Amelia WISTFUL AND ROMANTIC

“I PROMISE YOU THAT THEY’LL teach you,” I lied for the millionth time.

“But what if I throw up? What if we have a huge fish, and I’m trying to reel it in and I lose it, and then they lose the tournament because of me?”

Harris and I were watching fishing videos on YouTube, and I truly couldn’t decide if I was doing the right thing. I mean, yeah, I was feeding Harris to the wolves. In 2045, I would be hearing about the time they had to take that pretty city boy on the boat and he nearly drowned or some other hyperbolized account of how unmanly Harris was. I had never seen him the least bit vulnerable, and it made me like him even more. I felt such an outpouring of compassion for him in that moment that I leaned over and kissed him.

He smiled. “Are you going to tell your parents we’re moving in together?”

I grimaced. “I think I’ll just keep paying for the apartment indefinitely and pretend I live there.”

He laughed. “You’re not honestly telling me that they are going to be scandalized by their thirty-five-year-old daughter living with her boyfriend?”

I didn’t say anything, but he had no idea. My mother would not care that her friends’ children had all lived with significant others before marriage. She would not care that I was old enough to make my own decisions, that I liked Harris and I loved the agreement about our lives that we—as grown-ups—had reached. She would only care that she had not raised me to live with a man I wasn’t married to and that I was directly defying those orders. “Maybe we should tell them at Christmas?” I smiled encouragingly.

He laughed. “Amelia, that’s, like, six months away.”

“Oh! Oh!” I said. “Maybe we could make up an elaborate story about something horrible that happened at my apartment and you are sacrificing and lovingly taking me in, as a friend, and letting me live in your guest room.”

My new favorite thing in life was going to Harris’s after a long day at work and making dinner together with soft music playing in the background and drinking sophisticated wine and talking about everything—the new story idea I had, how far I had gotten into my research, his funny miscommunications with a new overseas client, the state of the environment and the world, and our separate friends who were quickly becoming our mutual friends. I really, truly, solidly looked forward to doing those things without having to pack an overnight bag. But did I love him? I couldn’t tell. I felt like he was a good friend that was also super hot and who I liked to sleep with. Maybe that was love. Stupid Thad, I thought. I couldn’t even tell if I was in love anymore, for heaven’s sake.

I looked at Harris again, studied the lines in his forehead, which were deeper when he was being sincere, the boyish sandy blond of his hair, how adorable he looked lounging in his Peter Millar athletic wear.

“Babe, look,” he said. “I get it. The South is different, your parents are old fashioned. Maybe I don’t understand it completely, but I’m trying to. All I know is that we’re good together. We want the same things. I can tell them with you, if you want, but it would be a shame to ruin something great over some outdated idea of what a relationship should look like.”

Maybe the salt air made me feel wistful and romantic, or maybe it was how sincere he was. But in that moment, I decided firmly that being with him—in the way that worked for us—was worth the scrutiny of my family. I was thirty-five years old, for heaven’s sake. “I’ll tell them now,” I said. I could give them time to get used to the idea of us moving in sometime, pretend it existed in a hazy and far-off future.

He picked up my hand and kissed it. “You still have a tan line where your ring used to be.”

That was true. “I know. I should probably get something to fill up the space.”

I didn’t love how that sounded. And I had to wonder if filling up space was exactly, precisely what I was doing with Harris.

---

Three hours later, I was kissing him goodbye, saying, “Are you sure you’re okay if I go? I feel just terrible leaving you here.”

Harris had a conference call in China that couldn’t be rescheduled, so he was going to take a Benadryl, go to sleep now, at seven, so he could get up at two, take the call, grab a quick nap, and be on the dock at five. Bless the man’s sweet heart. I felt awful. But he had to go fishing. Even though the ridicule would be significant, it was nothing compared to what would happen if he didn’t go. I had left out the part about how the prize money, depending on the size and number of the fish caught, could be upwards of a million dollars. He was nervous enough when he just thought this was for fun.

I kissed him gently, marveling that I had brought a new boy home to meet my parents. Lo and behold, Mom and Daddy—who sighed and rolled their eyes and made considerable fuss about why I couldn’t find a nice Southern boy—really loved Harris. In fact, he kind of made Mom swoon, which was a real plus.

Daddy wasn’t a huge fan of the Summer Splash, and he wasn’t going, which I thought made him a bad sport, but I didn’t say so. Instead, I took Mom as my date. As she climbed in the passenger side, her yellow-and-white-striped shirtdress’s full skirt swishing around her calves, toned from her Pilates regimen, I said, “So, Mom, what do you think?”

She looked at me very seriously and said, “I was prepared to hate him. I wanted to hate him. But, darling girl, that man is a doll. He is perfection roaming the face of the earth.”

I was doing my best to back out of the very long driveway when she said, “And what’s more, he is madly in love with you.”

I glanced at her as I turned onto the road. “You think?”

She nodded and pursed her lips. “Anyone could see it, but he told me so himself.”

I laughed out loud. “Then why on earth hasn’t he told me?”

“He thinks he’ll scare you off. After the whole Thad debacle.” She paused and let out a low whistle.

“It will no longer be a debacle as of tomorrow,” I said.

“They get it done in Florida, don’t they? Time flies when you’re having fun.” She paused and winked. “With Harris.”

I laughed again. “I’ve already signed. I’m just glad it’s over.” I paused. “But, like, what do I do tomorrow?”

“Do about what, darling?”

“Well, I mean, do I call Thad? Do I text him?”

She gasped audibly. “Call that two-timing life destroyer? I very much think not. After what he did to you…” She trailed off, and I could tell she was trying to calm herself down. That woman could work herself into a frenzy.

“It’s just weird, you know. Like, he was my best friend, and now it’s all over.” I paused. “He and Chase are getting married. And adopting a child.”

When we entered downtown, I pulled into the first parking spot I saw on the side of the street. We would have to walk a couple of blocks, but I was surprised to find a spot at all. As I opened the door, I could already hear the band playing. It made me smile. The simplicity of it all.

“That is just the worst betrayal yet. How could he do this to you?” Mom said.

I shrugged. It was strange because I couldn’t even really work up to feeling mad. But that wasn’t fair because I had been mad. And devastated. And jealous. And insecure. All the things, I think, that are natural to feel when the person who is supposed to love you most betrays you. I’d had time to be all those things and let them pass, but this was brand-new for my mom. We walked down the sidewalk, making our way toward the party.

“Hi, sweet Amelia.” Mrs. Abrams, my kindergarten teacher, waved. She was walking past, presumably on her way to the dance, too.

“Hi, Mrs. Abrams,” I said, basking in the familiarity of home. It was special, this place. This town. Every time I was here, I had a pang for my old life, where everyone knew me, where I belonged.

Larry walked by, pushing an old-fashioned ice cream cart. “You want anything?” he paused to ask us. Larry was a veteran who decided when he retired that he needed something to keep him happy and in shape. So he bought an ice cream cart and walked it around five days a week, giving away free goodies to every kid and a lot of the adults in town. It was an undeniably generous calling—and, ironically, it kept him in great shape. He said he’d never cared much for ice cream.

“No, thanks, Larry. Maybe later?”

He nodded. “You know where to find me.”

He didn’t even have to ask my mother. I wondered if she’d ever had ice cream in her entire life.

“You know, Mom, I think I’ve made my peace with it.”

She put her arm around my waist and bumped my hip with hers. “Finding a Harris will do that for a girl.”

We shared a smile, and Walt, our preacher, grabbed my mother away from me and pulled her onto the dance floor. The Summer Splash had begun, and everyone, it seemed, was ecstatic. I ignored how my stomach flip-flopped when I spotted Parker across the room. In his navy shorts and his blue-and-white-checked shirt with the sleeves rolled up, he was taking his mother for a spin around the dance floor. It was positively darling. His dad didn’t like the Summer Splash, either. And both our dads were, no doubt, sitting somewhere together, drinking bourbon and strategizing about the morning’s fishing.

I was about to sit down on a park bench on the perimeter where I could see the action, feeling a small pang that Harris wasn’t here with me—we hadn’t had an occasion to dance together in public yet—when Parker came up next to me and said, “Miss Amelia, might I have this dance?”

My heart raced when he took my hand. I couldn’t very well say no. But, roles reversed, I wouldn’t want Harris dancing with a woman who made his heart beat a little too fast.

Parker put one hand on the small of my back. I had danced with him before, sure, that night in Palm Beach in Philip and Sheree’s living room. But that had been drunken and wild. That had been before I had so cavalierly offered to have his baby, before I hadn’t made good on my promise. I was trying to forget. But being with him now, sober and sincere, made me remember.

“I’ve missed you,” he said into my ear.

It was so simple yet so cryptic. He’d missed me. Missed me how? He’d missed me like you do an old neighbor? Or a good friend? Or he’d missed me like you miss a woman you’ve pined for? There was so much gray area there. And I knew I shouldn’t care. But I did.

“I’ve missed you, too,” I replied honestly.

He pulled back and studied my face. “Really? I’m surprised you’ve had the time, as busy as you’ve been with your new boyfriend.”

I rolled my eyes, but I wasn’t sure why. Was it because I was home, in the arms of a boy I had known my entire life, and that was the exact reaction my fifteen-year-old self would have had? Or was it because my heart knew something that my head didn’t?

“I’m thinking about moving in with him,” I said nonchalantly, as though we hadn’t all but decided what our future would hold, as if I wasn’t planning on packing boxes next week.

“Do you have to?” he replied without skipping a beat.

I laughed. He’d caught me off guard. “I mean, no. I don’t have to, but it seems like a good idea.” I paused. “Right?”

“You could move back to Palm Beach,” he said teasingly.

“And do what?”

He pulled me closer and said in my ear, “Whatever you want.”

If I thought my heart was racing before, now I was certain. Whatever I wanted. Did I want to be with Parker? Why, when I pictured a life with Parker, did it all seem so clear? What about his perfect, untainted memory of Greer? I could never compete with that. I was alive and imperfect. We would fight. We would be messy. We would have a real life together, and she would always be there in the background. Things with Harris were just simpler. They were grown-up. They were uncomplicated.

Before I could respond, Elayna, this nightmare of a girl I went to high school with, danced up beside us with Ray, her high school boyfriend-turned-husband. “Hey, girl,” she said, elbowing me, “I hear this one’s straight. You might want to hold on to him.”

I knew she was trying to be funny. Probably. And it was clear she was a little drunk. But, as okay as I had been seconds earlier, that didn’t sit well with me. Parker must have sensed it, because he took my hand and led me off the dance floor. Suddenly, all those warm and fuzzy hometown feelings were gone. Now I wanted to be anywhere but here. Sure, Elayna might have been the only person tacky enough to actually say that to my face, but that didn’t mean everyone else in the brightly lit town square wasn’t thinking or saying the same thing. I looked around for my mom and, when I didn’t see her, said, “Park, could you take me home?”

“Sure,” he said. He hadn’t let go of my hand, and no, I hadn’t made an attempt to get him to do so. I would grapple with that later. For now, instead of making me feel loved and a part of a community, the music filling the air and the sounds of chatter and laughter were making me feel even more alone.

It wasn’t until Parker and I were in his car, by ourselves, that I began to feel, once again, like all was right with the world.