CHAPTER 16

gray: bare-soul truth

Poor Trey. Even he couldn’t get me out of my funk. He was driving, singing show tunes at the top of his lungs, the stereo blasting. Ordinarily I would have joined him. But today I couldn’t muster the energy.

“Come on, babe,” he said. “Road trip to Charleston! Huge meeting with Glitter! What, what!”

I sighed. “I know. Why am I such a drag right now? I am literally the worst.”

But Andrew was gone. It was my fault. I had pushed him away. He had texted me: I’m heading back to school. Can I come say good-bye?

And, bitch that I was, I had said, I don’t think that’s a good idea.

I mean, I was right. If he came to say good-bye, that would lead to a kiss good-bye, which might lead to other things, and any or all or none of it would make the heartbreak last even longer.

To top it off, I had been up all night two nights before with Wagner, stressed and panicked and terrified at how sick he was. Greg and I hadn’t revisited the moving idea, and Wagner’s school started in a couple of weeks. I had him enrolled in both Cape Carolina and Raleigh, but it was time to make a decision.

“You just need wine,” Trey said sunnily. “And maybe a steak.”

Now, that we could agree on. Every decadent bite and sip at Halls Chophouse that evening felt like an antidote as I was eating it.

Five hours later, as it was coming back up, I regretted the choice. Diana might have an immune system of steel, but I did not. Wagner’s virus had hit me hard.

I don’t think that’s a good idea was running through my mind on a continuous loop. It’s what always happens to me when I get sick like this. I have some phrase or song lyric or something equally annoying stuck in my head.

This is the worst feeling on earth. Well, good. That was at least something new. It kind of puts everything in perspective, having a throw-up virus. What you’re going to say when you meet the client you’re trying to bag, and the fact that you have to be nice to your husband’s fiancée who you incredibly stupidly are trying to get to move to town with you, and whether you have completely ruined your own life all seem less important. Because all you can think about is how disgustingly horrible you feel. That’s it. You just want to survive.

No one wants to be alone when they’re sick like that, and you always want your mom. Always. Even when you know she’s dead, you want her to appear to hold your hair back and put a cold washcloth on your forehead and bring you ginger ale and break the whole pieces of ice into little bits with a spoon.

But she wasn’t going to come back. That was obvious. If she were, surely she would have done it by now. She would have come back to get my sister out of her horrible marriage. She would have come back to help me through my divorce. And, most of all, she would have come back to knock some sense into my head when I started dating Andrew.

Too exhausted to even get back to the bed, I curled up on my hotel room’s bathroom floor, my head on one wadded-up towel, my body on another, alternating between freezing cold and unimaginably hot. And I thought about Andrew. If my mom wasn’t going to come back, I just wanted Andrew. I knew he would rub my back no matter how disgusting I was and go to the store in the pitch-black dark to get me lemon-lime Gatorade.

It surprised me, lying on the floor, trying to catch a few minutes of sleep in between my bouts of sickness, that I felt like I could depend on Andrew. Because when the chips are down as low as they can be, when you’re lying on the bathroom floor in the fetal position, there’s a bare-soul, uncomplicated sort of truth about who it is that you are longing to have there beside you. I knew for sure that I had never wished for Greg like that.

Somewhere in there, I finally fell asleep, and, when my alarm sounded at eight thirty, all that remained was the feeling of exhaustion. But the nausea was gone, the vulnerability was gone, and the certainty that I was strong enough to get over a little summer fling—because that’s all it was—was back.

I showered and dried my hair, applied my makeup, put on a sophisticated-yet-sassy white dress that was just businessy enough, and swallowed away the nerves of a pitch that I couldn’t screw up just because I was tired and sad. I tried to ignore the awareness that Andrew was here, in Charleston, and that it was taking all the strength I had not to go find him.

While everyone else sipped gorgeous Bloody Marys with huge shrimp cocktails in the back garden at 82 Queen, I had ginger ale without a straw to save the turtles. The nausea was gone, but I certainly wasn’t going to risk it. Trey was as effusive as ever, and I thought I was too, but who knew.

Heather Sinclair was saying, “We’re extremely impressed with ClickMarket, but you know you have some competitors out there with lower percentage costs, and that’s a holdup for us.”

I knew what she was trying to do. I saw it all the time, and when I first started my business, sometimes I would cave to that pressure. But now I knew that all that did was end up hurting everyone involved. So I said, “Heather, I’ll be honest with you. You’ve seen our rate sheet. You can come over to ClickMarket and choose a lower percentage bracket. But the influencers you are going to be working with are not going to be those fabulous micro-influencers with rabid followings and gorgeous branding. Creating those brands costs them money, and there is no way they are going to promote Glitter—as much as they all love you—for seven percent when they can promote Neiman Marcus for ten. They won’t do it.”

“But those other affiliate companies don’t offer Neiman Marcus,” Heather said.

Trey smiled at her. “Enough said.”

We all laughed.

“Look,” Heather continued, “I won’t lie to you. Your site is the most user-friendly, and I see the benefits. I really do. But we’re talking three percent of a massive amount of sales. That’s significant.”

I’d had spreadsheets made up of what we predicted Glitter’s sales would be with ClickMarket over our main competitor, but I realized now that they didn’t matter. I prided myself on being excellent at reading people, and my gut told me that all Heather wanted was to feel like she had made a deal, plain and simple. I could give her that.

I did some quick math in my head before I said, “Look, Heather, it’s top secret, but we’re rolling out an ad partner program next month that is going to blow your mind. All the best influencers with the most proven sales records. You’re going to want to be a part of that. I’ll give you a three-month exclusive during which I’ll waive all my commission.”

She raised her eyebrows. “Exclusive as in…?”

I smiled. “Exclusive as in you will be our only client in the ad partner program for three months.”

It was a big move, a huge thing to give her. But I knew it would be worth it. Every blogger in the country would be clamoring for a spot, and other competing companies would line up to sign up for the program once they knew Glitter was our first exclusive customer. It was genius, if I did say so myself.

I glanced at Trey. He looked impressed.

Heather smiled, and I knew I had won. “Ms. Howard, you have made me an offer I simply cannot refuse.” She reached her hand out over the Bloody Marys, and I shook it.

“Trey will draw up the contract and get it over to you tonight.”

We had already drawn up the contract. It didn’t work 100 percent of the time, but it was the best way I knew of to put the deal out in the universe before we went in to negotiate it. And I had to admit that Trey was the best partner out there. He knew when to jump in, when to lighten the mood, when to be serious. I texted him under the table: You’re getting a promotion.

He texted back: But I want to work with you.

Duh.

We smiled at each other.

“Now that that unpleasantness is over,” Heather said, “please tell me there’s an exciting new man in your life.”

I laughed, and I was so relieved to have sealed this deal that the laugh almost felt genuine. It almost didn’t break my heart that I’d had a new man in my life and I had pushed him away. Almost.

When Heather left, Trey and I each breathed a huge sigh of relief. “Barfed all night and still pulled it out,” he said. “So, about that promotion…”

“Oh, that was just something I said in the moment. Moment’s over,” I joked.

He elbowed me gently.

“No,” I said. “New title. More money. All that jazz. I’ll get you details, but you have been my go-to for years and you deserve it.”

“But who will plan your cocktail parties? And make your matcha lattes the way you like them? And hide Quinn’s e-mails? And put Greg on hold for egregious amounts of time to piss him off?”

I laughed. “Obviously you’ll have to find and train your replacement.”

He grinned. “Obviously.”

He held his glass up and I clinked it with mine. “To moving up in every sense of the word,” he said.

“Onward and upward,” I responded.

And, for the first time in a long time, I meant it.

diana: warning sign

For the past two days, I had been feeling confident. When I told Gray that I was meeting Frank’s mother, she’d said, “Diana, you are a strong, beautiful, smart woman and you are deserving of everything wonderful that life has to offer. No one can take that away from you.”

When I hadn’t look convinced, she had motioned for me to follow her into her bedroom. She opened the jewelry box on her vanity and pressed a pair of pearl earrings into my palm. “These are my grandmother’s,” she said, “and they are lucky. I always wear them when I feel like I need some extra strength.”

“But you have that big meeting with Glitter,” I had protested.

Gray shook her head. “That’s just a client, Diana. This is your life.”

It had made me feel so warm inside, so strong. I had been a rock for Gray these past few months. Now I knew she was a rock for me too.

She had also cleaned out her closet and insisted that I take everything that fit. Some of the clothes still had the tags on them. “You could sell these,” I protested.

“I could,” she said. “But I will not let you see Frank’s mother for the first time in twenty-two years wearing jean shorts and a T-shirt.”

I couldn’t really argue with that. I knew she was right, and I had been stressing about using part of my paycheck to buy something new. I needed that money to stock up on those little red-and-white-checked baskets I had dreamed of. Gray and I agreed on a pink dress that was fitted but not tight. It was elegant. And, better yet, it was free. I felt like the princess my momma always told me I would be.

Now that the day was here, I wasn’t feeling quite so confident.

“I don’t see why this is necessary,” I said as I slid Gray’s pearl through my ear and pushed the post onto the back.

Frank laughed. “Come on, Di. It won’t be so bad.”

I looked at him like he was totally nuts. “Not so bad? You sure about that?” Trailer trash orphan ran through my mind again. Yeah, it could be that damn bad, and Frank knew it as well as I did.

I felt my stomach churn. I leaned back on the bed and pulled on my other shoe. I put the back of my hand to my forehead. No fever, just nerves. “You know, Frank, I don’t feel so great,” I said.

He put his arm around me, pulled me close, and kissed my cheek. “Look,” he said, “I’ve talked to her. I’ve told her that this is it. You’re it. If she can’t get along with you, then she won’t have me.”

I nodded and swallowed, my tongue feeling unusually thick in my mouth. “Okay,” I whispered, unconvinced.

As I climbed in the front seat of his T-bird, a wave of nausea passed over me again.

I closed my eyes. “Frank,” I said. “I’m serious. I really don’t feel good.”

He squeezed my hand. “Babe, it’s just my mom. She’s sixty-eight years old, for heaven’s sake. She’s not that scary anymore.”

“Women get scarier as they get older,” I said under my breath. Whatever. I had let her take Frank away from me once. I wouldn’t do it again.

We pulled into the parking lot of the club, my head spinning. Get it together, I told myself.

Frank stepped out of the car, and I took a deep breath, trying to swallow away that queasy feeling. I took a sip of the water in my cup holder and scooted out of the T-bird as ladylike as I could muster in that pink dress that was too narrow at the bottom to really move right.

It was a gorgeous day, but the hot sun turned my stomach even more. I leaned over for a second, my hands on the car.

“Babe? You really don’t feel good, do you?”

I shook my head. Then it hit me. Wagner’s throw-up virus. Hadn’t been sick in fifteen years, and today of all days… I was getting ready to tell Frank I needed to go home when I heard, “Yoo-hoo, Frank!” and saw his mother, wearing a pale-blue suit. I pinned on a fake smile.

“Well, hello, Diana,” she said as we made our way down the stone path toward the dining patio. I knew already I couldn’t eat anything. We were only a few steps away from the door, thank the Lord. Because, as I started to say hello to Frank’s mom, I felt bile finally rise in the back of my throat. I beelined through the door and into the bathroom, thankful that I had spent quite a bit of time here this summer and had the place pretty well mapped out.

I wanted to be embarrassed and sad that I had ruined this day, but I felt so horrible that I couldn’t be. Frank was waiting outside the door; mercifully, his mother was not.

He squeezed my shoulder. “Lose your lunch before you had it?”

I nodded. “Please take me home.”

I didn’t even care where his mother was. I was to that point where the sickness was all I could think about. Frank tucked me into bed and brought me a Sprite, but I knew I wouldn’t be able to keep it down.

The next day, I was still getting sick sporadically. “Twenty-four-hour bug, my ass,” I said, as Frank hoisted my weak dish towel of a body into the T-bird.

“You will go to the doctor today,” he had insisted. “At the very least, you need some fluids and some Phenergan. This is ridiculous.”

I had finally agreed because I was too miserable not to.

A few minutes later I was climbing up onto the doctor’s table. Evidently this bug was spreading like wildfire, and they were making special arrangements to get patients seen quickly so they could go back home and vomit in private.

“I’m going to run a few quick tests,” Dr. Gold said when he came in the room, looking exhausted and flustered. “I’m sure it’s just this virus, but we need to be certain we aren’t looking at a bigger culprit.”

I dutifully followed him for testing, and was back in the exam room a few minutes later, lying on the crinkly white sheet. Frank kissed my hand and said, “You’re the bravest woman I know. Do you know that?”

I smiled weakly and heard my phone ding. I motioned for Frank to see who it was. He laughed. “Gray sure does feel bad about how sick you are.”

“It is her fault,” I mumbled. But I didn’t mean it. How many times had she told me to stay out of that house? Stubborn old mule, I was.

A soft rap on the door immediately preceded Dr. Gold flying back into the room. He sat down on a stool with his clipboard and said, “Well, Diana, it is definitely something bigger than a virus.”

I sat up, alarmed. “What do you mean? Do I have E. coli or something? A parasite?”

He shook his head gravely, and my heart sank. It was cancer. I had stomach cancer. I had finally gotten Frank back after all these years. I was finally living the life I had always dreamed of, and now I was going to die.

“Kids,” he said, “you’re having a baby.”

My head spun to look at Frank. I know I looked shocked. He, on the other hand, looked like how I imagined him to on the day he got that check for his land.

“Oh my Lord,” he said.

“Dr. Gold, you know I can’t get pregnant.”

He shrugged. “Evidently you can.”

“Dr. Gold,” I said. “I’m forty years old.”

“Indeed you are,” he said, “which is why we’re going to need to monitor you extra closely to make sure this pregnancy goes well. We’ll need to go ahead and get some initial blood work.…”

He was still talking, but I couldn’t even hear him. Pregnant. I didn’t know how to feel. After twenty years of knowing I would never be a mother, of knowing this would never happen for me, it seemed impossible, like the obvious truth wouldn’t set in.

Frank hugged and kissed me and said, “I think we’ve finally got it right, babe.”

We walked out into the parking lot, and I put together the first coherent words since I’d heard the news: “They ought to put some sort of warning sign on that sand dune.”