What if I Fly? (5 page)

Julia knew something was wrong, how could she not? He caught her surreptitiously studying him, her brows drawn together in concern, but to his relief she didn’t push him to explain Avery or why he reacted so strongly to her call.

What should I tell her?
He wasn’t quite ready to discuss Avery with Julia, didn’t want to risk what they had by revealing the shame he’s carried with him for almost five years, a personal crucifix, his private hell.

During the movie, Julia fell asleep, her head in his lap. He didn’t have the heart to wake her, so he sat still for a couple of hours and alternated between watching her sleep and staring out the window at the moonlight dancing on the water, absently running his fingers through her hair while he listened to the waves crashing onto shore.

Eventually, he placed a pillow under Julia’s head and covered her with blankets, then kissed her forehead before heading to his bedroom. He felt the need to be alone with his thoughts and lying in his bed, he decided to explain everything to Julia in the morning. He didn’t want secrets between them, but when he woke from his fitful sleep she was gone, having left a note on his kitchen counter.

Thanks for dinner. XO Jules.

In the weeks that followed, Julia seemed to be avoiding his phone calls. Normally they spoke two or three times a week. Between Columbus Day and Thanksgiving they spoke a total of six times, each conversation rushed and stilted. She was always on her way somewhere and couldn’t talk for long. He realized just how badly he blew it, shutting down the way he did after Avery’s call.

Will knew she would be home over the holidays and left a message on her mother’s machine the night before Thanksgiving, hoping to see her that weekend, but she hadn’t called him back. Discouraged by her silence, he asked his brother and sister to go into town the night after Thanksgiving so he could drink away his sorrows.

They made their way downtown to Gulliver’s, a bar for locals. Will purposely chose it because there’d be no chance of running into anyone they know. All of their friends would be at Murphy’s Pub, two doors down and Will was not in the mood for socializing. Peter was annoyed when Will insisted on Gulliver’s, but came along, claiming he’d bail on them in an hour.

Will loves his brother, but Peter can be a bit of a snob. They’re polar opposites, yet have always gotten along despite their differences. His brother’s twenty-five, graduated from Yale, and works in banking, and is engaged to a girl from Philadelphia’s Main Line. They live together on the Upper East Side of Manhattan,
in sin
, according to his parents. The wedding is this summer. Peter was always a bit of a player so Will was surprised when he proposed to Sloane.

He’s much closer to his sister Ellie. She is as outgoing as he is reserved and is his only confidante. She graduated from Brown last year, and he was upset when she decided to move to Chicago this past summer to work for a non-profit organization. She tries to come home once a month, and they talk on the phone weekly, but his misses having her around. She understands him in a way no one else in the family does.

The bar downstairs was packed so they decided to head upstairs to the loft. It was just as packed as the first floor, but Ellie managed to nab a table by the window and Peter headed straight toward the bar, shoving his way through the crowd to order them a round of drinks.

“Why are you pouting?” Ellie shouted over the din. “You’ve been in a pissy mood since I flew into town Wednesday night.”

“It’s nothing. School stuff,” he muttered.

“I don’t know why you bother lying to me,” she countered. “You’re the worst liar I’ve ever met, which is a good thing, but still. I know you, brother o’mine. Spill it.”

Peter arrived with a tray of tequila shots and a pitcher of beer, enough to numb the senses, and Will sighed with relief, knocking back two shots in quick succession. His body relaxed as it absorbed the alcohol and he sat back in his chair, grabbing a third shot glass off the tray.

“I may be a bad liar, but I do know how to keep a secret,” he replied, staring into his sister’s eyes, so like his own.

Ellie raised an eyebrow, “Really? You have secrets? From me?”

Will chuckled and scanned the bar, doing a double take when his eyes came to rest on someone who looked an awful lot like Julia.
But it couldn’t be
. She’s too young to get into a bar.

He stood up and took a few steps toward her, then stopped, his heart pounding against his chest.
It is Julia!
Gulliver’s was the absolute last place he expected to bump into her.

Will squeezed through the crowd and reached her just as she was turning toward the stairs. Emboldened with liquid courage, Will clutched her around the waist and covered her eyes with his other hand and she jumped with a start and grabbed his arm, trying to pry it off of her.

“You left without saying goodbye,” he whispered in her ear.

He heard Julia gasp, her body rooted to the spot. A moment later she spun around and he smiled, his eyes searching her face. Before she could stop him, he pulled her close and his lips met hers for a long, slow kiss, the tip of his tongue grazing her teeth. She didn’t resist his embrace, but she took a beat before responding, then wrapped her arms around him, returning his kiss.

When Will finally released his hold on her, Julia looked into his eyes, her cheeks flushed.

“Hi Will,” she smiled.

He laughed and held her tight, had no intention of letting her escape again.

“Who are you here with?” he asked.

“My friend Gabby. You?”

“My brother and sister,” He tilted his head toward the windows, “Come. I want you to meet them.”

Her eyes opened wide, and she shook her head in protest, but he grabbed her hand, steering her across the loft and made the introductions. Peter predictably made a visual inspection of Julia and gave Will a thumbs up, prompting Will to roll his eyes in disgust.

“And this is my sister Ellie.” His sister rose and shook her hand.

“It is so nice to meet you Julia. I’ve heard a lot about you.”

“I’ve heard a lot about you too.”

An attractive woman with straight light brown hair, wearing jeans, a fitted blue turtleneck sweater, and a scowl approached their table moments later and tapped Julia on the shoulder.

“Oh my god! Gabby, I’m so sorry.” Julia cried. “I was on my way back downstairs when I bumped into my friend Will!”

“So you’re the famous Will!” Her friend’s eyes opened wide, “I was beginning to think you were a figment of Julia’s imagination. But here you are, in the flesh!”

“Has Julia been talking about me?” Will asked, rising to shake Gabby’s hand.

“Hmmm…you could say that. Or was that some other guy named Will you were talking about, Jules?” Gabby coyly smiled at Julia, batting her eyelashes.

Introductions made, Gabby sat in the empty seat across from Will, beside Ellie.

“So…” Gabby leaned across the table toward him, “Now that I know you’re real, let me ask you a question.” She crooked her finger, beckoning him to come closer.

He laughed and leaned in, eyebrows raised. “When, dear Will, are you going to ask our fair Juliet out on a proper date? I mean, hanging out on docks, looking at the stars is romantic, sure, but how about dinner at a restaurant? A movie at the Showcase?”

Will opened his mouth to speak, then closed it and turned toward Julia with a smile, while Gabby and Ellie stared at him expectantly. He had every intention of asking Julia out on a ‘proper date’ but he wasn’t going to do it in front of an audience.

Julia’s face had turned beet red and she rose to her feet, saying, “I need a drink. Anyone want a drink?” All hands flew into the air. “I’ll grab a couple of pitchers,” she said and made her way to the bar, Will close behind her.

Five months later, he’s sitting at Rockwell Park, kicking himself for being so insensitive to Julia’s feelings at the wedding the night before. They’d come so far since Thanksgiving. Every time they were together, they grew a little closer, a bit more intimate. He never pushed her, sensing there was more to her reluctance than modesty, afraid she would disappear if he moved too fast.

Freezing on the dock, Will finally understood how deeply she’d been hurt by her parents’ divorce, made the connection between the pain she’d experienced and her need to keep him at arms length.

He closed his eyes and hung his head in shame. He didn’t need to have a talk with Ellie about his relationship with Julia. He finally gets it.

Julia’s afraid of being abandoned.

And that’s exactly what he did last night at the wedding. He left her to fend for herself and unintentionally fed her to the wolves.

Chapter Five

Julia has no desire to see Will. It’s almost Memorial Day, her semester is just about over and she’d prefer to stay in New York this summer. She’s been kicking herself over the past six weeks for being so stupid, for letting herself fall in love with Will. She knows better!

Since the wedding, Will’s called her and left a few messages on her machine. She spoke to him once, an incredibly awkward conversation. He apologized, she made small talk. He’s trying to make things better, but she doesn’t see how that’s possible.
I don’t even know who he is!
And Julia doesn’t want any part of the world Will introduced her to that night. If that’s the sphere he operates in, he can do it without her.

She was offered a job as a live-in nanny in the Hamptons for the summer and had accepted it, but was forced to back out when her father called the night before her last final. Her grandmother had a heart attack and wasn’t doing well. In a panic, Julia rented a U-Haul, loaded it, and was on the road the second she finished her exam the next day.

The first time Julia visited the hospital, she was afraid to approach the bed. Her grandmother was hooked to all kinds of machines with lights blinking on and off, an IV taped to her arm. Gram looked so tiny, so fragile. She’s always been small, but she seemed to shrink considerably since Julia’s last visit home.

Hospitals have always made her uncomfortable, and she avoids them if at all possible. When her other grandmother was dying, Julia hardly visited her and still regrets it. She won’t do that again, she couldn’t live with herself if she wasn’t there for Gram. Julia tiptoed across the room and sat in the chair beside her bed, holding and kissing her grandmother’s hand.

A few minutes later, Gram woke up and her face lit up when she saw Julia sitting by her side.

“Julietta! My angel.” Julia burst into tears. “No, no. Don’t cry.”

“Gram, don’t ever do this again!” she cried, scolding, then kissed her sweet face.

“My Juliet, we all have to go sometime.” Gram laughed, “But don’t you worry, my time isn’t up yet.”

Her grandmother has been upbeat with her many visitors, and the nurses adore her. Gram spends her days watching her soaps and gossiping with family and friends, much like she does when she’s holding court at home.

Every day over the past two weeks, Julia has driven to Newport Hospital to visit her. The family takes shifts throughout the day and Julia is due at the hospital for the six to nine o’clock evening shift.

Today, she made it to the hospital in record time. Summer traffic in Newport sucks. It can be a nightmare with the influx of thousands of summer vacationers congesting the roads.

She pushed opened the door, her eyes scratchy with fatigue. Whenever she comes home to Rhode Island from the city she has a hard time sleeping. It’s the silence. She’s become accustomed to city noise around the clock, sirens, horns blaring, people yelling, and music booming through the walls of her dorm room. The first few weeks she spends in the absolute quiet of her hometown, the ringing in her ears seems louder than the noise she left behind.

“She’s doing really good today Jules.” Her aunt and uncle greet her as she walks into the room. She kisses them both on each cheek. “Looks like they’re going to spring her Friday.”

Oh thank god!
They fill her in on today’s doctor’s visits, her vitals, medications, and meals.

“She doesn’t like the chicken salad,” Auntie Linda whispers.

“That isn’t food!” her grandmother chimes in, “Who cooks this shit?”

Julia bites her lip.
Gram’s back!

“So fill me in,” Julia settles into the chair beside the hospital bed, “Who’s running around behind whose back today?”

Her grandmother is obsessed with
One Life to Live
. Julia doesn’t watch soap operas, but Gram loves to share their evil doings.

“I know you don’t like the soaps Julietta.”

“Oh, but I love listening to you tell me about them!”

“Not today my sweetheart. I want to talk to you.”

“What’s wrong Gram?” She leans forward and stares at her grandmother’s face.

“With me? Not a thing. With you? A whole lotta something.”

“I’m fine Gram. Really. Just tired.” She takes a deep breath, holding her grandmother’s hand.

“Don’t bullshit me Julia.”

She frowns.
Gram never calls me Julia, only Julietta.

“It’s boy trouble, yes?” Reluctantly, Julia nods. “Is it that boy you brought to the house?”

Again she nods. Julia brought Will to her grandmother’s house over Thanksgiving weekend. Every Sunday morning, dozens of relatives and friends cram into her grandmother’s tiny apartment to partake of her legendary meatballs, and before Will dropped Julia off at the train station that Sunday, they made a pit stop. Will wanted to see for himself what the fuss was about. He wasn’t disappointed.

“Tell me what happened,” Gram said, squeezing her hand.

Gram listened to her talk for close to an hour, patting her hand sympathetically, and wiping away Julia’s tears.

“I thought I loved him, Gram,” she sighs, “I’m so confused. He’s two different people.”

“Who is he when he’s with you, my Juliet? That’s what’s important, the person he is with you. He was raised in a different world, but it sounds like he wants something different from what he knows. He wouldn’t be with you if he wanted more of the same.”

“Even if that’s true, Gram, it could never work.”

“Julietta, mi amore. Says who? Some nincompoops who don’t know you? Forget about them. There are only two people who matter. You and your Romeo. Follow your heart my angel. It’s not every day you meet someone who feeds your soul.”

If only it were that simple!
Julia rested her head on the hospital bed, her grandmother gently stroking her hair.

“I love you my little angel.”

“I love you too, Gram.”

A little after nine, her grandmother sound asleep, Julia fixes her blanket and kisses her on the forehead before making the journey home.

It took Julia hours to fall asleep once she left the hospital, her grandmother’s words echoing in her head.
Only two people matter…me and Will
. Those are the last words she remembers before drifting off.

“Follow your heart…” her grandmother says, floating above her. Confused, Julia tries to hold her, pull her down onto her bed, but Gram’s just out of her reach. “Goodbye my Julietta,” she whispers, then kisses her cheek and disappears.

Julia wakes with a start, her heart racing, her nightgown clinging to her, damp with sweat.
Gram!
It’s still dark outside, the middle of the night and she grabs the clock off of her nightstand.
Three forty-five.
She sits back against her pillows.
I had a dream.
At least, she thinks it was a dream…but it felt so real. It couldn’t be real, could it?

She’s gone. I feel it.
Tears fall down her face.
No! Gram! Don’t leave me!
Her grandmother has been the one constant adult presence in her life and now she’s gone.

Julia sobs into her pillow until there aren’t any tears left, then stares at her bedroom ceiling, waiting for the phone call she knows is coming. At six o’clock the phone finally rings and she reaches for it on her nightstand, her arms leaden.

“Hi Dad.”

“Julia, she’s gone. Gram died about two hours ago.”

“I know,” she whispers and places the handset on the receiver.

***

The Fourth of July is just two weeks away and the whole town is gearing up for the celebration. Normally Will enjoys the festivities, but this year he’s not in the mood. He has a lot on his mind as he mows his parents’ sizeable lawn. They have a gardener for the flowerbeds and to prune the trees and shrubs, but he and his siblings have always had household responsibilities and pitch in where needed. Mowing the lawn is his job and he doesn’t mind doing it.

He loves his parents’ property, its proximity to the water and the view of town across the harbor. Will’s family has strong roots in Bristol. His mother, Ruth, was brought up on Poppasquash Neck and is the descendant of one of the town’s first families.

Her family is old money, civic-minded philanthropists. Will never asked how the family came into their money, though he suspects it had something to do with the ‘Triangular Trade’ Julia told him about. He and his siblings have sizeable trust funds, but he can’t touch the money until he’s twenty-five. He doesn’t want to, would prefer to make his own way in the world and save the money for his own children.

Will’s father, Mitchell, comes from a very different background. He was raised in South Boston and has worked hard for his success. His grandparents emigrated from Ireland and didn’t have ‘two nickels to rub together’ but they made sure his father was educated.

His father is a brilliant man with an analytical mind, a respected leader in the business community, and Will admires him tremendously. He attended Boston Latin, and worked his way through Harvard, winning the heart of Ruth Ellery in the process.

His mother attended Wellesley College and met his father there at a dance. Her family wasn’t thrilled that she married outside of her faith and converted to Catholicism, but they grew to respect his father for his values, work ethic and determination.

It’s warm out today and the sun is beating down on Will as he contemplates his next moves. He has an interview in Washington, DC next week and for once he’s interested in the position. It’s an entry-level government job with the Treasury Department.

Since spring, he’s been working at Petersons Yachts, learning to build boats from the ground up and he loves it. He gets satisfaction working with his hands, building something that’ll bring pleasure to other people. He’s making pretty good money, but his father doesn’t consider it a suitable career.

“I didn’t pay for your education to watch you become a laborer. You’d be taking our family backwards, not forward. Do you want to live like my father, slaving outdoors all day, scrimping pennies? I’ve worked hard to give you every opportunity in this world. I expect you to take advantage of your good fortune.”

Except for leaving Princeton, Will’s done everything expected of him, by his parents, and by his friends. Blindly, he’s followed the path set out for him since birth and it doesn’t feel right anymore. But he’s tired of arguing with his father. They’ve always had an easy relationship and it’s been strained since he finished his degree in December.

His father says he wants what’s best for him. How can he possibly know what makes Will happy? He’s never asked him what he wants.
Hell, I don’t even know what I want!
He feels like he’s just starting to figure things out for himself.

Last night, his mother came to his room to have ‘a talk’.

“Will, what’s going on with you? Why don’t you take one of the jobs you’ve already been offered?” He sat on his bed and sighed. “What is it sweetheart?”

“Mom, my heart just isn’t in finance. I don’t know what to do.”

“Well, dear, you could’ve changed your major at any time, but you didn’t.” She patted his knee, “No one told you to go into Daddy’s field.”

He thought about going into engineering when he transferred to URI, but he didn’t. He wanted to make his father proud, so he chose to follow in his footsteps. It’s his own fault, he put himself in this situation. The last thing Will wants to do is disappoint his parents again, and after his mother left his room last night he realized he has to learn to live with his choice.

This position in Washington is a compromise in his eyes. His father wants him to get a job in the private sector, but at the very least Will needs to find greater meaning in his work, even if he is a small cog in a giant machine. He’d rather contribute to the greater good than work for an equity firm making a few rich people, richer. It’s not in his nature to make waves, and it’s time to make peace with his father.

Since the wedding, he’s stayed away from the yacht club except to go sailing on his dad’s boat, and has for the most part avoided his old circle of friends. The few times he’s been in their company he felt awkward. They’re strangers to him now.

Something shifted in him, he’s looking at everything through a new set of lenses and he doesn’t like what he sees. He was struck by how much his friends value appearance over substance and couldn’t believe he never noticed that before. There’s a total disconnect between the life Will was living and these new feelings of dissatisfaction. Even when he was hanging out with his friends he felt lonely and that is an unfamiliar, uncomfortable feeling. Moving away from Rhode Island would be a good thing…a new beginning.

He misses Julia so much. He’s replayed the night of the wedding a thousand times in his head, what he can remember of it. The guys did leer at her. They made comments to him about how sexy she was, and how lucky he was to have a ‘hot little number’ like her. He didn’t stop them. He was proud to have Julia with him and objectified her as much as they did.