Page 90 of The Fix-Up
—DART L., AGE 9
Gil did not come out once from the office, just shut himself in there like he was in a zombie movie and any wrong move could be his demise. I’d been standing in front of the door for five minutes, trying to talk myself into knocking. Jorge had just left so the place was quiet, except for the dulcet sounds of Spanish pop music coming from the radio Jorge had forgotten to shut off.
Sunny would tell me I was procrastinating. “Just pull the band-aid off,” she’d surely say. “You’ll feel better after.”
Sometimes I wondered if Sunny ever made a mess of her life and had to clean it up. She always seemed like she had it all figured out.
“Just do it,” I muttered and lifted my hand to knock.
The door swung open before I had the chance. Gil filled the doorway.
“What do you want?” he asked, wariness and annoyance fighting for position on his face.
I frowned. It’s not like I expected an enthusiastic greeting but at least something a little less…caustic. “We need to talk.”
He leaned a shoulder against the doorframe. “I thought you didn’t believe in announcing your intentions when it came to talking.”
“Fine, then.” I wished I wasn’t standing quite so close to him. But taking a step back felt like I was showing weakness, or something. “We need to be adults and talk about what happened. Oliver saw us. He likes you a lot.”I like you a lot. “I’m worried he’ll get the wrong idea.”I’m worried I’ll get the wrong idea.
“What idea would that be?” he asked.
“You know exactly what I mean. Oliver’s got it in his head that we’re going to fall in love or some such nonsense.” I fisted my hands at my sides. “I’ve made a lot of mistakes as a mom, trust me, but I’ve always been careful to keep my dating life separate from Oliver. He deserves better than watching a bunch of jerks parade in and out of his mom’s life. Or worse, he get attached to one of them. And like we both agreed last night, we have different life plans here. If you get what you want, I have to pick up my entire life and figure things out all over again.”
He stared at me intensely. The would-be silence punctuated by the polka beat of the song on the radio. I swayed a touch closer without meaning to. His arm brushed my shoulder. He didn’t give an inch, just kept watching me. His gaze traveled my face, stopping at my mouth long enough for my breath to become unsteady, then back to my eyes.
I had to put space between us, or I’d be begging him to kiss me.
“I saved you a taco plate. Come eat and we can talk.” With that, I twisted on my heels and all but sprinted into the dining room. A few moments later, he followed.
I didn’t look at him as I pulled his plate from under the heating lamp and placed it at the counter. He sat while I poured him a glass of iced tea.
“We made things weird,” I said when I couldn’t take all his silence.
“I get it,” he said without looking up.
There was one piece of lemon meringue left so I plated it and took a seat next to him. This felt a little less intimidating. We weren’t looking at each other.
“I don’t think you do.” I loaded up my fork with pie. “I left for LA at eighteen. My high school boyfriend went with me. After he broke up with me, I did what I wanted to do. I didn’t have my parents watching over everything I did. I was single. I didn’t even care if the guys I saw wanted anything more. I just wanted fun.”
I could feel his eyes on me, but I stared down at my pie.
“Then I hooked up with Oliver’s father. When he left, everything changed. For a while, I was trying my hardest to do the right things. It was so, so hard being a single mom. I was working and taking care of Oliver, and that postpartum depression is a real kick in the ass, let me tell you.”
Those days had been so hard. I had no idea what I was doing. My mom lived halfway across the country. And I didn’t want anyone to know how much I was struggling.
“I thought if I tried to be the old Ellie, the girl who liked to have fun, maybe that would fix me. But all it did was make things worse. I drank too much. Way too much. I made a lot of mistakes, and I was miserable. Then I got my brother in the middle of my mess.”
I swallowed, feeling tears pressing against the backs of my eyes. My fork clinked against the plate because my hand was shaking.
Gil gently reached out and took it from me. He laced our fingers together and I held on like it was my one connection to reality. “What happened?”
“It was so dumb. He was in Vegas for his birthday party. He’s not really that kind of guy but his friends on the team organized it so he went. I drove over from LA to see him. We talked at least once a week, and he’d come and visit. We’re close. But I didn’t even tell him how much I was struggling.”
I turned on the stool toward Gil, staring at where his hand wrapped around mine, his skin tanned and rough with calluses, but oh-so gentle. “I showed up at the party and started drinking and I made a mess of everything. I don’t even remember most of it. Chris tells me I deemed myself the entertainment—dancing on tables, stripping down to my underwear, singing the National Anthem while doing a headstand, real classy stuff.”
“Sounds like you came close to having to forfeit your Miss Tomato Harvest title,” Gil said.
“Imagine the disgrace.” I snorted. “Chris has always had a reputation as a real standup guy. He’s an actual Eagle Scout, you know? He got concerned about how I was acting at the party, so he threw a towel around me and walked me to his hotel room next door. Got me cleaned up and in bed. Called our mom because he was so worried about me.” I propped my elbow on the table and my chin in my palm. “But someone took a video of him helping me and sold it to a gossip site and one thing led to another. It was plastered everywhere that my brother was involved with a Vegas stripper, and it ballooned from there.”
