Only Love Can Hurt Like This, page 16
“Ooh, is that what we’re having?” Bailey calls after him.
“Yep. Should be ready soon. Jonas has been smoking them all afternoon.”
Jonas comes back outside and sees Anders over at the charcoal grill.
“Yo! Step away!” he hollers. “Take these to the girls.”
Anders returns to us, rolling his eyes.
“Your brother is kind of possessive, huh?” I say as he hands me a glass of wine.
“Yeah. I’m lucky he didn’t stick me with his meat probe.”
“I beg your pardon?”
A laugh bursts out of him, which sets Bailey and me off, and then Jonas comes over, demanding to know what’s funny.
The tension is broken by the time we’ve all calmed down.
“Are you a goth?” Jonas asks me as we tuck into the mouthwatering meal he’s prepared.
He’s served the smoked barbecue ribs with grilled corn on the cob, homemade coleslaw, and buttery jacket potatoes wrapped in foil.
I pull a face, glancing down at my black playsuit. “You’re kidding, right?”
“Emo, then? Or is that the same thing? I’ve only ever seen you wear black.”
“No, it’s not the same thing. Emo stands for emotional hard core, which is a type of punk rock music that evolved in the 1990s. Goth is associated with gothic rock, a genre that emerged in the 1970s.”
“You’ve been asked that question before,” Anders says with amusement as he picks up his corncob.
I smile, beyond relieved that he’s relaxed back into my company. “It’s true, I have. And no, I’m not a goth or an emo, I’m an architect and we always wear black.”
Anders nearly chokes on his mouthful as he laughs and it scares me how light and jittery my heart suddenly becomes.
The “architects wear black” thing is a massive overgeneralization, but it did apply to more than half of my colleagues at my old London practice.
“No more black after Thursday,” Bailey says to me meaningfully.
“I never said I wouldn’t buy black,” I retort.
“What’s happening on Thursday?” Jonas asks us.
“We’re going shopping in Bloomington,” Bailey tells him.
“We’re going to Bloomington on Thursday!” Jonas says.
“Really? What for?” I ask.
“Sales stuff. We can drive together, if you like?”
“Are you staying overnight?” Bailey asks hopefully.
“No, there and back in a day.”
“Ah, we’re hoping to stay with my friend and go out on Thursday night.”
“We haven’t had a drunken night out there in years.” Jonas kicks Anders’s foot.
“Did you use to go there a lot?” I ask them.
“Yeah, to see bands at the Bluebird, or to go to the comedy club out the back of Mother Bear’s Pizza.”
“I love Mother Bear’s Pizza!”
“You know it?”
“I went every time I visited Dad and Sheryl. My other favorite place is Nick’s English Hut.”
“Ah, Nick’s is great,” Anders enthuses.
Nick’s English Hut is on Kirkwood Avenue, a popular street that radiates straight from the campus. Sheryl used to claim IU Bloomington was one of the prettiest campuses in the United States, up there with the Ivy Leagues, but she’s a proud Hoosier, so I’m not sure she can be trusted.
It is objectively beautiful, though, with ornate buildings made of local limestone, thick, deep windows, and even the odd turret. It has a bit of an old English feel about it.
Nick’s English Hut, however, is about as English as the nearby Irish Lion is Irish. But at least the Lion has leprechaun wings on the menu. No one can accuse them of not getting into the spirit of things.
“Man, Nick’s stromboli sandwiches,” Jonas moans. “We’re going there on Thursday,” he tells Anders in no uncertain terms.
“How can you be thinking about your next meal when you’re still eating?” Anders asks him.
Jonas shrugs and licks his fingers clean.
“The last time we went to Nick’s, Scott reckons he saw John Mellencamp in the loo,” I say to Bailey.
She smiles and nods. “I used to see him around Bloomington all the time. He lives the next town over.”
“When was this?” Anders asks me.
“A couple of years ago.”
“Sorry, who’s Scott?” Jonas looks baffled.
“Wren’s fiancé,” Bailey tells him. “Well, her ex-fiancé.”
Jonas is taken aback. He glances at his brother, but Anders doesn’t react because he already knew I was engaged.
“How long were you together?” Anders asks me evenly.
“Three years.”
Jonas looks at Anders again. Then at me. Then at Bailey. She grins at him. He smiles back at her. “So where’s your husband today?”
“Work.”
“What does he do?” Jonas asks, and I’m glad to hear him asking this question so casually, as though it doesn’t bother him that Bailey is married.
I hope that means he’s not interested in her. I don’t like to think of him hitting on a married woman. Obviously, his attachment to Heather is a bit more understandable because of their history, but an affair on any level is deplorable, in my opinion.
“He’s a golf tutor,” Bailey replies, as I try to focus on the conversation going on around me.
“Golf?” Jonas recoils. “Is he preppy?”
“Not at all,” Bailey replies with a laugh.
“He used to have a very quirky, very non-preppy mustache,” I chip in.
“Oh, I miss his mustache,” Bailey laments.
I’ve seen a bit more of Casey over the last couple of weeks and I really, really like him. I think he and Bailey make an awesome couple. He’s amiable and sweet, and she’s her usual upbeat self around him. But at the same time, he seems to ground her. I get the feeling he’s never angry or mean, and he truly seems to adore her.
And yet . . . Bailey seems unfulfilled.
It might simply be her job—it’s hard when one partner couldn’t be happier and the other is feeling unsatisfied—but what if it’s more than that? What if this town is too small for her big personality?
Bailey and Casey have bought a house here. His entire family is here. He loves his job. He’s invested. Even Dad and Sheryl moved here to be closer to them. That’s got to feel like a lot of pressure on my sister to be happy.
21
Bailey has “American Girl” by Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers blaring out of her car speakers and we’re singing along to the chorus at the top of our voices, windows down, hot air blowing in and messing up our hair.
Bloomington is about an hour north and we drive through farmland and small towns to get there. We’re traveling separately from Jonas and Anders. They’re going for business, not pleasure, so we haven’t made plans to meet up, but maybe we’ll bump into them.
Bailey and I are staying in an apartment right in the city center that belongs to Bailey’s friend Tyler. She’s actually away right now and was gutted to miss us, but she told Bailey we could grab the key from her neighbor and make ourselves at home.
We spend the afternoon wandering around and going in and out of shops. The third time I make a beeline for darker clothes, Bailey drags me over to a more colorful rail. I am now the hesitant owner of a pair of denim shorts, three T-shirts of varying colors, a blue, white, and yellow ditsy-print dress that cinches me in at the waist, hugs my chest, and floats around my knees, and a black-and-red dress in the same style.
Bailey convinced me to get the dresses because she said I looked “stunning.” I wasn’t at all sure, but she was so insistent that I didn’t have the energy to argue.
She bought herself a yellow summer dress, a pair of white shorts, and a couple of stripy tops.
In the late afternoon, we find ourselves walking past the quirky, higgledy-piggledy frontage of Nick’s English Hut.
“Take a photo and text it to Anders,” Bailey urges.
I hesitate, but only briefly.
He replies almost immediately: Are you settling in for the night already?!
Not quite, but it won’t be long.
Bailey is looking over my shoulder. “Ask him if they’re still in Bloomington!”
Are you still in town?
Yep. Jonas is set on Nick’s for a stromboli, actually.
“Ask if we can join them!” Bailey prompts.
“No,” I reply, staring at my phone screen. No way am I acting keen.
“Why not?” Bailey asks with a frown.
“Because.”
And then another text comes in: See you there?
“That’s an invitation!” Bailey hisses, jabbing my phone screen with her finger.
I stare at her contemplatively, and then I finally pluck up the courage to go there.
“Does Casey mind you hanging out with them?”
She shifts on her feet. “I mean, I’m not sure he loved it when I told him I was going over there on Sunday, but he didn’t cause a fuss. I really like them, especially Jonas. He’s so funny.”
I hesitate. “You do mean as a friend, right?”
I’m dreading her answer. If Bailey ended up taking after our dad and having an affair, I’m not sure I’d ever forgive her.
She stares at me. “I would never cheat on my husband.”
“That is so good to hear,” I say with a rush of relief.
“Oh, Wren.” She sighs with disappointment. “I wish you knew me better than that.”
Shame washes over me.
“I’m sorry.”
She gives me a small smile. “It’s okay. There’s a lot about you that I’ve yet to learn too. But we have been getting closer, haven’t we?”
I smile at her. “Yes, we have.”
“You have nothing to worry about with Jonas and me,” she reassures me. “I love Casey. Surely you can see how good we are together?”
I nod. “You guys make a great couple. But are you happy where you’ve settled, Bailey?” I ask tentatively. “Don’t you think Case would consider moving if you weren’t? He could always get a job at another golf club.”
“No, Wren, I don’t want to give up on his hometown yet.”
“It’s just . . . It’s such a small town. There’s not much culture. I’m worried you’ll be bored there before long.”
“I’m kind of bored now, but I need to give it a chance. And making friends will help. Casey might have his doubts about Jonas because of his reputation, but he’s much more concerned about me being happy. And Jonas makes me laugh. I like Anders too, but Jonas is such a cutie.”
“He is. I like them both too,” I confide.
“So?” She nods pointedly at my phone.
Fine. We wanted to go there anyway. I reply to Anders’s text: We’ll be there in an hour, and then we return to Tyler’s to drop off our shopping bags and get ready.
* * *
The interior of Nick’s is plastered with framed photographs, newspaper clippings, and a ton of Indiana University memorabilia. A bunch of famous people have signed the walls—including Barack Obama, who was here in 2008. I still remember how devastated Dad, Sheryl, and Bailey were that they’d missed him.
We spy Jonas and Anders sitting in a red wooden booth, nursing glasses of beer.
Bailey sneaks up behind Jonas and taps him on the shoulder. His face lights up at the sight of her and he jumps out to give her a big bear hug before doing the same to me.
Anders stays where he is, edging over on the bench seat to make room. I sit down next to him, making no attempt to hug him. I’m getting used to his ways.
It’s busy in here but not jam-packed. College doesn’t start back until next week—in American terms, summer is over by mid-August. It’s a dispiriting thought.
“What have you been up to today?” I ask once the server has come over to take our drinks order.
Jonas smirks at Anders, who laughs under his breath before explaining, “Jonas has been talking to store owners about buying his popcorn.”
“I didn’t know you grew popcorn.”
“Neither does our dad,” Anders replies, sliding me a sideways look.
“What?”
“I planted some as an experiment,” Jonas interjects, grinning like a naughty schoolboy. “Not much, only thirty acres, but I didn’t tell Dad because—” He stops speaking.
“Pa doesn’t like change,” Anders chips in.
Jonas nods. “Exactly that.”
“So Jonas is damn glad our parents have gone away for a while because popcorn only grows to about six feet and it was just a matter of time before Pa drove past that field and noticed that the stalks weren’t as high as the others.”
“That’s so devious,” Bailey says with glee.
“Are you hoping to sell it all before you break it to him?” I ask.
“That’s the plan,” Jonas replies. “I want to bring it to the farmers’ markets here too.”
I remember the Bloomington farmers’ markets well—there are food trucks and live music, and loads of local farmers come to sell everything from fruit and veg to vibrant fresh flowers.
“You should do a drive-in movie night!” Bailey erupts suddenly. “Or maybe not a drive-in—it would be more sociable if people got out of their cars and sat in the barn or under the stars. You could sell tickets.”
Jonas laughs and looks at me from across the table. “And we could have your corn maze, Wren, get everyone there from far and wide.”
“I still think that’s a brilliant idea,” I mutter, because I know he’s teasing me.
“What’s this?” Anders asks.
“The field between our land and theirs,” Jonas explains. “When I told Wren we lost it to hail damage, she suggested we cut out a maize maze. Get people to pick Wetherill pumpkins before coming to our place for some good ole country fun.”
Anders doesn’t laugh along with his brother.
Bailey slaps the table. “I love that idea!”
“What? No!” Jonas waves her away dismissively.
“Why not?” Anders asks him.
“Are you kidding?” Jonas replies with astonishment. “Can you imagine Pa going for it?”
“Pa’s not here,” Anders says evenly. “I say it’s time you grab that farm by the balls and make what you want of it.”
22
The next morning, Bailey and I drive south out of the city, park the car, and hike to a disused quarry to go swimming. I’m on edge at the sight of the trespassing warning signs, but there’s no stopping my sister the whirlwind.
“I used to hike out to Rooftop Quarry all the time with my friends when I was younger,” she murmurs, lying on her back in the water with her eyes closed to the piercing sunlight. “It’s been partially filled in now because people used to cliff dive and it was dangerous, but it was beautiful. It provided the stone for the Empire State Building, actually.”
“Sounds blissful. Meanwhile, I was walking in the gray drizzle to the Kingfisher Leisure Centre in Sudbury.”
I’m treading water, looking all around at the sheer limestone walls that cut straight into the clear emerald-green water. Leafy trees line the edges and a few scraggly bushes cling to the stone.
“Were you sad to leave America?” Bailey asks out of the blue.
I hesitate before replying honestly. “I was sad generally.”
“I’m sorry. I used to live in fear of Mom and Dad splitting up.”
“They never gave you anything like that to worry about, though, right?”
“Are you kidding?” She kicks her legs down and her head pops out of the water. “They used to argue all the time!”
“Did they?”
“All the time!” she repeats, her eyes boggling at me.
“They never used to argue when I was visiting.”
“Oh, no, they were on their best behavior then,” she replies facetiously. “That was partly why I used to love you coming to stay and dreaded you leaving, because they’d make up for lost time.”
“What did they argue about?” I ask, disliking the thought of Bailey suffering.
“Anything and everything. Mom spending too much time at work; Dad making a mess around the house; Mom not being affectionate enough or inviting too many friends to stay; Dad not cooking dinner the way Mom wanted it; Mom being the main breadwinner—”
“I didn’t think Dad cared about your mum earning more than him.”
“He didn’t. She did.”
“She didn’t like him earning less than her?”
“She used to give him crap about it constantly! She didn’t respect him for it, hated that he liked his job as a groundskeeper and was happy with what he earned. She wanted him to strive for more, to be ambitious like her. She pushed him to go for the student services job even though he loved working on the grounds, and when he got it, she still wasn’t satisfied. She always looked down on him for not being better educated. I honestly thought it would be the breaking of them, that she’d divorce him and find someone more suited, but she never did. And somewhere along the line, I guess she made peace with her demons.”
I’m stunned. I had no idea about any of this.
“They never would have stayed together if it wasn’t for me,” Bailey adds.
That’s what happened, I realize. Sheryl fell pregnant with Bailey by accident.
Would a woman as proud as Sheryl have admitted that having an affair with a groundskeeper was a mistake from the get-go? Wouldn’t she be determined to show everyone that Dad was the love of her life so she could justify breaking up a marriage? I could imagine her putting her mind to making the relationship work, even if, behind closed doors, she wasn’t happy.
