Everything After(63)

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.





52



Emily flipped through a rack of pants, realizing that what she wore when she performed in New York would feel out of place here. Instead she pulled out a short black tank dress and a sheer blouse. Its pattern was a whirl of green and amber that she knew would bring out the green in her hazel eyes. Holding them, she felt excitement pulse through her body.

She walked to a small dressing room and shut the door, hidden from Rob’s view. As she undressed, the air felt different on her skin. She pulled the dress over her head. It skimmed her body, ending midthigh, the thin straps accentuating her shoulders and collarbone. She tied the blouse just under her breasts and left the dressing room to check out the outfit in the store’s three-way mirror. She looked like a new version of herself. Not like she was trying to re-create her college image, but like someone she could be now. She noticed Rob reflected behind her, quietly watching. She turned around. “What do you think?”

“I think yes,” he said, his eyes focused in a way that brought heat to Emily’s cheeks. “I like the boots.”

She looked down at her feet. She’d thrown on the first pair of shoes she’d seen in her closet before she left her apartment, and they were a pair of cowboy boots she had gotten when she and Ezra spent a long weekend in Nashville last year.

“It’ll go with your whole down-home Texas thing. Howdy,” Emily said, imitating his on-stage twang. “I’m real glad y’all are here tonight.”

Rob laughed. “The audience eats it up. And it’s all y’all,” he said, still laughing. “I’ve gotta make sure I include everyone.”

“I’ll remember that,” Emily said, walking to the dressing room.

“You said you wanted some flip-flops, too, right?” Rob asked. “Did you bring a bathing suit?”

Emily stopped. “I didn’t,” she said. There was a sale rack of bathing suits to the left of the dressing rooms. She walked toward them and started flipping through the options. She pulled a green one-piece off the rack for a closer look.

“How about this one?” Rob asked. He was carrying a black bikini with white piping. “Didn’t you have something like this the summer we were first together? You wore it when we went to Coney Island.”

Emily hadn’t thought about that bikini in years, but she remembered it now. It was strapless—a bandeau top and a low-rise bottom that tied together on the sides. The bikini Rob was holding was cut differently. This one was a halter and the bottoms were a little more modest.

“What do you think?” Rob asked.

Emily took the bikini and looked at the price tag. “I think this is a little more than I want to spend . . .” she said.

“My treat,” Rob said. “The outfit, too.”

“I couldn’t—” Emily started.

“Why don’t you try it on first?” Rob said. “We can figure out who pays afterward.”



* * *



—

    Emily walked into the dressing room with the bikini and the green one-piece.

She put the bikini on and looked in the mirror. The suit was a bit more revealing than the ones Emily had at home in New York, but it was beautiful. She turned around. Maybe she could get used to this.

“So?” Rob asked, though the door. “Do you need me to help you tie anything in there?”

Emily blushed, imagining him imagining her in the suit. Imagining him imagining her out of the suit. That wasn’t why she was here.

“It fits,” she said. “But I think I’m going to go with the one-piece.”

As she took off the swimsuit, her heart felt like a yo-yo, going back and forth between enjoying her time here with Rob and feeling bad about her fight with Ezra, feeling like maybe she shouldn’t be here. It was as if she’d forgotten, for a moment, what had happened, what she and Ezra said to each other in New York, and in that moment of forgetting, happiness and joy snuck in, but then she’d remembered again and the space for joy disappeared.

The song she’d worked on during the plane ride morphed in her head:


There’s love in your heart

For everyone but me

You row across the water

While I drown in the sea

When I reach for you You just don’t see

Because there’s love in your heart

For everyone but me

And they say you’re kind

And they say you’re good

And I know it’s true

Because they say the same

About me to you

When you look for me

Have I already flown?

When you want me there

Are you all on your own?