Kristan Higgins - Too Good to Be True

I froze, not looking up from the exams, the words as ominous as Sherman’s in Georgia. The moment I’d successfully avoided thinking about was upon me. Knowing I would never look at Andrew the same way, I couldn’t take a normal breath. My heart thundered sickly.

He cared about me. I don’t know about you, girls, but when a guy says I care about you very much, it seems to me that the shit is about to rain down. “Grace,” he whispered, and I managed to look at him. As our untouched garlic naan cooled, he told me that he didn’t quite know how to say this, but he couldn’t marry me.

“I see,” I said distantly. “I see.”

“I’m so sorry, Grace,” he whispered, and to his credit, his eyes filled with tears.

“Is it Natalie?” I asked, my voice quiet and unrecognizable.

His gaze dropped to the floor, his face burned red, and his hand shook as he ran it through his soft hair. “Of course not,” he lied.

And that was that.

We’d just bought the house on Maple Street, though we weren’t living there yet. As part of our divorce settlement or whatever you want to call it—blood money, guilt, emotional damages—he let me keep his portion of the down payment. Dad reworked my finances to tap into a few mutual funds that my grandfather had left me, reduced the size of my mortgage so I could swing it alone, and I moved in. Alone.

Natalie was wrecked when she found out. Obviously, I didn’t tell her the reason for our breakup. She listened to me lie as I detailed the reasons for our breakup… just wasn’t right…not really ready…figured we should be sure.

She asked only one quiet little question when I was done. “Did he say anything else?”

Because she must have known it wasn’t me doing the breaking up. She knew me better than anyone. “No,” I answered briskly. “It just… wasn’t meant to be. Whatever.”

Natalie had no part of this, I assured myself. It was just that I hadn’t really found The One, no matter how deceptively perfect Andrew had looked, felt, seemed. Nope, I thought as I sat in my newly painted living room in my newly purchased house, power-eating brownies and watching Ken Burns’s documentary on the Civil War till I just about had it memorized. Andrew just wasn’t The One. Fine. I’d find The One, wherever he was, and, hey. Then the world would know what love was, goddamn it.

Natalie finished her degree and moved back East. She got a nice little apartment in New Haven and started work. We saw each other often, and I was glad. It wasn’t like she was the other woman… she was my sister. The person I loved best in the world. My birthday present.

On Sunday, I had the misfortune of attending my mother’s opening at Chimera’s, a painfully progressive art gallery in West Hartford.

“What do you think, Grace? Where have you been? The show started a half hour ago. Did you bring your young man?” my mother asked, bustling up as I tried not to look directly at the artwork. Dad lurked in the back of the gallery, nursing a glass of wine, looking noticeably pained.

“Very…very, uh, detailed,” I answered. “Just…lovely, Mom.”

“Thank you, honey!” she cried. “Oh, someone is looking at a price tag on Essence Number Two. Be back in a flash.”

When Natalie went off to college, my mother decided it was time to indulge her artistic side. For some reason unbeknownst to us, she decided on glassblowing. Glassblowing and the female anatomy.

The family domicile, once the artistic home only for two Audubon bird prints, a few oil paintings of the sea and a collection of porcelain cats, was now littered with girl-parts. Vulvae, uteruses, ovaries, breasts and more perched on mantels and bookshelves, end tables and the back of the toilet. Varied in color, heavy and very anatomically correct, my mother’s sculptures were fuel for gossip in the Garden Club and the source of a new ulcer for Dad.

However, no one could argue with success, and to the astonishment of the rest of us, Mom’s sculptures brought in a small fortune. When Andrew dumped me, Mom took me on a four-day spa cruise, courtesy of The Unfolding and Milk #4. The Seeds of Fertility series had paid for a little greenhouse on the side of the barn last spring, as well as a new Prius in October.

“Hey,” said Margaret, joining us. “How’s it going?”

“Oh, just great,” I answered. “How are you?” I glanced around the gallery. “Where’s Stuart?”

Margaret closed one eye and gritted her teeth, looking somewhat like Anne Bonny, she-pirate. “Stuart… Stuart’s not here.”

“Got that,” I said. “Everything okay with you guys? I noticed you barely spoke at Kitty’s wedding.”

“Who knows?” Margaret answered. “I mean, really. Who the hell knows? You think you know someone… whatever.”

I blinked. “What’s going on, Margs?”

Margaret looked around at the voyeurs who flocked to Mom’s shows and sighed. “I don’t know. Marriage isn’t always easy, Grace. How’s that for a fortune cookie? Is there any wine here? Mom’s shows are always better with a little buzz, if you know what I mean.”

“Over there,” I said, nodding to the refreshments table in the back of the gallery.

“Okay. Be right back.”

Ahahaha. Ahahaha. Ooooh. Ahahaha. My mother’s society laugh, heard only at art shows or when she was trying to impress someone, rang through the gallery. She caught my eye and winked, then shook the hand of an older man, who was cradling a glass…oh, let’s see now…ew. A sculpture, let’s put it that way. Another sale. Good for Mom.

“Are we still on for Bull Run?” Dad asked, coming up behind me and putting his arm around my shoulder.

“Oh, definitely, Dad.” The Battle of Bull Run was one of my favorites. “Did you get your assignment?” I asked.

“I did. I’m Stonewall Jackson.” Dad beamed.

“Dad! That’s great! Congratulations! Where is it?”

“Litchfield,” he answered. “Who are you?”

“I’m a nobody,” I said mournfully. “Just some poor Confederate hack. But I do get to fire the cannon.”

“That’s my girl,” Dad said proudly. “Hey, will you be bringing your new guy? What’s his name again? By the way, your mother and I are thrilled that you’re finally back on the old horse.”

I paused. “Uh, thanks, Dad. I’m not sure if Wyatt can make it. I—I’ll ask, though.”

“Hey, Dad,” Margaret said, coming up to smooch our father on the cheek. “How are the labias selling?”

“Don’t get me started on your mother’s artwork. Porn is what I call it.” He glanced over in our mother’s direction. Ahahaha. Ahahaha. Oooh. Ahahaha. “Damn it, she sold another one. I’ll have to box that one up.” Dad rolled his eyes at us and stomped off to the back of the gallery.

“So, Grace,” Margaret said, “about this new guy.” She glanced around to make sure that we weren’t being overheard. “Are you really seeing someone, or is this another fake?”

She wasn’t a criminal defense attorney for nothing. “Busted,” I murmured.

“Aren’t you a little old for this?” she asked, taking a slug of her wine.

I made a face. “Yes. But I found Nat in the bathroom at Kitty’s wedding, writhing with guilt.” Margs rolled her eyes. “So I figured I’d make it easy for her.”

“Yes. Life must be easy for the princess,” Margaret muttered.

“And another thing,” I continued in a low voice. “I’m sick of the pity. Nat and Andrew should just get on with it, you know, and stop treating me like some crippled, balding cat who has seizures and can’t keep down her food.”