“I know how they feel,” I said. I couldn’t stop yawning.
Gillian raised her eyebrows, elbowing me in the side as we walked to our desks. “Oh really? Were you really bored last night?”
“Ow. Will you please stop?” I slumped into my desk. How was it possible that I was back here, in this little, ordinary cube, when just a few hours earlier…I sighed, powering on my computer. Still the same old username and password, the same standard Windows wallpaper, the same queue filled with the same supremely boring stories waiting for me to copyedit.
This was it. This was life. After high school and college, life was the same day being lived over and over, working and trying to live up to some dream that was never going to come true in the first place. Except for some people, but those people are extraordinary. I wasn’t extraordinary. I was a copy editor, and not a very good one, considering that a third of the stories in my cube had come back to me once the assistant editor reviewed them.
Gillian swiveled her chair over to me. “So I guess you’re really not going to tell me anything?”
I just shrugged. It was probably crazy, but I didn’t want to talk about it. I just wanted to curl up in a familiar room with someone who smelled like soap and a leather guitar case. And that wasn’t going to happen.
I didn’t talk much on the way home from work, either. Gillian tried hard to cheer me up. She told me all about the newest scandal on Hospitals & Housewives, and when that didn’t work, she turned on an eighties station and sang Boy George at the top of her lungs.
“Oh, I know! I’ll make pizza tonight. Sound good?”
I shrugged. Jack had ruined pizza for me, maybe for good. “I think I’ll just make a can of soup.” If I even ate dinner. Maybe I’d just go to sleep.
But when we arrived at the apartment, Sarah was waiting for me. She sat on the front stoop, scrolling on her phone, and I told Gillian to go on without me.
I couldn’t tell if she was smiling or just squinting in the sun. Her pale shoulders looked sunburned, and I wondered how long she’d been sitting there.
“You’re here,” I said.
“I knew there was a reason you got into Brown.” She reached into her purse for her lip gloss, applied it, and threw it back in the bag. Then she scooted over a bit so as to make room for me on the step.
“I’m glad you’re here,” I said.
She stared out across the parking lot. “You know that if you’d told me about it back then, I wouldn’t have, like, stopped being friends with you or anything.”
I wasn’t sure if I believed her, but I knew that she believed it.
Behind us, the apartment doors opened and a couple teenage girls came out carrying beach towels. It wasn’t so long ago that they would have been Sarah and me. But it was already the end of the fifth summer since high school had ended, and every year seemed to go by faster than the one before it.
“I thought you were my best friend,” Sarah said. “You had this whole other life that you never told me about. I don’t think real friends keep those kinds of secrets.”
She was right—they didn’t. “I didn’t know how to be a good friend back then, but I do now. I want to be your friend. I want to be a good one.”
“Good friends don’t keep secrets,” she repeated. “So you have to promise me you won’t do it again.”
My head jerked up.
“This doesn’t mean I’m not mad you. I still am. Really mad. And for the record, I’m mad at Amber, too. I went through with the wedding and all because it was the right thing to do. Well, that, and she practically begged.”
Amber, begging? That was an image I couldn’t conjure. She had probably been pruning my replacement, a peripheral waiting to be called up to the majors. I wanted to ask Sarah but stopped myself. She was continuing anyway.
“She still won’t admit what she did, but I know she played a part in it, too. I’m not stupid. So I’m pretty pissed at both of you. And I’m not sure when I’m not going to feel this way.”
“Okay,” I said. It was fair. It was more than fair. I was lucky there might be a when at all. But there was still something else tugging at the back of my head, and it would do me no good not to face it. “Are you sure we even have anything in common anymore?”
Sarah frowned. “So you’re wondering that, too.”
My throat started to hurt. Life was about spending time with people you connected with, not forcing yourself to fit into places you didn’t. And it wasn’t just me who’d changed. Sarah used to look to me for advice, but now she was the one who had her life together. Maybe she’d had enough of me. Or maybe we needed to reintroduce ourselves to each other.
I turned to her. “I meant what I said before. I want us to do the stuff together like we used to do. Just silly stuff, like milkshakes on the beach.”
“Oh, yeah. That was so fun. I haven’t had a strawberry milkshake in about a thousand years.”
I stared at the blue sky as the sun warmed my nose and hands, nearly numb from an entire day in an office that just fixed its air conditioning. “Today would be a nice day for a milkshake.”
“I can’t tonight. I’m meeting Derek for drinks. I should actually be going.” She started to stand, and I stood, too. “Maybe next weekend?” she asked.
“Yeah, sure,” I said. She looked like she was going to hug me, but at the last second, we stepped out of each other’s way and she just waved. I waved and watched her go, and then I took the stairs up to my apartment to see what Gillian’s feelings were about ice cream.
Chapter Twenty-Two
Celebrity Weekly Online…Your One-Stop Shop For Celebrity News!
Natalie Jamison Pregnant with Jack Moreland’s Love Child!
Breaking News! Though Jack Moreland has not yet confirmed that his platinum debut, “Good Enough,” was inspired by his secret high school relationship with newspaper writer, Natalie Jamison, Celebrity Weekly has uncovered a shocking new twist to this story!
A source close to the couple (yes, they are together and on the down-low, once again), has confirmed that Jamison is about eight weeks along with his child. Check out the photo of a makeup-free Jamison attempting to hide her ever-growing baby bump with her purse (inset). This will be the first child for each, and our source tells us that Jamison will move to New York City before the baby’s birth. Keep checking back on the latest news in this breaking story!
Oh. My. God.
At first, they attempted to write something unbiased, until Jack refused to comment. Then they ran quotes from my supposed friends, implying I had some sort of mental breakdown. Then they sympathized with me. Now they were completely fabricating stories about me, quoting “sources” that didn’t exist, and publishing photos of me—where the hell was I going in this picture, anyway?—not wearing any makeup. And a baby bump? Apparently, I needed to stop eating Gillian’s homemade pizza.
I guess I was canceling my subscription.
My cell phone rang. My parents. I didn’t answer.
“This isn’t true, right?” Gillian sounded skeptical, but a little bit hopeful at the same time.
“No, it’s not true. I haven’t seen him since that night.” A month ago already. “And I’m not pregnant, just fat.”
“You’re not fat,” Gillian said.
“You should sue,” Sarah said. “I’ll represent you.”
She’d agreed to come over for Gillian’s pizza and, just like I’d predicted, the two of them immediately hit it off. I’d worry that they would become better friends than either of them were with me if I were the type to worry about that sort of thing anymore.
“I don’t want to sue. I just want them to forget about me.” I took another piece of pizza. Screw it. It was delicious.
“It’s really creepy how these stories are written,” Sarah pointed out. “They refer to themselves in the third person: ‘Celebrity Weekly has confirmed…’ It’s like they’re the Bob Dole of celebrity magazines.”
I laughed and Gillian shook her
head. “Well, this makes my decision easier.”
I stopped mid-sip. “About?”
She sighed. “I can’t, in good conscience, write for a magazine like that. Anyway, how are we going to work on our cookbook living on separate coasts?”
“Are you serious?”
She nodded and I reached across the table for a fist-bump. “And honestly,” Gillian said, “I’m sick of moving. Plus, I actually like it here.”
It never dawned on me that anybody but tourists and my friends could like living here. Ever since I’d returned, I’d been fantasizing about my way out. But now Gillian was staying. I’d let go of the person I was when I was seventeen. So maybe I could let go of the image I’d always had of Stonebury, too, turn it into a place I wanted to be.
“You guys are writing a cookbook?” Sarah asked, grabbing a second slice.
“Sure,” I said. “So far, we have exactly one recipe.” But it was a good one, and as someone told me once, you have to start somewhere.
…
Stonebury was a small town. Obviously, I would run into Amber at some point. I was just hoping it’d be four or five years down the road and not a sunny morning in mid-September. She’d been away on her honeymoon, and then spent a couple of weeks at her parents’ Cape house, according to Sarah, who she still kept in touch with from time to time. But now, she was back in town. I was walking down Main Street on my way to the bookstore, stopping every now and then to take a picture or two. I used to hate this time of year. The turning of the leaves always meant the start of school, making me sad and anxious. But now, I was taking it back. I was going to turn all of these bad feelings into pictures.
The tourists had cleared out of town, but the streets were still busy, people enjoying the perfect jeans-and-a-sweater weather. Crowds came in and out of stores, and Amber blended in with them at first. But then I saw her flip her hair, and I froze, thinking of how I could avoid her.
But even now, there was no avoiding Amber.
We both stopped when we were a few feet from each other, right in front of the park entrance. I will not be fake, but I will be polite. “Hi,” I said.
“Hello.”
“How have you been?”
“Fine.”
All righty. If I wanted conversation this stimulating, I might as well strike up a dialogue with the park bench. “Well, it was nice seeing you.” I offered her the best smile I could muster—it wasn’t much—and started to walk away.
“I suppose you win, huh?”
“Excuse me?”
She pursed her perfect pink lips as we turned to face each other again. “You finally managed to take all of my friends from me.”
I stared at her. “I have no idea what you’re talking about.”
“It’s really very simple, Natalie. Ever since I met you, I’ve been on edge. You were always so competitive. Any time I got an A, you needed to get an A plus. Anytime I got close with Sarah, you tried to pull her away. Well, congratulations. You’ve finally succeeded in making my life miserable.”
A man in a suit chose that moment to walk by, holding his phone up to one ear and glaring at me. Great. I could see the Celebrity Weekly headline now: Notorious Liar Natalie Jamison Makes Innocent Lady’s Life Miserable!
I waited for him to pass. “I’m really surprised you feel that way. Because that’s exactly how I felt, every day in high school.”
She flipped her hair over her shoulder. “That’s ridiculous.”
I could agree with her. Apologize. Walk away, be done with her for good. And a part of me—the wimpy part—wanted to do just that. But this was finally my chance to tell her exactly how she’d made me feel for years.
And anyway, this was Stonebury. I’d probably bump into her five more times before Friday.
“No. It’s not.” I leaned toward her, looking her in the eyes as soon as she started to roll them. But her lips quivered the slightest bit, and for the first time since I’d known her, I wondered if the eye roll was simply a defense mechanism. “In high school, you were the one in control. You criticized everything. I spent hours picking out a shirt based on whether or not I thought you’d like it—”
“Well, that’s not my fault.”
“I’m not saying it is, completely. I had a lot to do with it, too. I know that now. I was the most insecure girl in our entire class. I always wanted your approval. I just wanted you to like me.”
Amber looked away. We were both quiet as a group of four teen girls walked by, laughing loudly. “I always had to work so hard for everything,” she said. “You never had to study, and you were almost valedictorian. I told you guys I was shopping or at the beach or wherever, but really, I was holed up in my room, taking practice tests and doing extra credit. And you still beat me on everything.”
Her eyes were big and her voice shook in a way I’d never heard it before, not in all the years I’d known her.
“And then there was prom. I was on all the committees. I’m the one who came up with the black-and-white-movies theme, I just let Lori take the credit. I worked so hard on it, and you were the one who got prom queen. And you acted like you didn’t even want to go. No matter what it was, everything came so easily to you.”
I laughed. “Easy? Did you ever watch me try to cheerlead?”
She didn’t smile. The sun slipped behind the clouds, and wind shook the first few leaves from the trees that lined Main Street. “Do you want to know what really made me mad? All those times you’d complain about your parents not letting you do this or that or making you stay in for one of their family game nights. I acted like it was such a big drag, and all the while, my dad was screwing his intern and my mom was going to bed at seven every night. She got plastic surgery before she was even fifty years old, just to keep him. That’s crazy! She always used to say she would do anything to keep the family together, but I don’t think it was ever about the family. It was all about him.”
I drew in a breath. “I know we never talked about it when it happened, but it was because we all thought you didn’t want to.”
Her eyes were full. “I figured the best way to deal with it was to pretend it wasn’t happening. But I always waited for one of my friends to tell me it was going to be okay.”
We never did. Maybe we thought it would embarrass her or make her more sad. Maybe we were scared she’d get mad at us if we brought it up. Maybe it was just easier to ignore it, assume that she was just fine, that nothing ever touched her.
“I’m sorry,” I said. “I know what it’s like to pretend. I used to think it was surviving. But that’s high school.”
Amber wiped at her eyes. “That’s not just high school. That’s life.”
I looked at her, but she was still staring off across the street. We watched as the owner of Cupcakes & More swept debris from the welcome mat in front of her door. We watched as a couple of college-age girls in leggings and sunglasses pushed through the doors of the diner. I wondered if Amber remembered the times we’d hit up the diner after one of Adam’s parties or an early morning cheerleading practice. I wondered if she had any good memories of high school at all.
It hit me that I did. That Amber used to spend hours straightening my hair with her designer hair supplies. She’d run her fingers through it and tell me she wished her hair was as shiny. So why, the next day at school, did she wrinkle her nose at me when I came in through the school’s glass doors and point out, in front of everyone, that my jeans were getting too tight?
“Maybe,” I said slowly, “maybe we could go get lunch next week or something.”
Amber’s expression changed. Hardened, right before my eyes. “I have a really full calendar next week. I’m coordinating the toy drive at the hospital on Monday, and then I have my first meeting for the library—I’m on the board now—and then Peter and I have to pick out paint samples for the guest room.”
“Okay. Well, maybe another time.”
“Certainly.” She sounded like a customer service representative, t
rying to get me off the phone. We stood at the same time, and I was debating with myself as to whether I should give her a hug when she said, “There is one thing I don’t understand. Why did you make up that crazy story about Jack Moreland?”
Even now, she said his name with a hint of distaste, and I had to remind myself that she didn’t know him; she never did. “It wasn’t a lie,” I said. She just stood there, staring at me, looking as if I’d just admitted to killing someone. I decided against the hug. “I’ll see you around,” I said, and left her standing there.
Chapter Twenty-Three
In the months that passed while Jack was in London working on his second album, two more of his singles from Good Enough were released. “Palladium” had been featured in trailers for two upcoming movies. “Prom Night” came out just after Thanksgiving, debuting at number one on the Billboard Hot 100. He called or texted a couple of times, at the end of long days in the studio for him and slow, restless days for me. Life had gone relatively back to normal once the novelty had died down and other stories took our place.
One Saturday morning, the week before Christmas, Gillian and I sat in our breakfast nook, drinking tea and finishing off the broccoli quiche she’d gotten up early to make. We strung white lights around all the doorways, and I found a red and green table runner to replace the one Sarah took with her. Gillian was writing notes for her newest fan fic, and I was flipping through my bare bones portfolio, trying to get inspired. I had a Monday morning meeting with Justin Hanscomb, who would, hopefully, help me figure out how to start a business.
I was filling up the tea kettle with more water when my cell phone buzzed. A text from Jack, the first one I’d gotten in at least a month.
The Mean Girl Apologies Page 25
