both burst out laughing. “Oh my God,” she said. “I love you so much. I’m so proud of you. I mean, seriously, I love you.”

She hiccupped, and I leaned my head on her shoulder, smirking. “I love you too.” Then I whispered, “Do we know he isn’t a serial killer?”

Cameron shrugged. “He’s so freaking hot.”

I laughed.

“All right, girls,” Ben said. “I don’t know where I’m going.”

“Doesn’t look like it’s going to be home with me,” Cameron said.

Ben interlaced his fingers with mine. “Doesn’t look like it. I think I’ve found the last girl I ever want to go home with.”

I closed my eyes, feeling myself smile, and took a deep breath, wanting to memorize the moment. My best friend, the new love of my life. And then I groaned.

“What?” Ben asked. “Was that too much?”

“For me,” Cameron said. “In fact, I’m probably going to barf on the floorboard. But I would assume she just remembered she has a fiancé that is busting up her plans to shack up with you tonight.”

I slapped her leg. “That is so tacky, Cameron. I am not going to do that,” I hissed.

“Rip off the Band-Aid, baby,” Cameron said, producing two beers from her purse and handing me one.

We clinked the bottles, and I looked at Ben, feeling my heart melt. What was it about him?

“Hey,” he said. “If you aren’t sure, I can just take you home. You can sleep on it.” He stopped at a stoplight, put his lips softly on mine and said, “But I promise you that I wouldn’t let you dump your fiancé if I wasn’t sure we were supposed to be together.”

Cameron laughed. “God, you’re really too much for me. We never would have made it. But Ann, she loves all that sappy horseshit.”

I called Holden, feeling stone-cold sober. “The wedding is off,” I said. “I’m sorry, but I can’t marry you.”

And do you know what he said back? “Is this about the cruise control?”

“Yeah, Holden,” I said. “It’s totally about the cruise control.”

Then I hung up, Cameron cranked up the radio and the three of us sang “Don’t Stop Believing” at the top of our lungs. We dropped Cameron off, and, before she half fell out of the truck, she drunk whispered, “Listen. Holden schmolden. Ben Hampton is a foooxxxx. And you just know he’s crazy awesome in bed. Text me later.”

Then she slammed the door. “Will she be all right?” Ben asked.

I laughed. “Oh yeah. This is basically sober for her.”

He put the truck into gear and said, “She’s right, you know.”

“How’s that?”

“I am awesome in bed.”

I raised my eyebrow. “Oh, yeah? You sure about that?”

He shrugged. “Wouldn’t you like to know?”

It disturbed me how much I wanted to know. But I also got those nervous butterflies in my stomach because I hoped he knew I wasn’t going to sleep with some guy I just met, no matter how taken with him I was. Which is why I was so relieved when Ben pulled into the parking lot under the bright yellow sign of Waffle House. “I’m in more of a sleep mood than a waffle mood,” I said.

But Ben took my hand and pulled me out through the driver’s seat anyway. And I realized that I would have followed that man anywhere.

We walked into the brightly lit restaurant and Ben called, “Hey, Hilda,” to the aproned woman standing behind the counter with her pad in her hand. She had to have been in her seventies, and wouldn’t have weighed eighty-nine pounds soaking wet. But she lit up like a schoolgirl when she saw Ben.

“Well, hey there, handsome,” she said, her voice raspy from what sounded like decades of smoking. “The usual?”

He nodded.

“What about for the little lady?”

Ben looked me over. “Two eggs over medium, bacon, and coffee that’s more cream and sugar.”

I looked at him in astonishment. “That’s exactly what I order. How did you know that?”

Ben shrugged. “I just know you. I can’t explain it.”

“So,” Hilda said, handing us our coffee cups. “I ain’t never seen you with a girl, Ben. I thought this whole time you came in here every night to see me.” She cackled.

I laughed behind my hand and, inside, was bathing in relief. Ben was clearly a regular here, and he wasn’t stumbling in with a different girl every time.

“You come here every night?” I asked. I couldn’t imagine being able to keep a body like Ben’s eating stuff like this.

“Well, I come every night I have a gig in Charlotte. Which is a lot of nights.” He grinned, increasing those butterflies in my stomach. “What can I say? I’m a sucker for Hilda.”

I smiled, feeling giddy and alive.

“So,” Ben said. “You’re the most beautiful girl I’ve ever seen. I’m assuming the fiancé dumping wasn’t over cheating. And I assume you didn’t really call off an engagement over some cruise control situation. So what’s the deal?”

I took a sip of my coffee, feeling myself sobering—and waking—up. “He’s just not the one.”

Ben rolled his eyes. “Obviously. That’s me.”

I was so fully and completely charmed by Ben. And, when I looked in his eyes, it was like I knew him too. Sitting across the table, I instinctively felt that I understood him better than anyone else ever would, that I could see what was inside of him. “So,” I said, taking my first bite of egg. “What’s your story?”

“I have a feeling,” Ben said, “that the only part of the story I’ll ever care about again is just beginning.”

“So this Waffle House late-night breakfast is the beginning of a Gabriel García Márquez–style love story?”

“God rest his soul,” we said in unison.

“That was pretty creepy,” Hilda interjected.

Ben laughed. “Love in the Time of Cholera is my all-time favorite book.”

I gasped, mid–bacon bite. “Shut. Up. Mine too. My grandmother and I read it every year. She says it’s a reminder of what true love should look like, of what you should find before you get married.”

“My mom says that exact same thing.” He paused. “Of course, she should’ve waited a little longer.”

“Why is that?”

“Because my dad cheated on her.”

“Oh no.” I shook my head. “So they’re divorced?”

Ben rolled his eyes and took another bite of waffle. “No. My mom’s a sex therapist who believes that sometimes sex is just sex.”

Even the word coming out of his mouth gave me those butterflies again. I shifted nervously in my seat as Ben smiled at me. I gave him a haughty look and said, “Just so you are aware. I’m not sleeping with you.”

He gave me an amused look. “You’re not?”

“No. I just met you, for heaven’s sake.”

He laughed, his fork in the air, mid-bite. “I know that, Annabelle. I told you: I know you.” He shrugged. “But if you’ll come home with me—just to talk”—he put his hands up as if surrendering—“I promise I won’t put any of my irresistible moves on you.”

He wiggled his eyebrows, and we both burst out laughing.

Watching the sun rise usually made me feel sick, gave me that panicked feeling that it was day again and I had yet to go to sleep. But, watching it rise out of Ben’s bedroom window the next morning, after a night of talking until my throat was scratchy, my head resting heavily on his now contentedly beating heart, it made me feel unbelievably happy, as though the sun was rising on the first day of the rest of my life. I knew that, as improbable as it seemed, I had found my missing half in a bar, onstage, singing me love songs. Anyone over the age of twenty-two would have known for sure that a devilishly sexy, slightly dangerous musician would choose a new victim after every gig. But I knew when he looked at me that he saw the same thing I did when I looked at him: fire.

It was a Thursday night, and the dentist’s office where I was the patient care coordinator wasn’t open on Fridays. That meant seventy-two hours of pure, unadulterated bliss with Ben. Looking back now, I’d like to say that I had misgivings, that I questioned how seamlessly it all came together. But I was either too young, too stupid or that potently in love.

I’d also like to say that Holden crossed my mind during that time, that the fiancé I had dumped with three sentences on the telephone was haunting my thoughts, the pain I had caused him weighing down my heart. But that would be a lie.

Lying in the grass in Ben’s tiny backyard, looking up at the clouds, relishing quietly in the glow of those first moments of take-your-breath-away love, Ben said, “I always knew I’d know when my true love walked through the door. Period. And there you were.”

I kissed him for probably the millionth time, rolled back over, and covered my face with my hands. “I can’t believe I am doing this. I don’t want you to think I’m the kind of girl who just goes home with guys she barely knows.”

Ben rolled over on top of me, took my face in his hands and kissed me. “I don’t think anything. I know you completely. I’m in love with you.”

I bit my lip. I wanted to say it was crazy. I wanted to run away. I wanted to tear it apart and analyze and find all the ways it wouldn’t work. But I couldn’t. “I’m in love with you too,” I said. “How am I in love with you? I just met you.”

“Because I’m your soul mate, obviously.”

I wanted to say I didn’t believe in soul mates. I wanted to tell this guitar-playing god of a man that soul mates didn’t exist. Only, they had to. Because, here I was, back in my Lilly Pulitzer and pearls, having just dumped the Gucci-loafer-wearing man of my dreams for a musician I didn’t know the first thing about. We had to be soul mates. There was no other explanation for why I would have traded the life I had always dreamed of, thrown it away on a whim.

“Hey,” he said. “Do you want to go snowboarding with me next month? I’m playing this gig in Montana, and it’s going to be awesome.”

“I love snowboarding. And Montana. And you.”

“There’s this bookstore in Missoula that you absolutely have to see. You’re going to love it.”

I turned my head to smile at him, loving the way his fingers lingered on my arm, the sun lingered on my face, the breeze lingered on our bodies. “Holden thought reading was a waste of time and that everything you needed to know could be found more efficiently via webinar.”

Ben laughed. “That’s why you and I aren’t inviting Holden to Montana.”

“Why are you going to Montana?”

“To celebrate my thirty-fifth birthday.”

“Wait. You’re thirty-five?”

“Yeah. How old are you?”

“Seventeen.”

I could see his face turning ashen, and I felt a little mean. Before he could begin to stutter, I laughed. “I’m just kidding. Twenty-two.”

He nodded. “Thank God. I don’t need yet another felony.”

It was my turn for the pale face. But before I could get too far into my fantasies of my maimed corpse hanging in Ben’s closet, he laughed. “If you can dish it out, you’ve got to be able to take it, TL.”

I rolled my eyes and shook my head. “Let’s teach our kids to ski really early so they aren’t afraid.”

“Definitely,” he said. “All three of them.”

I bit my lip and nodded. “I’m an only child, but I have kind of a big, crazy family. I really want that kind of chaos in my life.”

“Yeah. My sister and I aren’t really that close. If you have two siblings, you’ll probably be tight with one of them.” He grinned at me. “I want to teach them how to play instruments when they’re really little. Wouldn’t that be cute?”

I smiled and kissed him. He was the most adorable human on the planet. The way he lit up when he talked about his music made me, quite honestly, jealous. And proud. “When did you get into music?”

He shrugged. “I don’t know. I can’t even remember a time when I didn’t play an instrument. It has been my life’s passion for practically forever. What about you?”

What about me? I’d always envied people who had some sort of talent that made them feel alive and fulfilled. But I didn’t want Ben to think I was less interesting. So I kissed him again and said, “I think maybe you’re my life’s passion.” And I meant it.

Those three days were the first time in years, maybe ever, that I’d truly felt alive. Food tasted like it was fresh from the ground, the air was cleaner coming into my lungs. The colors were more vibrant. And, as we walked around downtown Sunday afternoon, I realized that I was different too. I felt more beautiful, more confident, more positively glowing than I ever had in my life. I could feel passersby watching Ben and me, able to see our love as clearly as though it was written on the theater marquee we were walking under. And I realized that, improbably, Cameron had been right: I couldn’t possibly live my life without this kind of passion.

On Sunday night, I felt like I had spent a blissful time in Never-Never Land and was having to fly back into my boring bedroom window. I avoided it all day, but, finally, at five o’clock, I ventured, “Ben, I have to go home.”

He looked genuinely shocked, as though the idea that I’d ever had a life outside of this one had never occurred to him. “You are home, TL.”

I laughed. “I have a condo.”

“Sell it.”

“I have a job.”

“Quit it.”

I looked down at my hand. “I have a fiancé.”

“Marry me.”

I smirked, but I could feel my heart racing. I wanted to spend the rest of my life with my hand in his, my lips on his, my skin on his. I wanted to take his name and breathe his air and sing his songs. Forever. But saying that to someone you have known three days is generally considered bad form.

“I’m serious,” he said. “I want to marry you.”

“Ben, come on.”

He got down on his knee, right there on the sidewalk. “Annabelle,” he said, “I knew when you walked into that bar that I had written every love song of my life for you.” He softened a bit. “You’re it for me, TL. I want to spend the rest of my life making love and babies with you. I want to be there when you fall asleep and when you wake up, when you’re young and spry and when you’re old and feeble. I want to take care of you when you’re sick, be your shoulder to cry on when you’ve had a bad day, be the man who still thinks you’re that beautiful, young thing even when you’re ninety. I want to see your face when I’m taking my last breath and live one minute less than you so that I never have to be without you again.”

I am not an emotionally gushy person, but that last part got me. I thought of Lovey and the deep, forever love she had with D-daddy. She had known from the moment she saw him as a ten-year-old child, so why was I questioning that I knew now at twenty-two? Moreover, I had always said that the most important characteristic in my future husband was that, at ninety, I could prance around in a thong and he would still see my hot, twenty-something ass.

I smiled and, trying to ease the intensity of the moment, said, “So what you’re saying is that you don’t want me to go home right now?”

He stood up and gave me one of those kisses that, in no time at all, had become like oxygen to me. I had so many questions. “Where will we live? What will we tell people?”

He smiled. “It will all be all right if we’re together. Please marry me, Annabelle.”

I thought of my mother’s disapproving look, the disappointment Lovey would feel at me throwing away my so-called perfect life, the whispers all over town and the scandal of me marrying a man I barely knew. If Mom and Dad didn’t disown me and refuse to pay for it, people would be buying tickets to see this wedding. But now that I knew what it was like to feel this carefree, this in the moment, I never wanted to go back to the way things were. Maybe it was dangerous and maybe it was reckless. But that was how I felt. So I smiled back and kissed Ben again. I nodded, threw my arms around his neck and whispered, “I can’t imagine that I could ever love anyone like this. Of course I’ll marry you.”

And so I did.