She actually says that.
The pain cuts me sharply. I think she thinks she’s far enough back that I can’t hear her, or that there’s too much chaos for me to make out her words. But I hear them anyway.
“Let’s just go to the first show,” I mutter to Carly, glancing down at the festival program the wench handed to me, blinking back a tear. I clear my throat. “It’s the Chivalry and Romance 101 show…” I begin, my voice catching. Oh, God, no. Actually, this is a terrible idea, but Carly’s already got her hands at the small of my back, and is pushing me through the crowd towards the closest stage. The guy on the low, rough platform of boards is dressed up to look like Mr. Bean if Mr. Bean was dressed to look like Shakespeare, all ruffles at the cuffs and a starched and stiff Elizabethan collar that moves with him as he turns smartly on the stage, one hand raised, thick brows raised, too, as if he’s waving to the queen. He grins grandly at us as we sit on the log bench closest to the stage, the only seat left free.
God, this is such a terrible idea.
“My fine ladies…and gentlemen…” he says, flinging his hands back in true Ren Faire dramatics fashion, the sleeves of his too-white shirt dancing in the evening breeze. “Who doesn’t love love? I promise you—you are here to learn from the best of the best!” He pauses for effect as he waggles his hips and chuckles a little, making the rest of the audience laugh with him. It’s an obvious joke, but then you go for the obvious jokes at the Renaissance festival. He continues: “You, ladies, if you wish to woo your gentlemen, and you—fine gentlemen, if you wish to woo your ladies…it is time that you learn from a master of romance, the sultan of sexuality, the lord of laying! I will teach you the art of romance like Casanova himself would teach it. It! Is! Time!”
Nicole comes trotting over, smart phone in her hand and not against her ear (which is a good sign), but a grimace on her face and a slight shake of the head, which I already know means that I’m getting less than the aforementioned and promised half hour. “I’m sorry,” she whispers in my ear quickly as she crouched down beside me, “I’ve got to go—”
“I would like a volunteer!” calls the man on stage.
And this is where it all begins to go very, very wrong.
Carly’s hand shoots up like it’s always been there, pointed straight to the sky, and—of course—since we’re in the front row, the actor dances over to our side of the stage with a wide grin. “Do we have a volunteer?” he practically purrs, and Carly shakes her head, grinning too.
“She volunteers!” Carly all but sings out, pointing to Nicole.
Nicole opens and shuts her mouth ready to protest quickly, but it’s a pretty packed audience on these little log benches, and the actor is already down among us, with his hand at her elbow, steering her up and toward the stage before she has a chance to say a word. I already know she’s not going to back out at this point (and they made it onto the stage pretty darn quickly) because she doesn’t want to make a fool of herself.
If you’ve never been to a Renaissance Festival before, “I would like a volunteer” is code for “I need a butt for my jokes and a good sport to do my comedy shtick on.”
I feel sick—or maybe it’s just because of the nerves that I feel sick. Or maybe it’s the complete dread that instantly fills me that’s giving me this terrible sick feeling. Carly, seated beside me and grinning like a cat, seems oblivious to the fact that things have just gone terribly, terribly wrong. Or, maybe, she wants to see Nicole squirm.
“And you are, the fair lady…” says the actor, handing Nicole a small hand-held microphone. Nicole sighs out, leaning back on her heels for a long minute before she mutters into it:
“Nicole.”
“And who here is your fair gentleman?” asks the actor, peering out into the crowd.
“I’m a lesbian,” says Nicole flatly into the microphone, her brow raised like she’s daring him to make an issue of it, and the actor—to his credit—falters for only half a second.
“Ah, wonderful! Who here is your fair lady, then, my apologies?”
I’m angry at Carly. I should be. It was a dirty, rotten thing she did, but I know she’s miffed at Nicole for upsetting me. But it’s not really Nicole’s fault. We’re not right for each other, and we both know it. But still, even after all that, there was a small part of my heart—really, really small, but still there—that hoped that when Nicole went up on that stage, and when the actor took her through the whole hokey act, that when she looked at me…I don’t know. That there’d be at least something there. Maybe one of her little grins. Maybe a softening of her face. Maybe even a smile. Something to prove that there was still a connection between us. That there was still something in our relationship that could be salvaged.
Yes, I wanted something, I realize, as she gazes at me with complete apathy, her mouth turning down at the corners into a frown as she points to me.
I wanted something.
And it wasn’t there.
I don’t remember what the actor says. I don’t remember what Nicole says, mumbling into the microphone as quickly as she can to get out of this, and then trotting down off the stage steps amid the smattering of polite, chilly applause because, as the actor says, she was such a “good sport.” She takes another call on her phone, slipping it out of her pocket and turning away from me, without even a single glance in my direction as she leaves the festival.
It was a beautiful day: full sun, the perfect temperature (not too hot, but warm enough for t-shirts). The weather guy predicted it to be one of the most beautiful sunsets we’ve seen in weeks tonight. But as Nicole leaves the faire, the soft gray clouds that had seemed so non-threatening begin to build along the horizon, turning darker as the sun descends. And it starts to rain.
Standing in the downpour as Carly waits for her gigantic turkey leg on a stick, I draw my shawl about me, feel the cold drops plink down on my neck as I stare at the mud.
It’s then that I know I have to end it.
Chapter 2: It’s in a Book
“Please don’t be mad, Holly…” says Carly as she puts the car into park. I sit back in my seat, stare out the front window at the wall of water on the windshield. It’s a proper storm out now, complete with rolling thunder and jagged bolts of lightning and enough water to drown anyone who dares step outside. The rush of rain on the top of the car sounds like Niagara Falls. I stare out at the storm, and I let out a long sigh.
“Holly,” Carly begins again and shakes her head. “C’mon, please, seriously. I was just trying to help…”
I bite my lip, my eyes narrowing as I stare out the windshield at the streetlamp in front of my house. As I watch it, the light flickers and goes out.
“Well, you didn’t help,” I mutter, shaking a little under my soaked skirt and blouse and shawl. The rain had been so much colder than a summer shower had any right to be. “And the worst part of it, Carly?” I raise my hand as she starts up, and—to her credit—Carly stops trying to interject. “I wasn’t certain before,” I whisper then. “But I am now. It’s over. Nicole and I…we’ve got to break up.”
I’m so stupid. So stupid. I promised myself I wouldn’t cry, and I’m totally going to catch my death now, because suddenly I’m sitting in Carly’s freezing car in my soaking clothes, sobbing my heart out, and because I’m crying so hard, my immune system is going to be lowered, and I’m going to catch the plague.
Or something.
“Oh, honey,” says Carly, and—awkward in the confined space—she turns, somehow, and reaches for me, and hugs me tightly as I sob, twisted at a completely unnatural angle, onto her comforting, sandalwood-scented shoulder.
I’m sure Carly’s happy about this, but—to her credit—she’s not visibly over-the-moon about the fact that I’m breaking up with Nicole. She doesn’t say anything, actually, only squeezes me tightly until I pull back a little, fishing a useless damp tissue out of my very damp purse.
“This is so stupid…” I mutter, breathing out as a sob begins to
rise in my throat again. “I mean, I knew it was going to end. That we had to end it. It’s hardly news to me, you know? I just…” I turn to look at Carly, shrug helplessly. “I just thought she was the one, you know? In the beginning…she tried so hard. Really hard, Carly. Remember the time she had a rainbow bouquet of roses delivered to the library with a card asking me out to Pride? Or that time I was really sick, and she drove all over Boston to every single video rental place to find me a copy of Rebecca because I loved it so much? God, she was so thoughtful.” I stare down at the damp tissue in my hands, the tissue I was beginning to shred. “All of this was before stupid Advanatech, of course,” I whisper the name of Nicole’s start-up company and rub at my face with the tissue, trying—and failing—to rid myself of a few shed tears.
Nicole and I had come up with that name together. Advanatech. A start up business is a really difficult enterprise to involve yourself in, and I’d tried to always be the supportive girlfriend, understanding of her constant date cancellations and her increasing shortness toward me. It was stressful to open a start-up, and I’d tried so hard to be considerate. Maybe I’d been too considerate.
“I think she really loved me, Carly,” I whisper to her, taking a deep, ragged breath. “And I really loved her. And I had these stupid fantasies, you know? About us getting married. They were really stupid, because Nicole doesn’t even believe in getting married, but the point is…” I bite my lip, squeezing my eyes shut. I know I’m a blubbering idiot, but I need to say it, need to put it out into the world, if only for a heartbeat. “The point is, that I thought I was with the woman I was going to spend the rest of my life with. And I was very wrong. And that’s very hard.”
Carly takes a deep breath and sighs out. The rain drumming on the roof of the car is a constant shush of sound, and if I keep my eyes tightly closed, it seems like the only thing that’s real. It helps, for half a heartbeat, to ignore the pain in my heart. But the pain is too insistent to be ignored for more than a few seconds, really, and rushes back when I open my eyes and stare out the blurry windshield. Blurry because of the rain pouring down it, but also blurry from my unshed tears.
“This is going to be okay, Holly,” says Carly then, voice resolute. Firm. Gentle. “You and Nicole weren’t right for each other, and that’s okay.” It’s the nicest she’s talked about Nicole in months. I glance at her. Carly’s mouth is so small, pressed into a thin line as she nods to me. “I’m serious. When you break up with her, you’ll see—life will go on, get better. You guys weren’t meant for each other. And there’s another woman out there for you, Holly. The right one.”
“That might be a little too soon,” I tell her. “And anyway, that’s ridiculous.” I shake my head. “Carly, look at me,” I mutter, feeling the waves of sadness begin to rise again. I tick down my fingers. “The Knights of Valor Festival is my favorite day of the year. I collect unicorn figurines. I’m more obsessed with books than I am with people—” I splutter.
Carly shakes her head, laughing. “I promise you, there are many other ladies out in this big, vast world who love books as much as you do. And hey, you’re a librarian! Librarians are super desirable—they’re hot! I mean, they make porn about librarians!”
That statement comes from so far out of left field that she actually gets a surprised chuckle out of me before I stare at her, trying not to smile. I don’t know how she does it, but Carly’s always been the one who, on my very worst days, was always capable of getting at least a smile out of me.
“Okay, seriously?” I ask, still chuckling. “How do you know they make porn about librarians, and are you even listening to me?”
“Holly,” says Carly, reaching out and pressing her palms against the sides of my face, squeezing my cheeks together. She used to do this in college, too, when I began to freak out about finals. “Shush,” she growls, brow raised, when I begin to shake my head. “Look, I know what I’m talking about, okay? And I’m telling you right now: you’re beautiful, and funny, and generous, and really fucking awesome, and while it’s true that not everyone thinks unicorns are as cool as they were in the eighties, that’s not going to keep the right girl from falling in love with you, so would you cut the shit and break up with Nicole, and make space in your life for the right woman?” She glances sidelong at me. “You know your mother would want you to be happy.”
My heart skips a beat, and I clutch the car door handle, feel myself pale. “Don’t,” I whisper. “Not tonight.”
She lets go of my face, slumps back in her seat. “I’m sorry,” she whispers.
I bite back tears. Nod. I know she is.
Then she breathes out, flings her hands in the air. “Okay! But, Holly! You could be happy. Are you really going to do this? You’re not going to back out, right?”
I take a few deep breaths and listen to the rain dancing on the roof of the car. I sigh out, shake my head, feeling myself deflate.
I felt so sure, before. But when I think about actually doing it, actually telling Nicole that I don’t think we’re right for each other, all I can see is the time when Nicole wrote me that love letter and had it delivered in a dozen roses, and…
“You’re not going to do it.” Carly leans forward and bangs her head gently against her steering wheel, eliciting little beeps from the horn. “Oh, my God, you’re not going to do it.”
“Carly, it’s not that easy…” I begin, but I stop, breathe out, hold my purse tightly against my stomach. The earlier levity is gone as if it never existed, and in that moment, I feel so defeated and small and sad. “I’ve got to go,” I mutter, and open the car door to the deluge.
“Hey,” says Carly, and I glance back at her, one foot out in the mess of the night. “I love you, okay?” she tells me fiercely. “And I’m really sorry. About earlier. I never should have volunteered Nicole. It was stupid,” she says, and I gulp down more tears and a sob, and I nod as she starts the car. I can’t speak in that moment, there’s too much emotion running through me.
“I’ll call you tomorrow!” she shouts after me as I slam the door shut, and holding my purse over my head, I run across the sidewalk, and up my front steps, squelching under the overhang as I fumble with my key ring with frozen fingers. Carly pulls away from the curb and beeps her usual, cheerful rhythm of farewell, but it gets swallowed by a crack of thunder overhead so loud that it makes my teeth rattle.
The front door opens as I manage to finally get the key into the lock, and I stumble into the darkness of my lavender-scented hallway. I shut the door behind me, sighing and leaning against it, shaking in the dark (I forgot to turn my AC unit off that morning) before I flip on the light switch, toss my keys and purse in the blue ceramic bowl on the little hall table and hang up my dripping shawl on the hook.
Shelley rounds the corner at a dead run, her white and gold mane flying out behind her, her long nose aimed like a missile, just as I begin to walk (squishing) down the hallway. She skids to a halt by running into me, and I manage to smile down at one of my favorite people in the world. Er, fur-people.
“Hey, sweet girl,” I tell her, rubbing behind her soft-as-silk gold ears and crouching down beside her, and then like a total dope, I wrap my arms around my poor dog’s fluffy neck, and I start to weep into her shoulder. Shelley, of course, thinks this is the! Funnest! Game! and begins to nose at me and paw at me with a small, deep “woof.”
That’s her signal that she’s really glad I made it home and all, but she has business to attend to. I take a deep, ragged breath, stagger to my feet and wander toward the back door to let her out. There’s another ear-numbing crash of thunder that follows a streak of lightning, making the branches of the tree out back lengthen in shadows against the wooden fence. I pull the sliding glass door back and Shelley goes tearing out, and as I watch her, I realize how exhausted I am. How deeply tired, a bone-deep tired.
Shelley’s as drenched as I am when I let her back in, and we both end up in the bathroom amidst a lot of towels (and the laundry was already
in dire need of doing, drat it). I towel off her golden-brown coat, and she rewards me with licking my face a lot, her big, joyful doggie smile so bright, that she’s radiating pure joy. Her long, usually-silky ears are still damp, so she keeps shaking her head and then falling on me because she’s off balance, the tiled floor is slippery, and her paws are wet. Every time she lands on me, she gives me another lick in apology.
Nicole barely tolerates Shelley. As I hold my dog’s head in my hands, kissing her long, beak-like nose and telling her how much I love her (because that’s simply what you do when you’re around Shelley—this is the dog every pet store employee, groomer, vet and person-who-walks-their-dog-in-dog-parks within a fifty mile radius knows by name and favorite treat), I wonder if the reason that I ignored all of the signs that I should break up with Nicole because it was just easier not to see them. Which is, I realize, as I stand and slip into my bathrobe, a really terrible excuse to stay with someone.
Anyone. Even Nicole, the woman I thought, for a long while, was the one I was meant to be with forever.
I know what I need, just like Shelley does, as I fill her bowl of food with fresh kibble. She munches happily as I turn the tea kettle’s burner on, pulling the box of chamomile tea from the cupboard and setting it next to my favorite mug (Bubble, bubble, toil and trouble! is printed in a really cheesy font around a cauldron that bears the name “Cat, Cow and Cauldron.” It’s a long story. Yes, the word “cow” is sort-of intentional.) and my honey bear. I go back into the bathroom that now smells like wet dog (and, to be fair, wet human) and start the water running for the bath, and then I’m headed to my bedroom and my glorious “to be read” pile.
A Knight to Remember Page 2
