When Emily crossed the jet bridge into the airport in Cancun, she could feel the damp warmth of the beach penetrating the building—and her, too. Her bones felt warmer. But her heart cracked a little when she realized the last time she stepped off a plane into this airport it was with Ezra by her side, a few days before their wedding. Things had felt so different then. So solid, so secure, like nothing could ever tear them apart, the threads of their relationship woven from iron. But iron rusts and crumbles. Was that what was happening now?
As she got through customs, she saw someone in a baseball cap and sunglasses holding a piece of hotel stationery with her name scrawled on it. Had Rob sent her a driver? She’d told him not to but actually wouldn’t mind not having to figure out where and how to get a taxi. She walked toward the man and realized, as she got closer, that Rob hadn’t sent anyone. It was him under the MEX baseball cap and aviators. He broke out in a grin when he spotted her moving in his direction.
“Bienvenidos a Cancún,” he said, when she was within earshot.
Emily started to laugh. Her question at the pizza place had been answered. “So you’re getting recognized now?” she whispered.
“It’s been getting worse at each tour stop,” he said under his breath. “There was a crowd waiting for me when we landed this time around. Diana insisted I wear a disguise to come get you. Thank goodness for hotel sundry stores.”
“Diana’s the tour manager I met in New York?” she asked. “The woman who asked me to come backstage?”
Rob nodded. “Did you check a bag?”
“It was a bit of a spur-of-the-moment decision,” Emily said. “So I haven’t got much. I’ll need to buy something to perform in. And maybe some flip-flops.”
Rob nodded. “Our car is outside. We can make a stop before we get to the hotel—there’s a little shopping village in the hotel zone.”
Emily and Rob walked outside, where a black Suburban was waiting for them. The driver got out as they got closer and opened the door.
“Thanks,” Emily said, as she got inside. Then she looked at Rob, who was taking off his hat and sunglasses. “Do you always have a personal driver now?” she asked quietly, so the driver wouldn’t hear.
Rob shook his head. “Not always. Raúl works at the hotel. He drives people to the airport and back, sometimes out to dinner. That sort of thing.”
Emily nodded, impressed—and also proud of Rob that he’d gotten here, achieved what he’d dreamed of when he was in college.
“We need to make a quick stop at a shop where Emily can get some clothes,” he told Raúl. “Can we go to that little shopping village across the way?”
“Of course, sir,” Raúl said.
The seats were leather and the air conditioner was on full blast. Emily leaned back and closed her eyes.
“So what happened?” Rob asked. “Seems like something big for you to be here.”
Emily opened her eyes, not wanting to relive it but knowing she owed him an explanation. Knowing that Rob would understand. “I told Ezra I wanted to take a leave of absence from NYU and his response was not what I would have hoped.”
“Ah,” Rob said. “But it’s not his decision.”
“Right.” Emily leaned farther back into the plush seat. “Not his decision.”
“I learned that the hard way when we were in college. I can make my own decisions, but I can’t make anyone else’s. I couldn’t make yours, as much as I’d wanted to.”
She turned toward him, feeling again like she had to apologize. “My decision seemed like it was the right one at the time—to give you up, to give music up—and I truly believed it was for years. But now . . . I’m not so sure. Playing on stage again—it felt like it reawakened something in me that is . . . I don’t know . . . maybe essential to who I am. Like in making that decision years ago I’d lost part of myself.”
“I can’t speak to the music, but I think in the end, us breaking up was the right choice at the time,” Rob said, reaching across the middle seat to put his hand on top of hers. “It’s like the butterfly effect. If you’d chosen differently, we might not be here. I might not have a hit song, or two gorgeous girls, or this chance to reconnect with you. I’m real happy with where I ended up, so no reason to second-guess, at least not on my behalf.”
Emily felt her eyes start to fill with tears, because she wasn’t quite sure she was happy with where she’d ended up. She was second-guessing on her own behalf. Second-guessing the decision to allow her pain to dictate her life.
“I’m glad,” she said to him. “I really am. And . . . I hope I’ll be able to say that same thing soon.”
He gave her hand a small squeeze. “Me too, Queenie,” he said. “Me too.”
As the car drove past palm trees and hotel driveways, she wondered how long it would take before she was happy where she ended up. She hoped not another thirteen years.