“So I had a little bit of cold feet. I still loved him.”
“Dammit, Diane! Sankresh tried to break things off months before, but you wouldn’t have it. You knew he was such a pushover that you could talk him out of it. You were so hell-bent on getting married—”
“Get out!”
Before I have time to process this bombshell, Diane launches herself off the Throne.
“The only reason you guys came here was for a laugh. Oh, look how heartbroken Diane is. One year later, and it’s still hilarious. Well, you know what else is hilarious? Erin’s butt-ugly baby, Marian’s flaming husband and that eating disorder you had in college.”
Erin and Marian hop off the couch. Their shocked expressions quickly congeal into looks of pity. They lift Aimee off the couch. I bury my face in my hands, embarrassed enough for the two of us.
“You are pathetic, Diane,” Aimee says. Her words sting my ears. “But not for the reason you think.”
Once the women slam our front door shut, Diane whips her head around to me. I’ve never seen such darkness in her eyes.
“You ambushed me.”
A hydrogen bomb has exploded over my smart idea. I didn’t think this would happen, but I guess I don’t know my sister as well as I thought. “I wanted to help,” I say through tears. “Diane, you can’t keep living this way.”
“Do you think I want to? But how can I face anybody, when all they see is the jilted bride?”
“That’s what you see.”
What is she fighting against? It’s like she doesn’t want her life to improve. She just wants to keep hating Sankresh, and she can’t hate Sankresh if any part of her life doesn’t suck.
“Some sister you are. You steal your best friend’s boyfriend, and you think that makes you some relationship expert? Thanks a lot.”
I cry by myself in the living room a little longer before going to sleep. While lying in bed, I think about how beautiful Diane looked with pierced ears. She took them out right after the wedding, and the holes closed up a few weeks later. They didn’t leave any scars. It was like they never happened.
31
While I eat dinner at the alcove with my mom—another dynamite Friday night—the strangest thing happens.
Val calls me. Actually calls.
I know right away something is wrong. Val is a texter, which is odd for a girl who loves to talk, now that I think about it. Did Ezra spill the beans about our kiss?
No—kisses.
Multiple kisses.
“Hey,” I say, my voice tense with curiosity.
“What are you up to tonight?” Val sounds chipper, just like typical Val. Except typical Val wouldn’t call to ask me this.
“Nothing.”
“Becca! It’s Friday night!”
I tap my fork against the counter. “What’s up?”
“Do you want to meet up for coffee? I really need to talk to someone. The craziest thing just happened.”
“What?” I ask, a little too impatiently.
“Ezra just tried to break up with me.”
* * *
We rendezvous at Azucar, one of those hip coffeehouses that only exist near college campuses. A guy who would be cute were it not for the overdose of facial piercings slides a chai latte across the counter. I need to be here for Val, but I also want to be there with Ezra. A mishmash of emotions bounce around inside me like straitjacket-wearing psychopaths in a rubber room. It’s annoying how much real estate thinking about Ezra takes up in my head. I want to stop, but it’s like some sort of addiction that I keep lunging for.
“Roll it,” I say the second my latte hits my hand. I sink into the plush purple couch next to Val. She stirs her coffee.
“Last night, Ezra sent me this email saying that he didn’t think things were working, and that maybe we should see other people. And, sure, things haven’t been as great as they used to be, but that’s just the excitement of getting together wearing off. It happens to all couples.”
No, I say to myself, only to couples who are together for the wrong reasons.
“I’m so sorry! What a slimeball. Through email?” I say. And on second thought, did Ezra really have to break up via email? Val deserved better. “You should’ve called last night.”
“The thing is, I wasn’t upset last night. I was in shock, but I didn’t cry. I didn’t believe him. It seemed so abrupt. I was not going to sit back and watch my relationship dissolve. So I devised a plan.”
I lose my appetite for coffee. I should be the only one scheming on this couch. “What did you do?”
“I looked up quotes from movies that he loves and hid them around school, like a scavenger hunt for him. Under the piano in the band room, I hid a note that said ‘Play it again, Sam’ from Casablanca. He loves that movie, even though I fell asleep when we watched it. So he followed the clues around school until he ended up at my car. When I saw him walk up to me, I almost passed out or something. It was so romantic.”
It was. And clever. Who knew Val could construct something like this? She would’ve made a great co-Break-Up Artist in another life.
“What happened?” I sip my latte.
“I said we’ve been building something together, and I cared about him so much, too much to just accept his break-up. He once told me that relationships were about two people taking a leap of faith, having that initial attraction and seeing if there was more to it. Well, for me, I knew there was more to it. And if that meant waiting for him to come around, then I would, because I know we have something special. And he’ll realize it soon enough.”
I clutch my latte until it dents inward. Since Val isn’t in tears, I already know the answer, but I ask anyway: “So what did he say?”
“He pulled me in for a kiss. And it was...interstellar. Ezra’s an amazing kisser.”
I know!
I grit my teeth. My fingernail pokes a hole in my cup.
“So, crisis averted,” Val says, back to her beaming self. Seeing her happy irritates me in a whole new kind of way. “Want to split an M&M’s cookie?”
“No.”
“What’s wrong?”
“Val, can I ask you an honest question? Are you really into Ezra? Genuinely?”
“Of course!”
“No, you’re not!” My yell attracts the attention of every college hipster and Mac enthusiast in the room.
“Can we please end the charade? You just wanted a relationship. You were desperate for one! It’s so obvious.”
Val places her coffee on the table. She’s either way too calm, or I’m way too pissed. “It’s not like that. Yes, I know I was a little boy crazy—”
“Understatement of the millennium. All you’ve done is lie and deceive and manipulate just so you don’t have to walk down the hall alone. You needed a boy, and you got one. But that boy is a genuinely good guy who deserves someone who actually cares about him.” The words stream out of me before I have time to process them. I’m so hot that my drink feels cool in my hand. My feelings about their relationship cannot be bottled up any longer.
“I can’t believe my best friend is saying this. I never lied to Ezra,” she has the audacity to say.
“Oh, yeah? Tell that to Annie Hall. Or why don’t we reread the email you had me write?”
“You sound like a jealous lunatic. Do you have a crush on Ezra?”
“No!” I blush at the question, but my already red cheeks hide it.
“I don’t have to justify my relationship to you,” she says. She feverishly runs her fingers down her blond mane, as she always does when she’s frustrated. “If you really think this is all fake, then why is Ezra still in the picture?”
I marinate on that but can’t come up with an answer right away. Ezra wants real love. Why can’t he see th
rough this sham?
“Do you like him, or do you like being in a relationship more?”
Fresh tears bulge at Val’s eyes, and a pang of misery stabs at me. Nothing is worse than making your best friend cry.
“Maybe I wasn’t totally honest with him at first. I didn’t want my lack of movie knowledge to ruin everything. But my feelings for him were always real.” Val wipes her eyes with a napkin. The tears keep coming. “I always found that expression ‘my heart skips a beat’ so ridiculous. As if some guy could really cause that. But he can. Whenever I see Ezra walk toward me in the hall with that adorable smile, or see his number pop up on my phone, or hear his voice, I feel my heart stop for a second. Like it’s sighing or something. And then my heart beats really fast. It’s freaky mind-over-matter stuff, but really cool. That happens every time I see him.”
Val stares at me with an intensity that I didn’t know such a perky person could summon, one that tells me without any doubt that she is dead serious.
“I love him. I love him so much,” she says.
Heat strangles my neck. I didn’t know it was possible to be so furious at someone you care about so much. “No, you don’t! How deluded are you? Your relationship is bullshit, Val!”
Before she can respond, I’m out the door, hitting the night air at full blast. A double dose of pain shoots through my chest. Not only have I made my best friend cry, but she’s in love with a guy who doesn’t love her back.
* * *
On the drive home, I crank up a news station on the radio. Maybe world unrest can distract me from the chaos that has become my life. I need to ignore the disgust I feel for myself.
I am in serious like with Ezra Drummond.
Even though he’s still with Val for some unknown reason, I can’t help it. My heart and mind are conspiring against me.
“I like Ezra Drummond!” I scream over the weather report. It feels great to say it out loud. And then the dread sinks in. I roll down my window. The breeze blows against my face.
How can I be with him and hurt Val? How can I let him stay with Val? Why do none of these options end with happily ever after?
My phone rings. The second caller of the night. I am never this popular.
“Hey.”
“Hi, Rebecca. What are you up to this weekend?”
“Nothing.”
“Rebecca! You honestly have no plans this weekend?”
I roll my eyes at the comment. I’m glad one aspect of my life remains constant.
“What is it, Huxley?”
“Do you want to go down to Chandler tomorrow?”
I don’t think about the logistics, the lies I’ll have to tell my parents or the sheer lunacy of Huxley’s question. I’ve never needed an escape so badly in my life.
“What time are we leaving?”
32
On Saturday afternoons, most kids from Ashland are watching crappy movies on cable, running errands or working. (Maybe a scant few are doing homework, too. Maybe.) None of them are 35,000 feet up in the air lounging in first class, eating Salisbury steak and sipping on free champagne.
Except Huxley and me.
I told my parents I was hanging out with Huxley this weekend. I never specified where we’d be hanging out.
Huxley downs her second glass of champagne and peers out the window, something she hasn’t stopped doing since we crossed the Appalachian Mountains. It’s rare to watch her be so pensive.
“Are you okay?” I smack myself on the forehead. Dumbest question of the day. Let’s try again. “Do you want to talk?”
Worry clouds her face. “I know there’s not much we can do when we get there. I just need to see with my own eyes what he’s doing tonight, if...”
“If he’s having too much fun.”
“If he’s happy,” she says. She glances out the window again. “If he plays football for them, I don’t know if we’ll make it.”
“Don’t say that!” The flight attendant gives me the stink eye while she refills Huxley’s glass. She probably can tell I’m only in first class because of Huxley, not the other way around.
“He loves you. Remember Chris Gomberg’s party?”
She nods yes, but without conviction. “Things will be different if he goes off to school.”
“That’s why you want him to go to Vermilion.”
“I can’t lose him.”
She needs him close, needs the control. But I don’t get why she’s so intent on staying with him after he graduates. She’ll graduate a year later and go off to college and find another boyfriend. Is her senior-year status at Ashland that important?
“Maybe you two should just call it quits now. Let each other start fresh. We have brand-new lives waiting for us once we get out of Ashland.” I take a sip of my champagne. The bubbles tickle my nose, and I let out a Chihuahua yelp. The flight attendant shakes her head at me.
“I don’t want a brand-new life. I like my life with Steve. My parents were high-school sweethearts. They both went to Rutgers, got married right after and settled down back in Ashland. As old-fashioned as that sounds, it’s also incredibly romantic. They knew from the start what mattered the most. I want that with Steve.”
Diane also tried going that route with Sankresh, but it backfired. The only time when the whole high-school-sweetheart story works out is when the two people involved don’t think about it.
“Maybe you’re meant for something different. Maybe that’s not your life. You’re smart, Huxley, and you’re a born leader. Look what you’ve done with SDA. I think there’s this whole interesting future waiting for you. Do you really want to chuck it for the sake of some relationship?”
“It’s not just ‘some relationship.’” She swirls around her glass of champagne, watching the bubbles, so contemplative, as if she’s reviewing the past four years and making her own judgment.
“I began dating Steve for all the wrong reasons,” she says. “I liked him because he was Steve Overland. Now it turns out I actually love the guy.”
And I actually believe her when she says it. She sounds so natural about it, so genuine, like she’s stating a fact rather than proving a point. Unfortunately for her, it’s a fact that she can no longer control.
* * *
The warm breeze and amber setting sun of Dallas welcomes us. It makes me question living in a place that has snow.
When I turn my phone back on, I find a pair of text messages waiting for me.
Both from Ezra.
Can you meet up today? We need to talk.
I know how to fix what happened with Val. You’re the one I lurve.
Does lurve count as the L word?
“Why are you so smiley?” Huxley asks me.
I shove my phone in my purse. Heat rushes through me, but let’s just attribute that to the desert weather.
Our cab whizzes down the highway. We pass a steakhouse shaped like a cowboy hat. It’s unabashedly corny, yet endearing. Steve would like it here.
“Who was that?” she asks.
“Nobody.”
“I’m sure it wasn’t.”
“I wasn’t smiley.” I can’t enjoy this. Not when every organ in Val’s body beats for Ezra.
We drop our luggage at the hotel. Huxley sprang for a penthouse suite with a living room, kitchen and balcony overlooking the pool.
“My dad had points,” she says.
I unfurl on the king-size bed and unwrap the mint on my pillow. It pays to be Huxley’s sidekick. I sit up, a thought coming to me.
“Why did you ask me to come with you?”
Huxley stops hanging up clothes. How much did she bring for one night?
“I don’t know. For some reason, when this idea popped into my head, you were the only friend I picture
d joining me.”
“Really? More than Ally or Reagan?”
“Yes. They would never go along with this. You probably think I’m insane for coming here, but you also get it.”
It’s true, in some odd way. I guess I’m used to scheming, but she doesn’t know that.
“I know I can trust you,” she says.
I gulp down a lump in my throat. “Thanks.”
We change outfits, aiming for fun yet not very noticeable, and wash the smell of airplane off our skin. I crank country music on the alarm-clock radio, but Huxley’s not in the mood to laugh. She focuses on getting ready. She’s on a mission.
I release the dead bolt and open the door to the hall, but Huxley shuts it just as fast. She’s nervous as hell.
“Don’t worry,” I say. She’s so fragile and human. Any trace of the ice queen has melted, and I can see the girl I once knew underneath. “We’ll probably find Steve sitting on a bench, bored out of his mind.”
“Thank you for coming with me.” She takes a deep breath, and I can tell she wants to say more.
“What is it?”
“I’m sorry.”
I take my hand off the doorknob. “For what?”
“For ditching you. You were a good friend.”
I don’t have some huge emotional reaction where I grab her for a hug and cry hysterically into her shoulder while music swells. I thought I would if I ever received an apology, as if those words would magically fix the past four years. The damage can’t be undone, but I’m ready to move on.
I open up the door again and give her a reassuring smile. “Let’s go do some spying.”
* * *
After walking around campus for a good forty-five minutes, a student in the middle of a Vegan Rights protest sneers and directs us to Sigma Tau Iota, the fraternity of choice for football players.
“Say au revoir to your brain cells,” he said before returning to chanting. (“What do we want? Seitan! When do we want it? For dinner!”)
The frat house could use a paint job, but its majestic front columns and wide balconies give it a powerful aura. This is the place to be tonight, probably every night. Packs of students glom on to every inch of the property, each of them with a red Solo cup in hand. It’s two girls to every guy at this soiree.
The Break-Up Artist Page 19
