Chapter Five: Jules

CHAPTER FIVEJules

Before Cam, I’d never been in love before. And before you’re like, “Well, that’s sad,” let me remind you that we met when I was all of twenty-one years old, so pump the brakes on throwing me a Sad Spinster Shower, okay?

And naturally, given that I’d married the love of my life, I assumed I’d never fall in love again. One and done.

That was before I saw Ashby House.

I could tell as we drove up the mountain that Cam was tense, his jaw clenched, his fingers doing that nervous drumming thing. It made me feel shitty, sitting there with champagne bubbles in my veins while he seemed to sink further and further into misery, but I couldn’t help it. We were so close, and I knew that once we were there, once Cam had me in Ashby House, he’d understand that it wasn’t the place. It was the people.

The place could be amazing. The place could be ours.

It already felt like ours as we climbed into the clouds, the trees forming a protective arch overhead, shutting out the light and the rest of the world.

Even the gate, sagging open like a mouth, covered in red spots of rust, was beautiful to me, that’s how much I was prepared to love everything about Ashby House.

But I still wasn’t ready for the way my heart lifts and my stomach swoops when the house itself finally comes into view.

I don’t see the sunflowers Cam had mentioned, but maybe that’s for the best because it means there’s nothing else vying for my gaze as I drink in the home in front of us.

The pictures I’ve seen on the internet don’t do it justice. It looked gorgeous in 2D, and I could tell it was impressive in scale, but those Google images can’t capture how perfectly the house seems to nestle into its surroundings. The way it looks eternal, immovable. A fortress on a mountain made of thick gray stone and tall windows, surrounded by trees on three sides and behind the house, nothing but treetops and clouds and sky.

The gravel we’d been driving on turns to stone, too, a smooth gray ribbon that makes a graceful arc at the front of the house. Wide steps lead up to a wraparound porch. I see a swing in one corner, rocking chairs lining the wall on the other side of the front door.

Big planters sit on either side of the steps, overflowing with dark purple mums, and I spot several hanging ferns in the shadows under the porch roof.

In the driver’s seat, Cam gives a sigh that seems to come from the very bottom of his soul, and I turn to look at him, hoping that maybe he’s realized he was wrong about this place after all. That he can see the beauty that is so plainly in front of him.

But he just seems tired. Wary.

He does smile, though, a little bit, when he meets my eyes. “Home sweet home,” he says, his voice flat, and I lean over to press a kiss on his cheek.

“Thank you,” I say. “For bringing me here. I know you didn’t want to, but––”

“I want what you want,” he replies, and if the words sound a little rote, I’m okay with that. We’re here, aren’t we?

I turn back to the house. The front door is actually two doors, big slabs of dark wood that look like they could withstand a battering ram.

Tall, narrow windows frame the entry, and I think I catch a flicker of movement on the left, the briefest flash of a face, too quick for me to see if it was a woman or a man.

As I open the car door and step out onto the drive, I keep my gaze on those doors, waiting for them to open. Someone’s there, clearly, and has seen us, and I move around to the trunk to get my bag, expecting to hear the clicking of a lock, a greeting.

Cam comes up next to me, reaching for his bag as well, and I nod toward the house. “No welcoming committee?”

He snorts, throwing a quick glance at the firmly closed doors. “I’d be less surprised to walk into a firing squad.”

“It just seems like they should be nicer to you,” I say, slamming the trunk shut, “given that you own the place.”

But Cam is already shaking his head. “First of all, you need to know that the word ‘should’ does not exist to these people. There are lots of things they ‘should’ do, but if they don’t want to do something, they don’t do it.”

“Like be nice to the guy who pays the bills.”

“Or tip,” he adds, and I bump my hip against his.

“Or pay taxes?” I guess, and he makes one of those amused sounds that isn’t quite a laugh.

“They do that now, but only because I hired a new accountant. And they also clearly don’t take care of sunflower gardens.”

He points, and now I see the brown, crunchy stalks that must have once been bright yellow flowers, tall enough to hide in.

Moving closer to him, I thread my arm through his. “We’ll plant new ones,” I promise, and he looks down at me, one blue eye, one brown, neither giving away what he’s thinking.

“We won’t be here that long,” he finally says, and starts to move toward the front door, my arm slipping through his and falling back to my side.

We’ve just reached the steps when there’s a rattling noise from behind us. A white Audi is tearing up the gravel drive, tiny pebbles spitting out from underneath the tires, and as it moves onto the pavement, I’m afraid it’s going to crash right into the back of our SUV.

But there’s a screech of brakes, the smell of rubber, and the Audi comes to a stop, a kiss away from dinging the heck out of our rear bumper.

Camden exhales noisily. “Well, here’s a welcoming committee for you,” he mutters.

The driver’s side door opens, and a woman gets out, chestnut hair shiny even under the cloudy sky. She’s wearing white jeans, and a floaty off-the-shoulder blouse, black with big multicolored polka dots on it, the kind of thing I wouldn’t look at twice in a shop because I’d think, Who can pull off Bozo Chic?

Apparently, the answer is Camden’s cousin, Libby.

This is the part where I really want to tell you that I simply guessed who she was. And you’d believe that, right? Who else could this twentysomething in designer jeans be? Context clues, a safe assumption, et cetera.

But actually, I recognize her from her Instagram.

@LaLaLibby.

I’ve followed her for … ten years now? Right after Cam and I started dating. From her senior year of high school (the duck-face era) to college number one (Duke, lots of navy blue in the photos) to college number two (UNC, also blue, but cornflower) to, finally, number three, Western Carolina (purple, sadly the one color Libby did not look great in).

I saw a photo of her wedding to Clayton Jefferson Davis, taken right here on the back veranda of this house, and then, two years later, I saw another of her “Divorcemoon” in Cabo. Then one of the second marriage to some guy who called himself “Bodhi,” but whose Facebook friends kept calling “Kyle.”

That one hadn’t warranted many pictures, and had apparently been over within about six months. I also saw the rise and fall of her cupcake empire (RIP, Lil Lib Cakes), and the tentative push into interior design that mostly seemed geared toward selling three-hundred-dollar lamps with feathers on them.

And I know that right now, she’s probably coming back from the little boutique she just opened in downtown Tavistock, Lil Bit Libby! (She put the exclamation point there, not me, and maybe if I’m here long enough, I can talk to her about her overuse of “lil” as a marketing gimmick.)

Cam, of course, has no idea about any of this. Well, he probably knows about the failed businesses since he’s the one who had to sign off on her withdrawing money for them, but me following her? The throwaway account I made just for that purpose?

No, I haven’t told him about that.

I’ve thought about it. I mean, is it such a big deal? Lightly internet stalking your husband’s estranged family? I don’t think it is.

But I also don’t know if Cam would see it that way, and if I told him, he might ask other questions. Questions that have answers I know he wouldn’t understand, and I’ve promised never to lie to him.

And I haven’t. Not ever.

Not really.

Libby turns in a half circle to face us, cell phone in one hand, sunglasses covering half her face. “Did you close the fucking gate?” she asks Cam.

Like he’s been here this whole time. Like she sees him every day and the last dozen years haven’t gone by.

He had closed the gate, stopping once we were through and swinging it back into place despite its squealing protest, but he doesn’t tell her that. Instead, he lets his bag drop beside his feet, and he slides both hands into his back pockets, elbows sharp angles at his sides.

“Yes, Elizabeth, thank you, it was a long drive, but we’re happy to finally be here. Good to see you, too!” he calls, and she scowls at him, whipping her sunglasses off.

“Oh, I’m sorry,” she says, her Southern accent turning the words sweet even as her eyes glare holes into him. “I assumed you were going to be a grouchy asshole about being here, so we could maybe skip the part where we all pretend this is fun for any of us. But hey!”

She shrugs, her tanned shoulders moving up and down in an exaggerated motion. “So glad you got here safely, darling cousin Cam, and I look forward to catching up and talking about old times with you.”

Coming around the car, she leans against the back door, crossing one ankle in front of the other, her face screwed up like she’s thinking hard about something. “Actually, that reminds me, I had a question about one of those old times. Let’s see, when was it?”

She taps her finger against her chin, head tilted to one side, and next to me, Cam holds himself very still, his expression blank.

“I guess it would’ve been, hmm … about ten minutes ago? Maybe five? If you can remember back that far, maybe you can tell me: Did you close the fucking gate?”

Cam’s mouth curls into a sardonic smile, lips pressed together so hard that a dimple I’ve never noticed dents one cheek. “I did, Libby, yeah,” he replies.

“Why?”

“Well, you see, the purpose of gates––”

“Forget it,” she says, cutting him off and pushing herself away from the car. “I texted Ben to send me the code, but in the future, just leave it open. No one comes up here but us anyway.”

“Or you could take the five seconds to punch in a five-digit code and not run the risk of randoms showing up in the front yard.”

She marches up the steps, her boots loud on the stone, and stops just below where we stand, chin lifted. This close, I can see she’s not quite as put together and polished as her Instagram makes her look. The concealer under her eyes is maybe a shade too light, her mascara flaking. Bright pink lipstick covers her mouth, but some of it has bled into fine lines around her lips, and there’s the faintest brown splash on those white jeans, right on her thigh. Coffee, probably, and yes, now I can see the pink plastic lid of a reusable cup sticking out of her bag.

“The only random who ever showed up here was you,” she tells him, and then her eyes flick to me.

“I guess you’re the wife?”

“I go by ‘Jules,’ but that is my government title, yes.”

A corner of her mouth kicks up, and it startles me how much that expression, just for a second, makes me think of Cam. He does that same thing, and it’s weird, seeing his expression on another face. They’re not blood related, so I can’t chalk it up to a fluke of DNA.

“Cute,” Libby replies, but I don’t know if she’s referring to my joke or to me in general. “Well. Good luck.”

With that, she pushes past us and into the house, closing the door behind her.

In the silence, I can hear the wind through the trees, the faint twitter of birdcalls, and, somewhere far in the distance, the low hoot of a train whistle.

“Good to be home,” Cam mutters to himself, leaning down to pick up his bag. “Can’t imagine why I left.”

“I’m sorry,” I say, laying a hand on his arm. “Have you two always been … like that?”

“Not always,” he says as he hefts the bag onto his shoulder. “When we were little, it wasn’t so bad. But then…” He trails off, a grimace on his face. “Anyway, Libby is more bark than bite, though the bark is more annoying than I’d remembered.”

I’m intrigued by that “but then,” sensing there’s a story there, but knowing now isn’t the time to push it. Not when Cam is pushing open the front door, and Ashby House is finally opening up to me.

“Last chance,” Cam says, pausing in the doorway. “Only Libby has seen us. We could get back in the car and be in Colorado by, oh … Thursday? Wednesday if we gunned it.”

He’s smiling, his elbow brushing mine, but I can see in his eyes that if I said, “Sure, let’s go,” there would be a streak of gray smoke on this porch in the shape of Cam and our Denali would be halfway down the mountain in two seconds.

I shake my head, once again linking my arm with his.

“I grew up in Florida,” I remind him. “I eat overly tanned bitches who drive Audis for breakfast.”

His gaze warms, and he leans in, kissing my forehead. “I love you,” he murmurs against my skin, and I close my eyes briefly, curling my fingers into the fabric of his T-shirt, making myself stay here in this moment, with him, because I know that once we’re inside that house, things will change. We’ve been happy, so happy, for the last ten years, but we were also playing parts.

Cam, the regular guy who taught high school English, and rented a nice but small house, and didn’t have a bank account with nearly a hundred million dollars in his name and a mansion on the other side of the country.

Jules, the sweet wife who churned butter for tourists and did community theater and didn’t care about said money or said mansion.

I let myself mourn that version of us for just a second, and then I turn to the open door and step inside.