Just Like You Said It Would Be

by C. K. Kelly Martin

  “Sure.” Sahan motions to the bed.

  I sit down. He sits down. It’s a kind of progress. But by now my body’s impatient and doesn’t wait for Sahan to make the next move. I rest my hand on his thigh and tilt my head towards his to kiss him.

  That’s enough to get us both started. About twenty minutes later we’re lying on his bed with our bare chests pressed together, one of Sahan’s hands dipping into the back of my pants, to investigate my thong. He knows how to touch and kiss and tease and I’m feeling good. Alive. I drop my hand down between our bodies and gingerly smooth it over his jeans, investigating him back.

  Sahan pulls his head away so he can look me in the eye. “If you want to go down on me I promise I’ll return the favour.” There’s an earnestness in his face that seems at odds with what he just said and I guess in theory there’s nothing wrong with his suggestion, especially considering how fast things have moved so far, but I flinch and look away.

  That’s just not going to happen. Not tonight and not anytime soon. I still can’t imagine going down on anyone but Darragh and thinking about him makes my presence in someone else’s bed feel like I’m the punch line to a spectacularly unfunny joke.

  “Sorry,” Sahan says. “Can we pretend I didn’t say that? I’m not very good at this. Seriously, that’s not something I would usually suggest. I just thought the way we were getting into—”

  “Don’t worry about it.” I have my hands to myself now and so does Sahan. My fists bunch uncomfortably up in front of my chest and I can’t look him in the eyes for more than a second or two at a time. “But I’m really not ready for that.”

  “That’s cool,” Sahan says. “We can just hang out here like this.” He drops one of his hands onto the curve of my waist and I wish I could follow his lead and get back to what we were doing but the moment’s gone.

  “Maybe I should just go and we can hang out some other time,” I say, sitting up and grabbing for my bra.

  Sahan frowns and props himself up on his elbows. “You have another few minutes, right? At least let me make you something to eat like I said I would.” Sahan suggests a milkshake. He says he’s been making them for everyone since he and his roommates bought a blender in May.

  I listen to Sahan apologize, a second time, for bringing up blow jobs. He explains that he was with his ex-girlfriend for two and a half years and that he hasn’t been with anyone else since they broke up this past March. “Not that it’s any excuse,” he says. “I just don’t know how these situations typically work. I feel like I don’t know how to be with anyone else.”

  That’s something I understand entirely and I say, “I’ve only really been with one person too. I’m still a virgin.” So not even the one person really. “I never do this.”

  Sahan’s shoulders perk up at the revelation that neither of us are the kind of people who regularly find themselves in these types of situations. We go downstairs to the kitchen together and I let him make me a peanut butter and jelly milkshake, which tastes better than it sounds. Then he calls me a cab and insists on paying the driver before I get in so I won’t have to. It’s a gentlemanly thing to do, but I wish I’d just gone home early. Then I might still be under the illusion that I’m almost over Darragh Leavy.

  Chapter 24

  How do you make something feel finished?

  When we descend into Dublin on the morning of the twenty-forth there’s such strength in the sun’s rays that I have to squint as I stare at the glittering emerald-green landscape below. The sight feels familiar yet unfamiliar. More often than not, last summer in Dublin resembled a rainy Toronto spring. Plus, my parents don’t belong in this warm green land with me. I feel weirdly possessive of Dublin; I don’t want to have to share it with them.

  Before leaving Toronto I saw Sahan one more time. He sent me a text saying he hoped he hadn’t messed things up and promising it wouldn’t happen again. Because I like him more than anyone else I’ve met lately, I gave us a second chance. We had coffee again and talked like friends, but I kissed him on the mouth when I was leaving, trying to amplify the flicker between us.

  I don’t know whether we’ll turn into something real or not, but I’m trying to be open-minded. I can’t deny that it feels good to know there’s someone back home thinking about me when I’m only a day away from having to face Darragh.

  Uncle Frank and Zoey are waiting for my family at Dublin airport once we’ve collected our luggage, and it’s hilarious to hear my parents’ old accents flare up. Crisps, jumpers, queues and blokes, all their across the pond lingo resurfaces as they chat with my uncle and cousin in the arrivals hall and then the car.

  In the backseat I reach out to touch Zoey’s two-tone shoulder length hair. “You let it grow out,” I say approvingly. She’s even more striking than she was last summer, the sharp divide between her natural red hair and over-dyed black makes her look like two entirely different people—half pixie and half vamp.

  Zoey laughs and flicks her locks back behind her shoulders. “It’s in a state, isn’t it? I haven’t been able to make up my mind what to do with it.”

  “No, you look terrific.”

  “So do you,” Zoey declares. “I’m jealous. I can never get my hair that long without the ends splitting.”

  This is what a carefree self-confidence campaign looks like—I haven’t had my hair trimmed since Jack told me about the wedding; Darragh loves long hair.

  Because I was up all night on the flight, I nod off on the journey to my aunt and uncle’s house, and then sleep the rest of the morning and part of the afternoon away in Zoey’s bedroom. Jack was right last summer; the mattress brought down from the attic for me sags like a hammock. But I’m too tired to care.

  When I wake up again Dublin is singing its siren song and I’m itching to get into town. Zoey comes with me and I retrace last year’s steps through Temple Bar and Grafton Street. A couple of doors up from Bewley’s, a young girl band are playing Damien Rice’s Cannonball and we stop to form part of their audience. Then Zoey guides me in and out of various clothing shops in a search for news shoes until we end up in the Gotham Café where she treats me to a calzone and Gloria drops in to meet us.

  The wedding’s the major topic of conversation. Zoey’s seen the estate hotel where it’s being held and says it’s like something out of Downton Abbey. “The weather better hold,” she adds, glancing sternly out the restaurant window. “They’re planning to have the ceremony out on the grounds.”

  Happily, the weather obeys and produces a second sunny day for Jack and Gavin. In the morning my parents, aunt and uncle, and I drive down to Kilkenny together and check into our rooms. The hotel’s about two kilometres outside of Kilkenny city and is a combination of old world elegance outside—in the garden and extensive grounds—and new world comfort and amenities on the inside. I’m sharing a room with Zoey, whose small wheeled suitcase is standing open beside the bed nearest the window. She and the rest of The Brash Heathens had to be here early to do sound checks and stuff and came together in the van they use for gigging.

  While I’m getting changed into my first dress, I hear Jack in the hall with his friends. I tug up my zipper and burst into the corridor. “There she is,” Jack cries. “I was just coming to look for you. I’m having a nervous breakdown. And these two”—he points to the young man and woman next to him—“are trying to talk me out of it.”

  “Not out of the wedding,” the woman clarifies. “Out of his nerves.”

  “Which are extremely common but in this case completely unnecessary because you and Gavin are magic together,” the man adds. “I’m Stephen, by the way.” He reaches to shake my hand. “And this is Clodagh.”

  “Amira,” I say. “Jack’s cousin.”

  Clodagh leans in to shake my hand too. “Hello, Jack’s cousin. Are you ready to assist in our endeavour?”

  “Absolutely.” I smile at my ordinarily relaxed cousin who is rocking on his heels, unable to keep still. “It sounds like we need to di
stract him.”

  Jack clutches my elbow, nods readily and suggests we all, “take a turn around the estate grounds like we’re characters in a Jane Austen novel.”

  We avoid the area where they’re setting up the chairs for the ceremony and glide around the gardens and down to the lake dock where a small wooden boat squats on the grass. “This boat is longing to go into the water,” Jack says, bending to examine the chain tethering it to the dock.

  “Don’t even think about it,” Clodagh chides, grabbing his hand. “The boat stays where it is.”

  The four of us stroll back to the hotel together with our arms linked like children, Jack saying, “I don’t know why I’m so on edge. I love Gavin to death.”

  “It’s a momentous day,” I tell him. “Even good things make people anxious, if they’re important enough.”

  Jack nods and calls me wise, but I feel the opposite. If I was smart I wouldn’t be nervous too, and I wouldn’t, when I catch sight of Darragh and Kevin standing around in front of the hotel, feel something inside me buckle.

  Darragh’s wearing a Pixies T-shirt and dark blue jeans that are frayed at the bottom, his guitar tattoo only partially visible because his arms are hanging at his sides. I expected him to look exactly the same as the day I’d said goodbye to him in Dublin airport, but his hair’s so short that it would barely give you anything to run your hands through and his arms are brushed with a light tan, his forehead pink like he spent too long in the sun recently. He’s so stunning that my throat threatens to close up on me. That much is the same.

  Darragh smiles that special smile of his when he sees me—the one he sinks his whole face into—and I know I should smile back and maybe even saunter over to say hello. That’s what someone who’s put the past behind her would do. But I don’t. I raise my hand in a perfunctory wave, and then look away.

  “Maybe I shouldn’t say this but that looked like the smile of someone who is still very fond of you,” Jack whispers as we glide through the door.

  “Someone who was still very fond of me wouldn’t be able to smile at me like he doesn’t have a care in the world,” I whisper back.

  Jack’s eyes zero in on mine, his mouth forming an unspoken ‘o.’

  “Don’t say it,” I warn, unsure exactly what’s about to spill from my cousin’s mouth, only that it’s something I don’t want us to acknowledge. “Just tell me I look like a million bucks.”

  “Better,” Jack says emphatically. “A million pounds, at least.”

  “Thanks.”

  That’s the last opportunity I have to spend time with Jack before the wedding. We all need to return to our rooms to finish getting ready. Soon there are about a hundred and fifty of us sliding into the chairs spread out on the lawn. Gavin and Jack are mirror images of each other, standing up front in slim-fit black suits and matching striped ties. Both of them exude nervous excitement and watching them I forget my own nerves and hone in on their happiness.

  The female Registrar performing the ceremony welcomes everyone, and then Jack’s friend, Clodagh, recites a love poem that echoes inside of me. Aunt Kate’s already getting misty while Uncle Frank’s expression is unreadable. Improbably, it’s so bright on the lawn that I wish I’d thought to bring my sunglasses, but there’s something right about having to squint today. I feel my parents’ happiness next to me, the whole crowd’s happiness. It’s a living, breathing thing that makes it easier to take when Zoey and Darragh get up in front of the crowd, Darragh strumming along to Zoey’s vocals:

  “Flow sweetly, hang heavy

  You suddenly complete me…”

  Hysteric by Yeah Yeah Yeahs. I recognize the tune in an instant.

  Zoey looks and sounds ethereal in an understated but elegant floral dress and Darragh’s wearing a tie and black suit that I can’t stop staring at because I’ve never seen him in one before. Such small things shouldn’t feel like a surprise. They shouldn’t even register.

  Watching Jack and Gavin kiss at the end of the ceremony feels like a surprise too. I haven’t seen many people in love kiss. Real love rather than lust, that is. The emotion is something worthy of celebration and I keep myself focused on that while the wedding party is getting their photos taken around the grounds and I’m hanging out with my parents in the hotel, killing time until the reception starts.

  When the reception does kick off I send my parents on ahead of me to enjoy the cocktail hour and then spend an inordinately long time doing my makeup in their room. It’s cowardly, I know, but I don’t want to do much mingling before Jack and Gavin are introduced and the guests are seated. I have a whole reception to get through in Darragh’s presence. Pacing myself is key.

  Finally, I head down to the banquet hall in my second dress of the day, a full-length, clingy midnight blue one that sparkles like a late evening sky and dangles from my right shoulder. It was the only dress Jocelyn and Yanna agreed on when I tried it on at the mall last month.

  Walking into the banquet hall, I’m lucky to spot my father right away, thanks to his soap opera hair. I don’t let my eyes scour the room to pinpoint where Darragh might be and once everyone’s seated at their various tables, making gracious and funny toasts to Jack and Gavin and enjoying dinner, my worries about him slip onto the back burner. My parents and I are sharing a table with a heavily pregnant Fiona, Andy, Caitlin, and Matt and his girlfriend. It’s good to catch up with my cousins and my veggie Malai Kofta entrée is delicious.

  But then it’s time for the first dance—Jack and Gavin waltzing to Savage Garden’s I Knew I Loved You. They’re so tender and happy together that my eyes shouldn’t be anywhere but on them, except that Zoey and the band are gathered at the front of the hall, performing the song. Not just the first tune either. They play several, including one of their own, Today and After. It’s hard to watch and hard not to watch. I’m sitting closer to the makeshift stage than I’d like and I see Darragh’s eyes land on me more than once. Then Jack coaxes me and a couple of his friends up to dance during a fast tune—the last live number before the DJ takes over—and I’m grateful to have an excuse not to look at the band anymore.

  About ten minutes later I’m sitting at the table, chatting to Fiona while my parents are off reconnecting with extended family. I don’t feel any readier to talk to Darragh than I did when I saw him in front of the hotel earlier, but it’s time. The sooner I do it the sooner it’ll be over with. I’m gathering my courage, excusing myself from the table and slinking towards the bathroom to check my makeup before searching him out when Darragh himself intercepts me halfway to the exit.

  “Amira.” Darragh smiles but hearing my name on his tongue makes my shoulders tighten. “It’s great to see you. Do you want to dance?”

  My ears focus on the tune the DJ’s playing as my eyes remain glued to Darragh. Something slow that sounds like nineties rock.

  “No,” I say automatically.

  Darragh looks surprised. Only for a second, then he nods calmly and says, “Okay, then.”

  “Not right now,” I add quickly. “I’m heading for the bathroom.”

  “Oh. Right.” With light streaming in from the ceiling-to-floor windows of the banquet hall, Darragh’s irises appear crystal-blue. A spectacular match for his aqua tie. He looks confident, unscathed. Not at all like I feel. “I’d love to catch up with you a bit. Can I look for you later?”

  “Sure,” I say, willing my shoulders to unknot. “Or I’ll look for you.” Casually, I turn away from him and whisk off to the bathroom where I touch up my face and then brush my hair. Get it together, I lecture, staring at my uneasy brown eyes in the mirror. This is your chance. No more screw-ups.

  When I exit the bathroom it’s as a braver, more determined person whose pulse just happens to be racing. Inside the banquet hall, I survey table after table as I walk on, looking for Darragh. I spot him sitting next to Jack’s friend, Stephen, the two of them engaged in conversation. Cementing a smile to my face, I approach.

  “Hey,” I say, sta
nding next to Darragh’s seat.

  His eyes rush up to meet me, a grin that looks more genuine than mine feels blooming on his lips. “Hey,” he says back. The chair on his right is empty and he tugs it away from the table for me. “Have a seat.”

  Unfortunately, Stephen seems to take this as a sign he should excuse himself, leaving Darragh and I alone except for a female couple in their thirties at the other side of the table. I slide into the chair next to Darragh’s, crossing my legs so that the slit in my dress falls open. Darragh’s gaze slips to my exposed calf and knee, and then quickly refocuses on my eyes.

  “It’s been a fantastic wedding, hasn’t it?” I say. “Jack and Gavin are great together.”

  “They are,” Darragh agrees. “Seeing them together today makes me rethink some of my ideas about marriage. Maybe it works for some people after all.”

  “You don’t believe in marriage?” I want to keep this breezy and light, but I’ve never heard him say that before.

  “Most people make a mess of it. People should stay together because they want to. Not because of rings and bits of paper they signed their names to.” Darragh shakes his head, like he didn’t mean to say so much. “I’m probably just being cynical because I haven’t seen a lot of good examples.”

  “I know what you mean.” Before my parents got back together I’d barely even seen them kiss. They’d fallen into a rut of taking each other for granted.

  “But your parents are okay?” Darragh reaches for the whisky glass in front of him. “Did the cruise do the trick for them?”

  “It looks that way. They’re much closer than before they split.” I smooth a hand across the fabric of my dress and wish I had something to keep my fingers occupied. “What about yours?” My thoughts leap to the uncomplimentary photo of his mom I saw online.

  “Same as always. Both disasters in their own right.” The corners of his lips jerk skyward as though he’s kidding. “How about your friend, Jocelyn? How’s she keeping? Are things with her brother sorted out?”