Dear Sully

by Jill Cox

  I think Ian figured me out too the night we had his birthday dinner in Marie-France’s apartment. He spent more time talking to me than he did to the Addison girls or Dan combined. And yeah, maybe it’s because we had a lot in common, but every time he glanced between you and me, I couldn’t help but wonder if Ian noticed the spark between us.

  It’s always been there, hasn’t it? Even now, after all these years, I still feel the pull.

  “You guys should come out and visit us in Lincoln City sometime,” Ian said to Dan and me while we rinsed Marie-France’s dishes that night. “I mean, not at Christmas, of course. The coast is just as dreary as Portland in the winter … drearier, maybe.”

  Dan gave me a (not subtle) look, then smiled at Ian. “That sounds awesome. Thanks for the invite, man.”

  “Absolutely. We’ve got plenty of room. And hey, aren’t you both in Drew’s fraternity? Maybe one of you could stay at his place. His grandparents would love it. Drew never brings anyone home but my sister.”

  Dan cleared his throat, and the fancy plate in my hand narrowly escaped its demise on Marie-France’s floor. I guess your brother noticed, because his cheeks went splotchy, just like yours do, and then he started rambling on about your Prague itinerary in such detail that I could have stalked you every step of the way had I been so inclined.

  Who knows? Maybe that’s what he wanted. I never got a chance to ask him.

  After that night, I went cold turkey where you were concerned. It just hurt too much to be around you. So every time I heard Dan making plans with you and the Addison girls, I would text Meg to see if she wanted to hang out. Watching football with her at Le Galway pub morphed into Saturday nights at the movies, and within three weeks, I was eating dinner with her host family several nights a week.

  But it didn’t work. Every time I thought I had my feelings for you under control, you’d show up to class with a rosy flush in your cheeks, and instead of glowering at me like you had back at home, you would always wave hi and smile.

  Sometimes I even let myself imagine a wistful look in your eyes. One that meant you missed me.

  And then your birthday happened. I spent all day with you – all freaking day – and everything between us felt so right, so perfect that I couldn’t sleep afterward. Sometime around two a.m., I pulled on my jeans and a sweater, shrugged on my coat, and headed out into the night, final destination unknown.

  But I guess I wasn’t as stealth as I’d hoped, because I hadn’t even made it to the end of the rue Guénégaud before Dependable Dan was by my side.

  “It’s not safe to roam around the big city by yourself in the middle of the night, old sport,” he said, worry lines wrinkling his forehead. “Didn’t you hear that Bucknell dude at school yesterday? He got sucker-punched outside his own building Saturday night.”

  “I heard him,” I said, zipping up my coat. “He’d also imbibed half a flask of whiskey beforehand.”

  “Yeah, that probably didn’t help.” Dan wrapped a scarf around his neck. “Anyway, let me join you, okay? I need to walk off some of Meredith’s birthday dinner. Marie-France has gotten good at the American-style mashed potatoes, but she puts something in there that congeals them into a lump in my stomach, you know what I mean?”

  Dan is such a liar. But he’s also a really good friend.

  We made it all the way to the Eiffel Tower before either of us said another word. Just the swish, swish, swish of our jeans against our coats.

  I turned around to start back home (because three miles one way equals six miles round trip equals stupidity on a cold December night). But when my eyes met Dan’s, I stopped in place, shoving my hands in my coat pockets.

  “My grandmother’s going to die,” I said, the words forming white puffs that disappeared into the sky. “And the only girl I’ve ever truly cared about is in love with an idiot.”

  Dan held my gaze for a minute, then reached out to squeeze my shoulder. “I’m sorry about Gigi. I really am.”

  “Thanks, man.” I kicked at a rock on the pavement as the silence stretched between us for a long moment. “And the other thing?”

  “The idiot thing?” He sniffed. “Oh, I couldn’t agree more – Meredith is in love with an idiot. The king of the idiots, if you ask me. The kind of lunatic who strolls around Paris in the middle of the freaking night.”

  And just like that, Dan strode off in the direction of the apartment, walking at such a fast clip that I had to jog to catch up with him.

  “Hold up, hold up,” I wheezed. “What was that supposed to mean?”

  “It means you’re the idiot, Russell. What is the matter with you? For weeks, you’ve been making out in broom closets with the Bachelorette while simultaneously composing Meredith’s secret birthday scrapbook with Anne. Nice touch putting that double-paged shot of her and Sutton on the centermost page. I bet you threw Meredith totally off your scent with that trick.”

  Blood roared in my ears. “I think you’ve made your point.”

  “Have I?” He stretched his arms wide, then turned in a circle. “Meredith is here, man. Every day, she sits right in front of you in every single class, and for whatever reason, you refuse to tell her how you feel. Instead, you’re killing time with some other girl you may never see again after this year. A nice girl whose feelings for you have morphed way beyond casual. Tell me how you’re any different than Drew Sutton, and I promise to stand corrected.”

  Here’s the thing about Dan, Sully: I doubt he’s ever had to do this with you, but whenever one of his friends goes rogue, he becomes like that bull statue on Wall Street. You’re not getting past him. Like, ever. Not even if you’re that tiny little girl statue with her hands on her hips.

  Dan glared at me for a handful of seconds, then when it became clear my only response was to blink, he turned back toward the apartment and headed home. I may have fifty pounds of muscle on the guy, but on the night of your birthday that year, I felt like a ten-year-old boy walking in the shadow of his older and wiser big brother.

  When we arrived back at the apartment, Dan took the stairs two at a time, and nearly crossed the threshold to his bedroom before I closed the front door behind me.

  “Hey,” I said quietly. “Can you give me five minutes? I’d like to answer the charge you just tossed at my feet back there.”

  Dan turned around to face me. For a full minute, he scoured my expression for any latent signs of clownery. Once he was satisfied that I meant business, he abruptly dropped himself into the nearby arm chair. “Go ahead. I’m listening.”

  Hesitantly, I crossed the room and took a seat on the couch. “Look, I’m sorry, man. I can see that you’re disappointed in me, but I promise, I haven’t been gaming Meg on purpose.”

  “No? Then what have you been doing?”

  I breathed in and out for a moment, then lifted my eyes to his. “You’re not wrong about my feelings for Meredith. But I like Meg too. Until tonight, I hadn’t realized how bad my behavior appears to the outside world, but you make a valid point. It’s definitely something to think about.”

  “Mmm hmm,” he muttered, removing his glasses to clean them on his shirt. “It’s five in the morning, Russell. You want to tell me the real reason we just clocked twenty-five thousand steps? Because I’m pretty sure I know, but I want to make sure you’ve figured it out, too.”

  “Okay.” I took a deep, steadying breath. “The thing is, all day today it felt like… like maybe Meredith missed me. That she wasn’t sure she picked the right guy.”

  Dan’s face softened, and he leaned forward on his elbows. “So what are you going to do about it?”

  “Right now? Not one thing.” I stood up from the couch, stretching my arms to the sky. “Like you said, we’ve got an exam in five hours, and I don’t know about you, but I can’t afford to fail it.”

  “Russell –”

  I walked to the door of my room, still stretching as I went. “By the way,” I said over my shoulder, “it’s more like thirty thousand st
eps from here to the Eiffel Tower and back. So, hey, gold stars all around.”

  He laughed, shaking his head. “You’re a piece of work. You know that, right?”

  I turned to face him, bowed mockingly, then bumped the door open with my butt. “Hey, you had your choice of where to live, my friend. I warned you that Marshall Freeman’s a less complicated cohabitant than that Russell wackadoodle.”

  “That’s for sure. But in the battle between you and a year filled with kale farts, I chose you. Remember me in your will someday, would you?”

  “Absolutely.” I saluted him from across the living room, then pulled my door shut.

  Joyeux Noel

  Gigi had called off the experimental drug treatments just before Christmas, but her body stayed strong the entire three weeks she stayed in France. Every morning, we visited a different museum. Every afternoon, we walked a different neighborhood. And despite the constant ache in my heart, it was also sort of beautiful too.

  Not everyone gets to experience their grandmother’s own Paris.

  At night, Gigi was too tired to go out, so we’d order in and watch old movies together in the Guénégaud apartment. And every night, when I wasn’t dodging Meg’s calls, I was stalking social media, convinced it was only a matter of time before you and Sutton split up.

  Can I ask why you didn’t break up with him that Christmas? Because I know you and I had a moment on your birthday. In fact, we had an entire day filled with moments.

  I was there, Sully. I saw your face in the elevator when I nearly kissed you.

  Sutton had always been the over-sharing type, but that Christmas, he flooded his feed every hour on the hour. I was fine with the two-headed selfie you took after running together on the beach. I also didn’t mind the shot of you and Ian singing Bohemian Rhapsody during your families’ shared Christmas.

  No, the one that finally got me was the drone shot of you two cuddled together in a tiny dinghy decorated with twinkle lights. Honestly, Sully, did you have to pose with that Merry Christmas from us to you! sign in your adorable, doodly handwriting? I wanted to throw my phone in the toilet.

  That particular night, Gigi finally took pity on me. “This movie is terrible,” she said. “Let’s make cookies instead.”

  “Huh?”

  “Cookies, Peter,” she repeated, clicking off the TV. “Hop up and help your grandmother navigate your pantry, would you?”

  “Uh, Gigi, if you think Dan and I have cookie mix sitting in the pantry, you’re nuts.”

  She rolled her eyes. “We don’t need a mix, darling. When you’ve been baking for decades, certain recipes stick in your mind. All we really need is a little elbow grease.”

  And to my surprise, she was right. We had flour. We had baking powder and baking soda. Sugar. Salt. Butter. Milk. Vanilla extract and food coloring from some previous tenants which were somehow unexpired. And the weirdest thing of all? Powdered sugar.

  Yeah, I have no idea where that came from, either. Maybe Dan was running a high-end fondant operation out of our apartment? No clue. But our mystery powdered sugar stash was useful all the same.

  For the next couple of hours, we made the dough and baked the cookies. The next morning, we decorated side by side until we ran out of icing. And would you believe I actually had fun? Drawing funny faces on snowmen erased ninety percent of my angst.

  “Hey Gigi?” I said as I grabbed the red icing from her side of the table. “I’m sorry I went all sullen earlier. I don’t have any excuse for my misbehavior, especially since I’m dating Meg, no matter how unofficially. But for the record, I do know cyberstalking is wrong, no matter how harmless my intention may be.”

  “This is true. Cyberstalking is a serious crime in several US states. Is it illegal yet in France?”

  “Um… I don’t know. Maybe?”

  “Hmm.” She bit her lip as she outlined a mitten-shaped cookie with green icing. “Well, Peter, I applaud your resolve. You should always stay on the right side of the law. But for the record, if smart phones had existed when I was falling in love with your grandfather, I would have made you look like an amateur.”

  I laughed. “Come on, Geeg. You’re just trying to make me feel better.”

  “I most certainly am not! But in the future, you should know it’s better to educate yourself about people by social engineering their friends rather than scouring their online presence for clues. Everyone knows the internet is a web of lies.”

  “Good point. Hey, quick question: what’s social engineering?”

  “Do I know something you don’t?” She feigned horror. “Well, Peter, social engineering is the act of manipulating other people into sharing details that can help you achieve your goals. But I don’t like the term ‘manipulation.’ I prefer ‘persuasion.’”

  I couldn’t help but smile. “And how exactly do you know about this strategy?”

  “Oh, darling, I’m an expert! For example, do you think I’ve befriended Brooks Darby out of the kindness of my heart? No, no, no. It’s because she keeps me informed on all of the tomfoolery you never see fit to share with me. Or rather, she tries. According to Brooks, you’ve become quite the ninja since you moved back to France.”

  Now listen, Gigi was kidding about Brooks. She adored having her own personal twenty-something sidekick, and not for spying. But despite her sarcasm, she wasn’t wrong. You really can find out a lot about a person from their friends if you play your cards right.

  “So is that how you and Pops fell in love? You social-engineered him away from that nice Kansas girl back home?”

  “A nice Missouri girl,” Gigi corrected. “And not just any girl, either. She was Miss Kansas City at some point, according to my former intel sources.”

  “Wow, Geeg. You stole Pops away from a beauty queen?”

  She fixed me with a look. “You cannot steal a person away when they’re actually in love with someone else. And yes, I did my research. Marcus, the other Naval Academy graduate in our Addison class, wasn’t nearly as intelligent as your grandfather. After a couple of martinis, he would have given me his bank account number if I’d asked nicely. This isn’t exactly high-level spying, you know. Anyone who watches a James Bond film can figure out these tricks.”

  “Aha. The honeypot calls the kettle black!”

  “Honeypot is a terrible term, Peter.” She filled in the center of the mitten cookie. “As for my younger self, she was perfectly within her rights to listen while a classmate spilled the beans on his friend.”

  “Uh huh. Sure you were.”

  “Is it my fault Marcus told me that Lydia nagged your grandfather in her letters? Goodness, what a fool she was. Everyone knows you should never badger a grown man. Which is why I made sure your grandfather saw me as a sensible, easygoing alternative.”

  “Gigi, I love you, but you are far from easygoing.”

  “Oh, shush yourself,” she grinned, pressing so hard on the icing bag that a blob exploded onto her cookie. “You didn’t know me when I was twenty-three. In those days, I was – well I believe the word you use nowadays is chill. I just treated Pete Beckett with the respect he deserved, and poof! After Christmas break, Marcus let it slip that Pete and Lydia had broken up.”

  “Interesting. All because you treated Pops with respect, Lady Margaret the Chill?”

  “Well, no. Not exclusively.” A sly expression crossed her face. “He might have appreciated the dress I wore at the Addison Christmas party. It was this lovely green velvet number, cut very low in the –”

  “La la la la la!” I screamed, covering my ears. “Stop that right now, GRANDMOTHER.”

  I’m not going to lie to you, Sully. Gigi laughed so hard she started to cough uncontrollably. Which should have worried me, but instead it made me laugh too. And in those days, between my heartache over you and the cancer countdown, I was hanging on to my sanity by a literal thread. As the seconds ticked forward, the weight of everything snowballed down on me out of the blue. And just like that, my laughter t
urned to sobs.

  Gigi got to her feet faster than she had in months and wrapped her arms around me, cradling my head in both hands. “Shh,” she whispered. “Don’t cry, Peter. My whole point in telling you that story was to remind you that feelings change. Someday your lady troubles will be nothing but a memory. I have a good feeling about this little redhead of yours. She sees the real you.”

  “I’m not… this isn’t about her. It’s about you.” A giant sob shook me hard. “What am I supposed to do without you, Gigi? Who will I talk to when I need help? Who will call me out on my nonsense? You’re my best friend in the world.”

  I felt her abdomen tense up and release against me as she took three deep breaths. “Correction,” she finally said. “I am one of your best friends. When I’m gone, you will still have Dan. You’ll still have James and Brooks. And if you are very lucky, you’ll have the love of a hard-working Irish girl named Meredith Sullivan. And if not, well, that she’s an idiot and I want my money back.”

  Snot ran down my nose as I sucked in a laugh. “You’re awfully sassy for a dying lady, Margaret Beckett.”

  “Yes, I am,” she replied, voice shaking. “Listen to me, darling. You cannot give up on life after I’m gone. If you’ve learned anything from these past few years, let it be that you must keep choosing reasons to live. Your friends need you. This world needs you. Your heart is too beautiful to stop beating just because life is unfair.”

  I stood up and hugged her so hard that I was worried I might break her ribs. In that moment, I swore to myself never to let her down again. That I would stand up and fight, just like Gigi had asked.

  How long did it take me to fail her? Fifteen weeks? Sixteen?

  Reading back through this letter, I’m pretty sure Gigi knew where I’d end up – running, running, running away. And that makes my heart ache so badly I can’t breathe.