You and Me and Us Read online

  Dedication

  To Kathy, Randy and Elizabeth,

  my original “Us”

  Contents

  Cover

  Title Page

  Dedication

  Chapter One: Alexis

  Chapter Two: CeCe

  Chapter Three: Alexis

  Chapter Four: CeCe

  Chapter Five: Alexis

  Chapter Six: Alexis

  Chapter Seven: CeCe

  Chapter Eight: Alexis

  Chapter Nine: CeCe

  Chapter Ten: Alexis

  Chapter Eleven: CeCe

  Chapter Twelve: Alexis

  Chapter Thirteen: Alexis

  Chapter Fourteen: CeCe

  Chapter Fifteen: Alexis

  Chapter Sixteen: CeCe

  Chapter Seventeen: Alexis

  Chapter Eighteen: CeCe

  Chapter Nineteen: Alexis

  Chapter Twenty: CeCe

  Chapter Twenty-One: Alexis

  Chapter Twenty-Two: CeCe

  Chapter Twenty-Three: Alexis

  Chapter Twenty-Four: Alexis

  Chapter Twenty-Five: Alexis

  Chapter Twenty-Six: Alexis

  Chapter Twenty-Seven: CeCe

  Chapter Twenty-Eight: Alexis

  Chapter Twenty-Nine: CeCe

  Chapter Thirty: Alexis

  Chapter Thirty-One: CeCe

  Chapter Thirty-Two: Alexis

  Chapter Thirty-Three: CeCe

  Chapter Thirty-Four: Alexis

  Chapter Thirty-Five: CeCe

  Chapter Thirty-Six: Alexis

  Chapter Thirty-Seven: CeCe

  Chapter Thirty-Eight: Alexis

  Chapter Thirty-Nine: Alexis

  Chapter Forty: CeCe

  Chapter Forty-One: Alexis

  Chapter Forty-Two: Alexis

  Chapter Forty-Three: CeCe

  Chapter Forty-Four: Tommy

  Chapter Forty-Five: Alexis

  Chapter Forty-Six: CeCe

  Chapter Forty-Seven: Alexis

  Chapter Forty-Eight: CeCe

  Chapter Forty-Nine: Alexis

  Chapter Fifty: Alexis

  Chapter Fifty-One: CeCe

  Chapter Fifty-Two: Alexis

  Chapter Fifty-Three: Alexis

  Chapter Fifty-Four: CeCe

  Chapter Fifty-Five: Alexis

  Chapter Fifty-Six: CeCe

  Chapter Fifty-Seven: Alexis

  Chapter Fifty-Eight: CeCe

  Chapter Fifty-Nine: Alexis

  Chapter Sixty: CeCe

  Chapter Sixty-One: Alexis

  One Year Later

  Acknowledgments

  P.S. Insights, Interviews & More . . .*

  About the Author

  About the Book

  Copyright

  About the Publisher

  Chapter One

  Alexis

  It’s dark outside by the time I finally look up from my computer—so much for being home early. I check my phone to see just how late it is: 11:10. So close to the lucky minute I’ve been wishing on since I was old enough to tell time. I wait for it, keeping my unblinking eyes on the screen until it hits 11:11.

  Even though it’s silly to waste a wish on something I get to do every night, I wish I were home in bed with Tommy, not sitting in the ergonomic chair designed to be so comfortable that I forget I’m going on fourteen hours at my desk. I love my job, I remind myself.

  My eyes find Tommy’s smiling face in the silver frame on my cluttered desk, his arms wrapped around our daughter at her eighth-grade graduation last summer. I linger on CeCe’s face, a younger version of my own, partially hidden by the thick black glasses she insists are “totally on-trend.” I missed seeing her cross the stage in her cap and gown by minutes thanks to a creative presentation that ran late, but I made it in time to take the picture.

  An incoming email dings and my focus shifts back to my computer like one of Pavlov’s dogs. Another Google Alert, their frequency increasing at the speed of Monica’s fame, which unfortunately has been gaining momentum in the past year.

  Setting up a Google Alert for Tommy’s ex-wife wasn’t exactly my proudest moment, but I couldn’t know she was out there and not know what she was up to. With CeCe’s acting obsession, it’s a small miracle she hasn’t figured out that it isn’t a coincidence the semifamous actress shares her last name.

  The information is out there if she’d ever google it. Or asked. But CeCe would never think to ask if either of us had been married before. The only conversation about marriage in our house is centered around the fact that her dad and I never took that “till death do us part” step.

  I’m the one who’s resisted all these years; we’d be an old married couple by now if it were up to Tommy. But he didn’t grow up in a house like mine, with parents that were married in name alone. There was no love between them, and that was not the kind of relationship I wanted to model ours after.

  I glance back at the email and consider deleting it unread, but curiosity gets the best of me. Lately the alerts have been full of sightings around L.A., pictures of Monica on the arm of a dozen different celebrity bachelors. I keep hoping one of them will stick so she can take someone else’s name, but no such luck yet. I open the email to see what the devil is up to now.

  “Netflix’s The Seasiders adds Monica Whistler to its cast.”

  “You’ve got to be kidding me,” I accidentally say out loud.

  Becky, my best friend and business partner, peers over the giant monitor where she’s making the fourth round of revisions to an ad for Dox Pharmacy, our biggest client. “What’s up, buttercup?”

  “Nothing,” I mutter, too tired to explain that not only did Monica land another big role, but she’ll be filming all summer in Destin, Florida.

  Of all the beaches in all the world, Destin is our beach. It’s where Tommy grew up, where he and I first met as kids, spending every summer together until the year I turned twelve and stopped going to my grandmother’s beach house. It’s where we reconnected twenty years later, fell in love, and had the oops that turned into CeCe. We still go down there as often as we can, just not as often as Tommy would like.

  It’s a small miracle we don’t have a trip planned this summer—CeCe’s too excited about a theater camp here in Atlanta, and I pretty much had to say goodbye to that much time off when I opened my own ad agency three years ago. But still. I cringe at the thought of Monica going back to the beach where she left Tommy with a broken heart and a condo full of modern furniture that was as hideous as it was uncomfortable.

  I stand to stretch and start gathering my things. Now that my concentration has been broken, I might as well get some sleep.

  “You going home?” Becky asks, running a hand through her signature pink hair. She looks as tired as I feel.

  “Yeah, I should have left hours ago—Tommy had something he wanted to talk to me about.”

  “Everything okay?”

  I shrug through a yawn. “Probably just something about CeCe.”

  “She still upset about that party?”

  “And a million other things,” I say, yawning again. “See you tomorrow.”

  My shoes echo on the industrial floor as I drag myself through our trendy office space. I doubt Tommy will be awake when I get home, which is probably for the best since I’m too tired to talk about anything tonight.

  Some days it’s harder than others to remind myself that this is the life I fought to live. The reward for standing up against every chauvinist who told me that women don’t make it far in the advertising industry because they have kids. They probably would have been right about me if it hadn’t been for Tommy.

  “DADDY, HAVE YOU seen my purple tank?”

  I step into the ha
llway between our bedrooms and answer CeCe. “I think it’s down in the laundry room.”

  “Daddy?” she asks again, and I wonder if I said the words out loud or just thought them.

  “It’s in the laundry room,” Tommy echoes. “Still in the dryer, I bet.”

  He coughs the deep cough he’s had for a few weeks now. The long hours I’ve been putting in are taking a toll on him, too. I’m about to remind him he should make an appointment to get a Z-Pak or something, when CeCe steps between us, scowling in my direction before making a dramatic exit.

  As much as I want to remind her she has me to thank for buying her the tank top in the first place, I don’t. And not just because I can feel Tommy watching, waiting to critique my reaction. Sometimes it stinks living with a shrink.

  “If you say it’s just a stage I’ll scream,” I tell him.

  “You came in late last night,” he says, wisely changing the subject.

  I yawn, as if realizing just how little I slept could make me even more tired. “This project will be over soon.”

  “And then the next one will start,” Tommy says. I want to defend myself and say that’s not fair, but he’s right. “Don’t forget CeCe is making a special dinner for us tonight.”

  “I won’t forget,” I promise.

  Tommy smiles and kisses the bridge of my nose before pulling me in for a hug. I love the way we still fit perfectly together after all these years. I wrap my arms around him, breathing in the scent of the herbal shampoo he uses even though there hasn’t been any hair on his head in more than two decades.

  Sometimes it’s hard to reconcile this strong and sturdy forty-eight-year-old man with little Tommy Whistler, the chubby boy from my childhood who stuttered when he spoke, quietly observing the world with one blue eye and one brown.

  I tilt my head to give him a kiss, a silent thank-you for being everything he is. He’s the one who holds our family, and our life, together. If it weren’t for him always being there for CeCe, my guilt over putting in the hours it takes to run an agency would be crippling.

  “Get a room.” CeCe squeezes past us into her bedroom, purple tank top in hand, and slams the door in our faces.

  I parrot her tone: “We don’t need a room, we got a house.”

  “You’re not helping,” Tommy says.

  I’m about to tell him I was trying to be funny when my phone chirps a warning alarm. It’s almost time to go and I’m nowhere near ready. He frowns as I slip out of his arms.

  “I’m not avoiding anything,” I tell him before he has a chance to say otherwise. “I just have to get ready for work.”

  He follows me into the bathroom, watching as I put a serum on my face that costs more than a month of lattes. “You wanted to talk about something?” I ask, remembering the email he sent yesterday afternoon.

  Before he can answer, my phone starts quacking—the tone Becky programmed for her calls. “Sorry.” I’m saying that word a lot lately.

  Tommy heads downstairs to make our princess’s lunch while I talk to Becky about an early morning client request and speed through my blush-bronzer-eye-shadow-lip routine. He’s a better mom than I’d ever dream of being. Not that I ever dreamed of being a mom.

  I find him in the kitchen for a quick kiss goodbye.

  “Don’t forget dinner tonight,” Tommy says. “Six-thirty.”

  “I won’t,” I promise. “I’ll even set an alarm to remind me.”

  On my way out, I call up to tell CeCe to have a good day. I pause, waiting for a response I know isn’t coming. One day she’ll be old enough to appreciate how hard I work to give her the life she takes for granted. One day.

  Chapter Two

  CeCe

  I wish you and Mom would get a divorce.” I toss my backpack on the floor and lift myself onto the kitchen counter in my usual spot. I thought about it all day at school, how much better things would be if it were just Dad and me. Mom’s barely ever here anyway.

  “Never going to happen,” Dad says. “Feet off the counter.”

  “Why not?” I unfold my legs, letting them swing below me.

  “Well, for starters, we can’t get divorced if we aren’t legally married.”

  “You don’t have to remind me I’m a bastard.”

  “But you’re such a cute bastard.” He leans over to ruffle my hair, then coughs a loud cough that sounds like it hurts. He clears his throat. “Hand me a glass?”

  I grab one from the cupboard and Dad fills it from the tap, even though water from the fridge is colder and better. “Pretty much everyone I know has divorced parents,” I tell him.

  “That’s sad,” he says before taking a long sip.

  “No, it’s not.” I push my glasses back up my nose. I hate it when they fall down when I’m trying to make a point. “It’s kinda cool, actually—they get two houses, and their parents pretty much buy them whatever they want to let them know they still love them.”

  “You’re lucky your parents don’t need to buy you anything to show how much we love you, or each other.” He plants a sloppy, wet kiss on my cheek that I wipe away.

  “I’d be luckier if it was just you and me.”

  Dad shakes his head and I know I should let it go. But I’m sick of letting everything go. All the little things, like when Mom has to cancel our mother-daughter manicures, and the big things, like when she postponed shopping for my first bra so many times that Dad eventually had to take me. He stood outside while a saleslady went in the dressing room with me. Her hands were freezing, and her breath smelled like garlic. It was awful, but I let it go.

  “She doesn’t even like being a mom.”

  “That’s not fair,” Dad says in his shrink voice.

  “But it’s fair she always chooses work over me? Like my ballet recital in third grade? Or my thirteenth birthday? Graduation last year?”

  Mom had been super annoying, making a huge deal about what a big milestone graduating from middle school was, and then I looked out from the stage to see Dad sitting next to an empty chair. The only empty seat in the whole auditorium.

  “I don’t remember the ballet thing, but she got to your graduation as soon as she could, and we celebrated your birthday last year for a full week.”

  “You always take her side.”

  “I have two sides—one for each of you.” He turns around and looks over his shoulder. His smile fades when he sees I’m not amused. “Got everything you need to make dinner?”

  “Yeah,” I say, trying not to sound too excited. This gourmet dinner is part of my plan—when Mom or Dad says something about how grown-up and mature I am, I’m going to ask them again about Liam’s party this weekend. If they trust me, it shouldn’t matter whether or not his parents are going to be there.

  “Perfect,” Dad says. “I’ve got another patient in five minutes, and after that I’m all yours until my last patient at eight.”

  “West Coaster?” I ask.

  “Doctor-patient confidentiality.” He moves his hand across his mouth as though he’s zipping his lips shut.

  “I don’t get what the big deal is, it’s not like I’ll ever meet this person.”

  “You’re just like your mother.”

  “Take that back.” I lower my voice so he knows I mean it. We may look alike with our boring brown hair, hazel eyes, and our noses that are a little too big for our faces, but I am nothing like my mother.

  “Oh, Cecelia,” he sings. “You’re breaking my heart.”

  “Yeah, yeah. And I’m shaking your confidence daily.” I roll my eyes as he kisses my forehead before going into his office, helping strangers on the Internet while his only daughter is dealing with major life problems on her own.

  I wish there was a way I could make him understand this isn’t just any party. And Liam Donnelly isn’t just any boy.

  Chapter Three

  Alexis

  Sorry I’m late,” I call as I open the front door at a quarter till nine. “Emergency at work.”

  The
door to Tommy’s office is closed, which means he’s videoconferencing with a patient somewhere in the world.

  “Dinner smells amazing!” My mouth is watering and I’m glad I only had one slice of pizza at the office.

  “It was amazing,” CeCe says from the living room. “Two hours ago.”

  I forgive the saltiness in her voice since I am almost three hours late. “Everything’s a fire drill with this new client.” I walk into the living room and find her curled up in her usual spot on the couch. “I’m sorry I’m so late.”

  “You already said that.” CeCe turns the volume up on whatever cooking competition show she’s watching. I step closer and rest my hand on her shoulder, but she jerks away and stomps upstairs without finding out which chef won.

  Before scavenging the kitchen for leftovers, I turn off the TV and walk back down the hallway toward Tommy’s office. The low murmur of his voice is comforting even though I can’t hear what he’s saying. I lean my head against the door, willing time to move faster so his session will be over and he can cheer me up.

  If he finds me out here he’ll think I’m trying to eavesdrop again, so I wander back to the kitchen, where I find a mess that’s even scarier than the floor in my half of the bedroom closet.

  Every pot and pan has been used and discarded, lying on the stove or next to the sink. I accept my punishment and start cleaning. The water is almost too hot, but it feels good. The harder I move the scraper back and forth, the more tension leaves my body. This must be why people like working out.

  I’m so focused I don’t hear Tommy walk up behind me. I startle when I hear him cough.

  “I’m sorry,” I say for the thousandth time, turning around to face him. He offers a weak smile and reaches behind me to turn off the water. “You’re not mad at me, too, are you?”

  “I’m not mad,” he says, although his tone implies otherwise.

  “Don’t say you’re disappointed.” I turn back toward the sink.

  “Your daughter made something special tonight, she wanted to impress you.”

  “Was it good?”

  “Still is, I bet. We left you a plate in the fridge.”

  Sure enough, there’s a foil-wrapped plate sitting on the first shelf. “I honestly don’t get why she cares I wasn’t here, she clearly hates me.”