We Can't Keep Meeting Like This

by Rachel Lynn Solomon

“My parents want me to help with dessert,” Tarek says halfway through dinner, typing a message on his phone and sliding it back into his pocket. “You going to be okay here if I leave?”

  “Only if you tell me what escrow is so I can have something to contribute to the conversation.”

  “Something to do with money.”

  “So helpful, thank you.”

  He gets to his feet. “See you,” he says, dragging a hand along the back of my chair before he disappears into the kitchen.

  When the cake is distributed and the dancing starts, though, I find I’m not exactly in the mood for either. Josh insists that I join them for dancing, but being out here alone doesn’t feel right, and neither does the prolonged strangeness with Tarek. I played my role, but now it feels like I’m intruding, so as inconspicuously as I can, I push out of my chair and head inside.

  I run into my dad in the winery’s foyer. “Holding up okay?” he says.

  “Barely. It’s hard work being pretty.”

  He brushes imaginary lint from his sleeve. “Don’t I know it.”

  “Anything I can help with?”

  “You’ve done plenty,” he says. “Just relax.” He makes it sound like a big deal, but all I did was put on a dress and stand there. “We’re on our way out, actually, so I was going to ask you the same question.”

  “I might join you.”

  “Before the dancing?” Tarek approaches us from the kitchen, a plate of cake in one hand. “That’s a shame, because I was really looking forward to it.”

  “Stay,” Dad urges before I can interpret Tarek’s words. “Have fun.”

  Knowing Tarek wants me there must make me give in. After my dad leaves us in the foyer, I lift my eyebrows at Tarek. “Dancing?”

  “What? You don’t want to dance with me?”

  I fight rolling my eyes. He can’t keep pretending nothing’s wrong between us, even if part of me is nostalgic for the kids we used to be at weddings, who danced as though we didn’t care what we looked like. I can’t imagine being that unselfconscious now.

  “You really want to dance? With all those strangers?”

  “Might as well get our mileage out of these clothes,” he says, and ugh, the pull of the nostalgia is too strong.

  The dance floor isn’t too crowded, and the breeze plays through Tarek’s hair and lifts mine off the back of my neck. I give him my hand, and his other hand comes around my waist. If he was gentle when he zipped me up earlier, now he feels solid. Sturdy.

  “Sorry about my hands,” he says, looking down at the rough patches of skin between his fingers. “I’ve been… having some flare-ups.”

  There’s some embarrassment in the way he won’t meet my eyes, and it hurts my heart the way it used to when he stayed home from weddings as a kid. Eczema can be triggered by anxiety, and if that’s the case with these flare-ups, I wonder what’s been making him anxious. Even if we were close the way we used to be, I don’t know if we were ever close enough for him to have told me.

  “It’s okay,” I say, quick to reassure him.

  The band is playing “L-O-V-E” by Nat King Cole, one of the few wedding songs I can tolerate. It also means I owe my dad ten bucks today. We begin to sway, first slightly out of rhythm with the song, and I have to force his feet to follow the beat.

  “You’re leading,” he says.

  “Someone has to.”

  Silence falls between us for a few moments, as though he’s finally hearing the subtext in my words. “It might be a little overdue at this point,” he says, “but… I think we probably need to talk.”

  I’m so stunned that I nearly drop his hand. “Yeah. We, um—we really should.”

  He shoves out a breath, and if I’m not mistaken, he looks genuinely apologetic. “I’m sorry, Quinn. For—for ignoring you all year. I can’t help thinking this would be a lot more fun if you didn’t find me despicable, which I can tell you do, so… there it is. It was shitty of me, and I’m owning up to it.”

  It takes a while for my mind to process his words. Enough time for the singer to spell out L-O. But this blatant admission of fault is not at all what I was expecting. Of course, I assumed his lack of response meant he didn’t feel the same way. That I’d made things weird between us and now he wanted nothing to do with me. Tarek owning up to it isn’t at all what I was expecting.

  “Thank you. For saying that. It was shitty of you.”

  “Glad we can agree on something,” he says.

  The relief isn’t immediate, though, and maybe it’s because we still haven’t talked about what led me to send that email in the first place. And the fact that I acted shitty too. Remembering how his face shattered that night at the marina is what compels me to make my own apology. “I’m sorry too. About the fight, and what I said about your past relationships.… I pushed things too far. I thought we were just kidding around, but… obviously not, since we stopped talking.”

  At least Tarek isn’t asking me for a reason. I can’t explain why I snapped at him without exposing a painful piece of my history.

  On the other side of the dance floor, Elisa is balancing a stack of plates and laughing with Tarek’s mom.

  Tarek grimaces, but when he speaks again, he sounds nonchalant. “It’s fine. I asked what you thought. You told me. I’m pretty sure that relationship wouldn’t have worked out anyway,” he says. “I was upset, but I should have emailed. I should have texted. I was—”

  It’s odd to hear him brush it off like this, but I guess we’ve both had a year of space. “Busy. I know.”

  “Right. College was just… more overwhelming than I thought it would be.”

  “In a good way, though?” I try to picture him there, attempting to cook in a college dorm, being infuriated by a hot plate. “I mean, you’re going back, right?”

  “I’m going back,” he confirms, and it’s not until we’re both quiet for another chorus of the song that I realize he didn’t answer my first question. And I’m not sure if it was on purpose.

  I try to ignore the tiny part of me convinced this isn’t the whole truth. I can accept that he’s moved on from last year, but whatever the details of “overwhelming,” he’s clearly not ready to talk about them. Even if he handled this the wrong way—even if both of us did—I miss his friendship, too. I hate that he ignored me, but I hate even more not having my wedding ally.

  “That email,” I say, forcing a laugh. I have to make this clear if we have any chance of being friends again. If I brush it off, maybe it won’t feel the way it did last summer: like he took the most breakable, honest parts of me with him to California. “I was probably just feeling weird about you leaving. I don’t feel that way anymore. I swear. We’re obviously going to have to work together this summer, and I don’t want you to feel uncomfortable around me because you think I’m hung up on you or anything. Whatever I felt, I’m one-hundred-percent over it. Over… you.”

  It was a good thing, in a way: his rejection confirmed my feelings about romance. Just like Corey did at Alyson Sawicki’s party, with his assumption that I was someone to hook up with and nothing else. It can’t sting if I won’t let it—that’s why I’ve always preferred the physical over the emotional.

  I can pull my cynicism blanket tight around me again. It’s cozy under here.

  “Well… good,” he says after a pause. “I’d hate to be uncomfortable. So… we can be friends again, then?”

  “Friends,” I agree. His palm on my back seems to grow less stiff, and he gives my hand a quick, friendly squeeze. Now the band is playing a jazzy, slowed-down version of “Livin’ on a Prayer.” “So, pal, what all do we have to catch up on?”

  “I’m pretty much the same, bud. Chum. Compatriot?”

  “Not true. You have a beard now. Or, like, stubble.” I catch him blush, like he’s embarrassed I’m pointing it out.

  “Oh, that? That’s called being too lazy to shave,” he says. “And what about you? Your hair is different.”

  “I cut i
t at the beginning of senior year,” I say. It was past my shoulders when he left for college. “It’s a little grown out now.”

  “It suits you,” he says, and I’m not entirely sure how to interpret that or whether it’s a compliment, so I force my brain not to linger on it, which is a bit like forcing deep-fried butter to be healthy. We’ve fallen back into this rhythm so easily—I don’t want to ruin it. “You and Julia, you’re still close?”

  “Of course. Even if the universe is intent on putting nearly three thousand miles between us next year, which, rude.”

  “UW’s a good school, though.”

  It is. There is nothing wrong with it, except for my parents’ fingerprints all over it. But Tarek doesn’t know any of that. He never has. And it makes me instantly aware of the other things he doesn’t know about: my OCD, or the medication I take every morning, or any of my past relationships. I’ve never been to his house and he’s never been to mine. There’s so much we’ve never talked about, never shared. We were friends, yes—but not the kind of friends I wanted to be.

  I ask about his friends from high school, a couple guys I’ve heard about but never met. I ask if he’s been to the Book Larder lately, a bookstore that specializes in cookbooks and is therefore Tarek’s favorite bookstore, and he tells me it was his first stop. His face lights up as he talks about the new cookbooks he acquired, but I can’t stop trying to reconcile two Tareks in my mind: the one I thought I knew and the one he’s never showed me.

  All I have to do is avoid silences. Any time there’s a break in our conversation, I become hyperaware of his hand on my waist, the warmth of his skin through the fabric of this horrible green dress.

  “They’re a sweet couple,” he says, nodding toward where the grooms are clutching each other, softly swaying. “Did you see Graham’s face when he noticed Josh had taped a note to the bottom of his shoe? Wasn’t that incredible?”

  I did in fact see it, and I did not have the same reaction. “Oh no. Are we starting this back up again?” If we can laugh about it, maybe that means we’re past what happened last year. Maybe we’re back to bickering, which has always been so much easier.

  “We have to,” he says. “It’s the only way for me to prove you’re wrong.”

  I blink up at him, trying to seem as innocent as possible. “So college didn’t change you at all. You’re still the sappiest person I know.”

  His mouth twitches, his eyes bright. This. This is the Tarek I recognize. “While I don’t take offense at the word ‘sappy,’ I prefer a word like… sentimental. Dare I say… romantic.” He says it with an overly cartoonish lift of his eyebrows, knowing how much I hate it.

  “Having strangers in your wedding photos is extremely romantic. Can’t argue with you there.”

  “It’s not about the photos,” he says. “It’s about—okay, you see everyone here? They all came because they wanted to celebrate Josh and Graham.”

  “Or they wanted the free food.”

  “Such a cynic.”

  “Thank you.”

  “It breaks my heart, honestly, all the great things you can’t appreciate. I still can’t understand how you don’t think the ending of Sleepless in Seattle is romantic,” he says, resurrecting one of our old arguments.

  Tarek used to beg me to watch his favorite movies, all romantic comedies, and I’d come back the next weekend with a scathing review. He’d just shake his head, and that was part of the fun too: how cute he looked when he was defending these things he loved. I never told him I thought I might like one of his movies if he’d watch it next to me, if we held hands, if I could rest my head on his shoulder.

  “Because Meg Ryan is a stalker!” I say, a little too loudly, given the heads that swivel toward us. “And she breaks up with her fiancé because he has allergies! That movie is a blight on the city of Seattle.”

  “It wasn’t stalking. It was destiny,” he says. “And she and Walter weren’t right for each other. She was only going along with what she was expected to do, and he was the kind of person she was expected to be with. She even says at the end of the movie that she doesn’t deserve him.”

  “I agree, she doesn’t!”

  “Because she and Tom Hanks are meant to be!” Tarek’s laughing now. He loves this bickering as much as I do. Or he used to, at least, and the way he leans forward, using my shoulder to muffle his laughter, indicates he probably still does. Maybe we really can slip back into our old friendship. I can feel the soft drumbeat vibrations of his laugh against the strap of my dress, a couple inches above my heart.

  Tarek lifts his head from my shoulder as we move apart to clap for the band, and when they start their next song, something that doesn’t sound familiar to me, he says, “I love this song,” and reaches for me again.

  “What is this?”

  “Cat Power,” he says, taking a break from mouthing the words. “ ‘The Greatest.’ This is good, but the original is better.”

  “I know Cat Power,” I say, annoyed he recognized it and I didn’t. “Just not this one. Most people go with ‘Sea of Love.’ ” I give him my hand, slide my other up to his shoulder. He’s much less stiff, but truthfully, he is a terrible dancer. “It’s a shame your dancing hasn’t improved.”

  “Then I guess it’s up to you to make us look good.” A questionable perk of working in the wedding industry—I could waltz with my eyes closed.

  “Oh, I’ve been trying for the past fifteen minutes.”

  Another rumble of a laugh, and then we both go quiet again, and I try not to think about my family or college or how he smells like sugar or how, even with the sun on the verge of setting, his body heat is more than enough to keep me warm.

  “You look nice, by the way.” His mouth is close to my ear, as though, even with the noise all around us, he only wants me to hear. “Not sure if I mentioned that.”

  He definitely did not. My lizard brain would remember. He says this as a little aside, a parenthetical. By the way. Like he didn’t spend countless minutes analyzing it beforehand. God, that new college confidence. Even if it was “overwhelming,” it really did change him.

  “I wish I could say the same about you,” I say, reaching down to his tie and smoothing out a wrinkle, intensely aware that mere millimeters separate my hand from his chest. “Chartreuse isn’t your color, I’m afraid.”

  “Somehow I’ll live.” He straightens, putting more space between his lips and my ear. “Some of the waiters and I were going to hang out after this. Do you… want to come? Since we’re friends again and all?”

  “Yeah,” I find myself saying. “Okay. That could be fun.”

  The bandleader takes the microphone. “Ladies and gentlemen, if you’d please clear the dance floor, it’s time for the bouquet toss.”

  Tarek’s hand drops from my waist, leaving a phantom pressure behind.

  9

  It’s almost midnight, and my parents took the MTRMNY-mobile home hours ago. I changed out of the bridesmaid dress Josh insisted I keep and lingered in the kitchen, offering help where I could, though Tarek’s parents assured me they had it all under control.

  When the Mansours dismiss us, I pile into a car with Tarek and Harun, his cousin and one of his closest friends; Stella, an Asian girl with a vine tattoo twisting up her forearm; Bryce, a white guy I’m pretty sure has been high his whole shift; and Elisa. Most of them, I’ve seen at past weddings, but since Mansour’s has a rotating staff, I didn’t know Stella or Bryce by name until five minutes ago. They’re all in college, either locally or home for the summer.

  “Everyone good back there?” Elisa asks from the driver’s seat.

  I’m squeezed in the back between Tarek and Stella, trying my best to keep my distance from Tarek without climbing into Stella’s lap.

  “Perfect,” I squeak as we hit a speed bump that presses my thigh against Tarek’s. He’s half in his caterer’s uniform he changed back into, half in regular clothes, his shirt unbuttoned all the way and revealing a T-shirt with
a band name I can’t read from this angle. I’m trying to remember the last time I saw him in short sleeves, which makes me think back to walking in on him changing, which then makes me unable to think about anything else. Cool cool cool. Love those intrusive thoughts.

  “Your cake was a hit,” Stella says. “People kept asking me if I could sneak them an extra slice.”

  “Your cake?” I repeat.

  Tarek scratches at the back of his neck. “I, uh, made the wedding cake,” he says. “Well—I made the cake batter and my mom made the frosting and then assembled the whole thing. That’s about as much control as my parents will relinquish. I didn’t want to seem like I was bragging about it.”

  “That is one-hundred-percent something you should brag about,” I say, impressed. “That’s incredible.”

  “It was,” Elisa says emphatically. “That cake tastes the way an orgasm feels.”

  “Exactly what I was going for,” Tarek says, and for a moment I’m stunned by the effortlessness of this exchange between them. I cannot imagine even whispering the word “orgasm.” Maybe if you’ve had one with someone, it gets easier to talk about. Maybe Tarek and Elisa hooked up at the end of last summer, gave each other heaps of toe-curling orgasms, and then cordially parted ways.

  “That was why I left. I wanted to serve it.” Tarek tilts his head toward me. “Did you like it?”

  “I didn’t get a chance to try it. I’m sorry.” And I really am, though the word “orgasm” is still pinging around my brain. “It looked great, though.”

  “Next time,” he says, but there’s an odd uncertainty in his voice, like maybe he doesn’t think there will be a next time. “I had to beg my parents to let me help out with this one.”

  We end up at Golden Gardens, a beach in Ballard ten minutes from my micro-hood of Crown Hill. Stella and Bryce run ahead to claim a firepit while the rest of us unload beach supplies from Elisa’s car. They managed to steal a couple bottles of wine and champagne.

  “I always put them in here at the beginning of summer, just in case,” Elisa says as we root around her trunk for some blankets and towels, a cooler filled with off-brand LaCroix, and a stack of cups. At the winery, Elisa changed into something more casual; she’s in jeans and a T-shirt with an image of a beaker telling a test tube, YOU’RE OVERREACTING.