Side Trip(69)

Ironic how much she wants to talk with him when she’s the one who put the expiration date on their friendship.



It’s after nine when she hails a cab and arrives home. The front door closes loudly behind her and Mark comes running from the kitchen. He hugs her hard. “Thank God. Where’ve you been?”

“I’m sorry. I should have called. I went for a walk.” Then to a bar. She ordered a martini, then another, getting caught up in research on her iPad for her business idea.

He steps back so that he can peer at her. Fear brightens his eyes. “I’ve been trying to reach you. Anna said you left the office hours ago. I was just about to call the hospitals. Did you forget about tonight? It’s Thursday.”

Date night.

Joy’s gaze slides to the dining room. The table is set and taper candles lit but burned almost to the quick. She looks up at Mark, apologetic. She knows she should have come home and discussed her ideas with him, but she got caught up in the excitement of something new. Something for her.

“I got distracted. I’m sorry. Let me make it up to you. Have you eaten? I’m starved. I’ll tell you what I’ve been working on. My mind’s buzzing, I walked everywhere.”

“Food’s cold.” He crosses his arms. “I smell alcohol.”

She sets down her belongings. “I stopped for a drink.”

“Anna said you quit your job.”

“I did.” She drops her keys on the sideboard.

He frowns. “I thought you loved your job. You’re up for a promotion.”

“I got it and I don’t want it. But what do you think about me launching my own natural and organic soaps and salves business? Wouldn’t that be exciting?”

“You’re—” He paused and cocked his head to the side. “What about kids? We’re supposed to start trying again.”

“We are, and we will. Nothing says I can’t do both.”

He looks at the floor, then away, his expression troubled.

She gently touches his forearm. “What is it?”

“I wish you’d talked with me first. I want to support you with this . . . soaps and salves thing,” he says, rolling his hand. “But I worry—” He stalls out.

A nervous twinge tickles her throat. “Worry about what?”

“Nothing.” He reaches for her hand.

“Mark,” she pleads. “What is it?”

“Let’s eat. You can tell me about your business ideas over dinner.”



Two tequila shots in at the Inside Beat in Greenwich Village, Joy confesses to Taryn. “I quit my job and I didn’t tell Mark until after the fact. He’s upset.”

Taryn waves for the bartender’s attention and orders another round. “You aren’t one to talk, Joy. Even I have to pull your hair to get you to share your feelings. You’re an oyster with a pearl.”

Joy tosses back a third shot and reveals one of those pearls she’s kept locked tight. “I don’t know if we’re compatible anymore. He wants kids. I do, too, but . . .”

“You’re scared.”

“I’m scared I can’t give him kids, and I’m scared that I’m not ready for them.”

“Have you explained this to Mark?”

Joy shakes her head and slips her shot glass upside down on the bar top. The band onstage launches into a cover from Catharsis, bringing Dylan to mind. He’s been hanging around inside her head a lot lately. The further she and Mark draw apart, the more drawn she is to what could have been with Dylan. “I met someone,” she says.

Taryn almost drops her shot glass on the bar top. “What? When?”

Joy had canceled her Rolling Stone subscription last year. She also skipped watching the Grammys and every other music award show that’s aired, but she hasn’t been able to put Dylan behind her. She hasn’t been able to put any of her past behind her. It clings like static.

“It was a long time ago. We aren’t in touch anymore, but . . .”

“You love him. I can tell just by looking at you.”

Did she? The back of Joy’s neck tingles. She looks down at the empty shot glass on the bar. Joyride’s lyrics cruise through her mind. I knew a girl once . . . treated unfairly . . . thought she was for me.

“I’m not sure what I feel.”

“What’s his name?”

“Dylan.”

“And Mark? Do you love him?”

“Yes, of course.” But she can’t stop thinking about Dylan. That part of the deal they made at JFK has been the most difficult one to honor. Little things always bring him to the forefront of her mind. Something he said will pop up. Or she’ll find herself admiring the magnets from the road trip she kept in her workstation before she realizes that twenty minutes have passed and she’s been lost in memories of that trip and Dylan.

“Are you happy with Mark?”

She opens, then closes her mouth. “It hasn’t been easy with him. We want different things. He wants a family, like yesterday. I want kids, too. Eventually.”

“And you’re wondering what if about this Dylan guy.”

Joy aims Taryn a guilty look. “Exactly.”

“Not that I have any experience, but marriage has more bends and twists than Simone Biles doing a floor routine.”