by Julia Kent
That would be preferable to this.
Deep breath, Donovan, I tell myself, remembering every point of failure in my life. The time I lost the spelling bee in third grade. Who thought it would be a good idea to add a silent W to wreckage? Dangling from Mr. Aglioti’s fence. Asking Rachel McMasters to junior prom and having her laugh in my face.
Being tossed in the pool at high school after-prom by the football quarterback. Didn’t even need a linebacker to manage that with my scrawny self back then.
None of that compares.
Not one fucking bit.
I was wrong about Carrie, but I was right, too.
Right to be afraid.
For the last two years, she’s been dating Jamey. I’m a nice guy. Carrie’s fun to be around. But I’ve been friend-zoned the entire time.
A sick laugh comes out of me, turning into a cough, making me curl into myself from the searing pain in my gut as the emotional punch kicks in.
The taste of her. Open-mouthed kisses that made me open my heart. The feeling of sliding into her, how she grasped my hips, her sighs and moans of pleasure making me feel whole. The prism of life turning slightly, allowing me to see Carrie differently, to be seen by her as more than a friend, as an intimate, as someone more.
“It doesn’t look pretend,” I hear Chloe say, the words loud enough to cut through my pain, earnest enough to turn me stupid again, filling me with hope.
The crowd of wedding guests jostles and shifts, laughing and calling out. For a minute I can’t hear a thing, but then Carrie laughs. “Ryan really is pretending. He’s doing it for me, as a favor, so I don’t have to look pathetic in front of everyone. I’m pretending, too.”
That’s it.
I take a few fast, shallow breaths, hands curled into fists, and look sharply to my left.
Jamey’s standing there, watching me. He’s heard every word. He’s looking at Carrie with a perplexed expression.
Then he catches my eye and shrugs unhappily.
My ears fill with the sound of jet engines starting, the whoosh of my own blood beating against my ears and skull too exquisite, too full. I walk past them. Carrie gives me a startled look, then waves.
I wave back, Chloe a blur of big eyes and a wine glass that glitters in the sun. Carrie’s face is flushed and she looks a little guilty, like I caught her doing something wrong.
The walk to the hotel room is a blur. Packing takes two minutes when you don’t care, all my shit thrown into my suit bag and zipped up, shaving cream and deodorant rolling around in the bottom. I storm downstairs to valet parking and wait impatiently, crawling out of my own skin, my body trying to shed it like poison.
The second the Miata appears I bolt, flinging open the driver’s side and tossing the first bill in my pocket at the guy.
“Thank you!” he shouts as I peel out, half-blind and turning the wrong way, ignoring road signs. I need wind. I need air.
I need space.
But most of all, I need to get away from the one person I invested so much of myself in, the one who turned out to be such a disappointment because I was too clueless to face reality.
Not Carrie.
Me.
CARRIE
It feels like about a week since I woke up this morning.
My weekend started with coffee on the beach and ended with cocktails in a ballroom, went from blue jeans to near-black tie. In between, I have appeared on local television and smiled through approximately two thousand wedding photos (both professional and Instagram). I’ve laughed at the punchlines of everyone’s toasts and been a really good sport about the stupid bouquet-tossing ritual (dodged that bullet when Jessie caught it). I have pretended to remember all of Jenny’s cousins, to tolerate cougars, to like Kevin, to love Ryan and not to love Ryan. Most of it while wearing four-inch heels and being pulled into videography sessions more choreographed than the Oscars.
I am completely exhausted.
“Have you seen Ryan?” I ask Angela. She’s got her now-wilting flowers in one hand and a bottle of water in the other and appears to be headed for the door. With Aiden’s brother, Nolan. Who is carrying her purse.
Huh. Weddings.
“Not since you were dancing,” she says, glancing around the still-crowded ballroom. It’s after ten p.m. “He must be here somewhere. See you tomorrow.” She kisses my cheek, unconcerned, and puts her arm through Nolan’s as they move on.
Very true. He must be here somewhere. I make one more circuit of the room, but no luck. Not by the bar, not at our table, not on the dance floor. The only place I can’t look is the men’s room. I retrieve my bag from under my chair and pull out my phone.
Hey where can you be? I type and send, then squint at the screen, which says: Hey when can you bed?
Damn autocorrect.
*where* I add. *be*
Nothing.
“Carrie!” Jessie comes over to me, breathless. “We forgot to get a picture of you with your fabulous centerpieces. It’ll make a hole in the scrapbook. We need you to hold this empty wine bottle and we’ll photoshop in a centerpiece later.”
An hour later, the photographer has 244 versions of me holding an empty wine bottle.
I check my phone. No text from Ryan. No actual Ryan. What on earth is going on?
I hydrate. I eat yet another piece of white wedding cake with a fondant rose. I make small talk with Aiden’s grandmother’s cousin’s plumber (who had to be invited as an exchange for someone in Aiden’s family being invited to his daughter’s wedding). I find blisters on my feet and change into the flipflops Jenny gave us.
Still no Ryan.
I force myself to do the Funky Chicken Dance. Without Ryan.
Ryan, I text again. I’m worried. Please reply. Where are you?
Three bouncing dots appear, and then:
nowhere
Well, that’s odd. What does he mean? A little stab of worry pierces my stomach.
I’m so tired all of a sudden, want to leave? I send back.
No response. The worry stabs again. It’s a familiar feeling.
Maybe he’s already gone up to the room. I should say polite goodnights to everyone, but Jenny and Aiden are surrounded by a group of people I don’t know, chatting and laughing. Guiltily, I take my bag and my bouquet and slip out the door. I’ll see them in the morning.
On my way, I check the wing chairs in the lobby and poke my head around the corner to see if Grind It Fresh! is still open. Ryan might have felt the need for caffeine after all the partying? I could use a latte myself. But it’s closed up tight.
When I let myself in, our room is dark and blessedly silent after the noisy reception. I snap on a light and drop my things on the bed.
“Ry?”
Still silent. I check the bathroom. Just my pink-striped makeup bag on the counter. His shaving kit isn’t there. I spin around and scan the bedroom. A few quarters on the desk, and a half empty water bottle, but nothing else of his. I run to the closet and pull it open.
One suitcase: mine. His hangers are empty.
I grab my phone again and type out: Ryan where are you? My fingers are shaking. I switch to the recent calls list and press his number.
I know there’s not going to be an answer, but I try three times anyway. The little stab of worry is now a giant sword of hot fear.
“What could have happened? Why won’t he pick up?” I am talking out loud, anything to fill up the silence, to hear a voice. I can’t understand this, we were having so much fun! I mean, weren’t we?
Eventually I get undressed and pull on a t-shirt. It’s a lot easier getting out of the dress by myself than it was getting into it. I strip off my stockings and jewelry and stuff it all in my bag. I feel pain and numbness, physically in my feet from dancing in heels.
Dancing. With Ryan.
I lay down on top of the bed with my phone in one hand and wait for morning. Which eventually comes. It always does.
Hours later, when the sky begins to grow light, I t
urn off the bedside lamp and pick up the phone:
Ryan, please, where are you? Are you okay? I’m so worried
Nothing for a moment, then my heart leaps as the three dots appear.
Then disappear.
And reappear.
Then, nothing. No dots. No answer.
There’s a farewell breakfast on the terrace at 9:30 a.m. That’s three hours from now, which is so long, it might as well be Tuesday. What on earth am I supposed to do for three hours? I pace around the room, considering my options. They’re not good.
1. Call Angela and pour my heart out? I’m guessing Nolan would not appreciate that right now. Or Angela either, for that matter.
2. Go for a run on the beach? Right. The only time I run is when the subway doors are closing.
3. I can’t think of anything else.
Suddenly I stop pacing, so fast that I almost lose my balance. I am getting out of here, now. They do not need me at the farewell breakfast, and in fact probably no one will even notice my absence. I brush my teeth, pull a pair of grey yoga pants and a pink top out of my bag, and gather up the few last items in the room. I drop my bouquet in the wastebasket, where it lands with a thump.
Something is sticking out from under the bedskirt, and I bend down to see what it is. My black lace thong is lying on the carpet. It must have gotten kicked under the bed the other night. I pick it up and stare at it for a long moment, remembering how Ryan slid it down and off, then ran his hands back up the inside of my thighs… I throw it in my bag.
Two texts must be sent:
Jen, I’m not feeling very well, heading home early. Sorry to miss breakfast. Call me the minute you get back from Bermuda! Happy honeymoon, love you!
And
Angela, I’m so sorry, not feeling well and heading home. I know you can grab a ride with Diane or maybe Nolan? See you next week, really sorry xo
“I’m definitely not feeling well,” I mutter. “Truth.”
That’s it, done. I’ve piled my belongings by the entry. I pull open the heavy door and start dragging the bags out, when a clicking noise makes me look up.
Jamey’s standing in the hallway outside their door, wearing the t-shirt he bought when we went to an Adele concert last year. His hair is wet.
“Hey,” he says, obviously surprised to see me. “Where are you going? What’s going on?”
He looks so familiar and yet different, like somebody who used to be your best friend but now you’ve grown apart.
Which, come to think of it, is exactly what he is.
And that is when I finally break down. The uncertainty and frustration of the weekend — hell, the past month — overwhelm all my control mechanisms, and the tears spill down my face.
“Ryan’s gone,” I say, trying not to sob. “I’m going home.”
“Gone?” he repeats. “Gone where? That doesn’t sound like Ryan.”
“I don’t know! When the reception was ending, I couldn’t find him, and he won’t answer my texts or calls. Well, he answered one text, but that was all, and I don’t even know what he meant!”
“What did he say?”
“I asked him where he was, and he said, ‘nowhere.’ What could that mean?”
“I have no idea. But at least you know he’s all right. And he did answer you.” Jamey steps closer. “You two haven’t really been together very long, and this was a pretty stressful weekend for everybody. Under the, you know, circumstances.”
I nod and sniff.
“Kevin and I have been getting on each other’s nerves, too,” he confides in a lower voice. “You and Ryan will work it out. You just need to talk. He really does love you, Carrie.”
“No, he really doesn’t,” I say sadly, shaking my head. “You don’t understand.”
“I understand more than you think,” he says, and opens his arms, wrapping me in a hug. He kisses the side of my head. “And I do still love you, too. Not like I think Ryan does, but I hope you know that. And I’m so sorry. I never really gave you the apology you deserve.”
He smells so good, so sweet, so friendly. “Thank you,” I say, sniffing again, emotions a jumble of really tangled wires inside my chest. “I love you, too. Just, you know…”
“Not like you love Ryan. Or like I feel about Kevin.”
“I don’t love Ryan,” I protest.
Jamey pulls me away and looks at me at arm’s length. “You are the worst liar, Carrie. Always were.”
My tears make it impossible to tell him he’s right. I hate that he’s right.
“You can’t drive home all upset like this, you’ll have an accident. I’ll drive you. Just give me a minute to get my stuff.”
“No, no,” I protest, taking a long series of sniffs, clearing my head and wiping my eyes with the hem of my shirt as Jamey scrambles to hand me a linen handkerchief, one I used as a stocking stuffer for him last Christmas, bought at Ten Thousand Villages and made by Nepalese Buddhist nuns. “I’m fine. Don’t be silly. Jenny’s your sister and I’ll be perfectly all right.”
He peers at me closely. “Are you sure? I don’t mind at all.” Then he grins. “One more meal with my entire family will probably make Kevin disappear, too. Gram keeps asking him why such a handsome young man doesn’t have a girlfriend.”
I smile in spite of my misery. “She knows, doesn’t she?”
“Of course she knows! She just likes watching him squirm,” Jamey chuckles. “Gram’s a piece of work.” Jamey’s eyebrows drop in confusion. “Everyone’s been so accepting. It’s almost like my family didn’t have a closet for me to be in. I’m really lucky.”
“You’d better stay and protect Kevin from Gram,” I tell him, on emotional overload and unsure how much more I can handle. Even positive emotions can be overwhelming in bulk. “But thank you for offering. It means a lot.”
I throw my purse over my shoulder and pick up the bags, then hesitate. “Call me next week,” I offer. “Maybe we can meet for a drink.”
He brightens. “I’d love that! I’ll definitely call. You can fill me in on Ryan. It’s going to be fine, Carrie.” I had him back his wet handkerchief, which he stuffs in his pocket. “And don’t forget the Straight No Chaser concert in November. We have to go together.”
“You’re not taking Kevin?”
“Turns out he doesn’t like a cappella.” Jamey makes a sour face.
My jaw drops. “Who doesn’t like a cappella? How is that possible?”
“I know, right?” We share a warm smile, a few beats passing, and then it’s time.
I wave my fingers and start off, then drop my bags and turn back. I give him a big kiss on the cheek. He smells good, just like always. “Love you, Jamey.”
“Love you back, sweetie. Always will.”
Chapter 13
CARRIE
It’s just another day at work.
A regular Tuesday.
Nothing special.
Unless you count avoiding the kitchen, hallways, lobby, and the area outside the bathrooms as special. Unless you mean bringing my own thermos of coffee and a lunch that doesn’t need refrigeration. Unless you mean reapplying lipstick every twenty minutes just in case I am forced to leave the safety of my cubicle and might accidentally run into… someone from the spa side.
And in addition to these complicated logistics, I am expected to think.
Ridiculous.
I did get to come in late today. There’s a divorce party tonight and it’s my turn to be on duty, representing the corporate side in case anything unforeseen comes up.
Which it so often does at O.
I used to like the late nights in the office. It’s a good time to catch up on work with no one around to interrupt, and sometimes these funny things happen: once, a new divorcée and a new fiancée — of the same guy — were having celebrations in adjoining rooms. Which probably would have been fine, they never would have known, but the cakes got switched. It wasn’t pretty - there was cake everywhere, and some people got scratched. But
the video did get the most hits on YouTube for three weeks straight. Like, over a million. You saw it, right? Membership applications went up over 200 percent.
We’re asking for more information now when an event is booked… part of the phone tree script, as a matter of fact. The PR was great during Cake Switch (that’s what the YouTube title was), but Anterdec legal was nervous.
Anyway, whoever’s around after a scheduled party — Ryan and me, sometimes Zeke, sometimes a few of the other dancers — usually goes out for pizza and beer. They’ve burned off a lot of calories during the evening, and they always have stories to tell. It’s really fun.
I’m guessing that’s not going to happen tonight. Or ever again.
But with my extra time this morning, I did manage to shower and put on an actual outfit. Because, you know, I might have to appear in front of the clients tonight. I should look put together. Professional. Pale grey skirt and sweater with a grey jacquard leopard pattern, grey heels.
Someone around here should be fully dressed, in clothing that does not sparkle or light up, and is not edible.
A message from Hayley pops up on my computer screen:
Carrie, are you there? Snacks for the performers just arrived.
Okay, I type back. Can you just take them over to the break room?
I can’t leave the phones. Can you take them?
I sigh. Normally I wouldn’t mind, and in fact I’d enjoy the change of scene. But not today.
The idea of seeing Ryan makes my stomach turn over with either desire or dread. Not sure which.
Both.
Sure, np. I answer.
I pull out my makeup bag and start touching up. There is no way I’m going over there looking less than my best - or my work-best, anyway. I haven’t seen him since the reception. I’m not going to repeat the Jamey break-up show, dragging around here looking like a dead cat. Poorcarrie. I mean, Jamey wasn’t here to see me destroyed. Ryan is.
A girl has to have some pride.
I start down the hall to get the food from Hayley at the reception desk. Whatever the snack du jour is, I hope I can carry it in one trip. I’m really not dressed to juggle deli trays.
