Chapter Twenty

Okay, so the condom broke. What were the odds that she would get knocked up? If this were an after school special, Rose figured her odds would have been about a hundred percent. But this was real life. And in real life, it couldn’t be more than, what, twenty percent? Half of that? Ten? So that meant she had a ninety percent chance of not being pregnant.

If she got odds that good at Vegas, she’d cash in her savings and book a room at the Mirage.

And there was always Plan B—the morning-after pill. Those were available over the counter now. No muss, no fuss, just buy the damned thing, and any potential problem would be solved.

Easy. Simple.

The morning following the faulty condom incident, she fully intended to go to the drugstore and buy the pills. But she didn’t manage to get there, because by the time Will drove her home, it was getting close to nine a.m. and she had to get ready for work. Then, on her lunch hour, she was going to go, but Patricia had a family crisis and wasn’t there to relieve her, so she had to stay in the shop.

At first she didn’t tell anyone, because it was embarrassing—it was a silly problem to have, a problem you had when you lost your virginity after the prom and then realized after the fact that the guy had been carrying the same condom around in his wallet since he hit puberty.

But she told her friends everything, and the pull of that was too great to resist. So when the four of them met for lunch a couple of days after the incident, Rose brought it up like she was telling them what movie she’d watched the night before.

“So, the condom broke,” Rose said casually, over pizza at a little place on Main Street.

Kate had just taken a big bite from a pepperoni slice, and she nearly choked on her food. “What?!”

Rose shrugged, picked a slice of pepperoni off of her pizza, and popped it into her mouth. “The condom,” she said, then motioned with her hands to indicate an explosion.

“We’re talking about Will, right?” Gen said. A lifelong adherent to healthy eating, Gen had a large green salad in front of her instead of pizza. She had paused with a forkful of lettuce halfway to her mouth.

“Of course, Will. Jeez. Who else?” Rose said.

“But you said you were done with men!” Lacy pointed out.

They were gathered around a small table in a restaurant with dark wood paneling and flyers tacked to the walls advertising the local play, a rummage sale, a live music performance at a bar just off Main Street, and other random bits of local news. A few other diners were at tables enjoying pizza slices or hot sandwiches, but they were probably out of earshot. If not, they were doing a good job of hiding any interest.

“I’m done with relationships with men,” Rose clarified. “I’m not done with sex.”

“When?! When was this?” Lacy demanded to know.

“A couple of days ago. Thursday night.”

“You’ve been sitting on this information for two days?” Kate glared at her.

Rose shrugged. “I wasn’t ready to … to dissect it yet.”

“But now you are?” Gen asked.

“I guess so.”

“All right,” Lacy said, still pouting. “We’ll dissect. But no more secrets.”

“You think that’s a secret?” Rose leaned in toward the center of the table and lowered her voice. “You should hear the secret Will’s been keeping. He’s a master at sex! I mean, the man is a god.”

The other three stared at her, eyes wide, mouths gaping.

“Will?” Gen repeated. “The cute but geeky science nerd?”

“I know!” Rose threw up her hands to indicate the sheer scope of her surprise. “Who would have known? When he did this … thing with my … I thought my limbs and the top of my head were going to fly off.”

“Wow.” Gen looked thoughtful as she absorbed the information. “Now, Jackson—he’s known to be a legend. But Will? I guess it’s always the quiet ones.”

“Jeez,” Kate said. “Lucky girl.”

“Yeah, well. Let’s just hope that luck holds. Because, condom,” Rose reminded them.

“Okay, but you’re on the pill, right?” Lacy asked.

Rose grimaced. “That’s exactly what Will said.”

Kate gasped. “You’re not?”

“Well.” Rose began to explain, and as she did, she sounded like a kid making excuses for not doing her homework. “I was done with men! And when Jeremy and I broke up, there had to be a … a gesture! And so, as my gesture, I … I may have thrown out my pills.”

“You may have,” Kate said.

“Well … yeah.”

“And what did Will say when you told him that the exploded condom was your only means of birth control?” Gen asked.

Rose picked a piece of cheese off of her pizza, ate it, and didn’t answer.

“You didn’t tell him,” Kate concluded.

“Oh, Rose,” Gen moaned.

“Well, we’d just had this beautiful, epic, earth-shattering sex. I didn’t want to ruin the moment. I didn’t want to have this big discussion! I wanted … afterglow.”

“Oh, honey. You have to tell him,” Kate said.

“There’s nothing to tell,” Rose insisted. “He knows about the exploded condom, obviously. And there’s a ninety percent chance I won’t get pregnant. When—if—there’s something to tell, then I’ll tell him.”

Lacy scrunched up her nose in skepticism. “Is it really ninety percent?”

“Hell, I don’t know.” Rose threw her hands skyward again. “But that’s what I’m going with. I’m going with ninety percent.”

“But surely you took that Plan B pill, right?” Gen said.

“Well …”

“You didn’t? Why not?” Kate demanded.

“Well …” Rose said again.

Lacy gasped and clapped a hand over her mouth. “Oh, my God. You didn’t do it because you don’t want to. You’re falling in love with him and you want to have his cute, geeky, sciency baby!”

Kate laughed. “I guess you’re not so through with men after all.”

“That must have been some really great sex,” Gen said.

“And then … oh, yeah,” Rose said, not even bothering to deny their accusations about her feelings for Will. “I forgot to mention one other thing. He might have said—casually—that he wants to marry me.”

For the second time in the conversation, the other three froze in surprise.

“Was this after the condom incident?” Kate asked when she recovered her voice. “An if you’re knocked up, I’ll marry you kind of thing?”

“No, he said it before the sex.”

“Will proposed to you.” Gen was staring at her.

“No, no. I was talking about your wedding, and I said something about how planning a wedding is hard work. And he said when we’re ready, we can go to Vegas. Have Elvis do it.”

“Oh, so it was a joke,” Lacy said.

“The thing is, I don’t think it was,” Rose said, playing with the food on her plate, the fluttering of nerves and excitement in her belly robbing her of her appetite. “He kind of seemed like he meant it.”

“Oh,” Lacy sighed.

“Wow,” Gen said.

Kate raised her eyebrows. “This is going to be interesting.”

 

Ever since the night of pie and sex, Rose and Will’s fake relationship had seemed to evolve into a real one. That had been Will’s plan all along, and it was going swimmingly.

They were spending a lot of time together, most of that time ending with both of them naked. They didn’t talk about what this was—whether it was a relationship, simple fun, or something else—but that was okay. Will knew what it was for him: It was love. He figured Rose would come around to that herself eventually, if she hadn’t already.

And if she didn’t, well, he’d help her along.

Pamela was still in town, and would be until after Gen and Ryan’s wedding, and whenever he and Rose got together, she commented about how thankful she was that he was keeping her busy so she wouldn’t have to spend time with her mother.

Will understood that, but on the other hand, he figured that if he was going to be a permanent fixture in Rose’s life, as he was determined to be, then he might as well start getting his future mother-in-law used to the idea.

About a week and a half after the pie and the condom, Will called Rose and asked if she and her mother would like to come to his place for dinner.

“My mother?” She said it in a tone that suggested the word itself was entirely new to her.

“Yeah. I just thought, she’s in town to spend time with you. Might as well do something together. Make it nice.”

Rose let out a heavy sigh. “Will. Why in God’s name would you want to do that, after the way she treated you the night of the barbecue? Why would you subject yourself to that?”

It was a fair question, but he was ready with the answer. “That was our first meeting. She didn’t have time to prepare, mentally. Now, she’s had time to get used to the idea of me. It’s going to go a lot better. You’ll see.”

“You say that because you don’t know her,” Rose said dryly.

“You’re right, I don’t. Let’s fix that. At best, she’ll decide she likes me. And at worst, I’ll see firsthand just what you’re up against. It’ll make me more empathetic when you complain about her.”

Rose paused, and he could tell she was considering it. “That’s not a bad point,” she conceded.

 

Will wasn’t much of a cook, but he knew how to make a roast chicken, so he did that, along with some red potatoes with butter, garlic, and dill, and a nice green salad. He fussed around some, putting fresh flowers on the table and making pretty place settings, with colorful cloth napkins and his best dishes—which were his only dishes.

At first when he was waiting for them to arrive, he didn’t think he was nervous. But he was repeatedly wiping his hands on his pants, and then he realized he was doing that because his palms were sweating.

So, okay. Maybe he was nervous.

By the time they knocked on the door, the house smelled nice, like hot, juicy chicken and simmering herbs. He figured that at the very least, he wouldn’t embarrass himself too badly.

He’d expected to see the same pinched, judgmental look on Pamela’s face that she’d worn the last time they’d met, but it wasn’t there. Instead, she was smiling politely. And he thought, Well, of course. He wasn’t the one who had changed her attitude. It was Cooper House.

Christopher Mills’s vacation estate, with its manicured gardens, its tennis courts, its swimming pool big enough to float an aircraft carrier, was just the kind of thing that would impress a wealthy, status-conscious society woman from Connecticut. It would have impressed her a lot more if Will had owned it.

“Why, the grounds are lovely, just lovely,” Pamela gushed as she and Rose came into the cottage. Will took her sweater and her purse and stowed them neatly in the coat closet.

“Yes, it’s a shame Chris doesn’t use it more often,” Will said. “Mostly, the main house sits empty. At least I get to enjoy it.”

He offered them wine, and Pamela accepted. Rose asked for a glass of iced tea instead.

When they all had their drinks, they sat in the cottage’s little living room while the food continued to cook.

“That smells great,” Rose said. “I didn’t even know you could cook.”

“I didn’t either,” Will said. “Seems to be going okay, though.”

“It was kind of you to invite us,” Pamela offered. Will thought she said it grudgingly, though that might have been his imagination.

“Let me help you in the kitchen,” Rose offered.

“Thanks, but I think everything’s—”

“Is something burning? I smell something burning.” Rose grabbed Will’s hand and charged into the kitchen, pulling him along behind.

“What’s burning?” He looked in the oven and at the contents of the pot on the stove. “I don’t think it is. It looks okay.”

Then he caught the grin on her face and realized it had been a ploy to get him in here. For a guy known for his brains, he didn’t always catch on as quickly as one might expect.

“Oh,” he said when he finally got it.

“The grounds are lovely, just lovely,” Rose mimicked in a stiff-jawed Pamela voice. Then she mimed gagging herself with her finger. “Sure, this place is good enough for her. She hates my house and her beach rental, but this is right up her alley.” Rose boosted herself up to sit on the counter, plucked a carrot stick from the cutting board, and started chomping on it.

“How’s the extended visit going?” he asked, though he already knew the answer.

“I might drown myself,” Rose replied cheerfully. “Drowning sounds peaceful.”

He came to where she was sitting and put his hands on her hips. “Don’t do that. I’d miss you.”

“Aww.”

He kissed her, and instead of simply kissing him back, she wrapped her arms and legs around him so that, without him even realizing it had happened, she seemed to have climbed him like a koala in a eucalyptus tree.

That’s how they were standing when Pamela peeked her head into the kitchen.

“Is everything all right in here?” she wanted to know.

 

“So, Mrs. Watkins, how are you enjoying Cambria?” Will asked about twenty minutes later at the dinner table as he passed the serving platter to her.

“Well, the natural scenery is lovely, of course,” she said, gingerly transferring chicken and potatoes to her plate. “But the house where I’m staying is no more than adequate. But at least it’s better than that cabin where Rosemary lives. I keep telling her, there are plenty of perfectly wonderful houses in Cambria. I don’t see why she persists in living like the Unabomber.”

“I like Rose’s house,” Will said.

“I work at a wine shop,” Rose reminded her mother. “It’s not like I have a 401K and an expense account.”

“Details,” Pamela said, waving a hand dismissively.

“Um … how is that just a detail?” Will inquired.

Rose took the platter from her mother and started loading up her plate. “My mother has informed me that if I were to make a few, shall we say, lifestyle adjustments, she’d be happy to foot the bill for a bigger place.”

Will’s eyebrows shot up. “But you like your place.”

“I do.”

“And you don’t want to … adjust your lifestyle.”

“True. I don’t.”

They both looked at Pamela.

“We’re talking about a hairstyle, for God’s sake,” Pamela spat out. “And a few items of jewelry. I fail to see why it matters so much to you.”

“I know you do, Mom,” Rose said. She laid a hand on her mother’s arm. “Can we talk about something more pleasant? Like that nasty rash I had last month?”

“Rosemary, please.” Pamela looked at Rose with scorn.

“You know, Rose is doing very well for herself, Mrs. Watkins,” Will tried gamely. “She doesn’t just work at the wine store, she manages it. And once she gets her degree …”

“Degree?” Pamela said.

Rose, positioned behind Pamela’s back, was using one finger to make a frantic slashing gesture across her throat. But it was too late; he’d already said it.

“What degree, Rosemary?” Pamela turned in her seat to face Rose.

“Ah … I … nothing. Who wants more potatoes?”

“Rosemary.” Pamela fixed Rose with a gaze honed by years of experience in applying pressure, guilt, and manipulation. Rose cracked.

“Oh, it’s just … I’m thinking of going to college. At Cal Poly San Luis Obispo. They have a viticulture program, and I thought—”

“Cal Poly?” Pamela said. “Oh, Rosemary. You were supposed to go to Yale.”

“She didn’t want to go to Yale,” Will put in. He knew this wasn’t his business, wasn’t his family relationship to navigate. But he couldn’t just sit here and let Pamela continue to criticize and berate Rose. “She ran away with nothing but a car and the clothes on her back to avoid going to Yale. That suggests to me that she really didn’t want to go. A high-status school isn’t everything.”

“Said the Stanford man,” Pamela observed dryly.

“Stanford is great,” he acknowledged. “But Cal Poly meets Rose’s needs. They’ve got the program she wants in the location she wants. And, they’re reasonably affordable.”

Pamela scoffed. “Affordable. She’s buying an education, for God’s sake, not a used car.”

“Well, at this point, I won’t be buying either. Now, let’s just enjoy this nice meal Will made for us. Can we? Please?” Rose demonstrated enjoying the meal by putting a forkful of potatoes in her mouth and saying, “Mmm. Yummy!”

“Rosemary.” Rose’s mother gave her the Pamela Glare. “Will says you’re finally going to college, and now you say you’re not. Which is it, dear?”

Rose put down her fork and plopped her hands in her lap in defeat. “I’d like to go, but I can’t afford it. Okay, Mother?”

“Well, but, I’m encouraging Rose to look into financial aid opportunities,” Will added.

“Financial aid!” Pamela said it as though Rose would be panhandling with a sign that read, WILL WORK FOR TUITION. “That’s for inner city, blue collar, working class—”

“I am working class!” Rose exclaimed.

“Well, that was your own decision, dear.” Pamela delicately patted her mouth with her napkin.

“Yes, it was, and I don’t regret it. At all.” Rose stabbed a piece of chicken with her fork as though she were defending her life against it.

“Viticulture,” Pamela mused. “To do what? Become a sommelier? Because that’s just a glorified—”

“No. A winemaker. I want to make wine. I’d like to eventually have my own label.” Rose said this quietly, almost timidly, without her usual verve. That’s what made Will understand how much it really meant to her.

“Hmm,” Pamela said.

Will hadn’t known Pamela long, but he could almost hear her thought process. A sommelier might be a glorified bartender, but a winemaker? That had a certain cultured, upscale cachet. That was something she could tell her Connecticut friends about.

“Pamela,” Will said, attempting to change the subject. “I’m sorry you’re finding your stay in Cambria to be disappointing.”

“Oh, I didn’t say that.” Pamela lifted her wineglass and took a sip of chardonnay.

“You didn’t?” Rose asked.

“No, dear. I can quite see the appeal, actually. Did I tell you that I awoke this morning to find a family of deer on the lawn? Charming. Just charming.”

Rose stared at her mother, her mouth half open.