Your New Best Friend

by Jayne Denker

  "What was Conn like as a kid?"

  The eager look on her face makes me laugh. "Exactly like he is now, with less facial hair. Too cool for his own good."

  "Was he cute?" Hannah leans forward, elbows on her knees, and Harvey, realizing he's lost the new human's attention, jumps down and marches off. Faint crunching sounds come from the kitchen as he has his own midmorning snack.

  "See for yourself."

  I wave my glass at the hallway that leads to the bedrooms. Hannah jumps up, taking her drink with her. I don't follow her. I know what's on those walls—Conn Garvey's Life in Photos. Her giggle means she's discovered his third-grade picture, when he had more gaps than teeth and a ridiculous bowl-shaped haircut. Then she oohs, and I know she's gotten to his football photo. A squeal means she's reached his prom picture with Autumn Rufino, the little tramp. He was too good for her.

  "Hey, Melanie?"

  "Yep?"

  "Why is this space empty?"

  "Ah."

  I pour myself another drink, and she comes back into the living room, ready for another as well.

  Refilling her empty glass, I observe sagely, "You found the Picture Hook of Doom."

  "The what?" She laughs as she takes a slug of her fresh drink, wincing at the strength.

  I widen my eyes and do my best horror-movie-narrator voice. "Where the wedding photo used to hang. It is no more."

  "He was married?" she squeaks.

  "Was is definitely the operative word."

  "Ohhh," she breathes. "So that's it. What you promised to tell me."

  "The saga of What Broke Conn? I suppose you're ready."

  The story of Conn's early adult life is simple and complicated at the same time. I make an effort to keep it simple for Hannah, only hitting the highlights: he went off to Harvard for his undergraduate degree and came back with a diploma (simple), an eye for a business career (also simple), and a fiancée. Sasha. Guess what part's complicated.

  Hannah's hooked, of course. "Ooh, what was she like?"

  I take another large swallow of my drink and study the ugly acoustic-tile drop ceiling. "She was…perfect."

  "Looks, or personality, or spirit, or what?"

  "All of the above."

  "Was she nice?"

  Aw, trust Hannah to ask the important question. I try to explain how Sasha was grace personified—impeccable manners, a generous personality—but terrifying. She intimidated the hell out of teenage me. Despite my years of etiquette and comportment classes, I felt like a drunk moose around her. She was a whole different level of aristocracy. Plus she was ridiculously beautiful.

  "She was like…this movie star or something. She didn't seem real. All blonde and flawless skin and white teeth and perfect."

  "You're blonde with flawless skin and white teeth and perfect."

  "No, I'm not," I protest, wondering vaguely if my words are starting to slur. Nah. I finish my second drink and reach for the vodka bottle again, skipping the orange juice this time. It gives me canker sores anyway.

  "Have you looked in the mirror lately?" Okay, Hannah's words are definitely slurring. I pour her another drink anyway.

  "While my hair may be some shade of yellow, it's not enough to make me comparable to Sasha Carlisle. I mean, this girl was tall and willowy and unreal…Grace Kelly. Like that."

  "You're—"

  "Don't even. I'm solid." There's no denying it. Nobody is ever going to mistake me for a supermodel. Not with my below-average height, not to mention my thighs, souvenirs from my high school and college track team days. Which, by the way, I know better than to try to whittle down to the circumference of my neck, no matter what the latest fashion trend. "Anyway, nobody could compete with Sasha. She always…blew everyone away."

  "Including Conn."

  "Including Conn. For a while, anyway."

  Conn and Sasha only stayed in Abbott's Bay for a short time before going off to spend a year abroad. The naysayers tutted that too much togetherness in foreign places would kill their relationship, but they came back as solid as ever and ready to get married.

  After Conn completed his MBA, they set a date for the wedding. Then he and Sasha dropped the biggest bombshell, at least in the eyes of Abbott's Bay residents: they were moving to Seattle after the wedding. Our neighbors couldn't imagine wanting to live anywhere else but Abbott's Bay. But this was Conn and Sasha, so they just nodded, talked about the job market and opportunities in the Pacific Northwest, and didn't question. When Conn and Sasha left, we all waved our hankies, dabbed away proud tears, and said nothing but good things about them after they were gone.

  The marriage lasted about six years. When it was over, Conn moved back to Abbott's Bay, disillusioned and bitter. That was his dark period, but after a while, he rose from his own ashes, dusted himself off, and opened the restaurant. I'm really happy for him. Not that he isn't still a little bitter—okay, a lot bitter—about his failed marriage, but it's obvious he's a survivor.

  "Huh," is all Hannah says then falls silent, staring off into the distance as the rain hammers the roof and the deck. After a moment she states definitively, "Sorry, I need visuals."

  "What?"

  "I'm a visual person, so I want to see Sasha."

  "You want to go to Zimbabwe? Because I heard that's where she is now. Doctors Without Borders."

  "She's a doctor? Doing third-world charity work? Jesus."

  "Told you. Perfect."

  "Social media?"

  "She doesn't believe in it."

  "She is perfect," Hannah breathes. She thinks a moment then declares, "Picture Hook of Doom."

  "What about it?"

  "Their wedding picture—what did Conn do with it?"

  I shrug. "No idea. When Broken Conn moved back in, down came the photo. His parents argued with him because they loved it so much—and they loved Sasha, no matter what happened between her and Conn—but he insisted. He might have had his dad toss it off the deck while he tried his hand at skeet shooting with his old BB gun. Who knows?"

  "Conn didn't skeet shoot his wedding picture. He's too nice."

  "He's not that nice," I snort into my glass.

  "I still think it's around here somewhere. Let's find it."

  "You mean go through his stuff?" I'm not necessarily against this. I'm just surprised Hannah is suggesting it.

  She's already on her feet, looking around the room, wondering where to start. She also might be hesitating a bit, because helping ourselves to Conn's Oreos is one thing; poking through his stuff is quite another. Looks like I'll have to get the ball rolling.

  "You look in the piano bench. I'll take the sideboard."

  As Hannah lifts the lid of the seat and sifts through tattered sheet music, she calls, "Does Conn have a girlfriend now?"

  "Nope. I told you—he's broken."

  "He said he's not."

  "He's a guy. What do they know about their own feelings?"

  I root through the top drawer of the sideboard and come up with vintage tat: a wall hanging (a macramé owl clutching a real twig in its yarn claws), a bunch of dish towels, and some dusty, abandoned glass ashtrays because hardly anybody smokes anymore, but you can't just throw them away, right? But no wedding photo. I pull open another drawer and shift the neatly folded tablecloths. No photo there. Hannah doesn't have any luck either.

  Where else would he hide a framed photo? Kitchen? Doubtful. Well, depending on Conn's mood, maybe the broiler…nah. Not even he would do that. Which only leaves…

  We look down the hall toward the shadowy bedrooms then look at each other.

  "We can't go through Conn's drawers," Hannah whispers.

  "Why not? Plenty of women have tried."

  She giggles. "But it sounds like none have succeeded."

  "Not since Sasha. Broken, I tell you. Even if the man denies it."

  "Do we dare?"

  "Hannah, if we do not dare, we have not lived."

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  There's a gap. In my memo
ry. I'm pretty sure certain events have been squeezed out by the vise that is currently shaping my head into a close approximation of a banana. Fortunately the excruciating pain is offset by a wonderful feeling of floating. I'm warm too. I wasn't, but now I am. Plus there are nice smells. Coffee, mostly. Rain. Soap.

  I turn my head and press my nose into the fabric of Conn's shirt. He's carrying me. I like it. I'm safe.

  I may or may not take a deep breath to smell those wonderful smells again, which prompts him to whisper, "Melanie? You awake?"

  I don't want to answer. I just want to be carried, cradled. And do some more sniffing.

  Then, "Bitch, you drank all my vodka." His voice is still soft though, and affectionate, and it makes my heart bloom in my chest.

  He places me gently on his bed. Starts to back away. Although I've been pretty much limp in his arms up to this moment, suddenly I move like a ninja, despite what it does to my head-vise, which tightens even more, and I grasp his shirt.

  "Don't leave me," I whisper.

  He hesitates, and I freeze. I can't believe I said that. He kneels down in front of me, smoothing my hair back from my forehead.

  "I'm sorry," I mumble. "About earlier."

  "Don't apologize. I'm sorry. I didn't notice the date."

  I don't say anything for a moment. He remembered. I don't think even my father remembered or, if he did, he chose not mention it.

  "Did you call her?"

  I nod. It makes my head swim. "Got voicemail."

  "She'll call you back."

  "No."

  She hardly ever does. I wonder what my mom's doing on her birthday. Is she sitting home alone, avoiding the world, reflecting on her life? Or is she out with friends, having too much fun to notice her only daughter called? Most likely she's working. It's Saturday—there'll be a show today. Probably two. Yes, I decide, she's so busy working she hasn't had time to call me back.

  A realization hits me. "Where's Hannah? She drank your vodka too, you know."

  "She's in way better shape. She asked me to check on you—said she tried to move you, but you whacked her."

  "I did not." But I may have. Those gaps in my memory.

  "Sleep it off, Abbott."

  "That was good vodka."

  He kisses my forehead and brushes my cheek before rising, and I close my eyes with a small smile. I have my friend back.

  * * *

  I wake up, who knows how much later, and get up slowly, testing my basic motor skills. I'm far more functional than I was before my nap. My stomach is rumbling. I'm not sure if it wants food or is in the first stages of shriveling up and dying.

  The rain has stopped, and through a crack in the curtains I can see that the sky is golden behind the last lingering clouds. The ocean, still riled by the weather, slams against the shore. I pull aside the heavy drapes at the sliding door and watch the whitecaps for a few minutes until I hear noises coming from the main part of the house.

  Conn is sitting on the couch, Harvey draped over one thigh. He doesn't look at me, but he knows I'm in the doorway. "You sure had to dig deep to get to these," he says, referring to the photos he's studying.

  "You really need to throw out some of those old, ripped T-shirts—they take up too much drawer space."

  "Apparently they're a lousy barricade too."

  "Yeah well, we were pretty determined."

  I sit down next to him. He's not looking at the formal wedding portrait in the frame, the one that had hung on the Picture Hook of Doom. It's tossed aside. I have a vague recollection of going through every drawer in his bedroom then triumphantly unearthing it from under that pile of faded T-shirts while Hannah did an end-zone victory dance. I remember lying down in the living room, staring at it until I pushed it under the couch, turned my head away, and fell asleep.

  Conn is looking at a different picture from the stack we found with the formal portrait: an unframed eight-by-ten of the entire wedding party acting goofy on the photographer's orders. Except for Sasha. She's the sole composed, dignified person in the photo, though she's smiling delightedly at the rest of us. Conn, on the other hand, is reaching over the top of his head from behind and hooking his fingers in his nostrils.

  Now he rests the tip of his finger on the picture, at the very edge—on the shortest, youngest bridesmaid out of Sasha's lineup of nine, all in strapless periwinkle chiffon gowns with crystal waistbands.

  "What in the world was I doing there?" I laugh softly, not entirely comfortable looking at my seventeen-year-old self. God, was my face ever that round?

  "Saving my ass."

  "There was no ass-saving done that day. You're imagining things."

  Conn turns to me, those unusual eyes—the ones that I never know are going to be green or blue on any given day, any hour, in any mood, in whatever light—meeting mine. "I don't think I am," he says evenly.

  I stand up in a rush, my disturbed innards suddenly clamoring, Slow it down there, missy! "Sorry Hannah and I broke into your house. We needed to get out of the rain. I've…got to go. You probably do too." It's the dinner hour, and I've kept him here longer than I should have by stupidly begging not to be alone. I'll never live it down, but damned if I'll ever acknowledge I said it out loud.

  "Melanie—"

  "Thanks for…everything, Conn. Really."

  "Let me drive you home."

  "No!" I snap, racing for the door. "I mean…I want to walk. It'll…clear my head. Have a good night, okay?"

  * * *

  What the hell. We've never talked about his wedding. Never. Not when it happened. Not after. Not before Conn and Sasha moved away, not when Conn came back alone. Never.

  I wonder if he knows the truth or if he's just guessing.

  God, when did the walk up from the beach get so steep? I stop halfway home to catch my breath. Stupid vodka. A few people I know pass me, and I straighten up and put on a smile to make sure nobody stops to ask if I'm all right. If I breathed within a foot of them, one exhalation would melt their faces off like in Raiders of the Lost Ark.

  I round the corner into the commercial district…and smack into a wall of people. It happens like that, every year. I should be used to it. The majority of the summer people seem to arrive simultaneously, like an airborne division of the military parachuting from the same plane. One minute there's nobody but the locals, the very next…boom.

  The shops and restaurants are lit up, ready for night to descend. I can't believe this day is over already. I can't believe I drank to hide from it. It shouldn't matter that it's my mother's birthday. I'll be thirty years old soon. I don't need my mommy. My father has been both mom and dad for me since I was thirteen, and he's done a fine job. Yet something deep inside me keeps reaching out, reaching for her. Of course, if she showed up, arms outstretched, eager for a hug, I'd probably run the other way. No, I know I would. I wouldn't know what to do with a mother at this point in my life. Not after living without one for this long.

  Still, I check my phone one more time, sort of hoping for voicemail, a text, or even a "missed call" alert. There's nothing.

  I work my way through town, across the streaming current of tourists, and come up on the office just as Laura is turning off the lights. For an agent with no clients, she sure does spend a lot of time here. She spots me as she pulls the door shut and turns her key to lock it, so I can't even dodge her.

  "Hey, Laura," I mumble, eager to get home.

  She looks me up and down, eyes wide under her bangs and a ridiculous, what I presume to be hand-knit hat, which is more than a little incongruous, considering it's almost June. The bright green and white stripes and amateurish, irregular stitch don't capture my attention—and horror—as much as the flaps hanging down on either side. It might be my midday hangover talking, but I'm pretty sure they're dog ears. When she turns to me fully, I know they're not a hallucination because they go with the pair of half-dollar-size googly eyes glued to the front of the hat.

  "Melanie. Wait."

 
Her usual ghost of a whisper is so faint it takes me just about as long to decipher what she just said as it does for her to go back inside, grab something, and hand it to me. It's a bottle of water. Girl's pretty perceptive—I have to admit.

  "I look that bad, huh?"

  She doesn't answer, just reaches into her purse and thrusts a fistful of loose Twizzlers at me. I muster up a smile, reject that offer as politely as possible, and go on my way. I trudge up another incline into the residential streets, going slower with every step. By the time I enter my carriage house apartment I want to collapse just inside the door, but I force myself to put my purse down, set my keys in the basket on the table in the foyer, finish Laura's bottle of water—the first of what will be several tonight—and get another from the fridge. I cross the room and look out over the town before I draw the blinds. The trees are almost fully leafed out, but I can still see all the way down to the shopping district from my upper-floor apartment. All of this is my domain, I jokingly tell myself. But really, it is my home. I belong here. Other people—my mom, Taylor, eventually Hannah—leave all the time, and I'm still here. Which is fine. It's the way it's supposed to be. I have my dad, and Conn, and…other people. Friends, neighbors, coworkers. I'm not lonely…I don't think.

  But once I shower, put on my pajamas, and get my third bottle of water, I find myself reaching for my phone. Not to call my mom again. I have a rule: one attempt at communication per birthday. I refuse to look desperate. This time I call Taylor.

  "Happy mom's birthday, darling," is the way she answers. "How are you holding up?"

  "I'm okay." To avoid any in-depth discussion of my motherlessness, I tell her all about my Laura sighting. When Taylor worked at Abbott Realty, she and I used to dish about Laura's eccentricities all the time. Now that she lives in Provincetown, Taylor relies on me to keep her up to date. She laughs uproariously as I describe my coworker's hat and Twizzler bouquet, which makes me feel a little better…until our conversation and her reaction reminds me of Conn's accusation. I almost don't want to ask, but I have to know. "Hey, Taylor? Did you and I wage a 'reign of terror' when we were teenagers?"