Friends from Home

by Lauryn Chamberlain

  “Don’t listen to her.” Ritchie waved a hand. “It’s exciting. Anyway, you never told us what you think about her fiancé. Didn’t she meet him at, like, a frat party?”

  Ritchie and Dana had met Michelle when she visited me at Cornell, and it hadn’t gone particularly well. Michelle had brought up sorority rush and how important it was that the potential new members they recruited get along with her preferred fraternities, and Dana rolled her eyes hard enough to make me worry she had detached a retina. Ritchie asked Michelle a question or two about rush at the big southern schools—she was familiar only with “recruitment” in the sense of summer associate positions at investment banks, and she was genuinely curious.

  “So, how do you get to join? How do they make the invitations after rush is over?” Ritchie had asked.

  “Well, as long as you make it to pref night, and you maximize your options, then you’ll get an invitation on bid night,” Michelle answered, oblivious to the fact that none of us understood a word of the jargon that had become second nature to her.

  “‘Maximize your options’? Sounds like when you’re talking about equity.”

  “What?”

  “Stock options?”

  “Okay, who wants a drink?” Dana stretched out her arm, inserting an open bottle of vodka directly in between them. I knew she’d have a joke or two to make at Michelle’s expense later, while Michelle would probably hint to me that Ritchie seemed “nice but clueless.”

  I simply felt anxious and conflicted. I had grown up hearing Marcia’s stories about her beloved Tri-Delt sisters—who really had become her lifelong friends—and I knew that if I had stayed in the South I probably would have followed Michelle into rush, too. Did Ritchie and Dana know that about me?

  I could have gone either way, but I chose Cornell. In the end, I had known I wanted a new path for myself. Langham wasn’t my place, not really, not in the same way it belonged to the Davis family. But I still felt conflicted every time Dana made a joke about Michelle’s attitude toward Greek life and university as a whole—which she still did on occasion.

  “So, is she marrying him because he was in the best fraternity?” Dana mocked, right on cue.

  He had been, but I ignored her. “Jake is . . . tall. Brown hair, blue eyes. Uh, successful. He’s a lawyer,” I told them. “The thing is, after meeting him one time, I knew the names of all five of his uncles, where his summer house was, and what law firm he wanted to work at. And he forgot my name. Seriously, he called me June like three times. He apologized later, but still.” I took a long sip of my wine. “Hey, she loves him.”

  “So . . . it’s that you think he’s an asshole? Or that he’s not good enough for her?” Ritchie asked.

  “Is anyone ever good enough for your best friend?” I joked. “Also, she actually said ‘can’t wait to finally marry my best friend’ in the Instagram announcement, so I might have lost that title.”

  “Oof.” Ritchie laughed. “Whenever I get married, I promise my husband will be—at best—my third-best friend after you two. What is with this needing one person to be everything to you? It just sets you—and them—up for failure.”

  “Can you even imagine getting married now, though?” Dana fake-shuddered. “Hideous. I still feel like a child.” No one I knew in New York under the age of thirty seemed to be able to imagine getting married.

  “A child that will probably make partner in her firm at thirty.” I rolled my eyes at her, but I felt the exact same way. “Anyway, let’s talk about something else.”

  I listened as Ritchie started to talk about the drama surrounding a new exhibit at the Whitney. I wanted to be present in the moment, to just be with Dana and Ritchie and stop worrying so much. I told myself to shut up and stop thinking about marriage, and I ordered another glass of sauvignon blanc. But half an hour later, the second round of drinks turned into a third, and I turned the conversation back to Michelle.

  “You know, I want to be happy for her. I am happy for her,” I insisted loudly, trying to talk over the group of young associates who had wedged themselves up next to our high-top table with their cans of Narragansett Lager. “But getting engaged, buying a house near our hometown, letting Jake decide everything—y’all should hear the way he can talk over her—” I slammed my wineglass down for emphasis, and it sloshed over the rim onto my hand.

  “Whoa, bitch.” Dana laughed. “That’s your last one, I think.”

  “I literally haven’t heard you say ‘y’all’ since freshman year,” Ritchie said.

  My head felt fuzzy. “Okay, I’ll stop,” I promised. “It’s just—she’s been so obsessed with the idea of getting married that I feel like she’d marry any guy with a good job if she’d been dating him for a couple years. It never used to be like that. I don’t know when she got so obsessed with marriage. College? Her sorority sisters, some of them used to joke about getting ‘MRS degrees,’ but I don’t actually think they were kidding. Isn’t that crazy?” I knew this wasn’t my business, not really. I just had to voice it to someone so I didn’t accidentally let it slip, horrifyingly, to Michelle.

  “Maybe.” Ritchie shrugged. “But you know you can’t ever say anything either way.”

  “Or maybe life is all about timing,” Dana said, coolly sipping her martini. “Maybe we all just marry the person we happen to be dating at the time we decide we’re ‘ready to get married,’ and that’s the way the game is played. Is that really so bad?”

  “Maybe not.” I shook my head. Anyway, what did I hope to accomplish? I didn’t even dislike Jake, not really, not nearly as much as I had made it sound. What I didn’t like was when Michelle’s life made her feel like a stranger to me. “Anyway,” I said, “cheers to Michelle, and also cheers to none of us getting married at twenty-five.”

  “I’ll drink to that.” Dana raised her glass.

  “To doing our own thing,” Ritchie echoed, draining the rest of her bourbon.

  Dana and Ritchie felt like home, too.

  CHAPTER 6

  I woke the next morning sweating, twisted up in the Egyptian cotton sheets. The bedding set had been a Christmas gift from Michelle. Left to my own devices, I always bought the cheapest thing at Bed Bath & Beyond. I kicked them off furiously, waking Mark in the process. In my barely awake, hungover state, I had forgotten I had tipsily invited him over.

  “Okay, I know I’m a heavy sleeper, but there are more humane ways to get me up,” he groaned, rolling onto his side to face me.

  “Sorry,” I said, giving him an apologetic kiss. “Give me a few glasses of wine and I literally can’t tell if you’re here.”

  “Ouch.” He laughed, pulling a mock-hurt face and shoving me playfully. “Kidding. You feeling okay this morning?”

  I rolled onto my side to face him and threw an arm across his bare chest. “I’m okay. Just a headache. And I had a weird dream.”

  “Oh yeah? Tell me.”

  Mark could be impatient about a whole host of things, from traffic to clients to the unreliable radiator in his apartment, but he had a strange patience for listening to me ramble, which I appreciated. In the dream, Michelle and I were driving through our hometown in her car, the teal convertible that she had in high school. Neither of us said a word, but when we reached the corner of Mount Olive Road, she paused for the stop sign, opened the car door, and then shoved me out. I tumbled down the hill for what felt like hours.

  “Anyway,” I asked Mark, “isn’t this pathetic? Michelle gets engaged and my subconscious thinks she’s trying to get rid of me or something.” And even if she was—would that be such a bad thing?

  “Maybe you feel like she’s leaving you behind. That’s normal, I guess,” he offered, smoothing part of my disheveled hair behind my ear. “But there’s nothing to worry about. You’re her maid of honor, right? You’ve known each other your whole lives.”

  That much was true, at leas
t. For seventeen years, our names had been said in the same breath. A friend of Michelle’s mom once believed that she had one daughter named “Michelle Angel,” a perversion of MichelleandJule, since every story she could possibly have told about Michelle would have had me in it. “I’d better get home to MichelleandJule,” she’d say.

  “I don’t think she’s leaving me behind,” I countered, sounding a bit more stung than I’d meant to. “I’m the one that left; I know that. I’m just worried we don’t have that much in common anymore. And maybe it’s just going to keep getting harder.”

  I thought about this. It seemed different for Mark. He grew up in Connecticut, and he kept up with almost all his high school friends. If one or two drifted away along the way, so what? People grow up in different directions.

  That’s the strangest part of adulthood, the part that no one had warned me about. Everything significant that happens in life starts to happen to only you. Whether you get a promotion, move to another country, get married—your friends can support you, but they can’t come along with you. All of a sudden, everyone is on a separate timeline. It was different when we were young. Growing up, Michelle and I had started every grade together, coordinating matching outfits for every first day of elementary school. We had gotten our driver’s licenses together at sixteen, graduated from high school and celebrated our college acceptances at eighteen, and even had our “first” legal drinks together at twenty-one. Our biggest milestones were all shared. It was scary to think that had ended and something else would have to take its place.

  Mark stretched and sat up, and I looked at the clock, knowing that he was already running late. “Go get ready,” I told him, rolling over lazily to grab my phone. He had a flight back to Omaha to spend the rest of the week on his project there, and he preferred to arrive exactly seventy-five minutes early to the airport.

  I started skimming through my e-mails. I didn’t need to be at work for another two hours, but I liked to get a preview of what the day would look like. I scrolled past the daily news update from theSkimm, flagged a request from a colleague to “sync up” on a project, and then I stopped at a subject line reading, “Urgent!” My heart beat faster until I glanced at the sender’s address.

  Sure enough, Michelle.Davis17@gmail.com.

  I clicked the “to” field and scanned the list of Michelle’s bridesmaids: Rebecca, Ellen, and Darcy—all from our high school—as well as Sylvie and Jen, two of her Tri-Delt sisters.

  “Hey, y’all,” it began. I scrolled down the page.

  Couldn’t be more excited to have the best bunch of bridesmaids in the world! Now, I know Jake and I just got engaged (can’t believe I’ve already been a fiancée for a week!), but it’s never too early to start on our most important order of business: dress shopping! Not just for my gown, but for bridesmaid dresses, too. Okay, seriously, I know that the shopping process can get a little crazy (looking at you, Jen!), but I promise I won’t be one of those bridezillas who makes you wear something hideous and then swears that you’ll “totally wear it again.” You may not wear it again, but I have a vision, and I promise it won’t be awful, and y’all will look gorgeous!

  To sweeten the deal, how about a brunch and bridal shopping day on Saturday, September 25th, at Loveliest Bridal? RSVP to me and mark those calendars! Love, your favorite bride.

  I started the travel math right away. September 25 was less than four weeks away. That meant nothing to the five other bridesmaids, who all lived reasonably within driving distance, but a trip back to Alabama would cost me far more than an afternoon. I could stay with Michelle, but I mentally tabulated $250 for a flight, another $30 at least for brunch, and then the cost of a bridesmaid dress itself. I already knew I had to fly back for the wedding, and hadn’t Michelle mentioned a fall bridal shower on the cab ride between ABC Kitchen and the karaoke bar? Or was that something else wedding related? (Mental note: Drink less.)

  I rolled over, groaning as I turned facedown into my pillow. I heard Mark call, “Bye, Jules,” as he let the door fall closed behind him.

  I wanted to be there for Michelle, and I didn’t want to fail on my first assignment as her maid of honor. And yet, the prospect of spending an extra weekend with “our” high school friends was less than appealing. I had become friends with Darcy, Rebecca, and Ellen because of our shared affiliation with Michelle, but we weren’t friends with one another, just with her. The fact that I generally kept my distance from Alabama certainly hadn’t made us any closer. Darcy seemed to outright resent me.

  Still, I knew how important dress shopping was. And I told myself that I would have been there in a minute if I could afford it, but the security deposit for my apartment had all but cleaned out my savings, and living paycheck to paycheck reminded me too much of my broke early college days and filled me with a constricting kind of dread. I decided to text Michelle and let her know as soon as possible that between the shower, my annual Christmas visit home to see my mom, and the wedding, I couldn’t manage another trip.

  “Just got your e-mail,” I typed before my resolve weakened and I booked a flight I couldn’t pay off on a credit card. “Would LOVE to be there for dress shopping, but I have to save $$ for the shower and wedding so I won’t be able to make it this time—send a million pics and let me know what dress to order from NYC. Call me later if you want.” I added an XO and hit send, hoping that Michelle was already getting ready for work and we could talk later.

  Fewer than thirty seconds later, my phone started to buzz. I didn’t need to check the caller ID; I knew.

  “Hey, Miche, I’m so sorry I can’t make it,” I said as soon as I answered, attempting to cut her off at the pass. This was something decades of friendship had taught me. I could tell when Michelle was about to begin building a case for what she wanted like she was still on the Langham High debate team. “It’s just really short notice for flying in and I can’t swing it right now.”

  She paused. “Okay . . . but hear me out. I’ll pick you up from the airport, and I’m paying for brunch and everything, I swear.”

  “That’s so sweet,” I told her, and it was. It also lined up perfectly with Michelle’s sensibilities. She wanted to treat her friends while simultaneously remaining ignorant of the fact that a free brunch and a glass of champagne at the bridal shop couldn’t come close to covering the cost of a flight or a dress. “But it’s just too expensive right now. So I’ll see you for the shower? If you haven’t found your dress yet we can go shopping then?”

  “I’d really love to have you there, Jule. I mean, you’re the maid of honor! Maybe you could work something out with your mama to come in September. I know she’d want to see you more.” Did she mean that as a kind suggestion? I wondered. Or did it hold a subtle accusation about my strained relationship with my mother? I had known Michelle long enough to understand that it could be both.

  “She probably would,” I conceded. “But we’re already planning on Christmas, and don’t forget she has to work weekends a lot.” I left “unlike your mother” off the end, but I imagined we both heard it. If Michelle could play passive-aggressive, so could I.

  “Well, maybe you could—”

  “Plus,” I jumped in, closing my eyes and rubbing my temples with my free hand, already feeling like the world’s worst maid of honor. My hangover headache intensified. “Mark has been gone so much. These weekends are pretty much the only time I get to see him.”

  I knew that would get her to relent, and it did. “Aw, okay.” She paused. “I understand. I guess I’ll see you for the shower and at Christmas, right?”

  “Yeah. I mean, of course. I’ll be there.”

  “Can we talk about bridal styles, though? I’m thinking that I want something classic but still with pizzazz, you know? Maybe trumpet shape?”

  “That can’t mean shaped like an actual trumpet.”

  “No, like, tight on top and flared at the bottom. May
be a mermaid style!”

  “That would look good on you. Hey, Miche, I have to—”

  “Is A-line too boring?”

  I looked at the clock on my nightstand: 8:34. “Michelle. I have to be at work in less than an hour now. Don’t you?”

  “I took a half day to get started on some planning. But okay.” She sighed. “Go, we’ll talk later. I’m just bummed you won’t be there on the day.”

  “Me, too.”

  “You are the one who dressed everybody for my third-grade wedding, remember?”

  “How could I forget?”

  “Ellen would have worn her dress backward otherwise.”

  “And wouldn’t that have been tragic? But I’m sure she’s learned to dress herself since then.” I thought about Ellen for a minute: sweet, dainty, and prone to speaking to me in the same overenunciated voice she used to address her kindergarten class. “Well, probably.”

  Michelle snorted a laugh, and she sounded like my best friend rather than the bride threatening to overtake her. “All right, I’ll let you go. You can order your dress on your own, but keep your phone on you on the twenty-fifth—I want you weighing in on every little choice via FaceTime.”

  “Virtually, I will totally be there,” I told her. “Promise.”

  * * *

  • • •

  Everything had worked out, but as I got ready for work, I still felt strangely on edge. On my subway commute that morning, I noticed more collisions than usual: A man in a pinstripe suit bumped my hip with his briefcase as he slid past me to grab the last open seat. Two teenage girls leaned against each other shoulder to shoulder, their heads bumping as they both tried to close their eyes for a few more minutes of sleep before school. A woman ran into me while I climbed up the steps at Fourteenth Street, knocking me backward into the crowd behind me, and my frustration surged as I fought my way forward again.