Page 21 of The Lookback
I shake my head. “He’s great with my nieces and nephews, and I know his parents want us to have a kid, but he told me he’s fine with not having any.”
“Oh.” He shrugs. “Well, great. If you’ve talked about it, I’m sure it’s fine. Maybe it’s all just for show.”
But then I think about his parents and how he didn’t tell them we aren’t having kids. He didn’t tell them anything at all. “He knows I’m in my forties,” I say.
“Has he heard of IVF?” Oliver sounds incredulous. “Because I read about an eighty-year-old lady getting pregnant, like, in Africa or somewhere.”
I roll my eyes. “I’m just saying, if he was really worried, he’d be pushing it now. It’s pretty much already too late for me.” Or at least, that’s what I spent most of the night telling myself.
Oliver holds up both hands, palms facing me. “I call a truce. I didn’t mean to pick a fight.”
“But why do you think he loves kids so much?” Did he say something while we were in school? Would it even matter if he did? I mean, it’s not like Oliver might know more than I do about my own boyfriend. Right? Right.
“I mean, I think everyone knows it.” Oliver whips out his phone and starts tapping. He swivels it around. “I figured everyone in the world had seen these.”
The video’s playing on a tiny phone screen, but it’s still quite clearly David Park, my handsome, well-spoken, kind-hearted boyfriend, er, fiancé, talking to the screen. . .while sitting in a room full of children.
“St. Jude?” I look away long enough to stare at Oliver. “You’re saying he’s, what? A spokesperson for St. Jude?”
“He was their largest single donor for the last three years,” Oliver says. “Or, rather, his company was. He does these live fundraiser chats about twice a year, and he always features some of the kids he has met and helped, personally, and then tells people exactly where their money goes.”
I snatch the phone out of his hands, and I’m so busy watching the videos I’ve never even seen that I don’t think to taste the Vermilion Rockfish until it’scold. When I finally relinquish Oliver’s phone back to him, I feel a little sick.
“Maybe he doesn’t like kids as much as it seems.” He shrugs. “Maybe you two are a perfect match. They always show so many things on television that aren’t reality. It’s hard to tell.”
But the same scene keeps playing on repeat over and over in my head. In one particularly touching moment, a little girl with an adorable unicorn scarf covering her head is laughing, and then she stops. “What about you, Mr. Park?” she asks. “You make all our wishes come true, but what’s your wish?”
“One day,” he says, “one day I hope to have a dozen little children of my very own.” He taps her nose lightly. “And if they’re half as cute as you, I’ll be a very lucky man.”
She sneezes.
And they both laugh.
It’s a magical moment, and it totally ruins the rest of my two thousand dollar meal.
7
MANDY
“That’s why you think he didn’t like you?” Amanda’s back to pacing from my kitchen to my family room and back again. “That was such an infuriating story.”
“Why?” I stand. “You didn’t have to go through it, and if you’d been there, you’d have understood that he was being utterly serious.”
“I have so many questions.” Maren hops to her feet, too. “Starting with,you can sing?”
I shake my head. “Icouldsing. Now I can only croak.”
“You’re obsessed with singing,” Emery says. “It’s boring.”
“You’d be obsessed too,” Maren says, “if Mom and Eddy had turned down not one, but three record deals for you, just because Eddy was an addict.”
Amanda looks like she might punch her. “That is not why?—”
“That was just one question,” Emery says. “But if that’s all you’ve got, then it’s my turn.” She reaches for my hand from the corner of the sofa. “Sit down, and tell me why Tommy moved to. . .where did you say it was? Montana?”
“Yes, Montana,” I say.
“I’m not done yet,” Amanda says. “You two are so rude, butting in on conversations that aren’t even yours to have.”
