Tom had discovered the secret to his golf game, and it was that he needed to be coiled so tightly, worrying about righting the chronology of his life, that he couldn’t think about his form or his dad’s commentary. His score on the golf course was at an all-time low.
He was absolutely killing it today.
Often on the green, the unspoken rule was not to outplay the person you’re trying to ingratiate yourself with, usually a client. Tom had never considered whether that rule applied to playing with his dad because, before today, Tom had never been able to beat him.
As it turned out, John was responding positively to Tom kicking his ass.
“The Pacific Northwest seems to be agreeing with you, son,” John said in his baritone rumble as Tom’s ball soared straight and high over the brush.
Tom nodded. “I’m just working hard. You know how important hard work is.”
The comment came out more acerbic than he’d intended, a tone he didn’t usually take with his dad, but he was rattled. Why was his dad so obsessed with hard work, anyway? What about other virtues? Like supporting your family emotionally instead of just financially? Or being more accepting of people outside the approved Prescott Circle of Influence?
When John had outlined what Tom’s extracurricular activities at private school would be (fencing, basketball, volleyball), Tom didn’t even wonder if they were things he was interested in or enjoyed. Likewise, when John set Tom up for Harvard interviews and dictated the majority of his coursework to prepare him for law school, Tom didn’t argue; he just did his best to ace every class. It was lucky Tom actually had a love for history, as that was one of a handful of John-approved majors.
Tom took a breath. Cleared his mind. Because, according to Megs, they had to do everything “right” today. Whatever that meant. He’d spent his entire existence trying to do everything right without reaping most of the desired benefits. Still, however muddled his feelings for Megs had recently become, she was more insightful than most people. And so he decided to try. At this point, it couldn’t possibly make things worse.
“Of course the Pacific Northwest agrees with him. I’ve always suspected he was a hippie at his core.” Brody raised his flask, clearly too tipsy to try to hide his blatant day-drinking from other golfers, though they were few and far between.
Tom forced a good-natured grin. “Having a good golf game hardly makes me a hippie, Brody.” Truth be told, Tom thought he could stand to have a little more of a Damn the Man attitude. But why make waves when falling into line had already been hard enough?
As a child, Tom had tried speaking up when Brody was a dirtbag to him. Each time, he’d been met with a reproving comment from his father. “Are you going to tattle on your brother or are you going to be a man?”
Brody’s teasing had never been laced with intentional cruelty, so Tom had learned to quietly absorb it. His interactions with Brody were usually warmer than the ones with anyone else in his family. If there was one thing Tom knew about himself, it was that he would take what he could get.
“What do these island hippies have against progress?” John snatched the gloves hanging from his back pocket and pulled them over his hands. “They’re obsessed with homeopathic remedies and can’t figure out how to get a solid Wi-Fi signal. They probably think a proper eighteen-hole course causes cancer.”
Tom’s jaw clenched behind his mandatory smile. He couldn’t manage another laugh at his father’s gross generalizations, but that didn’t mean he had to argue with him. In this family of lawyers, Tom would avoid the debate. For eternity, if he had to.
He tried not to linger on the idea of playing this golf game for eternity. The universe was sure being an asshole. Shit. He probably shouldn’t think that. The universe was obviously already pissed off at him.
John lined up his shot, then strategized with Brody before he took a swing. Mulling over how to do this day more “right” than he had before, Tom had an idea. Asking his father for advice wasn’t the best way to bond; he needed an opportunity for them to really talk. Maybe he could try to convince his dad to delay the relocation as a peace offering to Megs. But if he was going to push for that, he’d prefer to do it in a place where they could order alcohol. There was one nearby restaurant that Tom knew for sure had tablecloths—a must for John Prescott. John didn’t do rustic.
Tom pulled out his phone to put the next part of his plan into action.
“Hey, Dad,” he said, tapping on his phone, “since there’s not a proper clubhouse here, do you want to do lunch in Friday Harbor? I just made us reservations.”
“Why would you make reservations before asking me if I wanted to go?” John challenged.
Tom’s jaw was beginning to ache. Between that and the crick in his neck, his body was a wreck. His mind wasn’t faring much better. “I thought I’d get a jump on it and reserve us a good table. One overlooking the water.”
“How romantic,” Brody deadpanned. “A date with Dad.”
“Isn’t Brody invited?” John leaned on his club, adjusting his visor. “What’s going on here, son?”
Tackling his move to Missouri was not something Tom was keen on doing with Brody inserting slurred wisecracks. But today was about compromise. With a few swipes on his phone, Tom changed the reservation from two people to three. “Of course Brody’s invited.”
“Let’s go now. This course is garbage.” Brody threw his clubs in the back of the cart.
“Agreed.” John got in behind the wheel.
Tom noted this was the first incarnation of this day in which Brody and his dad suggested quitting in the middle of the game. It didn’t seem like a coincidence that this was also the first day Tom had been winning.
The gap between wanting to forgive someone and having the emotional capacity to do so seemed insurmountable. And yet Tom worked at closing that gap inch by inch as he sat across the table from his father, who was sipping slowly at an expensive scotch, and Brody, who was quickly draining the beer glistening in his pint glass.
He thought about the time he and Megs had been on their way to his grandmother’s home in Connecticut in a blizzard when their rental car broke down. He’d raised the hood and stared blankly at an engine he didn’t understand while she put on their four-way flashers and made all the phone calls. And then they’d waited, huddled in the car, to be rescued. Later, when he admitted he’d been embarrassed at his inaction, she’d kissed his nose and reminded him that keeping a cool head wasn’t the same thing as freezing up. That his positive outlook was worth more to her than his knowing how to fix an engine. And he’d kept her laughing while they waited in that cold car by trying to remember all the verses to “The Twelve Days of Christmas.”
Fixing a day that wouldn’t end was much more complicated than dealing with a broken-down car. Still, he was willing to put his faith in Megs right now because she had to be right. The only explanation for the repetition of this day was that they had done something wrong. Several things wrong, more likely. If they were being pushed together, he needed to find a way to get over what had happened between her and Leo. And he wanted to. He really did. Getting over it was far preferable to what he currently felt: the chronic, dull throb of jealousy and foolishness.
He flipped through more memories of Megs to help bridge the forgiveness gap and landed on one of his favorites.
One morning, not long after he’d passed the bar and made it through his first year as an associate at Prescott and Prescott, he was inexplicably edgy as he knotted his tie in the bathroom mirror. Sensing his nerves, Megs hopped up and sat on the counter so he was looking at her face instead of his reflection. She put her arms around him and pulled him close. “You’re the best person I know—not to mention the best-looking. And you’re going to do great things over there as you. Not as the boss’s son.”
Megs’s pep talks were better than the meditation app on his phone and he’d immediately felt his breathing regulate, his heart slow. The tremble of his hands stilled.
But he couldn’t wrap his head around that Megs being the same one who’d slept with Leo. And every time he tried to come to grips with her deception, he’d see it from a painful new angle.
“You seem pensive. Looking for words of advice, Spare Parts?” Brody asked, interrupting his thoughts.
What he wanted was to talk to John about the move to Missouri, but he was nervous that doing something right for Megs meant doing something wrong for his dad, and regardless of how he handled this situation, he wasn’t going to make anyone happy—which wouldn’t get him and Megs out of this time trap. “Looking to give any?” Tom asked his brother, mostly to stall for time while he tried to figure out what to do about Missouri.
“God, no.” Brody leaned back and snorted. “Remember how I used to solve Rubik’s Cubes by coloring the squares in with a Sharpie so they all matched? That savvy logic doesn’t apply to marital problems.”
The ice cubes in John’s scotch clinked together as he set down his tumbler. “Well, if it’s advice you’re looking for—”
“Actually, Dad,” Tom said, quickly cutting him off. He didn’t want to hear the speech; it grew more offensive with each listen. “I’m good.”
“You sure?” John asked. “Because Megan may be a great catch, but all the other fish that come with her are not.”
“We’ve been together for twelve years, Dad. I’m already well acquainted with her family. They aren’t all bad, in fact—”
It was clear John wasn’t listening. Which didn’t matter, because at that point a server came to take their order.
Once the waiter retreated, John miraculously steered the conversation just where Tom wanted it to go. “How’d Megan handle the news about Missouri?”
Tom took a long pull from his water glass, still not knowing if he was doing the right thing. “Surprisingly well.” This was his moment to ask. Surely they could postpone the move until Megs was ready. Tom gathered as much courage as he could and was about to open his mouth when Brody spoke up.
“You’re going to be missed around the New York office.” Brody took his napkin off the table and spread it over his lap.
“I’m touched, brother.”
“Oh, not missed by me.” He leaned back, mischief radiating off him like heat.
John’s phone rang. He took the call outside, leaving Tom and Brody alone.
“Then by who?” Tom didn’t know where Brody was going with this, but he had a feeling the punch line would be directed down, straight at him, just as it always was. The bright side about moving out of state was there wouldn’t be anyone around to call him Spare Parts.
“By Gina.” Brody gave Tom a knowing look.
“Gina?”
She’d started as an associate at Prescott and Prescott the same time Tom had. Gina was incredibly bright and definitely too sweet for the cutthroat environment, and having her as a confidante at work was part of what got Tom through those first few years. In the end, she took a job at a firm that focused on environmental law, and Tom had been sad to see her go. They’d mostly lost contact after that, save for bumping into each other at a midtown deli they both occasionally grabbed lunch from.
“She just left whatever firm she was at and interviewed for a position at Prescott,” Brody went on.
“That’s great,” Tom said, taking another sip of water. “I hope you offered her the job. She’s really talented. She’ll be a great asset.”
Brody smirked, his eyebrows raised, and pointed at Tom. “She told me she thinks you have pretty good assets too.”
Tom coughed, choking on his water. “What are you talking about?”
“Let’s just say as soon as the interview was over and we basically offered her the position, she spent the next several minutes interviewing me about you. She seemed pretty disappointed when I told her you were getting married this weekend.”
Tom felt his heart speed up to a canter. He and Megs had gotten together at a young age, but it wasn’t as though he’d stopped noticing other women. He’d just had no desire to act on anything. Sure, he and Gina had been close. Her upbringing had been so similar to Tom’s that when they’d met, they’d almost immediately developed their own shorthand. Of course he’d kept their relationship professional, smothering any attraction he felt for her. He’d never seriously entertained being with anyone other than Megs, because why would he?
Still, it was always flattering to hear someone was interested in you. So Tom let himself be flattered. Gina hadn’t changed the way Tom felt about Megs then, and even now, in light of everything…
The now-familiar humiliation of her infidelity pressed against him. But he knew what he had to do.
Keep the peace. Do this right. Don’t rock the boat.
“Yeah, well, I’m obviously off the market.” Tom nodded as though he were one of those bobblehead dogs people put on the dashboards of their cars. “So thanks for letting me know, but it’s moot.”
“What’s moot?” John asked, sitting back down just as their meals arrived.
“Tom’s girlfriend,” Brody sang as though he were a first-grader.
“Your mother told me she didn’t think Megan knew about Missouri. Thought you’d forgotten to tell her.”
“‘Forgotten,’” Brody scoffed, complete with air quotes. “Just like Emmeline ‘forgot’ to tell me she’s going to Newport Beach next weekend.”
“What?” Tom turned to his brother, tired of his confusing interruptions. How drunk was he?
“Nothing.” Brody took an oversize bite of his crab sandwich.
“No, Megs knows about the move,” Tom assured his dad, mentally adding, Thanks to your enlightening speech that we’re about to hear for the third time.
“Good. Because I have a surprise for both of you. You’ll just have to wait until later to find out what it is.”
Stifling an internal groan—and a more distant flicker of curiosity about Gina’s own record with fidelity—Tom realized he couldn’t ask his father to postpone the move. Instead, he dutifully sat forward and feigned interest while his father monologued about Missouri, silently hoping that the relocation was the universe’s idea of doing things right.