Practically Ever After

by Isabel Bandeira

  Force was an equal and opposite reaction. The more I pulled, the harder she pulled back. So, without giving her any warning, I stopped pulling and, instead, stepped towards her, catching her off guard. Without me providing an opposite force, Leia stumbled back and I instinctively reached out to catch her before she hit the tent pole, bringing us practically nose to nose.

  “What if I don’t want to?” I snapped back, my brain stopping and my breath—ironically—catching in my throat as her eyes met mine, fire meeting fire. We were so close, I could see each of her individual, long eyelashes as they fluttered towards her cheek.

  Leia seemed to be short of breath, too, and, like something out of a sci-fi, we seemed to be frozen in time. She blinked, her eyes flickering down to my lips and them back up to catch my gaze again and said, so close that her breath whispered across my lips, “Then you’ll suffocate to death.” Her eyes scrunched the tiniest bit in amusement and any anger left in me dissipated with her next comment. “You know, science.”

  That broke the moment between us and I couldn’t hold back the laughter that bubbled up like an overflowing beaker in Chem lab.

  “You’re ridiculous.” I stepped back, letting go of her arm, and started self-consciously playing with the tulle hanging off the tentpole.

  She still looked a little like I felt—somewhat dazed—but her lips had quirked up like she was internally laughing at me. “But, right.” She stepped back a little awkwardly and pointed towards the back door. “I’m, um, going to go, though. I don’t know if they need me anymore and it’ll avoid more of…” she gestured between us, “awkward.” She dropped her chin slightly and a lock of hair swung across her cheek.

  I held back the powerful urge to push that strand behind her ear or to ask her to stay. “I’m still going to give Em a piece of my mind. She needs to stay out of this.”

  “Agreed.” Leia took a deep breath and added, “I’ll see you around,” before heading back into the house.

  As soon as she was inside, I dropped onto a chair to finally catch my breath. If I couldn’t fix this soon, I was totally screwed.

  Chapter 45

  “Thanks so much for coming,” I said to Alec after dropping a dollar in the Marranos water ice window tip jar and heading over to one of the empty tables on their patio. After what had happened with Leia that morning, I desperately needed sugar therapy.

  “You’re welcome, but I’m surprised you didn’t call Em and Feebs. They’re better at this kind of stuff than I am.”

  “But at least I know I’m going to be safe from any kind of unsolicited relationship advice from you.”

  “True.” He slipped into his seat and sat his milkshake on the table, taking a minute to wipe ice cream drips from the side of his cup before adding, with a conspiratorial grin, “They are scarily dangerous when they conspire together.”

  “Yup.” I tapped at the shell of chocolate on my frozen custard, then scooped a massive spoonful into my mouth, brain freeze and lactose intolerance be damned.

  “You have to explain to me what the connection is with girls and ice cream after breakups.”

  I sucked air into my mouth, waiting for the initial pain from the brain freeze to wear off, before tapping at my bowl again with my spoon.

  “Technically, this is frozen custard, which has a gloriously higher fat content than ice cream and therefore is much tastier and more comforting,” I said, then pointed at him. “And don’t pretend you didn’t pull the same thing with a few bags of potato chips after you broke up with what’s-her-face freshman year.”

  Alec feigned being hurt, slapping his hand against his chest as if I had wounded him. “Ouch, direct hit. You know, we’re here to talk about you, not me.”

  “Sorry,” I said, unable to hide the amusement I knew was pulling at my lips and crinkling my eyes. “But you brought up high-fat-content comfort foods.”

  “True.” We sat in companionable silence for a few minutes, me picking at my custard and him poking at his milkshake to melt it down to the consistency he liked, before Alec cleared his throat. “I know you don’t want relationship advice, but I’m going to give you some, anyway, because I hate seeing you miserable.”

  I put down my spoon and folded my arms, curious to hear what Alec would come up with, considering his low track record of even getting to the point of asking someone out.

  “Shoot.”

  “You know, your problem is,” he said casually while pulling his straw out of the milkshake and waving it around like a conductor’s baton, “is that you like being right. And lots of times, you are, but sometimes you’re so focused on lists and facts and trying to be right and perfect that you miss the human part of it.” He shrugged and added, “I suck at that, too, because humans really don’t make any sense, especially girls.”

  I blinked at him for a second, taking in his admittedly accurate description of me, before snapping out of it and saying, “Sexist much?”

  He ignored me and continued. “Thing is, we’re used to facts being enough, but people are weird. They don’t want to hear you’re sorry, they want to see and believe it. At least, that’s what my mom and Em want. I was kind of clueless about that, too, until Em’s mom clued me in on that ages ago. I mean, unless you did something truly heinous, which you didn’t, you were just really, well, Grace.”

  “I tried with the macarons and she didn’t even want to talk.”

  Alec reached over and stole a piece of chocolate off my custard. “Because that was still you trying to say you were sorry. The macarons were an accessory to the words.”

  “Good point. But how am I supposed to show I’m sorry when she doesn’t even want to talk?”

  “I don’t know. Everyone I know kind of wants to see me suffer just a little bit. Mom always listens more when I volunteer to do something I know she knows I hate, like the time I laid new insulation in the attic over the garage.” He took another sip of his milkshake. “It’s basically you showing her that you’re willing to put in the hard work to fix things. Action beats words any time.”

  “Huh.” I let his words sink in for a minute. “That… makes sense.” What Leia had said about putting in the effort came back at me and I cringed reflexively.

  “Anyway, now that I’ve dropped my Obi-Wan Kenobi-like knowledge on you, let’s set the record straight. I did not eat that many chips after breaking up with Nina.”

  “Sure. Prince Edward Island called, your binge cleared out all their potatoes. They might not have enough storm-chips to last this winter.”

  He narrowed his eyes at me. “I’m not even going to pretend I got that reference.”

  “It’s not really a reference, they’re just known for their potatoes. You heard Phoebe when she went through her whole ‘I need to move to Prince Edward Island because one of my favorite books is set there’ info-dump last year.”

  Alec stuck up his nose in mock offense. “I didn’t eat that many chips because I put all my energy into finishing the elven princess arc in my video game. I poured all of my emotions into my art so the world could see and benefit from my pain.” He slapped his hand against his chest and pushed his lip out in an exaggerated pout.

  He was being melodramatic, but that one sentence about pouring his emotions into his art struck a chord and, swirling it with his other bits of advice, I could feel a plan for a path forward forming. “You’re a genius, you know?”

  “Thanks. If any of this works, though, let Em and Phoebe think their advice is what saved everything. It’ll make everyone happy. And if it doesn’t work, the next frozen custard is on me.”

  “Deal.”

  Chapter 46

  I stared at the converted Victorian manor that was Lambertfield’s library and took a deep breath before heading down the paved path around the building. Alec’s and Leia’s words had stuck with me, and, as hard as it was to admit to myself, they were right—Leia had always taken the initiative in everything. She’d been the one who broke the ice between us, initiated our firs
t kiss, and she had always gone to all of my activities from dance to cheer, while I never had really taken the time for her things. It was time to change that.

  I stopped in front of the gate to the library’s children’s garden and peered over the fence. Leia was kneeling down next to one of the tomato plants, seemingly demonstrating whatever she was doing to a little boy, who nodded and then tried imitating her with the plant in front of him. Leia had been volunteering at the library’s organic garden and cooking workshop since her best friend, Emily, had set it up freshman year and loved it. She was a natural with kids, and she said there was nothing more rewarding than seeing a kid light up when they ate something they’d grown from scratch and cooked for themselves. She had tried to get me to volunteer with her, but since I knew nothing about kids, gardening, or cooking, I always bowed out, figuring I’d just get in the way. I didn’t realize it then, but it must have really bothered her—I remembered commenting on the little frowns she’d toss my way every time I declined, but she would always brush it off with, “It’s okay. Next time.”

  My first thought had been to donate supplies to the garden, but Em and Phoebe killed that idea with a quick, “Don’t try to buy yourself out of this,” from Phoebe and “Kris tries to do it all the time. I get that you rich kids think it works, but it doesn’t. It really feels ingenuine,” from Em. Which was why I found myself, early on a Saturday morning, dressed in my grubbiest jeans and t-shirt and opening the garden gate.

  As I stepped inside the garden, Leia looked up, brows drawn together and her lips turning down into a frown. “What are you doing here?” She asked, her tone flat. She pushed her hair out of her eyes with the back of her gloved hand, leaving a smudge of dirt on her forehead, and I resisted the urge to reach out and wipe it off.

  On the other side of the garden, Emily, who had been helping a kid pick string beans stood to her full height and stared me down, dark eyebrows drawn together tightly, like she was waiting for a signal from Leia to kick me out just like the teacher had.

  I clasped my hands behind my back, straightened up, and carefully recited the sentences I’d worked on all night. “Okay,” I practically inhaled the word, then continued, “I messed up, bad, and you have every right to tell me to leave, but I wanted to do something for you that’s more than saying ‘I’m sorry,’ if that’s okay.” I watched her face for some change, then added, voice low, “I promise I’ll stay out of your way.”

  Leia stared at me for a solid thirty seconds, her expression unreadable, but finally nodded. “Fine. We need extra hands to lay down manure in the back.” Her eyes met mine and she dropped them before pointing to the other side of the garden. “The pile is there already. Make sure you put it down loosely. I hope you brought gloves.”

  “Yup,” I pulled my new gardening gloves out of my back pocket and waved them with a cheesy grin, but she had already turned her back on me and was back to pointing out plant anatomy to the little boy. “Okay,” I said, under my breath, before heading over to the fertilizer.

  After only a half hour, my back and hands hurt, I was sweating from the sun beating down on us, was cursing the fact that I forgot a hat, and the stinking pile of manure was everywhere. But it wasn’t as awful as I’d expected, partly because I had a front row view of Leia in action with the kids. She moved deftly from kid to kid, practically glowing as she gave advice and helped out as they worked on the garden. I hadn’t seen her smile that widely in forever, and it made my heart hurt a little.

  The youth services librarian walked back out into the garden from the library back door and straight to me, catching me in the middle of watching Leia. “I’m not good at gardening, but it looks like you’re doing a pretty good job.”

  I quickly looked up at her, my cheeks growing warm at getting caught staring. “Thanks.”

  The librarian pushed her sunglasses up onto the top of her head, the hairs from her short, dark pixie cut sticking up a little, and stared me down with dark eyes. “Leia is a huge asset to this program. She’s always ready to help out and is so great with the kids. Everyone loves her here. She’s one of the best people I’ve met.”

  Somehow, it felt like she was testing my response, and I weighed a few answers before saying, honestly, “Me, too.”

  The librarian nodded, seeming to approve of my answer. “So, what do you think of gardening? It’s a little late but the kids wanted to put in a pumpkin patch for Halloween and that plus some compost will make a great bed for the pumpkins.”

  “It stinks, but it’s not as crappy as I thought,” I said to her with a half-smile.

  “Pun intended, I assume?”

  I smiled up at her, glad we both could find some amusement in my predicament. “Yup.”

  She snorted, then she patted me on my shoulder before moving on to talk with Leia.

  Turning back to my work, I scooped up another shovelful of manure and, trying hard not to breathe too deeply, shook it onto the still-empty part of the patch.

  Chapter 47

  “I left a box of macarons in the library kitchen, a box on her porch swing, and I talked one of her classmates into giving her a box after school yesterday. You don’t think it’s too much, is it?” I picked at my chicken salad and looked across the table at Phoebe and Em, feeling my brows draw together the smallest bit. Ever since the parking lot incident, I’d been doubting this entire plan.

  Em shook her head, finished swallowing her bite of sandwich, and said, “This is possibly the most adorable thing I’ve ever heard.”

  My brows felt pressed together so tight that I was sure I was going to get worry lines etched into my forehead at eighteen. “She’s not going to think it’s stalker-y, though, right?”

  “Well, it kinda is if you really think about it, but I happen to have intel that she’s actually okay with the macarons,” Em said. She waved her hand unconcernedly. “Keep up the adorable.”

  “By intel, Em means I texted Leia about it the other day right after you dropped off the first box and asked if she were okay with it,” Phoebe added with a wry half-smile. “I thought she had a right to ask you to stop if she wanted to and this way she wouldn’t have to talk directly to you.”

  “And?” I asked, bracing myself for the worst.

  Phoebe scooped up a carrot-full of hummus before answering, totally oblivious to my stress. “She’s still mad at you—”

  Em scrunched her nose. “That girl can really hold a grudge.”

  “—but she thinks it’s cute.” Phoebe finished, then added, “I think it’s because you’re also putting effort into the garden and everything else.”

  “Which is really great. By the way, do you want to make me mad, too? Since you’ve started doing this, I’ve been craving macarons, too.” Em poked Kris in the arm, pulling him away from a debate he and Alec were having over whether or not strawberry milk should be banned from school menus. “You should take notes.”

  I ignored Em’s joke and went back to my lunch. “So. Not creepy?” I asked Phoebe.

  “Nope,” she answered. “Cute. Really cute. Those were her exact words. Right after ‘Don’t tell Grace, but…’ I have the texts if you want to see them.”

  “No, I believe you.” I let out a breath of relief. “Okay, good.”

  “It’ll be okay,” Phoebe said, softly, then gave me a little smile before popping another carrot into her mouth.

  I took a deep breath, feeling my shoulders and lungs relax for the first time in a while. “I think you might be right.”

  Chapter 48

  “The garden really looks nice,” I said as I walked into the mudroom leading from the garden to the library’s small teaching kitchen. The room still had its original beadboard walls and the people who had restored the kitchen for use as a teaching kitchen had added a deep slop sink near the door, where Leia was scrubbing her hands.

  Leia gave her hands one last rinse under the tap before turning it off and grabbing a paper towel. “Thank you. The kids have been working hard on it sin
ce March.”

  “It shows.” As soon as she moved away from the sink, I took her place there, turning on the water and grabbing the bar of really harsh-looking soap and the nail brush out of the soap dish.

  “I’m glad you came again,” she said, softly, as she started to make her way out to the kitchen. “Emily said you were here the other day, too, when I wasn’t. I appreciate it.”

  Before Leia could leave, though, I pulled up all of my courage and said, “Hey, um, I have a question for you.” She didn’t say anything, but she didn’t leave, either, just stood at the door to the kitchen, so I took it as a good sign and barreled on, fear twisting my throat so tight I practically had to push the words out. “Um. Well, you know how I’ve been helping out my aunt, right? I have to do a dance, too, in the recital on Saturday—tomorrow night, and I was wondering if maybe you wanted to come see it and maybe go for coffee afterwards?” I let the words hang in the air for a second before quickly adding, “You don’t have to pay for tickets since I’m teaching and I wouldn’t expect you to, anyway.”

  Her hands twisted around the paper towel for a moment before she softly said, “I don’t know.”

  I took a shaky deep breath and nodded. “Okay. You don’t have to let me know. The ticket booth will let you in if you want. And, um, I was wondering if it would be okay with you to keep helping out here?”

  Leia leaned against the doorway, crossing her arms and shaking her head. “I told you. I’m not an equation. You can’t just insert hours volunteering here and just expect me to be okay with you.”

  “I know. I still want to help.” Those words surprised even me, but if putting up with manure and compost and sunburn meant spending more time with her, I would. “But only if you’re okay with it. Otherwise, I’ll stop.”

  She finally looked up at me, studying my face again with a serious gaze before unfolding her arms and turning away from me to grab an apron off the hook next to the door. “Okay,” she said softly, before walking away.