“Don’t get all sobby on me. I want to party at Lola Plumb’s wedding. C’mon.” He put his hand out. “Dance with me?”
Elly was still trying not to cry as Dennis led her out to the dance floor. “Dennis, I don’t dance. I….”
The music stopped, and Joe and Lola stepped out onto a balcony overlooking their guests, wearing their third outfit of the night. They waved to their family and friends before wrapping themselves completely up in a gratuitous kiss. The crowd burst into cheers. Lola dramatically raised her toss bouquet up into the air before flinging it into the crowd. It arched up and sideways and then….
“Elly, watch out!”
Elly looked up just in time to see the bouquet collide with her face. She stumbled backward and the bouquet exploded onto the floor. The crowd laughed and Elly felt her face flush in embarrassment as all the cameras closed in around her. But then she laughed. What else could she do?
Dennis bent over to help her pick it up off the ground, his pants giving a painful stretch. “Well, that was hilarious. I guess you are next to get married.” He paled, suddenly realizing the pain his words probably caused.
Elly shrugged. “Don’t feel bad. I don’t think it counts if you make it yourself.” She looked down at the toss bouquet, now strewn over the dance floor.
But she hadn’t made it. This was Snarky Teenager’s work.
Elly wasn’t sure what she was feeling as a popular, jazzy song burst out of the speakers. Then everything went dark in the theater. Elly grabbed Dennis’s shoulder, feeling the momentary intake of breath from the crowd as they wondered what was happening. Had the power gone out? Then the music crescendoed and suddenly, a huge line of swirling stage lights rose up and out from the orchestra pit. Thousands of tiny twinkling lights lit up the ceiling and the walls, and bounced off the mirrored floor. In a moment worthy of the theater that housed them, the entire wedding was now dancing under, in, and on the stars.
“Wow. Wow, wow, wow,” breathed Elly, her tiredness forgotten. She thought she had seen it all, every sort of wedding, but she hadn’t seen this. This was … magic.
Dennis let out a huge laugh. “This is ridiculous! Let’s go!”
Deciding to leave her insecurities about dancing behind, Elly kicked off her terrible shoes and grinned at him. Dennis pulled Elly out into a big twirl in the middle of the dance floor. They raised their hands above their heads, shoulder to shoulder with famous celebrities, and took it all in, feeling the beauty of the night pulse all around them. Elly’s dress twirled around her as she spun, totally losing herself in the moment. As if there hadn’t been enough miracles for one day, chubby Dennis Trager was somehow a totally magnificent dancer, and Elly let him swing her under the stars for at least an hour, happier than she had any right to be as she leaned her head against her brother’s strong shoulder.
Chapter Twenty-Seven
It was the next day. The cicadas were out early, Elly noted as she made her way to “their” park, as a purple evening sky above her practically burst with life. Dusk was settling in, and all around her, the lavender light and bursts of blue flowers and green grass begged to be painted. It was a bit cloudy, enough that she’d had the foresight to wear a long-sleeved shirt. The wind gusted around her and she was suddenly glad that something—even a shirt—was wrapping her up in its arms. Tonight was going to be painful. A knot in her stomach tightened with each step, and a permanent lump had formed at the back of her throat. Tonight, she would finally say goodbye to Keith, the man she considered to be the love of her life, though that fact was unspoken. This would be like when Aaron left her, only worse. With Aaron, she had seen the outcome, and that she was better off without him and his graceless heart. With Keith, it would be the opposite. She would never know what could have been. He would take his place in her life as a bright star that had dimmed too soon, leaving her in the dark and cold. She believed that Keith had loved her—maybe even still did, though perhaps she was just comforting herself at this point—but that he didn’t love her enough to tell her the truth. As long as he had secrets—whatever he was keeping from her at his home—they could never be together. At least, Elly thought, as she huffed up the final hill toward their secret park, at least she had come to love herself enough that she knew she didn’t deserve that. She deserved a lot of things right now—a water bottle, a trophy for wedding flowers of the year, maybe a piece of cake—and truth from the man she loved was one of them.
Her heart gave a painful clutch. Doing the right thing didn’t make it hurt any less.
She came up through a trail in the sparse trees that Keith had showed her months ago, the one that wound through the underbrush that was covered with yellow feverfew. The night insects chirped through the dusky air still, and Elly let a deep sadness sink into her heart. There was a longing that would never be filled, and even though inside she was ripping apart, she told herself to be grateful. Grateful for her friends, for her beautiful little life in St. Louis, for a brother that she had never known, and for her time with Keith. It was short and the best she ever had, and at least she had known the taste of his lips on hers, the pull of his arms around her waist, and the kindness in his eyes that told her he believed in everything she ever could and would be. She wiped a tear away from her once starry eyes and pushed out through the foliage to the garden. At least she would be getting her dog back today. Dennis had finally agreed to give Cadbury a try.
Keith was standing by the broken cherub statue. Once, it had been littered with weeds and mold, but with Elly’s care, it had transformed into a whimsical flower garden. The statue was still broken and decrepit, but now sprigs of forsythia, diamond-frost euphorbia, and pink lantana burst out from its base with reckless beauty. Elly sucked in her breath when she saw Keith and had to refrain from bursting out into tears. His naturally olive skin was set off by the white polo that he was wearing. Dusty gray cargo shorts showed off his stocky legs. His bald head shone in the waning light. He was holding Cadbury’s leash and, at the sight of Elly, Cadbury wrenched away from him, barking joyfully.
Elly knelt on the ground and received a big sloppy kiss that somehow revived her broken heart, just a little. “I missed you!” she cried. “Hi, babes!” She buried her face in his soft fur, noting that he must have been groomed lately. Cadbury never smelled this good. He circled around her a few times before flopping down in the grass and staring at Elly with anticipation. She looked over at Keith and gave him a sad smile, but a determined one. Reaching her hand out, she touched the side of his shoulder and let it linger for a second before reaching for the leash. “Thanks, Keith. I guess that’s it….”
And that’s when Keith caught her hand, his dark-blue eyes meeting with hers in a steady gaze. “Elly.”
In an involuntary gesture, Elly turned her head up to his, as natural as breathing.
He looked down at her. “Can you stay? Just a minute? Just give me ten minutes, and then if you walk away from me again, I won’t … well, I’ll try not to chase you.”
As hurt as she had been, as broken as her trust had been in his imagined infidelities, Elly found herself curling down onto the soft and damp grass, Keith still holding her hand.
He knelt beside her and gently reached out, tucking a curl behind her ear. “You are so stunning in this light.”
Elly raised her eyebrows cynically.
“Ah, yes. I’ll get to it. Well, this won’t be fun.” Keith settled across from her. The wind tossed the now pale-blue grass around her feet as she stared at him, waiting. “I want you to know, first, that I never lied to you. Not once. I would never, ever lie to you. But I’ve come to realize that by not sharing certain things about my life with you, I’m just as guilty as if I was lying. I have hidden a large part of my life from you, because I was so terrified of … these ridiculous fears that I’ve carried with me for years. And I can’t believe that I let them take me here, to the point where I’ve almost lost you forever.” He took a deep breath. “You don’t know this, but three y
ears ago, just before you arrived here, I was engaged.”
Elly’s heart pounded in her chest. “Oh God, was her name Lucia?”
Keith chuckled lightly. “No, thankfully. But she was cut from the same cloth. Her name was Paige.” Elly hated her immediately. “I met Paige about seven years out of college. I was at a social function with my father, and she approached me. I was smitten immediately. She was beautiful and even more than that, she was exactly everything my family wanted me to marry: Italian. Tall. The daughter of someone important back in the old country. She was Catholic. I let myself fall madly in love with her, and at her insistence, we proceeded with our quick engagement. Our families were thrilled, especially hers.” He shook his head. “I should have seen the warning signs. I was so deeply stupid, so deeply infatuated with her that I ignored every obvious clue to what was going on.”
Elly was intrigued, but she also ached for the pain in Keith’s eyes as he recounted his story. “Once we were engaged, I let her have access to my life in every way. She was always borrowing money from me and then never giving it back, but I thought that was a part of being engaged, being married. I mean, we were about to become one, right? She always had a valid excuse, and I never even thought twice about it. She was going to be my wife, so did it even matter? She quit her job—she worked in a small boutique shop—and stayed home all day, doing God knows what while I was at work. It sounds terrible now when I say it, but I was on cloud nine—I didn’t even notice. I loved the idea of taking care of my fiancée, my wife, and I never questioned her intentions. I never suspected a thing until collectors began calling my work. I was baffled—I didn’t even have credit cards. You know I’m a cash-only man.” He was. It was mildly annoying. “Paige had taken out dozens of credit cards in my name, and racked up about two hundred thousand dollars in debt. She had taken vacations with her friends that I assumed she paid for, she had bought herself two cars, tons of jewelry, and ten-thousand-dollar dresses, and ugh, I couldn’t even understand how a person could spend that much money in six months.” He rubbed his face, obviously disturbed to recount the story. “Like an idiot, I forgave her. She cried and threw herself on my mercy and confessed that she had a shopping problem and would seek counseling immediately. She blamed it on her childhood. I wanted to believe her because I loved her. I wanted to be married to her so desperately. Now I realize that I loved the idea of marriage more than I loved her.”
Elly knew exactly what that looked like. Without thinking, she pressed her hand up against Keith’s cheek and he closed his eyes at her touch, his story continuing. “So I took Paige back, and I never told my family about the credit cards. I paid off her debt quietly and for about six months, it was wonderful again, like it never happened. We swept it under the rug together.” Keith rubbed his hands together nervously. “One night, I heard Paige whispering on the phone to someone. She kept saying, ‘He can’t know. He can’t know. Wait until next month.’ I stood outside the door, and when she hung up the phone, I was sure of two things: that she was cheating on me and that she was hiding things from me again. I immediately went to her purse and found a new credit card opened in my name. In the morning, I called the card for a record of transaction and had them fax it to me at the deli.” He took a deep breath. “I thought nothing could be worse than more cars, jewelry, and spa weekends, but I was wrong. She had been paying rent. For a loft downtown. I was in a rage. I drove to the apartment, and surprise, her car was there! I knocked on the door and a young man opened it. I prayed that it was her brother, but of course, it wasn’t. Paige broke down and confessed everything, and it was so much worse than I imagined. Her family had seen my picture in the paper. They had researched my family. She had purposefully struck up a friendship with my mother at the spa she frequents. She had targeted me for my money while still living with the man she really loved, who was a student. I asked her if she ever truly loved me, and she kept saying that she ‘had tried very, very hard.’ I walked out of her apartment that day, and I have never seen or talked to her again. That was also when I stopped talking to my parents. And in that year when I wasn’t speaking to them, my father died of a heart attack.”
Elly wasn’t sure how long her mouth had been hanging open.
“I never got to tell him goodbye. Or that I loved him. Or was proud of him. All because of Paige and my own anger.”
Elly’s heart broke for him. “Oh Keith, I’m so sorry. I had no idea.”
Keith used her hand, still lingering on his cheek, to wipe a single tear away from his eye. “Well, go ahead. Ask the question you’re dying to ask. The one part of this equation that doesn’t make sense.”
Elly frowned. “Well, why would she use you for your money? There must have been better people out there like, I don’t know, a banker?”
He reached out and touched her hair lightly. “Elly, did you know that my last name isn’t really Carcelo? I mean, it is, it’s our family name from the old country. When my parents came over here from Italy, they wanted a name that sounded more American. So they changed Carcelo to Cary.”
Elly squinted. “Cary, as in … Cary’s Meats?”
Keith nodded. “Yes, as in Cary’s Meats.”
Elly still didn’t really understand. She couldn’t think when he was so close to her, the smell of his warm skin drifting her direction as the sun set just for them. She had to stay focused. “Keith, I’m glad to know this about you, but I’m still not entirely sure what this has to do with us.”
Keith slowly trailed his fingers up and down her fingertips. “I know, I’m getting there.” He took a deep breath. “Elly, the secret that I’ve kept from you, which grew into an obsession with keeping you from leaving me was that … I’m sort of, uh, well-off.”
“What?”
“I’m rich, Elly. I’m very, very wealthy.”
She almost burst out laughing. “Keith, you drive a Subaru.”
“That’s because I don’t want to park my Mercedes downtown.”
Her smile faded. “What?”
“Elly, my family has a legacy. I’m one of four heirs to Cary’s Meats. It’s worth about forty million dollars.”
Elly sat back, her brain whirling. “But … you drive a Subaru.”
Keith busted out laughing. “This is why I can’t live without you. Because I want my life to be real, to matter. You should see my cousins, and my sister for that matter. They lead ridiculous lives in these huge, terrible houses. They don’t talk to their spouses. Two of them have never even worked in a deli. Or really worked, period. They know how to write checks, how to hire ad agencies, how to puff up the stock prices. And that’s fine; we need them to do those things. But I didn’t want that life. I saw what it did to my father. I saw what getting into that life meant for me, with Paige. So I left New York and moved here. I wanted to run a deli. My grandfather’s blood runs in these veins. I love running the deli, making sandwiches, creating flavors. Elly, I want to carve. I’m not a businessman, and I don’t have any desire to be. I have broken away from my family, with the exception of my sister. I still hold my share in the company, and my bank account seems to always be growing, but all I ever wanted was just to make my own way in the world. I don’t want to lean on my family’s good fortune. I want it to be preserved and taken care of; I will not be the man who drains it. I have seen what money does to people. What it did to Paige. And what she did to me.”
Elly frowned. “But I’m not Paige. Also, I’m pretty sure that ‘I’m too rich’ isn’t a turn-off for most women. I would probably be the first woman in history who dumped a man for being too wealthy. And I wouldn’t have! Not because of your money, but because I like being with you. It was unfair of you to assume anything other than that.”
“I know. I just wanted to give us some time. Time to get to know each other without this money hanging over our head. It changes the way people treat you, you’ll see. I didn’t want anything to stand in the way of our relationship, and I thought that knowing about the Cary fortune mi
ght be a distraction.”
Elly shook her head, a curl brushing her chin, her blue eyes filling with tears. “Do you really think so little of me? That I would ever use you for your money?” She was angry now. “You see me working every single day to make Posies a success. You know I didn’t grow up in a house with very much money, how could you think that I was anything like Paige?”
Keith rubbed his head. “I didn’t. I don’t. At first, I just didn’t tell you because I wanted to let things play out naturally. But then it was one month … two months … and then it was too long. It became something I was keeping from you, and we were so far into things together that I didn’t know how to tell you that I’d been keeping this part of my life a complete secret. I became paralyzed with fear that you would leave me once you knew. It was stupid, I know that now.”
She frowned. “It’s not the secret I thought you were keeping.”
“I know. I should have put that together that you would leap straight to cheating, because that’s what you know. We both have our scars, Elly. Your husband cheated on you and my fiancée used me for my money. And cheated on me. Sort of. She was married to the man she lived with. Which I guess makes me, what, the mistress? Ugh.” He buried his head in his hands. “I’ve made such a mess of everything. We were going along so perfectly, and then I just kept digging myself deeper and deeper by hiding things.”
“And this was why you never let me visit your house?”
Keith crawled behind her. Elly leaned against him, so easily, like falling into a warm bed. He traced his fingers down her sleeve. “Do you remember the first time I took you here? To this garden?”
“Yes.”
“Do you remember that we went through a yard? We entered a side gate beside a house, on a brick pathway?”
Elly did remember. She had felt uncomfortable about being in a stranger’s yard. Her eyes followed his hand past the cherub to the other side of the garden, where a giant brown whimsical house with a red door and teak gables rested just beyond some small pine trees.