Time of My Life_ A Novel - Allison Winn Scotch [62]
“Do you want me not to go see her?” He slammed a suitcase shut on our bed. “Is that it? Do you want me not to go, because then I won’t fucking go!”
“That’s not it,” I said quietly. “It’s so much more than that.”
“Because we fight?” he asked. “Is this because of our stupid fights? Because everyone has goddamn fights. Everyone!”
“It’s not about the fights, Jack,” I said, then reconsidered. “Well, it is about the fights. Sort of. It just feels like we don’t fit anymore.” I thought again of Henry.
“This is bullshit,” he said, though he stopped screaming and now seemed poised to explode into tears. “Fucking bullshit. Two years of my life, and then this. Out of nowhere.”
“It’s not exactly out of nowhere,” I said, sitting on the bed.
“It’s completely out of fucking nowhere,” he answered, lifting his suitcase and heading for the front door. “Just like your goddamn mom. One day here, the next day gone.”
The door slammed, and that’s when I started to cry. Because while he might have been cruel, he might also have been right. Just the day before, we’d nursed cocktails with Meg and Tyler and toasted our fortune and circumstance, and now, this—yes, I could see how to Jack it did seem out of nowhere.
But no longer, I think, drowning a giant sip of the mojito. Now I’m here, in this restaurant that my old suburban self wouldn’t have thought worthy of going to, in a dress that my old suburban self couldn’t have squeezed into, and with a man who my old suburban self never quite laid to rest.
I shake myself out of the memory, just as our waiter arrives to
take our order. This is the here and now. This is the moment, I think. This is the time of my life.
LATER, WITH MY STOMACH happily dancing with mahimahi and crusty sourdough bread and rich molten chocolate cake and one mojito too many, Jack pays the check and takes my hand.
“I chose this place because they have the most incredible roof deck,” he says. “Come on, let’s go.”
He pulls back my chair for me and guides me, arm around my waist, to the elevator. (Take that, Marie Claire! Chivalry is not dead!)
The doors ding open when we reach the top, and we step onto a mutedly lit terrace, with tiny white lights, like the fireflies of my childhood, dotting the stucco walls, and soaring potted palm trees looming from corners and crevasses. A jazz trio plays on an elevated stage to our right, and just ahead, I can see the ocean, its waves sweeping in, then out, then in again. Slim, crisp patrons mill about and the air smells of salt, just washed in from the sea.
We amble over to the ledge and stare out at the endless tide, its roar still detectable below the buzz of conversation, and then Jack turns to me.
“Jill, you know that I love you, right?”
“I do,” I say, returning my gaze to the water. I’m mesmerized by its rhythm, how even when you think another wave won’t come along, even when you think the beat won’t hold steady, another crest rides up and there it is—the pulse of the ocean all over again.
“Look at me, baby. I’m saying something important here.” His palm guides my cheek back to him. Jack inhales. “I know that as a writer, I’m supposed to have a way with words and all of that, but I’ve thought about this over and over again, and I just don’t have the right words for this moment.”
It hits me, suddenly and viscerally, what is happening.
“And so,” he continues and lowers himself onto one knee, “all I can say is, Jill, I love you more than anything, and I’d be honored if you’d marry me.” He bats a curl of blond hair off his forehead, then reaches into his pants pocket and pulls out a box.
I can feel all my pores reopen, sweat marching forward, like an angry army, and my eyes are frozen wide, unable to blink. Blood rushes through me, and my mouth turns arid. I still haven’t spoken when he slides the ring on my finger.
“So you will?” he says, rising to kiss me. I must nod my head or give some slight indication that, indeed,